A/N: Hello lovely humans! Finally time for chapter 6! And finally time for Rory and Lorelai to talk. As we've already seen, we have canon events that occur within the non-cannon world of Still and Again. We're still going to see all the major canon events, but we're going to start seeing more and more canon divergence as we go from here. All for the benefit of our characters! Anyway, read, review (I so enjoy reading your lovely reviews), and have a fantastic day!
Chapter 6
Lorelai wandered around the house aimlessly, full of nervous energy. She had heard from Lane that something was going on with Rory, something good, and she was dying to know what it was but wanted to wait and let Rory come to her. She was alone for the night; Luke was staying the night at his apartment to catch up with Jess and Sookie was busy with the kids. She clicked through TV channels, flipped through magazines, too distracted to legitimately focus on anything. She considered calling Al's to get takeout but didn't want the phone to be busy. She had just about given up when it started to ring. She jumped and answered it quickly.
"Hello?"
"Mom?"
"Rory?!"
"Mom!"
Lorelai had happy tears in her eyes.
"Oh kid, you have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice."
"Really?"
"Are you kidding?!"
"Well, same goes for you!"
"Really?"
"Well, yeah…"
There was a moment of silence as neither mother nor daughter knew what to say, both nervous but overcome with joy.
Rory broke the silence. "Guess what?"
"What?"
"I got a job!"
"No way!" Lorelai couldn't contain her grin.
"And I'm going back to school! And I moved out of grandma and grandpa's! And I'm staying at Lane's right now, but—"
"Get your butt over here!"
"Yeah?!"
"Yes! Meet at the house in 10 minutes!"
"Okay!"
"See you soon, kid."
The Gilmore girls hung up their phones and ran to prepare for their reunion.
Luke's diner was closed for the night and empty of customers as Jess was wiping down the counters. It had been a couple of days since he had seen Rory and was starting to grow concerned since he still hadn't seen either of the Gilmores come into the diner. Had Lorelai really not accepted her daughter back with open arms? As he finished cleaning and was debating going to Lane's to check on Rory, Lorelai burst through the door, startling Jess. The enormous grin on Lorelai's face told Jess everything he needed to know about the status of Lorelai and Rory's relationship.
"Jess! Hi! Uncle! Where?!"
Jess suppressed a smirk and pointed up. "Burgers! Fries! Quick! Thanks!" Lorelai sprinted up the stairs as Jess laughed under his breath as he went to prepare the food, his own grin spreading across his face.
Lorelai ran into the apartment as Luke was talking on the phone gesturing wildly, his back to the door. His words stopped Lorelai in her tracks.
"… 12 years, Anna! It was a phone call! Instead, I find out when she runs a paternity test herself for the science fair! Why didn't you tell me? She's my daughter!"
"What?" Lorelai's voice was almost a whisper.
Luke spun around, his eyes wide. "Anna, I need to call you back." He quickly hung up the phone and looked at Lorelai.
"You…" Lorelai swallowed. "You have a daughter?"
"Yes."
"H-how long have you known?"
"Found out a couple days ago."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
"That's…"
"Yep."
"Did you say 12?"
"Yeah, 12 years old."
"W-what's her name?"
"April. April Nardini."
"Pretty name."
"Yeah."
"I…" Lorelai faltered, finding herself speechless. "Sorry, Luke, I'm just trying to wrap my head around this." Lorelai moved to sit down at the kitchen table and ran her hand through her hair.
"Trust me, I am right there with you." Luke sat down next to her.
"I came over to get food and to tell you Rory's back and that we could set a date for the wedding—"
Luke interrupted her, "Wait, Rory's back?!"
"—and now there's a daughter and Jess has burgers and—" Lorelai gasped. "Oh my God!"
Luke looked terrified. "What?!"
"Rory! I told her to meet me at the house!"
"Jeez, Lorelai, you scared the crap out of me…"
"Ugh, Luke, I'm sorry, we seriously need to talk about this, but…"
Luke grabbed Lorelai's hand. "Go. We'll talk tomorrow."
Lorelai looked at him with concern in her eyes. Just then, Jess walked into the apartment with takeout containers of burgers and fries. Seeing his uncle and Lorelai caught in their emotional moment, he immediately regretting coming up the stairs. He looked away and cleared his throat to get their attention. Luke and Lorelai startled at the noise.
"Got your food. Sorry for interrupting."
"It's fine. Thanks, Jess." Lorelai got up to leave and looked back at Luke. "Talk to you tomorrow?"
"Yeah, tomorrow." Luke smiled reassuringly.
Lorelai left Jess and Luke in a tense silence.
"So…" Jess began.
"So…" Luke said distractedly.
"You want to talk about it, or…?" Jess didn't really want to be Luke's shoulder to cry on, but he didn't feel right about just leaving when there was something obviously going on.
