AN: Okay, I'm switching it up a bit. I know this is supposed to be a Logan POV chapter… but given how I left the last chapter, I thought I'd leave it with Rory for a bit longer.

Last time on Dyslexic Heart: "Well, well, well, what a cozy scene we have here. This isn't what I expected to find at all!"

"Mom!" Rory said quickly, as she shut her laptop and slid out of bed. "It's not what you think!"

"Hey Lorelai," Jess added cooly.

"Is this why you left Logan?" Lorelai asked.

"No!" Rory yelled.

"I'm gonna head downstairs and find Luke," Jess said to Rory as he slid off the bed. He made a dash for the door trying, and failing, to avoid getting death glares from Lorelai.

Lorelai stood with her hands on her hips, staring at Rory as she came towards her. "What's going on Rory?"

"I-" Her mother cut her off before she could start.

"First I find out from Logan that you've left him. From Logan! Not from you! Then I find out that you're staying with Paris. And then, when you do finally come home, you stay here, with Jess, instead of coming home. Jess? Rory, really? You're gonna travel that road again?"

"NO!" Rory screamed. Her mother looked startled by her scream. "I'm not with Jess again! He showed up here this morning, about an hour before you did! I thought he was you when I heard the door open. There's nothing going on other than that!"

"You looked pretty comfy together," Lorelai said dubiously.

"Yes, because everything is always exactly how it seems," Rory shot back sarcastically.

"Look Kid," Lorelai started, "I know-"

"Just because you always go running back to Dad when your relationships get a bit sticky doesn't mean I'm the same way!"

Lorelai looked as though Rory had slapped her. "Rory, you don't know what you're talking about."

She snorted. "Yeah, I think I do. 'I'm gonna marry Max, no wait, I want Christopher. I'm gonna marry Luke, no wait, I want Christopher. I'm gonna marry Christopher…'"

"Rory!" Lorelai snapped. Rory stopped talking and stared at her mother. "I don't know what's gotten into you, but whatever it is, it doesn't give you the right to talk to me like that."

"Oh yeah, that's right. You get to be all judgmental about my life, but I can't say a word about yours." Rory raked her hands through her hair, pulling it away from her face.

"Seriously, I don't know what's going on with you, but I'm not going to put up with your mood for much longer." Lorelai stared her down, and began to impatiently tap her foot, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement.

"I'm sorry Mom. I'm having a rough time right now," Rory said apologetically.

Lorelai gingerly put her arm around her daughter's shoulder and led her to the couch. "Wanna tell me about it?"

Rory nodded. "First, nothing happened with Jess. He was helping me do some research."

"Okay," Lorelai replied hesitantly.

"Whether you believe it or not, it's the truth."

"I believe you."

"Good."

"So, what's going on? Why did you leave Logan?" Lorelai asked gently.

Rory was grateful that for once, the blame wasn't immediately cast onto Logan. She stared down at her hands, for a moment, letting her gaze linger on her wedding ring. "He wants to have kids."

"I thought you did too," Lorelai said, confused.

"I do."

"Then what's the problem?"

"I," Rory started, but broke down in tears again. "Ugh. I'm sorry. I can't seem to hold myself together right now."

"Rory, honey, what's wrong?" her mother asked, completely filled with concern, the argument from only moments before completely forgotten.

"I can't have kids," she whispered.

"Oh Baby," Lorelai exhaled as she pulled her eldest daughter into her arms and began crying right along with her.

The two of them sat on the couch, hugging, rocking, and crying, until Rory seemed to run out of tears.

Lorelai finally spoke as she wiped away her own tears. "Honey, I get why you're upset about this, but why are you leaving Logan? Did he say something to make you think…" she trailed off not knowing how to finish the sentence.

Rory shook her head. "Logan doesn't know."

"Rory!"

"He wants to have kids Mom. That's why he divorced his first wife. It's only a matter of time before he divorces me too. I'm hoping it'll be easier if I give him permission and get a head start on moving on."

