Disclaimer – Don't own the Gilmore Girls.

Chapter Three

"Mom!"

"Winnie! My baby, fruit of my loins, I have missed you." Lorelai pulled her youngest child into her arms.

"I've missed you so much mom." Winnie grasped onto her mother and couldn't keep the smile from her face at the familiar smell of caffeine and vanilla.

"Me too baby, how have you been?"

"Good really good, I'm working on this house and it's so hard to sell but its such a beautiful place. Its king of exhilarating the idea that no one'll buy it!"

"That's great Win."

"Are you guys headed somewhere cause I really wanted to go and see dad quick."

"We'll be at my house your moms going to help me and Hannah with the wedding plans."

"Oh, okay. Well maybe I'll just see you at home. Say hi to everyone for me Sookie." Both Sookie and Lorelai shared a look of helplessness as Winnie walked towards her father's diner.

"Did she ask about him?"

"Yes, but vaguely."

"Did you tell her?"

"I couldn't, I just couldn't Lorelai."

"Don't worry I understand. You know, she's seeing someone too."

"Really?"

"Yeah she hasn't told me yet but I can tell"

"Has she told Luke, I mean she tells him everything doesn't she?"

"Everything but her love life, you remember what Luke did to Scott Stevens right and he was a perfect kid, Winnie hasn't told anyone, which means that she's either insanely in love with him and therefore afraid saying it will ruin it or he is worse than Nick Simpson."

Sookie gasped, "No one could be worse than Nick Simpson!"

"Maybe he is."

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"Dad?" Winnie entered the diner.

"Da-ad!" She called out again.

"Winnie!" Luke came out from the kitchen handed off his plates and enveloped his daughter in a hug.

"Hey daddy," He loved the fact that Winnie still called him daddy, she would always be his baby and it just made him feel like his life hadn't been a complete waist.

"God I miss you, start coming home more often."

"I'll try daddy."

"Don't say you'll try just do it." He said in his gruff voice that Winnie had to admit she did miss more and more recently.

"Alright." Winnie gave in. She could refuse her father nothing.

"So what have you been up to kiddo?"

"Nothing much, wow it's really busy in here, you want a hand?"

"Oh no, your on vacation, well sort of."

"I don't mind. Besides working in the diner just brings me back to high school." Winnie slipped into an apron.

Flashback

"Winnie, come on!" Jami yelled.

"I can't I'm closing the diner with my dad."

"But you said you had the night off, what about Michael's party?"

"Simon, called in sick, stop being a girl and go without me," Winnie walked around her room the phone glued between her shoulder and ear.

"It's not girlish to wanna go to a party with my best friend and mock everyone else at the party without a friend. If you don't come with me I'll be the one being mocked!"

"Get Tony or Meg to go with you."

"Tony and Meg suck, their girls!"

"Thanks,"

"I didn't mean it that way Win, you know that."

"Yeah, listen I gotta go. If you don't want to go with Tony or Meg and you can't find another friend don't go, I'm helping my dad tonight."

"You'd do anything for your dad." Jami mumbled.

"Yeah well,"

"Fine, I'll see you tomorrow at practice?"

"Promise,"

"On your dads life!"

"On my dads life!"

"Bye Win,"

"Have fun Jami,"

"Yeah, right!" Winnie smiled as she clicked the phone off and threw it onto her bed.

"I'm leaving mom," She called to her mother as she walked to the front entrance and put her shoes on.

"Have fun" Lorelai called from the living room. Winnie was about to walk out the door when her mother paused the television.

"Win?"

"Yeah?" Winnie stuck her head back in through the door.

"Get your father to bring me home some pie,"

"We won't be home till eleven mom,"

"Winnie, sweet heart how many times must I tell you that it is never too late for pie," Winnie rolled her eyes. She was about to leave when Lorelai stopped her again.

"Winnie?"

"Yes mom?" '5,4,3,2,1…'

"And Coffee!"

"Kay mom." Winnie laughed as she walked outside and made her way to the diner.

End Flashback

"Hey mom," Rory Huntzberger walked into the Bellville home.

"Hello Rory!" both Lorelai and Sookie called out.

"Hey Hannah," Rory then noticed the shy woman that was about to marry what had once been little Davie Bellville.

