Notes: Be prepared, I have a lot to say! First, I wanted to rectify my forgetfulness in regards to my last story. Eledgy came up with "The Way We Weren't" and I wanted to give her full credit for the clever title. If you enjoy my stories at all, you need to give Eledgy thanks. Not only does she unfailingly make my writing stronger, but I'm also pretty sure she's the reason I'm still writing at all, because she continues to make the whole process fun.
Next, I'd like to dedicate this story to Jewels12, who's been hit with a R-L loss. There are some warm mother/daughter moments in this story, so I thought it might be appropriate. Life is rough, sometimes more so than what we can handle, and it's nice to have a little fantasy world waiting in the wings to provide some escape. Love you, my sweet friend.
Lastly, let's actually set the scene for this story. It's a fixer for "Raincoats and Recipes," which is something I've wanted to do for a long time! Be aware that the first section is dialog taken directly from the show. This might seem like a real departure for me, because it's Rory's POV, but hang in there. Also, don't worry, A Wedding in the Hollow is still in the works, I just needed some time away to clear my head of some one-shots.
The Lorelai's First Night at the Dragonfly
"It's just…It's over," Dean explained with an earnest intensity that held Rory riveted. "We feel it, we both do. I know we both feel it."
"You…you and Lindsay?" Rory managed to ask a follow-up question, her reporter's instinct kicking in for a brief moment.
"Yeah. Me and Lindsay."
"You both feel it's over?"
"I tried," Dean insisted. "We tried."
"Well, if it's over…then I'm sorry," Rory declared, still wanting to be the nice girl.
"You are?" Dean asked, moving a couple of inches closer to her.
"I'm sorry if you're not happy," Rory clarified, her voice shaking.
"I'll be happy again. Things happen for a reason, right?" Dean pleaded, moving even nearer to her.
"Right. Right." Rory felt lightheaded, as Dean moved closer still, and her breath evaporated from her lungs. "I can't believe that we're…That this…"
"I can," Dean murmured. He took her in his arms, and when she didn't protest, lowered her down to her bed.
I feel drunk, Rory thought. Or maybe high. Maybe this is the way your head feels after you've used drugs. I should remember this feeling, she coached herself, in case I ever have to write an article about a drug user.
She felt wonderful. She was with Dean. With Dean. They were squished together on her bed, squished together with carnal intent. He was touching her in ways she suspected he'd always wanted to, but hadn't dared, exploring her in ways that not even Jess had, back during those heated nights when she assumed Jess would be her first.
It was a relief, really. A relief to know that he was still her Dean, in spite of everything. A relief to find out that her body wasn't literally giving off a 'don't fuck with me' vibe, which she was beginning to believe it was, based on the way guys had shied away from her over the past year.
Dean skimmed his hand over her ribcage and she moaned. Wow, had he changed. So much more assured. Confident. Marriage had apparently been good for something.
Rory gasped and struggled to sit up, the word 'marriage' cutting through her sex-induced hypnotic haze. What was she thinking? Dean was married!
"Rory, what's wrong?" Dean's face hovered over her, his eyes deep and soulful, his hair flopping over his forehead. She could never decide if the floppy hair was more appealing or annoying. "Baby, did I hurt you?" he asked tenderly, brushing her own hair back from her face.
"No," she whispered, instantly pulled under by the spell of their intimacy again. Dean continued to kiss her and the normally logical portion of her brain went fuzzy with desire. What…what had she been upset about?
Maybe it was her bed. For the first time she realized she had a kid's bed. It was tiny, and too…soft, somehow. There was no way to get a foothold, or to get something firm under her back, so she could push up against something else that was firm.
Stupid bed.
Dean kissed her passionately and her own strong response shocked her. He moved to her neck, kissing and teasing her skin, driving her crazy. She arched her back, wanting to get closer to him, wanting to make it easy for him to keep doing what he doing, hoping he'd never stop.
Her head tipped backwards, almost off the edge of the bed, giving him complete access. Her eyes blindly looked up at her window, her mind and senses totally occupied with Dean and his glorious mouth.
She blinked dreamily at two wild eyes looking at her from outside her window while reveling in the feeling of Dean's tongue on the skin of her neck.
Wait…
There were eyes in her window?
Frowning, she forced herself to focus on something other than what was happening in her bed.
There were eyes in her window. Upside-down ones, since she was looking up from her head-hanging-almost-off-the-bed position. But there were most definitely eyes outside the glass.
Hands down, terror beat out sex. Automatically, Rory screamed.
The eyes screamed back. Well, of course it was the person attached to the eyes who screamed, but the effect was the same.
