Disclaimer: Lorelai, Rory, Luke, and all other recognizable Gilmore Girls characters belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, the WB, etc. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: While visiting Lorelai, Rory orders orange juice instead of coffee, giving Lorelai a startlingly overdue revelation. Her daughter is all grown up with a life of her own.
Proofread by: Schuyler Lola
Coffee Sets and Kitchenettes
By Potterworm
Lorelai glances at her watch - not the crappy Hello Kitty watch, but the nice, jeweled one that Luke got her last Christmas, the one she has barely taken off since - every few minutes. From the corner of her eye, she notices Luke looking up at her as Kirk babbles about whether ham and cheese sandwich on white bread will make his health better and therefore make him live longer, or whether he should order soup.
As Luke rolls his eyes at Kirk, shooting her a look that says Remind me why we live here again? her eyes flicker towards the window. Rory's late. She was supposed to be here ten minutes ago, and really, those ten minutes is technically, like, twenty five, and even though this isn't a date, and therefore the Gilmore dating rules don't apply, Lorelai understands that it would be silly to expect her daughter to be on-the-dot punctual.
Five more minutes -a half an hour late!-, Rory comes barreling towards Luke's. She stands outside the door for a minute, talking on her cell phone, before she shuts it lightly and walks inside.
"Hey, Luke!" Rory says, as he passes her, on his way to take an order.
"Rory, hey!" Luke sounds positively cheerful. Sometimes it still surprises her - even though it shouldn't - how much Luke cares for her daughter.
"So, you would not believe what happened at work today." Rory starts talking the minute she sits down. Lorelai listens to her, nodding as she talks about the guy who used up all the copier's paper and didn't replace it, nodding, uh-huhing, that the guy's a jerk, and Rory was right, she was not a lowly intern anymore. And yes, she was a journalist, damn it, and she should be treated like one. The entire time, Lorelai's eyes scan Rory. She is wearing a black suit, nice heals, her hair pulled back. She looks good. Professional. Bigger than this town. "… so because of that I had to stay late at work, and then I got stuck in traffic, so that's why I'm late," Rory finishes a different disaster-at-work story.
"If you think that was late, you haven't seen anything. Remember the Great Hair Date Disaster of '07?" Lorelai quips.
As Rory laughs, Luke comes over to take their order. "What can I get you?" he asks. Some things may have changed since Rory went off to college, and Luke and Lorelai may have dated, broken up, got back together, and lather, rinse, repeated until finally they were so hopelessly crazy for each other that nothing could stop them, and they got married, but the way he asks for Lorelai's order has not.
"Pancakes and bacon and eggs and coffee coffee coffee," Lorelai says.
"How many cups is that?" Luke asks.
"Five." Lorelai smiles.
"Plus?"
"Two."
He looks at her for a long moment, and she stares at him, and a few coffee-is-bad remarks later, she wins the battle. Luke turns to Rory.
"Pancakes and orange juice."
Luke comments on that a bit righteously, saying that Rory's learning and she's smart, and he's right, coffee will kill, but before that, for a split second, Lorelai sees the surprise flit through his eyes, and she recognizes the over-the-top-ness that follows for what it is. Concern. For who, she isn't quite sure.
"No coffee?" Lorelai asks the second Luke leaves the table, ignoring that Rory is already in the middle of another work story -a work story, God, she has work stories! He may be her husband, but there are some conversations she doesn't think he wants to be involved with.
Rory stops mid-anecdote. She looks confused for a moment, as she looks from her mother, to Luke, to the coffee pot, and back again. "Um… no?"
Lorelai chuckles nervously. It shows.
"Mom?"
"I've just never not seen you order coffee. Are you…?" Lorelai asks, not quite able to say the word, which is stupid, because she got pregnant at sixteen and then again after she and Luke got married, and she has a successful daughter and handsome son, and why should the word pregnant suddenly have such an awful connotation in her mind?
"Am I…?" Rory repeats, looking absolutely bewildered. She looks around the diner for clues, before her eyes follow Lorelai's own involuntary line of sight. She looks at her own stomach a half second before saying, "God, Mom. No."
"No?" Lorelai parrots.
"No," Rory says firmly.
"No?" Lorelai blurts, feeling incredulous and hating herself for it.
"No!" Rory looks frustrated.
"Okay." Lorelai holds her hands up in mock surrender. "I just… it's weird, is all."
"Well I'm not," Rory says, glancing around suspiciously, lowering her voice a tad, "pregnant." Her voice is normal again when she adds, "I would've told you."
"Then what's with the no coffee?"
"I haven't been drinking it a lot is all. Cutting back."
