Celeste was just helping Jess back up the U-haul into the courtyard of their new house, having in the past few hours dropped Evie off with Liz for the day and been to the notary with Taylor.
Taylor had squirmed, still attempting to make them reconsider their interest in the property with some comment about the noise levels being through the roof on Park street, which Jess of course knew to be an outright lie, Luke's being positioned on that very same street corner. Thankfully right there, Taylor hadn't made a big number of the apology and list of offences Jess had handed over, perhaps he simply didn't want to get into it right there. But all Jess could do was hope that that was the end of it. Admitting to things from that long ago, hardly hurt his pride - he wasn't that person anymore.
There was still about a week until the new fire station officially opened but the operations had already been moved, leaving just a few firemen gathering up the last of their things from the backyard. After that the place was truly theirs.
Celeste gestured Jess to a halt, and he came out of the car nodding at the firemen friendlily.
"So what should we do first?" Celeste pondered, not knowing where to begin. There just seemed so much to be done - unload, store, make lists, shop - and that just to begin with. Truth be told, she'd never been so hands on as she was probably going to have to be in this one, in any one of her moves, and she was a little worried if she had it in her. Except for their last move which has just gone incredibly fast, usually she'd just just stay at a hotel somewhere and let the contractors and designers do their jobs.
This move was going to be different - their budget being stretched a little tighter than usual, with keeping the Brooklyn townhouse as a rental and knowing there were major expenses expected with getting the store going and Jess having given up his manager job and cut back on his hours a little. But Celeste had no objections - he needed to take care of himself too.
"Let's just take a look around, start making some lists and then we decide where to unload all this stuff," Jess explained his thoughts, referring to the U-haul. He knew they needed to figure out their primary housing, at least if they didn't want to crash at Luke's old apartment for long, making it their priority for this renovation.
They went in through the fire station's kitchen door, the linoleum floor slightly worn under their feet, but the stainless steel kitchen still stood intact. It had been an unexpected but a welcome surprise that it was staying - at least they had some place to cook. And in a way the stainless steel reminded Jess of his old place in Philly, to where he'd bought the kitchen from a restaurant foreclosure auction - a purchase of which he'd been rather proud of at that time.
"We should probably keep the laundry room where it is, right? It'd make the most sense," Celeste discussed as they looked over the room. It was functional, just worn out.
There were many aspects of which Jess worried about - he wanted to offer Celeste the standard of living she was accustomed to. And not just her, but Evie too. There were two of his girls to consider now. Thankfully Evie's wishes were not major at this age - safe, warm and possibly involving a bathtub. Jess himself could sleep anywhere - and he had, some places nasty enough he cared not to remember. Mentally he had made it his mission to make sure they had a nice place to stay, even if it was just a few rooms for now, and he wanted to make it happen fast.
"Yeah, but we have some freedom to decide what to do with the downstairs locker room," he added. "We could even try to sell the lockers, whoknows, maybe someone wants them," he suggested, making a list and snapping a picture of them to post on Marketplace later. He figured, trying to sell some stuff they didn't need couldn't hurt.
"We'll probably need to keep part of it as bathrooms though, if there are going to be events here," Celeste reminded him.
"Right, forgot about that," Jess admitted, making a note of it. "Still, that would leave some room…," he pondered, sizing up the place. The idea of becoming an entrepreneur had fallen into his lap, almost by accident, but it was definitely growing on him. But he had to admit, there were plenty of things he still needed to learn about. It was out of his comfort zone, but it was exciting at the same time.
"We'll probably need storage space, or something along the lines of a tool storage while we renovate," Celeste suggested.
"True," Jess sighed.
"Have you thought about what you want to call this place?" Celeste inquired, as she glanced around the massive garage space, now with it's large doors closed until they decided what type of doors they were going to replace the sectional garage doors with.
"I have. I was thinking 'Apparatus Bay' might be appropriate," he replied. It was similarly technical, slightly masculine, just like Truncheon, and definitely suited the space - after all that was what it was.
"I like that. I guess that means we can register it as a company then. It would make sense to make most of the renovation purchases from under the company, everything that concerns the downstairs at least," Celeste discussed, clearly knowing a bit about this part as well.
