AN: Hi everyone! Sorry I've been quiet lately. I promise I'm still actively writing, it's just been slow going. Life has been a little stressful as of late. I decided I needed a break from the MtG angst and I wanted to dive back into the BLP verse for a second. Hope you enjoy! As always please leave a review. :)

Unplans & Happenstances

Wednesday, April 18, 2030

"Yes."

The answer had fallen from his lips with more enthusiasm than Logan ever would have expected. It used to be that when he was presented with this question he had to suppress a sigh - a groan - an eye roll of frustration. It used to be that he had to feign enthusiasm and work tirelessly to maintain a smile on his face as he prepared to sit through what was going to be a tortuously long afternoon. It used to be that he had to practically drag his feet up Fifth Avenue and through the iconic black and gold trimmed revolving doors, being pulled by his overly excited and exuberant daughter.

But today… today when his not-so-little-anymor e little girl asked him the dreaded question with big brown eyes full of hope and slight embarrassment, Logan had been shocked at how quickly he jumped at the opportunity to say yes.

"Can we get Eloise Tea?"

It hadn't been what he expected when he'd asked her what she wanted to do for lunch that afternoon.

Just two months shy of her thirteenth birthday and her entry into the highly anticipated realm of teenagedom, Ellie had recently been far more interested in cooler endeavors. Gone were the days when her eyes would light up at the thought of seeing the dinosaur fossils at the Museum of Natural History or feeding the ducks in Central Park. Nowadays, on the rare occasion when she had to accompany Logan into Manhattan for the day, she was far more interested in spending the afternoon shopping and dining in whatever hip new boutique restaurant was currently in according to the middle school contingent at Berkeley Carroll.

Today, though… today Ellie had apparently decided to indulge in some of her more childlike interests. And not a moment too soon either. She only had two more months to enjoy the privilege of Eloise Afternoon Tea at The Plaza before she was relegated to the regular old tea menu with the rest of them.

It was hard for him to wrap his head around just how fast she was growing up. It used to be when he took her into his office she would occupy herself with a coloring book, making a mess of crayons and markers spread all over the coffee table in the sitting area by his window. Today, the coloring books had been replaced with textbooks. And the markers had been replaced with highlighters. The toys had been replaced by a laptop, and the look of fun on her face had been replaced with a look of deep thought and concentration.

It used to be that the dresses she tried on were frilly little things with short poofy skirts and bows and flowers. Glitter and sparkles and tulle. Today the dress Logan had watched the tailors pin around her was long and sleek. Silky and simple. Today he'd suddenly noticed just how long her legs had gotten and how her once entirely flat chest wasn't exactly flat anymore.

When did that happen?

When did his baby start turning into a young woman, and how in the hell had he missed it?

Needless to say, Logan didn't exactly need to have his arm twisted to bring her to The Palm Court that afternoon. As he sat across from her sipping on his steaming hot cup of Darjeeling, he was acutely aware that this was the last time he was ever going to see her dig into that particular serving of pink cotton candy ever again.

"Hold on, I want to take a picture," he said as Ellie plucked the trademark candy floss from the side of the three tiered stand that was once filled with an assortment of sandwiches, pastries, and scones.

But unfortunately for Logan, the sudden embrace of her childhood did not stop Ellie from gracing him with an exasperated eye roll.

"Why?" Ellie whined.

"Because…" Logan replied enthusiastically, ignoring her annoyed tone entirely. "I want to send it to your mom."

"You're gonna post it."

"I'm not gonna post it," Logan assured as he reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out. Ellie sighed when he held the camera up to her face, and she stubbornly refused to smile.

" Don't post it," the girl insisted.

"I won't post it. I promise."

It seemed that Logan's assurance was enough to get her to give him at least a small smile. It was hardly one of the bright toothy smiles that she used to give him in the days of her early childhood, but these days Logan would take what he could get.

"So…Are you looking forward to Aunt Gigi's wedding?" Logan asked as he put his phone back in his pocket. Ellie shrugged as she picked at her cotton candy.

"I guess so," she said.

"Did you like the dress?"

"Yeah…" Ellie replied with a nod. "It's just… She's kind of a lot…"

Logan laughed.

Calling his younger sister-in-law 'a lot' was a bit of an understatement. From the very beginning of the wedding planning process, Rory had echoed some of the same exact sentiments. Though, her words weren't quite as polite. There had been a lot of complaints. A lot of groans. A lot of curses. Lately, she'd been lamenting the fact that her little sister had grown up to be 'just like Sherry.' Logan didn't really have any context for that comment. But judging by Rory's tone, it wasn't exactly a compliment.

