CHAPTER 14: Scene in a Diner
"Didn't I tell you not to grow anymore without me?"
"Well I tried but..." she said smiling at her dad. Chris turned round to Lorelai who had stood up to greet him.
"Hey Chris" Lorelai said smiling as they kissed each other on the cheek and hugged. Christopher held on for a bit longer than natural, he felt like since she had broken up with Luke that they had another chance for something great. She noticed it too but she liked that he was here to see Rory come home and his presence had always brought some level of comfort to her.
"Sorry I wasn't here earlier but the traffic was so bad"
"It's okay we're glad you're here" Lorelai said truthfully.
"Well I couldn't wait to see you so I drove up" Chris said grinning at Rory as they sat down at the table, Chris sitting in the middle chair between Lorelai and Rory.
"What about me?"
"Well it was a tough choice coming here at all, knowing you would be here but we all have to make sacrifices" he said sarcastically as Lorelai pouted at him.
"Mean!" she said still pouting.
"How did you know we were here?" Rory asked curiously.
"I have a private investigator watching your every move and he informed me of your position"
"Or you went to our house and saw we weren't there and tried here?" Lorelai said as she smiled at Chris.
"Yeah but isn't the other story so much cooler!"
"Lorelai what happened your face?" Chris asked in a serious concerned tone as he noticed the bruise.
"Shucks you do know how to make a girl feel special" Lorelai said in an accent trying to deflect the question by using her humour.
"I meant the bruise on your cheek"
"Wow how stupid am I. I thought it was just something on your face" Rory said as her and Chris both stared at Lorelai's face.
"Jeez you two do I look like the Mona Lisa or any other type of exhibition"
"What happened your face Mom" Rory asked just as Luke brought the food to the table.
"Well I got mugged by Robert Downey Jr, he just got out of rehab and thought I was a dealer"
"Mom"
"Rory!" she said, her stare screaming 'Drop it!"
Luke walked away quickly, he couldn't even face her right now. Rory and Chris soon changed the subject knowing she would tell them what happened later. Chris walked up to the counter a few minutes later to give Luke his order since he hadn't come back to their table, he had been avoiding it like the plague.
"I'll have a burger and fries and three coffees please" Chris said eyeing Luke. He had seen the awkwardness between him and Lorelai, obviously it hadn't been a great break up he thought to himself.
"Hey Sugar. How's the face? Are you and Luke talking again? I saw him today and he looked awful, are you two friends again? Did ya hear? Dean and the little Mrs have split and he's back with his parents" Babette said as she rushed in and sat beside Lorelai.
"Rory! Hey how was Europe?" Babette asked as she noticed Rory.
"Luke and I are back to normal" was all that Lorelai could get out as she got a questioning look from Rory.
"We all know he didn't mean it, another teeny bit and it would have been a black eye though" Babette said as she looked at Lorelai's cheek.
"What?!" Chris said as he heard the conversation.
"God" Lorelai said as put her hands over her face.
"Who hit you?" Chris asked getting angry.
Lorelai moved her hands away from her face, she looked over at Luke, her vision was blurred as the tears formed in her eyes. She stood up and walked out of the diner quickly.
"Mom" Rory shouted as she ran out after her.
Meanwhile Chris turned back around to Luke with an angry look on his face, he had seen the glance over at Luke, that is why they had broken up he thought as he saw shame painted all over his face.
"I mightn't have treated her the best but at least I never hit her" Chris spat at Luke as they squared up.
"It was an accident" Luke said defensively.
"You lay a hand on her again I swear to God" Chris said angrily before he turned round and followed Rory and Lorelai out of the diner, he got protective but he hated the idea of anyone hurting either Rory or Lorelai in that way. As the Michael Jackson song said, he was a lover... not a fighter so that whole scene with Luke had been a bit strange for him.
"Mom?" Rory asked as she began crying.
"I'm okay Rory" Lorelai said as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
"What happened Mom?" Rory asked. A few seconds later Chris ran and caught up with them. He put his arm around Lorelai as they walked home and she told them both the whole story.
