The resumption of Mom and Luke's engagement brought most of my plans to a screeching halt.

Jess and I agreed that we wouldn't tell either of them about our relationship until after the wedding. This was their moment, the wedding they had held off for years and years. They had earned this. We didn't want our burgeoning relationship – or my upcoming move to Philadelphia – to be a distraction.

I still didn't know how my mom would feel about Jess and I becoming a real couple. I kept thinking back to what she had said the last time I had seen her – that she didn't want the world to know what Jess thought of her. It wasn't that she still had a bad opinion of him, but that she worried about his bad opinion of her, and how that would color whatever I chose to let the world know about our long-ago days in the potting shed. I didn't want our relationship to make those insecurities even worse, or to upset her again at what should have been the happiest time of her life.

I thought about what Jess had said about my mom needing to forgive herself for everything that had happened during those ten years when it was just the two of us in that shed, surviving more on affection and determination than anything else. I thought about him and all the stories he had only hinted at from growing up with his mom. I thought about what it must have taken in order to let go of all that pain and hurt in order to forgive her for all of the things she'd never be able to acknowledge. He had to be strong enough in order to let go of the past because that's what had mattered to her, even if it was easier to keep holding onto it.

Maybe I had to learn to do the same thing. At the end of the day, she was still my mom and my best friend, and the life that we had shared together had been her life, too. If the book still was something that hurt her, then I couldn't go through with it. As much as it meant to me, I didn't feel that it was something that completely defined my future anymore. I had a boyfriend and a life waiting for me in Philadelphia, and possibly a job at the book press if I wanted it.

Looking at my mom across that darkened kitchen table as I handed her those chapters, I knew that even if she didn't know the details yet, she accepted this as well. If she didn't give me her blessing on this, then I would simply focus on the other good parts of my life.

My future wasn't anywhere near as bleak as it had seemed before. I had options.

It turns out that our estrangement had been a very small part of what had inspired my mom's trip to California.

"I had a lot of things to figure out," she told me a few nights later as we sat sprawled on the sofa, her plans for invitations and floral arrangements momentarily abandoned on every available surface of the coffee table. Kirk had been appointed wedding planner and had spent the last three evenings talking late into the night with Mom over the upcoming nuptials, but he had gone home early tonight. Luke had long since succumbed to sleep, grumbling that he would be the one to clean up the mess early in the morning as he had after every single one of these late-night planning sessions.

As it had been so many times before, it was just her, me, and coffee, and talk had gradually turned to deeper subjects than whether the floral arrangements would match the tablecloths.

"Was I one of those things?" I asked her.

"I was nervous about the book, and what was going on with you," my mom admitted. "You didn't seem to know what you were going to be doing, and the thing with Logan was still going on, and all of that really weighed on me. But it wasn't just that."

She took a deep breath and swallowed another sip of her drink.

"Sookie was gone, and she wasn't coming back. Michel wanted to leave because the Dragonfly wasn't doing enough business to keep him here. Mom was moving on, and I was still having a hard time dealing with Dad being gone. I could deal with all of that, but it kept piling up. But then Luke and I started fighting, and we'd been keeping some secrets from each other, and whenever anything else happened I count on him more than anyone else, and I had to –"

Mom stopped herself and turned to look at me. "I had to take a break from all of that. Or I thought I did. I had to let go of everything that scared me, and what had been scaring me for nine years was the idea that I could let this relationship go to hell again if I let my obsession with getting married take over like I did in the past. I just went in the other direction for so long because I didn't want it to get screwed up again. And I didn't have to do that."

I sighed, half relieved that I hadn't been solely responsible for my mom making such a risky and spontaneous decision and half guilty that I hadn't been here to support her when everything else was falling apart.

"I should have come back and tried to talk to you, Mom," I said. "I hate knowing that you felt so alone."

"Oh, I'm not sure I could have told you about most of the Luke stuff," Mom assured me. "I put you in the middle way too many times before, and it didn't work out for any of us."

Mom put her cup down and met my steady gaze with her own. "I didn't ever intend on leaving Luke," she told me forcefully. "I just needed to figure out why what we agreed on wasn't making either of us as happy as it had in the past. We've been at this for a long time, and there's always going to be ups and downs. But we're going to keep going through them together."

"But you're happy with the way things are now?" I tentatively asked her.

"I am," Mom said, her eyes shining with contentment. "But Rory, I just want you to promise me that if you're in this same situation yourself that you'll try not to hold off on the things that you might want because you're afraid. You'll miss a lot of opportunities that way, and I don't want that for you."

"You've never really seemed like that kind of person to me, Mom," I told her honestly.

"I let the mistakes we made in the past haunt us for a long time," Mom replied, draining the last of her coffee. Her eyes darkened slightly, and I saw a tiny bit of what looked like regret in them. "If this wedding had happened seven years ago like it maybe should have, or five, or four –" she shook her head, and her gaze was steady and confident yet again. "What's done is done, and there's not much use in thinking about the what ifs. But I want you to promise me that you'll try not to do the same thing."

I smiled, thinking of all the upcoming life changes that she didn't know about yet. "I promise," I told her.

I wanted to tell her about Jess so much at that point. But I'd made a promise to him first to hold off until after the wedding, and I wasn't going to break it.

I only hoped that my mom would be happy with the exact way in which I planned to take her advice.

Fortunately, my mom was much too busy to notice that I never quite moved back in with her. She had initially planned to get married four days after returning from California but had quickly realized that she would need at least a month to really arrange the wedding that she wanted. Still, the timeframe was pretty tight, and she didn't have a lot of time or energy to wonder where I was most of the time.

