Rory woke with a sudden jolt, clearly woken from a dream.
"Everything okay, Ace?" Logan asked, her sudden movement having woken him. He was like a hawk when he slept, the slightest disturbance waking him, besides he was a little on edge because of Rory.
"Uh-uh," Rory replied, settling back on her pillow, adding, "I dreamt Madeline Albright was delivering my babies," she said as if it was the most normal dream to have. Rory had been having a lot of strange dreams these days - and not like it was the first time, but Mrs. Albright was quite a common visitor in her dreams - even Logan knew this.
Logan had already let his eyes fall back shut, the 4.30 AM time being a little too early for him too, having been up until 1 AM choosing kitchen cabinets from the alternatives that their designer had sent them. It was likely they might have to wait half a week or so for the kitchen, if they wanted to stick to their moving deadline, but with Magnolia's just on the corner and takeaway options plentiful, he hardly saw it as an issue as long as they had a fridge of some sort.
He'd almost drifted back to sleep, when Rory asked, "Logan?" in whisper.
"Uh?" he grunted.
"Do you think I can really do this? With the two babies?" Rory asked. They'd talked about this before, but every few days another situation would pop into her head and make her play out different scenarios with the three kids - how to get out of the door alone with them in the winter? How to be home alone with all of them? Would she never be alone with them again? How would bathing work? Would she even be able to tell the girls apart?
Logan opened his eyes, reluctantly, the light from outside illuminating the room just enough to see her shape.
"A little late to be thinking about this?" he asked with a smirk. But he soon realized the worry was genuine. "If anyone can do this it's us, right - my determinism and your stubbornness there's nothing to stop us, right? Even if we have to get two more nannies. Now even have the space for them," he added optimistically. They had talked about this more than once, but clearly she just needed confirmation, and even if it took a thousand times, it was his job to make sure she got it.
"Well about that actually," Rory began. "I sort of told Celeste I'd let them have a part of the fifth floor - designated guest rooms or whatever you want to call it. You know, because she let me stay in her place when I moved here and because I want her around," Rory added.
"Uh-uh," he noted. He really should've expected this.
"You okay with that?" she asked.
"Yeah, sure," he sighed, hoping she would now let her go back to sleep.
"Ugh, now one of them is kicking my bladder," Rory grumbled, and heaved herself up from the bed reluctantly.
By the time she returned Logan had dozed off. And as she felt one of the twins clearly awake too, nudging against her side quite vigorously, she knew it then that it was going to be unlikely for her to fall back asleep. Therefore, instead of attempting to disturb Logan more with her tossing and turning which usually was accompanied by grunting and moving of her body pillow each time, she headed out to the hallway mumbling to the babies, "you aim to make me get used to these early mornings, aren't you?"
She headed for her study and grabbed her laptop from her desk - the desk itself had become useless by now as she couldn't really fit comfortably between the desk and the chair. She brought the laptop to the kitchen, the kitchen bar enabling her to stand or slightly lean against the bar stool while she browsed through her inbox - and now after laying on her side for several consecutive hours, standing actually seemed like a good idea.
There were a few more e-mails, their decorator had already sent them, both to explore what they wanted for their house, mostly at this stage concerning the offices that were going to get new shelving for all of their books and the guest rooms, which needed to be decorated from scratch.
There was also an e-mail from Christopher, telling her that he'd told another interior designer to contact theirs to take over planning for Gigi's accommodations. Christopher was also willing to pay for her place per square feet, which of course was not a problem either way and as the small apartment stood pretty independently from the rest, she could hardly object to the arrangement. She almost wanted to grumble at the way Christopher treated Gigi, but at the same she couldn't really do that - her grandmother having bought her common room at her dorm once a full furniture set just the same. Maybe even she was still living in some fantasy world where she thought she wasn't feeling entitled, but clearly she was too. In just a few short years calling their decorator had become such a normal thing to do, getting a bigger place hadn't even really been a discussion, she didn't need to think about her budget when it came to getting a few more dresses or making sure that Hallam had a bigger car to drive her and the kids around once they were born - these thing had become almost too normal. Maybe Lorelai had been right - and money did change people?
It was then she noticed Celeste's messenger turn on active and little dots appeared on the bottom of the screen indicating her typing. This wasn't the first time they'd chatted in the early morning hours to be frank.
"Babies keeping you awake?" Celeste asked.
"Yup," Rory noted. "You?" she shot back.
"Evie only seems to want to sleep on my chest tonight, been up 2 x already. I hope she's not getting the flu," she replied.
"Big baby, small babies... no difference," Rory commented casually.
"What do you think?" Celeste asked a moment later, sending along pictures of the firehouse and the smaller house in the back that Jess had taken as Luke and him had gone back there that very evening to do a preliminary estimate on the renovation work.
"Stars Hollow 1?" Rory inquired, feeling rather confused why she was sending her picture of the fire station.
"Apparently Jess wants to make something out of it," Celeste replied, adding an 'rolling eyes' GIF of Robert Downey Jr. "But for real - he's really excited. Now it's just my turn to hold on and let him fly with it," she added. It really did feel good seeing Jess being this excited - that he had something that he felt driven for, even if his plan was not yet very concrete.
