Notes: Surprise! Bet you didn't expect to hear from me already! Here's the scoop on December. There are going to be multiple, shorter chapters detailing the events occurring this month in the Hollow. All of them will fall under the overall title "All He Wants for Christmas," but then each will deal with only one, two, or three days during the month. So don't fret if each chapter seems short - by the time the month ends, I bet the wordcount will be the same! Again, thanks to all of you who are reading and giving me feedback. I love hearing from you!

And now - on to December!

All He Wants for Christmas: December 1st

The diner's door opened and the walls suddenly seemed to reflect light, as if the wattage from all of the lightbulbs in the ceiling had automatically increased. Luke turned around and wasn't surprised to see Lorelai hurrying towards the counter, unwrapping a muffler from around her neck as she walked.

"Ooh, it's chilly out there!" she told him, hopping up onto a stool in front of him. "Better make sure my coffee is extra-hot today."

"Yes, extra-hot will make it that much easier for you to burn the roof of your mouth," he wryly noted. He poured a full mug and sat it in front of her.

"I don't burn my mouth." She leaned over and cautiously sucked in a tiny sip of the dark brew, then almost instantly reared back and clapped a hand over her mouth as she swallowed. "Much," she added, fanning at her tongue.

Luke chuckled, shaking his head. He turned to go to the kitchen, remembering that he needed to check on some roast beef slowly baking in the oven.

"Hey, don't go! I've got something for you."

When he turned back, Lorelai was placing a jewelry-sized box on the counter.

"What's this?"

"Do we have to go through this again?" She sadly shook her head. "I thought we explained this all to you on your birthday. This is called a present. It contains an item that someone – in this case, me – wishes to give to you. You open the box to expose the item. Then you –"

"I get that it's a present. I want to know why you're giving me a present."

"Do I need a reason? I can't just give you a present to celebrate your overall awesomeness?"

He tapped his finger against the wrapped and beribboned box distrustfully. "It's a Christmas present? It's December 1st! Who gives a Christmas present this early?"

"It's not a Christmas present."

"Then why is it wrapped like a Christmas present?"

"Because that's the paper I had at home and the little reindeer with the big red noses are cute." She sighed, her initial enthusiasm dropping a couple of notches. "Aren't you going to open it?"

"I don't know." He poked at it again. "What is it?"

"Oh, my God! Luke! Open it and find out!"

He ducked his head, grinning. He loved getting her all exasperated. Feigning reluctance, he picked up the colorfully wrapped gift and then slowly, very slowly, began to take off the curling ribbon and reindeer paper.

"Arrrgh!" Lorelai plunked her forehead against the countertop in frustration and Luke grinned again.

Finally he had the box open. "It's a key," he said, stating the obvious, because he wasn't quite sure what else to say.

Lorelai made a noise like a game show buzzer. "Wrong! It's two keys!" She plucked the top one out of the box, revealing a second key lying underneath. "This –" She laid the first key on the counter. "This is the key to my front door. And this one –" She clinked the second one beside the first. "It goes to the back door."

Luke stared at the shiny keys for a few moments. "Why are you giving me keys to your house? Didn't we decide that was a sure way to get us gossiped about?"

"Eh, who cares. I think the events from our pre-Thanksgiving excitement prove that it would be smart to make sure you have access to my house, just in case more emergencies come along. I don't want you to have to break down the door."

Luke fingered the front door key. "I thought you told me the expense of replacing a broken-down door was the reason you didn't lock it in the first place?"

Lorelai took a quiet breath. "I might have reconsidered that stance."

"Huh. Really?"

"Yeah. The doors are locked now. All the time." She twisted back and forth on the stool. "I don't want to make it easier for anyone to get inside of my house. Except for you. For you I want it to be easy."

About a dozen replies to that swished through his head, a couple of them not exactly family-friendly. But instead of giving any of them voice, Luke only nodded and pulled his own ring of keys out of his pocket. He added the new ones to it while Lorelai watched approvingly.

"Thanks," he said when the task was completed, slipping the now-heavier keyring back into his pocket. Luke then placed his hand over one of hers lying on the counter. His fingers tightened slightly around her slim wrist.

Her eyes widened, and then narrowed suspiciously up at him. "What are you doing?"

He pretended not to know what she was talking about. "What do you mean, what am I doing?"

She cut her eyes to his hand, then back to him. "That. That's what I'm talking about."

"I'm putting my hand on yours, as a gesture of friendship. I'm showing that I'm moved by your gift. I'm showing that I appreciate your trust in me." His thumb began to rub a gentle circle on the soft underside of her wrist.

"I thought we agreed we weren't doing that."

Luke opened his own eyes wide. "We can't show friendship to each other?"

She was getting flustered. "That's not friendship. That's…touching."

