Part 1 – Only the truth will set you free

These conversations are going on simultaneously – one in Stars Hallow, the other I London. Just did not want to confuse anyone with the back and forth dialogue J

Stars Hallow – Night of Lorelei and Luke's Wedding

"Mom" Rory says as she looks over at her mother.

"Yes" Lorelei says as she sees the tears well up in her daughters eyes.

"I'm pregnant" Rory says as she looks up at her mother almost searching for the answer of what she was supposed to do now.

London

"Dad" Logan says as the hotel opens to his very irate looking father.

"What" Mitchum says rolling his eyes wondering why Logan was standing at his hotel door at 4 AM.

"Weddings off" Logan says as he shoves the torn marriage agreement into his hand.

Stars Hallow

"Pregnant?"

Rory nods and looks out into the darkened sky. "I didn't mean to ruin your wedding night" she says softly.

"You did not ruin anything…hey baby, you are always going to be my little girl, I am always going to be here for you" Lorelei said putting her arm around Rory and pulling her close.

"Even when I am an unemployed, 32 year old soon to be single mom?"

"Hey, it keeps it exciting" Lorelei said trying to lighten the mood even for a moment, her daughter looks like she was going to break any moment.

"So Paul or the Wookie?" Lorelei asks.

Rory looks away for a moment, she looks back at her mother. The mother that knew all her secrets except this one.

"It's Logan's" Rory said as she looks away again as if she did not want to see the disappointment in her mother's eyes. Disappointment that for the first time ever there had been a major secret between them, disappointment that she was pregnant by a man who was getting married in a few weeks, disappointment that all those dreams that her mother had for her were just that….faded dreams.

London

"The wedding is off? What you think that because you rip up some papers that you can decide that you are not getting married. You will be getting married, to Odette, you will follow through with the merger, you will do what is right for this family!" Mitchum yelled as his son just pushed by him and walked into his hotel room.

"No dad I'm not. Odette already knows, she has packed her bags and is heading back to France. Trust me, once her ego settles down she will be more than fine with my decision. I tried, I really did. To be satisfied with what my life has become but I can't do it. I won't do it. I want more than this".

"More than this? What more could you want? We run the biggest publishing company in the world, we have money, power….you have a beautiful woman on your arm who will run your house so you can run your business, if you want a side piece, you can have your choice What else could you want? Mitchum asked him almost confused by his son's confession.

"I want to feel whole dad. Have you ever wanted that? Have you ever admitted to yourself that you allow power and money to make up for the fact that you really have nothing? Have you ever looked in the mirror and admitted to yourself that you are not powerful, this business, all the money in the world does not give you power and that all you really are is weak, hiding behind business and money to negate the fact that you yourself have never had the guts to really take a risk?"

"Have nothing, I have everything. Look Logan I don't know what is going on in that head of yours, but you need to wipe it out of your mind now. You have been doing so well these past three years. I allowed you to run amok, soothe your broken heart after your fairytale romance at Yale fell through. I bailed you out when your amazing business decisions fell apart. You came back to London and I turned a blind eye to you running the clubs into the ground, getting arrested, the tabloids reporting all of your dirty laundry to the world and then low and behold, you bedded a woman worthy of the Huntzberger name and look at all you have done over these past three years. I will admit, I was worried when you left for Hamburg for those meetings but you came back and you have finally proven that you have what it takes. Odette did that for you, she made you eager, she made you strong….she makes you look good and you are standing here wanting to throw it away so you can feel whole?"

"No dad, I am doing this because I am nothing without love" Rogan answered quietly.

"Love….what does love have to do with this?" Mitchum bellowed.

"Dad stop, it sounds much better coming from Tina Turner" Rogan answered.

"Who the hell is Tina Turner?" Mitchum asked.

"It doesn't matter dad. You know all your speech told me was that you really don't know me at all, nor do you really want too. Odette did nothing for me, except play a part in a game that I never wanted to play. You want to know what changed me in Hamburg dad, you want to know what has kept me grounded for the past three years?"

"Fine Logan, what, I know you did not do it for me? So what Logan, what made you change from the boys that left here for Hamburg on the last chance I was ever going to give you to finally prove to me that you became a man to the man you became when you got back. Taken charge, running this company like a true Huntzberger".

"Love dad".

"Love, I thought you just proclaimed that your life was empty with Odette?"

