Still don't own Gilmore Girls.
Thanks again for all the good reviews.
Chapter 4: She'll Be Okay, right?
When Tristan arrived at the hospital he was out of breath and sweaty. He ran to the reception desk and asked frantically as a husband would if he found out that while he was drinking with his friends his baby was kidnapped and his wife was brought to the hospital for internal bleeding. Tristan wasn't the husband or the father but he wanted to be a good friend to Lee so he played along with her fictional life. He asked the receptionist for Lee Waters and was stunned to find she wasn't at that hospital. It was the only one for miles.
Mrs. Perry had been the one to call him. He had given her his number to call in case of emergencies. He made up some lie that he and Lee were having some marital problems and he was going back to Connecticut to live with his parents. He never actually thought there would be an emergency with Lee. She seemed to be able to take care of herself pretty well for someone who was heartbroken, depressed and had been dependent on her mother for her entire life. She seemed to have everything under control.
He really shouldn't have been all that surprised that it was all an act, a façade. After all she had made up her name, her past, him and he was there was some other details he didn't know that were also part of her fictional delusions. Tristan understood the need to disappear, he really did. But he also knew it was unhealthy and hoped that his existence, the return of her husband Blake, would be enough to prove to her that escaping her problems only caused more, that she cannot run from her past. One thing he knew about Lee from their time in high school was that she was stubborn.
"Blake. Over here." He heard Mrs. Perry call him. He looked at her direction and almost cried at the sight of blood on her clothes. He walked over to her, remembering that there was no Lee Waters checked into the hospital. He automatically thought of the worst. He had been in a war. He had seen people's limbs blown off. He had seen death before. No matter how many comrades he had tended to in the war he couldn't help it when his heart obliterated at the thought that his Mary was dead.
"Is Blake even your real name?" Mrs. Perry asked wickedly but with a hint of amusement in her tone. Clearly, she knew something was going on. He looked into her eyes with his bright blue ones that were watering up. He really wanted to wake up from this bad dream.
Tristan wasn't the only one. Logan felt like these last thirteen months had been a nightmare. The car accident, the death of Ace, his reckless behavior, finding out Rory was alive, finding out his father had engineered all his pain, and then the worst blow was finding out he was a father and that his father had kidnapped the baby from her mother.
Truthfully Logan loved babies, but that didn't mean he knew how to deal with them. It also didn't mean he wanted a baby. He didn't want to be a father. He didn't know how to be a father and he had any warning or practice with babies. The only thing Logan wanted was Rory.
He sat in his apartment with the baby in the crib. He was looking over the file his father had on Lee Waters. He hated that name and he didn't have a reason to hate it. After all even if Rory had kept her name he wouldn't have looked for her because he wouldn't have known she was alive. He could imagine Lorelai hating the name that kept her from reuniting with her daughter. He could imagine the rants Lorelai would have about the name.
"It's not even a good name. It's not even a fun name. All it is, is a variation of her middle name with some half ass last name. It's probably not her, I taught her to be more creative." Lorelai ranted in his head.
"Well maybe she wanted to be found." He would reply trying to be positive even though he agreed with her on the name.
"If she wanted to be found she wouldn't have left in the first place." Lorelai would respond. He didn't like that thought. He hated the thought that Rory didn't want to be found.
The baby started crying and Logan didn't know what to do. The baby had just gone to sleep. He didn't smell anything nasty so he assumed she didn't need to be changed. He didn't have anything if she was hungry. He sighed and then swore. He picked up the phone and called the one person he could think of.
Lorelai arrived in an hour. The crying still hadn't stopped and Logan was too afraid the pick the screaming baby up. He was miles away from the crying. He was wearing earmuffs to drown out the sound. He was a horrible father because all he wanted was for the baby to go away.
He let Lorelai in and she shoved a bag of baby stuff in his arms. She pushed past him saying she wanted to see her grandbaby. He looked surprised at the fact that Lorelai was happy to find out Rory had a kid. He chalked it up to him not really knowing Lorelai. He watched from afar as Lorelai picked the baby up. The screaming only got louder. He winced and she started to soothe the baby to sleep obviously thinking the baby just wanted some love. But after twenty minutes of the baby still crying Lorelai deduced that it was hungry. She handed him the baby and he looked repulsed by having to hold the thing.
"Get over it, you're a father." Was her snide remark. She didn't seem to care he was new at this.
"Look my guess is she misses her mother." Logan replied.
"Gee, you think? Thanks for stating the obvious." Lorelai laughed at him. He hated feeling inferior to Lorelai. It only gave her more reasons to disapprove of him.
Lorelai filled up a bottle with some carnation baby formula. She really hoped that the baby was off the breast. Judging from how the baby pushed away the bottle though, she was guessing no. She didn't even know how old the baby girl was. She didn't even know if the baby was Logans because that would mean Rory had been pregnant before she left.
