A/N: I don't own GG.

A Charming Epitaph for the Final Nail

Lindsey had noticed Dean's strange behavior for weeks now. It seemed that no matter what she tried, she couldn't rekindle whatever spark the couple used to have. She didn't want to be the distrustful wife, but she didn't know what else to do when her husband would simply disappear for hours at a time. She simply needed to know where he was going. This driving need was what had her following him around town. Most of the time, he just wandered around, leading her to the bracing conclusion that he simply needed to be away from her. Tonight, however, her worst fears were confirmed. There, in the middle of the town square, was her husband and his ex-girlfriend, Rory Gilmore. They appeared to be in the middle of an intense discussion. Lindsey maneuvered herself into a better position; she needed to hear their words.

"Rory," Dean said.

Lindsey watched in mute horror as he reached out and placed his hand tenderly on Rory's arm. She felt her heart break at the intimate look he gave to her. It had been ages since he'd looked at her like that, and she missed it. She hated feeling jealous. She hated being lied to more. Dean swore he was over Rory, and clearly that wasn't exactly the truth.

"Dean, I said everything I needed to say," Rory said.

"No, we were interrupted by your mother," Dean snapped.

It sounded to Lindsey like there was trouble in paradise. She wanted to leave, she wanted to stay.

"Are you still married to Lindsey?" Rory asked.

She moved closer when she heard her name, as if an invisible string was pulling her closer.

Dean bowed his head. "Yes, we're still married. But, that's not enough, Rory."

"Dean – "

"I want to be happy again."

"No, Dean. We've discussed this already. In fact, the part of our conversation that was interrupted by my mother was the part where you were yelling at me about Jess! So, sure finish that talk, me – I'm leaving."

Dean reached out and grabbed her arm. "You can't just walk away from me! Again."

Rory turned around and Dean leaned over and kissed her. Lindsey stood rooted in her spot, unable to look away no matter how many times she wanted to, no matter how she tried to force her eyes closed. A silent, strangled scream lodged itself firmly in her throat. Her eyes widened in horror as Rory leaned into him. Just when she was about to make her presence known and put an end to their rendezvous, Rory pushed away.

"What the hell was that?" Rory screeched.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Why would you do that? You can't kiss me. You broke up with me. You married Lindsey. Both of these actions dictate that you cannot kiss me."

Dean shoved his hands into his pockets. "You leaned into me."

"You grabbed my arm, Dean."

"Rory," Dean growled.

"Look, I came to vote and see Lane's band play. I've done both, and now I'm leaving. Bye Dean."

Lindsey pushed herself closer into the bush as she watched Rory walk away from Dean. She reached up and noticed for the first time the silent tears that had been falling down her face for some time. She watched Dean watch Rory walk away and wanted to throw something at him. Common sense caught up with her, however, and she walked back to their apartment. She didn't want Dean to see her here, and realize she'd followed him. They didn't need anything else to fight about, and she really didn't want to get into the whole Rory situation.

Rory walked home in a fog. She just couldn't seem to find a solid place to land. Dean had kissed her, and she hadn't melted. Of all the events of the night, that was the one that stopped her cold. Dean was her first love. She'd been debating the Dean situation for months, and then she just showed up and kissed her like he had the right. At least now she could put the whole chapter behind her. As the house finally came in to view, Rory felt her shoulders relax. There was always something about coming home that made a sort of Zen peace come over her as all of the badness going on in her head fell away. In the haze of the evening's events, she climbed into her car and drove back to New Haven.

The next morning, Rory found herself at the Yale Daily News. She hadn't slept very well the night before, and the first thing she encountered upon entering the news room was an irritated, borderline angry Pairs.

"I had a dream about you last night," Paris accused.

Rory rolled her eyes. "If this get's dirty, feel free to keep it to yourself."

"I dreamed that in spite of the fact that you knew I wanted to be assigned the religion beat, you went behind my back to Doyle, cooked him dinner and stole it from me."

"Paris, you're crazy. I want features. I don't want to follow religion-focused people around and ask them questions about the proper methods for blessing food, or find out how accurate a portrayal The Passion of the Christ truly was. I want features, now please leave me alone."

