A/N: Well, here it is, the final chapter of Making Their Way. Enjoy!
She had been walking past the house nearly every week since Rory had pointed it out. It was small, but not without its charms. Twice she had tiptoed to the living room windows and peeked inside, planning where various articles of furniture would go. Yearly evaluations were coming up, and Lorelai was fairly certain that a raise was coming her way. The thought of owning her own house made her heart swell painfully. Maybe in a few years she could buy a car.
She knew Rory liked this house. She'd put it on her Christmas list every year since she was six, and she really loved the Dells, who lived next door. She spent hours playing with the gnomes that populated Babette's yard and trying to feed the fairies from the fairy ring – a tree stump to the naked eye – near their front porch.
As much as she loved the little shed at the Inn, Lorelai wanted desperately to be more involved in Stars Hollow. Besides the fact that living in town was more convenient – closer to the market and the restaurants and the bank – she loved the town itself. Miss Patty, former exotic beauty and current reigning busybody; Maury Dell, jazz pianist; his wife Babette, who collected garden gnomes; Taylor Doose, who having risen to two selectman and inherited his father's market now considered himself the most important man in town; Andrew the owner of the local bookstore; Gypsy the mechanic; Kirk the, well, Kirk…the list went on.
In fact, Lorelai was certain there was only one person in town that she had not met: the elusive Luke Danes. She knew his history front to back because Patty and Babette had told her about a zillion times. He'd run track in high school; his mother died when he was young; his father a few years ago (she remembered that); after high school he'd gone to the community college. No one knew what he'd gone for, no one knew what would happen to Will Danes's hardware store, and every time Patty was forced to admit that her information had run out, she turned a fun shade of purple.
But Luke Danes wasn't the point. Stars Hollow was everything she'd learned to value, and she wanted to be part of it. She wanted to belong to it.
"Are we there yet?"
"Don't you dare start that, or I'll take us straight home."
"Mom, where are we going?"
"You'll see!"
"I don't want to see. I want to know."
"We need to work on your sense of spontaneity."
"My what?"
"Spontaneity. Doing things without thinking about them."
"Why would I do that?"
Lorelai sighed. "How are you my daughter?"
Rory blinked, looking around. "The car stopped."
"Yes. It does that occasionally. Good thing, too, or we'd be driving for the rest of our lives."
"We're at a furniture store. A used furniture store."
"I knew you were my smartest daughter," Lorelai beamed.
"I'm your only daughter."
"Blah, blah, blah." Lorelai hopped out of the car, which she'd borrowed from Sookie.
"Why are we here?" Rory called, climbing out after her.
"Follow me and see!" Lorelai singsonged, dancing towards the doors.
A few minutes later they stood in front of a row of used bookshelves. Rory's confusion was absolute.
"We're buying a bookcase."
"Yes!"
"We don't have room for a bookcase," Rory insisted, ever practical. "The shed is too small."
"We're not just getting a bookcase. We're getting a bookcase, and a desk, and two dressers!"
"Mom, you're crazy. We can't fit all that in the shed!"
Lorelai took a deep breath. "I know." Rory stared at her. "Babe…we're moving out of the shed."
"We're…what?"
"We're moving out of the shed. We have a house."
"A – a house?" Rory clapped her hands over her mouth. "A real house?" she squealed.
"Yes!"
"A house!"
"Yes!"
"Oh my gosh!"
"I know!"
They grabbed each other's hands and jumped up and down, squealing at top volume.
"It's really ours?" Rory asked in awe. They were in their new house, wandering around, picturing what would go where.
"Sure is, kiddo. Well, ours and the bank's. And by the time you're thirty, I might be able to pay it off."
"But it's ours." Rory wandered into the kitchen. "This can be my room, right?" she called when she discovered the small bedroom off to the right.
"Absolutely! That way I get the nice big one up here!" Lorelai called from the upstairs hallway.
"There are lots of cabinets in the kitchen. What are they for?" Rory asked as Lorelai joined her.
"I guess some people put pans and stuff in them for cooking."
"Us? Cooking?"
"Strange, foreign notion."
"Very strange."
"We can put your books in there, then."
"I have a bookshelf for that."
Lorelai scoffed. "Right. And all my makeup fits in my purse."
Lorelai watched as Rory walked slowly around the garden shed, making sure that none of her toys or books would be left behind. She went about it as she did everything: slowly, methodically, her forehead wrinkled in concentration, eliminating every possibility before she was satisfied.
"Everything's packed, Mom," she said finally, joining Lorelai at the door. "Let's go."
"Wait a minute," Lorelai said, taking her arm to keep her from running out the door. "Just take a second to say good-bye to the old shed."
Rory turned and stared into the shed – the ancient flowered wallpaper, the tiny bed, the sheet hanging between the main area and the bathroom area. "It's so tiny," she said. "I'm glad we're going to the big house."
"But won't you miss it? We grew up here."
Rory's eyes softened. "Yeah. But we're grown up now. It's just time for a change." She turned and walked out to where Mia stood with her son John and his truck, loaded with their few belongings.
"Yeah," Lorelai said softly. "Time for a change." She went quiet, looking around her first home where Rory had said her first words, taken her first steps, read her first book. Memories crowded her mind, one after another, until they became tears and trickled down her cheeks. She reached out and took the doorknob, pulling the door shut. Before it closed completely she poked her head in again and whispered into the empty room.
"Thanks for everything."
The End
A/N2: To be continued? I have the first chapter of a second part already written and I know what I want to do with it, but will anyone be interested in reading it? Review please!
Thanks for all the reviews, everybody. It's been a blast!