Title: Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Author: BehrBeMine
Feedback: Oh, please! I need it like the Gilmores need coffee! This is my first multiple chapter story, so anything you have to say would be much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Don't sue, I'll cry. ;p
Summary: What was the biggest mistake of your life?
Rating: R
Distribution: Just please let me know and we'll be good.
Classification: Rory and Dean
Spoilers: Season 4
Beta: Elyssa the brave.
Author's Note: Due to some true life crises, my muse has scampered in the past months. Please forgive me, those of you still interested in this story. I can see you through my magnifying glass... I'm hoping things are settled now, and I can bring you the story to its end.
Chapter Nine: Tricky Things
- -
She thought of how he would react when she brought his world crashing down on him, as hers had done on herself. All because the stick turned blue.
Blue as the dental floss wedged between Rory's two front teeth as Lorelai handed her the phone. "Tell them I'll call them back," she mumbled, fidgeting with the minty string.
Lorelai exhaled slowly as she closed her eyes for effect. "It's your dad."
Rory set the silly piece of string down. She took the phone and covered the mouthpiece with her hand. "Did you tell him?" she whispered, her voice wavering.
Lorelai shook her head.
Rory offered her the phone back. "Do it?"
Lorelai shook her head.
"Mommy?..." Rory pleaded, suddenly reduced to a four year-old child.
"I had to tell my father, baby," Lorelai reminded her daughter, creating a soothing caress along the back of her neck. "If I can tell Richard and Emily Gilmore that I have just ruined their social status for life, I think you can tell your dad about an accident. He'll deal, just like we'll deal."
Rory's eyes had never been wider as she accepted the phone and brought it up to the side of her face, her motions mechanical, practiced over years of answering and replying to questions that meant nothing in the scheme of things. What she was about to say would mean everything. It already did, without even being said. Her chin wobbled, and she cleared her throat.
"Dad?"
"Hey, kiddo," said Christopher, somewhere on the other end. "Your mom isn't very talkative today. But she said you had something to tell me? Something good, I hope," he kidded. Of course, he had to kid right now. And of course, she could tell by his tone, that he had absolutely no idea.
"Um..." Rory had always detested the use of the spoken pause, the dead space of it with noise, the way it polluted the ear. But here she was, her pause making noise when her words could not. "See, here's the thing..."
Christopher waited patiently on the line.
"You know Dean? That... boy? Dean?"
"He plays baseball," Christopher guessed, thinking of a past day spent in Stars Hollow.
"Yeah... Yeah. That's him."
"Mmhmm."
"He's... living with us." Rory blanched, wanting to smack herself in the forehead for stalling and, in the process, giving out details that were not helpful.
Christopher's voice took on an edge. "You have a boy... friend living with you? And your mom?"
Rory looked around for help. Her mother had left to give her conversation some privacy. "Mom!" she hollered, rushing out of the bathroom. She handed Lorelai the phone. "Help me? I know I hate admitting defeat, but I am terrible at this. I can't, I can't do it."
Lorelai's eyes were soft as she took the phone from Rory and stood up from her place at the kitchen table. "Chris?" she spoke into it calmly. She listened, no doubt to some protective ranting. But her calmness remained. "Yes, Dean is living with us. But you actually didn't get the whole story."
This time, when she paused, she looked at Rory, looked deep into her daughter's eyes. Together they wished for a world other than this. "Chris, she's pregnant. Rory is pregnant."
That was when Rory walked away.
--
Long, long minutes later, Lorelai snuck in through the doorway of Rory's bedroom, re-closing the door behind her. The shades were drawn, and so day was like night, except in a dream, with fringes of light like reality flitting about. Rory hugged her stuffed rooster to her chest in the darkness she had created for herself, facing away from the door as she lay curled up on her bed. She didn't dare roll over as Lorelai's footsteps crept closer to her.
Lorelai paused, looking down upon Rory, and then placed a gentle kiss on her temple. "Your father says he loves you," she whispered. Then she left Rory to be alone.
Big, fat tears slid down Rory's cheeks to wet the sheets she had just recently slept in. She rarely knew why she cried anymore.
--
The sun sat high in the sky that afternoon when Rory ventured out in search of her beau. She'd scrubbed her face clean of the grimy tears and slapped on enough chapstick to call it lube. After a thin coat of mascara, she was out the door.
Dean was nowhere in town, or if he was, he hid well. He'd left the house that morning without a word, and Rory had missed the soft whisper of his pajama pants as he made his way to her bed to wake her. Something about the intimacy of that gesture gave her a reason to shut off the thoughts in her mind and go to sleep at night, for she had someone to wake up to. But this morning, he was gone. And everywhere she looked, she could tell he hadn't been there.
