"Rory, Rory, Rory!" A laughing, dark haired blur tore through the crowd to crash into her older sister's knees. "I saw you on stage!"
"I know you did! I saw you waving during my speech." Rory leaned over and gathered the four-year-old dynamo into a hug. "Where are Mom and Luke and everyone else?"
"They're slow!" The little face screwed itself into a classic pout. Rory bit her lip to keep from bursting out laughing. "Daddy says it's cause of the baby. When's the baby going to get here so Mommy can run again?"
"Two more months." Lorelai came up to her daughters. "You nearly gave me a heart attack! What have I told you about running off? Especially in big crowds."
"If I can't be trusted to stay with you, then I'm not big enough to go to Disney."
"Or to walk on you own." Luke swept the little girl up, then leaned over to give Rory a one armed hug. "Congratulations kid. Seems like just yesterday you were in my diner, unable to see over the counter and demanding coffee."
"Coffee!" The little girl began to squirm. "I want coffee!"
"We can't have coffee until Mommy has the baby. It's not fair for her smell it and not drink it." A new voice entered the conversation. "You're not supposed to run off Squirt."
"Don't call me Squirt, Olivia! Only Aunt Sookie calls me Squirt!"
The seven-year-old rolled her eyes at the obvious stupidity of younger sisters. "Fine, Abigail." With one more eye roll she stepped over to embrace her big sister. "Congratulations Rory! Do we have to call you Dr. Mariano now?"
"You guys still get to call me Rory." She ran a hand through the deep auburn hair, marveling as she always did at the perfect texture of the curls. "What I wouldn't give for this hair."
"You say that every time you see me. Why don't you just dye yours already?" Olivia had never quite forgiven Rory for a crack she'd once made about clipping some off and taking to a hairdresser to match the color. Olivia had thought Rory meant to cut all her hair off. Lorelai swatted her second daughter's shoulder at the rude remark. Olivia did have the good grace to look somewhat repentant. "Are you really done with school now?"
"Yep. I got the PhD to prove it." She brandished the leather binder to make her point. "At this level you don't have to wait for them to mail out the degree." She stretched, one hand against her back. "Those chairs are so uncomfortable. Please tell me that Jess went to get the car."
"He's going to try to pull up as close as he can. Are you ready to go?"
"Yes!" The reply came out more forcefully than Rory meant. After the fight it had been to get to Yale, to get her undergraduate and graduate degrees, she hadn't meant to sound as though she was dying to get out. Quite the opposite actually. She wasn't sure she was ready to let it go, to move on with her life and her career. But the heat of the day was getting to her, as was being in proximity to Olivia. Despite all her efforts to the contrary, Rory had never been comfortable around the little girl. Whether it was simply because she was a reminder of the terrible events eight years ago or because she had been denying her maternal instincts for so long she didn't know. But something about those intense blue eyes had always made her a little more reserved, made her hold a part of herself back.
She looked down at the binder in her hands, marveling at how one little piece of paper could represent so much. Her doctorate was much more than a degree; it was the summit of the last eight years. Wrapped up in the document were the foggy, painful months after Olivia's birth, when she'd hidden at Paris's and cried nearly every waking moment, wondering if she'd done the right thing, clinging to the brief moments when she'd held and nursed the baby after her birth. Paris had been wonderful, holding Rory when she sobbed and being her sounding board for her anger. She'd made sure that Rory ate and went to her appointments with Dr. Riley and kept her from calling Lorelai at 3 am to demand that Olivia be returned to her. It was Paris that forced her out of bed and into a lecture hall one morning, when the baby was 6 weeks, 2 days and 12 hours old. That lecture, Great American Short Stories, had done for Rory what no one else had been able to do in the last year: it brought her back to herself and her dreams. She continued to audit Paris's course load and registered for classes the second she as able to. By the time fall rolled around, she had stopped seeing Dr. Riley for good.
The degree was more than the post-partum months. It was also the yoga she took up and the miles she walked to reclaim her old body. The sleepless nights Lorelai endured as she readjusted to having a newborn in the house. The relationship that blossomed between Lorelai and Luke. The backpacking trip that she and Lane had indulged in that summer, going from London to Poland and back, and every point they could in between. Lorelai's wedding to Luke and his subsequent adoption of Olivia, when she was 2 years old. That had been the first time Rory had laid eyes on the little girl she had finally convinced herself was her sister. Abby's birth a year later. Her slow but steady reconciliation with Jess. Lane's band touring the country. Sookie adding little Martha to her family. Richard's second heart attack during her sophomore year and his subsequent funeral. Junior year brought Emily's funeral, this time caused by a drunk driver. Her wedding to Jess, right after receiving her MA. The bestselling book Jess wrote, and the next that would be published next month. Paris moving to Washington and scoring a prestigious job with a senior Connecticut senator. All the articles Rory wrote for the Daily News, and the papers she sweated over. The soon-to-be-brother that Lorelai was carrying. And it was her own secret, carried just under her heart, the one known only to her and Jess but that they would announce at the party that night.
As she stood surrounded by her family, gazing down at the degree she held, Rory felt her past echo around her one last time as she mentally squared her shoulders and moved towards her future.
