FEELING HIS ARMS AROUND HER IS COMFORTING, it always has been. it’s the one place she always feels safe —– even right now. lorelai finds herself wanting to stay here for as long as possible. she knows there’s something not right with their son, and it’s terrifying. she isn’t sure she’s really slept at all the last week —– she never slept when rory was sick, either, and she’d almost always ended up in a chair in her daughter’s room, keeping a watchful eye. with liam it was no different, despite any protests from her husband or son, she’s spent the majority of the last several days curled up in the chair that sits in liam’s room. she even has a seemingly eternal stiff neck to prove it. maybe lorelai’s getting too old for such things, but she can’t just stop. especially now, with the knowledge that there’s really something wrong ( even though they don’t know what it is ). her hands clutch at the back of luke’s shirt as her arms wrap around him. lorelai allows herself a singular shaky breath as her forehead rests against her husband’s shoulder. for this one moment, everything is simultaneously fine and horribly wrong, regardless of how hard she’s trying to focus on the positive. before she knows it, their moment alone is over, and she’s grasping luke’s hand as tightly as she dares. after only a brief pause, she nods firmly, “yeah, he, uh —– he really seemed to brighten up when i told him i was going to get you. we shouldn’t keep him waiting,”
“WHERE IS HE?” luke needs to see his son. he needs to hold his boy, to listen to him call him daddy again, to hear the words i love you fall from his lips again. luke leans into lorelai, presses a kiss to her temple. he remembers when paul anka got sick and cried about how terrible of a mother she was. liam being sick has nothing to do with either of their parenting styles. liam being sick is just a terrible thing that has happened. luke doesn’t quite know how to handle it. he can’t handle watching lorelai suffer, or liam. neither of them deserve to be in this place where they don’t know what’s going on.
THE DRIVE SEEMS TO TAKE YEARS, her hands set firmly on the steering wheel, music playing as loud as she dares in an attempt at distraction. she can’t think about what she’ll find when she arrives. she’ll worry about that once she gets there. for now she just has to drive. the temptation to allow her gaze to shift once she pulls onto the street is almost too much, but she manages to park and exit the jeep before she takes a look. so —— clearly not a small fire. everything’s dark, and charred. people are crowded at a far enough distance that it’s clear they’re trying to make it feel like they aren’t prying, though they obviously are. but lorelai pays no attention to them, her eyes move directly from the remains of the diner, to the nosy neighbors ( as if it’s all that hard to tell what’s happened ), and finally drift to her husband. she begins to walk, slowly as to hopefully maintain some composure ( she has to be strong, as scary as this is —— as RATTLING as this is —— she has to be strong for LUKE ). finally, she sits beside him on the curb, immediately wrapping both arms around him. “i’m here,” she mutters under her breath, unsure what else to say. “i’m here, i love you,” all the comforting words she’d tried to prepare on the drive over are gone. what is there to say? what can she say that’ll help at all? it’s not the time for jokes, or silliness. no, this is SERIOUS, and it’s clearly painful for him ( why wouldn’t it be? ), and in a rare turn of events, lorelai is left nearly speechless.
HE FEELS HER ARMS AROUND HIM AND HE FALLS INTO HER, his head coming to rest against her chest. she’s the only thing that feels real and stable. he’s aware of the town staring, a few of them were inside when the fire started. luke wishes he had enough energy to yell, to scream, to be the grumpy diner owner they’re all expecting, but he CAN’T. “i’ve disappointed him.” it’s the first words he’s spoken since rushing everyone out. he hasn’t had the chance to talk to the police or fire chief yet. everyone is distancing themselves from him and luke is grateful to not have to answer questions. “and you. our baby isn’t born yet and i’ve already disappointed it.”
SHE CONTINUES TAKING DEEP BREATHS, reminding herself over and over that they don’t know anything yet —– for right now things are mostly okay. for all she knows, they might not actually be, but until they know for sure, the only way she knows to survive is to be positive. now that luke’s here, though, it seems harder. it seems real. there’s something wrong with their kid, and they don’t know what it is, and she’s scared out of her mind. still, lorelai forces herself to smile as he speaks, “i know that. i know —– i just…. having you here is probably the only thing holding me together right now,” another deep breath. there’s no way either of them could be doing this alone. having somebody else, somebody like luke by her side makes parenting so much easier. especially in moments like these. “good idea, yeah. better to keep things to ourselves for as long as we can,” which won’t be long with a community as tight-knit and gossip-driven as stars hollow, “we don’t know anything, it’ll be a nightmare the second anyone finds out,”
HE WRAPS HIS ARM AROUND his wife, pulling her close to him. he holds her for a moment, both of them quiet. he needs this moment with his wife, where they still believe everything is fine because soon they’re be known as the parents of a sick kid. luke lets out a small sigh, he’s always been rather pessimistic about life but right now, he’s trying to hold on to the hope that everything is going to be okay. “come on,” he states, letting lorelai go to take a hold of one of her hands. “let’s go see our boy.” he can’t say anything more, everything is fallingapart around them. their miracle little boy is sick, very sick. they are unaware of how sick but luke doesn’t have a good feeling about this. “i need to see him before we get any news.”