"I'm confused. We can't touch each other? When did we decide that?"

"Well, there's touching…and then there's touching." She looked at him sternly. "And that seems very much like the kind we agreed not to do."

He shook his head like he still didn't get it. "I can't touch you at all?"

"I didn't say that."

"Because you touch me all the time."

"I do not!"

"Yes, you do." If he wasn't so focused on keeping her hand confined under his, he would have been counting off his examples on his fingers. "You bump your shoulder into me all the time, or use your hip to nudge me. You're always straightening my collar, or my hat. You pat my knee when we're sitting together. You lean against me when you're laughing at a joke…"

"OK, OK, you've made your point." She looked at him doubtfully, then nodded at their hands again. "And that's all that is?"

He slid his fingers up to hers, raised them from the counter and then intertwined them with his. "Yep," he said, giving their clasped hands a gentle shake, illustrating the bond between them. "That's it."

Her eyes searched his face for a long time before she exhaled. "OK," she said. She gave his hand a squeeze back before extricating hers from out of his grip. "As long as it's only touching."

"Just touching," he agreed. "Not touching," he continued, giving it the same emphasis she had. He winked at her. "Can't imagine anyone ever wanting to touch you."

"Luke!" She giggled and shook her head, her cheeks turning a brighter shade of pink. "I don't expect to hear things like that from you."

"It's possible I think them, but unlike you, not everything I think comes out of my mouth." He smiled rather slyly at her.

"I don't know what's gotten into you today," she murmured, sliding off of the stool. Seeming a little distracted, she patted at the pockets on her winter coat. "Oh, wait, there's one more thing I wanted to show you." She pulled a folded piece of notebook paper out of one pocket and handed it to him.

"What's this?" He smoothed open the crinkles in the sheet.

"It's the infamous note from Rory. I found it under my bed when I was poking around searching for my boots today." She settled back onto the seat, watching him read.

Dear Mom,

I'm going to the diner to try and find out what's wrong with Luke. I know you said to leave him alone, but I'm doing it anyway. Probably I'll be back before you wake up, but if he's really stubborn, the way he usually is, it might take longer. If it gets late I'll have him take me to school. Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.

Love,

Rory

Luke laughed when he reached the end. "Wow, I don't believe I've ever read such a polite, yet defiant note."

"Yeah, really takes you back to last week, doesn't it?"

"In all its glory." He fingered the paper again. "So she really did leave a note."

"Oh, I had no doubt that she did. Even at her brattiest, Rory is unfailingly honest. Finding said note just wasn't on the top of my list of priorities at the time." Lorelai took another couple of sips at her coffee. "I'm guessing she put in on the table beside the bed, and I probably knocked it off during my frantic search for her. Who knows how it got under the bed?"

"Will you let her know you found it?"

"Yeah, sure. Not that it makes any difference. It was the sneaking out and the disregard to the danger she put herself in that needed punishing. Like I say, I believed her that she left a note." Lorelai stood up again, taking one more big swallow of the coffee.

"And she's been good ever since, right?"

"Back to being my perfect angel," Lorelai confirmed. She took a step back from the counter.

"Later, then," Luke said, expecting her to leave. He turned once more towards the kitchen.

"Wait! There's one more thing!"

"Lorelai, with you there's always one more thing."

"But this is important." She slid back onto the stool. "It's about the whole guardianship thing."

He stepped back to his place in front of her at once, bending his head to try and keep this more delicate conversation between just the two of them. "You talked to your dad?"

"No, I didn't really get the chance. And I wasn't sure how I was going to broach the subject without making him incredibly suspicious of why I was asking. Sorry, I've wanted to tell you for days, but Miss Big-Ears has been with us every time I've seen you."

"She has been very clingy lately, it seems."

"I'm not complaining."

Luke smiled. "I'm not either."

"So I didn't talk to my dad, but I did talk to Andrew."

"The bookstore guy?"

"Yeah, he's divorced and he has a little boy. The boy's pretty young – maybe three? Anyway, a total cutie. Rory loves chasing him around the bookstore when he's visiting, which isn't very often. But I thought that he might know something about the legal aspect of what we're talking about."

"Or maybe have a book on it," Luke suggested sardonically.

"Oh, hey, yeah. Huh, hadn't thought of that."

Luke sighed. "Go on."

"Anyway, he found some pamphlets he had on guardianship and he gave them to me. Plus, he passed on the name of his lawyer, who he highly recommends."

"Sounds good."

"Well…yes and no."

"Uh-oh. What's not good?"

Lorelai looked down at her clasped hands. "Christopher's name is on the birth certificate. Legally he's her father, and that means legally he'd have first dibs on her."

Luke blew out a slow breath of air. "I…see." Every time he thought he couldn't dislike that asshole more, he was proven wrong.

