Disclaimer: not mine lol!
Author's note. Thanks to Potterworm for all the help with the beta-ing I am very appreciative. I want to especially thank everyone who is leaving reviews I really appreciate them! I was asked if Luke and Lorelai would be getting together in this story. I kind of had a plan but I am open to suggestions so just leave me a review and let me know what you think.
****Potterworm will be partaking in the November National Novel Writing (NaNoWriMo – I love that abbreviation!) so beta-ing will be a procrastination type of thing. I may also try to do some writing for this as well. Long story short there probably wont be too many updates for the story until December as I would like the story beta-ed before it goes up. But I wont forget about this story I promise!
Enjoy
Chapter 11
The meeting on Friday had not taken long. Though they didn't have an appointment, they were ushered into a ritzy office and seen by one of the head agents, Mrs.. Delaney. After explaining their situation and what they were looking for, she told them more about the agency.
As they would need the surrogate ready in two weeks when Lorelai would be going into surgery, it presented a bit of a problem, but after typing in all the information into the appropriate fields, Mrs. Delaney had results.
"Okay," Mrs. Delaney started, "you two have a unique situation with the timing you need your surrogate for, but I do have four ladies who would be available in that time frame. Two of them are new to the agency and have no previous experience as surrogates, but trust me we do a lot of background checks, and they check out. One has been a surrogate with our agency once before and once with another agency in California, and she came highly recommended by them. The final one is a mother of three, who has been a surrogate twice with us previously. All four meet your requirements. I cannot give you their names, but I can give you their bios and you can look over those during the weekend," Mrs. Delaney said, handing the bios to Luke.
"Thank you so much, Mrs. Delaney. So how do we proceed from here?" Lorelai questioned.
"Give me a call Monday morning if you are still interested, and you will come in here and sign the paperwork. We can have the surrogates you are interested in meet you within a day or two, and you can go from there. Once you have decided, we will have you all sign the paperwork and everything can be done as soon as Friday."
"Wow," Luke said, looking over at an equally astonished Lorelai. "I guess you'll be hearing from us Monday," Luke said, still looking overwhelmed.
"Here's my card with my cell phone number, dear," Mrs. Delaney said, handing Lorelai her business card. "I understand how time sensitive this is and how hard it is to have to be deciding this while worrying about your own health, but I will be available for you any time you need me," she said, standing up and walking to the other side of her desk.
Lorelai, feeling overly emotional, hugged her tightly. "Thank you so much, God, so much Mrs. Delaney." Releasing her, Lorelai watched as Luke shook Mrs. Delaney's hand. They exited the office with a ton of papers to look through.
"Can we look through these tomorrow night, Luke? I just want to go home, have a hot bath, and go to bed. I'm kind of overwhelmed, you know."
Squeezing her hand, he opened the passenger side door of his ancient truck. "Yeah, I am too. We'll have an early supper and look through this tomorrow, okay?"
"Yeah," she replied tiredly.
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Early the next day, Lorelai made her way to Sookie's for a girls' only all-you-can-eat breakfast. Jackson was taking the kids to his farm on the outskirts of town to check his crops. Rory, who was supposed to be there, had to cancel as Paris was having a crisis at the newspaper.
"Knock, knock," Lorelai called as she walked into the house. "Oh God, Sook, it smells great in here!"
"Hey you," Sookie called from the kitchen. "Get in here and try this," she called out excitedly from the kitchen.
Sitting down at the table, Lorelai looked at the plate of yellowy mashed potatoes in front of her. "Um, why am I going to eat mashed potatoes for breakfast?" she questioned, picking up her fork and swishing it through the food.
"It's not potatoes, Hun. It's eggs. Try it; try it," she squealed.
Sticking the fork in her mouth, she moaned as she sucked the eggs off her fork. "Wow Sook, this is amazing; what did you do?"
"I whipped it with some butter, garlic, and milk. They're good, aren't they? I've been testing them out on the kids all week, and I think I've perfected it," she said, jumping up and down.
After 15 minutes of eating everything in sight, Lorelai grabbed Sookie's hand and brought her to the table. "Stop trying to feed me, I'm stuffed," Lorelai said, sitting her down at the table in front of Sookie's own plate. "Besides, I have news."
"So, what did you decide? This better be about Luke or so help me God," Sookie warned.
Lorelai laughed at her friend's enthusiasm. "Yes, Sook, it involves Luke. We're, uh, we're going to go ahead with getting a surrogate."
Before she could say anything else, Sookie was up and pulling Lorelai into her arms crying hysterically. "Oh honey, this is so good. You and Luke are perfect for each other; your baby is going to be so gorgeous."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sook," Lorelai said, pulling away and looking her in the eyes. "Luke is a great guy, but we are ONLY going to be friends who share a child. This is NOT us getting together. I know you think Luke and I are perfect for each other, but it's not like that Sook, he's my best guy friend; I don't see him like that," she said, squeezing Sookie's hands.
