Thanks for all the fabulous feedback!
Sorry it took awhile to update... I figured my professor might notice if I turned in Chapter 6 instead of my due-date-impending research paper, so I've been writing that instead. It's much less fun, and the comments aren't nearly as cool. :D
Calls and Waiting
"Where is he? Is he going to be okay? Can I see him?" Lorelai's words were forceful but her voice was shaky as she stood at the reception desk in the Hartford Memorial Hospital Emergency Room. Rory stood with her arm around her mother for support, looking pleadingly at the two nurses behind the desk. "Is he going to be okay?" Lorelai demanded again, clinging to her last shred of self-control.
"Take a seat, please, ma'am," the older nurse said in a steely voice that matched her iron-colored hair. She barely glanced up from her computer screen.
"I can't take a seat, not until you tell me if he's okay," Lorelai swallowed hard, refusing to burst into tears.
The nurse sighed irritably. "Name?"
"Lorelai Gilmore."
"Name of the patient," the nurse corrected condescendingly.
"Luke," Lorelai gulped. "Luke Danes. Or maybe Lucas. Probably Lucas, Lucas Danes."
"Nobody by that name has been admitted."
"What are you talking about?" Lorelai, already very short of patience, couldn't hide her frustration. "They brought him in, just now. It can't have been more than ten minutes, we followed the ambulance, but they don't let civilians have those flashy red lights and siren-thingys, so it took us longer, so he's here, you just have to tell me if he's all right."
"Ma'am, we have no patient by the name of Lucas Danes," the nurse repeated unfeelingly.
"Stop calling me ma'am!" Lorelai lost it. "He- Luke- he- there was a car accident, and I don't know what happened, except I do know he was hurt! He was hurt, badly I think- I don't know- but you do! Just- just go back there and look!"
"You need to calm down-" the nurse began, but Lorelai had a better idea.
"No, you need to get off your lazy ass, go back there and find out if my boyfriend is still alive!" she yelled, her voice breaking on the last word. The waiting room full of people grew suddenly silent.
The nurse pursed her lips in severe disapproval and glared at Lorelai. Deliberately she got to her feet and disappeared through the heavy double doors marked 'Authorized Personnel Only.'
The next few minutes that passed were the longest of Lorelai's life. She stood there clutching the edge of the counter top, her eyes fixed on the magical door where the answer would come from, her mind a complete blank. She couldn't think, couldn't even pray that he would be all right, all she could do was concentrate on the door.
"Hang on," Rory whispered for the second time that night, swallowing around the lump in her own throat. We can't lose Luke, she thought wildly. We can't- because he's Luke. He's Luke and he's always there. He can't be not there. We can't lose Luke…
The nurse returned, shoving through the doors with more force than was necessary. "Adult male, Caucasian, severe injuries from a car accident," she recited brusquely. "They brought him in twelve minutes ago."
"And?" Lorelai could barely get the word out.
"He's in emergency surgery. He doesn't look good, but they're doing the best they can."
Lorelai pressed her hand to her mouth and took a deep, shuddering breath. "He's still alive?"
"He's still alive," the nurse answered.
"Okay. Okay…thank you…" Dazed, Lorelai turned away with Rory's help, but then she stopped and turned back. "Sorry- about before. About the lazy ass thing. I didn't-"
The nurse held up a hand impatiently. "Don't apologize, it happens all the time."
"Not to me," Lorelai said with difficulty. Rory squeezed her hand and walked her to a chair. Neither of them noticed that Lorelai's muddy stockinged feet left prints across the gleaming white linoleum floor.
An hour later Lorelai and Rory sat side by side, silent. Lorelai stared into space, barely registering the noise and activity going on around her. The Emergency Room wasn't as busy as it usually was on Friday nights, even with the rain, but there was still a constant flow of people coming and going, shouting and crying, looking tense and worried. Lorelai paid no attention to any of it, the sounds of life and death only a distant hum in her ears. Every few moments Rory would glance worriedly at her mother, but she could think of absolutely nothing to say.
What could she say at a time like this? "He's going to be okay?" She didn't know that, and she was so terrified because she didn't know. "Don't worry?" How could Lorelai not, when the man she loved was lying unconscious in a hospital bed? "It's going to be all right?" She couldn't say that, because there was a terrible possibility that it wasn't going to be all right. So she just sat, holding Lorelai's hand tightly and trying desperately not to think about what she'd read about hospitals and statistics and casualties and mortality.
