AN: Yay an update! I'm sorry it took so long, but the last few months have been grueling at school and I just haven't had time to think about the story, let alone sit down and write a chapter.

Thank you all for the wonderful reviews and encouragement, I promise you that even when I don't update for a while, that does not mean this story has been abandoned or forgotten about. I just don't have all the free time that I wish I had.

I do want to give you all a heads up. I am graduating from law school in a week, and immediately thereafter I start studying for the bar exam. I have no idea how much I will be able to update during the summer, because my #1 priority right now is passing the bar. I will try my best, but I make no promises – except that I have not abandoned the story.

Also, I noticed some errors in earlier chapters as I was rereading the story, I will be posting updated chapters with those edits (they were small things like missing words, that my brain seemed to fill in even though the words weren't actually there).

Enjoy! And don't forget to review!

After they departed, and Lorelai and Christopher excused themselves, Elias turned to the group. "I recommend that you keep voices down. All of the DAR is listening in right now." He looked at Mitchum, "I'm ashamed of you Mitchum, your mother and I raised you better than this. We raised you to never look at anyone as beneath you, your mother is rolling over in her grave at your behavior. You know that Rory is good for Logan, the boy has finally started stepping up and assuming his responsibilities, he has changed for the better and it is all because of her. He wants to be good enough for her; he wants to be her Prince Charming. He loves her. Get your noses out of the air and realize that your son is happy, and that your future daughter in law is a wonderful person who isn't after Logan's money or the family name."

Shira began to open her mouth and Francine held up her hand to cut her off, "before a single word comes out of your mouth Shira, let me clear a few things up. Straub and I are both aware of how you and Mitchum treated Rory, telling her she wasn't good enough for Logan, that she wouldn't make it as a journalist, that her background made her unsuitable for Hartford society. And don't think for a minute that you can change your tune now just because you know that Rory is a Hayden. Rory's last name shouldn't make a damn bit of difference in how you see her or treat her. She is a beautiful, intelligent, kind person, who is going to go far in this world. Unlike you Shira, who only got where you did because you got pregnant."

Straub looked at Mitchum, "do not think that Rory or Logan can't see right through both of you and your crappy façades. Rory and Logan make each other incredibly happy, in spite of everything you have done to them. Our families may soon be joined together, but it is in name only. Until you earn my granddaughter's forgiveness, you will not have our acceptance."

Francine took her husbands arm, "if anyone in this group isn't good enough to be in the family, it is the two of you. Now, if you will excuse us, Emily, Richard, Elias, Straub and I would like to go celebrate with our granddaughter and her fiancé."

Shira and Mitchum watched the elder generation walk away and stood there speechless. Shira finally turned to her husband, "Mitchum, what are we going to do?"

When the elevator doors opened, Rory let out a contented sigh. It had been a long day – her phone had been ringing off the hook with people congratulating her on the engagement, her professors decided to increase the work load since midterms were coming up, and the Yale Daily News' internet decided to stop working an hour before she had to submit the paper to the printer. Right now, she was looking forward to getting into her sweats and relaxing with Logan.

As she walked in the door, her nose was met with a delicious smell. She smiled, she loved it when Logan cooked her dinner, it made the apartment feel like a home. "Logan, I'm home." She dropped her bag on the floor, put her keys on the key ring, hung her coat in the closet and walked into the kitchen.

Logan's back was to her when she walked in, but she could see that he was chopping vegetables. When he put the knife down, she stepped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his stomach. "Hi sweetie," she kissed his neck, "everything smells delicious. What's for dinner?"

He smiled when he felt her nuzzle his neck, "stir fry with filet." He turned around and kissed her lips, "how was your day, Ace? Has your phone been ringing as much as mine?"

Rory groaned and rested her head on his chest, sighing when Logan started to rub circles on her back. "Ugh, yes it hasn't stopped. Every five minutes the phone would ring with someone else wanting to congratulate me. It made it incredibly difficult to use my phone to call campus IT when the internet crashed at the paper because my cell wouldn't stop ringing long enough for me to place a phone call. I finally had to use Paris' phone." She took a breath, "it's been a LONG day."

Logan kissed the top of her head, "Ace, why don't you go change while I finish dinner, and I'll open a bottle of wine for us. It is Friday night, Emily and Richard are out of town, so you don't have Friday night dinner. Lorelai and Luke are in Stars Hallow, and all of our friends are busy. This is the first Friday night we've had alone in a long time."

