AN: I know nothing medical-wise. Please forgive any mistakes, and if this is totally out there.
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A few minutes later, Luke really could hear the faint wailing of the sirens in the distance, and he felt like he might be able to breathe again. Coherent thoughts started to filter in through the panic that had permeated his mind. Help was coming. It was then that he realized that he hadn't checked Jess over, or done anything, other than clutch at him. He put still shaking fingers to Jess neck, searching for a pulse – and there was one. Faint, and slightly irregular – although that might just have been from the way he, himself was shaking – but he felt he could definitively say that there was one there.
"Oh my god." And he pulled Jess in tighter.
It when he could hear the sirens coming getting louder, that he realized that the diner wasn't unlocked, that nobody was there to meet the paramedics. It seemed like a silly thing to do, as Jess was unconscious, but Luke felt he needed to do it anyway – he kissed Jess on the forehead, held him just a bit closer, and whispered into his ear, "I'm so sorry, kid. I'll make it up to you, I swear, but right now I gotta go meet the EMS people, so you stay right here, and I'll be right back, I promise." Jess, as expected, made no response, and Luke gently lay him back down on the bathroom floor, wishing that he had brought something in to cushion Jess's head with.
He then ran through the apartment, down the stairs, and to the diner door, which he unlocked and propped open. He could see the ambulance coming then, lights flashing and siren wailing ominously. When it arrived, he led the paramedics into the diner and up the stairs, to the bathroom where Jess still lay. He didn't know what they were doing, what he should be doing, whether he should be getting anything. He stood nervously off to the side as he let them do their work, and before he knew what was happening, they were taking Jess downstairs, were loading him into the back of the ambulance, and were taking off down the road again. He knew he ought to get in his truck and follow, but at that moment he couldn't do anything but stare at the ambulance's retreating lights, it's wailing echoing through his head, in time with the rhythmic pounding of his headache.
He looked around, and was surprised to see that a crowd had formed around the diner. He didn't know why he was surprised at all, since half of the people he recognized as his regular morning crowd, and the other half he recognized as regular town gossips, who had clearly heard the sirens and come to investigate. He felt like he should say something, and opened his mouth several times, but couldn't come up with the words to say, and therefore settled for going back into the diner, and closing and locking the door behind him. He ran back upstairs to grab his shoes, wallet, and keys, and then was right back out the door, jumping into his truck, and speeding off in the direction of the hospital, leaving the muttering crowd behind him.
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Lorelai was up and about surprisingly early, but she had wanted to pick up breakfast before Rory was up, to save Rory from having to go to the diner, and from having to face Jess so soon after everything had happened. Another thing she found surprising, other than how she was up so early in the morning, was that she was up and feeling chipper so early in the morning. She had also been surprised by how much she felt like walking to the diner that morning. It was a nice morning, sunny, but crisp and refreshing at the same time. She also thought far enough ahead to put on comfortable shoes for the walk, and so she enjoyed herself, watching the small town wake up, taking her time making her way to the square.
It was a morning of surprises.
Upon her arrival, she was met with a mass of people crowded around Luke's diner, milling about and talking in hushed tones, frowns and expressions of shock marring their faces. Her own brows creased in confusion as she came up to them.
"What's going on?" she asked nobody in particular. No one seemed to hear her. She noticed Kirk in the centre of the group and squeezed her way through it to reach him. "Kirk? What's going on?" Kirk turned around. He was holding a basket full of apples, and wearing a green baseball cap that read "Doose's", and a Doose's apron. "Kirk?"
He handed her an apple. "Come to Doose's".
"What?"
"Luke's is closed. Come to Doose's." She stared at him for a second, in shock.
"What?"
"Luke's is cl-" she cut him off.
"Yeah, I got that. But why is it closed? How can it be closed? He should have been open…" she checked her watch, "twenty minutes ago. He can't be closed today, I was supposed to get Rory pancakes, so I could take them back to her. I need to get Rory pancakes!"
"Would you like another apple? Come to Doose's." She shook her head, putting the first apple back in the basket.
