Disclaimer: The characters belong to the rightful owners. As usual just borrowing them.

Cue taken from Rory's comment in Gilmore Girls Only about how Lorelai and Emily would get on once she left.

A New Phase

1

Gulping the last of her now tepid coffee Lorelai pushed the brass doorbell of her parents' house and sighed heavily. Friday night dinner without Rory, it was a disaster waiting to happen, but…. She lost her train of thought as the door was yanked open the moment the bell finished ringing.

"Oh it's you," Emily looked flustered as she peered past Lorelai to the immaculate driveway.

Lorelai stopped herself from rolling her eyes. A flustered Emily was never a good sign. "You were expecting someone else?"

"No, well…" Emily waved her in, closing the door behind her. "Yes…" Emily looked her up and down "Hello. Thank you for not wearing jeans."

Lorelai blinked back surprise, her mother was trying to joke with her. "You…" her mother held up her hand her head leaning forward as she discerned some barely perceptible noise from outside.

"That's them," Emily threw open the door and practically bolted out of the door.

Lorelai's mouth dropped in confusion and she moved to the door to watch what the hell was going on with her mother. Them, turned out to be a small beaten up blue hatchback. Her mother was blocking her view of the driver, but for the life of her Lorelai couldn't fathom who her mother knew who would own such a car. She watched as her mother took a step back allowing the car to drive away before casting a look down at the ground to see if there was any damage to the concrete. Emily turned and scurried back towards the house clutching a white bag covered in an image of a gazebo and the words China Garden.

"I'm not sure that car is road worthy," Emily muttered as she reached the door her path blocked by Lorelai who was staring at her mother with complete confusion. "Lorelai! Will you let me enter my own house please?"

"You ordered Chinese food," Lorelai blurted taking a step backwards so her mother could enter. "You ordered Chinese food?" she repeated

"You like Chinese food," Emily retorted, her voice rising dangerously

"I know I like Chinese food," Lorelai followed her mother as Emily moved further into the house. "Do you like Chinese food?"

"Yes I do," Emily stopped outside the dining room and turned to face her daughter. "Your father is having a dinner at Yale, it's some faculty function, so I thought we could be a bit spontaneous."

"Spontaneous…?!" Lorelai managed to mutter before having to close her eyes to process what was going on. "You ordered Chinese food, have you had an…" She opened her eyes and instantly felt awful at her incredulity. Her mother's eyes had narrowed and had darkened with annoyance, the eyebrows were raising, while her mouth had thinned slightly, her face going rigid. Lorelai gulped, the evening was about to descend south from crazy into argument. "I love Chinese food Mom, I'm just really surprised. We've never had take out before."

"I thought you might like a treat given that…" Emily voice trailed off to just above a whisper.

"Have you spoken to her?" Lorelai took the cue, Rory was a safe subject.

Emily's face softened, "Yesterday. She sounded tired but she's having a wonderful time."

"It's a great opportunity for her," Lorelai smiled at the pride she heard in her mother's voice. "Er Mom?" Lorelai stared at the unset dining table. "Where are we eating?"

"On the patio," Emily gestured towards the open doors at the rear of the house. "The weather is lovely and well…"

"We're being spontaneous," Lorelai finished. "So patio."

"Patio," Emily nodded, her demeanour relaxing.

Together they moved out onto the patio, the air was warm, the little courtyard warmed from the still present sun and the large patio heaters.

"It looks great Mom," Lorelai sank into one of the seats and studied the ornate place setting, a gold leafed soup bowl set on linen placemat, a spoon, fork and chop sticks set beside. In the centre of the table was a glass top lazy-susan, 3 tealight candles in a crystal holder in the centre. Behind the revolving circular glass there were two jugs containing clear liquids, one of which Lorelai hoped was a premixed cocktail.

Emily smiled warmly as she set about pulling the cardboard boxes from the bag, setting them on the lazy susan so they could be easily shared. "I ordered something from each section. I wasn't sure what you like."

