Title: It All Starts With A Kiss
Chapter Seven: The Road Trip To TV Land: Chicago: Part One
A/N: Okay, just to let you know, I play bells at my church. Again, you'll understand later. I'm also an ER junkie, so I know lots. Uh...hope you like it! Lots of little twists and turns! Oh, and yes, Jess and Rory were fully dressed. I also don't own anything. Well, I own a few things. Anyway...
~~~~
Rory yawned and stretched, and suddenly realized that she was sitting on Jess. She smiled and kissed him softly on the lips. He blinked a few times and then his eyes focused on Rory.
"Hey."
"Good morning, sleepyhead."
"Oh, yeah, and how long have you been up?"
"Oh, about two seconds."
"I knew it."
"Oh, you know me so well."
"Yes, I do. Wow, what time is it? The sun's not up yet."
"Well, according to the clock, it's about five-thirty."
"And we went to bed at what, three?"
"Yep."
"What the hell are we doing up?"
"Excitement, I guess."
"Yeah. I guess we're heading out to Chicago this morning?"
"Yeah. As a matter of fact, Luke should be coming to wake us up right about-" There was a knock on the doors seperating the rooms "-now." Rory slid off of Jess and the couple walked hand-in-hand to the door and pulled it open. Luke stood in the doorway of room 204 fully dressed.
"Hey, we're leaving soon. Pack. There's coffee in the bathroom." And with that, he walked past the couple to room 206. Jess shrugged and quickly kissed Rory before turning back into the room he'd come from. Rory walked into her mother's room and closed both doors behind her. Lorelai was nowhere to be seen so Rory walked into the bathroom. Sure enough, there she was.
"Morning, Mom."
"Good morning, babe! How'd you sleep?"
"Two and a half hours of pure bliss. I'm together with Jess, by the way."
"Thank you for telling me. But I know." Lorelai handed a full-to-the-brim coffee cup to Rory and walked over to the table on the other side of the hotel room.
"What? How do you know?" Rory followed her mother and sat down next to her.
"Just do. Call it mother's intuition."
"Saw us earlier?"
"Yep! Which reminds me, I had the weirdest dream!"
"Ah, the doctor is in and waiting to pretend to listen to your call while earning hundreds of dollars."
"I'm not paying you again."
"Click!" Rory imitated hanging a phone up.
"Boy, hanging out with Jess has got you more sarcastic than ever."
"You sure it's not you?"
"Good point."
"Or the coffee. It could be the coffee."
Lorelai gasped and shielded her cup from Rory. "Don't say that so loudly! Hank is very sensitive."
"I'm sorry, Hank. Now back to your dream."
"Okay, it was almost exactly like that one I had last year when you were in Washington. Remember?"
"Uh, no."
"Hello? You were in Washington and I called and asked you to come home because they canceled Bill Maher--which I still can't believe they did, by the way--and you said no and I said yes and you asked if I'd had another dream and I said yeah and you said that the doctor was in--"
"Mom! Refresh my memory about the dream, please."
"Fine. So I'm in bed, with this fantastic little pink nightgown on--"
"Like that one?" Rory interrupted, pointing to the nightgown her mother was wearing.
"Oh, my God, yes! How the hell did that happen?"
"Some subconscious desire to make your dream come true?"
"Could be. Or, and this is even better, maybe I'm still dreaming."
"Okay. Well, will the dream Lorelai tell the dream Rory about her dream?"
"Fine. Okay, so I'm in bed and thousands of alarm clocks go off, and so I go downstairs and Luke is there--fully dressed--making breakfast, and we argue about coffee cause he switched out the good coffee with decaf, and I found the good coffee, and then he kisses me and says he has to leave, and then he kisses my stomach--"
"Uh, may I ask why?"
"Cause I'm preggers."
"Oh, my God, you are?"
"In the dream, Rory, focus."
"Oh, sorry, please continue."
"Gladly. So we argue about names and then he sighs and says he has to leave but before he can leave he gets down on one knee and proposes!"
"Oh, my God!"
"I know! It's shocking to me too! So what's it mean?"
"Well, obviously, you wanna marry Luke and have his kids."
