"Hey Dad," Rory greeted her Dad as she answered her cell, while walking across the quad between classes.

"Hey kiddo, are you busy?" he asked, sounding apprehensive down the line.

"I'm just walking between classes, so I probably have ten minutes. What do you need?" she asked curiously.

"Well I was wondering if you would be free to come to Boston this weekend?"

"Do you need me to look after Gigi? I can probably make it work. Do you have a hot date?" she asked, leaning against the wall outside her next class.

"No, no it's nothing like that, although Gigi would love to see her big sister. It was actually my Mom, she wondered if you guys could try meeting up again. She would really like to clear the air."

"Ah," Rory said, all of a sudden the reason behind the apprehension in his tone became clear. "Why now? It's been almost five years since the last attempt."

"I'm not trying to excuse what happened then at all, but now that it's just her I think she is starting to re-evaluate her relationships, and she is, in my opinion, regretting how they handled everything with you. She just wants to meet you and see if you can start again. If not there is no pressure, but if you think that it's something you would be willing to do, we would both appreciate it a lot."

"I don't know, I will have to think about it."

"Of course, you make your list, decide what you would like to do. We thought Boston might work better than Hartford as it's more neutral ground. But even if you don't want to meet her, Gigi and I would still love a visit," Chris said honestly.

"Right, well it's time for my class, I will think about it overnight and give you a call tomorrow. Talk to you later, Bye."

"Bye Hon."

Rory hung up with a sigh, walking into her English Literature class hoping for a mindless class.


"Hey kiddo, thanks for doing this," Chris said, giving Rory a hug as she made her way into his townhouse. "Mom and Gigi are just in there," he gestured to the living room door.

"Okay, I can do this," Rory muttered to herself as she took a deep breath and put on her best DAR face, thinking it was better to maintain a society facade until she could see what Francine wanted or didn't want, as may be the case.

"Hey Mom, you remember-"

"Rory!" Gigi shouted, interrupting Chris as she ran to give her sister a hug.

"Hey, I missed you too Miss Gigi! Have you been having fun with Dad and Grandma?" Rory asked, crouching down to her sister's level.

"Yeah, tons of fun. We've been having tea parties!" Gigi exclaimed excitedly, in a manner that only preschoolers can get away with.

"That sounds like lots of fun. Can we have one later? But with coffee instead of tea?" Rory asked, watching as Gigi cocked her head to the side thinking of how coffee would change it before she answered affirmatively.

"Hello Rory," Francine Hayden said, rising from her seat on the couch.

"Mrs Hayden," Rory replied with a nod.

"Please feel free to call me Francine. I understand that you won't feel comfortable enough to call me Grandmother but maybe someday," Francine said sadly.

"Mom," Chris chided. "Rory have a seat, I just put on a fresh pot of coffee, I'm going to grab you a cup."

"Sure Dad," Rory said, sitting down on the remaining armchair. "So Francine, Dad told me you wanted to talk to me, he didn't tell me what it was about though."

"You're not going to go easy on me are you? Well really the truth is that I never fully agreed with Straub's policy of ignoring you and your mother, but with him it was his way or the highway. I loved the man dearly but he could be short sighted and was never willing to admit he may have been wrong. Now that it is just me, I am free to try and have the kind of relationship I wished for with my family, if they will let me."

Rory looked at Francine, she did look like she meant it, Rory could tell that Francine was scared about what she was going to say.

"I'm not saying that it is going to be easy, but I am willing to try." Rory watched as Francine's face lit up at her words, making her feel better about her decision to give the woman a chance.

"Thank you, I am going to try hard so that you don't regret your decision. So I know from your father that you are at Yale, do you enjoy it there? I think he said you were doing business with journalism?"

"English with a journalism focus, but I have done a few business modules as well." Rory replied as her Dad appeared with her coffee.

"And how is it going?" Francine asked.

"Honestly, it's a bit mixed. I am enjoying the course load, and I love working at the paper-"

"Rory is the editor of the Yale paper," Chris interjected proudly.

"But, well Dad may have told you this previously, I had an internship with Mitchum Huntzberger, and it did not go well," Rory stated, drinking her coffee.

"You never told me the internship didn't go well, I knew you and the Huntzbergers didn't gel when you were dating Logan but I didn't know the internship was also an issue."

"What went wrong? Or why do you think it didn't go well?" Francine asked gently, watching her newly reconnected granddaughter carefully.

"Oh Mitchum straight up told me that it didn't go well. He said that I didn't have what it takes to make it in the journalism business but that I would make a good assistant," Rory said despondently.

"And you believed him?" Chris asked angrily.

"Of course, he is Mitchum Huntzberger, he is pretty much the person you want to impress if you want to work in print."

"Okay, so ignoring whether there is any truth to his statement for a moment. Are you no longer so sure about journalism because you believe Mitchum and think you don't have it, or because you think that with your history with his family it will be too hard to progress in the field?" Francine asked.

"A mixture of both? I have thought about what he said a lot, even when I was still with Logan and parts of what he said were correct. I'm not quite outgoing enough for certain aspects of journalism. I always said I wanted to be a foreign correspondent, but now that I am older and understand better what that means I realize that I am a bit of a homebody. I love my small town and creature comforts. The part of me that thinks traveling the world with a tent and bulletproof vest would be fun is very small."

Chris agreed with this comment, and was glad it sounded like Rory was putting a lot of thought into it and not making snap decisions.

"I do enjoy the work I am doing as an editor for the paper though, and I do enjoy writing just at a slower, more comfortable pace and place." Rory finished.

"So it sounds like you have some decisions to make? At least you still have another full year to make them. Have you considered publishing or writing, more like an author than a journalist?" Francine queried, hoping that she wasn't over stepping.

"I am just starting to think about those as options, really these are newer thoughts. I bumped into someone recently who made a change and went against everything he had thought he wanted to study and is loving it. I guess it inspired me to think outside the box I was in." Rory said, thinking about Tristan.

"The firm actually works with a publishing firm, they outsource all their contracting to us. I know that you don't like nepotism, but if you wanted I could see if they have any summer intern positions?" Francine said. "I won't be offended if you aren't interested, so really just think about it, and if you want to pass a resume on to your father."

"Thank you, that is a very kind offer Francine," Rory replied honestly, she was almost surprised that she wasn't offended. "So tell me about yourself? I don't know anything about you. I'm assuming based on what you have said that you aren't quite as much of a society wife as Grandma Gilmore, hopefully without offending you."

"No offense taken child, no, now don't get me wrong I didn't work when your father was a child, but I did become involved with the business again once he grew up. Not as involved as your late grandfather was, but I would say I'm probably pretty close to that now. I'm hoping that your father here is going to be willing to come in and help me a little now."

Judging by the look on her fathers face he didn't seem too shocked by the suggestion.

"Well, yes that might be in the works. How about no more business talk for today, and we have another tea party, but this time we have chocolate cake with some strawberries?" Chris asked, the pitch of his voice increasing as he talked, so he would capture Gigi's attention.

"Yay! Cake! Cake Sissy! Grandma cake!" Gigi squealed, and just like that attention fell back to her, but they all knew that the ice had been broken and the next meeting would be easier.