Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the wake of her graduation, there was a hollowness to Rory’s life. She tried to tell herself that was what having the world at her feet was supposed to feel like, that the hollowness was only the lack of walls around her—the feeling of endless doors in front of her, just waiting for her to open them. That it had nothing to do with the absence of a blond boy— man —in her life. 

Most of the time, she even managed to convince herself of it. 

It was only at night, when her mother was asleep and the house was empty and she cried herself to sleep buried in one of Logan’s sweatshirts, the lingering scent of his cologne wrapped around her, that she came close to acknowledging that the hollowness had very little to do with the future that yawned wide before her and everything to do with the fact that it didn’t have Logan in it. Her bed felt empty without his presence—strange, when he’d only spent a single weekend in Stars Hollow, but she’d gotten used to waking up with his arm around her, to the way they fit together like quotation marks, the start of something that wasn’t supposed to have a visible end. 

But Logan had made it clear that he wanted more than she’d been able to promise him. 

The worst part was that some part of her understood. How did you choose to be together and not be together, to love each other and yet put a country between you? 

So she pretended that the hollowness was only the wind of the world at her feet, that searching for the keys that would open some of those doors didn’t terrify her as much—more, maybe—than it excited her. 

The whole drive back from her grandparents, Rory’s head spun. She had a job. She was going to be a real reporter. She was leaving in three days.  

It was the dream and it was all too much and the one person she wanted to talk to was the one person she couldn’t. She hadn’t realized how much she had come to rely on Logan’s steady optimism. For three years he’d been the steady presence at her back, sure of her abilities, her potential, even when she wasn’t. It wasn’t that jumping had become less scary with him—but she’d learned how to appreciate the adrenaline that came with falling. 

This job felt a lot like falling, with all of the fear and none of the adrenaline. 

It wasn’t something her mother would understand. Lorelai Gilmore always seized life with both hands. She was always sure of her choices, always ready to chase her dreams no matter what that meant. The idea that Rory might not share that enthusiasm—that her anxiety about the job might be more than just the suddenness of it—wouldn’t make sense to her mother. Not that her mom wouldn’t try to understand, wouldn’t try to smooth away all her fears. But she wouldn’t really understand, and that was what Rory wanted: to talk to someone who understood. 

The rocket ship was still sitting on her dresser as Rory slipped into her bedroom. She kept telling herself she was going to put it away, tuck it into the garage where all her ex-boxes ended up eventually, but she hadn’t. Putting away the rocket felt like an admission that it was over, like letting go of the quiet, persistent hope that she would come home one day and find Logan leaning against the house with a coffee—probably long cold—in his hand and one of those smiles—the ones that begged her to take his hand and follow him into another adventure—on his face.

If she was honest with herself—and maybe she had to be tonight, with her days left in Connecticut suddenly a number she could count on one hand—she’s been waiting for him to show up since he walked away.

It’s a thought that makes her pause, because Rory has never considered herself the kind of person who waits for things to happen to her. She has always made her decisions—slowly, with copious pro/con lists—and chased what she wanted. Except Logan. 

He was the romantic one—the one who arranged weekend getaways and romantic surprises, who made a point to show her that he loved her more often than he ever said it. It was something that had taken her time to learn to understand—his language of touches and gestures, how the way a soft brush of his hand against her arm as he passed said he cared and the way he made sure to kiss her goodbye no matter how many things were on his mind expressed his love better than his words ever could. He was as fluent in gestures as she was in words; she’d thought they understood each other, that they spoke the same language in different dialects. But maybe it was more like reading in translation, the important things sometimes getting lost in the gaps between one language and another. 

Moments came back to her as she looked at the rocket: Logan on the couch after she’d told him she loved him the first time, looking anxious as he tried to explain that the words wouldn’t mean the same coming from him. A hundred times where his words had been too smooth and hadn’t matched his eyes. 

Logan spoke best in actions, but he had always made an effort to tell her the things that mattered in words as well. To speak her language even when it felt clumsy and inadequate on his tongue. Maybe she should have tried harder to do the same. 

It was that thought that had her back in her car, tracing an unfamiliar route to where she knew Logan would be. (There was a part of her, buried under the confusion and the heartbreak, that loved that she knew whose apartment Logan would crash at, that even though Robert was closer, it would never, ever be Robert.) 

For once, there was no pro/con list. She wasn’t sure what one would look like, because she didn’t know what she was asking. All she knew was she didn’t want things to end like this, with tears and bitterness and her being one more person Logan didn’t show his real face to. 

That had hurt almost as much as him walking away. 

The ride up to Finn’s apartment felt like it took forever and no time at all. The door opened on her second knock, revealing Finn, grinning like a cat who’d just eaten the canary. 

“Reporter Girl! I didn’t think you knew where I lived. You’ve ignored all the invitations to my delightful soirées.” 

Rory brushed past Finn’s lighthearted greeting. “I know he’s here, Finn.” 

“You look incredible, of course.” Finn ran a hand through his hair, his motions a little less grandiose than usual for as drunk as she’d expected him to be. “Heartbreaker chic really works for you. You and Rosemary must have had the same teacher; as much as I hate to see that woman go, I love watching her walk away.”

“C’mon, Finn.” 

“You don’t want to see him, love.” 

The odd phrasing made Rory hesitate. But even a sober Finn only made sense sixty percent of the time, so she ignored it, barreling on before she lost her nerve.  

“Finn-“

“Isn’t breaking his heart once enough?” Finn interrupted. He tucked his hands into his pockets, something serious coloring the edges of his lanky frame. “As much as there are times—many times—when I have wanted to watch Huntz get knocked down a peg, I’d rather not have to scrape him up off the floor. It’s a lot less fun when we aren’t jumping off something first.”

Rory put both hands on the strap of her bag, hugging it to her body. “Please. How many times have you helped Logan or Colin pull off something crazy to woo a girl or win back a girl or make a professor reconsider a grade-“ a tiny laugh escaped her at that, remembering, of all things, that day early on when all three of the guys had burst into her lecture, falling all over themselves with dramatic declarations of love “-or just for the hell of it? I’m not even asking for help. Just give me a chance.” 

“If you run away back to your quirky little town and leave me to pick up shattered pieces of Huntzberger, I shall never forgive you.” Finn leaned back into his apartment, snatching something—most likely a flask—and sliding it into his pocket. He paused on the way out the door, pulling Rory into a sloppy, warm hug. “I’m rooting for you, love.” 

The words gave Rory the confidence she needed to step into the apartment. It was more cluttered than any of Logan’s—more prone to having expensive things for the sake of expensive things. Logan stood silhouetted in one of the windows, moonlight staining him silver. 

“I should have known Finn would cave. He’s always had a soft spot for you.” 

Logan’s voice was rough with exhaustion, the edges colored by the self-deprecating nostalgia that always took him over when he was well and truly drunk. 

“I’m pretty sure that soft spot is for you.”

Logan turned away from the window, taking a drink from the glass held loosely in his hand. “Why are you here, Rory? You made your position clear at graduation.” 

“And you walked away! What happened to factoring each other in? To making plans that had room for both of us, both of our dreams? Did you think California was too far, that I wouldn’t want to make it work if you were that far away—even though London was so much further and wasn’t even your choice? I mean, it had to have crossed your mind when you went to interview in California that we might not get jobs in the same place.” Rory dragged in a breath, pressing her arms tight across her stomach. “I just...I thought we were on the same page, Logan. I thought we understood each other. We were going to figure out how to make it work, no matter what happened.” 

