This is completely original. My first Gilmore Girls fic that started as a Gilmore Girls fic, actually. I'm not converting this into any fandom and it's staying here. GG forever... I think.
So anyway, on with the show. It's set after season three, but Rory and Lorelai didn't go to Europe. They stayed in Stars Hollow all summer.
This will be Lit with some JJ thrown in.
Furthest I've Ever Gone
The wind whipped through the gazebo, picking up flakes of dust and blowing them into her face. She closed her eyes tightly to shield them from the salty dirt and tapped a finger to her book to keep it closed. It was unusually cool for summer in Connecticut, but she didn't mind. It was a wonderful reprieve from the scalding days thus far that month.
The gust started to fade, faltering into a soft breeze and she repositioned herself on the bench, moving her foot out from underneath her to instead lay bended behind her. She turned the page of her book, realizing it was the last and read over the familiar lines.
"Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions."
The Old Man and the Sea.
Since summer had begun, she'd read the book seven times. She'd promised someone, weeks before, someone gone now, that she'd give Hemingway another chance. And so she was.
With one book. That was the stipulation and so it was chosen, The Old Man and the Sea. She'd told that someone which and he'd laughed and said it figured that she'd choose a short one and she argued that the reason she'd chosen it was because it wasn't a love story. She'd said she wouldn't dare read a love story by a man who'd been married four times and for all intents and purposes, was a raging nymphomaniac. Never one to back down, he argued that in correct usage nymphomaniac was actually used to describe a [i]woman's[/i] sexual desires and he'd teased her and told her subconsciously she knew that and she was just trying to drop him hints.
She'd elbowed him in the stomach and he'd laughed harder and they continued on talking about Hemingway.
He'd called his writing brilliance, beautiful simplicity.
She'd said there was nothing beautiful about it. His simplicity made his writing unfeeling.
And so she said they should agree to disagree because he couldn't change her mind, but nor could she his.
He refused and told her that maybe he couldn't change her mind, but he was hell bent on trying.
And so there she was, sitting cross-legged now in the white belvedere in the center of town, watching as Taylor yelled at Kirk for dropping the baby Jesus doll they were using in the Nativity scene for the annual Christmas in July festival. She watched as Kirk bent down to pick up the doll and his face crunched as he felt a slight tear in his costume. He looked to his foot and saw his own shoe holding the fabric down and he lifted it quickly as if he'd been burned, turning away slowly from Taylor's back. She laughed unceremoniously, the first sound she figured she'd made in hours and watched him with deeper interest as he begged Miss Patty to fix it as soon as she could. She saw Miss Patty smile in oblivious delight, promising Kirk she would and walking over to Taylor to show him the tear.
Unable to stand being an outsider a second longer, to feel refused in her own hometown, she opened her backpack and slipped her book inside before walking over to the excitement of the festival preparations. As she got closer to the sounds, to the goings on of the town square, she smiled, her eyes bright and warm and comforted because the closer she was to everyone, the more blanketed she felt.
She knew of people who tried so hard to escape shelter, to run from it and rebel against what they knew to be safe, but Rory Gilmore knew she'd never be one of those people.
She'd take chances and she'd think freely, but she'd never estrange herself from Stars Hollow. She'd never not be home in that tiny square.
She walked up the sidewalk to Luke's, smiling wider at the sight of he and Taylor fighting over who the patch of cement in front of the diner belonged to. Her eyes widened just slightly as Luke agreed that the space belonged Taylor and that he could, he in fact, should park an old fashioned ice cream cart in front of his diner, suggesting that it should be a big enough one to even block the sign on his diner. And she laughed derisively as Taylor's own eyes widened and he asked "really?"
She pushed the door open to the diner just as Luke shouted "no" and she saw Lane at the counter, ordering some oatmeal cookies. She tapped her shoulder and Lane turned, her mouth occupied around a rim of coffee. She swallowed heavily, her gulp almost resounding in the room and explained the cookies Rory knew she hated, "My mother somehow decided she wanted to see the band play and since she's also somehow convinced herself that all they play is hymns even though I explained it to her a dozen times, she's insisted that we bring these for the boys."
