Archive of Our Own

Rory didn’t think it was possible to be this tired.

It was insane. It was next level kinda tired. It beat out the morning hangovers of all-nighter movie marathons. It beat out the blurred week of graduation finals – high school and college. It beat the time her and Paris stayed up till six in the morning trying to build the baby crib from IKEA. She felt like she was going to sink through the hospital bed. She wanted to go into hibernation for five weeks and then just not come out.

But she couldn’t, of course. There’d be no more of that. Mostly due to the tiny bundle her wife’s holding that she can’t stop smiling at.

It’d been long. God, more then either had thought. And Rory wasn’t a crier but she was teary through most of it, mediated by Paris clutching her hand and her mother parting her hair and trying to soothe it over. She honestly can’t even remember half of it, feeling like she blacked out somewhere between the extreme pain and blood and shouting until the room was filled with baby cries and what her and Paris had been talking about for forever was in her arms and real.

But now, it was a couple hours later, and she was watching Paris sitting at the edge of the bed, almost as exhausted and beaming at the swaddled pink blankets she’d holding. She must’ve noticed Rory smiling back because her head comes up, eyebrow quirking.

“What?..”

“I’m just trying to remember a time I’ve ever seen you this happy.” Rory says, voice weary “I’m thinking of when you got into med school, our wedding day, and that time you scared Kirk so bad the next time he saw you, he ran straight outta Luke’s and tripped on the stairs, breaking his ankle. That’s it.”

“Well I don’t remember either of your parents complaining about the last one.” Paris quips, Rory making a weak laugh “And it’s the birth of my daughter, should I not be happy?”

“Well, considering I saw my grandmother wiping away actual tears when we announced the name, I guess everyone’s granted a pass today..”

Paris chuckles, turning back to the tiny thing in her arms “..Lorelai Emily Geller-Gilmore.”

“It’s a mouthful.”

“She has a lot of important women in her name.” Paris smooths her thumb over the tiny fingers, smile curling around with pride “But I think she’ll be able to carry it just fine..”

Rory smiles too, despite the exhaustion. She turns her head to the clock mounted on the ugly white hospital wall. God, eleven at night. She hopes her mom and Luke will be back from the mission she sent them on. Everyone else had packed up and gone home; her grandparents after they’d all played “pass the baby”, and nearly half the town of Stars Hallow who’d camped out in the hallway outside the room during the birth, getting their turns to ooh and aah as Lorelai showed off the newborn much like a royal announcer to the towns common-folk. Paris refused to let any of them in here though; one because it’d overwhelm her already exhausted wife, and two because she didn’t trust the cleanliness of any of them (everyone else had to wash their hands three separate times to hold her baby).

“..Besides, she has your eyes too, so.”

“What?”

“She has your eyes.” Paris repeats “They’re your blue, they’re the exact same.”

“She’s only been alive, technically, for four hours. How can you tell?”

“Trust me – I spent nearly all my life being in love with that blue, I’d know.”

Rory’s too tired to have a conversation, instead taking the sweetness from that instead. At that moment, the hospital door burst open. Lorelai came flying in, excitement on her face that shouldn’t be there considering she’d also been up for countless hours, second-in-command to the birth.

“You won’t believe this!” She exclaims, Luke finally falling in behind her, panting from keeping her pace.

“Pizza first.” Rory demands, holding out her hand, amazed they found one open this late. She hadn’t had it since getting pregnant, due to the horrific heartburn it gave her, which had been probably one of the greatest tragedies of her life. But she made it (technically, her first words to her daughter after they cleaned her off and handed her to her delirious mother, were “you were so worth giving up pizza for!”), so, now, she was ready for her rewards.

Lorelai hands over the cheesy bread to a very happy Rory, still vibrating with her news, and once she’s chowing down on it she gets the green light.

“Okay, shoot.”

“The kid brought snow!”

“What?”

“So, you know how we weren’t even graced with one single snowflake the entirety of the winter?”

“And you said that this means the world will forever be void of joy, yes.”

“And now, two days till February, out of nowhere, it’s snowing out!” Lorelai was practically jumping up and down, grin wrapping the whole way around “It’s already three inches – she did it! The kid brought snow! I love her already!”

She leaned down, kissing the little head already sprouting a thick fuzz of brown hair. Rory laughs.

“Lorelai, don’t you think this is more a sign of the negative affects of climate change, then having any correlation to your granddaughter’s birth?” Paris looked up with a hooked brow. Lorelai gasped in the style of a daytime drama show, putting a hand over her chest.

“How could you even doubt your own daughter’s powers like that?” She leaned in, carefully pulling the her from Paris’s arms “this gift has to be nurtured – don’t you worry kid, I believe you..”

Rory grins and Paris rolls her eyes, letting her walk off, cooing to the baby. Rory watches her take Lora up to Luke, him nervously hovering over. If Luke already wasn’t already wary and nervous around people, it was a whole new level for babies. He’d been so frightened to hold her, determined it was a hazard because babies were like porcelain and if you even move the neck half an inch the wrong way it could break; it took Lorelai literally shoving the baby in his arms and saying if he doesn’t hold his first grandbaby he wouldn’t be able to even conjure the consequences, and once he got the hang of it, he had a hard time giving her back. Rory catches him carefully press down the brown fuzz of hair, rare smile on his face.

Finally, the parents had to get home, packing it up and shipping out with promises to return tomorrow; Lorelai wrapping Paris in a hug and then leaning down to her daughter.

“Get ready kid, here comes the real work.” She grinned “You’ve been coasting in comparison to what’s happening next.”

Rory sighs, head falling back and eyes squeezing shut “Can your prophecies of doom wait until tomorrow at least?..”

There’s a warm laugh above her, and suddenly the tone became much softer, a hand going down to squeeze hers.

“..She’s amazing kiddo. You did so good.” There’s a kiss placed a top her head after “Sookie’s making pancakes for tomorrow’s breakfast, I’ll sneak you in some.”

Now with everyone gone, Rory could relax some. The baby asleep, her mum watching her inside that see-through baby bed, mesmerized by the tiny chest slowly going up and down. Enough to lull her to sleep too – that is, if Paris wasn’t still buzzing around the small room, hastily putting things together and muttering to herself.

“Paris?..Hey Par..”

“What?” The blonde spun around, eyes locking onto Rory “What is it, you need something?”

“No, I’m fine, it’s just I think after the events of the past many hours, you can slow down a little.”

“This room is a mess!” Paris declared, tossing her arms around to the slight disarray “It has to be put together, we’ve got to have things in place – we have a baby now for god’s sake, I have to make sure we have all her things –”

“Par we packed the baby bag with everything for a reason. It’s fine; why don’t you come sit down, you’ve gotta be tired too –”

“Sitting can wait – we can’t just have furniture askew and, god, your mother who loves to drop snack wrappers like she’s trying to make a trail back here..–”

Rory closed her eyes, sighing. Change of tactics.

“Actually, I need something, can you come –”

Rory blinked and Paris was beside the bed, brow drawn in ferocious seriousness.

“What?? What do you need??”

The brunette simply smiled in response. She shuffled over slightly, pulling back the sheets and patting the empty space beside her. Finally, Paris’s clenched expression melted, a scoff and a tiny smile.

“..That’s a dirty trick Gilmore.”

“You forced me to resort to it.” Rory told her, watching Paris clamber onto the bed, fitting in snug beside her. Rory leaned into her the second Paris laid back, head nestled in her shoulder, and sighing contently when met with the familiar warmth. That was a lot better. She felt a head lean over hers, nose pressed in her hair, Paris peering over to the little slumbering body across in the baby bed.

“She’s incredible Rory..”

“Spoken with no bias what-so-ever..” Rory mumbled; she was barely holding herself awake, consciousness slipping in and out.

“Hey, I’m the resident expert around here – I know a good, solid baby when I see one.”

Rory just has enough energy to scoff, smile appearing over.

“You know if I had..energy, I’d think of a quip back..–”

“Sure sure Gilmore..” Paris wraps an arm around her wife, smiling “I’ll let you off easy on this one, on account of just having a baby. Better buck up though – I hear this is where the real work starts..”

“I don’t care what doomed words you people tell me; I’m going to catch up on much needed sleep and no one’s going to stop me..” Rory declared, finally falling asleep to Paris chuckling and a kiss pressed at her temple.

-

“Hey Rory.”

Lorelai looked down at the nearly dead, still body half-way laid over her kitchen table, head down and eyes closed. No response.

“Rory.”

She poked her shoulder. Still nothing.

“Kid, hey..”

A barely audible grunt. That was something at least. Lorelai put down the piping hot coffee beside her, taking the nearby seat.

“Here, drink this..”

“I can’t lift my head..” Rory muttered against the hardwood.

“You want a straw?”

“Maybe?...God,” a long sigh “actually, it’s fine, I can do it..”

Rory lifted herself up with a slowness much akin to the walking-dead. She rubbed her hand over her baggy eyes for the umpteenth time, fingers somewhat blindly grasping for the coffee she hoped would remedy her after explaining her conundrum to Lorelai as they made their way to her parents for a visit (“I need coffee in an IV. No, scratch that, coffee’s not strong enough – do you happen to have any drugs on you? Adderall perhaps?”).

As Rory put the drink to her lips, Lorelai glanced down to the light cooing she could hear – the instigater of this problem. The newborn Lora was still asleep in the car seat , no one daring to take her out, looking very innocent. Lorelai brought up her foot, lightly tipping the edge of the car seat carrier to rock it slightly, silencing any stirrings. She was interrupted by sputtering and gagging, turning to Rory who’s face was all scrunched up.

“God – jeez mom, what is in this?!” Rory sputtered, resisting wiping her tongue on a nearby paper towel.

“My secret recipe – which I’ll never tell.” Lorelai answered, pointing over at her “That, saved me multiple nights when I was up with you when you were a newborn.”

“Will it also make me see sound and hear colour?”

“Potentially. Just trust me on this; you wanted me to hook you up, didn’t you?”

Rory contemplated for a second. Then drank more.

“There also may be some heart palpitations along with it but...ehhhh, should be fine. You’re young still.”

“At this rate, I’ll take anything.” Rory sighed, putting down the cup “God, I mean..people kept telling us it would be hard, about the sleep loss, even you, and I thought we’d be prepared, but I just couldn’t even grasp the amount of tired. I feel like the dead. In fact, if I didn’t have a new baby to worry about, I’d wholly welcome death. Is that too dramatic?”

“Nah.” Lorelai dissuaded, smiling after “..Kid, don’t worry about it too much; things’ll get better.”

“When?!” Rory demanded, as loud as she dared to be around a sleeping baby “Like, she-she won’t sleep. I mean, she sleeps but she’s still waking up constantly and since I’m the one breastfeeding I’m up with her constantly, but even then she’s just crying for seemingly no reason and all we do now is spend hours walking around in the dead of night trying to get her to sleep so now neither of us are sleeping, and even if I manage to get sleep Paris is constantly getting up to check on her because she’s terrified of Sids or she thinks she can’t hear Lora’s breathing through the monitor or whatever and then I’m up so now this lack of rest has turned Paris into a monster and me into a literal hazard like leaving stove tops on or putting cereal in the fridge and milk in the cupboard and the other day we had a fourty-five minute argument over who forgot to fill the ice trays –”

Fingers snapped in front of her face. Rory blinked back at her mother, sinking back into reality.

“...Sorry. I lost myself somewhere.”

“I noticed; it was like watching a train derail.” Lorelai jokes, not totally masking the concern hidden underneath “..Look, Rory, everybody gets told how hard it is and everyone has the rug ripped from under their feet. But, you survive it. You’re only two weeks in. You and the baby are still kinda acquaintances at best. Soon you’ll figure out a rhythm together, and it’ll get a lot better.”

“Will we get to sleep?” Rory asks, her voice breaking rather desperately. Lorelai chuckles.

“In time.”

Another groan, hand dragging down her face “It still should’ve come with a heavier warning – I mean, I know I chose this, but it’s still so hard – and that’s even with the fact that I’m better off then most people! Like, she’s a pretty fair baby compared to most, and I have Paris, where some people have no second hand – god, like-like, you, mom..”

Rory’s reaching across, giving her this weird pleading look Lorelai can’t totally place; something between pity and love, looking like she’s going to start crying any time soon.

“You were sixteen. I just..I can’t..I-I’m thirty and matured now, but I-I was an idiot when I was sixteen! I would’ve died if that was me!” Lorelai can’t help laughing a little, despite how ardently Rory was pouring her heart out “I’d always admired you for it, but..I never had any idea how much strength that must’ve taken...I mean, I..how- how did you do that?!”

Honestly, Lorelai didn’t really have an answer. She smiles to herself, the room becoming quieter.

“..I dunno. I just had to. So I did.”

Rory keeps watching her mom, swallowing down the lump in her throat “..I just...can’t imagine how hard, and how lonely, that must’ve been..”

Watching her daughter in return, Lorelei’s smile brims.

“I wasn’t lonely. I had you.”

Now, Rory smiles, wavering a little, holding down any more emotions trying to rise in her semi-delirious state. Lorelai reaches forward, fingers grasping around her daughters and squeezing. They stayed in that moment a second, in the content quiet, until Lorelai raised her head, peering into the living room.

“Speaking of help, should we..move Paris?..”

Rory looks back. They were both on maternity leave for a couple more weeks, but Paris had toted in her laptop on the premise that she just briefly had to look over some emails and work demands that needed her approval, as she couldn’t fully leave her work. About ten minutes after setting up in the living room, she’d passed out on the couch, head tilted back and totally dead to the world.

“No way. If I wake her up, she’ll have no qualms about choking me to death.”

“Man, I’d really forgotten the joys of being up for more then seventy-two hours straight..”

Rory scoffed, continuing to watch her wife “..She’s been doing really well though. She was so..worried about this whole thing, how to do the parenting thing, let alone do a good job..”

“Paris? Anxious? You don’t say.”

Another scoff, followed by a smile “ Right?..She’s so terrified of turning out like her parents. She keeps going on about doing better, about wanting better for Lora, but I honestly don’t think she has anything to worry about. She loves Lora so much; she’s probably the first human being who didn’t have to earn Paris’s affection. I keep finding her standing over Lora’s crib, watching her, and if this were a cartoon, she’d have actual hearts for eyes..”

Lorelai chuckles. More stirring noises came from the car seat carrier, the older woman tipping it again with her foot. The noises settled.

“Looks like you guys got the most important part nailed down then..”

“I hope so..” was the sigh, Rory glancing back at the bundle wrapped up in blankets “I had my own worries too..like, I...I mean, I like kids, but I’m not super...parental, you know, and..”

“I know. I still have the memory of you calling me at three in the morning yelling something about what would happen if the baby came and you didn’t love it.”

