*WARNING* Sensitive issues discussed in the latter half of the chapter.
CHAPTER 29: An Accident?
"Rory –hun- what's wrong?" Lorelai asks with a frantic urgency in her voice. She can't hear the answer fast enough.
"It's Logan... There's been an accident."
#
As soon as she had finished relaying the phone call from Logan's sister Honor to her mother, Rory immediately set plans into place to get herself to Hartford War Memorial Hospital.
Lorelai had offered to collect Elle from school and look after her while Rory waits at the hospital with Logan's family. Initially, Rory is hesitant over whether or not to take Elleigh to the hospital with her, not knowing how critical Logan's condition is and not knowing how traumatic it will be on her daughter. However, Rory decides to bring Elle with her and arrange for her to be collected if needed. After all, she concludes that keeping Elle from Logan in the past has never ended well. Besides, if Logan is awake, a visit from their daughter –the light of his life- will be just what he needs. Or, in the worst case scenario, Elle should be there at the risk of Logan's condition being worse than expected and as gut-wrenching as it is to imagine, she should be there if there's chance that it could be the last time...
Consequently, as soon as she left her mother at Luke's Diner, Rory headed straight for the Stars Hollow Elementary School, with Lorelai offering to come by the hospital and collect Elleigh at any time if it gets too much for the young girl.
Then, as soon as she picked her daughter up from school early, the mother and daughter were on their way...
#
"Mom... Where are we going? What's going on?"
Looking over to her mother in the driver's seat of the Prius, Elleigh can see the fear in her eyes as she tries to focus on driving and the road ahead.
Elleigh knows that being picked up from school early is an abnormality for her, with the last time being on the day that her great-grandfather had died...
She knows the route, she knows the area and she knows that she's headed to the same place as the last time that she had been picked up from school early...
She knows that the fear, the sadness, in her mother's eyes matches that day too...
Quickly glancing over at her daughter before her eyes return to the road, Rory grabs her daughter's hand and gives it a squeeze with one of her hands, with her other one fixed on the steering wheel. She decides that she won't tell Elle for just a few more minutes, waiting until they are parked and stationary to be able to explain it to her and comfort her.
Minutes later when her car is parked in the hospital car-park and turned off, Rory turns in her seat to look to her daughter who has her fear etched all over her face. Rory comfortingly takes Elle's smaller hands in one of hers, as she uses her other hand to stroke the side of her daughter's face.
"It's your dad, sweetheart... He's been in a car accident. He's in the hospital."
"What?! What happened? Is he okay?"
"Your Aunty Honor called me earlier. She said that he was in a car accident on his way home from work. But, the doctor's are looking after him really well and they're doing the best that they can to help him."
Instant upset and guilt floods over the nine-year-old's face. She knows that he was on his way home from work in order to be able to pick her up from school.
"Is he going to be okay?" Elle looks at her mother, with terrified, fearful eyes. "Mom? Or is it going to be like Grandpa?"
Elleigh has a lot of grandfathers; maternal, paternal, great and step. Yet, as soon as her daughter asks her the question, Rory knows exactly which Grandpa she's talking about...
She can't tell her daughter that of course it won't be like that. She can't tell her daughter that of course he'll okay. She can't tell her daughter that it's nothing serious and he'll be out of hospital by tomorrow... She can't tell her daughter any of that. She can't tell her daughter any of those things that would comfort her because they would all be lies.
"We'll know more when we go in, sweetie. No one really knows much right now... I'm sure everything will be okay."
No less concerned, Elle just gives her mother a feeble nod before looking down to the ground.
The two leave the car together and make their way into Hartford War Memorial, headed straight for the Intensive Care Unit on the tenth floor.
"Hi, we're here to see Logan Huntzberger" Rory says as they approach the nurses desk immediately after leaving the elevator that has taken them up to the ward of the ICU.
"Mr. Huntzberger is still in surgery. Are you family?"
Wrapping an arm around Elle's shoulders, Rory confirms the nurse's question. "She's his daughter and I'm the mother of his child. So, yes, family..."
The nurse nods at Rory and her response, glancing down to her computer screen to clarify the instruction she needs to give her.
"Take the first left. Continue walking until you get to the end of the corridor and then take another left. There's a waiting room. You can wait there. The doctor will be with you shortly."
"Thank you" Rory says appreciatively, her arms still around Elle's shoulder as she directs herself and her daughter through the maze of doors and corridors until it becomes evident that they have reached the place that they need to be.