"Really? But the last time I had the dream, you said it was because I was jealous of Dad and Sherry. Of course, that was without the proposal."
"Well, the circumstances have changed. Now it looks like you could get married to Luke."
"Really?"
Rory nodded.
"Huh."
"And speaking of changing, you need to before your future husband gets that look on his face."
"But he loves me just the way I am."
"Your clothes, Mom."
"You're right. Thanks, Rory. Oh, and please don't mention this to Luke. I'm afraid he'll get all freaked out."
"Sure. Well, I'm all packed, I'm gonna go get a candy bar from down the hall."
"Bye, sweets!"
"Bye." Rory walked out of the room, leaving her mother to mull over what had just been explained to her. Turning around, Rory almost tripped over Jess sitting in the hall.
"Rory! My savior!" Jess sprang up and walked Rory quickly down the hall. "Luke wants to make small talk."
"Ooh. Well, I'm going to get chocolate. You want some?"
"No." Jess slipped his arms around Rory's waist and the couple walked further down the hall to the vending machines.
"No? Well, I'll just have to train you."
"Oh, that'll be hard. I have over ninteen years of being a delinquent you'll have to get through."
"I can do it. I got through The Old Man and the Sea. I can get through anything."
"Oh, you loved it."
"Maybe."
~~~~~
Luke, Lorelai, Jess, and Rory left...wherever they were at six o'clock. Luke drove for four hours, got tired of Lorelai babbling and Jess drove for the next four hours while Luke and Lorelai made out in the backseat. Jess pulled into a hotel parking lot near Cook County General Hospital in Chicago, Illinois at about two in the afternoon. Lorelai noticed something as they were getting out of the car.
"Hey! Look at that sign on the church over there."
"What?" Rory turned to look while Luke and Jess both sighed.
"See, it says 'Handbell service to celebrate snow today at 3:00.' Ooh, I wanna go!"
"You wanna go to a handbell service?" Luke asked increduously.
"Yep!"
"Why the hell would you wanna go to a handbell service?" Jess asked.
"To celebrate snow!" Lorelai said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Oh." the men said, as if they knew what she was talking about. Rory rolled her eyes.
"They don't understand, Mom. I'll go with you."
"Okay, cool, let's go now!"
"But we've gotta unpack!"
"Why, my daughter, have I taught you nothing? We'll check in and unpack later. We go now!" Lorelai pulled Rory's arm.
"Okay, okay, we go now."
"You're gonna be almost an hour early," Jess pointed out.
"Yeah, maybe we'll see them practice!" Lorelai dragged Rory over there. She shrugged at Jess, and he sighed and followed the girls. Luke stood next to the Jeep for a little while, and then followed after all of them. Lorelai and Rory made it to the church and slowly edged in, grabbing programs from the vestible on the way. They entered the almost silent church and as Jess and Luke fell in, they filed into a pew. They sat quietly for awhile, before Lorelai turned to Rory.
"I'm bored. Wanna go to County General ER now?"
"No."
"Aww, why not?"
"Because we're here now. We're watching the service and then we can leave."
"Oh, fine. Hey, you wanna talk about what we're gonna do when we get there?"
"Sure. Oh, who should we ask for?"
"Oh, I know! Okay, we've got Mark Greene."
"Dead."
"We can ask for him anyway."
"Okay, we can. Keep going."
"Doug Ross, Carol Hathaway."
"Both in Seattle. But, we can ask for them, sure."
"Damn skippy we can."
"What was that?"
"Sorry, I've been reading 'Sweet Valley High: Senior Year' again. Anyway, Susan Lewis, John Carter, Peter Benton, Abby Keaton."
"She's in Pakistan."
"Stop talking, Rory! Haleh Adams, Connie Oligario, Lydia Wright, Lily whatever-the-hell her last name is."
"Who are those people?"
"Nurses."
"You know their last names?"
"Yep! Okay, who else. Oh! I know! Bob!"
"No."
"Yes."
"No, I don't wanna ask for Bob! She left nine years ago!"
"Oh, but she was so cool."
"I don't wanna interrupt, but who the hell is Bob?" Luke interjected.
"Oh, she's this great lady from somewhere far away." Lorelai happily began to answer.
"A very minor character." Rory said.
