The Amnesiac Patient
Summary: Starts in episode 1.01. Jess is sent to Stars Hollow early. A rushing Lorelai hits a boy heading to his bus. Uh oh! Right after the fight in the first episode, only a few days before the Friday Night Dinner.
Jess Mariano paced around the bench once. Then twice. The very smooth Liz Danes had sent him off to dear old Uncle Luke in some town so small it was off the map.
He could get on another bus. Jess stood at the Hartford station. Buses to everywhere nearly were available, and had he any money, he'd take off to California, or back to New York. The Stars Hollow, that was the name of the freaking town, bus sat in a corner, to leave in a few minutes. Jess groanekd and got up to cross the street and board the bus. Halfway across, he was distracted, and didn't notice a green jeep screeching towards him.
Lorelai was exhausted. The crazy fight she'd had the night before with her 15 year old daughter had drained her. This was their first big fight. Feeling very spacy, she took a big sip of her coffee, looking back to the road.
"Oh!"
A boy was crossing the road, and Lorelai slammed her heel on the brakes, but it was too late. The boy hit the ground with a sickening thud. Lorelai scrambled out of the caar to the unconcious teen.
As they loaded the dark-haired boy into the ambulance, Lorelai asked to go with him.
"Who are you?" The paramedic asked.
Before she responded, the policeman she'd been talking to did. "She's the woman who hit him."
Lorelai pursed her lips and glared at the man's tone. It wasn't like she meant to hit the boy.
Sitting in a hospital chair, the second Lorelai attempted again to call Rory. Again, to no avail, there was no response, but instead, Rory's answering machine. Lorelai groaned at remembering that her phone was broken because the ingenious Kirk Gleason was working at the phone company this week.
She called Sookie.
"Hey Sook, I'll probably be coming in late today," Lorelai said, tired.
"Oh, why?"
"I got in an accident."
"What, are you ok? Do you need a doctor?" Sookie's panicked voice asked.
"I'm fine Sookie, I just hit a boy."
"What!"
Lorelai explained the situation.
"Ok sweetie, take your time at getting in today," Sookie said before getting back to work.
A doctor closed the door of the room the boy was in. Lorelai stood up, wringing her purse handle in guilt.
"Is he ok?" She asked. Lorelai knew nothing of the teen's situation.
"He has bruised ribs, and his left arm is broken, but other wise, he's fine." The doctor replied. Lorelai let out a sigh of relief.
"But..." the doctor hesitantly said.
"But? No but! What but?" Lorelai nervously and quickly said.
"He has no recollection of anything. He can't remember his name, or parent's or anything."
Lorelai put her hands over her face. Feeling worse, her guilt felt overwhelming. 'Great,' she thought, 'Now I took his memory.'
"There have been no reports of missing children or anything, but the police and I agree that we think he may have been a runaway. After all, he was found at the bus station." The doctor's calm voice continued. "Until we find his parents, we'll probably send him to-"
"I'll take him!" Lorelai blurted out, her mind left behind as words raced off. "I mean, it's better than him being somewhere where people have others they have to take care of. He has no idea who he is, and it's probably not a great feeling. I just-I feel horrible about hitting him." The doctor raised her eyebrows at the babbling woman.
"Like maternal instincts," she concluded for Lorelai.
Lorelai nodded. "He has no one right now..." she continued.
Nodding, the doctor looked to the room. "I'll get some forms for you to fill out...you can talk to him, but-" the doctor stopped and then gave the Gilmore a small smile and went off to get the forms.
Lorelai entered the room, and the dark haired boy looked up. He had a blue cast on his left arm, which was in a sling, and wore a thin hospital shirt.
"Hello..." Lorelai started. He looked at her silently, his expression unable to read.
"You don't know me..." she chuckled nervoiusly. "But...uh...I'm the person who hit you...heh..."
He blinked.
"I'm Lorelai..." she said, walking over and extending her hand. He glanced up at it and didn't shake it.
"Ok, I see this is going to be...different..." She rubbed the side of her head. "So...you don't remember anything?"
He shook his head.
"Do you talk? She laughed nervously.
"I woke up being wheeled on a cart and asked the doctor's what the hell they were doing," he replied, and Lorelai blinked, surprised at hearing his voice, and unsure where he was joking or telling the truth.
"Ok..." she said. "Well, um... apparently, you're coming home with me..."
"I don't even know you," he replied.
"Yes, well...no one knows who you are, so its this, or with me."
"Sooooooo..." Lorelai said as they drove to Stars Hollow.
"Sooooo..." the boy dryly repeated, still staring out the window,
"I think you need a name," she said, feeling better.
The boy turned to look at her like she was crazy. "What am I, a dog?" He scoffed.
"Everyone needs a name," Lorelai continued. "What would the world be like if everyone went around and talked like, 'Hey boy', and 'hey girl'."
"Exactly how it is now." He responded.
"How about Dave? You look like a Dave," she asked.
He snorted at it, then noticed the sign of the town they were entering.
"Stars Hollow," he read aloud.
"Yeah. You recognize it?" She asked from his strange tone.
He shrugged. "From somewhere," he replied as they turned. Some people gawked at the car.
"Damn, I've got to get these windows darkened. Well," she went back tothe previous subject, "you couldn't of lived here, or I would've recognized you. This is a very small town, and everyone knows everyone." She continued as they pulled into a driveway of a white house.
Lorelai got out a car and the teen followed.
"I think we'll call you Joe. Simple, easy to remember." Lorelai said.
"Yeah, you might as well call me Billy Bob and it's the same thing," his dry sense of humor said. Lorelai couldn't help laugh at the thought of his real name being Billy Bob. She took out her keys and unlocked the door, and she remembered Rory was probably home from school by now.
"I have a daughter." She abruptly turned and said this to Joe as they entered the living room.
"She's 15. Probably around your age."Lorelai said to him.
"Rory?" She called out as music came from Rory's room. Lorelai suddenly remembered that they were fighting.
Lorelai knocked hard on her daughter's door as Joe looked around the kitchen.
The door opened, suddenly, the music now off, and Rory opened her mouth to say something, but saw a dark-haired boy wearing a cast on his arm wandering around her kitchen and said something completely different. "Who's that?" She asked in confusion.
"Joe." Lorelai replied. "Long story short, I hit him with the Jeep, and he has amnesia, and will be staying with us."
Rory's mouth fell open, and she gaped at her mom. "Short story long please," she asked.
Lorelai jerked her head back to Joe, and Rory ducked inside her room and came back out. She shoved a book in Joe's hands and put her hands on his shoulders, backing him out of the kitchen and into the living room. "Occupy yourself," she quickly said, hurrying back into the kitchen.
Joe smirked at the girl, then lookekd down at a familiar looking book in his hands.
HOWL. Where had he heard that before?
