This was written for the 2006 LL Picaficathon for protestingwar.
With Luke owning the diner, Lorelai was used to waking up in bed alone. He opened the diner often, usually so he could avoid working late and closing and spend his free time with her at night. He'd slip out of bed early in the morning and be at work serving Kirk some kind of odd breakfast combo before she was even out of bed.
Even on the days when he didn't open the diner, he was often out of bed early anyway, unable to break the habit, and usually making her breakfast in his extra time up. There were the always the days when she'd stay in bed late because she didn't have to get up for work and he'd stay in bed just to stay with her. She especially loved these days when they happened on a cold, rainy or snowy morning. There was something about staying in bed under the warm blankets, lazily cuddled up to Luke, while the snow was falling outside the window that was immeasurably satisfying.
This morning, however, when Lorelai awoke, there was no Luke in bed, and the snow wasn't coming down, either. All that was outside the window was the bitter January in Connecticut cold.
When she emerged downstairs some time later she found Luke, who was, in fact, making her breakfast in his free morning off from work. He turned to smile at her when he sensed her presence, and she smiled back happily.
"Morning!" she greeted.
"Morning," he replied, turning back to whatever he was making on the stove. She glided over to him and snuck her arms around his waist, kissing him on the cheek. He turned around to face her and kissed her on the lips in response. As he moved to pull away, she stopped him and kissed him again.
"Good morning," she corrected with a grin. She peered over him at the contents on the stove. "Pancakes?" she asked happily. "Blueberry pancakes!" she realized. "Very good morning," she decided.
He rolled his eyes at her playfully as she wandered towards the table. "You're too easy," he declared.
"Hey, don't let anyone else hear that. I'm already taken," she reminded him, flashing her wedding band at him.
"Believe me, that I'm well aware of," he replied, a little too much sarcasm in his voice for her taste.
"Hey, that doesn't sound like a nice testament to our first eight months of marriage there, buddy." He didn't respond but simply put a plate of pancakes, bacon on the side, in front of her. "Oh, bacon!" she squealed, Luke's sarcasm long forgotten.
"Too easy," he mumbled again with a smirk.
The mornings he was home usually went along much like this. Lorelai remembered a time, which seemed much longer ago than it was, when she didn't want Luke to make her breakfast at home. She realized now, that had been crazy. She had Luke right there, in her kitchen, and he would make the same food she'd order at the diner, only her order was the only one he was worried about, and she was the only one receiving his attention. She won in every category.
"Have you ever thought about adding chocolate to these?"
"They're blueberry," Luke looked at her as if she was crazy.
"Yes, I know, but I just realized, chocolate would probably be heavenly in these."
"Chocolate chip pancakes have chocolate in them," he told her slowly. "You could probably get away with it in banana pancakes. But blueberry?"
She shrugged. "Personally, I think chocolate goes with just about any kind of fruit. Chocolate covered strawberries? Been done. Orange flavored chocolate? All around at Easter. Bananas and chocolate? Works in both muffins and frozen bananas, not to mention ice-cream sundaes. Cherries and chocolate are paired together all the time. So why not blueberries?"
Luke shrugged. "Well, I guess if you really love chocolate, it could work."
"I rest my case." He rolled his eyes and brought a plate to the table for himself. "Blueberry-chocolate pancakes, with bacon? That's a dream combination right there, my friend."
"Just eat."
After breakfast, Luke was busy cleaning up as Lorelai pushed around the last piece of pancake on her plate in thought. She finally got up and took her plate to the sink, scraping the last bit of pancake in the trash before beginning to rinse it off. As she rinsed it, she watched the water roll off it, across the designs, taking her time studying it, before turning the water off and abandoning the plate, then turning to watch Luke for a moment. She watched as he emptied a bowl of something, put a spoon in the sink, and wiped the counter off with a sponge.
"What?" he finally asked her without looking in her direction.
"Huh?" she was shaken from her intent focus on Luke.
"I know you've been staring at me for like three minutes," he said, turning to look at her. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," she insisted. There was silence, so she decided to go on. She'd been prepared to broach this subject sometime soon, and she decided today was a good a time as any. He'd seemed to be in a good mood this morning. "I was just thinking today, and—"
"Shocker," he interrupted to tease.
