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chapter one ━ raincoats & recipes
gilmore girls season four, episode twenty two

❝ i'm going to need back up
for friday night dinner, okay? ❞

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Violet Gilmore woke up to the figures of two brown haired women staring at her with their matching cups of coffee in their hands. Both of their identical pairs of blue eyes narrowed at her from where she was sprawled on their couch, their heads tilted sidewards in a way Violet could only describe as something she would have seen in a horror movie, all they needed was matching blood stained outfits and they were good to go.

"Oh, jeez—" Violet gasped, startled by the lurking presence of her sister and niece, presumably watching her sleep for an unknown amount of time. "You really have to stop doing that, it's unnerving." The blonde spoke with pursed lips, rubbing at her eyes to make the two women a little less blurry than they currently were.

The multitude of occasions where one Violet Gilmore woke up on her sister's incredibly comfortable couch in her home in the small town of Stars Hollow usually always began with her two favourite relatives crowded around her like an exhibit in the museum.

"You snore." The younger of the two, Rory, groaned tiredly as she dropped to the couch, very nearly sitting on her Aunt's legs as she ran a hand through her newly cut brown bob.

"I don't snore." The snoring convict protested, her voice reaching high volumes as she prodded Rory with her heel.

"You so do!" Violet's sister, Lorelai, backed up her daughter, flopping into the armchair she had bought from Kim's Antiques many moons ago.

Violet scratched at her temple. "It was the dog."

Lorelai gulped back a huge sip of extra strong coffee (her speciality), shaking her head in amusement as a small smirk tugged at the corner of her lip. "I don't have a dog."

"Okay, then it was the trees outside," Violet gestured to the window, pointing with her index finger to the branches falling from the willow tree just out front. "It was windy last night."

"Stop trying to blame nature." Rory replied, advocating for the trees like the environmentalist she was.

"Fine," Violet sighed loudly, pushing her curly hair back out from her eyes, and she was reminded of the fact that she desperately needed a shower. "It was the mass amounts of tequila consumed, are you happy?"

The blonde began to massage her temples, the blinding pain making itself known in her skull as a result of last night.

The mother and daughter duo that seemed to share one brain cell exchanged a glance.

The mother shrugged. "It adds up."

Yawning into her palm, Violet looked around the room at the four clocks Lorelai had in there, one on the wall and three on various surfaces around the room. Her sister's mismatched home was one of Violet's favourite things. It was as if the Gilmore girls were living in a thrift store, seeing as that is where Lorelai had gotten the majority of her possessions, from the monkey lamp that haunted Emily every time she had entered this house, to the painting of a small child in a green collared dress in the entrance hall.

Though, Violet came to notice all four clocks were telling her four different times.

"So," Lorelai clicked her tongue, after another glance exchanged with her daughter. "Why aren't you staying at Oliver's house? I thought you two would have kissed and made up by now."

The mention of his name sent Violet's mind into an unnecessary overdrive that was too early in the morning for.

She had decided to tell the time from the clock on the wall, the cat's face telling her it was half seven in the morning.

Violet scrunched up her nose, forcefully pushing herself up off of the sofa and padding across the hardwood floor and into the kitchen to avoid the looming question. "I need some herbal tea, please tell me you have some."

"Extortion! This is a coffee household!" Lorelai exclaimed, her footsteps leaving her daughter in the living room and following her sister into the kitchen. "Fully caffeinated coffee only."

Violet paused where she was rifling through the cupboards, looking up from her crouched position on the tiles. "Not even Earl Grey?"

Lorelai placed a hand on her hip, slouching against the counter. "Earl has gone into retirement."

Violet frowned at the information, longingly looking at the old Christmas cookie tin Lorelai kept the tea when Violet came to stay. Though, Violet did guess it was a bit of an impromptu visit, seeing as she didn't even have a fresh change of clothes, or a clean change of underwear for that matter. "That lazy asshole."

Made up Earl retired at thirty to sit on the sofa surrounded by pizza and milk duds.

"So..." Lorelai prompted, guiding her younger sister gently into one of chairs at the dining room table, placing an unwrapped strawberry pop tart in front of her. "Oliver. What's going on between you two that explains to me why you were passed out drunk on my sofa?"

"It's a long story." Violet informed, tearing off a piece of pop tart and popping it in her mouth.

"I like long stories." Lorelai informed with her head deep inside her coffee mug. "So, spill."

Violet averted her eyes away from her sister and towards the window above the sink, chewing slowly on her mouthful of (somewhat stale) pop tart, thinking about how to break the news to her sister that one, she had gotten into the biggest goddamn fight of her life with her boyfriend of three years (correction: ex-boyfriend), and two, she was moving three thousand miles away to rainy Seattle, Washington.

It was a lot to break to a person.

Especially if that person was your older sister who you hadn't spent longer than a week apart from since you were a teenager.

Minus that one time Violet lost the two women for over a week in Lisbon when they were backpacking around Europe together.

Violet felt sick at the thought of leaving them both
, her two favourite people in the entire world. But, a part of her knew she needed to go. The programme was great, and it was a perfect fit for her, and she felt as if she needed a fresh start.