“And how realistic was that?” Logan set his empty glass aside, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Really, Rory? London had an expiration date—it was temporary. But if we got jobs on opposite sides of the country...that doesn’t have an expiration date. The company I’m working for doesn’t have East Coast offices and it’s not like you were really applying to papers out west.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Tell me how it was supposed to work, Rory.”

Rory shook her head. She didn’t know how it would have worked. Any pro/con list would have said it wasn’t a good idea—except that Logan’s name would have been in the pro column and as irrational as it was, she was pretty sure that would have outweighed any point about the distance or the toll of maintaining a relationship through scheduled phone calls and spontaneous visits that were never frequent enough.

“I don’t know. But I didn’t know how that jump from the scaffolding was going to work either—or even if it would work—and we still did that.” Rory hesitated. “Being with you has never been a certain thing. It’s always had more in common with jumping off a cliff and it’s terrifying but it’s also exhilarating and I’ve never been the girl who was okay with jumping except when you were holding my hand.” 

“I asked you to jump, Rory. You said no.” 

“I know. And I wish I could have said yes. I wanted to say yes. But there’s so much up in the air, so many things that I can’t plan for and it’s terrifying—not the good kind of terrifying, the kind of terrifying that feels like if I let go of anything, everything will come crashing down around me. And as much as I want to make that jump, it would feel like free falling without a parachute and we both know that doesn’t end well.” She gave a weak laugh. “It’s just all so much, Logan, and you were supposed to be the thing I didn’t have to worry about. The constant.

“And I hate this. I hate that this is what we’re left with. I hate that I can’t be angry with you, that I keep looking at my phone and expecting a text from you, that I can’t make myself pack away your rocket.” 

For once, Rory couldn’t read anything in Logan’s expression. He just looked at her, his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his expression empty. Rory pulled the letter she’d written from her bag, setting it on the end table alongside a ball of twine. 

“I wanted to make a big gesture, but…” Rory waved a hand at the letter. “Read it, if you want.” 

She paused by the door. “I got a job with Hugo. He’s sending me on the campaign trail, reporting on Senator Obama’s campaign.” 

Logan, 

I’m sitting here in front of Finn’s building, trying to figure out what to say to you and I’m coming up blank. All those articles I’ve written, all the books I’ve read, and I have no idea what to say here. Though I guess there isn’t really a guide for what to say to the boyfriend whose marriage proposal you turned down. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about mazes since graduation. They’re a good metaphor for life, especially now. The prize I want is here, somewhere, but I can’t see it. All I can see are a bunch of twisting paths that might lead somewhere. Or might lead me over a cliff. 

I wish we could go back to the hay bale maze. Everything was...it was like standing on the threshold of home, about to step out on an adventure and even though nothing was settled, it was okay. We were going to figure things out together—we were going to figure out how to fit our dreams together, carving them into puzzle pieces that would fit together seamlessly. 

I guess neither of us thought we might not be shaping them for the same puzzle. 

But back to mazes. And life. It feels like wandering blind in a maze, trying to find the path that will let me achieve all my dreams (and maybe I’m starting to realize that my dreams are more complicated than I once thought). Wandering alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe that means I’ve failed at being an independent woman, but-

You’re probably wondering about the ball of twine I put with the letter. It’s not a love rocket, I know, but it’s something. 

Ariadne and Theseus is a better tragedy than it is a love story, but I think the labyrinth and the ball of string is a good metaphor for life and love. Love is complicated. It’s trying to line the labyrinths of two lives up so they overlap, so you can walk the path with a partner. But I think it’s also the string, or at least it can be, because the right partner keeps you from getting too lost, no matter how many turns you take. 

All of which is a long winded way of saying I miss you, Logan. I miss you. And I don’t think it would be going backward to try long distance again. Complicated, yes. But not a step backward. 

Love, 

Ace

There’s a familiar blond head waiting for Rory when she steps out of her first campaign rally, a come-along smile—tentative around the edges—on his face. He wraps her in a hug and for the first time since she left Stars Hollow, Rory doesn’t miss home.

Chapter Text

It takes Logan all of a week to realize he made a mistake (or at least, it takes him that long to admit it to himself. He’s pretty sure he knew it was a mistake the minute her response had been panicked silence and stumbling words).

He goes to California, but the sun and the surf and the house with the avocado tree don’t hold the promise they once did. He rattles around the city when he isn’t throwing himself into work, and it all feels... emptier than he thought it would. Than he thought it could. He knows he lived for years without her in his life—quite successfully, even—but he can’t quite remember how . His bed is too big and too lonely and more than anything, he misses the domesticity. Misses having someone else in his life, their orbits spinning in and out of each other, sharing newspapers over breakfast and making fun of stupid movies curled together on the couch.

Logan Huntzberger, missing domesticity. Who ever would have thought? 

But he does. He misses domesticity. He misses domesticity with Rory . 

He gives it a month, and then two, trying to convince himself that this is just heartbreak, that it will go away if he gives it enough time and stops thinking about Rory. It’s easier than trying to figure out how to fix it. But it’s no use—if he’s honest with himself, he knew it wouldn’t be. Rory Gilmore isn’t the kind of girl you just forget. 

It’s August when he finally works up the nerve to call, after months of staring at her contact in his phone and half hoping that she’ll call him, though he knows this is his mess to fix. It feels like the phone rings forever, long enough that he’s positive she’s not going to answer. 

“Hello?” 

Rory’s voice is so familiar in his ear that for a moment he forgets what he was going to say. He’s missed this. 

“Hey, Ace.” 

“Logan.” 

The skepticism in her voice, the confusion, hurts, though he knows it’s warranted. It’s not anger, though, which is more than he expected. 

“I’m so sorry, Ace.” He drops onto his couch, the phone pressed close to his ear like that’ll make the conversation go better, like if he holds it close enough he’ll be able to reach through the phone and hold Rory’s hand instead. “I know I made a mess of things.” 

He drags his fingers through his hair. No amount of running over speeches in his head could have prepared him for actually speaking to Rory again. There’s a part of him, bigger than he would like, that wants to just slip back into old habits. To let the beginning of his apology be the only apology, to skip over the rest and just start talking the easy way they always have. 

Except it’s Rory and he’s always wanted to give her everything. 

“I should have thought things through better. There were better ways to propose—ways that didn’t put you on the spot like that.”

Rory sighs. “You don’t know how to do things small, Logan.” 

“I’ve managed subtle, though.” 

That earns him a quiet laugh. He does big gestures better than he does small or subtle—he’s pulled off some great ones for Rory over the years—but they’ve always been…her. It’s been coffee carts and car services and swooping in when she needed someone to help her up off the ground, being her white knight even though he knows she’s never really needed one. The proposal wasn’t her. 

“I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. Graduation was supposed to be your day and I...made it into something else.” 

“Logan, the proposal wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t...I loved that you wanted to marry me. Maybe the proposal wasn’t what I would have dreamed, but everything you were saying…” Her voice dies off with a hint of a sob and for a minute, Logan remembers why he hadn’t wanted to try long distance again, because it’s so hard to know Rory is hurting and there’s nothing he can do to make it better. “But you made it all or nothing.” 

“I know.” For the first time, Logan is irrationally glad that they’re doing this over the phone. He wouldn’t have the courage to say the things he needs to say if he were looking into Rory’s blue, blue eyes. “I was scared.” 

There’s more, but for a moment, he flounders. Whatever the distance he's put between himself and his family, Logan was raised a Huntzberger. He knows how to paste on a charming smile no matter his mood and how to say whatever the person across from him wants to hear. Letting his words make him vulnerable, though, letting them—making them—reveal anything about what lies beneath that charming smile? He's never been any good at that. But it's for Rory. It's for Rory, and he has no other options this time. He feels like that kid again, standing in the parlor at Lorelai's inn, begging her to help him win Rory back. Knowing it's probably hopeless and sitting on that pink couch anyway. 

