AN: Sorry about the wait on this one. Life has been a little hectic what with, you know, the world starting up again. But it's ehre now, and hopefully it was worth the wait.

June 2005

The taste of coffee was bitter in her mouth. What once had brought her joy, now just existed as a part of the routine that kept her moving forward day after day: Wake up from a fitful sleep, go to Luke's for breakfast and coffee that she consumed only to keep her fiancé from worrying about her any more than he already was, then head to the Inn where she would barricade herself in her office and search the internet for reports of Jane Does who had been admitted to hospitals or morgues. At lunch time she would call her father for an update from Patrick, the investigator he had hired before attempting (usually unsuccessfully) to concentrate long enough to get some actual work done. At seven, she'd head home to self-medicate with reality TV and ice cream. Lorelai had never been a reality TV show fan, but then again, it was one of the few genres of television that didn't remind her of Rory and there was something therapeutic about watching other people's dysfunction. And eventually, she'd fall back into another restless sleep.

But today she didn't even have her routine to get her through, seeing as it was Sunday and Sookie and Michel had forbidden her from entering the Inn on Sundays. They were worried about her, knowing that, if left to her own devices, she might never leave. At least at the Inn, there weren't many reminders of Rory.

So, there she sat in the Diner, sipping her fourth cup of coffee even though she knew there wasn't enough coffee in the world to fill the empty hole left be her daughter's disappearance.

She didn't look up from her spot at the counter when the sound of the bell indicated a new customer had arrived. Nor did she pay attention when she felt a set of eyes staring at the back of her head. She was used to people staring at her these days—giving her that pitying look that made her want to go full on 28 Days Later and shove her thumbs knuckle deep in someone's eye sockets to make them stop staring. And sure, this person was standing uncomfortably close to her, but that was Kirk for you.

"Is this seat taken?" She did look up at the sound of the voice that spoke.

"Christopher?"

"Yeah."

She motioned to the empty seat, giving him approval to sit.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. Before Rory ran away, Lorelai hadn't spoken to her daughter's father in months. Not since he'd temporarily broken her and Luke up at her parents' vow renewal. But nothing said 'let bygones be bygones' like a missing child. Still, even now they weren't exactly back to being bosom buddies. They'd talked on the phone several times, but they'd only seen each other in person once. Him just showing up spontaneously like this was definitely unexpected.

"I just got back from Cleveland."

She wasn't sure what that had to do with anything, Christopher was always traveling to random cities in the middle of nowhere to sell computer software. "And you brought me a t-shirt that said 'My Baby Daddy Went to Cleveland and All I Got Was This Lame T-Shirt…But At Least It's Not as Lame as Going to Cleveland.'?"

"Good to see you haven't lost your sense of humor."

"No, just our child, but you know, if I could only keep one…" she responded dryly.

Christopher ignored her morbid quip. He knew her well enough not to be shocked. "There was a report of a girl in a car accident there who matched Rory's description."

Lorelai sat up straight and turned to face her daughter's father, her breath hitched in her chest.

"It wasn't her," he shook his head. She let out the breath. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

"You flew to Ohio just to check?"

"Of course, wouldn't you have?"

"And you didn't tell me about it?"

"I didn't want to get your hopes up if it was nothing."

"Which it was, so again, why are you here?" She didn't mean to be curt, but she wasn't much of a people person these days. Even Luke was a warm, fuzzy, extrovert compared to her.

"Do you know what today is?" he asked.

"Ummm, 'my I don't have to run day'?"

He turned on his stool to face her. "It's Father's Day. It's Father's Day and I don't know where my oldest daughter is."

"And that's different from the last twenty Father's Days how?" she asked.

She saw the way his face shattered even more than it already was. It was a low blow and she knew it. She supposed she just needed someone to hurt as much as she did right now.

"I'm sorry," she apologized.

"No," he shook his head. "You're right. I was a crappy Dad for most of her life. But I've been trying to change, and it hasn't always been smooth sailing, but she's my daughter and I love her and I'm going to do whatever I can to help find her and bring her home, Lor. I promise you that."

"I appreciate that, Christopher, I do, I just…" she exhaled audibly, staring back down at her plate of uneaten bacon and eggs. "Dad's investigator seems to have hit a wall. Once she sold her car and got to the bus station she disappeared. There were busses going to twelve different cities that day, and who knows if she's even still in the same place that Greyhound took her to? I just, I don't know how we're ever going to find her."

