Standard disclaimer still applies.

"Mommy, the teachers want us to be early!" Rory insisted, tugging on her mother's hand. While the younger Gilmore was already dressed in her best dress with her hair in a neat ponytail, Lorelai remained buried under the mountain of quilts, one pillow planted firmly over her head. "There's a – there's a meeting!"

"Hrmph," Lorelai muttered from under the pillows. "Mrph shmick ahglen."

"Get up, get up!" Rory thought for a second, then, blinking her eyes very rapidly, said, "There's coffee!"

"Coffee?" Lorelai grumbled, her head emerging from under the pillow. "Where?"

"At the meeting! Hurry up and get dressed, okay?"

"Annoying perky child," Lorelai muttered as she stumbled towards their make-shift bathroom, which consisted of a toilet, bathtub, and sink surrounded by a pink curtain. "Who taught you to get up so early?"

They stood outside the school in the chill September morning. Lorelai hugged her arms closer to her body as she glared at her daughter. "The teachers had a meeting today?"

Rory looked down at the ground and shuffled her feet. "I just wanted to be early. I can't wait to go to school."

"Sweetie, standing here outside the locked door is not going to school. It's being crazy."

Rory looked up into Lorelai's eyes, her own wide with sudden fear. "What if they don't like me?"

"Oh, honey, they'll love you. Trust me on this one."

The door swung open and a man in a gray janitorial uniform looked at them, surprised. "You're early," he observed.

"Yes, well, we wanted to catch our worms," quipped Lorelai. "Can we come in? This young lady starts kindergarten today."

"Is the teacher here?" Rory asked solemnly.

"Sure is, hon," the man smiled at her. "Straight down the hall and on your left."

"Thanks!" Rory exclaimed, pulling her mother down the hall.

"Well, hello," said a woman in her mid-thirties with glasses and brown hair. "I'm Mrs. Donnell. Who are you?" She smiled encouragingly at Rory.

"I'm Rory," the little girl answered softly. "Rory Gilmore."

Mrs. Donnell looked down at her roster and frowned a little, hunting for a "Rory Gilmore." Rory spied a small blue bookcase filled with books and ran over to investigate, while Lorelai moved closer to the teacher.

"You probably have her under 'Lorelai Gilmore,'" Lorelai informed her. "'Rory' is a nickname."

"Oh! Yes, here she is. I'll just pencil 'Rory' in next to it." Mrs. Donnell made a note in her book and then turned back to the younger woman. "It's nice to meet you…"

"Lorelai." Off Mrs. Donnell's confused expression, she said, "Yeah, I'm Lorelai, too. Named her after myself. A flash of feminism and a lot of Demerol."

"Oh, so…you're her mother."

Lorelai tensed a little, but then softened at the complete lack of hostility in the teacher's expression. "Yeah, we get that a lot. I was sixteen when I had her. Her dad isn't around anymore, so we're all we've got."

"Mommy, look! Corduroy!" Rory exclaimed from across the room.

"Great, sweets! That's one of her favorites," Lorelai chuckled as Rory chose a blue beanbag and settled down with the book.

"She can read?" Mrs. Donnell asked, a little surprised.

"Yeah, she's been reading since she was four. I can't get her to watch TV or play with Barbies or anything. I tell ya, she's one weird kid."

Mrs. Donnell laughed.

"Mrs. Donnell?" The new voice startled both women into turning around. A petite Korean woman stood just behind them, her daughter beside her, studying her feet.

"Yes, hello, Mrs. Kim," Mrs. Donnell said warmly. "Lane starts school today?"

"Yes, she does." Mrs. Kim turned to her little girl. "Lane, go and be good." Lane walked away slowly towards the dark-haired girl in the beanbag chair.

"Those chairs I bought last week are positively gorgeous, Mrs. Kim," Mrs. Donnell said. "You will tell me if you get hold of a table to match them?"

"Of course. We appreciate your business." Mrs. Kim smiled perfunctorily before becoming all business again. "I brought Lane here to learn, not to waste her time."

"Oh…of course not."

"If I hear that she is spending all her time playing games, I will home-school her."

"Believe me, Mrs. Kim, we take kindergarten very seriously here."

"Today they'll be working on the cure for cancer," Lorelai cut in with a laugh. Mrs. Kim turned and glared at her while Mrs. Donnell shook her head and waved her hands wildly behind the shorter woman's back.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Lorelai Gilmore, Mrs. Kim. I'm Rory's mom."

"Rory? Who is Rory?"

"She's the little bookworm over there." Lorelai pointed to where their daughters were talking by the bookshelf.

"She is your daughter?"

"Yes."

"Your daughter."

"Uh, yes. Ma'am."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-one."

"And you are not married?"

Lorelai's lips thinned. "No. Rory and I live at the Independence Inn. I've been working there for five years."

Mrs. Kim said nothing further, but nodded a goodbye to Mrs. Donnell and swept out of the classroom. Mrs. Donnell exhaled heavily.

"That took guts."

"What did?"

"Standing up to Mrs. Kim. She's one intimidating woman."

