A/N: Sorry it has been so long! I have had a major case of writer's block on this story! I just sat down tonight and started writing and the chapter just flowed out. Those darn characters did NOT do what I wanted, and this chapter turned out completely different than my original intent. I hope you enjoy this story and as always, please review!

Also, I have reached out for a beta for this story and got a couple responses. So hopefully we can get this thing going again!

Chapter 29

Lorelai stood there and stared at the door. She was trying to muster the courage to ring the bell and begin this dinner with Rory. Their first step towards fixing things between them. She knew that it wasn't going to be easy, a lot had happened, but she was happy they were at least starting to move forward.

As she stood there, her mind wandered back to almost 15 years ago when she stood in this exact same spot, ready to have that first Friday night dinner with her parents and Rory. It seemed like just yesterday, not a decade and a half ago, and she struggled internally with how she got here, to this point where she wasn't so comfortable in her relationship with her daughter and best friend where she just walked in the house and announced her arrival with gusto. How did she get to the point where she was standing in trepidation outside of her daughter's house, unable to make herself reach up and ring the doorbell? This time though, she did not have Rory to walk forward and ring the doorbell for her, she had to make that move herself. She took a deep breath and pushed the doorbell and then waited.

The door opened and she saw Logan standing on the other side. He looked more casual than she would have expected in some loose-fitting jeans, a Yale sweatshirt, and no shoes on his feet. She instantly felt more relaxed and felt some of the tension leave her shoulders.

"Good Evening Lorelai, please come in." Logan stepped to the side and made room for the elder Gilmore to come in from the cold. "How was the drive?" he asked as the maid came up behind him and took Lorelai's coat "Hopefully you didn't hit too much traffic."

"Oh, uhh you know, typical Connecticut traffic, stop and go on the Parkway…" She looked around, her nerves showing "…but uhh, overall not too bad." She replied as she wrung her hands and looked around. It was interesting to see all the modernizing updates that Rory and Logan had done to the house she grew up in. The front hall that had always been so formal with the rich wooden walls had been brightened up with a large colorful rug and bright modern art on the walls. The same circular table that had always been there had been given an updated coat of white paint and was holding a large bouquet of colorful flowers.

Lorelai was pulled from her thoughts by Logan's voice. "We ordered Chinese food, it should be here soon. We can go into the front room while we wait, Rory just woke up not too long ago and will be down in a minute." He started walking to the front room and Lorelai followed behind him, still feeling unsure of herself.

"Oh, okay. Yeah, I am sure she loves her late afternoon naps. I know I did when I was pregnant with her." They walked into the formal sitting room, and once again Lorelai was hit with the changes the two had made. What had once been a stiff and formal room with antique furniture and large old paintings had been re-painted in an egg shell white instead of the previous darker praline color that had been on the walls before. The furniture had mostly been replaced, a result of Emily selling off so many things before some sense had been talked into her, with a more modern version of the old Victorian era couch. It boasted more plush cushions with the same tight back cushion, crown and raised scrollwork. The ornamental trim was done in pale white wood and the button tufted backrest was a light grey. The cushions were interesting with a floral design but lacked the color that would have made it tacky. Overall, it was one hundred percent Rory, but in a classy and sophisticated way. She saw that managed to save the two chairs that had always sat in the room, but they had been given a facelift and re-upholstered to match the two new sofas. She looked around on the walls and saw that they had also replaced the antiquated sconces on the walls with updated fixtures, yet they managed to keep the spirit of architecture of the house.

"I really like what you two have done with the place. It is very classic yet modern all at the same time. Not an easy design to pull off." Lorelai cleared her throat and looked towards the stairs, anxious for Rory to make her way down. "I can hardly believe this is the same house I grew up in. Crazy."

"Yes, Rory put a lot of work into it. Her and my Mother and Emily spent countless hours looking at paint samples, fabric samples, and upholstery swaths. Apparently, each room ties into the other in some way that most people wouldn't notice unless it wasn't there." He said as he looked around the room. "It doesn't all make sense to me, but I like the outcome."

"Sounds intense." Lorelai deadpanned, uncomfortable with the fact that Rory's life had moved on without her. That she was sitting around with Emily and Shira discussing interior decorating without mocking it just made her brain hurt and she felt completely out in the cold.

"You have no idea." Logan chuckled. "I once walked in on a heated debate between two shades of white for the walls and how one clashed with the couch. I literally could not tell the difference by looking at them sitting out on the table."