“That’s a legitimate fear!” the younger Lorelai defended, sighing “..But too be fair, I had been overtaken by pregnancy hormones and like..had also been up all night because I wasn’t able to sleep on my back due to the horrible pain.”

“Glamorous. And pregnancy is a fair excuse; though be careful, because you can only use that free pass so many times before people stop believing it. And that’s based on personal experience.”

“Got it. And while that’s a real fear, I now know what people meant ‘things just changed’ when the baby was born, because..” she turned to Lora, still resting, the now full head of hair and little fists gripping the yellow blanket “..I didn’t know it was possible to love something so much. If this wasn’t the situation, I’d think I was going crazy, because if someone was waking me up every hour, on the hour, I’d tell them no love was worth it. Of course, I’ve loved other people, and cared about them, but-but this is like next level and I don’t understand it – am I making sense????”

Lorelai grins back at the rambling “As much as someone in your situation can. And I can’t explain it to ya kid; it’s all in the chemicals. Something happens in the brain that makes you still adore something that’s been screaming from twelve in the morning to seven in the morning. Plus, it helps that they have those tiny baby fingers and you get to dress em’ in the itty-bitty baby socks.”

“True; I’ve never had more fun picking out socks in my life.”

More shared laughter. Lorelai reached across again, pushing back the badly-needed-washing-hair that was falling in Rory’s eyes. Yes, she was an adult, and yes now she was also a parent, but Rory welcomed the gesture all the same, smiling quietly back.

“Don’t sell yourself so short yet kid. You’re getting there, and in the case of parenting, it means you’re pretty much winning.”

Rory laughs again, leaning her head down to rest on the table. The moment was cut off by, finally, low crying starting to rise from the carrier. Looks like the rocking had become disinteresting, and now it was time to get out. Rory only groaned as the crying got louder, arms wrapping over her head.

“Noooo...”

“S’ok.” Her mom got up, giving a squeeze to the old-sweater clad shoulder “I got it. You can head upstairs if you want.”

“Thank you..” Rory very well wept.

“No worries. Also, I take tens and twenties.”

If Rory had the energy she would laugh more. Lorelai crouched down to a squirming Lora, who only got louder as she noticed someone was finally there.

“Hey you..” Lorelai greeted, reaching in to unbuckle, and then gently lift the newborn up into her arms “Look, I know you think it’s funny to cry to make your parents do your every bidding, but I gotta tell you, this is how you get dropped off at an orphanage's steps, so why don’t we let them rest before that happens, hm?”

-

“This is so stupid. How did I let you get away with this?”

“Paris, remember when we talked about when to keep thoughts to yourself?”

“You’re my wife – I believe you’re indebted to know how dumb this is. And, as Lora’s other mother, I need to be here to watch this less you go more overboard then you already are.”

“C’mon, she looks cute! And I worked really hard to pull this off!”

Way too hard, frankly. But now, Lora’s ensemble had finally come together. The nine-month-old was laid over their bed, big eyes on her mum holding up her phone to take multiple photos. She was in black jeans with a white onesie reading Slayer in Training in the classic, gothic font. Over her shoulders was an army green baby jacket, a replacement since they obviously don’t make leather jackets for babies. Rory had managed to scrape enough of the thick brown hair to make two tiny sprouts of pigtails at the back of her head. And they had to forgo the cross necklace to avoid choking, so instead Rory had managed to somehow find a rubber toy shaped like a wooden stake.

“Where’d you even find that?” Paris came up behind them, pointing to the stake Lora was currently chewing on.

“Super niche baby-teething toy site – they also had crosses, but I don’t really wanna be seen as one of those people you know?”

“So the stake was somehow better? She’s going to poke her eye out –”

“She’s not! It’s safety tested Paris, for babies –”

“– or she’s going to poke your eye out.” Paris pivoted towards Rory, hands on hips “And speaking of, you look ridiculous.”

“What?” Rory held up her hands, glancing down at her outfit. Fitted black dress pants, a nice blue blouse done to the collar, modest buckled black slip-on shoes and some faux plastic owl glasses currently sitting on the top of her head. It was the most masculine Rory’s looked on purpose. This is also not to mention her favourite of their mugs, the well-worn yellow Kiss the Librarian one, sitting nearby.

“It’s just, when you wanted to dress our baby for Halloween, I was thinking you’d go the more cutesy route everyone chooses, of making her a lady-bug or piece of candy. I wasn’t thinking you’d be doing this, or that you’d make it a co-ordinated costume so we’d look like those parents.”

“And here I thought you’d like the feminist themes..” Rory muttered, walking over to the dresser for a hairtie to put back her bun.

“Well when you actually consider it Gilmore, Buffy had a very sad and difficult life, so what does it say that you’re dressing our baby to emulate her?” Paris leaned over Lora, grasping the tiny baby feet as she kicked them up, and smiling slight when Lora cooed in response.

“We’re teaching her that she’s strong and always more capable then she thinks.” Rory walked back over, also leaning over “Isn’t that right Lor?”

She ran her fingers up the pudgy baby tummy, grinning as Lora squealed. They watched her squirm until she flipped onto her stomach, and began crawling her way up the bed.

“And what do you mean by ‘those parents’?”

“Those families Rory.” Paris nervously circled around the bed, eagle eyes on Lora “Homemaker wives who have nothing going on so all they do is elaborate things for their babies, like Halloween costumues, and then constantly post pictures of them onto social media and nothing else, talking about where do the days go and make sappy video montages come the baby’s birthday.”

“Okay, we are nothing like that. And since mom asked for help on the town’s haunted house, I figured it’d be a good excuse to go all out.” She placed the glasses over her eyes, and then reached over to Lora, scooping her up into her arms “I wanted to put her in it before she can voice her own opinion for costumes.”

“So you’re using the nine-month-old to your advantage then.”

“Trust me, she’ll be glad when she’s older that I didn’t make her a caterpillar or an m&m or something..”

Paris snorted, watching Rory duck her head back as Lora tried to wrap her uncoordinated baby fingers around the shiny glasses. She stepped towards them, looking directly at Lora.

“Blink twice if you need me to save you.”

“Hey!”

Lora only coos again, reaching out to Paris to land her hand on her cheek. Both parents smiled, Paris taking the little hand to kiss it.

“That’s fine..” Rory leaned in to put her lips near Lora’s ear, whispering “you already know who the fun parent is..”

“What, like I was pretending to be anything different?”

Rory chuckled, walking over to grab the mug, and the rubber stake to hand back to Lora, after turning back to Paris.

“Alright, how do we look? Five-by-five?”

“...I’m not walking in with you two, you should know.”

“Then I’m not sharing any of the trick-or-treat candy I’m stealing with you. Here, I still need a picture of me and Lora – take it if I promise to only put one up on Facebook?”

-

Luke couldn’t believe Lorelai would do this to him.

Leaving him out here on his own. Defenseless. In the cold. Without back-up.

Well, he actually could believe it. It was only him who was frustrated over it. She was the one under the impression this would be fine; handing him his almost-one-year-old granddaughter with a breezy “it’ll be fine – I made a deal with her to go easy on you.” Luke pleaded to why Lora couldn’t go with her, but she apparently needed to attend to the garden they had out back and couldn’t pick the vegetables while watching Lora at the same time, especially in a wide-open space where she could be out and gone in a minute.

So here Luke was, in the kitchen buttering up some sandwiches for lunch while trying to pay attention to the squeeing near his feet. It’s not that he minds babysitting, not at all; it could be a bit of fun, it allows Rory to try to finish up her book and Paris to do her own work, and maybe there’s something soft in him that likes watching Lorelai with a baby. But things are different now, because now Lora was on the move. Before you could just plunk her in the jolly-jumper and she’d be fine, but now she’s mastered crawling, now even up on her feet, and isn’t content to sit anywhere for too long.

She’s a menace. And she’s mobile. Lorelai doesn’t understand what he’s up against.

There’s a sudden scrapping of a chair. Luke whips his head over to where the interactive, play keyboard (which had been playing the same goddamn song about barn yard animals for two hours now and he was considering removing the batteries) lay abandoned. He looks to the kitchen table, where Lora was currently standing, gripping onto said chair. She was grinning up at him in her pink pants with a white shirt that read the future is female on it, showcasing her two sole teeth.

“...Where do you think you’re going kid?” He asked, furrowing “Just ‘cause my back is turned doesn’t mean I don’t know what you’re up to!”

She let out a delighted squeal, one tiny fist raised to him with fingers grasping.

“Listen, your cute charms won’t work on me; I’ve seen you try to open the garbage door several times already, and I know you –”

He stops when Lora suddenly drops her grip on the chair. She stares down at her feet, and then lifts one of them in a very deliberate step forward. And then looks up at him expectantly.

Luke had enough bare minimum of baby knowledge to recognize what was going on; up until this point, Lora had only been holding herself up by nearby furniture. Luke dropped his knife and knelt down to his knees, about three feet across from Lora.

“Hey, Lora, c’mere,” He held out his hands to her, trying to usher. She blinked back at him, after staring back down at her feet. She took the other foot, and made another step forward. Luke felt himself grinning.

“There you go! C’mon kid, c’mere, come see me!”

She squealed back at his happy tone, and picked up pace a little. She was incredibly wobbly on her feet, teetering, but managed to stay afloat, slowly closing the space step by step. Luke got far more excited then he ever does, hands extended out around her, calls of “that’s it!” and “you got it kiddo, you’re almost there!” He watched her stumble her whole way over to him, hands free, finally collapsing into him.

“Ha! You did it kid! You walked!”

Before he knew what he was doing, he grasped the tiny body, lifting her up and spinning her around. Lora giggled with glee, legs kicking, having no idea what her grandpa was so excited about but enjoying it nonetheless. Still grinning, Luke brought her back down, held up on his arms and resting against the worn plaid.

“Knew you could do it kid, you’re amazing. Wait till your moms hear –”

Oh no.

“Lorelai! Lorelai!”

Luke raced out to the backyard, free hand carefully holding onto Lora as he did. She was knelt over the garden bed, head raising up as he came speeding out like the world was coming down.

“Lorelai –”

“What? Did she manage to overpower you?” She got up, tossing down the steel tools in her hands.

“No –”

“She can smell the newbie on you Luke.”

“Listen –”

“That’s why you have to put up a front; babies can read an experienced person from a sucker, and that’s how they get you.”

“She walked Lorelai. As in for the first time!”

“What?!” Lorelai’s expression went from gobsmacked surprise into delight into upset in all of two seconds “ She did?! And I missed it?! When?! What happened?!”

“She was the instigator! I-I was just standing innocently trying to make lunch, and then she took her hand off the table chair and walked the whole three feet to me!”

“Oh my god!” Lorelai gushed, getting that proud grandparent look on as she turned to Lora, cupping under her chubby cheeks “Good job sweetheart! You’re gunna keep giving us a run for our money, aren’t you?”

Lora giggled as Lorelai tickled her, making the older woman chuckle in response.

“Listen, Lorelai –”

“Luke this is amazing –”

“No!”

Lorelai furrowed. Luke sighed, pinching his brow.

“I mean, it-it’s great but what’re we going to tell her parents?!”

“You know, I have a feeling they’re gunna be pretty stoked. I mean, Rory was already placing bets for when Lora might walk –”

“So then you really wanna tell your daughter that her kid walked without her there?!”

Lorelai paused, mouth hanging open “….Well, I’m sure she’ll just be glad we were honest..–”

“What about Paris?”

Lorelai stopped. A second, and then she whipped her head around the yard, eyes shifting back and forth for anyone nearby. After she stepped in closer to him.

“Listen, I won’t say anything if you won’t say anything. No one has to know.” She whispered, eyes wide and serious.

“We can do that?” Luke squinted, pulling his head away as Lora got a hold of his ballcap, yanking it down off his head along with a good chunk of his hair.

“Look, after a baby first walks they pretty much have it down-packed from then on – I have no doubts that two days from now she’ll be walking right into their arms.”

“So..we’re not obligated to tell the truth?”

“Think of it as doing what’s best by them. They still get to have their moment, and we can avoid the storm.”

“Alright...”

“Or..” Lorelai drawled, sensing his hesitation “we can tell our daughter-in-law that you were the one her daughter first ever walked to.”

“We take this to our graves.”

Lorelai grinned. She looked back at Lora, contently gnawing on and drooling all over the cap of the hat. She leaned in, gently removing it from her grip to place it front-facing on his head.

“Even though I know how much you love that it was her grandpa she walked to first..”

“No! I-I do not!” He furiously defended, his partner only becoming more gleeful at how huffy he got.

“S’ok. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Only because you can’t.”

“And if I could I would tell everyone.”

She smiled back as he sighed, taking the baby from him “Alright, I won’t acknowledge that your heart grew three sizes this day – how about those sandwiches?”

Before walking away though, she pushed the cap down over his face. Lora started laughing.

And about two days later, Lorelai managed to feign perfect surprise when Rory called delighted to say Lora walked all on her own.

-

Paris isn’t sure if she should’ve expected this or not.

Part of her didn’t, but her parents had never fully learned to live and let go. Where does Paris get her deep need for control after all?

It was just that they’d made themselves very clear when Paris showed up with Rory’s hand in hers and announced the engagement; disgusting, a smearing of the Geller name, and Paris is sure, the most shame she’s brought since the televised Harvard meltdown. They’d cut contact, and although the back-hand slap had stung for a while, overall, cutting the toxic tie was good for her.

And frankly, she doesn’t want them around her family; not around Rory, where her father can mock her articles and what she’s doing career wise, and definitely not around Lora, where her mother can tell her if they don’t keep a strict feeding schedule she’ll end up fat and feed Lora a sense of shame before she even has a conscience to process it.

No, not at all. Paris has a very particular idea about what kind of family she wants to raise, and it is far from the broken idea her parents played out. It’s why she keeps telling Rory she wants to do better, because god forbid Lora grow up in an environment like she did.

Regardless of all this however, it doesn’t stop her mother from calling her today after four years of no contact. Apparently it’d traveled up the grapevine that they’d heard they were now, in a way, grandparents. And somewhere in this, it meant her mother felt they were entitled to see this grandchild. That even if Paris was in this unspeakable arrangement, they needed to see Lora; make sure she was up to snuff enough to own the Geller name, make sure she was getting the right care because god knows Paris wasn’t up to the task, that she makes sure she can balance it since her career wasn’t at the upmost peak spot her parents expected to be.

Paris’s memory blacked out somewhere in her anger, but in the end she got her mother off the phone and was confident she wouldn’t be hearing from her again. The damage was done though. She felt herself spiraling down the hole (or, as Rory calls it, alice-in-wonderlanding); what she wasn’t doing right in her job, what she wasn’t doing right as a wife, how she was screwing up her daughter. She kept looking at herself in the rear view mirror because the blazer she had on was baby pink and oh god her head did look too small.

