rubykatewriting (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rubykatewriting) wrote2006-03-23 05:55 pm
rubykatewriting) wrote2006-03-23 05:55 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: Home - Chapter Ten, General (GG)
My grandfather is home. He came through the surgery with flying colors and is doing amazingly well.
In other news, I have completed the final chapter of Home.
TITLE: Home
AUTHOR:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rubykatewriting
PAIRING: This fic features Lorelai and Luke in an established relationship with children; Sookie and Jackson are still doing what they're doing; and Jess is a widower; it will eventually end up Rory/Jess.
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Now he can’t imagine calling any other place home. Jess returns to Stars Hollow.
DISCLAIMER: Luke Danes, Lorelai Gilmore, Jess Mariano, Sookie St. James, Jackson Belleville, Emily and Richard Gilmore and Rory Gilmore belong to others. I am only borrowing them. No harm intended.
WARNING: Major character death pre-fic, which is discussed and dealt with through remainder of fic.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Multiple chapters. Dedicated to my beloved friend and beta Green Eve.
The room is as sterile and cold as he remembers. He can hear the machines beeping, pump alarms ringing in the distance. His breathing quickens and he feels light-headed. Everything is as it was that day. This is when it all changed.
He can still smell the faint hint of Dr. Yusuf’s expensive perfume. The way the bed rails bite into his back as he shifts in the bed. Shelby is quiet, her eyes unfocused, and she shudders out the last of her tears. He pulls the blanket up around them, careful to cover her completely. She is a frail outline of herself. Her chest is sunken in, and her shoulders look permanently bowed inward, like a bird cowering in the rain. He forgot this part, how thin she became, and he feels the guilt rise up like bile in the back of his throat. She wasted away right in front of his eyes and he couldn’t stop it from happening.
“I love you, Jess.” Her voice is low from crying.
He can’t look away from her face, as fear grips him. “I love you, Shelby," he murmurs and it sounds like a plea. His insides feel broken, nothing quite matching up. There are so many things he wants to tell her, but he can’t seem to say anything but, “I love you.” Over and over, he whispers the words, as if to hold her to this place, but he can feel the urgency of time coming to an end. Her smile is regretful, and she shakes her head. It’s time to go. He meets her eyes in that sweet, close space, and lets her.
-
Jess wakes with a start. Rory stirs beside him. Carefully, he picks up her arm from his belly and shimmies out from under the blankets. He sets a foot down on the floor and barely bites back the yelp of surprise. The shock of cold nearly gives him a Charlie horse, but he forces himself to put his other foot down. He has spent far too long in the mild south.
On tiptoe, he moves across the floor to the dresser. The drawer gives a long wail of protest and he glares at it menacingly, waiting with ears perked for any sound coming from the bed. When a full minute passes with nary a movement, he shoves both hands into the drawer. He feels for a pair of the wool socks Will gave him this past Christmas and nearly cries with joy when his fingers land on a scratchy ball amidst all the balled-up athletic socks.
He tries to push the dream to the back of his mind as he tugs on the socks. Just stress, he tells himself, drifting towards the makeshift living room. The move into the new house has stalled because of the weather. Then today he received a letter from the school district. They’ve decided, due to space constraints, to move the sixth graders to the junior high starting next year. When Wren starts the new semester in a week, it will be her last at the elementary school. The only thing keeping him sane as far as that news goes is that Will passed his tests and will be joining her.
Then there’s Rory. Fuck. His head is still spinning. At most, he hoped they would become friends as they were for half a second all those years ago. It isn't surprising that he fell for her again. It's the realization that he never fell out of her love with her the first time around.
It’s been a long time since he shared a bed with a woman. He likes the way she curls around him at night, one leg flung across his thighs. There’s the cute snore she has when she lays out on her back. High-pitched but soft. In all his wildest teenaged fantasies, it was never this good. Before he never knew how particular she is about where her toothbrush goes (the back left-hand slot), or that she can go hours without talking. The reality of her is such a revelation.
Then there is the biggest shocker yet. Last week, she cooked dinner for him and Wren one night. There were actual courses (salad, main course, cheeses and fruit, and finally dessert) and she used spices and herbs he never heard of before. “Luke taught me,” she explained, blushing with pleasure as he and Wren dug in. He likes that on school nights, she comes over for dinner, and then afterward, the three of them watch a movie or even just something on TV. She always helps get Wren into bed, and for a couple nights running, she has been the one chosen to read passages from Wren’s favorite new book To Kill a Mockingbird. He’ll sit on the floor, leaning against a wall, and listen.
“Hey...what are you doing up?” Rory loops her arm around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he admits. “Bad dream.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
He closes his eyes, the pain fresh. “It was about Shelby. The day the doctors told us that it was over.”
“I can’t possibly imagine how difficult that must have been,” Rory whispers, turning her face into his neck. She moves closer, her breasts and belly flush against his back. The heat of her body is welcome, and he leans into her.
“It was like I was there all over again, and I was experiencing it for the first time and the millionth all at once.”