Lorelai shrugged, a wry smile on her lips. "Compared to my mother, she's Puff the Magic Dragon. Hey, I'd love to stay, but I have to get back to work. Rory!" Rory looked up from her book and walked over. "Kiss." They kissed each other's cheeks. "Learn lots of stuff, kid. I'll be back this afternoon."

Rory sat at her table, studying her popsicle-stick structure seriously. She poked it a few times with her finger, but it refused to look any better than before. Sighing, she turned to the girl beside her.

"Is this fun?" she asked.

Lane looked up from her own stick house. "I guess so."

Rory frowned. "I don't think it is. I want to read more."

"You read a lot," Lane observed. "Do you like it?"

"Yeah. We have lots of books at our house. Where do you live?"

"I live in Mama and Papa's store. They sell chairs and tables and stuff. I like it. It's fun to play hide-and-seek in there, as long as Mama doesn't know."

They looked at their stick houses again. "I guess it's better than dodgeball," Rory sighed. "I don't like to play games with balls in them."

Lane seemed to be thinking. "Do you watch TV?"

"Sometimes," Rory shrugged.

"Do you like Cookie Monster?"

"He's funny," Rory giggled. "Mommy likes to talk like him when we eat cookies. She makes a big mess and then she has to clean it up."

"My Mama doesn't like Cookie Monster. She says he's bad. A deadly sin."

"Wow." Rory thought a moment. "What's a deadly sin?"

"Deadly sins are bad things you do that you can't fix."

"But Cookie Monster is just a puppet," Rory said reasonably. "He's not real."

"Yeah. I don't think Mama knows that," Lane said worriedly.

Rory turned back to her stick house. "It looks really bad," she decided.

Lane giggled. "Mine too. I hope we never do this again."

"Lorelai, will you come in here please?" Mia called from her office. Lorelai stopped her cart and walked through the door, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Yes?"

"Have a seat, dear."

Nervously Lorelai sat, looking up at her employer with worried eyes.

"You've been doing very well here, Lorelai," Mia began. "You're a hard worker, and you've learned to control that temper of yours over the last few years. The other maids respect you and look up to you, and that's very impressive."

"Thank you."

"I know Rory started school this week, and I know how expensive school gets. Clothes, folders, pencils, paper. Also, I'd like to repeat how impressed I am with the work you've always done here." Mia sat down on a chair next to her. "Lorelai, I'm promoting you to manager of personnel, of the housekeeping personnel at least. It's a salary job instead of hourly, and you'll be working with the head chef under Tyler to make things run smoothly here. Do you accept?"

"Oh, my God, Mia," Lorelai breathed. "This is…oh, thank you!" She threw her arms around the older woman and hugged her tightly. "Wait till I tell Rory!"

When she got back to the potting shed, she picked up the phone and dialed her mother's number. When Emily picked up, Lorelai jingled her new key ring next to the mouthpiece.

"Hear that?" she asked excitedly.

"What is that ghastly noise?"

"That is the sound of my new authority!"

"Lorelai?"

"Of course it's Lorelai. Who else would call you and jangle keys in your ear?"

"Naturally. My mistake."

"I got a promotion today! I'm manager of housekeeping personnel! Do you know what that means? I'm third in command! I'm two steps away from general manager, Mom!"

"Is that all you called to tell me?"

Lorelai sat for a minute, stunned. "Mom, this is a big deal. I'll be making more money. I can buy Rory that pink backpack she wants."

"Yes, didn't she start school today?"

"She did, and we were there an hour early because she tricked me into thinking the teachers wanted to have some sort of meeting with the parents before the day started."

"Well, that's good. I hope you took pictures."

Lorelai paused for a moment. "Mom, don't you want to know about my new job?"

"You're a maid, Lorelai. I know what maids do; I employ a houseful of them. If that was what you wanted to do for a living, you could have stayed here and let me hire you."

"I can't believe this," Lorelai said slowly. "No, I can believe the way you're acting; I just can't believe that I didn't expect it."

"What did you expect to hear?"

"'That's great news' or 'Congratulations' or anything that might convey some small measure of pride in what I've accomplished."

"And what is that, Lorelai? You're a twenty-one-year-old maid with a five-year-old who lives at the hotel you work at because of some strange woman's charity. With all your brains and talent…"

"Okay, I give up. I'm done, Mom," Lorelai snapped. "I am sorry that you're disappointed in me. I know this wasn't what you wanted for me. Hell, this wasn't what I wanted for me, but this is where I am. And if you think that I ever wake up in the morning, look over at Rory and regret her existence for even a nanosecond, you're wrong. I love her and I love my job and I love my life, and since you don't want to hear about any of it, you can bet I'll stop giving you the sordid details of my personal life. Got it? Call Rory, visit Rory, whatever, but you won't have to hear about me anymore. Rory gets home at 3:00. Call then. 'Bye."

On the other end of the line, Emily sat stunned, wondering what she had said wrong.

A/N: Okay, I need a little advice here. I'm hoping to carry this two-part series up to the first season. This fic will end right after she and Rory discover Luke's Diner and move into their house. The question is, should I skip ahead six years and finish this fic in the next chapter, or draw it out a little more? Thoughts please!