May 2005

"Let's all resume this Monday," Mitchum announced. The entire room immediately started moving, shifting in their seats and gathering up their things. "Go home! Meet your kids, feed your dogs! Have a good one." Rory felt practically giddy with euphoria. She'd just experienced her first real, professional staff meeting. This was her future. This was what she was meant for. That thing she was worried about before was just a scare. A blip on her radar. In fact, she'd practically forgotten about it already. She didn't need to take that stupid test. This was her destiny…journalism. It felt too right for her future to hold any other possibility.

"That was fun," she told Mitchum as the room started to thin out.

"Yeah. Yeah," he replied distractedly as he unrolled his sleeves and did up his cuffs. "That's the way those things should go. Give and take. The less I say, the better."

"Can I get you anything?" she asked nervously. She wasn't sure what the protocol was here. She looked around the room with the chairs all askew, half empty mugs, and notebooks full of random doodles left behind. She should probably stay and clean up, for sure. But beyond that, she hadn't gotten much feedback from the man about what else he wanted. Though so far he seemed to be pretty satisfied with her work.

"No," he glanced up at her, then immediately went back to his cuffs. "I'm about to take off, here."

"Okay."

"So, I'm going to be pulling back here soon," he mentioned casually.

Rory immediately perked up to attention. "From the paper?"

"I've done my damage. It's time for them to take it and make something of it."

"Oh. Okay." What did this mean? He wasn't going to be around anymore? Did that mean the internship was over?

"I'll probably be in Monday, maybe Tuesday," he was finished with his cuffs and he'd finally turned his attention onto her. "Then not so much, after that." Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the moment he offered her that summer job.

"Well, I'm happy to keep going. Even without you here," she put in eagerly.

"You know, you and I haven't really sat down and talked about the situation, about how you're doing here, and all." This was it. This was definitely it. He was going to sit her down and tell her what a great job she was doing and he was going to offer her that summer job. She was going to get to be a real employee at a real newspaper. Maybe she'd even have a chance at writing something. Her first real byline in a professional paper; it was a dream come true.

"Well, you've been busy." She tried to play it cool.

"I've meant to. Offered you the job, took you under my wing. It's part of the deal."

"Great!" she replied excitedly; so much for playing it cool. "I'd love your feedback."

"Go on and sit." He gestured to an empty chair, resuming his own seat at the head of the conference table.

Rory shifted eagerly in her spot, leaning forward in anticipation. "I've worked with a lot of young people over the years," Mitchum told her. "Interns, new hires. I've got a pretty good gut sense for people's strengths and weaknesses. Whether they have that certain something to make it in journalism." Rory nodded, unable to keep the grin off her face. This was the moment. The moment she'd been dreaming of since she started this internship. Maybe the moment she'd been dreaming of since she was a little girl. Sitting down with one of the biggest names in the industry and hearing them tell her she was going to make a great journalist. "It's a tough business. Lot of stress."

"Definitely."

"And I have to tell you." He paused and Rory held her breath in anticipation. "You don't got it."

She stared blankly at the man in front of her, her heart thundering as the words reverberated in her ears. You don't got it. You don't got it. You don't got it. The pause seemed to last forever, filled only with the ghost of those four words echoing through her head and leaving her dizzy.

"Now, guts can be wrong," he went on, but Rory wasn't sure she was even hearing him anymore. All she could hear was 'You don't got it.' Did anything else he said even matter? "Mine's been wrong before. But not often."

"I thought I was doing okay." How could this be? She had done everything right. She had worked her ass off. She had come in early, stayed late, gone out of her way to figure out how he liked every detail of his work life, and she got along with everyone in the office. What more could she have possibly done? What didn't she have?

"I just don't really think that you have the drive to put yourself out there, to be honest. To get a story. To dig. I mean, just now in this meeting, I encouraged everyone to say whatever they wanted. You said nothing."

"I wasn't sure if I should." She didn't officially work there. She was just an intern. She was there to learn…to listen. What did he want her to say?

"Exactly," Mitchum affirmed. "I mean, you saw Harry. He jumped right into the fire. You didn't"

"But Harry's not an intern!"

"Doesn't matter." Was this really happening?

"I've always done what's asked of me."

"See, the thing is, in the real world, it's not always good enough to do just what's asked of you."

"But I thought I was in a really good rhythm with everyone here." How could she have been so far off? How could she have been so wrong about how she was doing? About his opinion of her? Did everyone else here think that? Had she read everyone wrong?

"I'm not saying you're not competent" he tried to assure her. "You're smart. You're terrific at anticipating needs. Actually, you'd make a great assistant."

Assistant? She'd make a great assistant? Was that what she was good for? Fetching coffee and picking up dry cleaning? "Oh."

