❝AN UNLIKELY FRIEND❞
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⋆𐙚₊˚⊹ chapter fifty-four,
Gilmore Girls — Season Three

𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟖𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟐

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[ LUCY'S POV ]

𝐌𝐘 𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐒 𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈𝐅 𝐈 𝐃𝐈𝐃𝐍'𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋, 𝐈'𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐘 𝐈𝐍 𝐁𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑. Sadly, today is the day I find out who my partner is for the literature project, so I need to go to school even though my legs are screaming at me to stay in bed.

   I force myself to walk downstairs, and I step into the diner to find my dad already holding a cup of coffee towards me. "You're my favourite dad," I say, leaning my head against his arm.

   "I bet you say that to all your dads."

   I sigh, leaning back against the counter and sipping my coffee. "I'm so tired."

   "If you want to, you can sleep in, kid."

   I shake my head, but my body definitely wants me to stay in bed. For my health, I should stay in bed, but I can't. I have priorities. I have school. "No, I find out who my literature partner is for the poetry project."

   "Poetry project?" Dad questions.

   "Yup." I sigh, finding that the poetry project sounds extremely boring. "Our teacher picks the partners. We analyse ten poems together, and just before the Christmas break, we have to do a presentation to the class, discussing each poem in great, painful detail."

   "Sounds boring," Dad replies, and I hum in agreement because everything sounds boring to me at the moment.

   "Well, it's worth fifty percent of my final grade, so I need to──"

   "Fifty percent?" I nod, staring at him strangely. "And you don't get to pick your partner? Oh, good luck, kid."

   I frown. "I know. What if I get..." I grimace. "Chuck Presby." If I get him, I might have to give up on my dreams to Yale because I cannot, under any circumstances, work with the guy that my cousin punched just last year. I hate that guy.

"What if you get Jess?"

My head falls into my hand. "Oh, God. I'm so screwed."

I pour myself another cup of coffee, needing to give myself some life. I've drank a little too much coffee these past two days.

Yesterday was my dad's thirty-eighth birthday, and we celebrated by going to Sniffy's for dinner. I, being the most perfect daughter in the world, baked him the most fattening chocolate cake in the world. It didn't compare to Maisie's famous chocolate cake, but it was definitely nice. I even decorated the diner with obnoxious decorations just so he'd shut the diner down early so we could have dinner which he did.

We had a great day yesterday, and I think Dad enjoyed his birthday, but now I'm seriously wishing the dance marathon and my anniversary wasn't the day before his birthday.

Now it's a new week, and I'm back to school for a super boring project with a partner I don't even know yet. I hate projects where I don't get to pick the partner because now I have this fear── this fear of the unknown.

Who will my partner be? Will they be nice? Will they get the work done? Will they anger me?

"God, I hate this." I pour myself another well-deserved cup of coffee. "I really hate this."

"Calm down, kid. It's not gonna be as bad as you're thinking."

"No, you're right. It's going to be worse."

   Lorelai and Rory appear out of nowhere── Well, they came through the door, but whatever. They slump over the counter, obviously just as exhausted as I am, and they demand Dad for coffee and muffins.

   I'm pouring Lorelai and Rory a cup of coffee to go when Jess stumbles down the stairs, rounding the corner with a surprised look on his face when he finds Rory. "Hi," he says.

   "Hey," Rory replies.

   Jess looks to Lorelai. "Hi."

   "Hi," she replies, finding it just as strange as me because he never says hello to her── not ever.

   Jess then looks at my dad. "Hi."

   "Hi," he responds, very confused about Jess' sudden need to say hello to everyone.

   I find it stranger when he says, "Hi," to me of all people, but I reply with the same two letters everybody else has.

   "Hi."

   "I have to get to school," Rory announces.

   "Yeah, me too."

   "Bye," Rory says, smiling politely.

   "Bye." He looks to Lorelai. "Bye."

   "Bye."

   "Bye," Rory says to her mother.

   "Bye."

   I don't know what I'm watching right now but I've never been more entertained in my life. I need to go to school, but I want to know why they're acting so strange with each other.

   Rory leaves, and Jess goes back upstairs after he and Rory say "bye" to my dad.

   "Jess, school's the other way!" I yell, rolling my eyes when I hear the door slam to the apartment.

   Dad turns to Lorelai. "What the hell was that?"

   "That was episode one of Rory and Jess: the early years," she tells us, and Dad doesn't understand, but I understand plenty. "Rory and Jess are together."

   My mouth gapes. "Oh, my God."

   "Are you serious? What about Dean?"

   What about Dean? Who broke up with who? How did I not realise that Jess and Rory were dating? How long has this been going on because it can't be that long?

   "Dean and Rory broke up at the dance," Lorelai confirms, and I realise why I didn't know.

