Fic: Home - Chapter Five, General (GG)
Sep. 25th, 2003 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rubykatewritingTITLE: 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.
Rory stares with blind frustration at her computer screen, the cursor blinking at her, mocking her. Her deadline looms before her but her mind is empty, a numbing void behind her eyes. She glances at her watch, letting out a sigh at the time (nearly 1:00), and shoves back from her desk. Twirling around in her chair, she leans back, feet on the windowsill, and stares out at the city, praying for some kind of inspiration.
Her eyes wander over the skyline. Lights are on everywhere, tiny pinpricks of light, like some loopy game of tic-tac-toe. It used to delight her; she loved being alone, the sole observer to the goings-on well after dark. Now, all she feels is lonely; she knows she is among a small number still laboring away at work.
While she has always loved living in New York, she has never felt at home here. It is like a persistent ache in the back of her stomach, and it hurts to admit work isn't enough to sustain her anymore, to blot out everything else. She smiles humorlessly. Jason would give her a cocky smile and an I-told-you-so raise of the eyebrow if he were still around. But like most men in her life, she'd effectively pushed him away. He'd just stuck around longer than any of the others.
Turning back to her desk, she gives her notes a read-through again, picking up her pen to cross out a line here and there with a reproachful shake of her head. Tapping her pen furiously against the pad, she reads it over twice, but still, her mind is a nauseating blank. No lead-in pops into her head, no words begin their heady spiral, slowly winding their way onto the page. There is no story. Nothing. That's it! she thinks angrily, tossing her pen down on the wood desktop with a quick snap. She saves the document (what little there is) on her computer, then quickly shuts it down, unable to look at it anymore.
"It is time to get out of here," she mutters to herself, feeling deflated. She has never experienced such a severe case of writer's block before, and as soon as she thinks the words, she feels her stomach lurch. That's what this is, she thinks, and she wants nothing more than to crawl under her desk and hibernate until spring. Instead, she packs up her bag, ruthlessly shoving her notebooks and books into the battered leather case, and walks to her office door. With a quick glance around, she reassures herself she isn't leaving anything necessary behind. She flips off the light and depresses the lock in the middle of the doorknob, pulling the door closed behind her.
The rest of the office left ages ago. Darkness presses against the glass on either side of her as she walks purposely towards the elevator bank. She is exhausted and she thinks about the upcoming holidays. Thanksgiving is next week. And she is reminded once again how long she's stayed away from Stars Hollow, away from Hartford. But for the first time in a long time, she realizes how much she wants to be home again, to nestle into the safe cocoon of her family.
As she waits for the elevator, she wonders if she still has any clothes at her mom's. A sudden urge to just jump on a train and go to Stars Hollow overtakes her. Looking back into the main office, she strides towards her editor's door, already digging in her bag for her notebook and a pen. Scribbling out a hasty note (half explanation, half apology), she tells him she won't be in tomorrow or for the next week.
Murray will get a kick out this, she thinks as she tapes it to his door, folded in half. She writes his name on it, then runs back to the elevators in time to finally catch the car down. As the doors close her inside the elevator, she grins.
-
Her apartment is frigid when she gets home. Rory hurries over to the thermostat and slides the clear plastic knob well past eighty. Running into her bedroom, she shrugs out of her coat and pulls on her favorite sweatshirt, one left long ago by an ex-boyfriend. It is thick and falls to her knees, the heavy cotton soft and comforting. The excitement is nearly chaotic inside her, making her jittery and giggly as she washes her face in the bathroom sink. She is humming, her foot tapping along, but she can't remember the song or the lyrics.
She hastily packs a week's worth of clothes into her duffle bag. Then she goes into her living room, eyeing the far wall where three six-foot-tall bookshelves stand. Meandering back and forth, her eyes wander over every shelf, grabbing a book here, a book there. By the time she is finished, she has nearly three stacks of books, each as high as her knee or above; which, logically, she knows she can't take with her. Cutting it in half, she leaves behind some of her old favorites, choosing to tote more of the books she has yet to read.
She hops in the shower to clean off the workday grime, then slides into bed for a few hours sleep a little after three. (She hates sleeping on the train.) When she wakes up, she makes a small pot of coffee to revive herself and watches the early morning news while she slowly flips through the paper, waiting. A little after six a.m., she calls a cab company for the ride to Penn.
As soon as she steps outside, she regrets not blow-drying her hair before she went to sleep; it is still damp where her head lay on the pillow. The chill bites at her exposed ears and bare fingers, and she thinks they may see snow for Thanksgiving as she shivers inside her coat. The cab pulls up to the curb a moment later, and the driver, a sliver of a man wearing a plaid wool newsboy cap, comes around to help her load up her luggage into the trunk.