Rory screamed again and tried to sit up, to get further away from the eyes.
The eyes let out a shriek that made the glass rattle.
Alarmed, Dean jumped away from her and looked up in time to see the eyes, too. He yelled from the shock of it and rolled off the bed, falling onto the floor. "What the –!" he sputtered, jumping back up to his feet.
The eyes, beholding all 10-foot-something of Dean leaping up from the floor, squealed once more and bobbed away from the window in an awkward run.
"Rory, stay here!" Dean ran to the door, fastening his pants as he went. "Stay inside, you hear me?"
"Hey!" she heard him roar at the intruder, the front door crashing open as he dashed out of it.
Her heart was thudding from a nearly-lethal combo of fear and desire. Rory sat up, too befuddled for a few moments to know what to do next. Her movements were slow and unsure, and the pace of her muddled thoughts made glaciers look like speed demons.
She felt so confused. So mixed up. And also, so…cold.
Looking down, she saw that her dress, her pretty, ultra-feminine dress, was hanging completely open, and the matching under-slip had been pushed up and out of the way. Slowly she stood up and began straightening and buttoning.
When she turned, something silver flashed on the bedside table. Was it…a ring?
She froze. It was a ring, all right. Dean's ring. Dean had put his wedding ring on the table beside her bed, because…he was married. And he wasn't the type of guy to wear his wedding ring if they were going to fool around.
Oh, God.
She breathed hard, in great gulps, and the air crashing into her lungs brought painful clarity along with it.
She realized she was going to have to deal with what they'd almost done. Somehow she'd fix it, make it right. Later, she would. Truly. But right now, Dean was outside, chasing some crazy pervert, and she needed to go out and make sure he was safe. The rest…what they'd almost done…she'd confront that afterwards.
She headed for the door, clear-headed enough to grab her phone so she'd be prepared to call 911 if she had to.
"Dean?" she called timidly out into the night, hanging on to the porch railing, frantically searching the yard for him.
A shrill, anguished cry rose up from the side yard over by Babette's. It sounded almost as if someone had tripped over a tree root and was now being skewered by a gnome's pointed ceramic hat.
"Dean?" she cried out again, louder this time, wanting desperately to know that he was OK.
"Rory, stay there," Dean said from somewhere close by.
"Are you OK?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. But Kirk –"
"Kirk?" Why wasn't she more surprised?
"Yeah, it's Kirk, and he's…well…naked."
Instinctively, Rory took a step backwards. "Eww."
"Yeah," Dean said with a major sigh. "Listen, can you go get the quilt from your bed and throw it over here?"
"Why?" Rory asked, even though she knew why.
"So we can cover him up and then get him back to civilization."
"Good plan," she agreed, and turned to sprint back into the house. In her room she started to pluck the tangled quilt off of her almost-defiled bed, but stopped in mid-pluck. Did she really want her cherished quilt to touch Kirk's naked body?
She thought not.
In the living room she knew there was a fairly new chenille throw laying over the couch, something that held no special memories for her. That she could sacrifice.
She grabbed it and padded back out to the porch. "Dean?"
"Over here."
"Catch," she said, trying not to throw like a girl.
Soon she heard soft crying and mumbling, and Dean appeared, leading Kirk up to the porch. "Sit," he told him authoritatively, and pushed him down onto the swing.
"It really is Kirk," she murmured.
"The way God made him," Dean agreed in disgust, waving his hand Kirk's way.
"Did he…did he see us, do you think?" she asked uncomfortably.
"I don't think so. I think he's sleep-walking or something weird like that."
"Oh, OK." Rory nodded, a tad calmer. "That makes sense then. You know, for Kirk."
Kirk continued to mumble and whine, shaking back and forth, not focusing on them at all.
"Tell you what, let me get him back to the Dragonfly," Dean suggested.
"Good idea."
"I'll just grab my shirt and walk him back."
That was when Rory realized that Dean was bare-chested. Had she done that? And if she had…well, good for her, because he looked pretty hot that way.
Forcefully she shook her head, encouraging the unbidden dirty thoughts to run away. "Don't be silly. My car's right here. We'll take him back there together."
Dean gave her a pleading look. "But Rory –"
"Dean, come on, it's ridiculous for you to walk him all that way when I've got my car. And I should get back anyway. Let's go inside for a minute, get ourselves put back together, grab our shoes, your shirt…" Your ring, she continued silently, heading inside.
They sat on the bed together to put on their shoes, carefully not looking at each other.
