A/N: There is no way I could ever find the freaking words to say how mo-fo'ing sorry I am for the tardiness of the following chapter. I have no excuse for excuses, but you should know that on top of my computer being out of whack for two entire weeks, I was super sick for the better part of June. So there you have it. But absolutely no sympathy, please! I DO NOT DESERVE IT!

So read and be merry, and again I am so sorry (I have become my own pet peeve: loser absent author who doesn't update for months at a time). Trust me, I'm beating myself up plenty over it. And you can believe me when I say that the next chapter WILL be up in the next few days.

(And one last thing... I wanted this up right away, so no beta on this one. Just did it myself, so there's another thing you can blame me for. ALTHOUGH, I'm a pretty kick ass beta myself so though it was a little biased of an beta job, I'd say it's pretty well edited.)

Ch. 5: Dealing With It

Luke stood behind the counter with a calm but dreamy, even distant look in his eyes as he stared out the window and across the square. For the past five whole minutes he stood there, staring, as he scrubbed absentmindedly at the linoleum surface of the counter. His look though, was surprising to all who had encountered it in the past two hours that he had occupied the diner (after being absent for the whole morning and early afternoon). His expression—a mixture of wistful and serene and anxious (plus many other looks that were unknown)—was surprising considering all he'd dealt with since his very late and unexplained entrance to work.

So far, Luke had taken on Kirk more times than he would bother remembering, Taylor twice, Andrew once, Lane and Cesar a few more, and of course, Babette and Patty every time he stopped at the table they had occupied for the past few hours. And on top of it all, there were the numerous calls to the diner's phone, from the woman upstairs—the woman who was not so patiently waiting for his return.

But yet, his expression never retorted to the usual gruff and grump. It remained that unknown mixture, best defined as 'for the most part, content'.

All of a sudden, the hazy picture that filled Luke's vision (mostly due to the fact that his blinking had slowed since he had started staring out at the square)—the washed out outline of the trees and benches and passerby's—had been interrupted by a wonderful mess of dark curls, piercing blue eyes and rosy cheeks plopping down on the stool across from him. That enigmatic smile that he formerly held had quickly broadened and his eyes fixated on her, the distant look fleeting quickly from his face; she came into focus quickly.

"Do you know what I've been doing for the past 126 minutes… give or take a few seconds?" Lorelai asked him with an innocent smile, her chin resting in the palm of her hand.

"Pining for me?" he asked, hoping she wouldn't be too upset with him.

"No, that was you," she said pointedly and in all seriousness.

Luke simply rolled his eyes in response, though his smile never ceased.

"I," she said dragging out the vowel, "spent the first 60 minutes patiently waiting for your promised return, then the next 30 minutes prank calling you and mixing potions and chanting incantations and hexes and whatever else you call them to lure you up to me… And then when all of that failed and I was still alone and feeling abandoned, the next 29 minutes were spent in a rage blackout which lead me to trash the entire upstairs like the members of KISS do to their hotel rooms after an exceptionally bitchin' show… And I spent the last 3 minutes calming down enough to realize that if I let my beautiful face be shown down here then that could be enough to coax you out of your grown up responsibilities and back upstairs into bed." She said it all so fast that when she finished she took a deep breath, letting Luke figure out the rest.

So he did, while eying her carefully. "And here you are," he stated matter-of-factly.

Lorelai nodded with an enigmatic smile. "And here I am," she said in agreement. "Except I'm not here to coax you back upstairs because I realized that if I don't show up to the Inn sometime today that Michel will hang himself on the porch making the front entrance inaccessible throwing off the entire feng shuiew of the place for the poor guests."

Luke nodded in seriousness. "Right, because that would be bad for business."

"Mhmm," she mumbled in agreement; looking around the diner at the patrons she asked, "So how bad was it? I mean, it must have been seriously crazy down here for you to be down here for 62 whole more minutes than promised…"

Luke meanwhile placed an empty mug in front of her and filled it to the brim with coffee. "Sorry it's just that when I said it'd only be an hour I didn't realize that today is 20 Questions day in Stars Hollow. You'd think it was written somewhere in the town bylaws that every citizen is entitled to know whatever aspect of my personal business that they want to. It's ridiculous."

Lorelai took a generous sip of coffee while nodding sympathetically. She let out a half moan half sigh after swallowing, "Yeah, the whole privacy concept is lost on our little Hollow."

Luke chuckled and ducked his head before returning to the annoying patrons. As he went back to serving and cleaning, Lorelai gazed dreamily at him, tracing the edges of her mug absentmindedly with the tip of her finger. It was just too amazing, too surreal; she still just couldn't believe they were engaged.

