Early the next morning, Rory knocked lightly on her mother's bedroom door. Normally she'd just barge in, maybe flop on the bed while she watched her mother get ready, but a man lived here now. It was just Luke, but still. A man. With man parts that Rory might accidentally catch a glimpse of, and then she'd never be able to look him in the eye again.

"It's safe," came a mocking response from inside the room. Lorelai thought she was being prudish about the whole thing, Rory knew, but she couldn't help that it made her uncomfortable.

Rory pushed open the door to find Lorelai sewing frantically in the corner. "Luke's been gone for hours—he had an early delivery this morning," she said, focused intently on her work.

Sitting lightly on the right side of the bed—which she knew was her mother's side—Rory steeled herself. "So."

Lorelai glanced up at her before returning to sewing. "So what?"

"So…what are you sewing?"

"It's just some last minute alterations to Kirk's Jesus costume."

"They're letting him be Jesus again?" Rory asked, taking the opportunity to avoid the looming conversation.

"Well, this year's pageant is a bit different, so he's actually Freddie Mercury as Jesus from 'Jesus.'"

Well, now Rory didn't have to feign distraction. "What? So he's not actually Jesus, he's just the title character from a Queen song about Jesus?"

Lorelai shrugged. "The whole pageant is vaguely religious prog rock song characters. The priestess from 'Hands of the Priestess,' the May queen from 'Stairway to Heaven,' the golden dreamer from 'Road to Babylon.' Plus Linda Blair from The Exorcist."

"How is she a prog rock character?" Rory asked, baffled.

"I guess because of 'Tubular Bells'? Don't ask me, I'm just in charge of costumes. Patty's gotten real weird since her fifth marriage."

"Clearly. And we're sure she's okay, Chet hasn't made her join a cult or anything?"

Lorelai just shrugged, unable to talk around the pins she'd just put in her mouth.

"Okay then."

Taking a deep breath, Rory stood up. She felt less like a mousy 16-year-old girl when standing. "So."

Taking notice of her daughter's energy, Lorelai pulled the pins out of her mouth and set Kirk's costume aside. "Did you want to talk about something?"

Rory nodded. "So…"

"Are we stuck in some sort of 'Do-Re-Mi' purgatory? That's your fourth 'so.'"

Forcing a laugh, Rory mustered the courage to actually say it. "So, you know how I've been working on that big assignment for the magazine?"

"Doe I ray-mi-mber?" Lorelai asked comically.

Rory raised her eyebrows. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

Lorelai pouted. "I was trying to keep the 'Do-Re-Mi' bit going, but it got away from me a little." She waved her hand dismissively. "Never mind, you were telling me something serious."

"Not serious, exactly. Well, it's not not serious. I'd say medium serious, like normal life stuff that happens sometimes and maybe it'll all turn out for the best but you can't really know until you're looking back when you're so old that you just sit around knitting and drinking glasses of buttermilk like it's not disgusting—"

"Rory, I'm getting old just listening to you."

"Right. The thing is, it's going to be my last article for the magazine." She began pacing, not looking at her mother.

"You got fired?" Lorelai asked. Her voice was neutral, like she had no opinion one way or another, but Rory was sure she could hear a hint of surprise and disappointment.

"Not fired exactly. You know how the magazine took a big hit with that scandal about Hugo Gray…?" She finally managed a glance at Lorelai, who nodded. "Well, they're getting rid of the whole international news department as part of a massive reorganization."

"Okay. Are they going to keep you on in a different role?" Lorelai asked hopefully. "You've been a rock star there since the Obama campaign—your old boss in the politics department was desperate to keep you, and didn't the head of arts and leisure try to poach you that time?"

Swallowing down all of the feelings threatening to come up, Rory shrugged and said, "Mom, those departments are making cuts too, if they even survive the reorg."

"But I'm sure, for you—" Her mom just couldn't let go of the idea that Rory was special, preordained to go to an Ivy League school and become a wild success and show up all of those snobs that had scorned Lorelai when she'd gotten pregnant at sixteen.

Rory sat back down on the bed, looking Lorelai straight in the eye. "They're losing a lot of good people, Mom. I'm just one of them. It is what it is."

With a great big sigh, Lorelai finally seemed to accept that Rory had really lost her job. "Okay, so what's next for you?"

"I have a couple of freelance pieces in the works, and I can probably get a few more of those while I work on getting another job. But it's likely going to take a while to find something more permanent, so I was thinking, maybe I could move back here for a bit, while I figure things out?"

She was trying really hard to sound upbeat, like this was just a tiny detour in her life plan, but just saying the words out loud made her feel like a complete failure.

Lorelai immediately came to sit next to her daughter. "Of course you can stay here. You'll be able to get out of your lease in New York?"

Nodding, Rory said, "Cody's been wanting his boyfriend to move in, but the place just isn't big enough to handle four people, so hopefully he can take over my share of the rent."

"I'm sorry you lost your job." Lorelai brushed a piece of Rory's hair out of her face. "It sucks."

Suddenly she didn't feel like she had to keep a brave face anymore. "It totally sucks," Rory agreed, and she began to cry for the first time since it happened.

"Oh, honey," Lorelai said soothingly. "You're smart and talented and determined. You'll find a way to keep doing what you want to do, or maybe you'll find something you like even better, instead. You know I'll support you, no matter what you decide to do."

"I know," Rory said, but she'd needed to hear it.

Lorelai looked at her earnestly, and Rory expected further reassurances, but instead what she got was, "Just promise me you won't steal a yacht while you figure things out."

It was such a totally inappropriate thing to say that Rory couldn't help but laugh through her tears. "I can't promise anything—the Van Cortlandt yacht has been looking really good lately." She'd been dreading telling her mom, but now that she had, the whole thing seemed a little less tragic. She was moving back home.