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wizened_cynicSo this is one of those Five Things fics, except I didn't actually get prompted with it. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theholyinnocent prompted cabenson with Five Things Alex Never Thought She'd Wear in Witness Protection, But Did Anyway. It was so good I stole it. So, many thanks to THI for creating the prompt and CB for letting me claim it as my own.
This is totally not what they expected. I have already told them to prep themselves with some methadone. Oh, this is Claire, and it gets a little depressing at the end, but DON'T WORRY. They end up together. Remember that.
here's to a disappearing poet of always
1.
Two hours in, Lorelai sets down her (practically empty) bucket and announces that she feels like a communist.
Alex says, "I told you so."
"You told me I'd feel like a communist?" Lorelai asks. "Because I don't recall you telling me I'd feel like a communist, and if someone had told me I would feel like a communist, I think I would remember. Because a communist does not forget anything. A communist has an elephant's memory and a stomach for Russian potato vodka."
"I meant, I told you it would be a bad idea."
"Then why didn't you talk me out of it?"
Alex just shakes her head and pulls Lorelai back onto her feet. Taylor's wearing a visor and pointing the megaphone in their direction, instructing them to keep picking. Lorelai is right. It does feel like they're in Soviet Russia and being rounded off to do menial labor in communal plantations.
Only, of course, in Stars Hollow's case, everyone had willingly signed up for it, something Alex will never understand, no more than she can ever understand why she lets Lorelai drag her to these things.
Any sane person would've seen that being asked to get out of bed at five in the morning and then driving all the way to Glastonbury to pick strawberries by hand on the hottest day in June is the worst idea known to man, second only to the 24-Hour Dance Marathon the town hosted in the fall.
"But it will be so much fun," Lorelai had argued. She was digging through her closet for overalls. "We can eat them as we pick them. Fresh strawberries, straight from the vine!"
"I don't think strawberries grow on vines," Alex said. "I'm also quite certain they come frozen, in packages you can find at the supermarket."
"Where is your sense of adventure, Claire?"
"That's the point. I never had a sense of adventure."
"Well then, young lady, it's high time you develop one. It'll be like Crossroads except we're not going on a road trip and neither of us is Britney Spears. Ah-ha!" Lorelai pulled out a pair of faded denim overalls, and a partially squashed straw hat. It had a big, floppy bow on it, red ribbons streaming behind. She perched it on top of Alex's head. "There. All set."
Alex took it off. "Lorelai, I'm not going to wear a straw hat."
"Why not?"
"A, because I'm not going to this stupid strawberry-picking thing, and B, because I'm not Laura Ingalls Wilder."
"Okay," Lorelai pointed out, "but if you don't go, who's going to make sure I don't eat all of the strawberries I pick instead of putting them in the bucket and saving them for the jam-making festival next week? If I eat all the strawberries, then there won't be any left for jam, which means Woodbury will win the jam-making festival, and Taylor will lose his mind and demand to find the person responsible, and I'd have give you up. I don't want to have to do that, Claire."
"You'd give me up?" asked Alex.
"As opposed to being referred to as Yoko Ono of the Stars Hollow Berry-Picking Brigade and forever branded the person who caused the downfall of Stars Hollow in every single town meeting for the rest of eternity? Yes. I would give you up."
Alex sighed. "I'm still not wearing that hat."
She lasts until ten in the morning, when she begins to feel a melanoma growing on her skin.
To her credit, Lorelai doesn't make fun of her for wearing the hat. Her mouth is too stuffed with strawberries to speak. Alex could smell the sticky sweetness as the juice coated her lips, making them glossy under the glow of the sun.
"I don't want to hear it," Alex says.
Lorelai nods and wraps the end of the ribbon around her wrist.
2.
Alex figures out pretty quickly that babysitting Davey and Martha on Halloween is merely an excuse for Lorelai to take them trick-or-treating and thereby loading up on free candy. Even though they already have two economy-sized packs of Snickers they bought for themselves, in addition to the five they bought for handing out.
"Please please please please please," Lorelai says, jiggling Martha in front of Alex, as if that could convince Alex to say yes. The baby gurgles and drools, coating the front of her jumpsuit with long strings of saliva. "Sookie and Jackson would really appreciate having a few hours to themselves. You'll be doing a favor for them. You'll be doing a favor for all of humankind! Dammit, you will be like that cheerleader on Heroes."
Alex says no, but it doesn't make a difference, because Lorelai decides to babysit them on her own, and since they live in the same house, Alex can't avoid her or Martha or Davey.
Lorelai barges in as Alex is lowering the blinds. Her window faces Babette's yard, and Babette and Morey have constructed a guillotine in Alex's direct line of vision. "Small town quirks," Hammond had said when Alex phoned, and Alex told him to try waking up every morning to her neighbors attempting to behead themselves.
"I need you to hold her for a minute while I get Davey into his costume." Before Alex can say anything, Lorelai plunks the chubby infant into her arms and begins chasing after the toddler. They're both covered in feathers. Alex is almost afraid to ask.
Lorelai reappears with Davey on her hips, dressed as a chicken. Alex looks down at Martha and realizes for the first time that her costume is of a fried egg. "Cute, huh?" Lorelai preens. "Made them myself."
Alex feels a sudden wetness on her arm and, startled, holds the baby out towards Lorelai. "The egg is leaking," she says, and they switch babies, and then Lorelai presents an argument about how she's outnumbered by the children, and the children will lose any respect for the authority of grownups, and as a grownup herself, Alex should back Lorelai up and show a united front.
"Wait, you need a costume too," Lorelai says, after Alex finally relents.
"I'm wearing a baby," Alex tells her, feeling self-consciously ridiculous as Martha squirms around in her Baby Bjorn. "Is that not enough for you?"
It's a remarkably cool night. Moonless. Lorelai walks ahead, pushing Davey in the stroller while Alex trails behind them, trying to ignore the pummel of tiny fists against her chest. In the distance she can hear a loopback of Taylor's voice on the PA system: Hold onto your children's hands. Look carefully before crossing the street. Check your candy to make sure there aren't razors or cyanide.
Nothing about angering the wrong person and consequently being shot, whisked into Witness Protection, and forced to live in a small town where every single person should be institutionalized.
It could be worse, she tells herself. She could be dead.
They make it around the block before Davey grows cranky and wants to go home. Martha has fallen asleep, hands curled into fists and resting beside her cheeks. She is warm and heavy and real against Alex, perfectly content and trusting in that she will be safe when she wakes up.
"Come on, we'll take a short cut," Lorelai raises her voice over Davey's frustrated whimpers.
What short cut? This is Stars Hollow. You make two left turns and you're back in the same spot you came from.
