Summary: One of these days, he wouldn't be afraid to stay with her. He just hadn't realized that this day would sneak up on him so quickly … but she was worth it. Literati, future fic.
Rating: Currently, PG.
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I have ties to the WB, Gilmore Girls, any of its actors and actresses, its creator, or writers. I'm just a fan.
Chapter 1 – I Didn't Notice
"I think I may have loved you."
She'd replayed her every word to him in her head over and over for the past six years. The click of her cellphone closing echoed in her mind, reverberating, growing louder the longer she held onto the moment until is its crescendo culminated in a final slam, like she had just shut a large encyclopedia in an empty cathedral. In pained her ears, her head, her heart, her soul.
"You're not thinking about this now!" Rory Gilmore, now 24-years-old reprimanded herself and slammed her open hand down on the desktop in front of her, in hopes to drag the remnants of her mind that were still stuck in her 18-year-old memory, to the present day. "Damn …" she winced, looking at her reddening palm.
"You ok, Lorelai?" said a voice above her.
"Ah!" Rory jumped, and after catching her breath looked up. Over the flimsy wall of her cubicle leaned a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, twenty-something female, fluttering her eye lashes. "What is it, Jo?" Rory muttered, her voice laced with bitter annoyance.
"Are you ok?" Jo tried again, not sensing Rory's teetering patience. Then again, Rory hadn't truly expected her to notice her tone of voice at all.
In the past year that she had spent sharing an office space with Jo, Rory had never quite warmed up to her. This seemed to be the general course around the entire workplace. Despite the fact that she was cheerful, bubbly, giggly, undeniably gorgeous, and even intelligent – to a point (thought not a point at which she could hold her own in a conversation about current events or politics) - she was the girl everyone humored and babied, expecting nothing but naivety from her, as she'd never left her high school attitude behind. Her family and friends had never been impressed by Jo, either. On all of their many visits to Rory's office, they'd walked away with nothing more than another person to make the butt of holiday jokes.
Jo was one of "those girls" as her best friend Lane would put it – the kind she'd been on the cheerleading squad with, who truly thought genealogy was the study of blue jeans and whom no one had ever had the heart to tell otherwise.
Rory failed to answer Jo's prodding, and found her mind drifting again …
It had been just days before that moment in her office, when the Easter weekend became cause for celebration at the Gilmore residency. Lorelai was coming in from the kitchen to the living room, sipping yet another Margarita, while walking on her tiptoes, trying to keep herself in balance – which was difficult as she stuck her chest, bra stuffed with over-sized water-balloons, out far ahead of the rest of her body.
"Like totally! I was the best cheerleader in high school – you should've seen my kick!" said Lorelai, imitating a cheerleader-esque kick, and then finally losing her balance, toppling over the coffee table, the glass in hand falling and shattering, the water balloons breaking on impact, sopping Lorelai's upper body, leaving her roll in a puddle of water as she laughed. Her giggles were then followed by the chorus of tumultuous laughter ringing out from Rory, Lane and even Paris. As Lorelai's arms flailed about in her laugher, her hand grazed the edge of yet another glass, knocking if off the coffee table. Seconds later, the sound of the shattering encouraged more hysterics amongst the girls that were almost immediately hushed.
"Shhh! Wait, wait!" said Lorelai softly. The girls' laughter stifled and Lorelai began counting down. "3 … 2 … 1 …" and no sooner had she reached zero, when, over the dimly lit living room, the shadow of a tall man, standing atop the staircase, hovered over the room, and its occupants, who muffled even more laughter into their hands.
"Lorelai!" bellowed the voice, and within seconds the laugher erupted again. "Rory! Lane … Paris? C'mon! Can't a guy get some sleep around here?"
"Cute PJs, Luke," Rory motioned toward the silhouette that now made his way down the staircase. "But doesn't the flannel ever get old? Haven't you though about a new pattern? Stripes? Polka-dots? … Teletubbies?"
"I'm ignoring you now," Luke began, and as he proceeded to take an account of the damages done, he shot his hand out pointing at Lorelai preemptively "And I'm ignoring you as well."
"Why, Luke, I hadn't even taken a stab yet … I'm hurt," Lorelai faked sadness.
"I'm just saving you the trouble of poking fun at me, when I'm simply going to ignore you, and not justify anything you say with anything remotely resembling a come back, or defense of myself," he said point blank.
"So I guess that includes my suggestion for picture pajamas like Jackson's?" Lorelai tried her luck anyways, and the girls responded with laugher that became well-worth the attempt, despite Luke's rolling eyes and discontent.
