Jess tuned one on a warm Sunday in August. William and Lorelai had managed to convince Luke to throw Jess a Sesame Street themed party in the park. It had started out as a small party with only Mia, Buddy, and Maisy attending, but had quickly grown to include many of the townspeople.

"I don't understand why a baby needs a big party," Luke complained as he and Lorelai spread a plastic tablecloth over a picnic table.

"Luke," Lorelai began, sighing heavily in exasperation, "I've explained this a million times."

"You have not explained it a million times," Luke protested.

"The actual number of times I've explained it doesn't matter. The point is that I've explained it more than once," she told him as she placed the cake, which featured pictures of Elmo and Big Bird, in the middle of the table.

"Explain it again," he requested, struggling to understand why he'd ever agreed to throw this party. Knowing the party was going to happen whether he understood it or not, he started arranging the paper plates and cups behind the cake.

Lorelai gave another exasperated sigh. "It's his first birthday, Luke."

"Exactly. He won't remember it."

"You will. Your dad will. Besides, there will be pictures that he can look at when he's older." She added the napkins and plastic silverware to the table.

"He's not going to care about baby pictures." Luke began to stack brightly wrapped gifts on one side of the table.

"You don't know that."

"He's a boy," Luke stated as though it proved his point.

"So? Maybe he'll want to see how cute he was as a baby? Or how handsome his daddy was?" Lorelai batted her eyelashes at Luke, hoping to distract him.

"How handsome I was?"

"I don't expect you to age well," Lorelai explained with a shrug.

Luke slowly moved around the table, getting closer to Lorelai. "Oh, really?" He grabbed for her, but she darted away.

"Really," she challenged him from the other end of the table. Luke lunged and attempted to grab her again, but she took off running around the table, prompting him to begin chasing her. After a few laps around the table, he turned to chase her in the other direction.

Lorelai wasn't able to change direction quick enough to escape Luke's grasp. He caught her and tickled her mercilessly until she begged him to stop.

Lorelai was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Luke held her close as she calmed down. When she had caught her breath, she looked up at him, ran her fingers through his hair, and pulled his head down so that his forehead rested against hers. "You know I was kidding, right? I'm sure you'll always be handsome." Luke kissed her sweetly, allowing his lips to linger against hers.

"Excuse me, dears," Miss Patty interrupted in a breathy voice.

The interruption caused Luke to groan and Lorelai to giggle. Lorelai turned in Luke's arms so his hands were resting on her stomach instead of her back. She placed her hands on top of his and leaned back against his chest. "Hi, Miss Patty."

"Hello, dear. I hope I wasn't interrupting anything," Miss Patty said suggestively. She began fanning herself with one hand. "It looked like things were just starting to get hot."

"Ah, jeez!" Luke grumbled. "I'm going to go check on my dad and the kids."

"Sure, you are," Lorelai replied, looking over her shoulder at him with a knowing smirk. "I think they're on the swings."

"Thanks." Luke kissed Lorelai's cheek before he left for the playground.

Lorelai and Miss Patty watched Luke walk away in the direction of the swings. When Luke was out of sight, Miss Patty turned to Lorelai and said, "I hate to see him go, but I love to watch him leave."

Lorelai struggled to stifle her laughter. "Did you need something?"

"What?" Miss Patty had clearly gotten lost in her own thoughts, presumably of Luke, and took a moment to come back to reality. "Oh, yes. I have this present for Luke's little boy." She held up a pale blue bag. "Where would you like me to put it?"

"I can take it." Lorelai took the gift from Miss Patty and turned around to put it with the other gifts that Luke had already set on the table.

"How have you been, dear? I haven't seen you around town much this summer."

Lorelai turned to face Miss Patty again. "I've been good, just really busy."

"Oh, yes. You started your GED class, didn't you?"

"Actually, I've finished my class. I took the GED exam last Monday."

"That's great. How did you do?"

"I won't know until I get the results in the mail."

"When will that be?"

