441A/N: This is one of the wacked out ideas that just occurred to me a couple of days ago. I don't have a plot planned out per se - I just know where I want to get, and I have lots of ideas for fun and hi-jinks along the way. I hope you'll enjoy the journey, and forgive me if I get too carried away. Some knowledge of Back to the Future might help here, but is not essential. The Delorean is just a story device.
Cheers!
~VC
Chapter 1: Driving Into the Unknown
"Idiot. Idiot. Idiot." Rory strode briskly to her car. "Stupid, moronic, juvenile delinquent." She wrenched open the car door, whacking her shin in the process and letting out a yelp. "Spoiled, ass-faced, miscreant. Ungrateful felonious wench."
Dropping into the car seat she finally ran out of words and stared blankly though the window in front of her. Her shin was throbbing but she wasn't going to let herself cry. Not yet.
She tried to make her mind blank, blocking out all her memories of the day so far. She put the gear stick into drive and started her car for Stars Hollow. What she was going to do when she got there, she had no idea. The idea of speaking to her mom was one of those that she was trying to blank from her mind. She wasn't succeeding. Neither could she stop herself from thinking of the inevitable conversation with her grandparents; the look of disappointment that she'd see on Luke's face; the pitiful side-ways glances from the rest of the town; Lane's best-friend-motivational-speech...
"God damn it!" Rory suddenly yelled, slamming her hand on the steering wheel. The car did not respond and Rory really got the feeling then that silence was deafening. Because in the silence, she could hear those words still echoing in her stupid, felonious brain.
"I'm very sorry Miss Gilmore. Your resume is certainly impressive and your work does reflect considerable talent, but unfortunately at this time we are unable to offer you the position in light of your police record."
It had been CNN. An opportunity to work as an Assistant on the Foreign Desk and make all her dreams come true.
It wasn't going to happen now.
Rory shook her head and growled, as if trying to shake the thoughts from her mind. She couldn't break down here. "Suck it up Gilmore. You made your bed, now climb in it and deal with the god damn lumps."
But it wasn't that easy. Sure, she'd made her metaphorical bed, but there had been a whole town of people invested in it. The sacrifices of her mother, over the years; the financial support of her grandparents; the emotional support of the town... She hadn't just ruined her own dreams. She was going to disappoint so many other people.
"Stupid Mitchum and stupid Logan and ugggh!" she ranted, although she knew that she really only had herself to blame. It had been at her urging that Logan had stolen the yacht. Of course, she could never have done it herself, but in no replaying of the scenario could she ever really turn it into Logan's fault.
No. It was her screw up. Rory Gilmore never did things by halves. She excelled in everything she did. Unfortunately, that meant she also excelled at falling off her pedestal.
"You're gonna be an overseas correspondent?"
"Yes I am."
She'd been so certain. She'd had the plan and no one had ever doubted her.
Even Jess, who had never seemed to believe in anything, had believed in her.
"I'm sure you'll do it. You will, I promise. I'll help you practice, okay? Tomorrow, you'll stand in the middle of the street and I will drive straight at you screaming in a foreign language."
Now why the hell was she remembering that now? "I should have held him to that," she muttered dryly to herself. What if she had gone to Jess that night, four years ago, instead of to Logan and the yacht and jail? Would he have slapped some sense into her? Maybe she wouldn't have even dropped out of Yale for all those months.
"Holy crap!" Rory slammed on the brakes suddenly as the road seemed to lurch beneath her car and a flash of lightening split the world in front of her. Her Prius slipped to a screeching halt and the back end slid out a little. Her fingers clenched tightly around the wheel as she craned her head forward, watching out the window. A hundred yards in front of her, another car had appeared, seemingly from nowhere, as if it had been created by the lightening itself.
"A Delorean," Rory mumbled, momentarily distracted from her problems. Rory Gilmore was not a car person - she couldn't tell a Toyota from a BMW or a Porsche from a Volvo, but she did know her movies. Many hours had been spent with her mother, trying to find plot holes in The Back to the Future movies and contemplating ways to adapt the Jeep into a time machine. (And of course, the key element of that, Lorelai had insisted, would be to make the doors open upside down.)
Surprising herself, she giggled as the door of the car in front of her slid to a stop and did just that. Her giggles stopped however as a white-haired man stepped out, with a torn lab coat and wild eyes. "Doc Brown?" she mumbled, as the man looked around himself in apparent panic and then charged towards her car.
"You there! Girl! Open up!"
I'm going nuts, Rory thought dumbly, as she wound down her window.
"I need your car."
