Hola everyone. So i'm still having a bit of writer block so I've not written very far ahead but I wanted to put something out for you guys out there still reading and enjoying. I appreciate all the responses and follows and favorites so much more than you know. I hope you enjoy this update!

Disclaimer: It all belongs to ASP and the WB though I call dibs on Odette's personality. lol

Chapter 13 - *What Have We Become

All those years
One day changes everything, and
Gone and your life and the passion fades away
Saving for something
That you'll never see in your days
Shutting out everything that you need

(Looking through distorted eyes)
Beautiful disaster
(Adding up a million lies)
So much for "ever after"
Building up your wall
Everything you wanted
Fit the pieces into holes we used to crowd away
Giving in or leaving this now
Now we have what we have become

It's been two months since Logan first found out about Rory and Richie. His whole life had changed that first moment that he held his son, and yet nothing has changed. He gets up, goes to work, does his job extremely well, comes home to Odette and visits his kid in the hospital. He feels like crap on a daily basis. Odette sits at home while's he's at the hospital with Rory and the baby. His life is the same but split.

Today he and Rory sit side my side as she feeds Richie. It's never seemed such a beautiful experience until he watches her do it. When she's done she hands him to Logan to burp. He's cooing softly in Logan's arms when he decides to broach a difficult topic. Mostly because he knows their eyes will be too busy on the baby to make eye contact.

"So…" He says but needs a minute.

"So?" she questions.

"Can I ask you about Odette." He says

"Ask me about Odette? Aren't you the one married to her?"

"Ask you about her meeting Richard." He states. He's unsure and continues slowly. "She's been staying out of the way, out of respect for you, but I know she would love to meet him."

"I see." Is all she can muster. The realization that her son would have a stepmother has surprised her. She doesn't know why she didn't think about this before. He's married, but it had been just her and him for the last couple of months, like old times, well not like old times, but her and him these past few months taking care of Richie.

He doesn't push and she runs her hand through her hair, "If I'm honest with you, Logan, I'm kind of terrified of meeting her, or her meeting him."

"Why?"

"I had an affair with her husband and had a baby with him, and I mean, on a total selfish level what if Richie likes her better then me too?"

"Too?" he questions.

"You did, what if he does too?" She is playing with her sons little tiny foot. Still so sure that she couldn't hold onto a guy like him.

He puts his hand under her chin and lifts her head up to make her make eye contact with him, "This was never a contest, Ace." He removes his hand and she lowers her head again. "Plus, you're mom. He's not going to love anyone as much as you. Look at you and Lorelei."

"Look at you and Shira.." she counters raising her eyebrows

"You are defiantly not my mom."

"It's ok."

"What is?"

"Odette. I have to learn to share him. He's your son, and she's your wife. She's going to be his parent too."

"Thank you, Ace." He says as he gently rubs a hand across her back.

"It takes a village right."

"Do you want to meet her, Ace?'

She thinks for a few minutes, "Yes."

"Ok, you let me know when you are ready and I will set it up. But please know there's no pressure here ok. When you are ready."

"We're here now, if she's available."

"Now?! You sure, Ace?"

"Yeah, no time like the present. He's fed and calm too."

"You sure?" He questions again. He doesn't want to force this on her.

"I am. Please call her."

Logan excuses himself to make the call and Rory watches him leave. Richie is now back in her arms and she physically aches from knowing that he will soon be held by Odette.

Never in her wildest dreams did she think her life would turn out like this. Sure the book wasn't exactly the hardcore journalism she'd dreamt of but it was still writing. The suits at her publishers were loving this book she was finishing. Book three was almost done. Writing was supposed to be therapeutic and yet she found herself feeling like crap. Taking the time to really sit back and relive the way she had treated Dean, how she'd invalidated all his insecurities when in fact they were all right on point, was heartbreaking.

Dean had been a great first love. He had loved her with the intensity every teenager wants to be love, if at time as an adult looking back it was overbearing, but he had always had his heart in the right place. He just wanted to make her happy. And in return she had fallen for her first bad boy. Hard. And in doing so had treated him horribly. She was so happy that he and Gen had found each other. They and their kids were doing so wonderfully.

