AN: I know you're probably hoping for happier chapters already - so am I. I just need to get Rory over this lowpoint.


Chapter 171

May 1st, 2022

"Logan?" Rory asked in a whisper, nudging Logan gently in the already dark room while laying next to him in bed. Logan had his back to her at that moment and she couldn't tell whether he was already asleep. Rory had been twisting and turning since they came to bed, not quite able to shut her brain off. She wasn't sure how long it had been exactly.

"Yeah?" Logan asked, sounding sleepy.

"Are you asleep?" she asked, gaining a little bit more courage and hope that she'd be able to bounce what she'd been thinking off of him. They'd gone to sleep discussing baby names - Jasper, Hazel, Ezra and Milo having come up. They both knew that they were probably going to use Josephine as one of the names if it ended up being a girl, but the rest they were still thinking about. If Rory's hunch was right it was rather a boy though which made it even more difficult. But it was kind of fun - names popping up in things they read or watched, people they interacted with, with Rory also keeping in mind that she didn't want to use the name of any of the kids she knew from Em's school.

"I was," Logan mumbled, grumpily, in the darkness, and turned his side to face her. "Everything okay?" he suddenly asked, lifting his head off the pillow momentarily, suddenly realizing it could be something about her health or the baby. Rory had teased him already that by the end of the pregnancy he would probably be the one sleeping alert like in the military with his car keys and Rory's hospital bag right by his bed. Logan didn't even disagree - he probably was. He was also kind of preparing for her late night cravings he'd heard about from Honor and Josh, but which he hadn't really experienced either.

"Yeah… I just… I want to run something by you," Rory began, but just as she was going to suggest that she was considering taking some time off when she had the baby and seeing if she could be content doing less - a first step towards not needing to constantly push herself, when Logan's phone pinged.

"I wonder who it is this late…," Logan turned, and reached out for her phone. He didn't really know anyone that would text him this late unless it was important.

"Who is it?" Rory asked, equally curious and she observed Logan's impression in the light of the screen.

"It's Odette," Logan replied, looking a little confused just the same. He figured the reason she was texting now was probably because of the baby - night nursing the baby or something like that, not that he got an explanation. "Ah.. okay… nothing important that can't wait until morning. I'll just put it on silent," he said, finished reading and placed the phone back on the bedside table.

"What did she want?" Rory asked, getting side-tracked.

"Oh, she just mentioned that she still had some of my stuff the other day. Offered to send them over and was just now asking for the address," Logan explained. Though he had to admit that he was surpised that she was dealing with this now with a broken arm and in the middle of the night.

"Right..," Rory replied, frowning unintentionally.

"What?" Logan asked, seeing Rory's face a little better since she slept on the side where the moonlight outside would cast some light onto her through their blinds.

"Um.. you're not just going to give her our address, are you?" Rory asked.

"Well yeah. I mean - I didn't really care about the things, I didn't then and I don't now, but there are books and some other things that I also thought you'd might appreciate. Even my summer clothes and so on…. It just felt kind of wasteful to let her throw them out if she has kept them all this time already," Logan explained, rationally.

"I'm just not sure if I'm comfortable with her knowing where we live," Rory confessed, her own topics she wanted to talk about having been pushed to the back of her mind by now.

"You're serious?" Logan asked with surprise. "What do you think she'll do?" he shot back, sounding baffled on how little Rory trusted Odette.

"I don't know… show up?" Rory tried to explain. She didn't want her around their kids, their house, their life...

"Well, she won't," Logan assured. "Besides, if she wanted to she could just check out where my company is registered to, and she'd have the address," he added.

"Oh..," Rory reacted feeling rather stupid in this moment. Of course she would just be able to find out that by a simple inquiry into the business directory. She would've know this five years ago, and it was just a reminder how out of touch she felt with some aspects of life these days. "Well I guess then…," she shrugged, feeling like she really had no say in the matter.

"What? Do you really want me to have her ship them to my sister's or something? Me to go pick them up at the post office?" Logan asked, teasingly, finding it rather silly from her side. He couldn't believe she was being serious, but didn't really take it very seriously either. But he would've found it rather weird and he assumed Odette would question his reasons if he did either of those things. It was awkward more than anything.

"Logan," she said with a frown.

"What, Ace?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her, hoping the physical contact might soften her a little.

"Do you really trust her?" Rory asked, thoughtfully.

"No, I don't trust her, not after everthing. Not the way one is supposed to trust a wife or a close friend. I might pick someone else to open a life raft for me on a sinking boat if she were forced to choose between me and herself, if it came to it. But yes, I trust her with my address to send over some of my old stuff. It's for her benefit too - she's moving on just the same," Logan explained, hoping sheäd get it.

"Can you just…," Rory began, carefully picking her words.

"Anything, Rory…," Logan assured.

"You don't even know what I am going to ask," Rory shot back.

"Yeah, that's the point," Logan teased with that smirk of his. "Well?" he asked, expectantly, feeling very ready to go back to sleep.

"Did you tell me everything that happened with Odette? I mean just now when you saw her… I just… I know it's my own self-sabotage probably…," Rory began, not daring to outright say that she was feeling like the necklace felt like something to make up for something she didn't yet know about.