A clean slate, if you will.

A whole new state to explore instead of haunting every single dark corner of Connecticut.

Not like Connecticut had any dark corners, and the only places Violet haunted was located in the quaint and quirky town of Stars Hollow.

"Does it have anything to do with this?" Lorelai slid the Al's Pancake World takeout box across the table, where Violet's handwriting was scribbled up the side.

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VIOLET GILMORE'S STATS:
Tequila's consumed ━━ A solid four or five, give or take.
Fries devoured ━━ Two and a half bowls, with extra ketchup.
Al's mystery dishes purchased ━━ I'm now bankrupt.
Near death experiences involving a crooked bar stool ━━ Three.
Car keys in possession ━━ Zero.
Boyfriend ━━ None.
Number of missed calls ━━ Too many to count.
Bags to pack ━━ Yet again, too many to count.
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Violet's gulp could have been heard for miles, her eyes pinned on the black biro. "I've never seen that before in my life." She lied through her teeth.

From across the table, Lorelai, with a raised brow which made her resemble Sherlock Holmes, angled her head towards the ink stains on her sister's palms on the table. "Oh, yeah? Why do you have ink stains on your hands?"

Violet clearing her throat, shifting awkwardly in the frankly quite uncomfortable dining room chair. "Fine, so, you know I start my internship next week." Her words came out slow, as if she were delaying their arrival.

"Yes." Lorelai nodded her head, her smile fading slightly at her sister's weirdly serious tone.

"Well, I—" Violet crammed another piece of pop tart into her mouth to further delay the spilling of the news even longer. "This is a really good pop tart."

"Stop stalling!" Lorelai lectured, taking the paper plate away from her, moving it to the other side of the table, behind the cow shaped salt and pepper shakers and the pile of magazines and coupons Lorelai had been clipping. "I'm withholding the pop tarts! You're on a ban. Now, tell me."

"Please, no, not the pop tarts!" Violet pleaded, attempting to retrieve the plate back from her sister. "Anything but the pop tarts!"

Pop tarts were a delicacy in this household, but Emily Gilmore would spit out her very expensive champagne onto her even more expensive designer rug if she received the statistics on how many pop tarts her daughters went through each year.

With a long sigh, knowing the truth would come out sooner or later when she would put the one way ticket to Seattle to good use, Violet prepared herself for what she was about to say.

Though, she racked her brain around for a distraction.

And when there was none, except the wide eyed stares coming from the blue eyes opposite her, Violet told herself she just had to rip the band aid off.

"I'm moving to Seattle."

It flew out of Violet's mouth and into the kitchen within a matter of seconds, and there was no way she could take it back or change her mind now that Lorelai knew.

Her sister froze at the news, and it was the stillest Violet had ever seen her. Her blue eyes twitched as they stared unwaveringly into Violet's, which weren't as blue as her own but still a remarkable shade of blue and green merged into one.

"You're what?" Lorelai's voice cracked into a nervous laugh of denial and shock.

The other Gilmore girl chewed on the inside of her cheek, giving herself something else to focus on. "I'm moving to Seattle—"

"No," Lorelai shook her head, her features tense as her brain made a rapid attempt of processing this information. "I got that part, just what!"

"And," Violet began, and Lorelai's expression was bewildered by that point. "I've broken up with Oliver."

"What!" Lorelai clamped her hand to her mouth, nearly sending her mug of, now slightly lukewarm, coffee flying across the room.

However, Violet wasn't done. "I leave Sunday morning."

"It's Thursday!" Her sister said gobsmacked, her mouth hanging open from the shock of it all, that her sister was going to the opposite side of the country in a matter of days. "That's in three days!"

Maybe Violet's decision to move to Seattle could be perceived as a little rash, or maybe it was just because she had been putting off telling her family and friends for so long that she made that particular decision months ago. Which was the case for this situation. She had known for a while, she was just finding the right time.

Which was apparently three days before she left the state.

"You're moving to the other side of the country!" Lorelai buried her head in her hands with an inhuman groan, and Violet could hear the sound of her slipper tapping in the tiles. "And the hits just keep on coming!"

"That is true but," Violet leaned forward, placing her hand on Lorelai's arm. "I'll come back and visit, you wouldn't even be able to get rid of me even if you tried. Like a really bad infection no amount of antibiotics can shift."

She could've chosen a different analogy but for some reason, that one seemed to fit the circumstance. She was becoming a surgeon after all.

Lorelai considered it for a moment, not even casting one of her classic glances at Violet. "Have you lost your damn mind! Aren't there any good internships in Connecticut! You know, ones that aren't over three thousand miles away! Three thousand miles, Violet!"

The questions Lorelai were asking Violet weren't even questions, more like general statements flying out of her mouth as if she was talking to herself more than she was talking to her sister, seemingly bargaining with the world to get her to stay as close to her as possible.

If it were up to Lorelai, she would build a hospital in her backyard for Violet to work out so she didn't have to move too far away.

