I woke up the next morning before my alarm went off. Had yesterday really happened? I thought about everything that we had said to each other… Everything the Logan said.

When I got home yesterday it was late in the afternoon. I thought about calling my mom, or Leslie, but I was so drained, and still in disbelief from the confrontation. I knew they were both waiting to hear from me, but instead I crawled into bed. I fell asleep almost instantly. I guess all of the stress and lack of sleep from the week, not to mention the exhaustion from that day alone, finally caught up with me.

Sure enough, I picked my phone up to see that I had multiple missed calls from each of them, text messages wondering if I was alright, and to my surprise, a voicemail from Emily Gilmore. Had Mom told her that I was meeting Logan? No… that was ridiculous. When she married my dad, my mom let my grandparents know by leaving a message on their answering machine… she would have laughed at me for the thought of her including her mother even crossing my mind. She hadn't even really told Luke yet.

Luke. He knew something was going on with me, but I was glad that Mom had withheld the details. He hadn't liked Logan from the start, and just when he was warming up to him, he had left. I could only imagine what his reaction will be when he finds out that we… well, I don't really know what, but whatever it is, it's not going to be pretty.

I figured the voice mail from my grandmother would be the quickest to get through before I had to get ready for work, so I skipped through the barrage of "What's going on? Are you okay? Do I need to take out a hit on him?" messages that preceded it.

"Rory, this is your grandmother calling… You know the person who paid for you to attend Yale so that you could get your big job in the city, only to have you forget about me…" Always with the dramatics… "Anyway, a little bird told me that you would be joining us for Friday night dinner this week, and since you making an appearance has become somewhat of a special occasion, I thought I'd ask if you had any requests for dinner. I hope you can return your calls in a more timely fashion than your mother. See you Friday!"

I had almost forgotten that I had promised my mom about coming to Friday night dinner. Well, now that Emily knew, there was no getting out of it now. I made a mental note to call her back later in the day as I poured myself a cup of coffee.

For the first time in practically a week I was able to come close to thinking clearly. I knew he was sorry, and that he wanted… something, but I wasn't ready to figure that one out just yet. We had cleared the air, but I needed to use all my brain power to get some work done this week, especially if I was going to have to leave early on Friday to get to Hartford.

I got ready for work and headed to the office. As I was waiting for my drink at the coffee cart outside, I could hear the sound of heels hurriedly approaching. I knew it was Les and I knew she would be demanding an explanation.

"Gilmore!"

I turn to her with a sheepish look on my face.

"Don't you give me that look. What the hell happened yesterday? Where were you last night? Oh my God! Did you sleep with him?"

"No!" God, that would have been… I had a momentary flash back to what it could have been considering our history, and… No, that was not something I needed to think about right now. I shook my head and tried to dog paddle my way out of hot water.

"No… I just crashed when I got home. Yesterday was… intense."

"Intense? Are you going to elaborate on that at all, or continue to leave me hanging?"

My mom was going to kill me for not filling her in first, but Leslie was not going to let up until she got it out of me. As we walked inside I filled her in on the awkward lunch, and his abrupt departure. When we got to the elevator, we entered but were not alone, a couple of guys who must have worked in offices above ours stood in front of us, so I continued in a hushed tone.

I told her about how he had stood there in the rain and yelled to me, and about his sudden outpouring of confessions and apologies.

"What?!"

She had burst out loud enough that the gentlemen that we were sharing the elevator with glanced back at us, before politely pretending to not have heard. I glared at Leslie.

"If you can't keep it together, I won't finish."

She rolled her eyes, but as we slid between Elevator Guys onto our floor, she relented, "Fine."

We went straight to the break room and sat at the table. I filled her in on what he had said when we finished yelling at each other, about how he credited me with all of his success, and finally…

"He said he wasn't going to walk away again."

I looked at Les, expecting another outburst, but her jaw was practically on the table, gaping at that last line.

"What did you say?"

I scrunched up my face; I wasn't sure how she would react to my answer, which now that I was going to say it out loud to her, seemed kind of inadequate compared to his sudden pledge. "Okay."

She continued to stare at me, "Okay, what?"

"That's what I said, 'Okay'."

"After all of that, all you said was 'okay'?"

"Gilmore! Meeting!"

