Disclaimer: If it's not mine after all these chapters, then it never was and never will be.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The tiny muffled yelp drew Lorelai's attention from the never-changing parade of Stars Hollow's residents at the big holiday picnic. She turned quickly, putting a hand out. "You okay, Sook?"

"No," said Sookie, mouth in an uncharacteristically thin, angry line. She rubbed her distended abdomen. "Thank you. For helping with the kids. You're a good Auntie Lorelai."

"It's easy," said Lorelai, swallowing hard. Sookie needed her, not her hysterics over the past. "You make cute kids. So… What's going on with you and Jackson?"

"He was going to see the doctor. For the check-up." She tried to gesture suggestively, failed, but Lorelai understood her intent. "Make sure the vasectomy worked. He said."

"Oh no," whispered Lorelai. "Sweetie, tell me he didn't…"

"He did. He didn't go. Dignity. Cups. Samples. I just… First he lied about getting one, then this, and when I think we're finally Bogie and Bacall again, it's all back to Brad and Jennifer, only without Angelina." She squeezed Lorelai's hand, voice shaking. "I can't cook. I can't even supervise. I need to be at the inn, our inn. I need to not be wondering if I'm headed for single motherhood, oh my God, I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

"I know what you meant," soothed Lorelai, wishing she was at the inn, listening to Michel's complaints. "Look, the inn's okay, mostly, right? You'll be back for winter, right?"

Sookie nodded, but didn't seem terribly optimistic. "I sent him home with the kids, I just want to be… Not alone, but not in the house with him, or them, not right now. For a few more hours. Just… Sit here. Make fun of Taylor's star-spangled hat. Feel fresh air. Ask you what's the deal with Luke."

Lorelai snorted, waving at a wholly imaginary gnat in front of her face. "Y'know that home video stuff Mom nuked me with? I gave him a video to watch. He said something about re-learning each other, but I don't know if he ever really learned me, Sook. How do you meet my parents, my mother, and think I exaggerated how…"

"Lorelai!"

Sookie's sharpness cut deep, reprimanding, scathing, and Lorelai was transported to ten thousand or so other times in her life when her name alone was a rebuke.

"Where's your car? No, not your car, get… Lorelai, call…"

Sookie's eyes held terror. Lorelai leapt to her feet. "Sookie?"

"Pain. Belly. Baby. Bad. Feels like labor. Real kind. Car!" Sookie panted in short bursts, face paling. "Please. Don't leave! Car! No, stay. Oh God!"

"Ambulance," Lorelai insisted, panic rising in a white-gray tide. She fumbled at her phone, dialed, and after begging emergency services to hurry, she held Sookie's hands. She knew incredible gratitude when Miss Patty's voice boomed out and cleared the park. "Move it!" the older woman kept repeating. "Move it! My place! Pick it up, carry it over, out of the way now!"

"She should've been a general, we'd never lose a war," said Lorelai, hoping to distract Sookie the least bit, and failing as she expected. "Sweetie, let go my hand. I have to call Jackson and…"

Sookie utter a thin low cry. "It feels pushy!"

Frantic, Lorelai ordered, "Don't! Don't! No pushy! None!"

Sirens came into earshot, over Taylor's megaphoned voice trying to make people do things that were already being done. She began to tremble, teeth chattering, memory filling her with a different time of pain and ambulances. She discovered she was whispering, "Please, please, please," in time to her rapid heartbeat, and that she couldn't see through her tears. "Please!"

Somehow, Sookie was whisked into an ambulance, screaming, "Lorelai! Jackson!"

"Sorry, we need the room," said the paramedic, and pushed Lorelai gently from the rear ambulance doors.

Her knees gave way as the ambulance departed.

"What is it, what happened, I heard the siren!"

There was a cleanser-scented cotton shirt against her face, and arms holding her up. She gasped out, "Luke. Sookie. Premature. Baby. I can't find my car. I can't find my car!"

Her purse disappeared. When cold air hit her face, she didn't understand, jumped with a stifled yell. She was sitting in her car, air conditioning blasting at her, with no recollection of getting there. "You're driving my car!"

