Author's Note: Your support continues to mean the world to me! I would have never thought that this odd little story about Gigi Hayden would have reached so many reviews already! Truly, you guys rock.

Special thanks to Anna Luna who informed me that Gigi now has her own character category, a fact I'm extremely happy about (btw, does anyone else besides me find it extremely funny that both Matt and Chris from Truncheon also have their own character categories on fanfiction, despite the fact we only see them in one episode?). I did find out, though, that according to the credits on Season Seven, Gigi is actually spelled "G.G.," which I don't like (please, fanfiction, don't change her label to "G.G. H"!). However, in the spirit of keeping canon, I have added an explanation for the change in spelling with her name.

Fun fact: this chapter mentions Lorelai and Luke having the beginning and ending of the same dream. This actually happened to my parents, though in their cases, it was about our city water being shipped to us. I thought a coffee shipment (in both of their minds, because Lorelai would have kept rambling about it) was much more appropriate!

Kudos to you if you can spot the very minor Pushing Daisies reference. It's my favorite TV show after GG, and I'm beyond sad that it was canceled.

P.S. Question: Did Lorelai and Christopher's infamous wedding party ever end up happening? This chapter makes a reference to it, but I could never tell from the episodes whether it did.

Once upon a time, a little girl met the son of her parents' good friends. Since both the little girl and little boy were around the same age (and, perhaps more importantly, from comparable backgrounds), both children were encouraged to spend time together.

Their parents' meddling worked, for the most part. Both children shared a dislike for the pretentious families they had been brought up in and became close friends and partners in crime. At fourteen, the girl kissed the boy because "she just wanted to see what it would be like". Soon after, they started an on-and-off relationship, which would not completely end until over twenty years later.

When the girl was sixteen, she found herself pregnant with the boy's child. This created quite the scandal. The girl was ostracized by her friends, and both the boy's and her families became the center of gossip. Wanting to maintain their reputations, the girl's parents set down a simple ground rule for both children: get married. The girl refused. Not realizing that "no, I don't want to marry you" didn't mean "I don't want you in our daughter's life," the boy became a less-than-active father.

The girl-now a young woman-raised her daughter by herself. Whereas she had been taught to be "seen and not heard," her daughter was taught to enjoy her childhood. Still, not all was carefree. In spite of the various birthdays and phone calls that he had missed, the woman still clung to the fantasy that someday her daughter's father would change, and the three could be a true family. He was not mature enough now, and she did not hesitate to refuse his various marriage proposals over the years, but someday, if he became more mature…well, perhaps it was possible.

In the middle of all this, the woman met a man-a grumpy, yet strangely attractive man, who owned the town's local diner. Though he was not known for his love of kids, he ended up being an almost surrogate father to the woman's daughter. Perhaps just as importantly, he also served a good coffee. This, combined with the banter the two got into whenever the woman entered his diner, made the woman and her daughter frequent customers at his establishment.

Some details have been omitted from this story. Their names are "Max," "Rachel," "Sherry," "Alex," "Nicole," and "Jason," in addition to all of the flings the daughter's father had over the years. Still, suffice to say, as time went on, the woman found herself rethinking whether she and her daughter's father could ever really become a family. He had married someone else, after all. Her daughter was nearly grown. And as wonderful as being a family would be, did she really want to continue to wait for him to get his act together, especially when she was in denial about her feelings for someone else?

She was asked to stand still. She asked the question back. And, in some ways, this is where the story truly began.

Time will be skipped. Still, some facts are important. He was the first man she let into her house and the first man she unquestionably loved. Later, she would even propose to him. Though she had thought she had loved her daughter's father, this was different. She had been a mere teenager at the time. Now, she was in her thirties, and everything was going better than she had dreamed. At least until his wife left him. Though she and her now-boyfriend got over that hump, it did not completely go away.