Dean slipped the ring into his shirt pocket, trying to be stealthy about it. Rory sighed in despair but was still practical enough to pick up the bin full of CDs that she'd selected before Dean interrupted her.
"Come on, Kirk," she said to the huddled bundle of man on the front porch. Dean took his arm and helped him down the steps to the car, where he ushered him into the back seat like a TV cop would do to a perp, with one hand held protectively between Kirk's head and the top of the car.
"All in?" Rory looked in the rear view mirror to check. "OK, then, here we go."
For the first time, Rory hated her silently efficient car. Some vrooms and normal motor noises would have been appreciated to break the tense atmosphere between her and Dean, who kept rearranging his long legs, trying to get comfortable.
"Little ones," Kirk mumbled semi-hysterically from the back seat. "Short, too short! Not fair!"
"What's that about?" Rory glanced from the mirror to Dean, questioning.
Dean shrugged. "I don't know. He was going on about ninjas when I finally managed to catch him."
"Assassins!" Kirk screeched, flailing about. "Midget assassins!"
"Kirk, it's OK!" she called over her shoulder to him. "We'll have you back soon."
"Hats," Kirk muttered mournfully. "Not fair with the hats."
"Um, sure," Rory agreed, wanting to keep him pacified while he was in her back seat.
She was grateful when she was able to turn onto the Dragonfly's long lane. She parked right in front of the entrance, and Dean hopped out to get Kirk on his feet. Together they helped him stumble up to the new porch and into the entry.
"Kirk! Honey!" Lulu, barefoot and clad in a short lavender robe, rushed up to them, throwing her arms around her wayward boyfriend. "I was so worried! Are you OK?"
Kirk whimpered and lowered his head to Lulu's shoulder. "Pointy hats."
"Oh, thank God!" Sookie, also in a robe, but a serviceable one, joined them. "Lulu's been scared to death."
The county deputy also walked up, his notebook out. "Where did you kids find him?"
Rory exchanged a nervous look with Dean. "Well, I'd gone home, to my house. Mom sent me," she added, a little defensively.
Dean nodded, that floppy hair flopping like crazy. "And Lorelai told me that Rory had gone to their house, but she'd been gone for a while, so I went over to make sure she didn't need help."
Rory bit her lip at Dean's somewhat contrived contribution to the story, but then continued. "I looked out my window, and I saw Kirk looking back in. Well, I didn't know it was Kirk then, I thought it was some crazy guy –"
"Same difference," Dean muttered under his breath.
"I just knew somebody was staring at me, from outside my house, so I screamed –"
"And I heard her scream, and saw Kirk running away, so I went after him," Dean volunteered.
"The ninjas hurt me," Kirk whined to Lulu, rubbing his ribs.
"Ninjas?" Lulu wondered.
Dean shrugged. "I caught him over at Babette's, in her gnome garden. He'd tripped and was slapping at that one with the little fishing pole."
"Aww, sweetie," Lulu murmured soothingly to Kirk. She looked seriously at Dean. "Did the gnome get hurt?"
"Did the…" Dean looked helplessly over at Rory. "Um, I'm not sure. It was pretty dark."
"Well, I'll let Babette know that we'll pay for any damage," Lulu said firmly. "Come on, honey, let's get you to bed."
The deputy made a few final notes and nodded his head, flipping the little notepad closed. "Glad this one had a happy ending. Thanks for bringing him back," he said to Rory and Dean. "You might want to have a doctor check him out in the morning," he suggested to Lulu as he walked towards the door.
Sookie gleefully chuckled. "Mentally as well as physically," she added in a low voice, so that only Rory and Dean could hear her.
Lulu left Kirk at the foot of the stairs and abruptly ran back, impulsively throwing her arms around Rory and Dean. "You sweet, awesome kids! Thank you so much for finding Kirk and bringing him back here safely. You're the best!" She hugged them both tightly.
Rory felt weird, having Lulu touch her after what she and Dean had been doing earlier. She patted Lulu's back gingerly and pulled away as soon as possible.
Sookie, being the attentive host, left with Lulu and Kirk, making sure they made it up the stairs without further incident.
"Want me to take you home?" Dean asked, with a pressing, hopeful note in his voice.
"I'm the one with a car," Rory pointed out, her tone cooler than what she meant it to be.
"I just thought – what with all the Kirk business – maybe you wouldn't want to go back home alone." Dean tried to justify his continued presence.
"I'm staying here," Rory told him. "Mom and I are sharing a room."
"But Rory –"
"Dean," she interrupted. "Where will you go now?"
He shook his head, confused. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, tonight. Now. When you leave here, where will you go?"
