Title: What Sam Says
Chapter 10: The Third Mention of The Baby in The Story
A/N: Special thanks to both Lieke and StephieM, my most favoritest repeat reviewers—you guys are the best!!
Oh, and if some of the doctor stuff seems a little unrealistic—just go with it. It works for the story.
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Rory stood outside the double doors of Room 1111, trying to get herself in character. She was Mark's girlfriend—she suspected nothing, and she certainly wasn't planning on betraying him in—Rory checked her watch—an hour and a half.
"I love my boyfriend, I love my boyfriend," she repeated over and over, smoothing the skirt of the sundress she'd changed into minutes before. "I'm not gonna betray him. Oh, no, of course not."
Rory pasted a huge fake smile to her face, lifted her hand, and knocked. There was some shuffling, and then the door was pulled open.
"Tristan." Rory stated simply, her fake smile dropping from her face. "What the hell are you doing here? Where's Mark?" She pushed her way past Tristan and looked around the dark hotel room as best she could.
"Not here," Tristan shrugged. Rory turned to him, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes on fire.
"Oh, he was here. I didn't lie to you. But he got called away. He said for me to drop you off at his apartment in London as soon as possible."
Rory breathed in sharply. This would put a definite crimp in her plans. "Can we stay here for the night?"
Tristan raised his eyebrows.
"I…I want to watch tonight's episode of The Surreal Life. I hear Beverly Mitchell blows up at Danny Pintauro." Rory prayed to God that either she had grown out of doing the blink-y thing when she lied, or Tristan didn't notice.
Tristan sighed. "Fine. But you stay in the hotel. I've got a date." He grinned. She groaned. He herded her back to her room, quickly, and then left. She grinned.
"Bad idea, Romeo," she muttered as she turned the TV on and made her way out of the hotel, making sure to wait to get on the elevator after Tristan had gone downstairs. She watched him leave the hotel and then followed, walking the opposite way down the busy New York street.
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"Tristan's an idiot."
"I agree. In more ways than one. But do you want to hear the story or not?"
"Sorry, sorry, please continue."
"Thank you."
"Continue!"
"I was being polite!"
"Stop being polite and continue! I'm gettin' antsy!"
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"Ms. Hayden?" The doctor's assistant called through her glass window. No one answered. "Ms. Hayden?" she called a little more pointedly, aiming the words toward the only woman in the entire waiting room.
"Oh. That's me." Rory popped up from her seat, throwing the People magazine onto the end table and walking to the glass window.
"The doctor will see you now."
"Thank you," Rory nodded, and walked through the door the woman gestured to.
"Down the hall and to the left. Room 2."
Rory nodded again, and followed the woman's instructions, fiddling with the hem of her skirt nervously. She walked through the open door and settled into the plastic chair in the corner of the room, eyeing the doctor's table nervously. Before long, a very pleasant looking blonde woman walked in and closed the door behind her.
"Hello. I'm Doctor Joelle."
"I'm Rory Hayden." Rory gave her father's last name—she didn't want Mark to follow her—and shook the woman's outstretched hand.
"Well, Rory, I'm a little puzzled by your impatient attitude. Not a lot of women are as antsy as you seem to be about getting artificially inseminated."
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"Ha! She used my word!" Lorelai exclaimed. "She said antsy! Wait. What? Artificially inseminated?"
Rory nodded.
"So Jess really isn't the father."
"And Mark's not the father, and Tristan's not the father, and the weird men I've met over the past five months are not the father. At least, I don't think so. I like to think that the father is a star on All My Children."
"Ah. Okay. Well, should you continue the story?"
"Do you want to hear about me getting artificially inseminated?"
Lorelai pulled a face. "Maybe, if you could just gloss over it, that'd be great."
"Okay. Well, first of all, before I went to the doctor's office, I took fifteen thousand dollars out of Mark's bank account."
"How did you manage that?"
Rory grinned. "He gave me a joint account right before he started dragging me all over the world. Told me it was spending money. Had thirty thousand dollars in it."
"Dear Lord!"
"Exactly. So I took half of it out of there, and used that to influence the doctors to artificially inseminate me that night. Told nosy Dr. Joelle that I was coming up on my thirtieth birthday and felt the need to have a child before that point in time. She asked if I was married. I told her no; I was gonna do it all on my own. She nodded, told me she didn't think she could do it, but all the more power to me if I could, and knocked me up. She told me to come back in a week to make sure it'd taken, and I said I would."
"A lie."
"A big one. Then I went back to the hotel and was watching The Surreal Life by the time Tristan returned at midnight."
"And then?"
"The next morning, we flew to London."
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"This is it," Tristan announced as he pushed the door to Mark's London apartment open. The lights were off, and it was dark.
