Disclaimer: I still don't own the Gilmore Girls. Although, I wish I owned Luke and Jess.

Chapter 8

Logan got out of his car and stared at the building in front of him. In his heart, he thought he was doing the right thing. He wanted Rory to be happy and her parents getting married would make her happy. In order for her parents to get married, that meant this guy needed to stay as far away from them as possible. He fixed his jacket and headed inside the old building. He made his way down the hall until he found the room he was looking for. He knocked on the door and a minute later, a man opened the door.

"Can I help you?" Max asked.

"Are you Max Medina?" Logan asked.

"Yes I am."

"Then, yes. You can help me."

"Who are you?"

"Logan." Max gave Logan a look, prompting the younger man for a last name. Logan's response was simply, "A friend of Rory Gilmore's."

"Rory? Oh, I haven't seen her in years. How is she?"

"She's fine."

"That's great. Well, Mr. Logan a friend of Rory Gilmore's, what can I do for you?"

"I'm glad you asked. Mr. Medina, I have a proposition for you."

"A proposition?"

"I will pay you any amount to stay away from Lorelai Gilmore."

"You're going to pay me to stay away from Lorelai?"

"Yes. Ms. Gilmore is getting married. It has come to my attention that you've already become a nuisance to the couple. I am willing to go to any length to keep you away from Rory's mother."

Rory stormed down the hall like a mad woman. She had never felt so angry in her life than this very moment. It'll kick up a couple notches when I see that pompous ass, she thought to herself.

"Good afternoon Ro..." Fin started.

"Not now Fin," Rory stated.

She wasn't in the mood to hear anything with the word 'good' right now. She just pushed Fin and Colin out of her way to get to Logan's dorm. She banged on the door until Logan answered.

"Rory," Logan smiled. "What are you..."

"You have some nerve Logan Huntzberger," Rory interrupted, making his smile fade.

"What did I do?"

"Guess who I got a call from today Logan." Logan said nothing. "Max Medina. He told me you went to Chilton and tried to pay him to stay away from my parents. Tell me that's not true."

"Rory..."

"Tell me it's not true!"

"I wanted you to be happy."

"Is it true or not Logan?"

"It is but..."

"You had no right to interfere with this. My parents will handle this in their own way, in their own time. There isn't even anything to handle! All Max did was postpone the proposal a week!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd react like this."

"How did you expect me to react?!?"

"Happy! I expected you to be happy I was willing to go to the length to keep this guy away from your parents!"

"You were going to pay him off Logan. That was an insult. To Max and to me. Whatever is between Max and my family is personal."

"Everything's personal with you Rory."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You keep me at arm's length. How am I supposed to get to know you if you won't let me in?"

"If you don't have the patience to be with me, then you better rethink this relationship."

"I better rethink this relationship? You need to rethink this relationship. I'm willing to go all the way. I'm beginning to wonder if you are."

Luke walked into the inn with his toolbox in hand. He walked up to the front desk. "Michel, where's Lorelai?" Luke asked. He got no response from Michel. "Michel. Hey, Michel. Michel." Luke began waving his hand in Michel's face.

"Please stop that," Michel said, not looking up at Luke.

"I was asking you a question and you didn't answer. Did you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Then why no answer?"

"Because I was ignoring you."

"That's rather rude."

"Don't you have a hamburger patty to flip?"

"Shouldn't you pull that stick out of your ass?"

"Burger Boy."

"French Fry."

"Luke!" Lorelai smiled when she saw Luke. "Hey, glad you're here. There's something wrong with the sink. I think the garbage disposal is broken again."

"Ok, I'll go take a look at it." Luke headed for the kitchen, but Lorelai grabbed his arm, stopping him. "Hey, what..."

Lorelai interrupted him by kissing him passionately. "How's your day so far?" she asked, just above a whisper.

"It's going great now."

"Has anyone said anything to you about us?"

"You kidding me? I was mobbed by Babette and Patty. Everyone kept asking me questions and congratulating us, except Frenchie over there."

"I have already told you I hate you, have I not?" Michel asked.

"Not today Frenchie."

"Lorelai, surely you can do better than this miscreant."

"What's better than perfect?" Lorelai joked.

"God," Luke added. "Well I better go fix that sink."

"Ok. I'll see you and Bert later." Luke laughed and shook his head as he headed to the kitchen. Lorelai took her place behind the front desk and started to go through the mail.

"Who is Bert? Your new boyfriend I pray," Michel said.

"Bert is Luke's toolbox," Lorelai replied with a slight chuckle.

"He named his toolbox?"

"I named his toolbox."

"Why?"

"Because I see so much of him."

"Luke?"

"Bert."

"I will never understand you."

"It's better not to try."

