Charlie's 7
"Is the tooth fairy real?" Charlie asked, out of the blue, one morning.
"Of course she is," Lorelai replied to the 7 year old as she cleaned Maddy up before setting her loose. "Why do you ask?"
"She didn't come last night."
"You didn't lose a tooth last night," she said confidently as she put the almost 2 year old on the ground.
"I did," Charlie replied. "I just didn't tell you or Luke." Charlie waited for a reply.
"Well," Lorelai said, stalling for time. "Maybe she just ran out of time. Maybe she just figured that since you're such an understanding kid, she'd visit you first thing tonight." Lorelai forced a smile as Charlie eyed her hard.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I am. Would I lie about something like this?"
"Yes," Charlie answered without hesitation.
"Well, you're wrong."
"I could ask Luke."
"Well, go ahead," she said. "He's in the garage."
"Ok, I will," she said as she turned and headed for the front door, to put her shoes on. Lorelai waited until she was out of site before she dialled Luke's cell phone.
"What?" he said as he answered it.
"Charlie is coming out there to ask you about the tooth fairy and you better lie through your teeth to her."
"What?"
"The tooth fairy, Luke!" She hissed, keeping track of Charlie through the kitchen window. "You will tell her that she exists and that she is coming tonight. Understand?"
"Yeah, sure," he said as he abruptly cut the line.
"Your father, quite the piece of work," she told Maddy as she wandered into the living room.
"Go out?" Maddy asked hopefully, pointing towards the door.
"Go find your shoes," she said with a sigh. Maddy giggled as she ran off to do just that.
"So, you're sure?" Charlie asked Luke as she sat on the lone chair in the garage.
"I'm sure," he said from the other side of a large book shelf he was building for her. Not only had Charlie gotten Rory's looks, she had also gotten her appetite for books.
"So, if I leave it out tonight, she'll come for sure?"
"She will come for sure," he said again as he finished sanding it. "What colour do you want?" he asked her.
"Blue," Charlie said quickly. "With ducks."
"Ducks?" he asked, finally peaking out around it at him.
"I saw the flowers you painted for Rory. They were good and ducks aren't that much different," she said as she slid off of the chair. "Thanks Luke," she said brightly as she hugged him before dashing out of the garage and into the yard to play.
"Ducks," he muttered as he headed to the back of the garage to see if he had any blue paint left.
"You're all set?" Lorelai asked as she tucked Charlie in.
"Yep," she replied.
"Everything is in place?"
"Yes," she replied again. "What are you looking for?"
"Oh, nothing," Lorelai said with a smile. Truth be told, she was looking for the lost tooth. "Night Sweets."
"Night momma," she said as she rolled over while Lorelai turned out the light. Charlie counted to ten after the door closed before she jumped up and turned the light on. She scurried to her desk and moved the tooth from under the desk lamp to the 5th shelf of her yellow book case. Satisfied, she scampered back to bed.
'Damn it! Where the hell is it?' Lorelai cursed in her head as she scoured Charlie's usual display places with a dim flashlight. "You come look," she eventually told Luke, holding out the flashlight to him. He looked up at her from the couch and blinked a few times.
"Why?"
"Because I can't find it and I have no want and or need to tell my 7 year old that there is no Santa Clause."
"This is about the Tooth Fairy," he replied.
"She's a smart kid Luke. As soon as she puts together that there's no Tooth Fairy, she'll put together the rest." Luke sighed and rolled his eyes before he put his beer back on the coffee table before he stood up and took the flash light from his wife.
"The work," he said to her.
"The reward," she replied before she kissed him and sent him on his way. He rolled his eyes and shook his head as he headed towards Charlie's room.
"Well?" she asked when he came back out.
"Just leave her a dollar and a note about how her bag was full," he said as he put the flashlight on the coffee table and fell back onto the sofa.
"Seriously?"
"Well, it's not that far fetched from 'she probably ran out of time'," he said, quoting her own lie back to her.
"Big help you are," she told him as she headed off to find a piece of paper. "She knows my hand writing," Lorelai said.
"Type it up. Or use that vibrating pen she has." With a sigh, Lorelai sat down with the vibrating pen and scribbled out a note in pink, tucked $2 into it and quietly snuck in to stick it on Charlie's desk.
"Hey Sweets, She come last night?"
"No," Charlie said, dejectedly, as she sat down at the kitchen table. "But you did," she said as she looked up at Lorelai.
"What do you mean?" Charlie pushed the note and the $2 across the table. Lorelai sighed as she looked at it. "There is no Tooth Fairy, is there?" she asked again.
"No," Lorelai admitted with a sigh. She watched as Charlie processed this for a moment.
"There's no Santa either, is there? Or the Easter Bunny or anything else, is there?"
"Do you want there to be?"
"Yes."
"Then there is. That's all you need to worry about." Charlie watched her mother for a moment longer, but didn't press the subject.
"Tooth Fairy wasn't all that important anyways," Charlie said. "Now, if there was no Santa or Easter Bunny, that would be a different story."
"I agree! I mean, who would help feed our rabid need of chocolate, junk food and consumer goods? Certainly not Luke."