"I'm sorry," Mitchum continued on, but his words were basically just a dull drone at that point. Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing mattered. She'd been so wrong. So wrong about everything. "It's not my pleasure to disappoint someone like you. Especially you. What with the extenuating circumstances. But it's healthy. I don't know any other way. I don't B.S."

She could feel the tears pressing behind her eyes. She couldn't let him see her cry. "I should get back." She pushed herself out of her chair, grabbing her notepad and her blazer and heading for the door of the conference room.

"Hey, listen." He stood up and she turned to face him once more, trying to hold it together just a little bit longer. "I know this is rough, but, uh, I may have just done you a big favor."

"Oh. Okay," she nodded vacantly. "Thanks." She turned and left, hugging her belongings to her chest as she walked down the hall in a daze. She had to get out of there. She couldn't breathe. Her chest was tight and it felt like there were dozens of needles shooting up through her ribcage into her lungs. Every breath sent a new wave of barbs stabbing through her. She somehow made it to the break room where her stuff was stowed, though she could barely remember the steps she'd taken to get there. She walked over to the rack on the wall and grabbed her messenger bag, flipping open the flap to hastily shove her things inside when a glimpse of blue cardboard caught her eye.

Could it be? She'd been wrong about so many other things today. So wrong about everything, her whole path in life. If she was wrong about journalism being what she was destined for, then did destiny have any other cruel tricks up its sleeves? She'd just lost everything she'd been working her entire life for. She'd just been told she didn't have what it took to do the only thing she'd ever wanted to do. If she wasn't going to have the future she'd always envisioned, was it her past she was destined to relive? To follow in the footsteps of her mother? She glanced furtively at the door. No one was there. Not that she was going to pull the test out and pee on the stick right there in the middle of the break room. But she suddenly had to know. Not tonight, not tomorrow. Now. Now, when everything she'd been building for the last twenty years was crumbling around her. She'd been wrong about journalism. Was she going to be right about this?

She grabbed her stuff and scurried out of the break room sending quick glances around her as she hurried down the hall past the reception desk. She briefly considered taking the elevator down to the lobby, but she couldn't wait. She pushed open the door to the stairwell and hurried down three flights before getting off at a floor she'd never been on before. The bathroom had to be in basically the place as it was on other floors—right? She searched as stealthily as she could, trying not to draw attention to herself. Finally, she located the woman's room. She pushed the door open, checking to make sure all the stalls were empty before picking one and stepping inside. She hung her bag on the hook and stared at it for…she wasn't sure how long. With a shaky breath, she opened the bag and stuck her hand inside, groping around for what she was looking for. She pulled the box out, carefully separating the outer cardboard flap from the one below it to open the box. Her fingers grasped the slippery plastic inside and she pulled it out, her hands shaking nervously. She ripped open the wrapping, shoving the plastic and cardboard back into her bag with one hand as the other gripped onto the test for dear life.

This was it; here went nothing. It wasn't like she had anything left to lose anyhow. She pushed her skirt up and her underwear down before she lost her nerve. Squatting over the bowl, she shoved the test between her legs, and peed.

November 2005

"I have to go to work," Rory said, flopping her head over to look at the clock on the bedside table. Logan groaned. It was just passed 9AM and they'd been awake for about an hour but neither one had them had had the energy to move. He didn't want to get up. He didn't want to leave this bed. He didn't want to leave this room. And he most certainly didn't want to go back to Yale. It was getting harder and harder to go every time; partly because he was happy here in their little Boston bubble, and partly because he knew their bubble was about to burst. Things were happening, and they were happening fast—the baby, graduation, his new job. They couldn't stay in this hotel room forever. But for now at least…

"You shouldn't work so much," he told her. "You did a ten-hour shift yesterday…eleven by the time you actually got out of there. And it's not like it's a desk job; you're on your feet all day at the store." He was worried about her. She was running herself ragged. She was working too much when she should be resting. And granted, he wasn't helping nearly as much in the rest department as he should. Though actually, they hadn't had sex at all so far that weekend. He'd driven in early Friday after an even more stressful than usual Thanksgiving with his family. He'd spent the day meeting with Mark, Jason, and Kyle to hammer out some of the contractual stuff. By the time he and Rory had met up at the hotel room last night, they were both exhausted.

"Yesterday was black Friday, I had to be there. This whole weekend is going to be crazy."

"Exactly. That much stress isn't good for you or the baby."

"You know what else isn't good for the baby?" she asked, pushing herself up to seated and throwing her legs over the edge of the bed. "Being homeless, not having enough to eat, having nothing to wear. I have to work, Logan. Dean wanted nothing to do with this and I don't have my family around to help me anymore. I have to do it. I'm barely living paycheck to paycheck as it is and with the time off I'm going to need to take once the baby gets here..."

