Wednesday

It was after her conversation with Emily that Lorelai began to feel the whole trip was beginning to feel underhanded and sketchy. She had spoken briefly to her father, when he called to inquire what sort of spending allowance he should give Rory for the trip, and had replied in the most off-hand and casual way that both Rory and Mom deserved a break when he asked why the sudden need to jet across the ocean. She had the feeling neither of them had been very satisfied with the conversation when they eventually hung up. Lorelai and Rory reasoned to everyone else—including Sookie and Lane—that Emily hadn't had a real vacation in years and Richard was so busy with his business that he couldn't be taken away, while Lorelai would have rather lit herself on fire than spend six weeks traveling with her mother. The Lorelais both marveled at the fact that no one in Stars Hollow had heard the shouting match between her parents at the Inn on Saturday night, nor the following one between Luke and Lorelai, and the one between Luke, Lorelai, and Jason after that. They concluded that the Dragonfly had truly magical qualities, mainly stupefaction: it rendered those within it incapable of observing others with the same minute attention to what was not their business that they applied to everything else in Stars Hollow. Lorelai thought she should put it in the brochure.

Neither Rory nor Lorelai felt right about lying to their best friends, and Lorelai had purposely avoided going to the diner on Tuesday in order to prevent the inevitable conversation with Luke about what was really going on with Rory, and more particularly, Rory and Dean. After an extended late night discussion, they decided that after their last shared dinner at Luke's before Rory left, Rory would tell Lane everything, and Lorelai was given permission to explain everything to Luke. Rory asked Lorelai to hold off on telling Sookie until after she and her grandmother had left.

"I love Sookie, and I love Jackson," Rory said, "but Sookie tells Jackson everything, and Jackson tells everyone else." She looked at her mother. "Does she know about you and Luke?"

Lorelai shook her head. "I feel terrible keeping things from her. But I think she'd be discreet for both of us if I told her how important it was."

They were still sharing Lorelai's bed and huddled together in the dark. Rory sighed audibly and Lorelai reached out and took her hand.

"Obviously, Dean hasn't told Lindsay yet," Rory said, "or it'd be all over town. And he still hasn't called me. I don't know what to think."

"You're going to hate what I have to say," Lorelai began.

"It's okay."

"Let Dean take care of Dean and Lindsay take care of Lindsay. You just concentrate on whatever you need to do for yourself. You can't force anything with him. Just think about what you want to do next, babe; that's all you can do," she said.

"I just keep thinking about the fact that I had sex. I had sex. I'm not a virgin. I had sex," she said again. "Sex! It was my first time!"

"I know," Lorelai said.

"And I did it all wrong. I know that," Rory continued, but stopped at Lorelai's pathetic attempt to smother a giggle.

"Oh, hon, I know you're being completely serious, but replay what you just said and you'll hear what I heard," Lorelai laughed.

After a moment, Rory couldn't help but laugh as well. "Nice, Mom. Way to ruin a moment of crushing self-awareness."

"Rory, two in the morning isn't really the best time to have these kinds of thoughts," Lorelai said.

"What kind of thoughts are suitable to two in the morning, then, oh wise one?"

"Well, consider the fact that cheesecake is called cheesecake, when most often it is served in a pie crust. Really, it should be called cheese pie, but no one would eat it if it were called cheese pie, because, gross, right? But cheesecake is a misleading misnomer, crust or no, because it doesn't have the consistency of cake or any other cake-like qualities; and really, when you think about it, how is cheesecake any more appetizing than cheese pie?" Lorelai asked.

"It is a conundrum," Rory replied.

"I know, right?"

"Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Your brain is a wonderful and frightening thing."

Lorelai giggled. "You should try walking around with it: that's the fun part."

Wednesday was filled with the purchasing of last things, locating passports, assembling toiletries, selecting what books would make the cut for the trip, choosing CDs, and telling Lorelai to stop affecting her mother's voice to critique Rory's choices. At six-thirty, Lorelai dropped herself to the floor of living room, where all of Rory's things were scattered in haphazard piles.

"I'm hungry," she whined.