"Aren't there other ways you could have kids? Adoption? A surrogate?"

She shook her head sadly. "The Huntzbergers would never accept an adopted child as the heir to the empire. And I couldn't stand to see another woman pregnant with my husband's child," Rory admitted.

"A surrogate isn't a polite way to say your husband knocked someone else up you know."

"I know," Rory replied with a small chuckle. "Even if it's half my DNA I still don't think I'd be okay with it."

"And you're sure you can't get pregnant?" Lorelai asked.

"That's what the doctor said."

"What did the other doctors say?"

Rory shrugged in response.

Lorelai's head shot up in surprise. "Kid, you haven't seen a dozen other doctors to confirm what the first one said?"

"Well, no," she mumbled.

"We're going to change that." Lorelai stood up and started pacing. "Did Paris give you some referrals?"

"Probably."

"Look, I know I'm not the best parental example. As you so eagerly pointed out earlier, I have a tendency to run away from my problems and just hope they go away on their own, but I don't want you to be that way." Lorelai's hands flailed as she spoke.

"I am sorry about what I said earlier," Rory said as she stared down at her hands, picking at her thumbnail. "You're right. I shouldn't speak to you like that. I know the decisions you've made weren't easy ones. I'm not you, I shouldn't judge."

"You know, I still think of you as my little girl. I still see you at Ella's age, and I feel like it's my job as a parent to tell you when I think you're screwing up and I'm sorry. You're a grown up. I shouldn't judge you either. Now I'm not saying that I'll completely butt out and not give you advice, but I'll try harder to not sound judgmental when I do it." Her mother paused mid pace, right in front of her, and reached out to tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear.

Rory smiled at the gesture and leaned into her mother's hand. "Thanks Mom."

There was a knock at the door, followed by Luke sticking his head in. "Is everything all right up here? I heard shouting."

"We're fine Babe, but thanks for checking," Lorelai reassured him.

"Okay then." He turned to leave but Lorelai stopped him.

"Wait! Do you think we could get more coffee up here?"

Luke begrudgingly sighed. "I'll send Jess up with more. If he's allowed to come back upstairs that is."

Rory and Lorelai exchanged looks, a silent battle of wills. "It's fine," Lorelai conceded.

Luke pulled the door shut, and Lorelai returned her attention to her daughter. "Really? You want Jess up here?"

"He offers a different perspective," Rory told her with a noncommittal shrug.

"You know the only other perspective that really matters is Logan's right?"

"Of course I do!" Rory replied. "I just…"

Lorelai put a hand on her daughter's shoulder, "You don't have to have all the answers you know? That's part of being married. Working things out together."

The thought of working things out with Logan left Rory with mixed feelings. Part of her wanted to sit side by side with him and do the research, have him there to hold her hand at the doctor's appointments, and figure out a solution together. The other part of her was still afraid he'd stay out of obligation. "I don't want to be Logan's burden," she whispered.

Lorelai scoffed at her daughter's statement, and Rory jerked her head up in response to look at her mother. How dare she laugh? "You listen to me Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, you are nobody's burden!" her mother told her confidently.

"Yeah, until Logan feels like he has to stay with me," Rory said glumly.

"That's a load of crap," Jess said from the doorway. He came in with a tray full of coffee cups and a thermos full of refills. Rory and Lorelai both looked at him. "Look, you know that there's no love loss between me and Captain Douchebag," Rory glared at him, and Lorelai snickered at the moniker, earning her a glare from Rory as well, "but Rory honestly, Logan loves you. If you were stuck in bed and he had to spoon feed you tapioca for the rest of your life he'd be happy to do it."

"I hate tapioca."

"Fine, chocolate pudding then, but that's not my point. My point is that I don't think there'd be anything you could do to make Logan see you as a burden. Would you find him a burden if the situation was reversed?"