Maybe…" He paused, shifting onto his side to face her. He inhaled shakily. "Maybe I could help?"

"What?" She looked back over her shoulder at him, confusion written across her face.

"I can help," he repeated with more conviction this time. He sat up to face her. "I can help with groceries, diapers…I can get you into a better apartment. One where the kitchen isn't in the bedroom." He was maybe overselling himself here. He wasn't exactly going to be keeping her and the baby in a penthouse apartment and buying designer strollers and organic formula. Not once he told his Dad about his job plans. But as small as his salary was going to be, it wasn't nothing. And he'd been squirreling away some cash over the past few weeks. Enough for a deposit and a few months' rent on a decent apartment, a hefty supply of diapers...the basics. Then, in a little over a year he'd have access to his trust fund and hopefully the start-up would be taking off. He'd shown the non-proprietary stuff to his friend Seth, who was an engineer major and the techiest person he knew; he seemed to think they actually had something solid. This could work. They just needed to make it through that first year and they'd be fine. And Rory needed to say 'yes.'

"Logan, no." She turned away shaking her head.

"Why not?"

"Logan, this thing that we're doing here…I…it's been amazing. Really. You have no idea. But it's just…" she sighed, her eyes closed, her head shaking back and forth forlornly. "It doesn't change anything. The circumstances haven't changed. You don't owe me anything. Just because we're sleeping together doesn't mean that I'm your responsibility."

"What if…" he shifted uncomfortably, as he carefully considered the words that were about to come out of his mouth. If he said this out loud, there was no turning back. She could freak, she almost certainly would. The question was just how much? Enough to shut him out? Could he afford to take that chance? Could he afford not to? He was tired of pretending he didn't care. He was tired of pretending this was less than it was. He was in this, he had to tell her eventually. At the very least she'd figure out something was up when he moved to Boston flat broke, working with a bunch of socially inept techies out of Kyle's Mom's garage. "What if I wanted you to be?"

"Excuse me?"

"What if I wanted you to be my responsibility," he repeated. "You and the baby."

Her blue eyes blinked disbelievingly. "Logan, that's insane."

"Why?"

"Because it's not your baby!" she shouted, pushing herself up off the bed and beginning to pace.

"You don't know that!" He scurried off the bed after her in a panic. This was happening. It was really happening. He'd told her, and as expected, she was freaking out. He needed to do damage control. He needed to make her see. He needed to convince her this was for real and not just some stupid whim.

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't know that he's not mine." He pointed out. "You just assumed. You just assumed that because your asshole ex took advantage of you without a condom one night that he's the father. But you don't know. Condoms are good but they're not 100 percent, and we were together a lot. All it takes is one screw up, or one faulty condom. You don't know." Okay, not exactly the rational, point by point argument he'd imagined himself making in this scenario. But he couldn't help himself, the words just came tumbling out.

She paused, her eyes boring into him with an eerie sense of scrutiny. "Logan…" she drew his name out slowly, "do you think this baby is yours?"

"Maybe." Yes.

"Logan…" she scrubbed her face with her hands. "I don't know what you thought was going to happen here, but there is going to be a real-life baby here in just over a month. What happens when he comes out and he isn't yours?"

"You don't know that that's going to happen."

"You don't know that it's not."

"You know what?" He stepped in front of her so he could look straight at her. "I don't care. I don't care if he comes out unnaturally tall with a full head of floppy hair. I don't care what the DNA says. He can still be mine." He meant it. He'd never really stopped to consider the possibility; he'd just followed his heart, and his heart told him this baby was his. But now, faced with the very real possibility that she was right, he knew he meant it when he said he didn't care. What was DNA anyway? Just a bunch of atoms stuck together in a double helix formation; infinitesimal bits of matter that he couldn't even see. What difference did it make where it came from? It wouldn't change what he felt. That baby would be his in every way that mattered, no matter who the biological father was.

"And what is your father going to say about you raising another man's child with your talentless, trailer park trash ex?"

"Screw my father."

"You're graduating at the end of the year, Logan. You're going to be going into the family business, preparing to take over the company. You think he's going to let you come here to Boston? No, he's going to send you to New York, or LA or…"

"London," he cut her off. The word came out a whisper and yet it seemed to reverberate through the room decibels above its actual volume. Why? He wasn't even going. Yet still, the mere specter of it seemed to yield some unmitigated power.

"What?"

"He wants to send me to London."

"Oh my god."

"I'm not going." He stood up straight, squaring his shoulders defiantly. For all the plans he'd made, this was the first time he'd said that aloud…as a fact. He wasn't going.

"This is your father we're talking about, Logan. He's not giving you a choice. He's not going to ask politely and then say 'okay, have it your way.'"

