AN:  Thank you to all of you who left feedback!  It put a huge smile on my face. 

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Thinking is inherently unhealthy.  When you're thinking, you're generally not doing, and he's always been a doer.  Not that he doesn't think – he's not a Neanderthal – it's just that you should generally think about what you're doing and not let your mind go spinning wildly off on some random tangent. 

It can't be healthy.  It's the mental equivalent of double-shot espresso.  Which pretty much explains Lorelai. 

Whom he's not thinking about.  Not thinking.  Because if you think, you have to do, and doing is out of the question. 

Completely. 

(And if it wasn't?) 

Then he wouldn't think much at all.  He'd be over at her house, fixing a pipe or replacing a window or engaging in his yearly day of ritual servitude (which he is really beginning to regret), and he'd stop her in the hallway or on the stairs or right in the middle of the porch. 

"Lorelai?"

"Would you believe the coat closet locked itself again?   I mean, first of all, who puts a lock on a coat closet, anyway?  It's the place where you put your coats, and it's right in the front hall, it's not like a safe or anything.  And second, who do you think is locking it?"

"I don't think anyone is locking your coat closet.  Lorelai—"

"Ooooh, maybe it's a poltergeist!  I wonder what Taylor would say about poltergeists being in Stars Hollow.  Surely it's not in the ordinances.  We'd have a town meeting about it!  Maybe Taylor would have to have a séance.  Or hire an exorcist!  There could be a whole saga of Taylor and the Poltergeist.  They could use a Monty Python member to play the poltergeist in the movie version."

"Lorelai."

And the third time he said it, she'd stop, lips still parted, because something would have penetrated that thick skull of hers and she'd see that he was looking at her, the same way he'd felt himself looking at her before.  And this time, he wouldn't stop.  He wouldn't think, either, because thinking inevitably leads to talking yourself out of things.  At least, the kind of thinking he's used to doing.  He doesn't think Lorelai has talked herself out of much in life.  More often, she just talks. 

"I didn't come over here because of the pipe."

"Oh." 

"Or the closet."

More quietly.  "Oh."

And he would kiss her. 

He would kiss her, right there in the hallway or the front stairs or the middle of the porch.  He would kiss her gently, with his hands resting on her arms, because it isn't too close, because either one of them could step away.

And she would step away, after the kiss, eyes still wide and staring, trying to figure out what he'd just done and why he'd done it.  And he wouldn't explain – wouldn't be able to explain, because some explanations cost too much. 

So he'd just step away, and leave her staring, and he and his toolbox would retreat in silence. 

And when she came in for coffee the next day, or three days later, she would sit at a table and not at the counter, would stare at her menu while she ordered, would babble incessantly and try not to look at him when he came near. 

And he would have to stand behind the counter and wonder if a friendship could survive this kind of thing. 

Which is why he doesn't think about her. 

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