Title: I'll Be Bonnie, You Be Clyde
Rating: PG (with options for higher ratings later on)
Pairings/Characters: Rory, Jess, Rory/Logan (implied), Rory/Jess (eventually)
Warnings: none
Word count: 4099
Disclaimer: Gilmore Girls belongs to the Palladinos, WB/CW, and Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions.
Summary: What if Gilmore Girls had 100% more bank robbery in it? S5 finale AU
A/N: Thank you to finnigan_geist for encouraging (and beta'ing) my completely stupid ideas.
Sorry for the delayed update. Travel always throws my writing schedule out of whack. Hopefully I can get back up to pace again.
In which there is a kind of suspicion and a kind of jealousy; Luke is protective; Rory's (not) dead!; and determination in the face of no adversity.
See you at the wedding.
Rory lay on her bed, turning the note over and over in her hands, peering at the crumpled, soft edges, the creased back, and every micron of the written message, trying to find substance in it. Everything she and Jess had been through together – their break up, his confession of love and mad proposition of running away together, and their strange, exhilarating bank heist – had culminated in nothing.
Well, not nothing. More of the same. Jess abandoning her and running away. Again.
At least this time he'd left a message, cryptic though it was. Okay, Rory told herself, break it down. Maybe you're over thinking it.
The obvious: Jess meant Lorelai and Luke's wedding. Which meant he was planning to see Rory again, in a family context. As a cousin, not as an ex-boyfriend. The note was a final, absolute rejection, putting her in her place after all her years of ambivalence, indecision, and pushing him away. It was also a kind of plea, begging her not to tell about his part in their caper. If she did tell, he'd go to jail, Luke would disown him, and there would be no awkward wedding dances between them at all.
Rory bit her lip, considering, before shaking her head. Jess did not do obvious. Ever.
The less obvious, more snarky: He was referring to her wedding to Logan, taking a shot at her for dating a rich man and implying all she cared about was money. As if that was all Logan had to offer. Where did he get off, insinuating she didn't love Logan?
Jerk, Rory thought, glaring through the note. She took a deep, steadying breath. She didn't know that, although it totally sounded like him.
Not even close to obvious: Jess meant his own wedding and he was inviting her. Ugh.
Rory's breath stuttered in her chest as she processed that possibility. She felt a dark, seeping anger run along her veins, one familiar from all those times she'd had to endure Shane plastered up against Jess. She could barely imagine Jess married, but the more she thought about it, the more plausible it sounded in her own head.
She'd kissed him and he hadn't reacted. That had never happened before. Jess had always been strangely monogamous, so maybe that was the reason. He was already committed to someone else, he had no interest in Rory anymore, and he just wanted some money to pad out his honeymoon fund.
"If he thinks I'll be one of her bridesmaids," she said aloud, glowering up at the ceiling, "he's got another thing coming."
Rory rolled over onto her stomach, feeling almost overcome by despondency. She'd been sequestered in her room since getting home, her mother kept banging pots and pans around in the kitchen, and her clue to find Jess seemed to be turning out to be nothing of the sort. This sucked.
There was one cure to that. One she had begun to rely on so much that it was almost by reflex rather than conscious thought that she reached for the house phone she'd swiped earlier. Logan.
"Hey, Ace," Logan answered. Rory smiled at the sound of his laconic, relaxed voice.
"Hey back. How are you?"
"Shouldn't I be the one asking that?" he replied. He sounded a little surprised. A little… off.
"What, just because I spent all of yesterday on the lam from the law?" Rory joked. It was good to get the truth out there, even just a tiny morsel of it. Logan would ask what she meant, and she'd explain, and they'd both laugh long and hard about how great pulling this over on Mitchum would have been. "Gilmores are made of sterner stuff than that."
"Right."
Rory frowned, hand coming up to cradle the phone as she sat up.
"Logan? Is something wrong?"
"Why don't you tell me?" he bit out, voice suddenly harsh. "Tell me about my father and you."
Rory felt her heart sink. He didn't think it was a laugh? It wasn't worthy of the Life and Death Brigade?
"Logan , I –" her voice broke. "Tell me what you want me to say."
"I want you, Rory, to tell me that you haven't been having an affair with him! That you weren't planning on running away to France with my father!"