"I just needed a change, you know?" Violet shrugged, though seeing her sister's reaction, she wasn't too sure of that anymore. "Somewhere new and different. I think it'll be good for me."

Lorelai nodded her head slowly, biting down on her lip. "Does this have anything to do with Oliver?"

"Nope. Nothing to do with Oliver." Violet told her sister. She would never be able to admit it to anyone, because even if she was going to Seattle for herself, the hidden perk was getting away from him and his white picket fence dream.

Violet was so not a white picket fence kind of girl.

She would accept a whole list of various fates before succumbing to that trap.

Her sister sitting across from her frowned, and Violet reached her hand across. "I'm going to need back up for friday night dinner, okay?"

"Rory will be the mediator, and I'll be the vigilante, we've got your back." Lorelai gave her a smile, rubbing her thumb back and forth across her sister's palm.

They sat there like that for a while, enjoying the calm and nostalgia of each other's presence until it had reached the point where Violet could no longer use the powers of a strong will to ignore the headache.

"God, I need some aspirin."

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The town of Stars Hollow was founded in 1779, and the amount of times Violet had heard the story of how it was founded over Miss Patty's founders day punch was one too many times for a person to cope with.

And, the amount of times she had immediately forgotten it due to Miss Patty's founders day punch was also too many times to count.

Stars Hollow was characterised by its multitude of unique and quirky shops, cafes and restaurants, with its equally unique and quirky owners and workers.

The people of Stars Hollow insisted on celebrating every single holiday of the year — great or small — known to man or made up by townsfolk, but it was mainly Taylor Doose, owner of Doose's Market and the town Mayor, who insisted on celebrating these holidays.

Because, it wasn't just the appearance of the town that made it enchanting, it was the colourful characters that inhibited it, that wandered the streets, that worked behind the counters.

From the dance teacher with a tendency to overshare, to the gossiping next door neighbours that mean well, to Kirk, Stars Hollow quickly became one of Violet's favourite places, especially during the Autumn when the leaves had changed colour and started to drop from every tree in the town, where Weston's Bakery brought out their Spiced Pumpkin Loaves, and when Luke finally stopped complaining about the heat and how people should really start putting on sunscreen.

"Hey, Rory!" Violet jogged up to her niece where she was crossing the road by the gazebo, past the town troubadour playing an enthusiastic melody on his guitar. "Wait up!"

"I'm silencing you." Rory spoke with a frown, casting a dark look towards her aunt and seeming to speed walk away.

"You just spoke to me." Violet pointed out, letting the late Summer wind of Stars Hollow mess up her hair.

The youngest Gilmore didn't even look towards Violet, she just swung her arms backwards and forwards as she walked to Luke's diner with purpose. "That was to announce that I am silencing you."

The blonde smirked. "You just spoke to me again."

"Forget it!" Rory huffed, pushing open the door to the diner with the William's hardware sign the grumpy hermit owner insisted on leaving up there.

The bell rang and Lorelai, sat at their usual table, was intensely glaring at something rather interesting the other two women had yet to figure out what it was.

Rory marched up to the table, taking the seat closest to the window, Violet taking the one opposite. It was probably for the best that way seeing as if Violet uttered another word Rory would go full crazy person on her. "I can't believe you didn't wake me back up."

"Me and what army?" Lorelai replied back, having left a post-it note on her daughter's head when she went back to sleep at eight o'clock.

"I only have so much time off," Rory explained, matter-of-factly. "I don't want to waste it all by sleeping 'til noon."

"Might I add," Violet spoke up, hooking her black leather handbag over the back of the classic red diner chair. "That you were up at seven thirty playing evil twins Si and Am, and staring me down, and it was your choice to go back to bed."

The older Gilmore raised a brow. "Did you just quote Lady and the Tramp?"

Violet shrugged, drumming her hands on the round table. "Yeah, what about it?"

"There was no waking you back up, might I add, you were completely out of it," Lorelai turned to her daughter. "We're talking Farrah on Letterman— Hey!"

Lorelai reached her hands out to the two women, holding their wrists, as she gestured her head to something out of Violet's eyeline.

"Luke is coming over here," Lorelai announced in a very hushed tone, which was weird even for Lorelai. "And I need you both to pay very close attention."

Violet raised a brow of intrigue at this new assignment. "FBI agent style, or museum art admiration?"

"Excuse me," Rory piped up, wondering if one of these days her mother was going to crack and go nuts on her. "But, what exactly are we paying attention to?"

"Shh!" Lorelai hushed, and Violet whipped her head around to the man placing two cups down onto the table.

"Coffee?" The backward baseball cap and tartan shirt wearing man asked, holding a coffee pot in one hand.

"Coffee would be great!" Lore said, notable a bit too excited. "All that coffee. Coffee, hun? Vi? Yeah, yeah, they'll both have coffee, thanks."

She had forgotten Violet had stopped drinking coffee ever since the incident four years ago which started with an extra strong kick of caffeine and ended with her doing yoga with Kirk on a Sunday night.

