Disclaimer: Neither the show nor the characters are mine.

A/N: This is a post episode 5.14 fic, written only because I had to let out the emotions after watching it. No spoilers, I don´t know what will happen with Luke and Lorelai in future episodes. And I promise, if you make it through this sad first part you´ll be rewarded with a happier second one soon. ;)

Snowmen Don´t Cry

The feeling is marvelous. As I slowly drift to that state between sleeping and waking up, I can feel his strong and muscular body against my back, his arms are tightly wrapped around me. I sigh, soon the alarm would end this night. No need to open my eyes to check how late it is, I can almost hear how the minutes are moving faster and faster toward the time I have to get up. If I would be fully awake, I would wonder why he is still close to me and not already at the diner. Or why he is in my bed at all. But that is the tricky thing about this condition I am still in: there is no place for logic or questions.

I snuggle up to him. Maybe, if I will manage to wake up myself and him now, we will have time for a little morning delight. Half thinking, half fantasizing I weigh the probability for that, unconsciously stroking his strangely smooth arm that covers my belly. For a split second I have the crazy idea that he maybe shaved off the hairs on his arm, before the whole extent of reality hits me. I´m alone in my bed, with only tangled sheets and blankets around me. He is not here, hasn´t been for many nights.

I can feel now again that numbness in my heart that I´m damned to live with already much too long. To increase my misery the stupid clock chooses this moment to bark my signal to get up. Alarm clocks with animal voices are not more fun than normal ones, not anymore. Not when nobody is here to mock me for owning such a silly thing.

I get up because I have to. If I would stay in bed I wouldn´t have the chance to show the world a.k.a. the people of Stars Hollow that I´m totally fine and at ease with my situation. Lying in bed in your pajamas just doesn´t have the same impact like walking down the street in your new fancy high-heeled shoes. Not even if the pajamas are flannel with ladybirds on them. Flannel. I make a mental note to erase that word from my vocabulary. Although, what difference does it make? I would have to delete many words from my memory if I didn´t want to be reminded of him. Coffee for example, I think as I drink my first sip of the day. And toolbox and boat and perfect and man surely too. And love, a voice somewhere deep inside of me whispers. Not going there now, I think as a response.

I step out of the front door to bring in the drenched newspaper, stupid wet snow. And still there is not one single cat on my porch. Somehow I had expected them to show up again and was a little disappointed that they hadn´t. When Rory was here last weekend I even ranted about them for almost half an hour and finished with the statement that I hate cats.

"No, you don´t. Just think of Hello Kitty." my daughter told me in her calm and sensible manner.

Maybe I should just buy myself a cat and accept my destiny to be alone forever. At least I would have someone to talk to all the time, monologues in front of the bathroom mirror are getting stale after a while.

Rory comes by as often as possible, I think I´ve never seen her so worried about me. She is the only person who has some clue what is really going on inside of me. She knows not everything, some of the things I´ve thought and done I can not even share with her. But she is aware that I´m not half as happy and self-confident as I make everyone else believe. They think I got over him, that I´m willing to move on. But how could I? You don´t lose your best friend and the man with whom you finally can imagine to spent the rest of your life at once and just proceed with living like nothing had happened.

Apparently the faked smile I parade on my face all day long and the laugh which is always a little bit too loud to be genuine, are convincing enough that Sookie even tried to marry me off to one of Jackson´s friends last week. It´s my own fault, but I just can´t tell her how miserable I really feel. The sympathetic look on her face during the first week after the breakup was more than I can stand.

I´m not even able to think about someday having a relationship with another man, I almost feel physical pain whenever I try to imagine that. All I want to see in my future is him. In my mind´s eye I always have a clear image of his facial expression before he had kissed me for the first time, of the way he used to sleep next to me. In my own little world of dreams we are still together, he still makes me pancakes in the morning and places kisses all over my skin at night. The memory of the day he told me that he can´t be in our relationship any longer is blurry and I would rather avoid to think about it. But I don´t succeed, it feels as if it would be imprinted into every cell of my body.

I´m trapped in a mix of sustained loss, guilty conscience and self-pity for almost two months now and I begin to believe that I will never recover from it. In the beginning I was angry too, but that didn´t last long. How could I be angry with him when I am still full of love?

