Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Zack had proposed to Lane, and she accepted. Which was obviously a great thing. I mean, this meant so many things for Lane, like stability, and love, and sharing everything in her life forever, and being a mom, and being Mrs. Lane Van Gerbig. Which were obviously all really great things that Lane definitely wanted. Which is why Lane can’t figure out why she has this knot of dread that has been sitting uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach since the proposal. Not even since she said yes. Since the proposal itself. Since Zack blindsided her in that dinner with probably the worst most unromantic timing for a proposal ever, and uttered that question that made her heart drop and her breathing stop and all the hair on her body to stand up. Which probably makes Lane sound terrible and like she was an idiot for accepting but the thing is, she loves him. Even though he’s dumb and jealous and downright lazy, she still loves him. Sometimes she thinks she could do better, but other times she wonders if she would even want better.

Zack kind of reminds her of her father, before he left of course. Which is probably a weird thing to think about your significant other, especially because she’s pretty sure Zack would hate her dad, and vice versa. But nonetheless he does remind her of her dad, not completely, but in small ways that both scare and amuse her. Like how Zack chews with his mouth open, loud smacking noises as he eats in a way that reminded her of a memory she had completely buried. Sitting at the dinner table when she was very small, in between her parents who were glaring at each other, her father chewing with his mouth open obnoxiously wide, food practically falling out as he stares down his wife who glares right back at him, her arms crossed over her chest and not touching the food on her plate. Lane recalls those always being very quiet dinners. Sometimes she would sit there and wish she was having dinner at Rory’s house. Sitting in between Rory and her mom on the couch watching some old movie she’s never heard of but both girls insist is a classic, eating greasy pizza with extra cheese straight out of the box. But Lane was never allowed to eat at Rory’s house because her mother knew she would have too much fun there and god forbid that ever happen.

She finds herself feeling the same way she felt during those dinners, anxious and uncomfortable and desperately wishing she was somewhere else. She wishes she was having dinner at Rory’s house in her cozy living room with her loving mother and delicious takeout food. She wishes she was somewhere familiar and safe. Wish is why she is currently headed to Lorelai’s house in desperate need to vent to her best friend, except her best friend is away at college and isn’t answering her texts or calls so Lane has to settle for venting to her best friend’s mom instead. She doesn’t think Lorelai will mind, she’s always been there for her when she’s had boy problems that she obviously couldn’t go to her own mom with. Lorelai was like the cool aunt she never had.

As Lane walks up the steps to knock on the door she nearly runs over Lorelai who happens to be leaving at the same time. “Hey kiddo whatcha in a rush for? Someone chasing you?” Lorelai asks lightheartedly once they’re both steady again.

“No, I just really wanted to talk to you” Lane tries to say casually like she’s not freaking out inside.

“Alright well I was just headed to Luke’s diner so how about we talk while we walk?” Lorelai suggested. Lane nods and they start to walk in the direction of the diner. It’s silent for a good minute while Lane figures out what she even wants to talk about. Lorelai intentionally slows down her walking pace to give Lane a little more time to think and she is extremely thankful for the leniency. Eventually Lane is able to organize her thoughts enough to ask a question.

“Do you know why Rory hasn’t been answering my texts and calls?”

“Oh hun I’m sorry, Rory has just been so busy at Yale with all her classes and being editor of the paper. Plus she’s still seeing Logan and guys like that really take a lot of your attention, believe me I would know” Lorelai says sagely.

“Right yeah, of course Rory's really busy, I just miss her ya know,” Lane says looking down at the scuff marks on her sneakers.

“Oh I miss her too but she’ll be home to visit soon” she reassures.

“Yeah..” Lane trails off. They fall into a silence that would probably be awkward if they hadn’t known each other for so long.

“Zack proposed to me”

“I heard, congratulations” Lorelai says genuinely with a smile.

“Thanks” Lane knows her smile looks stiff and strained based off the look on Lorelai’s face. She doesn’t think her mother has ever looked at her with that much loving concern before and it makes something in Lane's chest burn a little bit, she ignores it. “I know I said yes and I do love Zack, like so much, believe me, but I’m just not sure marriage is quite what I want right now…”

“Does that make me a terrible person?”

“No, of course not” Lorelai is quick to reassure her. “You are so young and marriage is a big commitment, so maybe it’s better that you want to hold off for a while” Lorelai tells her gently.

“Yeah, I just, gosh I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to mess things up” Lane confesses.

