Hey, I found it interesting that the show never had a Rory pregnancy scare episode so here are some of my ideas for how they could have done it. Be warned, the first is a bit angsty……….oh and if they did do an episode like that let me know cos I haven't seen all the episodes yet. I'm about 90 percentthrough.
--
This first one is set post season seven. Assume Rory's back in Connecticut for a long weekend.
Lorelai had never been so scared in all her life. There are some phone calls no mother wants to get. To be told there was a gas explosion at your daughter's favourite restaurant and that she was in hospital, burned and unconscious after having been thrown half way across the room with the full force of the blast, is pretty much the worst call you can get.
The hospital was a mess, it looked like a war zone with injured people walking in and nurses and doctors trying to figure out whose life was in immediate danger and who just needed their wounds cleaned and dressed. Lorelai walked straight up to the first nurse she saw.
"Excuse me, hi, Rory Gilmore, she was brought in a little while ago, They said she was pretty bad."
"If you take a seat for five minutes I'll find someone to take you to her."
"Five minutes isn't good enough! I have to see her now!"
"Look I'm sorry Ms Gilmore is it?"
"Yeah"
"I'm sorry but in case you didn't notice we're in the middle of a crisis here. Now if she's here she's being taken care of. Please take a seat and someone will come find you and take you to your sister."
"God damn it she's not my sister she's my daughter! She's my daughter and she's all I have right now and I HAVE to see her!"
"I'm sorry, I have to get back out there", the nurse said pointing to the increasing number of people outside the doors as yet another unconscious victim was wheeled past them. The nurse began to walk away but grabbed someone with a clipboard.
"Hey Alice, could you please take this woman to Rory Gilmore. She was in trauma 1 but I think they moved her."
"Sure" replied the woman and indicated to Lorelai to follow her. She did so without comment. One word played through her mind, Trauma. Rory was in, or had been taken to the Trauma room. She followed the woman in a complete daze just repeating in her head 'Please God let her be okay' The woman stuck her head into a room where a group of doctors was working on a young man who looked in pretty bad shape and said "I'm looking for Rory Gilmore." One of the doctors replied "Room 4, waiting on Aldridges consult." "I got her Mom here" said Alice and the doctor looked over, "Uh, right, I'll be in as soon as I can."
Alice closed the door and turned to a pale looking Lorelai, "It's just down here".
Again Lorelai followed and then she saw her, her little girl through a small glass window in the door. She was hooked up to monitors and had an oxygen mask. She had a drip in her left arm and her right arm was bandaged up, as was her right leg, which was elevated a little. The right side of her face looked incredibly pink, sunburned almost, and she was covered in scratches and bruises. She walked in.. As soon as she closed the door the deafening noise of the hospital with it's patients screaming and doctors yelling and beeping machines faded away. She walked over to Rory's bed and kissed her gently on her forehead, sat down on the chair next to the bed and gently held her hand.
"Hey. It's okay now kid, I'm here. So you can stop the drama before I start to lose it." Tears began to well in the older woman's eyes. "Come on Rory, wake up sweetie." The words had no effect. Lorelai laid her head against the back of Rory's hand and began to sob.
Lorelai sat by the bed for fifteen minutes before she figured she should call Chris and her mom and Luke. She even figured Logan should know, even if he and Rory had broken up. She wiped the tears from her face, kissed Rory again and walked out of the room and to the exit where she took out her cell and dialled Chris' number.
"Hello" came the familiar voice on the other end of the line.
"Chris it's Lorelai"
"Hey Lor, how you doing, this is a nice surprise."
"No it's not it's the worst surprise ever. Rory's in the hospital"
"Which one? Is she okay?"
"No", Lorelai started to choke up again, "No she's not okay. She's all hooked up to wires and machines and I think she got burned pretty badly. The whole right side of her body is in bandages"
"Lor I'm leaving the house. What hospital is she in?"
"Hartford Memorial"
"I'll be there in 30 minutes" Chris hung up and Lorelai did her best to compose herself and called her Mom.
"Lorelai just the person I wanted to talk to. I was hoping to throw a.."
"Mom!"
"…small party to cel…"
"MOM! Rory's in the hospital. It's bad. Hartford Memorial." Emily stopped, dumbfounded.
"I'm on my way. Rich…….." Lorelai heard her Mom bellowing for her dad as she hung up. She was about to call Luke when she saw him running up to her.
"I heard about the explosion at the H Lounge and Rory said she was going tonight and I tried calling but you weren't home and I got scared so I came here" Luke was rambling, "Is she okay is she here?" Lorelai walked over and hugged him, his simple presence calming her a little.
"She's here but she's not okay." Luke held her tighter and kissed her on top of her head.
"Come on let's get in there" he said as he took her hand and steered them both towards the entrance.
