Lorelai was on the phone with her linen supplier, arguing with him about the delivery she was supposed to have come in today.
"No, Sean, I need the order in today... We have a wedding coming up in two days!... Yes, I understand that there was a problem with the order, but these people are paying good money and expect to have those damn table cloths."
Just then, Lauren and Will came running out of Lorelai's office and up to her. Lauren began tugging at her mothers skirt.
"Mommy!" she whined. "Mommy, Will took my dolly gwandma gave me and bwoke her!"
"She took my glove and ball!" Will defended himself.
Lorelai sighed, motioning them to quiet down and that she was on the phone.
"Mommy said not to play baseball in her office," Lauren argued back.
Will shoved Lauren and she started shoving him back. Lorelai put a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and used her other to seperate the two fighting children.
"Both of you stop it now. Mommy's trying to work. Let me finish this conversation and then we'll settle this, ok?" she said.
"Lorelai? Are you there?"
"Yes, Sean, I'm here... Yes, ok, thank you. Yeah, tomorrow morning will be fine. Ok, bye," she hung up and then looked down at her two kids who were currently having a glaring contest. "Ok, now, what happened?"
Both Lauren and Will started talking at the same time, trying to get their side of the story heard first. Lorelai bent down and put a finger to both of their mouths, silencing them.
"My office, now. March," she told them, putting a hand on each of their backs and leading them into her office. Once she got there, she saw various broken pieces of the porcelain doll her mother had bought Lauren for her birthday strewn all over the floor. "What is this?"
"See mommy! He bwoke my doll," Lauren said, pointing an accusing finger at her twin brother.
"William Lucas Danes, why did you do that?" she asked him sternly, placing her hands on her hips and looking down at her son.
"She took away my ball and glove!" he shot at her.
"Will, you know well enough that you aren't supposed to play catch in here. One broken window is all I need. I regret allowing your father to give you that glove and ball in the first place. But, Lauren, you had no reason to take it away from him."
"But mommy, he's not supposed to play catch. You told him not to. I had to stop him."
"Next time tell me and I'll handle it, ok?"
"Ok mommy," Lauren said, looking sadly at the pieces of her doll.
"We'll go buy you a new doll after I get off work, hun."
"But Clara was my favorite."
"You know, I have a doll exactly like Clara at grandma's house. Would you like to keep her?"
"Really?" Lauren asked, her face brightening up.
"I have many dolls. I'll let you pick one out next time we go, how does that sound?"
"Thank you, mommy," she said, hugging her.
"You're welcome, babe. Now, Will, apologize to your sister."
"I'm sorry I broke your doll, Laurie," he said, hanging his head.
"Lauren, I want you to apologize, too."
"It's ok, Will. I'm sorry, too."
"Good, now go bug Michel while I clean this mess up, ok?"
They both nodded their heads and went running out the door to find Michel. Lorelai bent down and began gathering the shards of broken porcelain in her hand, throwing it away. At first, it had taken some time to get used to the twins fighting, having never of had to deal with it with Rory. It had been new to her and she hadn't been sure of how to handle it. Luke, who had fought multiple times with his sister as a kid, had a better idea of how to control the situation.
It had been a new thing to have learned something about kids from Luke. Luke, the one out of them both who had never raised a kid besides his nephew before. It had always been Lorelai giving Luke advice on parenting, not the other way around. But, boy was she glad that he had an idea of what to do when it had come to the twins first real fight.
Nowadays, she had more control of the situation. It wasn't as much trouble as before. Although, it wasn't entirely easy when her two kids chose to jump at each other's throats while she was working. That was only more stressful than usual. She always managed, though. And in time, it wasn't much of a problem.
The twins would always fight, she knew that. But, they were pretty good at keeping things on the down low. That, at least, she was grateful for. It was probably easier seeing as how they were both the same age. They couldn't pull the whole "I'm the oldest, so you have to do what I say" or "I'm the baby, so I always get what I want". They grew up together from day one, so they had more of a connection.
"Lorelai," said a very annoyed voice from behind.
Lorelai turned around to find Michel, who was holding the twins hands, glaring at her with a look of pure loath.
"Yes Michel?" she asked merrily.
"I think these belong to you," he said.
She looked at the twins, both of whom were grinning and holding back giggles. She tried to contain herself from laughing as well.
"Why, yes Michel, they do. Thank you for watching them for me," she smiled widely.
He let go of their hands and exited their room.
"What did you two do?" she asked the twins.
"We played double trouble!" Will said, pleased with himself.
Lorelai laughed, shaking her head slightly. Double trouble was the twins favorite game to play with Michel. They'd both approach him cautiously and plead him to play with them. Once he had given in, they'd start to name off games to play. While they played their game of choice, one of them would fein an accident and start to cry. While Michel tried to calm whichever twin was crying, the other would take off. Once Michel had calmed down the crying twin, he'd notice the other one was gone. He'd look around in all directions, trying to seek out the lost one and the other would take the opportunity to dash off.
The first time the twins had played this game, Lorelai had jokingly threatened Michel his job for losing her kids. Michel had taken her seriously, though, and panicked everytime Lauren and Will played this game. He'd get all worked up, searching every inch of the Inn for his boss' missing children.
