Chapter 38: Worth Thinking About

Luke and Lorelai sat on the floor of Luke's old apartment, a few floor plans and elevations spread out in front of them as they looked around the nearly empty room.

"I hate that one," Lorelai pointed to a drawing that had a more modern look to it, with a rounded counter shaped like an elongated kidney bean.

"Me too," Luke nodded. After several more minutes of deliberating, they'd still only managed to remove the one option. He suggested flipping a coin over the rest, but Lorelai recoiled in horror at the idea of leaving such an important decision up to a coin toss. Instead, she walked downstairs to refill her coffee and leave Luke to ponder the future of his old apartment alone for a few minutes.

"When is construction gonna start?" Cesar asked worriedly as he returned from serving a customer.

"Not for awhile. There's a to-do list a mile long before we can even get to that point. There's no rush, though, so it won't be as invasive as when he was adding the extension for Jess," Lorelai reassured him.

"Good. Pretty sure that violated a bunch of health codes, and having to wash construction dust off clean dishes several times a day was annoying," Cesar shook his head with disdain.

Lorelai chuckled, agreeing with Cesar. She turned as Luke appeared from behind the curtain and he sighed, dropping two of the plans in front of her.

"I can't look at this anymore, but I think I've narrowed it down to those two," he said, sitting on the stool next to her.

"Ooh," Lorelai looked at each, "I think it's going to rely heavily on what you're thinking looks-wise," she looked up at him as he stared blankly back at her, "Like colors? Style?"

"Uh, I guess, kind of an extension of what it looks like down here, maybe a little more updated," he rubbed the back of his neck, "I really don't know how to describe it. Nothing too fancy or modern, but I don't want it to look like an old hardware store up there."

Lorelai bit her lip in thought. Luke was keeping an impressively tight budget for the project, and hiring a designer didn't really fit into that; though he could easily afford it, Lorelai knew he hated the idea of dealing with someone concerned about details he didn't care much about.

She thought back to the inn, and the time before the inn, when she could only daydream about it. She'd wanted so much of the Dragonfly to be an extension of herself. Similarly, she knew the cafe should be an extension of Luke, even more so than his father's old hardware store downstairs could ever be.

"Now I know that's not gazing, that's outright staring at me," Luke poked her in the arm.

"Staring, but past you, not at you," Lorelai clarified with a grin. "Can I take these with me back to work? I want to think about this some more."

"Please. Get them away from me."

"Done," she said as she stuffed them in her purse, "Coffee to go, please? I'll be back for dinner."

"What's all this?" Luke asked as he walked into the living room, finding Lorelai seated at the coffee table with several print-outs, magazines, paint swatches, and post-its laid out in front of her.

"Ideas," Lorelai replied with a wide grin. "I think I've come up with some things you'll like."

She pushed herself up and sat on the couch, rubbing her neck. She hadn't moved in hours, had missed dinner completely, but Luke had two very viable options for the cafe.

Luke's jaw dropped when he realized the magnitude of what she'd been working on. He really had no idea why he was so surprised, it was classic Lorelai.

"Don't look too closely though, I haven't put them on the boards yet."

"Boards?"

Lorelai gestured to the two foam core boards leaning against a chair, "Boards. For my final presentation."

Luke leaned over to get a better view of Lorelai's work only to feel her hit him hard with one of the pillows from the sofa.

"Hey!"

"No peeking, I'm not done!"

"I just want an idea of- what are you doing?"

Lorelai stood and was quickly shoving things into bags, "Well if you're going to snoop, I'm not leaving it out where you can see it."

"I'm not snooping, I want to see what you've been doing. It is my cafe," Luke laughed grabbing anything he could get his hands on before she hid it.

"The cafe was my idea!"

"It's above my diner!"

"What happened to 'what's mine is yours'?!"

Luke reached over Lorelai to grab one of the bags, earning him a not-so-gentle shove to the ribs. The movement caught him off guard, causing the dozing Paul Anka to run across the room in terror as the lumbering Luke sprawled backwards onto the couch. Lorelai let out a triumphant "Hah!"

Refusing to give up, Luke reached forward and tugged hard on the waistband of Lorelai's jeans, just enough to throw her off balance. As she attempted to re-orient herself, Luke wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her onto the couch next to him.