"Oh, ah, wait, Logan, I was gonna call Logan." Said Lorelai holding up her phone and Luke took it from her. "I'll call him. Go be with Rory" Lorelai thanked Luke and went back to Rory's room. She hadn't moved the rhythm made by the heart monitor was exactly the same. She sat down again and a doctor walked in.
"Miss Gilmore?"
"Yeah"
"Hi I'm Doctor Marshall, I treated Rory when she was brought in."
"Is she gonna be okay?"
"She has some second degree burns to her right arm and right leg. Witnesses say she was thrown across the room by the blast which explains the bruising to her body. Her leg isn't broken but it is in a bad way. She was semi conscious at the scene but lost consciousness in the ambulance. We're waiting on some blood work and we'll be taking her for a CT scan very shortly to assess the extent of her head injuries."
"When will she wake up?"
"Hard to say at this point. We'll have a better indication when we have the CT results but for now she's stable."
At this point a nurse walked in. "Excuse me Doctor Marshall I have the test results you wanted." Doctor Marshall nodded politely to Lorelai and excused himself, stepping outside the room and talking to the nurse before coming back in, flipping through the pages of results he'd been handed.
"Miss Gilmore does your daughter have a boyfriend?"
"Uh yeah she did, They broke up a week or so ago. Why?"
"Because Miss Gilmore your daughter's pregnant."
"What." Lorelai looked over at Rory. "How do you know that?"
"We take blood work and urine samples from every unconscious patient we get and we always test for pregnancy with any woman from 16 to 50. Your daughter's came back positive." The nurse came back with a sonogram.
"Wait, whoa what's that for?"
"We're gonna do a scan to be sure."
"No! She can't be pregnant, we talk about everything. EVERYTHING! She would have told me."
"Please calm down, it's possible she doesn't even know yet. The results from the test were positive but that's no indication of how far along she is."
The nurse started to pull the bed sheets back off Rory, placing a sheet under Rory's gown to cover her before lifting the gown so the doctor could perform the scan. He hooked up the machine and put some gel on the roller. He placed the roller on Rory's abdomen and looked at the screen while moving it around.
"There it is." He pointed to a very small peanut shaped blob in the corner of the screen. "There's the baby, I'd say she's five to six weeks in."
Luke walked in and saw the sonogram. "Oh my god, is she okay?"
"She's stable" said Lorelai, not taking her eyes off her beautiful daughter's face. She turned to the doctor. "Is the baby gonna be okay?"
"Rory's strong and healthy. The damage is mostly to her sides and I see no signs of impact or bruising around the abdomen. It's a little soon to tell but I'll run some more tests. As far as I can see she should be fine. Both of them." With that the doctor smiled and left the room and the nurse cleaned off Rory's belly and followed after him.
"I got through to Logan, he's in New York but he says he'll use his father's helicopter and be here in an hour or so. How are you holding up."
"She's pregnant."
"I heard. Did you know?"
"No. I don't even think she knows. She's really early on."
"Wow."
They both looked over to Rory. She moved her head a little. Lorelai and Luke both walked closer looking for any twitch or movement. Rory remained perfectly still.
Over the next few hours Richard, Emily, Chris, Gigi and a few members of the Stars Hollow community came and went. Emily and Richard left to get coffee and Chris had to take Gigi back to Lorelai's so she could sleep, promising to return soon. Logan came and checked on her, staying for a while before leaving to check into a motel and freshen up. Lorelai never left Rory's side and Luke never left Lorelai.
Rory had the CT scan and the doctors found nothing except a small concussion. They said she was just sleeping now, and there was no reason she shouldn't wake up soon.
--
The first thing Rory felt as she came round was the pain in her leg, followed closely by the burns on her arm and a splitting headache. She heard the beeping of machines and before she even opened her eyes knew she was in a hospital, but why? 'Right, explosion, dinner with people from the paper at the H Lounge and then an explosion.' There were some very hazy memories of an ambulance and more pain but nothing else.
She took some deep breaths and opened her eyes, the light seemed overly bright so she shut them again quickly. No need to rush after all. 'Right what body parts are still here' she moved her fingers, 'okay two hands, eight fingers two thumbs, check', she moved on to her toes, 'Okay Owww! Pain but still all there, lets see if I can bend my knees' When she tried this it hurt so much she opened her eyes and tried to sit to clutch at her leg but couldn't so she lay there, in some pain, but awake at last.
The light that she'd thought was so strong a moment ago she now saw came only from the bedside light of the patient sleeping opposite and that it was the middle of the night. After adjusting to the light she saw her Mom sleeping in the chair next to her. She should have known.
"Mom." She said, her voice dry and quiet. She coughed a little and tried to speak a little louder, "Mom!" Lorelai stirred, opening and closing her eyes until they settled on Rory's. Lorelai elbowed Luke gently to wake him up. "I'll go get a doctor" he said before leaving the Gilmore Girls alone.
