First I want to say thank you so much to all of my wonderful reviewers, who overwhelmed me with their generous responses. Seven reviews in one day! It's incredible.

To those of you who ask where this is going, I can't give away anything yet. This is going to be a fairly long story, and for now we're just looking back at the past heartbreaks of Lorelai's life. I have the ending written, but it's a little unsatisfactory so I might be changing it. Can't make any promises just yet.

There are two flashbacks in this chapter from Season Five. The first one is the night just after Luke and Lorelai broke up (the episode after the wedding renewal), and the second one is the night just after they got back together. The flashbacks themselves are in italics, which means that thoughts will be in normal type. Bon appetite!

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"I can cut them off. I can get them out of my life!"

"What about Christopher? He's Rory's dad! He'll always be in your life!"

"In her life!"

"Her life is your life!"

"No, not in this! I'm in, Luke. I'm all in."

I'm all in.

All in.

I love you, I love you, I love you, love you, love you, love you……

The words echoed in Luke's head, a dull repeating rhythm, a pounding that followed the beat of his footsteps, the words twisting themselves to fit the monotonous repetition of his heart, the impassioned conversation fading into a staccato chant, a mantra, a sound of breath and blood and soul and very life itself.

Love you, love you, love you…….

It was never-ending, never-ceasing, ever-resounding, ever-increasing……

I'm all in. All in. I love you. Forever.

It was his breath, it was his spirit, it was his tears, it was the last dangling and fraying thread to sanity and life and blazing light.

Forever. Forever. Forever. Forever.

Love you forever.

Lorelai…….

He breathed.

It was all he could do. All he could manage, all he could think of, because if he thought of anything else he would collapse, a senseless corpse, down on the cold pavement and never find the strength to rise again. If he thought of anything else he would break down into mindless weeping, and he would wind his insane way through the frigid night into morning and die as soon as the sun's rays touched him because its warmth reminded him too much of hers. His heart was gone and in its place was a mechanical contract, relax, wither, expand, in, out, in, out, a rhythmic coercion, forever, forever, forever…….

Cold.

It was cold. That much he knew, that much was safe to register, safe to realize, safe to know; because cold was an integral part of his being now, was a second skin, a layer of frost that had crept into his throat with his breath and seeped into his blood, had torn out mind and heart and lungs and soul until it was impossible to separate the living Luke from the layers of steel and snow that had encased him.

Snow…..

But no, that hurt too much; hurt to much too think of snow, because snow was falling eternally in the pristine grasp of memory, was falling in lazy spirals that fell on ice cut by ice-skate blades, that was tangled in her hair and stayed there like stars blazing in the velvety embrace of night. Snow was her, was her skin, was her laugh, drifting gently down to soothe the heaving ocean of his thoughts; and tonight snow was a rain of knives that sliced through his fragile thoughts and left a moaning, shuddering agony to blossom outwards from the wounds.

The night stretched out before him, endless, boundless, rippling away into the chasm of eternity, and the stars above were cold and heartless as shards of ice, of crystal, prisms reflecting his emotions, his universe, and twisting them into a swaying vortex until he could no longer tell which way was the road to heaven and which the fall to hell and if it really even mattered anymore which one he chose. He was drunk, dizzy, reeling senselessly through space –

A bird shrieked in a nearby tree, exploding in a rustle of feathers into the sky as Luke passed beneath the wind-bent branches. The sudden noise startled him, shocked him, recalled him to himself; he froze, every muscle clenched with intolerable tension, nostrils flared, eyes wide, jaw hanging open as he stared stupidly at the ground, trying with every iota of strength he possessed to regain control over himself.

He failed.

He was shaking, trembling, hands clenching the inside of his pockets so hard that his nails were tearing apart the seams, his teeth clenched together so hard that he could almost hear them crack. The thought that he had been trying to avoid, the monumental realization, was battering his skull and branding itself into his brain and he had no choice but to accept it. He was out.

No more.