"Wow," Rory replied. "Cool," she added. It was definitely a lot more exciting compared to what they were getting, but she was glad for them.
"It'll take some serious tongue biting from my end probably, but that's my cross to bear. I am still not truly believing he's willing to do this with me," Celeste added, refering to the whole idea of moving.
"You'll be fine - you'll be less stuck at home once you'll get Evie's nursery sorted. There are at least four people around willing to babysit, it's pretty central too," Rory recalled, adding, "and you'll get sucked into all the events," feeling a little nostalgic herself, missing the town. God, how she wished she could just drive there in any of the following weeks - the Strawberry weekend, the Scarecrow Fest, the Best barbeque competition, End of Summer Madness… She missed them all. But she was under no illusion that she'd make it there this summer.
"This is the kitchen I'll have to cook in for the time being," she said, sending along the picture of the 1890s kitchen, with just a cast iron stove.
"Hey, we had a stove but we hardly use it. You'll be fine, you can go cook at Luke's apartment if you want, I'm sure. Or just order in, I survivided on Luke's and takeaway for years," Rory typed.
"I guess - the station building does have a newer kitchen too," she admitted. Though the idea of running back and forth the two buildings didn't exactly seem like the brightest idea. It was definitely out of her comfort zone.
"Do you really think I can do this?" Celeste asked.
"If I can handle three kids and Gigi, you can handle a firehouse," Rory added, taking a deep breath. This reminded them so much of the time when Rory was expecting Finny and she was expecting Evie and they'd become each-other's anchors, allowing guilt free ranting.
"We'll just have to manage, don't we?" she replied, needing some encouragement herself.
Rory shot back a picture of 'We can do it!' poster, the one from 1943 with the female worker flexing her bicep.
Jess slept restlessly that night, but despite sensing Celeste being out of bed, which did happen on occasion still with Evie's less then exemplary sleeping pattern towards the morning, the sleep was deep - like wrapped in a cotton candy like substance - impossible to break. His dreams had never been this strange as during the past few days, he had gained his freedom together with the feeling of uncertainty to where his life was going. Sure he had a lot more of a center of gravity but it had been over a decade since he'd felt this many possibilities.
In his dream he was sitting on a long distance bus, years younger, his duffel bag besides him, a book in his hand, looking out the window. The scenery around him was unfamiliar, some sort of a farmland state by the looks of it. What was even odder was that he realized that he didn't know where he was going. It felt stuffy, hot, the scent of sweat, his and others' - almost unbearable. He felt his chest ache, as if missing someone, but for some reason in that dream her girls didn't register. It was then he felt the unmistakable urge to stand up and call out over the bus.
"I need to get off," he yelled, with urgency in his voice, and began his way towards the front of the bus, people grumbling at him as he'd disrupted their sleep, or when he nudged them with his duffel as he passed them.
"Suit yourself, there isn't anything around for miles," the driver mumbled to him, his face not really registering.
Jess stepped into the blazing sun, and heaved his duffel over his shoulder and began walking. As he walked he found himself pondering what he wanted out of his life and all he really could come up with were the things he didn't want to be, realizing that perhaps a word even didn't exist to what he wanted to be. The walking, that seemed endless, eventually put him in a strange trance-like state and he barely noticed when suddenly the loud alarm of the fire engine halted him to a stop, as it came driving out of its station, nearly running him over.
As the truck left however, his heart pumping heavily almost having been driven over, he found himself staring at the empty garage, which surprisingly, no longer contained any trace of the fire brigade. Instead the place was painted in odd-white, one wall of the hall covered in black shelving, full of various books - most of which he recognized. He was especially surprised to see a number of his own books on that very shelf - and few others by his name that he hadn't yet written. Feeling rather puzzled, he almost felt like perhap he had name-sake. As he turned around he saw numerous chairs and low back armchairs casually placed around the room. The other wall, however, was left blank, only holding up a series of picture frames.
"What is this place?" he found himself asking as he looked around.
"Beats me," somebody shrugged, who stood just at the entrance. "But it's yours if you want it," the man added, and then turned and disappeared.
It was then Jess woke. It wasn't a moment of clarity by a long shot - more like an utter confusion of what that all had meant, but the image of that fire station garage in that form lingered in his brain that was now wide awake. He briefly glanced at the time, noting it was just past 6. Celeste hadn't returned to bed, but he knew that instead of just forgetting about the dream he needed to look into this - not wanting that image to fade.
He didn't bother to dress, heading upstairs just in his boxers and barefoot, seeing Celeste sleeping in Evie's room, on the couch, her legs propped up, with Evie sleeping on top of her. There were few sights more endearing that that. He carefully entered, and pulled a throw blanket over them, not wanting to wake them as they'd clearly had a rough night. He knew better than to attempt moving Evie this late in the morning.
He closed the door behind him and walked up the stairs to their study. He did what captain Jarvis had said and googled "repurposed firehouse" and all the other possible combinations of the words. After seeing a number of gorgeous examples of what could really be done, he began googling niche bookstores, event spaces and galleries in small towns. By the time Celeste finally woke he had the beginnings of a plan.