Chapter 33
AN: The "Pa-pa-pa-pa"-s are very fitting at the beginning of this chapter.
October 30th, 2022, NYC
Sunrays crept across the room that stood almost perfectly still, Logan's head resting on the back of the couch, his mouth slightly open and even if he would never want to admit it - was snoring a little. A pillow was jammed between his back and the couch - so he wasn't entirely uncomfortable. He'd been too reluctant to move or head to his own room with Rory's legs still stretched across his lap, his hand still linggering on her calves casually.
Rory was much deeper in her sleep, but not deep enough to jolt out of her slumber by unconsciously sensing a pair of eyes on her.
Em was standing there by her mother's side, in her yesterday's clothing, as she had woken up, meeting Rory's eyes that fluttered open for a fraction of a second. For a moment Rory was shocked by a lot of things all at once. The staring, the fact that not only she but they both were still on the couch and the fact that Logan was still holding a part of her.
"Morning, Em," Rory yawned.
"Why are you sleeping out here?" Em asked, innocently, not watching her volume too much, causing Logan to come to as well.
Rory pulled her legs away, causing Logan to wake even more from their absence.
He too looked a little confused.
"I guess we must've just fallen asleep watching a movie," Rory replied to the little girl.
Both her and Logan knew there was more to it, after all one of them, unsure who by now, had actually turned off the television and they had just continued to talk after that. A little about the guys Rory had date inbetween, and Logan even a little about what life with Odette had been like. They hadn't approched it from the romantic angle, but rather the orginary humour of things - what kind of jokes they'd had, what funny things had happened when Rory had dated and so on. Nothing too serious but bits to bring them closer nonetheless.
Logan stretched out his arms above his head, him having been in a less-than-ideal sleeping position all night, and was definitely feeling its consequences on his body. But he wasn't mad or bothered by it one bit.
"Come on, let's get you changed, washed and then we'll order some breakfast," Rory suggested, leading the girl back to the bedroom.
"You okay there?" Rory asked, looking back to him.
"Just a little sore, no big deal," Logan replied.
Their mutual glances definitely spoke of a mutual appreciation along with their smiles - they had sort of spent the night together, after all. And there really was no more question about whether they still had it.
"Hm-hm," Rory replied, smilingly, leaving Logan pulling himself together. She headed to her bedroom to do what she'd promised, unable to stop smiling. Her stomach, much like Logan's, was all giddy, but trying to hold back for the sake of Em. They couldn't get Em's hopes up, and could only hope this already hadn't. But they both agreed that it was a good thing she was seeing them getting along more and more.
October 31st, 2022, Boston, MA
For the first time since college Logan found himself in front of a mirror on Halloween, actually trying to make an effort. He was meeting Em and Rory to go trick-or-treating.
His costume didn't actually require a huge amount of makeup, but he had patted his short stubble with some dark face paint so it'd look like he actually had a dark beard and a mustache. The outfit itself - classic jeans and denim jacket with a Y-shaped Yale pin on his chest, a dark cowboy hat, a big-buckled belt, aviator glasses and leather gloves, was a lot more like Rory's ex from ages ago might wear, the tall one - he couldn't even recall his name right then and he didn't particularly want to.
It was even stranger doing this at Beacon Hill, but as he'd by now learned there were plenty of families living here just like Rory's was, including that of Angie's for example, who were all eager to get into the holiday spirit. Pumpkins with candles lit inside indicated which houses were participating and while the streets contained a lot less playfulness than one might see in the suburbs, as he remembered Rory telling him about from her Stars Hollow days or from a couple of pictures Honor had sent over from her neighborhood in the Little Boltons in London.
The short walk from his place to Mt Vernon Street was quick, and he could just feel the warmth when he approached the house in question, several of the pumpkins they'd picked out a few weeks ago beautifully carved along with glass lanterns and bat silhouettes on the walls, decorating the place. Ghost shaped figures hung on the window of the drawing room too and the knocker on the door had a giant spider on it. Rory never did these things half-way, did she?
Logan knocked, jolting a little even as the spider actually moved a little, causing him to chuckle at his reaction.
"Can someone get the door please," Logan could hear Rory's distant voice from the inside. Clearly he was a little early.
"Hey, look at you!" Christopher opened the door for Logan.
"Hi," Logan replied, happy to see him too. Christopher had stuck to a fairly simple outfit of superman's shirt underneath his white dress shirt, a red tie hanging loose. But it looked like he was the one on trick-or-treat duty this evening and not really planning on going out.
"Come on in," he invited Logan.
"Great costume," Logan commented.
"You too," Christopher replied. "You want a drink or something?" he offered.
"I'm good, thanks," Logan replied politely.
