Apologies for the many re-uploads tonight… The site is being mean. As a result, I am splitting the story in half.

Title: Crash Dummy
Author: BehrBeMine
Word Count: 12, 436
Disclaimer: I don't own these things. Sad. I feel poor.
Feedback: Well I'm not going to beg because, let's face it, that's unattractive, and I already have lipstick on my teeth. But I'll throw a little party in my head if I'm given incentive.
Pairing: Chris/Lorelai
Rating: R
Summary: "The wedding was too perfect. Something had to marr it. Luckily for Lane, 'something' was me."
Beta: Nicole - - thanks ever so.
Distribution: I'm sure you can tickle it out of me. And it's at my sites every night by curfew.
Build-A-Fic Guidelines --
Time Period: end of season six / 1982-'83 flashbacks
Ickle Word: Schmoopy – (adj) – To be sweet and adorable and cute to the point where it creates an entirely new word to describe it.
Random Object: a remote control
Quotation: "If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?" -- Author Unknown
Note: I put so much sweat and blood into this. So much '82-'83 research and time. I hope so much that it was worth it.
Note: A few lyrics scattered from U2's album, 'October': 'I Threw a Brick Through a Window'. This is not a songfic. There is just one portion of the story where a few lyrics enhanced the emotion I was trying to evoke.
Dedication: For my muse, who finally behaved. This time, anyway.

- -
I.

She's pushing 40, though she doesn't look it. In fact, at times, she doesn't look a day over 25. But there's something in her eyes on this night as she enters Christopher's place, crossing her arms protectively over her breasts. There is age beneath her eyelids; pain, wisdom, and the evidence of a scarred soul. There are no bruises on the outside, but somehow he knows that figurative blood has been spilled.

She needs to not be alone right now. She needs someone to witness her breakdown. He obliges as he lets her step inside the doorway. And he is lost to her then, a part of her again. After all this time, he sees that look in her eyes, and he is willing, he is eager, he is ready to be hers again, for however long she'll have him. Sherry is gone, and a large pile of money can only give so much comfort when loneliness creeps up again. It's a woman's touch that is needed in these times. And what better woman to touch than this one?

He begins by reaching out for her elbow, innocently enough. It is not his intent to seduce her, but he'll have her if she's willing.

"Lor?" he prods gently.

Her head is shaking from side to side. "I-don't-want-to-talk-about-anything."

Something has reached in and grabbed a hold of her heart; that something is now squeezing the ever-beating life out of it, extinguishing it from existence. He can see it in the way her eyes are sinking into her skull, becoming larger as the rims become blackened, the color of bruises. Maybe it's not that she doesn't want to talk; maybe it's that she can't.

Silence is so deafening when you're standing next to a Gilmore girl. He thinks this to himself, and not for the first time. He can recall a time roughly 20 years ago when a sixteen year-old Lorelai stood before him with a pregnancy strip in her hand. Read it, was all she would say, and then she was quiet for so long while things sunk into his brain, making his skull much like hers was this day.

"Christopher..." she squeaks out just now. She's calling him by his full name. Something's definitely up.

He perks up from his reverie. "I'll sleep on the couch tonight. It's pretty comfy, once you get past the needing to be comfortable phase. You can take the bed."

She purses her lips and nods strangely, her eyes on the ground. He wants to see Lorelai's eyes, wants to look into them the way he hasn't been able to for the longest time.

"Lor?" he prompts again when it seems she won't be speaking anytime soon.

"The couch. You. Right." Monosyllabic Lorelai is a sight to behold. You'd think they'd show it at carnivals and charge money for the phenomenon. Lord knows Taylor would.

It's as if Chris can actually see a knife coming between them to cut the tension like a block of cheese. He looks at her as she looks at the ground, at her shoes, at the scuff marks on the ground from her shoes. The knife's blade cuts further until the tension separates and falls like sheets amidst them.

"Screw it," Lorelai finally mumbles before launching herself at Chris, wrapping her arms around his body and crushing it tightly to hers. She looks at his face in a scrutinizing way, close enough to examine every wrinkle that isn't there. Even when they are there, they'll look distinguished on him. After all, he is Christopher. She knows this, as she stares, seeming to contemplate her next move.

