A/N : Ignores the last 4 words of AYITL, but otherwise picks up from there. I refuse to be forced into writing a pregnancy fic and lose out on all the possibilities that exist without those last 10 seconds. Happily, it's fandom, I don't gotta be!

A/N2 : Pompeii - Bastille is the soundtrack, and inspired (quite directly) the title. Chapter 1 posted on Christmas because Yuletide nostalgia, I guess.

After some sort of mental creativity fit resulting in many notes and 3 significant starts to stories, I started with this one because I thought it would be a nice little oneshot to get my feet wet. Ha. Ha. Ha. It'll be 4 chapters, 3 are written, so it will be completed.

A shade over 6 months after she set up in her grandfather's old study, and a first draft was complete. Chapters here and there were nearly publishable, entire sections were naked bone and a few were rambling meta describing what she'd have to confront or research in order to actually write them, but the hardest work was done. Not forgetting the five different stopping points, none of which felt right. Her editors were mostly concerned with whether it would do well enough for a followup.

But she could breathe.

Backing up her backups under different filenames: harddrive, cloud, thumbdrive, one more time, she stretched mightily and rocked back in the baby soft chair. If she closed her eyes and was very quiet, she could smell the cigar smoke deep in the leather. For the first time in a long time, her brain was calm enough to feel, without trying to pin it all down into words. Crafting reality through vocabulary, cadence, the twists of thought – these were the addictive gifts from her mother. Gifts she appreciated more than anything but the love.

The dregs of sunlight near horizontal, she equipped herself with a fresh mug of coffee and an old sweater, and relocated out to the patio to enjoy the cool summer night. Neighbors were BBQing, and the heavy smoke was as close as she'd get to camping. (Shhh, forget her first LDB event.)

Mid-sip, her pocket began buzzing, and she yelped before fishing out her phone. As close as she'd get to fishing, as well. (No, don't forget Lorelai's fish.)

"Hello?"

"Rory."

The line was noisy – raucous, even – but Logan's quiet voice cut through. They hadn't spoken since their perfect last hurrah. That had been the point. She hadn't called. Had wanted to, a few times, knocking herself for the crutch until she realized what she wanted to tell him were milestones and joys, not failings and loneliness. Then she'd deleted his contact information from her phone – she had his number, elsewhere, on paper and in memory, but no accidental dials by a twitch of a thumb.

"Logan." Her mind fell so hard back into writing mode she gasped. And in the fist moments of calm, shattered... A voice from the past... No, it was nothing, not even a footnote. She hoped. (Did she hope? She didn't know.)

"A voice from beyond the grave, eh?" His chuckle was dark.

A particularly familiar shout proceeded a chorus of "huzzahs" in the background. "Is that Finn?"

"It is. What would a celebration be without him?"

It was as hard not to smile at memories of the most improbable man to exist as it was to miss the cynicism lacing his use of the word "celebration." Her heart sank. "Where are you?"

"I am not sure. I will check." Background noise slid to the foreground as he shouted "Men, the lady wishes to know where am I?"

A dozen responses clashed, but one word stood out...

"Ah." He spoke back into the phone. "I am at a bachelors party." What started light dropped like a dumbbell (closest she'd get to exercising – stop.)

Wrangling the Stars Hollow Gazette by day and writing her book by night left little time or interest in the minutia of the world outside, but she could follow hints, reporter's instinct honed by sniffing out stories big city writers would sniff at. "Logan, are you at your bachelor party?" Her finger itched to end the call. She didn't want to know. It was fine, but she didn't want to know. About this. Not when it was happening.

She'd planned how it would go. A dinner with her mother and grandmother, when Emily would casually mention "oh, did you hear Logan Huntzberger got married XYZ ago?" with a sidelong glance. And then a quick diversion to the latest minor friction in the Emily-Lorelai dynamic, which had grown significantly but could never be smooth. The news would hurt, there would probably be some wallowing in the pits of what ifs, but it would be over and done and so far away.

She wasn't sure where in the world he was, but his breaths were an inch from her ear as hers were to him. That was the opposite of far.

One finger swipe to escape, and she would pretend this call never happened and the plan could go forth. Or hey, she'd heard from him, he was doing well, look at the casual acquaintance they'd have for a while before finally drifting into the nothingness. But she couldn't hang up. Fodder for the book was all well and good, but after all the times he'd picked up the phone on the first ring, nearly every time, she wouldn't, couldn't do that to him.

"Congratulations," she offered, hesitantly, braced.

The noise became muffled, a door closed, a heavy sigh hitched and she pulled her sweater closer in a way that had nothing to do with chill.