The best part of it all was that the whole staff was apart of their little game. Whenever Michel would ask if they had seen Lauren or Will, they'd always point him in the wrong direction. They all had secretly said it was pay back for him trying to get them all fired for some reason or the other.
Sookie was the only one who occasionally gave in. She didn't like lying to people, and her being a bad lier didn't help the matter much, either.
"Ok," Lorelai said. "I think Michel got what he deserved today. You two stay in here until I get done, ok? We'll leave soon."
"Ok," they both replied, sitting at the little table Luke had built for them and picking up their crayons to color with.
Lorelai walked out of the office and back into the lobby.
xox
That night, Luke, Lauren, and Will were all in the backyard playing tee ball. Will was more into hitting the ball and Lauren was more into catching. Lorelai watched from the window as she made coffee. Will was wearing his blue helmet and Lauren her pink one. Luke was standing on the side coaching them along. Helping Will hold the bat right and Lauren learn to hold her glove in the right place.
Lorelai watched as Will hit the ball pretty forcefully, and then saw the ball fly right into Lauren's face. She immediately brought her hand to her cheek and started to cry. Lorelai rushed outside and over to her daughters side.
"Lauren, honey, are you ok?" she asked, moving Lauren's hand aside to check out her cheek.
"Mommy," she cried, hugging her mothers neck.
"Shh. You're fine," Lorelai soothed her, stroking her hair.
Will waked up to Lauren looking guilty.
"I'm sorry, Laurie. I didn't mean to hit you."
Luke reached down and picked WIll up.
"It's ok, buddy. It was an accident. I think that's enough playing for one day. Let's go inside."
They all went inside and Lorelai got an ice pack to place on Lauren's red cheek. After Lauren's crying subsided, she bathed both the twins and got them ready for bed.
"You ok, Lauren?" Luke asked her, touching her cheek lightly where the ball had hit her.
"Am I going to have a black eye like the boy on The Sandlot?" she asked.
Luke laughed lightly, "No, you'll be fine. Plus, you didn't get hit in the eye."
"It hurts, daddy." she said.
"How can I make it better?"
"Can you kiss it?"
"Sure," he said, bending down and kissing her left cheek.
Lauren smiled and hugged her dad. Over near Will's bed, Lorelai was tucking him in.
"Mommy, I didn't mean to hurt Lauren."
"Oh, sweetie, I know you didn't."
"Will she be ok?"
"Babe, she's fine. Don't worry."
"Can we still play tee ball?"
"Of course you can. That was quite a swing you gave earlier."
"Daddy says when I get bigger I can play on a team," he said excitedly.
Lorelai smiled. "If you want to, then we can look into it."
Will smiled back and Lorelai kissed the top of his head. She got up and turned off the light and her and Luke walked upstairs to their bedroom.
"So Will wants to be on a team, huh?"
"Yeah, I think he'd be good at it. But, I think he should wait until he's a least five."
"Yeah, he's a little young now."
"I think Lauren inherited your athletic abilities. She's not much into sports."
Lorelai laughed. "No, but she sure does like to race with her brother."
"What do you mean?"
"Her and Will came running out of my office today screaming at the top of their lungs while I was on the phone with my linen supplier," she explained as she changed into one of Luke's flannels.
"What did they do?" Luke asked, already knowing that they must have done something wrong.
"Lauren took Will's glove and ball away from him, so Will snatched her doll away and threw it on the ground."
"The one your mom bought her?"
"Clara, yup. Although, Clara is Clara no more. She's gone on to dolly heaven. But, I'm letting her have one of the thousands of dolls my mother has kept put up on the shelves in my room."
"They won't be sitting on shelves anymore. Lauren's going to want to keep them all."
"Oh God, I hope not. Those dolls freaked me out when I was little. I don't see how she likes them. As a kid, I'd have nightmares that the dolls heads would spin around and they'd become possessed. I begged my mother to get rid of them all, but she said it was proper for a girl to have many dolls."
Luke laughed at her. "I know the feeling. Liz had dolls just like them. They scared the hell out of me. I can't exactly blame Will for breaking Clara. She probably freaked him out, too."
Lorelai climbed into bed next to Luke and pulled the covers over her. He pulled her to him and kissed the top of her head.
"Don't forget, I have that wedding at the Inn in two days, so you have to watch the twins."
"I know. I'm taking them to a baseball game here in the town."
"I'm sure they'll love that," she said.
"Yeah, they're both pretty excited. They love watching the games."
"Lauren may not like playing sports much, but she does love watching them."
"Which is good because it makes it easier on me when I have to figure out what to do with them. Seeing as how I'm not into dolls and tea parties and neither is Will."
"Well at least that I'm good at handling," she said, reaching over and turning out the light.
She layed back down and closed her eyes and both drifted off to sleep.
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A/N: Ok, right now I'm just trying to give you guys the feel of Luke and Lorelai being parents and how the twins interact. Just general family interactions and stuff. These first few chapters will pretty much be fillers, but soon enough I'll get to the real deal.
I know that getting hit with a tee ball doesn't hurt all that much because it is plastic, but keep in mind that to a three year old, it's a big deal. And it won't always be just dialouge in the chapters, either.
Sorry it took so long to update. I might have more time to now. Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