"I think," Chris whispers, as if by talking too loudly he could scare her away, "that you're too afraid to make the next move."

Challenged and already defeated enough, Lorelai feels a lone tear escape from her left eye. She can literally feel the mascara smear as she leans in to capture Chris' bottom lip between her own. Her lips tremble against his as she continues the kiss, pulling at his lips with the gentle ease of one who has been a lover of him many a time. She knows him. She knows how he likes to be kissed. She knows how to read the way he kisses her back.

II.

If she had known that the year 1982 would bring her last summer free of the tummy and the baby that would morph into a new life, she may have searched harder for the answers that still linger two centuries since. Lorelai's priorities went from "Is it fabulous?" to "Is it necessary?", then were downgraded further to "Can I live without it?" Survival, rather than enjoyment, became the key when her body was transformed into a locket which would open to reveal another human being.

Lorelai picked at the food on her plate with its expensive new design. She tried not to absolutely zero in on the perks of being a part of a family whose only time spent together just had to be for dinner, even on Friday nights. Drag. She sighed, and purposefully slouched in her chair, contemplating doing the "Wow, I'm stifled -- I mean, stuffed" excuse thing again and running out before purchasing guard dogs became a topic of interest again. Dogs that would keep nothing out, but would rather only serve to keep Lorelai in at all times.

She wasn't so much nervous as annoyed at the thought of how many Scooby Snacks it would take to buy the guards' cooperation.

"Sit up straight, Lorelai." Hence Emily was given the patented stare that she had received from her daughter since the very first time she placed her in one of those dresses that are meant to be seen but not touched; worn but not worn out. Their skirts were the best ones for spinning, and yet they were to belong only to a mannequin version of a child behind glass.

Tiny carrots lined up for a parade around Lorelai's plate as her father brought up a new topic. Something about his new co-worker's business travels taking him on travels where he was able to learn in a more first-hand way about the depths of the holocaust.

Emily perked up at this. "Ah, I remember when Melissa Loman's father used to recall his time spent in Germany during Hitler's reign. After being near so many blasts, it's no wonder the man's hearing was never the same."

"God, you're old."

"What was that you muttered under your breath?" Emily snapped.

"You're old enough to remember people remembering things like that!"

"Your room. Now." Emily even pointed in case Lorelai had sudden amnesia and needed directions.

"Old!" Lorelai spat out.

"Straight upstairs, young lady. There will be no dinner for you."

"But then there will be no urge to regurgitate."

"What are you saying? Are you bulimic? You do look thin."

"No, Mom. I just hate the 'food' we eat here."

"Perhaps some time without it will make you a little more grateful," Richard put in gruffly.

"Don't call me ungrateful." Lorelai stabbed an accusatory finger at the air. "I'm leaving the room, aren't I? There's something we can all be grateful for! ...Enjoy your Cornish hen's barf."

"I heard that," Emily said dryly, beyond irritated with these teenage antics.

Voiced Lorelai, while walking away: "That's because I said it out loud."

III.

Summer midnights were the best. Tasteless dress discarded, Lorelai would climb down the drain pipe in jeans that hugged her hips deliciously, the big bangs hair sprayed on so that not even a windshield wiper could disturb their shape. She made jabs at '80's fashion while being a part of it, tying the left side of her pink polka-dotted shirt into a knot to off-set any sense of centering in her outfit. She loved that she looked atrocious. She took pictures, especially when wearing that "confused unicorn" ponytail on the side of her head.

Upon reaching the ground, off she'd sprint to Chris' awaiting vehicle, and away they'd venture to cause some sort of damage to somebody's brain. Most likely each other's.

She stopped before him this day, hands on her hips, except for the left hand, which grasped the knot that hid her hip underneath it. "Uh, Chris? I think your car went through some sort of identity crisis."

Christopher beamed at her, revving the engine of his new motorcycle. "You like it? I'm gonna call her Moneybags."

"Hmm. Well, I think Moneybags is going to ruin my hair wherever we go."

"Please. A hurricane couldn't bring damage to your hair. I've tried smashing those bangs, Lor, and they just pop back relentlessly, like a slinky."

