Disclaimer: Of course I own Gilmore Girls, I am also the Queen of Spain. Now if you'll excuse me the friendly men in the white jackets are here with my huggy suit to take me to the fun room with the cool padded walls again! Woohoo!
Authors Note: So, I wrote this chapter on Sunday and naturally, the freaking server had to be down, so the first chapter I've written in2 months couldn't be uploaded. I swear they were trying to spite me. I don't know exactly who"they" are, but they don't like me,because Ialso think they're responsible for cancelling Medical Investigation, Jack & Bobby,and Joan of Arcadia.
Authors Note 2: SORRY! SORRY! I know it's been forever, but the evilness called freshman year is finally over! I never have to go back to that old crappile again! And best of all, I can update again! Plus that, my inspiration decided to take a vacation without telling me. Stupid writers block! But I went to a Brad Paisley concert last night and he sang "He Didn't Have to Be," and my inspiration returned! It was all I could do to keep from writing the next chapter right there at the concert. So, I feel guilty cuz I don't think I've thanked the beautiful people who have taken time out of their day to review this story, and I need to thank them, because they're amazing and I love each and every one of them. So thank you to TAYLOR, Red-rumm, Born Blue, Manda, Sarah, Melanie, ProFfeSseR, hanselel, screaming truth, ripleyluvgg, mrschandlerbing, gilmoregirl1979, ripley, Inked Princess, weaslypotter, Sta, Natalia DeLuca, Maria G, Laine 7727, Elizabeth Teresa, TiCkLeDpInK22, Amy, Pink88, Chelsea, gilmorefan1200, bright-star-in-the-night, bklyangel, netherfield, GOThICsOCkMoNKeYs, padfoot1979, Eowyn19, Buffalo, Kendy, EmLocke, and RoryJess4evea. Thanks to all of you!
Authors Note 3: So, I'm pretty sure Rory was younger than 13 when she had chicken pox and only wanted mashed potatoes, but in this story, she's 13. Sorry for screwing up the timeline
"Hey Luke," Lorelai said as she came in to the diner and collapsed at the counter, visibly exhausted. Luke knew that Rory had the chicken pox and was feeling horrible. "Can I have a huge vat of coffee, a bowl of mashed potatoes to go, and an anvil to drop on my head, please."
"Well, I can definitely do the coffee. I'm sure there's a logical explanation for the mashed potatoes, and I have never seen an anvil outside of Saturday morning cartoons." Luke said as he poured Lorelai her coffee. "How's Rory doing?"
"She's been sick for 3 days now and is about to itch herself to death. Whatever idiot came up with putting socks on your hands to keep from itching needs to spend time with a kid who can come up with any possible way to itch herself. Seriously, she was standing in her closet where she thought I wouldn't see her rubbing her back on the wall like a bear. I'm one step away from tying her down to the bed. She has no appetite, I finally told her she could eat anything she wanted as long as she ate. So, I'm thinking PopTarts, SlimJims, something I have in the house. But no, she wants homemade mashed potatoes. Gah! Hence the mashed potatoes." Lorelai said, while Luke was getting the mashed potatoes ready.
"Okay, I gave you enough mashed potatoes to feed 4 people, so it should do Rory good until tomorrow. If she still wants some then, give me a call and I'll bring some more over. And I put in 3 more cups of coffee for you. Hope she feels better soon."
"Omigod! You're a saint! Seriously, you are my freaking hero!" Lorelai said, as she left the diner.
The next day as Luke had thought would happen, Lorelai called and asked Luke to bring over some more mashed potatoes. "I've never seen her eat so much. I mean, I guess since she hadn't eaten in 3 days, she had to be hungry, but it's like she was a freaking vacuum cleaner," Lorelai said, in complete shock.
About twenty minutes after Lorelai called, Luke showed up with plenty of food to tide the girls over for a while. Tons of mashed potatoes for Rory, and burgers for Lorelai, even a salad on the off chance Lorelai might want to be healthy for a change. When Lorelai opened the door, Luke could tell she was dead on her feet tired and could really use a break.
"Hey, brought your food," Luke said.
"Thank you so much. Rory just woke up and she's starving. So, come on in."
"If you want, I can keep Rory company if you want to sleep or take a long bath or just relax. Ceasar's watching the diner and it's been pretty much dead anyway."
"Thanks. Do I really look that bad?"
"No," Luke said, completely unconvincingly. "You've had a sick kid to deal with for 4 days, anyone would be tired."