"The fruit of my loins has turned traitor on God's beverage?" Lorelai says with a smile, feeling strange.
"I have not, I just-"
"Oh, you have turned your back on the most sacred of all drinks, you have-" Lorelai is interrupted by Luke brining over their drinks. "Thank you," she says to him before opening her mouth to continue.
Rory looks uncomfortable though, so she changes the subject, "So, enjoying life in New York?"
Lorelai immediately feels moronic, asking such a small-talky question, but Rory takes the bait and begins to say about how even though she's lived there since she stopped following Obama's campaign trail, and that was years ago, the city still amazes her. "…the fact that everyone doesn't know everyone, and the whole city is so city-ish," Rory says. "I don't think I'll ever get used to it."
They eat their breakfast; Lorelai gulping down her coffee in half the time it takes Rory to lift her orange juice. Rory eats dainty bites and talks about the city life and wears her fancy suit, and Lorelai hates to break it to her, but from what she can tell, Rory has certainly adjusted to city life in the last few years.
Still, in between all that, Rory asks about her brother and Taylor and the town and the latest movies, and Lorelai is reminded that this is her daughter, albeit a grown up version in her late twenties.
They talk for a while, and then they leave the diner, walking around the gazebo and past Miss Patty's and the Kim's. Lorelai tells Rory about town and her life and everything that she's missed since her last in-person, Stars Hollow visit three months ago. They stop for lunch at some point, and then they wander some more. It occurs to Lorelai that she is taking Rory on the scenic tour of Stars Hollow.
When it gets to dark too see anymore, Lorelai says, "We should head back to the house."
Rory nods, but as they walk past Lane's, she says, "Um-"
Lorelai nods in acceptance, not permission, and Rory says she'll meet her back at the house in twenty. Lorelai understands Rory's need to reconnect with her friend, who she barely sees. Still, as she walks home, even though Rory would do the same thing as a teenager, she can't help but feel the distance between Rory and herself. Her daughter, her best friend, lives in another state, with a man, in a nice apartment, and she works a nice job. It is a job Rory has been dreaming of since they lived in that potting shed, but still, it seems so much bigger to Lorelai now that Rory has it. Rory is bigger than Stars Hollow, bigger than this town, bigger thanher, and somehow, today of all days, it is finally hitting Lorelai.
Her daughter is here for a visit, but she'll have to go back for work tomorrow. Her daughter is a journalist, living her dreams, and that doesn't bother Lorelai. But her daughter doesn't have time to come and visit frequently, and when Lorelai went to visit her last month in her new apartment, she looked around the nice, safe place her daughter lived, and immediately her eyes zoomed in on the cozy, little kitchenette. It was silly to feel betrayed by that, but Gilmore Girls do not cook, and that kitchenette was clearly well used with hot pads and aprons all over the place. It was as though Rory had broken a code, and even though it was a silly, unimportant one, it still stung.
Rory's all grown up now, not drinking coffee, because she's cutting back, watching her health, being mature.
Lorelai makes her way up her front porch and opens the door. Luke is there and so is her son - home from Sookie's, who was babysitting so Lorelai could have the day with Rory, and Luke could work at the diner. He is making dinner, and Lorelai comes up behind him, wrapping her arms around him as he stirs something on the stove. He smiles, and her son does too when she picks him up for a moment, before putting him down when he squirms.
She looks around the kitchen, and it occurs to her that it isn't so different from the kitchenette at Rory's. It's being used for cooking, and every so often, Lorelai realizes, she even cooks in it too. (If soup counts as cooking. Lorelai thinks it does.)
Luke seems to notice something is wrong, but he doesn't push her, instead he just lets her hold him close. It's what she needs. Her daughter has been on her own for a while, but today, Rory ordering orange juice, and completely accidentally giving her own daughter a tour of the town that Rory grew up in, and the small talk, and Rory visiting an 'old' friend, has given her a startlingly overdue revelation. Her daughter is all grown up with a life of her own.
Lorelai's eyes water a little as Luke's back is to her, his attention on the stove. The tears burn in the corner of her eyes, so she blinks repeatedly, but her face crumples, so she sneaks off the bathroom before Luke can see that she is upset.
Her daughter is a visitor here. She, herself, is a visitor when she goes to see - visit- her daughter. They are a part of each other's lives, but they are not the only part. Not anymore. In the bathroom, she wipes at her eyes, splashes some water on her face, and fixes her makeup.
As she heads back to the kitchen, Rory comes in the front door. "Sorry I'm a bit later that I planned, but…" she trails off, holding up the bag in her hand, offering it towards Lorelai.
