Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls, despite the rumors. No... wait stop! Please literati's don't kill me! I said I don't own Gilmore Girls AHHHH!!!
A/N: Hello peeps! I am back again with the next installment! I was happy to see all the positive reviews the last chapter created, and I'm happy ur all enjoying this story. I'm going to try to get a chapter out every couple of weeks, but NO promises. Read my profile for more info!
Thanx: Thanks to my wonderful lit beta, Molly (GQSecondAct). Not only is she frank and full of inspiration, but she's also a classy writer and I'm in love with her story O Citadel of Love. SO CHECK IT OUT!!! Also, thanx to my reviewers! I couldn't do it without u guys!
Chapter 7: What Could Have Been
Rory sat in an incredibly uncomfortable chair with her eyes fixed on her sleeping daughter. Lori's usual beautiful long hair looked stringy and unhealthy as it lay around her head like a dark halo. Her skin was as pale as death and her lips had no color in them. Her eyes were closed, but Rory could see her dark eyeliner smeared below her eyelids, which added to her zombie-like appearance. She wore a hospital gown, and Rory could see almost every bone in her body. She had to have lost ten pounds since she had been in Stars Hollow.
Rory reached over and took one of her daughter's cold, delicate hands in her own. Her black fingernails stood out against the pasty skin and Rory wanted nothing more than to scrape all the nail polish off. What had her daughter become? Memories of sweet little Lori rushed into her head, even though for the past day she had been willing them to go away. This time, she let them come in. Her first day of school, and all of the fieldtrips...Junior High...Lori's first crush...her first day of high school...It seemed as if Rory remembered every moment of her daughter's life, but she knew something had to have been missing. If she knew every moment and every detail of Lori's life, then she wouldn't be sitting in this uncomfortable chair staring at her scrawny daughter's lifeless form.
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That was the scene Jess walked into. His pregnant wife holding their daughter's hand with silent tears sliding down her face. He hadn't told Rory about Josh because he didn't want to upset her. She hadn't even asked about his bruised knuckles or where he had gone for two hours the night before. Somehow, she knew what happened. Jess pulled another hard chair towards his wife and sat down next to her.
"Hey."
"Hey," she replied, then with a smile looked at her husband. "I guess were back to one-syllable responses, then."
With a weak smile, Jess nodded and wrapped his arm around Rory. Leaning her head against his shoulder she let out a breath of air. It sounded like she had been holding the breath in since they watched their first child fall to the ground. Jess knew he'd never forget that image as long as he lived: the look of anguish on her face as she stumbled to grasp something that didn't exist. In his mind, that thing would always be him. Somehow, this must have been his fault. The weight of his family seemed to be on his shoulders and he let them down. He promised Rory she could count on him when they tried to escape their lives. Then, they found out about Lori.
She was the best thing that had ever happened to him, but he would always wonder what could have been had she never existed. Whether or not he and Rory would have gone off again, or if they would have stayed, or even if they had broken up and went their separate ways. The last scenario made him shudder, and he held Rory's trembling frame closer to him.
"Remember when we left Stars Hollow?" he asked her.
Rory gave a meek laugh, "How could I ever forget?"
"Do you ever think about what could have happened if we never got into the car accident? Or if we never..."
"Sometimes," Rory admitted.
"Me too."
"But," Rory continued. "Then, I think about where we are now, and I know I wouldn't trade it in for the world."
"Yeah, I wouldn't either, but I just wonder sometimes."
"I know. I like to remember that time, too. Anytime I'm overwhelmed at work, I think about that little cafe and I remember how carefree we were. Think about it. We were two stupid teenagers that wanted to have the whole world belong to us."
"I remember that. I don't think I ever told you what happened in Chicago, did I?"
"No, you never did. But that's okay. Save it for another time."
Jess nodded and his gaze went to his daughter as she stirred in her sleep, and her big blue eyes opened and focused on the ceiling.
