Author's note: Any recognizable bits of dialogue come from seasons 5 and 6. There were a few scripts I was checking out for accuracy and a couple lines of dialogue were so priceless that I wanted to rework them into this chapter. For the sake of this story, I'm assuming Lorelai never slept with Alex in season 3.

Chapter 9: Spider in the Web

For a moment, a very brief moment, a moment so minuscule that it flitted in and out of her mind in a nanosecond, Rory Gilmore considered running.

It was an absurd thought, really. Rory loved her grandparents. She had a much better relationship with her grandparents than her mother did. Grandparents who were supposed to be in Connecticut going about their daily lives - her grandpa with his new business and her grandma with the DAR. Emily Gilmore certainly wasn't suppose to be in Rome, walking up the sidewalk toward her with quick strides and a bright smile. She saw her grandfather several feet behind, possibly as equally absorbed with the Forum as she'd been seconds earlier.

But Rory was old enough to know that the golden part of their trip was at an end. Their European trip was about to make Married … with Children look as innocuous as Full House. "Hi, Grandma," she said a bit shakily as Emily reached her.

"Richard? Richard, I've found Rory." Emily peeled off her sunglasses, grasping Rory's upper arms to study every inch of her, cataloguing things from stray hairs to new freckles. "Look at you, Europe agrees with you. A little too much sun though, have you been wearing a hat?"

"Not really," Rory admitted.

Richard reached their side, the camera around his neck a twin to Rory's own. And Luke's, she thought absently. "Ah, Rory! You look lovely. Europe really does agree with you."

"Hi, Grandpa. What are you doing here?" Rory asked, hoping her voice conveyed shock in a good way. "I thought you two were going to Cape Cod?"

"We are next month. Your grandfather decided to surprise me with a late anniversary trip to Rome," Emily explained, sparing a smile at her husband. His eyes twinkled as he smiled back at her. "We had your itinerary, so we decided to surprise you girls and treat you to a few days in a real hotel, not in one of those god-forsaken hostels your mother booked."

"Actually, we're staying in a really nice B&B," Rory clarified. "We're doing some research for the Dragonfly."

"Well, that's nice," Emily said a bit dismissively, as if the Nicolas Inn was the equivalent of a Motel 6. "Your mother can get some tips for her inn at the hotel we've booked as well. The Hotel de Russie is new, but it's gorgeous. The view is incredible, and there is a Turkish bath on-site. Isn't that exciting? I wanted to stay at the Roma, but it was completely booked, but this one is just as nice." She peered over Rory's shoulder, scanning the sidewalk. "Where's your mother?"

"Oh, well, Mom and I take a day in each city to explore by ourselves," Rory explained with a halfhearted wave, absently gesturing back in the direction of the inn.

Emily's brow furrowed. "By yourselves? But you're only 18."

"Which in some circles means I'm an adult," Rory gently teased.

Richard put an arm around Rory's shoulders in solidarity. "Rory's a very responsible young woman, and it's good for her to get some solo adventuring under her belt before she starts at Yale." He smiled down at her, chest puffed up with pride as it was every time he managed to get the words 'Rory' and 'Yale' in the same sentence. "What were your mother's plans for today?"

Most likely getting laid, Rory thought in a panic. "I ah … Probably just wandering around. She really didn't say. She also said something about taking a nap, doing some laundry. You know, things like that. I don't think it's worth bothering her. We can spend some time by ourselves, just the three of us."

"Nonsense. The sooner we get you girls into a proper hotel, the better," Emily insisted.

Richard pulled a flip phone out of his inner coat pocket. "Look, I even picked up an international cell phone. Works great here in Italy."

"I don't really want to bother her," Rory feebly protested as she accepted the phone.

"Rory," Emily said with growing exasperation, and she winced.

"OK, OK." Rory dug through her bag for the itinerary and located the B&B's number. With slightly shaking fingers, she punched it in and waited. "Room 2, please," she told the person who answered.

