AN: Well I don't know about smacked in the head, but in my infinite wisdom I managed to accidentally lock myself in the bathroom while I was home alone the other night, leaving plenty of time to write this chapter in my head (I figured lipstick on the mirror might be hard to clean off) before I eventually climbed out the second story window, onto the fence, around a tree, jumped into my neighbor's courtyard and ran back home; hopefully before they noticed. And all in my floral patchwork Peter Alexander PJs. I felt like a character out of a Bridget Jones type novel. At least I wasn't locked out and could recover from the experience with the help of a tub of Cape Byron ice cream and a can of Dairy Whip.
Oneiromancy
Part Seven
This town makes my mind slow down
Got lines on my face like highways now
Chasing breezes kicking boulders
And all of the while just getting older
"Lorelai dear," Miss Patty called.
Lorelai ducked her head and walked faster. It had been over a week since Luke had broken off the engagement with Nicole and the news had spread rapidly. With Luke revealing nothing, Lorelai had found herself inundated with questions from the curious townspeople.
"Lorelai," Miss Patty repeated and she caught up to her in front of the market.
Damn, thought Lorelai, that woman could move surprisingly quickly for someone of her stature. She turned to face Patty. "For the hundredth time, I don't know anything, it had nothing to do with me."
"I was just going to ask if you wanted to chip in for Babette's birthday present." Patty said innocently.
Lorelai gave her a suspicious look. "Sure you were."
"But while I have you attention…" here it comes, thought Lorelai. "Have you spoken to Luke lately?" Miss Patty asked. "He's been even gruffer than usual since he broke up with Nicole, which we don't understand, as we have it on good authority that he was the one who broke off the engagement…"
"Mom!" Rory waved from across the street.
"Rory!" Thank God, Lorelai added silently. "Gotta go, bye Patty." Lorelai crossed the road and gave her daughter a grateful hug. "You are a lifesaver! Without the high-cut red bathing suit and quadruple D cup boobs."
"Patty prowling again?" Rory asked sympathetically.
Lorelai nodded. "Hey, Prowling Patty, I like it."
"Alliteration with multiple
connotations."
"Indeed. Hey, I need food," Lorelai announced.
"Diner's right across the street."
"Or alternatively, we could get some non-pancakes from Al's," Lorelai suggested.
Rory gave her a funny look. "I thought you and Luke weren't fighting?" The girls had been eating meals at Luke's as usual, but conversation between Luke and Lorelai had never ventured beyond what type of fries she wanted with her burger.
"We're not fighting. We're just not exactly talking."
"Why not?"
"Such a good question. In fact, I'd be much obliged if you'd go right in there and ask him that very thing."
"You're being silly," Rory said.
"Do you want Luke and I to get
together?" Lorelai asked suddenly.
Rory appeared mildly surprised at
the question. "I hadn't formed an opinion."
"Come on, the entire town has formed an opinion, you don't want to be the odd one out."
"I like Luke. You know I like
Luke," Rory said. "And if you want to be with Luke; which I think you do, then
yes, I want you to get together."
"You once told me I couldn't date him," Lorelai reminded Rory.
"That was a long time ago," Rory reminded Lorelai in return. "I just keep thinking that you sounded happy about your talk with Luke the night before he broke up with Nicole."
"I was happy, before he went Mr Freeze on me. Okay. I'm going to talk to him today," Lorelai decided, looking determinedly at the diner. "Really talk."
"That's great." Rory gave her
mother a supportive smile. "I'll give you fifteen minutes then meet you in
there for lunch."
"Are you sure you don't want to come in first? If things don't go well, this may be the last Luke meal we ever eat."
"You have reasons to think things
won't go well?" Rory asked.
"None that you'd consider
reasonable," Lorelai admitted.
"Then get over there. I'm not
giving you a whole meal to mull this over and then chicken out."
Lorelai snickered. "'Mull.'"
"Go!" Rory said sternly.
Lorelai complied and crossed the street to the diner just as Luke was loading a fishing rod and tackle box onto the back of his truck. "What's going on?" she asked him.