Alex doesn't argue, just follows, and tries to catch up with Lorelai in the dark. Fallen leaves crunch and crackle beneath her feet. There's a flutter of wings and Alex ducks her head instinctively; the crow or whatever it is brushes past, charging her with adrenaline.
She freezes when she hears the crack of a gunshot.
At once she hears it again, the screech of tires, the metallic clang of a stray bullet as it hit the wall behind her, and her shoulder suddenly radiates with a hot, throbbing pain, the air in her lungs being forced out of her so quickly she sees nothing but black and white.
"Claire."
Martha is making peeping noises. Alex wraps her arms around the baby, feeling her inhale and exhale and trying to do the same herself. In. Out. In. Out.
"Claire, what's wrong?"
A hand clamps on her shoulder, hot and heavy like iron, and Alex flinches. She tries to get up, but her legs wobble and she reaches out to balance herself against a tree. The bark digs into her palms.
"Claire!"
When she opens her eyes, Lorelai is standing in front of her, looking as pale as Alex feels. "You all right?" she asks. "Did the firecrackers scare you?"
Firecrackers.
Goddamn.
"I'm fine." Alex takes a moment to breathe, to steady her legs before she attempts to walk again. Her hand is still on Martha's back. Martha's still asleep, her breaths deep and even. Alex tries to match her rhythm.
She's alive.
She's in Stars Hollow.
He can't get to her here.
Alex is about bury herself beneath the covers and sleep it off, when Lorelai enters her bedroom with a blanket and pillow. She pulls the easy chair over to the foot of Alex's bed and plops the pillow down, patting it affectionately.
"Yes, Lorelai?"
"Nothing." Lorelai readjusts the pillow. "Your chair was lonely."
"And the blanket?"
"To keep the pillow company."
"And you?"
"Were invited to the party." Lorelai sits down and tucks the blanket around her. She wriggles a minute until she finds a comfortable position, and then allows Alex to turn off the light.
"You don't have to, you know," Alex says to the darkened room.
"I know," but Lorelai stays anyway.
3.
The wedding dress is red. Not a color Alex would've chosen, but then again it's not her wedding dress, so she doesn't complain. She's already tried that, and Taylor had told her to take it up with Marc Chagall.
"Look at her," Miss Patty croons. They're in her studio, finalizing the touch-ups on the costumes for the dress rehearsal. Miss Patty and Babette have been scrutinizing Alex for the past forty minutes, crossing the line from oddly flattering to pathologically disturbing. "Look at her, Babette."
"I know, Patty. She's just gorgeous. Perfect."
"Chagall would be proud."
"Chagall would be proud."
"Chagall was a Bolshevik," adds Lorelai. Alex feels a hand on the back of her knee. "Stop moving. I can't do your hem."
"I'm trying to relax, Lorelai, but do you know how hard it is to do that when someone is looking up your skirt?"
"Hey, now, it's not fun and games for me either. It's all for the greater good."
The greater good, in this case, is the Festival of Living Art. As Stars Hollow's Honorary Assistant Town Selectman, Alex's participation is mandatory. Alex did not contest that, but merely breathed a sigh of relief when they decided she was too thin for the role of Botecelli's Venus and assigned her La Mariée instead.
"Got it." Lorelai slides herself out from beneath Alex's dress, two leftover pins clasped between her teeth. She removes them and sticks them on the thing that looks like a tomato and has all the other pins stuck on it. "The pin cushion?" Lorelai probes, as if she'd read Alex's mind. "I feel like a mechanic. Not that you're a used car, Claire."
"Thanks," Alex says with mock cheer, and Lorelai says, "My pleasure."
Miss Patty and Babette leave to help Kirk reign in his apostles, and Lorelai tell Alex to step out of her dress so she can finish the hemming it before the rehearsal begins. Taylor's operating on military time.
Alex removes the wedding gown and pulls on the sweater Lorelai left lying around. It's warm and smells like her. Coffee and cinnamon. She sits down on the edge of the stage and watches as a row of small, neat stitches appear. Lorelai's fingers fly, working so fast Alex only sees the needle when the overhead light catches the metal.
Andrew walks in, covered in plaster and holding a muffin tin in front of his nether regions. "Anyone seen Miss Patty?" he asks, and Lorelai points him in the direction. "Just look for Jesus."
Alex lets the room reverberate with the sound of the door slamming. Above the din of the actors scurrying around and arguing over wigs and makeup, she hears Taylor hollering into his loudspeaker. "Do you ever wonder what you're doing in a town this weird?" she asks Lorelai.
"Only when Kirk tries to make me read his screenplay."
Alex grimaces. She knows, first hand, how that goes.
"I don't know, Claire. I've never really wanted to be anywhere else. Sure, sometimes I wish I could Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind myself and forget this place exists, particularly when Kirk has night terrors -- and let me tell you, whine about Andrew all you want, but at least he had that muffin tin -- most of the time, though, this is it. This is home."
"Yeah," Alex says softly, and smiles. Another one of the million things she will never understand about Lorelai. How she could pick up and leave everything she's ever known at sixteen, to a place where no one knows her, with a baby in her arms. Lorelai got lucky. Or maybe Stars Hollow got lucky. Either way.
"Do you ever wish you were somewhere else?"
Alex looks away, wondering how she can possibly answer that. What words could possibly describe how she feels. She wants to be home so bad it hurts. She wants to be Alex again. She wants to stride into the courtroom like she's already won, and convince the jury that yes, she is right. She is the only one who's right.
"Claire?"
Lorelai has stopped sewing. Alex shifts her eyes to look at her. Her expression is unreadable. Does Lorelai wonder? Does Lorelai ever sense that there's something horribly wrong, dark with Claire?
"Once in a while," Alex answers. "Sometimes the town is not so bad." Everyone knows her name here, and her birthday, and what food she likes. Nothing bad happens in Stars Hollow; no rapes, no homicides, no burglaries. Even the occasional shoplifter gets caught and reprimanded by Taylor, which is enough to scare him from ever shoplifting again.
She has Lorelai.
Finishing the last few stitches, Lorelai bites off the end of the thread and Alex expectantly holds out the tomato pin cushion. "All right, try it on. Arms up." Alex complies and she drops the garment over Alex's head.
The fabric is slippery and shimmers as she walks to the mirror. She studies herself for a minute as Lorelai drapes the white headdress on her. "How do I look?" she asks Lorelai, smoothing out the folds of the skirt.
"Like a Russian bride in the 1950's. You sure you're not a spy for the KGB, Irina?"
"I'll get back to you on that," and Lorelai pulls her down and kisses her, so forcefully that Alex is thrown for a moment.
"We should get married," Lorelai says when she lets go. She's using that voice where she's half-joking and half-not. Alex doesn't know what to think. "We can go to Canada, and you'll get to be someplace else for a while. And then we'll come back -- here's the best part -- with lots of duty-free booze."
