Time-Wasting, Pointless Apology. Feel free to Skip: Okay, I'm going to be straight and not throw you any lies. I'm lazy, and I lost interest in the couple. Lame excuses I know, but excuses none the less. Almost all my fics will be finished with time. Hopefully by December or so. I'm sorry, really! I'm back though, because I randomly decided to start writing on this screen name again back in July and have just recently gotten around to it.

"I officially hate camping." Logan complained. They'd barely been in this open field for twenty-four hours before the whining had began. Logan wasn't an outdoorsy person, even with his experience in Life and Death Brigade.

Rory knew that with L&DB he'd had tents, beer, lighters, firewood, and all the other camping necessities. This was probably the first time he'd been fending for himself, without the help of the extra goodies Life and Death Brigade packed.

The immense hatred Logan had for camping without even a tent, showed in his frown and bad posture. As if that wasn't enough, he felt the need to tell her about it.

This is where Rory found herself now, sitting on the ground next to the pitiful fire they'd managed to create, half-listening to Logan blat about the mosquitoes. She knew she shouldn't complain about his complaining since it was her fault that he was in this position now. She also knew they should have bought some bug spray.

Logan swatted at a mosquito, and then shot daggers at it with his eyes, "-I am not fresh meat." Oh great, he was delirious and talking to the mosquitoes now. Rory briefly considered sending him to the doctor, she'd had never seen him this incredibly desperate.

He waved a hand violently around his head, Rory let out a laugh at his expense. Glaring at her for a second he said to her, "We're leaving tomorrow, right Ace?"

"Logan Huntzburger. You are supposed to be up for risks and thrills. Some of your favorite hobbies are bungee-jumping and human target practice. Why, I am appalled that you're letting a couple mosquitoes get the best of you." Rory dramatically put a hand to her heart in mock surprise.

"Yeah, well you never mentioned anything about starving bugs and muggy nights when you described our little field trip to me."

"I just assumed you could handle anything." Rory said with a smile, and the trademark Gilmore sparkle in her eye.

Logan smirked, scratching a bite on his neck. "Anything that doesn't involve sleeping outside in the wilderness."

"We're packing up and shipping out tomorrow, just hang in there for me until then."

"No promises."

A silence hung thick in the air, it was about four o'clock in the afternoon and Rory was bored. They'd roasted all the marshmallows Rory had insisted on buying (of course, she'd sprung for the snacks instead of the bug spray), now the fire was just making her perspire. If they'd gone to a campground, they could at least have begged other people mercilessly for their food. Until tomorrow, she was going to have to listen to her stomach rumble.

Suddenly, an idea struck her.

"I'll be right back." Rory stood up and brushed her grass covered knees off. Then, she proceeded to enter the thick woods and scout out a water source.

She tripped her way through the forest, inwardly cursing herself for deciding to come in here. Times like these made her wish that she'd been a girl scout as a kid.

Luck was on her side tonight, she hadn't had to look far before she spotted a small pond in a clearing. The water was a murky brown, cattails grew here and there. Getting closer, she couldn't see the bottom. All in all it looked irresistibly inviting, she resisted diving right in without Logan to cool herself off. The weather was unbearably muggy.

Rory turned around retracing her steps and stumbling through tree branches until she saw their feeble campfire again. She saw that Logan was still immersed in the task of eliminating the mosquitoes that had gathered around him. Laughing, Rory realized it must've been about seventeen against one; the war truly wasn't a fair one.

"Logan!" She called, cupping her hands around her mouth. He looked up at her dejectedly. "Up for an adventure?"

After falling down twice, and tripping about fifty times they were back at the charming little pond. Logan didn't look particularly pleased with Rory's idea of hunting for food, he looked wary.

"Be a man. If you're hungry. we fish. Food doesn't fall out of the sky." Rory said resisting a giggle.

"I am a man, Ace." Logan stated indignantly. He glanced towards the water before sitting down in the dirt and untying his shoes. "Do you expect us to fish with our hands? Or sharpen sticks?" Rory took note of the fact that they were both terrible methods, but their only choices.

"Hands." She decided finally after briefly weighing the pros and cons of each option.

"I don't see you ready to wade out there." He muttered, prompting her to slip off her sandals and wade in for the sake of her pride.

"Hah." She said a bright smile on her face, she flicked some water towards him and he cringed as the droplets hit him.

Having finished his task of taking off his shoes Logan waded in after her, examining the water beneath him closely. Narrowed eyes scanned the water determinedly looking for a fish. They then zeroed in on something in the water and Rory watched hopefully as he reached his arm in.

