A/N: Here it is, dear readers – the end of the road. If I could have chosen for myself how I would like to read the ending to a story, it would have been in one seating, so I've decided to update the latest chapters together. Thanks to everyone who's made it this far – I hope that, in the end, I could make this journey worthwhile. To all those who shared their interest, love and insight – you definitely made mine.

Paris, Texas

"Hey, Gilmore. Is your life such a fun-ride that you can't even give me a call to catch up? Will I have to drag you to New York to be able to see you? The kids miss you, you know? They ask about you with puppy faces – Rory faces, if you ask me. What does that say about you? How can you make them love you and then deny them your presence? What life lesson are you teaching them here? That you cannot trust those who you love, that everybody ultimately disappears –therefore, dies? What are you, the baby-faced angel of death? I can't have any of that with my kids! Call me back. Don't, actually. Materialize here as soon as possible, or I'll kick your ass."

Rory was grabbing a coffee at her favorite place near Columbia when she heard Paris' voice message. Damn Paris. How could she say that? She felt guilty, nonetheless. But she didn't like being made feel guilty by Paris. She had just survived one of the top low months in her existence. It was time to face the kraken. She grabbed her coffee and walked briskly to her car, and when she got to Paris', half an hour later, considerably worked up after replaying in her head a thousand different ways of breaking the pregnancy news to her and her friend's reactions, she rang the bell with a force that startled her. Paris herself opened the door.

"Good! Glad I managed to kick some sense into you, Gilmore. It's just a pity that the kids are out with Doyle tonight, you won't be able to baby-face your way back to their hearts. I guess you'll just have to keep on putting the effort."

"Well, I'm glad they're not here, because I wouldn't want to teach them that friends can argue like teenagers. Wait, you must have already done that, you… stern-faced angel of anger!"

Paris burst out laughing. "Thank god you still have it, Gilmore! Show me more of it, I love it. I was getting tired of mopey Rory, dragging her sorry ass across the world without the guts to face the reality of her 30-year career and love life crisis. Tell me, how has been life kicking you in the gut lately?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, brace yourself."

Rory opened her coat, revealing her almost 5-month belly. Paris' jaw dropped. "Come inside." Rory followed her to the living room, where Paris turned and looked at her with the same face she had when she thought Rory had betrayed her to Francie. "Why didn't you tell me? Me, the single most knowledgeable person you could ask for advice on this matter? Your true friend for years?"

Rory didn't know anymore if she was hurt, angry, or sorry. "I did go through a 30-year crisis, OK? I'm still going through it, I think. I felt so lonely on this… but I couldn't do the Rory schtick anymore, I had to figure everything out on my own, figure if I wanted to keep the baby, what I wanted to do with my life, because I'm going to have to live with this decision for the rest of my life. Just me, Paris, not you, not my mom, not anyone. The thousand directions my head was pulling to were enough for me, I couldn't deal with everyone else's, so I basically shut everyone out until I was 3 months in. And then…"

"Yeah?"

"January hasn't been the greatest of months, alright?" Rory started crying. "I'm going through a lot right now. But I do need you, I do wanted to tell you, and I'm ready for some Paris bashing. But please don't ever say again that I don't love your kids, because it breaks my heart. You're right about having missed some precious months of their lives, it won't happen again. I've been selfish. I'm sorry."

Paris stood for a moment and then hugged Rory. It was one of the awkwardest hugs Rory had experienced – it tried to convey love by sheer strength, and competed in the Luke category of weird arm placements – but it felt great nonetheless.

"OK, you need to tell me everything. Sit down." Rory sat on the couch and Paris sat across her, on the coffee table. "Logan's, right?"

Rory nodded.

"And you're not getting back with him, correct?"

Rory shook her head. "But we've figured things out. He's going to be there for the baby, and support him financially, but not me. I'm doing this on my own."

"Good girl. You truly are your mom's daughter." Rory smiled. "So, how are you going to support yourself financially?"

"Chilton. I've started teaching some part-time extracurricular courses there, and I'm getting my masters at Columbia so I can eventually teach full time. That's why I came so quickly."

"Sounds sensible, but how are you going to support yourself morally?"

"Meaning?"

"You don't strike me as the motherly or academic type, Gilmore. It's not an insult, I'm not either. I mean that I don't think that you're going to be content with just educating your or someone else's kid. What's going to drive your professional ambition? Chilton doesn't seem to cut it."

Rory winced. If anyone was capable of seeing the wrong in the only thing that made sense for her at the moment, that was Paris. "The book."

"What book?"

"I'm writing me and my mom's story."

Paris seemed to ponder the idea. "You know, I might seem like the Ice Queen to you, but I literally just got chills from that." Rory repressed a sob. She could tell Paris was proud of her, and she couldn't remember a time where she had seen that from her – maybe when she got back to Yale. It was painful to think that both going back to Yale and the book had been prompted by Jess. "It's actually great, Rory. It's so… you. And it's funny, because I hadn't thought about it, but I see it… Yeah, it's going to be great. How did you come up with that idea?"

Rory buried her face in her hands and mumbled. "Jess."

"It's a mess? Well, everything is, wait until you go on labor."

"No, I said Jess. Jess gave me the idea."

