Thank you for your reviews and comments, I like hearing what you guys think. Classes start again soon (blah...) so updates may not be as regular, but I promise I will update as quickly as possible.

Logan Huntzberger had the perfect life until his fiancée walked out on him. When she suddenly reenters his life again, Logan and his best friend, Rory, come up with a brilliant plan. But, when the plan works better than they ever could imagine, it could mean more than they all bargained for.

OoOoOo

Rory's plan had been to make some small appearance with Brian. Let him take her out. Laugh a little. Have some fun. Then go home and wait for Logan's phone call saying she had failed.

However, she hadn't counted on how truly charming Brian would turn out to be. He held doors for her, pulled her chair out, and was generally mesmerizing for three solid hours. And as they walked out of the restaurant, Rory was thankful that the night hadn't been a total disaster.

"So, what do you say we run over to Club Kaya?" Brian asked as they walked down the sidewalk to his car.

"Club Kaya?" she asked in instant panic.

"Yeah, it's still early." He checked his watch. "I'm not tired at all."

She wanted to tell him that she was tired, very tired. Not once in her entire life had she stepped foot in anything resembling Club Kaya.

"I promise we won't stay long," she said, lifting a hand to the small of her back. "When you're ready to go, just tell me."

Although every sane part of her was screaming at her to just go home now, one small piece said she might never get this chance again.

"Okay," she finally said, just as they reached this car. "But only for a little while."

A kaleidoscope of color and lights greeted them at the doorway. Brian paid for them both and then led her into the crazy patterned darkness.

"How about over here?" he yelled, pointing across the tables.

Unconsciously Rory's head began moving with the beat pulsing out of the huge speakers. She sat in the chair he pulled out for her and laid her chin into her hand. The place was crowded. Women sauntered around them in skirts so short, Rory wondered what the point of putting one on was.

Suddenly in her modest dress, she felt hopelessly overdressed and frumpy.

"You want something to drink?" Brian asked, leaning over to her side of the table.

"Oh, no, I don't drink often," she said, forgetting to be new Rory for one moment to long.

"You don't drink?" he asked in confusion, but he quickly covered over it with a shrug. "That's cool. Do you want a coke or something?"

Gratefully she smiled at him, "Sure."

Relieved, he stood from the table, and she watched him wander over to the bar and lean against it. If this was for real, she thought never taking her gaze off of him, I really could fall for him. If… Her mind came back to reality with a crash, and her fingers and her gaze dropped to the table. This wasn't for real, and if she had any hopes of keeping her heart in one piece, she had to remember that.

He returned and set her drink in front of her.

"Thanks," she said as her finger moved from the table to the glass.

In one fluid motion he pulled his chair around to her side and sat. "So, how'd you get the name Rory anyway?"

Instantly the heat flooded her cheeks, and she turned her head out to watch the dancers. "It's actually short for Lorelai. My mom thought it would be neat to name me after herself; I guess hours of labor will do that to you. But I like it."

"Cool," Brian said as though it really was. "My folks went more for the classic set. Sarah, Andrew, Rachel. Pretty boring, huh?"

"No. Maybe it's better to have a boring name, better than having to explain it all the time. 'Rory? Can you spell that?'"

He laughed, and then slowly the laugh slipped away as his arm slid around the back of her chair. "Well, I think she gave a very beautiful name to a very beautiful daughter."

Rory's gaze drifted back out to the dancers as her brain struggled to remember this wasn't real. He was only talking to an illusion.

"You want to dance?" he asked as a slow song began pouring through the speakers.

"Oh, I don't…" she stated, but he was already standing at the side of the table offering her his hand.

Fighting not to appear ungraceful, she took his hand and he led her to the floor. Hot blood raced through her veins as she turned to him and laid her arms over his shoulders. His hands wrapped around her waist, and she laid her temple against his shoulder. They began to move in perfect unison. Back and forth. Slowly.

She breathed in the scent of him locked permanently into the knit of his shirt, and a picture of him standing under the white hot lights of Rich's department store burned into her mind. It was crazy to go there. He wasn't her type. For one thing, she didn't like beards, but it was more than that. He had a quality about him that said he didn't settle for safe. That risk was as inherent to him as his scent.

Risk had never been her forte. It was not a part of her in even the smallest measure. No, she thought ever decision through to its conclusion – weighing the consequences carefully. She was famous for her pro/con lists, that's how she decided everything. And if any consequence had the least amount of risk attached to it, she avoided it like a viper in the grass.

