Disclaimer: I'm just a fan, I don't own Gilmore Girls.

Christopher rings in twenty-one years.

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November 1988

"Happy birthday, Lor!"

"It's not my birthday, Christopher," she snarled into the phone, her voice low as she pulled the receiver out the front door, as far as the cord would allow.

"I know, I know, but somebody's gotta say 'Happy birthday!' It's supposed to be your line, 'cause it's my birthday, but you weren't saying anything, so I jumped in."

"Well, your performance was stellar. I was trying not to wake Rory."

"Hey, what's the matter?" Chris sounded more offended than concerned about her chilly demeanor, but maybe she just couldn't hear him right over the din of the crowd in whatever bar he was calling from.

"It's almost midnight."

"I know, I had to call before the day was officially over. I know you can't make long distance calls from where you're at and I realized that's probably why I hadn't heard from you, so I'd figured I'd call so you could wish me a 'happ-'"

"I mean, it's almost midnight and Rory is asleep. I was asleep."

"Lor, babe, I'm sorry, I totally forgot about your early mornings."

"And about your sleeping daughter?"

"Well, is she awake now? I wanted to talk to her! Tell her 'happy birthday,' too."

"Aww, that's so sweet. And you're only belated by a whole month."

"Hey, I sent a card," Chris retorted, speaking directly into the pay phone for the first time, and gruffly. She could hear the familiar drunken lilt in his S's.

"Yeah, thank Barbie for her birthday wishes, too. Chris, you know Rory has no interest in those toys, and even if she did, she can't…I can't buy them for her!"

"That's why I got her one!"

"Yeah, okay Chris, I gotta go," Lorelai unfolded herself from the lawn chair beside the front door of the potting shed.

"Wait, wait, oh, come on, Lorelai! I'm sorry, okay? It's my 21st birthday and I just wanted to talk to you. I just really, really wanted to talk to my best friend."

"Hayden, you ready for number seventeen? We gotta get to twenty-one, man, or your birthday won't count!" An equally drunken, but unfamiliar voice nearly deafened Lorelai when some guy leaned too close to the phone. She heard Chris telling him to go order the shots and then he was speaking right into the receiver again, clearer, gentler this time.

"Lor? You there?" Sounds like his best friend is the guy getting shots at the bar, she thought, yanking the sleeves of her sweatshirt down over her hands, which felt raw in the wintry night air.

"I'm here," she sighed, leaning against the door jamb.

"You are, you know."

"What?"

"My best friend. You are my best friend. It wouldn't have felt like my birthday if I didn't get to hear your voice." Lorelai slid down to rest on her heels, supported by the little shed where she had lived now, for almost three years, with her daughter. She laid her thumb over the lever on the phone that would disconnect the call, ready to depress it.

"Happy birthday, Chris. Goodnight."

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