The "Rory" was so sudden, so desperate, she almost dropped her phone. "Tell me not to do it. Tell me to stop it, that I can figure something else out."

She wanted so badly to misunderstand him. "I can't do that." Echoing her part in a similar conversation so long ago.

"Tell me – Tell me anything."

Words she didn't have stuck in her throat. He was waiting. And she-of-many-words had none to spend. They'd had Vegas. What happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas. What happened outside Vegas stayed outside Vegas. Vegas was now gone. There was no inside or outside, just a grand expanse of not-her-place. Empty desert flat and still after a gust of wind. Even the tumble weed rooted to the ground.

"Please." His manic energy had fallen, and he sounded so tired, the kind of tired that spread from the inside out. It was a decade since she'd heard that tone, which had always pulled on her heart. "Rory please. I just need to see you. Before-" he trailed off, a verbal helpless shrug.

Memories of Dean flickered horrifyingly. "I can't be at your wedding. A worse thought struck her. "By the time I'd even get there you'd be on your honeymoon. Leaps and bounds beyond a thought she'd ever wanted to have. Hypothetical strange laundry in the closet was a borderline of a city that was no more; hypothetically seeing the non-hypothetical fiance/wife was the crash landing on the plane ride home.

"No, it's on Saturday. I can get you on the red eye tonight. Or a flight tomorrow. Whenever is good, I can- I can borrow a plane. Ours is in Moscow but someone's gotta have one there."

Oh, a world in which borrowing a plane was as mundane as borrowing a friend's car. Temporally thrown, she checked her phone – it was Tuesday. "What? But you're at your-"

"It's more of a bachelor-week" he forced out, and she heard him pulling himself back together, metaphorically buttoning his jacket.

"Finn's idea?"

"And Colin and Robert. I figured between the three of them one would make it to the ceremony sober enough to not lose the..." For a few moments they were in the past where she'd been the one holding a ring.

For another moment, she remained in the past. Thinking that with the boys singularly, there was hope. Together, all hope was lost. That was maybe...

...Maybe the point.

"Please, Ace." There was a hint of a smile in his nickname for her, there always was.

Logan had come through for her so much the past years, whenever she'd needed him. Whenever she'd asked. There wasn't any way she could not be there for him the first, the only time he asked something of her. Fully aware she was repeating mistakes of the past, she agreed. "I'll leave tonight."

And, because it was what Gilmore Girls did: "Tell Finn to save Mo- me a martini or I'll have to turn right around and fly back home."

Albeit watery, his relieved laugh did her good.

After her phone was stowed, she banged her head against her knee at almost referring to herself as "Mother."

She landed in France disheveled and sleep deprived. Unable to relax she had whiled her way through many of the in-flight movies, finding something to rant about in each and every one. Her seatmate fled for business class 10 minutes in to her berating the characters of Toy Story 2, but she did find sympathy with Lisa, First Class' lead flight attendant. Rory's slightly drunken verbal barfing was not, she was assured, the strangest conversation held at the front of the plane. Lisa had even had some practical suggestions on the order of washing her face, and not talking until she'd listened.

The airport was a rowdy affair, the Three Musketeers surrounded by a squadron of security officers caught between alarm at the presence of Henry with the matching outfits inhabited by the boys, and the Devil-May-Care license of money. Lots of money. It was odds or evens that Colin had tried to buy the airport.

"Love!" "Reporter Girl!" "Mother!" After so long living in front of computer screens, she'd forgotten how exciting life could be if you simply let go of your notions of reality.

"We've come to whisk you away, our steeds await."

"Alas, they had to be tethered outside."

"Not," she felt ridiculous having to ask this question "actual horses?"

"Of course not. Do you have any idea how much armour chaffs just walking around?"

"And how would poor Henry ever stay on? He be made a fool of."

"We have declared limousines are a gift of the future well worth the sacrifice of anachronism."

"But there are five of them."

"Henry gets his own-"

"-But we can all share another-"

"-Another benefit over quadrupeds."

It was good to laugh.

They kept the charade up, questioning the provenance of her clothing (exotic land or impoverished village?), and comparing the "footiness" of wines (the chardonnay was stomped by athletes' feet suffering from athletes foot) until they were well out of the city.

"Where are we going? It's not to-" The only way she was getting this far was to forget about many of the details. One of those details being the family estate which logically existed and where, in retrospect... In her mind she would be at a lavishly impersonal city hotel right now.

"We were exiled before we even arrived." Colin noted, in a burst of rare but always well-timed discretion. "I found a house a county over."

"Good, that's good," she managed, taking another sip and helping Finn remove the metal and leather while retaining his underwear.

