Anna lets out a sigh as she walks down the busy streets of Philadelphia. She didn't recognize one face. She had gone about all her errands without getting to socialize with anyone. She let out another puff of air. She was missing home where around every corner was a friendly face. She has been living there for a year now. It wasn't the first time she got homesick. But, the other time she was able to cure it by telling herself she would be home soon. She had to hold out for two years then she would be back at home where she would be able to help Sookie and Luke. Especially Luke, she could make him take at least two days a week off.

This was the first time she got homesick since Jess opened the bookstore soon-to-be publishing house. She wouldn't be going back to Star Hollow at the end of this year. She didn't know if she would live in her hometown again. Jess had ties here that he couldn't leave behind. The only hope she had was that the guys wanted to make it a chain so they could help artists get their work out there on a larger scale. She was holding onto the hope that Jess could run one in Connecticut. That hope was getting smaller and smaller the longer it was a bookstore and not a publishing house.

There was no timeline or an idea of where the location would be letting the anxiousness to return to comfort grow in her chest. She was moving on autopilot as she walked into the apartment building to get home. As soon as she got into her apartment she dropped to the ground to cuddle with her pets. The tears wouldn't stop falling after holding them all day. Naruto whimpers as he rubs himself against her.

She stood up after finding the strength. She grabs a carton of ice cream. She slumped down on the couch. The animals follow her. She turns on the TV to fail at distracting herself. She put the carton down when she finished it. She lay down, having developed a headache from the crying. Sauke curls up on her chest and purrs. The vibration put her to sleep.


Her eyes slowly open to see Jess standing over her. "You must have been craving ice cream. You left your purse in front of the door." He nods towards the coffee table that had her purse and takes out bags on it. "I called you to see if you made dinner or if you wanted me to get takeout. I got Chinese, figured even if you made dinner then we could save either for the next day."

"I'm sorry if I made you worried. I fell asleep after eating." She sat up to stretch. Jess narrows his eyes at her face. "What?"

"Are you alright?" He tilts his head.

"Yeah. I fell asleep. It's not like I got a drastic bad haircut." She didn't think she did anything worrisome.

"Your eyes are swollen." He pointed out. "You have been quiet these past few days. No chatter of new foods you made or tried. No funny stories about something the cat or dog did. I've had to carry the conversation these past few days. I don't know how you do it. It's exhausting."

"I'm fine." She took out her phone to see other than Jess, she missed calls from her mother. "My mom called six times." She called her back. "Hey, Mom."

"Hey, I know it's a long shot but do you think you could swing by StarsHollow on Tuesday? I need you to vote for Jackson." She asked.

"I don't think I can. On Tuesday, I got to go to school and work. By the time that I got there, the polls would be closed." She shook her head.

"It's alright. I just figured I asked. Taylor's going to win according to everyone getting soda floats from him." She huffs.

"Jackson is likable. Taylor is not. People are getting free float but their votes will go to Jacksons." She assured her.

"I hope so." She hummed. After trading I love you and byes they hung up.

"So, what's you get?" She grabbed the bag.

"Now, I know something is wrong. You never turn down going back to Star Hollows so fast or easily. You didn't call anyone to see if they would take your shift." He couldn't believe it.

"Jess, I am not going to drive that long to be in a booth for a minute. Then I have to go to sleep right away so I can wake up early enough to drive back here for school." She didn't have the mental energy for that.

"Sus…" He was going to say her full name.

"I didn't take the animals for a walk." She stood up.

"I already did that." He let her know she couldn't avoid this conversation.

"I've just been in a homesick funk. I know if I go there when I'm like this I might not leave." She grabs the carton to throw it in the trash.

"It's not the first time." He noticed her silence before. But, it never lasts more than a day.

"This time is different." She went into the bathroom to splash water on her face. It felt sticky from the salty tears.

"Why?" He leaned against the bathroom door.