Jess pulled her close, and kissed her, appreciating her thinking along and adding her two cents, reminding him of the things that he had almost forgotten. While he had managed a branch, he'd never truly owned a company before. This was something Celeste had more experience with, having had a number of small businesses over the years, mostly various consultancies, and she even did her trading under a one-person company for tax reasons.
"Let's go upstairs," he suggested, and the two followed the metal staircase up the second floor.
"So first things first, we'd need to make sure Evie doesn't fall down one of these holes," Celeste noted as they reached the pole.
"Do you want to put a railing around them or cover them with some strong plexiglass or something? It'd be a waste of an interesting attraction to just cover it completely I think," Jess said.
"Hmm.., I guess you're right. Maybe a railing then, it'd remain a possibility to function…," Celeste pondered, trying to picture someone using the pole in real life.
"But then there might be the noise issue," Jess pointed out.
"True. We should test it out," she suggested.
"But you know… this place really isn't in terrible shape," Jess noted as he looked around the room. Sure, there were some small fixes to be made but the second story really wasn't uninhabitable at this point. There was the odd communications room, but the office space too was functional already as such. He'd been in there with Luke once before, but somehow all the firemen's stuff had made it look worse than the bones really were.
"Come on," he pulled her by her arm upstairs, feeling a little excited to explore the place together. "I know this is kind of crazy, but what if we don't even bother with the smaller house right now. These upper floors are livable, right? We could move our stuff up here and just focus on securing the hole for now. But then we could already live here. We wouldn't have to bother with the tiny kitchen or bathroom in the chief's house," Jess suggested, a little hesitantly. Sure the other place was more home-like perhaps, meant as a residential house as such, but this place seemed to at least offer some basic necessities.
"It's a little worn out, but I guess you're right, the chief's house is worse," she replied, squinting her nose a little, almost involuntarily, recalling all the dust, the non-existent kitchen and the overall lack of space. Here it actually felt like there was room to breath - the height of the ceilings really having that effect.
"So okay, we leave the chief's place for later," he exhaled, continuing to make a list of things he needed to get to get this place started. He made some rough calculations on how much paint and other materials they were going to need.
"You already know what you want for the bedrooms?" he asked, hoping to get her input to get started. "Maybe if Evie likes daycare tomorrow, I could actually get started on this place so when we come next week we could have this done already," he suggested. He knew he was being a little ambitious, but technically painting the room and perhaps waxing the floors in one weekend seemed doable.
"Already?" she asked in amazement.
"I mean, I could try," he replied, running his palm over the back of his neck.
Celeste hadn't really hoped this much, and frankly the chief's house had seemed a lot more daunting than this, stuck in time as it was. But this with its openness, certainly had a draw, making her hopeful.
"Okay then," she sighed, almost hoping she could help more than she could that weekend, but she was supposed to be working again - this time taking on a 200-guest wedding together with Michel, that needed a few more hands on deck.
Celeste pulled out her phone and send Jess over some pictures of what she'd though in her mind - mostly fairly simple mild colors, leaving the brick exposed and some ideas for Evie's room that were a little bit less baby and more small child themed now. She too was growing up, time seeming to pass by so fast.
"Now, why don't you head downstairs, and we'll see how bad the noise issue is," Jess suggested some minutes later, after having peeked into the upstairs bathroom. The bathroom wasn't much prettier than the one at Luke's old apartment, but there was no easy fix. He could plaster, sand and paint, fix essential plumbing issues and make simple structures - but waterproofing and tiling was way out of his league.
"Say something?" Celeste called upwards from the second floor.
"Can you hear this? And this?" he tested a few different volumes from different places upstairs.
"It's like a power-less baby monitor," Celeste commented.
"Yeah, we might have to think about walling off the bedrooms from the hallway in that case," Jess commented, glancing at the old dormitory that was already split in half so both halves had some windows facing the street. This meant a lot more work, but that was something they didn't need to do straight away.
"I'm going downstairs now," Celeste called upwards. "Okay, I'm here," she added a minute later, standing in the garage.
"You couldn't hear that?" Jess looked down a few seconds later having attempted to make sound the same spots in the 3rd floor as before.
"I could hear that there was someone there, but nothing in particular," she replied as loudly as she could.
