A/N: So it's been a long hiatus, I hit a wall with this story, but Rory's back now and I thought it only fitting that the story move ahead. So here we are one and a half years from where we left, obviously there will be some events that need to be filled in, those will come as Rory comes to terms with herself.

You are entering the world of fiction. Suspend all beliefs now.

Chapter 2.

Means to an End

The phone buzzed in her pocket, she let it ring rushing to put the finishing touches on a piece for the local Bellingham paper. The phone buzzed again and then a third on the fourth she angrily flipped it open. "This better be important." She informed her caller.

"Lorelai" She clutched the cell in shock. It had been two years since she'd heard his voice a year and a half since the last she'd heard of him.

"Lorelai can you hear me?" His breathing came in ragged pants. "Lorelai"

"Yes, yeah Tim I'm here" Thoughts streamed through her mind but none of them stuck and none of them gave her a command about what to do.

"There's a safety deposit box at the Bank of America in Boston number two-five-six. Everything you need to bring down the eastsider's top guns is in there. Can I trust you Rory?" He used her name she irrationally thought; he had never called her by that.

"I swore to myself I'd never go back."

"I don't have time for your touchy feely crap. Will you do it?"

"Why? Why don't you do it?" She breathed accusingly into the receiver.

"They found out I was putting files on them two days ago, yesterday they put a hit out on me I don't leave now I'm a dead man. I'm sure you see the irony in that. And I probably deserve to be put down it's a cowardly act to betray your own gang"

"It's a cowardly act to kill someone in the first place" She interjected.

"But I won't go like this. It's all in there Rory two-five-six." He went on seemingly deaf to her accusation.

"They'll kill me for it." She stated bluntly.

"They might." He agreed. "But you'll find a way so they won't find out. This is your chance Lorelai to get your revenge."

"I've never wanted that."

"Everyone wants that." She heard gun shots ring over the loose connection. "Look I gotta go, but I'll be watching and waiting."

"Wait!" She yelled into the phone.

"I never break a promise." It came through the phone from a distance before it crashed to the cement ground. She finally let her hand release the cell and it too crashed to the floor but this one was the hard linoleum floor of her Bellingham work space.

"I'm going back." She voiced to the blank walls in disbelief. She hadn't been back since graduation. The night she left with Jesse she swore she'd never come back, nothing remained the same after. She lost almost all contact with Sam and Jim, she broke up with Jesse when her contract with the Seattle Times ended and she quit the job waiting back at the Boston branch. She moved to Bellingham bought a workspace and did freelance writing and advertising. She took a part time job as a bartender at a local sports bar when the nights became too much to bear alone. She had become that woman who went through her rut with neither glee or disappointment she was just there filling space until the real Rory could break free again.

And that Rory was about to bust through with a vengeance and take the eastsiders by storm under an infamous name they both knew.

With purpose she finished the last few paragraphs of the article she was writing for the times and packed up her workspace. Suddenly she knew why she had never decorated the space it never felt like hers, it had always been the means to a dream. One that had never come quite to fruition.