Disclaimer: These characters are owned by the WB, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, and Amy Sherman-Palladino.
Author's Note: I've been working on something else more complex than this, but after the most recent episode, I couldn't work on it without some therapy, so here it is. The only spoilers are those from the promos.
Luke just leaves. It's too much. He needs to think. Think about her lying to him about being with Christopher, about how she and Chris "belong together," and about it not being too late for Christopher to get her back. But most of all about the pity in her eyes when she can't find the words to reassure him. He gave her his heart and soul and now he finds out he is just temporary. He knows she will have explanations, excuses and apologies, but he doesn't think that he can stand to hear them right now. At some point he will have to hear her out, but he can't stand to think of the pity he will see in her eyes when she faces what he now knows. She isn't really in this, and it breaks his heart, shattering it into a million pieces.
He knows that he needs to leave this place now, before she finds him. If he goes home she might try to find him and he will have to see her. Or she won't come looking. He can't deal with either scenario. He goes home long enough to change his clothes while studiously ignoring the answering machine and heads to Liz and TJ's house, where they mercifully refrain from questions. He'll decide later what to do next. For now he is just hiding from the look in her eyes.
He knows he can't hide forever, but he isn't prepared for it when he sees her the next day. She is drawn and worn and it hurts him to see her pain. He wants to wrap her in his arms and hold her tight, but he can't bear to be only part of something with her. He can't bear to not have all of her.
"Luke, I've been looking for you. Can we talk," she asked, "please?"
"What is there to talk about?"
"What do you mean? Everything that he said, I can explain."
"I don't want an explanation, Lorelai," he said, his voice bitter. "I can't be in this relationship any more."
"What? Luke, no."
"It's just too much. I've given you everything, been there for you, and been humiliated by your parents. I can't do it anymore for someone who is not really in it."
"How can you say I am not in it?"
"How could you lie to me, about him?"
"You're right, I shouldn't have lied to you, but there's nothing there. He means nothing to me."
"He means enough to lie to me about him."
"Christopher is old news and long over." He was surprised by the anger in her voice.
"For now."
"No, not just for now."
"You've said that before. How do I know it's true?"
"Isn't it enough that I'm telling you? How can you not believe me? How can you listen to what they say over me?" Her voice is desperate now. "Don't you trust me anymore?" her voice cracka and she looks broken.
"I don't know what to think anymore and I can't do this anymore. I am going to go away for a while to get a handle on these thoughts. Maybe I can talk more rationally about this when I've had some time alone. I'm going to go now, Lorelai." He said this last softly, knowing it sounded so final and knowing that it hurt her.
It's his third day at the cabin. He's been spending his time getting used to the idea of being alone again. It's easy while he actually is alone. He wonders what it will be like when he goes back to the town where she lives. He spends time on the lake, fishing and sitting, putting off the decision about dealing with his life.
He returns to the dock that afternoon and she's there, sitting on the end waiting for him. He blinks several times to make sure he is not imagining her, but it's her and she is breathtaking. As he gets closer and gets out of the boat, he can see that she looks frail, wan and almost delicate. Delicate is never a word he would have associated with her.
"What are you doing here?"
"I need you."
"I can't just take care of you any more." It hurts him to say that. He has never turned away from her in a time of need.
She lets out a gasp at his words, a small strangled sound. He looks up to meet her eyes, something he hasn't done yet, and sees a hopelessness there. It is the last emotion he would ever expect from her. She is always so determined, always the last to give up hope, but she looked utterly defeated now.
He gives in, "Okay, talk, but I can't promise anything."
She nods, as if in agreement with the terms. She takes a deep breath and begins, "All my life I have lived with my parent's disapproval and disappointment. It's so much a part of my existence that I forget they are doing it. But in all that time my mother has never done anything to intentionally hurt me until she told Christopher to try to break us up. It hurts so much that my mother would do that to me, to us. I've never felt so betrayed. And the killer of it all is that she got exactly what she wanted. She did manage to break us up after all."
"So we should get back together because it will get back at your mother?" He was frustrated, he didn't know what her point was.
"No, I want to be with you because I'm in love with you. Maybe you didn't know that. I thought my actions spoke to you the way that yours did to me. I knew you loved me without you saying it and I thought you knew the same, but obviously that was not the case."
He caught his breath at that. "Lorelai?" he said softly.
She continued and he realized that she had not heard him. "Which means I'm probably wrong about what you felt or feel. I just thought, the whole wedding, looking at you during the ceremony, I wished that it were us up there. You're it for me. I thought you knew that, but I realized that you didn't. You are everything to me, but if you don't feel the same, or you can't trust me anymore, I don't know how to change that. I don't know what else to do or say. I just needed you to know, it's never been just for now. It's always been more than that. I'm not whole without you."
He is struck dumb by her words. It is so much the opposite of his assumptions that he doesn't know how to respond.
When he doesn't say anything, she gets up and turns to walk away from the dock. "Well, I guess that I will go." Her voice breaks and she blinks back tears, as she walks away.
"Lorelai wait." He has to tie up the boat, so he doesn't catch her until she has gotten back in her jeep. She puts the key in the ignition, starts to turn it, but then collapses into tears.
He taps on the window, but she doesn't react. Her shoulders are shaking, her agony very real. He opens the door and says, "Don't go. I don't know where to go from here, but you can't say all that and leave." She looks up at him with her tearstained face and he sees the first shred of hope in her eyes. "Please come inside. I think I might be able to find some coffee." He gave her a gentle, pleading smile.
She gives a small nod, and he holds out his hand to help her out of the car.