"I met someone in Hamburg. I have been seeing her for the past three years and I said goodbye to her a few weeks ago because It wasn't fair to her but then I realized it wasn't fair to me either. Without her I won't be the CEO that you want me to be because without her I have no drive, no want, no care….you say I have to marry Odette for some business deal to prove myself, well then dad, if the business arrangement is so important to you. You marry her, it is not like mom thinks you are faithful, we all know you aren't. I am done here dad. I love the work I have done these past three years, I have pride in the company and the family name, but not enough to lose myself for it. You want me to continue building up this company then I will, but I will do it with the person beside me of my choosing, not someone who will help create the perfect merger. Think about it dad, but right now I have a plane to catch….I need to tell someone how stupid I was and beg them to take me back and I am not coming back until they do" Logan said turning and leaving before his father could even formulate a response.

Stars Hallow

"Logan? As in Logan Huntzberger, the boy who broke your heart Logan Huntzberger?" Lorelai asked with a sudden bite to her voice.

"No, the Logan Huntzberger who broke my heart the same time I broke his. It wasn't only his fault mom. All those years ago, it wasn't only his" Rory said softly.

"Rory, it was not your fault. I know you thought he was the one, that you were in love but if he was the one you would have said yes. Deep down you knew that you were meant for better things, not to be some society wife. I tried to keep my feelings to myself when you were together, but I always knew he was wrong for you. You would not have been happy in that life, in society. Remember how you hated Friday Night Dinners. You knew he was wrong, that you would have lost your future because of him. You did the right thing Rory. You let him know you could not marry him because he wasn't the one and look how he acted because of your honesty. Could not handle someone turning down a Huntzberger, please…like he was so special".

Rory just sat there looking at her mother. For the first time really looking at her and finally realizing why she had never told Lorelai that she had been seeing Logan again. Her malice, her anger towards society, her complete denial as to what Rory had really felt. Was she always like this she wondered to herself as suddenly her mind was filled with memories, of her mother's false happiness when she chose Yale. True she changed her mind later but thinking back to that first moment…

Then the night of the she came home drunk from her grandmothers, "let's find Rory a husband party". The boating incident, when she told her mom it was her idea to have a causal relationship with Logan. The worse yet when she dropped out of Yale.

"Now look you will be fine, we have room, we will raise the baby here together in Stars Hallow, like it should be. No Gilmore Girl should be raised away from Stars Hallow. You can get a job here, and Jess is back. He seems like he changed, I am sure he would stand by you. There is no reason you should be sucked back by those vultures because of a drunken night, plus he is engaged right? Rory he moved on, you can too. No one needs to know, you don't want to share your baby with them do you, so he can be like your dad…..Rory, why are you looking at me like that?"

"You thought I said no because he was not the one? You did didn't you. I remember packing up my apartment after graduation. You said it was for the best…the best for who mom? Me or you? You think I did not love him that much. I loved him then, I love him now. It was not some drunken night mom. I have been seeing him for three years, three years that because of my insecurities I was too scared to tell him that I was wrong, my decision was wrong. My open future was nothing mom, it was nothing because I did not have my other half with me, my best friend…."

"Oh Rory, you know I love you but you needed to do this alone. You know I was always a phone call away, I was always…."

"Not you mom, Logan. He was my other half and so badly I wanted to say yes but your eyes. That night of my graduation party I looked at you and your eyes were the same way that they were when I told you I was dropping out of Yale and instead of following my dream, I did not want to lose you to do it but you know what….I was wrong. I am your daughter mom but I am my own person".

"Your future was being a reporter Rory, like we always talked about. Traveling the world, seeing all there was to see…..and instead what have you become? A side piece who is now knocked up while the man you have been cheating with for three years is marrying someone else. What does that tell you?"

"It tells me that before I proposed the Vegas deal with Logan I should have thought about what you would have done and done the exact opposite. I should have told him then and there that first time when we saw each other again how sorry I was, how wrong I was….instead I chickened out, figured I did not deserve him after what I had done to him so I chose, I chose to have him anyway I could".

"Well it looks like you will have a part of him now. You will be raising this baby alone while he fathers children with his wife".

"You don't know anything about his engagement or about us. You never wanted to know which is why I never told you."

"You never told me because you were ashamed of what you were doing" Lorelai yelled.

"No mom, I never told you because I for once I wanted to be happy without you shutting me down just because I did not fit into your mini-me roadmap that you had written out for me. Look I can't do this….good luck tomorrow, I hope this is what you truly want and that you don't ruin this for yourself but I need to go do what I have to do. I have to go be honest for once. Ten years is long enough" Rory said as she turned and walked away not looking back.

The Next Morning

Stars Hallow

"Ace, please open the door. I just need to tell you what an idiot I have been. Please Rory, I know you are here. Just please…." Logan said as he knocked on the door again.

