Chapter One

2014

"Mind the gap between the train and the platform. This is… Sloane Square."

Rory took a deep shaky breath as she placed a foot outside the train, stepping onto the platform of the Sloane Square tube station. She wondered - for probably the hundredth time that day - if it was too late to turn back now, her nerves getting the better of her. They'd been bubbling under her skin all day, ever since she'd tapped 'send' on the text message that she'd meticulously crafted and painstakingly obsessed over.

She'd stared at it all morning, arguing with herself about whether or not to actually send it. The offer had been made to her, of course. But such offers were not always sincere. Sometimes they were just a way of getting out of bed in the morning without making the situation unbearably awkward.

Nevertheless, she'd sent it - perhaps a result of the bottomless mimosas she'd been served at the bruncheon she'd attended. As the hours had passed without a reply, her nerves had started to fade away, replaced by a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. Yet, when her message app pinged toward the end of the work day and his name flashed across her screen, the nerves had come back in full force.

They hadn't left her since. In fact, they'd so dominated her mind, that she didn't entirely remember the journey to the white and blue tiled walls of the station that she was currently standing in, and she definitely didn't notice the man walking past her as his side slammed into hers and he glared in her direction. They'd officially made an oblivious American out of her, and that was something that she really hated to admit.

"Sorry!" she called, but the man was already stepping onto the train she'd just departed.

With a sigh, she cast her eyes over to the stairs leading up to the street level, and she knew that she had a choice to make. She could stand here for the rest of her life, wasting away in the subterranean tunnel, subsisting on a diet of scraps from generous passengers and getting her news of the world from discarded British tabloids. She could just wait for the next train, climb back on, and spend the rest of her evening alone on a bench with the geese at St. James' Park. Or she could go up there.

She'd come here to go up there. She'd turned down an invitation to get drinks with some colleagues to go up there. She'd sent that text with the purpose of possibly going up there. Yet, now that she was actually facing the very real proposition of going up there, she was nearly in a full on panic.

She took a deep calming breath, summoning the courage and moxie that she'd spent the last few years of her life cultivating. She couldn't back out now. And, ultimately, she didn't actually want to. She wanted to go up there. Going up there was all she'd thought about since the moment she'd been given the assignment that brought her to London.

Suddenly, the movement returned to her feet. The nerves ebbed ever so slightly as she started placing one foot in front of the other and she climbed up the stairs. She remained steadfast and resolved as she stepped through the doors of the station and out onto the sidewalk. Her head was held high as she hung a quick right and made her way toward the tree lined square.

Clutching her purse to her side, she weaved through the mass of people around her. Her eyes scanned over the crowd, searching for a familiar face among those coming and going from the tube station and carrying shopping bags into and out of the stores all around them. It took a few minutes, but eventually her gaze landed on her target.

She froze. Her breath caught in her throat and the nerves that she'd foolishly thought she'd overcome came rushing back in a force that made what she'd experienced when sending the text and getting off the train absolutely laughable. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and had she not been gripping the bag at her side so tightly, her hands would no doubt be shaking. Once again, running away seemed like a perfectly reasonable option, but only a second passed before it was no longer available to her.

The familiar head of blond hair looked up from the phone that he'd been scrolling through when Rory's eyes landed on him. His brown eyes met hers across the square, and he gave her a tight lipped smile before taking a step closer to her. Rory moved as well, walking closer to his position next to the lit fountain in the center of the pavement. They met each other halfway and stood there for a few quiet moments.

"Hi," said Logan, breaking the tense silence before shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back and forth a bit on his feet.

"Hi," she replied.

A few more moments of silence passed, and Rory took the opportunity to thoroughly look him over head to toe.

It hadn't been that long since she'd seen him. That fateful evening in Hamburg was just a few short months ago. Yet, it still somehow felt like such a blur. The day - and night - they'd spent together had gone by so quickly. And the memories she had all seemed to be colored by a kind of blurry fantastical filter.

The truth was that she'd already begun to forget what he looked like now. The images of him in her mind were being replaced by the old Logan - the one that she knew, the one that she remembered so vividly.

She'd forgotten how he looked slimmer now, perhaps it was the cut of his clothes or the way that he'd lost the baby fat on his face. She'd forgotten that his hair was slightly darker than it used to be, perhaps by increased levels of melanin in his skin as he aged or by the fact that he lived away from the sun in rainy London. She'd forgotten about the wrinkles that had started to spread out from the corners of his eyes, the way that his hair seemed shorter and straighter than it used to be. But, most of all she'd forgotten that despite all of those changes he was still so familiar to her. He was still Logan, the man she knew better and more intimately than any other man in her life, even all these years later.