She began to miss his floppy hair, his rich blue-green eyes, as if she hadn't just seen these things yesterday. Feeling particularly needy, she wanted the feel of his strong arms with their muscle wrapped around her skinny ribcage, sealing her in as a part of him, fusing them together as one.
Sighing with frustration, Rory settled into a spot at the counter at Luke's. "Coffee?" she tried, giving Luke a million watt smile despite her current predicament, simply because she knew what was coming.
Luke's nostrils flared, and that was that. "It's not good for the baby."
"Oh, that's not true. My mom says I loved coffee when I was a baby."
"Your mother's a lunatic."
Rory smiled again, but said nothing to allude to what she knew of this so-called lunatic and the man standing right before her. Why they just wouldn't come out and say something was beyond her, but she would play their game, by their rules, and win in the end when she could finally go, "Ha! I knew it."
"D'you think lunacy is genetic?" Rory asked, unconsciously rubbing small circles over her tummy. "And let's please not use me as an example here," she added as an afterthought.
Luke refilled Kirk's cup a few stools down the counter, and then set the coffee pot down, eyeing Rory with such open honesty, it made her want to squirm. "Rory, I... you know that I..." He looked down. Took his baseball cap off, scratched his hair, and put the cap back on again. "I'm really not good at the sentimental thing..."
She had to save him. "It's okay, Luke. You don't actually need to say it. I know what you mean."
"I'll always be here. Unless a truck runs into me and drags my body several miles down the road. Still... I'll find a way back."
Rory nodded with surprising ease. "Thanks for that image, Luke, and wow, I didn't know you'd go that far for me. I have to say, I'm honored." She did the uncomfortable staring thing back into his eyes for a good ten seconds to let him know that she was as genuine as he meant for his words to be. And to let him know that verbal communication was something they didn't necessarily need between them to understand one another.
"Luke..." Rory began, feeling her way along the counter with her fingertips as she stood and prepared to leave. "This is just a shot in the dark, but, if your life changed dramatically, and then you didn't want to be found, where do you think you would go?"
Luke took one more moment for Rory before having to get back to work. "Probably back to the place where it all went wrong."
--
She found Dean standing across the street from Lindsay's house. His old house. Hands in his pants pockets, staring, dreaming. She choked back a sob and stayed clear of his vision. Realizing it was clever of her to wear her soft-soled sneakers, Rory was able to sneak up to a few feet behind him, without him knowing she was there, and she could see what he saw.
Through one of the front windows of that darling little house, Lindsay sat at the dining room table, perusing some sort of reading material, with no clue about her two new enemies staring straight at her from outside. Rory swallowed a gasp, and what she believed could very well have been her heart coming all the way up into her throat.
Throughout the moments that passed by in which Lindsay moved only to turn a page or two, Rory found herself wallowing in the uncertainty, dying every second Dean looked at Lindsay, waiting to know which one of them he'd choose. Rory hugged herself, wrapping her arms protectively around her tummy that wasn't yet substantial enough. She couldn't feel any movement of the child. She supposed the fetus wouldn't move at all yet. She had to wonder what it would feel like when it kicked -- if it would be like the discomfort of an empty, growling stomach, or something only a mother can experience and describe.
The hormones chose "impatience" out of the grab bag at this time. "Dean," Rory mumbled, not able to meet his eyes when he whipped around to face her.
"What are you doing here...?"
"That was my question. You're going to have to think of a new one." It was then that Rory could look up, with only one wet mascara streak down her face. The intense emotions of this pregnancy were one thing she was certain not a single person would miss.
Dean sighed; ran a hand that trembled through his hair in a way that he'd never done before. Rory thought she must be making him develop new nervous habits, but she wasn't sure how that made her feel. "I just needed to look at her. At my house. I needed to look back on my old life, really look at it, and see it for what it was, before I could move on."
Rory's voice quivered like a plucked string gone soft. "Your old life? You just had to look at it? As if you didn't look at it your entire life for 18 years? And now... what? You're having second thoughts about us, and thinking of going back to her?"
"Rory, it's not like that. I did this for you."
"Oh!" She wiped away the gathering tears. "Why, thank you," she blurted out, the sarcasm dripping like diluted honey. "How about if I go stare at my past for a while for you? I'll go call Jess up, compare our relationship to the one I had with him -- make lists, keep score."
"Rory! Stop. I came here to say goodbye to my old life so that I didn't have to wonder about it again."
"D... do you think you'll always wonder if it should have been her instead of me? Because, Dean... I can't live like that."