Before she could counter his attack, the phone in her pocket began buzzing. As she reached for it, Luke bounced up and began gathering everything she'd just put together. Seeing it was Rory calling, Lorelai answered the phone, yelling at Luke as she did so.

"Luke! Leave it!"

"What?" Rory asked, confused.

"He's... hold on," Lorelai tossed her phone on the couch, "Luke! You're ruining my entire plan!"

"The plans look great to me!"

"But you don't know which stuff goes with which option!"

"I'll figure it out!" he called, bolting into the hallway and up the stairs with all of the work she'd done.

Lorelai groaned and sat back down, reaching for the phone, "Why did I marry him? He's a complete spoilsport and he's ruining my entire surprise."

"What's he doing?"

"I just spent the last... god, four hours, working on a whole presentation for two possible options for the look of the cafe, and Luke got home before I could either finish or hide it. He very literally man-handled me to steal it, ran off with it, and he's hiding upstairs now," she grumbled, and yelled toward the stairs, "With my ideas!"

"Well that's not very nice," Rory chuckled, "You put together a presentation?"

"No, I was putting together a presentation."

"For Luke?"

"Yes. Is this confusing?"

"You're putting together an entire interior design proposal for your husband? Like with the stands and everything professional designers do?"

"Well, yeah."

Rory shook her head with a laugh, "I'm sorry, I forgot who I was talking to for a second there. I'm better now. So now you aren't going to follow through?"

"Depends on how much your step-father gets through by the time I get up there. With my luck, he'll want bits of each thing that don't match at all," Lorelai grumbled. "Whatever. I wasn't expecting to hear from you till later. What's up?"

"Tomorrow is a free day, so we're all staying out late and going to some local battle of the bands. It reminded me of Hep Alien's early days, and I didn't want to cancel on you, so I called early instead," Rory replied as she dug through her luggage for the old Hep Alien shirt Lane had given her years ago that had, by some odd twist of fate, ended up in her luggage.

"Battle of the bands? Cute."

"Well," Rory said, sitting back on her bed, "That's what you get in small town Michigan, I guess. It's weird to think in a few days I'll be at our third primary. It felt like it took so long to get here, and now here we are."

The time really had flown by, and it had been on Rory's mind a lot lately. Over the course of the last seven months, she'd gone from missing the easy, familiar life at Yale and her comfortable relationship with Logan, to embracing a strange life centered around a constantly moving caravan of reporters and photographers. What was once new and unfamiliar was normal, and what was previously considered normal was a mere memory.

So much had changed in Stars Hollow, and yet... so little. The house had changed, she now had a step-father and step-sister, but those changes didn't feel as odd as she'd expected; while the house, itself, might take some getting used to, the energy that filled it made it easy to begin adapting.

Rory realized she was truly beginning to understand what Mia meant about home being a plural concept.

After catching up on the latest Stars Hollow gossip and sharing her own stories from the road, Rory forced herself off the bed to start getting ready for her crazy evening. She cringed in the mirror as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, wishing she didn't look so young when she dressed casually. Every time they'd gone out, she was always the one that caused the group to get carded.

Frowning, she spent a little extra time on her eye makeup, hoping it would add an extra year or two to the perpetual teenager she saw in the mirror. She knew she'd be grateful for it in twenty years, but for now, it was annoying, and there was nothing worse than drawing the attention of a local teenage boy - the teasing lasted for days.

Once they'd arrived at the warehouse-turned-temporary-concert venue, she saw Miles and Eric wrinkle their noses at the haphazard "bar" area serving only crappy beer and worse wine. Rory rolled her eyes and bought cans of the best of the bad beer for each of them. They stood around talking and watching the young crowd filling in around them; the majority of the audience sported a gigantic black X on their hand, signifying they were too young to drink. Rory smirked and sent Lane a picture of a grumpy asian girl with the "mark of the teen" on her hand, purple hair, and a nose ring. Lane's reply was immediate.

Oh my god, she got my life. I want to hug her.

Distracted, she hadn't realized everyone but Miles had begun moving toward the stage. The crowd was following suit, and she wanted to get closer as well. Rory grabbed his hand and dragged him across the floor, weaving between people as they made their way to the stage area.

Miles laughed at her determination, trying to convince her they were close enough.

"We're teenagers tonight," Rory grinned widely, "You can't act like an adult and stay back for the sake of your ears. If they don't feel numb in the morning, we're not close enough."