"And we're sure that Logan kid doesn't know anything?"

Lorelai shook her head. The investigator had actually kept tabs on him for a while, but there were no red flags. And besides, she'd seen him that day he'd shown up in Stars Hollow demanding to speak to her. He was as shocked that Rory was missing as she was. As much as she hated Logan Huntzberger, she knew he was just as in the dark about her daughter's whereabouts as the rest of them.

They were quiet for a bit.

"I got into a fight with my Mom." Christopher admitted after a minute of listening to the clinking of silverware against plates and the hum of idle chitchat around them.

Lorelai didn't know how to respond to that. She felt like she was supposed to be sympathetic, but in the grand scheme of things, it just felt so inconsequential. Not to mention that there was no love lost between her and Francine Hayden. Any woman who could ignore her own granddaughter was not someone she had the energy to give a damn about.

"She wanted Gigi and me to come over today to do something to honor Dad. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't celebrate a father I could barely stand while my daughter was missing. And she just didn't care. As far as she's concerned, Rory is a nonentity."

"That's not exactly new, Christopher," she snapped. "Your parents never gave a crap about Rory. They actively disdained her very existence."

"I know, I just…you know I never approved of the way they treated her. But I guess it was just easier to avoid them as much as possible and try not to get into it when I had to deal with them. Especially after Gigi was born. Sherry didn't have much family even when she was around. Mom is the only grandparent she has. But I just couldn't do it anymore. I told her if she couldn't find it in her heart to care if one of her grandchildren was dead or alive, maybe she didn't deserve to have the other one in her life either."

"So what? You want kudos for finally acting like a father and protecting your daughter after she's not even around anymore?"

"I don't want anything," he told her. "I just wanted to talk to you. To talk to someone who's going through the same thing I am."

She felt the fury alight within her. How dare he equate what they were going through? Sure, they were both her parents in name, but she was the only one who'd ever acted that way. What he was going through couldn't even compare. She started to open her mouth to tell him as much, but he beat her to it. "And I know that it's a thousand times worse for you. I do. So maybe it's not the same thing. But it's the closest we've got."

She was saved from responding when Luke walked out of the back storage room with a bag of frozen French fries. "Christopher," he greeted coldly, setting the bag on the counter and looking back and forth between her and her ex.

"Luke," Christopher nodded in return.

Luke continued to look back and forth between the two. In a different time, it would have made her extremely uncomfortable, but Lorelai had lost the will to care about petty jealousy. Apparently, Christopher was not yet immune. He stood up from his stool.

"I was just headed out," he informed them. "It was good seeing you, Lor. If I hear anything else, I'll let you know."

October 2005

The knock on the door startled her from her reading. Rory didn't get many visitors, but every once in a while, one of her neighbors would stop by looking for a baby-sitter. And every time she heard the hollow rapping noise reverberate through the tiny apartment, her reaction was the same; her heart would speed up, her palms would sweat, her breathing would constrict. But this time, it was worse, because this time she knew the person on the other side of the door was almost certainly not a neighbor.

She was surprised, actually, that it had taken this long. As the week had worn on, she'd almost started to let down her guard. Almost started to believe that Logan would keep her secret. But she should have known better; it was a burden that was unfair of her to ever ask him to keep. So, it had only been a matter of time before the calvary showed up to bring her home. But no matter how much she had tried to prepare herself for this inevitability, she had failed—just like she'd failed at pretty much everything else in her life recently. She wasn't ready to face what was on the other side of that door.

The knock came again and she knew she couldn't ignore it. Rory slowly slid a bookmark between the pages of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and folded the paperback closed. With difficulty, she rolled over onto her side and pushed herself up to a seated position. Her face contorted into a painful groan brought on by both the sharp pain in her back as well as the loud squeak of the bedsprings which might alert her visitor to the fact that she was home.

She waddled her way across the room to the door. Her eyes pressed closed as she took a deep inhale to steel herself before forcing them back open and taking a look through the peephole to see who it was that had shown up. She was met by the slightly distorted face of a middle-aged man in grey coveralls. Her face furrowed in confusion but her anxiety waned slightly. It was possible he could have been sent there by her family, but she found it hard to believe they wouldn't show up in person.

She made sure the chain was in place before cautiously opening the door a crack to address the man. "Can I help you?"

"Delivery," was the curt reply.

She tilted her head, trying to get a better view through the gap in the entryway. The man had one arm propped up on a large, blue rectangle wrapped in plastic, leaning against the wall. She caught a glimpse of another delivery man at the other end. Her confusion grew.