She doesn’t say anything and they stand there, silent and breathing. The wind howls outside the window, snow swirling around dizzily.
“I love you,” she whispers.
He lays his hand on her two locked over his heart; the tension in his body eases. “I love you, too.”
-
The joys of living in New England, Rory thinks as she follows her mother up the front walk to Jess’s house. While she is grateful that Dale wisely chose to put in an actual concrete walkway from the driveway to the front stoop after he bought the house from Luke and Lorelai, she fears she will end up on her ass before she can even reach the porch.
Just after she and Jess came back to Stars Hollow, a Nor’easter came through and left most of New England under four feet of snow. Jess had wanted to move into the house before New Year’s Eve, but the blistery cold refused to give up her hold. The kids enjoyed it immensely, spending hours out in the snow until forced to come in with chattering teeth and bright red faces. Nevertheless, after five straight days of endless white, everyone was feeling desperate for a reprieve.
As if on cue, a strange warm-up blew through, the temperature rising into the 60s and staying put for a full week. It left the yard a soggy mess, every step accompanied by a loud sucking noise, and dotted the sidewalks and front stoop with clumps of mud. All told, each member of the Danes-Gilmore-Mariano family slipped at least twice moving Jess and Wren’s things into the old Gilmore house. Her backside is still sore from her own trio of tumbles.
“I will be so glad when we have all of it unloaded,” Lorelai grumbles, twisting her body so she can keep an eye on her feet as she gingerly ascends the front steps.
“Only a few more boxes,” Rory promises, breathless. “And then we get a Sookie-prepared dinner.”
“I want loads of calories and lots of fatty stuff – all the bad ones. Which ones are those again? I need to put in my order.” Lorelai pushes the door open wider with her foot, grunting.
Rory’s brows snap together. “When have I ever paid attention to that sort of thing?”
“You’re research girl.” Lorelai grunts again as she sets the box on top of the many stacked just inside the living room. There are pathways to the side door on the opposite end of the room and to the staircase, but for the most part, it looks like an oddly decorated warehouse. “I still can’t get over what they did to this place.”
Snorting, Rory glances around. It seems Dale and Fran shared an extremely strange taste in interior design. Someone decided to cover the walls in a hideous fabric of dark green stripes and large purple flowers scary enough to make Venus Flytraps look downright snuggly. Strangely enough, that isn’t the worst part. Someone had the idea to place a padding of some sort underneath. It fascinates her and she can’t help but press her finger into it again and watch it slowly pop back out like a couch cushion. All the walls are like that; upstairs and downstairs save for the kitchen. Not to say that the kitchen was left completely unscathed. What was once an airy, bright room is now gloomy, the windows covered with poofy valances in the same pattern as the wall-fabric. They also put in a strange light fixture that takes over almost the entire ceiling, bringing it down several inches. It makes her feel like a giant and Luke and Jackson have hit their heads more times than she can count.
Needless to say, Dale’s name has become a curse word over the past two days of Operation Move In.
“It certainly defies all the logic of good taste,” Rory finally agrees.
Lorelai leans back, stretching. “I hope Jess got a discount. He’s got a lot of work ahead of him.”
“He got them to knock off $10,000 of the asking price.”
“There is a God, then.” Lorelai heads back towards the foyer.
“I’m going to grab something to drink, Mom. Do you want anything?”
“Nah.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.” Rory walks into the kitchen and over to the fridge. It’s brand new, state of the art. A signing bonus of sorts, since Dale and Fran didn’t want to haul the thing back to California. Aside from the horrible decorating, all of the appliances had been upgraded, as well as all of the bathroom fixtures. Her tiny old bathroom had been gutted, and now it boasted an old-fashioned claw-foot tub and pedestal sink of the highest quality. What they lacked in taste, they more than made up for in money.
She grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and takes a healthy gulp. She is sweaty and she is pretty sure that odor is coming from her. She longs for the days when her hair was longer and she could put it up in a ponytail. Now all she can do is tie a bandana around it so it won’t get in her face.
Almost half the bottle is gone by the time she talks herself into going back outside. She thinks about calling the moving company she hired to transfer her belongings to storage and sending them a giant fruit basket or maybe a chocolate one. Anything to show them how grateful she is. Only now can she truly appreciate what a hassle they saved her.
As she walks by her old room, she can’t help but stop to look. Wren has already started unpacking. Clothes hang neatly in a gleaming armoire in the far left hand corner. Lorelai found it in storage at The Dragonfly and had it restored for her niece as a Christmas gift. Along the opposite wall stands a dresser. Only half of the drawers have been put in place while the rest are stacked haphazardly in front.
She wants to go inside, stand in the center of this room, and soak up all of the memories that keep threatening to overwhelm her. If she tries hard enough, she can separate that very first night from the all the rest. The first time she ever slept in this room. The excitement of having a place wholly her own and finally being able to put her growing book collection on a real bookcase. She smiles at her eleven-year-old self, how determined she was to finish, staying up until nearly midnight because she didn’t want her books to stay cramped inside the boxes.
