AN: For all the times I forget to thank her, much thanks to my beta fulfilled, she's fantastical.
Chapter 6
"There's nothing here," Logan announced, fiddling with the controls of the digital camera.
"What do you mean there's nothing there?" Rory gasped, tilting the legs of her chair to try to see over his shoulder. They had just gotten back to the small house they rented after their first day of interviewing workers at a local orphanage, sitting at the table in the kitchen, hooking up USB ports from their laptops to the cameras each were handling.
"There's nothing here - exactly what I said," he returned, brow furrowed.
"How can there be nothing there?" Rory exclaimed, reaching around him to try to hit the playback button on the camera he was holding in his hands. "We took hours of footage today."
"I know we did, but there's nothing here," he repeated, starting to fiddle with the buttons.
"Did you hit that button when you started filming this morning?" she asked, pointing.
"Which one?" he asked over his shoulder.
"This one," she specified as she pointed at one particular button.
"I thought so," he replied. "Isn't that record?"
"Yes, that's record. You have to press it if you want the footage you shoot to actually be recorded," she confirmed, exasperation creeping into her voice. "Was the red light on?"
"Yes, it's right here," he pointed to the record light on the camera he was holding. He continued to fiddle with the camera, turning it over in his hands, then exclaimed, "Oh my God!" slapping his hand on his thigh.
"What?"
"I know I hit that button," he said, pointing at a specific button on the side control panel of the camera, "as we were loading everything back in the jeep this afternoon," he admitted, his frown deepening.
"The erase button?" she gasped.
"Yes, the erase button," he confirmed with a guilty look.
"But it's not easy to hit the erase button - you have to flip up the little plate to get to it," she elaborated, pushing off his shoulders, beginning to pace.
"I know it's not," he said, shaking his head. "As I was putting everything back in the jeep, I almost dropped it all, and while I was trying to keep your bag from dropping, I ended up juggling the camera. The little plate popped open, and I hit the button as I was catching it before it hit the dirt."
"Oh God," she frowned with him. "That means that everything we took today is gone."
"Yeah, I know," he shook his head.
"Today was supposed to be our launch," she pointed out.
"I know," he nodded, scrubbing his fingers through his hair.
"We're not going to have anything to put on the site today then," she further elaborated.
"I know," he again confirmed.
"Are you going to say anything other than 'I know?'" she barked back.
"Sorry, I seem to have lost my conversational skills along with the footage," he answered sheepishly.
"Logan!" she cried.
"Rory, I don't know what you want me to say," he answered, drumming his fingers on the table. "I screwed up. We were supposed to launch today and I erased all the footage we got. We knew there would be problems. Maybe not to this extent, but we knew there would be problems."
"Problems, yes," she agreed, her voice starting to rise. "We expected problems, but losing everything we took on our first day is a little more than a problem."
"No, it's a problem, it's just a rather large problem," he pointed out.
"Okay, so it's a big problem," she replied, ripping the rubber band out of her hair. "But we can't launch today, and we lost a lot of really fantastic footage. And all the interviews as well."
"Yes to all of the above," he agreed.
"Logan, how can you be so calm?" she squeaked. "You're like the Dalai Lama here."
"We're here for seven weeks. No, the first day didn't go well, but we can redo everything tomorrow," he reasoned, getting up to move to the rattan sofa in the living room and pulling her with him. "I know we got great stuff. But we both saw today that there's a lot of material out there for us to get. So instead of turning our first day and first big mishap into a replay of Abbott and Costello's Who's On First translated into who erased the footage," he continued, pulling her down next to him, and gathering her in his arms, "I suggest we chalk this up to a learning experience, try to find something to eat, and maybe turn in early for the night," he finished, kissing her hair, trying to get her tense body to relax.
"And actually I think I want to go speak to the guy we rented the jeep from," he said after a few minutes. "It would be cheaper if we just bought it instead of renting it for seven weeks."
