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Hey everybody! Back with another chapter. We're gonna do another time-jump now; we're skipping ahead from November 2010 to February 2011. I've got some big ideas and some big things planned, so read on....

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"So how's Rory doing with this whole thing?" Sookie asked. It was a warm day for February, and she and Lorelai were out for a walk around the town to enjoy it, just slow enough not to constitute as excersise.

Lorelai adjusted her grip on Will's stroller to tighten her coat around her; the two-year-old was the master of the wobbly-coffee-table-supported-step, but he wasn't quite up to town-strolling standards just yet. "She's...fine," she said---it was true, after all. "She's...handling it, handling it like Rory---she's Molly Ringwald in 'For Keeps.'"

"Ooooh, is that the one where Jon Cryer...has...and, with the stuff...."

Lorelai was already shaking her head. "No, Sook, that was Pretty In Pink; the point is, she really thinks she's got this whole thing under control."

Sookie was not only the maestra in the kitchen, but at picking up on subtle undertones, too. She quirked her eyebrows up ever-so-slightly. "And you...don't think she's got it all under control?"

"No!" Lorelai sighed. "I mean that's not it, it's not that I think that, it's just that, I don't even know what I think. I guess I just keep waiting for her to freak out."

"Well, she's Rory---she's never been the 'freak out' type."

"I know, I know that, but, this isn't the, 'I got an A minus' kind of freak out or a 'waiting for a job offer' kind of freak out. This is the 'I'm about to be a mom' freak out. But she's not the one freaking out, I am! Is it weird that I'm freaking out that she hasn't freaked out yet? She's perfectly calm."

"Like Molly Ringwald in 'For Keeps,'" Sookie offered, jumping on the Lorelai Analogies train.

"But that's just it; she's not Molly Ringwald. She's Rory. She...works at the New York Times for God's sake, she's been married for, what, a year and a half to a sweet guy who loves her and who I thoroughly have no urge to kill, she's ten years older than I was when I had her...."

"So there you go!" Sookie concluded.

Lorelai was officially no longer on the train. "Huh?"

"...There you go." Less enthusiastic this time.

"There you go what? What conclusion was reached there?"

"It...sounded conclusion-y in my head."

There was a quiet moment for a second there, aside from random daily-life noises from around the town, and the girls turned to make their way across the square. "I mean," Lorelai began again, "I should be doing-the-touchdown-dance kind of happy right now. She made it. She did it. She didn't get pregnant at sixteen and drop out of school, she avoided all of the mistakes I made, she graduated from Chilton and Yale and toured the country with Barack Obama and if anybody still uses the word 'wedlock,' her kid's gonna be born in it. She did everything right."

"But...you're not 'doing-the-touchdown-dance' happy." Sookie was valiantly trying to follow, here.

If there was one thing that Lorelai Gilmore-Danes was not good at doing, it was putting an undefineable gut feeling into understandable words, preferably ones in the English language. "Rory's really happy about this, and I'm really happy about this for her. I am! And I've been good; I've been calm and supportive...it's just...I feel like it hasn't hit her yet."

"Ah."

"And I don't know, maybe I'm just being crazy, but it's like a mom thing, you know?"

"I do, I do know..." Agreeing was the most helpful thing to do at the moment, Sookie decided.

"And it might just be me...I mean, my kid's having a kid. What does that mean?"

"In most cultures it means you're a grandma."

"Gah, no; do not use that word. Grandmothers are old. They knit and bake cookies and...judge."

"Maybe some do, but you don't have to be like that! Start a new trend. Be the 'cool grandma;' make all the other kids jealous."

"And cardigans; don't forget the cardigans."

"Don't you have a cardigan? The cute brown one...?"

"Are you trying to kill me?"

"Sorry." There was another long pause, and in the stroller it sounded like Will was having a spit-bubble contest with himself, but Lorelai glanced down there and he was fine. And then Sookie thought of something. "Is this about Logan?"

Four or five years ago, if you had asked her that question, she would have hemmed and hawwed and eventually given it up that yeah, that was the problem, and couldn't he just fall out of a plane and die really painfully already? But now she looked over at Sookie with an actual, genuine 'of course not' expression. That was the most ridiculous question she'd heard since Kirk asked if he could perform stand-up at the inn. "No! No way! Sookie, he married my daughter; we like him now. God."

