A Schism in Stars Hollow
A Father Goose Digression
Chapter 11: Nightlife
Lorelai remembered the fear.
She paused as she entered the town square, still pretending to herself that she wasn't on her way to the diner. She had left the jeep at Patty's, told the older woman that she just needed to get a little air. Miss Patty had nodded with understanding, her eyes warm and clear, as if she hadn't just revealed herself to be a raving lunatic.
But Lorelai remembered the fear.
She remembered huddling in Miss Patty's back room while her mother pounded on the studio door. She remembered sleeping in fits and starts, remembered Miss Patty moving about… at the time she'd just assumed that Miss Patty was exercising to help yourself stay awake as she stood guard.
Lorelai remembered the fear and she remembered that in the morning it was gone.
As many times as she'd used the word evil to describe her mother she'd never really thought her as Evil evil. Just…. thoughtless. Selfish. Rigid.
Emily thought the world should be a certain way and when it wasn't she took it as a personal attack, and responded in kind and lashed out. Whether the recipient of her reflexive counter-strike was a clumsy maid or a frightened child made no difference, they were just cannon fodder. Emily's war was with the world at large. Which was a war that even someone with Emily Gilmore's resources was bound to lose and Emily was not gracious in defeat.
There was cruelty there. Lorelai had seen the glint in her eyes, the smug smile too often to think that Emily didn't sometimes relish the pain she caused, although Lorelai insisted on believing it wasn't the sadist's visceral pleasure but merely the combatant's joy at scoring a point.
All of which made Emily Gilmore a lousy mother and not a very nice person, but evil?
And every once in awhile there was moment, under stress Emily would let her guard down and her daughter would get a peek inside at the lonely, frightened woman behind the walls… walls that inevitably slammed back in place the moment Emily realized her vulnerabilities had been exposed.
Not the healthiest of behaviors, but hardly unusual , very human.
But Lorelai remembered the fear.
It had never been comfortable, living in her mother's house. There had been a sort of constant low grade dread, never knowing when and for what she was going to "spoken to" next, or what casual criticism would leave a new scar, now matter how she tried to pretend it didn't hurt. Until she got older and began to have a pretty good idea what she was going to get in trouble for, often before she did it. At some point she'd realized that only way she could please her mother was to become an entirely different person, a mini-Emily. Which meant she was never going to please her mother and she'd given up trying, had gone quite the other way as teenagers are wont to do. But there had never been fear.
Even when she was pregnant … well, there'd been some fear of course, apprehension, nervousness, but that had been about having a baby, it wasn't really a subject discussed in the Gilmore house, but she'd heard rumors that giving birth was, on some occasions, somewhat painful… and pain scared her.
Facing her mother wasn't scary. To be sure she'd dreaded the inevitable confrontation and dramatics, but only because she knew it would be boring and unpleasant. Terrible but not terrifying.
The baby had come. Rory took over her days and nights but otherwise life in the Gilmore manse continued apace, tense, but dull. Claustrophobia but not terror.
And then one morning her father had asked her to run down to the store to get some stamps and she'd got halfway there and remembered she'd forgotten her purse and came back to find her mother carrying the baby down the stairs. There had been a brief moment of hesitant joy … her mother never picked little Rory up, never held her, played with her… just for a moment Lorelai had thought that just maybe her mother did those things in secret, embarrassed after all the recriminations to admit to having affection for her illegitimate grandchild … but then Emily had looked up and seen her and Lorelai saw something in her mother's eyes, something … cold. Something that had chilled her to the bone.
It had been all she could do not to grab Rory and run screaming. But she'd held it together, insisted on taking Rory, holding her tight all through breakfast, chattering wildly about anything that came to mind to cover her sudden terror. She'd felt her mother watching her, could almost see the wheels turning as her mother planned her next move.
Lorelai had gone up to her room and packed, hiding in her room until Emily went to her regularly scheduled DAR luncheon, then she'd gone into her father's study, taken some money from the petty cash stash he kept in his desk. And she'd run, with no idea where she was going, or even why, really. She had just known that she had to get Rory out of that house before something terrible happened.
She sat down on the gazebo steps and looked over at the diner. It was closed, not that that ever stopped her. There was a light on the kitchen so Luke was probably there, doing one of the endless chores that came with running a small business.
