Lorelai was prone to having ear infections.
Her mother always forced her to wear a hat once the weather dropped only slightly, but Lorelai didn't always listen to her.
That was why, on the fourteenth of December, she told her mother that her ears hurt.
Emily Gilmore asked their new maid Maggie to measure temperature and really - Lorelai had to stay at home.
Maggie went to the pharmacy to get medication for the young Gilmore and afterwards called the school to excuse her from school for a few days.
It was no problem. The exams were done for this year and Chris would bring over the homework after school.
Lorelai slept for the whole day but in the evening she was feeling the same way - if not even worse.
"Tea," she croaked as Maggie wanted to get her for dinner. "Not hungry, just need tea."
Maggie went downstairs, telling her parents that she was too sick to get downstairs and Emily Gilmore, the control freak that she was, had to see for herself and went up.
Maggie walked right to the kitchen, greeting the cook.
Luke greeted her back, the maid was new and about his age. Maybe one or two years older. He watched her preparing some tea, elderflower.
"Who's sick?" he asked. He had always made his sister elderflower when she was feverish.
"The young Gilmore," Maggie answered and Luke froze.
"Lorelai is sick?"
"Miss Gilmore for us," Maggie replied. "And yes, she's having an ear infection. She asked for tea instead of dinner."
Luke didn't reply but he madly wished to see her. She had to be quite sick if she asked for tea.
He tried to hide his concern for "Miss Gilmore" and continued cooking for his employers.
Only five minutes later though, Maggie came back to the kitchen. "Miss Gilmore is asking for you."
"She is?" Luke replied in shock.
Maggie nodded. "She said she needs to speak to you. She's in feverish heat though, I think she doesn't know what she's saying."
"I'll go upstairs anyway," Luke decided. "Maybe she is hungry after all. I'll just get this done."
Maggie nodded. "I hope you're having a good immune system."
Luke didn't care about his immune system. He needed to make sure that Lorelai was fine.
He finished cooking and, as Maggie brought the plates outside for Richard and Emily, he quickly filled another one with soup and snuck upstairs, knowing he'd be dead if Mr or Mrs Gilmore caught him.
He knocked at the door and opened right afterwards, his heart clenching when he spotted Lorelai inside her bed.
She was wrapped in a blanket and her face was pale. She looked very sick and so very, very vulnerable.
Small, somehow, and younger than usual, probably because she wasn't wearing any make up.
And still she looked so pretty.
"Hi," Luke said gently and sat down at the edge of her bed. Lorelai opened her eyes and smiled weakly.
"We can't meet today," she mumbled.
"That's why I'm here now," Luke said softly. "You want any soup?"
"Ugh, no," Lorelai sighed and closed her eyes again. "I don't wanna eat anything."
"You have to," Luke insisted. "I want you to get better."
"I'm taking some pills, I'll be better."
She sounded so weak, Luke's heart was clenching. "You don't have to talk. Just open your mouth and I'll feed you."
"Okay," Lorelai sighed and obliged, opening her mouth, just wide enough for Luke to shove a spoonful of soup inside.
"It's tomato soup," he said gently. "My mother's recipe. Do you like it?"
"Mhh," Lorelai made. "I like all you make."
Luke had to smile. "All I make?"
"Everything about you," Lorelai mumbled. "All of you."
"You like all of me?" Luke replied quietly. Careful, he told himself. She's feverish.
"Yeah, I like all of you," Lorelai whispered and opened her mouth again.
Luke continued feeding her, not saying a word. He was scared that something he didn't want to tell her would slip.
For some minutes no one said a word.
Luke fed her until she turned her head. "I'm done," she decided.
"Okay." He put the bowl down and smiled at her. "How are you feeling?"
"Sick and tired and confused," Lorelai replied and coughed quietly. She shifted with a small groan, trying to free her arms from the blanket.
When she succeeded, she took his hand.
Luke inhaled. "You're hot."
"Thanks," Lorelai joked weakly and smiled lightly. "I don't feel hot right now. I feel rather ugly."
"You're never ugly," Luke said immediately. "But that's not what I meant."
"Mhh." Lorelai moved again, trying to sit up.
"No, stay," Luke ordered and pushed her back.
"No, I wanna talk," Lorelai said. "I wanna ask you something. Wanna ask you ... Do you really think I'm hot?"
Luke smiled. "Always, Lorelai."
"Always? Even naked?"
Now Luke's smile turned into a frown. "Lorelai?"
