Another Next Generation fic

Notes: Dunno what the hell this barely edited POS is. A work in progress? A prompt, seeing as I don't have enough time to devote to finishing it? Seriously, if anyone wants to finish this, go ahead (same with everything else I've managed to cauterise enough to post). My sandbox is a whorehouse. It welcomes everyone.


"Ah, the smell of urban decay," said Lyre Gilmore Baizen fondly after she wound down the window of a generically hulking black SUV. Her brown hair, thick and knotty (and, by Grandma's standards, utterly unbearable), resisted being fanned out by the rush of whistling air on account of not being brushed after her last three showers. After months of religiously sweeping her hair up into a ballerina bun, day after day, every day, she deserved this. She had earned the right to be Emily Gilmore's worst nightmare.

"Don't you just love it, Mom?"

"Yes, sweetheart. Air pollution. The precise reason why we're moving back here," spoke her mother, her voice flatter than Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia.

She and her mom were driving from Queens to the Upper East Side; from JFK to the apartment her parents kept at The Sutton. They'd just gotten off a flight from Roissy Airport even though her mom had spent the last fortnight in Kenya.

"It's a wonder we haven't overtaken Beijing on the smog scale," continued Rory. She scrunched her face, lightly freckled from the blazing African sun, showing her dislike for the gas guzzling monstrosity they were being driven in.

Lyre's mom was a journalist – a great one – and travelled by air and sea almost as often as she did by land. She was practically a Navy SEAL. Except for, you know, the naval part. Lyre, herself, had spent her holidays at the 2037 Summer School, training with the Paris Opera Ballet School of Dance. Standing on pointe and stretching her neck and, pretty much, just dying in fast-forward for hours on end. Sadly, there wasn't any actual opera singing at the Paris Opera House on her part. Not officially. During breaks from dancing, or simply when she got bored, she'd belt out an opera aria or two. A rusty opera aria. She had sung with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, but that was when she was a kid.

New York. No Gilmore Baizen visit to New York had lasted longer than a few weeks in years. She was – what – a snot-nosed third grader when her dad had relocated their family to Geneva, Switzerland? They travelled a lot. Lyre's dad was a UN ambassador (not one of those celebrity Goodwill Ambassadors, but a real one). He had recently been confirmed as the new United States Ambassador to the United Nations and they were returning to New York for his swearing-in ceremony today. Or was it yesterday? Tomorrow …? Whatever. Stupid time zones …

There were two places that Lyre called home, even though she didn't really have a home. New York City was one of them. A leafy little hamlet in Connecticut was the other. The Lincoln Center was incredible and the Paris Opera House was unreal, but nothing held a candle to Miss Patty's. Nowhere could compare to Stars Hollow.

Stars Hollow had Grams and Grumps – cough – sorry – Gramps, for starters. And Luke's coffee. A person couldn't just forget the coffee that Gramps made at his diner. New York had … Grandmother and Grandfather … and the Upper East Side …