A/N: This is a speculative fic on what would have happened if Luke had comforted Lorelai after Christopher yelled at her at the end of season 2's "It should have been Lorelai". Some dialogue borrowed from the script, the rest is all mine.

Chapter 1 – How it began

Luke was, as usual for this time of day, behind the counter at the diner, surveying his domain. It was quite busy, but nothing he couldn't handle. Lorelai was there, as was also usual for this time on a Saturday morning. She was wearing a pink sweater, looking absolutely amazing, as was also usual for any time of the day, of the week, hell of the year for her. He idly wondered if he were the only one to look at her and feel an immediate need for a cold shower. He hoped so; he didn't think he could deal with any additional competition. His own insecurities were quite enough, thank you very much.

He wondered, as he did nearly every time she came in, if today would be the day that he would finally, finally, have the courage to do something about the embarrassing crush he had on her. It was sad in a way, he thought to himself that, at almost forty, he could still be afflicted by something as childish as a crush. If she knew, she'd laugh herself silly and then proceed to mock him for all eternity.

He sighed to himself then, knowing that he would love every minute of it, because then at least she'd be in his life. It was pathetic really, the way he mooned over her yet she didn't seem to see it.

She was with Christopher now, which would usually annoy the hell out of him; today, it didn't affect him in the least because he had noticed the beautiful woman, who was obviously with Christopher, that was outside chatting with Rory. Luke normally didn't pay any attention whatsoever to town gossip, but he did know that Rory's dad had a tendency to appear in the girls' lives just when everything was running smoothly and to cause some kind of disturbance, usually with Lorelai. If Christopher had a girlfriend, there was almost no chance that he would make a move on Lorelai, unless he was an unbelievable jerk.

Luke was distracted from his thoughts by loud voices, one of which was Lorelai's.

"What's wrong?" Lorelai asked Christopher.

"What's wrong? Damn it Lorelai, you're dumping fifteen years of unhappiness on me? Fifteen years of not having healthy, lasting relationships on me? You're blaming me for breaking up with Max and not marrying him? That's all my fault?"

"No, I just – " Lorelai protested, but Christopher cut her off.

"I did nothing to deserve that."

"I'm not saying that you did." Lorelai said, trying to backpedal and regain control of the discussion.

"You're as good as saying it."

"No, I'm not."

"Then what did you expect to come from this divine revelation that you've been so kind to share with me? Did you want me to apologize to you for ruining your life or comfort you and say 'there, there, everything's gonna be all right' so you can feel okay? Forget it!"

"Chris, wait!" Lorelai cried.

"Look, if there's anything else you feel bad about in your life that you wanna dump on my doorstep, just leave a note!" And with that Christopher left the diner, leaving a devastated-looking Lorelai staring after him.

Luke looks on as Lorelai turns her gaze to him. He quickly glances elsewhere, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping. He looks out the window at Christopher and Rory hugging, and then looks back to Lorelai, who looks like she's waging a war with herself. Her facial expressions alternate between shocked, bewildered, tortured and angry. When he sees her go through he cycle for the third time in half a minute, he grabs the coffee pot and heads to her table.

"Coffee?"

He gets no response. He clears his throat in annoyance. Lorelai yelps in surprise and slaps her hand over her heart.

"God, don't sneak up on me like that! I'm too young for a heart attack," Lorelai's facial expression moved on from surprised to indignant, something Luke preferred to the aching sadness that had been there in the second before he made his presence known.

"If you keep it up with the coffee inhaling –"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll die young. Whatever, Burger Boy, I'm not in the mood," Lorelai snapped as she lowered her head to her hands. Luke waited a beat while she gathered her thoughts. He chose to not take her rudeness personally.

Lorelai took a deep breath and rubbed her hands over her face. "Sorry. Didn't mean that. It's not you I'm upset with right now." She sat up straight in the chair and gave Luke what she hoped was a saucy look. "Is that a coffee pot in your hand, or are you just glad to see me?"

Luke rolled his eyes. It was heart wrenching to watch her try to pretend like nothing had happened, but by now he was well acquainted with her methods of avoiding unpleasantness. "I asked you if you wanted coffee. This is a pot that has been sitting on the warmer for forty-five minutes. No one else but you will drink it as this point, but I hate to see it go to waste."

"Well how can I say no to such a charming offer? Just pour it in here and keep it coming. In fact, leave the pot." With that, her gaze strayed to her daughter, who was now making her way to the front door of the diner after having said her final goodbye to her father and Sherry. "Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"I'd rather Rory not hear about…what just happened between her dad and I…do you think you could run interference if someone seems about to, um, mention it?" Lorelai was wringing her hands and looking about as uncomfortable as Luke had ever seen her.

I hate having to cover-up something that moron did to hurt her. "Sure, whatever." And with that he returned to the safety of the counter.

TBC?

What do you think…let me know if this is something I should continue. I have a midterm coming up next week, which means I'll have a lot of nights when I'll intend to study, but I'll only end up writing instead. I get particularly inspired when I'm procrastinating.