Chapter 4: Dreams

He was in a long hallway. A hospital ward, by the shape of it. The smell. Luke found himself wandering down the long stretch of corridor, taking in the sights and sounds.

All at once, he nearly collided with a gurney stretcher as it came barreling down the hall. The occupant flashed by so that he almost didn't see who it was. Almost. He saw her eyes, and started. Those eyes... he knew those eyes. Rory's eyes...

All at once, he had no idea how he had gotten down the hall, but he suddenly found himself in a room. Hospital bed in one corner. And yes - the woman now screaming and wailing in the agony of childbirth was the teenage version of the woman he loved. Lorelai's screams were soon joined in chorus by the piercing shrieks of an infant...

He moved through space amorphously yet again. He was now standing in front of a long window, behind which sat rows and rows of newborns. Turning his head, he nearly jumped a foot in the air when he saw who was next to him.

It was Christopher. Except it didn't look like Christopher at all. The Christopher he knew had swagger, teenage boy arrogance, wore a leather jacket, rode a motorcycle like he had a death wish. This younger version of Rory's father wore a turtleneck and now possessed the countenance of a mouse, head bowed, eyes darting about like he was trapped.

On his other side was Lorelai in all her transfixing beauty, solemn and already determined as she gazed down at the little pink bundle in what was labeled Bed 1. Rory. So alert and angelic.

"She's tiny," Christopher commented. Luke fought the urge to snort.

"She's perfect," Lorelai nearly sang the words.

"So... I guess we should get married."

The scene shifted, hurtling Luke through time and space. He suddenly found himself in another hospital room, another woman screaming as she went through the pains of labor. At first, he thought he was witnessing Rory's birth again, like a tape had been put into rewind.

Except the woman now straining before him was not Lorelai. It was Anna. The Anna he had known. Pretty soon, the cries of another little girl pierced the living world...

Luke suddenly found himself in the lobby of the hospital. Anna was filling out some paperwork, a baby April in a car seat at her feet.

"Now, dear, are you sure you want to leave the Father space blank?" the nurse on hand was asking her.

"It's for the best," Anna said simply, her eyes flashing like steel. But even behind that mask, Luke could detect the faintest hint of sadness. Anna now turned to the bundle that was April, picking it up and rocking it. "Just you and me, baby..."

Luke sat up in bed with a start, panting, sweating. It was pitch-black in the master bedroom, so that he could barely see his hand in front of his face. The sheen of perspiration on his brow started to drip into his mouth, and only then did he realize that the salt he now tasted was not from sweat. It was from his tears - sharper, saltier. The taste seemed to burn his mouth, almost.

Flopping back into the mattress, he turned his face into his pillow, letting the tear tracks stain there... only to find himself nose-to-nose with the woman he loved, who now gently kissed his lips. "Luke, honey?"

"It was only a dream," he brushed it off.

She kissed him again. "Tell me." Turning on the bedside table light, the couple sat up in bed together. Luke cleared his throat, blinking back the tears.

"I... I saw you. In the hospital. The night Rory was born."

His fiancé frowned curiously, even as she rubbed his shoulder blades soothingly.

"You were in such pain..."

"That's kind of what happens when you push a tiny human out of you," she tried to crack.

"I'm being serious. Please: just listen?" Luke begged. Wordlessly, Lorelai nodded. "At first, I saw you in the gurney, being wheeled down the hall, in labor. I watched as Rory was born. Then, we were outside in front of a window... and Christopher was there... Rory looked so small, all in pink..."

Lorelai now looked a little stunned. "That wasn't a dream, babe. That actually happened."

Luke glanced to her. "Huh? Really?"

"Christopher didn't show up until a couple hours after I gave birth. He had gone to school, and the guidance counselor dragged him out of class. Made him go to the hospital. He had to walk most of the way, then hopped a bus for the final stretch. Rory was a couple hours old when he got there." She pressed a kiss to his shoulder, then his cheek. "What happened next?"

Luke continued. "I was suddenly in another hospital. Only this time it wasn't you giving birth. It was Anna, bringing April into the world. Then, I saw them being checked out, and Anna telling the nurse on duty that she wanted to leave the Father space on April's birth certificate blank." He couldn't hold it in anymore, resting his head on his knees as he burst into tears.

"I should have been there! I should have been there for both of you! Why wasn't I there?!"

Lorelai pulled her lover into her arms, letting him cry into her nightdress. "Sssh... sssh... you didn't know Rory and I back then... There was nothing you could have done. And you sadly didn't know that Anna was pregnant... None of this is your fault. Sssh..." A sudden thought struck her. "Babe, is this about what you were saying the other day? That knowing about April and Anna made you feel unfaithful somehow?"

"I don't want to be unfaithful to Rory or to you," Luke murmured. "But I can't not be loyal to April... I won't choose between the three of you, I refuse to..."

Lorelai couldn't believe her ears. "Babe, no one is asking you to choose between any of us! Not April or Rory or me! As long as you love us all equally, we are going to be a real family."

"I promise. I swear it," Luke vowed. "Rory won't be treated any differently than April. I love them both so, so much. They're my kids, they're my daughters."

Lorelai beamed, kissing his forehead. "I love you too, Luke Danes."

"I love you, too, Lorelai. You have no idea how much."

The car sped down the highway, barely staying in its appropriate lane. Inside the vehicle, two young girls were screaming at each other, clearly in anger. All at once, the girl driving lost control of the wheel, and the car flipped, over and over again, each and every crunch of metal more sickening. The car finally plowed horizontally into a tree, bursting into flames...

"NOOOOOOO!"

Lorelai Gilmore screamed as she came into the consciousness world, the light from the flames still blinding her eyes until she realized it was the bedside table light frantically turning on. As her fiancé gathered her into his arms.

"Lorelai... Lorelai!"

"My girls... my beautiful girls..." Lorelai whimpered into his bare chest, his chest hairs tickling her face. "They crashed Rory's Toyota Prius into a tree... lost control... Fire everywhere... Oh God, Luke!"

"Sssh... sssh... Rory and April are fine... they are downstairs in Rory's room, asleep. Want me to show you?"

At Lorelai's quivering nod, Luke picked her up, bridal-style and held her against his chest as he carried her downstairs. Opening the door just off the kitchen a crack, the couple observed their daughters, bathed in moonlight - Rory snug in her bed, April atop an mattress on the floor. Luke's daughter was there for a sleepover night, as a sort of test run for when she would eventually be living there full-time. Rory was home from Yale for the weekend.

Softly, Luke returned his fiancé to the bed they shared. "There now, you see? Our daughters are safe and sound in bed."

"Then why am I seeing them dead? Every night... all the time... I dream about it! They could die!"

"Never!" Luke thundered in a whisper. "That will never happen!"

"You don't know!"

"I do know. Rory and April are good girls, with strong, brilliant heads on their shoulders. I can't predict the future except to say that they will be just fine."

Lorelai's sobs subsided, turning into sniffles. "Your dreams have rubbed off on me, Butch."

"I'll register a complaint with my brain," Luke cracked, heart warmed when he got his fiancé to laugh, just a little.