“I was scared,” he repeats. “It felt like our lives were pulling us in different directions, like all the reasons it made sense for us to be together were falling away. I thought I couldn’t handle another year of distance between us, because it’s hard knowing that I can’t be there every time you need me. Knowing that there’s hours and hours between us when all I want is to hold you after a bad day or watch stupid movies we’ll both regret until three in the morning. 

“I thought it would be better not to have you at all than to have you in dribs and drabs, in snatched conversations over the phone and cross-country plane trips that would never be frequent enough, but it’s not, Rory. That ultimatum, all or nothing, is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, including base jumping drunk in Costa Rica. And I want to fix it, if there’s a chance.” 

And there it is. The question that is going to make or break him.

Rory’s silence is long and heavy and for all that Logan’s glad this happened over the phone, he wishes he could see her face. Her face always reveals what she’s thinking. 

“You know,” he forces levity into his voice, like this is all a joke, like she’s not holding her heart in his hands, “I thought about going for the big, romantic gestures again. Flowers, books, coffee cart. The works. But since none of that worked last time, I thought maybe I’d try talking to you first.” He chuckles through a tight throat. “I’m still willing to give the grand romantic gesture a try, though.” 

“I did wonder if you were calling to tell me to open my door.” 

“It crossed my mind a few times.” 

“Logan…” 

“Talk to me, Ace.” 

“I’m going to be in California tomorrow. I should have an hour or two of free time. Maybe we can meet? Talk? I don’t think this is something we can finish over the phone.” 

He doesn’t ask any of the whys or hows, though he has a million questions. He just says yes. 

The cafe Logan chooses isn’t far from his place. He’d found it during his first miserable week in California: a little cafe hidden between a designer boutique and an exercise studio that looked like something sprung from the depths of Alice in Wonderland, all bookshelves crammed with more books than they could properly hold and bizarrely shaped tables and stained glass shades over the lights that cast dreamy, colorful stripes across the floor. He’d almost texted her a photo that first day, knowing the peculiarity of the cafe would delight her, before he’d remembered he didn’t have that right anymore. 

Even if there’s no chance of them trying again, at least he'll have gotten the chance to show her this place.  

Logan gets to the cafe early, claiming a table that looks like a falling building and ordering coffee for him and Rory. He’s never been this nervous. Not during any of the crazy jumps he and the boys had done over the years. Not starting work for his father. Not quitting work for his father. Butterflies doesn’t seem like quite the right maxim for the absolute chaos his nerves are wreaking on him; it’s more like…elephants rampaging through his insides. 

Everything goes still when he sees Rory. 

Her hair is shorter than he remembers, cropped to her chin, but it’s still Rory. Still the girl he’s been head over heels in love with for years. For a moment, Logan just watches her. If this doesn’t go well, he wants this one last memory of Rory with the sun in her hair and awe on her face. 

“Logan.” 

“Hey, Ace.” Logan grins as she settles into the chair across from him. “Coffee will be here in a minute. That’s not a problem, is it?”

The hesitation on Rory’s face is plain, but she nods. “It’s good. It’s probably best; I don’t have as long as I’d like. I, uh, got a job. Following Senator Obama’s campaign around.” 

“Ace, that’s amazing.” Any other time, he would pull her into a hug, but he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to do that now. He hates that he doesn’t know where the line is anymore. “Is it everything you dreamed it would be?” 

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, one of her shy smiles on her face. “It is, yeah. I mean, it’s a lot of travel and I don’t think I would want to do it forever, but…I’m a real reporter. I have stories, real stories, being published in a real magazine. It’s a start.” 

“That’s amazing,” Logan repeats. “I’m happy for you, Ace.” 

They fall silent for a moment as a waiter brings their coffees over. It’s not comfortable like it once was—there’s too much hanging unsaid between them. 

“I shouldn’t have proposed like that. Not in front of everyone, not at your graduation party. It was a mistake. Probably not my biggest one, but up there.”

“I already told you, Logan, the proposal wasn’t the problem. I wasn’t ready to say yes. It wouldn’t have mattered how special you made the proposal.” Rory twists her mug back and forth between her hands. “It didn’t have to be the end of us.”

Logan sighs. “Except I made it all or nothing. I forced you to choose and you didn’t choose me.” 

“You know I wasn’t saying no to you, right? Only to getting married.” 

“Trust me, Colin and Finn have pounded that into my head. They’re pissed at me on your behalf, by the way. In case they didn’t tell you that.” 

Rory laughs. “I got that impression after the third or fourth voicemail from Finn.”

Logan leans back in his chair, drinking in the sound of her laugh. He’s dreamed about this more than once—what it would have been like if he had agreed to do long distance again. How he would have taken her to this cafe the first time she came out to California, because coffee was always the first priority for Rory, and she would have been delighted in the strangeness of the cafe. How he would have kissed her with coffee on her lips and California would have seemed a little brighter, like a home instead of another place to make a temporary life. 

Sitting here, with her across from him, face to face for the first time in months, feels like the universe laughing at him. 

“How is this supposed to work, Logan? We’ve established that we both regret the way things ended, but nothing has changed. If anything, things have gotten even more complicated. I mean, I’m in a different state every night. I don’t have somewhere permanent—I’ve got crappy motels and a van packed with half a dozen other reporters. It’s not...it was hard when you were in London and we both had schedules then. We could plan—there were regular times for calls and there were plane tickets and plans because our lives could be predicted months in advance and I don’t have any of that now. I’m lucky if I know where I’ll be next week!”

Logan opens his mouth to speak, but freezes when he catches sight of the necklace she’s wearing. 

It’s probably the only cheap gift he ever got Rory—a necklace with a rocket charm. He’d found it in an airport gift shop, on one of the rare flights he’d taken that hadn’t been on a private jet, on one of the not-at-all-rare days when he’d missed Rory more than he’d thought it was possible to miss someone. It was simple, just a sterling silver charm on a black cord, but he’d given it to her as a version of the rocket ship that she could carry with her. 

Logan stands, pulling Rory to her feet. Her hand in his feels like the start of something—they still fit perfectly together. “Come on.” 

“Logan!” It’s a protest, but she offers it in the same tone she’s had every time he pulled them on another adventure, the one that says she can’t believe him but she can’t wait to see where it’s going.

He pulls her through the streets, keeping her hand in his—he thinks he would be happy all the days of his life if he could just keep her hand in his—until they reach the beach. It’s not empty, not entirely, but it’s the middle of the work week and it’s as empty as the beaches in California ever get. He turns to Rory and smiles, that smile that’s always been just for her.

“Let me take you to dinner.” 

“Logan, I’m not going to be in California come dinner.” 

He laughs. “I know. But give me your itinerary. I’ll figure out where I can meet you—somewhere you’ll be at dinnertime—and I’ll take you out to dinner.”

“Logan-” 

“I’m not trying to go back in time, Ace. Dinner just seems like a good place to start.” 

“Dinner plans seem to work out poorly for us far too often.” 

“So what? I love you, Rory. And I miss you. And I want to try this again, if you’re willing.” 

It feels like her silence stretches on forever. Even after three years, Logan can never really predict what Rory will do. Normally he likes it, not knowing whether she’s going to pull him back from the cliff or jump with him, but right now it’s terrifying. 

“Do you think it can work? I mean, really? Who knows when we’ll be in the same state, even, and we’ll both be crazy busy and-” 

“Ace. Do you want it to work?” 

