Title: What Sam Says

Chapter 1: The First Snow

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

A/N: This is gonna be a strange fic. As of right now, I'm not sure if I'm writing it cause I'm bored, or cause a really good idea hit me. Anyway, it's one of about four stories I'm currently writing, and I was actually writing an epilogue/sequel to one of them (about six chapters early, but anyway) and it hit me that if I changed a few of the aspects around, I could stick it up here as a fic. I think I'm also gonna add a few elements from this other story I'm also writing, that's not a GG story, because it just might work.

Oh, and if it doesn't make that much sense yet—don't worry, it will.

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Rory yawned and opened her eyes. A nondescript motel ceiling stared back at her, and she groaned. Rolling over, she fell from the bed and stood, doing everything gracefully somehow. She pulled a pair of overalls on—her mother would ridicule her to no end later, but she didn't care. She slipped her sock-clad feet into reasonable boots and stuffed her clothes scattered all across the room into her travel bag. Slipping her bag over her shoulder, she grabbed her coat from its place on the chair near the door and left the room.

She wandered down the outdoor hallway of the motel in the dark, the only lights coming from the completely abandoned pool in the middle of the complex. She shivered slightly as she walked down the stairs and made her way to the front desk. A young man was snoozing in the chair behind the desk, and she smiled slightly at him as she placed her key card and enough cash to cover one night on the desk, before turning and walking out of the motel.

She made her way to her car, an old convertible, and threw her travel bag in the back, on top of the other boxes that were making the cross-country trip with her. She slid her arms into her coat and tried to button it. After a five-minute struggle with the buttons, she gave up, sighed disgustedly, and got into her car. As she started the car, Sam Phillips started singing to her, a tape that had been stuck in there for the past two days. Rory smiled slightly and pulled out of the motel parking lot, pressing the button to make the top go up as she eased onto the highway.

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Lorelai walked away from the window and started pacing around her living room again. She hadn't heard from her daughter in almost six months, and then suddenly she'd received a call, saying that her daughter would be there soon, in time for the first snow, and that was all.

Now she was pacing around her room, freaked, because this was her daughter, and her daughter had been pushing her away for over a year now, and had just recently—six months—gotten rid of her completely. Lorelai hadn't even gotten to tell her daughter that she'd started a relationship, a very good relationship, and she thought that this relationship was going to work.

Only, her boyfriend didn't like it when she called it a "relationship"—he said it made him feel pressured, as if he had to "do something" to really be in a "relationship". And he always used air quotes when he said those three words. Lorelai would just grin, push his air quotes away from her, and kiss him, and he'd usually drop the whole thing.

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Rory's stomach growled, and she patted it reassuringly, leaving one hand on the steering wheel. It continued growling, however, and she groaned, knowing that since she was on a back highway, her best bet for food had probably been the crappy motel she'd left twenty minutes ago. But the crappy motel hadn't had any good food, so Rory hadn't eaten—for about a day now, she realized. Her stomach realized it too, and wouldn't stop growling.

Rory leaned over and turned Sam up louder, hoping that if she sang loud enough, Rory could forget about her hunger, and just get to her destination.

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Lorelai groaned loudly and walked out of her house, leaving her jacket on the coat rack.

Snow. It was snowing, and Rory wasn't here yet.

Lorelai shivered and wrapped her arms around her as tightly as she could, not warming herself up at all. She almost cried as the snow continued, the first snow of the season, falling all around her, dropping at her feet, settling in her hair and on her eyelashes, and basically reminding her that this was supposed to be her favorite time of year, the first snow, but it wasn't.

It was also the twenty-third anniversary of Rory's birth, but that didn't bring comfort either.

Lorelai groaned again, wiped the almost-tears from the corners of her eyes, and headed back inside, locking the front door behind her, locking the snow out.