The Clinch
"Bai baite Buca Bane!" grumbled Lorelai through a mouthful of caramel pecan ganache-frosted brownie.
Sookie, only half listening, replied, "But honey, bucatini is just a noodle. You love bucatini because it's like long macaroni. I've watched you using it like a straw suck up sauce." She wrinkled her nose at the marshmallow squirrels she was trying to sculpt, which simply weren't working. "Does this look like a squirrel to you?" she asked her friend.
Swallowing and washing the brownie down with a slurp of coffee, Lorelai said, "It looks like Luke. I hate Luke."
The squirrels were unceremoniously dumped in the garbage and Sookie moved to fondant as her carving medium. "You do not hate Luke. You love Luke. You married Luke."
Lorelai grabbed the bowl of Sookie's secret recipe marshmallow clay which Sookie had used for her first carving attempts. Taking a large spoonful, she spread it over the rest of the brownie on her plate.
"I don't care. It's over. I've had it! I'm through!" She fruitlessly (literally) attempted to wipe the marshmallow off her nose and cheek after trying to plow through the 3 inch high brownie without a fork. "Bai bam bun bit Buke Banes!"
Sookie pulled a pigtail and sighed. "You are not done with him, honey. Once Luke Danes is in your life, he's in your life forever. Remember? That's exactly what you said in your wedding vows, even though it sounds a little stalkerish. You were really happy then. You liked the triple chocolate mocha wedding cake decorated with Red Vine hearts." She beamed as she remembered her finest creation, a towering sugar chuppah with Red Vine hearts and hand-formed wisteria hanging off the sides.
"I'm taking my kid and moving far, far away so it's just the two of us. I'm not going to take it anymore!" she declared, stomping her foot a little too hard as a blob of marshmallow fell off her plate and onto her shoes. She pointed angrily. "See! He does this to me all the time!"
Carrying her pearl-handled fondant knife and looking as threatening as a short, dimpled redhead with an irrepressible smile can look, Sookie pushed Lorelai out the back door. "Go to Luke's, see your baby, and kiss your husband. You are having major baby withdrawal symptoms, kitten."
Luke was sitting in the back corner of the diner, watching Lane handle the dregs of the morning rush. After giving her bandmates Brian and Zach a try in the diner, he went back to Lane and begged her to return, a job which became a promotion to assistant manager as soon as Lorelai had become pregnant. Lane was very much on her way to earning the right to take over the diner when Luke retired, and she spent a good amount of lull time envisioning the merger of her music and the dining experience.
"Caesar, what did I say about huevos rancheros?" called Lane as she uncomfortably patted Kirk on the back as he drank from the glass of milk she'd pressed into his hands. "No jalapenos for Kirk!"
Luke finished his tea and stood up, looking down at his son in his babybjorn carrier. Luke kept him facing his chest when Charlie was asleep, loving every moment he could have his boy next to him.
"Hey, you awake, buddy?" he asked softly, tickling Charlie's chin as the child looked up at him, refreshed from his nap. "Let's get you turned around so you can check out the diner. He deftly lifted Charlie up, rotated him and put him back into the carrier so he was facing outward.
"Patty! Come on! Charlie's awake!" cried Babette when she noticed Luke stand up and move around the room. They cooed and awwwed over the baby as long as Luke could stand it. Once he ended their playtime, he moved to take Mrs. Ferguson's empty plate from her and let her greet Charlie for a moment as well. The diner had gotten a steady stream of baby-lovers in recent weeks as people learned that Luke frequently had Charlie there for several hours a day. He put a loving hand over Charlie's head when he heard the door open with the usual Lorelai flair.
"Lucas Danes, give me my child," demanded Lorelai as she pressed an angry kiss to Luke's lips. "Hello, my precious, did you miss your mommy?"
He kissed the top of her head and reluctantly allowed her to take Charlie out of the carrier. He unclasped the baby back/front pack and set it on the chair next to the seat Lorelai had taken.
"You're looking a little peaked," he said, rubbing her shoulder. "You sure you don't want to go home and rest?"
"I am not tired, not 'peak-ed' as you say, and I am not going to let you take this child out of my arms for at least the next few hours. It's my turn."
Undaunted, Luke suggested, "You did have a C-section, you know. You need plenty of rest. I can take care of Charlie if you want to go lie down."
"Seriously, Luke? You think that's gonna work? Charlie's almost six months old. I haven't had to worry about the scar since he was two weeks old." She squinted her eyes at him. "Don't you have things to flip and fry? And where's my coffee?"
Lane set the full mug on the table before she'd finished her sentence. Luke snatched up the insulated bag with pumped breast milk Lorelai had brought with her and walked grumbling back into the kitchen as Lorelai was surrounded by townies eager to play with and hear about the baby.
The morning flew by as Lorelai and Luke played together with Charlie when he wasn't serving customers or running the diner. She ran upstairs for a while to feed Charlie in peace in the office-turned-apartment-turned-family room with all the things the parents needed to care for Charlie when he visited. Luke checked in with his wife and child repeatedly, offering help and attention until Lorelai banned him so she could relax and feed in peace. A stuffed squirrel thrown by his wife flew out the door as Luke rushed down the stairs before she could throw something harder and heavier. "And don't come back for at least half an hour!" she called after him.
