"For Choices" Chpt 8 (Gilmore Girls)
Yes! I got another chapter up within a week! Unfortunately, next weekend I have an All-State honor choir thing...Very cool (I got in last year too and loved it, and this year my best friend is in it with me, even on the same voice part) but it's on halloween weekend, which is a bit of a bummer, and takes away time in which I could be writing. Or doing my math homework. :P LOL. Oh well.
Anyway, here ya go! And like I said, anyone who wants to kill me from this point on...please keep it to yourself. :P I'm not fond of flames. But please, just trust me. I do have a game plan, I promise. There is a point. And remember that I really do need to know what ya'll think! :) Thanks so much for all the reviiews so far! Constructive reviews are my favorite, but I love hearing from any of you any time in any way. So enjoy, and have a great rest of the weekend! Thanks!
Chapter 8
June 2009
Jess really didn't have a lot of time, but it was enough to patch things up. By the time he walked Rory back to her apartment they were just as comfortable as they'd been two weeks before, and she insisted on driving him to his hotel to get his things and bringing him to the airport to see him off.
But being there reminded her that she hadn't set foot in that airport since returning home in March...and that only brought thoughts of when she'd left on the campaign job in the first place, still reeling from the final breakup with Logan no matter how 'okay' Lorelai had thought she seemed.
Rory held it together until Jess was gone; she smiled, and she kissed him on the cheek and made him promise to call, and he smiled back and said goodbye and waved, and disappeared through the security gate. Then she got back to her car as quickly as she could, suddenly nauseated.
But only because of the memories. The nausea was only from the memories.
Luke wasn't pushy, and he seemed to know that even though he was married to Lorelai, he couldn't always be privy to everything in the girls' lives. Some things were private...and for now what had happened between Rory and Logan was one of them. Luke had never asked what was wrong with Rory, just if she was all right. He had asked very anxiously if she was all right. Lorelai had told him was that she would be.
She had to be. She was Rory. She would be okay.
But...
No. No thinking. It would be all right. Fate wouldn't dare bite the Gilmores in the ass two generations in a row...would it?
Rory didn't drive to Stars Hollow as she'd planned. She went back to her apartment, took Dramamine, and fell asleep, glad she hadn't previously promised her mother she would be home that weekend. When she woke, she worked until there just wasn't anything to write, and then she wrote a little more-pieces not necessarily assigned that she'd been meaning to take a stab at for weeks. Lorelai called, and Rory told her she was fine-just busy.
But Sunday morning, Lorelai Gilmore showed up on the front doorstep of her apartment building.
Rory's stomach clenched when the buzzer went off, and suddenly she was irrationally afraid that Logan had found her somehow. She didn't even know why the thought of seeing him scared her, exactly, but she barely made it from the kitchen bar to the buzzer without tripping over her own feet.
“H-hello?”
“Are you gonna make me stand down here all day? Do I have a to rent a hot air balloon to get to the third floor?”
“Mom?” Rory frowned at the intercom.
“The one and only. Well, your only mother, not the only mother.”
Rory buzzed her mom up, unlocked her own door and was at the counter huddled over her coffee again when Lorelai let herself into the apartment. “Hey kiddo...”
“Hey, Mom. What's up?”
Her mother took the stool next to her and looked at her with the same intent expression she'd used a week ago. “I came to ask you that question.”
“Mom, I live on my own now. You don't have to assume there's something wrong with me just because I don't come home every weekend.”
“That's not what I mean, and you know it.” They just looked at each other for a moment. “Sweetie, we don't even know if there's anything to worry about at all.”
Rory scowled. “Yeah, we don't know. That's the problem,” she admitted finally. She was more than aware that they'd both known that already, and she wasn't planning on dwelling on it, but it had to be said. “And we can't know until at least next weekend, right? That's the drill, isn't it?”
Lorelai let out a breath. “Yeah...”
“Exactly. So I'm...fine. I'm just...getting to next weekend,” she mumbled, taking a gulp of her coffee. “And I mean, maybe I won't even have to wait until then. If I start in a couple of days like I'm supposed to, that'll be the end of it.” Her mother was still looking at her, until finally she used a hand to pull Rory's head closer so she could kiss her daughter's forehead.
