Here's the next part. Hope you're enjoying the series so far. The first part is actually my least favorite so far. I like this one and the next one a lot more.
Disclaimer: Still don't own them, darnit.
2006
Rory yawned and opened her eyes, finding herself staring at her ceiling in her bedroom in Stars Hollow. It had been a long time since she'd felt this peaceful during the summer. Since she started Yale, she hadn't spent one summer at home. She had spent last summer living in her grandparents' pool house and the summer before that she had spent in Europe with her grandmother. And even the summer before that she hadn't been home much, as she and her mother had been in Europe. And the summer before that, she had been in Washington D.C. for a good portion of the summer. Seems like the last relaxing summer at home had been the summer after tenth grade.
She heard her mother outside her room, laughing that laugh, which meant that Luke must be out there, too. She turned and glanced at the clock, seeing that it was just past ten.
She almost felt bad, being home this summer. Sure, the past two summers she took off and left her mom here alone. This summer her mother and Luke were newly married and she had to be hanging around all the time. She felt like she was putting a damper on their newlywed lifestyle. They had only been married a few months, after all. She had been trying to make sure to spend a lot of time hanging out with Lane and meeting up with Logan. She had even planned a trip for a week in the summer, with Logan, and she was surprised her mother hadn't resisted her when she told her about it.
Neither her mother nor Luke seemed to show any signs of wishing she wasn't around, though, so it was probably just her thinking that way.
She got up and wandered out into the kitchen where, just as she suspected, she found her mother and Luke.
"Morning," she said with a yawn.
"Morning," they both replied.
"Hey, check it out, a world where I'm up before you," Lorelai told her with a laugh.
"Never thought I'd see the day," she agreed with a smile.
"We were just trying to decide what to do for breakfast," Lorelai informed her. "What do you feel like having?"
She shrugged. "Anything is fine with me."
"Pancakes it is then!" Lorelai said, turning to Luke with a sparkle in her eye. Luke and Rory exchanged a look and Luke turned to go make the pancakes.
"Poor Luke," Rory stated. "You should cut him some slack. Learn to cook."
Lorelai gasped. "Maybe you should learn to cook. You can cook for me then, too. Give Luke a break."
"Yes, for the two months that I'm actually home all the time?"
Lorelai nodded. "That's enough of a break for Luke," she joked. "Besides, he doesn't make me breakfast when he works in the mornings. Those days it's back to scrounging for Pop-Tarts."
"No," Rory agreed with a laugh. "He just makes breakfast for the entire town on those days," she joked and Luke looked at her with a thankful expression. "And give up on the Pop-Tarts, we all know on those days you go into Luke's and just eat there."
Rory heard Luke laugh and Lorelai turned to glare at him, pretending to pout. "I'm not so sure I like this stepfather-stepdaughter bond you two have going here."
Rory laughed and patted Lorelai on the arm. "Just think about your pancakes."
It wasn't until after pancakes and hanging out with Lane for a while that Rory realized what this day was. It wasn't just any Sunday in June. It was Father's Day.
She realized she completely forgot and hadn't sent her father a card or anything. She immediately felt guilty, and picked up the phone to call him. She momentarily noticed the irony that she forgot Father's Day and she felt guilty, but he never seemed to think twice about missing things in her life. She noted that even though he had Gigi, she was only three and she didn't know anything about Father's Day yet. And there was no one else around to celebrate it for Gigi, no one to buy him gifts and sign them "From Gigi."
He wasn't in, so she left him a message and returned to the living room to hang up the phone. Glancing at the clock, she wandered back into her room, figuring she might as well use her spare time to catch up on her reading. She never had time to read for fun during the school year—her reading time was consumed by reading textbooks and books to analyze and write papers on. Opening her closet door to look for the box of books she had brought home from school and never unpacked because she knew she'd be taking them back in the fall, she pulled a box out from underneath the bottoms of her clothes. She stared at it for a minute, and then decided she knew exactly what to do. She picked up the box and headed out into the living room where Lorelai and Luke were watching something on TV. Apparently, Luke wasn't really interested in it and Lorelai thought it was fascinating. Rory could only imagine what their lives were like throughout the whole year. Sweeps months must be a killer for poor Luke.
"Hey," she said cheerfully, and both their heads spun to look at her.