"Who needs picture pajamas? Look at
those slippers," Rory pointed at Luke's feet, scuffling into the kitchen in
what appeared to be oversized – and also flannel – moccasins.
Lorelai sat up, barely noticed that she was drenched and put her weight back on her hands as she threw her head back in laughter. As she noticed Luke's dissent, she called after him. "Hey! How dare you walk away from us when we're mocking you in our … drunken madness!" Lorelai ridiculed, the girls dissolving in laughter until Luke returned with a broom and dustpan.
"Anyone order a Molly Maid?" Lorelai continued to poke fun at Luke, who took it nobly, only cleaning more diligently as the mocking continued. When each and every remnant and shard of glass was swept into the pan and dumped in a wastebasket, he returned the broom and dustpan to the kitchen.
"When did we get a broom? And a dustpan?" Rory inquired after Lorelai.
"I don't know," Lorelai giggled harder as Luke appeared in front of her once more, standing over her. Looking upwards, Lorelai asked "When did we get a broom and a dustpan, Mary Poppins?"
"I picked them up awhile back. They're necessary household cleaning items that you were lacking," Luke began, the girls laughing harder at him and muttering about the absurdity of the Gilmore girls ever owning cleaning products. "Geez, I didn't realize that moving in with my girlfriend meant playing chaperone for her – and her daughter, and friends, all of whom are grown women, I might add – at all odd hours of the night," Luke continued, pointing to the clock which read 2:14 AM, "in the midst of their alcohol-deluded antics. Only in this house, with you, would 'happy hour' start at 6 PM and go on for 8 hours."
"We were just celebrating," Lorelai's voice grew softer.
"Yea. Well that's about all the celebrating you get 'til New Years'," said Luke.
Lorelai rested her weight backwards on her elbows, and looked up at Luke, pouting like a little girl.
"Oh now, don't do that …" Luke attempted to stay strong while she played his weakness, and finally concluded to walk behind her, stepping over the mess of junk food on the floor and take hold of her under the arms to pull her up. She slipped on a puddle of something – whether it was alcohol or water was unclear – and stumbled to her feet, grasping onto Luke for support, who, once she was standing still and firm, turned her to the girls.
"Say goodnight, Lorelai," Luke was stern.
Lorelai looked over them, then focused on Rory "Goodnight, Lorelai!" which was not funny only because she was defying Luke, using a childish tactic to rebel, but yet was truly saying goodnight to Rory. The laughter erupted again as Luke attempted to force a disgruntled, but still giggling Lorelai up the stairs, finally resulting to picking her up and carrying her to bed.
"Lorelai? Lorelai? Are you sure you're ok?" asked Jo, bringing Rory back to reality.
"Oh, oh yea … Thanks, Jo. Just uh, deadline stress, you know?" Rory sought out an excuse.
"Yea, I understand Lorelai," Jo said, sinking back into her cubicle. Rory sighed relief, blowing stray hairs out of her face.
Of course, Jo would never really know deadline stress. She'd been getting paid the same pennies as Rory for a year to simply traipse all over Boston and report on new and upcoming fashion, with little hopes of ever boosting her junior writer status. Rory, on the other hand, had worked diligently from square one, looking for interesting stories and new angles, always trying to be ahead of deadline. But roughly 365 days later, she was still a bottom feeder. It wouldn't have bothered her so much, had someone like Jo not ended up being what was her apparently equivalence. While Rory was brighter, more talented, and possessed more potential than Jo could ever hope to boast in a lifetime, right now it was all simply that – potential. Rory was still constrained by her job, and as things stood now, she would, at the end of two weeks, earn a paycheck that read the exact same amount as Jo's, down to the very last cent.
But despite this feeling of detest towards Jo, and her job by extension – as strange as that was – she still got an incredible adrenaline rush when she saw her name in print. Rory tried to gain focus on her work again, staring at the sloppy, barely readable notes on the pages of her Steno pad, but try as she might to fight it, she felt herself being dragged back into the dream world.
"So did you get the first issue?" Rory asked into the receiver excitedly.
"Yep, it's right here! 'The Boston Globe' – not quite the Times, but it has a nice ring to it-" Lorelai began before Rory interjected.
"Have you found it?" Rory pushed. "It's a human interest story."
"I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking …" Lorelai's voice was drowning out as her concentration and search became more fervent, her fingers tracing the pages in search of … "Ah ha! Here it is. 'The price of war: The outstanding bill' by … Lorelai Gilmore?" Lorelai ended in question.