“Ah-Mom!”
“Don't 'Mom' me; and if you don't want to relocate to Stars Hollow, then I'm staying here today.” With that she pulled several discs in clear covers from her overly large purse.
Rory raised an eyebrow. “You came prepared?”
Lorelai set those on the counter and pulled out a few more. “More than prepared.”
“Well...I don't think there's such thing as too many good movies,” she said longingly. Then she realized that they were discs, not tapes. “Wait, you actually rented DVDs?”
Her mother shrugged. “Well, the player's been sitting there since your dad installed that flat screen, and the number of tapes in the video store that haven't been replaced shrinks by the day. Ah, whatever happened to the good old days?”
Rory grimaced. “That's what I'd love to know.”
Lorelai winced in return. “Sorry. Bad choice of words. Okay, so...marathon? Please tell me you have ice cream.”
Rory didn't have any illusions about her mother's attempts to cheer her up working for any longer than in the moment, but it was useless to resist. She gave in anyway and went to the freezer to pull out the two tubs that were already waiting. “What kind of child of yours would I be if I didn't?”
Her mother dropped from her stool to examine the offerings. “Hmm, well, it's the cheap stuff, but as you're just starting out that can be forgiven...”
Lorelai was pacing the entryway when her daughter pulled up in the driveway. Maybe she had spent all of Sunday in a reasonably successful attempt to keep Rory calm, but now it was Friday and all week she had been distracted herself. From the e-mails in fractured, text-speak sentences she'd been getting all week, she didn't think Rory had fared much better.
She opened the door just in time for Rory to all but bound inside, clutching a wadded plastic bag to her chest. Lorelai glanced at the drug store label and resisted the urge to gulp compulsively. “Still nothing?”
Her daughter grimaced. “No...”
“Why didn't you call me? I could have...you know...picked those up for you.”
“I didn't think you would have wanted to do that here. You would have had to drive to Woodbridge or Hartford anyway, and I was coming from Hartford, so...Well, okay, not that it wasn't a little bit of a drive for me too; I made sure to find a drug store well across town from any of Grandma and Grandpa's friends or anyone the Huntzbergers might know, though I'm not really sure why I added their contacts to my avoidance list too, because I certainly don't think Logan would have told them anything, but you know, better safe than sorry, and-“
Lorelai put a hand on her arm. “Wow, sweetie, you want some air with that explanation?”
She let out a breath. “I'm sorry, I just-”
“I know,” she answered quietly.
“You're sure Luke's not coming home for a while?”
“I'm sure.”
Rory's arms tightened where she'd crossed them over her chest, crushing the bag there. The wall blocked the stairs from view, but she glanced in their general direction. “Well...”
Lorelai glanced up with her. “Yeah.”
She followed her daughter out to the stairs and up to the bathroom doorway, where they both stood in awkward silence for a moment. “So...you need to go, or are we gonna have to hang out for a while?”
“No...I need to go.”
“Okay.”
Rory wasn't a child. She was far from being a child. But Lorelai suddenly felt sixteen again, watching her own memories from the outside. Her chest was tight already, and she didn't know what to do. She'd been on the opposite side of this last time...and her own mother had certainly not been there for her, caring and loving and just there, for emotional support or otherwise. She didn't know what that would have looked like.
But whatever it should look like, Lorelai was determined to pull it off.
“So how do you want to do this?” she asked eventually.
Rory looked at the bathroom door, then down at the badly abused package in the bag in her arms, then back at the door. “I don't know. You can wait here, I guess...”
That hurt, a little, but she understood. At least she was here in the first place. At least Rory trusted her. As long as they had that, she couldn't sweat the small stuff.
Lorelai nodded slowly. “Okay...” Rory pushed the door open, but she stopped her daughter before she could go any farther. “Hey, kiddo...” Rory looked back, chewing on her bottom lip. “I love you, okay?” Rory smiled thankfully, air rushing out from her nose in something between a snort and a nervous laugh as she nodded in reciprocation. Then she stepped in and shut the door behind her.
