The first snow. It crunched between her shoes and the pavement. Lorelai wondered at nature's ironic timing of her favorite time of year. Her walk led her to the corner of Main St. and glanced into the window at the cozy scene of the usual customers having breakfast within. Business as usual.

The door opened with a jingle. Immediately she made eye contact with the proprietor behind the counter amid counter washing. He rolled his eyes.

"How many cups is that?" he asked.

"Four?" she answered too sweetly. She hadn't had much sleep the night before. Too many details needed to be smoothed out, things her mother insisted were a priority.

"I should cut you off," he grumbled.

"You know the consequences of that," she wagged her eyes as she shoved her travel mug across the counter for his refill. He shook his head and poured what was left in the pot into her mug.

"Junkie," he grumbled again, but there was a smile in his eyes. She took the mug with a smile, their fingers touching mid exchange.

"You've got wings, baby," Lorelai said warmly. Luke looked around them to check they didn't have an audience and reached across the counter to pull her in gently for a kiss, hand cupped to her jaw. She lifted a hand to cover his own, it glistened with the wedding band she'd worn for the last seven and a half years.

"Eew!" a little boy's voice complained from behind them. Lorelai pulled away with a chuckle and turned to her favorite table to smile at the five-year-old sitting there. She came over and ruffled his hair, dark and curly.

"Hey, buddy, did you help daddy open the diner this morning?" she asked.

"Ah ha," he replied, his focus now back on the color page in front of him instead of his parent's kissing. His half-eaten pancake sat next to him.

"He was a big help," Luke smiled as he set down her usual pancake breakfast in front of her. "Helped me get the chairs down and put all the shakers on the table without spilling." The little boy looked up at his dad with a huge proud grin.

"I'm a big kid now," he said with glee.

"You sure are," Lorelai said. The diner's door jingled again and the boy's eyes grew big.

"Rory!" he shouted and tackled his big sister's bare leg, his head just reaching the hem of her gray pencil skirt.

"Hey, Liam," she said excitedly, she took the messenger bag from her shoulder as her mother approached. Rory sobered as the reason for her visit came fresh to her mind.

"How's grandma?" she asked.

"Oh, you know. Think that first visit to the hospital your grandpa took times ten," Lorelai said with a grimace. "Nothing I do is good enough, per usual, but she'll be happy to see you."

Tears threatened to come, but Rory was done crying and pushed them back, she knew there would be plenty of that later at the funeral. Instead, she pulled out her treat for Liam from her bag.

"Cool!" he exclaimed as he took from her hands a long hollow stem of wood.

"It's a rainstick. The ancient people in South America believed they could make it rain with this." Rory demonstrated by tilting the instrument vertically and a soft shhh came in mimic of a heavy rainfall. Liam was immediately enthralled as he began tipping it first one way and then the other.

"Mom, look, it sounds like rain," he said, holding up his prize to Lorelai.

"That's pretty neat, kid," Lorelai said. She herded Rory over to the table and they sat down.

"Ah, Luke, I think this world traveler needs a pancake breakfast, too," Lorelai called.

"Comin' right up," Luke nodded and went to personally cook up another order of pancakes and eggs for Rory.

"Hey Rory," several people called out from their tables in the diner. Including Babette and Miss Patty sitting at a blue table by the window.

"It's good to see ya, sugah!" Babette called in her husky voice, "I read that article you're mother brought over in the New Yorker. That's some real writing there, toots. And she told us you were doin' a story down in Chile."

"Yeah, I'm really enjoying this freelance work," Rory smiled, "Chile is a beautiful place, full of so many interesting people."

"Sorry to hear about your grandfather, honey," Miss Patty said with her usual honeyed tone, "Such a shame. That specimen of a man was cut down far too soon."

Miss Patty meant well, yet the mention of her grandfather stung as fresh as the first moment she got the phone call while she was in South America.

"Thank you, Miss Patty," Rory murmured. Luke sat a plate before her with extra pancakes and a steaming cup of fresh coffee. Rory look up and smiled at him in silent thanks for his way of comforting her. There was a brief touch of her arm before he went back behind the counter to go through the morning's receipts. Rory was glad to be home, even at the loss of her grandfather.


I came up with Liam as a name from a shortened form of William, Luke's father.