"I think you have the wrong apartment."

The man looked down at an order form in his hands. "36 S. Huntington Ave, apartment 4B?" he confirmed.

"Umm, yeah."

"We got the right apartment."

"But I didn't…" her protestation was cut off by another voice—one she would know anywhere.

"Will you just let the men in, Ace."

The pounding in her chest that had occurred in response to the initial knock was back but this time it was beating out of anticipation, not dread. She tried to calm herself—it didn't mean anything; it couldn't. She closed the door to remove the chain before reopening it wide.

"What is this?" She stepped aside as the two men carried the mattress inside.

"It's your new bed," Logan replied as he too made his way into the apartment.

"Logan, I can't accept this."

"Of course you can. That piece of crap you're currently sleeping on isn't good for you or the baby. I sat on it for five minutes and was in pain half the week and I'm not about to enter my third trimester. Besides," he said leaning back against the doorjamb, arms crossed against his chest, knavish smirk in place. "It's your birthday present. It's rude to refuse a birthday present."

Her heart accelerated more. He'd remembered her birthday. She barely remembered her birthday, although to be fair, she'd been doing her best to forget it. She'd had so many plans for her 21st birthday, but they'd gone out the window the past few months, along with every other plan she'd had for herself.

But Logan had remembered her birthday. And on top of that, he had brought her a present, albeit an unusual one. But she couldn't deny it was something she could use. Between the six-month old fetus taking over her body and the ancient conglomeration of springs and polyester she was currently sleeping on, she woke up most days feeling like a cripple.

She looked from Logan to the men standing in the middle of her tiny apartment waiting for instructions. "Is that memory foam?" she asked, trying not to get too excited.

"Do you even have to ask?"

She gnawed hesitantly on her lower lip, trying to figure out what to do. She couldn't accept this, it was insane. Mattresses were expensive; even tiny, twin sized ones. And sure, Logan was rich, but even so, you didn't just go around buying your exes expensive gifts, especially after the terrible way she'd ended things with him. What was he thinking? But dear god, how she wanted to curl up on it right this second and sleep for a week.

She looked up at him again, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he watched the internal struggle happening inside of her. She shook her head, "I…"

"Uh uh," he said, interrupting her before she could even start. He pushed himself up off the wall and took a step forward to stand in front of her. "You know you want it. And besides, it's non-refundable, so just accept it and be happy."

She looked from him to the mattress, back to him, and then to the mattress again before letting her shoulders slump in resignation. She nodded her head as she faced him once more. "Thank you, Logan."

"My pleasure, Ace." He turned to address the delivery men. "You can take away the old bed and bring the rest up," he instructed.

Rory's head popped up in surprise. "Wait, rest?"

"Of course, you need a proper bed frame for the mattress. And decent pillows and bedding."

Rory rolled her eyes with a huff but didn't dare to resist anymore; she knew it would be a losing battle. "You're too much," she told him with a shake of her head.

His head bobbed back and forth as he considered her statement. "You can handle it," he told her with a shrug and a smirk.

Could she though? Could she handle him showing up and buying her beds just because he felt sorry for her? She'd been falling for him before she left…falling hard. On the worst day of her life, the one where she'd found out she was pregnant and been told that she didn't have what it took to achieve her lifelong dream, he'd been the one she'd run to.

And a few days later, when she'd suffered humiliating rejection and abandonment at the hands of the two people she'd been counting on the most to help her get through this, she'd wanted nothing more than to go to him again. But she hadn't. And not just because she knew she had no right to lay her problems on him like that, but because her heart literally could not take being rejected by him too.

So, she wasn't so sure she could handle it at all. But she was sure that she didn't have the strength to walk away—or to push him away—again. Not when she was this lonely. Sure, running into Jo that day at Planned Parenthood had been a lifesaver. Rory truly wasn't sure if she would have survived without her. And she cherished her new friendship, but it didn't stop her from being lonely; not when every other person around her had no clue who she really was. It was exhausting spending all day every day hiding. It was isolating to never let anyone see you.

And Logan saw her. He'd always been able to see her in a way that no one else could. He saw the unperfect parts of her and he was okay with them—in fact, he encouraged her to embrace them. He encouraged her to take chances, even if it meant making mistakes. And whenever she had needed him, he'd always been there for her…just been there without trying to fix it or solve all her problems.

