The sliding door on the black Mercedes V-class swung open and G jumped out first, clinging, as if holding onto dear life, onto Celeste's neck, surprising her. Celeste had come to meet them at their driveway, a woolen sweater wrapped tightly around her ignoring the cold for the few minutes she was there.
G didn't even know where that had come from. And it really wasn't about feeling like she couldn't hug Rory when she felt like she wanted to. With Celeste it was about forgiveness, apologizing, thanking her for being on her side when she'd felt alone, for trusting her to make the right call and for forgiving her for feeling offended and expressing those emotions when all she'd been doing was trying to help her. When Rory had proposed coming to Stars Hollow for the weekend, seeing Celeste hadn't really seemed like G's primary reason for coming, yet the minute she saw her, she almost felt like meeting her second pillar, Rory being now her primary one.
"Easy there..," Celeste said, for a moment losing her balance, but soon she steadied herself and held onto G firmly. The hug had caught her off guard too. But she was truly happy to see her safe and their relationship restored - assuring her that G had indeed forgiven her. She didn't even need to say it.
"I'm sorry," G whispered, still feeling a little guilty for putting Celeste in a position when she'd had to keep things from Rory back in Paris.
"You're safe, that's all that matters," Celeste replied, patting her back.
"Hi! A little help please," Rory said, emerging from the car herself, holding Finny's hand as she assisted him towards the snowy ground. Maybe for a split second she felt jealous for her sister having bonded with her friends like that, but that thought was brushed away in an instant, knowing G needed all the support she could get.
"Of course," G replied, apologetically, and helped Rory with Finny.
"Hey," Celeste greeted Rory, hugging her too.
"You look good," Rory whispered to her hair. Celeste wasn't going to announce the pregnancy any time soon, just Rory, Jess and the doctors were the ones who knew about it for now, but she knew that this was what Rory meant.
"I'm so glad you're both here," Celeste said, adding, "and you too," as she squatted down next to Finny, taking his other hand.
"Me too - I missed this place," Rory replied, handing one car seat with Leigh, who was still a little sleepy from the ride, to G, and raised Emma, who was already awake, onto her hip. Emma was already getting rather heavy and her back muscles were getting pretty strong already and if she could help it, it was easier to get her without the car seat these days.
What was funny was that when she thought of Stars Hollow now, she thought more and more about coming here, to the firehouse, instead of going to her mother's, which she was sure Lorelai was a little offended by. She knew that among other things she needed to take some time to hang out with Lorelai as well - she might have grown independent from her over the past couple of years, but her mother didn't deserve to be forgotten and discarded either, having seen from Celeste first hand what missing a mom could do. But thankfully, recently Lorelai had had her own reasons for celebrating, having gotten permanent custody of Leo, which also meant it was likely she wasn't missing Rory quite as much, or at least not as painfully.
"Look at you," Celeste cooed at Emma, her little button-nose being adorable, glancing over to Leigh as well, Emma being a little bit more responsive at this point. While she didn't quite dare to think about the baby growing inside of her yet, the image of her or her name - somehow in her mind it was always a 'her' even if she avoided thinking of it knowingly, she couldn't deny seeing Rory's babies was definitely her soft spot, bringing many of these topics to the surface.
"I should've probably warned you ahead, but the chief's house is a little chilly, the radiators need to be aired out or something like that. So we thought you could just stay at the main house with us this time. It's just two nights. Finny can sleep with Evie, and I put the cribs in the old radio room, we're not really using it these days anyways and, Rory, you we can can sort out with the pullout with G, or if you want one of you can take the living room couch," Celeste explained, having considered it as a viable option if it was just the two adults, without nannies this time. "Or if you can I can ask Luke to help Jess bring one of the single beds to the living room," she added, guiding the two two and the kids towards the back deck to head inside. Hallam was handling the luggage, but there really wasn't all that much for just the weekend, Rory having by now mastered packing minimally. Sure the twins needed a spare of 'almost everything', but it was hardly ever the two got equally messy simultaneously and usually 1.5 times the number of items she would normally take for one baby was more often than sufficient.