   After Tristan did the sweetest thing for our anniversary, I came back home and crashed, not going to the end of the dance marathon like I'd promised to do because I was too tired. If I had stayed, I would've seen Kirk run around to the Rocky anthem, and I would've seen Rory and Dean break up.

   Damn me for deciding to sleep.

   "I was at the dance, how come I didn't know about this?"

   "Because you're you," I say, patting a kind hand against his arm.

   "But why, what happened?"

   "Jess happened," Lorelai replies, and I don't even want to know what she must think about her daughter's relationship with Jess. I know she isn't a fan of Jess, but I'm hoping she cuts him some slack now that Rory is dating him.

"Wow, wow. So... Wow. Well, this is great."

I've seen Dad happy a lot. Hello, I'm his kid, he's happy all the damn time. So I can't say I'm surprised by the joy on his face upon learning the news that Rory and Jess are an item. Sure, Dean's probably not feeling too pleased about it, but at least Luke Danes is.

I, on the other hand, couldn't care less. I suspected that Jess and Rory liked one another, but I wasn't about to get involved. If anything ever happened, it would happen, and now it has. Jess and Rory are together.

Well, I cannot wait to tell Addy and Nathan.

"Rory and Jess, Jess and Rory." Dad smiles. "I think this is great. Don't you think this is great?" He looks to me and Lorelai.

"You weren't this happy for me when I got a boyfriend," I argue.

"That's because you are my kid. I hate every guy who goes near you." I scoff because he likes Tristan, he just doesn't say it much. "Rory's a good kid, hopefully she'll rub off on him." Jess isn't a bad kid. Sure, he's tough to get along with, but maybe Dad is right, Rory is the right person to sort Jess out. And if she's not, well, that's fine too. She's not a miracle worker.

"Well, I'm gonna go to school," I say quickly. "Smile too much and you'll start scaring customers." I lean up, pressing a kiss to my dad's cheek. "Bye, Dad. Bye, Lorelai."

"Ugh, no more byes," Lorelai groans, and I apologise quietly.

"Uh, have a good day at school, Luce," Dad says, really trying to avoid saying the B-word.

   Time to go find out who my freaking partner is.

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   ❝𝐒𝐎 . . . 𝐖𝐇𝐎'𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐆𝐄𝐓?❞

Ah, the age old question. Who did I get as my partner for the freaking Poetry Project── the PP as Addy is calling it.

I sit down at our usual lunch table, throwing my bag down on the chair next to me. "Nope. You first. Who did you get?" I ask, snatching the coffee that Addy bought me. Seriously, I love this girl a crazy amount── more than coffee. She bought me coffee, she knows me so damn well.

"I got the best, the nicest, the sweetest── second to you── girl in the world." I stare at her in anticipation as she drums her hands against the table. "Lindsay Lister."

I gasp, frowning. "What? Lindsay?" I groan, taking a large sip of coffee. "She is the best, nicest, sweetest── second to you── girl in the world. Dammit."

"I know." Addy sighs, leaning her head into her hand like she's talking about a crush, and I laugh. "She's so nice. Do you remember in the sixth grade when the cafeteria ran out of meatballs, and she offered me hers because I was upset?"

"Or that time in the second grade when she braided my hair because I had no idea how to do it." I lean my own head into my hand, sighing contentedly, and I realise just how we look. I stare over at Addy. "We sound like we're in love with her, don't we?"

Addy nods, but she still looks to be daydreaming. "Yeah, we do. But I'm allowed to be in love with her. You have a boyfriend, sweetheart."

"Tristan's never braided my hair." I frown, but now I know what I'm going to ask him to do next time I see him.

   Addy touches my hand. "Oh, honey. I'm sorry, you deserve somebody who will braid your hair."

   I laugh, shaking my head. I love Tristan, he doesn't need to braid my hair, but I'm not opposed to him trying.

   "Hey, so who's your partner?"

   I look around the room carefully in search of Nathan who I find talking to my partner. I look back to Addy, sighing because I don't know if I got a good deal with my project partner.

   I clasp my hands together. "Dean," I reply.

   "Oh!" Addy pauses, obviously trying to figure out if I got a good or a bad partner. "So, you got Dean? Wow." She laughs either in pity or excitement, and I roll my eyes. "Right after your cousin stole his girlfriend. God, this is fun!"

   I hit her arm. "Me and Jess are not the same person," I say because we definitely aren't. "Dean can't hate me because Jess is now dating Rory..." I sigh. "Right?"

   Addy sips on her own coffee. "It'd be pathetic if he hated you for what happened with Jess and Rory. You two are completely different."

   "He better not hate me."

   "How could anyone hate you?" Addy leans forward, snatching a fry from Nathan's tray. I don't know why he'd leave his food at the table with Addy── How foolish. "When are you meeting?"

