Hey guys! This took a bit longer than expected due to reconfiguration (I'll explain more at the end). Thank you all so much for your kind words! I'm so glad you all enjoyed seeing Rory and Logan's first interaction together.

November 26, 2016

The first thing Rory noticed when she opened her eyes was the pounding headache that hadn't left her since last night. She immediately squeezed her eyes shut to stop the sunlight from making it worse. The second thing she noticed was the extremely uncomfortable swirling feeling in her stomach.

She groaned, realizing where this was going. She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of her bed. Her stomach started to feel even worse so she quickly got up, moaning and groaning her way to the bathroom down the hall.

Once she got to the bathroom she immediately emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet. When she was done she flushed the toilet and sat back against the side of the bathtub. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. She had spent half the night up thinking about her conversation with Logan, and how this was going to play out going forward.

"Hey kid," Rory heard coming from the doorway. She looked over to see her mother standing in her pajamas, giving her a sympathetic look.

"Rough morning?" Lorelai asked.

"Kind of," Rory sighed. "Rough night, rough morning, rough life."

"Oh hon. Do you feel okay enough to leave the bathroom?" Lorelai inquired.

Rory nodded, her stomach had settled for now. An encore could happen later in the day but she was fine for now. She stood up and followed her mom into the kitchen. She sat down at the kitchen table while Lorelai walked over to the Keurig on the counter.

"I love my magic coffee machine," Lorelai said as she reached up into the cabinet for a mug. "Do you want a cup, kid? I can make decaf."

"No," Rory replied, shaking her head. Her stomach had settled enough to move to the kitchen but not enough to drink anything beside water.

Lorelai made her cup of coffee and made plain toast for Rory. She sat down next to Rory.

"How are you?" Lorelai asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

"I don't even know," Rory sighed, ripping up the crust of her toast in the process. "Last night was hard. Figuring out what to do now is hard."

"Do you wanna tell me what happened last night?" Lorelai inquired.

Rory did not tell her mother or Luke what had happened last night. When she came back inside for dinner she was as vague as possible.

"Rory, what happened?" Lorelai asked when she heard Rory come back inside.

"He came here on his own," Rory said as she walked back into the kitchen.

"I can go kick his ass right now if you want," Luke told her. She shook her head no, although touched at the lengths of protection he would go to for her when

he didn't even really know what was happening.

"His family told him what happened and he just came over right away," Rory explained, picking up her container of food.

"Well what did he say?" Lorelai asked, giving Rory a concerned look. "The atmosphere in here wasn't exactly that of a rom-com."

"I don't want to talk about it right now," Rory informed them. She grabbed a fork and a napkin and started towards her bedroom door.

"Honey—" Lorelai started.

"I'll talk about it later," Rory interrupted as she opened the door to her room. She immediately closed it once she was inside, not coming out for the rest of the night.

Later was now Rory supposed. She hadn't had the ability to fess up what happened at first because she was still absorbing it all herself.

"What did you tell Luke?" Rory asked in return, prolonging the need for the conversation for as long as possible.

Plus, she was curious as to what his viewpoint was now. The string of lies she had told everyone was a bit of a mess. She told her mother the father of her child was either Logan and Paul, and when she told Logan about it he didn't want to be involved. Then Luke got a similar story, with the exception of her also telling Paul who also did not want to be involved. Her grandmother got the version sans Logan, just Paul who did not want to be involved at all. The general public of Stars Hollow got that story as well with the help of Miss. Patty and Babette's gossip chain.

"Well," Lorelai began, putting her cup down on the table. "I told him what you told me. I told him that Paul wasn't a possibility at all and that you had confessed to me that you hadn't told Logan yet."

Yet. That made a difference. She was grateful that her mother had not revealed that she was not intending on telling Logan at all. She didn't know how she would have the heart to face Luke if he ever knew that.

Rory let out a sigh of relief and nodded. "That's good."

"Yeah, but I should warn you, he was upset that you hadn't told Logan yet. You know that's a sensitive subject for him," Lorelai told her.

Rory nodded, tensing up a bit after hearing that. There had been very few times that her step-father was upset with her. But this was still better than him finding out the whole truth.

"So…" Lorelai inquired again.

"I guess his sister or his mom or both told him what happened at the tea room," Rory started to tell her. "And he just came right here. And he asked me if I was pregnant and if it was his. And I told him yes. And after his shock wore off he was mad."

"That's understandable," Lorelai said.

"He asked if I was ever going to tell him and I said no. So then we started to fight and I told him why I wasn't going to and he said that it was ridiculous for me to think that any of that stuff would have happened. But how would he know what would have happened?"

