"Better to have met you in my dream than to wake up and reach for hands that are not there."
...Otomo No Yakamochi
Notes: A kind of post-finale story, just because I am dazzlingly original. Hopefully, it will be a little different. And spoilers have currently destroyed my idea... that's what happens when you take too long to post. But well, who cares about spoilers anyway (hmm, who said I do?).
Much thanks to Lydia and Kara, who read and gave great opinions and much love to Sam and Ari, who proof read, kept up with my dumb spelling and were awesome all the way through. You all rock to no end, I dedicate this to you.
Disclaimer: The title is from the awesome Finch song, 'Perfection Through Silence' (well, what did you expect?) and Gilmore Girls is Amy Palladino's, but I'm having a hard time dealing with that and so we are not to speak about it. Shh.
Perfection Through Silence
Chapter One: Prologue
That God forsaken bell hasn't been heard ringing before her overly confident steps in four days now. Luke knows why, of course. But despite having prepared himself for this, he just doesn't really understand why. They had talked about this. They decided they could handle this. It would be awkward, it would be excruciating, it would be tiring... they would get past it.
But now, where is she? Without her actually being there every day, they (he) can't get over it.
It's strange, but he'd rather have her in his life as a customer, as a friend, than not in his life at all. The days when he doesn't see her feel the same; settled: wake up, take a shower, dress, eat breakfast, open the diner, say hello to Lane and Caesar, serve the customers, tell Kirk to get lost, have a lunch break, et cetera. With her in them, they are bright, warm and full of Hallmark-worthy thoughts.
Plus, without her buying coffee all the time, how is he supposed to make a living? She makes him rich (kind of).
He figures she has to come in sometime soon. Even if it's to pay her account at the end of the month. No, she could have Rory do that for her. And he'd rather she'd come for something other than payment reasons too.
Rory came back today and he knows she'll bring Lorelai with her sooner or later. Rory doesn't know anything. No one does.
Ok, this is just the kind of thought that causes cancer when you're forty-five. Focus on something else. Something less confusing. Simple and healthy like... soup?
He shakes his head frustratingly. Soup is the kind of thing Dumber would think about. Why is his mind such a blank? There are plenty of things happening to occupy his mind. Like...
Tomorrow is the last day of summer. Stars Hollow is holding the third annual Stars Hollow End of Summer Madness Festival. Kirk mentioned the theme song this year will be 'The Things We Did Last Summer' - Taylor's special Frank Sinatra pick, of course - It's shocking but it's over. This was the fastest passing summer since he was in 8th grade. Now that was one damn good summer, but not quite as good as this one. No summers could ever be quite as good as this one.
The things he'll do next summers can't really be as good as the ones he did in this.
The things he's done this summer really were that good.
Past tense being precisely why he must stop thinking about the things he's done this summer. And he must stop with the word summer too. Lord knows he'll be hearing it enough tomorrow.
Good, three seconds filled with no thoughts of her. He can do this.
Except he can't, he sees, as soon as Kirk decides that what he's been trying to decide for ten minutes now is that he wants coffee and a blueberry scone.
Lorelai likes coffee, blueberries and scones.
If she's been living without good coffee and burgers all this time, it's because she must really not want to see him. He actually isn't sure if he wants to see her either. The minute she walks through that door, he's sure, every single person in town will know by the look printed upon his face that he can't get over her, or stop thinking of her, or stop thinking about coffee and blueberries and scones.
It will all be stamped in capital letters on his forehead.
He's beginning to sound like her. Oh, joy.
Actually, he's proud of himself; this is the only third time he's thought of her these past four days. Mostly he can get by with his routine since between trying to get Taylor to lower down the silly music of the Ice Cream Shop and serving some costumer who doesn't know what he wants and keeps changing his order, Luke doesn't have much time to stop and let her enter his mind.
But every now and then, while the diner isn't full and there aren't any Taylors or Kirks or Babettes there to keep him busy... when Lane randomly mentions Lorelai is foolishly trying to organize the books she somehow bumped into while cleaning Rory's bedroom, when for an unknown reason he turns on the TV and catches a glimpse of His Girl Friday... those are the moments when he realizes that thinking is unbelievably overrated.
Now, Luke is very functional with everything he does and he likes it that way because it keeps things simple. Mostly simple. Truth being that ever since he wedded Nicole, it all has gone far from functional, or rational really. Marrying, wearing other people's socks, divorcing, egg-finding, self-help tape buying, inn-opening, kissing, affair-ing, hiding... those are all, he assumes, considered very un-functional things by the Lead A Normal Diner Man Life book.
