AN: Hey, guys! I told you it wouldn't be long before we saw our favorite family again. The one-shots and spinoffs begin! As I said in the summary, they will span a wide range of time and circumstances.

I'm fairly sure that the vast majority of these will be able to be enjoyed without having read BLP. But, if you haven't read it, I would highly recommend checking it out so you can get the full context for everything.

Enjoy!

Children Love Sandy Beaches

Saturday, July 2, 2022

When Emily Gilmore purchased her home in Nantucket, she did so hoping to get away from all the reminders of the future that she had once imagined with her husband. Staying at her home in Hartford had simply been too painful. Memories of all the times they had spent together lingered behind every corner, and reminders of all the dreams of their golden years that had been lost haunted her with every step.

She still felt Richard's presence in her Nantucket home, a product of the number of vacations they had spent in the house together. But, it wasn't overwhelming. The memories she had of him inside these walls were just enough to make it feel like her home, yet not enough to make her feel as if she was clinging to a life that didn't exist anymore.

Emily had spent many years now trying to build a new life, trying to accept the fact that the one she had spent years building and the one that she'd imagined living until the end of her days was gone. She'd been so focused on moving on from all that she'd lost and all that she assumed would never come to be, that sometimes she found herself blindsided when her old fantasies still found a way to manifest before her eyes.

"No, Ronan!"

The angry little five year old stomped her bare foot against the damp sand covering the ground. Her movement was so dramatic that the little ruffled skirt on her red polka dot Minnie Mouse swimsuit flapped up and down around her hips, but the moving fabric was stopped when she placed her hands on both hips and looked down at her little brother with scorn.

"Mommy!" she yelled, lifting her head up to Rory who was sitting peacefully in the beach chair next to her. "Ronan knocked over my tower!"

Rory sighed and leaned forward in her seat, placing a hand on the top of her head to keep her hat in place in the wind. She and Emily both turned their attention to the scene happening about fifteen feet in front of them, and sure enough there was quite a bit of carnage. The large sand castle that the little girl had been meticulously crafting for the past several minutes was crumbling before their very eyes. One of the corner towers had utterly collapsed, and standing just a few inches away from it was the accused perpetrator.

Ronan was standing there in a pair of light blue swim trunks with little sailboats printed across them. He had a floppy hat covering his head and in his hands he held a purple sandcastle bucket, the one that his sister had been using to create the towers on her castle just moments ago.

"I hewp. I hewp," he cheered, entirely oblivious to the damage he had wrought. They watched as the toddler bent over and brought the empty bucket down on the half standing tower, completely demolishing anything that was remaining of the once proud structure.

"He just wants to help, sweetheart," Rory replied, patiently.

"But he's ruining it!" Ellie cried.

"Well why don't you show him how?" Rory asked.

"I hewp Wewwie."

Ronan crouched to the ground, bringing the bucket down and scooping it full of as much sand as he could muster in one swipe of his arms. When he stood up again, he toddled back over to the tower he'd destroyed and poured the loose grains over the top of it haphazardly.

"Mommy!" Ellie yelled again, this time on the verge of a fit.

Rory sighed again, clearly resigning herself to the fact that the little tiff between siblings had officially reached the point of maternal interference.

"So much for not getting sand in my shorts…" she grumbled, standing up from her chair.

She stepped out of the shade provided by the beach umbrella before them and started walking toward her youngest. When she reached him, she bent down and scooped him into her arms.

"Come on, Bug," she said as she settled Ronan onto her hip. "Come play with Mommy."

Rory settled herself and Ronan on the ground next to the wagon full of beach toys they'd wheeled down with thim. She plucked a few of the smaller sand toys out, a starfish, seahorse, and a seashell, and started engaging Ronan by showing him how to pack them full of wet sand and flip them over to make shapes. The concept of needing to pack the sand firmly and densely wasn't quite sticking with the nineteen-month-old, but was getting the basic gist of it, understanding that he needed to fill the little molds up with sand and flip them over. He didn't really even seem to mind that much when the forms would inevitably crumble when he lifted the mold away.

Emily smiled at the scene, her heart overflowing a bit at the image in front of her.

"She's a good mom, isn't she?" she voiced out loud. Out of the corner of her right eye, she could see a smile spread across Lorelai's face as well.

"Yeah," her daughter agreed with pride. "It helps that she's got good kids."

Emily couldn't argue there. Perhaps she was a bit biased, but she couldn't help but think that the little Huntzberger children were two of the sweetest, most charming, and utterly adorable children she'd ever seen. But, then, she always knew they would be. She and Richard both knew they would be. She was about to tell Lorelai as much, but she found herself suddenly interrupted by a strange roaring sound.

