I don't own Gilmore Girls

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The two Gilmore girls walked into the diner feeling emotionally drained. Lorelai sat Rory down on one of the chairs before running up the stairs to the apartment. Rory sat in the chair zoning in and out as the room spun. She shifted her focus onto her left arm, which was bleeding. And it hurt like hell. She placed her right hand over the wound to stop the blood from leaving her, like everyone else. It wasn't true, of course. Rory was pushing them away. She just couldn't deal with what happened, because technically nothing happened.

She hated this. But she didn't know what this was. She couldn't hate him, the mugger, could she? All he did was break her nose, trip on her foot and get arrested. She suspects that he might have stolen her sanity. She chuckles to herself, realizing it's the first time she's laughed in long time. So, she stops. She didn't want to fool herself into thinking that she was herself.

Lorelai and Luke came bounding down the stairs and the loud and sudden noise frightened Rory. She wanted to curl up into a ball or hide in the corner, punish herself for something she hadn't a clue she's done wrong. Lorelai ran up to and tried to get her daughter to stand up. Rory resisted, she's been doing that a lot lately.

"Rory, Luke's going to drive you to the hospital." Lorelai softly told her daughter, when in reality her worry had worn off and she wanted to reprimand Rory for her stupidity. But yelling made Rory yell, and then they'd never get anywhere. She was afraid that Rory was beyond repair.

Rory looked at her mother's tired and old eyes. Had her mother aged overnight? She didn't know, she was a bad daughter. She finally stood up, hoping to get a hug. None came. She was ushered outside into the rainy Stars Hollow streets and she could have sworn she saw Luke giving her a mean look. She didn't want to analyze what it meant, but she did anyway. She had some words to share with Luke if she ever got him alone. What? Was she not allowed to make a mistake. They say you learn the best from past mistakes, or something like that.

"We're here" Luke grumbled. Pissed at Rory for taking his night with Lorelai away, for getting drunk and being stupid (he was still confused in which order they belonged). And now he had to drive the whiny little jam hand brat to the hospital on his one day to sleep in. He offered though, he should have just given the phone to Lorelai. But then she would leave, and Rory would start talking again, about how he and Lorelai shouldn't be together. He had heard most of the fight, and tried to ignore the harsh words. He waited next to Lorelai as Rory was put on a stretcher and taken to the emergency room. He hated hospitals but he loved Lorelai and Lorelai loved Rory. He would do anything for Lorelai and unfortunately that included waiting in a hospital while her daughter was being examined.

"You don't have to stay. I know you don't like hospitals." Lorelai weakly told him.

"She'll be fine you know." He comforted, and wished that Rory would be fine. Because if Rory died, then Lorelai would also die.

"Yeah, I know. I am just worried that she already isn't fine." Luke gave her a confused look and she smiled.

"Did I tell you that had been almost mugged?" She asked hoping that this wasn't included in the secrets category of the relationship.

"How can you be almost mugged?" Luke laughed, hoping to lighten the mood. The mood in that hospital was gloomy, Lorelai, the sun that always shone bright for him was surrounded by dark rain clouds.

"He didn't get away."

"Oh good for Rory."

"No. He got away with so much more than he bargained for." Lorelai rained her hands and started to rub her temples. She stopped and winced at her right hand. Damn Rory for pushing her.

Luke grabbed her hand and looked at it. His faced paled when he saw the dried blood.

"You okay?" A nurse that was passing by asked. He shook his head no then pointed to Lorelai's hand.

"Let's clean that up, shall we." The nurse offered and Lorelai followed, hoping she could get some information on Rory.

"So, do you have any news on my daughter, Rory Gilmore?" Lorelai asked as the doctor was stitching up her hand.

"No, sorry. I am sure her doctor will talk to you soon, though." The doctor offered her, hoping to calm her down, but was unsuccessful. He hated dealing with mothers. They were impatient and annoyed the hospital staff. This mother was no different.

"All done. You should come back in two weeks for me to remove those." The doctor told her. He paused on his way out, he knew what was coming.

