Chapter four: month nine

"Oh, come on Luke! This one is really cute!" Lorelai whined and tugged on her husband's arm. They stood in a store in front of the strollers. Lorelai had seen a pink one and wanted to have it. For twenty minutes she had been bugging Luke about it, but he refused to buy it.

He was annoyed and cranky, this time for real. They had spent all morning in the mall buying baby clothes and everything else they would need. And besides that he hated the mall, it was full of strangers and stuff nobody really needed, plus he had to go shopping with his 37 week pregnant wife, which was not really amusing.

He hated to go shopping by himself also, but with Lorelai it was even worse. She always bought him clothes he would never wear, forced him to eat food he just found disgusting, and would get everything that seemed to sparkle a bit. And it took hours.

But now that she was pregnant it was even worse, and he never thought that was possible.

She forced him to eat fast-food crap three times that day, had to pee every ten minutes, and complained all the time about her aching feet, but was not willing to leave the mall. Instead, they had been in this baby-stuff store for two hours and he had refused to buy pink bottles and a sparkling teddy bear and now she wanted this pink stroller.

"Lorelai, there is no way that my son will ever sit in this thing, forget it!" he told her.

"But we don´t know what we're going to get!" She pouted.

"Exactly, why don't you pick a neutral one?". He calmed down a bit when he saw her pouting. He secretly loved it when she did that.

"Oh, but that's sooo boring!"

"You know what? We will pick this dark blue one over there and if we get a girl you can add some pink ribbons!" He suggested.

"Yay!" She screamed and hugged him.

"Lorelai..." He said and tried to untangle from her. He was embarrassed and blushed. Lorelai just laughed.

"So, daddy, I think we have everything now. Lets get something to eat, we are hungry!" she told him and grabbed his hand and slid her fingers through his.

"I'm not really hungry. But why don't you go down to the food area, while I bring all this stuff to our car and then join you?" He asked and squeezed her hand. He couldn´t stand one more burger that day.

"Okaaaayyy... I know you are just saying that to get rid of me for some time, but okay." She smiled and then pulled him closer by the collar of his shirt. "See you then!" She said and kissed him, before she walked out of the store.

Luke had some trouble carrying all the stuff she had bought, but he was happy that this mall-nightmare had an end and that they could go home now.

Lorelai walked towards the food area, when she saw a book in the bookstore.

They had re-published I´m with you and had added some pictures, which was pretty uncommon for an adult book. She looked at the pictures and knew that she had to get this book. She had it at home already, but Rory had it at the moment and there were no pictures in it.

When she had it she went outside the store and sat on a bench flipping through the pages.

She smiled when she saw a picture that showed the three sisters and the stepmother in the book, the main characters of the story. It was painted very beautifully.

"Lorelai!"

Her smile left her face the moment she heard that voice. Without looking up she knew exactly who was standing next to her. For a second she closed her eyes and hoped that this had just been her imagination. But then she heard her mother's voice again and slowly opened her eyes and looked up.

She was not only shocked to see her mother, but also at what she saw. Emily had lost a lot of weight and looked pale. She stared at Lorelai's pregnant belly and Lorelai thought that she saw some emotions on her mother's face. Not only anger, frustration, and disappointment, but also something like hurt, happiness, and hope.

"Mother.." Lorelai managed to say as she closed the book and slipped it back into her bag.

Emily cleared her throat before she looked her daughter in the eyes.

"You are pregnant!" She said.

"I know." Lorelai replied. Anger and fear fought inside of her and she could not decide at the moment which one would win.

"I know that you know that, don´t play dumb Lorelai. But why don't I know about it?" Emily asked and her voice was shaking with anger this time.

"We did not want you to know. Well, actually I did not want you to know so that we could avoid the conversation which I'm sure is going to come up any moment. And before you start: This baby was planned and wanted. I wanted to have Luke's baby. And I don´t want to hear your comments on that!" Lorelai was raising her voice more and more and stood up, so that she could meet her mother eye to eye.