She ignored him. "I was just thinking today. And... well, yesterday, too, maybe the day before that as well. Probably for more like a week, but—"
"Lorelai," Luke gently guided her back to the topic in a way that he had become accustomed to.
"Right," she took his guidance naturally. "So I was thinking, about a lot of things, like, you know, how they get the aloe into tissues, but more specifically about that, uh... discussion we had."
"Discussion?" Luke asked, continuing to clean up and not paying too much attention to her words.
"Yeah, you know, the one we had about two months ago, that we agreed to have after we had been married for six months, where we decided that we weren't ready to have kids right at that moment, but it wouldn't be too much longer."
"Oh," suddenly she caught his attention and he stopped cleaning and turned to face her.
"Yeah," she said, wondering where to go from here, as he didn't seem to have much to say on the topic. She realized she probably should have thought about what she was planning on saying and shouldn't have gone into this blindly, but it was too late for that now.
"The discussion about having kids?" he asked.
"Umm, yeah," she agreed, pretty sure she had just stated that pretty clearly. "That's the one." Had she not been nervous about bringing up the subject, she would have laughed.
"You were thinking about it?" he questioned. Apparently he was taking in this information in small steps.
She nodded quickly. "Yeah, you know, I was thinking maybe we should... revisit it."
"Revisit it," he repeated, taking a breath. "Revisit it as in, have the discussion again because you have a different stand now?"
"Kind of. Maybe," she faulted, and mentally kicked herself for sounding unsure when she wasn't. Yep, going into this blindly was a bad idea.
"I don't know, Lorelai," he said, turning back to the counter to continue cleaning up as if he was done with the idea of revisiting the discussion. "I'm not sure the timing is really good right now."
She frowned. "What's the matter with the timing?" she asked in confusion.
"Well, with Lane playing with the band so much more often now, she's hardly working at the diner. And with Caesar getting married, he's around less, and he wants less hours, too—"
"But that's easily solved," she protested quickly, "just hire someone new."
Luke stopped his motions at the counter again and turned to face her, arms crossed. "I will," he said, carefully, "I intend to. But it takes a while to find someone, especially someone that will be as dedicated, responsible, and trustworthy as Caesar and Lane are. Remember that kid I hired a few years ago? He's not exactly what I'm looking for this time."
"Well, hire above the teenage years and you have a better shot at avoiding that."
"It takes time," he insisted.
"Well, sure, but... that shouldn't take too long, right? No big deal."
"And then there's the inn," Luke pressed on.
Lorelai looked puzzled as she asked, "What? What about the inn?"
"It's almost February. If you get pregnant within the next few months, you'll be due around the holidays, and you know how busy the inn is then."
"But," she was surprised at his sudden resistance, "Sookie and Michel will be there, they're perfectly capable. And Sookie's done having kids, so there's no chance she'd be out at the same time. They'd be fine."
Luke shrugged. "I just think in a couple of months it would make more sense. The timing will be better all around, it's a win-win situation."
Lorelai frowned, upset at the turn this conversation had taken. "Yeah," she said. "Sure, win-win."
Luke studied her for a moment. "You're not okay with this."
"No, sure, whatever," she said, going over to the sink and running water over the dishes Luke had placed there in the last few minutes. "Besides, what does it matter if I'm okay with it or not? That's how you feel and if you want to wait, you want to wait. There's no way to compromise with this."
"Lorelai..." he tried, knowing she was upset.
"No, I'm fine," she insisted again, turning the water off suddenly and wiping her hands on a nearby dishtowel. "It was just a suggestion. I have to get to work," she added, heading out of the kitchen.
"You're not okay," Luke protested, following her as she put her coat on and grabbed her purse. She kissed him on the cheek so quickly that he could barely register the action.
"Sure I am. I'm fine. See you later," she said, leaving the house and letting the door close a little louder than usual behind her.
Luke wasn't really sure what he had done so easily to get her so worked up, but he knew it wasn't going to be as easy to get out of it.
He had figured she would cool down once she got to work. But she didn't show up at the diner all day, not for lunch, which was pretty unusual unless she was really busy at work or meeting Rory for lunch, and not for coffee at all, either, which indicated to him that she was still upset for some unknown reason. She'd always show up for one or the other, lunch or coffee, if not both-- unless she was mad at him. He really hadn't thought he had done anything to upset her so much and that she'd realize that sooner rather than later.
