Everything Old Is New Again

by Lula Bo

How do the same things happen every year in so many different ways? A year in the life of Lorelai, Luke, Rory, Emily, and Richard. Followup to Separation Anxiety.

10. May

Many thanks to CIAChick and all things holy for the beta—I read it too many times to pick out the mistakes myself. A quick note: Amy may have killed Asher Fleming, but in my world, he lives on. Standard disclaimers apply—any similarities to recent episodes are just freak coincidences.

May

The last week of classes loomed, outlined in red on Rory's desk calendar. She knew she should be reading or studying or preparing herself for the reading and studying she'd have to do when classes ended and exams began. The Friday before, she went as usual to dinner in Hartford, stayed late to look over Emily's writing with her, and headed back to Yale with the intention of locking herself in her room for the next three days. It had been difficult concentrating, the last week or so, and she needed the extra time. Things had come up, clamoring for her attention—opportunities and thoughts she wasn't sure she was ready for that kept her awake nights thinking. She had resolved to lay them aside for the weekend and be diligent, get caught up, get ahead. When she got to her room, however, Paris was waiting for her with The West Wing on DVD.

"I've had an exceptionally bad day and I wallowed with you before so you owe me a wallow now," she said.

"What happened? Are you okay?" Rory asked. She shrugged out of her coat and kicked off her shoes, shook her hair from the claw that held it back. She raked her hands through her curls with a sigh.

Paris looked at her with a baleful expression. "Are you trying to flirt with me? Because your boyfriend lives upstairs." She gestured. "And you're not really my type."

"Paris, what happened?"

She sighed. After a moment of uncharacteristic silence, she shook her head. "Nothing. Just a general bad day, one that I don't want to talk about, which is why I have fictional politics and sex scandals and I ordered pizza. I know you probably ate a cow at your grandparents', but—"

"There's always room for pizza," Rory said. "It's like Jell-O. You sure you're okay?"

Paris rolled her eyes and threw herself on the bed. "Yes. Fine. You in?"

"I also never turn down fictional politics and sex scandals," she said. "You mind if I just…"

Her friend waved a hand. "Go."

Rory hurried down the hall and up the stairs in her bare feet, working the inside of her lower lip between her teeth. She knocked softly on Marty's door before she opened it slightly and poked her head around the doorframe. He sat on the bed, his legs straight out in front of him, in loud red pajama pants with flying pies on them and a hooded sweatshirt. He wore the hood up and, as Rory looked in, pulled hard on the strings and closed it over his face.She swallowed a laugh as she let herself in. Marty turned his head in her direction at the click of the door closing but kept the hood closed.

"This is a very weird new look," Rory said. She stood in front of him, between his ankles. The bed was high, and his feet hung at her waist. "It's a little Grim Reaper for my taste."

"I'm having no thoughts," he answered. He tapped his feet gently against her rear end. "Thoughts are gone. Thoughts have left the premises. No thoughts."

She leaned forward, rested her hands on his knees. "Is this supposed to help?" she asked. She scratched lightly at his pajama pants. "Marty?"

Marty tugged harder on the strings for his hood. "Opening night is in exactly a week."

Rory clambered up on the bed and into his lap. She pushed the hood back. He didn't protest, but didn't raise his eyes to hers. He was red-faced, his brow knit in worry. Rory waited for him to look up.

"I'm going to suck," he said sullenly. "I don't know why—"

"We've been through this," she said patiently. "You are not going to suck. You know that play backwards and forwards, and the director wouldn't have cast you if she thought you were going to freeze up at performance time."

He put his arms loosely around her waist, leaned forward, and buried his face in her shoulder. She cradled his head, worked her fingers through his hair. He heaved a sigh. "I am not going to make it another week," he groaned.

"You are, too," she said. She tugged him back to look him in the eye. "I would love to sit and commiserate with you some more, but I have to go commiserate with Paris for a while first—she has dibs. You want me to come up later?"

He nodded. "I promise not to be all, you know… this."

Rory pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Be however you want," she said.

"Thanks." He held her tightly a moment. "I'll see you later."

"Yes, you will," she murmured, just before she leaned down and kissed him.

Marty broke from her after a moment. "You sure Paris has dibs?" he asked, rubbing her back lightly, feathering kisses along the line of her jaw to her ear.

"Bad day," she said. "Girl time." She pushed herself off his lap, kissed his cheek. "I'll be up."

As the door shut behind her, she heard Marty sigh, muttering, "Yeah, so will I."

She found Paris camped out on the floor of her room with two open boxes of pizza in front of her and the TV already on. Rory changed into her pajamas without speaking before she sat and helped herself to a slice.

"Tell your friend POTUS he's got a funny name… He's not my friend, he's my boss. And it's not his name, it's his title."

Rory glanced up at the TV. "What'd I miss?"

"Rob Lowe accidentally sleeping with a prostitute."

"Did he trip over something?" Rory asked.

Paris looked at her. "You just stole their joke."

"Good for me," Rory said. "So, you want to talk about it?"

"What?"

"Whatever it is that has you in this fabulous mood." She glanced at her friend sidelong. "You have a run-in with Asher, or something?"

Paris gave her a death glare and broke a piece of crust in half with a vicious twist. "No," she said forcefully. "It's nothing. Bad day. Every person I talked to today was stupider than usual, I got a paper back with a grade I didn't deserve and couldn't talk the professor out of, I accidentally dyed all my underwear purple by washing it with a brand new bra, and my parents are yet again in the throes of a will-they-or-won't-they separation cycle. Thank you for mentioning Asher, too, that's just the cherry on the top of my day."

She apologized softly. "No talking, then."

"You don't have to baby-sit me, you know," Paris said. "If you want to go…"

"Why would I want to go?"

"Muppet-head's probably—"

"Could you please not call him that?"

Paris snorted. "I can't believe you can't see the resemblance. With the hair?" she said. "Still, if you'd rather—"

Rory rolled her eyes. "Paris, please. I can spend a night away from my boyfriend, you know."

They were silent several moments as they watched TV and picked at the pizza. Paris cleared her throat.

"So," she said, "have you guys done it yet?"

Rory nearly choked on a sip of soda. "Excuse me?"

"It's a totally natural question, Mary. You've been together a few months now, and it's not as though you're an iron Madonna anymore, so—"

"Paris! I am not discussing this with you!"

She wiped her hands together. "Right. You haven't."

"Would you just watch the show?"

"So now you don't want to talk," Paris said.

"Not about that, no," Rory replied.

"Well, why haven't you done it?"

Rory stared at her. "Paris!"

"Unnatural, if you ask me," she muttered.

"No one's asking you!" Rory cried. "For crap's sake, Paris."

Paris smiled as she took another bite of pizza. "You know, there might be something to this whole wallowing thing."

When they'd polished off the pizza and Paris had retreated to her own room with the DVDs, Rory lay on her bed, her hands folded over her stomach, and sighed. She contemplated calling her mother for a moment before she rolled off the mattress to get to her feet. The thoughts rolling in her head were just short of articulation, and there was no point in calling just to pout. She tucked a pillow under her arm, grabbed her room key, and turned off the lights as she left. It was a routine, now; it wasn't every night, wasn't always his room, but more often than not, the hours after midnight she spent sleeping to the rhythmic sounds of Marty's breathing. It had prompted Lorelai to comment, more than once, that as a couple Marty and Rory were so cute it was nauseating.

Her knock was tentative, and she waited for Marty to come and open the door for her this time. He smiled down at her as he stepped aside to let her in. He had traded the bulky sweatshirt for a lightweight thermal tee that was one washing away from being too tight. Rory perched at the end of the bed, her pillow hugged to her chest.

"How's the thinking coming?" she asked.

Marty grinned and leaned against the doorframe. "Slowly improving, I think. How's Paris?"

"Better for having abused me awhile," she replied. "She's ruined any possibility that I could study tonight, though. She's got my brain all haywire."

"How do you mean?"

She waved a hand. "Normal Paris stuff," she said.

"Irritating and bossy," Marty supplied. "You should have just stayed here."

"It's fine," she said, sighing, and she fell back on the bed. "I owed her a good mope." She curled up around her pillow, and, when Marty sat beside her, rested her head on his thigh. "Semester's almost over," she said softly. "It's so weird."

Marty brushed her hair from her face with a light sweep of his fingertips. "You realize that when this semester's over, we'll be half done here?"

"God, don't say that," she moaned, pushing her cheek against him. "It's too depressing." She put out her hand and traced the outline of a pie just above his knee. She felt him tense for a fraction of a second, so slightly she wasn't sure he'd tensed at all—it could have been a twitch, a muscle spasm, she told herself. But she heard him sigh and knew. She pushed herself to sit up. He looked at her expectantly, silent. "I think I'm going to sleep in my room tonight."

His expression darkened a shade. "Oh. Okay."

"It's just—I'm not really sleepy, and I'll probably keep you up, and I think I'm going to go home tomorrow anyway, so I'd have to get up a little early and we always, you know, lie around on Saturdays, so—"

Marty gently covered her mouth with his hand. She blinked in surprise but felt a surge of gratitude that he'd stopped her from going on until she'd run out of breath. Her voice sounded high and unnatural and her words were falling too quickly for comfort.

"Rory, you don't have to explain. It's fine. Not fine-fine," he conceded, "because I like it when you're here, but if you want to be by yourself—that's, you know, whatever."

She gave him a watery smile before she threw her arms around him and hugged him fiercely. He laughed as she tightened her arms around him further, gripping his tee shirt in both hands. He rocked her in his arms, and Rory rested her cheek on his shoulder. She closed her eyes and gave herself a moment; it was an awkward, uncomfortable position to be in, sitting on her knees with one arm snaked around his back, the other over his shoulder and her head tilted at an angle.

"Everything okay?" he asked, at length.

Rory pulled back and nodded silently. Marty kept his hands at her waist, pinched the waistband of her pajama pants between his fingers. His face was set in a look of utter bewilderment, and she brushed a palm across his forehead as though she could wipe away the confusion. She let her hand come to rest on his cheek. "I'll come up before I leave tomorrow," she said.

"Please do."

She leaned down and just touched her lips to his. "Night," she said, speaking against him.

His response was to catch her in a soft, teasing kiss. The heat began in her fingertips, as it always did; when she finally broke from him, Rory felt feverish. She wet her lower lip with the tip of her tongue and took a breath.

"I should go," she said. She pulled away and slid off the bed before he could draw her in again. "Tomorrow—I'll see you tomorrow."

He was grinning again as the door swung shut behind her.

Rory lay in the dark of her room, listening. The campus was still awake and she could hear its movement outside her window. Still, the noise in her head was louder than the white noise of a college Friday night. Nineteen days—nineteen days was all she had left in the semester, in this school year. Two days of April, she thought, seventeen of May. It was the last weekend of April; she shook her head as though trying to rattle the numbers loose. She had a handful of classes left as a sophomore, a short, densely-packed exam period, and a due date for her writing portfolio. And that would be the end of it, the end of this year. She'd pack her things, load up the Toyota, and head for home, at least for a while. The thought sent nervous tremors through her, made her heart beat in a strange, strangling way.

She rolled onto her side and bunched her pillow beneath her head. This was a time of year she'd always enjoyed, with its cool mornings and warm afternoons, the approach of summer just noticeable in the yellow light of dusk. When she was small, Rory had always thought May sounded like a happy month; something in the name was brisk and sweet. As she curled into herself now and tried to shut her eyes against the flicker of the streetlamp beneath her window shade, she couldn't dredge up any semblance of delighted anticipation. Her stomach clenched. Her skin felt too tight. Her eyes burned. With a sigh, she turned on the lamp beside her bed and reached for a beaten and abused copy of Emma. Though she'd read it before and always enjoyed it, lately the heroine had done nothing but irritate her. Emma was bossy, Rory thought, and condescending, thought she knew what was best for everyone around her and didn't have a clue what was going on in her own head. She ran her fingers over the text without seeing the words. After an hour of flipping through pages and reading (but not reading) only her favorite parts, she put the book aside, turned off her light, and arranged herself carefully on her pillow. She waited to fall asleep.

Sleep, she discovered, would not be forthcoming.

Had her bed always been this uncomfortable? she wondered. That lump just under her right hip, had that really been there all year? And the light outside—had it always cast that strange shadow that looked exactly like the profile of Alfred Hitchcock? Rory screwed her face up as she closed her eyes, held her breath like a four year old preparing to throw a nuttyin the middle of the supermarket. She exhaled in a short burst and told herself that it was a matter of mind over body. She could fall asleep if she really wanted to, no matter that she still felt flushed and tingling from Marty's kiss (she checked the clock—hours ago), that her heartbeat seemed so abnormally fast that she could hear the blood pounding in her ears. She didn't really have "I Think I Love You" stuck in her head.

