Author's Note: This is it! Thank you for reading and reviewing! Thank you to midnightandahalf for proofreading. I have a few more ideas I've been thinking about, and I was actually working on a different (Trory) project when I paused to write this last fall. I don't post anything these days before I have it completely written though. Be sure to follow me if you haven't yet, to get notifications when I do publish something new! Happy Easter!

Epilogue

Summer 2017

Rory exhaled on a forward fold and put her hands down on her mat to vinyasa through to downward-facing dog. She inhaled as she lifted her right leg and exhaled to a low lunge. She flowed through warrior poses and did another chaturanga back to downward-facing dog to do the same poses on the left side. She finished her flow and ended in final savasana, lying on her back for a full minute. She'd never been much into yoga, until they lived in India for six months a few years ago.

She rolled her mat and sat it in the corner before going into the next room. It was small, with a crib and a changing table. "You're awake," she said to the baby girl, Charlotte, picking her up. "Oh, and you smell. You smell bad," she said playfully. She crossed the room to the changing table to put a fresh diaper on the baby.

In the kitchen, Rory balanced Charlotte on her hip as she put a kettle on the stove to heat water. She bopped up and down to keep the baby from fussing. "Just a minute, just a minute." She got a cup out and put a tea bag in it before heating a bottle of milk that was ready and waiting in the fridge. She made herself comfortable on the couch and gave the fussy baby her bottle.

She turned the television on and found the news on BBC America. It took Rory a moment to understand what she was seeing on the screen. She was so engrossed in the coverage she almost didn't notice the kettle whistling from the kitchen. She looked from the baby bottle, not yet half empty, to the stove.

"Shoot," she said to herself, getting up and going to the kitchen. She set the bottle on the counter, which made the baby fuss again. "Just a minute." The fussing turned to full-on crying. "Okay, okay." She returned the bottle to Charlotte's mouth while the kettle continued to whistle urgently.

The door just off the kitchen opened and Tristan poked his head out. "Do you need a hand?"

Rory turned to him gratefully. "At least one."

He waved her out of the kitchen and poured her cup of tea. She returned to her place on the couch and turned the volume up.

Tristan sat her steaming cup on the lamp table next to her, in front of their wedding picture. Well, a picture of one of their weddings. It was from their small ceremony in Maldives. It was a beautiful sunny day on the island five years ago. It was small and casual, the perfect day.

The Connecticut nuptials were a three day extravaganza. Rory made Emily and Lorelai plan that one. To no one's surprise, it turned into two parties. The Stars Hollow ceremony and party was first, and the formal church wedding and reception in Hartford was the next day for her grandparents and Tristan's family.

While waiting for their third and final wedding ceremony to start, Tristan informed Rory, "I'm going to tell everyone I meet from now on that I've been married three times. And I'll let them assume you had the poor judgment to agree to be my third wife." He added that he did not mind at all that they were getting a third wedding night.

Tristan took the baby from Rory so she could sip her tea, and he sat on the couch next to her. "What's going on?" he asked with a concerned frown, taking in the images on the television. There were men marching through the streets chanting and carrying tiki-torches.

"Neo-Nazis?" Rory answered. "In Charlottesville."

He looked down at the baby to soothingly say, "Not you, Charlotte."

Their baby girl, Charlotte Jane, was born the year following the Gilmore patriarch's death. There weren't any feminine variations of Richard though.

"Should we name a girl after two men?" Tristan had asked before the baby was born. "What if we have a boy in the future?"

"Then we'll name him Lorelai," she answered simply.

"Ask a stupid question," he's said with a conceding tilt of his head.

That was the downside of living abroad—going back home and her grandfather not being there anymore.

Rory took Charlotte back from Tristan, then settled further into the couch under the comforting weight of his arm around her. They watched as they had so many other times while watching news coverage of other atrocities—journalists getting their heads lopped off by ISIS, school shootings—huddled on the couch, Rory's fingers pressed to her mouth, not envying the reporters covering the stories. She cradled Charlotte to her chest and snuggled closer to Tristan, glad to be here with her family in the life they made.

They were in South Korea, living in a small apartment in Ho Chi Minh City. Rory quit her travel writing job to teach English as a second language to Korean kids. She thought it would be a good idea to slow down and stay in one place for a couple of years while she had a baby. It wasn't what she had ever imagined her life would look like, but now she couldn't imagine it any other way.

