Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, and unfortunately, didn't
even write the first THREE chapters.
Chapter Two: ALWAYS INVINCIBLE IN MY EYES
~~*+*~~
"Lorelai, honey, somehow I don't think staring out the window all day is going to increase the chances of it snowing." Sookie looked up from her soup just long enough to notice Lorelai still sitting at the window.
"But I really need it to snow before tonight so I can rub it in Rory's face and gloat and carry on, and then hang it over her head forever!" Lorelai whined like a young child kept from opening its Christmas presents on Christmas morning.
"Here, taste this." Sookie giggled as she joined Lorelai at the window with her soup and a spoon.
"Mmm! Perfect for a snowy day." She winked at her friend.
Sookie shook her head with a smile as she looked out the window at the pouring rain. "Wow, it's coming down pretty heavy, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Lorelai's face suddenly adopted a troubled look, as if just noticing how heavy the rain was for the first time. "Maybe I shouldn't have given Rory the car today; she shouldn't be driving in this weather."
"She'll be fine." Sookie patted Lorelai's hand comfortingly as she stood up and made her way back to the stove. "You've got a great kid there, Lor. You're lucky."
Lorelai tore her eyes away from the window for a moment as she smiled humbly at Sookie. "Yeah, I am lucky, aren't I?"
She sighed and rested her chin on her hand as she turned back to the window, the same smile still playing on her lips.
"Lorelai!!!" Michel barged into the kitchen moments later, disrupting the comfortable silence.
"What is it, Michel?" Lorelai sighed exasperatingly.
"Someone is on the phone and wants to speak to you." He said bluntly as he walked out, scowling. "Crazy people."
Lorelai gave Sookie a funny look as she made her way into the lobby to answer the phone.
"Hello?" she cautiously asked.
"Lorelai?! It's Paris. Where on earth is Rory?!" A worked up voice rang through the phone, causing Lorelai to pull away from the phone for a moment. "Out of all days, she chooses today, the day of our debate, to get sick. How can she do this to me?! We're going to have to forfeit the debate if she isn't here! And I am NOT going to forfeit a debate! I refuse!"
"Whoa, whoa, hold on for just one sec." Lorelai tried to calm Paris down. What was she on about? Rory wasn't sick. "Rory's not home sick, she left to go to school ages ago; she should be there by now."
"She should have been here over an hour ago!" Paris yelled down the phone.
Over an hour?! Lorelai looked down at her watch. 9:23. Didn't Rory leave the house early that morning for the debate? Then where, what.?
Lorelai closed her eyes with dread as the rain outside suddenly sounded a lot louder than it had been a moment ago.
"Lorelai? Are you there?" Paris' voice brought Lorelai back to reality.
"Paris, I have to go. Tell Rory to ring me as soon as she gets there." Without waiting for a response, Lorelai put the phone down and made her way to the doorway of the kitchen.
Sookie looked up to notice Lorelai leaning weakly on the doorframe.
"She's not there yet." Lorelai whispered hoarsely. "Rory's not at school yet."
"What do you mean she's not at school yet?" Sookie inquired carefully as she turned off the stove and made her way towards Lorelai. "Was that her on the phone?"
Lorelai shook her head vigorously, her voice rising shakily as she felt panic slowly build up inside her. "No, Sookie, that wasn't Rory; that was Paris telling me Rory was over an hour late. Rory, who has a perfect attendance record, hasn't even showed up to her debate! Where on earth is she, dammit?!"
"Okay, Lorelai, honey, calm down." Sookie desperately tried to stop Lorelai from panicking. "I'm sure she's fine; Rory's a smart girl, she probably pulled over to wait for the rain to stop, or there must have been lots of traffic, or."
"Fine?! Fine?! Sookie, have you even looked outside this morning?!" Lorelai was beginning to lose control of herself before the sound of her cell phone rang through the kitchen.
Lorelai silently prayed that it was Rory ringing her as she feverishly shuffled through her bag to retrieve her phone.
"Rory?! Is that you?! Where are you?!" Lorelai immediately asked, though still unknowing of who was on the other line.
"Miss Gilmore?" A confused, unfamiliar voice sounded through the phone.
"Yes, who's this?" Lorelai could feel her heart beating heavily through her chest as she gripped the phone tighter.
"Miss Gilmore, I am from Hartford Memorial Hospital, I am ringing to inform you of an accident on the highway going into Hartford this morning just after 8am involving a Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, who according to our records is your daughter. I have not been told about her condition yet; she was brought in just a couple of minutes ago and is currently in our care here."