But unfortunately it just made Logan feel like Rory didn't trust him.

"What? Now you don't trust me, is that it?" Logan reacted sharply.

"No.. it's not that… I don't think you slept with her or anything like that. But I don't know - just the fancy gifts, and just the way you've been… I guess I just sensed something that wasn't there, I don't know. I'm messed up, you know that…," Rory explained, worriedly, feeling ashamed.

"What - now it's a red flag if I bring you gifts or watch out for you because I'm worried about you?" Logan snorted, feeling offended. He never thought helping Odette with her baby, even if at times that had been a little intimate, would be anything of severe concern. He hadn't thought of it as sexual and there was certainly no good that would come from telling her that. Though he realized that if it did come out, the longer he kept it to himself the worse it would be. But why would something like that ever come out? It was not like Odette was coming over and casually retelling every minute of their interaction. There was nothing to tell. It was nothing. At least for him.

Rory turned to her back, feeling defeated. She knew she was supposed to not let things mull inside of her when something bothered her. But right now it felt like anything she asked would just come out all wrong - end up hurting Logan and them. She ran her hands over her face and into her hair fighting very hard not to break down. She was realizing more and more than she was her own worst enemy.

Logan felt like just turning his back and pouting. But feeling a lot stronger himself after his trip to London, he knew he couldn't do that. This was not the same relationship he'd had with Odette. This was not a relationship where he could not solve things - turning backs, silent treatment and going to bed mad.

"I told you everything important, okay? Hospitals are what they are, it's not exactly the public setting for meeting in that sense. But I promise there was nothing else that matters. She didn't try to seduce me, she didn't try to rekindle anthing - yes, she's single - but I made it very clear I was happy were I am," Logan explained, with a sigh. "We'll talk about this on Thursday, okay?" Logan added, having made it a point to make sure they didn't shift their therapy appointment too far into the future because he'd been abroad.

"Yeah, of course..," Rory replied with a deep sigh but she already felt a little relieved, having needed to hear it. But even though she realized that she needed to work through her insecurities, the jealousy, the fear in her gut had not gone anywhere. She didn't like Odette being close to Logan, even if being close meant just shipping over his things. She didn't even like to think about the fact that Odette knew his things and knew what things were important to him, like she peraps didn't. The years of gap in knowing him - was what she was jealous about. She would not be getting those years back. She wasn't fearing that he'd fall in love with her, that she didn't believe. But she feared she'd make things complicated, and she already had - what if Logan no longer hated London for Odette's connection? What if he wanted to go back there to work for the HPG in London again? The reasons for the latter were selfish, and Em related.

Logan didn't really know what to do with her insecurities. There were only so many times he could assure her that he was every intention of sticking around. After all these years he knew a good thing when he saw it - felt it, absorbed it, breathed it… And he really wasn't going to change that future for anything, especially with a child on the way.

"Now, why did you wake me? Come on… we can still talk. I can not give her the address if that helps," Logan offered, despite finding the latter rather pointless as he'd explained, several minutes later.

"I was just thinking about taking some time more off after I have the baby," Rory confessed. "I rushed back the last time and I don't know maybe I'll feel the same this time - but I don't know, I kind of want to see if I can suppress the constant need to prove something…," she sighed, having come upon that realization on her way home from the reunion which had solidified her idea.

"I think it's good…," Logan exhaled, feeling relieved she'd said that. Sure they'd talked about this a little, but it hadn't been anything this concrete.

"Do you think it'll make Em more jealous that I wasn't home with her like this? Or seeing that I'll spend more time with him?" she asked, taking Logan's hand and placing it on her bump, feeling some fluttering again.

"I doubt she remembers precisely how much time you spent with her when she was a baby, and I'll be around more than I've understood Jess was so I'll give you two your own time whenever I can. It's not just on your shoulders, Rory," Logan assured.

"You know, I think in part… why I always struggled with work...why I took failure so hard was that I was trying to prove something to you," Rory confessed, with a sigh. "Mom and dad, my grandparents too… but you especially," she added.

This was hard for him to hear, but it moved him too. It just proved how much he meant to her but he hated to think something he might have said or let her believe, perhaps by some casual comment, could've made her worry so much.

"You never needed to, you know that right?" Logan replied, gently drawing circles on her abdomen with his thumb.

"It's like… It's like if I failed…," Rory struggled to get her words out, needing to look up. She hated to become a sobbing mess again, hormones or not. "... that you'd see that I made a mistake by not marrying you when you asked. That I'd prove wasn't cut out for it, the work. That I was all shell and no content. That I'd end up just admitting that I couldn't do it and would just submit to this societal role the minute I was faced with failure. That my family would just see how they'd wasted time and money on my studies… and even now I feel like I wouldn't be here, willing to just stop fighting the current without my grandparent's money. It feels like I'm doing the exact opposite than my instincts are telling me, I'm facing a fear I guess. I need to try… just slow down, not search for that title or recognition so desperately," she explained, sighed and added, "It still feels so scary,". She took a deep breath, continuing, "Today helped - people did various things and were able to be themselves, be happy despite it. So I began wondering why I couldn't just be like that…," Rory continued, leaving the thought in the air.

"You're stronger than you know for admitting all of this," Logan said, pulling her close to him, holding her.