A/N: Apologies for the short chapter. I just didn't care to much for the episode.

Thea really didn't want to go to a Friday Night Dinner, but since Rory was taking Anthony with her to meet Rory's grandparents, Thea was dragging Sage and Aiden with her.

Emily and Richard had been surprised at the sight of Thea's new dyed hair, but they were glad to see Sage and Aiden.

Their surprise had nothing on the surprise Anthony had, because somehow the dyed hair escaped his notice.

So, Anthony had gone into the dorm, saw some girl making out with Sage, with her on top, and kind of yelled, "Sage, what the hell are you doing?"

Thea had looked at Anthony, a bit confused, and Anthony had apologized, because he thought Sage was cheating, due to the different hair.

He had been embarrassed about the situation. He apologized profusely for thinking that Sage was a cheater. Most of the apologies had been directed at Sage for that.

Sage was, surprisingly, okay with it. He was glad that Anthony had been worried about Thea though.

Emily passed out drinks, "Do you want wine Anthony?"

"Ah, no, I don't drink alcohol. And even if I did, I'd rather not drive back to New Haven," Anthony replied. "Water is fine."

"Well, that's very responsible of you," Lorelai replied.

"Yeah, well, I was in a car accident that killed four people when I was seventeen," Anthony said. "I mean, I didn't drive, but I was dumb enough to get in the car with the guy who was clearly wasted and shouldn't have been driving. There were four others in the backseat, when there really should've been three. All I remember thinking was 'are those headlights getting closer?' And then waking up on the ground and noticing a bone in my arm sticking out and then going 'huh, that's not good.' and then I turned and saw one of my friends lying there, and thinking 'that's really not good'. She lived and was just paralyzed from the waist down."

"That explains a lot," Thea pointed out.

All she knew was that Anthony said his parents found weed in his room, which was probably what he was using to cope with and then his parents threw him out. Yeah, throw out their car crash surviving son out of the house.

Add the trauma of the car accident, getting disowned, the homelessness, and it all led him to heroin and alcoholism. Makes sense.

Emily gave Thea a weird look as she passed Anthony a glass of water.

"What does that mean?" asked Lorelai.

"My mom had my half-brother like a week ago," Sage said quickly, while Aiden decided to engage Thea in a game of thumb wrestling.

"What's his name?" asked Richard.

"Coriander," Thea said. "Cory for short."

They eventually made their way to the dining room when dinner was ready.

After an awkward moment of eating, Sage was trying to play footsie with Thea.

"Anthony, what did you do before you went to college?" asked Richard, eyeing the man.

"Uh, I worked at a marketing firm," Anthony replied.

"Don't you need a degree for that?" asked Richard.

"I lied and said I had one and worked there for like four years and they never asked to see it," Anthony replied. "And then my housemate got murdered and I decided to move back in with my parents, and worked at a Baskin-Robbins for like a year and then worked at a pizzeria."

"And what made you decide to go to college?" asked Emily.

"My parents decided they were done being embarrassed by my lack of college education and how I was embarrassing them by working at a pizzeria," Anthony replied. "Somehow I was the family embarrassment even though we got grave-robbing Uncle Lynn, who desecrated infants' graves to steal their scalps and hair to put on the porcelain dolls that he made and sold."

"Sounds like his career's in the grave," Sage muttered.

Rory, Anthony, Thea, and Aiden started laughing at that.

Lorelai looked at Emily and Richard. Apparently they agreed on one thing: Anthony wasn't being honest and Rory clearly knew it.

Lane asked Rory, "Hey, what time do you have?"

"Uh, five to four," Rory replied.

"Five minutes before I can go down to the bakery to see Dave when he goes on break," Lane said.

"Hey, are we still mad at him?" asked Lorelai.

"We never were," Lane replied.

"That's right," Lorelai said. "Must be Jackson. We're mad at Jackson for something he said to Sookie."

"No, we're not," Rory replied.

"You sure?" asked Lorelai.

"Yes," Rory said.

"Must be Sage, then," Lorelai said. "We're mad because...?" She couldn't think of a good reason to be mad at the guy.

"We're not mad at him," Rory replied.

"This is gonna bug me," Lorelai said.

Rory asked Lane, "So, you heard from Zach?"

"We did," Lane replied. "He got mad because we replaced him with an 'old guy'. His words – not mine."

"And that's why we're mad at Zach," Lorelai said.

"We're not mad at Zach," Rory said.

"Must be Adam," Lorelai said.

Rory looked at Lane, who looked at her, "I know who we're mad at."

"Who?" asked Lorelai.

"You because you can't get Aiden's name right," Rory said, linking arms with Lane and walking away. Over her shoulder, she called to Lorelai, "Say hi to the baby for me."

"Is it just me or are they getting a little...too close?" asked Aiden, looking at Paris and Liberty.

Thea looked over at Paris and Liberty, who did seem close. She shrugged, "Well, it is college."

Aiden ripped a bread roll in half and passed it to Thea.

Rory came over and sat at their table, looking angry.

"What pissed you off?" asked Sage.

"I did," Rory said. "I upset Anthony."

"What did you do?" asked Thea, surprised. The guy normally seemed chill and seemed to go with the flow. Sure, he did get a bit upset over the judgemental looks he got from Stars Hollow because they instantly clocked that he was a former drug addict.

Rory handed over a newspaper clipping. Thea never really read the school newspaper, so she looked at it.

"You finally got an article published," Thea told Rory.

"Just keep reading," Rory said.

Thea did, slightly cringing at the harshness of the ballet that had been performed.

"Okay, is comparing the ballerina to a hippo really necessary?" asked Sage, giving Rory a 'bitch, what' look.

"That's what Anthony told me," Rory replied.

"You know he was formerly fat, right?" asked Sage.

"He told me after I showed him the article," Rory said. "And then he told me that other kids used to call him McFatty. And that one of his aunts called him the Hidenburg because she ran out of insults and resorted to insulting him historically. And when his mom heard that, she threw the aunt out the window and that's how his mom got arrested."

"My family needs to meet his family," Aiden said.

"His family sounds way crazier than yours," Sage told him.

"His family clearly has no problems with going to jail," Thea added.

"And someone wrote Die, Jerk on our door," Rory added.

"That wasn't Anthony," Sage pointed out.

Rory looked at him, "I know that it wasn't him. Paris thinks that she made someone mad enough to warrant a death threat."

A woman walked over to the table. She looked between Thea and Rory, "Which one of you is Rory Gilmore?"

Rory said, "I'm Rory."

"Remember me?" the woman said.

"I don't think so," Rory replied.

"That's very flattering," the woman said.

Thea was confused, "What do you need?"

"Stay out of it," the woman said to Thea. "This is between me and her." She looked at Rory, "Let's see if this jogs your memory: I have the grace of a drunken dock worker."

"Oh," Rory replied.

"Remember me now?" replied the ballerina.

"The ballerina from the ballet," Rory stated.

"That's right," the ballerina replied.

"Your outfits are made of tulle, aren't they?" asked Rory.

"You're a jerk!" yelled the ballerina.

Sage grabbed Thea's arm and pulled her out of her seat, so they could get away from the mess.

"I know," Rory replied. "You wrote that on my door."

"You're lucky that's all I did!" yelled the ballerina.

"Should we really leave her in there?" asked Thea.

"Probably not, but she has to face the consequences of comparing someone to a hippo," Aiden replied with a shrug.

Sage looked back at the woman, "She's not even that fat, anyway. What the hell was Rory thinking writing that?"

Thea wondered the same thing.