"Dinner?" She asked, holding her breath. To herself, she sounded like a starved cave person. For an unknown reason this thought flooded her with pride, it was better then being the good girl.

Logan pulled his arm out of the water with mock triumph on his face, Rory found it strange that she hadn't seen any fish in the water.

"Look what I have, Ace." He said with a smirk. The rest of his hand emerged from the water holding-

(cue the drum roll)

A dead fish. A very dead fish.

"Oh my gosh." Rory said laughing a bit.

"I hate to break it to you, but I don't think dead fish are edible." Rory jumped as Logan threw the fish out into the pond narrowly missing hitting her in the head with it.

"I think we should have at least given it a proper burial." Rory said striding over to him.

He draped an arm around her shoulder and she continued, "You're my hero. You almost caught us dinner." They walked out of the water.

Somehow she didn't even care that it was the hand that he'd reached into the murky water with that was resting on her shoulder, as long as it was his.

The next morning Rory was still hungry. She packed up the remainder of her stuff, not that there was much of it to begin with. Then swung the backpack over her shoulders and slipped it on, feeling like a true hiker.

Looking down at Logan, who was still sleeping like a baby, she nudged him with her foot. He showed no reaction.

"Logan," She said grabbing her pillow and hitting him with it. He'd always been a hard sleeper, one day she poured ice cold water over his head and he hadn't even stirred.

A noise she assumed was a groan erupted from his throat. She hit him again, harder this time. Stirring slightly, he rolled over in a feeble attempt to avoid the next swing.

Rory lifted the pillow over her head, and brought it down on his back with a loud whipping sound.

Openly he groaned, muttering something about waking up at ungodly hours. Rory giggled in spite of herself and her situation. The fact that there were mosquitoes swarming her leaving her mind momentarily. She regretted again not bringing bug spray, even being one of the smartest of the Gilmore's she still wasn't educated in the do's and don'ts of wilderness.

"Ace," Rory looked down at the defeated Logan, who was now rubbing his sleepy eyes and blinking rapidly in reaction to the light of the morning sun.

"Good morning sunshine." Rory said cheerily. Shielding his eyes from the morning sun, Logan looked up at her. Suspicious of her overly-happy mood, he arched an eyebrow.

"Good morning? What time is it?" Rory turned her wrist so the face of her watch was in his view. He widened his eyes in mock- or maybe it was real -horror, Rory couldn't be sure.

"Five AM?" Rory nodded slowly as if talking to a child. "Five AM?" He asked again significantly louder this time.

Rory shrugged, a sorry look in her eyes. "The early bird gets the worm." She said quoting a cliché.

"I'd rather starve." He muttered laying back down. Then, upon seeing the stern look on Rory's face, hesitantly sat back up.

"We have to decide where we want to go next." Rory said matter-of-factly, sitting down with her legs crossed Indian style next to Logan, the itchy grass was covered with a film of dew making Rory's bottom uncomfortably damp.

"To sleep?" Logan suggested obviously not quite having given up on the idea of closing his eyes and laying back down. He had his hopes set a little high though, because Rory was a stubborn girl and was going to make his nap hell if his eyelids even drooped.

"Not quite what I had in mind." Rory said, a glint in her eye.

"I take it you have a better plan, Ace." Logan replied, looking wary of Rory and her motives.

"As a matter of fact, I do. We're going to the amusement park."

"The amusement park? What amusement park?" Logan straightened up a little higher. The plan she'd concocted wasn't as dangerous/strange as he'd obviously suspected it would be.

Rory stood up and brushed the grass off of her bottom. "Yes sir, so get up and get ready. We just need to find out how to get there." Rory muttered the last bit almost to herself, examining the land around her.

"How do you know said amusement park is in our range?" Logan asked skeptically, his eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer. He half expected it to be imaginary, or Rory to have no idea how to get there (he'd heard rumors that Gilmore's were directionally challenged).

"We passed it when we were riding with our friend GoGo." Rory said teasingly with a smile on her face, knowing how afraid Logan was of GoGo and her crew. "So get a move on." She nudged him with her foot, trying to get him to get off his lazy ass. "Pronto."

Eventually, they were both packed. Though it took a lot of arguing, mumbling, and failed attempts on Logan's part at going back to sleep to get there. They'd gotten there though, and that was all that mattered.

The two were walking back to the road, arguing about whether they hitchhike or walk, still neither sure where it was at this point, when Rory's phone rang.

