Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters all belong to Amy Sherman Palladino. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit will be made from this story.
The first one to come downstairs was Fiore. She had fallen asleep relatively early the night before, so her need of sleep was less than that of the others. She walked towards the kitchen and took a cup of coffee in her hands before coming back in the living room. The faint light coming from the French door winded the room in a grey atmosphere, but she preferred to not turn on the lamp. It was raining outside and from what she could see it would be like this for a while. It was still dark and rivulets of water rolled down the windows forcefully. She leaned her back on the soft little pillow of the pink couch and folded her legs lightly. Closing her eyes she tried to relax but suddenly her cell phone rang.
"Hello?" She said half sleepily.
"Hello." The other voice responded.
She hadn't check in on the display before answering, nevertheless she had no need to ask for the identity of her interlocutor.
"How are you?" She asked playing with the zipper of her sweater.
"I'm feeling better now that I hear your voice." He responded.
"Oh, you." She said blushing lightly.
"I miss you." He said seriously a moment later.
"I miss you too." She confirmed.
"I want to see you, please." He pleaded.
"My entire family is sleeping upstairs and I think we'll spend the day all together." She responded a bit afraid.
"They're still sleeping?" He asked hopefully.
"Yes, why?" She asked puzzled.
"Take your coat, I'll be there in five minutes." He explained.
"What?" She said confused.
"Take also an umbrella, it's raining." He responded.
She shook her head lightly and looked down at her cell phone for a moment. Then stood up, climbed the stairs and entered her bedroom. Taking a pair of sneakers from the closet she couldn't help to smile shyly. She had missed him a lot in the past days. She had been busy with her job and he had gone to New York for his own, so they had shared only a phone line. She needed to see him, to feel him closer. She sat on the edge of the bed and wore her shoes quickly. She ran downstairs and directly towards the closet. She opened it slowly, been careful to not make too noise and took her coat, grabbing the umbrella with her free hand. She smiled looking down at the object. It was a very elegant golden umbrella, with a lot of big flowers printed over. Very refined, and absolutely in Emily' style.
Opening the main door she slipped outside silently, walking down the driveway with her mother's umbrella over her shoulder. She stopped next to the gate and looked around for a moment before feeling a hand leaning on her back. She turned immediately and felt her heart skipping a beat at the sight of him smiling tenderly at her.
"Good morning." He said politely.
"Good morning to you." She responded playfully.
"Can I have the honour to offer you the breakfast?" He asked still playing the polite man's role.
"If you promise to bring me to an elegant coffee shop, then I'll accept." She said smiling openly.
He shorted the distance between them and pressed his lips against hers gently. She responded willingly at the kiss and let him holding her.
"I think it's better if you keep the umbrella over your head." He said kneeling down to take the umbrella out from the street. She had let it fallen during their kiss.
They had a delicious breakfast in a little coffee shop down the street and then they talked a bit about their days apart. They didn't spend too much time together, nevertheless they enjoyed their closeness. She promised to him to call in the evening and then they shared a light kiss before she came back at home.
Emily snuggled closer to Richard. Richard felt her body brushing against his and instinctively put his arms around her waist.
"Good morning dear." She mumbled against his chest.
"Good morning love." He said still a bit sleepily.
"What do you think about breakfast?" She asked a moment later, still remaining in his arms.
"I think it's one of the most important moments of the day. Above all if I can share it with my darling Emily." He responded caressing her upper arm gently.
She leaned even closer to him and enjoyed the feeling he could create with his touch on her. She let him cuddle her for a while before she pulled away slightly.
"It's getting late." She whispered looking at him.
"It's early. We have all the time." He responded taking her in his arms again.
"Richard, please. Let us get ready for breakfast." She pleaded.
He stared at her for a moment and then kissed her on the top of the head before pulling away and sitting on the edge of the bed. He knew that she was particularly excited that morning. It was the first time that her entire family had breakfast all together. To be honest he was excited too. He liked, or better loved, the idea of seeing all his girls together in the same room first thing in the morning. He had had breakfast with Lorelai for years when she was a little girl and then a teenager. He had had breakfast with Fiore almost every morning from when she came back from Italy and then it had occurred that he had seen Rory there in the morning too. But never all together. With Emily. Thinking about her he smiled at the sight of his wife staring at the closet thoughtfully. He could see her back covered by the white material of her robe and then he couldn't help to think about the first time he had seen her like this.
It was the first morning they spent in their house after the honeymoon. They had come back in the late afternoon the day before and she had spent hours around the big house check in on everything. She had talked with the maid and the cook, ordering them something. He hadn't really listened to her. He had been too immersed in the admiration of his new wife to hear her words. He had sat on the couch with his newspaper and had spied her all the time. The way she had walked in her heels and the way she had looked around satisfied and happy at the same time had made him feeling good. He had been so proud of his wife. They had enjoyed their honeymoon a lot, but at home it had been even better. He had had the chance to see her in her daily life. To observe her and her habits. To love her deeply.
