Title: Point of Breaking – Prologue
Author: Emily Carter (/tucker529)
Words: 2,282
Time-line: Fifth season and on: alternate universe
Episodes: Set during A Messenger, Nothing More and beyond
Pairing: Finn Rothschild/Rory Gilmore (PDLD)
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Summary: After a summer in Europe with her grandmother, Rory Gilmore still doesn't have her head on straight, so when Finn Rothschild walks into her life and captures her attention, she's not sure what to do. Especially when men from her past begin to appear, demanding another chance in fixing the mistakes that were made.
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I likely do not own. Although I do on occasion toy with storylines and characters, I will give credit where credit is due.
Michaelover101 has contributed ideas throughout this story, and many others, but has not done any direct writing for it.
There are direct quotes from the episodes Raincoats and Recipes (Season 4, Episode 22)
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"Rory! Oh, my God. You're missing everything!" Lorelai Gilmore yelled, running as fast as she could in heels up the stairs towards her bedroom, clutching at the railing along the way. "Grab those CDs and head back to the inn before you miss the cross-dressing midgets. That's where the night is headed. Oh! Things are happening—big things, wow things. I have so much to tell you. Let me just open with this little tidbit—Kirk running naked through the square. Of course, with all my careful planning and preparation, I forgot to bring Band-aids and a camera," she continued, rushing towards the desk in the hallway between the kitchen and living room, digging through the drawers looking for her camera. "I have got to learn that, always, without fail, Kirk equals camera," Lorelai paused, seeing Rory rush out of her bedroom, fingers running through her hair and clothes rumpled. "Hey, what's going on?" she quietly said, her voice leery when Dean jumped out of Rory's room, a guilty look on his face as the two stumble around with their words.
"Dean came over to borrow something."
"Yeah," Dean Forester said, pausing for a moment as he continued to look at Lorelai, her face beginning to dawn with realization and horror at the situation that she walked into before he turned back to Rory, his shoulders tense. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"So, um, I should go. Umm… bye, Lorelai."
"Bye, Dean," Rory quietly said, her eyes following his form as he dashed out the back door, refusing to look back at her and face the repercussions of what he'd done. "So I'm almost done getting the CDs together. I picked a wide selection so we'd have choices, and then I picked a bunch that probably only you will like, but it's good to have options," Rory quickly explained, trying to keep her mother from her path towards the doorway to her bedroom.
Spotting the rumpled bed, and she sheets thrown back, Lorelai turned to her daughter, a look of pure sadness on her face as she took in Rory's appearance, "So, what… what'd he borrow?"
"I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about it first. I know I promised I would, but I swear, I didn't know that this was going to happen. I mean, I didn't know he was going to show up together, and it just happened. It's awful for you to find out like this, I know, but everything's okay. I'm okay, and we were, you know, safe. So all those Trojan man jokes all these years really apparently stuck. And I'm lucky, too, because Dean, he's—well, aren't you glad that it happened with someone who's good and… and really loves me?" Rory sputtered out, rushing her words as she was unable to look Lorelai in the eyes, fearful that tears would spill over in both their eyes if Rory looked her in the face.
"But… he's married."
"You don't understand the situation."
"Is he still married?"
"Yes, but –"
"Then I understand the situation."
"It's not working out between them. They're not happy."
"Oh, Rory…" Lorelai said, shaking her head at her daughter naivety.
"He tried the best he could, but it didn't work. It's over."
"He told you that?"
"Yes."
"He told you he's leaving her?"
"Well—" Rory started, her eyes moving away from her mother and looking towards the other side of the room, avoiding her gaze.
"He told you he's moving out, they're getting divorced, he's got a lawyer, they've divided up the monster-truck season tickets?" Lorelai reasoned, desperate to get her daughter to see reason.
"We didn't get around to discussing everything."
"You didn't get around to discussing everything?"
"It was a crazy night," Rory said, her voice soft in the kitchen.
"You, of all people—the girl who thinks everything through, the list maker—you didn't bother to discuss those things before jumping into bed with a married guy?"
"He's not a married guy. He's Dean – my Dean," she demanded, her eyes angry.
"He's not your Dean. He's Lindsay's Dean. You're the other woman."
"I told you, it's over."
"It's not over until he's out of the house with the ring off."
"He took the ring off," Rory said, throwing her arms up in exasperation.
"Oh, my god, I don't believe this," Lorelai said, disbelieving at the mess her daughter got herself into with Dean.
"He's in love with me, not Lindsay."
"Does Lindsay know that?"
