Chapter 17

Three days later, Lori's boxes arrived at the small post office Stars Hollow boasted. As soon as she got off work, Luke drove her in the truck to pick them up, letting Jess run the diner for the short time.

After the diner was closed, Lorelai, Jess, Luke and Lori took a trip over to Lori's apartment, and helped unload the boxes. Everyone insisted that Lori not lift anything, which made her feel useless, until she realized it meant she got to dictate where to put things.

"You had to point that out to her," Jess grumbled to Lorelai, after being ordered to move one of the boxes of her books from one room to another.

"I wanted to make her feel better," Lorelai said. "And it worked."

"Yeah, and now she's turned into a dictator," Jess said.

"But a happy dictator is better than a mad dictator."

Jess sighed, and, realizing arguing must be a genetic trait, he let it drop.

"So how long a walk is it back to the diner?" Lori asked.

"Not even ten minutes," Luke said. "And I neglected cleanup after closing, so I'm headed back."

"I'll hang out here, Luke," Jess said.

"I gotta go, too," Lorelai said, and the adults left together.

Lori watched their backs as they faded into the night, curiosity getting the best of her. "Is it my imagination, or is there something there?" she asked her boyfriend, who stood with his arms wrapped around her.

"Luke says there isn't," Jess said. "But he didn't look entirely convinced himself."

"Wow," she said, and began to imagine it. "Huh. Your uncle and my birth mother. Wait, that would make us cousins-in-law. Or something."

"Cousins by marriage," he corrected.

"Isn't that what 'in-law' means?"

"I guess so," he said. "How did we get into semantics?"

She laughed lightly. "That's just the way our conversations go." She stilled as the humor left her. "Jess?" she asked softly.

"Yeah?"

"Are you going to move in here?" She wanted to bite her tongue as soon as the question was asked. She sounded small, pathetic, even. But the thought of sleeping in an unfamiliar place, all alone, with all the things that could go wrong with a pregnancy was too daunting.

He shrugged. "I might as well. I'm going to be spending the nights here, whether I technically do or not. I may as well not have to get up even earlier to make the trips."

She raised her eyebrows, and turned to face him. "You know, I'm going into my third trimester," she said, biting her lip. "That means that we can't…uh…."

"Make love?" he suggested, then leaned down and kissed her gently, but thoroughly. "I know. I read the baby books, too. And that doesn't matter. It's just that I wouldn't mind waking up in the same bed as you for the first time, sex or not."

"Well," she said. "Are you going to call Luke?"

"Nah. I told him that when you moved in I'd be staying there. I snuck some of my stuff into one of the boxes." He grinned at her mock scowl.

"My, aren't we the confident one?" she demanded. "How'd you know I was even going to invite you to stay?"

"Because you love me," he said, and opened the flaps of the only box not taped up.

"And it's a good thing, too," she said. "Otherwise I'd be trying to find a way to revive you after I knocked you unconscious. Now, find my alarm clock. You've gotta be up in time for school tomorrow."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, and took out a pocketknife to begin cutting through the packing tape on a box labeled "bedroom accessories."


~*~

It took another month before Lori gave in and went on maternity leave. She was now showing no matter what she did, so Lorelai took her shopping for nice maternity clothes. "My treat," she said when she caught Lori grimacing at a price tag. "God knows I owe you."

"You're sure?" Lori asked, concerned.

"Very sure," Lorelai answered. "You are going to be the best-dressed pregnant woman in Stars Hollow."

Lori said nothing in response. Instead, she changed the subject. "What am I going to do for two months?" she demanded. "I can't just kick around the apartment all day."

"Why not?" Lorelai asked. "It's good for the baby for you to relax. Read books, watch TV."

"But I'll get bored with those, eventually," she said. "Even the reading thing."

"Here, try this on," Lorelai said, and shoved her daughter into the fitting rooms.

She still got a kick out of even thinking it: her daughter. So far, they hadn't addressed each other by name or endearment. They had never talked about what they would call each other, but Lorelai was sure she wasn't about to become "Mom" over night. So, they would continue to call each other "you," or "hey."

"You could always take up a hobby," Lorelai suggested.

"Like what?" Lori asked from the dressing room.

"I don't know. You could sew, knit, paint, write, sing, or…ooh! You could decorate your nursery!"

"I couldn't do everything that decorating takes," Lori protested, and opened the door. "How does this look?"

Lorelai surveyed the outfit, and gave it her okay. "Like what parts wouldn't you be able to do?" she asked, returning to the subject at hand.

"I wouldn't be able to move furniture."

