Author's Note: Okay, so here we are. If any of you bothered to read my previous AN, you already know that chapters two and three are formed from previously posted content. For those of you who didn't bother reading my previous AN, and are wondering what is going on, you will find a copy of the AN in question bellow. Everyone else, feel free to skip ahead to chapter 4.

While reviewing the 2010 copy of WS, I realised that the copy was even worse off than I had initially thought. It seems that I was in the middle of a major edit when it was saved to the external hard drive – and absolutely nothing was where it ought to have been. Scenes were out of order, chapters were mislabelled, and everything was patched together haphazardly. Honestly, I felt like I had found Frankenstein's monster hidden away on my old external hard drive.

After quite some time (and quite a bit of swearing and hair pulling) I managed to figure things out and get (mostly) everything back where it ought to be. However, there still remains quite a bit of rewriting and editing to be done. Given all of these setbacks, I have decided to drastically cut down on the length of my updates. Previously, I had focused on posting lengthy chapters that were no less than 8,000 words in length. Now, I will be focusing mainly on editing small pieces of WS at a time, and posting them when I find a natural pause. As such, these new chapters will vary in length, but will not exceed 5,000 words in length.

It is my hope that this will not only allow for much more frequent updates, but will allow me the time necessary to edit and rewrite WS properly.

And now we reach the main goal of this AN. As a result of the drastic change in the length of my updates, I have decided it would be best if I were to repost my previous content in smaller chapters. This will not affect the content itself – it will only mean that all chapters prior to chapter 4 will be old content. I will be effecting the changes on May 15th, as well as posting a brand new chapter.

Thank you all for your understanding and patience.

When it Snows

By TheBlueSwan

Chapter 2: Mothers & Daughters

Friday September 10th 2004, Stars Hollow (Gilmore Residence) 4:47 a.m.

Rory was pregnant.

No matter how often Lorelai repeated that sentence to herself, the reality of the situation just didn't seem to compute. Lorelai could honestly say that she had found it easier to cope with her own pregnancy at sixteen years of age than to understand the fact that her daughter was pregnant at nineteen. It was Rory – Rory, barely has she ever made a mistake, valedictorian, Yale student Rory. The mother just couldn't wrap her head around it. It just didn't make sense to her. She felt like her world had been turned upside down – as if overnight the world had somehow been conquered by a group of Machiavellian oompa loompas…

Up was down. Down was up. And round and round everything went, cursing her with the worse bout of motion sickness ever put upon her.

Lorelai was bewildered.

Deer in the headlights bewildered.

Struck and limping, scrambling about in an attempt to find a safe haven bewildered.

Her thoughts rushed on ahead of her, as they always did. Except for once, she couldn't seem to keep up with them. She was unable to untangle them – to understand what they meant. Again and again, they spun round and round.

Rory? What? Pregnant? Dragonfly? Dean? Broken kitchen faucet at the Inn. Huh? Baby? No? Plumber or Luke? Luke or Plumber? Grandbaby? How?

Realistically Lorelai had known that Rory would make a few mistakes along the way. But she had never once believed that her daughter would make the same mistake she had so many years ago. It might have crossed her mind that awful morning years ago when she woke up to a sore back and Emily Gilmore screeching in her ear. But Lorelai had never believed it, even as she chewed Rory out at the bit for falling asleep with a boy in Ms. Patty's dance studio.

Lorelai was torn…

And angry.

Oh, so, very angry.

She had felt it rushing through her veins the same way she had that night she had found Rory and Dean in bed together. Screaming, begging and ripping through her, wanting to be let out.

How could Rory get herself in this situation?

What was her daughter going to do now?

And what was she, Lorelai Gilmore going to do now?

Despite all of this, Lorelai had contained her anger, her fury over the situation that her daughter now found herself in. She had locked it all away as best she could. Even as fire rushed through her veins, Lorelai realised that expressing her anger in that moment in time wouldn't have done any good. All her anger would accomplish then was to alienate her daughter, and Lorelai was many things, but she was not her mother.

So Lorelai had swallowed down her reprimands, bit her tongue and held her sobbing daughter. She had tried, and for the most part succeeded in ignoring the stinging in her eyes.

Oh, how desperately she wanted to scream, to sob, to do anything that would alleviate the crushing swell of emotion eating away at her from the inside.

But most of all, she had wanted to be able to do anything other than to simply just sit there and watch as her daughter broke down in front of her very eyes.

It hurt.

Seeing her daughter in that state hurt her.

Whilst clinging to her sobbing daughter, the acrid emotion that had been boiling in Lorelai's veins focused itself onto one very appealing target.