"Wha-"
"You can take mine," he gestured to the Delorean, "And do what you like with it. I never want to see it again." He was speaking very quickly, obviously agitated.
Rory just stared at him, still not entirely certain that she wasn't trapped in her own imagination.
Doc Brown continued, "It's a time machine. Very useful if you're not stupid," he paused for a breath. "I am stupid...So stupid!" This last was said as an afterthought, and Rory got the feeling he was berating himself, rather than talking to her.
"Doc Brown?" she finally found words. The Doctor looked at her in wide eyed anguish.
"Oh dear God no! You know me? You shouldn't know me! What have I done to my timeline?"
Rory was about to speak, but again, the Doctor continued. "Never mind. It's too late. I'm done. I can not get back in that car. I will not..." he looked at her, desperately. "Please will you take it?"
For about three seconds, Rory stared at him like a rabbit caught in headlights. Logically she knew it was ridiculous. Deloreans weren't really time machines; flux capacitors weren't real and this man couldn't be Doc Brown...and yet...if it were true...
I can stop myself from stealing the yacht... No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than she was pulling the keys from the ignition and stepping out of the car.
Doc Brown was looking at her like she was his saviour. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
He pressed a set of keys into her hand as she gave him hers. She looked at him, blinking furiously for a moment, as if to make certain that she was really doing this, then turned and raced down the road, towards the Delorean. As she climbed into the low slung seat she could see Doc Brown pacing around her car, studying it with interest. Somewhere in the back of her mind she realised that he'd probably never seen a Toyota Prius before.
Turning her attention back to the Delorean, she felt a crazy churn of excitement in her stomach as she looked at the dashboard. It was real! She could see all the extra knobs and gadgets that had been added to the car, to, supposedly, make it travel through time.
In the centre of the dash, there was a digital display with a date on it. Without taking notice of the date, she quickly cleared it and entered in May 5th, 2005. There was a beep as something inside the car registered it and she turned the key in the ignition, glad that the road ahead was clear. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the Doctor waving at her, but she ignored him, not wanting anything to talk her out of doing this...or trying this. If it didn't work and she was found to be completely crazy, she could just chalk it up to a post CNN-rejection breakdown.
Her foot hit the gas pedal hard and she felt suddenly very calm as the car lurched forwards, the speedometer climbing steadily. If the movies were to be believed, she needed to get the car to 88 miles an hour before it would time travel. 45...50...65...
"The date is a few years out!"
75...80... She finally heard Doc Brown's call as she careened passed him. 85...88...shit!
Another tremble shook the earth and more flashes of blue lightening crashed to the ground. Once the world had settled again, Rory Gilmore and the Delorean had disappeared.
"Mom, this is your final chance! I can't hold on any longer."
"Wait, wait, wait, fiendish daughter of mine!"
Rory Gilmore sighed dramatically and scowled up at the sight of her mother as she raced down the staircase. "Mom, your shirt is on backwards..."
Lorelai came to a jumpy halt, looking down at herself. "Drat." She started walking towards the door, threading her arms back out of her sleeves as she did so, so she could turn her top around.
"I don't know how you survived sixteen years without me," Rory muttered as she hoisted her school bag onto her back and followed her mother out the door.
Now properly dressed, Lorelai pressed her hand to her heart and pretended to swoon. "I didn't. I did not live, until you were in my life. I knew nothing of the world, until I had you."
As the pair started walking towards the town centre and Luke's Diner, Rory narrowed her eyes at her mom and commented wryly, "You knew enough of the world to create me."
"Ooh! Low blow!"
Rory smirked. "You made me wait twenty minutes for you to change your outfit this morning. That's twenty minutes of coffee time, wasted!"
This time it was Lorelai's turn to narrow her eyes and smirk. "What you really mean is: twenty minutes of boyfriend ogling time, wasted!"
Stuck for a response, Rory just poked her tongue out at her mother and increased her pace.
As they turned the corner and moved off their street, neither of them noticed the Delorean pull into their driveway.
"Ouch!" Rory leaned forward in the car seat, rubbing her shin. Though she hadn't been paying much attention to the pain when it had started, she was certainly aware of it now. Damn car door. She rolled up the leg of her pantsuit and grimaced at the already purple bruise that was forming. "That's one for the photo album."