He shrugged, still confused. "Home."
"Home? Your parents' house?"
His head jerked at that. "No."
"Then where?"
"To my place."
"Your place." She nodded, her stomach aching. "You mean, yours and Lindsay's place?"
He grimaced, finally seeing what she was getting at. "Well, uh, yeah. The apartment."
She couldn't hold back her heartsick sigh. "So you haven't moved out."
It took him a long time to reply. "No."
"Does she…does she even know it's not working?"
"She's got to know that," he muttered.
"But have you guys talked about it?"
"Maybe. I mean, we've…" He sighed, looking away. "We've argued. A lot."
"Dean." Rory felt more grown-up, suddenly. Weighed down with adult weariness and resignation. "You have to talk to her. You have to tell her what you're feeling."
"Yeah. Probably."
"You know, you can –" Sharply, Rory broke off her thought. "I was going to say, you can talk to me, but…You can't. I want to still be your friend, Dean, but after tonight…that probably isn't a good idea. Not until you figure things out with Lindsay."
"But Rory –"
"Dean, we can't." She looked at him straight-on, letting him see she meant it. "Look, there are still feelings between us, obviously. But that's not what's important right now. You need to settle this without me lingering in the background."
"I should have never married her," Dean reflected. "I should have waited. Waited to see if you –"
"But you did marry her. And now you need to finish that, or decide to continue that, instead of starting something else."
Dean sighed, shuffling his feet. "Rory, are you mad at me? For trying…for what happened?"
"I'm not sure what I am right now," Rory admitted. "I think I'm too ashamed to feel anything else at this moment."
Dean's head shot up. "Ashamed? Rory, that's not – I didn't mean –"
"I know." She smiled sadly. "I know that."
"Good, because I'd never want to do anything that spoils you or us or anything," he told her, just as earnestly as he'd earlier told her that it was all over between him and Lindsay.
"I know," she repeated, still sad.
He glanced towards the door. "I guess…I should probably go, right?"
She nodded, sure about that, at least. "Yeah, you definitely need to go."
"I'll see you?" he asked uncertainly, as they reached the door.
"It's a small town. Don't know how you could not see me," she said, joking awkwardly.
Dean took a deep breath and looked like he was ready to say something, but instead he nodded, glanced at her once more, and walked out of the door.
Rory shut the door behind him with relief. And disappointment. And a small measure of disgust.
When she turned around she saw how dark and quiet the Dragonfly was and realized how late it was. She shuffled over to the stairs and ran into Sookie, who was coming back down.
"Aww, Kitten!" Sookie snuggled her into an affectionate hug, and this one didn't feel as icky as Lulu's had a few minutes earlier. Rory found herself sinking into Sookie's warm body, letting a small amount of imagined absolution comfort her. "Bless your heart, getting Kirk back here safely, even after the goober must have scared you half to death."
Rory pulled away. "Sookie, where's Mom?"
"I would guess she's in bed," Sookie speculated. "You know she's been going at full-speed for a couple of weeks. I bet she collapsed as soon as she could, because I know I couldn't wait to climb into bed once dinner was over. I was just coming down to check on the rolls for breakfast, and that's when Lulu came running, panicked because she couldn't find Kirk. Since it was Kirk, I didn't waste any time when we couldn't spot him right away, and called the cops. We were just trying to decide whether or not to launch a full-scale search when you and Dean walked in with him."
"Well, glad we could help," Rory mumbled, the undeserved praise making her feel guilty again.
"You'd better get to bed too," Sookie suggested, giving Rory one last pat. She tightened the belt on her flannel robe and moved towards the kitchen. "Just don't wake Lorelai if you can help it. She must be even more exhausted than I thought, if she slept through all the Kirk excitement. Usually nothing going on gets by her."
"Right," Rory sighed.
Upstairs in the hallway, she saw that a pair of shoes was inexplicably sitting outside of Taylor's room. From behind Patty and Babette's door she could hear the two ladies still cackling and chuckling over something. The 'do not disturb' sign hanging on Luke's doorknob surprised her. She would never have expected Luke Danes to make use of any of the amenities available, but then she remembered how private the guy was, and it made total sense that of course he wouldn't want anyone walking in on him unexpectedly.
As quietly as possible, she inched open the door to their room.
Immediately she sensed that she didn't need to use caution entering because the room was motherless. Rory flicked on the light to confirm it.
The beds had been turned down, and the specially made boxes that held two pieces of Sookie's handcrafted fudge were on the pillows. But the room contained no Lorelai.
