Chapter 160

April 27th, 2022

"Oh no… no-no-no-no-no," Rory exclaimed, realizing the blouse she'd planned on wearing to work that day had a couple of very noticeable bright red lipstick stains on it. She recognized the shade alright - hers - Cherry Jane it was called. It took a minute for her to figure out how it had gotten onto her white silk blouse, as she didn't recall wearing the combination of the two in at least a year.

"Em! I've told you, you're not allowed to play with my work clothes!" she added, raising her voice so Em would hear her, realizing who's fault this was. Em had played dress up while she'd attempted to cook dinner for them last night, trying to keep up a series of home cooked meals for Em as they'd gotten used to with Logan. She had her staples which she could handle, and having lived with Logan for months had only really encouraged her to try out some new recipes together with him.

She'd had two evenings with Em where she'd tried to tone down on work and focus on Em and Em alone. They'd tried doing a home spa - cucumber slices on their eyes, glittery skin lotion and kid friendly nail polish. And the other evening they'd gone shopping, done a pretend fashion show with the things they'd bought and ordered Em's favorites from Effie's. Usually all of the things would've been fun, even for Rory. But she could taste the bribery aspect of this, and she was pretty sure Em could too, even if she was unable to define the concept by name. Clearly the girl felt threatened by the baby growing in Rory's belly - and no matter how much Rory tried to assure her that she'd always love her, nothing seemed to be enough.

It wasn't that Rory didn't have anything else to wear. She was way more prepared for any such scenarios than her mother had ever been - her own first day at Chilton still vividly in her mind as a cautionary tale. But she could tell Em was acting up - there was more disobedience, she was more difficult to please - perhaps that in part was just age appropriate testing of boundaries too. But she could tell Em was doing some of these things to purposefully hurt her and Logan. And this made her worry.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" Rory huffed again, walking out of her bedroom and into Em's, as she didn't hear anything back from her, still just wearing her bra and the pencil skirt she'd picked out for the day.

As she opened her door she found Em, who was supposed to be getting dressed for school, sitting on the floor playing with her Barbie dolls, the entire contents of her drawer thrown around the room.

"I'm not going to school!" Em objected, not commenting a word on the blouse or the lipstick, not an ounce of apologeticness in her tone.

At that point, frankly, Rory was seeing red. And she knew that before she went too far verbally or in her tone of voice, she knew she just needed to get out of there. It was just too much for her already stressful morning.

"Oh yes you are," she said and walked out of Em's room, now wanting her to see her face grimacing, borderline ready to cry. It was a stress reaction, not one she was particularly proud of.

The day was going to be bad enough - they were recording the senior class, you know - messages for a younger self just like they'd done back in the day for their digital yearbook, and she was supposed to have her five minutes too, wanting to give her best wishes in a format that they actually might respond to. She had two tests to conduct and grade, a meeting with the English faculty to go over next year, which would include her having to tell people about her plans for fall. She needed to somehow make it home during lunch hour to take Loki out, as he too was her responsibility for the week. And on top of everything she needed to take Em to the dentist after school for her check-up.

It didn't help that her entire abdomen felt like…. Well, she knew what it felt like. They were stretching pains, nothing more than that, but the near constant ache which together with her hormones was making her more irritated and sensitive than usual. It took all she got to not react with anything worse than what she just had and return to her room. She closed her door behind her, taking several deep breaths, and counting to ten in her head. Still - she hadn't been able to fight the tears completely. It felt like she was failing at this. If she couldn't do this with Em, the dog and the work - what would happen once she had the baby?

She got dressed in her less-than-perfect outfit consisting of another blouse that sat just a bit too tight on her belly. This meant that next to dealing with everything she was already dealing with, people were probably going to start noticing her pregnancy too. She really wasn't ashamed, and besides the English faculty was going to know that day anyways, but she just wasn't sure she wanted to deal with the 20 questions right now considering how Em was taking it.

