A/N: Wow...Thanks so much all for the great reviews, your thoughts and ideas are part of what keeps me inspired to write. I'm not sure where this story will go, just had a few thoughts flying around in my brain since the last episode that sort of begged to be put to paper. For those of you who read The Point of Being Young have no fear, I consider this a totally different line of possibility so it won't interfere with my dedication to that story. You know the whole the roads diverged thing... I hope to have the next update up for PBY tomorrow. Happy reading!

So, this was what the grey area felt like.

The blaring music filtered out of the main room and could be heard even before they had stepped through the doorway and its irony did not escape Rory. Stuck in the Middle With You, it qualified as either the quintessence of satire or some wicked deities' idea of a damn good joke. Stuck in the middle; that sort of summed up her whole life at the moment or at least the part of her life that involved her vague, amorphous and staunchly uncommitted relationship with Logan Huntzberger.

She was here with Robert but she couldn't stop her eyes from flitting across the faces that they passed as they entered party central. Couldn't quite stop the twinge of disappointment when she saw Logan across the room with a petite version of Tarantino's Bride. It was that green-eyed monster within that had her thinking catty venomous thoughts about a girl she had never met, comparing in classic girl style and deciding that her outfit was definitely the more flattering of the two. The good Rory, the one that worked hard in school and humored Kirk and ran home to comfort her mother when she needed her and liked Paris despite her vitriolic nature flinched at this inner diatribe but the other Rory, the one that wanted to shrug off the shackles of her sweet angel persona and ride in cars with boys and tempt fate by jumping off ten story platforms and risk her heart just to say she had...the Rory that wanted Logan Huntzberger for herself reveled in the tiny moment where he saw her and an emotion much like jealousy flitted across his features.

She found she couldn't quite step away from the thrill of that and only hoped that the two Rory's would one day be reconciled, that she might in fact disprove the odds and have her cake and eat it too. She put a smile on her face and greeted Logan's friends as if she belonged amongst them denying that tiny part of herself that felt like a deceitful imposter.

The party was in full swing and Logan was feeling just the slight buzz of tipsiness. He'd probably pass the straight-line test but he figured if someone asked him the meaning of serendipity it might come out a garbled and melodramatic mess and engender a soliloquy that would undoubtedly involve an inappropriate mention of a certain dark haired girl who had just entered the party in the company of one of his so-called friends. He'd seen her across the crowded room and something in him had tensed when he saw Robert come into view at her elbow.

They were talking, joking with Finn and then Colin. Rory was laughing and he saw Robert glance at her covetously and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to wipe that playful smirk from Robert's face preferably with his fist.

"Lets get a drink." The comment was directed at the girl at his side but his eyes were still glued to the one in the short plaid skirt who stood across the room. The girl had the audacity to laugh, to smile, to make witty remarks that amused those close enough to hear them drop from her lips and she didn't so much as look in his direction.

Armed with a drink he all but stormed towards the group with Whitney in tow and his face set in a consciously nonchalant smirk.

He smiled and made an expansive gesture with his drink sloshing in one hand "The gang's all here." Inside he seethed, she wasn't part of the gang what right did she have to look so much like she belonged here, with his friends...with him...not with that ass Robert who didn't deserve to touch the ground she had walked on. He took a deep soothing sip of the amber liquid in his glass letting the fire of it burn those bitter words from his throat.

He made the introductions his eyes never leaving hers. Those calm blue eyes that said that she was calling his bluff that she wasn't going to be the first to lose her balance on this tight rope they walked.

He smiled at her but she didn't flinch and her facade didn't break. She smiled back and then looked at Robert and he admitted silently that she had won the round. He retreated. It was the only thing to do when you were out gunned and out manned. Rally, regroup and recoup your losses.

He drank, he danced, he flirted with that piece of his brain for which those activities were second nature but his eyes watched her, something hot and uncomfortable and binding growing in his chest until he was restless with that pent up energy. He had to do something. She was making a mockery of him or everything he claimed to be at least. He needed to prove to her, to himself that he could do this.

He stalked towards her table when he saw an opening snagging another drink on the way. The iced glass felt good against his flushed skin. "Hey Ace, having a good time?" he forced the question and felt the irritation smolder and flare when she met his eyes steadily.

"I am, thanks." She caught the slight narrowing of his eyes and felt a little thrill of triumph. Something was eating at him and had him making pointed small talk while his eyes tried to reduce her to the small pieces he could understand in a girl playmate. She tried a friendly smile and was rewarded with a tensing of his jaw. She had never been very good at deception or dissemblance, her mom said her face was too honest, too transparent but she must be getting better, either that or he was past seeing what she so carefully camouflaged with witty remarks and nonchalant body language.

