Chapter three: month eight

"Lorelai, Rory is here!" Luke screamed to his wife, who was upstairs.

"Already? Luke can you come upstairs for a second?" Lorelai screamed back.

Rory, who stood next to him, looked curious, but Luke just shrugged and went upstairs.

Lorelai was sitting on their bed, waiting for him.

"What's up?" Luke asked.

"Would you carry me downstairs?" Lorelai asked him innocently.

"What!"

"Would you carry your very pregnant wife downstairs so that she can meet her pretty daughter whom she has not seen in a while?" Lorelai batted her eyelashes. She knew that he would do it. It was just a matter of time. The 'being pregnant' argument always worked.

"And why can´t my pretty and very pregnant wife walk downstairs?" He asked and placed his hands on his hips.

"Because the feet of your beautiful and very pregnant wife are killing her, because her husband refused to go shopping and so she had to get all the stuff she needed by herself." She explained.

"If my VERY beautiful wife would have waited until tomorrow so that her husband would have had the time to go shopping with her, her feet would be ok right now." He smiled at her and then moved closer. "But because I know that my INCREDIBLY beautiful wife won't stop until she gets what she wants and because her daughter is waiting downstairs, I will carry her." He smiled and then took her off the bed. She slung her arms around his neck and then nibbled on his earlobe, before she whispered "I love you" in his ear.

Like always hearing her say that ran shivers through his whole body. They didn't tell each other those 3 words very often, but when they said it, it was always special.

He looked into her eyes and felt that she was caressing his cheek with her thumb.

"I love you, too," he whispered back and then kissed her, before he carried her down the stairs.

Rory was waiting on the couch. Luke set Lorelai down in front of her and the two women hugged. Luke watched them for a while.

It was nice that Rory was back in their life, because Lorelai was just miserable without her daughter. But he knew that they weren´t back to what they had before Rory decided to drop out of Yale. By the look on Lorelai's face Luke could tell that she did not trust her daughter 100 percent and Rory knew that, too. She tried everything to get back her mother's confidence, but it was not easy. They talked to each other once or twice a week on the phone and whenever something important happened. From the outside it seemed that everything was like before. But it wasn´t.

After a minute, Luke walked over to Lorelai, who sat on the couch now, and kissed her goodbye. He had to get back to the diner.

"Hon will you bring something to eat when you get back?" Lorelai screamed when he was nearly out the door.

"Yes, I can do that. See ya!" He screamed back and left the two alone.

"So, tell me how my little brother or sister is?" Rory asked as soon as they were alone.

"Very well. Although I think it could stop growing so fast. I can hardly move anymore and there is one month left until my due date." Lorelai told her and rubbed her belly.

"You know I still think that it was very mean of you to call me in the middle of the night and tell me that you had decided on the names without telling me the names!" Rory said accusingly.

"Oh, is that so?" Lorelai played innocent.

"Yes! So come on, tell me!" pleaded Rory.

"You will beg, won't ya?" Lorelai laughed. " Ok, I will tell ya. But if you don't like them, your fault, cause they are a done deal!"

"Ok, but then I can start to think of nice nicknames! And now, come on!"

"Ok...sooo first the name for a boy..." "uuuuh if I get a brother..." Rory interrupted her excitedly.

"...then his name will be William," Lorelai told her.

"He will be named after Luke's father? That is sooo cute!"

"I know, but don´t use the word cute in front of Luke, or he will re-think it!"

"Ok, and what if I get a sister?" Rory was excited and bouncing up and down on the couch.

"If you get a sister, there are two options: Whether it is Sara or Laila, we will decide when we see her."

Rory hugged her mum. "Those names are so beautiful! But a little bit uncommon the way you pronounced them. Luke is okay with that?"

Lorelai chuckled. "Actually they were his idea!" "Really? Wow! But why do you pronounce them the way you do? And why did Luke come up with those names?"

"Well, long story: During our honeymoon I read this book I found in the hotel. But because I would cry everytime I read it, Luke had to read it out loud for me. So, when we lay at the beach one day, there was this couple sitting next to us. They also listened to Luke and after some time the woman interrupted him and told us, that we were pronouncing the names wrong and that the names had a meaning. Of course, we asked her how she knew that and she told us, that she was originally from Tunisia, where a huge part of this novel took place, and that all the names are Arabic. And then she explained the meaning of the names and then taught us how to pronounce them correctly. So it's Sara, with two "a"s like in the word "amore" and that the emphasis lies on the last a, so that it is: Sa-rA. And the "r" is different. It's the Arabic or French way to pronounce it; she wasn't so sure about which one though. And with Laila it's the same a, and the emphasis lies on the first syllable. I couldn't even remember this book or the names, until Luke reminded me. And now I started to read it again and again and I cry everytime." Lorelai finished.

"And what's the meaning of the names?" Rory asked. She was curious now.

