Title: Rory Gilmore, This Is Your Life!
Chapter 17: Don't You Know
Summary: Road trip! Whoo-hoo! Jersey, D.C., and Boston! Par-tay!
Disclaimer: I don't own diddly-squat.
Distribution: Yay! I love distribution!
A/N: Ooh! Flashbacks! This time, both people remember it! And it's a happy flashback!! And it's some Rory/Greg development! Yay!
This chapter was kind of hard to write, and I almost didn't write it, but I felt I owed it to you guys to get it out as soon as possible.
I was gonna get it out before the movie I made with my friends, but that was Friday and Saturday, so it doesn't look like I made it.
I was also gonna get it out before finals, but instead I decided to study for one day of exams and then write this chapter for you instead of studying for my worst exam!!
Anyway, after tomorrow there's no more school! And I can finish the story! I already know how it ends!
I am so cool.
~~~~
Rory hung up her cell phone and looked at Greg in shock. "They can't find her."
"Don't worry, sweetie, I'm sure she's not far away. You and Lane get together, you can find her in twenty seconds flat." Greg wrapped an arm around Rory, who nodded and leaned into him.
"Who's Paris?" Todd asked.
"She's gone?" Nicole asked at the same time, both shocking Greg and Rory from their thoughts.
"I…gotta go find her." Rory said, looking up at Greg, who nodded.
"I'll take care of the love bird twins. You and Lane do whatever you have to do…call me when you have real plans."
"Okay. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Rory kissed Greg quickly and started walking to the Inn. Greg watched after her for a few moments, smiling, and then turned to the other two with a scowl.
"You two. Don't you know that you never make out in public?"
Nicole blushed and looked away, while Todd grinned.
~~~~
"Rory!" Lane yelled as Rory walked into the lobby of the Inn. The girls ran to each other, and Lane started spewing information.
"I asked Carla, and she said she saw Paris run out of here not long after she ran in. She was swinging her car keys around and muttering about how she was going to live her life, just like everyone seemed to be living theirs."
"That's weird."
"Yeah, I thought so at first too, but I've had time to think about it, and I think it has something to do with our hellos to Dave and Greg earlier."
"Ohhhhh." Rory nodded. "Ooh! I know where she is! Or, at least, where we can go to find where she is."
"Where?"
"We have to drive a couple hours to look up a certain someone."
"Ooh!" Lane smiled as she realized what Rory was getting at. "Whaddya think, overnight?"
Rory glanced at her watch. "Yeah, probably. It's already after six."
"Okay. I'll go pack a suitcase for me and Dave."
"Aw, I can't wait to have that. One suitcase for me and my husband."
"It's great, but you've only got a little longer to wait."
"I know." Rory grinned, and Lane ran up the stairs, yelling at Dave to come up as soon as he could. Rory looked around and noticed Dave standing at the front counter, apparently trying to get information from Carla. Rory walked over.
"And then she…." Dave waited for Carla to finish the sentence.
"Ran away," Carla repeated as slowly as she could. She'd already said it about twenty times, but Dave refused to believe that Carla didn't know any more.
"Dave," Rory said as a greeting, placing her hand gently on his arm. He turned to her.
"Hey. I'm just trying to get information out of Ms. Closed Mouth over here," he gestured to Carla, who stuck her tongue out at his back. Rory smiled.
"You know what? I don't think she knows anything else. But I do know where we can find Paris. Or at least, where we can find someone who might know where Paris is."
"Oh, really? Where?"
"It's an overnight trip. Lane's packing your bag right now, and she was just screaming for you to get up to the room as quickly as you could. So that, you know, you could take what you wanted to take on the trip, not just Lane."
"Ooh!" Dave ran from Rory and took the stairs three at a time, screaming, "Lane! I want my guitar!"
Rory turned to Carla. "Excuse me, Carla, when Lane and Dave come down, can you tell them to meet me at home?"
"Uh-huh," Carla nodded, popped her gum, and returned to the computer.
"Uh-huh," Rory repeated. She nodded also and left the Inn.
~~~~
Rory walked up the steps to the porch at her mother's house.
Luke and Lorelai jumped apart.
Rory opened the door.
Lorelai combed her fingers through her hair; Luke found his baseball cap under the coffee table.
"Mom!" Rory yelled.
Lorelai gestured that Luke had lipstick on his cheek; he tried to wipe it off. She finally rolled her eyes and wiped it off with her thumb.
"Mom!" Rory yelled again.
"Living room!" Lorelai yelled back. Luke jumped off of the couch and turned to leave.
"Oh," Rory said as she ran almost directly into Luke. "Hi."