"I'm taking a few of days off," he answered simply.
"Oh." No excuses, Lorelai reminded herself. "Luke, can we talk?"
"I'll be back in a week, tops."
"Before you go."
"I'm just about to leave."
"It's important."
"Important like the time you called me to come over in the middle of the night because there was a stranger in your house?"
"Well there was!"
"It was a spider."
Lorelai frowned. "Trust you to make an example out of the one time I may have embellished a little."
"I've got more."
Lorelai changed tactics. "I'll
chain myself to your truck," she threatened. This was not the way this
conversation was supposed to go.
"Fine." Luke rolled his eyes. "Come upstairs while I finish packing the food."
Yeah I was hiding away under water
Waiting for distance and buying some time
Trying to be two hundred thousand years younger
So I could excuse myself from human kind
Lorelai followed Luke upstairs to his apartment and watched with fascination as he pulled a container of worms from the freezer.
He noticed her expression. "It's bait, not dinner."
"But you're packing it in the same box as your dinner."
Luke sighed. "What did you want to
talk to me about?"
"Everything! Your breakup with Nicole, our conversation in the gazebo. Why are you going away?"
"I need a break; time to think. We can talk when I get back."
"I know a broken engagement is no fun, Luke, but you don't have to forego human company all together."
"You went on an road trip, I'm going fishing."
"But who will make my coffee?" Even as the words left her mouth, Lorelai was aware of how selfish and immature they sounded.
"Caesar will get you coffee," Luke said, his back to her as he pulled tins from the cupboard.
"I didn't mean that Luke." Lorelai sighed. "I just wish you'd talk to me."
"Okay, fine." Luke spun around to face her and crossed his arms over his chest. "What would you like to hear? That Nicole calls me every night and alternates between crying because she's just remembered that she has to cancel the engagement party invitations her parents ordered, and yelling abuse at me because she now has to tell her second cousin Paula that she isn't getting married and Paula is apparently an evil bitch who will gloat about the moment for years to come. And either way I feel guilty as hell."
"You didn't tell me it was a bad breakup." Lorelai wanted nothing more than to reach out and comfort him, but Luke didn't look like he'd be very appreciative of the gesture.
"It wasn't. But we were engaged, Lorelai. She just doesn't disappear from my life as quickly as she does from yours. Just because we both agree that things wouldn't have worked out in the long run doesn't erase the past six months."
"I'm so sorry, Luke," Lorelai said softly.
But he didn't want her apologies. "I have to leave now if I want to get there before dark." Luke lifted the box of food with one arm, crossed the room, and stood expectantly outside the open apartment door.
Lorelai exited the apartment.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"Same place I always go fishing. No where you know," Luke replied as he locked the door.
"I'm not going to follow you!"
Lorelai followed him downstairs.
"Goodbye, Lorelai," he said flatly.
Lorelai slumped down at a table and followed Luke's every move as he gave Caesar some last minute instructions then walked from the kitchen to the diner door without so much as a glance in her direction. Through the window, she watched him slam the truck door closed and unceremoniously drive off down the main street.
'Cause I don't want to be a container
Or a bastard with a ten-page disclaimer
But these monsters spin me around
Rory entered the diner ten minutes later to find Lorelai still staring glumly out the window, nursing a barely-touched cup of coffee. "Where's Luke?" she asked.
"Gone fishin'," Lorelai said dourly.
"Do we hate him now?"
Lorelai shook her head.
"But I take it the talk didn't go as planned?"
Lorelai extended her index finger and slowly pointed to her heart. "Ouch."
Rory took this to mean that Lorelai didn't really want to talk about it. "Let's get out of here. We'll skip the burgers for lunch and pick up a hideous amount junk food, even by our standards, on the way home to a 12 hour movie marathon."
"Including E.T.?"
"Including E.T.," Rory confirmed.
Lorelai gave a small smile and allowed Rory to lead her out of the diner.
