Where those 7 months went I can't quite work out! I am so sorry for how long it has taken for me to upload what I think is the final chapter of the story that I have been writing for 3 years now. I started this in my final year of university when I was very much feeling alone and you have no idea how your positive reviews helped me through that.
This story has kept my love of creative writing on the move and I don't think I would have made it to 28 chapters without the positive reviews, follows and favourites. I have loved writing this continuation and if they do carry on AYITL and it bears even the tiniest resemblance to this, I will be a very happy lady!
Thank you and enjoy the final chapter (although if anyone has continutation ideas, please feel free to share. You never know if that'll inspire me :))
Jess couldn't stop staring at the tiny baby in his arms. Considering she had arrived a week later than she should have done, he couldn't wrap his head around how a human could be so small. In hindsight, Jess should have expected nothing less than a spectacle of a birth for this little girl. By the time they had hit the 4th hour of labour, the entirety of the Gilmore family, including Luke, who was hiding in a corner, was in the room with Rory, and the whole of Star's Hollow were waiting anxiously in the waiting room. By the 20th hour, this had dwindled to around half of Star's Hollow, until the only people left at hour 40 were Paris and Sookie, whose wait paid off and after 46 gruelling hours of labour, the newest Gilmore girl had arrived into the world.
It was even pitching on who was being the most dramatic in the birthing suite, with Emily and Lorelai competing for gold. It had eventually gotten to the point where Jess had threatened to kick both of them out if they didn't start concentrating on helping Rory through the pain. This had earned him two looks with similar contempt but had resulted on the focus being on Rory instead of Emily fussing about the view out of the window or Lorelai's concern that her daughter needed to have at least mascara on ready for the first pictures of her with her daughter.
Rory was, of course, exhausted after spending such a long time in labour and so Jess has persuaded her that she should sleep and he would watch the baby. There was a little bit of a selfish element to the offer as he wanted to spend some time alone with her. Unlike every other Gilmore girl before her, she was a quiet baby who had cried for about 20 seconds of her time in the outside world. Granted she had been born four hours ago, but still, Jess breathed a sigh of relief that she was sleeping away, blissfully content in his arms.
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"So," Lorelai said to Rory as she held her granddaughter in her arms, her voice a pointed whisper so as not to disturb the baby. Lorelai had returned early the morning after the birth with Luke, who was sitting asleep on a chair in the corner of the room. Lorelai has kept him up the whole night, talking about how amazing the new baby was until Luke had eventually dragged her to his truck and drove them to the hospital so he could get some needed sleep.
"So," Rory retorted in a similar tone, her eyes closed as she lay in the hospital bed, making the most of the time not having to feed the child who had clearly taken after their mother and grandmother in appetite.
"How much longer are you going to keep me waiting to tell me the name of my newest grandchild?" Lorelai shot a look between her daughter and Jess.
"Well, I wanted to wait until grandma was here," Rory replied. Almost on queue, Rory caught the sound of a familiar voice in the corridor outside her room.
"Honestly, the level of incompetence with your staff is disgraceful. The least you could offer to a new mother who has just endured an extremely painful 42 hours is a healthy, nutritious meal, not something you would feed to your dogs," Emily, as always was picking faults as she loved to do.
"Mom," Rory begged Lorelai with her voice to intervene.
"On it kid," she said as she stood up and handed the baby to Jess who was sat on the edge of the bed.
Rory caught snippets of the conversation between her mother and grandmother, which involved persuading Emily that Rory had eaten far worse in her life and she was sure the hospital was doing everything they could to ensure the new mother was getting what she needed. After a couple of minutes, Lorelai and Emily walked through the door, a large smile spreading across her face as she spotted the bundle in Jess's arms.
"And how is my first great-granddaughter?" Emily asked as she placed her purse at the end of the bed and took the baby from Jess, who had preempted the action and moved to hand her over.
"She's doing great, all healthy, eating well and she slept really well last night," Jess replied as he wrapped an arm around Rory, who automatically moved to rest her head on his chest.