What she didn't expect was the small amount of anger that had risen as she wrote about Jess. Yes, they had grown beyond it and were still friends but in retrospect he had treated her just as badly as she had treat Dean. Maybe it was Karma. He did everything to get her, but wanted to do nothing to keep her, and then he just kept leaving. For a girl who already felt abandoned by her father, Jess had sure reaffirmed the idea that people always leave. At lest for men.

Christopher, Max, Luke (even though he turned out to be the exception he had still walked away at one time), Jess, Dean, her grandfather.

For women, it was different. They supported each other, they argued and yelled and yet when it mattered they were still there. She couldn't even count the number of times she and Paris had fought but when it came down to it Paris always had her back, and Lane and her mom and her grandma were the same.

Her eyes wandered the hallway to find Logan, but he was nowhere in sight. Logan had been a different story. She had walked away from him. It had been probably the hardest thing she had ever done up to that point in her life, but knowing as she did that people always leave, she had to do it first. Finding out that he had slept with those other girls the one time he had thought they had broken up had devastated her, and then she almost lost him again after his dumb ass jump. She knew that if she married him; when he left she wouldn't make it. So she ran.

All the tears
We never thought we'd see the day when
The trappings of your life would seem to disappear
Goin through the vacancy you leave behind
Not what you have promised,
Not what you believed

(Looking through distorted eyes)
Beautiful disaster
(Adding up a million lies)
So much for "ever after"
Building up your wall
Everything you wanted

"Hey, Ace?"

Rory turned to find Logan in the doorway next to a tall leggy brunette. Odette she presumed.

"Hello." Rory said to the couple.

"Hello." Odette said. She smiled at Rory.

"Didn't we?" Rory asks.

"Yes, we did. I just wanted to sneak a quick peek at Richie and suddenly there you were. I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself. I'm not exactly sure of the etiquette in a situation like this."

"I'm not sure there is one. Maybe we can make it up as we go." Rory responds.

She stands and takes Odette's hand. "Is, it's nice to meet you, the right thing to say?"

Odette says, "I know it is for me. I've heard so much about you that it's wonderful to finally be able to meet you. Maybe not necessarily under these circumstances, but wonderful none the less."

Rory just nods back. She notices Logan who looks even more uncomfortable than the two women. Rory turn her side to Odette to give her a better view of the baby.

"I heard you'd like to meet Richie."

"Oh yes!" Odette smiles. She talks animatedly to the baby in Rory's arms. He smiles and coos.

"Would you like to hold him?" the new mother asks.

"Me?" Odette says surprised.

"Ace?" Logan steps closer, having stood back to let the two women converse.

"Yes, you are going to be a part of his life."

Odette looks to Logan to see if it's ok. She doesn't want to overstep. He nods and so she says yes.

Rory gently hands Richie to Odette who looks completely in her element holding him. Logan steps next to her to see his son as well. As the couple dote over the baby Rory takes a minute to step outside the room. She watches through the window as the couple smiles at her son.

"Hey Kiddo." Lorelei says as she walks up. "You ok?"

Rory wipes away the tears that have begun falling. "No."

"Want me to have Luke kick her ass?" she cracks.

Rory chuckles, "Yes." Then quickly adds, "No. It's just that picture right there, the two of them, that should have been Logan and me. But it's not, and now my son is going to love her too, and don't get me wrong mom, I'm glad he will be loved, but how can I actively hate someone that Richie loves. I can't. That's the answer. I want to badly to hate her."

Lorelei hugs her daughter then pulls back and says, "How about I hate her enough for the both us. OH and Lane, Lane will hate her too and you know Paris will hate her. In fact I'd be willing to say that even Zach and Luke will too. So you just go on ahead and be you, and we will do the hating. Ok?"

"Thanks mom. What are you doing here anyway."

"Duh visiting Richie. I can't let my mom be the only grandma he likes."

Odette hands the baby to Logan and walks towards Rory. Lorelei excuses herself from the women and goes into the room with Logan.

