September 2004

Cheesecake was delicious. Lorelai loved all kinds of dessert—pudding, cookies, ice cream, pie—but there was something about the cool, creamy, decadence of cheesecake as it assaulted your tastebuds with sweet, delicious flavor. Something about the way it melted in your mouth while maintaining that thick, rich, solid consistency. Eating a bite of cheesecake, was like eating a bite of joy made corporeal. And a cheesecake hand baked just for her by Luke—it was like how the French called an organism a petit mort—a little death. A bite of Luke's cheesecake was like a tiny trip to heaven.

She savored the bite, trying to hold on to the moment; to solidify the sensation in her mind; to cement the joy front and center in her frontal lobe where it could be easily retrieved as needed over the next few minutes. Once the memory was good and settled, she set her fork down and picked up the cordless phone to dial her parents.

It wasn't the first time she'd dialed her parents that night. And she wasn't expecting this outcome to be any different. And so, when the line picked up and the words, "Gilmore residence," filled her ears, another shot of dopamine was released to augment the cheesecake induced supply.

"Hello! Oh, you speak English! Thank God! Um, is Emily Gilmore there, please?" Logically she knew the high of finally getting through wouldn't last once she actually started speaking to her parents, but for now, her righteous indignation was leading the show.

"It's for you, Mrs. Gilmore," the maid said.

There was a brief pause followed by the sound of her mother's voice. "Hello?"

"Hi, Mom, it's me."

"Well, hello, Lorelai. How are you?"

"I'm fine," she replied, though it was nothing more than a polite lie. She was annoyed and the memory of the cheesecake was already fading. "Can I talk to you and Dad for a minute?"

"Your father's paying the caterers." More avoidance. They'd been avoiding her calls all night, but they couldn't avoid this forever. They knew what they'd done, and they were going to answer for it. And since Rory was too polite to do it herself, they would hear it from her.

"Well, this'll just take a minute. Could you maybe go in the study on the speakerphone? Seriously, just one minute?" She knew her polite voice was strained from the effort. She tried to manifest the flavor of creamy, cheesy, pistachio goodness, letting the soothing sensation the mere thought of it left in her mouth, spread to the rest of her body.

"All right. Hold on." The line went dead and Lorelai sat impatiently, her foot bouncing with pent up energy. "All right, we're both here." Her mother's voice once again travelled through the line.

"Hello, Lorelai. What can we do for you?" Her father asked, confirming his presence on the call.

"I just wanted to touch base with you about this little party you threw for Rory tonight."

"The party was not for Rory, it was for our Yale alumni," Emily insisted her voice dripping with a mixture of defensiveness and condescension, as though Lorelai wasn't fully aware of the intention of the evening. Her daughter had called her up hours ago, just after the party started to tell her exactly which subset of her grandparent's alumni friends were invited. And this was no mere oversight on the guest list.

"Oh, it was not. It was a trick and you know it and I know it so let's just know it together." She wasn't about to play this game with them. Lorelai didn't adhere to the stupid, passive-aggressive rules of etiquette her parents did.

"What do you want, Lorelai?" Her father asked more pointedly. Of the two of them, he was always the least interested in propriety for propriety's sake.

"You lied to your granddaughter tonight. You lied to a kid who trusted you. You tricked her." Sometimes she had no idea how her parents lived with themselves. Did they have no shame? Trying to dupe their own granddaughter into some ruse to get her married off to some future hedge fund manager?

"It was a party!" Emily insisted as though the mere notion that there were any ulterior motives was insulting. But they all knew exactly what this 'party' was.

"It was a mating ritual!"

"What are you talking about?" Richard huffed, although Lorelai knew who the real mastermind behind this operation was. Her father was just a patsy when it came to her mother's ridiculous schemes.

"All boys, Mom? Seriously? What is that all about?"

"It's good for her to interact with her peers." Sometimes she wondered if they actually believed the words they were spouting. Her peers? A bunch of rich, arrogant frat boys? Did they know their granddaughter at all?