It was a long day for him anyway, the diner unusually packed, but his last conversation with Lorelai and her absence from the diner all day nagged at him. Every time someone came in the diner, which was about every two minutes on this particular day, he hoped it would be her, and that he had been wrong about her purposely staying away. He hoped that it was her when the phone rang, calling to tell him that she was busy at work and eating at the inn or that Rory had decided she needed a break from reading and studying and was meeting her for lunch.
But there was nothing.
"Fight with Lorelai, huh?" Luke was jarred out of his thoughts by Taylor, who he realized was standing at the counter, waving a hand in front of his face to catch his attention.
"What?" Luke snapped, his annoyance level upped a good amount from Taylor waving his hand in front of his face.
Taylor nodded, as if Luke's tone of voice confirmed his suspicions. "I knew it."
"You don't know what you're talking about, Taylor," Luke snapped. "Now what do you want?"
"Ham and cheese on rye. To-go. No mayo. My doctor says I should slim down a few pounds."
"I don't care what the hell your doctor says," Luke grumbled. "A simple 'No mayo' works fine."
"She never stays mad at you for long, Luke."
Luke glared at him, and Taylor slunk off towards the table Kirk was sitting at, striking up a conversation with Kirk while he waited for his order.
"You really are obvious," Caesar said a moment later, holding out a bag with Taylor's order.
"What?" Luke asked.
"When you fight with Lorelai. Everyone knows it."
"I'm not fighting with Lorelai," he insisted.
"So then why do you look up every time someone comes in the door?" Lane asked as she breezed by.
"To see how many customers have come in. In case you haven't noticed, we're swamped."
"And the extra grumpiness?" Caesar asked.
"I'm always grumpy, get over it, or I'm not reducing your hours after you get married. In fact, maybe I won't even give you the day off to get married."
"Why's that, the married life not so great?" Caesar teased.
Luke snatched the bag from Caesar. "Taylor! Your sandwich." Taylor's mouth opened to ask the question Luke knew was coming. "With no mayo."
"Thank you, Luke," Taylor grabbed the bag. He headed towards the door and then turned around to look at Luke. "I hope you and Lorelai make up tonight, because this is not a very flattering mood for you."
"You've got your food, now go," Luke snapped.
"What happened?"
Lorelai groaned as Sookie peered at her in concern.
"Nothing, Sookie, why?"
"Because you look upset," Sookie insisted. "The thing with the eyes and the way you've got your hands."
Lorelai rolled her eyes. "Nothing is the matter, Sookie, okay?"
"Denying something is the matter is a clear sign that something is the matter with you. Fight with Luke?"
"We're not fighting," Lorelai grumbled.
"Really? I'm not buying it."
"I don't want to talk about it, okay?"
"So you are fighting with Luke. I knew it! The eyes don't lie. You've got 'fight with Luke' eyes."
"Is this not talking about it?" Lorelai snapped.
"Sorry," Sookie rolled her eyes. "Must've been a bad one."
"It wasn't even a fight," Lorelai said, "more like a disagreement."
"Do you still not want to talk about it?" Sookie asked, confused.
"I just asked him if he ever thought about revisiting the discussion we had a couple months ago about having a kid."
"I guess we're talking about it now," Sookie realized. "I'm guessing he said no?"
"Yes. Well, no. He didn't say yes or no either way, but he said that he didn't think the timing was right right now."
Sookie frowned, thinking about this. "Why not?"
"Because Caesar wants less hours and Lane is around a lot less and he needs to find someone new, and if I got pregnant within the next few months I'd be due around the holidays, and the inn is busy during the holidays..."
"Well, those are all logical reasons," Sookie gently reminded Lorelai.
"Well, yeah, sure, but..." she shrugged. "It doesn't make sense."
"Why not?"
"Because, the past few months we've been less than careful with protection."
"I thought you went on the pill," Sookie said, her voice in a whisper. "After, you know, the scare."