   "Well, we're working on our project in class, so we're meeting at his house next week," I confirm, and Addy smiles behind her hand which I roll my eyes at. "What, Addy?"

   "Nothing. It's just funny," she laughs. "You have to work with the guy that had his girlfriend stolen by your cousin. I'm afraid it doesn't get any better than this."

   "I hate you."

   "No, you don't. You love me."

   "It won't be that bad, will it?" Addy shakes her head, but I have no idea how bad it'll be. Dean could hate me for all I know, but I hope he doesn't because he's friends with Nathan, and he sits with us sometimes, so it would just be── "Oh, God. It's going to be awkward, isn't he?"

   "Just don't bring up Rory or Jess."

   "If he wants to talk bad about Jess, I don't mind." I shrug, drinking my coffee again. "But I won't bring either of them up."

   "Good. And if he hates you, I'll sort him out."

   I smile. "Can I have Lindsay?"

   Addy laughs, shaking her head. "No."

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𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟑𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟐

   𝐈 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐍'𝐒 𝐃𝐎𝐎𝐑, 𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐘 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐘 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐒. If I stare long and hard enough, the door will burn to the freaking ground. I know I should just go in, but every piece of myself wants to just finish the project at school, but then I'd only get a mundane grade, and I need to get into Yale, so we're working outside of school.

   I reach my fist up, knocking on the door after the longest, most painful fifty-six seconds of my life.

   The door swings open instantly, and I'm greeted by──

   "Who are you?"

   I stare at her strangely, but I recognise her as Dean's little sister, Clara. "Hi," I say, smiling down at the little girl. "I'm, uh, Lucy. I'm here to see Dean. I'm his partner in this project for school."

   She beams up at me. "Diner girl?"

   I chuckle. I've been called that several times, but nobody under the age of sixteen has ever called me that. "Sure. That's me."

   "You're pretty," she compliments.

   "Thank you. You are too."

   "Lucy?" I look up from the little girl, finding her brother to be standing behind her. "Sorry. Uh, Clara, can you──"

   "Bye, Lucy!" She rushes off, leaving me to stand outside Dean's door. Part of me wants Clara to come back because she, like Tristan's sister, is a great conversationalist when things are about to be awkward.

   I look back to Dean. "Hi."

   "Hi. Come in." I step inside, and Dean closes the door behind me. "Uh, do you want coffee?"

   I breathe out a sigh of relief. "Yes."

  Half an hour later, I'm sat with my second cup of coffee, my head in a book, and the best movie of all time playing... Back to the Future. I didn't object when Dean decided to put a movie on because the film fills the silence of the room.

I scribble down a few notes onto the many sheets we have scattered across the floor of his bedroom. Dean is highlighting a few key quotes from the ten poems we're forced to learn and analyse.

   I look over at Dean, then back over at the TV. I should speak, right?

   I clear my throat. "If you, uh, could go back to any year... what year would you, uh, pick?" Dean looks up, chuckling, and I smile uncomfortably. "What?"

   "I'm glad you spoke first, that's all."

   "I'm sorry. This is awkward," I say, leaning back against the wall. "But seriously, you have to answer the question."

   He stays silent for a moment, and I wait in anticipation for his answer. "Uh, I'd go back to whoever invented poetry and stop them," he jokes... I think, but I laugh nonetheless.

   "You'd probably fit in with those cavemen."

   "Gee, thanks, Luce."

   I smile sympathetically. "I'm kidding, don't worry."

   "What about you?"

   "Uh..." I pause, trying to think of a suitable date. "October twenty-sixth, nineteen-eighty-five."

   "Nice reference."

   "Thank you."

   We fall silent again, and we keep working on our ridiculous Poetry Project that I refuse to call "PP" despite hearing Addy's voice in my head. Addy and I have been talking a lot this week, and she's been working nonstop with Lindsay.

   The longer they spend together, the more I think I might be getting replaced as best friend, but I'm not even mad at the fact. Lindsay is one of the sweetest people I've ever met, so if Addy chooses her as her best friend, I can't even be mad at that fact.

   I'm kidding, Addy and I are still best friends, and will remain best friends until we die. Actually, I think we'll be best friends in death.

   After the film ends, we begin to talk again while the second one starts. I find that Dean is actually pretty smart── smarter than I realised── and we talk for an hour about the project, about the different poems that we're comparing, and about the strange highlighter colour that Dean chose to use.

   "Brown?" I lift the brown highlighter. "I didn't even know you could buy a brown highlighter."

"It was fifty pence," he defends, and I chuckle. "It does the job, right?"

"I could've given you one of mine." I hand him several colours, showing him each highlighter. "Pink. Yellow. Blue. Green. Indigo."

He stares at the colours strangely. "Indigo?"