When the phone ranging several times, she prayed her mother and Luke were out. They were doing lunch. They were asleep. They had taken the phone off the hook. Anything that would delay her grandparents from discovering …

"Hello?" Luke's voice came on the line.

Rory spun away from Richard and Emily, catching herself before responding. "Hi, Mom! It's Rory!" she said brightly.

A moment of silence, and she could all but feel Luke's confusion. Thankfully, he was a quick study. "Rory? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Mom. I ran into Grandma and Grandpa!"

On the other end of the line, Luke nearly dropped the phone. His gaze cut to the closed bathroom door, where Lorelai had gone in to finish getting ready for their brunch. Any and all plans for whatever talk they were going to have at brunch and perhaps finally putting the box of condoms he bought in Paris to use crumbled to ashes. "Your grandparents?"

"They came to Rome to surprise us, isn't that wonderful?" Rory kept up with the forced cheer. "We're headed back to the B&B now. I figured you'd want to speak to them in person."

"Is that Rory?" Lorelai sailed out of the bathroom, securing a clip in her hair as she did so.

"How far away are you?" Luke hissed into the phone, waving Lorelai off.

"Oh, we should be there in 15 minutes. It's a nice walk."

"We'll take a car there," he heard Emily's voice in the background. "It'll be five minutes at the most."

"Oh! Well. Five minutes! See you soon!" Rory snapped the phone shut and prayed.

Luke stared at the phone as the line went dead, wondering if his life was somehow a horrible joke. He absently dropped it back on the charger.

"What is it? What's wrong? Is Rory OK?"

He looked up into Lorelai's concerned face and rushed to reassure her. "No, no, Rory's fine." He swallowed. Hard. "Your parents are here."

Every bit of color drained out of Lorelai's face. "My parents? As in Emily and Richard Gilmore? Are here? In Rome?"

Luke nodded mutely, not quite sure what to say.

"Shit, shit, shit. I knew this would happen!" Lorelai spun away from him, frantic. She paced the room, her movements jerky as the changes to their reality set in. "Everything was going too well. Is it too late to run away? I've always wanted to be Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, and you're awfully cute. Let's run away and go do silly things."

"You're not leaving Rory," Luke pointed out.

Lorelai heaved a sigh. "No, no I'm not. Am I a bad mom for being tempted to run though?"

"Probably as bad as I am for being tempted to run with you."

"Oh no." Lorelai turned back to him. She laced her fingers together and pulled them apart as she walked back to him. "See, you've been spared up to now. You have met casual acquaintance Richard and Emily. The people you just happen to see every so often because your daughter is a mutual friend, so they only see you at things such as birthday parties, graduations, emergency trips to the hospital when your dad had heart problems, things like that. But no, now you're meeting mother-of-the-girlfriend Richard and Emily, if that's where we're headed."

"I would like to think so," he muttered.

"But even more important than that, you're meeting the Richard and Emily Gilmore who are going to discover in a very short amount of time that their daughter and 18-year-old granddaughter have spent the past two weeks sharing close living quarters with a single man. Think about that."

Luke thought about it. And his life flashed in front of his eyes.

"It can't be that bad," Luke finally managed after a moment, surprised he sounded relatively normal.

Lorelai pressed a hand to his cheek. "That, people, is the sound of innocence right before it's sent through a paper shredder and torn to pieces by wild jackals."

Luke was a firm believer in facing problems head-on. Avoidance only made things worse. Granted, he wasn't always good at following his own advice, but considering Lorelai was within five heartbeats of a panic attack, he knew he had to be the rational one in this case. "Look, dealing with parents comes with the territory. Lorelai, you've wound up in the diner after almost every Friday night dinner you've had, complete with re-enactments that would put those Renaissance fair junkies to shame. I do know a little bit of what I'm getting myself into."

"No, no, no," Lorelai insisted. "You do not know what you're getting yourself into with Emily and Richard Gilmore. No one ever does. It just flattens you like Bob the Builder on an out-of-control bulldozer. Come to think of it, you two do share the same fondness for flannel."