"You think of everything, don't you?"
Taylor pokes his head in and yells, "Chagall! Chagall!" Alex rolls her eyes and follows him outside. Her fingers are entwined with Lorelai's, so tightly that there are no spaces left between, and at that moment New York seems lightyears away.
4.
Friday nights are unpredictable. Lorelai always returns from her parents' in a state of agitation, but there are different stages of distress, and Alex has specific ways to handle each one.
She can hear Lorelai ranting even before she steps in the door. "My mother is unbelievable," Lorelai declares, tossing her keys on top of the kitchen table. Fist-shaking ensues. "She is impossible. She is incorrigable. She is insert-long-angry-adjective-here-beacuse-I-don't-own-a-thesaurus."
This, Alex notes, is a situation that calls for Oreos and chocolate milk. This is the "my mother is an unreasonable bitch" rant, which is different from the "my mother is a manipulative bitch and now I have to do something I hate but I can't get out of it because my mother is evil" rant, which is better handled with leftover brownies and a milkshake. Then there is the "this is the worst day in the world, Johnny Depp didn't return my calls, Brad and Angelina might be breaking up, my mother is Fidel Castro and she will never die, you have to find a way to help me, Claire" rant, which can only be remedied by Alex unbuttoning her shirt and pulling down her pajama bottoms right there, followed by microwave lasagna afterwards.
Alex reaches into the cupboard and pulls out a package of double-stuffed Oreos. Setting it on the table, she extracts a bottle of YooHoo from the refrigerator and gestures for Lorelai to help herself.
Two sleeves of cookies later, Lorelai feels calm enough to talk about what happened at Friday Night Dinner. "My mother," she says slowly, as if in excruciating pain, "thinks you made Rory gay."
"WHAT?"
"My mother is convinced that you made Rory gay."
"What -- how -- why is Rory involved in all this?"
"Well, Rory told Emily about her and Paris, and naturally, Emily blamed it on you."
"Naturally? Define 'naturally.'"
"Emily thinks Rory is gay because I'm gay, and since you made me gay, therefore indirectly, you made Rory gay."
"Your mother thinks I made you gay."
"My mother thinks you make everyone gay. Face it, Claire, you're the King Midas of homosexuality." Lorelai pushes the tray of Oreos over with the tips of her fingers, and Alex takes one. "And that's not even what made me so mad."
"Your mother thinks I made you gay."
"Yes, and right after that, she started telling me how she's looking forward to us breaking up. Which, okay, understandable, because my mother is the reincarnation of Ilse Koch, but then she goes on to say how I'm only this to irritate her and she's not going to allow herself to be irritated, because this is just, I quote, another one of my phases. She thinks you're a phase, Claire! She thinks you're King Midas of homosexuality and a phase!"
"I'm really sure if analogies to Greek myths are appropriate," Alex says, but Lorelai is on a tear, slamming her fist on the table and making the cookies dance like some bizarre baked-goods rendition of the Nutcracker.
"You are not a phase, Claire," Lorelai repeats, bearing down on each word. "And you know, I didn't even expect her to applaud or anything, or throw a parade, because God knows Emily Gilmore does not know how to throw a parade. I just wanted her to see that, hello, I'm happy. Isn't that what mothers want for their daughters? Because that is what I want for my daughter. I see Rory, I see her happy with Paris, and I'm happy for them. Because that's what mothers are supposed to do. My mother, however, didn't get the memo. So instead, she enjoys it when I'm miserable, and she sees my attempts at being happy with my life as attempts to make her miserable. I don't even -- arggh."
Lorelai lowers her head and begins banging it against the table. "Ow."
"I was going to suggest you not to do that."
The dishwasher hums, the clock on the wall ticking with loud precision. The silence hanging in the room is not of defeat or resignation, just post-dealing-with-Emily-Gilmore silence. They take a moment to collect themselves, and then Lorelai leans back in her chair and cocks her brow at Alex.
"You're not a phase," she says.
"I'm glad," Alex says, but Lorelai puts a finger to her lips.
"Listen to me, Claire. You are not a phase. I know I haven't had the best track record, what with Max, and Christopher, and Digger, and Luke, and then Christopher again --"
"I get your point."
"But you are not a phase, Claire. Collecting Pokemon cards? Is a phase. You are in no way remotely similar to collecting Pokemon cards. You have to believe me. Ugg boots were a phase. Those colored rubber bands you wear around your wrist, and purple means you've been kissed, and yellow means you've reached second base --"
"Unnecessarily informative, Lorelai."
"-- is a phase. But you are not a phase. I'm not going to get over you like I got over cutting out pictures of Emilio Estevez for my trapper keeper. In fact, stay right here --" Lorelai bolts up the stairs and returns moments later, as Alex is wiping off the table, with something clenched in her fist. "Here," she says, spreading her palm open, "this is bracelet. I got it from a gumball machine. This is a symbol that you're --"
"Not a phase," Alex interrupts. "I got that."
Lorelai slides the bracelet over Alex's wrist. Its beads are bright fluorescent pink and yellow and in the shape of stars and hearts. "So you're going to wear it forever and never take it off?"
"Uh, no."
Lorelai recoils sharply. "Claire!"
"It came from a gumball machine!"
"It's a token of my undying devotion!"
"I know," Alex brushes her lips against Lorelai's ear, "and I really, really appreciate it. But I don't think the Cracker Jack company intended the bracelet to be worn daily, and you know, Kirk will be totally jealous."
"'Course he will be." Lorelai buries her face in to Alex's collarbone, and Alex puts her arms around her, winding her fingers through her tangled curls. "It's a limited edition and he's been after one for years."
She tilts her head back and sighs, folding her hands around the back of Alex's neck. "At least wear it for tonight. It looks great with your skin tone."
"Does it?" Alex holds out her wrist, as if to display a set of diamonds, and Lorelai laughs, the kind of laughter that fills up the room and lasts until the next morning. Traces of it will linger in nooks and crannies, if you care enough to look. "Come on. I TiVo'ed what you asked me to. You can watch it, and I'll sit beside you and be bored out of my mind."
"You will not be bored, Claire," Lorelai tells her. "Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott arguing the pros and cons of circumcision? You will be riveted. I guarantee it."
Alex stops paying attention about two minutes in and continues her biography of Bukowski. Lorelai dozes off after the interviewer finishes asking Tori's feelings toward her mother, and when Alex tucks the afghan around her, she can't help but notice the bracelet, pink and turquoise and purple, every single color unable to be found in nature.
It makes her warm and cold at the same time, as she realizes there is nothing she can give Lorelai back.
5.
Alex lives in a fishbowl.
Literally, a fishbowl. The walls of her new apartment are made almost entirely out of floor-to-ceiling glass, and even though she lives on the eighth floor, she always feel as though she is being watched.
