AN: I forgot to note in my last AN that I am aware that Lane ended up being pregnant in this story longer than she probably would've been. Just my tiny mistake. But oh well, I'm not perfect.

Chapter 132

"Where were you?" Paris inquired, urgently, as she'd let Rory into her apartment. "Your '20th century political history' class ended two hours ago," she added.

Rory had simply promised to drop by sometime that day, having not realized her presence had been that urgent.

"Hey, Rory," Doyle greeted her.

"Hey, Doyle," Rory replied, questioning Paris's anxiousness. "I was just dropping Logan off at the airport," she explained.

"Oh, yeah. He has that meeting in San Fran. When is it?" Doyle inquired, having ran into the two on Sunday and heard of his plans for the coming week, which had provided a convenient excuse to avoid having a double date with Doyle and Paris.

"Tomorrow afternoon," Rory replied, knowing already well, that while the meeting in question was the highlight of his trip, Logan also planned to catch up with as many contacts he could while there. He was truly treating his search for a job, a real job, with determination.

"Wish him luck for me," Doyle said, having explained to Rory the other day how now finally him and Logan could be friends, now that they were of similar financial background. Clearly, Doyle was still hoping to benefit from Logan's connections in the newspaper business as well.

"I will," Rory promised.

"Seriously? You're gonna stand here, making idle chit-chat on the single most important day of my life?" Paris spit out.

"Sorry, sweetie. Paris has some news," Doyle said.

"Not some news. The news!" Paris exclaimed, picking up a pile of envelopes from the dinner table. "Responses from Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Penn Medical, Yale Law School, Stanford Law School and Columbia Medical," she listed. "And before you comment on envelope thickness keep in mind that so much stuff is online these days, thickness is no longer an accurate indicator," she continued, nervously.

"I knew you'd want to be here when I opened them," Paris said, catching Rory somewhat by surprise. She felt guilty to admit that Paris probably considered her as a much closer friend than she did her.

"Yeah, right. Thanks," Rory said, not knowing how else to respond.

"Go on, hon! Do it!" Doyle encouraged.

"Okay," Paris sighed, as if getting ready to step onto a major stage. "My lucky letter opener," she said, picking the object up and. "Used it to open the envelope conveying my acceptance to Yale four years ago," she added. "Don't look at me like I'm some kind of a superstitious freak!" she yelled, looking quite dangerous with that knife in her hands. "It's just a precautionary device. If it works, great. If not, I need to open letters anyway," she added, calming down a little. "I don't know which to open first," she said in a shaky voice, almost as if changing into a completely different person the next second.

Paris picked up her envelopes and offered them to Rory. "Pick on," she begged.

"Okay, uh…," Rory hesitated but picked one at random. "Yale Law School," she read out.

"Okay, wow. Yale Law School. That's a great school. I'd be lucky to get in there, you know?" Paris reflected nervously.

Rory offered the letter to Paris.

"You open it!" Paris exclaimed.

"Me?" Rory asked.

"You're lucky," Paris said, confusing Rory a little.

"I am?" she asked.

"How else do you explain the fact that you got into Harvard four years ago and I didn't? You were the editor of the Yale Daily News way longer than I was. You landed Logan Huntzberger, the guy had a line that was a hundred girls long. No offense, Doyle!" Paris insisted.

"None taken," Doyle replied.

"Oh, right. Luck!" Rory reflected, not loving those criteria being listed like that.

"Okay," Paris encouraged her to continue. "Use the letter opener!" Paris insisted.

"Oh," Rory reacted, and did just that. "Are you sure the letter opener's luck isn't gonna cancel out my luck?" Rory teased.

"I don't know. Is that how it works?" Paris asked, taking her more seriously than she'd meant it.

"I was kidding," Rory explained, adding - "Sorry," sensing how Paris was not in a joking mood by the way she was clutching Doyle's arm. "Here we go. All right," she added, opening the letter up.

"Dear Paris Geller, we are pleased to inform you…," she began, the rest of the letter becoming self-explanatory after those words.

"I got in!" Paris cheered, jumping in place.

Doyle howled excitedly, sounding very happy for Paris. The jumping screaming and hugging continued for a while.

"Congratulations, I'm so happy for you!" Rory said.