“Yes.” Rory bites her lip. “It terrifies me how much I want it to work.” 

“Then it’ll work.” 

Logan slides his arm around her shoulders and she relaxes into his side with a quiet laugh. For a moment, as they watch the Pacific crash against the shore, he thinks about the crazy winding path that led them here. About umbrellas and coffee carts and rocket ships, about making commitments he never thought he would want to make and meaning them with every fiber of his being. 

“How long do we have?” 

Rory makes a quiet displeased sound, leaning further into him. “Like twenty minutes. There’s an event I have to cover and then we’re off to-“ she shakes her head. “I don’t even know where we’re going next.” 

“As long as you’re not driving, you’ll be fine. Nothing wrong with ending up in a state without realizing you were going there.”

“Logan!”

“It’s okay, Ace. Twenty minutes is enough time.” 

“For what?” 

Logan grins. “For me to do this.” 

He pulls her into a searing kiss. Her arms twine around his neck, pulling him closer until there’s no space between them. He twines his fingers through her hair, kissing her until they’re both breathless. 

Chapter Text

There’s a gorilla mask waiting on Rory’s bed when she staggers into her crappy motel room sometime past two in the morning, confetti from the victory celebration still tangled in her hair. 

Somehow, she’s not surprised.

The strangest revelation—well, maybe not the strangest, but certainly the most unexpected—of the last year and a half has been that she has friends in the Life and Death Brigade. A part of her had always believed that her spot in those circles was temporary, a heady byproduct of her relationship with Logan and his magnetic ability to reorder the world however he wanted. 

But the first invitation had found her a few weeks after graduation—in Iowa, during the three hours she was there, in a feat of impossibility she’s since learned not to question—and they’ve arrived somewhat steadily since then—glossy half-sheets of paper with intricate, whimsical designs and cryptic instructions providing dress-code suggestions and directions to places she never would have found on her own. It’s been—surprisingly nice, in a way she’s never really had before. Her life has always been plans and expectations and the complicated knot of family-like-friends and friends-like-family; there’s something freeing about spending her nights off doing spontaneous, reckless things with people who are just her friends. 

Memory whispers along her collarbones as she picks up the mask, turning it over in her hands—a girl in a ball gown and a gorilla mask and an interest bordering on obsession that she’s never quite been able to shake, even after she solved most of the mysteries. The smart, practical girl she’s mostly always been would tuck the mask into her battered suitcase and go to sleep, close the book on what’s already been one of the longest, most exhausting days of her life. But the mask and the crisp invitation underneath have a way of silencing that version of her—of drawing out the part of her that knows what it’s like to be weightless and impulsive and bold . 

She needs that tonight, today, and the location on the invitation is close—though whether it’s the actual location of the event or simply a pickup point is a mystery—and that’s all it takes to get her out the door, still in the blouse and slacks she’d worn to cover election night, a notepad tucked into her purse beside the gorilla mask. 

Stepping out of the car is like stepping back in time, in more ways than one. The field thirty miles outside Chicago looks nothing like that long-ago forest somewhere in New England—she never did find out where they went that night—but the feeling that washes over her is the same. It makes her feel twenty again, swept up in the possibility and the mystery of the Life and Death Brigade, so sure of herself and the future laid out before her. 

As she makes her deeper into the field, prickly fall grass whispering against her shins, the rest of it washes over her. Towering iron candelabras, complete with real flames and teardrop trails of wax making their way toward the ground, breaking the deep of night gloom into warm shards and shifting shadows. Twisting, curling paths laid out in elaborate designs of black and white chalk. Men in tails and decorative, old-fashioned military uniforms; women in elaborate dresses with colors that are slightly too saturated to feel real. The theme tugs at her pop-culture memory, but the echo of familiarity slips away before she can place it. 

If it’s important, someone will tell her. If not—well, it won’t be the first time she’s walked away from a Brigade event with fewer answers than she’d like. 

“Do I know you, love?” 

A laugh is already bubbling up in Rory’s throat as she turns to accept Finn’s hug. He’s in crisp black tails, a white mask over half his face. It ought to be elegant—it would be on anyone else—but Finn makes it look rakish and disreputable. It’s probably the hair. Colin’s a step behind him, a sparkling black drink in one hand, the other resting on the sword—which Rory hopes is fake and sincerely fears can do real damage—belted at his side.

“Ah, our intrepid Reporter Girl returns to us. How was Barack’s victory party?” 

“It’s nice to see you too, Colin.” She doesn’t comment on the fact that he’s referring to the newly-elected president like he’s some casual acquaintance from Yale. That’s just how Colin is. She’s lost enough nights arguing with him about it to know it’s not worth it. “How’s law school going?” 

“I am dutifully counting down the days until I take the bar and never have to think about academics again.” His attention slips to the side, a shockingly fond expression slipping over his face as his gaze settles on a blonde girl Rory’s pretty sure is Stephanie. “California sounded like a good idea at the time, but it turns out you can grow tired of sun and beaches. Who knew?” 

Rory laughs again, something warm breaking open in her chest at the way Colin’s gaze lingers. She’s heard a little bit about the relationship from Stephanie, but it’s nice to see Colin’s as smitten. The boys’ stumbling paths toward adulthood was never as obvious as Logan’s, but in the year and a half since she’s graduated, she’s come to realize that they have found their own ways to something approaching maturity. It might involve more drunken antics and whim-based adventures—and, in Colin’s case, spontaneous purchases with five and six figure price tags—than most people’s definition of adulthood, but their hearts are always in the right place.

“What is this event you’ve brought me to?” She puts on her best reporter voice, even though she’s long since given up any dreams of exposing the Life and Death Brigade to the wider world. “Something scandalous? An initiation, perhaps. Or have you all become such upstanding, politically engaged citizens that a presidential election is cause for celebration?” 

Colin winks and ambles away, vanishing into the crowd as Finn slings an arm over her shoulders. “Remind me, love, what does the president do, again? He’s the one that sets the DJ playlist, or am I getting him confused with that…court thing. You Americans and your politics, so complicated.” 

“Rory!” 

Rory’s saved from her bafflement by Stephanie’s arrival. Rosemary and Juliet are just a step behind her, an overstuffed garment bag in tow. Finn slips away during the ensuing flurry of hugs and air kisses, but Rory doesn’t mind. The night is young—at least by Brigade standards—and she’ll have plenty of time to spend with all of them before she returns to reality.

“You’re underdressed.” Stephanie’s as blunt as ever. 

Rosemary laughs. “Of course she is. We haven’t given her the dress yet.” 

Juliet shakes the garment bag and Stephanie links her arm through Rory’s, tugging her toward a tent, and Rory thinks—not for the first time—that they’re a bit like her fairy godmothers, with penchants for champagne and risk-taking instead of gourds and mice. Good for wild distractions and equally good for heartbroken phone calls when she finds herself questioning every choice she’s ever made (and one, always one, more than the rest) at two in the morning.

Lane will always be her best friend and Paris will always be her Paris, but sometimes it’s nice to have girlfriends who understand—or at least come close to understanding—the complicated tangle ambition and money and legacy and love have made of her life. She’s not Paris, chasing her ambitions single-mindedly, whatever the cost. She’s not Lane, life whisking her down unexpected-yet-fulfilling paths with a clumsily but sincerely dedicated husband at her side. 

She’s just Rory—stumbling through the maze of expectations and ambitions set up around her, trying not to disappoint anyone, trying to make all the pieces fit in a puzzle that’s not big enough to hold them all. 