All three women turned their heads toward the open water at the sound, and when they looked they were met with the sight of a jet ski careening through the open water in front of them. The contraption sliced through the water, leaving a white tipped wake in its midst, and as it ran over a large wave it went momentarily flying through the air before landing with a splash down on the surface of the water. The man driving it was standing steadily on two legs, as if he were doing nothing more than taking a leisurely stroll through the park.

"Ugh," she groaned. "I hate those stupid things. They're loud and reckless and dangerous. For the life of me, I can't fathom what kind of maniac would want to get on one of those death mobiles."

Lorelai didn't say anything in response. Of course, that wasn't all that surprising. Riding around on one of those contraptions was exactly the kind of treacherous behavior that she would have expected from Lorelai in her youth. Thankfully, she and Richard hadn't started coming to the island until after Lorelai was well on her own, so they never had to worry about her climbing on the back of one and flinging herself to her death in the middle of the ocean.

She was only grateful that Rory had never been the type to engage in such dangerous activities. The reckless gene had managed to miss her, and for that she would be eternally grateful.

Emily distracted herself from the passing noise by once again focusing her attention on the children playing off to her left. Yet, after a few moments, she started to wonder why the noise hadn't left. Usually when someone came zooming past the beach behind her home, they were gone as quickly as they came. This time, however, the noise seemed to be getting louder, and the vehicle was actually getting closer.

"Oh, for heaven's sake…." she cried. "He can't find some other people to go annoy?"

"Uh… Mom…" Lorelai said, her eyes glued on the approaching vehicle as it came even closer and closer to the shore of her property. "I have a feeling you're about to find out exactly what kind of maniac would get on one of those death mobiles."

"What on Earth?!" Emily screeched as the jet ski started making a beeline straight for them. The next thing she knew, the loud and dangerous vehicle was parked right on the shore of her property, and a young man in a pair of navy blue swim trunks and a tight fitting black and yellow life jacket was stepping onto the beach.

"Excuse me, Miss," he said, smirking and wiggling his eyebrows over at Rory as he lifted the sunglasses to the top of his head. "Care to go for a ride?"

Emily may have been slightly shocked with what was happening at the moment, but she wasn't so shocked that she didn't bristle at the innuendo. There was no denying anymore that the man clearly wasn't a stranger, but such comments still weren't appropriate in front of mixed company.

And a young man of his stature had certainly been raised better to think that they were…

She was having a hard time believing that the nice, polite, and charming Logan Huntzberger she knew would say something so suggestive to his wife in front of their children, or that he would throw himself among the group of hoodlums that liked to cruise around the island by jumping on one of those contraptions. But, then again this wouldn't be the first time that Emily was faced with the reality that she actually didn't know the real Logan Huntzberger very well at all…

"Daddy!"

Ellie, who had just minutes ago been in a tizzy over the destruction of her sandcastle, jumped up from the ground and made a beeline to Logan. She barreled through the structure with so much gusto that, had it been an actual building, it would have been rendered nothing but a pile of rubble in her wake.

"Oof! Hey, there Ellie Bellie," Logan grunted as he swung the speeding bullet of a little girl up in his arms. Ellie threw her arms around his neck and clung to him tightly as he shifted her on his hip. "Are you having fun?"

"Ronan ruined my sandcastle," she pouted, sticking out her bottom lip in a showy attempt for sympathy.

Emily wasn't around the young family all that much, but during the times she'd spent with them over the years at holidays and visits home, it had become abundantly clear that Ellie was a Daddy's girl through and through. She had a lot more in common with her father than just her hair and her eyes. Her little personality was strikingly similar as well, and as a result she had him wrapped around her finger.

"He did?" Logan said, peeking over his daughter's head to the pile of sand on the ground that she herself had just barreled through seconds ago. Logan, to his credit, managed not to take the bait this time. "I'm pretty sure you're the one I just saw stomping all over it, little miss."

Logan's free hand found his daughter's side and started a tickle assault that sent the girl laughing and squirming in his arms. In an effort to get away from the attack, Ellie dropped her legs from his waist and slid down her father's side until her feet touched the ground again. Once she was safely several feet away, she focused her energy on repairing the damages to her castle.

"So, when we left the house this morning, you said that you and Luke were going to run to the store…" said Rory as she approached Logan with Ronan on her hip. "...I really hope this isn't your idea of groceries."

She nodded at the ride and black vehicle sitting on the beach next to them, and it was clear that she wasn't very thrilled with the sudden appearance of the new toy.

"Come on Ace, give me some credit here." he said. "I didn't buy it. It's a rental. I'm not that stupid."

