Here is the next chapter for you. I hope you´ll like it. It was a bit easier to write than the last one, but also quiet difficult.

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Chapter 18: I was there

Luke took a deep breath and sat up.

Lorelai closed her eyes for a second, it hurt that he would just stand up and walk away. But she opened them when Luke pulled her also up into a sitting position, so that her head was against his chest once again. His hand immediately found the way back into her hair.

"My neck is killing me in that lying position. I just need to sit" he explained and she pressed a kiss on his chest.

"My first memory is when my parents brought home Liz. I was three and my mother told me "Lucas, this is your little sister and you need to look after her and care for her, because that's what big brothers do!". So that's what I did. I tried to help my mum with Liz over the years and that's how I learned to cook. I always stood on a stool when my mum cooked and watched her while she explained to me how to do it. Sometimes I was allowed to help her, add salt or pepper, stir the sauce, little things.

And my mother always dragged us along to any of these stupid town-events. My dad hated them and went fishing so that he would not have to come along. It was also mum who signed him in to the re-enactment. She liked the uniforms and I still hear her say that my dad looked "cute" in it. Not in front of him, of course. She said it to a friend and made me swear that I wouldn´t tell him. It was just one more secret we had. I think I was always with my mum until the day she died.

I saw it. I was there. I saw this car speed along the street. I stood on the sidewalk with Liz. Liz had wanted ice-cream and my mother had sent me over to buy her some, while she bought our Halloween-costumes. Liz should go as a witch and me as a troll. My mum loved crazy costumes and always wore one herself. Every year she tried to get my father to wear one, but he never did. But once he wore a wizard-hat, I don´t know what she did to make him wear that.

We were on the other side of the street when mum came out of that shop. She talked to someone and did not pay attention when she stepped onto the street. He was too fast. I saw the car, but I could not move or say anything. I still hear the sound of the car crashing into her, our costumes flew up in the air, just like her and then crashed down on the street. She did not scream, she made no sound when it hit her.

And then everything went silent. It was like I watched a film in slow-motion. Liz dropped her ice and screamed. I saw it on her face, but I did not hear it. I ran towards mum, but they held me back.I fought to get to her and I got a look on her face which was looking like she was asleep despite of the blood that came out of her nose and ears.And her blonde hair, which was sprawled on the asphaltslowly got red.That´s when I screamed. It was the first thing I heard again. I yelled at her to wake up, to stand up, to tell me that she´s fine. But nothing happened. She didn´t even open her eyes. She was already dead.

The ambulance came, but they did not do anything. They just covered her with a white sheet. I yelled at them. I yelled at them they should help her, that she was cold and the sheet too thin to warm her. I took it away twice from her face before they were able to catch me and give an injection. I don´t remember anything more of that day.

They brought us to Buddy and Maisy and we saw dad for the first time at mum's funeral. He wasn't the same man as he was only days before. He seemed older, different. He did not cry, neither did I. I held Liz while she was sobbing uncontrollably and called mum the whole time. I was nine years old." Luke had to stop. He couldn't speak anymore. If he would say one more word he would start to cry. He took a few shaky breaths and then went on, while tears already streamed down Lorelai's cheeks. She drew circles on his chest with two fingers to calm him. And to calm herself.

"It somehow happened that I started to cook for us. Dad and I shared the housework, while Liz needed some time, but then became a normal little girl again. I became very close with my father. We did everything together. The housework, looking after Liz, working in the hardware-store. My mum had forced me to join the local athletics-team, to "calm me". I was a nervous kid, always fidgeting and running around. It drove her crazy. But after the training I was exhausted.

After she died I stopped with the training, but dad said I should go on. I did. I was fast and somehow successful. That's were this stupid picture at Stars Hallow High comes from. Dad said mum would be proud. And he did everything just as if she was still there. Now he dragged us to stupid town-events. I hated them, he hated them, but still we had to go.