She did her make up in a haste, just barely having wiped away her tears, hiding a few small blemishes and applying some mascara, and only pulling her hair back into a simple ponytail. It'd just have to do. And if the past few years working at a school had taught her anything, it was that graduations and all that end of the school year excitement quickly became a lot less exciting if one was just a member of the faculty.

Rory then marched out of her room and back to Em's, determined to make sure this one got to school on time.

"Okay, this is how it's going to go," Rory said, her hands on her hips, trying to appear ten times stronger than she felt. "You're going to school and that's final, now you can either pick out your outfit or I'll do it, but that'll mean we won't be going to the movies tomorrow like we talked," she added. She knew bribing, or rather, threatening wasn't ideal, but this was all she could think of in the spur of the moment. "And you'll clean up your room when we get back," Rory added, feeling like she'd just topped off the i.

Em continued to pout but reluctantly began to move, Rory's firmer stance being surprisingly efficient. As Rory headed downstairs ahead of Em, already thinking of plan B and C if Em continued - but helf off, knowing the dentist's appointment at the end of the day was probably scary enough. She should've felt victorious once she got the girl into the car, but she didn't feel it. She didn't want to be this kind of parent. Lorelai had never treated her like this, well almost never - the only real time that came to mind was the time she'd begun doubting wanting to go to Chilton because of Dean. That had been justifiable in her mind - the rest just felt like she'd just steered hers and Em's relationship to a destination very far from hers and Lorelai's, and not in a good way.

The day passed in a flash, thankfully. Keeping busy keeping her mind occupied. There had been a mild round of congratulations from the faculty meeting, but the attention had been soon drawn towards the new teacher candidates which Max was about to hire, and had offered the rest of the team to have a say in. Rory wasn't even sure why she felt that disappointed to be dismissed so easily. But thinking back - what did she expect? She hadn't worked there that long.

Rory picked up Em from school, and the two headed for the dentist's office not far from their home. Thankfully, Em hadn't had any cavities yet, hence she wasn't really scared. The fact that she usually got a small toy after her visit certainly helped.

"I'll be right here, okay?" Rory assured, as she sent Em ahead with the friendly looking female doctor she already knew from last time. She was relieved that Em's bad mood had lifted a little, but she knew that they'd need to pick up some of their issues once they got home, because Em's room was still a mess and she was determined to at least get an apology out of Em for ruining her shirt. The stains had seemed too deliberate to have happened by accident, but she was willing to have her explain what had happened and accept her saying it was an accident if it came to it.

"Alright, let's go,'' the doctor urged, and led Em down the hall.

Rory took a seat in the waiting room, knowing she should probably just start with the pile of tests she needed to get graded, but she just… felt too tired to do anything too serious. Being pregnant was tiresome, more so than she remembered.

She saw a few magazines to her left, and between Golf Digest, Real Simple and Conde Nast, the latter being like a painful reminder of the past by now, she found a copy of Parenting from months ago.

As a former journalist herself, she never really looked at a magazine like a regular person. She thought about how the issue had been composed, recognized and paid attention to the writers' names and noticed straight away when certain images were essentially fillers. She perused through a few pages of best baby gear of 2021, which actually proved rather interesting, considering things had changed a lot in five years and she'd need to begin to look into these things soon again.

She didn't quite finish the article, as something, or rather - someone interrupted her.

"Well isn't this a coincidence," a familiar voice noted. "Hi," he added

Rory looked up, not quite recognizing it, despite having heard it quite recently.

"Mind if I sit?" Seth asked. He looked like he'd just recently been somewhere in the sun, looking all tanned.

Rory had last seen him that awkward night when she and Logan had ended up dining with Jess and Lisa, and frankly, seeing Seth altogether, had nearly been brushed to the back of her mind altogether in comparison. She wasn't eager for this interaction, but as she quickly glanced around the waiting room, there weren't exactly many vacant seats. Were she to say 'no' it was likely going to be even more awkward. The best she could hope for was that whatever reason he was there, he'd just be called in a minute, so she swallowed hard and nodded in agreement, hoping for the best.

