AN: Okay, new story time! Who's excited? This one is AU so I need to set you up with some background...

Rory went to Princeton (because Harvard is overdone, lol). She works at the Stamford Eagle Gazette and is 27. The Gilmores and the Huntzbergers know each other and run in the same circles but weren't super close. Logan is 29 and working for the company as per the dynastic plan. He's still kind of into his partying, playboy ways, but is also a success at work and likes his job. Rory shares an apartment with Lane who works as a music teacher while trying to get the band to take off.

Here's where things get a bit wonky. The whole Jason storyline is happening now. Only instead of turning his back on Jason and teaming up with Floyd, Richard stuck by him. Lorelai and Jason are dating. Sorry, I know he's no one's favorite, but it's for plot device purposes only.

Also, it's set in current day because I don't feel like trying to remember the world as it was 10 years ago right before everything went over the cliff.

I think that's the crux of what you need to know for now. Also, I promise that I'm already halfway done with the next chapter of Missing Pages so don't hate me for this detour ;)

"Rory, you're here. Come in, come in!" Rory blinked in confusion at her grandmother who was welcoming her with a remarkable amount of enthusiasm. An unbelievable amount of enthusiasm, actually, if she did say so herself. Something seemed fishy…and not only because her grandmother answered the door herself instead of the maid.

"Umm, hi, Grandma." Emily Gilmore took her coat and hung it on the coat rack, guiding her into the parlor. Her mother was already sitting on the settee and Rory gave her a look as though to say did grandma have a stroke? Lorelai gave her a look of her own, one that said not to mention it-she'd explain everything later.

With a reluctant sigh, Rory took a seat next to her mother.

"Well, Rory," Richard greeted from his spot near the drink cart. "What can I get you to drink?"

"Martini, please."

"Just like your mother," he noted as he mixed gin and vermouth in a cocktail shaker and poured it into a martini glass. He then poured himself a glass of scotch from a decanter and sat next to Emily on the opposite sofa. He took a sip of his drink and Rory noticed him wince at the taste, which was strange since her grandfather had been an avid Scotch drinker since before JFK was president.

Rory opened her mouth to say something, but her mother's elbow in her side stopped her. She turned to face Lorelai who was shaking her head almost imperceptibly.

"So, Rory, how's work?" Richard asked, acting like everything was normal.

"Umm, work is fine. I'm writing an article on the issue of insider trading among members of Congress."

"Doesn't the STOCK Act address that?" Richard asked.

"Oh, it's supposed to, but there are so many ways to get around it. It's almost impossible to prove what information is nonpublic or how involved the members of Congress are in their own investments. There have been a number of suspicious trades recently that have gotten people talking."

"Well, that sounds like a very intriguing article," Emily piped in. There was nothing unusual about their conversation; her grandparents loved to talk about her work. But Rory still couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. Her eyes glanced around the room; something was different. And then it hit her.

"Hey Grandma, what happened to the painting by the fireplace?" For as long as Rory had been having Friday Night Dinner's at her grandparents, there had been a still life painting that hung by the fireplace. She was fairly certain that her grandmother had had it personally commissioned. But today the wall was baren.

"Oh that?" Emily waved dismissively. "We got rid of it. We've been doing a little bit of spring cleaning…getting rid of stuff we don't need or don't like anymore."

"But it's fall."

"You know what I mean. I just thought it was time to change things up."

"Umm, sure." Rory looked at her mother who was once again giving her a look telling her to drop it.

"Also…" Emily took the moment to announce. "We happen to be between maids at the moment…" That wasn't terribly unusual; her grandmother went through more maids than a Holiday Inn, but she'd never before had trouble getting them replaced; the agency just sent a new one over.

"Umm, okay."

"So I ordered in."

"What?"

"I thought it would be fun. I know you girls like Chinese. There's a place here in Hartford that's supposed to be great. The food should be here any minute." Now Rory knew something was really wrong. Her grandmother had never 'ordered in' a day in her life. And Chinese food? Emily Gilmore wouldn't eat Chinese food in the fanciest restaurant in China. Rory may have been a journalist, but it didn't take reporter's eye to tell that all was not right in her grandparent's world.

"You ordered Chinese?" Rory stated, dumfounded.

The doorbell rang. "Oh, that must be the food. Richard, do you have the cash for the deliveryman?"

"I'll get it, Emily," he stated, standing up.

"Excellent." Emily stood as well. "Richard will get the food and I'll meet you girls in the dining room." The grandparents headed out of the living room and Rory turned to look at her mother.