He doesn't offer idle chit-chat, preferring to listen to a talk show mumbling from the radio. Rory is glad to keep her own company and she settles deeper into the unusually comfortable seat, watching the streets skip by the window. It is warm inside the cab, lulling her into a daze as she stares out, nothing really standing out from the background. People pop up sporadically along the way, mostly joggers, stuffed into thick sweat suits, making their daily trek, and she regrets not taking her morning run. Maybe she wouldn't feel so sluggish now.
Sighing, she looks in front of her, through the thick plexiglass separating the front and back seats. Through the windshield, she sees the marquee in front of Madison Square Garden, announcing the Knicks are playing the Celtics tonight and John Mayer's concert is Sunday night at 7:00.
The cabbie slows to a stop at the curb and gets out. Rory slides across the seat to the driver's side, letting herself out of the back. He pulls her luggage from the trunk and sets in on the sidewalk, giving a tight little bow as he stands before her. Rory smiles despite herself, not used to such manners, before she realizes he's waiting for his money. She digs earnestly into her purse for her wallet, thinking once again how desperately she needs to clean it out, and hurriedly pulls out several bills from the open slit. Her hands are shaking; the drastic change from the nearly suffocating warmth of the cab to the stunning cold a shock to her system. The wind whips her hair into her face and she is momentarily blinded. Sending an apologetic smile to the cabbie, she hands over the fare with a substantial tip. He is visibly shivering in his thin coat.
"Have a good Thanksgiving," he tells in her a clipped accent. He hurries back into the cab and maneuvers his way back into the growing traffic.
Turning to face Penn Station, she gathers up her bags into her hands and slips into one of the many clumps of people moving en masse towards the doors. Amidst them, Rory finds solace from the numbing wind rumpling men's coat collars and women's perfectly coifed hair. Northern winters have never agreed with her thin-blooded nature, but it also never occurred to her to live anywhere else.
She heads straight for the Amtrak ticket counter and purchases a ticket for the 7:15 a.m. train to Hartford, which means she should be home by noon at the latest. As she walks towards the platform, she can't help but quake with excitement. In a few hours, she will be home and everything will be okay.
-
She dreams she is back in Stars Hollow. A little gray cat leads her around, and it is the only living thing she finds. Everywhere she goes, the cat always before her, searching, searching, she can't find anyone. Luke's is empty, Miss Patty is for once not haunting the top step of her dance school, and the Dragonfly is deserted. Not even Kirk is lurking in the most unusual places.
As she stands in the middle of the square, on the second step of the gazebo, a rush of sound batters into her and she covers her ears, looking around. It is like a solid wall of noise, so clogged together, she can't distinguish one from the other.
She jolts awake, eyes wide. Her purse is underneath her head, crumpled. It is her cell, beeping at her mournfully from somewhere in the bottom of her bag. She curses under her breath, digging, until she grasps it tightly in the palm of her hand. Without a glance at the caller id, she hits the answer button and, slurring, she mutters, "Hello," thickly into what she hopes is the right end.
"Rory?"
Groaning, she sits up and hastily glances at her watch. Half-past ten. "Paris, what?" she asks irritably. Her heart is hammering inside her chest; she should be shaking all over, her blood jittery inside her veins. For a moment, she thought she slept through her stop. The sun is bright outside and she turns away from the window, her eyes stinging.
"I called you at work and they told me you weren't coming in," Paris bites out, her voice carrying out into the open cabin of the train. "Where are you?"
"Really, your concern, Paris, is heartwarming," Rory oozes sarcastically into the phone, smiling slightly. Her eyes adjust to the artificial light inside the cabin. The natural, winter sunlight outside doesn't make her head hurt, and she glances out at the scenery beyond. It blurs into one thick, green screen against the thick pane of glass. "I'm on a train to Hartford."
"It's Friday," Paris says, clearly confused.
"Yes?"
"If you're going to leave for the holiday, why not wait until tomorrow?"
"I didn't want to," Rory grumbles sourly.
"Well, I need you for backup," Paris moans in her best imitation of a pitiful whine. It still sounds like she is badgering someone with a poker, each word enunciated like a jab. Rory used to think Paris would make a great cop or a prosecutor. Any criminal mastermind would crack under the likes of Paris Gellar. "Andrew is, as you know, no help against my mother..."
Rory's eyes go unfocused as she listens to her friend rant at her about the latest snafu in her wedding plans. Nothing is going right for the Gellar- Cohen wedding, and as the only bridesmaid Paris chose herself (the other two are cousins on her mother's side), Rory is the one person to whom she can vent.
