Rory carefully placed her sleepy daughter down in her cot and turned on the musical mobile hanging above. As the soothing lullaby music played and Lily's eyelids became heavier and heavier Rory sat by the side of the cot and intently studied the little girl that had changed her life so much.

Seeing Logan today had been a complete bolt out of the blue. Over recent months she'd taken a leaf out of her mom's book and become quite the expert at compartmentalizing. For a while, Logan had been all she had thought about but she had managed to push him far away into the back of her mind. That was until today. It hadn't always been easy to do, especially as time went on and Lily grew bigger, she seemed to look more and more like her father every day and so Rory faced a constant reminder of the love that she had lost.

Rory had made peace with her decision not to tell Logan about Lily. Most days she felt pretty okay about it as deep down she believed she had done what she was best for them. However, there were still the occasional day when she wondered if she should let him know about Lily, so that one day when her daughter asked about her father and wanted to meet him, it wasn't going to come as a terrible shock.

As she watched her daughter sleeping, Rory thought back to when she had first discovered she was pregnant. It had taken her a while but eventually, she had come to accept that the situation was what it was. Even though the act of becoming pregnant may have been unconscious, the choice to go through with her pregnancy and face parenthood alone, wasn't. Her family and friends had all presumed that the father was Logan but Rory refused to enter into the conversation and on occasion had even led them to believe that someone else had fathered her child, such was her need for him not to find out. Only Lorelai knew the truth for sure.

Once the shock, the anguish and the hard decision-making was over, Rory had allowed herself to be a little excited and even happy. The baby she was carrying wasn't the result of a brief fling or a one-night stand with a nameless stranger. She had been in a committed relationship with the father and they had loved each other, truly loved each other. There had been many times throughout her pregnancy that she had wanted to pick up for the phone and call Logan but something always held her back. It had felt so final on her graduation day and while she still wanted to believe that he loved her, he had walked away and made no effort to contact her again. He had moved on and she needed to do the same.

Giving birth to her daughter, was, and remained one of the most spectacular experiences of her life, the achievement of which she most proud of, the moment when she felt she truly became who she was destined to be. Luckily for Rory, single mothers and their children were no longer the social outcasts that they had been at the time Lorelai had found herself pregnant and her grandparents were more supportive than she could ever have imagined. She had no money and so she was grateful when they offered her the pool house again as a temporary home. She loved living in Stars Hollow with her mom but it was cramped quarters. Here in Hartford, she had more space and privacy.

For the most part, she was pretty content with her life and the only times Rory had really allowed herself to wallow in her own sadness was when Lily started to achieve her 'firsts' – first smile, the first time she rolled over, the first time she ate baby apple sauce. More often than not Rory found herself alone at these times and it was then that she had to pick up the phone and call someone to share the moment - Lorelai or her best friend Lane. Inevitably they would be out and so they would hear the news by voicemail several hours later when the moment and the excitement had passed. On more than one occasion Rory had sat on the sofa, hugging her knees to her chest, bursting with pride but dripping with tears, wishing that her daughter's father could be her side, to gasp and coo with her at yet another tiny, but momentous development in their baby girl's life but she had resigned herself to the fact that it was never going to happen, because her daughters father had no inkling that she even existed.

Parenting was something Rory found rewarding in so many ways but being a single mother was exhausting and isolating. Her daily routine didn't really differ to that of any other mother but it was in the evenings that it felt the hardest. When there was no other adult there to take over the bathtime or bedtime story reading, no other half to digest the day with. It was just her and a babbling baby. She was permanently worried about the future and her ability to earn enough money and she was frustrated at living in her grandparent's pool house and the inability to chase the career she had dreamed of but as far as Rory was concerned she had made her bed and now she had to lie in it.

Later that evening Lorelai stopped by to see how Rory was, knowing full well that the appearance of Logan would have unsettled her. She bounded into the pool house with arms full of food. "Hello dear daughter, I come bearing gifts of coffee, Chinese food and donuts" she announced triumphantly.

"Good, I am starving," Rory said flopping down onto the sofa.

"So, how are you feeling?" Lorelai asked tentatively.

"I'm fine, should I not be?" Rory asked a little defensively looking at her mom before she sighed. "Okay, well, it was a bit of surprise when you said you'd been talking to Logan. I've felt a bit weirded out about it all afternoon. I mean, the fact that he met Lily today…" she paused and took a long look at her mother's face. "You think I should tell him don't you!"

