Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine. You should know this.
Author's Note: Hey, look, I wrote something! Short, but hopefully sweet. Hope you like it. Either way, the pretty review button enjoys being pushed.
Walk Like an Egyptian
"I love the outside," five-year-old Rory proclaimed for about the seventh time in the last half hour as she half-skipped, half-danced down the sidewalk.
"So I've heard." Her young mother strolled behind her, amused. "It's a pretty day." Lorelai glanced into the cloudless sky, smiling.
"Pretty," Rory repeated. She skip-danced part way up the hill that led to someone's yard and back down to the concrete without missing a beat.
"Careful, Rory," Lorelai cautioned.
Rory responded with a vivacious twirl. "We should take walks every day."
"If the weather was this nice every day and I didn't have to work, we would. You know, I think this is the first day all week it hasn't rained."
"No rain!" Rory twirled again, throwing her hands and her gaze to the sky. In her bliss, she twirled right into a telephone pole and landed on the pavement. She took a beat to figure out what had happened, but she was soon in tears, clutching her scraped knee.
Lorelai was crouched beside her in an instant. How fast her maternal instincts could kick in still surprised her, even after five years of motherhood. "Shh," she soothed. "You're okay. Try to stand up."
"I can't," Rory sobbed.
"Oh, come on." Lorelai lifted her little girl to the nearest bench, which wasn't more than a few feet away. "Now what?" she asked when Rory was situated.
"I'm bleeding." Rory had stopped crying, and instead pouted at her kneecap.
Lorelai sighed. "Only a little bit. I'll tell ya what, when we get back home we can put a Band-Aid on it. I just bought the Cinderella kind."
Rory smiled a small smile. "Okay."
"Can you walk now?"
She sighed dramatically. "I don't know."
"I really don't want to have to carry you all the way back to the inn." They'd covered quite a bit of ground since the beginning of their walk, and Lorelai knew that the walk would seem much longer with Rory in her arms. Although she wasn't exactly heavy, she was no longer small enough to make carrying her an easy feat.
Reluctantly, Rory tried to straighten her leg. She grimaced. "Ow."
Lorelai shook her head in mock-disappointment. She'd fast become an expert on the inner-workings of a five-year-old's mind. "Rory, Rory, Rory. You can't walk normally on a scraped knee."
Rory's eyebrows knitted in confusion. "Then how do I walk?"
Lorelai gasped dramatically. "You mean you don't know?"
Rory's eyes widened and she shook her head.
"Why, like an Egyptian, of course!"
"Like a what?"
"Like an Egyptian!" Lorelai demonstrated, bending her elbows and knees and dancing away from Rory. She turned to see Rory still sitting on the bench. "Come on!"
Within seconds Rory was following Lorelai through the park giggling, scraped knee forgotten. Lorelai began whistling the tune of the song that Rory had no idea she referred to, and both girls made their way back to the inn looking completely silly and not minding a bit.