Everything Old Is New Again

by Lula Bo

How do the same things happen every year in so many different ways? A year in the life of Lorelai, Luke, Rory, Emily, and Richard. Followup to Separation Anxiety.

4. November

A/N: This chapter was really, really important to me, and it went through several drafts. Much love and thanks to all things holy for reading it several times and for asking all the right questions. As always, feedback is very much appreciated!

A/N 2: There are a few references in here to happenings in "Separation Anxiety." If you haven't read it and don't want to, you won't miss anything too important. The chapters that I'm drawing on are "Sunday Night," "Long Time Coming," and "Back at the Beginning Again."

Disclaimer: This is the chapter that was the initial idea for the story, the spark that made me want to write this sequel in the first place. I've been working on it for some time and there's just one thing I need to unequivocally state: I wrote this without knowing what was going to happen in 5.3, "Written in the Stars." Anything similar to that episode is purely coincidental, and my beta can vouch for that. I freaked myself out a little when I watched the episode and am now attempting to fine tune my psychic powers in the hopes of winning the lottery. So, I'm under no illusion that any of these characters belong to me, and it's really just a show of love for Amy Sherman-Palladino and her big ol' creative brain that I'm writing about them at all.

November

Lorelai pulled the Jeep into the drive and killed the lights, sighing as she turned the key and slid it out of the ignition. She sat a moment, the keys in the palm of her hand, and stared dully ahead of her. Hers was the only house in the neighborhood still lit, the porch lights on and a lamp glowing behind the curtains in the living room. She opened the car door and swung her legs out, shivering at the bite in the air, wincing when her feet—in their oh, so perfect, oh, so cute, oh, so cheap black stilettos—hit the gravel. She hobbled up the drive and the porch stairs and let herself in, surprised to find the door unlocked.

Once inside, she toed off her shoes and allowed herself a moment to adjust to the flat surface of the floor beneath her feet. She looked down and wiggled her toes. "Sorry, little piggies," she whispered. Dropping her purse and tossing her keys on the desk at the end of the hall, she immediately reached for the bowl of leftover candy and helped herself to a handful of mini Butterfingers and Snickers and Mounds. She crossed the room to the stairs and sat on the landing as she tried to strip the wrappers from the candies as silently as possible, smiling to herself as she did, stealing glances at him as he snored.

Luke sprawled out on the couch, his bare feet up on one end and an arm hanging off the side, the other thrown over his forehead. His flannel was unbuttoned and open, the tee shirt underneath hitched up a few inches above the waist of his jeans. Lorelai shoved a Mounds in her mouth and stretched. She didn't want to wake him just yet—it was her fault he was sleeping on the couch in the first place, passed out with the lights on and a magazine open on his chest.

She'd padded into the kitchen that morning just after seven, pouting. She hadn't expected to see him there, holding a spatula and hovering over a pan on the stove. Rather than say anything, she went to him and leaned against his shoulder, rubbing her face against the soft flannel of his shirt like a kitten begging to be petted. Luke put his arm around her and lightly patted her rear as he kissed her good morning.

"Is it morning?" she asked. "Because it feels too early to be morning."

"It's morning," he said. "It was nearly morning when you got home last night, too."

"I can't untangle that sentence without caffeine, Luke."

"I put the coffee on for you." He handed her a mug and turned her towards the coffee maker. "I just meant you were home late. Again."

Lorelai poured herself coffee and held the mug to her chest, breathing in the steam. "I couldn't get away."

"I know." His voice was flat.

"And we spent time together when I got home," she said cautiously.

"Yes, we did," he replied, in the same even, inscrutable tone.

She pouted and sighed, let her shoulders slump. He wasn't going to give anything away, and she was too tired to wheedle with him. "Not that I'm not ecstatic to see you," she began, and he grunted a little.

"I can tell," he said.

"But," she continued, throwing a look at him, "didn't you leave, like, two hours ago?"

"I did," he said. "But I came back."

Lorelai hoisted herself up onto the counter and sipped her coffee. She rested the top of her head against the cabinets and took a deep breath. After a moment, she again drank from her mug, watching Luke over the rim. "I'm glad you did," she said. "C'mere." He eyed her warily but came as commanded. She put her coffee down and cupped his face in her hands, leaned forward and kissed him. "Good morning," she said. He blinked. "I'm on a five minute delay," she said. He smirked and returned to the stove. "Good morning and Happy Halloween," she said. "I almost forgot. I should get the candy out before I go to work."

"Candy?" he groaned. "You know what you're doing giving them candy, don't you?"

"Transforming them into Satan's minions?"

"You're contributing to a national epidemic," he intoned, gesturing with the spatula. "Give them apples! People used to do that all the time, give out apples. And pennies. Apples and pennies."

Lorelai laughed. "Luke, I cannot give the trick-or-treaters apples and pennies. Not only will I be branded the mean lady, trick-or-treaters will never come to my house again."

"That's a bad thing?"

"It's a bad thing," she replied. "And watch that French toast, buddy—I expect quality food in this kitchen, you know." He snorted as he turned over the toast and opened his mouth to speak again, but she continued. "Apples and pennies, really. I'd totally be the mean lady. Or at the very least, I'd be known as Taylor Doose's bitch."She slid off the counter and stood next to him. "And if I'm going to be anyone's bitch, I'd rather be yours."

"That's quite possibly the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me," he drawled. He sighed. "I hate Halloween."

"Here we go," she said, smothering a smile.

"What? It's a stupid holiday! Giant corporations make millions and millions of dollars on these teeny-tiny candies that are ridiculously overpriced, and, in their individual wrappers, also ridiculously wasteful. Not to mention the cavities, the greed, the gluttony—no wonder childhood obesity is on the rise, we're practically begging kids to stuff their faces with this crap!" he ranted, turning the toast. He pointed the spatula at her again. "Type A diabetes! Fat kids on Oprah, crying and crying and crying! And still we give them candy because, hey, Halloween's fun and it's only one night in the year, and besides that it's tradition and—"

Lorelai swatted the spatula away and kissed him squarely on the mouth. "I love you, you know that?" she said. "But I'm not giving out apples and pennies."

He slid her French toast and a few pieces of bacon he'd been cooking alongside it onto a plate and handed it to her. "You just want to eat the leftovers," he said sullenly.

She grinned and fetched maple syrup and utensils before she sat, waiting patiently at the table while Luke poured himself a bowl of Grape Nuts and a glass of juice. When he was seated across from her, she cut into the toast, focusing intently on her plate. What she was going to ask him to do would be tantamount to red hot needles under his fingernails, she knew, and she hated to do it because she knew that he'd say yes.

"Are you going to be busy tonight?" she asked, her voice over-casual.

Luke paused, the spoon halfway to his mouth. "Why?"

Lorelai shrugged with one shoulder and again hacked viciously at the toast on her plate. She popped a piece of bacon into her mouth and spoke around it, reaching for her coffee cup. "Well, we have that scary corporate party at the inn tonight—why these people want to have a costume party and on a Sunday night when they know they have work the next morning is beyond me, but I'll take the fee anyway—and I don't know how late it's going to go or how long I'm going to have to be there..."

He sighed, and she peeked up at him from beneath her lashes. "Again," he said. He dropped his chin to his chest and closed his eyes, his expression beaten. "And you want me to be here for the trick-or-treaters."

"It's either that or leave the bowl on the porch with one of those 'Take one! Be considerate!' signs, and I really don't want to do that because you know the Banyon boys will just swipe the whole bowl and I'll run out in the first fifteen minutes and I'll be known as the mean lady and—"

"You really don't want to be the mean lady, do you?"

She swallowed the bite of toast in her mouth and looked at him with wide eyes. "Why? Do you?"

He returned her look levelly, shaking his head. "I'll do it." He stirred his cereal. "But you owe me."

"Several times over," she said. "Don't worry," she went on, extending her leg under the table and running one foot up the back of his calf, "I'll make it worth your while. And I give you permission to tell the kiddies to brush their teeth and have their candy x-rayed at the police station, or whatever it is they do when they're looking for glass in the chocolate." She leaned over the table and kissed him again, gently biting his lower lip. "I really appreciate it, Luke. Really and truly."

He'd been gruff and taciturn when she said goodbye to him at the door as he went back to the diner, but he'd put his arms around her when she kissed him and returned the kiss in a way that made her want to restrain him bodily from leaving the house without a very extended trip back to the bedroom first. She'd been forgiven, however grudgingly. She thought of it now, sitting on the stairs, polishing off the last of her candy, her elbows on her knees, and chastised herself. He was far more patient with her than she could ever be with herself, let alone anyone else, and the past weeks had been unfair to him.

There were other things, too—this last week, as they got closer to the end of October, the more anxious he seemed. He both snapped more and was quieter than usual. She could tell he was tense; she wasn't entirely sure it was all her fault. If there were other things, he wasn't telling her, and right now she could only see herself to blame. She rose and brushed her hands on the back of her dress as she descended the stairs.

She maneuvered into position on the couch, kneeling with his legs between hers, and lowered herself onto his chest. When he opened his eyes, they were nose to nose. Lorelai smiled and kissed his chin.

"Having a good sleep?" she whispered.

"I was," he replied. "How did it go?"

She shifted slightly and placed her hands flat on his chest. "It went really well. They'll be back," she said.

"That's good."

"It is good," she echoed. "But I am really, really glad to be home."

"That is also good."

He raised his head a little and kissed her, reaching up with one hand and loosening the clip that held her hair back. Lorelai heard the hitch in her throat as her hair cascaded around them and she felt Luke lightly kneading the small of her back with his fingertips. He shifted them both so she was caught between his body and the back of the couch and he no longer had to support her entire weight. Lorelai put a hand to his cheek and deepened the kiss, fitting her body against his, forgetting that her every joint ached with weariness as her skin flushed with heat and wanting. When Luke broke from her, they were both breathless; she kept her eyes closed, listening to him as he tried to slow his heart

"What time is it?" he asked, leaning his forehead against hers, pushing a lock of hair off her cheek. She opened her eyes and blinked lazily.

Lorelai didn't answer immediately, just stroked his cheek lightly with her thumb. "A little after one?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" There was an edge to his voice, a razor-fine sharpness that stung.

"Luke," she said, pulling her hand back. She wriggled, angling for more room. She reached for the hand resting heavily on her hip and held it in the both of hers. "I know, and I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," he sighed. "I didn't mean to be a dick."

"You're not being a dick," she said. She looked him full in the eyes as she squeezed his hand, her own eyes bright. "It's me—I'm—I feel badly and I'm defensive, and..." She trailed off. "Are you okay with this? This whole ships passing in the night and eating breakfast together thing?"