"It was ten feet away," said Luke grimly. "We're nearly at the hospital, I'll…"

"Oh God, I have to call Jackson!"

She was able to tell Jackson what she knew, which was too little, before Luke stopped the Forester outside the emergency room entrance. "I'll, uh, park for you and…"

"I was calling for you," Lorelai told him bluntly. "My dad. Told me. I asked for you. Then I.. Then it… And then… Rory told you before I even got out of the hospital."

"I thought she'd kill me," whispered Luke roughly. "Go sit with Sookie."

Sorrow ran through Lorelai in a fresh wave of dull pain. "Oh. Right. Okay. Um. Just, uh, take the car back to Stars Hollow, and I'll pick up the keys or something? I dunno."

She ran, not only for Sookie's sake, but her own. Her car did not matter. Lost chances did.

When she bullied her way past the nurses, by simply ignoring them, she was met by Sookie on a gurney, heading for an elevator. She grabbed her best friend's hand, trotting alongside. "Sookie? I'm here. I called Jackson. Babette's got the kids, he's on his way. What's going on?"

The last question was for a burly man in no way resembling any dreamy doctor on Gray's Anatomy. His eyes, however, were focused, and compassionate. "C-section. It's our best chance."

Lorelai heard hysteria spiral through her pleading, "Sookie'll be okay? I won't let go till you tell me she'll be okay!"

The doctor nodded once. Then his eyes went to Sookie's abdomen. He said gently, "Sixth floor, OB-GYN, they'll direct you to waiting."

"Hang in there, Sookie!" she called desperately. "I…"

The elevator doors closed.

She needed someone. Rory was off doing adult career post-Yale things. Michel had to be available at the inn. Finally, she gave up and wandered to a cell-phone-friendly area outside, to stare at her phone. Her father had his own health issues. Her mother was out of the question. Who else did Lorelai truly have?

Purse clutched to her chest, she said softly, "I can't do this. I can't be here, this, again."

The best hospital in Connecticut for obstetrics and pediatrics, she remembered her father telling her over a year ago. She would have been far more comforted if Connecticut was a larger state.

A hand on her elbow sent her into the air, squeaking in fear, ready to lash out with her fingernails in self-defense.

"Hey," said Luke. "Yeah. I hate hospitals. But I know you won't go home till you know it's okay, and nobody should sit alone in a hospital waiting room. It's why I hate them. That and the smell."

Lorelai blinked, coming out of herself slowly. "Wait. You mean… When your dad… Liz? Rachel? Anna? Uncle Louie?"

"Drunk, gone, hadn't met her yet, only came once."

Horror overtook her. "You never said. Oh my God, Luke, you were so alone, you must've been so lonely!"

For some reason, he looked as if she'd kicked him. "Yeah. I was. C'mon. If you can walk into this after last year… I can sit around all night feeling useless."

She frowned a little, then touched his arm shyly. "Thank you. It's… Brave."

"I'm not the one screaming," was Luke's cryptic response, and she led him into the nightmare.

GG GG GG

Richard Gilmore raised a hand as Miss Cartman entered the dining room.

Her eyes traveled from his hand to his daughter's head, pillowed on his daughter's arm, perilously near a plate of now-cold trout and multi-rice pilaf. The garden salad had been eaten, and one bite taken of the pilaf, before Lorelai slid down like a drunk at closing time.

At his second gesture, Miss Cartman tiptoed into his kitchen. Richard followed.

"Is she…" whispered Miss Cartman. She insisted he call her Janice, but he refused, on principle. He wasn't certain what principle.

"Exhausted," murmured Richard. "I think we'll be sharing dessert on the patio, if you've time."

She hesitated, clearly torn between a welcome break, and duty.

"Cherry-lime sorbet is good," she conceded, and took the two little dishes and spoons in hand. He opened the kitchen door and they walked to the patio, where both sat at a small mosaic-topped table.

Miss Cartman sighed gustily as she stretched her legs. "Oh, my feet," she admitted wryly. "I hope you found the supper…"

"It was delicious. My daughter would have agreed, if she hadn't fallen asleep. The vegetables were quite interesting."

