Dear Wally

A story about a box that holds a treasure and finding out that that something you want in life is right in front of your nose

Notes

Post-"You Jump, I Jump, Jack"
Notes:
+ Emily and Richard are not together, they are separated.
+ Lorelai is still in Friday Night Dinner attendance.
+ Paris and Doyle are already in a dating relationship.
+ Rory and Dean are not together
Inspiration: (song) Dear Wally by Aslyn

Cast List

Rory Gilmore, Logan Huntzberger, Lorelai Gilmore, Luke Danes, Miss Patty, Paris Gellar, Doyle Evans, Finn Crawford, Colin Richardson, Stephanie Fontaine, Rosemary Petersen, Robert Grimaldi, Isabel Gardner, Emily Gilmore, Richard Gilmore, Sookie St. James, Jackson Belleville, Kirk Gleason, Taylor Doose, Marty, Michel Gerard, Steven Sebastian Easton, Walter Andrew Karay, Elisabeth Clara Easton Karay

Chapter Two
The Life and Times of a Hopeful Romantic

Dear Wally,

I've discovered that I have a love for books. Misses Hodges and Mr. David both have extensive collections in their homes that they allow me to read. Right now, I'm reading a book on poetry. There are so many and are written by many authors of whom are well known. The book reminds me of you and how you used to send me sweet poems through the post. I miss those letters and I miss you. I wish you were here by my side now, holding my hand and reading me this book of poems. I can imagine you reading it to me, those emerald eyes staring back into mine as you laugh about how each of the writers are hopeless romantics and I imagine me saying that I love the hopeless romantics. They give me something to hope for, turning me into a hopeful romantic myself. I wish you were here to take a midnight stroll with me, especially when the stars are up in the sky shining brightly and lighting the path down Main Street into the gazebo that is in the center of the town square. I now know why they named this place Stars Hollow. Hurry back, my love, hurry back.

Yours Always,
Elisabeth

"Forget Colin Farrell, Ben Mackenzie and what's-his-name that you claim you're fantasizing about, I would give up all three of them just for Wally to come home to her," Lorelai swooned as she read the last letter to herself and looked over at Rory from across their table in Luke's Diner.

It had been a week since Christmas and from all the torn paper that was still lingering in their living room at their home, one would've figured that Colin Farrell had been unwrapped and that the girls were both off playing with their new "toys", so to speak. But that was hardly the case.

The "toys" that included new clothes, too many shoes with designer names on them in fashionable colors, jewelry that would make the Queen of England blush and of course, their must have movies and music-of-the-moment CDs didn't compare to the letters that Rory had found upon opening the keepsake box Miss Patty had given to her.

It was a plain box with a dull, violet stripe on the top. There wasn't anything special about it other than it begged to be opened. And the opening of the box had been the hard part: there wasn't exactly a place to open it at all. No latch, to keyhole, nothing. Only after staring at it for twenty minutes or so, Lane had figured it out, sliding the top of the box from side to side had revealed stacks of letters that were definitely older, opened and smelt of the ocean.

Since opening the box, neither of the Lorelai's had touched their once warm coffee mugs that were extra large, thanks to Luke and his experience with small coffee mugs and the Gilmore's. All three of them were too involved in the letters to even notice the few patrons watching them intently and they didn't even notice Luke and Kirk both taking bets as to when someone was going to speak. It was Lane who finally broke the ice again and Luke was pleased as Kirk handed him back all his money.

"I wonder how long these were in here. I mean, we obviously know it's been a while since anyone's read them by the smell alone," Lane said, waving her hand by her nose to avoid the salty smell of the ocean that she wasn't too fond of, plus the added odor of being cramped in a box for at least sixty years didn't appeal to her much either.

"We should so form a club now," Lorelai let out a deep sigh as she read the next letter in the pile.

"A club? What kind of club? The Trade-Hunky-Guys-in-for-Old-Letters club?" Rory asked, knowing well aware what she was getting herself into.

"A Hopeful Romantics club. I so have a new role model," she said, moving her position in the diner chair to let her legs stretch onto another beside her.

"I thought you declared Courtney Love your role model and I do recall a certain piece of paper being signed to prove such," Rory commented, finally touching the handle of the giant coffee mug in front of her and instantly scrunching up her nose when she tasted the cooling elixir of life. "Hey Luke," she said, looking towards the counter.

"I'm on it," he answered back, reaching for the fresh pot he just brewed and coming over to refurbish their mugs.

"Well, it's void. Elisabeth," Lorelai paused, searching for a last among the many opened letters for a last name for the girl, "whatever her last name may be, is now my role model."