"No way! He STILL cringes when ever I make him take me to the mall," Charlie threw in with a smile. Lorelai laughed as she finished off her coffee.
"What do you say we wake up Maddy and head to the diner for breakfast?"
"Okay," Charlie said with a smile as she slid out of her chair. Lorelai watched as she hesitated and came back over to the table, plucked the two dollar bills from the note and headed back to her room.
"Oh, you are SO my kid," she muttered with a smile as she headed upstairs.
Charlie's about 5. Maybe 6.
She didn't feel like backing out this time.
That was the most overwhelming thought she had as she sat through the bacheloret party Sookie and Rory had planned for her. In fact, when the night began to play out like the party before she married Max, she found herself wishing that she hadn't handed her cell phone to Rory for safe keeping so that she could phone Luke, just to tell him that she loved him.
"Having fun?" Rory asked her with a large smile on her face.
"I am," Lorelai called back over the music as she finished another Long Island Ice Tea. Rory gave her a thumbs up before she grabbed her hands and pulled her out onto the dance floor. She threw her head back and laughed as she and her daughter and he best friends danced the night away.
"So," Luke said as he served Lorelai a cup of coffee the next morning. "Good party?"
"Shhhhhhhhhhh," she said to him as she brought the cup up to her lips. By the time she set it back down on the counter, Luke had left a glass of water, a glass of orange juice and a couple of aspirin.
"You're so good to me," she said quietly as she took the pills and downed the glass of water before moving onto the orange juice.
"I try," he said with a smile. "Pancakes?"
"You bet," she said as she glanced over at Rory who was finishing off her orange juice. "He's too good for us."
"Maybe you should tell him that, give him time to back out," Rory said.
"MMmmm. . . I don't think so. If he hasn't figured it out by now, I don't think I should break it to him." Rory chuckled a little as they fell into a quiet conversation while waiting for their hang over food.
"Funny," she said to Sookie when she heard the song Ready To Run playing on the CD player as she, Rory and Charlie arrived for hair and make up. Sookie giggled as well before she switched the CD to a different one.
"Ready?" she asked the girls.
"Yeah!" Charlie said, bouncing up and down. Rory replied with a slightly more dignified. "YES!"
"You're not dancing," Emily pointed out as she came to sit beside Lorelai during the reception.
"I was replaced," she said, nodding towards where Luke was swaying, Charlie in his arms.
"She really likes him," Emily remarked.
"She really loves him," Lorelai corrected.
"So do you," Emily said as she looked over at Lorelai.
"I do," she said as her father came over and captured her mother for a dance. She watched her father guide her mother across the floor for a moment before she turned her attention back to her new husband and youngest daughter. She watched Charlie throw her head back and laugh at something he had said to her and she couldn't help but smile as well. She watched as he pulled her close for a moment before depositing her on the ground.
"Luke says it's your turn," she said breathlessly when she got to her mother's side.
"Keep my seat warm?"
"Unhuh," Charlie said as she sat herself on the seat Lorelai had just vacated.
"Hi," she said when she was standing in front of him.
"Hey," he said as he offered her a hand and she took it. He gently swept her onto the make shift dance floor, his free hand resting at the base of her spine as he guided her in lazy circles around the floor. She weaved her fingers through his as she looped her free arm over his shoulder and held him close and as they relaxed into each other, she finally got it. She understood what her mother hand meant when she said she just felt safe with Richard. She just felt safe with Luke. He didn't have to say or really do anything, she just knew that he'd do anything in his power to keep her, Charlie and Rory safe and happy.
"I love you," she told him, a slightly quiver to her voice as she came to realise just how much she loved him.
"Me too," he whispered to her as he pulled her a little tighter against him. A ghost of a smile kissed her lips as she laid her head against his shoulder and let him dance her around the floor
Charlie's about 5.5years old.
"Didcha find it?" Charlie yelled up the stairs. Chris had gone looking for the level a while ago and hadn't come back down yet. "Did you eat it?" she asked Paul Anka when her father didn't answer her.
Chris was aware, on some level, that Charlie was calling out to him, but he was too busy reading the letter he had found again. Lorelai had written some kind of letter for Luke, but as far as he was concerned, it was reading like a love letter.
"Dad?" Charlie asked as she poked her head into the room. "Didcha find it?" she asked again as she wandered over to the bed where he was sitting.
"Find what?" he asked her, finally looking up from the letter.
"The level. What's that?" she asked, trying to see what was on the paper he was reading.
"Nothing," he said as he handed her the level. "Let's go finish up," he told her as he ushered her out of the bed room, the legal pad still in his hand. He finally tossed the pad onto the couch and turned his full attention to Charlie when she asked him if she could work the level. "Of course kiddo," he said as he scooped her up and walked over to the new flat screen while she balanced the level on top.
The rest of the evening was fairly quiet for Chris and Charlie. With Lorelai still sitting with Davy and Martha and GiGi off at his mother's house, he ordered in pizza and he and Charlie spent a night in front of the flat screen watching bad movies.
