DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Except for any extra names that you don't recognize from the show. . . those I 'created'. Read WHW and JOF to get back story.
AN: I'm looking for a beta for a Trory fall exchange fic, please email me if you can do it. . . thanks! Amy
Davey walked over to where his sister was apart from the rest of the crowd, sitting on the staircase. Anna looked up at him and looked away quickly.
"Hey," he said nonchalantly.
"Hey, Davey."
"What's with the solo act?" he asked, nudging her shoulder with his own as he sat next to her.
"What's with the question act?" she mocked him.
"Come on, you've been weird since you got home. How's school?"
"School's fine, Dave," she sighed.
"Guy troubles?"
"No, Dave," she sighed again, hoping he'd get the point and drop the questions. But older brothers aren't good at letting things go without answers.
He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "I can go get Mom into this," he reminded her.
"Davey, it's nothing. I'm fine."
"You aren't fine. Come on," he said, pulling her up and leading her up the stairs. They went into Luke and Lorelai's room, where all the coats were piled on the bed. When they were little, all the kids would be put up in this bedroom during all the adult parties to play games and watch movies while their parents had the town over. Davey pointed to the bed and motioned for his sister to sit.
"Come on, tell me what is wrong with you," he insisted, his face full of concern.
Anna looked down at her hands in her lap, and moved her ring around on her middle finger. She'd been trying to ignore it herself; she wasn't ready to talk to anyone else about it. Obviously hiding the fact that something was wrong wasn't happening.
"Ann?" he said, sitting next to her.
She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears.
"Guys?" Will's voice came softly from the doorway. He could see he'd obviously interrupted some sort of heavy moment. Anna looked like she might burst into tears at any time, and he'd never seen Davey look so serious. He moved in and sat next to Anna, on her other side.
"What's wrong?"
"Look, guys, when I'm ready to talk about it, I will. I just, can't right now," she pleaded, wiping tears away quickly with her hand.
Davey nodded, and stood up. "Just, come find me if you need me," he said, looking from his sister to his friend before leaving the room and going downstairs to join the mass of people.
Will never moved a muscle; he just waited for Anna to say something else. He wasn't completely sure she wouldn't say something now that Davey was gone. Though the siblings were close, sometimes Anna felt more comfortable telling Will things. They'd known each other their entire lives.
"Anna, why didn't you tell me what was going on? I've talked to you four times in the last week, and you haven't mentioned anything," he reminded her.
"Will—I," she started to talk, but the tears caught up with her. She began to cry harder, her shoulders visibly shaking. Will moved to put an arm around her and she turned to bury her face in his shoulder. He moved a hand over her back soothingly, letting her cry. If he'd learned anything from his father, it was to be quiet and let women cry. Nothing he could say would help, and patting their backs was much more effective in comforting them. Bree always told him that he was the best at comforting girls, and she always felt safe with him. He quickly squelched the feeling of anger he felt for even letting himself think of her.
"I can't even believe what happened," she managed, before the tears came again.
Downstairs, Lorelai was passing out the chocolate turkeys to all the 'kids', including Rory, Tristan, Erin and Jess. Luke called from the kitchen not to hand them out now and ruin appetites, but it was too late. She walked back into the kitchen, holding the empty paper bag upside down.
"Whoops," she said, holding her free hand up to her mouth.
Luke gave her a stern look, and she shook her head as she walked up to him.
"You don't understand, they attacked me, they demanded the chocolate, then they tore the bag out of my hands, screaming, 'Give us Chocolate Turkeys or give us Death!'!" she began to explain.
"Uh-huh," he shook his head at her, drawing her close to him.
"Rory started it. You know, you'd think being a mother would make her more mature, a good influence, but man," she smiled at her husband.
"It must be nice," Luke mused, throwing Lorelai into confusion at the look on his face.
"What must be nice?" she asked hesitantly.
"Living in your reality," he kissed her cheek. She swatted at him, but he caught her around the waist.
"Oh, but honey, you do," she laughed with him.
Tristan walked out the front door to find Rory sitting alone with a cup of coffee. She had one leg drawn up to her chest, the other hanging down loosely scraping the wood underneath her.
"Where'd you get coffee?" he asked, sitting down next to her.
"We're at Lorelai's. There's always coffee. Especially since Luke moved in," she smiled, taking another sip.
"Everyone else is inside," he leaned back, allowing her to scoot over and use his chest as a pillow to rest against.
"I know, it's nice to get a breather before ingesting all that food," she reminded him. He knew from all these years of marriage that holidays didn't just include food—they were more like marathon eating events. The men had no chance, as the Gilmore women could put even the biggest man to shame.
"Why are you really out here?" he asked, taking her cup from her to take a drink of the warm liquid himself.
"I was thinking about Ella," she admitted.
"What about her?"
"College."
"We haven't heard anything yet, that's normal," he reminded her. "It's early."
"I know, but did you see where she applied?"
"I was there when you checked through her envelopes, yes," he reminded her.
"I wanted to make sure Yale was in the mix," Rory said sheepishly.
"It won't be the end of the world if she doesn't go to Yale."
"You really want her to be all the way in North Carolina?"
"It's not that far—and we could go visit her, have some fun of our own," he wrapped his arm tighter around her, causing her to smile knowingly.
