AN: seriously - huge thanks for spotting mistakes in the past few episodes. In part I can put it down to rushing the writing on some days but there are mistakes that as a non-native speaker, I might otherwise just go on making without realizing. The feedback, just as your usual comments/reviews on the storyline are always very-very welcome.

Chapter 31

October 29th, 2022, Upper East Side, Manhattan, NYC

Em had the tendency to fluctuate between three different mood states. She could be jolly, happy and excited, on occasion - rarely - she could be in her own mind and really showing out very little of what she was thinking when she was drawing, exploring or looking at her books. And she could be whiny and grumpy. And right at this moment it was definitely the latter.

"But I don't want a nap!" Em argued as the three of them had made it back to the hotel room, and were taking off their coats in the foyer.

The entire process of arriving back to the hotel suite, which really was not too different than arriving at a luxorious two-bedroom apartment, gave them a glimpse of what arriving home might be like as a real family. It was almost like trying on the shoe to see if the shoe fit - besides, they'd been mistaken for a family, a real family, a number of times during the day already - when being referred to by the hotel personnel, in that case though interestingly referring to Logan as Mr. Gilmore rather than the other way around - a combination he'd never really considered before, and at the Children's Museum of the Arts where they'd been sold a family ticket. There had been a couple of casual mentions to the two of them having a lovely daughter and Logan couldn't help but to like the sound of that.

Everybody's feet were tired, minds infused with the bustle of the city.

"But you need one - even if you don't think you do," Rory replied, still trying to persuade the girl nicely. Rory urged the girl to go wash her hands and toed off her own shoes to feel a little bit more comfortable. It was yet another thing she'd grown to love, being barefoot, having once taken a special yoga class on foot health.

While Rory had told Logan since that morning that the general plan was to head back to the hotel and rest before the bubble show, Logan hadn't quite realized the day involved Em's nap time. It wasn't that they had time, they had several hours before the show, he just wasn't entirely convinced of the necessity of the nap.

As far as he knew - sometimes the girl napped, and sometimes she just dozed off in the evening without an actual nap during the afternoon. How long did kids her age actually nap during lunch time anyways? He couldn't quite place at what age Honor's kids had stopped, he'd never really needed to pay attention to things like that. He'd never really needed to plan his weekend schedule around someone else like this - around someone's naps, most of their joint outings having been either morning or late afternoon ones.

In this dynamic, Rory ushering Em to get changed out of her street clothes and hop on in to bed, Logan felt rather useless - feeling like dealing with the girl was on Rory's shoulders on automatic and his help wasn't really needed. It was almost like if he did anything he'd be in the way.

After freshening up in the bathroom Logan took a comfortable position on the couch, not really having anything else planned than to just hang out. But between Rory and Em not much had changed.

"But it's so boooooring to nap," Em continued, reluctant to even set foot inside the bedroom. Everything had been and was so exciting for her - even this very hotel room was, and the girl was eager to sit on every surface allowed, peek into every drawer and cabinet as well as look out of every window, the view late last night having been too dark and she herself having been too distracted this morning to remember to.

"But you always wake up like a 'ray of sunshine'," Rory added playfully, almost in a sing-song voice. "I want my little ray," Rory tried to persuade her.

"Logan? Do I really have to?" Em turned to him, as he was relaxing on the couch by then, reading some e-mails on his phone.

While Rory on occasion had referred to him as Em's dad, Em herself wasn't quite there yet to call him her dad or daddy. It wasn't some big goal Logan was hoping for, something he was pining for, but he had to admit, it would have a ring to it, making this so much more real.

The cautioning look from Rory was to be interpreted only one way.

Logan put his phone aside.

"I believe your mother knows best here. Remember that time we went to the science museum and you fell asleep in the car on our way back?" Logan tried to persuade the girl, even though he didn't entirely agree with Rory at this point. In his mind that was not a horrible scenario - they'd still had fun and he didn't see it as something that was that big of a deal. And he couldn't really think of anything good to persuade the girl with - he could convince his business partners or employees to do all sorts of things, but convincing Em he felt he had very little to go on.

Em groaned.

"This is not up for debate," Rory continued, her tone growing sterner by the second.

Logan's reluctance to take a firm stand at this showed - more to Rory than to Em, thankfully.

Rory tried to think rationally - she couldn't be mad at him for things like that because he didn't know this. But in this moment she was tired herself, and a little frustrated for not quite feeling like they were pulling the rope in the same direction.

She'd had small disagreements like this with her father once or twice and also with her mother over at her grandmother's but on a very withheld scale, but since she was the mother, she and no-one else, her word had always counted as the primary one.

"But I'm not tired," Em whined.

"Come on, off to bed. I'll read you a story and you'll just close your eyes and try, okay?" Rory insisted, feeling like she'd been already having this argument for the past 10 minutes. She had had this very same argument at least a 50 times in the past few years, so it really was no wonder.

