Disclaimer: Theirs, theirs, and theirs. Not mine.

AN: This fic will not be long enough to cover Emily suffering from the global financial crisis. Imagine whatever fate for her you wish.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Emily Gilmore raised her voice in a shrill, "Why is there a fingerprint on this table?"

The maid of the week hurried into the room. "Ma'am, I haven't cleaned in here yet."

"Why not?!" asked Emily indignantly. "My garden club expects to be served a decent meal in a clean house, not slop in a trash dump!"

"Ma'am, you told me to polish all the metal and clean all the glass first thing," said the maid in a polite, yet desperate voice. "There's quite a lot of that."

"Well, it's not my fault you can't do your job, my goodness, look at this!" scolded Emily harshly, pointing at the offending finger marks, whorls and ridges shockingly visible to her eyes.

The maid began to breathe unevenly. "Mrs. Gilmore."

"Do not excuse yourself, there is no excuse, you are paid a good wage to keep this house shining clean!"

"Ma'am," the maid tried again, face reddening.

"Don't stand there stammering!" Emily bit out. "I don't have time for this ridiculous behavior, and I've yet to change for lunch!"

The maid screamed, "Shut up!" and hurled the bottle of cleaner and rag away. They struck the white vase on the table. It broke into gleaming ivory fragments.

Hand at throat by her not-cultured pink pearls, Emily gasped, "How dare you!"

"Shut up! You want one person to clean this, this…" The maid gestured wildly, and tore off her white apron. "And those are your fingerprints on the table!"

"Oh, really?" sneered Emily, advancing on the insolent little twit. "You're so certain? I assure you, I can have those fingerprints identified!"

The maid thrust up her hands. "I don't have fingerprints, you old witch!"

Emily admitted that the maid did not. Where little whorls and ridges should be, the maid's fingers bore thick, oddly smooth skin.

"I used to be a paramedic! I burned my hands real bad at an accident, the car was on fire, but the kid was maybe save-able, I had to take off my gloves to unbuckle the safety belt, and I still don't feel my fingertips! I never will! I don't have normal fingerprints! That's your mess, you clean it up!"

Shocked beyond intelligent thought, Emily whispered, "Why on earth did you become a maid?"

Furious tears poured down the maid's face. "I can't feel my fingertips!" She thrust her hands at Emily. "Put a pin in! I won't feel it! I can't! I can't feel to start an IV or feel a pulse, and you're screaming at me about some stupid smears on a fancy table!"

"Get out," ordered Emily coldly, stomach turning flips at the sight of the thick calluses, scars, and odd patches all over the hands of the maid. "You won't be paid."

"Did you know," the maid retorted bitterly, "I wondered why you were alone, when I came on Monday. Now?" She laughed roughly. "Lady, whatever you do, hire someone to take care of those fancy fish, because you? You're lethal."

The maid stalked away, slamming the front door.

Emily sank to a chair. She began to shiver. She pressed her lips tightly together. She looked at the shards of the vase.

She made a phone call she couldn't bear to make, but had to make to save her lunch.

On the second rang she heard a smiling, "Lorelai Gilmore, Dragonfly Inn, how may we help you?"

"Lorelai. It's your mother."

The silence on the other end hurt Emily.

"I require assistance."

The silence became a strangler's noose.

"In ninety minutes, there will be eight ladies here for lunch, the maid quit, and I've no idea if the food is even in the house. I'm aware you run a business. I am turning to you for catering. Emergency catering. Lunch for nine, to be served at half-past noon, can your friend Sookie manage that? I will pay double the usual, given the circumstances."

"I know someone in Hartford who can manage something on that short notice. Janice Cartman."

"No!" shouted Emily, and clapped a hand to her mouth in horror. She'd sooner order pizza than allow Richard's home caterer to know her problem.

"Okay, then, but we do have a lunch here today. I think we can manage to send over tarragon chicken on rice, with a cranberry-strawberry sorbet…"

Emily heard Lorelai talking on another phone, presumably to the chef.

"And some thyme-seasoned cream of chestnut soup."

"Suitable, if odd. Cream of chestnut?"

"You can order pizza," said Lorelai coolly.

"Lorelai, this is…"

"We'll have the food there by quarter-past noon. Thanks for considering Sookie and her staff for your catering needs."

