CHAPTER 11: It's Not Right, But It's Okay

Three days have passed since Elleigh's escapade.

Just three days since Logan and Elle both confronted Rory about one another.

Just three days after Rory messaged Logan to arrange a time to meet up is when she finally meets up with her ex.

When Rory arrives at the restaurant that Logan has suggested that they meet at she quickly learns that he is already there after she spots his familiar frame among the room filled with tables and chairs. Rory isn't even late for the meeting. In fact, she too is a few minutes early for their 10 AM meeting.

As she approaches the table, her nearing footsteps catch Logan's attention. He turns his head to check who it is, instantly standing up to reach her chair on the other side of the table first, pulling it out for her.

"Thank you" she says quietly as he pushes in Rory's chair as she takes her seat at the table, unable to pull her eyes away from him.

The usually polished young man looks anything but. Sure, he's wearing his typical neat, formal and undoubtedly high-end attire, but beyond that he looks anything but polished. He has stubble beginning to grow and spread across the bottom half of his face. His eyes look red and blood-shot while his under-eyes look dark and heavy. From the clues that those two factors give away, Rory can tell that Logan looks exhausted; like he hasn't slept in days.

"So... I guess that you're going to want to talk about our daughter?"

Logan realises that this is the first time that Rory has actually acknowledged the fact that they share a daughter, aloud.

The night that he had raised his suspicions and asked Rory outright, she had never actually confirmed that, yes, yes Elleigh is his daughter too. But, then again, she never said that she isn't, either. Logan had been certain enough to jump to a conclusion from her expression and the fact that she didn't even try to deny it, but he could have been wrong. Really, just now is the first time that she is actually confirming his strong suspicions.

Since Logan has become distracted by what Rory is saying, he doesn't immediately realise that he hasn't actually said anything in response to what she said before she continues to speak, not waiting for him to respond.

"Now just let me say something first of all. Now that you know, it doesn't have to change anything. You don't have to be a part of her life out of obligation. I am fine with continuing to go it alone. We are doing just fine and I am perfectly capable of raising her on my own."

"Well maybe you should have sought my opinion on that in the very first place..." he mutters under his breath, before exhaling a tired yawn.

"What?" Rory asks, her eyes squinting a little as though she is trying to listen in to him more intently.

When Logan realises that she hasn't heard what he said the first time, he feels like he's just been thrown a life-line and a second chance to back out of what he's just said. After all, being aggressive, even passive aggressive, is going to get him absolutely nowhere with Rory.

"It's nothing" Logan quickly says, before changing the subject to the question that he has wondered countless times over the last few days; the question that he is dying to know the answer to.

"So... Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me when you found out you were pregnant? Why didn't you tell me that I have a daughter at any point over the last nine years?"

Rory sighs, briefly trying to beckon a waiter that hasn't yet served them, first. It feels way too early in the morning and she feels way too sober to delve into the intense explanation that Logan is asking for. At least if she can do something about the latter issue...

"Okay. Let me preface this by saying that I am sorry. I have always tried to deal with this issue and deal with Elle the best that I could and however felt the best at the time. You have to remember a lot of time has passed and I didn't have the hindsight that I have now. You just have to know that while I might not be right, I always tried to do what I thought to be best at the time."

In the time that it has taken Rory to preface and lead into beginning her explanation, a waitress has come up to the table to ask for their orders. Both Rory and Logan courteously order a meal and drinks that are heavier than normal for your typical 10 AM.

"I didn't know that I was pregnant before we broke up, I promise. I only worked it out about a month later... All of my symptoms were too easy to misconstrue for the stress of exams, the Obama trail and our breakup. I considered telling you as soon as I found out -I really did- but I felt like I needed a bit of time to wrap my head around it and come to terms with it myself, first. Then, I had just been getting ready to tell you, in fact, I had been looking up flights to go and tell you and-"

Rory is cut off from her explanation when Logan jumps in, feeling confident enough that he can fill in the blanks and conclude her sentence for her.

