The next morning Rory woke up to the sound of her daughter babbling in the crib at the end of her bed. She slowly opened her eyes and let them adjust to the light. As she remembered the events of the night before, Rory rolled back onto her pillow and groaned. She reached over to the side of her bed and picked up her cell phone.

"Hey kiddo!" the bright and breezy voice of her mom answered.

"I HAD SEX WITH LOGAN" Rory yelled.

"And now I have acute deafness." Lorelai said as she moved the phone away from her ear. "and as much as I truly want to believe that Lily came into this world via the absolute miracle that is immaculate conception, I'm going to have to say, I think it's a bit obvious to all and sundry that you had sex with Logan hun…"

"No. Last night. I had sex with Logan last night." Rory groaned.

"What! When, where, why!" Lorelai asked.

Rory sighed. "After the party, on the sofa in the pool house."

"And I am NEVER sitting on that sofa again." Lorelai shuddered.

"Mom, I am serious!" Rory said.

"So am I!" Lorelai joked.

"Well it's too late for that anyhow, you've sat there before and…" Rory trailed off.

"Ooh, dirty! Now I know why my mother always referred to it as your sex house. So, how was it…" Lorelai asked.

"It was…." Rory started before stopping, wondering just what words she could use to describe it. Wonderful? Amazing? Perfect? All of the above? "You know what, I am NOT having this conversation with my mother".

"So it was good then huh" Lorelai laughed.

"It's always good" Rory shrugged "But this situation, it's anything other than good, it's bad, it's very very bad."

"Why?" Lorelai said quizzically. "You like Logan right, we can all see that and clearly if you were making whoopee on my mother's sofa last night, he's pretty sweet on you too."

Rory rolled her eyes. "Because it just wasn't meant to happen, we weren't meant to go there and then Logan just got up and left. He was being…weird" Rory closed her eyes as she thought back to their awkward parting, kind of wishing she'd forced him to stay instead of letting him run out.

"He left? Weird? In what way?" Lorelai asked.

"He was just very…I don't know, cold maybe, I mean considering how he had been only ten minutes previously…Now we are going to have to have a very awkward conversation about it and ugh, I just don't want to have to face him. I am such an idiot."

"Oh Rory, I am sure it won't be as bad as you are expecting and I'm sure he's going to feel just as awkward as you about it all."

"Maybe, I just wish I knew what the whole leaving thing was about. He couldn't get out of their fast enough, which is a great ego-booster let me tell you."

"I can't answer that one kid, men are strange creatures, but please Rory, don't stress over this, just give call him and get it over and done with. Rip that Band-Aid right off!"

Rory didn't call Logan that day, or the next and neither did he get in contact with her, though he had really wanted to. Logan was so mad at himself for leaving the pool house in the way he did and he feared he had completely blown everything with her. He'd waited so long to be with Rory in that way again and then when it happened, he freaked out when he started thinking about what may or may not happen next. Logan was still hurting from Rory's rejection at her graduation and he was unsure about opening himself up again and being in a vulnerable position.

A few days passed and Rory was relieved that she'd got thus far without having to dissect the whole sorry thing with Logan. He hadn't been due to see Lily until later in the week and while they'd exchanged a few perfunctory text messages, they'd completely managed to avoid the subject. Now though she couldn't avoid it any longer. Even though there were a million and one things she'd rather do with her time, like a root canal treatment or tonsillectomy, she had arranged to go over and see Mitchum to finalize the trust fund documents for Lily. Rory had nervously made a special effort getting ready and had chosen an outfit that made her feel confident. Whatever happened and whatever was going to be said, she wanted to feel completely at her best so that even if she was completely knotted up on the inside, to the outside world she looked calm, collected and completely together.

Rory arrived at the Huntzberger estate. She parked her car and stood looking at the imposing front door before finally plucking up the courage to knock. There was something about that house that always made her feel about a foot tall. One of the household staff opened the door to greet her and took her coat from her before showing her into the living room. Rory took a seat while she waited for Mitchum to appear.

"No Lily tonight?" Mitchum's voice boomed from behind her, making her jump. There was something about that being in their house that always put her on edge.

Rory turned around to look at him and stood up. "No, I have left her with Marta tonight." she smiled.

"That's a shame, I was looking forward to seeing her. Shall we go through?" Mitchum said gesturing into the hallway.

Rory followed Mitchum into his study. She still felt so very intimidated by the man, even though he was much more civil to her than the first few times their paths had crossed. He sat down behind the desk and she took her seat opposite him.

"So Logan told you what this is all about?" Mitchum asked.