Being back here has put her in a funny mood. It’s not just the memories that keep rushing over her. The questions that fill her head are so foreign to her. Things she never thought about before have suddenly become important now that she and Jess are together. She wonders about living arrangements and the very real possibility of marriage. It doesn’t scare her as much as she thought it would, even knowing she’s entering a ready-made family. She also thinks about babies. Seeing Jess with Wren and her younger brother and sister has kicked her biological clock into overdrive. This is mortifying on several levels, mostly when she thinks about how much Paris and Lane would mock her if they were here.
Rory takes a step back from the doorway and tries to shake it off. As she turns towards the foyer, she notices one of Wren's decorative screens. She stares sightlessly into the living room, listening for approaching footsteps, then hesitantly enters Wren’s bedroom. The one screen, the one with spaces for photographs, stands in the far left-hand corner and partially obstructs one of the windows. She kneels down in front of it and studies each photograph in turn. Jess told her over dinner one night how long it took Wren to choose each one. Nearly two and a half months later, and only half of the spaces are filled.
Beside the screen, there is a box full of photo albums, stacked neatly with tissue paper between each cover. The bottom of the box is covered in peanuts and they squeak as she picks one of the albums up. Straightening, Rory flips open the cover and gulps in surprise.
Shelby is nothing like what she anticipated. The few times she’s imagined Shelby, she pictured someone more like herself, but Shelby is absolutely stunning. She looks out from the photograph, her fierce beauty almost mocking her. Rory’s knees wobble and she sits down on Wren’s bed, her eyes stuck on that beautiful face. Dark, glowing eyes stare back at her. Her fingers drift to another page and understanding hits her. Shelby is laughing, open-mouthed, her face flushed, and in this set of eyes, Rory sees love, so much love it is a tangible presence. More real than the tree Shelby leans against and Rory knows without question Jess took this photograph.
She realizes she is no longer alone and turns to see Wren watching her with her mother’s eyes. Only, the little girl that should be there is not, and in her place is a woman.
“You love him.” Wren studies Rory’s face intently.
Rory stares back at her, a tremble of doubt in the pit of her belly. They have spent many hours together now, but they are not completely comfortable yet. Not for the first time, Rory gets the feeling she is seeing what Jess was like at ten. If she didn’t think it would hurt Wren’s feelings, she may have laughed. God, was he always so intimidating? Rory swallows, face flushing. “Yes, I do.”
Wren nods solemnly and sits down beside her. “That’s my mom,” she tells her.
“I’m sorry.” Rory starts; embarrassed she’s been caught snooping. She tries to close the book, but Wren covers Rory’s hand with her tiny one.
“It’s okay.” Wren’s expression turns reflective. “I like looking at these. I used to fall asleep looking at them after she died. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
Rory glances down at a new page of photographs, what looks like a series. It was done in black and white, and Shelby looked every bit the Hollywood ingénue with sultry eyes and her hair piled in thick, full curls on top of her head. “She is,” she admits softly.
“She did that one for a friend – modeled, I mean.” Wren coughs into her hand, shifting around uncomfortably.
Rory can empathize. She wishes the right words would come to ease this discomfiture, but nothing comes. Time – that is all that will work, and she plans to be there every day.
“This room used to be yours, right?”
“Yep.” She lets her eyes travel about the room. “You know, I was about your age when we moved in here.”
“Really?” Wren turns, tucking one leg under her butt.
“We lived in this little apartment on the grounds of the Independence Inn, where my mom worked. Mia – she was the owner – let us live there rent free…” Rory watches Wren’s face as she tells her of that first day, as Wren’s eyes light up at the talk of books.
-
“Hey, there y’all are.”
Wren glances at the doorway to find her father leaning against the jamb. His arms are crossed over his chest and he wears a smile he hasn’t in a long time. She’s known since he came home that things went as planned in New York. The nights she spends at Aunt Lorelai and Uncle Luke’s, Rory stays over at the apartment with her father.
There are other changes, too. Rory comes by the diner nearly every day to eat lunch with her father just like Aunt Lorelai and Uncle Luke. Now family dinners sometimes include only her father, Rory, and her, and those are nice if still a bit strange. Their rhythm is unlike the easy patter of her parents’ conversations. (Her father told her that was simply because Texans had to mull over every word spoken, which made her laugh.) Her father talks more when Rory is around, and Wren really likes her for that. She is also very fond of listening to their book discussions. It’s different than it was with her parents. There is always a sparkle in their eyes, almost like they enjoy disagreeing with each other.
“Wait,” Rory laughs, holding up a finger. “I’m sorry, did you just say y’all?”
Her father lets out an indignant huff. “It’s a contraction. Would you prefer I say, 'Hey yous guys' instead?”
“God no, that would be a whole different brand of mocking,” she says, grinning. She looks at Wren. “Actually, I was telling her about when Mom and I moved in here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Wren pipes up, grinning at her father. “So this is where you met Rory, huh?”
Jess pulls her into a standing position on the bed and easily hefts her onto his shoulder. Over her giggles, he announces, “I think that’s enough storytelling for today.”