"No," Lorelai whispered, feeling as if each word the person on the other line said was drumming painfully into her head.
Rory, her baby girl, in a car accident? In the hospital? But.but just this morning she was sitting with Lorelai in the kitchen, getting ready for the day as they joked around together about Lorelai's snow-rain; and now.now.
"You're lying," Lorelai said in a voice so sullen and quiet that the person on the other line could hardly hear her.
"Miss Gilmore, I'm sorry, but." the voice began again; but Lorelai heard nothing more as she closed her cell phone and mechanically put it back into her bag.
"Lorelai?" Sookie began, frightened by her friend's sudden quietness and blank stare. "Do you want me to ring Jackson, he can get the car, and."
"I-I have to go," Lorelai stated more like a question, appearing to have heard nothing of what Sookie had just said as she grabbed her bag and sprinted out of the kitchen.
Lorelai stopped at the sheltered porch outside the inn, breathing heavily as she frantically rummaged through her bag in search of the keys to the jeep.
After a few unsuccessful moments of searching, Lorelai began to mentally berate herself as she remembered what had happened that morning. She had given Rory the jeep, and Rory had driven to school, but then.
Lorelai shook her head, trying not to think about that. What's done was done, and right now her daughter needed her mom by her side; and that was just what Rory was going to get.
Lorelai sighed in helpless frustration as she looked about herself despairingly. She had no car; and hence no means of getting to the hospital.to Rory.
Lorelai suddenly felt an unexplainable urge to be moving, to be on the run. Her daughter was in a car accident and was in the hospital, yet she found herself standing still on the porch of the inn. In all the movies and books, people in her case would be sprinting out to their car, which was conveniently placed just metres away from when they heard the news; and they would be at the hospital in just a matter of five minutes.
But here Lorelai was, standing helplessly in front of the inn, as if waiting to suddenly appear by her daughter just as they did in the movies. But no magic happened, and she was still standing, with no car and her daughter in a hospital more than half an hour drive away.
Lorelai drew in a shaky breath and took a moment to compose herself as she felt a tear prick her eye. She couldn't cry; she had to stay strong. And besides, Rory was going to be okay.
Wasn't she?
"Oh my God," Lorelai muttered under her breath.
Without another moment's hesitation, Lorelai ran out into the pouring rain and sped across the front lawn of the inn and onto the main streets of Stars Hollow. The heavy rain continued to pound upon her ruthlessly, as if reminding her of the probable cause of her daughter's accident.
Lorelai was oblivious to the stares she received from onlookers as she continued to run, dodging everything from people, stalls and even poles; and she didn't stop till she reached her destination.
"Luke!!!" she called as she entered the diner, which was slowly emptying from the busy breakfast rush. "Luke!!!"
Luke felt his stomach drop as he looked up from the countertop he was wiping. Lorelai was standing at the door of the diner, soaked from the rain, her pale face showing a mixture of emotions varying from anguish, grief, panic to shock.
"Lorelai?" Luke cautiously made his way towards her. "Lorelai, what's wrong?"
Lorelai finally turned towards Luke, her large, frightened, blue eyes brimming with unshed tears.
"Luke," she breathed shakily.
"Okay, everybody out, now! Don't argue, just go." He called over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off Lorelai, who was now trembling violently. Except he wasn't so sure that it was from the cold.
"Come on, I'll make you some coffee," Luke awkwardly offered as the last of the customers filed out.
Much to his surprise, Lorelai shook her head vigorously, spraying water everywhere from her wet hair.
"Hospital," she managed to choke out. "Rain.accident.no car."
"What?! Accident?! How bad?! Who." Luke gaped as he tried to put some pieces from Lorelai's broken speech together, but let his last question trail as he came to a startling realization that chilled him to the bone as he realized what the answer was, and who was in the accident.
"Oh, God, Rory.my little girl," Lorelai whispered, confirming his fears as she collapsed into his open arms, the tears she had fought so hard to keep back finally setting free as her body racked with sobs.
~~*+*~~
".yes, thank you, Jim; and now for the latest traffic on our roads this rainy Monday morning, we urge all drivers going into Hartford to be particularly careful near the end of the highway after a serious accident there this morning. Ambulance crews have left the scene but there is still much wreckage to be cleared up and."
Luke jumped, startled, as Lorelai suddenly lunged forward in her seat and roughly turned the radio off, an unreadable expression on her face.