"Lorelai, Rory is in a new phase of her life now, and she needs to be exposed to different things, different people. That's all we were trying to do." Different than Dean, they meant. Different than Stars Hollow. Different than Lorelai. That's what they wanted…they wanted to indoctrinate Rory into their world. Into the life that they wanted for her. Forget what she wanted for herself. Forget who she wanted for herself.

"She has a boyfriend!"

"Oh, so what?" her mother sneered, not even trying to hide her disdain for Dean.

"So, she has a boyfriend, which means she doesn't need another one!"

"She's twenty years old, Lorelai," Richard said…as though Lorelai wasn't acutely away of how old her own daughter was. "She's not going to be with that boy forever."

"Uh-huh." Lorelai huffed, as she listened to them deflect and defend. The mental gymnastics they were able to do to justify their actions would put Kerri Shrug to shame. They could vault over any argument and stick the landing with a broken ankle.

"That's right. And when she's ready to move on, she will have met some nice young men who will represent the new phase in her life." The 'new' phase. Lorelai rolled her eyes. They meant their phase. The phase of opulence and decadence and walking all over other people just to get what they want. Like Rory could ever be that person, could ever fall for that kind of guy.

"I'm sure that Dean is a very nice young man. But he is certainly not good enough for Rory!" Rory could decide for herself who was or wasn't good enough for her. But they didn't care about that, all they cared about was who was good enough for them…for the revered Gilmore name.

"That's right!" Emily echoed

"Now she is young. But young people need guidance. And since you seem so little help in this department, we had to step in." Aaaand of course. It always came back to her. Always came back to how Lorelai was inadequate; an inadequate daughter, and inadequate mother...well who did they think raised their ivy league granddaughter who was too good for any guy whose net worth wasn't at least eight figures?

"Well, step on out again, because this is none of your business!"

"Lorelai, I am tired," Emily sighed with acrimony. "And the caterers have caked the floor with something sticky and I don't have time for this. We want more for her, period. Now obviously it is too late for you, but it is not too late for Rory, and we are going to make sure that she has the life she deserves!"

"You know, it doesn't matter what you think of me, okay?" Lorelai snapped back. "Rory will choose her own path in life and there's nothing either one of you can do about it."

"I'm hanging up."

"Well, me too." She huffed, jabbing her finger into the 'END' button forcefully and dropping the handheld from her hands as though it had cooties. She slumped down in her seat, unable to find the mental energy to even lean forward and pick up the rest of the cheesecake that could act as the salve on wounds her parents had picked open. Their disapproval of Lorelai and her life shouldn't bother her—she disapproved of theirs just as much, didn't she? But somehow it never fully stopped hurting. And the fact that they thought they could turn Rory away from the life she had raised her in and coax her into one of pompous self-importance and arrogant hypocrisy with a veneer of gilded opalescence…

She was broken from her brooding thoughts by a bright light shining through the window and the crackling of pebbles under wheels.

There was laughter, and a familiar shriek and Lorelai hefted herself off the sofa to go see what all the commotion was about. It was unusual for Rory to be home this early from her date with Dean, and even more unusual for her arrival to be so boisterous.

She pulled back the curtain to the sight of a black stretch limo. The window in the back was half open, revealing a bejeweled head of raven hair. The door swung open and her daughter came tumbling out of the vehicle butt first, letting out another shriek of laughter. A boy stuck his head out through the moon roof, another followed her daughter out of the limo, letting out a hoot that echoed through the otherwise quiet suburban neighborhood. Rory staggered, grasping clumsily for the heels which were sinking into the grass, causing her difficulty in her clearly drunken state. The glint of an obscene amount of diamonds cut through darkness.

"Whoa, Ace, you need some help there?" The hooter asked, grabbing her by the arm to steady her. She faltered, losing her balance further and falling into him. Lorelai watched Rory's head tip up to give the boy a look that made her already heavy heart sink lower, her own words to her mother from just minutes ago, echoing in her head. "Rory will choose her own path in life and there's nothing either one of you can do about it."

Where was Dean? And who was this boy who held onto her daughter for just a beat too long? And why did Lorelai care so much, as long as Rory was happy?

