Day 5- Friday

"Wait, don't forget this," Rory mumbled groggily as she heard her husband quietly slide out of bed to get ready for his morning run and she reached for her Apple Watch charging on the bedside table next to her.

"Rory…" Marcus began to protest.

"You promised," Rory reminded him of their conversation the night before.

Marcus sighed, "I know, but I still don't want to take sides."

Rory rolled her still half-closed eyes in response, "I know you and Mom have a special bond over Barry Manilow and Olivia Newton John, but come on, I'm your wife," Rory retorted.

"See this is exactly why I didn't want to get involved," Marcus responded vehemently, "And I'll admit to the Barry Manilow, but Lorelai's on her own with Olivia."

"Let's get physical, physical. I wanna get physical…" Rory began to sing sleepily.

"Bye," Marcus deadpanned as he made his way for the door.

"Wait, no, I'm sorry!" Rory called out desperately, "I love Olivia Newton John. She pulled off the country phase better than anyone, including Taylor Swift," she attempted to dig herself out of the hole she had created.

Marcus paused but still did not look happy, "This whole act," he said motioning towards Rory, "Not doing anything to convince me."

"Ok, ok," Rory placated, "But remember how I explained it last night? You're not technically doing anything to disrupt the competition, you're just evening the playing field," she reasoned.

"You could just be the bigger person," Marcus suggested hopefully.

Rory just shook her head, "I'm always the bigger person. I'm sick of being the bigger person," she replied.

Marcus finally relented, "Fine, but only to counteract what Lorelai did yesterday. This is as deep as I'm getting," he warned as he begrudgingly slapped the extra watch onto his rest, "See you in an hour."

"Mmmm," Rory muttered, her head already buried back into her pillow, wasting no time in getting back to sleep.

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Rory was just sitting down at her desk to get started on work later that morning when she felt a buzzing on her watch. She attempted to keep a straight face, but a smile involuntarily tugged at the corners of her mouth at her mother's very Lorelai response to 'her run': the couch emoji followed by a potato and crying of laughter emoji. A few seconds later, her phone started ringing and she picked it up, already having a pretty good idea of who was calling.

"We need to set make some amendments to the rules," Lorelai's voice immediately came through the phone.

"Oh, so once the system stops giving you the upper hand it needs to change, Loughlin?" Rory shot back, not missing a beat.

"Gonna through a temper tantrum about it, McGavin?" Lorelai countered.

"Oh, don't even," Rory warned.

"So, I've realized the flaws in my ways and I'm admitting it. What's wrong with that? It shows growth," Lorelai reasoned.

"You realized that I can exploit the so-called 'rules' in the same way you did," Rory deadpanned.

"You've got to admit we're losing sight of the origins of the war," Lorelai ignored Rory's previous statement, "A mother and daughter bonding experience over who can endure the most pain for the glory of being declared the least lazy. We've let our competitive natures and ruthlessness take over. I don't even recognize us anymore. Maybe adding the coffee prize was a mistake. A high-stakes prize always brings out the dirty underbelly of the contestants in any competition. I mean, just look at the freaks on Big Brother," she rambled dramatically.

"I think most of them were freaks before voluntarily agreeing to be locked in a house with strangers on a reality TV show" Rory replied flippantly.

"Ok, fine there are better examples out there but that was the first one to come to mind," Lorelai admitted, "But, you're missing the point."

"Which is what? That we should get rid of the coffee prize?" Rory asked.

"No!" Lorelai responded horrified, "Just that we should amend the rules so that other, more active individuals, are not allowed to wear our watches."

"That was the original rule until you changed it yesterday," Rory pointed out.

"It was never clarified," Lorelai countered.

"Fine, we're even now and I don't think Marcus would even agree to do cheat for me again, so I accept the amendment," Rory gave in, thinking this was how it should have been from the beginning anyways.

Just then, Rory heard the front door open and her daughter squeal happily, "Hi Andy and Val!"

"Looks like I just got two free babysitters," Rory said cheerfully into the phone, "Did you tell them to come over?" she asked her mom.