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Lori began to hear speaking as she woke up. With her eyes closed, she tried to figure out whom it was speaking. They were saying something about leaving Stars Hollow. Then, she heard her mother's sweet voice and knew it was her parents. Their voices cut through the haze she had been in over the last few days, but she didn't understand what they were saying. They spoke of what could have happened, and then they were saying something about her. The whole thing made her head spin, so she opened her eyes and stared at the white ceiling.
"Lori," her mother said as she stood up and leaned over the bed.
"Mom," she croaked, and quickly cleared her throat.
"Hey, Dodger. How are you feeling?"
"Dad," her slightly raspy voice said.
"Yeah, honey. Are you okay? Do you need anything?"
Lori looked at her mother's eager face and at the crisp white room. She felt her head getting heavy and her stomach did a flip-flop. She could see a small bucket next to her bed and grabbed it as she threw up the liquid in her stomach. Rory called for a nurse, and one soon arrived. Once Lori was finished, she didn't feel any better. She fell back onto her pillow and moaned as her head began to pulsate in pain.
"Is this normal?" Jess asked the nurse in a low voice.
Lori couldn't hear what the nurse replied because she began feeling the world spinning on its axis. If the logical part of her brain was working, it would have told her you can't feel the earth move, but that part had already shut down. In a minute, the other part of her brain shut down, too, and she was left in blissful unconsciousness.
"Why did she pass out, again?" Rory asked in a shrill voice.
The nurse told her everything would be okay, but Rory felt fear like she never had experienced in her life. Her stomach began to churn and in a moment she was running towards the bathroom. Hanging her head over the toilet, she vomited; Rory had no idea how she had anything at all in her stomach to throw up because she had barely eaten anything. Deciding it was the stress, she knew she needed to go for a walk. By the time she exited the restroom and entered the main corridor, Jess was already there waiting.
"I would have gone in there, but the bathroom was labeled 'Women'. Since I really don't want to get slapped today, I thought it would be best if I waited out here."
Rory smiled at his attempt at humor and gave him a hug. "I'm okay, I just need to go for a walk, okay?You stay with Lori."
"Are you sure you don't want any company?"
"I'm actually going to go talk to my mom."
"Oh, okay. I'll go back and see how Lori's doing."
"I love you," she told him, quietly.
"I love you, too."
They parted for the time being, but they knew the worst was yet to come. Lori getting better. Then, they would have to rely on each other to make sure she didn't relapse. Long talks were in everybody's future, and Jess knew he'd find some things out about Lori that he wished he didn't. Anything to do with boys and sex was all Rory, but one thing their family had to start doing was handling things together.
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Rory entered the waiting room and saw her mother and Luke sitting on a couch flipping through their respective magazines. Lorelai looked up when she sensed her daughter's presence. That was the way they were. No words were necessary; they just knew in an instant that something wasn't right. Lorelai knew the entire summer they backpacked around Europe, all those years ago, that Rory was upset about Jess, even though she didn't say it. Right now, Lorelai empathized with her daughter. She remembered how difficult it was to watch her own daughter lying in a hospital bed.
Rory was grateful when Lorelai stood up and put her arm around her. They walked around the halls without a word and then saw a small garden through a pair of glass doors. Rory opened the right side and the two women walked into the night air. The smell of the hospital vanished the second the door closed behind them. Rory took a lungful of fresh air in and let it out slowly.
"She's so skinny," Rory said quietly. "She's always been thin. But not like this. There's nothing left of her."
Lorelai was silent as Rory continued. "It's so hard to just watch her, and know that I can't do anything about this! Something happened to my baby girl, and Jess knows. I know he knows and I want him to tell me but... if he hasn't told me, yet, it must be bad. Jess only keeps the worst things away from me."
"Maybe it's not one of the "worst" things. Maybe it's just normal bad, but because you're pregnant he doesn't want to worry you even with normal bad."