Rory finally pushed herself off the hooting limo boy and toppled backwards a few steps, pulling up the strap of her dress which had slid down her shoulder. "Bye!" she shouted at the limo full of tuxedo clad boys as she scurried up path to the house barefoot, shoes dangling from her fingers.

Lorelai let go of the drapes, letting them fall closed on the girl from the limo as she waited for her daughter to walk through the door. She had a feeling she was going to need the rest of the cheesecake tonight.

December 2005

The room was full of sounds…the hurried shuffle of overwhelmed nurses passing outside her door, the squeaky wheels of patients pushing their IV pumps along as they did laps around the ward, the steady beep of her own EKG monitor. And yet, all Rory could hear was awkward silence. It had pretty much been that way since Logan and her grandparents had returned. Logan had barely said 'hello' as he took his seat, clinging to a gift shop teddy bear that she assumed he hadn't actually bought for himself. Her grandfather had done some angry mumbling under his breath. Her grandma had said his name admonishingly a few times, followed by pointed glances Rory's way…the unarticulated message clear—don't upset your granddaughter.

But she was upset. And nobody saying anything about what had happened out there wasn't doing anything to help keep her blood pressure down. She knew just enough to fill her with even more guilt and dread. She knew Logan's father had shown up (had his mother been with him?), and she knew they'd fought—badly. Angry voices echoed through a hospital wing, but not enough to make out the actual words from her spot stuck in bed.

Had Logan been disowned? Did he still have a family to go to at Christmas? Did he still have an apartment to live in? Did he have any money? He could have the keys to her place but it had been hard enough for her to exist in that cramped, moldy, old apartment and she grew up in a converted potting shed. Logan was raised in a literal mansion.

She'd tried to ask him what had happened and if he was okay, but he'd just shrug his shoulders and change the topic to something that would result in a short, stilted conversation that would inevitably peter out to more awkward silence after just a few minutes. And the palpable discomfort in the room only grew once her grandparents had excused themselves to go get some lunch and freshen up.

While whatever argument had occurred outside had seemed to create some sort of truce between Logan and her grandparents, it was clear that Lorelai still held him as enemy number one. Sitting between the two of them with no buffer had been more painful than taking a dip in a lake of gin while covered in paper cuts. Every time Rory tried to get some information out of Logan about what had gone on, Lorelai would shoot him a withering stare. Those stares seemed to be the only acknowledgement of his presence the woman was willing to make. She hadn't said so much as a word to him in hours. She had told a few stories about the going-ons in Stars Hollow, but her spirit wasn't really in it, and it wasn't long before even those had ceased. The uneasy energy in the room was causing Rory to feel like there was something crawling under her skin.

"Do you have to get back?" she asked Logan when she could take it no longer.

"I'm not going anywhere," he assured her, squeezing her hand and giving her a half-hearted smile.

"But you've got classes." It wasn't like she wanted him to go. He and Lorelai together may have been awkward, but there was a safety in having him by her side; in not having to deal with all the fall out on her own. Even though a part of her knew she should woman up and deal with the consequences of her actions. But also, Logan needed to finish school. He was so close. And while she wasn't exactly sure what had happened between him and his father out in the waiting room, she was fairly certain it didn't involve an offer to finance another semester of Yale. So…classes.

"Classes don't matter." Rory heard Lorelai scoff on the other side of her and she turned her head to look at her mother.

"What?" Logan asked her, the word terse and irritated.

"Nothing," Lorelai shrugged. "It's just…'classes don't matter.' That tracks, coming from you."

"You don't know anything about me."

"I know you knocked up my daughter and then spent two months traveling back and forth from New Haven to Boston on Daddy's dime while lying about where she was. So it's not exactly a huge leap to other irresponsible things like not caring about school."

"And you're getting ready to head out for another Monday morning at the Inn?" Logan snapped back in annoyance.

Lorelai shot him a glare. "She's my daughter."

"And she's my girlfriend."

"For now," Lorelai scoffed.

