Deadlines

It was easy, in the beginning. Well, not necessarily easy, but words flowed and feelings were effortlessly explored because they told a simple love story, one that was never negated – she loved her mom, she loved the life she had provided for her in her childhood, and she respected what she had done to provide it. Yes, the book was easy to write during those three first chapters. Heck, even the next one was relatively straightforward at first – after all, she had asked him if he was OK being in the book (and how could he not be, after what she told him he had represented?). But as she wrote on she realized that, even though she had considered Dean to be an easy chapter, one that was neatly packed in a box in her mother's attic, not even his story, in the end, was going to be comfortable to tell. It overlapped too much with everything else. It overlapped too much with everyone else. His chapter ended where all the doubts started, doubts that had had her tied up in knots for many years, and now the knots had become this ball of yarn that was slowly growing inside her and how the hell was she going to unravel it? The work had been put off for too long and the consequences were unavoidable.

Inside her book folder a pro/con file loomed, abandoned. No, she wouldn't be able to sort it all nicely in a excel file while sipping a cup of coffee. She couldn't even have coffee anymore. Neither neat Scotch. Damn.

Oh, it was typical. It was typical Rory Gilmore. She was finally committed to the book, to a project that was pure and authentic and made her happy (that gave her for maybe the first time ever a sense of completeness, a deep pride, a true purpose) and here she was again, all fucked up. All knocked up. And words were not flowing anymore. So that was writer's block.

Alone in the apartment above Luke's, Rory started crying. The more she thought of her financial situation and of the choices she would soon need to face, the more she cried. Angry with herself for whining, she kicked the wall, and it hurt like hell. Well, she had it coming. She had it all coming. But crying was not going to sort things out for her, and she refused to be the victim – damn, if she was anything at all, she was the perpetrator.

It was time already. It was time to get her shit together and start owning her mistakes. It was the only chance she had of figuring out what to do with the baby and with the book, with her life. She owed it to herself.

"Rory Gilmore? This way, please."

She followed the nurse to a clean, if aseptic, office room. A middle aged woman wearing thick paste glasses sat across the desk. Rory had decided not to consult Paris on this, she would have been much too vocal about her opinion – whatever it might have been – and if she was to do this right, she would have to acknowledge that she was most of the times a bit too slow making decisions and a bit too fast agreeing to opinions that were not entirely her own.

"Miss Gilmore, go ahead. Why are you here today?"

Rory fumbled with her shirt at the prompt. "Well, I'm one month pregnant, and I wanted to get all the info in case I decided to terminate the pregnancy."

"OK, what info do you need?"

Rory sighed. "Deadlines, mainly."

"Hun, come stay the night. We'll have a Buffy marathon, it'll give you a nice heroine fix. See? I managed to introduce drugs in your life, and in your state! Ain't I the best?"

Rory smiled. They hadn't really talked much about It-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named since her mom's wedding and after Rory had acknowledged that it was Logan's. Her mom had been quietly supportive and not pushy, very un-Lorelai-like, and had simply reassured her, telling her that she would stand by her whatever she decided to do with the baby. "Thanks, mom, but I need to be alone a bit longer. I still need to figure things out."

"So… you haven't decided yet?"

Her mom's words, while uttered in a calm tone, hid a hint of dread that lingered in the air, but Rory resisted thinking about her mom's fears – or her own. "No. There are many things I haven't decided… yet. But I will. I have to. I have a deadline now. That's the only thing I've decided."

"Mmm… OK. Promise me something, then. Promise me that you'll call anytime you need to bounce ideas off. I'll be your wall, throw those balls at me, no matter what you wonder. Oh my God! That's what it really means, so that's a wonderwall! Will you eventually let me be the pop version of your Western Wall?"

"Always."

Rory hung up the phone and went back to her laptop. She had seven weeks before having to make a decision. Whatever the outcome, she was going to need sustenance. Financial and spiritual. The next day, she would take care of the money issue. But the night belonged to her dreams, to her book. She had decided to jump forward in time and get started with the Logan era. There was major unraveling to be done.