"Mark?" Rory asked, pushing past Tristan and walking through the apartment. After a thorough search, she returned to the front foyer and assumed her defensive stance in front of Tristan. Arms crossed, eyes aflame, right foot tapping impatiently on the floor. "Where is he?"
Tristan shrugged. "He didn't say he was going to be here. He just said for you to be here," Tristan pointed at Rory and grinned. "Ta." He started to close the door.
"Tristan!" Rory yelled, shoving her bag into the door and—accidentally on purpose—hitting Tristan in the process. "Where is he?"
Tristan sighed. "I don't know," he answered, really unconvincingly.
"Tristan…" Rory used her warning tone.
Tristan didn't answer, just averted his gaze to the rain hitting the windows in Mark's apartment.
"Tristan!" she yelled again.
"Goddammit! Fine! I'll take you to him!"
"Thank you," Rory said sweetly.
"But we have to go back to New York."
Rory's smile faded and she hit Tristan with her bag again. He held up his hands in defense.
"He's there, I swear! He's got some big meeting. He's supposed to go straight to Virginia when he's through."
"Well, then, let's go to Virginia." Rory led the way to the elevator; Tristan slowly followed her.
"Mark's gonna kill me," he murmured under his breath, pressing the button for the lobby. "Kill me dead."
When they touched down in Virginia many, many hours later, Rory was ready to kill Tristan herself. She practically ran from the plane to the waiting limo—she knew the routine by now—and locked Tristan out of the car.
"The closest Rite-Aid," she told the driver, who nodded and slowly started pulling from his spot. "Hurry!" she commanded as Tristan started banging on her window and yelling curses. The driver obliged, and they were at the nearest Rite-Aid in less than two minutes.
Rory told the driver to wait, and she ran in, bought five home pregnancy tests—all different brands—and ran back out. She took her time stuffing the tests into both of her bags, and then she told the driver to take her back to the airport. Sure enough, Tristan was sitting on a curb, his head in his hands. She leaned out of the door slightly and pulled him in.
He was still surprised ten minutes later, when the driver dropped them in front of a very tall office building.
Only when Tristan saw the office building—their destination—did he snap back.
"What the hell did you do that for, Mary?" he asked.
"I had somewhere I needed to go."
"You don't need to go anywhere that I don't say."
"I don't take orders from you or anybody." Rory said defiantly, walking into the office building and directly into the elevator.
Tristan unknowingly followed her and pressed the button for Mark's floor, still arguing.
"You have to take orders from Mark."
"I don't have to take orders from anybody."
"Mark's your boyfriend."
"So? This is 2007, Tristan. In case you haven't noticed, women are slowly but surely taking over the world. We don't have to take orders from men anymore."
Tristan pouted in the corner of the elevator. The doors opened on floor 27, and Rory continued lecturing him, slowly backing out of the elevator.
"I'm an independent woman, Tristan DuGrey. I have to take orders from no one. I do what I please." She was completely out of the elevator now, and the doors were closing. "Goodbye." She waved as the doors closed. Tristan freaked out and raced to motion in front of the electronic eye, but it was too late. Rory watched in delight as the elevator started its way back to the lobby, but decided she needed to find Mark before it was too late.
"Excuse me, is Mr. Miller here?" Rory asked of one of the many secretaries at the front desk.
The secretary wordlessly pointed behind her, down a corridor, and Rory nodded and walked away. At the very end of the corridor was a closed door with a small nameplate proclaiming, "Mr. Mark Miller" fixed on it. Rory steeled her reserve and pushed the door open.
The office was empty. The desk was piled high with paperwork, and the large desk chair was turned around to face the large window. Rory stepped forward.
"Mark?" she asked.
"No," an oddly familiar voice said. "But close." The chair swung around and there, instead of Mark, sat Jake Miller.
"Jake," Rory said simply.
"Is that any way to greet your boyfriend's brother?" Jake asked, standing to walk to Rory and give her a hug.
"No," she answered, side-stepping his hug. "But since Mark's not my boyfriend anymore, I'd say that's a good way to treat you." Rory turned and stalked back down the hallway, to the elevator.
When the doors opened seconds later, Tristan reached out, grabbed Rory's wrist, and steered her into the small box. "Don't leave me again."
"Don't make me do things I don't want to do again."
"Too bad. We're going to France again."
"I wanna go back to New York."
"France."
"New York."
"France."
"New YORK!" Rory yelled.
Tristan sighed. "New York."
"And get your hands off of me," she commanded, pulling her wrist from his hand.
"You're really annoying, you know that?" Tristan asked.
"Back at ya, asshole."
"That's not nice."
"You're not nice."
"You know what?" Tristan sighed again. "I bet we wouldn't have half as much stress if we just shut up for thirty minutes."
"Deal." Rory said.
