Welcome to part 2! Thanks for bearing with me, I promise this is not a regular thing I've just been on holiday so my time zones are really messed up😂. Anyway, enjoy!

"So! Are we all ready?" Lorelai turns to address her little crowd of two.

Rory smiles and nods. "Yep. I'm ready. More than ready."

"Mia?"

"I'm good to go."

"Great!" Lorelai smiles. "For once I don't feel nauseated about going to my mother's. I don't know if I like it. Is this a good thing?"

Mia goes to speak but Rory cuts her off. "Yes definitely a good thing." Rory says, pushing her mom out the door and pulling Mia behind her.

"Hey, hey! What's going on?" says Lorelai.

"Nothing. I'm just excited for my party." says Rory, forcing a smile.

"Really? Are you ok, Rory? You've been acting weird, kid. If something's up, now is the time to tell me."

Rory hesitates for a split second. "Seriously, mom, I'm fine." she says. "You're just paranoid."

"Yeah mom, all your paranoia has shifted from grandma to Rory." Mia says, trying to lighten the mood.

Lorelai gives Rory one more concerned sideways glance and then moves on. "Well I guess I do have a colossal amount of displaced paranoia..."

"Rory! The birthday girl! You're here." says Emily, hugging and kissing both girls.

"Great deductions, mom." says Lorelai

"Well maybe you need a little help deducing, Lorelai." says Emily. "Tell me, which part of 'be here at six thirty' did you not understand?"

"The 'six'" says Mia, Lorelai pokes her in the back.

"Sorry, mom. There was traffic." says Lorelai.

"That's quite alright. Come on in." says Emily. "Richard!" she yells. "The girls are here."

Richard walks into the hall to see the girls, straightening his bow tie. "Emily, this bow tie is far too tight." he says. "Ah Rory! Happy birthday." he hands her a white envelope. "For your traveling."

"Thank you, grandpa." says Rory, hugging him. Richard pats her back, awkwardly.

"So Rory," says Emily. "How does it feel to be sixteen?"

"Um... I don't know. Older, I guess." says Rory, coldly. "How long's this thing going to be?"

"Oh! At least over two hours, probably." says Emily, surprised.

This surprises Lorelai as well. "Rory, why don't you go check out the dining room?"

Rory walks into the dining room.

"What was that about?" asks Emily.

"I'm sorry, mom. I don't know what's up with her."

"Maybe she doesn't like the colour scheme." worries Emily. "I'll go ask her."

Throughout all this, Mia stays very, very quiet. This is the right thing to do. Isn't it?

Up until eight thirty, Rory has been hiding in the dining room, talking to her grandma's friends.

"Rory, why don't you go say hi to your friends? They're all in the front room." says Emily. Rory doesn't move. "Come on, Rory, be a good hostess." Emily insists, pushing Rory into the front room.

When Rory walks in, all the Chilton students turn and stare at her. They start to point and laugh.

"Hey Mary!" says Tristan, walking up to her. "Great party. Maybe at the end I could give you a birthday kiss..."

"Go away, Tristan." says Rory, turning sharply and bumping into Paris. The two stare at each other for a while.

"My mom made me come." says Paris.

Mia walks into the front room in time to see the Chilton students laughing at Rory and Rory running away.

Mia looks around and sees jackets and purses belonging to the Chilton students. She grabs a tray of entrees and fills the pockets of the jackets and the purses with them. The entree is an interestingly scented dish, probably made of fish or egg. Either way, it will be unpleasant to find.

Rory rushes back into the dining room. Emily and Lorelai spot her and walk over to talk to her.

"How are your friends?" asks Emily.

"Friends?" says Lorelai.

"How could you do this to me?" Rory explodes at her grandmother.

"What?"

"Woah."

"How could you embarrass me like this?" Rory continues. "You just assume that you know what's best and that you're always right but you're not! You're not!" Rory cries. She runs out.

"Wow." says Lorelai. "I mean..."

"How can you let your daughter behave like that?" Emily rants at Lorelai. "Have you not taught her manners or the proper way to behave?"