"Hi," Rory said, having collected herself a little, deciding to put on her best polite act. "I didn't know you went here," she added, explaining her surprise.

"I'm just picking up my dad," Seth explained. "He's having some surgery done, they said it was better if he didn't drive afterwards," he added.

So much for a quick fix for this situation - Rory thought. She removed her finger from between the magazine where she'd left off and placed the magazine back down, not wanting to draw much attention to it.

"So how have you been?" he asked, his hands resting on his lap, fingers crossed. Something about that body language reminded Rory of Jess a great deal. Thinking back she wondered whether it was something that had drawn her to him. If she really thought hard about it - there had been other small details as well.

"I've been well, it's just been a rough day. Just took my girl to her appointment," she exhaled, being too tired to hide her tiredness. They had been honest with each other before, and since they weren't anything anymore she didn't really feel the need to lie or put on a good face either. "And you?"

"Could be better. Took a free semester, travelled a bit. Did some soul searching," he said, explaining his tan.

"That must've been nice," Rory commented, casually.

There was some awkward silence, Rory feeling like he wanted to say something, the tension building up to it.

"Logan's one lucky guy," Seth said the next moment, nodding his head towards her finger, noticing the ring.

"I don't think luck has anything to do with it," Rory replied. She felt a little confused - it was not just her that had ghosted him, but vice versa. It had seemed they'd agreed that they weren't going to work.

"I think you're too good for him," Seth pointed out, almost making Rory want to stare at him with her mouth wide open, not believing what she was hearing.

"You don't even know him anymore," Rory replied, frowning, wanting to add that he didn't really know her either.

Seth shrugged. "Can a person ever truly change?" he added. "Listen, I didn't plan on saying this…," he took a deep breath, speaking quietly so not everyone could overhear them. "I just… when I saw you last I just… and now as I feel it's faith that I ran into you here of all places… I just want to say that I guess I realized too late what I let go. I wish I hadn't… I wish…," Seth continued, but Rory just had to stop him right there.

"Stop, please…," Rory said, looking at him skeptically. "We weren't a good fit, Seth. Stopping seeing each-other was the right thing to do. And I don't know whether this is you just being desperate or reliving some college time inferiority complex towards Logan after seeing us together at the restaurant… but you need to stop. We're through and that's final. Considering this, " she said, holding up her hand and pointing at her ring, "and the fact that I'm pregnant, I think it's time you stop humiliating yourself," Rory added, rather harshly. She hadn't realized how loud she'd been and there were definitely several people staring at them now, making Rory swallow hard from embarrassment, her cheeks going all red.

"I'm sorry," Seth said, his voice shaky. "I'll just go wait outside," he said, stood up and headed out the door, clearly feeling humiliated as well.

Rory felt a strange combination of relief and embarrassment. She'd just unloaded all of her struggles from this morning and the whole week onto him in a way, but she felt embarrassed too, realizing that she may have just jumped into a lot of conclusions he hadn't actually said. But clearly she had hit a nerve. But she couldn't deny, that that whole interaction had felt so random, so out of the blue - that she'd probably continue repeating 'what the fuck' to herself for the rest of the night.

It was the next minute, Em returned, followed by a nurse.

"Looks like Em here has great teeth, still no cavities. Just keep up the good work" the nurse told Rory, after she'd gotten up to meet them.

"Thank you," Rory replied, for the first time that day feeling like she'd done something right. Rather - two things - even if one wasn't as black and white. First she'd made sure Em brushed her teeth, and even if she needed to learn to handle her attitudes and tackle the bigger issues that came with Em getting a sibling. And secondly, even if the way she'd done it hadn't been too admirable - she did feel she'd done the right thing. She'd stood up for her family.


AN: Today's chapter is a bit rushed - so sorry if there were any spelling/grammar mistakes.