Just as Lorelai was about to reply, Rory walked down the stairs to join them. She looked very casual in a pair of black maternity leggings and cotton tunic that stretched over her very large stomach. Her hair hung in the typical straight fashion and fell about halfway down her back, her face had minimal makeup but was glowing. "Good evening mother," Rory began as she reached the bottom of the stairs, purposefully using the formal title as a way to remove herself emotionally from the situation should it go array, "I'm glad you were able to make it. I hope traffic from Stars Hollow wasn't too heavy." She walked into the room and leaned up to give Logan a kiss on the cheek. "and hello to you handsome. Thanks for being down here to play host while I finished getting ready."

Her whole demeanor changed with her interaction with Logan, her body relaxed, her speech was less formal. It was practically impossible to keep the cool façade up when she was around him; he melted her every time.

"No problem Ace, would you like something to drink?" Logan made his way over to the drink cart that still sat dutifully in the corner. "And you too Lorelai, what can I get you to drink?"

"Umm, a martini would be great, thanks Logan." Lorelai moved over to the couch and sat down awkwardly, not sure exactly what to do.

"I'll take a club soda please, I need some bubbles on my stomach." Rory walked over and sat on the couch opposite of her mother. "So, mother, why exactly are you here?" Rory asked. And for a moment if she would have closed her eyes she could have sworn she heard her grandmother's voice come out of her mouth. She knew she was being cold and she knew she shouldn't be so closed off, but the pregnancy hormones and all the hurt of the last several months just hit her all at once and she just didn't have it in her to put on a nice face.

Lorelai was taken aback by the tone of Rory's question. She knew that Rory had changed over the last several months, really since she had left for Yale if she was really being honest. She knew that they had grown apart, but she hardly recognized the woman sitting in front of her. This woman in front of her screamed old money and high society, she had the resting bitch face that her mother had perfected for as long as Lorelai could remember, and she had that look in her eyes that you only saw in the circles that she had ran in over 30 years ago. She looked at her daughter and she embodied everything that Lorelai had run away from when Rory was a baby. Everything she had tried to protect her from. "Well, umm, I wanted to come and extend an olive branch. I know that things between us have been tense and I know some of that is my fault.."

At that Rory jumped in and interrupted her "SOME of it has been your fault? SOME of it? " Rory rolled her eyes and let out a cynical laugh "Try all of it Mother. You threw a temper tantrum when I didn't do what you wanted me to do, and then when I stood my ground and made my own decisions, you cut me off. You cut me off just like you cut off Grandma and Grandpa when you were 17 years old and ran away to Stars Hollow." Lorelai tried to interject but Rory just held her hand up "No, I am talking right now, this is MY house and I am saying my piece."

Lorelai started to interject again but once again Rory just talked right over top of her "All those years ago, you didn't really think about me and a better life for the two of us. All you thought about was yourself, your selfish desire to be as far away from your parents as possible. You ran away with no plan, no money, nothing. We lived in a shed! You worked as a maid! How was that what was best for me? For us?" Rory took a deep breath, she had never realized how deep her feelings went on this subject "If you really had what was best for me in mind, you would have stayed here. You would have sucked it up and dealt with life like a real adult. You would have gone to college and gotten a degree and let me grow up with the best of everything just like you got to. Instead, you ripped me away from all of it, and then expected me to live halfway in and halfway out at the age of 16 when I got accepted at Chilton. I Was so unprepared, I was a part of the world but not really. Do you know how much easier it would have been for me if I had just grown up with them, grown up in the crowd and knew what to expect and how to handle it all?" Tears started welling up in her eyes and she took a moment to take another deep breath.

Lorelai took that moment to jump in "I was suffocating here! You don't understand how hard it was for me. Everyone looking at me, judging me, talking about what a disappointment I was. I had to get away!" Lorelai stood up and began to pace "You have no idea what it was like growing up as a Gilmore. The pressure, the expectations, all of it. It was overwhelming and I didn't want that for you. I wanted you to grow up without all those expectations, without society breathing down your neck telling you how to live your life, who to be friends with, who to marry. I didn't want any of that for you. I wanted you to be free to have the life you wanted." Lorelai looked at Rory, her eyes begging her to understand her decision.

