A/N: This is a little pre-series one shot set just before Rory's 13th birthday. Lorelai wants to make a cake for the party but she needs a little help, cue our favourite flannel wearing diner owner. P.S. Rory's birthday would have been a Wednesday that year but I'm thinking she probably had a party the weekend before (because why wait for the weekend after when you can celebrate early!)

As always these characters aren't mine I'm just playing with them.

...

Friday 3rd October 1997

Lorelai Gilmore found herself in an unusual position, she was currently face to face with a shelf full of flour. "Who knew there were so many different types" she mumbled to herself as she held a packet of wholemeal self-rising in one hand, which sounded far too healthy for her, and a packet of bread flour in the other. She made quite the picture, her brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to remember what ingredients the recipe called for.

"Lorelai? What are you doing here the red vines and all that other junk you worship are two isles over." Luke said with a smirk. It was rare to see Lorelai with anything resembling an actual ingredient in her basket, she preferred her food to come as closed to its edible state as possible.

"Very funny Lucas, just tell me which one of these will help me make a cake?"

"You're going to bake? Are you feeling okay? Hit your head recently?"

"It's Rory's birthday party tomorrow and there will be a ton of girls expecting cake and Sookie is sick so she can't make the cake without accidentally infecting anyone who eats it and my baby is turning 13, that's an important milestone, I can't just buy her 13th birthday cake, so I'm going to make it. How hard can it be really?" She looked progressively panicked has her monologue reached its end, her eyes wide and her grip on the bags of flour so tight that she risked splitting them open with the force. Not wanting to be covered in a shower of flour, Luke carefully pried the bags out of her grasp and almost soothingly held her hands between his.

"So rather than infecting them with Sookie's illness you thought you'd give them all food poisoning instead?" His eyes sparked with mirth as he teased her. She just glared back at him.

"Just tell me which bag of damn flour I need to buy!"

He quickly scanned the shelf and picked up a bag of all purpose flour.

"Here, try this. Have you even got something you can bake a cake in?"

"You mean like an oven?"

Luke couldn't hold back his chuckle. He knew Lorelai was an intelligent woman, he had seen her quick brain in action with her many jokes and quips but despite being an adult with a daughter to feed her lack of knowledge in the kitchen was quite something.

"No I meant like a cake tin?"

"Oh erm I'm not sure, but I'll find something that I can bake it in." A moment of concern flashed across her face but before it could settle it was replaced with one of determination.

"Okay well if you need to borrow one let me know" He very much expected a phone call later on today because he'd been in Lorelai's kitchen before and if she had anything that remotely resembled a baking tin it was well hidden. Lorelai Gilmore was not a domestic goddess, another kind of goddess maybe… but those kind of thoughts were best left for when Luke was on his own. Feeling his cheeks beginning to flush at the direction his thoughts had turned in Luke cleared his throat and started to edge away

"I should get back to the diner before it burns to the ground. Happy baking Lorelai".Just like that he practically raced away from the market.

...

Two hours later Lorelai had managed to get together something vaguely resembling a chocolate cake batter. It still looked a little lumpy but she was almost positive that those would even out in the oven, at least that was what she hoped. She hadn't managed to find a cake tin per se but she had managed to find an oval metal serving dish that Sookie must have left the last time she brought food round. She filled it with her cake mix, delighted to find that the dish was the perfect size for it to be filled to the very top. She skimmed the recipe again quickly to take note of how long it needed to be in the oven for before she headed upstairs to take a quick shower and get all the rogue flour and cocoa powder out of her hair.

Twenty minutes later Lorelai opened her oven door to a cloud of smoke. "Noooo! What happened!?" She moaned as the smoke cleared and she could see the mess where a beautiful cake should be sitting. The mix had risen and spilt over the side of the dish and dipped down into the bottom of the oven where it now sat as mounds of black carbon. She took the dish out of the oven and tried to tip out the remaining contents onto a plate but it wouldn't budge. The sad looking crater of a cake clung to the edges of the dish like it's life depended on it. She couldn't serve that mess to anyone. But she was determined to give her best girl a cake that had been made with love especially for her to mark her first teen birthday.

