The Butterfly Effect

by crazy-dreams and Sarah Dawson

Chapter Two

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Lorelai entered Luke's on Friday night dressed for painting and trying desperately not to think about the thing she really didn't want to think about but that she had been thinking about all week. Way to confuse yourself, girl. Her mind was a mess, but her mood brightened a bit when she saw the paint cans Luke had set out on the counter. Even if she was still unsure about everything, painting with Luke would make her feel better. With Luke? she thought suddenly. Right. Painting. Painting, with Luke. In his diner. She shook her head and put on a bright smile.

"Hey Suzie!" she called, breezing over to him by the counter.

"What did you call me?"

"Private joke between my mother and I," Lorelai explained. "Actually, she didn't appreciate the joke so it's just a private joke with myself. Never mind, Lukey."


"Luke, Lorelai, my name is Luke." He corrected with a small frown.

"Whatever, Lucas. Let's get started! I brought beer." She announced cheerfully, setting the case down on the counter.

Luke sighed. "Fine. Where do we start anyways?"

Her eyes lit up. "Ooh, you mean you don't know how to paint? I get to be in charge?!" She cried happily, clapping her hands.

He narrowed his eyes. "No way. But, you can tell me what to do first."

"Yay! C'mon, have a seat." She instructed, hopping onto the counter. He sighed a took a seat on a stool.

"Okay, first we have to fill all the cracks and holes, and cover all the tables with sheets. Are we doing the upstairs too? Ooh, can I redo your apartment? Please??" She begged excitedly.

Luke frowned. "Isn't it enough that I'm letting you paint the diner? It hasn't been painted in years!" he snapped.

"Geez, fine." she pouted. "Now, after we cover everything, we've gotta fill up the holes, sand them back, wash the walls… I don't think we're actually gonna get much painting done tonight...."

"We'll just do as much as possible. We better get started then."

Lorelai watched Luke out of the corner her eye as they worked, moving furniture and covering it with tarps. He'd be a useful guy to have around the house, she mused. She could just see them, spending weekends fixing up their house together, it would be beautiful when they were done, and… Whoa. Their house? Suddenly she had them playing happy families, like Leave It To Beaver or something? Why was she still thinking about what that delivery guy had said? Lorelai shook her head to chase away these unwanted thoughts. She was startled when Luke spoke.

"I'm gonna go change before we start working with the paint. I'll be right back," he announced.

"You wouldn't wanna get paint on your 'good' flannel, now would you? I bet you have flannel in categories up there, like 'flannel for nice days', 'flannel for rainy days', and everything, right?" Lorelai grinned. Luke just rolled his eyes and headed up the stairs.

A minute later, he arrived back downstairs, completely flannel-less, in jeans and a t-shirt, with his baseball cap of course. Lorelai had turned on the radio and was dancing around as she mixed the paint, singing to herself.

"...yeah I used to be a real wild child, but now I am a Volvo-driving soccer mom..." Lorelai hummed to herself.

She heard someone laugh and turned around to see Luke smirking at her from the stairway.

"Join me?" She joked, dancing a little. He laughed again and crossed the room to help her.

"No more beer for you. I don't want the diner looking like it was painted by a five-year-old." Luke scolded mockingly.

Lorelai pouted. "But Daddy, my teacher said my finger painting was the best in the class!" she wailed jokingly before they settled down to work with the radio playing in the background.

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After a while, Luke handed Lorelai an electric sander to smooth out the walls where they'd closed up some holes and headed upstairs for a moment.

Lorelai switched it on and started working. A minute later, she paused and stepped back to survey her work.

"I do love a woman with a power tool." Someone whispered in her ear.

Lorelai jumped around and brandished the sander in front of her like a weapon. "Wha-? Chris?" she asked in confusion as she realised who it was.

Christopher jumped back and looked warily at the sander. "That could have been nasty."

"Yeah, good thing you're so light on your feet."

"It's from all of that ballroom dancing when we were younger."

"Of course. I seem to remember you being a regular Fred Astaire back then."

"I have many hidden talents."

