I don't own Gilmore Girls.
Thank you for your reviews.
a/n: for those of you who have commented on Rory being out of character, it is because she is. Something happened and she just snapped. She doesn't mean most of what she says. And the whole her and Luke deal, they do like each other, there's just some conflict. I know that Luke thinks of himself as a father figure to Rory but I can't find any references to Rory looking to him as a father.
Without further ado…
"Shouldn't you go after her?" Luke asked Lorelai who stood motionless in the hospital just watching the doors of the emergency room swing back and forth.
"I know I should, shouldn't I? But what nerve she has? I'm just afraid that I'm never going to get my Rory back." Lorelai confided to Luke. She felt like running after Rory, but then she felt so… She felt like such a little girl, she didn't want to be a mother right then.
"That story, I don't get it. It seemed like she wanted to say something else." Luke commented. He didn't know where he stood anymore. He clearly wasn't Rory's father biologically and otherwise, despite what he had thought. And it was obvious to him that Lorelai didn't want him to be her father.
"Yeah did I ever tell you…"
Flashback 1989- Lorelai is 20 almost 21 and Rory is just 4.
Lorelai turned over and faced her daughter who was wide awake and trying to control her sobs. She felt terrible that the little girl, her little girl, felt like she had to hide her tears. But at the same time it annoyed her. Just once she wanted to sleep through the night without her daughter waking up.
"Lorelai, what's wrong?" She asked her daughter. Sure she had picked out a nickname ages ago but she for some reason that night she felt like calling her daughter Lorelai.
"I had a bad dweem, mommy." Lorelai quietly sighed. 'She just had to call me mommy, didn't she?" Lorelai thought. It was easy for her to pretend to be the older sister, the nanny or the babysitter. But now, now she had no choice she had to accept her fate as a mother.
"Oh? About what, baby?" She asked Rory. An outsider would have had no idea of the doubt inside the mother's head.
"The boogeyman. He took me way from you." The little girl was in hysterics and Lorelai guessed that was what her baby was saying.
"Now who told you about the boogeyman?" Lorelai asked. It was part of a stepping stone, she had to know everything about everything before she made it better, especially since her daughter was so inquisitive.
"You did. You sawd if I didn't eat my veggie tables the boogeyman'd take me way." Oh right, Lorelai forgot she had said that.
"Well you ate them, so it's nothing to worry about." Lorelai consoled in a very unemotional way. She hated the fact that she was acting like a kid and detaching herself from her own flesh and blood. But her twenty first birthday was approaching and she wanted to drink. It had been a birthday she was looking forward to for a long time, since she was a little kid. But Rory happened. She was feeling a little spiteful. Of course she realized it wasn't the little girls fault, she didn't ask to come into this world. Yet, she never thanked her either.
"But what if he come back?" The girl persisted and Lorelai grabbed her and placed Rory on top of her stomach.
"Well if he does that then I'll just have to open the closet and pull him out by the ear and kill him. Then I'd go and grab you and make everything all better. And then for a fun bonding moment we'll bury his scary body." Lorelai was rewarded with the sweet sound of her little girl's laughter. She too laughed.
When morning came Lorelai was so tired and today she had to work a double shift. She shook her daughter to wake up, but to no avail. How was it that her daughter could sleep through everything and she woke up because she felt someone staring at her. She turned around and faced Mia, who was always so bright faced and smiley at five in the morning.
"Want me to take her to breakfast?" Mia asked and Lorelai enthusiastically nodded her head. Anything to have a few moments to herself.
Mia picked the sleeping beauty up and headed out to the Inn while Lorelai took a shower. She placed the girl on a chair and shoved a menu in her face. The girl would wake up soon, right after she slumped off the chair onto the floor. In a matter of moments a thump was heard and those who were working at the Inn and that hour laughed.
"Mornin' Mia." The girl grumbled which got more laughs. Rory slouched into the chair, she hated being the center of attention.
"What do you want?" Mia asked her. Rory picked up the menu and attempted to read it. She could barely read. She was always asking her mom to teach her more, who would mumble something before concluding that she didn't have any time.
"Pancakes." Rory smiled. Mia looked on the menu and noticed that they weren't being offered that morning. They had a new breakfast chef who wanted to be artsy about the food. Mia had told her over and over again that people wanted simple breakfast food in the morning.
"Okay well let me see about that." Mia got up and walked into the kitchen, she turned at the last minute to make sure Rory wasn't following her. A kitchen was no place for a little girl, especially since this chef seemed to be a little klutzy. She was satisfied when she saw Rory sitting there staring off into space.
When Mia came back she handed Rory a plate of French toast and easy over eggs with country potatoes and sausage. It was the only thing she could get her chef to make that a little girl might like. Rory stared at it like it was poison.
"This is just French toast and you like French toast don't you." Mia said pointing to the slices of bread.
"I want pancakes." The girl started to move the food around with her fork. Mia sighed. It wasn't her place to make Rory eat and Lorelai had seemed to be in funk lately, so she figured the girl just wasn't going to eat breakfast that morning.
Lorelai walked into the kitchen with her hair in a towel. She kissed Rory's head before sitting down and laying her head on the table.
"Coffee?" Mia offered holding up the pot up to show her. Lorelai nodded her head which could be heard banging against the table instead of being seen. Mia poured her a cup which was downed almost immediately. Lorelai turned to Rory and noticed that her plate of food was uneaten, moved around and now looked absolutely disgusting, but not eaten.
"Didn't like it?" She asked.
"I want pancakes." Rory answered and Lorelai swore under her breath.
"Well just eat it, I am sure it's good."