"I would hope not…" said Rory.

"You gotta test it out before you just up and buy it."

"Logan…" Rory responded with a sigh. Her clear disapproval, however, did nothing to squash the smile on her husband's face.

"Dah-ee car 'o voom voom," Ronan observed, pointing at jet ski and making a series of childish engine noises. Like so many little boys his age, he was absolutely smitten with any vessel of transportation that existed: trucks, trains, boats, planes. Yet, despite how enamored he was with all various modes of transportation, to his little mind each and every one of them was simply a different kind of car.

"No…" said Rory. "Daddy is not going vroom vroom. Not for very much longer anyway."

"Aw, come on, Ace…" he pleaded. "At least go for one ride on it before you write it off…"

"Absolutely not," Rory objected, quickly and sensibly as far as Emily was concerned. The objections, however, ended there.

"I wanna go! I wanna go!" Ellie yelled, running back over to her father and jumping up and down in excitement.

"You want to go?" Logan asked with a smile, placing a hand on the top of her head. Ellie nodded enthusiastically at him.

"Please!" she begged.

"I don't know…" said Logan. "I seem to remember someone promising to play nice with her little brother, and I'm not sure that's been happening here…"

"I've been nice! I promise!" Ellie insisted. It wasn't entirely untrue. Before the sandcastle incident, she had actually been incredibly patient with him. As patient as a five year old gets anyway.

"Is that true, Mommy?" Logan asked, his eyes flashed up at Rory who looked about ready to kill him.

"It might be true, but - "

"See!" Ellie interrupted. "Please can I go?! Pleeeeeeease?!"

Logan laughed at his daughter's enthusiasm, but the moment that his eyes once again made contact with Rory's, the joy fell from his expression. Rory was glowering at him for even entertaining their daughter's desires, and it was entirely clear she wanted the little girl nowhere near that jet ski.

"We'll see," he answered, clearly picking up on the silent communication from his wife. "Will you go grab me a bottle of water from the cooler, Sweet Pea?"

"Okay!" Ellie said, willing to do anything and everything that her father wanted if it meant that her wish might be granted. As soon as she was out of earshot, the two young parents wasted no time at all before getting into it.

"No!" Rory exclaimed instantly. Logan sighed and sagged his shoulders.

"Ace…" he pleaded.

"No!" she repeated. "She is too little to be on one of those things!"

"The Coast Guard guidelines are eighteen pounds," he argued.

"Logan…"

"My uncle used to take me out on one of these when I was her age," said Logan. "Come on, Ace. It's not like I'm going to throw it into turbo mode - "

"Oh, it has a turbo mode. How wonderful."

"There are hardly even any waves out today. And I'll go slow."

"And what happens if she falls off of it?" Rory asked before flinging her arm out to the water. "It's the ocean! There are sharks in there!"

"Ace, it's the North Atlantic. Not Cape Town. There are sharks but they aren't swimming around every corner."

"Tell that to the good people of Amity Island!"

"Rory, come on," Logan pleaded again. "I'll drive slow. I won't go crashing into any waves. I'll stick close to the coast. And if in some extremely unlikely scenario she still ends up falling off the back of it, then that is what the life jacket and the years of swimming lessons are for…"

Rory, somewhat to Emily's horror, seemed to be surrendering to the idea of letting her five year old daughter ride on the back of that machine. She thought momentarily about piping up and saying something, but the look Lorelai shot her as soon as she sat forward in her chair and started to open her mouth stopped her cold. The message was clear - it wasn't appropriate for her to butt in. No matter how talented and practiced she was at doing precisely that. It pained her, but she would stay quiet.

At least for now.

Ellie came running back to her father with a bottle of water in her hand. She handed it to him and crashed herself against his side, looking up at him with hope and anticipation shining in her eyes.

"Can I go now please?!" she asked just as Logan brought the water bottle to his lips. He made eye contact with Rory as he drank, and Ellie, the clever little thing she was, seemed to pick up on exactly what was going on.

"Please, mommy! Please!" she said, launching herself off of Logan and throwing her arms around Rory's waist instead.

Rory sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Fine…." she relented.

Ellie squealed in response and took off running over to the jet ski parked on the shore.

"Hey hey hey! Not so fast!" Rory hollered after her. "You need to go get your life jacket on. And I better not hear any complaining about bedtime tonight."

"I won't. I promise!" Ellie said as she ran up between her and Lorelai and pulled her pink and teal life jacket out of the collapsible wagon sitting between them.

