This funny little AU is set in mid-season 3, before Nicole and Alex enter the picture. I'm actually in season 4 but have broken down and sought out all the JavaJunkie fic that I can, ergo I've been ridiculously spoiled for seasons 6, 7 and the disaster that is April. I complained to one of my enablers that April was the Scrappy Doo of Gilmore Girls and this was the result of that. The title comes from They Might Be Giants' "Birdhouse in Your Soul."
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
When Rory called in the middle of the breakfast rush, her usually calm voice high-pitched and panicked, Luke was convinced that the roof had finally collapsed in on the Gilmore house. A roof he had just fixed several of the shingles on, so naturally that couldn't be it. All things horrendous and terrifying flashed through his brain at once, from a sinkhole swallowing Lorelai's Jeep to her slipping on a banana peel. OK, out of the potential disasters, the last one was probably the one most likely to occur. Whatever it was, it had to rank somewhere between calling Sookie and calling the Gilmore grandparents, which even he knew Lorelai would have to be in a coma before she allowed that.
"What happened? How badly is your mom hurt? Did you call the police?" he snapped as soon as Rory breathlessly asked him to come over and hurry. He frantically tossed his order pad to Jess, ignoring his squawks and feeble protests about going to see his girlfriend. Sheree, Shawnie, Sarah, something with an S.
"It's nothing like that," Rory explained. "Could you just … could you bring some coffee?"
Luke skidded to a halt several feet away from the counter at the end of the phone's long tether. It put him within eyesight of Kirk, whose eyes lit up with hope and plans to either demand something asinine or talk his ear off. Quickly Luke turned his back on him.
"Coffee?" he managed. "You're calling me in the middle of breakfast because you want me to bring you coffee? Rory, I expected this from your mother, not you."
"Not just coffee," Rory said. "Like a whole pot of it. Maybe two. Or an IV drip?"
"Rory …"
"Mom's behaving weird," Rory hastily added. "She just came downstairs, sat at the table, and she's staring into space. She hasn't said a word, has barely blinked, in 20 minutes. I'm scared, Luke. I'm not sure if she needs a coffee or an ambulance."
"You called me instead of an ambulance?"
"Well. If I called an ambulance, I'd have to call Grandma and Grandpa, and then she'd never forgive me. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."
Because 20 minutes of Lorelai Gilmore not speaking was most likely a historic first, ranking up there with man's first walk on the moon and the invention of sliced bread, Luke left the diner to Caesar and Jess and made the short walk to the Gilmore house with two large go-cups of coffee in tow.
It didn't take him that long, and Rory met him halfway down the sidewalk. "Hurry, hurry," she said, tugging him along. "That's not a pot."
"I am not giving your mother an entire pot, much less two pots of coffee, no matter how bad off she is." Luke handed one cup off to Rory and followed her through the back door, ignoring Babette doing her best to pretend she wasn't snooping from her porch.
It was much as she described it. Lorelai sat at the table dressed in pajamas depicting various boxes of vintage candy, her hair hanging around her face in a tangled mess. His heart gave two quick, hard thumps because, and he refused to admit it even to himself, she looked quite adorable. Or it would be adorable if not for the vacant look in her eyes, like she was asleep sitting up.
Luke and Rory exchanged a wary look, and Rory took the coffee she held and gently set it in front of her. "Mom?" Rory said softly. "Mom, I have coffee. See? Luke brought us coffee. Wasn't that nice?"
Lorelai blinked as if waking up from a deep sleep. She stared at the coffee, then at the two of them clustered around the opposite end of the table. She licked her lips. "Luke?" she rasped.
Rory shrugged and Luke pressed the remaining coffee into her hands. "Yeah. This better be good, Lorelai, because you know how busy it gets at this time of morning and-"
"Do you have any kids?" Lorelai blurted.
"What?" Luke yelled.
"What?" Rory squeaked.
"Kids!" Ignoring the coffee, Lorelai got to her feet, gesturing with her hands as she looked wildly around her, not quite taking in anything. "Do you have any kids?"
"No!"
Lorelai pivoted to him. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure!"
"OK, time for Rory to leave the room now," Rory said and started to edge toward the hall and the safety of her bedroom.
Luke snagged her sleeve. "You're not leaving me alone with this," he hissed in her ear.
Rory tugged her arm back. "Clearly Mom's interested in you at the moment and not me, and oh, I think that was the telephone. Must be Lane. Or Dean. Or Publisher's Clearing House."
"They use the door, not the phone," he pointed out.
"Sorry, can't hear you, planning what to do with my millions!" And Rory dashed out of the kitchen, leaving him with her raving lunatic of a mother before he could point out that she was barely 18 and probably not even legally qualified to win such a contest yet. But that was beside the point, as Lorelai had stopped her pacing and was giving him such a wild-eyed look that he wondered if stress from the inn had finally caused her to crack.