"My ears are gonna be numb from the playing as it is," Miles called from behind her, "How old do you think the band is?!"

"Just because their parents are letting them stay out past curfew does not mean they suck," Rory defended the young group of musicians tuning their instruments on stage, "I've told you about Lane and her band. They were pretty good, and they were young. Maybe we're seeing the next big thing."

Rory felt Miles squeeze her hand as they came to a stop, and wondered if he'd meant to hold it those extra few seconds. Surely not, and she knew it only felt comfortable because her hand was still cold from the icy can of beer she'd held moments before.

A few hours later, Rory shook her head as they left, her ears buzzing from the loud music, "Or, maybe not the next big thing," Rory commented on the poor playing, "But they seemed to be having fun at least...?"

"And I can say I've actually heard the worst bands in Michigan," Miles laughed, rubbing his ears.

He briefly touched her shoulder as he moved past her, exiting the elevator, "Night, Rory, thanks for the rad night and hookin' me up with a beer. That was beyond awesome, man. You're a pretty fly chick."

Rory snickered and rolled her eyes, waving as the elevator doors closed. They'd finally had a successful night out with no awkward conversations, no discussion of exes, and no arguments. And they'd actually had fun despite the lack of talent among the young band members battling for superiority. Miles had a tendency to be exceptionally picky about music, yet she was pretty sure he'd been smiling the entire night as they danced and swayed with the crowd to the sounds coming from the stages.

She forced herself not to think about how many times the crowd had pushed her against Miles, or how disappointing it was when the mass of people would shift again and there would no longer be a reason to be touching him. It was circumstantial, she knew, the product of spending so many days and nights together. He certainly wasn't bad looking, which would account for a physical attraction, but Rory knew better than to dwell on these things.

Reaching for her notebook, she let herself fall onto her bed - an impressive five out of ten on her comfort scale - while she edited her earlier work.

"Lorelai!" Michel stage-whispered as Lorelai walked in the door of the Dragonfly.

"What, Michel?" Lorelai asked, changing direction from her office to the front desk.

"You have a visitor in the library," he said quietly, his eyes wide and somewhat panicked, "Paul Torres."

"Paul Torres?" she blinked. She hadn't spoken to him since she'd turned down his offer to buy or otherwise invest in the Dragonfly. "Did I miss something? As far as I know, the only major thing on my agenda today was that financial meeting with Ann."

"No. He walked in, asked what time you were due in, I told him I was not sure, because, you know, you do not always arrive at the same time every day, sometimes do not come in at all, and-"

"When I don't come in, I call unless it was pre-arranged. You know that. Michel, get to the point."

"He said he would wait for you. In there," Michel gestured to the library, then added with disgust, "Justine brought him coffee. I want him out."

These business types were certainly pushy. Lorelai sighed, "Okay. I should probably find out what he wants. Let me go grab my own coffee and drop my stuff in my office. Can you tell him I'm here and I'll be with him in a moment?"

Michel nodded, frowning, but made no further comments. He knew he was still on thin ice with Lorelai after what had happened with Paul Torres not too long ago, and he wasn't thrilled to have the man around again to remind his boss of it. Resigned to whatever fate beheld him, Michel slowly walked to the library to inform Mr. Torres that Lorelai would meet with him shortly.

She walked into the kitchen and reached for a mug and a danish, suddenly feeling tired.

Sookie noticed her slumped shoulders and walked over, keeping one eye on her friend as she busied herself in the kitchen, "No breakfast with the hubby today, huh?"

"No, Luke had an early meeting at the bank. I couldn't fall back to sleep for awhile after he left, and when I did finally fall asleep, I slept through my alarm. It's been a hectic morning. And now, Paul Torres is sitting in our library," she gestured behind her.

"Paul Torres? What's he doing back already? Another offer on the inn? I'm thinking we should just accept to get these people off our backs," Sookie rolled her eyes.

"No kidding. I have no idea why he's here. Michel said he just showed up this morning wanting to talk to me. I'm nervous enough about this financial meeting with Ann later, Luke wants to drag me into another cafe meeting before dinner tonight. I don't want to deal with this on top of all that," Lorelai closed her eyes and leaned against the counter. "Actually, I think I want to go back to Hawaii."

"Yeah, yeah, Hawaii this, Hawaii that," the vacation deprived chef whined, "You might as well get it over with. If you want me to hop in and either confuse him, annoy him, or just yell at him, let me know."

