June 2005

There were boxes everywhere. He'd moved in almost a week ago and he'd done nothing to get settled in other than telling the movers where to put the few pieces of furniture he'd bothered to order and make sure they'd hooked up the TV and the X-Box. There was a stack of boxes in the kitchen, a few boxes in the bathroom. Boxes were strewn all over the bedroom area with clothes spilling out everywhere. And there was one box sitting on the couch next to him.

It was only box he had any interest in at the moment. The only box whose contents meant anything to him at all these days. Logan had plenty of stuff. He had more stuff than he could ever need. More stuff than most people accumulated in a lifetime. But it was just stuff. Logan had never developed much of an emotional attachment to the material possessions that pervaded his life. But this box…these things…they meant something. And he was about to have to give them all up.

It felt like giving her up. Like giving up on her. It felt like admitting she was really gone and that she wouldn't be back to collect her copy of Belinda or the ratty, grey, long-sleeved t-shirt of hers; the one she had worn to bed the night they'd first slept together…and on multiple occasions after that.

Speaking of the first night they'd slept together…he pulled a fluffy, brown chicken with a feather tail out of the box to examine. Colonel Clucker, she had called him.

He remembered the first time he'd encountered the Colonel. Logan had crawled in her window that night—after the plane ride back from Vancouver listening to his father's lectures…after Chinese food where he'd had to share her attention with Marty...after the Alligator Lounge with Finn's ear-splitting Zydeco vocals—and all he'd wanted was to lose himself inside of her. Her, specifically. There had been plenty of disastrous encounters with his father, and plenty of nights where he'd wanted to strangle Finn, and on all of those nights past, any woman would have done. But that night, it had to be her. He knew from the minute she'd dragged him into the dressing room and pressed her lips to his, he was in trouble. She'd been all he'd been able to think about. He thought maybe once he'd had her, he'd be able to move on, but it had only made him want her more. Logan wasn't someone who had an addictive personality. He was a casual user of all manner of drugs. He gambled frequently yet had no trouble walking away while he was ahead. And sure, he was a heavy drinker, but he'd easily gone weeks at a time without taking a sip. But one hit of Rory Gilmore and he was a goner.

She was all he'd been able to see that night. A tornado could have picked them up and transported them to Oz and he still wouldn't have noticed anything but the taste of her lips and the warmth of her skin. But the following morning, as the rising sun had seeped through the panes of the window they had imprudently forgotten to lower the blinds on, he had the opportunity to let his eyes wander around her inner sanctum…the one he hadn't already explored just a few hours earlier. That's when they'd landed on the bright red comb of a stuffed chicken. It was sticking out from beneath her dresser maybe a little more than a foot away from where they lay, as though it had been dropped, or accidently kicked out of the bed when she'd fallen asleep reading before he'd gotten there.

Logan had managed to finagle his arm out without disrupting the sleeping woman draped atop him and he reached for the toy. He'd playfully used the chicken's beak to peck her awake. It took her a moment to realize what was going on, but when she did, her eyes went wide and she grabbed for the stuffed animal.

"What are you doing with Colonel Clucker?" she glared.

"Colonel Clucker?"

"Yeah, Colonel Clucker. You got a problem with his name?"

"Not at all," Logan teased.

"We were just having a little chat. It seems we may have traumatized the poor rooster last night. I tried to explain to him about the birds and the bees, but he insists that as a bird, it's just unnatural to do it with a bee. Plus, those stingers hurt and he's not that into masochism."

"Unlike some people, apparently," she snapped, "who seem intent on starting their day off with a world of pain."

"Hey, I think it's cute that you still sleep with a stuffed animal."

"I don't sleep with him," she insisted. "He stays on the nightstand. I've had him forever." She went to get up but as soon as she sat up and the top sheet slid down her still naked body, it seemed she was no longer worried about the embarrassment of him finding out that she still slept with a stuffed animal. She had bigger concerns. "Shit." She grabbed for the top sheet pulling it back up. "Was that…" she pointed at the open window with the hand that wasn't clutching the cotton linens like an old maid clutching pearls. "Did we…? Was that…? All night?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid that Colonel Clucker here might not be the only one who was traumatized but an impromptu sex-ed lesson last night."

