This takes place during the present. Rory turns to Christopher for support because she has no one else. I love Christopher so he is going to be a main character in this story. If you hate Christopher and love Luke you may not want to read. I'm not a big Luke fan.
Christopher Hayden sat quietly on his couch as his daughter had an emotional breakdown. She had shown up here two hours ago wearing nothing but her nightgown. As soon as he saw her he knew something was wrong. Rory wasn't the kind of girl to just show up somewhere in the middle of the night. "So you dropped out of Yale, because Logan's father Mitchum Huntzberger said that you weren't cut out to be a journalist?" Christopher asked delicately. He didn't want her to feel like he was criticizing her choice.
"Yes, no, maybe, well see the thing is I don't really know. It's like I just want to breathe for a minute. I don't want to have to worry about mid-terms and lectures. It's more like everyone else got this really fun and exciting childhood where they were able to just take breaks and I wasn't. I never got a break. I just want a break." Rory explained the best she could. She felt sort of stupid sitting here in her father's living room wearing nothing but her nightgown. She didn't know why she woke up and suddenly needed to talk to him. She just did. She knew that he would understand. No one understood her mother better than he did. Not even Luke could figure out why Lorelai Gilmore did the things she did. So now she was sitting here with her father, who was looking extremely disheveled wearing an old Red Sox t-shirt and a pair of boxers. Still he was here listening to her and making her feel like maybe she wasn't as much of a screw up as she felt right now.
Christopher nodded sagely as he listened. "I know what you mean. It's like you feel trapped. You feel like you never have any time to just live life. It's like half your day is in a classroom listening to some prestigious professor and the other half is spent in your dorm room or the library trying to figure what the hell he was talking about in the first place. It's like you want a moment of simplicity."
"You get it. You actually get it. I mean grandmother and grandfather pretend to get it but they don't. They just don't want to be the bad guys. You though, you get it. You understand why I feel like my whole life is falling apart." Rory for the first time this evening was smiling. She was actually beaming. She felt like this huge weight had just been lifted off of her shoulders.
"I dropped out of Princeton because I had that exact same feeling." Christopher started and then took a drink of his coffee. "I dropped out and decided that I would live. I would be more than just Christopher Hayden. I thought maybe I would shed my princely image." He laughed a little at the mere thought that he could ever be considered a prince. "I realized though after six months of doing absolutely nothing and not using my brain at all that I needed to go back. I had to do something with my life again. I mean don't get me wrong it was amazing to be able to just live in the moment and not have to worry about Roosevelt's feelings about reform or Johnson's inability to make effective military decisions during Vietnam."
"Would you do it again if you had to make the decision with the knowledge you have now?" Rory was intrigued by the thought that maybe she was more like her father than anyone ever said. Of course most people didn't know Christopher. Still she was surprised to find that she was completely like Lorelai. No there was actually a little bit of Chris mixed in there too.
Chris smiled and questioned whether to answer her honestly or not. He decided that it wouldn't help anybody if he lied. "No I wouldn't. I missed a lot. I came back and I was behind. I graduated later than my peers. I would have taken a week off, but now six months." Christopher hesitated for a moment and then decided to ask his question. "Why are you coming to me instead of your mother?"
Rory looked down at her feet and then back up at the ceiling. She searched for words that wouldn't sound hateful. "She's turned her back on me. She didn't like that I decided to drop out of Yale. She didn't like that I was dating Logan Huntzberger. She hasn't respected anything I've done these last few months. So why go to her?"
Christopher was shocked at Rory's statement. Her relationship with Lorelai had always been so solid. "Why doesn't she like Logan, from what you've said he makes you very happy?"
"She blames him for everything. She thinks it was his idea to steal the yacht. She thinks he's a bad person. She says that he is just some spoiled kid who will never grow up. She doesn't think he's good enough to be with me. She doesn't understand how I could love him. She doesn't understand how special he makes me feel. For the first time Dad, I'm not Mary. No I'm Rory and I have these new amazing friends who don't take life too seriously. She wants me to live her life and I can't."
"He sounds amazing Rory. I'm happy you have someone good like that in your life. So your mom and Luke are still together?"
Rory nodded. "Yeah they're solid last I checked." Rory started to say something else when she realized that her cell phone was ringing. She looked at the caller ID and smiled. "Hey, what are you doing up?"
Christopher smiled at the fact that she was beaming again. He couldn't believe that Rory and Lorelai were having so many problems. If anyone should be there for Rory right now it should be Lorelai. They had always been close. She shouldn't be mad at Rory for not following the plan. He knew that the only way for things to really be good with Rory again was for him to fix this. He owed it to Rory to get Lorelai to be there for her again. He knew that even though Rory was pretending she was okay without her mom in her life she really was struggling to stay afloat.
"Yeah that's where my dad lives, but how did you know that?" Rory got up from the couch and looked out the window. Sitting on the roof of her car was Logan smiling broadly. He'd been driving back from visiting with Honor, who apparently lived nine houses down, when he spotted her car outside. "Come inside so you can meet my dad."
Christopher Hayden looked down at what he was wearing and wondered if this would consider as a horrifyingly embarrassing moment. He was standing in his living room in an old t-shirt, and a pair of boxers waiting to meet his daughter's boyfriend for the first time.
Logan nervously walked up to the front door of Rory's father's house. He knew that he should have just kept going. This was his first time actually meeting a girl's father. Technically he'd met Luke, but did he really count as Rory's father. He prayed that her real father was nothing like Luke. Luke scared Logan. He had this whole grizzly Adams thing that just made Logan cringe. He reached for the doorknob just as Rory had thrown the door open and gave him a hug. He was surprised to see that she was wearing her nightgown. She must have been talking to him about her mother. She was having a really hard time with the thought that Lorelai wasn't going to be there for her anymore. Her father was unusually young looking. He was wearing his own pajamas and had apparently been forced out of bed by Rory's impromptu visit. "You must be Rory's father. I'm sorry I don't know your name."
Christopher smiled. "Hi it's Christopher Hayden and it's really nice to meet you. Rory was just telling me how wonderful things are going with you right now."
Logan looked at Rory and pulled her close to him, but no so close that it would make a father want to ring his neck. "Yeah well what can I say other than that I'm lucky to have her."
Rory smiled. "Well dad thank you so much for that. I mean you really helped me. I'm going to go ahead and leave my car here. I'll come over tomorrow and get it. Do you want to meet tomorrow for lunch at the club and then maybe play a quick round of golf?"
"That sounds great call me in the morning and we'll set up a definite time. Logan if you'd like to join us that would be great. Tell Richard and Emily I said hello and tell them thanks for taking care of you for me. Don't hesitate to call me Rory." He watched as Rory walked off to Logan's car. They were smiling and whispering something to each other. He could tell that she was happy. As he walked back into the house he made a note to wake up early so that he could make it down to Stars Hollow before Rory would even get a chance to call about lunch. He had to talk to Lorelai if it was the last thing he did. She had to understand that she was doing Rory more harm than good. He sighed as he walked up to his room. Who would have thought that he could actually help Rory that much?
Okay so in the next chapter Christopher and Lorelai talk about Rory. I hope you like this one. I thought maybe I would try something a little less AU for once. Thanks for reading. Please tell me what you think. Pretty please because I have to know if this sucks or not.