Whoever built this building had inserted walls that jut out from every which way in the least convenient places. Alex worries that sooner or later she will go to the kitchen for a drink in the middle of the night and end up giving herself a black eye or broken nose.
It's quiet. Not quiet quiet -- this is New York, after all; someone is always shouting at someone else, roadwork is ubiquitous, nights are never left uninterrupted by the wail of sirens. It's quiet in the way Stars Hollow never was; Alex is able to be alone here, truly alone. The neighbors don't know her. There are three different Starbucks down the block where she can grab her morning coffee. As for breakfast -- she doesn't eat breakfast here. No pancakes at Luke's, croissants from Weston's, or even Pop Tarts in the comfort of her own, pitifully bare home.
Emily Gilmore had sent a housewarming gift. A set of bookends carved out of Pharian marble. Alex is not sure what they're supposed to be, but from the accompanying card, she knows they used to belong to Napoleon.
The rest of her apartment is mostly empty. She should hire an interior decorator. Buy new furniture. Her old furniture, along with her other belongings, are in her mother's house upstate. She needs to buy new clothes too; the clothes Claire had worn won't serve much use here, and the clothes she'd worn before she went to Stars Hollow are still in boxes in a basement in East Amherst.
Manhattan is different from what she remembered it to be.
She tells herself it's just the view from her window.
She still has two more mandatory therapy sessions with the psychologist before Branch will clear her for her new position as bureau chief. That gives her about a week, maybe ten days, to readjust to the city again.
She never thought she'd need to readjust. She always thought it would be like riding a bike, that she will always know how, always have a feel for it.
The first night, she woke up at four a.m., unable to remember where she was.
Huang invites her out for lunch and tells her she needs to grieve.
Her cable gets hooked up, and she leaves Deal or No Deal on while she microwaves a Lean Cuisine for dinner. Some idiot is about to trade fifty thousand dollars in for a briefcase worth twenty bucks. If Lorelai were here, she'd be screaming at the TV.
As if Alex had conjured her by sheer want, someone begins pounding furiously on the front door, and when Alex opens it, Lorelai pushes her aside and stomps in.
"You have something of mine, and I want it back," she announces, folding her arms over her chest. A scowl is chiseled onto her face, but Alex notices her softening as she glances around the apartment, checking out the decor and furnishings.
"What is it that you're missing?" Alex asks. She closes the door and hopes her neighbors aren't early sleepers. Because it is highly likely that there will be an argument, which will inevitably escalate into a screaming match, and if Babette can hear Lorelai's yells from a hundred feet away, the occupants of 8C are going to hear it in surround sound.
"My I Love Lucy pajamas."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The I Love Lucy pajamas."
"Lorelai," Alex says, "you gave me the I Love Lucy pajamas. For Christmas."
"Yes, but you never wear them. And besides," Lorelai adds, "I only gave them to you so I could borrow them, because otherwise I had no good reason to justify spending seventy-five dollars on pajamas."
"Still, that doesn't change the fact that they're a gift, so technically, they belong to me."
"What the hell do you need them for anyway? It's not like you'll ever wear them again. You're not in Stars Hollow anymore. You don't need any Stars Hollow things. They're not good enough for you."
The words rip through her, white-hot, like a bullet in the gut. Like dying all over again.
"Lorelai, you cannot possibly believe that is true," Alex says, but Lorelai is shaking now, and she holds up a hand and Alex stops.
"It's not even that you lied to me. That I understand," Lorelai says, after a long period silence in which they both struggled to breathe, to keep from tearing their skin open. "It's that you went into this knowing you were always going to leave. You always knew that if you had a choice, you would choose New York. That, that is what keeps me up at night and makes me want to kick myself for not listening to my brain when it said, Lorelai, it's not going to last. It's never going to last. It never worked out for you before, why do you think this time is going to be any different? I hate it when my brain is right, and now when I go to sleep, I can't, because my brain won't shut up. It keeps saying, Ha ha, Lorelai. I was right. You were wrong. I was right. I am always right."
Alex's throat aches with strain to keep herself composed. She licks her lips, swallows. Tries to find a way to convince Lorelai. She used to be so good at convincing people. "I never intended for this to happen."
"I know you didn't." Lorelai balls her fists together and nods toward the floorboards. "Can I have what I came here for, or do we have to carry on with this lovely small talk?"
"I'll go look."
It's in the first box, under a pile of books and CDs and old magazines that she'd collected when she was in Connecticut. The pajamas were bright red except for patches on the knees and elbows, faded and worn from Lorelai's wearing.
Lorelai is staring up at the ceiling when Alex returns. "What is that?" she asks, pointing at the scraps of metal that swung from the ceiling.
"It's a mobile."
"Like, for a baby?"
Alex shrugs. "It came with the apartment. The designer was from Copenhagen."
"Must be all the rage in Denmark." Lorelai attempts a smile, but it's too hard for everybody, so she puts on again that steely look and holds out her hands in anticipation. "Well?"
"Here." Alex folds the pajamas and tucks them into a shopping bag from Saks. Lorelai takes it from her.
"All right then. I guess I should get going."
"Yes," Alex nods, and all she can think is, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. "I guess you should."
Lorelai waggles her fingers in a paltry attempt of a wave, before managing a smile that seems so painful Alex almost begs her to stop. She turns around, never meeting Alex in the eye, and disappears out the door.
Five seconds later, there is pounding on the door again.
"What the hell, Claire? You still talk to my mother?" Lorelai screeches. "What are you trying to do, make sure I kill myself, just in case you suddenly being this Nancy Grace person in the big, sophisticated city, where everything is better and I guess I'll just pick up my stuff and go doesn't do it?"
"Lorelai," Alex says, and she doesn't even care if the neighbors hear anymore.
"Here. Keep them." Lorelai thrusts the pajamas back into Alex's arms and spins around, stomping down the hallway. "I don't want them. They're yours. I gave them to you."
"Lorelai!" Alex calls. "Lorelai. Don't. Please."
Lorelai is crying. In the wan light of the hallway, Alex can see her swollen eyes, her desperate attempts to inconspicuously wipe the tears from her cheeks. "What do you want now? Oh, by the way, neighbor person who just came out to see what's going on," she stabs a finger toward Alex, "she'll promise to take care of your plants, but she won't. And don't go on vacation and trust her with your dog. She is not a dog person."
"Lorelai," Alex says, digging her fingernails into her palms to will herself to keep herself stoic. Keep stoic and keep going. "Lorelai, I'm sorry. I really am. Tell me, what can I do to make it better?"
Lorelai shakes her head. "Just tell me one thing, Claire. Were we happy? Because I thought, I thought we were happy."
"We were," Alex says.
"Good," Lorelai says softly. "Good."