That was the first time he'd met Colonel Clucker, but it wasn't the last. A month or so later, not long after she'd officially become his girlfriend, he had been trying to entice her to stay over at his place. She'd been having a bad day…the statistics exam she'd spent a week cramming for had come back…a C. Now, a C was pretty par for the course as far as Logan was concerned. Not that he couldn't get A's, but why put in the effort when C's got you graduated just as well as A's did? But Rory Gilmore didn't get C's. Never in her life had she gotten a C. She'd gotten a D on a paper once right after she had started at Chilton. And apparently an F on a test she never got to take because a deer hit her. But those had been outliers. Rory Gilmore was an A student through and through. She had wanted to stay at her place, alone, and wallow. But he figured this wallowing thing she spoke of was probably better with company. And who was better company than him? So, he'd promised her they could watch whatever she wanted on TV, and that he'd order pizza with olives on it despite his hatred of olives, and he'd told her she could even bring Colonel Clucker. And she had. And he had stayed and made himself at home ever since.

She couldn't leave Colonel Clucker behind for good, could she? Clearly she would feel the need to return for this childhood keepsake, right? His body sagged as though it knew he were lying to himself and it was disappointed in him. But he had to believe. He tossed The Colonel back into the box and pulled out a blue silk robe. He held it up to his nose, inhaling the scent of her that still lingered on it.

Fuck it. Lorelai could have the Colonel, but this robe was staying with him. The robe had nothing to do with Lorelai anyway. He'd been the one to purchase it for her. He was the only one who'd ever seen her in it. His place was the only place it had ever been—outside the store of course. He needed something to remember her by. And besides, what would she think when she came back if he'd gotten rid of all of her things. She'd think he didn't care…that he'd moved on. What if she was out there, in trouble with no one to help her or to care, and she came back only to wind up feeling like she was still all alone with no one who cared. He wouldn't let that happen.

He took the robe over to the closet and carefully hung it up, the only item in there, seeing as his own clothes were still in boxes or all over his floor.

The intercom buzzed and the voice of the doorman alerted him that Rory's mother was on her way up. Not two minutes later, there was a knock on the door. "Hey," he said, as he swung the door open to greet Lorelai.

"Hi." She returned, her eyes looking all around the disheveled apartment. He probably should have made more of an attempt to make it look somewhat respectable, but he couldn't seem to care.

"I, uh…I have the stuff right over here. He walked around to the couch and picked up the box, leaving Lorelai lingering in the entry way.

"Thanks."

"Have you heard anything?" he asked, though he knew the answer was 'no.'

"No," she confirmed. He felt relieved. Maybe that's why he'd asked. To hear the 'no' out loud. A 'no' was a relief. It wasn't a 'yes, she's been brutally attacked and is in the hospital.' Or a 'yes, and the funeral is on Thursday.' 'No' meant hope. No meant that wherever she went when she left might be working out for her. It meant there was still this tiny inkling of optimism that could live on, trying to convince him he was wrong about her being in trouble and she was actually okay. That she would come back to him in one piece.

"Well, here's her stuff." He handed the box over reluctantly. He expected Lorelai to just take it and leave. He wanted her to just take it and leave. He wanted to get back to his wallowing…a skill Rory had been the one to teach him; though it wouldn't be the same without Colonel Clucker.

Instead, she set the box down on top of another box and opened it up, rifling through the contents within. Was she taking inventory or something? She pulled out a copy of Emma with a melancholy smile. "This was her favorite Austin."

"I know," Logan replied. She thought Pride and Prejudice was too obvious; despite the fact that it was clearly the Austin that most resonated with her life. It was everyone's favorite, therefore it couldn't be hers.

"You do?" Lorelai's eyes shot up to meet him with shock. Though why she would find it shocking that her boyfriend knew that the book she left at his place when she was reading it for the seventh time, was one of her favorites, was the real mystery as far as Logan was concerned.

"Yeah."

"Right, well..." Lorelai returned her attention to the box of her daughter's things. Her eyes would occasionally pause on an item and a misty look would glaze over them. He assumed they were triggering more memories, more anecdotes about Rory, though she mostly kept quiet about them. Until she came to the very stuffed chicken Logan had been reminiscing over not fifteen minutes earlier.

"What are you doing with Colonel Clucker?" Lorelai asked, her voice equal parts annoyed and surprised.

"She brought him over one night," he replied with a shrug. "She wanted to wallow."

Lorelai gave him a skeptical look. Skeptical of what, he wasn't sure. What did she think he'd done? Raided her dorm room one night and stole sentimental childhood keepsakes along with her used panties? He was her boyfriend, not some weird, pervy stalker. "I think I'd know if my daughter needed to wallow about something."