His smile felt glued in place "Good, that's good, me too I'm having a good time too." He realized suddenly that he had answered a question she hadn't posed and took a long sip of the cold liquid in his glass in hopes that it would soothe that ragged irritation in his throat.

"Good." Her tone was polite as if she were simply biding time with him until her date returned.

That smile set his teeth on edge and he felt the irrational urge to chuck the heavy glass at something that would make a satisfying crash mixed with even more foolish urge to kiss her into capitulation until that polite smile was nothing but a crumpled memory "Yes it is good."

He heard himself asking like a jealous suitor where she knew Robert and felt like a complete idiot when she made it crystal clear that the only times they had met had been in his presence. What a snake that Robert, sneaking in and snatching his girl right from under his nose the minute he wasn't looking. He took another deep draught as that dangerous thought registered...his girl? Since when? Rather than think about that he went on the attack.

"He's kind of a jerk." Okay, maybe not the best method of distraction and he could tell that something had struck an off note with her when she gave him a funny look.

"Excuse me?" it was a blatant where the hell do you get off kind of question and he bristled at the fact that he deserved it.

"Robert, he's kind of a jerk. Haven't you noticed he's kind of a jerk?" he barreled on. There was no stopping now.

"No." her answer was short and showed no prevarication.

"Huh..." he tried to get a handle on the insane urge to drag her into a corner and possess her, wipe any trace of Robert from her skin. He managed to hold it in check for all of the two seconds it took to meet her eyes. It was the utterly calm challenge there that broke him.

" Night's young." It was as much a challenge to himself as to her.

Before he had time to talk himself out of it he had her by the arm and was dragging her across the room. Giving in to that animalistic beast within him that wanted to claim her as his own. The second they had cleared the dance floor he spun towards her and kissed her like there was no tomorrow. Mindless to their surroundings he let himself sink into her lips, be transported by that little whimper of hers that drove him wild and made him forget every stupid commitment phobic comment he had ever made. That is until she slammed on the brakes and pushed him back.

She darted a look back at the dance floor and it had his blood racing triple time in anger, at her, at himself. She was like an addiction, one night without her and he wanted to kill anyone who so much as looked in her direction. Wanted to beat his chest and announce to the world that she was off limits. He took a ragged breath and tried desperately to keep the boat from capsizing to somehow find an even keel in the thrash of the storm. He struggled for conversation. "Right, so how have you been?"

"I've been fine." She was drowning in those warm chocolate eyes but she forced herself to think about the question he had asked, to focus on the words and not those tempting lips that spoke them.

"How's school." He had no idea where the words were coming from considering that all the blood had drained from his head about a minute ago.

"School's hard." She was speaking but all she could see were his eyes, all she could hear was her own labored breathing and then she was caught up in the frenzied chemistry that always sparked between them. Only this time it was tinged with something more, something desperate that was only barely balanced by an equal portion of denial. He didn't like that she was here with some one other than him, she'd seen it in the flare of the eyes, the irritation in his stance, those ridiculous comments about Robert being a jerk. And somehow his jealousy fueled something in her like a dangerous drug the adrenaline of it made the kiss all the more electric. Finally she came to her senses. She couldn't give in this easily, then he won, then she had no solid ground left to stand on and he would know it.

She pushed him away with as much will as she could muster. "Logan, we can't do this here."

Those powerful eyes burned into her "You're right let's go." He couldn't believe the words were falling from his lips but he was driven by something beyond reason now.

"Go where?" her eyes were challenging him now, ripping at his mask, testing his endurance.

"Your place, my place, we'll take a train to New York and spend the night at the Plaza." It was out of his mouth before he could stop it. He didn't care where he just wanted her all to himself wanted to burn any thought of another out of her system by force if necessary.

"We can't just leave, we have dates." Hers was the voice of reason and it made him all but growl in frustration. Most girls coveted his attention but this one seemed to always be pulling down some new wall, picking at some piece of him until it crumbled, pulling him apart piece by tiny piece until he was left with nothing but rubble, the ruins of his defenses piled around him.

He snapped, "I don't like this."

"Like what?" somehow she held it together despite the fact that her heart was racing. Would this be it then, the hard won moment where he let go, where he gave in to the possibilities?

"You here with Robert." He despised the words even as they fell into the space between them.

"You're here with Whitney." There was that damning truth. Stark and irrefutable.

"I know."