"I did," Lorelai confirmed, "then the prescription was up, so that was part of the reason we had our little discussion. And we decided that while we weren't ready to start trying just then, we didn't want to go through another whole prescription either, so we decided to go with other means of protection in the meantime."
"And I'm guessing that didn't go so well?"
"Well, it worked just fine, most of the time," Lorelai said. She looked sheepish. "Some of the time."
Sookie laughed. "You two."
"It's just that... when the box was empty, or when the box was upstairs and we weren't, or when we used the last one and we weren't quite done... we didn't care. And we talked about that, we said that it wouldn't matter if something happened, even though we weren't, you know, officially in baby-making mode."
"Okay, so...?"
"So how can he just agree to that, act like that with me, and now say that he's worried about the timing? It just makes me mad. I assumed all I'd have to do was say I was ready to make it official and we'd get rid of the protection all together, since we we've been careless anyway, but now he acts like it's some..." she sighed. "I don't know. I mean, I could have gotten pregnant, you know?"
"Well, sure," Sookie agreed. "But you didn't, and now the timing's a little off, that's all he's saying."
Lorelai sighed. "Yeah, I guess."
"Coffee?" Sookie asked.
"No, thanks."
"No?" Sookie let out a low whistle. "You really are mad."
Lorelai shrugged and walked out of the kitchen.
When Luke got home that night, he was exhausted. Then he realized that he had even beat Lorelai home after work, which wasn't completely unusual, but he had a feeling it wasn't because he was just the one who happened to get home first. The phone rang a moment after he closed the door, and he quickly snatched it up.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Luke!" Rory's cheerful voice filled the line. "How's it going?"
"Fine," Luke said. "How's school?"
"Great," she said, and he could picture the grin on her face. "I just spent a whole weekend slaving away on a paper, and I think it paid off. It's a great feeling."
"That's great," he said.
"Anyway, that's not why I'm calling," she said. "But you probably figured that."
"Your mom isn't here," he told her.
"I know, I just talked to her like, two minutes ago," Rory said, "I was actually looking for you."
"Oh. What's up?"
"Well, there's this thing at school next weekend," she said. "It's a really cool look into physics, with experiments and all, and I thought April might like to come check it out. But I know it's your weekend with her, so if you don't want to give up the time, I completely understand..."
"No, Rory, that's fine. She'll love it." Luke had never taken for granted how quickly Rory and April had bonded, probably quicker than he and April had bonded. He had and always encouraged their time together, which was less when Rory was at school.
"Okay, great!" Rory said, excitedly. "I haven't seen her in a while, it should be fun."
"I'll talk to her about it tonight or tomorrow," Luke said, "and let you know."
"Great! Well, I should probably get back to studying, so I'll talk to you soon. Bye!"
"Bye," Luke replied before hanging up. He was pretty sure that from the lack of sympathy in Rory's voice, that even though she had talked to Lorelai two minutes ago, she had no clue they were fighting. Lorelai not using Rory to vent to meant that she still mad, so mad, in fact, that she didn't even feel good bringing it up to Rory. Wonderful.
Lorelai finally showed up a little before eight, coming in the house without any sort of greeting. Normally she'd call out something, anything, to let him know she was home. If she'd had a particularly good day, it could be a patented Ricky Ricardo imitation. On a bad day, it could be an exhausted excuse for English. In between, there were the days when she would just start yelling, laughing, ranting, or telling a story before the door was even closed.
Today, however, there was nothing.
Luke came out from the kitchen where he had been cooking and glanced at her. "Hey," he tried gently.
"Hi," she said coolly.
"So... you're home late today."
She shrugged. "Yeah, well, you know the inn, they can't survive without me there, it's so busy. It's been almost a month since Christmas, I think the Christmas crowds are still lingering. Or maybe the Valentine's Day crowd is early. Or maybe this is next Christmas's crowd already."
"Okay," Luke said with a roll of his eyes. "Sorry, forget it."
"No, I was just saying, you were right this morning. I don't know how they would survive without me for something like Groundhog Day, either, so we better work around that one as well. We have a very limited window of opportunity."
"Lorelai," he sighed, "what the hell is the matter with you? This is beyond ridiculous, really."
She laughed bitterly. "What's the matter with me? Nothing, I'm not the one going around making lame excuses for having a baby now."