IT WAS ALMOST FUNNY TO THINK THAT SHE’D BEEN SCARED. that she’d thought that too much time had passed since rory had been little —– that there was no way she could do this. but now? standing here? she’s never felt so much CONFIDENCE. she can do this. they can do this. that’s not to say it won’t be hard, but at least she’s not a seventeen-year-old single mom this time. this time she has luke, and she has rory. hell, she’s got an entire TOWN who loves her little family, and lorelai knows that all of them will do whatever they have to to ensure this little boy grows up knowing how much he’s adored. there’s nothing more a parent can ask for than that, and she has so much more. the citizens of stars hollow, her daughter, a semi-stable relationship with her mother, and luke. she’s lucky every day to have luke, but especially now —– especially realizing that her son (THEIR son ) is going to have a reliable father. it had always been a BLESSING having luke around to help with rory, maybe one that lorelai had taken for granted sometimes, but now? now she gets to see him be a father to his own kid. she gets to see him be a father all day every day, and the thought is enough to widen the smile on her face.
there’s nothing more comforting than his arms around her, no feeling more safe. and she KNOWS that they’re going to be just fine. their son is going to be just fine. no —– it’s like she just said: he’s already perfect. she can just tell ( with only a little maternal bias involved ). little liam. he’s all THEIRS. they get to hold him, and love him, and take care of him. no one has ever been more lucky than lorelai is right now. tears spring to her eyes as she begins to fully wrap her head around how BEAUTIFUL this moment is. gaze shifts to once more lock on their son, and she laughs a little at her husband’s comment, “and his DAD,” she amends softly, as if there’s a sort of reverence to this moment, and it has to be maintained. “i’m pretty sure i’m the luckiest woman in the whole world,”
THERE’S NO ONE ELSE IN THIS WORLD he would want to have a child with. sure, he has a daughter with anna, but it’s not the same. when he was younger, and his father had just passed away, he thought that he was in love with her. hell, he almost proposed to her, but the moment he laid eyes on lorelai- everything changed. he had been terrified once when realised that he was in love with her, so brokenhearted when it came to both of their breakups, but now they’re here. they’re close to celebrating their two year anniversary and they have the most perfect little boy who is all THEIRS.
HE HAD BEEN SOscared when lorelai him that they were having a baby. luke’s never done this whole baby thing before. he likes to believe that he has the parenting a teenager down, especially being there throughout both rory and april’s teenage years, but a baby is a entirely new thing. he knows now that he would do anything to make his boy happy, he’ll do anything to make his family smile.
LUKE TABLE-FOR-ONE DANES has a family now. something he hasn’t had since 1989, since his father passed away. it was some sort of magic, some houdini act that he was given the chance to have such a beautiful wife, a nearly perfect step-daughter ( and step-granddaughter ), an einstein-level smart daughter and the most handsome son he could have ever asked for.
HE PRESSES A KISS to the side of his wife’s head as he stares at the bundle of blue sleeping peacefully. “i’m so lucky to go on this adventure with you.” he tightens his arm that’s around her waist, his cheek coming to rest on the side of her head but his eyes never leave their son. “thank you.”
“YEAH YOU ARE,” her own excitement was almost too much to handle, but something about the look on luke’s face made it so much more. it was like her own feelings had been partially obscured by clouds, but sharing with luke, seeing his reaction —– it was like the clouds had parted to show how MAGNIFICENT everything really was. as was true with her whole life since she’d met him, luke was like her SUN. everything was so much better when he was around. and when luke was happy? god, it was infectious. her cheeks hurt from smiling as she nodded. “luke, we’re gonna have a kid,”
“A KID. OUR KID!”the feeling that overwhelms luke at this very moment is something indescribable. they’re having a baby, something that they have been working towards for the past year. lorelai is pregnant, with their baby, and the look on her face causes him to perk up even more. they both already have a daughter, they’ve done the kid thing before; even if luke missed the first twelve years of april’s life, but sharing a kid with lorelai. a cute baby with sparklingly blue eyes and tuffs of brown hair, a kid who will call him ‘dada’ and ‘daddy’, a kid he can throw a ball with and teach how to ride a bike. he gets to be there for all the things he missed with april.“are… are you sure? how far long are you?”
