Title: Architecture of the Spirit
Rating: PG
Pairing: Lorelai/Christopher
Feedback: Hate it? Let me know: hitokamei@yahoo.co.uk
Disclaimer: Not mine. The show belongs to ASP and the WB. 'Westering Home' is a poem by Bernard O'Donoghue and belongs to him. All titles are taken from the poem.
Author's Note: Gilmore Girls Improv #15. For Miss Trix, which explains, you know, its existence.
*
When Lorelai sleeps, she sometimes slips into dreams, and it's always a wrench when she falls out of them, briefly waking to the unreality of her awkward limbs sliding over her cotton sheets before she disappears again.
In her dreams, the sheets are satin, an indulgence she purchases off Anna every Saturday afternoon. She can't afford silk— clothes and make-up are far more necessary than bed linen.
Sometimes she's alone in the bed, but more often she's not. She prefers it when she's not. She thinks of the strangest things when he's with her: a history teacher whose face she can't remember, the colour of her mother's nail polish, the cold stone of the front doorstep. And when things get hazy, and she can't focus on anything but the memory of a feeling, her head tilts back and she stares at the walls of her bedroom, at the sliver of wall to the left of the door, the curved corner where it meets the ceiling. It's shockingly vivid; it reminds her that this was real, and in that moment it's the most important thing in her world, that little curve of plaster, even while he's moving over her.
She always wakes up, then. And she knows they're dreams while she's walking them, but she chooses to do it anyway, and she can't tell herself it's not a choice even when she's awake.
*
The droplets ricocheted sharply off the ground; it looked like it should have stung to step outside, but the rain was a soft, seeping wetness. The rush of water echoed until it was bouncing off the walls in Lorelai's mind, pervasive, overwhelming, and she hovered in the doorway until Rory prodded her out.
They ran through the midnight blue of the morning, shaking themselves off as they climbed into the Jeep, and they'd been soaked to the skin in six seconds. It took two tries before the engine would turn over.
Chilton didn't, really, look anything like Lorelai remembered. She knew that not a particle of the place had changed, that every winter the leaves fell from the trees in pre-approved order, but she felt four feet taller, and the change in perspective was astonishing, made everything seem different. Still, she had yet to rid herself of the ghosts that inhabited her bones every time she traced her steps back. You weren't supposed to do that, and the double vision was dizzying.
Rory ran up the steps happily, eager to get in some time at the newspaper before classes started. Lorelai burned rubber. Her day didn't improve.
It rained all week, and eventually, through sheer force of will, it became a comfort instead of an annoyance. It rained on Friday night, as they waited too long for the maid to open the door. A new one, Theresa, close to Rory's age. She smiled nervously up at them from under her eyelashes and kept glancing from Lorelai to the closed dining-room door. Lorelai made straight for it.
Her mother emerged before she had a chance to burst in, and made straight for her. "Thank you, Therese. Lorelai, a moment."
Rory wandered behind, not sure if her grandmother would allow her to join them. Lorelai pulled her arm from her mother's grasp. "What, Mom? Another set-up you're afraid I'll eviscerate?"
"Not precisely, no. We do have an extra guest for dinner tonight. It's Christopher."
"Chris." It was like a blow to the head, or the stomach. The heart. They hadn't seen him for months, and how dare he?
"Yes. I thought you and Rory would like it."
"Has he been telling stories about puking babies? Because I know from experience that nobody wants to hear those."
"He's moving back to Hartford. I thought it would be a good idea to do something to welcome him."
Moving. Here. Her. Chris. Lorelai's brain was leaning aggressively towards the monosyllabic, but this was her mother. "That sounds like a good idea. I hope you had Anna sharpen the steak knives. I'm sure you'll need them. Uh, he's coming back?"
"Yes. Things weren't going well with Shirley."
"Sherry."
"That woman, yes. So he has decided to return to his parents' home. I sincerely hope that it won't be for long. A man of that age— it doesn't look well, even if it is just sitting there. Are either of you going to break down in tears?"
"What?"