It left her standing there with a strange feeling. One that oscillated back and forth between nervous and comfortable, anxious and excited, scared and relieved. Yet, try as she might she couldn't seem to land on one Rory took the opportunity to thoroughly look him over head to toe.

"Did you get here okay?" Logan asked, prompting Rory's lips to curl up in a smile at his concern.

"Yeah, I got here okay," she answered. "I've been to London before, you know? I know my way around The Tube."

"Right," Logan replied with a breathy laugh at his own expense. He lifted up his right hand and started to scratch at the hair around his temple. "Of course you do. I… just… uh… I just wanted to make sure you didn't run into any… problems… or… whatever…"

"No problems," Rory confirmed with a shake of her head.

"Good," said Logan. "That's good."

"There was a strange man sitting across from me who kept staring down my shirt while he ate some dijon mustard right out of the jar with a spoon, but… I left him behind at Gloucester Road. So…"

Logan's laugh was a bit more hearty this time. Though, Rory wouldn't go as far as to say he was totally joyful. There was a certain demeanor about him, a look in his eye that Rory knew all too well. And it was one that she was comforted to see. It made her feel less alone.

"Are you nervous?" she asked.

He looked at her in surprise for a moment, clearly somewhat ashamed that he'd been caught. Logan Huntzberger didn't get nervous very often. And when he did he was incredibly practiced and talented at hiding it. She knew that he probably didn't want her to know how he was feeling. However, she knew him better than most people did, and the lack of judgement or mocking in Rory's tone seemed to help him get past that pretty quickly.

"Um…" he said, running his hand along the back of his head. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm nervous."

The admission looked like it pained him ever so slightly. But, still, the fact that he'd admitted it in the first place was a good sign. It was a sign that the trust wasn't entirely gone between them. It was a sign that he didn't want to lie to her.

"I'm nervous too," she admitted in turn, looking down at her feet for a second. "I wasn't sure if you really meant it back in Hamburg when you said to let you know if I was in town - "

"I meant it," Logan quickly and firmly confirmed. "I'm glad you texted."

A smile spread across Rory's face, and she felt a sizable amount of nerves flow out of her at his words. It helped a great deal just to know for a fact that he wanted her here. For so long she'd thought that he hated her. Her memories of him had been tainted by the worry that he hated her for saying no to him all those years ago. Hearing that he wanted her here… that meant more to her than she was even comfortable admitting at this point in time.

"I'm glad I texted too."

Logan cleared his throat and rocked on his feet one last time. In the moments that followed he seemed to shake off the nerves that he had been feeling as well, and the timid tone vanished from his voice.

"Have you had dinner?" he asked. "I know a few good places within walking distance. There's also a really good chocolatier just a few blocks away in Orange Square…"

"That sounds great," Rory answered, enthusiastically.

"You don't want to grab dinner first…?" he asked. Rory only shrugged.

"What's better than chocolate for dinner?"

Logan laughed again. He looked down at her with a wide smile and a twinkle in his eye that sent Rory flying backwards in time all the way to 2005 when they were first getting to know each other. She'd forgotten that look, the look he gave her when he learned something new about her, something that he found endearing and adorable. But here it was on his face again, just as she was standing here reminding him of those very endearing and adorable qualities.

Her heart started pounding again. Though, this time it didn't have much to do with nerves.

"Follow me, Ace."

2036

Riley grunted as she felt an unexpected force slam into her side at the precise moment her feet touched the pavement of the train platform. In a moment of utter panic, she could feel the light purple envelope she had been clutching in her hand begin to slip from her fingers at the contact, falling to the ground underneath her.

"Mind the gap between the train and the platform. This is… Golders Green."

Her heart started to pound in utter terror as the precious piece of mail inched closer and closer to the gap in question. If it continued to fall, it would only be a matter of milliseconds before everything would be ruined. The piece of paper that had brought her here would be lost forever, along with any sense of courage that still lived within her.

With sportsman like reflexes, she bent her knees and flung her hands out, catching it just in the nick of time. A wave of relief passed over her, and she clutched it tightly. Then, in an effort to make sure that it really was still in her hands, she studied it for a moment, running her fingers over the artful yet shaky script of her great-grandmother's handwriting.

