A/N: Well, here I am, back from vacation and ready to post again! I tried something new for this chapter—Logan's perspective. It was pretty difficult for me, since I'm a girl and have trouble with the masculine voice. I tried to capture how Logan must be feeling; to me he's always been a pretty active guy and this is a situation where he can't really do anything to help. Let me know how I did—if it works I may do a chapter where Logan deals with Michum, I haven't decided.
Also, one more thing and then I'll let you get to the chapter. I am working un-beta-ed here, so any mistakes are my own. I try to look over it before I post, but there's no telling what I'll miss. Maybe one day I'll go back over all of it with a fine toothed comb and repost mistake-free, but I'd imagine all of you would rather I churn out new chapters rather than repost old ones, so I think I'll go with that plan for now.
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Logan's POV
"So, Gigi—what do you like to do for fun?" I'm standing with my girlfriend's little sister outside of a furniture store on 5th Avenue in New York. Never in a million years did I think I would ever be put in a position of responsibility for a child—much less one that I am not actually related to.
But things change.
I have learned over the years that I am a doer, a fixer. If something's wrong, I tend to act. Sometimes I act badly, but still I act. Rarely, if ever, do I sit and be patient. Which is why this is killing me.
My girlfriend's father died, and I can't do anything to fix it. I tried to get her to talk a little, maybe relive some of the good memories, but then I found out that the good memories are few and far between. I felt like such an ass for even bringing it up, even though she tried to tell me that I had helped. She's hurting and it's killing me, but I can't do anything to fix it.
I can, however, deal with Gigi.
Rory's taking her last exam in New Haven, so I am taking Gigi furniture shopping for our new apartment. It turns out that the condo Christopher was living in was easier to sell furnished, and so most of the furniture stayed there. Which leaves little Gigi without a child-sized bed to call her own.
So here we are, me ushering a five year old I didn't even know existed a month ago into a furniture store in New York and hoping that I can get her to decide on a suitable bed for a five year old before we have to meet Ace for a late lunch. I want to get this done for her—she's got a list a mile long of things we have to do before we move in and even one or two things off of it will help her relax a little.
"I like to color. Do you like to color?" Gigi's response startles me a little until I remember that I asked her a question first.
"I don't know. I haven't really tried it in a long time. I used to like to color." I'm glancing around for a sales person and answering her question absent-mindedly when it occurs to me that she might have a point with the child-like activities.
Because God only knows how long it's been since I sat down and just enjoyed myself with a box of crayons and some paper. I bet Ace would like it too, if I could get her to try it. Maybe we could try that this afternoon? Taking a break from all the heavy grown-up stuff she's been dealing with over the past week and remember why she's doing this.
That reason is currently hopping in a circle around my as a harried looking sales person scurries over with a blatantly ass kissing smile on his face.
"Hello, sir. How can I help you today?" It's like he can smell the black card on me. Before I met Ace it never used to bother me that sales people treated me like this, but now with her voice in my head mocking the sycophants within an inch of their lives, I find this kind of behavior a little creepy.
"Yes, well, I need to find a bed for Gigi here. We're moving and can't take her old one with us."
"Pink!" Gigi's prompt garnered an indulgent smile from the sales rep.
"We have several beds available in pink, but if you get a more neutral color as a base the bed might stick around a while longer as she gets older." His comments are directed to me in a competent voice designed to let me know he can accommodate nearly everything I want.
"Hey, Gigi—remember what we talked about? How we're gonna get a white bed and lots of pink sheets?" She pauses in the hopping around and looks at my face. I guess she decides I can't be played right now and nods. She grabs my hand and settles down, apparently reminded of the other part of that conversation—the part where I reminded her that sometimes little girls like her have more energy than grown-ups are used to, and if she wanted to come with me to do things like this then she had to tone it down a little.
"K, Logan." Her simple response and near immediate settling down has the sales rep blinking in surprise, and me inwardly sighing. This is the first time she's really acted like the hyper-active five-year old I know she's supposed to be, and while I'm glad she's settled down in the store, I beginning to wonder if I did more harm than good there.
We decide on a bed relatively quickly, with the sales rep doing his best to give Gigi what she wanted within the parameters of the apartment I gave him. She finally settles on an iron bed that brings to mind a classical heroine—it's the exact kind of bed I'd image Ace to have picked out. I suppose they're more alike than Rory realizes.