Winter 2020

Tristan distractedly wiped off the small dining table after lunch, having just sent Charlotte off to play. Rory was supposed to leave for Thailand in a couple of days, and Tristan would follow later with Charlotte after packing up the house and finishing out their lease for the month. It gave Rory a chance to figure out the new place on her own before they joined her. It also gave them a chance to miss each other.

She was writing about geoarbitrage for a travel magazine—stretching their American dollars by living in countries with lower costs of living.

Rory was moving from one room to the next, collecting books she'd left all over the house. She was making difficult choices, deciding which books she couldn't live without. Tristan made a deal with her after the fourth or fifth country. She could take whatever books she wanted when she left ahead of him, but the rest were being shipped back to Lorelai. He'd replace anything she needed on hand with a Kindle version, but he was not moving a constantly growing library across the world.

He took a seat on the couch and turned up the TV, which he had kept on all morning, the volume down low. He had a lot to do. He had a list of things to do to close out the house. After several moves, he had it down to an art. He also had website development work to do. But instead he was anxiously watching the news while Rory played Sophie's Choice with her books and Charlotte dragged her toys to the middle of the living room.

Before a move, he would systematically hide Charlotte's less-played-with toys, just to see which ones she missed. If she didn't notice after a week, it was safe to give it away. He and Rory did the same with their own things—not the hiding, but discarding things they could part with. It helped to have fewer possessions when they moved.

His mind calculating as he watched the news for another hour, he grabbed Rory by the wrist when she walked by and pulled her to the couch with him. He took her hands in his and gently said, "You can't go to Thailand."

Her face fell. "Why?"

He pointed to the television. "We need to go home. Now."

"Home? Home-home?" she asked, reading the scroll on the bottom of the screen. "The virus? Do you think it's that bad?"

"I don't think we should sit around to find out."

Fall 2021

Rory plugged in a strand of colorful lights that sprawled across the floor around Charlotte's bed and were draped over Rory's neck. It was a long strand of small round ball lights, and Rory wasn't sure if they were intended for indoors or outdoors. She quickly glanced from light to light, making sure all were lit before looking up to survey the room.

"Mommy, can we put the lights on my ceiling?" Charlotte asked, excited for the decorations in her room. The four-year old had picked out her own outfit today, a light purple shirt with a unicorn paired with leggings. Her brown hair fell just past her shoulders. She flopped back on her bed. "Then I can look up at them at night when I'm in bed."

Rory continued to drape the strand over a short bookshelf and then doubled back for a second layer. "No, there's no way to hold them up there."

Charlotte thought about it for a moment, then sat and held up a finger like she had an epiphany. "I know, we can use tape."

"No, that wouldn't be strong enough. They'd fall on your face," Rory said. Plus, it would tear the paint off and then they'd have to repaint or forfeit part of their security deposit. They were renting a small house in Hartford that Tristan's parents helped find when they abruptly came back home. It had three bedrooms, which they thought would be plenty of space, at the time.

At the sound of a baby crying from the next room, Charlotte said, "Uh-oh, he's awake. Daddy has that meeting today, remember?"

Rory took the light strand off her neck, setting it on the dresser. "Oh, sure, you can remember when you aren't the one interrupting." She headed for the door, but Tristan met her with a baby boy in his arms, handing him over.

They had been in lockdown. One evening Rory bragged about how she had all her copywriting clients organized on Airtable. She was even using it to keep track of her book list.

In response, Tristan had handed her wine and showed her how he moved all his client and project management from Asana to Clickup. Everything was so organized. He had templates for client onboarding and standard operating procedures. His whole team was on the same page.

It was an aggressive seduction.

"Daddy, can we put lights up on the ceiling?" Charlotte asked, still sitting on her bed.

While he glanced up, Rory pursed her lips and turned to the little girl. "I already told you we can't."

"But maybe Daddy can do it."

Tristan shook his head. "No. Mommy's right. It's going to look really good the way she's doing it."

"Can I get a little Christmas tree?" Charlotte asked. She stood in between her bed and the wall and pointed to the corner. "I can put it right here, and presents can go under it."

"What presents?" Rory asked. "The presents you're giving us?"

"My presents from Santa," Charlotte explained. "He can put them in here with me."