"First of all, major cool points for comparing my hair to the God of all toys without batteries. Secondly, if we crash and burn -- "

"We won't -- "

" -- and skid along the road until only one side of my face is recognizable anymore, you must make my skinned off side look presentable again using Moneybags' shiny parts before anyone in society can see me again."

"Cool, my own robochick," Chris said thoughtfully. "But you'll have to pay me back for the parts you stole, once you're blinking and eating solid foods again."

Lorelai's throat made a disgusted sound that was something close to a forced cough. "I make no promises. And even when I do, I cross my fingers behind my back."

"You're such a child. And, by the way, you haven't even bothered to ask exactly what she is."

"A safety hazard record in the making?"

Chris ignored her comment and ran his fingers along its smooth handlebars. "It's a Honda Shadow 750, babe. Wait till you hear her purr."

"She'd better not take my place there. My cat impersonations are uncanny, even to cats."

Chris patted the limited space on the seat behind him. "So you coming for a ride or not? Time's a-ticking. You know how your mother starts randomly popping in to your bedroom to make sure you're there around three. All your jabbering's made it half past twelve."

Lorelai approached the vehicle, a kind that she had never ridden before, and placed a leg over it so that she was straddling it completely. "Christopher, you're the child. If I didn't 'jabber', we'd have no conversation at all. All that would come out of your mouth would be, 'Hey. What's happening? Oh. I don't do the conversation thing.'" She began adjusting herself on the seat. "Okay, have to say, before take-off -- this? Is the most uncomfortable seat I've ever sat in."

"You're such a child," Chris teased again. "Wrap your arms around my waist. But don't get frisky, I need to concentrate."

Sighing, Lorelai did as she was told. "You really take the fun out of everything." Barely had she clasped her hands together, hooking her arms securely, than Chris stepped on the gas, and they were off.

Lorelai screamed, wordlessly, and then she screamed his name. She couldn't decide if it was out of fright or outrage or because of the thrill that chased the warmth from her veins and left adrenaline in its wake. So much speed was gathered so quickly, and it was nothing like being in a car, or on a bike. A motorcycle was death and danger, like a noose with her name on it at dawn. It was speed that pulled the skin on her face taut, and brought tears to her eyes that escaped from the outer corners of her lids to be whisked away into the air they so briefly encountered and then left behind.

It was the kind of thrill that was slamming doors in her parents' faces, tearing itchy party dresses to smithereens, escaping down the drain pipe every midnight that summer without fail. To vocalize the word motorcycle was to give desired rebellion a name. She knew that now. Clasping her fingers more intricately around Chris' waist, she held on tighter.

IV.

It doesn't take long to find Christopher's bed. History shows that it never did take them long to find a suitable place to copulate: cramped cars, school bathrooms, the janitor's closet, her parents' balcony. Whether they were putting on a show for people across the street with buckets of popcorn between their knees was no concern. Always the concerns of life were tossed away with his tie and her bra. They became so lost in one another, having known each other a lifetime. Having watched the candle's flame grow and flicker.

It was a trick candle, Lorelai now realizes. One that could be blown out, lingering only in tendrils of smoke. And yet once her back was turned, the flame could reignite. It did reignite. Time after endless time. Maybe that was why she was here of all places, throwing things away along with her clothes and those nonchalant concerns. Throwing away what she and Luke had, an engagement that was stuck in time, as if held by static cling wrap, never moving anywhere. She was too afraid to watch it move backward, and so she had to leave before that could happen, knowing that the forward steps would never come.

They'd never come.

Lorelai stands, naked, watching Chris remove his boxers and socks. She flexes and unflexes her hands at her sides, straining to recall a time before when she has been this uncomfortable. She purses her lips, knowing that never before has she known an action was so blatantly wrong, and gone through with it, anyway. She releases the suction of her lips on each other, and feels for her hair as if it is a foreign thing. She realizes that she is standing on train tracks. She isn't moving away; she isn't trying to budge. She is begging that train to crash into her and smash her to pieces.

Pieces that would litter the carpet of Christopher's elegant bedroom, scattering as they decayed with time. Maybe if she was only pieces, she wouldn't be the hollow shell standing here right now, missing unfashionable baseball caps and the soreness of rubbing delicate skin against eternal stubble. Maybe the sting of the ultimatum would disappear as if it weren't this gigantic thing, like a black hole set against all four walls of every room, pulling, wanting to suck her into being less than Luke's main priority. So far less that the place she holds with him is worth nothing. Nothing, if she can't have it all.