She wanted so much to run to him, sit at the counter and clasp her coffee and tell him…
Well, that was the problem, wasn't it? Hey Luke, guess what, Miss Patty says she's a witch, that my mother is possessed by a demon and, hey did I ever mention I've sold my soul to the devil? And there's these people at the Inn who think they can help me, 'cause they're witches and they haven't been staring at me 'cause they think I'm cute but because my aura is polluted….
He'd think she was crazy. Okay, Luke already thought she was crazy, but a cute over-caffeinated anything-for-a-giggle kind of crazy, not an I-hear-voices-crazy.
He'd laugh at her. In a kind way. Tease her about being gullible and believing one of Miss Patty's tall tales, like the time she danced with Ben Vereen or sang a duet with Dick Smothers…
These "witches," he'd say, how much money do they want to clean your aura?
They haven't asked for money, she'd say.
They will, he'd tell her.
He'd give her pie and talk her down and make her laugh and she'd see how ridiculous the whole thing was and start feeling foolish and she'd go home and watch the rest of the movie with Rory and on Monday the crazy witch people would be gone and Miss Patty would have moved on to some other entertainment….
But Lorelai remembered the fear. Miss Patty hadn't made that up.
And Lorelai remembered the deal she'd made to get the money to send Rory to Chilton. Nothing had been said out loud, but she'd understood. The price had been more than a couple hours every Friday night. The price had been her submission, her accepting her mother back into her daughter's life, something she had sworn would never happen.
It wasn't too much of stretch to describe that as selling her soul.
It was ridiculous. But it was true. She knew.
She could see Luke now, moving about in the diner. He'd go with her, if she asked. Even if he thought she was crazy. Even if she didn't even tell him why, he would go if she asked.
And what then? What if he went with her and it was all true, how would he look at her then, with fear? With pity? Disgust? Who would she go to for coffee and comfort then?
She couldn't risk it. She needed Luke to be… Luke. Stable. Kind. Safe.
The diner door rattled, opened, he was coming out. Lorelai eased back, off the steps and into the gazebo's shadow. He stepped out then, paused, seemed for a moment to feel her eyes on him, he looked around, took off his cap and wiped his forehead and looked puzzled for a moment.
If he sees me, she thought, if he senses me here and he comes and asks me what the hell I'm doing hiding in the shadows, then he's meant to go with me. If not…
He shrugged, put the cap back in place, looked around again. And walked away. Lorelai sagged a moment, then straightened herself and walked back to Patty's. The …. witch…. opened her door as she came up the walk.
"So," Lorelai asked, "who we gonna call?"
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"Ohmigod," Dawn said, "is that the secret? You feed them? And nobody told me, why?"
"What are you talking about Dawnie?" Willow asked, raising her usually soft voice to be heard above the steady roar of conversation in the crowded dining room.
"Faith just fed her left boob a bit of meat," Dawn announced, "And I just want to know if that's why she's Miss Vavoom and the rest of us have to rely on wonderbra and good legs?"
"Speak for yourself, kiddo," Buffy said, but peered over at an abnormally quiet Faith, who did in fact seem to be showing an unusual interest in looking at her own body rather then showing it to others…
"Look, it's moving," Dawn reported, "It's growing right in front of us!"
Suddenly a furry white head appeared in the valley of Faith's cleavage. It had two bright eyes, one of which was encircled by a patch of black, and the required flopped-over ear.
"Oooooh!" Dawn squealed, "Puppy!"
"Geez, alert the media, whydontchya!" Faith snapped, but her irrepressible grin belied her tone and words.
"Oooooh puppy!" squealed …Buffy, Willow, Zoey, Kaitlyn and Andrew.
"Told you," Xander said.
"You're the one insisted we come down and eat with the gang."
"Well, he could have survived in his box for an hour. He's going to have to learn to be alone sometime."
"No he doesn't."
"Uhoh, Xan," Buffy said, laughing, "new alpha dog in the house, huh?"
"So what is … he? She?" Kaitlyn asked.
"He," Faith said proudly, "He's a Fox Terrier."
"Ah," Giles said, "that seems a particularly appropriate choice. Well done. Do you have a name yet?"
"Wyndham," Faith said, "though I figure we'll end up calling him Windy."
"Go ahead, Will," Xander said, "you know you want to."
