Lorelai sauntered home, exhausted. For all the planning that she had been up to, it was miserable for none of it to be of any use. But when she reached the first pieces gravel designating her driveway, a light coming out of her garage caught her attention. She looked around herself curiously and cautiously while quickening her step. She stopped in her tracks before she ever reached it. She knew what it was: the boat was back.

She was dumbfounded at its presence. This was what she was hoping to do all day, and now it was already there. She should have been happy, shouldn't she? She couldn't reason. Just when she thought her mind should have been racing even more than was normal for her, it was a complete blank. Only one thought remained: the boat was back.

She opened the front door to her house without ever recalling lifting a foot to get there. With slight hesitation she called out to the abyss. "Luke?" She didn't know if she would get mad, or flustered, or weak at the knees when she would see him – hell, she didn't even know if she wanted to see him – but she knew he was there.

She walked into the kitchen, still unaware of any effort that it took for her to move herself from one place to another. Before she crossed the threshold she saw him sitting at the table, his back turned to her. He was breathing slowly and she felt like reversing her steps to not wake him in case he was asleep, but she stood there immovable with her eyes running slowly down his body in order to register every nuance in his body language. He looked defeated and very much alone: the perfect replica of how she felt.

Now convinced he was asleep, she turned in place towards the living room, making a silent prayer that whatever he wanted could wait until later.

"Lorelai, we need to talk," she heard over her shoulder. She had not yet even left the room, but as startled as she was to hear his voice she did not react outwardly in any way.

"Shh," she hushed him. "Go back to sleep. It can wait."

"No, Lorelai. We haven't spoken for too long."

She could hear him turn in his chair behind her and she reciprocated the action. She hesitated looking into his eyes, but when she did, his eyes bored into her, making her want to recoil. But she didn't.

"Luke... I..."

"This isn't about you and me. This is about us. You lied to begin with - and I know now that you didn't do anything - but I didn't listen to what you did say. But it doesn't matter what we did to each other as individuals because what matters is what we did to us. Do you hear me, Lorelai?"

She nodded, no longer looking at him, and bit her lip as hard as she could to hold back the tears. Three little words, she prompted herself. Three little words.

"Lorelai, I..." Luke started.

Lorelai sniffed back her pride and cut him off. Three little words. "You love me." She said it. They weren't the three words that she had planned, but they would do.

"Well..." Luke paused, dumbfounded, "yeah."

Lorelai laughed and in doing so let go of her jaw's grasp on her lower lip, and let go the tears that she had held for too long. She hugged herself and sniffed. "I love you, too, Luke." That was five words, she thought to herself and laughed a little more.

Luke stood up and looked at her intently. The closer he got to her, the more aware she was of his physical presence. It was this that she had been missing.

"What did I say about talking about us as individuals?" Luke teased quietly when he was less than an arms length away. He was clearly wrought with as much emotion as Lorelai.

She looked up at him and sniffed back a tear before responding. Serious was her response: "We love each other."

And he kissed her. It was with the fervor and desire of their first kisses, back at the Dragonfly, but a new bittersweet, lacrimal taste intermingled with the old familiarity of their love.

Luke pulled back, and looked at Lorelai with question in his eyes. "You paid the fine on my boat."

Lorelai looked at him with resolve. "What did you say about talking about us as individuals?"

Luke smiled and kissed her again. He was back.

FIN