Back at the Beginning Again
Lorelai couldn't sleep. She had spent her evening priming the wall's in Rory's room, listening to the CDs that Luke had left behind. She went to bed at midnight and spent the next two hours staring at the ceiling, the same lyric on loop in her mind: "she left the suds in the bucket and the clothes hanging out on the line." At two she gave up and rolled off the bed to her feet, stomping down the stairs to the kitchen, muttering to herself: "Stupid freaking suds. Take them with you next time."
She wandered the kitchen a few moments, locating things to dump into the blender. She made herself a mudslide and poured it into a coffee bowl. She went into the living room and stood for a moment, staring out the window. She started, her brow furrowed, and immediately headed to the porch.
"Luke?"
He was at the end of the drive, his back to the house. His posture was typical Luke—his hands in his pocket, his head bowed and his chin to his chest, his back rounded slightly as he contemplated the ground. He turned when she called out to him and walked towards her in slow, dragging steps. She sat on the front steps as he walked; he dropped beside her with a sigh.
"I couldn't sleep," he said.
"So you thought you'd just… play Heathcliff to my Catherine? You forgot the whole head-banging part," Lorelai said.
Luke shrugged. "I don't know—I just—I thought maybe you'd be up," he said.
"I couldn't sleep either," she said.
"So you're drinking coffee?"
Lorelai rolled her eyes. "It's a milkshake. Want one?"
He shook his head. "Nah," he said, reaching for the cup. He took a sip. "That's a—"
"A big girl milkshake," Lorelai smiled. "You bet."
They were silent, sitting together, both painfully aware of the small space between them. Lorelai took her mug back and drank, handed it back to Luke. He held it, turning it in his hands.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I know. Me, too."
He turned to look at her. "What are we doing here, Lorelai?"
She wet her lips, tucked her hair behind her ears, smoothed the cotton of her pajama pants. "I panicked," she said."
"I kinda noticed that."
She reached for her shake again and drank deeply. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and set the mug aside."When you take away all the malice in what Jason said the other night, there's still something true in it all," she said. "I don't know how to have someone in my life. I never have. I keep relationships separate. I don't know why." She sighed. "I don't know—maybe I do. Maybe it's just easier to keep someone on the outside than have to make space. Maybe I choose to be with people who wouldn't fit even if I did make a space for them—choose them just because they've chosen me, because they think I'm amazing and I just love that." She glanced at him. "Feel free to jump in here any time."
He wasn't looking at her: he gazed out over her yard, his expression thoughtful. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands folded. "You're too hard on yourself," he said.
"Am I?" she asked, sighing. "I don't know. I've been thinking, even writing," she told him with a roll of her eyes, "and I think—I think I've started to make sense of it all."
"Lorelai—" he began.
She shook her head. "No, I think—he was right."
"We went through that," Luke said.
"You weren't there, not for Max or Christopher or Jason or anything, you don't—"
"I saw it all, Lorelai," he said quietly. "I know. I was there."
"And?"
He spread his hands. "You do things your own way. You always have—that's what you do. That's—that's who you are."
"Happy face band-aid," Lorelai muttered.
"What?"
"Never mind." She stood and paced on the lawn in her fuzzy Hello Kitty! slippers. "I didn't like the person Jason was talking about the other night. She was this scared, mean, small person, this self-involved, emotional mess incapable of being with anyone—I just—God, she was horrible. Molly Ringwald from The Breakfast Club grown up, a brat who blames everything on other people, on her parents…" she trailed off. "I didn't like that person. I didn't want that person to be with you," she said, turning to look at him. "She wasn't enough—I wasn't enough."
He held her gaze fast with his own. "I never thought that for a second."
She smiled sadly. "I know. And—and I need that." She crossed her arms over her chest and shuffled her feet in the grass. "It's something I've been thinking about the past few days, the way you see me and the way I see me. And you," she added. "I love the way you see me. And I love that you are the one person who has seen the worst parts of my personality—everything, good stuff, bad stuff, weird stuff—and that you still look at me the way you do. I don't want to lose that, I don't want to fuck it up, I don't ever want to look at you and see myself as less, and that night, I just—I don't know. I couldn't stand the thought of you seeing me the way he did. The way I did. And I just—I had to hide. I had to keep that back, because you do see everything and you'd see that, too."