There was silence.
"This article is by you, right?" asked Lorelai.
"Yes …" Rory answered.
"Then why is it bylined with my name?" Lorelai was muttered with slight confusion.
"Well technically, it's my name, too. It's not my fault that you were all wacked out on Demerol," Rory said plainly.
"Well yea, I guess … It's just … you've always been Rory. To me, to Luke, to Lane … to everyone, everywhere. In elementary school, middle school, high school, college-" Lorelai tried to sort this out.
"What's your point?" Rory said incredulously.
"Why? Why the change?" Lorelai's curiosity pressed on.
"Well … it's my legal name. And it sounds more professional. It separates … who I was in high school and college from who I want to be in print," said Rory.
"Which is?" Lorelai was still confused.
"Lorelai Gilmore, junior writer … senior writer, eventually. If I can swing it. If I don't transfer before I reach that point," Rory tried to evade her true reason.
"Well, I don't get it," Lorelai said indolently.
"You don't have to. All you have to know is that that is the name I'm going by, and that is my article, now what do you think?" Rory was anxious to move past this topic.
"Oh the article? … The article is great, Hon …" Lorelai praised, softly.
The truth was that after college, Rory had wanted nothing more than to separate who she'd been from who she was in the workspace. She had forever worn her heart on her sleeve, and those years of being the always caring, always open, always loving Rory to everyone were wearing thin on her. She could only live that life in one place. She didn't want to share her personal details with her coworkers, she didn't want to be a topic of discussion in the news room when all other gossip was low. Lorelai Gilmore, was a calm, cool, composed writer with excessive talent, with little to nothing to mention or share about her personal life, with the exception of occasional visits from her mother or friends.
And suddenly, she felt trapped in her tiny cubicle as her thoughts were once again overcome by the thoughts of that one, fateful line: "I think I may have loved you." It was that instance and the moments preceding it, and following it shortly thereafter that became one of the true, defining moments in her life. It dictated the way she lived out every moment of her life from the second the phone closed up until that very second.
While she'd spend the better part of her 6 years pretending to be "fine" and did a nice job playing the part a great majority of the time, there was a piece of her mind and heart that longed for him.
She tried to ignore it. She'd visit her grandparents, have fun with her mother and friends, and while her love life was … well, meager … it wasn't obsolete, simply cluttered with short-lived relationships, kisses that never amounted to anything, near-misses, and attractions based solely on physique or a similar favorite movie and nothing more. When all of these methods failed, she devoted herself entirely to her school work and then, to the Globe. As an added bonus – if there was any true plus to her newest living and working situation – was the location of her residency. Living in the heart of Boston, Rory was literally minutes away from the one thing which she could devote all her excess time to that was not encased in a computer monitor or a book: her 6-year-old sister Georgia. Her relationship with Christopher still experienced tentative moments, and Sherry's need to dote excessively over not just Christopher, and GiGi, but Rory as well often tested her patience. But, GiGi's attention and the sense that they were indeed her family, minus the obligation to let them read into her every tiny action (as opposed to the custom of being part of the giant Stars Hollow family) was comforting. When she longed for her mother, Stars Hollow, and the comfort living there had brought her for eighteen years, it was this that kept her urges to make the permanent move back, at bay. She knew in her heart that, despite her love for Stars Hollow, being there for the shortest amounts of time now triggered an even stronger sort of flashback that grew harder and harder to fight away with each visit.
And if none of these things could keep her withdrawn, she had the security of knowing that she always had her roommate and friend, Paris, whose psychosis was constant reminder of how sane Rory actually was. After their graduation from Yale, where Paris had transferred to from Princeton her sophomore year after she and Jamie's bitter breakup, Paris applied to Harvard for graduate school and was finally accepted, ensuring that every generation of the Gellar name would remain etched in Harvard history. For all the time Rory had spent trying to shake Paris, when it came time for her to find a job and that job was to be a junior writer at The Boston Globe (her last choice, but a job no less), it was a relief to find that Paris was too, looking for someone to share living quarters with.