"Lorelai, good morning." his voice spoke in its usual awkwardly deep fashion behind her.

She swiveled around on her stool. "Kirk, good afternoon," she said pointedly, double-checking her watch to note that it was indeed nearly four.

He cleared his throat and continued in a more than usual serious tone. "Good afternoon, Lorelai. See," he started gesturing with his hands, "I usually give you both greetings separately at the appropriate times. However, this morning, you and Luke," he said nodding in Luke's direction, "were behind closed doors doing whatever it is you do when you're behind closed doors well past noon—"

"Kirk…" she said, interrupting his usual inappropriate babble before he could get too far with it.

"Yes, well, I'm forced to give you both salutations at the same time, which only throws me off more than the norm—" Lorelai gave him a questionable look, one eyebrow arched, a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. "—Anyways, good morning and good afternoon."

"Thanks Kirk."

Kirk began tapping his fingers rhythmically on the counter, making Lorelai arch her eyebrow even higher in question of something more. Finally, after a few moment of silence between the two (except for the repeated tapping of the finger), he spoke abruptly, "So, what was the cause of the sudden lack of responsibility this morning? Because that was very un-Luke like behavior. Not showing your faces to the public until mid afternoon—impressive. What were you two doing upstairs—"

Lorelai turned away from Kirk then, swiveling around in her stool once more. She was glad Luke was taking another order from Patty and Babette's table as Kirk was speaking to her because knowing him he would have thrown him out on his ass the moment he brought up the subject. Although, on second thought, the insinuations that Patty and Babette were inevitably throwing at him at that moment could not have been much better.

Bringing the cup to her lips, she spoke dismissively against the brim. "Okay, b-bye Kirk."

"Oh and, about the house," he said in a lower tone, leaning in to her tentatively as Lorelai simultaneously tilted backwards. Her eyes were wide, her mouth slightly agape; her alert level skyrocketed when he said the word 'house'. "I would never wish any unhappiness on your relationship with Luke, you know that. But I must admit, I was extremely excited to hear that Luke pulled his offer," he said shaking his head, "Lulu and I are planning on having a room for our dolls and action figures—we're so excited!"

Before Lorelai could even form her usual witty response to Kirk's mention of a doll room, he had already slapped his hand on the counter in excitement over another idea for the house, and bid her a quick good evening—just in case he didn't see her later that night (he needed to have all his greetings for the day covered, after all)—leaving Lorelai in the same position: eyes wide, mouth agape, mind racing.

During their monumental 'talk' in the aftermath of Lorelai's proposal (in the diner directly after, in the apartment later, and even in the tub after all that) they had discussed many things, big things, wow things. However, a decision about the house had not been made. Yes, Luke did say he bought it for her and (his hope of) their budding family… but before Lorelai could give her full and content reaction to his romantic gesture, he had ranted on quickly to his main point—that he had rescinded the offer and backed out because of the 'what about the kids' debacle. And so her excitement over the house was soon overshadowed by her excitement over the kids.

And as Lorelai sat at the counter, her pondering and contemplating almost complete, she got Luke's attention to refill her now empty cup. When he gave her a nod indicating he'd be over, she smiled back and glanced away. Lorelai's eyes darted to the window separating the diner from the Soda Shoppe, her eyes landing on Taylor.

If she could she would have jumped from the stool at that very moment and bounced right into that damn shop (because spelling it with two 'p's and an 'e' is just ridiculous, as Luke frequently argued) and fought with Taylor until he would have complied with her request of taking back the house. But she knew that her 'talk' with Luke proved, above everything, that they actually needed to talk about anything concerning houses, offspring, jewelry, questions, or anything else concerning the two of them and the idea of 'life altering'. So Lorelai restrained herself from hauling ass into that Soda Shoppe and making a romantic gesture for her best friend, fiancée, future husband, and so on; instead, an expectant smile started taking shape on her lips; and at that moment, Luke had made his way to his side of the counter, coffee pot in hand.

Filling her cup without hesitation, he met her gaze, matching her enamored smile with a grin of his own, "What's up with you?"

Lorelai ducked her head, trying to hide her growing smile from other watchful eyes. When she looked back up at Luke again, though, her smile had softened, yet her eyes seemed serious.

"What are we going to do about the Twickham house?" she asked in a hushed tone.

