Disclaimer: Amy and Daniel Palladino, along with the rest of the WB, own Gilmore Girls. I'm just borrowing the characters.
A/N: This takes place sometime in the summer after the season finale. Luke said yes and all that good stuff, but this story won't really be revolving around this. This will be revolving around not a 'what if?' but a 'what would happen if?' Such as, what would happen if Lorelai and Logan were to have a confrontation away from Rory?
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For the first time in her life, she was speechless. Here she was, face-to-face with the boy who ruined her baby's life, and nothing. No witty opening statement, no quip, just an open jaw. She, Lorelai Victoria Gilmore, was at a loss for words. Surely that was a sign the world was coming to an end. Or maybe it was just hers.
Sure, she'd imagined how the conversation would go. Daily there was a new scenario: new place, new conversation, new one-liners. They all ended the same, however – not well for one Logan Huntzberger.
But now they all vanished into the deep recesses of her mind as she was faced with the real thing. None of her scenarios started with the two of them facing off on the side of the road with one of his friends she vaguely remembered from the police station situated between them, as if he knew what was about to take place. Lorelai figured that Logan would have more grace and civility than to rear-end her car.
She'd been driving to Hartford to pick something up for the inn, minding her own business, when she was jolted forward at the stoplight by Logan and his gas-guzzling SUV. They'd pulled over to exchange information, and he literally stopped mid-sentence when he realized exactly whose car he'd just damaged.
The friend whispered something to Logan, and then turned to Lorelai. "Mrs. Gilmore –"
"Miss," Lorelai interrupted. "It's 'miss.' And if you're going to suck up to me on behalf of Logan here – who I really think should speak for himself instead of getting his PR agent to do it for him – you will refer to me as 'Your Highness, Queen of the Universe.'"
The friend took a step back toward Logan, then spun around and patted him on the back. "Have fun. I'll be in the car."
"You ruined her," Lorelai said quietly once the friend was securely in the car.
Logan snapped his full attention to her, as if finally grasping what was going on. "I didn't do anything."
"You didn't? So Rory got inspired to steal a yacht because she's normally such a kleptomaniac?"
"I don't know what you want me to say, but it was her idea."
"I've heard. The idea wouldn't have even flitted into her mind if it hadn't been for your bad influence and your stupid fraternity."
"My bad influence?" Logan echoed doubtfully.
"Yes, your bad influence. That and your family's skewed view of Rory. Who ever brought up the idea of marriage, huh? You and Rory are not going to get married. I did not raise her to become Mrs. Logan Huntzberger, WASP-y wife and DAR member. This is not her life."
"You don't need to protect her from high-society, or however you want to look down on us. She's a Gilmore; she was born into it."
"I do need to protect her from high-society so she doesn't fall in with people like you. Obviously I've failed because she's going out with you, she's dropped out of Yale, and she's living with my parents. She was going to be a foreign correspondent, did you know that?"
"I never wanted her to drop out. This is all my father's fault."
"Yes, I know what he said."
"I told him that he's not allowed to talk to her that way."
"I'm sure that did it," Lorelai patronized. "But did you ever correct him in front of her? Did you ever tell her that she's a good reporter, that she's worth it, that your father's opinion means absolutely nothing?"
Logan opened his mouth, but then replayed the conversation in his head and shut it again.
"That's what I thought. Don't bother with the insurance," Lorelai said, gesturing to the car Logan had damaged, "I don't need your daddy's money."
"I was never going to give you my father's money," he informed her.
She crossed her arms over her chest and raised one eyebrow in his direction. "You weren't? Then how were you going to pay for this? I may not have been paying close attention, but I've never seen you interviewed by Robin Leach."
"I do have some of my own money," he replied indignantly.
"Just forget it, I can get it fixed on my own. We can act as if this little exchange never happened." She turned around, but was soon face to face with him again when she whirled around at the sound of his voice.
"I never needed your express permission to go out with your daughter."
"No, but a little civility would be nice. I'm not here to warn you away from Rory or to publicly bash you. In fact, if it were up to me, I wouldn't even be here, having this conversation with you. So what I'm going to do is get back in my Jeep and drive off while you join your friend in your incredibly expensive Escalade, and you two can go ruin someone else's life, and I'll go get what I need for my inn."
"Colin and I were actually going to meet someone," Logan coolly answered.
Lorelai turned around and walked to her car. She wouldn't let her daughter's stupid lapse in judgment get to her, not today. She wouldn't . . . she couldn't. He was a stupid, insignificant boy. An insignificant boy who got to see Rory everyday, while she almost never saw her anymore.
Where had she gone wrong? Maybe she should have forced her to go to Harvard as opposed to Yale. Maybe she shouldn't have sheltered her so much from her grandparents and their friends, so she would know them as Lorelai knew them. Maybe she could come up with 'maybe' scenarios all day and it still wouldn't change the fact that Rory had been taken away from her, and she couldn't do a thing to change it. Not yet, anyway.
She lay her head down on her hands that were gripping the steering wheel. The car behind her finally revved up the engine and sped off. But she didn't have enough time between the car starting and when it left to get out and crack the back windshield with a rock.
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Logan watched as Lorelai walked back to her car and got in before stalking back to his car, slamming the door as he caught in. The whole car shook with the force, and he hit the steering wheel.
Colin just raised an eyebrow in his direction, used to his sudden temper tantrums. "I assume that didn't go as well as one would hope."
