Title: More Smoke than Flame

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.

*

And even though he was back, life carried on. Weeks passed, and there were no amazing revelations, no new feelings to be uncovered, just the same load she'd been carrying for years, the one she hadn't quite managed to drop with the kid. She'd tried, even if she'd never believed; that had to count for something. She had to trust that good intentions counted on the balance sheet of life, because they were the only things that were within her control.

Life carried her along. It didn't take much effort to stay afloat anymore. She got up, went to work, remembered to eat, watched Rory close herself off more each day, and went to sleep. Began again. Once a week she faced her mother, had to face Chris more often. Had to keep moving, or the gears of the world would crush her.

Sometimes it was as if they'd reset the clock and erased everything that had gone before. She smiled a lot, lightly, felt warm and dizzy. But more and more it weighed on her, that he hadn't come back to her, that he wasn't here for her. She knew it was a stupid thing to dwell on, but it was always in her head, clamouring for attention.

So she kept her distance, or tried to, and he seemed to be keeping his. Which didn't do much to advance his cause, whatever that might be. He hadn't asked anything of her yet, but he would, eventually: he always did. Whatever it was that he needed from her, she got to choose whether to give it, and he'd done so much— Not that any of it was his fault. There was no blame to be had. She knew that. Still, it would have been nice to have him need her more, to feel like she had some strength.

It would have been nice to have more to do than sit and wait, and watch other people shape her world. Watch Christopher run back and forth from here to Sherry, more and more frequently, wonder if one day he wouldn't come back, wonder if this was how Sherry had felt about his trips to see her and Rory. Watch him settle back into life here, with them, with her, feel herself becoming accustomed to that.

But she didn't, and taking steps to change that would be making an unnecessary fuss, drawing attention to herself and making an issue out of something that wasn’t.

So she got up; worried about Rory; went to work; ate three slices of orange, a sausage roll, and something made of lemon, zucchini, and unidentifiable meat; and returned to the reception desk to find Christopher waiting for her.

"Hey, you."

"You, too."

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Talking to you. Hey, have you ever spun Rory so much on that chair that she's thrown up?"

"No. That would not be a motherly thing to do."

"It'd be fun, though."

"Yeah. I feel virtuous."

"You could still do it. She's old enough now that you wouldn't have to feel guilty."

"Maybe."

"Just let me watch."

"What do you want?"

"To talk."

"Have at me. Purge, get the bad stuff right out so I can freak and be done with it."

"It's not bad."

"Well good."

"I'm going down to Sherry this weekend."

"Well have fun."

"And probably next weekend."

"Then too." She carefully didn’t say: Well maybe you should just stay there and never come back in between the every weekend that you're visiting her. Because that would have been petty and immature. She wasn’t even thinking it.

"I think she might let me bring Gwen back with me for a few days then."

That threw her. Threw her half across the room, out of her pouting and into the wall. "Wow.

That's big."

"Yeah."

"It'll be good to see her. Rory will love seeing her. She really wants to get to know her. Sisters, and all."

"But you don't."

"No." Lorelai tilted her head, gaze flicking from Chris' carefully quizzical face to his hands flat on the counter, back. So careful, and it wasn't fair of him to have trapped her like this. "I want to get to know her. Of course I do. It's just that we're not, you know, related."

"And that makes a difference."

"Well—"

"Yeah, I suppose it might. But I don't—" He shook his head. "Never mind."

"That's great news, Chris." She stretched a smile.

"Good. Ah, what's wrong with Rory? Have I done something to upset her?"

"I don't know, have you?"

"Did I ask that?"

"She's fine. She's always fine. She'll panic and flap about a bit and then go back to normal and we'll all spend a weekend in front of the TV trying to reach a consensus on what all the fuss was about." All four of them, maybe.

"Okay. Glad we have that fixed up."

And this was all well and good, but really, nothing had materially changed. He'd still be dragging another woman's child around, and Sherry would be in his life forever, forever, because you couldn't cut it off at eighteen, whatever people said. But it became less important when the child was that old, old enough to separate their parents from each other, from themselves, old enough to understand that what their parents did probably didn't mean a whole hell of a lot when compared to their intentions, or maybe they never understood that. Lorelai was still less important, and Chris might as well have stayed away for all that he'd changed that, for all that their relationship had developed with his return, for all the trouble he was causing, if only in her mind.

She knew she was being selfish, that she had to separate her and Chris from Rory and Chris, but she couldn't erase herself, couldn't pretend that she wasn't there, that it didn't matter.

And the worst thing was that she didn't even know if she still wanted him. She didn't know if she wanted him, or if she was being prodded along by bad old habits, the dream of a past that had never really been, and a hole in her life that she was trying to reshape around him, or trying to shove him into, arms and legs flailing out, jigsaw pieces that she was going to snap and destroy with her desire to make a whole.

It didn't matter, because he was walking away, like he always did, still. Smiling out his friendly parting phrases as he did it, but still doing it.

She watched him leave, fighting the urge to follow him, to do something, to change things between them. She wanted to run up behind him and slide her arms around him and her chin onto his shoulder and her cheek against his, and his body was so familiar, she knew what that would feel like, could feel it in her bones. He'd grab her hands and turn, and let her cling, let her press into him, and he'd be so warm and so welcoming, always welcoming. She wanted to run up behind him, run out behind him, into the parking lot, turn in the opposite direction, and run.

*

It's her decision not to get married, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less when he leaves. They both know that it's over, know that when she suggests some time apart she's just trying to find a less heartbreaking way of telling him that they're finished, but she doesn’t expect him to leave.

She doesn't expect her mother's sympathetic look, or the discovery that she's far, far too weak to stick around while it's there; she doesn’t expect to be eight months pregnant and hopping the cheapest bus out of Hartford so she'll have enough left of her allowance to make it through a weekend; and she certainly hadn't expected it to hurt as much as it does. She wonders how she'll ever be able to look her parents in the eye again, wonders if she hurt Chris this much. She hadn't intended it, and she wishes she regretted it.

The third night she has this dream, she begins considering a stronger stimulant than coffee.

Gilmore Girls ~ Back ~ Forward