AN: A Gilmore Girls story set in the nineteenth century. Sounds bad? Well, give it a try, maybe I'll manage to convince you it's not such a bad idea. Really, the Gilmores and Stars Hollow are perfectly cut out for this era! It's Javajunkie, don't be fooled with the Literati beginning!

A word of introduction from me... This is my first GG fanfic, but I'm not completely inexperienced in that area;) Years ago I used to write Friends fanfiction. Now I'm older, wiser, and with a new source of inspiration:) So, I hope you'll enjoy!

OUT OF TIME

The prelude

"I can't believe you won't let me read this book" Rory Gilmore said, looking disapprovingly at her husband.

"I already told you, it's nothing special" Jess Mariano sighed.

"What do you mean, it's not special! You've been slaving away for a month writing it day and night and now it's obviously finished, and yet you won't let me read it! Oh, don't give me that look, I know it's finished, it's all printed out nicely and put in a folder and you'll probably send it to the publisher tomorrow! Without me reading it!" Rory was not giving up.

"Please, Rory, it's really not that big of a deal." and Jess was not giving up either.

"It is to me." she pouted. "I'm always the first one to read your work. You always say I'm your best critic! Why not now?"

"Because it's not like my other books, okay?" he shrugged his shoulders. "It's different. I'm not even going to publish it under my own name."

"What? Why? And what name will you use then?"

"I don't know, Kirk Gleason?" Jess suggested with a smirk.

"Jess! I'm serious! What is this all about? Why is this such a mystery?" she asked.

Jess sighed again. There was no winning with a Gilmore, was there? She was going to ask and ask, and pout and make sad faces and if nothing helped, she would threaten to scratch all his vinyls. With a nail-file. He knew she wouldn't dare, but it was better to stay on the safe side. It was not a collection to be found in every Stars Hollow household and he wasn't going to take risks.

"Fine, I'll tell you. This book is going to bring us money. It's just a big sell out, pretty much. After we talked about having a baby, I started thinking and I came to the conclusion that I just don't earn enough to support you and that future baby the way I'd like it."

"Oh Jess, but you..." Rory started, but he interrupted.

"I know, I know, I write books, and they are getting better, and the critics are giving me raving reviews, but it's not getting us money, Rory. My books are not the kind of books that would make the top ten in Andrew's bookstore. So I decided to change that, I'm going to churn out shamless bestsellers everytime I feel we need cash."

"Jess, you're being ridiculous." Rory chuckled. "You can't just plan to write a bestseller."

"Sure I can, if the Harry Potter lady could, then why not me?" Jess argued. "You think I'm worse than her?"

"Of course I don't think you're worse than the Harry Potter lady. Okay, I believe you. You wrote an instant bestseller. Can I at least read it now? Before you're catapulted to fame?" she added maliciously.

"Well, since you already know about it, I guess you can read it as well. But I warn you: it's crap. It's mush. It's sugar dripping from all the drama. Well, it's just like a bestseller ought to be." he added, off her look. "And it's a romance and it's historical, set in the 19th century and wow, it all sounds really bad. It's your risk, Rory."

"Fine. Give it to me." Rory demanded impatiently and when she was handed the folder, opened it frantically. "Lorelai!" she exclaimed. "The first chapter is called Lorelai! Jess, you wrote a book about me!" she looked at him incredulously.

"Um, no, not really, since when do I call you Lorelai?"

"Are you telling me you wrote about my mother?" Rory eyes went wide at that thought.

"Well, Rory, in some twisted way, I did." Jess admitted sheepishly.

"You wrote a romance about my mother. Just great. I suddenly feel dubious about my husband's feelings. He seems to have been harboring secret longing for my mother for all these years." she gave him a questioning look.

"Oh geez, of course I didn't write about her and me! It's about her and Luke!" he explained.

"What?" Rory laughed loudly. "You wrote a crap historical romance about my mother and Luke! Oh boy, I know you never liked her, but, man, you must really hate her!"

"I don't hate your mother, in fact, I made her a very affable heroine. It will be a peace offering more than anything else. I'm sure she won't mind. Luke will, but we will just tell him it's for the money, which we'll use for our baby. That'll work, the family feelings and so on." Jess stopped, suddenly out of breath. He suspected he was always so silent in presence of other people because he used up all his spoken words with Rory. He took a deep breath. "Look, just get some coffee, sit down and read it. And I'm going to sleep, I stayed up last night finishing the book. And I'm definitely not staying here to witness all the mockery while you're reading it."