"No, I don't."
"It's okay honey, let it out," Kaitlyn chimed in.
"That's just Pryceless," Willow said.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Lorelai parked the jeep in the usual spot outside her parents house and turned off the engine, took a deep breath. Beside her Miss Patty patted her leg, then opened her door and climbed out, the two witches, Willow and Kaitlyn following. Behind her the following motorcycle rumbled into place and went quiet and the two girls hopped off and stood waiting. Buffy and Zoey. The muscle, Willow had said with a grin.
The muscle? The brunette, Zoey, she did sort look like maybe she was tougher than the average girl but Gina Carano she wasn't. And the blonde looked about as dangerous as one of Babette's gnomes.
Now that she was here the whole thing seemed ridiculous again. How many times had she and Rory gone through this door to encounter nothing worse than brussel sprouts? What was she going to do, ring the bell and say, "Hi Mom, just dropped by to ask, 'Have you been possessed by any demons lately?'"
Part of her wanted it to be true because then, if Emily was the way she was because she was possessed then… then maybe she was just moments away from discovering the kind loving mother she'd always wanted.
And if it wasn't true. Well, her mother already thought she was crazy.
She got out, she marched up to the door, she rang the bell.
Her mother opened after the second ring, "Lorelai, what on earth are you doing here? Do you have any idea what time it is? Who are these people?"
"Hi Mom," Lorelai said. "These are …. Friends of mine. Can we come in a minute."
"Certainly not! Really, Lorelai, even you should know better than this. One doesn't show up in the middle of night and…."
"Silent." Willow's voice was soft but firm, and suddenly Emily was mute, her mouth still forming the words for a few long moments before she realized what had happened and stopped, her eyes going wide. She stepped back then and tried to shut the door but found herself unable to budge it. Lorelai saw her turn pale, her eyes fill with fear.
"Omigod," Lorelai heard herself say, as if from a distance. "Ohmigod." She felt her knees wobble, heard her heart pounding like Lane on speed.
"You know who… well, you know what we are, Mrs. Gilmore," Kaitlyn said, stepping forward.
Lorelai felt the young woman's hand take hold of hers and squeeze gently and she felt her sudden trembling slowly subside, her knees grow steady, her pulse recede to a merely frantic rate.
"We're coming in," Kaitlyn continued, speaking to her mother as she would to a frightened animal. "We have some business to discuss. We can do it in a civilized manner, Mrs. Gilmore, or we can be…. quite crude if necessary. It's up to you."
Despite herself, Lorelai felt a slight twinge of family pride as she watched her mother gather herself together, stand back and open the door.
"Won't you come in," she said with icy courtesy.
"Allow me," Zoey said and stepped quickly forward and went inside, looking around, then nodding and Willow followed with Miss Patty close behind. Then Lorelai let Kaitlyn lead her inside the house that was at once familiar and suddenly very strange indeed. Behind her she was vaguely aware of Buffy shutting the door.
"May I offer you something to drink?" Emily said.
"No, thank you," Willow answered. "I think it would be best if we proceeded directly to business. If we could speak directly to …. Does it have a name?"
"I can't imagine what business you would have with anyone in this house, but perhaps it would be best if you simply told me…"
"The basement," Lorelai said abruptly. She didn't know how she knew but suddenly she just did. "It lives in the basement."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
XLH Jaime Gutierrez knocked diffidently and moments later Giles opened the door, said "Good evening, Jaime," and turned and walked back toward the desk at the center of the room surrounded by a small semi-circle of empty chairs. After a moment the light dawned and Jaime followed him.
"That really doesn't work in a public accommodation, right? The no invite thing."
"What?" Giles answered, then added, "Oh, right, I do apologize, force of habit I'm afraid. No, the invitation is not necessary in public accommodations. Do have seat. The others are coming, I trust?"
"They should be here in half an hour. I told them important and secret. Like I said, I'm not in the inner circle, but I've been around long enough they won't blow me off. They'll be too curious. I think Joe B.'s figured it's to do with the Council but I don't think he realizes you're all here."
"You think he's going to be happy about it?" Giles said, smiling.
"No, but Joe B.'s a very practical guy. … While we're waiting…"
"You want to know what we've decided about your sister?"
"Yes."
"Have you warned her? It probably wouldn't matter but we would prefer that the nest didn't know we were coming."