Dean.

It had been Rory's first time, and although Lorelai could fault her daughter for her choice of partner, she understood all too well that Rory hadn't been thinking with her head that night. Hormones, and the sway of first love lost had influenced her daughter into making the horrendous decision of giving away her virginity to a married man.

Lorelai could understand.

Although she had never crossed that particular line, she had found herself falling back in bed with Christopher often enough throughout the years. He was the only man she kept going back to, despite their disastrous history. Lorelai suspected Rory now found herself in a similar pattern with Dean. The difference remained, however, that Christopher had never been married – which made Rory's situation all the more precarious, and infuriated Lorelai all the more. Although Lorelai did forgive Rory for sleeping with Dean, she couldn't bring herself to forgive Dean.

Lorelai readily admitted that she was being biased. Funnily enough, she didn't give a damn!

Hours after Lorelai had succeeded in putting Rory down to bed for the night, one urge remained omnipresent. As she fiddled with the coffee maker, Lorelai wondered where she could find an axe this early in the morning. Normally she would simply ask Luke for one, but she was fairly certain that he kept his axes sharp – and that simply wouldn't do. She needed one that was dull – Lorelai needed the dullest axe she could find if she wanted to stretch the whole thing out properly – and she really wanted to stretch it out. She didn't want the whole thing to be quick and painless after all. As the coffee maker beeped, Lorelai was abruptly pulled from her fantasy, and reality set back in. Although, killing the father of her grandchild seemed like the thing to do at the moment, she doubted the authorities would agree with her assessment.

Lorelai scowled.

Still, the idea held a certain appeal...

She groaned and turned her gaze heavenward for a moment, before finally deciding to set the notion aside, and prepare herself a gigantic cup of java.

So…

Decapitation was definitely off the table.

Lorelai attempted to steer her mind towards more practical thoughts. The endeavour itself was mostly successful – save for the fleeting notion of neutering Dean.

After all, there would be no chance of a repeat offence if Dean no longer had the equipment necessary to commit said offence…

It took Lorelai another couple of hours before she made any real progress. But by the time she had showered and dressed Lorelai had settled on how to proceed. She had always told herself, that if her daughter ever found herself pregnant as a teenager, Lorelai would handle it differently than her own parents had. As such, she would endeavour to be supportive and allow Rory to come to terms with her situation in her own time and on her own terms. Lorelai would tackle the present situation as she had tackled any other situation Rory faced – with the love and care of a mother – but with the understanding and support of a best friend. The last thing she wanted was for Rory's pregnancy to act as a barrier between them, such as had been the case with Lorelai and her own mother.

It comforted Lorelai to think, that although Rory's predicament certainly wasn't a desirable one, it remained a tad more promising than her own had been. After all, Rory was nineteen. She had graduated high school. And she was currently attending Yale. Rory was, all in all, much better off than Lorelai herself had been.

Lorelai shuddered to think how her parents would react to the news that their granddaughter was pregnant, but decided not to focus on that at the moment. What was important right now was to give Rory some time to adjust. She could help her figure out some of the more pressing details later. Today she was going to wake her daughter up at an ungodly hour and take her out and far, far away from Stars Hollow.

Lorelai knew that ignoring the situation would do nothing to solve it. She even willingly conceded that sometimes running away only served to worsen certain problems. However, Lorelai found herself hard pressed to see how the situation could possibly get any worse than it already was.

Ignoring it for a few days might just give them both the time they needed to process it all.

Tuesday September 14th 2004, Stars Hollow (Dean & Lindsay's Apartment) 8:35 p.m.

Lindsay scowled as she shoved the dirty dishes into the sink. She didn't understand why she had to be the one to wash the dishes. Her daddy was out of town due to business for the next two days, and as per tradition, she and her mother had spent the day at the spa for some much needed pampering.

Doing the dishes would ruin her manicure.

Lindsay had thought that once Dean came home from his double shift at the construction site, he would be in the mood for a little one on one time alone in the bedroom. Lindsay had primped and prepped the entire day for it. Instead, he had come home, looked around the apartment and scowled.

Lindsay viciously toweled the plate dry. Dean had been angry with her because the house was in such a mess. He'd looked at her, glaring. Lindsay shoved the plate in a cupboard. She didn't know why he was so cross with her.

In a petulant tone, Lindsay repeated Dean's earlier words verbatim. "Why is the apartment such a mess Lindsay? I cleaned it before I left for work Lindsay. You clean up your own mess Lindsay. I'm going to take a shower Lindsay. Blah, blah, blah," she sneered.