Lorelai grins, despite her unease. "A present for moi?"
"Part of it is," Rory says. They walk into the kitchen. Rory turns to her brother, and Luke nods a greeting. Lorelai takes the present, wonders why it feels like a gift for the hostess, and then opens the bag. She reaches for the box first.
"This one's the main reason I was more than twenty minutes," Rory explains, as Lorelai hacks at the cardboard box, wishing for Luke's box cutter thingy. She gets it open a moment later, while Rory continues, "When I was talking to Lane, she mentioned that her mom had this in, and she thought I should look at it, so I stopped there on the way home, and it was so perfect, so I wanted to-" Rory stops talking abruptly upon seeing the look on her mother's face. "Mom?"
Inside the cardboard box, protected by a few weeks of Stars Hollow Gazettes, is an old coffee mug. It's light blue, and chipped at the edge, and absolutely perfect. Lorelai holds it closely in her hand, before her eyes look back in the box. There are more mugs in the box, some of them clearly from a set with this one, and some of them completely mismatched, thrown in just for her. In between them all is something for sugar and cream, which she knows Luke will appreciate.
Lorelai looks at her daughter a minute later, who looks concerned. Lorelai doesn't realize why, until she realizes just how watery her smile is. Luke is looking at her too, and Lorelai realizes the entire kitchen is still, holding its breath.
"Do you like it?" Rory asks, sounding like she did when she was five years old, asking if Lorelai liked the homemade Christmas ornament her daughter had slaved over.
Lorelai's hand is at her mouth, and she takes a minute to wonder how it got there. She looks around the kitchen, observing it in its complete stillness. She has a husband, a house, a son, and a grown up daughter.
"I love it."
Everything and everyone moves again, the kitchen finally out of pause. Rory hesitates, "Are you sure? Because I know coffee mugs are important, and if these aren't right, I can-"
Lorelai blinks back her tears and says, "You're not taking my favorite mugs." She hugs the box close.
"Coffee set," Rory corrects.
"Huh?"
"Mrs. Kim pointed me over to the table and said this was a coffee set. Since it had the sugar and cream things and all, I assume. But I took all the mugs, not just the matching ones, because I figured it-"
"Would be better that way. Can't have too many," Lorelai finishes. "So what else is in here?" Lorelai asks, placing the box on the table and indicating to the bag in her hand that still had some weight.
Rory still looks worried at her mother's intense reaction to the gift, but she says, "Well, I know it's silly, but we haven't had a movie night in a while, so I thought we could watch some old classics."
Lorelai looks inside the bag, sees the favorite movies she and Rory have seen a thousand and ten times, and smiles. "Movie night?"
Rory nods.
"Are you sure you're ready for movie night, Miss Watching Your Coffee Consumption?"
"I got all the classics," Rory says as an answer, ignoring the jibe.
"But-" Lorelai begins, then stops, not wanting to ruin this moment with any complaints.
Rory only hesitates a split second before realizing what Lorelai was going to say. "Snacks! Oh, how could I have forgotten movie snacks?"
Luke looks at them, looks at the dinner he is making, looks at Lorelai's happy face, and says nothing, only nods.
"Let's go!" Rory says.
They both head to the door, grabbing their coats, and planning what type of junk food they should get.
As they walk towards Doose's, there is something familiar about the scene to Lorelai and yet, something entirely new and exciting. It's something they've done hundreds of times together, but they haven't in over a year. There's this chill of excitement running through Lorelai, and she shivers in happiness. Rory does too.
They go to the market, and they buy the same snacks they always used to, plus a few new ones. They walk home, and this time, both of them gossip happily. Lorelai is more than just excited, she is rejuvenated.
They spend hours watching the movies, after reminding Luke of the movie night rules.
Her daughter is all grown up in a world filled with apartments with tiny, little kitchenettes. Her daughter visits once or twice every few months. Her daughter can survive without her.
Her husband watches movies next to her, as her son sleeps in the other room. He smiles at her happiness. (Because while it's certainly not new, and Lorelai has been happy during their marriage, Lorelai hadn't been as happy when she and Rory visited as she should've been, always nostalgically second-guessing, and Luke knew that.) Luke drifts off two movies later.
Rory sits next to her for another four. Lorelai and she laugh and gossip, and everything is different, but oddly the same. They are still friends, and they still drift off in a heap on the floor, right next to each other.
Lorelai blinks her eyes ages later to see Rory staring at her. Rory points to the screen, showing her why she had shaken her awake.
Happy ending. Credits roll.
Author's Note: This is my first Gilmore Girls story, so I'd love to know what you think.