Stephanie, Rosemary, Juliet—all of them are assembling their own versions of that puzzle, finding their own balances between the people they want to be and the ones their families want them to become, between chasing dreams and chasing love. And it helps, sometimes, when the cramped press vans and the shitty motel rooms and the weight of every door she slammed shut in pursuit of Rory Gilmore press down on her, to know she’s not the only one struggling.

It helps, too, that they’ve known Logan longer than she has. That they—unlike Lorelai, unlike Paris, unlike most of the people in her life—know the good and the bad and the in-between of him. Their opinions aren’t always helpful or entirely wanted, but at least she knows they’re judging him for himself instead of the contents of his bank account or the caliber of his family. 

It makes it easier to hear her own voice in her head, whatever she’s doing. 

Even—especially—when she’s doing something reckless, something that doesn’t belong to perfect, pedestalled Rory Gilmore, with her books and her plans and her shining future. Something that tastes like the wind in her mouth during a seven story freefall, adrenaline and promise and warm, expensive cologne.

Sometime between being whisked away by the girls to change into the stunning dress they’d brought for her—another question she’s learned not to expect answers to: how they always have perfectly tailored, event-appropriate clothes waiting for her—and now, she’d lost track of her friends. After so many months on the campaign trail, being alone in a crowd is a familiar experience and being alone in this crowd has always held a certain thrill. She’ll link up with her friends in a little bit, when she’s drunk her fill of the impossibility of Brigade events. 

As she wanders, she catches snippets of conversation over the general murmur of the crowd and the soft string music. A smattering of people are discussing the election—she makes a mental note to try to get a few quotes from them to use as color for her post-election article—and a group clustered near the tables overflowing with black and white confections are talking entirely in lines of Shakespeare. Surprisingly—or maybe not so surprisingly—the conversation is flowing seamlessly, though Rory suspects the Bard would cringe to hear some of his best lines delivered so flatly.

He might appreciate the drama of using them to discuss philosophy, though. 

She snags a paper sleeve of black and white popcorn, letting the memories wash over her. The first blush of firelight when she finally took the blindfold off. Shifting shadows and a maze of safari tents. Watching Logan, a king among his court, and knowing he was wholly unlike anyone she had ever met.

Five notebooks filled with observations, one of them mostly without using the letter ‘e’. 

That last thought sticks, lingers. She can almost taste the ghost of that passion as she looks around at the dreamy, whimsical event spread out around her. Chasing the Life and Death Brigade was her first real taste of the journalist she’d always imagined becoming. It had been a challenge, a thrill, something she was excited to chase with every fiber of her being. 

She can’t quite remember the last time she felt that excited about being a journalist. Chasing a story. 

It’s not that she dislikes being on the campaign trail, exactly. But it’s not what she expected and she never quite…settled, even after a year and a half on the beat. And now her future’s starting to yawn open before her again and she’s less sure of the direction she wants to go than she used to be.

She turns, wending her way to a secluded spot on the edge of the festivities. Her whole childhood—her whole life, really—she had known exactly who she wanted to be. A journalist. Someone shaking the world with her stories. She doesn’t know who she is if she’s not that.

Rory settles on a rock, the skirts of her violently amethyst dress flaring out around her legs in a whisper of silk and tulle. This far out, the torchlight is muted. The darkness and the caramel-scented air wrap around her like a blanket. Another memory teases at the edge of her thoughts, of another night and another secluded spot and a teasing smile. 

Sometimes she wonders if this path would’ve been easier with Logan at her side. It’s not like she’s lacking in people who believe in her—if anything, she has too many people who believe in her—but it was always different with Logan. Her mom, her grandparents, Luke, Stars Hollow at large—their belief in her is unconditional. She’s Rory Gilmore. There’s nothing she can’t do. But with Logan, it was like he could always see the best parts of her, even when she couldn’t, and he made her want to chase those pieces of herself wherever they led—even when they led places that weren’t on the Rory Gilmore life plan.

Usually, she’s decent at not thinking about Logan too much at Brigade events. He’s a thought reserved for lonely nights and quiet days off—times she can afford to slip over the edge of that pit in her chest that still hasn’t begun to heal and cry and torment herself with a million what-ifs. The rest of the time, she pretends she’s someone else, someone who didn’t leave her shattered heart lying on Yale’s quad among the abandoned mortarboards. But tonight, she can’t seem to stop thinking about him. Maybe it’s the uncertainty in her life or the sight of the whole crew together again or maybe it’s the way this event reminds her so strongly of that first night—the start of everything—in a way that others haven’t, but he’s everywhere she looks, in every memory that drifts out of her past. 

The sadness wells up, up, clawing its way past all the locks she’s put on it, because the truth is: she misses him. And she can pretend she’s over it, tell herself she’s forgotten him, but on really shitty days, she still falls asleep staring at his contact in her phone, knowing that he would have just the right thing to say to soothe the scratches on her pride and ease the snarls of homesickness from her chest. 

She thinks again about that first adventure with the Life and Death Brigade, about the intensity in Logan’s eyes when he tossed her claims of journalistic distance back in her face, the fire in his voice when he challenged her to be more than she’d ever imagined she could be. His hand warm in hers as they jumped, as he promised that moments like that didn’t have to happen just once in a lifetime, had felt like the start of something. 

She wonders what her twenty-year old self would think if she knew how true that had turned out to be. 

Rory slips one of her notebooks out of her dress, absently scribbling down stray observations and snippets of half-remembered conversations as she listens to the drunken singing drifting from behind her. It wasn't her intention to linger in melancholy and memories, but the campaign is over (mostly) and she thinks maybe she owes it to both of them, to the memory of everything they were to one another, not to keep running.

Being with Logan—being around him—had unlocked something in her that she’d never known she possessed—bold and confident and a little reckless. 

He’d given her space to figure herself out, accepting all the shades of herself that she’d uncovered in those years in a way she hadn’t quite known a partner could. He’d carved out a place for her in his life, one right next to him, and she liked who she was with him. Maybe not all the time—she doesn’t think she’ll ever like the version of herself who dropped out of Yale and spent a semester lounging in her grandparents’ pool house—but— 

The Rory Gilmore who’d had Logan in her life was incandescent. She hasn’t quite figured out how to recover that version of herself in his wake. 

“I came, alright?”

For a moment she thinks she’s imagining his voice, but the Logan she remembers has never sounded so frayed. Except for the rarest of occasions—again, she hears the echo of his voice, a long-ago murmur of It’s your choice, Ace and one less minute you haven’t lived —his words have always carried the sense that for every thought that makes it out of his mouth, there are three more that never will. She’s never understood how someone who loves so openly could be so difficult to know—one more cold inheritance from Mitchum. 

The voice drifting toward her on the breeze is empty, though, of layers and conviction both. It makes something in her heart ache . She starts gathering up her things as his voice grows closer, a frisson of nerves running down her spine at the thought of running into him after all this time. It was one thing for the memory of him to haunt her footsteps, for her to wonder about the path not taken; seeing him in person would mean something else. 

“I don’t know what else you want from me, Finn. I told you—and Colin and Robert and Stephanie—that I was fine.”

“Ah, I seem to recall something about that. But there was an extra seat on Colin’s plane and what kind of party would it be without your delightful presence here?” 

“Well, you got me here—” Rory freezes as they appear out of the darkness. Even silhouetted by the torchlight, she knows Logan: the way he stands, the line of his shoulders. “—but I’m not staying. You lot will just have to find another captain for whatever mischief you’re cooking up. I have a red-eye—”

 Logan’s eyes meet Rory’s for the first time in a year and half and the air shivers. 

“Ace.”