He cleared his throat. "No," he said frankly, "but there's not a whole lot either one of us can do about it."

"It won't always be like this," she said.

"I know," he replied. "And right now I'll take what I can get."

"Glad to hear it," she said, and teasingly kissed him again.

"You've been in the chocolate," he accused.

She shrugged awkwardly. "I admit nothing," she said. "So. When you say take..."

Luke arched an eyebrow and got to his feet, pulling Lorelai with him. She giggled, laughing harder when he grabbed her by the waist and hoisted her over his shoulder, climbing the stairs. She slapped hisass with both hands, unable to catch her breath as she asked, "Is this trick or treat?" He didn't answer, just unceremoniously deposited her on the bed and took off his flannel. "I'm guessing treat," she said, still laughing as Luke pulled his tee over his head. "But Luke, I hope that when the kiddies came you were a little less friendly because that could cause some serious problems in the neighborhood."

"Nah," he said, standing above her before he eased himself onto the bed, pulling her to him. "I saved the good stuff for you."

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back as he trailed kisses down her throat. "Way better than apples and pennies," she said.

The first week of the month had almost passed without incident at the inn, which Lorelai thought a nice change. Luke, however, had gone from slightly anxious, snappish, and quiet, to full-out bristly, combative, and silent. She was careful not to let him see her watch him, to speak and tread lightly, at the very least to try and bite back the withering retorts she'd stockpiled to the various and sundry grunting complaints he'd made since the start of November.

She lay awake Friday morning, her hands folded on her stomach as she stared at the ceiling. Luke had gone just before five, as usual. Lorelai had sat up in bed and hugged her knees to her chest, playing with the hem of the sheet. She watched him as he pulled his jeans on over his hips and reached for his shirt.

"You okay?" she asked, sweeping her hair off her face. "You were sort of restless last night, all kicky."

He looked over his shoulder at her. "Sorry if I kept you awake."

She shrugged. "Oh, I'm not worried about me. Rory used to come sleep with me all the time when she was little, and while she's not known for her athletic tendencies in her waking hours, she's quite the soccer player at night." He didn't respond. "You, though, you're more of the dead to the world, sort of sleeper—I have, in fact, been tempted to hold a mirror over your mouth to see if you were still breathing, but the snoring is usually a giveaway. So, I'm just wondering, with the moving around and the sighing and the general, all-around wakefulness, if all is well in Whoville."

He put his hat on and made for the door. "Go back to sleep," he said.

"Luke," she said. "Wait."

"What?" He spoke harshly. "I'm late."

"You're not late, you're leaving five minutes earlier than usual," she pointed out. He bounced on his feet, his hands jammed in his pockets, not meeting her eye. "Would you come back for a minute?"

His jaw tensed. "I don't have time, Lorelai, for the stop and go game."

"The stop and go game?"

"You tell me to wait, I wait," he said, gesturing with his hands from one side to the other. "You tell me to wait again, I wait. And we do this over and over and over—"

Lorelai frowned, sitting back slightly as though he were standing too close and his voice was too loud, though he remained rooted to his spot in the doorway. "I'm trying to talk to you," she said. "Would you just sit down for a second?"

"I don't have a second."

"Luke, I—"

Luke adjusted his hat and jutted his chin out. "I don't want to talk," he said.

"Would you just—"

"I don't want to talk," he said, biting out the words. "There's nothing to talk about. So stop bugging me about it, go back to sleep, and let me get to work."

Lorelai stared at him blankly for a beat. "Fine," she said coolly. "Forget it. I'll see you later." She dropped her head to her pillow and turned her back to him. He left without a word.

She sighed, now, and rolled herself out of bed. She found a note on the fridge when she went foraging for coffee: "call me." She crumpled the paper in her hand with a sigh. It wasn't until she was sitting in the chair behind her desk in the inn's back office, a cup of coffee steaming at her elbow and an enormous blueberry muffin heavily buttered beside it that she called. As the phone rang, she reached for her day planner.

"Luke's."

"Hey," she said. "You said to call."

"I need to know if you're working tonight," he said.

"Uh-huh," she said vaguely. She hadn't really heard him; she was too busy counting. "Shit," she whispered. "Holy fuck."

"What?"

She lifted her head and stared blankly ahead a moment. "Nothing." She swallowed, tasting bile at the back of her throat. She closed her eyes and took a breath. "I have to go," she said firmly, though her voice sounded thin to her own ears.

"Lorelai," he began, lowering his voice. "About—"

Lorelai pushed her plate away and covered the top of her mug with the palm of her hand, letting the steam warm her skin. "I can't talk to you right now, okay? I have to go," she repeated, though she wanted him to soften his voice, to be kind; she knew he'd give back as good as he got. She felt shaky, faint.

Luke cleared his throat. "Fine. Go, then. I still need to know if you're working tonight."

"No," she said. She paused, looked to the ceiling as she spoke. "You want me to come for dinner?" She waited, almost holding her breath, giving him the moment to fold.

"I'll have to check my reservation book."

Lorelai snorted. "Okay, then," she said sharply. "I'll see you."

It took her a moment to get her bearings after hanging up, but once the moment was over she went into full-out planning mode, swallowing the muffin and chugging her coffee as she rearranged her schedule for the next two days and made a few phone calls, told Sookie she had to run out for the day on some business for Winky and Emily, and rushed home to change before turning the Jeep towards Hartford and driving as fast as she dared. Her appointment in the city wasn't until four, but there were things she needed that she wouldn't get in Stars Hollow—solitude, distance, privacy, anonymity. She wouldn't be looking over her shoulder in Hartford, knowing that others knew what was going on, that it would get back to him before she had the chance to work through it, figure herself out. Hartford seemed the better option.

She parked outside Neiman's and strode quickly through the store, not seeing any of the things she'd normally stop and linger over, but made straight for the drugstore in the mall proper. She shoved her purchase into her purse as she searched for the restrooms, her cell phone in hand. Without thinking, she dialed.

"You better not be calling to cancel on me again."

What is it with people this week? Lorelai thought, sighing. "Hey, babe. Nice talking to you, too."

"Hi, Mom. Are you? Calling to cancel?"

"I forgot it was Friday, to be honest. Probably, yes, canceling. It's—I have some stuff going on."

"What stuff?"

Lorelai pushed the door to the ladies room open and locked herself in a stall. "Just some stuff." She shook her head as she looked around her. And again, she thought. Her eyes burned as she pulled the pharmacy bag from her purse.

"Everything okay? And where are you? You're all tinny."

"Everything's okay. I'm at West Farms."

"The mall?"

"Yeah, I had some things to pick up, it's nothing." She hoped being all tinny masked the tremulousness she heard as she spoke. "I just wanted to hear your voice," she said. "How are you?"

"Good, everything's good. Hey, I'll call Grandpa and back out for the both of us and he can take Grandma out. Marty and I were talking about going to the movies, anyway," Rory said.

Lorelai smiled softly, her eyes filling. "Good. I think that sounds like a plan," she said. "Give me a call tomorrow morning, okay?"

"Sure. You sure everything's okay?"

"I'm sure," Lorelai said. "Later, babe."

She pressed the end button and let herself choke out a frustrated sob before she bit her lips together, shook herself, and stood upright. This was not the place to do this, she knew, brushing angrily at the tears welling over. The thought occurred to her that this was the one time anyone could consider her coffee intake a plus: having to pee all the time really expedited the whole process. She had to laugh, if only a little, as she tugged down her jeans. Her hand shook as she opened the box: her very insides were quaking.

The last time she did this, both tests in the pack had been positive, and she'd done it in the third floor girl's room during fifth period. She'd never before had such a strong reaction to doing well on a test, and she wasn't sure what she was hoping for now as she waited, the tests lined up side by side on top of the toilet paper dispenser. She closed her eyes and waited, thinking. She had the Go-Go's stuck in her head: "head over heels no time to think, feels like the whole world's out of synch..."

"Right, no time to think," she said aloud, startling herself and cringing at the slight echo. She squared her shoulders and reached for the first test.

She bit her lip as the tears began to fall faster. She tried to breathe, but the tightness in her ribcage was too great; she had to lean against the door of the stall for support. She felt lightheaded, suddenly weak. A half-formed thought, not quite close to words, crossed her mind that happiness like this was painful, that she was about to break open.

But in nearly the same instant her hands went cold and clammy. She couldn't be. Could she? She wet her lips and shook her head—she couldn't. It had to be wrong, she'd know otherwise. It was wrong, it couldn't be anything but wrong. She took the second test and tried to focus, slightly startled to realize she had tears in her eyes. She drew a shaky breath, reading the second result.

She'd never before so literally experienced the sensation of her heart sinking in her chest. When she stepped out of the stall and met her reflection in the mirror, what she saw there—a pale, sad face full of uncertainty and disappointment—almost sickened her. She went straight to the food court.

There were three things she didn't want to do in the next few hours: think, stand still, or cry. She ate her cinnamon-sugar pretzel as she walked, sucking down an iced coffee with it so quickly she gave herself a headache. In this situation, she decided, she had one option and one option only. So she shopped.

While Lorelai busied herself wearing out her plastic, Luke stomped around the diner, a scowl on his face. If she was pissed at him, she had every right to be; he'd made an ass of himself this morning and been unkind. One more reason, he thought. Fucking November.

It wasn't that bad things happened in November—rather, nothing good ever seemed to come out of it. It was an unhappy month right down to the weather: this was the time of year that the ground froze and the cold turned sharp and stinging, the leaves were down and everything in and around Stars Hollow was devoid of color save the paper decorations for the succession of holidays to come. Just to get out from under the utter depressing weight of this month, the Christmas season started earlier and earlier every year, and Luke had no doubt that there would come a day when the Christmas wreaths were hung in town the morning after the jack-o-lanterns were disposed of. Under Taylor's vigilant eye, they were trashed November first, each and every year.

Luke sat heavily ona stool in front of the counter and passed a hand over his face. He just hated November. He didn't sleep well, never had, during this time of year—the nights seemed interminable and when he woke for work the sky was too dark for him to feel that morning itself would ever come. November was a month of disappointments and bad decisions, missed calls and cards, and more beer than was reasonable.

It was this time last year that Nicole walked back into the diner and introduced the idea of dating their way through marriage; at this time, during the bleakest month, his resolve was nearly non-existent. So he'd agreed. He'd gonealong with it, the way he'd gone along with the townhouse and the move, said okay because she'd asked, said okay even though he hadn't been entirely sure, even though there had been some part of him that really didn't care what happened anymore, that felt like he'd given up.

