Paris spun around in the direction Will had called. She saw a silver Prius parked across the street and a very familiar face stepping out of the driver's side. She was both the same and different than Paris remembered. Tall, elegant, her pale face framed by long brown hair that in adulthood tumbled in waves past her shoulders. Paris's stomach did the same flip it always had upon seeing Rory and she felt a flush in her cheeks that she was finally able to acknowledge the meaning of. Glued to the spot she watched as the younger Gilmore began to make her way across the road toward them. A broad smile reaching across her cheeks she paused after a few steps her eyes growing wide in shock, her smile growing wider still.

"Paris !" She called out.

Paris remained glued to her spot, her mind was blanked by shock as Rory quickly covered the few remaining steps between them and drew her into a tight embrace.

"What are you doing here !" She questioned, the embrace growing tighter.

Paris was sure that her face was the brightest kind of red. It felt like a radiator. She still didn't know how the mornings revelations would or even should alter interactions with her friend. She stumbled for words as Rory pulled away retaining a grip on both Paris's hands. Mercifully Lorelai interjected, saving Paris for a further time that day.

"Hey you were coming home! We thought it'd be nice if we put on the full welcome commitee! Come here babe." Lorelai reach around pulling Rory into a hug. "You have a good trip?"

Rory smiled, " Sure, if you mean a flight that was more than 13 hours long followed by a drive! It's good to be home though."

Paris watched as Rory exchanged greetings with Luke and Will. Her little brother eagerly running off questions, full of excitement.

Urged on by a gentle encouraging look from Lorelai and honestly feeling like an interloper Paris followed the group into Lukes Diner. As they sat Luke left to fetch coffee, followed closely by Lorelai and a still excited Will, leaving Rory and Paris alone.

"I'm so glad you came !" Rory exclaimed again taking Paris hands. "So how are things? How's Harvard?" Paris's stomach twisted as she added. "How's Doyle?"

For the moment lacking as she did a real answer to the question of her Husband, Paris simply brushed of a quick but understandable.

"He's fine. Busy though, but he's fine." The subject her job was far more comfortable however. In their semi regular correspondence Paris had kept Rory up to date with her work at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center in Boston. As always Rory remained one of the few people who's eyes lit up with genuine interest at the topic of Paris's work. Back in her comfort zone she eagerly responded.

"Well we're doing a phase II trial on a second line treatment for Graft-versus-host disease using low-dose interleukin 2 right now. It's pretty exciting! It surpreses the immune response that causes Graft-versus-host. It could alleviate autoimmune inflammation in non-cancer patients too."

Rory's bright blue eyes burned deep into her as she spoke, soaking up detail after detail. It was only when she was finished talking that Paris looked down at the table to see their hands still intertwined. Looking back up her breath almost left her at the sight. She was exposed but safe in a way that she'd only ever felt with Rory.

"How're you doing?" She asked, just as eager to hear about her friends exploits as Rory had been about hers. "You're still with Aljazeera right? I saw your reports from Cairo and Alexandria last year." Rory gave a confirming nod then replied.

"Yeah. I'm all over the place which is great but I'm mostly based out of Doha right now."

She turned, looking over towards Lorelai and thoughtfully smiled.

"But I'm thinking about transferring to the New York bureau. I'd still be travelling plenty but it'd be nice to be closer to home. Especially now that Will's getting older. I don't want to miss my little brother growing up!"

Rory's connection to her family had always been something that baffled Paris even though she knew that the younger Gilmore drew strength and comfort from it. Giving up a position like the one that Rory held at Aljazeera's Doha broadcast centre was hard to understand. Though her impressive journalistic skill meant that whatever country she was based out of she would continue to put out the intelligent, insightful work that Paris had always known. She also felt a rush and an easing of the knot in her stomach at the idea of Rory being so much closer again. Dismissing the thought quickly and pushing away the awkward and stupidly jealous questions brewing in her mind as to Rory's love life, Paris looked around to see Lorelai returning to the table with Coffee and an an eager Will. They sat, Rory happily pulling her little brother into her lap. Taking a sip of her coffee with her free hand she turned back to Paris and with an eagerness that rendered it impossible to decline, she asked.