"I've always told her that if slayers attack she should hide … but no, I haven't given her any kind of time table."
"Good. Xander and Faith will be taking a squad to clean out the nest. They'll have a picture of your sister, if they can capture her without significant risk, they will, but no promises. Xander and Faith have agreed to stay on at the vineyard for an indefinite period. If you can work out an acceptable way to keep your sister under control and the vineyard running, so be it. If not they'll simply dust her and move on. And that decision is theirs. I'm sorry to be high-handed but once you informed us of the nest it rather becomes our business."
"I understand, all I ask is that you give her a chance…"
The door burst open then and Faith bounced in, said, "Hey Giles, you decent?" and without waiting for answer continued, "Dawn said she left her laptop in here?"
Giles pointed and Faith grabbed the computer and leapt onto the bed and sat cross-legged and produced a white puppy out of somewhere inside her shirt and set it down on the bed beside her, where it sat yawning. She opened the laptop and turned it on.
"Faith," Giles said gently, "this is Jaime, he's …"
She looked up, Jaime felt the dark eyes on him for moment like a physical force, then she smiled, "The dude with the wine farm, yeah. Hey." She turned back to the small screen.
"Faith's a little preoccupied at the moment," Giles said dryly. "and not to be rude myself but I do have a few…"
"Please," Jaime said, "don't mind me." He leaned back and watched the slayer two-finger typing. He had been watching them, all of them, ever since he'd realized who they were, trying see if there was something that set them apart, some visible sign of what it was that made them capable of their achievements, some mark those achievements had left.
He hadn't found it. Oh, since he was looking, he was able to spot the slayers, something in the fluid sureness of their movements, the same thing you saw watching sandlot baseball and you recognized the kid who was going to be a star someday. But that was it, otherwise they all seemed a perfectly normal.
They laughed a lot. And something else he couldn't quite put his finger on, a quality, but he was probably projecting that, seeing it only because he was looking.
In the room the puppy yipped, Faith smiled and produced a toy mouse on a string that she began moving about for the puppy to pounce at. The door opened then and Xander Harris came in,
"Oh man," he said, "I'm just the worst Xander ever." He crossed the floor carefully as if walking on slippery ice and sank slowly onto the bed next to Faith.
"What happened, baby?" Faith asked.
"Twinkies," Xander moaned, rolling over on his back and loosening his belt. "Lots and lots of twinkies."
"Did you win?"
"Not even close. God, I think even Dawn beat me. And she wasn't even in the top twenty. Those guys can snarf the cream-filled goodness."
"Hey baby, check this out," Faith said.
"Not if I have to sit up," Xander whimpered.
Lazyass," Faith said but held the computer open over his head. "Waddya think, the collar with the chrome spikes or the gold ones?"
"Whichever you want, babe. Windy won't care. Dogs. Colorblind."
"Yeah? Really?"
"So they say."
"How do they know?"
"Umm… Ask Giles?"
"Nevermind. 'Sides, who said it was for Windy?" She scooped the puppy off the bed with one hand, rolled over and straddled Xander who gave out a half-hearted oof. She held the wriggling terrier up beside her face. "We never did replace that one we lost in Morocco. So waddya think, should me an' Windy get matching collars or is that too junior league? Give."
"What?"
"Give."
"Well, they're all mushed now," Xander said and Faith laughed and moved down his legs a little and reached in his pocket to retrieve two slightly flattened Twinkies that slowly began to regain their shape. Faith ripped open the package, broke the first cake in two pieces, popped the larger segment in her mouth and began to feed the other to the eager puppy in small pieces.
"Oh no," Xander said, "he's not going to be a spoiled little puppy, is he?" He reached to pet the tiny head, "Who's a spoiled little puppy, yeah, who's a spoiled little puppy?"
Jaime slowly became aware that Giles was watching him, a slight smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.
"Yes," Giles said. "It's really them. Xander and Faith, demons tremble at their approach, vampires quake, zombies behead themselves. That's them."
Jaime smiled, "I believe you, but the others…."
He sensed rather then saw the movement on the bed, felt something brush his hair and he turned and saw the still vibrating knife embedded in the wall behind him.
"I think they'll come around," Giles said.
