Today Was a Good Day

Description:

The following story takes place following "Fall" from Gilmore Girls: A Day in the Life—if you haven't read it yet. Beware, spoilers lurk ahead!

After Rory told her mother her big news, Lorelai is pressuring her to make a very important call to Logan. That call goes exactly how I wanted many conversations between the two of them to go through A Day in the Life, so this fic is most definitely wishful thinking. What started as a quick conversation fic quickly developed into a trip to the dinner and a heartfelt conversation between two of our favourite Gilmore Girls!

I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it!

ENJOY!

Logan/Rory; Luke/Lorelai

Logan sat on his sofa and swirled his scotch. With his tablet in hand, he flicked through the New York Times and caught up on the news from back home.

Today, he thought. Today would be a good day.

Since the moment Rory had walked away from him the month previously, Logan's life had been a whole mess of days that blended into one another.

He woke up, thought of Rory, went to work, thought of Rory some more, came home to the fiancé that his father had picked out for him, and usually drank himself into enough of a stupor that he only thought of Rory a few more times before it was time for him to call it a night and start all over again.

He had a good feeling about today though. He had no idea why he felt that way, he just did.

The day was almost over, he'd still thought of Rory far more than was healthy, but he was able to remember the fond moments without feeling like he'd been stabbed straight through his heart.

Maybe, he thought bleakly, it was simply that he had his apartment to himself this evening. Odette was at some society function that he had managed to finagle Finn into taking her to, so for the first time in weeks, he was alone.

As Logan flipped through his paper—absorbing only half of what he read—his phone buzzed on the coffee table.

He looked at the clock, and felt a pang in his chest when he realized this would be a perfect time for Rory to call…it had, in fact, been a popular time for her to call him during their tumultuous tryst. He knew how selfish he had been, how selfish they had both been, but he would've done absolutely anything to keep Rory in his life, even if an affair was all that she would give him.

With a resigned sigh, Logan reached towards the table and picked up his phone. When he saw who was calling, he almost dropped it.

He answered in a sigh so low that the person on the other line might not have heard him if she hadn't been desperately waiting for him pick up, "Ace…"

Rory nervously paced in her room.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

From the door to the bed.

From the bed to the door.

Back and forth.

"Stop with the pacing already" Lorelai yelled from the living room as she walked towards Rory's room, "Just get it over with kid. You're only going to keep building it up in your head, and it's just going to keep getting worse and worse. I mean really, what's the worse that's going to happen? He'll hang up, stay with his fiancé, and you'll be exactly where you are now. You'll still have me, Luke, your grandmother, and pretty much everyone in Stars Hollow. So, seriously…just pick up that phone, and call him."

"Do you think I should really do this on the phone though? Shouldn't I tell him in person…or Skype, or something a bit more face-to-face?" Rory rambled.

"I think a face-to-face goodbye is what got you into this problem," Lorelai quipped causing Rory to frown. "Sorry kid, I didn't mean it like that…I was only kidding. You seriously need to just tell him though, and I just don't think you're going to be able to tell him if you wait until you meet in person. Look at how nervous you've made yourself already. Imagine if I wasn't with you to force you to just tell him. Imagine if I weren't here to do this." Lorelai said as she grabbed Rory's phone and connected the call.

"Mom!" Rory said.

"Sorry kid, but I guess you'll have to talk to him now. It'll be a whole lot worse if you end the call without saying anything."

As her phone began to ring, Rory finally stopped her pacing and sat on the edge of her bed.

Lorelai scooted in beside her, gave a quick squeeze and a kiss to the top of her head, "You've got this kid" she said as she left the room.

After what seemed like forever, but was really only the span of about two rings, the call connected, and for the first time in what felt like months, but was really only weeks, Rory heard the voice that she'd been desperately missing.

"Ace…" he sighed.

"Logan," Rory said while letting out a ginormous breath in preparation for what she needed to tell him, but he spoke before she had a chance.

"Rory, god I've missed your voice so much."

