11 – I Don't Shine If You Don't Shine

A phone never rings at four am with good news. A four am phone rings like an ambulance siren, like a car crash, like a funeral dirge. At four am, good news sleeps while bad news creeps about town, with footsteps like staccato gun shots, setting homes and hearts on fire.

And when your daughter is missing, when she was last seen driving with an irresponsible boy with a beautiful body in a beautiful car, do you want to hear the phone ring? Do you want to hear the voice, speaking as though it's just another late night exercise in sensitivity training, telling you, "We need you to come identify the car. We need you to come identify the driver. We need you to come identify the body."

Do you want the agony of hope or the certainty of pain?

"You look gorgeous, babe. Very 1930s," Lorelai said, pinning the last of Rory's curls into place. "Remember to take some extra hair spray if you plan on doing the lambada."

"I'll need an extra set of feet, too," Rory snorted.

Lorelai tilted her head, studying her daughter's reflection in the mirror. "I feel like I'm forgetting something," she mused. "Ah! I'm supposed to lecture you on the evils of dancing, the joys of abstinence and the very many reasons not to drink and drive."

"I'm not driving," Rory reminded her. "Tristan is picking me up."

"So I should lecture Tristan on the evils of dancing, the joys of abstinence and the very many reasons not to drink and drive."

"Sure," Rory shrugged, applying a last coat of mascara. "If you want him to have an aneurysm."

"So no sex talks with your boys?"

"No sex talks with me, let alone my boys."

The Lorelais smiled at each other. "Just be safe, kid," Lorelai said simply, wrapping her arms around her daughter.

"Hey, I'm not the one going to a function glorifying alcohol with a man who is not my husband," Rory pointed out, hugging her mother. "I should lecture you on the joys of abstinence and the very many reasons not to drink and drive."

"At least you can skip the part on the evils of dancing," Lorelai grinned, striking a pose and stumbling over her feet in the process.

"Lore?"

Lorelai looked up blankly and saw Christopher hovering in the doorway. She studied his face, a handsome face torn by concern, knowing that her face reflected the worry etched around his eyes. "We were standing here," she whispered, pointed at Rory's vanity. "I helped her with her hair for the dance. And I told her to be safe."

Christopher stretched out a hand to her, not knowing if she could tolerate his touch, but knowing that he had to hold her. "Lore, it's not your fault."

"I told her to be safe, Chris."

Christopher put a tentative hand on her shoulder, then pulled her into his arms. "It's not your fault," he repeated, stroking her hair.

"I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my fez. Down in my fez. Down in my fez," Rory sang, tapping her naked toes on Tristan's dashboard in an irregular rhythm.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Tristan said in amusement, "but spare yourself the trip to audition on X Factor."

"I so have the X Factor," Rory said, glaring at Tristan. "I have X coming out of my ears, I'll have you know."

"Never say that out loud in a night club," Tristan advised, chuckling.

"There is something to be said for the pleasures of Duncan's punch," Rory mulled, tipping her head back to look at the stars flashing past. Tristan had rolled down the top and though the wind was making Rory's hair tumble down in wispy curls, she enjoyed the cool caress on her skin. Like being breathed on by the gods, she thought. Tristan glanced at her, enjoying the sight of her lean body relaxed in the moonlight. "Remember you said that when the hangover kicks in."

"Hangovers are for Marys," Rory said decisively, then peeked at the unfamiliar landscape. "Hey, not to put too fine a point on it or anything, but where the hell are we going?"

"Have you heard anything, Richard?"

Richard looked up from his desk and the open telephone directory, rubbing his tired eyes. "I could not bear to call." He lifted a hand to ward off Emily's criticism. "I simply cannot risk asking at hospitals and police stations, making call after call and blocking the line in case Rory should call us."

"I am sure that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation," Emily said, trying to convince herself. "There must be. Rory is not an irresponsible child."

"But she is still a child, Emily. One who is capable of making the occasional wrong decision."

If not for the decades of marriage, friendship and love, Emily would not have known how to respond. "She is not going to make that particular decision, Richard. She is not that much like Lorelai."

"I don't know," Tristan admitted with a wide grin. "But I'm pretty sure we haven't crossed any state lines."

"Are you being serious?" Rory asked, laughing. "You usually plot and plan everything out on MapQuest before you get in the car."

"I believe you are confusing me with you," Tristan pointed out. "And right now, I don't think you're sober enough to spell MapQuest, let alone operate it."

"M-A-P-," Rory started, then paused. "Okay, you win."

"I should get that in writing. In triplicate. Notarised. Framed."

"Wherever we are, it's pretty," Rory said, gazing at the moonlight trees lining the interstate. Their tips were touched by the first snow of the year. Added a few angels and some chocolate and it could've been a Swiss Christmas card, she mused. "Oh, look, there's a lake! Let's go swimming!"

Tristan obligingly steered his BMW towards the direction of the lake. A uniformed man with a musket stepped out onto the path in front of the car and pointed his gun at the teenagers. Rory shrieked, part laughter and part shock.

But the man did not smile.

The Hartford house, lights ablaze, seemed emptier than usual. Despite the frantic pacing, the worried stillness, the loud voices and the quiet words of the four adults inside, the house was empty. When the phone rang, a strident siren, the four froze at first.

Because no phone rings at four am with good news.

xxxxxxxxxx

"My name is Lorelai Hayden. I am here to pick up my daughter, Rory."