"...Margaret - she's the shifty-eyed one who is constantly flipping her hair whenever Jake is around - is telling me that rose is not good for her complexion and would it be possible for me to change the colors of my wedding." Paris huffs indignantly at this, then her voice becomes plaintive, always a warning sign of a massive guilt trip ahead. "And now you've decided to gallivant off to places unknown -"
"Not unknown, Paris, I'm going home," Rory argues, "and I do not gallivant. I'm..." She searches for another word. "I'm traipsing off, if anything."
Paris snorts. "Your humor is decidedly off today, Gilmore. Now tell me the real reason you left an unfinished story behind and are headed home with your tail tucked between your legs?" Despite her harsh words, her voice is soft as she asks and Rory relents.
"Writer's block," Rory admits. For some reason, Rory feels the urge to cry and she closes her eyes in hopes of staving off the tears. Agitated, she roughly brushes her hair back from her face and switches the phone to her other ear. She listens as Paris talks to someone on her end, her voice muffled, and stares at her feet, stacking one foot on top of the other, heel to toe, waiting for the tightness in the back of her throat to ease. She was in a good mood.
Paris returns her attention to Rory. "Sorry, I'm back," she apologizes quickly, "Is it bad?"
"Oh, yeah," she whispers, blinking several times. Rory pinches the bridge of her nose, eyes squeezed shut, and breathes slowly in and out.
"Gilmore, don't wimp out on me. This happens to all the great writers at one time or another. Of course, I've never experienced such a problem -" Rory laughs at this, remembering one afternoon during their junior year at Yale when Paris had to shove her face into a brown paper bag, sucking in air so rapidly she actually looked pale "- Hey! That was a panic attack!"
"A panic attack you had when you couldn't write," Rory counters, grinning suddenly, and she hears her friend mumble something under her breath.
"Can I call you back?"
"When have I ever been able to stop you?" Rory asks.
Paris ignores her comment. "I have to head into a meeting," she tells her and Rory hears papers shuffling in the background. "Some of us can't just take off when the mood strikes us," she adds, and Rory can hear the smirk on her friend's face.
Rory rolls her eyes and hangs up on her. She tosses her phone back into the deep recesses of her bag and spots her book lying face down on the floor. She leans over to retrieve it, trying to flatten the bent pages, but she doesn't try to find her place. Instead she stares off into space. Her thoughts swim through her mind, so many she has avoided for so long, and in this still moment, they push upward, breaking through the gentle surface, pulsing and desperate. Her head throbs like she drank too much wine.
For so long, she spent every moment pursuing her career, so intent on her future, she forgot to enjoy her present. Now she looks back and is ashamed at the waste.
-
The bus stop is in the same place it's been since before she was born. Rory is the last off the bus, trailing behind the rest of the departing passengers. As she steps onto the curb, she glances around, squinting in the muted sunlight, hands at the small of her back as she tries to stretch. The lethargy clouding her brain lightens but does not disappear completely. Yawning for what feels like the hundredth time today, she groans and slings her bags warily over her shoulders. All of the energy she began her day with is gone, drained away by the hours spent traveling.
She heads straight for Luke's, anticipation slowly trickling into her numb limbs. It has been too long and she takes a deep breath of Stars Hollow air. She can't describe it, but it is like no air anywhere else. It smells like home, infused with the spices and scents of everyone she loves.
The bell over the door chimes as she steps inside the diner. She spies Quinn through the kitchen window, his back to her, but he is the only employee she sees. Customers fill up nearly every table, mostly people she does not immediately recognize. The town, for so long suspended in a sort of parallel universe to every other place in the world, has blossomed. It saddens her to miss it; the subtle way change creeps in. She is left only with the results.
Ignoring the stares accompanying her entrance, Rory walks to the counter and drops her bags at the foot of the stool and sits down, feet swinging gently. She is now the outsider, the visitor, and she hears the buzz of conversation change as they recall she's the daughter of the Dragonfly owner, the city-dweller. Smirking to herself, she waits. A faint stirring of disappointment drifts through her, though she is not sure why.
Her eyes survey the familiar surroundings. She has her first glimpse of the new coffee machine, which Luke surprised Lorelai with last month. Her mother called her at six on a Saturday morning, barely able to contain her excitement. It still glints with a shiny newness, yet to attain the lived in quality of everything else in the diner. The dishrags are new; gone are the plain, serviceable ones Luke used to always buy. They are replaced with white ones, cheery yellow lines criss-crossing the heavy fabric.
Part of her always expected things to remain the same here in Luke's. The diner (and the man) was always a beacon of strength, familiarity. But there is a sense of time passed now, even here in the diner. Nothing that is visible to the casual observer, it is more felt than anything. It may be all in her perception, but times moves faster than when she was younger. She remembers the frustrated impatience of her youth, ever eager for her life to begin. Now it overwhelms her. She is thirty years old, a new thirty, but thirty nonetheless, and what does she have to show for those years?
