Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls.
"Because I care about you! I care what happens to you!"
"But everything is fine! Nothing is going to change—I don't know what you're all worked up about!"
Luke sighed and set down the two plates of burgers and fries he had been carrying. He watched the young woman, a tourist he assumed, jump up from the table where she had been sitting and leave the dinner crying. Her assumedly boyfriend threw some money on the table and dashed after her. Luke motioned for Caesar to take the plates back to the kitchen as diner crowd gossipers began discussing couple's debate over the boyfriend's apparent choice to take a job transfer to some sort of inner city office. He moved toward the window to pick up the five dollar bill the man had left on their table to cover their coffee and couldn't help but catch a glimpse of the woman, head buried in her hands, climbing into the couple's blue Ford Focus as the man, clearly frustrated, held the door for her, shaking his head.
"Because I spent a week of my life adjusting to the fact that you moved!" Her eyes threatened tears.
Luke cleared his throat, picked up the money, and took their coffee mugs back to the kitchen.
"You think that everything is your business! Everything is about you! Well, here's a newsflash, some things are not about you!" His grip on the shovel tightened, his teeth ground together.
Luke took a deep breath. Closed his eyes, opened them. He walked back to the table with the same rag he had been using to wipe down the counter last night.
"I do not have to tell you anything!" He was ranting. "And you do not have the right to make me feel guilty…
Luke looked out the window again. He could still see the couple, sitting in their little car, unpractical little—no trunk space, still arguing.
"Because I care!" She was angry with him—again.
"Why!" Hell, he was angry right back.
"Because I don't want you to move." She was softer now. Sincere.
He couldn't help it, he had to ask, he had to know, "Why?"
"Luke? Luke?"
"Huh?" Luke jerked his head up to find Babette staring over him.
"Are you alright there sugar? You look like…"
"Yeah," he interrupted, straightening himself up. "What are you talking about? I'm fine."
"Okay sugar but…" She stopped as she caught Morey's gaze. "Okay sugar," she reaffirmed, resting a hand on his forearm before she went back to join Morey at their table.
"Caesar!" Luke yelled leaving the rag on the table. "I'm taking my break!"
"Okay boss," Caesar answered softly knowing Luke, already out the door, hadn't been looking for an answer. He caught the gaze of diner regulars and shrugged slightly before turning back to work. It wasn't that he didn't know—he did, they all did. It was more of an acceptance shrug…acceptance and sympathy.
Luke walked across the street with his hands shoved deep in his jean pockets. They needed to be washed—the jeans, not his hands. Well maybe his hands too but…aw, it didn't matter much anyway. Sometimes, the more you tried to wash something, make it clean again, the more you found remnants that just refused to disappear.
He climbed the steps to the gazebo and sat down on the bench, gazing out at the town square. Normally he liked going down by the lake to think, but for some time now he'd been halting his trek for peace at the gazebo. He told himself it made more sense—he couldn't afford to be away too long, he shouldn't go too far from the diner—even on his break, they might need him.
That's what he told himself. That's what he told anyone who asked, but yet anyone who knew him heard a different answer. They heard it in the strain of his voice, like he was trying to force the words to cover up any lingering doubts. They heard it in the way his eyes shifted, refusing to focus on anything, refusing to let anything focus on him. Mostly though, they heard it in the silent way he would sit, looking out on the routines going on around him that never varied, never faltered. Days in Stars Hallow really did function like clockwork and perched up in his usual spot Luke took on the air of time keeper—overseeing, keeping things functioning, running, but very much removed from the life before him.
Miss Patty smiled at him from the doorway of her dance studio and as he nodded back she pushed the door open just a bit wider, allowing him a clearer view of her third and fourth grade ballet class. Tom motioned to his fellow t-shirt wearing, construction helmet clad crew and even though they'd sat down under the large oak, opening up homemade lunches not ten minutes ago, they got to their feet without a complaint and resumed their instillation of some sort of funhouse for the upcoming festival to raise money for the repainting of all the town crosswalks—again. Taylor sent his bag-boys outside with some crates of apples to stock Doosie's outdoor display with. A group of middle school boys began a pickup game of soccer on the square—Kirk watched from the sidelines. He had been picked last and given the position of permanent sub, just like always. Somehow he had yet to grasp the meaning behind that title. He announced today's game as well, extra loud, after seeing Luke roll his eyes in acknowledgment to his frantic waves.
And so it went, Stars Hallow life as always. However, ever since Luke started talking his walks to the gazebo bench, ever since the townspeople started hearing his reasons why, well, there was that extra push, that extra step taken to let him see their everydayness—to let him see them. Because under Luke's claims of diner responsibilities and practicality they heard something else entirely. They heard fear, his fear that they, the quirky odd balls he claimed to want committed, would change, would become something else without him noticing, without him being aware. And then, because he'd missed the changes it would sneak up on him one day and they, from annoying Kirk to impossible Taylor, might leave—leave their routines, leave Stars Hallow, leave him. And they were all he had left.
Though they would never bring such statements up in his presence, indeed wouldn't even discuss it amongst themselves, they all knew this to be true. So without a secret town meeting, without an official vote, without any phone calls from Miss Patty or Babette, Stars Hallow did their best to let him see them, let him know they were who they had always been, let him know they weren't going anywhere.