One-Shot: Their Daddy Moment
It was the middle of the night at Hartford Memorial Hospital. The nearly empty waiting room was chillingly quiet... and that was only partially on account of the two men waiting in there.
The one man, Luke Danes, was gruff and hardened around the edges. With his backwards blue baseball cap firmly on his head and a distinct five-o-clock shadow that he had been unable to shave for the last several hours, he looked hulking and brooding and intimidating.
The other man, Christopher Hayden, was more well-put together. Clad in a business suit, his head of hair clean-cut, he was a sharp contrast to his only other companion in the waiting room.
Yet these two different men had one thing in common: a shared loved one, just inside the ward, in labor and about to give birth to a baby.
Rory Gilmore had stumbled into Luke's Diner in Stars Hollow, Connecticut, about mid-morning the day before, clutching her stomach and her pants soaked with fluid. She had screamed as she collapsed against the counter, sending her stepfather running. What had followed was a frantic drive to the hospital along I-91, Luke calling everyone he could think of. Ironically, Christopher - Rory's biological father - had been the only one to pick up initially. As he had happened to be in Connecticut on business, he drove to the hospital, Luke and a wailing Rory just beating him there.
But so far, no one else had shown up at the hospital to wait. A few folks - Lane, Paris, Mia - had called and expressed regret at their inability to get there in time for the birth, for one reason or another. Rory had been against notifying her baby's father, Logan Huntzberger, who was now married to a French heiress. He knew about the baby, but Rory thought it too risky to announce the birth and risk the wife, Odette, finding out. Emily Gilmore, Luke's mother-in-law, had been trying to frantically get a plane off of Nantucket, last Luke had heard.
The only person Luke had yet to hear from was his wife. Rory's mother. Lorelai Gilmore.
So the two men sat in silence, not speaking to each other. Being the only two men on Earth to have been married to Lorelai Gilmore, the pair had been bitter rivals once upon a time. And even in the decade since Christopher and Lorelai had divorced and she and Luke had lived together before eventually tying the knot the previous fall, neither man had found an incentive to mend the divide between them.
The tableau was bizarre and awkward, to say the least.
Sighing, Luke dug into his pocket and pulled out the one morsel of food he did have. The cafeteria downstairs was long closed, and he was getting hungry just sitting here. Popping back the flap on the Ice Breakers, he fished one out and into his mouth. As he chewed, his eyes sidelined over to Christopher in the chair next to him. The diner owner offered the pack to the former motorcycle hotshot.
"Want one? They're Raspberry flavored. Pretty good. Hard not to think of them as candy."
Christopher eyed the open pack for a moment before finally accepting one with something that resembled a smile of thanks. Popping it into his mouth, he scrunched up his face as he chewed, contemplating the flavor.
"Huh," Christopher marveled. "Those do taste like candy!"
The civil moment was interrupted by Luke's phone ringing. He sighed in relief upon looking at the Caller ID. "About damn time," he muttered. "Hello?"
"Where's my baby?!" Lorelai screeched into the phone, near hysteria. She had been in Baltimore for the last two days attending a national conference of Inn and Hotel managers.
"Rory's in the operating room. Calm down," Luke tried to assure his wife.
"Calm down?! She's having a baby, and I can't get there!" Lorelai wailed, sounding close to tears. "What if something happens to her in there? She'll have complications! She'll die!"
"Never!" Luke thundered, even as his voice came out in a deadly hiss.
"Lucas Danes, don't you dare move from that hospital until I get there!" Lorelai barked. "Who else is with you?"
Luke glanced at Christopher for only a moment, before answering. "Just me," he lied.
"If you have to go back there when she starts to push, you go back there! I know how much you hate hospitals, but..."
"She won't be alone," Luke vowed.
"Thank you," Lorelai breathed. "I'm trying to get a flight out of Baltimore. I love you."
"I love you, I love you, I love you," Luke repeated like a prayer, mostly to calm his nerves.
"One more thing... when it's born... kiss our grandchild for me."
"I will. Bye, honey." Luke hung up. He replaced his phone in his pocket to find Christopher glancing at the floor.
"It'll be my grandchild too, you know," Christopher whispered.
Luke just nodded solemnly. "I'm aware."
Christopher let out a heavy breath. "Does she talk to you like that about... Rory too?"
Luke raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Does she call Rory hers and... your child?"