"She told me I wasn't allowed to cut my hair. Except a trim."

"Do you want to cut your hair?" Logan asked, wondering if he needed to get involved in this somehow.

"No," said Ellie. "But she's just bossy like that."

"Well…" said Logan. "Some people want their wedding just so."

"I won't be like that when I get married."

Logan pursed his lips. Firstly - because he'd known many a woman who'd said the same thing in their youth but had completely succumbed to the mania when their time actually came. Rosemary came to mind. And secondly… secondly because he really didn't want to think about his baby girl getting married any time soon. He had at least fifteen years before he needed to think about that. Preferably thirty. Forty. Never . Never was good. He was shooting for never.

He watched Ellie finish her cotton candy with an amazement reminiscent of the first few dates he'd been on with Rory back in their Yale days. She'd wiped her entire tea tray clean. Every tier. And experience made him pretty confident that she would probably still be asking for a snack from the breakroom on his office floor before the afternoon was over. The Gilmore metabolism was something that he still marveled at - and envied - to this very day. He was glad both of his children had been blessed with it, but he was also slightly resentful of the fact that he was the only person in their family who ever needed to consider the amount of calories they were consuming.

"Can we get the check please?" Logan asked as he flagged down their waiter.

A few minutes later, the father and daughter were making their way into the hotel lobby, stopping only when Ellie suddenly proclaimed that she had to go to the bathroom before they embarked on the ten block walk back down Sixth Avenue to The New York Standard building.

"Okay. I'll be right here," Logan replied as he watched her scamper off in the direction of the restroom.

He looked at his watch, noting that it was just a little past one, giving them plenty of time before he had to make it back to the office for his 3:00 meeting with the board. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to look through messages while he was waiting there. But before he opened his email, he decided to tap his thumb on the green chat app at the bottom left hand corner of his screen.

He scrolled through the threads of messages, not needing to go very far before he saw his wife's nickname appear on the screen. He tapped the thread and immediately went to attach the picture he had just taken of Ellie to send off to her when he was suddenly hit by something - or rather someone - on his left side.

"Oh - Excuse me - "

"Pardon."

By the time Logan looked up from his phone and turned around to see the face of the person that he'd bumped into, she was already well on her way past him. Apparently, she was no worse for the wear and had places to be. Not that Logan was offended. He was the one not paying attention, after all.

But before he could turn his attention back onto his phone, he spotted a pair of black and gold Dior sunglasses that had fallen on the ground next to his feet.

"Excuse me. Miss!" he continued as he bent down to pick them up off the floor. "You dropped your - "

At the sound of his voice, the woman turned around to face him. And the moment she did, Logan felt as if a train had somehow come off the tracks and crashed right through the entrance of The Plaza Hotel and straight into his chest.

He would know that face anywhere. The deep brown almond shaped eyes. The long slender nose. The pointed chin. The mole perched perfectly on the top of her sharp cheekbone. The slim red lips. It was the face of a woman he knew well. A woman he knew intimately.

A woman he almost married.

"Odette."

"Logan."

They stood there for a moment… staring at each other. The shock was evident on both of their faces. Though, admittedly, Odette was far better at hiding it than Logan could ever hope to be. She always was far better at keeping her emotions hidden. She was always so cool. So calm. So collected. She was always so… effortless.

"Wow," said Logan, breaking the tense silence between them. "Um. Wow. It's… it's good to see you. You look great."

She did look great. Though that was yet another trait to add onto Odette's long list of attributes. She was always absolutely beautiful.

"Zank you…" Odette replied. Her accent seemed thicker now than Logan remembered. Though whether that was a symptom of his own fleeting memories or a product of her no longer having to regularly speak English for his sake was anyone's guess. "So do you."

"Uh. What… uh…" Logan blinked as if forcing his brain to reset and regain the power of speech. "What brings you to New York?"

"My 'usband iz here for business," she replied with a nonchalant shrug. "I decided to tag along. Do some shopping."

"Your husband?" Logan asked. His eyes fluttered down to the large diamond ring on her left ring finger, and he was overcome with a sense of relief and happiness. Happiness that she had managed to move on from him and the mess he had made of things between them at the end.

"Yes," she replied, unamused. "My 'usband. I managed to find a man who actually wanted to marry me. Shocking, non?"

The relief Logan had felt just seconds before vanished immediately. He felt a clenching sensation in his chest and a rush of blood to his cheeks. His heart started to beat a little faster than normal, and he had to swallow down his nerves.

"Of course not," he replied, sincerely. "I always knew you would."