"Not really."
"Cool. Cool." Jess stood awkwardly, hands anxiously drumming the table.
"… you have a cousin."
Jess's brow furrowed in confusion. "How do I have a cousin?"
"Apparently, I have a daughter."
Jess froze. "I'm sorry, I must've misheard you. What?"
Luke sighed. "I said, I have a daughter."
"Okay, I definitely misheard you. You have a what?"
"Quit being a smartass, grab a beer, and come sit down," Luke snipped with an eyeroll.
Jess went through the motions and sat down next to Luke, his mind reeling with the information he'd just been presented.
Lorelai drove back to her house distractedly, doing her best to compartmentalize the many life-changing events of the evening to focus her energy on Rory's return. She saw Rory's car in the driveway as she pulled up and as she took a deep breath, she opened the car door, stepping into her daughter's view.
After hanging up the phone, Rory had sprinted into Lane's house to quickly recount the phone call with Lorelai and to pack a bag of overnight supplies. Rory pulled up to an empty house ten minutes later, mind racing. She didn't truly think her mom had suddenly changed her mind about reuniting, but she worried all the same. What if she had decided she didn't want to see Rory again after all? Sitting on the porch of her childhood home, she felt strange. She hadn't called this place home in a while, and it seemed like both everything and nothing had changed since then. It looked a little different since it had an upstairs addition put on, but besides that, all was the same. Perhaps she was the one who was different. She gazed around, suddenly feeling very out of place. She pulled her jacket around her waist a little tighter, trying hard to convince herself that her mom would be home soon and sat down on the porch steps to wait. Five minutes later, as her breath started to become more rapid and tears threatened to make an appearance, she saw her mom's old jeep pull into the driveway. She stood as Lorelai got out of the car, holding her breath and pinching herself to make sure this was really happening. They remained in place, briefly, simply gazing at each other and enjoying each other's presence for the first time in much too long. Simultaneously, they ran into each other's arms, colliding in a bittersweet, tearful embrace that said so much more than words ever could.
"Mom, I am so sorry."
"Oh Rory, me too."
"I was so messed up!"
"So was I!"
"Can we never do this again?"
Lorelai pulled back. "What, the hug? Because I was kind of enjoying it but if you say so…" she started to extract her arms jokingly.
"No!" Rory pulled her back in desperately. "No, we can stay like this forever as far as I'm concerned. Just, can we please never, ever, ever go this long without talking again? Please?"
"Never again, kid."
"Good."
"Good."
They stayed there, wrapped together tightly and making up for months of no hugs, until Lorelai's stomach growled loudly. The two women laughed, tearful giggles rapidly evolving into loud belly laughs, as they released everything but their hands, holding on tight as Lorelai grabbed the takeout from her car.
"Well, I have burgers, fries, some news, and about a thousand movies I started watching but didn't want to finish without you."
"Oh, Luke's burgers! I missed them almost as much as I missed you!" Rory lunged at the bag of food.
Lorelai frowned and held the food away from her daughter. "Hey now, don't joke!"
"Don't worry, I'm just kidding. Kind of."
"Hey, honestly, I don't blame you. My fiancé makes a damn good burger."
"Fiancé! Mom! You're really engaged! I mean, I knew you were engaged, but now I get to celebrate it with you!"
"Yes, and much celebrating we shall do, but I'm starting to freeze out here and even Luke's burgers aren't good cold. Let's go inside." Lorelai led Rory by the hand into the house.
Rory grinned. "Let the reuniting begin!"
"Whoa…"
"Yep."
"A daughter."
"Yeah."
"Luke has a daughter?"
"Mmhmm."
"Luke has a daughter!"
"Yes, child of mine, that fact has been well established. Wow we really need to get you back to Yale, your smarts are escaping…"
"Sorry, I'm just having trouble comprehending it!"
"Oh, trust me, me too. Five more questions that could be answered with any form of the word 'yes' and throw in some dizziness and nausea and you'll be where I was about 20 minutes ago."
Lorelai and Rory sat on opposite ends of the couch talking, enjoying burgers, Pop Tarts, and copious amounts of coffee, and making up for lost time. They had covered the basics, wanting to keep things light at first before diving into the heavy nature of their time apart. They had discussed Lorelai's proposal to Luke and a quick update on how the inn was doing, Rory's adventures in the DAR (which elicited a hefty dose of mocking from Lorelai) and her plans to start back at the Yale Daily News. After that, they had moved onto the big news of the evening: Luke's daughter.
"A daughter…" Rory mumbled thoughtfully.
"Okay, can we please talk about anything else now? Tonight was supposed to be joyful and light and fun, my first night with my beloved daughter in months, and now I'm majorly stressed out about the fact that someday in the not-too-distant future, I'm going to have a stepdaughter."