"Fuck you," Logan spat out.
Colin clucked his tongue disapprovingly towards his friend. "Logan Huntzberger! I do not appreciate your use of such coarse language in the presence of my virgin ears!"
"Do you have anything relevant to say, or do you just enjoy pissing me off?"
"As much fun as that is, I do have a statement of some relevance to the present situation in which we-and for all purposes, the 'we' in this statement means 'you'- have found ourselves."
"Then please enlighten me," Logan said sarcastically.
"Rory's mother is hot," Colin replied as if it was a prophetic statement and Logan should be honored to learn such information.
"That's it, I'm not taking you out in public anymore."
Colin grinned as Logan started the car. "Do you think she has a boyfriend?"
Logan drove off, careful not to gawk as he passed Lorelai's car. "She has a fiancé."
"That can be fixed."
"You are a jackass."
"I'm a jackass?" Colin laughed at the absurdity of that statement. "You are a goddamn, Grade A asshole, my friend. You just led that poor women to believe that we were going to see her beautiful daughter. Turn this tank around, I believe it is my civic duty to comfort the gorgeous woman in her time of need."
"Forget it, she's not going to have sex with you," Logan told him. "And we are going to see Rory."
"Excuse me?" Colin cried in mock outrage. "I believe we made plans with our favorite Australian to plan my birthday. My birthday. As in mine. And I know you are not blowing off Finn when it involves the planning of anything revolving around me."
"Call him and tell him to meet us at Emily and Richard's, then," Logan suggested.
"And they won't kick us out?" Colin questioned with no small amount of shock evident in his voice.
Logan smirked at him. "They love me, remember?"
Colin flipped open his phone, glaring at Logan and grumbling the whole time about how the situation was no longer involving solely himself. "There had better be a stripper at this party of mine, and she'd better be hot."
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Lorelai sank into a barstool at Luke's, thankful to be back. It was nearly time for dinner, and the diner was already filling up with people either passing through their quaint town to or from Hartford, or regulars at the establishment.
She was so lost in her own thoughts that she jumped into the air when Luke placed a cup in front of her.
"Is something wrong?" he asked. When she didn't respond right away, he elaborated, "You look worried."
She shook her head. "It's nothing. I just had a run in – literally – with Rory's boyfriend."
"The guy she dropped out of Yale for?" Luke clarified. "She's still seeing that punk?"
"In all his punkiness." She picked up the coffee cup and brought it to her lips, but didn't take a drink. "All this time for nothing. She goes to the life I left. It's a bad movie in the making. Susan Sarandon will have the starring role as me, of course, because all mom roles are played by her."
"You're a great mom," Luke assured her. "This isn't your fault; you did everything right. She just made a few wrong decisions to make her boyfriend happy. But once she realizes what a jerk he is, she'll come to her senses."
Lorelai smiled at him and leaned over the counter to kiss him as her cell began to ring loudly in her purse. "Thank you." She took out her phone and he pointed to the door. "Not even for your fiancé?"
"You're going to exploit this, aren't you?"
"Please?" Lorelai begged, looking at the caller I.D. Speak of Robert Beltran as the devil, she thought wryly. "It's Rory."
"Tell her I say 'hi.' Outside."
Lorelai pouted, but took the call outside. "Hello?"
"How could you?" Rory asked, skipping all formalities. "Logan didn't do anything to you. He's been nothing but nice."
"Nice?" Lorelai shot back, her ability to snap back after any surprise coming into play. "Like when he stole your grandmother's antique sewing box out of the goodness of his heart?"
"He gave it back."
"After I forced him to. Ror, that boy is not nice."
"You don't know him at all. The only reason you don't like his is because he's part of the life you're trying to escape."
"Maybe I am biased," Lorelai conceded. "But I'm not blind. I know you only see the good in people. Which is why I'm surprised you could see him at all."
"I can't believe you would be so cruel, especially to his face."
"Remember when you used to listen to me when I gave you advice that was for your own good? What happened to that girl?"
"This is about the college thing, isn't it? I told you that I'm going back when I know what I want to do with my life."
"But you do know what you want to do. You're going to be a foreign correspondent, working for CNN. You're going to travel the world, dodge bombs and bullets, learn a thousand different languages, beat Diane Sawyer in the amount of odd places you've interviewed celebrities. I didn't raise you to give up."
"I'm not giving up, I'm . . . re-prioritizing," she finally managed to come up with.
"Wasn't it just last year that you were telling Dean that most people who drop out of college don't go back?"
"We're not having this conversation; I'm going out with Logan and I'm taking a break from college. I don't care if you like it or not, you're the one that kicked me out of the house. Bye."
Then Rory hung up without waiting for Lorelai to respond. Lorelai slowly removed the phone from her ear and stared at it in shock, as if she expected Rory to call back and apologize, crying that she made a huge mistake. It never happened.
She didn't know how long she stood outside the diner, just staring at her phone with a stunned look permanently on her face. She didn't know how many people went by, whispering as they stared at her. It wasn't until the first wet drop hit her cheek that she realized she was crying.
It was then that she went back in the diner, ignoring the townspeople as they stared at her. She didn't care; her baby was really gone, turned away from her. Luke practically ran from behind the counter, handing the plate in his hand to a random customer, and enveloped her into his arms. That's where she finally broke down, faced with the harsh reality, as Stars Hollow watched on.
The End