AN: Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out. I got a little stuck at the end. I hope people are still interested in this one. The next few chapters should be quicker.

Thanks to Sosmitten for the beta work! Without her the story would look SoMEthiNG LiKE tHis. All remaining mistakes are my own.

---

Saturday:

"Sun, fun, a day at the beach," Bill Danes mused over a hot cup of coffee, "you know what that is, son?"

"Hell?" Luke offered, smirking.

"Vacation," Bill answered in a less than amused tone.

"Same thing." Luke grumbled.

"You used to love the beach. When you were a kid we came here every year. We built sandcastles together, remember?"

"I remember." Some of them had been fairly elaborate. All those years Luke's father had spent in construction had really given him a gift for sandcastles. They were great until Liz decided she wanted attention and jumped right into the middle of them. Sandcastles had many good qualities but they did not have the structural integrity to stand up to little sisters.

"You had fun making those," Bill reminded him. "You had fun at the beach. You should try again."

"You think I should build a sandcastle?" Luke's eyebrow rose as he regarded his father skeptically.

"I think you should try to have some fun, however it is that you have fun. You didn't go out at all last night."

"Now you're sending me off drinking and cruising for women?" Luke smirked. He appreciated his father trying, really. It just wasn't that simple. He wasn't a kid. He no longer believed in Santa or the Tooth Fairy. He didn't see any possible way that a beach vacation was going to fix any of the problems in his life.

"Isn't that what kids your age do when they go to the beach?" Bill shrugged, "I want you to have a good time."

"So does Carrie," Luke sighed. "Why can't both of you understand that I can have a good time all on my own."

"That's just sad for you, big brother," Liz interjected as she walked into the kitchen from the bedroom she and Carrie shared.

"I didn't ask you."

"I answered anyway," she offered, "That is the beauty of having a little sister."

"Beauty isn't really the word I'd use." Luke snarked.

"Well, nobody's keeping you around for your brains," She grabbed a Pop Tart from a box of snack food in the kitchen and padded back to her bedroom.

"Don't listen to your sister."

"When have I ever?"

"You're a smart kid, Lucas. You can be an idiot sometimes, but you're a smart kid."

"That was an interesting contradiction there, Dad. I can't be both."

"Sure you can, you are," Bill responded with a confident nod.

"You're making me feel a lot better about myself here."

"That's not really my job." Bill retorted.

"I'm pretty sure that it is," Luke countered.

Bill shrugged, "It wasn't in the manual."

"Kids don't come with manuals."

"Just proves the parental job description is a little fuzzy. I've been winging it for the past 18 years. So give the old man a break this weekend and try to have some fun."

Luke shook his head. "More coffee?"

"Yeah, then you are getting in the shower and going out to the beach, understand?" Bill ordered, just a hint of a playful tone evident in his voice.

"Yes sir," Luke snorted and shook his head before turning his attention to the stove.

--

"Early," Lorelai groaned as she sat at the Hastings' family breakfast table. This was the second day in a row she was awake before noon. It was becoming a habit, a truly disturbing habit."

"No complaining," Marcia Hastings reminded her daughter's best friend.

Lorelai looked up and pasted a fake smile on her face.

"Better," Trish's mom answered brightly as she poured glasses of orange juice for the girls.

Trish stumbled into the kitchen from the bathroom and looked at the orange juice. "Got anything with a little more pep?"

"You want a cup of coffee?" Trish's mother looked at her, concerned.

"We were up late," Trish explained.

"Debating the relative merits of Teen Magazine over Tiger Beat?" Marcia asked knowingly.

Lorelai shook her head. "Nope, it was a much more philosophical question," she explained with absolute sincerity.

"Oh really?" Marcia asked with a smirk.

Trish nodded despite the skepticism evident in her mother's tone. "We think it might be one of the great mysteries of the world."

"Right up there with the chicken and the egg and why no word rhymes with Orange."

Marcia Hastings bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. "Alright, let's have it."

"What happened to all the hot Lukes?" Lorelai asked seriously.

"What?" Marcia asked, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Dukes of Hazzard," Trish offered up as her first example.

"Bo Duke, hot," Lorelai explained, "Luke Duke, not so much

"Who says Luke Duke isn't hot?" Marcia wonders.

Trish rolled her eyes. "Have you ever seen a Tom Wopat pinup?"

"No," Marcia conceded. "But I've never seen a … um… whoever plays Bo Duke pinup either."