"Rory"
"Mom, what happened."
"There was a gas explosion sweetie, you got knocked around by the blast. You got a few burns, a few bruises, but you're gonna be fine. I believe I'm supposed to get you a prescription for ice cream and every Hayao Miyazaki film ever made."
"More of a Tarantino girl myself"
Lorelai laughed and leaned over and kissed her daughter
"What time is it?" Asked Rory, looking around the room for a clock.
"Almost 4am."
"Awkward but what day?"
"It's now Sunday morning. You were out for about 8 hours hun."
"Oh, phew okay."
"Phew?"
"Yeah. Phew. As in I've not been lying in a coma for months."
"Ah yes, phew indeed." Lorelai smiled and stroked Rory's hair.
At this point Luke came back with a doctor and a nurse in tow. Luke sort of shuffled around nervously. "I'm ah, gonna give you some privacy" he said before hightailing it out of the room.
"Hello miss Gilmore, glad to have you back with us. I'm Doctor Connor."
"Hi"
"How're you feeling, any pain anywhere?"
"yeah. Mostly my head and my legs"
"Okay we'll get you some pain relief." He turned to the nurse who'd been checking her vitals. "500 of 'Brophen to start with. That should help with the pain but if it gets really bad tell us and we'll see about getting something stronger." He flipped through the chart. "While we're here would you like me to set you up an appointment with the OBGYN?"
"What? Why would I need to see an OBGYN?"
"It says on your chart that you're…" Lorelai cut him off, shaking her head vigorously at him. "I'll tell you what, why don't I go see about those meds and I'll be right back."
Rory looked at her mom confused. "Mom why would he think I need an OBGYN?"
Lorelai sighed. "You really don't know?" Rory shook her head, her face blank.
"Okay. There is something else. Now if there was something major that I knew but you didn't, something…medical I suppose you'd call it, about you, something life altering, would you want to hear it from the doctor or from me."
"Mom you're scaring me what's going on?"
"Answer the question. Life altering. D'you want to hear it from me or from the doctor?"
"From you" Rory looked really frightened now." Oh god I'm not gonna be like paralysed or anything am I"
"No hun, no nothing like that" Lorelai smiled at her and took a deep breath. "You're pregnant"
"What?"
"Yeah"
"Really?"
"Yeah"
"Mom that's awesome" Rory smiled at her mom.
"You really think so. I mean you didn't have any idea before?"
"No but that's brilliant! God you and Luke must be so thrilled!"
"Uh, actually we're not sure what to think I guess we were waiting on you"
"Come on this is great news." Lorelai was a little bewildered by Rory's behavior. There was the very real possibility that she may be about to become a single mother and she was shockingly happy.
"Actually hun it's pretty scary right now. And not just 'cos I'm gonna be a 37 year old grandmother."
"What?" Rory's face started to go white as a sheet.
"Me, I'm 37, still it's a little older than my mom was when I had you"
Rory spoke quietly, panicked almost "How are you going to be a grandmother if you and Luke are having a baby?"
Lorelai took hold of Rory's hand, "Hun what did you hear me say a moment ago?"
"You said you were pregnant, you and Luke are having a baby."
"No sweetie, I need you to listen carefully. You're pregnant."
"Oh god." Rory looked down at her stomach and back to her mom.
"You didn't know."
"NO! I haven't missed any….."Rory thought back, she had missed her period last month but she'd just started her job at the New York Times, she was stressed and overworked and adjusting to life in a new city, that was normal right? And she was only a few days….ok a week late…this……month. "How did you find out?"
"They did a test when you came in. Standard practise."
"You're sure? They're sure?"
"I saw them do a sonogram ultrasound thingy."
Rory moved her hand to her belly.
"You've seen it."
Lorelai positively beamed at Rory. "God it was so tiny but it was there."
"How far along am I?"
"Almost eight weeks."
"Does Logan know?"
"No sweetie he doesn't know. He's here though. I called him before I even knew. Figured he'd want to know you were hurt."
"What are we gonna do" Rory began to cry.
"I'll tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna get you better from the explosion first and then worry about the baby okay."
Rory looked down at her belly again, and looked up shocked and scared once more, "the blast, it didn't, I mean it's"
"As far as they can tell the baby is fine. No bruises to the abdomen." Said Lorelai calmingly.
"God" Rory ran her fingers through her hair, crying now. She tried to move to get a little more comfortable but grimaced at the pain.
The nurse came in with the pain meds handing them anda cup of water with a straw to Rory who took them willingly.
Tears were rolling down her Rory's cheeks and Lorelai could hardly stand how hurt her little girl was.
"You should try and rest, sleep if you can, this is a hell of a lot to handle right now so just try and relax okay. I'll be right here."
Rory nodded and closed her eyes, holding on to her mom's hand tightly, and fell asleep.