"They're not lame excuses," he protested. "They're perfectly reasonable. And what do you mean now? It's not like we decided we were going to have one already and I'm taking it back!"
"First of all, they are lame when you consider the past few months. And when you consider how we've been acting the past few months, I think you kind of are taking it back. You're like Mr. Sheffield and the thing."
"What?" he asked her, confused, desperately trying to keep up with her train of thought. It was one thing to get lost in her words in day-to-day life, but when they were fighting and he had no clue what she was talking about, it was particularly complicated. "Acting like what?"
"You know as well as I do that after that discussion we were less than careful with protection. What was that about, huh?"
"A few times we--"
"A lot of times, Luke! If it wasn't convenient at the moment, we didn't care. It was like high school all over again." She shrugged. "And somehow, you and I have a penchant for getting into situations where it's not convenient."
"I know, Lorelai," he said. "And we talked about it. We said we weren't officially trying, but if it happened—"
"And what does that mean, anyway?" she interrupted. "How stupid are we? What the hell difference does officially trying make if we aren't using anything?"
"That was the past two months, Lorelai," he said, "the timing now isn't as good."
"Oh, God," she rolled her eyes. "I'm going to make a new drinking game. 'Take a sip every time Luke brings up the timing.' I'll be drunk in no time." She paused and then added, "When did you get so concerned with the damn timing? Are you going to calculate the exact perfect moment for us to conceive, and then only allow that one day for conception for the whole year?"
"I'm just thinking logically." She was really making him mad now, getting so worked up over such a simple statement he had made this morning. She was acting like he'd done something truly awful to her. "Timing of things like this is important, Lorelai. I mean, you had Rory at sixteen, so I know you don't care about timing, but some of us do."
As soon as his comment left his mouth, he knew he'd gone too far. She was looking at him, arms crossed, fixed glare, biting her lip. There were very few ways to make Lorelai speechless. Most of them were good. Extreme happiness and excitement, sexual or otherwise, for example. And then there was the bad way; fighting dirty and saying things she couldn't believe you would say.
"Well, excuse me," she finally snapped, "but do you not also have a daughter? I'm pretty sure that that wasn't a timed decision, so maybe you shouldn't try and make me look like the irresponsible idiot."
He sighed realizing that he had gone too far. "I'm not trying to make you look like that. I'm just trying to get you to understand. I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
"No, you know what? I can't do this anymore. We're too worked up and we're going to say hurtful things." She headed to the stairs. "In fact, one of us already has, but I'm going to leave before I do it, too."
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"To bed."
"What about dinner?"
"Not hungry. Too tired, these January 23rd crowds really take it out of you; they're almost as bad as the March 10th ones. Good night. Come up and get your pillow so you have something to rest your head on while you're sleeping on the couch," she told him, then went the rest of the way up the stairs and slammed the door to their bedroom.
Luke sighed, unsure of how his comments about the timing of having a kid had turned into this. He knew he had to let her be or they'd never get anywhere further, so he ate dinner by himself, saving a plate for Lorelai, knowing she would come down for it after he was asleep. He took Paul Anka for a walk, then talked to April when she called and then listened to her go on and on about physics after mentioning the event at Yale. Then, still afraid to go upstairs right away, he watched TV for an hour before creeping upstairs to the bedroom to get his pillow.
Lorelai was asleep when Luke crept upstairs, subconsciously sticking to her side of the bed even though he half expected her to be asleep in the middle as some kind of statement. She was on her stomach, her hair fanned out around her, her hand thrown over her face haphazardly. He sighed and watched her sleep for a moment before quickly placing a kiss on her forehead and leaving the room.
He went downstairs, finding only one blanket in the closet to use on the couch, and sighed when he saw Paul Anka looking at him curiously, already perched on the couch himself.
"I hope you're planning on sharing, buddy," he said with a grumble. Paul Anka simply put his head back down on his paw, apparently not planning on sharing at all.
Lorelai woke up after sleeping for a few hours, hunger getting the best of her. She was sure Luke was asleep by now and it would be safe to go downstairs to get something to eat. When she descended the last step, Paul Anka raised his head to look at her, whimpering guiltily, as if he knew he had been caught sleeping on the couch with the enemy.
