Chapter One

"Rory… I know that I am not one to judge, as I got pregnant at 16. But that was 16… at 35, you really should have been more careful about protection." Mom, I was on birth control, but the pill isn't a 100% effective – "I dedicated my entire life to raising you so you wouldn't end up making the same mistakes I did! The problem isn't that you're pregnant – it's that you're not even in a relationship with the father!" Neither were you, and I – "Maybe it's because of me. Maybe, because I pushed your father away from me, you have all these issues with men –" Mom, you didn't push Dad away; you gave him a choice, and he consistently chose to stay away. "But you're 35 now! How long are you going to blame me for your own mistakes!?" Mom, it was never your fault to begin with.

Rory had so wanted to voice her own opinions during her heated debate with Lorelai, the morning of her wedding, which she had selfishly ruined – oh, what had become of the once self-reliant, ambitious and moral girl she had once been!? Everything had started with Jess, but her own actions had continued long after Jess was gone from her life. Maybe, the ghost of it had always been inside of her, repressed, and when Jess appeared on the scene, it burst forward – maybe, a part of her mother had always been inside of her, a part that she had repressed because she knew Lorelai would never approve. But when it came to DNA, the personality you got was sort of the same as your appearance: you didn't get much choice in what genes you got.

She was her parents' child through and through: Christopher's selfishness, innumerable affairs and failed relationships, and her mother's recklessness. God, she was a fool in love. She hoped, certainly hoped, that she had inherited some of her mother's steadfastness and toughness as well. She was going to need it in the long run.

The following morning, Rory got up before sunrise. Upon an impulse that had been brewing inside of her for so long now, she turned on the lights – my, how they hurt her eyes – and started packing her bags. Not everything – she didn't need everything – besides, she didn't have a lot of time, she had to leave before her mom woke up and noticed what she was up to. She knew her departure was going to break Lorelai's heart. She would leave a note, she decided, to ease her conscience. Her mother, who had practically ruined her life to give her a better one… she bit her lips, and they hurt, and she needed that hurt both to re-focus herself on the task at hand – securing a good future for her and her baby – as much as she needed to feel some sort of pain, some sort of retribution for what she was doing, because she felt she deserved it; and if life wasn't going to give it to her, she would give it to herself, because, apparently, she was both righteous and self-destructive like that…

She convinced herself it was better this way for all involved – Lorelai, the baby, her, and even Luke as well. She didn't want to be the rain on Luke and Lorelai's parade; she didn't want her mother's assistance – she could do it alone, after all, a Yale graduate and accomplished journalist! She didn't want her mother's pity, nor her scorn, nor Luke's embarrassed assistance to all of her mother's craziness…

No, she wanted to be alone, and raise the baby alone, how she wanted, without any sort of interference on her mother's part. Their relationship was strained enough as it was – she didn't want to turn into her mother, and she didn't want Lorelai to become her grandmother either. No, she had to leave before that happened. Before all hope of salvaging their relationship was lost.

She didn't want to be the shame of Stars Hollow, either. The girl who had so much potential… only to turn into a disaster: a serial adulterer (yikes!), pregnant without a father (well, not technically, but basically…), ruin all her remaining potential (which there wasn't much of, to be honest) with a baby… doomed to repeat her mother's mistakes from the start.

Looking back on her life, it all made so much sense… at Lorelai's fiftieth birthday, all things had come full circle. It wasn't without a stab of resentment and guilt that she felt that. She hated herself, and everything and everyone that had contributed to her final – and inevitable – plight. Like mother, like daughter. Apparently, escaping your parents' shadow was inevitable – God only knew how it had followed Lorelai her entire life…

Then she felt as though something was moving inside of her stomach. She touched it, and she could feel it kicking. Serenity washed over her. She already knew, this was all worth it. She suddenly knew it was the right choice; she had to do what was best for her baby. Now, don't get me wrong; she didn't want to become one of those people who lost their identity because of parenthood. But she couldn't toss the baby's needs out the window in favor of her own. She didn't want to be that kind of parent, either. She supposed it was a slippery slope, and that she would simply have to see how she would do.

We'll see when we get there, she thought. We'll see when we get there.

By the time she had finished packing her belongings and started packing into the car (her bare necessities had turned out to be more than enough for three suitcases, in the end), the sun had already risen. She desperately hoped her mother wouldn't notice, but she couldn't fight off the sense of impending doom hovering above her like a rain cloud. She could have packed faster, but she was starting a new life: she had to make sure she got everything perfect.

Suddenly, she heard the front door open, and her mother walk down the wooden, white steps of the porch. She would have recognized her mother's footsteps anywhere. To her own surprise, Rory felt perfectly calm, as though she had been secretly expecting it, as though she knew it was inevitable. The only thing that shocked her when she turned in the direction of the noise was seeing Luke trudging behind an equally distraught Lorelai. A sense of disappointment washed over her. She would have preferred this final, parting moment – until God knows when – to be private, to be between her and her mother only. But she had to accept, Luke was part of this family now, even if to Rory, it would always be just her and her mother, the dynamic duo, two against the world, against all the odds…

But alas, she thought, if there was one thing she had come to understand from life is that not all things were perfect. And just because in her youth she had been used to getting her own way, she wouldn't always get it, especially now, out of her parent's shadow, if only temporarily.

"Mom, Luke," she said, turning towards them, bracing herself for whatever was coming, standing with her back straight. She felt like she finally had a spine again – something that had long ago been felt missing from her life. Living for herself had got old fast. Now that she had a reason to get up in the morning, it made perfect sense to not let herself fall apart but to keep going. Her life no longer seemed pointless and mundane.