No one knew how to remind her that she was flawed, that Rory would see it and immediately leave her, and that Lora would grow up to hate her, like her mother did.

Paris finally pulls up to the house, already at seven p.m with the dark settling around outside. She shuffled out the car and up to the door, slipping inside; she expected to hear the clanging and boisterous noises of her three-year-old, but it was weirdly quiet. She walked in, starting to hear faint t.v noises, following it into the living room where she, indeed, found Lora – perched in front of the screen, munching on a bowl of cheerios, dark hair a mess and inexplicably without pajama bottoms to match her top, entranced by the Reading Rainbow episode playing. Paris smiled faintly; Rory was determined to have Lora grow up on good kids shows, taping copies of Reading Rainbow and Mister Rogers and others. Even at this age, Lora already figured out how to work the t.v. Getting too smart for her own good.

Paris decides to bypass, instead of getting Lora all riled up. She thought she’d find Rory in their room after dumping her bag and jacket, but when she didn’t, had to go snooping through the large house for her – past the many guest rooms, past Rory’s office, past her and Lora’s craft table – calling out her name with no response.

“Rory?! Where the hell are –”

She stopped right by Lora’s room. She walked in, spotting, amugst the stuffed toys littered on the floor and bed and near the horde of books that would outdo a children’s library section, Rory, who’s just..laying there, on the floor. Eyes closed and completely still. Her hair was coming out from where it was pinned and there was a cat sticker on her forehead. Paris furrowed, lightly kicking her in the foot.

“Rory?..Hey Gilmore..”

Rory stirred, eyes cracking open. They found Paris hovering over, confusion clear.

“Par?..What’re you..what..”

“You fell asleep..”

Rory blinked back, a second to process. Then, her eyes flew open, throwing herself up.

“Where’s Lora?! Where did she – she was just –”

“Relax, it’s fine,” Paris knelt down, putting a hand on Rory’s shoulder “she’s in the living room watching t.v, content as ever.”

Rory sighed, laying back down, eyes closing again. Paris continued to stare over her, head tilting as she took in the state of her wife.

“..You have a cat sticker on your forehead.”

Rory groaned lightly. Another tick of silence.

“I’ve given up. She wins.”

“Wins what?”

“I dunno!” Rory sighs, throwing up her arms “She’s three and all she ever says is ‘no’ – an inherent stubbornness I blame you for –”

“Me?! I don’t remember having a factor in her genealogy; that’s all you Gilmore, you and your mother.”

“Argueable. But she won’t do anything; won’t sit, won’t eat, fell down the stairs again and hurt herself –”

“That’s the third time this week! Christ – that trait I actually do blame you for, at least your genes anyway..”

“I also had to literally wrestle her into pajamas and then she started to scream that she doesn’t want to and then I yelled which I never do, and then she pushed me away and said she didn’t want to see me anymore and, so, that’s it! If I can’t do this then I’m packing it in; I’m gunna go back and live in my old bedroom with mom.”

“Rory, she’s three. This is what you do when you’re this age. She would’ve said that to anyone who was making her brush her teeth or refusing to give her another cookie.”

She still won’t look up at Paris, groaning as she scrubbed over her eyes.

“It’s not only Lora, it’s everything; the oven door broke today so now we can’t use it, I’m two months behind on my book draft to my editor, and you and I like, haven’t even had sex in two months.”

“You’ve been keeping count of that?”

“Not particularly, I just happened to have noticed today..”

“Hm.”

“This being an adult business sucks, I didn’t sign up for this!”

“Look, Rory, you’re a brilliant writer and I have zero doubts you’ll be able to finish your draft, I’ll call someone to fix the oven, and..for the third issue, I’m sure there’s a way to remedy that by just tonight, if that’s what you want.”

“...What about Lora?”

“What about Lora?! She’s a smart, happy kid with enough stuffed animals then could fill a fake zoo – she’s golden!”

A pause. Finally, Rory opens her eyes, staring up at Paris. There was a slight gloss over them.

“...So I don’t need to send in my resignation under being a terrible mom?..”

Paris breaks into a smile then, shaking her head slightly to herself. She reaches over, peeling the sticker off of Rory.

“No Rory, you definitely do not..”

“...Why are you smiling?..”

Paris bit it back, trying to hide her amusement, at the irony of it all “Nothing..”

And turns out it was, now, nothing, thanks to this conversation where Paris realized everything her mother says really is bullshit. If her wife, one of the most caring and brilliant people she’s known, worries and has to be reassured she wasn’t failing as a parent or person – then she was going to be just fine.

A sudden heavy pattering of feet cut them off. Rory groaned, head collapsing back down.

“God, incoming –”

Lora skids into the doorway, messy hair and still pantsless. Her eyes caught onto Paris and they widened in delight, making her mom grin; that was the thing about having a toddler. They could’ve seen you only about three hours ago, but, much like a pet, will act like it’s been three days.

“Mommy!” She squeals, rushing and collapsing into a chuckling Paris who tries to collect her in her arms.

“Hello my love.” Paris greets, pulling her up so she could stand in her lap, face to face and little hands gripping onto the blazer.

“Where’d you go?”

“I went to work; like I do everyday, remember?”

Lora nodded fast, much like a bobble-head “I missed you. Did-did you..get..all your meetings?..”

Now Paris actually laughed, hearing Rory chuckling beside them. Lora is obviously too young to know exactly what Paris does, but she has tried to explain the best she can to her daughter, about what it is she does at work and why she has to be away for so long. She looks back at her little girl, cupping her small cheeks, and hearing her mother’s voice start to fade as she does.

“Yes sweetheart, I did. And I missed you too.” She leaned in, kissing Lora’s cheek, and smiling in return when she did. Lora glanced over at Rory who was still laid down in defeat on the floor, and then leaned further into Paris so she could whisper,

“What’s Mummy doing?…”

Paris scoffed to herself, glancing at Lora with a rare, playful glint sparking in brown eyes.

“Mummy’s given up. She said she’s gunna go live with Grandma now.” She told her with seriousness only adults could read was joking, resisting laughing when Lora’s face dropped.

“No!!” Lora immediately squirmed out of Paris’s arms, climbing over to Rory, atop her stomach and crawling forward so they could be face to face “Mummy you can’t go! You have to stay here!!”

Smiling, Rory raises her eyebrows at Paris in a silent thanks. She glanced back to Lora atop her, pretending to start getting up, slowly rising.

“I dunno, Grandma said she was missing me an awful lot...”

“No!!!” Lora curled her arms around her mum’s stomach, pushing herself to the ground to hold Rory back “You can’t! You have to stay with me!!”

Now Rory started laughing. She scooted up, arms around the toddler to keep her in her lap.

“Alright, you’ve convinced me; I can stay..”

Lora stood on her feet to meet face on, hands on Rory’s cheeks and looking at her so seriously it was hard to keep a straight face.

“Promise?”

Rory laughs louder, leaning in so her forehead bumps into Lora’s, smiling with all the love and more.

“Promise..”

“But,” Paris leans in, looking to her daughter “only, if you go and brush your teeth and go to bed, alright? Otherwise mum might not be able to..”

“Okay, okay!!” Lora rushed, scrambling off Rory and out into the hall “I’m going!!”

“..Isn’t that kinda cruel?..” Rory asks Paris in between her grin. Paris just tosses up her arms.

“It gets the job done.”

In time, they were able to get Lora into the rest of her pj’s, teeth brushed and into bed (after two re-reads of the Buffy kids’ picture book, that is). After, with the both of them exhausted, Rory figured the next step was to crash into bed, but then she found Paris yanking out all her ‘nice’ bath stuff, the decedent bath salts and soaps, claiming they’re both clearly in need of it. An hour later, Paris found herself in the bubbly, warm relaxing bath, trading a wine bottle between herself and a tipsy Rory who lays over her chest trying to put bubbles in her hair as she laughs. She only stops when Paris slips a hand between her legs instead.

And the fact that she didn’t even remember her parents enough to actually tell Rory, Paris considers one of her biggest triumphs.

-

They hardly get calls about Lora. Which is what made this predicament so odd.

Lora had been in a couple days of daycare, anywhere from two to four years old, and never once have any caretakers given a bad rap about the young girl. A little stubborn maybe, she gets her fair share of time-outs, and they have to watch her at the park or going down stairs less she get another unnamed bruise of the week – but otherwise, a sweet girl who loves playing with her friends and is always helping others.

So why would kindergarten be any different?

It’d started out great; both Rory and Paris had walked Lora to her classroom on the first day, hand-in-hand between her moms with a new dress and little backpack shaped like a ladybug. They stopped to talk to her teacher, a nice woman who asked for Lora’s name and Lora squeaked out “Lorelai Emily Geller-Gilmore!” like Paris had taught her how to since three (only recently could she really pronounce it). They said their goodbyes, both pretended that they weren’t crying, and Rory managed to drag Paris away before she could ask the teacher just what establishment she got her credentials from. A success.

Yet, here they were, a week later after being told Lora had supposedly broken school conduct and needed to be picked up. Paris was t’d off because she has about fifty other thousand things to do in her work day then to dawdle over at the call of some school administrators. The only reason she’s coming in and not Rory is because, having now seen Lora off to kindergarten, is off city-hoping to do interviews and signings for her book.

She walked into the school’s office, finding Lora’s teacher leaning over the desk chatting to the secretary, and not taking a moment’s hesitation to storm up to the woman.

“I hope this can be solved quickly.” Paris told her. The woman turned to her, straightening up.

“Ms. Geller, thank you for coming in.”

“Doctor.” Paris hissed.

“Doctor, sorry.” She took in a breath, arms folding “You were called in because there was an..altercation, in the classroom, involving Lora and a few other students.”

“Given her track record, I find that hard to believe, so I do hope we’re going to review this before we just willy-nilly place blame on my daughter.”

“It’s not about placing blame, mi-doctor. But Lora did have a heavy hand in it; according to her, one of her classmates, Jackson, was bothering another classmate, Maggie, and Lora tried to intervine, and said she got him to stop, but later he came back and, again, Lora said, tried to bother her this time, and while she says she asked him to stop, when he reportedly didn’t, she..used violence.”

“Violence?”

“She..” The woman sighed tightly, tapping her nails on her arm “..she went and kicked him in the groin.”

Paris was so bewildered for a second she forgot she was annoyed. Then, she had to resist a knee-jerk grin, instead pressing her lips together and raising her brow.

“..Well, what did he do?”

“According to the girls, he started by pulling on the other girls’, Maggie’s, hair, and then Lora went in and got him to stop, but came back later and started pulling on Lora’s – he says he did stop when she asked, but she says he didn’t, which is when she then kicked him. Truthfully, Lora is a sweet girl, so I’m also thrown by this and unsure where she’d get such an idea –”

“I taught her that.” Paris snapped, fingers curling into palms and glaring eyes turning to daggers “I told her if someone, some boy, ever tried to touch her or hurt her to protect herself – and honestly, this is the bullshit you people brought me down here for?! Some kid was pushing and bullying my daughter and your response is to kick her out for the day?!”

“Doctor Geller, I’m sure you can understand that violence is violence, and so whatever the circumstances may be there has to be repercussions to Lora’s actions –”

“He was initiating, he was hurting her first! You’re telling me she should’ve just sat there and taken it?!”

“What I’m trying to do, is get the children to come to me if there’s an issue. Lora should’ve come talk to me before immediately hurting another child.”

Paris didn’t care for this woman’s tone. Of making her believe Lora should've just sat there and let some idiot boy push her around before taking action. She had several lines laying sharp on her tongue to say, but, distantly, in the far reaches of her brain she could hear Rory’s civility and understanding, holding her back. Saying it wouldn’t do Lora any good to chew out her teacher. So instead Paris tightly folded her arms, seething between teeth,

“Where is she now? I want to see her.”

She sighed again and Paris’s nails involuntarily dug into her arms “I’ll get her, just one moment.”

“Oh, now I’m on wait to see my own daughter?!” Paris called, but it didn’t do her any favours; she watched her walk across the office, slipping into a separate room.

Huffing, Paris takes her phone out to text her wife. Rory thankfully replied back, waiting around for a signing to start in an hour, and had many confused texts back once Paris spelled out the whole story. Once she got it all down, she agreed that Lora should at least get some repercussions, while the other part of her is secretly trying not to laugh at the image of her tiny feisty daughter kicking this kid in the groin. Paris replied that she expected no different. Rory left it at asking Paris to text her what exactly it was that started the whole thing, once she knew.

Thankfully right after, the door across opened. Paris looked up to see the same teacher opening the door for her, spotting two small bodies peeking out behind the frame – Lora, who’s eyed widened upon seeing her mom, and clutching the hand of another little girl, freckled cheeks and curled rings of red hair. They immediately clutched each other tighter when they realized an adult had been called. Paris tried to sound controlled when she spoke,

“Lora –”

“I didn’t mean to!!” Lora slurred in her panic.

“She didn’t mean it!” this other girl spoke, holding onto Lora “Jackson did it, he started –”

“He said he was gunna put paint in Maggie’s hair –”

“And Lora told him to stop –”

“And he said he would –”

“But after he pulled on Lora’s hair –”

“Said he was gunna cut if off –”

“We thought he had scissors –”

“Girls, girls.” Their teacher got a hold of the derailed train before Paris could intervene, holding out her hands and giving not a stern, but firm, look “You will all get a chance to say what happened. Right now, Lora’s mom wants to talk with her.”

They quieted. Lora turned back to Paris, and then, slowly, slipped off the cot in the room after her new-found friend released her. The door was closed as she walked out, shuffling towards Paris, head bowed as she stared down with her folded arms.

“..Sit down.” was all Paris said. Lora followed, taking a seat in the offered plastic office chairs, Paris sitting beside. There was a long pause before Paris figured out where to begin, with Lora quietly starring down at her lap the whole time.

“..Lora –”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt him but he wasn’t stopping –”

“I know Lora, I know.” Paris put a hand on her knee, trying to calm “...Was what your teacher told me true?”

“About what?”

“That you were trying to help someone; that’s why you..kicked, that boy.”

Lora nods quietly “..Maggie. Jackson was pulling ‘er hair and saying he was gunna put paint in it. I told him to stop because it’s not nice.”

Paris smiled to herself at that, to the bright blues looking back up at her (“Just stay out of this! “I’m trying to help you!”).

“And did he?”

“Sorta. He left and me and Maggie played Legos but he came back came back after we said to stop! He started pulling on my braid and said he had scissors – I was saying stop but he wouldn’t and you said whenever a boy is hurting me or touching me and I don’t like it to kick him between the legs so he stops if he won’t listen so –”

“So that’s what you did..”

Lora nods avidly. Paris sighs, dragging a hand down her face. She really wished Rory was here. She’d know how to tow the line between telling Lora it was good she defended herself, but that she also just can’t go around kicking people in the pants, even if Paris didn’t altogether see an issue with that.