"You realize that the five-minute warning is almost up," he pointed out.

"I know, I know. Can I jump out a window?"

"No," he said firmly. "And I'm not going to jump out one either. They're gonna find out some time. If not now, then once we get back to Stars Hollow."

"My mother has spies everywhere," Lorelai agreed. She whirled around, put her hand on the doorknob. Then she spun back to him, back against the door. "Just one more thing before we go out."

"What?"

She yanked him to her, kissing him with every ounce of desire she had hoarded in the days since they'd last been alone. He was helpless to do anything but respond, pressing her against the door as they deepened the kiss. Whatever common sense and calmness that kept him grounded in the past few minutes drained away, replaced with heat and want and more. Kissing her was like stepping into the middle of a hurricane, staring up through the eye at the stars while emotions, lust, need, and love swirled around and around, threatening to consume him. It was too much and not enough at the same time, and he never thought he could feel as much as he could when she was with him.

In many ways, it terrified him.

The need for oxygen put an end to the kiss, and they dragged in deep breaths.

"Are you OK?" Lorelai asked softly.

"I may need a few minutes," Luke confessed, knowing she could feel him pressed against her hip.

She rubbed his arm. "Just think of something disgusting."

"I'm trying." And failing. It was hard to do that when he was still pressed into her, reluctant to let her go.

"Well, think of Taylor in a bikini doing a waltz with Kirk in a panda suit." Lorelai glanced between their bodies. "That did it!"

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Luke groaned.

"No, honey, that's your reaction after seeing my parents. Or getting plastered, which I'm all in for that."

The endearment did more to calm his unease than anything. "Crazy lady," he said with a great deal of affection. Because he couldn't help himself, Luke kissed Lorelai's forehead. "Once more unto the breach?"

"Oh, very good! You're getting there!"

Lorelai had plans for the day. Very specific plans that didn't involve any sightseeing beyond the restaurant they were going to have brunch at, then admiring the view from the gorgeous and comfortable king-sized bed in their room. Preferably her view of the ceiling from said bed, but there were other interesting views as well: the wall, the headboard. Then there were the scientific experiments she planned: testing the sturdiness of the door, the mattress, and that table in the corner.

But as much as her hormones were reminding her that the last person she slept with was Chris, and that was more than a year ago, she had to know for damn sure that she and Luke wanted the same thing. Not now, but once they got back to Stars Hollow. Because this decision not only affected them and their friendship, but it touched on everything from Rory to their respective businesses to the core relationships they had with townspeople.

With Max, Lorelai hadn't thought this much. They had amazing sexual chemistry, and hindsight providing the proverbial 50-50 clarity, she had been ready to have an adult in her life and just wanted someone else around who could function in that manner. She never even considered Luke in that manner until the night they nearly kissed while hiding from the rest of the town behind the counter in the diner. But before she could start to sort through what it meant to her, Christopher had come back. Then Rachel. Then Max again. It felt like she and Luke were trapped in this cycle where they were spinning around on a ballroom floor, stretching out their hands, barely brushing fingertips before being spun away into a new dance with different partners. It was like the universe was keeping them from dancing together until suddenly he broke pattern and flew across the ocean. Then he was the only person left on Lorelai's dance card, and together they waltzed.

Right, that night binge-watching every version of Pride and Prejudice that she and Rory could find was certainly paying off.

Lorelai's stomach already skittered with nerves as she dressed in one of the few date-appropriate outfits she brought with her: a pink and yellow sundress that was fairly modest. She considered going commando beneath it: a combination of hoarding that last pair of panties to stave off laundry another day and her odds of getting very, very lucky. Then, she decided to better play it safe and resigned herself to doing laundry later in the afternoon. Maybe she could bribe Rory into doing it. She curled her hair, applied makeup, and smiled when she heard the low rumble of Luke's voice on the phone. It reminded her that she needed to call Sookie and thank her for the care package that had arrived at the room earlier that morning, with a notecard containing the word "SQUEE!" in all caps. If her inner calendar was right, Luke's original plan to be back at the diner after the cruise was some time around, well … now. The nerves kicked up more. They needed to talk about that too. She wasn't ready for him to leave yet. She wondered if he wanted to go home.