"I missed yours, too," she replied, trying to keep the sob out of her voice. She prepared to steel herself once again for what she had to say, and cleared her throat. "I do have a reason for calling though."

"Oh, it wasn't because you were desperate to hear my voice?" Logan said, affecting an air of nonchalance.

Rory chuckled, "Not quite. I actually have some pretty big news. I wanted to tell you in person, but my mom has told me at least three thousand times that if I give myself the amount of time that it would take for either of us to reach each other by plane that I would chicken out and then I wouldn't tell you until it was too late…or not too late, but that I wouldn't tell you until the moment that I absolutely had to tell you, so I guess in a way that is too late. Now I'm rambling. You know how I ramble. I work myself up, and then I just can't get the words out, but I'm also trying to think of the best way to tell you, but I can't, so maybe I should just blurt it out."

"Ace, breathe. Just tell me. No more rambling," Logan said.

Without any preamble or rambling this time, Rory said, "Logan, I'm pregnant."

So, this was shock. Logan was in shock.

He was pretty sure that Rory had just told him that she was pregnant.

Pregnant.

Pregnant with a baby—his baby.

He and Rory were going to have a baby.

"Logan? Are you still there?" Rory's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm still here. Sorry, I just needed a moment to process. So, we're going to be parents?" Logan said as he ruffled his hair.

"I guess. That's kind of what happens when you have a baby, you become parents." Rory said with a laugh—trying to sound nonchalant, even though Logan knew she was actually freaking out on the inside.

"Do you know how far along you are then?" Logan asked. He had a pretty good idea that she must've gotten pregnant during their Life and Death Brigade farewell night, but he wanted to be sure.

"About six weeks," Rory said. Just as he thought, and he wasn't surprised that Rory had told her mother so quickly after finding out either.

"So, we still have some time. I should break it off with Odette right away though, then tell my parents…or maybe I should tell my parents first and then they'll maybe understand a bit better about why I'm breaking my engagement—they're the only ones who actually care about it after all," Logan mused aloud.

"Hold up, Logan. What are you talking about?" Rory asked.

"What do you mean hold up, Ace? We're obviously going to raise the baby together right? I bit my tongue the whole time during our affair because I thought you didn't want anything serious. You wanted it to be like 'Vegas,' but I want to be with you. I've always wanted to be with you. And there's no way that I don't want to raise our baby together—as a family. I'd love to get married, I proposed to you ten years ago and I never stopped wanting you to be my wife. But if you just want to raise our baby together as co-parents, we can do that, too, but I'd really rather if we were together. I love you, Rory. I've never stopped loving you," Logan said.

Logan's heartfelt declaration was met by silence, and he worried that their call had been disconnected, but then he heard a sob.

"Rory?" he asked, "Are you okay?"

"Logan…" she sobbed, "Why didn't you say something? I was so afraid that if I told you I wanted us to have a real relationship that you'd choose to be with Odette over me. I was so afraid to lose you that I tried to keep you at a distance to keep myself from getting hurt, but I got hurt anyway, and now you're saying that we could've just been together from the start?"

Her voice was exasperated, and echoed exactly how he was feeling right now.

"That's exactly what I'm saying Ace. I love you so much. So, so much. I told you that I was only with Odette because my father expected me to continue the family dynasty. Sure, she's a nice enough person, but she's not you," Logan smiled into the phone, and continued, "She'll never be you, no one else could ever be you, and I'll never love someone like I love you. I love you, Rory. Are you tired of hearing that yet? I've been holding that in for months."

"I love you too, Logan. So much, and I could never get tired of hearing you say that you love me, too. You aren't just saying this because of the baby though, are you?" Rory asked quietly.

"Ace, while I know that I'll love any baby that's part of you, the baby definitely isn't the reason that I'm saying that I love you. I was only going along with the affair before without anything serious because that's what I thought you wanted, and I was willing to take anything that I could if it meant that I could have you…even just a part of you," Logan said.

"So, if I'd told you that I wanted to have a real relationship months ago, what would have happened?" Rory asked.

"I would've dumped Odette immediately…or as close to immediately as possible. All you had to do was ask, Ace. I was letting you lead," Logan said.

