Touch of Hellfire (Original Version)

☕️47☕️

"Good morning!" I sang as I came downstairs. "Mom is clipping coupons again," Rory laughed. I gasped dramatically. "She never did them in the first place genius."

"How come your sister doesn't bring home her laundry?" Mom wondered. "We have machines in our building," I told her. "One per apartment and before you ask, no you are not coming to New York to do your laundry."

"Evil!" Rory gasped.

"Dude, you come to New York to sightsee, see your twin and eat your twin's cooking, not to do laundry."

"You have a laundry night?" Rory asked me. "One, yes Thursday is my night and two, I am not doing your laundry for you," I told her.

"So evil," Rory pouted.

***

"Sookie's having a home birth?" I asked Mom. "Yes and I did a very crap job of hiding my horrified face," Mom sighed. "It's hard to be supportive yet grossed out at the same time."

Taylor for some reason called an emergency meeting, can't wait to hear what this is about.

Lane slipped in beside me and let out a sigh of relief. "So did you guys get Dave back?" I asked her.

"Thankfully, Andrea told him to," Lane said. 

"People!" Taylor made his presence known. "Thank you for assembling on short notice. As you know, every year, one lucky town in Connecticut gets to host The Festival of Living Pictures, a show which presents onstage re-creations of famous works of art with real people posing. We have been chosen this year, you know the rules, we need to come up with one original re-creation."

"Everyone should sign up if you want be included, this is a big challenge, I say we do it well."

Of course, the Gilmore tradition for after a town meeting is always coffee, so we went to Luke's. "What was that about?" 

"Living Pictures," I told him. "Oh for God's sake," Luke rolled his eyes. 

"Why are they looking at me like that?" Rory pointed out the window at a woman, standing next to Taylor..just staring at her.

"Hey you got a sec?" Luke asked me. I nodded and the two of us went upstairs. To find all of Jess' stuff gone.

"What the hell?!"

"Exactly what I said," Luke grumbled. "But..I don't get it..why'd he leave?"

"We had an argument, Jimmy his deadbeat of a dad turned up..again," Luke ranted. "Again?" I asked him shocked.

"Oh yeah and I was telling him, 'you're doing community college, you have a girlfriend and a good job, don't be such an idiot,'"

"And the response?" I wondered. "Not great it was screaming match, I wake up and poof, gone."

"I haven't talked to him in over a week," I muttered. "Maybe I can knock some sense into him."

"He's in California," he told me. "Okay, never mind," I sighed. 

I tried dialling his number but it went straight to voicemail. "My God," I grumbled.

***

"They picked me as the Mona Lisa?" I frowned as Andrea made the coffee for Mom. "They didn't pick me as Renoir Girl," Mom pouted. "They chose Carol! CAROL!"

"Yikes," I muttered. "Me and Rory could blackmail him," I suggested. "After the measurements."

"That's my girl," Mom smirked. "So I heard about Luke vs Jess, have you talked to him?"

"He's hiding from me, both wise and dumb," I told her. "This thing ain't gonna work if he's in California and hiding because he knows that I will kill him, with a rock."

"Maybe he has some really bad explanation," Mom wondered. "It's always one step forward, five thousand steps back," I sighed. "I don't want to stress myself over this, when I am stressed it ain't good, I panic and throw up and in extreme circumstances, I faint." 

"So what are you going to do?" Mom asked me. "I've left dozens of messages, I'm just gonna wait and see what happens, but right now I have to focus on school and scripts."

"Scripts? You're writing them already?"

"Have to keep my mind off him somehow," I shrugged. "Sweetheart, go out and have some fun, just forget about him and focus on you, your work and your friends," Mom advised me. "Okay, I will," I said. 

***

"How do I look?" I asked Rory. "That Leonardo Da Vinci really likes you," she teased me. 

"Anthea and Lisa, those are our new names," I smirked. "Is it me or did I hear Sookie yelling why we crawled out of Mom? Or what motivated us?"

"Something like that," Rory laughed. "Mom told me about you and Jess."

"I tried talking to him Ror, but he never wants to, he talks but he never says anything about the deep stuff," I told her. "But this time, I need to focus on myself for a little while."

"You gonna tell him that?" Rory asked me. I bit my lip. "You know what? I am."

"Aw, you two look so adorable," Mom said as she came over to us. "Rory, Heather, get ready," Miss Patty instructed us. 

Rory went first and had to stay still and hold her breath. I was next and I had to sit on a stool, look stern and had one arm crossed over the other.

Oh God, I need to blink so badly. "The Mona Lisa, ladies and gentlemen."

Once the curtain closed I let out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank God!"

"You were great Hezzy," Rory told me. "Not blinking or breathing?"

Mom was on for the grand finale and everyone was worried she was gonna flinch. She was doing good so far.

"Go on Mom, keep it up," I murmured. Suddenly, Mom's pager went off and it played Scott Joplin...which meant Sookie was in labour.

"Shit," I panicked. "Stay frozen..stay frozen!"

Thankfully she stayed still and once the curtain was drawn we all ran towards Sookie's.

***

Sookie gave birth to a boy and named him Davey. He was so cute, I love babies.

Mom and Rory were fussing over him and I stepped outside and I dialled Jess' number. 

It did ring out but it went to voicemail. "Hey, it's me," I decided to leave a message which wasn't the right thing to do. "First things first, thank you for not telling me that you moved to the other side of the country, much appreciated, I really don't know how you expected things to work from here so I'm making this easier for the two of us. I'm not saying I don't love you, I do. But I need to focus on myself, I'm not going to wait ten years for the phone to ring. The last thing I want to do is to do this over voicemail but I have to. I'm sorry that I'm doing this Jess. I love you but I have to let you go. I need to focus on me."

I hung up and I sat on the steps outside.