"Okay." Luke Danes spoke, not even a hint of suspicion on his face as he watched the coffee pour with unwavering concentration as if he wanted to look anywhere but at Lorelai. "Violet, it's good to see you."

"Yes, good to see you too Luke, new hat?" Vi gestured to the deep blue hat he wore everyday.

What Violet knew was that it was in fact not a new hat and in fact the woman to the right of her had got it for him, she just enjoyed seeing them squirm like the fools they were.

"No," Luke shook his head, growing slightly sheepish. "It's old."

"Oh, really?" Violet asked in a mock sort of surprise. "It looks brand new."

He made a small gesture of his elbow to Lorelai's direction. "Your sister got it for me a few years ago."

"Oh, well it looks as good as new— OW!" Violet screamed in pain as Lorelai's booted foot kicked her in the shin, sending a shooting ache all the way up her leg.

She hunched over the table, and hand gripping the place Lorelai had kicked.

"Ow, ah—" Violet attempted to play it off, now that everyone in the diner was looking her way. "I get muscles pains, they're truly irritating. I'm only twenty five, but I feel like a pensioner with a dozen cats sat staring at me waiting for me to die so they can eat m—"

"I'll grab you your herbal tea," Luke interrupted, having spent too much time with Gilmore women to know you had to cut their train of thoughts off when it started to get a little too weird. "Do you want a minute to order?"

"Yes, a minute would be great." Lorelai smiled pleasantly, acting weirder than usually.

"You're starting to creep out Rory." Violet scowled, still in mild pain from the booting incident.

"Well?" Lorelai instantly questioned as soon as Luke had disappeared into the back.

"What?" Rory held the coffee cup in her hand, looking awfully confused at this whole situation.

"You notice anything?" The brunette interrogated, leaning across the table even further.

"Besides the fact you had a fake smile so big your cheeks are gonna hurt in the morning?" Violet pointed out, judgementally side eyeing her sister, marvelling at her lunacy. "No, nothing at all."

"Anything...?" Rory prompted, needing a little more than what her mother was giving in cryptic clues and rapid eye movements.

"Anything weird, anything different?" Lorelai elaborated, though things still weren't very clear.

Rory looked up, making sure the man in question was still tucked away out of view. "About Luke?"

"Of course about Luke." Lore sighed. "Did you notice anything different?"

Violet chewed on her lip in thought. "It looked like that one scene from one of those daytime television shows that make me want to claw my eyes out."

"Exactly!" Lorelai clapped her hands at the recognition of the atmosphere between her and the diner owner. "It's awkward!"

"Awkward? Like what? I don't know what I'm meant to be sensing here?"

Safe to say, Rory was still confused.

"Like a vibe, an attitude." Lorelai, who was probably jacked up on an astronomical amount of coffee at this current moment in time, clarified further. "Did he look at me differently?"

Rory's eyes narrowed a little. "Differently than what?"

"Differently than he did." Lorelai replied, still awaiting her daughter's answer.

Rory took a sip of coffee as she paused for a moment. "Differently than he did when?"

"Before."

Rory help her mug in her hands, breathing in the coffee fumes. "Before what?"

"Before, before!" Lorelai said, helpfully.

"Before, before what?"

Violet frowned, her head pounding (the aspirin was yet to kick in and this was not helping matters at all). "Now I'm confused."

"Come on you guys!" Lorelai hissed in a low voice, her head darting back and forth between the two women.

"How on earth can you be frustrated with us right now?" Rory argued as her namesake sighed in almost defeat.

"Come on! Come on!" Lorelai grabbed her sister and her daughter's hands, tugging them up and out of the comfort of their chairs, pushing them outside the door of the diner and into the street.

"What's your damage, Heather?" Rory questioned, grumpily as her mother led the two over by the traffic light.

Checking there was no one eavesdropping, Lorelai took a breath before announcing: "I think I'm dating Luke."

And with that, Violet screamed, something she didn't normally do unless she was watching a horror movie, and even then she didn't usually scream at the jump scares.

"No way!" Violet clasped a hand over her mouth, rendered speechless. "No way, no way! Finally!"

"What?" Rory spluttered, her jaw hanging open.

Lorelai threw her hands down. "I'm not sure. It's just a possibility, I could be wrong."

"A possibility?" Violet echoed her sister's word choice.

"But, how? When?" Rory questioned, shock encompassing her. 

"Well," Lorelai straightened up, looking around the street once more for any wandering eyes (talk about small town paranoia). "I went with him to his sister's wedding, and it was really nice, we had a really good time."

"Maybe he's sniffed too much glue." Violet commented, earning a look from Lorelai as if to say how utterly ridiculous that sounded. "What? It's a possibility. Lord knows what he does when the diner's closed, other than fishing and yelling at Taylor."

"He does yell at Taylor a lot." Rory agreed with a nod.

"Anyway," Lorelai moved the subject on with a wave of her hands. "We laughed a lot, and we ate, and then we danced—"

"Rewind," Violet interjected. "You danced with Luke?"

"Danced, how?" Rory asked, still confused by this sudden announcement.

"We pop-locked." Lorelai replied with sarcasm, blinking her blue eyes which were almost nearly identical to Rory's.