Rory looked at her mother in a way that would break a stranger's heart and replied, "If it was normal bad, my daughter wouldn't be lying in a hospital bed with her ribs protruding through her skin."
Lorelai wrapped her arms around her daughter and tried to take all her troubles away. She listened to her own baby cry, and identified with the kind of pain she was going through. Before Rory woke up after the car accident, she and Luke traded places looking in on Rory. She remembered the relief she felt when Luke told her Rory had woken up for a moment. Those few days were the worst ones she'd experienced in her entire life, and she felt physically sick when she thought about Rory going through the same thing.
Some people say, 'What goes around, comes around', but Lorelai wouldn't have wished this on anybody. Rory was in so much pain that it contorted her face. She felt her daughter shake with sobs and she knew all she could do was hold on tight. This roller coaster would end someday, and then life would get good again. In the meantime, they just had to muddle their way through the horrible.
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Jess sighed as he walked back into Lori's room. He saw that the nurse had left and Lori was alone. Walking over to her bedside, he sat down on the edge and really looked at her for the first time. He had been trying to avoid looking at her bony, exposed shoulder and the way her gaunt face had become expressionless and ashen. He took the same hand Rory had been holding earlier and tried to warm the icy skin. Then, he saw her eyelids flutter open and their eyes connected. Before Lori could look away he spoke.
"Do you remember the time you asked me why I called you Dodger?"
"Yes," she said in a barely audible whisper.
"Well, It's time I told you. From the beginning."
And he did. He told about meeting her mother in her bedroom, about loving her even though he was screwed up. He told her about leaving Stars Hollow, and then coming back for her mom. The glorious time they traveled the country together...about the car accident...and about the day he read Oliver Twist to her mother on the bridge, and how he felt Lori kick and knew he was worth something. He told her everything for the first time, and she laid on the crisp white sheets and listened to him. All her life, she had been given half-truths to everything. But Jess explained everything to her. For the first time, she saw her parents as they were: two silly teenagers in love who just wanted to be free. He told her anecdotes about her mother, with her nose always in a book - and even some about him.
Lori stared at him in disbelief when he finished by relaying the news about her mother having a miscarriage. Everything was out in the open, then, and she finally knew the history of her parents' lives together. Granted, she never thought she'd ever hear her father tell it. Like a lightening bolt, it hit her - her father's books. Well, after the first one. They were about her parents. In each book, there were characters that she'd come to love and she just realized those characters must have represented a different time in her parent's lives. Her father's first book was about a man who hated the world, and it always made her cringe when she read it. Now, she knew that the man was her father as a young teenager living in New York.
She couldn't fathom how her father could ever be that angry. He always seemed to be alright. His next book was about a young girl who was quiet on the outside, but who really just needed someone to bring her out of her shell. Jess' third book was about a love-crazed couple who grew up completely different. The book he was working on now was about a mature couple whose outlooks on life had drastically changed over the years. This was the first time she really thought about how each book was a different stage of their lives and she couldn't believe she had never seen that before. Each of the characters had a different storyline than their lives, but the characters were the same people who had raised her.
"Wow."
"Yeah. Now you know everything. Well, except for a few minor details about your mother and I that I thought best to leave out."
"Ew," Lori said at the innuendo, and smiled.
Jess' heart soared when he saw that small sign that his daughter was still in there somewhere. Unfortunately, it soon fell from her face, and her lips were drawn in a thin line. He was glad that he had finally told Lori the truth, though. She deserved the truth, and maybe now that she knew her parents were once like she was, maybe they had a chance to bring her back from the pit of despair she was in. Jess began thinking about what they would be doing if Lori had never met the 24-year-old pervert. Oh, what could have been.
A/N: Did you like this chapter? Oh my God! I read the first few chapters of ITTGBTY and it sucked, my friends. I can't wait to get some free time so I can completely edit the story and put TONS more detail into it YAY! Please Review!!! I want to know what you think!!!
