Come Back...Be Here (Gilmore Girls Post-AYITL)

Chapter 8

Rory sat quietly opposite Logan in the same restaurant he had taken her to when they had bumped into Mitchum a few months earlier. Logan had noticed her look of concern as they walked in but he had reassured her that Mitchum was out of the country at the moment so there was little chance of him interrupting his lunch as he had done before.

Rory took a sip of her water followed by a deep breath "Thanks for taking the time to see me today Logan".

"You sure you don't want a proper drink?" he offered. Rory shook her head.

Logan could see that Rory was nervous, so he tried to relax her with small talk. "How's life? Tell me, how are your family – Lorelai and Luke, are they finally married now?"

They sat and chatted over lunch about all the little things – work, the weather, what they were doing for the holidays and Rory filled him on the various goings ons of Stars Hollow. Logan could sense that Rory had her guard up, but understood how on edge she might be feeling as he felt the same. The last time they had seen each other and said their goodbyes to each other was still burned in the back of his mind.

Rory wanted to move the conversation on but sitting there in the busy restaurant in the middle of the day, it just didn't feel right to rock his world without any warning and she struggled to bring up what she wanted to say. One thing she realised she did need to know was what the real situation with Odette was. She pushed her food around her plate with her fork, her appetite long having walked out of the door.

"Ace..." Logan said gently "What's going on over there, I've never known one of you Gilmore girls to not be able to eat" He laughed, but was somewhat curious about why Rory had asked to see him and whether she was going to actually bring it up.

Rory placed her fork down gently, looked up at Logan and fidgeted with her hair. She knew she was displaying signs of nervousness and was trying hard to remain calm.

"Logan, that night, at the tango club. I asked if you were really going to marry Odette..."

Logan took a deep breath and nodded. He remembered that night well, in fact, he thought about it all too often. There had been a real connection between them that night, he knew that she had felt it too and when they'd had the Odette conversation, it had felt like there was going to be an opportunity, to be honest with each other, but the moment passed. They had both felt it but let it pass them by.

"You never said yes".

"What?" Logan looked at Rory with a hint of confusion.

She shrugged "You never said 'yes'. You said it was the 'dynastic plan' whatever that means but you never said...." She stopped when Logan interrupted her.

"Oh, right...well" Logan started "Yes, we're getting married in just under eight weeks," Logan said, not quite being able to meet Rory's eye. He was uncomfortable talking about the wedding with Rory, conscious that he didn't want to rub it in her face or hurt her in any way.

"So, you are really going to go through with it, even though..." Rory paused "...even though it's not really what you want?"

Logan looked at Rory. She knew what the deal was with Odette, he had spoken to her about it at length when they first became engaged. Odette was a perfectly lovely girl, in any other life he'd be lucky to have someone like her on his arm but she wasn't for him, she wasn't Rory. He had been pushed together with Odette by their parents – it wasn't exactly what you'd call an arranged marriage but the engagement was instigated by his parents who could see that it was going to be an advantageous match for the family. He wasn't overly thrilled about it, but Logan had been content to go along with it as overall they seemed to get on well and while he could never say that he loved Odette, he was aware that he could do much worse. That was until he met with Rory again. The truth was he had never really got over Rory turning down his proposal. He knew he had gone about everything the wrong way and then had selfishly pushed her into an ultimatum. He had kicked himself for years and when he had unexpectedly bumped into her in Hamburg, he was drawn to Rory like a moth to the flame.