She missed the grand reveal of Colin's new house, heart pounding in her ears expecting to see their d'Artagnan each moment. Every doorway provided a fresh rush of adrenaline until she was safely deposited in her (thankfully unoccupied) room. Not one to eschew luxuries, she made good use of the gilded bath.

Still nervous, she'd brought her suitcase in with her, and rummaged through the small collection of clothes feeling foolish. For once, she'd underpacked, as if bringing nothing but a pair of modest pajamas and a classic slacks/tshirt ensemble would ensure this was a quick and casual (too casual for that kind of casual) visit.

Two large flat packages lay on her bed when she came out, still toweling her hair. "Eat me" said one, and she opened it with one eye closed. Eclairs, a dozen, each nestled in layers of doilies. Sinking her teeth into one (amazing) she peeked into the other box, usefully labeled "probably do not eat me."

Free hand rustled through tissue paper to stroke silky fabric. She hated how she automatically spun in a circle, half expecting Logan to be lounging in wait, smirk on his lips.

Wiping her hands thoroughly on her jeans, she held the dress up in front of a full length mirror. Slinky and swooshy and dark blue layers of subtle detailing, it was altogether tastefully elegant.

Lovely. But she wouldn't be needing it.

"Colin?" she called as she bounced down the stairs, prepared to congratulate him on at least acquiring a beautiful property. The house, she discovered, was unaccountably quiet. "Finn?" No one in the dining room-come-bar. Or the kitchen. "Robert?" she tried, as she walked out on to the patio. "Where are you g-"

As soon as she'd stopped expecting him, there was Logan. He jumped up from the heavy iron bench. They stood there, standing, staring.

Logan stopped the silence first by speaking. Thank you to Lisa, Rory remembered to listen.

"Sorry I didn't meet you. I had..." he shrugged helplessly.

"It's fine," she said slowly, when she was sure he wasn't continuing. "The boys had fun, Henry led them well."

"Yeah, I saw Henry. Must have been a wild ride, there are a few sharpie tattoos he didn't have the last time I saw him."

"On the bright side, I don't think he felt it when security tazed him."

Too briefly, his old smile squinted warm eyes. "He got his, the tazer's in his boot. Also two batons and three pairs of underwear. I stopped looking after those."

As the ice broke they'd stepped closer; now they could touch, if they both reached out.

Logan gestured for her to sit in a padded chair, pacing in half steps until she was settled. With an abrupt movement and bitten lip he sat himself on a sofa across from her, bouncing knee not stilled by the weight of his forearm as he leaned forwards.

"I'm sorry I asked you to come. I shouldn't have, I wasn't thinking straight."

"Oh." Not sure what to do, she started to get back up. "I can go-"

"No." He'd jumped up, only reseating himself once she had. "That's not what I- I shouldn't have called you, dragged you back into... all this."

Listen. Watch. Nerves vibrated his body but his eyes were steady on hers. Sad half smile and a shine of pain as if he was watching her unseen from across a crowded room rather than across a coffee table. In the time she wasn't speaking, she recognized the expression. One directed at her so, so often all those months they'd been passing in and out of Vegas. Years she'd been so self-absorbed she'd only found reflection of her own pain as tokens of his concern for her welfare. Chose to see only the promise he'd always be there for her.

"I'm here." Now. For you. Because you asked.

"I'm glad." As if he hadn't been breathing properly until this moment, he inhaled deeply, shaky exhale stilling the fidgets.

Time was, she'd have taken his hand. But there was a -coffee table- between them now.

"How's your book? I know I pulled you away."

The deflection was noted, and she answered lightly "I had just sent in a first draft when you called, actually. There's still a lot of work to do but right now it's out of my hands." She shrugged.

"That's fantastic. I always knew you'd find what you were meant to do."

She inclined her head in response, searching for a way to move the conversation back onto him, without being the one to acknowledge the elephant. As if, like Shroedinger's cat, it wasn't there until it was there. He needed to be the one to do that. Unfortunately, everything she thought of: "you were so amazing when I was figuring it all out," "business is going well?" even "how are you?" brought up their relationship, was stupidly impersonal, or lay too close to the thing that was waiting to be called.

She had to settle for "Logan" with careful subtlety of intonation. Logan, it's time.

He nodded shallowly, quickly, closing his eyes before breaking open. "When I called, I wanted you to rescue me."

"And now?"

His head drooped. "Now I'm looking at you, and I don't think that's why you came."

It's not. But why she came and what he needed were two different things. "What do you want to be rescued from, Logan?"

His back hit the iron curls hard enough it must have hurt, fingers raking through his hair a mark of his discomfort. Not just the usual trouble with non-blurted emotionally revealing conversations, but the heart-wrenching reality that she hadn't cared enough to coax since they were kids.

