Disclaimer: I do not own the Gilmore Girls or any of its characters, nor do I have any connection or affiliation with the actors and actresses, producers, show-runners or the CW. Because let's face it – if I did, Gilmore Girls would still be on, Rory would've married Logan, and I wouldn't be writing this fanfic.

Rating: PG for now, for language.

Major Relationships: Rory & Logan, with Luke & Lorelai from time to time.

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay – I started back at school, so I had to get in the swing of things. Thanks for the support and wonderful reviews. I hope you continue to enjoy these installments. 

If I Never See You Again

By Heather Nicole

Chapter 7

Rory breathed a sigh of relief when her plane finally took off from O'Hare. Being stuck there for so long with so much on her mind and no place to go had been driving her crazy.

She still had a lot on her on her mind.

She had done nothing but think about this situation, about her life, about her future, constantly for the past three weeks. Logan proposing to her was stuck on loop on her head, like a painful song that just never ended. In her opinion, she'd done pretty well learning how to pretend that it wasn't bothering her (though Lane's interjection made her question otherwise).

And then, this job had come up. A job that in for all reasonable purposes was so logical and so expected, in the way that this was exactly the kind of job Rory deserved. This is what she had dreamed of since the first time she saw Christiane Amanpour broadcasting live and what she'd worked for since she made a piece about parking lot repaving seem like poetry. If anyone was due anything, Rory was due this job. But yet, she hadn't expected it. She'd expected to stay put for awhile. She'd expected to have a job that was at least some what stationary.

And then, just when she'd managed to find wrap her mind around both these things … or at least skillfully ignore what the one meant for the other … she'd been delivered this news. That maybe, probably, almost certainly, it was not too late.

Rory had all the facts – which is just how she preferred to approach a situation. (How could you make a pro-con list without a straight set of facts?) She'd worked her ass off at Yale and Chilton to be offered an amazing opportunity to see the country and watch what was bound to be a historic campaign from a seat that hundreds of people would die to have. And she'd been proposed to by the love of her life, a man who had jumpstarted her life and simultaneously excited her, challenged her, and occasionally infuriated her, for fear that this just wasn't the right time – and though she had turned him down, odds were very good that it wasn't too late to fix it.

But having these facts did not make her decision any easier.

She was in possession of two sets of facts in direct conflict with each other and no time to deliberate.

Rory couldn't help but remember the very few times in her life when she had made a split-second decision before without having more than a minute to think about the ramifications. When she'd decided to leave Yale in the middle of a final exam. When she'd decided to steal a yacht in a fit of anger with Logan. When she'd had to turn him down when he stood there in front of her, diamond in hand, audience in tow.

The odds were stacked against her, she felt. And here she was, having to make a very similar decision again – risky, scary – and no time. There was no place to hide, only a decision to be made.

And then, in her mind, she was affronted with the image of one time when she had to make a split second decision when the results were not awful. A beautiful fall afternoon in the fall of 2004, when she climbed to the top of a seven or eight story tower and, with nothing but an umbrella in one hand, and Logan's hand in another, she jumped – and landed on her feet. What was it he'd said to her that day?

"Isn't this the point of being young? It's your choice, Ace. People can live a hundred years without really living for a minute. You climb up here with me, it's one less minute you haven't lived."

If she had to pick a day when her life had really begun, there was no contest – it was that day. And it wasn't about being risky or defying death. It wasn't about being smashed all the time and sinking yachts off the coast of Fiji. It wasn't about crimes and misdemeanors (or felonies). It wasn't about ice cream beer floats or being a sloth. These things happened to be a part of her life … a life that, mistakes or not, she had loved. And what she loved about it was that these memories, good, bad and in between, were with him. All the bad paled in comparison and even became laughable, simply because he'd been a part of it. And she wouldn't lie – she'd often dreamt about the day when she'd have to tell her children that she and their father once stole a boat together. The way he lived life day to day and was able to laugh things off eased her, and balanced her lifestyle of careful planning. Coincidentally enough, he'd been the one to make the plans for him this time, and now, not for the first time, she was left having to be the one to make the impulsive decision, which was difficult to without him there to calm her nerves and talk her down. How strange it was, she'd thought to herself, that at one point in time the only person who knew how to calm her and get inside her head was her mother. And now, though she loved Lorelai and was grateful for her mother … it was him she needed, him she longed for. He set the rhythm and pace for her as much as her own heart.

A heart that was now beating out of her chest because she'd had to make a decision. She had to choose. San Francisco or Des Moines? Career or love? There had been no time for a pro-con list, only for a deep breath, and a very final leap – for whichever path she chose, she'd be ending something right then and there.

And now, just a few short hours later, she was in a cab and even closer to her final destination.

When the cab pulled up at the curb, Rory gave the driver the last few dollars she had, slid out from the backseat, and stood in awe at the sight before her.