Title: Shelter From The Storm.

Summary: "In starting over we could get some place different." What if Lorelai had found her way to Stars Hollow before Rory's birth?

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of Gilmore Girls. I am in no way connected to Gilmore Girls or the WB. I also have no connections to Billie Letts or Twentieth Century Fox. This story idea is mostly my own, although it is inspired by the movie/book Where The Heart Is. (I always thought that there were several similarities between Lorelai and Novalee)

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She wasn't sure why she trod on one foot with the other while bobbing up and down outside of the bathroom stalls. Maybe the pain of breaking her own toes was supposed to take her mind off of her desperate need to use the toilet. It was one of those automatic, unexplainable things she'd picked up in life. She was sure it probably wouldn't be considered lady like, but that had never really bothered her before.

She hated being told that something she was doing wasn't lady like. If a man could do something then so could she. Not lady like to sit with her legs uncrossed? That wasn't exactly fair. While her legs went numb from sitting on top of one another, a man could sit as comfortably as he liked and have no one comment. Life wasn't fair.
That's why she was sixteen, seven and a half months pregnant and bouncing around in the bathroom of an Inn she couldn't afford to stay at.

She was practically homeless. The thought made her pause and frown for a moment. She shook her head to try and dismiss the idea, banging the palm of her hand on a nearby stall door to distract herself.

"People are dying out here!" She whimpered anxiously and a lot less demandingly as she had been aiming to.

The only response she received was a rather disgruntled sigh. She could almost hear the woman rolling her eyes.

Homeless.

"Neun und neunzig luftballons, auf i.. ih…" She furrowed her brow and bit her lip pensively. "Ihr…" She sighed and relented. "Ninety Nine red balloons, floating in the summer sky. Panic bells, it's red alert…"

The flush of a toilet cut her soft and out of tune singing short, and she hastily shuffled her way over to the stall it had come from. No one was getting this stall before her. No one. It didn't matter that she was the only one waiting. If someone happened to come into the bathrooms at that moment, she would be ready for them. She wasn't going to give up her stall without a fight. Her eyes darted back and forth between the door and the stall.

Door. Stall. Door. Stall. Whimper. Stall. Door.

"Did you fall in?!" She exclaimed impatiently, banging her hand on the door.

A few moments later, the stall door swung open in a swift and sharp movement that conveyed, in no uncertain terms, how annoyed and disgusted it's occupant was with this pregnant teen, rudely demanding that people vacate their stalls mid bodily function.

She shot the girl a look, more of a glare, but said nothing. She was nudged out of the way by a pregnant belly as its owner pushed her way into the stall and fumbled to lock the door.

The sighs and moans of relief coming from the stall in the subsequent minutes brought about more eye rolling and sounds of revulsion as the lady washed her hands and dried them on a handful of paper towels.
She considered staying there until the girl was finished, so that she could berate her for her bad manners. But a moan slightly louder than the others quickly changed her mind, and she hurried out of the room, as if just being there made her as filthy as the person responsible for the noises.

While she washed her hands, the young girl glanced up into the large mirrors in front of her, the small spotlights overhead making her feel like a movie star in her dressing room.
But her reflection reminded her that she was far from being Rita Hayworth or Audrey Hepburn. She was far from glamorous.
Her hair needed washing, she noted. Her mother would weep if she could see how her only daughter, her only child, looked right at that moment.
She tugged her hair up into a high ponytail, smoothing it back with her hand and turning her head from side to side to see if it looked any better. She pouted slightly as she concluded that it made her face look fat.

If her face was fat, she didn't know what word she should use to describe the rest of her. Just looking at her large belly made her cringe.
She understood that carrying a child meant just that. She was carrying another human being inside of her, so naturally she'd gain weight. But she didn't have to like it. She was just thankful that she was no longer in what she referred to as the 'pig phase'. Where she didn't look pregnant, she just looked fat. And therefore, would earn herself strange looks as she feasted on a mountain of ice cream. It didn't look like she was eating for two. It simply looked like she was overeating for one.

She ran her free hand over her belly and looked down at it. She had tried talking to it a few times, but she'd come to the conclusion that it really couldn't understand her frustrations with her parents until it had actually met them. Part of her never wanted it to.