Rory smiled at him, "that sounds like a wonderful idea. Can we watch a movie or catch up on the DVR tonight?"

"Of course we can."

Logan watched as Rory grabbed her bag and went into their office, most likely to unpack her books and put her computer on her desk to charge. He smiled at her routine – every night she would walk in the door, hang up her coat, and then go into the office to put her books on the shelf and plug her laptop in on her desk. Everything had a place, and Rory hated it when things weren't put away. She once told him that the utter chaos at her house used to drive her nuts because she could never find anything, and she swore to herself that she would never let her first apartment look like her house in Stars Hallow.

He looked around at the apartment and saw the small additions that Rory had made over the past year. There were pictures of them on the shelves, decorations on the walls, throw blankets, and a decorative pillow that he had seen in the store and had mentioned he liked to her on the couch. She had turned his bachelor pad apartment into a home. Most guys would have freaked out at the "invasion of space," but he loved it. It meant that Rory was comfortable enough to shop for their apartment without feeling like she had to ask his permission.

His favorite "addition" was a collage of frames on the wall over the couch. It was filled with pictures of the two of them, of him and Honor, and of him, Finn, Colin and Stephanie. Some girls would have only put up pictures of themselves, but Rory included pictures of his friends and family. He shook his head. Sometimes he had a hard time believing that he used to worry that Rory would change him or that this relationship would take away his independence.

He opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of her favorite wine, and poured out two glasses. While he waited for the wine to breathe, he put the cut up vegetables into the frying pan, mixed the rice, steak and vegetables together, and lowered the heat to a simmer so the sauce would soak in.

As Rory was putting her textbooks back on the shelves, she noticed that her phone battery was low. After the day of non-stop phone calls, she decided to just plug the phone into the charger in the office and leave it there. She had had enough of the constant well-wishes and congratulations to last her a lifetime. If anyone really needed to reach her, they could call the land-line.

She walked into their bedroom to change into her comfortable clothes and took a moment to look around. The room was immaculate. She laughed to herself at the realization that so much had changed since she moved into the apartment. Logan was always a fairly neat person, or at least he gave the appearance that he was neat. In every room except his bedroom. Clothes had a tendency to pile up on furniture, shoes never managed to make it back into his giant walk-in closet, and ties were always left in a crumpled mess.

When she first moved in, it took them a while to find time to make space for her stuff. They couldn't seem to find an open weekend to really clear out part of Logan's closet and unpack her boxes. By the time they finally did, Rory was ready to snap. She hated going to sleep in a messy room. It drove her absolutely nuts. Shoes didn't belong strewn all over the apartment, they belonged with their match on a shelf in the closet.

Rory firmly told Logan that the next time she tripped over a singular shoe, or found a tie that wasn't hung up on his $400 tie-rack, the offending item was going to be donated to good-will. Logan assured her that he would start putting his clothes away, but he didn't take her that seriously because he knew she wasn't the best at keeping track of her own clothing.

About two weeks later, Logan was getting ready to go out to dinner with his father and some business partners and he couldn't find the tie he was planning to wear or his left-brown shoe.

Logan came out of their bedroom looking perplexed. "Hey Ace, have you seen my other brown shoe, or the silver and green tie I was wearing the other day? I can't seem to find them."

Rory didn't even look up from her textbook as she responded. "Yes, I've seen them."

"well," Logan replied looking at his watch and realizing he was late, "can you tell me where they are?"

She looked up and met his stare. "Sweetie, I told you what would happen next time I tripped over shoe in the middle of the floor."

Logan was flabbergasted. He never thought that she would actually get rid of a single shoe. "Are you serious?"

Rory had already gone back to reading her book, "yes Logan, I am serious. I almost went flying into the kitchen counter the other night when I got up to get a drink of water. I asked you to start putting your shoes and ties and all other articles of clothing away when you took them off, and I told you that I would start giving them away if you didn't. And you promised me you would."

He just blinked at her. "Rory. Those were three hundred dollar shoes."

"Well, then maybe you should learn to take better care of your three hundred dollar shoes Logan."

He couldn't believe it. "Fine, go ahead and play your little game. Lets see how much you like it when I start giving away all of the things that you leave lying around the apartment!" His tone was clearly challenging her to continue with her approach.