"Hi. I was just leaving. I brought Nicole's purse…wallet…thing. It's on the table." Luke pointed and walked out of the house the door closing behind him.
"O-kay," Rory said hesitantly. She opened her mouth to explain to her mother about Paris when Luke walked back into the house.
"Bye, Lorelai," he said, standing next to Rory in the entranceway to the living room.
"Bye, Luke," Lorelai smiled. Luke smiled back, nodded to Rory, and left once again. Rory turned to her mother and raised her eyebrows. Lorelai shrugged.
"Paris. 'Dya find her?"
Rory shook her head. "We're going on a road trip—Lane and Dave and I. What was all that about?"
"All what?" Lorelai asked innocently.
"Luke. He walked back into the house…just to say goodbye?"
Lorelai shrugged. "He must have missed me."
"Mom."
"I don't know."
Rory stared at her mother for a second, and then finally shrugged herself.
"Fine. Don't tell me. I'm gonna pack—hopefully Lane and Dave will be here soon, and then we're gonna leave."
"Okay, sweetie."
"Yeah." Rory nodded, stared at her mother for another second, and then wandered into her room to pack.
~~~~
"Okay, so I have no idea where we're going, and since I have no idea where we're going, I have no idea how long it's going to take, so I thought I'd bring my copy of Entertainment Weekly's Great American Pop Culture Quiz, just to see how much your mother has really ruined you." Lane said as Rory climbed into the Rygalskis' car a few minutes later.
Dave groaned. Lane glared at him.
"Hey, now, you can't groan, you're the one who brought it."
Dave nodded. "Yeah, that's true."
Rory smiled from the backseat as Lane rolled her eyes.
"You are so annoying."
"You are."
"You are."
"You are."
"Okay! Question number one, oh annoying husband of mine. 'On Friends, how many times has Ross been married? And who were his wives?' Hah! Answer that!"
"Easy. Three—Carol Willick, Emily Waltham, and Rachel Green." Dave smiled at Lane, who frowned.
"How do you know that?"
Dave blushed slightly. "Guilty pleasure."
"Your guilty pleasure is Friends. How do I not know that?"
"You don't pay attention."
"I pay attention. I pay plenty of attention. I know every single chord you ever wrote for the band."
"That's paying attention to the band, not to me."
"I think it's basically the same."
"Oh, no, it's not the same. It's certainly not the same. I'm Dave. The band is the band. That includes you, Lane."
"Yeah, but still. My husband's guilty pleasure is Friends, and I didn't know that. I feel bad now."
"Don't feel bad; I've basically been hiding it from you."
Lane gasped. "You've been hiding things from me?"
"Just that."
"We're married! You're not supposed to hide anything from me."
"It's just Friends."
"It's not just Friends!"
"Hey, Lane? I'm back here." Rory pointed out.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry, Ror."
"'S okay. Just a domestic squabble."
Lane and Dave looked at each other and burst into laughter.
"A domestic squabble!"
"It sounds so…ridiculous," Lane tried to explain to the very confused Rory.
"Okay…" Rory said hesitantly.
"Yeah. It is weird. You know what? I think we should go back to the quiz."
"That's probably a good idea." Rory said.
"Mmm, before we get into that, I just have one question, Rory."
"Shoot."
"Where are we going?"
"Oh! Right. You don't know. New Jersey. Princeton, New Jersey, to be exact."
"Lemme guess: to go visit Princeton University?" Dave asked.
"Exactly," Rory nodded.
~~~~
An hour later, the magazine and pop culture quiz had been thrown to the floor of the car and all three adults were sitting in comfortable silence, listening to the radio.
"And that was Joseph's Return, with 'Love: Fiction or Fact?' Coming up next, 'We're All Light', by XTC."
"Ahh!" Rory yelled, sitting up straighter in the back seat.
"What? What?" Lane asked semi-frantically.
"Turn up the radio, it's our song!"
"Oh," Lane obliged, and Rory started singing along.
"Don't you know,
'bout a zillion years ago
Some star sneezed
Now they're paging you in reception
Don't you know,
Jack and Jillion years ago
Some dinosaur dropped the pail
When it saw our reflectionDon't you know we're all light?
Yeah I read that someplace
Don't you know we're all light?
Yeah I read that someplace
So you won't mind if I kiss you now
Before indecision can bite
Don't you know, in this new Dark Age
We're all light."
"Tell the story," Lane pleaded as Andy Partridge started in on the second verse.
"Okay," Rory agreed. "Well, I was dating Todd…."
**********
"Hello? Todd? Are you here?" Rory asked as she entered his apartment. He'd called her the day before, asking her to meet him at his apartment, but she'd been busy, and this was the earliest she'd been able to get away.