Lorelai sat on the sofa, where she had been for the past two hours listening. In those two hours of listening to him pleading not once did she move to open the door, to even acknowledge him. Sooner or later he would get the message that Rory did not want to talk to him and maybe then her stubborn daughter would see she was right all along.

Another hour went by and finally Lorelai stood up and walked towards the door. Her daughter loved this man and it seemed that he loved her right back, but so did Christopher. Regardless they were the same, there wasn't any way around it. Rory might not be smart enough to protect herself but Lorelai was her mother. It was her job to protect her and while it might hurt her daughter now, in the end she would see that her mother was always right.

Lorelai slowly opened the door and looked at Logan with a straight face with no emotion. "I thought sooner or later you would tire yourself out but the constant banging was starting to drive me insane. Rory is not here Logan. She is gone. Jess came back for the wedding and they talked, really talked and she went back with him to New York. Logan, go back to London, get married to your fiancé and live the life you were meant to live….Rory was never the one for you. She realized it, now it is your turn".

Logan felt his heart breaking, he was paralyzed with the knowledge that he was too late. His stupidity had once again cost him the only woman he would ever love. Suddenly his phone rang….

"George, I am not in London…what, when…please stay with her, tell her I am on my way. Please…tell her I will be there soon"

Logan looked back at Lorelai, and turned and walked away without saying a word.

London

Rory knocked on the door, her heart was beating a mile a minute. She only prayed that Odette did not open the door but at this point there was no turning back. She would tell him what she needed to, she would tell him that he was going to be a father and she would tell him the truth. That she loved him, that she was an idiot, that she made the wrong decision all those years ago and all she wanted was him and she hoped and prayed that maybe, just maybe she was not too late. That maybe he felt the same way. True, coming to break up an engagement was almost as bad as sleeping with her married ex but this was different. Logan was her heart….and if she was going to lose him, she damn well was not going to do it without a fight because of her insecurities.

The door opened and Rory looked up to see Mitchum.

"Mr. Huntzberger, I mean Mitchum…I was looking for Logan. I really need to talk to him and I was in London….."

Mitchum laughed and shook his head…how stupid was he, he should have known. He saw them a few months back, they played it off that they were just catching up. So this was the woman that had turned his wayward son into a man. This was the woman that had turned him into a true Huntzberger. All those years ago he knew Rory had done something to his son, to make him grow up but he could not believe his son would stay on the straight and narrow so he sent him to London. He figured within a few weeks Logan would go back to his ways, but he didn't and he had eyes watching. Mitchum almost resigned himself when he saw the ring box in Logan's suitcase when he had come back to see Rory graduate, but then she turned him down and Mitchum figured he was right all along. But now he faced the woman who had done what Mitchum himself could never do….but now it was this woman who was ruining the merger that he had so delicately planned. He could go either way but in the end Mitchum was a bastard.

"He is not here Rory, you knew he was getting married didn't you? They left for their trip, they will be gone awhile" Mitchum said with a straight face.

Rory stood there frozen, her heart breaking into little pieces and all her dreams crumbled right there in the hallway. She felt paralyzed, like she could not move and suddenly she felt her body go numb, everything started to go black and just as her body fell to the floor George the doorman, who had come up in the elevator as soon as he heard from his break replacement that Ms. Gilmore had gone upstairs to see Mr. Huntzberger and he heard everything that Mitchum has said. He saw her sway and he came out of the elevator and caught her before she tumbled to the floor.

London Hospital – 10 Hours Later

Logan ran into the hospital looking frantic. His suit was a mess, his hair disheveled, almost looking like it did back when he was in college. He was pale and his heart had been frozen in fear since the moment George had called him to say Rory had collapsed in his hallway after a very unpleasant visit with his father.

He looked at Lorelai briefly when he got the call, the emotionless face that stood there spurting what he now knew were lies. Even after all these years she still hated him. He wondered if it only because he loved Rory and she loved him back….he probably would never get the answers but at that moment looking at her face and any guilt about not telling her that Rory was heading to a hospital in London was gone.

He looked down the hall and saw George and ran to him. "George thank you. Thank you for being here for her. Please what happened, what did the doctors say?"

George went through everything he had witnessed, what his father had told Rory. George, who was very fond of the younger Huntzberger all the years that he had lived in the building could see the anger on his face. The same way that once Odette came around he knew that Logan's heart was breaking for the beautiful Ms. Gilmore that he knew was in Logan's heart.

Suddenly they were interrupted by a doctor.

"Are you Ms. Gilmore's family?" he asked.

"Yes, I am her fiancé. Is she going to be ok?"