Gerry had poked his head into the break room, and I looked at the clock… We had a features staff meeting this morning. I was off the hook for now, but I knew I would have to justify that simple answer to her. I didn't know if I could explain that somehow, it had been enough.

She looked at me with disappointed eyes as I stood up, but I was still committed to getting work done today.

After the meeting, during which Gerry had asked for an update on my current piece, I headed to my desk for the first time that morning. I needed to check my email and inbox to see if I had gotten any replies from sources yet before I filled him in.

I scrolled through my email, happy to find a couple of responses. Nothing too specific, but it was a start. I had one voice mail from a correspondent who left his number so we could talk. It was progress… I reread through the draft I had started Saturday, before deciding to take it, and the rest of my research to Gerry. He had somebody else in his office, so I left it in his box, and returned to my desk figuring I could shoot him an email to let him know to look for it.

In the time it took me to return to my desk another message had popped up in my inbox… It was from LHuntzberger.

"Can I see you this week?"

I took a deep breath. I guess he really wasn't kidding about 'seeing me around." I wasn't ready to respond yet. It wasn't that I didn't want to see him, I had to see him. I had to figure out what he wanted in terms of 'not walking away'; I just needed to step back from how dramatic yesterday had been. I opened a new browser window, but I kept the tab open for later.

I glanced over my shoulder, and thankfully I could see that Leslie was busy at her own desk. I could put off the rest of that conversation for a while longer, too. Before I dove back into my research, I sent a text message to my mom.

"Will call tonight. Text me after Landon is asleep." This was another conversation that I was going to need her full attention for.

With that out of the way I got back to my article. About forty minutes later, I was startled by Gerry dropping the stack of papers I had left for him on my desk. "I get what you're going for Rory, but it's too much. It's a good article, but you've got to trim it down to fit Features, or I can't run it."

I knew it was a good article. This was what I was afraid of. I really didn't want to cut back on it… I wanted to keep going. I had to make a choice, sacrifice my chance at a byline at The Post this week, or pursue what I had been working on. What if I came up with something else for him?

I dug through the inbox on my desk for the other folder that had been there Saturday. "I've got another lead here… something about redistributing budgets for public works." I had purposefully chosen to follow the Saudi Arabia story when I got them, but this might appease Gerry.

"It's your choice Gilmore, but I need something by Wednesday or you lose your spot." He turned on his heel and walked away.

Great, another decision I had to make. I got up and walked over to Leslie's desk, but put my hand up in front of her before she could talk.

"This is a strictly work related conversation; previously discussed topics are not to be brought up."

"Fine. What can I do for you, Ms. Gilmore?"

"How serious were you about helping me push a freelance piece?"

She looked almost surprised, "Entirely serious. I can try to get you in touch with Dominic. He was my freelance editor before; he's got contacts all over the place."

More progress. I could crank out the public works article in the next couple of days, and work on digging a little deeper on the Middle East situation.

"You're a gem, Les."

"I know." She turned back to what she had been working on, and by the end of the day I had an email from Dominic, interested in what I had to show him.

Tonight I had to get back to Emily about dinner, call my mom, and I had one more email to answer… Logan's… I knew I had a deadline by Wednesday, and I was hoping to have something solid to show Dominic by the end of the week, which meant I would probably spend at least tomorrow and the next night working late. I had dinner at the grandparents Friday, and as long as I was going to be in that neck of the woods, I had planned on staying at least one night in Stars Hallow so I could spend some time with Landon and my family; maybe catch up with Lane and Sookie…

"The week is filling up fast. What did you have in mind?"

Almost immediately he replied, "Sounds like I'm not the only busy one here here. Drinks?"

Drinks? That could be dangerous, but maybe now that we've laid everything out on the table we could have a comfortable conversation. I had no idea what his schedule was like, but I gave it a shot… "Thursday?"

"8 o'clock. East 26th and Park Ave. Looking forward to it, Ace."

I took a deep breath as I shut down my computer for the night. Now that there were actual plans to figure out what this was, I felt like I could finish my conversation with Leslie. She was already gone, but I called her cell.

She answered on the first ring, "Okay." She was mocking me.

"Ha ha. I'm sorry I left you hanging this morning… I'm still trying to figure all this out, but yes I said 'Okay'.

"And that was it? How could that be it?"