"You think your twenty-year-old daughter is going to call you crying over every bad grade?"

"Rory doesn't get bad grades."

"Except in statistics," he pointed out.

"Rory's great at math. She got a better score on her math SATs than on her verbal section."

"Yeah, 760 math, 740 verbal. One of the reasons she was so upset. That and because of the anxiety spiral she took convincing herself that a C in statistics meant that she'd never be able to understand and interpret analytical data and therefore she'd be a terrible journalist."

"That's ridiculous." He'd told her exactly that. There were plenty of resources and people available in professional newsrooms to help her get through science and math heavy information. It wasn't like she was going to be covering science and medicine. And besides, a C in statistics at Yale was easily a B or even a B at most other schools.

"Of course it is. But she wasn't exactly thinking rationally at the time."

"Obviously, if she came to you." Lorelai grumbled petulantly.

Logan rubbed at his forehead. "You got what you came for, was there anything else?" he asked, trying to move this conversation along.

"She's had Colonel Clucker since she was four!" Lorelai snipped, waving the stuffed animal in front of him. Apparently irrational anxiety spirals ran in the family.

"Yeah, I know."

"He was a present from her father," she clarified. "Her first brand new stuffed animal. All her other toys were hand me downs from the people at the Inn where I worked. Or stuff left in the lost and found."

"Like Annie." Annie was what she called the Ragedy Ann doll someone had left at the Inn. Rory made her a frequent guest at the tea parties Lorelai would throw when they were living in the potting shed there.

"You know about Annie?"

"Yes. And I know The Colonel's origin story too."

"How?"

Was she serious? "We were dating for months, Lorelai."

Lorelai scoffed. "You were sleeping together for months. You dated for one month."

Logan gritted his teeth, his words coming out with great restraint. "You have no idea what our relationship was like."

"I know enough."

"Look, think of me what you want, but is that really what you think of your daughter? That she'd spend months spreading her legs for a guy she didn't even know? Someone she didn't talk to or have a connection with?"

"I love my daughter, but she is my daughter. And we Gilmore Girls have been known to do stupid things for a boy before. Guys like you know just how to use your charms to take advantage of that."

"Rory may be your daughter, but she's not you and she wouldn't let anyone take advantage of her. She's stronger than that."

"Right, that's why she let one bad review from your Daddy derail her whole life and send her fleeing…unless there's more to the story you want to tell us?"

"Maybe if you didn't put so much pressure on her to be the next Christiane Amanpour one bad review wouldn't have had so much impact."

"You don't know what you're talking about. Just because you know about Colonel Clucker and her SAT scores doesn't mean you know Rory. And it sure as hell doesn't mean you know anything about me or my relationship with her."

"I know plenty. Believe it or not, Rory's life doesn't revolve around you. She has other people she confides in. And you can think this is my fault all you want, but answer me this…if I'm the bad guy here, how come I'm the only one she even bothered to leave so much as a note for?"

Lorelai glared at him, a furious look that clearly ran in the family…only when Rory looked at him that way, there was always an undercurrent of warmth, no matter how angry she got. Lorelai's glare was nothing but ice. "Goodbye, Logan." She shoved Colonel Clucker back in the box and hoisted it up on her hip. She turned to leave but Logan wasn't quite done with the conversation.

"She'll be back," he told her. "And when she is, you're going to have to face the fact that this isn't my fault. And if you want to keep her, you're going to have to learn to accept her for who she really is."

"You think you can lecture me about who my daughter is and what I need to do?" She leaned in, her voice a hiss. "A few months of dating, if that's what you want to call it, doesn't compare to a lifetime as her mother. I know who my daughter is…and when she's back, I'll still be her mother, and you'll just be her ex." And with that, she took her box and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

December 2005

The bell above the door to the diner jingled and everyone turned to look at her. But unlike when she'd been in there just twenty minutes ago, this time she didn't notice the stares…nor would she have cared if she did. Her mind was too preoccupied by the life altering information she'd just learned. Truthfully, Lorelai was tired of life altering reveals, especially pertaining to her daughter. She'd had more than her share of them lately and not a single one had come from Rory herself.