Emily Gilmore

54 Hulbert Ave

Nantucket, MA, 02554

Mr. Logan Huntzberger

4 Wildwood Road

London, UK

The was a stamp in the upper right hand corner bearing the image of a waving American Flag. Yet, no post mark accompanied it. The simple explanation for that fact, of course, was that the envelope had never made it through the post. It had hardly left Riley's sight since the moment her great-grandmother had asked her to take it to the mailbox at the front of her property.

Her heart was beating as wildly now as it had been when she'd first seen the name written out in black ink before her. It was a name she recognized, one that she had come to know well over the years. Though, whether or not anyone in her family knew how familiar she was with the name was still a mystery.

She'd first discovered the name while unpacking a box of her mother's old things. It was printed on newspaper articles and written on notes and letters and on the backs of old photographs, photographs featuring a young man bearing a head of blond hair that Riley was extremely familiar with. It was the same hair she saw every time she looked in the mirror, albeit it far shorter than hers.

At first she'd only suspected… but when her mother caught her going through that particular box, the meltdown that ensued vanquished any doubt that remained in her mind. Still, she never said anything about it. She kept her curiosity to herself, gathering every piece of information that she stumbled across over the years and holding onto it tightly.

She never thought that she would end up here, clutching an envelope that she was supposed to simply put in the mail, standing in a tube station just over a mile away from the place where he lived. It was all too surreal. In fact, every moment of time since she'd seen the envelope and decided to come here had felt surreal.

But reality had a way of catching up to people. When she was bumped on the other side by yet another passerby, she realized that she couldn't continue to stand in the middle of a busy platform like a mindless idiot. She shoved the envelope down into the open pocket of her crossbody purse and followed the flow of traffic up to the entrance of the station.

According to the GPS app on her phone, she needed to walk past the busy bus terminal she had been spat out into and turn left. She did as directed, walking past a number of restaurants that made her mouth water and her stomach rumble. Skipping dinner before coming here was probably not the wisest decision she'd ever made, but it seemed that in her extreme anxiety she had simply forgotten.

Yet, for now food would just have to wait. She had a far more important mission to accomplish.

As she made her way down the street, the anxiety that had been simmering within her began to grow in time with the homes she was passing. What had started off as a series of average looking row houses and modest apartment buildings was turning into large gated properties holding impressive red brick homes. She hadn't realized that homes this large existed within London, just as she hadn't realized what true fear was until this moment.

By the time she made it to her destination, the hunger that had been rumbling within her stomach had turned into full on nausea. Funnily enough, it seemed like not eating had been the wise decision after all. At least now she had nothing to vomit up onto the man's shoes when he came to the door. If he came to the door. If she made it to the door before she turned around and ran all the way back to Heathrow, climbing onto the first possible plane back home to Hartford and giving up on this entire insane crusade.

At this moment that actually seemed like the most reasonable thing to do. It seemed far more sensible than continuing to move even one step closer to the massive and horribly intimidating home in front of her.

She knew he was rich. The google search she'd done on him had made her painfully aware of how rich he had to be - how powerful had to be. She'd all but memorized the information about him. Logan Elias Huntzberger. Son of media mogul Mitchum Augustus Huntzberger. Born February 22, 1982. Second of two children. Only boy. Yale undergrad. Stanford post grad. Started his career with a successful venture in Silicon Valley before selling his patent to Facebook. Rejoined the family media business in 2013, running the international division. Took over as CEO of the company when his father retired in 2025.

Nothing about those credentials spoke of a man who lived in one of the small row houses she'd first passed on her way here. No, those credentials spoke of a man who lived in this house. This massive two story red brick home with huge white windows and ivy crawling up the walls. There was a running fountain sitting in the center of the circle drive. A silver Porsche convertible was parked outside the garage on the left side of the house. The property was guarded by a brick fence with a rod iron gate, and their privacy maintained through a thick layer of trees at the front of the property.

Riley was suddenly overcome with the profound feeling that she simply didn't belong here, and she stood there wondering how exactly she'd been so insane as to think this was a good idea. She actually felt a small amount of relief at the sight of the gate, having something to blame for deciding to chicken out. Yet, when a particularly large gust of wind blew and the gate swung open ever so slightly, she groaned at her luck.

