The next day Emily and Richard called Rory to come over. They said they had some stuff to give her for her trip. "Hey Mom, Grandma and Grandpa wanted me to come over to their house. Can I borrow your car?" Rory asked her mom at lunch.

"Sure hon, just drop me off at the Inn." Lorelai said.

"K. I'll go pay, then we can go." Rory said, getting up.

When they arrived at the Inn, Sookie dragged them inside to test out dessert options for the fourth of July. Being that it was Sookie, she had about a dozen options and Rory just got out with enough time to make it to Hartford by noon when her grandparents were expecting her.

"Hello, Mrs. Gilmore is waiting for you." Shana said as she opened the door for Rory. She took her coat and led her to the living room.

"Hi Grandma. How are you?" Rory asked as she sat down.

"I'm good Rory. How are you? Are you excited about your trip?" Emily asked, getting Rory a drink.

"I'm good grandma. Actually I am kind of nervous about it. I have never been so far away." Rory said as she took a sip of her Coke.

"Oh you'll do wonderful. I love Italy. It is so beautiful." Emily said.

Rory was wondering why she was asked to come here, her mom had been very sketchy with the details. "So grandma, mom said you wanted me to stop by."

Emily put down her glass of tea and began, "Oh yes, your grandfather and I just wanted to say goodbye to you. Your mother told us that you were leaving tomorrow so we would not have seen you at dinner Friday. Grandpa is in his study. Come on."

Rory followed her grandmother in to the study, perplexed by what was going on. "Why would they call me here in the middle of the day to say goodbye."

"Oh Rory, you're here. Wonderful. Sit." Her grandfather said upon seeing Rory in his doorway.

"Richard, I'm going to make sure the food is set up in the kitchen." Emily said as she left the room.

"Wait, what food?" Rory asked, completely confused.

"Well we decided that if you couldn't come to dinner tomorrow we would have you for a lunch." Richard said smiling.

Just then Shana came into the room. "Mr. Gilmore, Ms. Gilmore, lunch is ready in the kitchen."

They got up and went into the kitchen. Emily, Richard, and Rory talked for about an hour and a half. When they were done Rory got ready to leave. "Well I'm gonna go home now. Thanks so much for lunch." She gave her grandparents a hug.

"Okay Rory. We'll call you before you leave tomorrow. Have fun." Emily said as she and Richard walked Rory to the door.

"Bye" Rory said.

She got into the car and started her trip home. She never noticed the car that was following her the whole way back to Stars Hollow. When she got back to her house she was surprised to see that people were there. "Its only three, why is mom home. Wait why are there people in the house?"

"Hi Mom, I'm home!" Rory said as she entered the house. What's every. . ."

"SURPRISE!!!" Shouted a whole crowd of people in her living room.

"Hey hon, welcome to your surprise going away party. Everyone in town came, even Luke and Taylor." Lorelai said as she walked up to her daughter and gave her a hug.

For the rest of the night Rory talked with all of her friends and other people from the town. Emily and Richard showed up shortly after Rory, as they had been following her from Hartford. Jess was there but she was so busy talking to all the other guests they barely even got to say anything other than hi to each other. Everyone, although Lorelai told them not to, brought gifts. After the party Lorelai and Rory opened the together. Ms. Patty gave her a book of the top strip clubs in Italy. Babette and Morey gave her a ceramic cat that was rowing a gondola. There was some useful things, however the majority of the gifts were very random. Still Rory knew they meant a lot to her as well as the people who gave them to her.

"Hey Ror, I think you missed one." Lorelai said as she handed her daughter a rectangular shaped gift.

Knowing instinctively who it was from, Rory immediately opened it. She found Jane Eyre inside. The book immediately brought back memories.

Flashback three weeks ago

It was one of the few free moments that Rory had to herself. School had been cancelled that day because there had been a water leak. Dean was at work and her mom was at the Inn. She had gone to the Diner for lunch and was just finishing eating. All of a sudden Jess sat down in the seat across from her. "I need your help." He said plainly.

"Maybe you should try acting nicer." Rory replied, also in a flat tone.

"Fine, Rory, please, pwetty please would you help me." Although he was trying to sound nice, he still ended up sounding more sarcastic.

However, since Rory had nothing else to do, she figured it couldn't hurt to at least see what he needed. "Fine, what do you need?"

"We're reading Jane Eyre in summer school and we have a test tomorrow. I read it, I swear I did, I'm just having some serious trouble understanding it." He said.

"Well you're in luck, Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books. I just hope you have a copy. Cuz you see I had a copy at one point, but then I went to a sleep over one night in ninth grade and my mom was home alone. Well she saw a millipede or a caterpillar or something on the wall and my book just happened to be the closest object to her at the time. She squished the bug and the book got all gross so she threw it out. Which is really sad because like I said, that is such a good book." Rory said, laughing a little as she remembered the story.

"Ok so then will you meet me upstairs in say ten minutes. I just gotta talk to Luke and then I'll get you some coffee." Jess said, delighted that Rory was going to help him. He especially loved the fact that this was a book that she was passionate about. Whenever she talked about something she really liked, her whole body just became animated.

They met upstairs and studied the book for three hours. Jess promised to lend Rory the book once he finished the test on it. However that promise was soon forgotten, at least by Rory.