"Well, that's what Jess is for."

"I could paint the room," Lori said, though she was warming to the idea of decorating her baby's nursery. "But, we don't know if it's going to be a boy or a girl."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Hello! Color scheme, decorations."

"Pick a neutral color."

"Like?"

Lorelai thought. "A nice violet would work. Maybe with a darker purple for the trim on the windows."

"That…actually sounds nice," Lori said, and emerged from the dressing room, approved outfit in hand. "I think we've cleaned this place out," she told Lorelai, and they went to pay.


~*~

After dropping the bags at the apartment, Lorelai and Lori ate at the diner. "How'd the shopping trip go?" Jess asked, a coffeepot in each hand refilling a mug.

"It went great," Lori said, smiling. "She bought me some wonderful outfits. And she gave me some ideas about how to fill up the time now that I'm not working."

"Really?" Jess eyed Lorelai with mild suspicion. "Nothing too dangerous, I hope," he said.

"Nope," Lorelai said. "Just some sprucing things to do around the apartment."

"Huh," Jess said. "Which I'm sure you'll tell me about in great detail when I get home tonight."

"Better believe it," Lori said. "In the meantime," she added to Lorelai. "We can finish discussing the project itself."

They talked about the basic furniture for a nursery and where they could get it. Lori already had a changing table, courtesy of Tali, so they didn't have to worry about that. But there was still a crib, a small dresser, and a rocking chair to buy. "Why a rocking chair?" Lori asked when Lorelai said to add it to the list.

"Because they rock," Lorelai said. When Lori grimaced at her she said, "Sorry. It was just sitting out there; I had to go for it. Besides, they're fun chairs, and when it's done in the baby's room you can just move it to the living room." Lori shrugged and added it to the piece of paper she was scribbling on.

By late May, Lori was beginning to go crazy. She was tired all day, needed to be propped up at night so her back wouldn't hurt and she waddled. She felt so ungainly and clumsy that she sometimes wanted to scream. And there were still two weeks until the delivery date.

On the bright side, she'd convinced Jess—after much debate and pointed references to boredom—to let her type up his stories, and had bought a used laptop from someone in Hartford. Now she was busily typing and editing all day, visualizing with every keystroke his books in published forms. She couldn't wait until he actually convinced himself he was good enough. But she wasn't going to push him, she swore she wouldn't ever do that. It would be too controlling to push him; he had to work through his artistic neuroses all on his own.

There was a slight pain in her abdomen, but she ignored it and kept typing, diving into the gritty street crime Jess wrote with eerie clarity. It almost scared her how well he understood the darker workings of the human mind, but she reminded herself that he was a writer, and writers were supposed to see sides of humanity other than their own.

"Ow," she suddenly said, and put a hand to her abdomen. The muscles there were tight, and she felt them contract under her hand before the pain hit her. "Ow!" she cried, more fervently this time. "Oh, my god," she said, shock blindsiding her. "Oh, my god. Um…oh…ow! ….Jess. I've got to call Jess."

The adults in their lives had chipped in to buy Jess a pager, in case she went into labor while he was in school or at the diner. She groped for the phone with the pager number taped on it, and fought to remember the code for labor. "Was it 911? Did we pick something that cliché?" She dialed in the message, and closed the laptop, but not before saving the file.

"Oh, god," she said, and put her head down on the desk in lieu of putting her head between her legs. "Oh, god, Jess, hurry!"

She didn't wait for five minutes until Jess crashed into the apartment at a dead run. "Lori!" he cried, then breathed a sigh of relief when she raised her head. "Don't do that to me!" he shouted. "You page me you're in labor and I find you slumped over! That's not a good thing to do to a person!"

She could see stress clearly on his face, and didn't snap at him for yelling at her, though she dearly wanted to. "Please, Jess, get me to the hospital."

"Right," he said. "I'll call Luke, and he'll give you a ride to the hospital."

"Us, Jess," she said. "I'm not going alone. You're coming with me."

"Right," he said. "Right, I knew that. Uh, I'm gonna call Luke."

He did so, and delivered the short sentence of, "It's time, get over here," before running into their bedroom to grab the bag they'd pre-packed. He checked his watch four times before Luke arrived, with Lorelai following close on his bumper in her car. "Lori, you go with Lorelai," Luke said. "I trust her car a lot more than I trust the truck."

Lori nodded, but almost refused to let go of Jess' arm as he half led, half supported her to the car and put her into the back seat as if she were made of glass. "I'll see you in just a few minutes," he told her, and kissed the back of her hand. Then he closed the door and hurried over to the truck. "Drive," he commanded, even before he'd fastened his seat belt.

