Chapter 22

Rory's excitement over the gorgeous looking pavlova she'd been meaning to get for dessert had scattered into thin air, realizing what she was about to tell Logan. A casual dinner - hell yeah! There was nothing casual about this talk. In fact, Rory realized this had the potential to change everything.

"Tell me what?" Logan asked, lightly, not understanding the gravity of the message.

"Um, maybe this is not the best place to talk," Rory suggested, looking around them. This was not a talk she wanted to have in public, afraid of his reaction. A small part of her was also having second thoughts - maybe some things were indeed better left unsaid? At the very least she was buying herself some time to figure out how to say this, because she really hadn't planned on talking about this tonight, maybe not ever unless there was reason to. It was not just a conversation she owed him, but it was an old wound to be opened by bringing this up.

Logan frowned, studying her.

"What? You're going to tell me how I knocked you up or something?" Logan said, not asking her at all seriously, rather, in his inebriated state, he was mostly just finding it too ridiculous to really consider as a possibility.

Rory was at a loss for words and her face showed it.

"You're not serious!" Logan chuckled.

"Actually, Logan… I am," Rory confessed, her tone slightly trembling. So much for finding a better place to have this conversation.

"What!?" Logan asked in disbelief.

"I did," Rory inhaled sharply. "I did get pregnant by you," she added, exhaling as she said it. It was kind of liberating to say it, despite stinging like hell.

"What! When?! How come…?!" Logan began, his tone growing unproportionally loud to draw some looks in their direction.

Logan just couldn't fit this information in his head. It seemed utterly unbelievable, impossible. Rory had always been the hyper careful one while usually it has him who had to worry about things like that. With Rory he'd never had to worry about things like that - not in college, not later. And learning this, almost made him feel a little betrayed like he was learning that he hadn't been able to trust her as much as he had at all. Of course, back then things had been different too - an accidental baby had never been in their plans. A baby had never been in his plans. Period.

"I told you we should take this somewhere else," Rory mumbled, feeling embarrassed at the way people were looking at them. It wasn't going unnoticed by people how Logan was a little light on his feet too.

The look in Logan's eyes was different from his usual charming self, too.

"Answer me!" Logan demanded.

Rory clumsily found some cash from her purse and scattered it onto the table, not too politely, and pulled him by his arm out of the restaurant, feeling like she just wanted to sink to the ground. She knew she wasn't faultless in this, but right now - she was just feeling embarrassed because of him.

"Let go of me!" Logan argued almost like a grumpy toddler as they made it out onto the street.

"Logan, please!" Rory begged, trying to grab his arm again and lead him down a residential street to talk a little out of the sight of the restaurant's terrace.

"What, Rory! What is it that you're saying? Tell me! You tell me right now!" Logan demanded.

"Logan, this isn't easy for me to say," Rory began, fighting the lump in her throat. "But seeing you question whether you could ever father a child…," she explained why she was saying this now.

"So, what you're saying is that I have fathered a child? Our child!?" Logan exclaimed, sounding now hurt more than anything.

"Yes," Rory said, quietly, looking down.

"Rory, Mil isn't…?" Logan asked a somewhat illogical question. But he just had to ask.

"No, Logan! She's 4!" Rory replied, feeling annoyed of his drunkenness. "Maybe this is not the time...," Rory began, starting to regret this - or at the very least picking this particular time.

"Ah, fuck," Logan cursed, for a split second having considered that she might have hidden something like the existence of an actual child from him.

"I wouldn't have done that, Logan! You have to believe me," Rory pleaded, realizing what he had even for a split-second thought.

"Yeah, of course. I'm sorry," Logan apologized for his tone, realizing this conversation was far too important not to be had. "But then when, Rory?" Logan asked, calming down a little whilst remaining very insistent.

"At our goodbye… New Hampshire," Rory confessed.

"Oh, wow," Logan exhaled, running a palm over his face, leaving it flat on his mouth for a while. It was just so unbelievable.

"I'd only barely found out about it. I was going to tell you. But before I even made it to the OB there wasn't anything left to tell," Rory said, her voice breaking as she fought her tears.

All of a sudden, all those flashes from the past came rushing back to her. Her mother's wedding, feeling all happy and celebratory for her, dancing, eating and enjoying herself. And then suddenly an hour before her mother left for her honeymoon, looking down at her underwear and feeling her entire body go numb and cold at the sight of blood. Twelve hours earlier she'd told her mother she was pregnant, and now she no longer was. She hadn't even told Lorelai that night, not wanting to ruin her mother's evening. But she wasn't yet ready to tell Logan the details, the gist hurting already too much. Maybe it even wouldn't have hurt so much had it been anyone else's baby. But at that moment - it had been about losing what had felt like her last chance to have a piece of Logan, even if she ended up raising her alone. Even during those brief days, she'd always had a sense that it had been a 'her'.

Logan was at a loss for words, and as much as he wanted to feel betrayed to let her body channel that anger and disappointment - shout, act out - whatever, all he saw at this moment was the love of his life, in front of him, hurting deeply.

Rory tried to look up, fighting her tears. Maybe she would've even won that battle, but as Logan's arms wrapped around her, squeezing her, the floodgates opened as if releasing a burst of emotions that had never really been allowed to flow like this.

As they stood there on the street, Logan holding her, a couple of people passing them in the meanwhile and giving them curious looks, Logan tried to wrap his brain around all the ways in which things could've been different had things either turned out differently, or even if she had told him about the possibility.

Rory was too scared still, and upset, to dare to even ask what Logan was feeling. Was he mad at her? Did he hate her? Blame her even? It was not like she'd been perfect those first weeks before she'd found out, scotch and wine, junk food and not enough hours of sleep had been her companions for many of them as she tried to get over saying goodbye to him.

The news had sobered Logan up, at least putting him into a position where he realized he needed to get a tighter grasp on reality. He knew he wasn't supposed to, probably still having some alcohol left in his blood. But taking extra caution and going slow, he was the one to drive her back to the house that night. It was no more than a five-minute drive, not that it made it any better. But under the circumstances he was kind of right to do it, Rory being in no condition to drive either, and it was in her best interest to get her out of the public's eye. The drive past, saying hardly anything - Logan just didn't know what to say.