"And then it turned into a whole thing of who's fault it was that we hadn't ended up together after our whole London thing."

"Oh honey, I don't think that that was a problem that could be fixed," Lorelai told her, putting her hand on top of Rory's and giving it a little reassuring squeeze.

"Yeah, I guess. But then he just started yelling that I never understood," Rory began to tear up. Intense emotions plus pregnancy hormones always equaled crying or vomiting or a fun combo of both.

"Understood what?"

"Understood that he has always loved me and never stopped. And he was still mad so he was yelling it but his eyes looked so lost." Rory was fully crying now. Lorelai pulled her chair right next to her and pulled her daughter against her as she cried, cradling her head. She shushed her and ran her fingers through her hair, just like she had always done for the past 32 years.

When she began to calm down, Rory said against her mother's chest, "and then you guys came home."

"You're so lucky your mother has impeccable timing," Lorelai joked as she continued to run her fingers through Rory's hair.

"Honestly, I was kind of relieved when I heard you come in. I didn't know what to say to him at all," Rory confessed. She sat back up again, out of her mother's arms and now against the back of the chair.

"Well, it was a loaded confession kid. You guys aren't together, he still technically has a fiancée and he doesn't even live in the same country. Of course you wouldn't know what to say to that," Lorelai assured her of her stance.

"I guess," Rory said, looking away from her mother's gaze.

She had been thinking about this all night. She knew exactly how she felt for him, but as her mom said there were so many other factors. She wasn't going to expose herself like that without any safety net to catch her. She couldn't free fall, not this time.

A night spent on a twin bed was anything but ideal. However, anything was better than going back to his parents' house.

When Logan left the Gilmore household last night, he drove aimlessly for almost two hours. The only thing that pulled him out of his trance was his phone ringing through the car speakers. Honor called him for a wellness check, and suddenly he was telling her he was on the way to her house.

When he got to his sister's house, he wasn't in the mood for talking. So he, Honor and Josh spent the night drinking until he finally relaxed a bit. Of course, he was doing most of the drinking. The two of them just held glasses in support. By the end of the night, he was too tired and wasted to make it out to their guest house. So he settled for the close by "sleepover room" that was usually designated for when his niece and nephews had friends sleep over.

This had to be at least partially the explanation for waking up to two small eyes staring at him from the side of the bed.

"Uncle Logan?" He heard the tiny voice of the boy next to him ask.

"Hey buddy," Logan greeted his nephew, his voice still groggy. His seven year old nephew Bradley was standing next to the bed, staring at him curiously.

"Why are you in the sleepover room?" Bradley asked. His blond hair was sticking out in every direction and he still had his pajamas on.

"Because I slept over," Logan replied.

"Bradley!" Logan heard his sister exclaim. He looked over to see her standing in the doorway, a scowl on her face. "I told you to let uncle Logan sleep!"

"It's okay H—" Logan began to say before being interrupted by his nephew.

"But mommy I wanted to make sure he didn't mess up the room for when Aiden comes over next weekend!" Bradley explained to his mother.

"Don't worry about that, Bradley. It'll be fine. Please go downstairs for breakfast," Honor told him.

Bradley did a little huff and puff before saying fine and walking out of the room past his mother. Logan did his best to keep from chuckling. It was so funny and cute to see such a little person get so worked up.

"I'm sorry," Honor apologized to him once her son had descended down the stairs.

"Don't worry about it," Logan assured her. "He's a good kid."

"Yeah, and unfortunately he inherited our neuroses," Honor said. "You can go back to sleep if you want. You had a long night."

"I might actually take you up on that," Logan replied. He didn't normally like to impose on others, even his own sister. But his head was pounding and he could barely see straight. He could use a few more hours to recover.

"Good. Whenever you get up breakfast will be there for you. Rest up little brother," Honor told him, giving him a sympathetic look during the last part.

"Thanks," Logan said. He watched his sister give him one more small sympathy smile before closing the door behind her.

He fell back on to the pillow and closed his eyes, grateful for the little bit of peace he was just granted.

Logan has always been quick on his feet ever since he was a kid. It was how he kept out of even more trouble than he was usually in while growing up. It was how he got back up after fucking up the deal at his father's company when he was in his 20s, going out to Palo Alto and surviving on his own. It was how he dealt with the ever changing environment of the current news cycle and the demands of clients and stakeholders.

It took a lot to knock him completely over, stopping him from being able to jump into action right away when things went sideways. And yet it was Rory Gilmore who was able to make the impossible happen. He was down on the floor and having a hard time figuring out his next move.

A ring from the front door bell immediately followed by loud knocking on the front door interrupted his thought process. He wondered who was coming to bother his sister early in the morning on a holiday weekend.

