Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls.

Luke's mind reeled. This was it. This was the moment that was going to make or break his life. What the hell does a person do to prepare for something like that? It occurred to him briefly that it was probably pretty rare that people were able to recognize the most significant or changing moments of their lives while they were actually in them. Such conclusion was usually a retrospect thing. But there was nothing normal about Luke's life for the past two years, nothing normal about his relationship with this woman, hell, there was nothing normal about this woman! And so maybe it was fitting that as he stood there, inches from her, on the parkway lawn of some street in a city he barely knew, he could actually feel the weight of the moment lying upon his shoulders. He may have been standing still but he felt like he was falling off a cliff, flailing his arms widely desperate to find a piece of rock, a branch, anything to stop his fall. 'Say something! Do something!' his mind screamed. He tried, he really did—his lips formed words and his tongue tried desperately to usher them out, his arms jerked in attempts at the beginning of gestures, but that was always as far as he got.

She looked so shocked, so frightened, so…not like the way she should look. She was a real life Superwoman. She was always so strong, so determined. He couldn't stand seeing her on the verge of breaking like this, looking like she was made of glass, or perhaps something even more fragile than that. The closest he had ever seen her come to the way she looked now was that night he had found her out in the cold on a park bench near his diner. He had sat down next to her and she had broken into tears and rambled on about her family, Rory, things at the inn falling apart, and how she needed money from him, a lot of money. She had collapsed into his arms then, crying, sobbing about "failing." She was anything but a failure, he knew that. But she had scared him that night with her words, her tears, because when he had held her it almost felt like she was evaporating right there in his arms, like he was losing her while he still held her—she was that much unlike herself. He had been able to fix it then though. He had held her tighter, securing her, holding her together so that no pieces could fall, and he had told her it would be okay. And it was.

Looking at her now he knew he couldn't do that. He had lost that right to hold her in such a way. He had lost that right when he became the reason she cried, the reason she began to lose the vestiges of what made her that cape-wearing, lasso-wielding her. If he touched her now it might break her completely. And after thinking such things he couldn't help but fear for himself. His parents' early deaths had made him strong, forced him to be strong, made him a rock against so much of the world. He had had his share of hardships and sorrows but there was nothing he couldn't overcome soon enough, nothing before had threatened to break him. He was now overwhelmed though, standing on that cold, grey street in the Bronx, with the knowledge that tonight he could be broken. He had no defenses ready for what might come, and even if he did he knew there were none strong enough to secure him anyway. He looked at her and knew instantly that she felt it too.

" People can evolve together, don't you think?" They were sitting on her porch steps and she was scared, he could tell. She was worried about his previous cynical ranting, worried he might have been right, even partially.

" Maybe." He didn't want to say yes. He was hurting. She had hurt him because she had refused to choose him, chosen someone else instead. There had been times he had thought he was close…but it had all been a lie. He couldn't help his earlier cynicism. Did he really believe what he had said about marriage? Maybe. Did it matter now though? No. He was letting her go, again, not that she was ever really his to let go of in the first place, and he was going to remain behind, alone, again. In his opinion that made his cynicism a right.

She wasn't content with letting him off the hook though. She couldn't just leave him quietly. She wanted him to make her choice okay. " Yoko and John Lennon did. They just got closer and closer as the years went by. At the end, they had the same face."

"Yeah, it got a little spooky."

"But cool." She was trying so hard…

He wasn't sure what he believed anymore. That shouldn't be her problem though. His issues shouldn't ruin her happiness. If this was what was going to make her happy then he wanted her to have it. She was practically rolling a bulldozer over his heart with this whole conversation, this whole situation, but it was better than him rolling a bulldozer over her heart, her dreams. So he gave her what she wanted, needed, to hear. Maybe he believed it too, somewhere deep down... "Yeah, they were lucky. I guess if you can find that one person, you know, who's willing to put up with all your crap, and doesn't want to change you or dress you or you know, make you eat French food, then marriage can be all right." He knew he should stop talking there but he couldn't help himself, couldn't refrain from adding one last comment. It might have been directed at her, it might have been meant for himself, he wasn't sure, but he knew he needed to add, "But that's only if you find that person."

