Disclaimer - I claim to own nothing related to this show, except some worn down, much loved DVDs. Well, Seasons 1-6 anyway. O.K. you got me; I don't love the Season 6 DVDs. They gather dust.

Follows my story Bye-Bye Balcony Buddy; however, this can be a stand alone story if you assume Luke and Lorelai started dating in Christopher Returns. I do have a fluffy, sugar-sweet plan for this story and it involves some hurt along the way.

Time line – After Presenting Lorelai Gilmore and before Like Mother, Like Daughter


A very exhausted and rumpled Lorelai entered the kitchen, scowling at nothing; her daughter had not left her bedroom yet so of course there was no coffee made. Just then, Rory's door opened, and she appeared, looking fresh and renewed.

"Hey Mom, is the coffee on yet?" she greeted her mother cheerfully.

"Do you smell coffee? It doesn't get up and make itself," she said irritably.

Rory made a growling noise reminiscent of a cat fighting and said, "Such snark. How did I get so lucky?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't sleep well," Lorelai said quickly, sans snark.

Rory sat down at the table and opened one of her textbooks, but did not read. Instead, she was thinking about how, for the last couple of days, her mother had been acting stranger and stranger. She frowned as she watched Lorelai place a coffee filter in the top part of the coffee maker, fill the reservoir with water, and turn it on without adding coffee grounds. Lorelai turned and went to the fridge, and Rory was hoping to lighten the mood when she joked, "Mom: making coffee tastes better when you, you know, use actual coffee in the coffee maker."

Lorelai slammed the fridge door shut and rounded on Rory; almost angrily she asked, "Are you having sex with Dean?"

"Huh – Mom – what?" Rory could usually keep up with her mother, but this morning she was not able to figure out how they had gone from coffee to sex so quickly.

Lorelai composed herself briefly and tried to be nicer, "Are you? Please tell me?"

"How is 'Are you having sex?' an appropriate follow up to 'use coffee in the coffee maker?'"

"I know I sound mad, but really I promise not to let my head explode. I just want to know," she said, concerned. She sat down next to Rory and touched her hand. "If you want, I can take you to the clinic and get you on the pill. You're supposed to start getting yearly paps anyway when you start having sex."

"No, Mom, I am not having sex with Dean," still looking at her mother as if she had grown an extra set of appendages.

"Are you sure?" Lorelai asked, not realizing how silly the question was.

"I may not be experienced, but we had this talk already, disturbing diagrams and all. I know how it works," she replied in a placating tone one would use with an insane person. As Lorelai dramatically put her head on the table, Rory spoke: "Mom, what is wrong with you? This is weird, even for you. You and Grandma didn't fight at dinner last night, so spill."

Lorelai kept trying to form the words, but was having a hard time getting them from her brain to her mouth, as if keeping them unspoken would make it not real. "Uh pink um brad nut," she said with her head still on the table.

"Mom."

"Hmm?" She hadn't sat up yet.

"Head up, move lips, try again."

When Lorelai raised her head from the table, Rory could see tears threatening to fall, and suddenly she knew it was more serious than a bad night's sleep. She became worried and slightly panicky as she waited for her mom to tell her what it was that was bothering her.

"I think I'm pregnant," she admitted.

"Whoa."

"Yeah..."

"O.K., let's be rational. Start by telling me what makes you think that."

"Well I'm a week late as of today. I'm never late, except well," she gestured at Rory.

"Anything else?"

Lorelai thought for a moment and then shook her head. "No, that's the only indication. I'm not interested in anything healthy, like with you I craved apples constantly, I'm not nauseated," she pointed to her chest, "and the girls aren't sore."

"What about your crabbiness and your glum mood the last few days?"

"Hi! Not helping!"

"Sorry, Mom."

"That could be chalked up to fear and lack of sleep for worrying."

"Without offering information that you know I really don't want, have you been safe each and every single time?"

"Of course! You know I am careful. While I appreciate the joy and sunshine you have brought into my life, I always thought if I had another kid I'd try being married first."

"Have you told Luke about this possibility?"

"Are you kidding?" Lorelai scoffed.

They were both quiet for a moment, lost in thought. Rory offered, "It could be stress. You know, the débutante ball..."

Suddenly, Lorelai looked a little hopeful, "Yeah, maybe."

"Now, it's time for the next natural course of action." Rory got up from the table with a determined look upon her face.

"Oh I know! You lock me in my bedroom and I start getting cozy with the wallpaper!"

"We buy pregnancy tests."

