Chapter title from 'Wonderwall' by Oasis – an oldie but lyrically this song is timeless.

Part 4

there are many things that I would like to say to you but I don't know how

Rory is 'this close' to asking Logan to be with her when Grandpa dies. To begging him to finish with Odette and come to her, to love her again. To telling him that he is everything she's ever wanted and that she has been an idiot to try and see him casually. To telling her mom, and Luke, and her grandmother that yes, she's been with Logan again for nearly a year and that she doesn't care what they think. She composes a break-up text to Paul but is called away before she can send it and when she goes back to her phone later, the draft message is gone and dozens of messages of condolence take up space in her consciousness instead.

She is 'this close' and then everything comes crashing down. The reality of the beloved man's death hits and Emily crumbles. She is a sobbing wreck on the floor and when Lorelai attempts to help her up, she yields to shock and grief also. Rory watches the two most important women in her life, and quite possibly the two strongest women that she has ever met fall to pieces; and rather than disintegrate herself, rather than submit to the anguish of loss; she finds an ability to insulate her pain that she didn't know she possessed.

Instead, she detaches from her own feelings and focuses purely on being there for Lorelai and Emily. Between herself and Luke, they support the two women emotionally and practically any way they can and before too long, the sombre errands associated with her grandfather's death begin to accumulate and give Rory something to concentrate on.

Eventually, later that night she takes a moment alone with a large glass of wine and calls Logan. He had called her 5 times since she had briefly messaged him with the news, left 3 voicemails and 7 texts. Rory listened to and read them all, allowing herself to cry at his caring, supportive, perfect sentiments, before she dialled his number.

"Hey." He answers on the first ring, despite it being sometime after 3am in the morning. He hadn't slept all night, too anxious to hear back from her.

"Hey." She whimpered slowly before bringing the wine glass back to her lips. "Thank you for the messages."

"Of course. How are you doing?"

"Like you'd expect." She replied after a breath, the pauses punctuating their greetings a welcome, calming silence for her.

The raspy sound of her defeated voice is breaking his heart.

"Rory, I can be on a plane and be with you by lunchtime."

"Logan, no. There's too much going on … and I just can't."

"Ace … I will do anything you need." He offers, he doesn't want to push but being so far away from her when she is hurting like this is too much for him. It's selfish, but he wants nothing more than to be able to hold her.

She sniffs back fresh tears, desperate to offload. "It is a circus right now, I can't breathe for more people coming out of the woodwork. I have to keep things calm for Grandma. My mom's trying to but she's a mess too."

"Let me be there, let me help."

"I can't, please Logan. Please understand. If you're here, it will only incite more questions and I don't have the answers right now." (Have I ever had the answers? She muses.)

He is quiet for a long time, he doesn't want to admit that she's right. He wants to take over, to rush to her side and do whatever needs organising and damn the consequences. By her side is where he's supposed to be … or is it? He eyes the invitation to a charity event in Paris that he is supposed to attend with Odette next month. So far he's successfully putting off any discussion of potential wedding dates and venues, but he is still officially engaged to another woman.

He keeps trying to give Rory an excuse to tell him to leave Odette, to leave London, to be with her – but she never takes any of them. This is what she wants right now, maybe this is all she'll ever want. That thought is like an icy knife in his gut bringing him back to reality.

"What can I do?" he asks eventually.

"Will you just stay on the phone with me for a while? I have so much to arrange and I can't focus my thoughts right now."

"Of course, anything." And he means it, he would give her anything.

So he listens. He listens as she depicts Richard Gilmore's final days; as she relays the tasks she has taken upon herself to organise; he listens as she cries explaining how distraught her mother and grandmother are; she describes some of her favourite memories of her grandfather and he softly chuckles, reassures and soothes at all the appropriate moments.

He feels as if he isn't doing anything, certainly not doing enough; but for her, it is everything and it's just about the only thing keeping her afloat.

Rory stares out of the moving car window on the way to the airport, trying to concentrate on keeping her breathing steady, just like the Youtube meditation video taught her. Count to 5 as you inhale, then count to 5 exhale. To say the last couple of weeks had been draining would be an understatement, she could feel the adrenaline wearing thin as her near constant fight-or-flight response started to fatigue. The funeral had gone well, as well as these things are wont to do anyway, and there had been a wonderful turnout for Grandpa, which she hoped in time would be of some comfort to her grandmother. Receiving so many kind condolences and hearing tales from his past from friends and colleagues had comforted her a little at least.

Luke's voice from the driver's seat breaks Rory out of her reverie.

"I know you must be sad to have to leave your mom and grandma. But we know how your job is. We're all so proud of you and how hard you're working."

Rory felt immense guilt flood her. She wasn't sad to be leaving them behind (I mean, she was obviously, she was sad about practically everything at this precise time. She assumed that this was grief, or at least the stage she was currently experiencing); it's just that she had been managing her mom's grief and Grandma's grief since it had happened and she really, really needed to cope with her own for a while. She needed her own pillar to lean on, to hold her up for a little while, and that pillar was currently waiting for her on the other side of the Atlantic.

She tried not to think too deeply as to what that meant, her leaning on Logan, her desperation to see him. She had been excited to see him each time since they'd reunited in Hamburg but she assumed that to be largely rooted in attraction and excitement, a desire to indulge in their (physical and intellectual) chemistry.