Rory was struggling to comprehend everything that was going on. "Was it a fast dance, slow dance, group dance?"

"It was a slow dance." Lorelai confirmed, though backtracking slightly at the examples Rory had provided. "What is a group dance?"

"Like a barn dance?" Violet suggested, seeing that was the only group dance she could think of. "Did you do-si-do?"

"There was no do-si-do-ing." The brunette pursed her lips crossing her arms as she shifted on the spot. "It was a slow dance. A waltz. Luke can waltz."

"Luke can waltz?" Rory said in surprise, her mouth drawn into an 'o'.

"Luke can waltz."

Now, that was weird.

"I didn't take Luke for a waltzer," Violet pondered, eyeing her sister who was blushing at the memory. "More like a fumbler, but then again it's always the ones you don't expect."

"Oh god!" Rory buried her head in her hands in disgust. "Look how you said Luke can waltz!"

"What?" Lorelai shrugged, not even realising herself how in love she was with Luke. "I'm just saying, I'm surprised that Luke can waltz."

Rory was unconvinced. "That sounded more like, 'I'm surprised I still have my clothes on'."

"Oh, stop!" Lorelai scoffed, waving Rory's proclamation off.

"Well, what else happened?"

Lorelai shrugged her shoulders at the conversation that was now an interrogation. She would have expected this from Richard and Emily, not her own daughter and sister. "We spent the evening together."

"You spent the evening with Luke?" Violet's jaw hung open in shock. "Doing what? Trying on his tartan shirt collection and seeing which one you'll take home with you?"

"We danced! Totally innocent!" Lorelai exclaimed. "He walked me home and then he asked me to a movie."

"So, a date." Violet could've done with the brief descriptive version of the story, instead of the whole around the block explanation of the events. "You're going on a date with Luke. Diner owner, Luke. The Local Luke. The Luke who has been pining after you for years, Luke."

"He has not been pining after me." Lorelai denied, though she had to know it was true. "And, I may not be dating him. All these things individually add up to it, yeah. And, there was this moment when he walked me home, where I thought."

Lorelai paused, finally taking a deep and logical breath, because she really wasn't making much sense.

"I don't know." She resolved herself back to the unclear confusion of it all.

"Did you say yes?" Rory piped up.

"When?" Lorelai replied back, rubbing her temples.

"To the movie, Lore, did you say yes?" Violet asked.

"Yes."

"Shut up!" Violet exclaimed, clapping her arms at the prospect that Lorelai could finally move on from the weasel that was Jason Stiles.

"No!" Lorelai fired back automatically.

"Well, that sounds like dating to me." Rory lectured.

"But, maybe he didn't mean it as a date." The woman who had just been rambling from the past five minutes tried to convince herself, but she was in denial. "Maybe he just needed to get out of the house, and since I'm currently one of the women sitting home thinking, 'if I could only find a man like Aragorn' he picked me."

"Lore," Reaching for her hand, Violet attempted to snap her sister back to reality. "A guy who looks at you like that doesn't just want to be friends with you."

"Okay, woah," Rory interrupted, clearly seeing the bigger picture the two grown adults on the street weren't seeing. "This is Luke!"

"I know." Lorelai bowed her head in shame.

"Our Luke." Rory added.

Violet nodded her head in thought. "The communal Luke."

"The town Luke!" Rory continued. "We see him everyday. We see him everyday—"

"He makes the best pancakes—" Violet mused, because he really did. With maple syrup, bacon and blueberries, they were a Stars Hollow delicacy.

"He's a part of our lives—"

But, the pancakes weren't the only thing Luke was good at making. "And let's not forget to mention the cherry pie—"

"I mean, everyone will know—"

"Oh!" Violet squealed at the thought. "And danish day, he makes the best danishes for danish day—"

"They'll know if you're together," Rory informed, but no one needed to be reminded of how gossip travels fast in this small town they called home in the form of Babette and Miss Patty. "They'll know if you're not together."

"He has a single bed." Violet chose to add into the conversation.

"It's a double now." Lorelai told the brunette of that fact rather quickly.

"No way, Luke's got a double?" Violet was just as shocked at this news than the previous.

"You can't just date Luke!" Rory burst out, tucking her short hair behind her ears, seeming to be the only responsible one on the whole street.

"I know!" Lorelai panicked, dropping her head in her hands with a disgruntled noise.

"When you're with Luke, you're with Luke! And, if it doesn't work out, it will be really bad—"

"Rory, honey," Violet reached for her niece's shoulder. "Stop for a second and let your mother have some precessing time, she looks as if she's malfunctioning."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves here." Lorelai picked up her train of thought. "I don't even know if this is what he's thinking. This could be a totally innocent situation, and then we've done all of this what-if-ing for nothing! Let's just go back in there. And see if anything's weird, okay?"

"Okay." Rory nodded, resolving herself to simple one word answers.

Violet also nodded her head in agreement, knowing she needed to get her sister into a chair before she passed out. "Okay, sounds like a plan."