But here, she could soak his love of risk into her soul, and for one moment, she could pretend that she was exactly the woman he had been searching for his entire life. That she, Rory Gilmore, could simply take his hand and never be afraid again.

His hand moved up her back as he pulled her close to him, and she melted into him. If she just wasn't Rory, her life would be much better. Of that, she was perfectly sure.

When the song ended, he took her hand and led her back to their table. She sat in the chair he pulled out for her and looked up at him to say, "Thank you," but the words never made it past the concern on his face. "What?"

"Umm," he said in a voice that sounded like he was being strangled as he stared over her head to the bar, "would you excuse me for a second?"

Rory looked around as fear jumped into the middle of her fantasy. "Oh, sure. Are you…?"

But he had already stepped past her. She turned around trying to figure out what was going on, and instantly every sane part of her said that now would be a very good time to leave. At the bar, coiled seductively in the lap of a rather large, solidly muscled man, sat Mandy, her blonde locks tracing their way down the black leather of the vest curved tightly over her ample chest.

"Oh, God," Rory said, closing her eyes and wishing she was anywhere but smack in the middle of a nightmare.

She couldn't hear their exchange exactly, but the words weren't necessary. Mandy slid off the man's lap, and her face contorted when she realized that Brian was actually standing right in front of her. After a few agonizing moments Brian turned to leave, but Mandy grabbed onto his sleeve, a pleading look scratched across her face. Although Rory could only see Brian' back, she knew the look on his face all too well. She had seen that look sitting across from her desk for the better part of four months.

"Let me go!" Brian yelled over the screeching music. "That's it!" With one shake he broke Mandy's grip free from his arm.

"Brian, no! Wait!" Mandy pleaded as she followed him across the floor. "I can explain." However, all her pleading screeched to an abrupt halt when he stopped at Rory's table. "Who is this?"

"This is my date," Brian said angrily.

Mandy's eyebrows knitted together in the center of her forehead as she crossed her arms firmly in front of her. "And you're accusing me of cheating? Isn't that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?"

"You were going out of town, remember?" Brian asked as thought that justified his taking someone else out. "Besides Rory and I are just friends."

Slowly Rory stood from the table, drawing every ounce of dignity she had left with her. "I think it's time for me to leave."

"No, wait," Brian said, reaching out for her, but she pulled her elbow away at the last second.

"I can see myself home," Rory said softly. She grabbed her coat and threw it over her arm. There was no need for it. The heat of embarrassment would be all the insulation she would need.

Brian was torn between what he should do just long enough for Rory to make it past the stares and gaping mouths and out the door. The cold air hit her face with a slap, and she stuffed the humiliation down. At the bus stop, she hopped onto the once that happened to be sitting there. She didn't care where she went. All she wanted was to get as far away as possible.

OoOoOo

"Logan!" Brian yelled, pounding on the door and bringing Logan straight out of bed. "Logan! Wake up, man!"

In a half-second Logan had the door open and was standing here, bleary-eyed and panicked. "What?"

The instant Logan appeared, Brian leaned against the wall as though he was in danger of collapsing.

"What? What is it?" Logan asked, looking around for the smoke and flames he was sure had to be somewhere.

"I screwed up, man. Bad."

"Screwed up?" Logan asked in confusion. "How? What are you talking about?"

"Rory," Brian said finally catching his breath. "I took her out to Club Kaya."

Logan pushed the picture of them together at a club underneath the overwhelming panic in Brian's eyes. "Where is she? What happened?"

"Mandy."

"Mandy? Oh, no."

"I didn't know she was going to be there," Brian began, but Logan was already back in his room with the phone in his hand.

"I went to her place, but there was no answer on the intercom."

"Pick up," Logan commanded her. "Come on, pick up."

After the fourth ring, the answering machine picked it up, and Logan hit the reset button and then the redial. "Come on, Ace, please pick up."

OoOoOoO

The streetlights flashed past the bus window as Rory laid her head against its coolness. Even though Brian was never supposed to be anything other than a way to help Logan, she felt the humiliation to her core.

"We're just friends."

How many times had she heard those words in her lifetime? That's all Rory Gilmore had ever been to anyone. Friends. And they were all so happy about that. She was someone they could talk to. Someone they could tell things that no one else knew, and yet she wasn't good enough to really date. Go out with once or twice for kicks, for laughs, but that was as far as it ever went – for them. Dean had liked her because she was safe. Jess had been her one and only bad boy.

The bus had stopped six times before she realized where she was. With a deep breathe she knew she might as well get off at the next stop. She had taken this bus many times during her Chilton years. It was one o'clock in the morning, but she knew where the key was, and she knew exactly how to sneak in without waking her mom or Luke. She was supposed to be there for Christmas in the morning anyway, so what was a few extra hours?