"Sounds great," Lorelai smiled. It seemed the right thing to do, despite the fact that she was completely baffled by her mother's behaviour. "So, have you ever had take out before?"

Emily sat down and gave a heavy sigh of what sounded like nervousness and anticipation. "Never like this. I just thought you might… I know it's…" she looked awkwardly at her plate. "How are you feeling?"

Lorelai held her breath and nodded softly, the craziness was her mother's way of trying to ease Rory leaving. "I keep pretending she's still at Yale, and then she calls and I remember she's not. It's dumb," Lorelai reached for a carton, using it as an excuse to collect her thoughts. "Everything reminds me of her and I keep remembering things that I haven't thought about in years. It's stupid she hasn't lived properly with me for 4 years. But I dunno I guess it's just me missing her" she opened the carton and peered inside.

"I had the same thing, you were everywhere but you were gone."

Lorelai looked up at her mother's small horribly fragile sounding voice. The woman in front of her didn't look like prim proper upright Emily Gilmore, the woman in front of her was slightly hunched and looked old and frightened. Lorelai panicked and her brain went to diffuse tension with humour mode "Must have been some kind of PTSD flashback kind of thing for you."

It was the wrong thing to say.

Emily's face dropped. "I have wonderful memories of you Lorelai," Emily told her softly and she carefully folded the napkin on her lap. Her attention focused down so not to make eye contact.

"That's…" Lorelai picked up the next carton, trying to think of something to say that wasn't going to make her mother cry or flip out. "From when I was little?"

"From your whole life," Emily gave her a watery smile.

Lorelai made a scoffing sound. "Even when I was a teenager and in the running for the demon daughter award?"

"Yes, even then," Emily finally reached for a carton. "A lot of them are little moments, things I don't think you realised I saw, but there are a few when we engaged in conversation. It wasn't all yelling."

Lorelai's shoulders sagged, all she really remembered from being a teenager was being in a near constant argument with her mother, the feeling of anger brought about by being constantly misunderstood and unheard and the crushing sense that she was a disappointment. "I don't…what are they?" She closed her eyes in annoyance at herself, danger danger Will Robinson, played in her mind.

Emily used the act of spooning rice on her plate to give her time. "My 40th birthday, I came downstairs and you were already up and dressed and beside my seat was this little box with a big silver bow, and you looked at me so worried, so anxious and begged me to open your gift," Emily face fell into a nostalgic smile as she reminisced. "You bought me a glass rose and you were so worried that I already had one. When I told you no and that I loved it, you leapt up and threw your arms around me, gave me this great big hug and kissed me." Emily sighed slightly "We had barely spoken for the 3 weeks prior and I don't think we'd embraced like that for over 2 years and well…" Emily trailed off.

Lorelai took a sharp intake of breath, she vaguely remembered what her mother was talking about, some tiny blip of peace 24 years ago. She wondered if she had actually embraced her mother like that since. "I sort of remember."

"It was a long time ago," Emily told her, her voice was low, soft, "perspective makes things be remembered differently by different people I think. My favourite memory of you as a teenager was just before Rory was born."

Lorelai nearly choked on a mouthful. "Your favourite memory of me as a teenager was from when I was pregnant!"

Emily nodded softly, "Yes, I was bringing you back from your 36 week doctor's appointment, you just looked so miserable. You'd been cooped up in the house for over a month and I just couldn't bring myself to take you home just yet, so I turned right instead of left. You looked at me like I was mad when I pulled up in front of the baby store and made some remark about how I had already bought the entire store and…"

"Ducks," Lorelai blurted, "You said I needed a theme and I chose ducks."

Emily's face broke into a beaming smile as she realised Lorelai remembered, "We bought everything in that store that had a duck on in it, and as we were going back to the car you grabbed my arm and you looked so panicked I thought you'd gone into labor."

"I needed the bathroom," Lorelai shook her head in disbelief as the memory came back to her.