A quick trek to Yale had convinced that she was definitely in the wrong year. She just wasn't sure how far out she was. She popped open the door of the Delorean, still amused at the way it opened upwards. 'Harder for that door to kick you in the shins when you're feeling down,' she muttered as she climbed out of the car. "Ow, fu-" she jammed her hand into her mouth, biting down on it. At this moment, putting weight on her left leg was decidedly agonising. Leaning back against the car, she took a look at the house in front of her. It was weird. She'd been in Stars Hollow and at her house only a few days ago. But the house she was staring at now she hadn't seen in...well, probably a number of years. 'But what year is it?' She surveyed the windows and the upstairs. It was before the renovations had been done, that was for certain. Her mom's Jeep was in the driveway though, so that narrowed it down a little.
Limping slowly she made her way up the steps towards the front door and lifted up the stone turtle, smiling as she found the key. "So predictable."
Once inside the house she grinned as she saw all the familiar clutter of her high school years. The monkey lamp, her mother's dress maker doll, the wonderfully uncomfortable couch...it felt like coming home to a forgotten world. In the present day, Lorelai's house had become Luke's home too, and while Rory didn't begrudge him moving in, a lot had changed over the years.
"Probably a good job she got rid of all this stuff," she said to herself, wandering through the lounge room."'Paul Anka would have a field day in here."
She made her way over to her bedroom, strangely moved to see Colonel Cluckers still sitting on her bed, just where she'd left him in 2009. Some things never change. As she looked at her room now, the only real difference in it was the Harvard paraphernalia on the wall. "So that narrows it down some more."
Flopping down on her bed, she reached back to the bedside table and pulled open the drawer, grabbing a packet of Advil. She took two tablets and swallowed them down, hoping they'd help ease the pain in her leg. Returning the Advil to the drawer she began scanning her room further, looking for evidence of the date and cursing her mother for her anti-calendar habits. Apparently keeping a calendar was a depressing tradition, as it meant watching the days tick by, one by one, bringing you closer and closer to what Lorelai called 'The Last Hurrah.'
"Not that that ever stopped me," Rory muttered, pulling open her desk drawer and searching for her planner. It wasn't there. "Damn. Must have taken it to school."
School! She used her hands to push her weight up on her desk and hopped over to her wardrobe. Chilton uniforms! Bingo. "So I'm somewhere in my last three years of high school, before I chose Yale..." She rolled her eyes. "Stupid Dr. Brown and his stupid clock - ooh! The chupah!" Limping quickly, she walked back outside to check the front garden. The chupah was there, narrowing it down to an eighteen month period.
"So do I change stuff now?" Rory pondered out loud as she made her way back to the Delorean. "I was going to stop the yacht incident, but maybe if I do something now..." I could stop Jess leaving me...
The thought popped into her head from nowhere. Or somewhere unbidden, at least. Jess? Is that what she wanted?
"I might not even be dating Jess yet. I could still be with Dean...ugh." She shuddered involuntarily at the thought of Dean. After her Yachting Felony and the Associated Mess, her last relationship with Dean was her biggest regret. Sleeping with him at all had been an incredibly stupid thing, but to then date him again?! Completely idiotic.
But would she be able to fix her relationship with Jess from this point? Would fixing it help in the long run?
She was about to pull out of the driveway when it suddenly occurred to her that a Delorean would probably attract a bit of attention in Stars Hollow. Kirk would most certainly want to make a big deal about it. And if what she'd seen in the movies was right, it wouldn't be a good idea for her to really interact with anyone who might recognise her.
"Okay. Stash the car and travel incognito," she murmured, turning the car away from the town centre. Struck by a sudden idea she headed for the Independence Inn, confident that there was plenty of wilderness around there in which she could conceal the car. For a short while at least...
"See, I knew you were just going to make kissy faces all morning."
"Mom, we weren't making kissy faces!" Rory grumbled at her mother as she swung her backpack onto her shoulders, a little more aggressively than she had intended, successfully swiping Lorelai in the process.
"Woah, hold it, Bag Lady! That thing is dangerous."
"Sorry," Rory offered, meekly.
"Okay. Love you kid. I'll see you tonight."
"You might; if Paris hasn't flayed me alive."
Lorelai smiled as she started backing away from her daughter. "If she tries anything, just slug her with your bag."
Rory smiled back and waved to her mom as she climbed onto the bus.
Lorelai turned and headed towards the Independence Inn. Time to start work.
Rory was definitely starting to regret her decision to ditch the Delorean. Limping towards town was proving to be a very slow and arduous journey. She had just stopped for what seemed like the hundredth time, to lean against a tree, when she saw a figure approaching. "Mom!"
For a second her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. Somehow she knew instinctively that Lorelai could not be allowed to see her. Space time continuum and all that jazz. She pressed herself against the tree and slid around so that she was facing away from her.