Oh, God, she really did. "I was sleeping and right in the middle of a good dream, like all at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking at my brain."

She whimpered as she flopped onto her stomach and pulled her pillow over her head. It didn't drown out the noise inside. It rather seemed to increase the percussive beat of the Partridge Family and the strange roaring sound of her blood as it pumped through her veins. Her chest felt tight, and though she was desperate, she didn't think auto-asphyxiation was the answer. She released the pillow and rested her cheek against the mattress, taking a long, cool breath.

The wakefulness was almost painful. The tick of the clock on her desk seemed to echo, and the noise only grew louder as the sounds of partying on campus dwindled into silence. Rory sat up in bed and growled as she looked around the room, lit hollowly by the streetlamp outside. She squinted. Four AM. "I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of? I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for."

"Okay, seriously?" Rory said aloud. "That's enough of that."

With that, she vaulted out of bed and made for her small DVD collection. She paused a moment, her hand hovering over When Harry Met Sally before she grabbed Heathers. She felt too much like Harry, moaning alone in the dark. Black comedy better suited her mood.

She managed to fall into an uneasy sleep just before "I love my dead gay son!"

When Rory woke, the sunlight filtering in under the half-closed blind was weak and thin. She propped herself up on her elbows and blinked. "I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of? I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for…" She rolled off the bed, groaning, and struggled her way to the shower. She found herself bopping slightly to the beat in her head as she stood under the hot water. "Believe me, you really don't have to worry…"

An hour and a half later, she knocked on Marty's door. She had her book bag slung over her shoulder, causing her to slouch down on one side under the weight. She wore an old cardigan over a tank top and a pair of old, worn jeans, her damp hair tied up in a loose knot—her study outfit. She paused a moment before knocking again, more forcefully this time.

"It's open!"

She was talking before she even stepped in the room. "Hey, sorry, I know it's early, but I got absolutely no sleep last night and I thought maybe if you were up we could grab some coffee before I left for Stars Hollow—" As she spoke, she dropped her book bag and shut the door, glanced at the bed. She stopped abruptly when she saw Marty seated at his desk clad only in a pair of jeans. She stared, her mouth slightly open. "Hi," she said at length, remembering herself.

Marty looked up from his computer. "Hey," he said, rising. "I got a surge of early morning creativity and I wanted to strike while the striking was good." He crossed the room in two steps and kissed her good morning. "You say something about coffee?"

Rory rubbed her eyes. "I thought we could go get some," she said. "But first—Marty, why is it that whenever I walk into your room lately you're in various states of undress?"

He looked down at himself as though surprised he wasn't wearing a shirt. "Oh. Well, it's a—it's a study thing?" he said, his expression sheepish. "It's just something I do when I'm working on my writing or, you know, math or something that's giving me a hard time."

"What is?"

Marty pursed his lips. Rory could see him weighing the words, trying to figure out the least embarrassing way to phrase it. "I think better the fewer clothes I'm wearing," he finally said. "I can't explain it. The words just come easier when I'm not wearing a shirt."

"So last night's whole sweatshirt thing—" Rory began.

"—was my way of dealing with an academic roadblock, yes," he said. "When I can't think, I add layers. When I can, I take 'em off."

She smiled. "Well, lucky me," she replied.

"But I can get dressed," Marty said, "if you want to get coffee or breakfast before you go."

"No, I don't want to interrupt you if you're in the middle of a… creative surge," she said slowly. "I should get going, anyway. I have so much to do." She put her fingertips to her temples. "And I got no sleep last night. Thank you very much, David Cassidy."

"I'm sorry?"

"Oh, nothing." She shook her head. "I'm just going to go." She leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him squarely on the mouth. "I'll call you," she said, pulling back.

She stumbled as she tried to move away, tipped forward. Marty caught her easily, his arm around her waist, and Rory let herself fall against his chest. She snorted noiselessly, blowing an exasperated puff of air through her nose, and began to laugh. Marty looked down at her and said nothing, though his expression clearly telegraphed "my girlfriend is a crazy person." She shook her head again and took a deep breath.

"I'm fine," she said. "Just wonky without sleep."

He grinned at her. "Okay, then."

With that, Marty lifted his free hand and pushed a lock of hair from Rory's forehead, leaned in, and kissed her again. She relaxed, slipping one arm about him as she snaked the other over his shoulder to draw him closer. Her chest was tight and tingling, her legs wobbly beneath her. She was miles from coherent thought, but her awareness of the feel of his skin beneath her palms was overwhelming. He was cool and taut and smooth and when he moved she could feel things shifting beneath the surface, muscles and tendons and bone. His hand found the base of her neck, tightened there briefly as he pressed her closer. Rory arched her back, pulling Marty into her as she fisted a hand in his hair and dug her nails into his back. She broke from him, breathless, and made to step away.

"I have to go," she said softly.

"Mmhmm," he murmured, walking her to the door, still holding her. He kissed her as they took slow, short steps together. When he had her backed up against the door, he pulled away and looked at her, his eyes cloudy. "You sure you have to go?"

Rory ran her fingertips along the line of his jaw, her gaze still fixed on his mouth. "I have to go," she said. "I have to go where there are very few distractions and none of this sort or I'm never going to get anything done and I'll fail out and then go bald and possibly die."

"Can't have that," he said. He pulled her to him again.

"No," she said, tilting her head to one side as Marty kissed the soft spot behind her ear, as he worked his way down to her shoulder and his hands slipped beneath the hem of her tank top. "That would be bad." She bit her lip and wound her arms around his neck. The tips of his fingers inched up her sides, leaving heated skin in their wake. "God," she sighed. Again, she shook her head. "Marty, we have to stop," she said gently.

His forehead fell to the crook of her neck. "Because you have to go."

"I can't go see my mom with a fresh hickey," she told him. She placed her palms flat on his chest and pushed him back to look him in the eye. The heat of his nearness dissipated slightly, and she struggled to keep her features from betraying her disappointment. "If I stay, neither one of us is going to get anything done. Even if I'm in my room and you're up here, I'm just going to be thinking about when I can take a break so I can—"

"Come up here and ravish me?" he supplied. His expression darkened. "You sure that's why you're leaving?"

She pressed her lips quickly to his. "I'm leaving because I find your studliness so totally irresistible, yes."

"Now she sweet talks me," he said, rolling his eyes. "Get lost, Gilmore, before I give into the urge to chain you to the bed." He stepped away and passed a hand over his mouth. "Do me a favor and pretend I didn't just say that."

Rory grinned at him and reached down for her bag. "I'll call you." She opened the door and paused on the threshold. She turned to see Marty watching her expectantly, waiting for her to say whatever she'd paused to say. "Marty?"

"Rory?"

She took a breath, but she already knew the words would stick at the back of her throat by the way her stomach had dropped. "Nothing. I just missed you last night."

His smile only heightened the heat already skimming beneath her skin. "Good," he said.

Rory tried to clear her head as she walked to the car, hitching her book bag higher on her shoulder, taking deep breaths, shaking her hair from the band that held it back and smoothing it back into a ponytail anew. She paused at a coffee kiosk and got the largest cup of black coffee available, dumped in several packets of sugar. She could still see Marty's expression as she wandered the walkways of campus; his eyes, so wide and dark and searching, saw everything going on behind her own. It made her feel naked, exposed. She sipped her coffee in the hopes that the bitterness would burn away the lump in her throat and remove the taste of Marty's mouth and his kisses. She stumbled over the curb when she reached the parking lot, thinking of both. She felt his hands again beneath her shirt, his fingertips just skimming—she shook her head, sipped her coffee again, willing herself to focus on something else, anything else. It had been a mistake to go up and see him. It was too early for Marty's hands to have been anywhere close to where they'd been: she had studying to do and essays to revise and a hundred other things demanding her attention.

"I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of?"

She threw her book bag into the backseat of the Prius and settled behind the steering wheel. The moment she turned the keys in the ignition and the car rumbled to life, Rory hit the power button on her radio. The CD player buzzed, and as Rory put the car in drive, she felt a faint sense of relief at hearing the opening strains of "Running to Stand Still." She muttered thanks to her mother for the copy of Joshua Tree and pulled out of her space.

It was still early when she pulled up by the mailbox at home, but she was unsurprised to see Luke's truck parked beside her mother's Jeep. Rory gripped the strap of her book bag tightly in both hands as she trudged across the lawn. She fervently hoped that it wasn't so early that she'd surprise Luke half-naked in the kitchen as she'd done once before—she'd had enough of half-naked men for the time being. She stopped on the porch, her key hovering outside the lock, when she heard sounds of a scuffle. She tested the door, found it unlocked, and stepped inside.

The living room was empty, but Rory could hear thuds and bumps coming from the direction of the bedroom upstairs. She went to drop her bag on the couch and stood in bewildered silence—none of the furniture was in the right place, the couch pushed back and the coffee table shoved to one side, the armchair askew in its regular corner. She was about to call her mother when she saw movement from the corner of her eye. She turned to see a vaguely familiar-looking girl coming down the hall from the kitchen with a coffee cup in hand.

The stranger smiled. "Hi. Rory, right? I'm Ashley. We met at the—"

"Engagement party, right," Rory sighed. "I remember. It's still early for me."

"For me, too," Ashley snorted. "But Jess and I both had the day off, which happens so rarely that I decided to come down with him and help out today."

Rory furrowed her brow. "Help out with what?"

Ashley opened her mouth to speak just as Lorelai came barreling down the stairs. She stopped on the landing, still turned towards the bedroom, and began to wave her arms as though she were a runway traffic controller directing a plane to land. Rory bit her lips together as she watched, shaking her head in disbelief. Luke descended the stairs, stepping backwards, carrying one end of a mattress. As he came closer to the landing, Rory could see Jess at the other end. He looked pissed, she thought.

"You gotta get out of the way, Lorelai," Luke grunted.

She skipped down the remaining stairs and seemed to notice Rory and Ashley for the first time. "Hi, hon. Did I know you were coming?"

"Nope," Rory said. "What's going on?"

"Hang on," Lorelai replied. "Luke, you have to lift it to get around the corner." She paused. "You have to pivot." She began to giggle. "PI-VAT. PI-VAT. PI-VAT."

Rory dissolved into giggles as well as Luke stopped dead in his tracks and looked at Lorelai with an expression somewhere between annoyed and astonished.

"Woman, what the fucking hell are you talking about?"

Lorelai only laughed harder and waved to Rory, gesturing that she should explain. "It's from an episode of Friends, Luke."

Luke sighed, shifting the mattress slightly as he began to negotiate his way down the stairs again. "So not only is it something I wouldn't have known on my own anyway, it's also probably not that funny to begin with?"

"Yup," Rory said. She gave her mother a withering look as Lorelai crossed the room and put an arm around her. "Hi," she said.

"Hey, babe. My fiancé just swore at me."

"I heard him."

"I'm wounded," she said. "Hurt. Deeply and profoundly hurt." She was chortling again. "Scarred to the very depths of my being—"

"Mom, how much coffee have you had today?"

Lorelai pretended to count on her fingers and then shrugged. "I have no idea. I've been up since two AM."

"What for?" Rory asked.

"Couldn't sleep," Lorelai replied.

"You and me both," Rory said. "So you're hyper-caffeinated and sleep-deprived all at the same time?"

"I am a vision to behold," she said. She looked over at Luke as he and Jess dropped the mattress in the center of the living room. "What's next?"

"The box spring," he replied. "And then the frame. I told you that before."

Lorelai leaned down. "He's cranky."

Luke said nothing to this but threw Lorelai an exasperated glance before he jogged back up the stairs. Jess remained in the living room, his hands on his hips, and stared at the floor. Ashley rolled her eyes. "And apparently he's spreading the joy," she said in a stage-whisper, tipping her head in his direction.

"I heard that," Jess said shortly.

"JESS!"

He looked heavenward a second before he turned on his heel. He stopped on the landing. "Hey, Rory."

"Hey," she said, offered him a tentative smile. "So, what's going on here?"

"Oh," Lorelai said, "turns out that the job Tom was going to do between Winky's house and our addition fell through, so he can start a month sooner here. We're moving everything out in preparation for the demolition of my bedroom wall." She paused. "I love saying that, for some reason."