Anxiety washes over her and she is suddenly ready to get the homecoming over with; she wants nothing more than to go to bed and sleep away the past few months. After Richard's death, she had so many grand plans. She was going to quit the magazine. She was going to spend more time at home with her family, spend quality time with Will and Emma. Enjoy life. Probably the same as anyone suddenly faced with the fragility of life, a new resolve to change bad habits. She doesn't know where it all went. Suddenly, she was full of excuses again. She had a life in New York, an amazing job, etc., etc., until she convinced herself it was what she truly wanted, the previous plans an aberration, a reaction to her loss and nothing more. The months slipped by, unnoticed if for no other reason than to avoid the guilt that immediately pressed upon her when she realized another had passed.
Rory groans. This trip is supposed to be a good thing, she tells herself. So many regrets crowd her thoughts, and she wonders when she became so discontent with her life. Resting her chin in her upraised hand, she draws circles on the scratched linoleum surface of the bar, abstract pieces of art only she sees.
Looking up, she glances at her watch. This is not like Luke to leave the diner for so long. It is now she notices the telephone is not hanging from the receiver, the cord winding it's way across the door, disappearing through the crease between the door and door jamb. As if he can feel her curiosity piquing, Luke pushes through the door, talking rapidly into the phone. He sounds angry, and the person on the other end is bearing the brunt of his temper. He spots her and their eyes meet. He stops talking mid- sentence, his hand in mid-wave (he always talks with his hands, she thinks, amused), and he stands stock still, as if he can't remember how to move, his train of thought evaporating in the air between them.
Recovering himself, he says into the phone, "I have to call you back. I have a customer." He hangs up the phone roughly and it clangs in protest. He is slow to turn around, his breathing slow despite his previous ill mood. "Hey, Rory," he greets feebly, his small smile failing to fully reach his face. His hands twitch nervously at his sides.
She stares at him for several seconds, brows knitted together. "Is everything okay, Luke?"
He shoves his hand into his pockets, but he still remains just beyond the door. He makes no move towards her and she misses her usual hug. "Yeah, of course. Yeah," he says, stumbling over each word. He shrugs a one- shouldered shrug, but he still looks disconcerted. "So what are you doing home?"
Rory ignores his odd behavior, too exhausted to fully delve into their implications. "I wanted to see everyone and Thanksgiving's next week. Thought why not just go home early?" she replies, throwing her hands, palm up, into the air. He nods, eyebrows rising up and down, and the reporter in her wades through her muddled head, pushing up to the surface. Eyes suddenly watchful, she notes every move he makes, every uncomfortable gesture and expression.
"Huh." He doesn't say anything further. He walks along the counter to the coffee machine and busies himself, his back to her. When he turns back around, he has the carafe in one hand, a mug in the other. "It's fresh," he comments, more to the counter than her, setting the empty mug in front of her. He concentrates on pouring the coffee, avoiding her searching gaze, but he is flushed, a glimmer of sweat on his forehead below the line of his baseball cap.
"Has Mom been by for lunch yet?" she asks before taking a long sip. For a moment she has not one care in the world, savoring every delicious drop. Her mother is right. Luke's coffee has only gotten better over the years.
He shakes his head. "No. Did you mention you were coming?"
She smiles oddly at him, head cocked to the side. "No, why?"
Again he shakes his head. "Uh, no reason. Just, uh, she won't be by today. They're eating lunch at the inn. Sookie has these new recipes she wanted to try." He leans on the counter, arms stretched wide, hands, palms down, resting on the edge. "Look, Rory," he begins, his voice soft, fatherly. She loves him when he gets his father-knows-best tone and she leans forward. Sometimes, she thinks he forgets she's an adult now, all grown up, but she doesn't mind. She meets his eyes and he smiles a little. "Ror, you may want -" He pauses again, his gaze drifting away from her. The smile turns into a grim line.
She hears the bell ring behind her and the accompanying crack as the door opens. From the look on Luke's face she knows he isn't happy. She twirls slowly around on the stool, her feet kicking her bags, drawing her attention momentarily down to the floor. When she looks up, her stomach lurches inside her and any hunger she may have felt ebbs away.
"Jess."
He gives a small smile. "You cut your hair."
Sometimes she hated him, the way he watched her. He was so different than any boy she'd encountered in her seventeen years. And for that reason alone, mostly, she loved him. She can't think and she remembers feeling a similar sensation every time he kissed her.
"You're back," she mumbles unnecessarily.
"Yep."
She grimaces. "Nice to see some things never change."
He smiles again, his eyes moving over her face. "Nice when they do."
chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four
chapter six | chapter seven | chapter eight | chapter nine | chapter ten
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.