He wants more time; now he can have all the time in the world.

"Lor?" Chris' voice comes to her as if from far away. She realizes that she's touching her hair again, looping strands of it around her fingers absent-mindedly as though she's developing a habit of it, like people who chew their nails. She drops her hand immediately, picturing the stubby fingers of those kinds of people, and the way they can't even scratch; she doesn't want to go bald. She clears her throat and meets Chris' eyes from where he stands across the room, giving him her attention.

He takes timid steps toward her, insecurities alive in his eyes, his mouth set in no shape in particular. It's as if he can't choose what kind of expression his face is supposed to be wearing.

She wonders when he became so afraid of displeasing her. When he reaches the halfway point between them, something within her snaps and she rushes forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and capturing his lips, kissing him hungrily. As he kisses her back, his arms encircling her, she searches within his mouth for the answers she's seeking to questions she hasn't vocalized. She stabs her tongue in through his teeth, digging deeper, an archaeologist with the desperation of a deadline.

Chris does nothing to tame her intensity, his fire ablaze, so hot that it's turning from orange to blue. Awkwardly as they kiss, he steers them to the bed, and he trips over the side of the bed frame, sending them both flying down to the mattress. When Lorelai lands on top of him with a thud, her lips are torn away, and her eyes pop open.

He groans at the way the spell's broken when an object digs into his back. He reaches behind his body to reveal the stereo remote from the living room. Gigi loves to hide the things, loves to make Daddy "mad".

As he tosses it aside, Lorelai stares at him, wide-eyed. After a beat, she crawls over him to take her place in the bed. She usually sleeps on the right side of the bed, but tonight, she chooses the left side on purpose. Getting situated, she cups Chris' chin in her hand and draws it towards her, as his body follows suit. Ending up in a push-up position above her, he is very aware of the way that her eyes have not left the depths of his since opening. Each time he blinks, he expects to see her gaze shift, but it's riveted, and now she is swallowing something that he hopes is not her pride.

He lowers himself to her, chest upon chest, his nipples hardening as one of them brushes directly against one of hers. He sighs with happiness, thankful that Gigi has gone to bed on time this evening, and then begins kissing Lorelai again.

Lorelai absorbs Chris' sigh, and relaxes her body, her chest deflating towards the mattress. As their lips meet, she closes her eyes and thinks of anything but what is worth thinking about.

V.

"You never could stand still when you were a child, I don't know what sort of amnesia overcame me to cause me to think you'd be able to do so now," Emily whined, acting as if the seamstress wasn't in the room. It never failed to be interesting how easily she labeled certain people with insignificance.

"It's okay, Mom," said Lorelai, moving on purpose this time. "You're probably just going senile."

Emily sighed with impatience. "Lorelai, someday you're going to grow up to understand what things are important, and you're going to have a child who turns out to be just like you."

"God, that would be cool." Lorelai stared dreamily at the ceiling, imagining it. A mini version of her. "It would be like playing Barbies, only the Barbies would be us."

"You might as well give up," Emily told the seamstress not five minutes later. "Your efforts were good ones, but there is no hemming a skirt evenly if it is continually pulled up and down."

"Does that mean I can take this thing off?" Lorelai asked, her voice pleading and hopeful.

"Yes, take it off. Walk all over the skirt until you trip yourself at my dear friend Lacy's wedding this weekend. Just don't be surprised if I turn away as if I don't know you."

"If only..." Lorelai had that dreamy tone again. She yanked the dress off right in front of her mother, just to embarrass the woman with the exposed skin of her belly between bra and panties. "So I can go now?" She pulled on the sexiest top her mother would allow. "We're done with the 'fitting' thing?"

"Go," Emily said, defeated, with a flick of her wrist and a hand to her forehead. "Really," she remarked, her voice given new strength as Lorelai bounded toward the large dressing room's door, "I marvel at how you get in and out of jeans that tight. You'd think they were painted on."

"Is that your way of saying I'm allowed to decorate my jeans with paint?"