Luke considered this. "No, I've never heard her say that. But even if she did, I don't think..."
"You don't think it would be a lie," Christopher finished for him. Now it was Luke's turn to glance away. "I wouldn't blame you. Or her. Rory's always said how she loves you like a father." The young executive plucked an IceBreaker from the forgotten pack now resting between them. "You know what I feared more than Lorelai leaving me for you? It was that... you might take Rory away from me."
Luke stared at him. "Really?"
Christopher shrugged. "I was jealous. I thought Rory might want you to adopt her."
A slow grin spread across Luke's face at this deep revelation. "Then you don't know enough about your daughter, Christopher. Rory's far more forgiving than that. You would have had to really not been there for her to want something like that. You weren't there 100% of the time, but... you were there just enough." Luke pinched his thumb and forefinger together.
Christopher chuckled ruefully. "I suppose you were just another one of those guys a father tries to protect his child from. Wait until you have a daughter - you'll understand."
Luke blinked. "Actually... I do." He pulled out a golden locket from underneath his shirt, where the pendant rested directly over his heart. Opening the clasp, he leaned over towards Christopher to show it to him. Inside was a picture of -
"April. She's a graduate student in Germany. But I didn't know about her until she was 12. Had to fight for custody."
A memory flickered across Christopher's face as he raised his eyes to meet Luke's. "That's right... you fought for custody... Lorelai wrote you a letter for it."
Luke nodded. Christopher glanced back at the picture, his brow furrowing in curiosity. "What's this...?" And he flipped back the golden lining before Luke could stop him.
A picture of Rory stared back at her father, and Christopher froze. Luke eyed him warily, heart pounding, unsure how the younger man would react. Luke only hoped that Christopher didn't turn the golden lining again to find the picture he kept of Lorelai...
The freeze frame was broken by a familiar scream from down the ward. Rory. Instinctively, both men leapt to their feet, muscles burning with tension, ready to charge in there if need be.
Christopher noticed Luke's identical reaction and he looked almost astonished. "You really do love her..."
"Like she was my own." Luke's eyes never wavered from the door to the ward.
"Wow..." Christopher breathed, and though neither voiced it, both were taken back to the night of Richard and Emily's vow renewals, both of them charging into a room to protect Rory from a boy. He suddenly dug for his wallet. "Hey, you wanna see something?"
It took all the muscles in Luke's face not to give Christopher a funny look; the overture was unusually friendly. "Yeah."
Christopher fished out his wallet and opened the flap. In one plastic sleeve was a picture of a blonde girl, maybe 14 years old. In a sleeve on the opposite side was a picture of Rory. Christopher pointed to the first photo.
"Her name's Gigi. She's in Paris with her mom."
Luke gave a small smile in recognition. "I remember. You and Lorelai were taking care of her when..."
Both men looked at each other, and Luke's tongue seemed to stop working; he couldn't bring himself to say the last phrase, address the elephant in the room. Christopher just nodded. "Yeah."
As if moving as one, both Luke and Christopher sank back into their respective seats. However, they had not resumed the position for very long before the door to the ward opened for the first time in many hours.
"Rory Gilmore's family?" Both Luke and Christopher rose. The nurse blinked in confusion. "She is responding well to the treatments. She's ready to start pushing. Will you please come with me so we can get you in your scrubs?"
Luke and Christopher looked at each other before following the nurse down the hall. At a corner room, both men changed into green hospital gowns and those funny-looking shower hats, their backs awkwardly to each other. The walking-on-eggshells mentality had come back to both with a vengeance. As they waited for the nurse to fetch them, Christopher's phone rang. "Sherry?"
"How is she?" Sherry's voice could be heard through the phone.
"I'm about to go back. She'll be pushing soon; I heard her scream all the way from the waiting room a little bit ago."
"Give Rory my love."
"Will do. Tell Gigi she's gonna be an aunt! Bye." Christopher hung up.
At last, the nurse took the two men to Rory's room, where they were met and ushered in by the Head Nurse.
Sitting up against the pillows in the hospital bed, Rory Gilmore was huffing and puffing, broken only by the occasional scream or other cry of pain. Luke and Christopher both flanked her, each taking a hand. The nurse who had brought the men in looked on with a small smile. "You boys have a very strong surrogate."