“Help!” she protests weakly.
Rory crawls across the bed and grabs Jess around the waist. “Put the girl down, or I’m going to have to unleash some tickles,” she whispers menacingly. Her face is flush and there is a touch of a smile on her lips.
“You wouldn’t,” Jess counters.
“Oh but I would.”
“Well I guess I have to give up the girl, then.” He reaches up to catch hold of Wren’s upper arms, but before either of them knows they’ve been tricked, Jess has Rory curled into the fetal position gasping for breath as he expertly tickles the back of her right knee. Then his other hand attacks Wren’s side and she is wriggling, laughing so hard her belly aches.
-
Relieved of kitchen duty, Rory relaxes on the couch, stocking feet tucked under her. She sips slowly at a cup of coffee. She can hear her mom and Sookie chattering in the kitchen, the whoosh of water lapping against the sides of the sink. There is the chink of silverware going into the basket and the heavy clank of dinnerware filed carefully into place. After all these years, her mother has memorized Sookie’s system of loading the dishwasher.
All of the kids are crowded around the TV, watching The Goonies. It is their current favorite, mostly due to Emma’s persistence. Will and Martha lay sprawled out on their bellies, both have matching expressions of boredom on their faces. Between the two of them, they’ve seen this movie at least a hundred times. Rory guesses they knew that to fight is useless. Emma has never had a problem asserting her opinion.
Rory didn’t know why she was so determined to watch it. It wasn’t until little Mikey made his first appearance on screen that it finally clicked. Every time Sean Astin comes on screen her little sister’s face glows bright pink and her voice goes high. “Isn’t he so cute?!” she asks Wren repeatedly, grabbing her cousin by the hand. Rory does not have the heart to inform Emma that he is much older now, old enough to be her father and then some. Luckily, Wren does better than she does, and simply nods at Emma, a small smile on her face.
This is the best part of being home. With the kids, there is never a dull moment, and if she thought she missed Will and Emma before, being around them every day makes her all the more remorseful about the time she lost.
Then there is the newest development. Ever since Christmas Break, the inseparable trio known as EmmaWillandWren has morphed into a quintuplet to include Davey and Martha. To say that Sookie is beyond excited is an understatement. She and Lorelai always fantasized raising their kids together after Will and Emma came along, but it never came to be for whatever reason. Now they seem glued at the hip. If you see one of them, you know the other four aren’t far behind. It pleases Jess to no end. He is just happy that Wren has a girl friend her own age.
Smiling into her cup, Rory watches as Davey lodges another kernel of popcorn at Wren. Even for twelve, he is a big boy like his father, but he (and Martha) is the image of his mother, with her sparkling brown eyes and infectious smile. This is the development no one expected. Lorelai and Sookie practically have the china pattern picked out. Wren never looks at him, but tosses it back with amazing accuracy, getting him right between the eyes.
Rory feared the worst when she overheard a whispered conversation between Martha and Wren about some boy named Jamie, but any doubts disappear when Rory sees the look on Wren’s face. She positively lights up.
Jess plops down beside her, a half-drunk bottle of beer in his hand. “Hey,” he murmurs, sitting low, his legs stretched out in front him. He lays an arm across her thighs, mindlessly fiddling with the outside seam on her jeans.
She rests her head on top of his. He smells like winter, crisp and cold. He was in the back checking out Jackson’s new vegetable hybrid with Luke. Apparently, even after all these years, Luke hasn’t given up hope that he will turn people’s bad eating habits around. He wants to start offering lighter fair and hopes to entice people with strange fruits and vegetables from Jackson’s private garden.
“So what does it look like?” Rory asks, watching Luke and Jackson wander towards the kitchen.
He gets a disgusted look on his face. “It’s pretty normal looking – just like a cucumber – but then he cut it open and it’s red. Red.”
Her eyes widen. “What the heck did he cross it with?”
Jess takes a long pull from his beer. “Rhubarb, if you’d believe it.”
Rory scrunches up her nose. “The thing they make the pie with?”
“Yep.”
“Gross.”
“Exactly.”
He is quiet and she realizes he’s watching the movie, too. He is quite the kids’ movie aficionado nowadays, which amuses her to no end considering what an elitist he used to be about movies – not to mention music, books, and poetry.
She glances over at Emma, who is sniffling prettily, her lower lip stuck out. On the television, Chunk is telling Sloth that he’s going to live with Chunk and his family now. Rory looks up at Jess and smiles at him, thinking how funny it is, because as many times as she has watched this movie over the years, she never realized what a sweet message the movie teaches, or maybe she’s just getting sentimental in her old age.
Wren scoots across the rug, rising up onto her knees. There are fresh tears on her face. Jess sits up and she climbs on to his lap. She burrows into his chest, her face pressed into the hollow of his throat. Rory watches as her little hand reaches out for Rory’s and she happily takes it in hers. Jess looks down at their joined hands, gently rubbing Wren’s back, then he meets her gaze. It is better than an ‘I love you,’ the way his eyes hold onto hers, and she leans into him.
She is finally home.
