milliways_bar | (no subject)

Rory grins.

" Mom! Not much, classes this week were fun. I hate the first week, so hard to get back into gear. "

She smiles reassuringly at her daughter. They've had this conversation before.

"Awww. You'll do fine, Hon. You're the Catch-up Queen, remember?"

She notices the almost empty White Russian in front of her daughter and smirks. "Who'd you work over this time?"

She smiles smugly.

" Indy. "

She looks proud and nods eagerly. "That's my girl. Use the resources God gave you."

She sits down beside her daughter and sips her martini, before asking the Bar for a Mudslide Milkshake. She slides it over to her daughter. "Here. It's like a White Russian, but it has ice cream, which makes it better."

" Ice cream makes things infinitely better. "

She takes a sip and sigh yummingly.

" So what's been going on? "

And she means Indy and the lack of mentioning Luke's.

"Hmm, not much. Indy, you know. Inn's crazier than normal. Took care of Davey yesterday so Sookie and Jackson could go to the movies. Michel got chased across the lawn by one of the horses."

She laughs at the imagery in her head. "You should've seen him, Hon. He ran right into the lake to get away, but first he stopped to pull off his expenzive Italian loafehs. He was hopping around on one foot and the horse was slowly creeping up on him. Sookie took pictures."

She laughs at that being fully capable of picturing Michel in the lake with his shoes higher than his own head.

" Well, I guess I'll have to look at those when I see her. "

A sip fo the Mudslide.

" So why the not mentioning of anything remotely Luke around Indy?"

She looks startled for a moment there, but quickly covers it with feigned innocence. "Hmm? Oh, you know. He doesn't really know about Luke, and uh, I haven't seen Luke since we, uh, and ya know I just didn't want Indy to worry. . ."

She gulps some of her martini.

" You've been avoiding Luke's ? How can you do that? "

She looks genuinely surprised.

"Do you mean the diner or the man? Because it's very easy to avoid the diner. I just don't. Go. I, uh, go other places." She looks around the room pointedly. "And as for the man, that's pretty easy too, since he doesn't want to see me."

And what the hell would I say if I saw him anyway?

" But- you can't....mom."

She sputters then takes a sip of the drink.

" What exactly happened to make you avoid the place and the person owning said place that we have been going to nearly every day since you moved to Stars Hollow? "

She sighs and looks at her daughter. "Hon, it just didn't work out. And it didn't end on a good note. Luke probably hates me, and I'm sure he has very good reason to. And it would be more than a little inapporpiate for me to remain a patron at his establishment. Can't we just leave it at that?"

She sips her drink and then looks accusingly at Rory. "Have you seen Luke? I thought you got here through Luke's door."

" No, it shouldn't. You two have been friends a whole lot longer than you were dating. But I guess I really can't say anything."

She shakes her head at the question. " I did the first time, now it seems to be completely random though always after classes are over. And I've seen him but he's been the grumpy silent Luke he used to be. "

Lorelai looks very sad to hear this, but does a valiant job of trying to hide it. Still, for a moment she finds it hard to swallow.

"D-Do you try and talk to him?"

" Yeah, but not much ever really happens, he still gets me coffee and food. "

She shrugs, though inside she decides that maybe Luke would be the one to spill the beans to her about what happened.

Lorelai really should let this go since she isn't willing to offer up any more information. But, Rory's broached the Unspeakable Subject, and now she wants details.

"So, he's nice to you right? He's not being rude to you?"

" Of course, Luke's nice to me. Never any ruder than he ever has been. Gosh, mom, you make him sound like he'd gone over to the dark side. "

"I just want to make sure he's okay, and that he's not treating you differently just because we aren't speaking to each other."

She looks down at her hands. "He really loves you, you know." Us. "I don't want to take that away from you."

She smiles and nods.

" I know, and from the looks of things it hasn't changed anything. But you should probably do something about your end of that circle. "

The unspoken was 'because I know he loves you too, and he's been more sad than grumpy lately. '

"Hon, if it were that simple don't you think I'd have done it already?"

She has a lot of unspokens. I don't want him to hurt, I hate that I hurt him, but I can't see the look in his eyes, Now there's Indy, and I just don't know what to do. . .

" No, because that's how you work. And you need to do it. It's called closure, besides you can't keep gettting your coffee at the Al's Pancake house. Ick. "

Lorelai is just a bit irked at her daughter's prodding, and for one of the only times in Rory's life, she shows it. "Rory, what. Do. You. Want. Me. To. Do? There is nothing left for us to say. Maybe if we hadn't been friends before we could manage it now, but you can't go back to that, and you above all others should know that."

She takes an angry sip of her drink, and now she's angry at herself for saying those things to her daughter.

Speechless...because, well, her mom was right.

She shakes her head to dispel the tears welling up in her eyes. "I'm sorry." She sighs and rests her forehead on her hands.

" No one ever does, Mom. We just can't help being human I guess."