Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.
Author's Notes: If parts of this chapter sound familiar, that's because I used events from my stories "I Stayed" and "No Use Crying Over a Spilled Drink." Also, thank you for all the feedback. For those who asked, WIP means "work in progress." Gluglug- good catch! It is indeed the same Rachel, and you will learn more about her in this chapter.
Chapter 2At First Sight
So I try to be like you
Try to feel it like you do
But without you it's no use
I can't see what you see
When I look at the world
The years blurred together in his mind, but he would always remember 1992. That was the year that both Rachel and Lorelai came into his life.
He was getting something from the kitchen in the diner one autumn day when he turned around and found a plump, red-headed woman standing there. She looked vaguely familiar, but Luke couldn't place her. "Luke," she said with a big grin, "do you remember me?"
Luke stared at her blankly. Then his face spread into a big smile as it finally clicked. "Sookie St. James," he said. "Chef's class in high school."
"Yes!" Sookie exclaimed, jumping a little in excitement. "You were in my kitchen! And Mr. Morgan would just sit there and sing while everybody cooked!"
Luke laughed. "And you cut yourself and bled everywhere on the day we made tomato sauce."
"Oh, I was fine!" said Sookie. "Morgan only got upset because he couldn't tell what was blood and what was sauce, which only proves how incompetent he was!"
Luke shook his head, smiling. "So what have you been up to all these years?"
"Well, I went to culinary school for awhile," Sookie replied.
Luke raised his eyebrows. "Culinary school?"
"Yes! Can you believe it? We took Chef's together, and now that's how we both make our living!"
"Where do you work?"
"Well," said Sookie, "I actually just moved back to Stars Hollow. I was hired to work at the Independence Inn."
"Really!" said Luke. "Mia hired you, then?"
"Yes, she told me she knew you. But," Sookie cocked her head in the direction of one of the tables, "she might not be my boss for very much longer."
Luke frowned. "Why?"
"Well," said Sookie, "Mia's still going to be involved in running the inn, but she just promoted my friend Lorelai here from housekeeping manager to executive manager."
Luke finally glanced over at the table. A young, pretty brunette sat there with a little girl.
"So I gather you aren't just here to reminisce about high school?" Luke said. "You and your friends want food?"
"That would be nice. I've heard great things about this place," Sookie said, sitting down at the table. "Hmmm…" she studied the menu. "Bacon cheeseburger and fries, please. And a Coke."
"I'll have coffee," said the brunette- Lorelai? He thought she looked vaguely familiar, like she'd been in the diner once or twice before. "Black And a cheeseburger."
"I'll have chicken fingers and a Coke, please," said the little girl politely.
"Coming right up." Luke shook his head in amazement as he walked back to the kitchen. He hadn't thought about high school Chef's class in years.
When he brought the food out, he asked Sookie's friend, "Have I met you yet? I'm Luke Danes."
She raised her eyebrows and shook his hand. "Lorelai Gilmore."
"Sookie tells me you work at the inn."
"I no longer work at the inn," she corrected him. "I run it now."
"But Mia's still involved with it?"
"Oh, yeah, she mentioned she knew you," said Lorelai. She smiled. "Mia's been my saving grace for six years. She gave me a job, gave me a place to live, plenty of coffee…" She picked up her cup. "I wouldn't go here because I told her that her coffee was good enough and it was free, but she said I absolutely had to try it. So here goes. And I'll warn you, I'm picky about my coffee." Lorelai took a sip. "Mm!" She quickly took another sip. "Oh! This is so good! We're talking Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally good!"
"Thank you," Luke said modestly, and headed back toward the counter.
"Can I try some?" the little girl asked.
Lorelai laughed. "Sure, you can have a sip."
Luke spun around. "What?!" he exclaimed.
"You got a problem there?" Lorelai asked him.
"You can't give coffee to a kid her age! It'll stunt her growth and give her all kinds of medical problems when she's older. I'm sure her mother would agree."
Lorelai glared at him. "I'm her mother, and she most definitely does not agree."
Luke did a double take. "You're her mother?"
"Rory's eight, I'm twenty-four. You do the math, Duke."
"Luke."
"And may I suggest you stop giving your customers eating advice, Duke? You're going to lose a lot of business that way."
"Hasn't lost me any yet," he grumbled. "Although losing them soon is inevitable considering that they're coating their arteries with all sorts of fatty heart attack gunk."
"Um, excuse me? Your patrons are proud to be coating their arteries. I know I am. That's what keeps you in business."
"Well, thank God that the general population has no concern for their health," he snapped, and stalked off back to the kitchen.
He didn't expect her to come back, but she was there again the next day. "Well, that's one customer I didn't lose," he said.
"Don't flatter yourself, Duke," she shot back. "For alas, your charming personality has nothing to do with me being here now. I wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for the fact that your coffee makes me want to bang the counter and go, 'Yes! Yes! Yes!'" She was, in fact, banging the counter as she said it.
"Got a rather charming personality yourself," he remarked.
"I am here out of wild, uncontrollable caffeine addiction," she said. "Nothing more. You are simply my dealer. I want to make that very clear."
"Crystal."
And day after day, she was back.
It was funny how little pieces of the past could catch up to you. First there was Sookie St. James showing up. And then, another person whom Luke hadn't thought about in years entered his life again.
She was a tall, thin young woman with long, curly, light brown hair and a warm, easy smile, and she sat right down at the counter when she entered the diner. "I'd like a chicken sandwich and milk, please," she said.
There was something very familiar about the woman, but Luke didn't ask until he brought her the food. "Excuse me," he said, "but do I know you from somewhere?"