That was no lie.

Odette had never been the problem in their relationship. Odette was wonderful. Any man would have been lucky to have a woman like Odette at his side. She was beautiful. Intelligent. Interesting. In so many ways she was exactly the kind of woman Logan had always imagined he'd marry. On paper she was perfect for him. And he liked her. Loved her even. In a way.

The only problem in their relationship was him. He was the one who was in love with someone else. He was the one having an affair. He was the one stringing her along in fear that the woman he was in love with didn't feel the same way about him. He was the one who…

"Dad!"

…who got that woman pregnant.

Logan felt a sudden tug on his arm and turned his head toward the sound of his daughter's voice as if in slow motion. Out of nowhere, Ellie had suddenly appeared at his side with the same wide eyed and hopeful look on her face that she'd already given him earlier that day.

Somehow the horribly awkward and painful situation he'd found himself in had become even more awkward and painful.

He hadn't realized that was possible.

"Can we get a carriage?" The girl asked, excitedly. She was completely oblivious to the tension in the air. She was completely oblivious to the fact that her father had been talking to someone else. All in all she was completely oblivious to the entire situation she had walked into.

Logan envied her.

"Uh… sure…" he replied, prompting Ellie to smile and squeeze his arm.

"And who is zis?"

Odette's eyes raked slowly over Ellie up and down, observing every detail that she possibly could about the young girl. Logan felt a surge of protective energy well up in him. Though rationally, he knew that Odette posed her no threat. She wouldn't be cruel to a child. She wouldn't hesitate to be cruel to Logan, but she wouldn't be cruel to a child. Nevertheless, he wrapped an arm around Ellie's shoulder and held her tightly to his side.

"Odette, this is my daughter. Ellie. Ellie, this is Odette…" Logan interrupted himself, stopping just before introducing the woman as Odette Poirot. He had no idea what her last name was anymore. The only thing he knew for sure was that it definitely wasn't Huntzberger.

"Toussaint," she replied, seemingly aware of his dilemma.

"Toussaint," Logan echoed with a nod. He swallowed, taking a moment to think carefully about where to go from there. "She's an old… friend. Of mine."

"Hmm." The noise came out as a sort of amused laugh at his expense.

"It's nice to meet you."

Logan's chest swelled with a bit of pride as Ellie greeted Odette without any hint of awkwardness or trepidation. He squeezed her shoulder affectionately, though whether it was truly a sign of affection alone or also a veiled attempt to use the girl as a human stress ball, he wasn't really sure.

He looked up at Odette and flashed her a beseeching look, hoping that she would still know him well enough to read the expression on his face - the one that said in everything but actual words 'please be nice to my kid.' Apparently she did. Because it was only a matter of seconds before a strained smile spread across Odette's face and she forced herself to play nice with the very girl whose entire existence had caused the abrupt and surprising end of their engagement.

"Yes…" she agreed. "C'est si bon."

"I'm taking French in school!" said Ellie, still entirely oblivious to the vibe between the adults. "Dad said that if I get an A in my class he'll take me to Paris for my birthday! I've never been to Paris before. I've been to London a few times. And Hamburg. But I want to go to Paris so bad…"

The smile on Odette's face slowly became more and more genuine as she listened to Ellie go on. But it never seemed particularly joyful or happy. Not that he could blame her. He flashed her a sheepish look of apology, but Odette merely shrugged him off.

"You will fit right in in Paris," Odette replied as Ellie's rant about how beautiful and wonderful the city was finally came to an end. "A pretty girl like you. Tu et très chic. Just like ze French girls, non?"

"Really?!" Ellie asked with a bright smile.

"Ah. Ouais," said Odette as she hitched the falling straps of her leather Yves Saint Laurent tote bag back over her shoulder. "You and my girls would be fast friends. Yes?"

Ellie beamed. And Logan flashed Odette a smile of gratitude.

"You have kids?" he asked.

"Oui," she replied with a nod. "Ze girls just turned eleven. Twins. My son is nine,"

"My son is nine too," Logan offered with a nod. "Congratulations."

"Yes. Well…" Odette tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and her eyes flashed to the door. "I should be going. My car iz waiting."

"Of course," Logan replied, holding out the sunglasses that she'd dropped. "Don't forget these."

"Ah. Yes. Merci."

Odette grabbed the sunglasses from him and their fingers touched for the briefest of moments, causing the strangest sensation to course through him. It felt almost as if he was reaching across the divide and making contact with an entirely different universe. A universe that he had come so close to inhabiting. A universe where New York was no longer his home. A universe where here merely visited the city for business. One where he stayed at The Plaza and his wife tagged along to go shopping. A universe where he had twin eleven year old girls and a son. A nine year old son…

A nine year old son so different from the boy he would greet this evening when he arrived at his home in Brooklyn. The home he shared with his American wife.

