Emily picked up the ringing phone. "Hello?"
"Mom!" cried an excited Lorelai's voice. Emily blinked and checked her watch. It was three o'clock on a Friday. Why would she be calling…? "I did it! I took the GED test and I passed it!"
Emily pursed her lips. Was that all? "That's good."
"Good? That's all you can say? I studied my butt off."
"Lorelai, you planned on going to Yale. You expect me to be thrilled over a high school diploma?"
Lorelai didn't answer for a second or two. "Fine, Mom. Just thought I'd share something with you. I won't make that mistake again. I'll talk to you on Tuesday. Bye."
"I knew it; I just knew it," Lorelai grumbled as she tossed mints onto the pillow carelessly. "Couldn't be happy for me even once…"
Rory sat on the bed, propped by the pillows, inspecting her toes with great interest. Lorelai sighed and sat next to her, giving her aching feet a rest. The inn had been chaotic that day: the rail on one of the staircases had broken after a guest roughly the size and weight of a full-grown bull had leaned heavily on it. He hadn't fallen, so there would be no lawsuit, but Mia was going crazy looking for someone to fix it. Mia's voice, mingling with another, rang down the hallway. Lorelai sighed, picked Rory up, balanced her on her hip, and pushed the cart out into the hall.
"This the spot, Mia?"
"That's it, dear. Can you do anything with it?"
"Oh, that's nothing. I'll have it better than new in no time."
"Thanks so much; make sure you tell your father we appreciate him sparing you."
"He practically pushed me out the door. It's not a problem, and I'm glad to help."
"Well, I'll just head down to the desk, then. Go into the kitchen for a sandwich or something when you're done."
"Sure."
Lorelai peeked around the corner. Wow. A boy a couple of years older than her stood near the top of the stairs. He was wearing tattered jeans, a white shirt under a red flannel shirt, and his messy hair was covered with a baseball cap. He was the exact opposite of Christopher, with his neat, curly brown hair and his impeccable clothes, but when Handy Man took off that flannel shirt to get to work on the banister, Lorelai couldn't help but approve. Her "Hot Guy" radar started bleeping, but she knew she couldn't afford to start anything with anyone right now. Hastily she turned and walked down the hall to another room.
"Ba!" Rory exclaimed.
Lorelai looked at her. "Did you say something, Rory?"
"Ba!" Rory said more loudly, throwing her chubby little arms in the air, her crystal eyes sparkling. "Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba!"
"Wow," Lorelai whispered, reaching out and stroking the silky-smooth black hair on her daughter's head. "You're getting so big."
"Ba ba ba ba," Rory said softly to herself.
Lorelai leaned in closely, a small blanket in front of her face. She brought it down swiftly. "Boo!"
Rory blinked, and then giggled a gurgling laugh. Lorelai continued playing peek-a-boo, and when Rory was nearly breathless with laughter, Lorelai scooped her up and cradled her. Rory stared seriously at her mother for a few minutes, then suddenly waved her hands jerkily, her eyes wide. Lorelai laughed, and Rory grinned toothlessly, poking two fingers into her mouth.
"Ouch!" Lorelai exclaimed, pulling Rory away. "You little sucker! That hurt!"
Rory whimpered and reached out, but Lorelai kept her at a distance, studying her mouth.
"Teeth. Great," Lorelai sighed, slumping against the headboard.
The next day she walked into town. She'd rarely gone into Stars Hollow proper because Mia would usually pick things up for her, but today was special. It wasn't every day she got to buy her daughter's first teething ring.
Except there weren't any teething rings in Doose's Market. Of course.
"Need some help, sweetheart?"
Lorelai turned around and saw a woman who must once have been absolutely beautiful, but her strong features were fading. "Sure…I need a teething ring."
"Oh, goodness, what an awful time for your poor sister," the woman crooned, leaning over to peer at Rory in her stroller. "That baby will be miserable for weeks, and there's so little to do about it."
"Will she really?" Lorelai asked nervously.
"Oh, yes. But teething rings – my children all made do with teething biscuits, darling, and Thomas has plenty of those. Right over here."
The woman showed her the baby food aisle, and Lorelai exhaled in relief. "Wow, thanks…"
"Just call me Miss Patty, hon. Everyone does. Are you folks new in town?"
"Yes, we are," Lorelai said, studying the jars of baby food. I should probably get more… "We're out at the Independence Inn. I work for Mia."