She laughed, a pretty sound. "I thought you'd never ask, Luke," she said. "I'm Rachel McGregor. I was friends with your sister in high school."
Luke blinked. "Rachel! Of course." He remembered her then. Rachel had been friends with Liz, although not one of Liz's closest friends, and he'd always been able to tolerate her better than he could tolerate Carrie, Jill, or Anna.
"How is Liz doing?" Rachel asked. "I'm afraid we've lost touch."
"She's, uh…" Liz's second husband had recently divorced her. She was drinking again, and he had said he couldn't be with her until she was sober. The last time he'd talked to her, she'd said she was dating someone new. "She's, uh, living in New York, you know, with her son."
"Gosh," said Rachel, sipping her milk. "How old is Jess now? He was a tiny little thing the last time I saw him."
"He's eight."
"Wow…" said Rachel softly. "That's amazing. I mean, here I am, the same age as Liz, and she's been married and has an eight-year-old kid. And what have I done?" Rachel shook her head. "I haven't done or seen half the things I wanted to by the time I was this age."
God, she was pretty. "Well, what brings you back to Stars Hollow?"
Rachel shrugged. "I had a job in Chicago. Photographer for the Sun-Times." She smiled. "But I mean, there's only so much you can photograph in Chicago. I wanted to get out, see the world. I mean, there are so many photographs out there, so many moments of…truth, and beauty, and pain, and joy…all just waiting to be photographed." She blushed suddenly. "I'm sorry…you must think I'm nuts. I see you for the first time in years and I can't stop babbling on and on about my job."
But Luke was fascinated. There was a sort of glow that radiated from her when she talked about her photography, and it was the most attractive thing he'd ever seen. "No, no. It sounds…" He could feel himself start to blush as well. "…interesting."
Rachel smiled. "Well," she said, "I'm back in town, staying with my parents for awhile, just until I can find a job. I'm looking to see if I can get a job as a travel photographer, you know, with a magazine or something in New York."
"Well, that sounds…nice."
Rachel finished her food, paid, and gave him one last smile. "I'll see you around, then."
"Yeah," he echoed, his eyes following her out the door. "I'll see you around."
She kept coming by the diner, every day. And every day she seemed more and more beautiful to Luke. She had this grace, this easy way about her that he admired immensely. When she smiled, he felt his heart waxing inside him.
He wanted to ask her out so badly. And it killed him to think that she would have said yes twelve years ago, when he was Butch Danes the track god. The years had been kinder to her than they'd been to him. Now she, who had been almost as much of a blowjob queen as Liz in high school, was a lovely, elegant photographer destined to see the world, while he was a scruffy, average-Joe diner guy stuck in the same old routine in the same old building he'd spent time in all his life.
Finally, one day he got up his nerve and decided to do it. What the hell, he thought. If she says no, you won't have her, but you don't have her now.
So he asked her. And amazingly, she said yes.
It wasn't long before she was calling him her boyfriend and he was calling her his girlfriend. She moved out of her parents' house into the apartment with him. Every day Luke woke up and pinched himself. She was such an amazing woman—beautiful, bright, vibrant, interesting. His customers could see the change in him. He was smiling more, laughing more. He couldn't stop thinking about her. And when he thought of Rachel, he thought of her eyes. Rachel had perfect eyes, both aesthetically and practically. They were beautiful eyes, a deep, warm, rich brown color. Rachel had told him once that she had above-average vision, better than twenty-twenty. "Like Ted Williams," she'd said. "Did you know that? That's how he was able to hit so well. He could see each individual stitch on the ball when it was spiraling toward him."
That was so fitting for Rachel. She was a photographer, so that was what she did—she saw. She saw things, she saw people. She saw beauty in places where other people missed it, and it showed in her photographs. Once, when they'd taken a day trip to Boston, and had opted to wait for another train after the first one that went by was too crowded, they sat down on a bench in an empty above-ground T station. Rachel had glanced down the tracks. "Oh, wow!" she gasped. "Look at that!"
Luke looked down, expecting to see a strange animal or an unusual discarded object. "Look at what?"
"The way it looks, with the tracks, and the streetlight, and the trees…oh, I have to get a picture of this!" Rachel opened her bag, pulled out her camera, and started snapping pictures. "It's so gorgeous," she said as she took pictures. "It's like, I don't know…like the intersection of man and nature or something. So…harmonious, I guess."
Luke looked down the tracks again, and amazingly, this time he saw it. It hit him all at once—an overwhelming rush of beauty. He shook his head in wonderment. Other people might look at that scene, but only Rachel would see it. She saw things like that all the time.
And she saw Luke. He couldn't figure it out. This woman was so beautiful, inside and out, and she probably could have had any man she wanted. But there was something in Luke that she saw that made her want to be with him. He'd stared at his face in the bathroom mirror many times, trying to see it for himself, and he never could.
Once, they
went on a date to see Sleepless In Seattle. "Are you kidding me?" Luke had groaned when
Rachel had picked the movie. "I didn't think you were the chick flick type."
"And what type do you think I am?" Rachel teased him.
Luke shrugged. "I don't know…usually you're into more…artistic movies."
"Well, I am," Rachel conceded. "And I usually don't like chick flicks. But this one intrigues me—the whole love-at-first-sight thing."
Luke raised his eyebrows. "You believe in that stuff?"
"Well, yeah," Rachel said, linking her arm through his. "At the risk of sounding like a Hallmark card, I think all love is really love at first sight."
"Oh, yeah? How's that?"
"Because," she said, resting her head on his shoulder, "you fall in love with someone the first time you really, truly see him for what he is."