He hadn't answered when the doorman had buzzed up, but someone had assented to Rory coming up…she just wasn't sure who.
"Todd? Hell—oh!" Rory walked into the living room and got a shock. Todd wasn't home after all, but someone certainly was.
"Ms. Gilmore," Greg said menacingly from his seat at a desk in Todd's living room.
Rory groaned at the thought of having to hear another dumb ass explanation from Greg Adams, Todd's stupid PR manager.
"Mr. Adams," she smiled through her teeth. "Is Todd here?"
"No."
Oh, here it comes, Rory thought. "Why not?" she asked out loud.
Greg shrugged. "Still in Kuwait, I suppose."
"Oh. You don't know?"
"Nope."
"But…he called me yesterday."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Yes," Greg corrected automatically. Rory smiled the way that people who are trying to be patient—but are almost failing—smile.
"Yes, Candice Bergen."
"Miss Congeniality." Greg automatically said. Rory paused. Had he just gotten her cultural reference?
"Uh, that's right."
"I know." Greg grinned. Rory groaned inwardly as the momentarily cool Greg left and the absolutely egotistical conceited Greg returned.
Rory gave a disgusted sigh and walked over to the desk Greg was sitting at. Immediately Greg freaked and imagined that she was going to slap him or something, and so he tensed up.
"Relax," she half-smiled, rolling her eyes. "I'm just going to turn on the stereo." Her hand reached to the large knob that turned on Todd's deluxe stereo—with speakers spread all around his apartment. Greg grabbed her wrist.
"No, I don't want to listen to music right now."
"Too bad, it's my boyfriend's apartment."
"And he's not here right now," Greg shot back.
"But he asked me to be here."
"I don't think he did." Greg shook his head and released Rory's wrist.
"Well, then…who did?"
Greg looked up from his work slightly, staring at the wall before turning to Rory. "Have you told people that you're dating?"
Rory bit her lip in thought, and eventually nodded.
"See! It was obviously just someone pretending to be Todd, hoping to lure you here."
"Okay, I'll give you that," Rory said reluctantly, crossing her arms across her chest. "But why did you buzz me up?"
Greg ducked his head and blushed slightly. After a few moments of silence he spun around on his chair.
"Okay! What did you want to listen to?" he asked cheerfully, ignoring Rory's question.
"I've been on an XTC kick lately," Rory said. Greg nodded and started searching through Todd's desk drawers, which were full to the brim with CDs.
"Why did you buzz me up?" Rory asked again as Greg stood and slid a CD into the stereo.
Greg remained silent and focused on the stereo.
"And I won't take from you
Don't you know,
'bout a zillion years ago
Some star sneezed
Now they're paging you in reception," XTC sang.
"Greg?" Rory asked.
He groaned, muttered, "What the hell?" and spun around.
"Cause I wanted to."
"Oh," Rory said, strangely happy. She glanced away from Greg, and then back.
"Don't you know we're all light?
Yeah I read that someplace
So you won't mind if I kiss you now
Before indecision can bite."
Rory and Greg smiled, and then mutually leaned in for a mutually initiated kiss.
And Rory didn't even run.
*******
"So romantic," Lane grinned. "We're All Light" was long over, but Rory was still in an 'our-song' induced cloud of happiness.
"I agree," Dave said. "You guys are good for each other."
"Why, thank you, Dave."
"You're welcome, Rory."
"Number 28," Lane said suddenly, picking up the magazine again.
~~~~
"Here we are, Princeton," Dave proclaimed as he pulled the car into a prime spot in front of Princeton's Administration Building. "What are we doing here?"
"Looking up Jamie. I'll be right back." Rory bolted from the car and ran into the building.
"Didn't Jamie graduate…a long time ago?" Dave asked.
"Yep." Lane nodded.
"Is she expecting him to still be there?"
"I think she's gonna ask the alumni group where she can reach him."
"Ohhh. That makes sense."
Lane shook her head. "You know, sometimes I wonder why I married you."
Dave raised his eyebrows at her.
"And then I compare you to Brian and Zach, and I marvel at how intelligent you can be."
Dave laughed.
Rory walked out of the admin building, happily waving a piece of paper around.
"Wow, that was fast." Lane commented as Rory walked to the car and slid in the backseat.
"I know, but all I did was walk in there, tell them I needed to know where Jamie was, and then, when they wouldn't tell me, I yelled about how his daughter was waiting in the car to meet her father, could they hurry this up a little?"
"Rory!"
"It was a fabulous performance, if I do say so myself."
"So, where is he?" Dave asked.