Rory quickly looked at the clock, checking the late hour. Could her mother really still be out and about somewhere, fixing snafus? She thought back on the past week, on how Lorelai seemed to not sleep at all, and was always up at all hours making lists, or running back to the Dragonfly to 'just check on one little thing' more.
Resigned to being alone a little longer, Rory headed to the bathroom, hoping that a good hot shower would help to disperse the yucky feeling still clinging to her. Hopefully by the time she got out, her mother would be back.
Because this was definitely one of those times when she needed her mommy.
Twenty minutes later, Rory emerged from the rejuvenating shower, her skin rosy, busy toweling her hair dry. She stopped still when she realized that she remained the only one in the room. Now truly alarmed, she looked at the clock again, worry making her stomach contract. What if her mom had gone outside and tripped over something in the dark, the way Kirk had with the gnomes, and was lying hurt and bleeding somewhere? What if someone, not as harmless as Kirk, had grabbed her out there?
Swallowing down her fear, she determined to wait five minutes more. If her mother wasn't back by then, she was calling for help. She'd get Sookie and Jackson up. She'd make Michel look. She'd wake up Luke, because she knew without question that he'd search heaven and earth to find her mother.
Feeling better at that thought, she pulled out a book and tried to read it, to help the time pass.
A few pages later, the door to their room slowly opened. Lorelai appeared, holding her high heels in her hand.
"Oh, you waited up!" she said, startled, seeing Rory there in the light.
"Mom! Are you OK?" Rory jumped up, relieved beyond belief.
"Um, sure, I'm fine," Lorelai said, but she nervously shifted her shoes from one hand to another.
"Where have you been?"
"Where…where have I been?" She chuckled uneasily.
"Yeah. It's late, really late. What have you been doing?"
Lorelai flinched but quickly tried to smile. "Oh you know. An innkeeper's job is never done. Just…uh, checking that everyone – um, everything – was OK."
Rory stared at her mother. There was something about her appearance, something about her finger-combed curls, something about the way her sweater and skirt were hanging slightly askew on her body, that reminded Rory of someone else.
She gasped. It was her! Her mother looked like she had, after getting out of bed with Dean.
"Oh my God." Rory collapsed onto the edge of one of the beds. "You slept with Jason!" she said accusingly.
That got Lorelai fired up. "I did not!" she immediately insisted. But then she looked anguished. "Oh, no, Jason! I totally forgot he was here. Is he still downstairs?" She turned and looked at the closed door, panicked.
"He wasn't there when I came in," Rory informed her.
"Oh, well, good." Lorelai shrugged and sighed. "Guess I can find out what happened to him tomorrow - if I want to."
Rory shook her head. "If you weren't with Jason, then where were you?"
The anxiety washed over Lorelai again. "Oh, like I said. Just making sure everyone was comfortable, didn't need anything else."
"Mom, seriously? Everyone's in bed. Who still needed anything?"
Lorelai tried to hide it, but her eyes started to sparkle. "Well, that guy in Room 7 is pretty demanding."
"Room 7?" Rory frowned, not getting it. "Mom, Luke's in Room 7, and he would never…"
Lorelai bit her lip, but the huge smile escaped anyway.
"Mom!" Rory leaped to her feet. "You slept with Luke?!" She hissed the accusation at her mother.
Lorelai looked affronted. "Rory! No, of course not." But the smile couldn't be kept away. "There was however, some pretty heaving petting."
"Why didn't you sleep with him?" Rory demanded, the events of the night making strange words come out of her mouth.
"Rory!" Lorelai choked out, stunned.
"I mean, didn't you want to?"
"Of course I wanted – Rory, what's going on?"
"If you wanted to, how did you manage to stop?"
"How did I…?" Lorelai dropped her shoes and walked over to her daughter. "Talk to me, Kid. These aren't questions you've ever asked me. Usually you stick your fingers in your ears and start humming if I even act like I'm going to share any dating details." Lorelai put a hand on Rory's shoulder and searched her face. "Tell me what's going on here."
Exhausted, Rory plopped back down on the bed. "I just, I don't understand how you stop. Sure, it's easy if there's a naked guy, but if there's not, how do you keep from doing it when you really want to?" Miserable, she stared down at the clenched hands in her lap.
Lorelai sucked in a sharp breath. "If there's a naked guy?" She sat down on the bed next to her daughter. "OK, you gotta tell me what happened tonight."
