RNM 16 Custodial Services

"They're here!" cried Lorelai as she dashed out the door. Mother and daughter were in each other's arms before Rachel had a chance to turn the car engine off.

Luke was busy cleaning tables after the latest rush, but he glanced out the window, watching the women as he stacked one plate on another. He carried the last of the dirty dishes back to the window and turned around to wipe the tables at the same time Rachel came through the door carrying Rory's bag.

"Hey, how's it going?" she asked.

"Fine," he grunted, focusing on his table. When it was clean, he stood up straight and looked out the window again, where he saw Lorelai and Rory with a group of townies around them. They were chattering and laughing, and Lorelai kept her arm firmly around Rory's shoulders, holding her close.

Rachel smiled. Luke had taken up a position in the center of the window, crossed his arms, and looked out at the group. She walked up beside him, bumped his shoulder with hers, and took up watch next to him.

"So, good trip?" grunted Luke. He and Rachel had become so familiar with each other years ago that they rarely needed to look at each other, so Rachel wasn't surprised when Luke stood beside the table, arms crossed, his body barely registering her presence.

"Yeah, there was an under under- under-secretary of something or other in the country at the time, so we had security out the wazoo. Rory learned a lot about the "sit down and wait" aspect of the job. We spent a lot of time in bars waiting for a chance to go out."

"You're telling Lorelai that they were restaurants, not bars, right?"

"I'm letting Rory handle that. She's a good kid and very mature. She'll know how to tell her about the trip."

They moved to the window and watched Lorelai and Rory reunite. The mother and daughter were quickly surrounded by Andrew, Kirk and others wanting to hear about Rory's trip.

She chuckled as she nodded. "Some of them were actually restaurants, you know. You just can't tell with some of the reporters, because they take their liquid lunches seriously."

Luke grunted, recalling it had been the same on the rare trips he'd taken with Rachel.

"Now Christopher took to the liquid lunch idea really fast," she commented, seeing his jaw tighten briefly. She shook her head in disbelief. "He sure knows how to toss rotgut whiskey back."

"Doesn't sound good," grunted Luke, as he shifted his weight from his left to his right foot. "Did he cause any trouble?"

"Nah, I got him under control pretty quickly. He even managed to take pretty good care of his daughter." She chuckled as Luke peaked an eyebrow in disbelief. "It's good now," she added with a wry smile. "I booted him out of my life before we left the airport."

As they looked at the mother, daughter and their groupies, Rachel tucked her hand into the crook of Luke's arm.

Over the years, she had perfected the art of observing Luke Danes without him knowing. She watched his eyes crinkle as he scanned Rory's face, and noticed his satisfaction that she seemed fine. He read Lorelai's nonverbal language and breathed easier. Lorelai was back in her element, Rory by her side, and Luke, visible perhaps only to someone who had known him as long as Rachel, relaxed his shoulders and his jaw.

"You have a nice family, Luke," she murmured, squeezing his bicep affectionately.

He twisted his cleaning cloth into a rope as his gaze suddenly went to the floor. Rachel had been around the area for a while now, but it was only now that he compared their relationship back then with what he had now. The time he'd spent back then, wondering if he was doing the right thing by not giving up his life in Stars Hollow, evaporated instantaneously as he realized that neither he nor Rachel would have been happy if either had compromised.

He looked up, caught Lorelai's eyes, and smiled, saying only, "Yeah."

And Rachel understood. Luke had his whole package. She patted him on the back and took a seat at a table as the two Lorelais burst into the diner.

While Luke greeted Rory and took a moment to check in with her, Lorelai moved behind the counter, poured coffee for herself and Rory, topping off the mugs of the customers seated at the counter at the same time.

Joining Rory, Rachel and Luke at the table, she sipped her coffee and watched Rory. Something was up. In those few days she'd been gone, something had happened to her daughter and Lorelai wanted to know what it was.