"If Santa brings you presents, he can leave them in the living room with everyone else's," Tristan said. He picked the strand of lights up from the dresser and continued to the window, double layering as Rory had.

"He will," Charlotte said confidently. "I've been really really good."

"Really really good, huh?" Rory asked.

"Mm-hmm." Charlotte listed, "I help with Elliott, and I clean up my toys."

"What about when I asked you to say your months of the year?" Rory asked. "You didn't do that."

"Yes I did," Charlotte said. "January, February, Tuesday—"

"Tuesday? Tristan asked. "I don't think that's right. Why don't you go pick up those little toys you left in the middle of the living room so your brother doesn't choke on the small parts."

"I get to play with them when he takes his nap," she reminded him.

"I know. But he's awake now and if he eats one you'll have to wait until he poops it out."

"Ew!" she exclaimed, her face twisted in disgust.

"Quick, before Santa sees."

The little girl darted out of the room.

"Were you still on your call?" Rory asked.

"I was just wrapping things up."

Tristan had scaled his business. He had five people under him who did the same thing as him, as well as a team of web designers they worked with. He had a small team of copywriters who took care of writing website content, and he had an online business manager to help run it all. He had enough help that he was able to take a month off when the baby was born.

Rory did some copywriting for him when he was still starting out. He asked her to vet a few candidates, but since it was really important, she thought she should do it.

"You want to Dick Cheney the job?" he had asked. "I guess you can do it, if you have time."

It was a good thing she had dabbled with copywriting on the side, now that no one was traveling. It kept her busy and she could continue to contribute to the family finances. She was considering hiring a few writers under her.

Finished with the lights, they went to the living room. Charlotte was putting her box of toys up. Rory put Elliott on the floor. "Here he comes." He smiled as he quickly crawled across the room to his sister.

"What's the matter?" he asked her when she stood back up. She wore a deep frown as she watched Charlotte play in front of the couch.

She pointed at their daughter. "I'm worried Charlotte won't be ready for kindergarten."

"Why?"

"I've never heard her say the alphabet."

Tristan argued, "She knows the alphabet." Hesitantly, he repeated, "I'm sure she knows the alphabet."

"You heard her, she thinks Tuesday is the third month of the year."

He chuckled.

"It's not funny. She acts like she doesn't know her middle name." Rory threw up her hands in frustration. "I was reading Norman Mailer when I was two."

"Mmm," he muttered skeptically. "Well, I didn't read any of his books until I was seven. So when you split the difference, she's fine." He watched their daughter play keep away with her teddy bear as Elliott tried to grab it. Tristan rounded the couch to take a seat. "Charlotte, come here." The little girl looked up and walked over. He lifted her to plop her on his knee. "I want you to listen to a song," he said, then started singing random letters in the melody of the alphabet song.

Charlotte patted his arm. "That's not right."

He stopped to look at her. "Yes it is. You don't know this song." He continued to incorrectly sing the alphabet.

She shook her head. "No. Daddy, that's wrong."

"This is how I learned it. I don't think you know this song."

"Mmm," she said, like she was thinking hard about it. Her blue eyes narrowed at Tristan.

He finished with the traditional ending, inviting her to sing along next time. "How do you think it goes?"

She shook her head at him.

"I don't think you even know it. Sing it for me," he said.

"I don't want to do anything I don't want to do." With that, she slid off his lap and scampered down the hallway to her room. Elliott watched his sister, but stayed in the living room. He triumphantly picked up the forgotten teddy bear.

Rory sat down on the couch next to Tristan. "See? She's so obstinate! I don't know why she's so hard headed."

"Isn't it obvious?" Tristan asked. "She's the one true Lorelai."

Rory's brows furrowed again. "She isn't even named Lorelai." Some people thought certain Lorelais set the bar too high and a kid shouldn't have to live in that shadow. After all, she'd already be expected to go to Princeton because she's a Dugray, and to Yale because she's a Gilmore.

"She doesn't have to go to Princeton or Yale," Rory had argued. "She can go to Harvard."

"That's much better," was Tristan's wry response.

"I don't think you have to be called Lorelai to be a Lorelai," he said now. "It transcends the name."

Rory crossed her arms, still frowning. "I already raised one Lorelai."

Tristan put his hand around the back of her neck. "Who better to raise another?" He released her neck and draped his arm around her shoulders.

