May 2011

The terrain outside the car was becoming familiar; not the kind of familiar that came from years of travelling the same roads every time they came to visit, but the kind that came from a lifetime of childhood memories. Rory knew this town like she knew every freckle, dimple and birthmark that adorned her son's face; she could trace the landmarks like an invisible map in her head. Stars Hollow might not be her home anymore, but it would always be a part of her.

She glanced back at Samuel who was blissfully engrossed in his iPad with his headphones on. That device was the best Christmas present she and Logan had ever splurged on; thank God for Steve Jobs and his ability to hypnotize hyper, little boys with the attention span of a gnat. He could be indoctrinating an entire generation of soldiers to take over the world with AI and she wouldn't care as long as it meant not having to hear "are we there yet," every five seconds.

Her own phone beeped and she instinctually picked it up…apparently it wasn't just five-year-olds that the fine people at Apple had brainwashed. It was a text message from Lorelai.

"Mom says that your mother is already on her third glass of wine and your father and Grandpa are having a very loud, very enthusiastic debate about the European debt crisis. She wants to know when we're going to get there."

Logan laughed as he turned the car onto Woodcreek Ln. "She's the one who wanted to throw you a graduation party and invite everyone. Like she hasn't actually met everyone. What did she think was going to happen?"

"It'll be nice, though, to see all our family and friends. Things have been so crazy lately with finishing school and everything else going on." Rory had enrolled at UMass Boston when Samuel was two. Sure, it might not be an ivy league degree like she had dreamed of when she was younger, but between the cost of tuition and the difficulty of transferring her credits after two years away, plus the fact that she was going to be part time, a public university was really the only option. UMass had a great program with a great reputation and in the end, it was just as capable of landing her a journalism job as any other degree. But trying to get all her credits in while working and having a kid to raise didn't leave a lot of time for socialization.

"Well, you certainly earned a celebration, I'll give Lorelai that."

"Please, all I did was graduate college. It's not like I'm in talks with Peter Thiel to sell my startup," she gave him a pointed look.

"Hey, that victory is as much yours as it is mine. I'd probably still be out partying all night and dic…" Logan made a guilty face and glanced in the back seat where Samuel was still fully engaged in some game that involved brightly colored fishes. "Wasting time at a job I hated if it weren't for you."

"Do you think you'd still hate it?" she asked. It wasn't a random question. Mitchum had been talking to him about coming back ever since he heard they'd been approached by Pay Pal and were thinking of selling. Rory knew that the fact that Logan hadn't immediately shut him down meant that there was a part of him that wanted it.

Logan glanced at his wife and shrugged. "No. Not under the right circumstances…but..."

Rory nodded. "But you still haven't decided?"

Logan was silent, staring at the street ahead.

"But you have?" she asked, somewhat surprised. She'd made it clear she'd support whatever decision he made. The timing was right to make a change anyway, now that she was done with school and her new job writing for the Huffington Post allowed her to work remotely. Still, she figured he would have told her as soon as he made his choice.

"No, but, well…I was thinking…" He pulled the car into the parking lot of the Dragonfly Inn.

"Thinking what?" she asked. But it was too late. As soon as Samuel felt the car come to a stop, he was throwing off his headphones and unbuckling himself from his booster seat.

"I wanna show Gammy my new dinosaur," he whooped, scooping up the T-rex action figure from the seat next to him and bouncing up and down with frenetic energy. "Rawr!"

Logan held up a finger to Rory as he unbuckled his own seat belt and got out of the car. Rory followed suit, stepping out of the RAV-4 and patting her pink lace, A-line dress down before opening up the hatch back to grab Samuel's Toy Story themed backpack. Logan opened the door to the back seat and let his son out. "Hey, why don't you go in and find Gammy while I finish talking to Mom?"

Samuel nodded his head enthusiastically and started to run down the path towards the Dragonfly. "Samuel Logan Huntzberger!" she called out sternly. Samuel stopped and looked back at her, his eyes wide, waiting to find out if he were in trouble or not. Miss Patty and Babette were on the front porch talking and Rory knew the inside of the Inn was filled with family and friends so she had no trouble letting him go on ahead, but she wasn't about to cart all his crap around with her.

"Why do I always feel like I'm the one in trouble when you say his full name like that?" Logan whisper laughed. Rory rolled her eyes and ignored her husband to concentrate on her son.

"Come get your bag," she told him. "You want your toys, you're big enough to carry them yourself."

Samuel pouted and huffed back over to get his backpack before taking off again. Rory turned back to Logan. "What are you thinking?" she asked again.

Logan looked away. He was being wooly about it. What could he be considering that he was afraid Rory wouldn't agree to? They'd always managed to support each other's decisions. They'd figure it out. "Umm, well, I think I want to go back, just…not right away."