But, maybe it was those traits of hers were the reason nobody in school ever wanted to be around her.

She looks up, to the closed door Lora had come out of – and the other little girl sitting behind it.

“...Looks like you made a friend too..”

Lora catches her meaning, this time a smile coming on “Maggie. She’s funny and she likes all my favourite movies too and she says she can teach me how to hang upside down on the monkey bars. So I’m gunna teach her how to make bracelets and tell her all my knock-knock jokes.”

Paris smiled. Like any good parent, both her and Rory were worried about Lora making friends as you do when kids start school, but especially Paris. She remembers the desolate recesses re-reading her books, the anxiety standing in the middle of the classroom as everyone pairs up without you. She would do everything to make sure that didn’t happen to her kid.

But, then she remembers, Lora isn’t her. Lora is herself – all of herself, sweet and kind and jokey. She was going to have no trouble making friends. And she didn’t.

Lora notices her mom’s silence, staring back up cautiously “..Are you mad at me?..”

Paris sighs out “No sweetheart –”

“Because you told me –”

“I know what I told you. Don’t interrupt.”

Lora slumped down. Paris straightened up, collecting herself.

“..What I told you, about when someone is trying to hurt you, is more for when there’s no one to help. If you were alone and this boy was hurting you, and no one was there you could call, you could do that. Do you understand?”

Lora nods slowly.

“But, you’re not alone now, are you? You’re at school, and there’s lots of people, grown-ups, who’re there if someone is bothering you. You should’ve gone to your teacher first before hurting that boy. And because you did that, you’re still in some trouble that you have to fix.”

“But that’s not fair! Jackson started it and he wouldn’t stop when I said so –”

“I know, I know honey. He’ll be in trouble to and will have to fix it, if I have anything to say about it...” Paris muttered the rest under her breath, after reaching forward to squeeze Lora’s hand “You did a good thing, defending yourself and trying to help Maggie.”

“I did?”

“Yes.” Paris smiles, reaching up to smooth her hand over Lora’s hair “That, I’m happy you did. But you still can’t kick someone, especially when your teacher says to come talk to her so you can all solve the problem. They...they’re there to help. You understand?”

There’s still a resistance in Paris in teaching Lora to just trust blindly; because not everybody is going to be there, not everybody is going to have good intentions or even help at all. But then she thinks, how that mentality hasn’t helped her much either. She didn’t want Lora closing herself off because she can’t trust them, snarling and snapping at the next outreached hand because she didn’t completely know their intentions. That was a lonely life, and it ended up damaging her more then helping her. Thankfully, Lora nods back.

“Okay Mommy..”

Paris beams quietly. She leans over, cupping Lora’s cheeks to press her lips atop her head.

“You’re good..” She mumbles, half to Lora and half to herself “You’re doing good honey, and you’re going to make lots of friends here. But, not if you’re going to kick everyone in your class..”

Lora pulled back, squinting and scrunched up button nose “I don’t wanna be friends with Jackson! He puts his hands in mud puddles and says boys are better then girls but we beat them at rounders!”

Paris develops into laughter, kissing her on the head. After, the kids were pulled aside so the adults could talk about punishments, and Paris spent the rest of the half-hour bent over the principal’s desk with fire dripping off her lips and saying if he dares to send her daughter home and undermine her education before doing anything about this little shit boy, she has no trouble taking this to the higher ups, of which someone of her caliber has mighty pull over. In the end, the rather white-faced principal decided on a lunch detention for them both and a talk with the boy, Paris leaving triumphantly. She has no worries that if this were to happen again, they were definitely going to call Rory first.

As she heads back to the office, she slips out her phone to give the final update to her wife. That she talked that moron principal into doing the correct thing and giving Lora detention instead of the boot, that she didn’t care for that kindergarten teacher, that she talked with Lora and described why this mess happened in the first place.

- She wanted to help someone else, that’s really what got her in trouble. I think I can hear a bit of ‘mother’s daughter’ reverberating...

Three seconds later, an incoming ping!

- And so in order to solve the problem of this annoying boy bothering her and this girl, she kicked him in the pants?

- Yes?

- Hmm..
- Mother’s daughter indeed… ;)

Paris scoffed warmly. Alright, maybe she’s not all of herself..

-

When Lora turns seven, her grandparents get her a disposable camera.

It was for her birthday; Rory even joked about the shock that they still made those. But Lorelai said it might be fun for her, until she’s old enough to get a device or phone of her own (which isn’t until she can pay for it herself, Paris half-jokes).

However, once Lora got a hold of it, that was it. She didn’t even touch any of her other presents. She spent hours, days, running through the house with glee and taking pictures of anything she could. Rory would often find her in her room, taking a photo of one corner of it one way, and then running far back to take it from a different angle or position, causing amused grins from her parents. Well, until both her and Paris had to shoo her away because she wouldn’t stop taking photos of them while they were trying to work or pretty much do anything else.

One day, Lora was coming back from spending the afternoon with her grandmother. Rory barely gets the door open before she hears the fast patter of smaller feet running up the paved pathway, and then Lora bursts through, her namesake trailing behind.

“Mummy!! Mum!” Lora crashed into Rory, throwing her arms around her middle “Grandma took me to get my photos done today!! You have to see!”

“It also looks like Grandma snuck you extra ice cream too..” Rory said, thumb trying to wipe away the splotch of blue by Lora’s lips, raising a brow to her own mother “Which is totally unlike her, to fuel my seven-year-old with sugar..”

“Me? Never.” Lorelai grins. Rory only sighs and rolls her eyes in good-nature, distracted again by Lora hastily pulling her now developed photos from their envelope, shoving the stack at her mom.

“See?! I made a movie, with my stuffies – you see it?!”

Rory did. Shuffling through the stack of about twenty photos, she watches the various plush cats and dogs and unicorns, switch positions one photo into the next; one where they’re all drinking from the pretend tea set, another where one of the cats is traveling with a back pack, another where the two cats are fighting each other, and the last with the toy cat with a plastic crown on it’s head.

“See, the two cats, they’re friends, and they’re having tea with all their other friends, but the tea is poisoned and they all get sick, so one of the cats has to go find medicine for everyone.”

“Turns out, the cat’s friend was the one who poisoned everyone, and so the first battles her evil friend until she’s defeated and she’s crowned a hero.”

“Shh! Grandma!!!” Lora gawked at her for revealing the plot twist. Rory bit down on her lip, keeping in her laughter.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!..” Lorelai quickly raised her hands in apology.

“Very scandalous.”

“ Do you like it?”

Rory smiles, smoothing a hand through Lora’s hair “ It’s five-by-five Lor..”

“Mum, when can I get a real camera??”

“A real camera?” Rory raised her brow at her daughter who was looking up at her with her big, pleading blue eyes.

“Yeah! So I can film stuff and make a real movie.” Lora claimed, grinning wide “I’m gunna make movies.”

Did Rory trust her clumsy seven-year-old with a fairly expensive fragile camera? Not really. But by the way Lora was looking up at her with such excitement, Rory instantly had a gut feeling that she wasn’t going to let this go; that this was different then Lora wanting a new stuffie she saw in the store window or a second ice cream sandwich. Rory pressed her lips together, contemplating.

“..We’ll talk to mom about it, okay?”

“Yay!” Lora cheered, because while that wasn’t a yes it was better then a straight up no, already moving on her feet “I’m gunna go put up my photos in my room now!”

“Say goodbye to Grandma first!”

Rory managed to wrangle her in enough for Lora to say bye and thank you to her grandmother, Lorelai hugging her back before she burst and ran to her room, leaving the adults chuckling.

“Well, looks like the camera was a rousing success.” Rory said, watching Lora erratically bear-climb up the stairs, slipping on a few.

“She reminds me of you.” Lorelai beams. Rory turns back to her mom.

“What?”

“Back then, when you barely reached my waist. Spending hours reading the Stars Hallow paper even if you really only understood the funnies, begging for another book at bedtime after I read you three, having to actually bribe you with ice cream to get you out the bookstore so we could leave.”

Rory scoffs, a shy smile coming over her face. Lorelai does the same back.

“She talked literally all day about how excited she was to go pick up her photos. And then when they were ready and we got them, we spent forever sitting outside with our ice cream as she explained the whole plot and every photo to me – her ice cream was actually melting all down her hand because she wouldn’t take a break from talking.”

Now Rory laughs, Lorelai following. She lightly elbowed her daughter, eyes gleaming and brows jumping.

“This is going to be her thing. Just you wait.”

“Well, I’m sure Paris is going to enjoy Lora climbing all over her for a real, breakable camera.”

“Can’t be any worse then those people who give ten-year-olds their own phone.”

“Agreed, that is truly scary.”

Eventually, Lorelai had to be on her way, Rory saying her thanks and a hug to go. Rory was left to listen to Paris, later when she came home, rant about why they can’t possibly give a second grader a real camera, no matter how much Lora tugged at Paris and pleaded with all the promised chores she’d do in return.

In time though, Lora gets an upgrade, as she gets older. Rory will one day find the clump of those prized photos, Lora having clearly abandoned them from their high position posted on her wall. Instead of asking and having Lora tell her to get rid of them, she collected them, slipped a paper clip over to keep them together, and then placed a sticky note over it, writing,

Lora’s First Movie, 2019

To Be Placed On The Shelf Next To Her Oscar.

-

“ Alright, now which title?”

Paris turned back to Rory, who’d turned to show her laptop screen to her wife. She moved from the mess of pots she’s laid on the counter, over to the kitchen island, leaning in to see.

“.. The second one.”

“So, not the pun one?”

“Your charms in wordplay are very adorable, my love.” Paris amused, walking back to the kitchenware “But if you’re doing that for every article, it’s going to become a little obnoxious. You’re writing for an actual newspaper publication, not Buzzfeed – at least not this time.”

“Low blow.” Rory hit back, smiling when she catches Paris’s lips curl “You’re just sour because I always get a higher score on their 90’s sitcom quizzes.”

Before Paris can get out why those very purposeless quizzes are helping undermine the current state of journalism, stomps down the stairs interrupt her, and instead she says,

“Incoming..”

And surely, their eight-year-old appeared in the kitchen doorway, blue overalls and hair flipping over her shoulder as she skids to a stop in her fuzzy socks.

“What’re you guys doing in here?”

“Mom’s helping me pick my article title.” Rory tells her, shifting her laptop again “Here, c’mere, which one?..”

Lora walks over to her mum at the island, leaning into her lap to get a look.

“Is this the one about how bad audio books are instead of real books?”

“And a general death declaration to e-readers?”

“It’s about the effect of online and audio books on bookstores and publishers, yes..” Rory pointedly reminds them, muttering after “and why they’ll never hold a candle to them….”

“There she is..”

Lora scanned the screen to read, pointing to one after “This first one!”

“The pun?” Rory smiles, glancing up to Paris who only sighs.

“Oh of course.”

“ Mom wants the unfunny one.”

“No! Pun!” Lora declared, hitting her fists on the counter “Pun! Pun! Pun!”

“Honestly, the both of you..”

“ Well now I’m at a cross-roads.” She looks to Lora again, resting her chin on her fist “We’ll have to see later – what’re you doing down here?”

“I’m bored.”

“Bored?”

“You can’t be bored!” Paris spun around to her family, holding two different pots in her hands “We have a t.v with thousands of shows, a trove of movies, a CD player to listen to music, an absurd amount of books, that camera you never let go of, homework you could do, friends you could see or talk to – you’re not allowed to be bored!”

“There’s nothing on, I’ve rewatched all those movies, I don’t wanna listen to music right now, I don’t have any new books to read, my camera is charging, I’ve finished my homework, and you won’t let me talk to my friends on the phone for more then an hour!”

“Not until you can pay for the phone bill yourself at least!”

Lora rolled her eyes “And I thought you were helping mum – because it looks like you’re doing your ‘ Monthly Clean’, or planning to make a lot of soup.”

“It’s called organizing, smart aleck.” Paris says, ignoring Rory’s sniggering because she was doing exactly that, where she goes in every month and pulls apart the kitchen and other areas so she can organize it for reasons neither her wife or daughter are going to ask about. Lora walks over, examining the army of pots.

“That’s better then having burnt chicken noodle soup again I guess.”

Now Rory’s laugh was louder. Paris gave her daughter a particular look.

“Well then someone can make her own soup when she’s sick!”

“I actually can now – Grandpa taught me how.” Lora claims proudly, grabbing a pot and fitting it over her head, Rory watching the scene with amusement “Some adult had to teach me how to cook.”

“Honestly Lora,” Paris grumps, yanking the pot off her head “do you really have nothing better to do then bother us?”

“No!”

“Alright,” Rory calls before there’s a scrap, closing her laptop “we should so something then, together.”

“Like what?” Lora asks.

Rory hums, leaning back in her seat “..We could rent a movie..?”

“Do I get to pick??”

“I am not watching Princess Bride again with either of you.” Paris cut-off, finally stuffing away the last pot in the cupboard and picking up her scotch nearby.

“Boo!”

“ Well, we could try..” Lora chewed on her lip, pretending to be nonchalant as she rocked on her heels “Buffy?..”

“Nice try.” Rory smiles “But I’ve told you there’s no pass on that until you’re at least fourteen.”

“But –”

“Listen to your mother.”

Lora dissolved into grumblings, folding her arms “Fine, we’ll all just sit around here and be bored..”

“Well, we still have all those board games hanging around.” Paris offered, oddly nonchalant as she swirled her drink “We could play one of those..”

“That’s one option.”

“What?!” Lora perked up, vapidly shaking her head “No, no way, we can’t do that!”

“And why not?”

“Because you guys always fight! Every time!”

“Not every time!” Rory tried to defend.

“Yes every time! It takes like..five minutes before you guys are threatening each other and making bets to beat each other and getting the police called to our house because you’re too loud!”

“Lorelai don’t be so dramatic, that was only one time.”

“I –”

“Alright, we promise we won’t do that.” Rory reasoned, a hand on Lora’s arm “We’ll be civil and fair and we’ll get to play the game like normal, boring families do. Right Paris?”

Paris squinted at her wife. Swirled the glass again, bringing it to her lips. Said nothing.

“Par –”

“Alright, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to dumb down my game any..”

Rory rolled her eyes with a “I’ll take it..” Lora gave a pointed look to the blonde.

“You promise not to kick over the board this time?”

“That was an accident! I knocked it over when I was trying to sit back up!”

“Paris no one in this house believes you.”

“Fine, but at least I’m not the only one who ate the rest of the oreo brownie ice cream out of pity revenge because I lost at Boggle!”

“I did not – you didn’t even like that ice cream!”

Lora groaned loudly, head hitting the counter. Rory quickly put a hand on her back.

