A/N: Thanks for the reviews, you guys rock my socks and probably a few other pieces of clothing. Okey, so the big intervention is due, let's see how things goes when you mix a confused Rory, a bitter Jess, a tired Lorelai and the elder Gilmores. Yeah! Also, as a compensation for my sore lack of updating *scolds self*, this chapter is somewhat longer than my chapters usually are. I had a hard time getting to a nice end here, and while the end isn't entirely nice, it's… well… You'll see.

Disclaimer: I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characters from Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I am not making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it…).

10. Three Gilmore girls and an engagement ring

"Señora Gilmore?"

Lorelai turned over in her bed.

"Early…" she muttered.

"Señora Gilmore?" asked the voice again.

"Hate early…" Lorelai continued, turning over further, but this time she rolled into something.

Determined not to let this something obstruct her way, she kept turning over, until the offensive thing next to her gave way.

"Lorelai!"

Luke's upset voice made Lorelai snap her eyes open. Luke was not in bed, and when she peeked over the left side of the bed, there he was, on the floor.

"What are you doing there?" she asked sleepily.

"You pushed me!" Luke told her accusingly.

"I did?"

"Señora Gilmore?"

Again, the voice. Lorelai gathered it must be the maid.

"Well, I only did it because she woke me up." she said, pointing toward the door.

Luke gruffed something unintelligeble, and began putting his clothes on.

They trod down the stairs ten minutes later, finding Emily and Richard in the dining room, having breakfast.

"Good morning." Luke greeted the elder Gilmores.

Emily gave him a quick look, while Richard offered him part of the paper. Lorelai took the opportunity of loading her plate full of food, stuffing it in, so she couldn't answer any questions, because it was rude to talk with food in your mouth. Over all it was a quiet breakfast. Emily asked her if they had had a good night's sleep, to which Lorelai nodded. Richard tried to make small talk with Luke, but it was as if they all knew what they were going to have to do as soon as breakfast was over.

"I… I think I'm gonna go try calling Jess." Luke excused himself, and left the dinner table.

Lorelai sighed. She never liked being alone with her parents, it was like being left alone with a couple of vicious hyenas with manners. When peeking up from her plate of food, she found her parents oblivious, trying to ignore the imminent intervention. Emily was lazily stirring her cup of tea, reading the art-pages of the paper. Richard was immersed in the business-section.

"So…" Lorelai began. "When do we leave?"

Her parents looked up from the respective paper-sections and stared at her. Lorelai felt like she had literally dropped a bomb in the room. Luckily, Luke entered the room, just as she began feeling like she had to apologize.

"I only got Jess' voicemail, but I told him we would be coming down to Philadelphia, and that he should call me as soon as he hears the message."

"Well, I guess we should get moving. It's a long drive." Richard said matter-of-factly, putting down his paper.

"Yes," Emily concurred curtly. "Be ready to leave in fifteen minutes."

Lorelai meant to say something about fifteen minutes not being enough, but kept it to herself for the sake of the four hour car trip.

In Philadelphia, Jess was awake. He had been awake for most of the night, and he had seen how his phone had began vibrating silently when Luke had called. He didn't feel like talking, and waited until the call went to voicemail, hoping Luke wouldn't leave a message. Although he might, he often did. Sometime during the night Jess had picked up his phone, only to discover 16 missed calls, most of them from Luke, but also a couple from Lorelai. He figured he must have missed them during his zoned-out session on the train. He turned around in the uncomfortable sofa, trying to push away the thought of all of Luke's calls. He had been pretty rude to Luke over the phone, but he wasn't thinking clearly. "Right, nice defense there…" he scoffed at himself. He turned yet again, then sighing. He reached out to grab his phone, pushed a couple of buttons and listened to his voicemail. Luke had in deed left a message.

"Hey Jess, it's Luke, althought you've probably guessed that from all the calls… Anyway, Lorelai, Emily, Richard and myself are coming down to Philly today so we can clear up this mess with Rory. We're finishing breakfast, so I figure we'll be leaving within the hour. Call me when you get this. Sorry if I woke you. Okey, bye."