Luke and Christopher looked at each other over Rory. "Surr- Oh, we're not..." They started to awkwardly laugh at the implication. Rory, meanwhile, looked somewhere between deeply offended and hopping mad.
The Head Nurse did damage control. "Actually... I think... Rory, this is your father and... stepfather, is that correct?"
Rory relaxed, smiling in relief as she looked from one father figure to the other, eyes full of love. "Yes. These are... my daddies. My Luke. My Christopher." Her gaze fell on Christopher last, who blinked, as if surprised by her stare of affection, before softly smiling.
The Assistant Nurse left, looking a little flustered, and at full dialation, the Head Nurse ordered Rory to start pushing. Rory gripped each of Luke and Christopher's hands like a vice. The pain seemed almost too much for her, as her face was soon streaked with tears and she cried out in agonizing pain. Only many minutes later were Rory's cries joined by the wails of a newborn infant.
The baby girl's umbilical cord was cut, she was cleaned and then placed in Rory's arms. Luke and Christopher shared a glance, in awe. The totality of the moment was only interrupted when Christopher announced:
"I call dibs on Grandpa."
The moon was just beginning its descent in the sky a few hours later. All three adults were still awake, neither man having left Rory's side. The baby was asleep on her chest. Rory turned her head to Christopher, her voice pinging into the darkness:
"Dad?"
"Hmm?" Christopher harrumphed in response from where he had been resting his head against the gurney railing. He was only half-awake.
"Can you tell me the story of when I was born?"
Christopher pursed his lips in thought. "Your mom drove herself to the hospital," he began. "I was already in bed. I learned later that Richard and Emily phoned your grandparents - my parents - but they didn't wake me to tell me. The next morning, I got up, not knowing anything was different, and went to school. The guidance counselor dragged me out of my homeroom and told me I had to leave now. I ran to the hospital, met up with your mom and we watched you through the window. You were all in your bassinet, had a little pink hat on..." His voice trailed off.
Luke had been silently listening the whole time. He wasn't surprised Christopher had missed Rory's birth, but he was shocked that it was through no fault of Christopher's own. "Why didn't your parents tell you?" Luke wanted to know.
At this, Rory glanced away, her expression sad. Christopher cleared his throat. "My parents wanted it over as quickly and as quietly as possible."
"They never wanted me," Rory whispered painfully. Luke stared at his stepdaughter in utter shock. "I only met them once."
"Yes," Christopher chuckled bitterly. "During the most disastrous Friday Night Dinner I've ever seen. That was the last time they saw Rory. Dad passed away just after Rory's first semester at Yale."
Luke gave Rory's hand a squeeze. He couldn't imagine anyone not wanting her, not wanting to love her. "I'm sorry, princess." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Christopher's face crease slightly at the term of endearment.
Neither man remembered when or how they both leaned against the gurney and fell asleep.
It was mid-morning when Lorelai Danes and Emily Gilmore bustled into Rory's room. Finally making it out of Baltimore and Nantucket, respectively, they had met up at the Hartford airport and driven Lorelai's car to the hospital. Rory was up and doing her best to master breastfeeding the baby.
"Mom!" She chirped.
Lorelai flung herself at Rory, kissing her again and again and kissing the baby too. "Oh, kid..." Then she paused and stared when she saw who else was in the room, still fast asleep. "Oh. My. God."
"Mom..." Rory voiced cautiously. "It's OK."
"Luke! Your dad! Here! Together! Not dead!" But to just to be sure, she checked both her husband and ex-husband for a pulse. "How...?" She paused in her ramblings when she saw how Luke's one hand was resting protectively over Rory's stomach. Kneeling beside him, she kissed at his face to wake him.
"Mmmmm... Lorelai..." Luke grunted as he stirred awake.
"I love you, Luke Danes," she whispered in his ear. "But..." And she gave him her best annoyed frown. "Why didn't you tell me Christopher was here? You said you were alone."
Christopher, who had now woken up, jumped to answer. "I must have gotten there after you called."
Luke seized onto the alibi, and Lorelai did not seem to suspect. She regarded her ex-husband as she circled the bed.
"Thank you for being here. For our daughter."
Christopher gave her a crooked grin. "Where else would I be, Lor?"
And the parents platonically hugged. And the sight didn't even seem to bother Luke as much as it once would have.
Rory beamed. "This baby has three grandparents and a great-grandma; she's gonna be flat equipped!"
Everyone laughed.