**Part 5**

"Buenas noches Marta!"

"Buenas noches señorita Rory," Emily's housekeeper smiled as she opened the door and stepped aside to let Rory in who was followed by her grandmother.

"Perdone señora," Marta immediately began to apologize, "Le dije que no estaba pero insistia en esperar!"

"What are you saying Mart... Lorelai? What are you doing here?"

"Well hello to you too mom, "Lorelai called out brightly from the couch, "It is lovely to see you too. I DID do something to my hair! Thank you for noticing."

"Oh Lorelai," Emily walked past her daughter, housekeeper closely behind, "You know I am always happy to see you, but I just assumed Rory would be spending the night. We had your old room prepared for her... and your hair looks lovely. A bit on the dark side but..."

"Where's dad?" Lorelai interrupted not ready for the passive aggressive put-downs.

"Parking the car." Emily answered dryly.

"He wanted to smoke with the groundskeeper." Rory translated.

"Dad?" Lorelai asked open mouthed. Rory nodded wide eyed.

"Oh, that concert. Your father thinks he is in his twenties again."

"Yes, that concert!" Lorelai jumped up, "You guys went to a U2 concert without me! The one concert that I would give an actual appendage to go to... even with my parents"

Lorelai shuddered at the last part. Emily rolled her eyes, "Don't be so melodramatic Lorelai"

"Nopes, I'm not falling for it," Lorelai shook her head, "so out with it, let's see it. What did you bring me to buy back my love?"

Rory tilted her head towards her grandmother, "Told you."

Lorelai jumped up and down grinning with exaggerated glee, "Gimme gimme gimme."

Emily handed Lorelai a bag with an impatient sigh, "Oh here"

"That's from both of us!" Rory pointed.

Lorelai pulled out a concert t-shirt and immediately draped it over her chest admiringly, "Ooh."

"Just wait to see what grandpa got for you," Rory said bright eyed.

"Should I be afraid?" Lorelai looked up at her daughter.

Richard chose that moment to walk in, "Did I hear people talking about me?"

Lorelai smiled, "Hey dad."

"Lorelai?" Richard furrowed his brow, "What are you doing here?"

"Boy," Lorelai made a face, "I bet I would get a warmer reception at the morgue."

"Don't be crass Lorelai" Emily chastised.

"Crass? I'm.. Oh!" Lorelai slumped back on the couch. There was no point in arguing with her mother. Rory chuckled.

"Grandpa," Rory called out, "mom was asking what we brought her from the concert."

"Which I was not invited to I might add!" Lorelai was blunt, like a kid denied cake.

Richard looked at Rory, "Is it time for the piece d'resistance?"

"Is it a time machine to take me back to before I came here and stop myself from making a tragic mistake again?"

Richard ignored his daughter and produced an envelope with a bit of extra showmanship and polish.

"That one is from your father and I!" Emily called out with a smile.

Lorelai tore the envelope, "A tree has been planted in your honor at the Ellen Battel-Stoeckel Estate… home of the Yale school of music…"

Rory covered her mouth to keep from laughing.

"Gee…" Lorelai's face said it all, "I don't know what to say…"

Richard and Rory shared a look, "Oh, I also picked you up a poster. Rory mentioned you liked that band."

Lorelai rolled her eyes as she unrolled the poster, but upon noticing writing on it she slowed down and her eyes grew wide, "It's signed! Oh! By all of them!"

Rory grinned, "Read the note attached!"

"Note?"

Lorelai unrolled more of the poster and gasped, "Dear Lorelai, sorry we missed you. We are all looking forward to meeting you. We will be in Chicago in a couple of months, check your mailbox for tickets and backstage passes!"

"Surprise…" Rory sang softly.

"How? What? How?"

"Your father," Emily explained flatly, though the corners of her lips did curl upwards just a but, "he was in rare form tonight."

Rory couldn't be as tactful, "He was awesome!"

"Dad?" Lorelai asked slack-jawed.

"It was fun, look!" Richard held out his phone to Lorelai who took it, took one look and almost dropped it shrieking,

"Is... Is that you and Bono?!"

"Yes! Very Good Loreai, that lovely the Edge fellow took it. Did you know that my phone can be used to take pictures?"

"Yes, I knew your phone—wait, don't change the subject. You, Richard Gilmore, the same Richard Gilmore who has a picture with president Carter on his mantle..."

