Disclaimer: "Gilmore Girls"is the property of Amy Sherman-Palladino and Warner Brothers. "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" is the property of Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon Productions. The plot is mine, but not the characters. This story is meant for enjoyment purposes only. No infringement is intended.

AN: Just a little background before this story begins. Since I write for two vastly different fandoms that include very chatty women in Amanda King and Lorelai Gilmore, I have wondered for years what it would be like to put them together. The trouble is that with the different time frames, it was a challenge to figure out how to do that, but I finally came up with the idea that it would have to be pre-series of Gilmore Girls shortly after Lorelai ran away from her parents' home when they didn't yet know where she was and that Lee and Amanda of SMK would help to track her down, the connecting factor being their boss, Dr. Smyth who could possibly know the elder Gilmores since he loves his country club lifestyle. One additional note to the SMK fans unfamiliar with GG, the Emily referenced throughout this fic is Emily Gilmore, Lorelai's mother, not SMK's Emily Farnsworth.

April 25, 1986

Richard Gilmore entered the bedroom he shared with his wife of the last twenty-two years with a call of, "Emily, I'm leaving!" When he received no reply, he looked around for her. "Emily?" Still hearing no response, he checked the large walk-in closet and the bathroom, but she was still nowhere to be found. With a shake of his head, he meandered down the hall in search of her and was about to head back down the stairs when he heard a soft whimper from somewhere behind him. He turned and listened closely in an attempt to discern its source, soon realizing that it was coming from Lorelai's room.

Letting out a deep sigh, he flung open the door to find Emily hunkered down on Lorelai's bed with tears streaming down her face and clutching the teddy bear their daughter had left behind. "Emily..." he whispered softly as he approached her and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, pried the stuffed animal from her grasp, tossed it aside and took her hands in his, "Emily, you have got to stop doing this," he scolded firmly, but gently.

Yanking her hands from her husband's grip, Emily sat up and stared straight ahead at Lorelai's abandoned dollhouse. "She's eighteen today, Richard," she replied forlornly. "She's legally an adult. Now, she doesn't ever have to come home if she doesn't want to." She sniffled and continued in a choked voice, "We'll never see our daughter or granddaughter again."

"Emily, stop," Richard demanded. "She'll come home eventually. I don't know what led to her running away or why she was so angry with us, but even she can't stay that angry for that long."

"Did you even read the letter she left behind? 'Dear Emily and Richard,' not even Mom and Dad," she said with a derisive snort. "That's how much she hates us." She let out a deep sigh. "I had such plans for her eighteenth birthday too. A big party with all her friends, all our friends...of course, that all went to hell when-"

"Emily!" Richard commanded sharply and glared down his nose at her as he rose to his imposing full height. "Enough! I insist that you stop wallowing in self-pity and get out of this bed this instant! I have to be at the club for a golf date and I do not have time for this!"

"You're leaving?" Emily's eyes flared in anger at her husband's prickly tone as she jumped from their daughter's bed and pointed an accusing finger at him. "How can you be so...so...so callous? This is our daughter; our granddaughter! How can you leave at a time like this?"

"What would you have me do, Emily, hunker down and cry and moan because she's not here?" He sighed in frustration. "Yes, I miss Lorelai and Rory; I miss them every bit as much as you do, but are we supposed to stop living because they're gone?"

"But it's her birthday!" Emily protested. "I thought since you hadn't left for the office already, you'd stay home for it."

"Why should I? She's not here for it! Besides, you knew very well that I had this golf outing with Austin Smyth today. That's how I was able to get away from the office for the day because it is about business."

"Richard!" She gaped at her husband, a horror-struck look on her face.

Unwilling to coddle her, Richard shook his head. "I stand by what I said, Emily. Lorelai is NOT here for her birthday, by her own choice, so she clearly does not care what plans you wished to make for her, just as she didn't care last year...or have you perhaps forgotten the blazing shouting match the two of you had over it?"

"No, of course, I haven't forgotten! She told me she didn't want any damn party where all I was going to do was push our snobbish friends on her to look down their noses at her and drop not-so-subtle hints that she should marry Christopher."

"You have to admit, Emily, that was part of your plan," he reminded her.

"Well, so what? Why shouldn't she be pushed to make the right decision for once? When you get pregnant, you get married, it's as simple as that! And don't you try to act as if this is all my doing. You were the one who promised you'd set Christopher up in your company."