End Flashback

"So he actually kept his promise." Rory thought to herself with a smile. She looked through the book and was thrilled to find all his little notes and thoughts in the margins. She loved to read books that he read, especially because they gave her an inside perspective of what goes on in is mind. She decided to read it on the plane, then she would have the time to really enjoy it.

Returning to the room, Lorelai asked her daughter, "So who was it from, what was it?"

"It was just a book mom." Rory said.

Immediately disappointed, Lorelai was never really the one to consider a book to be a gift, she replied, "Oh. Well are you almost done packing because you are gonna have to get up early tomorrow."

"Yeah, I just have a few more things to stick in, but I can do that in the morning. I'm really tired I think that I'm gonna go to bed." Rory said as she walked over to give her mom a hug.

"Wait hon, I still have to give you my gift." Lorelai said as she handed Rory a box, wrapped in the comic section of the newspaper.

"Mom, you really didn't have to." Rory said as she held the gift in her hand.

"Well it was gonna be for your birthday but I figured I might as well give it to you now, seeing as how you aren't going to be in the country on your birthday."

Rory opened the gift and found a digital camera in it. "Oh my god mom, thank you so much. I can't believe it. This is amazing! Wow! This is to much. You really didn't have to."

"Yes I did, like I said, it's an early birthday present. Now you have to promise me that you send me pictures everyday. You have your laptop so there is no excuse." Lorelai said as she hugged Rory.

"Thanks mom."

"No problem kiddo. Now get to bed."

Lorelai left the room and both went to bed, each were feeling apprehension and excitement about the following day.

The next morning Rory awoke to the sounds of her mothers singing, or make that her very off key singing. "Wake up, little Susie wake up"

"Mom, Mom, Mom, you need to stop. Like now. I mean it." Rory said, screaming over her mom's voice.

"Fine, fine, I'm stopping." Lorelai said, throwing up her arms in defeat. "So get up, you have to finish packing, we have to go to Luke's, and then we have to walk around the town talking about absolutely nothing until it's time for your plane to leave." Lorelai said, pulling her daughter out of bed.

Knowing it was no use Rory gave in and got up. After she was dressed and finished packing, she and Lorelai went to Luke's. It was the last time they would be going there together for a year.

After Luke's and their two hour walk around the town, Rory went to say good bye to some people. She stopped at Sookie's first. She received two bags of cookies, jam, and some turkey. Then she went to Lane's.

"Wow, Mrs. Kim must be glad that I'm leaving. She told me I could stay for an hour." Rory said as she entered Lane's room.

"Oh Rory, I'm gonna miss you so much." Lane said, hugging her best friend. "Here, I didn't give you this last night because I thought that it might get lost."

Lane handed Rory a variety of Disney songs on c.d. With the explanation that the songs are all about basically crazy, but lovable nevertheless, characters. So they should remind Rory of Stars Hollow and all the people who are gonna miss her. They two of them talked for an hour and finally Mrs. Kim had to chase Rory out.

"Write me, send emails to me through your mom. Stay in touch." Lane said giving her friend one last hug.

The last person to visit was Jess. She went into the diner and Luke told her that he was upstairs.

Knocking tentatively on the door, she waited for Jess to let her in. Finally he came to the door.

"Hi." She said as he let her in.

"Hey." He said avoiding her eyes.

"I just wanted to say goodbye. My flight leaves tonight." She said, also avoiding his eyes.

"Yeah, I know." He said. "Do you want something to drink?"

"No, I really can't stay long. I just wanted to say goodbye, and let that you know I'm gonna really miss you." With that Rory embraced Jess in a hug.

Although at first taken back by this show of affection, Jess decided to hug her back. The hug was filled with so much emotion, friendship, more than friendship, love, denial, and most importantly, it was the hug of two people who didn't want to be separated. "I have to go now, but I'll email you."

"K." Jess said.

Rory began to walk out the door, but Jess stopped her. "Rory, wait."

"What?" She said, turning around.

"I'm gonna miss you to." He said, his voice full of emotion.

Rory didn't know what came over her, all of a sudden she was standing in front of Jess, inches away from his lips. Then just as quickly she kissed him on the lips, quickly but passionately. "That wasn't a mistake." she said, just in case he was wondering. Before she left she handed him a note, she had wrote it last night and wasn't sure if she wanted to give it to him or not. The kiss, however, helped him make his decision.

Before he could say anything she was gone. She got in her mom's car and was on her way to the airport. She was so precuupied by all the feelings rushing through her head while she was in the apartment that house never even noticed the two half full suitcases on his bed. It was about an hour drive and Lorelai talked to her for the entire time.

At the airport, Rory met with Mrs. Laar and the other student who was going, Jerry Smith.

They got all their bags checked in and received all the information on where they would be staying. Jerry was in Northern Italy, while Rory would be staying at the Marinetti's in Southern Italy.

The plane was going to leave in one hour and they had to get to their gate soon.

"Bye babe. I'm gonna mis you so much. Remember what I said about writing, and calling, and emailing. If you can swing it, send me messenger pigeons. That would be pretty cool...meeting an Italian bird." Lorelai said as she latched onto Rory, hugging her tightly.

"Mom, you need to let go of me now." Rory said, trying to catch her breath.

Lorelai finally let go and she and Rory said their final goodbye's.

Rory walked down the hall of the airport towards her flight. Lorelai watched her daughter with sadness, realizing that her baby was growing up.