Lorelai softly grabs her arm and pulls them to a stop facing each other. Usually she looks so young and vibrant for her age but at this moment Lane can really see all the years outlined on her face. Lorelai’s been through a lot, she realizes that, and not just with the whole having a baby at sixteen and running away from home thing, but all the other stuff too. All the life that Lorelai has lived, all the boyfriends and bestfriends and first jobs and new experiences, all the things that Lane desperately wants to experience for herself, the good and the bad, she wants it all.

“If you live your whole life playing it safe because you’re afraid of making a mistake then you will make a life for yourself that you hate. I don’t want you to wake up in twenty years and realize that you hate everything about your life, you deserve to be happy”

And somehow that is just the thing that Lane needed to hear. She does deserve to be happy. She does deserve nice things. She wants to carve a life out for herself that she loves and can feel confident saying she’s satisfied with. She doesn’t want to marry Zack and settle down in Stars Hollow and give up her dreams so she can pop out his kids. She doesn’t want that at all. She’s got to get out of here. Actually she says that last part out loud.

“I've got to get out of here” Lane says, staring unblinking into the distance.

“Then go” Lorelai whispers before giving her shoulders a squeeze and then letting go. So that is exactly what she does, she turns tail and runs. She runs all the way back to the band's shared apartment, which is luckily empty. Lane doesn’t think she’d be able to lie effectively if one of her bandmates, or god forbid Zack, were to ask her where she’s going. Even though she doesn’t really know where she’s going right now, just anywhere but here is good enough for her.

She goes to her room and starts hastily packing anything she can get her hands on, she doesn’t know where she’s going or how long she’ll be gone so she decides to just take as much stuff as her car will carry. She of course takes her drumset, she can’t just leave her baby here all alone. When she finally has all of her belongings packed into her car she gets in and just starts driving. The moment she exits Stars Hollow she feels better than she has all day, like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders and she’s not suffocating under it anymore. As great as it feels to be out of stars hollow Lane quickly realizes that she doesn’t have anywhere else to go, she doesn’t know anyone outside of stars hollow. Well, except for one person.

The last time she checked, and she had checked fairly recently, Dave was still at the university of Berkeley getting his bachelors in music, he also has a band on the side that often plays gigs in the bars near the university. Lane knows that it would be crazy of her to just show up on her ex-boyfriend's doorstep after all these years but Dave had said that he wanted to stay friends when they broke up, she doesn’t think that he’s the kind of guy to say that if he didn’t mean it. And to be totally honest, Lane missed him, not even just as a boyfriend but as a friend too. Dave had always been so kind and thoughtful, truthfully he might have been the one that got away. When she was a teen she fully believed that she was going to marry him someday, that he was the one.

Obviously Lane isn’t going to show up and try to win him back or anything like that, for all she knows he could have a girlfriend and Lane would never want to mess with someone else’s relationship. But there’s no harm in visiting an old friend is there? Besides Lane needed a bit of familiar comfort right now and Dave had always been good at calming her nerves. So it was decided, she was going to California.

Chapter Text

The drive was long and uncomfortable. Many times Lane had to sleep in her car because she was in the middle of nowhere and too exhausted to keep driving. It took a couple days but eventually Lane made it to California and it was incredible. She had never been somewhere so warm and sunny before, it was the complete opposite of the dreariness of Connecticut.

The first stop she made was to the beach. They had beaches in Connecticut but Lane had never been because her mom said it was unsanitary and there were too many boys there. She sat comfortably in the hot sand, letting it trickle through her fingers as she breathed in the salty ocean air, she felt free and unrestricted for the first time in forever. She never realized how trapped she felt in her old life, and it wasn’t even one thing that was holding her back, it was everything. It was being in the town that she had spent her whole life in, surrounded by people that seemed to know everything about her. Lane may have left her mothers house but the effect that her upbringing had on her never left, her mom’s voice in the back of her head telling her to act proper never went away no matter what choices she made, the shame of not living up to her expectations never went away either. She may be a twenty one year old adult woman but Lane has never stopped wanting her mothers approval.

Lane spent a couple hours down by the beach, walking up and down the pier seeing the sights and just enjoying the leisure of it all. The longer she spent here the more she liked it, maybe she could make a life for herself here, get a little apartment that's just her own, decorate it how she wants and make cool new friends to invite over. That sounds really nice.

She knew that she would have to actually leave the beach if she was going to go see Dave, but she was nervous, and stalling. She had learned from Facebook that Dave’s band would be playing a show at a local bar tonight and she wanted to go but now she was starting to get second thoughts. What if after all this time and no contact Dave didn’t want to see her anymore? What if he had changed? What if he heard from someone back home that Lane and Zack had gotten together and was mad at her for dating one of his friends? Lane was starting to get a headache from all the anxious thoughts swimming around her head.