Rory bubbled over the trip for a while, frequently interrupted by customers stopping by to see how her trip was, but Lorelai saw a certain look that Rory had when she was puzzling through a problem. Eventually Luke went back to work and Rory was talked out. She decided to stop by Lane's to give her a reggae hat she'd bought as a souvenir and left, while Lorelai and Rachel remained.

Lorelai felt a little awkward at first, since she'd had relatively few interactions with Rachel, and most of those were concerning the trip to the Caribbean. She envied Rachel's aplomb, not knowing that it had arrived just a few minutes before, as she stood at the window with Luke.

Any residual hope or fantasy that she and Luke might get together was locked away forever as Rachel watched him look at Lorelai with an expression he had never used for her. He'd loved her, sure, and cared for her when they were in a relationship, but it was totally different from the complete metamorphosis he had achieved with Lorelai. In spite of the occasional trip to Stars Hollow to check once again if Luke would love her enough to come on her travels again, Rachel was never one to cling to false hope. So she let Luke go and joked easily with Lorelai over his many quirks.

"Seriously?" asked a grinning Lorelai. "Those girly curtains were his choice? They didn't last very long when he gave me permission to spruce up the place. Now his curtains are a nice manly dark blue, with little trout on either side of the window to tie them open."

"Pie, and pie," interrupted Luke as he placed their favorite flavors in front of the women, boysenberry for Lorelai and rhubarb for Rachel. "Coffee's on its way." He looked at Lorelai's grin. "What?" he demanded.

"Nothing," she said, the laughter in her eyes saying otherwise. "I just like pie."

They giggled as he left, for no other reason than the fact that they knew he'd turn around thinking they were talking about him. They were not disappointed.

"Christopher went home?" asked Lorelai, licking her fork.

"I don't care where Christopher went once we got back to the US," said Rachel. "He's a bit of a pill."

Lorelai laughed. "That may be the nicest way to describe him I've heard. So you aren't dating?"

"Please," said Rachel, rolling her eyes. "We met at a coffee shop when he was waiting for Rory one day. One thing led to another and I learned of their connection to Luke. We went to dinner and a movie once, then he invited me to the debutante ball. He didn't feel comfortable going alone, what with you and Luke and everything, so I thought, 'Why not?' and that was it."

Lorelai nodded. It was still a little weird that the two of them were discussing their respective exes. "Oh! There's Rory! I gotta go, but thanks for taking care of her. I know she appreciates the chance to go with you."

Lorelai picked up Rory's duffle bag as Luke came through the dining room with food. "Leave that," he said, "I'll bring it with me tonight."

Once outside, the girls started walking home.

"Do you miss the sunshine, beaches and ocean?" asked Lorelai. "I heard Al's going to do a salute to Margaritaville. Maybe he'll put up a beach for you."

"Oh, Mom, it was terrible," said Rory, shuddering. "The beaches were filthy. People were living on them in tents. There was no sanitation."

"Well, good stories don't come easy, I guess."

"That wasn't even the story. We weren't reporting on the poverty, or the living conditions. We were reporting on a few schools that had a new reading and math program. Rachel said it's for a feel-good article in a weekly magazine."

They climbed the steps to the Crap Shack. At the top, Rory turned, saying, "I'm not so sure I want to do this job if I can't choose the story."

"Food," declared Lorelai. "We need pizza and ice cream and brain food if we're going to make life-altering decisions."

"Brain food?"

"Sure! We'll need Nerds, 'cause nerds are smart, and Smarties, too. They've got the word smart right in the name! We eat enough of those and any decision is going to be a snap."

Lorelai flung the unlocked door open. "Enter, world traveler! We'll have to change our movie list to be smarter, too. How about I.Q.?"

"Good Will Hunting."

"Little Man Tate."

Several hours and several thousand calories later, Rory and Lorelai were curled up together on the sofa. Lorelai braided, then unbraided Rory's hair, running her fingers through it to give her daughter a little comfort as the movie played.

"Mom."

"What, hon?"

