Chapter 60

November 20, 2021

"Um… you think that's wise?" Rory asked with some reservations, after Logan had suggested telling her how he'd imagined the two of them having a child together.

"I know what the therapist said. But I promise it's nothing that heavy…," he assured, and led her over to the couch, just wanting to be a little bit more comfortable. That was one of the things he'd learned in his therapy - that sometimes the position of the body played a role in how the mind took in information. It was why in the old days, especially in the UK, putting on the kettle before talking about heavy subjects was done over a cup of tea - you know, having things to hold and stir. A safe routine.

Rory was hesitant, but she got it - they hadn't really talked about the topic since her breakdown while telling Logan that she'd been pregnant and lost the baby before telling him. Logan maybe needed to say what he had in his mind just as much as she'd had to hold everything in at the time.

Logan wrapped his arm over Rory's shoulder, hoping his closeness would support her. And it did.

"I never wanted my child to be Huntzberger. I didn't want him or her to have to go through what I did. I wanted a clean slate for the child," Logan began from the most harmless angle of this, trying to ease her into it.

"That kind of figured," Rory replied, feeling a little surprised that he'd speak about it from that angle. Surely, he must've known that was not the part of it that had made her apprehensive. "The last part," she specified.

Years of hearing Logan complain, or rather just make snarky, dark-humored, comments without self-pity, about his upbringing and the way he had had to start sitting in on board meetings from early on, had not been something he wanted anyone to go through.

Sure, thinking back, it had worked - it had made him the business man he was today, but that was no way to do it. Not at the expense of a real childhood. And after seeing Honor's kids, Logan understood that there was a better way.

"Yeah, I always imagined my dad would probably have a heart attack when I'd tell him the kid was not going to carry on the family name," Logan said, with a low chuckle. It had been half the appeal. But the joke had lost some of it's humor now that his dad was actually dead.

"I have to admit that I didn't think much about kids at all before it actually happened," Rory confessed. "I wasn't sure if I wanted kids. I seemed to have enough kids around to be the crazy aunt, you know - I babysat Paris' a lot. But thinking back I think I might have been my own self restraint in a way. I didn't think I had my life together enough - it was never enough, I was never where I wanted to be. Then little by little I just didn't think I was a good role model, with all the poor decisions I was making, like maybe I couldn't be a good parent, like I didn't even deserve to be a parent," Rory explained.

In a way it did hurt that she hadn't been at the same place when he had, but in his defense he was a few years older. And Rory had the baggage coming out of a family with a teenage single mom, which was bound to put the image in her head that pregnancy included the end of life as one knew it, the end of a career and so on.

"I remember that one time when you called me in London. It was like in the middle of the night and I wasn't able to sleep. Odette was… we had just been talking about whether she should move to London, and I was having second thoughts," Logan began to explain. "But anyways - you talked about Conde Nast or something and then you mentioned something about a baby throwing up," Logan continued. "And not that there's anything about baby spit up one would want to think about, but I could just picture it so clearly - you with a baby," Logan added.

"She was with you when I called?" Rory asked, making a grimace at the thought.

"Yeah. I'm sorry - I shouldn't have mentioned it," Logan apologized, having not been sure why he'd said that.

"It's okay," Rory sighed.

"Well - just know that I did think it then, and I've always thought you'd make a great mom," Logan said. "I've seen you multitask, I know how you take care of people - how you took care of me, and clearly I was right," he added.

"I sometimes think about what our kid would've been like, like how different she would've been from Em, but it's painful, so I usually don't let myself think about it much," Rory admitted.

"Yeah, I do too, both before and after you told me. I would've loved her," Logan said, and kissed Rory's forehead, as Rory had snuggled more into his side by now.

"Did you ever seriously think about having a baby with Odette?" Rory asked instead, the topic of their joint child still feeling sore. This wasn't much better, but she felt like she needed to understand it better.

"I'd like to say I didn't - that it never was an option, but I'd be lying," Logan replied with all honesty. It certainly devalued his earlier statement a little.

"You know, I kind of figured. Five years is a long time.., even in a partnership," Rory replied. They were of such age that if one wasn't entirely convinced not to have kids or didn't already have them, the topic was bound to come up for most couples.

"It wasn't the same… I never thought about her and thought - hey, I want to have kids with this woman. I didn't love her like that... I didn't picture what our kids would look like or how they'd have some cute features of their mother's," Logan explained, indicating well that with Rory he'd done those things. "I was pretty desperate to have some meaning in my life, and because she wanted it so badly - she sounded like she'd literally break if she couldn't have them. Like this physical pain almost," he described. "So I did consider it. I considered that maybe that'd be my purpose, you know," he continued. "She thought that having a kid would fix us somehow. And I know how ridiculous that sounds. But I just thought that maybe having someone to love, even in that way a father can love a child would've brought me some happiness, regardless of her," he added.