"Hi Rory," Hannah's parents had both passed away when she was a young girl and she had been raised by her grandfather. When she decided to marry Davie she not only got all of the Bellville's as family but she got the Gilmore's, the Hunztberger's and the Dane's three very large and insane families. Some would say Hannah was lucky, others would say she was in for one hell of a ride!

"We picked the colors!" Hannah said excitedly.

"Really, what are they?"

"We decided on this light purple and green, since it'll be in spring and all."

"Those are beautiful colors, you must be so excited." Hannah just smiled.

"Have you seen your sister?"

"Not yet, I spoke to her on her way, why?"

" No reason,"

"You know!" Rory looked at her mother, of course she knew this wasn't just some ordinary mother this was Lorelai Gilmore-Danes, this mother knew everything!

"So there is someone! Who is what's his name?" Rory grimaced at that; Lorelai was going to have a fit when she found out who her baby daughter was seeing.

"You have to ask Winnie mom, I'm not saying a word."

"Why did she tell you and not me?" Lorelai wined.

"She didn't," everyone's heads snapped to Rory's.

"Lily found out and she got excited could keep it in, apparently he's a real looker."

"He must be really horrible if the only reason we know about him is because Lily spotted them."

"Either that or she's insanely in love with him." Hannah's unsure voice added and silence filled the room.

Flashback

Winnie's mind was racing, she was leaving Stars Hollow, she was going to college, and she was not going to see her parents every day.

"That's it, I'm not going." Winnie jumped out of the truck and walked into the back yard she plopped down beneath the Chuppah.

"What was that?" Luke looked at his wife; he was about to walk into the back yard when Lorelai stopped him.

"Winnie?" She cautiously called as she made her way into the backyard. She paused when she saw her baby-sitting underneath the Chuppah, head in her hands knees tucked into her chest crying.

Lorelai's heart broke as she walked over and fell down beside Winnie. She pulled Winnie into her arms and her daughter immediately succumbed to the loving warmth of her mother.

"I can't do it mom, I don't want to leave."

"Ssh, it's okay baby."

"I'm not like Rory or Josh, I'm not a book worm like Rory, I could care less about the giant library and I'm definitely not like Josh. The last thing in the world that I want to do is leave this town. I love it here, I love that everyone knows everyone else's business I love that dad and Taylor get into a fight at least four times a week and I love that that fight makes the front news of the gazette at least three of those four times. I don't want to go!" She continued to cry and Lorelai pulled the elastic out of her baby's hair and ran her fingers through the long wavy locks with the hint of red that no one seemed able to place were it came from.

Lorelai held Winnie a moment longer and then pulled back.

"Look at me." Winnie looked up at her mother and Lorelai dried her daughter's eyes with the pads of her thumbs.

"You are not Rory, and you are not Josh. You are Winnie you're my little Winnie with the messy ponytail and the jeans. You are the strongest person I have ever met, you may not long to leave this town and inwardly that makes me fell so much better!" Winnie cracked a smile. "And you may not be as academic as your sister, but your are your own person Winnie and you will do incredible things with your life. You had more than one Ivy League school begging for you to attend their school. You are yourself Winnie, as much as I wished you to be another clone of me, or if worst came to worst of your father, which I think is more probably the case. You aren't you're better than me and you're better than your dad. You will be the best thing that ever happened to that school since Rory Gilmore!" Both women laughed.

"Do you have any idea how proud of you your dad and I are!" Lorelai said almost as a side note to herself as well.

"Listen, this town is not going to go away, and it's not going to change. We won't let it, but you have to do this Winnie, this is your chance to show the world how fantastic the Gilmore-Danes genes are!" Winnie laughed again, she knew her mother was right.

"And you know what?"

"What?"

"I slept on the floor of Rory's dorm room her first night at Yale and I'm not afraid to do it again!" Both women laughed and Winnie pulled further back form her mother.

"Let's go," Lorelai said.

"Mom?" Winnie looked up.

"Yeah baby,"

"I know that I have always kinda hung out with dad more, I mean it just seemed like we had more in common, but I want you to know…"

"I know baby," Lorelai interrupted.

"I love you mom, more than anything, you're the best mom I could have ever asked for!" Lorelai and Winnie clasped onto each other.

"Of course I am," Lorelai joked. They walked back around the front and Winnie walked over to the truck she climbed into the back and called out.

"Let's go dad!" Luke looked at Lorelai questioningly but his only response was a single tear that slid down his wife's cheek.

End Flashback

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