Chapter 153
April 16th, 2022
Two weeks had passed incredibly slowly, expectantly, but other than the usual day-to-day, nothing much had happened, the much awaited doctor's appointment, where Rory had gotten the 12 week scan, being the exception.
The baby had looked fit and healthy, its heartbeat steady and hasty - as babies heartbeats usualy were, and as they compared the two pictures, it had looked pretty magical already that it had grown so much.
Rory could boast about having had a very easy first trimester, and except for the occasional spell of nausea that hadn't even ended up with her crouching over the toilet bowl, sensitive breasts and aversion to eggs - not even eating them but being near them when they were being fried, she couldn't really complain about much. Her glucose levels were normal, as was bloodpressure. She had a fundal-anterior placenta placement which was as ideal as one could hope at this point, and she hadn't had any more bleeding either. Though - they had to admit - they hadn't actually had penetrative sex since that time, feeling it was better to be safe than sorry before they got the all clear, but even the 12 week deadline didn't cease all the worries, naturally. Her due date was set at the end of October. The only question really was the sex, as the fetus had been a little reluctant to show its genitals.
They'd also already told Honor, whose reaction was no surprise. Hell, she'd even offered to pay for an extra 3D scan so they could get to know the sex of the baby, but after all Rory and Logan had been through - all they cared about was the baby being healthy.
"If you keep staring at me for much longer, Loki's going to make you regret it," Rory mumbled, still half-asleep, just feeling Logan's eyes observing her, as she slept. She was sleeping on her side, almost rolled over to her stomach, the leg closest to Logan, bent. Rory was fully embracing the variety of sleeping positions while she still could. Her blanket was almost completely tossed to her other side, having pulled the cover off of Logan during the night as well. Thankfully, Logan wasn't big on complaining, especially now, and had just grabbed the bed cover from the foot of the bed as a replacement.
"I already took him out," Logan commented, having taken advantage of a slow Saturday morning, and slipped back to bed after being out with Loki half an hour ago. But what hadn't returned, was the sleep, the brisk outside air having been the perfect alarm clock. Em was still asleep.
"Someone's an early bird...," Rory yawned, turning to her back, and then adjusted her position a little, so she could see him.
"Is it weird that you're not showing yet?" Logan asked, edging closer to her, and caressed the small of her back that was now exposed because her top had hiked up a bit.
"Nah," Rory replied. "I didn't show much until half way through or so last time. But who knows - they say sometimes one shows more the second time around," she added, beginning to wake herself properly now. It was so strange for her to think how little Logan must've known about all of this. It didn't feel nice that he was the one having all these questions and she didn't. She knew she needed to watch how she said things - not emphasizing too much the comparison to last time, but it was difficult to shake. She wanted him to feel they were in this together.
Rory snuggled closer to him, enjoying his warmth, in part as an apology of sorts.
"I still can't believe it," Logan murmured into her neck.
"Just wait until you get that moment," Rory began, knowingly.
"What moment?" Logan asked, pulling back enough to look at her.
"The feeling of your heart expanding… falling for him or her..," Rory replied, wondering if this was just rubbing it in again, scolding herself again. It hadn't happened in an instant for her either, but she hadn't had to wait for it for long. She was lucky to have snapped out of her baby blues and her love for Em had kept her going until she found the strenght in her to make some real changes.
Logan did wonder if there were situations where that didn't happen. The only time he'd even fallen for anyone was Rory, and it seemed almost too big of a luck to have something like that happen more than once to someone as undeserving as he. He also pondered about whether he'd be good a it, it was not like he had a lot of experience with babies. But as spending time with Em had confirmed, he wasn't entirely useless either, so he couldn't really claim to be completely insecure due to his own poor parenting examples, growing up.
