Chapter Eight

"Luke!" Emily Gilmore's frantic appearance in the diner at lunch is enough to startle all of the patrons.

"He's not here," Kirk reports.

"Mom?" Lorelai comes down the stairs just in time to see her mother nearly on the verge of tears.

"Oh, Lorelai!" Emily immediately hurries across the diner and pulls Lorelai in a very out of character hug.

"Um, Mom, you're kind of freaking me out," Lorelai states attempting to pull out of the death lock Emily has wrapped around her.

"I heard you were in the hospital, but then I called and they said you weren't there but they say that if you don't release your name to the bank and I was so afraid something had happened to you and Rory's not answering her cell phone..." Emily's words come out in a long breath.

"Mom, whoa, calm down. I'm fine, I was just in the hospital overnight..."

"You were in the hospital and you didn't think to call me?" Emily's mood swings quickly to anger, "Lorelai I'm your mother I deserve to know when my only child is in the hospital.

"Mom, why don't we talk about this upstairs?" Lorelai asks, she's unsure of how to respond to her mother.

"Oh my God, is there something wrong with the baby? Is there something wrong with you?" Emily questions.

"Okay, Mom," Lorelai places both hands on her mother's back and forces her toward the steps, "let's talk upstairs. You're causing a scene." Lorelai smiles at this comment, how many times had Emily stated that Lorelai was causing a scene.

"Okay, we're upstairs," Emily states once they are safely in Luke's apartment, "what's wrong? Just tell me, the suspense is killing me."

"Mom, nothing's wrong," Lorelai explains.

"Then why'd you bring me up here?" Emily demands.

"Because you were acting like a crazy person down there, people were staring."

This fact doesn't seem to bother Emily like it normally would, "but you were in the hospital. People don't just go to the hospital as a vacation, what happened?"

"Nothing happened, I fainted and hit my head it was nothing serious but they wanted to keep me for observation, that's it."

"Oh thank God," Emily sings onto one of the chairs at Luke's small table.

"Mom, what in the world is going on?" Lorelai asks taking the seat across from her mother.

"Richard told me that my cell phone had a message this morning, I don't know how to check the stupid thing, and when I checked it there was a message Rory left last night saying that you'd been taken to the hospital but that she didn't know what was going on. When I couldn't get a hold of Rory again I though something terrible was happening..." With her words Emily buries her head in her hands.

Lorelai stares shocked at her mother, she'd never seen Emily Gilmore this vulnerable before, "Mom...I..."

"I just want to be a part of your life," Emily finally lifts her head and Lorelai can see the tears swimming in her eyes. "I missed out on so much of Rory's life and you're life, I don't want to make that mistake again. I know it doesn't seem important to you but being a part of the lives of my grandchildren and my daughter are important, and I don't think I can handle the idea of you shutting me out of the life of this baby. The life you're about to start with Luke."

"Mom I..." Lorelai trails, all of this is just to much for Lorelai to take in at the moment, but as she sinks into a chair across from her mother. But suddenly a moment of clarity hits Lorelai, for the first time in her entire life Lorelai Gilmore understands where her mother isc oming from on something. Lorelai had freaked out when she'd been left out of one detail of Rory's life, how must her mother feel being left out of every detail of Lorelai's life? Of being left out of a good portion of her granddaughters life. "I understand."

"Lorelai please don't mock me," Emily's hands are shielding to her eyes so that Lorelai can no longer see the tears she knows are there.

"Mom, I'm not mocking you."

"Of course you are," Emily responds, "you've never understood where I was coming from in your entire life, I can't begin to think you'd understand now."

"But I do," Lorelai stares at her mother and finally Emily's eyes land on her daughters.

"I'm not asking for a lot Lorelai," Emily's voice contains hope, "I'm not saying I need to know every time the baby spits up I just want to be involved in more then just holidays."

Lorelai nods, "I understand. And you will be. Luke got it before, I didn't. But I do now. If Luke still wants we'll all start going to Friday night dinners."

Emily stands, "thank you Lorelai, you'll never know how much this means to me."

"I think I do," Lorelai nods.

A silence falls over the mother and daughter but for the first time it's not uncomfortable, but finally Emily glances at her watch, "I ran out ten minutes before a DAR meeting, I'm sorry..."

"It's okay," Lorelai nods, "I'll see you around."

Emily pauses for a minute before nodding, "okay, we'll see you Friday then."

"Actually...Mom..." Lorelai sucks in a deep breath, "why don't you stop by the house Thursday night? Rory and Sookie are coming by with wedding magazines so we can get planning this wedding, we could use your input."

Emily smiles, "I'd love to, just let me know when and I'll be there with my own magazines."

"Sevenish?" Lorelai suggests.

Emily nods, "sounds great, I'll see you then."

Once Emily is gone Lorelai remains in her chair shell shocked, in her entire life she and her mother had never connected over anything. Lorelai didn't understand Emily and Emily didn't understand Lorelai. That's the way things were. They weren't supposed to change. Most daughters got closer to their mothers when they had children because they could finally understand what they'd put their own mother's through, but had that been the bad part of having such a perfect daughter in Rory? One who never made mistakes and kept anything from her? They couldn't even relate over that. But just in that one secret that Rory had kept from Lorelai she'd been put in her mother's shoes, and she'd been able to see life from another angle.

"Are you okay?" Luke rushes into the apartment startling Lorelai, "you look stressed. Did she stress you out? I..." Luke is in front of Lorelai before she can come out of her revelation-like thoughts.

"No, it was fine," Lorelai shakes her head. "We actually connected over something, I told her that you're welcome to come to Friday night dinners if you still wanted to go. And she's coming over to help plan the wedding.

"Um..." It's obvious that Luke doesn't know what to make of this statement.

"It's okay," Lorelai responds, "you don't have to understand it because I don't...but while we're on the topic we need to pick a wedding date."

"Uh, yeah I guess," Luke nods.

"I was thinking maybe the first week of March, it's soon but it's not like either one of us are wanting anything huge right? Unless you've been hiding secrets of a lavish church wedding..." At Luke's silence Lorelai's eyes go wide, "oh my God we're you?"

"No," Luke shakes his head quickly, "I just...one minute you're saying you're not sure if you're ready to jump into all of this...you need time to deal. And we're fighting and the next you're ready to set a date."

Lorelai stands up and wraps her arms around Luke's neck, "I want to marry you Luke. Before...before I was scared. I'm not scared anymore. You are the one person I've always been able to count on and I don't have doubts about marrying you. Okay?"

"If you're sure," Luke responds resting his hands on Lorelai's hips.

Lorelai nods, "I'm positive. And we can't wait to long because this town in anxious for a wedding...our wedding namely."

"The first week in March sounds great then," Luke kisses Lorelai lightly.

"So three weeks from now and we'll be getting married, imagine that." Lorelai rests her head on Luke's chest, neither have anything to say, both lost in their own thoughts of what life three weeks down the road and beyond will be like.