"Good to know," Rory said, her nose still deep in one of the letters.

The letters were no doubt the confessions of a hopeful romantic and Rory secretly wondered if Wally ever made it back home. It was like curling up with a good book on the couch and losing yourself in the characters and setting of the plot. Ignoring Luke as he came to take their orders for the third time since they came into the diner today, Rory lost herself in the next letter she read.

Dear Wally,

My birthday was yesterday. I can hardly believe that I am now twenty four years old and expecting too. Misses Hodges surprised me yesterday with a small cake that she made for me. White icing and chocolate interior, it was one of the most delicious cakes I have ever tasted. I wish you could've been here to taste it with me. I hope you and the boys are all healthy and homesick. I know that you're not the only one with a girl here in the States, wishing, hoping and praying that you make it back in one piece. Give them my love and hurry back.

Yours Always,
Elisabeth

Placing the letter back on the table, Rory let out a sigh as she reached for her coffee cup and laughed at Lorelai as she scrunched up her nose and kept reading her own letter. That club of theirs definitely had some possibility if they kept going at this rate.

Rory could imagine at least two meetings a week at Luke's, of course, with readings of the letters and themes of the week. Tee shirts would be a must and heavy discussions of if Wally ever came home would be at the top of the agenda for them every week.

Letting her mind wander back to the letters again, she hardly noticed Lane leaving to go to band practice and Lorelai getting up from her chair to kiss Luke and wave goodbye to her since she needed to and check out the Inn before Michel called her in a fit, like last year if Rory remembered oh so well.

"Hey, you doing laundry tonight?" Lorelai asked, her hand on the doorknob to Luke's.

Turning her head around towards her mother, Rory nodded her head yes.

"Throw my stuff in too, okay?"

"Okay. Is it all upstairs still?"

"Always."

As Lorelai left, Rory looked at the envelopes that lingered on the table. She would love to stay at Luke's all day, getting all the free coffee that she could and reading the letters, getting herself lost in Elisabeth's life and her love for a boy named Wally, who Rory assumed was her husband. But she couldn't stay here all day, as pointed out by Luke.

She had other things to do today: finish the laundry, clean up the living room since Lorelai would never get rid of the wrapping paper herself and start packing her things back up. Tomorrow she would be heading back to Yale, which meant one more movie night with her mother before she had to go back and ask Paris how her holiday was. Something told Rory that that would be even more interesting than the letters she held in her hand.

The Yale Daily News was now her fourth home. She had declared it when she snuck back into the room at three a.m. one night last week, Doyle had declared it with an stop-sleeping-here speech in his editor voice and Paris had declared it when she pushed Rory out of their room so she wouldn't have to hear her give her dating advice with what she had learned from Elisabeth.

Before the Christmas and holiday vacation, which was a week or so ago, Rory came and went as she pleased, but with every new letter that she read, it seemed that she was in the paper room every chance she got, researching and trying to find out who Elisabeth actually was. Before Miss Patty's mysterious present showed up in her possession, Rory wrote the articles, turned them in on time and then usually scooted right back out of the room. Going to hang out with Marty at his dorm or down at the pub and trying to avoid ridiculous banter with Logan was quickly replaced with another letter from Elisabeth to Wally. She was ready to set up a tent right there in Doyle's office or by her desk, just so every free chance she had she could investigate the mystifying love that she stumbled upon.

Elisabeth was a puzzle whose pieces had been scattered over sixty or so letters that had been stuffed in a box and Rory was itching to put it together. She only knew a few things about Elisabeth. She liked books, worked at the library once Mr. Michael David, the founder of the Stars Hollow library, had offered the job to her. She was also in love with a boy, Wally. She wrote him love letters and sent them across the ocean for him to read. Assuming that he was a solider in the army, Rory tried to research him first but Elisabeth kept begging for her attention.

She had a secret; Rory knew she had a secret. What it was about and who it involved were still a mystery…but they wouldn't be for long. Elisabeth was simply a mystery and Rory wanted to solve that mystery and along with putting the puzzle back together, the reporter in her thought it would also be a page turner…especially for the Yale Daily News.

Opening the door to her fourth home, Rory walked straight into Doyle's chaotic excuse for an editor's office, she didn't waste anytime getting to her point. She wanted to research Elisabeth and wanted the Yale Daily News to publish the article once she was done. "I have an idea," she announced, letting her bag slip down into the only chair that was facing his desk.

"I'll alert the National Guard," his sarcastic comment was dry as he took his feet down from the desk and looked up at her, ready to hear the pitch worthy of the front page.

