A/N: Thanks to those who keep on reading and especially reviewing :)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 26

"I really wanted to hate her. Well, not hate her, because you know the only thing I really hate is having to hate anybody or anything, but still, I absolutely did not want to like the woman who caused Jess so much pain and problems, but she's just so... nice."

"I know, right?" Lorelai shook her head. "I mean, I'm with you, babe. As much as it took me a while to see the goodness in Jess, I never, ever had any respect for his mom. Not that the buck always stops with the parents, I know that, but in this case? She clearly did not do the best job in raising him. I was not accepting the young single mom thing because, hello, been there, done that, and at least she had a father and a big brother who couldn't do enough for her."

"Exactly!" Rory all but exploded. "That's what I thought, and it's why I was not prepared to cut her even the tiniest bit of slack, but like I said, so nice, and on top of that, she knows that she got everything wrong! She's actually willing to sit there and tell you what a terrible mother she's been. How can you be mad at that?"

"I know, right?" Lorelai said one more time, not knowing how else to express what she was feeling. "Also, once you get past the bad mother thing and into Liz as a person, she's actually kind of a riot."

"Tell me about it. She has the craziest sense of humour, she is absolutely not lacking in pop culture references, and I just can't help it, I like her!"

"Me too!"

Perhaps they were a being a little loud, something that Lorelai might have worried more about if they were out in the street or anything. As it was, they were ensconced in the house with a bowl of ice-cream each in their hands, chatting up a storm after way too long apart.

Even with Rory having dropped a class to keep herself from getting all overwrought with schoolwork, she was still pretty busy. The inn plans and preparations certainly took more time than Lorelai could ever have imagined. More money too, but that was nothing she was willing to discuss with her daughter.

"So, Liz said she's here for her high school reunion, but she plans on sticking around for the Firelight Festival, also. She said she has this new boyfriend who will be arriving in our fine little town tomorrow."

"Yes, she told me that too. TJ. Supposedly, he's the best guy and just what she needs in her life right now."

"Which we would all like to believe, especially Luke, but he already told me that this is the way it always goes with Liz. She gets a new guy, thinks the sun shines out of him and everything is going to be different and better this time, then just like always, he turns out to be a big fat loser, it all falls apart, and Luke has to pick up the pieces, again!"

"That's so not fair on Luke... or Jess either." Rory sighed. "I know he doesn't have to live with his mom anymore, or depend on her for anything now he's over eighteen, but even so, a person should be able to depend a little bit on their own parents. I know I would hate to think I couldn't come to you in a crisis."

"I would hate that too." Lorelai smiled, patting her daughter on the knee. "You know, I am here for you, babe, absolutely always. Good for venting, advice, support, supplying a bed for your homeless BFF."

"Yes, you are the best," said Rory, grinning wide and taking up another spoonful of ice-cream. "Lane does seem to be doing a little better now. Not so traumatised by the whole outing herself to Mrs Kim thing."

"She is better, although I think it hurt almost as much to have her CBGB's gig fall through as it did to have things break down with her mom. For what it's worth, I have tried to build bridges, but what can I say? Mrs Kim is one stubborn mama."

"And how." Rory rolled her eyes. "Still, she has to come around in time. If Liz Danes can be in any way redeemed, and Grandma can sit through two whole dinners with Jess without making any truly awful comments, then there is hope for all mothers everywhere."

"Amen, sister-friend!" Lorelai declared, hand raised for a high five that Rory happily took her part in. "So, happier topic than the less-than-great moms in the world. Everything cool at school?"

"It's not bad." Rory shrugged. "My four class load is definitely working better for me than five, Paris is way less stressy since she officially ended things with Jamie and became exclusive with Doyle, and Jess is really excelling in his library assistant role. Ms Maris says wonderful things about his work."

Lorelai really didn't mean to snort into her bowl of ice-cream when she heard that remark. Certainly, it seemed that Rory didn't appreciate that reaction at all, if the look on her face was anything to go by.

"I'm sorry," she said, swallowing down a mouthful of cool vanilla goodness. "It's just the way you chose to phrase that particular sentence. 'Ms Maris says wonderful things about his work'," she repeated in a sultry sort of voice. "It sounded so... afternoon delight."

"Eew!" Rory reacted with real disgust. "Ms Maris is so not like that, and even if she were, she would not be looking to Jess for that. She knows he has me, and he wouldn't be looking at her or any other woman that way either. I know how to keep my boyfriend happy, thank you very much."

