I am so, so excited (and honestly a little nervous) to finally start posting this! I've been wanting to do a crossover with The Librarians and Gilmore Girls for over a year. Turns out, I just needed Season 3 of the Librarians and the Gilmore Revival to make this story really work.

If you know one but not the other, I think you could still enjoy this. I try to explain and describe everything, as I always hope to snag a few single-fandom readers when I write a crossover. That being said, if you can't tell from the summary, this is largely Cassandra's story, but there are plenty of Stars Hollow high jinks along the way, as I've worked almost all of my favorite characters from both shows into this.

This prologue here starts fifteen years in the past. We'll be back to present day at the start of the next chapter, with some flashbacks along the way throughout the story. If you're wondering where the flashbacks fit into the Gilmore timeline, I was envisioning that this prologue happens during the summer between Season 1 and Season 2.

And that's enough babbling from me, so I hope you all enjoy it :)

Fifteen Years Ago – Stars Hollow, Connecticut

The public bus pulled into the little town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, its door opening at the stop just next to the local high school in the middle of the town square. A young red-headed girl carefully climbed down the stairs, struggling a bit with the weight of the bags she carried with her. She had a messenger-style backpack crossed across her body from one shoulder and a large duffel bag crossed from the other, throwing her off her balance. She stood off to the side of the bus doors, a lost look on her face, as a few passengers, sure of their destinations and eager to get there, climbed off behind her. Before she knew it, the bus closed its doors and sped away, leaving her alone in this strange little small town.

Cassandra Cillian didn't know much about Stars Hollow. She'd never been there herself before, only heard the jokes her classmates and her parents' friends made about the quaint, eccentric, little place, but from what she'd heard, it seemed like a safe place to run away to, and a sixteen-year-old girl running away from home needed a safe place. She still wore her Hartford private school uniform, the one she'd put on for probably the last time that morning – white button-down shirt, red blazer with the school's crest, khaki skirt, and a red tie. She'd dressed it up a bit with some vintage pins and floral hair accessories, but looking around, she knew she didn't really blend with the people here. She knew she was going to stand out. It didn't help that the outfit clashed with the large duffel bag slung across her shoulder – light pink, with a 60s floral print. Her mother had hated it, begged her to pick something nice and traditional, but her father had told her to pick any bag she wanted for her fifteenth birthday the previous year, because fifteen meant she was finally going to get to go on the annual winter holiday to Europe with them. They'd gotten her a passport, still tucked neatly inside the bag, and she'd spent the time from her birthday to the winter break counting down the days, but Cassandra had never made it to Europe that winter. Nothing was turning out as planned.

Once the bus that brought her to Stars Hollow was out of sight, she realized she didn't really know what to do next. A worried panic bubbled in her stomach, and she took a deep breath, trying to fight the tears that had started to sting her eyes. One step at a time, she thought. She didn't have to figure out tomorrow; she just had to figure out where to go now. Looking aimlessly around the town square, she spotted a large yellow coffee mug, the name Luke's written in red letters, outside of a…hardware store? Curiosity piqued, she hiked her bags up on her shoulders and walked over. Peering into the windows, Cassandra was able to determine the place was actually a diner, and her stomach rumbled. That's when she realized she hadn't had anything to eat that day except the ice cream her father had used to soften the bombshell they dropped on her after school. She wandered into the diner and took a seat at the counter, dropping her bags at her feet. She grabbed a menu, but she didn't have long to peruse it before a man walked over.

"What do you want?" he asked gruffly.

Cassandra looked up at him with wide eyes. He wore a gray t-shirt, a flannel shirt, jeans, and a backwards baseball hat. In his hands, he held a small order pad, waiting for her to reply.

"Um…" Cassandra stuttered. "I'm not really sure how much money I have."

She had the credit card her parents had given her, of course, but she didn't want to use that. Not yet. She reached into the pocket on her blazer, her hands slightly shaking, and pulled out a small handful of cash and coins. The man sighed, thinking her to be just another dumb teenager wasting his time, and Cassandra picked up on that, her cheeks burning.