He heard his sister open the front door and suddenly a booming voice was yelling.

"Where the hell is he?!"

Fuck.

"Who?" He heard Honor ask.

"You know who! Your idiot brother, that's who!" His father barked back.

Of course Mitchum wasn't going to wait around for answers when he heard what was going on. Logan knew this, but he still hoped, evidentially in vain, that he would at least wait until noon.

Logan knew his father was going to connect the dots as soon as his mother got a chance to blab to him about seeing the Gilmores at lunch yesterday. Mitchum had connected the dots immediately once he saw Logan having lunch with Rory at one of the family restaurants. Logan had received a text message from his father an hour after lunch that just said don't be stupid son.

"My kids are having breakfast right now! I would prefer you didn't speak about their uncle like that in front of them!" Honor seethed back.

"Fine," Mitchum settled, his voice considerably lower now. He would say anything to his own children but he went out of his way to never upset his grandchildren.

"Where is he?" He asked again, much quieter than the first time.

"He's sleeping," Honor told him.

"Fuck that! In the guest house?"

"Upstairs," Honor sighed. Logan couldn't blame her for giving up to avoid any more issues with their father.

His father's heavy footsteps echoed throughout the house as he climbed the stairs. Ever the quick thinker, he opens the only door that was shut. Logan groaned and sat up, the light from the hallway burning his eyes.

"Good morning, daddy," Was how his father greeted him. He turned the lights on from the light switch by the doorway then closed the door behind. Logan groaned.

"You know son, I knew that you could be completely senseless at times. But I never realized you were a coward," Mitchum said as he walked closer to the bed.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Logan replied. He was not expecting his father to start the conversation like that.

"You didn't come home last night! You're hiding in your sister's house instead of facing your evident problems!"

"I was going to come home today!"

"Yeah, right," Mitchum scoffed. That was so annoying because Logan was actually going to come back today.

Mitchum sighed and looked over at his son. Logan saw the combination of irritated and disappointed in his eyes.

"Explain what the hell is going on here Logan," Mitchum demanded. Logan hadn't expected to have to explain himself so soon. His father didn't realize that if he didn't barge in here like this then it probably would've made this conversation easier for both of them.

He decided that instead of replying, he was going to get dressed. He pulled the covers off himself and got up. His father's eyes followed him across the room as he walked over to his pile of clothes. He began to pull his pants on over his boxer.

"Are you listening to me?! I came home to a nightmare last night. Your mother told me Rory Gilmore is pregnant out of wedlock and you were nowhere to be found. And coincidentally, I had just seen the two of you together a few months ago," Mitchum went on as he put the rest of his clothes on.

"Sure," Logan replied as he buttoned the last button of his shirt. He figured that he should just allow his father to rant on until he said everything he needed to. It was easier that way.

"Sure? Your life is about to blow up and you say 'sure'?" Mitchum echoed in disbelief.

"Don't be so dramatic," Logan told him.

"When was the last time you saw her?" Mitchum asked, staring his son down. Logan was temporarily transported back to high school. His father was giving him the same look that he used to when Logan was in enough trouble for the headmaster to bother his parents.

"A few months ago,"

"Did you go see her last night?" Mitchum asked.

"Yes," Logan said. He had considered his options when answering, but what was the use of lying now.

"Should I be pulling out the cigars now?" Mitchum quirked an eyebrow. Logan sighed.

"She said she was never going to tell me," Logan looked away from his father, wanting to avoid his father seeing any trace of emotion on his face.

"I would love to say that she was doing you a favor," Mitchum said. "But she was always the one you couldn't quite give up. You would've reached out again one way or another."

Logan looked back at his dad but didn't say a word.

"I'll handle your mother," Mitchum sighed. "Hell, I suppose I have to handle France now too. But you have to handle Odette."

Logan sighed but nodded in agreement. "I will."

Mitchum looked at him for a moment. Logan wondered what he was thinking, but his father gave him no indication of his thoughts.

"I have to go out to the office again today. I better see you at home tonight."

"You will," Logan assured him. "Speaking of home, I think I'm going to be working from home until the New Year."

Logan's plan originally was to come home, have thanksgiving dinner, and then get the fuck out of there as fast as he could. Now, after Rory's confession, everything had changed. Realistically he had no idea when he would be able to go back to London, if at all. But this bought him some time for now.

Mitchum snorted but didn't make a comment. He turned around and walked towards the door. However, he stopped when he reached it.

"I forgot to tell you," Mitch said as he turned back around. "Congratulations, daddy."