Jess looked at his watch. Six-thirty. He could call, they were obviously up. Or he could just not call. He had nothing to say, nothing to explain, they knew why he left, or at least they should. And why did Emily and Richard have to come? To wreak more havoc? Hadn't they done enough? Jess shook his head. This was something between Rory and him, they needed to work this out. If Luke and Lorelai wanted to help, that was fine by him, but Gilmore seniors? He couldn't get it. Jess put the phone away. "Okey, so six-thirty. Lorelai will stall, so they will probably start driving at seven, stop for coffee at least twice if not more… They're probably here around noon…" he thought. Yeah, that sounded about right. He could meet up with them then. As reluctant as he was to spending time with Emily and Richard, he knew he needed Lorelai and Luke to get to Rory in case things didn't go well with him trying it solo, and Luke and Lorelai came with Lorelai's parents, so there wasn't much to be done about it. Jess turned around yet again. If he was going to spend the day coaxing Rory back into his life, with the help of her mother, his uncle and her grandparents, he needed sleep. Energy. Sleep… Within five minutes, Jess was snoozing away on the uncomfortable sofa.

A couple of blocks away, Rory was sound asleep, occasionally turning in her crammed make-shift bed. It wasn't so bad after all, it had looked pretty stupid once she had made the bed, but when she had crawled in under the cover and put her head down on the pillow, she had fallen asleep at once. It could have been the strange place, or it was just because she was exhausted. She had driven all night, she was feeling void of everything and filled with all kinds of emotions, all at the same time. In her heart she knew she had to do something about this, sometime, but her mind was at peace for the moment, dreaming about jumping from the tower with the Life and Death Brigade. She was happy to see Logan was nowhere in sight, and she felt exilirated when she took that final step into the air, holding her umbrella tightly. The trip down seemed to go on and on, and soon she noticed she was floating downwards, just her and her umbrella. No safety-rig, nothing. On the one hand she felt free and happy. On the other hand, she really wanted to see the ground. Looking down, there was nothing. Just more blue. Suddenly, she wasn't floating downwards anymore. She was floating upwards, away from the ground, and she wasn't sure whether she liked it or not.

"I still say we should've taken two cars…" Lorelai muttered quietly.

Her and Luke were sitting in the backseat of her parents' Jaguar, and Lorelai was sulking. Not only had they left early, but she hadn't been able to bring coffee, because her travelmug was at home in Stars Hollow, and of course her parents wouldn't have anything as trivial as a travelmug. It had still been early when they left, so she was looking forward to sleeping, but of course her father had turned on that stupid GPS-machine that would gape out commands every other minute or so, so sleeping was out of the question.

"You're silly." Luke answered her. "Have you any idea how uneconomical that is, not to mention unecological?"

"Hey, I could've rode shotgun, and got some sleep, for me it would have been a win-win situation."

"Ever heard of earplugs?"

"They're ugly, and I always think they're going to get stuck."

"Why did I ask…" Luke muttered, amused.

"Are we there yet?" Lorelai asked her parents.

"Lorelai, you asked that ten minutes ago. We are ten minutes closer to Philadelphia. I swear, you are no different from when you were nine." Emily answered her.

"She is probably worse." Richard laughed. "At least during that trip she fell asleep for a couple of hours."

"Hey, I would sleep, if only that offensive thing would cut some of the shouting out."

"It is not shouting, Lorelai, it is giving me clear instructions on how to get to Philadelphia by safest and quickest way possible."

"Yeah well, I say it's corrupt…"

Two hours, three stops for coffee and a lot of talk about corrupt GPS-units later, they arrived in Philadelphia, and quickly found their way to Rory and Jess' apartment.

"Ridiculous…" Lorelai said when she looked at her watch. "It's Saturday, and I've been up for over five hours…"

"You do it for Rory." Luke comforted her, as they walked up the stairs to the apartment, closely followed by Emily and Richard.

Lorelai nodded, taking a deep breath. This would either work, and all would be good once agian, or it would get worse. She sincerly hoped for door number one.

Luke found the right door, and gave it a good knock. It was quiet inside.

"Are you sure she went to the apartment?" Emily asked.

"Where else would she go?" Lorelai replied.

"Well, doesn't that boy have some business associates here?" Richard questioned.

"Trust me dad, this is where she'd go, I would go here, and she is my daughter."

Truth to be told, Lorelai felt a bit nervous and unsure. Was she really that sure that Rory would go to the apartment? She hadn't been here long enough to make any real friends, and even though Rory knew Jess' two former roommates, Lorelai had gotten the impression that they had moved out because of them. She shook away the thoughts and banged the door.