End
chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four
chapter five | chapter six | chapter seven | chapter eight | chapter nine
In other news, I have completed the final chapter of Home.
TITLE: Home
AUTHOR:
rubykatewritingPAIRING: This fic features Lorelai and Luke in an established relationship with children; Sookie and Jackson are still doing what they're doing; and Jess is a widower; it will eventually end up Rory/Jess.
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Now he can’t imagine calling any other place home. Jess returns to Stars Hollow.
DISCLAIMER: Luke Danes, Lorelai Gilmore, Jess Mariano, Sookie St. James, Jackson Belleville, Emily and Richard Gilmore and Rory Gilmore belong to others. I am only borrowing them. No harm intended.
WARNING: Major character death pre-fic, which is discussed and dealt with through remainder of fic.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Multiple chapters. Dedicated to my beloved friend and beta Green Eve.
The room is as sterile and cold as he remembers. He can hear the machines beeping, pump alarms ringing in the distance. His breathing quickens and he feels light-headed. Everything is as it was that day. This is when it all changed.
He can still smell the faint hint of Dr. Yusuf’s expensive perfume. The way the bed rails bite into his back as he shifts in the bed. Shelby is quiet, her eyes unfocused, and she shudders out the last of her tears. He pulls the blanket up around them, careful to cover her completely. She is a frail outline of herself. Her chest is sunken in, and her shoulders look permanently bowed inward, like a bird cowering in the rain. He forgot this part, how thin she became, and he feels the guilt rise up like bile in the back of his throat. She wasted away right in front of his eyes and he couldn’t stop it from happening.
“I love you, Jess.” Her voice is low from crying.
He can’t look away from her face, as fear grips him. “I love you, Shelby," he murmurs and it sounds like a plea. His insides feel broken, nothing quite matching up. There are so many things he wants to tell her, but he can’t seem to say anything but, “I love you.” Over and over, he whispers the words, as if to hold her to this place, but he can feel the urgency of time coming to an end. Her smile is regretful, and she shakes her head. It’s time to go. He meets her eyes in that sweet, close space, and lets her.
-
Jess wakes with a start. Rory stirs beside him. Carefully, he picks up her arm from his belly and shimmies out from under the blankets. He sets a foot down on the floor and barely bites back the yelp of surprise. The shock of cold nearly gives him a Charlie horse, but he forces himself to put his other foot down. He has spent far too long in the mild south.
On tiptoe, he moves across the floor to the dresser. The drawer gives a long wail of protest and he glares at it menacingly, waiting with ears perked for any sound coming from the bed. When a full minute passes with nary a movement, he shoves both hands into the drawer. He feels for a pair of the wool socks Will gave him this past Christmas and nearly cries with joy when his fingers land on a scratchy ball amidst all the balled-up athletic socks.
He tries to push the dream to the back of his mind as he tugs on the socks. Just stress, he tells himself, drifting towards the makeshift living room. The move into the new house has stalled because of the weather. Then today he received a letter from the school district. They’ve decided, due to space constraints, to move the sixth graders to the junior high starting next year. When Wren starts the new semester in a week, it will be her last at the elementary school. The only thing keeping him sane as far as that news goes is that Will passed his tests and will be joining her.
Then there’s Rory. Fuck. His head is still spinning. At most, he hoped they would become friends as they were for half a second all those years ago. It isn't surprising that he fell for her again. It's the realization that he never fell out of her love with her the first time around.
It’s been a long time since he shared a bed with a woman. He likes the way she curls around him at night, one leg flung across his thighs. There’s the cute snore she has when she lays out on her back. High-pitched but soft. In all his wildest teenaged fantasies, it was never this good. Before he never knew how particular she is about where her toothbrush goes (the back left-hand slot), or that she can go hours without talking. The reality of her is such a revelation.
Then there is the biggest shocker yet. Last week, she cooked dinner for him and Wren one night. There were actual courses (salad, main course, cheeses and fruit, and finally dessert) and she used spices and herbs he never heard of before. “Luke taught me,” she explained, blushing with pleasure as he and Wren dug in. He likes that on school nights, she comes over for dinner, and then afterward, the three of them watch a movie or even just something on TV. She always helps get Wren into bed, and for a couple nights running, she has been the one chosen to read passages from Wren’s favorite new book To Kill a Mockingbird. He’ll sit on the floor, leaning against a wall, and listen.
“Hey...what are you doing up?” Rory loops her arm around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he admits. “Bad dream.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
He closes his eyes, the pain fresh. “It was about Shelby. The day the doctors told us that it was over.”
“I can’t possibly imagine how difficult that must have been,” Rory whispers, turning her face into his neck. She moves closer, her breasts and belly flush against his back. The heat of her body is welcome, and he leans into her.
“It was like I was there all over again, and I was experiencing it for the first time and the millionth all at once.”
She doesn’t say anything and they stand there, silent and breathing. The wind howls outside the window, snow swirling around dizzily.
“I love you,” she whispers.
He lays his hand on her two locked over his heart; the tension in his body eases. “I love you, too.”