"Uh," Rory consulted her paper, "he's working in a Senator's office in D.C."
"Okay. D.C…here we come!" Dave put the car into gear, and the group rode out of Princeton University. They got as far as a block away before Lane made Dave pull over, so they could get a hotel for the night.
~~~~
"About our 'finding Paris' plan," Rory started over breakfast the next morning. "I think we need to revise it."
"Oh, really? How so?" Lane asked.
"Well, I was thinking about it last night, and Paris doesn't seem like the type to run to a boy."
"Paris doesn't seem like the type to run, period." Dave said.
"Well, yeah, but I think if she were to run, she wouldn't run to a boy."
"Where would she run?" Lane asked.
"A college."
"Boston." Lane said immediately.
"Harvard." Rory nodded.
"Biscuits!" Dave exclaimed, heaping some on his plate.
~~~~
"Five hours…it's gonna be five hours," Lane complained as they got into the car an hour later.
"Yeah…but they'll be a fun five hours, won't they?" Rory asked.
"I dunno. I think you guys should just leave me on the side of the road to die somewhere."
"Lane," Rory scolded.
"No, not really. I guess. You wanna leave me in Stars Hollow when we pass through?"
"Actually, according to my calculations," Dave started. Lane snorted. Dave shot her a look, and continued, "if we bypass Stars Hollow, we can get to Harvard in under five hours. Maybe under four."
Lane smiled and threw her arms around Dave. "I knew there was a reason I loved you."
Dave grinned and started the car.
~~~~
"If I were Paris…." Rory said to herself as she, Lane, and Dave got out of the car in Boston.
"Hey…this is more of an 'ultimate, weird competitive best friends' thing, and I'm not the 'ultimate, weird competitive best friend' type, so I'm taking Dave to see sights. Meet you back here in an hour?" Lane asked.
"Sure. Thanks, Lane."
"No problem. I understand. Well, you know, sorta. That's why I'm stealing Dave away."
Rory laughed. "Right. See you in an hour."
"Bye!" Lane waved and dragged Dave away. Rory watched them go and then started walking.
Before long, she passed through the same entranceway she and her mother had walked through ten years ago, after Lorelai had left Max. As she walked, Rory contemplated her upcoming nuptials, stirred by the memories she had of her mother and Max.
Lorelai and Max had been close…the closest out of anyone Rory could remember, both before and since—excluding Christopher, because he was Lorelai's sore spot, was and still is.
But Lorelai and Max had been close. Close enough for marriage—or so everyone, including both Rory and Lorelai thought. And Lorelai had loved Max, she'd told Rory that.
So what had happened? Rory wasn't sure, but she did know that Lorelai had been dateless for a while after the ending of Max, so he'd obviously made some kind of impact.
But then, Lorelai got over him. And next came…a smattering of not-there dates, and then Alex, who came quickly, and stayed for a while, but eventually just faded out. More not-there dates, eventually culminating in the Lorelai Gilmore of today—alone at home, only her daughter's wedding to look forward to.
Rory felt a little sad that her mother's dating life seemed to be over at forty-three.
~~~~
"Here I go, off to Luke's. For coffee. Just for coffee," Lorelai tried to convince herself as she walked the streets of Stars Hollow. "I have no interest in Luke. None at all. Well, except as a coffee-provider."
Lorelai stopped in the big picture window of Luke's. She saw him running around the diner, refilling coffee cups, wiping down tables. And then he stopped, noticed her. He smiled, and waved slightly. She grinned back and started to walk in.
~~~~
Rory slowly continued making her way through the campus, eventually finding her way into a hallway lined with photographs of former Harvard valedictorians. A lone person was in the hallway, staring at a picture. Rory smiled slightly as she walked over to the girl.
"Paris." She nodded, and stood next to her friend, staring at the photo of the valedictorian of 2007.
"That should have been me." Paris said softly, waving at the picture.
"That was you, Paris. Just a different school. Believe me, you made a bigger splash at Yale then you ever would have made here. Besides," Rory continued, smiling bigger, "if you'd gone here, we wouldn't have been roommates."
"God, I remember when we found that out," Paris half-laughed. "I wanted to kill you."
"Me, too. I threatened to move out a thousand times."
"But you never did."
"Nope. Four years, we were roommates."
"And by the end of the four years…"
"We were best friends."
"Forever."
"Or at least four years."
"I think we'll still be friends in twenty years."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Just as long as you continue to understand me like you do." Paris gestured at the wall of valedictorians.
"Don't worry. I think I will."
Paris smiled, and Rory smiled back.
"You wanna get back?"
"Yeah, I think I do." Paris nodded, and both girls started out of the building.