"I will," Lorelai pushed off the counter, shoving herself forward. After topping off her coffee, she straightened her shoulders and prepared her best professional smile as she walked into the library.

"Mr. Torres, welcome back."

"Ms. Gilmore, it's nice to see you again," Paul Torres shook her hand. "I apologize for busting in on you like this, but you happen to be on my way to another meeting, and I thought it couldn't hurt to stop by. I hope you don't already have plans this morning? I have something I'd like to talk to you about."

"Um, no, not this morning. But, with all due respect, I'm still not looking to sell."

He nodded, "I understand. You were very clear before. This, actually, is not about the Dragonfly at all. I have a proposal for you."

"A proposal?" Lorelai asked, smiling at a guest as she entered to peruse the books, "This is probably a better discussion for my office. Can I get you more coffee or anything?"

The businessman declined and followed Lorelai, taking a moment to smile at the newly added wedding photograph on her desk before sitting across from her. He reached down and pulled a folder out of his briefcase and, from that, slid a photograph in front of her.

She leaned forward to take a look, frowning with confusion as she took in a photograph of a massive, run-down, colonial style building. Not nearly in as bad shape as the Dragonfly had been in, but certainly not livable.

"What's this?" she asked, looking up.

"I'd like to make you an offer you can't refuse."

It was rare for Luke to come home to a dark house, especially when the jeep was in the driveway. Normally, Lorelai would be camped out in front of the TV with a snack, ready with a grumpy remark, especially when he was late coming home and she was hungry. He was grateful for the quiet solitude, giving him a moment to get his attitude in check.

He was far from happy with his present circumstances. The endless planning of the cafe, from budget meetings to meetings with the interior designer Lorelai had found to polish up the idea they'd put together weren't of any interest to him, and he was desperate to pass them over to Lorelai. They were the kinds of details she excelled at. But it was his cafe, attached to his diner, in his former apartment, in his father's former office and storage area, and he knew it was his responsibility.

After a few minutes of seclusion, Luke realized Paul Anka had failed to greet him, and decided to seek out his wife and their dog. After walking upstairs, he saw the warm glow coming from the office and walked in to find Lorelai at her desk, a spread of paperwork and photographs in front of her.

He rested his hand on the off-white wall and looked around. Despite the efforts they'd put toward making the room into a comfortable, relaxing home office, it still felt temporary. They'd had conversation after conversation about not thinking of this particular room as a second kid's bedroom until they had a first one, yet he thought about the still absent first one every time he walked in.

Realizing Lorelai still hadn't noticed his arrival, and seeing Paul Anka - spectacular watch dog that he was - curled up in a tight ball in his bed, Luke walked over and gently dropped his hands on his wife's shoulders, giving them a slight squeeze.

"Still working?"

"Oh, uh, no. This isn't... well. It's not Dragonfly stuff," she leaned her head back for a quick upside-down kiss, which Luke gladly bestowed upon her.

"What is it?" he frowned, getting a closer look at her desk. His eyes focused on a few photos of an old building, what appeared to be interior shots, a floor plan, and a long page of hand-written notes in Lorelai's unmistakable penmanship. "Planning on opening another inn?"

Lorelai sighed and shook her head, "I'll explain while you make dinner."

"Lasagna, remember? Just a matter of moving the casserole dish from the fridge to the oven. I left you a post-it on top in case you were hungry enough to attempt it," he said, stepping back so she could stand.

"Really? How long have we known each other?" she laughed as she followed him downstairs.

She poured wine for herself and opened a beer for Luke while he threw together a salad.

"So..." she began, "Paul Torres stopped by today." She stopped to watch Luke bristle, just as she'd expected he would.

He put the knife down and turned his head to look at her, a weary expression on his face.

"It wasn't about buying the inn. Uh, not my inn," she took a deep breath, "He wants me to help get this inn his company's purchasing off the ground."

Luke nodded slowly, focusing on salad preparations; Lorelai let out a relieved breath as she watched the tension leave his body.

"Where's it at? Not something close enough that would cause competition, I'm guessing."

"Near Granite Gorge in New Hampshire. Winter's their biggest tourist season what with the ski slopes and all. Not really something I know much about."

"Please," Luke snorted, "A small town centered around seasonal tourism? It's right up your alley."

