It Wasn't His Fault
A/N: the beginning has the dialog from the show.
"Hey," said Rory as she determinedly approached Luke. He'd finally returned. Maybe he had news.
"Rory," he replied, a little surprised, but still pleased to see her.
"You're back?" she asked.
A short nod and equally short reply. "I'm back."
"You catch anything?"
'Nothing but a clue that he couldn't continue like this with Lorelai anymore,' he thought to himself. "Nah. Apparently the fish went fishing also."
"Too bad."
He stared at her cast, covered in stickers that were complete mysteries to him. "Yeah, well. So that's the, uh. . ."
"Yeah."
"Does it hurt?"
She blinked, a flash of pain in her heart which came and went when she realized he wasn't talking about Jess. "No, not really. Just itches a little."
"Yeah, I can imagine. Make sure you don't use a pencil." God, did this sound as lame to Rory as it did to him? He couldn't help himself. A week without human contact except for the guys at the bait shop and that crazy old man who fished without a hook, mumbling to himself all morning. No coffee, no lame jokes, no crazy orders, mocking his every attempt to get his customers to eat healthier.
"Excuse me? A pencil?" asked Rory, her concerned eyes worried about the dark circles under his eyes. A week's vacation should have left Luke rested and relaxed.
He shifted from one foot to the other, tightening his grip on his fishing tackle, hoping the stink from the camping and the fishing wasn't too bad. "Your arm. . . you know, when it itches. I broke my arm once – itching drove me crazy. Grabbed a pencil, shoved it down the cast to scratch, ya know..."
Rory nodded. "Bad results?"
Luke gruffly replied, "Bad results."
"Got it. No pencils, I promise."
Rory's half-smile encouraged Luke. Maybe he wasn't a pariah in this town, after all.
He waved at the diner. "Good. So, you want some coffee?"
She breathed a sigh of relief. "Sure."
Luke surveyed the dark diner, knowing what he wouldn't see and hear when he went inside. No Jess, no teenager's crap lying all over the apartment, and certainly no blaring unintelligible music driving nails into Luke's eardrums.
Setting his gear off to the side, he squeezed his eyes shut, cursing his weakness before he asked, "Where's your mom tonight?"
"At a party for my Grandpa."
"Oh, sounds nice. Grab yourself a donut."
She lifted the glass from the plate of donuts and chose one. Rory took a deep breath before continuing. "So, have you heard from him?"
Relieved that someone finally asked a polite question rather than took another opportunity to insult his nephew, he answered, "Oh, no. I talked to his mom, though. He got home okay."
If Luke had been looking he would have seen relief equal to his on Rory's face. "Good, that's good."
"Yeah, good.|
She flashed her Rory eyes as she moved into forbidden territory. After all, Jess wasn't her boyfriend. "What about his stuff?"
A little surprised, he answered, "Oh, I'm gonna send it." One of these days, when packing Jess' things in boxes didn't remind him of how he failed all three of the most important people in his life.
Lost in her own thoughts, she nodded, mumbling, "Right, makes sense. Luke?" Her head snapped up and the Rory eyes captured Luke's empathetic heart.
"Yeah?"
"It wasn't his fault."
"I know it wasn't."
Luke heaved his shoulders in a sigh, turned around and unthinkingly pulled Lorelai's favorite mug down off the shelf. Grabbing a large glass measuring cup from underneath the coffee counter, he set it under the hot water dispenser and started filling it. His smelly down vest was shed in a matter of seconds and three steps later he tossed it behind the curtain. He wasn't in the mood to put it away now. Plenty of lonely time tomorrow and the next day and the next to deal with things like that, especially sending Jess his things.
He poked around in the tea box until he came up with the most calming tea he had. Dropping the bag of chamomile tea into the measuring cup, he turned back to Rory. Blue eyes looked at first uncertainly at each other, then looked away again.
He slid his cup onto the counter in front of an empty stool next to Rory. After putting the coffee carafe and the measuring cup with tea on the counter near Rory, he came silently around the counter and joined her, playing with his tea bag as he finally relaxed, sitting next to the only other person in Stars Hollow who knew and believed the truth about Jess. Each of them stared holes in the wall behind the coffee machine as they sat, shoulders rounded in mutual despair.
The fishing trip hadn't helped at all – he'd returned as frustrated as he had left. This time his anger was directed completely at himself. He'd let Jess down and at the same time had broken with Lorelai because she hadn't even tried to understand his responsibility lay with all of them: Jess, Lorelai and Rory.
"I didn't think it would last this long," said Rory, licking her fingers after finishing the donut.
Luke snapped upright. "What?" he asked. Did she mean Lorelai? Jess?
"The donut. It's awfully fresh. You've been gone a week and this tastes really good."
Luke pointed to the donut plate. "Gimme one."
"You want to eat a donut?" Rory asked, stunned.
"Just give me one, please," he said a little more patiently.
Rory used another napkin and selected a donut, handing it carefully to Luke. He broke a piece off, crushed it between his fingers, sniffed it, then handed the rest of the donut to Rory.