"Can I sleep upstairs?" she asked with a yawn as she rubbed at her eye. "Just until momma gets back?" Chris looked at her and reluctantly agreed with a sigh. He quickly bundled her into the bed he shared with Lorelai, made sure she had a glass of water, her blankie and that a night light was on before he headed down stairs. The yellow legal pad caught his eye and he couldn't ignore it. He picked it up and found himself reading it again as he headed to the kitchen. He tossed the pad onto the table as he headed to the cupboard that he kept a bottle of scotch in. He pulled it out and filled a tumbler before he sat down at the table, staring at the legal pad as he drank, waiting for his wife to come home. After a while, he didn't know how long, he heard her come in, rambling away about the flat screen and Sookie. She came to an abrupt halt when she saw him and the legal pad at the kitchen table.
"I read your letter," he said calmly.
"Honey, it's not a letter. It's just a character reference that Luke asked me to write for his court case," she assured him as she slid into a chair beside him.
"Reads like a letter," he said, still staring at his almost empty glass of scotch.
"Oh, yeah?" she asked, not really sure where he was going with this.
"Almost like a love letter," he said, finally looking up at her. As she tried to explain to him that it wasn't a love letter, he jumped in, telling her not to bother. The pair quickly fell into the same, tired argument they had been having for weeks now. "Do you still talk to him?" he asked, starting to become angry, but trying not to wake the 5 and a half year old that was sleeping upstairs. "I mean, do you see him?"
"This is crazy," Lorelai said as she got up to follow him as he paced the kitchen.
"Hey, I got a right. I have a right to know," he told her as he finally stopped moving and turned to look at her.
Charlie stirred and rolled over when she heard the noise downstairs. She lay in bed for a moment, listening before she finally slid out from under the covers, her blankie in her hands, and headed for the stairs. She crept down to the landing, sitting on the stairs as she worried the blanket in her hands, listening to her parents fight. Paul Anka looked up from where he was sitting on a chair and quickly hopped off and climbed the stairs to sit with Charlie, his head in her lap. Charlie sighed a little as she rested a hand on Paul Anka's head while they listened.
"I think that it's because you're still in love with him," Chris said to Lorelai.
"No, I love you," she said, sounding like she was almost pleading with him. "I love you."
"You know what? I. . . I'm sorry, Lore. I just. . . I can't handle this," he said as he started to leave the kitchen again.
"Handle what?" Lorelai asked. They were having a fight, couples fought and then they worked through it.
"This," he said. "You and him. I just. . . I can't handle being your second choice. I thought I could, but I can't, alright?" he asked her. "I can't be your rebound. I'm sorry," he said as he quickly left the kitchen and headed for the door.
"Christopher?" Charlie heard her mother call. She sat on the step, Paul Anka's head in her lap and watched as her father walked out of the house without looking back. "Chris?" Lorelai called again after the door had closed. Charlie swallowed hard as she heard Chris' car start and pull away from the house. She listened as her mother rattled around the kitchen for a while before she began turning out the lights.
"Charlie," she said, more than a little surprised to see her on the stairs.
"Where's dad going?" she asked. Paul Anka looked over at Lorelai, but made no moves to leave his kid.
"To see GiGi," she lied quickly. "His mom called a while ago and he was just waiting for me to get home. I was late and he was worried, that's all." Charlie looked at Lorelai for a long moment.
"Where's dad going?" she asked again.
"I don't know," she finally admitted, her shoulder sagging as she slowly climbed a few steps before sitting beside Charlie and the dog.
"Is he coming back?" she asked, looking up at Lorelai. Luke had never stormed off after an argument. They had always argued until they were done, then froze each other out for a while before things went on as normal.
"Of course he is," Lorelai assured her as she pulled Charlie onto her lap. Paul Anka heaved a sigh before he curled up on the landing. "He just needs some time to think about things," she said as she rubbed Charlie's back. Charlie stayed quiet as she thought about this for a moment.
"Can I stay with you?" she asked quietly, playing with a button on her mother's coat.
"Let's go," she said, putting Charlie back on the ground before she stood up and led the group up to bed.
Charlie found herself, laying in bed, thinking about the evening as she listened to the shower in the other room. If her mother had expected her father to be back tonight, she would have tucked her into her own bed, Rory's bed. Instead, she was bundled under the covers of the bed in the master suite while her mother showered in the attached bathroom.
"You still up?" Lorelai asked as she came into the bedroom, now in pyjamas, her wet hair thrown into a loose braid.
"Just thinking," she said as she shuffled over to make room for her mom. "It's okay if he doesn't come back," Charlie said after a moment. Lorelai hesitated in turning off the light.
"Why would you say that?" she asked turning to look at Charlie. She shrugged.
"We did fine without him before, we can be fine again."
"He's coming back, Charlie," she said firmly. "Don't worry."
"Fine," she said after a moment before she rolled over, her back to Lorelai. Lorelai eventually turned out the light and slid down under the covers. She lay on her back, listening to Charlie fall asleep, and she began to hope and pray that she was right, that Chris would be back in the morning and everything would be fine.