Chapter 10 – Calm After The Storm?

While this writing I had my own soundtrack that inspired me, my choices are not necessarily what Amy Sherman Palladino would choose however I think the emotions invoked by the songs fits my theme and chapter.

Soundtrack Chapter 10

1. "Black Coffee" by All Saints,

2. "No One" by Alicia Keys

3. "Underneath It All" by No Doubt

Note: Unfortunately fanfiction dot net doesn't react well to youtube hyperlinks; as a result I am unable to provide direct links to the songs here.


May 9, 2009 – San Francisco

Rory and Logan were lying on the bed in their hotel room following the hustle and bustle of the day's activities. Logan lay on his left side his body facing Rory, Rory laid on her back and was facing the ceiling as she stroked Logan's hand that lay across her abdomen.

"Soooo…."

"Soooo…" he parroted with a smirk.

"Does this mean yes?"

"It meant yes when I said it on the bridge and it still a yes from me Rory."

"I'm sorry I keep asking, it's just….it's just like I'm in a dream and I have to keep reassuring myself that it's all real, we're real." She leans over and kisses him and then whispers "I love you".

"I love you too kiddo" he replied jokingly, which resulted in Rory playfully hitting him with the hand that was stroking his a few minutes ago. Her hand resumed its former ministrations and then Logan said more seriously:

"I love you Rory, I never stopped loving you." And then he leaned over and kissed her gently expressing the words he just said through the kiss. They broke off the kiss gently whilst still gazing at each other and Rory's hand was still stroking his.

"So Ace when are you going to make an honest man out of me?"

"I thought I just did!"

"I meant when do you want us to get married, the place, the venue, etc?"

"Oooh I haven't thought things that far."

"You mean the Rory Gilmore, did this spontaneously and did not have this planned?"

"Shush you" she responded still smiling at him. "We could always elope….hey Vegas is not too far right? That's it, we could elope to Vegas. What the past few years have taught me is to seize the moment, carpe diem baby."

"Are you serious?" he responded as he rose from his lying down position to sit on the bed resting his head on the bed's head board.

"Yes I am Logan, seriously we should elope." She moved from her lying position to join him on the bed's head board, facing him.

"No Rory!"

"Is that a No to Vegas or No to the whole thing?" she said hesitantly as her heart pounded in fear.

"Rory, I still want to marry you now like I did 2 years ago, it's just that I don't think eloping is a good idea. You wouldn't want me dead straight after the wedding courtesy of Emily and Lorelai Gilmore would you? Remember how Emily behaved after you told her about the ship has sailed thing on your 21st birthday? I am not exactly Lorelai's favourite person. Now imagine if we eloped, I have taken away their chance of seeing their only daughter and granddaughter walk down the aisle. I would be eviscerated. Let's not forget to add Mitchum, Shira and Elias to that mix.

"Ooh!" she replied in realisation.

"So we agree no eloping to Vegas, right Rory?" he said smiling

"No eloping to Vegas" she smiled back at him.

"We are going to do it right. We will need to talk about this in detail when we get back to Palo Alto but I'm thinking we go down to the East Coast tell the parents, grandparents, etc . And you need to do the right thing by asking my father for my hand in marriage."

"What? Tell me you are kidding?" she stuttered at his last comment.

"Hey you proposed, so you have to make an honest man out of me by doing it the right way. Can I be there when you ask Mitchum? I am dying to see the many shades his face will take when you ask him."

"You are incorrigible!" she responded in fits of giggles. The giggles subsided and turned to smiles, and smiles turned to more kissing.

Rory broke off the kiss and gently held onto his face with both her hands.

"Logan I need to tell you something. I have been dying to get this off my chest since I got to Palo Alto. You see….when you asked me to marry you two years ago, I didn't say no to marrying you at all just no to marrying you so soon after completing college. Logan I want you to know that I loved you then and I love you now, I wasn't saying no to us."