Richard was sitting outside on the front porch of the inn. He enjoyed just relaxing. The weather was perfect today. Although it had been snowing, it wasn't too cold, but cold enough to wear gloves and a jacket. He shut his eyes and took in the glorious silence calming his mind and soul.

"My God Richard, what are you wearing?!?" a far too familiar voice screeched.

So much for peace and quiet, Richard thought. He sighed and opened his eyes. "Hello Emily," he greeted dully.

"Where did you get that wretched shirt? And jeans? A man of your status never wears jeans!"

Richard stood up and dusted off the small snowflakes that had fallen on his flannel shirt. "I bought it Emily. I need a shirt to wear and theses are comfortable and keep you moderately warm, so I bought one. As for the jeans, Rory bought them for me ages ago."

"You look ridiculous. You look like…"

"Luke?"

"I was going to say like a hillbilly, but that'll do too."

"What are you doing here Emily?"

"I should ask you the same thing. You and Rory ran off last night just before dinner and came here! I was sitting at the dinner table by myself with a dinner for three."

"Lorelai and Luke asked us to have dinner with them to celebrate their engagement."

"What? Why wasn't I invited?"

"Quite frankly, I don't care. You would be invited to the dinner if you hadn't been so rude to Luke or purposely sent Max Medina to that restaurant so he'd ruin the proposal. You need to rethink your priorities Emily. And I'm not going to stick around and wait for you to figure them out."

"Richard…"

"Excuse me, I am going to go inside now. It's getting quite cold out here."

Richard went inside and Emily followed. "Richard. Richard! Don't you walk out on me when I'm talking to you. Richard!"

Lorelai's head shot up when she heard her mother's voice. What was she doing there? She followed the arguing to the foyer where her parents were getting into another argument. Richard stormed away from Emily.

"What are you doing here?" Lorelai asked in an annoyed tone.

"You didn't come to dinner last night," Emily replied.

"Luke and I were busy."

"Hosting Rory and your father."

"Yes. We hosted a dinner for Rory and Dad at the house. Let me guess, you're wondering why you weren't asked to come."

"I'm your mother Lorelai."

"You were rude to Luke. He tried to be nice and spare me the details, but I coaxed Rory and Dad into telling me. How could you mother? How could you tell Max Medina to show up and ruin Luke's proposal? Luke loves me. He loves Rory."

"I just want what's best for you."

"Luke is what's best for me. He's perfect. You always teased me about him and now that it's finally happening, you hate it! God mother, why can't you make up your mind? Why can't you be happy for me? Why have you never been happy for me?"

"I…I…"

"Whatever. I have to go. I have an inn to run and a wedding to plan." Luke and Richard could hear the yelling and made their way to the foyer.

"Lorelai, please! Just…just give me a chance…"

"No! I don't want to give you a chance. I'm happy mother. I am happy! I'm not going to waste my time by trying to make you happy and listen to your sorry excuse of an apology if you're not going to try to make me happy. Just leave me alone! Don't call, don't visit. Don't come to my wedding! I don't need you there. I've never needed you!"

Tears began to form in Emily's eyes. Pretty soon, they began to fall. She wasn't the only one crying. Lorelai had gotten so emotional (and upset), she began crying but she continued to yell.

"Your damn pride is keeping you from being happy for me! If you just got your nose out of the damn air, you'd realize how stupid you're acting! I hate that you're doing this to me Mom. You're hurting me and you don't even care! I hate it! I hate it!"

Luke ran over to Lorelai. "Lorelai. Lorelai, that's enough," he said as he held her.

"No. She just keeps pushing me away and I'm tired of it! She pushed me too far this time!"

"I understand that, ok? You just need to calm down before you completely lose yourself."

"I was never good enough. I'll never be good enough," Lorelai cried into Luke's shoulder.

"Richard, I'm going to take her to her office. Do you think you can handle things out here?"

"Yes, go take care of Lorelai." Luke took Lorelai to her office to calm her down while Richard stayed in the foyer, staring in disgust at Emily. "I hope you're happy Emily. You made your own daughter cry."

"She made me cry too Richard!" Emily shouted.

"If you hadn't blown this out of proportion, you wouldn't be crying now would you?"

"Did you hear how she spoke to me?"

"Yes, yes I did."

"She doesn't want me at her wedding Richard. My own daughter doesn't want me to be there when she gets married."

"Emily! You have done nothing but criticize her life and demean the man that loves her deeply. I hope now you understand how much Lorelai loves Luke. I will not stand for your behavior. My daughter deserves to happy and by God Emily, she will be! I'll be damned if I let anyone stand in her way! It's time for you to get your priorities straight! It's either your pride or your family."

A/N: I had something else planned for the end of this chapter, but I decided to go with this one. I hope you like it. I know I've been making Emily come off mean and stuff, but don't worry. She's not gonna be like this the whole fic. As for Logan and Rory, I might go down a different path on this one.