-
The joys of living in New England, Rory thinks as she follows her mother up the front walk to Jess’s house. While she is grateful that Dale wisely chose to put in an actual concrete walkway from the driveway to the front stoop after he bought the house from Luke and Lorelai, she fears she will end up on her ass before she can even reach the porch.
Just after she and Jess came back to Stars Hollow, a Nor’easter came through and left most of New England under four feet of snow. Jess had wanted to move into the house before New Year’s Eve, but the blistery cold refused to give up her hold. The kids enjoyed it immensely, spending hours out in the snow until forced to come in with chattering teeth and bright red faces. Nevertheless, after five straight days of endless white, everyone was feeling desperate for a reprieve.
As if on cue, a strange warm-up blew through, the temperature rising into the 60s and staying put for a full week. It left the yard a soggy mess, every step accompanied by a loud sucking noise, and dotted the sidewalks and front stoop with clumps of mud. All told, each member of the Danes-Gilmore-Mariano family slipped at least twice moving Jess and Wren’s things into the old Gilmore house. Her backside is still sore from her own trio of tumbles.
“I will be so glad when we have all of it unloaded,” Lorelai grumbles, twisting her body so she can keep an eye on her feet as she gingerly ascends the front steps.
“Only a few more boxes,” Rory promises, breathless. “And then we get a Sookie-prepared dinner.”
“I want loads of calories and lots of fatty stuff – all the bad ones. Which ones are those again? I need to put in my order.” Lorelai pushes the door open wider with her foot, grunting.
Rory’s brows snap together. “When have I ever paid attention to that sort of thing?”
“You’re research girl.” Lorelai grunts again as she sets the box on top of the many stacked just inside the living room. There are pathways to the side door on the opposite end of the room and to the staircase, but for the most part, it looks like an oddly decorated warehouse. “I still can’t get over what they did to this place.”
Snorting, Rory glances around. It seems Dale and Fran shared an extremely strange taste in interior design. Someone decided to cover the walls in a hideous fabric of dark green stripes and large purple flowers scary enough to make Venus Flytraps look downright snuggly. Strangely enough, that isn’t the worst part. Someone had the idea to place a padding of some sort underneath. It fascinates her and she can’t help but press her finger into it again and watch it slowly pop back out like a couch cushion. All the walls are like that; upstairs and downstairs save for the kitchen. Not to say that the kitchen was left completely unscathed. What was once an airy, bright room is now gloomy, the windows covered with poofy valances in the same pattern as the wall-fabric. They also put in a strange light fixture that takes over almost the entire ceiling, bringing it down several inches. It makes her feel like a giant and Luke and Jackson have hit their heads more times than she can count.
Needless to say, Dale’s name has become a curse word over the past two days of Operation Move In.
“It certainly defies all the logic of good taste,” Rory finally agrees.
Lorelai leans back, stretching. “I hope Jess got a discount. He’s got a lot of work ahead of him.”
“He got them to knock off $10,000 of the asking price.”
“There is a God, then.” Lorelai heads back towards the foyer.
“I’m going to grab something to drink, Mom. Do you want anything?”
“Nah.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.” Rory walks into the kitchen and over to the fridge. It’s brand new, state of the art. A signing bonus of sorts, since Dale and Fran didn’t want to haul the thing back to California. Aside from the horrible decorating, all of the appliances had been upgraded, as well as all of the bathroom fixtures. Her tiny old bathroom had been gutted, and now it boasted an old-fashioned claw-foot tub and pedestal sink of the highest quality. What they lacked in taste, they more than made up for in money.
She grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and takes a healthy gulp. She is sweaty and she is pretty sure that odor is coming from her. She longs for the days when her hair was longer and she could put it up in a ponytail. Now all she can do is tie a bandana around it so it won’t get in her face.
Almost half the bottle is gone by the time she talks herself into going back outside. She thinks about calling the moving company she hired to transfer her belongings to storage and sending them a giant fruit basket or maybe a chocolate one. Anything to show them how grateful she is. Only now can she truly appreciate what a hassle they saved her.
As she walks by her old room, she can’t help but stop to look. Wren has already started unpacking. Clothes hang neatly in a gleaming armoire in the far left hand corner. Lorelai found it in storage at The Dragonfly and had it restored for her niece as a Christmas gift. Along the opposite wall stands a dresser. Only half of the drawers have been put in place while the rest are stacked haphazardly in front.
She wants to go inside, stand in the center of this room, and soak up all of the memories that keep threatening to overwhelm her. If she tries hard enough, she can separate that very first night from the all the rest. The first time she ever slept in this room. The excitement of having a place wholly her own and finally being able to put her growing book collection on a real bookcase. She smiles at her eleven-year-old self, how determined she was to finish, staying up until nearly midnight because she didn’t want her books to stay cramped inside the boxes.