"I just wanted to say thank you Rory. I know this situation is all kinds of screwed up."

"I should be saying I'm sorry. At the very lest." Rory says.

"There's no reason to be. Logan and I had an understanding. You were never a secret, never the other woman."

"It still wasn't right."

"Well thank you then." Odette says.

Logan walks out, breaking the awkward silence between the two women he cares about, "I swear if Lorelei tries to sneak some coffee into his IV I might kill her." He laughs.

"I already warned her." Rory says to help lighten the mood.

"Your mom likes coffee like you do?" Odette asks.

It surprises Rory that Odette knows this about her, "I think I was born with Luke's coffee in my bottle."

"Like mother like daughter then. Mine wouldn't let me have caffeine for fear it would stunt my growth."

"NO coffee?! I'm so sorry your childhood was so hard."

"It wasn't, I just learned to sneak out to the Caffeine Scene, a local coffee place. Lots of breath mints before I got home. You would think I was sneaking drugs." The women laughed and Logan couldn't believe his ears.

"Maybe one day we can go grab a cup and get to know each other better?"

"I don't think so.." Logan says at the same time as Rory says, "Sounds good."

Both women turn to Logan who looks like a fly in a spider's web.

"Logan has my number. Please call me. If we are going to be family it would be nice to know you better." Rory says. "I'm going to go visit with my mom for a while, if you don't mind. You guys have a good evening."

She excuses herself and goes inside.

Once she's out of earshot, Odette says, "What the hell was that?"

Logan can't explain his current anger, or frustration so she says, "Nothing. Let's go." and walks away letting Odette trail slightly behind him.

Fit the pieces into holes we used to crowd away
Finding out the truth, when nothing really matters
Chase the light that's blinding even as you crowd away
Now we have what we have become
Now you fight to ease your pain
Now you know it's not the way out
Now you know it's not the way out
Not the way out

Logan knows that was a jackhole thing to do. He knows that he shouldn't have gotten angry with Odette for trying to be friends with his Ace, but the fact that he can't stop calling her "His Ace" is part of the problem.

These two worlds were never supposed to collide. The life he had wanted with Rory and the life he has with O were two separate things in his head. Yes, it had been he who had asked if O could meet Richie but part of him expected it to end in tears and blood shed, the fact that his Ace had handed off the baby to O and then agreed to coffee with her hit him in a part of his heart that he didn't know was still holding on to hope that maybe she did love him.

It was still hard, every day for him to see her, and then go home to Odette, his heart hurt. He and Rory still were very polite to each other. They were careful where they looked and how they spoke and yet two seconds in and she seemed perfectly ok with O and was laughing and agreeing to hang out.

His head was spinning. It wasn't O's fault and it wasn't Ace's fault, but it hurt that these two women that he cared about so much seemed fine in ways he was still learning to be.

His phone rang in his pocket. He answers without looking at the ID.

"Huntzberger."

"Logan, finally. Do you ever answer your phone anymore?"

It's Mitchem and Logan involuntarily flinches at the sound.

"I've been busy dad. Did you need something?"

"You mother just wanted to confirm if Odette was coming to this mandatory dinner you set up for us?"

Logan stops in his tracks. Shit! He forgot about dinner. He had wanted to make sure that little Richie was going to be ok before he dealt with the family drama. He would have told them either way, but he wanted to know something semi concrete before walking into he lions den. He had planned to talk to Ace about it first but clearly forgot.

"Mom's cooking?" was all he could get out.

"Don't be silly, your mother can't boil water. So Odette?"

He looks at O and mouths that it's his dad, and she instantly remembers the dinner and nods her head yes.

"Yes, she'll be there."

"Great, and Logan this better be important I've got an early meeting tomorrow."

"You have no idea dad. I'll see you then."

Building up your wall
Everything you wanted
Fit the pieces into holes we used to crowd away
Finding out the truth, when nothing really matters
Chase the light that's blinding even as you crowd away
Now we have what we have become

*Lyrics are What Have We Become by Daughtry