Okay… here we go. The sixth sign, completed at 12:56am. I am so tired right now but when I make a promise, I stick to it… so here is my promised chapter to you PuppiesRCute. You can all thank her for the idea behind this chapter too.
Ps. I would probably be uploading this a lot earlier but I got sidetracked trying to find the actual reference, and then I may have watched a couple of episodes.
Enjoy.. I know I enjoyed writing it. :D and keep following me everyone because it does pay off… that's the whole reason this chapter came into being.
THE SIXTH SIGN
"Daddy NO!" Rory screeched playfully as Luke threw her in the air and let her fall into the water, quickly surfacing due to her pfd. They had over compensated for her lack of swimming skills. Covering Rory's small body was a floating ring, floaties, and a pfd. Apart from the fact that Rory could hardly move, the floatation devices had only positive sides. Luke could throw her around as much as his heart desired because there was no chance of her drowning-this did nothing to quell Lorelai's nerves each time her daughter was flung into the air, only to land with a big splash.
Luke let out a throaty chuckle and grabbed Rory around the waist and hoisted her into the air, dangling her over his head and shaking her so that she giggled manically. "no, really?" Luke asked while shaking her around more.
"YES!" Rory yelled through her laughter.
Luke eased her back down into his arms and squeezed her against his chest. "oh, yes? You want me to do it again now?" Rory squealed and kicked her legs as much as she could, trying to get out of Luke's arms.
Rory's efforts were futile and her laughter only grew as Luke spun them both around in the water, spraying water everywhere and wetting Lorelai. "Dada NO!" Rory squeaked out through her crazy scramble to grab Luke anywhere possible. It was proving to be difficult as she'd usually grab his shirt but he wasn't wearing one, Luke was only wearing a pair of blue board shorts that would bring out his eyes if his chest weren't in the way.
Rory was dressed in a one piece bathing suit that was bright pink with a white and pink polka-dot skirt and she had a rash vest over the top which was white with short pink sleeves and a purple owl on her chest. Lorelai was lounging by the edge of the pool in her two piece blue bikini with a white sarong wrapped around her long legs.
Luke once again looked as if he was going to throw Rory in the air but faked and brought her back down against him and squatted down in the water and pushed rory away from his body, watching the little girl float across the water, pigtails bouncing around in two ringlets.
As Lorelai looked on to Rory bopping happily in the water she was cast back to when Luke and herself had to carry Rory across any amount of water smaller than a drop. After thinking of this she got caught up in thoughts of Rory's first bath.
"I am so sorry." She cried as Rory screamed. She'd tested the water, it wasn't too hot or too cold so what was she doing wrong? The nurse was standing there, judging Lorelai. She could see it in her eyes, she was thinking about how Lorelai was too young to handle a baby. All Lorelai was thinking about was the fact that her baby was screaming and she didn't know why. She had done everything the nurse had told her to. She held Rory's head and only swished small amounts of water onto her tiny body.
Rory continued to scream and Lorelai gave up. She didn't care about the look she got from the nurse, she whisked Rory out of the bath and clung to her baby. No more. No more crying until she knew what was wrong. "You need to wash her miss." Came the nurses voice.
"no." Lorelai said through her own tears as she held Rory's tiny body, wrapped in a pink towel, to her body. Lorelai shifted Rory until she was laying down in her mother's arms. Rory still cried and Lorelai looked down at her completely lost on what to do.
"Miss, you can't leave her as she is. You need to wash her properly or she could become ill." The nurse sounded so patronizing and Lorelai ground her teeth. Didn't the insipid woman understand that it hurt to hear her baby so upset? It was torture to have Rory so upset when she didn't know how to make it better. Lorelai looked up through her wet lashes and the nurse seemed to get it, or at least fake getting it well. "Would you like me to do it?"
Lorelai nodded meekly and slowly handed over her baby to the woman. As soon as Rory was freed from the towel and placed in the water she began to scream. "I…uh…I need to leave the room… is that okay?" Lorelai asked the nurse.
After a moment of thought the nurse smiled warmly at the teen and nodded.
"Mama!" Rory squealed and tried to swim over to the edge, away from Luke's persistent playfulness. It was futile though as Luke had a hold of Rory's skirt underwater. After a moment of serious effort of Rory's part, the little girl got restless and her bottom lip started to quiver. "mama, dada no!"
