"Ava Victoria, you need to get come and get your shoes on right now," Rory shouted through the apartment to her daughter.

"Can I wear the pink ones?" The little girl padded into the room slowly and looked up at her mommy, pleading with her big blue eyes.

"Honey," she said as she stooped down to match her daughter's height "the blue ones look so much better with that pretty dress you are wearing, don't you think?"

"But I like pink mommy," Ava said as she poked out her bottom lip.

Rory shrugged, she knew from bitter experience exactly when she should pick her battles and when she should let things slide, especially with a strong-willed three-year-old like Ava. "Sure, if you love pink that much, you can wear the pink ones. Now go get yourself ready."

Ava beamed at her mommy and skipped down the hallway of their apartment to get her favorite pink shoes out of her closet, happy to be getting her own way.

Rory bent down to collect up all the abandoned toys from her living room floor just as there was a knock at the door. She turned to glance over at the clock. Right on time, she thought to herself, never early, never late, he was always extremely punctual. She walked down the hallway and opened the door to greet him.

"Hi, Hi, come in," she said as she ushered Logan into the apartment "She's just in her room getting her shoes on."

"Great, there's no real rush, we've got some time before we have to head out," he said as he sat down on the sofa.

"So, what are your big plans for this weekend?" Rory asked as she continued to tidy up the room.

"The usual dinner tonight at my parent's house and then...well, I'm not entirely sure yet, the weekend is wide open. What about you? Got a busy schedule this weekend?" Logan asked.

"Oh you know me and my action-packed lifestyle" she rolled her eyes. "No, nothing major really. Steph is coming over tomorrow and we're going out for lunch..." she started to say before they were interrupted by the sound of a little ball of energy hurtling towards them down the hallway.

"Daddy!" Ava squealed when she heard her father's voice. She bounded into the living room and jumped straight onto his lap.

"Hey Princess" Logan said happily as he kissed the little girl who had bundled herself up on him. "Are you all ready to go?" he asked her.

Ava climbed off his lap and stood proudly "I am, Daddy. I got my shoes on myself."

"I've got to say, sweetie, I am really loving the pink shoes, good choice" he smiled as he gave Rory a knowing look – fully aware that there was no way on earth she would have paired the fuchsia pink ballet pumps with the pale blue dress that his daughter was wearing.

"Oh no," Ava said dramatically "I forgot Mr Woof" as she remembered her favorite bedtime companion.

"Well, you had better go get him then!" Logan laughed as she ran off again. He watched his daughter as she left the room.

Sometimes he found it hard to believe that she actually belonged to him – she was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid his eyes on, that was, apart from her mother of course. With her breathtaking blue eyes and her dark hair falling in soft waves to her shoulders, Ava looked just like a mini-Rory, everyone commented on it and Logan had to admit it was true, even though sometimes it pained him to see the comparison and reminded him of what he had lost. The personality of the little girl, however, was all Logan. She was a complete whirlwind and seemed to have inherited her father's 'seize the day' attitude, which Rory had never considered to be entirely a bad thing.

Logan stood up to pick up the overnight bag that Rory had prepared as usual. "I have to fly out on Sunday night to Atlanta so I'll need to drop Ava back a little earlier than usual, around 3 pm. Is that okay with you?"

"Sure" Rory nodded and smiled "I'll be here," she said as Ava reappeared with Mr Woof tucked firmly under her arm.

She watched as her daughter grabbed hold of Logan's hand and they all moved towards the door of the apartment. There was absolutely no coming between Ava and her daddy, they'd had a very special bond from the beginning and while it was sometimes a little bittersweet to witness, it did please Rory to see them enjoying a close relationship. For such a long time she had worried that Logan might turn out to be like her own father Christopher – loving but flaky and unreliable, however, three years in, her worries had remained completely unfounded and Logan had remained devoted to their daughter.

"Say bye bye to mommy," Logan said.

Ava leaned up to kiss and hug Rory. "Bye baby girl, now you be really good for daddy and make sure that you remember all your manners at grandma and grandpa's house won't you?" she said and Ava nodded.

Rory knew that the Huntzbergers had always taken issue with the fact that she wasn't brought up in society and now, neither was their granddaughter much to their chagrin which Rory had to admit to finding a little amusing at times. She was however determined that she would demonstrate that she was perfectly able to raise a polite, bright and well-adjusted child, whatever they might think of them.

"Bye Rory" Logan said as he leaned in and dropped a chaste kiss on her cheek like he always did when saying goodbye.

"See you Sunday" she waved before closing the apartment door.

Rory went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine before sitting down on her sofa to enjoy the peace and quiet.

The arrival of Ava Victoria Gilmore had been somewhat of a surprise in the lives of Rory and Logan, especially given that they had broken up a couple of months before she had even discovered she was pregnant.

