A Lorelai's first day at work
A/N: I do not own anything. Copyrights remain with their respective owners.
Thanks to xshynenstarx, funfetti84, merdarkandtwisty, sharlene628 and acechica for your reviews.
To all the readers of this fic: Unfortunately, the author was bitten by an evil writing bug after posting the last chapter and decided to write something else that was not in the original plan rather than the grooms identity as stated previously; this is 'a Lorelai's first day at work' in the spirit of 'the Lorelai's first day at Chilton' and 'the Lorelai's first day at Yale'...although the groom is hidden somewhere in this chapter and you do also get introduced to someone who is really important to the groom.
The author sincerely apologises to everyone who is waiting, and will reveal the identity of the groom in the next oneshot to be uploaded next week.
By the way, there's a competition to help me come up with a better title than "One-Shot Series" for this fic. Please put any suggestions in reviews!
The alarm clocked sitting on the bedside table continued to beep incessantly, signalling the time for the current occupant of the bed, a brunette female to awake, for her first day at her new job at International News Tribune as a reporter.
Having just finished moving to her new apartment in New York, which had belonged to her grandparents but gifted to her when she finally scored the job, Rory fought the urge to fall back asleep. The time she had spent on the campaign trail following the Obama campaign in the primaries had come to an end, and she had settled down into a more permanent job.
Although she had learnt a lot from her experiences travelling around the United States, she still missed the creature comforts of having a permanent abode, instead of living out of her suitcase, which was what she did, when she was out reporting on the campaign trail. She had met some very nice people whilst on the trail, even had a friendly date with one of her fellow reporters on the trail, but she knew it would never work out so they had both stopped it after that one date.
Glancing over at the alarm clock she saw that it was almost eight in the morning, and she had to be at the office of the International News Tribune by nine. Hurriedly, she tossed off her pyjamas and went into the bathroom for a shower and to get ready for the morning.
Twenty minutes later she came out of the shower, dried her hair and began to put on her clothes. Out the door in another ten, she greeted the doorman of the apartment building as she hurried out into the busy New York streets. That left her thirty minutes to pick up a coffee and a danish pastry for breakfast and make her way to the office where she would be starting.
Dashing into the subway for the short two station ride to work she managed to stop by a coffee cart outside the International News Tribune building with ten minutes to spare. Quickly paying and inhaling the coffee that she had bought, she hurried into the pristine building.
The large foyer was full of people headed to work in the building. She saw a dark haired man and a red haired woman almost collide into one another in their hurry to get to the elevators. The International News Tribune occupied most of the floors of the building, but some of the floors had been sublet out to other businesses. Making her way to the receptionist at the front desk at the foyer she asked the receptionists to make the call upstairs to Liz Parker, who would be her mentor for the period of her probation at this job to come down and collect her and organise her building pass.
They had met briefly after she had been offered the job at one of the work functions that she had been invited to, but she had been interviewed by two of the more senior staff at the paper as well as someone from the human resources area.
Rory waited for a couple of minutes before being greeted by Liz, a tallish woman who she gathered was a couple of years older than her, with amused green eyes and dark chocolate coloured hair. "Rory," Liz greeted, "please follow me." Liz handed Rory a pass to allow them to get through the security gate so that they could access the lifts. "You need to keep that security pass on you whilst we arrange for a more permanent one. That allows you to get through the doors, so don't lose it."
The elevator dinged and the door opened, and the two women got into the elevator. Pressing level 25, the door closed after more people got in. The elevator ride up was quick, and the two ladies soon got off. In the elevator lobby of the twenty fifth floor a large sign which said International News Tribune adorned the wall directly opposite the elevators.
Liz put her security pass in the reader next to the door, and it opened. Motioning for Rory to follow they walked through a labyrinth of desks and areas until they got to a small area where Liz stopped and there were several other people waiting. "This is the team that reports on domestic politics." Rory was introduced to her fellow writers, the senior reporter in the team was Don, a middle-aged man who had worked on domestic politics reporting for twenty years. There was Liz and herself, as well as Mark, who also did the political opinion pieces for the paper.
Liz then took Rory to her desk, which was opposite Liz's own desk. "And this will be your desk," Liz stated. "Get settled and then I'll take you to meet the editing team and the rest of the staff that you will be working with."
