A/N: First ever Gilmore Girls fanfic. Always been a big fan of the show and never satisfied with the ending. This story takes off 2 years into the future with Rory living in Washington working as a political reporter. She's got a steady boyfriend and some nice friends, her life's pretty good. But is she really happy and what will happen when old faces reappear?

Not 100% sure where I'm taking this but will include both Logan and Jess, my two favourites that I can't decide between, so have not decided who will have the upper hand and end up with Rory.

One minorly drastic AU change, Lorelai and Christopher stayed married. Always believed he was the right man for her and Luke and Lorelai were better off as friends.

The sound from the bustling city carries easily into the otherwise quiet apartment. The only sound coming from the inside is that of fingers tapping on a keyboard as Rory types away. She's rushing to finish an article about the new bill proposed in the House of Representatives today. She'd been covering the House for a year now after impressing the political editor at the Washington Post on her year touring with Obama's campaign. It wasn't quite the New York Times but it was a steady writing job at a top newspaper. She glanced over at the clock hanging on the wall as she sent the piece off to her editor. A quarter to twelve. She shut her laptop closed, leaned back in her chair and looked around her apartment. It was a small, one bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a rather worn down walk-up in one of the more worn down inner city areas. The interior of the apartment matched the outside, it had only the essentials and the only personal items were a few picture frames here and there along with, of course, Rory's books. Her grandparents had offered to buy her a much more glamourous apartment in a better neighbourhood, or to turn this one into a 'liveable' state, but Rory had refused. She wanted to build her life on her own merit. To keep them happy she had let the Gilmores buy her a state of the art laptop and some shelves for all her books. She stroked her hand over the shut laptop and sighed as she stood up and went to bed.

The next morning Rory woke up to her phone ringing. Her mother was on the other end.

"I've got 5 legs" Lorelai exclaimed as soon as Rory picked up the phone.

"Huh?"

"Legs. 5 legs. I have 5 legs. In my dream last night I had 5 legs and I need you to help me figure out what it means"

"Oh Jesus, get dad to do it, or even better, your other daughter. It's her turn now to deal with your craziness"

"My other daughter's not grasped the art of dream interpreting yet, we're just about stepping into mommy's spontaneous whims. Oh and the talking bit, she's not got that down just yet. And your dad's still sleeping, Babette got his claws on him when we came back from Friday Night Dinner last night and made him help her with their new TV and man was she holding on tight, I had to go and get him after a few hours. Poor thing still has trouble getting away from Babette sometimes. I thought I'd let him sleep in peace"

"But instead you woke me up at 6am!" Rory spat out.

"Okay Miss Cranky-pants, what's wrong?"

"Sorry mom, I'm just tired, the House's sessions have been running late all week and then I've got to rush the articles in. Last night was the first time I've been done before midnight and since today's Saturday I wanted to sleep in and.."

"Whoa, sweetie, calm down. Sounds to me like you need a bit of a break. How about you come up to Stars Hollow for the weekend? We'll pull out the big guns and have an old fashioned movie night?"

"That sounds great mum but I can't, I'm meeting Pete's parents over dinner tonight"

"WHAT?! You're meeting the parents? Why didn't you tell me? That's huge news!"

"Well if you'd let me finish my earlier rant I was coming to that next. I'm meeting his parents tonight. They're in town for Pete's birthday and he thought it was time I met them. And of course I've been working late all week so I couldn't go shop for anything nice to wear and my hair is a mess and they'll think I'm some trashy slacker."

"Kid, calm down. If his parents think you're a slacker they're idiots because no one can spend more than 5 minutes with you without realizing you're the most dedicated worker there is. Now, go back to sleep for a few hours, then get an emergency hair appointment, wear your blue dress that we got last month and you'll look fine, okay?"

"Yeah, alright. Thanks mom"

"Anytime kid."

Rory hung up the phone and went back to sleep. She woke up at noon and she saw she'd never get a hair appointment on this short notice on a Saturday so she decided to ring up her friend Sam. Sam had joined the Post a couple weeks before Rory had and they'd bonded over both being new and soon became good friends. Sam had worked a few years working for Cosmopolitan magazine before moving to Washington and she was all knowing when it came to hair, beauty, boys and fashion. Rory felt no shame in exploiting her friend's skills and demanded she'd come over and fix the state that was her hair.

"Are you eternally in my debt or what?" Sam said as she barged through the door, arms full with bags and holding coffees and baked goods in her hands. She was a year younger than Rory, a few inches taller, had long blonde hair and a gorgeous body.

"Figured you hadn't eaten breakfast yet" she continued as she put down the food on the kitchen table and got rid of her bags onto the couch.

"Oh I am in your debt forever" Rory said as she rummaged through the bag full of Danishes and doughnuts.

Sam laughed at her friend and picked up her cup of coffee. "So where shall I start?"

The two girls gossiped and laughed as the blonde worked on her friend's hair. They hadn't seen each other much the last couple of weeks with Rory so busy in the Capitol and Sam had gone back home to Louisiana for the previous weekend for her sister's wedding.

"And the whole weekend was ruined because now all anyone will remember about Savannah's wedding is how uncle Bobby got drunk and smooched Earl the fishmonger" Both girls laughed as Sam finished her account of the wedding.

"How about you, did you do any smooching?" Rory asked with a cheeky grin. Sam was single and taking every advantage of it, which proved very easy with her looks and southern charm. Rory couldn't remember a Monday that didn't start with stories of Sam's romantic escapades the previous weekend.

"It's only tradition that the maid of honor get with the best man" the blonde answered giggling. "There. I think I'm done" she added as she handed Rory a mirror to get a better look at the back of her head.

"It looks great, I love it. Thanks Sam" Rory said as she stroked her fingers through her newly cut and blown out hair.

"Anytime hon. Now, unless you want me to do your make up I gotta bolt, got my own date to prepare for"

"Ooh, anyone I've heard of?"

"The veterinarian. Tonight might be the night" Sam said sneakily as she got her things ready to leave.

"Well call me tomorrow with all the details"

"You too, good luck" the blonde called as she headed down the hallway.

Rory shut her door after her friend had disappeared down the stairs. She turned her music on and headed back into the bathroom to start putting her face on.

Rory straightened the skirt of her dress for the umpteenth time as she stood in front of the full size mirror on her closet waiting for the cab to arrive. She was focusing her nervousness on fidgeting with her outfit even though she knew she looked fine. Her hair was as-if-casually flowing down to her shoulders, she was wearing the dark blue dress she'd gotten with her mom on their last shopping trip, it was a flowy V-neck that suited her perfectly. She'd opted for going light on the jewellery, small gems in her ears and a delicate silver tennis bracelet on her wrist. She brought her hand up and twisted the bracelet around. She hadn't worn it for over 2 years. It was the bracelet Logan had given her for Valentine's Day that year they went to the Vineyard. She didn't let herself think about Logan too much and it still felt wrong to wear the things he'd given her, but she'd looked at the bracelet, laying there in her jewellery box unused, untouched and thought to herself it's time. She's about to go and meet Pete's parents. It's time to forget all about Logan and put him in the past. It's of no use to anyone to keep these things as mementos of him, might as well start using them and then they won't be hold these strong memories anymore. She was brought out of her thoughts by her phone beeping to let her know her cab was there. She took one last look in the mirror, grabbed her shawl and purse and headed out the door.

Hope you guys liked it. Know it's a bit dry, but need to set the scene a little bit. Will not promise to deliver chapters at any certain time schedule nor that I'll always make them this long, but I will try not to keep to long between them.