Lorelai leaned against the wall, with half a dozen scenarios playing over and over in her mind's eye. Mostly it was the one she knew they both wanted. Rory would come out in a minute, relieved, and they would both laugh at everything that they'd worried about, at everything that had happened in the past couple of weeks-at Logan, and Jess, and those ridiculous worries, and-
It was the heavy thump from inside that snapped her out of her reverie, and she burst into the bathroom without a thought. The package from the drugstore was on the counter and the rug was out of place and Rory was on her rear end on the floor, hanging on the edge of the bathtub, pants pulled up but not buttoned and looking as if she'd slipped on said out-of-place rug.
“Rory!”
The expression on her daughter's face was also one of dead panic.
Rory pointed at the package. “I'm fine! I just went to grab one, and-“ She kicked at the rug. “Hand me another one.”
“Another one?” Lorelai repeated, a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Rory kicked at something else as she hauled herself back to her feet, and it skittered across the floor towards her mother-though that probably hadn't been her intention. “Yes; that one's defective! Hand me another one!” She went for the package herself, and Lorelai's attention went to the stick on the floor at her feet.
She had to brace her hands on the sides of the doorway she was standing in when she saw the abundantly clear readout glaring at her from within the tiny circle on it's side. She didn't even have to bend down to pick it up.
“Rory...”
“Why won't this stupid plastic open!” she complained, not listening.
When she was sure she had her breath Lorelai swallowed and stepped over the offending thing on the floor to get to her daughter. “Rory.”
Rory still hadn't gotten the plastic off the second test, and she dropped it and grabbed for a third, probably hoping for a more cooperative package, but Lorelai took her by the shoulders and pulled her back. “Honey, you just peed; I don't think it'll happen again in the next five minutes.”
“But-!”
“Come on, sweetheart, out of the bathroom.”
“But Mom, I-it-!“
She tugged, gaining a couple of feet. “Come on.”
“But...but...”
Rory was near to hyperventilation, and Lorelai pulled her out, closed the bathroom door behind them, and let the both of them sink to the floor against the wall in the hallway. Rory was still for a moment, but then tried to jump up again.
“But I have to-“
Lorelai held her down. “Not right now.”
“But...”
“Rory, sit. Breathe,” she ordered.
Rory sat-collapsed, more like-and Lorelai didn't know how long she was there, just holding onto her. It could have been minutes or hours or days, and she wouldn't have known the difference. Even when Rory was finally breathing evenly, leaning against her calmly, silently, still neither of them moved. Neither of them said a word.
Lorelai was preparing to tentatively break the silence when Rory did it for her.
“It wasn't supposed to happen like this,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
“I was supposed to be thirty and married and successful, and it was supposed to make me happy...and after everything with Sherry and Sookie and my being freaked out like an idiot over the whole...thing, I didn't know if I ever wanted it to happen...” She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them tightly, letting out an uneven breath. “It wasn't supposed to happen this way; I wasn't supposed to-“
She stopped abruptly, but Lorelai heard the rest of the sentence anyway. I wasn't supposed to do the same thing you did.
They were silent again, staring together at the wall across the hallway.
This time Lorelai succeeded in being the one to break it.
“Rory...it's not the same.” Her daughter just looked at her disbelievingly. “Well, it's not. You're not sixteen.”
“Mom, it doesn't matter-“
“Yes it does. It does. You...have already graduated from college. You have a decent job, and a place to live, and family and friends who love you. This is completely different from what happened to me. You'll...be fine. You'll be fine.” She said it twice more to convince herself than because she thought Rory needed to hear it twice. On the contrary, she had quite good ears. “You're completely capable of taking care of...a child.”
Rory grimaced. “That's assuming that I...you know, have it.”
Lorelai's eyebrows went up. “Oh. Well...I mean, I guess that's up to you...” She shrugged uncertainly. “I guess you could-“
“No, I can't,” Rory huffed, wincing as she dismissed it already. “I mean, what if you'd done that? Where would I be?”
“Right...”
“Yeah...” She looked down at herself. “I couldn't do that to whatever...whoever...” Her feet slid out suddenly, making room for her hands as they flew to her stomach. “Oh my god there's a person in there!”
