Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters

6:15 am

Lorelai looks at her alarm clock and lets out a groan. She gets up, steps into her fuzzy slippers and heads downstairs to make some coffee. Half way down the stairs she smells bacon cooking. She gets to the kitchen and sees Luke at the stove frying eggs and bacon. He looks like he's been up for hours. The toaster pops and he quickly grabs the toast and butters it. Lorelai notices that coffee is made and goes over to grab a cup. Luke sees her then, "Good morning! I was gonna give you 5 more minutes then I was gonna come wake you up." He says to her smiling and loads up a plate of food for her.

"I was fighting with my snooze button. What's all this?" she asks referring to the breakfast.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." He replies.

"Where did you get the food, cause I know for a fact it wasn't here yesterday?" she asks, taking her plate and sitting down at the table.

Luke shrugs, "I had to go to the diner to show TJ how to open and figured I'd grab some stuff." He grabs his plate and joins her at the table. Lorelai notices Luke take a big drink out of his glass of orange juice and grimaces, "Oh man, I hope that's not the orange juice you found in the fridge."

Luke finishes swallowing and puts down the glass, "No it's not. I emptied your fridge this morning and put some real food in there." Lorelai gives him a funny look then gets up to investigate the fridge. She opens it up to find it full of stuff: orange juice, milk, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, sliced meat, salad dressing, eggs, and jam. "Luke you didn't have to do this." She says returning to the table.

"I did it for two reasons, one: you had absolutely nothing to eat here." He says.

Lorelai interrupts, "That's not true, there is a brand new box of pop tarts in the cupboard. Anyway it gives me a reason to come visit you everyday." Luke can't tell if she's kidding or serious so he ignores the comment and goes on to say, "And number two…." He pauses for a moment "…I was hoping if I bribed you with food that you would let me stay here another night. Liz invited a bunch of her old school friends over for dinner tonight and I know they'll be up for hours laughing and bugging me about stuff that happened years ago. I would just rather be here, if that's OK. Just one more night?"

"That's up to you, but I warn you, I promised Sookie that I would baby-sit for her tonight." She replies looking at Luke for a reaction.

"That's fine. It can't be worse than being there while my sister and her friends flip through year books and ask me which of them I liked the most." He rolls his eyes and turns his focus back to his plate. Lorelai giggles, while trying to picture Luke being bombarded by a bunch of girls. They finish breakfast and Luke cleans up while Lorelai gets ready to go to the stables.

On the way out Lorelai reaches for her Jeep keys and Luke asks, "Do you wanna just take my truck, I threw some horse brushes, pitchforks, bridles, saddles and some other stuff in the back already."

Lorelai looks at him, "Aw Luke…"

Luke cuts her off, "It was just stuff that was taking up space in my already cramped apartment, so really you'd be doing me a favor if you took it." He finishes trying to sound like 'grumpy Luke'. "You don't have to take it if you don't want it."

Lorelai knew that this stuff must have belonged to his father and probably still meant a lot to Luke so she said, "I promise I'll take good care of it, and I'll give it back as soon as I get some of my own stuff." Luke nodded and headed to the truck. Lorelai followed, but stopped when she reached the bottom step. The walkway was shoveled! "Exactly what time do you get up in the morning?"

Luke just laughs and gets into the truck.

By the time they got the horses settled in to their new homes and put away all the stuff Luke had brought it was almost noon. Luke emerged from the stable to see Lorelai leaning against his truck talking on her cell phone. He could overhear part of the conversation:

"So, you're not coming over tomorrow night?…I know you've been working on that client for a while, but I haven't seen you in two weeks…Uh huh… no tonight isn't good for me, I've already got plans…no I can't change them…Jason you don't even return my calls half the time…whatever, look I'm at work right now and don't really want to get into this here, so I guess I'll see you Wednesday at that zoo thing….What do you mean you're not going! You're the only reason I agreed to it in the first place!…Look, just forget about it, I always come second with you and to be quite honest I can't anymore, it's just not my style….No!…Jason….Enough!…It was fun but that's all it ever was…I guess I just want more than that….ya, that's what I'm saying…"

Luke tries to casually keep his distance by busying himself at the back of the truck. He notices Lorelai's voice start to shake a little and resists the urge to go over to her. He decides to let her finish in private and walks back into the stable. Lorelai, still on the phone says,

"Hey, I'll still see you at my parent's place every once in a while, right…Don't be sorry, you knew this wouldn't last didn't you….ya…I'll see you sometime…Bye Jason." Lorelai hangs up the phone. She just leans against the truck for a minute staring at her phone. What just happened there? Still a little shaken, she takes a deep breath and decides to go into the inn. She figures she might as well see how everything's going while she's here, plus it would give her something else to think about.