Jess left with as much as a grateful kiss on the lips from his wife. Rory, just as he suggested, equipped herself with a cup of strong coffee, and a generous helping of blueberry pie (she figured Chinese leftovers wouldn't go too well with a historical romance). She sat down in her favorite armchair, squished a little to make herself comfortable and sighed contentedly. Then, she opened the book.

Chapter One: Lorelai

Babette was sitting at her living room window, her hands busy with sewing, but occasionally she couldn't fight the temptation and looked through the window to see if anyone could be seen passing by. It was very unlikely, as no one lived in the house next to her and Morey's, and anyway, they lived in a rather quiet part of Stars Hollow. But Babette never ceased to hope. After all, you never knew when something interesting is going to happen. And what would Patty say if she, Babette, missed anything worth interest? No, it was better to keep checking from time to time.

And finally, to Babette's utmost delight, something did happen.

"Morey!" she cried. "There's a carriage coming!"

"Oh?" Morey, her husband, acknowledged, barely taking his eyes off the piano, on which he was leisurely playing.

"It's stopped in front of the Stones' house. Oooh, Morey, it's the same people who came there last week, only they're in a different carriage, of course I would have known them right away if they had come in the same one. Well, they must have bought the house, Patty and I have been wondering whether they would, but I said it was highly improbable. I mean, they barely spent ten minutes in the house and went away. And I don't really know why they would be interested. It's a pretty house, but they look really, really rich. In fact, Morey, they look as if they could buy up the entire Stars Hollow. And they have at least two carriages!"

"Well, then maybe they now want two houses, too." Morey noticed.

"But surely not such a small one! Oh! Morey, believe it or not, but they have suitcases with them! There is the woman and the man who came last week, and a young girl, about sixteen or seventeen. And a woman, in her fifties, I suppose. Well, now they all came in. Do you think they could be already moving in?" Babette now turned to her husband in disbelief, her sewing lying on her knees and long forgotten.

"Why, I have no idea, darling. I guess we'll find out soon enough, won't we?" Morey kept playing, as if his wife wasn't going through the torment of actually not knowing what was going on in her own neighborhood.

---

"Well, I suppose you're all settled then" Emily Gilmore looked around the living room, and then rested her eyes on her daughter.

"Yes, mother" was the reply she got.

"I hope you will find yourself comfortable here. After all, this will be your house now for quite a while."

"I will be alright, mother"

Emily sighed, frustrated.

"I hope you realize we don't approve of this, Lorelai. This isn't what was supposed to be done, young lady. Your decision not to marry Christopher was inexcusable. We should have forced you to marry him!"

"Emily, please save your breath." Richard Gilmore cut in, with a very meaningful calmness in his voice. "She knows all of this. We have had this conversation about a hundred times already. You know she wouldn't be forced. You know she threatened to run away or to harm herself if we were to make her marry him."

"I wish you stopped talking as if I wasn't standing right here" Lorelai muttered and she received an icy glare from her father.

"You are in no position to wish anything, Lorelai. We have already done too much of what you wanted. Marrying Christopher would be for the best for everyone included in this pathetic story, but of course, you just had to ruin it all."

Lorelai didn't answer. Oh, she could say a lot. She never had troubles with talking. But right now, it was of no use. Her father wouldn't understand and neither would her mother. For the past two weeks she had talked and talked and talked until there were almost no words left in her, and still they didn't understand.

"Well, Emily, I think we should set off now. We still have a party to go to tonight." Richard reminded.

"Yes, yes, you're right." Emily agreed absent-mindedly, once again inspecting the room around her. "We'll be visiting you, Lorelai." she said. "If you need anything Helen can't buy here, just tell her and she will wire us. And please, do as you were told. Try to stay out of people's sight."

"But I have to go out once in a while!"

"You can sometimes go out into the garden, I guess" Emily conceded.

"Oh, and I suppose at night, too, so no one can see me." Lorelai added sarcastically.

"Well, if you don't mind the evening air..." Emily replied, not at all jokingly.

"Mother!"

"It was your suggestion!"

