Rory was out of her chair before Lorelai had even come back to reality. She was standing in the doorway when he walked in the door.

"Chris."

"Rory, I'm your father. Can't you even try to call me dad?" His voice was sober, the first time in a long time Rory had heard it that way. Even through the shock, she still had her mother's attitude.

"It's kinda hard when I only see you three times in twenty one years." He closed his eyes, rubbing his temples. Logan, watching father and daughter, realized some of Rory's quirks were actually just traits of her father. Like the way she sighed when she knew she was defeated. Or the way she ran her fingers through her belt loops when she didn't know what to say next.

"Lor, can we talk?" Lorelai spun in her chair, facing her ex.

"I'm listening."

"Outside, please?"

"Chris, there's.."

"It's okay mom, Logan and I are going to see Lane. You guys can have time to talk." Since it was before the lunch crowd, the diner was empty. After they had left, Chris spun to Lorelai.

"You weren't going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me that our daughter is going to get married to some socialite playboy?"

"Our daughter."

"Oh Lor, come on, not this again."

"Chris, I will go there again. You can't just claim her as a child of yours because you were the one that got me pregnant. You barely spend any time with her. In fact, I'm surprised if you've spent more than twenty minutes with her."

"So you weren't gonna tell me."

"I think the newspaper did a fine job." She turned back to the clipping she had made of the announcement. There was a full color picture of them, taken after they got back home, right there in the gazebo. In her mind, Rory never looked so happy as she was wrapped in the arms of Logan. It read like fairytale to Lorelai.

"Huntzberger Heir to Wed Gilmore Heiress. Miss Lorelai Leigh Gilmore and Mister Logan Elias Huntzberger have announced plans to be married later this summer. Miss Gilmore is the daughter of Lorelai Victoria Gilmore and stepdaughter to Luke Danes, granddaughter to insurance mogul Richard Gilmore and wife Emily. Mister Huntzberger is son to journalist tycoon Mitchum Huntzberger and wife Shira, grandson to Elias Huntzberger. The couple met on the campus of Yale University, and after a two year courtship, plan to be married in June."

There was a little bit more, but Lorelai would have to save it. Chris was angry. She didn't think he had the right to be that angry though.

"You would think he was her father."

"I practically am."

"Don't get into this now, you two. Chris, if you must continue this, swing by the house at 7:30 tonight." He nodded, scowling at Luke before he walked out the door. Lorelai sighed, placing her head on the cool counter. Luke ran his fingers through her dark hair, trying to calm her.


Logan hesitantly looked over at Rory, not wanting to say the wrong thing. He only knew it was her father because he had met Christopher Hayden at one of his parents get-togethers. They had mentioned before about Chris' "other girl" and that "she was just too much like her mother." Looking at Rory, you wouldn't really be able to tell she was a Hayden. She didn't take the family name. She looked so much like both her mother and her grandparents. She was slim, with dark curls and blue eyes from her mother. She got her poise from Emily, her strength and perseverance from Richard. She really was barely connected to her father's family, just like he was barely connected with her.

"Ace." He tried calling her name, realizing she was zoned out. He stopped to sit with her on the steps of the high school, in good enough distance from the diner, but still close enough to see Chris run off, thanking his lucky stars when he did.

"Why, Logan? Why did he come back? Why all of a sudden is he wanting to be Daddy Dearest? I had already picked Luke to walk me down the aisle. Heck, Mitchum even said he would do it if Luke couldn't. But him? He's never even been in my life, and then three months before I get married, he shows up, unannounced, and gets angry with me because I refuse to call him dad?" Logan sat back and let her ramble. He couldn't compare dad stories. Yeah, his was no saint, but at least he was there. He was there to see Logan to the car on his first day of school. He was there to harp on his grades, to insist he go to Yale. But he was there.