Being back here has put her in a funny mood. It’s not just the memories that keep rushing over her. The questions that fill her head are so foreign to her. Things she never thought about before have suddenly become important now that she and Jess are together. She wonders about living arrangements and the very real possibility of marriage. It doesn’t scare her as much as she thought it would, even knowing she’s entering a ready-made family. She also thinks about babies. Seeing Jess with Wren and her younger brother and sister has kicked her biological clock into overdrive. This is mortifying on several levels, mostly when she thinks about how much Paris and Lane would mock her if they were here.
Rory takes a step back from the doorway and tries to shake it off. As she turns towards the foyer, she notices one of Wren's decorative screens. She stares sightlessly into the living room, listening for approaching footsteps, then hesitantly enters Wren’s bedroom. The one screen, the one with spaces for photographs, stands in the far left-hand corner and partially obstructs one of the windows. She kneels down in front of it and studies each photograph in turn. Jess told her over dinner one night how long it took Wren to choose each one. Nearly two and a half months later, and only half of the spaces are filled.
Beside the screen, there is a box full of photo albums, stacked neatly with tissue paper between each cover. The bottom of the box is covered in peanuts and they squeak as she picks one of the albums up. Straightening, Rory flips open the cover and gulps in surprise.
Shelby is nothing like what she anticipated. The few times she’s imagined Shelby, she pictured someone more like herself, but Shelby is absolutely stunning. She looks out from the photograph, her fierce beauty almost mocking her. Rory’s knees wobble and she sits down on Wren’s bed, her eyes stuck on that beautiful face. Dark, glowing eyes stare back at her. Her fingers drift to another page and understanding hits her. Shelby is laughing, open-mouthed, her face flushed, and in this set of eyes, Rory sees love, so much love it is a tangible presence. More real than the tree Shelby leans against and Rory knows without question Jess took this photograph.
She realizes she is no longer alone and turns to see Wren watching her with her mother’s eyes. Only, the little girl that should be there is not, and in her place is a woman.
“You love him.” Wren studies Rory’s face intently.
Rory stares back at her, a tremble of doubt in the pit of her belly. They have spent many hours together now, but they are not completely comfortable yet. Not for the first time, Rory gets the feeling she is seeing what Jess was like at ten. If she didn’t think it would hurt Wren’s feelings, she may have laughed. God, was he always so intimidating? Rory swallows, face flushing. “Yes, I do.”
Wren nods solemnly and sits down beside her. “That’s my mom,” she tells her.
“I’m sorry.” Rory starts; embarrassed she’s been caught snooping. She tries to close the book, but Wren covers Rory’s hand with her tiny one.
“It’s okay.” Wren’s expression turns reflective. “I like looking at these. I used to fall asleep looking at them after she died. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
Rory glances down at a new page of photographs, what looks like a series. It was done in black and white, and Shelby looked every bit the Hollywood ingénue with sultry eyes and her hair piled in thick, full curls on top of her head. “She is,” she admits softly.
“She did that one for a friend – modeled, I mean.” Wren coughs into her hand, shifting around uncomfortably.
Rory can empathize. She wishes the right words would come to ease this discomfiture, but nothing comes. Time – that is all that will work, and she plans to be there every day.
“This room used to be yours, right?”
“Yep.” She lets her eyes travel about the room. “You know, I was about your age when we moved in here.”
“Really?” Wren turns, tucking one leg under her butt.
“We lived in this little apartment on the grounds of the Independence Inn, where my mom worked. Mia – she was the owner – let us live there rent free…” Rory watches Wren’s face as she tells her of that first day, as Wren’s eyes light up at the talk of books.
-
“Hey, there y’all are.”
Wren glances at the doorway to find her father leaning against the jamb. His arms are crossed over his chest and he wears a smile he hasn’t in a long time. She’s known since he came home that things went as planned in New York. The nights she spends at Aunt Lorelai and Uncle Luke’s, Rory stays over at the apartment with her father.
There are other changes, too. Rory comes by the diner nearly every day to eat lunch with her father just like Aunt Lorelai and Uncle Luke. Now family dinners sometimes include only her father, Rory, and her, and those are nice if still a bit strange. Their rhythm is unlike the easy patter of her parents’ conversations. (Her father told her that was simply because Texans had to mull over every word spoken, which made her laugh.) Her father talks more when Rory is around, and Wren really likes her for that. She is also very fond of listening to their book discussions. It’s different than it was with her parents. There is always a sparkle in their eyes, almost like they enjoy disagreeing with each other.
“Wait,” Rory laughs, holding up a finger. “I’m sorry, did you just say y’all?”
Her father lets out an indignant huff. “It’s a contraction. Would you prefer I say, 'Hey yous guys' instead?”
“God no, that would be a whole different brand of mocking,” she says, grinning. She looks at Wren. “Actually, I was telling her about when Mom and I moved in here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Wren pipes up, grinning at her father. “So this is where you met Rory, huh?”
Jess pulls her into a standing position on the bed and easily hefts her onto his shoulder. Over her giggles, he announces, “I think that’s enough storytelling for today.”
“Help!” she protests weakly.
Rory crawls across the bed and grabs Jess around the waist. “Put the girl down, or I’m going to have to unleash some tickles,” she whispers menacingly. Her face is flush and there is a touch of a smile on her lips.
