A/N: Thanks, catterwall.

They sat at the bar of the restaurant nursing their drinks. Lorelai seemed far away, and Luke didn't want to disturb her reverie. After a few minutes, however, the uncharacteristic silence had made him too uncomfortable.

"So, what was it?"

Lorelai tore her eyes away from his knee. "What was what?"

Luke looked at her intently. "What was it about that kid that made you so upset?"

"Oh," she breathed. "I don't know. I mean, with Rory being gone so much at school I feel like, sometimes, it's… I just wish she were that age again, I guess. Back when we she little we were together all the time. She was with me every minute."

Luke knew that it had been hard for her to let Rory go, to see other people have a profound effect on a person that, previously, only Lorelai had had a direct influence on.

She continued, "When I was a maid, back at the inn, she used to toddle after me from room to room carrying the basket with the pillow mints. That was her job, the pillow mints."

Luke smiled at the thought as she squeezed the lime into her Corona.

"After we finished sometimes, if Mia hadn't taken a break yet, we would all sit down in the kitchen and have dinner together. And Rory's never had to deal with a big death, which I'm grateful for, but it just… it feels like she should be here. And that little girl really reminded me of that, I guess. That my daughter should be with me."

He gave her a sad sort of smile and rubbed her arm gently as she continued.

"I feel like a lot of people should be here. Like Sookie, she knew Mia way before I did, and when Mia introduced us it was like I finally had a friend in the world again. It's not right that we won't be attending tomorrow's service together, you know?"

She mulled over her thoughts a moment, reconsidered. "But Sookie's been so crazy lately with Jackson and the baby and everything… I know it was impossible for her to come. I just wish she was here. Or around more in general, I guess."

Lorelai had lowered her voice, and Luke had to strain to hear her. She dropped her eyes to their intertwined fingers. "It's just been so hard lately, I feel like everyone's kind of floating away from me."

She immediately realized how that must have sounded to Luke.

"Except you, of course."

That sounded lame, and they both knew it. She tried to dig herself out.

"All this… I mean, even though I feel this way," she floundered, "I do know that if Rory and Sookie and everyone else were here, then this-" she gestured between them- "probably… wouldn't be happening."

"That's probably true," he responded, not knowing what else to say.

"And I know it's a strange time for it to happen, in like the midst of a death and everything… and I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I think that maybe Mia, wherever she is, might have had something to do with it."

He looked at her with an eyebrow raised. "You do. You think Mia's death is the catalyst for our getting together."

"I'm just saying! If she's floating around up there, or whatever, I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of the first things on her agenda. To kick-start our relationship."

Luke sighed. "Lorelai, Mia did not implant these feelings in me. Unless she secretly died five years ago and nobody told me until yesterday."

"Five years?" She repeated, her voice cracking.

"I was going to tell you, actually, until you showed up at the diner with the news."

"You were?"

"Yup."

She thought about this for a moment, smiling to herself. "Why didn't you?"

"Well, because… because of what happened. You were at my door before I had a chance to do anything. And so it's ridiculous to think Mia had a hand in this, because I'm assuming you would've wanted to date me even if there weren't a funeral involved."

"No, I mean, why didn't you do anything before?"

"Before what?"

"Before, as in, every day that I've seen you in the last five years."

"Oh. Um…" He was blushing profusely. "You know. You had relationships, I had relationships, just… life got in the way, I guess."

"Yeah but, if you wanted it badly enough, you would've done something." Lorelai said with a scoff.

She immediately regretted the words.

Christopher was the only man who had ever known anything about her before wanting a relationship with her. With every other guy she could keep some sort of mystery going, flaunt whichever side of her personality she deemed fit, and slowly reveal the rest when she was ready.

The problem was that it seemed like she was never ready.

Luke knew everything. She couldn't just erase the bad parts he'd been subjected to over the years and start over as this mysterious, sexy creature that could flit off at a moment's notice.

He knew her better than Christopher had ever known her, and he still wanted her. And that was something she'd never really experienced before. Even her parents; they only wanted the good parts of her, asked her to get rid of that pesky sense of independence and that annoying self-awareness that the other girls at Cotillion were devoid of.

Someone who wanted the good and the bad. Someone who had seen her act out, had watched her make mistakes, someone who stuck around to help pick up the pieces afterward. It kind of blew her mind.

Luke hadn't spoken immediately, busy aimlessly rubbing the lip of his beer with his thumb.

"It wasn't that I didn't want you badly enough," he began quietly. "It was that I was willing to go through the pain of not having you, because it was easier than losing you altogether."

She pressed her hand into his knee and stared at him until he looked up. "You wouldn't have lost me," she said adamantly.

And for the first time that day, he didn't have to think about it.

He leaned in and kissed her hard, both of them on the edge of their barstools, fingers gripping fabric.

A quiet moan escaped from deep in her throat. His body tensed at the sound and he took in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her skin. One hand clutched her thigh and the other hooked onto her calf, the lines on his forehead crinkling, gently working her bottom lip. This is exactly what he wanted.

After a moment, Lorelai broke the kiss and stood up, pushing down on his broad shoulders. She shifted between his parted legs, ran her nails along his thighs and pressed her lips to his neck, then his ear.

"I need you," she uttered softly.

Luke pulled back from her with a startled look on his face. Though they were nose to nose, he was recognizing something particular in her heavy-lidded eyes. He craned his head back and studied her expression intently.

Lorelai's face had suddenly become familiar to him in a whole new way; he would know that look anywhere.

It made him sick to his stomach.

She really needed him. She desperately needed him to be there for her. Her world was crashing down around her and she was coming to him for help.

And it was Rachel's fault that he knew that look so goddamn well. Every time she came back, her face was poised in the same way, her eyes clouded with that same expression. Begging him to save her, to take her away from whatever she was going through.

It was sort of frantic; a little forlorn, he thought, very grave, and easily mistaken for intense desire.

Rachel only returned to Luke when something was really wrong. He wouldn't know about it at first, immediately wanting to believe that it was their relationship that lured her back.

Inevitably, after a few days, or a few beers, it would come out; she'd been cut from a magazine, her editors didn't give her the assignment, her brother had died in a car accident. Something. Always something to scare her back into his arms.

But he loved her more than anything. And he didn't want to know why she was there. He just wanted her to stay.

Rachel had ripped him open so many times, she'd left these rough scars around his heart. And now here he was, recognizing that look in Lorelai's eyes as she smiled at him. His kiss, his affection, his dependable safety net was making her smile. And it completely devastated him.

He stared at the floor.

He didn't want Lorelai to need him the way Rachel had needed him. He wasn't going to be the crutch that she was missing. Now that Rory was off at school, now that she'd broken up with her boyfriend and her parents were separated and Sookie was having kids and Mia was gone. He knew, probably better than she did, that he was the only thing left in her life.

He wasn't going to be there to guide her gently through this rough patch just to see her walk away from him at the end of it. Luke had promised himself he wouldn't do it again, ever- whether they were Rachel's eyes or anyone else's, he wouldn't confuse that look for desire again.

"Sir?" Luke felt a light tap on his shoulder as Lorelai returned to her stool, brushing the hair off of her flushed face. He turned to face the waitress. "Your table is ready."