"I've been a bad friend, I'm sorry," Rory exclaimed theatrically as she hugged Celeste with a firm grip, having not seen her in weeks, in front of the GAP. Sure, they'd texted a couple of times a week, but usually those communications were for the judgement free (excessive) whining that they didn't want to bother their husbands with or sending each other photos of funny situations they would see, their latest thing being funny road signs - Rory having had a blast up in Maine with those, leaving the actual communication for when they saw each-other.

"Hey, I've got nothing on you - just look at you!?" Celeste replied as she glanced over her. "No way that you're 4 months pregnant!" Celeste commented, Rory looking notably bigger than with Finny by the 6th month. But nevertheless in a pair of cute dark denim maternity jeans and vibrant orange maternity blouse under her parka, Rory still looked happy and energetic.

"Yeah, I bet I look barely pregnant, right?" Rory laughed, deciding to take the comment as reversed.

"You look great, and happy," Celeste said, emphasizing the latter. "And Finny looks adorable," she glanced at the sleeping toddler in his stroller. As Rory's doctor had told her to take more walks, which she really didn't have much time for, she'd decided to try to incorporate it into her day as much as possible - so she'd walked to the GAP that day and usually if she was alone even take the service stairway up to the penthouse if she wasn't carrying anything heavy - it left her breathless but Paris had assured it was only the healthy kind.

"Now we can just go on and on with the compliments - you two even got matching outfits!" Rory replied cheerily, noticing Celeste's and Evie's siliarily patterned tops.

Evie had just fallen asleep a few minutes ago, hence Celeste found herself moving the Evie's stroller back and forth. She'd been to the doctor's with Evie that morning for her check-up and then to the playgroup so Evie was no doubtedly tired, and so was she - the larger part of that tiredness being about the method of getting there because she still refused to drive in the States. Evie was too small of cabs so there she was, having taken the train and the basket of her stroller held everything they would need for the day. Besides she'd found that keeping herself occupied like this for a couple of days a week provided a good distraction.

"Let's go in, she's not dressed very warmly so she wouldn't get hot inside," Celeste suggested, having just taken off Evie's coat before she was beginning to look tired on the train and used her own scarf to cover her upper body, knowing they weren't going to stay outside for long. Evie was much more particular about hotness than the cold.

"So…I heard you've been pretty much driving to Connecticut each weekend now?" Rory began curious about the draw, as they stepped through the store entrance.

"Ah, well… we didn't really plan it - first it was the sledging thing - Luke invited Jess. Evie and Jess had fun. And then Lorelai had some cancellation…," she replied briefly, thinking it was no big deal.

Rory knew there really had been no cancellation, just the perks of her mother owning an Inn, but she knew better than to start ruining that illusion.

"You know, like ten years ago you would've had to bribe Jess to come to Stars Hollow - I mean seriously, Luke did some serious negotiating to get him to come to all the family events, except when it was something concerning Doula…," Rory described, pulling the canopy on Finny's stroller all the way down to shade him from the lights and open up his light footmuff from the middle.

"Well I guess he's grown up," Celeste shrugged, as she casually browsed a few dresses for herself, while they took to the direction of the Kid's department.

"Yeah, or there's just a lot he's willing to do for you and Evie," Rory noted, being kind of impressed with the transformation in Jess that Celeste had brought on. Sure, she didn't know Jess before he moved to New York as in depth as she once had or did now, but that was the impression she'd gotten at least.

"Yeah, I know," she sighed, sounding a little weak in the voice.

"How are things?" Rory inquired carefully, observing her. She'd seen a slight change in her mood as she'd mentioned Jess.

"Let's not go there, not here… maybe not today altogether, okay?" Celeste sighed, shaking her head. She'd been barely keeping it together all day, hence the trip to town with Evie had been so essential to her - to be out there, ready to take on the world with Evie. Somehow knowing someone depended on her like that - she felt more purpose and it got her through the day.

"Okay," Rory agreed, feeling a little worried, hugging her sideways once more.

Celeste gave a weak smile.

"Any news on the drawings from your new hunky editor?" Rory asked playfully, hoping to get the mood up. Despite being happily married she wasn't blind - the guy definitely had some fierce Viking thing going on. They'd even developed a friendly rating game whenever she and Logan went to fancier events, trying to think of movie and tv-show characters that would match for their hotness to the person in question and by those standards Noah was definitely showing some resemblance to Brian Finch from Limitless.

