Chapter 167

December 25th, 2015

"So you're really going through with this?" Honor asked his brother, sitting in the dark sunroom of her house, looking at the snow-covered garden, where she'd had the groundskeeper light up vit both string lights and live lanterns, creating a magical winter wonderland. It was already pretty late and it was Josh's turn to put their kids to bed. Honor had definitely exchanged the grand for the intimate and homy when it came to Christmas at her house.

They'd been talking for a while about how Honor was handling being home these past few months after her youngest, Conrad, had been born this late last summer. There were minor health complications when Conrad had been born, which meant she had had a lot on her mind. But it seemed to be resolving itself by now. She was missing work too, even if she knew she wouldn't want to change being at home with her baby for anything.

Logan shrugged. "What else am I going to do?" he asked, having earlier that day also announced that he was formally engaged to Odette. He hadn't hid from Honor and Josh that that was mostly all that it was, a partnership - something very similar to a business deal.

"Sometimes I think you've grown so much, Logan…," Honor began, shaking her head. "And other times… it's like you're still that boy who needs bailing out, who doesn't know what's good for you… I'm telling you - this won't end pretty, I know you don't want to hear this but these things never end well. Nobody's happy in relationships like that," she explained, despite knowing that Logan was sort of content with Odette so far. They weren't bad together, they just didn't have that look in each other's eyes that she wanted to believe she had for Josh. "Don't you want more?" she exhaled, sounding defeated.

"Wow, just wow…," Logan replied, laughingly. But it was a defensive laugh. He didn't like hearing this. And it wasn't the first time. He'd heard something very similar around Thanksgiving in 2005, when Honor had gotten it out of him that they'd broken up with Rory after a fight. And a few times since he'd told Honor about Rory being in his picture again, even if unofficially. He could see then, and he could see now how his sister wasn't proud of him. "Just because your friend's arranged marriages or partnerships have failed, doesn't mean that all do. Besides, we plan on this coming to an end. We're not aiming for happily-ever-after. It's a place filler, it's a conversation stopper, it's to stop mom from trying to set me up and putting this pressure on me," Logan explained, a stirring a whiskey glass in his hand.

"And you know that it will eventually also mean an end to anything you have on the side, right? As sure, you two can agree on it - but you'll be twice as interesting for the public when you're together. Sneaking around will get trickier, a bad rep on either of you is bad rep on both of you and the business," Honor added another viewpoint.

"When have I ever flaunted my relationships?" Logan asked with a snort. It went without saying that he was talking about the more casual type of relationships, than plus ones to company or family events.

"You know what I mean," Honor rolled her eyes at him.

There was silence for a bit.. Honor put her legs up on a legrest and leaned back.

"What did she say?" Honor asked, knowing well that Logan would understand whom she was talking about.

Logan sighed.

"Rory…," Logan began, wanting to explain how this wasn't the type of relationship where labels mattered. He almost wanted to add that Rory was seeing someone too, but he knew too that that relationship wasn't anything too serious from what he'd seen on social media along with the impression directly from Rory. Had it been, he believed Rory would've been different with him. But when they were together it felt like her mind was always with him. "No, she doesn't know yet," he decided not to circle around and just answer her questions.

"I would sure as hell like to see her face when you tell her, hell - I hope you learn to read her mind when you do," Honor shot back, sounding like she was warning him.

Logan knew he needed to figure out a way to tell Rory about the engagement. Rory was great at picking up on cues, and as they were pretty set at not making this weird by discussing their other relationships in detail, he was pretty sure it needed to be something indirect. Something that wouldn't make her repeat that mantra of hers again, which made it all sounds like so much less than it could ever be, cheap even - when we're together, we're together, when we're not, we're not.

But he couldn't really disagree with Honor. He desperately wanted to know what went on in Rory's brain, especially now that roughly a month ago she'd contacted him again after a few months of radio silence. She'd lost her grandfather recently and was not well, he could tell. It felt like a fragile balance he didn't want to upset. He'd seen her once since then, briefly. He felt protective of her, and had done his best to make her forget all her grief. But above all - it had been such a relief to be around her again.

"She doesn't want more…," Logan repeated, sounding annoyed, the general message she was getting from Rory. It was she'd ever said she wanted. She wasn't that kind of woman to want to be a wife to someone like him, she'd made that very clear the last time, and he knew nothing that would indicate otherwise.

"But do you? Can you honestly say that you'd ever pick Odette over her if you had the option?" Honor asked.

"But I don't have that option. It is not an option," Logan said, agitatedly.

"Oh you," Honor sighed, hugging her brother sideways. And Logan could tell all she really wanted was him to be happy, but in this current position - he did really believe that what he was doing was what would take him closer to that happiness. But just by eliminating what he wanted to avoid in life, not necessarily bringing him close to what he wanted, but didn't quite dare to admit, fearing it'd hurt too much, he did feel like he was at least moving to some direction instead of standing still. "But do tell her. Don't let her find out from somewhere else," she sighed.


April 29th, 2022

It was the last day of work at the HPG for Logan this time around. He had a flight back early the following day, which would bring him back home by the evening. He couldn't wait. But from the moment he'd woken that morning, missing both the wake-up call by Loki and the silent mumbling Rory sometimes made in her sleep, when got up in the mornings, he'd been glued to his phone.