"John Schneider," Trish offered. "Lorelai has one in her bag."

Lorelai blushed. "I do," she admitted quietly. "Would you like to see?"

"I'll take your word for it. But that is just one example. To prove something is one of the great mysteries of the world you need more than one example."

"Star Wars," Trish offered.

"Luke Skywalker, not hot. Han Solo…" Lorelai deepened her voice. "Yum."

"Luke Spencer," Marcia countered. She knew both girls were obsessed with General Hospital's Luke and Laura.

"Yeah, he is awesome." Trish nodded in agreement.

Lorelai frowned. "Laura left the show."

"And her leaving the show made Luke less hot?" Marcia challenged.

Lorelai thought about it a moment, "Yep."

"Really?" Marcia questioned.

Lorelai nodded again. "It's the corollary to the rule. All Lukes need Lauras."

"That's ridiculous," Trish complained. "So who is Luke gonna end up with now? Laura Holt?"

Lorelai's eyes widened, "NO! He's not giving up on Laura just because she's missing and might be dead! She's his true love. Besides Laura Holt so needs to get it on with Remington Steele. Pierce Brosnan is hot for an old guy."

"Pierce Brosnan's not old," Marcia interjected.

"No, he's not old. He's ancient!"

"He's thirty," Trish argued.

"See!" Lorelai exclaimed. "Ancient."

--

"Hey, Lucas," Carrie called over to her best friend's brother, "you need some help with your suntan lotion?"

Luke shook his head. "No."

"You'll get burnt," Carrie pouted.

"Not if I don't take my shirt off," Luke argued.

Carrie's eyes widened. Luke at the beach fully dressed? That was unacceptable. She'd have to find some way to rectify that situation. She could get his shirt wet. There was plenty of water for that. But the sun would dry his shirt in a matter of minutes and he'd probably just put it back on.

She wanted the shirt to stay off, for good.

She had spent at least one night a week at Liz Danes' house since she and Liz became friends the summer between their fifth and sixth grade year. They were just about to start their senior year of high school. That was six years of sleepovers. That, at the very least, was 312 nights spent at chez Danes. It was nearly a year of her life she'd spent sleeping down the hall from Luke Danes and she'd seen his bare chest once, maybe twice.

It wasn't for lack of trying.

She'd set Lizzie's alarm for ridiculous hours so that she'd just happen to be awake when Luke trudged into the shower at quarter of six. She'd made a special effort to stay nights when he had track meets hoping that he'd come home in his tiny little shorts and his arm-baring jersey.

He didn't. But she'd always hoped.

Now after six years of friendship she had finally managed to score a trip to the beach with Butch Danes. There was no way he was keeping his shirt on the whole time. It wasn't going to happen.

And if she had to go to extreme efforts for the good of herself and other beach-goers, well she was willing to do whatever it took.

--

"You want to go in the water or lay out?" Trish asked she and her friend positioned their towels away from her parents.

"I don't know," Lorelai grinned, "I didn't eat very much at breakfast. I think I could go for a little snack."

"Shocking," Trish laughed.

"I knew you'd be surprised." Lorelai got up and grabbed some money from the tiny pouch she'd hidden inside her shoe.

"I'm shocked," Trish supplied. In the two hours that they'd spent at the beach after arriving on Friday, they had visited the snack shack 3 times. Honestly, she was a little worried that Two-Bits was going to think Lorelai was a stalker.

When the reached the snack stand, Lorelai gasped, "Oh no. That is just not possible." Standing in front of them, right at the front of the snack stand line, was the bitchy blond from the 7-11. It couldn't be.

"Does she look familiar to you?"

"Blow-Pop girl," Lorelai seethed.

"Is she stalking us?" First they'd seen her at the convenience store, then she'd apparently rented the house directly across from theirs, and now she was schmoozing with the snack stand guy. It was getting kind of creepy.

"Whatever she's doing, she needs a lot of ketchup." Lorelai nodded toward the girl raiding the snack stand condiment jar.

"Seriously, that's… what would you do with that much ketchup?"

"Stage a murder?" Lorelai suggested.

"And why would she do that?" Trish asked, doubtfully.

Lorelai shrugged. "Oooh, maybe she's planning to fake a shark attack. She'll go into the water, thrash around a little, and she'll come out screaming and all covered in fake blood. Everybody will panic and leave the beach so that they don't have to deal with her bloody carcass, or you know, get eaten by a shark. And then she'll have snack stand guy all to herself."

