I know, I know. Long time no write-y. I'm slack and crap and everything. Please feel free to hurl as much abuse at me as you see fit, it's the least I can do after how ever long it's been.

Chapter 8

Lane was almost hysterical. And an almost hysterical Lane was nearly as scary as an almost hysterical Lorelai. Especially when Rory had no idea what was going through their minds. And that went for both her mother and best friend. She hurried to keep up with Lane, and let out a quiet groan when she realised where Lane was going.

The Stars Hollow Beauty Supply Store.

"What are you doing? "

"Choosing a colour." Lane replied determinedly

"You're gonna dye your hair?" Rory asked, disbelieving.

"Yes, I am. Lots of choices here. Help me narrow it down."

"You can't do this."

"Of course I can."

"And what, walk around in a hood all the time? How are you gonna hide this from your mom?"

"I'm not gonna hide it, that's the point."

"Lane, think about this for a second, at least."

"Rory, I've been thinking about this my whole life. Nothing's gonna change unless I change it, and now's the time. I need to make a clear statement, one I can't go back on or chicken out on, one that everyone can see. And this is my instrument, it says 'This is me, this is Lane Kim.'" She held up a tub of dye.

"That is you, its black hair dye." Rory replied dully.

"This is merely a prop until we find my true colour. Now, what do you think? Pink? Or is that too Pink the singer and Kelly Osbourne and Gwen Stefani… man, there's a lot of cheese associated with the colour pink. Okay, pink's out. There… there's blue – what about blue?"

With a sigh, Rory replied, "Blue's probably not right for your skin tone, and I agree with you about pink. What about purple?"

"Yes, purple, you're brilliant."

"And bleach, don't forget the bleach."

"Bleach, right, okay, I'll get the bleach. Thank you."

Rory walked to the checkout counter, "And make sure that you get some… gloves." Her sentence dying slightly when she notices who's sitting behind the counter.

Oh, yeah. Today was a great day.

XXX

"Hey. Did you lose track of time?" asked Lorelai, walking into the diner that same afternoon.

Luke looked up at her. "What? Why?"

"It's four o'clock."

"I know."

"We were supposed to be at the school, like, now."

"I know."

"But you're not ready." She pointed out.

Luke looked down at his clothes. "What? Oh, right, right, sorry. Okay, I'm ready." He replied, dropping his apron on the counter.

She shot him a look and shook her head slightly. "Au contraire."

"What?"

"You are so not ready."

"What are you talking about?"

"The grunge look is out." She answered, waving a hand over him.

"Hey, I'm not dressing up for this."

"Well, you need something better than that."

"The whole point of this stupid class talk was for us to talk about our work and our success. This flannel shirt is my most successful outfit. I've closed many a deal in this outfit. It's my power outfit."

Lorelai sighed. "Come on." She took him by the collar and pulled him in the direction of the curtain and the stairs to his apartment.

"I don't wanna change." He whined.

"Be a good boy and I'll buy you a toy afterward. You wanna toy?" she teased enticingly. "Sorry to barge in." she added to Jess in an apologetic tone.

"No problem. What was that about a toy?"

"Your Uncle Luke is getting one if he's a good boy." She answered with a smirk.

"Can we make this more demeaning? Hey, why don't you go downstairs and help out Caesar?"

"I think my education comes first, don't you?" Jess asked with a hint of sarcasm.

Lorelai started hunting through his closet for a shirt he could wear, while Luke stood behind her grumbling.

"That attitude's gonna lose you that toy." Interjected Jess.

"Stay outta this!" warned Luke, pointing his finger at him.

"We've got ourselves a winner." Announced Lorelai, pulling a plain, pale blue shirt out.

"Fine, fine, come on."

"Just change in here."

"I'll be more comfortable in here." He replied, walking into the bathroom.

"I've seen you swimming at the lake so I've seen you with your shirt off. Not to mention the 'Friday night special'."

He and Jess shared a look and both males groaned. "I'll be one second."

"Lose the baseball cap, too." Shouted Lorelai to his back

"You run the risk of his head falling off without it." Muttered Jess.

"I think he'll be okay."

"Happy?" asked Luke, walking out of the bathroom.

"Thrilled. Now a tie with that would be just great."

"We're leaving. And it's gotta be something I don't have to put together."

"What?"

"My toy."

"Got it." When they were out in the hall, she twisted her arm through his and leant in close to his ear. "If you're really, really good I might be that present."

XXX

Bored with waiting for her chance to talk to the kids, Lorelai got up and wandered over to a display case. It was a case she had seen millions of times when she was here with Rory, but she's never really stopped to look at it. "Oh my God."

"What?" asked Luke, intrigued.

"Nothing, nothing at all, Butch."

Luke looked at her, a slightly shocked expression on his face. He peered over her shoulder at the display. "For the love of… what's that doing there?"

"What's it doing? It's yelling, 'Mock me, mock me!'"

"It shouldn't be there."

"Oh no, you're right. It should have its own special display at the diner with a big old spotlight on it. Or at my place so I can see you as a cute teen whenever I want." She added thoughtfully.

Luke glared at the back of her head. "Don't they need my permission for this? This should be illegal." He muttered.

"No, those shorts with that tank top should be illegal."

"Okay, stop now."

"Oh, the girls just swooned when Butch Danes took the field." She mocked in a southern accent.

"I knew there was another good reason not to do this."

"Oh no, don't walk away, Butch. Well, if I thought you didn't care, I'd die, oh, I'd just die." She giggled.

Luke turned and shot her a look. "You know I care. Now sit down and shut up. Please?"

Lorelai's smirk turned into a soft smile and she dropped into the seat next to Luke's.

"Thank you." he muttered, quickly checking the hall for people and leaning forward to give her a chaste kiss.