He hadn't really noticed that things with Nicole weren't going well until the yelling started. Before that, he had been so uncomfortable with the whole arrangement he did his best not to pay attention to what was really going on with him, with Nicole, with the both of them together. He hadn't seen he wasn't being exactly fair, and he knew that now—it didn't excuse what happened in the end, nothing could, but he had closed himself off, shut down on her. He couldn't blame Nicole for that. It wasn't her fault: she wasn't Lorelai. Lorelai was the one person he'd never been able to hold back with, though he'd tried, and in the end, she was the one he told his stories to. That was just the way it was, the way it had been. She was, though he'd never really given it much thought, his best friend.

It made him smile a little and helped him rise from his seat, took the sting away from the moment he took his calendar down and belatedly flipped from October to November. The reprieve didn't last long—when Kirk came in for lunch, he immediately asked Luke if this would be the year of Thanksgiving decorations at the diner.

"What makes this year any different from every other one?" Luke asked shortly.

"This year you're with Lorelai," Kirk said, as though this explained everything.

"No decorations," he replied, walking away.

Luke considered calling her cell, but if she really was pissed, he'd have to let her come to him. And when he gave in and did call, the guilt sticking in the back of his throat, he got her voice mail immediately. He hung up; he hated leaving messages. But as mid-afternoon stretched into late afternoon and early evening, he found himself watching the door, waiting. When the dinner rush had nearly ended and he was in the midst of bussing tables, the bell over the door rang and she came in only to hang back by the front window, her arms crossed over her chest.

She was pale; the hair hanging loosely by her face and the dark blue sweater she wore only accentuated her pallor and the circles under her eyes. Luke left the dishes on the counter for Caesar and crossed the diner. He put his hands on her shoulders and lowered his head to look her in the eye.

"Hey," he said gently. "You okay?"

She smiled a bit too brightly. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just—can I go upstairs?"

"Sure. You want something to eat?"

She looked at him. "What do you think?"

Luke squeezed her shoulders. "Go on up. I'll be right there."

When he bounded up the stairs, a plate of chicken fingers and chili cheese fries in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, Lorelai was sitting on the bed in the dark, her legs folded under her. When he turned on the light and came to sit beside her, he saw her cheeks were wet with tears. She brushed at them hastily with the backs of her hands, a sheepish expression on her face.

She shook her head, and when she spoke, her voice was uneven, gravelly. "I am being so stupid right now, you have no idea."

Luke looked at her, puzzled. "You want to tell me what's going on?"

Lorelai raised her head, turning to look him fully in the eye. She smoothed her jeans and wiped her nose with the heel of her hand. She sighed. "When we were on the phone, this morning? I was going through my date book, and I realized: I'm late."

"Late for what?"

She laughed, a little, a teary, choked laugh, and looked at him. "Late, Luke. Late, late."

His eyes widened and he felt himself turn pale, his jaw go slack. "Oh."

"Yeah," she said. She sighed. "I called the gyno right away and made an appointment, and then I drove into Hartford as soon as the mall was open and bought a home test. Did it right there in the public restrooms." She laughed again, a sound that tore at his heart. "The first test was positive."

"Positive," he echoed. He felt the sensation of warmth spreading through his body, his face flush with heat.

"But the second test," she said. She took his hand in hers, tracing patterns over his skin with her fingertips. "The second test was negative. And I knew, and I should have known before, so it was ridiculous—moronic, idiotic, even, to let myself think for even a second..."

Luke closed his eyes, took a breath, and opened them. "Knew what?"

"I'm not." She bit her lower lip as her eyes filled again. "I'm not."

He swallowed thickly and covered her hands with his own, looking down at their entwined fingers. There was an odd, sinking feeling in his chest, a pain like disappointment. She wasn't, he thought—and immediately he went cold, his head snapped up, and his hands tightened fiercely about hers.

"Is anything—"

"No," she said quickly. "I'm—the doctor took a look and everything's in proper working order down there," she said. "I—I've been so busy lately, I messed up with the pill pack and then forgot about it and if you don't take them the right way it can make your cycle off, so really, it was my fault." She looked at him and loosened one of her hands, reached up and put a hand to his face. Her eyes spilled over as she studied him a moment, silent. "I don't know why I'm so upset," she said, dropping her hand and pushing herself off the bed. "I mean, it's not as though I can't—and we haven't even talked—and I always thought that if—that if this happened—I'd be—oh, I don't know, I'd be—I wouldn't do it like before, things would be different and I'd—or we'd—and it would be different, and I just..."

Luke remained seated, finding it hard to breathe, unsure of his limbs. She trailed off and hugged herself, a rueful, sad smile on her lips.

"For the split second after I saw that positive test, I was really happy," she said. She looked at her feet, shaking her head. "But then—oh, then, the happy part sort of stopped." She swept her hair out of her face, looked around her unseeingly. "I walked around the mall all day. I didn't know what else to do, so I—I walked and I shopped and I ate and—I guess it's just—it's just the possibility, you know? Thinking about it, thinking about... lots of things." She spoke softly, pacing a few steps. "I know I didn't lose anything, but—"

Luke was on his feet with that, closing the distance between them and putting his arms around her. She leaned into him and pressed her hands against his back. She pushed her cheek to his chest, heaving a sigh. He rested his chin on her head, stroked her hair, tried to think of the right thing to say. But the right thing was elusive, and so he was silent as he had been while she tried to talk it out.

"Just the possibility," she said again. "I'm such an unholy mess, Luke."

He held her more tightly, cradling her head in one hand. "Hey, I love this unholy mess," he said. Her laugh was looser, this time, less aching. He leaned back a step. "You're okay?"

She propped her chin on his chest and smiled up at him, her eyes closed. "Yeah, I guess. I'm okay. It's—it's been a weird, weird day." She paused. "And can I tell you how much I hate going to the gynecologist?"

"I'd really rather you didn't," he said, snorting.

She rolled her eyes and leaned against him a long time, letting him rub her back, listening to the rhythm of his heart.

"Hey," she said, at length. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You okay?"

Luke looked down into her upturned face; the pain in his chest was different, a fluttering, welcome one. "I'm okay."

She got up on tiptoe and kissed him then, a gentle, languid kiss; she reached up with one hand and pulled him closer, tugging at the hair peeking out beneath his hat. He held her to him, lifting her almost off her feet as he did. She broke the kiss and laid her cheek against his.

"Luke?" she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"If my chili fries are cold, will you get me more?"

He pulled back and just brushed his lips against hers. "No."

She insisted that he go downstairs and finish closing up while she ate her dinner, and he reluctantly left her alone. When he returned, he heard the shower running. He took the opportunity to change the sheets on his bed and listen to the nightly news on the TV. The bed made and weighed down with extra blankets, he took off his shoes and socks, his hat, tossed his flannel in the hamper, and pulled his tee shirt over his head. Lorelai, now standing in the doorway of the bathroom, steam billowing behind her, whistled at him and clapped her hands, cat-calling.

He looked over his shoulder at her, fully intending to give her a withering frown. She leaned on the doorframe, wearing an old baseball tee of his with sleeves that covered her hands and a hem that fell to her mid-thigh; her damp hair was piled in a messy knot on the crown of her head, and she was fresh-faced and rosy from the hot water. Only her eyes gave away the stress of the day, still red-rimmed and slightly puffy. Looking at her, smiling at him with her hands clasped in front of her, he couldn't manage the frown—he winked at her, grinning.

"Sassy!" she laughed.

Luke changed into an ancient pair of pajama pants—"plaid flannel, Luke Danes? Shocking!"—and stretched out on the bed, a book in his hand, while Lorelai rooted through his pantry. He didn't protest when he heard her slip out and down the stairs to the empty diner, only shook his head when she returned with a plate of pie in one hand and a half-eaten donut in the other. She sat at the foot of the bed and made herself comfortable.

"What are you reading?" she asked.

Luke looked at the book, turning it over in his hands. "The Once and Future King," he said.

"Like 'The Sword in the Stone?'" she asked.

"Yep."

"Looks like it's seen better days," she said. The book no longer had a front cover, the spine held together with duct tape. "How long have you had it?"

He shrugged. "A while." She cocked an eyebrow. "A really long while. It was my dad's." Lorelai nodded her head, picking at her donut, murmuring softly in response. He sat up. "So. What do you want to do, you want to watch TV?"

"You're reading," she said.

"Yes, but it's not really a group activity."

"You don't have to stop just because I'm here," Lorelai said. She began in on the pie. "I don't really feel like doing anything, anyway."

"You're just going to sit here and watch me read," he said flatly.

"You could read to me."

"Read to you?"

She giggled. "Yes, Luke, read to me. It'll be like the olden days, before the invention of the television or the radio, when couples used to sit in their rockers by the fire and the women would knit and the men would read the newspaper to them and the coyotes would howl and—"

"There are coyotes?"

"Of course there are coyotes," she said, in a tone that told him this was perfectly obvious. "We're in the days before technology. You should feel right at home."

Luke studied her a moment, his eyebrows lifted in an expression of disbelief. "All right, I'll read to you," he said. He settled himself back on the pillows, one arm folded behind his head. He cleared his throat, at which she snorted laughingly. He ignored her. "On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales," he began.

"Summulae what?" she asked, putting the plate on the floor and crawling across the bed.

He sighed. "You want me to read to you or not?" he asked. Lorelai curled up next to him and placed her head in the hollow of his shoulder; she folded her knees up to her chest under her shirt as she settled in. She angled her neck to look up at him and bit her lips together, her expression purposefully innocent. "Okay then. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales..."

Later, when they'd turned out the lights and put the book aside, when they lay together under the covers and held each other, Luke played their earlier conversation in his head. She had done all the talking; he had only watched her, listened. There were things he should have said, he thought, necessary things. Lorelai stretched, yawning.

"Hey, love," he whispered. "You awake?"

"I'm awake."

He cleared his throat. "About before," he said, taking her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. "I know we haven't... talked about, you know, certain things. But if—if you want to talk about—about those things? We can—we can do that."

Lorelai tapped her fingers against his hand. "We don't have to," she said, after a moment.

"Okay," he said slowly. "But if—"

"Luke," she said gently. "I mean we don't have to. We haven't talked about those things, you're right. But I think—it's okay," she said. "You know?"

He ran his thumb over hers. "I guess, yeah." He took a breath. "I'm sorry about this morning," he said. "This isn't—it's not a good time of year for me."

Lorelai dropped a kiss on his shoulder. "Maybe this year will be different," she said. "You could have told me, you know. You didn't have to be the major domo of assholes."