"You need serious help, Lorelai."

"Actually, it's a pretty good plan."

--

Carrie stood at the side of the snack stand and fought to open the teeny tiny ketchup packets. The guy behind the counter had a huge ketchup container with a pump that he used to put a light spread on the buns before handing them over to customers. Was he willing to part with even an extra drop of easily pumped ketchup? No. He'd pointed to the little container of tiny little ketchup packets. Now Carrie was struggling to open all of them.

"Would you like some hot dog with your ketchup?" Liz laughed as she came up behind her friend.

"Funny," Carrie answered sarcastically. "Did you score smokes?"

"I got carded," Liz grumbled. "I got carded at a beach town. How can they card you at a beach town? Don't they know that underage drinkers and smokers are their most loyal clientele?"

"Luke's old enough maybe he could…"

Liz shook her head. "How well do you know my brother?"

"Not well enough." Carrie redoubled her efforts to get all the ketchup out of the little packets, "But I have a plan."

"You're going to pretend like you're bleeding so Luke has to give you first aid?" Liz asked skeptically.

"Watch and learn," Carrie instructed.

--

Liz rolled her eyes walked off. She'd been watching Carrie Duncan try to seduce her brother for years. Not only was it kind of disturbing, but the only thing she'd ever learned was how to repulse Luke Danes. Liz had mastered that at birth. There was no show here… but there was a guy behind the snack stand who just threw away a perfectly good hardly-smoked-at-all cigarette butt.

"What the hell, Liz?" Luke shouted when he saw his sister pick up a cigarette some guy had just discarded and stick it in her mouth. "That's…" He sputtered. "You could get…"

Liz grinned, a free smoke and brother repulsion, perfect. "Oh Luke blow it out your…"

Luke threw his hands up in defeat and stormed off.

Hearing Luke's righteous indignation, Carrie sprang into action. Grabbing her ketchup covered hot dog she hurried after Luke. This had to be timed perfectly, and he was quick.

--

"Finally," Trish muttered as they were able to move up to the front of the line. "The service here has really gone to pot."

Lorelai didn't respond.

"Hello, Lorelai," Trish waved her hand in front of Lorelai's face. Lorelai didn't blink.

Trish turned in the direction Lorelai was looking and saw the girl from the 7-ll running after some guy. "Earth to Lorelai."

"Are you going to order today?" the guy from the snack stand asked the two flighty girls standing in front of him

Lorelai didn't hear what was going on beside her. She was far too busy watching the scene playing out in front of her.

--

Damn all that track practice! She was never going to catch up with him this way! "Luke, wait up a minute," Carrie called.

He turned to see what the commotion was about only to see Carrie Duncan flagging him down. Rolling his eyes, he turned away again and continued on his way.

"No, wait." Carrie called, running again to catch up with him. She was making good progress until her foot caught on something. He watched as she lost her footing and fell face forward into the sand.

When she stood up, Luke couldn't help but chuckle. Having thrown her arms in front of her to break her fall, she landed face first in her pile of ketchup. "You okay?" he managed to ask when his laughter subsided.

Carrie brushed the ketchup away from her face in disgust. This was not how it was supposed to go at all! Luke was perfectly clean and fully shirted, she on the other hand was humiliated.

"You need some help getting up?" Luke asked as he approached her.

Carrie's frown slowly receded as a new and better plan formed in her head. "Please?" she asked quietly.

Luke stepped closer to her and in one fluid motion stood her on her feet from behind. "You okay? Nothing twisted? Nothing broken?"

"I don't know." She tried to add a quiet pained sound to her voice in hopes that he would comfort her.

When he moved around to face her, she wrapped her arms around his body and buried her face into his chest.

"The hell?" Luke exclaimed as he felt her rubbing herself all over him. When he stepped back, he found his shirt completely covered in ketchup.

He grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it off his body as quickly as possible.

Carrie grinned in victory. Not only was Luke Danes standing in front of her in all his bare chested glory but she'd managed a hug in the process. It was a red letter day! She took a deep breath and settled in for a long lingering look over his perfect pectorals.

"Oh my god!" she exclaimed in shock. "What's that?"

"What's what?" he grunted, still angry.

--

"He has a tattoo?" Lorelai muttered in wonder.