"Lorelai?" Luke asked as he looked up from the table he was wiping down. She didn't respond, just grabbed his hand and started pulling him in the direction of the stairs in the back. "Lorelai? What's going on? Are you okay? Is Rory okay?" She continued to steer him up the stairs and through the door to his old apartment. "Lorelai!?" he tried again.

"Dean," she finally answered once the door to the apartment had shut behind them.

"Dean?" Luke asked, his face wrinkling in confusion.

"Dean." Lorelai repeated. "Dean…store…Dean…father…Dean." she stuttered, her hands flailing about manically.

"Huh?"

Lorelai started pacing across the kitchen, her fingers weaving into hair, pulling at the tresses in distress. "Dean…Samuel…father…Lindsay..."

"I think I'm going to need a few more verbs here."

"Dean…knew...pregnant…left…"

"Lorelai!" His voice was sterner now, laced with frustration. "You're not making any sense. Just tell me what's going on."

Lorelai stopped her pacing and took a deep breath, letting her arms flop to her sides. "I just ran into Dean outside the toy store," she managed her first complete sentence.

"Ooookay," Luke nodded, waiting for the rest of it.

"He asked how Rory was…how the baby was. And he…" her eyes squeezed shut and she swallowed as she felt the bile working its way up her throat at the thought. "He's Samuel's father."

"Excuse me?" Luke stood motionless except for the stunned blinking of his eyes.

"Apparently Rory came to him before she ran away and told him she was pregnant and he was the father. I guess they…well…after they broke up they...you know…again. But then Dean told her he was getting back together with Lindsay and leaving town. He told her he wanted nothing to do with it. He assumed she'd have an abortion." Luke still didn't move. "Luke?"

"I'm going to kill him," Luke growled.

"Okay, but you need to get your story straight first."

"I'm going to rip his arms off and beat him to death with his own fists."

"Not that part of the story; I meant your alibi."

Luke waved a dismissive hand. "I'll just do it when Kirk is in the Diner. I'm sure I can convince him I was there the whole time. It's getting rid of the body that'll be the problem. I can't hide it here, that's a food safety hazard."

"Yeah, plus you don't want his DNA all over the Diner."

Luke shook his head, a gesture Lorelai knew to mean he was returning from his tangent, and in this case, dismissing his homicidal fantasies from his mind. "Wait…" he said, his eyes darting to Lorelai's. "If Dean is the father…?"

"Yep," Lorelai nodded.

Luke pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and collapsed back into it, his whole demeanor deflating from anger to disappointment. "She must have a good reason though, right? For not telling, I mean?" He looked up hopefully.

"You mean like she had a good reason for stealing a yacht? Or running away in the first place? Or changing her whole identity?" Lorelai asked. It was like she didn't even know who her daughter was anymore. The daughter she had raised and nurtured and loved didn't run away from her problems. She didn't steal. And she certainly didn't lie.

"She was in over her head."

"Well then, she should have asked for help." Luke looked up at her with an arch of his eyebrows. The look was gone in an instant but not before it could trigger the little voice in the back of her head that told her Rory had asked for help. Or at least that she'd tried. She'd come to her that day at Weston's and Lorelai had dismissed her before she could even get it out. Then she'd gone to Dean and he'd rejected her too. She must have felt so lost and alone. But Lorelai pushed those thoughts away. Rory should have tried harder. She should have told her the whole truth. She should have told her she needed help, not just that she was dropping out of school.

"She was scared," Luke continued to defend. "And if Dean refused to step up then I'm sure she wouldn't want the baby to grow up knowing his own father didn't want him. You can't blame her for wanting to give Samuel a father."

"Not like this!" Lorelai threw her hands up in the air. "You don't lie about something like this. Logan is turning his whole life upside down because he thinks he's having a kid."

"Since when you care about Logan?" Luke asked.

"I don't!" Lorelai insisted, stiffening her shoulders. "But the daughter I raised wouldn't do this to anybody. It's not right. Not to mention that it's bound to backfire. We found out, he will too eventually. And then what? Not only does she get her heart broken but Samuel loses a father?" Sure, Lorelai was angry and disappointed in Rory right now, but she still wanted to protect her daughter.

Luke let out a defeated breath, his shoulders slumping. "You need to talk to her."

Lorelai shook her head and started pacing again. "What's the point? She'll just lie and make excuses again. I can't trust a word she says. I can't trust my own daughter."

"I know you're hurt and disappointed. But you at least need to give her a chance to explain and do the right thing."