Rory stares with blind frustration at her computer screen, the cursor blinking at her, mocking her. Her deadline looms before her but her mind is empty, a numbing void behind her eyes. She glances at her watch, letting out a sigh at the time (nearly 1:00), and shoves back from her desk. Twirling around in her chair, she leans back, feet on the windowsill, and stares out at the city, praying for some kind of inspiration.
Her eyes wander over the skyline. Lights are on everywhere, tiny pinpricks of light, like some loopy game of tic-tac-toe. It used to delight her; she loved being alone, the sole observer to the goings-on well after dark. Now, all she feels is lonely; she knows she is among a small number still laboring away at work.
While she has always loved living in New York, she has never felt at home here. It is like a persistent ache in the back of her stomach, and it hurts to admit work isn't enough to sustain her anymore, to blot out everything else. She smiles humorlessly. Jason would give her a cocky smile and an I-told-you-so raise of the eyebrow if he were still around. But like most men in her life, she'd effectively pushed him away. He'd just stuck around longer than any of the others.
Turning back to her desk, she gives her notes a read-through again, picking up her pen to cross out a line here and there with a reproachful shake of her head. Tapping her pen furiously against the pad, she reads it over twice, but still, her mind is a nauseating blank. No lead-in pops into her head, no words begin their heady spiral, slowly winding their way onto the page. There is no story. Nothing. That's it! she thinks angrily, tossing her pen down on the wood desktop with a quick snap. She saves the document (what little there is) on her computer, then quickly shuts it down, unable to look at it anymore.
"It is time to get out of here," she mutters to herself, feeling deflated. She has never experienced such a severe case of writer's block before, and as soon as she thinks the words, she feels her stomach lurch. That's what this is, she thinks, and she wants nothing more than to crawl under her desk and hibernate until spring. Instead, she packs up her bag, ruthlessly shoving her notebooks and books into the battered leather case, and walks to her office door. With a quick glance around, she reassures herself she isn't leaving anything necessary behind. She flips off the light and depresses the lock in the middle of the doorknob, pulling the door closed behind her.
The rest of the office left ages ago. Darkness presses against the glass on either side of her as she walks purposely towards the elevator bank. She is exhausted and she thinks about the upcoming holidays. Thanksgiving is next week. And she is reminded once again how long she's stayed away from Stars Hollow, away from Hartford. But for the first time in a long time, she realizes how much she wants to be home again, to nestle into the safe cocoon of her family.
As she waits for the elevator, she wonders if she still has any clothes at her mom's. A sudden urge to just jump on a train and go to Stars Hollow overtakes her. Looking back into the main office, she strides towards her editor's door, already digging in her bag for her notebook and a pen. Scribbling out a hasty note (half explanation, half apology), she tells him she won't be in tomorrow or for the next week.
Murray will get a kick out this, she thinks as she tapes it to his door, folded in half. She writes his name on it, then runs back to the elevators in time to finally catch the car down. As the doors close her inside the elevator, she grins.
-
Her apartment is frigid when she gets home. Rory hurries over to the thermostat and slides the clear plastic knob well past eighty. Running into her bedroom, she shrugs out of her coat and pulls on her favorite sweatshirt, one left long ago by an ex-boyfriend. It is thick and falls to her knees, the heavy cotton soft and comforting. The excitement is nearly chaotic inside her, making her jittery and giggly as she washes her face in the bathroom sink. She is humming, her foot tapping along, but she can't remember the song or the lyrics.
She hastily packs a week's worth of clothes into her duffle bag. Then she goes into her living room, eyeing the far wall where three six-foot-tall bookshelves stand. Meandering back and forth, her eyes wander over every shelf, grabbing a book here, a book there. By the time she is finished, she has nearly three stacks of books, each as high as her knee or above; which, logically, she knows she can't take with her. Cutting it in half, she leaves behind some of her old favorites, choosing to tote more of the books she has yet to read.
She hops in the shower to clean off the workday grime, then slides into bed for a few hours sleep a little after three. (She hates sleeping on the train.) When she wakes up, she makes a small pot of coffee to revive herself and watches the early morning news while she slowly flips through the paper, waiting. A little after six a.m., she calls a cab company for the ride to Penn.
As soon as she steps outside, she regrets not blow-drying her hair before she went to sleep; it is still damp where her head lay on the pillow. The chill bites at her exposed ears and bare fingers, and she thinks they may see snow for Thanksgiving as she shivers inside her coat. The cab pulls up to the curb a moment later, and the driver, a sliver of a man wearing a plaid wool newsboy cap, comes around to help her load up her luggage into the trunk.
