Sin of Omission
Disclaimer: Yes, yes, not mine, got it.
Summary: An AU (or deleted scene?) from Season 6, inspired by a PM convo with PurryCat. Lorelai's not the only one who didn't know April exists…
Rating: T
Genre: Angst
AN: So I wrote a review, and PurryCat and I got PM-ing, and, well, wouldn't this have helped make some sense of Anna Nardini's character/actions? Maybe not. But enjoy. Obviously, of my own bizarre making.
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Lorelai Gilmore could not do it.
She could not get out of her jeep. She had one heel on the pavement, but she could not make the rest of her follow.
Luke had a daughter.
Luke had lied.
Luke had a daughter and it wasn't with Lorelai. Or Rachel. Or Nicole. Or anyone else anyone knew existed. No. It was someone else. Someone Luke never mentioned.
Like he never mentioned much about Rachel or Nicole or his family or…
A man in a suit and tie smile politely at her. "Miss? Are you okay? You look like you're not feeling well."
Lorelai drew in a loud breath. She glanced around her, at the mall parking lot, and concluded shopping couldn't cure this. Nothing could.
"Miss?"
"I'm okay," she lied feebly.
"If it's any help," said the man in the suit, "I'm a medical doctor. Over at Woodbridge Community. Do you need an ambulance?"
Lorelai burst into tears.
The man sighed. "Who can I call for you?"
Lorelai wailed.
Frowning, the man reached for her wrist. "Okay, calm down, miss, calm down, can you tell me your name?"
"Luh-luh-Lorelai. Guh-Gilmore."
"Miss Lorelai Gilmore, I'm Doctor David Stevens."
"Okay?" whimpered Lorelai to the stranger who was checking her pulse. "Please don't be a maniac killer rapist."
"Promise," said the doctor calmly. "Now. Let's breathe, okay? Easy does it. In and two and three, and try to hold it for two and three, there you go…"
"Are you an ob-ob-obsta-baby doctor?" Lorelai choked out forlornly and scrubbed at her cheeks, smearing mascara every which way.
He chortled. "No, why do you ask?"
"Sounds like Lamaze breathing."
"No, but it works, and similar principles are involved, there we go, now, before I can go have lunch with my fiancée, I need to make sure you're okay. So, are you okay?"
Lorelai had never seen this man before but he had kind hazel eyes, warm and gentle, and even if he was an axe murderer, he was a very polite one. She blurted, "My fiancé. He lied to me. For two months he's known he had a daughter. That his ex never told him he had. And he's acted so strange, and I think he doesn't want me to know her, and what's that say about me? Him? Us? This?" She flapped her ringed hand in the man's face. "I'm not even good enough to know he's got a kid! And he helped me raise mine!"
"Whoa, slow down, more breathing," the doctor coached Lorelai, and glanced at his watch with a frown. "Hold on, let me make a call, then I'm right back, okay?"
Lorelai dropped her head to her steering wheel, shoulders shaking from the force of her sobs.
"Okay, made my call," said the doctor-stranger-not-maniac to her gently. "You love him, right?"
With a face that said "Duh!", Lorelai said, "Yes!"
"But he didn't trust you to tell you about his kid?"
Hearing it put that baldly, Lorelai moaned.
As if he was walking her through it, the doctor prompted, "But he didn't know about the kid?"
"No. She had a science fair. She's really smart about science, everyone in town says so who met her, except me, I can't meet her, and she did a DNA test to see who her dad is and it's Luke, and it's my Luke, and he keeps saying he didn't want to upset me, but do I look happy to you? No! No, I don't!" She pointed at her smeared make-up. "I look like the Joker, the one from the Adam West Batman, and that's almost as bad as the Jack Nicholson one!"
The doctor's eyebrows shot up. "You have a therapist?"
Face puckering, Lorelai whimpered, "Not yet, but I might need one of those padded rooms, all I can hear in my head is, he didn't tell me, right after he promises no secrets, he keeps one, so is it me who sucks or is it him or is it nobody? I mean, it's crazy, right? Certifiable? Not telling someone you have a kid? If you're gonna marry them?"
"Ah," he said uneasily. "I don't know if it'd be clinically considered insane, but it'd be a bad idea, yes. Does this ex of his have a problem with you, is that it?"
"Who, Anna? No," sniffled Lorelai, and found a wad of napkins in her glove compartment. She blew her nose and hiccupped. "No, not that I know of. I've never met her. I mean, I've met people named Anna, but definitely not Nardini, because I'd remember a last name like that, right? Nardini sounds like she should be in a DeNiro mob film, don't you think?"
An expression crossed his face. It shocked Lorelai silent. Obviously, she'd babbled halfway to driving him nuts. It wasn't a nice thing to do to a stranger.
"Oh. You're right," she said, and sighed out a long, sad shiver of a breath. "Yeah. That's going… Yeah. Okay, I'm definitely overreacting and getting crazy. Er. Crazier. You're right. Wow. You're a good doctor, y'know that?"
Doctor David Stevens said quietly, "I try. So you've never met the child's mother?"