As she was about to throw some utensils into a drawer, she was distracted by the sound of Dean's cell blasting out some awful song she couldn't stand. She looked towards it for a moment, before her gaze traveled to the bathroom door. Dean didn't seem to react to the sound his cell was making. Lindsay's face scrunched up for a moment, her head tilting to the left a bit as she made out the sound of the shower running in the background. Lindsay looked back at the cellphone, contemplating. Finally, she opted to dry her hands, and picked up the cell. By that time the cell had grown quiet and she quickly noticed that Mr. Doose had been the one to call – no doubt wanting to offer Dean another shift. Lindsay looked back towards the bathroom door, and making sure that Dean was still in the shower, she began to look through his caller history and text messages.

Tuesday September 14th 2004, Stars Hollow (Forester Residence) 8:51 p.m.

Clara looked up at the sound of the doorbell going off. Quickly she sprang off the couch, sending the book she was reading to fall haphazardly onto the floor.

"I'll get it!" Clara exclaimed as she eagerly advanced toward the door, arms fully extended at her sides, very much in a defensive maneuver to ward off her parents from answering the door before her.

Clara's eagerness to answer the door was not, as one might assume, an indication that she had been anticipating the arrival of a friend at this time, but rather it was the result of something much more nefarious in her mind.

Homework.

As in – she was attempting to avoid it.

The situation might not have been quite so dire if Mr. Turner, her American Literature teacher, had not chosen to assign Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar the first week back from summer break.

Then again, Clara probably would have avoided completing this particular assignment even if Mr. Turner had assigned it later on in the term. She found the book to be more than a little bit disturbing, and to be quite honest, it creeped the hell out of her – and she wasn't even half of the way into it yet.

Anything was better than reading that.

Even chores.

Glad for the excuse to do away with Plath for the time being, Clara all but ran to the front door. In her determination to beat her parents to the task, she ended up misjudging the distance between herself and the door. She attempted to come to an abrupt stop in a bid to avoid disaster, however the hardwood floors and her pink fuzzy socks decided otherwise. Clara ended up gliding the rest of the way to the door before slamming into the oak panel, narrowly avoiding being jabbed in the hip by the doorknob.

In that moment Clara noticed her mother standing several feet to her left, the expression on her face utterly dumbfounded as she stared at her daughter as if she were the most perplexing creature to ever walk the earth.

Eyes widening, Clara emitted a small, nervous little laugh, awkwardly raising her right hand (which had been wedged between herself and the oak door) to wave at her mother.

"Hi," Clara squeaked out, her mouth forming a smile that was too wide and too congenial to do anything but disturb her mother all the more.

The sound of the doorbell going off once more served to remind Clara of the task at hand and she scrambled to get hold of the doorknob. It took a bit of fumbling around to unlatch the lock, before finally opening the front door.

The odd, disturbing smile Clara had been sporting dropped as soon as she found her older brother on the other side of the door. By his expression alone Clara could already tell that blow-up Barbie had once again picked a fight with Dean, and her brother had been banished from his apartment – again.

And although Clara was very much aware that to think so was to be quite uncharitable, the thought crossed her mind none the less.

From one horror to the next.

Tuesday September 14th 2004, Stars Hollow (Dean & Lindsay's Apartment) 8:56 p.m.

Lindsay stomped around the apartment, purposely knocking over some of Dean's more fragile possessions as she gathered an overnight bag.

Oh, she couldn't believe him.

She had told him, point-blank, to stop talking to Rory Gilmore – and now she found out that he had gone behind her back and did the opposite of what she had told him to do.

She loathed that Gilmore bitch!

The way the bitch talked about Dean as if she had any say in what he was doing with his life – as if she had any right to insert herself in their lives. If it hadn't been for the dirty little cunt, Lindsay might have actually had her town house by now.

Lindsay knew the little bitch had had something to do with Dean's decision to return to school this semester. She must have! It made no sense otherwise. They had discussed things through and they had both agreed last March that it would be best if Dean dropped out. School cost quite a bit of money and although Dean made more than enough to pay for his tuition and their living expenses working two jobs and all the overtime he could manage to get, they had agreed that the money would be better spent buying the townhouse she wanted.

Yet a month later Dean had turned around on her and told her he would remain in college – albeit with a reduced course load – and as such a reduced tuition. She'd heard the little bitch complaining about her – about how she was forcing Dean to work to buy her a townhouse while she twiddled her thumbs. Lindsay would be willing to bet that Dean's sudden renewed interest in attending college had everything to do with that bitch.

And now to find out that he was still talking to her!