As I'm settling up at the register, Gigi tugs on my hand again.
"Logan, I have to go to the bathroom." I glance at the lady checking me out and she smiles indulgently.
"I'll take you to the ladies' room, sweetie." I nod to her gratefully and Gigi looks suspicious.
"Can't you take me?" She's got a death grip on my hand and I take that to be a sign that there's more to it here than meets the eye. I give the lady at the register a look and bend down to Gigi's level.
"What's wrong, Gig?"
"I just want you to take me."
"Can you wait until I finish checking out?" Her look of relief is all it takes for me to decide I've made the right decision here. She nods and I stand back up and finish paying for the bed and dresser set. As I take the last receipt from the lady at the register, I glance down at Gigi, who looks uncomfortable, but composed. I grab her hand again and ask the lady to point me to the restroom. She nods towards the back and I take off with Gigi at a brisk pace.
She leaves me outside the door with a wary glance. "You'll be here when I get out, right?"
"That's right." She looked vaguely reassured as she entered the bathroom and gave me a few minutes to think for myself.
I don't have the slightest clue what I'm doing here. I don't know how to parent anyone, and I certainly don't know how to be a pseudo-parent-like authority figure without stepping on the memory of her father. She's clingy, but I don't know how much is normal at this stage and how much I should be trying to discourage. I don't have the vaguest idea what I should be encouraging.
And to top it off, I'm in foreign territory with a hurting Rory as well. She's in pain and I don't know how to help. Lorelei came over a few days ago, and took Rory and Gigi both out to lunch while I went into the office for a few hours. Gigi came back looking a little better, but Rory looked more depressed than ever. I'm at a loss and I'm running out of plans here.
Gigi comes out of the bathroom in a hurry looking worried. When she sees me she scampers over and hugs me around my waist.
"I thought you left."
"Why would you think that?" My question is one born out of curiosity, but maybe her answer will clue me in on why she's so reluctant to leave me or Rory.
"I just did. But you're still here."
"I am. What do you say we go meet your sister?" I suppose no answers are going to be forthcoming today, but at least she's relatively happy again, rather than the oddly quiet mini-adult she was a little earlier.
We head out of the store and I stop to pick her up. Balancing her on my hip is an oddly parental thing to do, but she's not heavy and she seems to relax when she's being carried far more than when she's walking. I decide to just go with it—plenty of time for questions later.
The restaurant is only a few blocks away and as we approach the glass windows I see Rory sitting at a table near the middle of the restaurant. I mentally sigh when I see that she looks even more tired than she did when she left the apartment this morning.
Gigi slides out of my grip and scampers over to the table, eager to give Rory the whole story of furniture shopping. I head over at a more sedate pace, and watch as Rory perks up for Gigi. There's still a dullness to her, but it's hidden better in her sister's presence.
I don't really participate in the conversation as we have lunch—instead I watch Ace and Gigi interact. They're slowly getting used to each other. I get the distinct impression that Gigi only really knew Rory in a very limited fashion—maybe as the occasional babysitter—and that Ace thought of Gigi more in the abstract than anything else. Like she recognized academically that she had a sister, but the reality of the situation—that she now had a small person who wanted to look to her for sister-type activities—had never really hit her. After all, it's not like she ever lived with Gigi. She and her dad were clearly not very close to begin with, and Gigi seemed to only widen that gap—it makes sense that she would distance herself from Gigi and her dad after she was born.
And since I'm only talking in my head, I'm gonna be honest: as much as I love her, Ace has never been all that great at confrontation. She runs from her problems and complicated issues—and yes, she had plenty—rather than facing them and having a chance to resolve some of them.
I'm just as bad—it's not like my constant partying through my college years wasn't just an avoidance tactic to deal with my impending descent into the corporate hell waiting for me after graduation. It's funny, because as much as Rory does the exact same thing with her own problems, she's the one to get me to pull my head out of the sand and realize that maybe the life I've got going isn't so bad. She promised me she'd be there to slap me when I get too close to turning into my father. Just that reassurance alone made it a hundred times easier to do.
She laughs at something Gigi says and I'm reminded that the whole being-a-family thing is happening a little sooner than either of us really expected. I should be terrified out of my mind, and I am, a little bit, but I'm also ok with the idea. It's kind of nice, even, to think of how this is going to work with all three of us together.