There’s no smile tucked into the corner of the nickname—just a quiet something that Rory can’t untangle.

“Would you look at that?” Finn’s voice is loud against the silence. “It appears we’re out of scotch.”

He ambles away, humming something that sounds suspiciously like the cheesy love song that’s been plaguing Rory since the beginning of summer.

The silence settles over them again, charged with months of things unsaid. Behind them, the event continues on, growing in volume and chaotic intensity as night slips slowly toward morning. It feels a million miles away—gossamer scraps of sound brushing the glass of this snow globe moment.         

Logan’s leaner than he was the last time she saw him, his hair long enough to toe the line between artfully tousled and truly wild. Rory studies him, trying to find the other differences wrought by time and a new life on the West Coast, the ones that go more than surface deep. It’s the things that haven’t changed that catch her attention, though. All the ways in which he’s still the boy—man—she spent so much of herself loving.

She can feel his gaze on her, steady in the way she had only come to expect from him in the last months of their relationship. Logan’s always been perceptive, in everything except matters of the heart; she wonders what he sees when he looks at her. Whether she looks as tired as she feels. Whether the hollow spaces in her heart are visible on her face. 

She wonders if seeing her again brings up good memories, or only that last terrible one. 

The light from the distant torches keeps his face in shadow, renders him inscrutable. Logan, only ever readable by the crook of his smile and the crinkle of his eyes. Rory fiddles with the cover of her notebook, trying—and failing—not to read into the fact that Logan hasn’t moved. Not to come closer; not to run. 

Standing in front of the man who broke her heart—whose heart she broke first, worse—after a year-and-a-half of radio silence shouldn’t make her feel like she’s finally found solid ground after months of flailing in deep waters. The rules have never really applied when it comes to Logan, though. 

“I got a job. Did Hugo tell you that? He didn’t say he did, but he’s your friend, so maybe you know. He hired me to be his reporter in Obama’s press pool. And it should’ve been the best opportunity in the world. I mean, how many journalists fresh out of college wind up on the campaign trail with a future president?” The words keep tumbling out, all the things she’s spent the past year trying not to acknowledge, even to herself. “And it is, it’s great, but it also sucks. It’s just—it’s not what I thought it would be and I’m not who I thought I would be when I finally got out there and it’s an endless string of discount motels and really shitty coffee and I thought the lack of decent coffee would be the worst part of it, but it’s not. It’s not, Logan.

“The worst part of it is that you’re not there. I can’t call you to laugh about the reporter from the Times getting in a catfight with the reporter from the Post or to hear that stupid smile in your voice when I tell you about the insane foods at the Iowa State Fair. And I miss it, Logan. I know I’m not supposed to, but I do. I miss hearing about your day and telling you about mine and arguing over who got which section of the paper first. I miss when home was a person.” She wraps her arms around herself, as though that can hold in all the heartache and the loneliness welling up in her. “You were my person, Logan. I wanted to marry you, just not then, not yet, not when it felt like closing a door instead of opening one. And I know you didn’t want to do long distance again and I know it’s not fair for me to be dumping all of this on you and none of this is fair and I miss you.” 

Logan moves, then, pulling her against his chest. The crushed velvet of his coat presses against her cheek, damp with tears she hadn’t realized were rolling down her cheeks. His arms wrap around her, warm, steady, holding her tight enough to piece all the uncertain, shaking parts of her back together. 

“I’m sorry, Rory.”

The words are a whisper against her hair, vulnerable in the way only someone as loud and confident as Logan could be. Rory holds tighter to him. One of the buttons on his coat is digging into her cheekbone and daggers of cold wind are starting to prick at her skin through her dress, but as his cologne, something warm and masculine that’s always reminded her of sunshine, wraps around her, she can’t imagine a more perfect moment. 

Eventually, when Rory’s tears have dried and the riot of feelings in her heart have settled into a quiet sort of certainty, Logan lets her go. He takes a step back, tucking his hands into his pockets, and Rory can almost see him piecing Logan Huntzberger back together, a creation of iron will and ambition and the legacy like an albatross around his neck. 

“Hugo was right to snatch you up.” Logan’s voice is back to normal, warm and sincere and hiding so many things in the crook of the words he does say. “Even if you still use too many similes in your articles.” 

“You’ve read them?” 

“I read everything you write.” Logan holds her gaze. The gleam of pride in his eyes nearly undoes her. “They’re good, Ace. Really good.”

“But?” The word is light, teasing; she’s never known Logan Huntzberger not to have an opinion on a piece of writing. 

“But,” there’s something tight underlining Logan’s voice, but he’s playing along, “your heart isn’t in the policy pieces. They’re sharp, intelligent—you’re good at breaking the politics down, getting to the heart of things—but it’s your Trail Stories series that shines.” He drops the teasing editor tone, his voice going deep and warm and a little uncertain around the edges. “Those are my favorites.” 

The words should be new wounds atop old scars—she’d only agreed to do the series, more human interest than hard-hitting investigation, because she couldn’t exactly turn down an assignment two weeks into her first job—but instead they curl, soft and warm, in the center of her chest. Because she knows—it’s the Trail Stories she likes writing best and it’s not who she thought she’d be, but the warm glow of pride in Logan’s voice makes her think that someday, someday soon, she might be okay with that. 

“I’ve missed you.”

“You shouldn’t.” Logan’s voice is almost level, not quite sharp, but his eyes are sad, haunted.  The sight eases the quicksilver sting of hurt, makes Rory listen the way she’s learned to do on the campaign trail. “You should forget about me, Rory. Find someone—find someone who’ll be careful with your heart.”

“Logan—” 

“I never understood how that boy could do that to you—how he could hurt you and leave you crying and alone in your grandparents’ driveway like he did.” 

It takes Rory a moment to follow his train of thought, to remember the Yale Male party and the breakup with Dean. It seems so long ago now, a relic from another life. 

“I promised myself that I would never be that guy. I wanted to be something better: your white knight, or at least the court jester. And instead I became one more guy who broke your heart and walked away—the biggest ass of them all.”

The words hang in the air—jagged, ugly, so far from the truth that it would be funny if it weren’t for the bitter snap to Logan’s words. She’s referred to him as her white knight more than once in her months on the campaign trail. He’s Lancelot—imperfect, flawed, but hers. The steady presence at her back, never shy about voicing his opinion but always, always willing to let her make her own mistakes. From the moment she’d met him, he’d treated her like she was sturdy enough to take a few dings without breaking and fragile enough to be worth protecting. 

It was part of the reason she had fallen so hard for him. 

“You were right to turn me down. I’m not husband material.”

You’re definitely girlfriend material. I, however, am definitely not boyfriend material.

His voice is hollow in a way Rory remembers from the worst moments of his last semester at Yale, untempered now by drunken melancholy or bravado. The sound of it breaks her heart. She’d thought, after all the personal and professional successes, that Logan would’ve finally learned to believe in his own worth, at least a little bit.

“You just can’t see yourself, can you?” The words come out harder than she intends, frustration making them rubber bullets rather than a blanket. “You’ve got this story in your head that you’re a fuckup, that you’re still the irreverent boy flipping off his destiny no matter the consequences—“

She shivers, the November cold finally seeping through her dress. Without a word, Logan drapes his coat around her shoulders, wrapping her in red velvet and the warm smell of sunshine and scotch. And for a moment, all Rory can do is stare at him. 

She’s sure there was more to what she was saying, something about the fact that he’s dedicated and spontaneous and ridiculously loyal, but the words have all gone straight out of her head—because she’s in the middle of shouting at him and he’s lending her his coat and how can this man not see what a wonderful person he is?