"Oh that's fine I think. G, what do you think - willing to share a bed with me?" Rory asked, making it sound playfully humorous.
"Yeah, we'll be fine," G replied, as they all entered the old firehouse through the kitchen door. She helped Finny take off her booties, knowing by now Celeste's no-shoe policy in the house, and took off his blue nano puff jacket.
"Something smells good," Rory hummed as she took a whiff of air, and toed off her own Chelsea boots.
"It's just pasta," Celeste replied, humbly, glancing briefly at the ricotta broccoli pasta casserole she had in the oven.
"Hey!" Rory exclaimed, seeing Jess coming from the store's side.
Jess lifted Evie down from his shoulders down to the floor and Evie went to hug Finny, taking his hand to take him upstairs to play, and G watched the two head up, opening the safety gate for them once they got up.
Jess reflected the greeting and accepted the hug and "congrats," to his ear coming from Rory.
"Luke just called and said they're coming by in 10 or so," Jess informed the two.
"Perfect," Celeste replied in a satisfactory tone, knowing they'd be just in time for dinner. Even though they'd just had dinner together a couple of weeks ago at Christmas, still, these things didn't seem to happen often enough. For Celeste it was the most family feeling she got these days. But she couldn't ignore the fact that Logan's absence was palpable. Even she missed him, she couldn't imagine what Rory must've been feeling.
"You doing okay, with Logan being away again?" Celeste asked as she helped Rory unwrap Leigh, who was now awake and observing her surroundings, from her the wool fleece onesie she was wearing. Evie had had something similar, though when she was a lot younger, and having done the unbuttoning motion with the onesie a thousand times, she could even remember the feel of unbuttoning it on autopilot.
Celeste knew Rory so well, she really needn't have even asked. She knew she missed him and there were unresolved things, Rory having explained their issues over the phone since they'd seen each other last. Unresolved really was the perfect way to describe it. They understood, but they didn't really know how to move forward. But Celeste also felt she'd needed to ask it to understand how urgent her issues were - could they wait until they had a chance to talk or did she just need a shoulder now if she was just barely holding it together?
"I guess, keeping busy - you know how it is," she replied, her glance assuring Celeste that she was hanging in there. "At least he sounded like Owen wasn't terribly against Mitchum helping out," she added, having placed Emma down on the large empty kitchen counter, which wasn't currently in use, to remove her woolen onesie.
"I bet he secretly wanted to do it - Mitchum, I mean," Celeste replied.
Rory hadn't really thought of it like that. But she could see it now too - Mitchum would never admit he wanted to get to know his youngest son, he was too proud to admit something like that. Perhaps in a way she'd just enabled him to do it under other excuses? Perhaps she had done something good by asking him after all?
"Here, I can hold her," Jess offered, having barely overheard their brief discussion about Logan. He didn't really know the depths of these things, it didn't seem to influence him, but he could only imagine how hard it was to parent, even with all the external help, while the other half was across the ocean - work or not, it was still hard. And he too knew that the relationships in Logan's family were not the simplest kind.
"Yeah, better get practicing, Dodger" Rory couldn't help teasing him and handed Emma to him, so she could take off her own coat as well, blowing out a lungful of air, "Boy, it's warm in here," as she had gotten pretty warm with her coat on.
Jess wasn't too bothered about the nickname Rory still used with him on occasion, mostly to tease him, but because of her mentioning the pregnancy even if just with a hint he did feel like scolding her a little, responding with a slight frown, not wanting to put too much emphasis on the matter for Celeste's sake. Sure, Rory knew, but that didn't really mean Celeste was up to talking much about it or being reminded by it much. Even he didn't speak much of it other than casually looking out for his wife. But he was forgiving, realizing now that no one knew better how fragile this thing was than Rory, having once lost a baby at this stage.