No more. No more Lorelai, no more caffeine addiction, no more senseless chatter far too early in the morning. No more jokes, no more quips, no more laughter, no more pointless and insane schemes that were crazy but beautiful just because they made no sense. No more messy laughter and inappropriate comments; no more battles over cell phones or coffee or flannel or the mysteries of the universe. No more sensuous and insanely comfortable kisses, no more whispered declarations of love that breathed through him like sunlight given life. No more ranting or raving, no more shared faked cynicism, no more hands around his dragging him forward against his will into the froth and color of town life.

He started to shake.

Never again would he open the kitchen after closing time because she needed coffee and his was the only door that was always open; never again would he comfort her after an explosive clash with her parents, never again try to decipher the high-pitched fast-paced Gilmore-speak that only she and Rory knew, never again be lulled to sleep by the murmurings of the TV he kept in his apartment because she could not bear to go to bed before ten. Never again would he put on one of his familiar shirts and have her perfume wreath him in an invisible embrace because she had worn that shirt the night before; never again would he have to climb onto her roof or disassemble her porch or break her back door lock in a frenzy of fear.

The litany continued, a pounding of brass daggers that cut deeper into his living flesh with each new word. Memories flashed before him, a film reel spliced and speeding behind his eyes; desperate for something, anything to blot out that frantic repetition, he opened eyes that had been until then tightly shut, and for the first time looked around him, to find out where his feet had taken him this frigid winter night.

There, looming into the sky before him, flickering with light, was the Gilmore house.

Numbly, he noticed that the window was open; that the pane which he had just replaced was cracked, the frame was a little lopsided, as though someone had ripped it open, so desperate to breathe the snow-laden air that they had damaged the window in the process. Staring through the gap, into the very center of his shattered universe, he could just make out the mantelpiece with its burden of memories, and the upright chair under which he and Lorelai had once captured a runaway chick. The familiar shapes burned themselves into his vision; then they were gone, obscured by shadows that leapt and danced, flickering madly across the warm wall, transforming the night into a den of demons

Slowly, unthinkingly, Luke began walking again; his gaze never leaving the lumbering structure before him, only barely noticing the frost-gilded lawn and the gleaming stars that silhouetted it, he moved along the edge of the lawn, not daring to set foot on the grass. That was sacred marble, hallowed ground, where she had walked; and though he would not dream of defiling it with his footsteps, he stared desperately, hungrily, through her open windows, drinking in this one last glimpse of happiness before he was separated from her forever.

His gaze shifted, across the door to the window that peered out at him from the other wall of the house; this, too, had been thrown open violently, and sat slightly crooked on its tracks, the curtains slightly torn. A blaze of golden light leaped out at him; blinking, he barely made out a shifting glow, a fire burning in a chimney that had been cold for as long as he could remember.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to get a better view; and he drew in a sudden sharp breath, as she moved into his line of vision, her hair pulled back into a knot at the back of her head, her dress and jacket made only more lovely by the creases and stains that they had suffered over the course of the night. She was biting her lip, staring into the fire with a gaze so thoughtful, so desperate, that it nearly broke his heart; she rocked back and forth on her heels, and he saw a flash of red, a bundle of roses bound with a crimson ribbon that she clutched tightly to her chest.

He watched, breathless, trying to memorize every inch of her, every wild curl of her hair, every detail of her face, every graceful movement of her hands –

He jerked back, startled, responding instinctively to the beloved silhouette, as she lunged forward suddenly, tearing the ribbon that bound the roses and dropping them in a blood-red clump to the floor. Kneeling down, she snatched one up, viciously ripped out its petals by the handful, and pitched them forward into the fire.

Once the stem had been plucked clean, she tossed it into the hungry blaze, shaking now, every line of her body taut with suppressed rage; her hands darted down again, plucking up another flower and stripping it clean, with a viciousness that he had never seen in her before. She looked insane, with the firelight flickering over her face and her hair falling in wild disarray about her shoulders, with her expression twisted into a mask of grief and agony so deep that Luke could almost feel a knife plunged into his heart.