And here he was doing it again. Doing it in the biggest way possible. He hadn't told her family. He wasn't forcing her home. He was just here, providing support; literal and figurative. And all that support—a girl could get used to it. But she couldn't let herself get used to it when she knew it wouldn't last. How could it? Logan had a life—one that didn't include her anymore, and it definitely didn't include Dean's baby.

She didn't respond right away as the delivery men tried to maneuver the old mattress out past the new one which was currently occupying almost all of the floor space of the apartment. She twiddled her thumbs nervously, looking everywhere but at him. She backed herself into a corner as the men managed to squeeze the old mattress by and disappear out the door.

"Logan?" she asked once they were alone, bringing her thumb up to her mouth to gnaw at her nail nervously. She stayed in her corner, keeping as much distance between them as possible in her tiny apartment. It felt safer that way.

"Yeah, Ace?" He asked.

"Why are you here?"

"It's your birthday," he told her, as though that answered everything. But it didn't answer a thing; all it did was give her more questions.

"Yeah, I know that, but what are you doing here."

He looked at her, eyes narrowed, head cocked to the side as though he didn't understand the question. But she knew he did; he was one of the smartest people she'd ever met. And that was saying a lot considering she'd gone to one of the best prep schools in the country followed by an ivy league college where she was taught by Nobel prize winners. But Logan wasn't just book smart—though he could effortlessly learn almost anything he read in a book—he had this way of being smart about the world too, about people. He could read you like he read the morning newspaper and know exactly how to get under your skin. He knew; he was just playing stupid. "I'm bringing you your birthday present." He motioned towards the new mattress which was still leaning up against the wall.

"Logan." Her voice was scolding; this wasn't a time for his cute games.

"Ace."

"Stop calling me that."

His eyes narrowed again only this time his confusion looked genuine. "Don't call you by your name?"

Didn't he understand? It was hard enough having him here, but that name; that name was a reminder of who she used to be, of everything she had lost. It was a reminder of the life she couldn't have. This was her life now. "That's not my name. It's a nickname. A nickname that refers to someone who doesn't exist anymore. I'm not that girl. I'm not the person who tracked you down and threatened to stalk you to get a story. I'm not a reporter, and I'm never going to be a reporter."

He looked at her; eyes boring into her so that she could swear she felt the heat of the photons bouncing off his retinas and penetrating into the heart of her. His gaze swept from head to toe and back up again. "With all due respect…Ace," he said, his voice steady and firm as he took a couple of steps towards her. She tried to move away, but since she had yet to acquire the ability to walk through walls, she had nowhere to go. "That's bullshit."

"That's life," she argued, but her words were shaky and unconvincing, even to herself.

"You love school. You love journalism. I saw it. That doesn't just go away," he informed her with a flick of his hand. "I get that you're scared and overwhelmed. I get that things have changed. I get it. And you can run away from school, your family, your friends, you can run away from home, but you can't run away from you. You may think that's not who you are anymore, but you're wrong."

She squeezed her lids shut, pushing away tears she felt pulsing at the back of her eyeballs. She hated these stupid pregnancy hormones, making her want to cry over everything. What was she even crying about now? The sins of the past? The perplexity of the present? The fears of the future? "I'm pregnant with another man's baby!" she blurted out.

Logan's eyebrows raised almost comically high, his mouth falling open as he gasped dramatically. "You're kidding me!?"

She huffed at his cavalier attitude, crossing his arms over his chest. "I broke up with you in a letter."

His face fell slightly at that. "Yeah, I remember," he replied more seriously, but there didn't appear to be any anger or resentment, just sadness.

"I disappeared without a word."

"Ace," he said her name again, calm, resolute, "you're not telling me anything I don't already know."

"So why are you here?" she asked again. She was losing the battle against her tears and the words came out pained and shaky as a droplet of moisture rolled down her cheek.

He reached out to brush away her tear and she instinctively leaned her face into his palm. "I'm here because I could tell you needed a friend."

"We're not friends," she sniffled, pulling away from him.

"Ouch." He clutched his hand to his chest, his face feigning insult, though she could see the slight twitch of the smile he was holding back.

"You know what I mean."

"I do?" He was playing dumb again. Forcing her to say it. She hated that.

"You literally just wiped my tears away," she reminded him.

"And friends aren't allowed to do that." He said it like he was repeating back something he'd just read in a textbook, confirming he'd interpreted it right.