She had told Logan that she'd talked to Max and her mom, but she hadn't gone into great depths on what she'd said to Max exactly and how she was treating staying home for a decent length of time, like they did in Scandinavia, almost as a cover for figuring out what she wanted to do. She feared that if she told Logan she was eager to try writing again, that he'd get his expectations up and she'd fail him if it didn't work out. It wasn't that she didn't notice the fault in her own thinking, she did - it was just a challenge to push it aside completely. For now, saying she was staying home with the baby to enjoy its first year, maybe a little more, because she didn't have the chance to do it last time, was a good enough reason. Though even that, technically was a lie as she could've done that even back then, she just had been too proud to do it.
"Do you think Em's going to get jealous if I stay home with the baby for a while?" Rory pondered, finally daring to speak of the reality of the situation.
Yet nothing scared her as much as telling Em.
Logan shrugged. "I think Conrad had some jealousy… but Honor got him past it. I think she told me about that once - she put aside dedicated one on one time with him - you know outings and stuff, and that helped," he suggested, simplifying it, not really knowing exactly how things like this worked.
"She's just had so many changes already this year. I'm a little scared to tell her," Rory admitted for the first time out loud.
"At least you'll have your dad around and Gigi, maybe that helps," he suggested, hopefully, despite knowing that with Gigi there could be other mines to step on if not being tactful. Gigi and Chistopher were coming over for dinner that night, and they were planning on telling them then, Em just before they got there. Another challenge that lay ahead was telling Shira, but they still disagreed on that - Logan didn't want to subject Rory to her, but Rory kind of felt like she should face her and demonstrate that she wasn't afraid. But she had to admit, she wasn't looking forward to the interaction too much.
"I kind of think she'll just dismiss it first and then just blow up in my face about it weeks later… just like he kind of did with you. She'll let the ideas brew in her brain and she'll worry…, god, I don't want her to worry," Rory said, running her hand through her hair. She sighed deeply.
"She'll be fine," Logan assured, not really knowing that but needing to believe that. He ran his hand over her abdomen gently, leaving his hand resting there and she placed hers on top of his, assuring it was okay. It was okay now to cherish this, to talk of this, to believe in this. "Eventually she'll see how great having a sibling is, even if at first the attention is drawn away from her, someone's trying to take her toys from her," Logan recalled, Honor talking about this once. "She'll be the big sister, that's a pretty important task," he added, thoughtfully.
"God, can you imagine the fights?" Rory pondered, dreamily. One should've hated the idea of it, but it would certainly liven up the place. Unlike Logan, Rory had no idea what living with a sister was like, but she had thought about it. Maybe it really had been something her childhood had been deprived of.
August 19th, 2007
The insufferable knocking finally woke Logan.
"Logan!" a familiar female voice echoed on the verge of Logan's consciousness for the umphteenth time, as he lay stretched out on king sized hotell bed, his head throbbing and mouth feeling suddenly almost unbearably fuzzy. It was not a feeling he was unfamiliar with.
He lifted his head to catch a glimpse of a head of blonde a few feet away from him. He couldn't remember her name - Tana, Tanja, Tara - something like that. It was not a realization he was proud of, but these past few months he'd tried his best not to care. But he did recall the woman having an interesting accent, so she had the exotic thing going for her - at least he remembered that. The girl had actually been fun last night, but he had no interest to date her.
"I know you're in there!" the voice grew louder. The knocking was relentless.
"Fucking hell," Logan cursed under his breath, as he dragged himself up, reluctantly. He knew this particular voice was not going away and the minute the knocking stopped, she'd likely go looking for the maid to let her in with some elaborate story to convince them to do it along with generous tips. It was probably how she knew which room he was in now.
As he moved toward the door, wrapping his bathrobe around his body, he felt relieved he wasn't overcome by a wish to dash for the bathroom - years of rarely mixing his drinks had paid off.
He opened the door but didn't say a word, avoiding eye contact. He wasn't proud of himself in this moment.
"Don't you look charming?" Honor said sarcastically and stepped past him, letting herself in, not caring if he had a girl in the room or not.