"Okay, well this is me asking then. I want to be with you, Logan, and I want you to raise our baby with me," Rory said. "Well this is me telling you that I'm going to break it off with Odette as soon as she's home from whatever function it was that she went to tonight. Or do you think I should tell my parents first? I really wasn't kidding when I was talking about that out loud before," Logan joked.

"Er…your parents are not going to be happy about this, are they?" Rory asked tensely.

"Screw 'em!" Logan could hear Lorelai shout from Rory's side of their phone call, which made him chuckle.

"Well, they're a bit set in their ways, but I really don't care if it upsets them. The whole broken engagement and pregnant out-of-wedlock scenario isn't ideal in their world, but if they want me to stay in their family, then they'll have to accept it. Even if you weren't pregnant, I would've broken my engagement with Odette in a heartbeat if you'd asked—so the baby is just finally forcing us to open up and pushing our hands a little bit," Logan said.

On the other end of the line, Rory was nervously biting her lip—she really hated conflict. She'd also just come to the realization that her grandmother was not going to be pleased either, "Shit," she said.

"What?" Logan asked.

"I just thought about how my grandmother is going to react to this news…" Rory moaned forlornly.

"Well, we'll just have to hash out a game plan I guess, but I really do think I should break it off with Odette tonight. Then I can come to Connecticut, or you can come to London, and we can make a plan together—I'm leaning towards Stars Hollow, it'd be nice to have your mom there since I'm sure she's on our side," Logan suggested.

"That actually sounds really good. Reasonable. When did you get reasonable?" Rory asked.

"Well, didn't you hear? I'm going to be a father, and father's are always reasonable," Logan replied in a low tone.

With tears in her eyes and a wide smile on her face, Rory said, "They certainly are. You know, you're taking this so much better than I worried you would."

"How did you think I'd react?" he asked, leaning back into his couch with a smile.

"I guess I immediately thought the worst. That you'd reject me and want nothing to do with me or the baby. That I'd be alone, and that I'd be losing you all over again," she said.

"Ace…your mom was right to make you call me because that's the furtherest from what my reaction could have ever been. These past few months…" he paused, "prior to our goodbye—were amazing. I was like a little boy on Christmas every time I knew you were coming to visit, and having you with me like that was exactly what I'd always wanted, but having you and not really being able to be with you was the sweetest torture. I wanted to show you off, tell people we were together, and just be the all-around nauseatingly-cute couple that we were when we were alone."

"I know, I was silly. You've been the person that I've called whenever I needed someone to talk to for so long now—I don't know why I worried so much," Rory said.

"Well, it's not like I was any better," Logan said solemnly, "You know what I think, Ace?"

"What?" Rory replied.

"We were both scared—neither of us wanted to put ourselves out there and get rejected. I think if we'd been seeing clearly, we would've seen the looks that we gave each other, and we would've read our actions for exactly what they were. I was scared you'd reject me again, just like you did when I proposed after you graduated from Yale," Logan admitted.

"You're right," Rory said, "I was afraid that you'd reject me, too—I was scared that Odette was what you actually wanted. That you wanted the life that your parents hand-picked for you, and that I didn't fit into that picture, and that if I asked you to choose—you wouldn't choose me."

"I'll choose you every time, Ace."

"And I'll choose you every time, too, Logan."

"I really wish I was there with you right now," Logan said sadly. He wanted nothing more than to have Rory in his arm at that moment.

"I wish you were here right now, too," she sighed—in that moment she wanted nothing more than to be in his arms, too.

Finally they were on the same page.

Thousands of miles and an ocean separated them, but for the first time in years, Logan and Rory were finally seeing their relationship clearly. They were finally seeing all of the things that they'd done for each other in the last few months, and they could see how much they'd both been showing their love to one another. How desperately they'd tried to cling onto their relationship without taking any risks in losing each other…how that behaviour had been the very thing to drive them apart.

"You know, I think this baby was exactly what we needed to happen, Rory," Logan said.