"Au Revoir, Logan," said Odette as she placed the dark tinted glasses on her face. "Ellie. It was so lovely to meet you."

"You too!" Ellie replied enthusiastically.

"Bye, 'Dette."

She nodded once and turned on her heel. Logan stood there watching her as she walked away. He held Ellie close to his side as he stared at the revolving doors before them. He took a deep breath and as he exhaled the nerves started slowly leaving his body. Though, in truth it would probably be a while before they completely went away.

"Can we get the carriage now?"

When he looked down at his daughter, the girl was still gazing up at him with complete and utter innocence. A rush of pure love and affection surged from within his chest and he squeezed her again.

"You bet. Let's go," he said. He pulled away from her, but not before reaching up to tousle the long blonde locks at the top of her head.

"Dad!" Ellie whined, pushing him away from her and running her fingers through her tresses. "Don't mess up my hair!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry…" he replied with a sigh.

Ellie paid his apologies no mind. She took off in front of him, pushing her way through the revolving door and out of the hotel where she would no doubt make a beeline down the red carpeted stairs to the sidewalk and across the street to where the line of horse drawn carriages were waiting to take people through the park.

She didn't need his help crossing the street. She didn't need his help flagging down a carriage. She didn't need his help telling the driver where she wanted to go. There were so many things that she simply didn't need his help with any longer.

Today though… Today he was just so happy to be along for the ride.

"How'd your meeting go?" Logan asked as he dug his thumb into the sole of his wife's foot.

Rory moaned in appreciation from her spot in the corner of the sectional couch of their living room. Logan was sitting next to her, his feet propped up on the coffee table in front of them next to a sweating half drunk glass of scotch on the rocks while hers were draped across his lap. She took a sip of the red wine she had in her hand before setting it down on the end table and relaxing into the nice massage he was treating her to. The television was playing softly in the background, though in truth neither one of them were paying much attention to it.

"It was good," she said. "They're talking about scheduling something for August. They just need to reach out to Clarrisa Ward and see if she'd be interested. They were pretty optimistic she'd say yes though. So I'm getting excited."

They, of course, were the people at the 92nd Street Y. They'd reached out to Rory to see if she'd be interested in doing one of their talks as promotion for the release of her new book about Martha Gellhorn. She'd pretended to be all calm and collected when they'd reached out to her a week ago to set a time to meet with her. But the moment she'd hung up, the shriek of excitement that echoed through the house was enough to wake the entire neighborhood.

"Sounds great," he replied with a smile. "I'll be the first in line for front row seats."

"You're going to be first in line for front row seats to a two hour long conversation about the history of women in war correspondency?"

"Hey!" Logan replied, pretending to be offended by her lack of faith in his interest. "I'm in the journalism business too, you know. You always conveniently forget that…"

"Please…" Rory said with a roll of her eyes. "You're in the profit mongering business…"

"I resent that," said Logan, his smile betraying his words. "Besides, if it's my sexy wife up there talking for two hours about Ernest Hemmingway's wife you bet your ass I'm going to be first in line."

"Now you're just pissing me off on purpose…" Rory grumbled.

"It's going to be great," said Logan as he set all teasing set aside and ran a supportive hand across her shin. "I want to be there."

"You do realize there's no show element to this talk right?" Rory asked. "It's all tell. There will be no strip teases or burlesque routines to pique your interest."

"Are you sure about that?" Logan asked. "Because a D-Day themed burlesque performance sounds like it would be really interesting."

"Oh yeah. Sure. I'll wear a combat helmet and a bustier made of newspapers. Peel it off of me one page at a time…" said Rory, prompting a laugh from Logan. "How did Ellie's dress fitting go?"

"Uh… Good. I guess," Logan replied, completely clueless. This, of course, was what Rory had been anxious about from the very moment he'd agreed to take their daughter to the appointment in her stead. But she knew she wasn't going to be able to reschedule her meeting with The Y, and so she didn't have much of a choice."The tailors seemed to know what they were doing anyway…"

"I don't know what Gigi was thinking scheduling this on a Wednesday in the first place…" Rory replied. "It's like the idea that kids have school on weekdays never even occurred to her…"

"Well… It's Gigi. I don't know what else to say."