"Rory!" she called out. "Rory, honey, it's me. And Luke, and grandma and grandpa."

She thought she heard something on the other side of the door.

"Babe, if you're in there, please open, or I'm gonna show your babypictures to the neighbours."

"Lorelai!" her mother gasped behind her. "You are making a scene."

"Chill out mom, no one's here besides us."

At that moment, the door clicked, and slowly swung open.

Rory heard the first knock, but didn't want to open it. It could be Jess. Or her mom. Or it could be one of the neighbours, wanting to borrow something. When she didn't answer the door, it was quiet, and she happily thought she had evaded an eventual confrontation with anything resembling a human being. Then came the banging, and her mom's voice. She flinched, and shot up from her makeshift bed, making a lot of noise while doing so. She was torn between wanting to answer the door and to stay right where she was. The judgmental express was on the other side of that door, and that could not be good. When the threat about her babypictures came, she couldn't resist. Screw her grandparents, she had to see her mom. Quietly, she walked over to the door, and opened it. She flung herself onto Lorelai as soon as they looked at each other. Rory kept her eyes closed, not wanting to look at her grandparents, especially not her grandmother.

"Okey honey, suffocating here." her mom said.

She reluctantly let go, opening her eyes. Luke was standing beside her mom, and behind them was Emily and Richard, both looking relieved.

"Come in." Rory told them, motioning them inside.

They all walked in, and settled down on to the sofa, while Rory remained standing, her arms crossed over her chest.

"So…" she said. "Am I to understand you're the rescuing party?"

"Well, for lack of a better name." Lorelai replied. "Honey, you had us worried."

Rory rolled her eyes, fidgeting with the sleeves of her shirt.

"Rory…" Emily began. "You know I would never…"

"But you did, grandma!" Rory interrupted. "You did, and you broke me and Jess apart!"

"I most certainly did not!" Emily said loudly, shooting up from her place on the sofa.

"Do you see a ring on my finger? No! Me and Jess are history, again, and this time it wasn't because he left or because I was with someone else. This one's on you grandma!"

Lorelai could hardly believe what she heard. This was like a bad rerun of her own teenage years, and it was coming from her daughter, the daughter she had tried to keep from throwing similar tantrums with her and the grandparents. She looked around. Luke looked hugely umcomfortable, and her father wasn't exactly looking like he was enjoying himself. Her mother was looking sternly at Rory, who was looking back.

"Okey…" Lorelai breathed, breaking the awkward silence. "Dad, Luke, how about you go get coffee? I saw a coffeeshop a block away."

"Terrific." Luke said, getting up from the sofa, and was at the door in no time.

Richard was right behind him, looking almost relieved to be excused.

"Take your time." Lorelai yelled as the door slammed shut.

It was quiet for a long time. Emily looked at Rory, who refused to look at anyone, and Lorelai stood inbetween them, not knowing who to look at.

"Right, now that we have the core of the problem here…Boy, do I feel awkward being the mediator…"

Both her mother and her daughter shot her angry looks, to which she shrugged. It was usually Rory that mediated when something was wrong between her and her mother, having things the other way round felt weird, and they should know it.

"I think we need to establish some basic facts here, guys." Lorelai began. "First of all, yes mom, I know you care about Rory, but this is your granddaughter, who has been nothing but perfect and capable of taking care of herself. You could have waited for her to ask you for help."

Emily was about to protest, when Lorelai put up her hand and turned to Rory.

"And babe, even though what grandma did was wrong, you didn't act your best either. She may have been the catalyst, but you were the one who left Jess, and skipped off to Philadelphia. You two could've talked, and this could have been resolved by now without tears, hijackings and the two of you leaving Stars Hollow without telling us."

"Mom..!"

"No. Neither of you behaved well, and I will not have my family break apart because of this. This will get fixed, and we will not leave this room until it is. Are we clear?"

Lorelai looked from Emily to Rory and back, both pouting like little kids.

"Do I need to send you to your rooms, kids?"

"We're clear…" Rory muttered.

"Thatta girl." Lorelai smiled, and then turned to Emily. "Mom?"

"I suppose it is acceptable."

"Great… I know dad and Luke will be back with coffee soon, but I'm dying. Please, please, honey, tell me you have coffee."

