Title: Expect The Unexpected
Chapter 21: Missed Opportunities Meet Each Other And Fall In Love
Disclaimer: No, I'm sorry, I don't own the Gilmore Girls. I do own Kim, Danny, and their story, though.
A/N: This story is about Lane Kim. This is her story. It will explain Kim Cho Rygalski and Danny Rygalski. Ooh, this is fun. Anyway, we're starting at the end of senior year.
~~~~~
Lane Kim was hanging out of her second story bedroom window, staring at the guy who held her heart walk down the street. He didn't know he held her heart, though, because Mrs. Kim would never allow Lane to show Dave Rygalski exactly how much she liked him. The coolest guy she'd ever met, and the only guy she'd ever really wanted to show off to her mom, and she couldn't, because she knew her mother wouldn't approve. And there was something else too...what was it? Oh, yeah, she was getting married in the morning. She'd graduated from high school less than a week ago and already her mother was forcing her into marriage with some guy she'd never even met. Leave it to Lane Kim to have the only arranged marriage since the last century. She sighed and pulled herself back into her room. She looked around the empty room and threw herself on her bed without any sheets as she started to cry.
~~~~~
The next morning Rory and Lane were in a room in a hotel in Hartford, where Lane's fiancee was from. Lane was in a wedding dress with long sleeves, a high collar, and ankle length skirt. "I'll write you every day." Rory hugged Lane.
"You better. I wanna hear all about Yale."
"Of course." The girls reluctantly pulled apart. "I can't believe your mom actually did this."
"I can."
"I always knew she was extreme, just not this extreme."
"She found out about Sophie and the drums. And the music under the floor."
"Oh, that's why."
"And Dave. She found out about Dave."
"I am so sorry." Rory pulled Lane into another hug.
"I am going to miss you so much!"
"I'm going to miss you too."
"Oh, you're so lucky. You're gonna go to college and meet a boy you actually like and make new best friends and everything!"
"Oh, no one could ever replace you! You're my best friend forever and ever."
"Really?" Lane slightly pulled out of the hug to look at Rory. "Forever and ever?"
"Yes, just like second grade, you are my best friend forever and ever. Still."
"You're the best best friend a girl could have."
"No, you are."
"No, you are."
"Let's stop arguing."
"Okay." The wedding march started.
"That's our cue."
"Yeah."
Rory folded down Lane's veil. "I'm gonna miss you." She said through the curtain before whirling around. She quickly walked away from Lane, her heart aching as she put her arm through Joey, the groomsman's. They slowly walked up the aisle, and as Lane came into view, Rory had to look away for fear that the tears rolling down her face would disrupt the ceremony. Lane and Craig were married, and before Lane knew it, her new husband swept her away from her friends, family, and everyone she knew, to a small eastern college where he was pre-med. She knew no one, not even her husband. She felt like she was suffocating. Luckily she was rescued five years later.
~~~~~~
"Name, please?"
"Lane Li." Lane responded promptly to the too-cheery woman behind the counter at the airport. Lane Li. The name still sounded silly to her, even after almost five years. Five years with that lunatic for a husband. Lane sighed and smiled as the happy ticket person--what do they call those people anyway?--slid her ticket across the counter. She glanced at the gate number and then the time, and realized she had almost three hours before the plane would even begin to board. She smiled, glad she'd planned it out so well, and started to look around the small airport shops, hoping to find presents for Rory, who she was going to visit. Lots and lots of presents. And maybe a nice present for Luke and Lorelai, who had gotten married two years before, and were still settling in to married life, however slow they were going. And something for Jess, who had recently tied the knot with Rory. Lots and lots of presents.
~~~~~
Lane settled into her seat on the airplane. She stowed her smallest carry on bag underneath the seat in front of her. Her big carry on bag, with her clothes in it, was stowed above her head. She wedged her purse in between her arm rest and her arm and leaned her head back, waiting for the take off.
"Excuse me."
Lane opened her eyes to see a man with a laptop case waiting for her to move.
"Oh, you have the window seat?"
"Yeah." He smiled a tight-lipped smile at her and moved past her as she stood up. He placed the laptop case gingerly underneath the seat in front of him and leaned back in his chair, much like Lane had done minutes before. Lane looked at him curiously as he started to drift off.
"Oh, my god!"
"What? What's going on?" he sat up quickly.
"Henry?"
Henry looked at Lane increduously. "Yeah?"
"Henry Cho?"