Rory looked up again, rested her chin on the palm of her hand and smiled. "Go ahead Logan. What things of mine do you see lying around the apartment that aren't where they should be?" She got up from her seat and headed into the kitchen for a glass of water. As she passed by him, she whispered into his ear, "the clothes that you take off of me when you are in such a hurry to get to the bedroom don't count…"

Logan looked around and realized that nothing of hers was out of place. In fact, other than her keys on the hook by the door, her movies on the shelf of DVDS and the books that she was currently studying from, he didn't see anything of hers at all. He yelled into the kitchen, "Rory, where is all of your stuff?"

She walked up behind him. "It is all put away, where it belongs."

"Seriously Ace?"

"What, you don't believe me?"

He kissed her on the cheek, "it's not that I don't believe you. I just am having a hard time comprehending that you are the same girl who had a hard time finding her shoes because they were in the oven half the time."

Rory rolled her eyes and took Logan's hand, dragging him into their bedroom, then into the closet. "look around Logan, what do you see?"

He looked and noticed small additions to his closet that made it very clear that she had adapted the space he cleared out to best suit her needs. Small 3M hooks were on the sides of the closet to hold some purses, her shoes were neatly lined up on the few shoe shelves he cleared out, her suits were hanging up, and all of her stuff seemed to have a spot where it was supposed to be.

Logan pulled her into his side, "ok Ace, I get it. I'll stop leaving my shit everywhere."

He just held her for a few minutes, but then asked the question that had been sitting in the back of his mind, "did you really give away only one of my shoes?"

She laughed, "yes. The guy thought I was crazy. I assured him that he would likely be getting the other shoe in a few days."

Rory shook out of her daze and put her jewelry into the jewelry box Logan purchased for her after she almost lost one of her diamond earrings that Grams left her, she put her shoes back on the shelf, and neatly hung up her suit. When she opened the drawer containing all of her sweats and comfortable clothes, she found a new shirt. It was one of Logan's old Yale shirts that she loved and constantly tried to steal, claiming that it no longer fit him and he should just give it to her. She threw it on with a pair of yoga pants and went back into living room.

He smiled when she came out wearing the t-shirt. "I see that you found your gift."

Rory sat down on one of the bar stools and watched Logan finish cooking dinner. "Why did I finally get this gift?"

He handed her the glass of wine. "It seems that our dryer is in cahoots with you Ace. The shirt shrunk a little more and it really doesn't fit me anymore." He said smiling at her, "the shirt looks ridiculous on me now."

Rory did a little happy dance in her seat. "I win , I win, I win!"

Logan laughed at her happy dance, knowing that she was one of the few women in the world who would get this excited over a ratty old t-shirt. He leaned over the counter and gave her a quick kiss on the lips before returning to the stir-fry, "you win Ace, the shirt is all yours."

After tasting the food and deciding it was ready, Logan dished the meal onto plates for them. "Now Ace, here is the most pressing question of the evening: do you want to eat at the table, or slum it and have dinner on the couch while watching Big Bang Theory?"

He heard her scoff and turned around. "Is that even a serious question Logan?"

"No, not really Ace." He picked up their plates and brought them over to the coffee table, while Rory grabbed the utensils and the bottle of wine. They both settled in on the couch for a well-deserved evening of laughs and relaxation.

At the Huntzberger Home

Shira was pacing in the main room, she had no idea how she had let this happen. How could she have been so clueless about the fact that Rory was a Hayden? This was a disaster, she had insulted the Hayden heiress and told her that she wasn't good enough to marry into the Huntzberger family. As if Rory needs to "marry into" the family for social status, she was perfectly fine on her own.

She stopped pacing when she saw a photograph sticking out from behind a frame on the mantel. Shira picked up the frame, which had a picture of Honor and Logan at Honor's engagement party, and saw that there was another picture sitting on the mantel behind the frame.

It was a picture of Rory and Logan, they were smiling at each other and laughing at something. Shira slowly walked back over to the couch. She had no idea where the picture had come from, but Shira realized that she had never seen this side of Logan or Rory before. She had never seen them smile like that, and that made something snap inside Shira.

A voice broke her thoughts. "That is a great picture of them, isn't it?"

Shira looked up and saw Elias standing next to the fireplace. "Where did it come from?"

"Rory and Logan gave it to me a while ago. That was taken at some LDB party last year, it was right after Rory was officially initiated into the group. They gave it to me because they knew I would appreciate the importance of that moment, the happiness that comes right after you are full member of the LDB."

Shira knew that Elias meant that as a dig because being a member of the LDB wasn't something that she could understand since she didn't go to Yale and she wouldn't have been a part of the group even if she had gone. "They look happy."