Oh. Rory blinked. Well, that should be easy.
"I haven't been having an affair with your father," she replied honestly, adding, "Ew."
The receiver crackled as Logan exhaled out a heavy gust of relief. She could hear a breathy chuckle over the line.
"I'm happy to hear that, Ace. So you're really okay?"
"Logan, I'm fine. Nothing bad happened. It was –" A thought occurred to Rory, and her voice dropped down to a hushed whisper, one hand coming up to conceal her mouth as she spoke. "Is this a secure line?"
"Very," Logan replied, tone serious with just a glimmer of that old roguish amusement underneath it. "I'm wearing my Calvins… the ones you like so much."
What was he…? Oh.
"No, Logan! Not now!" she exclaimed in a furious whisper, eyes darting over to the door. She could still hear kitchen things happening. Lorelai must be very angry, to pretend to cook for so long. "I mean, is it secure so I can tell you what really happened at the bank?"
Logan sounded ever the slightest bit put out as he replied, "Yeah, I guess."
"I was trying to rob your dad, and I kind of ran into an old friend – my high school boyfriend, actually – and he had already robbed the bank. I mean, I think he robbed the bank. The news hasn't said anything about the bank being robbed, which is a little weird. Why do you think the teller didn't say anything? He was getting kind of handsy with her – maybe she was just embarrassed that she fell for that? "
Logan was very slow to respond.
"You robbed a bank with your high school boyfriend?" he asked, voice calm in exactly the same way Mitchum's was before he said something terrible. Something in Rory, which normally would have quailed at the sound, solidified with stubbornness.
"Yes."
"Let me get this right," Logan said. The edge in his voice was growing more apparent with every word. "You stole my car. You tried to rob my father. You claimed to be his mistress. And then you ran off with your ex boyfriend to spend a night in a hotel together while I went crazy with worry."
"I thought you'd understand." Rory replied, voice clipped with anger.
"Why would I understand that?"
"You're all about doing crazy stunts and getting arrested and laughing in the face of your jackass father!"
"Hey, I'm trying my best right now to understand, Rory, but don't turn this around on me. He's a jackass, but he is my dad. If you were going to pull this with anyone, it should have been me!"
Rory's brow furrowed as she tried to formulate a response. Logan was jealous. About the spending a night with Jess thing, partially, but mostly about being left out of this really spectacular prank. She didn't know what to say.
"You know what?" Logan started, tiredness creeping into his voice. "Just go. Just rest or whatever. We'll talk about this when you get back to school."
Before she could say goodbye, the call ended, phone abruptly beeping in her ear. She sighed, looking between the phone and the note ruefully. It looked like none of the men in her life wanted her. Maybe it was time to make up with the women – or a woman, anyway. Lane hadn't disowned her, as far as she knew, although the thought made Rory suddenly paranoid and she made a mental note to make Lane pinky swear never to do that.
Stretching, Rory stood from her bed and padded over on her sore feet to the door. The kitchen sounds had quieted in the last few minutes, although they hadn't quite disappeared. There was sizzling, and something that might be boiling. It sounded less like pretending to cook, and more like actually cooking.
Unsettled, Rory eased her door open cautiously.
Luke waved a spatula at her from where he was attending to something on the stove. Rory was confused and a tiny bit afraid. That worked?
"Hey, Rory," Luke said. An overly sympathetic, gentle expression stole over his face. "Did you have a good nap? Not that you're five and need a nap, or get cranky… It's perfectly normal for teenagers and other young people to sleep in the day. Or so I'm told."
"I'm good," Rory assured him. "So, uh, where's mom?"
Luke gave a half shrug that looked nearly whole on his big frame. He twitched one side of him mouth up in a kind of grimace.
"She rushed outta here not that long ago. She didn't say much to me, except some incoherent babble you'd probably get about how she couldn't believe her daughter had turned 'Patty Hearst' on her."
"Patty Hearst?" Rory repeated dumbly.
"Or possibly Jennifer Wilbanks. Is that the right reference?"
Gee, kidnapped heiress and Stockholmed bank robberess or bug-eyed runaway bride who faked her disappearance. What a wonderful choice.