You can find Lorelai's pjs at www.sleepyheads.com
I had a dream about SM last night. She was mean to me.
theholyinnocent prompted cabenson with Five Things Alex Never Thought She'd Wear in Witness Protection, But Did Anyway. It was so good I stole it. So, many thanks to THI for creating the prompt and CB for letting me claim it as my own.This is totally not what they expected. I have already told them to prep themselves with some methadone. Oh, this is Claire, and it gets a little depressing at the end, but DON'T WORRY. They end up together. Remember that.
Two hours in, Lorelai sets down her (practically empty) bucket and announces that she feels like a communist.
Alex says, "I told you so."
"You told me I'd feel like a communist?" Lorelai asks. "Because I don't recall you telling me I'd feel like a communist, and if someone had told me I would feel like a communist, I think I would remember. Because a communist does not forget anything. A communist has an elephant's memory and a stomach for Russian potato vodka."
"I meant, I told you it would be a bad idea."
"Then why didn't you talk me out of it?"
Alex just shakes her head and pulls Lorelai back onto her feet. Taylor's wearing a visor and pointing the megaphone in their direction, instructing them to keep picking. Lorelai is right. It does feel like they're in Soviet Russia and being rounded off to do menial labor in communal plantations.
Only, of course, in Stars Hollow's case, everyone had willingly signed up for it, something Alex will never understand, no more than she can ever understand why she lets Lorelai drag her to these things.
Any sane person would've seen that being asked to get out of bed at five in the morning and then driving all the way to Glastonbury to pick strawberries by hand on the hottest day in June is the worst idea known to man, second only to the 24-Hour Dance Marathon the town hosted in the fall.
"But it will be so much fun," Lorelai had argued. She was digging through her closet for overalls. "We can eat them as we pick them. Fresh strawberries, straight from the vine!"
"I don't think strawberries grow on vines," Alex said. "I'm also quite certain they come frozen, in packages you can find at the supermarket."
"Where is your sense of adventure, Claire?"
"That's the point. I never had a sense of adventure."
"Well then, young lady, it's high time you develop one. It'll be like Crossroads except we're not going on a road trip and neither of us is Britney Spears. Ah-ha!" Lorelai pulled out a pair of faded denim overalls, and a partially squashed straw hat. It had a big, floppy bow on it, red ribbons streaming behind. She perched it on top of Alex's head. "There. All set."
Alex took it off. "Lorelai, I'm not going to wear a straw hat."
"Why not?"
"A, because I'm not going to this stupid strawberry-picking thing, and B, because I'm not Laura Ingalls Wilder."
"Okay," Lorelai pointed out, "but if you don't go, who's going to make sure I don't eat all of the strawberries I pick instead of putting them in the bucket and saving them for the jam-making festival next week? If I eat all the strawberries, then there won't be any left for jam, which means Woodbury will win the jam-making festival, and Taylor will lose his mind and demand to find the person responsible, and I'd have give you up. I don't want to have to do that, Claire."
"You'd give me up?" asked Alex.
"As opposed to being referred to as Yoko Ono of the Stars Hollow Berry-Picking Brigade and forever branded the person who caused the downfall of Stars Hollow in every single town meeting for the rest of eternity? Yes. I would give you up."
Alex sighed. "I'm still not wearing that hat."
She lasts until ten in the morning, when she begins to feel a melanoma growing on her skin.
To her credit, Lorelai doesn't make fun of her for wearing the hat. Her mouth is too stuffed with strawberries to speak. Alex could smell the sticky sweetness as the juice coated her lips, making them glossy under the glow of the sun.
"I don't want to hear it," Alex says.
Lorelai nods and wraps the end of the ribbon around her wrist.
Alex figures out pretty quickly that babysitting Davey and Martha on Halloween is merely an excuse for Lorelai to take them trick-or-treating and thereby loading up on free candy. Even though they already have two economy-sized packs of Snickers they bought for themselves, in addition to the five they bought for handing out.
"Please please please please please," Lorelai says, jiggling Martha in front of Alex, as if that could convince Alex to say yes. The baby gurgles and drools, coating the front of her jumpsuit with long strings of saliva. "Sookie and Jackson would really appreciate having a few hours to themselves. You'll be doing a favor for them. You'll be doing a favor for all of humankind! Dammit, you will be like that cheerleader on Heroes."
Alex says no, but it doesn't make a difference, because Lorelai decides to babysit them on her own, and since they live in the same house, Alex can't avoid her or Martha or Davey.
Lorelai barges in as Alex is lowering the blinds. Her window faces Babette's yard, and Babette and Morey have constructed a guillotine in Alex's direct line of vision. "Small town quirks," Hammond had said when Alex phoned, and Alex told him to try waking up every morning to her neighbors attempting to behead themselves.
"I need you to hold her for a minute while I get Davey into his costume." Before Alex can say anything, Lorelai plunks the chubby infant into her arms and begins chasing after the toddler. They're both covered in feathers. Alex is almost afraid to ask.
Lorelai reappears with Davey on her hips, dressed as a chicken. Alex looks down at Martha and realizes for the first time that her costume is of a fried egg. "Cute, huh?" Lorelai preens. "Made them myself."
Alex feels a sudden wetness on her arm and, startled, holds the baby out towards Lorelai. "The egg is leaking," she says, and they switch babies, and then Lorelai presents an argument about how she's outnumbered by the children, and the children will lose any respect for the authority of grownups, and as a grownup herself, Alex should back Lorelai up and show a united front.
"Wait, you need a costume too," Lorelai says, after Alex finally relents.
"I'm wearing a baby," Alex tells her, feeling self-consciously ridiculous as Martha squirms around in her Baby Bjorn. "Is that not enough for you?"
It's a remarkably cool night. Moonless. Lorelai walks ahead, pushing Davey in the stroller while Alex trails behind them, trying to ignore the pummel of tiny fists against her chest. In the distance she can hear a loopback of Taylor's voice on the PA system: Hold onto your children's hands. Look carefully before crossing the street. Check your candy to make sure there aren't razors or cyanide.
Nothing about angering the wrong person and consequently being shot, whisked into Witness Protection, and forced to live in a small town where every single person should be institutionalized.
It could be worse, she tells herself. She could be dead.
They make it around the block before Davey grows cranky and wants to go home. Martha has fallen asleep, hands curled into fists and resting beside her cheeks. She is warm and heavy and real against Alex, perfectly content and trusting in that she will be safe when she wakes up.
"Come on, we'll take a short cut," Lorelai raises her voice over Davey's frustrated whimpers.
What short cut? This is Stars Hollow. You make two left turns and you're back in the same spot you came from.
Alex doesn't argue, just follows, and tries to catch up with Lorelai in the dark. Fallen leaves crunch and crackle beneath her feet. There's a flutter of wings and Alex ducks her head instinctively; the crow or whatever it is brushes past, charging her with adrenaline.