They all headed upstairs, Jess helped the girls with their luggage and they all got settled, letting the kids relax and play after the long drive.
Lorelai arrived upstairs, not 10 but 20 minutes later, without ringing the doorbell or anything. She too was comfortable around this place, and the benefit of arriving through the store, where often the door was unlocked even if the sign said 'closed' if they were home, there was the bell above the door giving off a least a warning before her voice could be heard through the pole hole seconds later.
"You realize you're going to have trouble getting the townsfolk out of this place next Thursday, right?" Lorelai commented to Jess, as she headed for Rory for a hug. "Ms. Patty's is designed for people to not stick around, hard surfaces for sitting, horrible coffee, just one bathroom and absolutely nothing else to do but dance," Lorelai commented, having just heard from Babette where the town meetings were going to be held.
"So we'll make bad coffee and say one of the toilets isn't working," Jess commented in passing, rolling his eyes.
"What is she talking about?" Rory asked, beaming over to Jess, Celeste having already gone downstairs to check dinner. In the meanwhile Leo came upstairs, greeted everyone and landed on the couch between G and Rory.
As Lorelai saw Finny, the boy demanded to be lifted up, soon the same request was followed from Evie, both of which Lorelai relented to. She kept imagining a time when all of the four kids would be able to want that at the same time. It was almost like a cuteness overload. Each time she thought of them she got this overwhelming feeling in her chest with all these kids even if they weren't hers.
"Hey, little brother," Rory felt like she could actually say now, and hugged him sideways.
Leo didn't really know what to do with himself after a comment like that, simply laughing as if it was something silly she'd said. It was cute, but Rory could tell he was happy about how things had gone.
"I told Taylor after weeks of pestering me that they could have the town meeting at the store. It's for a fee and only until summer," Jess explained to Rory.
"Why until summer - that's such an odd timeline to set," Lorelia noted, while Jess and Rory exchanged a very brief glance.
"Because I don't intend to keep it open throughout the summer," Jess replied. Well, that too was accurate, he supposed.
"But don't tell you I didn't warn you," Lorelai noted, heading over to hug G as well, who was right now sitting on the floor, playing with the babies. Lorelai kneeled down herself, doing eskimo-greetings with each of the babies.
"Oh I know…," Jess grumbled, knowing that he was probably going to regret it anyway.
"Don't forget to set a time limit on the meetings, and something like 'no emergency meetings'," Rory suggested practically, chuckling a little at the image. "I might just have to come to one of these meetings, " Rory added.
"I just realized one day that people don't really know what we do - like there was this kid, working at the market, he said he didn't really understand what niche meant," Jess explained.
"That's Miguel for you," Lorelai commented, guessing who he was speaking of, as if it was to be expected.
"Well, this way after a few meetings at least they'll stop speculating and see it for themselves," Jess replied. While many locals had come to the opening, it was far from all.
"Leo, go wash your hands," Luke reminded him, and Rory urged Finny to do the same, as Luke came up the stairs carrying the heavy oven pan with the pasta dish, while Celeste followed him with a bowl of salad and some bread.
"Jess, do you mind getting the drinks," Celeste said, but Jess had already gone to fetch them, not needing to be asked, especially now.
"So how are you getting used to the idea of really staying with these two?" Rory asked Leo, as they all sat down at the long dinner table to eat, gesturing at Luke and Lorelai. The babies had remained on the floor under a play arch, but for now didn't really seem to mind, Rory deciding to feed them some squash puree once she herself was finished, knowing they probably weren't very hungry yet anyways.
The question was probably a bit too complex for him to really reply to, instead he said, "Luke painted my room dark green, I got a new bed and everything," Leo exclaimed, his eyes lit.
"Wow, that's great," Rory commented. She was truly happy for him, but at the same time it was her losing that place that had been hers for all those years. It was how things were supposed to go, people moved on - both her, Lorelai and Leo, but still it stung a little.
