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

AN: I was going to have more Rory/Dean interaction, but I'm just going to finish it off. There are only a couple more chapters, and there will be an epilogue. Then I'm going to get to work on my other story, and finish that, which will have a lot more R/D. I'll do some more one-shots, and, if my muse stays with me, a post-finale DC story. Sorry it took so long to update. To all the Logan fans- he's going to seem like a jerk, but hang in there, and I will redeem him, at the end, even though I hate him.

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Rory drove down the road as fast as she dared. She couldn't believe she was late! It wasn't really her fault, since the clock broke, but she had a feeling Dean wouldn't see it that way. She'd been spending a lot of time with Logan while he was off from school for a couple weeks, and Dean seemed to think that Logan wanted to be more than her friend. Which was completely ridiculous. Even if he did, he knew better than to try anything. She was so lost in thought that she almost missed the turnoff for Stars Hollow.

When she finally found a parking place a couple streets down from Luke's Diner, it was 7:30. They had planned to go to a 7:00 movie at a theater ten minutes away from Stars Hollow. How had she not noticed that the clock had read the same time for five hours? She ran out of the car, and into the diner, not even bothering to take her keys out of the ignition. Dean was working, and he looked up, surprised, when she came in. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I'm late, I'm so sorry, the clock was broken, and I didn't notice until a little while ago. I'm so sorry," she panted.

"You forgot to check your voicemail, too. I called you about an hour and a half ago to say I had to cancel."

"Oh. Why?" he jerked his head at a little girl, who was setting up an experiment with salt and rice. "Who's that?"

"April. Anna asked Luke to take care of her, but he had just booked a flight to Cambodia."

"Cambodia?"

"Rachel's there. He's going after her, so when he asked if me and Jess if one of us could watch April and the diner, we said we could."

"How long was Luke planning on going to Cambodia?"

"I think he just made the reservations this morning. He only found out Rachel was there last night. Sorry you came all the way out here for nothing."

"No, it's fine. Do you need help with anything?"

"Well, if you could go ask April what she's doing, that would be nice. The diner's really crowded, I haven't had a chance to yet." She nodded, and kissed him before walking over to where April was sitting.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Rory asked.

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers." April said.

"I'm Dean's girlfriend."

"That's what they all say."

"What! Who else said that!" Rory panicked.

"Oh, I meant that in the general sense. How do I know you're not a kidnapper, or a strangler, and you're just trying to get me to trust you."

"Because I'm Dean's girlfriend."

"Yes. You told me."

"My mom dated Luke."

"And he broke her heart, and now you came to take it out on me."

"No, she left him, and got back together with my dad."

"So you want to hurt me because your mom left your dad for my dad."

"Okay, little girl, I'll make you a deal. You tell me what you're doing, and I go away and never talk to you again."

"I'm doing an experiment to see whether brown rice or white rice is better at preventing clumps."

"Thank you. Bye." Rory said, eager to get away from her. "She's doing an experiment with the rice," she reported back to Dean.

"Is she hurting anything?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay, good," he said, smiling apologetically at her as another customer yelled for him to come take their order. Rory walked over to the only empty seat in the whole diner, a stool at the counter. Why was everyone eating so late? It was after 7:30 on a Friday night. She took out her cell phone, blatantly ignoring the large sign banning cell phones right in front of her, and checked her messages. There was only the message that Dean had told her about, so she started playing Tetris on her cell phone. She'd wait for Dean to finish, and then maybe they could do something together.

"What can I get you?" Jess asked. Rory jumped, almost dropping her cell phone.

"When did you get here?"

"About thirty seconds ago. I drove Luke to the airport, which is why your boyfriend didn't have any help."

"Oh."

"You should go visit Lindsay. She's at home, you can wait for Dean there, I'll tell him where you went."

"Really?"

"Sure. I'm sure Lindsay won't mind, and you'll have more fun than you would sitting on a stool playing games on your phone."

"Thanks," Rory grinned and slid off her stool. She got almost got to the door before she turned around and walked back to the counter. "Did you tell me where it is?" she asked.

"Sorry," Jess said, and scribbled an address on a napkin, and handed it to her.

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Rory and Dean lay on the couch in Luke's apartment above the diner after it had closed. "You didn't have to wait, you know," he said, tracing his thumb over her palm.

"I wanted to," she smiled up at him, and he kissed her gently.

"Hey, why were you late, anyways. Not that it really matters, it's just not like you."

"I was at the library, and the clock broke."

"Do you have a big research paper, or were you just there for fun?" Rory hesitated. She knew he'd be mad, and she didn't want to ruin the moment. But how could she not tell him? She was allowed to hang out with her friends in the library. "You were with Logan," he said, correctly interpreting her silence.

"Yeah," she acknowledged.

"What do the two of you talk about?" his voice was strained, and she could feel how tense he was under her.

"School, books, Hartford snobs," she said, rolling onto her side and wrapping her arms around him, trying to reassure him. It didn't work. "Why can't you just trust me? He doesn't want anything more than friendship, and I definitely don't."

"I trust you not to do anything. But you're too modest and naive to recognize that he wants you."

"No, I'm not!" she said indignantly, sitting up. Just because he was older than her didn't mean he could read people better. He didn't even know Logan!

"It's not usually a bad thing, Rory. It's one of the things I love about you," it was his turn to try to pacify her.

"You love me because I'm just a little girl?" she snapped.

"That's not what I said," he tried.

"Yes, it is. I'm eighteen, I'm not totally clueless about how the world works!"

"No, you're not. You just don't know anything about men."

"And that makes me easy to manipulate, right."

"Yes, it does."

"And you would know, wouldn't you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think the meaning's pretty clear," she snapped as she stormed out the door.