Rory nodded her head slowly, her mind conjuring up a blurry image of Mrs. Kim's face as she watched Dave and the guys play rock music. She laughed just slightly, the corner of her lip turning in and stole a cookie from the tray.
"Hey, how about you come with us?"
Her head snapped at Lane's tone, a tone that even though she should've been, she still wasn't prepared for. That sympathetic tone, that pty tone, that I-have-a-boyfriend-and-you-don't tone.
"I'm done wallowing, Lane. You don't have to keep inviting me out."
Lane's eyes crossed and she tried to backtrack and Rory pressed a hand to her arm, her eyes locking with hers to let her know it was alright. Lane's eyes stayed ashamed though and so Rory met them once again and whispered their code, "Really and truly."
It was a system they developed a long time ago in their friendship. When they were really okay about a fight or a disagreement, they'd say to those words to alleviate any guilt from the other. If they didn't, the wound was still gaping and they knew it was time to grovel.
Lane smiled, pushing her glasses up in that cute way she never noticed she had and grabbed the plate of cookies off the counter. "I mean it though, come. Not for whatever reason, but to just see the band. And my mother's face."
Stealing another cookie, she told her only half serious though it was likely, "And perhaps yours for the last time once your mother sees what kind of boyfriend you have."
Lane giggled, a sound she made more often that she'd admit and she twisted a ring on her finger because she knew it was likely too.
Rory stole one more cookie and softened her gaze to Lane, "She'll understand. She likes Dave, remember? He read the bible."
Lane's eyes brightened at the memory and her sigh was something between relief and giddiness because even after all her talk of being done wallowing, she knew couldn't say in front of Rory how happy she was with Dave.
But Rory knew because Rory always knew and they flashed each other smiles; Lane's telling Rory she was happy and Rory's telling her she was glad.
A loud pierce broke through their reverie and Lane smiled in that guilty way and called back, "Coming Mama!"
"Anyway, I gotta go. Think about coming, okay?" And without waiting for the answer she wouldn't get, Lane left the diner and Rory turned to the counter to finally order.
Amidst her conversation, she hadn't noticed Luke had reentered the diner and when he said hello to her, she stole a quick look outside wondering if maybe he'd morphed in.
"Hey Luke, can I have two coffees?"
Luke muttered something under his breath about how her mother had corrupted a good child and asked, "None for your mom?"
"She's at Sookie's." She answered and grabbed a donut from the plate, lifting it up for him to see so he could add it. He nodded his head, turning around cosmically as he Caesar handed him her two coffees. She balanced the donut underneath her chin, uncaring to the fact that she was dirtying her new blouse with powder and reached into her pocket for her wallet.
Luke laughed as he lidded her coffees and put them in a small brown bag for her. He came back to the counter as she continued to struggle and quickly grabbed the donut before it slipped from her chin. She thanked him, finally getting her wallet out and frowned at the waste it was to get it when he said, "On the house."
She thanked him again anyway though and left the diner, his eyes following her the way they'd been for the past month. She wanted to say it was his feelings for her mother that made him so concerned, she wanted to say it was the guilt he felt because it was his nephew that hurt her, but she knew it was because while perhaps not biologically, Luke was her father. And he loved her.
And she loved him too.
She walked through the square again, hiking her backpack higher on her shoulder as she walked. She saw Lindsay then, walking on the opposite side of the street and though she didn't know why, she was compelled to wave and she did. Lindsay waved back, her smile friendlier than it should've been and she supposed that Dean never told her exactly what they'd gone through together.
She stepped off the curb and turned onto her block, watching as Babette chased Morey down their drive. She looked to her feet and saw Apricot, who she assumed Morey was chasing and picked him up.
His little claws clung to her blouse, his whiskers tickling her ear as she swallowed her coffee. She walked past the big oak tree on the lawn of her neighbor, Roy and waved a hand to Babette once she was sure she was in her view.
She and her mother had long ago decided that the tree was a conspiracy Roy had created to spy on neighbors because you could see the whole block from behind it, but the branches kept you hidden from everyone else's view. And when Luke had commented that if he wanted to spy, he could just get binoculars, her mother had added him to her list of suspicious townsfolk, stating that he must have known whence he spoke.
