A/N: This is set just after the fight in Doose's in 'Say Something'. A tad inspired by sosmitten's 'The Luke Box'.
Oh, almost forgot! I don't own Gilmore Girls. If I did, Luke and Lorelai would be happily married, and Rory would be with Marty. But, alas, I don't. So you will all have to trust Amy to make everything turn out okay.
On with the fic!
Lorelai stared after him, stunned. She composed herself and left the market to return to the inn.
Lorelai dealt with the children's tea party on autopilot and went through the rest of the day with a blank mind. It was like it was with Max: she gave it no thought, because she knew that if she thought about it, she would give it too much thought and that would be bad. She just didn't deal. She threw herself into her work.
She drove home and crashed onto the couch, still in her work clothes. Lorelai stared at the blank black screen of the television without bothering to turn it on. She didn't know how long she sat there, but she began to hear the faint sound of water outside.
She walked onto the porch and sat on the swing. Slowly swinging back and forth, she watched the rain pour down. Suddenly, she began to cry. Maybe it was her loneliness, or her sadness just finally caught up to her. Or maybe it was the rain.
Frankly, it didn't matter what the cause was. The fact was she was sobbing on her porch.
As out of the blue as it had started, the tears stopped. She stood, and before she knew it, her feet were carrying her to the diner.
Lorelai slowed when she reached Luke's. She walked up the steps and froze. She took a second to watch him through the glass door. He looked like he always looked. He looked like nothing had happened; like nothing had changed. Or maybe he was hiding it. He'd always been good at that.
Taking a deep breath, she mustered up her courage and reached for the handle.
When he heard the door open, he looked up. He couldn't believe it was her. She walked to the counter and took a seat. He took in her red-rimmed eyes and soaked clothes and reached for the coffee pot.
"No thanks." Lorelai said quietly. "We should talk."
He wordlessly turned and walked up the stairs. She followed. Luke walked to his closet and pulled out a gray t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and handed them to her. She began to protest, but he cut her off. "We'll talk. I promise. But you should dry off first."
She took the clothes from him and walked into the bathroom to change. When she came out, fully clad in Luke's baggy clothes, Luke was sitting at the table. She sat in the chair across from him. "I heard you when you said you were out. I did. But I still have more I want to say. I-"
He quietly cut her off. "I didn't say I was out."
"You said you couldn't be in this relationship anymore. That sounds like out to me!"
"You rushed me, Lorelai!" He fumed. "I needed time to think. You of all people should've known that!"
She looked down at her hands. "I wanted to make sure we had a middle."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Before I came to the market, Sookie told me a story about this couple who were madly in love. But they broke up and married other people and had kids and grandkids. Then their spouses died, and they got back together. But they missed their middle. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to miss our middle."
He sat there silently, taking in everything she said. He realized that she was implying that she wanted to spend her life with him. Him, of all people.
When he didn't speak, Lorelai panicked. She took his silence to mean that he didn't feel the same way. So she did what she was best at.
She ran.
She stood and bolted down the stairs and through the diner. She ignored the inquiring stares and ran out the door and across the town square before the tears came. Through her blurred vision, she spotted a park bench and sat. She put her head in her hands and cried quietly, letting the rain soak through the large borrowed clothes she had on.
Luke hadn't followed her down the stairs. She was Lorelai Gilmore, and there was no catching her. Once she left, she normally didn't come back.
Luke had been lucky. He'd gotten a second chance. He could've made things right.
But he'd screwed up. Paused just a little too long. And now he could never get her back.
She was gone for good.
After a good long cry in the rain, Lorelai headed home with no tears left. By the time she reached her house, she was completely drenched. As soon as her front door shut behind her, she pulled of Luke's clothes and left them in the foyer. She walked up the stairs in her soaked underwear. She changed into dry, warm pajamas and then walked into the hall and opened the closet. Lorelai pulled out an empty box and treaded back down the stairs.
She entered the foyer and put Luke's still-wet shirt and sweats into the box. She returned to her bedroom and threw anything that reminded her of him into the box. It was soon overflowing and she had to return to the closet for another. And another. And another. By the time she'd finished, her room was nearly bare. She took the boxes back to the closet and stacked them neatly.
She retrieved the Max box from the downstairs closet and put it in with all of her Luke boxes.
Lorelai stood in front of the open closet, staring at the pile of boxes. Her eyes clouded with tears as she spoke. It was one simple word, but it spoke volumes.
"Goodbye."
She shut that closet door, knowing that maybe one day it would open again, when she was ready. When she had the 'whole package' and wanted to look back.
But for now it would remain shut, because those memories were just too painful to bear.
And she smiled, knowing that eventually she would be okay again.
Eventually.
The End!
Short, but I think my short one-shots are better than other things I've written.
Originally, this was going to end happily, but I read some angst fics and then it turned out like this. But I like it!
Review!