"Let's go with Patty," Rory said glumly. At least she pulled the crime off. She sighed, looking out the window over Luke's shoulder to the chuppah just beyond the back door. She wished she knew where her mother had disappeared to. She needed to do something, to get something right.
She rubbed the soft paper of the note between her fingers, and a thought occurred to her. She just needed to find the right way to open the subject up.
"So, Jess didn't take naps?"
Wow, she congratulated herself sarcastically, way to segue.
"Oh, he definitely did. He was a stickler for his naps. Two PM on the dot, out in the living room with a picture book, determined expression, and blankie," Luke said with a little laugh. He shook himself, seemingly concerned that she might have misunderstood what he was saying. He lowered his free hand, indicating a height nearish his knee. "When he was little, that is."
Rory restrained a giggle.
"Right. I never knew… did you spend a lot of time with him when he was a kid?"
Luke shook his head. He seemed to be growing more comfortable with her presence, and for him that meant growing more monosyllabic. He turned back to the stove, poking at the meal.
"Not really," he said, trading out his spatula for a spoon and tasting what looked like marinara. He nodded to himself, turning the heat down to let things simmer, before turning to look at her. "Sometimes Liz would send him down to me when things got too hectic, or I'd go up and help them move, settle into a new place. Never really knew how to make heads or tails of him."
Rory forced a laugh along with him, before tentatively asking, "But he's doing better now? You and he talk?"
Luke gave her a strange look.
"Sometimes."
"So you have his phone number?" she pressed.
Luke frowned. He placed his hands on his hips, eyebrows arched to the fasteners of his hat.
"Rory, what is this about? You and… Jess? You can't possibly want to get back into that. Especially not now!"
"What's wrong with now?" Rory defended. "Now seems pretty ship shape to me."
Luke hung his head, wiping a hand over his face. The expression he came up with on the downward stroke seemed very much to evoke vibes of birds-and-bees talks. Rory edged away.
"Rory," he started gently. "You've just been through a thing. A big, scary thing. How're you gonna know where your head is right now? And Jess… he's been through some things, too. I don't know all of what, since he's still not so chatty, but definite things."
Rory stared at him. It almost sounded like he knew. Not like knew knew. If he knew about Jess and crime, the whole town would know by now. No need for Miss Patty, just open your window and listen. So no, he didn't know per se. But maybe he had an idea? Or a thought? He had the aura of someone close to thinking something, that was for sure.
"Luke, what are you saying?"
"Rory," Luke sighed. "He's finally got his life together. I don't think you messing with his mind is going to do him any good – or you. The last thing the two of you need is each other."
Rory was stumped, flabbergasted. Luke thought Jess had his life together – for crime! she thought with a touch of hysteria – and that she would be bad for him. What?
"I just … I could really use a friend right now," she said in a small voice. She lifted her eyes hesitantly; inside, she crowed in triumph at Luke's expression. He looked trapped, bewildered, and utterly defeated. "Maybe if I sent him a letter? That's taking it slow, right? We call it snail mail for a reason."
Luke turned away, pulling plates from cupboards and busying his hands as he served up lunch – although she could swear she caught him swiping at his eyes.
"Luke, please," she entreated. "Just his address, not his phone number. All I'm going to do is write."
Luke let out a pained groan, almost forcefully placing the plates onto the table before pulling out his diner order pad. He scribbled hastily onto it and then pressed it into her hands with a furtive look toward the door.
"Don't tell Lorelai."
"You either," Rory said, fixing him with a steady look. "Don't mention Jess to her at all."
"Wasn't planning on it," he said gruffly. He passed a hand over his face, looking upset with himself.
"Lunch?" she asked, bobbing over to the table, light on her feet and feeling almost giddy. Rory tried very hard not to grin. She'd won.
"We should wait for–"
She could hear the front door open and close, Lorelai's footsteps clacking against the hard wood. She sounded more upbeat. Well, her feet did.
"Oh, betrothed! Wherefore art you?" she crooned out. Yep, upbeat.
But her smile very nearly fell from her face as she rounded the corner and saw Rory there. She pinned it in place with physical effort. Rory fought the urge to roll her eyes.
"Wherefore actually means 'why', but that's a common mistake," Rory offered.
"Thanks, Paris." Lorelai walked over to Luke, stroking a hand casually up his back as she leaned over the table to inhale the scents of the food, "I love having live in help."