Babette finally saw her and yelled to Morey that she'd found her. She met her at the end of the drive and gave Apricot back and she rolled her eyes in the slightest way as Babette yelled that she'd "found her baby."
Morey offered her a dollar for the find, and Babette hit his arm, asking "Is that all our precious baby is worth to you?" He shrugged a shoulder and she turned to Rory, "We'll give ya ten, sugar."
Rory shook her head, refusing the reward and bid them goodbye.
She stepped up the front steps of her house, mentally noting to herself for what must've been the tenth time to tell her mother that the doorbell wasn't working. She'd noticed it last week when after waiting for an hour for her food, she called Sandeeps and was told they'd been by and no one answered. She'd promised herself then that she'd tell her mother and she continued to do so the past ten or so times she'd walked up the porch stairs.
She opened the door and heard the television in the living room and assumed it must've been on volume twelve. As the thought struck her, she realized she watched way too much TV and she shook her head while walking into the room. Her mother sat on the couch, her legs tucked underneath her.
"What are you doing home?" She sat down next to her, flipping her feet onto the coffee table and begrudgingly handing her mother her second coffee.
"Hey Mommy, so glad you're here," Lorelai stuck her tongue between her teeth as she smiled at the coffee and leaned deeper into the couch, complete.
"Hey Mommy, so glad you're here. Now why are you?" She grabbed the cup back for a quick sip and Lorelai sat up alarmed, her face not dissimilar to someone who'd perhaps been burgled.
She handed the coffee back and turned her face to the television as Audrey Hepburn asked George Peppard, [i]"Gracious, do you think she's handsomely pale?"[/I]
She felt a shift on the couch and stole a look to her mother as she leaned forward on the couch, her face scrunched, "Gracious, do you think Audrey has a weird nose?"
She turned her attention back to the screen and inspected the body part in question herself. "I don't know, do you?"
Lorelai stood up and walked around the coffee table to sit in front of the screen. She turned her head sideways and asked, "I don't know, does Steve Martin's in Roxeanne still look big in comparison?"
"Oh yeah."
Her mother stood up and walked back to the couch. "Guess she doesn't."
She conceded her mother's thought, but after a moment, she thought about it again and leaned forward on her elbows. "It's a little long and thin."
"Like the witch!" Lorelai shouted and she thought for a moment that her mother really must've corrupted a good child because she knew exactly what she meant.
"It all makes sense now. I mean, she did Wait Until Dark and was still respected enough to do Always," Her mother nodded, completing her thought.
"You know there must've been some witchy stuff going on for that."
She leaned into her mother, getting a better angle of Audrey's nose. "Not quite Margaret Hamilton when you look at it this way."
Her mother stole her position and squinted her eyes, "Yeah, she's definitely not the witch from this angle."
"Well, then who [i]does[/I] she look like?" She sat back again, supposing that maybe distance from the screen would help her relate the resemblance.
"Not Jennifer Love Hewett," was Lorelai's only offer.
They each took another moment to stare, twisting their head to different angles and finally her mother just decided that Audrey looked like Audrey and Rory, who'd suggested that maybe their brains were too filled with pop culture to contain anymore knowledge of it, agreed, tired of the conversation.
And the movie, she realized as they flipped the channel as George Peppard nearly mugged some lookalike in the movie. And as the channel changed, her mother burst out, "That's who she looks like! The lookalike in the movie."
And finally, the mystery was solved.
They settled on Weekend At Bernie's, a less complex movie, they decided. They positioned themselves on the couch for the last time, Lorelai resting her back against the cushion and Rory relaxed with her head on her mother's lap.
Lorelai ran a lazy finger through Rory's hair and the inexplicable connection she and her mother shared sparked and suddenly the weight of both of their days was lifted.
But then, out of the corner of her eye, Rory took notice of the seventeen magazine cluttered on their rocker andshe recognized it as the special edition issue her mother had bought her that highlighted prom dresses.
And then, quick as it had burned, the spark of her mother's love was suddenly extinguished because no matter how strong her mother was, she couldn't lift the weight of her Rory's heart.
She couldn't make her miss him less.