"Oh. I know. You don't need to say anything else…" Rory grumbled. "I just hope Ellie didn't miss anything important in her classes…"

"She'll be fine," said Logan. "Besides, she spent the morning working on her history paper in my office. She probably needed the extra time anyway."

"I guess…" Rory grumbled.

Rory - to no surprise - hated it when the kids had to miss school. Whether they were sick or had an appointment or simply needed a mental health day, she was always worried that they were missing out on some kind of vital information. Logan didn't quite share the same concerns. Afterall, he couldn't remember the last time he sat down to try and solve a complicated algebraic equation. At least… he couldn't remember the last time he'd sat down to do it outside of trying (and failing) to help his daughter do it. And to him that just seemed like a snake eating its tail.

"Did you get the picture I sent you?" Logan asked, strategically moving the conversation away from Rory's concerns about their kids' schooling.

"Yes," she replied with a smile. "It's been a long time since you've had a bonafide tea party."

"I know," said Logan with a smile of his own. "I was shocked she asked to go."

"Did you have a good time?"

Logan suddenly tensed. His thumbs stopped their movement against Rory's feet for the smallest of seconds, and he was overcome with a sudden burst of anxiety.

"Yeah…" he replied. It was the truth, afterall. He'd had a great time with Ellie.

"What?" Rory asked.

"What?" Logan echoed.

Rory's eyes narrowed and she pushed her foot into his side, literally pressing him for details.

"You got weird all of a sudden," she said.

Naturally, she saw right through him. He didn't know why he thought for even a second that she wouldn't notice his sudden discomfort. They'd been married too long. They'd been together too long. She could tell when he wasn't telling her the whole truth.

"I uh…" Logan trailed off.

He had to stop to think for a moment. Was this something he really wanted to get into right now? Two and a half glasses of scotch in with the clock just a few minutes away from 10:00 PM and an early commute back to Midtown in the morning?

"I ran into Odette," he said.

Ultimately, putting the conversation off was probably not a good idea. If Rory found out and he hadn't told her, she would think that he was hiding it from her for some reason. And he wasn't. It was just a can of worms that he was too tired to particularly want to open.

Rory said nothing in response. She simply gawked at him. She was completely taken off guard.

He knew the feeling.

"Apparently her husband is here on business and she tagged along with him. They're staying at The Plaza."

"Um… okay. Wow…" Rory eventually stammered. "I don't even know what to - Was it okay? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," said Logan with a nod. At least he thought he was okay. "It was fine. I'm fine. It was just… unexpected and… weird."

"Right…" said Rory. "Did she… Did she meet Ellie?"

Logan took a deep breath.

"Yep."

"Okay," said Rory. "Um. How was that? Was she…"

"It was fine. She was fine," Logan assured. "She was nice even. I mean she wasn't happy to see me. But she wouldn't be mean to a kid."

"Well I don't know," said Rory with a shrug. "I don't know her."

"Well you know me…" said Logan. "Do you really think I would be engaged to a woman who would decide to be cruel to an innocent child over ancient history?"

"I think we've established that I knew very little about what was going on in your head during that time. So, honestly, I have no idea what to think about her," said Rory. "Besides... I think I'm a pretty nice person, but even I'm not sure how I'd react to meeting the child whose conception ended my engagement. So, I'm definitely not about to assume how your French ex-fiance who I've never even met would handle it."

"She's not a bad person," said Logan. "She was never the problem in our relationship. She was great. I was the problem."

"To be fair… I think I was the problem," Rory countered with a smirk.

Despite his best efforts to remain somber, a smile started to stretch across Logan's face and a low chuckle fell from his lips.

"We're going to hell for laughing about this…" he said.

"Oh babe… I think there are much bigger reasons why we're going to hell."

Logan shook his head and smiled. He tugged at Rory's foot, pulling her closer to him on the couch before tickling the arch of her foot and causing her to squirm with laughter. She fought to get away from him, but Logan pinned her to the couch. Suddenly, the tickle assault was completely forgotten, and Rory reached up to wrap her arms around his neck as he kissed her.

"Worth it…" he said, pulling away for the briefest of moments. Rory smiled up at him but quickly pulled him back down to her.

They stayed there for a few minutes, making out on the couch like a couple of teenagers.

Moments like that were a rare occurrence in their house. Two kids. Two demanding careers. Aging parents (at least on his end). The creeping spectre of their fifties… All of it came together to create a level of general exhaustion that despite their best efforts tended to eat into the more intimate parts of their lives.

For that reason, when moments like these did come about, they both leaned into them wholeheartedly. And that night… they leaned into it so wholeheartedly that neither one of them even noticed the sound of footsteps overhead and the loud closing of a door.