Lorelai put her hands up "It's up to you Rory, it's your life. And Lily's." she said. While she had never been Logan's biggest fan and had often felt that he wasn't good for Rory, Lorelai had never really approved of Rory keeping this big secret from him. She had however decided that trying to force her personal opinions on Rory was a bad idea - she'd done that in the past and it had resulted in months of them not talking to each other. The last thing she had wanted to do was push her daughter and grandchild away.

Lorelai continued "But what I will say is that one day Lily is going to want to know the truth about where she came from. She'll want to know her father, you can't avoid that and it's not going to be easy for you. Mystery, subterfuge and deceit cause insurmountable damage, Rory, especially when the truth emerges later in life."

"You think I did the wrong thing?" Rory asked.

Lorelai shrugged "We don't need to go over this kid. You know what I think. I am hugely in favor of a kid having their father around. I would never have advised anyone, let alone my own daughter, to opt for single parenthood – motherhood is tough even with two parents on board. I've experienced the single parenting life, for many years – been there, done that and got the worry lines to prove it. It's not a life I would have chosen for you and it didn't have to be this way. It still doesn't."

Rory chewed on the side of her cheek. She'd always known that her mom thought Logan should have been told. "But nothing would have changed. I would have told Logan and would have ended up being on my own either way. This way, there's less disappointment all round."

"You don't know that would have been the case, Rory, he loved you," Lorelai said.

"I can't believe that you are almost fighting his corner. You never liked him!" Rory laughed and shook her head.

"That's not true Rory. Logan had many redeeming qualities. Yes, there were times when I worried about his influence over you but I never once doubted that he loved you. It was obvious for anyone to see but this isn't about that – it's not even specifically about Logan! I just think that all children at least deserve the opportunity to know their father. Lily deserves that."

"Lily doesn't know any different!" Rory said stubbornly.

"Not now, because she's only nine months old but she will and when she's a teenager and asks about her father and why he was never involved – will you be honest and tell her that you never gave him the choice? She'll be hurt, Rory. How will you defend yourself? What are you going to say? What about Logan! How will you face him? He's missed out on so much already. You loved him once, don't you think that he deserves to be treated better and at least given the opportunity to know his daughter?"

"You think I don't know all that?!" Rory yelled.

Lorelai sat back and sighed. She never meant to unleash such a tirade on her daughter but she stood by everything she had said. Just seeing what Luke had gone through discovering he was April's father and the fact that Anna had kept it from him all those years – she couldn't help feeling for Logan.

"I don't know okay." Rory said as tears slipped down her cheeks "I don't have all the answers. Or any of them." she threw her hands up in the air.

"Come here kid," Lorelai said as she pulled her daughter in for a hug. She hated to see her so confused and upset.

"I've messed everything up mom," Rory said as she wiped her tears away. "I know I should have told him, but I couldn't face seeing him again."

Lorelai smiled sympathetically "It might feel like you've messed everything up, but it can be fixed. You've just taken a few wrong turns that's all".

"I don't know how to make it right" Rory shook her head in defeat.

"Talk to him Ror. That's all you can do."

Rory pursed her lips. "Okay, I'll think about it."

"That's all I am asking," Lorelai said kissing the top of her daughter's head. "Now, this Chinese food is going cold, let's eat."

"Hold on. Before we do mom, there's something else I need to talk to you about." Rory grimaced.

"Oh! I do not like that tone – I've heard that before, that tone screams doom. Emily Gilmore is involved isn't she?" Lorelai said crossing her arms.

"How do you know! But yes, do you want the good news or the bad news?" Rory said hiding behind her hands.

"Hit me," Lorelai said resolutely.

"The good news is we're escaping Friday night dinner tomorrow. The bad news we're going to a DAR party instead" Rory said quickly hiding behind a cushion.

"You what! Not possible, I'm washing my hair or babysitting! That's right, I am babysitting! You'll need me to look after Lily while you go…"

"Too late for that excuse, Grandma already asked Marta to sit. C'mon mom, it might be…fun?" Rory pleaded "I promised grandma we'd go and as I helped arrange it…"

Lorelai threw herself back against the sofa and groaned. "You've just been knocked off my number one spot on the list of favorite people Rory Gilmore. There had better be martinis on free flow or you are going to owe me big time!" she said waggling her finger.

After they'd finished eating Lorelai headed back home to Stars Hollow. Rory lay back on the sofa thinking about everything they'd talked about that night. She knew that her mom was right, about everything. Logan was a good person and he deserved to know that he had a daughter. She was going to have to start facing things head on but she just wasn't ready to do it yet. Besides, she thought to herself, she wasn't even sure when she'd seen him again and it wasn't the kind of thing that you just put on an email – especially when you'd had no contact for eighteen months. No, Rory thought, there's no point in rushing this. I'll tell him when the time is right.