Lorelai stomped over to the fireplace, "This picture right here! You have a picture, on your phone of you and Bono smiling and standing... standing and smiling... together... you and Bono... Standing and smiling..."

"Uh oh..." Rory observed, "I think she's stuck."

Richard could only smile amused, "I only gave them some financial advice with their non-profit ventures to maximize their reach through strategic conversion rates."

"Oh Daddy!" Lorelai swooned clearly not understanding a word or making an effort to, "You're my hero."

Richard smiled broadly, "You're welcome dear, I had a great time."

"Yes…" Emily's voice dripped with sarcasm, "we all did, but it is now beyond late. Since you are here I assume that you are taking Rory home?"

Lorelai looked at her watch, "It's barely 11 pm."

Rory gave her mother a serious face, "We don't have to go home, but we can't stay here."

"Marta," Emily went for the stairs, "the girls can show themselves out, can you give me a hand upstairs?"

Marta nodded, "Si señora"

"Good night grandma," Rory called out, "thanks for inviting me."

Emily smiled, "My pleasure sweetheart. By the way dear I very much approve of your beau tonight."

Lorelai's eyebrows went up, "Beau?"

"Umm," Rory's eyes went to the floor.

"The Dugray boy. Tristan?" Emily's eyes sparkled, "What a gentleman; he did not leave Rory's side for one minute. They were a picture perfect couple."

"You don't say." Lorelai's voice dropped an octave.

"A good thing too. So many young couples creeping in the shadows," Emily climbed the stairs making a face, "you just know what they were about!"

Lorelai turned to Rory who had the forthright to look busted, "You don't say..."

*.*.*.*

Rory and her mother sat at their usual table at Luke's the following morning. The place was buzzing as much as a small place diner on a Saturday morning can buzz.

"Wow!" Rory exclaimed wide eyed as she chewed on a piece of bacon.

"I know! Babette's cat will never be the same again."

"The things I miss when I am not home!" Rory pouted.

"You said it sister," Lorelai looked off into space with a sigh, "What new adventures will befall the residents of Stars Hollow? Tune in next week to find out!"

"Umm.." Rory raised an eyebrow, "what are you doing?"

"I'm building suspense for our next episode."

"We're not in a television show." Rory cautiously looked around for cameras.

"Are you sure?" Lorelai leaned in, "Doesn't it seem strange how adventure follows us almost on a weekly basis?"

"If we were..." Rory pursed her lips, "Wouldn't we have hunky male leads?"

On cue, Luke stepped up, "More coffee? Please say no; think of your livers. Mine hurts for yours."

Lorelai raised an eyebrow, and her cup. Rory nodded and raised her cup as well, "Point taken."

Luke shook his head, poured the coffee and made an exit before he got caught up in whatever crazy conversation they were now in.

"I still don't think we are in a television show." Rory sipped her coffee black. When she looked back up, her mother looked pained. Lorelai looked pensive, a look which to her was also filled with pain. Rory sighed not able to stall any longer,

"Are you not going to ask me about Tristan?"

Lorelai's face became a mask, "I was waiting for you to volunteer the information."

"You were." Rory's jaw tightened in question.

"I was." Lorelai answered flatly.

"Well that is putting a LOT of trust in your only daughter!" Rory complained with a pout.

Lorelai sipped her coffee calmly, "Yes it is."

Rory wasn't amused, "That's a lot of pressure!"

Lorelai nodded, "and guilt."

Rory exhaled loudly looking away. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, "How long were you prepared to wait?"

Lorelai shrugged taking a forkful of pancakes into her mouth.

"Wow," Rory scrunched up her face, "you promised not to use those super powers for evil."

Lorelai shrugged again trying for nonchalance. The concern in Rory's face tore at her in ways only a mother could understand. Silently, she swallowed her mouthful and washed it down with a gulp of coffee,

"Would you like to try again?"

Rory thought about it for a minute, then responded with a gloomy nod. Lorelai took a deep breath,

"So hey kiddo! How was the concert? Anything fun and exciting happen? Run into any…" Lorelai grimaces, "run into any old friends?"

Lorelai watched the fear flash across her baby's eyes.

"Umm…" Rory couldn't do it, "I saw Paris?"

Lorelai's shoulders slump, "Well I tried."

"Mom!"

"Did you use protection?" Lorelai cut right to the point.