It was normal to see her byline and articles on the front page, but this time, she furtively hoped that the front page would be all hers. Slapping some of the letters on his desk, she let leaned forward and let the edge of the desk support her while he looked them over.

Doyle knew about the letters, in fact, he had been watching her do nothing but read the letters in his paper room and had been listening to nothing but Paris yell at her while she tried to give her dating advice with him. Rory had her presentation down so if he said no right away she had fifty seven more points to persuade him into letting her write this article.

He darted his eyes up as soon as he saw the discolored and aged envelopes sitting on top of the rest of the articles that he needed to go through for next week's edition. "You're kidding me, right?"

"No, no kidding," she said seriously as he took out one of the letters and started to read it while she pitched the rest of the article to him. "Think of it Doyle, it's like a WWI diary that no one ever knew of. And this girl, Elisabeth, she's a mystery…doesn't write a lot about her past but her past makes up all of what she is and why she is writing these letters."

"And how do you plan to find all of this out?"

"Records, the internet, local armed forces branches, I have my sources."

"Okay, big question, why do you want to do this?" Doyle asked, leaning back in his chair again and let the letters slip from his hand to the desk.

Gathering the letters back up, Rory placed them back in her bag and gave him her reasoning. "I want to know who she is, why she's writing these letters, who Wally is, and why these letters were given to me. Elisabeth…she's a puzzle and I wanna put it together so maybe these letters can get to the rightful owner instead of me who just likes reading about the life and times of a hopeful romantic," she summed up in two short minutes and added onto the ending, "plus, it's not like I'm doing anything else why I'm here. You've been yelling at me for a new idea and here it is. Take it or leave it."

Doyle studied her for minute. He wasn't yelling and giving her all these insane reasons why she shouldn't do it, so that was a good sign. Reading Doyle was hard. He didn't have a specific expression for a specific mood, there was just blank and blank, not much to choose from so she really couldn't tell which way this article idea was going.

He leaned back more, almost falling out of his chair but quickly caught himself before Rory burst into laughter. His eyebrows were raised and she could tell that he was still thinking about her proposition but she was running out of patience.

"Two seconds Evans!" she yelled at him as he blinked out of his reverie and looked up at her. "I don't have all day ya know."

"How much time do you need?"

"Really?" she said, jumping for joy inside while her voice became squeaky at his answer. This was great, more than great actually. It was fantastic. This would benefit her and him, even though he didn't know it yet. Instead of sitting at her desk reading letters and doing nothing for the paper, she would be reading letters, doing research and actually doing something for the paper. In fact, she would be writing an article worthy of the front page. "Really?" she asked again, her hands coming together in front of her chest as she started to jump about in front of the desk.

"Don't go all jelly on me, Gilmore. How much time would it take you to write this article?"

"Um, off the top of my head?"

"Off the top of your head," he affirmed as the both of them saw Logan Huntzberger slip in and out of the office.

And since miracles seemed to be happening today, Rory was going to try her luck out. Logan never came to the paper for long. When he did, it was just to piss Paris off which although she and Logan had their differences, she found it funny. "A month, at least," she informed Doyle that pulled his attention back to her.

"A month? Are you nuts?"

"Well, if you ask my mother she would say yes all because she was the one who gave me that shot but at the moment, to you, no."

"We need features, Gilmore. I can't have you dedicating all your time to this one article," Doyle said, getting out of his chair and walking a straight line behind it.

"I can do fillers. Whatever the latest trend that Yale had going on, I'll cover it," she quickly said, not knowing if it was enough to save her article and convince him, but she prayed it was.

"Fillers? Gilmore, we aren't the Piggly Wiggly's Market News, we're a college newspaper that prints important world wide news," Doyle argued as Paris appeared in the doorway window and caught his attention. He looked back at her with his blank face and let out a deep sigh.

Rory placed her hands back on his desk and waited for anything to come out of his mouth, anything. She wanted this article to happen and wanted to find out more about Elisabeth.

"First filler is due Monday, Gilmore."

Rory jumped up again and rounded the desk to hug him joyously, causing Paris to bust in and give Rory part of her mind and Doyle a glimpse into her jealously. They had been officially dating for over a month, much to the surprise of everyone at the paper, but mostly to Rory.

It was an opposites-attract kind of relationship and while she had been skeptical of it lasting at first, she could see that Paris was happy and wasn't going to stand in the way of that. And because she didn't want to see a live reenactment of Independence Day anytime soon, she backed off of Doyle and let Paris yell at her.

Paris snatched him away just as quick as Logan came and went from the news room and pulled him towards her side, still yelling. "Hands off, Gilmore!"