"No, friends don't…" she huffed, letting her shoulders droop. "I appreciate the gesture, I really do. And the present. My back really appreciates the present. But you can see how this might all be a little…confusing. And I'm just…I'm not sure it's a good idea."

"And I am sure I didn't drive two hours to Boston to let you spend your birthday cooped up in a five-foot square box by yourself."

She bit her lip, letting her eyes roam around the room. He had driven a long way. And he'd bought her a present, he'd kept her secret…Plus it wasn't like she had anything else to do. It would be rude to send him away.

"I…" she hesitated.

"You can cry as much as you want, and I promise not to do a thing about it." He held his hands up in front of him for emphasis, his teasing smirk back in place.

"Fine," she relented with a roll of her eyes. "But if you're taking me out for my birthday, there better be birthday cake involved." She was going to regret this when she got her hopes up again. Her hopes for what, she wasn't sure. But she was sure she had never been able to resist Logan Huntzberger.

He smiled. "As much cake as you want, Ace."

"I'm gonna make you regret those words Huntzberger. If you thought I ate a lot before I was pregnant…"

The cool, creamy sensation ticked her taste buds as she lapped greedily at the ice cream dripping off the edge of the cone.

"Aren't you cold?" he asked as they strolled slowly down the street towards her apartment building. To Logan's credit, this was the first thing he'd said even remotely in regard to all the food she had consumed, and she had consumed a lot of food. There had been a sizable lunch, followed by two slices of cake (as promised) at a bakery, dinner had included dessert, and there had been all the snacking she'd done in between meals as well; and now there was the ice cream. She hadn't been this satiated in…she couldn't recall how long.

"I'm never cold anymore," she informed him. "I could stand stark naked in the middle of Boston Commons in a snowstorm and still be hot."

"Now that's something I'd like to see." He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

She scoffed; the man couldn't stop flirting for thirty seconds. He would flirt with a log in a skirt if given the chance. "I promise you, it's not," she assured him.

"Com'on, Ace, you don't give yourself enough credit. You've still got it. I mean, the chocolate sauce on your chin alone is totally hot."

"Oh my god!" she shifted her ice cream cone to her left hand so she could wipe furiously at her face with her right. She paused as she caught a glimpse of the laughter in his eyes. The stupid jerk was messing with her. "You suck," she grumbled.

At that, the chuckle he'd been holding back broke free. "I try."

"Butt faced miscreant," she mumbled under her breath, but despite her outward annoyance, she felt a tiny glow of happiness blooming inside. It was a feeling she'd grown wholly unaccustomed to over the past few months. She hadn't felt much of anything lately. It had been easier that way; to shut off all emotions and just focus on surviving, on making it from one day to the next.

They walked in comfortable silence for a couple more blocks until they reached the entrance to her apartment building. She knew he was going to insist on walking her up to her room but somehow it still felt like goodbye already. And as exhausted as she was, she wasn't ready for goodbye. It was what she was worried about when she'd agreed to spend the day with him in the first place; the moment when she'd have to say goodbye again.

She turned to face him on the stoop of the building. "I had a really good time today," she said.

He was standing just a few feet away from her, staring at her seriously with that penetrating gaze of his that made her shiver. "Liar," he replied, the corners of his lips bending up into a smirk.

"What?" she gasped grasping at her chest. "You'd accuse a pregnant woman of lying?"

"You clearly thought the tour was lame." It was true. He'd taken her on what had to be the cheesiest city tours of all time, a haunted ghost tour of Boston. She was pretty sure it was supposed to be scary, but there wasn't anything remotely frightening about it.

"Well, it didn't help that it went past my bedtime."

"Ace, it's ten o'clock."

"When you're pregnant and working 60 hours a week, you'll understand," she huffed.

"Well, you certainly managed to keep yourself awake by pelting the characters with your popcorn."

"Yeah," she chuckled, "that was fun."

"We almost got banned from all of the company's tours for life."

"Well, it's a good thing that their tours suck and there is no reason to want to go on anymore of them."

"Give a guy a break. It's not easy coming up with last minute plans that don't involve drinking. And you always loved all those cheesy events they put on in your weird town."

She could feel the smile on her face falter as she thought of Stars Hollow. She had always loved the cheesy town events, only the last cheesy town event she went to ended with her drowning her sorrows with Miss Patty's punch, getting taken advantage of by her married ex-boyfriend, and getting pregnant.