"I don't know what to do. It wasn't anything like I expected a foreign correspondent's job to be like. There was all this waiting, with nothing to do, no guidance, and the reporters were gross."

"Grosser than Kirk naked in the street?"

"Nothing's grosser than that, but it was pretty bad. There was this group of reporters, and their job was to report on the undersecretary's visit, but nothing happened, so they sat in the hotel all day and all night long, drinking."

She fluffed the pillow she placed on her mother's lap, venting a little as she pounded it. "They treated me like a kid. And Dad was no help at all. After I went to bed, he spent most of the night out there with the guys, drinking and talking. They got along fine with him."

"Christopher does have that talent of being accepted into those macho circles. He practiced belching, grunting and farting when he was twelve already."

Rory giggled. The next moment the door opened and Luke walked in. "Hey, you guys doing OK?"

"Depends," said Lorelai. "How much belching and farting do you still have to do tonight?" She held up her arms to him. "Kiss."

He set the book he carried on the back of the sofa, kissed her, then gulped some air and let a giant belch loose. Rory screeched with laughter. "That's probably all I need to do tonight," he joked.

"Well, you then have permission to stay," granted Lorelai imperiously. "We're going to be up a while longer. Girl stuff. You know, curtains and napkins and the difference between puce and chartreuse."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said agreeably. "Sure you don't want me to go back to the diner tonight?"

"No, stay!" cried Lorelai.

"Pancakes for breakfast, please," added Rory, her eyes starting to droop. She fast-forwarded through another boring bit, looking for Walter Matthau to start acting up again.

"Whatcha reading?" asked Lorelai, picking up the book and flipping through a few pages.

Luke snatched it quickly from her hands before she could find the bookmarked page with the chuppah. "Woodworking," he said hurriedly. "I'm thinking about starting a little project."

"OK, OK, take it! Go off and do manly things with it." She affectionately ran her hand along his back as he straightened up.

"Sounds dirty, Mom," murmured Rory as she snuggled deeper into the pillow.

"You better get back to the movie before she falls asleep," he said.

"I'll see you later, hon," she replied as she enjoyed watching him climb the stairs. "G'night."

Over the next weeks Rory and her mother discussed the details of her trip over and over again.

"You know, I think I could get used to the disgusting parts like the drinking and the crude jokes," Rory said as they were on their way to Friday Night Dinner. "I really hate that I have to do all of this waiting and won't be able to work on the projects I really want to work on."

"There are other ways to write, though, aren't there?" asked Lorelai as she spun the steering wheel into the Hartford Gilmore's driveway. "I mean, someone has to be the editor of the New York Times, doesn't she?"

"Way to keep expectations realistic, Mom," sighed Rory. The silence that came as the engine stopped filled her with equal parts dread and panic. "Mom! We can't tell the grandparents until I actually make a decision, OK?"

"So we'll wait to tell them until after we published your pro-con list in the Hartford Tribune?"

Emily flung the door open before the girls got out of the car. "Welcome, Rory! No obscene T-shirts this time, I see, Lorelai," she said, moving seamlessly from her loving voice to her reproving tone.

"Dad! Hi!" cried Rory as they entered the living room. He strode across the room and gave her a big hug. Looking slightly uncomfortable, he said hello to Lorelai before returning to his perch on an upholstered chair.

"Rory, Christopher has been telling us about your trip," enthused Emily. "It must have been so much fun to travel with him. Your dad's quite the world traveler."

"Oh yeah," she agreed, "but Rachel was the one who really organized things. She introduced me to a couple of reporters who were nice enough to take the time to answer my questions."

Christopher chuckled. "Charlie Dawes mentioned that he talked to you when we played poker the second night. 'That's one smart cookie,' he said. Then he cleaned me out, the bas-"

"The Basque mountain goat herder," interrupted Lorelai, trying to keep Christopher's image a little clean for Rory.

Emily rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Lorelai, what nonsense are you spouting now?"

