Author's Note: This chapter contains an extra prompt for standingstill—one that she inadvertently gave me, but not as a part of the actual prompt for the ficathon. Several months ago, she sent me the song "Hard to Concentrate" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, commenting that it seemed like the perfect song for Rory and Logan, and when I was given her prompt to write, I knew I had to work the song in somewhere. So here it is, standingstill, just for you!

Constant

Hustle Bustle
And so much muscle
Ourselves about to separate
And I find it hard to concentrate

L.—

I'll be at the paper late tonight. Doyle just called me to come in and referee some sort of meltdown between Paris, Bill, and Sheila. And just when we thought things were starting to settle down over there… I tried to beg Doyle to handle it, but he kept saying something about how he'd done his time and how "you're the editor now; you deal with it."

Call me when you wake up; if you feel up to it, maybe you can come to the office and we'll order supper there.

—R.

Death defying, this mess I'm buying

It's raining down with love and hate

May 15, 2006

We're okay, we're okay, we're okay, we're okay. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. We have to be okay now.

He's going to London, and I can't do anything about it, but I can't let him leave with anything between us. Forgiveness? Hard. But what else can I do? I love him. That has to trump everything else.

Forgiveness? What does it mean? That, I'm still trying to figure out. Right now, it means that I help him to the bathroom and I trace his scars with my fingers and I let him hold me again and we watch movies together and I do the dishes because it still hurts him to stand up for that long. It means that I cook sometimes, and that I meet his eyes when I talk to him, and that I help him button up his shirt when his all the muscles still won't cooperate. It means that I tell him about my day, and I ask his opinion on things at the paper, and I don't throw his phone across the room when I see his dad's name on the call display and I hand it to him to answer.

Does it mean that I forget? No. But, then again, I don't think that's what forgiveness means, is it?

This isn't much. Does it make a difference? I have to believe that it does, because if it doesn't, what's the point?

And estuary is blessed but scary
Your heart's about to palpitate
And I'm not about to hesitate

"Logan. Grant Carter, tenants' association, returning your call from the other day. Let's set up a meeting to discuss the lease on your apartment for the next year. I understand that we're switching it from your father's name into yours? I'll need to get the new information, go over the terms of the lease, and set up the new banking information. Call me at 569-1963, and we'll discuss this further."

And finally you have found something perfect
And finally you have found…
Here we go.

The President and Fellows of

Yale University

announce that

Logan Elias Huntzberger

is a candidate for the degree of

Bachelor of Arts

at the three hundred fifth

commencement exercises

Monday the twenty-second of May

in the year two thousand six

at ten-thirty o'clock in the morning

on the Old Campus

Is living in this figure eight
And I'll do my best to recreate.

"Do you want me to drive for a while?"

"Are you kidding?"

"Well, I could push the gas pedal with my cane…"

"I don't think so."

"So you're fine to drive the rest of the way? Do you need to stop for a bathroom break?"

"Logan! I'm fine! It's only another hour to the Vineyard. I think I can hold it for that long. If I had to go in the first place. Which I don't. So it's fine. You just don't like being in the passenger's seat."

"Are you sure?"

"You're such a little kid—you're so impatient when you can't be in charge!"

"Don't laugh at me!"

"Awww, should we play a game to help pass the time? I spy? I'll start. I spy with my little eye something that is… pouty."

"That's not fair, Ace."

"Sure it is. I spy it; you have to guess it."

"You're getting far too much amusement out of this."

"Damn right. How often do I get to drive the Porsche with you in the passenger's seat? Not very."

"Fine. I'll play."

"Good."

"But only if you stop smirking like that."

"Not smirking, Logan."

"Totally smirking, Ace."

"If you don't spy something soon, you forfeit your turn, and then I get an extra point."

"Since when is 'I Spy' played with points?"

"Since I feel like beating you."

"Fine. I spy with my little eye something that is not going to have any fun—if you know what I mean—this weekend if she doesn't stop torturing her poor, incapacitated boyfriend whom she loves very much. And, might I add, that would defeat the entire purpose of coming to the Vineyard."

"The entire purpose? And you wouldn't be able to keep from having 'fun'—especially not when I'm driving the Porsche. You're just dying to reclaim your manliness somehow, since you can't drive your fancy car."

"I'll miss this."

"Don't say it like that. You make it sound like I'm never going to see you again."

"Trust me; I'm not that easy to get rid of."

Our heart's about to palpitate
And I find it hard to separate.

Asleep. Last time for a very long—too long—too many nights loom. The thought won't finish itself. Dreading alone… night after night.

She doesn't think she'll really sleep for months now.

Fitful dreams, wakeful sleep, dozing, tossing, turning, injuries be damned.

(If the pain keeps him awake, it makes it more real, makes him more aware, he can't fall asleep and forget and miss and lose out and watch the last hours fade.)

He gives up, lies still, pulls her in, cradles her head to his chest, watches her sleep.

She knows home when she feels it. Sleeps better when she's in it. Breathes him in, the oxygen that feeds her, keeps her alive.

Her hair falls across his chest, soft, smelling like citrus, and he clings to her, even in her sleep, even when she shifts, unwilling to let her go. This will have to carry him through for a long time—this will be the last memory, the most vivid. This will give life and breath to the picture painted vibrantly in his mind, in full color and shape and sound and taste. The color of her eyes, the taste of her skin, the smell of her hair, the cotton of her pajama pants hiked up around her calf, skin and fabric side-by-side against his bare legs.

She watches him through a slit in her eyelids, enjoying the feeling of his eyes on her when he doesn't realize that she's watching him back. His eyes travel her body, drinking in the contours and planes that his hands have already memorized, and it reminds her of the nights that she spent sitting beside the bed, trying to reconcile this damaged, bruised, fragile body with the fearless, adventurous boy that she loved. Loves, she amends, a quiet smile filling her chest.

His new body, scars and imperfections and all, is as familiar to her as her own, is as deeply beloved as it has ever been, and yet she wonders how it will change before she sees it again.

The things that don't change comfort her, though, and she seeks out his heartbeat, placing her ear on his chest so it resounds in her head, filling her mind, filling her own heart until they beat in perfect time. Unconsciously, her fingers tap out the cadence lightly on his abdomen, and she feels his smile spread all the way through his body and into hers as his fingertips brush the skin on her shoulder, coming to rest over her heart, his hand cupping her heartbeat, catching the beat in his palm.

His thumb brushes the rhythm of her heart back and forth against her skin in perfect unison with the light beat of her fingers silently marking the cadence of his against the taut muscles that she has claimed as her own.

His bittersweet smile doesn't quite reach his eyes. "We match."

Tears fill her eyes, soaking into his bare skin as she tips her head up until their eyes meet, her fingers still tapping the steady rhythm of their heart. "Of course we do."

And finally you have found someone perfect
And finally you have found…
Yourself.