He doesn't offer idle chit-chat, preferring to listen to a talk show mumbling from the radio. Rory is glad to keep her own company and she settles deeper into the unusually comfortable seat, watching the streets skip by the window. It is warm inside the cab, lulling her into a daze as she stares out, nothing really standing out from the background. People pop up sporadically along the way, mostly joggers, stuffed into thick sweat suits, making their daily trek, and she regrets not taking her morning run. Maybe she wouldn't feel so sluggish now.
Sighing, she looks in front of her, through the thick plexiglass separating the front and back seats. Through the windshield, she sees the marquee in front of Madison Square Garden, announcing the Knicks are playing the Celtics tonight and John Mayer's concert is Sunday night at 7:00.
The cabbie slows to a stop at the curb and gets out. Rory slides across the seat to the driver's side, letting herself out of the back. He pulls her luggage from the trunk and sets in on the sidewalk, giving a tight little bow as he stands before her. Rory smiles despite herself, not used to such manners, before she realizes he's waiting for his money. She digs earnestly into her purse for her wallet, thinking once again how desperately she needs to clean it out, and hurriedly pulls out several bills from the open slit. Her hands are shaking; the drastic change from the nearly suffocating warmth of the cab to the stunning cold a shock to her system. The wind whips her hair into her face and she is momentarily blinded. Sending an apologetic smile to the cabbie, she hands over the fare with a substantial tip. He is visibly shivering in his thin coat.
"Have a good Thanksgiving," he tells in her a clipped accent. He hurries back into the cab and maneuvers his way back into the growing traffic.
Turning to face Penn Station, she gathers up her bags into her hands and slips into one of the many clumps of people moving en masse towards the doors. Amidst them, Rory finds solace from the numbing wind rumpling men's coat collars and women's perfectly coifed hair. Northern winters have never agreed with her thin-blooded nature, but it also never occurred to her to live anywhere else.
She heads straight for the Amtrak ticket counter and purchases a ticket for the 7:15 a.m. train to Hartford, which means she should be home by noon at the latest. As she walks towards the platform, she can't help but quake with excitement. In a few hours, she will be home and everything will be okay.
-
She dreams she is back in Stars Hollow. A little gray cat leads her around, and it is the only living thing she finds. Everywhere she goes, the cat always before her, searching, searching, she can't find anyone. Luke's is empty, Miss Patty is for once not haunting the top step of her dance school, and the Dragonfly is deserted. Not even Kirk is lurking in the most unusual places.
As she stands in the middle of the square, on the second step of the gazebo, a rush of sound batters into her and she covers her ears, looking around. It is like a solid wall of noise, so clogged together, she can't distinguish one from the other.
She jolts awake, eyes wide. Her purse is underneath her head, crumpled. It is her cell, beeping at her mournfully from somewhere in the bottom of her bag. She curses under her breath, digging, until she grasps it tightly in the palm of her hand. Without a glance at the caller id, she hits the answer button and, slurring, she mutters, "Hello," thickly into what she hopes is the right end.
"Rory?"
Groaning, she sits up and hastily glances at her watch. Half-past ten. "Paris, what?" she asks irritably. Her heart is hammering inside her chest; she should be shaking all over, her blood jittery inside her veins. For a moment, she thought she slept through her stop. The sun is bright outside and she turns away from the window, her eyes stinging.
"I called you at work and they told me you weren't coming in," Paris bites out, her voice carrying out into the open cabin of the train. "Where are you?"
"Really, your concern, Paris, is heartwarming," Rory oozes sarcastically into the phone, smiling slightly. Her eyes adjust to the artificial light inside the cabin. The natural, winter sunlight outside doesn't make her head hurt, and she glances out at the scenery beyond. It blurs into one thick, green screen against the thick pane of glass. "I'm on a train to Hartford."
"It's Friday," Paris says, clearly confused.
"Yes?"
"If you're going to leave for the holiday, why not wait until tomorrow?"
"I didn't want to," Rory grumbles sourly.
"Well, I need you for backup," Paris moans in her best imitation of a pitiful whine. It still sounds like she is badgering someone with a poker, each word enunciated like a jab. Rory used to think Paris would make a great cop or a prosecutor. Any criminal mastermind would crack under the likes of Paris Gellar. "Andrew is, as you know, no help against my mother..."
Rory's eyes go unfocused as she listens to her friend rant at her about the latest snafu in her wedding plans. Nothing is going right for the Gellar- Cohen wedding, and as the only bridesmaid Paris chose herself (the other two are cousins on her mother's side), Rory is the one person to whom she can vent.