Lorelai shrugged and took a big sip of her wine. She'd been thinking about it since her impromptu meeting that morning, and had held off on calling Luke, knowing he was in meetings most of the day. She didn't want to add any more anxiety than necessary knowing he'd been overwhelmed with the cafe as it was. Uncertain about how to proceed with the conversation, she was quiet as she watched her husband prepare dinner.

Her silence always unnerved Luke, especially after the events of two years ago when it went completely unacknowledged by him. Though she was less prone to bouts of chatter than she used to be, it was still rare for Lorelai to be this quiet. He didn't see why such the offer she'd received could be a bad thing, and thought it silly she wasn't more excited. Someone had noticed her talents and abilities, and she certainly deserved some recognition. After throwing a handful of carrots into his salad, Luke turned around completely, taking a long drink of his beer as he faced her.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, pulling her from her thoughts.

"I'm not sure it's a good time. We have a lot going on with the cafe, we just got through the holidays and moving in, we're still not fully done with the office. Plus, it's completely beyond anything I've done before-"

"No, opening your own inn was something you'd never done before," he leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest, "Lorelai, why are you talking yourself out of this? I think you're perfect for it."

"You're completely biased."

"As you should be."

"Why do you think this is a good idea?" she asked, setting her wine glass on the counter and mirroring Luke's pose. Before he could reply, she continued, "We just got everything settled, we've barely had a second to just sit around and be a married couple and do normal, married people stuff. Like... go ice fishing or something."

"Ice fishing?"

"You don't do that during the winter? With the little shack and stuff?"

"No, I've never- ugh," Luke interrupted himself with a shake of his head, refusing to be derailed, "Yeah, we have a lot going on, but we'd manage. You shouldn't just knock this entire proposal after only thinking about it for a few hours."

"Why do I feel like this is Mike Armstrong and the Durham Group again? Do you remember that? You told me to meet with the man, I met with the man, and then you freaked out that I met with the man."

"Completely different. One, that could've involved international travel, and I'd already been ditched once by a woman with travel aspirations."

"Oh, yes, because there are so many similarities between our relationship and your relationship with Rachel."

"And two, I was planning our life together and getting ready to propose."

"It wouldn't have mattered! Even if I'd taken him up on his consulting thing, it wouldn't have changed us or our plans."

Luke held his hands out, "And that's my point! You taking on this new consulting thing, that already has specific details, and probably has a timeline if it's being bought by a company, is two and a half hours away, not an entire country away. I think it's worth considering."

"Then, since we're back to this again, what about kids?"

Luke stared at her, confused, and glanced at her empty wine glass, "Uh..."

Lorelai sighed heavily, "We're trying to start a family here, Luke, I just don't think it's the time to be taking on a massive project like that. You saw Sookie when we were in the final planning stages of the Dragonfly."

He was quiet for a moment, then shook his head, "Not the same. This isn't your inn. There's probably a nearly unlimited budget, and specific people paid to handle specific details, meet with delivery men, that sort of thing. Look, if you don't want to do it, that's one thing. But if you're at all interested, it might be worth considering. I'm just saying, keep an open mind."

He reached for a tomato and ran his finger across its smooth skin, thinking before he returned to chopping, "What stopped you last time with that Armstrong guy?"

"You, for one thing. It was really fun to think about, and I... one night I tried talking to Sookie about it. I wanted to really talk about it, just, you know, as friends, not coworkers. The good and the bad of it. But she is so damn distracted and self-absorbed when she's pregnant, she told me I should do it, and just as I was about to mention that I thought things with you might be..." she gestured toward her left hand, "You and I hadn't talked about getting married, but I know we were both thinking about it... I wanted to have a real discussion about it with you, but you'd already freaked out on me once about it and, anyway, I guess it doesn't really matter, especially now."

"It does matter. What made you turn him down, then, in the end?"

"Well, selling it was never really something I was going to do. The money would've been nice, but I love my inn. The consulting offer... I first told him I'd get back to him. And then everything happened with Rory. And the last thing I wanted was to have any kind of connection to an associate of my father's. Then, we were engaged, and I really just wanted to focus on building a life with you, not flit around the world helping people with their inns," she walked over and leaned against Luke's firm back, wrapping her arms around his waist, "And here we are again, a company's offering me a job I don't really need while you and I are building our life together."

