441Chapter 21: Crazy
As the morning coffee brewed in the Gilmores' kitchen Lorelai stared at her toes. The fourth one on her right foot was growing at a peculiar angle; she was sure of it.
'Rory?'
There was no response from her daughter's room. Teenagers could be so lazy. She scowled and tried to lift her foot closer to her face, but to no avail.
'Daughter? Wake up! Mommy needs you!' Right foot still elevated, she hopped awkwardly to Rory's bedroom door, her gaze fixed on that rebel toe. Leaning heavily on the door as she opened it, she more or less fell into the bedroom, causing the lump on the bed to stir just a little. Seconds later, as she collapsed on top of the lump, Rory's bleary eyed face emerged from the covers.
'Rory? Number one: I need to you to check my toe, and B: I may need you to amputate it.'
'Mom?'
'Yes, I am.'
Rory groaned and tried to curl back into her blankets, but Lorelai was persistent. 'I was making coffee, and something caught my eye. Well at first I thought it was Archibald or Reginald - I briefly considered Wesley until I remembered that I'd killed him last week – so I look down ready to-'
'Archibald? Regi- what are you talking about?'
'You don't remember Arch and Regie? Wow. They're going to be so devastated. They were our best cockroach friends last week.'
'Joe's Apartment. Ugh.' Again, Rory tried to lose herself inside her quilt.
'Yes, after we watched Joe's Apartment,' Lorelai confirmed. 'Anyway, back to the story – there were no cockroaches. No rats either. Turns out, the thing that caught my eye was my toe.' She raised her foot, holding it towards the place she assumed Rory's head was buried. 'It's sticking out from the others! It's gone rogue. Look!'
Abandoning all hope of getting back to sleep, Rory flung her covers back and sat upright, her face glowering at Lorelai as she stumbled off the bed and stood awkwardly on one leg.
'See?'
Rory gave a cursory glance to her mother's wayward toe. 'Wow. Yep. I see it. I don't know what you're going to do now. You'll have to break up with Luke.'
'I told you! There's this- What? Luke?'
Rory climbed out of bed and began hunting for an outfit as she spoke. 'Well if you have any pride or modicum of self-respect, you can't let anyone see that! Ever!'
Lorelai scowled. 'You're exaggerating. It's not that bad. It's just a toe!'
'Is it though? Is it really just a toe? Is just a toe important enough to wake up your only and favourite daughter for at-' Rory paused as she checked her watch, 'seven thirty on a Sunday, so that she only gets five hours sleep? Is just a toe worth-'
This time Rory's speech halted when she saw her mother's face. Realising what she'd said she winced.
Lorelai's tone was curious. 'Rory?'
'Mom?' Rory said nervously.
'Why did you only get five hours sleep?'
'Because you and your freak toe just woke me up…' She was trying to make her tone light, but failing miserably. The dressing table faced away from her mother. That was an excellent place to stand. She could absolutely brush her hair without arousing suspicion.
'I thought you were asleep when I came in last night.'
She grabbed her hairbrush and set to work. 'Nope.'
'Your room was dark.'
It suddenly dawned on Rory that her ploy was idiotic. Her dressing table had a mirror, and her mother was currently staring (glaring?) at her reflection. She couldn't lie. 'Well I…wasn't in it.'
'Where were you?' Lorelai's tone was soft.
Rory abandoned her hair brush and turned towards her mother. She dropped her gaze to her feet, wishing she found her toes as interesting as her mother found hers. 'I was…with Jess.' She couldn't lift her head. Her cheeks were burning red, and she wasn't ready to see whatever expression was currently on Lorelai's face.
She was taken by surprise therefore when she her mom appeared in front of her and wrapped her arms around her in a gentle hug, before placing a kiss on her forehead.
'Get dressed, Lazy Bones. We need proper coffee. And I need to warn Luke about my imperfect toe.'
'Luke doesn't serve sidewalk loiterers.'
Rory jumped and turned to face the voice. 'Kirk?'
'You've been standing here for more than forty seconds. I figure you're either interested in the glasswork or you're trying to lip read.'
Rory had to admit that Kirk wasn't far from the truth – well, not the part about glasswork – but she had been trying to get a sense of the conversations in the diner.
Her and her mom were currently sat at the bar, and both seemed to be flirting quite openly with their respective paramours. Lorelai was gesturing to her feet a great deal, causing Luke to shake his head in exaggerated exasperation. Herself and Jess were looking especially dreamy eyed – why did that hurt her so much?
'Gypsy wants slippers for Christmas.'
'What?'
Kirk looked at Rory seriously. 'I thought I'd help you with the lip-reading.'
'I'm not lip-reading, Kirk. I'm just…trying to decide what I want to eat. And where I want to eat.'