Urgh, he had made her so mad that she had thrown one of the dishes he had ordered her to clean back into the sink, breaking everything in it except for one lone pot.

And when she had confronted him about his deceit – he had the audacity to be angry at her for looking through his cellphone.

The nerve!

And then he says – You don't have the right to tell me who I can and can't talk to Lindsay.

She'd tried to slap him for that one, but he caught her hand before the hit could land. However, she was proud to say that she had managed to scratch the jerk a bit.

That had made her feel better.

Lindsay looked around her at the mess she had created and smiled in satisfaction. Dean wanted to be a jerk. Fine. She would make him regret it soon enough. For now, however, she would go to her parent's for the night. And she was not, under any circumstance, going to clean up the mess that the apartment was at the moment.

Dean wanted to be inconsiderate – well, than, so would she.

Besides, why should she be the one to clean up? He was the one who had done wrong – Dean was the one who hadn't listened – who had gone ahead and kept talking to that Gilmore bitch when she had specifically told him not to. Lindsay might have been the one to create the mess in the first place, taking out her anger with Dean on his possessions. But he was the reason why she had felt the need to break a few things. No, it was clear in Lindsay's mind that the mess that currently littered the apartment was all Dean's fault. It seemed only right, only just that Dean would be the one to clean it up, especially as he had had the audacity to order her to do the dishes as if she was a lowly housemaid before she had discovered his latest screw-up.

Dean needed to learn that she was his wife – not his housemaid.

She had better things to do than to spend her time cleaning.

Her dear husband would just have to realise that if he didn't want to clean up the apartment himself, he would simply have to hire someone else to do it for them. In fact, Lindsay would demand that he do so – she certainly had the leverage to force him to now. Once Dean had been properly cowed, she would submit a new list of demands before agreeing to return to the apartment, and a housemaid would certainly make the list.

Hmm…

Maybe she would make him take her to one of those fancy restaurants in Hartford…

Lindsay shook her head. Now was not the time to think about such things. Now she needed to go to her mother's. Lindsay was certain that her mother would know how to go about curbing Dean's recent bout of rebellion.

Lindsay had grown tired of the idiot stepping out of line.

Dean needed to understand that if she told him to do something, he had to do it.

Tuesday September 14th 2004, Stars Hollow (Forester Residence) 9:02 p.m.

Clara screeched to all and sundry! She stomped throughout the house, calling Lindsay all sorts of unflattering names as she rummaged for the first aid kit.

Although why his sister seemed to think she would find the first aid kit in the cupboard holding the pots and pans was beyond his ability to figure out at the moment.

It wasn't like he actually needed the first aid kit to begin with – it was just a little scratch after all. Despite having done worse herself, Clara seemed to take great offence in the fact that Lindsay had dared to scratch him in her anger. The little blonde had been spitting mad when she noticed the scratch under his right eye. But that was nothing compared to the look Clara got in her eyes when he told her that Lindsay had riffled through his cellphone and discovered that he had kept in contact with Rory for some time after she had ordered him to break off all contact with his ex.

That had sent Clara on her current tangent.

As he watched his sister running up the stairs to go look for the first aid kit on the second floor, Dean couldn't help but think how lucky he was that no reference of his night with Rory could be found on his cellphone.

Most husbands would be grateful that their wives didn't catch them out cheating for the sake of their marriages. Dean, however, was only grateful because it meant Rory had been spared any further pain on his part. Having been married to Lindsay for a year now, he now knew all too well that Lindsay would go to any lengths to punish him for any perceived slight, legitimate or not – and he was convinced that Rory would find herself on the unpleasant end of such treatment if Lindsay was ever to learn of their night together.

Dean closed his eyes and tried to drown out the world. He tried to ignore the crushing, suffocating feeling in his chest when he thought of how his life was turning out. He tried to block out everything – so much so that he never noticed that for once, as his little sister was cussing up a storm and calling Lindsay every bad name she knew, his parents never once reprimanded Clara for insulting their daughter-in-law.

Tuesday September 14th 2004, Stars Hollow (Forester Residence) 9:07 p.m.

Bella Forester didn't know what to do anymore – and she could tell by her husband's silence that he didn't know quite what to do anymore as well. For nearly a year now, they had both been advising their son to have patience – to understand – that everything would be better soon if he could simply get through this one rough patch. But that one small rough patch had become several – and several had become one large and unyielding rough patch. So now, nearly a year later, she stood in the middle of her living room watching her son wither away before her very eyes.