He did get a chance to hold Charlie again when Lorelai ate her lunch. "You've got it, bad, doll face," she said, her heart fluttering as she watched him be so loving and tender with Charlie. "All that jam hands nonsense seems kind of silly now, doesn't it?"
He shrugged, taking Charlie's hands and placing a bread stick in them so he could teach Charlie how to swing a baseball bat. "I didn't know what it would be like, a kid of my own. Of our own," he corrected with a smile. He took a grape from his own fruit bowl, guided Charlie to hit it and 'flew' it away. "Home run!" he said softly.
"No more pie, Luke, I can't eat any more," complained Lorelai. "I see what you're doing. You think you can keep holding Charlie if you keep feeding me. Well, I'm about to explode. I can't eat another bite."
"You have to go back to work, though, don't you? Meetings with business people? Bridezillas to calm down? You really shouldn't take an innocent child into that environment. You could just leave him here," he coaxed.
"Oh my god, you are never going to give up, are you?" she complained.
"Well, you had to carry him the first nine months, I figured I ought to take care of at least the second nine months."
"You mean the fun nine months. I had all the morning sickness, fat ankles and the inability to walk ten feet without needing to pee. And I did it 24 hours a day."
"Hey! I'm up in the middle of the night almost every time. That brings it close to 24 hours for me, too."
"Oh please, Butch Danes, track star. You outrun me to the nursery every night. And two nights ago, you jumped up off of me the first moment Charlie stopped snoring."
"I had to check on him! Do you know how dangerous SIDs can be?"
"Yes, I know, Luke! This is not my first rodeo. But he was fine. And we were in a clinch!"
His face turned red at that one. "Yeah, sorry about that one. I get distracted easily these days," he said remorsefully. Sex and the lack of it during this time wasn't to be taken lightly.
"Don't even get me started on the little dairy you and Emily are running, with me as the only cow. Honestly, I think the two of you have enough breast milk stockpiled that I could be stranded on Gilligan's Island indefinitely. And breast pumps everywhere. Here, at home, the Dragonfly, Mom's house."
"Don't forget the travel pump," Luke added helpfully, glad for his quick reflexes when a piece of pie crust came flying at him. When she moved to the breast pump rant he knew all was good and they were just bantering.
"Do you have enough shoes? If you want to go shopping, I could take care of Charlie for a few minutes." Luke's arsenal of ideas wasn't exhausted yet. He pulled out his wallet. "You can use my credit card."
She shook her head. "We have a joint account, dear, and you're not getting rid of me that easily. I've taken the afternoon off work and Charlie and I are going home to play."
With his wallet still open, Luke made a last-ditch effort. "Did you see this lately, Lorelai? The horoscope. You like the horoscope." He carefully unfolded the flimsy newsprint and showed it to her.
Tucking her hair behind her ear as she tried to stop her fluttery heart from flying away, she squeaked, "That is a pathetic attempt to steal the baby, Luke."
He reached back into the wallet. "You haven't seen this yet." He unfolded a small computer print of a photo taken of Lorelai, Luke and Charlie on the day of his birth. Rory had taken the photo and added Snapchat puppy ears to the whole family.
Tears flew to Lorelai's eyes. "You carry that with you?"
"Everywhere I go," he said as manfully as possible for a guy moved to tears himself by his wife's soggy smile.
She clutched his hand, squeezing it for a long moment. With utter disregard for anyone else who might have been in the diner, she pulled him in tight for a seriously deep kiss.
"You guys know what PDA leads to, don't you?" scoffed Rory as she came through the door. "It can get you in trouble big time."
"It leads to this," teased Lorelai, holding Charlie up for her to take.
"Why yes, it does," agreed Rory. "How are you doing, little brother?"
"Lorelai was just going to go shopping. Do you want to go with her? I think she said something about buying you both new shoes," he said deviously.
"We are not going shopping! We are going home!" argued Lorelai.
Rory pressed Charlie to her shoulder and patted his back. "Geez. Are you guys doing this again? Do I need to cover his ears so he doesn't have to hear Mommy and Daddy fighting?"
"I'm the mommy! I have a right to be with my child!"
"And I'm the dad with the same rights!" The two of them crossed their arms and stared at each other.
"And I'm the big sister, who only has today to visit with her brother. I'm taking him and going to Grandma's. We won't be back until after dinner. Late." Rory looked behind the counter for Charlie's bag that Luke kept full of necessities as decided by Lorelai. "You two can go make up somewhere. Honestly, fighting over who gets to love him the most. What a first-world problem you've got there, Charlie," she said as she pressed her finger to the tip of his nose.
"Wait, don't you need more stuff? I've got some things upstairs for him," asked Luke. Desperation had set in.
"Please. You know that Charlie's nursery at Grandma's looks like a babybjorn store and ToysRUs all rolled into one." Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she opened the door, pausing long enough to add, "I'm taking the car seat out of the Jeep! Now go do something dirty!"
Lorelai pouted as they watched their two children drive off in Rory's Prius. Luke came up behind her, slid his arms around her waist and whispered in her ear, "Wanna go get in a clinch again?"
"Baby monitor off?"
"Monitor off."
"Video camera on?"
"Don't push your luck," he said as he gestured to Lane that they were leaving. She smiled at them before turning back to Caesar to warn him about putting Tabasco in the tomato soup.
A/N: A little fluff and levity to counterbalance the very dark fics that have been appearing lately.