"Which do you think is better train music: David Gray or Mindy Smith?" Rory asked.

"Who the hell is Mindy Smith? What are you listening to?"

Rory rolled her eyes. "You're no help at all. Let's go."

As they walked to the diner, Lorelai watched her daughter from the corner of her eye. She seemed to be holding her breath, waiting for something. She put her arm about Rory's shoulders. "I could just get take out," Lorelai said.

Rory shook her head. "It's dumb. No one knows, right?"

"Babe, no one knows."

"And it's not like people will be able to tell, right?"

"Actually, you are now displaying a great flashing neon light over your head that says 'I had sex,'" Lorelai said in a low whisper. "No one can tell," she said. "Trust me. You're the same Rory you were a week ago."

"Not really," Rory said, affecting lightness. "But no one else knows that."

Luke's head snapped up when the bell above the door rang; each time it rang since his last conversation with Lorelai, he couldn't help but jerk his head up in hopes that she was the person walking through the door. The diner was at this moment full of people, but there was one table in the back, near the window, that he had kept empty for them, not knowing but hoping they would come. They seated themselves; immediately Lorelai began drumming her fingers on the table.

"You know, I could really use some coffee," she said, loudly.

Rory shook her head. "Way to keep up appearances," she said.

Lorelai smiled innocently. "Is that what I'm doing?"

"Yes. By annoying everyone in the diner, you are certainly behaving the same way you always do," Rory said.

They gave each other playfully pissed off looks as Luke stepped up to the table, coffee pot in hand. He poured them generous cupfuls without asking and stood with his hand on his hip.

"You want the usual?" he asked gruffly.

"And what would that be?"

"Burgers."

"Burger for me," Rory said, "and chili fries. And pickles."

"Burger, chili fries, and pickles," he repeated. He looked at Lorelai. "You gonna order or am I just gonna stand here?"

"You know, your customer service skills leave a lot to be desired."

"I'm heartbroken," he said.

"I," Lorelai said, "will have a cheeseburger. That would be a burger, but with cheese."

"Thanks for clearing that up. Anything else?"

"Onion rings," she said, narrowing her eyes. "I would like some onion rings. Some really big, tasty, onion rings. Can I also have some horseradish on the side? And chili on the burger?"

Rory snorted with laughter. "Just warn me before you breathe; I like my eyebrows, and I don't want them singed off in the near future."

"Rory, I do not know what you are talking about," Lorelai said, picking up her coffee cup and taking a pointed sip. She looked up at Luke. "Are you still here?" she said.

He smothered a smile. "That's what you want?"

"That's what I want," she grinned.

"Gotcha," he said. "I'll have that right up."

When he had returned to his place behind the counter, Lorelai flashed a devious smile at Rory. "I hope you're taking notes," she said.

They ate in companionable silence, or while chatting about nothing, occasionally mocking Kirk and Taylor, who were engaged in a deep conversation about building a fence around the gazebo so that naked people could not attempt to scale it in the midst of their night terrors. Just before he left, Taylor came to stand over Lorelai and Rory. Lorelai assured him that they were taking his comments about the inn into careful consideration and that they'd already discussed several of his suggestions with the staff. Rory also told him that she had no plans to move to Europe permanently nor was she at all dissatisfied with Stars Hollow in any way. He talked at them for a few more moments before Luke came up behind him, brandishing the coffee pot.

"You done here, Taylor?" he asked. "I'm closing up pretty soon."

"It's early for you to be closing up, Luke. If you're going to be changing your hours of operation, you really should hang a sign out front or at the very least bring it up at the next town meeting," Taylor said.

"I'm not changing my hours of operation, Taylor. I am closing up early for the night."

"Why are you doing that?"

"To piss you off, Taylor," Luke said.

Lorelai and Rory struggled to suppress their laughter as Taylor turned on his heel and left the diner. Lorelai and Rory picked at their dinners as the rest of the dining crowd drifted out and the post-dinner lull began. Luke flipped his sign to closed and began shutting the blinds.

"So, why are you closing early, Luke?" Lorelai asked, smiling into her coffee cup.

"Thought you two might like some privacy."

