A/N Hey guys, thanks for all the reviews so far. I'm glad I started this new fic afterall )

Thanks to Emma for beta-ing this for me, cheers mate!

Anyway I don't like to ramble too much at the start of these chapters so enjoy...

Eta: Was fixing this chapter, haha missed the little 'Lauren' mixed in there so had to change it! My fingers were typing faster than my mind was working apparently!

2 – Sharing Mr Fix-it

Luke had seen someone in the corner of his eye walking past the diner but hadn't looked up to further investigate, and so missed Lorelai's sad gaze through the window. Like Lorelai this new woman Jennifer liked to talk and even though he wasn't in a very chatty mood he walked around the counter and sat on the stool next to hers. The past four weeks the only people he spoke to regularly were his suppliers, Kirk and Jess…which is probably another reason why he had missed Lorelai so much.

"So how long have you lived here?" Jennifer asked.

"All my life"

"Aww you're a townie"

"I'm not a townie" he grumbled but smiled slightly when he saw she was teasing.

"People here are friendly, do you know Babette?"

"Everyone know's Babette."

"Well she's very nice…little quirky, she introduced me to all her gnomes this afternoon when I went over to meet her"

"Yes she is quite proud of Pierpont" Luke replied, remembering back to when Jess had first moved there and stolen the gnome's pipe.

"You know the names, that's cute"

"So where exactly did you move to?" he asked curiously.

"Right next door to Babette, Beanie Morrison's old place apparently…you know it?"

"Yeah I know it" 'Next door to Lorelai'

"So what do you do?"

"I'm a sports writer" she said, taking a last sip of coffee.

"Wow what sport do you follow?" he asked, his interest level growing.

"Baseball mostly, then basketball and some football"

"Yankees fan?" he asked quickly.

"God no, red sox all the way"

"Good" he grinned.

"You follow baseball?" she asked and smiled when he poured her another cup of coffee, obviously liking the sudden subject change.

"Oh yeah, I mean I don't see all the games but I watch the one's I can."

"You used to play didn't you?" she asked, sensing some childhood love for the game.

"Just in highschool and then stupid softball games we have in town sometimes"

"I coached a girls team back in New York"

"So why did you leave?"

"Tired of the big city, it's noisy and busy all the time. I wanted to try the small town life for a while" she shrugged.

"And you picked this town?" he scoffed.

"Well I'm liking it so far" Jennifer said meeting his gaze, unable to help from staring into his blue eyes…she didn't think she'd ever met a man with eyes as blue as his. His face was creased around his blue eyes which were deep, looking like they'd seen a lot in life but had a caring and gently sentiment to them.

"Yeah well…wait until you meet Taylor"

"Who's that?"

"You'll see" he grinned.

"Well now I'm intrigued. Anyway I should go, have a pile of boxes at home waiting for me to trip over" she said reaching into her bag and pulling out her purse.

"It's on me, I nearly knocked you down remember"

"Ah yes I almost forgot"

"Night Jennifer" he said lifting her cup from the counter to bring into the kitchen.

"Hey I got my cable in this evening and there's a baseball game on tomorrow night, you wanna come watch. It's always good getting a second viewpoint for my articles"

"Uh sure, Caesar is due to close up anyway"

"Good, well see you tomorrow then, I'll probably be in for my caffeine fix in the morning though"

"See you then"

"Night Luke" she said as she opened the door. 'I already love small town life' she thought to herself as she walked through the quiet Stars Hollow Street.

'What just happened?' Luke thought to himself when Jennifer left. He wondered how he had gone from practically running out the door to find Lorelai in the market to meeting a new woman who had just asked him to her house the next night. 'She seems smart, funny, she's a big sports fan…and she's definitely attractive' he thought but even when he thought of possibly dating Lorelai's face flashed in his mind. 'We're just friends…actually right now we're not even that.' He told himself as he wiped down the counter. Less than four weeks ago he'd made a brief appearance at Sookie's wedding, having every intention of talking to Lorelai… until he'd seen her kissing Chris. After that he found himself reverting back to the cold stance he was in before. Even though now he wanted her friendship back he still berated himself for ever expecting anything more than friendship from her, and for ever wanting anything more than that.

The next morning…

Lorelai stood outside her front door examining the broken porch rail, wondering what contraption she would need to fix it. Although chances were even if it was the most common household tool known to man she wouldn't have it in her house because she'd never needed it before. Although now she thought she may need to finally take that trip to Home Depo, because this time her Mr Fix-it wasn't coming.

"Hi" a female voice said bringing her out of her daze.

"Hey"

"I just moved in next door" the woman explained.

"Beanie Morrisons old place right?"

"Yeah that's the one"

"Well welcome to Stars Hollow, I'm Lorelai" Lorelai said smiling warmly and shaking her hand.

"Jennifer"

"I saw the moving truck yesterday and I would have brought some food over, y'know a cake or whatever but I didn't think giving you food poisoning would be a nice start to our friendship" Lorelai joked,

"People have been bringing food all day, it's gonna take a month to get through" Jennifer laughed.

"Yeah they're pretty friendly around here"

"It's nice though, total opposite to New York"

"Just wait for the town festivals"

"I can't wait"

"You'll see how crazy this town is" Lorelai said just as she pulled off the top of the porch rail in her hand.

"Yeah…crazzzy" Jennifer replied, wondering what Lorelai was doing.

"You're probably wondering what I'm doing"

"…It crossed my mind"

"Well I've been standing here looking at this for twenty minutes wondering how to fix it but I have no tools. The guy who usually does it for me…well he isn't around"

"I know what you mean, two of my porch stairs have fallen through so I have to jump over them to get to my house and my tools are packed in one of the million boxes I have"

"So do you work?" Lorelai asked, curious as to what type of writer she was.