It had been a strange two years in Connecticut. It was odd to be back. Everything was familiar, but subtly different. Rory was different, too. She used to be perfectly content to find a comfy chair to sit and read for hours. Now that she had all the time in the world, she was itching to get out. She wanted an adventure, somewhere new to explore.

Their family was welcomed with open arms in Stars Hollow when they first got back home, but a week later, the citizens of the small town turned on them. They couldn't walk down the sidewalk without Kirk or Andrew quickly running to the opposite side of the street to avoid them. Babette evasively waved and shut herself inside her house when they went to Lorelai's house.

Taylor had told everyone they had 'brought Covid to Stars Hollow'. He wanted them to quarantine for a whole month.

"What about that town meeting you insisted on everyone going to?" Luke had argued.

"Yeah, it was probably a super-spreader event," Miss Patty chimed in from her computer screen.

Town meetings were a mess on Zoom. Everyone talked over each other. Luke didn't mind that he could mute Taylor, though.

It blew over, of course, as more people got sick. There was no point in blaming anyone. Even the quaint, quirky Stars Hollow wasn't safe from a global pandemic.

Tristan busied himself in the kitchen, heating water and milk to make them each a London Fog. He joined her at a small table for two on the side of the living room. They would sit there when they wanted to pretend they had some privacy, telling Charlotte they were on a date and she would have to figure things out for herself for thirty minutes. She often unilaterally decided she needed to tend to Elliott, changing his perfectly clean diaper, making a bottle, or running him a bath.

Now, Tristan sat across from Rory, with a stack of real estate listings between them. She rested her chin on her fists, her elbows on the table.

"Well?" he said, taking a careful sip. "Anything look good?"

She sighed. "I don't know. There aren't many choices. And they're all so big and expensive."

"Yeah, it's not exactly a buyer's market right now."

"It's hard to justify spending millions of dollars on a house when I know we could live for under a thousand dollars a month in Bucharest or Kuala Lumpur." She paused to slowly drink some tea. "I just . . ."

"What?"

She grimaced. "I want to live abroad again, when travel is a thing."

Tristan picked up the printouts of houses and tapped them on the table to line them up evenly before setting them aside. "I know, you've been complaining about how vegetables here don't taste like anything for two years."

She argued, "I have not been complaining."

He stopped his mug halfway to his mouth. "Making negative comments, then?" he said.

"Well they don't!"

"I know, the food isn't as good here. Everything tastes the same," he said. "Bland."

Rory yearned for Bulgaria, even if the drive for fresh produce was two hours. She still had dreams about the Vietnamese coffee she drank every day when they lived in Ho Chi Minh City. She wanted to take the kids hiking to see ancient castles. They'd been to at least 70 countries, but there was more to explore.

"Everything is so big here!" she said. "I swear, every time an SUV gets behind me, it's like a tank. And we have so much stuff now. We used to be minimalists!"

It hadn't taken her long to accumulate more books. Luke had built wall-to-wall shelves in her childhood bedroom. Of course, Lorelai's organization was abysmal. Rory had to fix it when they got back to Connecticut. Since being stuck at home for two years, it was Rory's personal library.

Luke built a couple large shelves for the house they were living in now in Hartford, too. One for the living room. One for the third bedroom where Tristan had his desk. And, well, now there was a crib in there too. They'd certainly spread out and made themselves at home here. Being back in America made Rory feel like she needed more stuff. She needed more clothes and makeup and gadgets. Here, they weren't just citizens. They were consumers.

She sighed again. "I've just been worried that you won't want to keep picking up to leave anymore. We're in our mid thirties, we're supposed to settle down, right? Give the kids some roots?"

He chuckled. "Mid-to-late thirties," he said. "I'll go wherever you want. Where do you want to go next?"

"I was thinking, I could teach again."

"English?"

"English literature, not English as a second language," she said. "We can't go anywhere until the kids are old enough to get vaccinated. I could use the time to get credentialed. Then I could teach at an international school. We could have a home base and stability for the kids, but we could still travel around Europe on the weekends and summers. We wouldn't be quite so . . ."

"Nomadic?" he finished.

"Yeah." Elliott crawled over to Rory and pulled himself up to stand by her knee. He presented her with the teddy bear.