"Tell me. You'll only get this chance."
"Lorelai, you know I think you're hot. I was ready to sleep with you back in August."
"And now?"
"I would still sleep with you, with or without Christopher."
"Uhh, kinky." Lorelai giggled.
"You know what I mean," Luke huffed but he couldn't hide his smile either.
Lorelai coughed quietly. "I know what you mean. So you like me?"
Lorelai's blue eyes were wide and filled with something he couldn't name. Could it be love? No one had ever looked at him like this, not even Rachel.
"No," Luke decided to tell her and watched Lorelai lean back, the smile vanishing from her face. Luke leaned in. "I don't just like you, Lorelai. I'm ... oh, for God's sake. I'm in love with you. I have a weakness for you. And I'll wait for you until you realise that you love me back."
"What?" Lorelai gasped.
Luke placed his forehead against Lorelai's and locked their eyes.
"I love you," he whispered. "I've loved you since day one and I will always love you, no matter what life throws at us."
And suddenly the pain inside his chest was taking his breath as he realised that it wasn't only Christopher who was keeping them apart.
They couldn't be together.
They were too different, her parents wouldn't accept him. They wouldn't allow her to be with him.
The realisation hit him so suddenly, he felt tears forming in his eyes.
He got up quickly. "I gotta go," he said coldly, trying to hold back his tears. The pain inside his chest made it hard to do so.
"No, wait," Lorelai said weakly and reached for him but she was too ill to get up.
Thank God.
Luke left her room and got downstairs quickly.
But sadly he ran right into his employer.
"Mrs Gilmore," he choked and Emily threw a look at him that suggested murder.
"What were you doing upstairs?" she asked sharply.
"I'm sorry, Miss Gilmore asked for a little soup," he replied, holding up the half empty plate.
Emily scanned him with her eyes, from head to toe. When she looked back up at him, her eyes were still cold. "Stay away from her," she said calmly, proving that Luke was right with assuming that Lorelai's parents wouldn't accept him. "She's none of your business."
"I only gave her something to eat," Luke defended himself but it was clear that Emily didn't trust him.
"You were inside her room. Her room is forbidden for you. She is forbidden for you. Understood?"
"Yes, Mrs Gilmore," Luke muttered and went back to the kitchen.
•
For two days Lorelai wasn't able to do anything. She wasn't able to call anyone, let alone do her homework.
Chris was staying away from her and so was Luke.
Lorelai wasn't sure if he did so because she had been sick or because of their conversation.
Lorelai wasn't even sure if that conversation had happened or if she had dreamed it, but since Luke was avoiding her on the phone as well, she supposed it had happened.
After those two days Lorelai felt better with every day that passed.
She waited for him outside the house again, but he always found a way to avoid her.
And every time she called him, either his dad or his sister picked up and they always told her a reason why he wasn't able to talk.
Mostly he simply wasn't at home.
Lorelai found that hard to believe, since he didn't have friends (from what she knew) but she supposed that he had maybe found another job.
Or maybe he was with that chemistry girl?
Neither William nor Liz wanted to tell her, until Lorelai was brave enough to talk Liz into it.
"Please, tell me where he is," she said. "I don't know what he has told you about me, but I need to talk to him. See, he took care of me when I was sick and I told him some stuff and now he's avoiding me ... I just need to make sure that I didn't offend him."
"I think you haven't," Liz replied. "He just told us that you have a boyfriend and that he doesn't have a chance with you."
"And that's so not true!" Lorelai argued. "Listen ... I need to talk to him about it. See where this is going, the thing between us."
"So you'd end things with your boyfriend for my brother?" Liz asked and her voice sounded protective.
Lorelai crossed her fingers. "Yeah."
For a while Liz was quiet, then she sighed. "Fine. He's in Hartford. At Suzie's Diner, I believe it's called."
"Thank you," Lorelai breathed. "Thank you so much, Liz. I owe you something."
"Okay, then please don't tell him you heard it from me," Liz replied and hung up.
•
Suzie's Diner was only a stone's throw away from the Gilmore mansion.
It was right between her house and Luke's college, so Lorelai got why he spent his time here before heading over to the strict Gilmores to cook dinner for them.
Lorelai was deep in thoughts while walking to the diner. She hadn't thought about how to talk to Luke, after all he had told her that he was in love with her (at the moment she was sure she hadn't dreamt it).
He was in love with her and now he avoided her.
Something wasn't right.