"How very thoughtful of you," she replied.

"Yeah, well," he said, shifting uncomfortably. "Rory, I made you a pie."

"You made me a pie? Luke, that's so nice! How did you know we'd be here?" Luke merely looked at her in response. "Of course you knew we'd be here," she nodded. "We're always here."

"And always welcome," he said, refilling her cup. He put a hand on her shoulder. "You'll be missed," he said gruffly.

"Thanks, Luke. Can I borrow your phone? I want to call Lane and have her come share the pie."

"Go for it," he said. He watched her walk towards the phone, his expression thoughtful.

Lorelai reached for his hand. "Hey," she said. She squeezed his fingers. "This whole flying under the radar thing is kinda fun."

He put the coffee pot on the table and took her hand in his, turning her palm upward, tracing its lines with the tip of his finger. "Just don't push it," he said, avoiding her eye.

"You want to look at me at some point this evening?" she asked. She tugged his hands. "Sit down for a minute."

"I shouldn't," he said, releasing her hand and reaching for the dishes.

"Luke, please?"

With a sigh, he sat in Rory's chair and looked at her expectantly. "I'm sorry I've been avoiding you," she said, at length.

"Is that what you've been doing?" he asked. "Didn't notice."

"Hey, don't. I said I'm sorry."

Luke pressed the heels of his hand to his eyes and pulled of his baseball hat, running his fingers hard over his scalp. "Yeah, me too. I'm being a dick." He looked at her. "Don't even say it."

She grinned. "Dirty!" she whispered.

"So are we gonna have a conversation, or what?" he asked.

"You busy now?"

He began shifting again uncomfortably, rolling his shoulders and jiggling his knees. "No, but now it's going to be all uncomfortable because I know that we're going to talk about it. It's like talking about—" Abruptly, he stopped.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What? Tell me!"

He took a breath. "It's like talking about sex before the sex happens and then all you can think about before is that you just talked about what you were going to do—"

"Well," Lorelai said, grinning. "That's really a whole other conversation."

"That's what I'm talking about," he said.

Lorelai took another sip of coffee and held her cup in front of her face, regarding him over the rim, so jumpy and unsettled. She was glad to realize the fluttering didn't dissipate even when they were—she searched for the right phrase—being them, she finally thought.

"All you said before was that we were going to have a conversation, and you didn't specify what kind of conversation, so who knows? We could talk about pie."

"Pie?"

"I love pie," she said.

He shoved himself back from the table, rolling his eyes. "Lots of work, Lorelai," he said. "I'll meet you upstairs in five minutes."

When Lane arrived, the three women sat together around the table. Luke brought the pie and deposited it in front of Rory with three forks, a knife, and three plates. Simultaneously, they all reached for the forks and dug directly into the pie.

"Oh, man," Luke groaned, "you're not even going to slice it up first?"

Rory grinned around a mouthful of pie. "Mixed berries," she said. "It's better this way."

Lane nodded emphatically. "Hear, hear," she said, brandishing her fork.

"I can't watch this," he said. "I'll be upstairs if you need anything."

Lorelai rose. "I actually needed to discuss some things about the Dragonfly with you, if you have a minute. Or twelve."

"Twelve?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Seems like a good number. Twelve," she said with relish.

"Come on up."

Lane and Rory sat chatting idly for a few moments, Lane telling Rory about the gig in Hartford Saturday that kept her from going to the test run. They were the last band of the night and there were all of nine people in the bar, drunk and waiting for taxis.

"It was still pretty awesome," she said.

"Lane, I have something to tell you," Rory said suddenly.

Lane looked up from her pie, her eyes wide. Rory's face was drained of color, and she was chewing on her lower lip. Lane lowered her fork. "This looks big."

"It is big," Rory said.

"Oh, my God. Are you going with Jess?"

Rory shook her head. "No, no, it's not that. It's—it's—"

"Rory?"

She took a breath, raised her eyes to meet Lane's. "I had sex."

Lane's jaw dropped. She found herself unable to speak for a full minute. "Oh, my God," she said again. "Oh, my God! You had sex?"