"Rory…"

"Shush let me finish, I need to say this. I am a planner Logan! I write pro con lists, I don't really do spontaneity and most of the few times I did that were when I was with you. When you asked me to marry you, it caught me off guard. You weren't supposed to happen until years after college, I had my life planned, I would go to college, after graduation work for the next 10 or so years becoming the next Christiane Amanpour and then maybe marriage after that. You said you would factor me in and I thought that meant doing what Paris and Doyle did.

When I said doors would be closed to me by marrying you, I didn't mean you. I meant being a Huntzberger and kept recalling that conversation with Mitchum on your birthday when he told me that me and him had to plan your next steps and then he also dropped in 'We'll take good care of you Rory, pick any paper you want.' And I also remembered you often telling me many times in college about you having no options and I was scared that that was what my life was going to end up like. Mitchum and whoever deciding my future for me, me having no say in my life and that was petrifying."

She saw he was about to speak and put her finger against his lips, hushing his intended interjection.

"I knew that if I married you right then I would end up resenting you, resenting our marriage and I didn't want us to end up like so many society marriages.

You had your chance to do London and it made you realise that you enjoyed journalism. Me asking you to do the long distance thing instead of marriage was my way of asking you to let me do my own personal London. After we broke up, the opportunity to cover the Obama campaign arose and at that moment I was glad that I made the decision not to get married straight after college. And then on the road, I missed you so much, all I could think about was you and the memories of our time together. I tried dating other guys but it only served to remind me of you, of us. Especially that night at the Yale Daily News when we saved the paper together following Paris's meltdown and then it hit me that our life would be together would be a partnership, supporting each other and conquering the world of journalism together, and not the closed doors that I initially thought. I also realised that the basis of most of our fights was because we didn't talk about things. If you had proposed to me in private, we would have had a lot of our recent conversation in private and maybe just maybe we would have worked something out or at the very least said our goodbyes in a better fashion."

She saw he was about to interrupt, she shook her head at him and put her hand over his mouth the second time.

"My mum and dad never had time on their side and when they did it was too late. I don't want us to end up like them, the right people but never the right time and when the right came the ship had sailed far far away never to be seen again."

Logan removed the hand covering his lips and kissed it.

He then said "Wow! I'm sorry we never got a chance to talk things through and I'm sorry that I was such a jerk. I was just so upset and thought the woman I loved didn't want to be with me and had stopped loving me. Believe or not Rory I was scared, you were my first in many things and I took chances that I never planned to take with you, with our relationship. I mean come on would you have thought that between both of us that I'd be the first to be ready for marriage?

My mindset then was that we were in love and both at new points in our lives; me in San Francisco and you post college. I wanted us to share and start that life the new point in our lives together, away from that world and its interference. I wanted to give you something more permanent than the rocket or our apartment; I wanted to give you me.

Part of me during the last few months of our relationship was also scared that maybe you were going off me especially with Martygate, the cute lecturer, me having no job and then the stunt with Finn and Colin which caused you to nearly dump me. I'm going to stop rambling on and say I'm sorry and you are right in saying that most of our problems were as a result of not talking to each other."

"I'm sorry too Logan, I didn't exactly handle things properly after you proposed. Neither did I call you afterwards to talk and just allowed us to having that excruitiating conversation at my graduation."

The room was filled with silence for a while, as what had been said sank in.

"I didn't date anyone in the past two years Rory", said Logan breaking the silence.

She looked at him in aghast.

"I couldn't bring myself to do it; it wasn't due to lack of offers." He ran his hand threw his hair in agitation and continued: "it was just that anytime I contemplated it, it made me think of you, the thing with the bridesmaids and I thought if you found out about it, it would kinda justify your reasons for not marrying me, so I chose to be a work dork instead. It kept me busy from wallowing and from running across America to drag you to San Francisco kicking and screaming."

"And Rory, it's ok that you dated other people, we were not together and you owe me no explanations." As he said the last bit he gently kissed her hand that he was still holding.

"What happened to the house and the avocado tree?"

"I couldn't live there Rory, not without you. It held to many painful memories."

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