With her fantastic vision, though, Rachel was also keenly aware of what other people saw, and Stars Hollow made her claustrophobic. "I feel like they're all…watching me," she said one day when she and Luke were alone. "There are so many people here who have been here their whole lives. And they remember what I was like in high school. I made so many mistakes…I feel like they're just waiting for me to make another one."
"That's not true," Luke protested.
"It feels that way to me," she said quietly.
No matter how much he tried to convince her otherwise, she couldn't understand. Luke wished he could tell her about how the town had given him a chance. They'd seen him as a troubled youth in his skateboarding, vandalizing days before they'd idolized him as a star athlete, and after that they'd looked at him disdainfully as a crabby, disillusioned townie who would never live up to his father's legacy. But that had all changed over the years. The townspeople respected him now, maybe even loved him. And although he would never admit it to anyone, the feeling was mutual. As much as some things about Stars Hollow drove him nuts—all the festivals, all the gossip, Taylor Doose—it was comfortable and familiar, like the ugly sweatshirt with holes in it that you put on when you have a bad day. It was constant, and it was there. It wasn't going to leave him.
He wished he could say the same for Rachel. She was serious about getting a job at a travel magazine, and would frequently pack up and leave for New York. She wasn't great about warning him, either—she'd let him know the night before, or the morning that she left.
She did find a job eventually, and soon she was home even less. She was off to different states, different countries, different corners of the world. It made Luke dizzy to think about it. He missed her when she was gone, but true to the cliché, absence did make the heart grow fonder. She was gone so often, though, that he wondered how many people in town even knew that he had a girlfriend.
One day when she was back in Stars Hollow, he asked her, "When's your next trip?"
She looked at him, surprised. "Two weeks. Piece on a ski place in the Colorado Rockies."
"You think, uh…you mind if, uh…" Why couldn't he get the words out? "You know, I've been wondering about, uh…"
Rachel smiled. "Luke, do you want to come with me?"
"If…if it's all right with you."
"Sure it is. Will the diner be okay with you leaving it? I mean, it's only three days, but still…"
"No, no…three days isn't much. It'll be fine."
So they went off to the Rockies together, and Luke couldn't quite believe it when he was there, on the ground, staring at a sky of a purer, stronger blue than he had ever seen, and mountains like God—so steady, powerful, immense, important. It hit him all at once that the world was bigger than he had ever let himself imagine. There was so much beauty all around him—he was even breathing it in. He couldn't speak. All at once, he understood why Rachel needed to see so many other places. For the first time, he thought, God, what have I been missing?
"You okay?" Rachel asked gently, snapping him back into reality.
He exhaled. "Yeah. Wow." He shook his head.
She laughed. "Come on, let's go."
They spent the day skiing and marveling in the grandeur of the mountains. Rachel took plenty of pictures for her story, and that night, she said, "There's this little restaurant in town that I want to try. Let's go check it out."
The restaurant was in a little log cabin in the center of the town, and the wait for a table was long. "But it'll be worth it," Rachel told him. "The food's supposed to be fantastic." While they were waiting, they were told that they could sit in front of the fireplace and order drinks.
The two of them settled down on one of the couches in front of the fire, and Luke marveled silently at how beautiful she was, with her brown sweater matched her eyes perfectly, her cheeks windburned from skiing, the fire picking up on the highlights in her hair.
"Couldn't help admiring your boots," a voice said suddenly. Luke looked up and saw a young woman sitting with her significant other on another couch. She had spoken to Rachel.
"Oh, thanks," said Rachel. "I got them in New York, actually."
"Really!" said the man. "Are you from New York?"
"No, actually, I'm originally from Connecticut, but I work for a travel magazine based in New York. My boyfriend and I are here while I take pictures for a piece on this town."
"Oh, wow!" said the woman. "I have a friend who's a photographer, too. Also based out of New York. We were recently married and have a place in New York now."
"Oh, yeah? Whereabouts?"
Luke wanted to join in the conversation, but he had nothing to add. He hadn't experienced nearly as much as the rest of them. He hadn't been anywhere; he hadn't done anything worthwhile outside of Stars Hollow. He suddenly felt very insignificant.
But dinner was wonderful, just as Rachel had promised. All he could think about was how lucky he was to have this amazing woman here with him.
When the waiter came with the tab, Rachel smiled at him and said, "You've been a good waiter tonight. That will show in the tip."
The waiter rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, I hope it does. Ten years since I got out of college, and this is my first real job. Making my own living has been more difficult than I thought."
Luke did a double take. This man was in his early thirties. He had a beard and a low ponytail, and he didn't have the air of a spoiled rich kid. Connecticut had plenty of those, and this guy wasn't one of them. Why on Earth would he not have had a job in the ten years since graduating college? Even most rich kids had those.
But Rachel didn't seem surprised at all. "Really," she said. "I've heard that in towns like this it's quite common for people to be financially dependent on their parents for years after college. Do you know other people who are?"
"Oh, yeah," the waiter replied. "Lots of my friends."
Luke just sat there in awe as they kept talking. As she proved time and time again, Rachel could fit in anywhere, with anyone. She was quite good at it. Like a fashion model for places, she could try any place on and look great in it. But Luke—he would be stuck wearing the plaid flannel of Stars Hollow for the rest of his life.
One Friday night when Rachel was home, the two of them lay in his bed, flipping through the cable channels, when the phone rang. Luke reached for it. "Hello?"
He could barely recognize Liz's voice through her sobs. "Luke…oh, Luke, I hate myself, I screwed up so bad!"
"Why? What is it, Liz?"