Lorelai shot Luke a look and her boosted Rory across the water and right to Lorelai's waiting hands. Lorelai reached down and held her gorgeous daughters hands as she bounced in the water. "so?" Lorelai smiled down at Rory. "You like the water now sweets?"
"yes. Is fun." Rory proclaimed and freed a hand to splash the water.
This was a completely different Rory from the one that had been screaming and crying just weeks ago. As Lorelai went back into her thoughts Rory clearly got bored of sitting still and paddled her was back over to Luke.
A two and a half year old Rory screamed in fear as she spotted the puddle coming up. Spinning around, she tried to climb up Lorelai. It was getting ridiculous. It was winter and Rory's unique phobia (thanks PuppiesRCute) was making it take at least twice the amount of time to get anywhere. Picking her daughter up and holding her on her hip, Lorelai continued on her path to Lukes. As they were walking down the street, almost at Luke's a drop, one singular drop of water fell from the gutter of the florist and fell on Rory's forehead and did that set her off, oh boy. The little girl began to scream and cry at once, burying her head in Lorelai's neck and clinging as if someone was trying to wrench her away. "Shhh.." Lorelai soothed annoyed.
They finally reached Lukes and before entering Lorelai beckoned Luke outside, worried about taking her wailing daughter inside the establishment and causing a ruckus. Luke exited as soon as he saw Rory's face buried and Lorelai slightly bopping around to calm her daughter. "Hey, what's wrong?" Luke asked as he exited the diner and came to stand behind Rory, rubbing her back.
"we had a minor incident with a puddle and a drop of water from a gutter." Lorelai mumbled.
"Aw, c'mere Ror." Luke said and pulled Rory from Lorelai's arms. One strong hand went under Rory's bum to support her and the other rubbed at her back while Luke swayed and shushed her. Slowly Luke pulled Rory from his body as she continued to wail. It had been at least twenty minutes of shushing, swaying and rubbing and she had not calmed in the least. It was time to take some more aggressive action. "Rory. Stop!" Luke said forcefully. Rory stopped in shock for a moment and then cried harder and tried to climb out of his arms. Luke didn't let her, walking a step further away from Lorelai and forcefully turning Rory back to look at him, "Rory, water is not scary. You need to calm down. This isn't needed."
Lorelai wanted to intervene but didn't as Rory hiccupped and calmed after Luke's exclamation. Rory looked at him with wide, tear filled, blue eyes. "Is scary." She mumbled and fell into Luke's shoulder.
Luke kissed her hair and spoke to her gently, "No, Rory. It can't hurt you okay. Nothing can hurt you when mummy or me are there. Okay?" he said.
"Okay" Rory answered feebly.
Lorelai came back to from her memory and gasped as she saw Rory only clad in her bathers. "Luke, be careful." She called over to him. Luke looked up from dragging Rory across the water to Lorelai's fearful eyes. A glint came across Luke's eyes and he pulled Rory up so that she was next to him. He whispered into her ear and she waved at Lorelai with her right hand, left still held in Lukes.
Then she watched as Rory's little cheeks puffed up and Luke let go of her left hand to wave at Lorelai. Rory plunged under the water and Lorelai jumped up, clearly about to jump in the water. Luke laughed and reached under the water and pulling Rory up. The cheeky little girl grinned at Lorelai while clapping and laughing. Lorelai scowled at the two of them cheekily looking at her. "Mummy is very upset with you." Lorelai proclaimed angrily and both Rory and Luke began to look guilty. It was scary. Scary just like when Luke had insisted that he could get Lorelai over her fear of water.
"Lorelai, I can do this." Luke proclaimed as he held Lorelai's shoulders firmly. She was nervous. Luke had decided that the only way to get Rory over ther phobia of water was to push her, to make her do it and Lorelai didn't know if she agred with him.
Lorelai's lip should have been bleeding with how much she was chewing it. "What if she gets more scared. I don't think I could handle it." Lorelai said shakily. What if? Was all that was running around her mind. What if Rory got worse? What if Rory grew to resent Luke? What if Rory got hurt? What if Rory blamed her?
With one last sigh Luke came up with a solution, "You go to the diner and have a cup of coffee. When we're done we'll come and get you. That way you don't have to deal with hearing her cry or whatever's going to happen. We just needa deal with this." Lorelai nodded resignedly and went over to where Rory was playing on the floor. Her gorgeous three year old girl with bright blue eyes, curly brown hair and the most frustrating fear ever.