"And what?" Luke asked, rising. "I'd change my mind? Come on, Lorelai, you know me better than that," he said.
"Would you listen to me, please? I'm trying to explain!" she cried.
"I am listening!"
Lorelai stepped back, knuckled her eyes, gathering herself. "I just—I didn't—the way he looked at me when he said those things? That was the worst I think I've ever felt. And I don't ever want to feel that way again, and I don't ever want even to think about you looking at me that way. But I also don't know why you look at me the way you do. I mean, I'm a big fan of me, you know, always have been, but I just—I don't see it," she said. "Why do you love me?"
"Ah, geez, Lorelai, you're not asking me that again," Luke said, tugging on his hat.
"I need a reason, Luke, I just need to hear why—"
"Why? Why is that important? How is that going to help you with whatever it is you're trying to figure out?" he demanded.
Lorelai dropped to sit on the grass. "Because. Look, this is the thing. When you asked me out, I was—to say I was mildly shocked would be putting it lightly. And then I started watching you and I just started seeing you see me, and I started remembering—"
"Remembering what?"
"Remembering how we were before, before Max and before Chris and Jess and everything. It was different, then," she said.
Luke stretched out on the grass beside her and folded his hands behind his head. "It was," he agreed.
"And then you kissed me, and I just—every feeling I've ever had about you was suddenly there all at once, you know? I wasn't expecting to feel the way I felt—the way I feel. It was so overwhelming, you know, so sudden." She paused, closed her eyes. "Sudden like floodgates, though, like it was already there, but it was… shut down. And now it's all loose," she said, opening her eyes, shaking her hands in front of her. "How I feel about you is something I don't really have to think about," she said. "I know why I feel the way I do, I think, but I just—I'm a mess, Luke. I'm this insane, selfish person, and I don't—"
Her voice was choked in tears as she spoke. Luke sat up and moved closer, hitching himself across the grass towards Lorelai. She bit her lip and looked at him, her eyes bright. He took one of her hands in both of his and turned the palm up, uncurling her fingers, making patterns on her skin with his fingertips. He didn't look at her as he spoke.
"Yeah, you're insane," he said. "That's the way you see the world—everything's a possibility for fun, nothing's serious, nothing's too bad for a joke, and everything's in color and it moves fast and it's all there for you and you love that, and everyone can see that, and it makes them want to be around you because maybe they can see the world that way, too."
Lorelai bit her lip and strained to see his face in the darkness. "I'm a merry-go-round," she said.
Luke gave a sighing, half-laugh. "Yeah." He turned her hand over and continued running his fingertips across her skin, her nails, the fine lines of her knuckles. "And everything is full out, all the way with you—coffee, food, work, love, like the way you love Rory," he said. He raised Lorelai's hand, turning it again, kissing her wrist. He looked up, finally meeting her eye. "That's part of it," he said. "The rest is just… stuff I can't say, stuff that doesn't, you know, work in words, or whatever." He shrugged. "I don't know, Lorelai. I don't know what you want to hear. I love everything, even the stuff that pisses me off and makes me want to put my head through a wall, even when you make me so crazy I could—"
"Kick a car?" she asked.
He gave her a hard look. "Something like that," he said.
She nodded. "Oh."
"That's all I get?" he asked. "I give you all that, I say all that stuff, and all I get is an 'oh?' Christ, Lorelai, I think I deserve more of a pay-off than that!"
She smothered a smile. "Thank you," she said.
"Now, what the hell did you need to hear all that for?"
Lorelai laced her fingers through Luke's and squeezed his hand. "I don't know. I guess I had to be sure."
"Of what?"
"That I know where we're starting? I don't know. I just—I'm not used to this," she said. "I'm not used to feeling so much. I feel like I'm going to break open all the time, you know? I love you so much, and I feel like I can't hold it all in. And I'm not good at relationships. Add those together, and here I am, freaking out. And after what Jason said, after hearing those things about myself, all I can think about is the person that I am and the person you think I am and how I'm going to fuck everything up and all I really want to do is not fuck this up. More than anything, I don't want to fuck this up," she said.