She was crying and hiccupping. "Oh, God, Luke, I'm a terrible mother, I can't believe I…I let it get to this…"
"Liz, what's wrong? Tell me!"
"He hit him! God, I can't believe it!"
"What? Liz, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Derek! He hit Jess! He hit my son and oh, my God, I can't believe it's gotten to this!"
"He did WHAT?!" Luke roared, a rush of fury flooding him so suddenly and so violently that he started shaking.
Liz started sobbing all over again. "Oh, God, I can't believe this. I-I saw he had bruises, and he said he fell down, but-but they kept happening, and finally he told me what happened, and I'm so stupid! I mean, Derek's hit me, too, how could I not connect—"
"You, too? God damn it!"
"I know, I know," she cried. "He's not here—he left—I don't know when he's coming back…"
"Liz, you stay right there. I will be down there right away."
Luke hung up. Then he turned and punched a wall with all his strength. "FUCK!" he screamed. "God damn it all!"
"Luke?" Rachel prodded gently.
"The fucking asshole my sister was dating has been hitting her and her son!" he yelled. "How could this happen? How could she keep dating a guy who would do this to her? And what kind of person could do this?! To his girlfriend and her eight-year-old kid!" Angry tears were pricking at his eyes, and he turned and kicked the wall multiple times.
Rachel put a hand on his arm. He jerked away. "I have to go to New York, Rachel. Right now."
"Let me come," she said.
"Why?" he said.
"I've had friends in similar situations, and I'm worried, too. Besides, in the state of mind you're in right now, I'm afraid you might kill someone."
She did have a point. "All right," he said. "Come with me."
Rachel was already throwing on some clothes. Before they left, she grabbed her camera bag. "What do you need that for?" Luke asked in irritation.
"Like I said, I've known people in situations like this," she said. "Believe me, if you're going to file charges, it helps the case tremendously if you photograph the injuries. And this is my best camera."
In the car on the way there, Rachel asked him softly, "So this has never happened before?"
"Not this specifically," Luke replied, his anger cooling a little. "But it's always something. Jess's father left her right after the birth, her second husband left her because she was drinking too much, she dated one guy who stole from her. And she's always getting evicted and losing jobs…she never has enough money. And my nephew…God, Liz loves him, but it scares me so much to think about the kind of life he must have…" Luke's voice started to break as he spoke. "Damn it! I know this is that Derek bastard's fault, I mostly just want to kill him, but still…how could she even think that this is acceptable? How could she not know to leave someone who treats her like this? She deserves so much better."
"Low self-esteem," said Rachel, sounding very wise. "It's the cause of ninety percent of all problems in relationships."
When they knocked on Liz's apartment door, he called, "It's Luke and Rachel. Liz, open the door."
She did, looking awful. Her face was streaked with tears and mottled with old bruises. "Oh, God, Luke, I'm so sorry…" She started to cry again. Luke, no longer in the mood to argue, opened his arms and enclosed her in a hug. "It's okay, Liz," he whispered, feeling irrationally guilty that he hadn't known sooner. "Everything's going to be okay."
When the hug ended, Luke stepped aside, revealing Rachel. "Liz," she said warmly.
"Rachel," said Liz, giving her a hug as well. "Oh, I haven't seen you in years! I'm sorry we're not meeting under better circumstances. How've you been?"
"Pretty well," said Rachel.
"Come in, you guys," said Liz, and they did. Luke was amazed at how small the place was. It was a one-bedroom that was actually smaller than his own apartment, which had never been meant to be lived in. And this apartment was home to Liz, Jess, and, apparently, the bastard who had hit them.
Jess was sitting with his knees curled up on the couch. He was a small, skinny eight-year-old with dark hair, and Luke could see black-and-blue marks on his face and arms. The sight of it broke his heart. "Hey, Jess," Luke said, as affectionately as possible, and laid a hand on the boy's shoulder.
Jess jerked away, giving him a dirty look. "Don't touch me."
"Okay." Luke had never been good with kids, so he focused his attention on Liz. "So," he said, "can you tell me what happened?"
She sniffled. "Well, Derek had been hitting me every once in awhile, which I didn't like…but when he wasn't doing that he seemed like such a great guy, you know? Plus he had a job. But then…I started to notice Jess had these bruises, and he just kept saying he fell down, which I could buy once, maybe twice, but after the third time I got suspicious, and finally he told me Derek's been throwing him down, hitting him…I just couldn't believe it, and when I asked Derek, he started screaming to me that it was a lie, and he hit me again, too…and then he drove off." Liz burst into fresh tears. "I'm so scared, Luke. I'm so scared of what he'll do when he comes back."
Rachel looked at her seriously. "You need to call the police," she said, "and get a restraining order. It will help your case if you photograph your injuries, and if you have any threatening notes or anything that he might have written, you need to keep those as well."
"I think I do have one note he wrote me," said Liz. "Somewhere."
"Good. Now, I did bring my camera, so we can take those pictures right now."
After she'd photographed Liz, Rachel turned to Jess. "Now we have to take pictures of you."
"I don't want to!" Jess replied. He turned, ran, and locked himself in the bathroom.
Rachel calmly followed him over to the door and knocked. "Jess," she said, "please come out."
"No!"
"I'm going to take some pictures," she said, "that might help keep Derek from ever coming back and hurting you or your mom again. It would really help if you'd come out of there."
There was a pause. Then Jess opened the door and stood there with his arms folded across his chest.
Rachel smiled. "Thanks," she said, very gently, smoothing his hair. "This will only take a minute, I promise."
That night was the first time that Luke ever truly saw Rachel.