He wasn't waiting for an e-mail or a call nor had anything particularly urgent happened in the world that he needed to keep an eye on. He had alerts on his name, from ages ago of course, but since there had been nothing for months now he was almost beginning to think those weren't working properly. He'd gotten used to being written about back in the day - these past few months the silence had felt almost surreal. But now as he had run into Odette yesterday very much in public, and the whole situation both on the street and later in the hospital had certainly provided plenty to talk about. In the moment he hadn't really thought about the possibility, but those thoughts had come rushing back to him the minute he sat into a taxi to get back to his hotel last night. He worried that someone had snapped a picture, that someone was just about to press upload on an article raising all kinds of questions about him, Odette and her baby.

He didn't want to deal with any of it. He didn't want to get sucked back into that world. But he couldn't help himself from holding his breath, knowing that it was a very real possibility.

"You'll walk under a car if you keep walking around like that," Honor caught him by surprise, as he'd slowed his pace arriving at the HPG office building, seconds before Honor, who'd hurried her step to catch up with him, had.

"Hey," Logan replied.

"Why so serious?" Honor said in a worrisome tone, looking at her brother. She would've almost expected him to look happier than this considering he was going home tomorrow, while Honor was probably going to have at least half a week longer herself.

"Ah…," Logan began, now knowing how to bring it up. "Just a little worried...," he added, looking around. "I'll tell you upstairs," he added, letting Honor unintentionally fry in her curiosity, while all he really wanted was to have this talk in private.

They made it upstairs in the elevator, Honor being forced to exchange a few polite words with one of the department heads, reminding Logan how relieved he was to be out of that role. He liked having the opportunity to come in with ideas, but sort of blend into the background. Maybe he'd just reached his limit of attention in that sense?

"Hold my calls and tell Gwen we're pushing the meeting by 15…?" Honor told her assistant, glancing at Logan, wondering whether 15 minutes would suffice. They were both needed at that meeting.

"Very well," Honor's assistant replied, getting on to it, and Honor led Logan into his father's old office. The place looked like a completely different office, instead of stainless steel and black, along with dark wood - Honor had gone with a much lighter, airier feel. The change in the atmosphere had been much needed.

"So?" Honor asked.

"I saw Odette yesterday," Logan replied after he'd taken a deep breath.

"And?!" Honor demanded, her eyes wide, feeling something bad coming.

"I didn't go to see her, I didn't call, I didn't look her up. But I just sort of happened to be a the right place at the right time…," Logan began.

"More like the wrong place at the wrong time…," Honor muttered, rolling her eyes, having very strong feelings towards Odette, and not necessarily the good kind.

"It was good, really. I mean, not for her… she'd just been in an accident. Broke her arm. And she was in shock, upset…not doing well at all… she had the baby with her and I just couldn't walk past. The baby was fine but stopped to help her. I went with her to the hospital, helped out with her daughter until the nanny got there because she couldn't hold her," Logan described. "And we talked, cleared the air… we both apologized…. I mean I feel like neither of us wants to go back to those emotions too deeply, but we touched it just enough to know we're sorry, that we did things the wrong way and we both wish it hadn't gotten toxic like that," he added, embellishing a little. But he almost felt like if that was the feeling he got from her, that was good enough. "Honestly under the circumstance it just felt like I've had such a fresh breath of air. She used to be a friend, that doesn't just go away," Logan explained, summing things up.

"Okay… I don't even know what to say," Honor said sounding a little sceptical, calming down and sitting down on the corner of her desk.

"But what I am worried now is that someone might have gotten a picture of that. I mean me holding a baby that I claim to not be mine, that's got to be worth something, if it got in the hands of the right people," Logan added.

"Well - they should've by now, if they did, right?" Honor suggested.

Logan shrugged. That truly depended on the people, didn't it.

"I just feel like I'm waiting for the guillotine to drop," Logan described.

"And what are you expecting to happen other than some spreading of rumors and lies?" Honor wasn't quite following. Sure, she knew Logan hated when he got on the pages of the yellow press, but these things usually blew over pretty fast. One couldn't let oneself be bothered by it nor show that one cared or one would actually look guilty.

"I don't want Rory reading more into it than it was, anyone would've done the same in that situation," Logan explained.

"Logan, no, anyone would've not done the same. Most people stay the heck away from their toxic exes. Her life wasn't on the line, the paramedics would've been there in minutes and holding the baby... that's what social services are for," Honor argued.

"Don't start, you weren't there," Logan replied, hating that she was making him doubt his judgement.

"Have you told Rory? I mean if you have then unless you're hiding something else I don't really see what could go wrong. Rory knows how the news works, including the Sun," Honor continued.

"Not yet, I was dead tired yesterday and this morning - well she's still asleep. It's not a conversation that I want to have when she's getting ready for work," Logan replied. "But of course I'll tell her," he added. The question was just how much detail he wanted to share. Caring for what could've been almost 'their' baby for quite an extent of time, being in the room with her when she breastfed… it was more than he wanted to subject Rory to, knowing she'd just had a rough day herself.

"Well, I'm not sure what you were hoping to hear from me other than just - tell her already. The sooner the better," Honor said. "You can't control what they publish, but you can control what Rory knows," she added.