196Chapter 30: "I'll always be here for you. Both of you,"
"Rory?" Dean asked when he answered his phone after several rings, "It's almost four in the morning. Is everything alright?"
"Were you sleeping?" Rory asked.
"Yeah, what else do people do in the middle of the night?" he asked, "Did you need something or can I get back to sleep?"
"One question, is there an empty space in the bed next to you?" she asked.
"You've talked to Lindsay? What did she say?" Dean asked.
"What's it matter? You clearly don't care," Rory said.
"Rory, I care. You know I do. We just had a fight. I don't know why she would have called and talked to you about it in the middle of the night," he said, "I'm sorry about that."
"She didn't call me," Rory said.
"What?"
"I said she didn't call me. She's here."
"Lindsay's there. In New York. How did she get there?"
"The bus. When you took off she left and came here. She wasn't ready to tell her parent's about the baby when you clearly weren't happy about it."
"She told you about...It's not that I'm not happy about it. It's just...We're just not ready right now."
"Well guess what Dean, you need to get ready cause like it or not, ready or not, you're going to be a father in seven months."
"Is she okay?" Dean asked after a few minutes of silence.
"She was really upset when she got here. It's raining here and it's a couple of blocks from the bus stop and she had to walk so she was wet and cold when she arrived," Rory told him, "We had her take a shower and I gave her some pajamas. We put her up in a guest room for the night."
"Thank you," he said, "I guess we have to talk about this."
"Yeah, you do. A long talk. She can't do this alone, Dean," Rory said.
"I know, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know how we can handle our jobs and school with a baby. We don't even have room for a baby in our apartment."
"You'll figure it out. You have seven months Dean. You don't have to figure everything out right now."
"That's true and I know Lindsay's mom will be excited. She talks all the time about what we should do when we have kids."
"You can always talk to Luke, you know. This is all new to him, too."
"Yeah and I guess the whole town will probably offer to help with anything if we needed it."
"Exactly, but the first thing you need to do is make up with Lindsay. Talk to her. Let her know you want this baby."
"You're right."
"I usually am."
"Rory, do you think, maybe... Could I..."
"I'll start another pot of coffee," she told him.
"Thank you. I'll see you soon," he said.
After going back to her room to let Tristan know Dean was coming, Rory got another pot of coffee going and laid down on the sofa to wait for Dean. She had just fallen back to sleep when she heard a knock on the door just before six.
"Hey," Rory said when she opened the door, giving Dean a hug, "It's going to be fine."
"I hope so," he said, setting the bag of clothes he brought for him and Lindsay in the living room before following her into the kitchen and accepting the mug of coffee she offered him.
"I'm going to head back to bed for awhile. The guest room is just through there," she told him, pointing out the door to the room Lindsay was in, "Tristan will be up soon to get ready for work. He's usually pretty quiet, so it shouldn't bother you."
"Thanks, Rory," Dean said, getting up from his seat at the breakfast bar to hug her.
"Don't mention it. Just the name the baby after me," she told him.
"Another Lorelai? What if it's a boy?" he asked.
"Lorelee?" she asked.
"Yeah, I don't think so," he said.
"Fine, I'll let you and Lindsay decide on a name," she said, "Good night, Dean."
"Good night, Rory," he said.
After finishing the cup of coffee Rory made for him and rinsing out his cup so Rory and Tristan wouldn't have to bother with it, Dean made his way into the guest room to be with his wife. Walking into the room he found her curled up on the left side of the bed, her side of their bed at home, her blonde hair splayed out on the pillow beneath her with another pillow clutched tight in her arms. The pillow was clearly his replacement as she usually slept with her head and arm on his chest. Taking off his shirt and pants he carefully pulled back the covers and removed the pillow from her grasp as he slid in beside her. As he placed a kiss on her cheek and laid a hand on her stomach her eyes fluttered open.
"Dean?" she questioned, "What are you doing here?"
"In the nearly two years we've been married, we've never spent a night apart," he told her, "We're not starting now just because we had a fight."
"It was more than just a fight. You left," she said, sitting up.
"I know and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have, but we can discuss this later. You need your rest," he told her.
"You'll be here when I wake up again?" she asked.
"I'll always be here for you. Both of you," he told her, leaning his head down to kiss her stomach before kissing her, "I love you."