"She's not good for him, okay? She lets him quit school and work himself to death and –" Rory said, raising her voice slightly, trying desperately to make her mother listen to her reasoning.
"No, no, Rory, uh-uh, you can't be one of those girls who blames the wife for forcing the husband to cheat."
"He wasn't cheating."
"He was cheating, Rory. He was cheating, and you were cheating with him," Lorelai said, watching as Rory shook her head and dropped her gaze to the floor, a look of contempt forming on her face. "There's no other way to spin that, kid."
"I'm not spinning it, and I'm not a kid. I'm nineteen."
"This is your first time. It's not the way your first time was supposed to be."
"Oh, and how was my first time supposed to be?"
"Well, first of all, it was supposed to be in a retirement home. And secondly, ideally, it was supposed to be with someone single."
"My first time was with someone sweet and kind who loves me."
"I didn't raise you to be like this. I didn't raise you to be the kind of girl who sleeps with someone else's husband."
"You slept with dad when he was with Sherry," Rory threw at her mother, a slight loathing tone directed at her mother.
"He wasn't married to Sherry," Lorelai said, her voice calm and even as she looked at Rory.
"He was engaged, and she was pregnant."
"So, this is my fault? I set one crappy example for you, and you have no choice but to follow in my footsteps?" Lorelai said, throwing it back at Rory for a moment, watching as her daughter turned and walked away, desperate to have her listen to her, she quickly followed, continuing her relentless pursuit. "Rory, what are you going to do now? Huh? Is there a plan?"
"I don't want to talk about it anymore."
"I just want what's best for you, that's all!"
"I don't want to talk about it!"
"I just don't want you to get hurt, Rory. What if he doesn't leave her? Now you're all emotionally involved."
"You're just mad because I didn't come running to you to discuss whether or not I was ready for this step. I decided it on my own."
"Well, obviously, you weren't ready for this step. The very fact that you chose another girl's guy to sleep with proves that!"
"He was my boyfriend first!"
"But you dumped him! You rejected him! You picked someone else!"
"Stop it!"
"Rory!"
"I hate you for ruining this for me!" Rory yelled, clutching her cell phone as she walked into the foyer, grabbing her jacket and rushing out of the house, tears steadily running down her cheeks.
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"Hello?" Rory said, grabbing her cell phone and answering the ringing phone.
"Your grandmother is here for her lunch," Lorelai said, rolling her eyes as her mother walked away.
"But she left," Rory said, pointing out the obvious.
"Could you just get back here?"
"I'm kind of busy," Rory said, shaking her hand.
"Rory, this is not for me, okay? This is for your grandmother. You like your grandmother, remember?"
"Fine."
"Great."
"Bye."
~_~_~
"The weather's lovely," Emily Gilmore said, nodding at the waiter.
"Yes, it is."
"Rory, don't you think it's lovely?" she questioned, making polite small talk, looking above her for a moment, enjoying the trees and birds.
"It's very lovely."
"Yes. Lovely," Emily said, looking around for a moment before abruptly making harsh movement, attracting the attention of the other two Gilmores. "Well, I don't see any reason to put this off any longer. Girls, I have something to say that may shock you, but unfortunately there's nothing I can do about that now. Lorelai, Rory, Richard and I have separated."
"And?"
"What do you mean 'and'? That's not enough? You need some sort of mob-related offing to make it interesting?"
"No, Mom, that's plenty. It's just, we already knew."
"Rory didn't."
"Well, I mean, I didn't know know—"
"Why would you tell her?"
"Mom!"
"Who else did you tell?"
"So, you haven't read 'Page Six'?"
"Rory, if you need to talk about this to try and understand why this is happen, then by all means, do not ask your mother."
"Okay, Mom, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be insensitive. It just seemed like a thing you and Dad were going through. I figured you'd make up."
"Well, we didn't."
"I see that. So, wow, you're really separated?"
"That's right. Your father's moving into the pool house."
"So then you're not separated."
"Of course we are."
"You're separated by the pool."
"That's it. That's the end of your input on this," Emily said quickly, holding her hand up in an effort to prevent her daughter from saying anything else on the matter.
"I'm sorry, Grandma."
"Well, what's done is done. I'm moving on. And to celebrate the next stage of my life, I'm going to Europe by myself for the very first time since I was in college. I'm leaving tonight."
"Tonight? That's fast."
"Well, I wanted to leave quickly, so I called my travel agent and insisted that he put me on tonight's plane to Paris no matter what. He finally managed to bump someone from a church group, and I've got my seat, and I'm leaving at 10:00. And, Rory, my offer to you still stands."
"What offer?"
"My offer to escort you around Europe this summer."