"OK," Luke said calmly and picked up the coffee from the table. He held it out to her and figured if this failed, a muzzle and leash were next in his arsenal. "Take this and drink it."
Lorelai took the cup and arched an eyebrow. "You're actually telling me to drink coffee?"
"Clearly you're a raving lunatic with ideas even more delusional than normal without it. I'm sorry I ever doubted you." Since she sounded at least somewhat akin to normal Lorelai, Luke glanced at the clock. "Now, I've got to be getting back."
Lorelai took a large sip from the cup, and the resulting moan she gave not only did things to Luke's heart, but very inconvenient things to other parts of his body. Well hell, there was no way he could walk outside to Babette's eagle-eyed stare now. The last thing he wanted spread all over Stars Hollow was the awkward fit of his pants after a visit to the Gilmore house.
Lorelai waved him off, too focused on her coffee to pay attention to his distress. "Oh god, I can think again. Your coffee is magic, Luke. Magic." She rubbed her forehead. "Wow, what a dream. What a strange, weird dream." She gave him a considering look. "Are you sure you don't have kids?"
He held out his hands in front of him, hoping it would keep her from dropping her gaze southward. "Condoms exist for a reason, Lorelai."
"But what if it broke? What if it broke and you had a kid out there for the past dozen years you knew nothing about?" Lorelai slammed the coffee on the table. "You should check. I can do it for you."
Well, that settled his unruly body quicker than any cold shower. "You are not calling every woman I ever slept with to ask them if the condom broke!"
"Why? Too many to count?"
He was honestly shocked that Lorelai hadn't caused him to go bald from yanking his hair out. It took him a moment for him to even manage a coherent sentence after that wild observation. "No! Do you want me to call every guy you've ever slept with and ask them if the condom broke? Well, other than Christopher, we all know how that turned out. What the hell, Lorelai, this is strange even for you."
"I know, I know." Lorelai dropped into a chair. "It's just … I had a dream."
"And?"
"I had a dream that you had a kid. Wow, what a dream." She shook her head and downed the rest of the coffee. "It was so real. You ever had one of those dreams where when you wake up, you keep thinking you're in the dream, so you're not sure if what you're doing is dream you or real you? That type of dream."
"Yeah. OK. I get it." Because this was too absurd to remain standing, Luke took the other seat. "So dream me had a kid."
"A 12-year-old kid. Her name was April. And she was perfect. Nauseatingly perfect and precocious to the point where you just wanted to smack her. She was like the Stars Hollow version of Scrappy Doo." Lorelai sighed and pointed her finger in the air. "That's it, no more 5-hour Scooby Doo marathons before bedtime."
"You watched 5 hours of Scooby Doo?" Which, really was on the low side when it came to a Gilmore marathon viewing session, but still. Scooby Doo?
"Well, Rory and I were having a debate whether the Archie comics or Dobie Gillis were a bigger influence on the series, and so we had to watch it to make sure. And we weren't quite convinced, so one episode turned into three, then to everything I had taped off Saturday morning cartoons, and we still can't decide. What do you think, I think it's closer to Dobie Gillis, but Rory is convinced it's more like Archie and-"
"OK, OK," Luke cut her off, knowing they were heading down a very dangerous slope to Lorelai land, where while he did enjoy her tangents more than he let on, he did have to make an appearance at work before Jess decided to stage a coup at the diner. "So watching Scooby Doo led you to dream about me having a kid."
"Not just a kid," Lorelai emphasized. "You had Scrappy Doo."
"Right. I fathered Scrappy Doo. Then what happened?"
"Well, because of her, you …" Lorelai's voice trailed off, and she blinked rapidly. Her cheeks went pink, her eyes wide as if she was seeing him for the first time. "You um … Is there anymore coffee?"
"The Sancho Panza to your Don Quixote ran off with it," Luke said dryly.
"Oh." Lorelai raised her voice. "Rory! Mommy needs your coffee!"
"No," Rory's voice echoed from behind the safely closed door to her bedroom. "I need this and about six years of intense therapy just to recover from this morning."
Lorelai sighed and began to tear the empty coffee cup into bits.
"Lorelai …," Luke said impatiently, every tick of the clock grating at him.
"If you had a kid, would you keep her from seeing me?" she blurted.
So much for getting back to the diner anytime soon. "What?"
"If you had a secret daughter, one that just walked into your life after 12-13 years, would you keep her from seeing me?"
How did one even answer such a thing? Granted, such an absurd question wasn't out of the realm for Lorelai Gilmore. "Look, I know you're a little touched in the head, but I'm not." Now Luke wished for coffee, and hell he didn't even drink it. "No, I wouldn't keep her from seeing you. You're the only one who actually knows what to do with a teenage kid in this group."