And now, as the new customer once again changes his order, Miss Patty suspiciously whispers at the corner table to Babette and his head swirls with thoughts like it hardly ever had to do before; he's just sick of thinking anything at all.
A week or so ago
As the town night lights came in through the window, he watched and wondered if he should get thicker curtains. As Lorelai lay half over him, tracing round patterns on his chest, he (paranoidly) wondered if their shadows were visible when they weren't... quite as quiet. He put it in the back of his mind, along with the plan of buying a bigger bed. One meant for a couple would be more comfortable. But the curtains, like the bed, did have their good side. With a really small bed, there was absolutely no way that they could be settled comfortably unless she was almost all over him, pretty much cuddling. The curtains allowed the perfect light in, and in the morning it helped him waking up. They had been the same for years.
The fact that someone could see them was just a little plus. He kind of wished that they got caught. He wondered if that's so wrong. Slowly, he dragged his mind to what would happen if they were caught. Would this hiding go on? Would they desperately try to cover it all with some stupid excuse?
This kind of thought wasn't allowed in their relationship, though. He'd promised her. He'd promised himself.
But thoughts aren't very predictable things.
He had just decided that he was feeling too content to start with such section 8 thought, when he heard, well rather felt, a small momentary difference in her breathing...
"What were you sighing about?"
"I wasn't sighing about anything, I was thinking."
"What were you thinking?... for?"
"Oh, nothing."
He gave her a strange look then. If there's something people catch on to very early, it is that Lorelai Gilmore is never thinking about nothing. "What were you thinking?"
Popping herself up on her elbow to be on an eye-to-eye level with him, she patiently answered: "Well, not nothing. I was thinking... what's your favorite crayon color?"
He blinked and made a perfectly Lorelai worthy face. "What?"
"What's your favorite Crayola crayon color?" was her insistent response.
"Blue."
She impatiently shook her head then, "No, Life Of The Party, not your favorite boring crayon color! I mean periwinkle, laser lemon, atomic tangerine, razzmatazz...!"
"I don't have an interesting favorite crayon color."
"How can you not have an interesting favorite crayon color? They're the best colors!"
"Well, what's yours then?" He tried to draw the attention of the conversation off him.
It kind of worked. "Unmellow yellow, of course. You can draw all kinds of stuff with it, the sun, daisies, a house... uh! That little line on your pavement road! Also..."
Amusedly, he stopped her. He wanted to take the focus off him, but he also wanted to try to understand what went on in her often caffeine-high head. "Lorelai?"
"Yes?"
"Why were you thinking of unmellow yellows and little street lines?"
"I wasn't thinking about..." Lorelai stopped and decided to leave the impatient road behind since she was the one not making any sense (like most times). Instead, matter-of-factly, she answered him: "The day after tomorrow is Friday."
He was prepared to mock this conversation to no end but with this his tone was suddenly softened. "I know."
"We know each other, right? We've met."
"Of course," And he's the impatient one.
"And we know things about each other's lives, 'cause we're friends."
"Sure."
"And we also know... know each other, because we've done this," Lorelai inconveniently pointed her finger down their interlaced bodies, shaking it from one side to another.
"That also," An answer with a shy smirk. He is much more discreet about certain things than she is, more reserved. It's why it's perfect, the balance.
"But... I don't know those little intimate things about you that I would know if the day after tomorrow weren't... Friday."
"Oh."
"Like, if it's winter, do you take your clothes to the bathroom to dress while it's steamy and hot or do you get out with the towel to your closet to then choose what to wear? Or when you read, do you stop and sit on the chair by the window or do you like to read before you go to sleep, in bed? When you're around the house by yourself, do you wear sweats, normal clothes, very old clothes? Or do you walk around the way God put you here on Earth?... What's your favorite crayon color?
And those are the things... is this gonna be an affair? When I think about it, will I put it on the affair, fling or relationship column? I'd hate to I put it in any of those first ones. I don't know that you."
"Lorelai," came his seemingly disapproving tone.
"Look, all -"
And even though he was completely aware of the fact that he had to open the diner as early as always the next day, and that he wouldn't be able to look at customer's clothes without having discussions in his head about which color would describe that shirt, he faintly sighed and said:
"Lorelai? Let's start with the crayon colors. Unmellow yellow I think I know, what does... razzmatazz look like?"
Her left eyebrow rised up along with the corner of her lips, slowly curling in a smirk. "There are over 100 crayon colors."
"And we could have already gone through two colors if you'd stop insisting on speaking about other things."
That was his reassurance. And she knew that it would take the whole night, and that in the early morning she'd be the crankiest person on Earth, but they'd make it so she'd honestly be able to put them in the relationship column. Because he wanted her to. Because she wanted to, too. And they were both fine with that. She smiled and laid back down on his chest, her head slightly lifted with a thought.
