A/N- And now for the other pre-series twist... a much less happy one. Well, not that Liz being an uber-flake and abandoning her toddler is exactly happy, but Jess being raised by someone who isn't a nut-case with abusive boyfriends definitely is. This, however, is all-around sad.

Prologue 2: Losing a Daughter

"I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb."
-Pink Floyd

Lorelai wanted to blame Mia, honestly she did. It was Mia who had cajoled her into finally giving Richard and Emily her address. If it weren't for that, they would never have found them. They would never have come to the Independence Inn, they would never have walked out back to see the potting shed, and they would never have called Child Protective Services, or filed a custody suit the second they returned Hartford.

Honestly, though, as much as she wanted to blame Mia, Lorelai knew it wasn't really her fault. Mia had tried to do the right thing, and it had been the right thing. Or, it would have been if her parents had behaved true to form and eschewed leaving their castle in the sky if it meant going to some provincial town, especially for no better reason than seeing their estranged and "ungrateful" daughter. For once, though, Richard and Emily had stepped out of character.

Her hands shook from gripping the steering wheel on Mia's car so hard she thought her knuckles might burst through the skin. She trembled a little, and debated pulling the car over to the side of the road, because there was a chance she was going to throw up. She decided against it. For now, she was strangely calm despite the shaking and the nausea. She could still see clearly, and she wanted to get back to the Inn while her sanity still lasted. Over the white noise of the cassette she had started in automatically when she got in the car, Lorelai couldn't hear her daughter's voice, and she was grateful for the quiet in her head.

Maybe, she thought sadly, if it hadn't been January when the CPS came to evaluate her living situation at her parents' demand... The little potting shed was freezing in January, and it took a lot of blankets and the space heater she had salvaged from the Inn to make the little room livable, but really, they had managed just fine. In the winter they were only in there at night, and then they had the heater and each other and a tremendous mountain of quilts, some of which Lorelai had made herself, to keep them warm. Maybe if the CPS had seen their little home in the spring or summer, they wouldn't have recommended that Rory be placed with her grandparents. Or maybe if her parents hadn't had so much damn money, she would have won the suit for full custody.

She tried to tell herself that it would be alright. After all, she would still see her daughter. The court had given her dispensation to have Rory for the summer months, when school was out. And she could visit her in Hartford anytime she wanted. This whole struggle had proved to her beyond any doubt that Richard and Emily Gilmore were indeed the most ruthless, cold people she had ever or would ever meet, but even they weren't heartless enough to deny her access to her child.

She snorted. No, she could see Rory whenever she wanted. She just couldn't raise her. She wasn't allowed to help her be free of all the trappings of Richard and Emily's world. She wasn't allowed to let her daughter just be Rory. She wouldn't get to see her every single day and talk to her and brush her hair every night and go to sleep with her hot little body curled up against her.

It made her feel even more sick to her stomach, the thought of going back to the potting shed night after night with no Rory tagging along, telling her all the little stories about her day.

There would be no one to laugh with over nothing at all.

There would be no one to eat with her in the kitchen after most of the staff had left.

There would be no one to watch stupid movies with her when Mia let them use a TV in one of the empty guest rooms.

Her heart dropped and her hands tightened still further on the cold steering wheel, as Rory's tiny angelic face appeared in her mind, the look on her face as Richard had carried her away. Yes, Lorelai knew she would see her child the day after tomorrow, when she would have the afternoon shift off, and she could take the bus to Hartford to visit her... but what the hell was that? An hour with her daughter, maybe two if she let her mother rope her into staying for dinner. How could that possibly make up for the time that even now was slipping away from her?

Lorelai pulled into the driveway of the Independence; she steered Mia's Buick around to the faculty lot and safely parked it in the reserved spot. She killed the engine and sat staring blankly across the snow-blanketed back lawn to the potting shed for a moment. Then she took a painful breath, drew the key from the ignition, and exited the car.

She tugged her unzipped coat closely about her as she slogged through the snow, not really feeling the icy piles of snow plopping down into her boots as she stumbled through drifts as high as her knees. She unlocked her tiny little home and tumbled through the door, and vaguely observed that in one respect they were right: the temperature wasn't noticeably different from outside. She turned on the space heater and zipped up her jacket.

As she turned to lock the door behind her, something on the bed caught her eye: Colonel Clucker, the little stuffed chicken her friend Sookie, the new sous-chef, had given Rory for her sixth birthday back in October. Her little girl had loved the little animal and not a single night had passed since that Rory hadn't fallen asleep with it clutched in her arms. Until tonight.

Lorelai reached out a shaking hand and picked up the Colonel. She stared into the bird's beady glass eyes. She had had six beautiful years with her baby girl, and that was it. No more Rory. The summers weren't really enough and she damn well knew it; Richard and Emily would have ten months to her two, the two that she was only granted on her parents' whims. Her child would grow up a stranger.

She clutched Colonel Clucker to her chest and leaned back against the door. Slowly she slid her back down the yellow-painted wood, not minding the puddle of melting snow that met her at the base of the door.

Lorelai would give Mia's keys back to her later. For right now, she wasn't quite ready to look anyone in the eye and tell them how she had failed her daughter.