"Okay, sheesh, I just thought, you know, you had problems with him in the past, and now she's having his baby, it's a lot more permanent."

"Well yeah, of course he wasn't high on my list back when he was gallivanting around with more liquor in him than Spencer Tracy, but again. Years ago. While you're at it Liz Hurley had a problem with Hugh Grant, too." It took her a minute to catch the second part, but she did eventually. "More permanent than marriage?"

"Well...yeah."

Lorelai gave her friend the 'heart-to-heart-conversation' face. This had to be made clear. Especially around a relationship conspiracy theorist. "Sookie. Did I not say he could propose to Rory? Twice, as a matter of fact?"

A nod. "You did."

"Did I not help plan their Richard-and-Emily-funded wedding?"

"You did, because I catered."

"And did I not give a toast at said wedding---completely sober---welcoming him into our family?"

Another nod. "The sobriety was a nice touch."

"And have I ever once exhibited signs of any urge to decapitate him, and have I not spent several billion hours in pleasant-slash-enjoyable conversation with him, have I not trusted him with my son, am I not on better terms with him than I am with my mother? All of this indicates a completely positive opinion."

"Okay, okay, I get it, it's not Logan."

"Thank you." That should keep that thought from coming up ever again. Actually, Lorelai had been pleasantly surprised by Logan for the past three or four years now. She'd watched him turn from this partying rich kid into a responsible, trustworthy twenty-nine-year-old with whom Rory was safe and happy. Casually dating her daughter was one thing, but when you prove after three dumpings that you're still not going anywhere and then offer to marry her twice, succeeding the second time, then yeah, you're pretty much permanently okay by Lorelai. In fact, if it wasn't going too far to say it, she really cared about the kid now. And would probably admit that she loved him as a son-in-law without any visible twitching. Turned out Rory picked a winner---one of the few left out there. Then again, Rory was always a great judge of character.

It wasn't him. It was her. Lorelai. Not the 'Rory' edition, but her, Lorelai Victoria Gilmore-Danes, that was the problem. She was the one who wasn't ready just yet. She was the one who had the sinking suspicion that Rory was in for a freak-out of her own, just as soon as the 'happy, nesting' thing wore off. She was the one who'd have to get used to the idea of Rory---her Rory---being a mom. And she had two months left to do that in.

"So then...?" Sookie prodded. Obviously this conversation wasn't ending without some type of resolution.

"I just worry about her," Lorelai sighed. "She'll be fine. And if and when she freaks out---"

"You'll be the calm one and help her through it," Sookie finished.

"Yes. And until then---"

"You'll be freaking out, and coming up with alternate words for 'grandma.'"

"Exactly." God bless best friends like Sookie.

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Right about now, it was probably good that Will was down for a nap, because that meant that only one of the Danes men had to listen to this conversation. The two-year-old got to be spared while his exhausted, scruffy father was chained to the stove cooking dinner for the psychotic dog. Who, by the way, played dead at the sight of onesies.

"Fat ankles." This came from Lorelai; they were playing 'compare the pregnancies' at the kitchen table.

Rory shook her head. "Nope, I got those too."

"Oh, come on! You're waddling around on two straws while I spent nine months reenacting any movie scene that has ever involved a ball-and-chain."

"Okay, fine, but mine's worse as far as the morning sickness."

"Yeah, you got me there---I bet Logan's used to holding hair back for an entirely different reason..."

"Not to interrupt this very educational conversation---what, what happens if one of you had it worse, do you win?" Luke cut in, stepping aside from the stove a little, "---but does that look rare enough for him...?" He tilted the skillet a bit so Lorelai could see the burger patty for herself. This was a man who cooked these for a living, mind you, but this was also for a dog who changed its freakish mind on a daily basis.

"I'd add a little medium to it," Lorelai responded. She took another marshmallow from the bowl in the center of the table before continuing. "You know, I actually had more morning sickness with you than with Will; it could mean it's a girl."

"Really? Is that how it works, more throwing up equals girl?"

A shrug. "How should I know? Of course, I could know, if you know...."

Rory rolled her eyes, but in a nice way. "I told you, I don't know. Logan doesn't know. Santa Claus, Obama, Bill Moyers, the Easter Bunny, all out of the gender loop."

"But he said you could know, right? I mean, the doctor offered to tell you?"

"Yeah, of course."

Lorelai mock-indignantly slammed her marshmallow-hand down on the table. "Then how can you not know?"