Ashley took a sip from her mug. "Luke asked Jess to help out, moving the furniture, so here we are."

"What about you, babe?" Lorelai asked, rubbing her shoulder. "What brings you to the Hollow?"

"Finals," she sighed. "I needed to go someplace where I could concentrate, no distractions." She looked around balefully. "I couldn't focus at school."

Lorelai clucked her tongue. "And you come home to this. I'm sorry, Rory. I'd suggest you use the office at the inn, but Michel is hosting a convention for chow owners today and the place is just yip central." She looked towards the stairs to Luke and Jess emerge from the hall with the box spring. "You could go to Luke's," she said.

"The diner isn't really—"

"No, I meant the apartment," Lorelai said. "You'd have the whole place to yourself, at least until the afternoon. And it's always quiet up there. You'll be the writer in the apartment over the shop, it's very bohemian or Victorian or some sort of –ian thing. What do you say? And when you're done for the day, you can come over for dinner and you and I can do a fitting for your dress."

Rory nodded. "Sure. If it's okay with Luke."

Lorelai made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "It's fine, babe. Go on, I'll probably swing by later."

An hour later found Rory cross-legged in the middle of Luke's bed—the only space big enough for her to really spread out on, no matter how slightly bizarre it felt—surrounded by piles of paper. She had shrugged out of her cardigan, thinking the apartment over-warm, and she sat with her bare feet tucked up under her. Luke's apartment was startlingly quiet—she hadn't really believed her mother when Lorelai told her it would be, but the general hum of the diner below became the occasional ping or faint crash upstairs. Rory spent a few moments on her arrival arranging her papers, putting pens through her ponytail so she'd have them at the ready, finding a place for her coffee cup, and trying to forget that the only significant amount of time she'd spent in this apartment in the past was with someone who was no longer her boyfriend and very much someone else's. She'd turned off her cell and arranged herself in the center of the bed with a sigh, determined to focus on her writing and forget all boyfriends, past and present, for as long as she could.

She was in the process of untangling an ugly sentence in the essay that comprised forty per cent of her portfolio grade when she ran out of coffee. She whined to herself, glanced at her papers, and crawled off the bed. She walked towards the kitchen, looking for her shoes. The sound of the apartment door swinging open startled her so much that she nearly dropped her coffee cup. She caught her breath, put a hand to her chest as she got her bearings and turned towards the door.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to… scare you," Jess said. He stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets, and rocked back on his heels.

"You didn't," Rory said. "Well, you did, but that's just because I'm sort of in an intense writing mode which means that I'm not really here-here, I'm all spaced out and out of coffee, so—" She stopped. "You didn't." They regarded each other a beat. "You going to come in?"

She saw the whisper of a smile—the sardonic, Jess smile that she knew by heart—on his face as he stepped inside. "Luke sent me over for a tool that he's missing. I'll just be a sec."

"Don't hurry on my account," she said. "I'm just—well, I'm just here. And, hey, if you see a pair of shoes…?"

"I'll let you know," he said. He went immediately to Luke's closet, pausing at the foot of the bed for a fraction of a second. He kept his back to her as he spoke, searching through the junk at the bottom of the closet. "What're you working on?"

Rory pulled at the end of her ponytail. "It's a portfolio for a writing class at school. It's—the point of the class is telling stories through location. Actually, it's sort of perfect that I'm here right now because the major essay is about the diner."

Jess stood and looked at her over his shoulder. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. A sort of snapshot history of me and my mom through Luke's." She hugged herself. "It sounds lame, I know."

He cleared his throat. "Is it any good?"

She couldn't help but laugh. "It might be, when I'm done with it."

"Then it might not be lame." He waved a large screwdriver. "Found it." After a beat, he crossed the apartment again. He stopped by the door. Rory watched him as he raised a hand to the back of his neck, held it there a moment, and drew himself up straighter. "You doing okay?" he asked.

Rory studied him a long moment, her head inclined to one side. She smiled softly. "I really am. You?"

"Getting by," he said. "Your shoes are under the bed."

She smiled in thanks, and when she turned towards the bedroom, she heard the door shut behind him. She sat on the edge of the bed a moment, her shoes in her hands, trying to reign herself in. It was ridiculous, this shaky feeling. But it had been the most words they'd exchanged since the night she'd shouted in his face like an angry three year old and he'd taken off into the night and her life had spun horribly out of control. She took a deep breath. He had asked if she was okay; the only reasons she could think he'd do so would be because someone had told him she wasn't or because he needed or wanted to prove that he could—who suggested otherwise was something she couldn't resolve.

The apartment buzzed with silence.Rory cast a look over her shoulder at the scattered contents of her portfolio, put her shoes on, and grabbed her coffee cup to go downstairs. She answered Lane's wide-eyed, questioning stare with a shrug and a hurried "I'll call you later." Back in the apartment, she sipped her coffee and resumed her work. She decided, as she pulled a fresh pen out of her hair, that something about Luke's apartment cleansed her mental palate and made her able to focus. She couldn't be sure how much time had passed when she heard the door open again—she figured it had been roughly four hundred revolutions of "I Think I Love You" on her mental jukebox, however long that was. And, if she thought to notice, she was so tired, her bones ached.

"Rory? Sweets?"

Rory lifted her head. "Mom?"

Lorelai stepped into the apartment, smiling wearily. "Hey there, writer lady. How's the portfolio coming?"

"Oh, it's okay," she said. "How's the furniture moving going?"

Her mother made a face. "As well as can be expected, I guess. Luke made me clean my closet."

She snorted. "Did you let him live?"

"I did," Lorelai said, offended. "But I threatened not to more than a few times." She looked around the apartment. "Holy crap, this place is a mess."

"I know," Rory sighed. She scratched the crown of her head with the end of her pen. "I'll get everything before I go, though."

Lorelai shook her head and crossed toward the window. "I meant the boxes. Did you not notice the multitude of boxes in here?" She leaned over and peered into a half-filled cardboard carton. Rory watched her mother from the center of the bed. She glanced at Rory, one eyebrow cocked; Rory waited, knowing a comment was forthcoming.

"Luke has more fishing books than any sane person should ever have. Didn't Erma Bombeck say that anyone who watches more than three football games in a row should be declared legally brain-dead?" she asked.

"Something like that," Rory replied cautiously.

"I think probably the same theory applies to actually reading more than one fishing book in your lifetime." She paused in mock-contemplation. "Should I worry that I might potentially be marrying someone without any discernable brain function?"

Rory tipped her head to the side and pretended to consider it. "As long as it doesn't hinder or impede your relationship in a general way, I think you can probably work around it."

"How do the purple silk boxer shorts I found factor into that?" Lorelai asked, holding the offending item up with her index finger for Rory's inspection.

"Well, then you have to call the whole thing off," Rory said.

Lorelai stared at the boxers hanging from the tip of her finger. "I was afraid of that." She let them drop with a sigh. "What if we burn them?"

"As long as there's no evidence, I think you're good to go," Rory said.

"Cool. We can add them to our bachelorette party bonfire," Lorelai said, stepping around several boxes on the floor before joining her daughter on the bed. "I don't know where they came from, and I don't want to know."

"I really don't need that information at my disposal either," Rory said. "Because—"

"Ew?" Lorelai supplied.

"Yeah."

"So," she said, "daughter of mine. You want to head back to the house with me? Pack it in for the day?"

Rory started to remove the pens from her ponytail. "Oh, do I," she said. "What time is it?"

"Close to five. I've been sent for cake and pie," Lorelai told her.

She looked up from the pile of papers she was making. "Not punch and pie?"

"I figured the pitcher of margaritas I'm going to make will be a fairly good substitute for the punch."

"I can't believe it's almost five already," Rory sighed, stuffing her folders into her book bag. "I feel like I just got here." She stood and swayed slightly on her feet. "Oh, dizzy."

Lorelai was at her side in the next instant. "You okay?"

"I'm okay—just haven't eaten anything today," she said. "I might need a bit of sustenance before we start hitting the sauce."

Lorelai put her arm around Rory's shoulders and walked her to the door. "And sustenance you shall get. Luke was starting the snacky appetizers when I left. Some sort of spicy spinach and artichoke dip. It smelled incredible."

They stopped in the diner for the desserts that had been set aside for them. Rory grabbed a donut from one of the display dishes as well. Lorelai clucked her tongue and shook her head.

"Luke is gonna be so mad at you," she intoned. "But don't worry, I won't tell."

They walked in silence a few moments. Rory could see Lorelai watching her from the corner of her eye. She finished her donut, wiped her hands on the seat of her pants, and cleared her throat. "What, Mom?"

"Nothing," she said lightly.

"What? You're giving me the I'm-totally-working-on-something-in-my-maniacal-brain-look."

Lorelai smirked. "Can I put that on my resume?"

"Mom."

"I'm just wondering how everything is with you," she said. "What with Luke and I being all Cory and Paul, Barefoot in the Park, drama, drama, drama, and you doing your study 'till the sun don't shine thing, it occurs to me that you and I have not had a good jaw session in a while, and I just want to check in, see what's brewing in that big ol' brain of yours." She paused. "Your non-maniacal brain."

Rory rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers. "I've just been working really hard on my portfolio. I'm stressing, so I'm not always sleeping that great," she added. "I've had some things on my mind."

Lorelai lifted a lock of hair from her daughter's forehead. "You want to talk about anything?"

"I'm okay," she replied. "I'm good, you know. I'm fine. It's not capital P problems, or anything. Just some things I've been thinking about."

"Well, good thing you don't do a whole lot of that," Lorelai teased. "I'm always here, babe."

"I know." They fell silent again until something occurred to Rory. "Hey, so, if there's a hole in your bedroom wall, where're you going to sleep?"

Lorelai rolled her eyes. "That is the sixty-five thousand dollar question. We've done everything out of order: Luke started packing before we were even sure that Tom could do the job for us, and we assumed it wouldn't start until after the wedding anyway, but—"

"But because it's you and Luke, nothing's going according to plan?"

"Exactly," Lorelai said. "So now it's either Luke keeps packing and he lives out of boxes at the house and we sleep on the floor, or I bring all of my shit to his place and I'm the one living out of boxes. Either way, it's a pain in the ass and I'm starting to think this whole thing was a little ill-advised. It was Luke's idea, though, so when we're both bitching about close quarters and what-all, at least I can blame him."

"Yes, at least that," Rory chortled. "It's important to have someone to blame."

"If I've taught you nothing else in this life, Rory, at least remember that."

Rory fell silent as she attempted to decide how to best bring up one of the many things that had been eating at her the past few weeks. She studied Lorelai, decided that straightforward was the best approach.

"You can sleep in my room," she said.

Lorelai shook her head. "Not after next week, babe. Then you'll be sleeping in your room."

"I actually wanted to talk to you about that."

Her mother paled slightly, and the corners of her mouth turned down. "Oh?"

Rory slowed her steps. "I'm sorry, I should have told you this when I actually did it, but I applied to some internships for the summer."

"Hon, that's great," she replied, her enthusiasm thin.

"I sent my resume to a few places—the Courant, obviously, and the Times, which was a long shot, and the Boston Globe Magazine. I didn't get the Times, and I didn't think I would—I'm a sophomore still, but I thought I'd try."

"But you got the others?"

She nodded. "I did. I could work at the Courant and stay in Hartford during the week with Grandma and Grandpa—" Lorelai shuddered; Rory ignored her and continued. "—or I could do the one with the magazine and stay with Dad and Sherri." She saw her mother's face fall. "I haven't made up my mind yet, Mom. The one with the Hartford paper doesn't pay, but it's close to home and I'm more familiar with the city, so it has that going for it. The internship with the Globe has a really, really small stipend, and it's only four days a week, so I could come home for the weekends and get an extra day with you. Plus, it's with the editorial staff."

"You've done the pros and cons list, then," Lorelai said.

Rory dropped her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ear. "I did. But they're not done yet, not really, and I haven't even talked to Dad and Sherri—"

"You know they'd love to have you."

"I know, but I feel like I should at least ask before I think about it anymore. And there are a bunch of things that I haven't even put on the list yet—we didn't get to spend last summer together, either, so that's a con if I went away, but it'd be a pro for you if I did because you'd get to spend your first months of wedded bliss—"

"Ha! Wedded bliss," Lorelai giggled. "I'm going to have to tell Luke that one."

"You'd have some honeymoon time alone, is what I'm saying," Rory said darkly. "I'm trying to think of everyone, here."