"Neither can I." Dean stepped up closer to Rory so that his chest touched her chin. "I want you, only you." He encircled his arms around her body and looked deeply into her eyes. "Even when you're bopping me on the head."
"Hey! That was only like once! Okay, like, five tim -- "
She couldn't finish her sentence as Dean swooped in and captured her lips in a kiss that dared to dream of forever, and of a baby, too. Words swam through her head, thoughts and worries imprinted on her brain that she wanted to share and yet sometimes keep to herself. But the words became lost in the feel of Dean's lips that tugged and needed, and in the touch of his fingers wiping the sloppy tear from her face.
Rory's legs, gone weak, began trembling in a way that she couldn't control. She fought to keep herself steady, refusing to tear her lips from Dean's, wanting to stay melted together like those double popsicles Lorelai would never share. As her legs gave in, she fell in to Dean's body, burying her head in his chest as his arms grabbed her just in time.
"Are you okay?" he asked her, and she didn't know.
"Don't leave me. Not today," Rory said plainly, looking up into Dean's eyes as he cradled her now in the strength and security of his arms. She couldn't recall being so needy since the age of five, when she first started school, and had to spend a whole half day without her mother. She could remember the torture of it clearly because she was feeling it now, any time Dean was gone and she needed him, for no reason at all other than she did.
Dean opened his mouth to answer, but at that point the front door of his old house swung open. Rory buried her face in Dean's chest, unable to join in the stare-down that went on between man and wife. Without a word being said, Dean adjusted his grip on the body in his arms, and started carrying her home.
--
"Explain to me why you want to willingly put Dean in front of my Emily Gilmore's scrutiny? On purpose?" Lorelai was stunned at the idea and, in fact, ready to worry for Dean's welfare.
"I don't want to be apart from him," Rory explained.
"Not even for a couple of hours?"
"Not today."
"You'll miss him much more once he's buried alive in my parents' backyard."
Rory considered this. "Grandma, along with everyone in Stars Hollow, seems to be ignoring my condition, as if it's just temporary, and it's going to go away. I may not know why, but what I do know is that Dean isn't likely to be slaughtered until after there's constant-crying, diaper-sporting evidence that they can't ignore. I think he's safe for now."
Lorelai pursed her lips. "Honey..."
Rory raised her eyebrows.
Lorelai shook her head. "Never mind. I guess you're right. Go find Dean. We've got to get going."
--
Feet in lipstick-red high heels stopped along with Lorelai's upper half as she sagged her shoulders, stunned. "Hm. I don't remember requesting a chauffeur."
"What can I say? Rory paid me," Dean said flippantly from the driver's seat of the little Gilmore jeep, drumming his fingers lightly on the steering wheel.
"That's funny, 'cause the last time she paid me to be the driver was so long ago, I think I'll call it never."
"Look." Dean shifted uneasily, fidgeting with the lock on the car door. "I can't just show up at Rory's grandmother's house after impregnating her granddaughter without the slightest plan about where to go from here."
"The only people who formulate plans by driving a car are international men of mystery with gadgets installed that tell them what to do. And believe me, not even those gadgets could manage to please the likes of Emily 'it is only acceptable to do things when I do them myself, and yet that still does not make you worthy of such actions' Gilmore."
"Dean, is Mom being a pill?" Rory asked good-naturedly as she exited the house and entered the passenger side of the jeep.
He smiled. "She's being her usual rainbow of adjectives."
"I'll admit it: I was being a rainbow pill. One that makes you hallucinate and dream of governing unicorns."
Rory flipped open her cell phone. "And the number to the psych ward is..."
"You'd think one of you would have it on speed dial -- now what I was thinking is," Dean spoke all of one breath without pause for the bickering that would come, "that we would take an outside route to Hartford. There are some dirt paths that have some pretty nice, calming scenery that might inspire us to agree, between the three of us, on a name for this baby. And then we could have at least one of Ms. Gilmore's questions answered, for the sake of my conservative hide."
He raised his eyebrows at the silence that met him. "What do you think?"
Lorelai raised her hand, loving that in one simple gesture, any situation could be made into a classroom. "If I'm going to have to sit in the back seat, I want to be a backseat driver. I'm gonna need an actual steering wheel and a waiver signed taking all responsibility of a possible car crash off of me and my very practiced cabbie imitations."
"Talking about my unborn baby being in a car crash -- do you mind?" Rory tsked gently, then stepped out of the jeep in order for her mother to climb into the back seat.
"Loving the lack of space. It's like a wanna-be trunk back here. Oh, look. I can almost straighten out my neck. Oops, wait -- false alarm."