"Here, eat this. It's fresh." He stood up, leaned over the counter and tossed the smashed donut piece into a waste bin under the counter.
"How can it be fresh when you've been gone?"
Luke shrugged, saying, "I called Caesar and told him to open up for his shifts. After the first couple of days I guess he was open late mornings and afternoons." He looked at Rory, listening attentively to his explanation. "You guys didn't come in?" he asked as he topped off her coffee.
Rory shook her head. "After we saw the 'Gone Fishing' sign, we figured Luke's would be closed until you returned. And Mom …" She couldn't figure out how to tell him her mother was still avoiding him.
"… wouldn't have come in anyway," he muttered.
They both grabbed their mugs, unwilling to broach that subject.
Rory shifted uneasily on her stool, thumping Casty against the counter a couple of times. When Luke turned to see if he could help, she quirked her eyebrows in a sad facsimile of the Rory face and asked, "Did his mom say anything else?"
A pained grin crossed Luke's face. "Liz always talks a lot, but doesn't often have much to say." He stirred the tea in his cup with a spoon as if he'd actually put sugar or cream in, keeping his hands busy. "She said he looks sad."
"Huh," she replied. "How can she tell?"
Luke chuckled. "Ya got me there, kiddo."
"He should finish school," she said sensibly. Luke just grunted his agreement as he refilled their mugs.
At long length Luke spoke. "I'm glad you're ok," he said. "You were lucky that neither of you was hurt worse."
"Is Jess ok?" she asked.
"I don't think so." Luke frowned, the lines around his mouth etching themselves more deeply. His mind scrolled through the list of things he should have done one more time, especially not letting Jess leave so suddenly. He wasn't sure Jess was going to recover from this for a long time.
"Nobody believes me," she said sadly. "They all assume it's his fault. Mom yelled at me today."
Luke raised his eyebrows at that. "She's been doing a lot of yelling lately."
"You too?" she asked. "Figures." Rory shredded the last bits of her donut as she recalled the conversation she has just had with her mother at Richard's office.
"Jess would never willingly hurt you," offered Luke. "He said that he made sure you were ok before he left the hospital."
"He did," she acknowledged. "He stayed until he was sure Mom was on her way." Her voice broke as she added, "I think he was about to cry."
It didn't take a genius to realize that Lorelai would never let Jess near Rory after the accident. Luke wearily rubbed his face, wishing he could cry himself as he envisioned his nephew realizing that he was going to lose Rory, the most precious thing in Jess' troubled life.
He gruffly said, "You were the best thing that happened to him here."
"And he was the worst thing that could happen to me according to Mom. She hates him. She said he broke me."
She sniffed slightly before continuing. "She didn't believe me when I told her it was my fault, that I told Jess to keep driving, to drive down that exact street." She looked up catching Luke's eye. "She's never called me a liar until now." Ducking her head down, she turned slightly away from Luke before running a finger across her eyes.
"C'mon, Rory, you know your mother loves you more than anything else in the world. It won't last," said Luke, uncomfortably trying to console her. "She was worried about you. I mean, the car was totaled. That's serious stuff."
Rory let the mug drop an inch to the counter in shock. "Oh no, the car! Dean isn't in town at the moment. I'm going to have to tell him that Jess totaled his car!"
Luke's anger at Lorelai began to boil. Gone was the small amount of acceptance he'd accomplished while at the lake. Not only did Lorelai hate Jess and blame Luke, she was even letting Rory suffer alone. He couldn't recognize this Lorelai; she had become a person he didn't know and didn't particularly like.
He nudged Rory. "You'll find a way to tell Dean. I know you will. And we both know that your mother won't stay mad at you for long. She never does. She's probably at home waiting for you right now."
Luke had seen enough of Rory and Lorelai to know that they would make up soon. Lorelai couldn't be without her mini-me; she'd said it many times and showed it in a multitude of ways.
Lorelai's relationship with Luke was different. She didn't need him at all. When they fought, she strongly preferred to simply forget past hurts and pretend that they never happened. This time, however, the pain went too deep for Luke.
Her apology letter was full of jokes, multiple "I'm sorry" phrases written in cutesy script, but was missing the one thing that Luke needed to hear: that she understood his position, that his choice to be there for Jess was every bit as important as his choice to be there for Rory and Lorelai.
The fingertips of her injured hand touched the soft blue plaid of his shirt. Rory stood next to him, her uninjured hand clasping her coat closed. "I'm gonna go home," she said, patting his arm gently.
"See you tomorrow, Luke," Rory added right before she closed the door. He lifted his hand in a half-wave before he turned back to the counter and slowly began to clean up.
Tomorrow. He knew where he would be tomorrow. Now he also knew what he would be to Lorelai. Coffee supplier, townie, polite, possibly friendly.
Maybe one day even friends again. But not tomorrow.
A/N: This was inspired after a rewatch of Seasons 2 and 3. After the charming sexual tension of Season 1, the writers pulled L and L back. By the time Mimi and Nicole arrived on the scene, they were dialed back to barely more than friendly townies. This was my take on how that happened.