"But then we'll have a vehicle to get rid of," she replied, confused at the direction he had taken the conversation.
"Yeah, but he'll probably buy it back for a few hundred dollars less than we paid for it, so we'll come out ahead in the end."
"Oh, ok, well that makes sense," she agreed. "I just can't believe we lost everything."
"I fucked up, Ace, I'm sorry."
"It's ok," she finally smiled, dropping her head against his shoulder and threading her fingers through his. "I just think we got some really good stuff."
"I think we did too, but those gravesites tell me there are a lot of stories out there for us to get." He relaxed into her letting his head drop to rest against hers. "Losing today's footage isn't the end; we'll get something good tomorrow. There are, unfortunately a lot of stories to tell."
"It's so sad, what they're doing," she mumbled. "I just want to take those little girls and give them a home."
"We can't take any children home with us," he discouraged, stroking her hair. "Not now."
"I know," she agreed sadly. "But maybe one day?" she added hopefully.
"Really?"
"You said one night when we were on the phone that you want two or three children, that having Honor as a sibling was what taught you about love. What if we have a couple and then if we still want more, we can adopt, like from here?" she suggested.
"That's not a bad idea," he agreed, smiling. "We can't solve every problem and really that's not our job. But we can do our part. And maybe we can find an orphanage or something where we can donate some money," he prompted.
"Do you think we could?" she asked eagerly.
"Yeah I would think so. But not till we know a lot more."
"I would like that," she agreed. "I would like it a lot."
"Well, then, we'll look into it and see what we can find before we leave," he smiled and kissed the top of her head. "And I think we have a lot of stuff that we will be able to use once we go through all the still photos we took. Some good stuff."
"Yeah, you're probably right," she smiled for the first time since they had come back and discovered the problem. "Come on, let's go get something to eat and then come back and see what we've got."
"We're going to need at least one external hard-drive, probably two," Logan said, coming back into the kitchen five days after they had finally launched the site. "We probably should have gotten them before we ever left, really."
"You think?" Rory asked.
"Yeah, I do," he confirmed, sitting down next to her at the table. "We're quickly eating up all our storage space, and my laptop's already starting to get sluggish."
"So's mine," she agreed.
"Well, then, I think our best bet is to get two externals for storage to start, and then if we need more then we can buy another one or two," he continued. "We should do it while we're here. India is tech central; somehow I doubt Tanzania is."
"How large do you think we should get?" she asked, pulling up a website to look at what was available.
"What's the largest we can get?" he asked, then thought about it a minute and reworded. "What's the largest we can get as quickly as possible, is probably better."
"Umm, hold on, let me look," she said, typing something into her laptop. "It looks like CompUSA has ones as large as five-hundred gigs, for around three to four hundred dollars, US. That's the largest they have on their website, so I'm going to assume that's the largest we'll be able to find here, too."
"Why don't we go by that electronics shop we pass on our way in and out of town every day, and see what they have on hand," he returned, looking over her shoulder. "If they have something that big, or if they can order them and get them as quickly as a website, we'll get them there. That way, if we have a problem we can take them back. If not, we'll order them tomorrow night."
"Okay," she agreed.
"Mom and Luke have a date this weekend," she called over her shoulder to Logan, who was fixing their dinner.
"What?" he called from the kitchen.
"Mom has a date with Luke this weekend," she repeated, coming up from behind to wrap her arms around his waist and rest her chin on his shoulder.
"Hey, that's great," he smiled, turning to give her a light kiss on the lips.
"Yeah, it's pretty fantastic," she agreed, with a grin. "Only one year and almost two months after the big blow-up, they're going out on a date again."
"Look at you," he laughed.
"What?"
"You're just beaming," he said, turning to give her a kiss on the nose. "All because Lorelai is going on a date with Luke."
"Well, I think if he asked her out again then things really must have gotten better," she smiled.