"Really? You wouldn't think she'd like me better than you?"
His mouth twitched and he almost smiled. "It's a fact that most people would like you better than me. Except Jess, but he doesn't like anyone."
"Except Rory."
"Except Rory," Luke conceded. "Look, Lorelai, if I suddenly had Scrappy Doo waltz into my life, I wouldn't know the first thing to do with her. I'd be the one on a crazy panic call to you trying to figure out what to do."
Lorelai's breath hitched as if she'd been holding it, and she laughed a little. "Really?"
"Really. I swear upon this coffee cup you're systematically destroying. You know those things already aren't good for the environment and you're just making it worse." Luke batted Lorelai's hands away from the mangled cup. "Is that what got you so twisted up that Rory nearly called an ambulance?"
"At least she didn't call my parents," Lorelai muttered. She managed a smile and patted his hand, her touch sending little shocks of awareness down his spine. "Sorry you rushed over here in the middle of breakfast."
"It's no problem. I'll … um. I should get back now." Now before he turned his hand up to lace their fingers together, and then how could he even begin to explain that?
"Oh. Yeah, right."
He stood, pushed the chair back in with more force than necessary, and headed to the back door. He paused, hand on the knob, and knew what he had to tell her. "Lorelai?"
"Yeah, Luke?"
"If I ever have a kid, you'll be the first to know."
"Wow, that's sweet of you." Lorelai beamed, and Luke forgot how to breathe himself for a moment. Their eyes met, held, almost daring each other to make the first move. He'd nearly talked himself into doing so when she swore under her breath and stood up so fast that her chair toppled. Several steps later and she was within arm's length, and his body acted like a magnet that had found its polar opposite. He tugged her into his arms and was kissing her before every warning signal in his brain went off.
And then she was kissing him back, and everything in world was beautiful.
If her dreams had been filled with his having Scrappy Doo for a kid, his was filled with her. They were always filled with her. Every time he closed his eyes, every time he had time for a spare thought that wasn't focused on the diner, Jess, or his secret plans to murder Taylor and bury him beneath the selectman's podium, he dreamed of her. He ached and he wanted and he had yearned for her for so long that he wondered if perhaps he was the one dreaming. If he was, he didn't want to come back to reality. Not if that meant leaving her arms.
Somewhere in the background the phone shrilled. Dimly, he heard Rory's door open and her shocked gasp when she saw them. But he didn't care. He leaned back against the door, and she pressed into him until they were chest to chest, hip to hip. Somewhere in what little rational part of his mind that remained after all the blood drained out of it, he knew she could tell how badly he wanted her. And Rory was probably getting quite the education. But he really didn't give a damn at that second.
"Mom, Luke," Rory was saying, her voice barely cutting through the fog in his brain, "Lane's on her way over and you might want to-"
Then the back door was yanked open.
And they fell backwards.
"Lorelai!" Emily rushed into the small treatment room she had badgered the nurses into letting her into and came to a halt at the foot of the bed. She squinted at the occupant, who was most definitely not her daughter. Instead, it was a man she'd seen several times before, his head bandaged and his arm hooked up to an IV drip. "You're not Lorelai."
"That's very astute of you, Mrs. Gilmore," Luke sighed.
"Mom, why are you even here?" Lorelai asked with great exasperation from her spot next to the hospital bed, her hand in Luke's.
"Well, I get at least five phone calls from your neighbors saying there was some sort of accident, and I'm convinced you or Rory are at death's door. Not your diner man," Emily sniffed.
"Gee, Mom, I'm sure Luke appreciates the concern."
For the first time, Emily took a good look at her daughter. Convinced she wasn't the one gravely injured, she blanched. "And what are you even wearing? Why are you in your pajamas, do you know how many people can see you in those? When was the last time you brushed your hair? Six years ago?" Emily pulled a brush out of her purse. "I'm going to be fielding phone calls for weeks about how you're out in public wearing nothing!"
Lorelai rolled her eyes. "I'll go home and change into my Princess Leia bikini right away. Mom, I'm fine, Rory's fine, and Luke will be fine. He just has a mild concussion, that's all. The doctor wants to keep him here for observation, and if everything's good, he's getting released into my care."
"Concussions are serious, Lorelai." Emily turned her attention back to Luke. "What happen, fall at that diner of yours?"
"Something like that." Luke caught Lorelai's eye, and she nodded in solidarity. The truth would most likely get back to her mother in one form or another, but he wanted at least a little time before she found out that he'd been in the middle of kissing her daughter into another plane of existence, only to have Lane yank the back door open. Because of Lorelai's weight on him and his on the door, they had toppled backwards and he had smacked his head on the porch. He had blacked out and awoke several minutes in the ambulance, Lorelai's face sheet white as she held his hand and babbled nervously.