"I think you're right. If only we had smartened up beforehand, we could've figured this out and saved ourselves a few months of heartbreak," Rory sighed.

"That's true, but maybe we needed to get to this exact moment. I'm all about seizing the moment, Ace. And you know how I feel about In Omnia Paratus and all that, but sometimes we need a bit of a push in order to take chances, so I think this baby is giving us our push…and telling us to smarten the hell up. I always knew we'd have a smart kid," Logan chucked.

Rory laughed, and from the kitchen table, Lorelai smiled.

Things were going to be okay.

Logan wasn't like Christopher. He and Rory were going to have a much smoother life than she had when she became pregnant with Rory, and she was so glad. She wouldn't trade her life for anything, but she was extremely glad that Rory wouldn't have to go through the hardships that she did.

After making plans for Logan to fly into Connecticut the following day and exchanging some "I love yous," Rory came into the kitchen and hugged her mother.

"Thank you," she said simply.

"I didn't do anything," Lorelai said.

"Yes, you did. I definitely needed that push, so thank you for that, but I'm also just saying thank you for being you, mom. You're amazing, and now that I'm going through this, I'm realizing just how much you went through. Just how strong you were, and how strong you must've been to have done it all alone, especially at 16," Rory said.

"Oh, kid, I'd do anything for you."

"I know, and I know you'll do anything for my baby, too. I know that after seeing how amazing you were growing up that I could have raised this baby on my own, too, but I have to admit that I'm glad that I don't have to. I love Logan, and I want him in our baby's life. I want him to want to be here with us," Rory said.

"I know you do, and for years, I wanted the same thing from Christopher, but Logan definitely isn't Chris. They might wear the same suits, drive the same cars, and come from the same stuffy circles, but Logan would do anything for you. He loves you so much, Rory, and he's going to love your baby just as much. I know you were scared, but I'm so proud of you for calling him," Lorelai said, giving Rory another hug, "Now let's go to Luke's and get some dinner! Oh, and if you think I'm going to be the one to tell your grandmother about the baby, then you're not as smart as I thought you were…you're on your own there kiddo!"

"But mom…." Rory whined.

"Nuh uh. Now that you're going to be a mom, you can't pull the 'But mom' card anymore," Lorelai teased.

"You're going to tell Luke for me though, right?" Rory pleaded.

Lorelai looked at her daughter, the fruit of her loins, with eyes identically bright and blue as her own, and laughed.

"Yeah, okay, I'll tell Luke for you…you might want to be scarce for a few days when I do. He's going to be so awkward around you for a few days," Lorelai chucked. That was exactly what Rory was afraid of.

Luke wouldn't even be able to look her in the eyes while pouring her coffee…he might not even let her have coffee anymore. Her eyes widened in shock upon the former realization, and she stopped immediately in her tracks.

Lorelai, who was about to open the door to her jeep so that they could head to Luke's, didn't realize that Rory had stopped walking until the joke that she'd just told didn't receive Rory's obligatory laugh (what? as her offspring, she was obliged to give a pity laugh even when something wasn't funny). When she turned towards the front door, Rory was looking wide-eyed and terrified. Well, she just realized she can't have nearly as much coffee as she usually drinks, Lorelai thought to herself.

"Came to the conclusion that your coffee intake is about to be seriously limited?" Lorelei joked.

"I think I might cry," Rory said stoically, "Coffee is the most stable relationship I have. It's been with me for years, and it's never once let me down, and now I'm going to have to let it go…switch to decaf? I can't do that."

"Well, technically it's really only the opinion of Doctors that would be keeping you back from your caffeine consumption. You could always risk it…but I know how you feel about risk and following the rules by the book," Lorelai teased.

Rory sighed, "I guess I better start cutting back now…but if I only have one cup, Luke will get suspicious!"

"Then just tell him now," Lorelai reasoned.

"You know if I tell Luke then everyone in town will know by tomorrow! He might not want to admit it, but Luke is a gossip…the two of you are probably the biggest gossips in town," Rory grumbled.

Lorelai gasped.