Logan spent the majority of the day at his sister's house. He had joined his niece and nephews for the tail end of their breakfast.

Bradley, who had quickly recovered from their conversation earlier, started to tell his uncle all about what he planned to ask santa for for Christmas. This led to five year old Eleanor to chime in with her growing list.

"I want the Barbie princess castle, the pink one not the blue one. Then my barbies will have a real place to sleep," Eleanor explained to him clearly. Logan smiled and bit back the urge to chuckle at how adorable she was. She already had key elements of Honor's personality — sassy and extremely sure of herself.

The baby who had just turned three years old, Thomas, desperately wanted to join in on the conversation. He was able to break through Eleanor's dialogue eventually. He babbled away in his still very much baby voice, and even if he was difficult to understand clearly, the kid was pretty damn good at getting his point across.

"Mommy!" Bradley exclaimed when his mother walked back into the room, two coffees in hand. "Are we going to put the Christmas decorations up today?"

"Yes Bradley," Honor assured him as she placed one mug in front of Logan and then sat down. "The decorators are going to come over soon with the house decorations and then we'll all decorate the tree together."

"Uncle Logan," Eleanor said, grabbing her uncle's attention again. "Are you going to stay and help with the tree?"

"El, uncle Logan might be busy today," Honor interjected. Her usual method of getting Logan out of things, but he didn't need it today.

"Do you want me to help with the tree?" Logan asked Eleanor directly.

"Yes!" She exclaimed. He couldn't help but smile in reaction to her enthusiasm.

"Alright, then I'll stay," he replied. The kids all yelled in excitement.

An hour later, Logan had all different decorators zooming past him, asking his sister for opinions on different decor options, setting up ladders to hang wreaths and bows and garland all around the huge house.

Two hours after that, he was sitting in the living room with the three kids, his sister and Josh. Honor had Christmas music playing through the Bluetooth speakers. The tree was up but bare. The box of ornaments sat on the floor as the kids began to dig through it.

"So, what's the game plan?" Honor asked her little brother, taking a sip of her afternoon Irish coffee. Logan sighed. He wasn't sure himself what the plan was. He was using his time here as a distraction rather than a time to think things over.

"I'm going to go back to mom and dad's and just tell her everything," he replied.

"God, you don't have a plan do you?" Honor commented, reading her brother like an open book.

"Nope," he confessed. "How do you plan for this?"

"For this situation? You don't. But you can think of a way to break it to her gently."

Logan sighed, knowing his sister was right. This was really all his fault, the least he could do was present it nicely.

"Uncle Logan!" Eleanor exclaimed as she ran towards him with an ornament in each hand. "Come decorate the tree!" She demanded, handing him one of the ornaments. He laughed and obliged, following her towards the tree.

He hung his ornament on the tree and watched Eleanor hang hers below his. Bradley was sitting nearby attempting to detangle the string of garland. Tommy had abandoned the tree project all together, he was now playing with two empty boxes, crawling through them and sitting in them.

Logan observed them all with amazement. His niece and nephews never failed to surprise him, but he was getting a new perspective now. He was watching them not as the ever fun uncle who did whatever they wanted and gave them everything they wanted. He was now watching them as a to-be parent. He was realizing how amazing it was that his sister made all these people and they all have their own personalities and they were so smart already.

He started to think about his own kid. What would they be like? Would he be anywhere near as good of a parent as Honor was? Rory was going to be an amazing mother, he had no doubt in his mind. But what kind of father could he be? He didn't have any positive experiences from growing up with Mitchum and Elias Huntzberger. He was worried, he wanted to give his child the world. He didn't want to fuck up like his father did, being the selfish prick that he was. He wanted his kid to know he loved them without a single shred of doubt.

He had an urge to speak to Rory then. Their conversation the night before had been awful. Everything he said to her was true and he meant it, he just wished that he had cooled off a bit before going over there.

He wouldn't have been so quick to completely turn on her right away.

The fact of the matter is that he was hurt. He was hurt that she kept this from him and intended to keep it that way for the rest of their lives. It scared him that he could have never known he had a child with Rory, roaming the earth unbeknownst to him. That Rory would have given birth and raised their child without him. The idea of that crushed him.

He excused himself from the room for a moment. He went into the kitchen and pulled out his phone and immediately pressed on the name that was on his mind. He could hear the faint sound of Frosty the Snowman playing in the other room as the dial tone went on.

"Hello?"

So this chapter was originally supposed to end with Mitchum and Logan's conversation. However, when I started writing chapter five, I realized that the scene after was better suited for this chapter. I try to have the following chapter at least partially complete before posting the current chapter. Thank you all again for your positive feedback! Let me know what you think of this chapter!