Lorelai led the way, storming up the steps to Luke's with purpose, walking confidently over to the table they had not long abandoned.

"Is everything okay?" Luke approached the three of them, after seeing whatever the hell had just gone on outside.

"Yes." Lorelai replied, her voice cool but somehow, she fell right into the table, sending every single thing on it across the floor, the salt and pepper shakers cracking and sending the small gritty powder across the seats and the table. Simultaneously earning the attention of every one in the small space which was Luke's diner.

"Oh, god!" Violet exclaimed, hiding behind her hands.

Luke pointed to the back room. "I'll get the broom."

Lorelai lowered herself back into her seat, her cheeks a shade of bright pink as she was going to now forever be haunted by this particular memory.

"That was a little weird." Rory pursed her lips, moving to her seat.

Violet slowly approached the table with caution as if Lorelai was going to whip out a pick axe and start hacking her to death for the sake of it, or eat her own hair out of anxiety. "A little?"

⠀
—✩—
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The past two minutes of Friday Night Dinner had consisted of the clattering of silver cutlery on china, small sips from fancy drinks glasses, and Violet and Lorelai glancing at each other, willing the other person to speak.

The two daughters of Richard and Emily Gilmore both had something they had to say to their parents, who may or may not be going through a seperation.

The lack of clarification of it all was because Richard nor Emily have informed them of this fact, but the very mental image Violet and Lorelai now have of Emily sneaking out of the house with a duffel bag after dinner a few Friday's ago proved enough evidence of the fact that Richard and Emily Gilmore may be separated.

The sisters just had to wait and see if either one of them will crack and spill the news.

Lorelai poked at the salad on her plate, causing the fork to scrape horrifically against the china. "Two radish roses for a carrot curl?"

"Deal." Rory agreed.

"Don't look at me, you're not having my carrot curl." Violet defended in retaliation of her sister's eyes boring a hole into her carrot, stabbing said carrot curl and popping it in her mouth.

"Rats." Lorelai frowned as Violet chewed on her carrot curl happily.

"You're trading garnish?" Emily asked, disapprovingly, her lips contorting into a low frown.

"Yes, but only because the dinner's gross." Lorelai explained to her mother, pointing a fork at whatever it was that was on their plates that the three guests had been eating around this entire time.

"It's very nice." Emily spoke, more pleasant than usual which made Violet think that she could possibly get away with springing the news onto them.

But, that was wishful thinking oh Violet's part, she was hoping for a miracle.

Lorelai pulled a face. "I don't like rabbit."

"How convenient." Her mother cut into the yet to be identified meat. "You're not eating rabbit."

Lorelai pulled a confused look, pointing at the unidentified dish. "But, this is rabbit sauce."

"It has to be rabbit sauce." Violet pondered. She had tasted it once before and proceeded to make it her life mission to avoid it on her plate at all costs.

"It is rabbit sauce." Richard confirmed, the first time he had properly spoken all evening.

"It is not rabbit sauce. Do not tell them it's rabbit sauce." Emily told them sternly, scolding her husband from the opposite end of the table.

"It tastes like rabbit sauce to me." Richard muttered distastefully, poking the suspected rabbit sauce about his plate with a fork.

"That just goes to show how much attention to detail you give to the meals that are prepared for you." Emily argued further, her voice so passive aggressive it physically hurt to hear.

"If it isn't rabbit," Lorelai poked at the food once more for good measure. "Then what is it?"

Emily finished her mouthful. "It's duck."

"Oh, well," Lorelai cast a look at her plate, then towards her daughter. "Where's that carrot curl?"

"I haven't seen a radish rose." Rory retaliated.

"Never mind. Don't eat it." Emily Gilmore cracked, losing all sense of the will to live. "Sriva! Come get the plates. We're done."

Sriva, the newly employed maid, entered the dining room quickly.

"Oh, Mom." Violet's frown deepened, because one thing about Emily Gilmore was she fired maids as if she had an endless supply of them within reach. "You fired Hilda? I liked Hilda."

"Hilda had loud footsteps." Her mother offered the reasoning behind the firing of a kind maid, who just so happened to be flat footed.

"Er— Emily!" Richard protested as Sriva took away his still full plate. "Not everyone is done."

"Just bring out the dessert, please." Emily ordered as the maid dressed in grey silently picked up all the unfinished plates of duck.

Violet didn't even have time to finish her very last radish rose.

And, as their plates were whisked away, then resumed Lorelai eyeing Violet from the other side of the table.

You first. Violet mouthed at her sister, tucking her recently blow dried blonde hair behind her ear nervously as she cleaned off her mouth with a napkin, wiping away any trace of carrot curls.

"So, Rory," Emily began, unknowingly saving her daughters a few extra moments until they had to come clean. "I was thinking maybe we should go away this summer. Just you and me. You should do Europe right at least once in your life, and this seems to be the perfect time."

By the look on Richard's face, it seemed he was unaware of this proposition.

"Oh, well, Grandma—" Rory scratched the back of her neck, nervously. "I don't really know what I'm doing this summer yet, but that sounds really nice."

