Author's Note: I've been trying to work on some other things, but these scenes have been very insistent in my head, so I'm going to try to exorcise them. These moments (and this one in particular from Lorelai? Lorelai?) were inspired by bellamn16 in the Lorelai and Luke thread at TWoP. Thanks to KinoFille and Lula Bo for the beta.


Luke watches Lorelai exit the stage toward the back of the bar, watches her walk away from the town, from her daughter, from him. He turns toward the bar and ducks his head, feeling dozens of curious eyes on him, boring into his back. Focusing on his beer, he makes surreptitious glances in the direction Lorelai left, watching for her to return.

Several minutes later, while the crowd is engrossed in Gypsy's rendition of Pat Benatar's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, he tries to head off in that direction stealthily, as if he's just going to the bathroom, but Miss Patty catches his eye and winks at him. In the quiet back hallway of the bar he looks over at the door to the women's room only briefly before leaving through the door with the brightly lit exit sign above it.

The exit dumps him out the side of the building. As soon as he walks around to the street he sees her, sitting on a bench, leaning forward a bit as her hands grip the seat. She looks up at the sound of his footsteps, her expression self-conscious and uncertain.

"Hey," he says softly.

"Hey." She waves toward his chest and smiles with forced lightness. "So I guess you were able to get all those sugar packets stocked and ketchup bottles filled after all, huh?"

Standing awkwardly in front of her, he shrugs as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. She motions to the seat next to her and he sits a little gingerly, his fingers drumming nervously on his knees. "Are you, uh, okay?" he asks.

It's his first response to seeing her alone on this bench after having fled the bustle of KC's, but once the words are out, it feels like an odd thing to have said, given the circumstances, and especially coming from him.

She narrows her eyes slightly, curious, then just dips her head. "I should know better than to get drunk in the presence of the town."

It sounds like the beginning of an excuse, an explanation he doesn't want to hear. Sneaking a glance at her before returning his gaze to his nervous fingers, he says carefully, "You're not that drunk."

She looks surprised briefly, then sighs. "No, I'm not," she admits. "Nothing like an embarrassing public declaration to sober you right up."

He has an immediate gut reaction to the fact that she's embarrassed and he barely stops himself from questioning her about that, but what speaks more clearly is what's not being said. There's no denial, no 'let's forget this happened.' The flip remarks are an instinctive self-protective reaction, but this Lorelai isn't running from her actions and that thought makes his insides unwind a bit.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see the toes of her shoes catch on the ground and when he tilts his head and turns to look at her, the strain in her knuckles shows him just how tightly she's holding on to the bench. She's still staring down at her feet when she goes on speaking. "Everything was starting to feel normal again."

He wants to say that he hasn't seen normal in so long that he's not sure he could find it if he went looking for it, but she's still talking. "I'm sorry if this makes things all complicated."

"Maybe everything just got a whole lot simpler."

She jerks her head up at that, watches him warily. "Nothing is ever that simple," she says sadly.

He hesitates before murmuring, "Maybe it could be."

"Luke," she says, her voice plaintive.

He'd wanted to offer reassurance, but he's clearly overshot because even though her words resonate with hope, there's fear in her expression. "Hey, it's okay," he replies, waving her off. "I just wanted to see…" He pauses as 'if you meant it' blinks in his brain like a big neon teleprompter. "You," he finishes lamely, then stammers, "uh, see if you were okay."

He sees a flash of something, regret maybe, or sadness, in Lorelai's eyes. "That's…" she lets out an uncertain huff of breath, "thank you for that." Biting her lip, she gestures vaguely toward the bar. "Well, I should…" She sighs heavily. "I think that I'm just going to get Rory and take her home."

He nods as they both stand. "I should go back in. I told Zach-"

"Of course. Yeah," she cuts in, nodding. She takes a few steps toward the bar, then turns back, her arms crossed protectively across her chest and a few strands of her hair falling across her face. "Good night, Luke."

"Good night."

He watches until the front door of the bar closes behind her, and then walks around, entering through the side door as unobtrusively as he can and making a quick stop in the bathroom. By the time he makes it back inside, Rory and Lorelai have left. He stays long enough to buy Zach a beer, thereby registering his presence.

Standing silently at the bar, Luke tries to pay attention to the various people who get up on stage to make fools of themselves. He's pretty sure that Kirk makes an appearance and possibly Bootsie, but he can't be sure because all he can see when he looks at that stage is Lorelai singing. He tries to remind himself that she was singing to Rory, that she was, in her own goofy sentimental way, saying goodbye to her daughter. That she didn't know he was coming, so the words couldn't possibly mean anything.

But then he sees, played over and over again in his head, that little shrug, that 'I can't help it, it's true' gesture that she made while looking right at him just before exiting sheepishly off the stage.

It shouldn't surprise him how much he wants her to have meant it.

To be continued