"Okay, who's dying? Someone's dying right? Is it Grandma? Is this new attitude some death bed epiphany or something?"

"No one's dying," Lorelai assured her daughter. "Although they might wish they were."

"What is going on?"

Lorelai looked around the room. "Look, just don't say anything right now. I'm not supposed to know either. You're coming back to the house after dinner, right?"

"Yeah." Rory shared an apartment with her best friend, Lane, in Norwalk, halfway between her job at a paper in Stamford and Lane's day job at a music shop in Hartford where she taught music lessons. But Lane often had her band practice at the apartment on weekends so Rory would crash in her childhood bedroom when she had to work on an article and needed some peace and quiet. And it gave her a chance to spend more time with her Mom.

"I'll explain everything later. Okay? Just try to act like everything is normal until then."

Rory looked hesitantly from her Mom towards the dining room where her grandmother was personally ladling wonton soup into her fancy, Lenox china bowls. With a sigh, she acquiesced. Things were not right in the Gilmore household, but clearly her grandparents didn't want her to know. The last time something like this had happened, her grandparents had separated with her grandfather moving into the pool house for months. She really hoped that wasn't it. Whatever it was, she supposed she'd find out later tonight.

The redhead reached up, running her thumb over the white mark on Finn's neck which flickered brightly under the strobing black lights. "How'd you get this?"

"Oh, that?" Finn shrugged with an air of indifference as his date snuggled up closer to him. "I got that on a shark dive, Love. No biggie."

Colin scoffed, taking a swig of champaign straight from the bottle as a tipsy blonde girl grinded up against him in reasonable approximation to the rhythm emanating from the club's sound system.

"Excuse me?" Finn protested, shooting his friend an annoyed glare. As a wing man, Colin was absolute shit. But despite his slightly off-putting personality and deep-seated superiority complex, the man was actually a decent and loyal friend. Whereas Finn, on the other hand was all fun and very little substance. It was kind of like that beer and puppy thought experiment; Finn was who you had a beer with, Colin was who you asked to watch your puppy. "I did," Finn insisted.

"Oh my poor FinnFinn!" the girl draped all over him gasped, leaning down to place a kiss over the scar. "That must have been terrifying." Finn looked smugly at Colin before plastering a sympathetic pout on his face.

"It was," Finn hammed it up for the pretty girl who was his best chance at sex that night. "But alas, by the grace of god, I survived." He threw his hands dramatically over his chest.

"You are such a lying ass, Finn." Colin rolled his eyes as he continued to pretend to dance while his date did all the actual work—probably not that different from how his dates went when they made it back to the bedroom.

"I mean, he's not technically lying," Logan defended his Australian friend, tilting his head back so that the girl that was currently straddling him—Jenny, he was pretty sure her name was—could plaster kisses along his neck. "We were on a shark dive."

"Yeah, in which we encountered no sharks."

"Also not a lie," Logan admitted, looking at Finn with an apologetic shrug.

"Go on," Colin goaded. "Tell her what bit you."

"Go to hell, Colin." Finn flicked his wrist towards their friend to hold up his middle and index fingers in the shape of a 'v.'

Colin ignored the obscene gesture which they had long ago learned was the Australian equivalent of a middle finger. "A clown fish!" Colin tipped his bottle in Finn's direction. "He got bitten by a clown fish."

Jenny stopped her ministrations to give Logan an incredulous look. "It's true," he confirmed with a sideways nod of his head. "He was bitten by a clown fish."

"Like Nemo?" Finn's date asked in confusion.

"Like Nemo," Colin corroborated. "

"Well," the redhead huffed at Colin, turning back to Finn as her expression melted back to playfully coquettish. "I still think it looks very manly." She kissed the scar again.

"Scars are pretty sexy," Jenny confirmed looking down at Logan. She ran a finger seductively along the skin of his chest exposed by his half-undone dress shirt; his tie and jacket long since discarded somewhere they were unlikely to be found again—at least not without being covered in something disgusting. "Do you have any scars? She bent her head down to his chest and began light, exploratory kisses, as though she were examining him with her mouth. Logan relaxed back into the VIP room's cushioned loveseat and let the sensations wash over him.

"I think if you keep up in the direction you're going, you might find his appendectomy scar," Colin called out. "And a little past that there's there the one from…" Logan looked up just in time to see Colin's date shut him up with an elbow in the ribs. "Fine," he relented. "A little mystery for the later part of your evening."