"Middle cabinet, tincan with a note taped on the lid."

"Luke's?"

"What else?"

Lorelai went out into the kitchen, leaving Rory and Emily alone in the livingroom. Both felt incredibly uncomfortable, and every small movement made them twitch.

"Why don't you come sit down, Rory." Emily said, in an attempt to soothe the strained atmosphere.

"I'm fine." Rory answered, trying to look away.

Emily sighed, reaching into the left pocket of her coat that she was still holding.

"I think this belongs to you, young lady."

Rory looked up. Her grandmother was holding something. She hesitantly walked over, finding it to be the engagement ring. She had to fight not to break out in tears at the sight of it.

"It's not mine anymore." she said as neutrally as possible.

Emily tilted her head, looking disapprovingly at her granddaughter.

"Rory, do you love that boy?"

"Jess." Rory said in response, hating to hear Jess being refered to as 'that boy'.

"I think you do." Emily continued, seemingly not paying attention to Rory's utterance. "I think you love him enough to run away just so you could avoid the path your mother was set for. Grand, themed wedding, expensive dress, and all the right guests. You know Richard and I love you like a second daughter, and this…this was my last chance."

"Last chance for what? Hijacking someone's life?"

"Don't sass me, young lady." Emily reproved, and looked at Rory. "I realize I may have been a tad… excited about this, and I may have jumped the gun, but I wanted you to have a wedding you would never forget, one that you would look back at with joy."

"You want me to be happy?" Rory asked, looking at Emily.

"Yes, of course."

"Then you should've kept out of it. I was heading for those joyful memories, I would have had them when I was ready for them. I was afraid of telling you about the engagement, because I feared it would lead to this, to you taking over. Why should I have to be afraid of that?"

"You shouldn't." Emily replied, taking Rory's hand in hers. "And for that I'm sorry."

She let go, and Rory felt something cold and hard in the palm of her hand. She knew what it was before she saw it. It was the ring, and she was afraid to look at it now. She clenched her fist together, feeling the cold hard ring press into her palm. Without a word, she turned on her heel and went into bathroom, and locked the door behind her.

"Rory?" Emily called after her.

In that moment, Lorelai came out from the kitchen, with three cups of coffee in her hands.

"Where is she?" she asked, looking at Emily.

"She walked into the bathroom."

"Okey, well, perhaps she needs a moment." Lorelai told her, and went over to the bathroom door. "Hey babe! There's coffee out here. Whenever you're ready, but it tastes better when it's hot."

She could feel how her mother rolled her eyes behind her back, and when Lorelai turned, she could see Emily's disapproving look.

"What?" Lorelai asked.

"Nothing I can do anything about…" Emily sighed, sitting down on the sofa.

Lorelai handed her mother a cup of coffee, putting Rory's cup on the table.

Half an hour later, their cups were empty, and Rory was still locked in the bathroom. Lorelai felt uneasy, and walked over to the bathroom door.

"Rory? Are you okey?"

There was no answer, so she pressed her ears to the door. There was something, a strange noise that she found didn't fit a bathroom.

"Okey baby, you're scaring mommy. Open the door and make mommy feel stupid for almost hyperventilating."

There was still no answer from Rory, and now Lorelai felt like she was really going to hyperventilate. When the front door lock began to rattle, she flinched, and her eyes shot to the door. Luke and Richard entered, after a small battle with the lock. "Had they taken a key?" Lorelai wondered. Then she understood.

Rory was sitting on the bathroom floor, trying to supress her sobs into oblivion. The engagement ring, that damned thing, lay on the sink, taunting her for her stupidity. She had blew it again, and her grandmother had been such an easy scapegoat. She was trapped in her own evil circle of self-blame, and she ignored her mother's knocks and pleads from the other side of the door. She heard the front door rattle and open, figuring Luke and her grandfather were back. "Great…" she thought. "Luke will probably break the door to get mom to stop freaking…" She was half expecting the banging and tearing to begin, but instead, there came knocks again. Her mom's last plead before sending in Iron-Fist Luke. She ignored them, hiding her face between her hands to escape the immediate pain of knowing the position she had put herself in.

"Rory?"

Immediately, her head shot up. That was not her mom. It wasn't Luke.

"Rory, it's Jess. Please open the door."

A/N: Read, review and rock my world!