"How far along are you?" Emily asked and Lorelai froze at the tone of her voice. She turned around and wanted to walk away, but Emily grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"How far along are you?" she asked again, a little bit louder this time.

"37 weeks." Lorelai answered and freed herself from Emily's grasp.

"You are going to have a baby in three weeks and you never told us? You never told us that you are pregnant. You never returned our calls..." Emily was screaming now, but Lorelai interrupted her.

"You know exactly why I am doing this. I don´t think I need to remind you that you tried to ruin my life for the second time!" Lorelai hissed.

"Ruin your life? Have you lost your mind? Who got pregnant at the age of 16? I don't think I encouraged you to do that." Emily screamed.

"Stop it!" Lorelai screamed back, but Emily did not.

"You ran away with Rory without even thinking about how much that would hurt me or your father. You refused to marry the man to whom you belong..."

"I married the man to whom I belong!"

"... You worked as a maid and forced your daughter to live in that shack, behind the hotel. Then you come back and beg for money because that´s all we are good for. And then when you seemed to succeed one time in your life, when you opened that Inn of yours, this man shows up and ruins everything. You married this diner-man and got knocked up again. And you shut us out. But don´t think we will give you money again when you will come and beg for it, when he leaves you alone with that child and you can´t afford to pay for a good school..."

All the time her mother screamed, Lorelai felt how angry she got and she wanted Luke to be there and help her.

When her mother stopped, Lorelai tried to walk away, but again Emily stopped her.

She tried to sweep away her mothers hand when she felt a sharp pain.

"Aaaa! Oh god!" she cried out and put both of her hands on her stomach and let herself fall onto the bench.

Emily's mood changed immediately from angry to worried and she hurried to her daughter's side.

"Lorelai! What's wrong with you?" Emily asked her.

"I don't know, but it just hurts!" The pain was obvious in her voice.

"The contractions started!"

"Aaaa. But it's too early. There are three weeks left!" Lorelai had started to cry and the tears were running down her cheeks.

"Do you have your cell phone here? I'll call the ambulance." Emily said and had already started to search in Lorelai's purse.

"No. No ambulance. I want Luke. Call Luke!" She cried, her hands still on her belly.

"But it would take him too long to get here."

"No, he is here. Outside, loading the car. Oh gooooooddd! Speed dial: one."

Emily hit the one and felt relieved when Luke answered immediately.

"Lorelai? Where are you? Are you okay? I'm running around in the food area looking.."

"Luke it's Emily. Lorelai's contractions started. We're on the second floor in front of the bookstore."

Luke cut the call the second he knew where Lorelai was. The fact that Emily was with her didn't calm him, just the opposite.

He ran all the way, even on the escalator, and had some trouble finding her. He hated the mall.

"He will be here soon. He is on his way!" Emily told Lorelai after Luke had ended the call. She knew that he would come as fast as possible. She always thought that he was not good enough for her daughter, but she had to admit that he would do anything and everything for her because he loved her. It had been so obvious when she had met him for the first time at Rory's birthday party. The way he had looked at Lorelai...

"It just hurts... I'm scared... It was not supposed to happen today... I just want my baby to be fine... Pleeease!" Lorelai cried. Emily was shocked and she felt guilty. She needed Lorelai to calm down.

So she moved one arm around her daughter's shoulders and pulled her close. Lorelai let her head fall down onto her mothers left shoulder.

Then Emily used her left hand to stroke Lorelai's hair.

"Ssshhh! It will be fine, Lori. Everything will be fine. Luke will be here soon and you will have a healthy baby...ssshhh, calm down!" Emily tried to soothe her.

When Lorelai heard her mother call her Lori, she removed her right hand from her belly and grasped her mother's free hand. It was the pet name her mother had given her when she was a kid. But she had only used it when she thought Lorelai was asleep. This was the first time she used it again.

"Luke..." Lorelai cried on her mother's shoulder.

"Shhh, he will be here soon...ssshh!"

TBC