"Ohhhh, good question," Lorelai said, switching her focus from Jess to Rory, as if she were on a game show.

"If Logan were the one that couldn't have kids?" Rory clarified. Jess nodded, and Rory thought about it for a moment. "It's not the same. We'd adopt and everything would be just fine."

"How is that different?" Jess asked.

"Because then Logan's the one not creating Huntzberger heirs," Lorelai answered quietly. "This isn't really about Logan is it? It's about Mitchum and Shira."

"Oh God Rory! Say it ain't so!" Jess exclaimed. "You really care about what those pretentious assholes think?"

"I hadn't," Rory paused mid sentence, hanging her head with shame and resting it in her hands, "I didn't realize."

Lorelai came and sat down next to Rory again. "Oh Rory."

"Why do you care Rory?" Jess asked again. "What happened to the girl I knew who didn't give a crap about what the great Mitchum Huntzberger thought?"

Rory's shoulders heaved up and down as she cried. "She fell in love with someone who cares an awful lot about what Mitchum Huntzberger thinks."

Jess set the coffee down on the coffee table and sat down on the other side of Rory. "Well, there went the little respect I did have for Huntzberger. Hims cares abouts what his daddy finks! Isn't that precious?" Jess's attempt at baby talk made Lorelai laugh, but it did not have the same affect on Rory.

She shot him a look of pure hatred. "Jess, don't go there," she warned.

"Poor Logan, just wants his daddy's approval," Jess just kept at it.

Rory lost it. "Oh poor Jess. He barely knew his dad, who lived 2000 miles away and just didn't give a shit about him." Jess gave her a dirty look and Lorelai's jaw dropped at Rory's comment. "I bet Logan would trade with you in a heart beat. Instead of having a dad he could just forget about because he didn't know him, and he wasn't around, he had to grow up with a dad that no matter what he did, it wasn't good enough. Even when he was out on his own, he was still living with the Huntzberger stigma! Honestly, given the pressure, he turned out remarkably well."

"Yeah, poor Logan he had it sooooo rough," Jess spat. "He had his rich daddy to fund everything and bail him out when things got sticky."

"You have no idea how much that cost," Rory defended.

"Rory, I lived that life," her mother reminded her.

Rory whirled around to face Lorelai. "No offense Mom, but you didn't. Grandma and Grandpa may have been on your case about everything, and you may have hated it, but you can have absolutely no doubt that they loved you. You never had to earn that."

Lorelai opened her mouth to retort, then closed it again.

"So you're just afraid Logan will pick making his parents happy over you?" Jess asked.

"No! I know without a shadow of a doubt that Logan would pick me over his parents," she said confidently, knowing without ever discussing it with Logan, that it was the absolute truth. "But here's the kicker, I don't want him to have to make that choice!"

Lorelai put her hand on Rory's arm. "You know that it's not your job to protect Logan's relationship with his parents."

"I know Mom. I don't want to make it worse for him though." Tears streamed down her face. Her mother rubbed her back softly, as Jess's stony gaze was focused on the door. Rory reached out and put her hand on Jess's knee. She knew exactly how Jess felt about his dad, and she knew exactly how much her statement would wound him. "I'm sorry Jess," she whispered. "I didn't mean what I said."

Jess's hand covered her own. "I suppose I'll forgive you just this one time."

"Thanks," she said with a wan smile.

"But I get… three free shots on Huntzberger," he added, hoping to lighten her mood a tiny bit.

"As long as he's not around," Rory amended.

"Deal." He stuck out his hand to shake hers.

The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds to be heard were the sipping of coffee and the clatter of the diner below.

Finally Lorelai broke the silence. "Logan needs to know what's going on."

Rory sighed. "I know. I promised Paris I would talk to him by Thursday at the latest."

"Or?" Jess asked curiously.

Lorelai chuckled. "He didn't spend much time with Paris when you two were together did he?"