Paris scrunched her brow and looked critically at Rory. "You're upset about something."

"Astute as always."

"You went home last night, which normally makes you annoyingly happy. What happened?"

"I really don't want to talk about it," Rory answered.

"Okay, well I asked, and if you change your mind - Tenora Thomas was in my dream too, she was pouring the wine – Yo! Tenora! Where's the fire?"

With a sigh of relief, Rory watched Paris chase after Tenora. Doyle walked into the room and the tension skyrocketed. Everyone seemed a little bit more alert now than they had been ten seconds ago. This was the moment of truth; the time when people would see if they would ever have an article above the fold, or if it was time to re-evaluate their life choices.

"Okay, I'm going to read out everyone assignments. No need to belabor it with any pointless speech-giving. Lena, economic development. Seng, Woodbridge Hall. Benji, legal issues. Paris, religion beat," Doyle droned.

"Me? Really? Huh, I hadn't thought. All right," Paris said, as if people truly cared.

"Jerry, city arts; Rory, features; Glenn, crime," Doyle continued as if Paris hadn't interrupted him.

A huge smile broke out on Rory's face. She'd worked so hard to get the features beat. There were so many ideas she had to make her articles really stand out, she knew she wasn't the only reporter assigned to features.

"All right, that's it. Congratulations if you got what you wanted, and if you didn't, I could care less. Get cracking," Doyle announced, ending the meeting.

Rory practically bounced over to him. "I can't thank you enough, Doyle. I am thrilled to have the features beat. I'm going to kick butt."

"You're a reporter now, Gilmore. You need to learn to say 'ass'," Doyle instructed.

"I'll work on that. Hey, listen, um, I have about a million ideas for my first story, so I was wondering if I could run some of them by you, see what you think?"

"Two minutes, go."

" I have several. I already have the headline for this one – "Yale's Liberal Activist Network: A thing of the past? Then there's the issue of illegal music downloading on campus, which I imagine is a major – "

"Oh no," Doyle moaned.

Rory looked up to see Logan, Finn and Colin walk into the Daily News. She looked over at Doyle who had paled considerably. "What?"

"He's back," Doyle whispered.

Before she could say anything, Logan walked over to her desk. He smiled at her, but quickly turned his focus to Doyle. "Doyle, my friend." Logan stuck his hand out for Doyle to shake. "You're looking very well, how've you been?"

With effort, Doyle plastered a smile on his face. "I've been great, Logan. Great to have you back."

"Yeah, well, I stayed away as long as I could, but the Yale Daily News called to me."

"Um, you know, Logan, I didn't know exactly when you were coming back, and I gave out the beats," Doyle nervously informed Logan.

"That's fine, Doyle, I'll take whatever you've got left." Logan really wanted this conversation to be over. He'd been looking forward to seeing Rory for days, and he'd kicked himself for not realizing sooner that since they were both on the paper, he had a legitimate excuse to see her whenever he wanted. Unfortunately, that also meant having to deal with the likes of Doyle. He wasn't really a bad guy, but he treated him like everyone else…seeing if he could promote his own career by befriending the Hutnzberger heir.

"Actually, there's none left."

Logan smiled. "Perfect, just the one I wanted."

Doyle seriously doubted that fact, but he kept his mouth shut. A happy, article writing Logan meant a happy Mitchum Huntzberger.

"Rory, it's good to see you," Logan said.

As if that was some secret code word, Finn and Colin came ambling up to her desk. She smiled to them. After the crappy night she'd had, it was good to see people, who if nothing else, would make her laugh.

"Love!" Finn exclaimed. He rounded the desk and scooped Rory up into a hug. He'd seen her face when they'd walked into the newsroom, and he could tell that something was bothering her. He also knew that Logan had noticed her rather pensive expression. The boy was quickly losing himself to the charming creature he currently had in a bear hug. Not that he blamed him, no. Rory was brilliant.

"Reporter Girl in her natural habitat," Colin observed. "Careful, Finn. Wouldn't want to break her now."

Logan noticed Doyle still hovering around Rory. He knew they'd been talking, no doubt about paper business, but he needed to get Rory away from here. There was something bothering her. She'd had that look on her face when he'd walked in, the same face she'd made on occasion that night at the Pub. Oh, she was quick to hid it, and to show the world a happy, Rory Gilmore, but he'd caught it, and now he needed to do something about it.