[ text → backwards baseball hat man ] i’ll come find you [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] he’s okay on his own for a minute
she slips her phone back into her pocket, her free hand had held to liam’s almost constantly since they’d left home. now, she stands, one hand still gripping his while the other sits gently atop his head. a smile slides across her lips, her voice quiet as she speaks, “i’m gonna go grab your dad, bud, be right back,” and he nods, actually smiling ( a genuine smile, unlike hers which is so forced she can barely maintain it ). hesitantly, she releases his hand, glancing back over her shoulder to give him a thumbs up as she heads into the hallway. with a deep breath, lorelai reminds herself that she needs to keep her cool. they don’t know anything yet, and losing her composure will only scare liam. he doesn’t need that. head swivels as she looks in all directions for any sign of luke, spotting him heading toward her. she closes the gap between them, speaking as soon as they’re close enough to each other. “the nurse says the doctor’s coming in as soon as he talks to liam’s regular doctor, for —– medical history, or something. he’s been pretty quiet since we got here, but he seemed to perk up a little when i told him you were here. god, i’m so glad you’re here,”
he’s phone disappears into his pocket the moment he sees his wife. his heart is r a c i n g and all he wants to do is wrap his little boy up in his arms and tell him that everything is going to be OKAY, but luke can’t do that. luke doesn’t know that it’s going to be okay. luke doesn’t know if he’s only child is going to live through the week. the very thought of losing liam, luke can’t bare it. he reaches lorelai, presses a soft kiss to the side of her head. “ there’s nothing more important to me than you && liam, you know that. ceaser has the diner under control. i didn’t tell him anything though. once we tell people, it’ll be like a circus in this waiting room. ”
[ text → backwards baseball hat man ] okay [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] i’m as outwardly calm as i could possibly be right now [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] he seems pretty relaxed all things considered [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] i told him. you can tell him yourself when you see him. [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] i love you, too [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] so much
[ text → coffee addict ] i’m pulling into the parking lot now [ text → coffee addict ] are you here [ text → coffee addict ] i need to see him [ text → coffee addict ] i’m walking in
[ text → backwards baseball hat man ] me too, luke [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] how long will it take you to get there? [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] we’re like ten minutes out [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] i’m freaking out i need you
[ text → coffee addict ] i’ll be there in fifteen [ text → coffee addict ] i just left the diner [ text → coffee addict ] just, don’t freak liam out [ text → coffee addict ] i’m sure he just as scared as we are [ text → coffee addict ] please tell him that i love him [ text → coffee addict ] i need you too [ text → coffee addict ] i love you
[ text → backwards baseball hat man ] i don’t know. i mean, he’s been sick for a couple weeks. maybe i’m overreacting. [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] but he seemed more like himself this morning. [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] then he took a nap and when he woke up he seemed so much worse [ text → backwards baseball hat man ]
i just got this gut feeling that i needed to do something. [ text → backwards baseball hat man ]
maybe i’m freaking out over nothing. [ text → backwards baseball hat man ] i just didn’t know what else to do. rory was never this sick.
[ text → coffee addict ] i know that he’s been off lately, but i didn’t think it was that bad [ text → coffee addict ] come to think of it, he’s been throwing up a lot lately [ text → coffee addict ] and he seems paler than usual [ text → coffee addict ] … [ text → coffee addict ] lorelai [ text → coffee addict ] i’m scared.
“YOU CAN COME WITH ME YOU KNOW,” eyebrows rise as she glances in his direction, “get something boring todrink like….. water,” she shrugs. “it’s not like we’re in any real rush to finish. we’re out of snacks anyway, so if you want any say at all in what i bring back, you probably need to come. if you don’t it’s just gonna be poptarts and anything else i can scrounge up, and we both know how you feel about my eating habits,”
“YOU ARE NOT GETTING OUR SONaddicted to your sugar && caffeine habits! is it healthy to be drinking coffee this far into pregnancy? i read somewhere that CAFFEINE isn’t good for the baby. maybe that’s why he’s moving so much. he does get everything you eat.”