The pain on her face echoed and reechoed in his mind, fanning the dull embers of hatred that always lay smoldering for anyone who dared to harm her. Flames stirred and leaped inside of his skull, melting away the frost of the winter night, surging and ebbing to a familiar rhythm, a word that he loathed, despised, that he longed to break with his bare hands because it made Lorelai upset. The name, the face, resounded inside of him so strongly that it took him a long time to realize that she was chanting the same word, an angry snarl, a hideous curse. She repeated it, over and over again, with each syllable tearing the petals and stems of roses, until it looked as though her hands were covered in blood; and her manic chant carried through the open window and over the glimmering lawn until it rang in his ears.

"Christopher. Christopher. Christopher….."

She was in a frenzy now, ripping roses apart with a throbbing hatred, an agony that she tried to inflict on the flowers, a tearing and beheading, a frantic movement of hands and tears falling like unnatural rain in the winter night. Luke felt as though he was drowning, as though the wrath inside of him had squeezed the air out of his lungs, had turned to leaden sadness that constricted his throat, his mind, his heart. And the chant continued; continued until she was screaming his name, screaming the hated word to the sky, to the world, as though hoping to pitch that, too, into the roaring blaze before her. The roses disappeared, one by one, like showers of blood returned to the heat that had spawned them, like flickers of flame being swallowed by the sun from which they had come. It was a rain of hearts and memories; then they were gone, vanished, and her hands were moving uselessly in the air, were flickering back and forth and tearing at nothing because she needed to keep moving, keep moving, because if she stopped then the world would crash in upon her and throw her to the ground and she would never have the strength to get back up.

Still she was screaming Christopher's name, still she was cursing him, hating him, calling every evil she could think of down upon his head, screeching that he had betrayed her, destroyed her, killed her. She rocked back and forth on her heels, frantic; then the fire began to fade, devoid of petals to devour, snarling like a caged beast among the ashes of roses, its light beginning to die. Luke could see the cold night enter the room; he could feel as the fire's heat diminished, as the cruel winter wind swept in through the open window, wrapped itself about her with the caress of a lover, with a hideous mockery of a warm embrace. He could feel rather than see her shiver as the chill breath of the world enveloped her; and he felt his throat constrict as her hateful scream died, as the hated name stopped its explosion and faded into silence, faded into another name, another word, one that she breathed as though it was a prayer, as though it was the last gleam of life that she was clinging to with all of her strength and could not bear to let go.

"Luke," she breathed, falling to her knees at last, all of her rage spent, her gaze turned cold, her expression that of a small child lost in a world she has never known, who has been robbed of the only thing she ever loved. "Luke….."

As he stood there watching, breathless and stunned, she fell to her knees and cried.

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Luke bit his lip, the memory sweeping through him with a blaze so vivid, an image so real that he was left shaking, the pages of the book crumpled beneath his unconscious grip. Noticing that the words were running into each other where his tears had blurred the ink, he released the breath he did not know he had been holding, and gently worked his tense fingers free of the paper. He smoothed out the creases in the fragile page, desperately wanting the book to be perfect, to be beautiful, to be everything that the remembered about her so that he might never forget.

The rose glared up at him still, memories glimmering over its fragile petals so that it looked more like a leaping flame than a lifeless flower. He touched it gently, closing his mouth to keep his breath from ruffling its perfect petals; he wanted the rose, too, to be exactly as it had been, to remain frozen in time forever, to keep that essence of trembling and tears so it would never be buried beneath other memories of more important days, so that he would always be able to look back on the brief time he had spent without her and be eternally thankful that she loved him as much as he loved her.

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"Luke."

There was no answer.

"Luke."

"Hmmm?"

He lay in darkness, enveloped in a warm shower of night that seemed to pulse in a comforting rhythm with his own heartbeat, and the quick staccato of the heart that beat beside him. He was still, and silent, and warm; the cold night pressed on the windowpanes but could not invade on his dreams, could not fight past the shadows of the room to reach the white pillow on which he had laid his head.

"Luke!"