"How you make where our kid goes to college about us having sex, I will never understand," she giggled.
"Ah, as long as it works," he smiled.
"But what if she--," Rory started again.
"Hey, she'll be fine. She's a smart kid," he reminded her.
"Yeah," Rory agreed.
"Ready to go back in?"
"Do we have to?"
"Well, I'm on fatherly duty. Did you see how Billy was looking at Ella?" he turned to see what he could see through the living room windows.
Rory giggled. "Billy Melville? Tristan, come on," she sighed.
"What? It's true!" he insisted.
"Just, be quiet and kiss me," she said, moving his face gently with her hand, and guided it to her lips.
Inside, amidst all the chatter and craziness, Lia and Jules were hanging out in Will's old room, as the food still wasn't ready. Jules hadn't spent as much time with the Melville clan as Jess and Erin really only came up to Stars Hollow with the kids for special occasions—graduations, weddings, funerals and holidays. Her dad came up a lot to have the occasional dinner with Luke, or to meet up with Will, but she and Ambrose spent a lot more time with Ella and Jake. They all attended the same school in the city, and though they weren't blood related (except sort of by Will) Rory and Jess acted like brother and sister, so they had always referred to Rory as their aunt. Lia was someone she'd always known, but as they were both now teenagers in high school, they finally had something in common.
"So, what's your school like?" Lia asked Jules. Though two years old than her, she was impressed at the school the New York kids got to attend.
Jules shrugged. "It's okay," she played with the spine of her book.
"It has to be amazing—much better than Stars Hollow High."
"It's just a bunch of rich kids in uniforms," Jules told her.
"But to get to go to a private school—everyone's there to learn and uniforms means no one judges you based on your clothes," Lia pointed out.
Jules gave a stifled laugh, "Yeah, except most of the kids that go there are forced to by their parents, who also went there or to a school just like it, and since the clothes are the same, you're judged by what kind of car you drive and who gave the best party," she informed the other girl.
"But you don't have a car," she said.
"I'm not that popular at school," she pointed out.
"What about Ambrose?"
"He hangs out with Jake, and a few other guys. They have their own clique, but they aren't stuck up or anything. They're into books and they do obnoxious things sometimes," she explained.
"Like what?"
"Like taking apart teachers' cars and reassembling them in the lunch room, changing out the school flag to one with an anarchy symbol, stupid stuff."
"Nice," Lia commented.
"Stuff like that happens here, though, too right?"
"Well, on a smaller scale. People usually trying to piss off Kirk Gleason," she giggled. Kirk, who had become town magistrate after Taylor Doose passed away a few years ago, tried to uphold all of Taylor's rulings of the town. This includes overseeing uniform grass height, running town meetings, creating more reasons to have town festivals.
"So, what do you think of Jake?" Lia asked Jules, after a lull in the conversation.
"Jake Dugrey?"
"Yeah," Lia nodded, wondering what other Jake they could both know.
"I don't know, I guess I never thought about it, I mean he's just one of my brother's friends," she informed her.
"Wanna know a secret?" Lia leaned closer to Jules.
"Of course," she leaned closer too.
"My brother has a crush on Ella," she giggled.
"Oh, God, good luck to him," she rolled her eyes. "I like Ella, but she's way out of his league. I mean, she runs with the most popular kids in New York," she explained.
"Yeah, I've told him to give that dream up, he's been in love with her since we were tiny," she let her giggling taper off.
"Well, that's so not going to happen," Jules agreed.
"FOOD!" came Luke's booming voice from the kitchen. Jules and Lia jumped up, as they were right off the kitchen in bedroom and joined the whole bunch that was slowly making their way in to graze for the first time over the tons of good food.
Lorelai looked over the crowd, making sure everyone was accounted for and getting food. She realized Rory, Tristan, Will and Anna were MIA. She smiled as Rory came in the front door, wrapped happily around Tristan. They walked past her and grabbed plates, as she heard Jess make a comment to make way as the reigning eating champion was stepping up to bat. She herself only made her way to the end of the line as she saw Will and Anna coming down the stairs.
"Hey, you two!" she smiled warmly. "I had chocolate turkeys for you, but Ambrose and Jake bought me off," she joked.
"Gee, thanks, Mom. Where's the love?" he joked back as he gave his mother a big hug. Will wasn't the biggest hugger, taking after his father, but he was more inclined to do it with Lorelai. Will had always been a bit of a momma's boy. Not to the effect of being annoying, but it was always her he went to when he was truly upset or hurt.
"Well, I might have an extra one stashed in my nightstand," she said, hugging her son back.
"That's the mom I love," he let go of her and they moved to grab plates next to the others whose plates were being mounded down with turkey (baked, not fried,), potatoes (sweet and mashed), cranberry sauce (two kinds—fancy homemade from Sookie and out of a can from Luke) and every other holiday food known to man. Including Jackson at the other end of the buffet, cutting into his homemade zucchini bread.
AN2: Sorry about the speed of updating! I have been thinking about this story at work, but I have no way of writing anything down at work! The good news is we're moving into the new house next week, and everything will be getting back to normal soon, and I can write more regularly. Hope you enjoyed this installment!