Rory thanked her, and began to unpack a few of her things that she had bought with her to the office. There was a photo of herself and Lorelai, another photo of herself and Emily and Richard. A photo of her farewell party with the town of Stars Hollow before she had started on her first job with the online magazine.
There was a nice computer sitting on the desk as well, and a cupboard to store information and other things. Once she had settled into her desk, Liz popped over and took her to meet the rest of the staff that she would be closely working with. Then came the quick induction course that she had to do which was a corporate requirement.
As lunch time rolled around, Liz came again, and invited her with the rest of the reporting team to go to lunch. Stopping at a small diner close by, which Liz swore served the best burgers in New York, the team used the time to bond. She found out that Liz had a boyfriend, Charlie, who she had been dating for a little while, that Liz came from a middle-class family in upstate New York, and that she had a brother and a sister, both married.
Rory found out that Don was happily married to Julie, with two children under ten who went to a local small church-run private school. He had started out on the campaign trail like Rory before landing a job at the International News Tribune.
Mark she found out, had started at a paper owned by Mitchum Huntzberger, but had left when he had found the working environment there a little too toxic for his tastes. He also had a steady girlfriend who worked as a banker at Chase Manhattan.
Rory told the others a little about herself, how she had grown up in a small town in Connecticut, where everyone knew everyone in the town. How she had gone to high school in Chilton, and then into Yale even though she had always dreamed of going to Harvard. How she had graduated and worked for the online e-zine following the Obama campaign, about all of the people she had met and interviewed and written about in her travels until she had settled back down in New York.
As lunch finished, the team headed back up to the office, and Rory was given her first assignment, a small article to be done on the mayor's latest political announcement on proposed new laws on political donations. Rory headed down to the research area and began to look over the interview transcripts. There were then a few arranged interviews for comments from some prominent political donor groups that she had to do the next day. As she began to type on the computer the article started to take shape.
Soon, the evening rolled around, and Don and Mark both left, leaving Liz and Rory in the office. As Rory finished all she could do for the day, she saw that Liz was also packing up. Exiting the office together, Liz stated, "I think you'll fit in really well with us. Can't wait to see your first article for the paper."
"Thanks," Rory replied, "I'm really liking it here too." The elevator reached the ground floor, and they both walked into the foyer past the security gates, and Rory said goodbye to the concierge at the front desk. She exited the building along with Liz.
As she turned away, she saw a car pull up to the front of the building and a door open. Liz walked towards the car to get into it and Rory caught a glimpse of a blonde head inside the car. Rory waved a quick goodbye to Liz as the door of the car closed and it drove off, and headed back down into the subway for the short ride home. She would have a quick shower first before heading out to get some dinner before ringing home to Lorelai, as she would know her mother would expect her to.
Fifteen minutes later, she made her way up to her apartment, and took a quick shower, changing into some more casual clothes before making the decision to order delivery from a local Chinese which happened to be close by. She had tried the place once before, when she and Lorelai had moved all of her things in, and the Kung Pao chicken was quite nice.
The delivery man came twenty minutes later, just as she finished her phone call with Lorelai, with the food. Her mother of course, had enquired as to whether there were any hot guys at her new work, rather than asking how her day had been, or if the job was interesting. She replied that she had met a lot of people, but her fellow reporters in the team were all in relationships, and that she had just settled into her new place and a new job in New York and that she was busy. Lorelai had laughed of course.
Paying the delivery guy the requisite money for the food, Rory sat down and flicked on the TV. A show called Superspies was currently playing on TV. The female lead was currently flirting with a male spy, who she gathered was French from his accent. As she watched the show and ate, she gathered that they were friendly rivals and the bantering between the two characters proved to be quite entertaining for Rory. She liked the TV show, and it provided for some very good mocking as well with some of the absolutely unrealistic spy moves. Rory wondered if Lorelai watched this show as well. She would have to call her mother and tell her about it the next time they talked.
A yawn escaped Rory's mouth as she disposed of the takeaway containers in the bin, and she settled down for a last cup of coffee before going to bed.
Tomorrow was another day, and as she fell asleep she felt that she was going to really like her new job, and couldn't wait for the challenges that it would bring, professionally. What she didn't know was that this job would ultimately lead to the love of her life.
A/N: Please read and reviews are very much appreciated. I'm new to this fandom so any help on characterization and facts and tidbits is very much appreciated.