My grandmother had put her house up for sale and was officially moving to Nantucket, so I wasn't even spending occasional nights there anymore. Gil's son had moved into Lane's house with his girlfriend and two of his bandmates, but aside from dropping in unexpectedly at Lane's request a few times, I wasn't using it as a place to work or crash. Paris's missed period last spring had turned out to be an early indication of the conception of the third Gellar-McMaster baby, so they had reconciled and were planning to move into a slightly smaller apartment.

I think my mom thought I was with Paris when I wasn't with her, but that quickly proved not to be a feasible option. Paris was vicious when she was pregnant because she knew everything that could go wrong and everything that could be done to keep it from going wrong, and anyone who didn't bow to her wishes quickly found themselves to be the targets of her immediate wrath.

No mere mortal ever wants to be the target of Paris Gellar's immediate wrath.

Paris knew about Jess and I, and we had even joined them for a slightly uncomfortable double date about a week after my mom announced her (re) engagement. Doyle seemed to have toned down on his hipper-than-thou attitude and seemed more like the amiable person he had been back in our college days, but Paris's gestation had only sharpened her acerbic attitude: she spent most of dinner attacking the book press's backlist when she wasn't busy terrifying the wait staff into submission. Jess left right after the check came and told me he'd call me the next day.

Her real concerns came to my attention when we shared a solo cab ride back to her apartment, Doyle having already departed on his own to pick up some of Pari's requested pregnancy-related delicacies on the way home.

"Are you sure the real motivation for you two isn't to live out some sort of Ada or Ardor fantasy?" she asked me as soon as the doors shut and we were alone together.

"You don't approve," I remarked.

"I didn't say that," Paris insisted. "I'm just wondering if this is some kind of strange literary experiment between writers, that's all."

"It's not," I told her. "We're serious about it."

"You won't call him your boyfriend," she pointed out. "You introduced him to Doyle by explaining that you used to date in high school. You say you might work at his company. What did you call yourself around them? Partner, lover, soon-to-be stepcousin because you just happened to hook up at the same time that your relatives decided to finally make their relationship official –"

"It's new," I tried to explain. "I haven't done this in a long time. Mom and Luke don't have anything to do with me not knowing what label to place on it."

"But they don't know about it, do they?" she asked me.

"We're waiting until after the wedding," I told her. "It's not because we're ashamed or because we see this as some sort of fling. I'm moving out of the state for him, Paris. I haven't felt comfortable enough in a relationship to do that – well, ever."

"You said that part of the reason you were doing that is because you were working together," Paris retorted.

"That's still true," I replied. "I wouldn't feel it was right if the only reason was because I was with him, but I wouldn't move just because he's editing my book, either."

"But you're happy?"

"I am," I told her with conviction. "I haven't felt this confident about anything in a long time."

"I guess I have to give it the patented Paris Gellar seal of approval, then," Paris said, letting a small grin creep into her features. "Well, semi-approval. I'm going to keep my eye on him."

"I'm sure Jess appreciates that," I said, chortling slightly.

"I had a feeling about you two as soon as you told me," she continued. "I've seen in a lot in my practice. Two people in their thirties who were in long-term relationships that didn't end up like they thought they would. They meet up with that old flame or that friend they've known forever and instant marriage and kids. The first kid pops out okay, but they have trouble getting the second one. That's where I step in."

"That's not why we're together," I clarified quickly. "That doesn't even make sense, Paris. Why would you jump into a relationship just because you want marriage and kids? That doesn't sound like a very healthy foundation to build a life out of to me."

"Well, it happens," Paris retorted. "And it ends up working out a lot more often than you would think."

"Well, that doesn't apply to me," I told her. "Jess broke up with his last girlfriend a year ago. And I haven't dated anyone seriously for a long time –"

Paris looked at me incredulously. "You think I don't know about you and Huntzberger? That you were spending half your time in London and meeting him occasionally for social visits? Come on."

I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling instantly guilty at having failed to hide my indiscretions as thoroughly as I should have. "That's not supposed to be common knowledge," I said softly.

"Rory, I've known you for decades. How long did it go on, anyway? Two years?"

I nodded. "Just about." I sighed. "That wasn't a real relationship. It wasn't at all like it is with Jess."

"Then it looks like you're right on schedule," Paris said, rubbing the bulge of her stomach. "I've got a feeling about these things. If it's as good as you say it is, you'll end up where I am before you know it."

We shared a laugh as the cab sped towards the apartment, both of us contemplating possible – and seemingly improbable – futures.

Paris was right, of course.

Three days after I returned home from that trip, my period failed to arrive on schedule.

I waited it out almost a week, figuring it was just a fluke. After all, between helping my mom plan her wedding, working on the book, and traveling to Philadelphia every four or five days to spend time with Jess and look at apartments, I was under a lot of stress. I figured my body would get back to its normal rhythms in a week or so.

We were on day eight when I forced myself to bring the pregnancy test home.

Throughout it all, I felt oddly calm. I should have been frenzied and worried and terrified about the possibility of such a huge life change, but I wasn't. I kept telling myself I was in denial or in shock about what was happening, but my brain didn't seem want to accept it.

The odd thing was that seeing that little plus sign in front of me didn't change that.

I knew three things in that moment.

I had irrefutable proof that I was pregnant with Jess Mariano's baby.

I was happy about that fact.

And I wanted to keep it.