Logan relaxed a little and settled in on the couch again, lifting his feet up, and continued to hear weakly how the disagreement in the adjecent went on for a while - Rory continuing to persuade Em to take even just a small nap. Rory was leaning towards bribery it seemed - "We'll go get ice cream after the show" or "We can drop by the bookstore tomorrow before we leave". But soon enough the warnings came - "Or I'll just have to tell Santa about this," which frankly made Logan chuckle to himself. The latter was yet another topic he had never really thought about from the parent perspective - were they doing that whole Santa thing? He had never been allowed to believe in such tales himself - it was his father's hard work and centuries old family fortune that bought his gifts not some imaginary character - but he wasn't entirely sure it had been a bad thing at the end of the day, even if generally he believed in kids deserving to have a real childhood. He had no doubt that that was exactly what Rory had provided Em with.

Eventually Rory did finish reading Em the story, and emerged from the room with the girl not fully asleep, but at least a little bit more inclined to the idea of sleep, since Rory had also lowered the blinds and done her magic by massaging the girl's bare feet. That little trick often worked.

Rory looked exhausted as she closed the door behind her.

Logan had been entertaining himself on his phone, reading some news and tweets, and hadn't exactly paid attention to how long that had taken.

"Huh!" Rory exhaled, keeping her voice down, as she sank to the other end of the couch. The mood was very different from the expectant tension that had been there that morning. In a way that was perhaps a good thing - they were being themselves, they were relaxed.

"Tired? Maybe you need a nap?" Logan replied, half jokingly.

"Yeah," Rory snorted through a chuckle.

"What?" Logan asked innocently, reflecting the hushed tone of her voice.

"That just took me like 40 minutes!" Rory pointed out, some frustration showing in her tone.

Logan would have argued - it was closer to 35 if he tried to recall roughly when they'd returned to the hotel room, but that was indeed longer than he would've imagined. These were the little things he didn't yet have a clue about, having never actually had to go through any of the girl's bedtime rituals by himself before.

"Oh, I didn't realize," Logan said, not wanting to stir up a disagreement.

"I wouldn't mind some more support in cases like that," Rory tried to suggest without sounding too annoyed. She wanted to do this right - with good communication and understanding. She knew she couldn't just assume Logan knew how to do this - how to parent.

"Yeah, I kind of got that. Sorry if that didn't sound supportive enough. All these new situations come at me and I realize I haven't even really figured out the principles myself so being faced with the situation I just need some time. I am just not too experienced in this yet," Logan explained, shrugging his shoulders.

"Yeah, the guy who could debate about the ethics of social media censorship from the top of your head when you went head to head with Jordan Donnely that time in Hamburg suddenly needs time to think," Rory replied, in a somewhat pouty tone, recalling the day after their acquaintance when Logan had crashed her conference and joined into a dicussion with one of the key note speakers Rory had disagreed with. He'd been incredible at that impromtu discussion, throwing real-life examples left and right, making her realize how much she'd missed his presence. It was not like Rory had been at a short for words herself or needed Logan to stand up for her, but it was his name tag that got him heard a lot better than her who couldn't really claim to belong anywhere at the time.

"Well… it's not like there was an actual outcome to that debate. But if I say the wrong thing with her, there actually might be," Logan explained.

"Yeah, I know," Rory replied. "I'm not saying you can't take a moment to think, it's just strange seeing you hesitate... All the time that I've known you… you've always seemed so sure," Rory added. Sure, she knew there were exceptions to that rule, but it had still been the general theme.

"I mean I am not at all convinced she even needs the nap. I mean I've seen her go without it and when I see you spending the better part of an hour convincing her to go," Logan replied.

The two of them could still hear Em, babbling to herself, in the bedroom, even if pretty quietly.

"And then she's all tired and cranky by the time we get to the show," Rory argued, raising her voice a little.

"And so she'll push through it and fall asleep in the limo and we carry her to bed," Logan described lightly.

"Yeah, and then she'll miss dinner and wake up at 4 AM because she's hungry and wide awake, and I'll have to order her room service," Rory described the behind-the-scenes activities Logan had so far been oblivious to.

There was also another aspect in that scenario that Rory wasn't about to mention - the fact that she was kind of hoping to have a drink with Logan later and just hang out, and not worry about being woken up at 4 AM.

Logan got how that was indeed not a small glitch to the plan.

"I mean sometimes she might push through the entire day and sleep all night, but this is a really eventful day and there's more to come," Rory continued, no longer frustrated but genuinely wanting him to understand.

"Well… that's something I didn't know. You know so much more than me of all of this and trust me - I am one big ear," Logan assured, not quite sure if he should apologize for even suggesting something so naive earlier.

"I know, but all of this isn't just something I can give you a lecture on," Rory said.

"I know…," Logan agreed.

"And one moment I think something applies and the next she outgrows it, so the information could very well be redundant by the time I get to it," Rory continued.

Logan nodded, understanding her point, but he had to admit - it was kind of fun to watch her like this - blabbering a little.

"You know, when she was a baby, I actually tried to figure out her schedule by using multivariate statistics… but the input data kept changing so I never got anywhere. There were so many days I was at a complete loss… one day she's sleeping the day away and then the next day she's barely closing her eyes… It was impossible to make plans," Rory explained.

Logan had mixed feelings about hearing memories that showed to him how not every moment of the baby-years had been sweet and serene. It was another dimension he'd wanted to know, yet it gave him yet another lingering layer of guilt too.

"Since when did you ever do multivariate statistics?" Logan asked instead of dwelling in the heavier thoughts.

But before Rory had a chance to explain, the two realized that the background had now become silent - Em having indeed fallen asleep by the sound of it, and the two shared a smile.