“Okay, okay, we’ll stop. We won’t fight, alright? C’mon, let’s get the Monopoly board – because unless we all wanna waste out night debating what we should do, we should get started.”

Twenty minutes. That was all it took. It started out tame enough; like most parents, the two let their daughter get the bump ahead, so Lora began with the most properties and giving them a more level playing field to avoid scraps. That shifted when Paris had to pay Rory a third time because she landed on one of the more expensive properties Rory got and began accusing her of purposefully orchestrating that, and then later Paris, being the control freak she was, ended up lording over the dice and rolled for Rory which caused her to land on the ‘jail’ space, and then she was demanding a re-do because Paris isn’t allowed to roll for others anyway. Shouting, name-calling, low-level threats – all with Lora trying to yell over them to stop with no avail.

A blur of hours later broiled down into a ten minute argument, with Paris claiming Rory snuck an extra five and Rory rebuttaled that she already had it from a free ‘collect five dollars’ space.

“I didn’t see it two minutes ago Gilmore!”

“Because you were too busy seeing how flat the board was so you could roll the right number you wanted! I rolled the right number to stop on the ‘collect’ space, fair’s fair!”

“Fair?! Well, it’s only fair if we ask someone unbiased who actually saw you do it – unless you wanna fess up now.”

“Fine, we’ll settle this – Lora, did you actually see me grab for extra money –”

Lora was not where she should’ve been. The spot was empty. Furrowing, Rory spotted a folded note sitting there, reaching for it. A curious Paris leaned in so they could both read what was scribbled in the child’s printing,

If you guys stop fighting long enough to read this, I went to bed.

Lora

“...Oh.” Rory spoke, fire dying right out and suddenly feeling shame creep up instead.

“When the hell did she do that?!” Paris demanded, whipping her head around “..How long have we been here?!”

“I dunno..” Rory sighed deeply, running a hand down her face “But I guess we should go to bed too. And give Lora an apology for doing the exact thing we said we weren’t gunna do.”

“Nu-uh Gilmore, no way, I won’t have you cheat me and then try to back out of it!”

“I didn’t cheat!”

“Well there’s no one to vouch for you anymore, it’s up to the game now!” Paris straightened back up, grabbing the dice “C’mon, we finish this round!”

“Paris it’s nine o’clock!”

“And?! I’m not tired, so I say we continue unless you’re so exhausted you admit a forfeit! Is that what it’s come to Rory, is that how badly you’ve lost your edge?!”

Rory grit her teeth, lips pressing together. She honestly just wanted to put her head down on her pillow, but if there’s anything she hasn’t done in her twenty plus years of knowing Paris, is give in to her. So she straightens up to, squaring up to the table.

“..We finish this in an hour, or it’s a draw.”

“Fine. Give me your best shot Gilmore.”

In the morning, Lora comes down, finding the half-played board still on the table, a chip in the wall where a piece hit it, and her parents laying passed out next to each other.

Monopoly was banned after that.

-

Rory could tell something was off immediately.

All signs were pointing to that way. When she arrived at the door of the fifth grade classroom she expected some excitement from Lora, since it was usually Paris who picked her up from school when she was coming back from work. For the rare times Rory picks her up, they like to make something out of it, usually going out for dessert after.

Lora didn’t come bounding out to her like usual. She shuffled out of the classroom, clouded face and barely acknowledging Rory. She tried to suggest doing one of their outings, some ice cream or dollar store bags of gummies or one of those massive milkshakes from that 50’s diner that they only give to share between five people. But Lora didn’t want to do any of that, giving sharp nos to every idea, seeming to just disappear into her seat, curling further in as she pulled her uniform crested sweated tighter and tighter around.

“..So, I may be totally off, but,” Rory reached over, placing a hand on her knee “ is someone wrong? Did something happen at school?..”

“No, nothing.” Lora jerked away, glaring down at the carpeted car floor “It’s nothing, I don’t wanna talk about it..”

“C’mon,” Rory tried to smile back, reaching up again “you can tell me anything, you already do. Did you have trouble with an assignment? Or did someone pick on you, or was it with Maggie –”

“I said I don’t wanna talk about it!!” Lora roared, this time ripping away from Rory with a glare “Leave me alone!!”

Rory blanked. She could only stare back for a second, but eventually withdrew with a quiet “okay..”, knowing better then to press the searing wound. She was used to Lora always coming to her when she’s teary or when there’s a problem, commonplace enough that it was shocking for her to bite back instead. Rory knew something quite bad had to have happened then.

Still, Lora said nothing, sulking the whole quiet car ride home. She ran upstairs to the refugee of her bedroom the second Rory opened the door, leaving her mother to muddle and not worry about what it could be that upset Lora so and if it was a bully or not. There was little she could do, knowing all she had to do was wait until Lora was ready. It lasted through the rest of the afternoon, through when Paris came home, who also tried to go up there and talk to her only to also get shut out like Rory predicted. It lasted through dinner and the night, Rory eventually having to go up to her bedroom, finding Lora crawled up in her play, pop-up tent in her room with it’s many blankets and pillows, saying she was just here to leave the grilled cheese and cut-up veggies.

Rory was at her last rope when it came till late night and still no Lora, sat in front of her laptop so she could work on an article but really is thinking if she needs to finally call her mom to get clarity on what her next move should be. That’s when she hears the gentle shuffling of small feet.

She turns, finding Lora beside her desk, fingers tentatively on the desk edge and avoiding her mum’s eyes.

“Hey..” She whispered

“Hey..” Rory replied, resting her chin on her fist, not saying more, waiting on Lora’s prompt.

“Are you..doing work?..”

“Well, I thought I’d try to..” Rory gave a brief glance to her laptop screen “but I was really thinking about you..”

Lora nodded quietly, a better reaction then Rory thought. More sparring seconds of silence, and then, finally, Lora brought her eyes to Rory’s. A pang went through it when she realized how red they were.

“I...” She started but that was as far as she got. The words disappeared and her voice cracked and Rory watched the sad blue eyes suddenly fill with tears.

“Hey, Lor..” Rory smiled sadly, reaching her hand out to her. That was it; Lora collapsed into tears, cries falling out as she fell into her mum, throwing her arms around her neck. Rory tightened her arms around her in return, lifting just enough to pull Lora into her lap, something she was getting a little too big for now. Not that it mattered now; Lora resting in her arms, nestled in her shoulder as she sniveled and tears poured out, Rory holding tight in response as silent relief washed over her.

“I-I’m sorry..” Lora hiccuped, after pulling herself off of Rory’s shoulders, still propped up in her arms.

“What’re you sorry for?” Rory prompted.

“I’m ten. You don’t – heave – don’t cry anymore...” She defended, pushing her sleeves over her wet cheeks. Rory chuckled warmly.

“I think we both know that’s not true..” was the reply, a kiss to her daughter’s temple “Now, do wanna tell me what happened?”

It had to do with Maggie, turns out. Lora dispelled the story of how her best friend got intertwined with this new girl – which would’ve been fine, except this new girl apparently didn’t like Lora, and told Maggie that if they wanted to hang out Lora couldn’t be with them. Maggie initially told Lora she didn’t want to hang out with this girl, Angela, anyway, but at lunch after the redhead said she was going to do office duty, Lora saw her later on the playground with Angela. This resulted in a big fight that left both of them crying and mad at each other.

“I don’t really care if Angela doesn’t like me,” Lora claimed, Rory smiling to herself because, much her mom’s daughter, Lora had always known who she was and had stood on two feet in it “but Maggie’s my best friend, why would she do that?! I got so mad at her I took off our bff bracelet and threw it out, and then she got really upset and said she was still gunna hang out with me, but if I threw the bracelet out then she thinks maybe we shouldn’t be friends anymore either, and then threw out her bracelet! That’s not what I meant, I-I didn’t mean – hiccup – mean to do that!”

“Oh, Lor..” Rory sympathized, soothing her hand over her back “Friendships are hard, I remember. I don’t think Maggie meant it either, you were both just mad in the moment..”

“Did..did you ever fight..with your best friend?..”

“Yeah..” Rory smiled wryly “We did fight; one time, we got into such a big fight we didn’t talk for months..”

“Wow..”

“Yeah. But, the thing is, we were best friends and we cared about each other a lot. So we apologized, because we wanted to be together more then we wanted to be mad at each other. And you and Maggie, you’ve been best friends since you were five; I think you’ll be able to fix this.”

“You think?...” Lora scrubbed her wrist over her eyes, looking up at her with that child-like innocence and belief that her mum’s word was law, that hadn’t managed to dwindle out yet.

“I do think.”

“..I’m still upset, that she lied and went with Angela though...”

“Well that’s okay too..” Rory said, tugging Lora closer to her. Lora leaned back again, resting against her. They fell into silence again, Lora resting and Rory contemplative, figuring out how to make the hurt feel less sharp.

“Hey..” She sat up in the armchair, grin pulling over “I got an idea..”

Rory didn’t bother to stop and say what, just prompting Lora to follow her downstairs. She got one of the mixing bowls from the kitchen, the bag of Twizzlers from the candy cupboard, and then told Lora to go put her coat on as she wrote up a note for Paris, sticking it on the rec-room door because the both of them knew better then to interrupt when she was doing her treadmill workout. Then they were off.

Lora was a little frustrated about being left in the dark, but Rory could tell she was ultimately curious, excited by her mum’s grinning secret. That left them to inevitably pull up at the Dairy Queen at roughly nine at night.

“What’re we doing here?”

“Watch. And bring the bowl.”

It only became clear when Lora saw her go up to the counter – and order everything. Literally everything. Every single ice cream that was on the smudged, illuminated blue menu. Sundaes of fudge and caramel and strawberry, blizzards filled with oreo chunks and m&ms, specialty bowls or floats – anything that had frozen milk, they bought it. And once they had it all, Rory laid it all on the plastic wood table in their turquoise coloured booth, and began scooping it into the bowl. Lora was a little unsure at first (‘we can’t put all of them into one! What’ll it taste like??’) but with Rory’s encouragement (‘Really good or really weird, we gotta find out!), soon she followed suit.

They shoveled and mixed all the treats in the growing frozen mess, fudge mixing with strawberry goo, the frozen banana from the sundae bowl floating around, the pieces of oreo and candy bobbing up in the vaguely brown mixture, laughter growing as they did. ‘This looks so weird!’ Lora claims as she eagerly scooped the brownie bowl in, the chunks sliding in. Rory managed to get a spoonful of the strawberry-fudge mix and grinned as she held it to a squealing Lora’s mouth, daring her to eat it, the both of them cracking up as she tried to avert it. Finally, Rory took out the Twizzlers, one to each of them so they could use them as straws to try their monstrous delight. Both their eyes widened when they realized it was actually good (well, except maybe for the strawberry sundae).

“So,” Rory eventually said, staring down at her giddy daughter “how you do feel now?..”

A small smile appeared over Lora, and she nodded quietly, scooping up some of ice cream concoction onto her licorice to take a bite.

“Five-by-five..”

Rory grinned, a small breath of a laugh escaping. Lora looked back up now, still smiling and blue eyes gloss-free and bright again.

“Thanks Mum..” She glanced away, stirring her ‘straw’ around “I..I’m sorry..about earlier, for yelling at you..”

Rory’s smile softened. She scooted closer to Lora, wrapping an arm around her middle, squeezing.

“S’ok; I haven’t decided to ship you to the nearest orphanage yet..” She told her, getting a short laugh in return “I get it, getting frustrated because of friend drama – I mean, there’s nothing left I wouldn’t do for you after I had to give up pizza to have –”

“To have me, I know.” Lora rolled her eyes, still smiling. Rory scoffed out a laugh. She leaned down after, kissing the top of the head of brown hair.

Before she could say anything else though, Lora snatched one of the many plastic spoons they used to scoop, voice still full of excitement as she held it up to her face.

“Look, hey, wanna see if I can balance the spoon on my nose?! I could do it during lunch at school..”

“I’ll bet you one whole dime.”

-

There’s an angry huff heard across the craft table, lifting some of the stray cut out pieces through the air. Paris glances over, seeing Lora furrowed and closely bent over her project, trying to glue down the end of the popsicle stick as the other end kept slipping out of place.

“..Do you need –”

“I can do it.” Lora cut off, determined, only to finally get it aligned and take her fingers off, and then the stick slid off.

“Augh!!”

Paris leans in, gently taking the glue gun from an eleven-year-old Lora’s hands. Lora slumped back, face scrunched up. They’d been making the popsicle photo frames for a couple hours now; it’d been raining all day, and Rory was out for work, so the two of them decided to buckle down on crafts for entertainment. They both enjoyed it; Lora was detailed, and meticulous – she works on a project until she’s satisfied with it (“that’s you shining through her Par, completely.”)

“I can do it..” She grumbled. Paris snorted. Mother’s daughter, indeed (which mother is a totally different question however..).

“I know you can.” She adjusted the stick, pressing back the trigger again to apply the glue “But I think letting you tamper with both a hot object and glue to try would fall under bad parenting..”

“You also thought it was bad parenting to let me into a public pool before I was ten.” Lora rebuttaled, and before Paris can get into do you know how many germs are in a public pool, Lora was sitting up to watch Paris carefully press it down “It just won’t stay straight..”

“Yes, well, I’ve never been good at that myself, but it looks like I’ve got it..”

Now Lora snorted, raising an eyebrow as Paris sat back down “Isn’t that more of a joke for mum?”

“Your mother doesn’t have license over every joke.” Paris quipped “Even if she likes to pretend to..”

Lora smiles a bit. She grows quiet, back to her project. Paris is content with that, continuing to sprinkle some gold glitter over hers. But from the corner of her eye, she sees Lora glancing back up at her – slow, and then quickly ducking away. Like she was trying to find an opening for something. Paris would’ve just straight-up asked her what she was clearly baiting on, but Lora got there first, stuttering,

“Were you, um...were you..always bad at it?..”

Paris pauses, quirking her head. Lora didn’t dare look up from her project, pretending to be non-chalant even if Paris can see her red cheeks. She bit into her cheek, testing out the waters in a reply,

“..Liking men is one of the few things I could never understand, even when I was young. It’s amazing I let it go on as long as I did..”

“When..when did you know..– you know, that you..were bad at it..”

It takes all of Paris’s strength to not just ask. Lora’s nervousness reads perfectly, and it’s clear she’s been putting a lot of thought into this by herself. Rory did come to Paris the other day, asking her if Lora had been talking to her because she was apparently drilling Rory on her bisexuality – on liking girls, liking guys, how you tell the difference, etc, but never admitting anything was going on, passing it away on curiosity. The red face and avoiding eyes clearly said it wasn’t only curiosity. But Paris also knew this was a walking on eggshells kind of discussion, that there’s no usual blurting out of questions. Her years in parenting so far have taught her that you can’t always do that with kids; it’s been an adventure in being delicate and subtle for the first time in her life. So she just clears her throat, eyes to her own craft.