Kirk looked skeptical. 'When I was a small child, East Side Tilly said that to me once. I was young. I believed her.'
Rory's brow furrowed as she tried to figure out where Kirk was going with this.
'I'm not young anymore.'
Ah. That's where he was going. 'Goodbye, Kirk.' She turned away from Luke's and started walking towards Weston's.
'Morning, Miss McFly.' Kirk waved happily and headed off in the other direction as if nothing had happened.
Neither noticed that from inside the diner, Jess was watching Ms McFly walk away.
'Poor Paris.'
'Poor Paris,' Rory echoed flatly as her mom drove them back to Stars Hollow after the Chilton Bicentennial.
'See, I told you sex makes you crazy.'
'No it doesn't! And no you didn't!'
Lorelai ignored Rory's response. 'Makes you completely insane. Don't know how that explains Kirk, since I assume he's never had sex, but it's definitely true for the rest of the world. God, I hope Kirk's never- What if he reproduced?'
'And now I'm picturing mini-Kirks. They're Oompa Lumpas, but they all look like Kirk, and they work at all the shops in town, all the time. Ooh! You could hire one to clean the chimneys at the Inn!'
Lorelai laughed with some embarrassment. 'Um, we actually use big Kirk for that.'
As Rory shook her head with a smirk, her mother returned to the original conversation. 'Poor Paris. Poor, crazy Paris. I guess on the plus side, this means you won't have to worry about her getting in your way at Harvard.'
'She's not that bad, Mom. She's crazy, yes…but…and hey, I haven't been accepted yet either. There could be a small envelope waiting for me when we get home.'
'No there couldn't be. You're too fabulous, kid.'
'Yes. I'm fabulous and on academic probation.'
'Harvard don't know about that.'
'Harvard know everything!'
'Do they know about my toe? Do they know about Kirk and his army of Oompa Lumpas?'
'Almost everything.'
As Lorelai turned the jeep into the drive, both Gilmores looked towards the mailbox.
'Shall we?'
'I'm wearing shoes.'
'Good girl. I'm taking that as a sign.'
Moments later as they stood in front of the mailbox, Rory wanted to stop. She wasn't ready to find out. She was too young to have her life ruined just yet! Dear Miss Gilmore, We regret to inform you that given your recent sexy time spent with one town hoodlum, Harvard is unable to-'
Okay, that wasn't likely. She was beginning to think like Paris; the crazier Paris. Huh. Maybe sex really did make-
'Hun?'
'Hm?' Rory returned to reality to see her mother holding one big envelope, while pulling two others from the mailbox.
'I think you've got some decisions to make!'
'Oh my god!' For the second time in less than a week, Rory leapt from her bed with a start; but this time rather than hiding from amorous teens walking by her window, she found herself choking on smoke and staring at a wall of orange flames through her window.
The Independence Inn was on fire. Shit! The Independence Inn was on fire!
How had she forgotten this? Too much time spent thinking about sex, probably. Sex always made people crazy.
Grabbing her coat, shoes and a blanket from her bed she hurried outside, trying not to breathe in the air. In the original fire the potting shed had been saved from the flames, but whether that would hold true the second time or not, it was possible to die from smoke inhalation in any timeline. As she hightailed it away from the blaze she could hear voices shouting, and the sirens of the fire engines on the road. I could have stopped this, she thought sadly. But saving the Independence might have stopped the Dragonfly. Maybe some things were better left as they were.
She clambered her way through the woods, back to the Delorean. 'Hello, car. It's me again.' She climbed inside, grateful that this time she'd brought a blanket, and snuggled down to sleep.
The town was madness. Even the bridge wasn't safe today. Jess groaned as he watched a family of Poes taking photographs of the swans. Remembering his own swan encounter he gave a dry snigger and mumbled under his breath, 'Don't get too close.'
So the diner, Weston's and the bridge were out. Jess started to regret coming home from work. He could have stayed at the office till later. Now he had nowhere to go.
'Hey!'
His face smiled involuntarily. Rory.
'Hey,' he echoed, as his girlfriend slipped her hand into his. She had a backpack over one shoulder.
'I thought I'd find you here.' She looked over at the bridge. 'Nowhere to hide, huh?'
He gazed down at her, a smirk on his features. 'We could always go to your potting shed.'
A warm glow spread across Rory's cheeks. 'Okay.'
Huh. He hadn't expected it to be that easy. Not that he was complaining. They turned towards the Inn, and Jess's thumb began rubbing small circles against Rory's hand as they walked.
'I was supposed to stay at Lane's tonight.'
'Was?'
'I told Mom I had another idea.'
'You told her…'
'Don't worry. She's fine. The shed didn't get touched by the fire.'