"Lorelai," she tried again. "Please. Can't you serve the lunch?"

"You hated me being a maid, but now you want me to be your waitress?"

"I merely meant…"

"By quarter-past noon at latest," confirmed Lorelai, "payment upon delivery."

"Of course," whispered Emily, belatedly growing aware of Lorelai's similarities to herself. Stubbornness was the least of them. "Good day."

"Thank you for thinking of the Dragonfly Inn."

Very slowly, Emily got to her feet. She rummaged the house until she found cleaning materials, and she tidied away the vase shards. She wiped the table until it shone. She carefully set each place at the table herself, ensuring her name card was anchored at the head, and spacing the rest of the ladies for best conversation and least antagonism. She moved a vase of lilies from the bedroom to the dining room, and wiped the crystal of the vase. She dressed, primped her hair, and enhanced her lipstick. By the time the knock came at the kitchen door, she was prepared.

Lorelai and someone in a chef-looking apron and whites marched into her kitchen. They bore very big armfuls of what looked to Emily like giant pizza boxes, but clanked of metal. She recognized insulating food carriers. "We're early, but Manny volunteered to oversee the food, and do the serving."

"Thank you," said Emily stiffly. "It's quite kind of you."

Lorelai's suit was dark blue, her blouse silvery white, and her eyes the shade of a cold ocean. "I'm sure your guests will be here for the pre-lunch chit-chat, so you see to that, I'll show Manny where the dishes are."

By reflex, Emily commanded, "Use the white plates, please, I set out the aubergine mats and napkins. The black china wouldn't be appropriate."

"Whatever you say, ma'am," said this Manny person.

Emily looked despairingly at her daughter. How had they drifted so far from her dreams? She did not want to know, not truly, as she watched her daughter hold open a refrigerator door, retrieving something green and fragrant at Manny's request, and toss Manny a pair of cotton gloves from the appropriate drawer. "For service," she told him quietly. "No bare hands, no fingermarks, think Masterpiece Theatre."

"Got it," said Manny. "Big eaters?"

"Not usually," offered Lorelai, "too much competition over whose diet is doing best."

"Lunch ladies, got it," said Manny, absorbed in admiring the stove. "I dream about kitchens like this."

Emily felt absurdly out of place. All the moreso when Lorelai started the coffee maker.

"So far," whispered Emily, unheard.

The stove's burners ignited bright blue. Manny unpacked pots and glanced at the clock. "Uh. You're in my way."

"Oops," said Lorelai and stepped aside, and turned. She was now facing Emily, who felt as if she'd sooner confront a screaming maid.

"Have a good lunch," said Lorelai at last. "I heard the bell."

"Yes," agreed Emily. "I'll see to it."

"Have a good lunch," said Lorelai impersonally, and turned away, saying, "Okay, Manny, the plates are over here and…"

Emily briskly walked out of the kitchen, pasted a smile onto her face, and reached the front door with a beaming, "Eleanor! I do apologize, I had to speak to the caterer, you know how it is, come in, please, your hair looks lovely!"

GG GG GG

Luke shifted his weight until he discovered there was no comfort to be had when admitting, even by phone, "Well, uh, that year… Okay, look, the whole Star Trek thing, I just wanted everyone to get along, and everyone on the show got along, y'know? The good guys won, the bad guys lost, and when you had to listen to my dad and Taylor's dad yelling every day? Galactic harmony sounded good."

The silence on the other end seemed mocking.

Luke flared, "Hey, it was…"

"That's sweet," said Lorelai softly. "Why not just tell me that?"

"You mocked!"

"Okay, fair enough, and what about me and cartoons? I like goofy fun that doesn't really hurt anyone, but your first words were that rabbits don't really eat carrots!"

Luke opened his mouth to argue that rabbits, in fact, did not eat carrots that way, when his inner Other-Luke reminded him why they were calling each other. "Oh. Right. Well. Yeah. I guess that is kinda, uh…"

"Mocking?"

"Not so nice," confessed Luke. "Yeah. Your turn."

"My turn," sighed Lorelai. "Guys don't like girls who wear glasses."

Luke sat up, frowning, as though he could reach out and touch her. "What?"

