The package arrived on Friday at three o'clock. Rory had spent most of the day fighting to stay away from Logan. After his present yesterday, which she was wearing, it just seemed like playing with fire to spend too much time with him today.

She was going with Brian, and she needed to focus on him. With on rip she opened the small card.

'Thinking about tonight. Love forever, Brian.'

Her smile went right to her heart. She was doing the right thing. Without hesitation she pulled the paper off the box and then stopped in confusion. Splendor? Carefully she opened the box and pulled it out. A small slip of paper drifted down onto her hap, and she picked it up. 'It always makes me think of you.'

Slowly her hand dropped to the floor as Eternity flooded her nose.

"Hey, Rory, Dawn need those reports," Elliot said from her door, and she looked up wondering where had had come from.

"Yeah, okay." Pushing the confused haze away from her, she dropped the box of Splendor into her purse, grabbed the reports, and forced her legs to stay under her long enough to get her to Dawn's office.

OoOo

"Hey, Ace, you got a…" Logan asked, swinging into her cubicle and stopping short when she wasn't in her chair. He looked back out and up and down the long row of cubicles, but there was no sign of her. With a shrug he stepped into her office.

He just needed a staple remover, surely it wouldn't be a crime to grab one. As he sat down in her chair, the scent of Eternity surrounded him, and his heart turned over. She was Brian's. He needed to move on. Quickly he opened her top drawer and picked through her pencil organizer.

"Oh, come on, I know you have one." His hand slipped between the desktop and the organizer to the back of the drawer, but there was only some paper. Not really thinking about it, he pulled the paper out and looked at it, and then his eyes narrowed.

'You are my friend.

The one I laugh with,'

In confusion, he carefully fitted the two pieces of the card back together.

'Cry with,

Love,'

Curiosity wouldn't let him put it back in the drawer. Holding it together, he opened it, and in one heartbeat, everything else dropped away.

'Logan,

Sometimes taking a risk with a friend is better than playing it safe with strangers, what do you think? You and me? Maybe? Sometime?

Merry Christmas

Love always,'

"Rory," he read aloud as he sat, stunned. Slowly he leaned back in the chair as conflicting thoughts crashed into each other. The two of them? Together? She wanted that? But how could he have missed that? He would've noticed? Surely, he would've…

"Yeah, I'm leaving at four," he heard her say next to her door, and quickly he replaced the card and shut the drawer.

"Well, have fun," someone said

"I will," Rory said, and then she turned into her cubicle just as he made it back to the door.

In one crash their bodies met.

"Oh!" she exclaimed

Instantly he reached out and caught her arms to keep her from falling. Like a lightening bolt through is soul he felt how perfectly they fit together, and with one look he knew he could never let her go again.

"I'm sorry," she said, dazed as she backed away. "I didn't see you there."

"Yeah." He felt every inch she put between them. Air on top of air crowded his lungs. "I was just… I'm… I'm sorry."

No sanity left and without another word, he stepped past her and fled.

His feet carried him into the restroom, where he reached into the cool water and splashed it onto his burning face. He squeezed his eyes closed to make all the pieces make sense, but the only thing that made any sense was that he loved her – more than he had ever loved anyone in his life. If he told her that now, he might lose her forever. If he didn't, he most surely would.

He stood there, staring at his reflection. She was his match, and if he let her go, he would regret it for the rest of his life. Debating the right words to say, he pushed away from the sink, pulled the door open, and walked back to his cubicle. Without stopping at hers, he walked to his desk and sat down. He had to think, to come up with something. Some way to tell her.

"Hey, Logan," she said, suddenly swinging into his doorway, and he looked up into her amazingly soft eyes. "Have a good weekend, kay?"

In a breath he was his feet and around the desk. "You leaving?"

"Yeah," she said with a tight smile. "Brian's supposed to be here at four. I thought I'd go meet him downstairs."

"Oh." It was the only word that made it across the screaming chasm in his brain.

"Well, I'll see you Monday." She stepped back out the doorway.

"Rory," He said, wishing his heart didn't already see her telling him to get lost because she was in love with Brian.

"What?"

"I… umm, you got a minute?"

She looked at her watch. "I should really get going."

"Please?"

"Okay, but only one." Slowly she stepped back into his cubicle. "What's up?"

The closer she got to him, the louder his pulse thundered in his ears. "I… just… umm,…" In desperation, he reached down and took her hand, but the confusion that jumped into her eyes with that gesture only added to the chaos in his brain. "I know I should've said something sooner… I just… umm, I thought you… I didn't know you felt the same way.

Her eyebrows knitted consternation. "Logan, what are you talking about?"

"Rory, I love you." They were the truest words he'd ever spoken in his life, and for the briefest of seconds, it felt like everything would be all right.

"You… what?" she asked, stumbling over the words.

"I love you," he said again, gaining confidence in the repetition. "I have for a long time, but I was just too dumb to realize it. Please, it was just a dumb plan. I mean I appreciate you helping me get Brian away from Mandy and everything, but…" At that moment, his gaze caught movement at the door, and he looked up into the most betrayed face he'd ever seen in his life. "Brian."