The door opened again, this time it was the slim brunette Jaime knew must be Dawn, Buffy's sister, looking a little green around the gills. She shut the door and slumped back against it.
"Geez, I forgot how truly disgusting those things are," she said, her arms wrapped tight around her belly. She crossed to the bed and pushed weakly at Xander and Faith, "scoot over, you two, I need a soft place to die." She flopped down on her back, threw her arm up over her eyes and for a moment quiet descended on the room. Then Dawn spoke again,
"Please tell me it's Windy that's licking my face?"
The quiet descended again. Jaime stood and went to pull the dagger out of the wall which he did with a little effort. He looked over at the bed where Dawn and Xander were apparently asleep and Faith was making faces for her new pet's entertainment. Jaime would admit that he'd rather looked forward to doing the introductions, to seeing Joe B. and cronies finding themselves little dogs in the big dog's world all of a sudden. But he hadn't quite pictured it like this.
Suddenly Faith cocked her head, listened for a moment, then said,
"They're coming."
They rose then, Dawn and Xander, and raced for the bathroom just as if they both hadn't been nearly comatose a second ago. Dawn won, stuck out her tongue and then squealed with laughter as Xander pushed inside with her. Jaime could hear muffled voices bickering for a few moments then Xander re-emerged rubbing his face with a hand-towel, his eye alert, with his unruly hair combed. He came around the desk, held out his hand,
"You must be Jaime," he said, "sorry, sugar coma there earlier. Nice to meet you."
"It's an honor, sir," Jaime said.
"Stop that."
Dawn appeared then, similarly freshened and was introduced to Jaime just as there was a knock at the door.
"May I?" Jaime asked, grinning and Xander nodded and went to sit on the bed by Faith while Dawn perched herself on the desk as Giles gave his glasses a quick polish and stood beside her.
Unable to contain the shit-eating grin of anticipation Jaime went to the door and opened it to admit XLH Joe and F. Sarah B., XLH's Harvey P. , Robert Y., Renee V., Davis O., Ed G. and hurrying forward to make sure she got a foot in the door, F. Erin M.
"Whatever you're up to Jaime," she said, "You can't keep me out."
"Wouldn't dream of trying, Erin," Jaime said
They filed in and stood behind the semi-circle of chairs, looking puzzled and mildly impatient.
"Okay, Jaime," Joe B. said, "we're here. Who are these people?"
Savoring every second, Jaime walked back to stand by the desk and looked over his audience.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said softly, "allow me to introduce Mr. Rupert Giles, Ms. Dawn Summers, Faith the Vampire Slayer, and of course, Mr. Xander Lavelle Harris."
In the silence that followed Xander stood and stepped forward held his hand out to the man whose face had suddenly turned bright red,
"Ed," Xander said warmly as the man slowly reached out to clasp the proffered hand, "Nice to see you again."
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Emily Gilmore stopped the basement door and looked back at her, her eye managing to be both pleading and angry at the same time.
"Lorelai," she said, "You don't have to do this. If you go home now we'll forget this ever happened."
Lorelai felt herself waver for a moment, but felt Kaitlyn's hand on her arm again and through the feeling.
"No Mom, I need to know."
"Very well then." She unlocked the door and led them down into the crowded antique and white elephant shop that was the basement. She opened the secret panel to reveal the large vivarium. Lorelai felt numb, thinking of all the times she'd come down here to play or simply hide … to make out with boys. And all that time this … thing, this whatever it was just a thin panel of wood away, listening, maybe even watching?
She watched her mother light candles, saw her kneel and speak a brief incantation. They waited. Emily leaned forward to tap on the glass. Lorelai stepped forward, staring intently, quartering the empty space with precision.
"There's nothing there, Mom," she said. "What's going on?"
And then she saw where her mother was staring, at the top of the cage, and saw that it had been shifted aside. A
Willow stepped forward then, laid her hand against the glass and closed her eyes a moment.
"Upstairs," she said.
"Mom?" Lorelai said but Emily was already moving, so they followed, up the stairs, through the dining room into her father's study. Her mother went in and sat suddenly on the chair beside the desk. Her father was in his leather reading chair, facing the fireplace and away from the door so that Lorelai saw only the back of his head and the giant golden snake, a cobra with its head raised and hood flared, its long body wrapped around her father's neck and shoulders.
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Next: Chapter 12: Departures