Luke stood in the diner as he watched Chris leave, he had wanted to run out after Lorelai to check that she was okay but he knew that he couldn't.
"Everyone out!" he shouted as he started to clear the plates off the tables, luckily the dinner time rush had just ended so there were only a few people in. There were a few annoyed murmers but he didn't care, he needed to be alone right now.
Later that night...
Rory had just gone to bed, she needed to be alone as well, she had just got her head around what had happened with Luke and her mom and she needed to think about Dean and what Babette had said to her. Meanwhile Lorelai and Chris sat in the kitchen drinking Coffee in silence.
"So what happens now?" he asked seriously.
"Well we finish our coffee and go and eat some more pizza"
"Are you gonna be okay?""I'm fine Chris really. We'd only been seeing each other for a few weeks so it's no big deal" Lorelai said casually, she was lying to him and herself.
"Well I'm gonna stay a while and make sure"
"I'm fine Chris really. You don't have to stay"
"I want to"
"Well just don't expect to be my babysitter" she said grinning.
The next day...
Lorelai got to the Inn early that day, she had left both Rory and Chris asleep, they had stayed up late last night. As she entered the Inn Sookie ran out of the kitchen towards her.
"Wow there Sookie, slow down or we're gonna have some road kill on our hands" she said grabbing her by the shoulders.
"Sorry" she said giggling before she turned to Lorelai with a concerned, "So how are you?" she said putting her hand on Lorelai's arm and rubbing it comfortingly.
"So... you've spoken to Babette already" Lorelai said rolling her eyes, the speed at which news could travel in Stars Hollow still managed to astound her.
"Yeah well we talked ya know and she just happened to mention what had happened last night at the diner"
"Um hum"
"So Chris is back"
"Um hum"
"I think you have spent too much time around Luke, you're becoming monosyllabic" Sookie said before she noticed the frown that Lorelai formed when she mentioned his name. It was so obvious that they both still had strong feelings for each other, regardless of everything that had happened.
"Nothing has happened with Chris, he came back to see Rory and he'll probably be leaving soon and as for Luke... we're friends"
"Except that you have been avoiding the diner for the past week and probably haven't had a proper conversation with him"
"Not true. We talked last night"
"Um hmm" Sookie said knowingly.
"We did!"
"Okay then what did he say?""He said 'What do you want?' and I said I wanted burger and fries and lots and lots of coffee" she said grinning.
"Well I'm glad it was meaningful"
"Isn't the topic of coffee always meaningful?"
The rest of the morning Lorelai spent her time alone, she didn't really want to have Sookie nagging on to her about Luke and Michel whining about... well pretty much everything. She liked to keep herself busy when she was trying hard not to think about stuff. How would it be with Christopher now? I mean just a few weeks ago he had told her he loved her and wanted to start over, now that her and Luke were obviously not getting back together did she want to be with him?
Chris woke up about 10.30 when Rory sat on him, he laughed and threw the duvet over her and refused to let her out until she apologised.
"Apologise and I'll let you out!" he said laughing.
"No"
"You're as stubborn as you're Mom"
"Fine I'm so very sorry Father" she said sarcastically as he lifted the duvet off her.
"No actually you're mother would have sat in there until I gave up"
"She sure would" Rory said laughing as she sat on the couch.
"So has she said much about Luke?" Rory asked as she saw her Dad looking thoughtful after they mentioned her name."Nah not really, pretty much what you heard just"
"She hasn't really been herself anyway I know that" Rory said looking slightly sad.
"She'll be fine Rory don't worry"
"Yeah I know, I just hate that I'm going back to Yale soon and she's going to be alone again"
"Hey she won't be alone, she has a lot of friends, you're not that far away and I might start calling up more just to check on her. Make sure she's not having any wild parties and not inviting us!"
"Thanks dad" she said as she gave him a quick hug before standing up. "Okay I am officially starved, wanna go for breakfast?"
"To Luke's?" he said uneasily.
"Well feel free to search the cupboards for something to eat but it's a lost cause trust me"
"Won't it be weird?"
