A/N: This story just came to me. I was having one of those I'm-all-alone-so-lets-fantasize-instead-of-be-bore d moments, which always just pop up, even if I take a quick trip to the restroom. This one time I thought of a divorced Luke and Lorelai. I know right? Who thinks of such a thing? This proves perfectly well how crazy I am… Anyway, I thought of what would have happened if that same drama when April arrived happened while Luke and Lorelai were married. I'm not writing this part of the story (yet), so basically nothing changed from that storyline, except from Luke and Lorelai's past. Yes, Lorelai still went to Christopher, I'm sorry. I know Lorelai would probably never do such a thing MARRIED, but this is AU and if you can't handle it, then simply don't read it ;).

Now I would like to make clear that Christopher is just a small part of this story. This is not about Luke and Lorelai's time when April arrived, it is not about Lorelai cheating and it's not about them getting divorced. This story takes place two years after they had gotten divorced. It basically picks up right before the season final, only with a "slightly" different past.

For the Rory fans: I'm sorry, but this story really is all about Luke and Lorelai and Rory is in the background. If you want to read more about Rory, please go find yourself another FanFiction!

Enough on the story-spoilers? On to the 'thank you' notes then.

Niamh, when thinking of a new, crazy storyline, it's great to have someone you can go to –half excited, half scared– to pitch it. Now, when that someone gets so excited, saying "it's heartbreaking, but beautiful" and "you HAVE to write it, because I have to read it", it makes a new project like this even more enjoyable, exiting and definitely more challenging. As we have found out during our time working together on "Teens on Coffee" (check it out, please!), our ideas and our styles are so freakishly linked, that no idea is too crazy to propose. For my first own story, it's a blast to have someone like you to Beta for me. I trust you with whole my heart. You are the eyes and ears… Errr, you are the heart and brain that secretly hides behind my name. I thank you so.

And as you know, the name of the second girl is especially for you.

Finally, thank you to my reader(s?). I have joy in writing this, but experience has taught me it's even more joyful when your work is being read and appreciated. Therefore I really appreciate any support and/or critic you can give me, so please leave a review!

Chapter 1: The Craft of Hurting

"Luke! Can I get a to-go cup of coffee please? Quickly! I'm already late," I yell as I quickly walk up to the counter of Luke's Diner, knowing that Luke will probably be somewhere around, but not seeing him.

Luke peers his head out of the kitchen and sees me hopping impatiently from one leg to the other. "In a minute," he grumbles to me and I sigh as I drop down on the stool at the counter nearest to me, knowing it's lost energy to try and get Luke to hurry. In fact, he would probably be even slower, just to annoy me back.

As I lean my right elbow dramatically on the counter and place my head in my hand, I don't notice the empty chair beside me being occupied.

"Boo!" Elly leans in and says closely to my ear, making me jump from my stool slightly.

I turn around to face her. "Elly!" I say with a laugh, "You scared me."

Elly laughs too and leans in again, but this time to kiss my cheek and I rub her back soothingly in return.

I then realize it's 9:16 A.M. "Hey! Why aren't you in school?" I ask surprised and I share a quick glance towards the familiar kitchen area before refocusing on my daughter.

"Mrs. Kathleen is ill," she says with a dismissive, uninterested shrug of her shoulders that reminds me a great deal of her father.

"Besides," she continues, a smile now playing on her lips, her dark blue eyes sparkling with pleasure, "we have this project where we have to make this little house out of wood," and she waves towards a table in the far back of the diner, that is loaded with the beginning of a miniature wooden house, little wooden sticks, glue, a small and a bigger hammer and some nails.

"No wonder I didn't see you when I came in. You were hidden behind a forest!" I tease as I adjust her uncontrollable dark, long curls with my bare hand, that always seem more uncontrollable when she comes from her dad than when I put my hands on them.

Elly ducks her head and pushes my hand away dismissively. "Dad's been helping me build it. Doesn't it already looks perfect?!" she asks me excitingly, ignoring my teasing easily.

