You Win

Summary: A conversation set after the series finale. Luke and Lorelai realize something about themselves and their history.

Genre: Angst

Rating: T

AN: So here's a take on what was really wrong between them the whole time. AU, naturally.

GG GG GG

"I know what screwed us up."

"Really," said Luke, wiping down the last table in his diner.

"Yep," replied Lorelai, putting chairs in place at tables he had already wiped. "Sports."

"ESPN did not lead to our problems! Geez, Lorelai, can't I take one damn hour away from you without having you play the guilt card?"

Lorelai metaphorically pounced, though in truth she stood very still behind a chair, her hands curled on its back, while Luke glared at her, hands on hips and ball cap askew. "Played. Exactly. Oh, and you assumed I was upset about ESPN. When I didn't mention ESPN. But that's part of the problem, too."

Growling through grinding teeth, Luke held onto his patience. "Will. You. Please. Make. Sense?"

Lorelai hunched her shoulders, and whispered, "We were playing. The whole time. We were playing."

His cleaning rag was flung across the diner. "I was not playing!"

"I said we," sighed Lorelai, and her mouth drooped. "It was a game, Luke. This, you, me, it started as a game. Me flirting to get you to react, you not reacting to prove my flirting didn't get to you, that's how it started. I mean, we talked sometimes, about real things, but mostly, it was…"

Luke sank onto a chair , which squeaked against the floor. "Oh," he said gustily, and took off his hat, ran his hands over his thinning hair. "It was who'd win. The flirting game. You flirt, I ignore, and…"

"And somehow we thought someone would win, but the thing is, you can't win. It's not a game," replied Lorelai, sinking into a chair herself, some ten feet away from Luke.

"It's not a sport," agreed Luke, grasping his hat in both hands and twisting it. "You think we acted like we were scoring points. Who got who to react more."

"And that's fine, if that's all you want. But it's not… It started to be about winning. All of it. Who I dated, who you dated, you asking me about the cruise with Nicole, you building the chuppah, we… I… You…" Lorelai groaned and let her gesturing hands fall feebly to her sides.

No less grim-faced than she, Luke let the hat fall. "We were playing a gigantic game of chicken. To make the other one blink."

"Is it a date, is it not a date, even that…" Tears trickled from the corners of Lorelai's eyes. "Pining, not pining…"

Eyes closed, Luke said heavily, "Telling, not telling. If you really loved me, then you'd let me win."

"The game. Only the game was our lives, and what could've been our life."

Shuddering Luke opened his eyes and met her gaze without flinching. "So if I'd asked you out before Rachel came back?"

"You wouldn't have. You were still waiting for her."

"No," said Luke. "I was waiting for her to admit she was wrong and I was right, and all she ever did was stay until we fought more than we talked, and if I really wanted to marry her, I'd have asked her and we'd have found a way, but I needed to win."

"Don't," implored Lorelai. "Don't beat yourself up. Okay? Please? You're a guy, you're competitive, and… And I goaded. I goad. It's what I do. It's how I won against Emily. Because she always has to win. Even when she says she's surrendering, she's winning."

"Like telling me it's okay to be with you," remembered Luke with a slight cringe. "I swear, I was going to go talk to you, I was."

"Before or after you 'beat' Emily?" asked Lorelai tonelessly, and the grief in her eyes rendered her oddly ancient. "Believe me, I know about that. I know all about that. Maybe that's why I'm like that. Emily had to beat Trix, and Dad's idea of a good day at the office was beating someone else out of a deal, and…"

"And my dad couldn't go a week without finding some way to say he scored points over Taylor," interjected Luke glumly, shoulders slumped. "Hell, the thing with Nicole… Move, don't move, it was who wins, part of it was always who'd win. I don't even know why. My parents argued, but not like that. Not like one had to win before they'd love the other one."

"Well, that's your parents," sighed Lorelai, pushing her palms against her eyes against some phantom vision of her past. "Mine? Yeah. I think the reason I'm an only child is that Dad is even more stubborn than Mom when it comes to that whole who wins the marriage thing."

"Okay, too much information, but…" Luke hunched slightly. "You're right. I'm right. We're both right. But we can't both be right, or nobody wins, and you have to win…"

"And you have to win…"

"Or at least not lose…"

"And then you don't tell me about April because that cost you points?" asked Lorelai with honest curiosity, her forehead etched with a frown.

"Actually," admitted Luke, red to the ears, "that was about beating Anna. You got benched. That means…"

"I know what it means. ESPN, remember?"