"Because I won't be living there anytime soon." She watched his face drop. "I'll get over it, Jess."

"If everything goes to plan then I can open a place close, maybe in Stars Hollow." He knew it might not be next year like she thought but eventually she would be closer to home. With luck maybe a half an hour drive at the most.

"I know." She whispers.

"What? You don't think we're going to be successful enough for another location." He never saw her look so defeated.

"Jess. I think you'll have a hundred locations. Artists from all over will flock when they realize they got a better deal with you than anywhere else." She didn't need Jess's hurt feelings to add to her depressive state. "I love my life here with you, Jess. Moving here, I was able to develop in a way that I wouldn't have if I stayed in Stars Hollow. I am mourning a life I thought I was going to have but I do appreciate what I have."

"You don't have to mourn anything. You are going to get that life. It just won't be next year." He didn't know why she was acting like she didn't go there at least once a month.

"Jess, please don't argue with me." She rubs her temples.

"I'm not arguing. I'm comforting you." He crossed his arms.

"That's not what it feels like." She sighs. "I've been crying all afternoon. I wanted to shower, eat, and go back to bed."

"I'm supposed to let you stay depressed." Jess couldn't do that plan. "It's not going to go away overnight. As far as I know, it's been two weeks. It's getting worse."

"Then tell me what to do since you think you're an expert. I know my thoughts aren't logical. I know it's not the end of the world if I never live in Stars Hollow again. I know that one bad day at work doesn't mean that I'm a failure. I know that. Every mistake I make, which is a lot because of what state I am in, makes me feel closer to the edge. I don't know what to do, so tell Jess, TELL ME." Her knuckles were turning white as she gripped the bathroom counter.

He wrapped him in his arms and squeezed her tight. She sobs into his chest as he rocks her. When she stopped shaking he let her go to cup her face. "I think you need to go to therapy."

"Yeah. I know." She nods.


"I always had my future planned out. I would graduate from culinary school and then move back to Stars Hollow. I work at the Inn and the Diner. I save up to upgrade the diner or open my own place. I have gone back and forth on that." She was sitting criss-crossed on the couch in the therapist's office.

"Did something recently ruin those plans?" The doctor asked.

"My boyfriend opened up a business here. It was a long process so I wouldn't say recent. I missed home again earlier this month. The feeling grows by the day until it hits me that I won't be doing my plan. I don't know what the plan is. Do I work my way up at Gillespie's until Jess and his partners decide what the next location will be? I can't put root down here because Chris has his whole family here so he wants to stay." She knew they would have to move eventually.

"Chris is?" She wonders.

"One of Jess's business partners. Jess is my boyfriend." She explained who was who.

"It's natural to fear the unknown." She reassured her.

"That may be, but it's not natural for it to be life-consuming. That's all I can think about. It affects the people around them. I always thought of myself as a carefree person. But, I'm not." She was getting jittery in front of the therapist.

"What's wrong with the new plan?" She thought it was a fine one.

"What plan?" She narrowed her eyes.

"To get experience at Gillespie's until you know where the next place you'll be moving. That place is top-notch. I know a lot of people who trade their souls for a chance to learn under those experts." She picked out the sense in her rambling. She smiles in amusement at Anna's astonished expression. "Who knows that next place could be Star Hollow? Or someplace that could be better? The future doesn't have to be dark and scary. It can be hopeful. It matters how we choose to see it."


Anna was making drunken noodles and weeping tiger beef. For dessert, she was planning black sticky rice pudding. "So, Jackson won the election but is upset about it." She was confused.

"He said it was too much responsibility when Sookie and him are planning to start a family." Lorelai was on speakerphone.

"But, he knew about that when he put his hat on in the race." She didn't see why that only came to him now.

"He was in a rage that Taylor was being nit-picky about his greenhouse. I wanted my parking spaces. I don't know why I need approval for that. It's my land." She grumbled.

"Because you bought a historical landmark." Anna reminds her.