"Although there are some things that might make him appear unsuitable, if we wanted to pursue them. For example, abandonment, maybe…but that would probably be hard to prove. Basically, unless he does something pretty heinous, the court's not going to take away his rights."

"I see," Luke said again, disappointed.

"But the good news is, once Rory turns 12, the courts take into account what she prefers."

Luke tilted his head, interested. "Really?"

"Yes, really. I mean, I don't think they automatically do whatever the child wants, but at least she gets a say."

"That's good, then."

"Yes. But…"

He groaned. "What else?"

"Well, there are my parents."

He shut his eyes and nodded.

"But I think I might have found a solution to pacify them, too. It turns out you can appoint two different types of guardians. One kind is the guardian who will care for the child and provide a home. Then there's also a sort of guardian who will look after a child's estate. And I'm thinking that if Dad and Mom are named to watch over whatever financial interest Rory may have, that might make them less opposed to her actually living with you. You know, that way they'd see you're not in for the money."

"You mean the $20.00 in her piggy bank?" he teased.

Lorelai looked uncomfortable. "Luke, I don't have money, but my parents do. And someday, Rory will have an estate." She shrugged, studying the coffee mug.

He stared at her for a moment, realizing once again that he really didn't have much of an insight into the life she used to lead. "Oh, uh, sure. That makes sense. Well, good then."

"Well, sort of good…"

"What else?"

She bit her bottom lip and nodded rapidly. "I figure that if we actually do this, my parents are going to insist on meeting you. They're going to want to know the guy who might be taking care of their granddaughter someday."

"Of course they will. That's not a problem."

"And Dad already met you. Has a favorable impression of you. So that's good."

"Yeah…" Luke was trying to read the expression on her face. "What else?"

"Well, Rory – you know how she is – she talked about you at Thanksgiving. Talked about you a lot, actually. And I might have mentioned you a time or two, too."

"So?" Luke said with a shrug.

"So…after maybe the 73rd mention from Rory, my mother threw a fit and sort of insinuated that you and I were a lot more than friends, and basically demanded that I tell her the truth about our relationship."

Luke took a deep breath. "Oh."

"Yeah. But the good news is that Rory completely leaped to our defense and explained how much all three of us enjoy being together, and talked about all of the things we've done together, as sort of a family…" She faded off, looking apologetic.

He shrugged again. "That sounds OK to me."

"Yes, but…She did such a good job of insisting that you have no intention of dating me, that now…" Lorelai stopped her halting explanation, took a breath, and then continued in the same meandering fashion. "I think…that my parents…and their friends…sort of have the impression…that you're…maybe…gay."

He opened his mouth, but said nothing for several beats. "I have no idea how to even respond to that."

Lorelai was quickly nodding her head again. "But the good news is –"

"Lorelai! For cryin' out loud!"

She giggled. "The good news is that now they don't dare say anything bad about you, for fear that all of their friends will think they're prejudiced."

He rubbed at his forehead, feeling that familiar ache beginning. "Well. We'll deal with that misconception when we need to."

Lorelai nodded in agreement. "The other good news is that I called Andrew's lawyer."

"You did? That's great."

"But the bad news is –"

"Lorelai!"

"– He's got court dates, and then he's taking a cruise, so I can't get an appointment with him until sometime in January."

Luke merely nodded.

"But the good news is…" She paused, grinning widely, while Luke let his forehead drop to the countertop. "The good news is that he won't charge me for a consultation. I'll only have to pay if and when he draws up any paperwork for me."

"Us," Luke corrected. "And I'll gladly pay."

"I'm not arguing about that now. That's something else we'll deal with when we get to that point." She quickly took another mouthful of coffee, then jumped off the stool. "I really need to get going."

Luke came around the counter to walk with her to the door.

She wound her scarf back around her neck. "So, to sum up, as long as I don't step in front of any buses between now and whenever I see the lawyer guy, we should be good."

He grabbed her upper arm and gave her a gentle shake. "Don't even joke about that," he said warningly.

Lorelai shrugged. "I kind of have to, Luke. I mean, it's creepy to be talking about this at all. I know I'm an adult and I've got a kid and I need to talk about it, but it still feels weird as hell. I have to joke about it. It's like whistling past the graveyard."

"Then…" Somehow he'd gotten much closer to her. It was easy for him to stare into those big blue eyes that for once were completely serious. He was still holding onto her arm, so he gave it a squeeze. "Then watch your step around buses. And everywhere else, too, for that matter."

"OK." She smiled, then looked pointedly at his hand on her arm.

He released her and took a step back for good measure. "You'll be by for dinner?"

"Roast beef night, right?"

"It is."

"Then we'll be here." She flashed him a smile and ducked out the door.

And right on cue, all of the lights inside the diner seemed to dim.