She hadn't lied to Liz, at least not completely. She needed to talk to him while she was sane and not fantasizing. If he told her that he was in love with her again, that she hadn't just imagined it, she'd tell him the truth.
She had to tell him that she wasn't seventeen yet. That she wasn't about to turn eighteen in April. He deserved the truth.
After a ten minute walk Lorelai reached the diner and went right inside. She opened her jacket, as the warmth hit her, and took off her hat she was now wearing when going outside.
She looked around the diner, trying to spot a backwards baseball cap.
She didn't. But she spotted Luke instead - without his cap.
And he wasn't alone.
Lorelai's heart stopped beating when she saw the backside of a blonde girl. Definitely it was a girl.
And Luke was laughing. Really laughing, it was honest and he was not faking it.
Lorelai decided to leave them alone, when Luke suddenly reached for the girl's hand. He took her hand between his and caressed it.
Suddenly Lorelai had enough.
•
Luke had met Jill every day ever since he had told Lorelai about his feelings.
First of all because he needed someone to take his thoughts away from the younger girl and second because he really liked Jill. She was smart and funny and pretty and she seemed to be interested in him.
He had asked her out once and they had had so much fun, Luke had decided to meet her every day before his duty at the Gilmores.
She always had time and they had even studied for chemistry (just a tiny bit). She was a funny person and his plan worked - She took his thoughts away from Lorelai.
Until this day, the nineteenth of December.
It had been their last day at school before Christmas holidays and him and his new clique had decided to have a quick after school punch. Michelle and Sarah had left right afterwards, telling them a reason that was definitely not true. Luke suspected that they wanted to set him and Jill up and he was okay with it.
He was sure he could learn to fall in love with her, even though he'd never have a connection with her like he had with Lorelai.
But it was fine. Lorelai was taken anyway and Jill was great.
Really.
He didn't even think about Lorelai when he was with her.
That was why he almost got a heart attack when a tall, furious brunette got at their table, screaming, "Are you serious, Luke?"
Both Luke and Jill looked at her with shock, though Luke had at least a plan why she was furious.
"Lorelai, calm down," he said loudly but Lorelai didn't even think of calming down.
"Honestly?" she shouted. "I tried to call you and you completely ignored me. You avoided me! And - and now you're here with - with a woman ... after you -" She sucked in breath. "I did not dream it. Yes, I had a fever, but I know to tell the difference if I was hallucinating or if I wasn't. And I wasn't. You told me you loved me. You said, I'm in love with you, Lorelai. You said you wanted me, you said you'd sleep with me with or without Christopher and I told you that had sounded kinky. You said you'd always love me, no matter what life was throwing at us! Do you want to tell me now that I dreamed all that?"
Luke shook his head. "No. You didn't."
"Okay, good. Then why are you with her? Why are you holding her hand like a boyfriend would do? I mean, it's okay, you're not bound to me. I just want to understand it."
"Fine, okay," Luke said, trying to use all his courage to tell the girl what he wanted to. "I'm here with her because she makes me laugh and she makes me forget you and I'm holding her hand because I like her. No, I am not bound to you, only because I love you. I hope you understand it now."
"No, I don't!" Lorelai shook her head. "I still don't. If you love me, why aren't you with me? Why are you avoiding me like a coward?"
"Because it hurts being with you!" Luke shouted and jumped up. "Because it hurts knowing that you're with Christopher and it hurts knowing that your parents would never accept me. It hurts knowing that you and me will never happen and that's why I'm avoiding you. I just want to forget you. Thanks for running after me and ruining that plan."
Lorelai opened her mouth to say something, as a waitress stepped up to them. "I'm sorry but we all don't care about your love triangle problems. Could you please carry the fight outside?"
"Don't worry, I'm leaving," Lorelai replied coldly and went away from the table, storming outside as quickly as she could.
Luke turned to Jill. "I'm sorry," he sighed. "She's got quite the temperament."
"Hmm, yeah," Jill made. "I do understand her, though."
"What?"
"You told her you loved her and then you avoided her. That's pretty dumb, Luke. Also the fact you used me forget her. That's just not okay."
"I didn't use you -"
Jill stood up, taking her purse.
"You did. And not only that, you made me think you were interested in me while you're in love with someone who isn't available. You seem pretty rational but you're just the same as any other guy I've met. I'm out. See you after the holidays at school."
And with those words she left the diner right after Lorelai.
Luke looked after them, not getting what had happened within the last two minutes.