"I would still be quite willing to do so, however, Lorelai made it rather plain that she had absolutely no interest in it, no interest in marrying Christopher and no interest in your party!"

"Oh, God! What if that's why she ran away? Because I cancelled her birthday party last year!"

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"You think it's ridiculous? That letter doesn't make it sound so ridiculous to me when she accused me of controlling her every move!"

"Yes, I think it's ridiculous. I think it's ridiculous that you cancelled her party out of spite, I think it's ridiculous that you think that's why she ran away, I think it's ridiculous that I lost potential clients over you cancelling the party at the last minute and most of all, I find this entire argument ridiculous when it won't do anything to bring her back!"

"Of course," she snorted all traces of her tears gone. "That's what you care about, isn't it? Your precious business!" Mocking him in a childish voice, she added, "I lost potential clients over it." In her normal voice, she snapped at him, "You know, just once at a party, you could spend your time mingling with our guests instead of turning our home into your boardroom."

"What else would you suggest I do at these dull parties of yours, Emily? Perhaps I should spend all my time with your vapid DAR friends while they engage in idle prattle about who's got a new trophy wife or who's shtupping their secretary."

"Vapid?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "I suppose you find me vapid too, but I've noticed that idle prattle doesn't seem to bother you when you're at the club trying to land a new client over eighteen holes."

"That's business, Emily, and might I remind you, business that paid for this house and business that I must attend to." He held up his wrist and tapped at his watch. "And very soon. You know quite well that I can't cancel on Austin who provides one of my company's largest accounts, especially when he's flown up here from D.C. just to meet with me this weekend, something I might remind you, he did as a courtesy to me so that I wouldn't have to go out of town on Lorelai's birthday and leave you completely alone for days." He took a deep breath to calm himself and in a cooler tone, added, "Now I suggest you get dressed and treat this like any other day. Come to the club with me and meet with your girlfriends, go have lunch with the ladies at the DAR or whatever it is you would do on any other day when you know I have business to attend to. Maybe have a glass of wine or two with lunch to calm your nerves."

"Don't be ridiculous, Richard, Only trollops and trophy wives have two glasses of wine at lunch."

Richard grinned at her salaciously and replied, "Maybe it will be the start of a whole new you."

"Oh, Richard, honestly," Emily replied as she slapped at him playfully, the tension between them broken for the moment.

"What's really going on here, Emily?" he asked her earnestly. "There's more to it than just your thwarted plans for her birthday." When she simply shrugged, he questioned, "Isn't there?"

She nodded slowly. "Detective Mills called yesterday and said that they couldn't invest any more time in looking for her and Rory since they were out of leads and..." she swallowed hard in an attempt to keep herself from breaking down again, "...and since she's turning eighteen, they couldn't make her come home if she didn't want to. He also said that even if they did find her since she would legally be an adult, they were not obligated to tell us where she is...or Rory since she's her mother."

"I see," was Richard's reply as he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Emily shook off the tears that had begun to form again and raged, "What the hell is wrong with them that they couldn't find her by now? How damn difficult can it be for trained police officers to track down a seventeen-year-old girl...with a year-old baby, no less? My God, they must have the collective intelligence of a garden hose! She can't have gone that far, for God's sake! It's not as if she had a huge amount of money to travel with. She can't touch her trust fund until she's twenty-one." A horrible thought struck her just then. "Oh God, what if she's out of money? What if they're living on the streets? What if they're starving?"

"Emily, stop it! I think you and I both know Lorelai better than that," Richard chided her. "You know that she would never let Rory starve."

"But the police said that they couldn't find any records that she was working anywhere and a minor has to apply for a work permit to be able to work legally...so that must mean she's doing something illegal. What if she's turned to drugs...or worse...to make a living?"

"What exactly are you suggesting, Emily?"

"Well, you hear these horror stories on the news all the time about these teenage prostitution rings and she did get pregnant before her sixteenth birthday."

"Emily, you are overreacting! You know that Lorelai is much too smart to allow herself to become mixed up in something as shady as all that. Have you perhaps considered the possibility that some kind soul has taken her in and let her work off the books?" he asked. His voice softened, "Who could take one look at little Rory and turn her away or let her go without? And you know Lorelai...she's a Gilmore...she would never accept a handout. She'd insist on working to earn her keep. I'll bet that's what has happened."