"-And then you heard about what I did, didn't you? ... Of course you did... I shouldn't be surprised. It was plastered all over the news until the next big scandal came along and finally pushed all the headlines about me out of the way."

Rory sighs at what she has to say next, seeing Logan and his expression as he sits across from her. She can see his shame in himself and his actions etched clearly into and plastered all over his face. Yet, if she wants to be honest with him, then that means rubbing a bit of salt in the wound of his past actions.

"I was disappointed in you. When I saw the news, I was ashamed of what you did. You had come so far and I knew that you were so much better than that, but you ended up all the way back at square one... I didn't just decide to keep Elleigh from you because of that reason and because of that whole scandal, yet I didn't think that the type of Logan I first met was ready for fatherhood just yet... But, there's more to it than that."

Rory pauses for a moment and sighs, before inhaling a deep breath as she looks down to the table. She can't bear to meet his gaze; she can tell exactly how he feels. Logan simply waits during the brief silence. He is not happy. His eyes are straining intently and his eyebrows are furrowed tightly.

However, he can't deny that Rory has a point. The Logan that she first met, the Logan he reverted to after they broke up, that Logan would not have been a decent father.

"Honestly, Logan... I'm ashamed of myself. I had always planned to find you and tell you one day. I thought I'd wait a while, maybe a year, just to let the dust settle after your scandal and then I'd tell you about her. But, the longer I left it, the harder it got... It just snowballed; and that's all on me. I never meant for it to happen this way and I honestly never thought that it would take nine years for you to know, but it just spiraled out of control and I didn't know how to come back from that."

As she dares to look up and sneak a glance of his expression, she can see his increased pain, undoubtedly from what she has just told him. So, she continues speaking and explaining, to at least try and help him feel a little better.

"My dad was always in and out my life. He was in my life out of obligation because he knew that I existed, but he wasn't reliable at all. I didn't mind it mostly, but I always found myself wishing that he was either in or out. As much as I love my father, sometimes I wished that for all the time that he was absent from and out of my life, I wished that he didn't bother flitting into it occasionally. I didn't want that for Elle. It's not an excuse, but it was just something else that caused my hesitation to tell you; the idea that you weren't all in or all out."

"To be perfectly honest, Rory, that wasn't your decision to make... We aren't your parents. We weren't sixteen. Not to mention, you never even gave me the chance to prove myself otherwise... I know that I made mistakes after I proposed. I know that I shouldn't have pushed for all-or-nothing after I proposed. I know that I was a complete idiot and I know that I screwed up big-time after that, as you and the rest of the world well knows. But I also know that I at least had the right to know about my daughter. You were entrusted with our daughter, with my child, and you broke that trust."

Rory sighs and looks down to her lap as Logan explains his perspective after she had the opportunity to give him hers.

Suddenly, now that she's hearing things from his viewpoint, Rory feels nothing but guilt. Guilt has always niggled in the back of her mind through all these years, but it was easier to blot out when she was thinking about her and considering her decisions that she made, thinking it was best for Elleigh.

Rory struggles to say anything to Logan in response. Rather, she just silently watches as he sighs, his head collapsing into his hands, like he can't hold his head up anymore with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Three years, Rory! We were in a serious relationship for nearly three years, for crying out loud! I was ready to step up. I was ready to be your husband... Honestly, I would have completely understood if you didn't think I was ready for parenthood not long after we'd first met, if this had happened then... But it didn't."

There's a bitterness in Logan's voice. It's like he can't contain the feeling of being wronged, the injustice of the situation, yet he well knows that flaring up at Rory will only make matters worse. He keeps his composure and he remains in control of himself, but he manages to convey just how angry and how seething he is.

However, not only is there bitterness within Logan, his voice and his eyes, but there's also a deep pain. A pain that seems to slice deeper within him each time speaks, the more he lets himself think about it.