The moonlight shifts, stealing the shadows away from Logan’s face. His expression is one Rory remembers all too well, a tangle of love and loss that she only ever caught glimpses of during their long-distance stint. Then, it had been the look that would steal over Logan’s face when their hours together ticked down into minutes and he stopped being able to pretend that their time wasn’t limited. She thinks it’s something different now—closure instead of parting. A sweeter goodbye than the one they said at Yale. 

The idea scares her. Logan has always fought for what he wants as long as there was even a sliver of a chance. If he’s not fighting now—

Unbidden, the memory of her graduation—of pressing that ring box back into Logan’s hand—surfaces. In the instant before his expression had shuttered, wiped blank in a way she’d never known he could be, he’d looked like he’d lost everything. Like the ground he’d been standing on had just fallen out from under him and everything he’d thought was true about the world had turned out to be a lie. 

Something flutters at the edges of her mind, some understanding that she’s never quite been able to grasp. She thinks about the going away party she threw for him and how steady he’d seemed when he’d left the next morning, the surety he’d had when he walked out the door. About the smile on his face when she gave him a twenty-fifth birthday party to make up for all the childhood ones he’d missed and the fond look that had stayed in his eyes for their entire Stars Hollow trip. About love rockets and surprise visits and borrowed drivers.

She thinks about how he’d told her he loved her in so many ways, long before he’d ever said the words. 

Some part of her had always known that Logan’s relationship with love was complicated, that his belief in it was fickle and his confidence in it thin, constantly needing to be proven again. She realizes now that she never really understood what that meant. Because love has always come easy to her and Logan has the words for any occasion and even though she’s pretty sure she might know the vulnerable parts of him better than anyone, it’s all too easy to forget that he can be insecure. 

She wonders whether he’d actually heard all the things she tried to say when she handed back the ring, or if the only thing he’d walked away with was the knowledge—however untrue—that his love wasn’t enough for her. That he wasn’t enough to make someone stay. 

Rory closes the distance between them, her fingers finding purchase in the lapels of his vest as she stretches up on tiptoes. She hesitates for one heartbeat, two, the ghost of his breath fluttering over her lips, giving him the chance to turn away. He doesn’t. She crosses that last bit of distance, years and mistakes and regrets condensing down to the disappearing space between their lips, and kissing him feels like coming home.  

“How about we don’t screw it up this time?” 

Logan laughs, low and soft and happy and Rory knows even before she looks that those sparkles that turn her heart to caramel are back in his eyes. 

The first fireworks go off overhead, lighting up the sky with bursts of gold and purple, and Rory rests her head against Logan’s chest and watches the colors wash over his face. 

“You know I love you, right?” His answering hum vibrates through her, making her smile. “Because I need you to know that. Really know that, here.” She rests a hand over his heart. “I need you to tell me if you ever don’t know that, because you deserve to, Logan. You deserve to know that you’re loved the same way you know the sun will come up tomorrow.”

He’s laughing a soft, fond laugh as he leans down to kiss her temple. “I love you, Ace.”

There would be time for talking later. For recriminations and regrets, the things they would change if they could do it over again and the things, for better or worse, that they never could. Rory’s not naive enough anymore to believe finding their way forward is going to be easy, even if, after a year and a half on the road, the idea of a home doesn’t sound so much like doors slamming shut in her face. But as she stands there, Logan’s arms draped over her shoulders like her own personal blanket, holding her tight, the fireworks overhead blossoming into galaxies of color, she knows. 

When the fireworks are over, they venture back into the chaos in search of their friends. The chalked paths of black and white are mussed now, swirls of gray wending through them where footprints have blurred the colors. The candles have burned down to tiny, flickering pools of light and waxy trails down wrought iron candelabras. Rory thinks, briefly, that there’s a story in this, one about the people who make an event like this—grand and ephemeral and secret —possible. Maybe one day she’ll convince the boys to let her write it—all incriminating details changed, of course.      

“So the king and queen have finally made up, have they?” 

“Fuck you too, Robert,” Logan replies, but there’s no heat in his voice. Just a lightheartedness that makes Rory’s heart soar. 

Five years ago, she’s pretty sure she would have shrunk from the idea of being queen of anything, much less the Life and Death Brigade with its larger-than-life members and outlandish traditions. There’s something comforting in the idea now, though, a kind of belonging that reminds her of Stars Hollow even as it feels like something she’s found just for herself. 

“Rory! Logan!” 

Stephanie’s voice guides them to the edge of the lake. She’s leaning against the railing, a champagne glass in one hand, Colin’s arm draped casually around her waist as he debates the merits of different vineyards with Juliet. It seems to be based primarily on how well they facilitate escapes from overbearing parents and talkative business associates. Finn and Rosemary are a little ways off, talking close together in a way that goes beyond their usual flirtatious banter. 

Rory claims a spot at the railing beside Stephanie, Logan’s arm a warm weight across her shoulders as he slips into Colin and Juliet’s conversation. 

“You two worked it out?” There’s a knowing twinkle in Stephanie’s eye as she offers Rory a second champagne glass.

“Working, more like.” Rory takes a sip of the champagne, the bubbles tickling her tongue. “We have a lot to talk about. But—I don’t know. It feels different this time.”

A burst of laughter rises into the night air, warm and bright against the darkness. Logan’s got his head tipped back, his eyes squinted shut in amusement, and he’s at once the golden troublemaker Rory first met and the soft-hearted young man who held her hand while she showed him her town. 

“You’re smitten. It’s cute.” 

Rory refocuses on Stephanie with a grin. “You and Colin aren’t exactly icy, either.” 

A faint blush creeps across Stephanie’s cheeks, even as she raises her glass in a toast. “To finding the right people, then.” 

“A toast without me? I’m wounded.”  Finn slips in between the girls, stealing the drink from Rory’s hand and taking a sip as he leans against the railing. “What, exactly, were we toasting?” 

“You still being upright this far into an event,” Stephanie replies, a sardonic twist to her lips. 

“A situation I shall remedy will all possible haste.”  

The deep peal of a clock tower rolls over the lake, putting a halt to Finn and Stephanie’s good-natured sniping. An anticipatory silence falls in the wake of the sound. This is the moment the Life and Death Brigade lives for—the frozen moment before the roller coaster slips from its peak. The moment when anticipation becomes a tangible presence. 

The last echoes haven’t faded as lights sweep across the water, settling on a large, shrouded shape sitting atop the promontory on the far side of the lake. 

“What is tonight’s main event?” Rory asks as Logan claims a spot at the rail beside her. “Another wild jump off something? Into something? Maybe you’ve built a giant roller coaster around the lake and this is only the launch tower.”

“In omnia paratus, Ace.” Logan’s eyes are gleaming as he looks at her and there’s a smile tucked into his voice, turning it to honey. “I can’t always know the secrets before everyone else.”

The moment stretches, fragile as spun sugar as it wraps around them. A voice, distantly familiar, slips into it, starting a countdown that echoes over the lake in the melodic ramble of a dead language. 

“Is that—“

“Seth.” Logan grins. “The state actually recognizes him as an engineer these days. If that makes you feel better.” 

Rory never learned Latin, never had a reason to, but she knows how this countdown ends. How all countdowns with the Life and Death Brigade end. Shouts of in omnia paratus ring out across the lake, hers among them, bold and defiant as they tumble over one another. Out here, the words sound like more than the motto of a secret society a little too fond of adrenaline for their own good. 

Out here, echoing off the lake and dissolving into the night, propelled by dozens of voices, they sound like a promise. 