And then the rain came. He, the only man who had always been there for her, pushed her away, and she found herself more broken than she had ever been before. Exhausted and desperate, she issued an ultimatum. He said no. He had his daughter to think of, after all. She walked away. Finding herself with no one to turn to, she ended up in her oldest friend's arms.

There are a lot of possible reasons for the "I slept with Christopher" and eventual wedding ring that followed. One possible reason is that the woman had never completely gotten over her first love, and when she finally realized that the three of them (plus his other daughter) could finally become a family, she jumped at the opportunity. Another is that he was a rebound and it was easier to be the one who hurt her ex-fiancé, than the one who was hurt by him. Still another is that she simply gave up. Her daughter was out of the house, and she was nearing forty, and now that she had had a taste of companionship, she did not want to be alone. She was good at being in denial, and after eight years of denying her feelings for her coffee supplier, one year wasn't that long in the grand scheme of thing.

Besides, she had lived her whole life upsetting her parents. Though she liked that about herself, deep down inside of her was the little girl, begging for approval. Her parents approved of him. So perhaps that was part of it, too.

Whatever the reason was, one thing cannot be denied. They were not able to stay together. Though he was "the man she wanted to want," their relationship was not written in the stars; the horoscope had said something else. For a time, she didn't know what she wanted, but after a search for a new car, a drunken love song, and the reciprocation she had never dared to hope for, one thing became clear: Christopher or no Christopher, she was in love with Luke Danes. And that had never really stopped.

As the years passed, their year apart became less and less significant. They finally got married and had a family together, and after lots and lots of conversations, "Christopher" no longer became as taboo a word in their household. She had chosen Luke over Christopher, and that was how it would remain. Though she had not talked to Christopher since a brief phone call nine months after their daughter's graduation, he was still her daughter's father. Rory made an effort not to talk about her father, and it was safe to say she was closer with her mother's family than her dad's, but he was still her father. Now that he had an "Anna," this was something Luke could understand.

In spite of all this, it had taken Lorelai Gilmore-Danes a long time to finally come to terms with how many people she had hurt and led on during her whirlwind marriage. Rory. Luke. Christopher. Even her parents, to some extent. Rory and Luke had reassured her, and she had known Christopher would get over it eventually, but even that did not erase the many people she had hurt.

What she did not realize, though, was that there was one person she had forgotten to take into the equation…a little girl, struggling to understand the concept of her mother being back in her life. The one person she had inadvertently hurt the most.

Lorelai lay in bed late that night, thinking about Gigi. G.G., she had simply been then. Rory had told her how, a couple of years ago, Gigi had changed her name, when she became increasingly sick of people asking what her initials stood for. The fact that even Sherry's own daughter hated her name had amused Lorelai and Rory greatly. Even years later, Lorelai and Rory had not stopped joking about how green was the new pink.

Still, aside from brief comments of, "How's your dad and sister?", Lorelai had never stopped to think about Gigi very much over the years. April had quickly become her stepdaughter, and the two were much closer than Gigi and Lorelai had been. Perhaps that was not fair, seeing as there was a nearly eleven year difference between Gigi and April, but there it was. When she and Luke had started their own family, she became too preoccupied with her own kids (and occasionally running into or babysitting Liz's, Sookie's, and Lane's) to give much time or thought to anyone else's.

Over the years, she had occasionally wondered how Gigi was doing. It was still surreal to her that after the way he had bailed on Rory, Christopher was now a single dad himself. She had hoped that he was okay. While it was true she had seen Sherry's car seat for Gigi with her own eyes, she still remembered the woman Sherry had been before. Yoga could not fix all of her problems. Sherry was still materialistic and sometimes judgmental and selfish, and none of these traits were endearing to a young child. From personal experience with her own mother, Lorelai knew better than anyone.

But how could she have been so selfish? How could she have forgotten how tightly Gigi had clung to her during the ride to Paris or the way Gigi had petted Paul Anka, looking so much at home? She had assumed Francine had told Gigi awful things about her-God, she could still remember Francine's narrowed eyes at that god awful wedding party-but she had never realized how deep Gigi's anger really was.

