A/N: This is my first Gilmore Girls fan fiction, after months of debating I finally decided to join this massive fandom. I am going to post a few chapters and if no one really likes it I'll stop updating. Anyway, I hope you like it.
Old Faces
Rory Gilmore sat alone in the dark. Dust motes swirled aimlessly in the partial emptiness her room had become. Her suitcase remained unopened on the floor of the living room in front of the ancient bowl of nuts that had remained there for too many years to count. She didn't want to unpack, didn't want to see the documents hidden beneath the unused fanny pack that Jackson had lent her. Her plane had landed a few hours ago in Hartford and Rory had driven through Stars Hollow with the cover of darkness as her shield from curious townspeople. They would wonder why she was back after only a few short weeks on the campaign trail. She couldn't tell them why she had returned. Ms. Patty and Babette especially. If they found out what those papers announced the entire East Coast would know within an hour.
The front door opened and Rory found herself looking at the clock next to the bed she sat on. It was two in the morning. Where was her mother coming from? There was the scampering of paws on the wood floor as Paul Anka came out from under the coffee table. Apparently daughters who came home in the middle of the night scared him. Not even some broccoli had gotten him to come out. That was one weird dog. Lorelai kicked off her high heels muttering about it being too early in the morning and how much she hated weddings. Remaining on her bed Rory allowed her thoughts to wonder why her mother had not screamed out her name, had she not seen the car?
Right, parked in the garage for the first time ever. Even though Lorelai had made it into her own special alone space she had nothing in there. Luke's boat had been moved to the marina awhile ago. Lorelai continued her muttering and tripping blindly through the living room. Rory counted it out in her head. Her mother would see the suitcase in 3...2...1...
"Rory?" There was no clever pop culture reference to accompany this call. Must be too tired Rory thought. She didn't answer, Lorelai would find her.
"Rory?" Her voice was coming from the doorway. Rory could feel her blue eyed gaze, so like her own, boring into her. Partially afraid and longing for the reunion she looked up.
"Hi Mom." She was there suddenly, arms comfortably warm, stroking her hair. She allowed herself to cry, too tired of keeping it bottled up, allowing herself to actually feel towards the issue. What was she going to do?
"What's wrong? Why are you back so soon?" Rory drew back from her Lorelai and took a deep breath, the sound hitching in her throat.
"I have to tell you something."
She trailed her daughter into the living room, flipping on the lights as she went. Her previous exhaustion and frustration at weddings had been replaced by a burning curiosity, the need to know what was happening. Rory bent down and flipped open her suitcase. She pawed through it, purposefully digging at the bottom. There was the crinkling of paper and a flash of neon green that Lorelai recognized as Jacksons fanny pack.
"You took that thing and left behind your "Worlds Greatest Reporter" cap? I feel hurt." There was no smile of mirth on Rory's face as she offered the folded page to Lorelai.
That flimsy sheet of paper seemed to weigh like iron, the way Lorelai's phone felt when she was calling her mother. Taking it from her visibly upset daughters hands the reigning Lorelai glanced at it. Some sort of doctors notice…
"Are you sick?" Panic colouring Lorelai's tone.
"Keep reading mom." Rory had her back turned now, looking at the side by side photos on the mantel piece in the living room. One was of her mother standing outside the cold looking Gilmore home, the younger version of Lorelai looked miserable in her fur hat. The one next to it was of herself in her pumpkin costume, smiling as though her life was going to play out perfectly. Ha.Rory Gilmore was learning how to live at the moment, the one lesson she could not master or get an A on.
"Oh." Her mother had obviously found the diagnosis, the sound breaking Rory out of her reverie.
"What am I going to do?" The voice was that of a lost child asking a stranger for help. But this was no stranger this was her mother. She of all people would know how to help pull her daughter out of her spiral of doubt.
"You'll do what you've always done. You work through it." Her voice was so sure, there was no hesitation of Rory's ability to do this. Sometimes she hated that, everyone always so positive about what she could do. It was stressful at times to know that success was expected naturally from her. But she had her share of failures because unlike the popular belief Rory Gilmore was not perfect. Rounding the coffee table Rory collapsed on the couch next to her mother. She ignored the pain at sitting on the cloth covered wooden box they called a couch and quietly whispered her story, catching her mother up on the details she had failed to mention in their daily phone calls.
When the tale was done Lorelai looked thoughtful before getting up and leaving the room. Rory blinked, of all the reactions she had imagined her mother not speaking was the one she had dismissed as impossible. There was rummaging in the kitchen before Lorelai came back holding a plate. Another impossibility, there was what looked like home made cookies on that platter. Home made.
"When did you go domestic?" They weren't fresh fresh but they weren't old. The chocolate chips were like heaven after weeks on the road without the budget to afford junk food.
"You think I made these? Check the bottom, they aren't burnt. Courtesy of Babette, instead of tulip bulbs she gave me cookies." Lorelai shivered at the memory of the moldy tulip bulbs her neighbor had given her last time Rory left to take the world by storm. She had lost one of her favorite sweaters that day, the space it had taken up in the closet had remained empty in memoriam until she found the "Lorelai Look" in bulk at a warehouse sale. She hardly remember that sweater now.
"So…" Rory trailed off. She wiped the slight crumbs from her chin, her eyes searching her mothers. Lorelai reached out and patted her daughters shoulder.
"Welcome home, kid. Welcome home."
A/N: So, what did you think? Sorry that it's so slow and short in the beginning. If you want me to continue please review!