"Drive faster." She whispered as she sat back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest.
Luke nodded silently as he took a brief sideways glance towards her. For a moment Luke considered turning left at the next set of lights and avoiding the highway, in case Lorelai caught sight of anything at the site of Rory's accident. But he was well aware that Lorelai knew the route into Hartford like the back of her hand; there was no way he could get away with it unnoticed.
"Lorelai?" he broke the heavy silence, receiving a small murmur of acknowledgement from Lorelai. "How about I turn left at the next set of lights; we can, uh, you know, avoid any traffic there might be on the highway."
"No. It's the fastest way there, traffic or no traffic." Lorelai shook her head immediately, "And I know you're worried about me seeing anything, but that's not important right now. I just want to reach Rory and get some kind of reassurance that she's okay."
Luke nodded pensively as Lorelai went back to her blank stare out the window, her tears having already run dry.
After fifteen minutes, the heavy rain had finally succumbed to a slight drizzle as they neared Hartford; yet the traffic was slowly getting worse as they progressed down the highway, and Luke suddenly regretted listening to Lorelai's requests for him to continue down the highway. He should have been protecting her, not agreeing to have her exposed to something like that.
But it was never too late.
Luke gave a frustrated sigh as he approached the next exit and turned into it, driving away from the highway with a sudden sense of urgency that baffled Lorelai.
"Too much traffic," he muttered to Lorelai as he sped down the road, weaving in and out of the other cars skillfully as he tried to ignore the cold, churning feeling in his stomach brought on by his sudden panic and fear that he was desperately trying to hide from Lorelai.
Luke had never been as thankful for anything as he was for his decision to leave the highway, and he just prayed that Lorelai didn't catch any glimpse of the almost unrecognizable jeep at a tree he had seen out of the corner of his eye as he turned into the exit.
~~*+*~~
Phew! Good 'ol Luke, protecting the girls. :p Next chapter: at the hospital.what exactly happened to Rory? Will she be okay? It should be up soon, in the meantime please review, and as usual, any ideas, suggestions, constructive criticism are all welcome :p
Keep smiling! -Luv Sleeping Star
Review button just here (hint hint wink wink nudge nudge) | | | | | | | | | \/
Chapter Two: ALWAYS INVINCIBLE IN MY EYES
~~*+*~~
"Lorelai, honey, somehow I don't think staring out the window all day is going to increase the chances of it snowing." Sookie looked up from her soup just long enough to notice Lorelai still sitting at the window.
"But I really need it to snow before tonight so I can rub it in Rory's face and gloat and carry on, and then hang it over her head forever!" Lorelai whined like a young child kept from opening its Christmas presents on Christmas morning.
"Here, taste this." Sookie giggled as she joined Lorelai at the window with her soup and a spoon.
"Mmm! Perfect for a snowy day." She winked at her friend.
Sookie shook her head with a smile as she looked out the window at the pouring rain. "Wow, it's coming down pretty heavy, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Lorelai's face suddenly adopted a troubled look, as if just noticing how heavy the rain was for the first time. "Maybe I shouldn't have given Rory the car today; she shouldn't be driving in this weather."
"She'll be fine." Sookie patted Lorelai's hand comfortingly as she stood up and made her way back to the stove. "You've got a great kid there, Lor. You're lucky."
Lorelai tore her eyes away from the window for a moment as she smiled humbly at Sookie. "Yeah, I am lucky, aren't I?"
She sighed and rested her chin on her hand as she turned back to the window, the same smile still playing on her lips.
"Lorelai!!!" Michel barged into the kitchen moments later, disrupting the comfortable silence.
"What is it, Michel?" Lorelai sighed exasperatingly.
"Someone is on the phone and wants to speak to you." He said bluntly as he walked out, scowling. "Crazy people."
Lorelai gave Sookie a funny look as she made her way into the lobby to answer the phone.
"Hello?" she cautiously asked.
"Lorelai?! It's Paris. Where on earth is Rory?!" A worked up voice rang through the phone, causing Lorelai to pull away from the phone for a moment. "Out of all days, she chooses today, the day of our debate, to get sick. How can she do this to me?! We're going to have to forfeit the debate if she isn't here! And I am NOT going to forfeit a debate! I refuse!"
"Whoa, whoa, hold on for just one sec." Lorelai tried to calm Paris down. What was she on about? Rory wasn't sick. "Rory's not home sick, she left to go to school ages ago; she should be there by now."