"If it was so important to them then why weren't they on Fran's ass when it started to crumble. Then I wouldn't have had to pay so much money to rebuild." She hated having to go through Taylor about everything.

"Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore." She shrugged.

"I don't know, Jackson is going to break soon. I would be surprised if he lasted a month. A lady approaches him the other way because birds constantly poop on her car. She wanted him to get rid of the landlines on her street." She told her.

"Now we know why Taylor was obsessed with getting rid of pigeons." She laughed. "You better get to work on those parking spaces."

"They started on it today." She hummed.

"That's good." She put the noodles into the wok pan with the chicken, vegetables, and spicy sauce.

"We've been talking for an hour. Ha, that's a record." She cheered.

"We've talked longer than that." She laughed.

"Not in a while." She made Anna stop laughing. "You've been getting off the phone with me so fast I could never ask."

"I was just in a bad funk. But, I went to therapy. I got better." She admits.

"I'm happy to hear that." She was worried. She even called Jess, who said he was handling it.

"So… tell me about Rory and Dean." She cut the steak on the bias.

"Rory didn't tell you." She wonders why she wouldn't get it from the main source.

"She gets awkward and says everything is good. But, you see them interact. How is it?" She has never seen them together yet.

"I barely see them. Rory seems serious about making it work. So, I was thinking of going on a double date with them." She put out the idea.

"Luke and Dean have never been friends." She waves to Jess when he comes in.

"They were cordial for a little while." She didn't think they were enemies in the beginning. "He comes into Luke and he serves him."

"Still… seems awkward. Everything involving us and Dean seems awkward now." She stirred the black pudding and was happy with its consistency.

"It's going to have to get un-awkward if he continues to date Rory, so we gotta start somewhere." She knew it wasn't going to be easy.

"Good luck with that." She snickers. "You'll have to tell me all about it. I'm going to have to let you go because dinner is ready."

"Oh, just leave me for food." She sighs.

"You know it. Bye, see you Friday." She hung up. "Hey, I'm sorry for being a depressed bitch." She put the wok on the kitchen island along with a cutting board that had the sliced meat on it.

"Therapy has been going well." He took the plate she handed to him. She has been going twice a week for half a month now.

"Yeah, it did. I feel like I'm in a good spot, so I made the next appointment for next month." She put the pudding on warm. "This was the first time the future was unknown to me. It felt like this black void that I couldn't get out of."

"I get it. That black void made my teenage angst." There was a reason he used to hate talking about his future.

"So good news, Jackson is mayor. Bad news, he hates it and will probably quit soon." She grabs a chair to sit across from him on the island.

"Your mom better get those parking spaces quick." He made his plate.

"That's what I said." She uses chopsticks to grab some noodles.

"So, what were you saying about Dean and Luke?" He wondered if something was happening between them.

"Since Rory seems to be serious about Dean, my mom wants him to be comfortable with her again. She's planning to set up a double date." She watched a smile grow on his face.

"Oh, that's precious. I might have to call Luke soon." His smirk is full of mischief.

"Everyone is going to need therapy after it." She giggles.


"Hey, Grandma." Rory and Anna walk into Gilmore Manor for Friday dinner.

"Welcome Girls." Emily closes the door behind them.

"Is that a giant safe?" Anna looked at a safe the size of a person.

"I know how to protect you from Shrapnel and Agent Orange. Ask me how?" Lorelai pretends to be on an infomercial.

"It's a panic room." She told them of the new addition to the house.

"Like Jodie Foster," Rory asked.

"What does Jodie Foster have to do with this?" Emily was confused that she had the same reaction as Lorelai.

"It's a movie. You wouldn't like it." Anna figured if Emily was paranoid enough to get it then the movie wouldn't help her.

"Do you need one for your dorm?" Lorelai asked.

"That's not a stupid thought. It'll stop a nine-millimeter shell." Emily told her.