"I thought I told you to stop talking! Anyway, her name's not Bob, it's like Bogdonavich-y-bitchy-lady...I dunno. But anyway, she comes in and tells Jerry--Ooh, Jerry!" Lorelai interrupted herself. "And Randi, and Frank. Ooh, and Deb Chen!"
"Jing-Mei."
"We'll confuse them, and ask for her under both names."
"Okay!"
"Cool, and we've got Kerry Weaver, Rocket Romano, Lucy Knight."
"Dead."
The girls started bickering again, but stopped as the lights in the sanctuary dimmed and the lights on the choir rose. The girls looked around in surprise as they realized that the entire church was filled with only standing room at the back. Then the bells began to play.
"Wow, that was a pretty song." Lorelai whispered as the ringers switched spots for the next song.
"They're really good." Rory nodded.
"There's only three guys," Jess whispered to Rory.
"Well, why don't you go volunteer? I'm sure they'd appreciate it. You could play the triangle." Luke said.
"Thanks, Luke, but I think that guy's got it covered."
"There's only one girl under the age of forty." Lorelai said to Jess.
"She's good. She's got lots of rhythm." Rory whispered.
Lorelai snorted. "That's a nice way of putting it."
"What would you say, Mom?"
"That she bounces around a lot."
"Hey, she keeps in time to the music."
"Yeah."
"Our next song will be 'In the Bleak Midwinter.'" The choir director smiled into the microphone.
"See now, that's a nice name." Luke said.
"And oh-so-peppy." Jess nodded.
The sweet, soft notes leaked at them through speakers over their heads.
"Very pretty." Rory and Lorelai voiced at the same time.
~~~~~~~~
A/N: Okay, I'm really not trying to drag this out, but it's being dragged out. They haven't even made it to ER yet! But I wanted to get this up tonight. So anyway, the bell choir is real, it's the one I belong to. And yes, I am the girl who bounces to the music, and I am literally the only female member of the bell group under forty. There are also three guys, all between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. Anyway...please review!!!!! Reviewers are soooooo cool in my book! I love 'em! I love 'em I love 'em I love 'em!
Chapter Seven: The Road Trip To TV Land: Chicago: Part One
A/N: Okay, just to let you know, I play bells at my church. Again, you'll understand later. I'm also an ER junkie, so I know lots. Uh...hope you like it! Lots of little twists and turns! Oh, and yes, Jess and Rory were fully dressed. I also don't own anything. Well, I own a few things. Anyway...
~~~~
Rory yawned and stretched, and suddenly realized that she was sitting on Jess. She smiled and kissed him softly on the lips. He blinked a few times and then his eyes focused on Rory.
"Hey."
"Good morning, sleepyhead."
"Oh, yeah, and how long have you been up?"
"Oh, about two seconds."
"I knew it."
"Oh, you know me so well."
"Yes, I do. Wow, what time is it? The sun's not up yet."
"Well, according to the clock, it's about five-thirty."
"And we went to bed at what, three?"
"Yep."
"What the hell are we doing up?"
"Excitement, I guess."
"Yeah. I guess we're heading out to Chicago this morning?"
"Yeah. As a matter of fact, Luke should be coming to wake us up right about-" There was a knock on the doors seperating the rooms "-now." Rory slid off of Jess and the couple walked hand-in-hand to the door and pulled it open. Luke stood in the doorway of room 204 fully dressed.
"Hey, we're leaving soon. Pack. There's coffee in the bathroom." And with that, he walked past the couple to room 206. Jess shrugged and quickly kissed Rory before turning back into the room he'd come from. Rory walked into her mother's room and closed both doors behind her. Lorelai was nowhere to be seen so Rory walked into the bathroom. Sure enough, there she was.
"Morning, Mom."
"Good morning, babe! How'd you sleep?"
"Two and a half hours of pure bliss. I'm together with Jess, by the way."
"Thank you for telling me. But I know." Lorelai handed a full-to-the-brim coffee cup to Rory and walked over to the table on the other side of the hotel room.
"What? How do you know?" Rory followed her mother and sat down next to her.
"Just do. Call it mother's intuition."
"Saw us earlier?"
