Disclaimer: I do not own the Gilmore Girls or any of its characters, nor do I have any connection or affiliation with the actors and actresses, producers, show-runners or the CW. Because let's face it – if I did, Gilmore Girls would still be on, Rory would've married Logan, and I wouldn't be writing this fanfic.
Rating: PG for now, for language.
Major Relationships: Rory & Logan, with Luke & Lorelai from time to time.
Author's Note: I hope this story continues to live up to everyone's expectations. Please read and review. If you have any ideas or thoughts, please also feel free to email me at .com.
NEWS: I am now a registered Beta Reader. Please feel free to contact me if you'd like me to Beta your story.
If I Never See You Again
By Heather Nicole
Chapter 16
To Rory, the flight to Hartford was quite literally flying by.
Somehow, the six and a half hour flight, plus the hour of waiting at the airport had not been enough time for her to think. She only had an hour left, and she felt as though she only had ten minutes. She had so many things to think about.
First of all, she had to think about all the things she was going to need to pack up – literally, her whole room, minus the furniture. All of her clothes, her shoes, her possessions, framed pictures, photo albums, DVD collection, CDs, and of course, her books, which would require more boxes than everything else put together.
She also had to get her car shipped to California. She and Logan had found a place online last night that would ship her car, since they'd decided they couldn't afford the time crunch. For the second time in 24 hours, she'd whipped out the American Express card and swiped. Technically, she'd entered the digits and electronically signed for it. She felt careless. But it was necessary – she couldn't very well go without her car, and she couldn't afford to buy another.
Logan had offered to pay for it, but Rory just couldn't bring herself to let him do that. He'd already paid for their tickets to Connecticut, and he was paying for them to return to California. He'd paid for the furniture they ordered last night. He had paid for the pizza they'd ordered. He was paying for the cab from the airport. And, until she had a job, he was also paying a substantial portion of the rent. She'd learned last night that Mitchum was footing part of the bill – not Logan's idea. But his father had it in his mind that his son couldn't go out in the business world and fail, again. And apparently if he were living in anything less than a small palace, that wouldn't be good for the family reputation.
"After all, son," Logan had said in his best Mitchum voice, "You may not be my employee now, but you're still the heir to one of the biggest multimedia conglomerates in the world, and when I retire or kick it, I'd like for someone to be able to find you tell you the news and have you living in a house, not a cardboard box."
Even with several hundred dollars scraped off their monthly rent, Logan was paying for most of everything. And so, in the course of one day, she'd managed to charge $3,000 to her "for emergencies only" card – a $300 plane ticket to San Francisco and $2700 to ship her car across the country, which meant that there was something else she had to do – call her grandparents and let them know she'd spent $3,000 that wasn't hers to spend. Hopefully they were over having spent $40,000 to renovate the pool house – or "sex house" as her grandparents had frequently called it.
And then of course there was the big kahuna, the priority-one, list-topper – she had to tell her mom about the decision she'd made face-to-face.
The truth was that she was looking forward to being back in Stars Hollow. After several days of uncertainty, she was comforted by the thought of being in a place she knew so well, with people whom she loved. If it weren't for the impending confrontation, she would probably be just fine.
She was so nervous to tell her mother. She was nervous about her reaction. She hated the idea of leaving Stars Hollow on bad terms with her mother to fly cross county. When she'd fought with her mother before, she'd gone on an all-summer trip with her grandmother to Europe – temporary, and short all things considered. When she'd fought with her mother over Yale, she'd moved into the pool house – only 30 minutes away from her mother, and again, temporary. California was a lot further away and a lot more permanent. The upside, she reminded herself, was that living in California consistently was much better than living out of a motel and being on a campaign, and it meant that she would probably have the opportunity to visit home more frequently. She made a mental note to emphasize that in her speech, which she'd been practicing her speech over and over again in her mind.
She suddenly felt Logan's warm hand wrapping around hers and squeezing it, and she realized that she'd been mouthing the words of her speech silently to herself. She squeezed his hand, too, and turned to look out the window, watching the country fly by underneath her, and feeling the seconds rush along with them.
Too soon, the flight was landing in Hartford. They were disembarking, Logan was grabbing his checked luggage (Rory had had nothing to check, given that her luggage was still en route to Stars Hollow and she didn't have anything besides the clothes on her back in California).