"Hidden talents- what the hell are you doing here anyway?" Lorelai exclaimed, shaking her head in confusion.


"The door was unlocked." Christopher replied with a shrug.

"But what are you doing in Stars Hollow? And how did you know where I was??"

"Rory said I'd find you here. I'm in town for a couple of days. I stopped by the house first and caught Rory just as she came back from you parent's place. She invited me to stay with you guys but I wanted to check with you first." Chris explained.

Lorelai still looked really surprised to see him.

"Uh, sure, I guess that's okay with me." She answered with a frown.

Luke reappeared at the stairwell. "Lorelai-" he stopped abruptly as he caught sight of Christopher.

"Oh, uh, Luke, this is Christopher Hayden. He's Rory's dad. And Chris, this is Luke Danes, he's my, uh, my diner guy." Lorelai introduced them hastily. 'My diner guy?' Lorelai froze. What had possessed her to introduce Luke in that way? She couldn't have just said 'my friend?' Now Luke looked offended that she'd just called him the 'diner guy' and Chris looked annoyed that she'd used 'MY diner guy,' which sounded really possessive. An awkward silence hung over the three.

"Uh, I better get back to Rory," Chris said uncomfortably.

"Yeah, we've got a lot of work to do here," said Lorelai with false cheer.

"I'll see you later then, thanks for letting me stay, Lor. It was nice to meet you, Luke." Chris said, backing out the door.

 "Yeah, you too," Luke echoed, equally unconvincingly. After Chris left Luke looked to Lorelai for an explanation but she just held up the sander.

"You want a turn?" she asked meekly.

Luke shook his head and turned towards the paint to finish mixing. "So...Chris is Rory's dad?"

Lorelai gave a small nod. "Yeah..." she frowned. "Doesn't really act like it, though."

Luke shrugged. "Doesn't know what he's missing." he said gruffly.

She smiled curiously. "Yeah...Yeah." she said, looking back at him.

Luke moved to the other side of the wall and they painted silently for a few minutes. "So, uh, if you don't mind me asking, what's he doing back here?" he asked finally.

Lorelai frowned. "I'm not really sure... I hate how he just- shows up like this, but I really want Rory to get to know him, and I want him to want Rory to want to get to know him- does that make sense?"

He nodded, knowing she didn't really need an answer. Besides, most of the things she said never made sense anyway.

"I just don't want Rory to get hurt--again--and I don't want to get hurt either, you know?" Lorelai continued, her roller paused. "Hey Luke?" she asked in a small voice, turning towards him. "If Chris just, you know, leaves again, do you think maybe you could... I don't know, do something nice for Rory? I mean, I know it's a lot to ask, and that you probably don't have time, but I was just thinking that if someone she cares about that cares about her--" Lorelai stopped and looked sad for a minute. "You do care about her, right?" she asked anxiously.

"You know I do, Lorelai." he assured her, his voice softer than usual.

Lorelai looked relieved. "Good. That's good. She needs someone like you Luke. We both do. Don't let her down okay?" She pleaded.

"I promise." Luke answered firmly.

Lorelai smiled to herself and returned to painting. See, Luke does too care about me... she smacked herself mentally. No, no, no, see, I'm not thinking about that, remember?? Okay, I can do that, right, sure. Yeah... right...

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Rory and Lorelai were sitting at the kitchen table the next morning with their standard cups of coffee when the phone rang. Although it was sitting right on the table between them, neither wanted to answer it.

"It'll bet it's for you anyway," Lorelai said to Rory.

"Why will it be for me?" Rory asked.

"Because it's always for you."

"It is not!"

"It's probably your boyfriend."

"Dean knows we're not morning people, he'd never call me this early."

"It's 10 a.m.," Lorelai pointed out.

"On a Saturday," Rory added.

"True."

They both sipped their coffee and stared at the ringing phone until Rory couldn't stand it anymore.

"Hello?" she answered the phone. "Sure Luke, she's right here." Rory passed the phone to Lorelai with a smirk.