"But now it's ugly." Rory justified and Lorelai rolled her eyes. She wanted to yell at Rory but she knew what being yelled at felt like. So she kept her mouth shut.
The chef came out to see how they liked her food. She was slightly thrown off when she saw the little girls plate not eaten but played with. She wouldn't allow this.
"Hi, did you not like this?" She asked the little girl in a gentle 'don't scare her and make her cry' voice. The girl shook her head.
"I want pancakes."
"But this is better for you. I can remake it for you." Rory was about to say something which Lorelai was sure was 'I want pancakes' so she looked up from her coffee and took charge.
"Just make her the damn pancakes!" She practically yelled and she saw the young chef scramble for a response before retreated to her safe haven, the kitchen. Mia looked up at Lorelai and immediately knew she had snapped.
"Rory why don't you go color in the other room." And like a good little girl Rory obeyed.
Mia looked over at Rory and was satisfied when she saw the little girl pull out a coloring book and started to flip through the pages before deciding which picture to color. Mia averted her attention to her youngest employee and studied her. Lorelai's fists were clenched and the young women looked like she hadn't slept in weeks.
"Lorelai, calm down, will you? That little girl hasn't done anything wrong. She doesn't know manners yet."
"Mia, I'm still a kid. I can't do everything all at once. I can't raise a four year and work my shifts as well as cover all the other maids shifts when their sick just because I need money. I have to sleep, I have to relax. Is that so much to ask." Lorelai complained and Mia just sat there studying her.
"You have the right to complain. You can say no to me and the other maids when it comes to overtime. But, you can't take it out on your daughter." Mia tried to explain to Lorelai. "You stopped being a kid four years ago." She added.
"Hey I am not taking this out on Rory. Believe me, I am not. I love her so much, you know. It's just sometimes I want to her to…not be here, you know?" Lorelai felt bad for saying it but it was the truth. Sometimes she just wanted to be twenty years old, going to college and dating Christopher or some other rich shmuck. She just sometimes wanted the life her parents had planned for her.
Lorelai buried her head on her hands and Mia just stared at her trying to come up with a solution to the situation her employee was in and to protect the little girl too. However she failed at the latter. She heard crayons hit the floor and the soft patter of little feet scurrying away. Mia looked past Lorelai and saw a picture and crayons on the floor, the little girl was no where in sight. Lorelai also turned her head, her face fell when she saw the mess but not her daughter. She cried out for her baby, all feeling of desperation gone as worry settled itself in.
"Rory? Rory?" She yelled as she jumped up from the table knocking her chair down. She bounded down the hall frantic and insane with worry. Mia joined in on the search for her precious porcelain daughter.
End Flashback.
"What happened?" Luke asked enthralled in the story.
"Well I obviously found her." Lorelai replied, smiling a little bit. That moment when she realized her baby was gone was when the permanent feeling of motherhood set in and she concluded that she never wanted that feeling to go away.
"Where'd she go?" He asked, hoping that nothing happened to Rory even though he knew that this story took place several years ago and obviously Rory had lived through the experience.
"Um I found her a couple hours later curled up in our bed in the tool shed. I don't know what it wasn't the first place I looked." Lorelai answered. She looked at Luke and he nodded his head. She had to go find Rory now. So she walked out of the hospital and searched the parking lot through the rain. Luckily the sun had come out so it was easy to find Rory slumped up against Luke's truck crying.
Lorelai walked slowly over to Rory and stood there looking down on her daughter. She was so disappointed and so mad at her that she thought it a miracle that she didn't just yell at her kid. In fact she put all that aside and realized that she just needed to be her mother and help her get through whatever crisis she was in.
"I don't want to talk to you." Rory stubbornly informed her mother who just looked at her.
"Cut the attitude Rory, I'm just trying to help. If you want to be an angry teenager then that's your prerogative. But I am your mother and it's my prerogative to worry about you and love you and want what's best for you. I think you need to talk Rory." Lorelai was surprisingly calm and Rory looked up at her mother and for a second the Gilmore girls lost sight of their situation and came to a conclusion.
Lorelai smiled, in that one second when she made eye contact with Rory she noticed that her daughter, the one she had grown to love, was still inside the hollow Rory shell.
"I'm nineteen and I'm an adult. I don't need your help." The moment was ruined. Lorelai frowned. Rory looked at the ground and rubbed her arm. They resumed their roles.
"Ror, please. Don't pull that crap. I know your age. I know you are nineteen. But why do you insist on doing this. I am your mother…"
"I know you're my mom. I just can't get into this." Rory's voice was small and quiet.
"Okay, Rory, if you don't want to talk right now, that's fine. If you don't want my help now, then fine. But sooner or later your going to need me and I'll be here waiting. But no more of this attitude. I don't like bad Rory."
There was silence between the two of them. Rory seemed to just accept what Lorelai said to her. Lorelai was just happy that her daughter was listening. Luke walked up behind them and Rory put her head down ashamed at what she had said. Lorelai turned around and smiled gently at her boyfriend. She wasn't entirely sure how much damage her daughter had caused between her and Luke.
"So what do you say I take you two home." He offered and Lorelai and nodded her head.
"Time to get up, big kid." Lorelai smiled at her daughter.
"Can you help me?" Rory offered out her hand. It was a small step, barely a step.
"Thought you didn't mommy's help." Lorelai grabbed her daughters hand and pulled her to her feet.
"I think I'm getting a fever. I must be delusional." Rory joked and although the rift between the two was still there they both realized they needed each other.
"Ok. I think you've had enough fun with destroying relationships."