"Paris, I was thanking him, and you really need to lighten up. Like Elisabeth would say…" she started knowing Paris would shut her up the minute she mentioned it and she did.

Paris dragged her boyfriend right out of his office as Rory stood still and tried to calm herself down. But all she could think about was where to start. She had the letters and a first name but she wanted more. She wanted the backstory; the where she came from and the what she did before meeting Wally. And she also wanted the Wally story too. He was just a big a mystery as Elisabeth was.

Scooting herself out of Doyle's office with her bag on her shoulder, she wanted to get started right away but she needed reinforcements: coffee and chocolate.

She had to have the coffee, didn't she? She could blame her mother for this – for her insane addiction to all things chocolate-y and caffeinated. Rory rolled over on her side and opened her eyes to the red numbers plastered on her clock radio on the night stand. 1:36 a.m. She should've been asleep by now, in dreamland dreaming of her A-list Hollywood hunk, Josh Duhamel. But she wasn't.

Instead she was dreaming and thinking about Elisabeth and Wally and how faulty the internet could sometimes be. Spending the majority of the day researching Elisabeth, Wally and anything remotely related to World War I had only refreshed her knowledge of The Great War but didn't give her any sort of clue of where to go after that.

And the letters only gave her so much. There had been well over sixty letters in the box and she hadn't been through half of them yet. Hopefully the next forty that she was planning on reading would give her something other than the hopeful romantic wife she had read of. She wanted them to give her a last name, a glimpse of who Wally was and clues as to where Elisabeth came from. But there was nothing except for that Wally was a soldier who had been deployed over sea and was fighting for his country and Elisabeth was missing him dearly.

Flipping the blankets off of her and letting her legs crawl out from under them, Rory turned the bedside lamp on and reached for another letter. If she couldn't sleep, then she would at least read some more. Maybe she would find something else, a clue that she overlooked the past nineteen times she had read the letter. Elisabeth's words were soft and her penmanship was gentle; she wrote of Stars Hollow and the townsfolk, their quirkiness and all. Rory was used to that part and it was kind of nice to think that the town hadn't changed that much.

Elisabeth wrote of Misses Hodges and the kind neighbor she had been thus far. The year at the top of the envelope said 1917, putting it right when the States had entered The Great War and there was the postmark that sent Rory into SuperWoman mode. Now she knew what to research.

Reaching for her jeans on the floor and a plain tee shirt in her dresser, she tugged them on in a hurry and slipped on her slippers. She had to do this before it left her thoughts. The postmark was the clue; it was what she should've been concerned with all along.

And since Doyle had been staying with Paris for a while now in her own room, Rory grabbed the key to the news room out of his jacket pocket that was lying across the couch and slipped out the door, doubting he would emerge before the rooster crowed in the morning hours. She couldn't sleep and passing by the chance to wake her mother up out of bed, Rory was going to research. If she could get into the post office archives and find out all the silly little details that people skimmed over, then maybe she could get some sleep and maybe get a little piece of Elisabeth's past figured out.

He wasn't quite used to this yet. Logan had been sneaking in to the news room at the earliest possible hours for a while now and he still wasn't used to it. Maybe it was those damn Superman comics that he used to read that had his mind thinking that a news room was bustling even at three a.m. in the morning. But it wasn't. Maybe it was something to do with the college thing and the doors being locked or maybe it had to do with Finn's 99 bottles of beer on the wall party that was going on at this exact moment at the dorm.

Logan had tried to stay and have a good time with his best buddies, but he didn't have the time tonight. Tonight, he had to study. Tonight, he had to finish his paper and turn it in the morning, unless his grade would be shot and one of his many credit cards supplied by his father would miraculously disappear from his wallet.

So here he was, studying for a test he knew that he would ace all because of the thorough notes transcribed by the lovely Hilary and writing a paper that Professor Thoms would finally love to see. It was two weeks too late as it was and if he didn't finish it, that would be another credit card disappearing and result in him actually having to work at one of his father's newspapers.

He wouldn't really mind the last bit but the thought of actually having to take orders from his father day to day, Logan pushed the thought straight out of his mind and looked back to the computer screen that was shining brightly against his face. The small light sitting atop the desk was the only other illumination in the room as Logan tried to concentrate on the last paragraph of his paper. Summing up the details of Arthur Conan Doyle's life in one paragraph was impossibility, well, for him it was.

He had been a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle's for a long time, getting caught up in the adventures of the famous Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, Dr. Watson. Letting his fingers fly over the keyboard to complete the assignment that was twenty percent of his Advanced English Literature grade, Logan wasn't expecting company this late at night, er, early in the morning.