“There wasn’t one...defining moment for me, personally. When your mother and I got together, while she continued liking men, once I found myself with her, with someone I actually liked, any limping desire I had for men went out the window. I identified as bisexual first, like mum, but over time I saw any feelings I had for any boyfriends were simply compulsion and that I only liked women.”

Lora slowly nodded, saying nothing. Paris flicked her eyes back up.

“.. You can always ask mum too, you know..”

“I-I did. But, I dunno..she was going on about realizing liking girls while also liking guys, and having crushes on both, and how it’s okay and that was..fine, but..I..I’m just thinking...”

“What are you thinking?..”

Lora sighs loudly “I dunno...I..Maggie, she-she likes this guy who’s one of the older tutor kids in our science block. She keeps talking about how handsome he is, and how cute his smile is, and I just...I don’t get it..”

Paris can’t help her small smile. In the very, very faint memories hanging around in the back of her head, she picks out being sixteen and listening to Madeline and Louise blab on about the boys’ cross-country team and how hot the team track star was, and being able to best them in nearly every single way but not being able to figure out what the hell was so interesting about how cute they looked in their uniform shorts.

“Yeah, that sounds familiar..”

“Really?” Lora’s head finally comes up.

“If you find you’re forcing yourself to agree with your friends on boy crushes,” Paris placed down her last sticker on her frame, meeting gazes “then you don’t like boys.”

“Oh. It’s..that easy?”

“Usually.” She answers, noticing the silence “..Why? Would that be so awful? I mean, what even brought on this look at identity? I know we covered a lot in that talk we had but if there’s something you’re still unsure of –”

“Oh my god I don’t want to be shown any more diagrams of the human body, or statistics about STDs! Honestly why can’t you just give a normal talk like other parents –”

“Hey, if you’re old enough to start wondering about this, you’re old enough to know the real dangers! And we did do that, where your mother gave you the nampy-pampy ‘you’ll know when you want to experience that with someone you love’ junk..”

“Yeah, after she took away your papers..”

Paris glowered, resting her chin on her fist “What I’m saying Lora, is what’s the big worry if you’re gay?”

“ There’s not! Like, I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever been afraid of liking girls, because, well, duh” she gestures to Paris and around her, earning another scoff “so I knew people like opposite and same genders, but..this is the first time I’ve seriously thought about what I am..”

“..I see. I suppose that’s fair.” Paris evaluated “Well, I’d like to remind you that you’re only eleven, despite your maturity, and this should be far out of your realm of worry –”

Blue eyes roll to the side, a habit they’d been doing a lot more recently “Yeah yeah Mom –”

“But,” Paris reached forward, fingers on Lora’s jaw to turn her head back “I also remember how lonely it was. Being in your own boat, not getting what everybody’s talking about. So, I understand trying to figure it out. Just don’t rush yourself, alright?”

Lora said nothing, perhaps still a little nervous. She made a small nod, lips pressing together to hold down what Paris thought was a smile. That’ll do then. They went back to, pattering of rain on the roof filling the room.

“...I won’t rush, but I know you’d like it a lot more if I dated girls then ever coming home with some no-good boy.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Paris quipped, fighting the smile at the corner of her mouth “I’ll like none of them.”

“What?! Why?!”

Paris looked over, smile finally breaking. Her hand reached into Lora’s hair, long past her shoulders now and thick thanks to the Gilmore hairline, pushing it back.

“Because you’re our baby. None of them will be good enough for you.”

Lora’s head dropped back, eyes rolling with them. Paris couldn’t help her laughter.

“Oh my god, mom –”

“Don’t act surprised. You’d better be sure they can at least hold a good GPA and know which colleges they want to go to.”

“Oh I already know..” Lora sighs “At least Mum will have my back..”

“Are you kidding? Your mum cannot wait for you to come home with your first relationship so she can show them baby pictures of you digging up worms and tell stories of when you were eight and got stuck up a tree because one of the neighborhood kids dared you to climb higher or before you were even one and you used to pretend you were asleep when we put you down only to give yourself away by giggling at your own joke –”

“You know what, nevermind, I don’t like anybody –..”

More laughter, Paris squeezing an arm around Lora as she rolls her eyes again like she’s too cool for it but her mom could see through it. About two weeks after that day however, Lora comes down to see them at the diner table and declare she’s made a decision.

“And what is it?”

“ Definitely full gay.”

They both said they were happy for her and love her no matter what and all of that, but Paris still doesn’t know what was so bad about breathing out the relieved “thank god..” that Rory had to pinch her after.

-

Rory’s been standing at the top of the stairs, contemplating. She can hear the faint shouts and exclamations echoing out of the rec room, despite the door being closed and the walls made particularly thick. It’d been going on for about two hours now. Her mission, in retrospect, was very simple, but it’s all about whether she’d make it out alive or not.

Lora came tumbling down the stairs beside her, interrupting her thought process. Her hands were around her pink, digital camera, furrowed at the screen while she looked through her film footage, but got distracted by Rory idly standing by.

“Whatcha’ doing?”

“I think..” Rory spoke, the haunting pause creating even more dread to her words “..I left my wallet downstairs.”

Lora paused in thought. She flicked her eyes to the downstairs. Then flicked her eyes back to Rory.

“You’re not..seriously thinking of going down there right?”

Rory bites her lip. The bated silence spoke everything. Lora’s eyes went wide.

“Mum –”

“It’s the fudge pops!” Rory protests “I didn’t get them at the grocery store last time because I was stupid enough to think about my health, but now I know better and I was just gunna run to the gas station but I need my wallet –”

“No, mum, no, I cannot let you do this!” Lora jumped in front of Rory, quickly putting her camera on the stairwell ledge which she no doubt will forget is there until later when she’s yelling that she can’t find it “It’s too dangerous!”

“It’s not...that bad..”

“Uh, have you forgotten what season it is?!”

Rory sighs “Elec –”

“Election season!” Lora exclaims, arms waving in the air “Aka debate season! This area is quarantined! You wouldn’t even let me near the basemen stairs when I was a kid during this time!”

“Just cause you’re twelve doesn’t mean you’re not a ‘kid.’ And that was only when you were really little –”

“Doesn’t matter! She’s a menace okay?!” Lora forcibly points to the door down below to make her point “That is no longer your wife, that is a fire-breathing ball of anger hyped up on policy debates and cutting insults, and if you even step past the doorframe you’ll never have another fudge pop again!”

Rory groans, head tilting back “..Okay, but, she’s focused on the tv, so if I’m quick and quiet –”

There’s a sudden yell and crack of something hitting the wall. Rory squeezed her eyes shut. There goes that remote. Lora shook her head furiously.

“No, nope, not happening. I love Mom but I refuse to let her raise me solo if she kills you.”

“Lora, I’ve known mom for more then twenty years now. I’ve been with her at her worst, so I think I can handle some angry ranting and I’ll remember to duck –”

“Nu-uh.” Lora stepped in Rory’s path “Fudge pops aren’t worth it Mum, I’m sorry –”

“Chocolate is always worth it, have I taught you nothing? Now, pardon me –”

“No –”

“Lora –”

“I can’t let you –”

“What’re you, hey –”

“This is for your own good Mum!”

“Lora let go –”

“You can’t go down there –”

“I can, I’m weak and I want them!”

“I’m – ow! – doing this because I love you! –”

“If you, stop, if you love me you’ll let go! –”

“It’s not worth it –”

“What’re you two doing up there?!”

Paris was suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, looking towards the two of them with Lora half-way ontop of Rory, one arm around her shoulders and the other hand grasping back Rory’s arm that was trying to pull herself downstairs.

They froze, both looking back to the blonde. Her face was all red. She looked like she’d just ran ten miles. The glare coming off could sear through the both of them. There was a long, awkward silence, and then Rory spoke,

“...I left my –”

“I don’t care, just be quieter about it! I can’t hear a thing and I won’t be able to get through this debate with all the noise you two are making! Honestly, it’s like wild animals!”

And then she was gone with a single door slam. The mother and daughter just stood there, unsure and almost embarrassed. Rory considered her next option until she heard –

“..I think I have ten dollars in my piggy bank.”

“It’s a good thing I left my keys in the kitchen.”

-

“What’s so important about what you wanted to tell me? I was gunna have more of the cake before the it’s all gone.”

“Don’t worry, your mother and grandmother are already on that.” Paris quipped, seeing Lora roll her eyes in agreement. She slid an arm around the preteen’s shoulders, pulling her closer.

“I just wanted to have a moment with you one-on-one on your big day – a lot has been going on.”

It’d been quite the day indeed; bat mitzhas only happen once after all. Paris wasn’t necessarily into spoiling because that leads to pampering and laziness, but when it comes to important occasions, just like with her wife, nothing was too good for her daughter. They’d rented the best space she could find and filled it with guests upon guests; Lora’s friends and classmates, Rory’s family, which, of course, also included nearly every Stars Hallower in town who had to be included in large parts of Lora’s life after the town’s baby had a baby of her own. There was food galore as well as merriment, and Lora had been at the center of it all – something Paris could tell she didn’t love, but did very well with.

“To say what?” Lora prompted, taking a seat next to Paris on the bench outside the party room.

“Well, I wanted check-in with you – the party has been fun I’m sure, but you still know why we’re having this celebration?”

“Something something coming-of-age, something something womanhood…?”

“Lora –”

“I get it! Didn’t you hear my speech?”

Paris softens a bit, a smile coming on.

“Yes love.” She reached over, squeezing Lora’s hand “It was a very good speech.”

The newly thirteen-year-old blushed modestly, head coming down. The whole having-to-do-a-speech-at-my-own-birthday-party thing had been hard to wrestle for with Lora, but eventually Paris won and it turned out a lot better then either, including Rory, thought. Paris never had to do one, but it was something she wanted to do with her own child.

Her parents wanted her to be good, but it didn’t necessarily have relation to being a person. When she had her own bat mitzvah, introspection really hadn’t been something on the table; she read from the Torah, got money from relatives she remembers her father taking to put said bonds into her college fund, and that was about it. It wasn’t something particularly memorable.

She wanted something different for Lora – and like always, dove into research to figure out how. Because her parents weren’t particularly religious, neither was she, so she mostly glossed over the more religious practices and focused on what beliefs and ideals could be honed on. Some bat mitzvah activities included vocalizing for a charity, which had been no problem at all – in no time, Lora had found one, an organization advocating for lgbt youth (“seems good, considering, you know, I am one.”), asking for donations rather then gifts and being very proud when the pot was full by the end of the night (so no gifts, sans the few Paris and Rory had given earlier like her new fancy filming camera, and clothing which included the bright yellow doc martins she was wearing with her flowy, blue party dress of course).

Paris spent the rest of the time talking with her about just why they were doing this, discussing adulthood and responsibility and now was the time to look on what kind of woman she wanted to be. That, included another suggested activity, which was writing a speech on a part of Jewish history, identity, or even a Jewish figure that relates to them. Lora had chosen Ruth Bader Ginsburg, making Paris none the prouder. Lora despised public speaking, gets horribly nervous and when she’s nervous tends to ramble until she passes out (“I’ll take the fall for that one.” Lorelai had told them once). Begged Paris to allow her to just give the speech to her, but Paris carefully pushed her, and in the end, she managed to recite it to the whole crowd with only a few stumblings.

“..I had a feeling you liked it, given the tears I saw when I was reading it.”

“I was not – there were no tears!”

“Yeah there were, I saw you!”

“Lorelai – you know what, nevermind, I didn’t come out here to argue with you.”

“Then why did we come out here?”

“For this.” Paris slipped a hand in her blazer jacket, pulling out something “While my parents never bothered with traditions, this was the one thing my mother did for me, when I turned thirteen, so now I can give one to you..”

“Did she also make you speak aloud your speeches to hundreds of people?”

Paris snorted “Hundreds is a bit of an exaggeration, Lora. And they didn’t do anything of the sort, no speeches.”

“Why not?”

“Well it was probably because, outside of being their child, they wanted little to do with me as a person.”

“Oh. Why?”

“It eludes me Lora, why do you need to know?”

“I dunno, you never bring them up otherwise..” Lora shrugged, pulling her eyes away “And I figured there was a reason I don’t know them..”

“There is. And it’s for the better.”

That came out a little harder then Paris intended – her protectiveness coming to play, honestly. She sighs as Lora’s face clouds, lifting up her head by her chin.

“Honey, it’s fine.” She assures, because really, by her age now, Paris had put most of that to bed “Those reasons will just be..for when you’re older. But it’s alright.”

“I know. It just...sucks to hear they didn’t care enough..”

Another smile comes over, softening at the sweetness. Lora truly had Rory’s good heart.

“Sweetheart I’m a grown up – you don’t have to worry about me. Now, can I give you this, please?”

Lora squinted at the revealed, flat jewelry box. She quietly took it, pulling the ribbon after Paris prompts and taking off the top. Her eyes went wide upon revealing the bracelet; it was a simple thing, but there was no questioning it’s elegance, to the gold band, added by the gold Star of David emblem with pieces of dark red garnets placed at each pointed end of the star.

“Woah..” Lora remarked, seeming nervous to even touch it “This is really pretty mom..”

“Mm, I thought so,” Paris gently pried, pulling it from it’s styrofoam home “and that’s garnet there, which is the stone for –”

“January, I know.”

Paris raised her brow, still smiling. She took Lora’s wrist, clasping the band together, leaving the girl to admire it.

“There. Now you have a reminder of your special day, and of the brilliant, amazing woman you’re becoming – and that I love you more then anything –”

“I know mom, you tell me all the time.”

Paris can’t help the scoff of laughter “..Well, I know you’re closest with your mother, so –”

“That’s not –”

“Don’t argue with me, I won’t be dupped on this one.” “And trust me, I resigned myself to that fact when you were born. But, given..what’s happened in the past..for me, I just want you to be sure you know that I do love you, always.”

“Yeah – I’m pretty sure terrible, awful parents wouldn’t bother to do all of that stuff for their kid. And..”

“What?”

“It’s just...thanks.” The tween nervously wrung her hands, glancing up to Paris with a tentative smile “Do..do you really think that stuff is true?”

Paris couldn’t hold back another smile. She’s surprised Lora had to even ask; it’s been kinda hard not to glow with pride for the whole day. She kept rewinding the speech Lora made, about why she admires Ginsburg, “because she fought so that everyone, women especially, could have the same opportunities. She’s a fighter, and she never gives up in what she believes in, reminding me exactly of someone very close to me. Even though I rather would’ve peeled off me skin then recite this speech to you, my mom never gave up on me in being able to do it, and eventually, I got here. And that’s the kind of person, woman, I want to be, who never gives in and always stands by who she is..”

