After two hours of searching the entire town Lorelei found herself back at Luke's with no success she was grumpy and in desperate need of coffee. When she entered a familiar face greeted her. "Rory! What are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming home till tomorrow night?" she exclaimed as she hugged her beautiful daughter.

"Hey." She replied. "Well I wasn't going to come home till tomorrow but my only Friday class was cancelled and there was stuff going on here. And then Lane told me about what happened this morning and I realized it was probably the best thing for me to come back today." She told her mom as they sat at a table and Lane brought them coffee.

"Stuff happening here? What stuff?" Lorelei enquired. "What is this stuff you speak of?"

Rory suddenly blush a brilliant red and "Oh you know, just stuff... with people." She tried to lie, but Lorelei knew better.

"Uh huh. So you know what's going on with the disappearing guys?" Lorelei pressed.

"Um actually I really don't. I had no idea Dad came back until about three minutes ago when I got here." Rory answered honestly.

"Then this stuff pertains to a certain soon-to-be divorcée?" She continued with her second guess, giving Rory her patented tell or die look.

"Well kind of." Rory tried to get around it but saw The Look and caved. "Yea, it does. He and Lindsay are finalizing their divorce and he wanted to go out to celebrate." She explained then seeing another look added "In public."

"Aw sweetie that's exciting."

"Yea, it looks like things are going well. And he's going back to school in the spring. They offered him a great scholarship and it'll pay for him to live there, so..."

"He'll be off Kyle's couch." Lorelei finished.

"Look I know that you're still getting used to the way things are with Dean now but he's really trying to fix things. He knows he messed things up in a lot of ways but he's trying to get his life back together and he's had to do it alone. His parent's haven't really been too supportive of anything he's done since he moved back and it's been really hard on him." Rory tried to explain.

"I know, It's great really. He's worked really hard to get it together he deserves it. You know I've always liked him."Lorelei tried to convince her daughter. "It's just weird, ya know, I still look at you and see the seven year old trying to cheer up the weeping willow."

"Mom, I really love him." Rory said quietly looking at her cup.

"I know you do sweetie."

"No mom, I really do love him." With this Lorelei saw so much emotion is Rory's eyes it made her shiver.

"Wow." Was all she could say. After a few minutes she added "Does he know?"

"Well kinda. I mean we've said it. But it's kinda scary to think of telling him how much he really means to me."

"I know what you mean." Lorelei whispered at a barely audible tone.

"What was that?"

"Oh, I what just thinking that if I don't get over to the Inn Michel is going to run all the guests off. You know once he runs out of French curse words they don't understand things get really mess. Plus I forgot to get silly string so he may decide to opt for large books instead." She stood and paid for the coffee. "Look, if your really love his that much, you should tell him."

"You too." Rory replied, tapping into the mother-daughter psyche that had always connected them.

"I know." She said as she left.