Lorelai scoffed, turning her head to her mother. "And really out of the blue."

"I agree." Richard announced in a low voice, narrowing his eyes at Emily at the sudden proposition.

"Were you going to tell me?" Lorelai asked, in a bit of shock.

Emily shrugged, sipping on her wine. "I just did."

"No, I mean," Lorelai let out a small nervous laugh, reaching for her martini glass in this time of crisis. "Before you opened the peanuts."

"Plans aren't made, Lorelai." Emily helpfully informed her. "It was just an idea. If Rory doesn't want to go, then Rory doesn't have to go."

The tension was so thick you could have cut it like a cake and served it on a plate with fake flowers and a small dusting of icing sugar.

"Rory didn't say she didn't want to go." Rory answered in the third person.

"That's right, Rory's mother was just marvelling at the 'Hey, look over here!' approach to the invitation." Lorelai, also speaking in the third person, piped up.

Now, Violet was feeling a little left out. "And, Rory's aunt was wondering when in the world dessert is going to be served!"

Richard slowly lifted his head up from where he was slumped over the table in a highly unnatural position, looking across the table at his wife, sternly. "When is dessert? I have work to do."

Emily gave him her best ever false smile. "It's coming as quickly as the woman can spoon fruit over ice cream."

Richard let out a loud, overly exaggerated huff, causing Emily to wince. "Well clearly, she has carpal tunnel, or some other modern disease which is slowing her down."

"Or, she got into a freak accident where an anvil dropped from the sky and onto her knuckle and she's lost all sensation in her left hand." Violet added, because that could also be a perfectly justifiable explanation.

Emily simply blinked at her younger daughter, which was actually much worse than any verbal confrontation.

"What?" Violet shrugged in response to the four pairs of eyes on her, bringing her white wine to her lips. "It happened last week."

Emily redirected her attention to her complaining husband. "If she's going too slow for you why don't you just go into the kitchen and give her a hand?"

"I forgot to mention," Lorelai cleared her throat to interrupt her mother, quickly deciding now would be a good time to get her thing out of the way. "We're doing a test run at the inn this weekend."

Emily placed her wine on the table, her face pinched in confusion. "What?"

"Yeah," Lorelai gestured, casually. "We're inviting all our friends to spend the weekend just to make sure we're ready to open."

"Well, that sounds sensible." Richard replied, looking over his shoulder and out the door to the kitchen for any sigh of those damn desserts.

"Hey, you know what would be great?" Lorelai put on a smile. "If the two of you came."

"What?" Emily repeated herself, her face falling.

"For the weekend." Lorelai clarified, and Violet watched as her parents shared a mutual look as if to say for god sake do we have to? from across the room.

"Oh." Emily had completely succumbed to monosyllabic words.

"Well—" Richard was left to try and create a function off the top of his head that they so desperately had to attend.

"I mean," Lorelai cut in before he could even think of the name. "I've been working toward this goal for, my God, what is it now, twenty years?"

"Twenty years." Rory confirmed.

"Twenty years, wow." Lorelai marvelled.

"A long time." Violet nodded, because her sister had worked to hard over the years for her parents to bail on this, even if she was playing matchmaker, or The Parent Trap.

"So basically, this is the biggest thing that's ever happened to me in my life except for Rory being born," She gestured to her daughter sitting across from her. "And I'm sure my parents wouldn't want to miss it. I mean, unless there's some specific reason why you guys can't come, both of you together."

"That's great idea, Lore." Violet encouraged, following through her vow to back Lorelai up at dinner.

"Okay, good, so you'll be there." Lorelai grinned an unnatural sort of grin. "Fantastic. Isn't that great? Rory? Vi? Grandma and grandpa are coming to the test run together."

"Lorelai—"

"Dad, seriously." Lorelai cut in, her face stoic as she watched her father falter. "You have no idea how much this means to me."

Emily shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. "We wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Thanks guys, truly." Lorelai nodded a thanks, reaching for her spoon for the ice cream that was delivered to the table a few moments ago. "Vi, did you have something you needed to say? To Mom and Dad?"

Violet went stone cold, her arm frozen in mid air.

"You have been awfully quiet this evening, Violet." Emily pondered, casting a look at her daughters.

"Well, I guess there is something I have to tell you." Violet set down her wine glass, secretly cursing her sister, but even Violet knew the truth had to come out eventually.

"What is it, Violet?" Richard asked in concern.

Better late than freaking never.

"Well, as you know, internships start next week, and I matched with this really great programme. Great hospital, great doctors, I mean it's a really good teaching hospital." Violet paused, looking back and forth between her mom and her dad, who were waiting impatiently for her to just spit it out. "That being said, I'm moving to Seattle."

A moment of silence.

Richard and Emily locked eyes from across the dining room table, past the pink rose centrepiece sat upon the very expensive vintage table cloth.

At first, the unfiltered look of horror was the only emotion that had plastered on their face.

And that made Violet wonder if they were going to throw their glasses at her, or start a celebration as if they had just reached checkmate in a game of chess, or if they had fitted in the very last piece of a puzzle.