Sookie looked sad, but quickly put on a smile though she still had tears in her eyes. "Okay, I think you're perfect for each other, but it's your choice. Is there anything I can do to help with anything?" she said, wiping at her eyes.
"Actually, there is. We will be setting up interviews sometime this week with potential surrogates. I want you to be there. It will be me, Luke, and Rory and, hopefully, you. We'll need all the opinions and input we can get."
"Of course, Sweets! I will definitely be there. So how do their resumes look so far?"
"We got a bit of info from the lady at the agency, but Luke and I decided to look at the resumes together tonight. I was just too tired last night."
"Speaking of tired," Sookie said quietly, "how are you feeling?"
Lorelai smiled slightly and looked down. She hated talking about her illness, but knew that people were concerned for her. "I'm okay, actually. The pain medication they gave me helps a lot. I just find it hard to sleep some nights, like finding a comfortable position. Otherwise, I'm good." Seeing Sookie's face, she knew she was looking for more information than that. "Emotionally, I'm okay. It's hard since there's a lot on my mind, but it's getting better. Every day, a little bit of stress gets lifted from my shoulders, so it's slow going, but it's going to be okay," she said, nodding to herself then smiling at Sookie.
The girls continued to chat for over an hour before Lorelai realized the time. "Oh, I have to go Sookie. I have a final meeting this afternoon with that potential buyer."
"It's Saturday, Lorelai. Why does he want to meet you on a Saturday?"
"I don't know Sook, but he seems really interested. I think he'll buy it," she said kind of sad.
"Wow," Sookie breathed out. "That place holds so many memories for me. Oh God, but what about you? You and Rory pretty much grew up there!"
"Well, Mia said she will put in a clause in the agreement that after the purchase of the Inn goes through that I have two months to have the potting shed removed from the property, or they get to do as they like with it. I was kind of hoping you wouldn't mind if it got moved over to the Dragonfly lot. I don't know what we would do with it but-"
Sookie interrupted her then with a loud squeal. "I think that's great. It will make the place feel homier for us, and who knows, maybe we could use it for something for the staff. You know how sometimes they have to pull a double. It would give them a place to sleep for a couple of hours."
"Yeah, that could work. We would just have to be careful that people didn't start abusing the privileges. I can just hear Taylor now at a town meeting, declaring the Dragonfly condemned for reasons of immorality. Staff hooking up and all that," Lorelai said, laughing.
Sookie joined in the laughter. "Oh, he'd be so mad! His face would get all red, and he would be raving about what else must be going on over there and how we need new laws," she said, laughing harder.
When the laughter finally died down, Lorelai stood up. "Gotta go, chickie. I'll see you Monday though, okay?"
"See ya then, Sweetie," Sookie said, shoving a plate of leftovers at her as she walked her to the door.
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It had been a long day, Lorelai thought as she sat upstairs at Luke's apartment. He was downstairs giving last minute instructions to Caesar before he would head up. The sale of the Independence seemed complete. Mia had faxed down paperwork for the older gentleman to sign, and they were just waiting to have it finalized through their lawyers later in the week.
Spreading out the surrogate's information out in front of her, Lorelai pulled out paper and a pen from her purse and stared to make a list of the various traits listed on the applications so they could compare and contrast them. When she was nearly finished, Luke entered.
Pulling his chair next to hers, he sat down at the kitchen table and looked over at the list Lorelai had compiled. "Wow, it seems so impersonal," he sighed.
"Yeah," she said, looking up at him. "I think we will have to wait until we meet the people, but I do actually want to remove one of the women from the list," she said, pointing at the third candidate's bio.
"Why?" he questioned, looking over the woman's biography.
"Well, she's 40, and when you get to be older, you run higher risks of miscarrying. I know that sounds stupid, but I just don't want to risk it," she sighed, looking down at her clasped hands.
He laid his hand on top of hers and flipped the biography upside down. "It's not stupid at all. This is a big deal, Lorelai, and we need to feel comfortable with the choice," he said, rubbing his thumb across her hands.
She smiled up at him, removed her hands, and stood. "Okay," she said, sitting on the couch and patting the seat beside her, "we need to come up with some questions for the women to answer."
"Okay," Luke replied slowly. He sat at the opposite end of the couch and watched as she pulled her knees up to her chest, as she got comfortable. "I really don't know what kinds of questions to ask though."
After an hour, the two had come up with a list of questions, including the types of activities the women participated in, if they planned on working while pregnant, the types of foods normally eaten, and how they would be involved before and after the birth of the child. Saying goodnight, they parted at the door after a long hug.
Grammatical beta by Potterworm