"Handy for when Suge Knight comes for tea." Lorelai smiles.

"Shouldn't it be somewhere less in plain sight?" Anna asked.

"It's a long story. Let's have drinks and forget about the panic room." She led them to the living room.

"Kind of hard when it is in sight." It was in a position where it could be seen from the living room and the dining room.

"What'll you have?" Emily ignored the comment.

"Gin Martini." Lorelai orders.

"A soda with lime." Rory requested.

"A soda with no lime." Anna took a seat on the couch along with her mother and sister.

"This little rinky dink cart. It has nothing." Emily grumbles.

Anna looked back to see that it wasn't the usual cart. It was not the cart that she had put a sticker on many Friday nights ago. "What happened to the other one?" She feared that it had been broken.

"Your grandfather stole it in the dark of the night, so I'm stranded. I had our minister over, and he had to go without his whiskey sour." Emily continued to look if they had any gin.

"I bet he excommunicated you on the spot." Lorelai crosses her arms.

"I've got Vermouth but no gin. Perfect. Sara?" She called her newest maid.

"Yes, Ma'am." She came down the stairs.

"I need gin. Check everywhere." She knew there had to be another bottle.

"Including the bathtub." Lorelai smiles while elbowing her daughters.

"Start with the pantry." Emily thought of the obvious place.

"Yes, ma'am" The nervous woman went off.

"The main reason I got the panic room is because I'm a woman living alone." Emily joined them. "Do you know I've never lived alone? I went from my parents' house to college to Richard."

"But, Grandma, you're not alone. Grandpa is only a few feet away." Rory could see the pool house from where she was sitting.

"He might as well be a million miles away. I don't know if your grandfather would look up from his stamp collection if he heard me scream." She needs to adjust to her new life.

"He's old. He might not hear, but he cares." Anna got a slap in the arm from Rory.

"Or his nose got stuck to the stamps and he physically couldn't look up." Lorelai gave another option. Rory slapped her forehead while shaking her head.

"Either way, the panic room might be a good idea." Anna thought, if it provided her comfort then it was doing some good already.

"It doesn't matter. Even when he was living here he was gone so much he wasn't any protection." She realized she was vulnerable for longer than she thought. "He just left on some business trip and it was an afterthought that he even bothered to tell me about."

"But, he told you so that's not an afterthought. That's a very thoughtful thought." Lorelai rubs Rory's arm as she gets worked up. She was frustrated with her grandparents. They wanted to work it out, but they thought the other no longer wanted them. Neither would listen to reason.

"I'm sure it was in some way for his convenience." From her point of view, Richard was moving on with his life while she was at a standstill.

"There was no gin anywhere, Mrs. Gilmore. I'll check the bathtub now." The maid came back in.

"That was a joke, Sara." She let her know she didn't need to do that. "Lorelai, please don't joke with the maids. It's not what they do." Anna imagined they had so many ridiculous requests from the rich. They had to assume everything was facts so they wouldn't get fired.

"Sorry." Lorelai apologized.

"Check Mr. Gilmore's study." She looks at the maid.

"Yes ma'am." She hurried to do so.

"I should call Richard myself, dragging away from whatever business deal he's doing, and make him tell me." She couldn't believe he would take all the good liquor.

"It's okay. Mom doesn't need a martini." Rory didn't want tonight to be a bash Richard night.

"Yeah, I'll take what you got. If it's good enough for the minister, it's good enough for me." She wanted the night to move along.

"Your hands are empty," Emily noted when the maid came back.

"The door to the study is locked." She informed her.

"He locked the study?" She screamed.

"Mom, I don't need gin. I'll take whatever you have." She thought it was funny at first. She had pictured her dad and his butler creeping in like cartoon cat burglars to take the good cart. But, now it was taking a bad dramatic turn.

"I don't have anything. That's the problem." She loved to entertain, not Richard, so why did he need the good stuff? "Come on." She stood up.