The door scraped open as a girl with a high ponytail with a red hoodie on and fuzzy blue slippers walked into the dark news room and she rounded a desk, sitting down into a rolling chair in one movement. It was like she had a routine and did this every night. But Logan knew better.

Rory Gilmore was not the one to wake up in the middle of the night every night just to sneak in here and write an article. No, Rory Gilmore was the one he imagined snug in her bed at this time of night, with or without the fuzzy blue slippers. He could see feetsy pajamas covered in teddy bears or some other cutsy, whimsical objects on them. It was kind of funny as he imagined it and leaned back into his seat, watching as she completely ignored him over in his corner. It was either that or she just didn't see him.

He was willing to bet on the latter for her. She was the studious one, the one that actually had his full and undivided attention from the moment she corrected Finn in her uptight manner. Logan would like to think that he and his band of culprits had since loosened her up, but that wasn't a bet he was willing to make considering that his credit cards seemed to be up for discussion at all times.

She turned on her computer with one push of a button and he looked on as she dug out papers from her shoulder bag that was more than full when she walked into the news room a minute or so ago. And the papers were still coming. Logan couldn't resist, he had to say something or he could just laugh at it. He couldn't decide on which one, so he did both.

"That's at lot of paper, even for a news room," he said, watching as she looked around the room before spotting him in his own corner.

Her back straightened up as she sent him a forced smile and he was ultimately forced to get up from his comfortable position and bug her about what she was actually doing here at three a.m. in the morning. Just when he thought he had Rory Gilmore all figured out, she surprised him again.

"What are you doing here Huntzberger? Aren't you supposed to be with one of your Barbies?"

"Barbies? Is that what you're calling them these days?"

"If those tiny, plastic shoes fit…" Rory drifted off when he approached her desk and she turned her head back to the computer. Moving around her mouse and deciding to try and ignore him was an invitation for him to be nosy, like a Huntzberger was.

They were letters…upon letters upon letters. They were old, smelt of salt and were musty. Like they had been boxed up for a long time and then by the postmark in the upper right hand corner by the stamps, he knew that they had been boxed up. His curiosity got the best of his then. Letting the thoughts of his paper and the test tomorrow go, he made himself a spot on the edge of her desk and took out one of the letters…only to be denied the pleasure of reading one.

"No," she snapped at him, taking the envelope and note from his hands and placing it on top of her pile again.

"What? What did I do?"

"No, you," she pointed her finger directly in his chest and he knew she was meaning every word that she was going to say, "are not getting your paws on this story. This is my story."

"I didn't say it wasn't. Call me nosy."

"I could call you a lot of other things, Logan."

"Oooo, a threat. I like the threats," he smiled down at her but knew it wasn't going to work. She might be pretty this late a night with absolutely no makeup on in fuzzy blue slippers but she was still stubborn and just a tad grumpy. Of course, this wasn't a part of her normal routine either so it was to be expected.

This was her story and he wouldn't challenge that statement for anything, not even if it got him out of Finn's annual cross-dressing party that was sure to come up sometime in the next month. No, he wasn't going to challenge her; he was just an innocent bystander whose curiosity was definitely going to kill him, especially if it involved Rory.

"What's your story about?" he continued to badger her. She just rolled her eyes at that comment and continued on her search for something in the computer. "At least tell me what you're looking for, maybe I could help?"

"You, help? Hmmph," Rory smirked at the notion.

"Fine. Suit yourself, but I can already tell you that you're looking in the wrong place," he said, getting up off of her desk and pointing towards her computer screen.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five. Five more counts and she should be begging for his help, it was a given, he thought as he printed off his report, saved it and gathered his own shoulder bag up. But she didn't ask, instead, he could feel her gaze on him. He could tell she wanted to know what he was thinking but also wanted to prove him wrong. And she was good at doing that.

So, he swung his bag over his shoulder and started to walk off, stopping off at her desk for one last glare. He knew he couldn't go to bed without one more glare. Knocking his fist on the oak wood, she lifted her eyes to meet his. "Have fun," he told her, flashing her a smile just because he could and knew that it would probably tick her off.

He seemed to have that affect on people, especially girls. And in this case, this girl was special. Heck, any girl who would stand with him twenty minutes debating Darwin's theories just because she could was the definition of special. He just hoped that he could convince her that he was too. He didn't want to be a part of her story but he at least wanted to know what it was about.

It intrigued him. Old letters that smelt of salt and had that dusty look to them could have any one intrigued. Something told Logan that Rory had a mystery up her sleeve and he loved a good mystery.