"Well, your father suggested that I inform you of this privately, so that you wouldn't have a break down in front of Christopher. Are you going to?"
Lorelai was aware of Rory gaping off to the side, could see the questions building, ready to spill from her lips. "Don't have plans for it."
"I'm very glad to hear that. I knew your father was over-estimating your over-reaction. Let's go and join them. They're waiting for us."
Emily tucked Rory's arm through her own, and strode back towards the dining-room. Towards Christopher, who was coming back. Lorelai hustled to catch up, and tried to look less bamboozled than she felt. He wasn't supposed to— this wasn't supposed to happen to her. After everything else. She shouldn't have— she didn't know how to deal with this. Didn't know what to do.
And the door was open and they were moving forwards, and she was smiling, and Christopher was smiling back at her. She didn't know what to do.
Rory wanted to bounce. Lorelai could tell. But she was just offering a cautious grin, made wary by past experience. Christopher had never delivered on what he appeared to promise. Rory knew the pain of that, and so did she.
That gave her the ability to navigate the doorway, not to walk into her daughter, or her chair. She didn't feel helpless anymore, and her legs were steady under her.
Christopher had risen as they entered, and he came around the table as she was absolutely useless, if completely in control. Rory was closest, and got a bear hug. A second later, Lorelai was the recipient of a more restrained welcome. A hand on her shoulder, a peck on the cheek, and they were face-to-face. She had sort of expected him to be toting the kid the next time she saw him, and didn't know what to do without the buffer. And her parents were here, and she wanted to scream at him, hadn't stopped wanting to scream at him since he had told her, and Rory was watching them, and— Chris. Chris.
"It's great to see you. Both of you." He swung to face his daughter. "Rory, you look—" A laugh that sounded more real-fatherly than he had any right to be, after a couple weeks of being one to another girl. "Older. Unfortunately."
That strained the smile. "That's what happens." And then, "I might stop it too, if I could," and she had to talk to Rory, but she couldn't concentrate on that now, when Chris might demand something of her any second and she had to be ready for it.
"If the Welles were here we could stave this off." Directed at her, and a grunt was enough of an answer, because her mother was saving her.
"Next Saturday. You should come along. You'll need to become reacquainted with the families around here. You haven't kept in contact with anyone, have you?"
Emily sitting as she spoke, the familiar pattern of dinner setting in, and Christopher was following his hostess' lead, glancing reluctantly towards her and Rory, towards whatever joyful reunion he had imagined.
Everybody fell into place like dominoes, and Lorelai had found her footing now, even if the carpet was liable to be pulled out from under her.
More talk, about things that didn't matter, people that hadn't mattered to them back when they had mattered to each other, and everybody was putting up a good face. She wondered who was truly on show. Not her father, even, and she'd begun to think her mother had erected a permanent façade, to fool people into thinking that she wasn't poised to take over the world.
She'd have to— Christopher would jump at that image, and she needed something to distract them from each other.
And he was talking to her mother as if it was perfectly natural, as if it wasn't a problem at all; not something that he had to work at, like she was, like she did all the time. She could hate him for that, if it wouldn't take more effort than she was capable of.
Rory was looking at her anxiously, willing, though not ready, to forgive her father, to rebuild what he had destroyed. She should have the chance to do that. She would. Lorelai would— she would try to make that happen, try to, somehow, make her daughter happy with her father. And even if she couldn't do anything, she wouldn't hinder them.
Looking at him look at her as he spoke seriously to her mother, she could feel herself sinking into his eyes, feel sound on the verge of fading out, feel her attention drift to his smiling mouth, and it had been eighteen fucking years; she could do this.
And she did. For the rest of the night.
Even when, after everybody escaped from Emily's dinner and she wandered past Rory's room and found herself entering her own and flopping down on the bed that had surely, please, been updated in two decades, he found her.
Even when he flopped down beside her, completely at home, and the years ratcheted down until she had to remind herself of Rory's existence.
The decoration had changed, but she could still walk this room in her sleep. She didn't want Christopher to be here.
"We broke up."
