A/N: As of now, I have writers block on my other story. However, I was struck with the strong urge to write, and I sat down at this screen thinking, "I'm finally going to update." And then I got distracted with this and that…and finally I was brought back to this blank, now tainted, document. You're thinking "hey this is the next chapter of Stay on Your Side why isn't it on there?" Because my friend, it is not. Which I hope you were smart enough to figure out from the beginning. To make it sweet and short, I'm hopping this will spark new inspiration in my other story. Here goes.
Disclaimer: I do not owe property taxes on Gilmore Girls…because I don't own it. Sorry, just had to clarify that.
Chapter 1
Her phone buzzed on the bedside table as a rude awakening that made her realize just how cold she was. Her body shook with icy jolts that made her curl into a tighter ball under the comforts of the blankets covering her body. Her phone began buzzing again, she ignored it, again. Finally the phone buzzed off the table, mentally forcing her to groan and reach for the phone off the floor. She glanced at the caller-id for a split second before opening it, and instantly regretted it with every fiber of her being.
"Lorelai?" Emily's voice came at a desperate crack that aroused dread, unease, and worry all at the same time.
"Mom?" Lorelai's voice croaked in response, with a mix of emotions echoing inside of her head.
"Lorelai! It's a complete disaster!" Emily shrilled, causing Lorelai to react by holding the phone an extra two inches away from her ear, sparing her eardrums of permanent ringing.
"Mom can you please keep the vocal frequency to a low, just to spare me an extra five to ten years without a hearing aid?" Lorelai groaned, squinting her eyes to continue to keep the sunlight out as she peaked her head out from under the covers.
"Lorelai! Be serious! Just for a second!" Emily ignored Lorelai's plea, which didn't surprise her one bit, and only continued to get louder, much to Lorelai's distaste.
"Mom. What is it?" Lorelai asked, admitting defeat.
"The rare manuscripts acquisition fundraiser is tonight and we still haven't filled our table. I'm four people short." Emily continued, while Lorelai still refused to believe this was happening.
"Mom, I already told you I'm going." Lorelai responded, hopping this would cause Emily to suddenly realize "oops, why am I calling Lorelai?" or even, "oops, I have a pot roast in the oven, I have to go Lorelai." Of course, this was not the case.
"But we still have a half empty table!" Emily said franticly, Lorelai could practically hear her mother's heels clicking against the shiny paneled floor as her mother paced back and forth throwing her crazy hand gestures here, and there, like she was trying to land a plane.
"Well, Mom, if you want I can just drive by the local high school waving a sign in the air that says 'half empty table' and see who jumps in the car."
"Lorelai!" Emily cried, hopelessly trying to gain Lorelai's attention back.
"Sorry. So what do you want me to do, Mom?" Lorelai asked, finally sitting up and accepting that it indeed was 8:30 in the morning and her mother was on the other end and she would just add this to the list of reasons of "Why to Hire a Hitman on Emily Gilmore".
"You're coming right?" Emily asked redundantly.
"Yes Mom! I already told you I was!" Lorelai said, throwing the comforter back as she climbed out of bed and pulled on her pink, fuzzy, strawberry shortcake socks.
"And you're bringing a date?" Emily asked. Lorelai hated it when it sounded like her own heart beat had stopped as every judgmental creature, along with Emily Gilmore, waited for her response, It was like some sick game show that came on Thursdays at 8.
"I never said I was bringing someone." Lorelai responded, and then the sound of the audience releasing their breath they had been holding that for once, Lorelai Gilmore had lived up to what Emily Gilmore expected. Even though they all knew that was quite impossible.
"Lorelai! You have to bring someone!" Emily frenzied back at Lorelai's response.
"Mom, but, it's tonight!"
"Lorelai, just once, do something for me instead of for yourself. Just this once." Emily slowed down her chatter, and sincerely asked this request.
Lorelai sighed in defeat, "Can I get that in writing?"
"You're impossible, Lorelai, utterly impossible!" Emily shrieked, Lorelai could feel the shutter of the phone coming, but, of course, she just had to speak up.
"Mom, wait." Lorelai said, in the nick of time. Damn timing. Lorelai thought to herself.
"I'm waiting." Emily said impatiently, and again Lorelai could swear she heard her mothers heels tapping dents into the ground.
"I'll bring someone." Lorelai waved the white flag of defeat as the sinking feeling now began to implode her stomach.
"Thank you Lorelai. See you tonight!" Lorelai felt relief rush over her as she now knew that soon, she would be allowed to continue her daily routine, "and don't wear those pantyhose with the seams up the back. You look like ten cents a dance." Emily added, which was quickly followed by the long desired dial tone signaling the end of the conversation.
"And that ladies and gentlemen, was Emily Gilmore." Lorelai recited outloud to herself before ultimately shutting her cell phone and collapsing back onto her bed in dread of what the day before her held.
XoXoXoX
Lorelai got about 15 more minutes of sleep before her actual alarm finally sounded loudly, and frankly quite inconsiderately, at 9:00 a.m. Lorelai audibly groaned as she was forced to get up because she knew if she didn't, her eyelashes just might freeze off, fall into her eyes and cause her permanent eye irritation for ever. And she definitely did not want that.
She stepped onto the wood paneled floor, and was suddenly monumentally grateful for the pink socks on her feet that she had had the right state of mind to put on. "Cold, cold, cold!" Lorelai yelped as she grabbed every layer of clothing she could think of around her room, along with a blanket as she continued downstairs.
"Cold, cold, cold, cold! Stupid frozen tundra house!" Lorelai continued as she hopped down the stairs, momentarily forgetting about the day's task at hand. Noticing the abnormally large figure on the couch, she decided that they were not swollen couch cusions.