"Oh my God! I'm going to have a stepsister!"
"Seriously! Any other topic of conversation for 200 please, Alex!"
"Sorry, sorry, moving on for now."
"Thank you. New topic, new topic, hmm..." Lorelai pondered. "Oh! What about Logan? I'll bet he's excited for you to be going back to school!"
Rory looked away, swallowing hard. "Oh, uh…"
"What? Uh oh, trouble in paradise? Did I inadvertently step into something there?" Lorelai winced.
"Well, there is no more Logan…"
"What do you mean? Did one of his Life and Death Brigade shindigs finally end in, well, not-life? I don't remember reading about anything like that in the paper, you'd think that would be print-worthy news…"
Rory stifled a laugh. "No, uh, I broke up with him."
Lorelai was stunned. "Really?" It was more of a statement than a question.
"Yep. Really."
"Do you feel like diving into that that now or…?"
Rory knew she would have to explain the full extent of that fateful night's events to her mother eventually. So, taking a deep breath, she carefully recounted the story of the night that Jess changed her life. How he had come to surprise her with his book, how they went to dinner with Logan, the fine form Logan had been in, Jess's aggressive but lovingly concerned speech that pushed her to reevaluate everything about how she had been living since the fateful conversation with Mitchum, and the complete turnaround that Rory's life had taken since then. The entire time Rory told the story, Lorelai was uncharacteristically quiet, taking in the information one word at a time. The more Rory talked, the more anxious she became.
"He even helped me move, mom. That's why he's in town. I asked him not to tell Luke so I could tell you everything first. And Jess wouldn't accept it, but I give him basically all the credit for getting me where I am now. He kickstarted it all." She paused, unsuccessfully attempting to gauge her mother's thoughts. "Sorry if it makes it harder to hate him," she joked.
The two women sat in silence, Rory fidgeting anxiously with a pillow on the couch.
"Mom? Please say something. Are you upset that I asked Jess to help instead of you? Because I wanted to wait until I had all the big things figured out before I talked to you. Oh no, I hurt your feelings, didn't I? Ugh mom, I am so sorry, I should've called you, you would have loved getting me out from under the grandparents' roof and I ruined it! Hey, maybe we can re-enact in? Huh? Although, I'd have to be on speaking terms with them, and considering I left without telling them, and Jess ran into Grandpa on the way out, I'm not sure they'd be very fond of us coming over and moving me back in and then back out again… but maybe we could re-enact it here! Although, I don't really want to carry all those boxes in and out of a third house… but I'd do it if it would make you feel better! Wait! Oh! Hey! I still have to move back to school! It wouldn't be exactly the same, but hey! It's still moving my crap from one place to another—"
"Rory. Whoa. Slow down," Lorelai said with a chuckle. "Honey, you're rambling so much you'd be giving me a run for my money, and that's saying something."
"Sorry! You were just sitting there all quiet and you're never quiet and it spooked me."
"Sorry sweets, I promise to make sure to never be quiet again."
"Thanks, I'd appreciate that." It was silent again. "Mom, you're already breaking your promise!"
"Sorry! I guess I just…"
"What?" Rory's eyes were wide with worry. Lorelai looked at her wonderingly. At that moment, Rory looked just like her little girl, the one who once punished herself by taking away her own books for forgetting to return a book to the library. The one who could always do absolutely anything she put her mind to. And her little girl had done just that.
"I'm just really, really proud of you, Rory." Lorelai said with a soft smile.
Rory's eyes filled with tears. "What?" Her voice was barely a whisper.
Lorelai started to tear up as well. "Give all the credit to Jess that you want and trust me, as painful as it may be for me to do, I will be thanking him repeatedly, but Rory, you did this. Someone else may have opened your eyes to it, but you took the action. You got yourself out of a relationship that you weren't happy in, you got a job that will give you a step up in the career that you've dreamed of since you were tiny, you got yourself back into Yale. You're the only one that could have done all that. I've always been proud of you, save for maybe a few mistakes you've made and hey, maybe cutting your own hair when you were three wasn't your proudest moment, but Rory…" Lorelai paused to take a breath. "I am so proud of you it almost hurts."
Tears were streaming down Rory's cheeks. She was unable to formulate coherent sentences, so she simply crawled across the couch and curled up in Lorelai's lap.
"Thank you, mommy."
Lorelai shifted to wrap her arms around Rory. "Aww, kid. Always." Lorelai sniffed. "And hon, I'm really loving this moment and I really don't want it to end quite yet so I don't want to talk about this now, but please promise Mommy that tomorrow you'll tell the story of Jess meeting my father."
Rory giggled. "I promise. It's a good one."
Lorelai sighed contentedly. "Good."
Mother and daughter sat curled up on the couch in each other's arms blissfully unaware of time passing until they fell asleep, finally reconciled.