Lorelai lay quietly beside her daughter. The floral walls had begun to loose there spinning illusion that she didn't quite know how to cope with. The dark seemed to bring out thoughts at what she had just incurred on her self as well as her daughter. Turning she looked at Rory sleeping peacefully. Unable to sleep herself Lorelai turned again to the flower print wall.

Everything just seemed to have slipped by since the talk she had with Luke. The growing and evolving thing had brought to mind doubts in her mind that she wasn't quite sure how to cope with at this point. It had all gotten so jumbled. First she was sitting in her home looking at her ring while smiling, the next she was outside standing under a chuppah with Luke, having a private moment that wasn't supposed to happen in the first place. It somewhat frustrated her that she could be swayed so easily to think that she might be making a mistake, and with this in mind, she ran. She ran again only to hurt her daughter, her fiancé, and herself. Though she figured that it was, in the long run, the best thing to do…and yet she still questioned her exact motives.

The evolving and growing conversation couldn't exactly qualify, as it's starting point in her mind.

"Sure there would still be emotional growth without the presence of Max" she figured. But most of the togetherness would be spent with her spinster couch and her business. Though she supposed that a spinster couch was better than Max's hand thick books that would have been somehow occupying her house. The fact of books being any where other than Rory's room made a smile escaped. Though it may have been a slight one it was mostly in the affect that it would have never happened. They would have intruded on her movies. Which wouldn't have sit well. The "Labyrinth" with Bowie next to Shakespeare did seem oddly poetic in a way though. But for some reason she would have rather seen something along the lines of Bert on her table or nutmeg resting next to her coffee maker, odd thoughts indeed.

The darkened room seemed to dim lower as her thoughts plunged deeper into her memories, trying to figure out where all of this doubt of her marriage to Max really began. It seemed that she could find things from months before, but none really stuck out to her.

The dim lights and the flooding memories brought familiar scents and visions to her as her eyes began to weigh down to her pillow. Her senses heightened as her eyes closed leaving her with the scent of coffee in the air and what she could have sworn was flannel against her cheek as the world went dark.

Luke awoke to knocking echoing through his apartment. As he shifted to open is eyes and feel for his alarm that he was sure to soon go off he missed and instead leaned upon the air beside him, causing a rolling action that ended abruptly on the floor. A groan escaped as an empty beer bottle rolled away from him.

The knocking was persistent non the less. After gathering himself, Luke shifted to an upright position, still denying the trace of any hangover.

Reaching for the door the knocking continued and without much thought because of the headache that was slowly creeping beneath his skin he instinctively began talking to who he thought was the only person that he could think of as a feasible possibility.

"Lorelai?" The name slipped gruffly from his mouth as he opened the door. "What are you-"

He instantly stilled his talking, as the person standing at his door was deffinatly not Lorelai.

"Sorry to disappoint," The voice then heard was mostly certainly not the vivacious sound he was so accustom to hearing at his door, or in his diner for that matter…It sounded suspicious and suppressed.

"Max?" It was mostly a shot in the dark at this point but while he's already assuming who's at his door, why not start now. Sure they had met before but things were still a little fuzzy. "Um, would you like to come in?" It was a few more words than he expected to use, most people seemed to get a lot less, but he had a feeling that it might take a bit more than a the apparent "monosyllable" that Lorelai had always said he was so known for.

"That might be a good start." What Max meant by that didn't quite sit well with Luke. "Why was he here?" Might have been a better way for Luke to start his greeting.

"Is Lorelai all right?" This seemed like the next logical step of questioning. Why else would her fiancé be at his door like this at this time. As far as Luke knew, he was usually the only one up at four or so at the morning. Though taking another look at Max, it seemed like he hadn't slept, The bags under his eyes and the familiar stench of alcohol seemed to be coming more from Max than himself.

"I was hoping that you could tell me that."

This was becoming unsettling.

" I mean, Lorelai and you seem to be closer than ever."

The twang in his unexpected guest's voice was beginning to tick him off at this point.

"And how do you figure that?"

"Well let's see…Lorelai's disappeared after apparently talking with you and now there's a giant huppa in her front yard."

"It's a chuppah..and I have no idea where Lorelai has gone, or why." After Luke said that, of course millions of maybe reasons flooded his aching mind. "Could it have been the talk that they had, or did it run deeper than that? Or was it just her attempt at running away again?" The thinking was cut off by Max entering further into his apartment, seemingly giving it a once over, looking for traces of Lorelai for all he knew.

He was right.

Max stood there angery, hungover, and tired. Something both he and Luke had in common at this point. Both thinking, both wondering, both clueless.

Max looked about the small apartment room, noting the single bed and the small kitchen. There wasn't a trace of coffee on the counter. But that only made him more determined to find something that would give him reason enough to blame Luke.

Luke watched Max's eyes go about the room, unsure of what his next move to be. He would have to get to opening soon…."Wait, how did he get in?" It was something he would have to investigate at a later date. In the meantime there was a man that had been proclaimed by the town, his unofficial rival. Thinking of the town only kept the need to get Max out of his apartment so Kirk wouldn't enter in whatever way he had gotten there in the first place.

"So you really have no idea where she is?"

"No." He wasn't worth the extra words at this point. Apparently Max had hopped on the crazy bandwagon with the rest of the town. That was Max's fault, not his. If Lorelai had ran, then that was that, he was gone and it was time he accepted that. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Wait, was that encouragement? What was he doing? The bandwagon was in his favor wasn't it? Some crazy thought that the town had gotten that him and Lorelai were meant to be. Max was riding full speed right along with them, and he had just asked him what he was going to do about it. Those stupid anvils from the cartoons that Lorelai and Rory had talked about so much might as well have landed on me right here and now."

"Go after her I guess."

"Damn." It echoed in Luke's mind and even escaped just slightly.

"Bye Luke." With that Max turned on his heel and left, leaving Luke with a headache, a tear in his judgment…and a deep-set spite now lingering for Max. Luke pulled on a flannel shirt and a pair of jeans. Leaving a sign marked "gone fishing" and a annoyed Kirk in his wake.

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Thank you's and tears for the two that reviewed my first chapter.

TBC