"So what's the problem?" She wasn't backing down from this, she had to make him see that he wanted all of her and that he couldn't get it unless he was willing to reciprocate with the same.

It all bubbled up and out of him before he could put a name to the morass of emotion "The problem is you're here with Robert and it's bothering me and I don't like that it's bothering me."

"Sorry, do you want us to leave?" She offered him exactly the solution that she knew he didn't want. Goaded him a step closer to the brink.

His voice turned a reckless and beseeching "No, I want I us to leave, you and me."

"I can't do that." It was a matter of fact statement of principles, principles that he hadn't often encountered in one of his bed partners. He damned himself, he had known she was trouble the minute she had laid into him outside her room that first day about mistreating her friend, but she had made him laugh and he had enjoyed watching the pique flush her face and those blue eyes snap with wit. He had known he should stay away from her but his damnable impetuous heart hadn't listened and now he was in too deep to get out without capsizing.

Frustration and hurt spoke "Oh, you want to spend the rest of the night with Robert instead of me."

"I came here with Robert." Again with that stubborn indisputable logic that she seemed to be clinging to like a life raft.

He was beyond reason "So dump Robert, I hate Robert."

Now she spoke in exasperation knowing that she had pushed his buttons as far as she could tonight without compromising herself "He's your friend."

"So what I still hate him." This was spoken in the petulant tone of a six year old that has been denied his favorite toy.

There was an ounce of hope in her mind, hoping this was the day they ended this ruse, stopped playing the game "Logan you're the one who said..."

"I know what I said." He tried not to see it but he didn't like the look of disappointment so poorly masked in her expressive eyes, didn't like the fact that he felt like a cad despite the fact that she had made no requests and he had made no promises. It was a dangerous woman that wielded such power with a simple stiffening of shoulders, blanking of eyes, tightening of lips...a dangerous woman indeed.

Hope died at the look in his eyes that said he wasn't ready for surrender. She hated every step but she forced herself to say the words and take the steps, she would hate herself, would hate what she was left with if she didn't "Okay then, I have to go, I have a date. Enjoy the rest of the party."

Logan watched her go and despised the unfamiliar twist in his gut as he watched her accept a drink and smile at another boy.

The night ended badly, Whitney none too pleased at the fact that he had dragged another girl off into a dark secluded corner that was unfortunately not dark enough or secluded enough to hid their clandestine activities had abandoned him shortly after to head home with her friend Josie.

He had proceeded to make a fairly good attempt at drinking himself into a fugue but had been rather spectacularly unsuccessful. This failure left him with the painful memory of sitting on the bench across from the window to her room watching her as she prepared for sleep. Watching her emerge from the bathroom dressed in those clingy sleep pants that he found oddly more erotic than the usual bits of silk and lace that adorned most of his conquests statuesque bodies. He felt a nearly palpable sense of loss when she closed the blinds shutting him out and her lights winked off. He wanted to be there with her, tucked in behind those blinds in the warm sensual darkness with her.

The slap of that desire was made worse by the fact that he knew he could have what he wanted, knew that he could knock on her window and she would let him in. It was the price of entrance that had him frozen in indecision. He knew from their face off earlier in the night that she was in for the hand and he either had to ante up or get out of the game. He might be the son of a wealthy man but he was a pauper when it came to emotional currency. He didn't know if he had the balance in his account to cover the damage of an emotional entanglement with Rory Gilmore.

He sat there for a long time in thought before he headed back to his own empty bed holding on with miserly hands to the most valuable thing he had to give. Not yet ready to gamble with his heart.

Rory had seen him on the bench had watched him for a while as she went about her routine getting ready for bed. He had been there huddled against the chill of the spring air when she had deliberately closed the blinds and plunged the room into darkness and she had watched him still through those slits. She waited for a long time as the hours waned towards morning for him to beat back whatever internal demons possessed him and come to her window. She fell asleep waiting and wondered what the morning would bring.

Morning brought surprises.

It was a knock at the door that awakened her and after a few more knocks she surmised that Paris either had some sort of vendetta against her or was not present in the room which left the doorwoman duties to her. Her hair was a shambles and her eyes still puffy with sleep but she was suddenly wide awake when she swung open the door and saw a dressed, pressed and nearly edible looking Logan standing there with two large cups of coffee.

He offered her one that she took without comment, for the moment she felt a little quip less in the face of such an unexpected wake up call.

The stood there in silence for a moment while they weighed each other with their eyes and tried to evaluate the new balance that was struck by this daylight encounter and the events that had led them to this became stark black and white. Finally he spoke. "So... what comes next?"