The flow of people in and out of the waiting room reached a momentary lull, and Rory was surprised to see the second nurse on duty come around the desk to stand in front of them.
"You look like you need this," she offered, holding out a cup of steaming hot coffee.
Gratefully Lorelai took it, though she could barely swallow the liquid around the terrible lump in her throat. From over her arm the nurse produced a scratchy hospital-issue blanket and handed it to Rory, who suddenly realized she was very wet and cold.
"Thank you," she shivered. The nurse nodded, then knelt and placed a pair of cheap hospital slippers at Lorelai's feet. Lorelai barely noticed; she just stared into her coffee cup unseeingly.
The nurse frowned in concern. "Keep an eye on her," she said to Rory in a low voice.
"I always do," Rory replied quietly.
"Are there any family or friends you should call? To sit with you?"
Rory nodded in relief at the suggestion. Finally, something she could do.
"I'll come and check on you in a little while," the nurse said, smiling gently. She turned to go.
"Anything?" Lorelai spoke for the first time, her voice tight and scared.
The nurse turned back in surprise and compassion. "Not yet," she answered. "He's still in surgery, but he's holding his own."
Lorelai nodded and resumed her intensive contemplation of her coffee. Rory draped the blanket around her mother's shoulders and got to her feet. "I'm going to make a phone call," she said clearly. "I'll be right back."
Lorelai just nodded, but she did wiggle her cold feet into the slippers the nurse had left. Rory sighed unhappily and fished her cell-phone out of her purse. She walked down the corridor, trying to find a quieter place to make her four phone calls. One would be easy. Another would be quick. A third would be awkward, and the fourth...
"Sookie?" she asked when someone answered the phone.
"Rory, sweetie, is that you?" Sookie could tell immediately something was wrong. "Where are you, kitten?"
"We're in the emergency room," Rory answered, with difficulty. Suddenly she had an overwhelming urge to break down and cry. "It's Luke," she continued, trying to get all the information out before she lost it. "There was an accident. We're in Hartford, and Mom's…"
"I'll be there in two seconds," Sookie said quickly, her voice full of concern. Rory almost smiled at Sookie's estimated arrival time. "Sit tight, punkin, I'll be right there."
"Thanks," Rory sniffed.
"Wait!" Sookie shouted just before she hung up. "What hospital?"
"Hartford Memorial."
"Got it. Tell your Mom to hang on."
Rory was positive that Sookie would spread the word around Stars Hollow, even if she didn't mean to do it. But that was good; everyone needed to know what had happened. Rory had the strange but unshakable feeling that the more people who knew Luke was hurt, the less likely he would be to die. It was as if it wasn't possible to upset so many people all at once.
She called the Gilmores next. Emily answered the phone. "Who is this?" she demanded disapprovingly. "And do you know that it's nearly eleven o'clock at night?"
"Grandma, it's me," Rory rushed out.
"What's wrong?"
"What?" Emily's to-the-point sentences were making Rory's head spin.
"I can tell something's wrong, Rory. Tell me what it is." Emily's instructions brooked no nonsense.
"Um- I- there's…there's been an accident," Rory gulped.
"Where are you?" was Emily's next rapid-fire question.
"Hartford Memorial," Rory replied.
"Is your mother there?"
"Uh-huh. She's…" Rory glanced back down the long corridor, but Lorelai was hidden around the corner. "She's not doing so good."
"So well," Emily automatically corrected. "We'll be there in five minutes." And she hung up.
Rory frowned, sure that there was a piece of information she'd neglected to give Emily, but she had no idea what it was. Shaking her head to clear it and taking a deep breath, she dialed another number, this one in New York, that Jess had given her a year ago when he went back to his mother's after the ice-cream-car fiasco.
"What's up, my friends?" the laid-back female voice on the machine inquired. "I'm out right now- out to lunch, out of my mind, out of pot- just out, man. Oh, I'm probably doing the circuit thing with my Ren Faire buddies, don't know when I'll be back. Try your luck and leave me a message- maybe I'll get back to ya." Beep.
Rory left a message, just in case, but she didn't think Liz would get it.
She thought hard for a moment.
Then she called California.