He swore he could hear her toying with a strand of hair. "Um. Smart girls. See, Rory… Oh wow, this is really hard to say, I mean it, Luke, this is triple-chocolate-milkshake territory."

"We can leave it. Talk about something else."

"No, it's… It's about April, sorta. The science project she did. How easy it is for her, to do math and science? That was like me, back then. Only my parents weren't all yay-hurray. Like you. Like Anna. With April."

"Lorelai?" Frowning, Luke wished they hadn't stuck to this ridiculous phone-only rule. He could tell she needed a hug, a warm hug, the sort she refused because (as they'd discussed a few days earlier) a hug was not proper right now.

"That's what I kept hearing. As a kid. Girls don't do well in math or science without studying and working and pretending they need help, or guys won't ask them out," she answered glumly. "The weird thing is, I used to tutor Chris. It was okay to do well in English like Rory, or history class, because hey, society, snobs, they love that history…"

Biting back a curse, Luke mentally envisioned the way Emily would have gone about informing Lorelai how wrong it was for Lorelai to be… Well, Lorelai. That one DVD had been worth ten thousand words, easily.

"The biggest problem I had at college wasn't the classes, it was how tired and scared I was. It was so hard. Trying to work and study and… My life must've looked like a wreck, it was, but if it was laundry or doing well on a paper, I had to do the paper, it was what I taught Rory to be like, so I had to show Rory I was like that, and I just… I guess that's a thing, with me. Guys, science, or even science fiction. I didn't… I wasn't allowed to be good at it, and I sort of go all porcupine-y. Spiky. So, I see you with April and I just wish I'd had that."

"Wow," said Luke. "I, uh, I should've… Y'know, I missed your graduation. I wish I hadn't."

"It's okay. It's not much of a degree."

Luke assumed ranting position, albeit with his legs stretched out on the bed. "More of a degree than most people in this town have. You worked hard for it! You had to give up a lot for it! I refilled the coffee!"

She laughed in that low, thoughtful way he'd missed hearing for far too long. "Stand down, it's okay, it's… We said we'd share things. So, there's the thing. Do you have any idea how hard it is to not babble and quip and make jokes when I'm this nervous?"

Luke's heart fell. "I make you nervous?" he asked unhappily. First he waited, then waited and waited and waited more, then pushed her away, and hurt her, and confused her (as well as himself and others). Now he scared her. The shreds of hope threatened to unravel.

"Luke, no, not you!" she said quickly. "This. All this this-ness. Saying what we think was obvious, and wondering if we sound stupid and pathetic, or at least I'm wondering."

He softened to his bone marrow. His voice lowered to a husky rumble that she'd once called his purr. "She says to the guy who lives in an office. You want to know something?"

"Yes? I think? Sure? I guess?"

He fumbled for words to illustrate his thoughts, and found an example. "That damn Donna Reed."

"What?"

"The whole dream thing. What it should be. Sticking to the dream. No matter what. Like… Dreams are good," Luke said, rather awkwardly, and exhaled a gusty, "mostly. It's just when they trap you that they get bad."

"No, dreams are good," argued Lorelai in a soft, sweetly pensive tone. "If you remember that it's okay for dreams to change."

Around a lump in his throat, Luke whispered, "That's pretty wise stuff."

"Back at ya."

"So time to, uh, get some sleep. Still got foliage season. Tourists."

"Yep. Taking pictures of pretty maples at sunrise, drinking apple cider, spending money."

He meant it as a passionate declaration of love when he said blandly, "G'night, Lorelai."

"Good night, Luke."

GG GG GG

AN: I've seen my mother-in-law's caterer unpack. That's as far as my knowledge of that sort of stuff goes. So, I've no idea if that would apply here or not. For all I know, this is last night's leftovers from the Dragonfly, but hey, whatever. My PTSD knowledge, however, is first-hand, and I can easily see such a scenario playing out. Many people who've suffered trauma have a hard time re-entering the work force, particularly if they can't return to the old job. The injuries are based on those of someone in real life, from a similar situation in emergency services, and the loss of one's fingerprints at the tips is possible. My mother needed skin grafts after she (gross stuff) and that fingertip's "print" is actually just the mark of the skin graft. The mark of the graft(s) will be unique, of course, but true fingertip "prints" will not grow if you've had to get skin grafts in that area. Why am I talking about this medical stuff?