"I need a favour"

"I figured, I've already hunted out a cake tin you can borrow"

"I need a bigger favour than that"

"Okaayy, what kind of favour?"

"I need you to help me make a cake, mine looks like the Elephant Man of the cake world"

"That bad huh?"

"It's bad, will you help?"

"Maybe, what do I get out of it?" He already knew he was going to make the damn cake but he was intrigued to hear her answer to that question.

"My eternal gratitude and the knowledge that you helped make Rory Gilmore's 13th birthday a roaring success."

"The lunch rush has pretty much died down now, I've probably got a couple of hours before I'm really needed back here. I could be round in about 15 minutes?"

"Actually can we do it at your place, oh dirty. I think I may need to chip away the layer of black stuff at the bottom of my oven before it can be used without smoking us out over here."

"Umm.." Luke hesitated, Lorelai had never been inside his apartment before and he wasn't sure why the thought panicked him. He was a very private person but they were friends and he had been in her house plenty of times, over the last couple of years he'd fixed something in almost every room for her.

"Oh come on Luke, I promise not to snoop through your underwear draw!"

Luke rolled his eyes though he knew she couldn't see him.

"Fine, just come straight up when you get here."

...

"You have no idea how grateful I am right now" Lorelai announced by way of greeting as Luke opened the door to his apartment to her no more than ten minutes after their phone call.

"I brought what I had left over from the ingredients but if we need more of anything I can run to Doose's" She dropped her bags on the kitchen table as she took in her surroundings. The apartment was smaller than she had expected, and very tidy. Though that shouldn't surprise her considering how often she saw Luke cleaning in the diner. He must be neat by nature, "wonder what that's like" she mused as she thought about the current state her room was in with less than one square foot of floor showing through the discarded clothing. Suddenly her eyes spotted the bed, a single bed. She knew the guy didn't socialise much but he was attractive, surely he wasn't a monk? But then what use is a single bed for bringing a woman home?

Luke had noticed where Lorelai's gaze had landed, she looked… intrigued almost. Embarrassed by how much attention she was giving to that part of the room Luke started to unpack the ingredients she had brought over to give himself something to do. The rustling noise behind her caught her attention and snapped her out of her thoughts.

"So where do we begin chef Luke?" she said with one of her smiles that made its way all the way up to her eyes.

As it turned out Lorelai didn't do much more than 'supervise' the making of the actual cake and try to encourage Luke to add more chocolate in than the recipe called for. Of course Luke rejected her suggestion at first, telling her it was best to stick to the recipe if she wanted the cake to turn out well. But then she used the patented Gilmore pout, after that he only put up a token resistance to try and save face. In the end the cake was doubly as chocolatey as it should have been. Luke could only hope the kids at this party had stomachs as strong as the Gilmore girls did.

"So now we wait?" Lorelai asked as Luke put the cake into the oven. Already this one looked much better than her attempt, the rich chocolate batter was glossy and smooth as he poured it into the lined cake tin.

"Now we wait, do you want a drink or something?"

"I wouldn't say no to a coffee" Lorelai replied with one of her killer smiles.

"That stuff'll kill you eventually" he mumbled as he was already half the door on his way to get her a cup of the good stuff.

By the time Luke came back upstairs Lorelai was washing the last of the dirty dishes.

"Ah you have perfect timing" she said as she placed the bowl she was holding upside down on the draining board next to the sink.

"So what was the deal with the big freak out about the cake? I know Sookie was sick but I'm sure Fran could have made a great cake for Rory" Luke asked.

Lorelai looked down at the coffee cup cradled in her hands as she started to speak.