"No." Lorelai shook her head as she continued her pacing. "No, she lost the benefit of the doubt a loooong time ago. She's had so many opportunities to make this right. If she's not going to do the right thing, then I'll have to do it."

"Lorelai," Luke's voice was a low warning. "What are you talking about?"

Lorelai stopped and turned to him, her face full of resolve. It was the only way. The only way to right this wrong. "I'm going to have to tell Logan the truth."

"Lorelai, think about what you're doing here."

"I have," Lorelai insisted. She'd been thinking about it since the moment on the street when she'd found out the truth. She'd thought of all the options…of going to Rory, of staying silent, of telling Lindsay and Dean's family. This was the only option. She was doing it to protect her daughter. To protect Rory from making another monumental mistake. One she'd never be able to take back. One that would hurt her son. Rory couldn't be trusted to think straight about this, so, Lorelai had to do it. "He needs to know the truth now so that he doesn't wake up a week or a month or a year from now when his name is on that birth certificate and find out that it was all a lie. So he doesn't find out when Rory is more attached than she already is, when Samuel is attached. So he doesn't find out when it's too late to get his life back and he winds up resenting them."

"And this is all purely altruistic?" Luke asked, standing up to confront her. "No ulterior motives?"

Lorelai scoffed "Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know…" Luke replied. "Like maybe getting Logan to break up with her so she comes home?"

Lorelai gave him a withering stare. How dare he suggest she would do something like that. The last thing she wanted was for Rory to have her heart broken. That was the exact opposite of what she wanted. That's why she didn't want Logan in her daughter's life. He was a recipe for a broken heart. Sure, she didn't want them together, but she wanted Rory to be the one to come to her senses and leave him. But if that wasn't going to happen, then it was best that Logan left now before Samuel was fully in the picture. "I'm not even going to entertain that with an answer.

"You don't want to do this." Luke warned. "It's not going to turn out like you think it will. Do you want to risk any chance you have of making things right with Rory?"

"That's not going to happen," Lorelai insisted. Rory would understand. Not at first, of course. But once she was out the other side and could see things more clearly, she'd realize that it was better that it ended now.

"Lorelai," Luke tried again, but she wasn't listening anymore. She knew what she had to do.

The winter air stung her cheeks and she wound her scarf tighter around her as she paced back and forth in front of the ivy-covered New Haven apartment complex. She'd tried to get the doorman to let her inside, but apparently you needed to be on some kind of list to gain entry, like it was a posh Manhattan nightclub or something. He'd called up to Logan's apartment but there had been no answer. So, she'd had to wait outside. It hadn't been too bad at first; Lorelai liked the cold weather, and she had her coffee to keep her warm. But coffee didn't last long around Lorelai, and she'd been afraid to leave and get another cup, thinking she might lose her nerve if she did. So here she was, over an hour later, hoping that Logan wasn't planning to spend the rest of the night cramming in the library or, more likely for Logan, out partying with friends.

"Lorelai?" The sound of her name startled her out of her inner ruminations.

"Hi," she waved a mittened hand at him weakly. "Can we talk?"

"What's going on?" his voice was sharp with panic. "Is it Rory? Is she okay? Is it Samuel?" He reached into his own coat pocket and pulled out a pager, looking for any sign of a missed message.

"They're fine," she told him. "Or, well…as far as I know. You'd probably be higher on the phone tree than I am at this point."

He narrowed his eyes, looking at her with suspicion. She couldn't exactly blame him for that; the last time she'd shown up here, it hadn't exactly been a friendly social call . "Then why are you here?" he asked.

"Can we go inside?" she asked, motioning to the building. "I think we might want some privacy for this. Also, I'm pretty sure my nose is just a few minutes away from turning black and falling off."

"Umm," Logan looked warily around. "Sure, I guess." He led her into the building, past the holder of the list, and onto the elevator. They got off at the top floor and Logan led her to the singular door at the end of the hallway, opening it to let her in.

It was a spacious loft, but with far more stuff than the last time she'd been here. She recognized a few of the pieces of furniture from back then, but now it was fully decorated in dark, neutral tones with extravagant artwork, expensive electronics, and a pool table. Like before, boxes were piled near the front door, but this time there were far fewer of them, and they were on their way out, not in. "I'm sorry for the mess," Logan said. "I'd offer you something to drink but I already emptied the fridge and packed up the coffee machine."

"Thanks anyway," She started unraveling her scarf and handed it to him along with her coat. He took them and hung them on the coat rack.

