Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews. I still don't own Gilmore Girls or the following song...

Everything by Alanis Morissette...

You see everything, you see every part

You see all my light and you love my dark

You dig everything of which I'm ashamed

There's not anything to which you can't relate

And you're still here

Luke and Lorelai were in Hartford at the carnival, which Lorelai forced Luke to take to her. He had to admit that he hadn't been to a carnival in many years and this one, much like the firelight festival back in Stars Hollow, was fun. He couldn't be sure but he was fairly certain his enjoyment of the night had more to do with his company than the carnival itself.

Lorelai had insisted he take her on the Ferris wheel, which he did obligingly. She got him to buy her popcorn and cotton candy as well. She was on her second Elephant Ear when they hit the midway. Lorelai's face lit up and she took Luke's hand and pulled him excited to the games.

"Come on," she said pulling him along. "Win me something!"

"Win you what? These prizes are a bunch of crap," he said surveying the prizes hanging from each carnival game.

"Hah," Lorelai make a funny noise in taking her breath. Her mouth hung open and she looked as if Luke had said something blasphemous. He suddenly hoped the carnival gods hadn't heard him defame their rinky-dink prizes. "These aren't crap," Lorelai said indignant. "These," she said waving her arms like one of Barker's Beauties on the Price Is Right, "are fun and interesting prizes."

Lorelai was so serious that Luke had to laugh at her. She took her carnival seriously. He took her hand and said, "So which one would you like?"

Lorelai surveyed the carnival games and attempted to pick a game Luke would like, and most importantly, win. She finally settled on knocking down milk jugs with a baseball.

"There," she said pointing and pulling Luke to the stand.

"You really want a purple stuffed pig?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"Of course," she answered. "Every modern woman needs a purple stuffed pig to keep her warm at night," she informed him.

"I don't know if I want to win it then, I might get jealous," he told her.

Lorelai wrapped both her arms around his and squeezed him tightly. "I don't think you have anything to worry about," she smiled. "Besides, I'm not so confident you can win anyway," she challenged him.

"Questioning my manhood are you? You'll see," he said pulling out his wallet. "Two balls please," he said to the man behind the counter. He shot Lorelai a looked a mouthed, "Don't say dirty," to her. She giggled as the man handed him two baseballs.

Luke stepped back and grasped the baseball in his hand. He flipped it around in his hand a few times and then pulled back to throw. He hit the milk jugs directly and all three of them went flying.

"Yea!" Lorelai said jumping up and down and clapping. Luke just smiled at her mirth over winning a stuffed purple pig.

"If you knock the other three down you can trade up for a larger prize or take another smaller prize," the kid behind the counter told Luke as he handed him the purple pig.

Luke again stepped back and flipped the baseball over in his hand a few times before the wind up. He threw with the same accuracy and demolished the second stack of milk jugs. He turned and gave Lorelai a smile.

"Are you confident now?" he asked cockily.

Lorelai walked over to him and squeezed his muscle. "That is canned heat right there my friend," she replied.

"So would you like a larger prize or another small one?" the kid asked.

Luke looked at Lorelai. She gave a glance at her little purple pig. "I just can't part with him, we've bonded," she told Luke.

"We'll take another small one then," Luke answered the kid.

"Okay, another purple one? We have blue and yellow too," he said looking under the counter.

"Blue, definitely," Lorelai answered him. The kid handed Lorelai the blue pig, which she promptly handed over to Luke.

"Why are you giving this to me?" he asked.

"You won it," she answered.

"You wanted it," he replied.

"But now we each get one," she said looking at their pigs. "Oh, and I have the perfect names," she said excitedly.

"Here we go again with the name thing," he rolled his eyes good-naturedly. She shot him a look that prompted him to ask, "Okay, what names?"

"Woodward and Bernstein," she said triumphantly.

"Perfect," he replied dryly.

"So which one is yours? Woodward or Bernstein?" she asked.

"I'll go with Bernstein," Luke said. "Robert Redford is too much of a pretty boy," he explained.

"Oh goodie," Lorelai said. "Hi Woodward, how are you this fine evening?" she asked her purple pig.

"Uh, you don't actually expect me to keep Bernstein at my place do you?" he asked Lorelai.

Once again she feigned shock and used her hand to cover the blue pig's ears. "He might hear you Luke," she whispered. "Bernstein just wants to be loved."

"Oh fine, he can stay with me," Luke said grudgingly.

"I knew you were a softy at heart," she said leaning over and giving Luke a light peck on the cheek. They walked for a bit in comfortable silence when they spotted a bench. Lorelai lead Luke over to the bench and the sat down. "I like this," she said to Luke.

"Me too," he replied taking her hand.

"It feels so good to be together without the prying eyes of Stars Hollow staring at us," she said.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he replied.

"I feel bad saying this but I hope something happens to turn the talk away from Rory and Dean," she stated.

"Hopefully the talk will die down soon," he said.

"Yeah, I hope so too. Unfortunately I think it would take a natural disaster to avert their attention right now," Lorelai sighed.

"Well, at least Rory isn't home to hear it. It was probably good that she went to Europe with your Mom. Have you heard from her yet?" Luke inquired.

"Not really," Lorelai said. "I had a message on my cell saying they got to England safely, but that was it."

"I'm sure she's fine," Luke told her.

"Yeah," Lorelai replied leaning her head on Luke's shoulder. He could smell her hair and he breathed in the scent. She had kissed him so fiercely in the storeroom the other day that he couldn't get her off his mind. He was desperately trying to keep things casual and slow like they both agreed, but the closer he was to her the more his rational thought disappeared. That was evident by the fact that he was holding a blue stuffed pig. The woman made him do inexplicable things. The crazy thing was that he enjoyed it.