"Oh dear," said Miss Cartman, lifting her spoon. "Mr. Gilmore, you're not a fussy man. If you say interesting, I have more to fear than if it's, say, Mrs. Cantwell or the Dinwiddies."

"Oh, no no no," Richard hastened to reassure her. He'd come to quite admire her matter-of-fact approach. It was refreshing, after decades of nameless, frightened maids. "I simply didn't recognize them."

Her smile broke out, was quickly hidden. "Zucchini roasted with hot pepper, fresh thyme, and dressed with caramelized onions."

"Oh. That was zucchini? Strange, I never enjoyed it before." He took a fourth spoonful of sorbet. He closed his eyes. "Oh, this reminds me of a decadent soft drink from… Well, long ago. How on earth do you keep it sweet without violating my tyrannical doctor's orders?"

"Normally, Mr. Gilmore, I say it's a trade secret, but really, if you combine flavors properly, you don't miss sugar. There are substitutes, but I don't like to use them. People can have reactions, and so forth."

"Still, you must have some trick to this," insisted Richard.

"I use key limes. The zest is more intense, and the juice is more nuanced, I think, than other limes. I'm glad you like it so well."

They finished their sorbet, and it was time for Miss Cartman to leave. She had only arrived this day because he had asked, specifically, for her to manage this supper with his daughter. He found he was reluctant to see Miss Cartman depart.

"I am worried about her," he announced, staring at the trickle of water in the stream, and the first hint of lightning bugs dancing in the hedges he trimmed himself. "Her business partner, and chef at their inn, was hospitalized over a week ago. A premature birth, I don't pretend to grasp the details. She's short-staffed, over-extended, worried for her friend's newborn, apparently the poor thing was only three pounds and needs to stay in the hospital for over a month at least. The expense of that, the loss of a chef for her inn, stress…" Richard trailed off. His eyes tracked a blinking firefly. "I love my daughter, Miss Cartman, but I do not know how to help her, other than to let her fall asleep at supper."

"Am I hearing this for a particular reason, sir?"

Grinning, Richard admitted, "Actually, I intended nothing by saying that, other than saying it aloud to someone who won't grumble and ahem-ahem and tell me I sound like a grandmother."

"Does her inn have a chef for now?"

"Until her partner is well enough, the assistant chef is trying to fill in."

"Which inn, may I ask?"

Startled, Richard wondered how he'd never mentioned it. "The Dragonfly Inn, it's in…"

"Oh my God!" squealed Miss Cartman, as if fifteen and not fifty. "They have a wonderful chef, and I love the inn, my niece had her wedding there last year, it was magical, I thought your daughter looked familiar, but she was this blur, she even managed to convince my niece that not having lilies was a good thing when the florist messed up the order!"

Eyebrows stuck in an upraised position, Richard commented slowly, "I do believe that is the strangest but best compliment my daughter's inn has ever received."

"When she wakes up, tell her to call me," said Miss Cartman with a broad smile. "We can send each other business. I'm sure her inn can't cater every event itself."

"Well, no, it can't."

"And I can recommend venues…"

Seeing that she was lost in some deep daydream, Richard quietly nodded a farewell, and chuckled a little. Emily would have disdained speaking to the help in a personal way. Yet in so doing, he might have helped Lorelai. His daughter needed it, although she wasn't about to confess the fact. Not that her inn was in trouble, but hearing an enthusiastic review from Miss Cartman would help her morale, at the very least.

He eventually slipped inside, and put a blanket around Lorelai where she sprawled on the table, snoring softly. He managed to remove the plate without disturbing her, and turned out the lights. "Good night," he whispered. "Sleep tight."

There were, of course, a thousand lectures and comments to make that were critical, observant, distant, and analytical. Not least of which was the inappropriateness of dozing off mid-meal and staying that way. Yet Richard had no heart for any of it. He could discuss business with Lorelai tomorrow. For the night, he had to be her father, and nothing else.

GG GG GG

AN: If I mention food, it exists. So yes, you can find cherry-lime sorbet, but not in stores. As far as I know, anyway. Or I'd eat a lot more of it.

Sookie was ordered to bed rest with Martha (S5), so plausibility of problematic pregnancy exists.

Oh, and clothing and such exists, too.