"I love you, too, Dean," Lindsay said, kissing him again and laying her head on his chest to go back to sleep for a few more hours.
A few hours later, Tristan had left to go meet his professor to work on plans for the house he was helping him design and Rory was up in the kitchen, finishing up her breakfast as she looked over a few old issues of the paper before starting her job on Monday. She was excited to get started. She was the fastest reader Mitchum had ever met so he had talked to the editor about using her to help with fact checking and some editing since she could get through an article quicker than even he could. They also decided she would do some writing. They weren't sure what yet, but if something came up that she was interested in writing about, Mitchum told her to write it up and they would see if there was space for it.
"Please tell me you didn't cook breakfast?" Dean asked coming out of the bedroom and pouring himself a cup of coffee.
"There's decaf in that cup on the counter for Lindsay," Rory told him, setting down the paper she was reading, "And no I didn't cook breakfast. I got the food and the coffee for Lindsay from this little cafe down the street."
"Thanks," he said, taking his cup and Lindsay's into the bedroom to wake her up, "We'll be out in a minute."
"Mmm, something smells good," Lindsay said as she came into the kitchen.
"Have a seat and I'll fix you a plate," Dean told her, kissing her cheek before grabbing the plates Rory laid out for them and filling one of them up with eggs, bacon, and pancakes.
"Okay, I know I'm eating for two now, but I'm not a Gilmore," Lindsay said with a laugh as Dean set a plate down in front of her filled with half of the contents from the togo containers.
"Well, just eat some of it then. You never know. You could be hungrier than you think," he told her, "Would it be okay if I grabbed a shower?"
"No problem," Rory told him, "There's towels in the cabinet in the bathroom."
"Thanks. I'll be quick," he told them, giving Lindsay another kiss before grabbing the bag of clothes he brought with him when he arrived and heading into the bathroom.
"So how are you doing?" Rory asked Lindsay once Dean had left the room.
"I feel a lot better now that he's here. Thank you for calling him," Lindsay said, "I slept better once he was next to me."
"Have you talked about anything yet?" Rory asked.
"No, he apologized for leaving last night and even kissed my stomach before we went back to sleep," Lindsay said, smiling at the memory.
"Aww, that's cute," Rory said.
"Yeah, but we still need to talk about everything. What we're going to do about work and school. Where we're going to live. We can't stay in the apartment," Lindsay said, "It's barely big enough for the two of us."
"Like I told Dean last night, you'll figure it out. You don't have to decide everything right now," Rory told her.
By the time Tristan arrived home that afternoon, Dean and Lindsay had already gone back to Stars Hollow. They considered waiting for Tristan to come home so they could offer him their thanks, but they wanted to be back in time for Lindsay to prepare dinner for their parents so they could tell them about Baby Forester. After breakfast they took a walk through the park near Rory and Tristan's apartment to talk about their fight and the baby. While they both still agreed they weren't entirely ready to be parents, they were excited by the idea of having a little version of the two of them and knew they had time to get themselves prepared and to learn how to be the best parents they could be.
The night before her first day at the paper, Tristan ordered one of everything from the Chinese place down the street that Rory loved.
"Are you excited for tomorrow?" he asked her.
"Yes, but I'm nervous, too. Mitchum has so much faith in me. I don't want to let him down," she told him.
"You'll do great. You just need to have a little more faith in yourself," Tristan said.
"Yeah, easier said than done," Rory said, "We can't all have your ego."
"True, but you're going to do amazing tomorrow. I know it," he said.
"How do you know it?" she asked.
"Because I know you. You can do anything," Tristan told her, "I believe in you."
"Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome," he said, giving her a kiss, "I love you, Mary."
"I love you, too, Bible Boy."
"So, you're ready for tomorrow?"
"I'm ready for anything!"
AN: Thank you, thank you, thank you! It was just a year ago that I first posted a chapter for Rory and Riley. It makes me so happy that you all like my take on Gilmore Girls as much as I do. The first chapter for the third story to this universe will be out this week and as I said before I am going to combine junior and senior year of Yale into the one story since there are several story lines of seasons six and seven that do not relate to the universe I have created. And just to give you a heads up, the third story will start with Thanksgiving, so basically the episode after Rory went back to Stars Hollow after moving out of the Gilmore's. I will write a bit of what happened in the months I'm skipping, though.