Lorelai looked at Luke on the couch with one single blanket and couldn't help but feel sorry for him. It was freezing and they didn't have the heat on. Even if she was mad at him, she couldn't help but feel sorry for him, like he was some little dog abandoned in the snow.
She went into the kitchen and found a plate of dinner in the fridge, clearly left for her. Of course, she thought. She took the plate and crept back upstairs.
When she awoke again, it was morning. It was cold in the bedroom, and she realized that Luke wasn't in bed with her. The previous day came rushing back to her, and she sighed. She glanced out the window and realized that it had started snowing sometime during the night. Her momentary excitement over the snow dissipated quickly as she realized that under normal circumstances this would be one of those lazy days where she and Luke could stay in bed together away from the cold. But nope, he was downstairs on the couch. Because he's a jerk, she reminded herself when she started to feel momentarily guilty, especially as she saw the empty plate on the bedside table, which had contained her dinner.
She had only ever really found one drawback to her relationship with Luke, and that was that when she was mad at him, she didn't have him to vent to. He was usually always the one who was there, holding her, stroking her hair and letting her cry into his chest. He was the one who would listen when she was upset, about the stupidest of things, or the most serious of things. When he was the one that made her cry, when he was the one she was upset with, she didn't really know how to function.
When she ventured downstairs, she found Luke on the couch, blanket folded and pillow on top of it on the other end of the couch. He was watching the TV, but turned it off as soon as she came down the stairs, giving her his attention. Odd, she thought, most husbands would probably be fed up with their wives at this point and keep on watching TV in an attempt to avoid another confrontation.
"Morning," she said coolly. "Sleep well?" she added with a knowing smirk. He assumed that with that she would go into the kitchen for her coffee, but she made no move to leave, apparently waiting on him for his answer.
"Yes, actually, just fine." He paused, as she still didn't head to the kitchen. "I made you coffee," he added. He had hoped that having coffee at the ready for her would help to soften the blow of his comments last night, if nothing else about their situation.
"No thanks," she said stubbornly.
"You want to talk?" he asked, standing up to face her.
"Sure. Let's talk about how you think making me coffee is going to make everything better."
"I don't think that mak—" he sighed. "I'm sorry about last night, okay?"
She shrugged. "Whatever, it's fine."
"Lorelai," he sighed in defeat. "I really just don't understand why you're so mad. I think I'm missing something."
"I told you, Luke. I just think it's really irresponsible and careless of you to act like you're all on board with having a kid when we don't want to be bothered to use protection and then change your mind."
"I didn't change my mind," he said.
"If you don't want more kids," she added in an attempt to bait him, "just say so."
"You know that's not what I'm saying," he tried to be calm, "and you know it's not true."
"We were stupid, Luke. Okay? We said we didn't want to try just yet, and then we go around acting like teenagers, and we said it was okay. And in my mind, I took that to mean it really would be okay. I know we had reasons for waiting a while longer, but then we just kept..." she sighed sadly. "In my mind, it was like, we knew we should wait a little longer, but we didn't really want to. Apparently, that's not what you were thinking."
"Listen," he said softly, "I know you're sick of hearing about the timing and you think it's a lame excuse, but that's really all I was thinking about. Do you really want to worry about the inn and Thanksgiving and Christmas and having a baby at any moment all at once? Two months ago your potential due date didn't coincide with everything. One month ago, Caesar wasn't getting married in three months. Two months ago, Lane hadn't gotten the big gig yet. It's just... you're right. I wanted it to happen, but since it didn't, maybe now we really should wait a little longer until we get out of the holiday due date time frame and we know that I'm not going to be stuck at the diner for eighteen hour days."
She nodded. "Right. Since it didn't happen." She shrugged and turned towards the stairs, retreating to their bedroom again.
Luke was confused. She hadn't seemed mad this time, and she hadn't replied to anything he had just put out there. He thought his reasoning had been rational and he hadn't yelled, and he was sure she would listen. But she didn't yell or argue or agree or say anything. Except for...
Suddenly, everything made sense to him. He was an idiot.
He broke out of his daze and hurried up the stairs after her, finding her already in their bedroom, perched on the bed and watching the snowfall outside the window.