"Go you, but also, mommy kind of doesn't wanna hear that, sweets," Lorelai admitted, squirming some.

"Oh, right. Sorry." Rory shook her head. "Okay, new topic. Wanna watch a movie? You know, it's forever since we had a marathon."

She made a grab for the remote and started flipping channels before Lorelai could find an excuse for her not to. Of course, it took point-five of a second for Rory to realise most of those movie channels they used to have had gone bye-bye. From there, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to her realising the thermostat was lower than it ever had been before, the bulbs in the light fittings were of the low energy type, and there was a crack in the living room window Lorelai was trying desperately to ignore for just as long as she could, even though the draft was getting worse on a daily basis. One day soon, that sucker was going to break entirely, from the meagre force of a simple opening or closing.

"I'll call the cable company later, see what happened to those channels, because we should absolutely be getting them," she said, coughing and spluttering through the words, even as she extricated the remote from Rory's hands, "but in the meantime, I was thinking, how about we go next-door and catch up with Babette? You know, she keeps on asking me how you're doing and was practically begging me to encourage you to drop in next time you had a spare hour. She misses her Rory fix almost as much as I do when you're away so much."

"Aaw, that's so nice." Rory smiled and turned to mush, the way Lorelai knew she would. "Maybe we should go visit with Babette. It has been a while since I saw her for more than a minute."

"Right, then let's do that." Lorelai grinned, practically leaping up from the couch and heading for the door within a second, barely even realising she was still holding her ice-cream bowl and spoon until the last moment.

She was just so desperate to get Rory out of the house and distract her. The last thing she needed was her kid realising the money problems that had started out small were slowly getting exponentially bigger. That was a problem Lorelai would just have to learn to solve alone.

"She talks like she can't even cope by herself. It's as if she can't function at all without a man to cling onto, and when I say man, of course, I use the term loosely, because Liz's taste is just... Oh, I'm sorry," Luke apologised, the moment he realised Lorelai had zoned out from their conversation.

He also realised that it really wasn't much of conversation anymore anyway, just him rambling on and on about his sister. Poor Lorelai, she had to be bored to tears. It was no wonder she stopped listening a while back.

"Huh? What?" she said then, coming back from her daydream with a visible bump. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Luke. My mind was just..." she trailed off, making some random gesture with her hand to signify she was away with the fairies for a minute there. "Um, you were saying something about Jess, or Liz, or somebody? I'm sorry, start over, I swear I'm paying attention now," she told him, patting her own face, as if she had to physically fight to stay awake and focused.

Now that he really looked at her, even in the deliberately soft lighting across her kitchen table, he noticed she did look kind of tired and a little pale. Not that Luke had any idea how he was supposed to say something like that to his girlfriend without getting his face slapped. Still, he would rather know what was wrong. After all, if he could help at all, he really wanted to.

"Lorelai, what's wrong?" he asked her straight out, figuring it was the best way to get to the truth. "I know you spent a lot of time with Rory today. Is it her? Is there a problem with Yale or...?"

"No, no problems," she told him shaking her head. "I promise, Rory is just fine and Yale is fine, things with her and Jess are fine. She even gets along well with Liz, which she did not expect. I mean, no offence, but Jess hasn't always spoken highly of his mother, from what Rory tells me, and even you said that she's had her moments."

"Oh, she has. She does," he clarified without pause. "I mean, there's not an evil bone in Liz's body, but she just... She doesn't always think. She's not great at picking winners when it comes to guys either, but she's not a bad person, really. Not the world's greatest mother, but then, how could she be? Between you and my own mom, she has stiff competition for that title," he said, pulling her hand closer across the table and kissing it.

"Sweet talker," she said, with a more genuine smile. "Not that I think you're just saying it. I know you mean it, and thank you. You know, I've always done my best by Rory, the best I can do, in the circumstances. It's funny though, how circumstances can kind of get away from you, isn't it? Like, you think you have all your bases covered and everything is cool and you know exactly what you're doing. I mean, not always exactly, but enough to get by, and if you just keep on trying, doing the best you can, you always make it. I always seemed to... until now."

Luke started to worry a little when Lorelai was looking more off to the side than at him, when he suddenly realised there were tears welling up in her eyes. The rambling was normal, for a Gilmore girl anyway. It came as a standard part of the package and Luke had gotten used to it years and years ago, from both Lorelai and Rory. The gaze-shifting, teary-eyed thing, that was more concerning. This was the part where she started unravelling, he just knew it.