Lorelai stopped in the emergency parking zone, and had Lori out of the car and into a wheelchair by the time Jess and Luke found a parking space. Her bag was hooked over one of the handles on the chair, and bounced against her back as she was wheeled into the lobby.

"Jess, you take her. I need to move my car." She looked at Lori and smoothed her hair. "I'll be right back, okay, baby?" she asked softly. Lori nodded, her eyes big as another contraction hit, much quicker than the last, and she nodded. As Lorelai turned away she gave both men a look that clearly said, "Screw up and die."

Jess took over wheeling her toward the maternity ward. He was glad he'd scouted the hospital out ahead of time and knew just where to go.

In short order, but what felt like an eternity, she was on a gurney heading towards the delivery room. "This is happening fast," Luke said, running alongside. "Well, this is fast? Isn't this fast? Should it be this fast? Is this a good thing or what?" He was babbling, and probably annoying the nurse who lead the way to the delivery room.

"It's perfectly fine," she told him calmly. "Now, I need you too to get into scrubs, unless you're not staying for the delivery."

Luke abruptly turned very green, and turned to Lori. "Uh…"

"Go on, Luke," Lori said as gently as she could, panting and trying to do her Lamaze breathing. "It's okay. Really. Just, tell my mom where we are."

None of them noticed she'd called Lorelai her mom for the first time. There was too much else going on to worry about semantics. Another contraction hit, and the nurse cautioned, "Don't push. It's not time yet."

"But…this…hurts," Lori panted, sweat and tears mingling as they ran down her cheeks. "Where's Jess?" she asked; she knew she was whining and didn't care, she wanted Jess and her mother with her.

"Right here," he said. He climbed into bed behind her, helping to support her back as she sat up. She grabbed one of his hands and held on tight, and she felt him wince. "Sorry," she gasped, then squeezed even harder as another contraction hit.

"Don't be," Jess said, seemingly calmer after changing. His voice was a soothing presence in a world of pain, and she felt him kissing and rubbing her shoulders as best he could with his free hand.

She groaned loudly when the next, and strongest yet, contraction hit. She was sure—in the part of her mind that could concentrate on something other than the baby—that she felt bones grinding in Jess' hand beneath her fingers, but he never stopped whispering encouragement in her ear.

Lori didn't notice Lorelai was in the room until someone took her other hand. She turned her head, slightly dazed. "Mom?" she asked, and squeezed Lorelai's hand with the next contraction.

"Ooh, honey, mommy's gonna need that hand again someday," Lorelai said, wincing, but not letting Lori release her.

"It's nearly time, dear," the doctor said, and Lori vaguely noticed that she'd just arrived. "Now, with this next contraction I want you to push. It will hurt—"

Lorelai snorted, "No kidding."

The doctor raised an eyebrow and continued, "But I want you to be strong and keep pushing."

"It will be worth it," Lorelai said.

"Promise?" Lori groaned.

"I promise," Lorelai nodded. "Now, brace for it."

The contraction hit, and with a long wail Lori pushed for all she was worth, squeezing her mother and Jess' hands.

Finally, she collapsed against Jess, who continued to murmur endearments in her ear. Tears of happiness started coursing down her cheeks when she heard the baby begin to wail. "Jess?" she asked.

"I'm here," he said. He sounded a bit choked up himself. "I'll always be here."

"What is it?" she demanded, turning her head and blurry vision towards the moving white coats.

"You have a baby girl," the doctor told them. "Dad, you want to do the honors?"

Jess shook his head. "I think Lorelai should do it," he said. "I'm very comfortable where I am." He turned to look at Lorelai. "Well?"

Lorelai looked as if she were going to give in to the tears filling her eyes. "Lori?" she asked, and when she saw her daughter nod she got to her feet to cut the umbilical cord of her grandchild.

The doctors washed her and bundled her up in a light rose-pink blanket, then brought her to be presented to her parents. "Jess?" she asked as she held the little bundle in her arms. She felt his arms come up under hers, supporting both her and the baby. She was grateful, because her arms felt like cooked noodles.

"I'm right here," he repeated.

"Jess, we have a little girl," she whispered, and turned to face him. There were two tear tracks drying on his face. She kissed him, gently, softly. "I love you," she told him, resting her forehead against his.

"I love you, too," he told her. Then he looked down at his daughter. "I love you, too, baby," he said.

"What're you naming her?" the doctor asked, watching the pair with interest. It wasn't often they saw teen mothers and fathers like them.