Lorelai took a breath. "Babe, if you want to be in Cambridge for the summer, you should do it. Your dad would love to have you there, you'd get to spend some time with your sister, Marty's there—"

"You know that's not why I—"

"I know," she said gently. "But I understand that it doesn't hurt, either. Whatever you decide to do, babe, you know I'm behind you a hundred per cent. We'll have the weekends, like you said, and if you go then I have an excuse to shop on Newbury Street."

"You sure?"

Lorelai softened. "Babe. This isn't just a summer thing, this is something that's going to be good for you in the long run, too. I don't want you to hold back from doing something that could look stellar on your resume just because I'd miss my playmate for the summer. Call your dad tomorrow, get it all settled."

"You really can have my room," Rory told her. "Just, don't, like, you know in my bed."

She bit her lips together and began to shake with suppressed laughter. "Oh, my God," she gasped. "Like I could get Luke to agree to that anyway."

Rory stared at her mother in open-mouthed shock for a few seconds before bursting into a fit of shrill giggles herself. They had reached the house at this point and collapsed together on the porch steps, unable to catch their breath for laughing. The door swung open behind them and Luke appeared. He stood over them, his hands on his hips, and shook his head.

"What is going on here?"

Rory merely pointed from her mother to herself and back again before she doubled over, pressing her hands to her sides. Lorelai looked up at Luke as she took several huge, hiccupy breaths. "We're—a—little—punch—drunk," she gasped. "Tired."

Luke rolled his eyes. He picked up Rory's school bag and took the boxes holding the cake and pie from Lorelai. He disappeared into the house a moment. Rory wiped tears from her eyes as she caught her breath. She rested her head on her mother's shoulder.

"Should we go in?" she asked.

Lorelai's breath was still shaky. "Give it a minute. He'll be back."

Rory gave her a puzzled look, but, true to Lorelai's word, Luke stepped onto the porch once more and pulled both Lorelais to their feet. He led them into the house, steered them around the living room and toward the kitchen. Rory glanced over her shoulder as they passed: it seemed as though the entire contents of her mother's bedroom had spilled down the stairs and pooled in the living room. She heard her mother groan.

"That living room," Lorelai declared, "looks like the inside of my head."

Luke laughed shortly. "I think the living room is probably cleaner."

Lorelai poked him hard in the back. "You better be nice to me, Flannel Man, or you will not get one of my world famous margaritas."

"World famous, huh?"

"Celebrated on two continents like Diane Court," she said, as they entered the kitchen, where Jess and Ashley sat at the table, snacking. "Hey, you two. You save some of that dip for us?"

"We managed to restrain ourselves, yes," Jess drawled.

Rory dropped into a chair and immediately reached for a chip to help herself to the bowl of steaming dip in the middle of the table. "God, I'm so hungry." Jess snorted at this, and Rory looked at him sheepishly. "I know, shocking."

Lorelai opened the refrigerator. "Hey, Luke," she called, leaning in and shuffling bottles around. "Rory ate a donut on the way here."

"Traitor," Rory said. "I haven't eaten anything all day. I was writing."

"Oh, yeah?" Luke asked. "How's that going?"

"Don't ask," she replied. "Are there any more chips?"

Luke handed her a half-filled bag. "Hey, Marty called a couple of times."

She looked up. "He did?"

"He's a rambler, that one."

"He's something, that's for sure," Rory said. "He's just nervous—he has that play next week, and he's so freaked out by the whole thing, he's acting like the Reverend Jim Ignatowski."

"What play?" Ashley wanted to know.

"You Can't Take It With You," Rory said. "He's Tony."

"That's a great part," she replied. "This your boyfriend?"

"The very one," she said, smiling. "He kinda got pulled into it. He took drama this semester and the professor talked him into auditioning. When she actually cast him, he nearly hyperventilated. But he's going to be great."

"He is," Lorelai chimed in. "He's got the whole Jimmy Stewart physique working in his favor." She began to giggle. "Rory, start calling him Professor."

Rory mutely shook her head and helped herself to more dip. She listened to the chatter around her as Luke berated Lorelai's deplorable storage skills and she his obvious fashion ignorance that he thought she could discard several key items of her wardrobe just because she hadn't worn them in a while. Jess and Ashley were engaged in a low conversation across the table from Rory, and from the snatches she overheard, they were discussing their plans for the night. She contemplated getting up and retrieving her cell phone to call Marty, but her mother calling her name ended the thought.

"Did I tell you Luke made me a cedar chest for my winter clothes? They're all in the garage right now in this ginormous trunk he made. Luke, my life, when we get the whole addition done, we should get the California closet people out here to organize us," Lorelai said. "I still can't believe Tom's really starting on Monday. It's just impossibly soon."

Rory grunted in agreement. "I can't believe that Mrs. Bedermeir's house is finished already. That's just amazing."

"Rory, you should see it," Lorelai said, her eyes lighting up. "It's beautiful. Tom and his guys did a great job, but really, Mom made that place into the most comfortable, elegant home for Miss Charlotte and everyone. It's perfect. Winky would have loved it." She paused, took a breath. "Speaking of, how's the book coming?"

"Let's just say that Grandma is as gung ho about getting things right for this as she is about everything else in life," Rory said dryly. "It's been sort of—it's hard, making all the pieces fit together, but it's been nice spending so much time with her. I've missed that this year."

"We have all been busy doing our own things," Lorelai said softly. "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

"Thank you, Ferris," Rory replied. She turned in her seat to reach for more food, and she saw Jess watching her, one eyebrow cocked. "What?"

He shook his head. "Nothing ever changes in this house."

"The giant hole they're about to make in Mom's bedroom wall is proof positive that that's not true anymore," Rory told him. "Just some things don't."

She couldn't read the look on his face. With a sigh, she got to her feet and shuffled towards her book bag. Lorelai had started making the margaritas, Luke was still fussing over something on the stove, and Ashley had commandeered Jess into helping her set the table. Rory felt a quick stab of guilt for not offering herself, but when she stepped out onto the porch, her cell phone in her palm, the cool evening air lifted the weight on her shoulders. For a moment, there was nothing to worry about—no midterms, no Jess, no Emily and her book, no tension with Marty worrying at her. She hit the speed dial, hugged herself with her free arm as she waited for him to answer. Just as his voice mail picked up, Lorelai stumbled out of the house, two margaritas in hand. Rory waved for her to be quiet.

"Hey, it's me," she said. "Just calling to say hi. I'll be home tonight, if you want to call—otherwise I guess I'll just see you tomorrow. I—ah—I hope everything's going okay. Talk to you soon. Bye."

Lorelai sipped her drink. Rory took the other from her and turned away, taking a tentative taste. She could feel her mother's eyes on her, the appraising look. She tilted her head from one side to the other, hoping to ease some of the tightness in her neck. She swallowed a chunk of ice and shivered.

"What?" she said at length. "What's with the staring?"

"Am I staring?" Lorelai asked, all feigned innocence and shock. "I had no idea I was staring."

"Mom," Rory said impatiently. "Just say it."

They regarded each other over their drinks a moment. Lorelai opened her mouth to speak. At the same instant, Luke peeked around the frame of the front door and pointed inside. "Dinner's up," he said.

Surreal, Rory thought, was an inadequate word for the experience of sitting down to dinner with her mother, Luke, Jess, and Jess's girlfriend. There was really no safe place to look—despite the time that had passed, there was still something too fresh, too recent about Jess to make eye contact anything less than unsettling, and locking eyes with Lorelai was an invitation to inappropriate laughter. Her mother was doing most of the heavy lifting in the conversation, and Rory kept her attention fixed to the spot between her mother's eyes, just over the bridge of her nose; when there was no occasion to be looking in that direction and she'd been staring at her plate too long, she turned her attention to Luke's chin. It seemed safe, innocuous. Lorelai shot her more than a few questioning, surreptitious glances in between anecdotes about the Dragonfly, the horses at the Dragonfly, and Kirk's campaign to be employed as the horse wrangler of the Dragonfly.

She was halfway through the enchiladas and rice and beans when the margarita started running through the veins in her arms. The urge to set her fork down, fold her arms on the tabletop, and fall asleep right there was for a moment so overwhelming she began to push her plate away from her. She felt a sense of disconnection, of a gap between the base of her skull and the top of her spine. It was hard to focus her eyes, to keep her head level. Lorelai, watching her, put out a hand and lightly touched Rory's wrist, her expression concerned.

"You okay?" she asked quietly.

Rory closed her eyes as she shook her head. "I'm just a little lightheaded. I don't think the drink was such a good idea," she said, smiling weakly.

Luke was on his feet in an instant. "Of course it wasn't," he said, and with that he took her glass away. "You need to get a little more food in you. I'll get you some water."

She felt herself color with so many eyes on her. "I'm okay, really."

Luke set a tall glass of water beside her plate, rested his hand heavily on the crown of her head. "I know," he said. His smile was kind.

Rory ducked her head. "Thanks, Pops."

"Pops?" Jess grunted.

Luke sat down again, pointing at his nephew. "Don't go getting any ideas."

She excused herself after cake and pie and coffee and lay down in her bedroom to watch the ceiling spin above her. It was odd to have the house so full of sound outside her door—there was movement, and talking, laughing, dishes clattering and music playing, and it wasn't just herself and Lorelai. Rory closed her eyes, smiling to herself. It was strange and vaguely scary in some way, but it was pleasant. She exhaled slowly and let the thoughts just roll around in her head without trying to line them up in order. It was how Lorelai found her a short while later, after the sounds in the kitchen had died down.

"Hey, kid," she said. "Feeling any better?"

Rory opened her eyes and turned her head towards the door. "I'm okay," she said. "And I'm sorry. I feel like a baby."

Lorelai flopped down beside her. "Don't. We all know you're tired with finals and all."

"Mm," she murmured. "Hey, Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"I like having Luke here."

Her mother's eyes shone. "I do, too."

They were silent together for a moment. "You wanted to do a dress fitting?" Rory said.

Lorelai leapt to her feet, rubbing her hands together. "This fabric, Rory, is incredible. When I started last week, I almost didn't want to cut it, that's how incredibly beautiful this fabric is."

Rory stood up slowly. "Well, don't keep me in suspense, lady."

A few moments later, Rory stood on a short stepstool at the foot of her bed, hung in swaths of periwinkle fabric so soft she wanted to wrap it around herself and go to sleep. Lorelai kept pacing circles around her as she talked around the pins in her mouth. Rory watched her; she was in her element, making plans, doing projects. She stopped, mid-circle, and looked critically at her work.

"I may just outdo myself on this one," she said.

"So, does Luke know you're making your dress, too?"

She shook her head. "I haven't decided yet if that's important."

"Of course it is," Rory said. "What about Grandma? Have you told her?"

Lorelai snorted. "Yes, actually. I thought she was going to have a coronary. After all these years, I finally stumbled on the one thing that would kill my mother. But then I showed her the designs I'm building off of and I showed her a swatch of the fabric, and she calmed down. You just know, though, that she and Miss Celine have a back up dress waiting for the day before the wedding when I mess it up so that she can swoop in and save the day."

"I don't really think Grandma is the swooping type," Rory laughed.

Lorelai rolled her eyes. "Oh, Grandma would swoop if swooping were required. And then she would gloat until the end of days."

"How many more movie lines are you going to pirate before the night is over?"

"I really couldn't say."

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"How—do you remember, a million years ago, when Dean and I broke up the first time and you and I were fighting and I ran to Grandma's house and—"

"And scared your mother half to death? Yes, I remember," Lorelai said dryly.

"I was sorry about that, too," Rory said. "But do you remember when you came to get me and we had that whole talk about my hypothetical relationship with Taylor Hanson?"

She squinted. "Vaguely."

"You said that you think saying 'I love you' is a big deal and it takes a lot of thought," Rory said. "You said—you said it's scary to be in love."

Lorelai tipped her head to the side and smiled broadly. "You know, I am so smart sometimes. You should put that in a book," she said, pointing, "because that is totally brill."

"You did not just say 'brill.'"

"No, I didn't," Lorelai giggled. "But yes, I'm remembering a little bit, now. Did I ever apologize for the Taylor Hanson reference?"

"No," Rory said. "Do you—do you still think that? I mean, how long were you and Luke together before—" She stopped. "That's none of my business, Mom. Don't answer that."

"A month, I think," Lorelai said without hesitation. "Maybe less."

"Really? That soon?"

"Well, a month and, like, ten years of unspoken lust and longing," she said.