"True. Why don't you call her on Saturday or Sunday, whichever day the date is," he suggested. "You know, help her get ready, decide what to wear, tell her to not do anything we wouldn't do on a first date!" he laughed, pushing her back with his butt so he could look in the oven. "Then maybe call her the next day to see how it went. All that girly dish I try to ignore - what you and Honor engage in when we're together. I'm sure she'll be dying to tell you, anyway."
"You think?" she looked unsure.
"Yeah, I'm sure," he affirmed, popping the oven door shut. "Why not? It's been six weeks since you talked to Lorelai - you should call her, anyway. Except for the time that shouldn't be mentioned, this is the longest you've ever gone without talking to her. Email is wonderful, but I promise it's not the same as hearing someone's voice. Even that's not as good as being there - there are certain things that can only be done in person," he said, leaning back to give her a kiss on her lips.
"I don't think my mom has any need for the things you like the in-person Rory for," she teased.
"Quite true," he agreed, turning around to gather her in his arms and demonstrate what he liked an in-person Rory for, giving her a deep kiss. "But talking on the phone is the next best thing to being there," he said softly, pulling back, touching his forehead to hers. "My father can definitely attest to that, seeing as how he pointed out the enormous size of my cell bills more than once last year."
"I think he owed us that much for making you stay in London the entire year," she replied.
"Yes, I agree," he chuckled. "But that argument didn't really register with him."
"When is dinner going to be ready? I've got everything uploaded and want to eat before doing the full site update."
"Five minutes," he replied after pulling the lid off the pot on the stove and tasting what was inside. "More salt."
"Good, I'm famished," she replied, heading back to her laptop to reply to Lorelai's email.
"What are you doing?" Rory asked, walking back into the laundromat where Logan was loading clothes into a washer.
"I'm putting clothes in the washing machine," he replied, looking up from what he was doing.
"You're putting all the clothes into one machine," she told him moving around the rows of machines to where he was standing.
"Doesn't everything need to be washed?" he asked, his brow wrinkled, obviously perplexed.
"Well yes," she returned, "but not separating out the light and dark colors from the whites is what makes you get pink socks or blue underwear."
"I've never had pink socks," he replied, stopping what he was doing. "Or blue underwear."
"You've really never done laundry?" she asked with her head cocked.
"No," he answered with a laugh. "I told you that when I was trying to get you to let me hire someone to do it for us. It barely costs more than what we're doing here."
She chose to ignore the last part, "What would you do when you were sailing around the world?"
"What I suggested - I hired someone to do it," he answered. "I get clean clothes that don't come out different colors than they started, and I help out the local economy wherever it is I happen to be."
"But we're supposed to be being self sufficient," she reasoned, starting to properly separate their clothes.
"Well, yes," he agreed, and then digressed. "But I'll bet that hiring someone to clean our house and do our laundry wouldn't be very much more expensive than us having to buy all the stuff and pay to use these machines."
"Yes, but we're supposed to be able to fend for ourselves," she reiterated. "Isn't that part of what we're trying to prove here? That we don't have to depend on anyone else?"
"But being self sufficient doesn't necessarily mean doing everything yourself. It means doing the stuff that makes the most sense yourself, and delegating to someone else that which is most efficient and cost effective to not do yourself," he reasoned, while leaning against the machine, watching what she was doing, joining in to help after a few minutes. "Everything related to the story and the site, we should do ourselves. It even makes sense for shopping; even the cooking, since both of us enjoy that. There's nothing wrong with doing that stuff ourselves. But we're wasting the little time off we're allowing ourselves by doing all the cleaning and laundry ourselves.
"We could be seeing some local sites, or we're about ninety kilometers from a beach, or we could be spending the day in bed," he suggested, hooking a finger into the waistband of her jean skirt, pulling her toward him, burying his face in her neck. "Which, frankly, sounds pretty damn good right about now. We haven't had sex in three days - we've been so exhausted at night, and we're supposed to be newlyweds," he reminded her with an arched brow, running his hands up and down her sides and letting his thumbs brush over her nipples for emphasis. "All while still having a clean house and clean clothes, for I guarantee not much more than we're spending to do it on our own."