"I would have to echo that sentiment," Luke said. "But that's not going to happen."
Lorelai withdrew her hand. "How can you be so calm? It's so annoying. You're three seconds away from being smug and it's absolutely driving me crazy," she said. "Seriously, Luke, how can you not be freaking out just a little bit? Not even a mini-meltdown? I mean, I don't want you to go into a full-out Oscar speech Halle Berry thing, but a little something would be nice."
Luke sat perfectly still as she spoke, but his hands tightened in fists. "This annoying calm is all that's keeping me from turning over tables and putting my fist through walls, Lorelai. You think I like what's going on right now? You think I'm enjoying the suspense? I'm not a suspense kind of guy. I am—I'm—the past few days? My version of hell, thanks. It's been great. But I even give you a Tom Hanks type of acceptance speech and you have every reason in the world to shut this down here and now."
"Why do you keep forcing me into this? Why am I the one—" she began, pushing herself to her feet.
Luke was on his feet, too. His face flushed as he spoke. "Because you're the one with the Godzilla doubts that are eating downtown Tokyo! Because you're pushing me to push you!"
"I am not! I asked you for space!" she cried.
"And space turns into something else entirely, Lorelai—if I give you space, we're going to lose this," he told her, his voice breaking.
"How do you know that?" she asked, her heart in her throat.
"I just—if I step away, Lorelai, if I walk away from you, you're just going to take all that time and you're going to think of all the ways you could fuck this up, as you say, and it's not going to help, it's not going to help in anyway whatsoever, it's just going to make you more scared and more freaked out and you're going to think of all the ways you're not big enough or strong enough or whatever it is that you're worried about being and you're going to keep moving away from me until I just can't touch you anymore. And that's what scares me, Lorelai, more than fucking it up or ruining it or whatever—at least if we fucked it up, it meant that we gave it a chance," Luke said, his voice almost pleading.
Lorelai stood, stunned, a moment, before stalking towards the house. She stopped at the front door and turned, waving Luke in. "We're going to wake Babette and then she'll get out the Camcorder and before you know it, they'll be playing this Sunday nights at the library," she said. "Come inside."
He followed her in and they stood uncertainly in the living room, watching each other warily. Luke sat on the couch, covering his hands with his face.
"It's the same conversation, Lorelai, and the end isn't going to be any different," he said. He lowered his hands. "You remember that night that we were supposed to go to dinner, you were going to ask me about the loan for the inn?"
"Meltdown in the Park. How could I forget?" she said.
"You told me sometimes you wanted a partner," he said.
She smiled sadly. "I do remember that. That was not a good night."
"No."
"And you were there."
"Yes, I was. A partner, Lorelai. That's what I'm offering you," Luke said levelly. "That's what this is."
"And do you remember the last time, when I came to see you in the middle of the night, and you had that whole 'in a relationship/have a relationship' spell?" she asked.
"I remember," he said. "And I remember what you said, too."
"I do, too. But the thing is, Luke—"
"That is the worst way to start a sentence at a time like this," Luke said, fairly jumping off the couch.
"No, it's—I said that and I didn't really understand it. I've had lots of relationships," Lorelai said. "But I've never really let myself be in one. I didn't want to be. Luke, I'm just—I'm so at sea, here. I'm lost. I don't know what I'm doing. I just—I love you, and I want to be with you, but I think I don't know how."
Luke lost all color in his face, his brow furrowed. "We were together. We were. You were ready to tell everyone, you were in, it was good—it was better than that, it was—it was easy." His face broke Lorelai's heart. "I don't understand."
She came to stand next to him. She slipped her hands in his. "It was too fast for me, Luke.We can't just go on the way we always did, and I think that's what we—what I was—trying to do. We have to figure out how to go forward, I guess." She laughed. "Country music is catching," she said.
"Would you be serious?" he demanded.
"Sorry," she said. She sighed. "I just—I think we need to not do this like we've already been doing it for eight hundred years. I think we need to slow it down. We need to figure each other out—"
"Lorelai—"
She shook her head, rolling her eyes. "I don't mean the way we already have—I've accepted the fact that you can predict every 'dirty' I'm going to say. You know that I know the whole food diatribe thing you have going is your bizarre way of showing affection. But that's not the point."