The doctor explained about stress and the sudden blood pressure spike and with her pregnancy they were being extra cautious….Logan just listened, masking the face that from the moment he mentioned pregnancy he was in shock. His Ace was pregnant? Suddenly her being in London made sense. Oh God she had to be alright, she had been all alone when she got this news because he was too scared to tell her he wanted more than Vegas, that he had wanted more since the moment he saw her in Hamburg.

"She is sleeping, you can go and see her" the doctor told him and he walked him towards the door.

Rory felt like she was in a fog. She was trying to remember where she was and suddenly it all came back to her. Finding out she was pregnant, the fight with her mom, the last minute flight to London and then Mitchum telling her Logan was gone. Even in the fog she felt pain rip through her…agonizing pain, one that she caused because she was too scared to ever tell Logan how she truly felt. Three years they had had their arrangement and when they were together it was so perfect, except for the fact that they never spoke the words that mattered the most. In three years she told him she missed him, loved spending time with him but she never told him she loved him, that she was in love with him, that she truly was only whole when he was with her and now because of her fear she had lost him forever.

She gasped and suddenly she heard a voice….

"Relax sweetheart, you need to keep your pressure down. Everything is going to be ok, we are going to be ok. I love you so much Ace, just relax. I'm here and I am not going anywhere"

This sucked she thought to herself. Being dead. She often wondered what happened when you died. Now she knew….she would forever be plagued with hearing his voice, the voice of what she lost for all eternity because there was no way she was really hearing him so death was the only option.

"Open your eyes for me Ace. Come on, let me see those beautiful blue eyes smile for me"

She slowly opened her eyes, maybe if she did then the hallucination would disappear and she could just spend the afterlife regretting her choices not having to hear them replay like a damn record.

She blinked once, the light bothering her and like the damn hallucination knew what she was thinking suddenly the lights dimmed.

She opened her eyes again and her breath caught. Slowly exhaling she realized she was indeed breathing and she was not dead and that Logan was sitting right in front of her. Odette must hate her right now, ruining their honeymoon and why was he even here? How did he know she was even in London? Did Mitchum call him and tell him to get rid of the issue before the gossip rags found out about her.

"Logan?"

"Hey….how are you feeling?"

"Logan what are you doing here?"

"What do you mean why I am here. Rory as soon as I heard you were in the hospital I grabbed a flight and made my way here, where else would I be?"

"Where you belong Logan, with your wife on your honeymoon. God Odette must be so mad and it's all my fault. I made a mess of everything again and I am so sorry".

Logan looked at her with confusion and then remembered what George had told him….just as he began to speak Rory put her hand up.

"Don't say anything, I just need to get this off my chest and then you can go back to your life. But I have to tell you. Please just listen, don't say anything just listen" Rory told him.

"Ace….I…."

"Please Logan. I just need a clear conscious and then you can go to your life and I will go to mine, but I have been holding my feelings in for so long I just have to let them go. I love you. I am in love with you and I have been since the day we jumped. Ok my feelings probably started way before that but I think the jump solidified them. I was an idiot. When you asked me to marry you, it was like my heart was bursting open. I wanted to be with you so much but I was scared. Scared because you had direction on where you were going and you wanted me with you but I felt lost because I did not know which way I was going. And then my mother, god I was so stupid. I let my insecurities about my life and my future lead me into the wrong direction. The fact was that wide open future that I thought I had was nothing without you. I think I knew that the moment I got offered the job with Obama. You were who I wanted to tell, you are who I wanted to share my excitement with and I know you would have supported me to follow my dreams and instead I let my mother's voice in my head influence my decision and I am so sorry. I don't even think I realized she did until last night. I fought with her and she said some stuff and suddenly I was seeing so many of my choices and my decisions through a different view and do you know what I realized? I realized that the strong, independent Rory I was with you was not the person I was around my mother. I just loved her so much and she was my best friend and now realizing how much of her beliefs influenced me even though I don't agree with them, well it scares me to realize I allowed her to push me so much into a path she convinced me I wanted so many years ago. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to be a writer, I enjoyed it but it was not like I woke up one day when I was two and said I want to be an oversees correspondent and go to Harvard. Those seeds were planted and I was just to docile, to0 scared to stand up and make my own decisions. Yale was the first one, yeah she tried to play it off like she was happy in the end but now looking back I remembered her eyes, when I first told her I applied….and suddenly I saw those eyes so many times in the memories of my life, the same eyes she gave me after you proposed.

I am getting off track here, the fact is I was dumb and stupid and I should have called you from the campaign trail and begged you to forgive me but I didn't. When I saw you in Hamburg, it was like my heart started beating again for the first time in seven years since we walked away from each other and I should have told you that first night, that I was still madly in love with you and I wanted to be with you forever but I did not deserve you. I broke your heart and I said let's do Vegas because at least I would have you some way. I was so scared to tell you how I felt because in my mind there was no way you still loved me, not after what I did when you proposed.