"It is a pleasure to meet you," the Korean woman in the blue shirt said politely, wiping her hands on a cloth. She seemed like a caricature, Lorelai thought, almost Dickensian in her store overflowing with antique furniture and filled with the smell of wood. "Your daughter has impeccable manners and a true generosity of spirit. I approve of her friendship with Lane and she is welcome at our house any time."

"Hopefully under different circumstances the next time," Lorelai said, trying to smile.

Mrs. Kim nodded. "That is to be preferred. However, the smug young boy in the car with her …"

"Believe me," Lorelai said, "there is going to be nothing smug about Tristan once I have spoken to him. Is he here?"

Mrs. Kim shook his head. "His chauffeur ferried him off twenty minutes ago in an ostentatious gold vehicle."

Despite herself, Lorelai felt a tug of sadness for Tristan.

After the experience he had last night, his parents should at least have come themselves and not sent out Jeeves with the Audi.

"The girls are having breakfast in the kitchen through there," Mrs. Kim gestured.

"Thank you for all your trouble," Lorelai said, with a genuine smile. She walked into the kitchen, where Lane and Rory were avidly discussing the future of indie rock. For a moment, Lorelai stood in the door and watched her daughter talking animatedly, feeling her limbs flooded with sheer relief and joy. Rory had borrowed some of Lane's clothes and, strange as it was to see her in a yellow shirt emblazoned with the slogan 'Trust God', she had never looked this beautiful before. "Hi, kid."

"Mom!" Rory said, jumping to her feet and running to hug her mother. Lorelai held her tight, unwilling to let go of the slim body she was sure she'd never see again. "I am so, so, so sorry."

"And I am more than a little confused, babe," Lorelai said, tucking some of Rory's hair behind her ear and studying her face. "How did you and Tristan end up in Stars Hollow?"

Rory fidgeted with the hem of Lane's T-shirt. "We left the dance early and Tristan said we could go for a drive before he brought me home. Then we got a little lost and …"

"Kirk! Put that gun down before you hurt yourself!"

The uniformed man with the musket glared to his left. "I only shot myself once in the foot, Andrew, and we agreed we weren't going to talk about that again."

"You saying that you'll tell Taylor if I tease you is not a legally binding agreement, Kirk," another uniformed man said, stomping out of the bracken and grabbing Kirk's gun. "No," Kirk protested. In the ensuing struggle two shots went off, one through Tristan's front left tyre and one scraping alongside the paint. Rory jumped, feeling the fear burn away the lingering effects of Duncan's punch. The group of men began talking at once, the gabble of voices dominated by a bearded man.

"This is why I told you! I told you that we should stand by the sign near the square and in our proper formation," he said, gesticulating wildly. "But you had to dig up that yellowed document in the town archives that said …"

"Hey!" Tristan yelled as he got out of his car.

"Not now, young man," the bearded man said strictly.

"Now," Tristan insisted, pointing at Kirk. "That idiot shot my car!"

"I didn't! It was Andrew who shot your car!"

"I didn't! It was you, you idiot!"

Another man, wearing a green army jacket and a faded baseball cap, came walking down the path. Rory watched his eyes widen in disbelief at the arguing group and the obvious bullet mark down the side of Tristan's car.

"The hell's the matter with you, Taylor? You finally lost your damned mind? As though standing in the snow in uniforms waiting for an enemy that will never come isn't bad enough, you have to go and shoot up kids' cars?" he yelled.

Taylor tutted. "No adolescent has any sane reason for driving this type of vehicle at this time of night."

"Like standing in the snow glorifying a war we fought to keep land we stole from the Native Americans is a hallmark of sanity," the man with the baseball cap snapped, then walked over to Rory. "Are you okay?"

"Uhm, yeah," Rory said. "Until my mother gets hold of us, at least."

The man grunted. "Not suppose to be out after curfew, huh?"

Rory nodded. The man touched her shoulder awkwardly. "I'm sure she's going to be so relieved that you're okay that you'll be let off the hook with a minimum sentence."

"I hope you're right," Rory said with a shaky smile, then pointed at the group of men with muskets. "What is this, anyway? Does the local mental institution have bad padlocks?"

"No, that's just an annual public declaration of insanity and warped patriotism. And that is the fire chief, that's the police chief and him showing the others how to salute properly is the one paramedic with a valid licence," the man grumbled, kneeling down to check Tristan's tyres. "You're not going to be able to drive on these. I'm going to call Gypsy to tow you out. Hey, Taylor! Give me that cell phone you are always bragging about!"

The bearded man tosses a silver phone towards them.

"May I please borrow the phone? I need to call my mother to tell her where I am," Rory said. "Hey, where am I anyway?"

"The fine town of Stars Hollow," the man replied, handing her the phone.

"Hey, do you perhaps know a Lane Kim? She goes to school with me."

The man nodded. "Do you want me to take you to her house? You can wait there for your mother."

"I don't want to wake her family," Rory hesitated. "I mean, it's just past four. I don't want to be a nuisance."

"Well, you won't be," the man said equably. "Missus Kim has gotten up at four for Bible study every day since she was twelve."

"… so here we are," Rory finished. "Lane's mom was really great."

"What a strange town," Lorelai mused. "The guy with the baseball cap sounds nice, though."

Rory nodded. "He was."