The first night they had slept in their bed had been something special. They had loved in a way he hadn't thought to be possible. There had been complicity and passion, romanticism and freedom. She had been her really relaxed herself for the first time, and he had loved her with all his heart that night. They had slept hugged and naked, the feeling of her silky skin on his still clear in his mind. She had waked up first and slipped out of the bed being aware not to wake him. But he had been awake from a while, simply he hadn't wanted to disturb her. She had taken a quick shower and then she had stood in front of the closet, her new closet, for a long time. He had stared at her silently, exploring every inch of her body with his eyes. Exactly like now.
She was less thin than before, but he liked her more this way. Her hair was shorter and less red, but still soft and silky. Her legs were barely the same, still toned and sensual. But the thing he preferred more of his actual Emily was her breast. Softer and bigger than forty years ago.
Looking at her now he felt glad for having met her so many years before at that Yale party, and he felt so grateful to her for having said "fine" that afternoon on the bench.
"Richard, what are you doing?" She asked turning her head towards his dreaming husband.
"I was staring at you." He responded honestly.
"And do you think that staring at me you'll get ready before me?" She asked a bit annoyed.
He stood up and walked towards her, took her in his arms and kissed her lips gently.
"I was simply admiring my beautiful wife…." He mumbled against her lips.
She smiled shyly and kissed him back before sending him to the bathroom. She looked at him obeying and smiled again, more openly this time. She was absolutely in love with him and she couldn't help thinking about their past together. They had had a lot of good moments, happy moments, but she simply couldn't forget about the bad ones. She shook her head lightly and swallowed hard. Maybe it was the right moment to let him know about what she had discovered. Or maybe not. She thought about it a minute longer before taking her garments and walking towards the bed. She leaned them on the edge of the bed and looked for something in the drawer of her nightstand. Grabbing the old white envelope in her hands she felt a wave of pain crossing her spine. Feeling a tear rolling down her cheek she put the envelope back in the drawer and closed it forcefully. She couldn't relive all of that pain again. Not that morning. She took in a couple of deep breaths and got dressed quickly.
Richard stared at his image on the big mirror and smiled lightly. He was no more the handsome young man which courted every nice girl at the college. He was a man, maybe an old man now, which loved only a woman. His woman. His wife. The mother of his daughters. The idea made him feeling better. Usually he was not the kind of man that got emotional easily, but in the last months his life had changed so deeply that he couldn't help to feel that way. Most of all the thought that he would have been able to lose his Emily that day in Italy made him feeling deeply connected with her. He had realized how his life was dependent from her. And he liked it. He liked having discovered again that passion for her inside of his heart. He breathed slowly and shaved before coming back in the bedroom.
Emily was combing her hair when he appeared behind her vanity and bent down to kiss the back of her neck gently. She closed her eyes and relaxed against his body for a moment. He lavished his attention over her shoulders and back to her neck. She had to fight the desire to give in and pulled away unwillingly.
He accepted her request to keep his hands away from her body for a while and walked towards the closet.
They went downstairs hand in hand, talking in a low voice about the weather and the beating rain.
The moment they reached the foyer Fiore opened the main door and slipped inside, half wet because of the rain. She went directly towards the closet, put down her coat and her mother's umbrella before realizing that her parents were staring at her silently.
"Good morning dears." She said blushing slightly.
She hadn't expected them waking up so early, and most of all not there looking at her curiously.
"Good morning Fiore." Emily said letting go of Richard's hand.
"Good morning Fiore." Richard said grabbing Emily's hand again.
Emily turned towards him and all that she saw was his tender smile, so she let him holding her hand without objections.
"It's raining heavily outside, isn't it?" Richard asked looking back at his daughter.
"Yes." Fiore nodded.
"And why were you outside?" Emily asked.
"I needed to make a little walk." Fiore responded a moment later.
"In the middle of a storm?" Emily asked puzzled.
"You know that I don't mind the rain. I spent so many years in Venice, and there the rain is usual, and in a certain way magic." Fiore said trying to sound convincing.
Apparently Emily and Richard accepted her explanation and invited her to join them in the living room for breakfast.
Lorelai and Rory came down half an hour later and the entire family had breakfast together. They chatted on and on about the neighbours and their insane habits about Christmas' decorations.
Richard excused himself for a couple of hours and let the women free to make every thing they wanted to do.
Rory spent some time in her grandfather's study reading books and staring at his immense collection of stamps, while the other three sat in the living room with some tea and biscuits.
"Mom, can I ask you something?" Lorelai asked hesitantly.
