TROUVAILLE ... l.danes (REWRITE)

chapter fifty-five; the future

ROSALINE DANES IS A DREAMER

two-thousand-and-twenty-two

ROSALINE DANES is a dreamer.

Ever since she was four, sitting at a piano in Babette Dell's house, she has wanted to be a musician. She has taken piano lessons for hours every week. Practiced on the piano her parents bought for her when they realized that this was something she really wanted when she was six. Listened and listened and listened to only piano music to feel it in her bones. Pissed off her older cousin – at this rate, brother – by playing at midnight to the point where he wouldn't stop playing metal music until they got into an argument.

And finally, all that work has paid off.

Rosaline is going to Julliard. She is going to play piano with the New York Philharmonic. She has to. She wrote it down as one of her life affirmations when she was ten. And then, at fourteen, she scribbled the Vienna Philharmonic underneath it. And then, when she was sixteen, she pinned the location of every concert venue in the world she wanted to play in. She will make it. Because she is a dreamer just like her mother. And she puts the work in just like her father.

The Stars Hollow town square has been set up for a party. Everybody's kitchen table has been pulled out to sit on the grass, covered in similarly coloured navy cloth and flickering candles in the shape of all sorts of instruments. There is a table full of presents waiting for her to rip open – all the stuff she needs for college and possibly more – and there are three or four tables of food made by her Aunt Sookie, her Aunt Olive and her dad, who had argued as they tried setting it up. And there, right next to the gazebo, is the throne she sits on, laughing as her little cousin climbs onto her lap to try to steal her crown.

"Christie, stop it." Rory sweeps in, grabbing her five-year-old daughter from her lap, prying the crown from her hands. "God. I'm sorry. She's being a menace these days."

Rory was Stars Hollow's Rosaline before Rosaline came along. She was everything to this town and she even went to Yale. And then, years later, trying to make it in the big, bad world of journalism, she decided to move back home, reopen the Stars Hollow Gazette all by herself, and finally, settled down.

Before Rory, there was Rosaline's mom, Shelley.

"She can keep it. I've got another one hidden somewhere."

"You're crown. Princess."

Her cousin, Jess, appears from behind the throne, placing another plastic golden crown onto her head. She giggles and tips the childish sceptre she was gifted from Aunt Lorelai towards him.

"Why thank you, kind Jester."

"Is that a pun?"

"No." She grins. "I'm calling you a clown." Jess' smile falls but she knows it's not because he's actually mad at her. She grew up with Jess as a constant in her life. Sometimes he would go off and travel for a few months, but he always came back with gifts, having written a novel or poetry or something that made him proud to be home. But, for most of her life, he was there, always within reach, the big brother she could rely on.

Sometimes, when she had a nightmare, she would crawl into Jess' bed and make him read to her, curled up into his side and listening to his soothing tone. Then, when she fell back asleep, he'd take her back to bed and tuck her in and nobody was any wiser to the night before.

Then, there was Autumn. She worked in the diner for a lot of Rosaline's childhood, but once she'd saved up enough money, she went to college and won a scholarship in volleyball. She became one of the best volleyball players in the U.S. Then, she moved to South California to join the National Women's Team and every year, they watch her on the TV, cheering her on. Until, one knee injury later, she's coaching the Stars Hollow High volleyball team and finally getting to stay home.

And finally, after all these years of putting it off, Autumn, Jess and Rory have moved into a house on Apple Tree Lane, all three of them putting in the work to raise Christie.

Rosaline asked her cousin about it once and he told her they were all dating and that was that. She didn't ask any more and he didn't tell her any more. She's surprised there aren't more questions floating around the town, trying to scope the ins-and-outs of their relationship. But, they all know Jess too well, and they know that asking any questions with him around would end in a bitten off head and a scowl stuck in your memories.

Christie yet again runs off, and so her parents run after her, trying to stop her from ruining the food table with her grabby hands.

"Enjoying your party?"

"Mom!"

Rosaline jumps up from her throne, throwing her arms around Shelley Danes. Just a few weeks ago, she cut her hair short, so now it flicks back and forth around her chin. But she looks just the same as she did all those years ago in Rosaline's memories, the young woman who held her hands as she took her first steps, who taught her how to read, who told her stories about her relationship with her dad. Beside her is her husband and Rosaline's father, Lucas, blonde hair graying at the temples, half-hidden by the baseball cap he wears backwards on his head. He chuckles and it is deep and rumbling. He too wraps his arms around her until she is squashed right between her parents, the vanilla perfume her mom wears sticking in her nose, the warmth of her dad's oldest flannel sticking to her back.

Her beautiful, kinda weird, absolutely crazy for one another parents that she would not give up for anything.

"Now. C'mon, Olive's baked your favorite cake!"

And Rosaline lets herself get swept up in the crazy loudness that is Stars Hollow before her parents drive her to New York tomorrow. This is what she will miss. All her favorite people just inches from her fingertips.

Rosaline Danes is a dreamer and this is a dream she'll cling onto forever. 

THE END 

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