"Hunky? Really? That's what you're calling him?" Celeste replied squinting her eyes at her sceptically. Truth be told, she'd never really looked at Noah like that - sure, physically there was nothing off-putting about him, but as there had always been a certain apprehensiveness concerning him distracting her from ever really noticing anything else. But she got it, Rory's comment was meant as harmless - sensing even Rory's thought of distracting her behind it.

"And I'm not really sure if he'll be my editor as such yet. He said he could meet with me on Friday, but I really don't know what about - he could just be telling me to keep working on it," Celeste added, not wanting to get her hopes up too high.

"I'm sure it's good news, I mean seriously - your work is good. I'm just sorry I haven't been able to hold up to my promise to work on them with you," Rory said regretfully. For a while they'd played with the idea that Rory might help her write a story to go along with it. But Rory was literally counting hours each time she had someone around to babysit, aiming to fill every one of them meaningfully to get everything done in time.

"We've talked about this - your have your hands full!" Celeste concluded. "Tell me, how's the thesis going? Did you get everything you needed from Portland?" she asked, supportively. Having once been that type of woman - career driven, hungry to make an impact and define herself through her work - she did understand.

"I have now all the data, finished data analysis yesterday - so hence here I am blowing off steam. I was on the phone with Paris last night and she basically told me I need to get started with shopping for these girls, as it's very likely I'll either not want to move at all the last few months or be on bedrest. So here I am - one stage of my thesis done slash celebratory baby shopping frenzy?" she stated questioningly, not even sure where that strange sentence had come from - preggo-brain most likely - and she made a mental note to get an editor to read over her thesis once she considered it done just in case.

Celeste smiled in response, continuing their way to the kids department, already finding a few items she needed to get for Evie. While she mostly shopped online - her taste in clothes being somewhat unusual - looking for baby vintage and eco-friendly German and Scandinanvian brands which were not the easiest to find, coming to shop with Rory was more about the bonding than the actual shopping to her.

"How did it go for Logan in Maine?" Celeste asked curiously. The entire topic had been a little hush-hush for obvious reasons, but she had been let in on the secret a while back already.

"Well, pretty good I guess - he got invited to Owen's wedding and everything. He might have to go alone...we'll see..," she sighed. "They did spent half a night drinking and blackmouthing Mitchum - not a difficult task," Rory added, rolling her eyes smilingly.

"So he's actually saying out loud that he has a half-brother?" Celeste inquired in whisper. There was always a chance that someone might recognize Rory and start some gossip so she knew the place really wasn't the best one for discussing this, but as there really only was the shop assistant in earshot, she let it slide.

"He's not broadcasting it, but I don't think he intends to hide it if it comes up. He told Honor and everything," Rory explained in a normal volume of her voice, picking up a few baby onesies, that she was unimpressed with and set them back down.

"How did she take it?" she asked, knowing Honor a bit herself.

"Like she usually takes things - poutingly, but I think she'll be fine. She wasn't too crazy about the fact that she'd talked to the woman for years and she'd hidden this from her. But of course she was obliged not to say anything so it wasn't really Catherine's fault," Rory added.

"Yeah, can't imagine," she commented, trying to imagine what it would be like if she suddenly found out that she had a brother or sister somewhere that was actually a decent human being - but that just seemed so impossible, and brushed the thought aside.

"Now this looks cute," Rory said, as she held up a light pink jumpsuit with a bunny application on the chest, it's tail as a soft 3D cotton-ball.

"It does. Now you just need two of everything," Celeste chuckled.

"Yeah, I can't imagine there being twice as much of everything than I had with Finny and this is girls were talking here - which means dresses and skirts on top of everything. I can just imagine the wardrobes Honor, mom and grandma are already buying up for them," she replied. They'd already given the decorator the main lead on getting the girl's room all set up, only really knowing that they wanted to keep the style similar to Finny's so they could reuse some of his stuff that he'd outgrown. But one thing Rory already had her mind set on - she wanted a crib, with a mesh separator between the two sides, so the girls could see and touch each other if they wanted. There was something adorable about the connection twins formed - she didn't know what that was like - but it seemed something very special that she wanted them to keep. Hence whenever she had a moment now, the books she was reading had a central 'twin' topic, something she'd never really looked at from this perspective before and with the frequency illusion taking over all she now noticed were twins and twin products.