"Sorry! Hold on a…I really didn't think this through," Cassandra said, muttering that last bit to herself. Her hands shook a little harder and her eyes glazed over the large numbers on the bills she'd laid on the counter as she started trying to count the coins in her palm, as if only they would determine whether or not she would get to eat lunch. She counted slowly, willing her mind to stay on task and desperately hoping she wouldn't spiral into a hallucination in the middle of this little diner she'd found herself in.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his tone a little bit softer.

"Yes…yes," Cassandra said with a deep breath and a bit more confidence in the second affirmation. "I'll have a grilled cheese, extra cheese, please."

"You got it," he said.

"Wait!" Cassandra cried as he turned to tell the kitchen what she'd ordered. He turned back towards her. Cassandra spoke mostly to herself as she said, "That was a really little kid thing to order, wasn't it? Kids order grilled cheese. I can't…I can't be like that anymore. I…"

"Hey," he said, cutting her off. Her wide eyes wandered up to him again. "I'm bringing you the grilled cheese."

Cassandra smiled softly. "Okay," she said.

Instead of putting her order into the back, he himself wandered into the kitchen, and Cassandra, left alone at the counter with a whirlwind of thoughts, put the money back in her pocket and started playing with the beads on the funky bracelet wrapped around her wrist. Before too long, a woman walked in and sat with Cassandra at the counter, leaving one empty seat between them.

"Luke!" the woman called. She yelled his name again, making the "u" sound at least three syllables long, and Cassandra's eyes widened a little further. She'd never seen someone act like that in a restaurant before. "Okay, fine, if you're not here, I'll just have to go behind the counter and get my coffee myself!"

At that, the man who'd taken Cassandra's order, Luke Danes, the owner of Luke's Diner, appeared from the kitchen. He grabbed a mug and the coffee pot, quickly passed by Cassandra, and set the mug down in front of the woman who'd yelled his name. As he poured, he brusquely said, "You will not go behind the counter because you don't belong behind the counter. It is my diner. I go behind the counter."

"Then you should be behind the counter to take your customers' orders," she said.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Burger, no onions today, extra fries," she said. "A double order of fries. A triple order!"

"How about I bring you one order of fries and you stay on your side of the counter?"

"You're no fun!" she claimed.

"And you're going to die young if you keep eating like that," he said.

"There's that award-winning customer service," she said sarcastically, with a bit of a fond smile in Luke's direction.

Rather than respond, Luke simply returned to the kitchen. Cassandra had been watching the whole exchange, mildly fascinated. When Luke walked away, Cassandra turned back to her bracelet, but the woman beside her spotted Cassandra and gasped.

"Hey, I went there!" she said, gesturing to Cassandra's school uniform.

"You…you did?" Cassandra asked, mildly surprised that the woman was talking to her.

"Yeah," she said. "God, sixteen years, and they haven't done a thing to those uniforms. You feel like one of those cartoons. The ones where they wear the same outfit every single day, in every episode, year after year, to the point where you start wondering if the animators dress in the same outfit every single day, too, and if not, why do they make their characters do it? Those characters probably don't want their fashion sense stifled, but the damn animators just have to have their way. Well, the animators and the school board, am I right?"

Cassandra, a little stunned by the rambling and the fact that this woman was talking to her at all, looked at the woman with the same wide eyes that had become a permanent fixture on her face since arriving in Stars Hollow and then laughed. "Right," Cassandra said. The happy face she put on was a little bit of a show; the relief she felt at the woman's friendly nature wasn't. "I mean, I haven't actually seen many cartoons, but…that sounds accurate."

The woman grinned and looked at the accessories Cassandra was wearing and said, "At least you're making it your own. So what year are you? Hey, is Mr. Turner still there? I mean, he seemed too old to still be teaching when I was there, but he also kind of seemed like one of those guys who was just never going to die, you know?"

At that, Cassandra swallowed hard as her face fell and tears began stinging her eyes again, the overwhelming nature of what she'd done and what she'd left behind overcoming her. Luke returned from the kitchen with Cassandra's sandwich just as a few tears spilled out of Cassandra's eyes and began rolling down her rosy cheeks. Embarrassed, she brushed them away as quickly as she could, but it was too late. Luke took one look at the girl silently sobbing at his counter and glanced over at her counter-mate, who was looking utterly shocked by the abrupt change in Cassandra's mood, with a scowl.