"Good lord. Go, Lorelai. Go now."

Giddy, Lorelai showed little manners as she raced through the formal dress shop, looking for the entrance.

"Did you find what you were looking for, miss?" asked a salesman with a tasteful tie and a gentle voice.

"Not even, I found my mother," she said, and that was all she explained before pushing her way through the main door and out into the sunshine. She immediately headed toward the seediest bar in Hartford, which was where she and Chris always went when one was looking for the other. It was a great place to hang out, in front of the doors with the sleazy figures of nude females painted onto the small pieces of glass that allowed one to see into the bar just enough to realize they weren't seeing anything. She loved that it was forbidden, so forbidden that even when she was of age, she'd probably never enter it. Lorelai loved this place during the daytime, when it was closed due to the appearance of the sun, for what it would do to her parents' reputation, precious as it was, if she were to be seen there by anyone deemed important.

The way she scoffed at the uptight restrictions of privileged society was no hidden thing.

Lorelai reached the bar, expecting to find it lonely without a companion lounging by its doors. Instead, she found Megan Reily sitting, knees pulled up to her chest. Lorelai narrowed her eyes, for the girl's back was touching her territory. Making with the happy voice as she approached, she said, "Megan."

The girl looked up. "Hey, Lorelai."

Lorelai looked around a bit as if someone were watching. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting baked by this sun."

"Yeah, it's scorching, all right. Hey, you know, Megan..." Lorelai bent her knees and sat cautiously beside Megan on the cement. "Not to be like a total bitch, but you are so sitting on my part of the sidewalk."

"Ohhh." Megan blinked. "And see, I just didn't know that because I didn't see your name where I placed my butt."

"It's written in invisible ink. Though it glows in the dark. It's sort of nocturnal that way."

Megan ran a hand over her bangs that had a wispy quality that Lorelai had always envied and couldn't achieve, seeming to contemplate those words. Megan fingered her long strands which were so white Lorelai wondered often if she had milked a few albinos or been scared shitless so many times that all of the color ran screaming out.

"I'm pretty comfortable here," Megan finally said. "And even if your name really is there, I don't mind sitting on it."

Lorelai huffed and folded her arms across her breasts. "Come on, Megan. Remember the time I paid the old homeless guy to buy you cigarettes when you chain-smoked your weekly ration? Tell me you didn't love me for that. You missed out on so many lecture type words from the parental units."

Sincerity did not touch the smile on Megan's face. "They found out."

"Ugh. Well. Megan." Lorelai's voice was taking on a whining note. "This space is mine. I called it like a year ago. Called it like claimed it and even called it Bon Jovi."

"You're telling me I'm sitting on Bon Jovi as incentive for me to move?"

"Don't get attached. He likes being sat on by my butt better than other butts."

"How do you know?" Megan shot.

"He told me," Lorelai backfired.

"How could he tell you if you were sitting on him?"

"I... gweh..."

Lorelai was about to call a time out on an argument, perhaps for the first time in her whole life history, when strong arms snaked around her waist from behind. "Hmm," she sighed contentedly into the smell of Christopher as he nuzzled the back of her ear with his nose. "You're good at that..."

"You looked like you needed a little calming down," he soothed, rocking her upper body with his arms. He glanced up. "Hey, Megan. How's it hanging?"

"We were talking about butts," she so delicately informed him.

Chris gave a manly chuckle, inhaling the scent of Lorelai's shampoo in the stray tendrils that fell from her ponytail to frame her face. "I hope you left mine out of it."

"You scared it couldn't survive the scrutiny?" Lorelai prodded.

"When the scrutiny's coming from you two? It's definitely good to be afraid."

Megan slowly stood from where she was sitting on the invisible marked territory. "I think we were just about to decide who has the better butt between Lorelai and me." She was so informative, all of the time. She was someone who Lorelai didn't miss when they failed to get together in the summertime.

Lorelai could feel something growing in size from where Chris was pressed against her from behind. Unconsciously, his grip on her waist tightened a little, squeezing to claim. Lorelai's eyes went wild with excitement and bewilderment, her mouth forming an ecstatic wow as Chris' reaction sunk in.