Rory leaned into Logan, thinking about everything that was going on. She hadn't really heard from the other four lately. Steph and Colin were studying for their finals. Finn and Ellie, well, she had just lost touch with them. When they had come home from Texas, Rory moved in with Logan, and to complete the switch, Finn moved in with Ellie. They had lost touch while Rory was down here with her mom. She thought she would call her later. Ellie was good to talk to at times like this.


Later on that evening, Luke and Logan were out at the diner, while the girls talked to Chris. They didn't wanna go, but Lorelai asked them to, saying that it was something the three of them had to handle. The disdain spread across Luke's face like wildfire.

"Lor, I thought we promised."

"Promised what, Chris?"

"That Rory would have no part in it."

"That I would have no part in what?' They were sitting around the dining room table, Rory sitting in the middle of her parents. The tension was thick, but not as thick as the act of caring put on by Lorelai. She hated Chris for leaving her there, seven months pregnant, screaming that he couldn't handle it. He was only seventeen. She screamed back, that she was only sixteen, and she was the one that was going to have to carry the baby for nine months, drop out of school, be the teen mother for the rest of her life.

"You promised me you'd keep her out of that life. They never accepted us, and we promised we wouldn't subject her to that."

"I didn't let her in that life, Christopher, she picked what she wanted to do. She picked Chilton because she wanted to be near Tristan, after James and Libby moved back to Hartford. She picked Yale over Harvard, because it was what fit best in her pro-con lists, but you wouldn't know anything about those would you? And she picked Logan, not because he was rich, not because he was society. She picked him just like she picks everyone in her life. It's a connection. Something I thought we had once, a long time ago."

"And that, is why I've come. Not only because I read this in the paper, but to offer something to Rory. To start a connection." Lorelai looked at him, the vein next to her temple pumping blood so fast, so hard, you could see it about to bust. Where was he going with this?

"I want you to come with me back to New York, Rory. I got the company from my dad, and I thought you might like the job as Vice President."

Rory glared at him, ready to jump down his throat. She stood, beginning to pace, as she ripped into him.

"Let me get this straight. You come back here, when I haven't seen you since like what, the day Gigi was born, and you want me to leave my life here with my mother, who's been there to take care of me my whole life, and my friends, and not to mention Logan, just to come with you to some over-populated city to work with you at a company I know nothing about, and be in charge, just under you, not because I earned it, but because I'm your daughter."

"Well, you sure are like your mother. I guess there's nothing else to talk about."

Instead of answering, they just glowered at him as he walked out the door, and possibly out of their lives for good. Lorelai called the guys, letting them know what had happened. She and Rory sat on the couch, turning on the Breakfast Club, their favorite movie when they were stressed out. They were halfway through when Logan and Luke returned, with fresh baked apple pie and coffee. But the girls were asleep, Lorelai sitting up, Rory leaning on her shoulder. Logan picked Rory up, placing her in bed before he himself climbed in next to her. He was about to settle in when he heard his phone go off, a text, from Finn.

"Mate, I'm scared, She's sick, bad."

Logan got a look of concern on his face, as he crawled back out of bed, sitting outside to make sure he wouldn't wake anyone up.

"Hello?"

"What's going on, Morgan?"

"It's Ellie. She's really sick. I had to take her to the ER this morning, she was running a 107 degree fever, and she keeps going in and out of consciousness."

"We'll be there in the morning, Rory's had a pretty hard night, I don't wanna make it any worse."

"What happened?"

"Her dad showed up."

"You make it sound like Luke was angry."

"Not Luke."

"You don't..."

"Christopher Hayden."

"Oh man. Okay, details tomorrow. Take care. I'll call if anything changes." Logan hanged up the phone, sighing as he walked back inside. Ellie was to be the maid of honor. Fevers that high mess with a person. How was he to tell Rory? Especially with the day she'd just had. He went back to bed, his mind racing. Rory spooned in next to him, her body molding to every curve of his body. Curves... he thought to himself. The way to the alter seems to be having a lot of them.