"Yep! Which reminds me, I had the weirdest dream!"
"Ah, the doctor is in and waiting to pretend to listen to your call while earning hundreds of dollars."
"I'm not paying you again."
"Click!" Rory imitated hanging a phone up.
"Boy, hanging out with Jess has got you more sarcastic than ever."
"You sure it's not you?"
"Good point."
"Or the coffee. It could be the coffee."
Lorelai gasped and shielded her cup from Rory. "Don't say that so loudly! Hank is very sensitive."
"I'm sorry, Hank. Now back to your dream."
"Okay, it was almost exactly like that one I had last year when you were in Washington. Remember?"
"Uh, no."
"Hello? You were in Washington and I called and asked you to come home because they canceled Bill Maher--which I still can't believe they did, by the way--and you said no and I said yes and you asked if I'd had another dream and I said yeah and you said that the doctor was in--"
"Mom! Refresh my memory about the dream, please."
"Fine. So I'm in bed, with this fantastic little pink nightgown on--"
"Like that one?" Rory interrupted, pointing to the nightgown her mother was wearing.
"Oh, my God, yes! How the hell did that happen?"
"Some subconscious desire to make your dream come true?"
"Could be. Or, and this is even better, maybe I'm still dreaming."
"Okay. Well, will the dream Lorelai tell the dream Rory about her dream?"
"Fine. Okay, so I'm in bed and thousands of alarm clocks go off, and so I go downstairs and Luke is there--fully dressed--making breakfast, and we argue about coffee cause he switched out the good coffee with decaf, and I found the good coffee, and then he kisses me and says he has to leave, and then he kisses my stomach--"
"Uh, may I ask why?"
"Cause I'm preggers."
"Oh, my God, you are?"
"In the dream, Rory, focus."
"Oh, sorry, please continue."
"Gladly. So we argue about names and then he sighs and says he has to leave but before he can leave he gets down on one knee and proposes!"
"Oh, my God!"
"I know! It's shocking to me too! So what's it mean?"
"Well, obviously, you wanna marry Luke and have his kids."
"Really? But the last time I had the dream, you said it was because I was jealous of Dad and Sherry. Of course, that was without the proposal."
"Well, the circumstances have changed. Now it looks like you could get married to Luke."
"Really?"
Rory nodded.
"Huh."
"And speaking of changing, you need to before your future husband gets that look on his face."
"But he loves me just the way I am."
"Your clothes, Mom."
"You're right. Thanks, Rory. Oh, and please don't mention this to Luke. I'm afraid he'll get all freaked out."
"Sure. Well, I'm all packed, I'm gonna go get a candy bar from down the hall."
"Bye, sweets!"
"Bye." Rory walked out of the room, leaving her mother to mull over what had just been explained to her. Turning around, Rory almost tripped over Jess sitting in the hall.
"Rory! My savior!" Jess sprang up and walked Rory quickly down the hall. "Luke wants to make small talk."
"Ooh. Well, I'm going to get chocolate. You want some?"
"No." Jess slipped his arms around Rory's waist and the couple walked further down the hall to the vending machines.
"No? Well, I'll just have to train you."
"Oh, that'll be hard. I have over ninteen years of being a delinquent you'll have to get through."
"I can do it. I got through The Old Man and the Sea. I can get through anything."
"Oh, you loved it."
"Maybe."
~~~~~
Luke, Lorelai, Jess, and Rory left...wherever they were at six o'clock. Luke drove for four hours, got tired of Lorelai babbling and Jess drove for the next four hours while Luke and Lorelai made out in the backseat. Jess pulled into a hotel parking lot near Cook County General Hospital in Chicago, Illinois at about two in the afternoon. Lorelai noticed something as they were getting out of the car.
"Hey! Look at that sign on the church over there."
"What?" Rory turned to look while Luke and Jess both sighed.
"See, it says 'Handbell service to celebrate snow today at 3:00.' Ooh, I wanna go!"
"You wanna go to a handbell service?" Luke asked increduously.
"Yep!"
"Why the hell would you wanna go to a handbell service?" Jess asked.
"To celebrate snow!" Lorelai said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Oh." the men said, as if they knew what she was talking about. Rory rolled her eyes.