"And the point is?"
"A question you are very familiar with," Lorelai smiled.
"Don't I know it," he said darkly.
"Honestly? I'm not sure what the point is—all I know is that you can't just go from first gear to fourth gear," Lorelai said. "You have to work up to it. Right? That's how it works, right? With cars?"
Luke tried not to smile. "Yes, that's how it works with cars."
"So you see what I mean, then, right? Too fast? My engine's all kerfuffled. I need—I need to go slow. I need to figure it all out."
"And we're back to this again," Luke said, dropping Lorelai's hands and edging away.
Lorelai grabbed his elbow and pulled him back towards her. "No, we're not. I'm not asking you to leave me alone, because clearly that's not working, and I'm not asking you for time—"
"Aren't you?"
"Now who's interrupting?" she demanded. "What I'm asking you, you big freak, is to help me out here. Take it down a notch."
Luke stared a moment. "I have to sit down." He walked towards the couch and sat heavily, his head in his hands. "Jesus, Lorelai. You're a pain in my ass, you know that? What was wrong with the way we were the day before yesterday?"
"Nothing. I'm just not sure we can handle it yet," she said.
"We? What's this we crap? I was already there!"
She sat beside him. "Oh, please, Luke, you were totally overboard with the whole overprotective—"
"And I had good reason!"
"—with the whole overprotective, feeding me, checking up on me stuff. It's too much," she continued. She leaned into him, rested her head on his shoulder. "This is what I know, okay? I love you, I want you around for a really, really, really long time, and I don't want to fuck it up in any way, shape, or form." She ticked off the list on her fingers as she spoke. "And relationships are not my forte. Hence—"
"Hence?" he grunted.
"Hence," she said, "the need to slow down. But you were right: I can't do it on my own. I can't think about it by myself, I need you for that—we have to do it together."
He frowned. "What does that mean, anyway, slow down?"
Lorelai tipped her head up, her chin still on his shoulder. "Oh, I don't even know. Dating?"
She had to sit back as he spoke to avoid having him clock her with his wild gesticulations as he spoke. "Dating is what you do when you're trying to figure out whether or not someone is worth the effort: it's what you do when you're getting to know someone and you think you might like them but you're not sure and so you have to go through the whole excruciating ordeal to see whether or not it's worth it. What's the point?"
"I didn't know you listen to country music," Lorelai said.
Luke pointed at her. "Neither does anyone else and I'm keeping it that way," he told her. "You know the important stuff. I know the important stuff. Everything else is just details."
"They say God is in the details," she replied.
"You've got an answer for everything."
"And you're surprised?" she asked.
He sat silently for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He slid his hand out and cupped her knee, squeezing slightly. "Slow down," he said. "And that's what you want."
Lorelai nodded. "I don't want us to get all shoehorned in what we think a relationship should be before we know what it is. You can't just jump in it, right? You've got to let it get there on its own, right? Luke?"
He leaned his forehead against hers, breathing quickly. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know, about any of it. But if slowing down is what you think you need—I don't know if I can do it," he said.
"Oh, Luke—"
He sighed. "I just—I can't be with you and not be with you. I don't—I can't do it half-way. I don't know what you're asking me, and honestly, it sounds like just another way of telling me you want time—"
Lorelai pulled back. "I'm not asking you for time alone, I'm not. I got enough of that with you freezing me out all day."
Luke gave her a look. "You deserved it."
Lorelai stood, shaking her head. "We're just going in circles. You're not listening to me, Luke—you're hearing what you expect me to say, not what I'm saying. Listen to me."
"I am!"
She stamped her foot, her hands on her hips. "You're not! You're judging!"
Luke leaned his head on the back of the couch. He groaned. "Talk. I'm listening. Really."
Lorelai knelt beside him. "Together, okay, together, we need to see what this relationship is. It's not the same, you said that the other night, remember? And it's not exactly different, either—it's like this weird hybrid relationship that needs careful cultivation and attention, like one of those plants that's made by grafting two other plants together to get the best stuff from both of them. We just went so whole hog—"
Luke lifted his head. "Don't say whole hog," he said.