"So, how have you been?" Christopher inquired, inviting Logan to take a seat in the seating area, which was a little like the formal living room one might've expected at the Gilmore's or at his own parent's house without the overabundance of antique furniture.
"It's been - good, new city… new routines," Logan described in short.
"That little trip you took them on, it was good to see them energized coming back like that," Christopher replied.
"Well - good," Logan said, that having been the intention even if not as specifically. They'd shopped a little the following morning, but nothing much other than that - but overall I think everyone had been happy with the trip in the end.
"And you yourself? Business? Rory mentioned you'd be pulling back from the big company?" Christopher continued.
"I am in the process of handing things over, yes. My sister's in charge, and she has a handle on these things. She took most of the same classes as I did during college, she just didn't have the practical experience until recently… but it seems to run in the genes at least in part so I am confident she'll do fine," Logan explained. He'd also made sure she had the help of his confidants. He cared about the wellbeing of the company he too had helped to built but he didn't want to die building it or lose sight of what was really important that many before him had.
"And then what?" Christopher inquired.
"Well, I haven't really had a holiday in years… so I don't think I need to do anything right away. But then again I am not sure that I know what to do with myself in that case," Logan chuckled. "But I might explore into some startups maybe..," he suggested. Being around a city with MIT and Harvard close by did provide a good seedbed for up-and-coming things, he had some money he could invest and offer his business sense to those who yet didn't know a lot about it. He could be engaged, but not too involved.
"Well, if you want… you'd be welcome to come meet me at the office sometimes. I'm sure our media and entertainment division would also benefit from your expertise. Not that I expect you to dive right in, but just… if you feel like it, I think you should know it'd also be an option," Christopher suggested, talking about his family's law corporation to which he himself had caved to closer to 7 years ago.
Logan felt good knowing that Christopher liked him enough to suggest something like that. Figuring that Lorelai might be less inclined to his return, it was good to know he had someone backing him up. Christopher certainly had and was doing more than his own father on many occasions had.
"I'll keep that in mind," Logan said, just as they heard voices and steps on the stairs, and on automatic Logan stood up to meet them. It seemed like the respectful thing to do with the two most important women in his life. To Logan it was actually a little surprising how quickly his loyalty had shifted, and not just to Emma. It was almost as if removing the ring had given him the permission to do it, he was allowing himself to think these things now.
"Hi, Logan!" The tiny Wednesday Addams greeted, her hair being her own but everything else holding a nice resemblance to the original character. It was cute and a little terrifying.
"Wow, look at you!" Logan and Christopher said almost in unison.
But it was Rory, who came down after the little girl, whose sight truly flummoxed Logan, the two of them being the only ones in the room who knew the why.
Rory was wearing a short red dress, not the one she'd worn that day but still - close enough, along with some simple dark tights and a velvet cape over her shoulders. The cape wasn't the original, but the hat certainly was. It was the same steampunk themed hat had Logan had placed on her head at their goodbye in New Hampshire, hours after Em had been conceived.
He'd made that bitter sweet mental photograph of her in that hat, and honestly, he felt like he might actually let a tear fall right then, but the little girls' inability to stay in character as she was already bouncing around the room looking for her pumpkin shaped candy basket, pulled him out of that moment.
"Rip Wheeler?" Rory asked, trying to guess his costume.
"Uh-huh," was all Rory got as a response, his eyes still glued on her hat.
The look on Rory's face was hesitant, she'd been hoping it wouldn't be too painful but Logan would see the good in it - the fact that she'd kept it, even if she'd had it tucked away in a hat box on top of her closet shelf, far out of reach for years.
With a few casual goodbyes the three of them headed out yet again, the dynamic feeling more and more normal each time they did it.
"I can't believe you still had that hat," Logan pointed out as they strolled towards Angie's place, their first trick or treating point where the others were supposed to join them.
Rory wasn't quite sure if that was a good or a bad in his eyes that she had kept it.
"I just always thought she might want to have it someday," Rory shared, explaining her reasoning.
That hit Logan harder than he'd imagined, causing him to swallow the lump in his throat.
"If it's too hard, we could go back and change. I have a witch's hat somewhere," Rory offered, coming briefly to a halt.
"No, it's fine… just.. I wasn't expecting it. That morning was hard…," Logan confessed, feeling it as vividly as if it had been yesterday.
"Yeah, it was," Rory agreed. "I didn't want to stir that up by wearing this… I just figured we might be around that place where we could reminisce a little," Rory confessed, still finding it a little hard to be this honest with him.
"We can. And I know considering her….," Logan said, gesturing at the little girl walking ahead of them, "it should really be a good memory, right?" he added.
