AN: I've decided to change Lily's age. She's gone from seven to ten. Not a big change, but still, there you go. I would like to offer an excuse for the lateness of this chapter by paraphrasing Graham Sullivan, (or, as I've decided to now call him, The Diaper-wearing Drunk) "I am a bubble-wrapping, box-taping machine, use me!" There's been a lot of boxes and tape in my house lately. But the boxes are gone! YAY!

On Friday morning Lily had stared expectantly at her mother and Jimmy as they made up their minds about Jess and Rory's proposal. She had spent most of Thursday avoiding Jess as best she could, while trying to work out if she could trust him around her two favourite people, but when he and Rory had joined them just after breakfast the next day, the adults turned to discuss something with Luke, leaving her with the two teenagers.

That's when they had suggested taking her over to the library on Saturday where there would be a Buy A Book fundraiser going on. She'd grabbed a hold of her mother's jacket and after a few tugs on the material had been able to explain what had just been asked of her.

"It sounds fine to me," her mom said after forever. "As long as you two won't have anything you need to be doing for school."

"No, the town took a vote the other night, we've all decided Jess needs a break from his text books,"

"Can we go now?" Lily asked eagerly, Saturday morning, as Rory finished her coffee and Jess returned from the kitchen.

"We can go." Jess replied.

"But please try and remember to keep your purchases to a minimum." Sasha reminded her as Jess added the money she'd just handed him to his own wallet. "We have to lug those bags back home remember?"

"I will!" Lily called out, grabbing a hold of Jess and Rory's hands and pulling them towards the door.

"Whoa! Slow down!" Jess told her as he and Rory were forced to run to keep up. "It's going to be going on all day. We've got plenty of time."

"But what if all the good books are gone?" Lily asked, slowing down.

"They won't be, don't worry."

"Ok." She replied, reluctantly moving at a slower pace.

"See?" Rory pointed to the many tables and racks still covered in books as they arrived in front of the library.

"Let's go!" Lily pulled on their hands one last time before racing off to check out what was on offer. The two teens laughed as they watched her zip from one table to the next, but soon Rory was standing alone, stunned as the other two flew around, each building a pile of books at her feet.

After a short while they both returned to add to their collections and Rory called for them to stop. "Hang on a second; do you see what you've done?" Lily looked at her confused, while Jess pretended not to understand at all. "Your mom said not to buy too much," she explained to the young girl." And you have nowhere to put any of that," she added indicating Jess' pile. "Your room is already chockfull, half the time the phone rings I expect to hear your mom telling me that you were crushed by your books sometime during the night."

"I can start storing them in the garage."

"There's a boat in your garage." Rory pointed out.

"I'll store them in the boat."

"And I can just get Jimmy to carry my bag so mom doesn't notice." Lily decided.

"Ok then, you've got it all figured out, don't let me stop you. Carry on." They returned to their search as Rory wandered to a nearby table and picked up a Henry James novel, flipping through it absently.

"You know you're dead, right?" Rory asked Jess as she walked beside him and Lily later that day, all three of them carrying a large mound of books.

"Hey, it's not like Lily spent all of the money that was given to her, so I don't really see the problem. And besides, you made us put back half the books we found anyway."

"I did not make you put back half! Just a couple that I was sure you didn't need. And the only reason she didn't spend all the money was because the books were about as cheap as they could get, but you shouldn't have let- I shouldn't have let either of you stay for this long."

"We were having fun weren't we?"

"Yep!" Lily agreed, grinning up at them over the stack in her arms.

"You want some ice-cream?" Jess asked as they reached his house.

"Yes please!"

"Ok, how about we drop these off here and then head over to the diner. I'm sure if we ask really nicely Uncle Luke we'll make us ice-cream sundaes."

"Are you sure you're sixteen?" Rory asked, following him inside and depositing the books on his desk. "Because you're acting awfully young for your age,"

"You know you want the sprinkles and the chocolate sauce, admit it."

Rory shook her head. "I'm not saying a word." She told him, unable to successfully hide the grin that formed at the idea of the food.

"Well if you don't speak up now, then you may just miss out,"

"I want ice-cream, and sprinkles," Lily announced, "and chocolate sauce and marshmallows-"

"Ok, ok, we'll see what we can do about that."

"You have created a monster," Rory whispered to him as they walked back towards the centre of town, Lily making her way just a little ahead of them. "But on the bright side, even if she didn't like you when she first got here, I'm certain she does now. For a ten year old, she has pretty good taste."

"What would you say to coming back with us?" Jimmy asked, joining Jess at the counter a few nights later. "We've got a spare room you can think of as your very own and I was thinking we could even take a tour around the campus, see where you'll be eating and sleeping and learning all that amazing stuff in a couple of years?"