"Mom, I want the purple Pop Tarts!"

Rory sighed as she tore into the wrapping of the brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts that she had just pulled down from the kitchen cabinet - the same brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts that Ronan had insisted were the only kind of Pop Tarts he liked just a week ago on their most recent trip through Wegman's.

"We don't have the purple Pop Tarts," she said.

"I don't like the brown ones."

"Yes you do," Rory argued, knowing well and good that he had enjoyed the brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts the last hundred times she'd given them to him for breakfast just fine.

"No I don't!"

She sighed again.

She had a choice. She could stand her ground and insist that he liked them in a stubborn refusal to be gaslit by a nine year old, or she could simply give in. Play along. Pretend that the claims he was making were perfectly reasonable and that she didn't have years of experience telling her that they were false.

In the end… there was one choice that would help to preserve her sanity more than the other. And, funnily enough, it wasn't the one where she refused to be gaslit.

"Fine," she said, deciding to take a bite into the open Pop Tarts herself. "What do you want then? Because we don't have the purple Pop Tarts."

"Can I have bacon?"

"Ro, we don't have time to make bacon," she said, looking down at her watch. She needed both of her kids fed and ready to leave for school drop off in just about twenty minutes. Speaking of which… "Where's your sister?"

"I dunno," Ronan replied with a shrug.

Rory sighed for a third time.

"Just… make some cereal…" she said, leaving the boy to his own devices.

She walked out of the kitchen toward the stairs, stopping at the bottom and placing her hand on the bannister. She tilted her head upward, looking up the seemingly never ending set of railings that led to the other floors of her home, and with a deep breath she prepared to project her voice up the two stories to her daughter's bedroom.

"Ellie!" she yelled. "If you want to eat breakfast, you better hurry up!"

She stood there for a few moments, waiting for a response to come. A yell. A slamming of a door. The sound of feet pouding down the stairs.

Nothing came.

"Lorelai Grace!" she called again.

This time around when she didn't receive a response, the noise that came out of her mouth was less of a sigh and more of an audible groan. She practically flung herself up the stairs, trekking the two story climb as quickly as she possibly could without losing all the breath she had in her body. And when she reached the third floor and turned the corner to walk toward her daughter's bedroom, she noticed that the door was still firmly closed and there was no light peeking through the crack at the bottom.

"Ellie," said Rory as she knocked on the door. She waited a second, being mindful of the girl's privacy before she simply decided to barge into the room. However, when the girl still said nothing, she wasn't given any other choice.

When she stepped inside, she saw that Ellie was still curled up in bed. Her thick down duvet was pulled up over her head. The curtains were still drawn. And a surge of anxiety and just a touch of anger shot through Rory as she realized that her morning was about to become a lot more chaotic.

"Ellie, come on," said Rory, flicking on the lightswitch and walking toward the bed. "It's time to get up. You're going to be late for school."

"I don't feel good."

Ellie's voice was muffled from underneath her blankets, and she curled up tighter as Rory drew closer and closer to the bed.

"Ellie…" Rory said, trying to remain calm. "You were just fine last night. And you already missed school yesterday. We're not going to miss two days in a row."

"I don't feel good!" Ellie insisted.

Rory took a deep breath. She sat down on the edge of her daughter's bed and curled her fingers around the top of the duvet and tried to pull it down.

"Let me see…" she said upon receiving a bit of a fight from her daughter. Eventually, though, Ellie relented. She let Rory pull the covers down from over her head and place her hand on her forehead.

"You don't feel warm," said Rory.

"It's my stomach."

"Ellie…"

"I don't want to go to school!"

There was something different about this plea compared to the countless others that had come before. This was hardly the first morning that Ellie had feigned sickness to try to get out of school. It was the first time, however, that her eyes filled with tears and her body wracked with sobs the moment that the words left her mouth.

"Hey…" said Rory, her exasperated tone leaving as fast as it had appeared. She ran her fingers through Ellie's hair and wiped at a tear streaking down her face. "What's going on? What's wrong? Is it Lyndi? Because remember what we talked about? You just need to ignore her and-"

"It's not Lyndi," Ellie said.

Rory furrowed her brow. If she wasn't actually sick, and it wasn't preteen girl friendship drama then Rory was at a loss of what could possibly be making her daughter act this way.

"Well then what - "

"Was I a mistake?"

"I…" Rory had to pause a moment for her daughter's words to even register in her mind. And even still, they never really sunk in. "...what!?"

"I was a mistake. Wasn't I?"