"You work? Why, darling, you should be spending all your time cheerleading at the football games and dating the jocks! There's one young man who runs track – that was never my favorite sport, but he certainly fills out those shorts well. Why, you would be absolutely adorable together. I'll see if I can't work something out…"
"Oh, Miss Patty, that's okay, really," Lorelai interrupted hastily. "I like to work. Honest I do. And anyway I don't go to the school here."
"You don't? Where do you go to school?"
"I don't go to school at all."
"Oh." Miss Patty looked as if she was digesting this information. "What do your parents think about…"
Lorelai sighed. "My parents aren't here."
Miss Patty raised an eyebrow.
Lorelai frowned slightly. "Not that it's anyone's business, but Rory is my daughter. Not my sister."
"Your daughter! How old are you, dear?"
"Seventeen," Lorelai grumbled. "I'm gonna go now. Bye."
"Bye, hon."
The story of the young maid and her daughter was all over Stars Hollow by nightfall.
Gray clouds gathered in bunches over the Independence Inn. Although it was only September, the air was crisp and cool and, to Lorelai, promised snow and other wonderful things. She hummed while she was making up the beds, smiled widely when the other maids sent her nasty looks, and danced Rory around their little bedroom until they were both dizzy. Lorelai flopped onto the floor and Rory pushed herself to sit up.
"It smells like snow," Lorelai whispered, and Rory reached out to touch her mother's nose.
"That's right. I smell it in my nose. Good things always happen when it snows. It snowed when you were born."
Rory paid her no attention. She had gotten to her hands and knees, hiked her little bottom in the air, and stood slowly. She wobbled a little on her feet, but she held herself steady. Lorelai's heart ached.
"You're growing up so fast."
Snowflakes began drifting down outside the window. Rory lifted one foot, teetered, and put it down again. Her little face screwed up in concentration as Lorelai held her breath. Rory carefully lifted the same foot and took a single step forward. Lorelai gave a sort of breathless scream and jumped into the air, startling Rory, who fell back on her diapered bottom with a thump and stared up at Lorelai with wide, serious eyes.
"You wonderful, genius baby!" Lorelai cried picking Rory up and swinging her around. "You walked! You walked! That's one small step for Rory Gilmore, one giant leap for…for…something! I don't know!"
Rory laughed.
"We'll call Grandma tomorrow and tell her," Lorelai promised.
Rory clapped her hands. "Gamma."
"Yes. Grandma. We'll tell her."
"Gamma!"
She didn't need an alarm clock to wake up. It was four-oh-three in the morning on the one-year anniversary of the most important night of her life. Who needs an alarm for that? Quietly she crawled out from under the covers and tiptoed over to Rory's crib, where the baby slept peacefully, her thumb anchored in her mouth.
Lorelai reached in and picked her up. Rory jerked a little, her little forehead wrinkled, and then she relaxed into Lorelai's embrace as Lorelai lay back down on the bed, her daughter beside her.
"God, you're precious," Lorelai whispered. "Happy birthday, sweets."
Rory yawned widely, but didn't wake up.
A whole year. How on earth had a single year flown by so effortlessly? Lorelai stroked Rory's hair.
"It's hard to believe," she whispered, "that at this same time, many moons ago, I was lying in exactly this position, except that I had a big fat stomach and ankles." Rory stirred, but Lorelai just smiled. "And I was swearing like a sailor on leave. There I was, in labor, and while some have called it the most meaningful experience of your life, to me it was something more akin to doing the splits on a crate of dynamite. And surrounded as I was by a hundred prominent doctors, I naturally assumed that there was an actual use for the cup of ice chips they gave me, but there wasn't. But pelting the nurses sure was fun."
Rory stirred again, and opened her eyes, looking at her mother with a bewildered expression on her face. Lorelai kissed her forehead. "The doctor down at the bottom said he could see your head, and I told him to get you out of me as fast as he could, and that maybe Vaseline would help. He didn't think it was very funny. So there I was, sweating and swearing and straining…and then you were there."
Lorelai paused, looking deep into the blue eyes that matched her own so identically. "They put you next to me in the bed. I was so tired and sore that I couldn't even hold you, but you were there. And you looked at me, and I looked at you, and I knew that this was it. Anything could have happened then and I wouldn't have cared, because you were there. You – you're my everything, Lorelai Leigh. I love you more than anything else in the entire world, and so help me God, you're going to love me just as much."
Rory yawned again and rolled over onto one side, falling back to sleep. Lorelai pulled the covers over both of them and drifted into dreams, her life in her arms.
Finis.
A/N: Thanks for all your support on this my first Gilmore Girls fanfiction venture. Stay tuned for more!