Maybe it was a sign. She'd taken the envelope as a sign. Just weeks before finding it, she had resigned herself to the fact that she would likely never know any more information about the man that she knew was her father, her two semester long search for more information on the Yale Campus yielding little to no results. But that very summer, it was sitting there in front of her, bearing more information than she ever imagined she would have.

It had to be an expensive gate. No doubt the home had an expensive security system all together. And yet, just as she stood there a mere blow of the wind had granted her access to a property that she shouldn't be able to get access to with anything less than a key or a special ops unit.

It must be a sign. And with that little bit of support behind her, she was finally able to push the nauseating nerves down far enough to take a step forward.

She walked through the gate, pushing the iron door ever so gently as it let out a metallic shriek. Thankfully, the grounds looked quiet. There was no one outside, not even a staff member tending to the perfect lawn or the lush roses bushes. She was alone, and she was able to walk up the driveway and over the brick path to the front door unencumbered.

She climbed up the porch steps, and as soon as she was standing in front of the massive solid wood door, she saw the doorbell instantly. She didn't, however, ring it right away. She took a couple more minutes to compose herself, taking deep breaths and trying to distract herself from the pounding in her ears with other thoughts. Thoughts about why all the doors to London houses were that same incredibly shiny shade of black and why English door knobs were in the middle of the door and not off to the side like regular door knobs. That had never made sense to her. She never understood how you were supposed to swing a door open from the middle.

Unfortunately, much to her horror, her thoughts were cut abruptly short. A clicking sound suddenly emanated from the very door she had been studying, and before she knew it it had swung open. She momentarily panicked that she wasn't ready. He'd come to the door before she had calmed herself, and now she was going to be caught off guard in a conversation that she hadn't yet psyched herself up for.

However, the sight that met her on the other side of the door was not the sight she had been expecting to see.

"Can I help you?"

The impatiently toned question was spoken by a very young man. Her age. Possibly even younger. His black hair was a far cry from the familiar blond that she knew she shared with her father, and his voice sounded nothing like that of an American ex-pat. He was English through and through, his voice dripping in an accent that couldn't have sounded posher if it came out of the mouth of Prince George himself.

"Wh-what?" she asked, her nerves throwing any semblance of sense she had left out of the window. She wanted to kick herself for being so stupid.

"I said, 'Can I help you,?'" the boy repeated. His impatience and confusion at her presence was even more apparent than before. "You've been standing out on my porch for five minutes."

He lifted his hand and showed her the screen of his phone. Open on the screen was a security app bearing a black and white image of the two of them standing on said porch in real time.

"You're not selling something, are you?" he asked. "Do people even do that anymore?"

"No! I'm not selling something," said Riley, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry… I… I think I have the wrong house? I'm looking for…. Logan Huntzberger?"

The dark haired boy scoffed. His glanced over her head to toe, and he leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest in a somewhat scrutinizing gesture. Riley couldn't help but feel self-conscious, as if she was being weighed, measured, and found wanting. It was unsettling, feeling so immediately and harshly judged by him. Especially since she was standing there well put together in one of her nicest outfits, and he was standing there dressed in a pair of baggy pajama bottoms and a white sweatshirt littered with coffee stains at six o'clock in the evening. It didn't even look like he'd run a comb through his hair in days.

"You're a little young... even for him," he quipped, cryptically.

Riley wasn't completely sure what he was implying, but her first guess sent a shiver up her spine and goosebumps down her forearms. It felt as if a lead stone was settling in her gut and reality was crashing into her like one of those big red buses after taking one wrong step off of the sidewalk.

She had no business being here. This clearly was his house, but she didn't belong in it. This wasn't a part of her life. She wasn't a part of his life.

She didn't know what she had expected coming here. Did she really think that she would simply walk up to his front door, ring the doorbell, drop the bombshell of her identity into his lap, and they would hug and cry it out? Did she think that he would invite her in for tea? That they would get to know each other over scones and biscuits and he would tell her that now that he knew she existed he would devote every waking moment of this life to being the father she'd always wanted?

In a moment of horrifying clarity, Riley suddenly realized that she didn't even know whether or not he knew she existed. She'd kept the purpose of this trip a secret from her mother. She'd never asked her any questions. She'd just assumed. She assumed that he didn't know about her. Yet, it was just as likely that he did. It was just as likely that her mother had told him about her and he decided that he didn't want her.