All of a sudden, Logan's exhaustion and tiredness from days of lacking sleep begins to set in, while Rory still hasn't said a word, just taking in everything that he has to say, guiltily.

"Do you have any idea how it feels to find out that you have a child that is nine?! How it feels to only just meet your child who is just a few years off being a teenager?! Do you know what it feels like knowing that you have missed nine years?! No... No, you don't know what that feels like because you had the privilege of being there and you took that privilege away from me. I missed an enormous part of that girl's life. I missed being there the day that she was born; I missed holding her, promising her that I'd look out for her for the rest of her life... I missed my daughter's first words, first steps, her first day of kindergarten, school... "

Logan is bitter. He's hurt. But, more than anything else, he's heartbroken. Not only has he missed nine years of his own daughter's life, but it was Rory, the love of his life, who had willingly kept it from him as though he wasn't wanted or needed in their lives.

"I missed out on an enormous amount of that girl's life and there's no way to get that back."

He pauses for a moment. Rory still hasn't spoken since when another thought clicks in his head. Another theory he needs to confront to be able to move on.

"You were ashamed of me, Ace, weren't you? You didn't want me to be a part of her life... You didn't want me to be a part of yours anymore."

He can feel himself getting worked up the more he says and the more that he thinks about what he's saying. So, finally, he takes a deep breath and gives Rory, who has just released a sigh, the chance to speak.

"Logan, I wasn't ashamed of you. Like I said, when I first found out I was pregnant I had to clear my own head. Then, before I had a chance to tell you your life had enough going on with the little scandal you got caught up in. But, I did actually try to reach out to you one day. I went into your work... I was ready to tell you everything."

"What? When?"

"Elleigh was two and a half months old. So, it would have been pretty close to exactly a year after the breakup. It was the day she smiled for the first time... I was so proud, so excited and I just wished that you'd been there to see the smile that looked exactly like yours... It just felt like you should have been there. I wanted you to be able to share that feeling too. While I'd been coping and while I was doing okay on my own, that was just a point when I realised that you should at the very least know about her."

Logan just looks at Rory with disbelief, searching for the explanation to try and piece together what had happened between that point many years earlier, to now; now that he has only just learnt of the very fact that she had apparently tried to tell him many years ago.

"What? What happened? If you came to see me that day, how come I never saw you?"

"I went to your work. I'd been waiting in the office. Then, after about half an hour of waiting your receptionist received a phone call and then asked me to leave... I assumed that she was passing your message onto me, asking me to leave. I don't blame you, but-"

Rory is cut off as Logan's jumps in and intervenes, a horrified look on his face.

"What? I wouldn't have said that! I had no idea that you'd ever come into the office before now. Even if I was having bad day or even if I was busy, I would have at least come out to see you, Ace. Even if it was just to find a better time to meet up. I would have done anything to just see you; to just accidentally bump into you somewhere, let alone if you'd come to see me... I actually got pretty pathetic, every time I was in a crowd, every time I was in Hartford, every time I was somewhere there was even a vague possibility that you might be too, I was on the lookout like a hawk, hoping to just see you... Look, I have no idea what happened that day. I have no idea why you were sent away. I'm sorry, Ace."

Rory sighs. For the last nine years, from her perspective and solely with her side of the story, she had felt justified in her actions. Despite the niggles of guilt that Logan should at least know about Elle -up until the last few weeks- she felt at peace with the fact that her daughter's father simply wasn't a part of her life. After all, she had tried once and she had been rejected... But now, with the second half of their story being told she feels a sudden surge of guilt for not telling him as soon as she knew, for not trying again and for not trying as hard as she could have, whether she felt justified or not.

"After I got sent away that day, I felt rejected. I felt like I just had to move on. Remove the idea of you wanting to be a part of her life out of my mind and just get on with raising Elle alone. I know I could have tried a bit harder to reach you and at least tell you, but after that happened I just couldn't go back there again... That rejection, combined with my other hesitations of telling you and my worries about us repeating my parents path, well it was just too much. Again, I got stuck with that spiraling effect, where I just lost control. It blew out and the truth got too hard to face."