"Well, the Basques are a handsome people, Mom. Speaking of swarthy handsome guys, Luke's doing fine, thanks for asking."

She sniffed. "That's nice. Now, Rory, before your mother starts singing goatherd songs, how's school?"

"School's hard, Grandma. I'm still trying to catch up from the trip. It's like all the teachers assigned projects with short due dates on the day I left. Now everyone else is ahead of me."

Lorelai stared at her daughter, open-mouthed. Rory hadn't mentioned trouble in school, and now that Lorelai knew how much after-school time Christopher and Emily were taking up, she made a mental note to follow up with Rory.

"Mom, do you remember Periwinkle Donaldson?"

"Of course I remember her. She's in the DAR. I see her every Thursday. And most Tuesdays when we meet for bridge."

Lorelai snorted. "I bet she didn't play bridge last Tuesday," she scoffed. "And why do they call her Periwinkle? It's a color. Who would name their child after a color? And a weird color at that. It would have been a lot more fun if they'd called her Purple."

"Periwinkle is also a flower," offered Rory uselessly.

"How in the world could you possibly know that she wasn't there last Tuesday?" asked Emily. "I had to get a substitute at the last minute." She waved her hand as if that could push the thought away. "There was no one available except Dolly Madison-Jones, the poser. She's not a Madison at all, and she's incompetent at bridge."

"I know she wasn't at bridge because I saw her. Do you want to know where Periwinkle showed up?"

"For God's sakes, Lorelai, just finish whatever joke you're trying to make so we can get back to a civil conversation."

"Periwinkle was at Luke's in Stars Hollow, Mom. She hung out there for two hours, drinking coffee and making eyes at my man. I almost had to take all the color out of her system."

The maid dutifully appeared to herald dinner. "On that delightful thought, let's go into the dining room," said Emily gratefully. That damn photograph in the newspaper of her and Luke kept coming back to haunt her.

Over the next several days Lorelai explored Rory's troubles at Chilton with her.

"Paris has been tracking grades since she was at Chilton's Lower School. She says it's mathematically impossible for me to become valedictorian now," said Rory sadly. "At least as Stars Hollow High, I was pretty much guaranteed that. I'll be lucky to stay in the top ten percent at Chilton."

"Can't you just work harder and make it up?" wondered Lorelai aloud. "I mean, you're Rory Gilmore. Nobody works harder than her. She can do anything."

"Anything except change the past, Mom. My grades are my grades. It can't be made up."

"Isn't there any extra credit you can do? Some extra work to put you back at the top?"

"Mom, nobody works harder than Paris does. She does every single extra credit project offered. She's never missed an opportunity. And there are half a dozen more kids who are just as ambitious as she is. It's like this – it's possible to get more than 100 percent, and all of these kids have done that. Even though I'm really close to 100 percent, it's not good enough when the valedictorian will have a score of 110 percent because of the extra credit."

"OK, what if you come back to Stars Hollow? Or we look for another school?"

Rory shrugged. "Maybe. I kinda hate going back to Stars Hollow, because it looks like failure, and I hate failing. But Chilton was the only high school in the area that actually had majors in high school, and if I quit journalism, I won't have a major at all, so it really doesn't matter where I go."

Lorelai enveloped her daughter in her arms as they sat on the front porch sofa. "Aw, hon, we'll take care of it. How about if we start by leaving Chilton, and if we don't find a better place, you do a semester at Stars Hollow High, and we'll see after the school year ends?"

"Sure, why not? At least I'll be free of Chilton." She picked at her sweater. "Mom, I really hated every day I went there, and I swear it has nothing to do with boyfriends, so don't think it was about Dean. It was just a school filled with mean people. I'm not going to miss it at all."

"You know what I think?" asked her mother. "I think it's a very good thing, because it means you won't be on a bus for two hours a day, and that means more Mommy time. Can I get a cheer for that?"

Rory, her head resting on her mother's shoulder, feebly pumped one hand in the air. "Yay."