One day when Rory Gilmore was ten, she was walking along the shoulder of the road outside Luke's Diner, kicking a pebble, when behind her, a speeding car suddenly turned the corner and headed right toward her. Caesar was minding the diner and Luke was heading back from the bank when he saw the car.
"Watch out!" he yelled, and without thinking, he grabbed Rory's wrist and dragged her to the side, safe from the car's path. But he did it so suddenly that Rory's entire body sprawled over the pavement.
Rory stood up and brushed herself off, her blue eyes wide as the car sped off. Her face turned pale. "That almost hit me," she whispered.
"Rory, are you all right?"
"Yes," she said, but then she glanced down. Both of her legs were scraped and bleeding, and so was one of her palms. She brushed some of the gravel out of her hand and winced. "Ow."
"Let's get you cleaned up," said Luke, a bit dazed at how close the car had come to her. "I have some bandages and stuff in here."
"But I was going to meet my mom," Rory protested. "I was going to walk to the Inn from the bus stop to meet her. She'll worry if I'm late."
Luke raised his eyebrows. What a good kid, to be thinking about her mother when she was the one hurt. "I'll give your mother a call and explain that you'll be a little late, okay? Those are some nasty cuts you've got and I want to make sure you're okay."
"All right," said Rory softly. "Thank you, Luke."
Once they were inside his apartment, he went to the phone and called the Independence Inn. "Hello, is Lorelai Gilmore there?"
"Ms. Gilmore is busy at the moment," said a male voice with a French accent.
"Well, this is important. Can you make sure she gets this message?"
"Fine."
"Her daughter Rory's had a little accident, but she's fine, she'll just be a little late. She's with me at Luke's Diner."
"All right."
When he got off the phone he turned to Rory. "Okay, let me get a washcloth and we'll clean up your knees."
Rory winced a little when the wet cloth touched her cuts. "Sorry," Luke said. "I'll try to make this as painless as possible."
"Did that car really almost hit me?" Rory asked, her young face serious.
"Oh, it came pretty close, but no harm done," Luke said lightly, not wanting to scare her.
"I could have died," Rory breathed, her face narrowing into a frown. "And I'm only ten. You can't die when you're only ten."
"You certainly shouldn't," replied Luke, patting her cuts dry with a towel.
"I don't think I even know anyone who died," she said, talking almost to herself. "What would my mom do if I died? She'd be alone."
Luke couldn't look at her as she said that. She was the same age he'd been when his mother had died. She was a sensitive little kid, he thought in surprise, thinking about her mom. He hadn't had much experience with kids aside from Jess. Rory was about the same age as his nephew, but what a different breed! She was such a cute, sweet little girl. Like Jess, she'd been raised by a teenage single mother. What in the world had Lorelai done differently?
"Here," he said, handing her a boxful of bandages. "Sorry I don't have any colorful ones or anything, they're just plain brown."
"That's okay," she said as she placed them over her injuries. "Thank you for pulling me out of the way, Luke. And thank you for all your help."
"You're welcome," he said, patting her lightly on the back. "By the way, is Ernie still the bus driver? He'll drop you off at the Inn from now on if you ask."
When the two of them went back downstairs, they were greeted by a frantic Lorelai, who looked like she'd run all the way from the Inn. She let out a shaky, terrified breath when she saw them. "Oh, my God. Rory…" she said.
Luke looked at her in confusion. "What are you doing here? I left you a message, did you get it?"
"All the message said was, 'Rory accident Luke's,'" she said. "Damn Michel. That's one French concierge who's going to get his ass kicked. Rory, what happened?"
"I was walking along the side of the street and a car almost hit me," she said. "Luke pulled me out of the way and I got all scraped. He cleaned me up and gave me band-aids."
The color drained from Lorelai's face. "She was almost hit?" she said in a very strange voice.
Luke shrugged "Well, yeah, I mean, I tried to get her out of the way so she wouldn't get hurt, but she fell, and…hey, what can you do. So I decided not to send her to you looking all torn-up."
Lorelai bent down and wrapped Rory into a hug. Luke saw her eyes tear up, and it was strangely moving. He'd never seen Lorelai let her guard down like that before. She was always so perky and bubbly, hyped up on caffeine when he saw her. He was seeing a glimpse into Lorelai's fears and loves now. It was a whole other side of her.
Lorelai stood up and looked him straight in the eyes. "Thank you, Luke," she said with a sincerity that greatly enhanced the normal connotation of the words.
She never called him Duke again.
It was easy to pinpoint that as the moment Lorelai stopped hating his guts. Determining the exact moment he and Lorelai became friends, however, was harder. They started talking more when she came into the diner, and he began to learn new things about her. Rachel was gone more and more often, and it occurred to him that since he'd started dating Rachel, he had lost all interest in other women.
But he became interested in Lorelai. Not romantically interested, just interested in her as a person. How strange it was that a woman could come into his diner every day for two years and he could know so little about her. He gradually began to learn more. He'd known that she'd had Rory when she was sixteen, but he hadn't known that she had been born into an extremely wealthy family in Hartford to parents who didn't understand her and whom she didn't get along with. He hadn't known that, against her parents' wishes, she had refused to marry Rory's father, or even to finish school, despite being one of the top students in her class at an elite prep school. He hadn't known that she'd run away from home with Rory as soon as she turned eighteen, or that she'd started out working as a maid at the Independence Inn before working her way up to executive manager. He hadn't known that she and Sookie were talking about opening up their own inn one day. And although he'd known that Rory was an extremely bright and special kid, he hadn't known that she was reading far above her grade level and dreamed of attending Harvard.
She was fascinating, that Lorelai, and she was fascinating in a different way than any other woman he'd ever known, including Rachel. Rachel had made her life fascinating. Lorelai had been made fascinating by life.