The broken relationship with her own mother, of the coldness and the constant picking of insecurities, still has Paris afraid. Afraid of saying the wrong thing to Lora, of bruising her spirit, making her turn away so that she can never have that mother-daughter relationship.

Hearing that is maybe why Lora caught her with tears in her eyes.

“Lora, of course it’s true – it was true even before I pushed you to think about who you wanted to be. You’ve always been a kind, incredible girl, and now, that’s only going to show even more as you grow up. You’re going to knock your mother and I right off our feet – you already have.”

Now it was Lora grinning. Before Paris could do anything, Lora was bolting forward, arms around her shoulders. Paris tightened her own around the small body that won’t stop growing, feeling stinging in the back of her throat. She laced her fingers through the dark hair at the back, giving one last kiss to her temple before Lora pulled back.

“..Oh my god, are you going to cry again –”

“I am not – go eat your cake!”

-

Rory was stopped right in front of Lora’s bedroom door. She shuffled the small-ish, blocky black box in the bag she was gripping onto, making sure to hide what it was as she pressed down her grin. Lora was going to be so excited.

She knocked to pre-warn, turning back the doorknob. Lora was at her desk of course, headphones over and hard at work on her computer. Rory recognized the familiar grey screen of an editing program open.

“May I disrupt the master at work?”

No response; she didn’t even turn around. Rory furrowed.

“Hey Lora?..Earth to Lora..”

Nothing. Rory grasped the lightswitch, erratically flicking it on and off. Lora jumped in her seat, whipping around to find her mum smiling back. She pulled off her headphones, furrowing.

“That was totally necessary?”

“I called like, three times.”

“Oh. Sorry. I’m just working on something.”

“Is this the one you and Maggie did? How’s it going?” Rory walked over to the desk, eyeing the computer screen currently frozen on a close up shot of Lora, but it was shot so that all you saw was the bright yellow docs.

“Good! I think.” Lora glanced back to the screen “..Tell me, how many times can one reference Princess Bride before it’s obnoxious?”

“That number doesn’t exist.”

“Mm.” Lora glided her finger over the mouse pad, making the shot speed forward “I would ask Maggie since she’s in it, but she didn’t even get a single one.”

“You have to stop being friends.” Rory told her sternly, pushing aside the binders and bag of doritos on the bed to sit down.

“Evidently. Can you help me decide between shots? I’ve got two slightly different version of this one here, but can’t decide which is better..”

“Wait, before that, do you wanna know what I have in the bag?”

Lora scooted over on her chair “If it’s not a treasure map, I’ll be disappointed.”

“Better.”

“How?”

“Well, since you turned fourteen some time ago, I believe you’ve officially come of age..” Rory couldn’t hide her grin any more, reaching down for the box inside.

“For what???”

She finally got it out, landing dvd set on her lap to showcase the infamous logo of a bright red heart and the gothic font above it.

“It is time.”

Lora’s expression completely dropped as she drew in a massive gasp. Before Rory could blink, she’d snatched the box from her hands, holding it triumphantly in the air.

“Yes!!”

And then she was out the door, headed for the t.v and screaming for Paris (“Mom c’mon, we got Buffy! We’re starting Buffy!”) Rory had to have a minute to stop laughing before she followed and could tell Lora the boxset was all metaphorical, considering dvds have gone from existence.

The family settles in, couch blankets and plentiful of snacks. Lora pretty well on the edge of her seat between her mothers with excitement, despite Rory’s warnings that this was a long time ago, and remember, this was the 90’s. Lora can see that through the cheesy editing and lacking get-up (“I mean, I don’t wanna be picky..” “It’s fine; those outfits are bad now, and they were bad then.”) and had to get Rory to translate Cordelia’s “coolness test”, but was otherwise enthralled.

She watched closely as Buffy stumbled her way through her first day, grinned along to the anecdote’s of Willow and Xander (Paris made perfectly she didn’t care for his idiocy, where Lora claimed “true, but in fairness I have a hundred percent smacked my face against a locker door because a pretty girl walked by.”), and held her breath watching her battle vampires, and cheering when she inevitably bests them (missing Paris rolling her eyes as Rory direly grasped Lora’s arm, pointing to the moment right before Buffy tricks Luke with “you gotta watch this is the best part!”).

Lora was sold before it even faded to black (or, faded into the 90’s grunge rock anyway).

“Wait, what happens now?!” She demands to know, after seeing the Scoobies prevent the Hellmouth from opening.

“You’ll have to wait to find out!”

“What?! Why not now?!”

“Because Lora, if we did that we’d be here to the crack of dawn.” Paris answered.

“I wanna knnoowwww!” The teen threw herself over the back couchins, sliding down to hang over the side “You said it’s gay – when does it get gay? Like you said Willow’s gay but she was talking about Xander and everything..”

“Not till later sadly.”

“Why?!”

“It was the 90’s kid; the writers had to wait a while until it was safe to do that. Plus, back in those days, closets were deeper and you had to do a lot more self realization before you figured it out..”

“You guys speaking from experience?”

“Watch your tone.” Paris spoke up. Rory grinned. Lora sighed, sliding back down.

“I’ll have to wait then – I guess Buffy and Willow are kinda cute together..”

“Frankly, if we wanna talk about realizations and potential gay characters,” Paris brought up, smacking Lora’s legs away as she cleaned up the snack bags “it’s amazing they did nothing with Faith..”

“It’s true..”

“Wait, who’s Faith?!”

“Nobody – no more spoilers for you.” Rory walked over, plucking the remote from a pouting Lora’s hands “Your parents are old and they wanna go to bed, which means you also have to too.”

Begrudgingly, Lora went off to her bed, practically pushed by Rory who refused to answer anymore Buffy-lore questions. It wasn’t until hours later, both her and Paris passed out in bed, that Rory is suddenly broken out of her slumber by the whispered hissing over her head.

“Mum!..Hey, Mum….Mum wake up..”

“Wh-Wha?..” She groggily blinks back, barely making out Lora who was standing above her as the only light was from the door and she was on the far side (Paris wanted the side by the door because, apparently, in an emergency she was determined to be closest to the nearest exit to get Lora) “Lora?..Wh-What–”

“There’s another Slayer?!”

It takes Rory a couple seconds to process the words, and even then it doesn’t stick “..What??”

“Another Slayer?! And she’s evil??” Lora plows on, gesturing with her phone, the low light screen barely illuminating her both shocked and serious expression.

“What – I told you to wait!” Rory sat up and swiped Lora’s phone, seeing all the Buffy articles she’s pulled up on google, not sure if she was more mad about being woken up or about Lora cheating.

“I couldn’t! I had to know who Faith was – and she’s another Slayer! Which I thought was so cool; her and Buffy teaming up and beat down bad guys together – badass girls who can kick serious butt are the best kind of couples. But then I saw this! Is she really evil??”

“No, that’s –..” Rory sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose “That’s oversimplifying it..”

“I thought maybe so; I mean, a lot of the articles I read about her being super evil and a bitch and everything –”

“Don’t say bitch –”

“– are all from male t.v reviewers who’re as likely to break out from their misogynistic mindset and recognize a female character’s full humanity, without her either dying to save a man’s life or getting her tits out first, –”

“Don’t say ti – don’t say that.”

“then I am of performing brain surgery.”

“Obviously. Faith’s character is complex; she made some wrong choices, but without recognizing her past and also the inherent loneliness and trauma of being the chosen one, anyone calling her evil isn’t putting context –” Rory stops herself by putting up a hand “You know what, nevermind, you’ll see what I mean when we get there.”

“Not till season two though! And then, you said later, but it doesn’t even get gay till season four!”

“Well, that’s because it isn’t until Willow meets –..actually, I already made that mistake once..”

“I know; it’s Tara.”

“Lora!”

“Sorry! I won’t ask anymore about it, swear – except to ask what in god’s name Lesbian Death Syndrome is.”

“Do not look that up!” Rory gave her most serious parental glare, accompanied by a pointed finger “You hear me? There’s no point of you even watching if you do.”

“Alright alright! Still, I think they could’ve done something with Buffy and Faith, a badass slayer couple. Especially considering Buffy is bi. I mean, not confirmed confirmed and it’s one off, but still –”

“What?” Rory squinted “No she isn’t; I think you’ve stumbled into too many fan sites Lor –”

“Well not in the show, duh.” Lora flops beside her mum on the bed, taking her phone back briefly to pull up another article “But they released comics about Buffy too, under the same company as the show with the creator, this Whedon guy, meaning it’s within the actual canon universe and it’s not some fan-made wish-fulfillment thing. And in one, Buffy dates a woman.”

Rory doesn’t a hundred percent know what to say. Lora just hands her her phone, Rory peering down at the official wiki on the Buffy-verse, which showed pictures from said comic of Buffy, in fact, with a woman. Official photos, with the comics title and release date and the whole nine-yards. Rory felt something warm bubbling in her chest.

“Wait..so-so this is real real?”

“Real-deal real.” Lora answers, quirking her head back “You didn’t actually know about this?..”

Rory shakes her head, a slow smile creeping over. She had no idea. It was kind of amazing. Her first gay crush, one of her favourite characters of all time, bisexual.

“It’s actually..really cool.”

“Don’t you think though,” Lora reached over to take her phone, getting that adamant I’m-going-to-make-my-case peak in her voice Rory often hears in Paris’s “since she is or hinted to be bi, her and Faith should’ve been given a chance?!”

Rory can’t help but smile, scoffing “That’s kinda a hard case to make Lora. You haven’t even met Faith yet to be sure!”

“But how cool would they have been together, I mean c’mon.”

“Definitely a power couple for sure. And you know, I wouldn’t have put it past Faith to have had, probably repressed, feelings for Buffy –”

“Ha!”

“However, there is a massive gap between them! I mean, just the way they handle slaying and their duties, reflected by their moral compasses, create a pretty large barrier –”

“Oh my god!”

Paris whips up from where she was laying, setting the startled brunettes in a death glare.

“For the love of god, the both of you, it’s three in the morning!! Is now truly the time to discuss the depths of t.v lore?! I was confident due to the ungodly time one of you would stop to get back to bed, but no!! You just kept going! You’re both terrible for each other, you just egg each other on!”

“I had to know about Faith –”

“I had to tell Lora –”

“I don’t care!! There’s no reason any of this is important enough to talk about before it’s light outside!”

There was a beat of silence, the two of them staring at each other and then to a disheveled, frothing Paris.

“...Buffy’s bi.” Rory finally said, figuring it might be important enough.

“No she’s not! Even if you analyze the homoeroticism in the context between her and Faith, it doesn’t offset that there hasn’t been an actual canon gay interaction –” before Lora could interrupt that it wasn’t so much the show, Paris held up her hands “nevermind, that isn’t the point. Everyone needs to get back to bed before I divorce you –”

Paris pointed a finger to Rory who’s brow jumped up.

“– and then disown you.”

She moved the finger to Lora, who also, more sarcastically, raised her brows. Another tick of silence, and then she turned to her mum.

“Her tone wasn’t clear enough – she wants us to..go?..”

“I didn’t get it either,” Rory replies, just registering Paris groaning and collapsing back in bed “but we need the sleep anyway, so we might as well.”

“If you say so!” Lora chirps, pushing off the bed. Rory grins, scooting back to Paris who was pressing her palms over her eyes.

“Also, Lora, I hope I can trust you enough to go back to bed so I don’t have to go unplug the wifi box.”

“Or neither do I.”

“I’m going I’m going, hint taken!” Lora called, voice thinning as she disappeared out the door, silence finally drawing over so the pair could get back to sleep – only for her to reappear a second after.

“I’m sorry, mom, I was wondering if this is the time we could start talking about me getting my license –”

“Lorelai Emily –”

-

It was chaos.

You’d think a bomb went off inside the house. That the world was coming down. Red alarm, sirens calling, panic time.

What was the cause of it?

It was Lora’s first date.

“Where’s my jacket?! I can’t find my jacket! Mum!”

“What?” Rory stepped out from the downstairs hall bathroom, walking to where Lora was digging through the living room

“My jacket!”

“Which jacket?”

“My jean one!”

Rory bit back a watch the tone, knowing it was just nerves.

“I dunno Lora, I’ve been collecting your bobby pins.” She held out the fistful of pins to hand her after being asked to help with her hair. Lora sighing and took them, a second after lighting up.

“Oh! Mom!”

She was off again, rushing into the kitchen. Rory sighed, following and secretly wondering how much longer this could go on.

Paris, who’s explicitly ignoring this mess, was sitting up at the island with a laptop. Lora skidded to a stop beside her.

“Mom! Where’s my jacket??”

“How should I know?”

“You’re always touching my stuff!”

“I am not!”

“Yes you are! You’re always saying I have too much stuff and then you move it where I can’t find it!”

“Well did it occur to you that if you didn’t leave your things everywhere I wouldn’t have to?!”

Rory looked across the kitchen counter, furrowing “Guys –”

“Then what’d you do with it?!”

“I haven’t touched it!”

“Then why can’t I find it?!”

“Probably, because as I said, your organizational skills have had little improvement over the years!”

“That’s not true!”

“Guys –”

“If it isn’t then why can’t you find your jacket?!”

“Because of you! How am I suppose to be organized when you’re a control freak who just moves stuff around wherever you want it?!

“I do not! I’ve told you, several times, to put things back where they belong and you refuse to, leaving me to put it back –”

No one was going to pay attention so Rory walked over to the other side of the room, getting what she wanted.

“– so this house doesn’t look like it belongs to hoarders!”

“Your system is bizarre! Even when you move stuff you always put it in the wrong place anyway!”

“If you don’t want me touching your things Lorelai, then you can pick them up –”

“But you still do it anyway and put my shoes in the hanging rack when you know I put them on the floor of my closet –”

“Why did we buy a shoe rack for you if you’re not going to use it –”

The war ceased when Rory tossed something over Lora’s head. The teen scrambled to pull it off, yelling something about her hair, until she recognized the familiar light blue demin of her coat in her hands.

“Oh – thanks Mum!” Lora beamed, rushing off to the mirror hanging near the kitchen doorway so she could put up her hair.

Rory scoffed amusedly, shaking her head. She turned to Paris, who now fell back into her chair and dragged her hands down her face, groaning.

“Just let it go.” Rory advised, sliding up with a smile “It’s nerves.”

“I’m not nervous!” came the far-away yell.

“So that means being alright with being challenged and insulted in my own house?!” Paris counteracts.

“Well where else would you like it?” Rory asks, grin growing at the glare “C’mon – I remember someone was so nervous about their first date they uprooted their whole wardrobe just to get a second opinion.”

“That was wholly different!”

“How was that different?”

“Oh I don’t know Gilmore – maybe it had to do with the fact I was a repressed lesbian and the reason I wanted to vomit was because I was forcing myself to go out with an objectively good-looking Ken doll knock-off?!”