"Well, fine, we'll do it your way next time," she sighed, unable to argue with his logic, even though she wanted to. "But today you need to finish help me divide the whites from the light and dark colors so you don't end up with pink underwear."
"I thought the underwear turned blue and the socks turned pink?"
"Why are you arguing with me?" she asked mischievously. "The faster we finish the faster we can spend the rest of the day in bed!"
"Now that's logic I can't argue with," he laughed, turning to help finish separating their clothes.
"Is there any good news in the world?" Rory asked while they were driving home for the day. "We've been here for a month, and I swear it's just one cesspit of misery after another."
"What do you mean?"
"If my mom had gotten pregnant with me out of wedlock in this part of the world, the likelihood that she would have gotten killed by her family is quite high," she began. "The likelihood that I would have been aborted is even higher. If I had actually been born, then I probably would have been thrown out or something like that because I would have been seen as a burden to my family."
"Okay, so today was depressing enough," he interrupted her listing of all the ways she might not have existed, reaching over to rub her neck. "And now I get to contemplate the prospect of a world without you in it to rescue me from my life of debauched depravity."
"Isn't that a bit redundant?"
"Probably," he agreed. "But I think you get my point. For me, thinking about a world where Rory Gilmore never existed is not exactly something I really want to imagine."
"That's probably the sweetest thing you've ever said to me," she smiled over at him.
"Well the best compliments are those that are grounded in truth," he replied, returning her smile with a squeeze of her neck. "And that happens to be the truth."
"Thank you," she returned. "I didn't try to save you though."
"I know. And I wasn't looking to be saved," he agreed, popping his foot off the clutch. "But sometimes life happens to you. When the opportunity presents itself you walk through the door."
"Yeah, I know. I have to say this has made me appreciate the fact that even though my mom wasn't rich, she always loved me, she always put a roof over my head, and never didn't want me," Rory said, looking out the window at the passing city. "I can't imagine having grown up in a society where a female child was just considered a burden on her family.
"There never was a time that my mom didn't encourage me to be whatever I wanted to be. She made peace with my grandparents and completely humbled herself to ask them for money because she knew I wouldn't get the education I needed and wanted, so I could get into the university I wanted to, if I went to Stars Hollow High," she continued. "And then, even though she had always wanted me to go to Harvard, when it became obvious that I ended up wanting to go to Yale, she totally backed my decision with enthusiasm. Even managed to know I wanted to choose Yale before I knew for sure.
"But to think that just because I was born with different genitals from, say, you, if I hadn't been born where I was I might have been left on a roadside for someone else to worry about."
"And if you had been born a hundred years before where you were, you would have had none of the opportunities you had," he reasoned, fingers drumming on the steering wheel as he waited for a light to change.
"Logan," she gasped, looking over to see if he was serious, or perhaps was being flippant.
"What? I'm not trying to trivialize what's going on here," he looked over, catching her eye for a moment, and then turning back to the road as traffic began to move again. "I'm not trying to sweep aside the fact that there are definitely parts of the world where I wouldn't want to have been born as a member of the fairer sex. But, that said, I think we have to take a step back here - that's what a good reporter does. While you have passion for the story you're telling, you also have to have perspective.
"And the reality is that women have made great strides since Cady Bee Stanton and Seneca Falls," he pointed out, downshifting and turning left. "Everywhere isn't perfect. But that's what we're doing here; we're trying to make people aware of the fact that things aren't good for one gender as opposed to the other. In some parts of the world you can still be executed for being gay."
"I know that," Rory interjected.
"In some parts of the world you can still be killed for being a member of the wrong religious sect," he persisted. "Including not that far from here in Kasmir."
"I know that too," she again confirmed tightly.
"All of us who were born and raised in the US or any western European nation, Australia, New Zealand, and quite a few in southeastern Asia, we've got it easy."
