A/N- Ugh. I have got to stop doing this. You know what, if you start getting annoyed that I'm not updating, feel free to send me a PM and remind me. This chapter is dedicated to nataliecastle, who told me that this fic should be used for the GG movie. It really is the best compliment possible when it comes to my writing. Natalie, I thank you again. Also, to my new beta Hardy. .x. I love you both.
Lorelai stumbled down the stairs the next morning in her robe and bunny slippers, still hazy from sleep. Once she had finished her first cup of coffee for the day, she jumped back in shock she realized that there was someone with her in the kitchen. This person was hunched over the table, furiously writing something on a piece of paper and also downing her cup of coffee next to her like a true champ.
"Rory!" Lorelai whined. "What are you doing up at," Lorelai looked at the microwave clock, "Seven in the morning? I have stuff to do this early, not you. You should be in your nice, comfortable, and fluffy bed getting your beauty sleep. Not that you need it, of course." Lorelai rushed to add when Rory looked up to glare at her with a pencil in her mouth. "What are you writing anyway?"
Rory looked down at her paper, spit out her pencil, and added another note to it. "A list of what we have to do today."
Lorelai smiled, surprised and confused, but not put off. "A list? I don't think I've seen you make a list in a while, hun." She shuffled over to the chair next to Rory to get a closer look and began to read aloud. "7:00- Mom wakes up. 7:05-Mom has first batch of coffee. 7:15- Mom takes a shower. 7:30- Mom gets dressed." Lorelai stopped to put her hand on her daughter's arm. "Sweetie, if you've been stalking me and taking notes of where I go and when, I'm afraid you're just not my type."
Rory smirked and adopted a Southern accent. "Oh, no. Whatever shall I do?"
Lorelai pouted and pointed at her daughter in mock-scolding. "Hey, no mocking the mommy." She looked back down again. "8:00- Mom goes to Luke's." Lorelai looked up from the list again. "Aren't you going to Luke's with me?"
Rory shook her head. "Nah, I have some things I have to do. I mean I should probably email my boss and check up on things and I want to buy some more books for the road before I leave. Oh! And I need to finish my Christmas shopping. Christmas is almost here. That's going on the list." She bent down to adjust the aforementioned list. Her excuses, of course, were all true and might have been more believable if Rory hadn't been avoiding her mother's suspicious gaze. Ultimately however, Lorelai decided to let it go. She reminded herself that Rory was a big girl who could come to her whenever she needed to and then forced herself to change the subject.
"Okay, I'm going to go get started on my half of the list. Don't forget we're meeting Schnikelfritz at 2 to go dress shopping."
Rory asked in confusion, "Why don't you just use the dress from the last time you and Luke were engaged?"
"Fresh start, hun. It begins with recycling the dress and then it ends with telling Luke it's me or the toaster."
Rory nodded in mock- agreement. "That is one good toaster."
"We didn't name it Toasty for nothing. That name demands fame, fortune, and respect from all other appliances in the province known as Our Kitchen."
"People will come from far and wide to see Toasty."
"Asking him for his wires in toasting goodness, but by then, he will be ours! Ours, I say!"
"Mom, did you forget to take your medication again?"
Lorelai snapped her fingers in pretend remembrance. "Is that the purple bottle or the blue bottle? I always forget!" Shaking her head in mock shame, she turned around to walk up the stairs but paused in the doorway. "Hey Rory, what made you decide to write a list this morning?"
"I don't really know. I just woke up this morning, had the urge, and decided to do it." Rory smiled. "Why do you ask?"
Lorelai smiled back and shook her head. "No reason." She lingered for a few more moments, watching Rory add the dress shopping to her list, and then quietly walked up the stairs.
"Okay! So! We have for the appetizer: cheese, crackers, and celery in the shape of hearts. It's light, but not too light; classy, but not cold, and for an added bonus, I hear the celery really boosts up your sex drive." Sookie declared with a broad smile and wiggling eyebrows.
"Sookie!" Lorelai giggled, looking up from the sample menu Sookie had given her.
"Well- it's yours and Luke's wedding day! I'm sure you're gonna be getting it on." Sookie's voice got lower toward the end of the sentence, trying to take on a seductive tone, while shaking her hips from side to side.
"Getting it on? Ugh. That just reminds me of those 'Bring it on' movies. Which makes me think of cheerleading, which makes me think of short skirts… which makes me think of those really tight skirts on women that have no business wearing really tight skirts." Lorelai said, silently insinuating a 'know what I mean?'
"Ooh." Sookie cringed.
"Yeah. Doesn't exactly turn me on."
"Forget the tight skirt wearing women!" Sookie slammed her fist on the table, narrowly missing a knife. "You and Luke are going to be so happy together! I mean, he's been there for you all these years, through thick and thin. Through Max, Chris, Alex, Jason, and then Chris again…"
"I get it Sook! Don't need the spreadsheet. I was an idiot. We all have are idiot stages! Just think of the big hair days."
"Yes! Yes! Perfect example!" Sookie pointed excitedly. "Those men were your big hair days. At the time, you thought you looked good, but then when you look back through yearbooks and things you cringe and wonder what you were thinking! Luke is the years after that when you realize you don't want to look like Pamela Anderson! I'm just so happy for you!" Sookie had started crying at some point, her chest heaving and her voice breaking.
"Hey, what's with the water works, lady? I thought you said you were happy for me?" Lorelai got up and wrapped her arms around her friend in a comforting embrace.