On their way to the next Friday night dinner, Lorelai updated Rory on the Chilton status. "You can stop going before the end of the semester if you want, so you can leave like next week. Or you can stay through the end of the semester. I've got the paperwork ready for Stars Hollow High, and Mrs. Dash is looking forward to seeing you again."

Rory looked at the imposing Gilmore home looming above them. "I like changing next week already. When do we tell Grandma and Grandpa?"

"Not tonight! No way, uh-uh, zip the lips tonight. Tomorrow we'll figure out a way to let them know."

Lorelai sighed as they entered the living room. Christopher had taken his throne as Emily's pet once again.

Richard beamed with pride as he listened to Christopher telling about his new opportunity. "Lorelai, isn't it great? Christopher is going into oil!"

"Oil?" asked Lorelai.

"Fracking!" smirked Christopher.

Rory stepped on her mother's foot, but was unable to repress her "Dirty!" and received a reproving look from her mother. The bile rose in Lorelai's stomach as she endured her mother's insults and she began to wonder how long she could hold out.

Francine, who had been sitting meekly the whole time, added, "I'm so proud of him, overcoming the misfortunes he's been forced to endure. He's finally got a bright future ahead of him." Turning to Lorelai, she asked, "How's the maid job?"

"Oh, I'm cleaning up," she retorted, wasting her wit on the uncomprehending older woman.

"That's nice, dear," Francine said condescendingly. "Now Rory, we haven't been out to tea in the longest time. When are we going to go shopping again? I know I promised you some cashmere sweaters, and all the new colors have just arrived in the stores."

"Well, um, I'm not quite sure," Rory stammered, on the edge of saying she was going to quit Chilton and wouldn't be coming back to Hartford very often.

"School is very busy right now," huffed Lorelai, still offended by Francine's earlier remarks. "Everything is changing so fast, and there's so much to be done, …"

Emily interrupted her. "Lorelai, you're spouting nonsense again. Rory's handling school beautifully. Aren't you, Rory?" she smiled at her granddaughter.

"Grandma, school is hard. I'm doing the best I can, but I'm not sure it's worth it."

"Of course it's worth it!" exclaimed Richard. "You'll finish at Chilton, a good private school, then go to an Ivy League university just like your father. He went to Princeton. It's almost as good as Yale. You ought to consider Yale if you don't follow in your father's footsteps." He patted Christopher on the back as they went to refill their whiskies.

"Harvard. She's going to Harvard." Lorelai stared at her empty martini glass.

"You know, kiddo, I can take you to Princeton when I get back," offered her father. "Maybe you can get in as a legacy."

"Get back? From where?" In spite of her desire that Rory have a good relationship with her father, Lorelai felt relieved knowing that they would soon have a break from Christopher.

"Lorelai, please," groaned Richard. "This isn't a small-town motel job. Christopher has to go to the oil fields in Oklahoma and North Dakota to select the proper investments. This is business. Big business."

"Or Yale," suggested Emily. "Rory could go to Yale. I know Hanlin Charleston would write her a wonderful letter of recommendation and she'd be a legacy because of Richard."

Emily turned to Rory. "So what will it be? Princeton or Yale?"

"Enough!" barked Lorelai as she jumped to her feet. "Rory will go where Rory wants to go, and it won't be because she's a legacy, or because some completely out of touch headmaster of the snobbiest school on the planet deigns to write a letter. She'll get in because she's brilliant and successful and has something special. Something that if you would only look at her, you'd see that she doesn't need your legacies or letters!"

She turned on Christopher. "If you're so willing to be helpful, why don't you pay for Chilton? Or her medical insurance? Or anything at all? You want to talk about opportunity? There's an opportunity to make up some of the times you've neglected your daughter because you were chasing after the next big thing, buying a new motorcycle, or going to Vegas, or jetting off to another rock concert. How are you going to get her into Princeton as a legacy? You didn't even finish!"