"Okay," Rory shrugged, wondering why he was so afraid to admit that before. Was he worried that turning his dad down would mess up the relationship they'd been building back up for years? If anything, she thought Mitchum would be relieved just to hear he was considering it eventually. "Your dad will deal if he has to wait a few more years to get you. If you want to do something else first…"

"Well, that's the thing…" Logan interrupted her. He paused, looking towards the front of the Inn where their son had disappeared from view just a few moments ago. "I was thinking maybe…" he inhaled deeply. "What if I didn't want to do anything else first?"

Rory narrowed her eyes, cocking her head at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know, I just…he's growing up so quick, he's about to start first grade. I just thought it would be nice to, I don't know…be his Dad. Coach t-ball, join the PTA, chaperone field trips…you know, before he's embarrassed to have me around."

Rory let out a bark of laughter.

Logan frowned, his brow furrowing as he turned his head away. "You think it's stupid."

"No," Rory said through her laughter, shaking her head. "What I think is stupid is that you think being a stay-at-home parent isn't doing anything."

Logan let out a chuckle of his own. "Yeah, I guess you have a point there."

Rory stopped laughing and took Logan's hand in hers. "I think it would be amazing if you wanted to stay home with Samuel."

"You wouldn't mind being my sugar momma for a while…bringing home the bacon while I fry it up?"

"Logan, I'm not your sugar anything. With your startup money, we both will be able to afford to retire for eternity. Hell, we could hire someone to fry the bacon up for us; that's it, the whole job…not being a personal chef, just frying bacon. My salary will basically be the change in the couch cushions."

Logan smiled reaching up to cradle Rory's face and leaning in for a kiss. "You're my sugar everything," he whispered.

There was a loud whistle and they both looked up to see Miss Patty looking at them from the porch. "You get that hunka burning love, girl!"

They both laughed, pulling away. "Now I guess I just have to tell Dad. I don't think he'll take nearly as well as you…or Miss Patty."

"He'll survive," Rory assured him. "As long as he has that little grandson of his to dote on."

They held hands and made their way into the Inn.

"Mommy, Mommy!" Samuel immediately called out to her with excitement. She looked in the direction of his voice to see him leaning over a coffee table in the sitting area, making his T-rex fight one of Gigi's Barbie dolls.

Rory walked over to where Gigi and Samuel were playing while Christopher sat on the couch watching them. "Hi, Dad," she greeted, leaning over to give her father a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Hey, Geeg!"

"Hi, Rory." Her sister greeted her without looking up.

"Auntie Gigi thinks that pterodactyls are better than T-rexes," Samuel announced, appalled as though she had committed the cardinal sin of daring to declare the brussel sprout as her favorite food.

"They can fly," she gave by way of explanation. "Daddy and I are going to fly all the way to Europe."

"I heard about that. Are you excited?"

"I'm gonna get to see where Mommy lives!" Christopher was taking Gigi to Paris for the summer to spend time with Sherry who had reached out a couple years ago, apologizing for taking off on them and asking to be able reconnect with her daughter. She had flown out to Boston a few times and she and Gigi spoke on the phone often, but this would be Gigi's first trip to her.

"That sounds like a lot of fun." She turned to her father. "You're leaving next week?" she asked for confirmation.

Christopher nodded. "Thursday. We could use a ride to airport if you're free. If not, I'll just call a car, but I thought…"

"I can take you," Rory nodded. "I'm gonna go say 'hi' to Lane," she nodded in the direction of her friend who she just spotted in the dining room. "I'll see you later and we can figure out the details."

Rory headed off to talk to Lane who caught her up on her band and her job teaching private music lessons before Rory continued to make the rounds, catching up with her grandparents, Kirk (who had apparently invested in something called Bit coin, which as far as she could tell was basically Monopoly money that only existed virtually), and Honor.

"Hey, do I call you stupid for working a government job for crap wages?" Paris huffed in her usual grumpy countenance.

"I didn't call you stupid, I said it was a stupid decision," Jo countered. Rory was now talking to her two friends who had somehow managed to become friends themselves when Paris had started med school at Harvard—though no one in their right minds would look at the two squabbling women and conclude that they were bosom buddies.

"Potato, Pota-to."

"Why the hell would you invest all that money into med school if you didn't want to practice medicine?"

"Sick people freak me out. And there are plenty of other ways to use an MD. Besides, it's just money."

"Money you don't have. The government never unfroze your parents' assets and you used every last penny of your trust fund for med school. You're going to have to take out loans."

"They'll be easy to pay off once I start my surrogacy business making beaucoup bucks from aging women with baren uteruses desperate to save their marriages with a baby. You'll be poor forever working for the USDA."

"I'm working to bring healthy, accessible food to low-income neighborhoods!" Jo shouted, throwing up her hands. "Food deserts are a serious problem!"

Rory was distracted from Jo and Paris' bickering by the sound of an actual child wailing. Crap! She recognized that cry and it was the cry of an overtired, overstimulated, little boy. Samuel was past the age of needing regular naps but it sounded like today he could use one. She excused herself and hurried over to Samuel who was with her mother and Luke throwing a temper tantrum.