"I don't know. There was no way I could just walk away from him after that. As angry and hurt as I have been all this time, I still…" I had admitted it to myself, but I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud.

"I know, Rory…" I exhaled, relieved that she wasn't going to push me. "So, what does this mean? What's next?"

"To be honest, I don't know. He said he would see me around and left, but he emailed me today. We're having drinks Thursday."

"Well, look at you… A hot mess one day, and back together the next."

"We are not back together." I hope he didn't think we were back together. We had shown our cards, but there was still a lot of lost time between us.

"Okay." There was obviously doubt in her voice. "Just keep me posted."

I agreed to keep her in the loop and told her I would see her at work tomorrow. I had to call my grandmother back before she could have a fit, so once I was settled on the train I dialed her number.

"Rory! Richard! It's Rory!" I could hear him in the background. "You asked her to call you Emily, who were you expecting to call you back, Mickey Mouse?" I had always appreciated his dry sense of humor, and how grounded he was, especially knowing how Emily could get.

"What is that noise? Is the connection bad?"

"No Grandma, it's just the train."

"The train?! Why on earth would you ride the subway when you have a car?" I could hear the disgust in her voice; I should have expected as much.

"It's New York, Grandma." I thought about explaining that it was more expensive and stressful to drive and try to park around the city, than it was to rent a long term space for the car and utilize public transportation, but I knew the argument would be fruitless. "Anyway, you called about dinner?"

"Yes! We are so excited that you are joining us. I do wish we would see you more often. I thought maybe if you had your choice for dinner it might entice you to join us more regularly."

"I'm sure whatever you serve will be just fine... I have to go, Grandma, I'm at my stop." I was trying to escape this conversation with as little guilt tripping as possible.

"Well… If you're sure…"

"I am. See you Friday!"

Phew. At least that was out of the way. I picked up a sandwich and a coffee at the deli on the corner before I headed up to my apartment. I ate my dinner and drank my coffee. I took shower, surprised that I was actually feeling relaxed. It had almost become a foreign feeling at this point.

I finally heard from my mom. Luke was putting Landon to bed, so she escaped into my old room so that we could talk.

I started from the very beginning – how I finally decided that I would go, picking out clothes with Leslie. She provided her commentary, and eventual approval of our choices, of course. I told her about seeing him from across the bar before I could bring myself to approach him, and our hesitant, almost painful small talk. I explained the weird, jealous vibe he had put off towards Sam, and how he wouldn't talk about work. She interjected once in a while throughout the conversation, but she let me continue; she got the details of the argument on the street, all the way through the 'okay'.

"You didn't tell him that you still love him?"

My mouth hung open. "Mom…"

"Rory, unless you plan on finding a Blue Fairy by Thursday to fix the nose you were about to grow, don't try to tell me that you don't have feelings for him. Even if you won't admit it, you have been tearing yourself up over this boy for most of your adult life. I know you kid, you have always put your whole heart into who you have loved, and I don't think you ever got it back from Logan."

I was still defensive, "Please, Mom. I…"

"Maybe you should start calling me Gepetto, my little wooden boy…"

She was on a roll with this Pinocchio bit. I conceded, "I'm just not ready for that."

"Okay. So what now?"

The question of the day… "I'm seeing meeting him Thursday for drinks." Maybe I could have eased that one in a little smoother.

"Really diving in head first, huh?"

"It's not like that… I don't know what it's like, exactly. But how am I going to figure it out if I start avoiding him again?"

"Alright… Just be careful, kiddo. We don't need a repeat of the Founder's Day Punch that left you on the bathroom floor."

"I know… trust me, I have no intention of reliving that one."

I was glad that we could move on from that conversation with a laugh. We made plans for the weekend before I turned in for the night. I had a long week ahead of me; between work, and Logan, and Friday night dinner, I was going to need all the rest I could get.

**I do not own characters or content related to Gilmore Girls, Mickey Mouse, Pinocchio or other entities mentioned.**

A/N - I know they have impending plans, but this is not meant to be a cliff hanger, just a break in the action. And, the work stuff might sound like fluff now, but trust me on that one.

Also, much like Rory, I have a lot going on for the next few days, so please don't hate me if there is a delay between my next few posts.

As always, thanks for the love... Keep it coming! xx