Rory shuddered, not wanting to tell her mom, yet needing to so badly. "I was home, you know, at the house, getting the CDs, and Dean…"
"Dean?" Lorelai looked shaken. She held her arms out straight in front of her. "Hang on for a second. Let me shift back into mom-mode." She breathed in deeply, held it, then let it out slowly. "There goes Luke's hands." She breathed in and out again. "There goes his mouth. There goes his chest –"
"Mom!" Rory rebuked her.
"OK, OK, all gone." Lorelai settled herself on the bed. "I'm all yours, Sweets. Tell mama all about it now. I can handle it," she said grimly, sounding like she was talking to herself.
"Well, Dean came over, and he was telling me about Lindsay, about how they can't make it work, how they're not happy."
"Oh, Rory," Lorelai sighed.
"And the last couple of weeks, we've been…getting closer. And it was nice. Nice talking to him again, nice that he knew me so well, that he understood everything about me."
"You've been talking?"
"Yeah. I couldn't find you a couple of times, but Dean was around, so I dumped on him about all the stuff that was going wrong."
"Stuff's going wrong?"
Rory shrugged, not wanting to discuss that now. "Just stuff. You know. And Dean listened, he cared, and it was nice."
"Oh, I'm sure it was," Lorelai grumbled sarcastically.
"And it just felt like nothing had changed, not really. We were still us, you know?"
"Yeah, I know." Lorelai sighed in understanding.
"And it was easy to forget about Lindsay."
"Oh, Rory, no."
Rory rushed on, not wanting to see her mother so disappointed. "So when he came over tonight, and he was telling me how unhappy he was, how it was over for them, it was easy to believe it."
Lorelai squeezed her eyes shut. "How easy?"
"Pretty easy."
Rory could tell that her mother was preparing herself to hear the worst. "Rory, did you –"
"No," she said immediately.
"Thank God," Lorelai breathed.
"But only because there was Kirk."
"Kirk?" Lorelai half-sobbed, half-chuckled after she said his name. "I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but thank God for Kirk."
"Yeah, he was outside of my room, looking in, and he scared me. Dean went chasing after him, and after that, I came to my senses."
"Wait a minute. Kirk?" Lorelai suddenly looked as if pieces were falling into place. "He was naked, right?"
Rory shuddered delicately. "Yeah."
"He ran by us, too. Me and Luke. Luke ran after him for a little bit, but Kirk had a good head of steam. Pretty soon Luke gave up and came back to me. He figured that Kirk would eventually get tired and find his way back." Lorelai nodded, remembering. "Then we decided to come up here…to check and make sure Luke's room was satisfactory," she said primly, a slight blush coloring over her cheeks.
"Which brings us back to the eternal question." Rory slumped against her mother, and was soothed when Lorelai's loving arms instantly enfolded her. "How do you stop when you really want to not stop?"
"Oh Rory. That's something only you can answer. And it's different pretty much every time. The only thing I can tell you is that you need to know yourself. You need to understand what you can accept about yourself and what you can't. Above all, you need to be safe, and I don't just mean physically. Emotionally, too. I won't lie, sometimes it's a real rush to get caught up in the moment and let yourself get swept away with the pure feeling of it. But then the next day always comes. And with it comes the reckoning. If you can't take the morning after, you don't do the night before. That's what you have to determine."
Rory snuggled against her mom's shoulder. "So why didn't you sleep with Luke tonight?"
Lorelai tightened her hold on her girl. "Because this thing with Luke and me, whatever it is…It's going to be major. Something big. And I don't want to rush it. I don't want to go too fast for him. I don't want to take the chance of ruining it before it gets started."
Rory chuckled softly. "You don't want to rush it?"
Lorelai smiled at her unusual caution too. "Yeah. Go figure."
"Mom, can I ask you something else?"
"Always, Sweetie. You know that."
"What if this thing with Luke had happened a couple of months ago, back when he was still with Nicole?"
"It wouldn't have," Lorelai insisted firmly.
"But what if it had? What if you guys had just looked at each other one day over the pancakes, and all of those suppressed feelings between you had just erupted –"
"Rory, it's Luke. It wouldn't have happened."
"Mom, I've seen how he's looked at you for – what's it been? Eight years now? What if he just snapped one day and couldn't control himself?" She was only half-teasing.
Lorelai took another deep breath. "Then I would have stopped him."
"Really?"
"Really." She straightened up, putting a little room between herself and Rory. "Because maybe I could have handled it, but he couldn't, Rory. And I wouldn't have wanted him to deal with that kind of guilt. So yeah. I would have stopped him." She looked over, meeting Rory's eyes with honesty.
Rory nodded slowly. "But that time, with Dad…He told you it was over with Sherry, and you believed him."
