A/N: Thank you all so much for all the lovely reviews, faves and alerts. It just completely blows me away! And please keep it up, as I have developed a serious (and probably unhealthy) addiction to reviews. I'm glad that people have been so forgiving of the huge pause in the story.

Chapter 9: Don't you know who I think I am

Rory was having a crisis when her mother called. She had already looked through her closet three times and changed outfit at least ten times and she had to leave the apartment in the next twenty minutes, unless she wanted to face the wrath of Stephanie - and she really didn't. Luckily Sally had turned up an hour earlier and was now planted on the couch with Daniel, watching 'Finding Nemo'.

"This is hopeless" Rory sighed and sat down.

"I'm sure there is something in there you could wear" Lorelai offered over the phone.

"It's hopeless" Rory repeated. "Nothing feels right."

"How about that pink dress we bought together last month?"

"No…"

"Okay, what about the black dress I gave for your birthday?"

"No…""Rory" Lorelai warned.

"I'm not going!"

"Yes you are!"

"No. She is going to be there and no doubt looking fabulous. I'm staying home, eating Ben & Jerry's and watching 'Finding Nemo' with Daniel and Sally."

"Rory please don't be like this… Your acting like such a loser…." Luckily the doorbell prevented Rory from hearing the rest of her mother's tirade and she excused herself quickly and hung up.

"Hello Gilmore."

"Oh my god, Paris, what are you doing here?"

"You sounded so pathetic yesterday, so I thought I'd stop by an offer some support. Are you gonna let me in" Paris asked. Rory had been standing dumbfounded in the doorway, just staring at Paris.

"Oh right, sorry. Yeah, come in. What's in the bag."

"Early Christmas present" Paris said, leading the way to Rory's bedroom. She swept the disregarded clothes from the bed away and put the bags down. "I figured you were having a complete crisis by now, so I brought you something. Now, I may dress like a seventy year old, but I know someone who's great at shopping and she found this" Paris held up a short white, one-sleeved dress "for you."

"I can't wear that" Rory protested.

"Sure you can." Paris looked her up and down. "Now, are you gonna do this the easy way" she took a step closer to Rory, "or am I gonna have to help you?"

Ten minutes later, Rory had wrested herself into the skintight dress and was now putting the finishing touches on her makeup. Paris was wearing a loose-fitted deep purple dress with a silver belt and at Rory's questioning look, she shrugged. "If I'm gonna crash someone's bachelorette-party I might as well look nice doing it. You ready?"

"I feel like throwing up."

"That sounds like a yes. Let's get going."

Their cab pulled up to the restaurant three minutes to eight and Rory and Paris exited the vehicle, Rory immediately spotted Stephanie, who was dressed like a princess; pink dress, tiara and lots of glitter. "Rory" she screamed with excitement, then spotting Paris. "And you bulldog. Are you crashing my party?"

"Yes" was Paris answer, before she entered the restaurant.

Rory gave Stephanie and apologetic look. "I just couldn't do it alone. I'm sorry."

"Fiiiiiine" Stephanie said in an annoyed voice. "She can stay, but she better behave!"

"Don't worry, she's housetrained. Is um…"

"Jane is not here yet" Stephanie supplied. Rory just smiled at her and entered the restaurant.

She had barely found her seat next to Rory, before Jane entered as well. Rory nudged Paris and gestured towards her. She looked absolutely stunning, with loose red curls and an emerald green halter-neck dress. It made Rory want her to fall and break her neck. Stephanie entered a moment later with a huge grin plastered on her face. "Everybody here? Great, let the drunken debauchery begin!"

An hour and a half later most of the party was already tipsy, with Stephanie taking the lead. Rory had tried to just converse with Paris and not attract any attention, but as people were starting to get ready to move to the next place, Rory found herself cornered.

"Lorelai, was it?"

Rory turned around and found herself face to face with Jane, who seemed embarrassingly sober compared to the rest of the party. "Rory's fine."

