A/N: I know this is probably incredibly soon to be posting another story so close to posting my last one, but the ideas possible from this Rory-less universe won't leave me alone. I should probably start by saying that I do like the character of Rory but have always found Lorelai and Luke far more fascinating. I didn't like Finale of Season 4 and beyond Rory either so I think that's why I like writing for this universe. I want to thank Nancy and Eledgy for their reviews on the first story. This story is going to go a little deeper into Lorelai meeting Luke and handle some of the flashbacks of her pregnancy and arrival in Stars Hollow. Clearly I don't own anything because I'm scrambling things around like a madwoman. Also there is some discrepancy in the show's timeline of when Luke opened the diner and when they met and stuff, so I'm going to be taking liberties with that. Enjoy!

I have exactly fifteen minutes before I have to be back at the Inn for my meeting with Mia, but I HAVE to get myself some coffee. Alice wasn't able to come in today because her son is home with the Chicken Pox and I had to fill in for her. I guess when you're the head maid at a well-known Inn you make sacrifices, especially when someone needs to care for their child. I try to push the churning feeling in my stomach down and keep my mind from flitting to the thought that I could have been in that same situation had things gone as planned (or un-planned depending on how you look at it). I hurry to Weston's only to see the closed sign hanging in the window. I forgot that Fran was going out of town to see one of her nieces get married and the store would be closed all week. I grumble as I turn the corner and head for Doose's Market. If I can't have coffee, chocolate will jumpstart my system until I can get some. I'm just about to go into the market when I look at the building next door and see a sign shaped like a yellow coffee cup with the word "Luke's" scrawled across it in red paint. I have a flashback of sitting in the beauty parlor chair getting my hair cut and hearing the town gossips Miss Patty and Babette talking about one of the boys in town opening a diner in his father's old hardware store, and how it was a shame that William had to leave us so soon. I walk briskly to the front door of the hardware store/diner and see that it's packed with people. It appears that only one man, clad in a flannel shirt, backwards baseball cap, and an apron, is working. I go quickly inside and sit down on the only vacant stool, right by the cash register.

The man is bustling around taking orders and yelling them into the back where the kitchen must be. He passes me three times and never even looks in my direction. When he goes by the fourth time I call out to him. "Mr. Diner Man, I need coffee." The man stops and looks at me. He's probably close to my age and try not to focus how blue his eyes are and how easily you could get lost in them. "Oh do you? Well I need to come up with a better plan to handle the breakfast rush, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen either, so wait your turn." Well excuse me for thinking I could order something in a restaurant. Flannel man walked away and served some of the other tables. I waited a few minutes but I was cutting it close to meeting time and I still needed my coffee. I decided to get up and follow diner guy around and see if I could pester him into getting my coffee faster. "Hey Diner man, I really need that coffee now. I'm going crazy without it and I'm going to be late." I followed him around to two more tables before he finally whirled around and sneered at me. "Look you can't just follow me around because you're in some caffeine frenzy. Now go back, sit down, shut up, and wait your turn." I pouted and went back to my seat. Diner man came behind the counter again and I wasn't going to let him get away without getting my coffee. "Hey diner man, when's your birthday?" He stopped and looked at me like I had just escaped from a mental institution. "What does that have to do with anything?" I rolled my eyes at him. "Just tell me your birthday." He balled his fists up and crossed his arms. Through gritted teeth he told me "November 14th. Someone had left a paper sitting on the counter next to me. I grabbed it and found the horoscope section and ripped the Scorpio horoscope from the paper. I took a pen out of my bag and scribbled something underneath what was written and handed it to diner man. "You will meet an annoying woman today, give her coffee and she will go away." He looked up at me with a face that wasn't amused and I gave him my best sweet smile. Diner man went and filled a large to-go cup for me and pushed it over the counter. I pulled out money to pay and he told me, "It's on the house, first time customer." I tossed him another sweet smile before heading for the door. "Hey," I called back to him. "You might want to hold onto that horoscope, keep it in your wallet or something. One day it might bring you good luck."

I left the diner and rushed back to the Inn. I was only two minutes late for my meeting, maybe Mia wouldn't notice. I ran to her office and slid into the doorway as quickly as possible. She was sitting behind her desk reading some paper and without looking up at me she said, "Lorelai, you're late." I looked down at my shoes and apologized. "I'm sorry Mia, I just ran out for coffee and the man who was supposed to give it to me was grumpy and made me wait, I really tried to be on time." Mia gave me a soft smile. "Oh did you go by Lucas' place? It's quite busy there this time of day, he really should hire some help. Sit down Lorelai, there's something I want to talk to you about." I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. This couldn't be good. When your boss calls you into their office to "talk about something", it never ends well even when your boss is as sweet as Mia.

"Lorelai, I've seen what a wonderful job you're able to do here as a maid. You're contentious and attentive and despite your lateness to meetings, your work is always done on time. I really love having you work as a maid here, but I think now that you've had your business degree for a few months it might be time to give you some more responsibility. As you know, JoAnna is getting married next month and her husband-to-be just got a job in New Mexico so they're going to be moving there. This leaves the event planning position open. I think you have the qualifications to do that job and I would like to offer it to you first. Would you be willing to take the job?" I couldn't even believe what I was hearing. Mia wanted to give me a promotion to event planner. That was a job I would be good at and a job I would love. "Mia, of COURSE. I'd love the job. What should I do to prepare? Will I start as soon as JoAnna leaves?" Mia chuckled at me before answering. "I'd like you to start training with JoAnna as soon as possible, maybe the day after tomorrow. She'll go over the events that are already booked that you will have to handle once she's gone. She'll get you acquainted with all the services and layouts we usually use and she'll probably have you get in touch with the clients you'll be working with after she leaves." I can feel happiness bubbling up inside me and I feel like I just want to squeal and jump around in circles, but I try to keep on my professional face at least until I'm out of Mia's office. "I'm very proud of the work you do honey, and how much you've grown up since you started working here." Mia got up from her desk and walked around it to give me a hug. I hugged her back tightly. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off? Call Sookie and tell her the good news, go shopping or something. You've earned a day to celebrate." I couldn't stop beaming if I tried. "Thank you Mia, you have no idea how much this means to me!"

