Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls.

A/N: Sorry it's been so long but I'm finally done traveling for awhile. This one's pretty short and really only about half of what I wanted the next update to be but I decided to post this just to get an update out. The next part should be up pretty soon. Thanks guys. :)

Jeff Danes was Luke's second cousin. The two had been pretty close as kids but had grown apart when Jeff got married and moved to his wife's hometown in Texas. However, their friendship had been renewed about nine years ago when Jeff had moved back East for a few years to get his master's degree. Jeff hadn't had a lot of money during that time and had moved around a lot, mostly going wherever the rent was good. He had stayed longest however, in a small studio apartment in Brooklyn. And though Luke feared letting himself get his hopes up too much, he was almost sure that the area code of the number he had dialed after every Red Sox and Yankees game matched the one he'd seen on that paper.

Back in his apartment he emptied the contents of his kitchen drawer out on the table, shifting through papers until he found what he was looking for. Triumphantly holding up a scrap of blue paper his eyes scanned it until he found the area code for Jeff's Brooklyn phone number. He let out a shaky breath he hadn't realized he was holding—they matched. "She's in Brooklyn," he whispered aloud to the empty apartment. He was actually a bit stunned—after a full year of fruitless searching and another spent trying to forget, he now knew where she was.

It all actually made a lot of sense when Luke thought about it. Her whole life was in this area, Rory still lived around here—he should have known that she couldn't stay too far for too long. And she loved New York City, she found it exciting and vibrant…he, on the other hand, hated the smog filled, overcrowded, headache of a place. In other words, she had almost a guarantee of never running into him there. Of course he had searched New York from end to end when she had first left, but after wiping it clean he had felt there to be no reason to check again. And she knew this, she had known he would think this way. After all this time, even when she was running from him, she still knew him, she knew just what he would and wouldn't think to do—and that, despite everything made Luke smile.

Moments later he was in his truck, diner cleared out, "gone fishing" sign in the window. And as he pulled out onto I-5, even though he wasn't taking it to Hartford, all he could think of was her…

"I just thought that if something was going to affect our friendship in some way that you might care about that, because if the situation was reversed, then I would care, but hey, that's me, and so…go ahead, date her, marry her, make her Mrs. Backwards Baseball Cap, live happily ever after, see if I care." She turned to leave, furious with him.

"And by the way," he yelled after her as he saw her hand hit the door handle. He was angry with her for acting like she could control him, but also thrilled she cared, that she was jealous. " I wasn't asking her out. I was giving her directions for the quickest way back to Hartford. It was very romantic. I said you take a right at Deerfield, and you catch the I-5 and you take it south. Oh man, hot stuff."

She was taken aback. "That is so typical of you!" she yelled, trying to save face.

"What?" This oughta be good.

"That is not the quickest way back to Hartford!" He almost laughed…almost. "Everybody knows that you take Maine to Cherry to Lynwood and then grab the I-11. Everybody knows that Luke. Everybody, apparently, but you!" With that she stormed out, slamming the diner door. He was glad her pride refused to let her look back, because if she had she would have seen he standing there watching her, the stupid smirk on his face giving all his feelings away.

Yeah, she was one crazy lady alright, but, damn it, she was his crazy lady.

Pulling himself away from his thoughts as he realized he had reached Jeff's old burro. Bringing the truck to a stop next to the curb, he shut off the engine and stepped out. As his foot landed right in a wad of old gum that had been laying on the sidewalk, Luke remembered exactly why he hated the city. Sighing, he attempted to use the edge of the curb to scrap it off of the rubber sole of his loafers. As he did so, his mind wandered back to his conversation with Mr. Bolton. Maybe the old man had been right. They had both made mistakes, lots of mistakes. One of hers was running away like this, hiding from him. Maybe, he thought, just maybe she knew it was a mistake and maybe she really didn't know how to fix it. To him the answer was obvious enough—he saw it every night in his dreams, whether he wanted to or not. He saw her come back to him, waltzing into the diner even though the sign read "closed," demanding coffee, flipping her hair, and kissing him so that any wrong in the world simply ceased to exist. Yet, maybe to her, such a solution wasn't so clear. Maybe…

Luke sighed again as the last of the gum fell from his shoe. He looked around his surroundings. What was he doing here? He was being irrational. Here he was standing on the sidewalk in front of one of the hundreds and hundreds of apartments in Brooklyn without a clue of how to begin his search for a woman who so clearly did not want to be found. He leaned against the steel light pole on his left and took off his cap, running his right hand through his matted hair, before replacing the blue cap, adjusting the brim in the back. Bolton was right, Liz was right, Rory was right, hell, the whole town was right—he still loved her and, for God knows what reason, he would love her until the day he died.

It scared him that he was starting to understand her way of thinking but he now knew exactly what she had been talking about with wanting a middle because now that was what he wanted too. In fact, it was all he wanted—and he too was scared that if he didn't do something now it really might take forty years…if it happened at all.

So he began walking. Just picked a direction and walked. One foot in front of the other. Simply because he had no idea what else to do. He had to think like she would. God, he almost laughed, now there was a scary thought. But where would she go? What would she do? What kind of job would she want to hold? What kind of job would she love? What kind of job would be enough to pull her out of bed each morning?

He watched a few pigeons squawk at him as he by them, wings fluttering to get away. "Damn birds," he muttered, knowing deep down he wasn't that different from them. Something big and unknown was charging at you? Quick, flap your wings and run away, go hide, try to forget it ever happened. She was like them too. They both were. He shook his head and walked on, hands stuffed deep in his jeans pockets.