Rory shifted on her feet, trying not to disturb the pins. Her expression was serious. "Did you know you were going to say it? Had you thought about it? And how did you—how did you know when—"

Lorelai sighed. "Oh, Rory. With Luke—I don't know how long it'd been since I told someone that I loved him. I can't remember. I might never have, since you were born. Everything with Luke happened so quickly, you know. One night, he kissed me, and then the next day, we went on a date, and after that, we were together. We skipped the whole dating thing that most people do, that whole time when you figure out if this is someone you can be with and if this is someone you care for and all that—we spent time together, and we went out, yes, but we sort of took it for granted that we were already together. And then, one night, we were in the kitchen, eating pancakes, and it just sort of fell out of my mouth. I hadn't meant to say it. I didn't even know I was going to say it—I just said it, and—I don't know—it was like I immediately knew it was true. So, no, I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it." She smiled wistfully. "I think—I still think it's a big deal, saying I love you. But—I don't—when it comes to Luke? I've never had to think about it." Her eyes were bright as she spoke. "I think—at first, after the whole thing with Jason at the town meeting and all the stuff we went through after that… I wanted to keep it close. I didn't want to make it common." She shook her head. "But it's—that's not something you can wear away just by saying it."

"I like that," Rory said.

"I'm not saying that it's not a huge deal, or anything, obviously."

"Obviously."

Lorelai shrugged. "I think it's different for every person, that moment. Sometimes, maybe you will have to think about it. And other times, you won't and you'll just say it wearing nothing but your underwear and an old tee shirt while you're teasing each other about something stupid."

"Overshare," Rory said, cringing.

"Sorry." Lorelai paused. "It's like cheese."

"Saying I love you is like cheese?"

She nodded. "It's like cheese. You go to a cheese store and you sample all the different kinds of cheese and you think they're all gross and they smell like feet, so you try them with a cracker and they're still just stinky chunks of bacteria—"

"Ew. Like, a lot."

"—and then, suddenly, you find the exactly right cheese-and-cracker combo, and you know it. Everything is right. You don't have to think about if this cheese goes with this cracker, you just realize: cheese is awesome."

"I do like cheese."

"I cannot overstate how vital cheese is to my diet," Lorelai said.

Rory furrowed her brow. "So what you're saying is—what are you saying?" she asked. "I'm all kinds of confused."

Lorelai took Rory's hand and helped her step down. She held her daughter's hands in both of hers and looked at her levelly, her eyes and smile soft. "I'm saying that when you're ready to say it and you really want to say it, you won't have to think about it so much."

She put her arms out to let Lorelai take the top of the dress from her. "Sometimes my head just gets away from me and I can't help it, thinking too much."

"Say it ain't so," Lorelai teased. "Just—don't force anything you aren't ready for. Let things follow their own course."

"When did you get so zen?"

"Right around the third margarita."

When Lorelai and Rory ventured out of the bedroom, the kitchen was empty. Lorelai looked at Rory, her face set in a question mark; a clanking noise and an "ah, geez!" from the direction of the living room ended the mystery. Rory followed Lorelai down the hall as her mother bellowed incoherent syllables, ending on "Lucy!"

Luke and Jess stopped and looked up, their expressions identically nonplussed. Rory leaned against the wall by the desk, shaking her head. Boys and their toys, she thought. From the looks of things, she gathered that they were attempting to put Lorelai's bed frame back together in the middle of the living room but had miscalculated the space they'd need.

"Luke!" Lorelai whined. "What are you doing?"

"I'm putting the bed together," he said, as though this were perfectly obvious.

"In the living room?"

"Well, I didn't think the kitchen would be the best place for it," he told her flatly.

"But, Luke, this is our living room. The room where we live," she said, "not the room where we… bed."

He stared at her a moment. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that in front of your kid and my nephew—not to mention the girl he's seeing—"

"Girlfriend, Luke," Jess interrupted. "You can use the word."

Ashley, seated on the stairs, laughed. "Oh, baby, you're so sweet," she teased.

"—and just keep putting the bed together so we have a place to sleep tonight," Luke finished, tossing a deathly glance at Jess.

"Luke, I don't want to lose my living room and my bedroom for the sake of this addition," Lorelai said. "This is not the best plan. You have to know that this is not the best plan. This is, in fact, a completely impractical and rather idiotic and therefore completely un-Luke-like plan." She sighed impatiently. "Rory said we could use her room while the work's being done—"

"Where's Rory gonna sleep?"

"Boston," Rory piped up. "And I say that seriously, I'm not trying to be a smart ass."

Luke got to his feet, scratching at his jaw. "I don't know why I'm not used to being confused at this point," he said wearily.

Lorelai stepped carefully over the bedposts piled up. She took Luke by the hand and rubbed his shoulder lightly with her free hand. "Oh, honey, that's something you never get used to," she said soothingly. "But don't worry, at some point you'll just stop caring. I'll tell you what we're going to do, okay? We're going to take all the pieces of the bed to the garage and put the living room back together, and tonight, you and I can just sleep at the diner."

"Jess and Ashley are going to sleep at the diner," Luke said. "I can't let them drive back to the city tonight, it's—"

"Then you and Mom can have my room and I'll sleep on the couch," Rory offered. Seeing the look on Luke's face, she nearly took a step back. "Or not," she said softly.

Lorelai rested her chin on Luke's shoulder. "How's this: I'll bunk with Rory tonight and you can either sleep out here or figure out some arrangement with Jess and Ashley for the diner and that extra bed."

"I'm not sleeping with you," Jess said. "And Ashley's not either."

Ashley snorted. "Friendly competition is what this nation is all about, Jess."

"You realize that now we have to break up because you said that," Jess replied.

"No need for such drastic measures," Lorelai said. "Luke will just stay here on the couch. Okay? It's all settled. Now let's get the dang bed out to the garage."

Luke touched his forehead to hers. "You're staying out of the garage."

"Not gonna complain about that," she replied. "That means I don't have to help, right?"

Rory went to bed early that night. The moment she closed her eyes, she heard David Cassidy's voice. She groaned and rolled onto her back. She stared at the ceiling, listening to the staccato rhythm of "I Think I Love You." Marty hadn't called her back, she remembered. Lorelai was still with Luke in the living room, laughing as she directed him on where the furniture was supposed to go. Rory shut her eyes tightly and hugged a pillow to her chest. She tried to concentrate on the sounds in the house, the muted noise from the living room and the rustle of leaves outside her window. When Lorelai crept in, Rory shifted to make room for her in the bed, feigning sleepiness. Her mother fell asleep quickly, her breathing deep and even. Rory lay awake, waiting once more for sleep.

It was broad daylight when Rory sat up in bed, blinking and disoriented. She knuckled her eyes and tried to get her bearings. It was morning, she decided, and she had been sleeping, and now she wasn't. She looked down: her mother had gotten up already. It couldn't be that early. She slid out of bed and opened her door.

She'd seen her mother with Luke in the kitchen a hundred times before. They were comfortable together, easy and relaxed. Rory leaned against the doorframe and watched them a moment. She didn't want to disturb them, didn't want to intrude on the moment. It was a foreign sensation, feeling as though she were intruding on her mother's life. She tucked her chin to her chest and let the feeling settle. It was a slight, warm ache in the center of her chest, but it was a rather pleasant one. Lorelai stood beside Luke at the stove, her arms around his middle as he pushed eggs around the pan with a rubber spatula; they were smiling. The thought occurred to Rory that she'd seen other men with her mother in the house—Max, her dad—but the sight of Luke in the kitchen with Lorelai, snorting derisively at something she'd just said, didn't feel like playing house. She smiled and shuffled out of her room to the table.

"Morning."

Lorelai turned. "Hey, babe! You sleep okay?"

"I slept," Rory said. "Hi, Luke. No diner, today?"

"It's May Day," he grunted.

"Which is Luke-ese for 'Stupid fucking crazy townies and their g-d'ed festivals—I'm not going near them,'" Lorelai chirped. "It's really just a bonus for us because now we get Luke's breakfast without having to see Kirk do the Safety Dance."

"But the Kirk Safety Dance is so classic," Rory said. "Coffee?"

Lorelai poured her a cup and sat beside her. "It's just another Sunday in Stars Hollow," she said. She smiled at her daughter, studying her face. She reached out and pushed a lock of hair behind Rory's ear. "You look tired."

"I blame David Cassidy," Rory replied. "But I'm fine. I'm probably going to head back to school pretty soon—I need not to look at my portfolio for a while and there I can literally put it in a drawer for a day and get some reading done instead."

"Just make sure you give yourself some time to breathe," Lorelai smiled.

Luke sent her back to Yale with a box of cookies and the remains of the desserts from the night before. Lorelai gave her a case of Diet Coke and a bag of chocolate covered espresso beans. She hugged Rory by the car after helping her load in the goodies, and when she pulled back, adopted a stern expression.

"Now, we've supplied you with plenty of sugar and caffeine to get you through finals, but we expect you to use them responsibly. The espresso beans are for emergencies only, so I don't want you pulling those out for any old, spur of the moment, thoughtless caffeine fix. That's what the Diet Coke is for. The cookies, you want to use those sparingly—they're good for the long run because they get better with age. However, cake and pie, those require immediate consumption because after thirty-six hours, they're inedible," Lorelai said in mock-seriousness. "I tell you this only so that you may benefit from my wisdom and experience. And trust me, I know of which I speak."

Rory rolled her eyes. "Espresso for emergencies, Diet Coke for caffeine level maintenance, cookies like for occasional use, and cake and pie as soon as humanly possible," she said. "Got it." She opened the driver's side door, pausing before she got into the car. "You're coming to the play on Friday, right?"

"Of course," Lorelai said. "Wouldn't miss it. I'm planning on doing the Wave before the end of the first act."

"As long as you're there," Rory told her. A thought occurred to her. "Maybe—before the play, we could have dinner."

"Are you suggesting we skip out on Friday night dinner?" Lorelai asked, feigning shock.

She nodded. "Just you and me. Is that okay?"

"That's more than okay," Lorelai said. "Rory, honey, is everything okay with you? You're getting me kind of worried. You're not going to tell me you've suddenly decided to join the circus or the army or something and that's why you've been so distracted lately, are you?"

"Actually, it's a cult that I joined," Rory replied. "I just didn't know how to tell you. I have to shave my head and everything." She hugged her mother again. "I'm really okay. I've just had some things on my mind."

"So you say. You'd tell me—"

"I'd tell you," she said emphatically. "It's just like you said yesterday, you and me not having a good jaw session in awhile."

Lorelai smiled, pleased. "Friday, then."

When she got back to campus, Rory stood several long moments contemplating her dorm room door. She wasn't sure why she felt such a heavy weight of dread at the prospect of going in, and so she stared at the white board she'd hung in September for messages. Marty had drawn a stick figure strangling himself with both hands, the tongue lolling out and down to his feet. It was bizarrely grotesque in its own rudimentary way, and Rory wrinkled her nose in distaste before she gave in and smiled at the sheer absurdity of it. Beside the drawing, he'd written, "help me help me help me I'm about to turn into this." Rory rolled her eyes as she slipped her key in the lock and let herself in.

"Drama queen," she whispered.

There was no answer at his door when she knocked a half hour later, having trucked in her Diet Coke and assorted goodies. She drew a stick figure with a halo reading a book and wrote "being good and studying come down for a break" next to it. As an afterthought, she scribbled, "have food too."

She curled up with a plate of pie and her annotated copy of Aurora Leigh to review for her Victorian Writers seminar. It wasn't long before she found herself skimming, easily recalling the discussion they'd had in class about the poem (thanks, in large part, to what Marty termed her "psychotic, neurotic, obsessive-compulsive note-taking system" that incorporated bulleted points from class in the margins). She moved from there to Jane Eyre. She settled herself among a pile of pillows on her bed with a notebook and a pen; when she next looked up, startled by the knock at her door, she was surprised to find it had grown dark.

"Come in," she called. She sat up, wincing, as Marty came in with a paper bag in his arms. "Hey there," she said.

He smiled and deposited the bag on her desk before coming to sit beside her. "Hey," he said, kissed her. He glanced at her notebook. "Ah, so the halo wasn't just a self-flattering fiction. She's begun the studying in earnest and has already hyper-extended her knees to prove it."

"I can't help it if I have to sit like this," she said. "But, yes, on both accounts. Studying and hurting. What's in the bag?"

"Food," he said. "I went to that Greek place after rehearsal and picked up some dinner."

"Ooo, tapas!" Rory cooed. He moved to rise, but she laid a hand on his arm and held him where he was. He looked at her expectantly. "Do you have anything to do tonight?"