She freezes when she hears the crack of a gunshot.
At once she hears it again, the screech of tires, the metallic clang of a stray bullet as it hit the wall behind her, and her shoulder suddenly radiates with a hot, throbbing pain, the air in her lungs being forced out of her so quickly she sees nothing but black and white.
"Claire."
Martha is making peeping noises. Alex wraps her arms around the baby, feeling her inhale and exhale and trying to do the same herself. In. Out. In. Out.
"Claire, what's wrong?"
A hand clamps on her shoulder, hot and heavy like iron, and Alex flinches. She tries to get up, but her legs wobble and she reaches out to balance herself against a tree. The bark digs into her palms.
"Claire!"
When she opens her eyes, Lorelai is standing in front of her, looking as pale as Alex feels. "You all right?" she asks. "Did the firecrackers scare you?"
Firecrackers.
Goddamn.
"I'm fine." Alex takes a moment to breathe, to steady her legs before she attempts to walk again. Her hand is still on Martha's back. Martha's still asleep, her breaths deep and even. Alex tries to match her rhythm.
She's alive.
She's in Stars Hollow.
He can't get to her here.
Alex is about bury herself beneath the covers and sleep it off, when Lorelai enters her bedroom with a blanket and pillow. She pulls the easy chair over to the foot of Alex's bed and plops the pillow down, patting it affectionately.
"Yes, Lorelai?"
"Nothing." Lorelai readjusts the pillow. "Your chair was lonely."
"And the blanket?"
"To keep the pillow company."
"And you?"
"Were invited to the party." Lorelai sits down and tucks the blanket around her. She wriggles a minute until she finds a comfortable position, and then allows Alex to turn off the light.
"You don't have to, you know," Alex says to the darkened room.
"I know," but Lorelai stays anyway.
The wedding dress is red. Not a color Alex would've chosen, but then again it's not her wedding dress, so she doesn't complain. She's already tried that, and Taylor had told her to take it up with Marc Chagall.
"Look at her," Miss Patty croons. They're in her studio, finalizing the touch-ups on the costumes for the dress rehearsal. Miss Patty and Babette have been scrutinizing Alex for the past forty minutes, crossing the line from oddly flattering to pathologically disturbing. "Look at her, Babette."
"I know, Patty. She's just gorgeous. Perfect."
"Chagall would be proud."
"Chagall would be proud."
"Chagall was a Bolshevik," adds Lorelai. Alex feels a hand on the back of her knee. "Stop moving. I can't do your hem."
"I'm trying to relax, Lorelai, but do you know how hard it is to do that when someone is looking up your skirt?"
"Hey, now, it's not fun and games for me either. It's all for the greater good."
The greater good, in this case, is the Festival of Living Art. As Stars Hollow's Honorary Assistant Town Selectman, Alex's participation is mandatory. Alex did not contest that, but merely breathed a sigh of relief when they decided she was too thin for the role of Botecelli's Venus and assigned her La Mariée instead.
"Got it." Lorelai slides herself out from beneath Alex's dress, two leftover pins clasped between her teeth. She removes them and sticks them on the thing that looks like a tomato and has all the other pins stuck on it. "The pin cushion?" Lorelai probes, as if she'd read Alex's mind. "I feel like a mechanic. Not that you're a used car, Claire."
"Thanks," Alex says with mock cheer, and Lorelai says, "My pleasure."
Miss Patty and Babette leave to help Kirk reign in his apostles, and Lorelai tell Alex to step out of her dress so she can finish the hemming it before the rehearsal begins. Taylor's operating on military time.
Alex removes the wedding gown and pulls on the sweater Lorelai left lying around. It's warm and smells like her. Coffee and cinnamon. She sits down on the edge of the stage and watches as a row of small, neat stitches appear. Lorelai's fingers fly, working so fast Alex only sees the needle when the overhead light catches the metal.
Andrew walks in, covered in plaster and holding a muffin tin in front of his nether regions. "Anyone seen Miss Patty?" he asks, and Lorelai points him in the direction. "Just look for Jesus."
Alex lets the room reverberate with the sound of the door slamming. Above the din of the actors scurrying around and arguing over wigs and makeup, she hears Taylor hollering into his loudspeaker. "Do you ever wonder what you're doing in a town this weird?" she asks Lorelai.
"Only when Kirk tries to make me read his screenplay."
Alex grimaces. She knows, first hand, how that goes.
"I don't know, Claire. I've never really wanted to be anywhere else. Sure, sometimes I wish I could Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind myself and forget this place exists, particularly when Kirk has night terrors -- and let me tell you, whine about Andrew all you want, but at least he had that muffin tin -- most of the time, though, this is it. This is home."
"Yeah," Alex says softly, and smiles. Another one of the million things she will never understand about Lorelai. How she could pick up and leave everything she's ever known at sixteen, to a place where no one knows her, with a baby in her arms. Lorelai got lucky. Or maybe Stars Hollow got lucky. Either way.
"Do you ever wish you were somewhere else?"
Alex looks away, wondering how she can possibly answer that. What words could possibly describe how she feels. She wants to be home so bad it hurts. She wants to be Alex again. She wants to stride into the courtroom like she's already won, and convince the jury that yes, she is right. She is the only one who's right.
"Claire?"
Lorelai has stopped sewing. Alex shifts her eyes to look at her. Her expression is unreadable. Does Lorelai wonder? Does Lorelai ever sense that there's something horribly wrong, dark with Claire?
"Once in a while," Alex answers. "Sometimes the town is not so bad." Everyone knows her name here, and her birthday, and what food she likes. Nothing bad happens in Stars Hollow; no rapes, no homicides, no burglaries. Even the occasional shoplifter gets caught and reprimanded by Taylor, which is enough to scare him from ever shoplifting again.
She has Lorelai.
Finishing the last few stitches, Lorelai bites off the end of the thread and Alex expectantly holds out the tomato pin cushion. "All right, try it on. Arms up." Alex complies and she drops the garment over Alex's head.
The fabric is slippery and shimmers as she walks to the mirror. She studies herself for a minute as Lorelai drapes the white headdress on her. "How do I look?" she asks Lorelai, smoothing out the folds of the skirt.
"Like a Russian bride in the 1950's. You sure you're not a spy for the KGB, Irina?"
"I'll get back to you on that," and Lorelai pulls her down and kisses her, so forcefully that Alex is thrown for a moment.
"We should get married," Lorelai says when she lets go. She's using that voice where she's half-joking and half-not. Alex doesn't know what to think. "We can go to Canada, and you'll get to be someplace else for a while. And then we'll come back -- here's the best part -- with lots of duty-free booze."
"You think of everything, don't you?"
