Chapter 7
October 9th, 2016
It was in the middle of the night at the King's Head Inn. It was just the low moonlight that illuminated the rooms and the sound of leaves brushing against each other in the wind as the soundtrack. There was not a car or person in earshot. Yet something had woken Rory.
Rory had followed Logan into his room, excitement and euphoria having overcome her just like every time she was with Logan. His presence and his touch made her forget their circumstances, making her feel invigorated, cleansed of her worries, career issues, and anxieties. A best friend, a trustee, a cure, a lover…
But she knew this was the last time. She had begun to let go already before last night, after their last phone call - 'Because we're nothing!'
When Logan had shown up in Stars Hollow, just barely 9 hours ago, Rory had nearly considered that teasing herself with his presence was probably bad for her, but she just couldn't say 'no'. Logan was the top shelf drug in her vague, aimless, existence. She was lost as she was, and like any addiction, tempting herself with it wasn't good for her. It was beginning to become clear to her now as the drug, fast asleep, wore off. For that reason Rory slipped out of bed.
She needed to distance herself, knowing it was the only way she was going to survive their goodbye without turning into a blubbering mess. She knew already then it needed to be their goodbye.
Rory made her way down the stairs of the gorgeous huntig lodge styled Inn. She was just wearing a robe, and some hotel slippers - she wasn't really sure where she was going like that. Leaving was tempting but she was determined to say a proper goodbye. But she hadn't wanted to wake Logan, she wasn't ready to face him yet.
With some imagination, the place really didn't look all that different from the Dragonfly if one stripped it down to it's bones, perhaps added some more brown and yellow. There were a couple of lights on downstairs, which Rory hadn't quite expected. Surely it was just one of the guys who hadn't bothered turning them off, being so drunk they had just barely made it to their rooms.
She walked around the downstairs sitting room, looking at the pictures on the walls in the low light. She wasn't even sure what she was doing, but she'd felt she needed to get out of Logan's bed, it was too painful to be there. Just like Logan hadn't wanted her to come to the airport when he'd left for London after graduation or he wouldn't leave… It felt like that. If she lingered in those emotions too long, she might reconsider the house in Maine, which she'd already made her mind up about. The thought made her sniffle, but she needed to hold it together better than that, hence she focused on the photographs that showed the Old Bradford Mill across the water with some people - they all looked so serious. The handwriting underneath wasn't easily decipherable leaving Rory guessing what this picture was truly about.
"Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again…," an intoxicated Aussie mumbled from the couch, having not made it further than that, jolting Rory thoroughly, having thought she was all alone. The couch was very much in the shadows, so it was no wonder she hadn't noticed him.
"Surely your room would've been more comfortable than this?" Rory said to him, sounding completely sober compared to him.
"It just seemed so far...," Finn exhaled, and sat up, which was way more than Rory would have expected from him in his state. But then again Finn had the ability to appear more drunk than he was, often choosing it.
Rory took a seat next to him, pulling her legs up under her, feeling a little chilly. They sat there in silence. It was a comfortable silence, not necessarily needing to be broken.
Finn didn't need to ask her why she was up, and Rory didn't really need to explain to Finn that things were complicated between her and Logan. Definitely not admirable. Finn should've perhaps called them a pair of idiots, but he'd promised Logan he would stay out of it. Logan had sounded defeated to him already and that had been months ago. Finn really didn't know if there was anything left to say.
"Can you look after him for me?" Rory suddenly asked.
"I do believe he's more than capable…," Finn said, not too seriously, not quite realizing what she was asking.
"I know…," Rory said. "I just hope that he doesn't lose himself… you know, become cold and bitter like his father," Rory said.
She didn't have all the details of why Logan was getting married - carrying out the dynastic plan as he'd put it, but she could guess it had something to do with him taking over his father's business. A public figure like that needed to settle down, right? Even though she could understand that thought process - after all she wasn't oblivious to the inner workings of high society. His father probably insisted he needed the right kind of wife for that, one that didn't work and was willing to do roughly what Rory's grandmother had done for her grandfather most of her life. That was how she saw it. Rory had seen him fight what he had been bred to do, but now… little by little she saw him giving into it. She'd been too wrapped up in her own problems to really do anything about it. She wanted to make sure he didn't break, she didn't want him to forget the person he'd become in college and to fight for something better, but she knew that if she stood by him like Madame de Pompadour or something similar, it'd break her in the process.
Finn placed his arm over her shoulder pulling her to his side, half jollily. Rory wasn't even sure if Finn got how serious she was but she just had needed to say that. Even if Finn didn't remember a word of it by the morning.
"Have I ever told you about the time we…," Finn began, continuing on to tell her about one of their elaborate stunts or travels, which Rory didn't even really register at the time, her thoughts being elsewhere. But his presence and storytelling was a welcome distraction nonetheless. She never went to sleep that night again, but instead she thought about her words, what she was going to say in the morning, carefully rehearsing them in her head, and how she was going to get her act together. An addict deciding to get clean. That was how she tried to make herself see it, putting her emotions away as much as she could - even if perhaps it wasn't all that easy.