“You wouldn’t,” Jess counters.
“Oh but I would.”
“Well I guess I have to give up the girl, then.” He reaches up to catch hold of Wren’s upper arms, but before either of them knows they’ve been tricked, Jess has Rory curled into the fetal position gasping for breath as he expertly tickles the back of her right knee. Then his other hand attacks Wren’s side and she is wriggling, laughing so hard her belly aches.
-
Relieved of kitchen duty, Rory relaxes on the couch, stocking feet tucked under her. She sips slowly at a cup of coffee. She can hear her mom and Sookie chattering in the kitchen, the whoosh of water lapping against the sides of the sink. There is the chink of silverware going into the basket and the heavy clank of dinnerware filed carefully into place. After all these years, her mother has memorized Sookie’s system of loading the dishwasher.
All of the kids are crowded around the TV, watching The Goonies. It is their current favorite, mostly due to Emma’s persistence. Will and Martha lay sprawled out on their bellies, both have matching expressions of boredom on their faces. Between the two of them, they’ve seen this movie at least a hundred times. Rory guesses they knew that to fight is useless. Emma has never had a problem asserting her opinion.
Rory didn’t know why she was so determined to watch it. It wasn’t until little Mikey made his first appearance on screen that it finally clicked. Every time Sean Astin comes on screen her little sister’s face glows bright pink and her voice goes high. “Isn’t he so cute?!” she asks Wren repeatedly, grabbing her cousin by the hand. Rory does not have the heart to inform Emma that he is much older now, old enough to be her father and then some. Luckily, Wren does better than she does, and simply nods at Emma, a small smile on her face.
This is the best part of being home. With the kids, there is never a dull moment, and if she thought she missed Will and Emma before, being around them every day makes her all the more remorseful about the time she lost.
Then there is the newest development. Ever since Christmas Break, the inseparable trio known as EmmaWillandWren has morphed into a quintuplet to include Davey and Martha. To say that Sookie is beyond excited is an understatement. She and Lorelai always fantasized raising their kids together after Will and Emma came along, but it never came to be for whatever reason. Now they seem glued at the hip. If you see one of them, you know the other four aren’t far behind. It pleases Jess to no end. He is just happy that Wren has a girl friend her own age.
Smiling into her cup, Rory watches as Davey lodges another kernel of popcorn at Wren. Even for twelve, he is a big boy like his father, but he (and Martha) is the image of his mother, with her sparkling brown eyes and infectious smile. This is the development no one expected. Lorelai and Sookie practically have the china pattern picked out. Wren never looks at him, but tosses it back with amazing accuracy, getting him right between the eyes.
Rory feared the worst when she overheard a whispered conversation between Martha and Wren about some boy named Jamie, but any doubts disappear when Rory sees the look on Wren’s face. She positively lights up.
Jess plops down beside her, a half-drunk bottle of beer in his hand. “Hey,” he murmurs, sitting low, his legs stretched out in front him. He lays an arm across her thighs, mindlessly fiddling with the outside seam on her jeans.
She rests her head on top of his. He smells like winter, crisp and cold. He was in the back checking out Jackson’s new vegetable hybrid with Luke. Apparently, even after all these years, Luke hasn’t given up hope that he will turn people’s bad eating habits around. He wants to start offering lighter fair and hopes to entice people with strange fruits and vegetables from Jackson’s private garden.
“So what does it look like?” Rory asks, watching Luke and Jackson wander towards the kitchen.
He gets a disgusted look on his face. “It’s pretty normal looking – just like a cucumber – but then he cut it open and it’s red. Red.”
Her eyes widen. “What the heck did he cross it with?”
Jess takes a long pull from his beer. “Rhubarb, if you’d believe it.”
Rory scrunches up her nose. “The thing they make the pie with?”
“Yep.”
“Gross.”
“Exactly.”
He is quiet and she realizes he’s watching the movie, too. He is quite the kids’ movie aficionado nowadays, which amuses her to no end considering what an elitist he used to be about movies – not to mention music, books, and poetry.
She glances over at Emma, who is sniffling prettily, her lower lip stuck out. On the television, Chunk is telling Sloth that he’s going to live with Chunk and his family now. Rory looks up at Jess and smiles at him, thinking how funny it is, because as many times as she has watched this movie over the years, she never realized what a sweet message the movie teaches, or maybe she’s just getting sentimental in her old age.
Wren scoots across the rug, rising up onto her knees. There are fresh tears on her face. Jess sits up and she climbs on to his lap. She burrows into his chest, her face pressed into the hollow of his throat. Rory watches as her little hand reaches out for Rory’s and she happily takes it in hers. Jess looks down at their joined hands, gently rubbing Wren’s back, then he meets her gaze. It is better than an ‘I love you,’ the way his eyes hold onto hers, and she leans into him.
She is finally home.
chapter five | chapter six | chapter seven | chapter eight | chapter nine
no subject
I found this liste of writing exercises:
http://www.poewar.com/archives/2004/10/21/fifteen-craft-exercises-for-writers/