"She should have been here over an hour ago!" Paris yelled down the phone.
Over an hour?! Lorelai looked down at her watch. 9:23. Didn't Rory leave the house early that morning for the debate? Then where, what.?
Lorelai closed her eyes with dread as the rain outside suddenly sounded a lot louder than it had been a moment ago.
"Lorelai? Are you there?" Paris' voice brought Lorelai back to reality.
"Paris, I have to go. Tell Rory to ring me as soon as she gets there." Without waiting for a response, Lorelai put the phone down and made her way to the doorway of the kitchen.
Sookie looked up to notice Lorelai leaning weakly on the doorframe.
"She's not there yet." Lorelai whispered hoarsely. "Rory's not at school yet."
"What do you mean she's not at school yet?" Sookie inquired carefully as she turned off the stove and made her way towards Lorelai. "Was that her on the phone?"
Lorelai shook her head vigorously, her voice rising shakily as she felt panic slowly build up inside her. "No, Sookie, that wasn't Rory; that was Paris telling me Rory was over an hour late. Rory, who has a perfect attendance record, hasn't even showed up to her debate! Where on earth is she, dammit?!"
"Okay, Lorelai, honey, calm down." Sookie desperately tried to stop Lorelai from panicking. "I'm sure she's fine; Rory's a smart girl, she probably pulled over to wait for the rain to stop, or there must have been lots of traffic, or."
"Fine?! Fine?! Sookie, have you even looked outside this morning?!" Lorelai was beginning to lose control of herself before the sound of her cell phone rang through the kitchen.
Lorelai silently prayed that it was Rory ringing her as she feverishly shuffled through her bag to retrieve her phone.
"Rory?! Is that you?! Where are you?!" Lorelai immediately asked, though still unknowing of who was on the other line.
"Miss Gilmore?" A confused, unfamiliar voice sounded through the phone.
"Yes, who's this?" Lorelai could feel her heart beating heavily through her chest as she gripped the phone tighter.
"Miss Gilmore, I am from Hartford Memorial Hospital, I am ringing to inform you of an accident on the highway going into Hartford this morning just after 8am involving a Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, who according to our records is your daughter. I have not been told about her condition yet; she was brought in just a couple of minutes ago and is currently in our care here."
"No," Lorelai whispered, feeling as if each word the person on the other line said was drumming painfully into her head.
Rory, her baby girl, in a car accident? In the hospital? But.but just this morning she was sitting with Lorelai in the kitchen, getting ready for the day as they joked around together about Lorelai's snow-rain; and now.now.
"You're lying," Lorelai said in a voice so sullen and quiet that the person on the other line could hardly hear her.
"Miss Gilmore, I'm sorry, but." the voice began again; but Lorelai heard nothing more as she closed her cell phone and mechanically put it back into her bag.
"Lorelai?" Sookie began, frightened by her friend's sudden quietness and blank stare. "Do you want me to ring Jackson, he can get the car, and."
"I-I have to go," Lorelai stated more like a question, appearing to have heard nothing of what Sookie had just said as she grabbed her bag and sprinted out of the kitchen.
Lorelai stopped at the sheltered porch outside the inn, breathing heavily as she frantically rummaged through her bag in search of the keys to the jeep.
After a few unsuccessful moments of searching, Lorelai began to mentally berate herself as she remembered what had happened that morning. She had given Rory the jeep, and Rory had driven to school, but then.
Lorelai shook her head, trying not to think about that. What's done was done, and right now her daughter needed her mom by her side; and that was just what Rory was going to get.
Lorelai sighed in helpless frustration as she looked about herself despairingly. She had no car; and hence no means of getting to the hospital.to Rory.
Lorelai suddenly felt an unexplainable urge to be moving, to be on the run. Her daughter was in a car accident and was in the hospital, yet she found herself standing still on the porch of the inn. In all the movies and books, people in her case would be sprinting out to their car, which was conveniently placed just metres away from when they heard the news; and they would be at the hospital in just a matter of five minutes.
But here Lorelai was, standing helplessly in front of the inn, as if waiting to suddenly appear by her daughter just as they did in the movies. But no magic happened, and she was still standing, with no car and her daughter in a hospital more than half an hour drive away.
Lorelai drew in a shaky breath and took a moment to compose herself as she felt a tear prick her eye. She couldn't cry; she had to stay strong. And besides, Rory was going to be okay.