Parenting mode intensifying by the comment, Rory got back into her own seat and slammed the door behind her. "No more complaining, you, or no cocktail at Grandma's! Now, be a good girl and attempt to honk us to death with your playskool steering wheel."
"A prop! I can't believe there was room for me, and a prop! Too bad for the neck thing, but ooh!" Lorelai set about checking out the limited gadgets on the toy made for children three and under. "This was yours, wasn't it, babe?"
"Mhmm."
"I always did enjoy playing with your toys more than you did."
Rory smiled at the memory as Dean smiled at the thought. "I know."
---
"I spy with my big gorgeous eyes something... dirty." Lorelai honked the horn of her special steering wheel to punctuate her contribution to the game she had just instigated.
"Couldn't be the road, could it?" Rory asked dryly.
"It is made of dirt," Dean reasoned, having noticed the clouds of it sent swirling into the air with every glide of the jeep's tires. Other than leaving a trail of cough inducer in their wake, he loved everything about driving these old country-esque roads. There were a very rare few, and these were the ones he chose to covet in the first days of his marriage. He'd drive up and down the dirt-paved pathways at night, after Lindsay had fallen asleep, her lips sporting smiles from her dreams. She dreamed of their happiness together while he tormented himself with thoughts of the one he left behind, and did anything to get away.
Lorelai crossed her arms over her chest. "Stupid dirt. Stupid road. Stupid all-there-is-out-here."
"Could this r--road be an--y more b--um--mpy?" asked Rory irritably.
"Oh, yeah!" With that, Dean floored the gas pedal, and headed straight for a shallow pothole, taking care in his speed so as not to cause harm to the fetus passenger. The Gilmore girls screamed, first in dread, then in delight at the moderate bounce the car was able to generate.
Dean enjoyed their impressed giggles while they lasted, and then tried to avoid the cringe thing when Lorelai said, "Way to tear up my car, buddy. See if I tip you after that one."
Rory shared a secret smile with him at that, something she so seldom did anymore. His heart flip-flopped like a fish out of water, beating its fins into his ribcage, as if demanding his heart be let out so that he could give it to her.
The moment was so short-lived he died a tiny death inside. When Rory's eyes darkened and she turned away to focus on the scenery that had nothing to be seen, Dean cleared his throat. This, to rid it of sap and pain manifesting in a higher pitch that wanted to take place in his voice.
"Driver, Sir," put in Lorelai, "are we anywhere near Hartford, 'cause I didn't bring any distractions for a long car ride, and the car stereo's broken. Just a pre-warning that you're about five minutes away from the 'Are we there yet?' chanting that I take credit for inventing."
"You so did not invent that," Rory scoffed.
"But I pimped it like crazy! Give a girl credit here. And by the way, you didn't invent the 'I'm pregnant so leave me alone about my moodiness' excuse."
"You're going to claim that one, too?"
"I'm afraid that honor goes to the very first Gilmore, and spirals all the way down to me."
"Hartford's around here somewhere, I promise..." Dean squinted at the slowly setting sun, focusing on it as though it would reveal answers to the many questions plaguing him. "We'll find it eventually. I just haven't been on this back road for a while.
"So, about the baby. Ultimately, I think you and I should make the name decision together," he said, nodding at Rory. She nodded back. "But since you didn't like my ideas, what do you think we should name the baby?"
Rory thought briefly about it. "Clark."
"Gable or Kent?" questioned Lorelai.
The tires sighed over tightly-packed dirt and gravel.
"Diana," Rory blurted.
"As in Royalty or Ross?"
"This is getting us nowhere," Dean complained.
Lorelai quirked an eyebrow. "Kind of like your sense of direction."
--
Dean's hurried whispers were shushed first by one Gilmore girl and then the next, both mother and daughter ignoring his pleas to not be a part of this. "It's okay, baby," Rory soothed with a very unconvincing Cheshire cat grin on her face. "And if things turn violent, well, that's what lawyers are for."
Dean's helpless eyes and mouth gone slack weren't even given the chance to receive their desired effect as the front door to the Gilmore home was opened just then. Emily, fire in her eyes gone dead from lack of spark, attempted a smile and failed. "Do come in," she invited, stepping aside.
"Where's the maid, Grandma?"
"Really, I don't know. She doesn't answer me unless I call her by her given name, and it's always Richard who can remember their names that have little significance to me. Oh, Richard..." She looked around woefully, then seemed to regain what composure she had on this day, and faced her guests once more. "You'll have to hang your own coats in the closet. Oh, what a mess I must be today. I've never felt so sloppy."
Lorelai handed her coat to Dean, who hung it up for her, as well as Rory's. "Yeah, Mom, you've really gone downhill. What, did you only manage to brush your hair 99 strokes this morning? And your skirt -- wow, you didn't iron it the third time, did you?"