Then she walked out of the bathroom in time to have the Hindenburg that was her life crash.

Lorelai led the way into the lobby. Maybe, if she stood between Luke and her parents, she could take the bullet meant for him. That's what love was, right?

Her eyes widened with shock. Holy … ouch! She plowed into the arch that separated the front lobby from the short hall leading to their room.

"Lorelai?" Luke asked as she rubbed her nose. "Are you OK?"

"Ow," she muttered. Talk about getting hit in the face with realization.

She felt his hand on her back, absently rubbing it. "Nope, didn't pull a Geraldo Rivera there."

Luke's eyebrow arched in that I haven't a clue what you're talking about manner, so Lorelai just grinned at him. She laced her fingers with his and squeezed, determined to be a unit. Start the way you were going to continue, yes? The lobby was blessedly empty, so she allowed herself time to study him. He'd dressed in one of the cruise outfits, but it was one she bought for him two years earlier. He even shaved, which if that didn't reveal his own motives regarding their aborted plans, nothing did. She worried her lip and rocked back and forth on her heels, wondering if maybe Rory perhaps hit upon giving her parents the wrong address on purpose.

She tugged on his hand. "Is it too late for us to get drunk?"

"One of us has to drive."

"From the room to the front lobby?"

"You just collided with that archway!" Luke steered Lorelai away from an errant ottoman before she could pull a magnificent impression of Dick Van Dyke.

"Hey, it hit me first!"

"One of us needs to keep our wits about us." He sighed. "Fine, you drink, I'll take five quick shots once we hit the door."

"Great. Now where do we get the alcohol?"

"By going past that black car that just pulled up to the curb."

Lorelai mentally cursed as she saw the hired car she presumed Rory and her parents were in. She sucked in a breath and opened the front door, deciding to take this fight out of the lobby. She wanted to at least spare her professional acquaintances the horror show that was about to happen.

Luke rubbed her back once more in that soothing manner designed to calm her down, and it was actually working. It was one of the things she discovered since their kiss in Paris, that he was far more touchy-feely than she gave him credit for. They always seemed to be touching in some casual manner - hand to the small of the back, laced fingers, things that were normal for a lot of people but screamed intimacy when it came to him.

Rory came through the gate first, panic writ over her face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she hastily whispered to them.

"You didn't know, kid," Lorelai reassured her, the need to calm down her own child taking the edge off her own anxiety. "Besides," she said, resigned, "they probably would have wound up here at the inn and walked in one something highly mortifying to all of us."

"I knew you'd find a bright side while at the same time throughly scarring me for life," Rory said.

"Hey, if I wasn't the direct cause of your future therapy bills, I would be seriously failing on the job."

Richard held the gate open as Emily stepped through, and Lorelai felt her chest tighten the same way it always did as she approached the front door to her parents' house for Friday night dinner. She wondered if either Rory or Luke truly understood the anxiety that being around her parents caused her. All of her failures spun through her mind at once and she knew that as wonderful as the past two weeks had been, this would now be added to them. A growing part of her resented them for tainting this experience for her.

Emily peered over her sunglasses at the building. "Very authentic setting, Lorelai. I can see why you're wanting to do research here."

Lorelai couldn't decide if it was a compliment or an insult. She mentally girded herself for battle. She could either make an attempt at pleasantries or just dive in with both feet. Of course she chose the latter. "Mom, why are you here?"

Emily heaved patented sigh no. 3, which Lorelai put it at a 7 on the exasperation scale. "Really, Lorelai, it's a free world. There's nothing keeping your father and me from visiting Rome."

"So you suddenly had a yen to go globetrotting and just happened to pick Rome on this exact date at this exact time, which just happens to match the itinerary that Rory left you?"

