One Less Mistake

Summary: What if Lorelai hadn't gotten pregnant until she was 20? What if she had agreed to marry Christopher when she did? AU.

Pairings: Rory/Dean, Lor/Chris, with possible Lor/Luke later on

Disclaimer: All of these characters belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino and the WB

Dean Forrester checked his cell phone while standing outside his dorm room. He wanted to hear what had happened when his high school friend, Jess Mariano proposed to his girlfriend of three years, Lindsay Lister. The dynamics between the three of them had always been a little odd since Dean and Lindsay had dated for a couple years, but it wasn't like Jess stole Lindsay from him. Dean and Lindsay had been broken up for over six moths before she started dating Jess. There were three messages on his voicemail, but none were from Jess. One was his boss calling to tell him that they had a job fixing some house in the rich part of town. That was good, he needed the money to help pay for next semester's tuition. The next was Lindsay's best friend, Lane Kim calling to try to pump information from him. Of course Lane would know that Jess was planning something, and that Dean would know if he was, and that it was much easier to get information out of Dean than Jess. He deleted the message so he wouldn't be able to let anything slip. The last message was from Jess' uncle, Luke, offering him a couple shifts at the diner in case he needed more money for college, and to see if he wanted to come home for a free meal. Luke had loved Dean like a son sincehe got a job at the diner when he moved to Stars Hollow from Chicago. Luke helped Dean whenever he needed a hand, so when Luke's nephew, Jess, moved to town from New York City, Dean had been nice to him as a favor to Luke, but they ended up being really good friends. Dean dialed a very familiar phone number.

"Hey Luke."

"Dean! How's school?"

"It's fine."

"Oh yeah? How are you doing?"

"I'm fine. I actually just got a job fixing some millionaire's house."

"A millionaire?"

"I don't know. Some rich guy named Christopher Hayden."

"Sounds fun." even over the phone Dean could hear the sarcasm dripping from Luke's voice.

"Yeah. Loads of it. How are you?"

"Eh, fine, normal."

"How's Stars Hollow? Taylor still trying to get you to repaint the diner?"

"Seven solid years, he has not gone a week without commenting on the paint job, and how much it needs to be redone."

"Well, it is Taylor. Anything happen that I should know about? Or that you just feel like telling me about?"

"Jess didn't propse yet, if that's what you're getting at."

"I didn't mean to be getting at anything. I just wanted to know what was going on."

"Oh. Well, Lulu's pregnant."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"I'm sorry. I'm serious."

"There will be a mini-Kirk in nine months?"

"Better than a Doosey family reuinion."

"True. Poor Sookie and Mia had to put up with all of them for the whole weekend. At least they only ate at the diner once."

"Which was one time too many. It didn't help that you and Jess were upstairs, laughing hysterically whenever you heard me yelling, or breaking anything."

"It was funny."

"Would you have found it so funny if you were in the diner?"

"Point taken."

"So, even though you're fixing Mr. Moneybags' house, you can still come back, take a couple shifts, have dinner with me, and maybe Jess."

"Yeah, sure, sounds fun. We can help you torture Taylor."

"Excellent. Come by any time to work. How does Friday sound for dinner?"

"Great. I'll see you there."