A big thank you to my beta Relic, who gleefully reads anything Gilmore Girls related I throw her way (except the smut). This fic was largely inspired by my rewatch over the summer, and in particular "In the Clamor and the Clangor." Some dialogue borrowed from the episodes as this is an extended scene. Cheers!

Also posted at AO3.

In the low light of the church, Luke's eyes flashed. "You know, none of this is any of your business," he said, voice tight with anger

"It's absolutely my business," Lorelai scoffed.

"How?"

"Because!" she said, her face hardening. "I wasted a week of my life adjusting to the idea that you had moved only to find out that you haven't moved."

Luke balked for only a moment before he started in on her. "How much adjusting did you have to do? Nothing's changed! I still see you every day, I still cook your food, I still serve your coffee. What do you care?"

"I care," Lorelai said, her voice oddly calm.

Luke paused at her admission. "Why?"

Trying, but failing, not to fidget under Luke's stare, she answered. "Because I don't want you to move."

"Why?" he asked again, keeping his voice soft. His anger had dissipated and was replaced by hopeful curiosity. "Why don't you want me to move?"

She stared at him, well aware of the guilt in her eyes. She didn't have the right to make those demands on him; he wasn't married to her but still. She needed Luke and probably for reasons she didn't want to examine too closely. He waited –he was used to waiting for Lorelai – and hoped that she'd say something that would give him a sign. Something. Anything.

They both flinched the moment the doors leading to the church offices creaked open, light spilling into the dark sanctuary.

"Lorelai? Luke?" Reverend Skinner's voice floated and echoed in the mostly empty room. He looked at them for a moment, wondering what was going on until he spied the tool box on the floor and the tools in their hands. A smile of relief cracked his face. "Oh, thank God! Carry on," he said before closing the door and taking the light with him.

Both Lorelai and Luke stood for a moment, guilty silence hanging over them. Several moments passed until Lorelai shifted the crowbar in her hands.

"Lorelai, you didn't answer my question," Luke said, his voice quiet.

She looked up at him them and hoped that he couldn't see the tears in her eyes through the darkness. "Because," she said, hating the way her voice wobbled. "Because you know how when you're dancing and you're spinning really fast you're supposed to pick a face in the crowd to focus on so you don't get sick? It's called spotting, and you stare at that face until you whip your head around really fast and stare at it again, and again, and again so you don't get sick and lose your balance and fall."

Luke frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You're my face, Luke," Lorelai said, her voice nearly cracking. "This year is this whirlwind of change. Rory is at Yale and Sookie has Davy and Jackson and I swear it seems like every day Tom comes up to me with something else that isn't going right with renovating the Dragonfly and the world is spinning so fast that if I don't have you to focus on I'm going to fall."

"Oh," Luke said. Perhaps not the most eloquent of responses, but it was certainly all he could vocalize at that moment. A warm feeling tingled in his gut at Lorelai's admission. She needed him. Not someone else. Him. She needed him.

"God it sounds so stupid doesn't it," Lorelai said with a watery laugh, and the warm tingly feeling in Luke's gut was replaced by ice. He'd made her cry.

"No, I…it doesn't," he said. He put down the screwdriver he was holding and grabbed Lorelai's shoulders. "Lorelai, you know that I would never let you fall, right?"

"I know," Lorelai said before letting out a mirthless chuckle. "Damn it! I promised myself that I wouldn't cry!"

One of his hands drifted up to cup the side of her face, his thumb gently brushing the tears from her cheek. "Shhh, it's okay."

"You must think that I am the biggest idiot in the town," she mumbled as she jammed the toe of her boot into the carpeting.

"No, no, Kirk's got a solid hold on that title," he assured her, hoping to make her smile.

He was rewarded a moment later when she looked up at him, her eyes bright with tears and half of her mouth quirked up.

"Better," he said.

"Sorry, I'm such a twit," she sighed.

"I guess I didn't realize that you were going through so much change that I was just heaping more on. I probably should have been more understanding," he said.

"Oh God now you're apologizing for my crazy, irrational behavior?" Lorelai said in disbelief. "What is the world coming to? It's fine, Luke. I guess I just had a meltdown because who else can I call in the middle of the night when a pipe bursts if you're in Litchfield?"

"I think that would be a problem, yes," he said. "I wouldn't trust any of the other yahoos in this town to be able to take care of it."

"Still, it's a stupid reason to get so upset."

"I suppose," he said.

Silence stretched between them again. A niggling voice in Lorelai's head told her to move away from Luke, but it was comforting to stand there with his hands on her. She felt comfortable and safe and loved and all the things that she didn't feel with Jason. Pushing that unpleasant thought aside, she just relished the contact between them.

"We should probably break the bells," he said after a while. "Otherwise we'll have to be in here when they go off."

Spell broken, Lorelai swallowed the lump in her throat. "Yeah, probably not a good idea to be at ground zero when the big event goes down."

"Come on," Luke said, letting go of her. "I'll show you how it's done."

"So…tell me about the first time you broke the bells," Lorelai said as she followed Luke towards the bell tower.

"Not much to tell, except that I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in at least two weeks, and I was pretty sure the rest of the town was starting to go batty as well…"