Luke placed the coffee pot down clumsily. He took a moment to study her expression, her features, her eyes in particular, before answering in an even quieter tone (not wanting any other nosy ears to hear, but also just because he was definitely not expecting that to come out of her mouth right then), "Well, um—do you want it?"

She nodded slowly; their gaze was not lost even for a second.

"You're sure you want us to live in the Twickham house?" he asked once more, his voice still just above a whisper. The two knew they had formed an unspoken agreement the night before; the feeling was there fresh from the tingling in their toes, to the comforting and exciting butterflies in their stomachs, to the thought that on Lorelai's hand sat an engagement ring—it was all so real. But they knew they had to verbally decide the Twickham house was for them; had to do it immediately, too—seeing how insistent Kirk was—even if they had to talk about it in the middle of the diner.

Lorelai grabbed one of his hands that lay somewhat limp on the counter with both of hers and gave it a good squeeze. Luke could feel the diamond from the upside down ring squeeze into his skin, indenting softly, which only made his smile broaden. "If you still want it, then I'm absolutely positive."

"I want it, Lorelai," he said deeply, seriously, before he began to ask tentatively: "but what about—" But she cut him off, shaking her head.

"I'll always love my house, but I've grown up and out of that part of my life," she said with a shrug, "We need a home that's ours."

It was all said plainly enough, but it held such meaning for the two of them—they didn't need any more reassurance than that.

Once again, his smile broadened for possibly the fiftieth time since she came down from upstairs. She loved how his grin dimpled his cheeks slightly. "Well, okay then," he said a bit louder, standing up a bit taller then.

Lorelai, however, held onto his hand and pulled herself up with him, pushing off the footrest of the stool and leaning her stomach into the counter for support. She placed a soft and lingering kiss against his lips, savoring, and mumbled, "I'll take care of it then, on the way to work," against his skin.

Luke pulled back, a glimmer of question or curiosity in his eyes, she couldn't quite tell; though in his mind he had no doubt that she would in fact take care of it. She was Lorelai Gilmore after all, he reminded himself—she can talk anybody into anything… even if that did mean talking her way through mountains of paperwork and legal documents and $250,000 down payments.

Lorelai pulled back off the counter and smiled at Luke. In a raspy voice he responded, "Well get the hell out of here then," and he kissed her quickly before she hopped off her stool and made her way to the door. Just before she opened it, however, she paused and turned to give him one last look, finding him staring intently at her, his eyes had the same glint in them from the late hours of the previous night… and from the early hours of the morning. And just before she could make a clear exit from the diner—

"Lorelai, dear," Patty's voice startled her as she dragged out her name painfully.

Luke gave her a sympathetic chuckle as he turned back around to walk into the kitchen. Lorelai sighed and turned to Patty, not surprised to see Babette seated next to her, both looking exceptionally happy and expectant.

"Hi ladies," Lorelai said with a toothy grin. She knew exactly what was coming.

"How are ya doll?" Babette asked wildly.

Here it comes, Lorelai thought and spoke with another sigh in her tone, though she did her best to carry a smile. "Oh I'm doing okay but I was actually just on my way to the Inn and I'm already a little late—"

"Oh we know dear," Patty said with a wink, "you two were upstairs for quite some time today. And we've already spoken to Luke about it but, he doesn't say a word," she said, clearly and genuinely distraught.

Lorelai smirked but dipped her head to hide it. "Yeah, well, you know him…"

Patty's distraught tone changed instantaneously to her usual omniscience one, a sly smile filling her face, "But you're absolutely glowing—either you've got the best facialist next to Jessica Simpson's or," she said leaning forward to place a large hand on Lorelai's forearm, her voice deepening suggestively as she continued, "Luke must be one hell of a lov—"

And at that moment, only to reinforce her point with a good squeeze, Patty had actually grabbed Lorelai's hand, fully clasping it in one quick swoop. Luckily, Lorelai realized what she was doing and balled her hand into a fist just as Patty's hand made her way around her (now shield) ring. But even after concealing it from Patty's touch, she still let out a short gasp and ripped her hand away, then proceeded to wipe at her left wrist, claiming that there had been a "bug".

Both older women leaned back in their chairs, hands on their chests, and eyed her with concern and amusement.

Lorelai backed towards the door as she brushed dramatically at her hand; then twisting them nervously around each other she let out an awkward laugh, "Damn thing," she said exasperated, "But, um, I should go now. I'm really, really late. I'll see you two later!"

And with that, she lunged out the door. She needed to find Taylor.

TBC… Feedback is a beautiful thing. Ideas, suggestions, anything at all... I love it and it helps. Trrrrust me on that one.