Gilmore Girls Season 8

Episode One: You've Done Good | Part 1

Three Years After the Season Seven finale: 

Rory Gilmore is sitting in her hotel room staring at an evite she had received from her mother.

Luke Danes and Lorelai Gilmore's Bridal/Groom Shower
August 22nd at 2 P.M.
Please R.S.V.P. as soon as possible.

Rory laughed as she looked at her calendar and saw that it was exactly five days from her mother's bridal shower. She dialed her mother's number and Lorelai quickly picked up.
"Hey, it's my non-responsive offspring!" Lorelai's chipper voice came into the phone.
"You sent an evite for your bridal shower." Rory laughed.
"I did, is that bad?" Lorelai asked.
"No, I'm just curious what you and Luke are going to do for your actual wedding invitations. A text saying 'hey come to my wedding this saturday?'" Rory laughed even harder.
"You're sounding like my mother." Lorelai groaned. "And no, I am sending actual invitations out for the wedding. Fancy font and everything." Rory could feel her mother smile through the phone when she spoke about the font. 
"So when is the wedding?" 
"September 30th." 
"Are you excited? Oh my God, I haven't even seen your dress yet. Luke hasn't seen it right? You know that's bad luck." Rory ranted.
"Hun, you'll see my dress don't worry." Her mother laughed. "No, Luke hasn't seen it. He almost did though, I had it laying on my bed in my room and when he walked in to surprise me with lunch he saw a glimpse before I screamed and he turned around and ran downstairs." 
"That sounds eventful. I miss hearing these eventful stories, I miss you!" Rory frowned.
"I miss you, too hun. How's the Obama campaign going?" 
"So, so good. Mom, I've met so many legendary reporters already, it's incredible." 
"You brushed your teeth the mornings before you met them, right?" 
"Yes, mom." Rory rolled her eyes, checking the time on her computer. "Oh, crap! I have to run. I gotta start finishing this report before midnight." Rory panicked as she was fifteen minutes off schedule.
"Okay, love ya hun." 
"Love you, too." Rory hung up and begun writing her paper.

Four days later, Rory said goodbye to her writing team temporarily and left for the train station. For the first time in three whole months she'd finally be seeing her mother for two days, then two whole weeks for the wedding. Rory could not be more excited.

As Rory boarded the train, she beamed as she saw a window seat and she quickly took it. Rory pulled out her iPod as she put her headphones in, starting to listen to music. Ten minutes after Rory had sat down, she heard a familiar voice.
"Is this seat taken?" She looked up and saw Jess Mariano. Her ex-boyfriend from years ago. 
"Jess?" She stood up, smiling. 
"Rory." He gave a soft smile and she hugged him. 
"Of course this seat isn't taken." Rory laughed. 
"Then here is where I shall sit." He gave a small laugh. She pulled her headphones out of her ears and the speaker announced that the train would be leaving shortly. 
"How've you been?" Rory asked.
"Good, still working at the publishing company in Philly. What about you?" 
"I'm working as an online journalist for the presidential campain with Barack Obama." 
"Oh my God, that's fantastic, Rory. You graduated Yale not too long ago, right?" 
"Yeah back in May." She smiled. 
"How's-" he paused thinking. "-Logan?" 
"We broke up." 
"I'm sorry." 
"It's fine, he um proposed and I didn't want that, yet." She looked down. 
"So, anyone else in the picture?" 
"No." She gave a soft smile. "What about you?" 
"No." He laughed. 
"Well, have you written anymore books? How's that going?" She quickly asked. 
"I'm working on one." Jess smiled.
"That's great, I still carry your first book around with me and read it from time to time." Rory admitted.
"You do not." He laughed. She pulled her carry-on bag out from underneath the seat in front of her and pulled out his book. "And you proved me wrong, but you always seemed to do that." He laughed.

The two caught up as the train took off from New York. 
"So, what were you doing in New York?" Rory questioned him as she took in his appearance. He was wearing a black suit jacket with a plain t-shirt underneath, white. His hair resembled a little bit more of how it did when they were dating in highschool rather than how it did when they saw each other last, nearly a year and a half ago when Rory saw him at his publishing company.
"I met an author that we've been trying to get to come to our company. He's pretty well-known and after his old publishing company 'irritated' him, he just left then gave a call to us." He boasted.
"That's great." She smiled widely at him.
"What were you doing in New York?" 
"Following Obama, he did a press conference about a day ago there. My team already moved to the next city but I stayed behind for the night for Luke and my mom's wedding shower." She smiled.
"Ah, so you're going to that, too." He chuckled.
"Yeah," she laughed. "Jess, look, I kinda wanted to get this out of the way, but I am so sorry about the last time we saw eachother. I was in a bad place." 
"All's forgiven, Gilmore." He smiled. "I do want to hear about what was going on with you and Dean back in your freshman year of college. Didn't he get married?" 
"Oh my God, it was such a mess." She put her head in her hands, laughing. "He got married." 
"Married? To who?" 
"This girl named Lindsey, who I liked a lot but I don't know. Dean and I kinda picked the whole friends thing back up then it ended up being this weird relationship thing when he decided to divorce Lindsey." 
"What?" Jess' eyes' widened.
"Not even kidding," She sighed. "but, that ended and I haven't seen or heard from him since and honestly I'm really glad." She laughed.
"You're glad?" 
"He brought a lot of drama into my life there towards the end and the last thing I wanted to do was contribute to a divorce." She groaned. 
"Lorelai must've been thrilled." 
"She hated it. We went on this double date thing with my mom and Luke and oh my God it was so awkward." Rory laughed.
"Did you bring out a party game to try to defuse the tension?" 
"You know us too well."
"That's one of the side effects of knowing the Gilmores. Hey, speaking of awkward, remember that dinner we had at your grandmother's when I had that black eye?" 
"Yes." Rory laughed even harder.