"Hey!" Rory finally interjected. She was suddenly longing to have the awkward silence back. How was she supposed to do this…this dance between the two most important people in her life? Despite everything, despite how hard she'd worked to convince herself that her mother was the bad guy and she didn't need her in her life, the truth was, the moment the nurse had inadvertently revealed that she'd been found out, Rory had been forced to reckon with the truth—that she hadn't really given her mother a chance because she was so afraid of disappointing her. There was nothing that hurt more than Lorelai's disappointment, and without her mother's support these past six months, she was floundering, gasping for air as the currents of her life tried to pull her under. Logan finding her had been a lifeline—something to cling to so she could keep her head above water. But even with his help, she had still been completely out at sea. She didn't know how she could survive without either one of them.

"Sorry," Logan told her sheepishly.

Lorelai was a bit more stubborn, letting several tense seconds go by before issuing her apology in response to Rory's frustrated glare.

Rory got her wish about the return of the awkward silences—the angry digs gave way to the sounds of clicks and beeps and far away commotion.

The next reprieve from the silent standoff came when the doctor appeared, head buried in a chart, followed by a gaggle of interns.

"Patient, Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, 21-years-old, thirty-five weeks pregnant. Presents for syncopal episode. On admission patient was awake but disoriented, dehydrated, with proteinuria and blood pressure reading of 168 over 102. What's your diagnosis?"

"Pre-eclampsia" a squirrelly looking blonde girl called out with her right hand raised and her bespectacled eyes glued to a notebook.

"Correct," the attending noted. "What else are we looking for on bloods?"

"Azotemia." A tall, skinny guy answered.

"Elevated ALT and AST."

"Thrombocytopenia."

The medical team continued to throw out words she didn't have the faintest notion as to the meaning of, talking around her instead of to her, setting Rory's mind adrift with all manner of worst-case scenarios. Her mind drifted to Paris. She wondered if her old friend would know what any of this meant—she was pre-med. Rory's worry about her health status was suddenly replaced by the anxiety of a new realization. She still had Paris to contend with. And Lane, and her other friends from school. But Paris was definitely the scariest.

Words continued to buzz around her, which she found herself only halfway paying attention to. She felt like she was supposed to be listening, but why bother when they were practically speaking another language. But certain familiar words infiltrated her overwhelmed brain; treatment plan…monitoring…urine…inducing labor…admit to hospital… That last one seemed to catch her mother's attention as well.

"Wait, you want to keep her here until she delivers?"

The doctors stopped talking to each other and turned their attention towards the bed and the people in and around it.

"Pre-eclampsia can be serious, sometimes even life threatening," the intern who had suggested the idea replied defensively. Rory was aware of this fact, but hearing it put so bluntly didn't help her blood pressure. She hoped these interns had a class on bedside manner coming up soon.

The attending spoke up. "That's not necessarily the plan. While we do sometimes have to admit patients with pre-eclampsia to the hospital, that's not always the case. Rory's symptoms are moderate and whatever we decide, she's going to need to be monitored very closely, stay on bed rest, and avoid stress. But as long as appropriate care can be arranged for, I see no reason she needs to stay here."

"It can be," Lorelai spoke up. Rory felt an uneasiness she couldn't explain at the unsaid portion of the statement—that it would be arranged back in Stars Hollow. Of course she would go home, where else would she go? She was on bed rest; she couldn't go back to her shoddy little apartment all alone where she had to trek up and down four flights of stairs. And Logan still had two weeks of school left; even if she knew what his father was going to do with his place now that he knew, Logan wouldn't be available to take care of her very much, he needed to be focused on making sure he graduated. At home her bedroom was on the ground floor. Right next to the kitchen. Lorelai, being her own boss, had the flexibility to be around a lot, and when she couldn't be, there was a literal village ready to step in and help. It was the only reasonable solution. So why did it feel so wrong? She glanced at Logan whose face held no indication of what he was thinking. He still seemed to be in whatever dissociative state he'd been in since the showdown with his father. But then she felt his fingers curl a little more tightly around hers; a gesture which felt more disquieting than reassuring, like he was trying to cling to her.