Emily breathed a sigh of relief and nodded. "You're right. I'm sure I'm overreacting. It's just...I'd give anything to just be able to see her again...or just hear her voice again. If she'd only just call us to let us know that she's all right...that she's safe."

"She will...in time. I'm sure of it," Richard replied confidently to reassure her, though he wasn't as sure as he tried to make it sound. While neither would admit it, Lorelai and Emily were cut from the same cloth in their sheer stubbornness and their unwillingness to admit when they were wrong. He knew Austin Smyth was a government type. Perhaps he could provide some assistance in the next steps in locating their wayward daughter to give them both some peace of mind.

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Four holes in, Richard hit a long drive landing square on the green and his golfing companion uttered, "I think you may birdie this one." Austin Smyth paused as he stepped up to the tee box for his shot. "Speaking of, a little birdie tells me you still haven't heard from your prodigal daughter."

Richard nodded. "No, we haven't," he confessed.

"Pity." He swung at his ball, landing it inches from Richard's.

"The bigger pity is that Emily seems to think life should just stop because she's gone and because today is her birthday."

As they walked toward the green together, Smyth inquired, "Speaking of her fiesta de cumpleaños, this birdie also tells me that your local boys in blue have suspended their investigation now that the girl is no longer a blushing schoolgirl."

Richard couldn't help laughing sardonically. "Considering that she got pregnant before her sixteenth birthday, I doubt she was ever blushing."

He shook his head as if to shake off that nagging thought. Even though he'd known since just after her fifteenth birthday that she was no longer a virgin when he'd caught her in the act with a different boy, then later learned Christopher had gotten her pregnant, he still had trouble digesting that information. While he'd tried to console Emily and get her to listen to reason, he couldn't help partially blaming his wife for their daughter's behavior.

Contrary to her insistence that he hadn't read Lorelai's letter, he had, too many times to count. Emily was just as controlling as their daughter accused her of being, but unlike their daughter, he liked that about her. He liked that she kept their home running smoothly so that he had no worries after long hours spent at the office. In Lorelai's narrative, Emily wasn't the only one to blame; he was as well for not being a hands-on father and for being gone so much. He supposed she was partially right on that, but he'd always done his best to provide for his family. That's what the man of the house was supposed to do. He just wondered how Lorelai and her daughter were being provided for now since she had no one to do such things for her. He shuddered as he recalled Emily's suggestions of her becoming involved in something illegal.

As they reached the green after the long silence between them, he cast a glance at Austin wondering just how to broach the subject, then it occurred to him that he'd said a little birdie had told him these things. He gave his companion a suspicious look. "How is it that you know all of this anyway?"

"Richard, you know what my real business is. That's why I've counted on you and your company for years...for your discretion, but you know that I'm in the business of secrets; not only keeping secrets but learning them as well."

Reaching for his putter, Richard knelt for a moment to contemplate both his prospects for making his putt and for getting Austin's assistance, then as he rose and lined up his putter, he casually inquired, "Speaking of your business, is there maybe something you could do to help with this situation? If your 'firm' is so good at finding out secrets, perhaps it could be used to discover where she's been hiding all these months." He tapped the ball with the putter and then turned to Austin with a smile as it rolled smoothly into the hole.

"My 'firm' is hardly in the business of tracking down disorderly delinquents."

"Hmm...then perhaps my business will no longer be so discreet," Richard countered in a vaguely threatening tone as he stepped out of the way to allow the other man to make his putt.

"Then perhaps we should adjourn this meeting and I should move our assets to a different firm," the Agency Director replied as he turned his attention to his shot.

"You could, I suppose, but it still wouldn't change all the secrets that I know and I happen to be personal friends with Mitchum Huntzberger." At seeing the other man's face pale slightly as he made a wild putt and sent his ball sailing past the hole, he gloated triumphantly, "Ahh...so you've heard of him. I suspected you might have since he owns half the newspapers on the Eastern Seaboard. He also has a young son a little older than my granddaughter, so I'm sure he'd understand the desperate measures a concerned father might resort to in order to make sure his child was safe."

Smyth nodded in acquiescence. "Touché. I can't spare much manpower, mind you, not without raising a red flag to the number-crunchers on the House Oversight Committee, especially since they just approved our budget a few months ago, but I do have some new recruits looking for their first field assignment in our Hartford office. I can make a call to have them pull the police reports. Will that suffice?"

"If it will help give my wife some peace of mind, it will."