That was until all of a sudden, they burst out laughing.

Alarmed, Violet looked at them, her blue eyes widened — was this some sort of weird coping mechanism?

"They're taking it—" Violet paused, fearing for her life as their laughter continued on, echoing around the room and showing no promise of stopping. "Well."

Rory turned to her aunt, her brows raised. "This is well?"

Lorelai looked equally as alarmed as Violet, seeing it as a perfect opportunity to chug her martini. "I bet you didn't think this would happen." She said once she had downed the whole thing.

"I'm scared, they're terrifying." Violet scrunched her nose up, because now her parents were doubling over at the table. "God, make them stop!"

Maybe they had finally succumbed to their own insanity.

Who knew.

Finally after what felt like years when in reality it was a few more seconds, their laughter had finally faded away, and Emily turned to her daughter, her voice still light after all the laughing. "You're moving to Seattle?"

"Is this some sort of practical joke?" Richard questioned, breathlessly.

"I am moving to Seattle, and no, this isn't a practical joke." Violet cleared up, staring at the kitchen door longingly for the ice cream. "I leave on Sunday morning."

"Sunday morning?" Richard repeated, his jaw hung wide open in a way that was out of character for a tall, businessman like her father. "This is awfully rash, Violet."

"That's in two days time!" Emily said, horrified at the thought of her daughter moving to the other side of the country in less than forty eight hours time.

"I know, but I'll come back and visit!" Violet promised. "The hospital  is called Seattle Grace, and it's a really great programme. I just feel like it'll be a good opportunity for—"

"I have a proposition for you." Emily spoke in desperation, interrupting her daughter before things escalated. And despite all that laughter, not a single strand of carefully styled hair on Emily's head was out of place.

"Of course you do." Violet mumbled, though still managed to maintain a somewhat cheerful demeanour as she conversed with her mother.

"A Friday a month." Emily proposed, simply as she swirled her wine in her glass.

Violet watched Emily with cautious eyes, a hand placed delicately on her gold necklace. "Excuse me?"

"That's all I ask for." Emily said with a weirdly casual shrug. 

"What a brilliant idea, Emily!" Richard enthused, and it was almost as if they weren't making snide comments across the dinner table just moments ago.

"That's it?" The blonde's head darted back and forth from her mother to her father. "No screaming? No saying I'm insane?"

"No. You've worked hard to get where you are now." Emily took a sip of her wine. "If Seattle will give you the best education, go to Seattle."

"Take it, take it, take it, or they'll want your head!" Lorelai whispered to her, spooning mouthfuls of ice cream fast because, if they needed an escape plan, at least she had her ice cream.

"You have yourself a deal." Violet replied quickly, otherwise Emily and Richard would probably have redacted that proposition and chose the harder route of a blood rite and a sacrifice.

"Wonderful!"

And with that, Emily Gilmore raised her glass.

⠀
—✩—
⠀

"I kissed Luke." Lorelai's shrill voice blurted that piece of knowledge out and into the mic.

Violet choked on her midnight bowl of cereal.

Having left The Dragonfly Inn early to pack up a few things back at her apartment, she had caught many very odd, though very expected events at the short time she was there for the day:

Number 1: Sookie 'accidentally' throwing a red bell pepper at her head (though she missed) when she found out that she was moving to Seattle.

Number 2: Michel's dog (Paw Paw) eating the Jolly Ranchers she had behind the front desk and Michel giving her a twenty minute lecture about Jolly Ranchers being sent from the depths of hell.

Number 3: Patty and Babette promising their lives that they will keep Violet updating on the ins and outs of Stars Hollow.

Number 4: Her mother and father having to live outside in a 'glorified shed' for the night.

Though nothing was as crazy as Luke kissing her older sister.

"No freaking way!" Violet cleared up the milk she had dropped all down herself and onto the rug she was planning on giving to goodwill. "You kissed hot diner guy!"

Lorelai huffed so loud the mic crackled in Violet's ear drum. "Vi, you've known him for years, why do you still insist on referring to him as hot diner guy when he's not around?"

The brunette shrugged even though her sister couldn't see her. "It fits. Anyway, start from the beginning."

"Okay," Lorelai cleared her throat, and Violet could almost picture her. She missed her already and she hadn't even left the state yet. "So, Kirk was naked."

"Of course he was." Violet scoffed, because she really didn't expect anything less from him, and from Stars Hollow.

⠀
⠀
⠀

( notes! )

the amount of times i went to write 'aliya' instead of 'violet' was insanely high i'm not even gonna lie!

BUT ANYWAY,, i hope you enjoyed the first chapter of anyone but you!! the next chapter will be grey's anatomy season one episode one but i thought it would be rude if i didn't start on a gilmore girls episode (even though so much stuff happens in this one),, and on other news, oliver's faceclaim is miles teller!! and thank you so so much for all the love you've given this story already!! i'm so grateful ily!!

also, for reference, season one to three of greys is intern year so those seasons will coincide with gilmore girls season five!!

love you all & i hope you've had a good day :)

( word count! — 8,000 )