"Remember when you were engaged to Max and out of nowhere I just started crying? I think a part of me was crying because you were so clueless about how Luke felt for you and if you were married, it would break his heart. It wouldn't be Luke anymore. I also cried the night you told me you married Christopher. It just- didn't seem right. Not in a Joni loves Chachi kind of right at least, and that's what you deserve. Now you're getting it! Luke's your Chachi!"
Lorelai smiled tearfully. "Don't tell Luke that. I don't think he'd appreciate the mental helmet hair I'm giving him right now."
The two hugged tightly as Lorelai's mind came up with an idea that was triggered by the words, 'Remember when you were engaged to Max…'
"Too sparkly, too short, too long, too white… for God's sake these are wedding dresses! Not hooker dresses!"
Lorelai chuckled behind her mother. "First of all, I don't believe hookers wear expensive white dresses. They usually get undressed way too fast, and I don't mean in the privacy of their own home." Lorelai wiggled her eyebrows, causing Emily to roll her eyes. "Second, how can a wedding dress be too white?"
Emily sighed at the ignorance of her daughter. "If a dress is too white, it will wash out your skin tone. You'll know when you've found the perfect dress. It'll just give you this feeling." Emily raised her voice to a slight yell as she was lost amongst the seemingly endless and identical rows of dresses.
"It will give you this feeling." Lorelai said, imitating Emily's voice. "Yeah, I know what that feeling will turn out to be if Emily Gilmore had her way! Discomfort!"
"Why would Grandma make you buy a dress that was uncomfortable?" Rory asked, as she shuffled through the gowns herself, looking for a pretty dress in her Mom's size.
"Because the last one she bought me was way too small!" Lorelai grumbled.
Rory looked up and put her hands on her hips. "When was the last time Grandma bought you a dress that you actually wore?"
Lorelai paused, pretending to do the math in her head. "Uhh, twenty- three… twenty- four years ago?"
"Mom! That was when you were pregnant with me!"
"Was it? They grow up so fast!" Lorelai cooed, pinching Rory's cheek.
"Who grew up so fast?" Emily asked, holding something behind her back.
Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. One minute they're cute little Michelle on Full House, the next they're doing drugs. It's sad, really."
"I don't know why I ask anymore." Emily said, pulling out what she had behind her back.
Lorelai's eyes widened as she took in the dress. "Oh, Mom. It's beautiful."
"Your size. Perfectly in your price range. Not too white." She held out the dress to Lorelai with a smile. "Want to try it on?"
"Lorelai nodded in dazed awe and took the dress. "I feel like a princess just holding it."
She went into the dressing room to try it on, and when she came out there was dead silence as everyone in the store turned to look at her. "What?" she cried when the silence became deafening. "Does it look that bad?" She turned toward her mother and Rory, to see them both trying to hold back tears. "Guys?"
"You look beautiful, Mom."
Emily nodded. "Just like a princess."
Lorelai beamed, and after looking in the mirror admiringly turned toward the dressing room to take off her dress. "Well, I guess this is the one!"
Once she was out and had handed the dress to the worker for check out, she decided that this whole situation needed some comic levity. "You know mom, I think that this would make my dress complete," Lorelai said cheekily, picking up a plastic tiara and modeling it daintily – enjoying the shock that appeared on Emily Gilmore's face at the thought that her baby girl would even consider adding that to her bridal finery.
"Hey, Lorelai?" Luke yelled, walking into the house. "I'm home!" Seeing that she wasn't in the living room watching TV or a movie, he went into the kitchen expecting to see her with her glasses on, maybe reading a magazine or doing some inn stuff while sipping a cup of coffee. What he wasn't expecting was seeing her leaning against the counter, cutting up coupons. "What the hell?"
Lorelai looked up from her cutting. "Hey Ricky. How was today's show?"
Luke ignored the reference. "Why the hell are you cutting coupons?"
Lorelai smiled- the smile of someone who knows something you don't. "Well, I was talking to Sookie today, planning the food and stuff, you know, and she said something that got me thinking. Remember that time I was engaged to Max?"
Luke grunted. It wasn't a time he liked thinking about, for obvious reasons. "Yeah."
"Well, do you remember when I was telling you that I was engaged to Max, you told me that since your mom and dad never talked about the important stuff he never knew where the coupon drawer was?"
Luke was starting to piece everything together. "Yeah, I do."
Lorelai's smile was more nervous this time. "Well." She grabbed Luke's hand and led him over to where she was just standing. "I wanted to show you where the coupon drawer was." With that, she opened the drawer that was at her hip and let Luke see inside. There were dozens upon dozens of coupons.
Luke was amazed. "How long have you been working on this?"
"Only about a couple of hours. Rory helped me too, but she seems to keep disappearing somewhere every night around this time." She looked around the room as if to see if Rory was suddenly with them.
Luke put his arms around her waist. "I can't believe you did this."
Lorelai smiled. "Eh, it was nothin'. I just-"She was cut off by Luke's lips on hers. The only sound that could be heard for the rest of the night was the occasional moan.
The next day, Lorelai found a box on her kitchen table when she came home from the inn, and within there was a delicate crown with diamonds that glittered and white gold that had been polished by hands that had brought it out many times to smile and remember – the card simply said: "If you wish to look like royalty at your wedding, you shall not do so with plastic."
Suddenly, Lorelai felt like crying herself. She picked up the crown with trembling hands and whispered, "Oh, Mom."
A/N- I promise you I will get the next one up quicker. Believe it or not, I wrote most of this in one day so hopefully I'll be able to do that again soon. Next chapter will be choc-filled of Literati goodness, and it will also be the last day that Jess and Rory are in Star's Hollow for a while. What could happen? Stay tuned!