She squeezed back, trying to shake off the uneasiness and gave her mother a grateful smile. After everything she'd put her family through, the least she could do was be grateful that they still wanted to be there for her. She was lucky to have somewhere to go so she wouldn't have to spend weeks living in a hospital.

"Great," the doctor said, continuing to address his words to Lorelai. "We'll go over her home care. She'll need daily follow up with her regular physician to make sure her symptoms aren't progressing and that the baby is doing well."

"Daily?" Rory asked. How was she supposed to do daily follow ups with a doctor that was over a hundred miles away?

"Yes. You can monitor your blood pressures at home but you'll also need to have your urine and blood work checked, and an ultrasound to monitor blood flow to the baby. Is that a problem?"

"No," Lorelai spoke up. "It's just, we live in Connecticut."

"And your current obstetrician is here in Boston?" Rory nodded in confirmation. "Well, I'd start making calls ASAP to find someone near you who can take over your care for the next couple of weeks. It's essential that you have the appropriate follow up."

"I'll take care of it," Lorelai piped up.

"Good," the attending nodded. "I'll have the nurse come by later to go over the details of her home care. Then, as long as you've secured an obstetrician to transfer to, we can discharge tomorrow. You can talk to your doctor about scheduling induction. We're aiming for 37 weeks."

"Okay."

"37 weeks exactly?" Logan finally spoke up. Rory knew why he was asking. She'd done the math in her head a million times since they'd first told her that 37 weeks was full term and when they'd want to deliver. Three weeks earlier than her original due date. 21 fewer days to prepare. She'd thought she'd had until January 4.—January 4 was next year. December 14 was ten days away. It was also a Wednesday right smack dab in the middle of finals week.

"Well, the sooner we deliver, the better it is for Rory. But was also want to make sure the baby…"

"Samuel," Logan cut him off."

"Samuel," the doctor corrected, "has enough time for his lungs to fully develop. But if Rory's condition does worsen and we have to deliver a little early, it's really not a big deal."

"What about a little after? A couple days? Would that be bad?" Rory asked, turning to her boyfriend. "When's your last final?"

"Don't worry about that," he told her. "That's not a factor."

"Of course it is."

"I hate to say this, but for once I agree with Logan." Rory wished she could take that as comforting, but the contemptuous look her mother gave her boyfriend absolved her off any hope of that. Lorelai would probably prefer if he wasn't there for the birth. But Rory wanted him to be there. She needed him to be there. And she knew it was important to him too.

"Logan has to be there."

"I will be."

"But…"

"Don't worry about it. I'll figure it out."

"I…"

The doctor cleared his throat. "You can talk about it with your doctor. It will really depend on how you're doing. But a day or two either way will most likely be fine."

Rory looked from Lorelai to Logan. Logan still had a hint of aloofness in his eyes, like he was trying to be here but still hadn't fully returned from wherever it was his argument with his father had taken him. His whole life had just blown up though, so she couldn't blame him for being distracted. And she wanted to help him, but how could she when it was the shrapnel from her own detonation that had caused his life to explode into a million tiny pieces in the first place?

And her mother, her mother was looking straight ahead with a scowl on her face, her arms crossed irritably across her chest. She wanted to be annoyed with her mother for her petulant attitude, but Rory knew that was her own fault as well. She'd put her mother through hell for months. She'd asked Logan to lie about where she was—begged him to. And even now she was still letting him lie to protect her. If her mother knew the truth, then she wouldn't be able to blame him for any of this. But Rory wasn't strong enough to tell her. It was easier to let Logan take the blame then to see her mother anymore disappointed in her than she already was.

So, she had no one else to blame for being stuck in the middle if this passive aggressive stalemate then herself. And she had no idea how she was going to fix it. So instead, all she did was sit quietly as the doctors finished their rounds and once again left them in awkward silence.

"Sooo…" Rory drew the word out. She had thought Logan might be a little more talkative now that it was just the two of them. Her father had arrived back at the hospital after bringing Gigi to his mother's and had somehow convinced her to take a break and go get something to eat other than the lime Jello off of Rory's hospital tray. It was a good thing Samuel strongly objected to Jello, because Rory normally loved it, and then Lorelai wouldn't have even had that to eat all morning.

