Lorelai woke up and rolled over in bed, thinking it must be early as Luke was still in bed beside her. She cuddled up next to him and tried to fall back asleep. After a few minutes she realized that she wasn't going back to sleep, still not wanting to get out of bed she simply lay there and thought. She was feeling good this morning; her morning sickness hadn't been horrible, besides not being able to drink coffee, but now that she was nearing 12 weeks it seemed to be subsiding.
After a moment she decided to see how early it actually was, she was shocked when she saw that it was almost 10. Lorelai quickly rolled back over to Luke to wake him.
"Luke!" She said as she poked him in the side. "Luke, wake up!"
Luke mumbled something, but didn't wake up, causing Lorelai to keep poking him, "Come on Luke! It's late, almost 10! I can't even think of a time when you've slept past 7, let alone 10."
Luke finally started to be waking, but as he went to sit up he held his head and fell back into the pillow. "I don't feel so good."
Lorelai leaned over and placed a hand on his forehead, "Aw baby, you're burning up."
He tried to sit up again but Lorelai pushed him back down, "You need to get some rest," She told him.
"Can't, have to cook food. People are coming and they want to eat food." He mumbled.
"Luke, you aren't even making sense. Go back to sleep, we'll figure something out, we can always just have pizza for thanksgiving."
"We're not having pizza." Luke mumbled before falling back to sleep.
Lorelai got out of bed and got ready for the day. After getting some medicine for Luke and making him take it, she went downstairs to see what needed to be cooked.
A look around the kitchen and phone call to Sookie later, the best Lorelai could figure was that practically nothing had been done. The thought crossed her mind to call and cancel, but everyone had been looking forward to their first official "family" holiday.
There were no options; every restaurant in Stars Hollow was closed. Sookie and Jackson had gone out of town for Thanksgiving so she wasn't around to help. Luke was supposed to be cooking, but he could barely get out of bed. Lorelai quickly switched into take charge mode, grabbing her computer she started searching for Thanksgiving Day recipes. How hard could it be to make a Thanksgiving dinner? Sure she was notorious for not being able to cook, but she had never really tried. It couldn't be that hard… could it?
Once she found some sort of Thanksgiving dinner for dummies page, she got to work. It was telling her to start the turkey; she pulled it out of the fridge and stared at it. Did she really have to touch that? Gross. Having no other choice, she followed the instructions to the best of her abilities. Once she was done she stepped back and admired her work; it actually looked pretty good.
Lorelai placed the turkey in the oven and continued following the instructions for the rest of the meal. As the day continued there were a few minor burning issues, but overall things looked good. It actually all looked edible, for the most part at least.
After reassuring herself that the kitchen wasn't going to burn down while she was gone, she went upstairs to check on Luke. Lorelai found him still sleeping soundly in their bed, she went and lay next to him.
A short moment later Luke opened his eyes and looked at her, with a groan he announced, "You need to get away from me."
"Aw thanks honey, I love you too."
"I'm serious Lorelai, you're pregnant you can't get sick, it'll be bad for the baby."
She pulled herself even closer to him; "We'll be fine Luke. How are you feeling?"
"Better. How long did I actually sleep for?"
Lorelai glanced at the clock, "It's a little after 4."
Luke quickly sat up as much as possible, seeing as Lorelai was still laying on his chest, "What about the food? Everyone is coming over in an hour!"
"The food is taken care of… I think."
"Really?"
"Yes. Now if you think you'll be up to eating dinner with everyone you need to go get a shower and get ready. I'm going downstairs to finish up some stuff."
They both headed their separate ways. Lorelai was downstairs getting everything set out when their first guest arrived, "Mom!" The voice called.
"Kitchen!" Lorelai called back.
Rory and Marty entered the kitchen and Rory gave her mother a hug. "Hey mom! Everything looks great! Where's Luke? When are we eating? I'm starving."
"Wow, so full of questions. Luke's upstairs getting ready, and we should be eating as soon as he gets done and Grace and Jake get here."
After they talked for a few moments they heard the front door open again, "Hello?"
"Kitchen!" Lorelai and Rory said, freakishly in unison.