In a daze she turned. "Brian…"

With one hit Brian smashed the flowers he held against the wall, and petals cascaded down to the gray carpet as he turned and stomped away.

"Brian, wait." Rory's hand fell from Logan's as she ran for the door. "Brian!"

It was the worst moment of Logan's life, and he felt it to his core.

OoOo

Rory missed the elevator Brian slipped into, and with only the thought that she had to catch him, she pushed through the door to the stairs. She could see herself pitching headlong right down to the bottom, but she pushed that thought behind the hurt she had seen in Brian's eyes. She had to get to him, to explain. But even as she thought that, her brain asked, "How?"

And she had no answer for that question. She pushed through the door at the first floor and ran past the elevators to the front door. "Brian!"

He was already several yards down the sidewalk, and he never stopped. Her feet made any decision moot as they raced after him. "Brian! Please wait! Please!"

They were almost a block away when she finally caught up with him and made one, last desperate grab for his arm. "Wait!"

Suddenly she stood face-to-face with him, gasping for breath and having no idea where to go from there.

"How long has this been gong on?" he asked, betrayal and anger creating a dangerous mix in his eyes.

"It hasn't. I had nothing to do with that. That wasn't me," she pleaded.

"You expect me to believe that?"

"Yes, I do." Someone bumped into her and pushed her into him. "You've got to believe me, Brian. Logan and I are just friends."

They were the words she had fought tooth and nail to deny for almost five years, and now she was using them like a shield. "I swear to you. We're just friends."

"Well, that looked like a lot more than just being friends to me."

"I know. I'm sorry. But I didn't know… he never told me… I mean…"

The heat of anger in Brian's eyes turned ice cold. "And what plan was he talking about anyway?"

Those words stopped every protest in Rory's arsenal. "It wasn't… I didn't mean to hurt you. That was just at the beginning. It has nothing to do with now."

"So this was all a set-up?" His jaw set in anger.

"That was only then…" she pleaded. "But it's not now. Now, I really do…"

"Save it." He shook her hand off his arm. "Have fun at the Waverly."

And with that, he tuned and stalked down the street. Rory stood, her whole world swirling around her in chaos. Tears choked out the only air that managed to weed its way into her lungs. Seeing no other option, she turned back to the Courant building and exhaled. Logan had some definite explaining to do.

She didn't even look at the atrium as she boarded the elevator and crossed her arms. Pain, anger, and confusion mixed in the middle of her hest as she stopped off the elevator, trying not to notice the curious looks of her coworkers.

At Logan's door, her arms became stone at her chest as her face went hard. "Do you mind explaining to me what that was about?"

"Rory." Logan stood from his desk as he glanced behind her. "Where's Brian?"

"Gone… thanks to you."

He looked at her gently, but it did nothing to soften the hardness in her chest.

"Look, I'm really sorry," he added softly. "I should've said something sooner, but I thought… I didn't know… I wasn't sure how you felt."

"And now what? You're some kind of mind reader?"

"No, I found…," he started and then inexplicably stopped.

"Found what?" she asked angrily.

He shifted uncomfortably as his gaze dropped to the carpeting. "I… found the card in the back of your desk."

"What card?" she asked, and her words were like rocks hurled at him.

"The card… from Christmas."

His words faded out as realization came over her, and she eyes fell closed.

"You…? What were you doing in my desk?"

"I just needed a staple remover. I swear, that's all. I didn't do it on purpose."

"A staple remover?" She turned and pushed the hair out of her face in consternation. "I don't believe this."

Slowly he reached out to her. "I never meant…"

"Don't touch me." Her arm jerked away from him as her steel hard gaze clamped onto him again. "Do me a favor. Okay? Just stay away from me." Fury and hurt poured from her eyes as she looked at him. He had ruined everything. Everything with Brian. Everything with them. Everything. "I hate you, you know that?"

"Don't say that."

But she'd already turned for her own cubicle.

"Rory, wait."

He followed her into her cubicle where she pulled her purse off the floor with a jerk and then stood and faced him.

"You used me," she said, and venom coursed through the words. "You used me, and then when I had a chance to really have someone fall in love with me…" She shook her head, fighting the tears. "I thought you were my friend."

"I am," he pleaded. "Just let me explain."

"Explain what? That you love me? What a joke. If you really loved me, you would've let me be with Brian. No, that wasn't love. That was greed." Her gaze dropped from his as she crossed to the front of her desk for the door where he stood. At the door, she met his gaze once more. "You sure know how to ruin a good friendship, you know that?"

With a disgusted shake of her head, she stepped out into the hallway, leaving him and their friendship in the dust.

Whew, finally! I figured I've tortured you guys enough. The guy's got poor timing, that's for sure. Sounds like both Rory and Logan have some explaining to do... And I know y'all have something to say, so let me hear it!