"Hey, baby," she said holding out her arms for the boy. "What's the matter."

"Gramps said I couldn't have another cookie," he sobbed, throwing himself into his mother's arms.

"Well, how many cookies have you had?" she asked him.

"Hardly any."

Rory looked up at her mother and stepfather. "Four," Lorelai admitted sheepishly. Rory raised her eyebrows. Great, he was overtired, overstimulated and over sugared. Not to mention that they were fairly certain he had ADHD and too much sugar was known to exacerbate the symptoms.

"Well then, Gramps was right."

"I want a cookie," he sniffled pathetically, the volatility of his initial reaction gone and replaced but a sulkier disposition.

"Well, you're not going to get one," Logan chimed in from behind them. "But what you can get is a nap."

"I'm not tired."

"Well no, you're clearly full of bright, sunshine-y restedness."

"I don't wanna nap."

"Room three is free if you want to set him up in there," Lorelai informed them.

"Noooooooo!"

"What's all this hullabaloo over here?" a booming voice broke in. "That's not my grandson making all that noise, is it?" Mitchum asked.

"I don't want to take a nap." Samuel crossed his arms over his chest and stomped his dinosaur sneaker clad foot.

"I could use a nap," Luke grumbled.

"I'm not sleepy and you can't make me!" Samuel uncrossed his arms, wriggled out of Rory's grasp, and shot off across the Inn, darting around furniture and people like he was a world class slalomer. Rory huffed, rubbing at her weary eyes. She loved the kid, but he was exhausting. She wanted to tear out her own hair when he got like this. This was a job for… "Logan, can you please?" He was the parent with the never-ending energy of his own.

"Leave it to me," Mitchum offered, instead. "I know how to deal with this…"

"Suuuuure," Logan nodded. "You're a parenting expert."

"Believe it or not, I picked up a trick or two in my day, son." Logan didn't seem like he believed it, but he held out his hand, indicating for Mitchum to go for it. "Hey, Sam," Mitchum bellowed across the room towards Samuel who was currently tearing toys out of his backpack in the corner. Samuel stopped and looked up at him. "Hows about we go get ready for a nap and PopPop will read you a book?" Samuel's eyes brightened and he immediately went back into his pack to retrieve something before bounding back up and running over. He held up a cardboard covered Toy Story book with a picture of Woody in his red cowboy hat on the front.

"This one?" Samuel asked, his brown eyes pleading.

Mitchum let out a guffaw. "He's exactly like his Dad," he said to Rory. "A little Logan 2.0." He clapped her on the back. "My condolences." But Rory didn't need any sympathy for that fact; nothing could make her happier. She smiled sanguinely, running her fingers through Samuel's sandy blonde locks. "Yeah," she agreed. "He really is."

AN: Thank you so much to all of you who have stuck with this story through to the end. It's been quite the bumpy road for our characters and I hope that you feel that their journeys were worth it in the end and that they wound up where they were meant to be. Truth be told, I went back and forth on this ending a lot and actually didn't who would turn out to be Samuel's bio Dad for most of this story. but in the end, this was what fit best with the full-circle theme. It's just a bonus that's it's what most of you wanted, lol.

On another note, I hate to put this negativity here at the end of everything but I have no other outlet to address this. I also don't want to discourage reviewers, though I know that is a risk I'm taking. I really do appreciate 95% of the reviews I receive.

This message is to the guest who goes by the handle JS. Since you continue to leave criticism in almost every review, as a guest so that I can't respond to your critiques, I will do so here. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt that your reviews are meant to be constructive, but in actuality they're not. For example, you stated in your last review that the ending seemed abrupt. That's not constructive unless you can give me explicit examples of what was abrupt about it and what I left unaddressed. I really have no idea what could possibly be abrupt about the ending of a complex, 42 chapter, multigenerational story that had not one, but THREE complete character arcs, resolution of all the major conflict, and has been wrapping up since the climax of the major conflict of the story six chapters ago. As far as the comment about it not being clear to you why Rory's safety net hasn't kicked in, it has. That's why she and Logan both had multiple options of places to stay when Rory was dealing with her pre-eclampsia and in the immediate aftermath of Samuel being born. That's what a safety net is…something to catch you when you fall. If you find it unclear as to why they're not living large, then I would point you to the entire theme of the story which is about Rory and Logan breaking free of generational trauma and finding out who they are as separate from their families. Living a wealthy life off of their families' riches would be completely antithetical to the point of the story. In addition, the fact that they wanted to do this on their own and not accept their families' money has been explicitly stated in the characters' stream of consciousness on multiple occasions. If that's not clear to you at this point than I don't feel like that's a failure of the story.

Again, I do appreciate the vast, vast majority of reviews that I receive. But if you are asking questions or leaving criticisms, then please try to make it constructive and leave a way for me to PM you so that I can address it.

Thanks again, so much for reading.