"Hey, I'm not goin' anywhere."

Lorelai smiled softly and pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades before moving to refill her wine, "I know that. But maybe I don't want to go anywhere right now, either."

"Primaries are tiring," Rory yawned as she boarded the bus. "The material is great, but I'm just so tired. Tired of standing, of walking, of talking."

"I have a blister," Kyla pouted. "Bad time to be breaking in a new pair of shoes. But I won the back seat of the bus in a poker match with that Brendon guy, and I'm going to put my feet up on my bag until we hit Nevada." She walked to the back of the bus and collapsed in the aforementioned reporter's usual spot with a thud.

Rory took her own spot a few seats away and got as comfortable as possible, pulling out a notebook to begin her story. She grinned as Miles flopped down into his seat.

"Why are you so happy?" he asked with a frown as he rearranged a few items in his camera bag.

"I'm sitting. I'm sitting, and we are several states away from our next destination, with no major stops in between, which means a lot more sitting, and I could really use some time to... not be standing."

"And you tease me for the days I wear my hiking boots."

Rory chuckled. One of the highlights of his brief stay in Stars Hollow had been the moment Miles noticed Luke's similar boots, and the two men had bonded over their versatility and comfort when standing for long hours at a time. Given the way her feet felt at the moment, she realized the two of them were clearly onto something.

"Well, maybe I'll pick a pair up in Nevada before the caucus," she replied. "God, I could so go for some of your hot chocolate right now."

"Mmm, me too," Miles replied, cracking his neck as he settled into his seat.

The bus began moving, and Rory had only managed to write a few paragraphs before her mind started drifting. She thought about the amount of primaries left in the year, and how quickly things were starting to pick up.

After that first big article, Blast had promised her guaranteed employment through the election. After her New Years article had followed suit and appeared on the New York Times website, and with it, yet another bonus, she'd had a few phone conversations with Hugo Gray. He'd begun dropping hints about her sticking around as their main political correspondent, a position that did not yet exist, but would likely need to by the time the election rolled around.

There was nothing concrete yet, which gave her a huge sense of relief, as it left her options open. She wasn't sure how she felt about such a polarizing position, or the idea of being holed up in Blast's office instead of being able to connect with the people about whom she was writing. She still had so many things she wanted to see and experience.

Rory had only been growing more introspective since the Iowa caucuses earlier in the month. She could still remember nervously, but determinedly, walking away from her mother at the airport, yet some days it seemed so long ago.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a wadded ball of paper hitting her head. She glared at Miles as she pulled an earbud from her ear.

"You stopped writing," he said, pointing out the obvious.

"And?"

"What's on your mind?"

Rory shrugged.

"Homesick already?" Miles pressed.

"No, not really," Rory replied. "Just thinking about all that's happened since the last time I was in some of these states. Iowa, specifically. I was so green."

"And since then, you've become old and seasoned?" he teased.

"No," she frowned, "Just... less green. I don't know. It's been a long seven months. In a good, developmental, thought provoking way. I've had a lot on my mind since the new year began."

"Thus, she is lost in her thoughts instead of writing about the New Hampshire primary."

Rory nodded, smiling a little as she leaned her head against her seat. Miles smiled back understandingly and left her alone.

Miles. She was trying very hard not to think about the moments they'd had at the concert. Or think too hard about how much she'd missed him over Christmas. Or the giddiness she'd felt when she found him at her front door. Or how disappointed she'd been when he hadn't shown up at the little gathering in Eric's room on New Year's Eve to ring in the new year.

Rory straightened her back and pushed all thoughts of the man with the overgrown hair from her mind. No sense getting attached to a coworker, especially one who'd been unsettled so recently, himself.

She returned to her notebook, re-reading what she'd already written as she determined how to continue her narrative.

After dinner, Luke sat next to Lorelai at her desk in their shared home office as she went over the information Paul Torres had provided. She showed him the notes she'd taken from their meeting and the details she'd added later.

"You've already done a lot of work for free," Luke pointed out as they went through her notes.

"This isn't exactly work for them. This is sorting out how much work would be involved, mostly for me."

Luke nodded, "When do they want to know by?"

"I have until sometime in late February to make a final decision. They want it ready to open by October, November at the latest so they can monopolize on the holidays, but my main involvement would be through spring. I'd kinda be on call for random things between then and autumn," she pointed to an item on her page of notes taken during her meeting, "This is what made me consider saying no."