"What do we do? I don't know anybody who's breastfeeding." Logan panicked. Lorelai smiled, clearly Logan was inching into his role as a father. Lorelai had an idea to fix the breastfeeding problem. She had done it when she was weaning Rory off her breast so she figured it would work on the baby too. Lorelai took off her shirt and was in the process of taking off her bra.
"Good God what are you doing?" Logan freaked out at the sight of his hopefully mother in law's beasts. "Put those things away." Logan covered his eyes and turned around.
"Oh please. You've done naughtier things then just looking at my daughter's breast. Mine are no different." Lorelai teased him. Unfortunately she was no envisioning exactly what he had done with her daughter's breasts.
"Oh bad visual." She laughed and Logan turned a beet red also envisioning Rory's breasts and what he would do to them when he saw her again.
Lorelai held the baby and the bottle close to her breast. The baby was not fooled by this. She went straight for the breast and started sucking.
"Wow, smart kid. But then again so was Rory." There was an awkward silence as Logan stared at his baby sucking on Lorelai's breast. He wondered what it would be like seeing Rory do that.
"She's also a little painful, like a shark with no teeth. I hope she figures out that the milk isn't coming from my breast soon. It'll be awkward explaining to Luke why I have a bruise on my nipple." She joked to Logan. It was a little strange watching him watch her attempt to feed his daughter.
"Oh god. Now that's a bad visual. Old people having sex." Logan squirmed.
"Hey. I'm not old." Lorelai defended herself.
"You're a grandmother. That's old." He joked back.
"Hey, look! She's taking the bottle." Logan pointed out and Lorelai looked down to see what he saw. She smiled, as did Logan.
"You want some parental advice?" She asked Logan who anxiously nodded his head. " It takes time. In time you'll get the hang of things. Just you see."
"I hope. I hope Rory is there to help." He responded. He was still in awe at watching his daughter feed.
"She will be. She will be, don't you worry." Lorelai reassured.
Across town the villain sat in his office nursing his bruised face. His son had hit him good. He held his glass of scotch on the rocks on his bruise and looked down at the file he had sitting on his desk. It was the file he had meant to give to his son when he told him about the baby. It was the fake file. The file that said Lee Waters had died in child birth.
But something, earlier that night, had stopped him from lying to his son. He had seen the fury in Logan's eyes. He had doubted that Logan would believe the fake file. He knew his son would leave the family if anymore lies came out. Mitchum laughed. He'd been lying the whole time during Rory and Logans relationship. He had lied when he said a Gilmore wasn't good enough to marry into his family, he had lied when he told Rory she wasn't good enough to work in journalism, he had lied about who died in the accident. One more lie and there wouldn't be an heir to the Huntzberger media empire.
Mitchum laughed. He didn't even know if Logan would still be in the family after all those lies. His son was known to make hasty decisions. He assumed that Logan and the baby were on their way to Arkansas. He assumed that Logan would propose to Rory and they would marry shortly after she accepted. Of course he assumed Rory would say yes, why wouldn't she want to marry a Huntzberger?
Two men walked into his office. They were the same two men who had secured Lee from running after her baby.
"Bad news boss." The first one solemnly said. His name was Smith.
"The neighbor came out and got the license plate numbers of the cars." Smity, the second man said.
"I told you to be careful." Mitchum stood up ready to attack the slackers.
"The police traced it back to you, sir." Smith replied.
"It didn't help that the nosy neighbor heard from the woman that you visited earlier." Smity added.
"You fucking imbeciles!" Mitchum cursed at the two men, obviously still pissed off at the two men for their recklessness.
"Here's what were going to do." Mitchum calmly said after he had relaxed some.
"You two and Jonas are going to take the fall" Jonas being the third man involved in the crime.
"What!"
"No."
"That's not fair."
"We were just following orders."
"It's Watergate all over again." The lackeys had protested which was expected.
"Don't worry so much, boys. I'll have my lawyers get you out in no time at all." Mitchum continued to explain the plan. It was basically they were employees of Mitchum and had overheard Mitchum say something about getting custody of his granddaughter who was currently living with a mother under a fake name. They were just trying to show their loyalty to the boss and took matters into their own hands. They took the baby in order to skip the legal process.
"Of course as a reward two years after all of this I will give each of you a million dollars cash." The lackeys liked that idea and agreed to the plan that seemed foolproof. Sure it made them look like ignorant men but they would get rich.
Jonas rushed into the room.
"Bad news boss." He said much like Smith had earlier.
"The woman was hurt, she's critical." Jonas told them. Mitchum sighed and told them all to leave and to not say a word.
Moments later his wife came in.
"Not now Shira." He told her.