The whisper came again, sharper this time, along with a soft tap on the shoulder that did nothing to disturb the utter peace that radiated from him. He only rolled over in bed, not even bothering to adopt the irritated mask he usually regarded her with; instead he allowed himself to break out into a radiant smile at the face that hovered close to his, beautifully pale in the darkness of the apartment, her dark hair falling like a waterfall cascading over her shoulders, on her pillow and onto his. He propped himself up on his elbow, reaching out to brush away a stray strand that fell across her forehead. "Yeah?"

"Do you have a radio?" Her hand reached up and grasped his, drawing it down to her mouth, and she kissed his palm before releasing it. Watching an expression of puzzlement waver across his face, she grinned a moment later as it disappeared. Luke had long ago given up being puzzled at the strange requests she made of him, intoxicated by the winter and the night.

"Sure, there's a radio," he murmured, sinking back onto the bed, his eyes never leaving hers, never losing their gleam of quiet adoration. "'s over there, on the table. Why?"

"Just a feeling I have," she whispered, smiling. Leaving one last lingering kiss on his lips, she sat up and slid her feet to the floor, reaching immediately for the spare shirt he kept folded over the back of a chair for when she came. Luke leaned back on the pillow, watching her with a sense of utter contentment as she crept across the dark room, shivering, longing for the warmth of the bed. She rummaged around on the floor for a few minutes, eventually coming up with an old boom box, and flipped around until she found the station she wanted. Immediately music flooded the dark room; soft, crooning music, a voice that drifted into Luke's soul and stirred up the longing, the comfortable love he always felt when Lorelai was near.

"And the moon's never seen me before………… but I'm reflecting light………….."

He felt a smile touch the corners of his mouth as he watched her, relaxing in a nearby chair, her expression rapt as the music breathed past her. "I love this song," she murmured, yawning sleepily. "It was the first song we danced to together. Do you remember?"

"I remember," he replied, cherishing the sound of her voice sliding through the night and the music to rest inside of his heart. They had been apart, not long ago; he knew that, and he knew that it had hurt, but he was tired and warm and he could no longer remember what it had been like to be without her in his life. "How did you know it was on?"

"I told you, it was just a feeling I had." She sank down in the chair, turning her head to gaze back at him, so that a pall of moonlight from the window fell on her face, illuminating her bright blue eyes, now dark with sleep, and making her hair glimmer and gleam like the night sky scattered with stars. As though drawn from her by the light, a half-smile emerged on her face, an unspoken declaration of love so strong that it made him shiver, even all the way across the room, from the cold that came when she was not next to him.

"Lorelai?" he asked breathlessly, staring at her half-lit smile, at the vague silhouette outlined by the moon. The sight of her shrouded in darkness, the way she stayed as still as he had ever seen her, was waking another memory, a vague recollection from a time of sadness millions of eons away. "Lorelai, can I ask you something?"

"Of course," she responded at once, her voice low from contentment and exhaustion. "Anything. Absolutely anything."

He rolled over onto his back, breaking their shared gaze, staring up at the ceiling instead, watching the reawakened memory flicker through the air before him. "When we were – apart," he began slowly, "I was walking past your house, and I saw you – saw you standing in front of the fire. You were holding these roses – tearing them apart – and throwing them – into the ashes." he paused, his breath beginning to come fast as the sensation of the night began to come back to him. "You were screaming – you were screaming his name." He drew in a long breath, and let it out in a short, painful burst. "Christopher."

There was silence.

Luke turned over onto his side again, suddenly hungry for the sight of her face, for her smile, for her warmth. She still sat beneath the glow of the moonlight, but her expression was melancholy now, thoughtful, and not unhurt. Aching that he had caused her pain, Luke pulled the blanket beside him down, the sheets almost glowing in the night air. "'m sorry I said anything," he murmured quickly. "Come back to bed." He wanted her warmth beside him again, wanted to prove to himself that the icy color of her skin was just a trick of the moonlight, but she did not move. Instead she gazed out at the sky, hands resting like sleeping swans on the arm of the chair, lips pursed in thought, apparently unaware of how much he wanted to hold those hands in his large rough ones, to press those lips to his.