Rory looked up again, and the deer-in-headlights expression return in full force. “Mom, what am I supposed to do? What am I going to do?” she demanded. Her breathing sped up again, almost dangerously so, and Lorelai grabbed her shoulders.
“Sweetie, calm down.”
“Calm down? Calm down? Mom, I'm pregnant!” Her hands came up to scrape her hair out of her face, and when she dropped them her eyes had misted over. She snorted, or maybe she meant to, but it came out more like a sob and Lorelai's throat clenched. “I'm pregnant,” she repeated more quietly, as if she hadn't believed it until that moment. She probably hadn't. Lorelai was still having trouble with that one herself.
Rory sobbed again. “What do I do?” she said again. “W-what about Logan? What will everyone in town think, and oh god, Grandma and Grandpa! What about-“
“Rory, slow down. We don't have to think about everything all at once.” She was having trouble thinking at all. She just...didn't understand. Maybe Rory wasn't perfect, but what was the point of this? Why would whatever Powers That Be let this happen to her? It didn't compute.
In moments Rory was in her arms again, crying this time, and all Lorelai could do was hold on.
Rory accepted the hot chocolate from her mother and settled back farther into the cushions of the couch-supplemented by the extra blankets and pillows Lorelai had piled around and behind her. It wasn't necessary...but Lorelai had insisted on it anyway, along with pulling out the inordinate amount of junk food piled on the coffee table in front of them.
“All of this, and you wanted hot chocolate? That's against the rules in the summer, you know. Good thing you're my daughter; I wouldn't break the rules for just anyone.”
She took a careful sip of the hot liquid and gave a tentative smile. “Thanks.” Her mother curled up on the other end of the couch and put the TV remotes in her lap, and after another moment Rory sighed. “I'm sorry I completely freaked out on you like that.”
Lorelai snorted. “Are you kidding? Are you seriously trying to apologize for that?”
“Well...”
“Rory, how do you think I reacted? And I was sixteen and I didn't have my mother there with me. I wouldn't have wanted her there.” She sighed. “It's okay. I understand.” Then she leaned forward to rub her daughter's leg. “But you also need to understand that this isn't the end of the world. I'm going to be right here with you. You'll be okay. We will figure this out.”
Rory swallowed and looked away for a moment, and her vision blurred again. Her chest constricted and she pulled in a breath to expand it before it exploded. “But...mom...”
“What?”
She held her mug close and stared into it. “Just say it.”
“Say what?”
“Whatever you want to say-that you're upset, disappointed, mad, you think I'm a horrible person because I let this happen even though I should have known better than most people to be careful...anything. Anything at all; just say something.” She waited a moment and then looked tentatively up.
Lorelai was looking at her with all the love she'd always come to expect-maybe more. Rory didn't feel like she deserved it.
“Rory, listen...yes, I'm a disappointed.”
She grimaced, gulping back fresh tears. “I know, and I'm sorry...”
Her mother scooted closer. “I know, sweetheart, but let me finish.” Rory nodded slowly, and Lorelai started over. “Yes, I'm disappointed, and no, you weren't supposed to turn out like me, but...the thing is, you won't. Like I said; this is different. And no matter the situation, I love you. That's not going to change.”
Rory swiped at her eyes as she halfway laughed her way through an aftershock sob from her breakdown upstairs. “I love you too, Mom.”
Lorelai smiled reassuringly. “Again, you aren't sixteen, and maybe that doesn't make it any less of a mistake, but that does mean it won't be as impossible to manage. You do have a college degree, and a job, and an apartment, and at least some medical coverage, and Luke and I definitely aren't broke. We'll help however we can, or at least I know I will. Who knows? Maybe your dad will too. He's still loaded, and this kid is going to be his first grandchild. You won't have to worry about the money or any of the other logistics.”
Rory sat up suddenly, nearly spilling her hot chocolate all over herself. “But...how am I supposed to take care of a baby? Maybe you finally succeeded with Paul Anka, but that doesn't mean I'm any better at taking care of anything living. What if I completely screw up? What if I kill the the poor thing before I even get it home! Mom, I can't do this-!” She realized she was panicking again, and she deliberately stopped and sat back.
“I'm sorry,” she said quietly. “I never meant to do this to you.”