Chris was picturing the way Lorelai's behind had looked in those favorite jeans of hers as he had walked up to the two girls just moments before. He closed his eyes at the thought, picturing its toned shape, and the way the fabric hugged her below the waist, from hips to cheeks, making him want to touch her there, now. Always. A quiet groan escaped him that he couldn't withhold as he pressed himself into that tiny butt of hers.

Lorelai giggled self consciously, and whirled around until she was facing her beau. Though she was looking at him, her words were directed at Megan: "Let's not pull him into this." The blush in her cheeks was deliciously pink as she took Chris' hand and started leading him down the street.

Megan quickly followed. "So now that I stopped suffocating your Bon Jovi, can we be friends again?"

"Mmm..." Lorelai tilted her head this way and that as Chris put his arm around her shoulders. "What will I get out of it?" she teased.

"You get to hang with the coolest chick this side of town."

"Really? My clone's around? Where?"

When Chris finished forcing his laughter to subdue itself, he asked, "So how's it going with you and Mickey, Megan? Lorelai here like so misses asking about M&M." He raised his voice to an unnatural pitch to make extra fun.

"Mock me, will you. You'll pay for that," Lorelai told him darkly, conjuring storms in her eyes.

"Actually, Mike and I are giving it another shot," Megan said, the excitement in her voice hiding behind caution.

"Oh my God, yay!" piped in Lorelai. "He's your boyfriend again. Your boyfriend for the second time. Your boyfriend squared." She gave Chris a pointed look. "See? I can already apply math to my everyday life. I think I've stuffed enough of that crap into my brain."

"Hey, at least math always has the same answer. You and your 'More English! More! There must be more words!' kick is the ridiculous thing. I speak the language as fluently as I'll ever care to, okay?"

"Wow," remarked Megan, "you both actually do have one interest in our school. That's enough to blow all our minds."

"Whose minds?" asked Chris.

"Everyone at Chilton, college counselors, society..."

"It is so nice to know we're on so many peoples' minds." Lorelai added a smile to her sarcasm and turned her face in toward Chris' t-shirt covered chest, inhaling his new manly aftershave.

The three continued to walk aimlessly for a few steps leaving the air unpolluted with the abuse of the English language. Certainly, though, it couldn't last.

"So, how long have you two been a couple?" Megan pried, having noticed the touching and the smelling. The arms, hands, interlocking everywhere.

"We're a couple?" Lorelai looked at Chris, feigning shock. "Honey, you really have to tell me these things."

Chris shrugged. "I assumed you knew."

"You also assumed Megadeth was gonna kick Metallica's ass."

"Says the girl who wants to stalk The Bangers."

Lorelai's eyes closed in mild impatience. "The Bangles. As my apparent other half, I think you should know me better."

"Looks like we're real bad at this 'couple' thing," Chris "admitted", loving the games he played with Lorelai, for she was the only person he knew above the age of seven who still would play such games so unabashedly.

"I guess we'd better stop it, then, before things get out of hand."

Megan looked on, perplexed. She knew them, but nobody really knew Lorelai Gilmore until they got close enough to see these types of insane intricacies.

"All right," Chris said. "Megan, Lorelai and I are no longer a couple." He gave himself a visible tremor as though a fat giant snake were moving down through his body. "Glad we got that out in the open."

"Okay, so we're just friends," Lorelai "established", having let go of Chris' hand and setting it free. Noticing the absence of the weight of his arm on her shoulders, she continued, "But I still want the benefits: sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll."

Chris' schmoopy smile then was the only genuine piece of conversation they'd shared all day. "You got it, baby."

VI.

Chris' body is heavier over hers than it used to be. She remembers these things. Has always remembered. Where she is hollow, he is whole, his muscle pressing in to the vacant spots left by the skin stretched taut over her bones. It's all she feels like in this moment: a bag of bones, once so milky white, and now fading into the grey of oblivion. The oblivion that claims lost souls and forgotten memories. Those who are lost and never find the right path.

She can feel the bones in her mouth, lined up together as her teeth. She clenches them as Chris massages the knots in her body. He has an idea of how they got there; what he doesn't know is that they're not going away.

VII.