Besides, sleeping in her own bed, in her own room, with her mom's protection surrounding her sounded very, very appealing at the moment. The bus rolled to a stop, and Rory stood with the last sway. She walked to the front and stepped off. The air was colder now, and she swung her coat over her shoulders.

But the chill seeped in all the way into her heart, which she considered a good thing. If she could just fine a way to permanently freeze her heart, maybe these things wouldn't hurt so much. It was silly after all. She had set out to Brian and Mandy up, and she had accomplished that mission with precision. It was just that in all the planning she hadn't seen the jeopardy her own heart was in until it was too late.

Slowly she kicked her way up the front walk as the feeling of not being good enough overwhelmed her again. Writing articles, she was good at. Getting the real facts, she was good at. She was a great reporter and writer, earning the nickname Ace from Logan back at Yale. Always doing the right thing and helping others, she was good at. Dating was another story.

She pulled the key from under the turtle on the porch and quietly let herself in. If she could just figure out how to fix what was wrong with her, maybe some guy somewhere would be interested. Until she fixed that flaw, however, she was sure she was doomed to walk this sidewalk, heartbroken and humiliated, for the rest of her life.

OoOoOO

"Let's not panic," Brian said, obviously not taking his won advice. "Maybe she went somewhere – a friend's house or something."

Logan searched every file in his brain, but the only names he came up with were family names. "Maybe she went home."

"That's it," Brian said, sitting up straight. "What's her last name?"

"Gilmore. I know her grandparents live here and I think her mom lives in Stars Hollow, but I'm not sure."

"Well, it's worth a try."

"Sorry, but I'm not waking Emily and Richard Gilmore up to ask if their granddaughter is there. I value my life to much. I hate to say it, but I think we're going to have to wait until she gets home," Logan said, running a weary hand over his eyes.

Trying one last time, he hit reset and then dialed her number. It rang. Once, twice, three times. Four. Click. "Hi, this is Rory…" Slowly he hit the reset button. As much as he hated the thought, they had run out of options.

OoOo

Home was supposed to make everything better, but it wasn't helping. Even Luke's cooking tasted like cardboard. She wanted to call Logan, but she couldn't take his pity or his ire that she hadn't stayed to see the plan through to conclusion. For all she knew Brian had probably smoothed things over with Mandy, and they were headed into wedded bliss right now.

Her body went through the motions of opening her Christmas presents and eating Christmas dinner, but she wouldn't let any true emotions past the mortification in her gut.

She thought about what Lorelai had been like at her age and that certainly didn't help. She had perfect skin, dark brunette tresses, and finely chiseled features that had no trouble getting guys to fall in love with her. In fact, she was usually the one with the broken hearts left in her wake.

Sitting on her mother's floor watching her and Luke, Rory could only remember twice in all their growing up years when Lorelai had been reduced to tears by any guy. However, she was quite sure that more than one guy had been reduced to tears because of her. Not that she was jealous or resented her mother.

A picture of Mandy slipped into Rory's mind and she couldn't imagine doing that to anyone. She would die before she knowingly hurt someone. Well, except for last night, but that was a fluke – she wasn't herself then. She was new Rory. New Rory. What a joke. New Rory was no better than old Rory, and in the end she had gotten the same results anyway.

It was then, sitting in the middle of her living room that she thought about Lane. Lane would know what to do. She would know just how to fix this whole problem. Rory sighed as tears stung the backs of her eyes. Sure she was happy that Hep Alien was out on another tour, but Rory really needed her best friend right now. The fact that she was doomed to walk through life with nothing and no one to fill the void in the center cavity of her chest was abundantly clear.

"You're awful quiet tonight," Luke said, sitting down in the chair next to her a laying hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah," Rory said softly, and then she sat up straighter. "Just enjoying being home."

The last thing she wanted to do was answer questions about the sorry state her life was in. In fact, the less they knew, the better off she would be. She didn't want to talk to her mom about this, she didn't think she would understand. The only problem was that whether or not they knew how bad her life was, she still did, and there wasn't a single thing she could do about that.

OoOoOo

Before grabbing his overnight bag and headed out for his parents' house, Logan called her house two more times. Brian had flown out some hours earlier, without Mandy, but Logan had put off leaving on the off chance that Rory might call or might finally answer her phone. But there was still no answer.

As he brushed the light off, a silent prayer cross his lips. "Please, God, let her be all right."

So I know several people were wondering what was in the card, that's coming up soon...