"No, I guess they're just bored since Taylor's managed to keep the cannabis dispensaries out of Stars Hollow and all the cool kids have fled," Lorelai joked.

"I'm sure that's it," Rory replied sarcastically as the sounds of boisterous laughter and loud rustling filtered up the stairs, "But they do sound kind of suspicious. I'm going to check it out," Rory continued as she stood up from her desk.

"Well, let me know if a Mom speech is order," Lorelai replied.

"Will do," Rory responded as she closed the door to her office, "Bye, Mom."

After hanging up the phone, she reached the bottom of the stairs to find her siblings and daughter gathered around a box of some sort, "What are you guys up to?" she asked somewhat suspiciously.

Having been engrossed in the contents of the box and making too much noise giggling, all three jumped a little as Rory made her presence known, "Nothing at all, Mommy," Laila answered trying to sound innocent, but she had a huge grin on her face.

Rory walked closer and looked over her daughter's shoulder to see for herself and groaned when she realized what the contents of the box was.

"Val and I were bored and looking for stuff to do when we came across this in the back of the closet. We figured Laila deserved to see her mom's baby box just as much as us," he explained with a teasing smile.

Rory shook her head, "God, I don't even know when the last time I saw that thing was. I can't even remember what embarrassing stuff Mom deemed necessary to save," she said uneasily.

"Well, this for starters," Valerie replied holding up a pair of tiny pants, "And they came with a label; 'The droopy drawers' (Don't let Rory wear again. It may cause trauma.)'," she looked at Rory expectantly as she held back her laughter.

"Oh my God," Rory groaned again, "I honestly don't understand why of all the things in the world, this deserves space in the box. There's some story about when I was wearing these at the mall when I was like two or three and they fell down so Mom called me droopy drawers. I know you would think there's a better story, but it's really that dumb," she explained unenthused.

Andy and Valerie exchanged a skeptical look, "We'll have to ask Mom about that one," Andy said to which Valerie nodded in agreement as she continued to dig through the box.

"Oooh, how about this?" Valerie asked as she pulled out a piece of paper with a picture of Lorelai and a five-year-old Rory in front of the potting shed, "Aww, you were so cute," Valerie smiled and everyone else looked over her shoulder.

Even Rory smiled a little as some memories came back to her, "Oh, I remember what that is. See the paper attached to the picture? That was the first 'story' I wrote. We had to describe where we lived."

"Well let's see if it was obvious from day one that little Rory was going to be a journalist," Andy said teasingly before he began to read out loud what five-year-old Rory had written, "I liv with my mommy. We liv like prinseses by a lake. The lake haz duks and swans. We liv at the Independence Inn and there r a lot of new peopl. I like it."

Laila giggled, "You write better now, Mommy," she gave her critique.

"Don't judge, that was a first attempt," Rory defended playfully.

"No, I can see the budding journalist instinct," Andy said teasingly, "It's all in the description; we've got the imagery with the ducks and swans, and even the princesses simile."

Rory rolled her eyes, "You guys can continue to enjoy, but I've got real work to do," she said as she stood up.

The three kids didn't need to be told this as they were already searching through the box again, "A whole baby book!" Valerie squealed excitedly as she pulled out a large binder and opened it up, "Oh this is good! It looks like Grandma filled out all the information and then Mom went through and added to it. Like here," she had to pause before she continued reading out loud because she was laughing too hard, "'Name: Lorelai Leigh Gilmore- yes, after her mother, because if men can do it, so can women. She's taking a stand against misogyny from day 1, baby!"

"This is going to be even better than I thought," Andy gasped as he finally caught his breath after laughing.

"Don't have too much fun without me," Rory called as she made her way back upstairs, now kind wishing she had the time to discover what else she had forgotten about in that box.

"Oh, we definitely will," Andy replied honestly as he, Valerie, and Laila all continued to focus intently on the book and giggle.

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Current Standings-

Lorelai: 2,736 (564 for day)

Rory: 2,758 (600 for day)