It took her a moment to come up with the name. "I'm sorry." She didn't want to ask; she didn't want to know, because that meant that she'd have to think about him like that, and it wasn't like she needed to be encouraged to hurtle towards disaster.
"Definitely. Very definitely. It was—it's a mess."
She felt that she should offer comfort here, but it looked like history was set on repeat mode, except it was worsening year by year.
"I'm going to have to go to court. To see Gwen."
That was a shock. Lorelai couldn't imagine trying to keep Rory's father out of the picture. They had never been like that; he'd just drifted, and never attempted to swim against the tide. He had never— But she suddenly wondered, with a dull, burning pain, if he would have done this for Rory, if he would have forced his way into her life if Lorelai had only tried to exclude him.
"You're going to visit?"
"I'm going to try for joint."
Lorelai blinked, taken aback again. Custody battles had never really registered with her, as she'd never known anybody involved in one; but this seemed like an incredibly bad idea, not least because the father concerned was Christopher. She felt ashamed even to think that, but he'd yet to be anything close to a responsible parent. Maybe getting up nights had altered his brain chemistry permanently.
"Good luck."
"You don't think Rory will be weird, do you?"
She relocated the ability to flip onto her side. Affronts conjured energy from air, apparently. "Weird?"
"About Gwen. I mean, she's never had to deal with a sibling. I'm worried she might have difficulty with it."
"Chris, Rory still has difficulty dealing with you. I don't think she's going to take out her frustrations on a defenceless little baby."
"What difficulty?"
Another sigh, and she wouldn't have to look at him if she was on her back. The thought seemed to come into being without action; she really didn't want to look at him. "You have to know that you messed with her head. With both of our heads. She's accepted that you're not going to be around. It might take some work to convince her that changing that's a good thing."
She could hear cloth slide as he moved closer to her. "You think it's a good thing though, right?"
A second's hesitation, and she rushed in as he drew breath. "I'll help you with Rory. You'll have to do it completely on your own, but hey, you can count on my help."
"I'm not even going to attempt to live up to your standard of perfection. Does she expect—"
"Well you've never seen me make pancakes. Luke had to repaint the ceiling. It's gloss now. Looks awful."
"And you'll show me what to do?"
He couldn't possibly think it would be that easy. And maybe she could understand Sherry after all, because she couldn't help feeling that it would be best if he stayed away. "I'll point out all your mistakes. After you've made them, of course."
His face was right next to hers, and she couldn't help turning towards him. His eyes were warm, still looking at hers, and his voice was sarcastic but he was gentle. "Thanks so much."
He didn't look away, and she could feel the embers, the remembered desire, flare and ignite. She couldn't hold his gaze. "So, your parents?"
"Will at some stage be coming home to make sure that I'm not trashing the place. Scary, huh?"
"Terrifying." How could he do this to them?
"I just need someplace to stay for a while."
And she'd said she wouldn't ask, but—"Shouldn't you stay near Sherry? So you can see the baby."
"It's better this way, I think. Things are really bad between us. I think it's best to avoid all that."
Which was fair enough, she supposed, if somewhat extreme. Christopher probably just still couldn't deal with break-ups. She didn't do so well with them herself.
The ceiling was getting boring, and her brain-cells were swirling down the drain at an alarming rate. She hauled herself up, and looked down at Christopher sprawled out on the bed. She stood.
"I should go find Rory. She's not convinced that Mom's Lucifer's handmaiden yet, and I'm not convinced that it's safe to leave them alone together. Rory is easily convinced to scheme."
She turned back at the door. "Chris, Rory will be okay with Gwendolyn. She'll like having a little sister." Rory would love having a sister. Especially one that wouldn't wake her every night.
And she had left Rory too long, so she didn't waste time looking back as she left.
*
Sometimes, she doesn't care that she's inventing a world that no longer exists. She doesn't pay attention to her surroundings, completely unimportant, just something to hold them in place. She focuses on his hands tracing her skin, concentrates to make herself breathe as he maps her body, and as they surge together she thinks that she'll finally be able to anchor herself.
And when she wakes up, it's only a jolt when she finds that he isn't there.