"What's that?" Lorelai asked, noticing the box in Rory's arms.
"Oh," she said, setting it down on the table near Luke. "This is for Luke."
Luke looked at her and frowned. "For me?"
"Yep," she said with a smile. She pushed the box closer to him. "Here you go."
"What is it?" he asked. Lorelai sat up and peered at the box in curiosity, then gasped.
"No!" she said with a smile.
Rory smiled at her and nodded. "Yes," she said softly. Luke looked at them both, confused.
"What?"
"Just look in the box and you'll see," Rory told him. He took the box and put it on the couch next to him. He started to look through the box, taking out a few of the items inside. He looked up at Rory curiously.
"What's all this?"
"Well," she said, suddenly nervous. "When I was in elementary school we always made little projects and cards for Mother's Day and Father's Day," she explained. "Of course, I gave all the Mother's Day stuff to Mom. But Dad was never around when I came home with these things from school. So I just put them away. The plan, I guess, was to give them to him at a later time, but I don't know… just never felt right months later, I never had that feeling of excitement to give him these gifts like I did with mom, kind of forgot about them until I added something to the box the next year. So they just sat there all those years."
"And now you're…" Luke started, turning around the ceramic handprint of Rory's hands from when she was seven, "now you're giving them to me?"
She nodded. "Yeah."
"Wow," he said, taking the decorative magnet out of the box. It was a piece of circular wood painted blue with little objects glued to it. A child's handwriting scrawled 'Happy Father's Day' in the middle.
"Second grade," she told him. He looked up at her with an unreadable look on his face.
"Second grade," he repeated softly. "Thank you, Rory, this is…"
She smiled, letting him know he didn't have to continue. "You're welcome. It's only right these things go to you. You've been more of a father to me than anyone," she said softly.
"Oh, I don't know about—"
"You don't think I remember who brought me mashed potatoes every day for a week when I was sick? Who came to the caterpillar's funeral? Who blew up balloons and made me a coffee cake for my sixteenth birthday? Who tried to beat up Dean when he broke up with me? Who came to my high school graduation? Who helped me move into my dorm at Yale? Who reads all my articles in the paper? Who refused to let me give up when I wanted to drop out? Well, I do. You've been here through the good times and the hard times and the bad times, and that's why this is for you." He smiled at her and she headed towards him to give him a hug. "Thank you for always being there," she said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"I wouldn't be anywhere else."
"I know," she said as she pulled away from the hug. "I know. Happy Father's Day!" she added before smiling at him and heading back to her room.
Luke looked at Lorelai, who smiled at him, looking as if she was about to cry herself.
"I can't believe she…"
"I can," told him. "I definitely can."
He smiled and looked at the magnet he still held in his hand.
"I have one just like it," she added.
"What?"
"That's what Rory's second grade class made for Mother's Day as well."
"Oh," he said, still examining the object.
"It was the first thing I put in the kitchen when we moved in here," she added. She watched him for a moment. "You know, when Rory was born my life changed. My life wasn't about me anymore-- it was about Rory. And I knew that there was a pretty good chance I would never find someone to share my life with that would understand the bond between Rory and I. That there was a good chance that I would never find someone who loved Rory as much as I do. Someone that Rory would love as much as I do," she added. "But I did."
He smiled at her slightly. "Well, she's an amazing kid."
"Yes, but everyone can see that. Everyone sees that she was a great student in high school and valedictorian. That she goes to Yale and that she's polite and kind to everyone. It's the people, or should I say, person, who knows about her mistakes as well and still loves her as much as I do."
He shrugged slightly. "Well, she's… Rory."
Lorelai smiled. "And what means the most to me, and I'm pretty sure her, is that you love her because you wanted to, not because you thought you had to. You didn't go to her graduation or make her mashed potatoes or try to beat up Dean because you were her stepfather and you thought you had to. You did it before you were her stepfather, before we were together, because you wanted to. You totally deserve that box." She watched him for a moment. "Hey, let's go find a place for that magnet," she said, "I think it would go nicely next to mine. A match set." She smiled and spoke more softly. "I always wanted a match set," she added, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the kitchen.
This is the one that was inspired by "Those Are The Strings, Pinocchio." I love the "this building is amazing—and so are you" hug between Luke and Rory. That and the scene at the end of "No Help Wanted" always make me want to write something like this.