"I was wondering about the breakdown, since you seem to have everything so apparently tied out, and now I see. So, Jess is back. Talk about returning from the dead." Rory glared at her friend. "Hey, I'm not judging! I mean… My Tristan meltdown doesn't qualify me to criticize anyone's love life."

Rory exhaled and explained in detail everything that had happened in the past months, about writing the book, about realizing her feelings for Jess, about their short period together and their "breakup". She even skimmed through their past history so her friend could have the whole background. Paris nodded through the story but never interrupted her.

"I would have given it a try, with him, you know? The whole family thing. There was something about him… I don't know. It sent my motherly instinct into overdrive."

"He fucked you senseless, you mean."

Rory sighed. "Yeah, that too."

"You know, I always thought you two would end up together somewhere along the road."

"How so?"

"I don't know, he was special. For you. He was an ass, mind you, but he stirred the pot big time. It's funny how he can still do that."

"I'm not really laughing at his capacity to shake me up at the moment."

"Sure, who wants their shit shaken? Still, you two are behaving like frigging cowards."

"How so? I mean, look at my love life's records. I really did try to do things properly this time. I love him, I want him to be happy. It was too much to ask from him."

"You're so thick, Gilmore, that I don't know how you managed to graduate from Yale."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Get your head outta your ass for once, OK? Look at the big picture: Jess, who never had a father figure or a family to support him, and who's clearly always been in love with you…"

"We don't know that. We don't know if he still is."

"…yeah, whatever. So, you cross his path once more, in seemingly the worst moment possible, and he's willing to try things out, but you never tell him how you really feel about him and suddenly he sees you, with Logan, in the prick's best performance ever."

"Hey! That's the father of my baby you're talking about there."

"Right, so, media mogul makes the moral comeback of the century, Jess watches it, and having had no long-lasting relationship in his life (that you know of), which means probably no other big love, sees you there having a meaningful, deep conversation with someone you have great history with, who's none other than the person you chose instead of Jess back in the day (we're really not accounting for the Philadelphia incident as much as we should), and, being deeply in love as he is, and having always cared for your welfare, thinks who am I to break a family up, when I didn't have one? How could Rory choose differently, in the Jess-Logan war, having already made that decision in her life once, and especially now that there's a baby involved? And so he gives you the easy way out, and you take it. You swallow hook, line and sinker while thinking all the time that you're doing him a favor. He's back at home crying that you didn't love him enough to stop him, and I'm positive about this."

"I'm pregnant with Logan's baby, Paris. How could he ever be OK with that? Even if he loved me… I think he must be relieved."

"You think, you thought. Who cares? You can be so self-centered, Gilmore. What does he think? Has he told you?"

"No."

"Right, you didn't ask, you just jumped to the comfortable conclusion so you could be the savior and not the punisher for once. Hey, it's understandable – I can see that you're also trying to move on with a clean slate in your love life. You don't have the best track record, to be honest. But you'll need to get your hands dirty, woman, because this is some sort of karmic retribution. You want to do things right? Go join a NGO, save lives and cut this bullshit. You want to be happy? Toughen up and admit your feelings. Maybe he doesn't love you. Maybe he does, but doesn't want to be with the mother of Huntzberger dragons. But you know what? There's a chance. There's a chance you both fucked up and chose to do the right thing, when the right thing was wrong. He put himself out of the picture, he won't be coming back to beg, as much as he fucked up by doing so. Swallow your pride and give the first step. You need to do it."

Rory was really starting to believe that Paris had a point. She was afraid of being hopeful – she didn't think she could take anymore heartbreak – but she was. She probably was going mad – she was considering that Paris' advice was actually good.

"You have a point, Paris."

"God, I think this must be the first trumpet of Apocalypse. Are you, Rory Gilmore, telling me, Paris Geller, that you will consider my love advice?"

"I… yeah?"

"What's more, are you telling me that, if everything works out in the end, it might be all thanks to me? The biggest romantic fiasco in the city?"

"Mmm… yes?"

"OK, so the way I see it, this should warrant me a pretty special position in the baby's life… as a godmother, maybe…"

"Well…"

"I know, I know. Lane has probably taken up that spot. Damn diversity quotas… There's still another very special position to be taken that would just fit me right."

"I'm listening. With a certain degree of apprehension."

"I want to be the baby's fairy wombmother."

"That sounds dangerously like a doula."

"Don't even mention those shamans to me. I mean that I want to be in charge of monitoring your pregnancy and labor."

"Yeah, right. There's no way in hell you're going near my uterus."

"Why not? I mean, I'm really interested about it, I always imagined it would be as pink as Jessica's."

"Why were you thinking about my uterus? And who the hell is Jessica?"

"My biggest asset! My Texan champion, my surrogate princess. Oh, you could have been such a great surrogate. Consider it if things go wrong at Chilton."

"You're creeping me out."

"Alright, alright. I'll put the best doctor in my medical team in charge of your pregnancy, and I won't go near your uterus. But you have to do this for me."

"OK… You can be my fairy wombmother. I've been to three ob/gyns already and none has worked for me anyway."

Paris hugged her. "Thank you, thank you! You won't be disappointed, I swear. So, are you going to go to Jess now? You're in the area, after all."

Rory panicked. "Huh… no? But I will, soon. There's something I need to finish first."

Paris nodded. "Good woman. So, tell me: boy or girl?"