Disclaimer: I can honestly say that I own nothing here.
The silence was deafening. The apartment now bare and barren, and with each step she took, Rory's legs quivered. He was gone. Like a puff of smoke she'd tried to grasp with her fingertips, he'd slipped away. She collapsed mutely on their wine colored couch, absently wrapping the worn afghan around her shoulders. Out of nowhere a giggle escaped her lips. She had hated this couch on sight. It spoke volumes, blathering on about cocktail parties and hoity toity businessmen, when all she had wanted was comfort. An unbidden image of what she and Logan had done on it flashed through her mind, but she had gotten quite adept at pushing away such thoughts, and it was gone in a matter of moments.
Slowly she stood, unbuttoning her coat as she went, dropping it on the ground. The phone rang on the end table, but Rory ignored it, enjoying the sense of freedom that came with shedding the coat, one of Logan's more recent gifts. Looking around the apartment, a watery grin began to tip the edges of her lips. Redecorating would definitely keep her mind off of things. The phone rang again, and Rory's eyebrows furrowed. Surely the machine must have picked up by now. Curiously she walked to it, her pace quickening as she neared, but even before she could see the machine, she knew. He had deleted their answering machine message. A surge of sheer, cold panic coursed through her, but she pushed it away, rationalizing that it was for the best. It had to be. The phone rang again, and for a moment Rory was impressed at the caller's tenacity.
"Hello?" She asked, making her way to the edge of the couch, and grabbing the pad and pencil next to the telephone. A little list of her plans couldn't hurt.
"Rory?" The voice was gruff and familiar, and the pang that she'd become accustomed to hit in the vicinity of her heart.
"Luke." She responded needing no confirmation. She tucked a stray piece of her hair behind her ear and waited.
"Hi." He said, and Rory could hear him gulping uncomfortably through the line. She couldn't help but smiling. Swallowing a sigh she wondered how long it had been since she had really smiled.
"Hi," she responded, wondering what he could want, and all the same strangely elated that the answering machine hadn't picked up. Even so, he was her mother's husband, so she had to be behind this somehow. Maybe she had paid Logan to leave-but no. Her mother was many things, but malicious was not one of them.
"I know this is kind of out of the blue, us not talking very frequently." Rory almost laughed. Not very frequently was possibly the understatement of the year; or even of the last 4, she mused.
"No we haven't." She added quietly. In the beginning she had been too angry to even consider talking to her mother. She had been an adult, and it had been her prerogative to make mistakes! In fact, Lorelai had made the biggest mistake of all, and she was fabulously successful.
"I normally wouldn't call. I know how…strained your relationship with Lorelai is, but she doesn't know I'm doing this." Yeah, right, Rory thought. But his tone made her stop. "She's sick, Rory." And with those words, her entire universe fell apart.
Author's Note: I know! I didn't expect it either. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but seriously, the story is basically writing itself, I'm just typing along.