"I understand you share some history with Finley…"

"I don't know what he told you…"

"I know about Daniel. And if Finley is the father, he shall of course accept full responsibility and we will both embrace Daniel with open arms. But I want you to understand something: I love him with all my heart and we're getting married soon and I need you to understand that what we have is real. So please don't come between us." Jane took a deep breath. "I don't know you and honestly I don't care to know you. I think what you have done is despicable and unforgivable, but Finley still care about you. So I am asking you, nicely, to stay away from my man!"

Rory was speechless. "I… I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say."

"Say you'll stay away! We are building a life, in Australia, and I don't want you to ruin that" Jane said. She hadn't even raised her voice once, the whole conversation (or monologue, really) had been in a completely calm and quiet tone. "I understand that Finley will be wanting to spend time with Daniel, but that doesn't have to include you. Please respect that." Before Rory could even response, Jane had turned on her high heels and walked away.

"What the hell happened" Paris whispered, as she noticed Rory standing alone, looking a little like a fish with open mouth and an empty expression on her face,

"Jane sort of did a drive by, I think" Rory said, still staring at the place Jane had been standing a moment earlier.

"What did she say?"

"Rory what just happened? Jane has just excused herself and left" Stephanie said, grabbing hold of Paris in order not to keel over.

"She kinda told me to stay away from Finn" Rory said. "And she was strangely polite about it."

Paris and Stephanie shared a look. "Are you alright?" Paris gave the sudden smile on Rory's lips a worried look. "What?"

"He still cares about me."

Stephanie, who was on a serious diet in order to fit into her wedding dress, had decreed there would be no desert tonight, just a lot of booze and instead of stuffing their face with fat, they started a night of bar-hopping. After visiting four different bars and three clubs, Stephanie finally found a place that lived up to her standards and they found a table and ordered their drinks. It was the perfect combination of seedy bar and cool club and it kinda reminded Rory of some of the places they used to hang out when they all went to Yale.

Rory of course soon discovered why Stephanie wanted to stay here. Because it was a Thursday night the place wasn't overcrowded and the dance floor completely devoid of people. It didn't take Stephanie long before she was dragging people onto the floor, yelling at the DJ to turn up the music.

"She's completely drunk" Paris said, as she sat down next to Rory and watched Stephanie shake her stuff around on the dance floor with two other blondes.

"I think we all are" Rory said with a big smile. She herself hadn't exactly gone easy on the liquor either. It had provided her with a nice buzz and definitely clouded her judgement. "We should dance."

"You dance, I'll just sit here and judge" Paris said.

"Noooooo, come on Paris, I want to dance" Rory begged.

"You're pathetic, Gilmore" Paris said, but relented and they moved to the dance-floor along with some of the other partygoers. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rory knew her feet were going to be murder the following day, along with a blinding headache, but it didn't matter right now; she was much to happy to even think about that.

After a long stay on the dance-floor they all started to move back to the tables. Stephanie seemed like she was having an amazing time, as she drunkenly stood up and raised her glass. "Okay, shh… I want to thank you all for coming out to celebrate my last few moments of freedom. In two days I'll hand over the keys to this kingdom" she gestured to herself, "to that moron Colin and I shall never drink again." Everyone laughed at this, as they all knew that was a downright lie. Stephanie was a notorious party animal. "So, thank you to you all for making this last night so special that I probably won't remember anything in the morning. Thank you to Rory who is my maid of honour and hasn't interfered once with the planning of the wedding. Thank you to my mother for staying away. Thank you to Paris Gellar for crashing my party. And… Colin?" Everyone turned their heads in the same direction as Stephanie's and indeed, Colin was standing in the door. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Hello ladies" Colin drunkenly greeted them. "We just thought we would stop by."

"Yeah, the strippers Logan hired were absolutely rubbish" a guy complained, sounding just as drunk as Colin.

"And Robert has already slept with three of them" Finn said. "So we came here, because Stephanie gives the best performances anyways."

"Bite your tongue" Stephanie said and glared at Finn. "That's a thing of the past!"

"Anyways, we're crashing" Logan said with a silly smile.