"Razzmatazz is a really strong shade of pink that looks a lot like..."
Outside Luke's
Lorelai hasn't been avoiding Luke. She hasn't. She just doesn't have that much time anymore, with the inn opening. It's perfectly true. (That's what she'll tell him.)
Still, going over her alibi for the thousandth time in her head hasn't made her painfully bumping heart decide to stop torturing her ribs. She's been avoiding this.
Maybe he won't look as good as she remembers. Maybe he'll be just Luke who has the coffee. Maybe her imaginative Scheherazade mind has enhanced his handsomeness. She quickly peeks through the window, scanning the inside. He's talking to a customer she doesn't recognize, sideways to her. Nope, her memory is working fine. Damn.
Of all the things a year ago she thought she'd be doing in the end of this summer, doing her best to avoid seeing Luke and hoping her daughter was coming late weren't the most vivid scenarios. Everything changed so fast, it still makes her head spin more than it usually does.
Discomfort. That would be the word to describe how Lorelai is feeling this particular moment. To describe how she has been feeling last few days. She orders everything in from Al's, she doesn't want to eat at Luke's... or anywhere else for that matter. She makes her own coffee. It goes like water. She made the delivery boy from Al's go buy her more coffee, 'cause she didn't want to go to Doose's either. The poor boy had no choice since she said she wouldn't pay him if he didn't go, and that she would tell Al that he ate half of the french fries she had ordered. It was an emergency, therefore her evil behavior was necessary.
Not that in the house it's much better. She hates to pass in front of Rory's room. She avoids it like Dracula from the cross. Both her and Rory avoid going in it now. And Rory, her little girl. Seeing her still makes Lorelai's head ache. If this were Salem in the 17th century, Rory would have been burnt a while ago. The thought stops her heart.
Plus, she doesn't actually have time for much. The Inn is a success. Sookie, Jackson, Lorelai and even Michel were pleasantly surprised. They've never been busier either. Everything seems to need her to take a little look. The new group coming on Monday needs a table set for 18 every morning, how do we fit a table for 18 plus the 8 people table the McDermott family needs in one place, Lorelai? The phone on room 20 is broken. The people from room 12 are making too much noise at terrible hours, et cetera.
She hates it but she loves it. Right now she couldn't think of herself doing anything else no matter how exhausting it is. It's her dream come true, with a few twists. After all, no one dreams about their Inn having a horse food problem. You only dream the good things, the dramatic things, the life-altering juicy stuff. Lorelai's no exception.
But all thoughts of discomfort are forgotten, as Patty walks from behind her, saying Hello and walking into Luke's. She watches as the bell rings and Patty sits with Babette. She watches as Babette offers a piece of her danish and as Patty refuses, only to have Luke bring two danishes for herself. Lorelai watches everything in an almost trance-like state, almost fascinated by the routine movements made.
Danish. Danish is almost Danes, she thinks quite stupidly.
Luke Danes. Thank God it's Danes, not Danish. Luke Danish. Heh.
Lorelai, you're gonna win the next Nobel Prize.
She tries to, but the thought won't leave her momentarily constipated mind.
Luke. Danes. Danish. Luke Danes. Daaaanesss. Danes, Luke. Lorelai. Gilmore. Gil - more? Lorelai Gilmore. Luke Danes. Lorelai Gilmore. Danes. Lorelai Gilmore Danes. Luke Gilmore?
Her eyes roll fast and self- mocking as she realizes just what she's doing, "Oh please, just hand me a notebook, a pink bubble gum scented pen and one of those heart shaped ruler thingies."
Well, great, she thinks. Now she talks to herself. Shaking her head, she remembers the five steps to having an imaginary friend. Because talking to an imaginary friend is better than talking to your imaginary self. Wait, imaginary? And why just stop at one? Lorelai plans on having a whole Chevrolet Venture of imaginary friends. And then they could all have fun socializing at an imaginary party.
Lorelai blinks at the strangeness of these thoughts. Maybe this is the start of an imaginary stroke.
But there's no more time for self mocking, "What was that?" says the known voice behind her.
Lorelai's head is immediately an essay made by a kid who knows nothing about spelling being corrected by an angry, word crossing-and-correcting teacher. And all her thoughts are being altered with a red colored Bic pen. "Uh? What?"
Rory's eyebrow goes up in a suspecting and curious expression, "What were you saying just there?"
