#jch writes

His finger traced the edge of the envelope for what seemed like the thousandth time. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to wear through the recycled paper. He stared across the street at the mailbox. It was ridiculous, he knew, to be so nervous over mailing something, but words could be powerful, and he’d always been cautious about how and when he chose to use them.

With one final shaky sigh, Luke approached the menacing blue steel container and reached for the handle.

“Careful, it bites.”

His shoulders stiffened at the familiar voice.

“Huh?”

“The door of the mailbox, it’s like a mouth. It, uh…” Lorelai replied, her tone no less awkward than he felt.

They looked at each other for a moment, each resorting to nervous tics in favor of speaking. Lorelai bit her lower lip, Luke’s eyes widened and flitted around as he searched for the right thing to say.

Despite the ice between them, their roles had always been well defined. And as such, Lorelai spoke first.

“Luke, do you have a few minutes? To talk, or, I don’t know… Not talk? See who cries ‘Uncle!’ first?”

Fighting a smirk at the visual of them sitting across from each other in a staring contest to see who ran away first, Luke nodded slowly.

“Not here,” he said quietly. “Not in Stars Hollow.”

“Yeah, okay.” Lorelai’s mind took a brief jaunt to the surrounding towns, and she informed Luke of the perfect spot: a park in a neighboring town. They agreed on a time, a few hours later in the day.

If approaching the mailbox with papers stuffed in an envelope addressed to Lorelai Gilmore was unnerving, nearing the bench she was seated at to hand-deliver it was downright terrifying.

It wasn’t enough that she had arrived first, but the description she’d given him earlier in the day did little to prepare him.

The two benches were not simply facing each other as Lorelai had detailed, but awkwardly placed barely a foot apart. For two people who’d been avoiding each other’s presence for the last few weeks, knowingly sitting right in each other’s personal space seemed ludicrous. And perfectly suited to Lorelai Gilmore, who seemed to thrive in the most ridiculous and awkward circumstances. Would that he were so skilled in uncomfortable situations.

Before he could break into a run back to his truck, a pair of blue eyes caught him, their unmasked sadness only heightening his feelings of guilt. The contents of the worn envelope he’d been carrying around all day would hardly help either of their moods.

“For awhile there, I didn’t think you’d show up.”

“You were early,” he answered defensively.

Lorelai shrugged, a small smile appearing.

Luke sighed.“I almost changed my mind a second ago.”

Lorelai’s hint of a smile grew, evolving into a knowing grin which Luke returned with a smirk of his own. Before he could think twice, he shoved the envelope into her hands.

Surprised by its nearly frayed edges and multiple creases, she raised an eyebrow in question. Luke shrugged in response, and took his designated spot on the bench opposite hers. His knees made painful contact with the bench in front of him. He adjusted his legs, cringing as the side of his knee bumped Lorelai’s.

Her fingers were learning the same edges of the envelope his own had grown familiar with over the past few days, and her hesitance to open it pushed Luke’s patience to its limit.

“I owe you an apology,” he started.

“No, I… That’s not what I-”

“Just open the envelope.”

He stared ahead as she followed his instructions, his eyes tracing the roots of a nearby tree, their entangled, convoluted twists and curves diving deep into the earth for several inches before resurfacing, embarking on paths only known to the tree itself. Distracted by the sound of a sniffle, Luke tilted his gaze back to Lorelai, finding her staring at her own writing.

“You’re giving me my apology back?” she asked softly.

He shook his head and grabbed the paper from her, his finger crushing Garfield’s face slightly as he flipped it over, revealing his own writing on the other side.

There was no way she could’ve read the entire note given how quickly she looked back up. Before Luke could growl at her refusal to follow his instructions, she shook her head at him.

“You don’t need to apologize for defending your family, that’s-”

“If you’re not gonna read all of my letter, at least take a good look through the other papers in there.”

Watching her read his own heartfelt apology had proven difficult, but keeping his eyes on her as she read through the other pages of writing he’d included was painful. Nevertheless, it was on par with cauterizing a wound: harrowing, yet healing.

He wondered what her reaction would be when she finally reached the last page. His own experience with the details had sent him through a few different emotional peaks. Anger, mortification, sadness, and guilt were among them.