"With Dean."

"Oh, my God. You had sex with Dean? With Dean?"

"Yeah."

Lane stood and began to pace. "You had sex with Dean. You," she said, pointing, "had sex. You had sex with Dean. You had sex with Dean? Oh, my God."

"You can say it as many times as you want, but it's still true," Rory said ruefully.

Lane slumped into the chair beside Rory. "Wow."

"Yeah."

"I mean, he's married."

"I know."

"Like, married, married."

"Yes, Long Duk Dong, he is," Rory said.

"Sheesh," Lane responded, smiling briefly.

The two friends were silent. Rory could hear the clock behind the counter ticking and tocking and Lane's rushed breathing. She had never been a fan of the cliché, but at this moment, she understood that cliché was what it was because it was true: she sincerely wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. That was the only thing she wanted at this moment; she didn't want to be anywhere but there, she didn't want to be home in her bed, she didn't want to take back what she had said, she simply wanted to stop existing, to be subsumed by the linoleum floor and to remain beneath the dirt of Stars Hollow. It seemed the better alternative to whatever was going on in the diner at that moment.

"So, are you okay?" Lane asked.

"I don't know. I feel awful: stupid and guilty and ashamed. I hate myself. How could I do that to someone? Why would I do that?"

Lane reached out her arm to drape it across Rory's shoulders, but she seemed to hesitate a second, allowing her arm to hover in the air just long enough that Rory knew she was considering taking it back. In the end, she allowed her arm to rest across her friend's shoulders. "Oh, Rory," she said. "That sucks."

And then Rory began to giggle. "Yeah," she said, her voice slightly hysterical. "It really sucks." The tears came hot and fast, so suddenly Rory shocked herself. "Do you hate me? Because I'd really like someone to hate me right now. I deserve it. Do you? Please?"

Lane drew Rory into a hug, resting her temple against Rory's. "I can't hate you! You're my best friend."

Rory drew a shuddering breath. "Are you sure? Because I'd understand—"

"Rory, I don't hate you. I think you're right, though. It was stupid," she said.

Rory sat up and wiped her face with the back of her hands. "I don't even know why I did it. I wasn't thinking."

"Is that why you're leaving?"

She nodded. "I have to go away for a while. I can't stand feeling like this. And if I stay here, it's just going to get worse."

"I understand, I think. I'll miss you, though."

"I'll miss you, too." She paused. "Are you disappointed?"

"I'm your friend, not your mother," Lane said. "I just wish you had told me earlier. I could have helped more."

"No, you couldn't have. No one can," Rory said. "It's like I've got to rearrange the shelving system in my brain, you know?"

"I have no idea what that means," Lane deadpanned.

Rory sighed again, smiling sadly. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Being my friend," she said.

They sat shoulder to shoulder, leaning against each other, feeling the weight of the situation.

"Rory?"

"Yeah?"

"Did it hurt?"

"Yeah." Rory took a sip of her mother's lukewarm coffee, relishing the bitterness of it as it washed over her tongue. "It hurt."

Lane reached for her fork again and shoveled a heaping bite of pie into her mouth. "This is really good pie," she said.

Rory followed suit, leaning over the table as she almost dropped a glob of berries in her lap. "I agree." She began to giggle again, with Lane chiming in, and the weight suddenly seemed less.

Upstairs, Lorelai stood in the center of Luke's apartment, her arms hanging loosely by her sides. She wasn't quite sure what to do with herself, standing here. Luke stood near the door, his arms crossed over his chest and his head tipped back, regarding her with a serious and cautious expression.

"So, pie is something, isn't it?" she began.

"Oh, come on," he said.

Mechanically, Lorelai reached back to tuck her hair behind her ears, her eyes searching the floor for something to focus on. "So you must have figured it out," she said.

"You want to tell me anyway?"

She gave him a wounded look. "And what would be the point of that, Luke? You already know. You've already got an opinion about it."

It was his turn to be wounded. Lorelai smacked her forehead with the flat of her palm, letting out a pissed, frustrated bellow. She dropped to the floor and put her face in her hands.