They relaxed into as comfortable position as you can get into on a wooden bench, when Debbie finally emerged from the classroom. At first neither Luke, who was lounging on the bench, his head resting against Lorelai's shoulder talking quietly, noticed the new person. It wasn't until the other mother cleared her throat gently that they looked up, almost shocked. "Okay, we're all ready for you guys."

"Great, excellent." Lorelai replied, slightly flustered.

"Okay, uh, Luke, you can have a seat here while Lorelai's talking, okay?" instructed Debbie as they walked in.

"Okay."

Lorelai pointed to the corner of the desk "Hey, what's that? Luke plus Sissy?" she asked with a smirk.

"Start your speech. Or the Friday night specials will cease to exist. On any night of the week."

She pouted at him and followed Debbie to the front of the room as the blonde woman started to speak. "Okay, everyone, we're ready to begin. We have two local luminaries here to talk to us today. You probably all recognize Luke Danes from his fabulous diner, but we're really excited to begin with a former Stars Hollow High mom, Lorelai Gilmore."

The classroom clapped politely and Lorelai started on her speech, but was soon interrupted by a hand in the air. The question shocked her, seeing as they were there to talk about careers and not her untimely pregnancy, but she answered all the same.

What harm could answering a couple of questions do? She knew she should try and keep it strictly to the desired topic, but she also knew that, while getting pregnant had been a mistake, everything that came along after wasn't. And, after all, her pregnancy was a huge part of the reason she was where she was today. Right?

Wrong.

"Don't." demanded Lorelai as she and Luke walked along the street later. He was still laughing at the happenings at the school

"I'm trying not to, I swear. I'm not trying hard, I'll grant you that."

"What was with those kids? So curious, so full of questions. Shouldn't their brains be completely fried on TV and video games by now? It wasn't funny. You should be on my side, being my boyfriend and all."

"Might not have been funny from your angle. From mine, it was an evening at the Improv. "

"I'm not gonna be allowed within a mile of the school ever again." She moaned.

Luke smirked. "Look at it this way; you did me a favour. Now I have a pleasant memory from that school – you being nailed like a two by four by a group of sixteen-year-olds."

"Hello, girlfriend." She said, waving a hand up and down in front of herself. "Couldn't we have done it on a teacher's desk or something? Wouldn't that have been a pleasant memory? Oh no, what's this?"

"Looks like high noon in Stars Hollow."

"They're not carrying tar and feathers, are they?" she asked, turning toward him slightly, hiding her face. "Oh, hi everybody. Wow, the whole gang. What's up?"

"Well, I felt obligated to tell the other moms about your little performance at school before they heard about it elsewhere."

"So, you're preaching to our daughters that it's okay to get pregnant at sixteen, am I getting that right?" asked one woman.

"No, not at all, I was just answering their questions." Defended Lorelai.

"Well, it's your answers we didn't like." Stated the same blonde woman.

"Hey, I was talking about my job like I was supposed to, but your kids kept asking about my pregnancy. What was I supposed to do?"

"Fend them off, change the subject!" exclaimed Debbie.

Lorelai sighed. "I tried, Debbie, but they kept coming at me like I was Poland and they were Nazis. Remember the old days, girls, when I used to make you laugh?"

"There's nothing funny about this." Stated another woman.

"Their questions just threw me off, that's all." Lorelai tried to explain.

"Sounds like you just flaunted your mistakes." Said the first woman again.

"Now, hold on. You have no right to judge me. All I said was that for my particular circumstances things worked out okay. I advocated nothing to them. You're all acting like I walked into that room tossing condoms in the air."

"You might as well have." Mumbled the second lady.

"Fine, next time I will. I'll bring a banana and we'll have a little show and tell. How 'bout that?"

"What kind of mother are you?"

"The kind that doesn't gloss over things just because they're a little uncomfortable."

"This whole incident was awkward and unnecessary."

Lorelai shook her head as an idea popped into her mind. "No, Deb, I'd say, Deb, that what's awkward and unnecessary, Deb, is that you all seem to go to the same lousy hairdresser. How 'bout mixing it up a little, huh, girls?"

"I gotta get going. You good here?" asked Luke.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good. I'll see you later."

"You don't have to take that tone."

"You ambush me, then you're offended by my tone?"

XXX

Rory stormed out of the Beauty Store for the second time that day. Stupid blonde girls and their stupid words and all because she was with Jess, when Rory had been almost ready to break it off with Dean. As she stomped her way back to Lane's, she decided that it was probably better this way, what with her mother and Luke getting together.

But, still, there was a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that almost screamed 'Jess is better suited'. But after letting her stomach scream that at her, her brain kicked in and muttered 'you and Dean might be different, but so are your mother and Luke. And look how well they go together'. And, while she could ignore lots of things, that was one thing she couldn't.

Her brain was, as per usual, right.

She sighed and wandered up the path to Lane's and toward the tree that would allow her to climb back into the bedroom without Mrs. Kim catching her. It didn't take very long for them to dye Lane's hair back to black, and when they were done, they snuck downstairs slowly, wondering if Mrs. Kim was about. To their utter relief she was nowhere to be seen, so they could exit without an interrogation.

XXX

An hour or so later, Rory and Lane were walking around town, when they ran into Lorelai. After some brief conversation, Lane decided to go home, while Lorelai and Rory headed to Luke's for dinner.

As they wandered in the direction of the food provider, Lorelai filled Rory in on everything that had happened at the school, which got Rory thinking about her mother's life, and her college entry essays.

Maybe she could write about her mother, instead of on of 'her authors'?

I'm thinking about that essay, and I suck at writing them. If anyone wants to help out, email me. I'm trying to write it myself, but it's not really coming along very well. My email is: . Cheers!