"Mom!" Rory's shock was unmistakable.

"Did you use protection," Lorelai repeated louder.

"Hush!" Rory looked around in horror, "Luke is going to hear!"

"and Luke will have no problem taking that Louisville Slugger he keeps behind the counter to a visit to Hartford right now." Lorelai fired back.

Rory looked at her mother through squinted eyes, "I don't like you very much right now."

"Did... you-" Lorelai started again even louder but Rory cut her off,

"It wasn't like that!"

"I found your history book at the bottom of your hamper." Lorelai said plainly as if that explained everything. Considering the runaround Rory had put her mother through in search of that book and the outcome it had apparently led to, the sentence explained enough.

"Okay," Rory acquiesced, "it was like that but nothing happened."

"Because you grew a conscience or because you were interrupted?" Lorelai's words cut with their transparency. It was written all over Rory's face.

"I don't want to talk about it." Rory's eyes sparkled in challenge.

"Right now or ever," Lorelai refused to back down, "because as your mother there is only one answer that I'm going to accept."

"I'll see you at home, later." Rory pushed back on her chair biting out the words angrily.

"Fine," Lorelai bit back, "Later."

Rory got up and left. Lorelai exhaled loudly,

"How will the princess of Stars Hollow explain herself out of this one?" Lorelai sighed already thinking about how she could have handled that better,"tune in next week for a climactic episode of The Housewives of Connecticut..."

Luke stepped up to Lorelai to pick up Rory's plate,

"Who are you talking to?"

*.*.*.*

Rory's blood was racing. Her ears felt hot and her fingertips felt cold. There was no point in denying anything; her mother would see right through her. She wouldn't care that technically nothing had happened, and nothing had happened. Rory shouldn't have to apologize or explain herself.

Except, except for lying to her mother, for orchestrating an elaborate scheme to spend some time with Tristan clandestinely. A boy who wasn't her boyfriend. Rory furrowed her brow in deep concentration and frustration.

"Rory!"

Rory pursed her lips. Of course her train of thought would be punctuated like this. Rory tried to make her face go blank and turned to see Dean shuffling across the street to catch up to her.

"Dean!" Rory hoped her smile appeared genuine.

"So... how was the concert?" Dean huffed out after a chaste kiss on the lips. A kiss Rory was sure her mother had caught.

"It was fun!" Rory chirped amicably, "It was U2! We got to meet them!"

"No way!" Dean was good boyfriend material Rory noticed. His surprise was supportive and genuine. It wasn't the same.

"Way..." Rory raised her eyebrows in emphasis with an easy smile. Dean was easy. Rory wasn't sure that is what she wanted though.

"Hey is your mom okay? I swear she's shooting daggers at us from Luke's. Did I say or do something wrong?"

"I don't think so?" Rory feigned surprise, "Did you eat the last doughnut in the fridge?"

"The same double chocolate sprinkle doughnut that's been there for over a month now?" Dean made a face, "The one with the note reading 'Special Emergency Doughnut – Eat only in case of doughnut emergency or zombies?' I'm kinda grossed out just thinking about it."

"Then I think you are good." Rory nodded at him. Dean shrugged and they fell into an easy walk,

"What constitutes a doughnut emergency anyway?" Dean volleyed Rory's way. Rory opened her mouth to answer but felt her phone buzzing in her pocket,

"Hold on," Rory fished out her phone.

"Who it is?"

"It's Paris," Rory's heart stopped, "calling from the paper."

'Paris from The Franklin' is what Rory had labelled Tristan's number. Her skin felt cold.

"That girl never stops does she?" Dean did nothing to hide his rancor against Paris.

"I can ignore it," she tried to sound casual but felt her voice crack and suddenly felt hot, "I'll call her in a minute. You were saying?"

The phone buzzed again, then again and again.

"I'm sorry," Rory looked up at Dean stopping, "One second"

Rory stepped away from Dean to look at her phone in private. There was a missed call and a three new text messages waiting. Her heart pounded in her chest as she looked up to see Dean waiting patiently, then looked back down and pulled up the missed message,

"Missing Hartford already..."

"looking forward to my next visit."

"This last visit left me frustratingly unsatisfied..."

The corners of Rory's lips curled upwards, she pocketed her phone and went back to her boyfriend.

"Sorry about that, you were asking me about doughnut emergencies?"

**End**