So, I lied. I thought I would be able to fit the end of this story into this chapter but I got inspired and took it in a different direction. Therefore, the next chapter will be the last before the epilogue.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls or anything affiliated with the show. I also do not own Grey's Anatomy/Derek Sheperd/Patrick Dempsey, no matter how much I wish that were different.

An entire two days had passed since Danielle told Jess she was leaving. That day, she had called the airline to inquire about a flight back to Los Angeles, but unfortunately, they were completely booked. She had found that extremely surprising, but she took it as a sign. So instead, she booked another room inside of the hotel.

Danielle had spent the majority of the last couple days on her own, just contemplating everything. Sometimes she joined Rory and Logan and everyone else for dinner or lunch, but for the most part she kept to herself.

Currently she was walking back up to her room after taking a refreshing walk throughout the hotel. As she got on the elevator, she realized that she wasn't alone.

"Hey."

"Hi," she replied nervously.

He stuck out his hand for her to shake, "I'm Sam."

As she took his hand she responded, "Danielle."

He was definitely cute. He had tousled brown hair, soft blue eyes, and a nice body. Hey, she was a girl, she noticed those things.

"How long are you here for?" Sam asked her.

"I…haven't decided yet."

"Ahhh…using Vegas to escape from your problems? Welcome to the club."

She laughed, "Yeah…it's something like that."

All of a sudden the elevator dinged, signaling that they had arrived at Danielle's floor. They both looked regretfully out into the hallway.

"Well this is me."

Before she could leave however, Sam stopped her, "Do you maybe want to grab a bite to eat later? We could meet in the restaurant in the lobby."

She took a deep breath and took a chance, "Sure. I'll meet you there at six."

Sam glanced at the elevator doors we was holding open. They were fighting to close, "I better let these doors close before they kill me. I'll see you later Danielle."

"Bye," she smiled as the doors finally closed. The smile stayed on her face until she reached the confines of her own hotel room. Then she sunk to the floor and cried.

~xoxo~

"Logan!" Rory screamed, the laughter engulfing her entire body.

"Hold on!" her husband yelled back at her.

The entire gang was in the pool and somehow they had ended up in a chicken fight. One minute they were talking about the political reign of Obama and the next, Stephanie was yelling 'chicken fight!' She had climbed up onto Finn's shoulders while Rory climbed onto Logan's. Colin and Shannon, being the mature ones of the group, were too embarrassed to join in on their fun. Although, they did help by cheering them on quietly, but enthusiastically as well.

Both Finn and Stephanie were determined to bring down their opponents. Rory and Logan just wanted to make sure that their friends didn't earn 'we-beat-you-guys-in-the-chicken-fight' bragging rights for the next few years.

"Ready hun?" Logan yelled, "We're going to go for them in 1…2…3!"

They charged and Rory was able to latch on to Stephanie's arms. They wrestled for a bit, with the guys doing the same below them until Rory was finally able to send the laughing Steph tumbling into the water.

"We won!" Rory yelled triumphantly. For some strange reason, winning this game made her feel on top of the word at the moment. She missed when she could do this (or anything like it) without getting strange looks from the other people occupying the pool; when they would all just brush it off as college kids having a good time.

Rory shook herself back to reality because of the argument that was occurring between Finn and Stephanie.

"Why did you fall, love?" the Australian exclaimed.

"Because I wanted to go in the water," she responded sarcastically, "Why did you think? She pushed me off!"

"Why didn't you hold on then?"

"I was just a little busy with my hands Finn."

"I can't believe we lost," he grumbled.

Rory, along with Logan, Colin, and Shannon, just chuckled at their friends' behavior. Only they would get this upset over the fact that they lost a chicken fight. When the two of them had finally calmed down and it had come to silent glares between them, Rory realized that they would soon have to go back home, back to reality.

"It's been a great trip guys," she sighed, "I wish we could do this more often."

"Who says we can't?" Stephanie exclaimed, "I say we make it into an annual thing. Once a year for a week, we can go anywhere in the world and have the vacation of our lives."

"I'm in loves, as long as there is alcohol of course," Finn said and then he looked at his girlfriend, "What about you? Are you in?"

She laughed, "Yes, I'm in. It sounds amazing."

Then the blond turned back to Rory and Logan, "We only need two more yeses, you know, since Colin will do whatever I ask him to."

Colin scoffed, but he didn't say anything to rebut the statement. He knew just as well as anyone that his wife was right. He would do absolutely anything for that girl, even if that meant taking a break from his busy work life to go on vacation with her and all his best friends.

Rory glanced at Logan, but he just shrugged and gave her a look that meant 'whatever-you-want-to-do-is-fine-with-me'.

Finally she came to a decision, "Alright Steph, it's a plan. But I don't want it to be any longer than a week. I would miss my kids way too much."

"Oh same here, definitely. I would miss my baby girl. I do miss her in fact," Stephanie replied.

Rory felt better about the situation after hearing her best friend say that. A week away from them already had her missing her regular life. As much as she loved all of the clubs, the spa, and the pool, she definitely missed how Ellie would crawl into their bed at six in the morning on some mornings. Or how Bradin would beg her to sing to him everyday.