"I-was-joking!" Lorelai almost hissed.

"Enough of this." Richard held up his hand to stop the ridiculous quarrel of the women in his family. "Lorelai, we are leaving now. You know what you are supposed to do. Only I hope this time you will actually behave as is expected of you. You have caused us enough trouble and are bound to cause more, please consider this in your further conduct."

Lorelai dropped her head and fixed her eyes on the floor. Oh, how she hated to be humiliated like that. She really wished they would leave her alone already. She just wanted to be alone, to be able to think clearly. To be able to think about anything else then her current situation. But, honestly, she doubted whether that particular wish could be granted, even when her parents would finally do her the favor of leaving.

"Goodbye, Lorelai." she heard and looked up. Her father was already out of the house and her mother was standing at the door, waiting to be replied to. "Please take care of yourself."

"I will, mother." she answered and for the first time that day she felt a weird stinging in her eyes, as if she was about to cry. But she fought this feeling, for even if her mother was now showing any weakness by revealing her minimal kindness, she, Lorelai, wasn't going to indulge in any displays of affection.

Her mother turned with a final sigh, but Lorelai still had a question to ask. She couldn't force herself to ask it in her father's presence, but now she was finally alone with her mother. And she just had to know it.

"Mother" she called out and Emily faced her again. "I just... Can you tell me... what will happen next?"

"Next?" Emily repeated.

"What will happen when the baby is born? What will happen to me and to the baby? You never told me." Lorelai asked, trying very hard not to let her voice shake at the mere mention of the baby and herself in the same sentence.

"We have never told you, Lorelai, because we ourselves don't know it yet." her mother answered after a short silence.

"Will you give it away?"

"Lorelai..." Emily was exasperated. Hasn't she just told her daughter that she didn't know yet?

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to know. It is my baby, after all." Lorelai's voice was defensive.

"Oh, Lorelai, I know it is your baby all too well, believe me." Emily said and with that, she left.

---

"I really don't understand this now. The man and the woman are just leaving, but the girl and the other woman have stayed at the house." Babette scrunched up her nose in confusion.

"Maybe they just went to get more of their things." Morey shrugged.

"Oh, Morey, you don't really think people dressed like this and with such a carriage would be going to and fro to do their own moving! No, no. And they looked pretty relieved to be leaving. I reckon only the other two will live here."

"Maybe they are some relatives of the other two. Sometimes the rich like to do a good deed. Maybe they got this house for a poor aunt, or whoever." Morey suggested.

"Yes, this is an option!" Babette almost jumped up with excitement. "Oh, I just can't wait to tell Patty!"

"And I bet Patty can't wait to be told" Morey smiled tolerantly. Babette was an awful gossip, but... he really did love his wife.

---

Lorelai was only sixteen but right now she really felt as if she was at least ten years older than that.

She was expecting a baby. Yes, she was sixteen, unmarried and expecting a baby. A baby out of wedlock. Just how dreadful that sounded?

She stood in her new bedroom, in front of the mirror and scrutinized her figure in the looking-glass. You couldn't tell yet that she was pregnant. But the doctor told her parents that she wasn't far along yet and she still had some time before it started to show.

It was weird, the knowledge that inside of her, there was a new life growing. A boy or a girl, who would be like her, or like Christopher. But preferably like her, she decided in her mind.

Lorelai had known Christopher ever since she could remember. They belong to the elite families of Hartford, the Gilmores and the Haydens. Two rebeling children, who loved to play tricks on adults, loved horse-riding, climbing trees and playing Indians in the garden, the activities most of which had to be carried out behind their parents' backs. But even to her mother and father's face Lorelai was not an angel. She had a reputation of driving her nannies and governesses away with a frequence equal to her mother's firing the house maids. And that was definitely an achievement.

It was a year ago that the real trouble started. When Lorelai turned fifteen, she was already a very beautiful young woman, with raven hair and blue eyes that could win anyone over. And they definitely worked for Christopher. He found himself in love with the girl who had been his comrade in all his crazy escapades for years. And his feelings weren't completely unreciprocated. The new spark in his eyes, something she had never seen in them before, stirred something in Lorelai, something she couldn't even name. It was the inclination to spend more time picking a dress than ever before, to check her hair once in a while when she was with him, to let him hold her hand if he wanted to.