When Gigi had talked to Lorelai over the phone after hearing of her dad's marriage, she had sounded excited. Though it had been one thing to disappoint her own daughter, who had already been an adult at the time of the whirlwind marriage and divorce, it was very different to disappoint a little girl.

Luke, as though sensing her discomfort, began to stir. That was the thing about the two of them. Once, they had had the beginning and ending of the same dream-in his, he had been waiting for a new shipment of coffee, and in hers, they had finally received it-and Lorelai had often joked that their minds were linked. It actually appeared to be true; whenever she woke up in the middle of the night, upset about something, Luke always seemed to know. Even if they had wanted to, they could not keep secrets from each other anymore.

Luke stretched for a few moments, before seeming to notice that she was awake. "Are you okay?" he said softly, touching her shoulder.

Lorelai sighed and rolled over to face him. "I'm just thinking about Gigi. God, that poor girl. How could I have ever been so selfish, Luke? I mean, I didn't even say goodbye."

He had known how upset she was about Gigi from the tears and attempted phone calls that had followed the initial call. "You weren't being selfish, Lorelai," said Luke gently. "You were letting her dad deal with it. I mean, he was her father. You barely lived with Gigi for a few months."

"Yeah, but she had a sucky mother. Sure things with Sherry were going pretty well at the time, but I had still seen Gigi more in the past two years than Sherry had. I should have known Gigi would be upset with me, goddammit! I should have taken that little girl into my arms, said goodbye, and apologized to her! She already had a mother who left her; she didn't need a stepmom who left, too."

Luke brushed a stray hair out of her face. "She was so young at the time, you probably didn't even realize she'd remember it. I mean, that girl was pretty little throughout all of it."

"Yeah, but I should have. You know, when I was three-years-old, I got sick during one of my mother's dinner parties, and after I threw up, the only thing my mom could do was yell at my nanny at the time for not realizing I was sick. Just as if I hadn't been complaining that I didn't feel well all throughout the dinner!"

Though she had told Luke countless stories of her childhood, Luke's anger after hearing them had never subsided. "She really did that to you?"

"Yeah, she really did. Takes you back to when she yelled at us, after Lucy got sick during one of Friday night dinners-my mother, in denial about the fact that Lucy wasn't actually sick and was just traumatized that she had eaten Thumper."

"God, I wanted to kill her after she did that. Neither Will or Lucy would watch anything with rabbits in it for weeks. It just so happened that Bambi was the only movie that would entertain them while I was cooking, too."

"The point is, things like this stick out when you're a kid! I should have realized that in Gigi's little mind, me leaving her and her dad was no better than her mom leaving her. I hate to think about the poor girl, crying out in a hotel room somewhere. Comforting people has never been Chris's thing."

"She's going to be okay."

Lorelai took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. It was so dark inside that she could barely make out any details. "You know what I keep thinking about? I hate to bring it up, but I'm just remembering how, after Christopher read my character reference, he told me that he needed to choose between you and him-that you couldn't be part of my life anymore, in any way. And I was really struggling with it when I walked in front of the diner and saw you waving at me. And how…well, in that moment, I just knew. I mean, you came to the hospital for me after a huge, earth shattering fight, and Christopher turned off the phone after a relatively tiny one in comparison."

Even in the dark, she could tell that Luke was smiling. "Well, I can't tell you how happy I am with your choice."

"But you know the weird thing?" She let out a tiny laugh. "I knew what it was like to live without Christopher. I mean, for years he was always this sporadic thing, and then there was that whole year I didn't talk to him because of the way he acted at my parents' vow renewal. I won't say it was pleasant to break bonds with him-he was my oldest friend, after all-but it was also surprisingly…easy. I guess it wasn't that different from what it's always been. Living without you would be…unbearable. Even occasionally seeing each other in town that year would have been better than nothing. I might have been in denial at some points, but I always knew my choice."