Tom, the contractor, sees Lorelai come in and rushes over to talk to her. As he gets closer to her he can tell she's been in the barn all morning, "Wow, you smell like crap!"

Lorelai gives him a weak smile. "I smell how I feel, Tom."

"Havin' a bad day? Well I hate to jump in your nightmare while it's warm, but…"

Lorelai crosses her arms, "Every time you say 'but' it costs me money."

Tom shifts his feet a bit, "…BUT, the lumber we used to do the downstairs entrance and kitchen has been discontinued from our supplier. So we can either order it from somewhere else, where we don't get discount…"

Lorelai nods, "Which will be expensive."

"…or we can redo the entrance and kitchen with different lumber to match the rest of the place, but that'll set us back a couple weeks."

"Which will be expensive." She rubs her forehead and stares at her feet, "Can I get back to you tomorrow Tom? I just have a lot on my mind right now, and I'd like to sit down and look at the numbers first." Tom quickly jots down the type of wood, measurements and prices on a piece of paper and hands it to her.

He knows how much stress Lorelai has been under lately and says, "It's Sunday today anyway, so I won't have my guys here until tomorrow. If you need more time I'll find something else for them to work on for the day."

Lorelai gives Tom a grateful smile and says good-bye before heading back outside. Luke is tidying up some stuff around the truck when Lorelai reaches him.

"Hey Luke, are you ready to go?" she asks in a distracted voice.

"Ya, I was just waiting for you. You o.k.?" He noticed she looked really frazzled.

"Sure. I just want to go home and have a nice long bath." She sighs.

"I saw Tom go in there, I'm assuming not good news?" he asks tentatively as he rounds the truck to get in the driver's side. Lorelai gets in the passenger side before answering. "Is anything your contractor has to say on a Sunday good?" She explains the problem with the lumber to Luke on the drive back to the house.

Once they get inside the house Lorelai says, "I'll talk to Sookie when she comes over tonight, maybe she'll be o.k. with the kitchen and the entrance not matching the rest of the inn. Then we won't have to change anything!" Still wearing her boots and jacket she slumps down onto the couch. Luke walks around to stand in front of her. She looked completely defeated.

"Well I used to know this lumber guy that my dad dealt with a lot. I'm sure I still have his number at home. I could call him today and see if he can get what you're looking for at a reasonable price." Lorelai looks up at him with the first genuine smile he'd seen in hours.

"Could you really?" Lorelai stands up. "You would be saving me from an early breakdown. Here," she says pulling a piece of paper from her pocket, "this is the kind of lumber we're looking for, and there are the sizes and amounts and everything." She explained excitedly.

"I can't promise anything." Luke says putting his hands up in front of him. He didn't want to get her hopes up just in case it didn't work out.

Lorelai suddenly wraps her arms around his waist. Luke's hands are still up and he slowly brings them down to place them on her back. They stay like this for a minute or so until Lorelai steps back. She looks up at Luke and notices kind of an awkward expression on his face. "Sorry, Luke. It's just been a really rough day and that was the first good news I had heard."

Well at least you didn't cry, right?" Luke says trying to lighten the mood. Lorelai nods and then looks at Luke again, this time it feels different though. Lorelai's heart skips a beat as Luke just looks at her for a moment.

Luke had a sudden urge to give her a kiss. His stomach tightened up at the thought and instead he just cleared his throat. "Well I'm gonna run home, have a shower and see how TJ's doin." His mind was saying 'Get out now before you do something stupid!'

Lorelai was looking at her feet now, her face felt red, like she was blushing. Her mind was saying 'Wow. What the hell was that?!' She watched Luke walk back to the door.

Before leaving he turns and says, "I'll give that guy with the wood a call too."

Lorelai gives a little chuckle, "You said 'guy with the wood'.

Luke walks through the door as he answers, "Yes…yes I did." Then he was gone.