"I'm going to have to take you up on that offer. I need more than 20 minutes of sleep," Lorelai said, yawning.
"Okay. You go on upstairs and I've got everything under control."
"Um, if Rory starts itching again, there's some calamine lotion in the bathroom. That's been helping a little bit. If she's sweating a lot, then the thermometer is on her nightstand. If her temperature is over 102, come wake me up. It was 101.5 earlier. So hopefully it's going down. And I will see you in a couple of hours hopefully. And thanks again Luke, you're a lifesaver," Lorelai said, flashing Luke one of those smiles that made him feel weak in the knees.
Luke went into the kitchen to get the mashed potatoes into a bowl when he heard Rory calling for her mom.
"Hey Rory," Luke said, bringing in the mashed potatoes.
"Hey Luke, where's my mom? Are those mashed potatoes?" Rory asked.
"Of course they're mashed potatoes, that's all you wanted isn't it? And your mom is upstairs asleep. She's exhausted, so I thought I'd give her a break. Are you okay? Do you need any calamine or do I need to take your temperature? Anything you need. Your wish is my command."
"Thanks, but all I really want right now is the mashed potatoes. I'm so sick of that gross calamine feeling. It feels like I've got a whole other layer of skin. Did you ever have the chicken pox?"
"Of course. I think every kid does. I was in the first grade and it was right before the first grade musical. I didn't really want to be in the musical, but my teacher made me promise I'd do it. She was my favorite teacher, Mrs. Nelson, and I wasn't going to do anything to let her down. I was determined to be there for that musical."
"So, did you get better in time?"
"Just barely. It was two days before and my fever had finally broken and I had pretty much stopped itching, so my mom let me go back to school. I had never been happier to be in school."
"What musical was it?"
"It was something about all the countries of the world. It was one of those plays they just sort of made up to give the kids something to do at the end of the year."
"What were you in it?"
"I was a Chinese kid, believe it or not. I had one line about all the stuff the Chinese had made. I spent 4 days memorizing that line. I wasn't going to forget a single word."
"You were a Chinese kid? That's hilarious," Rory said. She always loved getting to spend time with Luke and she loved it even more when he told her stories about when he was a kid.
"The even funnier thing is for my costume, I had to wear a kimono. But the only kimono I could find was a Japanese kimono. The girl that was talking about Japan had brought a Chinese kimono from home, but she wouldn't let me trade with her. So, you had me standing there talking about the Chinese in a Japanese outfit. And then you had this girl, Jessica, who wasn't the least bit Japanese talking about the Japanese in a Chinese outfit. That had to be one of the funniest plays ever for the parents."
By this point, Rory was cracking up. She could completely picture Luke as a little kid standing up there in his kimono, and it was a really funny picture. "Omigosh! Why don't they do that play anymore? I so want to see that," Rory said in tears from laughing so hard.
"I don't know. As much as I hated being in front of people, those plays in elementary school were so much fun. I don't think we ever did a normal play."
"What other plays did you do?"
"Well, there was the kindergarten musical, where we just sang a whole bunch of completely unrelated songs. I was a ribbon dancer in that one. My whole class was. I was so mad, because I wanted the blue ribbon, but I got stuck with the green ribbon. That was a completely humiliating experience. Then in second grade, I had to be the Big Bad Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, and everybody in the play forgot their lines, except the narrator, because she got to have a script, because she was the teacher's pet and had too many lines to remember. Man, that girl was annoying."
"I'm still laughing about you as a ribbon dancer."
"It's not like it was a big, huge ribbon. Really it was just a strip of paper we waved around to show we knew our colors."
"You have to keep going. These stories are just getting better."
"Okay, I was the Thanksgiving turkey in third grade. They actually swung me from the ceiling and shot me. That was a slightly disturbing play. In fourth grade, I was Noah Webster in a play about famous people from Connecticut. My entire part consisted of me making up words and then writing them down in 'The Big Book of Words.' I doubt any of that was historically accurate, but I didn't care."
"You were shot down from the ceiling."
"I know, that'll scar a kid for life. But the best was in fifth grade, they still do a completely random Christmas play right?"
"Yeah, except it's a winter holiday play with a jolly old man who brings gifts and menorahs now. Christmas just isn't the same anymore."
"Well, I was one of the Santas in the play."
"One of the Santas?"