"I met Christopher a very long time ago," she said finally, choosing every word with care, her voice completely calm, holding no pain but the sadness that comes from soul-searching thought. "We first were dating when both of us were very young – and when Christopher was a lot different then he is now." Her mouth curved up into a small, sad smile at the memories. "He was from a very wealthy family, like the Gilmores – and he was always a perfect gentleman."

Luke gave a start, shocked from his ecstatic contentment, with the thought that 'gentleman' was not how he would have described the other man – but Lorelai was already speaking.

"He was very sweet, back then," she recalled, her voice sounding incredibly far away, as though it was drifting back to him over the gulf of time. "He wooed me as any young man should – with candy and dinner dates and roses." Her smile faded somewhat, and Luke felt the ache in his heart increase, hungry to make her smile again. "He wasn't the first guy I'd dated. But he was my first real love, and for my entire life, whenever I've thought of him, I've thought of expensive chocolates, and expensive perfumes, and fields of blood-red roses."

She sat still and silent for what seemed like an eternity, then finally stood, leaving the radio to croon its soft song into the shadowed air. She pulled his shirt tight about her as she padded back across the room, slipping beneath the blankets next to him, and wrapping her arms tightly around him, clinging to him as though she would never let go. "That night," she breathed, "that night I hated him so much for what he'd done, that it seemed – right. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to get him out of my life and make sure he never came back. I wanted to be with you forever and I wanted him to never look at me again; so I burned the memories, the dates, everything that reminded me of him."

"Mmm-hmmm," Luke murmured, returning her desperate embrace, feeling himself relax as her warmth seeped into him and made the night no longer cold.

"I love you," she whispered vehemently, burying her face in his shoulder, her voice suddenly cracking as unshed tears broke free of their restraints and trickled down her cheeks, glowing like lost diamonds in the moonlight. "I love you and I've always loved you and I'll burn all the roses in the world if I have to but I never want to see his face again."

"You won't have to," Luke said softly, tightening his arms around her. She felt safe; and the safety, the unconditional love that he held touched her to the core, and the contrast that she felt between that moment and the nights of her memories was so sudden that she broke down and cried, cried for joy and for warmth and for the rightness that she felt in his arms.

"You won't have to," Luke repeated, and leaned down, silencing her sobs with a kiss.

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Luke sighed, raising one hand to his lips as the memory of that kiss, of that passionate devotion stung beneath his fingers. He could see the rain crashing and bursting against the window of his apartment out of the corner of his eye; he smiled slightly, remembering how the stars had gleamed on that winter night, and watching the dim light reflecting off of the shattering raindrops and how very much they looked like stars torn open and thrown from heaven to land on the ground so much warmer than their lonely perch in the skies.

Lowering his hand from the smile that touched the corners of his mouth, he felt a great peace swell through him, dispelling all the anger that he usually felt on this day. The memories shimmering through him had changed; they were no longer painful, only soft and comforting, the memory of Lorelai's warm embrace enfolding him against the frigid cold of the rain-soaked afternoon. He could feel the pressure of the town sleeping just outside the window; but for once the noise and color did not seem like an unnecessary distraction. For once, he knew the sensation of coming home.

Grinning softly for no reason at all except the caress of memory, Luke began turning the pages of the book again, savoring the feeling of the smooth paper like the touch of Lorelai's hands on his. The words were lost on him; instead he saw voices, faces, stars, all stirred into the ink and inscribed on the page into the shape of Luke's very life.

He had not gone very far at all when his hand suddenly paused in its ceaseless movement, falling limply to his side again, and his smile began to fade. The rose was gone, had been set gently onto the bed where it lay next to the daisy and glimmered like fire longing to return to the sun. But there, nestled between two pages, was yet another flower; a white lily, as bright and pure as the moon on a frigid winter's night, or a kiss stolen in a darkness that quivered warm with love.

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That's the end of another chapter! I'm upping the review requirement to five, but with the help of the wonderful people who reviewed my last chapter, it shouldn't be a problem. See you later!