Standard disclaimer applies.

"Potty!" Rory exclaimed, running out of the bathroom, arms outstretched.

"What a good girl!" Lorelai said, scooping her up and hugging her. "You did it!"

"Potty!"

"My big girl." The telephone rang, and Lorelai eyed it suspiciously. She switched Rory to one hip and picked it up. "Hi-lo?"

"Hey, Lore."

"Christopher."

"What's new?"

"Well…you have amazing timing," she said with a huge smile. "Your daughter just mastered the art of the potty."

"That's my young Padawan. The Force is strong with her."

"You watched Star Wars last night, didn't you?"

"I'll never confess. How about I take you and the genius-daughter out to dinner to celebrate?"

Lorelai paused. "Oh…Christopher, I'm not sure that's such a great idea…Rory doesn't handle restaurants very well."

"Well, then, just you. Have Mia baby-sit." She didn't answer. "Come on, Lore," he wheedled. "I haven't had time alone with you in months."

"There's a reason for that," Lorelai said. "Her name is Rory and she bears a striking resemblance to me."

"Hey! She's got my ears. My chin, too."

"The last time we spent any amount of time together, it resulted in this little miracle who just poo-pooed in her potty for the first time."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"No…yes…Christopher, don't confuse me." She set Rory down on the floor with her blocks. "We can't keep seeing each other like we're still in high school. I have a job, I'm trying to work my way up to manager."

"Wow."

"What?"

"You sound like…a grown-up."

"Christopher, we are grown-ups now. We have a kid we have to raise and support and…"

"Lorelai, I'm still in high school. I'm struggling to pass junior English, and you're talking about promotions and retirement plans."

"I said nothing about retirement plans."

"You know what I mean. I'm not ready to grow up yet."

"Well, Peter Pan, you really don't have a choice, do you? You made that choice about two years ago!"

"This wasn't what I wanted to happen."

"Well, this is what happened, and you can't change that!"

Christopher sighed. "Look, I have to go. Tell Rory Daddy loves her."

Lorelai bit her lip to keep the tears from falling. "She won't know what that means unless you're around to show her."

"I'll see you later. 'Bye."

Lorelai hung up and put her hands over face for a few minutes before sitting next to Rory, who had piled three blocks on top of each other. She gathered Rory into her arms and squeezed her tightly. "Daddy loves you," she whispered.

Sometimes Emily got out the photo albums and sat with them, studying the past, hoping to find some clue as to what had gone wrong. The pictures were not reliable, though, displaying as they did only one instant and one emotion as opposed to the hundreds of other moments and feelings that may have occurred before and after the shutter clicked and the bulb flashed.

The early pictures were the easiest to read: Lorelai at her baptism, on her first and second birthdays, and then a giant gap until junior high, because Lorelai had become convinced that her toddler head was too big for her body and rendered her deformed. Emily had never found the words to tell her that she had been the most beautiful baby she had ever seen, despite the size of her head and her penchant for trouble.

In junior high Lorelai's character began to emerge. On her twelfth birthday she posed politely with her elaborate new party dress and beamed with delight at the candy necklace Christopher had given her. And as she grew older the smile became generic and the eyes unexpressive, until all the photos looked as if the same face had been cut out and pasted onto every pose: the same unwavering gaze, the same insincere smile. Emily turned the pages relentlessly, watching with increasing unease the evolution of her daughter from the eager and animated girl to the suppressed and wary young woman. She flipped from beginning to end and back again, searching for the one moment when Lorelai had become what she was.

The last picture was almost too much for Emily. The black-haired sixteen-year-old with the peaches-and-cream complexion and electric blue eyes was breathtaking in her gleaming white debutante gown. She would have been the belle of the DAR debutante ball that season, but the gown was too small. Emily had had it pinned so that it looked right for the portrait, ranting about seamstresses and incorrect measurements, while Lorelai stood there, glacially cold, impossibly beautiful, and frighteningly solemn. At the time Emily had thought she was just being difficult. Now she stared at the picture wondering how she had not seen it. The eyes were dark with secrets, resignation, determination…and fear. The fear of the miracle and curse of women, the knowledge of ages, stared up at Emily from the face of a child, her child, and she cursed herself for not noticing it earlier. How had she borne it, this girl-woman, watching her childhood, her adolescence, her future plans wiped out by a single thin pink line? What had gone through her mind as, in the space of minutes, she became an adult?

Richard didn't know about the hours she spent in Lorelai's room, smoothing the quilt that was never disturbed, fluffing the pillows that were never slept on, and rearranging the dollhouse furniture that had never been touched. He didn't know that at night she would sneak out of their bedroom and down the hall to the nursery and sit in her grandmother's rocking chair and stare at the tiny crib that had been occupied for so short a time. She didn't know what to do with herself. She felt incomplete and unsatisfied. Her daughter, after all, had grown up before her time. By all rights her usefulness should have extended another year or two.