She didn't know him at all. If that comment meant what she thought it did, he could be the kind of man that slept with hordes of young women and took advantage of them. Her mother could have just been another one of them. He could be the kind of man who throws his money around to get out of problems, who uses his power and connections to control people. He could be the kind of man who willingly walks away from his child and never looks back.

"Alex!"

A masculine voice suddenly hollered from inside the house, and in a purely physical reflex Riley's eyes went wide and her head started shaking back and forth.

"Who's at the door?!"

The speaker had an undeniably American accent, and Riley was left with no doubt that it was his voice. Her father's voice. Still, with all of the thoughts now swirling around her head, she had no desire to hear it any longer.

"Hell if I know!" the boy yelled back. "She's here for you."

With a visibly shaking hand, Riley reached down into her purse. Her fingers instantly landed on the envelope that had brought her here, and she pulled it out, holding it in front of the young man in a quivering grip. He twitched an eyebrow as he looked down at it, clearly confused as to what it was. However, with the approaching sound of footsteps coming from inside the house, she had no desire to stick around to explain it to him.

"Will you just give this to him, please?" she asked meekly.

Instead of taking it out of her hands right away, the boy just continued to look at her strangely from underneath a furrowed brow. Riley shook it at him, silently urging him to take it, but he didn't seem to be in a rush. He did, however, cease leaning against the doorframe, choosing instead to stand up straight before he asked his next question.

"Did the Royal Mail change their dress code or something?" he asked.

"Just take it," Riley pleaded.

Thankfully, the boy - Alex apparently - acquiesced. He snatched the envelope out of her hands, rolling his eyes ever so slightly at the sight of it. Riley felt a momentary rush of relief that her business was done, but unfortunately the relief was short lived.

"Hi."

A new man appeared in the doorway as the greeting rang through the air. Alex took a step backward, allowing him to take the full stage as he spoke to her. Though, he continued to hang around in the background.

The man was shorter than she expected. He wasn't short, but he wasn't very tall either. His hair was peppered with flakes of gray. His face was far more wrinkled than it was in the pictures she had seen, but it was still undeniably the same face. He was dressed in a wrinkled pair of slacks and a white button down shirt, though at this point he was missing a tie. And he was looking at her in utter bewilderment.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

It probably wasn't very often that they got visitors at their door. It wasn't very often that anyone got visitors at their door these days, let alone people who lived in gated houses with all sorts of security cameras at the entrance. She wanted so badly to turn on her heel and run away, to deny that she needed anything and get on with her life. But she was frozen. Frozen in both terror and awe at the sight in front of her.

As terrified and nauseous as she had been just seconds before, she couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of joy at the sight of the man in front of her. It was him. The person she'd dreamed about and fantasized about her entire life. He was standing in front of her in flesh and blood, and he had asked her a question. She was about to say the first words she would ever say to the man who gave her life. The only problem was that the warring emotions within her were making it almost impossible to formulate an answer.

"I…" she said, not even realizing that she was slowly backing away from the door. "I have to go."

Riley's body finally relented. Without another moment's hesitation, she turned on a dime and all but ran down the porch steps and onto the brick path leading to the driveway. She moved so quickly and with such gusto that she didn't even notice when the small navy blue booklet that she had previously jostled when rooting through her purse fell to the ground in her wake.

TBC...

AN: Give Alex a chance! He's just a sassafras. And he has a legit reason for being miserable, I promise. Though, yes, he shouldn't be taking it out on strangers.

Anyway… the truth is that I've been sitting on this idea for ages, but I've been holding off on writing it because for the longest time I couldn't figure out how to make it more Rogany. It was always going to be about Rory and Logan because it's about their daughter, but getting them in the same time and place was going to be difficult for quite a while. But, this morning when brainstorming I had the idea of doing flashbacks to Rory and Logan's time in London and comparing them to Riley's time in London and I finally decided to go for it!

I really hope you guys like it! I know you probably have all sorts of questions. Like how did she get to London. What does Rory think she's doing? Why is Emily sending him mail? And so on and so forth. But rest assured things will be answered in time. I am not a fan of vomiting exposition all over my first chapters. I will be delving more into the past and how we all arrived where we are today in time.

Also, the thing about a man staring at Rory while eating mustard out of a jar with a spoon is something that literally happened to me on The Tube once. Lol. Plenty of weird shit happens on the tube, I know… but that one stayed with me for some reason.

As always please review! It's especially nice to get feedback when starting a new fic so that I know if there is an interest for it.

Thanks!