Monumental things began to happen in 1996. First, Mia decided to move to Santa Barbara. Her husband had passed away the year before, and she said she needed a change of scenery. Luke couldn't believe it. Running the diner was his way of staying connected to his father, but Mia was really the last connection he had to his mother. "Keep in touch, Lucas," Mia said, hugging him, before she left. "I'll always be here if you want to talk."
He felt like whining, "But it won't be the same," like a little kid. He would have meant it, though. It seemed like he should have adjusted to change as he got older, but experience had taught him that when life changed, it was usually for the worse.
One person's life did change for the better that year, though. Lorelai came bouncing into the diner one day, grinning like a bookworm with a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble. "Huge vat of celebratory coffee," she said.
"And what are we celebrating?"
"Since having Rory," she said, "I have had three goals in my life. One is to be a good mother—time will tell on that one, but Rory's a great kid and as of now doesn't seem ready to write a tell-all book, so I think at the very least I've got Joan Crawford beat. Two is to own my own inn—that's a fairly new one, so I've got some time on that. But three…" Her grin got even wider. "Three was to own my own house."
"You bought a house?"
"I bought a house!" she beamed. "I've been saving up for this for years!This gorgeous two-story house in Stars Hollow. It's got a bedroom upstairs for me, and a bedroom downstairs for Rory, and a kitchen which of course we'll never use…you know, I seriously think that the earth could just fall into a big black hole right now and it wouldn't spoil my mood."
"Wouldn't your new house get sucked down the black hole with the world?"
"Yes, but my mood wouldn't."
Luke smiled and shook his head. "Congratulations, Lorelai. One celebratory pot of coffee coming right up."
Later, she took him up on his offer to help her move in. It was a gorgeous snowy day in February, and the Gilmore girls were jubilant. "Rory, we can make a snowman!" said Lorelai as they were arranging chairs around a table inside the house. "I have always wanted to make one in my own backyard! My parents would never let me because it was 'unbecoming' in a high-class neighborhood like theirs." She smiled like a little kid. "Now I can have a snowman all of my own."
"Snowperson," Rory corrected her. "We mustn't be un-PC."
"Person schmerson. Who cares, we've got a backyard! C'mon!" Lorelai abruptly grabbed Rory's hand and ran with her into the yard. "Luke, you too!" she yelled, and somewhat uncertainly, Luke followed them out. Once there, Lorelai and Rory flopped onto the snow and flapped their arms and legs. "Wait, wait," Lorelai cautioned. "Don't get up just yet." She flipped over, but instead of drawing a halo above her head, she drew tiny little horns. "See? We're snow devils! Ha ha! A symbol of my new existence as a home-owning suburbanite. I may look like a Volvo-driving soccer mom, but—what's that? Could that be a pitchfork hidden behind my white picket fence?"
"I don't play soccer," said Rory.
"And you don't have a Volvo or a white picket fence," added Luke.
"Every home-owning suburban mother has a Volvo and a picket fence and a soccer-playing child in essence if not in actuality," Lorelai replied with mock solemnity. "So soccer-playing child must don the obligatory horns for cursing her mother with the soccer mom stigma." She bent over and drew horns above Rory's head. Then she glanced at Luke with a wicked grin on her face. "You too, now, Diner Man."
Luke shook his head. "Uh-uh. No way. You know, we still haven't put everything in the house." He turned and started to walk back toward the car, but he was stopped by a cold blow to his back. "Hey!" Lorelai was standing there smugly when he turned around.
"It's either an angel or a snowball down the flannel shirt," she said.
Luke rolled his eyes. "Well, fine, if it means that much to you," he said, and flopped down in the snow.
"Now flap," Lorelai demanded.
He obeyed, half-heartedly. "Now I guess I get devil's horns above my head, too?"
"Oh, no," said Lorelai, reaching above his head to draw something. "You keep me in coffee and you help me move in, and for that, my friend, you get a halo."
When they were done, they stood outside gazing at the house as Rory excitedly unpacked her books inside. "This is a beautiful house," said Luke.
"Yeah," she murmured quietly, looking at her feet.
He frowned. "What's wrong?" he asked, concerned.
She sighed. "Oh, nothing," she said. "Nothing important. It's just that—"
"What?" he prodded gently.
"Well," she said slowly, "this is going to sound stupid, but this is one of the few times in my life I've ever wished I was married. I mean, ninety percent of the time I love not being dependent on anyone, that Gloria Steinem-worshipping side of me, but… somewhere in the back of my mind, I really do want that whole husband-Volvo-picket fence thing." She gave a little smile. "But no soccer. Thank God Rory never got into soccer."
"Soccer moms do kind of freak me out," he agreed quietly.
"Yeah. But you know what I mean." She sighed again. "I think part of me just kind of hardwired my brain to reject anything my parents wanted for me. I mean, as much as I love the life I have, I fell into it completely accidentally. Eleven years ago I thought I'd be going to college, getting a job that didn't begin with me cleaning bathrooms, getting married and having the 2.2 kids or whatever it is. You know, in the back of my mind, I thought that when I did buy a house like this, I'd have a husband there all ready to carry me over the threshold. Even if it meant the little feminist Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder would be screaming, 'No! Lorelai! You're a strong, independent woman who doesn't need a man!'"
Luke was silent for a minute. Then he said, "Want me to do the honors?"
She laughed uncertainly, as if she wasn't sure whether or not he was kidding. "Aw, that's very sweet, Luke, but you don't have to."
"No, seriously," he said. "If it will make you feel like you really belong here."