Logan took a drink of his scotch and tried to ignore him and go back to his make out session. But he couldn't ignore the buzzing in his pants that started a few minutes later. He groaned in annoyance, shifting his weight to pull his phone out of his pocket and check the caller idea. It was his father's secretary, Ruth. "Fucking hell," he groaned.

It was Friday night. They'd just closed on a big deal. He was out with his friend's celebrating. What was so goddamn important that it couldn't wait until Monday? Not that he expected any different. No matter how hard he'd worked these past five years…no matter how far he'd come in his career, no matter how much respect he'd earned in the profession, his father could not stop micromanaging his damn every move. Nothing he did was ever good enough for the man. Every failure was flagellated; every success glossed over and minimized so that they could immediately start working on something else. Mitchum was no doubt calling to tell him about some godforsaken meeting he suddenly had to be at tomorrow…on a Saturday. Well, screw him…he wasn't going answer. He let the call go to voicemail, then put the phone up to his ear to listen to the message…just in case.

Ruth's voice started talking. He only half heard her through the din of the club and the fact that he was still being distracted by Jenny's lips on his skin. But, as the message went on, something changed. He sat up, pushing Jenny off his lap and leaning forward, straining to hear the words being spoken. That couldn't be right. He definitely hadn't heard that right. The message stopped playing and he immediately hit the little triangular play button again, this time staring at his iPhone screen as it displayed the transcription of the call.

He felt hollow; confused. The noise of the club faded to barely audible as his brain tried to process what had just happened.

"You okay, Mate?" Finn asked. Logan looked up to see his friends looking at him with concern.

He swallowed the lump in his throat—then swallowed the rest of the liquor in his cup before answering. "Mitchum's dead."

Lorelai set down a bowl of popcorn and a bag of Red Vines on the coffee table, then made her way around it to take a seat on the sofa next to her daughter. Netflix was cued up on the TV, but the story that Rory really wanted to hear tonight wasn't on their Roku and Lorelai knew it. She wiggled her butt, getting comfortable in her spot as she shifted to face her daughter. "So…" she started.

"So…" Rory countered, pulling her legs up underneath her in cross-legged position as she faced her mother. She'd been waiting impatiently for some answers all night.

"Your grandparents…" Lorelai wasn't sure how to tell her daughter this. Rory loved her grandparents, and they were going through a rough time, though they were trying their best not to show it; Richard and Emily Gilmore were proud people, after all. But clearly things had progressed to the point where they couldn't hide it much longer. They came from a world where image was everything—image and money. And they were rapidly on their way to losing both.

"You know how Jason's Dad has been…causing some trouble for them?" Jason was Lorelai's boyfriend and her father's business partner. Jason's father, Floyd, was the CEO of the insurance company Richard had been vice president at until last year. When Richard was pushed out, he'd decided retirement didn't suit him and he'd started his own company to compete—with Jason's help. With their combined experience and contacts, it had seemed like a solid investment. But things weren't always as they seemed…especially in the cutthroat business world.

"Yeah," Rory admitted. She knew it hadn't been smooth sailing for her grandfather since starting his business. But starting a business was never easy. She also knew Jason's father had been trying some legal tactics to shut them down, but Richard and Jason were both adamant that they had done nothing improper and that Floyd couldn't prove otherwise. So, she hadn't been worried. Richard had told her there was no reason to worry. She'd never had reason to doubt her grandfather before.

"Well," Lorelai sighed. "Jason said it's not going well. They thought they had their bases covered, but apparently there was some stupid loophole or something that Floyd is using to come after them. And the legal fees are piling up."

"But…they're going to be alright, right?" Rory asked, her face flushed with panic. "I mean, even if the business doesn't work out, they have their own money, so they'll be fine…" The look on Lorelai's face was less than reassuring. "Right?" she asked her voice squeaky with concern.

Lorelai sighed. "Apparently Dad used his pension as collateral. They're struggling, Rory," she admitted reluctantly. She hated to have to be the one to tell her daughter this. Rory had always looked up to her grandparents…her grandfather especially. She didn't want to have to be the one to knock him off his pedestal. "And if things don't go their way with the suit…" she trailed off.

"'If things don't go their way with the suit,' what?" Rory prodded anxiously. Her eyes were looking panicky and it broke Lorelai's heart.

Lorelai squeezed her eyelids shut and prepared to tell her daughter this last bit of news. She let out an exhale. "Apparently, Dad also took a second mortgage out on the house to help cover the legal expenses. If things don't go their way…"

Rory gasped, her eyes wide with shock. "They could lose the house?