I run from Mia's office out back to the potting shed. When I get inside I close the doors and the blinds and I scream and squeal and jump around for a few moments. This is one of the biggest accomplishments of my life so far. After a few moments I stop screaming like a fan girl at a Bon Jovi concert and sit down on my bed. I look around at the fairly empty potting shed and realize I have no one to share my accomplishment with. I decide to call Sookie. She's away at Culinary School, but she'll be back in about a month or so after she graduates. I dial Sookie's phone and her roommate answers and says Sookie is in class. I leave a message for her to call me later. I feel like a balloon that's come untied and is slowly deflating. I reach under the bed and pull out a medium sized cardboard box and heave it up onto the bed with me. Inside are two baby books, a little pair of booties, a onesie, a receiving blanked, a small stuffed dog, and the last sonogram picture of my healthy baby girl. I can feel the hot tears already falling down my face as I pick up the sonogram picture and the blanket. "Hey baby girl, guess what? Mommy just got a promotion. We're in the big leagues now!" I feel silly for talking to a sonogram photo of a daughter that I never got to have, but it makes me feel calmer somehow and comforted that that I can still be connected with her in some way. I run my hand over the blanket and try not to think about the doctor handing it back to me and telling me she was sorry for my loss. I dry my eyes with the corner of the blanket and put everything back in the box before shoving it under my bed.

I can't sit here moping around. This is supposed to be a day of celebration. I run over to my closet and change into something nice, a little purple dress with silver shimmer threads woven through. I pick out a pair of black flats and a lighter purple jacket to go with the ensemble. I pull my hair down from its messy ponytail and fix my make-up. I'm all dressed up with no place to go. I sit back down on the bed and think about all the places I could go to celebrate. I could go to the mall, but window-shopping isn't as much fun as it looks in the movies. I could go to a fancy restaurant, but eating alone in a fancy restaurant makes you look pathetic. I could go to a bar, but they won't let me in for another month (legally anyway). I'm feeling more bummed out by the minute, and then I remember reading in the paper that the Bangles were playing at a theater in New York tonight. I rooted around the messy coffee table and found the paper. I copied down the address of the theater and headed for my car. What better way to celebrate a promotion than going to see your favorite band?

My celebration plans were all in vain anyway; when I got to the box office the snotty clerk told me they were sold out. I thought about staying in New York and doing some shopping but I really couldn't afford to do that plus the ride back to Stars Hollow isn't exactly a quick trip. By the time I made it back to town it was almost 8 o'clock, traffic on the freeway was unbelievable and I was really hungry. I remembered being in the diner this morning and wishing I had time to try their pancakes. Instead of driving back to the Inn I went to the diner and parked my Jeep behind a big green truck. The dinner rush was clearly over and there were only a few patrons left in the diner and flannel man (or Lucas as Mia called him) was wiping down the counter. I strode in and plopped myself on the same stool from earlier. Luke looked up at me and grimaced. "So much for that horoscope bringing me luck. I thought it said the annoying woman would go away once I gave her coffee." I gave him a cheeky grin. "It said she would go away, it never said anything about her not coming back." Luke arched an eyebrow and shoved the cleaning rag into the back pocket of his jeans. "So are you going to order something or did you just come back to torment me?" I plucked a menu from the stand on the counter. Everything sounded pretty good except for some of the salads. "I'll just take a burger and fries, oh and coffee of course." He looked at me like I was crazy again. "It's like 8:30 at night, should you really be drinking coffee this late, you'll be up all night." I waggled my eyebrows at him and suppressed the urge to add 'dirty' to the end of this sentence. "Who says I don't wanna be up all night?" He choked out a laugh and then said, "Well that at least explains your wardrobe." I looked down at my dress self-consciously. "Is there something wrong with my dress? I didn't think it was that slutty?" Luke's eyes bugged out of his head. "No, no that's not what I meant. I just meant you looked like you were dressed for a date or something, you know dressed nice."

I tried to ignore the amusement I got from seeing him panic over potentially insulting me. "For your information Duke I'm dressed up because it's a special day. I just got a promotion." His face screwed up and he looked at me funny again. "My name is Luke, not Duke. Uh, congratulations on your promotion I guess." He scratches the back of his head right under the brim of his ball cap and he looks uncomfortable. "I'm Lorelai Gilmore by the way, I work at the Independence Inn, and for the record if you keep making coffee this amazing you're going to be seeing a lot more of me Duke. " Luke scowled again, probably because I'm purposely getting his name wrong. "I'm LUKE Danes and I run this diner. Your order will be up soon." Luke retreats to the back, presumably to make my food and I can't wipe the smile from my face. This may not be a Bangles concert but no evening can be bad when you're drinking coffee and having some (possibly flirtatious) banter with a very cute guy.

A/N: I wasn't quite sure where to stop this. This is going to be a multi-chapter fic but I didn't really know where to cut off the chapter. I think right here is good because if I stop here I know exactly where I want to pick up the next chapter. Please leave reviews; I'm curious about how well I'm writing the characters since this is a new fandom for me. Also I know the no Rory thing is weird but I'm loving writing it! Thanks for taking the time to read!