"Lorelai," he said, stopping after entering the room and watched her for a second. He realized he had no idea how to approach this. She turned her head in his direction, but didn't look up at him. "Are you... are you pregnant?"
She looked up at him for the briefest of seconds, and then she was looking down at her hands again, tears falling.
"It wasn't supposed to happen like this," she sniffled. She quickly reached up and wiped at her eyes, hoping to stop the tears.
He walked closer to her and carefully sat down next to her on the bed. "Like what?" he asked gently.
"It wasn't supposed to cause us to fight like this, it was supposed to be a happy time for us. I was supposed to tell you, you weren't supposed to deduce it on your own and come in here to find me crying," she said, wiping at her eyes. "It was just supposed to be a happy thing."
"Oh Lorelai," he said softly, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"I don't deserve you, you know that? I mean, instead of me just telling you that we're having a baby, I make you sleep on the couch."
"The couch wasn't that bad..."
"And I'm sorry if you don't want this right now," she said with a shrug, "but there's nothing I can do now. I'd press pause if I could, but, unfortunately, I didn't come equipped with that feature."
He chucked softly, and added, "I don't want to press pause. I'd rather press fast forward, get to the good stuff sooner."
She looked up at him and smiled warmly. "Really?"
He nodded. "Really. Of course. Lorelai, this is... this is amazing."
"You're happy?"
"No, I'm more than happy. What's beyond happy? Ecstatic?"
She laughed. "Yeah, but I think you need to jump around a lot or something to qualify for ecstatic," she teased. "Unless you're Estelle Leonard, she does a pretty mundane ecstatic."
"Who?"
"Joey's agent."
"Who?"
She laughed. "Watch Friends once in a while. It's on like every channel."
"Oh. Him. I thought his agent was named Bobbie?"
"That's on his spin-off," she reminded him. "Estelle was on Friends. She died."
Luke sighed. "Are we really talking about this after you just told me you're pregnant?"
She chuckled softly. "I never told you that," she reminded him.
He shook his head and then looked at her seriously. "I am ecstatic, jumping around or not." She grinned in return.
"Really?"
"Really," he said, looking her in the eyes. She couldn't remember ever looking a man in the eyes so confidently before Luke. She would look into their eyes quickly and look away. She would look just past their eyes to make it look like she was looking in their eyes in serious moments. But with Luke, all the time, right in the eyes. Right before they first kissed, the entire time they first slept together, most of the time they slept together. When they broke up and she was begging him not to leave, the first time she told him she loved him, and hell, she was still surprised she had even managed to get the words out let alone look him in the eyes while doing so. When she said 'I do,' and when he said 'I do' in return.
She smiled and looked up at him, right into his eyes. "We're having a baby," she told him.
He leaned in to kiss her in response, and when he pulled away, she laughed and pulled him back to her. This was the moment she had been hoping for, and she didn't want it to end now that it was finally there.
"What about the timing?" she asked timidly when she finally allowed him to break away.
"It doesn't matter," he said confidently.
She couldn't help but laugh. "Luke, you've just spent the past two days going on and on about the timing of having a kid, and saying this was not the right time."
"I don't care," he told her, "that was before I knew."
She laughed again, and she was starting to realize that was all she was doing, laughing and smiling, and hadn't she been crying? The sad tears were long gone and now she wanted to laugh and smile and cry because she was happy.
"You're too easy," she teased, letting him know she understood by the smile she gave him.
"Wait," he realized suddenly, "is that why you didn't want the coffee this morning?"
"Yeah, but I did a good job of making you think it was because I was mad, huh?"
"Too bad for you that was the last time I'll be offering you coffee for a long time."
"I figured," she said with a playful roll of her eyes. "And I've even been giving it up at the inn, too. If that's not dedication, I don't know what is. I could've gotten those last few cups in before you knew." She was silent a moment, then added, "I'm sorry I got so mad at you, it's just... I knew I was pregnant and I was trying to bring up the topic so I could tell you and then you didn't give me the right reaction and I knew you were having a baby anyway, so... I didn't know what to do and I got upset."
"I know," he assured her, "it's okay, you don't need to apologize. I was the jerk."