Lorelai groaned. "I did believe him. He believed it too. Sherry believed it. The only person who didn't believe it turned out to be G.G."
"But…you didn't stop it then."
"I didn't," Lorelai admitted truthfully. "Sometimes it's a lot harder, when you've already had a relationship. It's easier to fall back into the way things were, and forget how they really are now. Like you and Dean," she said gently.
"Are you sorry that happened now?"
"Oh, Rory, it's so complicated. At the time, we were getting along so well…I wanted to believe it was going to last forever. If Sherry hadn't turned up pregnant, who knows? I felt guilty, afterwards, plus I felt cheated. Like nothing was ever going to go my way. But now…" She suddenly smiled. "Well, there's the guy in Room 7. It turns out my happy ever after was still in the works."
Rory gasped at her words. "You really think that Luke's your happy ever after?"
Lorelai tried to downplay what she'd said. "Well, he's my happy for now, that's for sure."
Suddenly disconsolate, Rory laid her head down into her mother's lap. "Mom? I'm…not happy."
Rory felt Lorelai stiffen for a moment, before her mother started to slowly run her fingers through her still-damp hair. "What aren't you happy about?" she asked, deliberately calm.
"Everything, sort of."
"Can you explain a little bit more?"
Rory shut her eyes, thinking back through the past tumultuous months. "School's not what I expected. I thought once I got to Yale, everything would be great. Instead, it's hard. I had to drop a class. I feel…stupid, sometimes. And sort of like I was lied to, somehow."
Lorelai nodded, still stroking Rory's hair. "I remember thinking that once I left Hartford, once I got out on my own, everything would be perfect." She snorted. "Yeah, that was a lie, too."
"Sorry," Rory said meekly, understanding that being 17 with a baby probably hadn't made her mom's life a bed of roses from day one.
"It was fine," Lorelai said. "Well, it got fine, anyway." She squeezed Rory's shoulder. "So school's no fun. What else?"
"School and guys and Paris…I mean, should I still be stuck with Paris? Why don't I have a boyfriend? Yale is crawling with cute guys. Why don't any of them want me?"
"Oh, Rory, I don't think –"
"And forget the guys. I've hardly made any new friends. All I've done is study, and what good did that do? I still had to drop a class. I never feel like I've got time to join anything fun, to do something fun. And I'm still homesick. I still miss you at least once a day. Sometimes I wish I could just come home, crawl into bed, and never have to go back."
"Oh, Sweetie." Lorelai pulled Rory up and held her tight.
"Mom, I think I need to get away. I want to go, to do. Get away from Stars Hollow and shake everything up."
Lorelai took her by the shoulders and pushed her far enough away so she could look in her face. "You just said you were homesick!"
"I know. I am. But…I feel like I'm in such a rut. I study, I go to class, I come home, I go back…I want something different, something new."
"Like what?"
"I don't know." Rory felt miserable, even more so because she knew she was making her mom miserable too, on what had been such a happy night. "I don't want to leave you. I just feel like I need to stretch my wings without you, somehow, if you'll forgive the horrible cliché."
"How much does this have to do with Dean?"
"Maybe some," Rory admitted. "I'm scared, to be in town with him for the whole summer. Now that I know I don't deal with temptation very well."
"I'd help you," Lorelai promised staunchly. "And I think you'd be surprised to see just how strong you are, when you have to be."
Rory nodded. "That's just it, Mom. I want to see how strong I am. On my own." She shrugged. "I think I kind of need to prove that to myself."
Lorelai put a hand on Rory's cheek and studied her for a long time. "What's Paris doing this summer?" she finally asked.
Rory, used to her mom's non sequiturs, answered after only a brief pause. "She's going to London with Professor Fleming."
Lorelai's face looked like it did when she'd once eaten a piece of okra without realizing it. "Once again, let me just say how grateful I am that you're my kid."
"Even tonight?" Rory asked grimly.
"Especially tonight," Lorelai confirmed.
"Why did you ask about Paris?"
"Well, you know how that girl never shuts down. I figured she had some intense, academically-approved summer activities scheduled, and that maybe you could tag along."
Rory lifted one eyebrow. "You want me to go to go London with her and Professor Fleming?"
"No, even though you'd probably have oodles of horrifying yet fascinating stories to send home to me." Lorelai tapped a finger against her chin. "How about a summer job?"
"I thought I'd work here at the Dragonfly," Rory explained. "I figured you'd need the help. It's probably too late to find anything else now."
Lorelai nodded, still thinking. "Internships? Maybe Yale could point you to something?"
"Maybe for next summer."
"Right, right…Hey! You love school! How about taking summer classes?"