"I know."

"Just don't go all Archie Bunker on me again."

"I was not Archie Bunker," he said.

She began to giggle. "Ah, geez!" she chortled.

"That," he said flatly, "is a terrible impression."

"Boy, the way Glen Miller played..." she sang.

"Ah, geez," Luke said.

She laughed so hard she nearly rolled off the bed, and he couldn't help but laugh with her.

They seemed to have struck an unspoken agreement not to discuss the almost-incident. He didn't ask how she was feeling as often as he wanted to, and she didn't ask what was going on in his head when he looked particularly pensive. There were moments it sat between them, the proverbial elephant in the room, moments when they didn't ask each other if this had been a good thing or a bad thing, if it was something worth being confused about, if it was anything at all or just another hurtle in the succession of obstacles they'd already jumped.

Fucking November, Luke thought. Any other time of the year, maybe they would have talked about it—maybe they would have gone over all the important things, what it meant, why it meant what it did, how it changed things, if it had.Maybe he could have battled with her as to why she hadn't told him the moment she thought it was a possibility, and she would have gotten angry and told him she didn't want to get his hopes up or unnecessarily freak him out without knowing anything for sure, and they both would have apologized and at least they'd have talked about it. They could have had a conversation, given the discussion a handle, a name, he thought, but because it was November and they weren't talking about it, the whole almost-incident remained an "it," a nebulous, fraught "it."

He wondered if he was making too much of it; things seemed to be going, at the very least, okay. Lorelai called during the day, attempted to tease him out of whatever foul mood he was in. She came home earlier, had dinner with him each night. He kept waiting for the sinking feeling of foreboding to ease up. He wanted to believe her, that this year might be different, but he wasn't holding his breath. All he wanted, he thought, was for the fucking month to be over.

Liz's card came three days early. She enclosed photographs of her cart, she and TJ standing and mooning around in Renaissance garb, and promised a phone call soon and a real present the next time she saw him. It was an improvement on last year, when the card had been five days late, and the year before, when the card came in October.

The day before the day itself, a small package arrived in the mail, wrapped in brown paper. He carefully cut the tape and folded back the paper to find a used copy of Empire Falls. On the inside cover, in Jess's spiky scrawl, he read, "Read this." He turned the book over and read the description on the back cover, grunting as he did. Very funny, he thought.

Lorelai breezed in at seven, an overnight bag over her shoulder. She was flushed with cold, smiling broadly. She leaned over the counter. "Feel my face," she commanded. He cupped her cheeks in his hands as he kissed her hello in the deserted diner. Her lips were frigid and he sucked air in over his teeth, hissing slightly at their touch. She laughed in response, raising her eyebrows. "Cold, huh?" She leaned close again to return his kiss. "What's a girl have to do to get service around here?" she asked.

Luke lay awake most of the night, thinking. Last year, he'd spent his birthday with Nicole. She'd given him a card and a watch—the watch he only wore when he went out with her, too fancy for the diner and too cumbersome for real life. The year before that, he'd spent his birthday alone, so thoroughly cleaning the diner that it smelled of lemon antiseptic solution for three days. The times before that he'd already forgotten, written them off as days just like any other. In the past, he'd always hoped she'd say something, hoped that she'd know, though he hadn't told her. He never realized he had been hoping for it until the day went by and he went to bed disappointed that Lorelai hadn't wished him a happy birthday. No one else in town had, either, but he could almost be relieved for that. She never forgot; she just didn't know.

There were a lot of things she'd never known since they time they became friends, all things he'd never told her. The myriad of disappointments he'd had over Lorelai Gilmore, he thought, had been his own doing. Silence had its good points and it had served him well—most of the time. But all the times he felt his heart drop, his throat close with disappointment, however he'd ignored it, had been because he'd been too content to hold his tongue, too used to being overlooked. Pain and loss were things he understood and so he waded through loneliness, holding his shoulders back defiantly.

He turned on his side and studied her as she slept, her arms wrapped around a pillow. He put out a hand and brushed the hair off her face. She murmured something unintelligible and sighed heavily, releasing the pillow and rolling onto her back. He had trained himself over the years not to think about what he didn't have—it could have been a hell of a long list, and there was very little point in expending energy on it. But there had been moments, before, when the gentle tug in his chest suggested to him there was something better than what he had.

Lorelai snored, inhaling sharply through her nose, making a sound so great she woke herself. Luke choked back a laugh as she peeked over at him to see if he had heard.

"Oh, shut it, Burger Boy," she muttered, rolling back towards him and flinging her arm across his middle. He ran his hand the length of her arm and closed his eyes, her shoulder warm beneath his palm.

She still had her arms firmly about him when he woke at his usual time. He tried to gently pry himself away, but she only tightened her grip. "Don't even think about getting out of this bed," she said, her voice froggy with sleep.

"I have to go to work," he told her.

Lorelai lifted her head and turned her face up to his, her eyes still firmly buttoned shut. "No, you don't."

"Lorelai."

"Luke," she returned. "This is your birthday, and you're sleeping in." He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand in rebuttal. Impressive, he thought, given her eyes were still closed. "There's no use arguing. You're staying right where you are."

"I am, am I?" he asked, smiling.

She yawned and let her head fall back to his chest. "You bet your fucking ass you are. I'm getting my way," she said. "And then I'm going to have my way with you." She paused. "Well, it is your birthday, so I suppose I could let you have your way with me."

"I'm just going to—"

"You're not going to do anything," she said. "Lane and Caesar have the diner covered today. You won't even so much as touch a spatula or any other cooking implement or wait on anyone."

"So you're not planning on eating today?"

"Luke!"

He rubbed her back. "I'm sorry," he said. "Go back to sleep."

She pouted. "Better fucking believe it."

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"I don't kiss my mother with any mouth," she said. "Are we shutting up now?"

He kissed the top of her head. "Shutting up."

When he woke again, weak shafts of early morning sunshine filtered through the blinds. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked around. He was alone in the bed, Lorelai's pillow bunched up next to him where she should have been. He threw the sheets aside and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and reaching for a pair of pajama bottoms. After a quick trip to the bathroom, he padded into the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks. He watched a moment, shaking his head, before stalking up slowly behind her and putting an arm around her waist.

Lorelai turned, startled. She wielded a spatula in one hand, the other hand on her hip. Luke peered over the top of her head to the pan on the stove. She leaned up and kissed his chin.

"Hi," she said. "You managed to sleep until ten after seven, I'm very impressed. Go sit down."

The table was set with the plain white Corningware he'd been using forever, the carton of orange juice beside his plate. He sat and poured himself a glass as Lorelai poked at her concoction. He wondered what he was going to have to choke down smiling. After a moment, she turned around, working her lower lip between her teeth. Her face was still creased and pale with sleep and her hair slightly wild, tumbled about her shoulders; she wore one of his flannels, buttoned, with the sleeves pushed up over her wrists. She shifted on her feet, her expression a mix of disappointment and irritation.

"Okay, so the idea was to make you an omelet, which devolved into scrambled eggs with spinach and feta sort of mixed in, but now the eggs are green, and while I'm sure Dr. Seuss would be delighted by that, I'm thinking it's a little too disgusting to actually serve, plus the spinach itself is no longer green and the cheese is sort of just sitting there in these big lumps, so—"

She waved her hands as she spoke, the sleeves of the shirt loosening and flapping as she did. He sipped his juice, trying to maintain his composure and leave her with the semblance of dignity.

"You want me to make something?" he asked.

Lorelai narrowed her eyes. "No," she retorted. "I'll just go downstairs and order for us, bring it back up." She immediately made for the door.

Luke rose. "You're not going down undressed like that, are you?" he asked.

She stopped, her hand on the doorknob. "I've got my good undies on," she said, lifting the hem of the shirt. "See? Days of the week."

"Today isn't Tuesday, Lorelai."

"But the Tuesday ones are the cutest," she said. Off his look, she rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll call Lane and have her bring something up, okay?" He rose as Lorelai made for the phone, but she altered her path and took his wrist, dragging him behind her as she walked back towards the bed. "Stay there," she said.

He dropped back to the pillows as she spoke to Lane. This, he thought, was certainly a change. He sat up again as she came back, carrying a large wicker basket, draped with cloth, the phone balanced precariously on top. He reached for the phone as she eased her burden onto the bed.

"It'll be a few minutes for the food, so these are going to have to wait," she said.

"What's in there?"

Lorelai tipped her head to one side and smiled. "You'll see."

They ate at the table, Lorelai nearly giddy with excitement as she watched Luke, her eyes alight with anticipation. When she remarked that birthdays were the best, he couldn't help but grunt slightly.

"They are," she said. With that, she took his hand and led him back to the bed. "So, presents. I don't have a card, because I know how you feel about greeting card companies, and I didn't wrap anything because I know how you feel about wrapping paper and trees and conservation and all that beardy-weirdy-hippy-dippy stuff. And I knew if I asked you, you'd say you didn't want anything, and then you'd say you didn't need anything, so I went ahead and did the best I could." She threw back the swath of fabric that had hidden the presents.

It came out without thinking, before he'd even registered the contents. "You didn't have to get me anything," he said.

She knelt behind him, her arms around his neck, resting her chin on his shoulder. She bumped her forehead lightly against his. "It's not about 'have to,' Luke. Just look at your presents."

The first thing he pulled out was a toaster: it was a basic, four slot toaster, nearly identical to the one he'd been using for years except for being slightly bigger. Lorelai pointed at the box and showed him the slots were slightly wider. "So you can do the bagel and lox thing," she said. "See?"

The rest of the presents were smaller—a wallet, thinner than his current one, very plain and serviceable black leather; a short stack of soft cotton shirts in a variety of colors; a gift certificate to a bait and tackle shop in Woodbury; an apron with the words "Quiche Me Quick!" on the front; several DVDs and CDs.

Luke sorted through the stack of music and movies, his mouth agape. Lorelai pointed at each one. "That one is Jimmy Buffet and all these country music singers, so it was obviously made for you. I have no idea who any of these other people are, but the kid at Best Buy was really, really excited about them and said you just had to have them, too. Country music attracts the weirdoes," she said teasingly. "And, just for respectability's sake, The Who, so that people will think you're cool." He remained silent, shaking his head slightly, so she continued her commentary with the movies. "Pretty in Pink, I think, should speak for itself, purely a sentimental choice, and, bonus, on sale. The Hustler seemed like something you'd like, and you can't get The Hustler and not get The Color of Money, so there's that. And, to make it sort of a theme thing with Paul Newman and a little bit of Redford for good measure, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting."