She just missed it; although, that didn't mean she didn't love the vacation. Maybe making this an annual thing wasn't such a bad idea…

"Hey guys," Finn said suddenly, "Do you remember that one trip to the Alps in college? Good times, good time."

Everyone burst out laughing, except for Shannon who had not been a part of that trip.

"Finn, do you mean the one where you ran butt-naked through the snow?" Rory asked him, still laughing.

"Yes love, that would be the one."

"Oh, the Life and Death Brigade. Those were some of the best years of my life," Logan sighed, but then he realized that his wife was raising her eyebrows at him so he quickly corrected himself, "You know, besides the years that are spent with you and my wonderful kids."

Rory smiled, "Nice save."

"Awww…you two are seriously the cutest married couple ever," Stephanie gushed.

Logan gave Rory a tight squeeze, "Yeah, we know."

His wife looked around at all of her friends and smiled. They were happy and healthy and they would be friends for the rest of their lives. She could just feel it. Friends like these didn't just go away. Sure, maybe their lives might take them in different directions; kids and work would keep them apart sometimes, but they would always be there for each other. They just would.

"We're going to be okay guys, even if we didn't get these vacations, we're going to be okay," Rory said thoughtfully.

Stephanie nodded, "Yup. We're all going to be fine. But you have to admit that the vacations do help."

Everyone just laughed at her comment because of course she would say something like that.

"Yes love, they help," Finn said through his laughter.

~xoxo~

Danielle nervously straightened out dress. She couldn't help but fidget every couple of seconds. She kept asking herself why she was even going through with this. Technically she had a boyfriend, sure they were on a break, but should she really be doing this? Did going out with this guy make her a hypocrite?

All she wanted was to find out what she was feeling. For some reason, she felt like if she just went through with this date, all of a sudden her mind would be clear. All she needed was some kind of sign that would tell what was the right and wrong thing to do.

Finally taking a deep breath, she walked slowly into the restaurant. She took a quick look around before she spotted Sam sitting at a table towards the back. Dani nodded to the hostess as she passed letting her know that she didn't need a table.

Walking up to her date, she placed a smile on her face that was half real-half fake, "Hi Sam."

He quickly stood up and pulled out her chair for her.

'What a gentleman,' she thought.

"Danielle! I'm glad that you could make it."

"I'm glad too," she smiled and sat down as Sam did the same.

It was a little awkward, but she just chalked it up to the fact that it was the first date…if you could even call it that. She played around with her napkin and twisted her hands in her lap.

Sam cleared his throat, "So what do you do for a living?"

"I'm a photographer. I actually have my own studio and everything."

"That's awesome. I love photography; the images that you can capture in a picture are just amazing."

Danielle raised her eyebrows. She was surprised by the passion in his voice; not a lot of people talked about photography in that way.

"Yeah, I love it. It's definitely a fun job," she smiled and then realized that in order to keep the conversation going, she better ask him some questions as well, "So what do you do?"

"I'm a doctor, a neurological surgeon to be exact."

She was surprised, she didn't exactly peg him as the doctor type. But the harder she looked at him, the more she realized that he did have a sort of a Derek Sheperd-esque quality about him. He could be her very own McDreamy.

"That's fantastic! Do you work here in Las Vegas?"

"No. I actually work at the main hospital in New York, but I flew here for a special case."

"That's really great. Talk about rewarding. How do you know so much about photography?"

He laughed, "Well my older sister is a photographer, so she always comes to me with her new pieces."

"Oh okay. I was just curious, you don't meet a lot of people who really get the immensity of photographs. But I'm sure you get the same reactions about your surgeries."

"Yeah, I guess they do…" he trailed off.

The rest of the dinner was filled with conversation and a couple instances of awkward silence. Overall, the night didn't turn out bad. Danielle would even go as far to say that it was actually a nice date. But she couldn't help but let her mind wander to Jess every couple minutes. What would he think about her date? Would he be disappointed? Would he be angry? A part of her couldn't help but hope that he would feel a little bit of the hurt that she felt.

It was towards the end of the date when the waitress brought them their dessert. Danielle was eating it quietly when Sam finally spoke up.

"Okay, so who is he?"

Startled, she looked up, "What?"

"I grew up with four sisters; I know what heartbreak looks like," he said softly, "So, are you going to tell me or what?"

Danielle looked at him and realized that he was being serious. He really did want her to tell him all about another guy on their date. She took a breath, "Okay. So, I've been dating this guy for a long time and things have gotten really serious. We live together and everything. Anyway, he's on a book tour, so I'm tagging along."

She noticed that Sam was still paying attention, motivating her to go on, "We ran into his ex-girlfriend while we were here and things got really awkward. I started hanging out with her and her friends because I didn't have anything else to do until he was done with the book signing. He got kind of upset and really pulled away from me. And then he kissed another girl."

"He kissed another girl?"

"Yeah, and now I don't know what to do. I still love him and I could easily forgive him if I wanted to, but I don't know if I want to."

"Can I ask you to do something?"

Dani was a little surprised, but she accepted his offer.

"Close your eyes and picture your wedding. Picture yourself walking down the aisle and reaching to where the groom stands."

She did as she was told, "Alright."

"Who do you see standing as your groom?"

Danielle kept closing her eyes and tried to picture it. Then she saw him.

"Jess."

~xoxo~

One more chapter until the epilogue! I hope you guys like this chapter.

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