She turned back to Luke and swallowed hard. "You do realize I'm going to have to talk to him, don't you? I don't want to…but I have to. For Gigi's sake, not his."

Luke let out a sigh. "I know. Just be…careful. You told me how he freaked about you giving Gigi advice before."

"Yeah, but it's really something he should know. Think about it. What if it was April or Will or Lucy, feeling that neglected, and they hadn't told you about it? Wouldn't you want to know?"

Luke spoke softly. "Of course I'd want someone to tell me. I'd be in hell if they didn't. But you're forgetting something."

She frowned. "What is it?"

"I'd be just as upset if it was Rory."

She found herself beginning to smile. "Yeah. I know that, too."

Sometimes, Lorelai still couldn't believe that she had been able to finally make a family with Luke. After all of their ups and downs over the years, it was amazing that they had found their middle, after all. Rory would always be her firstborn and best friend, but Will and Lucy were different. They were both Luke's and her children, and it amazed Lorelai that their love had created such perfect individuals. Lorelai always made sure to tell them the story of she and Luke, so that Lucy and Will always knew how much they had both been wanted.

After Luke had drifted back to sleep, Lorelai snuck into the hotel room Will and Lucy were staying in. There slept her sleeping angels, their chests falling in rhythmic ups and downs.

She sat down on Lucy's bed first. The little girl was snuggled next to Susannah Hoffs and Pigby, her stuffed pig, and her dark curls were spread over her pillow. She whispered a soft, "I love you" into Lucy's ear and kissed her forehead, before moving on to Will's bed.

Unlike Lucy, who had inherited the deep sleeping gene from her father, Will woke up as soon as Lorelai sat down on his bed. He blinked in the darkness, before lowering his voice to a whisper. "Mom, what are you doing?" he said, with a twinge of amusement. "Are you here to tell me of alien invasion, like in War of the Worlds?"

Lorelai suppressed a grin. Though she often teased Will, who was the splitting image of his father, that he was all Danes and no Gilmore, this was not true. Like Rory, he was a sweet, studious kid who loved to read, and every time Will made pop culture references, Lorelai was reminded that he was her son, after all. Even Luke had joined in their family's game of making pop culture references whenever possible. "No, I'm actually here to inform you that we need to take flight, like in 2012. I guess 2012 wasn't the year of the apocalypse after all."

Will yawned. "As long as they're not zombies, I'm good." On more than one occasion, Luke had ranted about the various zombie apocalypse films that had been made over the years. Though Lorelai (and sometimes Rory) always watched them when the children were asleep, Will and Lucy, who was terrified of zombies, had witnessed their father's rants about them on more than one occasion. "Maybe you should give me a zombie gun for Christmas so we'll be safe."

"In contrast to a BB gun, you mean?"

"Well, I've never gotten a C+ on an essay, so I think I deserve it. I'll give it to Dad to shoot the zombies."

"But what if you and Lucy get separated from us? You'll need some way to survive!"

"We'll close our eyes and put our arms out and pretend to be zombies. Oh, and we can probably break into Dad's diner and use the ketchup like blood, so the zombies don't get suspicious."

Lorelai laughed. After glancing over at his sleeping sister, Will turned back to his mom. In a voice that was very similar to the young Rory's whenever she had been concerned about her mother, Will said quietly, "Are you okay?"

Lorelai sighed. Though she hadn't told her kids all of the details, not wanting them to dislike Gigi if they ever came into contact with her again (something that seemed likely, seeing as it appeared an engagement for Rory was not far away), they had known she was upset. Will, in particular, was always sensitive to his mother's moods.

"Yeah, I'm feeling better," she said, forcing her voice to be more chipper. "I just wanted to say hello to my youngest child and one and only son, that's all."

"Right now?"