There were few moments in Rory's life where she could accurately describe her state of being as literally speechless. This moment was one more to add to her list. All she could do was sit there, staring at her daughter's tear ridden face with her mouth open in shock and bewilderment.

Where on Earth had she gotten the idea that -

"I heard you and Dad talking last night!"

Rory's eyes closed. She silently cursed her husband, though rationally she knew that she was just as responsible. She replayed their conversation in her head, trying to remember every detail that she possibly could. But it was hard. She'd had a couple glasses of wine. Logan had had more than a couple glasses of scotch. Their tongues were loose. They'd thought their kids were both fast asleep. They'd thought they were safe to have an unfiltered conversation. She just couldn't remember what exactly they had said.

But she did know one thing for sure… and that was that no matter how many drinks she and Logan could possibly have neither of them would have ever called their daughter a mistake.

"You weren't supposed to have me!" Ellie cried. "He wasn't even supposed to marry you! He was supposed to marry that French lady from yesterday. He told me she was his friend but she wasn't!"

"Ellie…"

"Do you even love Dad? Did you even want to marry him? Or did you just have to 'cause of me?!"

Rory could almost laugh if it weren't so heartbreaking to see her little girl this way. Just that past weekend she had yelled at her and Logan for being too "gross" in the kitchen before dinner one night. He had merely walked up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist and press a kiss on her cheek. Apparently, that small display of affection had been too much for the twelve year old's delicate eyes. And now she was worried that there was no affection at all between the two people who had created her.

"Of course I do," Rory replied, brushing a hand through Ellie's hair. "What kind of question is that?"

"You're always yelling at each other!"

It felt a it stupid at that moment… but in truth Rory was feeling a little defensive at that accusation. They weren't always yelling at each other. In fact, she would say that they rarely - if ever - yelled at each other. They had arguments. They had frustrations. They drove each other crazy from time to time. But they'd been married for eleven years, after all. The honeymoon ended a long time ago.

Not that they ever really had a honeymoon with a toddler at home to take care of…

"Ellie, that's not true - "

"And Grandma said that Great Uncle David only married Great Aunt Stacy because she got pregnant. And that he had to leave his first wife because of it. And that's why they hate each other now. And she's only sticking around so that one day he'll die and she'll get the house in Newport!"

Speaking of marital frustrations…

Rory took a deep breath. It took every ounce of willpower she had not to whip out her phone at that very second and start ranting to Logan about how he needed to do something to reign in his mother's insanity in front of their children. But… that kind of behavior would probably not help very much with the situation at hand.

"Well…" she said through gritted teeth, trying to maintain her composure. "Sometimes we have to take what Grandma says with a grain of salt."

"I don't want you and Daddy to get a divorce because of me!" Ellie cried, her face turning red with emotion.

"Ellie!" Rory beseeched. "Come here…"

Rory sat up, situating herself against the headboard. She pulled Ellie up in her arms, hugging the girl close and rocking her back and forth in a way that she had done so often when she was just a little baby.

"Daddy and I are not getting a divorce."

Daddy.

It was so rare to hear either one of their children call them Mommy or Daddy anymore…

"We love each other very much. We did not get married because we had to. We wanted to. And we are very happy together."

In fact… if what they'd gotten up to on the couch and then later in the bedroom the night before was any indication that was an understatement. Though, Ellie did not need to know about any of that…

"But that lady…"

Rory took another deep breath. That lady… If someone had told her that that lady would still be haunting her twelve years later on, she never would have believed them. And, yet, there they were.

She wasn't sure what she should say. She wasn't sure how much was even appropriate to say. And she wasn't sure how much Logan would want her to say. But she had to say something. And she wouldn't lie to her daughter.

"Okay. Yes…" she said, squeezing Ellie close. "Daddy was going to marry her. That's true."

She paused for a moment, trying to gather her extremely complicated thoughts in a way that would be digestible to a twelve year old girl. In Ellie's young and relatively sheltered mind, these things were so simple. People dated. They fell in love. They got married, and they had babies. She didn't understand the nuances of real adult relationships. She didn't understand the way that things weren't always black and white…

"You know that your Dad and I met and fell in love in college?" Rory felt Ellie nod against her chest. "Well… we spent a lot of time apart before we met up again. And when we did, we still had a lot of feelings for each other. But we had very separate lives at the time. Daddy was living in London and I was here in Brooklyn. And we did some things that we aren't very proud of… We hurt some people…"

"So I was a mistake."