"You want to tour Harvard?" Jess asked, surprised.

"Sure. You love that school you've wanted to go there since you were... I don't even remember how old. And, I mean, we could do it ourselves, instead of waiting around for one of those stuffy ones where they point out all the architecture and boring crap. What do you say?"

"I'd love to, but what about school?"

"You'll be at Harvard, how could Chilton have a problem with that?"

"Dad,"

"Ok, so we'll leave Thursday after school, get you back in time for home room on Tuesday, you'll only miss two days and they're the least important of the week anyway, so it won't be a big deal. Come on, I really want to see it with you, just so we can make absolutely certain that this is the school for you."

"I know it's the school for me, but it would be really cool to check it out." Jess replied before adding, "And I was six."

"Huh?"

"When I decided I was going to Harvard,"

"Oh, yeah. Right,"

"As long as Mom's ok with it, and Luke doesn't have a problem with me missing work, then it sounds good to me."

"Done and done. I already talked to the both of them. And they're on board. Your mom wasn't too happy about missing out, but she said she's got a big order to fill. I told her we'd take lots of pictures."

"Well you seem to have everything planned, was there a point to asking me?"

"Just so you wouldn't call the cops on me for kidnapping you."

"Ah, yeah, that makes sense."

"I can't believe you're going to be at Harvard this time on Saturday." Rory remarked as she and Jess each took seats at a table with Tristan on Thursday. "Is it ok that I'm the tiniest bit jealous? I mean, I know the idea of going to college has never really even entered my mind, let alone an Ivy League but still,"

"You can be jealous if you have to,"

"Thank you. Tristan's jealous too, aren't you?"

"That you get to choose where you want to spend four years of your life once you get out of here without any pressure or lectures on the many generations that have come before you? And that you may get to avoid the pain all together," he added to Rory, "absolutely. And I'm not too happy about you getting time off school either,"

"Oh, I know, neither am I," Jess replied. "It's totally going to mess up my perfect attendance record."

"You know, sometimes our minds are practically linked, we're so similar, but then you go and do or say something like that, and I can't tell what planet you're from."

"Just as well, when I finally decide to journey home you won't be able to follow me."

"Ha-ha."

"Ok boys calm down. It's one weekend, I'm sure we'll all survive four days."

"You'll survive will you?" Tristan asked, throwing a French fry at her.

"Yes, and would you like to know why?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Because my mother has decided she wants to attempt to cook for another person, one who has never eaten her food before and therefore hasn't built up a tolerance to it."

"I don't envy that sucker."

"Tristan, I would like to extend a formal invitation from Lorelai Gilmore, to attend dinner in her apartment on Saturday night."

"I'm sorry, you just said that your mother is going to poison someone this weekend and now you're inviting me over?"

"I didn't say that, just that you may feel a little discomfort. Come on, please? Distract me from my horrible loneliness?" Rory asked, giving him a pitiful smile.

"I'm too young to die."

"You'd leave a pretty corpse," Jess pointed out.

"The trick is to eat small portions until you're used to it and gradually you'll be fine eating just about anything she puts in front of you. Having a boyfriend who can cook almost anything you can think off is really helping her."

"Fine!" Tristan relented. "But if I end up getting my stomach pumped, you will pay."

"Duly noted,"

"That place would be lost without you, Dad." Lorelai announced, as Richard finished telling a story of how he'd managed to save the day earlier in the week at his office.

"Yes, well, let's hope we don't have to find out for sure anytime soon, hmm?" the others nodded in agreement as Emily took a sip from her glass of water. "Well, come on now, you two are young, surely you have more interesting things going on in your lives? Adventures of some kind?"

"Ah... well, not really." Lorelai shook her head.

"Yeah, it's been a pretty light week adventure-wise." Rory agreed. "Oh, well, Jess' dad was in town, visiting, I think I told you he was coming, right?"

"Yes, you also mentioned a girlfriend and a child." Emily added.

"Right, yeah, well, they were great, really nice. And Jess got a long with them well too. He's even gone to stay with them in Boston for the weekend."

"And Rory's beside herself, she was practically tearing up on the way over here." Lorelai added grinning as Rory just rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, Jess has wanted to go to Harvard practically his whole life," Rory continued. "And Jimmy and Sasha live pretty close by, so they're going to spend the day looking around the campus tomorrow."

"Oh, well. That's very nice,"

Rory looked between her grandparents, confused. She would have thought mentioning Jess' wish to attend such a high profile school would assist in making the Gilmores like him even more, or, in Emily's case, at all. It meant that he had ambition and he wasn't just some small town guy, destined to stay put.