"Sure." Emily responded looking at her encouragingly.
"How did you understand that Dad was the right one? I mean the man that you wanted to marry and spend the rest of your life with?" Lorelai asked looking straight in her mother's eyes.
Emily thought for a moment about her daughter's request. She knew perfectly why Lorelai had asked her that thing, she had to take one of the more important decision of her life and she needed some advises, but she was still too proud to ask for them directly.
"When I met you father for the first time I felt something weird building in my stomach. A kind of sensation that I had never experimented before. I saw him in that room at the fraternity party and he saw me. We stared for a while and I simply wasn't able to look away. And I think he felt the same. But I didn't think to a future with him in that moment. I realized that he was someone different, or better special, some months later. And then he proposed to me and I accepted." Emily said seeing all the images of her past in her mind clearly.
"And did you never think to have made the wrong choice?" Lorelai asked a moment later.
"Never. We have had a lot of bad moments, periods of non communication and less respect, but I never felt as I have made the wrong choice with you father. We went through painful moments, devastating moments, but I knew, and I still know, that he's the right one for me. The only one." Emily responded sure of her words.
Lorelai and Fiore stared at their mother for a while, in silence. There was something unique in the conviction she had put in her speech that enchanted them. But they noticed a thin wave of melancholy in her eyes too.
"Mom, are you feeling good? I mean you seem a bit sad." Fiore asked looking at her mother and then at her sister.
"Oh, it's only that I'm getting old." Emily responded with a fake smile.
She knew that she couldn't carry that weight in her heart still for long. She needed to talk about that with Richard sooner or later and she decided that she would have faced him that evening.
The family spent the afternoon together and then they went to a famous restaurant in Hartford for dinner.
Emily sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for Richard to come in. She looked down at her hands and sighed at the sight of the old letter. She had tried to forget about it for so many years, but she simply couldn't. It had been so hard to accept the truth that she couldn't help to think about it every now and there.
Richard entered the bedroom some minutes later, a satisfied smile on his face.
"It's great that they decided to spend the night here also tonight, isn't it?" He asked approaching to his wife.
She lifted her gaze from her lap and nodded weakly.
"Emily, dear. Are you feeling good?" He asked looking down at her.
"Richard, please, sit down. I need to talk to you." She said in a low voice.
"Emily, you're frightening me. Only half an hour ago you seemed so happy, and now you look so sad. Something happened?" He asked sitting next to her.
He was on her side of the bed and vice versa. She stared at him for a while before finding the courage to give him the letter. Richard looked down at the white paper puzzled.
"What is it?" He said still confused.
"Read it." She responded shortly.
He obeyed and opened the letter to read it.
"Dear Pennilynn,
I hope you're happy. I want you know that I'm not. I know that I was the one to break our engagement, and at that time I thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe it was for you, not for me. I preferred to marry Emily instead of staying with you and I think that I made the wrong decision. You know that I always cared a lot about you, and I'm still concerned about you and your happiness. I realized that Emily is not the right woman for me some times ago. She's cute, elegant and polite, but she's not the woman I thought she was. She argued over everything, stupidities. She's unable to keep the same maid for more than a week. She obsessed me with her phone calls when I'm out for job. And she's not a good mother. You know that Lorelai is a rebel, she doesn't respect our rules and our suggestion. I don't know what to do dear Pennilynn. If only I could coming back I…. She's not you. And you know what I mean….
I wish you all the best….
With love,
Richard."
He folded the paper and looked at Emily shocked. He didn't understand. He had never written that letter.
"Emily?" He asked.
She looked down and turned her back to him. A tear rolled down her cheek and she suffocated a sob that was forming in her throat.
Richard stood up forcefully and made two steps towards her. She didn't move.
"Emily, what is it?" He asked again.
"Don't yell at me, Richard. I'm not the one that thought his wife wasn't good enough." She said lifting her head to look straight in his eyes.
He didn't know how to react, neither what to say. He was completely confused. She thought that he had been the one to write that horrible letter, why on hell she thought such a thing?
"Emily, dear. I never wrote this letter." He said with a softer tone.
"Don't lie to me, not again. I knew that you would have regretted your choice, it was only a time question. And I was right, you regretted having married me. You regretted having left her." She said with a trembling voice.
Richard stared at her for a moment. She seemed so sure of her words, her eyes full of tears. He couldn't let her thinking that way.
"Emily, I never regretted my choice, never. You know that. You know how much I love you." He said sitting next to her again.
She shook her head and let a little sob escape from her mouth.
"Emily, dear. I don't know who wrote this letter, or why. But I know I didn't do it." He said leaning closer to her.
She looked in his eyes for a moment, before the tears prevented her to see clearly.
He didn't know how to make her believing to his words, so he grabbed her upper arms and made her standing up.