Marty shook his head. "This is my last night of freedom. The director's daughter has a ballet recital tonight, so we're off until tomorrow."

"Will you stay, then? I'll blow off the studying and we'll watch TV or a movie or something," she said. Off his exaggerated show of shock and horror, she shrugged and cast her eyes down. "My brain has been whirring nonstop. I'm about to combust." She shrugged. "Please? I just want to sit still and be."

He cupped her cheek in his hand. "Then that's what we'll do. Everything okay?"

She leaned into his palm. "Okay. My head has just been noisy." She reached up and pressed her hand to his. "Besides, if this is your last free night before the opening, we should hang out. You're probably going to be so busy this week, you won't have time to blink."

"And," he added, pushing himself to his feet, "you'll be in your egghead pre-finals brain strain phase and all incommunicado anyway." He paused and affected tearfulness as he spoke again. "It's like our last supper, Rory, before—"

"If you say execution, I'm going to kick you out," she laughed. "Where are my tapas?"

The reprieve from worrying about finals and study and writing was short, and on Monday morning Rory readied herself for class with a feeling of trepidation. She harassed herself as she walked from class to class: she was woefully unprepared, she would never have time to be as prepared as everyone else, she was about to disgrace herself, the Gilmore name, and the hallowed halls of Yale with the sheer inadequacy of her meager brains. As the week continued, however, she found she had little time for self pity and only just enough to finish the things she needed to.

On Wednesday, she sat in Professor Flynn's class, drumming her fingers on the top of the fat folder that held every piece of writing she'd done that semester. It was their last meeting of the year and they had two weeks before their final portfolios were due. The time was spent reading aloud and critiquing the single paged assignment they had due that day. Rory marveled at the ease with which Flynn was able to be both relentless and tactful. She herself escaped mostly unscathed and shouldered her bag at the end of the hour and a half with a sigh of relief. As she turned for the door, Flynn called to her and stopped her.

"So, Miss Gilmore. I hear you've earned yourself a position with the Boston Globe Magazine this summer," she said. "I'm very nearly impressed."

"Thank you," Rory said. "And for the recommendation. I appreciate it."

"And how is your portfolio progressing?"

Rory shifted uncomfortably on her feet. "You know. Painfully."

"As it should," Flynn replied emphatically. "I'm glad to hear it."

"I don't suppose you have any suggestions," Rory said.

Flynn hugged a stack of papers to her chest. "Any suggestions I had were in the comments on the individual papers. It's all on you now." She strode to the door. "If it doesn't make you at least a little uncomfortable, you're probably doing something wrong," she said.

Rory watched her go, feeling as she always did after speaking to Professor Flynn: at once discouraged, annoyed, and determined. It gave her some comfort to remember that Flynn had gone out of her way to recruit her into the writing program and the senior seminar in the fall, and that no matter what the professor told her, Rory still had her internship to prove she was at least marginally good at what she tried to do. Straightening her shoulders, she returned to the dorm and immediately went for her phone.

The conversation with Sherri was pleasant, if not somewhat inane, and long, and mostly concerning how, though it was terrific that Lorelai and Luke were getting married and so soon and they must be so happy and it was just wonderful and romantic, she and Christopher had decided that it would really be the best thing to wait and get married themselves until Gigi was old enough to participate in the ceremony and that would just make the whole thing all the more special and amazing, and didn't Rory agree? When Christopher finally took the phone over from his fiancée, Rory felt winded just from listening to her. She stammered uncertainly for a few moments, talking to her father, before she took a deep breath, announced that she had a favor to ask him, and described the internship and her plans for the summer. She realized, when she ended on a hurried "soIwaswonderingifIcouldstaywithyouthissummerforafewdaysaweek," that she sounded like Sherri. The chatter was contagious.

"Of course you can stay with us. You know you always have a room here whenever you want."

She smiled. "Thanks, Dad. Really."

"It's an amazing job, kid. You should really be proud of yourself."

"Thanks," she said. "I am."

"And I'm proud of you, too. I'm sure your mother is having banners printed up and tee shirts made as we speak," Christopher told her.

"Well, we decided to hold off on the banners until after the wedding," she laughed. "We thought it might distract from the main event."

Christopher cleared his throat. "Gonna be some shindig, huh?"

"It's going to be Mom and Luke," she said. "So it'll be something."

"She happy?"

Rory tucked her chin to her chest. "She's really happy, Dad."

"She should be," he said. "All right, kid. Glad you called. I'll talk to you later?"

"Sure. Love to Gigi, okay?"

By the time Friday rolled around, Rory had seen Marty only four times that week. His visits to her room were late and brief; he was exhausted from the combination of rehearsals and keeping up with his schoolwork. There had been time only for words of encouragement and hugs and fleeting, soft kisses. Sunday night, as they had settled down to sleep squeezed awkwardly in Rory's narrow bed, they had agreed to spend their nights apart until after the play—it would be too distracting otherwise, they decided. And then, Rory thought, as she drove through New Haven Friday morning, things had gotten intense.

She pulled into a parking space in front of a Kinko's and reached for her bag. Her spine tingled just thinking about it, the way he'd kissed her, the way he'd held her, touched her, spoke to her. But, she reminded herself, they had stopped, they hadn't… She sighed as she stepped into the shop. They hadn't, she thought, and she hadn't said certain things. But there would be time, she told herself, later. As she waited for her copies to be made, she wondered if thoughts like that were tempting fate.

At five, Rory called Marty and left a message on his voice mail to wish him luck. She dressed carefully for the evening—a lightweight blue dress, heels, silver jewelry. She curled her hair, made up her eyes. With nothing left to do but wait for her mother, she began to tidy her room. She smoothed the sheets on her bed, cleared the clutter from her desk, hid the various pairs of shoes scattered on her floor, and swept the books off her bedside table. Her skin buzzed; she was full of nervous energy. It was a relief when Lorelai knocked on her door.

"Hey, pretty girl," Lorelai said by way of greeting. "Look at you, all fabulous. If I didn't have such earth-shattering self-confidence I would feel inferior. As it is I just feel underdressed."

Rory glanced at her mother's outfit as she drew a light cardigan over her shoulders. Lorelai's skirt was loose and floral and the white blouse she wore brought out her freckles and youthfulness. Rory rolled her eyes. "You look beautiful," she said. "And not underdressed at all. Are you ready?"

"Honey, I was born ready. Let's go so we don't miss the start of this thing."

On her way out the door, Rory snagged her purse and a shirt-sized box gift-wrapped and beribboned. Lorelai caught sight of it as she took Rory's arm and began to walk down the hall. Rory heard her intake of breath. She tightened her hold on her daughter's arm, and when she spoke, she affected nonchalance. "Present, huh? For Marty?" she asked.

"No, not for Marty," Rory said just as off-handedly.

"Oh. Well, who for, then?"

"If you're a good girl at dinner, I'll tell you," Rory said.

Lorelai snorted. "Patronize me, babe. I adore the condescension."

"Where's Luke?" Rory wanted to know.

"He dropped me here and went to find some place to eat where he could watch the start of the Sox game. He's very concerned about the state of Dirk Billing, or whoever. I wasn't listening; I was mentally planning one of those fantasy weddings at the pitcher's hill—"

"Mound," Rory corrected her.

"—whatever—at Fenway. It's a good thing we're doing it in Stars Hollow, because let me tell you, babe, that much green does nothing for my complexion. And getting married someplace like that would be license for him to wear the baseball hat and while I adore the baseball hat for the sake of the man beneath it, I am not pledging my eternal troth to a man wearing sporting equipment. It's just not right," Lorelai said emphatically. "Luke was more than happy to come along tonight so long as he got to see the start of the game, so it's all worked out well. We can have our girls' dinner somewhere chic, and Luke can have his beer and BLT on rye, or whatever. He's going to meet us at the theater."

It was a nice restaurant, quiet and dim. Rory and Lorelai sat across from each other at a small table lit with candles in glass lamps. Lorelai immediately reached for the salt shaker and began toying with it to fidget away the interval between the hostess's departure and the waiter's arrival. She ordered a vodka martini with two olives and a Diet Coke with lime for Rory without blinking. Rory, meanwhile, broke open two of the fresh rolls the waiter had brought over, buttered them, and passed one to her mother across the table. For a fraction of a second, the waiter eyed them askance. As he walked away, Lorelai smiled wryly at her daughter.

"Chad thinks we're weird," she said.

"Chad is just jealous," Rory replied. "Secret clubs of two are objects of great envy."

"Especially ours."

"Of course."

They ordered and sipped their drinks in companionable—if uncharacteristic—quiet. Rory leaned forward in her seat several times, poised to speak, only to sit back again hot with embarrassment. Lorelai tipped her head to one side and studied her thoughtfully.

"So, I'm not going to ask what's on your mind because I'm pretty sure you're working up to telling me whatever it is that you want to tell me, but I am going to ask if it's okay with you if we don't talk about wedding arrangements for the next forty-five minutes," she said. "I cannot wait for the wedding and I cannot wait to be married, but I would like to spend some time actively not discussing flowers and seating arrangements and all the ways I've imagined muzzling my mother—" She stopped. "Well, we can talk about all the ways I've imagined muzzling my mother, because that's actually quite amusing, but not talking about wedding arrangements for a while would be nice. I'm starting to feel like if I don't talk about something else for a while that when the day itself actually comes I'm going to be one of those weird horror movie brides who walks around in a blood-covered gown with a huge carving knife dripping with entrails."

Rory wrinkled her nose. "That is an image I could have lived without right before having dinner. You could have just said you'd be a bride of Dracula."

"Lacks poetry," Lorelai told her.

She smiled, shaking her head. "Oh, Mom."

"Oh, Rory."

They talked awhile about mundane things—Rory's finals, her classes, the conversation she'd had with her father earlier that week, about the Inn and Michel and Sookie and their latest battle over a certain copper-bottomed teapot. Lorelai chortled into her martini as she recounted the story. It was only when Lorelai tapped her daughter's hand that Rory realized she had stopped listening and was staring into space.

"Babe?"

She shook herself. "Sorry. I was just—I was thinking about how much everything has changed this year. We're sitting here talking about this inn that you own that wasn't even open yet at this time last year. You're getting married to a man that you weren't even sure you were dating last May—" She stopped. "It's been a whole year, hasn't it?"

Lorelai grinned. "A whole year. Luke is taking me away to celebrate."

"Where?"

"His cabin," Lorelai intoned. She cocked an eyebrow and sipped her drink. "We're going to his cabin."

"Luke has met you, right?" Rory asked. "I mean, he knows you—"

"In more ways than one."

"Mom!"

"Biblical humor is so rarely appreciated," Lorelai sighed. "But, yes, Luke knows that my idea of a good time does not involve bug spray or hiking boots unless said hiking boots are pink and purely for aesthetic purposes. He has promised me that he won't make me do anything remotely outdoorsy if I don't want to and that I won't have to exert myself in any athletic way unless I am so inclined. So no hiking or canoeing or anything like that unless I expressly tell him I want to. And he's promised me all sorts of yummy cooking things, so he's making this a Lorelai-friendly trip. I think he just wanted to get away for awhile. Mom is making him crazy. So, week after next, he and I are headed for the wilderness."

"God help him," Rory said. "But we digress. It's been a year since the inn opened and you and Luke finally got a clue—"

"Hey!"

"—and everything was so weird with Grandma and Grandpa and the whole lawsuit thing," Rory said. "And there was Dean."

"There was Dean," Lorelai echoed softly.

Rory smoothed her skirt with her palms and stared at the rim of her plate. "I should have come to you, before. When I thought something was going to happen, I should have come to you. But even when I thought something might happen, I didn't really think it would happen."

"I'm just going to nod in response," Lorelai said.

"If it was possible, it still wasn't probable," Rory explained. "But then it was. I don't know how I could have thought that—"

"Rory, hon, you spent your time beating yourself up over this already. You figured it out. Things are different now. I think it's okay to let it go," Lorelai told her, her tone gentle. "I know how you dwell on things, kid, and I don't want this to keep eating at you long past the whole affair." She winced. "Very, very poor choice of words."

"It's okay," Rory said, and she smiled a little. "You're right, too. But I still regret not talking to you. The thing with Dean… That was something else, that was bad, but you and I have always talked, we've always been able to talk. And I don't know—I feel like I've been keeping things in this year, actively not talking about things." She paused. "It's been this huge, eventful year for both of us. You have your whole other life with Luke now, and things are so different—"

"Babe, you know that no matter what is going on in the rest of my life, no matter what, you can always, always come to me—things are different but that is never, ever going to change. I love Luke, but you are my daughter, and nothing gets in the way of that. Luke knows that," Lorelai said.