"It doesn't matter what he says," Logan shrugged as though Mitchum was a complete nonentity. And he was. Just like that, the specter was gone. For the first time in his life, Logan truly could not care less what his father had to say. "I'm not going…because I'm not going to be working for him."

"Oh my god!" Rory threw her hands up in the air. "Do you hear yourself? You're going to walk away from your family and your career? No," she shook her head frantically. "I'm not going to let you throw your whole life away for me. Absolutely not."

"Don't you get it, Ace? I don't want that life. It's forced on me."

"And this is what you want?" She held her hands out. "A hot mess of an ex-girlfriend and a baby that probably isn't even yours?"

He looked her straight in the eye. He felt surprisingly calm. For all the freaking out that she was doing right now, he had never been so sure of anything in his life as he was of this choice he was making right here. "I want you…I love you."

She stared at him, eyes agog with disbelief at his declaration. But then the fog cleared and she shook her head despondently. "Look, Logan, I get that you're scared, but…"

"The only thing I'm scared of is being away from you and the baby. I was away from you once before and it was miserable. I can't do that again."

"So what are you going to do? Drop out of school? Move to Boston and…what? Get a job at McDonalds?"

"I met with a start-up out of Cambridge. They're willing to make me a full partner. I'd actually be getting in on the ground floor."

"Oh my god, you're serious." She blinked incredulously. "You've really thought this through."

"I have."

"When?"

"When what?"

"When would you start with this internet company?"

"Right after the new year."

"You have a whole semester of school left!" She threw her hands up in the air as though trying to point out some huge thing he'd overlooked. But he hadn't overlooked anything. He knew exactly what he was doing.

"I've met all the requirements for my economics major, I don't need the English degree if I'm not working for a newspaper company. I submitted a petition to graduate in December. It's a little last minute, but the bursar is pretty sure it will get approved."

"I don't…" She raked her fingers through her hair in exasperation. "I don't even know what to say here, Logan."

"Say you'll let me be here for you."

Her head snapped up and she looked at him dead on. "No."

"What?" She didn't mean that.

She shook her head. "This is all wrong. This isn't how this was supposed to happen. This was just supposed to be fun."

"Oh come on," he scoffed.

"Excuse me?"

"You're not stupid Rory. You had to have known I didn't just keep coming back here for some stupid friends with benefits arrangement. You had to have known this was more than just fun…at least to me."

"Of course I knew," she shrieked. "But I didn't know know. And as long as I didn't know, I could convince myself that it wasn't true. But now you had to go and ruin that."

"Ruin it how? By telling you how I really feel?"

"How you think you feel. You're not thinking straight, Logan. It's just rebellion, or fear, or…or… some sort of mental break down. You don't mean this. And I'm not going to let you go through with it. I'm not going to let you throw your whole life away for me. You're going to regret it and I won't be responsible for that." She swiped the back of her hand at a stray tear that had escaped her eye.

He took a step closer, laying his hands on her arms. "I could never regret you, Ace." She let herself go, collapsing into his embrace and letting the tears flow. He held her tight, his hands gently stroking her hair. "I love you."

She sniffled back a sob before straightening up and putting a little space between them. "I think…" She shook her head. "I know I love you too." His heart clenched with relief but it didn't last long. "That's why you have to go."

"Rory."

"Look, I'm not…" her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to hold back more tears. "I think we both just need a little space to think about this."

"So then…" What was she saying? She wanted to think about it? There wouldn't be anything to think about if her mind was made up, would there? So that meant...

"I'll call you." Good enough. That's all he needed, for her to just give him something...anything. Rory was stubborn; she wasn't likely to just give in. But this…this meant there was hope. She was leaving the door open. That had to be good enough, right?

"You promise you'll call?" She nodded her head. He took a step closer to her again and laid his hand on her stomach. "Before…" he clarified. He needed to be there.

She pulled her lip between her teeth, then placed her hand over his, giving it a little squeeze. "Before," she nodded. "I promise."

He leaned his head down, resting his forehead against hers. "I won't change my mind." He assured her. "I know you think I'm throwing away my life and my family. But I'm not. You're my family. You and Samuel. You're all that matters." He pressed his lips gently to hers before pulling away. He slowly gathered up his things, pulling his clothes on in silence as she just stood there and watched him. He threw his bag over his shoulder and walked to the door before giving one last glance back at her. "Whenever you're ready, Ace. I'll be waiting for your call."

AN: Happy New Year everyone. I've been celebrating home alone with my new friend COVID. But fortunately, thanks to vaccines it was mild and I am on the mend. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Logan finally let it spill how he really feels. How do you think Rory reacted? Was it how you expected? Will she hold up her promise and be in contact before the baby comes? Will Logan continue to plan his move to Boston without knowing if she'll have him? Will he tell his father? Will Rory ever tell her family? I'm excited for what's to come. I hope you are too.