Rory shook her head solemnly. "She was busy with med school… and Boston is pretty far from Philly," she informed her mother, then turned her attentions to Jess. "If I don't do it, Paris'll do it for me. Then, she'll probably kick my ass for making her do it."

Jess smiled in response, and since Rory figured he was imagining some girl-on-girl action, she gave him a sharp jab to the ribs with her elbow. "Hey! A guy can dream!" he exclaimed, confirming her suspicions.

"So, are you going to stay here until Thursday?" Lorelai asked.

"Here the apartment or here Stars Hollow?" Rory asked in return, trying to clarify the situation.

"Both!"

"I'm planning to stay in the Hollow for a bit," Rory started.

"The Hollow?" Jess repeated, then snickered.

Before Rory could resume her answer, Lorelai's mobile rang. Lorelai picked it up, glanced at the caller ID then set it back down. "Is it Logan?" Rory asked nervously.

"No, it's the Inn. I'm sure Michel can't find his Post-It Notes or something. It can wait."

"Okay. Well if you don't mind… since I'm kind of a mess, I'd like to stay here at the apartment. At least for another night," she added, hedging her bets with her mother and the 'home' situation. "I really don't want Will and Ella-"

Lorelai cut her off, "Rory you don't need to make excuses. If you want to stay here, that's fine."

She could tell her mother was still a little hurt, but she was trying to be understanding. "Thanks."

"Lorelai!" Luke's voice boomed up the stairs in a loud yell as Lorelai's phone began to ring again. "Answer your fricken cell phone! If Michel calls me again to try to find you…" he trailed off.

"Sorry!" she yelled back. She flicked open her phone. "Daffy Dan's Porno Palace, how can I help you?"

Rory and Jess both started laughing at her greeting, obscuring any possibility of hearing what it was that Michel wanted on the other end of the phone. Lorelai put her finger to her lips and gave them pointed looks begging for silence.

She sighed before speaking again. "Of course it's me Michel. How many times have you called this number?" There was a small silence while Lorelai waited for an answer. "Okay fine. It's not funny. I'm sorry." This exchange caused Jess and Rory to laugh harder. "I'll be right there." She flipped her phone shut and stood up. "Duty calls. Are you going to be okay here with Jess?"

"I'm just going to go back to doing research," Rory told her.

"I'm going to try and get some work done," Jess gave Rory a playful glare. "But don't worry Lorelai, I'll keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn't do anything drastic and all."

Rory stuck her tongue out at Jess in response, and Lorelai laughed. "Come to the Inn for lunch if you need an escape."

"Okay," both Rory and Jess answered simultaneously, causing more laughing.

"I meant Rory," Lorelai clarified.

Jess feigned being shot through the heart, "Oh how you wound me! I thought we were past all this! After all, I am your nephew now."

"Shut up Jess," both women said in unison.

Lorelai hugged her daughter and smoothed her hair away from her face. "You call me if you need anything Sweets."

"Okay Mom."

"Be good Jess," Lorelai threw over her shoulder as she headed out the door.

Rory and Jess stood in silence until they heard her footsteps on the stairs. "Does she think I'm still a 17-year-old hoodlum?" Jess asked.

"Maybe," Rory admitted. "Or maybe you're still the cheater that broke her daughter's heart," she threw out.

He sighed deeply. "I'm not sure what you want me to do here Rory. I've apologized a million times. Do you want me to get 'I'm sorry' tattooed across my knuckles? You're not even married to me any more; isn't it time to let it go?"

She looked at Jess, taking the time to study him, which she hadn't done in years. He was slightly more muscular than when they were married. His hair was a little shorter, but just as dark and thick as ever. There was no chance that Jess Mariano would end up paunchy and balding. He still wore faded jeans and concert tees, but the bands were now more modern and the jeans were artfully ragged, not just ragged from years of wear. The only place he was showing any signs of aging was in his eyes. Rory finally shook her head, breaking her gaze. "Is there an aging portrait of you around here some where?" she asked.