He knew it had struck her, and he couldn't decide if this was good or bad, by the way she repeated, "Yeah, if you find that person."

As they got up off the porch and stood facing each other under the chuppah he had made for her impending marriage with Max, he could only think of how he was on the verge of losing her.

And now, years later he had had her and lost her again, let her go, only to now be standing face to face with her, again on the verge of losing her—this time for good.

Maybe it was the memory that loosened up his vocal chords, but whatever it was finally allowed a single syllable to escape from his lips. Just above a whisper he heard himself let out a shaky, "Hi."

Now it was her turn to have her lips stumble in silent attempts at speech. She managed to blurt out syllables much earlier than he did though as a series of soft, shaking, "wha—", "why—", and "how—" jostled and interrupted each other as they fell from her mouth. Finally she halted them by pursing her lips together and breathing deeply, no doubt attempting to will herself into coherence. She had a million questions Luke knew, but had to decide on one to start with. "What…what are you doing…what are you doing here?" finally won out.

Luke wasn't sure of how to answer that question. It wasn't that he didn't have an answer, it was more of the fact that he had too many, and none very fitting. What was he going to say to her anyway? 'I followed you here?' 'I was just passing through and happened to notice you car?' 'Well when you ran out on me at the inn today I resumed my desperate search to find you, a search that took over my life for a year and then almost drove me to killing myself, losing visiting rights with my daughter, alcoholism, take your pick because the consequences were abounding?' 'I wanted to know if you were still alive cuz God knows I barely am?' It was a legitimate question Luke knew but he internally scoffed at it just the same. What was he doing here? What wasn't he doing here? Instead he went with a less direct, though less dramatic, reply. "I talked to Sookie today after…" he hesitated, "after I saw you at the inn."

She looked at the ground.

"That was you wasn't it?"

She nodded but didn't look up.

He gathered up his courage and continued. "So then after…yeah, I, um, I talked to Sookie."

"What did she tell you?"

"Um, well, basically what she knew I guess…She's, well, she's worried about you…everyone's worried about you…" he was about to add that he'd been worried too when she looked up again and interjected.

"I never told her I was here though…"

"I, I know…"

"The only person I ever told was…"

"Rory."

She nodded in confirmation.

"Yeah, yeah I know. I saw her today actually…"

"She told you?"

Luke shook his head. "No, no. She wouldn't…" He caught the relief that flooded out of her and realized that she had actually believed for a moment that her daughter, her lifeline, the only thing she had left might have betrayed her. "I saw your new cell number," he hurried to offer an explanation, hoping it might put her at ease. "At the inn, I saw it sitting on the counter at the inn. Sookie, she didn't give it to me or anything, in fact she explicitly told me I couldn't have it…I just, I recognized the area code see, cuz I had, um, Jeff, he lived her for awhile…my cousin, Jeff's my cousin…" he trailed off, mentally kicking himself for his incoherence.

"Oh," was her reply.

Luke was going to tell her about the coffee shop and the little boy by the mailbox and then almost leaving but seeing her car and choosing her over everything else in his life, thereby following her here…but he wasn't sure if she'd be flattered or think he was crazy. He wasn't sure of anything right now. He couldn't read her. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. Did she hate him for being here? Was she glad to see he was still alive and functioning? Did she care anymore?

"What do you want from me Luke?" Her voice shook, her eyes looked everywhere but at him.

"I…I…" Luke stammered…here it was, his big chance to wow her with some sort of speech, to whisk her away. He didn't have a speech for what he wanted though, and he couldn't make one so instead he said simply, "You. I just want you."

She began shaking her head, waving her arm as if to ward him off even though he hadn't yet had the courage to take a step. "No," she echoed over and over, "no."