"Good," Jess said, adding, "I'm coming down." And without further discussion slid down the pole, surprising her. "That'll be the fastest commuting trip to get to work," he chuckled with a satisfactory grin, clearly enjoying himself.
They had plenty of challenges ahead, but in many ways they both needed this. A fresh start. A challenge. Something they have to conquer together.
It was the final moving day in W 11th street and the entire day had been an hassle, while she herself attempted to keep track what came and where it went, having done her homework in terms of floor plans and colorful post-its that ought to have made everything very clear for the movers. But as simultaneously also new items were being brought and some assembled on spot, she was beginning to lose track.
Logan was on the other end of the move, making sure everything that was still at their penthouse was handled with care and was trying at the same time to handle a small publicity crisis at one of their sub-companies in the UK had managed to cause. It was nothing that wouldn't be fixed, a minor embezzlement scandal, but still it took more of his attention that he would've liked despite delegating it to the best of his abilities - after all he too was supposed to be on leave. The only positive was that the work day was coming to an end in a few hours in the UK, hence he hoped things would soon calm down for him as well.
GiGi had already moved in the night before, but other than showing her around the place, Rory hadn't spoken to Gigi much, having had a rather cranky Finny with her, at that day preferring her and only her. And other than having seen her once that same day, accepting a food delivery of some sort a few hours ago, she hadn't even seen her. She wasn't sure whether she was still a little mad at her, embarrassed of their quarrel or simply not prefering her company.
"How are the girls doing?" Celeste texted her, while she was having a small coffee break at the Dragonfly.
"Kicking, hick-up-ing, getting ready," Rory replied. Braxton-Hicks was almost her daily reminder that this was her body getting ready for changes. As a person who like to be in control - she kept talking to them to hold on a while longer - wanting to have everything settled at home before the time came. Besides it was still a little early - 33 weeks.
"And you?" she asked.
"Tired, achy - the prospect of swimming tomorrow is my silver lining right now," Rory texted back. The day had been long for her already, and the task, while not physically demanding, mostly laying or sitting, it had been mentally draining.
"I wish I couldn't join you," she replied. "But I can come with Evie on Tuesday if that works for you," she added, hopefully. Missing Rory was the only downside she was currently experiencing when it came to their move. Part of herwished Rory could travel - come and see how cool the place was, she even had gotten into her head that she wanted to offer Rory as much of a home with her as she had for them and make the chief's house into a guest house. But she knew Rory's healt was a priority here, making a note to spend at least a few days with her when she would be in town next week.
"I'll take you up on it. I miss you," she replied.
She texted back a Forrest Gump GIF with a similar message.
They both knew that they needed to get used to this. It did hurt. But Rory understood.
Another truckful of their things arrived, Rory's books namely, the two movers looked clearly already a little tired from all that heavy lifting. The movers glanced hopefully at the elevtor, but Rory could see the elevator was in use, only shrugging, hence they all waited in the hallway for the time being. Half a second later she could hear the elevator come to a sudden half.
Rory had just been beginning to ask Celeste about how the event she was throwing was going, but she'd stopped mid-sentence.
"What the...?" she began to ask, pressing the elevator button a few times. Still nothing.
"Is it stuck or?" Rory asked in confusion one of the movers who stood right there, the other having gone back to the truck to get some more boxes with a dolly cart.
The mover guy flipped a light switch nearby to check - nothing happened. He tired his cell, adding, "Yep, it's half of Manhattan. Power outage," he commented.
So this wasn't just this house. The next moment both of them could hear someone banging inside the elevator.
"I'm stuck here, get me out, it's dark too!" a voice heard, and as she listened more carefully she could hear it was Gigi.
The other moving guy returned and the movers looked at each other questioningly and shrugged, beginning to carry the boxes of books upstairs by the stairs not minding much about what seemed to be going on with the elevator, leaving Rory perplexed.
Rory quickly texted Logan about the situation and about Gigi being stuck.
"It's a power outage, I'm sure it'll come back in no time," she yelled. Maya was checking out the nearby park with Finny, so really other than the movers she was alone at the house.
"Ugh," Gigi groaned with a high frustrated pitch, clearly not enjoying the experience. But to Rory it didn't quite sound as simple frustration but actual fear.