"Soon-to-be Doctor Cho."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Do I know you?"
"You used to. Lane Kim." She proudly shoved her hand into his chest. He sort of shook it. "Well, Li, actually."
"Lane Li?"
"Yeah. It's okay to laugh, I hate it, too. Actually I hate my husband."
"Why'd you marry him?"
"My mother made me."
"Your mother scares me."
"My mother scares everyone. Except for my husband. He scares her."
"Does he scare you?"
"Yeah, actually. I really don't like him."
"I have a friend who's studying to be a lawyer. I bet he could help you get an annulment."
"I don't think I'm brave enough to get an annulment."
"Because of your husband?"
Lane shook her head. "My mother."
"Hmm. That is an obstacle."
"To get off the subject of my mother and onto the topic of anything else, what have you been doing for the past six years?"
"Well, I graduated from Chilton and got into Harvard Pre-Med. My best friend's sister somehow convinced me to apply to University of Chicago Medical School so I can 'work with those cuties from ER' she said."
"That's where you are now?"
"Yeah."
"Then what were you doing in northern California?"
"Visiting my best friend. What are you doing in northern California?"
"That's where Craig's going to school."
"Craig, your husband?"
"Yep. Craig, my husband."
"Where'd you go to college?"
"I didn't." Lane shook her head again. "Craig didn't want me to."
"Sounds like you're giving up a lot for someone you don't like."
"Yep. So why are you going to Hartford?"
"Visiting my parents. You?"
"Friends. And maybe parents. You never know."
"Yeah. I'll stop bumming you out now."
"Please."
Henry smiled a genuine smile and got out his laptop. He started working on something. Lane looked away when he looked up, embarrassed that he had caught her. She reached for the headphones in the pocket of the seat in front of them and eased them on as the movie's first titles started rolling.
~~~~~~~
Two years later, Lane looked up into the eyes of Henry from the hospital bed where she was laid up. The nurse rolled a plastic crib into the room and placed a small bundle in Lane's arms. Henry kissed his daughter and then his wife on the forehead, before signing the birth certificate for Kimberly Susan Cho, or Kim Cho, as she came to be called.
~~~~~
Lane and Henry both ran for the phone when it rang. Lane got there first.
"Hello?"
"Mom?"
"Kim, is that you?"
"Yeah."
"What are you doing and where the hell are you?"
"New York. With the band."
"New York?! You traipse halfway across the country with 'the band' and take a week and a half to call me and your father?! Do you have any idea how worried we've been?"
"Yeah, probably. I'm really sorry."
"Yeah, it's okay. When are you coming home?"
"Um, I don't know."
"You need to come home soon, okay?"
"Well, Mom, I kind of want to stay here."
"What?"
"I want to stay with the band. Here. In New York."
"Why? Well, I mean, I know why, but...don't you want to come home to your family?"
"Mom, this is kind of like my family here."
Lane knew how much a band could be like a family. Her following words tore at her heart. "Well, you're eighteen now, and legally out of my household, and so...good luck to you, Kim. I love you."
"Wow. Thank you, Mom, and I love you too." Kim hung up the pay phone, surprised at how cool her mother was being.
~~~~~
"Kim! Five minutes!"
"Thanks, Danny!" Kim called through her dressing room door. She finished her makeup and looked herself over in her mirror. Being the only girl in the band, she got her own dressing room when they got gigs, and the other four had to share a room. It was usually that way when they spent the night in a hotel, too. Kim nodded at her reflection and headed out to the stage. She waited till the rest of the boys headed onstage and paused before she ran out. She headed straight for the microphone and smiled through the lights. She turned around and looked at Danny Rygalski. He counted to four on his drum sticks and then started into the song. Kim looked at George and Drew; they started on the guitar and bass. Kim waited for her cue, and then she and Lance started in at the same time. Lance played the keyboard. Kim was the lead singer.
Two hours later, the band ran off the stage amid large applause.
"This is the fifth club we've charmed this week!" Kim high-fived George and Drew. She hugged Lance, he was like her brother. She just sort of smiled at Danny; she got lots of butterflies in her stomach when she looked at him, more than she'd gotten the first time she'd gone onstage. They'd talked in the van on the way to this gig in New Jersey, and found out that Kim's mom and Danny's dad had grown up in the same little Connecticut town. Danny still lived there with his parents, Dave and Monica Rygalski. Kim had only been there once or twice.