It took Jess a few seconds to process what was being said. He gaped once realisation dawned. 'You meant for us to go to the shed!'
Rory arched an eyebrow, a half smile cracking her face as she looked up at him. 'Is that a problem for you?'
'Hell no!'
'Good.'
Lorelai was homeless. She stood under Luke's window for ten minutes, weighing up the pros and cons of what she was about to do, but when it came down to it, she had no other choice. Sleeping in the gazebo was not an option.
Luke answered her plaintive calls quickly, and she had almost convinced herself that this would be totally fine as she climbed the stairs to his apartment.
'You're very noisy.' Luke opened the door to allow her in.
'That's what they're going to put on my tomb stone,' she chirped, dropping her small duffel bag by Luke's couch. 'But as you have saved me from an icy, frozen death tonight, that won't be for a long time yet.' She looked around surveying the apartment. 'No Jess?'
'No. He was here earlier but then he vanished again. Kid's doing better, but we might still have a few issues to work on.'
'Oh, well he won't be coming home.'
'What?'
'He, uh…He's with Rory.'
'What? You mean with with? Where? I'll go get him.'
Lorelai stepped towards Luke, resting her hands on his arms. 'Luke, it's okay. You don't have to go get him. They're fine.'
Luke took a deep breath, preparing for a rant, when he realised that Lorelai really was fine with the situation. She was even calm, which was pretty impressive for her.
'You're sure?'
'I'm sure.'
'Okay then.'
'Okay.'
She was looking at him. God, those eyes. He started to realize that this meant they were now alone for the night, with no teenagers to answer to and no townspeople to scrutinise them. His heart started to beat faster. Her hands were still on his arms and oh, god, those eyes…
He freed his arms from her grasp, wrapped them around her and kissed her fiercely.
This was really goddamn weird. She knew she should just leave now. She was a freak. A creepy freak. Walk away. But she couldn't. She was being insane. It wasn't normal.
Rory leaned her head back against the wall of the potting shed and shut her eyes. There really wasn't anything about her situation that was even close to normal in the first place. That fact was highlighted in that moment when she heard her own voice softly inform Jess that the tools in the potting shed had names.
'Well don't get any ideas about naming my tool!'
A shrill squeal cut through the night, and gradually turned into giggles after what sounded like playful wrestling.
And then he starts to kiss my neck, sucking on it a little more forcefully than he used to. His hands rub my shoulders, one moves down my back…a finger grazes my breast.
There was a soft moan inside the shed.
Slumped on the ground, tears filled Rory's eyes again, as she listened to herself and Jess go crazy. Why oh why hadn't this been her?
'That was quite good. I liked what you did there with my zipper.'
Jess chuckled as he shifted his head on Rory's stomach. 'Only quite good?'
'Well I don't want to inflate your ego. You're big enough as it is.'
Jess's eyes widened at this comment. Surely she meant his ego was big enou-
A snigger from Rory convinced Jess that Rory had meant exactly what she said. He grinned. 'You're getting very saucy Miss Gilmore.' He was about to sit up to look at her but her hand had found its way to his head and was playing gently with his hair. He changed his mind and relaxed again.
'Yep. I'm saucy. That's what your book has made me. The Chilton year book will say "Rory Gilmore: Most likely to have her mom committed and become a saucy dance teacher".'
Her voice was getting softer. He could tell she was drowsy. That was fine with him. He was feeling the same. He kissed her stomach and then closed his eyes. 'No. Your year book will say, "Rory Gilmore: Headed for Harvard, and CNN".'
Jess's stomach-pillow moved as Rory breathed deeply. 'I love you, Jess.'
'Love you too, Rory.'
Somewhere outside he thought he heard a noise like a strangled gasp – almost a sob – but he was so close to being asleep, how could he be sure?
'Okay, I know he dressed up like a pirate.'
'Space man.'
'Space man I can deal with.'
Lorelai craned her neck back to look at Luke. 'Wow – that was easy!'
Luke shrugged. 'You're going to figure it out, so I should probably just tell you right now; I have very little resistance to you when you're naked in my bed.'
The comment was met with an excitable grin. 'Really? So this is the time I should ask for you to dance a tango? And buy a puppy? Start a rock bank with me? We'll be called Loreluke…' Lorelai hesitated and wrinkled her nose in distaste. 'No, we'll be called Daughters of the American Rebels, because that will stress my parents out more. Ooh, I want you to install a Luke's in my kitchen at home. And one in the mall at Hartford, next to that cute new shoe store. And one at the Inn-' She broke off, remembering why she had wounded up at Luke's tonight.
Luke squeezed her hand, knowingly. 'What about calling us Dukes of the American Rebels?'
Lorelai smiled.
A/N: Another chapter?! Yes. It is.
Let me know if it was worth it :)
-VC