Disclaimer: This is an original story based upon the characters of Gilmore Girls. No profit will be made from this story and no copyright infringment is intended.

Author's note: Thank you all for the kind feedback. I really appreciate you all taking the time to read my stories and tell me what you think. I hope you like this next installment. Sorry again for taking so long to update.

Sweatshirt--the very name disgusted her. Why in Heaven's name would anyone want to wear anything with such a revolting name? However, she was freezing and as she looked through Lorelai's strange array in her closet, there appeared to be very little option. As she put in on, she was suprised at how instantly warm and comfortable she felt. She sat down on Lorelai's bed and combed out her wet hair with shaking hands. Everything was happening too fast. Just an hour ago they had been watching a movie together, things had been fine and now...she was going to go down there and hear what happened after her daughter left her. The missing sixteen years...sixteen years...it made her dizzy to think about it. She wasn't ready for this. She walked slowly back down the stairs, ignoring the amused look on her daughter's face at seeing her in a sweatshirt. Instead, there was something in Lorelai's face that disturbed her. She hadn't noticed before how pale her daughter looked.

"Are you feeling alright?" Emily asked as she sat down next to her.

Lorelai nodded, "Are you warm enough?"

Emily nodded in response and they fell into an uncomfortable silence. The only sound was the rain outside and the occasional crack of thunder. They had never been much for talking to eachother. In the early days it had been different, there had been such affection between mother and daughter that it hadn't mattered that they didn't really talk. But as time went on, as the chasm of different dreams deepened between them, their inability to communicate proved to be the destructive force in their relationship. Both Emily and Lorelai sat quietly, wondering if after all this time, after all the fighting and hurtful words...was it possible to really talk?

"Mom," Lorelai said quietly.

"Yes?" Emily replied, staring at her hands.

"Mom..."Lorelai said again, her voice shaking. "You...we...we don't have to do this right now...Not if you don't want to."

Again the silence fell between them. Finally Emily spoke, "Tell me, I...I want to understand."

Lorelai looked down at her hands and twisted them back and forth uncomfortably. She would never have believed she would be doing this, never believed that she would be telling her mother of all people about her past. She really had only said what she did out of spite. Then she looked up at her mother and saw the look in her eyes. It was the same look she saw the night her mother had stayed in the hospital with her. It was a look she knew all to well, stemming from that awful and wonderful thing that is a mother's love.

"Lorelai," her mother's voice broke the silence. "Please."

"What do you want to know?" Lorelai asked.

Emily cursed under her breath as she felt tears burn in her eyes. What did she want to know? What more did she ever want to know then the question that had haunted her for over twenty years. Through the worry, the court case, the endless years of estrangement, one question had burned in her heart.

"Why?" she breathed.

Lorelai looked down at her hands again for a long time.

"Lorelai?" her mother prodded, suddenly feeling desperate, as if she could not go one more minute without knowing.

"Do you remember that trip we took to the seashore when Rory was six months old?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," Emily replied, wondering what that had to do with anything.

Lorelai stopped again and turned towards the window. After a minute, she turned back to face her. "I went shopping one afternoon with Rory in this little shop along the beach. I was pushing her in the stroller when I saw this little girl looking at the collection of snow globes. She was fascinated with them and she had money crumpled in her hand that I knew she was going to buy one with. Her mom came up behind her and she asked her mom to tell her which one she should buy. I'll never forget what the mom said. She said, 'That's your choice, you choose whatever one will make you happy.' As soon as she said that I started to cry. The thought of choosing something, deciding something for yourself...I realized that my whole life I'd been having things chosen for me, what I did with my life, what I wore, what I ate, what I studied, was all chosen for me. I didn't want that life anymore. I was tired of sneaking around Mom. I was tired of only doing what I wanted behind your back and trying to please you while you where there and never getting there. I couldn't do it anymore Mom. I didn't want that life for me anymore and I didn't want that life for Rory."

Emily was quiet, the words cut too deep for criticism or sarcasm which were her defenses when her daughter hurt her. Now, it was more than Lorelai being flippant, it was the truth and she knew it. She drew in a deep breath to steady herself and clutched the side of the couch. Her mind went back to the court dates, the awful, humiliating court dates when her daughter sat at one side of the room and they sat at the other.

"You didn't bring the baby," Emily said standing up as her daughter walked down the hall of the courthouse.

"No, can we just get this over with please, I have work to do,"

Richard was silent, he was always silent now...he had given up the night he had gone to get his daughter and come home empty handed.

The court date had gone like all the others, mother and daughter fighting, father silent, judge mediating the lost cause of putting a family back together. They had been walking out of the building when Lorelai called out to her.

"I'll be in the car," Richard grumbled and left without looking at Lorelai.

"Mom," she said when she caught up to Emily. "You need to listen to me. I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Dad. I need to do this. I need to be on my own. If you force me to come back I will run away again and keeping running away. I'll be eighteen in less than a year Mom and if you force me to stay at the house until then I swear I will have a Uhaul in the driveway the morning of my birthday and I will go as far away as I can. Right now, I'm a half hour away and I will call and you can come visit."

"Lorelai, you are not calling the shots here," Emily retorted.

"No Mom, for once in my life I am...let me go."

Emily rubbed her fingers against the bridge of her nose. She took a deep breath and faced her daughter, "You..." she sucked in a deep breath and then started again with a shaking voice, "You were really that unhappy?"

Lorelai was taken aback at the hurt that was in her mother's eyes. She nodded slowly, "Yeah, I was."

Emily turned away from her again, and looked down at her shaking hands. After that day in the courthouse, the day she had given up, turned her back and walked away, she had been building a wall up against this--a twenty one year old wall and now that it was starting to come down it completely terrified her.