"At the exam, they told us it would take six to eight weeks to get our results."

Miss Patty gasped. "That long? I don't think it's right for them to make you wait weeks to find out if you passed."

"They do have to score all of the exams before they send out the results."

Miss Patty grunted in disgust. "Well, how do you think you did?"

"I hope I did well. I studied really hard."

"Yes, you did," William agreed as he joined them. He wrapped an arm around Lorelai's shoulders and pulled her into an awkward side hug. "I'm sure you passed with flying colors."

"Thanks, William," Lorelai mumbled, embarrassed by William's affection. She had grown more comfortable with William's overt displays of parental affection over the months she had lived with the Danes family, but she was still not entirely used to receiving attention, especially positive attention, from a father figure.

Miss Patty smiled as she watched the sweet exchange, then excused herself to go in search of Babette. "We can talk more later, Lorelai," she said as she walked away.

William stepped away from Lorelai and looked at the table she and Luke had been arranging. "I can finish up here, if you want to go find Luke and the babies."

"Are you sure? I don't mind setting everything up."

"I'm sure. Get out of here."

L&L L&L L&L

"La La! La La! La La!" Jess called excitedly from his baby swing. As Lorelai got closer, Jess started bouncing in his seat. "La La! La La!"

Lorelai reached out to steady the swing by grabbing hold of the wildly jerking chains and leaned down to kiss Jess' cheek. "How's the birthday boy?"

"He's clearly excited to see you," Luke answered from where he was bent over Rory.

"What's going on over there?" Lorelai asked, her eyebrow raised in question.

Luke stood up and brushed Rory's hair out of her face. "She pulled out one of her pigtails and I was, um, fixing it. At least I was trying to fix it. It's, uh, well, uh, maybe you should do it," he suggested helplessly. "I've tried redoing it twice, but it's still crooked."

Lorelai looked at her daughter's lopsided pigtails and then up at the man who was still trying to smooth the wayward hair back into place. She felt her heart swell with love and couldn't help but smile. "It's perfect," she told him, her voice thick with emotion. Luke stared at her, confused by her reaction.

Before Luke could ask Lorelai what had caused her to become emotional, Jess began pulling on her shirt, demanding her attention. Lorelai looked down at Jess to find that he was using one hand to pull on her shirt and was desperately clutching a blanket to his chest with the other hand. "He really likes this blanket, huh?"

"Of course, La La made it."

"I'm sure he likes it because it reminds him of you and William."

"Nope. It's definitely because you gave it to him."

Lorelai gently stroked Jess' cheek and then ran her fingers over the soft blanket. She had asked Maisy to teach her to sew because she had wanted to make Jess a blanket for his birthday. It turned out she was a natural and was able to easily make a blanket from pieces of old flannel shirts that Luke and William no longer wore. All of the pieces on one side of the blanket were from Luke's shirts, while the other side was made entirely of pieces from William's shirts. Lorelai had been so excited about the blanket that she hadn't been able to wait until the birthday party and had given it to Jess right after breakfast. Jess hadn't put the blanket down since he'd unwrapped it. His obvious attachment to the blanket brought a smile to Lorelai's face.

Jess began pulling on Lorelai's shirt again. "La La. Up."

"Okay, sweet boy. Come here." Lorelai picked Jess up, settling him on her hip with the blanket draped over her shoulder. He rested his head on the blanket, content now that he was in Lorelai's arms.

"Should we go get our birthday boy some cake?" When Lorelai realized how she had referred to Jess, she began stammering, "I, uh, I mean, uh…"

"Lorelai, stop," Luke said, cutting her off mid-sentence. "I hope you consider Jess to be part yours like I consider Rory to be a little bit mine."

"You do?"

"I do. I hope that's okay."

"It's okay."

"Good." He picked Rory up and held her against his chest with one arm. With his other hand he took hold of Lorelai's free hand and they started walking back to the picnic table where everyone had gathered to wait for the guest of honor. "Let's go celebrate our boy's birthday."