Wasn't she?
"Oh my God," Lorelai muttered under her breath.
Without another moment's hesitation, Lorelai ran out into the pouring rain and sped across the front lawn of the inn and onto the main streets of Stars Hollow. The heavy rain continued to pound upon her ruthlessly, as if reminding her of the probable cause of her daughter's accident.
Lorelai was oblivious to the stares she received from onlookers as she continued to run, dodging everything from people, stalls and even poles; and she didn't stop till she reached her destination.
"Luke!!!" she called as she entered the diner, which was slowly emptying from the busy breakfast rush. "Luke!!!"
Luke felt his stomach drop as he looked up from the countertop he was wiping. Lorelai was standing at the door of the diner, soaked from the rain, her pale face showing a mixture of emotions varying from anguish, grief, panic to shock.
"Lorelai?" Luke cautiously made his way towards her. "Lorelai, what's wrong?"
Lorelai finally turned towards Luke, her large, frightened, blue eyes brimming with unshed tears.
"Luke," she breathed shakily.
"Okay, everybody out, now! Don't argue, just go." He called over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off Lorelai, who was now trembling violently. Except he wasn't so sure that it was from the cold.
"Come on, I'll make you some coffee," Luke awkwardly offered as the last of the customers filed out.
Much to his surprise, Lorelai shook her head vigorously, spraying water everywhere from her wet hair.
"Hospital," she managed to choke out. "Rain.accident.no car."
"What?! Accident?! How bad?! Who." Luke gaped as he tried to put some pieces from Lorelai's broken speech together, but let his last question trail as he came to a startling realization that chilled him to the bone as he realized what the answer was, and who was in the accident.
"Oh, God, Rory.my little girl," Lorelai whispered, confirming his fears as she collapsed into his open arms, the tears she had fought so hard to keep back finally setting free as her body racked with sobs.
~~*+*~~
".yes, thank you, Jim; and now for the latest traffic on our roads this rainy Monday morning, we urge all drivers going into Hartford to be particularly careful near the end of the highway after a serious accident there this morning. Ambulance crews have left the scene but there is still much wreckage to be cleared up and."
Luke jumped, startled, as Lorelai suddenly lunged forward in her seat and roughly turned the radio off, an unreadable expression on her face.
"Drive faster." She whispered as she sat back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest.
Luke nodded silently as he took a brief sideways glance towards her. For a moment Luke considered turning left at the next set of lights and avoiding the highway, in case Lorelai caught sight of anything at the site of Rory's accident. But he was well aware that Lorelai knew the route into Hartford like the back of her hand; there was no way he could get away with it unnoticed.
"Lorelai?" he broke the heavy silence, receiving a small murmur of acknowledgement from Lorelai. "How about I turn left at the next set of lights; we can, uh, you know, avoid any traffic there might be on the highway."
"No. It's the fastest way there, traffic or no traffic." Lorelai shook her head immediately, "And I know you're worried about me seeing anything, but that's not important right now. I just want to reach Rory and get some kind of reassurance that she's okay."
Luke nodded pensively as Lorelai went back to her blank stare out the window, her tears having already run dry.
After fifteen minutes, the heavy rain had finally succumbed to a slight drizzle as they neared Hartford; yet the traffic was slowly getting worse as they progressed down the highway, and Luke suddenly regretted listening to Lorelai's requests for him to continue down the highway. He should have been protecting her, not agreeing to have her exposed to something like that.
But it was never too late.
Luke gave a frustrated sigh as he approached the next exit and turned into it, driving away from the highway with a sudden sense of urgency that baffled Lorelai.
"Too much traffic," he muttered to Lorelai as he sped down the road, weaving in and out of the other cars skillfully as he tried to ignore the cold, churning feeling in his stomach brought on by his sudden panic and fear that he was desperately trying to hide from Lorelai.
Luke had never been as thankful for anything as he was for his decision to leave the highway, and he just prayed that Lorelai didn't catch any glimpse of the almost unrecognizable jeep at a tree he had seen out of the corner of his eye as he turned into the exit.
~~*+*~~
Phew! Good 'ol Luke, protecting the girls. :p Next chapter: at the hospital.what exactly happened to Rory? Will she be okay? It should be up soon, in the meantime please review, and as usual, any ideas, suggestions, constructive criticism are all welcome :p
Keep smiling! -Luv Sleeping Star
Review button just here (hint hint wink wink nudge nudge) | | | | | | | | | \/