"Yeah, I played an imposter Santa, I had do somersaults across the stage, and then this really annoying kid named Dane grabbed me and the two other Santas and his partner, Donner, arrested us. I'm not even kidding. He actually said, "Book 'em Donner." That whole play was crazy. We had crazy hick relatives riding in on their tractor and climbing in through the window. We were singing about getting slippers and sleeping on the floor. The mom was obsessed with football and threw the turkey around the kitchen. It was insane."
"They arrested Santa? That's horrible."
"Well, at the end the real Santa showed up and it was all good. I don't know where they come up this stuff."
"Our winter holiday play when I was in fifth grade, was called Surfin' Santa. It was set in Hawaii. Santa wore a bright blue flowered shirt. Is Stars Hollow capable of doing a normal play?" Rory said, while starting to itch again.
"Stars Hollow isn't capable of doing anything normal. They're all insane."
"Yeah, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Where else on Earth is there a festival every other week?"
"Nowhere. We're truly unique, and to be honest, I can't imagine living anywhere else either. There are too many memories here. Hey, do you need some more calamine? You're starting to itch again."
"Yeah, I'm getting tired again too. I'm gonna go back to sleep. Thanks for keeping me company. I love hearing your stories about when you were younger. They're so funny."
"Anytime, kid. Let me get you some calamine and then I'm just gonna hang out until your mom wakes up."
When Luke returned with the calamine, Rory was sound asleep. Luke went into the kitchen and started to unpack all the mashed potatoes and burgers to put in the refrigerator, when he noticed that the back door lock was broken. He remembered that he'd left a couple tools there last time he'd been fixing things, so he found them and started to fix that. As soon as he was done with that, he went into the living room and started cleaning that. He couldn't just sit there and he figured it would be a nice surprise for Lorelai when she woke up. He was halfway through dusting the entertainment center when Lorelai came downstairs.
"Luke, what are you doing?" Lorelai asked. She was very confused as to why Luke was all of a sudden cleaning her house.
"Oh, when Rory fell asleep, I noticed the back door lock was broken, and once I fixed that and cleaned the kitchen, I moved on to the living room," Luke said, guiltily. He wasn't sure from the look on Lorelai's face if this was a good thing or not.
"But why are you cleaning my house?"
"I figured with Rory being sick, you haven't had much time to clean, and I was bored, so I was just trying to help."
"It's not a problem. Thank you. You've already done so much for us, this is amazing," Lorelai said, going over to Luke and giving him a big hug.
"No problem. Anything for you guys," Luke said, returning the hug. "Well, I better get back over to the diner. Ceasar's in need of a break. Tell Rory to get better soon."
"I will. Thank you so much Luke. I don't know how we can repay you. You've done so much for us."
"Don't worry about it. You girls are my best friends, you know that, right?"
"Yeah. I know, and you're my best friend too."
"Then that's all I need. I'll see you later, Lorelai," Luke said, as he left the house.
A little while later, when Rory woke up, Lorelai went in to check on her.
"Hey kid. Did Luke take care of you?" Lorelai asked.
"Yeah. He told me so much about when he was a kid. Stars Hollow does the weirdest plays."
"That they do. I'm sure there's a connection there, I'm just not sure what. And I'm sure you'll tell me later, won't you?"
"I don't think Luke would like that. That's between him and me."
"Fine, I'll get it out of you later."
"Never."
Authors Note 4: Okay, so that felt really long to me. I sort of have mixed feelings about this chapter. So, I don't own PopTarts, SlimJims, or Stepmom. I borrowed the turkey scene from them. My school's Thanksgiving play was pretty boring. But the other plays were from my elementary school, with the exception of the one about famous people from Connecticut, it was famous people from Missouri. The kindergarten play was true. The second grade one was true, I was the narrator in that play. The Christmas play was true, my friend, Ethan, was one of the Santas that got arrested. And Luke's chicken pox story is my chicken pox story, except I wanted to do the play and Luke didn't. I seriously was a Chinese girl in that play, and I have red hair, blue eyes, and am the whitest person on the face of the planet. And the story about the kimonos is true. Surfin' Santa is another Christmas play my school did when I was in second grade. My friend Ethan's brother was Santa in that play. So, here's the latest update. I don't know when the next one is coming, cuz I don't know what I'm doing for it. The second chapter of The Cure For The Common Man will be up sometime this week, and I'm going to post the first chapter of another story I've been thinking of for a while soon. So, please review!