A/N: So, for the official record, I didn't forget about this story. It's still happening. I just... took a break. Somewhat unintentionally. It does please me that a few of you were interested enough to ask if I was going to continue it. And, clearly, I am. Hopefully the next chapter comes a little more quickly. But it'll be starting to get into the main plot pretty soon, so I have a feeling it will. Anyway, enjoy. :)

"There's always a story, always a chain of events that makes everything make sense."

"It's been awhile since we've been to one of these dinners. Feels weird, doesn't it? Driving here together, like we did when I was in high school?"

Lorelai sighed. Leave it to Rory to be nostalgic about a tradition she'd been forced into taking part in so many years ago. She might've had the sweetest daughter in the world, but she personally was not looking forward to this evening. "Weird, yeah."

Rory frowned. "You don't have to say it like that. We're going, aren't we? Might as well enjoy it."

"Do you want to know the last time I enjoyed an evening at my mother's house? Never. It doesn't work like that. There is no enjoying. The continuum of Emily dinners starts at 'bad' and goes to 'horrible'. And then there are the off-the-chart dinners, the ones that are so ridiculously bad that there isn't even a word that you can assign to it. But that's it. There's no 'good', no 'pleasant'."

"You're being dramatic."

"You're surprised by this?"

Rory rolled her eyes and changed the subject. "It's too bad Luke couldn't come."

"He's working."

"Caesar could've covered."

"He's out of town, visiting friends or something."

"That's weird, he never goes anywhere."

"So I guess he was overdue for a vacation."

"I guess so." Rory stared out the window for a moment before turning back to her mother. "So, you met him?"

"Who, Caesar?"

"Richard Castle."

"Oh, yeah, I met him. He seems nice. He booked his room for three nights instead of just one, so I guess we must've charmed him."

"We are good with the charming." Rory fiddled with her seatbelt. "Did he say anything to you about the review?"

"No, he didn't. And I don't think you need to worry about it, that was years ago."

"He did remember it," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but I doubt it's the main thing on his mind."

"He did seem a little distracted," Rory remembered.

Lorelai nodded. "He asked us to have dinner with him tonight. Both of us, and Luke, and he offered to pay. I told him we had other plans, but it doesn't sound to me like he's holding a grudge."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. I'll try to let it go."

"And I'll get behind that decision."

"I wonder why he's staying? I thought he had a book signing to get to in Boston?"

Lorelai shrugged. "He said it fell through. I don't know, nothing seems to be going according to plan this weekend."

"Did you ever find out the reason for all the cancellations?"

"No. It's weird, I mean, I don't usually know why people cancel their reservations, but five different rooms on Firelight weekend? I made a few calls, even talked to Babette when I got home, and no one seems to know about anything out of the ordinary happening. Taylor hasn't decided to replace the whole town with a hay bale maze again, Kirk isn't planning on doing any kind of strange performance, Miss Patty's still making her punch… it's a regular Firelight Festival, just like every other year."

"Maybe they just had scheduling conflicts."

"One or two rooms, I could understand. But five? I'm gonna have to start charging for cancellations, I swear."

"You've been saying that since you opened the inn, and you haven't done it yet."

She nodded. "I guess you're right. And we haven't gone bankrupt yet."

"Far from it. You know what? I'll promise to stop obsessing over the review if you stop obsessing over the cancellations."

"Deal." Lorelai felt the familiar sense of foreboding as she pulled her Jeep into her least favorite driveway. "Last chance to back out."

"I told Grandma we were coming, we can't back out now."

"Sure we can. The reverse gear was invented for a reason."

Rory rolled her eyes. "Let's go."

"It's a shame that Luke couldn't come tonight," Richard remarked as the maid served some sort of fancy dish that looked like it might've been a fish at one point. "I wanted to give him that book he asked me about last time."

Lorelai was positive that if Luke had been asking her father about any book, it was purely out of politeness. But she nodded, not in the mood to start an argument. In this house, they always seemed to find her without much help. "He had to work tonight."

"I suppose everyone has their own set of priorities," Emily interjected. "For some it's family, for others it's work."

Rory cut her mother off with a stern look before she could reply. "Mom, why don't you tell Grandma and Grandpa about who's staying at the inn this weekend?"

She took a breath and allowed her daughter's wish for a peaceful dinner take precedence over her own instinct to defend her husband. "Richard Castle, the novelist? He's in town, and he's staying at the Dragonfly."

"Well, that's certainly something!" Richard said. "That he chose to stay at your inn rather than somewhere in Hartford. Shows you've built quite a reputation."

She chose not to include the fact that Castle's car had broken down and he hadn't trusted the tow truck driver to get him to Hartford, and just nodded.

"Richard Castle," Emily mused, "isn't he the one who wrote those trashy detective stories?"

"They're not trashy," Rory immediately cut in. "They were on the New York Times bestseller list."

"Yes, and so was 50 Shades of Grey."

"How do you even—?" Lorelai started, but her mother ignored the interruption.

"In fact, I could hardly point to a book written in the last ten years that's anything but filth. Didn't you write a review of his first book, Rory? What was it called, Naked Heat?"

Rory blushed violently, and Lorelai suspected it had little to do with the book's title. "No, Heat Wave."

"Well, that isn't much better."

"Naked Heat was the second," Rory murmured, but Lorelai spoke over her and the comment got lost.

"Have you actually read any of these books, Mother?"

