Summary: AU. What happens when 23 year old Rory Gilmore-Hayden graduates from Yale and moves to Stars Hollow. Who will meet who? Who will fall in love with who?
Background (which you will get more in-depth information on throughout the story): Lorelai and Christopher did not marry. Lorelai and baby Rory lived in Emily and Richard's pool house. Lorelai has a job and they moved out when Rory was 8 to a house close to Emily and Richard. Christopher stayed with them a lot. He was around more than in the show but was not a true live-in dad. Lorelai is happy but not truly happy. Rory is fairly similar to the character in the show.
AN: The first couple chapters will be a lot of introduction and background, building up the characters, etc. Much more dialogue and action later, I promise! Also, I might switch POV's during the story, I'm not sure, but if I do, I'll warn you!
Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls, it's characters or it's story lines. Gilmore Girls was created by Amy Sherman-Paladino and is owned by Dorothy Parker Drank Here and the WB/CW.
Chapter 1: Rory Leigh
Twenty three year old Lorelai Leigh Gilmore-Hayden, Rory, smiled as she took in her surroundings. She stood in the center of the very first apartment she had ever rented with her own money. Granted, it was furnished largely by her grandparents, but she herself had placed the deposit and was going to be paying for it herself. At 23 she had managed to do what her mom, 40, had tried to do her whole life; get away from them.
Tomorrow, she, Rory Leigh, as she was now going by, would start her job. She was a simple reporter and section editor for the Stars Hollow Daily Gazette, a small time newspaper for an even smaller time town. Her grandparents had arranged lucrative positions for her elsewhere but she hadn't wanted that. She needed to start on her own, become someone separate form her parents and grandparents.
Her mother, Lorelai Gilmore II had Rory when she was 16 and became the scandal of the Hartford elite social circle. Both her and the father, Christopher Hayden, were from two of Hartford's richest old money families.
Rory had grown up privileged. And, in order to prove to society that she was not a mistake, she and her mom and pushed herself to perfection. She was valedictorian of her private high school, Chilton, where she had been student body president and editor of the newspaper and had dated, neither too little nor too much, though never seriously. She graduated magna cum laude form Yale, where she was the editor of the Yale Daily News and had once again dated the correct amount, becoming serious once before breaking off prior to graduation.
She hated being perfect, practical and privileged—"the three P's" as she had once confided to her mother. Shed had done it her whole life and was ready for a change. Now she didn't want to get in trouble and go crazy, she just wanted to find out who she was, to be able to do things by herself and for herself. And if that meant small apartments and living paycheck to paycheck, so be it, she said to herself with a smile.