"Can you try and track down the doctor working on my daughter?" She asked with hope in her helpless voice, her quiet mouse like voice. The voice she used when reprimanded by her parents growing up.

The doctor nodded before leaving. He had no intention of finding the doctor, but he needed to assure his patient that he would so she wouldn't go crazy and so she wouldn't drive the staff nuts.

Lorelai walked back to Luke and showed off her bandage. He softly smiled, still nauseous from the sight of blood.

"How'd that happen?" He asked her, trying to get her mind off Rory. Unfortunately in the early morning he seemed to forget that he could never get Lorelai to stop thinking about Rory and that she had to have gotten that wound with Rory.

"Rory pushed me and I fell. There was glass on the ground. Hmm. Taylor's going to go insane." She smiled at the bit, as if she was remembering some of the quirks of the quirky town. She said it in a whimsical voice, like she hadn't been there in a long time and wanted to go back.

"What? Rory pushed you. You let her push you?" Luke yelled. She jumped up in her seat. Obviously she wasn't the only one jumpy. Obviously she wasn't expecting that reaction.

"Ok, first of all Luke, Rory was drunk, probably still is. Second of all I didn't let her push me, I was caught off guard." Lorelai defended herself and her daughter.

"That's no excuse. Drunk or not she shouldn't have pushed you. You're her mother for god's sake. Why would she do that?" Luke ranted and Lorelai didn't feel at ease. She wasn't comfortable with Luke attacking her daughter verbally. In fact she wasn't comfortable with anybody yelling at her daughter except herself. Who did Luke think he was, her father?

The two fell silent. When Lorelai didn't respond he figured he had crossed a line. And he had. Lorelai was very possessive with her daughter. She didn't like other people to step in and do the parenting. That was essentially why she didn't marry Max, he wanted to help raise Rory, and she wouldn't let him. In fact looking back on it, Lorelai realized the reason she didn't have any great romances when Rory was growing up was because the men she was dating wanted to help her raise Rory. She thought that since Rory was in college and essentially all grown up this wouldn't be a problem. And it shouldn't be, except her daughter was acting like a little girl.

"Gilmore?" A doctor announced to the people in the waiting room. Lorelai jumped up and raised her hand like she was high school again, or elementary school considering she didn't have much of a high school experience.

"Yeah, how's my daughter?" She frantically asked, now realizing that Rory had been gone for about an hour.

"Follow me." Oh no. She hated that phrase. It meant something was wrong, really wrong.

"Her father can come too." The doctor told Lorelai. Luke started to awkwardly get up.

"He's not her father." She clarified and then walked off with the doctor.

The doctor escorted Lorelai to a room, and stopped outside to talk to her. She peeped into the windows and felt more relaxed seeing her daughter sitting up and reading People magazine.

"Sorry it took so long, but we had to wait for some x-rays to come back. Nothing is broken."

"Oh that's good." Lorelai sighed, relieved that her daughter was ok.

"She has a slight concussion, which shouldn't pose much of a problem. It just needs to be carefully monitored for twenty four hours. She had 17 stitches total. Two on her left ring finger, 10 extending from her wrist to her elbow and 2 on her upper arm. The remaining 3 are on her head wound."

"So she's going to be okay, right?"

"Yeah. A bit of a headache and a massive hangover, the occasional soreness, but yeah, she should be just fine."

"So I can go and hug her and then scream at her?" The doctor smiled. He always wanted to stay and watch as mothers screamed at their children for their stupidity.

"Go for it." And with that he walked away. Lorelai stepped into the room and sighed. She walked up to Rory, unsure how to approach her.

"hey, babes. Did you enjoy being drunk?"

"Mom? I am so so sorry." Rory got up and hugged her mother tightly. Lorelai didn't understand Rory. One moment she didn't want to be hugged, the next moment she's instigating the hug. Lorelai hugged back though, not wanting to be pushed away.

"So you scared me, Hun. I felt like I was having a heart attack when I heard the crash." Rory's eyebrows moved together as she squinted her eyes. She didn't know how she felt about her mothers confession, or the upcoming lecture.