"Of course she is, she's a Gilmore," Emily replied, although with more concentration on the baby than the conversation. "Now, do we finally get to know her name? Your mother called multiple times last night questioning me as to whether you had already told me."
Rory glanced at Jess, who gave her a nod, silently communicating that she should tell them.
"Mom, can you wake Luke, he should be awake for this," Rory asked, and her mother did as she was told, gently shaking his arm. Luke jolted awake and Lorelai explained what was about to happen, which instantly woke him up.
"Finally, I couldn't take your mother's constant questions as to what I thought her name would be," Luke commented as he pulled the chair forward to nearer the bed. In the meantime, Emily had stood up to hand the little girl back to Rory.
"This has a back story to it so here we go. A few months ago, Jess and I were watching TV and happened to end up watching the 4th Twilight film. Completely lame I know but there was a scene which gave me an idea on what I might want to do with the name," Rory began, Lorelai went to speak but Rory cut her off. "I know you know which scene I'm talking about mom, but just bear with me. So I wanted a name that represented the Gilmore family, something that my Grandpa would have loved, but I also wanted a fairly normal name. From personal experience, strange names take up valuable time in explaining the said strange name. So, everyone, this is Lily Christiane Gilmore." Rory finished, looking around the room. Her mother and grandmother spoke at the same time.
"You combined Lorelai and Emily," Lorelai grinned.
"Of course you named her after Christiane Amanpour," Emily said proudly, before turning to Lorelai, obvious surprise on her face at Lorelai's comment. "You named her after me?"
"Of course I did, in a less obvious way, but I thought Grandpa would like it," Rory replied with a smile. It took Emily a moment to reply as she processed it.
"He would have loved it," Emily replied softly, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye and staring down at the hands placed gracefully in her lap.
Lorelai and Rory looked at each other in surprise. Neither had ever seen Emily react in this sort of way. Rory walked over to her grandmother, handing Lily to her. Emily took her in an almost reflex reaction and stayed quiet as she stared at the baby in her arms. No one felt it was the time to speak and so all eyes were focused on Lily.
"A beautiful name for a beautiful baby," Luke commented softly as he stood and placed an arm around Lorelai's' shoulders.
Where had the past three weeks gone, Jess couldn't quite work out. He knew looking after a baby would be hard work but that was an underestimation. When Lily wasn't eating, she was crying. When she was crying, she always wanted to feed, shortly followed by changing. The only saving grace was her sleep time was at an impressive length and once she had been put in her cot for the night, she didn't make a sound until the next morning. Neither did Rory or Jess, who were so completely exhausted that although they often intended to watch a film or Jess intended to make a nice meal for the both of them, they always made the mistake of saying they would have 5 minutes rest on the bed and wake up when Lily was crying the next morning. The exhaustion was unable to mask the unadulterated happiness that they both were feeling.
A few Saturday's after the birth found Jess sat in the armchair in the sitting room with a sleeping Lily in his arms. He had intended to take her upstairs to place her in her cot, but he had gotten distracted with staring at her peaceful little face. Jess glanced up to see Rory fast asleep on the sofa, unlikely to wake any time soon.
As an ache in his arms set in, he realised that he should put Lily to bed, so he slowly made his way up the stairs before carefully lying her down and covering her with a blanket. Flicking the light off at the wall, he turned back to the room.
"Sweet dreams, little one," he whispered before pulling the door almost closed and making his way back downstairs.
He wandered slowly back into the sitting room but something caught his eye on the table in the entrance hall. Picking it up he realised it was the print copies of pictures taken of lily that Lorelai must have dropped off when she had visited earlier that day.
Jess got himself comfy in the armchair before pulling the pictures out of the envelope and slowly going through them. As he came to the pictures from the welcome home party, one, in particular, caught his eye. There was Rory sat in the middle of her mother and grandmother, holding the two-week-old baby Lily, who was barely visible. All three ladies had large smiles on their faces, with all three gazing down at the little girl. The three Gilmore girls had now become four.