So she let him hold her hand and kiss her gently, first on the cheek and then on the lips, and she liked it. She felt like a woman, she felt as if she was really adult now and could do whatever she wanted. And that – having been brought up in a house where most of the things she wanted to do were forbidden – was what she cherished most.

And finally, two months ago, she went all the way. She gave herself to Chris. Not that he pressed her to do it, no, she would lie if she said that. He couldn't have pressed her, because they had never discussed this, never planned it. They were just enjoying one of their secret meetings and, somehow, spontaneously decided to enjoy it even more than usual. She knew it was wrong. She knew she shouldn't have done that! Had she thought about it more, maybe she would have decided against it. But Lorelai loved risk. In all their games, challenges and bets, she always put most on stake. She always climbed the highest trees and swam in the deepest waters. So she just risked again, a game to her like any other.

And after all, what could happen. She knew some of the maids were meeting other servants or other boys secretly and judging by their hushed giggles, they did more with them than just kiss. Why the maids could enjoy themselves more than her, was beyond Lorelai.

It only happened once. But, as she reflected afterwards, that was quite enough. She soon found out she was pregnant, the first symptoms appearing so soon and with such intensity that her mother, worried about her health, called a doctor.

That was two weeks ago. When the doctor told the Gilmores their only daughter, only sixteen of age, was expecting a baby, they were furious with her. But they knew there was only one way out of this – to have her marry Christopher. When she insisted on telling him by herself, they agreed, and that was probably when they made their mistake. Lorelai told Chris, but when she saw his face... the look of shock, disbelief and entrapment made her almost ache inside. She knew it was only natural, they were so young and here she was telling him that he was going to be a father. But she knew him well enough to know his feelings and it really, really hurt her to know that he so obviously didn't want the baby, that he'd rather it had never happened between them.

Of course, he did the honourable thing and proposed. She hadn't expected any less, and, honestly, ever since she found out about the baby, she had been going to accept. That was the only way in their society. But, looking at him, seeing him so scared and helpless, she just couldn't say yes. He didn't want it and, with strange relief, she realized she didn't either. He was supposed to go to college, to have a career like his father and she would only be a clog to his feet. Chris was a dear friend, but she honestly couldn't imagine them being married for the rest of their lives.

If the news about her pregnancy caused a storm in the Gilmore household, her refusal gave way to a real hurricane. Her parents were so mad that she thought they would kill her, and each other in the process. Her mother was in true hysterics for two days. Her father barely spoke to her. But Lorelai was determined, and just as Richard reminded Emily that day, she threatened to escape or to hurt herself if they tried to force her to marry Chris. Of course, she wouldn't probably resort to any hurting, but right now her parents would believe anything.

Christopher's parents, Straub and Francine, were probably elated that she refused to marry their unlucky son. She knew what they must have been thinking about her – that she had seduced Christopher, that it was all her fault. But naturally, they showed their comfort to the Gilmores and even once or twice tried to convince Lorelai to be reasonable, in a less than eager way. But when Lorelai proved to be iron-willed, Straub suggested something (not to her face, but she was eavesdropping) that made her glad she wasn't going to belong to this family. He just said that she could get rid of the baby and while Lorelai knew that there were women, and even some doctors, who could do that, she felt sick at the mere thought of it. Get rid of the baby! Never!

Finally her parents decided to go with a different procedure, one, as her father sarcastically remarked, that would be suitable if she was expecting a blacksmith's baby, not Christopher Hayden's. She was going to be sent away, something that was rumored to happen to one or two girls she distantly knew. Everyone was to be told that she was traveling, or that she had to go away because of poor health. But her parents found a house in Stars Hollow, a tiny town she had never heard of before, 30 miles from Hartford, and she was to be placed there. She was going to live there with Helen, a servant who had managed to keep her place at the Gilmores for a record period of half a year and was therefore considered trustworthy (and was now also being paid unreasonably well for keeping her mouth shut). Lorelai was supposed to stay out of people's curious sight. It was better to be safe, even though Stars Hollow really was a dump of which existence not many Hartford rich inhabitans were aware.

But that was all she knew. She knew she would stay here until the baby was born, but what then?

In the past few weeks she had screamed and cried, and thought and worried so much that she was now very, very tired.

And that was why she felt so old.