Jess glanced over at Lorelai. "Well, there is a family name we were considering. But it would get too confusing. Even more so, anyway," he added, smiling.

"So, if it was going to be a girl, we settled on Amelia Lorelai Mariano. She's named after my mothers," she added, and saw Lorelai bite her lip again to fight back tears. "Besides, if she wants to carry on the family name later on, she can change it."

"Let's hope she doesn't carry on the family tradition," Lorelai said.

"I don't know," Jess said. "You were sixteen. Lori was seventeen. At least if she does it she'll be eighteen." Even though he joked, the thought of it was enough to turn his stomach. "She better not, though," he added, and scowled briefly down at his daughter. Then she waved her arm, and he reached to touch her hand. "Oh, god," he said. "She's so tiny. Look at her little fingers." He paused, tilting his head to the side consideringly. "She's going to have your eyes, lucky little girl."

Luke half-opened the door, hand over his eyes. "Can I come in?" he asked, and Lorelai jumped out of her chair to give him a huge hug. He hugged her back, looking no little surprised.

"It's a girl," Lorelai told him, still with her arms around him as she beamed. "It's a little baby girl, and her name is Amelia Lorelai Mariano."

"Jess, you do realize this means we'll be out-numbered?" Luke said. Nevertheless, he bent down to inspect his grandniece. "Wow," he said quietly. "She's so tiny."

"Didn't feel tiny," Lori scoffed, then yawned hugely.

"All right, everyone," the doctor said, and began motioning Lorelai and Luke out. "You, too, dad," the doctor added. "Let's give the new mom time to rest."

"I love you," Jess said, and climbed out of the bed. He bent down to take Amelia from Lori and kissed her gently. "I'll see you in a little while, okay?"

"Okay," Lori murmured, lying back on the bed.

Jess followed the doctor out with Amelia still in his arms. "She's okay, right?" he asked. "She's two weeks early. That's not bad, is it?"

"Not if she was fully developed," the doctor said, smiling slightly at his anxiety. "And she looks perfectly healthy to me. Of course, we have to run all tests on her that we do on all the other babies." She gestured for Jess to give Amelia to the nurse standing by.

Jess looked down at Amelia. "It's just…hard to put her down, you know?"

The doctor smiled. "You'll be at home before you know it," she promised.


~*~

Lori entered their apartment for the first time with Amelia in her arms. "And this is your–and our–home," she told her daughter. She knew Amelia probably couldn't process all this yet, being only three full days old, but it was a joy to be able to show her life to her daughter. "Now," she added. "Your daddy and I have this room here. But I'll explain all that to you when you're older."

"Much, much, much older," Jess said firmly. "Like, thirties, older."

"Your daddy has such helpful comments, doesn't he?" she cooed.

"Your daddy," Jess said pointedly to Amelia, "is the one doing all the heavy lifting, isn't he?"

"It's not that bad," Lori said, speaking directly to him. "Anyway," she said, turning back to the wide-eyed baby in her arms. "When you're old enough, you're going to have this room here. It's already all fixed up for you, too. But you're going to be sleeping right next to mommy's side of the bed for a while."

"Separation anxiety already?" Jess asked, putting down the bag from her hospital bag, doubly full with the presents Amelia had gotten from Tali, Janet and Larry--who all promised to visit in the near future--not to mention Lorelai, who had already spoiled her granddaughter rotten. There was even one from Sookie and the other employees at the Inn.

"Nah. There's no medical benefit to sleeping apart," she told him, ever the voice of authority. "And it's been proven that mothers who sleep in the same room or even the same bed as their babies get just as much sleep as those who sleep apart. Not to mention the baby won't cry as long if its mother is in the same room."

Jess smiled at the litany, because he really didn't object overmuch to having Amelia in the same room. "There's the fact hog I know and love," he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing the side of her neck. "Yes, Millie," Jess said, looking at his daughter from over Lori's shoulder. "Never, ever forget that your parents love each other."

"And that we love you," Lori finished.

"Okay," Jess said, removing himself from the scene with difficulty. "Daddy's gotta go to work now. You gonna come by tonight?"

"What, like there's food here?"

"Point taken," he said, and kissed her briefly on the lips.

"Bye," Lori said, taking Amelia's hand and making her wave. She laughed at the slightly bewildered expression on her baby's face." We are going to have fun, little girl," she said, bending to nuzzle her daughter. "Just you and me and daddy makes three." She admitted she might still be a little loopy on the drugs they'd given her after the birth, but she also thought it would be the natural euphoria.

Her life was just beginning, and it looked like it was going to be a good ride.