"I know," Emily agreed, distracted and yet listening all the same. "It's terrible..."
As she migrated into the sitting room for drinks, the bewildered crowd of three followed behind.
Rory hated to ask but, "Have you heard from Grandpa at all?"
Emily was at the drinks cart, mixing vodka, gin, whiskey, and God knows what else into one concoction. "No, not a word at all," she said bitterly, dropping two ice cubes into her glass with a clink. "I call this new mix venom. Would anyone else like a drink?"
The words "martini", "Coke", and "club soda" went in one ear and out the other with nothing registering on Emily's frazzled brain. With a sip of her venom, and an uncharacteristic wince at its taste, she sat on the couch next to Lorelai, ignoring the drink requests made.
Lorelai and Rory stared at Emily with puzzlement in their faces, understanding nothing -- not even if this was a breakdown or merely a mood swing. Dean just watched Rory, unsure if Emily had even recognized his presence, and awaited his cue to leave so he could finally let a breath out.
There was so much silence. Typically this was Lorelai's cue to drop a bomb, or sing a song, or describe her desire to recreate selected scenes from 'Jackass'. Realizing this, the monotony was finally broken. "Oh!" she said, so abruptly that it caused Emily to jump in her seat and spill what remained of her drink.
"Lorelai, what in God's name was that -- "
"Funny you should mention names, Mom! Because we have got the names to end all names for you."
"They're possible names for the baby," Rory clarified.
"Oh." Emily sat back in her seat. "The baby. Of course."
"Um." Dean scooted noticeably closer to Rory to whisper in her ear. "Do I have to be here for this? It seems like a bad time for you two to pull your... antics."
"Nonsense, it'll cheer her up." Rory patted Dean on the hand and turned her attention to Lorelai, who was now standing front and center, happy to have gathered everyone's attention. Of all the names stamped with "whore" on the end of them, "attention whore" was Lorelai's favorite. At least until another name caught her attention.
Lorelai sighed, closing and re-opening her eyes for deep effect. "Naming a baby is a very important task if you take it to heart," she recited, her voice somber. As if removing a mask, her face lifted, as did the energy in her voice. "Or it can be a deliriously funny opportunity to try to make it into the tabloids!"
Emily brought a hand to her forehead, mumbling, "Oh, God..."
"And so, we bring you 'celebrity rip-offs'. First on the list, an ode to 'Friends', let's call the baby Lorelai, Jr. Jr."
Dean was rubbing his eyes, perhaps trying to temporarily render his senses useless. "I believe the junior is a guy thing."
"Sexist," Rory interjected. "And now, for all of the mothers naming their children after countries and cities -- America... Paris... I bring you: Iceland!"
"Of course, we'd move south, to make it ironic. People would ask the kid where they were born, and they'd have to say it was 'Right on the equator'." Lorelai giggled. It didn't seem to bother her in the least that the only one joining her, and in fact, still listening, was her co-conspirator and daughter.
"To add to the fruit and vegetable section of the baby book, as that can't be left alone these days," Lorelai continued with a roll of her eyes, "we bring you the future Prune. You don't really like her, but when you need her, oh boy, are you ever thankful she's there! Oh, and also Steak. Had to consider that name if it turned out to be a burly one."
"Moving right along," Rory flowed, realizing their audience wasn't held so captivated, "there's the almighty combining of names. Our favorite? Emily plus Richard equals Emard. Kind of makes you think of an awkward llama-type animal in the desert. Now can I ask, how much more unique do you get than that?"
"Oh, daughter of mine, you have much yet to learn. The uniqueness will come not only from the name, but from the nickname. Inspired by one of the great comic artists of all time, Mr. Carrot Top, I've concocted catchy 'call me!' endearments that include food as well as body parts. Just imagine it: 'Hey, where's Broccoli Bottom? Can't start the party without him!' And, 'We can't have a proper taste test without Tomato Tongue. It just doesn't work, man!' Bam! Instant popularity."
"Girls..." Emily sighed, and downed the last of her drink.
"I wish I had a Tomato Tongue," Lorelai put in.
--
The slam of the door sounded so final, somehow much more so than Emily's prior, "I now have something to blame tomorrow's headache on. Get out."
"Wow," Lorelai said at last, after staring at the door became boring. "We didn't even have to stay for dinner."
"Luke's?" Rory suggested.
"Actually, I'm feeling kind of curious about what else is out there. Let's experiment! What do you guys feel like eating?"
Dean grabbed his stomach that was gnawing at itself. "Anything but broccoli and tomatoes."
- -
to be continued…