Grace walked into the kitchen with Jake, who was carrying Elle, following closely behind. "Wow, now that was just weird."
"Yeah it was. Ok, now that everyone is here, I'm going to go see what is keeping Luke then we can eat!"
Lorelai went upstairs while everyone else stayed in the kitchen. She came downstairs a couple minutes later with Luke who was still looking a little sick, but he said he was feeling much better. The group sat and began to eat; Lorelai kept it quiet that she was actually the one who made the meal.
Everyone got their food and quietly looked at it, some of it looked a little funny. The rolls were a little burnt and the mashed potatoes a little lumpy, but other than that it seemed ok, everyone just figured that since Luke was sick his cooking was just a little off. They started eating and Lorelai sat and anxiously watched their faces, no one seemed to be gagging so she took that to be a good sign.
Elle started yelling to show her displeasure at being the only one who wasn't eating and Lorelai reached over to pick her up so she could feed her.
They all continued eating their meals and carried on an enjoyable conversation; Rory and Marty were talking about the latest Yale news, Grace and Jake were telling about how Elle was now trying to pull herself up on things, and Luke stayed quiet the whole time just trying to stay awake.
Rory noticed that Lorelai wasn't eating and with worried expression she asked her mom, "Are you feeling ok?"
Lorelai smiled at her daughter's concern; "I'm fine hon, why do you ask?"
"You just haven't eaten anything yet, normally you would've finished the turkey by now."
"I was just feeding Elle and got distracted is all."
Grace turned towards Lorelai, "I could've fed her," Grace took Elle from Lorelai, "You need to eat too."
To be honest, Lorelai hadn't really gotten distracted, as silly as it sounds she was nervous to try her own cooking. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying it though, so she figured she better try it, plus Luke was giving her a worried look and if she didn't eat he would assume she was coming down with whatever he had.
Taking a bite Lorelai was pleased to find that it was actually ok, pretty good actually.
Seeing Lorelai starting to eat seemed to bring Luke out of his trance, "This food is really good Lorelai. Where did you say you got it from?"
Grace stopped eating, "Wait a minute, you didn't cook this Luke?"
Luke shook his head, "Lorelai told me she'd take care of it since I'm sick."
Lorelai figured this was as good as a moment as any, "Well actually, since there was nothing open and no one to cook the food I made it myself."
The looks on everyone's face were priceless, forks were stopped midair and everyone stopped chewing and stared at Lorelai in shock.
"You cooked?" Rory was the first to speak up.
"Yeah, actually it wasn't too hard, I just looked up the recipes on the internet and bam--"
"Emeril came over to help?" Grace quickly added.
Lorelai rolled her eyes, "No, I was just able to figure it out somehow."
Rory set back in her chair, "Wow, I feel like I don't even know my own mother. So for all these years of eating out and barely being able to cook Macaroni we could have been eating actual food for dinner?"
"I guess so, I just never tried." She turned to Luke, "Don't think I'm going to be cooking again though, it's very stressful with all the stirring and timers it felt like I was on some kind of wacky reality show."
They all laughed and spent the rest of the meal amazed at Lorelai's secret cooking abilities, and all quietly wishing that they wouldn't be coming down with food poisoning later.
After dinner they all went into the living room for a movie night. Halfway through the first movie Grace's phone started ringing. After looking at the caller ID Grace started to leave the room so she could answer it.
"Come on Grace, it's a rule no phone calls!" Lorelai called after her.
"Yeah but it's Alyssa and besides you're talking and that's breaking another rule so shush." She said as she stepped into the other room.
…
With the noise of the TV the sounds of Grace's conversation were muffled until they heard her yelling, wondering what her parents had done this time Jake went into the kitchen to find Grace sobbing at the table. He was immediately at her side and with his arms tightly holding her, he tried to find out what was wrong.
Grace didn't respond to his touch and made no attempt to answer his questions.
A/N: Ok, I wasn't going to post this one until Sunday, but since today was my last day of work and I move in exactly 2 weeks, I'm posting it as kind of a celebration. Enjoy! I had a lot of fun writing this one, the thought of Lorelai having to cook an entire thanksgiving dinner was very amusing! Thanks for reading and please review!