And before she knew it, Logan was hailing a cab, and they were dropping him off at Honor's.
As the cab continued onward to Stars Hollow, Rory was simultaneously comforted and unnerved by the familiarity of the streets they traveled down. She recognized landmarks that were notable only to her, those that she'd seen hundreds of times on bus rides from Chilton to home for three years, that marked minutes off her journey and put her a few steps closer to Stars Hollow.
When they entered the town, Rory smiled – and her stomach dropped – as she passed the gazebo. The sun was just beginning to set on the late spring day in Stars Hollow – it was nearly 7 p.m. She cracked the window and smelled the fresh air, that somehow, smelled different than anywhere else and reminded her of home and ignited memories.
It was strange, she pondered, how she'd been gone less than a day, and yet it felt like she'd been gone forever. But somehow, nothing had changed. That was something she loved about Stars Hollow – it always stayed the same, at least for the most part, give or take a traffic light or too. She liked that it was something constant that she could return to, no matter how far away she'd been or for how long.
They turned onto her street, and Rory could feel her blood pressure rise – her heart was pounding, her hands shaking ever so slightly.
She had no time to anticipate arriving at the house – it seemed that she was there in an instance. Soon, she was handing the cab driver a wad of bills from Logan – enough for the fare and for the tip. Before she knew it, she was walking the familiar path to the front porch. Her mom was obviously home – the lights were on, the Jeep in the driveway. Though, she thought to herself, it was entirely possible for her to not be home – it was just like her mother to walk into town and to leave all the lights on in her house.
And then she stood there … scared to enter or knock.
This feeling was all too familiar to her – yesterday, she'd been standing on Logan's porch, hesitating to knock.
Her first emotion was actually confusion – should she simply let herself in? It probably wasn't locked, and if it was, she had her house key. Or should she knock? Technically, in a few days, she wouldn't live here anymore.
So she took a moment to breathe, to pause, to consider her options. She looked around her and took it all in.
Again, the memories washed over her.
She remembered sitting on the front porch with Lorelai, eating spray whip cream, while she painted her toe nails red for her first day at Chilton. She thought of her grandfather, taking a quiz on what season he was from a women's magazine at her sixteenth birthday party. She laughed at the time she and her mom got in an argument over whose boobs were bigger. She remembered the many times that Dean, and then Jess, and then Dean again, had picked her up for a date from the very spot in which she stood. She remembered leaving through the front doors on her first day of Yale, wondering if she could ever return home again and have it feel the same – she wondered the same thing to herself again today. She considered the many times she'd returned home from Yale to feel the warmth of home wash over her. She reminisced about the night when she returned to her house after living with her grandparents for month and embracing her mother on the front lawn. She remembered the first time she'd brought Logan home. She thought about yesterday morning, leaving the house and dragging her suitcases behind her, feeling like she was leaving forever and laughed at the irony – if only she'd known yesterday morning that she'd just end up here again, she would've saved the energy and melancholia, since she was experiencing the same feelings now.
At the end of the day, she thought to herself, this will always be one of my homes.
She would always feel at home in California – or wherever Logan and she happened to be living. With him, she was home. But this house, would also always be her home. She was lucky enough to have to worlds, two homes, where she would always feel safe and complete.
And that was why she decided to just open the door. She was in control of this situation, and her life. Knocking was passive. Opening the door and entering, confidently (or at least pretending to be), was the woman she wanted to be and was how she wanted to handle this situation.
So she did it – she opened the door and stepped into the entryway, closing the door behind her. She slipped her jacket off and hung it from a hook near the door, and dropped her messenger bag against the wall. Paul Anka ran to the door, and she knelt down to pet him, saying hello in a whisper.
"Luke?" a voice called from upstairs.
Suddenly, Rory's voice seemed to be absent. She couldn't say anything back.
"Luke, is that you?" the voice called again, and footsteps followed.
Rory's heartbeat began to race faster. She stood up as Paul Anka scurried off towards the living room. The footsteps came closer.
"Luke, did you-" Lorelai began as she came into the entryway from the living room. She stopped dead in her tracks and her voice stopped as she realized who was there.
"Rory?" Lorelai said, a look of confusion on her face.
Rory struggled to speak, but managed to summon the courage and clarity to say two words, nervously stammering.
"H-hi Mom."