"'Working locally as needed'? Well, that's understandable. That would be like me trying to handle this cafe crap without actually being here."

"Right. I'd probably need to spend a week or two up there at a time, otherwise I'd be dealing with a commute about five hours round trip every day, which sounds miserable," Lorelai looked over at him. The time away didn't seem to bother Luke nearly as much as it bothered her. She smirked and poked him in the ribs, "Admit it, you're thrilled to get me away so you can have the house to yourself, blast some baseball game..."

"No baseball till spring," he chuckled, grabbing her finger and covering it, and her hand, with his own. "It's not a forever thing. I can spare you."

"What about... um... trying to... y'know..." she gestured toward her lower half.

"We can plan it around that, can't we? Or I could escape cafe hell and tag along, take a few days off."

"I guess. We could also back off on the kid thing while we focus on the business things for awhile. Wait till we finish the cafe and this inn," she said, leaning her head on her free hand as she stared at all the paperwork covering her desk. She let her mind wander, trying to open her mind to the possibility a little more. She was lost in thought when she heard Luke gasp beside her. "What?"

"That... they want to pay you that much for this?"

"Yeah. It's a lot."

"You could finally buy those stupid shoes you and Rory were ooh-ing and ahh-ing at while she was here for Christmas. Several. And still have some leftover for... I don't know. Something big."

"Several matching designer outfits? If that was your first thought, you've been spending way too much time with me," she laughed, then quickly grew serious. "Actually, it seems only right that if I'm spending time away from my own inn for this, that I put it back towards the Dragonfly. Added to what we currently have put away, I could easily expand and still have plenty left over for some major touch-ups I've been putting off."

"That's smart," Luke squeezed the hand he was still holding, "I don't know, Lorelai, in the end it's your decision, but I don't think it's a terrible idea. And with Gabby's big promotion to full time... you have a lot less to do at the Dragonfly already."

Lorelai chose not to mention that it was done in preparation for a baby, not another inn. She took in Luke's body language and carefully watched his face for any signs that his words and feelings might not actually be in alignment.

He definitely appeared to be in favor of this new job, and she wasn't sure what that meant for her. She was still completely undecided, and still leaning heavily toward turning it down. The money was amazing, probably more than her time was worth, but the timing of it all still felt wrong.

She sighed and tightened her grip around Luke's hand, returning his squeeze, "I won't say no yet. I'll think about it and give him my answer at the last possible minute."

Luke nodded in agreement, asking a few more questions about the inn and the area before they called it a night.

As the days passed, Lorelai's inclination to say no hadn't changed, but her feelings toward the inn had. She was growing attached the ideas she'd started coming up with, but was still utterly conflicted about getting wrapped up in the process of it all. She knew, if this had come across her path a year ago, she would've jumped at the chance, but things were different now.

As February arrived, she felt completely torn between wanting to call Paul Torres and accept... and feeling like she should call and turn him down.

Luke remained supportive as ever, making sure Lorelai knew he was genuinely okay with either decision. But as he watched her excitedly discuss cafe plans in a few of the meetings she'd offered to help with, he wondered if she realized how ready she was for a new project of her own.

Author's Notes: In "How many Kropogs to Cape Cod", that conversation Lorelai has with Sookie when they're talking about selling or not selling the inn is something I obsess over. They both day-dream, and after Sookie grounds herself, she asks Lorelai what's stopping her and Lorelai never gets to elaborate, but her face says SO much. It's such a great moment. And it's part of the reason I might be the only person who doesn't find Lorelai's proposal two episodes later all that oddly timed. Both she and Luke were both clearly having more permanent thoughts about the relationship.

And much respect to Lauren Graham, because her ability to put Lorelai's thoughts and feelings all over her face and body language is amazing, and probably has a lot to do with why I love writing Lorelai so much.

Anyway. All that said... we now we explore a similar set of circumstances under very, very different conditions.
I won't leave you hanging for long!

MANY thanks to everyone for the support as I come close to wrapping this fic up. Today was a miserable day for several reasons, and I wasn't originally going to edit and post at all. But you guys gave me some unexpected encouragement as I read through some of the messages and comments, and after spending some time in my little version of Stars Hollow, refining words I wrote months ago, I'm so glad I ended up editing afterall. Creative outlets are good for the soul.