"Same old, same old. My father. My family. Their expectations and my responsibilities." Bitterness dripped off him.

"You did it before. You left your father's company. You went out and found a different way."

"Yeah, but back then I had-" It was nearly, but not quite, an accusation.

With absolute clarity, she knew the question he needed her to ask. Unfortunately, that involved putting herself further out on a limb than she wanted to go. It would be nice to hide under the tumbleweed. Which would mean she was climbing out on the limb of a cactus right now, lower to the ground but infinitely more painful.

If waiting him out didn't work... She'd listened, she'd watched, she was almost sure. Very quickly, she was telling herself to hold no stake in the outcome. They'd already parted ways. Being here with him now was akin to a dream-world. His dream-world. Because he was the one in crisis and she was his catalyst. Ghost from the past. That may not have been her idea when she agreed to come, but damn straight she'd get back on the plane having done her best.

"Logan." She repeated his name yet again, needing him to stay grounded, to keep herself focused on him in the here and now. "Are you talking about running away from something, or to something?"

Very specifically, she'd avoided saying "someone," but heat flared in his eyes and she blushed in spite of herself.

"What does it matter?"

"It matters," she said calmly, belying her internal turmoil, "because if you want to run away I'll help you and support you in any way I can."

"But?" he whispered, and she would swear she saw his heart tearing. And felt awe, not for the first time, at his bravery. If their places were reversed, she wasn't sure she'd still be sitting there, much less maintaining eye contact. No, she knew she wouldn't. By the time their conversation in the tango club had merely been walking up to the door to this conversation, she'd already folded.

"But if the only way you'll call off the wedding and leave Odette is if I'm waiting for you, then I can't help you."

Not that she didn't want to. How many times had it been only fear that had stopped her from begging him to "leave Odette, be with me"? The prospect was heady. And all wrong, and why she had to stop seeing him, stop calling him. "Having" him would solve none of her problems, all that would have happened is she'd drag him down with her.

Jaw working, his gaze slid across the intricately laid bricks before he looked at her once more, silent entreaty to take it back for one beat, two, three and then he was walking away.

Rory sat, eyes on the place where he'd been. Not so sure she'd helped at all.

She was still there when a flurry of noise announced the re-arrival of the boys. Not in the mood to join in, she listened to their voices and the clink of glassware echo around the house until Colin finally wandered outside.

"There you are. We tried to announce ourselves so as to avoid any unfortunate interruptions. Did we – miss the fun?"

"He's gone," she said listlessly.

"Who's gone where love?" Seemingly oblivious, Finn came out and plonked himself in Logan's abandoned seat.

Her hand flailed at the air.

"This isn't good," announced Robert, and she slapped a hand across her mouth to forestall a sob. There was no better metric of the seriousness of a situation than any of the three being serious.

"Mother don't cry." Finn flung himself over the table to land at her feet, burying his head in her lap.

Having not grown up in her pedigree, the entitled lives of her peers often wowed her, a nagging feeling she didn't belong. Finn, holy terror of, well, everyone and everything, was a spectacle of debauchery. Yet she was here stroking his head, and it was only half a game for each of them.

It was quite a notion, that she might be loved independent of her status as "his girl." Expressed so differently from her Stars Hollow family, the two groups could never understand one another, but there she was in the middle, dual citizenship, a foot in both worlds.

Tightening her grip, she surveyed the three with a stern look, worthy of the endearment. "Which one of you dialed the phone?"

"Phone? What phone? Colin? Do you know of what contraption this woman speaks?"

Got them.

"I know not. Finn?"

The Finn in question bumped his head against her, and she pulled tighter on his hair, up until: "Right. I do seem to recall seeing your lovely visage in a tiny magic box."

Yelling would be pointless, relieving her frustration and confusion on the heads of the innocent. Well, not innocent. Definitely not innocent. They were many things, and good friends were one. And they were only doing what they thought was for the best. Or what would cause the most interesting result, which could be seen as the same thing if you bent your brain to see the world the way they saw it.

"Look. I know you guys were trying to- I don't know what you were trying to do. But it was a bad idea for me to come."

Colin spoke for the group. "Not withstanding that 'bad ideas' are kinda our thing, that's why we didn't kidnap you."

"You set it up."

"Not true."

"And a very unfair charge. Colin, I retain you as legal counsel," Robert chimed in.

"Did we lead the horse to the trough? Certainly. You were not the one scraping him off the floor of the Diner after you abandoned us in New Hampshire."

Finn grumbled under his breath. "I nearly sobered up walking all the way there."