September 19th, 2021
Rory and Finn sat on the roof terrace of Paris' townhouse in the warm September evening, a bottle of whiskey between them, each nursing one of Paris' diamond cut antique whiskey glasses. They'd tried going to a pub near Terminal 5 but everything they liked had been either too crowded or too loud, the concert crowd having poured into them, so feeling rather tired of people, Rory had just invited Finn back to Paris', the townhouse being closer than Finn's place. Besides, Rory knew Paris still had that bottle of Redbreast 27 year old whiskey that she had given her when Paris had made the Business Insider's list of most powerful women in 2019. She would just have to buy Paris another one.
Rory had explained to Finn how her mother had messed with her head, and since then her mind had just run amok with the possibility. They'd had a good laugh about it, the whiskey had certainly helped. There was no chemistry there, there were no hurt feelings.
"I'm sorry you're lonely," Finn said, Rory having also explained to him how she'd forgotten herself in motherhood.
"Yeah... But it's like I feel so powerless. I even set up an online dating profile for myself, but I cannot even get to the actual connecting part. I don't want to start explaining men why I eat the way I do or that my mother's a little crazy... I feel so incredibly rusty…," Rory said with a sigh, rubbing her forehead.
"I kind of hoped you and that Jess guy were a good match, that he made you happy," Finn said, not watching much of what he was saying by now. They'd reached some level where there were few topics off the table, the alcohol having softened their boundaries.
"For a while I thought that too," Rory explained. "But he was away at work a lot and after some time… I just didn't miss him when he was gone. I thought it was just in my head, you know - postpartum depression or something like that, but it wasn't. He was away a lot, I was happier by myself - with Em, when he was there, the communication wasn't all that great. He was content with what we had, this simple life... and that infuriated me even more. We were a lot better as friends...," Rory continued with some regret in her tone.
"Yeah, but there must've been something there that made you want to make that more than friends though," Finn discussed. He wasn't about to start convincing her otherwise, but he was genuinely curious.
"The sex was hot," Rory said, feeling very candid, after swallowing another sip of her whiskey, and chuckled. "Because guess what, apparently we still have that chemistry too. So I may be dateless and lonely but three weeks ago I shook his world. Again. I shook his world so hard I had to lie to him last week that I had a date tonight to stop him from hoping for a redo," Rory blabbered, her drunkenness shining through. She, of course, didn't knew whether it had worked, but she prefered to think that.
"And you claim to live a boring life," Finn laughed.
"I don't want him back," Rory explained, making it clear that she was willing to use all types of methods to make that message clear. But in reality it was more complicated than that, naturally, she also needed to maintain a civil relationship with him for Em's sake.
"Well you kind of had a date, didn't you? That was what this trip was about, right?" Finn continued to chuckle.
"I didn't actually plan on texting you.. I just thought it'd be weirder if I didn't.. And just… don't go there, I feel down as I am already," Rory hid her eyes again, not wanting to recall the moment she'd kissed him again.
"Right, fine," Finn mused. "Well feel free to tell him you had a date, it's fine by me...," he added.
Finn took another sip and for several minutes the two simply stared at the dark sky with just a few visible stars.
"Do you remember that night in New Hampshire, when we talked," Finn began, having been holding on to the idea of bringing this topic to the table for months now.
"I do, I can't believe you do," Rory replied, hesitantly, laughing nervously.
"I know you probably don't like to talk about him, but if it matters… I don't know… maybe it'll make you feel better about those times… but he didn't lose himself. He almost did, at least that was what it looked like. But he actually took himself out of the family business altogeher. Sometime in May this year...and then he went AWOL after that. Colin thinks South America...," Finn explained with a shrug. "But we haven't really heard from him since… I think he just.. Needed to get away from that life," Finn said, leaving Rory speechless.
Not only had she not expected Finn to mention him, it had been an unmentioned rule between them for all these years, but hearing so much detail on Logan was a little overwhelming, to be honest.
Rory was at a loss for words.
"He asked about you sometimes, you know. He knew I saw you. He didn't ask me to spy and report, and it certainly wasn't frequent. But it was a lot like you asking me to look out for him, he kind of asked me to do the same with you, with fewer words..," Finn shared.
"He did?" Rory reflected in disbelief.
Finn nodded.
"I know you're over that… so much has happened, and I don't think he's stuck on what it was either. But just I think you need to understand that he thought the world of you," Finn clarified.
Rory was feeling a mixture of curiosity and dread, the latter winning. She didn't want to go down that painful memory lane, not really, even though deep inside Finn assuring her that Logan had cared, meant more to her than she cared to admit, making her feel warm inside. But she put that on the whiskey at that point.
"You know, I'm kind of tired…" Rory replied, not feeling up to discussing it. She couldn't allow herself to dig herself into an even deeper hole than she was already in. She knew that googling him would be next, and she would need to stop herself from doing that.
Rory offered Finn the possibility to sleep in the second guest room - Paris wouldn't have minded. She might have grumbled a little, but Rory was not bothered by things like that. But Finn decided to stroll home instead, and they soon parted with a supportive and caring hug, leaving Rory staring at the ceiling alone. Logan was out there somewhere. Rory hoped he was happy - that was all she'd ever wanted for him.
AN: I am not saying Logan and Rory's relationship was like the relationship between a drug user and the drug - these are Rory's thoughts, this is what she needs to tell herself to reason with herself. Because they hadn't really admitted that there was anything more between them than that.
And I think I read somehwere that the interior of the King's Head Inn actually was the Dragonfly, hence the comparison.
And okay, now I need to go back to my other Story for a bit, I feel I've neglected it.