Coop, a childhood friend of Luke’s and a member of the local police force, had stopped by the diner after Jess’s incident with Rory’s car and wrist. It had been Luke’s first introduction to the papers he’d just bequeathed to Lorelai. He knew it was serious when Coop suggested they talk upstairs rather than in the diner itself.

“There were a few witnesses,” Coop had said grimly. He’d flicked the leafs of paper with his finger. “These damn kids may try to save each other’s asses, but we’ve got individual accounts of the shenanigans they were up to.”

It started with old Ms. Rex, who’d been out for an evening stroll with her adopted Great Dane. Though she’d gone into excessive detail about Thomas’s absurdly small bladder compared to his overall size, she’d eventually gotten to the point:

It wasn’t the swerving that had caught her attention, it was the shouting. The driver, his focus on the melting ice cream cone in his hand instead of on the road ahead, was laughing loudly as the passenger reached for the wheel. Rather than hand the passenger his ice cream and drive responsibly, the car had actually sped up, the driver paying little heed to maintaining control of the car.

She hadn’t been able to identify them, but the car had been familiar, similar to something she’d driven in her own youth.

A few houses down, Jed Brown had been chasing a raccoon away from his trash cans. He’d watched with horror as a driver scrambled to get his hands back on the wheel to help the passenger steer the car away from the startled animal.

He didn’t see the crash itself - the driver’s ice cream was flung out the window, landing squarely on Mr. Brown’s nose.

“On the bright side,” Mr. Brown had said optimistically, “The coldness of the ice cream helped keep the swelling down from the damn cone.”

Two more neighbors with similar stories were included, along old Mrs. Slutsky’s ranting statement. The crash had scared away the grubs she’d been hunting in preparation for her upcoming fishing trip. After a lengthy diatribe, she did, eventually, confirm the boy had shouted a quick, “You okay?” before scampering off into the wood. Despite the girl’s response in the affirmative, Mrs. Slutsky was a retired nurse and knew the angle of the girl’s wrist proved otherwise. It was she who’d called for an ambulance.

Only one resident had correctly identified Rory and Jess, Coop had noted, cautioning Luke against accusing the town of, once again, trying to defend or excuse Jess’s behavior to the town. Someone had been hurt, a car totaled, and the raccoon was still unaccounted for.

“She didn’t tell me this,” Lorelai said, finishing the last page of Coop’s report. “She didn’t tell me any of this.”

“She was protecting him. I’d been too, I guess. He’s not a dumb kid most of the time, he has so much potential, and he’d rather steal gnomes, money, and break Rory’s wrist than care about anyone but himself. And if that’s all he cares about, he can be by himself, away from here, away from Rory, and away from any temptation to ruin every good thing anyone tries to do for him.”

Lorelai remained silent. She’d seen Jess’s issues early on, and warned Luke the very first day Jess had arrived. Luke had rebuffed her then, but from the few words she’d scanned after glancing at his response to her apology, she knew he hadn’t forgotten. There was no use rubbing salt in the wound when he was already hurting over this troubled child’s countless transgressions.

Instead, she cringed as she thought back to her own childhood and the bad boys she’d been attracted to, defended, and been dragged down by. As painful as it was to watch Rory go through the same phases, she’d hoped she’d given her enough of a foundation to not make the same mistakes.

Frustrated with Rory and Jess, and hurting for Luke and herself, Lorelai shifted her leg slightly to softly and briefly bump Luke’s. A small sign of solidarity as they made their way through the latest snag in their friendship. He didn’t jerk away, though he couldn’t hide his look of surprised approval at the gesture. She tried it again, pushing her knee against his for a moment longer than the last time. His knee shifted to tap hers back. Their gazes met, directing sad, supportive smiles toward each other. Understanding was as important as forgiveness.

“I am sorry I yelled at you,” she said, holding up her original note for emphasis before setting it in the bag beside her.

“Don’t be. I would’ve yelled at me too. I know that kid can’t go five minutes without supervision. I should’ve stayed in the diner. I asked Rory to tutor him, not babysit. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“A rare moment of optimism.”

“See? That’s why I don’t venture into that area,” Luke grumbled.

“Ah, there’s my Luke!” Lorelai chuckled, grateful to receive the smiley-eyed smirk she’d been missing.