"They don't understand, Mom. I'll go with you."
"Okay, cool, let's go now!"
"But we've gotta unpack!"
"Why, my daughter, have I taught you nothing? We'll check in and unpack later. We go now!" Lorelai pulled Rory's arm.
"Okay, okay, we go now."
"You're gonna be almost an hour early," Jess pointed out.
"Yeah, maybe we'll see them practice!" Lorelai dragged Rory over there. She shrugged at Jess, and he sighed and followed the girls. Luke stood next to the Jeep for a little while, and then followed after all of them. Lorelai and Rory made it to the church and slowly edged in, grabbing programs from the vestible on the way. They entered the almost silent church and as Jess and Luke fell in, they filed into a pew. They sat quietly for awhile, before Lorelai turned to Rory.
"I'm bored. Wanna go to County General ER now?"
"No."
"Aww, why not?"
"Because we're here now. We're watching the service and then we can leave."
"Oh, fine. Hey, you wanna talk about what we're gonna do when we get there?"
"Sure. Oh, who should we ask for?"
"Oh, I know! Okay, we've got Mark Greene."
"Dead."
"We can ask for him anyway."
"Okay, we can. Keep going."
"Doug Ross, Carol Hathaway."
"Both in Seattle. But, we can ask for them, sure."
"Damn skippy we can."
"What was that?"
"Sorry, I've been reading 'Sweet Valley High: Senior Year' again. Anyway, Susan Lewis, John Carter, Peter Benton, Abby Keaton."
"She's in Pakistan."
"Stop talking, Rory! Haleh Adams, Connie Oligario, Lydia Wright, Lily whatever-the-hell her last name is."
"Who are those people?"
"Nurses."
"You know their last names?"
"Yep! Okay, who else. Oh! I know! Bob!"
"No."
"Yes."
"No, I don't wanna ask for Bob! She left nine years ago!"
"Oh, but she was so cool."
"I don't wanna interrupt, but who the hell is Bob?" Luke interjected.
"Oh, she's this great lady from somewhere far away." Lorelai happily began to answer.
"A very minor character." Rory said.
"I thought I told you to stop talking! Anyway, her name's not Bob, it's like Bogdonavich-y-bitchy-lady...I dunno. But anyway, she comes in and tells Jerry--Ooh, Jerry!" Lorelai interrupted herself. "And Randi, and Frank. Ooh, and Deb Chen!"
"Jing-Mei."
"We'll confuse them, and ask for her under both names."
"Okay!"
"Cool, and we've got Kerry Weaver, Rocket Romano, Lucy Knight."
"Dead."
The girls started bickering again, but stopped as the lights in the sanctuary dimmed and the lights on the choir rose. The girls looked around in surprise as they realized that the entire church was filled with only standing room at the back. Then the bells began to play.
"Wow, that was a pretty song." Lorelai whispered as the ringers switched spots for the next song.
"They're really good." Rory nodded.
"There's only three guys," Jess whispered to Rory.
"Well, why don't you go volunteer? I'm sure they'd appreciate it. You could play the triangle." Luke said.
"Thanks, Luke, but I think that guy's got it covered."
"There's only one girl under the age of forty." Lorelai said to Jess.
"She's good. She's got lots of rhythm." Rory whispered.
Lorelai snorted. "That's a nice way of putting it."
"What would you say, Mom?"
"That she bounces around a lot."
"Hey, she keeps in time to the music."
"Yeah."
"Our next song will be 'In the Bleak Midwinter.'" The choir director smiled into the microphone.
"See now, that's a nice name." Luke said.
"And oh-so-peppy." Jess nodded.
The sweet, soft notes leaked at them through speakers over their heads.
"Very pretty." Rory and Lorelai voiced at the same time.
~~~~~~~~
A/N: Okay, I'm really not trying to drag this out, but it's being dragged out. They haven't even made it to ER yet! But I wanted to get this up tonight. So anyway, the bell choir is real, it's the one I belong to. And yes, I am the girl who bounces to the music, and I am literally the only female member of the bell group under forty. There are also three guys, all between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. Anyway...please review!!!!! Reviewers are soooooo cool in my book! I love 'em! I love 'em I love 'em I love 'em!