A.N.- Using the diner scene at the end of Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days, we get a little more insight into what our favorite non-lovers (at least not yet) are really thinking.

Almost

By Miss Wallow

"We're closed. " Luke said as she snuck through the unlocked front door. He had been leaving that door unlocked long after the closed sign was turned for the last few years hoping that she would, as she always did ignore it and come on it.

Tonight as she did for the first time since their fight, she looked defeated and even sad but he didn't want to rush it, all the things that had been said between them weren't just going to disappear because she decided to come in and talk. He didn't even know why she was there yet. He decided to play it cool, but it wasn't easy, it had been a whole summer that they hadn't stood face to face. He snuck glances at her as she walked through town but it wasn't the same, he hated to admit it, but he missed her.

"I know. Look, I didn't come here to make up, or to try to get you to forgive me, or talk. I wouldn't even have come here at all but I had a really crappy night and I really, really need a cup of coffee. Just pretend I'm not me. I'm Mimi, a new customer. I've never been in here before. I was just walking down the street and I spotted this place. 'Ooh, hey, nice place.' And I came in. Now Mimi is going to pour herself a cup of coffee and sit over here way far away from you, and she promises, just as soon as she's done, she will rinse out her own cup and leave." She could tell that he didn't really want her to leave. If she thought for a second that she wasn't welcome there she would have turned and walked out the door, she had felt unwelcome enough for one night. So she sat and poured herself a cup off coffee and sat at the far end of the counter as she sipped down the warm comfort.

"This is the second time I let myself do this." She said swallowing through the tears that were forming in her eyes.

"Do what?" Luke said pretending to be disinterested but wanting so badly to hug her and take away whatever pain she must have been feeling.

"Think I finally found it." She said as though she had not one ounce of faith in herself.

"Found what?" Luke asked knowing full well what she was talking about, he may not have spoke to her, but it was a small town, he heard rumblings of the way Chris had left her heart broken once again.

"Love, comfort, safety." She said almost mocking each of the words as if their concept was an unattainable thing, and their existence a myth.

"Ah." Luke said, knowing the feeling all to well and wishing that he could show her those things.

"I mean, first with Max, which of course, I screwed up, and then with Christopher, which of course, all the elements of the universe got together to screw up. " She said guilty for hurting Max and mad about letting Christopher hurt her again. It killed Luke to hear her talk about the men in her life. He hated that she had been so hurt so many times, he wanted to be the one that she longed to be with the way she longed for Christopher.

"Yup, it's tough when the universe is against you. That's like taking on the Manhattan garbage union." Luke said using his sarcasm to hide his true feelings.

"I always thought if he could just get it together, grow up – maybe we could do it. Maybe we could really be a family, in the stupid, traditional 'Dan Quayle, golden retriever, grow old together, wear matching jogging suits' kind of way." Her words were tearing him up inside, he wanted to scream that he was her man, but all he could do was listen as she continued.

"And then he did get it together – he became that guy. . . and he gets to be that guy with her. Chris is gonna have a baby with his girlfriend. He's gonna marry her. . .and he's gonna be there for her while she's pregnant and he's gonna be there with her while her child grows up, and he's gonna be there for her while she does. . . whatever it is she does. And I am in exactly the same place that I was in before. " It killed Luke to watch her cry.

"Is that so bad? I mean, you got Rory." He smiled as he thought of her daughter. She was so much a part of Lorelai and he knew that she wouldn't be the woman she was if it wasn't for her daughter, he also knew that he cared for Rory too, and if anyone ever harmed one hair on her head he would see them pay for it. He longed to be part of their family, the part that they didn't even seem to realize they were missing.

"Yes, I do." She agreed through her tears.

"You got friends, you got a house, a job, apparently an iron stomach." He went on hoping he could make her smile again, there was nothing in the world he loved more than to make her smile. He wanted to tell her she had him too, but he just couldn't step over that line in the sand that had been drawn years before.

" No, it's not so bad. I'm lucky, I know. I just. . .I feel like I'm never gonna have it. . .the whole package, you know? That person, that couple life, and I swear, I hate admitting it because I fancy myself Wonder Woman, but. . .I really want it – the whole package."

He puts a donut on a plate, then slides it down the counter to her, he wants to tell her he is it, he wants to go to her now and kiss away the tears.

"You'll get it." Are the words he settles on in his mind.

"How do you know?" He was afraid she would ask that.

"I know." He said hoping that would be that.

"How do you know?" She asked again, hoping that in that moment he would come to her and tell her that he knew because it was him, it had always been him and all the men that had been in her life before him were just practice, they were just practice for him, so that when they both stopped being so stubborn and figured it out, they would both know, how to keep it, and protect it and love each other forever.

"Because I know, okay? I know. Now eat your donut." He said he just couldn't say anything more, he was too afraid; he couldn't tell her his feelings.

"I'm really not very hungry." She said feeling another batch of tears working up inside, this time for Luke, sweet Luke, the one who got away, every time they didn't say what they really meant.

"Well, take it with you. You will be later." He said hoping that she would go and at the same time praying she wouldn't. It was lose, lose.

As Lorelai began to pull out the money for her late night snack Luke stopped her.

"Forget it." He said, she was hoping that the next word out of his mouth would be full of courage and throwing caution in to the wind and he would just come clean and tell her that the reason he knew was, because it was him. Then he finished the statement in typical Luke fashion, keeping up the rouse a little longer. "First time customers are on the house. Mimi, was it?"

"Yeah." She said disappointed and relived all at once. As she headed for the door she waited for him to call to her, hesitating for a moment before she walked out for him to say something more.

He watched her the whole time, but he let her go, as he watched her walk away, into the warm summer night, he almost ran after her…almost.

He milled around the diner for a while, trying to get her out of his mind. That was never an easy thing to do. He was mad that he couldn't work up the courage to go tell her all the things that he wanted them to be. All the things that he had felt for her for so long and just never told. Finally he had worked himself up enough that he walked out that front door and didn't stop walking until he arrived on Lorelais front lawn. There he stopped in his tracks as he saw her sitting on the couch with Rory, she had her laughing again. He couldn't imagine what it must be like to have a kid, someone that made you happy no matter how down you were. He wanted to know what it was like to be there, what would it take for him to be with her. He almost walked up to the door that night, he almost told her how he felt. But he didn't and he feared that at least with the two of them almost, was all they would ever be.