Lorelai panicked; "No! We can't buy them here! Everyone will know!"

"So I guess you would like it if I canceled the marching band and the chorus that sings: 'Lorelai Gilmore is buying pregnancy tests!'"

"Could you, Hun?"

"We'll go to Woodbridge; I'll drive, that way you can crawl around the floor of the Jeep if you want."

Lorelai stood outside the diner, looking in, knowing that she would have to go inside and talk to him. She sighed deeply, as only those with heavy hearts can, and hoped that this was not the last time she would see her boyfriend. The bell tinkled as she crossed over the threshold, and she tried to look normal so that the townies wouldn't suspect something was wrong. The way she was feeling right now, she couldn't trust her mouth not to blurt out the horrible news at the first sign of pressure.

She strode past the tables and the counter and went straight to the store room without so much as acknowledging Luke; this of course piqued his curiosity and he followed.

"Lorelai?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"What's wrong?"

"What makes you think something's wrong?" she said defensively.

"Well let's see: you come in the diner with the weirdest look on your face – I can't tell if you're going to cry or if you're having an aneurysm – you don't even look at me, you go into my storeroom by yourself – where you know my insurance only allows employees – and you're being evasive. Each and every one of the above points to trouble."

Lorelai was speechless.

"Did something happen with your parents?" She shook her head. "Is Rory O.K.?" She nodded. "What about you, are you O.K.?" Lorelai responded neither orally or with body language. "Lorelai!" he growled.

"I'm pregnant," she finally said.

He stared at her with his mouth open, in complete shock. Suddenly, there was a noise remarkably like the roadrunner when it takes off very quickly. All that remained of her boyfriend was a cloud of a dust and a baseball cap spinning in the air where his head had been.

From far away, Lorelai heard, "Mom. Mom? MOM!"

Lorelai snapped out of her daydream, for a moment wondering irrationally if bad daydreams could be referred to as daymares. "Huh, what?" she said.

"It's time to check the tests."

"Oh, that."

The bathroom door had been left closed to discourage peeking. Lorelai placed her hand on the knob, but hesitated, and opened and closed her mouth a few times, as if she were about to speak, but shrugged and opened the door.

They had bought five different brands of tests, three of which came with a second – the extras had been saved just in case – and now Lorelai was glad they had saved those three, because neither of them expected what they saw when they looked at the counter.

The two, most expensive name brand tests were clearly negative. The only square test, it kind of resembled a white pager that some restaurants use, had developed no lines at all. The mid-priced test had a second, very faint, gray-colored line, and the cheaper store brand definitely had two purple lines. Both ladies looked confused, and finally it was Lorelai that spoke: "So what does this mean?"

Rory began skimming the directions of the square test, after a moment she said, "This one was a dud, or you 'flooded' it, whatever that means." Rory moved on the the instructions of the test that had a gray line. She turned the paper over and finally found the answer, "Oh that's an evaporation line, which means we waited too long to read it, but should be considered a negative. They all say you have a better shot at an accurate answer if you use first morning urine."

"I wish there was some kind of machine they could put me in so I could find out now." Lorelai sat on the toilet lid and put her hand in her hands. "So that's one dud, three negatives and a positive; does that mean I'm one-fifth pregnant?"

"I think it means 'Ask again later.' Try tomorrow morning?"

"Guess I have to, huh?"

"RORY!" Lorelai shouted as she ran down the stairs, with a huge smile plastered on her face. "Rory! Don't be asleep yet please!" She bounced through the hallway and the kitchen and barged into Rory's room, where the young lady was sleeping.

Lorelai jumped into Rory's bed. "Get up, get up, get up!" she exclaimed.

"Mrmph," Rory said.

"You need to be awake for this, my one and only offspring!"

"What?"

"Looks like I don't need the backup tests after all."

"You mean you're..."

"Trolling for vampires, taking Carrie to the prom, saddling Ole Rusty, it's arts and crafts week at panty camp, I'm riding the crimson wave..."

"Mom. Gross."

"...there's been a massacre at the Y..."

"Stop."

Lorelai giggled. "Sorry, I'm feeling menstru-iffic!"

Rory groaned. "Can we delay the celebrations until breakfast?"

Lorelai squeezed Rory through the covers. "I love ya kid, but I'm glad you're the only one."

"Goodnight, Mom."

"Night Hun."

Thank you for reading. Kudos to anyone who gets the wallpaper/crawling reference. I'll post what it came from at the beginning of the next chapter.