She rested her cheek on his knee. "I told you I felt like I wasn't enough—"
"Lorelai—"
"Shut up," she said. "I'm talking. With you? I'm enough. I'm more."
He brushed the hair off her face. "You always were," he told her.
She nodded, pushing her cheek into the fabric of his jeans. She toyed with his shoe laces. "We can do this. I think we can. We just—we can't do it all at once." She lifted her face and put her chin on his knee. "That's just—that's what I meant." She hugged his leg. "I don't want to be without you."
Luke pulled her up onto his lap and again rested his forehead against hers. "So slow down, huh?" He placed his hand heavily on the base of her neck, his eyes closed. He lifted his head and pressed his lips to her forehead. "God, Lorelai," he said. "God, do I love you." He paused. "You drive me fucking nuts, though," he said.
"Right back atcha, feller," Lorelai said. She took his face in her hands and kissed him softly. "That's why it's going to work."
She watched him study her face, the look as he traced her features with his eyes. He leaned forward and placed his head on her chest, hugging her close to him.
"You're just exhausting," he told her.
She laughed. "I work hard at it. Hey," she said, forcing him to look at her. "I'm still here," she said. "Oh, Luke—what's this?" she asked, seeing his eyes fill.
He shook his head and kissed her. "Nothing," he said. "I'm just—that's good. Still here is good." He sighed. "I can't promise anything, here. I don't know anything about this relationship shit, either, and this slowing down stuff—I don't know, Lorelai. I don't know."
She brushed her thumb over his lips and nodded. "I know. We just—we just have to try. Take it a day at a time. I know you think I'm crazy, or whatever, but I really think—I really think it's best. I do. We'll just have to—"
"Go slow," Luke said glumly, "I know. I heard you."
"It's just been so intense. We need to take our time," she said.
Luke slid her off his lap and adjusted his clothes. "I just don't know," he said again.
"Try?" she asked, reaching for his hand.
"This isn't going to involve a lot of you telling me to back off, is it? Because while I'm aware that the squabbling and the bantering and whatnot—"
"Whatnot," Lorelai said, giggling.
"—are a part of the whole dynamic we've got going here, there's a limit. I gotta say, Lorelai, that this could just turn into a way of keeping me out," he said.
"No," she said. "It's a way of letting you in."
He considered this. "That's pretty good spin. You ever consider PR?"
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
Lorelai drew her knees to her chest and leaned back into the couch pillows. "Look, I didn't say the slowing down thing was going to be easy. I'll try, you try, we'll both try, it'll be a new Olympic sport, we'll medal, they'll have a parade for us, and we will emerge victorious, famous, and with a lucrative sports shoe deal that will allow us to buy ridiculously expensive cars and erect statues of ourselves in the town square," she said.
"I'm not letting you use this as an excuse," he said.
She closed her eyes. "Oh, believe me, I'm counting on that," she said.
He was silent. She peeked out at him under her lashes. He stared ahead, his face working, the muscles in his jaw tense. At length, he took a deep breath.
"Fuck it," he said. "If this is what needs to happen, fine. We'll slow down," he said. "But I want it on the record I'm not happy about it. And you're not the one calling all the shots, you know—I'm not giving in."
Lorelai sat up and put her arms around his neck. She kissed his cheek. "Thank you," she said. "You're amazing."
Luke rolled his eyes. "I'm fucking Spiderman," he said.
"Country music and comic books?" she squealed. "Luke, you're like a pop-up book of information this evening."
"A pop-up book?"
She shrugged. "I'm tired."
He extracted himself from her arms and rose. "I should go—I gotta get some sleep, too."
"You can stay," she said, putting out her hands. He pulled her to her feet.
"You call that slowing down?"
"Sleeping together is another matter altogether," she told him. She stopped. "Or is it?" She looked at him a moment, puzzled. "Let's just say for tonight, it is."
He put his arm around her as they walked towards the stairs. "And tomorrow?"
She leaned into him, yawning. "Eh—tomorrow will take care of tomorrow," she said.
Both exhausted, they fell asleep in Lorelai's room on top of the covers, still robed and dressed, holding each other.