"No, of course not. But I read Rory's review. Nothing but undeveloped characters and graphic sex scenes."

"That's not what I wrote," Rory insisted. "I liked the book, and Mr. Castle seems very nice."

"Well, I suppose Richard is right," Emily said, her tone falling dismissively. "It's a status symbol, having a celebrity stay at your inn. Regardless of whether his fame is deserved."

She wasn't sure whether to thank her mother for what she recognized as her own strange brand of acceptance or correct her interpretation of Castle, inevitably starting an argument, so she did neither and continued to eat whatever exactly was in front of her, hoping that the sooner she finished, the sooner she could go home.

Rory, on the other hand, was determined. "But it is deserved," she insisted. As she wasn't usually the type to argue for argument's sake, Lorelai had to guess that her daughter's determination had something to do with residual guilt over the review. "Did you know that he's been working with the NYPD for four years," she continued, "gathering information to make his books as realistic as possible, and helping to solve cases in the process? He's actually doing things to fuel his writing, not just sitting behind a desk. He's out there in the world experiencing things. His books give all the characters, both the heroes and the villains, real stories and motives and lives. And there's more than just good and bad, there's everything in between. Just because his books are popular doesn't mean they can't be real, quality novels."

"I don't remember any of that from your review," Lorelai said, just to Rory.

"I did some research after I met him. He's actually had a pretty impressive career. He was still in college when he wrote his first bestseller."

"You met him, Rory?" Suddenly Emily was interested again.

"Yeah. At a gas station outside of Stars Hollow. His car broke down, so I gave him a ride, and then we had lunch."

"You had lunch with Richard Castle?" Lorelai shouldn't have been surprised by the fact that when he stayed at her inn he was nothing more than a trashy novelist, but now that Rory had met him her mother was impressed. "That's a wonderful contact to have. Did you get his number?"

She blushed slightly. "No, I didn't get his number. I just talked to him a little bit, that's all."

"You should try to get an interview for that newspaper of yours," Richard put in.

"It's not my newspaper, Grandpa. I just work there."

"I know that, but you're their best reporter, surely you have some influence."

"I don't know about their best reporter…"

"Oh, you're just being modest. Maybe you could get them to reprint your review, with the interview beside it, like a follow-up piece. I'm sure your readers would love it."

Rory's mouth set as she transitioned from annoyance to anger, a rare emotion for her. "I don't want them to reprint it, Grandpa! I wish they'd never printed it in the first place. It was judgmental and mean and some of the things I wrote weren't even true. And if I was a better journalist, I could write my opinions without being hurtful."

She got up from the table and left the room, leaving the vaguely fish-like object on her plate nearly untouched.

Lorelai gave her daughter a few minutes to cool off before going after her. She found her in the first place she looked, in Richard's study, sitting in a chair strangely close to the portrait of her that had been painted when she was much younger, creating a borderline-creepy scene.

"So much for not obsessing," she said as she approached her.

"Yeah, well… Grandma kind of messed that up."

Lorelai nodded. "She does that."

"It wasn't her fault, she didn't know the whole story… but I shouldn't have written the things I wrote. I should've at least done some research first, found out more about him—"

Lorelai cut her off. "It was just a review, not a textbook. You don't need to know everything about an author before you review a book. You've never done that with anyone else, you've just never met any of the other authors afterward. Remember when you were in college and you reviewed that ballet? It's the same kind of thing, except instead of an angry ballerina it's a writer, like you. Who really doesn't seem that angry, so I think this situation might even be better."

She sighed. "I guess."

"And it was that piece that basically got you onto the paper. I hate to say it, but my parents might actually be right. Rick could be a great contact for you. I'm sure he knows other writers, and detectives, obviously, if he's worked with the NYPD… he might even have an in at the New York Times. Not that there's anything wrong with the Providence paper, but I know you want to do more with your career, and maybe he could help."

She nodded. "It just sucks, you know? I happen to meet this amazing novelist, through sheer coincidence, and he already knows me as the reporter who gave him a bad review. What are the chances of that?"

Lorelai shrugged. "Well, you know Serendipity. She's never been kind to us in the past, why should that change now?"

"I thought you talked to her about that?"

"Apparently she forgot."

"You might have to remind her."

"Maybe. I know one thing for sure, though."

"What's that?"

"That girl in the painting?" She pointed to it, eliciting an eye-roll from the grown-up version of its subject. "She would be amazed at the person you are now. Working at a real newspaper, meeting famous authors? Doing all the things she dreamed about."

Rory's face had reddened again. "I hope you're right," she murmured.

"I know I am. Now, do you think we'd better get back out there for dessert before Emily sends out a search party?"

Rory nodded. "Hopefully it's better than the main course. What was that, fish?"

"How should I know? You're the one who actually listens when Mom tells us what the weird rich people food is supposed to be."

"You're the one who grew up here. You've probably had it before."

"And obviously I wasn't listening then, either. Trust me, the number one rule of society cuisine? It's better if you don't know what it is."

"Does that rule hold up for dessert?"

"Sometimes. But usually the dessert is good even if the dinner sucks."

Rory nodded, probably remembering this from previous Friday night dinners. "Let's test that theory."

A/N: So I know that this chapter was mostly Gilmore Girls, and I know that not everyone reading this knows much about that show, but I hope it was easy enough to follow. The next chapter will be Castle's point of view, so... bear with me.

Thanks for reading, and please leave me reviews! :)