"No. Or the daughter, not really, I mean, I walked into his diner, and she was there, April, I mean, the daughter, and she told me she was Luke's daughter, he's the diner owner, she's the owner's daughter, and I just thought, wow, and… Yeah. Wow." Calming, Lorelai asked quietly, "Are you okay?"
The doctor smiled soothingly at her. "Yes, I am, thank you. Now, I have to get to lunch, and I bet your fiancé is feeling shell-shocked, finding out he has a child. And he did tell you. Or at least you found out, right?"
Lorelai nodded solemnly.
"Not ideally, but if she was around him, well, he'd have to know sooner or later you'd meet, so it's not like he was trying that hard to keep it a secret. More a sin of omission. A big omission, but…" The doctor hummed a moment. "Well, he couldn't have wanted to keep it much of a secret if she was visiting his business."
He spoke with conviction. It eased some of the pain in Lorelai. "That's true. It's Stars Hollow. You can't sneeze and keep it a secret for very long, not if Babette and Miss Patty are around." She found a real smile. "Thank you. I'm sorry. For… Um. Well. Yeah. All this." She gestured to herself. "It's been a bad few days. But thank you again. For listening and not thinking I'm insane."
"No problem, Miss Gilmore. Drive safely."
He shut her door for her. Lorelai steadied herself. She studied her engagement ring. She said with determination, "Okay, Gilmore. You'll be okay. You got this."
She turned on the radio. The song happened to be by U2. She took that as a good omen, shifted into reverse, and headed back to the Dragonfly Inn.
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Anna forced a smile as her fiancé walked into the café twenty minutes later than originally planned. "I hope it wasn't an emergency?"
"A small one," he said, and sat down opposite her. He reached over and rubbed the small but tasteful ring on her right hand. "So, Anna, about this…"
"Oh, David, not again, please, it's not that I'm ashamed we're engaged! I just don't have time to deal with all the busybodies, and so much is going on with the store, my mother, I'm overwhelmed right now, and…"
"Anna."
His tone chilled her. She leaned away from him, pulling her hand free. "David? Did something happen?"
"You could say that," replied her fiancé, his hazel eyes unusually cold. "You could say that I found out something I should've known all along."
Concerned now, Anna searched his face for cues, and found none. "What is it? Something at the hospital?"
"No, actually, it was the mall."
"You lost me," smiled Anna. "What does the mall have to do with anything?"
He ignored the question. "We never eat meals in Woodbridge. You never spend the night at my place, and we never go to your place."
Paling, Anna stammered, "I told you, I don't have much of a…"
"What's your daughter's name? Is it April?"
Her skin the color of curdled milk, Anna whispered, "David… I… It's a rule, no one meets her until I'm sure, until… I can't let her be hurt and… Things are complicated."
"I imagine they are, since she found her biological father for a science fair project!"
Anna's eyes widened. Her heart raced. "How…"
"Stars Hollow, right? It's not far from Woodbridge. And we never go there, either. You keep everything about us hidden, and you keep us away from Woodbridge, and you didn't tell me you have a child!" He slapped the table, and the cutlery jangled. "How old?"
"She'll be thirteen in a few months."
"And you didn't even know her father's identity?"
Lower lip trembling, Anna scrambled verbally, while her shoulders slumped. "I was… It was a hard time in my life and… It wasn't as if we were exclusive and… Or, at least, I didn't think we were, and… He wasn't serious, and…"
"I was," interrupted David. "I was serious enough to give you a ring. I planned it all out, so it'd be perfect for you. I was never so certain of anything in my life. Of anyone."
With a gulp, Anna tried, "It was beautiful, we'll always remember the Fourth of July for extra special reasons."
He didn't seem to hear her. "We've been together two years, Anna! And you never once mentioned you have a child! And I was at the mall to look for wedding ring sets! Not knowing you have a child!" He lowered his voice. "When was I going to meet her? The wedding day?"
"I thought maybe Christmas? But then this with her father, and he wants to be in her life, and she can't handle too many changes at once, she's only a child, she…" Anna shrank as he stood, and she fell silent.
"You're the one who can't handle it. We were going to get married, and that wasn't good enough for you to trust me, and that means nothing will be enough for you. Nothing." He growled wordlessly. "Keep the ring. Keep your secrets. And keep away from me."
He stalked out of the café.
Anna dropped her face into her hands. But she did not weep. She straightened with outrage on her face. "I should've known," she spat bitterly to no one, and threw money on the table to cover the cost of her cup of tea and her uneaten salad. "Engaged!" Her mouth twisted. She yanked off the ring. "Engaged means nothing."
She walked crisply out of the café. She took comfort in the unexpected break-up. If her doctor-fiancé would leave when they were engaged, he would have left anyway. It was better it happened before he'd met April, or they'd bought anything together, or raised anyone's hopes. Jaw set, Anna tossed the ring into a storm sewer as she passed. If she took it home, she'd only have to worry it would be found.
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AN: Thus, Anna's puzzling "Engaged isn't married", and a possible "past" for her. *shrug* There's a whole cottage industry devoted to explaining (or trying to explain) Season 6, let alone Season 7.
Before anyone comments? Fiancée with two Es is for the female engaged person; fiancé with one E is for the male. Most of us don't worry about it, but there's always the Language Police on patrol, sooo… Yeah.