"I don't want to know; I want to be surprised."

"Well how can you not want to know?"

Rory lifted her chin a bit and responded with her mock-superior face. "I guess I just have more self-control than you do."

Lorelai let out a short laugh---it came out like "Pah!"---and reached for another marshmallow. "Uh, hello, is this the Gazette? Boy, do I have a story for you."

"Hey, so, what do you think of the name Nathan?" Rory asked. After enduring a childhood with her mother she was the master of the swiftly-changed subject.

"As in, Nathan Fillion, Nathan Hale, Nathan's Famous hot dogs Nathan?"

"Right, no Nathan."

"Heyyyyy, wait---are you trying to tell me it's a boy? Is that it?"

"Mom!"

Rory didn't have to say anything more than that; where she was a master subject-changer, Lorelai was a master backpedaler. "Right, right, okay, okay, I get it, you don't know. Consider it dropped. It's on the floor, it's forgotten about, it's decomposing. Hey, speaking of 'mom,' while we're at it---what's this kid supposed to call me?"

"Ohhh, that's right," Rory remembered, "the 'grandma' aversion."

"I was thinking something funky, like...G-ma. G-unit."

"...G-unit?"

"Okay, yeah, it sounded better in my head. What about gram?"

"As in, unit of measurement?"

"You know, it really doesn't have to call me anything. I'm fine with it just calling me Lorelai."

"Your grandchild is not going to call you Lorelai."

"Why not?"

"It's a first-name address. It's distant."

"At least it has nothing to do with hot dogs!"

"Or hip-hop."

Serendipitous creature that he was, Paul Anka came trotting into the kitchen just then, giving Luke his patented 'dude-where's-my-dinner' face. Rolling his eyes, Luke got the yellow bowl down from the cupboard and scraped the hamburger into it, setting it on the floor. Paul Anka no longer had to eat in the dark, just as long as people weren't ogling him while he ate---nobody could say he wasn't adapting. Slightly. "There you go, ya freak, bon apetit. Enjoy the people food."

And the dog wasn't the only one enjoying the people food. Rory took another marshmallow from the center of the table and put it in her own bowl, on top of everything else---the peanut butter, the Fruit Loops, the açaí berries, graham crackers---you name it, it was in there. The whole 'random cravings' thing was in full swing now, and anyone in her life who had any cooking ability---namely Luke and Sookie, not to mention Logan, who was known by name at every takeout restaurant in New England---was getting the brunt of it. Happy to do it, of course. But still.

"God, I'm getting nauseous just watching you," Lorelai said as she stared at the bowl. It was like she was in a trance or something.

"Oh, this from the woman who at five months decided that nacho cheese and cinna-sticks went really really well together," Rory countered. "At least mine's all in one genre."

"What genre, 'sugar high?'"

"I don't know what's with me this week, all I've been wanting is sweet stuff; usually most of my cravings are for vegetables, salad, avocados, those really nice Harry & David pears..."

"You're lucky there's a reason for that, or I'd be testing you for a bump on the head."

"Oooh, hey, you know what would go good with this?" Rory turned her big blue eyes on Luke, who was cleaning up the stove and who was also powerless against the Rory Face. "The best coffee in the whole wide world...."

Luke had seen this coming. He was the closest thing to Gilmore-radar in Stars Hollow. "I already made a fresh pot."

"I knew I smelled something."

"Here." Luke got down two mugs and filled one for each of the girls, then went about cleaning up and acting perfectly normal as they took a sip. It would be coming soon enough---as well as he knew them he kept on trying to get it past them.

Rory was the first to set her mug down. "Decaf---really, Luke?"

"Oh, it's totally decaf. Why punish me? I'm not pregnant!"

Rory was already out of her chair. Everybody was just going to have to get used to the fact that baby wanted caffeine. "I'll get it; where is it this time, under the sink?"

"No, I think I broke him with that one, it might be behind the pots and pans."

"'Cause God knows we never use those."

"Exactly."