In the waiting room, Rory and Elle are not the first to arrive. They instantly catch sight of Honor, who's pacing around the room, glued to her phone as she texts frantically. On the other side of the room, Finn and Colin are seated beside each other, looking like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
"Rory! You're here" Honor exclaims, instantly pocketing her phone and racing over to wrap her in a hug.
As soon as the two girls have separated from the long, comforting hug, Honor looks down to her niece and opens her arms for another hug, this time with the younger girl. "Hi sweetheart... Now I just bet you're the first person that your dad's going to want to see when he wakes up. He can't stop talking about you, honey."
Elle's aunty manages to bring a small smile to the upset little girl's face with her comment. It's just the distraction that she needs in that moment, to pull her mind away from worrying about her father.
Once Honor has greeted the two Gilmore girls, next in line are Colin and Finn who immediately up from their seats for hugs.
Rory shakes her head to herself at the sight of the boys, a small smile forming on her face as she wonders just how those two rogues had made their way into the waiting room when just minutes ago she and her daughter had been probed to ensure that they qualify as Logan's family. The boys must have upped their game from the last time when they struggled with their pitiful attempts to be classed as Logan's family after his South American stunt led to him being hospitalised all those years ago.
"Darling, how are you?" Finn asks, opening his arms to hug Rory comfortingly firstly.
After Rory and Finn break away from each other, Colin gives Rory a brief hug after having already given Elleigh a quick hug too.
Meanwhile, Finn gives Elleigh a hug and big squeeze of comfort. "How are you my darling little L?"
"I'm okay..." the typically confident nine-year-old doesn't display even an ounce of that confidence as she looks to Finn. "I'm just a bit scared about my dad."
Finn just nods. He doesn't tell her that they all are. Instead, he just slings an arm around Elle's shoulder protectively; like he's got her back... like he's there for his best friend's worried daughter. No matter what might happen.
After all the hugs and greetings, the group slowly settles down. Rory takes a seat with Honor on one side of her, with Elle on the other. As Rory and Honor talk, Finn distracts Elle showing her nonsense on his phone, with added commentary by Colin.
"So does anyone know anything more? Have there been any updates on how he's going?" Rory asks eventually after mustering up the courage to ask the question that she's afraid of, knowing the answer that she's given may not be the answer they want to hear.
"No... I haven't heard anything since I called you. No one has. As far as anyone knows, he's still in surgery. I'm trying not to think about how that can't be a good thing."
Rory instantly looks over to her daughter, checking how she is and checking whether she had decrypted the hidden message and picked up on the fear in her aunt's comment.
"Elle, how are you doing, sweetie? Is it upsetting you being here? I can get someone to pick you up if you want."
"I don't want to go home" Elle says simply, to which Rory just nods.
However, in the exchange between the mother and daughter, Finn picks up on Rory's fears for her young daughter, knowing hospitals aren't usually places for children to hang out. So, he decides to try and step in.
"Hey, Little L. How about Uncle Colin and I take you out for ice-creams? His treat. I saw a place just around the corner... It gets pretty boring waiting here, hey? But if anything happens, your mom and Aunt Honor can call us to come back... How does that sound?"
The faces of both the little girl and her mother light up at the suggestion. Elle is sold at the distraction of ice-cream, while Rory is sold at the perfect in-between of her daughter being close, but not stuck in the middle of the hospital that really is no place for a child.
Elleigh looks over to Rory for approval. After a nod from her mother, she gives her a quick hug before she is up and out of the seat, following behind the two boys as they head out the door.
#
After leaving the hospital, the trio try to trace the direction of Finn. Finn's sense of direction is probably the only thing worse than Google maps for navigating.
"I'm sure I saw it was this way. That sign looks familiar."
Colin rolls his eyes, trailing behind Finn and Elle on the footpath. "We didn't even come this way."
"I know that sign" Finn insists and continues walking for another thirty metres before stopping and standing, a perplexed look on his face. "Actually, maybe not... Never mind, abandon ship."
Elleigh chuckles at the two boys antics. It has helped her go one whole minute without thinking back to the hospital and thinking about how her dad is, just for a minute. Then, it's back again. Sigh.
"What's up little L? I thought you'd be too young to know how to sigh!" Finn asks, having noticed the younger girl's long sigh just seconds ago. He slings an arm around her again, comfortingly, like she can confide in him.
"I'm just feeling a bit worried about my dad..." she responds softly.
At the nine-year-old's admission, both boys stop in their tracks. They have a more important focus than ice-cream right now.
"Don't worry too much, Elle. Look, your dad is a champion at getting everyone to worry about him... About a year and a half before you were born, he got himself in hospital then, too."
Elle looks between her two uncles with wide, open eyes, filled with curiosity and interest. "What happened then? Why was he in hospital?"