"Stop being ridiculous, Lorelai," Emily scolded her. "Your father and I decided to visit Rome on a belated anniversary trip, and we wanted to surprise you girls. How could you possibly find fault with that?"

"Well, look at us! Surprised!" Lorelai mugged for her, then wondered how fast she could steer her parents back out of the garden. "You see us, we're alive, we're fine, we'll go grab some pizza somewhere after you give into your sudden urge to visit the Forum or the Pantheon. Hey, I wonder if they still do gladiator fights at the Colosseum?"

Her money had been on Emily noticing first, but when Lorelai saw her father grow still, brow furrowed as he studied Luke, that well of panic surged again. She knew the moment her father recognized him and that the jig was well and throughly up, and no blue box helmed by a British-speaking guy in a multicolored scarf would suddenly appear and whisk them all away to fight pepperpots in space.

"Well, I wasn't expecting to see you here," Richard said cordially, extending his hand to Luke.

Emily's head snapped to the right, now taking in the person hovering at Lorelai's shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

"Mr. Gilmore. Mrs. Gilmore," Luke replied politely, accepting Richard's handshake.

"What's he doing here?" Emily demanded.

Lorelai had the perfect explanation on the tip of her tongue. "Um."

"How long have the two of you been dating?"

"Um …"

Emily gestured at Luke. "Lorelai, why didn't you tell us there was someone else going on this trip with you?"

The three of them spoke up at once.

"It wasn't exactly planned!" Lorelai said as Rory added, "He surprised us in Paris!" and Luke replied, "They were in trouble, and I just helped them out."

"Will the three of you just speak one at a time?" Emily asked with growing impatience.

"Trouble?" Richard asked, focusing on what Luke said. "What kind of trouble?"

"Dad," Lorelai said, "I'm surprised you could understand any of that."

"Lorelai, I am speaking with your friend here," Richard said, turning his full attention to Luke. "What trouble were the girls in that necessitated you flying all the way from Connecticut?"

Emily zeroed in on her daughter. "Lorelai, when you have a gentleman friend of significance, it's only proper that you introduce him to your mother before he accompanies you and your teenage daughter to Europe."

"You've met Luke before. He was at my graduation," Rory reminded her.

Lorelai saw movement behind the windows of the inn and she knew what was going on - the same thing her own staff would be doing if a reality show was unfolding live on its doorstep. She used every ounce of self control not to further bait her mother at the moment. The last thing she wanted was to be the subject of further gossip, especially if she wanted to maintain professional ties with this inn. She took several deep breaths before deciding it was safe enough to talk in a normal voice.

"Maybe there's a better place to do this other than right here, Mom," she suggested.

Emily took a quick glance around the garden and also spotted the curious staff gathered at the window. "Fine, we'll go to your room."

"No!" Lorelai, Luke, and Rory yelled at once.

Emily reared back a bit with surprise. "What? Surely there's enough room in there for all of us."

"They're cleaning it," Lorelai blurted.

"What about your room?" Emily asked Luke.

"They're cleaning it too," Lorelai interjected before he was forced to lie. Whatever she could to preserve what bit of his soul remained before her parents decided it was a nummy snack. Besides, she had far more experience lying to them than he did.

"How do you know that?" Emily asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"Staying in the same inn, Mom."

"Why don't we all go have a meal like civilized people?" Richard suggested. "Then, we can discuss this situation rationally."

"Welcome to your first Friday night dinner," Rory whispered to Luke as Lorelai signaled for her fourth mimosa. "The setting's different, and it's the middle of the day, but the ambience is the same."

"Is it like this every time?" he whispered back, his eyes following the fighting between Lorelai and her parents like it was Wimbledon. "I thought your mom was exaggerating."

"Mom's a bit prone to dramatics …"

"… A bit prone?"

Rory snickered. "But in this case, not so much." She patted his arm. "How are you holding up?"