He opened and closed his mouth several times, staring at the array of presents spread across the bed. He looked at Lorelai, beaming and proud of herself, kneeling beside him in a shirt he'd worn a hundred times before without seeing the blue undertone of the plaid that made her eyes all the more bright in their blueness.He could see her expression fall a little as she studied his face and found his eyes slightly tearful.

"It's all returnable if you don't like it," she said softly, stacking the presents back into the basket.

Luke shook his head again wordlessly and, placing his hand on the back of her neck, drew her towards him. He kissed her, his other hand finding the small of her back as he pulled her closer until she fell into his lap. He held her to his chest a long time, hoping that kissing her, kissing her this way with his arms tight around her until there was no breath left between them, would tell her what he felt better than he could ever do with words. At length, he rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed.

"Lorelai, this is too much—you shouldn't—"

Lorelai climbed out of his lap. She held his face between her hands and kissed his eyes. "I have a lot of birthdays to make up for," she said simply. "Hang on."

Luke rubbed his eyes as she scrambled off the bed and put the basket in the corner by the window. He drew a shaky breath and slid across the bed until his back was flat against the wall, his legs straight out in front of him. Lorelai disappeared around the corner a moment and came back bearing a plate with a small cupcake and a single candle in it, already lit. She carefully climbed onto the bed and sat on his lap once more, straddling him.

"Carrot cake, compliments of Sookie," she said. "Make a wish." He glanced at her briefly before he leaned forward and blew out the candle. She put the plate on the bedside table and ran her hands down the outsides of his arms, the expression on her face coy. "So, there's one more present, but you do have to unwrap this one."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

She laced her fingers through his, holding both his hands tightly as she bent and playfully, gently bit his lower lip, her eyes fixed on his.

She smiled. "Me."

Luke remembered, as Lorelai played kisses, light and soft, across his chest, his abdomen, as she teased her nails across his skin, the things she told him that summer night on her lawn, days after the town meeting that had changed everything: I feel like I'm going to break open all the time... I love you so much, and I feel like I can't hold it all in... With you? I'm enough. I'm more.

He closed his eyes and gripped one of her hands in his. Maybe, he thought, he could stop waiting for the bad—maybe waiting for the bad was just his fear that he didn't deserve this, that the wellspring of feeling within was more than he should have, more than someone else could have for him. He understood, now, more than he had, what she meant.

After, both spent, Luke held Lorelai close, absently smoothing her hair away from her forehead. She dozed, her head pillowed on his chest. She sighed and murmured something incomprehensible.

"What's that?"

She lifted her head and smiled sleepily, her eyes half closed. "The presents. Good?"

"Good," he said. He put out his hand and cupped her cheek, running his thumb along her lower lip. "I think I like the toaster best."

She leaned into his hand. "Funny," she drawled, closing her eyes. "I'll have to try harder next time, make myself a little more indispensable than an appliance."

"You're pretty indispensable as it is," he said. "One thing."

"Hmm?"

"I don't have a DVD player."

Lorelai sat up, drawing the sheet around her. "I know. But I do. Why, you want to watch something? I thought maybe today we could do something—you've got me all day, whatever you want to do, I'm up for it." She considered this. "So to speak."

Luke's lips twitched as he tried not to laugh. "We don't have to do anything," he said. "Watching movies, that's fine with me."

She furrowed her brow. "But it's your birthday—don't you want to do anything special?"

"I'm going to spend the day with my girl," he said; "that's special enough for me."

Lorelai smiled and dropped back to lay beside him, her head on his pillow. "Oh, Luke," she sighed. "I love you."

He turned his face towards her. The painful, pleasant pressure in his chest, seeing her this way, diffused through his whole body. He ducked his head, pushing his chin to his chest, suddenly embarrassed, overwhelmed. His voice was gruff when he spoke. "I love you back."

They eventually got out of bed and dressed, emerged from the apartment holding hands to the utter amusement of every person in the diner. Luke rolled his eyes and led the way out. The sky was a brittle, dim blue; the air smelled of wood smoke and cold. They walked to Lorelai's house, battling over the thickness (or lack thereof) of Lorelai's coat and the need for a scarf in this type of weather.

"I just wish it would snow, already," Lorelai said. "It's starting to feel like White Christmas around here without the heat wave, just the lack of snow. So really, it doesn't feel like White Christmas at all." She paused. "Snow. Snow. Snow. Snow. Snow! It won't be long before we'll all be there with snoooow," she sang, her voice husky.

"What is that?"

She gasped. "Bing Crosby! How can you not know—"

Luke cut her off, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to kiss the crown of her head. "You are all kinds of weird," he said.

At three o'clock, they were part way through their movie marathon and an enormous order of Chinese food. Lorelai sat with her back to the end of the sofa, her feet in Luke's lap. She clacked her chopsticks at him.

"Gimme a piece of that General Tso's," she said.

He handed her the carton and reached for another for himself. "Woodcock is a really unfortunate name," he said. "Worse than Blaine."

"Okay, so thus far the list of forbidden names includes Blaine, Woodcock, Fredo, or anything used in The Lord of the Rings," she said around a mouthful of chicken. "I added that last one, but good to know."

Luke rubbed one of her feet absently. "You just can't have a Fredo in the family," he said.

"Well, you can," Lorelai said, "but really, it's just mean. We kept ours locked in the attic for years until he pulled a Mrs. Rochester and tried to set Emily's bed on fire and then jumped out the window into the neighbor's pool." She shook her head. "Alas, poor Fredo. Never stood a chance against the bottom of an empty below-ground."

Luke chuckled and stretched. He was about to speak when the phone rang. Lorelai lifted her feet from his lap and made to get up, but he stopped her. "I'll get it. I have to use the facilities, anyway," he said.

"Luke, just say you have to take a piss and get it over with," Lorelai said.

He eyed her darkly as he picked the portable from the base. "Hello?"

"Luke? Hey, it's Rory."

"Oh, hey, Rory, how's it going?"

"Pretty well," she said. "You?"

"Pretty well here, too," he replied. "You want me to put your mom on?"

"I was actually calling to say happy birthday to you," Rory said. "So: happy birthday!"

Luke looked at the floor, working his jaw, his free hand on his hip. "Thanks, Rory. Good of you to remember."

"Well, you never forget," she said. "I got something for you, too."

"You didn't—"

"It's in my room," she told him.

Luke glanced at the couch to find Lorelai peering over the back at him, her expression gleeful. He gave her a questioning look and she shrugged, spreading her hands, but the grin on her face gave her away. She got up and followed him to Rory's bedroom; a small box sat on the wide desk he'd built.

"You find it?" Rory asked.

"Yeah," Luke said. "You want me to open it now?" When she answered in the affirmative, he picked up the box and lifted the lid.

Inside, he found a silver keychain, a thin, flat disk engraved with elegant script on either side. He squinted to better read it: "little bit country" on one side, "little bit rock and roll" on the other. He snorted. Behind him, Lorelai giggled.

"Thanks, Rory. It's... very sweet of you," he said.

Lorelai hung on his arm and pointed. "See the key?" she asked. "Now you don't have to break in when you want to fix things that are already broken, therefore cutting your fix-it time in half."

"We should have given you the key about a hundred years ago," Rory chimed in."But now you have it."

He nodded. "Thanks," he said again. "It's great."

"Good," Rory said. "Well, have fun tonight, it's your birthday and you deserve it. Say hi to Mom for me."

"Take care, Rory." He hung up and leaned against the counter, his expression suspicious. "She says hi. She also says to have fun tonight. What's tonight?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Lorelai asked. "The keychain was all her idea, by the way."

"And the key?"

Her expression was hard to read. "Unanimously approved once motioned for."

They finished the movie and Lorelai reached into the birthday gift basket to produce the worn and beaten The Once and Future King. She handed it to Luke, waiting expectantly. He thumbed over the pages and stretched out along the couch, putting his arm out as Lorelai pushed her way in beside him, her head on his chest.

"Where were we?" he asked.

"The wars were finished."

He nodded and began to read. Just when he was beginning to tire from reading aloud, his tongue thick for lack of water, Lorelai sat up. She kissed him lightly and rose, pulling him to his feet.

"Go home," she said. "I'm taking you out, Birthday Boy, so you need to do whatever it is you do when you get all fancied up for going out with the ladies."

"Where are we going?" She shrugged in reply. "You have to tell me where we're going so I know what to wear."

Lorelai grinned. "You're such a girl," she teased. "Upscale casual, how's that for you?" She turned him towards the door and gave him a little push. "Be back at six thirty sharp."

Luke did as he was told, jogging home for a shower and what he thought passed for shaving. He dressed in a black sweater and black pants, taking his leather coat out of the closet for the first time in the season. He spent a few moments transferring the contents of his old wallet to the new and filling his new key ring before leaving. He pulled the truck into the drive a few minutes early and sat, staring at the keychain a moment as it swung from the ignition, before he took his keys in hand and stepped out of the cab of the truck.

Lorelai stuck her head out the window of her bedroom, her hands on the sill. "You're early!" she bellowed. "You know better than that!" He spread his hands, shrugging. "Come in, then, I'll be right down."

He didn't think the door was locked, as he was the last person to leave and he certainly hadn't locked it, but he used the new key, just because he could.He stood in the living room, hands in his pockets, remembering the first time he did this, how Rory let him in and Lorelai thundered down the stairs, yelling, unaware of his presence, the awkward exchanging of compliments. He grinned to himself as he heard Lorelai banging around the bedroom, thinking that some things never changed.

She was slightly breathless when she appeared on the stairs, wearing a red slip of a dress and a black cardigan, her hair loose, falling around her face just so. She tripped her way down the stairs and kissed him hello, immediately reaching to thumb away the trace of gloss she'd left in doing so. He was about to ask where they were going again when the doorbell rang.

"Ah," Lorelai said. "Watts is here."

"Watts?"

He helped her into her coat just before the door, and she smiled. "Watts," she said.

Kirk stood on the porch, looking purposefully somber in a black suit and tie, his shirt painfully white, and a driver's cap on his head. Past him, idling in the drive behind the truck, was a black sedan. Kirk gestured for them to walk towards the car, saying, "this way."

"What the hell is this?" Luke asked under his breath.

"I asked Kirk to play driver for us for the night," Lorelai said. "Like in Some Kind of Wonderful. You know, Watts, Mary Stuart Masterson, best gal pal to Eric Stoltz helps him woo another girl, drives them around on a dream date. Kirk is our Watts. Except that the evening, hopefully, won't end with you chucking me for him and the two of you making out in the street."

