Logan and Rory sat quietly in the living room, each with a cup in front of them. Finally, Rory turned toward Logan and brought her feet onto the couch. Neither wanted to be the first to break the silence.

"So," began Rory, checking her phone for the time. They only had a limited amount of time before Charlie would wake up from his nap. "Let's talk."

"No more delay tactics?" teased Logan. Since he had bought the house and Rory had given notice to discontinue the lease at her apartment at the end of the month, he felt much more at peace with the situation.

"No more delay tactics," agreed Rory solemnly. To talk about it made it feel so much more concrete and definite.

"You're moving in," confirmed Logan slowly, suddenly unsure of where to begin.

Rory nodded. "I'll help with the mortgage. With the publishing date pushed up, I can chip in more."

Logan shook his head dismissively. "You don't need to do that."

"I want to," stated Rory matter-of-factly. After being on her own, it felt strangely difficult to rely on someone else for something as major as shelter. She wanted a stake in the situation.

Logan began to formulate his argument regarding how good of a deal he had gotten on the house and how really it was an investment anyway, but knew it was a losing argument. He nodded, conceding to Rory on the point.

"We'll each be responsible for Charlie," proposed Logan. "Fifty-fifty split."

"He usually comes to work with me," explained Rory. She had never invested in childcare, unless she counted Lorelai coming to watch her son every now and then. "My editors don't mind, and I only go into the city a couple of times a week."

"I'll be able to work from home some," promised Logan. He was in the process of setting everything up with the New York office. With Charlie in his life, he had approached his job with a new perspective that he brought to his job negotiations. Luckily, with the Huntzberger last name, there was only one person who could truly turn down his demands. Although his father had yet to reach out to him after his wedding day disappearance, Mitchum Huntzberger hadn't blocked his move back to the United States. Logan took it as a positive sign. "I'll have some flexibility."

Rory smiled, noticing just how hard Logan was working at all of this.

"Okay," agreed Rory simply. "When Charlie gets a little older, Jess says there are some great preschools in the city. Maybe that would work out well with your job."

Logan's expression soured slightly. "That sounds good. The realtor said that this is supposed to be a good school district."

Rory nodded. Joking, she responded, "I think we have some time."

"I filed the paperwork for the birth certificate on Monday," stated Logan simply, carefully choosing his words. "They said it is going to take a few months to be official. There are some documents you will have to sign, but it should all be taken care of."

Rory shifted on the couch. She put her feet on the flood and then back on the couch, suddenly unable to get comfortable. Finally, she managed to say, "Thank you for doing that."

Logan nodded slightly, thrumming his fingers on the edge of the couch.

"You asked me to dinner," acknowledged Logan finally, a smug smile crept onto his face. With the hectic day of moving in and their guests the day before, the pair had conveniently been able to ignore the elephant in the room.

Rory laughed. "And you kissed me."

"I think you had a role in that too," jokingly accused Logan. His eyes stayed on her, studying her reaction; Rory took her time analyzing the baby monitor, moving the small camera around the crib.

"You said Jess wanted to get dinner, though," stated Logan slowly, his eyes glued on Rory.

She shook her head slightly. "There's nothing there."

"Maybe from your side of things," countered Logan, his confidence growing.

"Maybe there could have been," responded Rory simply. She sighed heavily. "Honestly, I haven't given it much thought."

"Well, think about it," urged Logan pragmatically.

"Why?" asked Rory.

"Why what?" repeated Logan, confused by the shift in the conversation.

"Why do I need to think about it?"

"So you can decide whether to get dinner with him or not," responded Logan. His statement had a distinct lilt to it as if he was asking a question.

"No dinner," replied Rory straightforwardly. She shook her head as if trying to clear her mind. With the way everything had changed in the last week, the decision seemed like the most obvious thing in the world.

This time, Rory leaned into Logan, closing the distance between them. Softly, they kissed. They lingered, eating into the short amount of time that was allotted just for the two of them.

"Everything's so easy with you," commented Logan. He brushed a strand of hair off Rory's face, tucking it behind her ear.

"You don't mean that," disagreed Rory, holding up the baby monitor in front of her for Logan to see. Charlie was curled in a ball in the corner of his crib, sleeping soundly on his stomach.

"I do," insisted Logan. "Everything else may go to hell, but being with you feels easy. Moving back to New York. This house. Living with you and Charlie. It just seems natural."

"Your mother wants us to get married," noted Rory, feeling the sudden need to bring Logan back to reality.

"I'm sorry for that," apologized Logan sincerely. "She promised to behave. I thought maybe in front of everyone and with Charlie she might keep quiet about it."

"And that's how the rest of your family feels too?" asked Rory. She reflected on over a decade ago, when the Huntzbergers proclaimed she would never be good enough for Logan. It seemed illegitimate child trumped career minded woman.

Logan shrugged, obviously not putting much stock in his family's opinions on the matter. He deflected, "Doesn't yours?"

"No," denied Rory quickly, scrunching her face in protest. Truthfully, it had never been an option since Logan was off to be married in London. Her mother wouldn't have encouraged it unless it was what Rory wanted, but she knew her grandmother would have been more comfortable with a married granddaughter. "Why would they?"