Taylor pokes his head in and yells, "Chagall! Chagall!" Alex rolls her eyes and follows him outside. Her fingers are entwined with Lorelai's, so tightly that there are no spaces left between, and at that moment New York seems lightyears away.
Friday nights are unpredictable. Lorelai always returns from her parents' in a state of agitation, but there are different stages of distress, and Alex has specific ways to handle each one.
She can hear Lorelai ranting even before she steps in the door. "My mother is unbelievable," Lorelai declares, tossing her keys on top of the kitchen table. Fist-shaking ensues. "She is impossible. She is incorrigable. She is insert-long-angry-adjective-here-beacuse-I-don't-own-a-thesaurus."
This, Alex notes, is a situation that calls for Oreos and chocolate milk. This is the "my mother is an unreasonable bitch" rant, which is different from the "my mother is a manipulative bitch and now I have to do something I hate but I can't get out of it because my mother is evil" rant, which is better handled with leftover brownies and a milkshake. Then there is the "this is the worst day in the world, Johnny Depp didn't return my calls, Brad and Angelina might be breaking up, my mother is Fidel Castro and she will never die, you have to find a way to help me, Claire" rant, which can only be remedied by Alex unbuttoning her shirt and pulling down her pajama bottoms right there, followed by microwave lasagna afterwards.
Alex reaches into the cupboard and pulls out a package of double-stuffed Oreos. Setting it on the table, she extracts a bottle of YooHoo from the refrigerator and gestures for Lorelai to help herself.
Two sleeves of cookies later, Lorelai feels calm enough to talk about what happened at Friday Night Dinner. "My mother," she says slowly, as if in excruciating pain, "thinks you made Rory gay."
"WHAT?"
"My mother is convinced that you made Rory gay."
"What -- how -- why is Rory involved in all this?"
"Well, Rory told Emily about her and Paris, and naturally, Emily blamed it on you."
"Naturally? Define 'naturally.'"
"Emily thinks Rory is gay because I'm gay, and since you made me gay, therefore indirectly, you made Rory gay."
"Your mother thinks I made you gay."
"My mother thinks you make everyone gay. Face it, Claire, you're the King Midas of homosexuality." Lorelai pushes the tray of Oreos over with the tips of her fingers, and Alex takes one. "And that's not even what made me so mad."
"Your mother thinks I made you gay."
"Yes, and right after that, she started telling me how she's looking forward to us breaking up. Which, okay, understandable, because my mother is the reincarnation of Ilse Koch, but then she goes on to say how I'm only this to irritate her and she's not going to allow herself to be irritated, because this is just, I quote, another one of my phases. She thinks you're a phase, Claire! She thinks you're King Midas of homosexuality and a phase!"
"I'm really sure if analogies to Greek myths are appropriate," Alex says, but Lorelai is on a tear, slamming her fist on the table and making the cookies dance like some bizarre baked-goods rendition of the Nutcracker.
"You are not a phase, Claire," Lorelai repeats, bearing down on each word. "And you know, I didn't even expect her to applaud or anything, or throw a parade, because God knows Emily Gilmore does not know how to throw a parade. I just wanted her to see that, hello, I'm happy. Isn't that what mothers want for their daughters? Because that is what I want for my daughter. I see Rory, I see her happy with Paris, and I'm happy for them. Because that's what mothers are supposed to do. My mother, however, didn't get the memo. So instead, she enjoys it when I'm miserable, and she sees my attempts at being happy with my life as attempts to make her miserable. I don't even -- arggh."
Lorelai lowers her head and begins banging it against the table. "Ow."
"I was going to suggest you not to do that."
The dishwasher hums, the clock on the wall ticking with loud precision. The silence hanging in the room is not of defeat or resignation, just post-dealing-with-Emily-Gilmore silence. They take a moment to collect themselves, and then Lorelai leans back in her chair and cocks her brow at Alex.
"You're not a phase," she says.
"I'm glad," Alex says, but Lorelai puts a finger to her lips.
"Listen to me, Claire. You are not a phase. I know I haven't had the best track record, what with Max, and Christopher, and Digger, and Luke, and then Christopher again --"
"I get your point."
"But you are not a phase, Claire. Collecting Pokemon cards? Is a phase. You are in no way remotely similar to collecting Pokemon cards. You have to believe me. Ugg boots were a phase. Those colored rubber bands you wear around your wrist, and purple means you've been kissed, and yellow means you've reached second base --"
"Unnecessarily informative, Lorelai."
"-- is a phase. But you are not a phase. I'm not going to get over you like I got over cutting out pictures of Emilio Estevez for my trapper keeper. In fact, stay right here --" Lorelai bolts up the stairs and returns moments later, as Alex is wiping off the table, with something clenched in her fist. "Here," she says, spreading her palm open, "this is bracelet. I got it from a gumball machine. This is a symbol that you're --"
"Not a phase," Alex interrupts. "I got that."
Lorelai slides the bracelet over Alex's wrist. Its beads are bright fluorescent pink and yellow and in the shape of stars and hearts. "So you're going to wear it forever and never take it off?"
"Uh, no."
Lorelai recoils sharply. "Claire!"
"It came from a gumball machine!"
"It's a token of my undying devotion!"
"I know," Alex brushes her lips against Lorelai's ear, "and I really, really appreciate it. But I don't think the Cracker Jack company intended the bracelet to be worn daily, and you know, Kirk will be totally jealous."
"'Course he will be." Lorelai buries her face in to Alex's collarbone, and Alex puts her arms around her, winding her fingers through her tangled curls. "It's a limited edition and he's been after one for years."
She tilts her head back and sighs, folding her hands around the back of Alex's neck. "At least wear it for tonight. It looks great with your skin tone."
"Does it?" Alex holds out her wrist, as if to display a set of diamonds, and Lorelai laughs, the kind of laughter that fills up the room and lasts until the next morning. Traces of it will linger in nooks and crannies, if you care enough to look. "Come on. I TiVo'ed what you asked me to. You can watch it, and I'll sit beside you and be bored out of my mind."
"You will not be bored, Claire," Lorelai tells her. "Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott arguing the pros and cons of circumcision? You will be riveted. I guarantee it."
Alex stops paying attention about two minutes in and continues her biography of Bukowski. Lorelai dozes off after the interviewer finishes asking Tori's feelings toward her mother, and when Alex tucks the afghan around her, she can't help but notice the bracelet, pink and turquoise and purple, every single color unable to be found in nature.
It makes her warm and cold at the same time, as she realizes there is nothing she can give Lorelai back.
Alex lives in a fishbowl.
Literally, a fishbowl. The walls of her new apartment are made almost entirely out of floor-to-ceiling glass, and even though she lives on the eighth floor, she always feel as though she is being watched.