"Like in the rainbow."

"Well brown..." He lifts his highlighter. "...is the colour of the... the dirt."

"I don't want to point out the obvious but it's also the colour of──"

"Yeah, I know." He throws his away, and I replace the gross brown colour with a vibrant blue. "Thanks."

When the second film ends two hours later, I'm nearly falling asleep on the floor, but Dean has made me another cup of coffee── my eighth cup of coffee of the day── and he's also bought us a pizza which I offered to pay for but he insisted on paying.

The third film plays, and we eat silently, but the silence isn't awkward. The silence is comfortable. However, ten minutes into the film, and three slices of pizza later, somebody knocks on Dean's window, and we both turn to see Rory.

Oh, this is the worse possible time for me to be here, I realise.

Now this is awkward.

   "Sorry, I'll, uh──" He stands up, moving towards the bedroom window to greet Rory. "I'll just be a second."

   I decide to step out of the room, not feeling comfortable getting involved in whatever discussion they're having, and I immediately call Addy because, well, she's the one I'd call in any intense situation.

   She picks up in seconds. "Hey. It's awkward, isn't it?"

   I roll my eyes. "No. Well, it wasn't until his ex-girlfriend showed up outside his window. Now I'm standing outside his room because I don't want to get too involved. I also don't want Rory to get the wrong idea."

   "She's not that stupid, is she?"

   "No, Ad, she isn't."

   "You're with Tristan, and Rory is with Jess. Ooo!" I hear Addy clap her hands. "You know what I should do?" I'm not sure I like the sound of this, but I listen to her nonetheless.

   "What?"

   "We──"

   "You," I interrupt because I ain't getting involved just in case something goes wrong.

   "Fine. I am going to set up Lindsay and Dean." My eyes widen, a little surprised, but this is Addy we're talking about. She loves love, so she'll do anything to match two people up. "Just think about it. Rory moved on faster than a rat moving up a drainpipe."

   I rear my head back, confused. "What?"

   "I don't know. Anyway, Rory moved on super quickly, and poor Dean deserves somebody too. So, I'm going to set him and Lindsay up."

   I sigh. "Why?"

   "Because look at you and Tristan," she exclaims, and I wish I'd hung up the phone sooner. "I pushed you two together, and now it's been two years. You two are my greatest match as a matchmaker. So I'm going to set up Lindsay and Dean. She's nice, and he's... nice. They're perfect for each other!"

   I roll my eyes, but I know I can't argue with her. Once Addy has her mind set on something, she's going to go for the gold. "You know what, Addy, do whatever you want to do, okay?"

   "Okay! Trust me, it'll work out."

   I hear Dean close his window in his room. "Okay, I should go. I'll see you tomorrow."

   I hang up the phone quickly, and I open Dean's door slowly to see him standing in the middle of the room, head in hands. He looks frustrated, and now I have no idea what I should say.

I close the door behind me. "A-Are you──" I pause for a second. "Are you okay?"

He nods, but he doesn't look okay. "Yep."

The third movie is still playing, and I appreciate the voice of Marty McFly right now more than I ever have before. I then turn back to Dean, and I say, "I'm really sorry." He looks over at me, a little surprised, but I can't shut up once I start apologising. "I'm sorry about the breakup. It sucks, and I'm sorry. I-I just wanted you to know that, but... I don't know, I'm done."

Surprisingly, Dean cracks a laugh. "It's fine, Lucy. It's fine."

"Hey, if you want to move on eventually, Addy knows somebody she can set you up with," I offer, smiling kindly.

"Addy?"

"Yeah, she, set me and Tristan up... technically, so she calls herself a matchmaker." If it wasn't for her involvement, I wouldn't even know Tristan, so I am actually really grateful for her. "Anyway, if you want to move on, she knows somebody."

Dean nods. "I'll, uh, consider it."

"Good, because you should," I say, and Dean looks at me strangely. I'm getting too involved now. I should shut up. But I don't. "What I mean is... you should take some time, and then try again. I know you really loved Rory, but she's moved on── I'm sorry── and you should too."

"Yeah," he replies. "Thanks."

I clap my hands together, needing to move on now. "How about Chinese?"

"We have pizza."

"Dean, if we're going to be friends, you need to know that I eat a lot, so yeah, we're going to eat pizza, Chinese, and have room for dessert."

"Okay, then."

And that's how Dean and I became friends.

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authors note:

IM NOT TEAM DEAN (i'm team jess or tristan all the freaking way) BUT isn't it sweet that lucy has a new friend?

i know a lot of people don't like dean but there are a few times where i feel lowkey bad for him like now so i decided to write him and lucy as friends (not besties dw)

also lindsay <3 will be a part of their little group

anyway hope you enjoyed (don't hate me :))