"Well after that comment, I'll just leave you to tell Luke yourself…and Christopher, too. And my mother, and Paris…and…and Kirk!" Lorelai scrambled to think of the people that Rory was dreading telling about her pregnancy, and she realized that she was right. Once Luke and Lorelai both knew, they were likely to tell the whole town anyway! When had she become such a terrible gossip…oh, only all her life.

"You were going to make me tell them all myself anyway. Let's be real here," Rory said, her bright mood following her phone call with Logan was slowly fading. Then she remembered that he'd be there the following day, and she smiled.

"I see the mood swings are starting already," Lorelai said, "Come on, let's go! My stomach is starting to eat itself, and you definitely won't like me when I'm hungry!"

"I'm pregnant! I'm allowed to have mood swings…and I'm allowed to eat my feelings…oooh, I'm allowed to eat my feelings," Rory smiled again.

"Come on, you always ate your feelings…I really don't see how either of us could ever eat more than we usually do, pregnant or not," Lorelai said.

"True, but now I have an excuse to try really strange combinations, and I can get people to get me junk food at all hours of the night…pregnancy might have a couple of perks after all."

"Logan is going to hate you if you make him go get you weird combinations of food at all hours…oh wait, Logan's rich. He can just hire someone to go get stuff for you…and then he can take advantage of the fact that pregnancy also makes you horny…at all hours. Geez it does sound like you'll be enjoying some perks," Lorelai quipped and gave Rory a wink.

Rory just smiled, and blushed. Even at 32 there were times where Lorelai said things that embarrassed her. Sometimes her mother really had no filter.

After pulling up in front of Luke's, Rory and Lorelai got out of the jeep and went inside to their favourite table.

"Husband! We would like some sustenance!" Lorelei announced loudly.

Luke rolled his eyes at Lorelai, and replied in a droll tone, "Yes, wife, I'll get right on that."

Soon two cups on the most heavenly liquid—coffee, of course—were in front of them and Lorelai subtly watched Rory out of the corner of her eye to see what she'd do. She didn't have to wait long.

Rory got up from the table and approached Luke, "Can I talk to you in the back for a moment?" she asked him.

"Of course, Rory," Luke said with surprise, usually there wasn't anything that she and Lorelai weren't comfortable talking about loudly for all of the dinner to hear.

As Luke and Rory went into the back of the dinner, Lorelai sat at the table and waited for it…once again, she didn't have to wait long. She must've really inspired Rory to go for it this morning!

"You're what?!" Luke yelled from the back.

"Shhhh…quiet Luke!" Rory replied back.

Rory and Luke resumed their conversation quietly—but all of the dinner was eagerly trying to listen, and when they walked back to the front of the dinner minutes later, everyone was staring at them. Each person quickly averted their eyes when Luke's glower landed on them, but they all noticed that his surly persona become even surlier after his little "talk" with Rory.

Rory solemnly returned to her chair.

"Atta girl! Look at you standing up and taking charge of your life. I'm proud of you kid. I take it Luke's a little upset though?" Lorelai asked quietly—which was very strange, Lorelai never did anything quietly.

"He was just so angry! He threatened to beat Logan up when he got here. Please make sure he doesn't do that," Rory pleaded quietly—matching Lorelai's volume.

Both women looked up sharply when a glass of water, and a container of cream appeared in front of Rory. Luke looked at Rory for a moment, squeezed her shoulder, and returned to the kitchen to get their food. It was a small gesture, but it was clear that Luke was telling her she needed to find something else to drink, and that if she was going to have her cup of coffee for the day, that she'd better make sure she got her daily calcium fix with it…Rory had a feeling that Luke was about to get super controlling about her diet. He'd probably even make her eat salad…Rory shuddered.

Lorelai shuddered at the same time, and said, "He's so going to make you eat salad. You're going to have to eat vegetables. Ick!"

Luckily, Luke wasn't starting in on the proper diet just yet, and Rory quickly had a scrumptious burger, some fries and mozzarella sticks in front of her.

Things were going to be alright, and today had actually turned out to be a really good day.