Emily turned on her. "Why should he pay child support? This is all your fault! If you hadn't been so selfish and refused to marry him, none of this would have happened! Christopher offered to marry you, Lorelai! You should never have run off to that place! You should have married, had your baby and raised her right! But no, Lorelai has to go off and be independent. Gets herself involved with filthy hicks without good breeding or manners. She's too poor to pay for a proper education for her daughter, yet has such a chip on her shoulder that she blames it on Christopher! Unbelievable, Lorelai." She stared her daughter down, neither blinking.

When tears began to build, Lorelai turned to Rory. "I'm done here! I'm done with this charade of wealth and privilege. I gotta go, hon," she said, her voice sinking from loud and proud to soft and disappointed.

"Let's just go, Mom," agreed Rory. "Grandma, I can't stay. Sorry."

The two wasted no time exiting the room, leaving its occupants flabbergasted. Rory and Lorelai paced anxiously as the maid scooted off to look for their coats.

Right before the door closed behind them, Christopher was heard saying, "It wasn't a new motorcycle, it was vintage." Emily, for once, wasn't listening. She was figuring out exactly what Lorelai meant when she said she was done with the charade. Something would have to be done.

They dashed into the Jeep, floored it out of the gated neighborhood, and only a red light stopped their progress out of town. Lorelai looked at the coffee shop on the corner, the same place she'd met Max for their absurd discussion and his hitting on her.

"Shall we buy sugar-filled lattes with so much whipped cream that Luke will immediately call the paramedics?" Lorelai nodded her head towards the coffee shop. She was still fragile from the argument at her parents' house.

"Only if you promise to not chase him around the diner again trying to get him to taste it," retorted Rory.

"Hey, he needed to know what a caramel-mocha-amaretto orgasm tasted like!"

"Ew, Mom! My ears! You said you wouldn't talk about that stuff anymore!"

They pulled into the parking lot and Lorelai stopped the engine, but kept a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. "Can you go in and place the order, hon? To go, please. I just want to go home."

"I need a minute before I can go in, Mom," murmured Rory. She wrapped her arms around her mother and they held each other.

"OK, kid, you're free from Chilton. Got all the paperwork you need today?" Lorelai smiled. They had pulled Rory out of Chilton only yesterday, yet she could already see the change in her daughter. Rory was relaxed, had slept well. She was already turning back into the medium-stressed, hard-working kid her mother knew so well.

"Got it, mom. I'm still mad that you wouldn't let me go in early today, though."

"Mrs. Dash told me she wasn't going to be in until 8.30 and that she didn't want to see you sitting outside her office until one minute before your appointment at nine." Straightening Rory's jacket, she added, "Hey, you wanna come to the inn this afternoon? Sookie will bake something special for your first day back at home."

"Sorry, Mom, I already promised Lane and Dean that we'd go to the diner for milkshakes and fries. Wanna join us?"

"Sure, I'll be there if I can. Michel was saying something about a meeting yesterday."

Rory kissed her mom on the cheek. "Bye, Mom! Have fun! Say hi to Sookie and Michel for me."

That afternoon, Lorelai stormed out of the meeting room. "I can't believe you set up that meeting, Michel! We are not going to start boarding dogs, and there will be no Chow playroom and dog run!"

"PETA has been informed of your behavior," he drawled calmly. "You may look forward to a long boycott of the inn, and will regret it most when you see it in the profit margin."

"Oh, I'll fix that, Michel. Staff cuts, or rather cut. Just one, from the front desk staff." She arched her eyebrow in warning.

"Very well," he sighed. "I apologize. Maybe if you're lucky I'll actually mean it one day."

Michel looked at the person standing at the front desk. He smirked, adding, "Your four o'clock is here."

"Max!"

"What's this nonsense about, Lorelai? You can't take Rory out of Chilton!"

"Not any more I can't because I already did. Turns out you can take the girl out of the school, and it looks like I can also take the school out of the girl!"