"Thank you! Thank you so much for your participation in 'operation finish line', for your friendship, for everything. You've always been an inspiration to me, Rory Gilmore!" Paris replied, causing Rory to feel undeserving of such words of kindness.

"Aw..," Rory chimed, awkwardly.

"I mean, the way you cut your ruthless path to the head of the Yale Daily News and never looked back. I never told you but I really admired that," Paris said.

"Thanks?" Rory replied, tentatively.

"And, Doyle, I know this process didn't exactly bring out my soft and fuzzy side," Paris began, turning to her boyfriend.

"Doesn't matter," Doyle assured. "I love you, baby. And I am so proud of you," he added.

"I love you too. I just can't believe that I got into the second best law school in the country," Paris exclaimed. "It's such an honor. It doesn't matter really if I get into the others. I have a great option right there," she added.

"You do," Rory assured, secretly hoping she had something equally solid up. But she didn't. The only thing she had gotten in the past few days was a rejection letter from New York University Carter Journalism Institute and another thing on her to-do list, wanting to write something for Hugo's magazine. She hadn't yet decided what she was going to write about, however. Her brain resembled a desert with tumbleweeds rolling around in it.

"Yeah! Anyway, go ahead," Paris encouraged Rory to continue opening the letters. "Might as well open Harvard, even though it doesn't matter. Use the letter opener again," Paris instructed.

"Okay," Rory exhaled, feeling weird with Paris freaking out this much, especially after she had that first great option. "We are pleased to inform…," Rory began to read out the letter.

Paris and Doyle cheered again. "I got in!" Paris screamed, falling onto Rory to hug her again.

"Congratulations!" Rory said again, trying very hard to remain excited for her friend, when inside she wasn't feeling much like celebrating.

"Bite me, Harvard. Bite me!" Paris yelled at the letter. "I'm tempted to reject them the same way they rejected me that dark day four years ago! Who's laughing now!" she added.

"Okay, um… so, next we have, what?" Rory continued, just wanting to get this part over with.

Every one of those letters turned out to be an acceptance letter, and just like Rory was feeling more and more discouraged, feeling like every career choice that she'd made during the past four years had been wrong, Paris was also getting more anxious and overwhelmed by all of the options she had. How had things gotten this bad? Was it really about getting distracted by Logan and losing her edge? She'd beat Paris in high school, hadn't she? Even if that wasn't the end goal at this point.

It didn't take long until Paris went on a rant about making the biggest decision - medicine or law and about where she wanted to live. Paris had all the choices. The only somewhat comforting thing was that Paris seemed just as lost as Rory felt with the abundance of options she had.

After leaving Paris's apartment, Rory made her way to the corner of Chapel and High street where she was due to meet her mother. She wasn't quite sure of the purpose of this meeting, but as soon as she made it to the corner she found her mother standing in a line.

"Of course," Rory exhaled, finding the situation one she should've predicted.

She'd even read about the opening of the Starbucks in New Haven, but hadn't quite considered it significant enough to remember the date or exact location, even if it was just a block from her apartment.

"Hey, kid! Over here!" Lorelai invited her to join her in the line.

"And what is this?" Rory asked, wondering why Lorelai would cheat on Luke's like this.

"The first 50 people get a drink for free," Lorelai explained, victoriously. "Besides, I can never go for coffee in Harford anymore. The trip back home is too short and Luke can taste it on my tongue," she added.

"He can seriously taste whose coffee you've had?" Rory asked, frowning her eyebrows.

"If he's thorough," Lorelai grinned.

"Ugh, gross," Rory replied, hating to picture her mother and Luke playing tonsil hockey.

"So where's that husband of yours? Half imagined you two to be joined at the hip now that he's here," Lorelai said.

"My guess is, that he's somewhere over Cleveland right now," Rory tried to do some quick time calculations in her head.

"Oh?" Lorelai reacted.

"He's flying to San Francisco for a meeting," Rory explained.

"He's still working or working already?" Lorelai inquired.

"It's just a onetime thing for now, as far as I've understood," Rory replied.

"Okay, good," Lorelai said.

"Good?" Rory asked.