He never dated gain. Liz asked him once why he didn't and all he said was "She was it for me!". That's all that's said about that subject. When we got older Liz did the same things you did, but she was not as smart. She dropped out of school, actually she was thrown out of it, because she came drunk to her English-class when she was 13. Dad yelled at her "That's what you want to be for your mother?"She yelled back "Mum is dead!" and everything got worse. She hung around with the wrong guys, smoked, drank and dad resigned. He wanted me to talk to her and get her back on track, but she was not listening. I got a scholarship for college, but before I could take it she got knocked up and ran away. We searched for her for nearly three months, found her with her stoned boyfriend in a shabby apartment in New York. They got married, dad paid for an apartment, she had the baby, they got divorced. Dad wanted her to come back, she did for a week or so, then disappeared again, but left Jess with us. She came back with a new boyfriend a few weeks later, picked up Jess and she was gone. She talked with dad sometimes, because he still paid for her rent. A few times we drove up to New York and threw the guy out when he had hit her, but then they would make up and it started all over again. It wasn't the only abusive boyfriend she had and it killed dad that he couldn't do anything. At some point we lost the contact with Liz.

It just got a little quieter when dad found out he had cancer. Leukemia. He had the most aggressive form and he didn't really had a chance from the beginning. But he fought. He went through chemotherapy and tried to continue working in the store, but soon he was too weak. On my 24 birthday he gave me the store, the building, the cabin, everything. His last will was kind of my birthday present.

I had to be there. He threw up more and more. He got weaker everyday, had nose bleeding so often you couldn't count it. After a half year more it just wasn't possible to keep him at home anymore. I brought him to the hospital and he spent half a year more in intensive-care. I visited him everyday and brought him food he could not eat and books he was too weak to read. A week before he died I found Liz. She came for his funeral and then left again. I was 25 with shop I could not run, in a crazy town and the person I had relied on had just died.

Buddy helped me to turn the store into a diner. The first years were hard and I wasn't interested in any social contacts. But after three years I started dating again, Liz came back for some time, Rachel came back, she left again, I was alone again.

I think that's my story somehow: I have people in my life I care about and I love. And then they die or disappear or just leave me. And then they come back and hunt me with the memories. Not the ones who died of course, but the others. I trust them again, they leave me again. So I thought that it's better to not rely on someone too much. Don't plan ahead more than two days, because the person you are planning to be with, might not be there anymore." he sighed and Lorelai who was still sniffing from time to time wanted to say something, but he stopped her.

"But then this crazy person burst into the diner one day and came back every day. And before I knew it I had fallen for her. But because I was scared I needed eight years to ask her out. We got together, we broke up and got back together. You know, she asked me to marry her and I said yes. We got married and soon I was a dad. No matter how stupid I behaved or how much I hurt her from time to time she stayed with me for some reason. I already told you she is crazy. But then the father of her daughter came back and I got so jealous that I lost my mind, because I thought this time she would go and leave me. But she told the other guy that she loved me, after all the things that I had said, and once again I realized what a stupid idiot I have been. I went to the bedroom, but I was so overwhelmed that she was still there and so scared that she soon wouldn't be there anymore that I couldn't say anything. But she led me to the bed and told me why she wanted to help the other guy. She told me about her childhood." Luke smiled a bit and looked at Lorelai.

"She told you things she never wanted to talk about and just forget, but she did it. And then you told her about your parents, things you never told anyone before. And although she is still a little angry she loves you so much that she will stay with you forever. No way you can get rid of her!" Lorelai smiled and leaned in to kiss him.

"And you'll live happily ever after!" she whispered before their lips met. They kissed for some time, very slow and sensual and Lorelai had straddled his lap at some point.

"Mummy, daddy, Laila made her pants all wet!" William yelled excitedly when he ran into the bedroom and climbed on the bed. At first they weren't willing to break their kiss, but William was pulling at Luke's shirt.

"Daddy! Daddyyyyy!" he said and pulled harder.

"Ah, geez, William will you stop that!" Luke said and grinned at Lorelai.

"Laila is all wet! She peed!" he stated again.

"Okay, then let's go and change her." Luke said and stood up.

"Will you come back afterwards?" Lorelai asked him and lifted William up and sat him on her lap.

"I still have to get Kirk out of the storage-room" he sighed and rolled his eyes.

"What is he doing in there anyway?"

"He had a fight with cat Kirk and needed a place to hide. And now he doesn't want to come out because he thinks that we are all possessed by cat-Kirk, because obviously this cat is a wizard." Luke finished the explanation as it would be the most normal thing. Which was true for Kirk.

"Forget about Kirk and the diner, just for today. Come back and we just spend all day in bed. We could watch a movie or just cuddle our kids!" she said and hugged and kissed William several times all over his face.

"Mummy! Ewww!" he said, but laughed and she started to tickle him. Luke had to laugh with his giggling son.

"I will bring the other two along. Pick a movie!" he smiled and walked out to change Laila.

TBC Review! Pretty please!