Lorelai made a face as she stood up and wandered into the living room to talk. "Hey Luke, what's up?"

"Oh, I just wanted to ask you about finishing up the painting. It's strange trying to run a diner around the mess we created last night. But if you don't want to come back, I understand. I mean, since you have a guest now," Luke said awkwardly.

"That's not a guest, its just Chris," Lorelai replied dismissively.

"In however many years of knowing you, I'd never met the guy. It's not like he drops by every other week. That makes him a guest and it's okay if you want to do stuff with him while he's here."

"He's here to see Rory, not me. Don't worry, I'll be there again tonight to help you finish up," Lorelai insisted.

"If you're sure. Um, are you okay? With the guy…"

"Chris?" Lorelai interrupted.

"Yeah," Luke continued. "Are you okay with Chris showing up out of the blue? He's not being too pushy is he? Because I could…"

"You could what? Run him out of town?" Lorelai asked curiously.

"If you want me to," Luke said, half-seriously.

My hero, she thought with a smile. She caught herself. No, wait. Luke's not... mine in any way! Ugh... "No, I'm okay with Chris being here," she said. "I was a little - a lot - surprised to see him, you know, but it's good that he's here and making an effort with Rory."

"Then why are you so eager to hide out at the diner tonight?"

Hmph. Since when did Luke become so insightful? Lorelai wondered to herself. "I won't be hiding," she insisted unconvincingly. "I talked you into you to paint by saying I'd help, so I'm going to help until the end."

"Okay."

"Good."

There was a brief pause.

"Hey Lorelai? I know you have Rory and Sookie, but if you ever want someone else to talk to, I'm here."

"Thanks Luke." Lorelai was genuinely touched. Of course there was no way she could talk to him about some of the stuff that had been on her mind lately. She wondered if he'd given any more thought to the delivery guy calling her his wife. 'Of course he hasn't,' Lorelai told herself. 'It's just me going crazy and it's all my interfering mother's fault!' Besides, if she told him about all the things that she'd been thinking about recently, he'd probably laugh and call her crazy or something. Or maybe he'd... no, right, not thinking about that now. She shook her head and returned her focus to what Luke was saying.

"I'll see you tomorrow then."

"I'm looking forward to it," she replied.

"Bye."

Lorelai walked back into the kitchen with a spring in her step. She *was* looking forward to it. Luke was so sweet sometimes. And he really did care about her. In a friend-type way, she added quickly.

Lorelai put the phone back on the kitchen table, smiling, and noticed Rory staring at her.

"What?"

"Did you just jump?" Rory asked with a laugh.


"Jump?"

"Yeah, an excited little bounce."

"No, I neither jumped nor bounced," Lorelai replied primly. "My feet do not both leave the ground at the same time unless my butt is firmly planted on a solid surface."

"You jumped!" Rory repeated.

"Did not!"

"Well you're smiling."

"I'm smiling because you're crazy. And because Luke said something nice to me," Lorelai admitted.

"Ooohhh, you jumped because you were excited about talking to Luke!"

"Did not!"

"Did so!"


"Absolutely did not!"

"Hey, girls." Christopher greeted them as he entered the kitchen.

"Christopher, perfect!" Lorelai declared, throwing her arms in the air.

"Hi dad." Rory said cheerfully.

"Am I... interrupting something?" he asked playfully.

"Mom jumped." Rory confided.

"Did not." Lorelai muttered, crossing her arms.

"As entertaining as this is, I have to do my homework. And you did so jump." Rory said with a smirk, heading to her room.

"Did not!" Lorelai called after Rory before turning to Chris. "What are you looking at?"

"What is going on?" he asked, amused.

"Nothing. I got off the phone with Luke and Rory accused me of jumping. Crazy child. Must get that from your side of the family," Lorelai teased Chris.

"Ahhh. So is it serious?"

"Is what serious?" Lorelai feigned naiveté.

"You and Luke. I know it's none of my business, but-"

"No, it's not serious! It's not there! I already told you that!"

"Come on, Lor, I know you better than that."

Lorelai groaned. "You should join forces with my mother!"