"No you weren't," she insisted, "you just didn't know. My own fault for beating around the bush instead of just saying, 'Hey, Luke, you knocked me up really damn fast.'"
He chuckled, "Eloquent."
She nodded. "Rory takes after me."
They were silent for a moment, and Lorelai began to watch the snow again. "It's snowing," she stated softly.
"Yeah," he said, sliding an arm around her and rubbing her back gently. She rested her head on his chest, and he put a hand to her hair before planting a kiss on top of her head.
"Good things happen when it snows, I told you."
"Maybe, maybe I believe in your theory just a little, tiny bit now." She moved to sit up as she grinned and opened her mouth to say something when he added, "And no, I am not going to go stand out there in the snow with you."
"But Luke..." she whined.
"It's not the first snow. The deal is the first snow."
She smiled, realizing, for the umpteenth time, how much Luke does for her. "It's the baby's first snow," she reasoned.
"The baby is way too little to be playing in the snow."
He was so serious that she burst out laughing. He was so serious, and she could tell, with one look in his eyes, that he was so happy. She was starting to feel giddy, the sad tears definitely gone, as she began to realize how glad she was this was happening to them, with him. It was one of those moments like when they first danced at Liz and TJ's wedding or when he had brought her the ice-rink because she had had a falling out with snow; she couldn't help but feel happy and giddy and giggly, and she couldn't hide it.
She looked up at him with shiny eyes and smiled. "I love you. And I'm sorry for our stupid fight."
"I'm sorry, too," he said, kissing her on the forehead. "And I love you, too."
"So," she began teasingly, "if it's a girl, I'm thinking... Lorelai."
"Right, because that hasn't been used yet."
"And for a boy," she continued, ignoring Luke, "I was thinking... Lorelai."
"Oh boy," Luke grumbled. "It's going to be a long nine months, isn't it?"
"Yes, and at the end I'm going to whine a lot, so be prepared for that. But you get to have a lot of sex in the second trimester, so it's all good."
"What?" He had lost her again.
"Hormones can do crazy things," she insisted, "as I think you first got to witness the past couple of days. My moods can up ninety percent at any given moment."
"Great, lookin' forward to it."
"Hey Luke?" he looked at her in response. "I'm really happy."
He smiled. "Me, too."
"This is great," she went on, "when the baby cries at night, I can get up and take care of it without my mother saying, 'You know, Lorelai, that's what the nanny is here for.'"
"She really said that?" Luke asked, always interested in finding out more about Lorelai's life as a teenager.
"Oh, yeah. All the time. I was never supposed to go to Rory in the middle of the night, but of course, I always did, which drove her crazy." She smiled and continued, "And you can be there from day one this time. Experience diapers and teething and temper tantrums."
"Thank you for picking out the most positive aspects of parenting."
She laughed. "My pleasure."
They were silent for a few moments before Luke broke it. "The timing's not bad at all," he told her quietly, reflecting on the much worse timing of both of their previous forays into parenthood.
She grinned. "I tooold you," she teased, and he rolled his eyes.
"What am I going to do with you?"
"Well, considering you've already gotten me pregnant, I think you have a pretty good idea what to do with me."
"Ah, jeez, Lorelai..."
She laughed delightedly. "So, what's up for today? My original plan of starting it out by drinking lots and lots of coffee, going on some roller coasters after a quick skydive, then ending it by getting drunk and smoking a couple packs of cigarettes seems to be out."
Luke groaned. "Long nine months..."
"And that drinking game I was thinking of making? That's out now."
"Hey," he said, something dawning on him, "are you hungry?"
"Do you have to ask?"
"Come downstairs and I'll make you blueberry-chocolate pancakes. With bacon."
She grinned. "Really?"
"Really."
"But you know... I think this is the tamer of the cravings to come."
"Believe me, I know. This one isn't out of the realm of possibility for non-pregnant Lorelai to crave."
"Oh!" A thought occurred to her. "Can we put ranch dressing on the bacon?"
"Now you're getting there."
"That's still not completely crazy," she protested. "Peanut butter might be, but—" she trailed off. "Hmm, peanut butter."
"Let's go," he said, taking her hand and tugging her off the bed. She grinned at him happily, giving his hand a squeeze as he led her downstairs to make her blueberry-chocolate pancakes.