Emily had a feeling that the promise would likely be short lived. In her experience with five year olds, especially ones as hyperactive and excitable as her great-granddaughter, such promises were always quickly forgotten

Logan helped fasten the jacket onto his daughter by tightening the straps around her chest and buckling the protective strap on the bottom between her legs. Once she was all fastened up, he picked her up and placed her on the back seat where she immediately started wiggling and bouncing in anticipation. He then pushed the vehicle back into the water and climbed on himself.

"Arms around my waist," he said. "And don't let go no matter what."

With that, Logan powered up the engine and took off further into the water, Ellie squealing in glee all the way. Rory watched them with a worried look in her eyes. She bit her lip and hitched Ronan up higher on her hip.

"Are you sure she's your daughter, sweets?" Lorelai eventually asked, in an attempt to pull Rory's gaze away from them. "Because I'm pretty sure you don't carry the adrenaline junkie gene."

"Well, I do remember giving birth to her…" Rory said, still watching her husband and daughter and worrying her lip. "But…sometimes it sure seems like she's all Logan's."

The father and daughter spent about twenty minutes cruising around in the water, and when they returned, Ellie was absolutely beside herself with glee. She spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach begging Logan to take her out again

As the day progressed, Emily became less and less inhibited when it came to voicing her displeasure with the events that had occurred on the beach. Once the kids were out of sight, she'd let Logan know exactly how she felt - about all of it. How dangerous it was. How reckless it was. How unladylike it was. Yet, judging by the joyous mood Ellie had been in for the rest of the evening combined with Rory's diminishing refusal to purchase one of the vehicles, she had a feeling that he hadn't really taken her concerns to heart.

He did, however, spend the rest of the night appealing to her better graces, first with a steady stream of compliments and then with a homemade lobster dinner. Emily had to admit she was rather surprised by his hidden culinary skills, and when she took a bite of the perfectly cooked and wonderfully buttery shellfish, she had a hard time staying angry at him.

It was the next day, however, that truly sealed his place in the better recesses of her heart. That afternoon, when they all walked down to the beach, they were met with an entirely different kind of vehicle waiting for them.

Tied up against the consistently empty dock of her property was a gorgeous white and navy blue sailboat, and loading a cooler into it was Logan. When he saw them coming, he waved them over and Emily couldn't keep the dazzled smile from spreading across her face as she stepped onto the dock.

"Ahoy, mateys!" Logan called from inside the vessel, a smile of his own gracing his expression.

"What is this?!" she gushed as she looked the beautiful ship over from bow to stern.

"Yeah, where exactly did this come from?" Lorelai asked with a delighted laugh.

Logan stood up straight, abandoning his task of organizing drinks, snacks, and lifejackets in the seating area. He wiped at the sweat on his forehead and squinted his eyes as he looked up at them toward the direction of the sunlight.

"Stole it," he said with a sinister smile.

The gleeful expression fell from her expression, and next to her she saw Lorelai bristle.

"I'm joking!" he said with a shrug. "Come on, it's been over fifteen years. We can't joke about it yet?"

Emily didn't really think it would ever be something that she wanted to joke about, but she had to admit that it was difficult to stay mad at him as he walked over to the port side of the ship and held out his hand to her to help her inside.

"I just thought I'd rent something a little more your speed this time…"

And a little more her speed it was. They spent a couple hours out on the water, taking in the gorgeous views of Nantucket while enjoying some nice spritzers. Ellie bustled around the ship excitingly, helping her father "steer" and pulling on whichever ropes Logan would allow her to pull when the time was appropriate. They followed their day trip up with an evening trip to Jettie's Beach for the fireworks show, and Emily couldn't help but think that this was a tradition that she could get used to.

It was a tradition that was pretty close to the ones that she used to fantasize about making when Rory had first brought the boy home for dinner.

It wasn't exactly the same. Neither one of the children had the combination of blonde hair and blue eyes that she used to dream about. They hadn't had a wedding on the shores of her backyard. The way that Logan and Rory navigated their marriage and raised their children didn't look exactly what she'd always thought it would look like. And, of course, Richard wasn't here to see any of it.

But it was nice to know that the dreams she used to have about the future could still come true… at least in part.

AN: Yes, I did name Rory and Logan's son after Ronan Farrow, and no I'm not at all embarrassed about it. Hahaha. I know AnimalLuv will approve as well. Plus it just sounds good, doesn't it? Ronan Huntzberger? It works. Anyway…

Anyway, here is the first installment of my BLP one-shot series. It's a bit short compared to my average chapter length from the main fic. But, lengths will vary depending on story line. Right now I just wanted some quick fluff. This little sojourn to Nantucket has been in my head for quite a while, so I hope you liked it.

Please don't forget to review!