Elias sat down next to his daughter-in-law. "That's because they are happy Shira. Why can't you and Mitchum see that? What can't you accept Rory for who she is? Why can't you accept that she makes Logan so much happier than he has ever been?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but Elias cut her off. "It is because you were so caught up in how Rory came into this world, and the fact that she wants to work, that you couldn't see how good she is for Logan. Logan works harder because of her, he wants to be enough for her, he wants to make her proud. Logan has become responsible because of her, and not because she forced him to be responsible, but because he wants to be. He actually goes to the Yale Daily News because she is there and he started writing great articles that are published."

Shira looked up and was utterly confused. "What are you talking about? Logan only had a few articles in the paper this year."

Elias shook his head. "Yes, he only had a few articles published under 'Logan Huntzberger.' But he had quite a few articles published under his penname. In fact, one of them was picked up by the New York Times."

Elias watched Shira's face as what he had just said sunk in. Shira sighed. "He is that ashamed of us, of his family, that he writes under a pen-name?"

Before he could answer her, Shira looked up at him and the look in her eyes told him that he just needed to listen. "How I let this happen? How did I become so disconnected from my children that I don't know what makes them happy?" She took a deep breath. "I know that you aren't going to believe this Elias, but I promised myself when I married Mitchum that I would never have the kind of relationship with my children that other Hartford wives had with their kids. I saw how strained your relationship with Mitchum was, and I didn't want that for myself or my kids. I wanted to know them."

Shira wiped a tear from her eye, "I guess I failed at that."

Elias patted Shira's knee. He didn't know what brought on this change, but he believed her and wanted her to keep talking. "Shira–"

Shira held up her hand, telling him to stop talking. "Elias, please don't placate me or treat me like I am the idiot you think I am. You may find this hard to believe, but I am actually quite intelligent. I graduated at the top of my class in high school and received almost a full scholarship to Barnard. I was working as a waitress to pay for my final year's tuition when Mitchum met me. I never intended to find and marry a rich man, and then sit at home drinking and smoking for the rest of my life, that wasn't the plan. I wanted to be a teacher."

Shira got up and started pacing in front of the couch. "I know perfectly well that I got swept up in the role of a Hartford socialite, in being the perfect wife. I planned all of his parties, I joined the right charities and organizations, and eventually I became the equivalent of a Stepford wife."

Elias watched in amazement as Shira let out almost three decades of pent up frustration. "I let Mitchum change me, twist me into this shell of a person who ignored all of his shortcomings, all of his indiscretions, because, 'its what I signed up for' and I knew what I was getting myself into." She stopped pacing and stood in front of Elias, "but I didn't know Elias. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. All I knew was that I was pregnant and that I wouldn't be able to finish my degree with a baby, so I did what I thought was best." Shira took a breath as she sat down next to Elias on the couch and looked at him, "and I was wrong."

As Shira sat there taking in her life, realizing that she had become everything she swore she never would be and wondering if she would ever be able to establish a relationship with Logan and Honor, she forgot about the man sitting next to her until she felt his arm wrap around her shoulders. When she looked up, Shira saw Elias smiling at her for the first time in many years.

"There is the girl my son married."

Elias saw the utterly perplexed look on her face and laughed. "Shira, I have been waiting for you to let that all out for far too long."

"What are you talking about Elias?"

He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "I know that you think I dislike you, and truth be told, most of the time I do. But Shira, it is only because you let Mitchum walk all over you like a doormat and I knew that wasn't the kind of woman you were. When you married Mitchum, his mother and I were thrilled. You were independent, well-spoken and knew exactly what you wanted in life. You were actually quite like Rory."

He watched as her eyes widened at his comparison, but Elias knew that comparing the two women would strike a chord with Shira. "We thought that you would be able to rein Mitchum in, control him, make him live up to his responsibilities. And you did at first. But then,"

"Then I had two kids running around and I stopped caring what Mitchum did, and I let him throw money at the problems." Shira finished the thought for him.

She could hardly believe that she was having this heart to heart with her father-in-law after all these years, that she was finally bonding with him and building a relationship.

"Elias, how do I fix this with Honor and Logan? With Rory? I don't want to be cut out of their lives, I want to be a grandmother, I want to know my kids. How do I start over?"

"By saying what you just said, and showing us that you care."

Shira quickly jumped up to face the person standing in the doorway, "Honor?"

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