She looked confused at him.
"Richard, let me go." She opposed.
"No, I want to discover the truth, now. I can't let you thinking that this letter is mine. I never thought something like that. You're my life, you know. I want to know who wrote it and I want to strangle that person with my bare hands. Nobody Emily, nobody could make you suffer like this." He said and then put her with him down the stairs.
She looked stunned at her husband. He was completely out of him. The anger filled his eyes and his hands shook a bit under his nervousness.
They went out of the house and walked quickly towards the garage. He helped her inside of his silver Mercedes and then sat on his side. Turning on the engine he looked at her and caressed her cheek tenderly.
"Richard, where are we going?" She asked still stunned.
She had expected him apologizing for the letter, trying to reassure her, but she hadn't expected him to react in such a furious way.
He drove around Hartford for a while before stopping in front of a little white house. She looked at him one more time, but all that he did was going out of the car and making her to follow him.
He rang the doorbell forcefully and waiting impatiently for the maid to open the door. He was a bit surprised to see Stephen at the other side of the door.
"Richard? Emily?" The man asked a bit surprised.
Emily looked at him speechless. It was the first time she went to Pennilynn's house and she didn't understand why Richard brought her there.
"I need to talk to Pennilynn." Richard said walking inside followed by Emily.
"Richard, something wrong? It's late. We were getting ready for bed. Why did you come here at this hour of the evening?" Stephen asked suspiciously.
He had heard something about a function and Pennilynn trying to dance with Richard, but hadn't really mind about it.
"I want to speak with her now." Richard almost cried out.
In that moment Pennilynn appeared on the top of the stairs and looked at scene stunned.
"Richard, what are you doing here?" She asked with a soft voice.
"I need some explanation from you." He responded looking at the blonde woman with disgust.
She went down the stairs and joined the others in the foyer. Looking at Richard she didn't need to ask anything. She saw the white paper and she understood.
"Come on in the living room." She said walking towards the next room.
They all sat down, Pennilynn on her chair, Stephen next to her and the Gilmores on the opposite couch.
"Let me know why on hell Emily had received that letter." Richard said giving the paper to Pennilynn.
She looked down at it for a moment, the memories of those days coming back in her mind.
"People said that you and Emily had a crisis so I thought that maybe I could have tried to have you back." The blonde woman admitted directly.
"What?" Both Richard and Stephen said.
"I thought that sending this letter to Emily she would have made a scene and maybe she would have left you, but I was wrong." She continued.
"So did you write it?" Richard asked.
Stephen took the letter from his wife's hands and started to read. He couldn't believe to his eyes.
"I didn't write it technically. I asked to a counterfeiter to write it for me. I wanted it to be as real as possible." She said looking down at her lap.
Emily turned her head towards Richard and smiled weakly at him. He took her in his arms and hugged her tightly.
"When did you receive that letter?" He asked pulling away slightly to look in her eyes.
"Some weeks after we came back from Italy." Emily whispered.
"What?" Richard said widening his eyes in disbelief.
Emily simply nodded and buried her face on the crock of his neck, sobbing lightly against his skin. He held her tightly and stroked her back gently. He couldn't believe that she had kept that story secret for so long. He couldn't have solved the problem immediately, preventing her to suffer so much. She had lost her little baby some weeks before and she had been still shocked when she received that horrible letter.
"Why didn't you tell me before?" He asked looking down at her.
"I didn't want to lose you. I tried to change and several months later I thought that it worked. I couldn't lose you Richard. Also if you didn't love me." She said feeling a new wave of tears burning in her eyes.
"I had always loved you." He reassured her.
He hugged her tenderly and kissed the top of her head. Some minutes later he stood up and helped Emily out of the couch before turning towards Pennilynn and Stephen.
"I'm sorry Stephen." He said and then walked towards the main door with Emily.
"Richard, wait." Pennilynn said from the living room, but Richard simply ignored her. He opened the door and went towards his car hand in hand with his wife.
He drove for a while before stopping the car.
"Why did you stop?" Emily started to ask confused.
He cut her off immediately brushing his lips against hers passionately. She tried to react but she couldn't help to smile. She needed it. The sureness that he loved her and that he had always loved her.
"What do you think about a pizza?" He said half out breath.
"Richard, it's near midnight." She complained leaning closer to him and kissing him again.
"So what do you think about making love?" He asked mischievously.
"Where?" She asked smiling shyly.
He brushed his hand over her breast and teased her hardened nipple before kissing her mouth lovingly.
TO BE CONTINUED
Thanks to all for reading!!
A special thank to my reviewers: Mary, Emily&Richard4ever, Curley-Q and Coffeeonthepatio!!
So let me know if you want to know where and how they'll make love, or if you prefer that I'll skip this part....