"You mean the ones that I should have signed up for months ago? And somehow found the money to pay for, as well?"
Lorelai sighed. "Missed the boat on that too, huh?"
Rory's shoulders slumped. "I thought I had the summer all figured out. I thought I'd come home and rejuvenate. Only read fun stuff. Hang out with Lane. Work here, with you. And now…" She leaned against her mother again. "Now I feel like I'm going to be on edge all summer, worrying about running into Dean." A new thought surfaced, and she sat straight up, horrified. "Or Lindsay! Mom! What will I do if I see Lindsay?"
"Honey, I think we've got enough worries for tonight. Let's schedule the Lindsay freak-out for another time, OK?"
"OK," Rory tiredly agreed.
"So…" Lorelai nervously pleated the material of her skirt. "I might have one other idea. Sort of a last-ditch one."
"Really? Well, don't hold back. What is it?"
"Well, we could…sort of…talk to your grandparents."
"About tonight?" Rory shrieked. "No way!"
"No, no, I don't mean about Dean. I mean, maybe they'd have some ideas about things you could do this summer."
"Grandma and Grandpa?" Rory asked doubtfully, still not a fan of the idea.
"Sure! They know everybody, right? And there's nothing they like more than pulling strings. Maybe Dad knows somebody looking for an intern this summer. Maybe Mom knows about some sort of trip you could take, something that would enrich a young lady of leisure. If nothing else, they might know about some charitable, volunteer gig you could sign up for. It would at least get you out of town for a while. What do you say we ask them?"
Rory started to feel a tiny bit better, as if there was some hope after all. "Yeah, that's actually not a bad idea. Maybe they would be able to pull something out of their sleeves for me."
"And maybe it would help them, too, to work together on something for you, their precious granddaughter."
"So this isn't solely about me being a baby, huh? This is also about helping Grandma and Grandpa and their marriage."
"Let's just talk to them. We'll see where it goes. For you and for them."
Rory smiled, but a lump formed in her throat at the same time. "I don't want to leave you. I just got home."
Lorelai smiled back bravely. "I'll be busy. I've got the Dragonfly to work on yet."
"And Luke."
"And Luke," Lorelai agreed, laughing. She gave Rory a rib-crushing hug. "Think you can relax now? Are you feeling better?"
"I think so, yeah. Talking was good."
"Talking is always good!" Lorelai proclaimed. She got up and started getting ready for bed, unable to squash several massive yawns, finally giving in to her exhaustion.
A little later, when Lorelai came out of the bathroom, Rory was already under the covers in one of the beds. Lorelai climbed into the other one, but stopped before turning off the light. "How are you doing, really? Is your massive brain and poor little battered heart able to settle down? Let you get some rest? Because things always look better in the morning. Especially when Sookie's cooking breakfast."
"I feel lots better." She waited until Lorelai turned out the lights and the room went dark. "And for the record, I'm glad you're not Paris' mother, too."
From her bed, Lorelai snickered.
"Hey, Mom?" Rory didn't want to keep her mom awake too long, but she still had something to say. "I'm really happy about you and Luke."
She could hear the smile in Lorelai's reply. "Me too."
"And I'm sorry that you're sleeping in here tonight, dealing with me, instead of being in Room 7."
Lorelai was still for a few moments, then rose up on one elbow, looking over at Rory through the dark. "Do you want to know what I think is one of the best things about Luke?"
"Mom! No!" Rory's hands instantly started for her ears, apprehensive about where her mom might go with that question.
"Rory, stop it, I'm being serious here. To me, one of the best, most awesome things about Luke is the way he loves you."
Breath caught in Rory's throat. Tears suddenly tickled her eyes.
"He loves you, Rory. You have no idea how much that means to me, how much more I – I care for him because of that. He's never going to stand in the way of me being there for you. In fact, he's going to insist on it. And that makes him a hundred times more special to me."
Rory could only nod, too teary to speak.
Lorelai lay back down. "And he's not the only one. I love you, too, you know."
"Love you too, Mom." Rory breathed in and out, slowly, feeling all of the tensions fade away, not just from tonight, but from most of the past year. She could feel sleep coming. And tomorrow suddenly seemed filled with new possibilities. "Thanks for making it better," she whispered.
"Anytime," Lorelai said, also sounding drowsy.
Rory slept, and dreamt of sleek airplanes and mysterious European strangers in pointed hats, and also of her mother's wedding, where she wore a fuzzy bridesmaid's dress that seemed to be made out of flannel.
It was a happy dream, and seemed to promise even happier days to come.