"I'm sorry. I love you." Lorelai could hardly continue with her lecture. The sound of her daughters voice was so pathetic. She felt needed. Like her daughter needed her again.

"Let's get you out here, and to bed. When you wake up you better wish you never got drunk."

"Okay. Hey, mom?" Lorelai turned to look at her as she was already on her way out of the room. "How'd you hurt your hand?" Lorelai continued to walk out the door. What Luke had said was seeping in. She couldn't forgive her daughter for it until she accepted that her daughter did it.

"Mom?" Rory stepped down from the table and wanted her mom with her by her side. But that clearly wasn't going to happen. "I'm sorry" She said again to the empty room. Sure she was in the room, but she felt empty. She slowly walked outside the room.

"Ready to go kiddo?" Rory couldn't help but notice that her mother was calling her anything but her name, babe, Hun, and now kiddo. It bugged her but she didn't know what to do. Her mother was treating her like a child and Rory didn't like that. She wasn't a child, she was nineteen almost twenty, so why was she relying on her mother to make her better?

Rory nodded her head and followed her mother to the waiting room where Luke was. He was staring at the ceiling and Rory remembered that he didn't like hospitals. She was going to thank him when she realized that he didn't need to be here, he was nobody to her except her mothers boyfriend.

Luke stood up when he saw Lorelai and Rory. He almost growled at Rory when he realized that it was a bad idea, right now. So he smiled. It was fake and about everybody in the hospital would have known. He noticed how Lorelai wasn't hugging Rory and how Rory lagged behind. Their relationship was off. And it felt weird. After years of seeing the two together he realized that nothing could come between them, but now, something had come between the mother and daughter and he hadn't a clue. And judging by the confused looks of the duo he guessed that they didn't know either.

Lorelai was thankful to see Luke. She wanted out of this hospital, out of this situation. She looked back at her daughter who was lagging behind, she assumed it was because of the pain.

"Hurry up, Kid. I might be able to get a couple more hours of sleep." Lorelai joked. But Rory was not amused. In fact, her daughter looked pissed.

"You have no right to be pissed, kid." She stressed the word kid. She saw Rory face flare up with anger at that, and Lorelai wanted to back off.

"Do you remember when I was four, and I had a bad dream about the boogeyman and you told me that he couldn't take me away because you'd just drag his ass out of the closet and beat him death before rescuing me?" Rory asked her mom. She controlled the tone of her voice, she was going to seriously piss her mother off soon.

Lorelai nodded, not knowing where this was going. Luke looked confused too. In fact everyone listening in on the conversation had no clue where that came from. They just saw a family, a very pissed off and confused family.

"Well, I'm not four, so stop calling me kid." Rory controlled herself from attacking more. She could continue with that particular story if she wanted to really hurt her mom. But she didn't, so she stopped there.

"When you act like a kid, you're treated like a kid" Luke filled in when he noticed Lorelai freeze. She didn't know what to say.

"I'm sorry. Who are you?" Rory practically yelled at Luke. Lorelai looked between the two, confused.

"Ror.." Luke started thinking maybe she hit her head too hard and didn't remember him.

"You are not my father! All you are is my mom's fuck buddy!" Rory answered for him, screaming bloody murder.

"Hey, that's enough!" Lorelai found her voice and cut in.

"That's all you are, my mom's boyfriend, so don't around parenting me, Luke!" Rory continued ignoring her mother, which sadly was getting easier and easier.

"Rory, that's enough! I said that's enough. Look Luke is right, you are acting like child, so I am treating you like one. You don't want to be treated like one, then grow the fuck up." Lorelai seethed at her daughter, she felt like she was arguing with her mother.

"I am not a child, a child wouldn't…" Rory trailed off. Suddenly everything she worked hard to forget was coming back to her. She didn't the only thing she could. She followed her instincts and ran out the door, leaving destroyed relationships in her wake.

Hey, sorry this chapter isn't as good as the others, at least in my opinion. Think of this as more of a transitional chapter.