"...Margaret - she's the shifty-eyed one who is constantly flipping her hair whenever Jake is around - is telling me that rose is not good for her complexion and would it be possible for me to change the colors of my wedding." Paris huffs indignantly at this, then her voice becomes plaintive, always a warning sign of a massive guilt trip ahead. "And now you've decided to gallivant off to places unknown -"
"Not unknown, Paris, I'm going home," Rory argues, "and I do not gallivant. I'm..." She searches for another word. "I'm traipsing off, if anything."
Paris snorts. "Your humor is decidedly off today, Gilmore. Now tell me the real reason you left an unfinished story behind and are headed home with your tail tucked between your legs?" Despite her harsh words, her voice is soft as she asks and Rory relents.
"Writer's block," Rory admits. For some reason, Rory feels the urge to cry and she closes her eyes in hopes of staving off the tears. Agitated, she roughly brushes her hair back from her face and switches the phone to her other ear. She listens as Paris talks to someone on her end, her voice muffled, and stares at her feet, stacking one foot on top of the other, heel to toe, waiting for the tightness in the back of her throat to ease. She was in a good mood.
Paris returns her attention to Rory. "Sorry, I'm back," she apologizes quickly, "Is it bad?"
"Oh, yeah," she whispers, blinking several times. Rory pinches the bridge of her nose, eyes squeezed shut, and breathes slowly in and out.
"Gilmore, don't wimp out on me. This happens to all the great writers at one time or another. Of course, I've never experienced such a problem -" Rory laughs at this, remembering one afternoon during their junior year at Yale when Paris had to shove her face into a brown paper bag, sucking in air so rapidly she actually looked pale "- Hey! That was a panic attack!"
"A panic attack you had when you couldn't write," Rory counters, grinning suddenly, and she hears her friend mumble something under her breath.
"Can I call you back?"
"When have I ever been able to stop you?" Rory asks.
Paris ignores her comment. "I have to head into a meeting," she tells her and Rory hears papers shuffling in the background. "Some of us can't just take off when the mood strikes us," she adds, and Rory can hear the smirk on her friend's face.
Rory rolls her eyes and hangs up on her. She tosses her phone back into the deep recesses of her bag and spots her book lying face down on the floor. She leans over to retrieve it, trying to flatten the bent pages, but she doesn't try to find her place. Instead she stares off into space. Her thoughts swim through her mind, so many she has avoided for so long, and in this still moment, they push upward, breaking through the gentle surface, pulsing and desperate. Her head throbs like she drank too much wine.
For so long, she spent every moment pursuing her career, so intent on her future, she forgot to enjoy her present. Now she looks back and is ashamed at the waste.
-
The bus stop is in the same place it's been since before she was born. Rory is the last off the bus, trailing behind the rest of the departing passengers. As she steps onto the curb, she glances around, squinting in the muted sunlight, hands at the small of her back as she tries to stretch. The lethargy clouding her brain lightens but does not disappear completely. Yawning for what feels like the hundredth time today, she groans and slings her bags warily over her shoulders. All of the energy she began her day with is gone, drained away by the hours spent traveling.
She heads straight for Luke's, anticipation slowly trickling into her numb limbs. It has been too long and she takes a deep breath of Stars Hollow air. She can't describe it, but it is like no air anywhere else. It smells like home, infused with the spices and scents of everyone she loves.
The bell over the door chimes as she steps inside the diner. She spies Quinn through the kitchen window, his back to her, but he is the only employee she sees. Customers fill up nearly every table, mostly people she does not immediately recognize. The town, for so long suspended in a sort of parallel universe to every other place in the world, has blossomed. It saddens her to miss it; the subtle way change creeps in. She is left only with the results.
Ignoring the stares accompanying her entrance, Rory walks to the counter and drops her bags at the foot of the stool and sits down, feet swinging gently. She is now the outsider, the visitor, and she hears the buzz of conversation change as they recall she's the daughter of the Dragonfly owner, the city-dweller. Smirking to herself, she waits. A faint stirring of disappointment drifts through her, though she is not sure why.
Her eyes survey the familiar surroundings. She has her first glimpse of the new coffee machine, which Luke surprised Lorelai with last month. Her mother called her at six on a Saturday morning, barely able to contain her excitement. It still glints with a shiny newness, yet to attain the lived in quality of everything else in the diner. The dishrags are new; gone are the plain, serviceable ones Luke used to always buy. They are replaced with white ones, cheery yellow lines criss-crossing the heavy fabric.
Part of her always expected things to remain the same here in Luke's. The diner (and the man) was always a beacon of strength, familiarity. But there is a sense of time passed now, even here in the diner. Nothing that is visible to the casual observer, it is more felt than anything. It may be all in her perception, but times moves faster than when she was younger. She remembers the frustrated impatience of her youth, ever eager for her life to begin. Now it overwhelms her. She is thirty years old, a new thirty, but thirty nonetheless, and what does she have to show for those years?