~~ ~~~~~
Five months later, Kim and Danny were sharing a room when they stayed at a hotel, and George, Drew and Lance were sharing another room. Kim and Danny only needed one bed. They were engaged to be married, and Kim's mother wasn't too happy that Kim was marrying this guy that her mother had never even met. The couple was putting off the wedding until they could make it to Stars Hollow; they were planning for the wedding to be there. At the time they were in Massachusetts, working the college sets. The band had a record deal and after Kim and Danny were married they were heading out to L.A. Unfortunately, there was a slight setback.
"Danny, I really don't think I can go on tonight."
"What? Why not?"
Kim was leaning over the toilet, sick to her stomach. "I think I have the stomach flu."
"Well, I'll go get you some medicine."
"That'd be great, thank you. Oh, and can you get me a pregnancy test?"
"Sure. So Pepto Bismol, pregnancy test.." Danny grabbed his coat and started for the door. "Pepto Bismol, pregnancy test....Oh, my god, did you say pregnancy test?"
Kim nodded weakly.
"Well, those at-home pregnancy tests suck. You never know if they're right or not. I'm taking you to the emergency room." Danny pulled Kim to her feet and handed her her jacket.
"What? You don't have to take me to the emergency room. I really don't like hospitals."
"Well, you could either be pregnant with our baby or have the stomach flu, and either way, I want you to be checked by a doctor."
"What about the gig?"
"Well, we've got time."
"No, we don't. We have to be on in half-an-hour."
"Well, we'll just have to cancel the gig or send the Three Stooges out there by themselves."
Kim and Danny looked at each other. "We're canceling the gig." Danny opened the hotel room door and led Kim out by her hand.
"Hey, and on the way to the emergency room, could we get married?"
Danny turned to look at his fiancee. "Uh, why?"
"Well, I'd like to be married before I find out I'm pregnant. We have the license and everything. We've taken all the tests, we just need to find a justice of the peace."
"Okay, sure, we'll get married, and then we'll go take a pregnancy test. Oh, fun."
Kim smiled at the back of Danny's head as he held her hand and led her downstairs. They got married and later found out that Kim was pregnant. The gig was canceled and the Three Stooges were witnesses of the wedding and stayed in the waiting room while Kim took the pregnancy test and waited on the results.
Chapter 21: Missed Opportunities Meet Each Other And Fall In Love
Disclaimer: No, I'm sorry, I don't own the Gilmore Girls. I do own Kim, Danny, and their story, though.
A/N: This story is about Lane Kim. This is her story. It will explain Kim Cho Rygalski and Danny Rygalski. Ooh, this is fun. Anyway, we're starting at the end of senior year.
~~~~~
Lane Kim was hanging out of her second story bedroom window, staring at the guy who held her heart walk down the street. He didn't know he held her heart, though, because Mrs. Kim would never allow Lane to show Dave Rygalski exactly how much she liked him. The coolest guy she'd ever met, and the only guy she'd ever really wanted to show off to her mom, and she couldn't, because she knew her mother wouldn't approve. And there was something else too...what was it? Oh, yeah, she was getting married in the morning. She'd graduated from high school less than a week ago and already her mother was forcing her into marriage with some guy she'd never even met. Leave it to Lane Kim to have the only arranged marriage since the last century. She sighed and pulled herself back into her room. She looked around the empty room and threw herself on her bed without any sheets as she started to cry.
~~~~~
The next morning Rory and Lane were in a room in a hotel in Hartford, where Lane's fiancee was from. Lane was in a wedding dress with long sleeves, a high collar, and ankle length skirt. "I'll write you every day." Rory hugged Lane.
"You better. I wanna hear all about Yale."
"Of course." The girls reluctantly pulled apart. "I can't believe your mom actually did this."
"I can."
"I always knew she was extreme, just not this extreme."
"She found out about Sophie and the drums. And the music under the floor."
"Oh, that's why."
"And Dave. She found out about Dave."
"I am so sorry." Rory pulled Lane into another hug.
"I am going to miss you so much!"
"I'm going to miss you too."
"Oh, you're so lucky. You're gonna go to college and meet a boy you actually like and make new best friends and everything!"
"Oh, no one could ever replace you! You're my best friend forever and ever."
"Really?" Lane slightly pulled out of the hug to look at Rory. "Forever and ever?"
"Yes, just like second grade, you are my best friend forever and ever. Still."
"You're the best best friend a girl could have."
"No, you are."
"No, you are."