"I know that too, Logan," she agreed, starting to get annoyed.
"Well I just thought we could do with a little reminder, a different angle," he said, reaching over to stroke her cheek, while keeping his eyes on the road. "Because perspective is important. Passion is good, passion can drive you, but you have to remember that you're not the story. The story is about those people, even if we have complete sympathy for them. We're not them. We were never them. You weren't ever not going to be exactly who you wanted to be because you have a great mom who was going to do what it took for you to get where you wanted to go."
"I know, I know," she agreed softly.
"Good, remember that," he said, moving his hand to grab hers briefly before having to shift gears. "Have sympathy, empathy, and at times try to imagine what it would be like to walk in their shoes, but remember it's not your story. It's theirs."
"I'm done with the copy, are you finished with editing?" Rory asked, turning from where she was typing on her laptop.
"I'll probably be done in about ten minutes, then it's all yours," he answered, looking up from what he was doing.
"Well I'm going to let you do the voice work this time," she informed him.
"Why?" he questioned. "I'm doing the edit today, and then I'm going to crop and enhance the stills. It's your turn to do the vocal track."
At first, she looked at the floor, not wanting to answer, but knew she had to give him a reason to deviate from what had become their standard operating procedure. One of them would edit their footage and still pictures from the day, the other would prepare the copy which would become the vocal track to go over the footage and also be edited to add written content to the site each day in the form of a low-tech blog.
"I don't like the way my voice sounds. I think I sound like a little kid," she finally admitted sheepishly.
"You what?" he asked, with one brow raised
"I don't like my voice, the way it sounds. I think I sound like a child," she repeated.
"No you don't," he assured her, though he looked like he wanted to laugh. "You sound like yourself. I happen to love your voice."
"Well I don't; I think I sound like a little kid," she reiterated. "I'm afraid that I don't sound serious. And I don't think anyone that hears my voice will take what they're hearing seriously."
"And you think I sound serious?" he replied.
"Your voice is low enough that it sounds more serious than mine. You get gravitas points just from the timber of your voice. I've got a little kid or chipmunk thing going on," she returned.
"I happen to not agree," he said, shaking his head. "But if you're this self-conscious then we have to do something about it."
"What can I do?" she asked, skepticism heavy in her tone. "My voice is my voice."
"Well if you concentrate then I would think you could slightly lower the register of your voice," he said, thinking out loud. "Or maybe there are some vocal exercises you can do."
"I can try that," she agreed, uncertainty still evident in her voice. "But I'm not sure I feel comfortable trying that on a track that we're going to have to use tonight."
"Or maybe there's a mixing program we can download that would let us lower the register of your recorded voice," he continued. "Give me a sec, let me google both of them."
"I think I would feel more comfortable with a mixing program," she said eagerly. "Since I wouldn't have to concentrate on what my voice sounds like every second I'm recording the vocal track."
"Hold on, there are several programs available," he turned around while pointing at the screen. "But all of them are going to take some time for me to figure out. And the exercises will take some time and effort on your part, if you're serious about this."
"If you find something you think would work I'd be happy to read whatever the instructions are and figure out how to use it," she volunteered, coming to lean over his shoulder to read what was on his screen.
"Okay," he agreed. "But I do think it might be better if you really think this is a problem that it would be better if you tried to teach yourself to speak in a lower register for this particular purpose. Like a phone voice, you can practice doing these exercises while we're out during the day."
"You're probably right about that," she agreed. "And I could practice."
"Good, let me see what I can find here," he said, turning back to his screen. "But I want you to know I vote for the regular Rory voice. I think it sounds fine. I always take it seriously. Of course, if I didn't, I would probably be sleeping outside for a week!" he finished with a laugh
"Richard is meeting with my dad tomorrow to suggest going ahead and starting the process for us to buy a place," he said, coming to sit next to her on the porch of their house.
"Really?" she asked, leaning into him.