"How is this suddenly my fault?" asks Lorelai.

"She's your daughter, is she not?" says Emily. "I don't think we'll be attending your party tomorrow."

"Mom, please..."

"I'm sorry, we can't make it." says Emily, walking away.

Lorelai rushes out into the hall and sees Mia.

"Mia have you seen Rory?"

"She's waiting in the car."

"What on earth was going on between her and grandma and..." Lorelai pauses. "Why do you smell like egg? Or is that fish?"

"It's a long story which won't make sense until you talk to Rory."

"Oh god! Rory! What am I going to tell her? I know she was fighting with grandma but I think she still wanted her to come see the house and be at her party."

"Grandma's not coming to Rory's party?" says Mia.

"Nope not anymore."

"Ok. I'll be out at the car in a minute."

"Sure. I better go talk to Rory." says Lorelai.

Mia finds her way into the dining room and walks over to Emily.

"Have they sent you to tell me they're leaving?" asks Emily.

Mia shakes her head. "No but they are leaving. This is coming from me. Please come to Rory's party tomorrow. Being at her sweet sixteen means more than this fight."

"Mia..." says Emily.

"Please! Just don't say no."

"Ok. I won't say no."

"Thank you." says Mia.

"They were all there, laughing at me. So I left and that's when I yelled at grandma." says Rory as Mia gets in the car.

"Quite well too, you have a decent pair of lungs there."

"Was it that bad?" asks Rory.

"No sweetie, Finland couldn't hear you."

"Great."

"Why didn't you tell me about this? One of you?"

"You seemed to be getting on with grandma." says Rory.

"We didn't want this to screw that up." says Mia.

"Girls. You need to listen to me, now. More than that, you need to hear me. You should never keep important things from me because of grandma or because you're worried about my feelings. To me, you are far more important than that. Do you get it?"

The girls nod.

"Right. Let's go home." says Lorelai. "And hey, I still don't know why you smell of fish or egg, Mia."

"Oh yeah." says Mia. "After Rory ran out I filled their jackets and purses with the gross unidentified entree."

"You did?" says Rory. "Aw thanks kid."

Saturday evening rolls around pretty quickly and this time Rory is actually excited for her party.

"Mom is everything ready?" she asks, bouncing into the kitchen in her dress.

"Yeah. Sookie's bringing the food over now and the..." she looks up. "Rory you look beautiful."

"Thank you." says Rory, doing a little twirl. "I know it's informal but I kinda wanted to dress up a bit. Carry on with your list."

"Right. I'm taking care of drinks and they are all ready. Everybody RSVPed so I think we're expecting about fifteen minus... you know."

"Yeah I know."

"The last thing I need to do is check that your sister is ready to perform."

"She's in the bedroom." says Rory, going to set up the living room.

Lorelai walks into the girls' room and finds Mia practicing chord changes. Her hand slips and she slaps the bed in frustration. "Damn it!"

"Hey, it's ok, you know. Don't stress. It's just friends and family."

"That makes it worse! They all know me and see me everyday. Plus this is for Rory. I'm really nervous. This is worse than and more terrifying than anything I've ever done. Ever. This is scarier than the time you made me rewatch the Donna Reed show after telling me that it only gets worse the second time. That was cruel. How could you do that to a child?" Mia flops onto the bed.

"Calm down, Mia. Take a deep breath. You're gonna be fine, I know it."

"How? You don't know what's going to happen."

"No but I know you." says Lorelai, kissing Mia's head. "You'll do great."

"Happy birthday to you!" chorus the little gathering.

"Woo!" yells Lorelai, handing out party poppers. She hands one to Luke.

"This party is not as painful as I thought it would be." says Luke.

"Thanks for coming, Luke." says Lorelai, hugging him. She is interrupted by the doorbell. "It's open get in here!"

Richard and Emily walk in. Mia smiles and rushes over to hug them, joined by Rory.

"Thanks for not saying no." says Mia.

"Right!" says Lorelai, jumping up from onto the table. "Now everybody's here, it's time for me to say my part. Lorelai, Rory, kid, sweetie, by any name you're my little girl. I love you a helluva lot. I'm not one for speeches but I do want to say thank you for teaching me loads of things, thanks for putting up with me but most of all, thanks for being my best friend. Happy birthday, honey."