"Don't mock the time a mother's love clicks in!" Lorelai said with a pout. "I love you every moment of the day, even right now at one-thirty in the morning! Are you insinuating that I need to save my love for a later hour?"

Will giggled. Though he pretended to have inherited his father's grumpiness towards all of the insane things she said, his smiles and laughter always said otherwise. Not that Luke wasn't secretly amused by her, either.

Lorelai put her arm around her son's small shoulders and spoke in a softer tone. "I just wanted to tell you how much I love you-you and your sister both. You two have no idea how much you were wanted. Sometimes, I still have to pinch myself, I'm so happy."

Will snuggled into her embrace. "I love you, too."

"You know what? I think I should tell you the story of the day you were born. I know it's not your birthday yet, but it seems appropriate. What do you say, Will? Shall we break a tradition?"

Her son shrugged, his eyes now closed. "Maybe tomorrow night. I'm tired."

Lorelai chuckled, realizing how heavy her own eyes were. "Okay, little boy. We have a deal."

She gazed down at Will, who had placed his head on her shoulder. From the other bed, Lucy hugged Susannah Hoffs in her sleep. If Lorelai listened hard enough, she could almost make out Luke's snores from the other room.

She found herself thinking of Christopher. It was a shame that he had never gotten a chance to raise a child with a partner. With Gigi, he had been away on business trips before Sherry had left, and with Rory…well, she didn't even have to finish that thought. Her experience with Will and Lucy was so different, and she found herself wishing that all single parents would eventually get a chance to experience raising children the more traditional way. Maybe it would be good for Chris to marry his current girlfriend. Brat children or no brat children, it would probably do Gigi a lot of good to have a more stable female figure in her life.

Startling her out of her thoughts, Will spoke one more thing before he drifted off to sleep. "Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Do you think you could stay with me until I fall asleep? Don't tell her I said it, but Lucy's not the only one who hates zombies."

She tried her best not to laugh. "Of course, Will. I'll stay for as long as you need."

Rory was supportive when Lorelai called her early that morning, before they were set to meet for breakfast, to ask for Christopher's number. "I think it's great you're doing this," she said sincerely. "I'm really worried about Gigi, too. She hasn't even called me back, and I don't think she's ever been mad at me before."

"You don't think it will be awkward, with me talking to your dad again?"

Rory sighed on the other line. "Mom, I honestly do think it might be awkward. You have so much history together, and you already told me what running into him was like. But Dad needs to get over this. If he hasn't realized by now that you have your own life, then that's his fault, not yours. Anyway, you're doing it for Gigi. I'm sure he'll be flattered that you think of his daughter so highly."

"Really? He won't just hang up at me for daring to give my input on Gigi?"

Rory hesitated. "Well, I think there's a chance. Still, after Dad thinks about it for a while, I'm sure he'll realize you were doing the right thing."

"I guess you're right." Lorelai paused, realizing something. "You know, you didn't ask me whether I'd asked Luke. I mean, obviously I have, and he agrees that I need to do this, but still. It's something I thought you'd asked."

"I guess, Mom, the reason I didn't ask is because I knew I didn't have to anymore. You and Luke are so connected, and…" Rory laughed. "Well, I know this sounds corny, but you and Luke are my inspiration for being married someday. I think I have a lot to learn from you two."

Though touched by her daughter's words, Lorelai fell back on humor to lighten the situation. "Even with two breakups, one broken engagement, and a year apart?"

Rory's voice was firm. "Even with that. You learned to forgive each other, Mom. That's not something you can just teach."

Lorelai smiled, taking this. "Well, thanks, sweets. That means a lot."

After dialing Christopher's cell after ending her call with Rory, Lorelai soon became aware of an important fact: it was one thing to run into Christopher. Actually putting herself in a situation where she needed to speak with him was very different.

"Hello?"

Lorelai let out a breath. "Hey, Chris. It's me."