"Yep. I kicked old Dorian out and took his place," he replied with a smile. "So are you ever going to forgive me?" he asked again, returning the subject to where it started.

"I forgave you years ago," she admitted. He let out a sigh of relief. "Like I said earlier, I know I didn't make things easy. I guess it's time I finally put the guilt trip to rest though."

Jess looked at her hesitantly. "Really?"

"Really."

He pulled her into a big hug. "I know I don't deserve it, but thanks."

"Everybody deserves forgiveness Jess. Even you," she added quietly.

After a moment or two of silence, Jess broke the hug and backed up. "So now that that's settled, can we get back to researching?"

Rory nodded. Jess went to grab his own laptop out of his messenger bag, and instead of returning to the bed, they took seats at the small table in the dining room.

For the next several hours, they worked in companionable silence, only breaking the silence to share links or ideas, and soon it was lunchtime.

"I'm going to head over to the Inn for lunch with my mom. Do you want to come?" Rory asked.

"Nah, it's okay. I'll just grab a burger down stairs, then get to work on my own stuff," Jess replied.

"Are you sure? Come on. You know you miss Sookie's cooking…" Rory tried to cajole him into joining her.

He sighed and looked up from his laptop. "You sure Lorelai won't mind?"

"I'm long past caring about whether my mother minds the company I keep. Besides, you'll be doing me a huge favor by helping to keep the conversation light. Goodness knows if you aren't there to make jokes I'll probably end up crying through lunch," she admitted sheepishly.

"Fine. But if it sucks, you're buying me a burger here to make up for it."

Rory snorted. "Like Luke would charge me for food. You're on."

Jess held open the passenger door of his car for Rory, then went around to the drivers side as she slid in to the seat.

"Nice ride Mariano. Quite an upgrade from your first car."

The new model BMW certainly was an upgrade. "Well I figured since I spend so much time on the road these days, I should at least do it in comfort and style. No need to worry about engine troubles or air conditioner malfunctions when you don't have to right?"

"That was certainly my argument behind a new car," Rory replied. "Remember our first trip back to Stars Hollow after we got married?"

"Ugh," Jess groaned. "Yes."

"I think I might still have scars on my leg from those heat blisters."

"You do not!" Jess laughed. "There were no blisters! Your leg was just red!" He pulled the car out of it's parking spot and headed toward the inn.

8 years ago

Rory and Jess were making their first pilgrimage from Philly to Stars Hollow, for Richard and Emily's Annual Vow Renewal Anniversary Party. While her grandparents had generously offered to send her a plane ticket, she wanted Jess to come too, and thought the road trip would be fun. Since Rory's car was in the shop due to a fender bender, and they didn't want to pay mileage on the rental car, Jess decided they'd take his old Dodge. The car didn't get out of the city much any more, and would probably enjoy a nice long freeway drive. Right?

It was the heart of summer, August. A hundred degrees in the shade. The car had no AC so they were already roasting on the drive when Jess noticed that the needle in the temperature gauge was climbing steadily higher.

"Uh, Rory…. The engine's heating up pretty fast," he said trying to remain calm.

"What do we do?" she asked, as he made his way to the right lane in case the car decided to stop all together.

"We have to try to cool the engine some how."

Rory thought about it for a moment, then it hit her, "I know!" Jess looked at her quizzically. "This used to happen to one of my mom's old cars. To cool the engine a little, you just have to run the heater."

"The heater?" Jess repeated. As the needle surged even further into the red zone he made his choice. "I hope you're right!" He cranked the heat all the way up, and turned the fans on full blast.

"Holy crap!" Rory moaned as she was hit with the wall of heat.

"It's working!" Jess shouted as the needle slowly began to drop. "How long do we have to keep this up?"

"I don't know. My mom usually made short trips, so it was the last few minutes of the drive. Then the car went back to normal after it was off for a while!"

