A Series of Different Events

May

A few days before Ari's birthday, Rory and Logan were both at work, Henry was in the nursery at Logan's office, and Ari was in her daycare.

Rory found herself done with work early, so she went home. Even though it was only 1pm, she decided to make dinner then, before everyone got home and the house was chaos. She also made lunch for herself. While she was cooking Lane called. She switched it to FaceTime and propped her phone up on the counter, against the wall.

"What are you doing?" Lane asked

"Lunch for me. Dinner for the kids. Well, dinner for Ari, and a couple of bites for Henry. He'll probably throw most of it on the floor, if I'm being honest" Rory said

"Can you take a 20 second break?" Lane asked. She had news for Rory.

"Yup" Rory said and stopped moving. "What's going on?"

"I'm pregnant"

"Yay!" Rory gasped. "It is yay, right?"

"Yes" Lane said.

"Oh, I'm so excited for you"

"Thank you" Lane said. "We aren't actually telling anyone yet, my mom doesn't even know, but I actually need your advice"

"Shoot"

"What did you eat when you were pregnant?"

Rory chuckled a little. "Nauseous?"

"Nauseous is an understatement"

"Ok, well, I survived on buttered bagels and coco pops for like 4 months when I was pregnant. Pretty much anything else made me sick" Rory told her. "Also if you're super nauseous saltines and ginger ale works pretty well"

"Great" lane said "What else you got?"

"Don't tell a lot of people too early" Rory said. The first time she was pregnant, she and Logan told their family and close friends very soon after finding out, and a week later they had to tell everyone that Rory was no longer pregnant. They decided after that that they wouldn't tell anyone until the second trimester, if she ever got pregnant again, which was a good call because Rory had 3 more miscarriages after that.

"Yeah..." lane said. She knew why Rory said that, and she didn't readily know how to respond

"Don't get weird, it was like 6 years ago, we're past it" Rory said. She and Logan had moved on, but it still hurt to think about.

"Sorry"

"Tell me about you?"

——

A few days later it was Ari's third birthday. Rory and Logan let Ari choose what she wanted to do that day so they ended up and the park and at the zoo. After she opened her presents and they ate dinner, Rory and Logan put both kids in the car and headed to a 'secret surprise', and Ari spent the whole 20 minute drive trying to guess.

"Monkeys" Ari said

"We saw the monkeys already, babe" Rory said

"Nana?" Ari asked. She didn't quite understand that they had to get on a plane in order to see Lorelai.

"We're not going to see nana" Logan said

Ari didn't say anything. After 20 minutes, she finally ran out of guesses, but it didn't matter because they were there. Rory got Henry out of the car and Logan got Ari and they walked into the building which was a big room full of all different kinds of dogs.

"Puppies!" Ari shouted

"That's right" Logan said and put Ari down so she could pet them. "And listen...you get to pick one to come home with us"