It. Boy or Girl? She hoped it would be a girl, although she wasn't entirely sure why. She suspected that Christopher wanted a boy. Another Hayden male to go out into the world, command and conquer.
The only thing she knew was that she wanted to give this baby the childhood she never had. The freedom she'd never experienced. The openness and honesty she displayed but was scolded for. Her child wouldn't be scolded for being the only person it could be. Itself.

The bathroom door opened abruptly, and she let her hair fall loosely around her shoulders again. The woman who had just entered the room glanced at her briefly once. And then again, a little longer the second time, to be sure she was really seeing what she was seeing.
It didn't faze the young girl anymore. She had grown accustomed to the surprised and disapproving looks she received in public.

She looked around the lobby quickly, hoping no one would notice her. It was a bit much to ask that, in a room full of well dressed adults, a pregnant teen in sweat pants and an oversized sweatshirt wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb.
If she could only get over to the door without anyone stopping her, then her mission would be accomplished, and no one would ever need to know that she wasn't' a guest or a customer of any kind. That she'd snuck in to use the bathroom that she assumed was only there for the use of guests.

Taking a deep breath, she hurried determinedly across the elegantly decorated lobby, dodging antique end tables and random guests, her eyes to the ground to avoid meeting the inquisitive eyes of anyone else.

Her journey was interrupted as she collided with someone, or something, sending a pile of folders and paper to the floor in a flurry of white and manila.

"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry!"

Keeping her eyes to the ground, the girl did her best to reach down and help collect up the spilled contents of the folders. She mumbled something about being sorry, but refused to make eye contact with the person she had almost knocked to the ground.

"I do hope I didn't hurt you? You or your baby?" The voice inquired softly and sincerely.

"No." The girl assured quickly, pushing her hand down against the polished wood floor to give her the boost she needed to stand up straight again.

The hand at her elbow, helping her, came as a surprise. But she didn't fight it. Something told her she didn't need to.

"I'm so sorry about this. I really should watch where I'm going. Things are just so hectic around here today…" The woman continued with a soft chuckle.

"It's ok. I wasn't looking where I was going either. And I'm clumsy. Very clumsy." The girl babbled, as she looked everywhere she could except for at the kind face of the woman trying to make polite conversation with her.

"I'm Mia."

She nodded.

"Nice to meet you. I'm L… " Should she be giving out her name? "I'm leaving."

She brushed past the woman quickly and made a beeline for the exit.

"Well… nice to meet you." Came the voice from behind her.

She waved over her shoulder as she pulled the door open and stepped out onto the porch, sucking in oxygen as if she'd been holding her breath the entire time she was inside the building.

The group of businessmen she'd passed on her way in had dispersed and she was grateful she wouldn't need to navigate her way through them again. Her eyes surveyed the parking lot.

Once. Twice. Three times.

She frowned and looked over her shoulder in confusion. She wasn't sure why. It wasn't as if the car would be parked on the porch of the Inn, but since it wasn't in the parking lot anymore she didn't know where else to look.

Suddenly, she could feel her heart beating in her chest. It felt strange. It made her feel weak and lightheaded. She placed her hand over it, trying to dull the feeling. It seemed to make it pound that much louder in her ears. As nausea set in, her breathing quickened and she swallowed hard to dislodge the gasps caught in her throat.

She tried to steady herself as she stumbled her way down the porch steps and out into the parking lot. She looked around her.

Once. Twice. Three times.

She stood in the center of it and turned in a full circle. Only serving to make her feel that bit dizzier. She wished for something to hold on to, scared she was going to fall over.

Where was the car? Where was Christopher?

Maybe he'd gone to get gas. Or… maybe he'd gone to the market they'd passed earlier. He had said he was hungry…

As her eyes alighted on a small pile of bags where the car had once sat, she realized that neither of those explanations were real. It didn't stop her from repeating them over and over as she approached the bags. But in her heart, she knew.

He had left her. He had left them.

She sunk down onto the small grassy bank beside her belongings, wrapping her fingers around the straps of her backpack and pulling it slowly towards her.
The tears rolled slowly down her cheeks as she stared at the backpack in disbelief, her breathing shallow and staggered.

Now what?