But Lorelai didn't need her. Hadn't needed her for years, in fact, even before the intrusion of Christopher and the advent of Rory. That wretched independence had thwarted Emily's plans time and again, and now she found herself completely obsolete, and it was the most frightening thing she had ever experienced. She had been raised to be a wife and a mother, and that was what she was. What else could she be?

She had thrown herself whole-heartedly into her social activities, giving to those women and those groups the passion and the commitment that Lorelai would never allow to be bestowed upon herself. But sometimes she would sit in that room, take out those photo albums, and wish for the impossible, dream of what could have been.

"Rory, don't run!" Lorelai called as Rory toddled down the hallway ahead of her. Instead of heeding her mother's warning, however, Rory sped up, giggling hysterically. Lorelai sighed and left her cart, hurrying after her daughter before she could fall and hurt herself. "Rory!"

She walked into the room Rory had ducked into and saw Elena, one of the other maids, trying to shoo her away. "Go on, get out of here," she said. "Go, little pest!"

"Hey!" Lorelai protested, hands on her hips. "My daughter is not a pest!"

Elena glared at her. "She's bothering me. Keep her under control, will you?"

"I'm doing my best, Elena. What do you want me to do, put a shock collar on her?"

"Sounds fine to me," Elena muttered under her breath, but Lorelai heard her.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" she demanded.

"Great way to talk around a two-year-old."

"Um, you just suggested I put a shock collar on a toddler, and you have the nerve to criticize the way I talk?" Lorelai felt her temper rise dangerously.

"She gets in the way!"

"She does not get in the way! What was she doing? Stealing the pillow mints?"

"Look, it's not my fault you can't control your little bastard."

The color drained from Lorelai's face and her eyes blazed. "Take that back. Now."

"Why should I? It's the truth, and you'd both better get used to hearing it. That's what you call babies who don't have fathers and are being raised by their slut mothers."

Lorelai flew at the other maid, landing a solid punch right on her nose. Elena screamed and ran from the room, and Lorelai, forgetting Rory for a moment, chased her out into the hall and down the stairs to the lobby. She dove for the other girl's legs and both of them fell to the floor, kicking and screaming. Two of the waiters rushed in from the dining room and pulled Lorelai off of Elena and held her tight. When Mia ran out into the lobby, Lorelai was still struggling to break away from her captors, and Elena was being supported by Tyler and another waiter, nursing her bleeding nose.

"What is going on here?" Mia demanded, and the lobby went completely silent.

"Lorelai attacked me," Elena cried. "She hit me and then chased me down here!"

"Lorelai?" Mia gasped, turning to the flushed, wild-eyed girl.

"You bet I did," she growled. "I'd do it again, too."

"In my office, both of you," Mia snapped.

When the three of them were seated in the office and Rory had been put into Tyler's care, Mia asked again what had happened.

"Lorelai attacked me," Elena repeated.

"Why?"

"I don't know!"

"You rotten liar," Lorelai snapped. "You know exactly why!"

"Lorelai did you hit Elena?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Lorelai's shoulders slumped, and her eyes filled with tears. "She was mean to Rory."

Mia's brow furrowed. "Mean to Rory? What do you mean?"

"She called her a bastard. And a pest. And told me to put a shock collar on her."

Mia gaped at her, and then turned to Elena. "Elena?"

Elena looked at the carpet, and then into Mia's eyes. "Does it matter what I say? Lorelai's your favorite, though God only knows why. She and that little…kid show up and stare at you with those big eyes and…"

"That's quite enough," Mia said sternly. "Whatever your opinions about Lorelai, Rory, and the morality of their situation, they are unimportant to your work here. If you feel you cannot work with Lorelai, by all means feel free to leave."

Elena shook her head and stood. "I'll keep my mouth shut."

"You'd better," Lorelai threatened, "or I'll make sure it's wired shut. Permanently."

"Be quiet, Lorelai," Mia chided her. "You aren't out of hot water yet."

Elena smirked and walked out the door. Mia turned to Lorelai.

"Lorelai, you can't brawl with every person who insults you or Rory."

"You didn't hear what she said, Mia! She was hateful! Evil!"

"Unfortunately, you'll run into hate and evil everywhere. I'm sorry, dear, but your…unconventional…life will sometimes expose you and Rory to very unkind remarks."

"It's not fair. I might have made a mistake, but I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't give up Rory. Ever. I don't care what people think about it, and I won't let anyone talk about Rory like that!"

"Oh, sweetheart," Mia sighed, giving the forlorn girl a hug, "you can't change things by fighting. If you raise Rory to be the incredible woman you want her to be, you'll have proved every hateful and evil person wrong. Focus on that, and you can't go wrong, I promise."

Lorelai looked up at her, tears glistening in her eyes. "She's so wonderful. Why can't they just love her? Can't they see how lovable she is?"

"You can see her potential, Lorelai. You're the only one who needs to. If you believe in her, she'll believe in herself, and that'll be enough in the end. You'll see."

A/N: I wanted to revisit Emily again because I haven't had the chance to so far, and I find her character fascinating. I hope this chapter's not too angsty, though. RnR!