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

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

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What were we thinking?" Lorelai cried out as she paced in front of the window, staring out into the snow.

"That Dean is a very nice boy, and Rory is a very careful girl, and they're in love," Chris offered.

"Why are you not freaking out about this as much as I am? Our only daughter is on her way to a house that's hours away, where she'll be alone with her college boyfriend!"

"Well, Dean's a great guy, and he really loves Rory, and she really loves him, so even if something does happen, at least it will be with someone who loves her for her."

"If something happens? Chris, something is happening now! I need to call Luke."

"Luke? Why?"

"He's like Dean's father, he'll know anything we should know about him." Before he could protest, Lorelai was dialing the phone. Maybe it wasn't such an awful thing, though. Lorelai wouldn't rest until she'd heard from someone who'd been close to Dean for years that he was a great young man, and would treat Rory right.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luke picked up the incessantly ringing phone, "Hello," he snapped.

"Luke, Luke, Luke!" Lorelai moaned desperately into the phone.

"Lorelai?" How could she call out of the blue like that? Did she think that he would forgive her and take her back? Would he if that was what she wanted? He didn't even know. All he knew was that it sounded like she was panicking.

"How much experience does Dean have?"

"Excuse me?"

"How much experience does Dean have?" she repeated crankily.

"You mean sexual experience?" he asked haltingly.

"No, cooking experience. Yes, of course sexual experience."

"None that I know of."

"That you know of? But...but that means he could have hooked up with half of the girls in Stars Hollow! Or at whatever college he goes to! Or both!"

"Yeah, except that's not like Dean."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I know Dean, and that's not like him. What's wrong, Lorelai?"

"What's wrong is that lothario has wormed his way into my daughter's mouth, and heart, and now into her bed, and now he needs to die!" Lorelai yelled.

"Whoa, calm down," Luke could hear a man's voice in the background as Chris wrenched the phone out of his wife's hand. "Sorry about that," he told Luke.

"No, that's okay," Luke said, realizing that he must be talking to Christopher. He'd imagined his voice lower, deeper than this baritone. "Christopher?" he asked hesitantly.

"What?"

"I'm so sorry. About everything."

"If by everything you mean you're sorry that your almost-son's out having sex with our daughter, then you should be," he teased.

"That's not what I-" Luke started.

"I never blamed you, Luke. You don't have anything to be sorry for," Chris cut him off, "but I appreciate the apology." Luke nodded as a slight click indicated that Christopher had hung up. He was surprised at how little this whole thing hurt. He had thought that hearing Lorelai's voice would bring on a flood of unwelcome feelings and memories, but it hadn't. He was happy for her, he was glad that she had someone like Chris, who hadn't been afraid to wrench the phone from her grasp. He'd always been afraid to do that. He was even happy for Chris, who seemed like a nice, fairly easygoing, extraordinarily forgiving guy. And he was jealous. They were a family, a mother and a father worrying about their eighteen-year-old daughter, still in love. Could that have been him, he wondered, if he was more adventurous. If he'd gone to college with Rachel, if he'd left with her four years after she came back. If he hadn't run to Anna. If he hadn't run away from Anna. If Rachel had been less adventurous. He missed her, more and more every day since Lorelai left. How had he thought even for a second that visiting April was more important than proposing to the woman who was quite possibly the love of his life? Maybe if he'd believed Dean when he said why Rachel left he could have gone after her, chased her down, made it up to her. He missed her.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dean waited until she'd left before he got to work. He'd left the house with some half-baked excuse about needing to get things for breakfast, then purposefully forgot to get coffee, so that she'd have to go out and get some, giving him time to set up the room. He had bought her roses, and champagne, and all the corny things that people supposedly bought to make their first time like a fairy tale. "You should definitely not try any job that includes lying," Rory said from behind him. "You're not very good at it."

"Yes, but my romantic surprise wouldn't have been half as romantic if I'd said to you 'Hey, Rory, do you want to get out of the house so that I can surprise you with flowers and champagne, would it?"

"Romantic, yes, surprising, no. Did you really forget the coffee?"

"I didn't forget the coffee."

"Okay, good, I'll help you set this up."

"I purposefully didn't get any so that I'd have a way to get out of the house so that I could prepare your romantic not-so-surprise."

"Well, I guess we'll just have to sleep so late tomorrow that I don't need any coffee." He smiled.

"I guess so. Now, do you want to help me, or go sit in the living room area and pretend to be surprised when I come get you after I finish?"

"Flowers, please," she said, holding out her hands. "If you get to make it romantic for me, I should make it romantic for you."

"Yes, but I'm the guy. The guy is supposed to romance the girl, and sweep her off her feet."

"Says who? We're both virgins. We're in the same place, it's going to be a big deal for both of us. Why do you get to be the one to sweep me off my feet?"

"I never had you pegged for a feminist?"

"I'm not, not really. I just think that we're experiencing the same thing for the first time, and I shouldn't get more romantic treatment because I happen to be female."

"I love you so much," he whispered.

"I love you, too," she replied, the timbre of her voice equal to his. She rose on her toes to kiss him, and he stooped slightly to meet her. She deepened the kiss, as she willingly let him maneuver her towards the bed.