I don't own. Milo Ventimiglia never would have left if I did. And there may have been a bon fire gone bad in whicehDean and Logan got a little bit killed : )

Okay, the fic you are about to read is extremely weird. There really is no excuse. I was just felling a little.. I don't even know what.

099. What's in a Name?

My name is Lorelai Gilmore. I am the fourth in five generations.

My father says it's a name I should take great pride in. My great uncle, my mother's step father, says that it means exotic, alluring, special. My grandfather says it's beauty and insanity and wonderful and all of these things I never quite understood. My great grandmother, a woman I only met once before her death, says it was a sign of stubbornness, whereas my great grandfather says brilliance.

All of these people say all these things that my name says about me.

But I am not my name.

My name has a past, a history I can never live up to, a history I can never live down.

First was Trix, my great great grandmother. The beautiful, elegant, exotic woman whom I know almost nothing about. My great grandfather speaks of her as though she was a goddess, and my grandma saw her as a form of entertainment and to my mother she was pure intrigue.

Next came Lorelai, my grandmother. Beautiful and crazy and eccentric and all these other words that sometimes make her sound like she belonged in a mental institution, a phrase I may regret using.

Then there was Rory, my wonderful mother. So they say. She was brilliant and beautiful and had a heart the size of Jupiter. My father says I'm a lot like her, but I never saw it.

Here's the part I can't live up to. Trix was generous and exotic. Lorelai was beautiful and eccentric. Rory was brilliant and talented.

And here's the part I can't live down. My mother died when I was seven. She was the amazing journalist she always wanted to be. She toured the Middle East with heroes. She survived. She had come back home aboard a rickety old plane. She survived. She died in a car accident three blocks from our house. We never got to say good bye.

I should see her as a hero. She saw the war and survived.

But I will never see her as that. She left. She never should have left us. If she hadn't gone away, she wouldn't have died. If she hadn't gone away, Lorelai would not have spent the last thirteen years in a mental institution. Outliving her daughter had just been too much.

My mother was a deserter and my grandmother is a loon.

These are not things to be proud of.

I was born Lorelai Alice Gilmore-Mariano.

But I am not my name.

I am not a Lorelai. There is nothing beautiful or special about me.

I am not a Gilmore. I am not rich or successful. I never did anything amazing.

I am not a Mariano. I am not successful like my father, I didn't rise above the expectations as he did. I did not did not surprise the world by being more than they thought.

I was less.

I was born Lorelai Alice Gilmore-Mariano.

But I am not my name.

I am not special.

I am simply Alice.