"I'm a writer, sports mostly"

"Wow cool… I don't follow sports much; usually I go for the team to win who have the hottest players" she quipped.

"Yeah I'm a bit of a tomboy that way, that's what you get for having four brothers"

"Maybe I'll learn something from you"

"Well anyway I gotta run, going to Luke's for breakfast, do you go there?"

"Uh yeah sometimes…not in a while" Lorelai replied hesitantly, crossing her arms over her chest feeling defensive. 'Do I go there? Uh yeah up until a month ago it was like a second home'

"Alright well I'll speak to you later, good luck with the porch rail"

"Thanks, I'll need it. Bye" Lorelai said and waited for her new neighbour to walk down the street before throwing the piece of wood in her hand to the ground in frustration and walking back into the house. She headed straight to the fridge to check how much longer Rory would be away…still another two weeks she thought with a sigh.

Luke saw Jennifer walk into the diner that morning and sit at the counter, the diner was pretty busy so he was running around with the coffee pot feeling like an extension to his hand most of the time. 'Lorelai would be proud' he thought.

"What can I get you?" he asked when he came to Jennifer.

"Coffee and pancakes please"

"Coming right up"

"Much busier than last night" she observed.

"Yeah well keeps me solvent"

"Well the coffee is good, not sure about the food yet"

"You can judge soon. How's the unpacking going?"

"Ah it's okay, I didn't do much last night. I need to find the box I put my tools in because two of my porch steps have fallen through so I have to jump over them every time I go into my house"

"I can bring over my tools tonight if you like" he said casually as he sorted through bills.

"Really?"

"Sure, I mean I'm no carpenter but I can fix a couple of steps"

"Thanks Luke that's so sweet" Jennifer smiled and he just gave a nod before heading back into the kitchen to help Caesar.

That evening…

Luke walked the few minutes to Jennifers with his toolbox in one arm and a small bag of food in the other, figuring since she just moved in that she wouldn't have a lot in the house. As he approached Lorelai's house he saw the living room light on and wondered if Lorelai was having one of her infamous movie nights. His eyes scanned her house, wondering if anything had changed since last time he'd been there. When he saw the wood from the porch rail lying on the grass in front of his house he walked over, picked it up and within a minute had nails and a hammer out of his toolbox.

Lorelai sat eating popcorn and watching ER, even though Rory had warned her never to watch that again in case she started to pick up medical lingo like the last time. Although the sound of hammering from outside interrupted her watching another person die so she got up from the couch and looked out the window. 'What the hell?' she thought when she saw Luke outside on the porch, hammer in one hand (dirty) as he held the wood from the porch rail with the other.

"Hi" Lorelai said, a puzzled expression on her face as she stood watching him.

"Hi"

"What are you doing?"

"Well I saw your porch rail was broken so I…" he said trailing off.

"Thank you Luke" she said, her eyes burning into his as she shot him a shy smile.

"No problem, I didn't want you trying to fix it yourself…you'd probably hammer a nail through your hand" he grumped but was happy that they were finally talking. It seemed like so long ago he'd seen her eyes light up the way they had just then. 'Did I do that?' he wondered.

"Well yes probably but I'm watching ER and some guy shot nails into his head and he didn't die so I'm thinking the nail in hand wouldn't kill me"

"That's a relief" he deadpanned.

"Did you bring me food?" he asked when she spotted the bag of food at his feet.

"Uhh actually no, I'm going to Jennifer's to watch a baseball game so I brought some stuff from the diner" he said uneasily.

"Uh yeah good…cool, makes sense" she said plastering on a smile. 'Jennifer! He's going to her house, how the hell have they become so buddy buddy? She only moved TWO FREAKIN' DAYS AGO. We've been friends 6 years, that doesn't just go away in four weeks and three days!' she screamed inside but covered it well.

"You can have it though; I mean she doesn't know I was bringing anything so…"

"Nah nah I have chinese and popcorn in here so I'm good. Plus she just moved in so she probably doesn't have a lot of food…or a fridge, when I moved here I didn't have a fridge for a month. I kinda need a new fridge actually but I can't seem to bring myself to throw Bertie out. Bertie that's the fridge…" Lorelai rambled.

"Uh sure okay well there, good as new" he said stepping back from the rail.

"Thanks it's so good of you to do that" 'Does this mean he's talking to me again?'

"You can come by the diner y'know"

"I can?" she said unsurely.

"Yeah, my coffee demand has dropped since you've been gone" he explained, but they both knew that wasn't why he said she could come back.

"Well in that case I better come back" she said shooting him a smile. 'I've missed him' she thought as she took in the man standing in front of her, dressed in his usual flannel and backwards baseball cap. She'd even missed seeing his flannel, the shirt he was wearing was his blue one, her personal favourite as it brought out the blue in his eyes.

"Good, well I should go. Bye" he said, picking up his toolbox and the bag of food.

"Bye" Lorelai said walking casually into the house before running upstairs to the window and looking out at Luke when he reached Jennifer's. Although he didn't go straight in, he knocked the door and she came out and they talked for a minute. 'He's fixing her porch' Lorelai said out loud when she saw Luke pull out some tools and start working on it. Although the thing that annoyed her more was that Jennifer came out and sat next to him. She handed him a cup of something, Lorelai guessed it was tea unless the world really had flipped on its axis and he'd switched to coffee.

'Why is he smiling? Where's my grumpy Luke?' Lorelai asked herself as she continued to watch the two of them on the porch. The twisting feeling of her stomach coming back with every passing second she watched him talk to Jennifer the way he would to her, the way he smiled at Jennifer and mostly the way he fixed her porch rail. 'I don't want to share my Mr Fix-it' a small voice inside her head shouted.

...And done. Remember to review !