It's been a long time since she was stuck in these circles – the fancy parties where the women glittered and strutted and the men talked shop, where companies were bought and sold over multiple helpings of alcohol. She took her time looking around – granted this was a more modern version of the parties of yore, where the younger set can hold their liquor even as they juggled careers, families, and this life effortlessly – and yet, some things never changed. This was a world where trust fund babies inherited their families' aging companies and turned them around by injecting fresh blood and ideas, but still remembering to have their fun in custom-made couture flown in from faraway lands with shoes, bags, and makeup to match. She decided to stand back and watch the party progress.
She saw the blonde sister dressed impeccably dressed and looking polished hold a polite conversation with one of the ladies on a literacy non-profit. She knew that this casual conversation, held over a glass of rapidly warming white wine, could result in sizable donations that would keep multiple organizations in the black for months, or even years to come. She saw the quirky best friend, dressed like a peacock, simultaneously on the prowl for redheads and alcohol, no matter the vintage. She would have dismissed his presence and his actions within moments once upon a time – chalking his behavior to constant overindulgence and a pickled brain, not comprehending the fun-loving charmer he could be to his inner circle. Her gaze moves to the obvious contender next, the straight-shooting other best friend, who seemingly participates in every naughty escapade that comes his way, yet manages to look grim and strait-laced about it. He would never betray the fiercely loyal heart that beats under this façade. He uses this to keep out the gold-digging, fortune-hunting hang rounds who stay long past their welcome.
And finally, finally, she looks at the golden-haired boy – this boy whom she's seen grow up from smirking playboy to … uh…well smirking businessman. The smirk is probably the only thing about him that is still the same. He doesn't even use it very often anymore, except to turn it on full wattage at his wife – when he teases her about quirks that have long become cherished traits. He has grown up, made a name for himself independent of his family and yet has come back into the fold, of his own volition, ready to breathe new life into an industry that is dying. What sets him apart from most of the rest of his cohort is that he did it all with a family by his side. Even as most of his friends are still single, divorced, with hefty alimony settlements, he has the American dream – beautiful wife, house (well, estate, but who's keeping track, which explains the no white picket fence) and 2.5 kids, literally. They're expecting their third child in two months. Everybody knew that his wife had landed the white whale right after graduation. She was the Bening to his Beatty and he'd gone so fast off the market that society matrons up and down the East coast had gossiped about her history. "Like mother, like child", they tittered over cocktails … "they probably had to hush it up – don't be surprised if you hear an announcement about a premature baby in a few months", they giggled … "she's far too independent and headstrong, she wants a career" they tut-tutted over hors d'oeuvres … and finally the most commonly uttered one, "he's too much of a playboy and she's too much of a goody-two-shoes – how long can that last!". This last one, this one had speared her heart, given her many a sleepless night worrying about manufactured what-ifs aided by endless re-watches of trashy movies and tv shows.
She takes a bite of the lobster puff – apparently salmon puffs are so the 2000s, whatever that means. Even as she tries to relish the pastry to creamy filling ratio, one of the old harpies from the gossiping group around her exclaims without an ounce of irony, "Oh, Rory, well done with the lobster puffs! These are the best things I've ever had in my mouth!" And that is when she sees – that's the moment when Lorelai Gilmore looks up to catch her daughter's eye, to mouth "Dirty" in tandem that she sees. Her sweet, young (well, not so young anymore, but she'll still be her baby, the rosy-cheeked picture of perfection she brought home from the hospital), goody two shoes of a daughter arches her eyebrow subtly and gives a sidelong look at her husband, the playboy, smirky, bratty, spoilt trust fund daredevil of a kid (well, not such a kid anymore – they do have two kids after all) who blushes deeply and takes a long swallow of the scotch from his glass to hide it. And that is the moment when Lorelai Gilmore finally gets a glimpse of the dynamic between her daughter and son-in-law, and the penny drops. There was no taming, there were no lost dreams – just two souls who got each other, the rest of the world be damned. That moment feels so intensely personal, so deeply voyeuristic that Lorelai drops her glance and looks away. Somebody coughs and the moment is gone, but as she drives home from the obligatory party the Rory had begged her to come to, just to fill a seat (she is Emily Gilmore's granddaughter after all) Lorelai feels lighter than she's felt in years, finally able to let go of the doubt that she's been carefully nurturing, about her daughter's choices, about her decision to enter the world that Lorelai had so blithely left behind and with no regrets. A whisper of a memory, a snippet of a conversation comes back to her. It was something she'd told Lane a long time ago, before her baby shower. She'd warned Lane that her boys might end up loving the things their grandmother did – never for a minute understanding that this was the case with her own daughter. Life does have a strange way of working itself out and Lorelai Gilmore is at peace as she signals the turn to Stars Hollow, her own little corner of the world.
A/N: This is my first fanfiction ever. I watched Gilmore Girls when the OS was first on air. I could never get into the huge amount of JavaJunkie fic that was being written at the time. I had been a fangirl in so many fandoms and loved fanfic, and was so upset that I was so put off by GG fanfic that it took me a long time to realise that Rory/Logan was my ship. I discovered Illusive and haven't looked back since. Who else misses that site? I did take some liberties with the timeline in that this fic imagines a different future for Rory and Logan after the end of Season 7 and AYITL never happened. The reboot was too real, too tinged in blue – where I was looking for my happy, fun Stars Hollow in its technicolor glory, all I got was an unnecessary reality check. I don't like angst – real life has enough of it.
This is a one-shot from what I can tell now. I only had 2 "prompts" for this fic: that it is from Lorelai's perspective and that look – my brain refused to let go of these until I actually sat down and got it out. I hope you all enjoyed this fic – feel free to ignore the rambly author's note.