"This is between Luke and Mom, they'll work it out, they always do" Rory said positively. In her mind this was just another one of their fights which they would get over, hopefully a lot sooner than the big one that they had after the accident with Jess she thought.
A short while later they were walking up the street to the diner, Chris felt a bit uneasy after what he had said to Luke last night. Luke was standing at the counter talking to Kirk and he seemed to be getting more agitated as the conversation went on. He looked up when he saw Rory and her dad walk in, he was nervous about having to speak to Rory, she probably knew by now everything that had happened.
"Hey Luke"
"Hi" he said grinning slightly, she didn't appear to be ignoring him so that was good.
"Chris" he said gruffly.
"Luke" Chris said as he nodded his head before turning back to the menu.
"What d'ya want?"
"Pancakes please, dad you should get them, Luke makes the best pancakes"
"Ok guess I'll have them too then"
Luke scribbled the order down on his pad and walked back into the kitchen, he hated that Chris was here, he couldn't help but wondering if he was planning on sticking around now that Lorelai was single. He looked outside and saw Dean coming in the direction of the diner. 'O god' he thought as he looked between Rory and Dean, he wanted to go out and stop him but after what had happened last time they had met he decided to do nothing. A few seconds later the bell on the diner door rang as Dean walked in, both Rory and him stared at each other for a few seconds.
Chris turned around when he noticed that Rory's attention was elsewhere. Rory got up and walked over to him slowly, Dean gave a small smile when he saw her. Rory had no clue what she was planning on saying to him but she knew that they would have to talk sometime, he had got his hair cut and was wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt.
"Hi" she said nervously as she fidgeted with her hands.
"Hi Rory"
"How was Europe?" he said quickly showing his nervousness.
"It was good, I had a good time, well as much as you can when you go with your Grandma" Rory said as she laughed nervously. Neither of them knew what to say, the whole diner was watching their every move.
"Dean"
"Rory"
They both said at the same time and laughed.
"You first" she said.
"Can we maybe go somewhere and talk?"
"Um okay, but not right now" she said as she motioned to her dad behind her, Dean looked behind her and saw her dad who didn't look too happy, though he looked like a ray of perfect sunshine compared to the look that Luke was giving him.
"Okay, can I call round tonight about 7?" he asked hopefully.
"Um... sure" Rory said not really sure how her Mom or Dad would react to that.
"Okay see you then" he said as she turned and walked back her table and ignored the stares of the onlookers.
A while later they were just finishing eating, it had been awkward for a while when Dean had left but soon enough the conversation got back to normal. Just as they were getting up to leave Rory said "Dad can I just meet you at Doose's"
"Um sure okay" he said before leaving.
Luke was standing at the counter and noticed the Chris had left and Rory was still there, he hoped that she wouldn't want to talk to him. He didn't need to be reminded about it all over again, he just wanted to try and get back to normal... back to watching Lorelai from a far.
"Luke, can I talk to you for a minute"
"...Okay" he said worried about what she was planning to say.
"In private" Rory added as she motioned outside.
"Caesar I'll be a few minutes" Luke shouted before he followed Rory outside.
"How are you?"
"Um... fine" he said confused.
"Luke, what happened? I thought you and my mom were going great, how did that change? Now you don't even talk!" She said obviously tired of small talk.
"We were" he said looking at his feet.
"So..."
"It just didn't work out" he said gruffly.
"But why, I mean you've waited years for this, you're like the Stars Hollow Ross and Rachael, what happened? What did she do? You really hurt her Luke and I hate that she's hurting" Rory said as she started to get upset.
"I know, I do too" he said quietly.
"I just think you should have told her about it before she found out that way" Rory said with some resentment in her voice as she turned and walked across the street leaving Luke standing there with a confused look on his face. What the hell did she mean tell her? Tell her what? Had he missed something?
"And who the hell are Ross & Rachael?" he grumbled as she walked back into the diner.
Hey what have people thought about the last few chapters? I haven't got many reviews so please review or even write me and email and tell me what you think! Thanks :) Cat x