Whoever built this building had inserted walls that jut out from every which way in the least convenient places. Alex worries that sooner or later she will go to the kitchen for a drink in the middle of the night and end up giving herself a black eye or broken nose.
It's quiet. Not quiet quiet -- this is New York, after all; someone is always shouting at someone else, roadwork is ubiquitous, nights are never left uninterrupted by the wail of sirens. It's quiet in the way Stars Hollow never was; Alex is able to be alone here, truly alone. The neighbors don't know her. There are three different Starbucks down the block where she can grab her morning coffee. As for breakfast -- she doesn't eat breakfast here. No pancakes at Luke's, croissants from Weston's, or even Pop Tarts in the comfort of her own, pitifully bare home.
Emily Gilmore had sent a housewarming gift. A set of bookends carved out of Pharian marble. Alex is not sure what they're supposed to be, but from the accompanying card, she knows they used to belong to Napoleon.
The rest of her apartment is mostly empty. She should hire an interior decorator. Buy new furniture. Her old furniture, along with her other belongings, are in her mother's house upstate. She needs to buy new clothes too; the clothes Claire had worn won't serve much use here, and the clothes she'd worn before she went to Stars Hollow are still in boxes in a basement in East Amherst.
Manhattan is different from what she remembered it to be.
She tells herself it's just the view from her window.
She still has two more mandatory therapy sessions with the psychologist before Branch will clear her for her new position as bureau chief. That gives her about a week, maybe ten days, to readjust to the city again.
She never thought she'd need to readjust. She always thought it would be like riding a bike, that she will always know how, always have a feel for it.
The first night, she woke up at four a.m., unable to remember where she was.
Huang invites her out for lunch and tells her she needs to grieve.
Her cable gets hooked up, and she leaves Deal or No Deal on while she microwaves a Lean Cuisine for dinner. Some idiot is about to trade fifty thousand dollars in for a briefcase worth twenty bucks. If Lorelai were here, she'd be screaming at the TV.
As if Alex had conjured her by sheer want, someone begins pounding furiously on the front door, and when Alex opens it, Lorelai pushes her aside and stomps in.
"You have something of mine, and I want it back," she announces, folding her arms over her chest. A scowl is chiseled onto her face, but Alex notices her softening as she glances around the apartment, checking out the decor and furnishings.
"What is it that you're missing?" Alex asks. She closes the door and hopes her neighbors aren't early sleepers. Because it is highly likely that there will be an argument, which will inevitably escalate into a screaming match, and if Babette can hear Lorelai's yells from a hundred feet away, the occupants of 8C are going to hear it in surround sound.
"My I Love Lucy pajamas."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The I Love Lucy pajamas."
"Lorelai," Alex says, "you gave me the I Love Lucy pajamas. For Christmas."
"Yes, but you never wear them. And besides," Lorelai adds, "I only gave them to you so I could borrow them, because otherwise I had no good reason to justify spending seventy-five dollars on pajamas."
"Still, that doesn't change the fact that they're a gift, so technically, they belong to me."
"What the hell do you need them for anyway? It's not like you'll ever wear them again. You're not in Stars Hollow anymore. You don't need any Stars Hollow things. They're not good enough for you."
The words rip through her, white-hot, like a bullet in the gut. Like dying all over again.
"Lorelai, you cannot possibly believe that is true," Alex says, but Lorelai is shaking now, and she holds up a hand and Alex stops.
"It's not even that you lied to me. That I understand," Lorelai says, after a long period silence in which they both struggled to breathe, to keep from tearing their skin open. "It's that you went into this knowing you were always going to leave. You always knew that if you had a choice, you would choose New York. That, that is what keeps me up at night and makes me want to kick myself for not listening to my brain when it said, Lorelai, it's not going to last. It's never going to last. It never worked out for you before, why do you think this time is going to be any different? I hate it when my brain is right, and now when I go to sleep, I can't, because my brain won't shut up. It keeps saying, Ha ha, Lorelai. I was right. You were wrong. I was right. I am always right."
Alex's throat aches with strain to keep herself composed. She licks her lips, swallows. Tries to find a way to convince Lorelai. She used to be so good at convincing people. "I never intended for this to happen."
"I know you didn't." Lorelai balls her fists together and nods toward the floorboards. "Can I have what I came here for, or do we have to carry on with this lovely small talk?"
"I'll go look."
It's in the first box, under a pile of books and CDs and old magazines that she'd collected when she was in Connecticut. The pajamas were bright red except for patches on the knees and elbows, faded and worn from Lorelai's wearing.
Lorelai is staring up at the ceiling when Alex returns. "What is that?" she asks, pointing at the scraps of metal that swung from the ceiling.
"It's a mobile."
"Like, for a baby?"
Alex shrugs. "It came with the apartment. The designer was from Copenhagen."
"Must be all the rage in Denmark." Lorelai attempts a smile, but it's too hard for everybody, so she puts on again that steely look and holds out her hands in anticipation. "Well?"
"Here." Alex folds the pajamas and tucks them into a shopping bag from Saks. Lorelai takes it from her.
"All right then. I guess I should get going."
"Yes," Alex nods, and all she can think is, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. "I guess you should."
Lorelai waggles her fingers in a paltry attempt of a wave, before managing a smile that seems so painful Alex almost begs her to stop. She turns around, never meeting Alex in the eye, and disappears out the door.
Five seconds later, there is pounding on the door again.
"What the hell, Claire? You still talk to my mother?" Lorelai screeches. "What are you trying to do, make sure I kill myself, just in case you suddenly being this Nancy Grace person in the big, sophisticated city, where everything is better and I guess I'll just pick up my stuff and go doesn't do it?"
"Lorelai," Alex says, and she doesn't even care if the neighbors hear anymore.
"Here. Keep them." Lorelai thrusts the pajamas back into Alex's arms and spins around, stomping down the hallway. "I don't want them. They're yours. I gave them to you."
"Lorelai!" Alex calls. "Lorelai. Don't. Please."
Lorelai is crying. In the wan light of the hallway, Alex can see her swollen eyes, her desperate attempts to inconspicuously wipe the tears from her cheeks. "What do you want now? Oh, by the way, neighbor person who just came out to see what's going on," she stabs a finger toward Alex, "she'll promise to take care of your plants, but she won't. And don't go on vacation and trust her with your dog. She is not a dog person."
"Lorelai," Alex says, digging her fingernails into her palms to will herself to keep herself stoic. Keep stoic and keep going. "Lorelai, I'm sorry. I really am. Tell me, what can I do to make it better?"
Lorelai shakes her head. "Just tell me one thing, Claire. Were we happy? Because I thought, I thought we were happy."
"We were," Alex says.
"Good," Lorelai says softly. "Good."
You can find Lorelai's pjs at www.sleepyheads.com
I had a dream about SM last night. She was mean to me.