Lorelai's eyes darting anxiously around the room. The nerves she'd been fighting all afternoon were suddenly multiplying. Maybe she shouldn't be doing this. Maybe Luke was right and she should have given Rory the chance to do it first. But she just couldn't risk that Rory would find a way to finagle her way out of this; to make some excuse about how she'd been wrong about Dean being the father, or to promise she'd tell him and then put it off until it was too late. Samuel was going to be here in two days and Lorelai couldn't risk Logan not finding out before then. He deserved to know the truth. And Samuel deserved to start his life with his real family, the people who would be there through thick and thin; not someone who was going to find out he didn't really belong there and then abandon a poor, innocent child.

His eyes darted nervously around the room. "Do you want to sit?" He motioned to a chair that was part of his chess table set up.

"Umm," Lorelai considered it for a minute. "No, I think standing is better." She had too much pent-up energy. She needed to be able to move.

Logan nodded.

"But you might want to sit," she suggested.

He glanced at the chair and then back at Lorelai. "I'm good."

"Right." She took a deep breath, letting it out audibly. Silence filled the air as she fidgeted nervously with her hands.

"You wanted to talk?" he reminded her, as the atmosphere in the apartment reached peak awkwardness.

"Umm, yeah," she nodded, beginning to pace. She just needed to say it…to get it over with. She could do this. "I, umm…I know we don't get along very well."

"I have no beef with you, Lorelai."

"Right," Lorelai nodded. "it's just that, well, I, umm…" It was never like this for Lorelai. She said what she thought—no holds barred. She tried to be polite and maintain basic social norms, especially around people she didn't know that well. But when she had big feelings about a person or situation, she didn't hold back in letting them know what she was thinking; they generally deserved it. So why was it so hard for her to get this out? Maybe because for as much as she disliked Logan, he didn't deserve this. Or maybe it was because there was a deep-down part of her that knew she was betraying her daughter, even if she was ultimately doing it for her own good. Whatever it was, she hated this feeling of trepidation that was holding her back.

"Lorelai?"

She gritted her teeth and steeled her shoulders. "There's something I need to tell you. And I know that you have no reason to believe me, but I just…I thought you needed to know."

"Okay?"

She stopped her pacing to look at him. He seemed to be boring of this conversation and Lorelai's wooliness.

"I ran into Dean, in town. You know Dean…Rory's ex-boyfriend?"

He suddenly looked anything but bored. His body straightened up, going still but stiff. His eyes met hers with an unmistakable look of apprehension. "What about him?" he growled, his voice coming out low and gravelly, the muscle on the right side of his jaw twitching with what could only be described as murderous rage. Lorelai could understand there being some distaste for the ex, but honestly, of all of Logan's questionable qualities, jealousy have never struck her as one of them. But she couldn't take too much time to contemplate the reaction. She needed to press on.

"There's no easy way to tell you this," Lorelai admitted, "But, umm, well…apparently Rory…" Lorelai swallowed uneasily. "Rory went to him back in May and told him he's Samuel's father."

Logan remained frozen for only a moment, then started to pace, his hands coming up to rub at his temples as he mumbled to himself. "Okay, this is okay. It's going to be okay," he seemed to be telling himself. He stopped suddenly and looked up at Lorelai. "Who else knows about this?"

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"Did you tell anyone else? Did he tell anyone else? Is he…I mean, he doesn't…" he rubbed the back of his neck, looking up at her in distress, unable to finish his question. "He doesn't want to be…Does he?"

"I told Luke." Lorelai answered his first question. "Dean assumed I knew. I don't think he's exactly going around advertising it."

"Okay," Logan gave a stiff nod. "Okay. I mean, that's okay. Because Luke wouldn't tell anyone-right?" he looked at her, his eyes beseeching. "I mean, he doesn't seem like the gossipy type."

"Umm, not really, no." Lorelai confirmed.

"Good." Logan let out a breath. "That's good."

"Logan?" she asked. She couldn't make heads or tails of his reaction. He seemed to be in shock, which was expected, but why would he care if it got out that he hadn't gotten Rory pregnant? Was he that worried about what people would think if they knew he'd been had? That he'd been duped into believing the baby was his?

"You can't tell anyone else." It was the most lucid and definitive statement he'd made since Lorelai had told him the news. There was a hint of pleading behind the words, but mostly they sounded like a command.

"What?"