"There was a bakery with a café just down the street so we went in," Emily put down her cutlery and her hand inched towards Lorelai a fraction before she pulled them from the table and folded them in her lap. "You told me I couldn't have coffee because you couldn't, so I got us tea and I bought you a slice of cake because I thought…Well I don't know what I thought." She shrugged and continued her reminiscing. "When you came back from the restroom you stared at the cake like it was some great mystery, then marched up to the counter got another fork and came back and thrust it at me. You were annoyed because you wouldn't be able to eat the whole piece because the baby took up too much room." Emily returned to her plate, "I told you you'd done the same."

"I remember," Lorelai sat forward. "We talked about being really pregnant, how sometimes it sucked," she frowned, she felt annoyed and wasn't sure if she was feeling annoyed at herself for not remembering the clearly close moment she had shared with her mother or angry that there hadn't been more like it. It had been a moment when her mom had been like a friend, not her mother, it had been a moment like her own relationship Rory. "You told me you got stuck, was it the pool? No, the bath tub."

"Both," Emily rolled her eyes.

"How did you get stuck?" Lorelai picked up one of the half empty carton's and spooned a portion onto her plate.

"In the pool, I couldn't climb up the ladder, you were in the way. Your father had to come in the pool and push me out." Emily blushed, "and the bathtub, well, I probably could have done it in the end, but I was a week overdue and I just couldn't get into a position to pull myself to standing. I think I thought I would slip, your father rescued me again and then sat with me while I had a meltdown about how I was the size of a hippo and that you were never coming out, and he told me I wasn't and…" Emily trailed off. "You came the next day." she finished softly.

"The two things are connected?" Lorelai looked up from her plate and grimaced as she realised what her mother was saying. "Oh…Mom! Oh gross, mental picture I really didn't need?!" Emily blushed beet red. Lorelai shook her head trying to clear her mind from the unwanted image. Taking a cleansing breath she tried to continue the nice moment she was having with her mother. "That was a good afternoon, the bakery."

"It was, it was good between us for a couple of weeks," Emily agreed taking a white prawn cracker and placing it on the sauce that had accumulated in the base of the bowl. "I mean don't get me wrong, you were miserable, grumpy and snappy but it was all about being heavily pregnant,"

Lorelai glanced across at her mother and saw the end of the sentence, the it wasn't my fault had been left unsaid. She stopped herself from rolling her eyes. If her mother could force herself not to finish her thought she could do that. Everything about tonight was reeking of effort on her mother's behalf, she owed Emily to at least try just as hard. "What happened after that, I mean it sounded like we…" she paused as it hit her, the argument that had happened 3 days before Rory had been born. The argument that had led her to not tell her parents she was in labor and had meant she had taken herself off to the hospital and just leaving them a note. "The dinner with the Haydens."

Emily sighed heavily and crushed the soaked cracker with her spoon flattening it into the porcelain. "That was an awful night, and after that you would barely look at me, and if you did look at me it was…it was" she sighed again but it sounded more like she was trying to prevent herself crying. "I bought ice cream," pushing her seat back and almost running from the table. "I'll get it, Rory said…"

What Rory said was left untold as Lorelai watched her mother practically run from her, setting her cutlery down she slouched into her chair and folded her arms around her. She didn't like to think about that time, it all hurt too much, and she had always blamed them but when she really thought about it, half the reason her relationship with her mother was so bad was because of her own actions. During her pregnancy once they got past the inevitable arguments the situation had wrought, her mother had tried so hard, and she had just ignored her, or pushed her away or when she couldn't do that just yelled. Lorelai grimaced, she'd accused her mother of never caring about her once, but so much of Emily's actions in the past that she had taken as just her mother trying to control her or butting in where she wasn't wanted was her mother caring. If Emily hadn't cared she wouldn't have bothered. So much of this awful cycle that they got into was because Emily cared. Lorelai exhaled sharply, tonight was not the night for this. She and Emily needed a buffer, they were in dangerous territory. She sat thinking about how to bring the conversation to something far more comfortable for both of them. After a couple of minutes she looked over her shoulder towards the door. It was taking too long to get ice cream. Slowly Lorelai stood and crossed the patio, slipping inside the house she took a few steeling breathes and entered into the kitchen.