The fact that Kirk had been the ambulance driver was something that would disturb Luke another day. His head hurt too badly to dwell on it at the moment.
"Here I am, your savior with coffee and clothes!" Rory sailed in with a duffel bag and two large go-cups from the diner. She drew up short when she saw her grandmother. "Grandma, why are you here?"
"Because I was led by half the town to think that you had split your head open, blood everywhere. Where did they even get my number?"
"It's Stars Hollow, Mom," Lorelai sighed as if it explained everything. And it really did.
"But it's unlisted!"
"Since when did that stop anyone?" Rory muttered.
Lorelai sidled over to Rory and took one of the coffees and the bag from her. "Lane OK?" she whispered as Emily kept ranting.
Rory nodded. "Yeah. Her mom heard what you and Luke were actually doing thanks to Babette and yanked her home by the ear, convinced she'd walked into a den of sin."
Lorelai grimaced. "Den of sin?"
"Uh huh. She has to attend 16 hours of extra Bible study because of it."
Lorelai winced and Rory nodded sagely.
"Poor kid. I'll see if I can talk her mom down to at least eight."
"Best mom ever." Rory kissed her cheek as Emily whirled back to them.
"And just what were you two doing?" Emily demanded.
"Talking," Lorelai said shortly.
"Not you two. You two." Emily jerked her head toward Luke.
Lorelai and Rory exchanged a panicked look. "Ah. Having coffee," Lorelai managed.
"Yeah," Rory said in a rush. "I invited Luke over for coffee. We were out and Mom needed it, and it just seemed quicker for him to bring it."
"I see." Emily gave everyone in the tiny room a shrewd look. "Coffee."
"Hey, Grandma," Rory said, taking Emily's arm. "Could you help me with something?"
"What's that, Rory dear?"
Rory caught Lorelai's eye and mouthed, You so owe me for this. "I have this date I'm going on with Dean, and I wanted a special dress to wear. You know, something different, more formal. Could you help me? And maybe get some food too? I'm starving."
Emily allowed Rory to tug her from the room, casting a disbelieving look over her shoulder as Rory prattled on about her nonexistent date. As soon as they disappeared down the hall, Lorelai slammed the door shut and jiggled the knob. "Damn it, it doesn't lock."
Luke rolled his eyes and instantly regretted the move when he was rewarded with a sharp stab of pain. "It's a treatment room, not a 5-star hotel."
"Not even the lock on a 5-star hotel could keep my mother out." Lorelai huffed out a breath and pushed her still-messy hair back. "Sorry about it. About all of it."
His gut clenched. "All of it?"
Lorelai's answering smile was somewhere between shy and predatory, and his gut clenched again for an entirely different reason. "Well. Not all of it. I'm sorry about the falling backwards out the door bit and the ambulance bit and Kirk asking you if you died without any heirs if he could inherit the diner bit."
"Kirk did what?"
"But I'm not sorry about before," she continued. "Are you?"
He managed a smile for her. "No. No, I'm not."
Lorelai pressed a hand to her stomach before rewarding him with a sunny smile of her own. "Good."
"Good."
She made her way to the bed, depositing the duffel bag in the visitor's chair and the coffee cup on the small bedside table. "You know; I wouldn't be opposed to doing it again some time."
"Neither would I."
Lorelai fiddled with the guard rail until it dropped, and she sat on the mattress. He scooted, making room for her. She leaned into him, her hand cupping his cheek and stroking the stubble until he noticed the heart monitor keeping track of his vitals going a bit nuts. He ignored it.
"Would now work?" she asked softly.
"Yeah," he rasped, "it'll work just fine."
He drew her in, kissed her like it was the first time all over again, and maybe it would feel that way every time. That giddy, lightheaded swoop that had nothing to do with the concussion or the extremely good drugs they had him on, but all her. Every bit her, and he couldn't wait to do it again and again, until he had her stripped down to the skin and was worshipping every inch of her body. And if his hand was acting of its own accord and sliding under her pajama top (and hers under his shirt), who was he to blame it? They kissed until they couldn't breathe, then kissed some more. They kissed until the reality of their current location settled in and they knew they couldn't go as far as they wanted. That moment just happened to coincide with Emily Gilmore walking back in the room and yelling at Lorelai for still being in her pajamas.
Weeks later, Lorelai confessed that the rest of the dream had involved them being engaged. That part Luke didn't mind at all.
He got his revenge nearly two years later at Christmas.
In a sneaky move worthy of a Gilmore, Luke slipped the small package among the other gifts handed out at Emily and Richard's house. When Lorelai opened it, when she laughed until she cried, Emily stared puzzled at what her daughter held.
"Why," she asked Luke, "is she laughing like a loon over a DVD boxset of Scooby Doo?"
"I have no idea," he deadpanned and winked across the room at Rory, who was grinning.