"I know you don't like me, but this isn't about that, okay? It's about Samuel. So just…please," he took a shaky breath in. "Please don't tell anyone."

Lorelai stared at him for a moment, as he stood there begging. She took in his distraught, concerned face…the face of, well, a father. Her stomach dropped, a churning pit of dread replacing the vital organ. Her heart was racing madly, her palms suddenly slicked with sweat. "You knew," she whispered, the words barely making it out through her rapidly constricting throat.

"Of course I knew." He seemed affronted that she would think anything else.

"But…" But then what was he still doing here? Why was he telling people he was the father? Why was he graduating early, quitting the family business, and getting himself disinherited?

"Do you really think Rory…your daughter…would lie to me about something like that? Would let me change my whole life under false pretenses?"

Oh god. The pit in Lorelai's stomach grew deeper. God, how she'd screwed up. She'd screwed up everything. She'd let a combination of pride, and her hatred of Logan make her believe the worst. She'd allowed it to let her forsake her own daughter. To betray her own daughter. To abandon her own daughter.

She collapsed back onto the chair that Logan had offered her earlier, her body unable to hold itself up under the weight of her own hubris any longer. "So…" she swallowed, her voice still sticking in her throat, "you really don't care that he's the father?"

"Might be the father," Logan corrected. "Rory had her reasons for thinking Samuel was his, but we don't actually know."

Ahh, there it was. Lorelai felt her compunction abating and her righteousness returning. He was just waiting for confirmation. He might be sticking around for now, but once the DNA results were back, he'd be out of there. "And when you do know? What then?"

"Then nothing. He's my son. DNA doesn't change that." Or not.

"You think your father would agree?"

"No," Logan admitted. "Which is why you need to not tell anyone else. My father and I have come to an…armistice, if you will. But if he finds out there's even a chance that Samuel doesn't have Huntzberger blood in him…" Logan shook it head. "I can't let that happen. And if you care about your grandson, you won't let that happen either."

He was for real. She couldn't deny it anymore, no matter how badly she wanted to. It was like a veil had been lifted…a veil of animosity and anger. And now, for the first time in months, she could see clearly. Logan wasn't going anywhere. He wasn't some reckless and irresponsible kid. He wasn't here to play house for a few months until he got bored and went back to his old life. He was in this for real. She still didn't love the guy, but he loved Samuel and Rory. And Rory loved him. And whether Lorelai liked it or not, they were going to be a family.

And Lorelai…Rory would never forgive her. Luke was right—she'd probably ruined any chance she'd ever had of making things right with her daughter. But she had to try. She needed to do whatever it took to fix this. She needed to go to Rory and beg for forgiveness. She had to hope that it wasn't too late.

"Lorelai?"

"I have to go," she replied, her words distant and detached. She stood up to head for the door, but Logan cut her off.

"Lorelai!" he said again as she reached for her outerwear. She stopped to look at him. He was waiting for something from her…and then she realized.

"I won't say anything," she promised. "I just…I have go…to Rory. I have to…"

"Hey," his voice was gentle now as he laid a hand on her shoulder. "She loves you," he assured her. "All she's ever wanted was for you to accept her for who she was, even if it's not who you want her to be. If you can do that, it'll be okay."

She hated getting lectured about her own daughter from anyone, let alone from him. She hated that anyone knew Rory better than she did. But, she had admit that she didn't seem to know Rory very well at all lately. And now she realized that the only person she had to blame for that was herself. So maybe he was right. She just had to hope he was. Because for as much as it hurt for her to be wrong about her own daughter, in this case, it would hurt more to be right.

AN: So there we have it...the impossible has happened and the ever stubborn Lorelai realizes what a mistake she's made. But it is too late to save her relationship with her daughter? Will she get to be there for Samuel's birth? Will she really be able to step back and play second fiddle to Logan in Rory's life even if she realizes how important he it to her daughter and impending grandson? Does she still have Colonel Clucker? Or did she get rid of the Logan box like she never did with the Dean box?

Also, on a house keeping note...don't forget to opt back in to emil alerts so you can know when updates are happening. Not just mine, but everyone's. Caro1414 has a great new(ish) story out, Forever and Always, as well as her other current WIP The Best Deceptions. And, if you didn't hear the amazing news, LoveRocket09is BACK! With a new chapter of Mind the Gap. You can read all of our works here, or, you can head over to Arichive of Our Own where our stories are all cross posted as well.