Rory could tell from Lorelai's face that she really did look happy, and so did Luke. They'd been happy before, but now they just seemed to have a glow of fulfillment about themselves.
"So when does your training start?" Lorelai asked Celeste about halfway through their meal, taking a sip of the kombucha lemonade, Celeste had made and presented as regular lemonade to Lorelai.
"Next week, actually. It's in Hartford," Celeste replied. In the midst of everything else she was about to go train for three weeks to teach sex-ed. Michel was handling the schedules these days, so Lorelai really didn't know that she'd asked for time off from work. She'd never really thought of this scenario when she'd started this journey - that while the kids were going to have classes with her starting from February, they were actually going to witness her belly growing like a live example. And she definitely felt a little self conscious about that - she didn't particularly like the idea of being in display like that, but it was too late to back down now.
"I think it's great," Rory commented. She didn't know about her self consciousness much yet, but what she focused on was Celeste going ahead with a new challenge and that being a topic that she was passionate about. Her book had brushed the topic, and she'd proven time and time again her abilty to quickly read up on this type of topics and really provide science based information. This was actually the topic that Celeste truly wanted kids to embrace, not fear - ask about rather than speculate on.
"Luke, how's April? I haven't seen her in a while," Rory asked, in the meanwhile helping Finny with his salad.
"She's okay I guess. School seems to be going well, but I think she's been a little bummed how Anna took the news about her dating Jodie," Luke shared.
"Oh, that sucks," Celeste said, feeling sorry for April.
"Yeah, I guess Anna always thought she knew her best, you know. April said she just kept insisting it was a college phase or something and then talking about how there weren't going to be any grandkids," Luke shrugged, describing what he'd heard from April. What he wasn't going to say, was that Anna had done all that with April's girlfriend in the room, knowing Anna was hardly getting any slack from Lorelai or Rory anyways. It was not his place to bash her, despite having their differences.
"You know, I actually have a bit of news to share. And I am doing this because she asked me to," Rory said, placing her utensils down.
"What?" Lorelai asked impatiently.
"Paris is also now dating a woman, and she wanted me to tell everyone so she wouldn't have to. She's not big on labels and such, didn't want to make a big deal of it. So if you see her, accept that as the new normality," Rory explained.
"Huh," Jess noted, casually, continuing to eat.
"Life's too short, good for her," Lorelai commented with a shrug, and that was that.
In Paris' case, this hardly seemed that hard to imagine, and the fact that she didn't want to explain herself to anyone was also very much her. She had in fact explained herself in way too much detail to Rory the other day, claiming how there was such a thing as compulsory heterosexuality which essentially meant that people were unfairly treated as straight until proven otherwise. She'd also spoken in length about how hormones and brain chemistry influenced fluidity in women her age and older.
"So who's she dating?" Lorelai asked with curiosity.
Rory, knowing that the connection was a little unusual, decided not everything needed to be brought to the table, simply replied, "someone from work - her name is Vikki."
"I think that's the doctor I saw last time I was there, " Celeste replied, holding her tongue enough not to say 'we', making it sound as if she'd just been to a routine check-up, exchanging a brief glance with Jess across the table.
"So what's she like?" Rory asked, being a bit curious herself.
"A lot like her actually, but definitely cute - dark hair, petite. I think they make an adorable couple," Celeste replied, recalling how Jess had compared them as clones.
"They've even got kids the same age," Rory pointed out.
"I can't imagine dating someone that is so similar to me," Lorelai chuckled.
"Two you-s - that'd just be too much Lorelai anyone could take," Luke chuckled.
"Hey," Lorelai hit his shoulder playfully.