Kirk hurried to open the door for them and wished Luke a happy birthday just as Luke ducked into the car, his tone funereal and serious. Kirk closed the door behind them both and got into the front seat, grinding the ignition as he went to start the already running car. He apologized profusely as he backed out of the driveway and began to drive.

"We're going to Hartford?" Luke asked.

Lorelai looked at him, her eyes wide. "What, you think I'm going to take you to the diner and then we'll go to the movie at the library?" she asked.

A slow smile spread across his face. "We're going to Trumbull Kitchen," he said.

Lorelai nodded. "We're going to Trumbull Kitchen."

Kirk dropped them off in front of the restaurant, confirming with Lorelai that she had his cell number and would call him twenty minutes before they wanted to leave so that he could come back from wherever he'd be driving in circlesand pick them up. The restaurant was warm and dim when they stepped inside, busy but not overcrowded. Lorelai stepped towards the hostess.

"I have a reservation for two under the name Luke Gilmore?" she said.

The hostess looked down. "It should be just a few moments, they're clearing the table right now," she said. "Would you like to sit at the bar, have someone come over when the table's ready?"

As they walked to the bar, Luke's hand at the small of Lorelai's back, he leaned down and whispered in her ear. "Luke Gilmore?"

She laughed. "Luke is easier than Lorelai," she said.

"Got that right," he muttered agreeably.

Lorelai leaned over the bar, trying to get the bartender's attention. "I thought it was funny," she said. "What do you want?"

"Whatever you're having," he said. "Nothing fruity."

"Two not fruity martinis, please," she ordered. "One dirty." Lorelai looked at Luke, her chin on her shoulder and her eyes laughing. "You like 'em dirty, right, Luke?"

He shook his head and put his arm about her waist, drawing her to him. She fit easily into the curve of his arm, leaning against him slightly, her hands on his chest. He bent his head to speak and Lorelai suddenly balled her hands into fists, gripping his sweater tightly. He furrowed his brow. "What?"

"Nicole," she whispered, her lips barely moving. "Shit. She saw me. She's coming over."

"What?" he asked, when he heard a voice behind him.

"Lorelai, hi."

Lorelai stepped away from him, returning the hello as Luke turned around, trying to compose himself, hoping he wasn't as pale as he felt.

Her hair was darker, and if possible, she was thinner now than she'd been the last time he'd seen her. The look on her face didn't change when she saw him, though she immediately reached for the man beside her, looping her arm in his.

"Luke," she said. "Nice to see you."

"Hey, Nicole," he said.

Nicole looked up at the man standing beside her. "Mark Richardson, Lorelai Gilmore—her father's a business associate of mine. And this is Luke Danes," she said. "An old friend."

The man had been staring hard at Luke since he first turned around, and realization seemed to strike him as Nicole spoke. His face broke into a wide grin and he put out his hand. "Butch," he said. "I knew I recognized you!"

Involuntarily, Luke shook the proffered hand. "I'm sorry, I don't—"

"Butch Danes!" the other man cried. He pumped Luke's hand up and down vigorously, a toothy smile on his face. "Man, it's been forever." He turned to Nicole. "Butch and I pledged the same frat together back at Trinity."

Nicole looked at Luke, her expression disbelieving. "You went to Trinity?"

Lorelai covered her mouth with her hand, trying not to laugh and failing miserably. "You were in a fraternity?"

Luke looked at Mark, his eyes narrowed as he thought back. "Tricky?" he asked.

"Hey, he remembers!" Mark exclaimed. "That's me, I'm Tricky." Again, he looked at Nicole. "This is unbelievable. Butch and I were housemates our junior year—well, housemates if you could call it that, the guy never slept in the house more than two or three nights a week, always heading home for—where, again?"

"Stars Hollow," Luke replied.

"Stars Hollow, right," Mark said. "This man was a master with the keg," he continued. "And kicked some serious ass at midnight baseball."

Lorelai snorted. "Oh, I'm sure. This man got his degree in beer, baseball, and econ."

"Lorelai, I hear wonderful things about the inn from your father," Nicole said abruptly. "He says it's just fabulous."

"Oh, I'm sure those were his very words," Lorelai said, tipping her head to one side. "He's biased, but thank you. Though I'd like to say I did it all on my own, I did have a lot of help."

"I'm sure you did," Nicole said. She looked to her date. "Lorelai owns an inn."

"Impressive," he said. "And you, Butch, what about you?" He paused. "Goddamn, Butch, is it good to see you. You were the Friday Late Night king, those last two years."

Luke smiled tightly. "Wish I could say I remember that," he said, and Mark laughed. "I own a diner back home. You—you were, what? Political science? What are you doing now?"

"Lawyering, like Nicole here," he said. He shook his head, his hands on his hips. "God, has it been forever."

"Not that long, I hope," Luke said. Lorelai nudged him with her elbow, smiling and shaking her head. He glanced at her. "What?" She didn't reply, just cocked an eyebrow at him.

Mark was about to reminisce his way through an awkward silence when the hostess approached. "Gilmore, party of two?"

"That's us," Lorelai said brightly. She slipped her hand in Luke's and drew him away from the bar, taking her martini in the other hand. "Order the chocolate cake," she said to the other couple, "it's fabulous."

"Hey, Butch, so good to see you," Mark said. "You should come to the next reunion."

"Yeah, I'll try and do that," he replied, following Lorelai's lead. He glanced at Nicole and just barely nodded his head. "Take care," he said.

Nicole watched them go, calling Luke's name just as they were about to turn the corner away from the bar. "Happy birthday," she said.

Lorelai squeezed his hand as they followed the hostess to a table near the back of the restaurant and sat down. Lorelai folded her hands on the tabletop and fastened her eyes on Luke, waiting.

"I'm fine," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

She tucked her hair behind her ear and opened her menu. "Okay," she said. "Order anything and everything you want—tonight's dinner is on my dad." Off his look, she shrugged and sipped her drink. "I told him it was your birthday, he wanted to do something nice, so he told me to pick a restaurant and he'd take care of the bill. Which means it's a three martini night for Lorelai." She perused the menu a moment before peeking up at him through her lashes. "Friday Late Night king, huh? Master with the keg?"

He glowered at her beneath lowered brows. "We're going to start with this, now, huh?"

"I just find it fascinating, Luke Danes in a fraternity. It's so unlike you," she said. "The whole nature of a fraternity is community and brotherhood and male bonding and back slapping and grunting—well, I'll give you the grunting, but the keggers and theme parties and—"

Luke shut his menu with a snap. "I pledged when I was a sophomore because it was a way to free beer, okay?"

"Didn't have anything to do with the hot coed action?" Lorelai asked, her voice wheedling.

"Ah, geez," he groaned.

They ordered and Lorelai attacked the bread basket with gusto, pausing only when she realized that Luke wasn't eating. She swallowed thickly and wiped her hands on her napkin. "Talk to me," she said. "You're all silent with the thoughtful face."

He shook his head. "It's nothing." She waited. "I just hate that Tricky guy. He was an ass when I knew him at school, he's probably still an ass."

"Luke," Lorelai said gently. "Do you want to go? We can go, if it's going—"

Luke hitched his chair closer to Lorelai's, cupping her knee with his hand. "I don't want to go. She's not my business anymore," he said. "It shouldn't matter who she's here with."

"It's okay if it does."

"No, it's not," he said. "I'm here with you. I could give two shits about anything else."

"How eloquent," Lorelai said. She leaned close and kissed him lightly. "So, I want to know more about this fraternity thing. Are we talking, like, Animal House-type fraternity? Were you Bluto? Or, or, are we talking more like Dead Poet's Society, underground secret meetings and poetry and unintentional homoeroticism? Did you have a secret handshake?"

She was halfway through her second martini when she began to study him again. He could see her working on the question, dipping her finger in the fondue and crumbling breadsticks on her plate. He cleared his throat. "What?"

"Can I tell you something terrible?" she asked. "About before?" Luke sighed and closed his eyes, nodded his head. "When she asked me about the inn, I really, really wanted to say something about how involved you were in getting it going—say something really catty like, 'Couldn't have done it without this one here.'" She took a swig of her drink. "I didn't because I knew you'd turn three shades of red and your head would probably pop off for a whole multitude of reasons, and I like your head right where it is." She considered it a moment. "Even if she'd been anyone else, I probably wouldn't have said it anyway, as much as I'd want to. You're all Boo Radley about things like that."

"I'm not Boo Radley," he said.

"You're a little Boo Radley."

"If you start calling me Boo, I'll—"

"You'll love it, is what you'll do," she said. "More drinks."

The evening turned out to be a four martini night for Lorelai, a three martini night for Luke. They passed on dessert and called Kirk. While they waited, Lorelai asked Luke what he wanted to do next.

"What are my options?"

"Whatever you want," she said. "We could go to a movie, go clubbing"—she laughed at this, snorting—"go bowling."

"Bowling? And where would we go bowling?"

"The twenty-four hour Bowl-o-rama."

"Where is there a twenty-four hour Bowl-o-rama?"

"On the Berlin Turnpike," she said.

"There is not."

"Is too," she said, and they continued to battle over it until Kirk pulled up to the curb and got out of the car to open the door for them. "Watts, tell Luke about the twenty-four hour Bowl-o-rama on the Berlin Turnpike."

"If you go at three in the morning you get your pick of the lanes. You can even use two at once."

"See?" she said triumphantly.

"Well, I don't want to go bowling," Luke said. "I just want to go home."

"You heard the man, Watts!" Lorelai said. "Home!"

He didn't notice where they were going on the ride back to Stars Hollow, so busy was he watching Lorelai as she regaled him with a story about an ill-fated bowling expedition she and Rory took when Rory was five; she was curled in the opposite corner of the backseat, her shoes on the floor and her feet tucked up under her, her head tipped back against the seat and her eyes closed. She opened one eye and looked at him, suddenly silent.

"And that's the end of the story," she said. "You weren't listening at all, were you?"

"Nope," he said, grinning.

It wasn't until the car pulled to a stop that Luke realized they had ended up somewhere other than home—either his or Lorelai's—and he sat up, confused. Lorelai slid across the seat towards him and pushed him out the door Kirk held open, putting her hands out to him. He glanced about as he helped her out of the car and she struggled to her feet.

"What are we doing at the Dragonfly?" he asked.

Lorelai took him by the hand and led him down a gravel path, waving to Kirk over her shoulder. "Thanks, Watts!"

"Where are we going?"

"Nowhere."

"Well, good." He paused. "How much did you have to pay Kirk for the chauffeur service?"