Over the past year Bella had grown weary of all the commotion in Dean's life – and of the pain it caused her son. He was discontent with his life – with his wife – and she couldn't help but worry that maybe she had encouraged her son to marry much too soon.

At the time the marriage had seemed like such a good idea. She and her own husband had been married at that age, and they had assumed that the two young lovebirds would be just as successful in marriage as they had. But now, it was more and more looking like that would not be the case.

He tried oh so very hard – but Bella could tell that Dean wasn't happy – and that he hadn't been happy for a very long time. She, like her husband, had thought that things would get better. But they never did. There was always some other problem cropping up – something which caused strife in her son's marriage – and this time she found herself torn.

On one hand she could understand all too well why Lindsay might feel uncomfortable with the idea of Dean being on friendly terms with his ex-girlfriend. But on the second hand, Bella was angry at Lindsay's demand that her son cease all contact with Rory. Lindsay's belief that she could simply command her son in such a manner left Bella extremely unsettled because it indicated that her daughter-in-law felt that she had a right to dictate what Dean could and couldn't do and who he could and couldn't speak to. This suggested that Lindsay did not view Dean as a partner and an equal, but rather as an inferior she could direct at will.

Lindsay's need to find fault in every little thing that Dean did or didn't do simply seemed to support the conclusion that Bella was just now coming to terms with. And as she looked at her husband beside her, she could tell that he was drawing much the same conclusions as she had – that in their enthusiasm to see their son happily settled they might have encouraged their son into a marriage – to a wife – that did not suit him, that was unhealthy for him.

Tuesday September 14th 2004, Stars Hollow (Lister Residence) 9:24 p.m.

That little whore!

How dare she?

Then again, Shannon Lister wondered why she should expect anything less from that horrid Gilmore girl. The girl's mother, Lorelai, was a well-known harlot in Shannon's astute opinion. How could anyone say otherwise? Why, baring a bastard at sixteen, throwing herself at numerous men, seducing her own daughter's teacher? Shannon let out a disgusted snort. Why, she would even be willing to bet all her wealth that that slut had earned her daughter's valedictorian position on her knees.

And now the little bastard was attending one of the country's most prestigious colleges!

How utterly disgraceful!

The sheer nerve of those little upstarts!

Why, if Lindsay had been so inclined, she would have easily gotten into any Ivy League college of her choice. And unlike that nasty little Gilmore girl, her perfect little girl would have done it on merit alone!

And that step-son of hers!

Oh, the audacity!

The sheer cruelty!

How dare he?

How dare he disobey her daughter and continue on socializing with the little whore? Especially when he knew well enough that his wife was uncomfortable with him interacting with such as low and base girl!

How dare he?

Urgh, it was enough to make her ill. Michel had known something like this would happen. Oh, yes he had – and Shannon had agreed with him. They had tried to convince their daughter that the boy was beneath her. It had been awful enough that Lindsay had agreed to go out with the boy – but to marry him?

Oh, of all the indignities!

Such an awful match!

Her daughter, the most eligible girl in the county, married off to a lowly work hand!

But Lindsay would not be dissuaded. She refused to see sense. She wanted to marry the Forester boy, and what Lindsay wanted, she and her husband gave her. So, putting aside their reservations, they had taken measures to befriend the rest of the Forester family. Naturally they found the parents were more than lacking, and the daughter was an absolute horror – but they made due for Lindsay's sake.

They had sacrificed so much…

And now the boy openly chose to defy her daughter and continue socializing with that damnable Gilmore!

Shannon wouldn't stand for it!

Dean was undoubtedly foolish enough to believe that his little interactions with the Gilmore bastard would remain within the bounds of propriety – but Shannon could see. Now that the boy was married the little harlot was panting after him, wanting to steal him away from Lindsay. Although Shannon very much doubted that the girl's desires would come to fruition – after all, Dean had married Lindsay, so how could the little harlot ever hope to compare? Rory Gilmore could scheme all she wanted, but there was no way whatsoever that her son-in-law would be swayed when he had her daughter as a wife. The sheer notion of it, her daughter, a woman of intelligence, poise and grace to be made a cuckquean by a bastard?

Never.

Still, the gall of it all!

This would not be borne. This issue had to be dealt with – and quickly. She and Lindsay would make it clear to Dean that his socializing with such a woman was not acceptable on his part. And then, they would make it clear to the little harlot that her sentiments – if one could call them that – were unreciprocated. The little bastard would be told, quite plainly, that further contact with Lindsay's husband was forbidden.

Rory Gilmore would be made to understand that her attempts to lure Dean away from Lindsay were laughable at best, and advised to find another focus for her lurid little desires.

Edited May 15 2017