"Come on where?" Anna stood up and pulled her sister and mother along.

"I'm not going to let Richard's business trip keep you from the drink you want." She took a key out from the table by the couch.

They follow her out. "Should we be doing this?" Rory was hesitant to take a step into the pool house. She eventually followed not wanting to be outside in the dark alone.

"Oh, how can he live in this squalor?" She was disgusted.

"It's another Calcutta. Is that open sewage?" Lorelai gasps.

"It smells like an ashtray." Anna covered her nose.

"He leaves his cigars all over the place." Emily wonders who she married.

"The drink cart's over there, Grandma. We can grab the gin and vamoose." Rory points at it when Emily goes through the papers on his desk.

"Oh snooping. I love snooping." Anna watched over her grandmother's shoulder.

"He must have five packs of breath mints here. Why would a man need five packs of breath mints?" She looks at the candy dish on his desk.

"Because he is smoking like a chimney." She looks at the full ashtray. She started to wonder what the butler did.

"I feel weird snooping like this." Rory didn't move from her spot. She was uncomfortable watching the rest of her family do it. Lorelai was in the kitchen opening drawer while Anna was in the closet.

"This is my property as much as it is his and when we die it'll belong to you three. We're all entitled here." She moved to his bookshelf. "He got new books."

"Hey, my Petunia Pig plate and spoon. What's it doing here?" Lorelai gasps at the familiar plate.

"Odds and ends have wound up out here over the years." She shrugged.

"This is not an odd nor an end. I'm taking it." She held the plate to her chest.

"It's not yours to take." Rory didn't want Grandpa to notice they were here.

"Dad's not using my Petunia Pig spoon." She shook her head.

"I say take it." Emily was looking through more drawers.

"Hey, Mom, what are we carrying out booty home in? Do you have a canvas bag with a big dollar sign on it?" She teased.

"Just to remind everyone, the drink cart is right over here." She grabbed the liquor bottle they needed.

"Rory, we're going to wheel that whole cart back. It's going be mine when they pass away so I can do what I like with it." She gasped at what she found.

"What? What is it?" Emily rushed over.

"What the hell? Did you used to go to the disco?" She pulled out a gold glitter vest.

"We definitely did not. We never went anywhere that he could have worn that. This is new." She took it from her granddaughter.

"We don't know that. Maybe it was a gift that he never used and ended up here." Rory thought of another alternative.

"No, I have never seen this vest. I would have given it away to charity. This is a party vest." She waves it around.

"So, you think Grandpa is going to the disco now?" Anna couldn't think of anywhere else to wear that.

"Maybe!" She glares at the clothing.

"Let's put it back." Lorelai didn't want to look at it anymore.

"No, you put it back." Emily held it out.

"We moved a lot of stuff. We've got to cover our tracks." Rory was panicking with the gin bottle in hand.

"Where did you find it?" Lorelai asked Anna.

"Squished somewhere in the middle as if he was ashamed of it." She almost missed it.

"Can you blame him? It's hideous." She shoved it back in the closet.

"How dare he have a vest like that." She scoffed.

"The mints looked something like this, right?" She pointed at the candy bowl.

"No, the one on the bottom was on top," Anna smirks.

"This is no time for jokes, missy." She was stressed.

"He didn't care to cover his tracks when he took a whole cart." Anna pointed at the stolen item.

"He's a devious man." Emily hissed.

"I wouldn't go that far." Anna tilts her head.

"Come on Mom, let's go. Anna grabs Petunia." She put a hand on each of her mom's shoulders to guide her out.

"Got it." She grabbed the plate and spoon. Rory turns off the light and locks the door. Anna had a big smile on her face. This fun chaos was one of the reasons she loved being close to her family.


I know there has been some confusion because I have been skipping episodes and speeding things along. So even when Anna is not doing anything with the main plot. I'll name the chapter to an episode to help with the timeline.