Lorelai knelt down to Rory's level and pulled the rag doll out of her little hands, "Okay sweets, Mummy just has to run out to the shops for a minute but you're going to stay here with Daddy, alright?" Rory simply nodded and went back to playing. As Lorelai made her exit, she whispered in Luke's ear, "you be careful with my baby." And left.
As soon as Lorelai was out of the house, Luke went over to the walmart bag and pulled out a pink raincoat with a hood and some colourful birds on it, a pair of pink gumboots, and a set of pale pink gloves. They were all in Rory's size. Going to kneel in front of Rory, Luke held up the new items and Rory smiled, realizing that they were a present for her. "Mine?" she asked Luke.
Luke grinned and nodded but pulled the items out of her reach as Rory lunged at them. "Yes, they are yours but you need to wear them outside." Luke said and Rory looked mildly put off but nodded anyhow, standing and pulling off her green converses. As she padded over to the front door, she realized that it was raining but figured if she stayed on the porch then she wouldn't get wet.
Opening the door and walking onto the porch in her socks, pale blue jeans, lime-green jumper and pink beanie, turned to Luke and held her hands out. Luke slipped the gloves on her small hands, the raincoat over her arms and the gumboots on her sock-clad feet, covering her jeans up to her knee. Finally Luke pulled the hood over her beanie and grabbed her hand, dragging her to the porch steps. As soon as Rory realized where this was going she started to fight back, pulling as hard as she could against Luke's hand.
Her efforts were fruitless as Luke tired of the game, picked her up and carried her over to the grass. As he tried to set her down, she clung to him more and tucked her legs up. She would NOT touch the wet grass. Eventually Luke tired of this aspect too and pried her off of his body, not caring at all about the screams she was emitting or the tears covering her face. As her feet hit the ground she tried more desperately to climb Luke who was holding her on the grass. "Rory, it is NOT that bad. Stop this NOW!" Luke hollered and Rory stilled, her tears still silently coming down her cheeks. "Look." Luke said, pointing to where Rory's feet were planted on the ground.
Rory looked down and then back at Luke. "You aren't getting wet so stop with this crying. The water isn't hurting you." Rory looked back down and slowly lifted her foot, planting it back down and smiling at the squelching noise it made. "see, fun." Luke proclaimed as Rory started to do it with both feet. After ten minutes of squelching her feet around in the sopping wet grass, Rory grabbed onto Luke's arms and started to jump around.
With a grin Luke got a new idea in his head. "Hey Ror, wanna go see Mummy and do something REAL fun?" Rory nodded enthusiastically and grabbed more firmly onto Luke's hand as they began to walk to the diner. On the walk Luke was scanning the ground, looking for the perfect opportunity to teach Rory. It soon came.
In front of 'the Chat Club' there it was, the perfect puddle. Luke grinned and lead Rory over to it. At first she looked hesitant to follow but did anyway. Once they were over there, next to the puddle, Luke stopped and knelt down again. "You wanna jump in the puddle?" he asked excitedly, mostly for Rory's benefit. The little girl nodded enthusiastically and Luke egged her on. After a second more of thought Rory leaped into the puddle, sending sprays of water in all directions.
After another couple of jumps in that puddle they continued on to the diner, jumping in every puddle they came across on the way. After collection Lorelai, they made their way back to the crapshack, Rory jumping in puddles along the way. Lorelai couldn't be happier to see that phase go.
After her memory ended, Lorelai realized that Rory was tiredly leaning on Luke as he slowly made his way to the edge of the pool. After emerging from the water, Rory still in his arms, he pulled the pink, hooded, butterfly towel over Rory's head and tightly wrapped it around her small form. After donning his own towel, he picked up the sleepy girl and gestured for Lorelai to come along. They left the swimming centre after buying hot chips for the tired Rory and a hotdog for the 'starving' Lorelai- really she'd already eaten twice while they had been there.
It had been good to see her little girl enjoying the water so much, and even more to see her enjoying it with Luke. She had a feeling that swimming lessons would be in their futures. It was also a feeling of hers that Luke would allow nobody else to teach her to swim, that he would do it himself. And quite frankly they were feeling that she didn't mind because Luke had done everything for them, why shouldn't she do something for him.
Okay so please R&R. I love the reviews. Also make suggestions on what you want to see happen next. Thanks.
Xx Banana Flavored Lemonade (bec)