Rory nodded. "Yes, and I will admit, that I was a little surprised about it all, but I guess it's really nice that you want to do this for Lily."

"She's my granddaughter, why wouldn't I do it" Mitchum smiled. "All you need to do is sign here," he pointed as he handed her the pen across the desk. "The money will stay in the trust fund until she is twenty-five, at which point she may do as she pleases with it. Of course, we may be able to release funds earlier in certain circumstances, like for college for example but that's quite a way off yet." he laughed. "Obviously, if you have any more children with Logan in the future, we will put exactly the same thing in place for them."

Rory shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Oh, thank you. I don't think though…I mean, that's not very likely, but thank you all the same." She stumbled over her words. Just then she heard the door to the study open behind her.

"Talking of Logan…" Mitchum smiled at Rory.

"Talking about me? All bad I hope." Logan smirked before turning his attentions to Rory who was trying hard not to make eye contact. "Rory, are you almost done here? I wanted to talk to you quickly before you leave."

"Oh erm, I'm not sure. Mitchum, are we…" Rory waited for him to answer.

Mitchum looked at Rory and Logan. Something had clearly gone down between the two of them as there was an atmosphere in the room and they could barely look at each other but he wasn't about to start intruding.

"Yes, yes, all done. I'll get all this sorted with the lawyers". Mitchum said pulling all the papers into a folder.

Rory stood up and quietly followed Logan out of the study.

"So," he said as he put his hands into his pockets. "We've not really had the chance to talk since…"

Rory chewed on the inside of her cheek. Over the past few days she had thought about all the things she wanted to say to Logan but now she was stood in front of him, she had no idea what any of those things were. She took a deep breath. She considered telling him the absolute truth – that he had really hurt her when he walked out of the pool house, that she was mad at him for acting like it was nothing, that it had been the best thing that had happened in a long time, that she couldn't imagine being with anyone else ever again but none of those words came to her.

"It's fine Logan, we don't need to talk about it" Rory waving her hands dismissively. "Honestly. It was a silly mistake, it won't happen again," she said, not quite meeting his eyes.

Logan looked a bit taken aback. "You don't want it to?" he frowned.

He cursed himself internally. Logan knew that his knee-jerk reaction to get out of there had been a bad move when he was doing it and now it really looked like he'd ruined any hope for them.

"What are you saying? You DO want it to happen again?!" Rory raised her eyebrows. "Logan, I really don't understand you. You just left without saying anything!" she said exasperatedly. "How do you think that made me feel?"

"I know and I feel really bad about that Rory believe me, I just…I wasn't sure what to say or what it meant…" he said quietly.

"And you know now?" She asked looking at him.

He shook his head "No, not really. I mean, obviously we both wanted to but…"

Logan had tried hard to rationalize his thoughts over the past few days. His head wanted to tell him to walk away, reminding him constantly that Rory had really hurt him, not once, but twice. His heart, however, was telling him something completely different. He loved this girl, he had loved her since he had first met her and he knew that it wouldn't matter what he did, he was never going to manage to get Rory out of his mind.

"Look, Logan, it's fine. I was upset but I'm over it. I've had time to think about it and it's probably for the best that we just put it behind us and forget it ever happened."

"Is that what you really want"

"I think it's what we need to do. I don't think that it would be a good idea for us to get into anything – it's too risky now, it's not just us it hurts. If it doesn't work out, it's going to negatively affect Lily and I don't think either of us wants that." Rory said with a hint of sadness.

"But what if we never try and we miss out on something that could be really good?" he said as he took hold of one of her hands.

"Logan…" Rory said as she pulled away slightly, but she didn't remove her hand.

"Why don't we just take things really slowly and see where it takes us?"

"What like becoming boyfriend and girlfriend again?" Rory questioned.

"We don't have to put a label on it right now." Logan said "Maybe we could just go on a few dates, see how we feel. It's been a long time since we did that."

Rory paused. Could she see herself dating him again? She had thought long and hard about Logan over the past few days. She loved having him around, they got on really well and the sex, well the sex had been amazing and it had been a really long time since she'd been touched like that. Rory knew she wanted Logan to be in her life, being apart for eighteen months had been so hard, and she found it really quite exciting to think about starting something new with him.

"Us, dating?" Rory smiled with a raised eyebrow.

"No strings attached" Logan winked, remembering back to their conversation when they first started dating.

"Okay, let's try dating and see where it takes us." she shrugged.

Rory smiled lightly and shook her head the tiniest amount. They both knew that no strings had been pretty much impossible the first time that they started dating. She was pretty certain that it wouldn't work for them this time around either.