"Relax, Doyle. I'm just here for the pretty picture in my father's head. I'm not going to be any trouble at all."

Doyle knew he'd been dismissed. With a shake of his head, he walked away from Rory and the Loganites. He'd have a talk with her later; clearly she knew Logan. Maybe she could get him to write more this year. That would take the Mitchum pressure off of him, and then he could focus on his career instead of vainly trying to get Logan to embrace his legacy.

Rory smiled as Finn put her down. The hug had been a welcome distraction from her thoughts. She looked up at Logan.

"I didn't even think you knew where the Yale Daily News was," she told him.

Logan smiled at her teasing. "Ace, the newspaper called to me. I was helpless. The need to answer the call was overwhelming."

"Uh huh. That siren's call will be the death of you, Odysseus," Rory smirked.

"The boys and I were going to go grab some breakfast. You should come with us," Logan invited.

Her stomach growled softly. It would be better for her to stay at the paper and get a start on her first article, but –

"Breakfast includes coffee, Ace," Logan bribed, as if he could read her mind.

"Mean."

Logan smiled as she stood up from her desk. When she came around her desk, he casually put his arm around her, pulled her close and whispered in her ear.

"The paper will still be here after you eat."

"Thank you for the sharing of your knowledge, wise Logan-san," Rory whispered back. It was surprisingly difficult for her to keep her voice serious.

The group walked out of the newsroom. Finn and Colin were debating the finer points of knowing exactly when a woman was drunk enough to go home with them. Finn thought shots were the Golden Ticket, but Colin was convinced that the key was to mix the type of alcohol.

"We have a lovely woman with us now," Finn said. "We should simply ask her our questions."

"Gilmore doesn't count," Colin countered. "She's not going to go home with either of us no matter how many gallons of liquor we would give her."

"But she's a girl. She understands their drinking habits," Finn argued. "So, love, what is the ticket?"

"Girls usually drink fruity drinks, cosmos, Long Islands, etcetera. Really, those are worse and cause you to get drunk faster because of all the extra sugar and caffeine. Then, because they are consuming copious amounts of liquid carbs, most girls forgo eating anything to counter the alcohol," Rory began explaining.

Finn and Colin both stared at Rory like she was the Holy Grail. They'd tried asking some of the girls in their group the same questions, but none of them would answer. They just dismissed them and said girls would leave with them sober if they were really desperate.

"The trick," Rory continued, unaware that she was nearing sainthood for both Colin and Finn, "is the speed at which you give the girls the drinks, not necessarily the type of drink you give to them."

Logan stopped the group in front of the coffee cart. It made him unaccountably happy to see Rory getting along so well with his friends. Most of the girls who were around him simply tolerated their presence because she knew they were part of the package. It was nice to know he didn't have to worry about apologizing for their antics, stupid remarks, or general existence. If Rory had serious issue with something one of them did or said, she'd eagerly call them out on it.

"Why are we stopping?" Finn asked. "Our goal was food for the lady."

"The immediate goal is coffee for the lady," Logan responded. He looked over at Rory. "I am just guessing here, but I believe you could do with a large cappuccino."

The smile that lit up her face nearly melted Logan where he stood. He would buy her a coffee every second of every day if it would ensure that smile. The clouds that had shadowed her eyes earlier seemed to be dissipating. He took pride in allowing himself to believe he had some hand in helping the clouds to fade. Reluctantly, he removed his arm from around Rory and paid the man for the drink. He watched Rory closely as she took the drink from him. She clutched it tightly in both hands, closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of the beverage before slowly bringing it to her lips. When her tongue came out to poke at the lid's opening, Logan nearly groaned. No matter how many times he'd told himself to only think of Rory as a friend, he couldn't help but think of what it would be like to hold her in his arms and kiss her until she couldn't breathe.

"You mentioned something about breakfast," Rory said to Logan. "You can't tease me with food, Huntzberger."

Logan pulled Rory closer to him in a side hug. "I would dare tease you, Ace."

There you go! Another chapter. Thank you so much for all of the love with your reviews!