"I remember the cake from my 13th birthday. It was a three tiered monster in the same sickly sweet shade of pink as the taffeta meringue my mother made me wear to my party. It even had bows to match the ones on my dress. Of course it was the complete opposite of the chocolate fudge cake I had wanted, in the same way that my outfit was as far removed from the jeans I'd rather have been wearing." She looked up and their eyes caught for a brief moment, this was the first time she had ever opened up about her former life to Luke. She looked back down at her coffee as she continued "But what I wanted didn't fit with my mother's idea of the perfect party, pretty much in the same way that I don't fit with my mother's idea of the perfect daughter. My mother always put a lot of effort into planning my birthday parties, and you have to appreciate all that effort. Except that she never really planned the party for me, it was always more about impressing her friends. She'd spend ridiculous amounts of money on fancy cakes and decorations and canapes. I mean come on what 13 year old cares about canapes, I'd rather have had pizza and fries. That's why I've always tried to give Rory something more personal. Even if we had no money, if she wanted a pirate theme then I made costumes and decorations from whatever I could get my hands on. This year she doesn't want a theme so I still wanted something to be homemade, I guess that's why I got so focused on the cake. It probably seems silly to you."

Luke was staring at Lorelai with a look of admiration, he hadn't been able to take his eyes off her through the whole of her speech. He had never seen her look so vulnerable and he felt very privileged that she had shared this insight into her her past with him.

"I think that Rory is a very lucky girl to have you as a Mom" he said simply with one of his rare smiles. Lorelai looked up and met his eyes again but this time she held his gaze, he looked particularly attractive when he smiled and her heart started beating a little faster as she noticed that. They were having one of those moments again.

DING DING DING

The oven timer broke their bubble as they both turned to look at the offending sound. Suddenly feeling awkward both parties focused all of their attention on the cake. Lorelai cooed over how perfect it looked and Luke started hunting through his cupboards for his piping bag.

An hour later they both stood looking at the cake in front of them. Luke had made a batch of white chocolate frosting and showed Lorelai how to use the piping bag to write a message on top of the cake. It took her five practice attempts on dinner plates before she mastered her style, though secretly that last attempt was just so she had another excuse to lick the frosting off again much to Luke's disgust. She had managed a very readable "Happy 13th B'day Rory!" with a freestyle wavy border around the edge of the cake.

"Well it definitely looks homemade" Luke laughed good-naturedly.

"I think it looks like it was made with love" Lorelai countered. "Thank you so much for helping today Luke! I couldn't have done it without you!" She through her arms around a startled Luke in a show of gratitude. When she felt his arms close around her too her traitorous heart started to race again. Luke had become an invaluable friend to her she couldn't start to develop feelings for him and ruin all that. Too soon for Luke, Lorelai broke the embrace and stepped away. The awkwardness that always followed one of their moments filled the room.

"Well I should get going… I need to get back before Rory gets home from school. She's going to be so excited when she sees this. I owe you big time Luke really. Anytime you need a favour I am your woman"

"How about dinner one night next week?" he asked before his brain could tell him it was a bad idea. The look of surprise on her face was enough to make him feel like a fool.

"Yes" she answered quickly, surprising both of them. She had only moments ago made the conscious decision to not think about Luke in that way and here she was saying yes to something that sounded a lot like a date.

"Yes? Okay great" Luke answered with a shy smile

"Next Friday Rory has a sleepover so that would be a good night." She smiled in response before realising the situation that implied. "Not that I'd expect to be out all night or anything. But you know, I wouldn't need a babysitter" she nervously laughed.

"Next Friday it is then" Luke replied trying not to let his brain wander to the idea of spending the whole night with Lorelai.

"Right so next Friday… I'll look forward to it" She said as she picked up the cake and started walking towards the door still looking at Luke with a stupid grin on her face to match his answering grin. She bumped into one of the kitchen chairs almost losing her balance and the cake in the process. Luke reached forwards to steady her quickly. "Try not to drop this after all that work" he said still smiling.

"Yeah that would not be the best idea, I should probably look where I'm going" she laughed at herself, she was acting like a teenager with her first crush. It was going to be a long, long week until next Friday.