"Very pretty," I nod, trying to be just as enthusiastic as Elly, but reaching nowhere near her energy level. I try to blame my little enthusiasm on the lack of coffee in my system, but deep down I know that I don't agree with Luke doing the project for her. The miniature house looks way too good to have been made by a nine year old. I want my kids to work for their own achievements, just like Rory has always done, but it's obvious that Luke likes spending time with his kid on a project such as this. I can already sense a fight coming.

"Mommy?" Elly asks doubtfully.

"Yes, hon?" I say, my eyebrows raised.

"Can I stay with Daddy tonight, so we can finish this?" she asks while pointing to the project on the diner table.

Such a Daddy's girl, I think sadly with a roll of my eyes. Elly basically is Luke in girl-form, not only in her interests and partly her behavior; she also has her father's dark blue eyes, his long straight nose and the small, but long form of his face making sharp edges of her cheekbones. The only thing you recognize her by as 'mine', is her hair. Luckily, she inherited my thick dark curls. Unfortunately, Luke doesn't know how to control that mass of hair and Elly surely doesn't care.

Abby looks more like me, well, she's a combination of her parents, but at least there's no doubt she's also mine. She has Luke's dark blue eyes, but her face is a bit rounder and she obviously has my nose, which I like to refer to as 'Irish'. Not that I am anywhere from Irish descent, at least, I don't think so, but that's just the best way to describe it. Abby also has my dark curls, which makes Elly and Abby look very much alike. Abby is also a lot more free-spirited like I am than Elly is.

There was a time, about two and a half years ago, when Abby was almost five and Elly was seven that Luke and I talked about having another child. I told him he had his mini-me, now I wanted mine. Luke agreed; he wanted a boy. Little did we know our wish would come true sooner and older than we expected, definitely not a mini-me and nowhere near a boy. April had suddenly shown up, causing Luke to completely shut down towards me and my wish of having a fourth kid dying together with our, before, perfect marriage. Don't get me wrong; I don't blame April. I blame Luke, Anna a bit, but mostly myself. Every single day I kick my own shins for that day, that one day where I just had to go to Christopher for support. Why hadn't I just gone to Rory?

No point in questioning this. Again.

"Sure," I tell Elly with a smile.

Elly's face perks up at that. "Thanks, Mommy!" she squeals and runs back to the table, picking up a new wooden stick and inspecting it thoroughly.

At that moment Luke decides to leave his sacred space. He hands a plate filled with freshly baked omelets to the table on the right of the counter and I feel my mouth fill with saliva at the delicious sight. Luke then walks back behind his counter and pours –hopefully– my coffee in a to-go cup. Surely, shortly after that, he walks in my direction, holding my favorite breakfast-, lunch-, dinner- and snack-drink in the world.

"There you go. All set," he says as he puts the cup down on the counter in front of me. I place both my hands around the cup, an old reflex earned from a decades-old coffee addiction, gaining a loud sigh from Luke combined with a shake of his head, but I notice the smile playing on his face as his drowning dark blue eyes bore into mine and I know that he's having a good morning.

"Thank you," I say sweetly, batting my eyelashes at him. I'm playing with fire here. Ever since the divorce, all my flirting was being dismissed; I could just see his face expression change and he would usually turn away from me. Sometimes, however, when he was in a good mood, like this one, I could get some flirting into our conversation, without him getting mad, but it isn't enough. It's not the same as it used to be.

Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a terrible flirt. What can I say? I love to flirt, especially to get exactly what I want and especially with Luke. But that has all changed and it's my own damn fault.

Don't think about that! Just don't.

I often have to tell myself not to think about how much I screwed up. I know it's been almost two years, but it's still too painful knowing that what I've lost is standing right before me, still as handsome and manly as ever.

"So she told you about her school project?" the man in question interrupts my thoughts, nodding his head towards Elly who was focused on gluing two wooden sticks together, her tongue hanging slightly out of her mouth.

I can't help but smirk at the sight of that. I look back at Luke with a smile, "yeah, she did."

"Is it okay if she stays an extra day with me?" he asks me doubtfully. We didn't have one of those awful fight divorces. We decided to keep it civil, for the girls and we easily agreed on shared custody. I say 'easily', but it was one of the most painful things I ever had to do.