What would she do? If he was her…again, scary thought…and he had just arrived in a new place, a place where he was going to live for, well, a significant amount of time at least, where would he go? Moving in, getting settled in an apartment was probably the first thing. However, he looked around at the rows of apartments surrounding him, that was not going to help his search. So what would be the next priority, if he was her? Okay, a job, place of work, that would be good right? And she loved this job from what Sookie said…but, he had no idea what that could be. A hotel maybe? She was good at managing, dealing with people. But he felt that might be too reminiscent of her Stars Hallow life. She wanted distance right? So…maybe a bank? She could manage at a bank…but, no, she didn't like math and numbers all that much. Too boring for her, it would have to be somewhere that she could invest more of her crazy personality in. A store manager maybe? No, he regretted even thinking it—running a store had Anna written all over it. He turned right at the end of the street. This was harder than he had thought.

He moved aside on the sidewalk to let a woman pushing a baby stroller with one hand and a holding the arm of a crying toddler with the other pass him. As he tore his gaze away from them he was struck by a sense of familiarity. He actually smelled it before he saw it—a small shop on the corner across the street baring a red sign with yellow lettering: Mocha Beans. Of course, he kicked himself mentally, coffee!

As he rushed across the street he couldn't believe this hadn't been his first thought. This crap was practically her oxygen. He could see her owning a coffee shop, running a coffee shop, working at a coffee shop, or what have you. And, he noted, even if this wasn't her job she would have to have somewhere to buy coffee at. It was basic survival for her. A coffee shop was perfect. He was relatively sure that she wouldn't be a regular at some other diner, at least not quite yet. If she was struggling with leaving half as much as Sookie claimed she was, if she was unable to even talk to Sookie about him then he doubted she could frequent some place that would be so reminiscent of him, of Stars Hallow. Sookie had said they were both stuggling, both suffering the same sort of pain. And if the situation was reversed he could have never found another inn to repair things in…even if it was in a different city, a different state. But coffee? Well reminiscent or not he didn't believe she could give that part up, so where else would she get it if diners were out of the question?It had to be acoffee shop!

Luke wasn't sure what he expected to happen as he burst though the doorway of the overpriced death bar. It was probably fair to say a small crazy part of him expected her to just be sitting there at a table, listening to the whiny music they played, mug in hand. Of course though, that wasn't the case. A few people looked up to take in the newcomer before going back to their crossword puzzles and newspapers. Most though, didn't even seem to notice his entrance. He spotted a red haired girl in a long skirt sitting in a chair by the corner, scribbling away in a notebook like if she didn't hurry it might get up and walk away before she could get all of her thoughts out. He wondered briefly if Jess spent his days like her. He was proud of his nephew, there was no doubt of that, however, he gave off no pretensions of understanding this writing for a living business. It seemed completely impractical, but he was young and, Luke supposed, that seemed to be what youth was for. He, on the other hand, had no excuse for his impracticality. Maybe that realization should have stopped his madness, sent him back to his truck, back to whatever sanity he could gather in the nut hole of Stars Hallow. Maybe it should have, but it didn't.

"Can I help you, man?"

"Huh?" Luke looked up to find the kid behind the counter staring at him. He had been all for storming through those doors almost triumphantly. He hadn't given a damn thought, however, to what he would do once he got inside.

"Are you gonna order something?" The kid looked like he wanted to get back to reading his book.

"Yeah, ah…" Luke trailed off as he studied the menu hanging above the counter. He didn't even know what half this jibberish translated too, but he could guess it was all pretty disgusting. Finally he gave up the idea of trying to fit in. In flannel and a baseball cap he figured he didn't have much chance of looking like he belonged anyway. "Do you sell tea?" he finally asked.

The kid nodded and pointed to some tea packages near the register. Luke took a peppermint package and paid the kid for the glass of hot water. He took a seat at the counter and stared at the newspaper in front of him. He knew this was far from the only coffee shop in Brooklyn but maybe, just maybe…

The phone ringing broke Luke's thoughts. Another kid, a girl this time, came out of the back to pick it up. She laughed into the phone and said something Luke couldn't make out. "Hey, Jacob," she called after hanging up, "you got your bike here?"

The kid that had gotten Luke's tea, Jacob apparently, nodded, not looking up from his book. Suddenly the girl's words seemed to register as he let out a groan and turned to face the girl. "Again? I was just there forty minutes ago!"

The girl shrugged, smiling. "Aw, come on." She began pouring things into a to go cup. "It's not that far. Besides," she shot him a pointed glance, "it's not like you'd actually be upset about another opportunity to feed your pointless little crush."

Jacob looked like he didn't know whether he wanted to react more to 'pointless' or 'crush.' He seemed to decide denial was a fruitless route. "Pointless? Yeah, shows how much you know…"

"Puh-lease!" The girl rolled her eyes and added extra whipped cream to the top of the glass. "She is sooo out of your league. Not to mention old!"

"Whatever, Jennifer, whatever." Jacob seemed to be shaking off embarrassment. "Just gimme the cup."

"Grande caramel macchiato, extra whip, extra espresso." She handed it to him. "Must be a busy day."

As the boy took the cup and walked toward the door Luke couldn't help letting a "jeez" escape his lips. Talk about a death order. The girl, Jennifer, heard him and laughed. "Yeah, I always thought I was an addict but this lady's got me topped! It's not even two o'clock and that's her third one of those today!"

"Yeah, I used to know someone like that."

"Well,I don't think it'sher," Jennifer said off-handedly as she began cleaning up some of the dirty cups. "Not unless you're from Florida, which," she looked Luke up and down, "I'm gonna say you're more of a Northern mountains kind of guy."

Luke almost spit out the sip of tea he had taken. "Florida?"

"What? Oh, yeah. That's where she moved here from…"

Luke stopped listening. He was off the stool and out the door in almost one motion. He had a bike to chase.