"So you're staying for the firelight festival? I don't think you've ever seen it before. It's beautiful and it'd be wonderfull to show you."

For a moment Paris found it impossible to reply. There was so much she needed to deal with let alone an unplanned absence from work or the inability to call her husband back. She hadn't planned anything today and things were happening at an alarming rate. Still, as parochial as it was sitting in a diner in Star Hollow, looking over at Rory she felt more in control, more like things were ok than she had in a very long time. She took a breath, the memory of an unplanned to trip to a Bangels concert in New York 12 years earlier briefly flashing through her mind she simply replied.

"I can't wait!"

"Of course she's staying !" Lorelai added cheerily. "Michelle has your room reservation at the front desk and all the food you like, on the house of course while you're with us okay."

A broad beaming smile again peeled itself across Rory's face as she looked from her Mom to her brother then back to fix on Paris. Reaching across the table she again linked their hands. "I can't believe I'm back home with all of you...it's been too long!"

Rory paused for a moment and squeezed Paris's hand before Lorelai interjected, slapping her hand down on the table in mock frustration.

"Well it's about time you know! I haven't seen you since Christmas and we need more than chats over Skype!" She turned to her younger child adding. "Don't we Will?" The little boy bounced in his sister's lap calling her name and hugging her tightly.

The morning wore on with Rory sharing story after story of her work and the places she'd been. The people of Stars Hollow excitedly appeared one by one to say how much they'd missed her and how proud they were of her. Paris found herself quietly looking on at the proceedings. For the time being the questions that faced her simply didn't matter. Eventually morning past into midday and Rory headed back to her mother's house to unpack her things. She left Paris with a long hug and a promise to collect her later that afternoon.

With Lorelai's instructions Paris made her way out to the Dragonfly Inn and was greeted as promised. Unpacking wasn't really an option as she hadn't brought anything with her. She found herself for probably the first time since her melt down over being rejected by Harvard for her undergrad, with absolutely nothing to do. This wasn't a good thing, not even on a normal day. On a normal day it would just be a waste of her time but today it was down right dangerous. She could feel herself beginning to spiral into panic. A thousand different feelings that she had apparently been repressing all her life began to bubble to the surface. She quit pacing the room and feeling entirely too hot for comfort she threw off her jacket and planted herself firmly at the foot of the bed. Taking slow, shaky breaths Paris willed herself to calm down. She was far from the kid who'd flipped out in fencing class or melted down live on C-SPAN over a college rejection letter. She was however, at her core the same person. She was a woman who expected and achieved perfection from herself. She'd always done that through planning, through detailed planning. What she knew now was that the plan was wrong. Or rather it was incomplete, there were new variables and she didn't have a clue how to make them fit. Still taking slow breaths that mercifully grew steadier each time she exhaled Paris drew her gaze up from the colourful wool of the rug at her feet and met her own gaze in the room's mirror. Probably a fraction of a second away from speaking words that she'd waited a life time to hear out loud. With the initial syllable of what might have turned into the phrase.

"I'm Gay"

literally on her lips she was shaken, her whole body jumping, jolted by the buzz of her phone. She still hadn't called either Doyle or work to let them know where she was. The calls that she was ignoring had grown less and less frequent through out the day. Not to break a long standing pattern she'd switched her phone to vibrate half way along I:84. Modern cell phones were certainly idiotic devices but outside of a laboratory hers was rarely off. She quickly reached through the folds of her discarded jacket to see who it was. The screen read Dr. Julia M Trainor (work). It was her immediate superior. Paris gathered herself and hit answer. She still had no idea what she was doing but she had to start dealing with things somehow. Giving some sort of explanation as to why she wasn't at work would be a start.