A silence falls between Rory and Logan as the ex-lovers just take a few minutes to digest what each other has had to say with the information and facts being shared.

Walking in there just an hour earlier Logan had felt indignant and Rory had felt justified in her actions. Now, with history being rewritten everything felt blurry and unclear.

"So where do we go from here?" Rory eventually asks, speaking up, asking the question that has been on her mind the most since Logan confronted her about Elle's paternity. "If you want to be in her life, I'm not going to stand in your way. That's the least I can do after everything. But, I can only hope that Elleigh's sake, you're all in."

"I want to be a part of her life, Ace. I want to know her more than anything else. I want to make up for all that lost time. I want to be a good father to her. I will prove myself."

Rory nods at Logan. A little smile nearly spreads itself across her lips. Logan, his declaration of commitment and the serious expression on his face reminds her of the day they went from being casual to becoming boyfriend-girlfriend.

She knows that Logan means what he says. But, most of all she knows that he is capable of whatever he sets his heart to.

"You don't need to prove anything to me. It's Elle that you're going to need to prove yourself to and prove that you're there for. But, I am confident in you."

Sitting across the table from each other, the two of them share a warm, genuine smile before Rory continues speaking, after another wave of guilt floods over her again.

"Logan? I hope that one day you'll learn to be able to forgive me for this. I am sorry for the way things worked out. When I first decided to keep my pregnancy from you for just a little bit, I never imagined it would end up being ten years that I'd keep you in the dark for... I'm sorry."

Logan just nods. He accepts her apology, but he can't quite accept the result of her actions yet. There's still too much damage that's been done. He'll working on the forgiving, but forgetting is too far of a stretch.

"I want to get along with you and I want things to be amicable, comfortable even, for Elleigh's sake, but it's going to take a lot of time for me to be able to trust you again, Ace. Right now, I don't even know if that's achievable."

"I understand. I'm not going to hold you back from making up for lost time with Elle and I am happy for you two to properly meet up and spend time together. My only condition is that so long as she is happy with that and as long as she wants to."

"No worries" Logan says with a nod of confirmation. "That seems reasonable. I wouldn't want to force her if she's not interested or uncomfortable with us spending time together."

A silence falls between the two of them, before Logan looks up to Rory. Even before he says a word, the sadness, the pain written on his face breaks her heart to see it.

"For what it's worth, I would have done everything in my power to be there for you. For both of you..."

They return to silence.

Despite Logan's lingering ill-feeling from being kept in the dark and Rory's guilt after realising that her version of events was only half of the story, there is a kind of peace now that everything is out in the open.

There is the hope of a fresh start, a new chapter...

Longest chapter of this story so far; there was a lot to get through there!

I'm sorry if you were expecting more anger/outburst from Logan. It might be more mellow than you guys were expecting, but I had a few reasons behind that. First, they were in a public place. I couldn't see Logan screaming at Rory in a restaurant at noon. Second and more importantly, I tried to show some character development, unlike in the revival (cough, cough). Although he has every right to be seething at Rory, I tried to portray that Logan's grown up and he's matured enough to recognise that it'll do him no good getting into a screaming match with Rory. It won't bring back those lost years and that would not make things easier with Rory. Rather, he needs to focus on changing the path from this point on.

Also, I hope I haven't made too many Rory haters, whoops. Personally, I don't agree with what she did, either, but if I did, it wouldn't make for much of a story, ha ha! However, I really wanted it to seem like she didn't keep Elleigh from Logan maliciously or out of spite. She just thought that she was doing the right thing to keep it from him at the beginning and she never intended for it to spiral into nine years from that.

Next chapter: Rory and Logan bond over Elleigh and Rory comes clean to her daughter.