"Uh, Rory let me decode the silence you now hear," Lorelai began. "You see, while Harvard is a very good school, one of the countries top universities, it's just Harvard. And Gilmores don't go there they go to the better school. They go to Yale, the school of light and truth. They march behind Handsome Dan on game days! They-"

"So you're saying Harvard bad, Yale good?" Rory cut in before her mother had a chance to stand up and start singing the school song.

"Uh, well, yeah. That's pretty much the thinking among the Gilmore clan."

"Only because it is in fact the better school." Richard explained. "You know this Lorelai."

"Yes Dad, I remember."

"Well as much as I would enjoy a Harvard versus Yale debate, why don't we table this discussion for another time and I'll see what's keeping our dessert, hmm?" Emily asked, getting up from her seat, heading for the kitchen. "Amelia? Amelia! Oh, honestly, I don't know what's wrong with that woman." She muttered, disappearing into the next room.

"I can't believe I'm stuck here, making stupid jewellery while Jess is seeing Harvard for the first time." Liz grumbled, threading a bead onto a piece of fishing line.

"You're not mad that Jimmy took him are you?" Luke asked, unpacking a bag of food on the kitchen counter.

"No. It just sucks! I was supposed to be with him when he saw that place, took his first steps through the gate, it was supposed to be me taking the pictures for Jimmy."

"Well, you'll get to be there when he walks in as a student for the first time," Luke pointed out, bringing over a plate of food.

"Yeah, I guess that'll have to do." She grumbled.

"Come on, take a break. You've been at this all morning."

"I have to get this stuff done. There's a fair in Worchester next month and I've been so scatterbrained lately, I haven't made any new pieces. I can't show up empty-handed."

"You're pregnant, I'm pretty sure you're allowed to get a little distracted from everyday life."

"Oh, good, so will you write me a note to post up on the booth that TJ's building so everyone can understand why we have nothing?"

"Sure, I'll do it right away. Now eat!"

"But my baby is at Harvard!"

"I know. I heard all about it."

"Distract me," Liz begged. "Tell me something to take my mind off it."

"Lorelai told me what Sookie has planned for the birth next month."

"Oh, yes, I want to know all about this, she was going to tell me yesterday, but I had to leave and find Twizzlers and pineapple juice."

"That's what you're craving?"

"I know, as cravings go, it's pretty boring, but I'm glad that's as far as it's gone this time around, do you remember what I always wanted last time?"

"I still can't believe you were actually able to stomach those peanut butter and popcorn sandwiches."

"I know they were incredibly disgusting. But I think that was my way of balancing Lorelai's need to eat apples everyday."

"That one I could live with. I just wish she'd stuck with that."

"Not a chance. So, anyway, tell me, what do they have planned for the birth?"

"Those people are insane," Luke announced as Liz finally put down the bracelet she was working on and reaching for the burger Luke had brought.

"Why? What are they doing?"

"They've got this crazy idea that the baby shouldn't be born in a hospital, because people in hospitals are either dead or infectious."

"Well, that is true; hospitals are full of sick people. So where are they going to do it? A birth centre?"

"At home,"

"In their living room?"

"In their bed,"

"No!"

"I couldn't believe it when they told us. And Lorelai was trying desperately to cover her horror. Especially when Jackson handed over a baby pager,"

"Oh my God! They want her there?"

"Correction, they want us there." Luke replied, pulling something out of his pocket.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Your very own baby pager," He pressed a button and "The Entertainer" played for a few moments.

"Oh wow."

"They said that even if we're disgusted, they want us there, in the house at least, because we're their best friends." Luke explained as Liz fiddled with the pager.

"Oh of course I'll be there."

"And then Jackson announced that he had to go and pick up extra buckets."

"Nice!" Liz grinned, imagining the look on her brother's face when he heard that.

"Yes, I was thoroughly grossed out."

"But it's still a month away, do they really need the pager and the buckets-"

"And the plastic sheet,"

"And the plastic sheet," Liz repeated, "right now?"

"I guess they're just getting prepared."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Liz nodded and picked at her food for a moment. "Hey! I haven't thought about missing Harvard for almost two minutes!"

"Good for you."

"But after I finish this you have to go. I need to get back to work."

"How about I go now?" Luke suggested. "I should be getting back too. Any preferences for dinner?"

"No, I have no idea. I usually change my mind about seven times before settling on something anyway."

"Well when you decide gimmie a call and I'll sort it out for you."

"You're the best brother ever!"

"It wouldn't hurt you to tell me a little more often."

"I love you Lukey! Thanks for taking such good care of us!" Liz called out, following him to the front door.

"Ok, so you can just... stop now. Stop. Ok?"

"Whatever you say,"