"Let's stop arguing."
"Okay." The wedding march started.
"That's our cue."
"Yeah."
Rory folded down Lane's veil. "I'm gonna miss you." She said through the curtain before whirling around. She quickly walked away from Lane, her heart aching as she put her arm through Joey, the groomsman's. They slowly walked up the aisle, and as Lane came into view, Rory had to look away for fear that the tears rolling down her face would disrupt the ceremony. Lane and Craig were married, and before Lane knew it, her new husband swept her away from her friends, family, and everyone she knew, to a small eastern college where he was pre-med. She knew no one, not even her husband. She felt like she was suffocating. Luckily she was rescued five years later.
~~~~~~
"Name, please?"
"Lane Li." Lane responded promptly to the too-cheery woman behind the counter at the airport. Lane Li. The name still sounded silly to her, even after almost five years. Five years with that lunatic for a husband. Lane sighed and smiled as the happy ticket person--what do they call those people anyway?--slid her ticket across the counter. She glanced at the gate number and then the time, and realized she had almost three hours before the plane would even begin to board. She smiled, glad she'd planned it out so well, and started to look around the small airport shops, hoping to find presents for Rory, who she was going to visit. Lots and lots of presents. And maybe a nice present for Luke and Lorelai, who had gotten married two years before, and were still settling in to married life, however slow they were going. And something for Jess, who had recently tied the knot with Rory. Lots and lots of presents.
~~~~~
Lane settled into her seat on the airplane. She stowed her smallest carry on bag underneath the seat in front of her. Her big carry on bag, with her clothes in it, was stowed above her head. She wedged her purse in between her arm rest and her arm and leaned her head back, waiting for the take off.
"Excuse me."
Lane opened her eyes to see a man with a laptop case waiting for her to move.
"Oh, you have the window seat?"
"Yeah." He smiled a tight-lipped smile at her and moved past her as she stood up. He placed the laptop case gingerly underneath the seat in front of him and leaned back in his chair, much like Lane had done minutes before. Lane looked at him curiously as he started to drift off.
"Oh, my god!"
"What? What's going on?" he sat up quickly.
"Henry?"
Henry looked at Lane increduously. "Yeah?"
"Henry Cho?"
"Soon-to-be Doctor Cho."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Do I know you?"
"You used to. Lane Kim." She proudly shoved her hand into his chest. He sort of shook it. "Well, Li, actually."
"Lane Li?"
"Yeah. It's okay to laugh, I hate it, too. Actually I hate my husband."
"Why'd you marry him?"
"My mother made me."
"Your mother scares me."
"My mother scares everyone. Except for my husband. He scares her."
"Does he scare you?"
"Yeah, actually. I really don't like him."
"I have a friend who's studying to be a lawyer. I bet he could help you get an annulment."
"I don't think I'm brave enough to get an annulment."
"Because of your husband?"
Lane shook her head. "My mother."
"Hmm. That is an obstacle."
"To get off the subject of my mother and onto the topic of anything else, what have you been doing for the past six years?"
"Well, I graduated from Chilton and got into Harvard Pre-Med. My best friend's sister somehow convinced me to apply to University of Chicago Medical School so I can 'work with those cuties from ER' she said."
"That's where you are now?"
"Yeah."
"Then what were you doing in northern California?"
"Visiting my best friend. What are you doing in northern California?"
"That's where Craig's going to school."
"Craig, your husband?"
"Yep. Craig, my husband."
"Where'd you go to college?"
"I didn't." Lane shook her head again. "Craig didn't want me to."
"Sounds like you're giving up a lot for someone you don't like."
"Yep. So why are you going to Hartford?"
"Visiting my parents. You?"
"Friends. And maybe parents. You never know."
"Yeah. I'll stop bumming you out now."
"Please."
Henry smiled a genuine smile and got out his laptop. He started working on something. Lane looked away when he looked up, embarrassed that he had caught her. She reached for the headphones in the pocket of the seat in front of them and eased them on as the movie's first titles started rolling.
~~~~~~~
Two years later, Lane looked up into the eyes of Henry from the hospital bed where she was laid up. The nurse rolled a plastic crib into the room and placed a small bundle in Lane's arms. Henry kissed his daughter and then his wife on the forehead, before signing the birth certificate for Kimberly Susan Cho, or Kim Cho, as she came to be called.
~~~~~
Lane and Henry both ran for the phone when it rang. Lane got there first.
"Hello?"