"I mean, you two have been separated by an ocean for far too long. I mean wouldn't want him just to pick another direction instead of East," Lorelai replied.

"No, I wouldn't either," Rory said.

"So, how was Paris?" Lorelai asked, knowing from earlier where Rory was coming from.

"Fluctuating between ecstatic and panicked," Rory replied with a sigh.

"Uh?" Lorelai hoped for her daughter to elaborate.

"She got into a lot of different schools. Great schools. Both law and med schools. Now she has to choose between a dozen good options," Rory explained.

"Wow, good for her!" Lorelai said, genuinely.

Rory looked at her feet, struggling to hide how lost she was feeling herself.

"What about you, honey? Any word from..," she asked, not wanting to mention the New York Times by name, unsure if she was yet to shift her hopes around or not.

"No, but you heard what grandma and grandpa said. There likely won't be any response at all," Rory sighed.

"Maybe the person in charge of their fellowships works independently. Maybe the old guy, whatever his name is, is retired by now and they just look at the merits," Lorelai suggested.

Rory really didn't feel like talking about it. She hadn't even wanted to bring it up with Logan. She just didn't want to get upset with him or fight. She felt like she'd just gotten him back, and didn't want to rock the boat right now, needing her safe haven.

The line inched slowly forward.

"I did get a card the other day. At that dinner Logan and I went, I was encouraged to submit some cultural and social observation stories to this new online magazine. Just to see if they like it," Rory tried to sound more enthusiastic.

"Oh, cool. What's the magazine?" Lorelai inquired.

Rory told her a little about the concept, but remained cautious with her excitement.

"I just don't know what to write. And I've never really had that problem. It's like the well has run dry or something," Rory complained.

"Hey, I know you can do this. You've written about absolutely anything!" Lorelai encouraged.

"Yeah - what? I'm supposed to write about 'lines'? Why do people line up at openings, wanting to be the first ones to experience something? There isn't a story there," Rory complained, shrugging her shoulders.

"Yeah, but you could write about, I don't know - coffee? Or Danishes?" Lorelai suggested, eyeing some people who were emerging from the establishment with their order in hand. Her mouth was clearly watering a little,

"Yeah, but who'd want to read about coffee or Danishes?" Rory exclaimed, going on to focus on what her coffee order was going to be, shifting the focus into more trivial things.

As she got home a couple of hours later, the coffee and Danishes having logically blended into lunch at her favorite Italian place, her bad mood had exchanged into a more neutral one, mostly just feeling full and tired. Already in the elevator she'd flipped through the handful of letters she'd gotten from the concierge and the one with a New York stamp on it gave her some hope. Now, knowing what she knew about the likelihood of getting the New York Times Fellowship, she was cautious about daring to get her hopes up.

She had pondered about why Logan hadn't told her about a possible conflict of interest with the paper, but she knew that he wouldn't have done it maliciously. Most likely he'd just been trying to support her at going for what she wanted, sort of go-and-get-it type of attitude, and not wanting to make the name any heavier on her than it already was. Or maybe he had indeed been so young during the time of the conflict he wasn't fully aware of all the technicalities. Maybe her grandparents were just making a big deal of some old news.

In the end, it was almost impossible to not get her hopes up, and without waiting she ripped the letter open just as she stepped through the door.

"We regret to inform you..," she read out, getting the one like none of Paris's letters had included. Rory sank to the floor in the foyer, feeling utterly defeated. She should've known this was coming, yet the rejection hurt regardless of its causes.

After feeling bad for herself for a few minutes, she flipped through the rest of the mail, but found nothing beyond bills and ads. There were no other offers, and she only had herself to blame for it, having shifted her directions one too many times. She knew it didn't show her in the best light.

For a second she considered even giving Kate Hessel another call, but thankfully in this moment her pride override that impulse. She didn't want to buy herself a job. But in that moment she realized, that if all else failed, she'd just see what her dad had to offer in Boston. There was that apartment there, waiting for them, at least. It was one less thing on their list, and if all else fails she could work in a bookstore or a library somewhere. Maybe she could learn to be a language editor? Or a teacher maybe? Maybe she could just have kids first and figure out the rest later? She didn't know if Logan would find anything to do in Boston, but Boston was certainly better than Providence, right?