Sookie's number showed up on her caller ID. Rory had to clench her jaw to keep it from falling open. She was aware of the fact that half of Stars Hollow probably new about her little adventure, but she didn't think anyone cared enough to call her about it.

"Hello?" Rory pressed the phone to her ear, curiously waiting for a reply.

"Rory. Have you seen Sookie?" Jackson's voice asked worriedly. There was something off about his tone though, something she couldn't place.

"No I haven't, sorry, Jackson."

Logan shot her a look, asking a silent question: Who is that? Rory mouthed the word Jackson to him.

"I couldn't get a hold of your mom so I decided to call you." He paused to take a breath. "There's something wrong with the tomatoes and I had to warn her that she'd have to get them somewhere else or go without tomatoes. I was supposed to bring them by the Inn this morning." His words came out in a rush, and Rory knitted her eyebrows together curiously. The mood he was in was rather strange.

"I hate to break it to you, but I'm not in Stars Hollow." Rory kept her tone even and guarded, waiting for him to spring into a lecture. "I'm in New York. So you'll have to call someone else."

"Oh, well. If you talk to her though, tell her to call me. Without you its pretty hard to keep tabs on Sookie, she's disappearing every second."

"Try my mom again." Rory suggested, she swallowed willing the tears not to come. Home sickness was the worst kind of sickness.

"You were always easier to track down then your mom," Jackson whined, "and my wife. Come back soon Rory."

Rory muttered a soft mhm in reply before hanging up the phone.

"Ace," Logan sighed when he saw the look in her eyes, when he saw the way she blinked rapidly and breathed unevenly. Walking closer to her he gathered her in his arms, she was still Rory, no matter how daring she pretended to be.

Rory resisted the hug, stubbornly. She controlled her breathing and blinked away the last of the traitor tears. She was fine.

"Let's track down our amusement park, shall we?"

"We shall."

So they did. They held hands and walked up the street, too a very well labeled commerce house. A little booth with a little lady sitting at it with little maps for sale.

"Hello," Rory greeted the woman sitting behind the counter.

"Mm." Was the woman's grumbled reply. She had pink sunglasses perched on her nose with dark black shades, and was flipping through a fashion magazine ignoring them altogether.

"Do you think you could direct us too the nearest amusement park?" Rory prompted. The woman looked up at her briefly before going back to her magazine. Well, at least she acknowledged their existence this time.

"Excuse me?" Rory asked curiously her patience running short. A baffled expression on her face, she looked over at Logan; he just shrugged.

"Hello?" Rory waved a hand in front of the woman's magazine. Bad move. Immediately the woman's eyes shot up to meet Rory's, a not-so-nice expression on her face. "I asked you a question." Rory said and didn't back down. The woman behind the counter didn't either.

"Look to your left." The woman spat.

Logan and Rory both turned to their left. Instantaneously, Rory's eyes focused on and zoomed in on the visible part of a ferris wheel and a particularly high roller coaster. Logan's did too.

"Oh." Rory paused awkwardly. "Thank you for your time."

"Mm." Came the woman's answer.

Rory and Logan hurried out of the little building with the big sign. "How did we miss that?" Rory asked incredulously.

"No clue."

"It was right there." Rory shook her head at her own unobserventness.

"It wasn't in my periph."

"I'm surprised she could see it through the shades of her dark sunglasses." Rory mused, in a teasing voice.

"They were so dark, I would swear she couldn't see us."

"I thought she was part of the witness protection program."

They went on like that for a bit, bantering and bickering about the woman's sunglasses. Until finally they were standing at the enormous entrance of the amusement park. It towered above the pair casting a shadow on the street that stretched on for about fifteen feet.

Rory and Logan entered after they bought their tickets, awed by the enormity of it all. It was a huge theme park, with at least three visible rollercosters, all of which looked dangerous and sickening. Rory could practically feel the stomach acid bubbling up as she looked up at them. A jolt of fear rushed through her at the site of them.

She'd never been one to ride roller coasters; in her book they were classified under the life-threatening section… But, she'd never been one to runaway carrying only a few bucks in her pocket either, had she?

This is why the meanest, biggest, bendiest, fastest roller coaster caught her attention above all else.

"Let's ride the roller coaster."

A/N: Viola! Quick chapter, next will be up in a matter of days (considering its already half written). I noticed that my writing has improved some, looking back at the old chapters... If you did happen to remember this story exists, drop me a review.