"I appreciate that," Tristan said. "I am getting a bit old to keep packing everything up. I do have one request."

"What's that?"

"I'd prefer to live in a country where we can speak the language fluently."

"Ah, so not Abu Dhabi?" she asked. She grinned. "I was thinking about Spain."

"Sounds perfect." He watched as she lifted the baby to her lap. "We really have accumulated a lot of stuff."

She couldn't argue with that. This was the longest they'd gone without KonMari-ing all of their belongings. It was the first time their parents could dote on their grandkids. "True. We have a lot to get rid of." When the baby let out a brief fuss, she cooed, "Not you, we'll keep you." She smoothed his hair. It had been brown when he was born, but was getting lighter now.

Tristan narrowed his eyes, listening hard. He grabbed Rory's elbow to get her to follow him. They quietly stopped near Charlotte's opened door. Tristan's brows were raised, indicating 'see?' as they listened to the little girl sing the alphabet correctly in the privacy of her bedroom.

Spring 2022

Rory stepped off the bus behind Charlotte onto the sidewalk in Stars Hollow. She took her daughter's hand and started toward the Italian pizzeria and restaurant. In her other hand, she carried a basket.

"Rorino," Pete greeted with a broad smile. "And your bambino!"

"Hey, Pete," Rory said. "Can we get a couple meatball subs, please? And a cup of macaroni and cheese."

Charlotte yanked on her hand. "Um, can I have a meatball on my noodles?" she asked, her eyes darting out the window.

"Sure," Rory said. She stood back up to add to the order.

When they had their food, she loaded it into the basket and headed back outside. "Okay, next let's go to the store. I used to do this with my mom, you know," she told Charlotte. "They didn't get to do it the last couple years."

"Why not?"

"Because we all had to stay home, remember?" Rory said, holding the door to Doose's Market open. They went to the snack aisle and Rory told Charlotte to pick out a big bag of chips. She carried a bag of cheddar sour cream and onion chips to the next aisle. "Okay, Twinkies or Ding-Dongs?" Rory asked. "Or Mallomars?"

"Twinkies," Charlotte answered.

"Good choice."

Their basket full, they headed to the gazebo, where a small crowd had already formed. The sun was shining and the temperature was pleasant. It was a good day for a picnic. They didn't have to wait long before Kirk got the bidding started on the first basket. Rory glanced around anxiously. She picked up Charlotte, who wrapped her legs around Rory. "Do you see them?"

The little girl looked all around. "Nope."

"Me neither."

"What happens if they don't make it?"

"Then we have to have lunch with someone else."

Charlotte's eyes widened. She pressed her hands on both sides of Rory's face. "Who?"

"Whoever pays the most money for our basket." She bent down. "You're too big for me."

She glanced around again, now that Kirk had her basket on the podium. Rory waved her hand. "Hey, can you do that one later?" She glanced behind her shoulder.

"The baskets are auctioned off in the order we received them," Kirk said. "That's the rule."

"I know, but can't you make one exception?"

"I'm afraid not. This basket is up. This is the basket I'm going to auction off," Kirk said, unyielding. He was a stickler for following the rules. "Let's start the bidding at five dollars. Do I have five?"

When a man Rory didn't know bid, Charlotte yanked on Rory's hand urgently. Two more guys bid, and Rory's heart was beating too fast. They hit a plateau at twenty-five dollars.

"I have twenty five, do I have thirty?" Kirk said, looking around the crowd. "Going once, going twice—"

"Two hundred and twenty dollars," Tristan shouted from the back of the crowd.

Rory looked over, relieved.

Tristan approached her, handing Elliott over to her. "Sorry. I don't want to point any fingers, but one of us needed a diaper change as soon as we got here." He handed Charlotte a blanket he had in his other arm before going to the gazebo to pay.

"Come on," Rory said, leading Charlotte to a grassy area in the town square. She gently put Elliott down to stand next to his sister and took the blanket to spread out.

Tristan finally joined them, taking a seat and putting the basket in the middle of the blanket. "I only had a fifty on me. I had to Venmo Kirk," he explained.

"Why did you bid over two-hundred dollars?" Rory asked.

He shrugged. "Inflation. And I didn't know how in demand you are in Stars Hollow these days." He opened the flap of the basket. "There better be something edible in here."

La la, la la. Laaa-la.

Fin