"We don't do apples, Kirk. We need pancakes. Chocolate chip pancakes. Now, where is Luke? Is he upstairs? Has anyone tried throwing rocks at his window? I can do a bit of a Romeo impersonation, I think. Although I don't know if he threw rocks at Juliet's window. Did they have windows back then? Did they have rocks? Well of course they had rocks, but did they throw rocks? Did they throw rocks at windows? Come to think of it, was it even Romeo that would have done the throwing? Was it Juliet? Kirk? Has anyone seen Luke?"
"Oh, sweetie, he left." She turned around to face Miss Patty.
"What do you mean, he left?"
"I'm so sorry honey, you didn't hear?"
"Hear what? Why is finding out what's going on so hard?"
"Sweetie, he's at the hospital."
"What?"
"With Jess."
"What?"
"The ambulance came this morning."
"Wait, who's hurt? Luke and Jess are at the hospital, is Luke hurt? Is Jess hurt? Are they both hurt?"
"Well I don't know, sugar. Jess is the one the paramedics took away, but Luke was covered in blood, and it looked like he'd been crying, the poor thing, but…"
"Luke?" Lorelai was in shock. "Luke, crying? And Jess got taken away? Does anybody know what happened?" Miss Patty shook her head.
"No, we just saw the ambulance come, and Jess be taken away, lying there all still and pale and bloody, and Luke covered in blood too and crying… but nobody knows what actually happened. We also don't know when the diner's gonna open."
"Well, if Luke and Jess are both in the hospital, I don't think he's going to be opening anytime soon, Patty. But you said Luke was standing? And the ambulance didn't take him?"
"No, he drove after them himself."
"Well, then at least he's well enough to drive. That's a relief."
"It is, sweetheart. Jess, though – poor boy. I hope he's gonna be ok, they were awful frenzied, taking him away."
"God, yeah, I hope so too.
---
"Rory? Rory, honey?" Lorelai was back at her house, digging through cupboards for cereal at the same time as she was berating herself for even thinking about breakfast when she knew what she knew. She wondered why Luke hadn't called her yet – did he have a cell phone? Well, considering his apparent hatred of them, she assumed he didn't, but he still might. He needed to get one, so he could call her. Would he call her? She hoped he would call her, in a situation like this. She considered him one of her best friends, despite past disagreements. She knew she would call him, if she were in his place – that is, as long as he was capable of calling her. What if something else had happened? What if he couldn't call her? What if he really shouldn't have driven off on his own, after the ambulance? She vowed that, when she did see him again, she would make him pay for making her worry so.
It wasn't fair though – blaming him for scaring her. If something was wrong with Jess, Luke was probably out of his mind with worry. He was curt and quiet, and sometimes as monosyllabic as Jess, but Lorelai knew that he really did care deeply about his nephew. He had been trying so hard to do right by Jess, to help him when no one else had. And what had Jess done in return? Driven Luke – and the rest of the town – crazy. The kid grated on her nerves. He hurt Rory, he hurt Luke – and now he was in the hospital? Lorelai didn't know what to make of it. She would never wish physical harm on him, for sure, but she didn't know if everything he'd ever done, everything he'd ever said, could just be forgiven, just like that, without an explanation. She knew that Rory, previous to her recent disagreements with him, had always insisted that there was a side to him that she didn't know, but she really hadn't gotten a chance to see it. She thought, that maybe once he was better, and whatever was going on was over, she might get a chance, but lately Jess had been surlier than usual, and brusquer than usual, and ruder than usual, and even Rory was upset with him, by that point.
She knew, though, that she had to put past disputes aside, for a while. Forgive things, for the time being, and either hope that the explanations for them would surface, given time, or leave them to be sorted out later, when whatever was going on was over, and fixed, and the world was right again – when she knew that both Luke and Jess were home and safe and healthy. She still had no idea what was going on, but whatever it was, she was sure that Luke needed her, at the very least. Rory needed her. And she knew, despite what she might want to believe, that Jess might just need her too.
AN: Please review, constructive criticism is appreciated.