They had moved on since their fight in the spring, both outwardly acting as if it didn't happen, both choosing to ignore the emotional implications of their time together. They go out for drinks and dinner; they see shows on the West End; tour the museums; other times they stay in watching TV or reading; they each work on their respective laptops on opposite sides of the couch, occasionally stealing glances at the other. They have forged their own version of normal, unmistakably less casual than their first few months of 'Vegas' visits, but all the while both trying to not get too attached.

But this, this was different, she was starting to need him like she used to need him. When she felt as if she couldn't fully breathe if she wasn't near him. Those months they spent separated with him in London and her at Yale were excruciating at times and this was starting to feel very similar. And that was more than a little bit terrifying.

She had obviously been silent for longer than she thought as Luke continued to reassure her.

"They'll be fine. I'm here for your mom and I'll do whatever I can for Emily too. I know it doesn't feel like it now but it will all be okay."

Rory turned in her seat to face him. "What would we do without you?" she wondered sadly, and not for the first time. She supposes that losing a father figure will do that to you, make you re-evaluate the others who have always been there for you and helped make you who you are.

"You never have to worry about that." He replies sincerely and they share a poignant smile.

Rory exits the terminal in London, having caught a little sleep but not nearly enough on the flight. The sun is just rising in the early morning sky and she knows that she will be suffering from jet lag as the day goes on. She once again ponders Luke's sentiments from their car journey and has to try and block them out. They are all so terribly proud of her and won't stop telling her so. They act as if every word she has published is pure gold and either don't realise, or pretend that they don't, how many fewer words she seems to be having published recently. She knows that she has to get a grip on her career, to bring some heart back into her writing, but she accepts that it's probably not going to happen right away, certainly not before she's allowed herself time to mourn.

She slips into the car Logan has sent for her, she made him promise not to greet her at the airport as she's not sure she could keep it together and she has had quite enough of public grieving lately. The driver asks if she is alright, taking in her black attire, puffy eyes and solemn expression and as she nods she once again appreciates that she has his home as her bolt hole to retreat to. They have spoken on the phone every day - sometimes more than once a day - since Richard's death and she is so grateful that she won't have to go over all the details again. Logan already knows, he's already lived it with her despite being (reluctantly) 3,500 miles away.

She lets herself into the apartment that he'd left unlocked for her, securing the door behind her and leaves her coat and shoes where she usually drops them by the front door. She considers making some coffee but instead just grabs a glass of water from the kitchen before making her way upstairs. She places her bags by the couch, checking that all of her cell phones are switched to silent. It's so comfortable for her here, so familiar, and it occurs to her that she shouldn't feel as at home here as she does, she has no right, but she can't contemplate that too much right now. She slips her dress off, pulls on one of his t-shirts and crawls into bed next to him. She finally lets out the breath she has been holding in when he pulls her close.

"Are you okay?" Logan whispers sleepily.

"Yeah." Rory's breath hitches. "I'm fine."

"Your grandfather was a good man, I know you made him proud today." Rory shudders into Logan's chest and starts to sob quietly.

It didn't feel right for Logan, not attending Richard's funeral. Not only because he wasn't there for Rory, and he was regretting that more and more as she lay crying in his arms; but also because he knew Richard, would consider him a friend and wanted to pay his respects to the man, and to Emily. However, Rory had begged him not to go, and so he didn't. He had started to wonder how much he was doing lately because Rory wanted (or didn't want) him to.

"I should have come, I wanted to be there for you." He mumbles into her hair as he strokes her back soothingly.

"You know I told you not to. If you were there, I couldn't have …" she trails off before inhaling deeply. "I had to be there for Grandma and for my mom today and … if you were there, I couldn't have not been with you."

Logan tilts her head up to meet his gaze head on. "Ace, I would have been there for you today. I don't care if people saw, I don't care what they think. I will do anything for you, don't you know that by now?"

He wants to say more, he wants to tell her he loves her. He does, he knows that he loves her, she should know it too.

It's the moments like this when Rory looks into his eyes, those beautiful soulful expressive eyes that she can read so well, when he's baring everything to her and it all gets too real. It's too much and she just can't do this now, not today. She can't do this, she can't change what they are, what they have, right now. Not when everything else has changed, her family and universe have shifted. He opens his mouth to continue and she silences him with a kiss. A kiss that she pours just about every ounce of emotion and energy that remains in her into and within a matter of moments she's straddling him and pulling at his shirt.

He knows that she's avoiding the topic at hand, that she doesn't want to acknowledge what he said and what it implied. He would be with her, fully, properly, publically at any given moment. All she has to do is say the word. But no words are spoken. She asks him for passion, for closeness, for physical intimacy instead and he's not about to start denying her anything now. He reciprocates her kisses and touches, knowing that for now, for him, this is enough. Any part of her that he can have is enough. It has to be.

When they wake later on that day, there's no mention of his promises as she demands a fresh pot of the exquisite Columbian blend he keeps stocked in the kitchen for her. They make (late) breakfast together, eat it half dressed tangled up in each other on the couch while they catch up on the day's news on their respective tablets. It's very domestic and very comfortable while they don't think about the invisible timer counting down until she leaves again. When 'Vegas' is put on hold and they can both carry on pretending that this is casual, that this is discreet, that this is harmless and that no one will get hurt. Mostly they just want to pretend that this is something that it's not. Because it's real and that wasn't part of the agreement.

A/N: There is no doubt in my mind that Logan would certainly have attended Richard's funeral (whether he and Rory were seeing each other or not). Alas, I didn't write AYITL so I have to work around the blatant discrepancies.

Your reviews have been so kind, and also thought provoking, so thank you again.