Anyway, Lorelai's temporary departure meant that Rory and Logan were alone again for the first time since that brief but important conversation right after he got to the hospital. The one where they agreed to make a real go of this, to be a family. The only thing was, that was easier said than done once the rest of their families got involved.

"So," Logan answered.

"Are you ever going to tell me what happened with your Dad?"

He shrugged non-committally. "We fought."

"Yeah, I got that. I think the entire maternity ward got that."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, talk to me," Rory begged. She needed to know what was going on.

"It's nothing for you to be worried about."

"Have you met me? Telling me not to worry about something is only going to make me worry about it more.

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. He didn't say anything but she could tell he was getting close to breaking. "Please," she held out the teddy bear he'd bought her, pretending to speak through it.

He rolled his eyes at the cheesiness of it, playfully swatting the bear away. "There's really not much to say," he admitted. "He said a bunch of really insulting stuff, then insisted this changed nothing and I was still going to London. Then I quit."

"Aaaaaand…he respected your decision and your independence and said he supported you?" Rory asked, with a sort of hopeful sarcasm.

Logan laughed. "Yeah, that's exactly how it went down."

"So you're cut off?" she replied with a grimace, knowing that was the very likely outcome.

"It wasn't explicitly stated but I think it's a pretty safe bet."

"What about your apartment? Do you have a place to go?"

"Again, not really discussed, but I'm sure I'll be hearing from one of his goons on that soon. He'll expect me gone, but I doubt he'll force me out before finals ends. If he does, I can crash at Colin's for a few days."

"And then?" Rory asked hesitantly.

"And then, I move here." He looked up at her and she could see the hint of a question that hung behind his statement.

Rory looked down at her lap, fidgeting with the bear. "Right, but do you have a place to stay?" she asked. "Money to get a place to stay?"

"I have money, Rory. Not a lot, but enough for a deposit on an apartment…" a pause. "One big enough for all of us?" This time it was a question.

"Right." She nodded her head nervously, pretending she hadn't noticed the clear inquisitory inflection of his words. "Well, I know it's not much but you can stay in my place while you apartment hunt."

"Thanks."

They fell quiet again for a few minutes. Rory's mind was racing with thoughts she didn't know how to articulate. With questions she didn't know how to answer. With fears she didn't know how to assuage. "Ace?" he finally asked.

"Yeah?"

"Are you going to stay…with your Mom?" It was the question he hadn't asked earlier. The one she'd pretended not to know he was asking even though he hadn't asked it, and even though she did know. But she couldn't pretend now; there had been no ambiguity this time. The only problem was, she didn't know the answer. She knew what she wanted it to be. She knew what she intended. But her mother was a force of nature. And she knew what Lorelai expected to happen. She'd said it like it hadn't even been a question. Like there was no doubt that Rory would stay in Stars Hollow and raise Samuel in her old bedroom.

And a part of that picture was comforting. After all the struggling and uncertainty, the idea of being home was enticing. But then what? She was going to live with her Mom forever? Work at the Inn? What happened when Samuel got old enough to need a room of his own? And most importantly, what about Logan? He was going to be here in Boston. She wanted to be with him. She loved him. And after everything he'd done for her and for Samuel, after everything he'd given up…how could she not be here in Boston with him?

But the idea of starting over again after these past six months of trying to start over and barely surviving…it was so incredibly frightening. And she knew she had to face her fears and do the hard thing. She knew she needed to make good on her promise that she and Logan and Samuel would be a family. It's what she wanted. She just didn't know how, once she was back in Stars Hollow, she would be able to leave again. She would get too comfortable. Lorelai would convince her to stay. She could see it happening. It was like reading a book and knowing how it's going to end, and you would end it differently, but someone else was writing the story.

"I don't want to," she answered as truthfully as she could. She hoped she had the strength to choose her own path, but at this moment, sitting in a hospital bed surround by a deep well of chaos and broken relationships, it was hard to imagine she had the strength for anything.