if we wanted, we could fall (part 4)

[wizened_cynic]

There were a million things Lorelai wanted to do, but couldn't, what with her condition and all.

"It's not a condition," Alex corrected. "It's a state of being."

"I'm sorry," Lorelai said, rolling her eyes so hard there was a chance they could pop right off, "my state of being.. Point is, I want to do all these things and I can't by myself, so you have to help me!"

"I don't understand your argument," said Alex.

"There's no argument," said Lorelai. She jumped up and down on Alex's knee, so hard she knew it bordered on hurting. "You have to. You're my human. There are obligations."

"Says who?"

"Says me."

"Why do you even want to ride a bike?"

"Because it looks like fun when they do it on TV!"

"Oh, that's a great reason for doing something," Alex said, and Lorelai wanted to tell her that House did sarcasm a lot better than she did. "You know they don't make bikes your size, right?"

"I'll sit in the basket and live vicariously through you."

"Well, I don't have a bike."

"You're a human. You can get one, like. Anywhere. You can get one at Wal-Mart. Get one with a basket."

"Just so we're clear," Lorelai said as Alex steered the shopping cart towards the aisle with the sporting gear, "I also wanted to ride in one of these, so two birds, one stone, BOOM."

"Shut up before I change my mind."

The bike was silver and shiny and the cheapest model, because Alex refused to spend over a hundred dollars on something she was going to use once. "Who knows, you might fall in love with it," Lorelai said. "Start biking everywhere before you know it. Like that guy in France."

"I don't really see competitive cycling in my future. Just a lot of paper-pushing." Alex sighed, but it wasn't really about Lorelai; that much she could tell.

Alex parked the bike on the driveway and together they stared at it for a long, hard while. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Why wouldn't I want to do this?"

"I don't know, I don't know why you want to do this in the first place."

"Do humans need a reason for everything?"

Alex shrugged and plunked Lorelai down into the basket that hung from the handlebars. The wires at the bottom hurt Lorelai's feet, but it didn't matter. She could tell this was going to be worth the sacrifice. Alex stared at the bike some more until Lorelai yelled, "Come on, what are you waiting for?"

"I haven't done this since I was --- I don't even know how young I was," Alex grumbled as she climbed onto the seat. She put her hands on the handlebars, squeezing down on the brakes even though they haven't even moved yet, so tight Lorelai could see her knuckles turn white. "I don't know if I remember how to do this."

"It'll come back to you. Go!"

But Alex just stood there, staring ahead, feet firmly planted on the ground.

"What are you so scared of?" Lorelai asked. "They've already tried to kill you. What's the worst that can happen? A scraped knee? A mild concussion?"

"Okay, from now on, only the person who can actually ride the bike gets to make the decisions about riding said bike."

"Alex," Lorelai said. She was too short to reach Alex's hand, but she would've patted it if she could. "I'll be here the whole time."

Alex peered into the basket at her. "No offense, but you're not going to be that much of a help in the event of an emergency."

Dr. Phil said that people like Alex needed love and support, and not talking back, which coincidentally was what Lorelai was dying to do, so she said, "No, but I will be here the whole time."

"Yes. Yes, you will," Alex said, and pedaled.

It was almost like flying.

"This is so cool!" Lorelai screamed as the wind came at her straight in the face. She put her arms up because that was what people did on roller coasters, which reminded her --- next item on her to-do list: ride a roller coaster. "Isn't this cool, Alex?"

"Keep your voice down," Alex said, but she was pedaling faster now, slowing down only when she turned right at the curb, and through the mesh of the basket Lorelai could see other houses and trees and a real dog and an old lady that looked like Paula Deen and more houses and little kids who stopped and waved.

They went around the block twice, and the bike didn't wobble once, not until the end. By then, it was like Alex didn't know how to stop. But she did stop, concussion-free and no scraped knees, and they were back where they started. Lorelai turned around to look at Alex, who was pink-faced from the wind and panting for breath, but smiling like Lorelai had never seen before, like she was actually happy.


*

Alex couldn't remember the last time she was in a movie theatre. It must have been two, three years ago, before she started at the DA's office. Some film festival in Tribeca she'd attended at the behest of her mother; the movie was French and in black and white.

She wasn't exactly nostalgic, but it was somehow comforting to know that movie theatres were the same everywhere: the oppressive smell of popcorn and nachos, the young couple noisily making out before the previews were even over, the lone movie go-er sitting by herself two or three rows in front of everyone else.

Alex realized that she was that person now, the crazy one at the movies all on her lonesome, occasionally muttering to herself.

Or, in her case, to a gingerbread cookie.

"So it's like watching TV," Lorelai said. She was sitting on the armrest next to Alex's seat and peering suspiciously at the popcorn that she had insisted Alex to buy. "But in a bigger room with more people. Then why don't we just watch TV?"

"It was your idea to come," Alex reminded her. Lorelai had a list of demands ("They're not demands," Lorelai protested, "I'm asking nicely!") and going to the movies was near the top. "Are you going to have a staredown with that popcorn, or are you going to eat it?"

"I've never had savory food," Lorelai said. "I don't know if I can handle it. It's a huge step to take. My fellow cookies might see it as a betrayal. I might be shunned, excommunicated, burned at the stake ---"

Alex handed her a mini-marshmallow and that effectively shut her up.

The movie began.

Fifteen minutes in, Alex wondered if she should've chosen something simpler for Lorelai's first movie-going experience, Nora Ephron rather than Charlie Kaufman, but Lorelai was utterly engrossed by the film. Whether she actually understood what was going on was questionable --- hell, even Alex was having to make an effort to follow --- but she was clearly enjoying herself and after a while, so was Alex.

They were the last to leave because Lorelai insisted on watching the credits all the way through.

"That," Lorelai said, sighing contentedly as she settled herself in Alex's coat pocket, "was amazing. It's not the same as watching TV, it really isn't."

"It was a pretty good movie," Alex conceded.

"I like it when there's a happy ending." Lorelai pondered this for a minute and added, thoughtfully, "It was a happy ending, right?"

Alex wondered how much Lorelai truly understood about human relationships considering she learned most of it from daytime TV. "Yeah," she said. "It was."

"There should be more dancing though. All the best movies are about dancing: Footloose, Saturday Night Fever, Dirty Dancing ..."

"And how do you know this?"

"Netflix."

By now Alex had learned not to question Lorelai's ability to get her hands on things (despite not even having hands), and simply made a mental note to herself to hide her credit cards in a better place.

"What are we doing next? Dinner?" Lorelai asked once they were in the car and she had resumed her position in Alex's cup holder.

"I'm not taking you to dinner," Alex said. Being the crazy person muttering to herself at the movies was one thing, being the crazy person muttering to herself at a restaurant was called schizophrenia.

"But we're on a date!"

"We are ---" Alex wasn't even sure how to respond to that. "We're not on a date."

"We could be on a date!"

"Do you even know what --- never mind. Just. This is not a date."

"You don't date cookies now? That's racism." Lorelai stopped pouting long enough to amend, "Cookiesm."

Alex sighed. "We can stop at Dairy Queen," she said, because then it would be an ice cream social, not a date, and she could live with that.

"I do love me some Oreo CheeseQuake Blizzard."

"Of course you do."

"Hey, Alex?"

"Yes?"

You wouldn't forget me, would you?"

"Lorelai," Alex said, taking her eyes off the road for a moment to glance down at her, "you're pretty hard to forget."


Part 5