"Laila means night, and Sara means flower. That fit into the story so well. And so, if we get a wild one her name will be Sara and if we get a shy and calm one her name will be Laila...This book is really amazing!" Lorelai said.

"What´s the plot?"

"Well, that´s actually a bit complicated to sum up. But there is this Spanish business woman living on her own. And one day two young women visit her hotel, cause that´s where she works and although normally she has no private contact at all with the guests, she spends a lot of time with them. Then she meets their father and falls in love with him. He is an Arabic business man and owns some hotels. She goes with him and after some difficulties they are very happy as a couple and get married. But the problem is that he has nine children, which are all adults, but everyone of them has a secret or problem. The oldest daughter is separated from her husband and her father does not know it, the second one had an accident and is in a wheelchair now and can´t get pregnant. His eldest son has problems with drugs and is really aggressive and so on and so on. But the worst is that his youngest daughter, Rana, is very sick since her birth and she will die soon. And so she tries, together with her sister Sara and her stepmother to solve the problems of her brothers and sisters before she dies. I think that´s mainly it. Of course Rana´s mother is causing some trouble...Ah that´s another thing. Just 7 of the nine children have the same mother, and Said is not the father of the eldest two daughters."

"Sounds like a very interesting story. Can you lend me the book?" asked Rory when Lorelai finished her explanation.

"Yeah of course kid, no problem. I wrote the meanings of the names inside the book. It´s upstairs. Go get it!"

Rory stood up and walked upstairs. But before she walked into her mother's bedroom, she noticed that the door of the nursery was open. It was the first time she saw it. It was really beautiful. Everything was blue, yellow and white, so that it would match a boy or a girl. Rory knew that Luke made the crib and she felt a sting of jealousy when she saw, that "Baby Danes" was engraved in one side of the crib and "sleep well" on the other. Her own dad had never done anything like that for her.

Then she saw the photos, which were pinned on the wall, next to the window. Every state of Lorelai's pregnancy was documented. Her mother looked so happy on all of them. On one she had "I love Daddy" written on her pregnant belly. On another Luke sat behind her, both his hands on her stomach. Both Luke and Lorelai were laughing about something. The photo had been taken in the garden of the Dragonfly, Rory realized. They were both sitting on the grass and Luke was leaning against a tree.

Rory felt tears spring into her eyes. She felt overwhelmed when she looked at these pictures. She felt jealous, because Luke was not her father and because nobody had been that happy when Lorelai had been pregnant with her. She felt excluded, because she hadn't been a part of one of the occasions on the pictures. She felt lonely and like a little child again.

"You found it?" Lorelai asked from downstairs and Rory went quickly into the bedroom and grabbed the book.

Lorelai was lying on the couch when she arrived back downstairs. "Would you read aloud the first paragraph?" Lorelai asked her.

"Sure," Rory answered and sat down in the armchair next to the couch. Then she began: "The four of them sat on the windowsill starring outside. "Where is she going?" Rana whispered. "Shhh!" Cecilia made to silence her three year old sister. They saw that the beautiful, tall lady closed the back door of the car and looked around with fear in her eyes. Tears were streaming down her face and she played nervously with one of her red curls. When the children saw the tears on her face, Cecilia was so shocked that her mouth dropped open. "What is she doing, damn it!" She screamed. "She is leaving," Laila simply stated. "No, she would never do that, never! Do you hear me? Never!" she screamed and started to hit her sister with her fists. Laila just sat there, staring outside. Sara stopped her sister and then they heard the engine of the car start. "Mommy!" Cecilia screamed and then ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her. "Come on Laila, time for bed!" Sara told her older sister. And she stood up and walked over to her bed in the middle of the room. Sara and Rana exchanged a worried look. The eight year old Sara sat in the armchair next to Laila's bed and then sat Rana on her lap. "Sleep now Laila, we will stay here the whole night." Rana told her. When Laila's breathing became slow and deep Rana looked to Sara. "Now they have no more mommy. Just like us!" Rana whispered. "Yeah, just like us." Sara stated before Rana laid her head against her sisters shoulder and drifted off to sleep..."

Rory read and read and when Luke came back he found the women, both on the couch, Rory with the book in her hands, crying. He stopped in the doorway and started to laugh. Lorelai and Rory looked at him, tears still running down their cheeks. Luke then sat on the couch and took Lorelai in his arms. Rory hugged her mother from behind. Luke laughed so hard that he also had tears in his eyes.

"Now look at you... sitting here in our living room, crying about a book you read a hundred times since we decided about the names," he managed to say before he started to laugh again. Rory and Lorelai now joined him. When they all calmed down after a few minutes Lorelai looked at her husband.

Rory already had taken the bag with the food and brought it into the kitchen.

"Said the man who just wiped away his own tears!" Lorelai teased him, then gave him a peck on the lips. Then she stood up and left a confused Luke on the couch.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

"Kitchen. Food." She turned around and smiled at him, then walked into the kitchen.

"Why did I even ask?" Luke murmured to himself and then stood up and followed her.

TBC