"All right, that's it." Wiping his hands off on a paper towel, Luke abandoned the stove, went over, took Rory by the arm, and led her back to her chair. The girls watched in amusement and prepared for the rant. "You don't need coffee, you don't need marshmallows, you need fruits and vegetables---actual nutritional sutstainance. You need---" here he actually lifted her feet up and set them on the opposite chair, "---to sit down, relax, and stop doing whatever it is she did when she had you that made you the caffeine addict you are. I mean, for cryin' out loud, this kid's going to pop out with a tail or something. God knows what hasn't shown up on Will yet; he could have gills for all we know. Look at this---how can you eat this crap? All you need is a vat of chocolate and a purple top hat, and a bunch of those worker squirrels. Everything in here should come with a stomach pump and the Surgeon General's warning. And this morning, I saw you reaching for the top shelf---what is that about?" He didn't give her a window to answer---not that she would have been able to with a straight face. "There will be no reaching. There will be no lifting---and I'm not talking heavy lifting, because I know you know that, I'm talking binders, dinner plates, books with more than two hundred pages. There will be no stair-climbing, no fast walking, no stretching, no extrenuous speaking, no 'but's. Understood?"

Rory nodded at all that, struggling not to giggle. "Yes sir." It had been way too long since she'd had a front-row seat for a Luke Rant, let alone been the subject of one. It was fun. He was just being as crazy-protective of her as he'd been of Lorelai, which was cute; except now, Lorelai was giving her the 'ha-ha,-it's-not-me' smirk. Still: that didn't mean she was going to stick to that. Not 'till she joined the convent. "Oooh? How does red velvet cake sound? And tangelos."

Lorelai nodded happily. Luke groaned a "Why do I bother" and went back to the pan.

Reaching into her purse on the back of the chair, Rory pulled out her Sidekick and pressed '1'.

"Put it on speaker, put it on speaker," Lorelai begged. When Luke shot her a look for encouraging this, she shrugged innocently. "What? It's so she won't have to bend her elbow."

The girls waited as patiently as their genes would allow for the Blackberry on the other end to stop ringing. Finally it did. Logan's voice came through the kitchen, slightly more cell-phone-y than in person, and apparently he'd checked the caller ID. "You'd better still be at your mom's, Ace, I don't like you walking around out there."

Luke pointed to the phone lying on the table. "Thank you!" With that, he left the kitchen.

"I'm still at mom's," Rory promised, "Luke says hi---"

"Hey Logan!"

"---and mom says hi too...listen, another one just hit me, do you mind?"

Even in his voice, she could hear the smirk. "Place your order now."

"Red velvet cake, tangelos...and oh, Hostess fruit pies."

"Any in particular?"

"Whatever they got."

"All right..." The sound of a piece of paper being unfolded came through the kitchen too, and Rory figured he was going over the list. "So that's the cucumbers, the moose tracks ice cream, the cheese crackers, In Touch Weekly, red velvet cake, tangelos, fruit pie."

"Oh, scratch the crackers."

The sound of a pen now; she could see him wedging the phone between his ear and his shoulder. "And replace with?"

"Uh...green olives, if they got 'em? Where are you?"

"Woodbridge."

Lorelai and Rory looked at each other to make sure neither of them were going deaf. "Sorry, I think the connection sucks...did you say you're in Woodbridge?"

Now she didn't have to hear the smirk, she heard him actually laugh, which was more of a dead giveaway. "Yeah, Doose's was out of cucumber and the closest thing I could find to moose tracks was something fudge-like with a picture of a cow on it."

"So you went to Woodbridge?"

"No, I went to three other stores all leading further and further away from Stars Hollow and I ended up in Woodbridge."

"You poor baby," she laughed. "I didn't mean you had to go to another county."

"It's all good, Ace; they had a Wal-Mart, I'm on my way home right now."

"Okay. See you then."

Rory pressed 'end' on her phone and slipped it back into her purse. She looked at Lorelai with an impressed doe-eyed expression. "He's in Woodbridge."

"Getting ice cream." Lorelai was equally surprised.

"And cucumbers."

"Getting ice cream and cucumbers."

"He went to Woodbridge for ice cream and cucumbers."

Lorelai got up, reached up on top of the fridge, and started to put on a pot of the real coffee. "Behold, the advantages of putting a ring on it."

"Amen."

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XD I love Luke Rants, it was only a matter of time. ^^ The next chapter is tres important, I'm talking MAJOR, so don't stop now! I totally appreciate all the great reviews, thank you you guys, and while I'm on the subject here, PLEASE take a sec and review! I like hearing 'good chapter,' but those of you who get specific and tell me which part you liked best or whatever, that REALLY helps! This story's for you you know! At any rate, the next one's on its way, so get ready....

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