Tempting fate, Lorelai pressed her knee against his again, but this time chose not to pull it away. The shared warmth reassured her, made her feel as though the energy passing between them was healing the damage and distance of the past few weeks.

She didn’t hate Jess. She knew what it was like to feel unsettled and unhappy. She’d avoided taking it as far as he had, had never endangered the life of another person, but she understood Luke wanting to save his nephew. It was the same chance Mia Holloway had taken on Lorelai so many years ago. Jess simply wasn’t ready for it, too damaged and angry to understand the importance of Luke’s gesture.

As if reading her mind, Luke sighed heavily. “I never should’ve brought him here.”

“But maybe it’s good you did. He might be your sister’s son, but he knows you’re the one that’s there for him.”

“Does he?”

“At the end of the day, Luke, you’re about as loyal as they come. You’re not the type to give up easily, and you didn’t give up on him. Once he works things out in his head, he’ll realize you’re in his life for good.”

“For good, huh? Like permanently forever?”

“Something like that.”

Luke and Lorelai grinned at each other, simultaneously reaching for each other’s hand, squeezing to acknowledge their renewed, permanent places in each other’s lives.

They stood, each secretly regretting the loss of their brief physical connections. Lorelai turned to distract herself and caught sight of the tree Luke had been looking at earlier. She gestured toward its base.

“You don’t know where it all begins or ends, but it’s all tied up together.”

He nodded, stealing one final glance at the tree’s interwoven roots, and smiled to himself, his thoughts far from his nephew.

Fin.

DON’T HATE ME!!

Sooo, here’s the thing about Jess, and this story arc in particular.

I have a lot of issues with Jess, and I think the only thing Luke did right in this story arc was sending Jess away. I also believe Lorelai was justified in her anger at Luke. Luke had been enabling Jess’s bad behavior already by never forcing him to be held accountable for any of it. The snotty little kid yelled at Luke’s friend the very day he appeared on the scene, and Luke not only allowed it, but defended it. Jess stole someone’s property. Luke put it back. Jess stole money. Luke defended him. Jess ruined property. Luke didn’t make Jess clean it up.

After much thought, it turns out, the major inspiration drain for me was, in fact, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.

Initially, I loved it. As a whole, I sorta still do. However, I knew if I examined it too closely, the faults would start to stand out more than the bigger picture. So I tried to keep my distance. Despite that, with time, a lot of things began to really bother me (referring solely to Luke and Lorelai’s relationship, as that is what I write about). I also can’t relate as well to a near-50 year old Lorelai; as a woman in her thirties myself, it’s 30-something Lorelai with whom I developed a connection. So I decided, no big deal, I will simply not write revival era fic - that’s not what I was working on anyway. 

Except that... with this particular show, because season 7 was written by someone who is not Amy or Dan, it left a certain mystique. You didn’t really know how things might have turned out, what season 6 might’ve looked like had the problematic contract negotiations not been going on, and there was this especially lovely mystery over what they would’ve done with season 7.

The revival answered some of those questions, and made other questions and character evolution largely irrelevant (again, this is not about Rory’s stuff, I’m strictly talking L&L here). 

And with that, my little muse, who is powered entirely by “what ifs” fell into a muse coma, and remains on life support.

The fic I have been working on uses a lot of “what ifs” and plays with life in very early season 6. And there were countless challenges I wanted to throw at the characters, and a lot of growth required to handle them.

But since the revival, every time I’ve rolled up my sleeves to play with the characters, I’ve recalled every issue I have with Luke and Lorelai in the revival, and feel like I don’t even know them as characters anymore, and can’t even begin to understand their relationship.

I don’t want to get into the finer details of what I dislike about The Revival Era L&L Relationship because everyone has their own opinion about it, and that’s not what this post is for.

But if that is who these characters are, and the way their relationship is supposed to work... to compare it to art... this is not the palette that inspired me to paint in the first place, and I’m not sure how to use it. In fact, I do not even like these colors at all, and now even this paintbrush feels unfamiliar.

I realize this is probably a matter of really narrowing my focus down to the seasons my fic covers, and I’m really going to try hard to do that this year. But it is really hard to keep the revival out of my head.