As the last echoes fade, the shroud falls, revealing its secret. The letters are at least a dozen feet high, pieced together from slabs of stone in a way that reminds Rory, distantly, of Stonehenge. More lights come up, illuminating what, exactly, they’ve chosen to spell out on the banks of this random lake outside Chicago.

LIVE

Rory laughs—at the message or the fact that, like so much else the Brigade does, it feels like more than just the antics of a secret society, she’s not sure. Looking at the letters, big and mysterious and solid where yesterday there was just an empty jut of land, she feels the itch to write in a way that she hasn’t since the Yale Daily News. There’s a story here, more than one, and she wishes she could be the one to tell it. 

She turns to tell Logan—to ask, maybe, whether it would really be cheating for her to write about the mysterious letters if they’re not so mysterious to her—but he’s gone, being pulled towards the boats bobbing on the shore of the lake by a chain of Stephanie-Rosemary-Juliet. She could write about this moment, too—about reconnecting with college friends for the first time since graduation and how being back together magnifies all the things that have changed, mostly for the better, since she walked across that stage. Maybe she will, even if it requires changing more details than she likes in her articles. The world could use more pieces with room for holding on as well as letting go. 

“Don’t tell me you plan on standing here all night. Dear God , has all that time on the campaign trail robbed you of your impulsiveness? This is a party . A celebration .” Colin’s voice cuts through her reverie. “I’ll have to have a word with Barack. He can’t just rob our Reporter Girl of all the debauchery-related instincts we’ve instilled in her. It’s simply unpresidential of the man.” 

Rory laughs, ignoring the little voice at the back of her head that worries Colin will actually encounter the newly-elected president somewhere and try to talk about her. Finn joins them, whistling a jaunty, wildly off-key melody. 

“So we’re just standing here while Huntz runs off to have all the fun?” Finn takes a sip from his flask, watching the lights bob down the shore of the lake. “Peculiar, that.” 

“Thank you, boys.” The words bubble up, unexpected and shockingly sincere against a night draped in outlandish spectacle. 

Finn turns to her, tipping the flask at her in consideration. “Thanks? What are these thanks you speak of?” He turns to Colin, a twist of lanky limbs and drunken height that seems like it should send him toppling off-balance. “Do you know what this thing is she speaks of?” 

“Haven’t the faintest. It must be some peculiar custom from her travels with those,” Colin waves his hand absently, “reporter types.” 

Rory almost doesn’t catch the wink Finn throws her way as he seizes her hand. “Onward, then. We can’t leave Huntz and the girls to have all the fun.” 

Colin takes her other hand, agreement tossed to the air, and then they’re running. The grass blurs under Rory’s feet, too-vibrant skirts tangling around her legs as the boys tug her down the slope of the hill and into the boats carrying Brigaders across the lake. 

Up close, the letters are an inescapable physical presence, demanding attention. Demanding recognition. Rory lingers on the edge of the lake as the boys rush ahead, taking in the moment. This, too, is something she has learned during her months on the campaign trail: how to fix every detail of a moment in her mind, to be turned over and translated into a narrative when she has time. She might not ever write up this night, this moment, but she wants to remember it. 

It should be an odd sight: a small crowd of people, mostly caught in the murky years of their mid-twenties, dressed in brightly-colored formal wear and scrawling messages across towering letters that hadn’t been there that morning. But, as with so many things the Life and Death Brigade does, the moment sidesteps ridicule, landing instead as a tangle of affectation and sincerity. 

By the time Rory joins them, Colin is halfway through sloppily painting the lyrics to the Yale fight song across the V with sparkly blue paint that’s not really the school’s color. Finn, somehow already covered with streaks of paint, is following behind him, defacing—or accentuating, depending on one’s frame of mind—it with chaotic scrawls of Fuck Harvard . It takes her a moment to find Logan in the tangle of half-familiar faces. He’s at the top of the scaffolding on the E , chalk in one hand and something half-written in front of him. For the moment, though, he’s just watching, a private laugh tucked into the corner of his grin. 

From the moment she stepped into her first campaign rally, Rory’s been restless, always chasing something . A story, a deadline, the person she was supposed to become when she stepped out of the comfortable embrace of school and Stars Hollow. But standing here, a reporter and an honorary Brigader and Rory, just Rory, whoever that is, she’s content standing still. 

Logan catches her eye, his grin widening into the knowing, delighted one she remembers from the earliest days of their acquaintance. “You want to write about this, don’t you?” His tone is fond. “I’m sure you remember the rules: no names, no identifying information, no locations—” 

“By tomorrow, everyone will know the location.” 

“Well-” Logan tips his head to the side, considering. “-the rest of it still holds. Keep us out of it and I’m sure the hooligans won’t object to you claiming the scoop on this particular stunt. They’re fond of you.” 

Rory lets her attention drift, drinking in the chaos and the calm and the way this night feels different from the nights she’s spent on the campaign trail, trading drinks and stories with the other reporters. The days unspool in her mind, spinning away into a distant future that makes her heart go light and golden. It’s a hazy image, an impressionist painting rather than the detailed pro/con lists she’s built so much of her life on. There’s a house, somewhere in New York or maybe New England—they’re East Coast kids at heart, her and Logan and this bright, wild collection of people they call friends—with space to entertain and plenty of spare bedrooms and the library Logan will insist on giving her despite her protests about the extravagance. Regular trips to visit her family and Honor and less regular ones to visit his parents. A career—maybe not the one she thought she would have when she was young, but one that excites her, fulfills her. 

And Logan. 

“Where’d you go, Ace?”

Rory shakes her head. She hooks her fingers under Logan’s vest when he’s close enough, pulling him into a short, deep kiss. He grins against her lips as she pulls away, a gesture so quintessentially Logan that she wonders how she ever forgot it. 

“Come on, then.” He offers her a paintbrush dripping with purple paint. “If we leave it all to Finn and Colin, they’ll cover the whole thing in innuendos and then get into fights about the innuendos. I’d rather not listen to them the whole way back to California.”

Dawn is spilling over the horizon by the time they stumble back to the cars. Rory steals a last look at the letters; they look like they’ve sat on the edge of the lake for years, covered in paint and chalk and pencil and a few ill-advised pocket-knife carvings. 

“No sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place," Logan leans against the car beside her, following her gaze, “and this too will be swept away.” 

“Marcus Aurelius.” She turns to him, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Sometimes she forgets how intelligent Logan is. Forgets what it’s like to trade words with someone who can match her thought for thought and follow her down whatever obscure path she takes. “It’s too early to be quoting Roman emperors. I need coffee.” 

Logan laughs at the whine in her voice on the last words, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as he steers her toward the open door of the SUV that brought the boys. “We’ll get you coffee, Ace.” 

He claims a window seat, tucking Rory against his side. She drops her head to rest against his shoulder, the fact that she’s been awake for more than twenty-four hours finally catching up with her. Distantly, she remembers something about Logan and a red-eye back to California, a jolt of panic slicing through her at the idea that he’ll be halfway across the country before they’ve had a chance to sort anything out.

“Logan, your flight-” 

“Already changed.” He presses a kiss to her temple, soft and sweet and the tiniest bit tentative as reality starts to creep in. “I don’t-” He stops, starts again. “We have a lot to figure out and I’d really rather not do it over the phone.” 

Rory nods, drowsiness tugging at her again now that the threat of Logan leaving is settled. There is a lot to figure out. But she’s sure about this, about him , as sure as if she’d sat down and written out a pro/con list. And, as the SUV fills up with the sounds of Finn and Colin and Robert squabbling over something inane and the girls laughing at them and Logan toys with her hair as he tosses some dry remark into the mix, she thinks they’re good for it this time.