"No!" Rory exclaimed, squeezing her tightly. "You were not a mistake. We didn't plan to have you, but you are the best thing that ever happened to us. You and Ronan. Your Dad and I were being really stupid back then. Neither one of us wanted to admit that we wanted to be with each other. And then you came along and you made us realize what we really wanted. And Dad moved back here to be close to you and we fell back in love and we bought this house and then we got married and had Ronan and our lives are so much better than they ever would have been if you hadn't come around."

Ellie sniffed.

"So see?" Rory asked. "You were not a mistake. You were the opposite of a mistake."

"But I - "

"No," Rory interrupted. "No buts."

At this point, Rory was squeezing her so tightly that she was worried she might actually break her. Her heart was splitting in two. It always did whenever her kids were this upset, but this was on an entirely different level.

She never wanted Ellie to feel this way. She never wanted Ellie to know anything about the circumstances that had led to her conception. She wanted her to live in blissful ignorance of them for her entire life. She wanted both of her children to think that they were enthusiastically wanted for every second of their existence. She wanted them to think that they were planned. Dreamed about. Longed for…

It wasn't entirely true, of course. Both of them had been surprises in their own right. Both of them had come at times that inspired more stress and worry than was otherwise ideal. But they didn't need to know that. They didn't need to think that they were mistakes.

Rory knew what it was like to feel like a mistake.

She didn't want that for her babies. She wanted so badly to protect them from that… and she had failed.

Her eyes filled with tears, but she couldn't wipe them away. Her arms were too busy clutching onto Ellie with all her might.

"I love you so much, baby…" she said while pressing a kiss into the top of Ellie's head. "And so does Daddy. We both love you so so so much."

She didn't know what else to say. She didn't know what else to do. All she knew was that she needed to do something . She needed to find some way to banish all thoughts of Odette from her daughter's mind - to bring her back to a time when she thought that her parents had only ever existed to fall in love and bring her into the world…

"Hey… I have an idea…" said Rory as she carded her fingers through Ellie's long blonde hair. "How about I call Dad and tell him to come home from work and you, me, him, and Ronan can drive up to New Haven and we'll show you where we met and tell you how we fell in love. And we can get lunch at the burger place we used to go to and dinner at the Italian place we liked…"

"But what about school?" Ellie asked.

Rory sighed. It went against every instinct she had as a mother and a lover of academia, but as she sat there cradling her distraught daughter she couldn't stop thinking about the impromptu road trip that she and her mom had taken when she broke off her engagement with Max. Or the time she skipped school to go meet up with Jess in the city. Or the semester she'd taken off in college…

Sometimes peace of mind was more important than school or work. And right now she was far more worried about her daughter's peace of mind than her upcoming algebra test.

"I think we can afford to miss one more day of school."

It took a couple of seconds for Ellie to respond. She held unto Rory tightly as she considered her options, sniffling and rubbing her snotty nose against Rory's light blue waffle robe.

"I still need to shower…" the girl eventually said.

Rory smiled and kissed her on the head one more time.

"Alright…" she said, shifting to encourage the girl to get out of bed. "Go shower and I'll call Dad. Okay?"

"Okay…" Ellie replied with another sniff.

Ellie pulled herself out of the bed and trudged to her en suite bathroom, leaving Rory sitting alone in her bed. Once the door to the bathroom closed and the water started running, Rory took a deep breath and finally reached up to wipe the tears away from her eyes.

She took a couple of moments to compose herself before reaching into the pocket of her robe to pull out her phone. And with a few swipes of her thumb and a silent prayer to the heavens that her husband wasn't already caught up in a meeting, she was tapping on his name and calling him.

"Hey…" said Logan after a couple rings. "What's up?"

"Hey…" Rory replied with a sigh. "What are you doing right now?

"Uh… I'm sitting in traffic outside of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Why?"

Rory bit her lip.

"Well…" she said. "How would you feel about turning right back around and coming home?"

"Why?" Logan asked. She could hear a slight panic in his voice. "What happened? Is everything okay?"

"Everything's… fine…" said Rory. "We're all fine. It's just… we have a bit of a situation..."

Logan was going to have to reschedule a few meetings. Rory was going to have to reschedule a call with her publicist. She was going to have to call the kid's school and sit through the guilt trip the administration would give her for pulling them out for the day. Once all that was done, it would still be about thirty minutes before Logan would make it back home. Two hours to New Haven. A likely detour to Stars Hollow while they were up there.

All in all it was going to be a very long day - and nothing like the day that any of them had originally planned.

But if there was anything that Rory had learned over her years it was that plans were merely something to be laughed at.

In fact… she would go as far as to say that the best things in life were unplanned.

AN: Thanks so much for reading! Please be kind and leave a review! Also, Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Americans. :)