"What do you mean?" asked Logan cautiously. It suddenly became apparent to him that he was entering difficult territory.

"I think my family understands that marriage is more than just having a child together," insisted Rory. "My mom didn't marry my dad just because of me. You can raise a child and not be married."

"I don't think anyone would argue about that," defended Logan.

"Then why?" pressed Rory.

"Don't worry, Ace. I'm not looking to do the whole wedding thing again anytime soon."

"But your family is," insisted Rory, caught on the Huntzbergers' opinions.

"They just think it would make the most sense," replied Logan smoothly.

"Because we have a baby together," confirmed Rory.

"It's more than that," defended Logan, unsure why he was being sucked into the argument.

"Because society would frown on it?"

"They want him to have the last name," answered Logan. "They want him to be a part of the family."

"He is a part of the family." Rory pounced at the opening in the Huntzberger logic. "He's their grandchild – whether they want to recognize him or not."

"They do!" exclaimed Logan, exasperated by the line of conversation. "They just wish we'd make it simpler. What does it matter, anyway?"

Rory shrugged, recognizing it didn't really matter. In their early thirties, the pair was passed the point of being forced into decisions made by their parents.

Abruptly, it all fell into place in Rory's mind. They wanted Charlie in the Huntzberger line; they wanted Charlie to be the next Logan, groomed for the family business. Their pride wouldn't allow that to happen with the last name Gilmore.

"It isn't the most outrageous thing in the world," admitted Logan, although the look on Rory's face made him immediately want to retract his statement.

"Getting married just because we had a baby isn't ridiculous? Or so Charlie can be Charles Huntzberger instead of Charles Gilmore?" confirmed Rory, raising her eyebrows at the statement.

"It wouldn't just be because of Charlie," responded Logan, navigating carefully. He teased, trying to make light of situation, "Charles Huntzberger does have a nice ring to it, though."

"Right – to make it 'simpler' and so that Charlie can be an official Huntzberger," snapped Rory.

"No," groaned Logan. "We weren't strangers who suddenly had a kid together. I wanted to marry you once, would it be so outrageous to want to marry you again?"

Rory gawked.

"I'm not proposing, Ace. We were good together. That's all I'm saying," defended Logan, laughing slightly at Rory's blank expression.

"Have you ever thought about how different everything would have been?" finally asked Rory.

"If what?" asked Logan, not following her train of thought.

"If I had said yes – when you had asked at my grand-parents party, at graduation," responded Rory, thinking back to what felt like a lifetime ago.

"More than you know," answered Logan thoughtfully.

"I would have been perpetually sunburnt in California," stated Rory, realizing the dangerous rabbit hole they were going down.

"We would probably still be there," continued Logan. "I wouldn't have gone back to work for my father. Maybe we would be somewhere else with a business of my own."

"I would have always had clean underwear," mused Rory, refusing to think too hard on the situation.

"We found our way back though," stated Logan simply. "We always found an excuse."

"I'd hardly compare sneaking around London with a picturesque happily-ever-after in California," responded Rory pragmatically. She instantly regretted the reference to Odette when Logan's face fell. His guilt was obvious.

"Do you ever regret it?" asked Logan somberly.

"Regret London? Absolutely not."

"Saying no," corrected Logan.

The question took Rory by surprise. "No."

Logan's face was stoic. He nodded slightly.

"Maybe? I wish we hadn't ended the way we did. I regret not being able to travel and write and do everything I wanted to do and be with you too."

"I shouldn't have pushed it," agreed Logan thoughtfully. "There are such things as long engagements, though."

"We were so young, Logan," recalled Rory.

"We're not young anymore," countered Logan.

"What are you saying?" asked Rory, laughing at Logan's implication.

"I want to give this a chance," stated Logan confidently. "A real chance."

"Logan - "

"I've thought about it," insisted Logan. "We're here in this house with Charlie together and we're in a different point in our lives now. I want to try to make this work."

"You've had a difficult week," strategically stated Rory. She didn't want Logan to rush into anything.

"This is what I want, Ace. This is what makes sense to me. At least think about it?" pressed Logan. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I don't need to think about it," declared Rory after a long silence.

Logan nodded his head slowly and stiffened automatically. He tried to hide his disappointment. "I understand."

"I want to try this," clarified Rory, "but I don't want to rush anything."

Logan laughed at the irony of the situation. "Let's just take our time figuring it out while we raise our child together."

"I'm serious," insisted Rory, although she couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. "You were supposed to get married a few days ago, Logan. You didn't know you had a son until a week ago. We've changed a lot since Yale."

"We're the same," countered Logan. "We've just grown up some."

A shriek came from the baby monitor, followed by happy babbling.

"Mamamamama!" called Charlie. Rory could see him banging on the crib from the monitor.

"Back to work," joked Rory. She passed Logan the monitor to see their son's antics as she stood from the couch.

"Dadadadada!" exclaimed Charlie, enunciating each syllable with a hit against his mattress.

"Sounds like he wants his Dad," commented Rory with a smile.

Logan got up from the couch and raced up the stairs, beaming the whole way.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this short little story. :)