Anxiety washes over her and she is suddenly ready to get the homecoming over with; she wants nothing more than to go to bed and sleep away the past few months. After Richard's death, she had so many grand plans. She was going to quit the magazine. She was going to spend more time at home with her family, spend quality time with Will and Emma. Enjoy life. Probably the same as anyone suddenly faced with the fragility of life, a new resolve to change bad habits. She doesn't know where it all went. Suddenly, she was full of excuses again. She had a life in New York, an amazing job, etc., etc., until she convinced herself it was what she truly wanted, the previous plans an aberration, a reaction to her loss and nothing more. The months slipped by, unnoticed if for no other reason than to avoid the guilt that immediately pressed upon her when she realized another had passed.
Rory groans. This trip is supposed to be a good thing, she tells herself. So many regrets crowd her thoughts, and she wonders when she became so discontent with her life. Resting her chin in her upraised hand, she draws circles on the scratched linoleum surface of the bar, abstract pieces of art only she sees.
Looking up, she glances at her watch. This is not like Luke to leave the diner for so long. It is now she notices the telephone is not hanging from the receiver, the cord winding it's way across the door, disappearing through the crease between the door and door jamb. As if he can feel her curiosity piquing, Luke pushes through the door, talking rapidly into the phone. He sounds angry, and the person on the other end is bearing the brunt of his temper. He spots her and their eyes meet. He stops talking mid- sentence, his hand in mid-wave (he always talks with his hands, she thinks, amused), and he stands stock still, as if he can't remember how to move, his train of thought evaporating in the air between them.
Recovering himself, he says into the phone, "I have to call you back. I have a customer." He hangs up the phone roughly and it clangs in protest. He is slow to turn around, his breathing slow despite his previous ill mood. "Hey, Rory," he greets feebly, his small smile failing to fully reach his face. His hands twitch nervously at his sides.
She stares at him for several seconds, brows knitted together. "Is everything okay, Luke?"
He shoves his hand into his pockets, but he still remains just beyond the door. He makes no move towards her and she misses her usual hug. "Yeah, of course. Yeah," he says, stumbling over each word. He shrugs a one- shouldered shrug, but he still looks disconcerted. "So what are you doing home?"
Rory ignores his odd behavior, too exhausted to fully delve into their implications. "I wanted to see everyone and Thanksgiving's next week. Thought why not just go home early?" she replies, throwing her hands, palm up, into the air. He nods, eyebrows rising up and down, and the reporter in her wades through her muddled head, pushing up to the surface. Eyes suddenly watchful, she notes every move he makes, every uncomfortable gesture and expression.
"Huh." He doesn't say anything further. He walks along the counter to the coffee machine and busies himself, his back to her. When he turns back around, he has the carafe in one hand, a mug in the other. "It's fresh," he comments, more to the counter than her, setting the empty mug in front of her. He concentrates on pouring the coffee, avoiding her searching gaze, but he is flushed, a glimmer of sweat on his forehead below the line of his baseball cap.
"Has Mom been by for lunch yet?" she asks before taking a long sip. For a moment she has not one care in the world, savoring every delicious drop. Her mother is right. Luke's coffee has only gotten better over the years.
He shakes his head. "No. Did you mention you were coming?"
She smiles oddly at him, head cocked to the side. "No, why?"
Again he shakes his head. "Uh, no reason. Just, uh, she won't be by today. They're eating lunch at the inn. Sookie has these new recipes she wanted to try." He leans on the counter, arms stretched wide, hands, palms down, resting on the edge. "Look, Rory," he begins, his voice soft, fatherly. She loves him when he gets his father-knows-best tone and she leans forward. Sometimes, she thinks he forgets she's an adult now, all grown up, but she doesn't mind. She meets his eyes and he smiles a little. "Ror, you may want -" He pauses again, his gaze drifting away from her. The smile turns into a grim line.
She hears the bell ring behind her and the accompanying crack as the door opens. From the look on Luke's face she knows he isn't happy. She twirls slowly around on the stool, her feet kicking her bags, drawing her attention momentarily down to the floor. When she looks up, her stomach lurches inside her and any hunger she may have felt ebbs away.
"Jess."
He gives a small smile. "You cut your hair."
Sometimes she hated him, the way he watched her. He was so different than any boy she'd encountered in her seventeen years. And for that reason alone, mostly, she loved him. She can't think and she remembers feeling a similar sensation every time he kissed her.
"You're back," she mumbles unnecessarily.
"Yep."
She grimaces. "Nice to see some things never change."
He smiles again, his eyes moving over her face. "Nice when they do."
chapter six | chapter seven | chapter eight | chapter nine | chapter ten