"Do you know..." Emily started and stopped again and shook her head, "Do you know how many children are homeless, hungry, orphaned, who would have done anything...anything in the world to have..."

"I knew this would happen, I knew it. You still aren't hearing me. You never heard me."

"You...never...talked...to...me!" Emily yelled back. "My god, Lorelai you never told you were miserable!"

"Would you have listened to me?"

"I would have liked the opportunity to!"

"Mom..." Lorelai cried out, "Don't you get it? I never wanted your life. I never wanted the life you chose for me. I had to get away or I was going to go crazy. Yes, I had food, clothing, shelter, but what I needed was acceptance! What I needed was your love!"

Emily reeled back like she had been slapped, "And you found what you wanted with Mia right?"

"Here we go again!" Lorelai shouted. "You don't even hear me. You are so focused on being jealous of Mia that you can't even hear me!" Lorelai's eyes suddenly filled with tears, "And you wonder why I didn't tell you what I was feeling?"

The silence fell between them again, a deep silence that made them both shift uncomfortably. "She gave me a chance," Lorelai said slowly. "She gave me a chance to do what I needed to do, be who I needed to be." She paused for a long moment and then took another deep breath. "I wanted my own life more than anything I'd ever wanted before. I was dying in your house Mom. I had to get out."

"So that's it," Emily said slowly. "You want your own life, and I had nothing to say in the matter." Again the long silence, and Emily brushed away a tear. She tried to speak again and her emotions overwhelmed her. She swallowed hard and then tried again, "Were you...scared, were you and Rory hungry?"

"I packed food," Lorelai replied, "I used to take things from dinner and hide them in my napkin, and I took things from the kitchen too. I...was scared when night time came. I was scared that I wouldn't find a place to stay. That's when I came to the Independence Inn," she said quietly. "That's when I met Mia."

Emily turned away and nodded slowly. "And she gave you a job...as a maid."

"Yes...Mom, I want you to understand something. I really want you to know that I was happy. I loved being a maid, I love being a mom, I found myself in those years. I worked hard and I provided for Rory and me. It was a good life," Lorelai gently brought a hand and placed it on her mother's shoulder. "Can you just be happy for me for that? Can you just be happy knowing that I was happy?"

Emily didn't answer, just stared ahead at the picture of Rory when she was two years old and in the pumpkin costume for Halloween. Sixteen years...she had missed sixteen years out of both of their lives. Sixteen years that was gone forever, and she couldn't get back. She turned back to Lorelai, "Let me ask you a question, when Rory dropped out of school and moved into our house, were you happy for her just knowing that she was happy?"

Lorelai bristled, "That's different."

"How?"

"She wasn't supposed to be there, she was never supposed to drop out of school," Lorelai said.

"So...what I hear you saying is that you were supposed to get pregnant, drop out of high school, and run away from home?"

"Mom, let's just get down to the real issue here. Whatever happened between me and Rory, was between me and Rory, it's over now, it's in the past and we've forgiven eachother. The thing with you is you are never going to forgive me for getting pregnant and spoiling the plan. I get it, I've known that for twenty-two years so if this is all this delightful talk is going to get us, then let's turn back on the movie."

Emily shook her head, "I never knew anyone who thought the world revolved around them more than you."

"Mom!" Lorelai shouted, "I'm tired! So if this is just going to end out to be the "You are the plague of the Gilmores speech" then I can do without it."

"Well guess what!" Emily shouted back. "I'm tired too! I'm tired of the sarcasm, and the rolling of the eyes, I'm tired of having to go out of my way to try and have some semblence of a relationship with you and then facing disappointment again and again and again. I'm tired too!"

"Alright you want me to say it? You really want me to say it? Yes, Mia was like a mother to me, she took me in, she helped me and she helped Rory and she made me feel loved!" Lorelai stopped as she started to cry. "That's all I ever wanted was to feel loved!"

Emily stared at her, the hurt coursing through her like electricity. It hurt to even breathe. Here it was, summed up in that one outburst from her daughter--the ultimate tragedy of her life. She had had a child, a darling little girl whose hair had begun to curl at six months. She had loved that child more than she had ever loved anything and that little girl had never known how much because she had never seen what her mother went through after she was gone.

"Love..." Emily repeated slowly. "Lorelai, after that day in the courthouse, I went home, went to bed and didn't leave the bedroom for a month. And the only reason that I left then was because I knew it was killing your father. He had to force me to eat, to drink. For days at a time, I couldn't sleep. Dr. Reynolds came to tell me that if I didn't start eating, he was going to put me in the hospital. Love? Losing you completely shattered my heart. No...I'm sorry, I can't just be happy for you because you were happy."

She turned away and the only sound was the rain falling on the roof. It was like that for a few moments, and then another sound was heard...the sound of someone crying. Emily turned back around to see her sobbing daughter face full of pain . Very slowly, for she knew she was taking a big risk, she held out her arms to her girl and a thrill of delight and anguish struck her at the same time as her daughter leaned into her arms and held on tight.

"I'm sorry," Emily whispered slowly, her own voice breaking as she caressed the silky black hair. Lorelai stopped crying after a few minutes but still they held onto eachother.

"I need you to know something," Lorelai said, struck with the sudden memory of the comforting sound of her mother's heart beat.

"What's that?" Emily whispered gently.

"I would have come back. If I'd known that you...I would have come home."

The words seeped through Emily like sunshine on a warm day. She smiled and then tenderly kissed the top of Lorelai's head. "And that my girl, is why you need to tell Rory about the accident."