They wound up at the restaurant where Luke and Lorelai had planned their brunch, crowded around a circular table. Rory and Lorelai had immediately flanked Luke upon entering the restaurant, refusing to let him sit anywhere but between the two of them. It was another layer of bizarre to add onto an utterly surreal day, but he appreciated the show of solidarity from the girls. It wasn't the first time they'd done something like that on the trip. Luke prided himself on how well he knew the Gilmore girls, but discovering they knew him just as well came completely out of left field. Every time one of them went out for coffee, they returned with a go-cup of tea among their bounties. Somewhere, somehow they tracked down fresh fruits and vegetables to go with their candy haul. Every place they decided to eat had at least one thing he liked. And while he got a healthy amount of ribbing for his diet, he never felt like he was a burden on them. It was all sorts of strange, but nice.

"I'm OK," he told Rory.

"Don't worry, Mom's trying to think of an escape plan," Rory reassured him.

"How can you tell?"

Rory nodded at Lorelai. "Look at the set of her mouth as she's drinking that mimosa. That is Mom in escape-plan mode."

"It's not that bad, Rory."

Rory patted Luke's arm. "Oh, you sweet summer child. There. There, you see the flick of the eyes? Very good, very good. She's going to sacrifice herself so the two of us can make an escape."

Luke squinted at Lorelai. She was almost through that fourth mimosa, and her face was taunt with stress, but otherwise she wasn't acting out of character. "You can tell that from the flick of her eyes?"

"Not just that. See how she has her fork and knife arranged at 10 and 2 on her plate? And how the toast is perfectly bitten into the shape of a C? Right, so I am going to get horrible cramps and you're going to take me back to the inn so I can get some medicine."

Luke just stared at Rory. "You got that from utensil placement?"

"Mom and I have developed an intricate system over the years."

"The CIA's clearly missing out by not hiring the two of you."

"OK, so I'm going to move …"

"Rory." Luke grabbed her arm before she could go into full fake cramp mode. "I'm not going to leave your mom like this. It's not right. I'm the reason why she's having to go through this, so I'm staying here."

"Actually, if you really want to get technical, I'm the reason thanks to the whole pregnant at 16 thing, but …"

"You could have called us." Emily's voice cut through their whispered conversation. "Why didn't you call us?"

"To prevent the exact thing that's happening right now where you're ganging up on me and treating me like I'm 15 again!" Lorelai replied. "Look, I wasn't hurt, I called Luke, he lent us the money, and we're fine!"

"He clearly felt the need to deliver the money in person." Emily's full attention now turned to him, and Luke's stomach sank. He stared down at his plate, not quite sure what it was he even ordered to begin with. It had lots of vegetables, some pita bread, some hummus. He'd taken maybe two bites out of it.

"I don't understand why Western Union couldn't have sufficed," Emily continued. "It's not like you were just standing in an airport looking at a departure board and suddenly decided to fly to Europe, did you?"

"Haha, funny story," Lorelai started, but Emily silenced her with a searing glare.

"I want to hear it from him," she retorted.

"He has a name," Luke muttered in the general direction of his plate, missing Lorelai's look of approval at his smartass remark. He sighed and finally met Emily's gaze, then Richard's. "Look, I just wanted to make sure they were safe."

"And that's it? You closed your place of business-," Emily started to say.

"It's not closed."

Emily sighed. "Fine, left it in the hands of an underling-"

"I trust Caesar completely," Luke replied through gritted teeth, insulted on his behalf.

"To fly half way across the world just to make sure Lorelai and Rory were safe?"

"Isn't that exactly what the two of you are doing?" Luke shot back.

Emily swallowed, opened her mouth as if prepping another retort, then reached for her water glass.

Luke sat back, a bit stunned that he might, just might have outwitted Emily Gilmore. The shock on Lorelai and Rory's faces seemed to back that up.

As if to acknowledge the end of round 1, Richard waved the server over for the bill. "Why don't we get in a bit of sightseeing this afternoon? That will be all five of us, do I make myself clear?"