"Yeah, sure. She already asked me," I say, still with a smile and I can't help myself but place my hand on top of his arm as if it's a reflex like grabbing my coffee mug.

That gesture went too far and Luke quickly pulls his arm from under my hand. "Thanks," he grumbles. I squeeze my mouth together tightly in just a split second as if I need that one second to swallow my pain away. I then smile at him and place my hand back around my mug.

Like I don't even realize anything out of the ordinary had just happened, I continue to talk about the one thing we still have in common: our daughters. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" I ask.

Luke looks up in surprise and follows my gaze towards Elly. "What do you mean?" he asks confused.

"For one, the nails and the hammer," I say a bit annoyed. Who lets a nine-year-old play with nails? She could hurt herself badly.

I can see at the look in his eyes that Luke picked up on the change in my tone, but he keeps his own tone rather neutral, "she's fine, Lorelai. Those things are harmless and I'm keeping an eye on her."

I don't really believe him, thinking back to a few minutes ago when he was in the kitchen not supervising our daughter who was playing construction worker in the other room. "Okay," I say anyhow, though clearly unconvincingly. "What about you doing the project for her?" I ask.

This is Luke's time to get annoyed at me and surely his voice rises, "What are you talking about? Look at her! She is doing it. Not I."

I again look at the table where my daughter is still working, not noticing the fight that's starting to swell between her parents. I then look down from Elly's face to the project. "She did not make that, Luke," I accuse him.

"Yes, she did," Luke shoots back at me, now angrily, "I showed her how to do it and she's a good student."

"Okay, okay," I say, holding my hands up in surrender, but it's clear to both of us that I still don't believe him.

"Is it so hard for you to understand that maybe she's good at making things? At fixing things? That maybe she got that gene from me?" He is angry. Oh, he's angry. Anytime he brings the –she's my kid too, Lorelai– argument, I know that he's on fire. Like I don't know that she's his.

I am really not in the mood for a fight like this, definitely not in a packed diner and definitely not in front of Elly. It makes me angry that he's continuing this useless argument in front of her and I hiss at him, "and what a wonderful quality that is for a girl," putting emphasize on the word 'girl'.

Uh oh. I brought the –you always wanted a boy– argument up. I know it's stupid. I know he loves Elly and Abby more than anything in the world, but it outrages me when he is being like this and this argument is just so easy. I feel sick, sick of myself and sick of this fight.

Such a contradiction I'm giving you here. First I basically tell you I still love him and then I fight with him for no good reason, but you know what they say; love and hate are often in one combined. Right?

"At least she'll be able to take care of herself," Luke shoots back, his voice starting to get above a whisper.

I know, okay? I have a crazy mind, but this I actually find funny and I see my way of making this argument a lot less… argument-y.

"See, this is where I'm smart," I say with a wicked smile, my voice back to normal, "I just find myself a man to do all my dirty work for me."

I see Luke's face changing just the tiniest bit: from very angry to a little less very angry, but still a lot angry. He and I both know I'm talking about him and 'dirty work' might have been slightly directed on how that pretty little girl in the crafts corner was created. Luke shakes his head as if he simply doesn't know what to do with me.

"Besides," I continue in the same teasing tone, loving the teeny-tiny change my teasing has on him, "I just love bossing the man around. Makes me feel powerful!" My fist shoots in the air in a triumphant manner and I grin mischievously at him.

Luke stops wiping the counter and throws his towel angrily on the counter. "You lost the right to boss me around two years ago," Luke says with clenched teeth, as he pushes my to-go cup closer to me, indicating that I should leave now. Luke quickly walks towards the table where Elly is working, sits down next to her and finds himself very interested in her work.

I stare at my ex, openmouthed from the surprise of this unnecessary reminder that he is indeed my ex. Feeling the poison of his words penetrate my body and flowing through my bloodstream, I stand up and quickly leave the diner, not even remembering to give Elly a goodbye kiss. I can feel Luke's eyes on my back as I exit and for the first time in my life I leave an untouched, perfectly-good cup of the most delicious liquid on earth sad and alone on the counter, ready to become garbage; a good comparison to the way I'm feeling right now.