‘Ok, enough is enough’ Lane thought. She’s not gonna get anywhere by just sitting around and thinking of all the ways this could go wrong, she’s just gonna get up and go. And that’s exactly what she does.

Lane arrives to the bar at around eight and shows the bouncer her ID, he lets her through after a good minute of scrutinization. She heads straight to the bar counter to order herself something to sip on, she doesn’t usually indulge in alcohol but you know what they say, it’s liquid courage. She settles herself at a table near the back of the bar, not wanting to be too close to the stage.

The moment the band walks on stage and Lane see’s him butterflies erupt in her stomach, she feels seventeen seeing him for the first time again. He looks different but still decidedly Dave.
His hair has grown out a little so it curls around his ears and the nape of his neck. He also looks taller, or maybe it’s just the way he’s standing, confident and with good posture. Her mom always said that good posture was a sign of a good person and Lane now finds herself agreeing with that sentiment.

As soon as the band starts playing and Dave looks up, they lock eyes, and suddenly Lane can’t breathe anymore, long buried affection and pining claws its way up her throat, effectively choking her. His expression is hard to read, especially from this distance, but he looks shocked, like he can’t believe she’s actually here and not a figment of his imagination.

He plays the rest of the set making intense eye contact with her and Lane just gets more and more flustered as the time goes on. He’s looking at her so intently as he plays that it almost feels like he’s playing the songs specifically for her, and that thought brings a bright blush to her face and neck that she hopes no one can see in the dim lighting.

When the set finishes Dave doesn’t even bother putting his guitar away properly, he just sets it down before rushing off stage to go see Lane. When he arrives at her table he’s breathing heavily and his face is slightly red, whether from the run over or the harsh overhead stage lighting Lane isn’t sure.

“Hi” she squeaks in greeting.

“Hi” he says breathily, and hearing his voice like that after so long has Lane gripping the table so her shaky knees don’t buckle. She can’t think of a single thing to say and just blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

“You got taller” which is probably the most idiotic thing she could say at a time like this but, well, it is true. Lane hasn’t grown an inch since she turned sixteen and Dave is definitely taller than he was by a few inches.

Dave just laughs at her outburst and the tension dissolves just like that. He shakes his head somewhat bemusedly as he looks at her, like he’s thinking of all the things he wants to say. In the end he settles on “yeah, I had a growth spurt my freshman year here”

“Well you look good” she tells him, and she means it. Now that he’s standing right next to her she can tell that his face is a little more chiseled than it used to be, he no longer looks like a bright eyed teen, he looks like a man and it’s doing things to Lane’s head.

“You too, you look…” he takes a moment to swallow before continuing “you just look really good” he tells her earnestly.

“Thanks” Lane says as she smiles and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

Dave smiles back and for a moment they’re just standing there smiling at each other and nothing else really matters. This moment is of course interrupted a second later by Dave’s bandmates coming over to say hi.

“Hi there” greets a tall blond woman who is wearing a motley crue shirt and has the sides of her head shaved. Lane thought she was possibly the coolest person she had ever seen in real life. “I’m Kira, and this is Tim” she introduces herself and the guy standing next to her.

“Hi” the guy greets timidly, he’s a big guy with patchwork tattoos and short scruffy brown hair. Lane would say that he’s standing next to Kira but really he’s more so standing behind her while angling his body towards her like he’s waiting for her to tell him something.

“Sorry to interrupt” Kira says even though she doesn’t really look sorry, in fact she looks a bit sly “but I just had to come over and meet the girl that my best bud here seemed so taken with during our set” she says while giving Dave a teasing sideways look, Dave seems to be doing his best to ignore her.

Lane doesn’t really know what to say to that so she decides to just start with introducing herself. “I’m Lane” she says as she holds out her hand for a shake. Kira's eyes sparkle with what looks to be recognition as she takes her hand.

“You’re Lane” she says as they shake hands and her smile only seems to grow wider and a bit more leering. Beside her Dave coughs like he has something stuck in his throat, when she looks over he has a strange look on his face and the tips of his ears are red.

Again Lane doesn’t really know what to say so she just confirms what Kira said even though it was not posed as a question. “Yep, that’s me” she says with a slightly tight lipped smile, she feels like there’s some sort of inside joke or secret going on that she’s missing here.

Kira finally lets go of her hand and stands up a bit straighter. “Well it is so nice to meet you Lane, Dave has told us so much about you” behind her Tim is trying to smother his laughter while sending Dave an apologetic look.