The past three years have been so amazing, I think I fell more deeply in love with you then I was in college and I do not even know how that is possible. When we said our goodbyes in New Hampshire, when I asked you if you were marrying Odette, I should have told you not too, I should have told you to stay with me, be with me…I know it's too late now. You are married, you will have a life with her, the dynastic plan that you were meant to have, but I could not let you go through life not knowing how I felt, or that I'm pregnant. I know a baby with your mistress was definitely not part of the dynastic plan that your father wanted but I love you too not let you know that we are having a baby. I know you won't be able to say you are the father, I mean you could but I am begging, I will let you see if anytime you want but I can't bear for Odette to be in the baby's life. I might have lost my heart to her but I can't lose my baby to her too. This baby is all I will ever have of you and I will cherish it for the rest of my life…

I am so sorry, so sorry Logan and if you want me to go and never contact you again but I just….."

Logan's heart had been beating a mile a minute since he saw her, listening to her pain, his heart was breaking because he was an idiot. He should have told her long before now how much he loved her, he should have been smart and put the ring on her finger and told her they would have a long engagement ten years ago and none of this would have happened. He caused this and he so did not deserve her but he would spend the rest of his life proving to her that he could deserve her.

Rory just looked at him, she was confused as to the tears in his eyes…did her words mean something to him, was he sad because the dynastic plan was ruined, was he crying because he did care about her and now he would end up hurting her by asking to have his child with him in London.

Logan tried to figure out what to say, he had so much to tell her but it could wait, he needed to tell her what was important right now, to keep her pressure down and then when she was out of the woods he would beg forgiveness and tell her what an idiot he was, what a chicken he had been because he was too scared to tell her he loved her and then have her reject him again.

His hand which had been holding hers let her hand go as he moved to wipe away the tears that fell down her face. He took her hand again and gently kissed it.

"Rory, there is so much I need to tell you, so much I want to say about what you just told me but it will take some time for me to put all of my idiotic moves into words so I am just going to start with the basics. First of all, I was not on my honeymoon…."

"It doesn't matter you were with your wife…."

"Rory, as much as listening to you ramble warms my heart, don't speak now, just listen. I was not with Odette and I am not married. I broke it off with her and told my dad to shove it".

He saw how Rory's eyes grew big with shock at the first of his declarations.

"My father told me how impressed he was over the past three years with how I took charge of business and he did not understand why I was ruining everything by ending things with Odette. I told him that I would never be the man he wanted me to be, I would never be CEO of HPG because I no longer had the drive or the care to push myself. That the reason I was doing so well over the past three years was because I was in love and without my heart I really did not care about anything. Just so you know Rory, you are my heart. I was an idiot to walk away in New Hampshire, I was an idiot in Hamburg and through the three years of our Vegas agreement because I should have told you that I love you, that I am desperately in love with you and have been since the day we jumped, probably more like the day you yelled at me outside your dorm room. The truth was Rory I was scared. Not much scares me but I was petrified to tell you how I felt because I did not want to lose you and if Vegas was all you could offer I was willing to take any little piece of you just to be with you but it was also because I was scared to tell you that I wanted to be with you forever, hell with the dynastic plan but I was so scared that you would reject me again that I just….but then we said goodbye and the past six weeks have been pure hell for me and I realized I am a big fat chicken and while I did not tell you all these years how I really felt because I was scared of losing you now I had lost you anyway and I realized where was the guy that jumped off the scaffold with the love of my life? I had lost him along the way and I did not like the person I had become so I told Odette it was over, told my father and jumped on a plane to tell the woman I have loved for 13 years that I am nothing without her and then I got there and was told that she was gone and when George called I raced back to be here so I can tell you, Rory Gilmore, I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you and eternity if there is one. I want us to build a future that we want, I want to have babies with you, grow old with you and one day when my time comes I want you to be the last thing I see. Rory I want you to be my wife whether it is on paper or just in our hearts, hey we can go to India and get married in front of a tree spirit, get matching tattoos, anything you want. Just be with me, let me love you Rory".

Now they were both crying, by this point Logan had moved to sit on the side of the bed and as he reached to pull her into his arms she was moving to fall into his.

An hour later George walked into the room, he wanted to check on them and let them know he was heading back. A smile graced his lips and he looked at the two of them, Logan with Rory curled up in his arms. They were both asleep. He ducked out of the room and asked the nurse to give them a message that he left but that they should call him if they needed anything.