"Oh."
"Every young lady should do Europe the proper way at least once in her life, and I would be thrilled to have your company on this very special occasion. Of course, I know it's very short notice, so if you already have plans for the summer, I completely understand."
"You know, I think Europe sounds great," Lorelai said, giving her daughter a calculated look, "I think you would really enjoy that. I mean, remember—we loved Paris. You don't have anything special planned for the summer, do you?"
"No, nothing special."
"Well, then? What do you say? Would you like to be impulsive with me?"
"Sure Grandma, I'd love to," Rory said, watching as a shocked smile appeared on her mother's face.
"That is just wonderful! I'll call Ralphie right away and tell him to pump another Baptist. We'll have a wonderful time, you and I. I'll be just like 'Gigi'."
~_~_~
By the time that Rory Gilmore had graduated high school, there had only been three men in her life: Luke Danes, her father figure; Dean Forester, her first boyfriend; and then lastly, Jess Mariano, the bad boy who had taught her the ways of the world. With her mother's coffee addiction, and her habit for unhealthy food, the one thing that she didn't inherit from her mother was the habit of running from any man that got close enough to having a lasting relationship.
Now about to begin her second year at Yale University, she was struggling with the development that she began with her and Dean at the start of summer, with it officially ended, and her relationship with her mother permanently damaged, Rory was forced into wondering whether she was who she had always thought that she had been.
Closing her eyes, she held her breath as the plan slowly descended into Hartford International and her grandmother criticizing the flight attendants service. Once the plane had landed, and the passengers had been made aware of being able to move about the plane, Rory finally opened her eyes and let out a breath, quickly standing up as splotches invaded her vision, blinking quickly, trying to clear her vision and get moving, stunned when her legs weakened and gave out on her, sending her backwards towards the aisle and the mass exodus of people when tow arms wrapped around her waist and kept her in place, slowly steadying her before pulling her back into a standing position, his hands lingering on her waist, keeping her steady.
"Crap, I apologize, I've been sitting since we got on the plane in Lond…"
"Don't worry about it, love, happens to everyone at some point or another," a man said, the Australian accent surprising her and causing her to spin around to face the accented being that kept her from making a complete fool of herself rather than just a partial one.
"Rory! Hurry up, we have to get our luggage and take you home," Rory suddenly heard her grandmother yell through the crowd.
Sighing, she quickly nodded before lifting her head even higher and looking into the dark green eyes of a man close to her age, "Thank you, I would have made a complete fool out of myself if it wasn't for you…" she quietly said, reaching behind her and pulling up her messenger bag carrying her laptop and two books.
"You're welcome, Miss Gilmore," he said, "Maybe we'll meet again."
Rory had barely nodded by the time he'd snuck back into the crowd and shuffled out the doorway, leaving her with the memory of his voice and the silence that was resounding through her mind, mesmerized at the green eyes and the exotic accent that had left her speechless.
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A/N: I realize that it has been ages since I've updated this, and this isn't… necessarily an update so much as a addition and the beginning of me rewriting this story. Going back through and reading the original as a whole, I didn't feel it flowed right, and that, if you didn't have the episodes on disc like I do, that it would fit together and piece itself together as you went. I wanted to cover all of my basis, and set up the plot a little bit more steady. I should be quickly updating, since there is a vast amount of work that I've put in, figuring out what I would keep, delete, and add in for the future chapters, and how I would change the plot, since a lot of it felt rushed to me, beyond rushed in some points.
When I first started writing this story, it was due to my satisfaction for Rory's reaction to sleeping with a guy she was not dating, but a married guy who later did not keep to his word and leave his wife. It seemed to me like they glossed over it, and made it… okay in a way, that she went and helped Dean have an affair with his wife, even though after she talked (yelled) with Lorelai she knew it was wrong and they should have discussed what was going to happen more in depth. I don't know if this has been done, but I do know that I haven't read any fanfiction related to something like this, so I apologize if anyone recognizes the idea, I swear it did come from my brain. I just hope that you guys like the twist that put into this, along with the twists I will add to the plot of the story.
Oh, and I apologize for any spelling, factual, or grammar errors that you might find. I'm currently without a better, Flynn is in the hospital, and has been for an extended period of time, so I've been proofing all of my stories, and a few others for a friend, so I kind of just… slacked on this one.
I hope you guys enjoyed it, I know I sure loved writing this.
Reviews are encouraged, but I really don't like demanding them, they do have me writing faster though. :-)
- Emily
P.S. I also couldn't get the formatting right, I'll work on it more later, and it will be up with the edited version.