Dave shakes his head and looks a little bit mortified. “Alright, alright, that’s enough” he says as he gives Kira a playful shove. She holds her hands up in mock surrender as she laughs loudly at Dave’s embarrassment but walks away nonetheless, sending a flirtatious little smirk and wave at Lane as she goes. Tim follows closely behind after giving Lane a friendly smile and telling her that he hopes to see her around.

Once they’re gone Lane turns back to Dave with a giddy smile that she can’t quite suppress. “You told your bandmates about me?” she can’t help but ask.

Dave smiles bashfully as he rubs the back of his neck, musing up the slight curls that rest there. “Well they’re not just my bandmates, they’re my friends too” he dodges the question before sighing in defeat “and I might have told them a little about you” he admits.

Lane giggles in excitement. “Better be careful with that Dave, if you go around telling all your friends about me I might start thinking you’re obsessed with me” she teases.

Lane expects him to laugh or deny it but instead he just gives her a heated look and says “can you blame me? Who wouldn’t be obsessed with you?” and Lane’s heart stutters in her chest in a way that can’t be good for her health.

“Oh” is all she manages to get out. She feels flushed and a bit sweaty, she feels like a silly teenager in love for the first time. God how she missed this feeling, she missed having someone look at her like she’s the entire world and say something disgustingly sappy that she will replay in her head for days afterwards. No, not just someone, she missed Dave, looking at her with his warm brown eyes and cute crooked smile and saying something utterly devastating that she knows he means with his whole chest. She missed this so god damn much that she can’t believe she was ever able to convince herself that she was over him, how could anyone be over Dave Rygalski?

The moment stretches on with Dave gazing lovingly at Lane and Lane trying her best not to hyperventilate. Although Dave seems to snap out of it after a minute, now he looks like he has a question that he’s not entirely sure how to ask. In the end he just comes out with it bluntly.

“Are you seeing anyone?” he asks.

That gives Lane pause, this is going to be uncomfortable to explain. “Not technically” she says. Which is true, when Lane left Stars Hollow she had left her ring and a short note on the kitchen counter before she went. She knows it may have been cruel of her to end their relationship via note but Lane just couldn’t stand to be in that town any longer, it felt like she was being fed on by a vampire that was slowly sucking her soul right out of her body.

Dave looked a bit confused “not technically?” he asked. Lane supposed he did deserve a proper answer.

“Well, I was engaged for a brief time,” she admits.

“Engaged?” Dave asks, eyebrows slightly raised in shock. “To who?” he can’t stop himself from asking, ‘who in Stars Hollow would be good enough for Lane to marry?” he wonders, and he can’t think of a single person that would be worthy of her.

“Zack” she answers with a slight frown.

And now Dave is really confused. “Zack? Like Zack from the band? That Zack?” he asks.
Lane just nods in confirmation.

Now usually Dave is not a very possessive or jealous person, but the fact that she was with Zack? That just rubs him the wrong way. Don’t get him wrong Zack was his friend for a while, and he was an alright friend but Dave had also seen the way he treated his girlfriends, the way he was lazy and rude and barely put any effort into the relationship, and the thought of Zack treating Lane like made him want to grind his teeth together. But obviously it wasn’t his place to say who Lane should or shouldn’t date so instead of telling her all the ways that Dave would be so much better for her than Zack he just tried his best to smile. “That’s great” he said in a very unconvincingly cheery tone.

Lane sighs and shakes her head a little bit “no, it’s not. He wasn’t a very good boyfriend and honestly I have no idea why I said yes, which is why I ended it”

“Oh, well good for you then” Dave says in a more relieved tone, even though the confirmation that Zack treated Lane badly makes him want to do something completely irrational like driving all the way to Stars Hollow just to tell Zack how much he fucked up by not treating Lane like the goddess she is.

“Yeah, and that’s part of the reason I’m here actually, after I left Stars Hollow all I wanted to do was come see you, I hope it’s alright that I’m here” Lane says, looking a bit nervous.

Dave can’t even begin to put into words how glad he is that Lane is here right in front of him so he just does the one thing that he has wanted to do since he saw her and hugs her. It takes a moment before the shock of suddenly being hugged wears off and Lane wraps her arms around his shoulder, having to lean up slightly to get a better hold. Dave holds her around the waist and lays his head on her shoulder, smelling the faint traces of her apple scented shampoo that he’s missed since high school, he never wants to let go. “I missed you” he whispers into the side of her neck, and something inside of Lane just melts. It feels like coming home, not to the home that she grew up in where she was never allowed to be herself but to a home where she is not only accepted as a whole but allowed to grow and change however she wishes without the fear of becoming unlovable.

“I missed you too” she whispers back, and if a few tears slip out, can you really blame her?