"And I know that," Rory said. "I do. I think that I've been trying to—I've been trying to do things on my own, to be independent—"

"You've always been independent," Lorelai said. "You and I both have always needed to do things for ourselves even if we have to talk about them until we've lost our voices."

Rory pulled at the ends of her hair, bit her lips together in frustration. "I mean—it seems like everyone around me lately has been going through their own personal thing—Paris has been dealing with her family stuff and the thing with Professor Fleming, and Marty has had the play, and Grandma has her book, and you and Luke have had the whole living situation saga going on… I haven't wanted to burden anyone with the stuff I've been thinking about because it just seems so stupid. And I don't mean to sound like a martyr, I really don't, because it's not anything I would ever really talk about with anyone but you, and I haven't talked about it with you because it's—well, it's awkward and weird and scary and—"

"This is the talk, isn't it?" Lorelai asked. "The talk. You and Marty? You're thinking about…?"

Rory felt herself go hot all over. "We haven't really talked about it, but it's definitely becoming a thing, yeah."

Lorelai nodded, drawing a breath slowly through her nose. Rory could see her gather herself together and stem the sudden rise of panic. She chewed on the inside of her lip before she met Rory's eyes again. "He hasn't, you know, made you feel—"

Rory sat up straighter. "Oh, no, Mom, he's been—he's been perfect. He's never said anything or done anything to make me uncomfortable and he's never made me feel bad. I can just—I can tell he's been thinking about it. And that he doesn't want me to know he's been thinking about it, because if I know he's been thinking about it, he somehow becomes a big pervert, or lech, or something."

Her mother seemed to relax slightly. "Okay. Well, good then. Because you know I'd have to dismember him if you said anything to the contrary of what you just did. So. He's been thinking about it. You've been thinking about it. But you haven't… talked about it?"

Rory scratched her forehead. "The one time we talked about sex, it was before we were dating and before we were together and it was—it felt really weird. And it's so embarrassing. Sitting here, talking to you about this, this is embarrassing. Like, it would just be so much easier for me—with everything, not just this—if I could stop talking and stop thinking and just do something for a change."

Lorelai's smile was sympathetic and sad. "Oh, hon. That's just who you are."

"Well, it's annoying," Rory said flatly. "I hate it. It makes my head hurt."

Lorelai shook her head, her eyes closed, and was quiet a moment. "What did he say when you told him you were going to spend most of the summer in Boston?"

Rory beamed. "Oh, he was so—he dorked out, big-time. Classic Marty. Wants me to meet all his brothers and his parents and he wants to show me all the 'cool' places to hang out in Cambridge." She laughed. "He said, 'this is my Stars Hollow. I'm telling you, it's way cooler than yours.'"

"Oh, that is just wrong. Why didn't he end up at Harvard, if that's how he feels?"

As she remembered the story, Rory began to giggle. "So, you know how in Sixteen Candles Farmer Ted says that he's sort of the king of the dip shits?" Lorelai nodded. "Well, Marty says that he was the king of the dip shits—he was the leader of the geeks, or something, like the coolest of the uncool. And when he was sixteen, he finally got the courage to ask out this girl he'd had a crush on forever and on their first date, he got pantsedby a group of Harvard Divinity students and he's just hated the entire school since then."

"You're kidding." Lorelai stopped. "That story is too good not to be true."

"It is," Rory agreed. "He still gets all mad when he tells it or you mention Harvard. Or the color crimson. It's pretty funny. It worked out okay, I guess, because he ended up dating the girl for two years."

"Must have been impressive underpants he was wearing," Lorelai said.

Rory snorted in laughter. "But she broke his heart, he said. He wouldn't elaborate." She sighed. "You know he can be the most—he can be just the most ridiculous person ever. But that's sort of what makes him…" She looked up. "Being with him is so easy, Mom. It's not like it was with anyone else. And I want—I want to show him—"

"I know, Rory," Lorelai told her. "And as long as you're happy, I'm happy for you." She gulped the rest of her martini in one fluid motion. "You have—I mean, if you two are going to—you have—you're… prepared, right? Or do you need—"

"Oh, God, no," Rory said. "It's—I don't, but there's always, in the girls' bathroom, there's a basket. With the things."

Lorelai held her breath a moment. "Okay. Good. I'm glad we had this talk."

"You are not," Rory said.

She looked at Rory levelly. "Yes, I am. If you can't come to me with these sorts of things, Rory… You should always feel like you can come to me with anything. Last year…" She looked down. "I'm not going to lie to you, hon, I was as upset that I didn't know what was going on with you as I was about anything else. I'm not blaming you for that—I'm telling you now because I just want you to know how important it is to me that you feel like you can tell me things, no matter how awkward or weird you think it's going to be. Okay?"

Rory nodded. She immediately began to talk about the play, to steer the conversation into something a little more comfortable and a lot less tense. They ordered their desserts and coffee and Lorelai's posture slowly loosened and the color returned to her face. When the waiter had brought the cakes they'd ordered and topped off their coffee, Rory reached beneath her chair and produced the gift-wrapped box. Lorelai clapped her hands; her eyes lit up as she asked if it was for her.

"It is," Rory said. "I know it's not Mother's Day yet, but I wanted to give this to you now since we're doing this whole dinner thing and it's just you and me and it's not really a present sort of present—"

"Rory, please, you're killing me," Lorelai said. "Hand it over already!"

She wasn't sure why her hands shook or why she had such odd quiverings behind her ribcage, why she felt so suddenly drawn as she passed the box to her mother and Lorelai decimated the wrapping paper and lifted the lid. Her breath came more quickly as Lorelai looked into the box, her brow knit in a question mark. Rory wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. She felt the weight of the moment on the top of her head, in the center of her chest. She was cold, exposed. Lorelai took the manuscript in her hands and dropped the box to the floor.

"The Book of Lorelai," she read. She flipped the cover and read the dedication. "For the reigning Lorelai, without whom there would be no book." She looked up at Rory. "Is this your portfolio, sweets?"

Rory swallowed thickly. "It's my portfolio, yes. I had it bound and covered for you today."

She smiled warmly as she turned the page and scanned the table of contents, running her finger down the page. "Suppositions," she read.

"That's from last semester," Rory supplied. "But I wanted you to have it."

"'Rumplestilskin in the Potting Shed,'" she continued, "'Chez Gilmore,' 'Town and Town Again,' 'A House Made Entirely of Cheese'…" She trailed off as she read the remainder to herself. "'Everybody Comes to Luke's,'" she read. She laughed aloud. "I like this last one: 'She's Gonna Make It After All: the Mary Tyler Moore of Stars Hollow, CT.' Is that you?"

"No, Mom, that's you," Rory said.

Lorelai looked at her blankly a moment. "You mean… These aren't—" she said slowly.

"They're all about me because they're all about you," Rory said.

Lorelai lowered her chin to her chest and chewed on her lower lip. Rory heard her take a shaky breath. She hitched her chair closer to her mother's, and Lorelai looked up, her eyes bright with tears. "Rory, this is possibly the best gift I have ever, ever been given. Are they really…?"

Rory shrugged, embarrassed. "The class, this semester, was about narrative of location. Personal essays, creative non-fiction, whatever you want to call it, focused on place. Professor Flynn says that good writers don't write about the thing they seem to be writing about, so if you're writing about a place, you're really writing about something bigger than the place itself. You're telling your story, or someone else's story, or you're making an analogy, or something like that. When I wrote about the places I know best, the essays, they just all started being about you and about you and me… I don't know. I ended up who I am and where I am and doing all the things I do because—well, you know. And it's all in there," she said, attempting a dismissive hand gesture. "I just wanted you to have these."

For several moments, Lorelai couldn't speak; she stroked the binding of the manuscript, faintly shaking her head. She took a deep breath and looked up at length. She gave Rory a watery smile and put her arms around her daughter, hugged her tightly. "Thank you, Rory."

They had to hurry out of the restaurant and to the theater on campus, having dawdled over their food and conversation longer than they should have. Luke was waiting for them in the theater lobby, standing with his back to the front door as he examined the construction of the box office. His hands were jammed in the back pocket of his jeans and so caused the hem of his blazer to hike up slightly. Lorelai stumbled to a halt and grabbed Rory roughly by the elbow.

"There is nothing that man can wear that he doesn't look fantastic in, babe, but my God, when he wears the blazer with the white shirt and jeans, it is damn near impossible for me to put sentences together," Lorelai breathed.

"I find that damn near impossible," Rory said.

"Seriously, Rory, he is so scorching it's blinding."

"Seriously, Mom, he's going to be my step-dad."

Lorelai shook herself. "Let's go get our seats," she said. She came up behind Luke and slipped her hand in his. "Hey, stranger. Wanna find a dark corner and go make out?"

Luke turned and cocked an eyebrow at his fiancée. "Isn't there a play going on?"

Rory made a face and passed them to enter the darkened theater. "Could you two not do that, please?"

They had good seats. Rory let Luke take the aisle and she sat between her mother and a girl she knew from the paper there to review the play. They exchanged pleasantries, and Rory quickly flipped through her program. The lights descended completely, a hush fell over the theater, and the curtain rose.

He looked taller on stage, and his voice had a quality she hadn't heard in it before. The confidence she knew he had, that he so rarely displayed around others, was evident in his carriage, in the way he walked, the timbre of his voice. He seemed at ease. Rory was aware that her critical faculties were somewhat compromised where Marty was concerned, but in his scenes with Alice, she thought him the superior performer of the two. The tall, goofily handsome boy on stage was both the Marty she knew and a new Marty all at once.

At the close of the first act, Rory's neighbor rose. "I'm going to go for a smoke. You want?"

"No, thanks," Rory said. "What do you think?"

She shrugged. "Not bad. But it's not over yet."

Lorelai tapped her shoulder. "He's good, sweets."

"He's good," Rory echoed, smiling.

They had arranged to meet in the lobby after the play. Rory stood clutching her purse in both hands, scanning the crowd as she waited and bounced on the balls of her feet. Lorelai stood just behind her with Luke, and she yawned and slumped against his side. Rory looked back at her.

"You don't have to stay, you know," she said. "He'll just be glad to know you came."

"But I wanted to meet his family," Lorelai said. "His parents and those infamous brothers."

Rory shook her head. "They couldn't come tonight. They'll be at the matinee tomorrow."

"What? Why?"

"Double-header," Luke supplied. "They own a bar. That's big business."

"Exactly," Rory said. "I'm sure Grandma will give you a full report tomorrow after she and Grandpa get to see it. They'll probably end up meeting the whole clan."

Lorelai reluctantly agreed to go; as she hugged her mother goodbye, Rory suspected her lingering had more to do with the discussion they'd had at dinner and the manuscript she carried tightly under her arm. Lorelai's embrace was a little more firm, more crushing than it had been in a long while. She whispered thanks and call mes and love yous before she stepped back, tucked her hair behind her ears, and linked her arm through Luke's. As Rory began to walk them to the door, she heard a familiar shout.

"Lorelais Gilmore!"

She turned on her heel to see Marty jogging towards them, grinning as he slowed his steps. Rory didn't wait for him to reach them and walked into a hug, wrapping her arms around his middle. He laughed as he put his arms around her. Rory pressed her cheek to his shoulder. "Hi," she said.

"Hey," he replied. "Hey, Lorelai, Luke. Thanks for coming. My parents'll be pissed they missed you."

Lorelai clucked sympathetically. "There'll be other opportunities," she said. She gave him a tentative pat on the shoulder. "You were great."

Luke put out a hand and shook Marty's vigorously. "Nice job, there, buddy."

"Thanks," he said shyly, and took a step back. "Thanks for coming, really. It was wicked nice of you."

"Well, we're wicked glad we came," Lorelai said. She leaned forward and dropped a kiss on Rory's cheek. "We'll talk later? Great job, Marty, really. You had me so enthralled I forgot all about the Wave."

Marty looked to Rory, who shook her head. "It's the Gilmore way of saying 'excellent performance.'"

Luke, impatient to go, negotiated Lorelai towards the door with last goodbyes. Rory slipped her hand into Marty's as she watched them go, her chest tight when Lorelai looked over her shoulder, smiled a watery smile, and mouthed thank you. Rory waved. Marty tightened his hand over hers; she looked up and kissed his cheek.

"You were amazing," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Amazing. What do you want to do now? Isn't there a cast party?"

