AN: This takes place after the season six finale. Well… probably more like during it. It's what could have happened to the story had one little thing been different. It's been a long time since I've seen the tail end of season six, so any inconsistencies I choose to blame on that.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
The Lorelai Effect
Part 1
I never paid much attention to it when Rory told me about it: the Butterfly effect. I mean it sounded ridiculous. How could the flapping of a butterfly's wings affect the weather patterns across the globe when hundreds of thousands of starving people in Africa couldn't do more to people here than elicit sympathy and nothing else - not even the price of a cup of coffee a day?
But then, it happened to me. I watched my life unfold as a dream before me. Going to Luke, giving my ultimatum, having to walk away, hurt and heartbroken. I watched as I went to Christopher, wanting to cause Luke the same pain that he had caused me. I watched as I got caught up as I always do in Christopher, with the past and a future that never was mingling together into something that could have been. He wanted to marry me. And for a girl that had just been rejected not very long ago, I said yes. I jumped. I ran away with Chris as I had wanted to do with Luke. I watched as I ruined everything in the hurricane that was created by that one night of stupid pride. I watched as Luke gave into his darkness and tried to fight until he was free again. I watched Christopher fight both me and himself and tried not to hate us both. I watched as I tried to forget my heart and tried to move on, to fit into a life that was only ever meant to be a dream to keep me going on the nights when being a single mom became too much to take.
One night ruined three lives. Took away three chances for happiness. One night added a year's worth of emotional baggage to the shoulders of people already saddled with years worth of their own. One night, three hearts. While not the flap of a butterfly's wings, it was a pretty damn good start.
But that's not how it happened, that's just how it could have happened. That was the butterfly effect. Here, in this moment, the Lorelai effect took over. It was smaller than a wing, the size of a pin prick really, microscopic, and for most people it wouldn't have changed anything. A one in a million chance, something that could have only happened with the stars aligning. But I was never that lucky and the smaller the chance of something happening the more likely it was to actually happen. And it did happen, and it changed everything.
That night we did fight and I did walk away. But as when before I had thoughts of running to Christopher, of hurting Luke, this time all I could think of was the urge I had to be sick and the willing of myself to be able to wait until I got home. This was the Lorelai effect, and nothing was going to be the same.
~TBC~