Some nights when the clock struck twelve, Chris would climb up the drain pipe, rather than call Lorelai down. They'd lay side-by-side on her bed with its frilly unstained comforter that had to be upgraded to a new one every time she did make a stain. She didn't even pretend to care about choosing the new patterns anymore. The way she saw it, a couple more grueling years of high school, and then she was home free. She was just biding her time until she could leave. When she could celebrate, Emily could celebrate, and Richard could remain as detached about the entire thing as ever he seemed.

When debating which of Snow White's elves had the most sex appeal weirded Chris out to the point of getting on his nerves, he rolled onto his side, supporting his head with his bent arm. "Please tell me there are other things you've thought of today."

Lorelai shrugged and then duplicated his position, so that they could look one another in the eye as they spoke of things that were oh-so-important. "I was walking by the electronics store on 15th the other day and the TV in the window was playing an episode of 'Cheers'. I was thinking like... the values of shows like that are so lost on people like us. People who find sitting down as a family and watching TV together uncomfortable, and more like a waste of time."

Her eyes found other areas of her room to explore as she formulated the rest of what she was going to say. "I don't think I've ever watched anything other than the news with my parents. That 'Cheers' song, Where everybody knows your name... It's true, you know."

"Oh, very," Chris immediately agreed. "People always know my name."

"As long as they've had enough time to rehearse it before the obligatory birthday party."

Chris smiled. "'Let's see, I give the envelope of money to the tall girl standing next to Jack's latest divorcee...'"

"The system never fails," was Lorelai's conclusion. "Except when it does."

What she loved about Chris was that he nodded, and he understood. She made sense to him in ways that sometimes she couldn't even make sense of.

"You ever actually watched an episode of 'Cheers'?" Chris asked her.

"Ha. No. Way too boring for me."

"That's right. I should have known. You're more into the crap they'll be selling reruns of on videotapes for $1.99 in six months flat. But you just have to watch it, because a title like 'That's Incredible!' just screams 'dear God watch me'. I think they must use a title like that hoping for some kind of validation. Those poor suckers are going to be waiting a long time."

Lorelai lunged at the chance to defend her show. "People died to entertain, okay?"

"No, I think they died because they were so stupid they decided to sit in a box for six hours with no air."

"You're just jealous that your death won't be as fondly remembered."

"By the fifteen people who watched the box thing?"

Lorelai furrowed her brows. "...Yes."

"Well, I may need five minutes, but I think I can come up with something just as 'memorable'."

"Like walking a tight-rope on stilts?"

Chris paused. "How about you walk a tight-rope in high heels, and then we'll talk?"

"Sorry, bucko. My fantabulously glorious death is already in the scripting process. It's going to blow your mind. And don't you dare try to take a peek."

Chris reached over in a flash to grab a hold of Lorelai in her off-the-shoulders pink top, and pull her to him. "Not even a little peek?" he pried, touching his lips to hers that eagerly waited. He lost his focus for a moment in the kiss that served to drown him and all of his senses, but upon rising for air, he remembered his mission. Project Tickle began, as he found the spots on her body that she knowingly tried to keep hidden from him. But there were only so many bases she could cover, and still things were left vulnerable somewhere. His fingers tapped and hooked in a frenzied way on the soles of her feet. Then he grabbed a hold of her side when kicked away and his ticklish fingers wouldn't let go, not even when the giggles and her cries of, "Stop it! Stop it!" rose from his ears to the ceiling. "Not even a little wibble peek?" he pleaded.

"No! Stooooooop! My parents are just downstaaaaaaaairs!"

With that final warning, his fingers relaxed, wrapping around her side tenderly, and holding her body to him. He buried his nose in her severely messed up hair, inhaling the scent of her that always helped him to relax and keep going when life was too much. Within seconds, he was calm, and her breathing had slowed down close to a normal rate again.

"How about we stop talking about you and death in the same sentence?" he whispered.

They unfolded from one another at the reality of that, and took their original positions, on separate parts of the mattress, hands near but not touching, eyes to the ceiling, contemplating the sky that was somewhere above.

Lorelai, as usual, was the one to break the silence when it had stretched itself thin. And always her ice breakers were monumental, the very thing that those who failed to be scholars must have pondered from time to time.

"What happens during the second you lose in a sneeze?"

- -
Continued in next chapter.