* * * *
The week seemed to pass incredibly slowly and by Friday Lorelai felt like Penelope awaiting Odysseus' return. "Maybe I should take up knitting," she suggested to Sookie as she ate breakfast prepared by her friend.
"Haven't heard from Luke, huh?" Sookie asked as she served Lorelai another slice of bacon.
"He went fishing, Sook. He went to be alone. Far away from Lorelai the annoying, insensitive, gnat-like creature."
"He doesn't think of you that way."
"Well I'm not expecting a postcard
or phone call. Although I did have a dream about him last night, maybe he's
trying to communicate telepathically."
"Was it a dirty dream?" Sookie
asked, with a touch too much enthusiasm for Lorelai's liking.
"No! Will that always be your first question?"
"I'm still getting over the Tarzan thing."
"Does the whole town know about
that?"
"Rory did tease you for three straight days."
"But she promised it would remain
a private joke."
"It did until I bribed her with cheesecake," Sookie confessed. "As much as I don't want the visual, I have to ask – was he wearing a loincloth?"
"Sookie! No!" Lorelai scolded.
"Sorry, sweetie. Okay, what was this dream about?"
"It was the final scene of Casablanca. Only I was Rick and Luke was Ilsa."
"And Nicole was Victor Lazlo?" Sookie guessed.
"No, Victor Lazlo was a giant fish."
"How did a giant fish get onto a plane?" Sookie asked, envisaging a fish launching off its tail to jump up the stairs.
"It wasn't a plane, it was a boat and the fish just kind of threw itself off the dock."
"So it was basically nothing like the final scene of Casablanca."
"The sentiment was there."
"Luke left you to be with a fish? That's a pretty thinly veiled metaphor. In fact it's not even a metaphor, it's exactly what happened. I thought dreams were supposed to be harder to figure out. Like dreaming about a tunnel really means you want to have sex with your husband's best friend."
"Isn't Jackson's best friend that creepy grocer guy?" Lorelai asked.
"I wasn't talking about me specifically, it's just one of those Freudian things."
"Everything was about sex with Freud," Lorelai commented.
"He was a disturbed man," Sookie agreed before returning to the topic at hand. "I hope Luke comes back soon," she offered.
"Me too. But I understand why he went. I guess I needed time to think too. Only then I actually think, and things get really messy."
"Come to any conclusions?"
"Only that I'm selfish. I want Luke to be there for me and I don't want to share him with anyone else. Only I don't necessarily want to be with him myself. Or maybe I just don't want to risk everything we have. I couldn't handle losing him again."
"You're not going to lose him. You both know how much you mean to each other."
"Rory thinks I'm in love," Lorelai admitted.
"Everyone thinks you and Luke are in love, honey, where have you been?"
"We have…something," Lorelai admitted. "Some special connection, I know I love him, but I'm not sure in what way."
"In the way you love someone when you have erotic dreams about them."
"That's not love, that's lust."
"But if your put together friendship love and lust you have romantic love, and awww your kids are gonna be so beautiful!" Sookie clapped her hands together excitedly.
"Not if he never gets back from this stupid fishing trip. It's been five days! If he stays much longer he'll have fished out the whole stream," Lorelai complained. "I just want to talk to him, Sookie. I miss Luke." Lorelai rested her head in her hands and felt a lone tear of frustration prick the corner of her eye.
Sookie stood behind her friend and massaged her shoulders. "Should I make more cheesecake?"
Lorelai looked up hopefully. "Couldn't hurt."
* * * *
TBC
Lyrics: Something for Kate (my feature artist this week) - Happy Endings and Monsters
AN: Yes, I know this chapter is considerably shorter than previous ones, but the obsessive-compulsive in me demanded the final scene have it's own chapter to make it an even eight. I'll post the ending tomorrow, not because I'm mean, or because I'm fishing(!) for more reviews (that's just low), but because it's late and I can't be bothered formatting another chapter right now.
To Luke Rules; fear not, as per your suggestion Luke will show up to Lorelai's house to, ahem, talk.