"Honey, why are you sleeping in here?" She called, thinking Rory was actually awake as she continued into the kitchen to start the coffee and pop the tarts, "Here is the question for today kids, what the hell are the Eskimos thinking? Sure the hoods are cute but it's always cold, always!"
She continued walking along the icy floor to the kitchen, which only got colder as the cold air drifted up through the gaps the loose blanket held as it hung around her shoulders. "Plus, you have to eat fish for breakfast and you have to eat whales and polar bears and penguins and Santa Clause…"
Lorelai rambled since it was the only way she found that helped keep her warm as she could feel the blood moving through her veins in her face as her jaw moved up and down to the rhythm of her voice, "Okay. Coffee's on. Pop-tarts are pop-tarting." Lorelai grew closer to the couch she presumed to be Rory, and was quite surprised she wasn't already up moving around correcting her that Eskimos don't eat polar bears and penguins and that "Santa Clause doesn't even exist, duh."
She approached the figure with much more determination this time, "If you're just gonna lie there, I'm gonna have to sit here," She then continued to dramatically sit on what, again, she presumed to be Rory's tiny physique, "I'll have to make myself very comfortable on the nice, warm Rory."
"Why is it so cold in here?" Came Rory's voice, surprisingly from the other room and not from underneath Lorelai's hindquarters.
Surprised, Lorelai immediately jumped up off of the now unknown object, and to ten feet in the air in less than two seconds, "Ahh!" Lorelai yelped, loudly.
"Ahh!" Rory squeaked, consequently to Lorelai's yelp.
"But I was sitting on you." Lorelai looked down at the figure on the couch, now completely confused at what was going on, and who or what she had just sat on.
"Oh, really, good trick." Rory deadpanned, as she drew closer to Lorelai, tightening her overcoat around her and shivering along as she walked.
"If you're there, then who's this?" Lorelai asked, pointing towards the figure on the couch while subconsciously taking a step back, startled.
"I don't know." Rory responded simply.
"We've got a stranger in our house!" Lorelai said, however a few names came to mind.
"Rober Downey Jr.?"
"Or a murderer!" Lorelai said quickly, remembering Babette's gnome massacre last week…even though that had turned out to be a loose Doberman.
"Who needed a nap before committing his crimes?" Rory responded wittily, just going along with whatever bit Lorelai came up with.
Lorelai swiftly pulled back the top blanket over her supposed gnome massacarist only to find, the well known face of Lane Kim, "I think this belongs to you." Lorelai directed at Rory.
"She must have followed me home from Yale, I told her she could hang out there this weekend." Rory explained, remember Lane's incident where she had gotten kicked out of her house from lieing to her mother. This hadn't surprised her really, it was quite inevitable, bound to happen sooner or later.
"Yeah, sure, why stay at Yale when you could come here, where penguins need a coat?" Lorelai responding, suddenly remembering the coldness that surged through her bones and caused her toes to curl under in pain.
"Yeah, why is it so cold in here!?" Rory asked, also remembering the bitter coldness of the room, wrapping her overcoat closer to her body.
"I broke that stupid window trying to lock it last night." Lorelai said, remembering the previous evening's tasks. She was finally doing just what Luke had warned her, a million times before, to keep her house safe. Especially after watching Silence of the Lambs, there was no way any cannibals were sneaking through her windows. Of course though, the forces of nature refused for her to go against her ways that Luke was fondly trying, but failing, to imprint upon her mind. Lorelai had decided, this whole "being safe" thing, was just way too much trouble.
"Well get it fixed, woman!" Rory complained as her mother considerately shared her blanket with her as they continued to walk into the kitchen.
"I left Luke a message. He'll do it." Lorelai said, now trying to keep count of how many times she had just brought Luke up to herself in the past hour, she had already lost count.
"Why Luke?" Rory asked as they entered the kitchen and Lorelai pulled up two chairs to the broiler.
"What do you mean?" Lorelai asked, even though she knew what Rory meant and opened the door to the broiler and sat down trying to avoid Rory's questions innocently as always.
"Luke, why are you getting him to fix the window?" Rory pried more, as she poured herself a cup of coffee.
"Because Luke always gets mad when I ask—pay someone," Lorelai quickly corrected herself, "to do something, he could do for free. And then, he lectures me about it." Lorelai prayed Rory hadn't caught her little slip up, but as always, she had.
"Ask?" Rory caught her, and Lorelai knew but still refused to give in.
"I meant pay." Lorelai attempted to convince Rory, "Grandma called this morning." Lorelai smoothly, actually quite abruptly, changed the subject, but Rory grasped the new topic and to Lorelai's surprise, embraced it.
"What did she want?" Rory asked sipping the coffee she had poured herself.
"She wanted to remind me to bring a date to the function tonight." Lorelai watched Rory's face as she conveniently took a drink as soon as Lorelai finished speaking.
"That's funny. Are you going with Jason?" Rory asked, trying her hardest to avoid the Luke subject her mother was obviously already a bit touchy about.
"I can't. Remember?" Lorelai reminded Rory, hoping Rory would notice the obvious solution to this whole thing so that she wouldn't have to think of it herself.
"Yeah, yeah. So what are you going to do?" Rory asked, knowing Lorelai already knew what she wanted to do, but Rory was tired of always bringing the subject up to her and Lorelai always getting offended. This time she was going to have to do it on her own.
"Actually…I have someone in mind."
That's the first chapter. Definitely more to come. I know I say this a lot, but I actually am excited about this story and please don't come after me pitchforks and fire torches for me to finish my other stories first. Like I said, hopefully this will inspire me to finish my other ones. However, reviews are quite convincing also. :0) Tell me what you think!
Kati