For the umpteenth time I wonder if it would have made a difference if I had told him that I love him, that he is the one for me. Whenever I´m confronted with rejection I react with pretending I didn´t want what I can´t have anyway, it´s sheer self-protection. Only that it doesn´t protect me at all.

I drive past the diner and as usually I try to catch a quick glance at him, just to see if he looks sad or happy. If he is stronger than I am and already moved on. But I guess even if he would be standing right in front of me I couldn´t tell, he´s just as good at hiding his feelings as I am. He takes an order of a woman at a table near the window and while I think about whether or not he is flirting with her, he suddenly looks up and his eyes meet mine. Shocked I duck my head and step on the gas. I curse myself for making a fool of myself in front of him. Again. Great, now he will think I can´t even stand to see him. God, grow up Lorelai! What would have been so bad if I had looked at him longer, maybe had smiled at him? Not too much, just enough to show him that I still care. It´s not that he would have recognized from the distance that it´s actually more than caring for him. But what if he had frowned or turned away and by that had told me that he doesn´t care for me anymore? How should I live with that?

I make it through another day at work, smiling and dealing with complaints of guests and continuing my "Luke left me. Whatever." show. It´s a huge off-broadway success, I should get an award for my convincing portrayal of a lonely but happy woman in her late thirties. When I can´t postpone to leave the Inn any longer without Sookie getting suspicious, I drive home. I avoid to choose the road past the diner, my newest humiliation is still too fresh as that I could bear to see him.

The house is empty -still no cat- and dark when I arrive. And cold too. I wrap myself up in a blanket and go to the kitchen to make me something to eat. He would hate the frozen pizza I plan on eating as soon as it is ready. He would cook me something healthier but nevertheless tastier. At this thought of him I feel a familiar sting in my eyes. I thought I had lost the ability to cry about a week ago, but obviously I was wrong. Warm tears are rolling down my cheeks, making me feel alive and miserable at the same time. My appetite is gone and so I turn off the oven, leave the pizza to it´s fate and drag myself up the stairs and into my bed.

More tears are coming, no matter how much I want them to stop. I hate to shed tears over him again and again. The numbness which took hold of me during the last days wasn´t great either, but at least it didn´t cause every fiber of me to ache. Does he know what a huge void his decision has created inside of me? Can he imagine that I sometimes even question the sense of my living when I day by day do the things that are expected of me like a robot without the prospect of feeling anything different than pain ever again?

If only I found something to get better. Or at least to feel a little more like myself. It´s not that this is the first time I am hurt emotionally, by far not. But this is different. It never before was so severe that I thought I might actually die, that my body would refuse to function any longer with all the strains it was forced to suffer. Maybe it is so hard to stand because he was the last person I had expected to do so much damage to my soul. Or I can´t overcome this breakup because I simply love him and just can´t give up the hope that he will take back the words he said on that day many weeks ago in the middle of Doose´s market.

Dazed and still crying I stand up to change into my pajamas. I only want to sleep now, maybe I can find a little happiness in my dreams. When I pass the window on my way back to bed I notice that it´s still snowing, that weather depresses me even more. In the past, when I was still a person who could enjoy that kind of things, I would have thought this sight was beautiful. As a child playing outside in the snow always made me happy when I felt miserable. There was no better time to think about how to repay my mother something she had done or said than while making snow angels.

I don´t know if I am just sentimental or if the antidepressant I took earlier is responsible for that, but suddenly I have the urge to go outside and build a snowman. Probably I just have lost my mind completely now, it wouldn´t surprise me. I run down the stairs, grab a jacket to wear it over my pajamas, put on some boots and go outside. Deeply breezing in the cold air makes me cough, my lungs are not used to that anymore. I crouch down and reach out for the freshly fallen white flakes. The coldness pricks like millions of needles at my palms and I´m amazed to feel real physical instead of emotional pain for a change. I briefly consider to go back inside and get some gloves, but who cares if I lose my fingers through frostbite or not. I begin to form a snowball with both hands, hesitantly first but soon I hastily add more and more snow. Though I almost can´t feel my fingers anymore and my clothes are soaked, I just can´t stop. It helps to concentrate on a task to take your mind off your worries and my current mission is to built a perfect snowman.

TBC..soon