"I cannot believe what you did. To the Gilmores and to our son and letting those poor boys take the fall. You are a monster." Shira hissed. Her claws were out and ready to fight should he try to subdue her.
"Now Shira I was just trying to protect this family." He soothed. He stood up and slowly walked over to her.
"I cannot believe you kidnapped that poor girls baby. I stood by you when you decided to tell our son she was dead because I thought you knew what was best for this family. But to abduct her baby is cruel." He just blinked at what she said making it unclear as to whether or not her speech had any effect on him.
"Don't you remember what it felt like when Honor was kidnapped? How destroyed we were? You couldn't go to work for months. I couldn't stop crying. And little Logan kept asking where his big was all the time. You remember that feeling don't you, the total despair, the uncertainty, the way it hurt to breathe. You remember Mitch, I know you do. How could you possibly impose that feeling on another woman?" Shira cried in her husbands embrace. Mitchum just lowered his head and blinked back the tears. He hadn't thought about that. To be truthful he hadn't actually thought about anybody else except for his family.
Shira stepped back and slapped him in the face. Her nails digging into his skin and scratching him. She watched with pleasure as blood slowly seeped out.
"You will take the fall for this Mitchum. Or you won't have a family." Shira turned and started to leave. She stopped in the doorway, she didn't turn around.
"I will lose my son, my daughter, or my granddaughter because of your evil ways." She kept walking as he retaliated.
"If you leave me Shira, I'll cut you off." He yelled referring to money. She turned to look at him.
"Despite what you think Mitchum, I married you not for the money but for love. You have failed in giving me that." She paused. "I sometimes wonder if it was the money that corrupted this family. The other times I know it was you." She stormed out of the Mitchum palace leaving Mitchum with his thoughts.
Shira arrived at her sons apartment, the one she had picked out for him and Rory fifteen months ago. She knew her son couldn't let go. She also knew her son wouldn't hastily jump on a plane to find Rory. He's plan it out. His return could be about them reuniting or about her reuniting with her daughter. Logan wouldn't want to downplay his survival.
She knocked on the door and Logan threw the door open.
"Shh. We just got to sleep." Logan whispered. His eyes darkened when he saw it was his mother standing at the door.
"I know the password." Shira smirked. Logan rolled his eyes.
"Your father is a monster and I left him after I found out what he did." She whispered back. Logan opened the door wider and allowed her to enter.
Shira was hurt when she saw Lorelai sitting on the couch holding the baby girl. She couldn't help the feeling of betrayal that rose up in her and flushed her skin. She wished Logan would have called herself if he needed help with the baby. But Shira was an adult so she pushed it behind her and went to sit next to Lorelai. She smiled at the baby who bore no resemblance to Logan.
"Hi." Lorelai whispered to Shira. She didn't like this woman but she was so now, sort of, related to the woman. Plus she had a baby in her arms and didn't want to risk waking her up.
"Hello to you to." Shira said. "May I hold her?" Shira asked and held out her arms. Lorelai was about to transfer the baby to Shira when Logan stopped her.
"No, she might wake up." He was being logical. Or trying to.
"It'll be okay Logan." Lorelai said and was about to hand over her granddaughter when Logan put his hand on Lorelai stopping her from going any further.
"Did you know Dad lied about Rory being dead?" He asked his mother. She nodded her head ashamed.
"Logan I didn't want to…"
"Did he play a hand in Rory running away or was that all Rory?" He asked. Shira didn't say anything. He looked into his mothers eyes and knew that she honestly had no idea if her husband did or not.
"No. That was all my daughter." Lorelai told them. They both looked at her. Their eyes asking how the hell she would know that.
"I still know a thing or two about my daughter." Lorelai replied. The mother and son duo just stood there. Obviously Lorelai didn't know Mitchum Huntzberger, he was capable of anything.
Across the states in the Scott County Hospital two interns were fooling around in a storage closet. When the two walked out they started walking to their patient's, a young woman with short mahogany red hair and blue eyes. She had been brought in after fighting her daughter's kidnappers and had reopened her old wound, that had never been properly taken care of in the first place.
"Poor woman." The male intern said as he wrote down her stats.
"Yeah, really. I mean her daughter gets kidnapped and she gets put in the hospital." The woman intern replied to her lover.
"Can't be good for her psyche." The male said. He walked around the bed.
"I heard she's been living with a fake identity." Another intern said who was walking by the room.
"Ooh. I wonder if she's running from the bad men, but they caught up and took her baby." The woman gossiped to her lover and friend.
"I bet she stole the baby and they were taking it back." The cynical internal who was passing by earlier retorted.
"Maybe it was random." The male said to the two women. They shot him looks that clearly said he was a man. He didn't think it was so bad until he realized they were calling his whole gender stupid.
"Hey!" He shouted at them. He followed the two women out of the hospital room only to be called back seconds later for a code blue.