Her mother was stood staring intently at the pattern of the counter top, her hands gripping the edge. Lorelai exhaled slowly before walking further in, when the sound of her shoes didn't seem to alert her mother to her presence she moved so she was standing opposite Emily, the island between them. A tub of Rocky road ice cream was on the counter and two spoons beside a legal pad that bore her mother's neat handwriting. Lorelai read it and took a sharp intake of breath. It was a list of the food they had just ate and instructions on ice-cream flavours with the words eat out of the carton, underlined, circled and with multiple exclamation points. Rory said. Her mother hadn't just got one of each section, she had asked her granddaughter. She had wasted time from her probably no more than five minutes of speaking time with her granddaughter on what food to order. "Mom," Emily seemed to vibrate slightly before looking up. The mask was in place. "We should watch a movie" Her mother looked as shocked as Lorelai felt about the words that had just come out of her mouth. Lorelai lunged for the ice cream, desperately trying to think of a way to cover her faux pas "We should take this outside It's better when it's melty. Yeah it goes all soft and then I dunno it tastes better" Lorelai panicked hoping that Emily hadn't noticed the massive mistake that had just fallen out of her mouth.

"You want to watch a movie? Now? Do you mean one of those movies that you bought me?" Emily asked her slowly. Lorelai forced herself to smile and nodded, uncertain what to do. Emily stood straighter "We only have a DVD player in the bedroom. We have to eat the ice cream"

With nowhere to run Lorelai turned to the safety of humour. "I can sit on a trash bag, if you're worried that I'll spill. But I assure you Mom I am very good at getting food in my mouth. I've been eating on my own for years, it's one of my specialist skills in fact," Lorelai grinned at her mother. "You bought the good kind of Rocky Road" she studied the ice cream carton.

Emily tipped her head to one side and stared at Lorelai in confusion "You want to watch a movie and eat ice cream in my bedroom?"

Lorelai mirrored her mother's head tipping and smiled uneasily "Sure…"

"You really want to do this?" Emily rounded the island to stand beside Lorelai. Her eyes were wide, hopeful.

"Yes" Lorelai cringed internally,

"But…" Emily hesitated, Lorelai sighed, she knew that but…, it was a way out. Miss Manners was giving her a pass. "Eating in the bedroom? Why watch a movie?"

"We had fun in North Carolina doing it. Maybe it's something we could do together when Dad isn't here, like our thing and maybe when Rory can get home it could be something that we could do together, the three of us…" she trailed off as Emily shook her head, silently thanking her mother for saying no. She sighed and shook her own head in an attempt to reengage her brain.

"I would love to watch a movie with you Lorelai but I can't eat in the bedroom." Emily sighed sadly "It's just not done."

"Ok," Lorelai sighed "It's not done. It was just an idea" She felt relieved.

"Next time your father is not here on a Friday night I want to do movie night." Emily stated slowly. "I will get the DVD player moved and we will make a night of it." Lorelai couldn't help herself at smile by the excited expression on her mother's face. "Our thing," Emily's shoulders scrunched upwards with delight. "How wonderful, our thing."

Before Lorelai realised what she was doing she had leaned forward and kissed her mother on the cheek. She stepped back in surprise, her mother doing the same. The two women stared at each other for a moment neither of them wanting to be the first to react, neither of them wanting to chance that they would say something wrong and ruin the most unusual of moments they were sharing. Finally Emily moved and took her Lorelai's hand into hers and squeezed it tight.

"Ok, so actually happening and not some kinda twilight zone thing," Lorelai smiled awkwardly and let go of her mother's hand. "We should eat the ice cream before it gets too melty" She shook her head slightly, wondering when she had the head injury that made her brain come up with the scenario of having a thing with her mother. Movie night with Emily Gilmore sounds like a barrel of laughs, an epic comedy of errors. She sighed, it hadn't happened yet, maybe it wouldn't. She just had to remember that the next time she saw her mother to have her brain properly installed.