The girl in the nude - well almost - just wearing some trace of a bra that could barely be called one, gathered up her belongings in a haste and made a quick exit, surprisingly neatly, probably indicating that she'd been in this situation before.
"What brings you to the West Coast?" Logan asked, snarkily, fetching a bottle of Perrier from the mini bar and opened it, allowing its fizz to ease up before taking a sip.
"Now I get it that you're in some self destructive path here, but this has got to stop," Honor scolded him, begging him, her arms in her hips, very much in a motherly tone.
"What is it to you?" Logan huffed, being very easily irritated by his throbbing head.
Honor rolled her eyes.
"This is so three-year-ago, Logan… you've come such a long way. And don't even start on how you working yourself to the bone and partying is somehow a coping mechanism or how it's the productive use of your time. If I have Colin calling me, saying he's worried about you, I know it's my turn to intervene," she explained. "But don't tell him, I told you," she added.
"What's the point, Honor?" Logan shrugged. "What reason do I have to be this idealized person? What's the point?" he huffed, not really knowing how to call this person he'd developed into next to Rory - resposible, caring, trusthworthy, sensible, selfless? He honestly didn't see any reason in stepping up his game from his old repertoire now that he was in San Francisco all by himself. He wanted to say that he had nobody, that he had nobody to prove himself to, no one to want to be a good person for. But the fact that Honor was standing in his hotel room at 11.30 AM on a Sunday morning, which meant she'd taken a very early flight, and as she'd just said - Colin had called her, was not really supporting that reasoning.
"I know you're hurting," Honor began, sounding compassionate. "But you can't just throw all that you've developed into away because of it. Yes, wallow, grieve, get drunk - but there's a time when you've just got to move on. If it wasn't meant to be… then you've just got to accept that," Honor continued, not needing to add that she was a reason for him to keep going too, even if he sometimes forgot that. She needed him. Logan was her family, if one thought beyond Josh. Logan was her blood.
"I don't want to talk about it," Logan said, shaking her head, Rory declining his proposal still in his brain as if it had been yesterday. He hadn't really known a lot of rejection in his life, not from women at least. But this was the hardest without a doubt. Wasn't that what women wanted - a man to pop the questions? He'd been told all his life how everyone wanted to marry him. The only real obsticle he'd ever imagined there to be was the girls' parents, not the girl, not the girl that said she loved him. Wasn't he enough? Didn't she love him enough?
But he knew he couldn't go there, he worked very hard to not go there. During weekdays at work, often doing 16 hour days, and on the weekend it were the parties, the booze and the women that helped distract him. Truthfully, Honor should've appreciated the fact that he hadn't gone along the route of the doing blow, like many of the people he hung out with did - he'd never appreciated drugs much. But it had a toll on his body either way. He was skinny, dark circles under his eyes if one really looked, his skin dull and eyes bloodshot most of the time - it was something only someone close to him would notice.
"I don't even understand what happened. I mean if it's calling Rory what it takes to get the answers, then I'll do it, but you should know I'm always on your side," Honor continued, but noticed Logan winch at the sound of Rory's name, causing her to pull back.
"Can we at least have lunch?" Honor suggested, hopefully a few moment of silence later. "Just us… I just need you," Honor fibbed. Well she did need him, but not quite the way she was letting on. But she figured if lying to him, and making him see she needed his advice on something made-up, something exaggerated, would help him shift his focus, it couldn't really big a bad thing. She needed to remind him that there were other good things in the world.
"Fine," Logan exhaled as he relented, realizing that he might have to actually try to explain the break-up to someone finally, having until now kept the explanations to a minimum with anyone who asked. He hadn't dealt. Period. "Now get out of here unless you want to watch me shower," he threatened, heading for the bathroom. It was one of those hyper-modern hotel rooms with a glass wall just separating the bedroom from the bathroom.
"Fine! I'll meet you downstairs in 30," Honor relented with another roll of her eyes, the interaction sounding like a classical teenage brother and sister spat.