"But it's not?" Rory asked. It had been a very hard car ride back to Stars Hollow for her too. But she'd pushed all that hurt and heartache into determination right then, calling her grandmother about using her grandfather's study to write for starters. But there were things she didn't know.
"It's just... bitter sweet...," Logan confessed, downplaying everything he'd felt at the time but decided to come clean about a few things at least.
October 9th, 2016, Holderness, NH
The door of the King's Head Inn slammed shut behind him, and he, not knowing what else to do, made it hastily down the porch stairs. Getting behind the wheel of the antique custom Ford didn't quite feel like what he wanted to do. But he just needed to distance himself from the moment.
He needed the goodbye that he'd just had to be the end, because otherwise he wasn't entirely sure he would not reconsider - reconsider everything, including hurting Odette, who had done nothing wrong, in the progress. Not that he knew there to be anything to reconsider, but at the very least throw everything else he had away just the same. He felt self-destructive.
He twisted the keys and the engine roared, and he pressed the gas pedal a little too strongly, causing it to throw some dirt up in the air.
He caught up with the guys in no time, the three just walking down the road, looking rather unenthusiastic - a little sad too.
He pulled up beside them and the three climbed in, wordlessly. If he didn't know any better they all looked like they were grieving.
On their way out of the lengthy driveway they passed the car Rory had ordered herself, and that was another painful jolt went through Logan's chest. For a brief second he thought about pulling the car over and lying to his face about there being no longer a need for a car, but he really hadn't thought that whole thing trough to actually do it.
His chest felt like it was being stabbed by a thousand little needles.
The diner was a little further down the county highway but Logan, who'd been speeding a little, pulled the car over in its parking lot no more than five minutes later.
"I'm not really hungry… you guys can just go get what you want… I can just wait here," Logan mumbled, not really craving for company nor food right now.
He knew the guys were happy to see each-other just as well, and he feared for what they might say about this whole thing between him and Rory too - he wasn't sure if he could just stay composed or calm if they did. He felt like shouting, punching anyone who dared to reprimand him to reconsider or 'follow his heart' - it was just too complicated, there was too much hurt there for grand gestures. He felt like trashing something - he was pretty sure, he shouldn't be the one behind the wheel in the first place.
"Oh come on - food will do you good," Robert suggested, patting his shoulder in a friendly manner, and climbed over the side of the car.
"Yeah, you can help track down where that damn Colt of mine is," Colin suggested.
But Logan was pretty much frozen in place behind the wheel, his knuckles white from clenching the steerin wheel, not quite sure what he was feeling was physical or mental. There was so much guilt, so much weight… like concrete being laid straight onto his chest and the weight wasn't getting any lighter but was overwheming him.
"Logan? You alright there, mate? You look a little pale," Finn noted, having been sitting next to him.
But by then Logan could no longer get a word out. The weight, the pain - it was just too much, and he hadn't even realized how he struggled to catch a breath for several moments already.
October 31st, 2022
"So, I was lucky that the diner owner's wife happened to be a former EMT," Logan confessed, as they watched Em knock on Angie's door that was just a few blocks away from Rory's place.
"What, so you had, what? A heart attack?" Rory asked, still in disbelief. They'd been talking in a hushed tone, and not very graphically…. But Logan had indeed shared how hard it had been making a good face throughout that goodbye, struggling to keep his composure. In part he'd not wanted to make it any harder for either of them. But there was so much hurt in him too, not all of which he'd been able to express to Rory in this setting. How he hadn't dared to ask the big questions - how he didn't feel like he could ask anything from her. But even this wasn't the perfect moment, they weren't in private, but he still felt he deserved to tell her some of it.
"Stress cardiomyopathy," Logan replied. "It kind of mimics it, but it's not technically a heart attack," Logan said, not wanting to out right call it by its more commonly known name. It just sounded too lame.
"Oh my god," Rory exclaimed, genuinely becoming worried about him.
"But I was fine... It just passed… I paid more attention to my stress, my eating and drinking for a while, worked out more consciously…," Logan added, though he also knew that he hadn't managed to control all of his impulses concerning drinking for example through the years. He'd often partied for the wrong reasons, or just gotten swept up in Odette's plans, having never actually told her he'd had issues with his heart beyond taking some suppliments because his doctor recommended them to prevent issues like his father had had.
Logan knew that the issues with his heart had also contributed to the fact why he'd given Rory full custody, whether it was a disease by a feeble-sounding name or not.*
"God, that must've been scary," Rory commented, genuine concern in her tone.
"Yeah, it was," Logan agreed, swallowing another lump, just as the door flew open, and jolting them out of their serious thoughts by showing a family of five dressed as super mario characters, the bubbly character of Angie as Princess Peach greeting them jollily.
AN: * aka broken heart syndrome.