"Ever heard of BASE-jumping?" Colin confirms first.
Elle just nods. She had seen a brief snippet of a documentary that had featured it, but it didn't really paint a positive view on the extreme sport.
"Well, we were in South America doing all sorts of stupid stunts, including BASE-jumping off cliffs. Anyway, we're not quite sure what happened, it certainly wasn't my fault, but your dad's jump failed and he barely pulled his chute open before landing. He was in hospital for all sorts of injuries that he got from that."
Colin explains the situation factually which doesn't do much to console the child before Finn jumps in and takes over, trying to change the focus of the explanation to help Elle feel better.
"It gave us all a big scare. The last time though, we couldn't find out how he was and none of the doctors would say anything because he had no family there. So, we had this intricate plan to adopt your dad, so that he'd be our son and we'd be his family, so that the hospital would tell us something."
Elle giggles at his comment and Finn's tactic to amuse her rather than scare her further works successfully, until Colin jumps in and intervenes again.
"Maybe we want him to stay unconscious this time... He was the most impatient patient."
Finn rolls his eyes at his friend's remark, before turning to the girl in their presence.
"Look, little L, the point is that he got through that in the past... He can do it all over again. He'll be okay this time, too."
For the first time since learning that her father has been hospitalised, Elle feels a bit better and just a little less scared. Despite, the fact that the comfort coming from the most surprising of sources.
"Now, let us find that ice-cream!"
#
After Colin and Finn took Elleigh out for ice-cream, it left just Rory and Honor in the waiting room together.
The two had been quite close while Rory was seeing Honor's brother a decade ago. Then with being brought back into each other's lives once again, Rory and Honor's friendship had picked up where they left off.
As a distraction from waiting nervously for news on Logan, Rory and Honor have both found talking and catching up to be a good distraction from their fears. So, they are chatting away busily when Honor's phone starts buzzing and vibrating with a new message.
"It's Mitchum" Honor announces.
It's always struck Rory how both Honor and Logan have always had a tendency to address their father by his name, rather than his title as their dad. It's almost as though he's a colleague or a boss, rather than a father. "He said he's on his way."
Rory reflects on the kick-up-the-backside-phone-call that she had given Mitchum the last time that Logan was in hospital, realising that apparently, Colin and Finn aren't the only ones to have progressed and grown over the last eleven years.
Her thought distracts Rory for just a moment before she is forced to recall another thought that has been in the pattern of surfacing, being suppressed and resurfacing. Once again, her awful thought rises in the forefront of her mind, except this time she raises the question to her exes sister.
"Hey Honor, can I ask you something?"
"Of course... You can ask me anything, Rory."
Rory takes a deep breath, her guilt spilling over as she finally has the opportunity to release her fears that have been taking hold of her ever since Honor gave Rory the phone call, telling her that Logan had been a single-vehicle car accident.
"Look, I know I've been in Logan's life again recently over the last few months, but there were a lot of years that passed between when we were first together and now. I'm sorry if it's an intrusive question, but I have to ask something... To your knowledge, has Logan ever been depressed, or, um, or has he had any tendencies towards self-harm?"
Honor looks instantly setback by Rory's question to her, like it's the very last thing that she had expected her to ask about her brother.
"No... Not to my knowledge. I've never noticed any of the signs in him. Not that that always means anything, though... Why? Do you know something?"
Rory quickly shakes her head in response to Honor's question, explaining her question that had seemingly come from out-of-the-blue for her exes-sister.
"No... I just had my worries. Look, you see the thing is, we've had a couple of conversations lately and we've considered giving our relationship another shot. But, we've both been on different pages. I wanted it, but he didn't and then he wanted it but I didn't. We had a big fight about it yesterday and he was pretty upset and pretty angry when he left my place..."
As she explains her fears for the worse to Honor, Rory is on the verge of crying, her eyes filling with tears as quickly as she has been filled guilt. In the moment, she is so thankful for the boys having taken Elleigh out.
"Then, the day after our fight, Logan is in hospital after a single-car accident..."
Honor wraps an arm around Rory, the two girls both worried for the Huntzberger heir who's still in surgery. After wrapping an arm around Rory comfortingly, Honor clarifies the point that Rory had been trying to make.
"So, what you're saying is that you're worried it wasn't an accident... That you think Logan's accident was deliberate?"
Sorry, what a mean place to end it.
Thanks to everyone who commented on the last chapter. As always, I appreciate the support from each and every one of you so greatly. Thank you!
Next chapter: The waiting game continues. Rory and Honor discuss her concerns. Mitchum arrives.
