This story originated out of my frustration with both the 6th and 7th seasons. It mostly centers on Lorelai and Luke, but I am planning some Rory stuff too. It begins almost directly after the Season 5 finale.

I hope you like it!

"Flight 77 for Paris will begin seating shortly."

Well. Here's something Lorelai never thought she'd be doing. Yup, this definitely goes right after getting pregnant at sixteen, asking Luke to marry her, and…ouch, giving in to the hairstyles of the eighties. But, really, Paris? Is she kidding herself?

She looked at Luke, in the chair next to her, eyes unblinking, staring straight ahead. Are you thinking about this too?, she wanted to ask him but was too afraid to break the silence that had enveloped them ever since they had entered the airport thirty minutes before.

"Rows 25 through 20, please make your way up to the desk."

Without thinking about it, Lorelai checked her ticket. Row 14. So she still had a few minutes to…what? To talk herself out of going through with this? All she knew was that she needed to do something.She had been sitting in the same chair for twenty minutes, and as she now admitted that she'd gone past the window of turning back, was about to get on a ten hour flight. She needed to do something and stop all this thinking. Her eyes searched around the room and settled on a vending machine.

"I'll be right back," she said to Luke who, still, just looked at her. She looked at him pointedly, waiting for some kind of recognition.

"Yeah, okay," He grumbled. As she walked away, she couldn't help but think that she might be the only person who could look through the gruff exterior of this man and see sadness.

Which led her to thinking, was she supposed to be sad right now? Should she be sobbing hysterically like they do in movies? After all, she was leaving Luke, whom she had asked not 48 hours ago to marry her, for an indefinite amount of time. And she was going to miss him. A lot. She just didn't want to allow herself to think about that part yet.

"Rows 19-15 will begin seating now."

Lorelai realized she was still standing at the vending machine and quickly got an extremely overpriced bottle of water. As she made her way back to Luke she saw that he was standing up now and rummaging through her carry-on. When she looked at him, she saw the cold, stony expression he'd had earlier was now replaced with something she couldn't quite name.

"You have your phone, right?" His voice was somewhat frantic.

She stared at him, bewildered. "Yeah, of course. Why-,"

He looked embarrassed as he handed her the bag. "I just needed to make sure,"

In one swift moment, her eyes filled with tears as she realized the weight of what she was doing. "Oh, hon."

His arms enveloped her. "Call me when you get there," he said into her ear. "Promise,"

"I will," her voice shook. "It's gonna- it'll be fine,"

"And it's the right thing," he said, as more of a question than a statement.

"I-," she began, helplessly shrugging her shoulders.

"Now seating rows 14-10."

He tucked a stray hair behind her ear and gave her a sad smile. "You have to go,"

She kissed him then; it was all she could think to do. "Love you," she whispered as she pressed her cheek against his.

He nodded. "Back atcha,"

She knew if she didn't pull away now, she might never be able to. "Bye," she said, pursing her lips to stop them from quivering.

As she walked to the desk, she couldn't bring herself to look back but she knew he was still watching her. She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes, and tried to smile as she handed her passport and ticket to the woman.

It was only when the plane left the ground that she allowed the tears to run freely down her face.

I realized as I wrote this that in reality, you aren't allowed to go back to that section of the airport if you're not actually going on the plane. But let's just pretend.