"A free dinner of his choosing with Lulu at the inn," Lorelai said, coming to a halt outside a squat, dimly lit building. "You, sir, are currently standing at the threshold of the Luke Danes Vacationer's Getaway Bungalow."

"Excuse me?"

Lorelai took a key from her purse and unlocked the door, ducking inside. "It was Rory's idea," she said. "This used to be a cold house or a pump house or a storage house or something that ends in house when the whole place was originally a farm. We were talking about it one day, that I hated to waste the space, and Rory reminded me of the tool shed we lived in when I first came to Stars Hollow, so we started to renovate in the early fall." She gave Luke's hand a tug. "We had to dip into the money we're using to pay you back, so we're naming it in your honor. Come in already."

It was a low-ceilinged, small square room. The furniture was spare—a queen-sized bed with small tables on either side, an armchair in one corner, a tiny tea table with matching chairs in the other. He could see where they'd partitioned off part of the building for the bathroom just beyond. Lorelai turned on the lights, and he blinked, adjusting to the sudden warm brightness. The décor was subdued, navy blues with pale blue accents. She dropped on the bed, toeing her shoes off with difficulty.

"Oof," she said. "I think I might have maybe had too much to drink, before."

"I think you might have maybe too," he said, coming to sit beside her. "I think maybe I might have maybe had too much, myself."

"You? Master of the keg?" she giggled. She kneeled behind him, putting her arms around his neck as she rested her cheek against his, her chin on his shoulder. "What do you think? Worthy of the Danes name?"

"I can't believe you did all this and I didn't know," he said. "And more than worthy."

"Good. Otherwise, we'd have to knock the whole thing down and start over and that would just be a tragical waste of money and labor." She clambered off the bed and made for the small table in the corner. "Come here."

He obliged and looked down as he stood beside her. There on the table was a tiny layer cake and a set of dessert dishes and silverware. Lorelai unsteadily lit two candles as she spoke.

"Now, fantabulous as the cake at Trumbull Kitchen is, this is a Sookie St. James special, and therefore one of a kind and unique," she said. "And redundant, also. It was made specially for you on your birthday, so after you blow out the candles you're going to help me eat the whole thing."

"What's the logic of the two candles?" he asked.

"Well, thirty-eight is too many, so three plus eight is eleven, which is still too many, so one plus one is two.Go on, make a wish and blow them out."

"I already made a wish this morning."

Lorelai rolled her eyes. "Make another one, then."

She served them and they ate facing each other on the bed, their knees touching. Luke worried over the bedspread, but Lorelai waved the concern away saying that she had a fabulous dry cleaner who could handle anything and if there was a room that could stand a little roughing up, it was the Luke Danes Vacationer's Getaway Bungalow. She told him clean clothes for tomorrow were waiting for him in a bag in the closet and there was a toothbrush for him in the bathroom. He decided not to ask about the former as he cut into his cake.

"Black forest cake," he said, looking up at Lorelai. "I actually like this."

She nodded. "Well, it's the only remotely sweet thing I've ever seen you eat in the history of our acquaintance—" He grunted at the use of this word. "—so I thought, what the hey."

They finished the cake together, Lorelai helping Luke by feeding herself from his plate. She sent him for his turn in the bathroom first, and when he emerged, she was leaning against the doorframe in a short, satiny robe. She leaned up and kissed the edge of his jaw, telling him she'd be right out. Luke pulled back the covers on the bed and stretched out, his hands folded behind his head. The room, he thought, was just what he would have wanted: no frills, no flowers, no knick knacks. He smiled lazily at Lorelai as she came out of the bathroom, her face scrubbed clean of make up, her eyes heavy-lidded with liquor. The pajamas were fancier than she usually wore with him—a periwinkle camisole of satin and lace. She turned off the bathroom light and padded over to the bed, where she crawled up beside him and rested her head on his abdomen.

She sighed, closing her eyes as Luke combed his fingers through hair, stroked her head. "Hey," she said softly. "Was it weird for you? Seeing Nicole?"

Luke hesitated. "I guess."

Lorelai played with the hem of his boxers. "Did you love her?"

"Lorelai."

She lifted her head, propping her chin on his stomach. "I'm just trying to understand," she said. Her words were slow, deliberate.

"I don't really want to talk about this," he began.

"I mean, Rachel, I got," she continued. "She made more sense—she was all natural and easy-going and wholesome and low maintenance.And hot, too. I mean, I don't swing that way, but if anyone could even tempt me into switching teams—"

"And I just went to a very interesting visual place," Luke said.

"Oh, don't get too excited. She just—I get that. Nicole, I don't get. She's not—she's the complete opposite of Rachel, she's so buttoned up and waspy..."

Luke rubbed his eyes. "She was a good person," he said.

"So did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Love her," Lorelai said. "Did you?"

He averted his eyes a moment. "Did you love Max?"

She dropped her head again, pressing her lips to his stomach. "Point taken." She placed her hand heavily on his thigh. "I guess we don't make much sense, either. If you didn't know," she added.

"If you didn't know," he echoed.

Lorelai pushed herself up and sat astride him. She shook her hair and attempted seriousness. "Okay, Luke. Tell me something, in all honesty."

"Tell you what?"

She took a breath. "Am I better in bed than Nicole?"

"Lorelai!"

"Oh, come on!" she whined.

"That is not something you talk about!"

She arched an eyebrow. "I'll tell you."

"You'll tell me what?"

She placed her hands on his chest and leaned forward, her hair falling around her face, just brushing his cheeks. "Every time I'm with you? That's the best sex I've ever had."

"Every time?" he asked, teasing his fingers under the hem of her camisole.

"Well, except for that one time."

"Which time?"

She smirked. "Joking. So, tell me." She sat back and shifted her weight in a way that made it difficult for him to concentrate.

Luke sat up quickly and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him. She gasped sharply, her eyes shining. "Let's just say Rachel should be so lucky," he said, his voice hoarse.

"So not an answer," she told him, rolling her eyes. "Okay. All the women you've ever slept with on an island, engaged in a game of sexual Survivor, and it's up to you to choose the last woman standing. Who's it going to be?"

"What do you think?" he asked, tightening his hold on her.

"I think I want you to tell me," she said.

Luke kissed her then with the overflow of feeling he'd experienced all day, with his eyes closed, with his hand flat on her back and her body fitted perfectly to his. Lorelai didn't open her eyes when he broke the kiss, her breathing ragged. He put his mouth to her ear.

"Being with you?" he said. "I can't remember being with anyone else."

Lorelai shifted her weight again and he leaned back, pulling her down to the pillows. She wasn't quite prepared for this, and as they fell, her forehead knocked against his. Lorelai yelped and released him, putting a hand to her temple. They lay beside each other a moment, tangled up in each other, her legs still around his waist, his hands still on her back. He chuckled and rolled over, propping himself up on his forearms to hover just above her. She smiled ruefully at him.

"That hurt," she whimpered.

He kissed her forehead and mumbled an apology against her skin. Lorelai placed her hands on his chest and pushed at him slightly, raising herself on her elbows as he sat up. She watched him, a slightly still drunken hitch to her laugh, as he fumbled with the bottom of her camisole. The giggle ceased as he worked it up over her hips and slid it up her chest and over her head. He lowered his head, brushing kisses along her collarbone. She turned her head, her eyes closed, and let her hands rest on the back of his arms. When things had reached a rather fevered pitch, Lorelai suddenly laid her hand against Luke's cheek and murmured his name.

"Luke," she said again. "Wait."

He paused, tried to focus. Her eyes were fixed on him, her lids heavy, her face flushed. He pressed his cheek into her hand.

"Wait?" he asked.

"I want to tell you something."

"Now?"

"Do you remember our first time together?" she asked, shifting slightly.

Luke swallowed, closed his eyes as he tried to reign himself in, as he sought coherent thought. "Yes."

"You promised me something," she said, again adjusting her position.

He held his breath. "I did."

She ran her thumb over his cheekbone. "Look at me." He opened his eyes. "I want to promise, too."

"Lorelai," he began, but she cut him off, shaking her head.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said. "I promise."

With that, she kissed him, repeating her words, her mouth against his. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, deepening the kiss. She tasted sweet, he thought, like always.

Luke couldn't tell how much time had passed when Lorelai draped herself across him after, murmuring against his chest.

"Luke?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry."

"What for, love?"

"All the birthdays before."

He squeezed her shoulder. "I know."

"So, I win Survivor."

"The tribe has spoken," he said. "You win."

"Excellent. And Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"Next year, let's go bowling."

He ran his fingers along her spine. "We'll negotiate."

"We will," she said. "But I always win."

"You do, huh?"

"Yep."

They fell silent.

"Thanks for today," he said, after a time. "Today was good."

"Good."

He cleared his throat. "I love you, you know that."

"I do. I love you, too."

When Luke woke the next morning, more rested than he'd felt since the month began, the plan was already fully formed. He called Jess and made arrangements, figured out Lorelai's work schedule and picked a day, asked Lane and Caesar to take over for him, and got Rory's cell phone number. He had his keys in hand, on his way out the diner, when he stopped to speak to Lane and the plan went awry.

"So, I don't know—probably won't be back until after dinner, but—"

The bell over the door rang and out of habit, he looked over his shoulder. Lorelai sauntered in, rubbing her hands together. "Coffee, coffee, coffee," she said. "Need some. Now. Cold. Can't speak. Frozen." She stood next to Luke and waited expectantly as Lane filled a cup for her. She took a sip and shuddered. "Manna," she said. "Excellent. Why won't you be back until after dinner?"

He stuttered a moment, his hands on his hat. "Going down to see Jess," he said. "Just for the day."

"New York, really?" she said. "Want some company?"

His mouth fell open. "You're working today."

"I switched with Michel for Sunday so he could have brunch with his mother," she said slowly, perplexed. "I won't infringe on your, you know, whatever time with Jess—you do your thing and I'll shop. I have some things I've been wanting to do in the city..." She trailed off, seeing the look on his face. "Never mind. It's—I can go some other time, take Rory in for the day."

"No," he said. "It's—you and Jess, I—" He stuttered, seeking an excuse, any excuse. "I don't—and it's—you know, with Jess and—"

"Jess and I have an understanding," she said. "If that's what you're worried about, I can promise you to be on my best behavior."

"You're not the one I'm worried about," he muttered. He passed a hand over his face, shaking his head. He should have known something would happen. Fucking November, he thought. He didn't know how to say no, not to this. He looked at her, sipping her coffee, waiting for him to speak. After a moment of hesitation and with no other pleasant alternative offering itself up, he asked, "You ready to go now?"

"If there's a Danish in a to-go bag, absolutely."