"I thought it was okay, Luke. I thought everything was going to work out, because it just does for me. Even when it was really, really bad. When I was fifteen and pregnant, or sixteen with a newborn and practically under house arrest with my parents, or seventeen on my own in the world with a baby girl to raise. Everything I set out to do, it was hard, but I always made it. I managed, I scraped along, I had a handle on it, but lately... lately, it's just not working anymore. It's not how I thought it would be, Luke."

The tears were falling freely down her flushed cheeks by then, the words getting lost in sobs that made her whole body shake. Immediately, Luke was off his chair and around the table, kneeling on the floor beside Lorelai's seat, pulling her into his arms and trying to bring comfort.

"Hey, it's okay," he told her, even though, as yet, he wasn't entirely sure what this was all about. "Whatever's wrong, whatever you need help with, I'm here for you. Come on, you know that. I love you, Lorelai, and I am here, and whatever it is you need..."

"Money."

She said it so softly, her face pressed into his shoulder by now, and her voice so thick with emotion, he wasn't entirely sure he heard her right.

"What?"

"I said money," she repeated, bringing her head up and looking at him again. "What I need is cold hard cash, because I'm running out so fast, I hardly know how I'm going to pay for food next week," she admitted, one hand coming up to swipe at the dampness on her face. "I'm not asking you for the money, I would never, not with us being... I mean, even if we weren't together, I'm not sure I could, but as it is, I couldn't take money from you, even if you offered, which I knew you would if I asked, and that's why I didn't, but I'm scared, Luke. I'm really just terrified of how I'm going to cover everything, with the inn and the house and just... everything."

Money, that was the problem. Luke wasn't sure how he hadn't noticed before, but knowing Lorelai was short on cash did suddenly make sense out of a dozen tiny things that didn't seem right in the past few weeks. Each one was so minor, they barely mattered, but put them altogether and it was now patently clear, this breakdown had been on the cards for a while now.

"Oh, Lorelai, I'm so sorry," he told her, his hand at her cheek. "Really, I should've noticed..."

"I made sure you didn't. Rory too. I hid it from everybody. Even Sookie doesn't know yet, but it's getting to a point where I have no choice but to tell her," she explained, snuffling terribly. "I just don't know what I'm going to do."

Immediately, Luke wanted to offer her just as much money as she needed, everything that he had, if it came to that. For her, he would give up everything, but Lorelai already said she couldn't or wouldn't take it. They were dating now and as far as he knew a couple was supposed to share what they had, but Luke was smart enough to realise that an independent woman like Lorelai would never want to think of herself as living off her boyfriend. Of course, that didn't mean there wasn't another way to do this.

"Okay. Okay, how about this? You don't want to take my money, that would make you uncomfortable, but what about a loan. I mean, from a bank," he explained, when she seemed determined to protest. "I'm guessing they won't let you have one in your own right because you don't have an income right now, but if I were to co-sign for it, would that be less weird for you?"

He really wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say. Talking about awkward things really wasn't Luke's forte. He tried, he really did, but sometimes, when it came to crying women in particular, he always panicked that he was just going to make it worse.

"A loan from the bank?" Lorelai sniffled some more. "You... you'd wanna co-sign with me? Luke, that's... that's a serious commitment," she said, shaking her head.

"Lorelai, it's just money, and yes, I know that is a big thing, in a way, but it is nothing compared to... to how I feel about you," he told her honestly. "Come on, you know I love you, that I am all in on this relationship. You do know that, right?"

Swallowing hard, she nodded her head. "I do know that. I love you too, you know I do."

"I do," he assured her, unable to keep from smiling, even as tears continued to leak from her eyes. "So, if you wanted to do the loan thing, if it would take some of the pressure off you and make it easier for you to cope, without making you feel uncomfortable about mixing business into our relationship too much, then that's what we'll do. Whatever you want. Absolutely anything you need."

There was a very watery, wobbly smile on her lips then as she collapsed back into his arms, crying and holding on so tight. Luke held her in his arms and let her get it out of her system, unsure whether she was still sad and worried, or just relieved at his offer by now. Whatever the outcome was, it didn't really matter to Luke. He meant what he said. Lorelai could have anything at all that she wanted or needed. All he cared about was her happiness.

To Be Continued...