"You're welcome," Luke replied drily.
It was not, Rory reflect later, the most awkward meal in the universe. Several of the Friday night dinners had been worse, for instance. Dinner with the Huntzbergers, also, fairly disastrous. However, it was one of the worst meals she'd ever shared with her mother, yummy pasta from Luke notwithstanding.
In the moments where Lorelai was not giving Rory the cold shoulder, she was sneaking goofy smiles at Luke, which he returned. They chatted about Kirk's latest business endeavors, the crisis with Lane's band, and just when those Banyon boys would stop being so ornery. They spoke above Rory's head, past her, giving her the uncomfortable feeling of being left out of her own family. Her feeling of victory fizzled, leaving her slumped in her chair, picking at her meal in disinterest even though it was the first time she'd eaten in about a day.
"Oh, I nearly forgot to mention," Lorelai said, expression flattening as she looked at Rory over her upraised, full fork. "The Dean called."
"Dean called?" Rory asked, shooting upright and knocking her silverware to the ground in horror.
"The Dean," Lorelai clarified. "Of Yale. He wanted to offer an expression of relief that you are safe and well, and tell you that the school is more than willing to reschedule the exam you missed while you were 'kidnapped.'"
Rory blinked rapidly.
"I have to make it up? Getting abducted isn't enough to merit an 'excused'? Wow, tough crowd."
"It is, actually. But I think you should make it up," Lorelai said with righteous glint in her eye.
Rory crossed her arms, looking away.
"Fine. Whatever."
"Well, look at the time," Luke said loudly. He stood, clearing away plates despite Lorelai's protest. "Isn't it about time you two started getting ready for the party?"
Lorelai narrowed her eyes at him, expression a good indication that Luke would pay later. Rory looked between them, completely lost.
"Why don't you get ready?" Lorelai asked with false sweetness. "You could test out your formal ball cap ahead of the wedding."
"One, because I'm not going. And two, because I do not, and will not ever, own a formal ball cap."
"You're going to go to the wedding naked?"
"Only my head."
"Dirty."
Luke made a frustrated gesture, flinging his arm out toward the stairs.
"Will you just…"
"What party?" Rory interrupted.
Luke made an encouraging gesture toward Lorelai; she stuck out her tongue. Eventually, she huffed out a long breath, pouting as unwillingly explained, "The town is hosting a 'welcome back, glad you're not dead' party for you this afternoon in the square."
"Isn't today a Monday?"
Lorelai shrugged a little.
"Taylor may have declared today a local bank holiday," she said dubiously. Which meant he absolutely had, and she now thought that was sort of gross. Rory made a little bit of a face at her mother. If Lorelai was going to be immature about this, then that was exactly what she was going to get back.
Half an hour later, Rory was scrubbed and sparkly fresh, standing in a towel in front of her closet and trying to decide between outfits – well, between her blue chiffon sundress and prying her window open and making a run for it. She smiled slightly, thinking of Jess's initial offer of escaping through her window. She looked down at the address Luke had given her, pursing her lips. Philadelphia… shoe staring they could do, but she'd definitely need more than her feet to get there.
She looked back up, out her window. Directly at Lorelai's Jeep. And a plan began to form.
It dissipated, unfortunately, when Lorelai barreled into her room.
"Mom!" Rory cried out, clutching her towel closer to her body.
"Nothing I haven't seen. Covered in birthing goo, no less," Lorelai sad dismissively. "Get dressed already!"
Another half hour of putting on make-up, curling hair, and dawdling as she tried to think of any possible way of escaping the party passed before Rory and Lorelai were out the door.
"Hey, Mom," Rory said, voice meek and quiet as she walked a few paces back from Lorelai. "My feet still kind of hurt. Is it okay if we drive over?"
Lorelai must have been thawing, because she acceded silently. Rory kinda felt bad about that, but oh well.
They parked just outside the diner, in their usual spot. They were therefore well situated to take in the full breadth of the transformation the town square had undergone. Taylor's ordinance apparently only included residences, because a good half of the square – and the gazebo, Rory noted in shock – had been staked out by the press. She easily sighted CNN, MSNBC, FOX, the networks, E!, and Entertainment Tonight on the hoisted flags. She recoiled slightly in horror. Entertainment Tonight?