"How high do you think the elevator is?" Rory called out, not wanting to keep yelling.
"I'm not sure, second floor maybe?" Gigi hesitated, trying to recall which number had been lit last.
Rory saw that the movers had a continuous line of book boxes to carry and seemed to have that part of their job under control. She heaved herself up to the second floor, and pulled herself a chair from the dining area.
"How are you doing in there?" Rory asked with some concern.
"Not too good, I'm not a fan of tight closed spaces," Gigi replied.
"Just try to breathe, and keep talking to me - it'll take your mind off it," she recommended. She could imagine being stuck in an elevator which was dark nonetheless couldn't have been fun. She knew a thing or two about panic and panic attacks herself, hoping it would go that far.
"How long do you think it's going to be?" Gigi asked.
Rory checked her Facebook and the news, but other than all the news stating the same thing, there was no real update. It was then she noticed the cell service quality had dropped almost to none and the apps were no longer updating.
"I wish I knew," Rory replied, not wanting to worry her.
"I was just going out to see my friends, they're probably waiting for me," she worried, adding, "there's any service in here," having noted the same thing.
"They'll be fine, half of Manhattan is out, no subways, no traffic lights," she browsed the news that her apps had already updated, even if she just saw the titles.
"Have you ever been stuck in an elevator before?" Rory asked, not really knowing what to say.
"No, you?" Gigi asked.
"Twice. One time it was at a hotel in Texas when I was working on the Obama campaign trail," she recalled, adding, "and one time was a few weeks ago at another townhouse were were looking at. But both were resolved pretty quickly," Rory soothed her, realizing that this was perhaps not the best topic to keep her calm.
"So what are your friends like?" Rory asked, hoping to distract her, recalling that she'd been going out to see them.
"Amelia is the one that moved here in the winter. I'll be going to Trinity with me," Gigi explained.
"Yeah, but what's she like?" Rory inquired further.
"She's pretty popular, I guess, but she's smart too. We talk all the time. She got me real into lomography, we were just going to see if we could do some new shots," Gigi said.
That was definitely not something Rory had expected. There were layers to her after all.
"Sounds cool. What else do you guys do? And I don't mean to interrogate or anything… I am just curious, honestly," she asked.
"We watch scary movies sometimes, the old kind - like 1990s and 2000s, some are pretty bad but it makes it fun," Gigi commented.
Rory almost laughed at the idea that 2000s movies were 'old' in her opinion, but then again she'd herself probably thought the same about the 1970s and 1980s. "My mom and I used to watch old movies all the time, she's like a living encyclopedia when it comes to those," Rory shared.
"We usually go see ballet when I see my mom," Gigi replied.
"Do you miss her?" Rory asked, being genuinely interested what her relationship with her was like these days. She couldn't imagine it being easy.
"Sometimes," she replied.
It was then Rory felt a contraction, it was a little like the Braxton Hicks she'd been experiencing, so she really didn't think much more of it, simply stroking the skin of her belly while taking some breaths. Thankfully it passed soon enough.
"I'll be back in a sec," she replied, heaving herself up a few seconds later and walked to the kitchen, just next to the dining room, to get a glass of water. She did feel a little parched.
"I miss my mom and my home town a little these days. It's funny how you only start missing something when you can't go there. I'm not too good at sitting in a car for more than an hour these days," she noted as she returned.
"Sometimes it's strange to imagine that I almost would've grown up in Stars Hollow," Gigi recalled, but there wasn't contempt or anything resembling that in her voice, it seemed to be just curiosity. That had indeed been an option at one point, when Lorelai and Chris had married.
Rory couldn't help but to wonder, how she would've turned out if she had. Maybe they'd been closer? Maybe Christopher had been a better parent? Though she had to admit, that at least from this conversation the image of her that she was getting was a lot more complex than what she'd presumed just based on the couple of conversations they'd had over the past month or so and the decor or her apartment.
They continued to talk a little on the places Rory had lived in - she'd travelled a lot - all the motels, hotels and guest apartments that were worth mentioning as being something out of the ordinary, her Brooklyn apartment, Logan's place in London, Cousin's Island, and Celeste's place not too far from where the were now, without going into too much detail.