"I'm doing this all wrong," she said, her voice already tearful. She looked up at him. "You want to hear it, I'll tell you all about it," she began.

He left his spot by the door and made his way over to her, temporarily silencing her. He sat beside her, awkwardly arranging his limbs as best he could. "It might make you feel better," he said. "To, you know, talk about it."

She searched his face, trying to read what his reaction would be, gauging how badly this would go. He was only watching her, waiting for her to speak. She drew her knees to her chest and clasped her hands at her shins. "So, Rory and Dean slept together the other night," she began, as though she were telling a story that would end with an explanation for such a start. "He's married, and they had sex anyway. I didn't see it coming, and I don't know why they did it, and Rory feels terrible, and I feel terrible, and I behaved like an angry mommy when I found out and like an angry teenager when I saw Dean again, and now Rory's running to Europe with my mom because she's shattered whatever self-image she had before it all happened and thinks she's this whole other person now, and I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do." Her eyes welled up, and she wiped her nose with her wrist, cursing softly. "Fuck."

"Ah, crap," Luke said. "I was hoping it wouldn't be that."

"You and me both, mister," Lorelai said half-heartedly. "I just—I don't—what did I do? Where did I go wrong that this happened? How did I not see this coming?"

"Lorelai, this isn't your fault."

"Oh, I know I didn't have a hand in the whole thing—rationally, I know that I didn't hand him the condom and point him towards her bedroom, saying, 'here! Have fun deflowering my only child! Don't forget to take off your wedding ring! Wouldn't want any nasty reminders of that sacred vow hanging over your head while you're getting it on with my daughter! Rory! Don't forget to breathe!'" She waved her hands as she spoke, her voice choked with tears and anger. "I just—shouldn't I have been able to do something to stop it? I thought I knew my daughter better than that, that Rory and I had a relationship where I would know when something like this is going to happen, but clearly, I was mistaken."

"Is that what you're upset about?" Luke asked gently.

Lorelai jumped slightly at the touch of his hand at the base of her neck, the slight, reassuring pressure as he kneaded her skin. "Yes," she said. "No—yes and no. I'm mad at myself, I'm ready to kill Dean, and I don't know what to do to make this better for Rory. She can't look in the mirror, she can't sleep in her own bed—she's like this pod-Rory who walks and talks and eats like Rory but isn't really Rory because she's so disgusted by what she did."

"You can't make that better," Luke said. "What she did was wrong. It just was. And Rory doesn't mess up all that much, so this is new territory for her."

"And this isn't anything I haven't already told myself," Lorelai said. "I'm sorry for freezing you out, I just—after the other day, when I thought you knew, I didn't know what to say. I saw the whole thing from your perspective, and it was horrible." She looked at him, but his face was impassive. "God, this is all just so unfair. Rory was supposed to have this amazing first time, like that girl said in Sixteen Candles, doing it on a cloud with some amazing guy. You and I were supposed to—" She stopped. Suddenly the look on his face was as open as she'd ever seen: fearfully and painfully hopeful. "I don't know what was supposed to happen with you and me, but it isn't me avoiding you because my daughter's turned into the Sock Man."

The beautiful look on his face was fleeting, dissolving into bewilderment. "The Sock Man?"

"Nicole's Sock Man. Rory is the Sock Man," she said again.

Luke's mouth opened and closed several times as realization of what she meant dawned and he struggled to find something to say. "No, Lorelai, don't say that. The situation is entirely different," he said.

"But it isn't!" she insisted. "It isn't! Dean—Nicole—is married to Lindsay—who is you—and he sleeps with someone who is not Lindsay, Rory, who is in this whole scenario, the Sock Man."

"And that's why you didn't bring this up," he said. "This is why you didn't tell me right away."

"I didn't want to bring all that up," she said. "But here I am, bringing it all up."

"What, you didn't want to hurt my feelings?"

"That was the general idea," she said.

He sighed. "I'm sorry you couldn't come to me because of that. If I'm taking anyone's side on this, you know it's going to be Rory's. Dean's a shithead kid, and he's always going to be a shithead kid as far as I'm concerned. The Sock Man thing with Nicole—that marriage was already over. I wasn't emotionally committed to that, I knew it, Nicole knew it: the whole Sock Man thing was inevitable."