Rory ignored him. There had been a flinch in Colin's eye. For a moment, it was a welcome distraction from her righteous indignation. "Colin, did you buy the diner?"

"It is possible I did, yes."

"It was," a smile overcame her efforts to remain cross, "quite a trip for you, wasn't it?"

"I'll have you know those are memories I will treasure forever. And be reminded of every time I pay the property tax. Are we forgiven?"

"Hold on," Robert broke in. "I still haven't heard what the charges are."

"Being good friends." Robert was the least bound of the group, but Rory had come to appreciate his stubborn refusal to live life on any but his own terms. "Presumptuous, meddling friends whose hearts are in the right place and whom I am glad are in my life." She said it knowing they would hear and appreciate the sentiment so strongly the discomfit would send them dragging her into the hills, and away from her last ruminations.

Which they did. Until: "hold up. The sun is missing. Did we forget Logan somewhere?"

Short attention span, thy be the motto of the Life and Death Brigade. To a man, they seemed to have forgotten she didn't belong there.

Short attention span, thy name is Rory Gilmore. She'd forgotten the ongoing bachelor party.

"I need to go. Can I get a key to the house?"

"Haven't got one. I never bother locking the doors."

"But don't go love, the night's just begun!"

She took the car keys from Colin, along with the assurance he'd buy another, if needed, or hell wanted, to get them back. It was uncharacteristic of her to encourage his reckless purchases, but in this case, her desire to flee won out.

They'd parked in a dark corner, and she was stabbing blindly at the door lock when a presence loomed behind her.

"Rory wait."

"No! I'm trying to leave. I wasn't here, you don't see me."

Logan sighed. And opened the car door. "You must have been having a good time if you forgot Colin never locks anything. It's what gives him an excuse to buy a new car every week. Twice if he's partying in a rough part of town."

She felt a little stupid. "Thank you." Entrance to the car, however, was blocked by an arm. Stuck, she turned to face him.

"I was at Colin's, looking for you."

"We went out."

"I can see that." There was no anger. "I guess I should have said this before, but I thought it was obvious. " She shrank back. "The guys love you, they miss you, you should never feel like they need to be out of your life."

To her surprise, despite the potential double meaning in his words, there was only sincerity. All the times they'd been together, minus this trip, it had been all of them, the LDB outings doubling as an opportunity for Logan to spend time with her. It had honestly never occurred to her that she could call them up herself, or that they'd come if she did. Or that-

"I've missed them too." Double meaning was also lacking in her response. "I'm going to get back. Watch out for Finn, the waitress has already smacked him twice and I think a third time she'll be leaving a scar."

He laughed, head tilting to the sky. "One of many."

"So..." she looked pointedly at his arm, still blocking egress from the conversation.

It was dropped.

"I wanted to tell you, you were right Ace."

His eyes were on the sky again, more stars visible here even than in Stars Hollow when it went to sleep. Everything shifted, half the world away from her home skies. She'd taken a little astronomy, and searched for familiarities. Guided only by those, would she be able to find her way home? In a time before GPS, highways, and airports, man still knew how to navigate by the heavens. Now, there were so few reasons to look up, aside from remembering you almost never do.

"I was?"

"I love working with my father. I never thought I would. It was amazing to build something from the ground up, but here I'm part of something, building skyscrapers instead of bus terminals. It's a door I walked through on my own."

Their first fight had included that door. Words spat out had told her more about the Logan behind the partying playboy than she imagined almost anyone knew. Much later, she'd come to believe that outburst was the presiding factor in his attempt to move on. He'd never had a girlfriend before, and guys aren't known for emotionally supporting one another. He didn't know that sharing the darkness along with the light came with the territory. That trusting the other person to accept it all, hold it safe, wasn't a sign of weakness. Not that his home life had ever taught him that admitting vulnerability could be the opposite of weakness.

"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering."

"Saint Augustine."

Leaning back against the rear door, she thought he was still looking up until she glanced over to find him gazing at her instead.

His eyes sparkled with the same mystery as the stars. "If you had asked me to, I'd have been by your side in a heartbeat."

Listen. To every time he had picked up on the first ring. Every time she felt the need to remind him about Vegas. To the faint jangle of the key. "I know you would have."

The flinch she'd been expecting didn't come. "Is that why you never asked?"

A flinch she hadn't been expected came from her.

At the next heartbeat, something heavy hit the window of the bar, and the shouting began. The moment was broken.

"I'm going to go."

"Sounds like third time was the charm." Logan nodded, and closed the door after her.

Before she turned onto the main road she checked her rearview. Raised a hand in farewell, heart both heavy and lightened by his use of the past tense, and watched him walk inside.