Luke conceded her point with a tiny flick of a finger. "And then Chris won."

"Nobody won!" cried Lorelai suddenly, rocketing to her feet. "Nobody won! We all lost! We lost us! We lost years! We lost our happy middle! Nobody won! Everything's lost!"

She fell back into the chair, sobbing.

"Crap," whispered Luke, and rubbed his forehead.

"I know it's sorta normal, nobody wants to be the loser or always be the bad person, but…" Lorelai sniffled, took napkins from a newly resupplied holder, and blew her nose. "But what did we think we'd win? You can't win at marriage, I remember someone saying that, and, and…" Her head dropped into her arms, muffling the rest of her words. "And we were so busy with who's right…"

Luke stirred, though he did not stand. "Why did you want to win? The flirting thing? When it started?"

Mopping her face, Lorelai shrugged and confessed, "I liked you and I wanted you to ask me out. I didn't know about Rachel. And then… It was about getting you to even react, because I just… I just… Okay, fine, I was pathetic, okay? Desperate. I just wanted anyone and everyone to like me, go ahead, mock away!"

Luke cleared his throat and toyed with his ball cap a moment, before setting it on the table at his elbow. "I told myself I was proving I was better than Rachel. I wasn't cheating. I win. Go team."

"Wait, is it cheating if you're broken up?"

"No," snapped Luke, "it's not, okay? It's not. And I know when April was conceived, I don't need a reminder I wasn't better or worse or whatever the hell I was thinking, I was… It was something else to win? I don't know. In my head I'd have these scenarios where I'd imagine her telling me she was engaged, and I'd be able to throw it in her face that I was faithful and she wasn't even if it wasn't true, and don't ask me to explain, okay?"

"I didn't," said Lorelai sharply, "I was trying to figure out what the deal was between you and Rachel between her visits. You never said."

"I knew I was treating you like crap. I saw how rotten you felt. I didn't care. I was busy, and if you really loved me, then you'd stick around no matter how bad it got. No matter how bad I got. And then you didn't!" he accused, voice rising.

Flushed, Lorelai hissed, "If you want to play the blame game, then I guarantee I can win. All the crap you gave me about Chris, before anything ever happened, and you wouldn't even come home, you'd be at Anna's till forever and then stay at the diner and I had no idea if you were with her or with her, and I didn't ask because that wasn't trusting you, and I trusted you, and you left! So yeah, you didn't want me, I got drunk, I slept with Chris! How long was I supposed to wait, Luke? How long till you decided I was worth your time again?"

"As long as I damn well decided! I had to think of April!"

"So you cut her off from part of your life?" Lorelai pointed to herself.

"Anna…"

"You cut me out, way before Anna went ballistic! Stop blaming it on Anna!"

"You married him!"

"You married Nicole!"

"You brought him to my town! To our house!"

"Your town? And by then it wasn't our house, you didn't even keep toothpaste in the bathroom!"

They were nose to nose, on their feet, screaming at the top of their lungs. Face nearly purple, vein throbbing, Luke bellowed, "You're a joke! That's why I didn't want you near my daughter! So she wouldn't turn out like Rory!"

Ashen, Lorelai slapped her hands over her mouth as if to stop vomit.

Gesturing energetically, Luke roared, "Yeah, committing adultery, having sex at her grandparents' vow renewal, stole a damn yacht, great kid you raised!"

Lorelai backed up a step with each of his words. Her hands dropped and she fumbled for the purse on the table behind her.

Chest heaving, Luke stopped, and his color ebbed to sickly gray.

Feebly, Lorelai said, "Okay. You win."

She turned, clutching her purse, and was running for the door when Luke jeered, "Yeah, run. Run to him, why don't you? Oh, he didn't want your crap either!"

Lorelai placed her hands on the glass door of the diner, head down, shoulders buckling. "I said, you win. You can stop now. You win!"

She did run, then, the bells on the door jingling in her wake.

Trembling, Luke leaned on a table, alone with his victory.

GG GG GG

AN: Dark, angsty, angry. It's my life right now.

I know the Luke-lovers will hate me. Lorelai didn't grovel enough and she was mean. And Lorelai-lovers will hate me. Luke didn't grovel enough and he was mean. The point being, is it really about keeping score on who did what to whom, how often? And if it is, just who won and who lost?

Yeah. You don't "win" relationships. You sure can lose them, though.

I am aware my non-humor fics are not welcome. Oh well. Flame away. I have tissues and chocolate. I'm prepared.

Cheers!