"Mom?"
"Kim, is that you?"
"Yeah."
"What are you doing and where the hell are you?"
"New York. With the band."
"New York?! You traipse halfway across the country with 'the band' and take a week and a half to call me and your father?! Do you have any idea how worried we've been?"
"Yeah, probably. I'm really sorry."
"Yeah, it's okay. When are you coming home?"
"Um, I don't know."
"You need to come home soon, okay?"
"Well, Mom, I kind of want to stay here."
"What?"
"I want to stay with the band. Here. In New York."
"Why? Well, I mean, I know why, but...don't you want to come home to your family?"
"Mom, this is kind of like my family here."
Lane knew how much a band could be like a family. Her following words tore at her heart. "Well, you're eighteen now, and legally out of my household, and so...good luck to you, Kim. I love you."
"Wow. Thank you, Mom, and I love you too." Kim hung up the pay phone, surprised at how cool her mother was being.
~~~~~
"Kim! Five minutes!"
"Thanks, Danny!" Kim called through her dressing room door. She finished her makeup and looked herself over in her mirror. Being the only girl in the band, she got her own dressing room when they got gigs, and the other four had to share a room. It was usually that way when they spent the night in a hotel, too. Kim nodded at her reflection and headed out to the stage. She waited till the rest of the boys headed onstage and paused before she ran out. She headed straight for the microphone and smiled through the lights. She turned around and looked at Danny Rygalski. He counted to four on his drum sticks and then started into the song. Kim looked at George and Drew; they started on the guitar and bass. Kim waited for her cue, and then she and Lance started in at the same time. Lance played the keyboard. Kim was the lead singer.
Two hours later, the band ran off the stage amid large applause.
"This is the fifth club we've charmed this week!" Kim high-fived George and Drew. She hugged Lance, he was like her brother. She just sort of smiled at Danny; she got lots of butterflies in her stomach when she looked at him, more than she'd gotten the first time she'd gone onstage. They'd talked in the van on the way to this gig in New Jersey, and found out that Kim's mom and Danny's dad had grown up in the same little Connecticut town. Danny still lived there with his parents, Dave and Monica Rygalski. Kim had only been there once or twice.
~~ ~~~~~
Five months later, Kim and Danny were sharing a room when they stayed at a hotel, and George, Drew and Lance were sharing another room. Kim and Danny only needed one bed. They were engaged to be married, and Kim's mother wasn't too happy that Kim was marrying this guy that her mother had never even met. The couple was putting off the wedding until they could make it to Stars Hollow; they were planning for the wedding to be there. At the time they were in Massachusetts, working the college sets. The band had a record deal and after Kim and Danny were married they were heading out to L.A. Unfortunately, there was a slight setback.
"Danny, I really don't think I can go on tonight."
"What? Why not?"
Kim was leaning over the toilet, sick to her stomach. "I think I have the stomach flu."
"Well, I'll go get you some medicine."
"That'd be great, thank you. Oh, and can you get me a pregnancy test?"
"Sure. So Pepto Bismol, pregnancy test.." Danny grabbed his coat and started for the door. "Pepto Bismol, pregnancy test....Oh, my god, did you say pregnancy test?"
Kim nodded weakly.
"Well, those at-home pregnancy tests suck. You never know if they're right or not. I'm taking you to the emergency room." Danny pulled Kim to her feet and handed her her jacket.
"What? You don't have to take me to the emergency room. I really don't like hospitals."
"Well, you could either be pregnant with our baby or have the stomach flu, and either way, I want you to be checked by a doctor."
"What about the gig?"
"Well, we've got time."
"No, we don't. We have to be on in half-an-hour."
"Well, we'll just have to cancel the gig or send the Three Stooges out there by themselves."
Kim and Danny looked at each other. "We're canceling the gig." Danny opened the hotel room door and led Kim out by her hand.
"Hey, and on the way to the emergency room, could we get married?"
Danny turned to look at his fiancee. "Uh, why?"
"Well, I'd like to be married before I find out I'm pregnant. We have the license and everything. We've taken all the tests, we just need to find a justice of the peace."
"Okay, sure, we'll get married, and then we'll go take a pregnancy test. Oh, fun."
Kim smiled at the back of Danny's head as he held her hand and led her downstairs. They got married and later found out that Kim was pregnant. The gig was canceled and the Three Stooges were witnesses of the wedding and stayed in the waiting room while Kim took the pregnancy test and waited on the results.