She smiled at him, very sincerely. "All right," she said.
"Okay then." He wrapped one arm under her shoulders and the other beneath her snow-covered knees and lifted her off her feet. She was a tall woman but surprisingly light, especially considering how much she ate every day at his diner.
Her smile was even wider once he'd carefully placed her on the couch. "I better get going," he said. "But you need anything, any kind of help or anything, just give me a call."
"Thanks, Luke," she said. "You're a really good friend, did you know that?"
1996 was also the year that Luke decided to make a change in his own life. Rachel was home with him, and he was happy. He had no doubt in his mind that he was in love with this beautiful, fascinating woman named Rachel. There was only one thing left to do.
After the diner had closed for the night, he showered and changed into nicer clothes, then closed the diner's shades, lit a candle, and cooked Rachel her favorite meal.
When they'd finished dinner, he could feel himself shaking slightly. "Rachel," he said, "I have something to ask you."
"Yeah?" she said, smiling. "Ask away."
"Okay." He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "I love you, Rachel," he said. "I love…everything about you. Every day that I'm with you I'm just continuously amazed, and…I would love to spend the rest of my life being amazed by you. So…I'm sorry I don't have a ring yet, but…Rachel, will you marry me?"
Luke watched as the smile slowly faded from Rachel's face. "What's wrong?" he asked her.
"Luke," she said slowly, "what do you see in our future?" She looked up at him. "You see us married, together- doing what?"
He was starting to sweat. "I see us…I see us doing the same thing we do now, I mean, that's working, right?"
"You think it is, Luke?" He studied Rachel's face. "You think this is working? You running this diner, me running off to take photos all over the place?"
He didn't know what to say. "I guess it's not, then."
"Could you ever leave this place, Luke?" she asked him, gesturing to the diner around her. "Could you give all this up and travel around the world with me?"
He was silent as he tried to imagine it, and failed. He couldn't leave Stars Hollow, or even the diner. Rachel's life was anywhere but there, seeing the world from every possible angle. His trip to Colorado had already proved to him that he would never be able to see the world from any angle except the one behind the counter at his diner.
"That's what I thought," Rachel said quietly, and got up and left the table. Luke sat there for a minute, letting himself go numb. Then he leaned over and in a quick, angry puff, blew out the candle.
The next day, Rachel's bags are already packed. "Rachel," he said, his voice breaking, "you don't have to do this."
"But I do, Luke," she said, her eyes tearing up. She went over to him and gave him one last, desperate hug. "I love you," she whispered, "but…this just isn't right."
And just like that, she was gone.
The greatest irony was that once she was gone, he finally understood what she meant about Stars Hollow being too small. It was killing him to be in his apartment, with every reminder of Rachel, every bit of proof that Rachel had lived there, gone. He couldn't even pretend that she'd be back like all the other times. This was permanent; he could feel it. But as much as it killed him to be in his apartment, it would have killed him more to have to face the people of Stars Hollow. They all knew. They had to have known. Nothing could ever stay a secret in Stars Hollow. If he went anywhere, even downstairs, he'd have to deal with everyone's sympathy when all he wanted to do was to forget that Rachel ever existed.
So he closed the diner for a day, told Caesar not to come in, pretended he was sick. All he could do was to lie in bed and mindlessly flip through channels, watching whatever junk happened to be on.
Of course, that only worked for a day, and common sense, a need for income, and a lack of excuses forced him to go back to work again. He felt his irritation grow when he saw that Patty and Babette were two of his first customers that day. "Oh, dear," Patty said, patting his arm, "I'm so sorry. Any girl who would leave you like that isn't good enough for you anyway."
"I don't want to talk about it, Patty," he said, his voice measured to try to contain his feelings.
"Oh, I never liked her," Babette continued as if she hadn't heard. "Never trust a gal who can't stand still."
"I said, I don't want to talk about it," he said, his voice rising a bit.
"Well, the good news is there are plenty of available young women out there," said Patty.
He couldn't stand it. "I said I don't want to talk about it!" he barked so loudly that the whole diner fell silent.
Damn.
The good news was that people shut up about Rachel and everything else for the rest of the day. The bad news was that the silence only served as another reminder that Rachel was gone.
One night, about a week after the breakup, he was lying alone in bed. He couldn't sleep. It was three o'clock in the morning, and the diner would open in only two hours. The ache deep inside of him was awful. Why did everybody keep leaving him? His mother had left him. His father had left him. Liz had left him, and she hadn't called in months. Last he'd heard, she'd gotten a restraining order against Derek, but how would Luke even know if his advice had failed and Liz had gone back with him again? Mia had left him. Rachel had left him. Even his Uncle Louie, whom he couldn't stand, had moved to Orlando.
Why did everybody keep leaving? The people he loved were all disappearing from his life. Everyone who hadn't died didn't need him. And feeling unnecessary was the worst thing in the world.
Luke got up and opened his father's desk. Bill had had two guns—the war re-enactor musket that had been buried with him, and the revolver that he'd kept in case the hardware store was robbed, as if there had ever been a robbery in Stars Hollow. Luke pulled that revolver out of the desk and stared down its barrel. His breathing was loud and nervous.
He'd gotten used to thinking that he could fix anything if he tried hard enough, as long as no one was dead. He'd turned the failing hardware store into a successful diner. He'd helped Liz out more times than he could count. But now Rachel was alive and he was alive, and there was nothing he could do to make them be alive together again. He couldn't take his eyes off the gun.
And right on cue, the phone rang.
He jumped, then breathed to calm himself, and it crossed his mind that it was three o'clock in the morning and who the hell would be calling him then as he went to pick up the phone. "Hello?"