"If that were true, you wouldn't have pushed me to want to go to Harvard from the time I was a baby. And let's be honest, the only reason you made that my dream was because Grandpa was a Yale man and you knew it would bother him to have his only grandchild go to Harvard. You used my future as a way to get back at them for your perceived slights." Rory was feeling her blood pressure start to rise and she could feel the words flowing from her mouth without any real ability to stop them. "If that were true, if you really wanted a different life for me, then you wouldn't have put me in Chilton, a prepatory school FULL of the people that you had ran us away from. If that were all really true, you would have raised me to want to go to UCONN or some other highly respected yet non-ivy league school. You would have kept me from society, not pushed me into it head-on, completely unprepared." Rory looked at her mother, and for the first time in her life she didn't see her best friend staring back at her.

"That isn't how it was for me!" Lorelai responded, her frustration showing through. She had never realized that Rory felt this way, she wasn't even sure Rory realized that Rory had felt this way until recently. "I just needed to get out! I needed to get away and make a new life for us, a simpler life. But I also wanted the best for you, which is why I wanted you to go to Harvard. And yes, maybe the reason I wanted you to go there is because it was completely different than anyone in my family, maybe that is why I pushed Harvard on you. But I really did always just want what was best for you, I still do."

Rory laughed cynically "Yeah. Right. Is that why you cut me out of your life as soon as you disagreed with my decision? You have never wanted 'the best' for me, you have wanted me to do exactly what you planned for me, and heaven forbid anyone ever go against Lorelai Gilmore's plan!" She threw her hands in the air "You do that and you will face snide remarks at a minimum, a childish temper tantrum complete with overly harsh personal attacks, or if you really go against her, she will just pretend you don't exist anymore." Rory got up and walked to the other side of the room, just needing to get away from the situation for a moment, calm herself down before her blood pressure got too high. She already had signs of pre-eclampsia and getting this upset was not healthy for her, or the babies.

Logan took that opportunity to step in. This night was not going the way he thought it would. He had really hoped that the two of them would work things out, but he had also really underestimated the depth of Rory's frustrations and hurt when it came to her mother.

He understood where Lorelai had been coming from when she took Rory and left. So many people he grew up with, including himself, had dreamt about doing what Lorelai Gilmore actually did. Running away and turning your back on all of it. It was every society kid's daydream when relationships with their parents were tense, or they had once again gotten in trouble and were faced with the disappointment filled speeches. But, the difference was that they stayed a fantasy, a daydream you could escape to; they didn't become a reality. Lorelai made hers a reality, and never really dealt with all the hurt and pain that resulted from it.

"Lorelai, I think it is best if you go. It really isn't healthy for Rory to be this upset." He tried to convey in his posture and his tone of voice that he wasn't angry or upset with her, but for good measure he continued on "I know you didn't plan for the night to go like this, I don't think any of us did. But Rory should really calm down and I just don't think she will be able to do that with you here."

"No, you're right. I should go." Lorelai looked over towards Rory, wanting nothing more than to reach out and comfort her, but also knowing that she would be of no comfort right now. "I'm really sorry it turned out like this, it really wasn't why I came. I came to tell you that I love you Rory. You're my daughter and I love you. And I am sorry." She looked over towards Rory one last time, hoping to get some type of positive reaction, but instead she was just met with her back, no movement, no acknowledgement, just silence.

Logan gave her a sympathetic look "Well, let me walk you out." And with one last glance over to Rory, he started towards the front hall, Lorelai close behind him. "I'm sorry Lorelai, I really had no idea this was how the night would go. Just give her time. She is really hurt right now, and she just needs time. The two of you have always been best friends, and I know you two will work this out eventually. But I think now maybe just isn't the time." He hesitated not sure what else to say or do. "I will talk to her though, once she calms down. I will talk to her."

Lorelai looked at the man before her, completely shocked by his behavior. She would have never pegged Logan as the guy who would be playing mediator between her and Rory, and she felt a pang in her heart thinking about all the mean things she had said about him and the even worse things she had thought. "Thank you, Logan. I really appreciate that. My phone will be on. I will be there when she's ready. I know, I screwed up big time. But I want to make things right with her, I really do." And with that she got her jacket from the maid standing by the door silently, pretending like she hadn't heard the entire blow up just one room over, and walked out the door into the cold Connecticut night. And that is when she saw it, the white snow flakes falling from the sky, and it gave her hope that everything would be okay, in the quiet calm that followed the storm, she knew the snow was for her, it was her sign.