"Does that make it right, then? She was unhappy, so it's okay to jump in bed with someone else?"

"We're not talking about me," Luke said.

Lorelai bit her lip and swallowed a retort. After a moment, she inched herself closer to him. "I wanted to tell you. I just didn't want to open up this gaping would for you, remind you of what had happened to you."

"There's no gaping wound," he said.

She looked at him. "Luke."

He averted his eyes. "There was a slight wound, maybe," he said. "But I don't know what I was expecting—what Dean was expecting. You can't marry one person because you think you've shot any chance with the one you really want all to hell. Regardless of how pointless you think your feelings for one woman are, you can't just redirect them to someone else because you want to. It doesn't work like that." As he spoke, his voice rose and the words came more quickly. Lorelai laid her hand on his arm. "It doesn't work like that."

"Okay," she said. "Okay." She waited for his breathing to slow again, for the flush to recede from his cheeks. "Do you know something about Dean I don't?"

For a moment, he looked caught. "I just know that he wasn't really over Rory when he married Lindsay. He never got her out of his system."

"What makes you say that?"

"Let's just say I know."

"How do you know?"

"I know, okay?"

Lorelai closed her eyes and nodded. "I have a feeling I don't really want to know how you know, anyway," she said. "I just hope this trip displaces pod-Rory and we get real, live Rory back. It hurts me that she's like this."

"She'll be okay."

"You think?"

He put his arm around her. "I know." She smiled gratefully at him. "And Dean will either grow a pair and do the right thing by Lindsay or he'll continue be a shitheaded, dickless wimp, but you can't control that. Neither can Rory. And much as I hate to say it, I sort of feel for the guy."

"What?"

Luke shrugged. "I know what it's like to be caught by a Lorelai Gilmore," he said simply.

Lorelai leaned her head on his shoulder. "Maybe I'm the shitheaded, dickless wonder." She paused, the words ringing in her ears. "Can we pretend I didn't just say that."

"Gladly."

"It's just so unfair," she said again, "all of it."

"In the words of Denis Leary: 'life sucks. Get a fucking helmet.'"

Lorelai looked up, an amused expression on her face. "Denis Leary?"

"I'm a fan."

"Oh, really?"

"What?"

"I just never figured you for a comedy guy," Lorelai said.

"There's a lot about me you don't know," he said.

She tilted her head back and considered this, studying his face. "I know enough," she said.

"Do you?"

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't worry. We're good."

"Come over Friday?"

"Try and stop me," he said.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," she told him.

She leaned forward and kissed him with everything she was feeling, the confusion and pain and nervousness and the hesitant joy that had been fluttering at her ribcage. After a few moments, she pulled back, startled at the intensity of the kiss. She blinked rapidly, aware that he was watching her, evaluating her reaction as he tried to calm his breathing, still the rapidity of his heartbeat.

"So," she said, attempting a light tone, "that was some good pie talk."

In one fluid movement, Luke hauled them both to their feet and pulled Lorelai to him, kissing her. She clung to him, knowing that without his arms to hold her up, she would sink right where she was. Again, she broke the kiss, breathless.

"Did I mention how much I like pie?" she said.

"Do you ever take anything seriously?"

Lorelai smiled. "Rarely," she said, "and hardly even then." She put a hand to his face. "You're amazing," she said.

"Likewise."

"I should get going—I've got an assload of things to do at the Inn tomorrow before I help Rory pack, and then Lane and Sookie are coming over for dinner…"

"Got it."

She kissed him lightly, and hugged him for a long moment. "I'll see you Friday," she said. She stopped at the door and looked over her shoulder. "Scale of one to ten, ten being the worst, how bad was the breath?"

Luke grinned. "Fifteen."

Lorelai nodded in approval. "Just what I was going for."

She and Rory said their goodbyes to Lane, who gave Rory a long, bone-crushing hug before letting her go; the Lorelais then walked home in silence, arm-in-arm, each lost in her own thoughts.