But where better for Stars Hollow's most famous adulteress to be featured, she thought miserably.
Across from the media encampment, a range of games and booths had been set up. Rory had the vague suspicion that Taylor kept them in reserve, just in case the opportunity for a town event arose. And dangling high above both the festival and the media base was a large, hastily written banner:
"Rory's dead!"
Between the two words, "not" had been scribbled in a shade of marker that didn't quite match the rest. To offset the otherwise potentially disturbing message, a large smiley had been added at the end.
"That was my idea," Kirk said.
Rory jumped, clutching at her chest. She turned to stare at Kirk, who had appeared silently and with frightening quickness at her open window. Beside her, she could hear Lorelai frantically rolling her own up.
"The smiley," Kirk specified. "I think it adds some cheer."
"Why does it say I'm dead?" Rory asked.
"They say that if the police don't find any leads in forty-eight hours, you can presume death."
"But they found me this morning!"
Kirk looked offended.
"Well, you try getting all your news from the Weather Channel. It's all mother watches, and I only ever get local news on the eights!" He turned on his heel, stalking off, before turning back. "I'm glad you're not dead."
"Wow," Lorelai said.
"Yeah, that was…"
"Kirk," they said together, laughing a little. The kind of strange, relieved, still vaguely frightened laugh that only Kirk could provoke. But it had broken the ice between them.
"You know," Rory said idly, peering out the windshield toward the banner. "Sometimes I think this town is really weird about me."
"Seems pretty average to me," Lorelai returned. A slight smile touched curved he lips.
Lorelai reached over, brushing Rory's hair from her face.
"Just so you know, I'm glad you're not dead too."
Rory swallow back tears.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
Lorelai nodded once, and opened her door. Rory followed her from the car. At times, she pulled closer, almost wanting to hold her mother's hand, hide behind her skirt for protection. And if her hand found its way into Lorelai's purse, taking out her keys, well, she was sorry about that. She just really needed to get away.
She needed to find herself.
As penance, she did a few rounds of the festival. She smiled at Miss Patty, chatted with Babbette, and laughed at one of Taylor's "jokes". She managed to dodge much of the press, at least for the sake of interviews, begging off with quick statements about just being happy to be home and feeling ever so tired from her ordeals. The cameras seemed to track her every movement, and she was starting to despair of ever shaking them when she ran into Lane.
"Oh my God!" Lane squealed, jumping and hugging Rory. "You're okay! I was so worried!"
Rory jumped and squealed with her. There weren't really any words of comfort she could offer, especially not with Lorelai's keys digging into the palm of the hand concealing them.
"Yeah," she said weakly. "It's good to be free."
"And not Stockholmed," Lane added seriously. "That's very important."
"No, no. I'm good. No Stockholming at all."
"So was it…?" Lane asked with big, worried eyes.
"I really just… I don't want to talk about it anymore," Rory said. She shrugged apologetically. "You understand, right?"
"Absolutely! I'm Miss Understanding 2005. Wait. I don't think that came out right. I mean, I'm here for you. Or there, if you need time and distance, because I can do that too!"
Rory smiled.
"Thanks, Lane."
It was nice to just walk and talk with her for a while. Well, to walk and let Lane talk. Her worry for Rory quickly faded into her excitement for her upcoming church-tour with the band. Mama Kim of all people had set it up. She felt a minor twinge of jealousy as she listened. Lane was about to live her dream; she was going to go out into the world and become a fabulous rock star – on Seventh Day Adventist circuits, anyway – and Rory was still muddling through. In fact, she was further from her goals than ever. She was a flash in the pan twenty four hours news celebrity, notable for being abducted and having a history of adultery, and more importantly she still wasn't going to be a reporter.
Mitchum Huntzberger thought she wasn't cut out for it, and in all the craziness that had happened, she still hadn't proved him wrong.
"That's really amazing, Lane!" she congratulated distractedly, while her friend took a very brief pause for breath. Rory's gaze was over her shoulder, measuring the distance back to the Jeep. It would be worth it, she decided, just making a run for it.
The cameras didn't matter. This wasn't just about finding herself, or continuing the adventure.
It was about shaking the truth out of Jess. Like a good reporter would.