"Michel, I've told you, we can't introduce a screening process and no, you can't ban children. Look, I'll be there in ten minutes, just tell the kids to play outside."
Rory peeked cautiously around the tree, watching as her mother strode by, talking on her cell phone. She looked at her hair, hoping to be able to place the style to a time frame, but honestly, most of the time Lorelai's hair changed with her moods, rather than a particular fashion trend. It was impossible to pin it down.
Once her mother had gone, Rory set off, back on her trip to the town square. She was only a street away when she realised that she'd almost certainly be recognised. Sure, she was a few years older than the Rory in this time, but she didn't think she'd really changed that much. "Great. Now I need a disguise...how?"
Twenty minutes later, Rory slipped out of Miss Patty's studio wearing a wig of dark hair in a chin length bob and some ridiculously huge sunglasses. The hair was horribly Katie Holmes-ish and the glasses were exactly the kind that Paris Hilton would love and Rory would usually mock, but together, they seemed to do a good job of hiding her face.
Feeling much more confident now, Rory stood in the town square, trying to plan her next move. She could see kids milling about outside the high school and on a whim, turned that way.
"Hey, Lane! What class do we have next?"
"English, Sarah. When are you going to memorise your timetable?"
"I'm trying! But it's so hard..."
Rory watched with some amusement as she saw her best friend throw her hands up in frustration and charge into the school, ranting something about incompetent bimbos. After a moment's hesitation, she followed her.
Okay, I'm not going to blend in here... For a split second she'd thought about passing herself off as a student, but when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a window and remembered the CNN interview suit she was wearing, she realised that was never going to happen. I look so old and grown up, she thought, slightly surprised. And ridiculous, she added, fingering her glasses.
She'd reached the door to Lane's English class and was hovering awkwardly in the hallway when she felt a hand on her arm.
"Miss? Can I help you?"
She turned to find herself facing her old Principal, Mr Merton. "Oh, sorry, I was looking for, um..." she fumbled around in her purse as if she was looking for something, when in reality, she was just trying to find something to say.
"Oh, are you the relief teacher?' Principal Merton jumped in, looking relieved.
Rory snapped her head up in surprise. "Oh...yes. That's me."
"Thank God. I thought I was going to have to teach this class myself. The agency said they couldn't find anyone."
"Ah, well, they did. They found me. Little old me. I was just...late..."
Principal Merton nodded, not really listening. "Well this is the class we need you to teach. You'll be subbing for our English Lit teacher. If you have any problems, my office is down the hall on the left."
"Okay, thanks. I'm sure I'll be fine." Rory suddenly found herself slipping into this role very easily.
"Well thanks again. You're my hero, Miss...uh?"
"Gil-...McFly," Rory quickly recovered, but then bit her own tongue, cursing herself for using that name. McFly? Really?! Why not strap on a big sign that says Hi! I'm Back from the Future!?
The principal didn't seem to notice though. "All right Miss McFly. I'll see you later."
Once he'd gone, Rory took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves, before walking into the classroom. It didn't really work...she walked in anyway.
She spotted Lane as soon as she entered the room and then gradually recognised a few of the other faces. She'd gone to school with these kids for most of her life, but most of them seemed completely alien to her now.
Turning to the side of the classroom she felt her stomach churn as she saw Dean hunched over his desk, scribbling on a notepad. Of course, he just had to be in this class. She watched him for a moment, wondering, weirdly, if she was dating him now.
The class seemed to be settling down a little and Rory placed her bag on the teacher's desk before stepping to the front of the blackboard. Suddenly she remembered her stupid glasses, but knew that no matter what, she could not take them off. Lane and Dean at least would recognise her for sure.
"Morning class..." she started, trying to sound brave. She introduced herself, again as Miss McFly. As expected, this drew a few snickers from some of the students, Lane included, which she found quite amusing. Dean looked blank. Yeah, figures. He was never one for the awesome classics. She apologised for her sunglasses, telling them that she'd recently had eye surgery and was very light sensitive. Again, there were more snickers as a couple of the guys made crude suggestions about alcohol abuse.
Choosing to ignore them she quickly figured out what they were working on and after a few minutes discussion, assigned the class some reading.
Ten minutes later, things seemed to be settled and everything was going smoothly. Rory's only complaint was that whichever teacher normally used this room, they hadn't bothered to put a date on the blackboard. She sat at the desk, trying to flip nonchalantly through the teacher's paperwork when the door opened.
Great. Stop the presses everyone: James Dean has entered the building. Jess Mariano has arrived.