But yet with all these distractions, she still missed him. She scolded herself for missing a teenage relationship that had barely amounted to anything, but it didn't stop the fact that she did miss him more by the day. When the phone rang, she secretly hoped to hear his voice, when the mail arrived, she hoped to see his handwriting scrawled across the front of an envelope. Whenever she saw or heard from Luke – which was quite often, considering he lived with Lorelai now – she hoped he'd have a message to pass on from him, since she knew that he'd been in contact with him and even visited him over the years at his various places of residence. Though these hopes were also fruitless, through prying, she managed to learn that he'd returned to New York City, which added a new wish to her list – possibly, during one of the few reporting stints that brought her to the city, she'd run into him. It was a farfetched idea, and she'd realized that all along – New York was a huge city, millions of people walked the streets every day. So, when she didn't run into him, she at least had a well-developed reason … but all the preparation in the world couldn't have prevented the disappointment she felt anyways. Hope as she may, wish as she might, pray hard as she could, it seemed that their paths were destined to never cross again. It broke her heart.
Six years had passed since the day she had talked to him … or at least … whom she had though was him. Now, she even began to question whether she hadn't simply given the what-for to a complete stranger that she'd assumed to be him. But nevertheless, it had been six years since she confessed that she might have loved him. And if it had been him, then why had he not replied to her, or gotten in touch later? Maybe they'd never connected like she'd thought they had.
A pang of angst hit her hard, combined with a yearning that was both for him and for the arms of her mother. And as though cued by telepathy, the phone rang. She once again, forced her hopes down her throat so she could answer the phone with a practical composure as opposed to nervous shaking, and then finally answered.
"Ror- … Lorelai Gilmore, speaking," she answered.
"Rory!?"
"Oh, hey Mom. You sound … excited," Rory tried to muster up some fake, but anxious curiosity and enthusiasm.
"I am," Lorelai said.
"Why?" Rory asked.
"Guess." Lorelai prodded.
"I'm no good at your guessing games," Rory pointed out.
"Guess." Lorelai wasn't giving in.
"Uh … Luke finally agreed to bid on your basket, without a single argument prior to the auction or any sarcasm during the bidding?" Rory took a shot in the dark.
"Better … he proposed! We're getting married!" Lorelai screamed.
"Really? Oh my God! When did he propose? When's the ceremony? Oh my God, congratulations!" she said with as much enthusiasm as she could express without scaring Jo into oblivion.
This was the largest amount of instantaneous happiness Rory had felt in years. After dating for what was now five years, and pining after each other for years prior to that, Lorelai was finally marrying Luke, who had been like a father to Rory during the times of her own father's absence. She was ecstatic, and elated, her mind flying to bridesmaids dresses, and a giant bridal shower in the center of town, she'd have to rearrange her vacation days so she could take all three weeks for the wedding. Rory was a pro at this, what with all the weddings she'd witnessed at the Independence Inn in its day, and even a few she'd helped with at the Dragonfly. There were plans to make – Sookie should start a menu now, so that she'd have enough time to revise it two or three good times before the actual date, a dress would have to be found, there were invitations to fill out – hundreds of invitations, and plenty of relatives that they couldn't leave out …
That's when it hit her, and her happiness was deflated. She was sure Lorelai was buzzing about something she should hear – the details of the proposal, of the wedding. But the second she thought about relatives, her mind could only focus on one thing: the infamous nephew of the groom to be, who would certainly be invited. Then it was a whole different kind of feeling, a jealousy she'd never felt, the feeling that this should be her, calling her mother to let her know that she was going to be married. And she missed him, desperately … but was terrified to see him all at the same time. Suddenly, her shoulders seemed to be holding up at least a hundred pounds more weight than they had been just minutes ago. Now, she would have to face up to her past, even though it had haunted her for years and she would have to face the final realization that she had failed to realize in that final phone call.
As she replayed the moment over in her head again … "I think I may have loved you"… she felt as though her lungs would have the wind knocked out of them by the intense beating of her heart. There was no "may have" about it. She has loved Jess Mariano with all her heart and soul, and in some strange way, she still did, and she wasn't sure what that meant to her now … or what it would mean in the course of the next few months.
She'd always wanted to see him again, but it always seemed as though the world had not been on her side, and the likelihood that she would actually have to stand in front of the person that conquered her every free moment to think had always seemed slim. But suddenly, her dream world of flashbacks and "what-ifs" was suddenly merging lanes with the reality world and becoming more horrific by the moment, and for the first time in years, drawing herself out her subconscious was easy – and seemed to safer than actually thinking about how she would manage to handle her mother's wedding with grace.
"We want it to be soon," she tuned back in soon enough to hear Lorelai say.
"Uh … how soon?" Rory was afraid to hear the answer to her question.
"A month and half. Two months tops. How soon can you get out of work?" Lorelai asked in excitement.
Rory sighed, blowing the stray hairs out of her face again, and settled back into her chair searching her mind for any story idea or deadline that could possibly hold her back from facing all of this any sooner.