The drive wasn't long; traffic was light. Lorelai walked Luke through the Thanksgiving plans at the inn—they had guests, but none dining there, and so she and Sookie were planning a modest dinner for their immediate families. "Let's just pray my mother decides that'll be the day she tries tranquilizers."

Luke followed the directions Jess had given him to a large, ramshackle building with a sign over the door, paint on wood, reading "Bibliophiles."

"Apt," Lorelai said.

He was on the third floor, sitting atop a ladder, reading a paperback, his chin tucked to his chest. There were few people in the store, milling about in different areas, but none where Jess had chosen his perch. He raised his head at Luke's call, his expression still when he saw his uncle and Lorelai both. He climbed down the ladder and put out a hand to Luke.

"Hey," he greeted him. "Lorelai."

"Hi, Jess," she said. "How are you?"

He shrugged. "Can't complain." He looked at Luke. "Didn't expect to see you today," he said, speaking to Lorelai.

"Oh, I'm just tagging along for the ride," she said. "I'm going to go do some damage to the company credit card, let you two do your thing." She looked at Luke. "I'll meet you at the truck at what, three? Four?"

"Three's good," he said.

She nodded to Jess. "Good to see you."

"Nice seeing you, Lorelai."

She squeezed Luke's hand and made her way out, weaving between customers as she descended the stairs. Jess looked quizzically at his uncle and tapped him on the shoulder with the edge of the book he still held.

"She know?"

Luke shook his head. "She ambushed me," he said. "I didn't know what else to do. I panicked."He stood with his hands on his hips and looked around. "So this is where you work."

"This is where I work."

They were silent a moment. "You doing okay?" Luke asked.

"Like I told you the last time I talked to you, approximately a day and a half ago, yes, I'm doing okay." He shoved the book in his back pocket. "But thanks for asking. C'mon, let's get this over with." Jess spoke to a few people on his way out, said he'd be back later, and led Luke outside, both striding purposefully down a side street."I'm not helping you pick anything out," Jess said. "I'm just the tour guide."

"Yeah, well, thanks for coming, anyway," Luke said. "I appreciate it."

Jess shrugged. After another moment of silence, he rubbed his chin and spoke. "She's going to say yes."

Luke darted a glance at his nephew. "What?"

"She's going to say yes."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"I know because I know," Jess said. "Trust me on this." He ducked his head and fixed his eyes on the pavement. "She basically told me."

"When did you talk about this?" Luke asked, panic rising in his throat.

"Not specifically," Jess said. "Just—I know. She made you a promise. She's going to say yes."

Luke thought about this and smiled slightly. "She did promise," he said, more to himself than Jess. "Huh."

"I told you."

He looked at his nephew from the corner of his eye. "You did," he said. "So did she."

They found the shop with little difficulty. Jess hung back in the door while Luke went through the merchandise. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, only that when he saw it, he'd know that it was the one. After an hour and a half of huffing and groaning, rubbing his eyes, pacing between display cases, and scratching his head, he found it in the corner by the door.

"Whatta ya think?" he asked Jess.

Jess looked at him. "I'm not help—"

"Would you just look at the damned thing?"

He leaned over the case and nodded once. "That's Lorelai, all right."

The two Danes men spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, eating hotdogs and talking occasionally, until three o'clock rolled around and Luke found himself leaning against his truck, waiting. Jess stood with him, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, rocking on his heels. Lorelai teetered towards them fifteen minutes later, laden with bags. Jess immediately went to help her, taking an armful from her. She turned wide eyes on Luke and raised her brows.

After loading things into the cab and goodbyes and parting shots, Luke turned the truck towards home. Lorelai stretched, yawning.

"Seriously, they should make shopping an Olympic sport. I would kick some ass at Olympic shopping—I'd be the poster girl, I could retire after my huge win and live off the endorsement deals for the rest of my life." She closed her eyes. "So what did you two do all day?"

"Oh, you know," Luke said. "Stuff."

"I hear that's a popular activity in New York these days," Lorelai said archly. "Hey, what do you say to a detour into New Haven for an hour or two? I haven't had Rory to myself—so to speak—in a while. I'd love to pop—"

"Sure," he interrupted. "New Haven."

Lorelai's smile was both amused and questioning. "You're all weird today. Someone put arsenic in your hat?"

"What?"

"King George—never mind. I'll call her."

Rory was waiting for them outside her dorm, hugging her coat about her. She pointed them towards a coffee shop nearby; she and Lorelai walked before Luke, leaning against each other, arm-in-arm. Luke had to keep himself from walking too quickly, from bouncing on his toes—he felt jittery with anticipation, his hands shaky.He didn't order anything with the Lorelais, afraid he'd spill all over himself. He sat at a table by a window as they waited on their coffees and carried them over. Lorelai placed hers on the tabletop and paused, her hand on the back of her chair.

"I have to go to the ladies'," she said. "Rory?"

"I'm good," Rory said, wincing as she sipped her coffee.

"Be right back."

Luke leaned forward, his hands folded and his elbows on his knees. "So," he said.

"How's the diner?" Rory asked. "The coffee here? Not as good as yours."

"Thanks," he said. "Diner's good." He stared at her blankly a moment. His throat hurt, the pressure of his pulse was so great. He reached into his pocket and removed the purchase he'd made earlier, sliding it across the table to Rory.

She looked down at it and back up at Luke, her mouth hanging open. "No," she said, disbelieving. She grinned broadly. "No!" She fairly jumped out of her chair and threw her arms around Luke, who awkwardly returned the embrace. "Really? Like, really, really?"

"Really," he said. "That okay with you?"

Her smile was tearful as she sat back down. "That's more than okay with me. Can I?" she asked, gesturing. He nodded and Rory opened the small box. She took a breath. "Luke, this is perfect." She handed it to him and gestured for him to put it away. "She's a fast pee-er," she said. She bit her lower lip. "This is a really, really, really good thing."

Luke felt some of the tension drain from his shoulders, the constriction in his throat lessen as he put the box back in his pocket. "Yeah?"

"A really, really, really good thing," she said again. "When?"

He saw Lorelai emerging from the restrooms, stalking across the shop. She paused to peruse the pastries on the counter, and he spoke to Rory from the side of his mouth. "Not sure. Sometime soon."

Lorelai dropped into her seat, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Substandard crullers," she said. "What's up?"

Rory's game face, Luke thought, was terrible. She bit back a smile and shook her head mutely. Lorelai looked from her daughter to Luke, bewildered. He shrugged in reply, his lips pursed tightly together.

"I feel like those people on What Not to Wear right before Stacey and Clinton show up with the camera crew and ambush them," Lorelai said. "Something going on I should know about, you two? What's with all the beaminess and the barely suppressed glee? Did they finally make you the queen of Yale?"

Rory shook her head. "I'm just in a really good mood," she said. "Happy to see you."

Lorelai grinned. "Oh, babe, I'm happy to see you, too. So, my dear heart, tell me: how's Marty? And when are you finally going to admit that he's your boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend."

Rory rolled her eyes and Luke let himself breathe a sigh of relief. He sat back in his seat and listened to the Lorelais as they chattered on until their coffee cups were empty, several times over.

The rest of the month did not, as Luke expected, plod slowly by, but went at its own reasonable pace, each day a little colder than the last. The sky was a hard gray arched above Stars Hollow; the town still waited patiently for snow. Lorelai lamented she couldn't smell it, the wind wasn't right, the cold was too cold. Luke stared at his calendar each day, tabulating how long he'd have to wait, how many days, how many hours, how many minutes, before he could turn the page and be done with it, let Fucking November end.

Thanksgiving was a noisy, boisterous affair with Sookie, Jackson, and the baby, Rory and Lorelai, the grandparents, Lane and her band mates and Mrs. Kim, and Luke, bristling that Sookie wouldn't let him carve the turkey. After the meal, Luke and Lorelai returned to her house in the falling dark, Rory and her grandparents trailing behind. It was late when Richard and Emily left for their separate abodes. Luke jogged up the stairs and turned on the taps in the shower, tugging at his tie.

He had only just stepped under the water when he heard the door open and immediately shut again. He jumped with a yell when Lorelai's face appeared around the edge of the shower curtain. She grinned.

"Can I come in?"

He stared. "What about Rory?"

"Don't ever, ever say that to me while you're naked again," Lorelai said, closing her eyes. "She went over to Lane's. Now. Move over, I'm coming." She stepped into the tub and immediately stuck her head under the water, soaking her hair. She squinted at him. "Well, you don't have to stop just because I'm here," she said, stepping aside to share the water. "Carry on. This isn't a sexy shower."

Luke reached around her for a bottle of shampoo and poured a generous amount in his hand. "Turn around," he said. Obediently, she did, and he began to wash her hair, his fingertips rough against her scalp. She leaned her head into his hands.

"God, you do that so good," she said. "You have the best hands. Ever."

He grinned. "So, that a typical Gilmore family holiday?" he asked. "This is what I'm in for?"

She swiped at the soap falling in her eyes. "No, that was nowhere near a typical family holiday. Way more people, way more food, way more talk, and laughter, which is new, and general, all-around good cheer. Not a Gilmore family holiday at all. Mom did get a few of her digs in, but overall, that was the most pleasant Thanksgiving I've ever spent with them. Much more Norman Rockwell with the Chinese food than, like, Ordinary People. And they seemed to be enjoying themselves." She paused. "Mom and Mrs. Kim really got along."

"So, is that a good thing, then? The whole new holiday celebration?" he asked, pulling her back slightly to rinse the shampoo out of her hair.

She angled her head and looked up at him. "I think it's a really good thing. Maybe next year, Liz and TJ and... everyone... can come."

"Maybe," he said. He put his arm about her, drawing her in, her back flush against his chest. He rested his chin on her hair. "Maybe."

Luke found, in the next few days, he wasn't quite holding his breath anymore. He waited, still, for the month to end, for December to announce itself and flounce into town wearing the white shawl of early winter snow. He looked forward to the first, as he always did, but not with the grim determination to simply survive, to get through the month without breaking anything, killing anyone, setting fire to any buildings, or throwing rocks through Taylor Doose's front store windows. In the last days, when the holiday had passed and preparations for the next were fully in swing, he looked over the month gone by, thought of what he'd gained, what he'd learned.

He lay beside Lorelai, her face slack with sleep and a curl falling over her forehead. "Maybe this year will be different," she had said. Damned, if she hadn't been right. He rolled onto his side, pushed the errant lock of hair away, and put his arm around her, settling closer to her as she slept. He just touched his lips to her hair and closed his eyes.

It was something else she had said, another thing she'd gotten right: this, he thought, was better.