"She wouldn't be the first person to think that..," Rory exhaled, thinking of Odette's side. Logan's side was even heavier of her and she wasn't quite sure how to approach that just yet. "I don't know… Maybe it was even why I did it. Did it that quickly… after," she hesitated but continued to explain anyway. "I felt like I needed something to anchor me, like maybe I wouldn't bolt when things got serious if there was a child in the mix," she explained. "But apparently being physically present doesn't really equal being there mentally," she added, and she believed Logan understood that quite well.

"I would've ended it for you, you know…," Logan confessed.

"For the baby or for me?" Rory needed to ask.

"You sure know how to ask the right questions, don't you?" Logan stated, bittersweetly.

"I was a reporter for eight years, Logan," Rory said, lifting the corner of her mouth. That was a rough estimate, in the mix of a lot of freelance things that excluded the other type of writing she'd done. And in a way she had had a small career being a reporter. Eight years was no joke really.

"For both of you, of course. But I think with a baby.. It just might have been the push I needed. Even if you hadn't been apart of that deal, I would've wanted to be closer. There wouldn't have been a question," Logan began. "With you… I was always just too scared to put myself out there again, to really tell you how I wanted more. To really tell you how I felt. I could just hear you tell me in my head how you didn't fit into that life, and you would've been right, you wouldn't have - but that's a good thing. I wouldn't have wanted to subject you to that life, in fear that it might change you the way it changed Odette too. But anyways… I could just picture you telling me 'no' again. It's like burnt into my brain," he explained, and ran his fingers through his hair in a frustrated manner. Thinking about her 'no' still hurt.

"I'm sorry..," Rory said, taking his hand.

"It's not your fault," Logan said, almost feeling like he was repeating himself.

"I made you feel this insecure…, I know which part of that is my fault, you can't deny that," she added, her graduation day painfully engraved in her brain just the same. It had felt like pulling a rug from under her. And it had taken her a long while to understand why Logan had been so unshakable in what he'd asked her. It had been a matter of pride, hurt, believing to be in the same place in life. And then she'd just been too scared to lose herself, before she found herself. But she hadn't. She hadn't really found herself until she'd had Em.

"It's not that simple," Logan replied. "You had every right to say 'no' the first time. I did it wrong, I made it all or nothing, especially after telling you I'd factor you in… - those decisions were my fault," he explained, having thought about those times a lot over the past years.

"I was just too afraid I'd lose myself," Rory began. "But we all know how that worked out," she added a moment later, knowing the career part she'd been after so desparately hadn't gone as planned.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up for it, really. We weren't ready. We made mistakes," Logan said, but didn't say that he'd actually thought that with that big flaws in their communication they probably wouldn't have made it through their first year of marriage had she said 'yes'. She would've always wondered the 'what if' of her own and ended up resenting him. "But not everything worked out for the worst. You got an amazing kid as a result," Logan tried to look at the bright side, despite even that was a little bitter for him.

"You wouldn't have to have gone through everything you did," Rory added, feeling a lump in her throat again. But she didn't want to cry, and somehow she managed to avoid that.

"My own fault that I let it get that far," Logan argued, and shrugged. He really should've paid more attention to what he was doing, he could've gotten a divorce sooner, before things got nasty, just as the plan had been originally. But it too had been sort of convenient - having someone to bring to events, someone who didn't mind being there. Someone who was sometimes even kind of fun. But one got used to having something less than perfect in the midst of work and crazy schedules - it was immobilizing with everything else he had going on in his life back then.

"I wish I could've been around to help, still, …even as a friend..," Rory replied. She didn't know if that would've been something she'd been able to to. But she genuinely believed that if she had known she would've wanted to be there for him, despite everything.

Just knowing that made a world of difference for him.

"And for that reason I know that you're it for me. This is why I know that despite your faults which I know you can find far more about yourself than you should… you are an inherently good person, whom I want to be with forever," Logan said, getting a little emotional himself. He knew he wasn't perfect either and Rory knew it too.

"I love you, I've always loved you. And whether we'll ever have kids of our own or not, doesn't even matter. But I do want you to know that with you it'd be something that makes sense for me. I'm sad it didn't happen, but I know it just wasn't meant to be," he said, and shed a tear himself.

Rory pulled herself closer to him, pushing her forehead against his, and let him have his moment. She wasn't used to seeing him cry, but she knew how it could sometimes be helpful. And she was giving him the safe space to do it.

"I love you," she murmured, and let him hug her with all of his strength, while she cradled his face. Those three words fell off her lips so effortlessly, there not being a doubt in her mind, despite everything. But she knew that if this did work out like she desparately hoped it would - when it came to having their own kid, even if they didn't rush it, that would definitely be something she needed to seriously think about, as that was complicated on so many levels.