About ten minutes had passed, as Rory felt her uterus contract again, for a brief moment making it difficult to breathe - this was definitely different than what they had been before. She didn't want to worry anyone at this point, the least of all Gigi who would't have been able to do anything anyways.
Just in case she texted Logan. "Are you far? It might be nothing, but I've had two slightly different feeling contractions," she texted. Her phone kept attempting to send out the message, but kept getting a 'failed connection' message. She knew that she was supposed to monitor herself at least an hour before calling the doctor, but in these condition, the service being almost as bad as a couple of years ago in Stars Hollow, she really wasn't sure if she even could do that and momentarily she was hit by a sense of panic.
She could hear the movers using the second stairway behind the door from where she was, now going back down stairs, and decided to call after them.
"Hey, mover guy," she called, "I'm sorry I don't remember your name," she added.
"Yeah?" The guy called up from the first floor.
"How much more stuff have you got in that van?" she asked.
"Half way through," the guy commented.
"Can you just tell be before you leave, okay?" she asked, knowing that if the cell reception remained as bad as this and her contractions kept up, they might have been her best option for going to get help.
"Okay!" the man replied.
She didn't really know the neighbours yet, other than Meghan, Hugo's wife, but she had a baby at home too, and she wasn't really sure how quickly Maya would be back with Finny. She took a deep breath herself, trying to calm herself.
Rory then noticed that the message to Logan had gone through, hoping it had actually reached Logan. She tried calling, but the signal wasn't strong enough, at least not where she was sitting at that moment and she really didn't feel like climbing any more stairs just to try. She simply hoped whatever this was would simply pass.
"Are you still there?" Gigi asked after some minutes of silence.
"I am," she replied as she caught her breath.
"Do you think it's going to be weird if I go to college a year earlier?" Gigi asked.
The question was a good distraction for Rory, and she certainly needed it. Still while she thought about what to say, she opened up the app she had for tracking her pregnancy, which thankfully didn't require the internet, she started the contraction tracking timer it came with.
"I'm sorry, Gigi, what did you ask?" she said, trying to not let her mind spiral into panic mode.
"About going to college a year earlier," Gigi replied.
"I knew a few people that did, one of my roommates was 16 when she started. And she did great, I mean she was a bit of a strange person but by the end of the first year she was really doing well - academically, had a bunch of friends, boyfriend even," Rory explained, thinking back at Tanna. "And besides, nobody is forcing you to go to college straight away," she added, not knowing whether showing her that option was really the smart thing to do. She'd met a few colleagues who'd studied something completely different for a couple of years before deciding on their journalistic careers and a few that had taken a year to go volunteer abroad or simply travel. In a way she did wonder whether she'd been too fixed in that one track to even consider it herself that perhaps there were were other options. Maybe it wouldn't have taken her that long to figure things out for herself if she had.
"I guess," she replied.
"What are you thinking about going to study? Dad mentioned you are aiming for Columbia..," Roy inquired.
"They have a cool experimental psychology programme there, but I might consider business with a psychology minor," Gigi replied.
They talked a little on how she'd discovered it and it was interesting for Rory to learn that she too read quite a lot, and it was actually something she'd stumbled upon in several books.
Next Rory let out a sudden audible groan as she felt a more intense pain in her back. As she breathed through it she noted the time - 12 minutes apart - so officially no reason to panic, recalling that contractions were supposed to be 5-10 apart for an hour before reacting. But they were definitely intense and definitely more or less regular, and not going away like false contractions usually did in her case.
"What was that?" Gigi asked, beginning to worry.
"I think I'm having contractions," Rory admitted, adding, "but they could be nothing, they're not very close." Now she was definitely panicking, having said it out loud.
After all they were in the middle of a power outage, Logan was not there, Maya was not there, cell reception kept coming and going, Gigi was stuck in an elevator, and they were not even unpacked yet. She wasn't ready for this to happen now, not here, not like this. Yet all she could do at that moment, was keep breathing.
AN: I adapted the 12th July 2019 Manhattan blackout a little for this story. Lets just imagine it reached a little further than it actually did. I know cell towers usually have battiries too to keep them working, but let's just imagine some towers nearby are not functioning, to make this a little bit more interesting :)