"How's your Dad?" Luke asked.

"My Dad?" Lorelai repeated.

"Yeah, how is he doing without your mother around?" Luke inquired.

"I don't know," Lorelai answered honestly.

"You haven't talked to him?" Luke asked.

"No, I don't usually talk to him," Lorelai answered suddenly feeling very defensive.

"Oh," Luke said.

"Oh?" Lorelai said lifting her head up to look at him.

"Nothing, I just thought you might check on him and see how he's doing is all," Luke tried to reason.

"What so now I'm a horrible daughter for not calling him? He and my mother split up without telling me Luke! Why should I worry about him? He wasn't worried about telling me anything," she got agitated. She pulled away from Luke and stood up to look at him.

"Whoa, Lorelai, calm down," Luke said. "It was just a question. I was making conversation," Luke defended himself.

"Well maybe you shouldn't make conversation when you don't know what you're talking about," she shot at him.

"Lorelai," he said trying to stop her from leaving. "Wait a minute."

"Forget it," she said walking away from him.

"Lorelai," he yelled after her. 'What the hell was that?' he wondered.

Lorelai stood up and stomped down the midway. Luke just watched her walk into the millions of flashing lights. He didn't know what had just happened. He also didn't know where Lorelai was going since he had driven them to Hartford in the first place.

Lorelai charged down the midway fuming. She wasn't sure why she had gotten so upset with Luke. She figured it had to do with the stress of her parents and Rory, but he had only asked a simple question. Her gait slowed and she took a deep breath realizing how childish she was behaving. She had yelled at him for no reason other than she felt guilty about not calling her father.

She took a deep breath and turned around. She could Luke still sitting on the bench where she'd left him. From his position on the bench she could tell he was mad. His whole body was tense and it was her fault. Things had been going so well. 'Why did I have to blow up at him?' she thought to herself.

She came upon the bench and stood in front of Luke. He didn't look at her instead he just stared straight ahead. His elbow was resting on the arm of the bench and he was tapping his foot in impatience or frustration, Lorelai couldn't tell which.

"Hey," she said swatting at his leg.

He didn't answer her. He only glanced up briefly and then looked away.

"Look, I have no idea where that came from," she said sitting next to him. "I shouldn't have jumped on you," she explained.

He looked at her, still saying nothing.

"Luke, please don't go all monosyllabic on me," she said. "Well actually a syllable would be nice at this point, but that's not the point," she said brushing her hair behind her ears. "I got mad at you and I'm not really sure why. We were having such a nice time. I mean look, we got pigs and everything," she said holding up Woodward and Bernstein.

"I have issues with my parents, you know that better than anyone and I just got mad at you because I felt like you thought I should be calling my Dad. The fact is it never occurred to me because I'm a horrible daughter," she continued to explain.

"You're not a horrible daughter," he said shortly.

"Oh, good, you're talking again," she said. "That's good. Please look at me Luke. I didn't mean to jump on you. I'm sorry," she tried again.

"I still don't get it Lorelai," Luke said. "I was taking an interest in your life and you got all defensive," Luke said.

"I know," she replied. "You know that's how I am sometimes. You're the same way too," she said, not helping her case.

"This isn't about me Lorelai. This is about me asking you a fairly simple question and you getting mad at me," he replied.

"Yeah and I apologized," Lorelai offered, getting defensive again. "So what more do you want? I'm not gonna beg you to forgive me Luke."

"I'm not asking you too," Luke said. "I just want to know if this is how it's gonna be. Are you gonna snap at me every time I ask you a question you don't like?"

"I don't know," Lorelai said. "Are you gonna make me beg every time I try to apologize? Because I'll have you know I don't admit I'm wrong very often," she said sharply.

"Don't I know it," Luke shot back.

They just stared at each for a moment in disbelief. What had happened? The night was going so well and all of sudden they were at each other's throats.

"So that's it?" Lorelai said. "We're not talking now?"

"I guess not," Luke said.

"It's a long way to Stars Hollow," Lorelai said.

"Yep," Luke agreed.

They both got up off the bench and walked to the car. Neither spoke. Luke was upset. He couldn't figure out what happened. He should have just let it go, but he couldn't. Lorelai had apologized and he was the ass now. He refused to meet her halfway. But he had been so supportive through the Rory/Dean thing and then she bit his head off for asking a question.

They drove back to Stars Hollow in silence. Lorelai had tried to make up with him but he was being too stubborn and pig-headed to accept her apology and she wasn't about to try again. Luke kept glancing over at her hoping that she would say something. That way he could apologize without having to start the conversation. But she didn't say a word. She just looked dully ahead as they drove home.

Luke suddenly began to wonder why he hadn't just accepted her apology and moved on. Being with Lorelai was something he had wanted for years. Now that he had it, he had to admit that it was a little scary. No, it was a lot scary. Was he trying to sabotage their relationship before it really began just to save himself from heartbreak later? He didn't want that. And why was he thinking like this anyway?

Luke pulled into Lorelai's driveway and put the truck in park. Lorelai quickly picked up her purse and pig and reached for the car door.

"Lorelai," Luke started softly. She looked at him and waited. She wanted an explanation. Luke was about to say he was sorry, but suddenly the words weren't there. He could articulate the thoughts swarming in his head and Lorelai was still staring at him waiting for him to speak.

"Goodnight," he finally got out.

"Yeah, a really good night to you too," Lorelai replied shortly as she opened the car door and slammed it shut with more force than necessary.

Luke watched Lorelai stomp up the porch steps and get inside safely. He sighed. 'How did tonight go so wrong?' he wondered.

Lorelai was inside the house and she threw her purse on the table wondering the same thing.

TBC