Rory broke laughing. Lora ran over, newly intrigued, hands still working at the back of her head.

“Wait, what?! What happened?!”

“God, he did kinda look like a Ken doll..” Rory managed through the rest of her laughter.

“With the personality of one..” Paris muttered

“Hold on, rewind,” hair now up, Lora grabbed the massive camera swinging around her neck, quickly fiddling with the stitches as she directed it to her parents “Say that stuff again?”

“Turn that off –”

“He was Mom’s first date.” Rory turned to smile at her daughter “When we were sixteen. After I got her a date with this guy she apparently been begging to go out with, she came over to my house a ball of nerves because she had nothing to wear.”

“So, freaked out over dating a guy, you went over to Mum’s house to get a second opinion on outfits?” Lora furrowed “Wow. Really subtle Mom. And it took you till your twenties to figure out you were gay?”

“Yeah – I mean, I told you you could come to me for help, but it still seems like a pretty poor plan considering you’d made me your number one enemy, and also accused me of trying to date him behind your back.”

“Oh my god Mom, you’re a textbook lesbian cop-out!”

“Listen, you don’t have to go out at all tonight if this is what you want to pull.” Paris, up in red, pointed an angry finger to Lora.

“Alright alright, I relent!” Lora held a hand up in defense, the other still holding up her camera “..But did you really fight over him?”

“Well it was a very one-sided fight on the half of Mom, considering I had no interest and rather would've drank bleach then have gone out with him.”

“So would’ve I, but I didn’t know that yet.”

Rory chuckled. Lora glanced between them, half-smile, half-confusion, hidden slightly behind the camera she’d directed to them.

“..Wow. You know, it was hard enough actually wrapping my head around the fact that you two were enemy’s, let alone arguing over a guy, considering how grossly in love you are and how weirdly suiting.”

Weirdly suiting. Rory had to grin, Paris lovingly scoffing.

“..It took us a very long time, but eventually we got there, so I wouldn’t say it’s all bad.” Rory said.

“The older you get my love, the more you realize love does not make sense.”

“Mm. That sounds fun. Well, if we’re going by your guys’s rules on when you meet your soulmate, technically, I’ve already done that.”

Rory can only shift wide eyes to Paris at that, who looked about 2.5 seconds away from having some kind of heart attack.

“We were sixteen, not fifteen, you’ve got another year – and that’s under the pretenses that was even true, rather then just a random instance of luck.”

“Okay, whatever, but I still wanna hear about this compulsory straight crush and if he really looked like –”

There was a sudden honk outside. Lora immediately dropped her sentence and her camera, caught by the lanyard, and let out an ‘eep!’, flying out the room to the foyer. Her parents exchanged a look, left to follow.

When they got to the door, Lora was leaning out it, excitedly waving to a sleek black car parked out front that had muffled punk rock radiating out, a leather-jacket clad figure you barely saw peeking out the window waving back.

“Isn’t she going to come inside?” Rory asked.

“Well there’s no point, really.” Lora brushed off, closing the door “We’re just gunna go back to the car anyway.”

“She thinks we’re going to embarrass her.” Paris spoke dryly.

“I didn’t say that!” Lora protested, hopping on one leg to wedge her foot into her yellow docs.

“But that’s why! I honestly don’t see the point however, considering we’ve already met her.”

“Oh yeah, which was great Mom, when you drilled her on what she plans to do after school and how she’s going to up her GPA –”

“She doesn’t even know which college she wants! How the hell are you a junior and still don’t know that?!”

Lora rolled her eyes, taking Rory’s extended hand as support to fit into the other shoe “– and Mum was more then happy to show off baby pictures again –”

“To be fair I only picked the really cute ones!”

Lora groaned “What I’m saying, is that I’m sure Kiran isn’t excited to do that all over again.”

“Way to place blame.” Paris furrowed “Alright, listen to me – I’m expecting you back at eight o’clock, and not a second after –”

“I get it –”

“I will be watching this door till your curfew you understand, so don’t try and weasel out of this –”

“Alright General, I’ll try not to have any fun either.”

Rory broke in before Paris could get another threat word out “And you’ll text if anything changes?”

“Yeah yeah, I will.” Lora opened the door again, peeking out “Look, she’s waiting for me, so I gotta go.”

She quickly swiped her bag draped over the nearby hall table, stuffed her camera in it, and after spun to Rory with another excited-but-innocently-nervous look.

“Do I look okay?!”

Rory smiled back at her. The nice, stripped long sleeve tee modest enough but also not overly dull, and the dark jeans to match (Rory had earlier faintly heard Maggie’s voice through Lora’s phone guiding her through the outfit). The docs, and then her favourite jacket, which Lora has covered in décor; the pins that read “irrelevant: men’s opinions on women”, and “fesbian-leminist” because much like her grandmother, Lora is irresistible to a dumb joke or pun, which explains the “girls just wanna FUN-damental rights” patch next to the “What Would Buffy Do?” one beside it.

“Never better.” Rory said, glad to see the smile of relief. She reached for the lock of hair dangling down with a “here, let me..” but Lora made some protesting noise and knocked it away.

“Don’t! I worked hard for this specific look.”

“Alright alright..” Rory backed away, giving a squeeze to her arm “Well we love you, have fun and keep us updated –”

“Yeahokayloveyouguystoobye!”

And just like that, in no seconds flat, Lora was racing out the door and closing it on her way out. Gone. They both blinked back, a tick of a few seconds in the silence.

“...Was that suppose to hurt as much as it did?” Rory asked, voice quieter as she stared at the door. Like the longer she stared, Lora would walk back in, a cute little kid again who always wanted a hug from her mum before going anywhere.

“We’re no longer her favorite.” Paris told her “This is the letting go period.”

“I thought that was college..”

“That’s physically letting her go – but now we’re reaching the point where she gets a life outside of us, and it’s faux-pour and downright embarrassing to even spend time with us.”

“Who says?..” Rory pouted, folding her arms “I-I mean, it was never that way between mom and I, even when I was a teenager I never thought of it like that..”

Paris snorted “Most kids barely consider their parents likeable, let alone their best friends.”

Rory quieted. She stared at the closed door some more, unsure of what to say. She knew her and her mother’s relationship was more of a one-of-a-kind thing, hardly replicateable, but she also thought her and Lora’s held a good flame to it. Or had she just been kidding herself the whole time?

Oh god. She can feel her stomach sinking in. She swore she wasn’t going to be one of “those” parents who wept over “loosing” their baby, but Lora was the most important thing in her life. And she wasn’t sure what she was suppose to do if the most important thing stopped wanting to be around her.

Paris noticed her silence; turned her head, brow lifted with lips tilted at the side.

“Are those tears I sense Gilmore?..”

“No.” Rory quickly denied, tightening her arms “I just...I...”

She sighed, head falling back. There was very little she could hide from Paris, and even if she could, her wife dug around until she found it.

“Alright, uncle..” She admitted, head crashing onto Paris’s shoulder “But I get one granted wallowing period..”

“I thought you already used that when we found out our baby daughter grew up to get a capital C crush.”

“That didn’t count.”

“Why not?!”

“Because I didn’t claim it; this is my get-out-of-jail-free card, to get grossly sappy about her growing up to leave us behind..” She lifted her head to meet the sharp brown eyes “..And don’t pretend you’re immune to it either..”

“..I guess it’s sad to see her go..” was all Paris would admit, taking a glance around the house “..On the other hand, the silver lining, we’re alone in a house that I don’t believe has been completely quiet in roughly sixteen years..”

Rory leaned back up. It’s true. Much her parent’s daughter, Lora never liked going out, and was usually always home unless she was with Maggie. And with her and Paris’s demanding work schedules, it was rare either of them were at home at the same time for the night.

“Fancy that.”

“Just the two of us.” Paris looks back at her, mouth curling at the side “We’d better make good use of our time then..”

Rory couldn’t help but grin back. She leaned into Paris, sliding her hand over hers.

“And what ever do you have in mind?..”

Paris clicked her tongue, humming low.

“I say we head back upstairs, get comfortable..”

She slid her hand up, curling her arm around Rory’s waist to pull her in, still grinning.

“...and we order food and watch reruns of Brooklyn-Nine-Nine.

Rory’s laughing, Paris beaming in return. She clasped the blonde’s shoulder, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek.

“It’s almost like you know me..”

She went to pull away, but Paris grasped her by the chin, pulling her into a kiss that Rory smiles against.

So that’s what they do, ordering cheesy, stuff filed crust pizza that Paris complains they shouldn’t be eating at their age unless they want heart problems, but doesn’t stop Rory from doing it, both enjoying their feast in front of the tv and comedic hysterics. Of course, they’d had wine too, and before they knew it, were droopy-eyed and tiredly falling into each other on the couch. Paris was determined to stay awake until eight because god-forbid she catch Lora walking in a second later, but inevitably, they both crashed, and found themselves stirring awake much later then they anticipated.

“What...” Paris muttered, abruptly shifting upwards despite a curled-up Rory draped over her side “what happened?!..”

“Fell asleep...” Rory answered, nuzzling further against her wife “Not..in our twenties anymore...”

There’s some grumbling above her head “W-What time is it?!”

Rory reached across Paris’s lap, reaching for her wrist to read the fancy, thousand dollar-watch “Seven fifty...”

More grumbling. Paris shifting again, trying to rise but failing.

“Dammit, where is she, I..gotta get up..”

“You don’t..” Rory furrowed, holding Paris back down because it was warm and comfortable here “It’s not eight yet..”

“It’s going to be..”

“Then wait.” Rory argued, still clinging to the blonde “until eight..”

Some more grumbling. Then, contemplative silence.

“….Fine. I’ll be the lenient parent then.” She rested back down into the cushions “I should’ve known you were up to this when you brought out the wine, trying to throw off my inhibitions..”

“Shhh, trying to sleep...” She didn’t even have the energy to argue how wrong Paris was. To her great surprise, Paris let it be, laying back to rest. They got about two more minutes in of light rest, soaking in the quiet –

The door slamming closed forces Rory to rise up, head up to glance to the doorway. A hurried scrambling up the stairs was heard after, growing louder.

“Incoming..” Paris mumbled, eyes still closed.

In a matter of seconds Lora was up on the second floor, still in her jacket and boots and buzzing around until she spotted them. Before Rory could say anything in greeting, she was rushing them. No time for warnings or anything, Rory just braced herself as Lora threw herself onto their laps, lower back on Paris’s and head resting on Rory’s.

“Oh, good jesus!” Paris exclaimed, grumbling as she readjusted herself.

Rory chuckled, looking down at Lora who was looking up at her. She was grinning a mile a minute. Cheeks flushed red and glints coming off the blue eyes.

“We’re having a summer wedding.”

Rory grinned back. Paris sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“You’ll do no such thing.” Rory told her daughter “Summer is way too hot. June at minimum or good luck with Mom giving you away as I wait inside where it’s air conditioned.”

“As if I’d be involved this! If it’s not a shotgun wedding, then there’s no excuse!”

“But Mom,” Lora lifted her head to look at Paris with complete seriousness “who’s going to pay for the five layer wedding cake? That’s half the reason to get married!”

Paris’s head fell back against the couch, eyes closed, ignoring her chuckling wife and grinning daughter.

“..I take it it went well then?” Rory clarified. Lora bit into her bottom lip to contain her excitement, cheeks sweetly getting even redder.

“..Amazing.” She bolted up, scooting over to squeeze in between them “It was so fun; we had nachos and those drinks they give you with the crazy straws, you know? I mean, her brothers were there ‘cause her older brother had to drive us, so it was kinda..crowded..”

“So no coupling and whoops-we-accidentally-brushed-hands could happen then?..”

“Not as much – but Kiran got them to leave eventually so we could try stuff together. Also turns out I’m a lot better at video games then I thought I’d be! Kiran showed me everything; your Bambi-genes kept me from passing even one level of Dance Revolution, but we did some air hockey, and I won a couple dares on Mario Kart –”

“You won?” Paris perked up.

“Focusing on the important things..”

“What, in between the important inquires of how much hand holding there was –”

“Shhh!” Lora cut in, waving her hands “I didn’t even get to through half the story – yes, Kiran dared me one of those massive M&M cookies they sell at school, and I crushed. So that was fun, and we replenished after on frozen yogurt.”

“Sounds like the perfect mock-up for a first date.” Rory smiled “Even if there was no shyly trying to slide my arm on your shoulder when you’re not looking..”

“No, but, she did the whole, come-up-behind-me-and-wrap-around, here-let-me-show-you, when we did air hockey so..” Lora beamed, legs kicking up giddily.

“Aha! So not all was lost.”

“Stop..endorsing this!” Paris snipped.

“Actually Mom, I’m convinced that because I spent hours with you as a kid meticulously gluing shit to other shit –”

“Don’t say shit.”

“– that it was the reason I had enough hand co-ordination so me and Kiran could win the game of air hockey against her brothers, where she picked me up to spin me around, so.” Lora tilted her head, giving the sweetest grin possible. Rory started laughing again. Paris bolted up, causing Lora to crash down onto her side of the couch.

“That’s it! I’m going to bed.”

“Noo!” Lora reached up from where she was laid across, grasping the hem of Paris’s shirt “You can’t! We have to watch Buffy!”

“Buffy?” Rory furrowed.

“Yes! It’s still Saturday night!” Lora argued, sitting back up, glancing between the two of them “You can’t expect me to go without my fix, or go not knowing what happens now that Willow’s back from being evil!”

“You gave up Buffy to go make googly eyes at your girlfriend.” Paris crosses her arms “I’m shocked you even remembered us –”

“Par –”

“C’mon! We have to! It’s vital to watch it together so Mum can mouth all the lines under her breath,” She looks to Rory, then back at Paris “and so I can enjoy all your quips against Xander and the other idiot men.”

There was a contemplative silence. It was already eight o’clock. The parents brought their eyes over Lora’s head, gauging the other’s expression. Hearing the argument though, Rory couldn’t help maybe bending the rules a little. A smile came over. Slowly, quieter, Paris did the same back.

They weren’t quite second yet.

“Alright – Par, do the honors?”

“Yes!” Lora pumped her fists, after grabbing the bowl of whatever Rory had left of the Funions. Paris, sat back down, pulled the show up on the t.v to scroll through the episodes. Rory stops to look at her little family, huddled together, suddenly feeling herself become a much sappier person then she actually was. She took the risk to bring her arm over Lora’s shoulders. Lora leaned into her without prompt.

“Wait, hang on,” Lora spoke up as Paris was about to press play, turning to her with a grin “I never got to hear about the tool you went on a date with – was he really a quote-on-quote Ken doll?”

“And you won’t as long as you’re alive. And I’m amazed the accessories didn’t come with him.”

Rory broke into laughter again.