"I…I mean…" she was on the verge of running he could tell and he was desperate to make her stay. "I tried okay!" he finally blurted out. "I tried to erase you, I tried to get over you, I tried to live my shell of a fucking life without you! I tried and I tried and I'm damn sick of trying! I can't do that anymore! I can't live like that…it's not living, it's surviving! I don't want my life to be like that. If…if you knew what's happened to me these past two years…hell if you knew what's happened these past few days…" he trailed off, momentarily thinking of Bolton kicking his ass around town and how much she would have loved to have seen that. "I don't know who I am anymore! You've gotten inside of me, damnit, so far inside of me that I can't be me without you anymore!" He broke off his rant as he felt his voice begin to shake.

She stared at the ground in between them, giving him so little reaction he began to wonder if she'd heard him. He was going to attempt to ramble on further when she burst into life. "Damn you Luke! Damn you!" For the first time that evening her voice raised above a whisper. She looked up at him, eyes a blaze, anger clear. He was taken aback by her reaction as she continued, "Who do you think you are huh? Who! What the hell gives you the right to come barging into my world like this? Huh? The world that I had to build by myself from scratch to have a chance at surviving? To have a chance at life after you….after…after us! You can't just waltz in here because you suddenly felt like it and turn my life upside down! What do you want Luke? You want 'me'? Huh? You lost me Luke! You lost me when you stopped being 'all in'! You lost me when everything else in your life started coming first!" There were tears in her eyes but she fought them back. Her voices shook but she managed to choke out one final line. "You lost me!" She scooped up her belongings from the ground, struggling not to break down in front of him, and began moving up the walk to her apartment building's door.

Luke couldn't believe the scene in front of him. He was losing her—again. She was walking away from him—again. "No," he whispered to himself, in utter disbelief. His heart raced. He had to stop her…he had to make her see…he had to… "Lorelai!"

The sound of his voice echoing her name into the night stopped both of them in their tracks. It was a sound neither had heard in years, a word Luke thought he may have forgotten how to say, a world Lorelai thought she may have forgotten how to hear. For Luke it gave him new found courage, new found desperation. For Lorelai it brought new found pain as the tears threatened harder against her eyelids and her legs grew more rubbery, more unstable.

Finding the will to move Luke bolted from his spot on the parkway, reaching Lorelai in seconds, grabbing her shoulders, spinning her to look at him. "Don't," he begged her desperately, staring her straight in the eye, "don't you do this. Don't do this to me. Don't do this to us." She shook her head, tried to move away, he held tighter, forced her to look back up at him. "There is still an us." More head shaking. "There is still an us," he repeated, the steadiness in his voice coming only from God knows where. "Don't walk away from me again. I know you don't want to. I know you don't want this!" he let his right hand release her in a sweeping gesture around the neighborhood, her current life.

"It stopped mattering what I wanted a long time ago." She was barely whispering. "Don't make this harder…please."

He was losing her, he could feel it. The more she closed him off the more his heart broke. "We both made mistakes—big mistakes! But we can fix them! We can! I know," he tried to speak louder, to get through to her over all of her head shaking, "I know you don't think we can, because they were big mistakes, big mistakes with deep consequences, and…and there's been a lot of time in between…a lot…a lot of hurt. I know. God, do I know. But Lorelai, damnit, if we don't fight for us then who the hell will!"

She looked as if she were about to say something when a voice coming from the direction of the street broke through their conversation. "Hey!" They both turned toward the source and Luke groaned inwardly as he took in the sight of a blue uniformed police man leaning out of a patrol car. "What's goin on here?" he demanded. "Miss? Are you alright?" His glaring eyes never left Luke.

Lorelai glanced one last time into Luke's eyes, her expression unreadable and Luke found himself with no choice but to release her from his grasp. She nodded at the officer who smirked in Luke's direction as both men watched her retreat through her apartment building door, never looking back. Luke felt his mouth drop open as the officer pulled away. How had that happened? He had been so close…it just…it wasn't supposed to happen like this…it wasn't supposed to end like this! They were supposed to grow old together. They were supposed to raise children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They were supposed to have a middle!

As he sank to his knees right there in the middle of her walkway the only truly coherent thought he had regarded how much sense it made that it had just now begun to rain.