Jess moaned. They were just outside of New York, still at least an hour away from Stars Hallow. So they ran the heat till the engine temperature dropped below the red zone, then turned it off to give themselves a break, turning it back on only when the needle threatened to bury itself permanently in the overheated area.

"That was probably the most miserable hour of my life!" Rory exclaimed.

"At least we made it," Jess shot back with a laugh. Rory smiled at the memory. "What?"

"I just remember thinking 'If I'd have said yes to Logan this would never have happened,'" she admitted.

"You're kidding me right?" Jess asked, suddenly serious.

"No. That thought actually crossed my mind."

Jess pulled the car off to the side of the road and turned in his seat to face Rory. "You seriously wished you'd said yes to Logan? Do you wish you'd never married me at all?"

"Way to go all melodramatic on me Jess. I didn't say I wished I'd said yes to Logan, and I never wished I'd never been married to you, even at the bitter end. Just at that one moment, I thought about how things could have been different. Don't tell me you never for a single second thought about how something would have been different if you hadn't married me."

"Never!" Jess responded vehemently.

"Ever?" Rory asked back.

"Okay fine. Maybe that day in the car I wished you'd have said yes to Logan so I wouldn't have been on my way to that stupid anniversary party in hundred degree weather," he said dryly.

"Jess!" she exclaimed. She stuck her tongue out at him and he rolled his eyes in return.

"So, honestly – no hard feelings, I promise," Jess qualified, "if you could go back and say yes to Logan the first time, would you?"

"Honestly?" she repeated.

"Honestly," he confirmed.

She sighed and looked down at her rings twirling them on her finger, stalling for a moment. "No."

"But you're happy together, right?"

Jess as a concerned friend, the concept melted her heart just a little bit. "We are. But I think if I'd have said yes all those years ago, we wouldn't have been. I wouldn't have gotten to be a foreign correspondent, and I would always doubt my talent, never knowing if I made it because of my writing, or because I was a Huntzberger. Logan probably would have been forced back to HPG sooner, and both of us would have ended up resenting each other. We probably would have ended up divorced, or worse, like his parents. You know, where he cheats, and she smokes, and in the end, they just try to put on a good show for the public. I would have hated that."

"And now?" he asked, honestly curious about her life.

Rory's eyes filled with tears as she thought about her life with Logan. "We both had the chance to grow up a little. Logan went back to HPG on his own terms, and I know I made as a newspaperwoman on my own merits. We both found out what we wanted and what we didn't. I got to be a foreign correspondent long enough to learn that it really wasn't what I wanted, and Logan learned that society marriage wasn't enough for him, and that he really does belong in the family business."

"Well I guess that makes sense."

Rory tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and bit the inside of her lip to keep from spilling the tears that were just waiting to fall. "But now… who knows."

Jess reached over and wiped the tears that were silently trailing down her cheeks. "Cheer up Gilmore. I know you. You're one of the most determined people I have ever met in my life. You will find and answer for this, and you and Captain Douchebag will live happily ever after."

"That's one!" she exclaimed, forcing her lips into a small smile.

"What? No way! That doesn't count as one. I always call Logan Captain Douchebag."

"It counts."

"Fine," Jess huffed, "but only because I know it's cheering you up on some small level."

"Thanks Jess. Now let's get to lunch."

Rory pulled down the visor on the passenger's side and fixed her makeup in the vanity mirror as Jess pulled back onto the road and continued the short journey to the Inn. Maybe Jess was right. Maybe it all would work out in the end. She smiled at the thought.

AN: I know, I know, it's been ages. I'm sorry.

The next chapter will find a return to Logan's point of view. Hopefully it won't be as long in the making.

Thanks for reading and reviewing. As usual I don't own anything. (And the line about Daffy Dan's came from a Susan Elizabeth Phillips book – I found it so funny that it's just stuck with me over the years.)

S