He looked around in frustration. "Can we talk somewhere?"

Lorelai huffed in frustration, then showed him to her office. He closed the door before turning to her.

"Lorelai, please. She can't go."

"She's already gone, Max. She's happier now. She's better off at home."

"Did you know your mother almost got me fired?" he asked abruptly.

"She didn't succeed? Emily Gilmore rarely fails," she chuckled to herself.

"You owe me!" he said.

"Owe you? What in the world could I possibly owe you?"

He banged the door in frustration. "Lorelai, I took Rory on as a counseling student so I could stay in touch with you. You can't take her out. I'll never see you again."

"Oh. My. God. Will it go round in circles, Billy?" Lorelai rolled her eyes. "You need to go, Max. This is over. Chilton is over." She turned her back on him, muttering to herself. "Chilton was the biggest stupid mistake I ever made. Crazy teachers, crazy mother, crazy headmaster."

"Lorelai Gilmore, you pierce my soul. This is temporary madness; it's inconceivable that we should part forever." Resigned to the situation, Max was nonetheless incapable of departing without one last convoluted literary reference.

"Arrgh!" She started to pound her head on her desk when Michel's latest proposal for a doggy spa stared her in the face. On the cover was a smiling Michel with two lovely Chow dogs. She opened the door, shouted, "Michel!" and threw the three inch stack of paper out the door.

A few short days later, everything in Stars Hollow had become as stable and calm as anything in Stars Hollow could become. The town princess ruled at the high school again, Friday Night dinners were removed from Lorelai's calendar, and she began figuring out where she could get the $5000 needed to pay her parents back for the aborted first semester at Chilton.

Saturday afternoon, during a triple feature of high school movies, Rory turned nervously to her mother.

"Mom, I gotta tell you something."

"What's up, sweets?" She caressed her daughter's hair, giving her soft ponytail a slight tug.

"I don't want to give up the grandparents completely. I think I want to keep seeing them once in a while."

"You mean not just at holidays? Because we were still going to be doing the holiday thing. I'm not trying to keep you away from them. We just needed to break this insanity that was Chilton."

"Good, good." Rory pondered this briefly. "So you're OK if I go visit them once in a while?"

"Oh sure, hon, just let me know when you're going so I know to order extra chili fries at Luke's that night."

Rory smiled. "Chili fries sound good. Do you think Luke would deliver?"

"For you, anything. That's Luke. But you have to call." Lorelai looked at everything in the room except Rory.

"Mom, what did you do?"

The doorbell rang and Lorelai got up to answer it.

"Oh! Maybe he got a vibe that you needed chili fries and they're here!"

"Mom." Rory lay her arm over the back of the sofa as she watched her mother open the door to Kirk.

"There may or may not have been a small conspiracy to introduce hot fudge and bacon sundaes without Luke knowing, and I may or may not be banned for 24 hours."

Lorelai turned to Kirk. "Kirk."

"Miss Lorelai Gilmore?" he asked formally.

"Kirk, what's up?"

"Miss Lorelai Victoria Gilmore?"

"What's going on, Kirk?"

"Answer the question, please." He straightened his tie and shifted uncomfortably in his dress shoes.

"Kirk, you know I'm Lorelai Victoria Gilmore, although where you found out about the Victoria part I'd like to know."

"Trade secret," commented Kirk. "Taylor won't let me say anything about the secret files."

He shook off her giggle, reached in his pocket and handed her an envelope. "For you. Thank you for your time." He turned stiffly and left the porch.

Still smiling, she ripped open the envelope as she went back inside. Flopping onto the sofa, she restarted the movie, only to stop it again as she read the title of the document in her hand. Motion for Temporary Change of Custody and Determination of Joint Custodial Rights.

A/N: Is Max more stalker or unrequited lover? Why couldn't Emily get Max fired? Where are the Stars Hollow secret files kept? Pretty much none of these questions will be answered. Billy Preston's "Will It Go Round in Circles" is a favorite song.