Marty shook his head. "Sunday after the last show, we'll have one. A bunch of people are going out for drinks, but I kinda just—I don't really feel like being around people right now."

Rory tugged on his hand. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," he said with a smile. "I'm just not feeling very sociable."

"Okay. Well, I can drive you back to the dorm if you want to crash," she said. "Unless you think you could stand the burden of my presence for a few hours—"

"A few hours?" he asked. "Is that all you've got?" He put his arm around her as he walked her to the door. "The burden of your presence—such a martyr you are."

She shrugged awkwardly. "Well, I wouldn't want to impinge on your artistic need for space."

"Space is overrated."

"Good," she said. She leaned into him. They reached the car after a few moments. Rory fumbled for her keys in her purse. "Hey, I got you something. It's little, though, so don't get too excited."

"Rory, you know how I feel about jewelry," Marty said dryly.

"Oh, hush." She thrust the small item at him. "Here."

Marty took it from her with a momentarily baffled expression. His face broke into a wide, lopsided, goofy grin. He looked at her, his eyes soft. "A Homer Simpson Pez dispenser," he said. "You got me a Homer Simpson Pez dispenser."

Rory smoothed the shoulder of Marty's shirt and didn't meet his eye. "This does not mean that I in any way condone your weird Simpson collection, though."

He caught her hands in his. "No? So what does it mean?"

"You mean other than congratulations on a job well done?" she asked. "Just—you know."

"What?" He narrowed his eyes, looked at her closely, still holding her hands fast against his chest.

Rory lifted her chin and met his gaze. "Just… that I—that I love you. And you like The Simpsons and so, you know… Pez."

Marty leaned down and just touched his lips to hers. "Thank you," he said.

She blinked, unconsciously jerking her head back. Her throat burned. "Oh. You're welcome," she said, and her voice sounded high and thin.

He chuckled as he pressed a kiss to her temple. "Thank you for the Pez," he said, speaking low in her ear. She shivered. He pulled back and squeezed her hands, still clasped in his and trapped between them. "And you know I love you, too, right?"

Rory's chest flooded with heat. Her laugh was relieved, shaky. She closed her eyes as she rested her forehead against his. "I think I did, yeah," she said. She kissed him, hard, her eyes closed. "Let's go. Please?"

The dorm was quiet, many of the windows dark, when they climbed the stairs together to Rory's room. It was early by campus standards, the hour when students were trickling out of buildings and roaming university lanes and quads on their ways to their chosen entertainment. Rory unlocked her door, hearing the click of the key in the lock startlingly loud in the silent hall. She swallowed thickly; nervous tremors rippled through her veins, her bones, shook her hands and constricted her breathing. Marty followed her in, yawning and scratching his head.

Rory tossed her keys on her desk. She shrugged out of her cardigan and draped it over her chair, rubbed her arms with the palms of her hands. The room was lit only by the light peeking in from beneath the half-closed shade. Marty closed the door. He leaned against the foot of the bed, one foot crossed over the other, and bit his lips together.

"So," he said.

"There's supposed to be a big thing at the pub tonight, I guess," Rory said abruptly.

He furrowed his brow. "Did you want to go?"

"No," she said. "I'm just saying that's probably why it's so quiet here tonight, except that I didn't say that so the connection wasn't clear, obviously, but I didn't mean to say that—"

"Rory," Marty interrupted her gently, "you're babbling."

She smiled sheepishly. "I am. Sorry."

"Being a champion babbler myself, I am happy to hear somebody else do it for a change if only because it means that for a very brief time I could potentially be the most level-headed and sanest person in the room," he said. "Babble on, if you will." He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "I'm going to go upstairs and change."

"No, don't," Rory said quickly, more loudly than she'd intended, and took a step forward. She answered his questioning look, her eyes cast down, and wrung her hands. "I want you to stay." She lifted her chin. "I want you to stay," she said again.

"Then I'll stay," he said. His tone was affable. "You want to get some food, watch TV or something?"

Rory shook her head. "No," she said. "Not right now."

Marty stood up straight. "Oh." He swallowed. Rory could see him pale even in the dark. "Okay."

She took another step towards him. She was vibrating, her body humming; she watched her outstretched hand against Marty's cheek, her fingertips sweep his brow, the lines of his jaw. Her other hand at his throat, she felt his pulse beneath her palm. She slipped her arms around his neck as he closed the distance between them and kissed her. He held her, and she felt his hands hard and firm against her back and shoulder. His mouth was hot, sweet, fixed against hers so fast it nearly hurt. Rory heard her breath quicken, the sound made low in her throat, and she slid her hand up into his hair, tugging gently at his curls.

She pulled back, breathless. "You cut your hair," she said. She combed it back a little. "I like it. It's short."

"Studly," he said. "For the play."

"Mm. I like it," she said again. She kissed him again, cupped his face in her hands, and kissed his forehead.

He murmured her name. "Should we talk—"

She shook her head mutely and traced a fingertip over his lower lip. "We talk too much."

His eyes widened. He loosened his hold on her and rubbed the small of her back with his thumbs. They locked eyes, reading each other in the darkened room. Rory willed Marty to see the silent confirmation, the acquiescence and need and more than that the raw emotion churning in her belly. It sent heat coursing through her. It emboldened her, and she turned in his arms, gathered her hair up and swept it over her shoulder. She cast a glance back at him.

Marty cleared his throat but took the hint. He struggled with the zipper of her dress, his fingers fumbling at her shoulder blades a moment. Rory choked on a giggle. Marty sighed, and the laugh died in her throat feeling the warmth of his breath on her neck. When he'd successfully eased the zipper down, Rory gave the top of the dress a short tug that freed it and helped it fall from her torso and over her hips. She stood, her back to Marty, in the puddle of the dress, in her strapless bra, panties, and heels, and felt his gaze settle at the nape of her neck. She tossed her hair, let her curls sweep across her shoulders once more, and breathed deeply. She turned to look at him in profile.

The expression on Marty's face, warm and overwhelmed and sweet and lovely, made her ache. She crossed her arms over her middle and waited.

He seemed to return to himself slightly. "Do you—I mean, should I—because I don't have, and that's—"

Rory winced. It suddenly seemed so crass, the same embarrassing subject she'd canvassed before with her mother. "Not here. The girls' room—" She stooped to pull her dress back up.

Marty took hold of her elbow. "I'll go. You stay." He laid his hand flush against her neck, passed his thumb across the dip in her collarbone. "I will literally be right back."

She leaned back against the bed when the door slammed behind him. She felt the comforter scratching the small of her back above the band of her underwear. She felt ridiculous, suddenly, standing there in her lace things with her high heels still on, her dress still in a heap at her ankles. She kept one arm crossed over her stomach as she reached down for the dress, stepping out of it as she did. She snapped it out in front of her with both hands and draped it over her desk chair. She stared at it, chewed on her lower lip. The minutes felt eternally long: the girls' room was not so far away, Marty should have gotten the condom—she grimaced at the word—by now, should have been back. She wondered idly if she should unmake her bed.

The door swinging inward startled her, and she immediately, instinctively covered herself with her arms. Marty closed the door quickly, his face red and embarrassed. He cleared his throat again as he stepped closer.

"Hi. Sorry. There was this girl? In the bathroom? And she was crying and—you don't care," he said. "Just—mission successful, I guess." He looked at his feet, toed off his shoes.

"Did she yell at you?" Rory asked. "For going in?"

"She yelled at me for having a penis," Marty said. "I'm thinking things aren'tgoing so hot in her love life at the moment."

Rory nodded silently. She scratched her shoulder, still protecting her chest and middle with her arms. "I thought you were gone a while."

"Sorry," he said again. He held her gaze levelly a moment. When he spoke, his voice was thick, strange. "Rory. Why are you hiding?"

Her face flooded with color. "I don't—I'm—I'm just not wearing very many clothes," she said. "And you sorta are." He immediately looked down and began to work at the buttons on his shirtfront. "Marty, wait," she said, beckoning him. She felt him watching her as she undid the buttons herself, pushed the shirt away from his shoulders. He wore a white tank undershirt; she grazed the fabric with her nails, down from the collar towards his navel. She felt his abdomen contract as she slid her hands beneath the tee and moved upward, her palms against his skin. "We were talking again," she said softly. "I'm all for talk in general, and I'm rather fond of our talking in particular, but—"

"But talking's entirely overrated," he finished, raised his arms as she pushed the shirt up over his head.

Rory closed her eyes as he reached for her, drove his hand into her hair and cradled her head as he roughly pulled her to him. She put her hand out, blindly searching for the edge of her comforter to draw the covers back. Had she coherent thought enough to notice, she would have been amused at the way the both of them tried to do so many things at once—she, working at the fly of his jeans and kicking off her heels, he, walking her back towards the head of the bed and straining to unclasp the back of her bra, both of them still locked in a heated, nearly desperate kiss. As it was, Rory was only vaguely aware that everything happened simultaneously. Marty was stepping out of his jeans and lifting her up; her shoes and bra were both gone, kicked elsewhere; she was locking her ankles behind his back and he was easing her onto the bed, pulling the covers further back. He laid her down, hovered over her, broke from her.

"My God, but you're beautiful," he said reverently.

Rory ran her fingers over his chin, his lower lip. "Back atcha," she whispered. She arched her back slightly, closing her eyes again, as Marty skimmed his hands along her sides. "Hey," she said. "Slow?"

He smiled and kissed her softly. "Slow."

It didn't feel the way she remembered it. There was no hurried, frenzied movement, no fraught silence. The desperation wasn't weighed down with despair. There was heat, and breath, and skin against skin, lips and teeth and tongue and long, slow kisses, gentle touches. There were whispers and sighs; there was soft laughter. There were hands clasped tightly together, limbs tangled. There were moments of slight awkwardness, of almost-but-not-quite-falling off the bed. There was pain: brief, sharp, searing. But it lasted the space of a breath and it was gone, and in its place was warmth and sensations so intensely felt, so delicious and sweet that the pleasure was nearly painful while it lasted.

He held her, after, and she listened to him breathing. He murmured her name against her temple, stroked her hair. Rory shifted in his arms and pressed her hand flat to his chest, felt Marty's heart thudding comfortably beneath her palm. She kissed his shoulder.

"That," she announced, "was perfect."

Marty chuckled. "Yeah?"

She nodded, rubbing her cheek against him. "Perfect. Thank you."

"Oh, thank you," he said, laughing again. Marty placed a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face to him. "I love you."

She kissed him. "I love you." She held his hand to her face. "God, I don't want it ever to be tomorrow."

"I have a feeling tomorrow's not going to be so bad," he told her. "Except for the part where I have to look your grandparents in the eye."

Rory exhaled shortly. "Well, I think as long as you don't lead off the conversation with 'I made sweet, sweet love to your only grandchild last night,' or any variation thereof, you'll be okay." She sighed and hugged him tightly. "Would you judge me if I told you I was hungry?"

"I would only judge you if you told me you had post-nookie munchies," Marty said. "Other than that, no." He moved, made to get up. "I'll get the phone. It's before one, the pizza place'll still deliver."

She half-sat up with him. "No," she said quickly. "Don't get up yet. I don't want to get up yet."

He gave her a questioning look but acquiesced, folded her in his arms once more as he settled on the pillow. He smoothed one hand along the length of her arm. "Your skin," he said. "You can see right into you. And I had no idea there was so much of you. Damn, woman, your legs go on for days."

"I like to keep some things to myself," she said.

"Do you?" He angled to look at her.

She propped herself up on one arm. "Well, I am willing to share."

Marty grinned at her. "You sure you don't want me to call?"

"You'll come right back?"

"I'll get the phone and come right back," he said. "I'll even make the call from here." He kissed her forehead. "Promise. And trust me, Rory: I'm going nowhere."

She tugged at his lower lip. "Good. I'll hold you to that."

Hours later, happy, sated, warm, Rory fell asleep tucked under Marty's arm, spooned against him. She held Marty's hand over her heart, clasped between her own and pressed tightly to her chest. The silence was velvet, comfortable—her head no longer rang with worry or music or things left unsaid.

When she woke in the morning, Marty still slept beside her, his arm slung comfortably over her middle. He slept with his mouth open, and there were imprints from the sheets on his face and a cowlick sticking up on the crown of his head. Rory smiled at him, traced his eyes with the tip of her finger. The light coming in from under the shade was thin, still. There was time yet, she thought, wriggling down beneath the covers, pulling Marty's arm around her. She fell asleep again, her head pillowed on his chest, and even in her dreams she couldn't keep from smiling.