"Yeah," he returned, kissing the top of her head. "Let's keep our fingers crossed that he can convince Dad to go along with his plan. That way we'll have the money to look at a place when we get back, even if I'm disowned by then."
"You don't think that's going to happen, do you?" she asked, worry obvious in her voice.
"Honestly?" he asked, continuing when she nodded, "I'm not sure what's going to happen once he finds out, but it won't be pretty. I'm not worried that we won't be able to support ourselves, I think we'll be fine, but this is just going to be ugly."
"I know," she replied, running her hand up and down his back. "But at least if Grandpa gets your dad to agree to go ahead and pool the money, Mom has power of attorney for both of us, so she can go ahead and put the money in our names."
"True," he agreed, "she might even be able to look for a place for us. She does like to shop."
"I don't want to leave," Rory said, beginning to pack. "I don't want to just abandon these people when nothing has really changed."
"We knew going in that things wouldn't change right away. But we're bringing awareness to people that maybe never knew that this was a problem," he returned over his shoulder while he also packed. "We can always come back - there's nothing that says we can't. And maybe we can get Emily or my mother to do a charity event that can benefit one of the orphanages we visited."
"Do you really think your mother would help us?" she asked. "I'm not even sure my grandmother would. This isn't exactly a museum or the ballet. There's nothing glamorous about what's going on here."
"I don't know, and you won't either unless we ask," he replied. "I know it's not glamorous, but I bet if we ask Emily would put on an event for us. She's sent us several encouraging emails while we've been here."
"That's true," she agreed. "Actually, it's been really nice to see how encouraging both she and Grandpa have been since Mom told them what we're doing."
"Yeah it has," he replied. "I keep wondering what Dad thinks. We haven't heard a word from him, and Richard said that he saw him at the club the other day and had a pleasant conversation with him. And he didn't say anything when they met for lunch to discuss the money for us. He doesn't think he knows anything yet. Or else, Dad thinks Richard doesn't know anything either."
"I know, I would think he would know by now. You're worried, aren't you?" she asked.
"Of course I'm worried," he confirmed. "We'd have to be stupid to not be worried. He's one of the most powerful men in the publishing world. If he decides to make things difficult for us, he can make things close to impossible."
"Do you think he might?" she asked as she sat next to him on the bed.
"I really don't know," he said, shaking his head. "But he could probably prevent anyone from advertising on the site, outside of google ads and blogads. And to at least break even and cover our expenses - which really is our goal right now, so we can quit relying on my trust fund - we need real advertisers. That's without even really thinking about the possibility of actually turning a profit."
"Well, we have the money from my dad that he invested," she pointed out. "And Grandpa volunteered to do the same, so we're not totally dependent on your trust fund."
"I know," he agreed. "But investors should have return on their money, whether they're related to you or not. Maybe especially if they're related to you - that way they know you're not just taking advantage of them.
"But hopefully we can come back," he changed the subject back to what she had been talking about. "No reporter really sees a story through to its conclusion or till it's solved, because most problems that are worth reporting on don't have a simple solution."
"I know," she said as she let her head fall to rest on his shoulder. "It just feels like nothing's changed."
"Nothing much has," he replied. "But hopefully more people know about is happening here. That is progress. We can't make all the problems of the world go away just by being here. But we're doing what we can and maybe someone that has visited the site will be inspired to do more. If we're really lucky several people will have been inspired to do more. That's all we can ask or hope for."
TBC
Endnote: Herein we begin the real meat of this story, the real reason I wrote it. The wedding and everything else were fun, but this is really my vision of who they could be, their life together. My absolute favorite episode of s6 is Friday Night's All Right For Fighting, when Rory & Logan save the paper. That ep illustrates so much about who they could be as a couple, as a team, and in many ways directly inspired this story. They have such complimentary talents, which I think were greater than the sum of their parts if paired.
I'd also like to point out that cloud servers were not a reality when this was written, so backup of footage on one was impossible, hence the external drives.