Luke and Lorelai were both in their pyjamas with their bathrobes wrapped around them. Their eyes – especially Lorelai's – were bloodshot, and she seemed more distraught than Rory had ever seen her.

Rory gulped hard. She had to brace it. It was all for the greater good…

"What the hell are you doing!?" Lorelai demanded. "I got your note – I read your note – you cannot possibly think –" Her mom was approaching, and out of a sudden and quick impulse, Rory quickly shut the trunk, locked the car and held firmly onto the keys, as though subconsciously fearing that her mother would try to physically stop her from leaving.

"I'm sorry, Mom," Rory said. She felt cruel – no, downright evil, even! Her mother looked old, distraught, heartbroken and vulnerable all at the same time. Rory didn't want to do this to her, and she shouldn't have. But neither she nor her mother mattered anymore. All that mattered, was the new life inside of her, one full of potential, who hasn't made any mistakes yet and who could still yet be anything. With new life, came new hope. "I have got to do this."

"No, Rory, you cannot do this! I will not allow you to do this! I will not allow you to make the same mistakes I did, after so many years investing into your upbringing, your education, your mental and emotional health –"

Rory was about to open her mouth, but Lorelai cut her short. Lorelai suddenly seemed like a ferocious lion – the image of the vulnerable old woman having suddenly vanished. "No, young lady, I will not let you do this! I have been your best friend all your life, and maybe that was my greatest mistake."

No, that was the best thing you had ever done –

"For the first time in your life, I am going to be your mother," Lorelai said. "Give me the keys."

"I'm 35, Mom."

"Well, you'll get the keys back when you started acting like it."

Rory took a step back. "Get away from me, Mom."

Lorelai's face fell. "I am not my mother, Lorelai Gilmore! I am not Emily Post! I do not deserve this treatment. I have done everything for you –"

"Yes, Mom, and I am grateful and very sorry. But what's happened, happened. There's no changing it."

"Just get an abortion, for God's sake!" Lorelai was beside herself with regret, rage and disappointment.

"I wouldn't have wanted to be aborted, either." Rory snapped suddenly.

"Well, I'm sure if you hadn't been born, you wouldn't have minded either way."

"Mom!" Rory gasped, aghast.

"Lorelai!" Luke's sentiments mirrored her own. This subject was very insensitive to bring up with Rory; maybe with another kid – who had been planned and wanted from the get-go – it would have been different. But with Rory, it was a sensitive subject… perhaps not the best one to bring up to prevent further alienating Rory from her.

"Fine, fine!" Lorelai snapped irritably to shut them both up. "Look, kid!" she said, turning back to Rory. "I didn't raise you to be this."

"I know, Mom," Rory said, her voice betraying her suffering, "It isn't your fault. It's mine. So let me clean up my own mess, please? I promise I'll come and visit."

"No, no, no! We're a family! That baby needs a family, and just the two of you, that's not a family."

"We were a family." Rory objected, her voice suddenly cold and her eyes devoid of any emotion.

"We were, yes, but not a real one." Her mother, suddenly turning into a traditionalist. Who would have thought!? "You obviously have issues with men, which is why you're always either cheating or a mistress, or both at the same time! Rory, sweetheart, you've got to stop what you're doing –"

"STOP!" Rory screamed, the sides of her bloodshot eyes glistening with tears. Sniffling, wiping a tear from her face, she said, thereby breaking the stunned silence between the three of them, "We were a family, Mom, and I had a great life. What I ruined, I ruined on my own. You don't have to blame yourself or your raising for what I've become. It was totally my own making."

"So let us help fix it!"

Rory's broken chest swelled with pride. "I don't need help," she said haughtily, "I will raise this baby on my own, and we will be just as happy as I was with you. Goodbye." Her words were so final, so definitive, so confident and authorative – and her goodbye so sudden – that Lorelai and Luke didn't fully process what was happening until Rory was in the car, at which point Lorelai started banging on the window by the driver's seat. Screaming besides herself, looking like a crazed woman, she was either commanding Rory to stop or begging Luke to help her stop her only daughter from leaving her, an aging, ailing woman in her fifties. To Rory's greatest delight, Luke only budged but only slowly and half-heartedly. Rory sped off before either of them could do anything. She could hear her mother's wailing, reverberating in her head, long after she had pulled out of the driveway, long after she had left Stars Hollow and everything she had ever held dear behind.

Her phone suddenly started ringing. She turned it off. Her and the baby were going to be fine, she thought. No one needed to worry. She made a mental note to switch phone numbers once she found somewhere to settle down. She was excited for her old life. Living only for herself and her selfish, insatiable and ever-changing needs had exhausted her, ruined her, turning her only a shell of who she had once been. Of the daughter Lorelai had raised…, she thought, with a pang of guilt she tried to dismiss as an overreaction to her current situation.

She had to concentrate on her baby. She supposed some selflessness, a new purpose in life, and a new environment would be the change she had much needed in her life for so long. She passed the Stars Hollow sign.

So long, old friend, she thought, and sped off into the horizon.

A/N: I just finished the revival, and God... boy, to say I hooked was an understatement. I immediately had the idea and the urge to write a continuation - after all, it desperately needed some sort of continuation - and wrote this, while the idea was still fresh... I felt like the story ended on such a cliffhanger, someone had to continue!

Please let me know your thoughts in a review. Keep in mind that it's been a while since I've watched Gilmore Girls (the original series), so if I forget about some details, let me know.

Have a great day guys.