Everybody claps and cheers and Rory climbs up on the table next to her mom and gives her a hug.

"Thank you, Mommy." she whispers in her ear.

"You're welcome, babe." Lorelai whispers back. "Time for Mia's performance!" she announces.

Mia hops up the stairs and stands on the slightly elevated platform in the middle. The party applaud.

"Thank you." says Mia, blushing. "I'm really not one for speeches so instead I'm going to sing for you, Rory. This is also your birthday present so don't expect anything else."

The party laugh and Mia begins to play. She strums the opening chords, her hands shaking and slipping up, but the minute she starts to sing the nerves go away.

Emily watches her sing this sweet, simple little song for Rory and begins to realise a few things about Lorelai's life, the world she has created for herself, which does not include her parents. It's shocking, and sad.

Lorelai looks over at Rory who's watching, intently. I am so darn lucky. Things could've turned out so much worse but I got so lucky with my girls.

Mia comes to the end of her song. There is a gap before her little audience erupt into applause and cheers.

"Thank you!" says Mia, just coming out of the trance she goes into when she sings.

Emily nudges Morey, who's standing next to her. "That's my granddaughter." she says, smiling proudly.

"Mine too." adds Richard.

"Happy birthday, Rory." says Mia.

Lorelai hops up on stage and hugs Mia. "Well done kid. You smashed it." she whispers in Mia's ear.

The evening is coming to a close and Lorelai and Mia are watching Rory say her goodbyes. She chats with her friends and gives out gift bags while holding an interesting conversation. Then she heads outside to say goodbye to Dean.

"She's got her own life." says Lorelai. "She's sixteen now, that's terrifying."

"Just two years until she goes to Harvard." says Mia.

"Wow. Yeah just two years. My little girl's all grown up."

Mia wakes with a start, her heart racing and she's sweating like crazy. The alarm clock says 3.57 am. Shaking, Mia gets out of bed and runs straight to her mom's room.

"Mom! Please wake up! Please!" she says, tears streaming down her face.

Lorelai's maternal instinct overpowers her need to sleep. "Sweetie? What's wrong? Oh honey come here. Shh it's ok." she says pulling Mia into a hug. "Another nightmare?"

Mia nods, still crying.

"This one seems worse than the other one. You wanna tell me about it?" asks Lorelai, softly.

Mia shakes her head.

"Can you try? It'll help, I promise."

Mia sits up. "They were breaking the walls of our house down. It was super loud and scary but no one could hear except us. We kept trying to fix the walls but they were too strong. They pulled Rory away and you grabbed her so they pulled you away too and..."

"Oh Mia, honey, shh it's ok. I'm here. I'm always here. Don't cry, baby."

Mia sniffs and wipes her eyes. "I'm sorry I woke you up." she says.

"That's ok, Hun."

"Are we gonna be ok, mom. Just you and me?"

"What do you mean?"

"When Rory leaves for college. We're gonna mange ok without her, right?"

"When Rory leaves... I haven't thought about it that much." Lorelai admits. "But sure, we'll be fine. We always are."

Mia nods. "Good." she says.

"What brought this on?" asks Lorelai.

"Oh just Rory's birthday and seeing her in her own world."

"Right." says Lorelai. They fall into comfortable silence. "Hey Mia who was breaking down the walls?"

"Gargoyles." says Mia, sitting up, scared by the memory. She pulls her knees up to her chest. "And evil dragons. They're not real are they, Mom?" she looks at Lorelai, her blue eyes wide.

Lorelai smiles at her. "No sweetheart, they're not." She looks at Mia, who's beginning to fall asleep. She acts so grown up and she lives in a grown up world but I forget that she's only nine. My little Mia.

Thanks for reading! Please leave feedback in the reviews or PM me if you prefer. I love reading your feedback! Let me know anything you'd like to see in the next few chapters and I'll definitely try to work it in. Next chapter goes up on Sunday at 2.