We started walking back out to the diner, when "Ow!"

"Lorelai? What's wrong?"

"Mom!" Rory rushed to my side, as did Luke.

"Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow, OW!" I cried out. The tears started pouring down my face. It hurt so much. "Something's wrong!" I screamed.

"Mom, this can't be happening! You're only 6 months pregnant!" Rory said frantically.

Luke led me over to a table. "Lorelai, you sit here. Rory, stay with your mother. I'll pull the truck around to the front."

"Okay." Rory bent down and held me close and cried with me. She was scared. So was I.

"Hurry, Luke! OW ow, ow, ow, ow!"

Chapter 12

Luke came rushing through the front door of the diner, not 30 seconds after he left to pull the truck around to the front. "Okay, Lorelai, can you walk?"

I was crying so hard, I couldn't answer. Luke took that as his cue to pick me up and carry me out to the truck. He placed me in the middle of the bench seat, so he and Rory could climb in on either side of me. Not a moment after we were all situated, we sped off towards the hospital.

"Lorelai, lay down!" Doctor Howser tried to persuade me. She had given up on asking calmly, and had begun to yell. It just wasn't going to work.

"No! The baby's not ready!" I cried out. I lay, scrunched up on a hospital bed, refusing to let anyone touch me. The baby just wasn't ready yet. Why couldn't they understand?

"Lorelai, please! You have to lie down!" I still refused. Everyone was so frantic around me, hustling and bustling, yelling… I couldn't take it. They were scaring me even more than I already was.

"Mom, you have to listen to the doctors!" Now my daughter was trying to do this to me? I thought she, of all people, would understand!

"Rory, I can't. She's not ready," I whispered through tears. My head began to spin. This was all happening so fast. All I wanted was to go home, sit on the couch, watch some sappy romantic comedy starring Meg Ryan, and eat a gallon of ice cream.

I pulled myself into a tighter ball, and covered my ears with my hands to block out the sound of everyone yelling at me.

"Lorelai," Now Luke? I really wanted to scream, but I was too busy crying my eyes out. "Lorelai, you have to do this. I know you don't want to, but you have to. Once they're done with the C-section, there's lots of great doctors here that are going to take really good care of your baby." When that didn't work, he added quietly, "If you don't do this, your baby won't make it, Lorelai. She'll die."

After thinking about his words for a few seconds, I slowly laid flat on my back, and let them wheel me into the operating room. I cried the whole way, and all through the C-section. No one could understand just how scared I was. I was so afraid that I'd lose my baby, my little girl, I just couldn't stand it.

Luke held my hand all the way through, while Rory waited patiently in the waiting room.

"Here she is." Doctor Howser held up a tiny pink baby for me to see. She wasn't crying. Moments later, after Luke cut the cord, Doctor Howser announced, "2 pounds, 13 ounces, 13 inches long." And just like that, my little girl was rushed to the NICU and I hadn't even gotten a proper look at her.

I started to cry even harder, and my head began to pound. "Luke! Where are you?"

"I'm right here, Lorelai. I'm right here."

"I need you." He held me as I cried and cried.

"I'm not leaving you. Don't worry."

Awhile later, after I had calmed down, I sat in a wheelchair, and Luke rolled me to the NICU to see my brand new daughter for the first time.

"She's so tiny," I said, staring at her in the incubator, on the verge of tears again. Luke kneeled down to my level and put an arm around my middle. "Have they told you anything?"

"Her lungs have a lot more developing to do, so she's at high risk for infections, and she can't breathe or eat on her own. Once she can do both, we can take her home," he said, finding no reason to lie to me.

"How long will that take?"

"Awhile," he said with a sigh. I gave a little whimper as I watched her flex her fingers helplessly. Luke rubbed my back comfortingly, and I rested my head on his shoulder.

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think she'll be okay?" I said, barely above a whisper.

"I think she's already perfect."

Tbc.

I know, I know, it was really short, but it was necessary for it to be that short. If I had added anything else to it, it would've been overdone, and no one wants that. To make up for its shortness, I promise to stay up tonight and write the next chapter and have it posted my tomorrow evening, but only because I have no homework. You can thank my teachers for that one. Ah, gotta love block scheduling.

Anyway, Review!

Random Question: When someone asks you, "A penny for your thoughts" and you put your two cents in . . . what happens to the other penny?