"I'm sorry," he said in response to her visible change in demeanor. "I didn't mean to…"

"No." She shook her head. "It's fine. I just…things are different now." If things weren't different, she'd be in Atlantic City right now, playing blackjack and collecting 21 guys numbers. These days the only guys giving her their number were pediatricians.

"It's alright to miss it," he told her.

It wasn't alright. That's what he didn't understand. Because missing it meant wanting it, and wanting only led to disappointment. That was true of everything these days, but especially of home. She'd never understood that saying before…that you can never go home. She'd grown up believing she could always go home. But now she knew the truth; home was an illusion. Because it wasn't just a place, it was a part of you, and once you changed, it did too. It might look like home, and at times it might even feel like home, but that only made it hurt even more every time you realized the truth; like losing a part of yourself over, and over, and over again. And Rory had no more parts of herself to lose.

"I'm tired," she said. It was the truth; this sudden rush of melancholy was exhausting. And she was so afraid. Afraid this was only the beginning. It had felt good to be happy again but allowing herself to feel one emotion just opened the door to all the others. She needed to shut it again before the flood of all the emotions drowned her.

"Yeah, of course," he nodded, opening the door to let them into the small vestibule of the building. They continued up the stairs in silence. For not the first time since she moved in, she wondered how she would make it up and down these stairs with a stroller and a baby to carry. But she couldn't worry about that now.

They made it to her apartment and she stopped in the hallway. "Thanks, Logan," she said. "For everything." There was so much to thank him for. For keeping her secret, for spending her birthday with her, for understanding her better than she even understood herself, and for that luxurious bed that awaited her on the other side of the threshold. She longed to climb into that little piece of heaven, cocooned in soft memory foam and Egyptian cotton, the scent of his cologne still lingering on her olfactory glands so that she could fall into a deep sleep, dreaming of a life where she didn't have to say goodbye.

"My pleasure, Ace."

"Well," she motioned to the door behind her. "I guess this is goodbye, then."

"Yeah. Hey, listen, Dad's dragging me to this stupid meeting in Omaha this week, so I won't be able to come back next weekend."

"What?" her head shot up, but he didn't seem to notice her surprise. Back? He wasn't supposed to be coming back. At most he was supposed to maybe drop by the bookstore the next time he happened to be in Boston.

"Man, I do not want to go to Omaha, it's so boring. I don't like steaks or insurance, or football, or anything else they have there."

"You like steak." It was an idiotic thing to say, and so completely beside the point. He was coming back. When? Every weekend he wasn't in Omaha? That was crazy.

"Also, if I keep disappearing on the weekends, people are going to start asking questions. What's your schedule at the bookstore like? Maybe I could come up sometime during the week. I don't have classes on Thursdays…"

"Logan, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the next time I come visit."

"Logan, you can't come back here."

He wasn't deterred by her denunciation. In fact, he straightened up confidently, looking her directly in the eyes. "Look, Ace, I know you've gotten used to doing everything on your own here, but it's not going to get any easier and you're gonna need help."

"Maybe I will," she acknowledged. "Maybe I won't. But even if I do, you can't be the one to help me."

"Why not?" he shrugged.

"Because it's not your baby!" she exclaimed. "God, Logan, you have a life. You have school, and friends and…" And dates. He was Logan Huntzberger, surely he had plenty of dates to go on during the weekend. "And you have Omaha, like it or not and a hundred other trips like it. You have a future. You can't waste your time babysitting your pregnant ex."

Logan scoffed. "Believe me, that future isn't going anywhere. I've been trying for years to escape it and if I haven't succeeded yet, a few trips to Boston isn't going to change that."

"That's not the point."

"Rory." He was using her real name now, he was serious. "If I tell you I'm coming back, will you be here when I show up?"

Rory bit her lip. She could feel the instinct to flee bubbling up inside of her. The desire to get somewhere far away, somewhere safe. But she couldn't do that…not again. Starting over once had been hard enough, and that was with all the lucky breaks she'd caught that had made it possible. She couldn't go through it all again. And besides, a part of her was secretly thrilled with the knowledge that Logan would be back. Of course, that's what scared her the most.

"Yes," she said.

"Good," he nodded. "Then I'll see you a week from Thursday?"

"I'll see you a week from Thursday," she confirmed meekly.

"Good night, Ace."

"Good night, Logan."

She turned and stuck her key in the lock, opening the door and slipping through. Once the door was closed behind her, she collapsed back against the wall, willing the thudding in her chest to subside. What the hell was she getting herself into?