"And don't forget me," Celeste pitched in. "Oh and you only have to get one of each when it comes to wooly and silky clothes - you can have Evie's if you're not picky," Celeste added.

"Aw, thanks, and of course I'm not picky. But are you sure you want to give these up - who knows?" Rory inquired.

"I'm saving some as keep-sakes, sure. But we sort of took care of that a while ago actually," she replied from under her brow.

"You mean he…?" Rory asked quietly, making the scissor symbol with her fingers.

Celeste nodded.

"Wow, that's a big deal," Rory exclaimed, continuing to hang clothing items she was planning on getting, one after another, to her stroller handlebar.

"Well, technically it's reversible, but yeah," she replied. In the recent context this was becoming another thing in her mind that was making her feel guilty - if she failed at retrieving that connection - it was utterly unfair to Jess. He'd taken the leap, and he'd willingly committed as permanently as commitment went. But he was young - 4 years younger than her in fact. And to her that was just added pressure.

"Remind me to mention it to Logan on one of those mornings where neither of us has gotten any sleep or the kids have a stomach virus," Rory chuckled. She couldn't imagine a scenario where she'd be willing to do this again - three was already more than she'd bargained for.

"You got the stroller picked out yet?" Celeste asked, gesturing towards the stroller corner mainly selling Bugaboo and Mima by the looks of it.

"This one actually converts, so I don't have to, just have to get an extra bassinet and seat, buggy board and then some smaller stroller for Finny in case we need it," Rory replied, recalling Paris' wise words. "Do you like yours?" she inquired, glancing over her Uppababy minu.

"Uh-uh, sounds me like you were planning this subconsciously all along," Celeste laughed. God, it felt good to laugh for a change. "This one it's okay, but I hear that Bugaboo one is pretty good as well," she commented, gesturing towards light grey Ant stroller in the corner. "But I don't think that one fold as easily as with some of these small ones," she added knowingly.

Rory shrugged innocently and promised herself to read up on travel strollers when she got home.

"Any news on the nanny front?" Celeste asked, finding an adorable wool sweater, which she felt she wanted to get Rory herself and grabbed two, in different colors - it seemed that when it came to sizes there were rarely two of every size available, making the task at hand more difficult than they'd imagined.

"We talked to one, the one that worked for a friend of Luke's," Rory explained.

"So what was she like?" she asked.

"She seemed nice. I don't know - she was a bit more humble than Cathy, but seemed all in all capable. She handled Finny well at least," Rory described.

"But not nice enough?" Celeste inquired.

"I think it's just in my head you know. It's a lot of pressure, and I don't want to find out I hate the person when I have my week-old babies at home," Rory explained. "But we're seeing a few others just in case to get a comparison, you know," she added.

"I should really start looking for one myself, not full time of course - but just, in case April isn't available," she added. She kept feeling guilty for thinking that, while she wasn't working but still, she felt she should be doing more things outside the house to get anywhere with her issues, and for that she needed someone to help.

"It might really be good, you know," Rory replied supportively. "You could just have her around the first few times with you, see how she is with Evie. Start her off small," she added.

"Yeah, you're probably right," she replied hesitantly. Evie was her everything - no matter what else happened there was still her and her happiness was everything to her. When she'd first thought about having her, she'd always prioritised that she was going to be the mom that made time for her daughter, not the kind that had nannies cater to her needs. But now - desperately needing to find some sense of purpose outside of being a mom, she was very close to seriously considering it.

"I'll send you the contacts to the agency we used, they're pricey but at least thoroughly checked," Rory offered.

"Thanks," she replied with a weak smile. She was yet to discuss it with Jess in detail, nor did she find it very easy to explain - having no real aim what to do with that spare time. She also hadn't gathered up the courage to really look for a therapist - having tried a few times and getting caught up in the reviews and discarded the plan altogether. It was like she couldn't imagine what it was that they could actually tell her that she didn't already know, she'd read the books - but none of it seemed to lead her anywhere. She never was much of a fan when it came to popping pills.

"Hey, what about these?" Rory held up two yellow outdoor rompers with soft dinosaur spikes on the hood and back, getting a wholehearted laughter in reply.