"Luke! We're cold."
It was so unexpected that it took a minute for the voice to register. "Lorelai?"
"Luke, sorry to call like this, but there's a window in my house that's stuck and it's open a crack and in any minute we're going to have Santa Claus and penguins running around here. Except those two things are at opposite poles…but that's how cold this house is, we'll have them both! Even if it defies logic, which I guess it does but at three in the morning what doesn't, right? And is Santa Claus too fat to run anyway? I guess he has the elves to run for him…so scratch that, we'll have elves and penguins running around here so could you please help me with it?"
Three in the morning. Even without coffee she was like that.
He let out a deep breath, bringing himself back into the real world. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'll be right there."
Years later, he knew that he would never have gone through with it. He actually had to laugh thinking about it. The idea of a suicide in Stars Hollow was absurd. Had it ever happened before? He doubted it. It would be like committing suicide on the It's a Small World ride at Disney World. No one would have any idea what to do. But at the time, all he could think was, If Lorelai hadn't called…
He got rid of the gun the next day. The next time he saw her he gave her some bread he made. He knew, even as he was baking it, that it was ridiculous. "Lorelai, thank you for stopping me from killing myself. Here's some bread!" But he couldn't think of anything else to do. Lorelai looked stunned when he handed it to her. "Luke," she said, "you're the one who's been helping me out. I should be giving you bread."
He waved his hand. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Don't worry about it."
It took a long, long time, but eventually he was able to remember who he was before Rachel had come into his life. His heart began to heal, and life became bearable again. He was right back at square one: in the apartment, in the diner, in Stars Hollow.
And there was Lorelai, day after day after day. It was as hard to get over Rachel as it was easy to fall in love with her, so it was a long time before it even occurred to him to be attracted to Lorelai. But then he was, and it happened a little bit every day. He started to love her beautiful blue eyes, her mischievous smile, her rapid-fire way of speaking, her quick wit, her motherly concern for Rory. He tried to ignore it, but it wouldn't go away. The attraction just grew and grew. No, he tried to tell himself. You're not attracted to Lorelai. You just miss Rachel. You're looking for somebody to replace her, that's all. And Lorelai's here every day, so she's the logical choice.
But then one day, after Rachel had been gone for a couple of years, Lorelai wasn't there. The strangeness of it began to nag at him. He had settled into his own little day-by-day routine, and Lorelai was included in it. It completely threw him off not to have her there, cracking her jokes, making her jabs at him, bantering back and forth, giggling with Rory like a teenager. He tried to go on with the day, to serve coffee and food to everyone else who came in, but he couldn't get Lorelai off his mind.
At some point that day, he heard Patty say to Taylor, "Such a shame about Lorelai. The poor dear."
Luke spun around, his heart thumping. "What?" he said. It came out louder than he'd intended, and he quickly lowered his voice. "What's wrong with Lorelai?" he asked.
"Oh, she took a spill during my yoga class and ended up with a broken leg," said Patty. "The poor thing's got a cast up to her hip. I don't know how she's going to manage to get around."
Luke's heartbeat slowed. A broken leg. Well, it could have been worse. But still...life must be so much more difficult for her now.
That night he stopped over at her house. Rory answered the door. "Hi, Luke!" she said.
"Hey, Rory," he said. "Brought you and your mom some coffee."
"Oh, thank you!" she said.
"How is your mom doing? I heard about her leg."
"Well, she's doing better than yesterday. Yesterday she was in so much pain she had me hold the painkillers because she was afraid she'd get addicted. But she said the upside to that would be getting to meet all those celebrities in rehab."
"Do I hear a Luke?" he heard a voice call from the living room.
"You do," he answered. "I come bearing coffee."
"Oh! Luke, you're my savior! Get in here!"
He entered the living room as Rory went back into her room to do homework. Lorelai was lying on the couch in front of the TV with her leg propped up. He set the coffee down on the table and she opened her arms for a hug. "Oh, Luke, thank you so much!" she said.
"You're welcome," he said, hugging her back
"Sit down," she said, and he did.
"So how are you really doing?" he asked her.
She sighed. "Well, physically," she said, "I'll live. Stayed home from work today, but tomorrow I'll be back. Sookie's going to be picking me up from now on, cause I can't drive, and we were already experts in ordering food out."
"But…" he prodded gently.
He saw a change in her eyes. "Well, a broken leg isn't the end of the world. I can live through this without any real problems, but, you know, it kind of got me thinking. What if I was in a car accident or something? Or what if I was sick? What if I died? You know, I've never actually drawn up a will, because when I had Rory I was sixteen and thought I was going to live forever. And I mean, I'm only twenty-nine now, and that's probably a little young to be having a memento mori, but…what would happen to Rory if I died?" She looked up sharply. "Oh, I'm sorry, Luke, I forgot…your parents…"
"No, no, it's okay," he said.
"Well," Lorelai sighed, " She loves her father to death, and he's a good guy, but you can't depend on him for anything. And my parents would mean well, they always do, but…look where their good intentions got me." He hadn't seen her look so serious, so vulnerable, since the day he'd pulled Rory away from the car. "I don't know what I'd do."
He didn't know what to say, so he just reached over and patted her arm. He wanted so badly to ease her pain, to say something that would make her feel better, but he had no idea what to say. He felt a lump in his throat, and he studied her. And that was the moment that he first truly saw Lorelai.
To be continued…
A/N: Next chapter will deal with Luke's perspectives on events that actually happened on the show. From there the story will move forward.
By the way, I really did have a Chef's teacher named Mr. Morgan who would sit there and sing during class!
Lyrics by Bono and The Edge