Lorelai reached up and squeezed her hand, even though both of them were still wrapped around the mug in her grip.
“I know, kiddo.”
Lorelai had told him that Rory was coming over after work and hinted that he shouldn't come home too early, so it was after ten by the time Luke got back to the house. He was surprised when the door opened before he got to it, and he saw it was Lorelai, motioning him to come in quietly. He went as silently as possible, and she shut the door noiselessly behind him.
“What's going on?” he whispered.
“Rory fell asleep on the couch,” she answered just as quietly. “Come on.” She took his hand and led him out to the stairs. He caught a glimpse of Rory, nearly drowned in a sea of blankets and pillows on the striped couch, and the remains of much too much junk food on the coffee table. Then Lorelai pulled him up the stairs and to the bedroom.
“Is she all right?” Luke asked immediately, once the door was closed.
Lorelai let out a breath. “There is a really tricky answer to that question.”
“What?”
“Well, for starters she's had a really long afternoon...” She reached up to rub at her temples. “So have I. God, I need ibuprofen.”
“Lorelai...”
“Look, she gave me permission to tell you, even though she said she should tell you herself-her mess, and all that-but I told her she didn't have to. She really didn't want to, but you know how dutiful she is, and I'm glad she is, but I offered to do it anyway because she wanted to wait up, but she really needed to sleep-“
“Lorelai, what the hell is going on?” he interrupted.
She sighed. “Luke...Rory is pregnant.” She held out her arms in an apologetic shrug. “Sorry. There really wasn't any other way to do that.”
He stared at her for a moment. “You're not serious.”
“I am serious. As a heart attack. You know I wish I wasn't, but as much as I want to be, I'm not superwoman. Or god. Or whatever.”
Luke knew it took two, but he couldn't find it within himself to be angry at Rory. He'd never been capable of being angry at Rory. Frustrated, disappointed, yes, but never angry, and suddenly all he wanted was to incapacitate whoever had done this to her. “B-but she wasn't dating anyone, right?”
“No. She wasn't.”
“Then who the hell-“
“Logan.”
“What?”
“Apparently he was in town visiting his parents, against his will might I add, and they ran into each other in Hartford, and...” She shrugged again.
Luke gaped for a moment. “That's what she was upset about a couple of weeks ago, wasn't? When she came into the diner.”
Lorelai nodded once. “Yeah.”
His jaw clenched. “I don't believe this...” He moved for the door and moved back, more than once. “I'll kill him! I swear to god, I'll kill him!”
His wife grabbed his arm. “No, you will not. He's probably long gone by now as it is, and he lives in California anyway.”
“Then I'll take a damn plane to California!”
He went for the door and this time he didn't stop, knowing he couldn't really do what he wanted to do but wishing he could, and Lorelai stopped him again.
“Oh no you don't. Stop. Sit. Right now. I am not your mother too, Luke Danes; don't make me act like it.”
Luke stopped and spun around, but he didn't go back to her. “We can't do nothing, Lorelai,” he fumed.
“We are going to do plenty. Yes, Logan will have to know, and he will have to answer for this too, but we're not going to worry about that right now. Right now we need to worry about Rory. She needs us, and she needs us supporting her; she doesn't need you storming off to kill the father of her child. That's hardly the way to start a healthy, low-stress gestation, and yes, I just used a big word,” she tossed in, crossing her arms tightly.
Now the worry was clear on her face, and Luke sighed and went to her then, pulling her into his arms. “You're right...I'm sorry.”
She let out an unsteady breath. “I know. It's fine. I kind of felt like ripping his head off too.”
Luke chuckled once and squeezed her closer. “Maybe later.”
“Yeah,” Lorelai nodded into his chest. “Later. Or at least in an extremely elaborate video game with a character designed to look just like him. Then we can do whatever we want.”
“I'll get right on that.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Luke?”
“What?”
“It'll be okay, won't it? I told Rory we'd help however we could...”
He nodded against her head as he held on. “Yeah, yeah, of course. I agree completely.”
She sighed in relief and returned his embrace. “Good...good. Of course you agree.” She paused. “Luke?”
“What?”
“I love you.”