Lorelai quickly searches through the corrected words that her mind's teacher is putting in the essay, but none of them seem to work as a sentence that would excuse her talking to herself. She was so caught up in thinking about her life in the moment, she wound up forgetting the plan to go into Luke's before her kid arrived. Her search for an excuse is working so badly that she hardly registers the fact that this is the biggest sentence she has said to her daughter since Rory got back from Europe. "Oh, I was just making a mental list of things I need to buy for the Inn."
And it makes Lorelai a little nervous that Rory's eyebrow doesn't leave its mocking place upon that explanation. Maybe she actually heard what Lorelai said. "And you need to buy... rulers? For the Inn?"
Thinking of true excuses is very tiring, Lorelai thinks. And it bothers her that she doesn't have time to think of the contradiction of an excuse being true or time to think of the fact that she's trying to make true excuses to her daughter in this very moment, "Yes, well, it's our new way to make Michel do the things we tell him to. When talking twice doesn't make that thick bold head pick up the phone anymore, we have to find new ways, you know?"
A small satisfied smile is thrown her way as Rory realizes the teasing part of that sentence. She knows instantly that her mother's lying or hiding something, but this particular time she isn't going to try digging deeper into it. This is the first normal sentence she's said to her ever since that night and Rory would like to keep the mood light for as long as possible, even if it does mean ignoring the fact that her mother is deliberately trying to hide something from her for the first time since she got into Chilton, "Ah. I see. But you do remember that you never remember anything if don't write it down, don't you? Thankfully, I learned this past year that unless you plan on being kicked out, you have to bring a notebook to Yale even if you are only going to sign up for classes. So, since Mr. Whitcomb Judson's invention makes it no work at all to take said notebook out of my purse, do you want it?"
Rory doesn't wait for an answer, she's already trying to find the notebook in her purse as she's finishing saying it.
Lorelai annoyingly rolls her eyes and mutters under her breath, "Yes. And a pink pen too."
"Here," Rory says satisfied for having, after all, a notebook in her purse. The content smile makes all Lorelai's annoyance at her intelligent-yet-oblivious daughter fade away into the wind. Maybe all things can be fixed. With a small mocking grin, Lorelai answers, "Thank you."
The first nice moment between them creeps away giving place to an awkward air as Rory gradually realizes that Lorelai can't possibly make mocking-intended notes in the notebook as there are no tables to support the notebook on, and that's all because they are still outside Luke's.
Why aren't they inside Luke's?
"Uh. Remind me again why you're making mental notes of rulers for the Inn outside."
And there is the bad essay again... "You see, tomorrow is the last day of summer," Lorelai measuredly says as the words form in her head.
Slightly amused by the fact that her mother is talking to her like one of them has a mental problem, she answers in the same slow way, "Yes it is."
"So I decided to just stand outside and enjoy the sweet breeze while it's here," she says fleetingly. Well, an excuse. Not a good one, but one nonetheless.
Rory's face is expressionless for a second as she thinks of a comeback. She continues to use that slow tone, seemingly pronouncing every syllable to say, "Right. And you do know that the day after tomorrow, even though it won't be summer anymore, the sweet breeze will still be here." The expressionless expression turns into a grin.
Lorelai's mind is tired and thankful for the fact that her dumb excuse was taken teasingly. She can do teasing. In the back of her mind she keeps the fact that she'll do teasing for now. Sooner or later, she and Rory will have to talk about things. She stores that fact safely in the same dusty corner of her head where she keeps all the memories. For now, teasing is good. "No! Of course it won't. The noun 'last' is there just to express the complete ending of the summer, and therefore, the breeze."
Rory rolls her eyes and ignores any seriousness of the conversation, "Fine, Amelia Bedelia. But now that you've already enjoyed the breeze enough, could we please go in? I seem to have a nagging necessity to drink coffee after a long morning with Paris."
Huh. Today is Excuse Day!, Lorelai thinks, "We have coffee at home, you know. And the diner is especially busy today, so maybe we should finish our home coffee and then we'd have a perfectly plausible reason to come here, adding people to a packed place. And we'd enjoy the breeze on the way home."
"Since when do you like your coffee better than Luke's?" Rory says with a confused look on her face. Letting it go, she discreetly dips her head a little to the diner side, "Plus, he already saw us standing out here so it'd be very weird if we didn't stay, wouldn't it?"
Lorelai's head turned in the diner's direction in a very non- discreet way and sure enough, Luke was staring right at them. As soon as she reaches his eyes, though, he looks away as if someone behind him had called his name. All of this excuse thinking. "Yeah. It would," she tiredly answers.
Contently, Rory declares, "Well, then. I'm starving! In we go."
In a beat up tone, Lorelai replies, "Ok. Sure."
Yet, sure has never had so many possibilities in Lorelai's head.
Why is this so hard?