They had gone through a rather acrimonious split at his sister Honor's wedding and despite his begging, after she had found out that he had slept with his sister's friends during their brief break-up, she had refused to take him back. Although she truly loved Logan, the hurt and humiliation she felt ran deep and it just proved too much for her to get over.

While it had become pretty apparent that there were some crossed wires at play, Rory felt completely betrayed by Logan. She had never intended for them to break up in the first place and she had been incredibly hurt when Honor had called her at Thanksgiving and she'd discovered he had told his sister that they were no longer together. It had taken a big leap of faith for Rory to accept him back into her life after that so for her to then stand in a room of Honor's friends and hear them all discussing in front of her, how they had slept or 'fooled' around with him was just one humiliating step too far. She loved him but she had to protect herself from getting repeatedly hurt. Rory had moved out of their shared apartment and back in with Paris for a little while but then it became quickly apparent that as much as she wanted to try and leave Logan in her past, fate had stepped in and just wasn't going to let her do that, no matter how hard she tried.

Flashback – April 2006

"Rory, are you sure you are feeling okay? You're very pale." Lorelai asked her daughter as she sat opposite her in Luke's.

"I'm fine, I've just been feeling a little off-color recently that's all" Rory shrugged.

"Off-color?" Lorelai asked her suspiciously. "You don't think you might be..." she trailed off, aware that the diner was not the most private of places to be having this conversation.

Rory looked at her and wrinkled her nose.

Lorelai gasped. "Oh my god, really?" While she might have brought it up, she hadn't actually believed it might be a possibility.

"I don't know" Rory admitted. She had suspected now for a few weeks that she could be pregnant since she had missed her last period but she had been too scared to face facts and actually take a test.

"Dare I ask...who?" Lorelai said.

Rory looked at her mom pointedly. "You're seriously asking me that?"

Lorelai jumped up "Come on"

"Where are we going?" Rory looked up at her mother.

"We need to find out for sure."

Rory whispered under her breath "We can't get it from here mom, the rumors will start flying within about fifteen minutes."

"Damn you're right," Lorelai thought for a moment. "We'll go to Litchfield, nobody knows us there?"

A few hours later Rory and Lorelai found themselves sitting on the bathroom floor, Rory in tears with her head in her mother's lap.

"Well, this is a familiar scene. You, me, you talking on the great white telephone, crying over Logan..." Lorelai joked "I feel like we have been here before"

Rory sat up and rubbed the tears from her eyes. "What am I going to do mom?"

"It will all be okay Ror," she said brushing her daughter's hair with her hand.

"I can't have a baby, not while I am still in college" Rory shook her head "We're not even together. Oh god, how am I going to tell him" she said as she started to cry again.

"Rory, breathe," Lorelai said as she forced her daughter to look at her. "The first thing you need to do is let this news sink in okay, it's a complete shock. The second thing you need to do before you even think about speaking to Logan - work out what YOU want. Not what I want, not what Logan wants – what you want to do about this."

Rory looked at her mother and nodded.

"Whatever you decide to do Rory, I will support you, you know that," Lorelai said hugging her daughter tightly to her.

The decision surrounded her pregnancy was one that Rory had sat on for a couple of weeks while she went back to Yale and tried to carry on with life as normal, well, as much as she possibly could with the need to make a decision hanging over her. Her first instinct had been that she couldn't go through with the pregnancy and Lorelai had made it clear that if that was what she truly wanted, she would be with her every step of the way but she had also urged Rory to take time to think the decision through properly and not to make a knee-jerk decision that she would come to regret in the future.

Sitting in her living room now, looking around at the photos on the wall, the scribbles and drawings her daughter had proudly presented with her and the knick-knacks they had picked up on their adventures, she couldn't be more grateful that her mom had forced her to take her time to make the life-changing decision that had faced her.

Flashback – April 2006

As she was sitting on a bench in the sunshine outside her dorm she thought about her life with mother, and how much adversity they had faced getting to where they were. She wondered what Lorelai's life would have been like if she herself had made a different decision when she'd found herself unexpectedly pregnant with Rory, and she thought about what her own life would be like if she took any of the paths that were waiting to be travelled. Rory pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.

"Mom?" she said when Lorelai answered the call.

"Hi hon, are you okay?" Lorelai said. She'd been so worried about her daughter.

Rory spoke quietly "I think I know what I want to do now"

"You do" Lorelai held her breath waiting for her daughter to say more.

"Yeah..." Rory said, "Now, I just need to work out how to break it to my ex-boyfriend that he's going to be a father" she sighed.

A/N: Welcome to my new story - I hope you like it. Let me know your thoughts - what you think so far, whether you like it, what you'd like to see happen ❤️