The Simpler Life

2

Chapter 2

The door at the Gazette banged shut as Esther left for lunch, leaving Rory all alone in the office. The place was a lot less cluttered and dusty than it had been a few months ago, but it still had that former-century aura to it. But Rory had always found spaces like this comforting.

As usual Rory was putting a little too much dedication into the work that didn't really require that much from her. But on her defense, she was pretty much the only one doing the work. Esther handled the paperwork, payments and filing, the latter remaining somewhat of a mystery to Rory. And Charlie, who was only working part-time, dealt with the advertisements and classifieds section, the only source of income for the paper. The latter was mostly down to the fact that Charlie knew everyone in town. It was a quirky and sometimes dysfunctional dynamic, but Rory was simply relieved to not be at it all alone.

About five minutes later Rory's nimble fingers pressed Ctrl+S on the document in front of her. Rory sighed, finishing the feature piece. She stretched out her arms, yawned, and stood up to make a trip to the tiny bathroom in the back for the fourth time that morning. But just as she was about to step out from behind Bernie Roundbottom's old table, the door opened again.

"Hi! I brought you lunch!" Lane said, pushing her glasses higher up on her nose with her knuckle, as she closed the door behind her with her foot. Her hands were full - carrying a take-away bowl and a bunch of her own stuff.

"Aw... you take such good care of me," Rory chimed with endearment. Lane had been one of the few people who'd know about Rory's pregnancy from the first moments she'd found out. Just like Rory had been for Lane, years ago. It was also notable that was one of the two only people who had any clue about the paternity of her child, the other being her mother, who hadn't needed many guesses to figure things out herself. Lorelai had remained respectful enough not to pester her about the fact, allowing her to handle things her own way.

"Well, someone has to. I know how you eat, or how you don't eat," Lane commented, and placed a hot take-away bowl of homemade potato-dumpling soup onto her desk.

"I can't really help it if it's hard to keep stuff down," Rory shrugged innocently, begging for some pity. She was suffering from food aversion too, being unable to prepare herself much more than a bowl of cereal without getting sick.

"Anything that doesn't contain a load of carbs, you mean," Lane rolled her eyes. She'd definitely inherited her mother's attitude towards healthy eating while once she'd had kids of her own, while still enjoying chilly fries or a hidden candy bar every once in a while. "But lucky for you, this thing has plenty of those too. Just some extra leafy greens to help the little bean out," she added, having put in an extra handful of Bok Choy just for her sake.

"Hey, there were strawberries on my custard Danish this morning," Rory replied, innocently, excusing herself to the bathroom.

Lane continued to hang out behind the bathroom door, leaning her shoulder against the wall, whilst conveniently pressing play on her Discover Weekly playlist to give Rory some privacy. Lane for one was quite enjoying having Rory back in town, giving her back her best friend and someone to celebrate new music releases that went beyond Zach's tastes, with.

"Oh, and I heard the news got out there," Lane commented, speaking through the door.

"What news?" Rory asked, having spent the morning in the midst of 'news'.

"About the baby?" Lane reminded her.

"Oh. Babette. Right," Rory remembered, having tried her best all morning to not think about her morning encounter. She'd gotten pulled into work and she hadn't given the fact much thought that by now most of the town must've heard about her pregnancy.