Suddenly Rory's gaze fixated on Emma who was on the play mat 4 ft from her. The girl had sat up for the first time, not even leaning on her arms. Rory made a rush towards her, seeing her begin to wobble a little. "Good job Emma, you sat up!" she exclaimed in a celebratory manner, and caught her. Leigh wasn't as advanced, but she seemed to be developing steadily just at a slightly slower pace than Emma, so Rory wasn't really worried. But still - she felt proud of Emma in that moment.
"Now we just need to get that on video to send to Logan," Celeste commented, making the unpleasant reality of Logan missing major steps in their lives, once again topical.
Later that evening Rory had just put the babies to sleep in the study and had gone downstairs to brush her teeth, when she came back upstairs to go to bed, finding G already tucked in and browsing something on her phone.
"Hey, I wanted to ask you something," G began, as Rory climbed into bed with her, and put her phone to charge.
"What?" Rory asked.
"Can I have Philippa over next week, I was thinking a movie night or something…maybe have her sleep over," G proposed.
"Of course, and I did discuss this with Logan. We have three house rules for guests, the same applies for ours," Rory explained.
"Shoot," G replied, excitedly.
"Don't let them, or her in this case, wander around the house alone - and I know it sounds like we're untrusting but just in case. The home offices are off limits and no photos in out part of the house or the people," Rory explained.
"Thanks," she replied. These actually made sense to G and it really wasn't an issue for her. She wasn't really planning on touring the house with her or anything like that anyways.
"I think it's good you know, that you're having a friend over," Rory replied.
"Yeah, I know. I don't even know why I haven't asked her before…," G shrugged and put her head down on her pillow. It was like she didn't think Philippa really would want to hang out with just her. The same went for Mason and Homura - they seemed like such an entity that she hardly felt like she was interesting enough to deserve their time outside of school. It was the first time she realized that while she usually appeared all confident, especially when it came to her appearance, inside she really wasn't, and made a mental note to mention it at therapy next week, which she'd promised herself she'd stick to. She liked how Dr. Williams didn't sugarcoat things, but at the same time that he didn't seem to desperately want to lable her with a diagnosis or prescribe her things to 'fix her', making her hopeful that perhaps she was in fact fixable and not destined to popping pills all her life.
"Better late than never," Rory replied, switching off the table lamp and laying down next to her, facing her.
"Thank you for taking me to therapy," G added, the moonlight from the window illuminating the room enough to make out Rory's face.
"That's what sisters are for," she replied, taking her hand in hers.
"Are you okay? I can tell, something is going on with Logan and you," G said. "Finn wouldn't really tell me much," she added.
It surprised Rory that G knew this much, sure she might have overheard some exchange of words from Logan's study the other day. But somehow she hadn't considered that she was actually quite percective.
"I'm hanging in there," she replied. "I feel like we're just a little out of sync at the moment. It's hard when he's away. The intimacy, the mental kind, and openness, and I guess the kind of understanding that leads to people finishing each other's sentences and stuff like that is a little difficult to get back if he just pops back and forth like this," Rory tried to explain with examples she thought G might comprehend.
"I always wonder what it's like…," G began, unsure how to exactly finish her thought.
"What - to be married?" Rory asked, guessing.
"Not even that, but just know that someone is your person - that you trust someone that much to share your deepest emotions with someone, lean on them and have them lean on you - unconditionally," G explained.
"It fluctuates - when things are good it's the greatest and the most effortless thing in the world," Rory said, recalling some of their better moments. The way they'd begun talking, really talking, after Logan had come to see her in Maine for the first time, and they'd begun talking on the phone like they hadn't in years - truly openly, without hiding their feelings, had made her feel that great. "But when it's off - like now, it hurts. It's the fear that maybe I can't have that back, that I did something wrong and cannot regain that. And with kids involved, there's so much pressure - I keep telling myself that 'I have to make it work'," Rory explained, sniffling a little.
G wrapped Rory in a hug and simply held her. That was exactly what Rory needed at that moment. Sure, she'd come for Celeste's shoulder, but it wasn't going anywhere.