Author's Note: I hadn't meant to continue this, but it stuck in the back of my mind and after the positive reception it got, my brain kept clamoring to continue this. So now, what was once a short two-parter is now… a growing GG fic. Enjoy.
CHAPTER THREE- The Accidental Chapter
She'd made it only halfway through her first cup when she started to nod off.
That, Luke thought, was a sure sign of dire circumstances. Nothing—not even sleep—stood between Lorelai Gilmore and her coffee.
He slid her mug away from her, across the well-used wood of his kitchen table, and watched with a mixture of pity and fascination as her eyes drooped and her head nodded jerkily. "Up," he said gruffly, knowing he had to start in the diner soon, and for the first time since he'd opened the diner, hating it.
She obeyed, mumbling under her breath. "Luke's a bad daddy and took away my coffee," she muttered, her full lips smirking saucily despite her misery, temporarily swamped only by her exhaustion. Was there somewhere she had to be? Somewhere she was needed, where she had obligations? It was hard to remember in the whirl of last night's events, with all those mental snapshots of Luke and Jason and Rory and Luke and Dean and Luke…
And it was just the right temperature in Luke's apartment, really, and the whole place smelled like coffee, and what Lorelai wanted more than anything was to curl up on the couch that smelled like Luke and Luke's coffee and sleep.
So she did.
He gave himself ten minutes, just ten, to sit in the stiff kitchen chair and watch her drop into sleep as children often did—no tossing and turning, just a tuck, a curl, and the peaceful slide into rhythmic breathing.
He wanted so badly to know what was wrong, and though it felt a little wrong to be relieved, he'd determined he wasn't the problem.
If he had been, would she have come here, to his place?
Luke was still looking over his shoulder at her as he closed the door and went out to the diner.
"Sookie, you take one step back there and I'll tell everyone you buy damaged produce."
Luke stood poised behind the counter on his toes, ready to intercept the bubbly chef if she took one step toward his apartment. She glared at him through customarily cheery eyes, and he wondered what his day had come to.
The first few hours had been fine; all out-of-towners, simple orders. Most of the locals—his regulars—had been stuffed and sated with Sookie's breakfast over at the inn, and so he'd had a quiet morning with no disruptions. And since Cesar was working, it gave him ample opportunity to slip back and check on Lorelai every hour or so.
Every hour, that was, until ten—checkout time at the Dragonfly Inn.
"I called you and told you she was here, Sookie, now leave her the hell alone," Luke said, pushing past Sookie to wipe the empty tables off. Couldn't someone—anyone—come in and distract him?
"But Luke," Sookie whined, in a near-panic. "Lorelai has the thank-you cards. And she has to be there to speak to the guests, they're her guests. I don't speak, Luke! I cook." She sighed and tried a different tack, changing her tone to one so sugary it could have sweetened her peach sauce all by itself. "You understand how it is. We're culinary artists, we don't do manners, we don't do hand-shaking. We cook, they like, we go on."
"Nice try," he muttered, slapping both hands on the counter. "What part of 'She had a bad night' don't you understand?"
And what part, he wondered, of This is the first time I've ever had her to myself?
That was a revelation he'd definitely have to work on later.
"How about this, Sookie? We'll go by her house, we'll find the thank-you cards, you will leave." Everything about it, especially the leaving part, made Luke a happy man.
It should have been that easy, to tell Cesar to keep an eye on the diner, with the implicit indication he should keep an eye on Lorelai as well. Sookie kept her peace all the way over to Lorelai's house, though she desperately wanted to know what had happened. It was comforting, of course, to know her best friend was physically fine—but how had she ended up at Luke's place instead of at the inn?
But if there was anyone Sookie trusted with Lorelai, it was Luke. She just wasn't about to admit that to Luke himself. He'd get a bigger ego than he already had, and then there would just be no dealing with him at all.
He tried the door and found it, unsurprisingly, unlocked. "Anyone here?" he called out gruffly, wondering where Rory could be. Lorelai without Rory was a rare sight, and for Lorelai to have been out all night without her daughter's knowledge seemed just beyond Luke's range of belief. But there was no answer from the Gilmore house, and so he beckoned Sookie into the house. "Knowing Lorelai, they're under that pile of junk on the kitchen table," he gestured.
The shrill ring of the phone made Luke wince and Sookie pause, eyes wide, but he merely shook his head. There was a machine; it would pick up.
"… Speak if you must," Lorelai's voice finished up the wry greeting, making Luke smile. It had been that voice for him, that woman, for so long. It had been just that tone, that sarcasm, matching his own dry humor remark for remark.
And then the voice on the other line dashed cold water over Luke, bringing back a memory he shouldn't have, a thought he shouldn't have held onto for so long.
"Rory, it's Dean. Pick up the phone, Rory, I know you have to be there, I've been calling all morning." His voice was panicked, strained, and Luke closed his eyes and recalled a young man struggling with feelings he shouldn't have had, a young man just on the cusp of devoting his life to another woman.
Damn it, Dean, Luke thought, wondering what this was all about.
"Rory, we need to talk," Dean persisted. "Listen, last night was great—wonderful, perfect, even—but…" He took a deep breath, shaky on his end of the phone. "I don't know what to do, Rory. I don't know how to tell Lindsey."
"Oh, God," Sookie's voice warbled miserably from the doorway of the kitchen. "It's gotta be something else," she said, clutching the box of cards to her chest and looking wide-eyed between Luke and the answering machine. "It just sounds bad, that's all, but it's perfectly innocent."
But when Luke looked at the machine and saw the number blinking on the display—19—he wondered how innocent things really could have been.
Nineteen messages, and Luke was willing to bet all of them—or nearly all—were Dean.
You told Rory she didn't want to end up like me, and you were right, but it doesn't matter, because it happened anyway…
That voice of hers again, only this time miserable and half-hysterical.
Luke scrubbed a hand over his face, glancing up at Sookie. Her usually benevolent expression had been replaced by one very close to grieving, her eyes wide and tearful as she looked at the answering machine as though it was the source of her anguish.
Luke wasn't aggrieved; he was torn. A full half of him wanted to find Dean, to demand answers, to beat the kid to a bloody pulp if he'd done what Luke feared he'd done.
But a full half of him yearned for Lorelai with the understanding he hadn't been able to gain from her that morning, and it was her name that fell from his lips as he left her house at a run back to his diner.