"What did you do to her?" he asked the woman by her side. Before she could answer, he turned to Cassandra and pointed to the woman. "What did she do to you?"

Cassandra shook her head immediately as she tried to fight back further tears. "Nothing," she answered. "She didn't do anything. She was just asking me about school, and…" A sob built up in her throat again and Cassandra finished with a heavy exhale as she said, "Everything is so messed up!"

Sensing a conversation he didn't want to be a part of, Luke dropped the plated sandwich onto the counter in front of Cassandra and returned to the safety of his kitchen. Cassandra hid her face in her hands and tried to wipe away the new tears. She couldn't do this, she mentally told herself. Kids cry in public. Kids get upset and shut down. She stopped being a kid last winter, the moment the doctors told her what was buried deep inside the frontal lobe of her brain. She stopped being a kid the moment she snuck out of her house with no intention of going back.

The woman next to her moved over to the empty seat between them and gently placed her hand on Cassandra's back, trying to soothe her.

"I'm Lorelai," she said softly. Cassandra looked up at her. "Lorelai Gilmore."

"Cassandra Cillian," she said.

"How old are you, Cassandra?" Lorelai asked, glancing down at the bags near Cassandra's feet.

"Sixteen," Cassandra hiccupped as she composed herself. "Barely."

"What's so screwed up?" Lorelai asked.

"Everything," Cassandra said. She started talking a mile a minute, sounding surprised at her own actions, and she thought she saw Lorelai almost smile as she said, "I can't go back to school next year. My parents told me this afternoon, right after the year ended, and as soon as they left me alone, I just…I just left. I've never done anything like that before! They probably haven't even noticed I'm not home yet. Though it's not really home. Not anymore. They don't know how to deal with…I just don't know what to do now. I didn't think. I just left."

Lorelai sighed, glad she walked into Luke's when she did. Thinking she'd stumbled onto another teenage girl like her, she thought herself uniquely qualified to offer up advice. "Okay," Lorelai said with confidence. "Look, Cassandra, I know how you feel. Believe me, I really do, and, you know, when I was in school, it was a huge scandal, but times are a little different now, and while it still won't be easy…"

"Wait. What?" Cassandra said, finally interrupting, knowing Lorelai probably couldn't possibly really relate. "What are you talking about?"

"You're not…" Lorelai started.

"Not…what?" Cassandra asked.

"Pregnant," Lorelai sighed.

Cassandra laughed at that notion. "A boy would've had to think of me as something other than the weird math girl for that to happen, so…definitely not pregnant," Cassandra told her.

"Okay, wow, I really need to see a doctor about getting this foot removed from my mouth, huh?" Lorelai said. She waited a beat and then continued. "I have a kid about your age, so stop me if I'm getting too mom on you, but what happened?"

"I'm sick," Cassandra said quietly. "Sort of. I have a non-malignant oligodenroglioma in my brain."

"And that's…?" Lorelai asked.

"A tumor," Cassandra said, still struggling to say the words out loud. "We found out about a semester ago, and my parents kind of…well, they make the medical decisions because I'm sixteen, and they're not making any kind of decision because they just can't process this, so school was kind of my refuge. You probably think that sounds crazy…"

Lorelai chuckled a little. "You should meet my daughter. She lives and breathes school. I get it. Go on."

"But now they've pulled me out of school, and they threw all my science trophies away, or…well, I don't really know what they did with them, but they're gone. They think I don't have a future anymore, but I think I do. It's…shorter. A lot shorter, unfortunately, but it's not cancer, and it's small; the doctor said I probably have, like, twenty years. Potentially even a few more, maybe, depending…but I don't think my parents really heard that part, so I just, like, left, and I don't want to go back, but I don't know what to do now," Cassandra said.

Silence hung in the air between the two for a few moments as Lorelai processed everything Cassandra had told her. As if she were making a decision, she exhaled heavily and called, "Luke!" Luke appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the diner. "Make my burger to go. Wrap her sandwich up, too."

"To go where?" Cassandra asked, the wide-eyed stare returning as Lorelai stood.

Lorelai smiled at her and said, "I think I might be able to help."

Thanks for reading! I love reviews :)