For the best pet ever:

For Meeko 01.05.2002- 07.02.2006

I´ll never forget you, Mr. Meeko!

Chapter 32: You can drink you can walk

When Lorelai woke up the next day, a Sunday, it was past noon. She blinked a few times before she opened her eyes. The curtains were open and Luke´s side of the bed was empty. Slowly all the events of the day before came back and she was confused what to think of it. They had yelled, said awful things, but then he had picked her up when she had been drunk. Without questions or accusing. He must have changed her clothes, because she couldn´t remember anything from the moment on she had been save in his arms. But her thoughts couldn´t go further, because her head was killing her. She stumbled out of the bed and into the bathroom, where she had to smile when she saw the advil and a glass of water Luke had lay out for her together with a note saying "You sure need it!".

She undressed and took a shower, afterwards gulped down the advil and slowly wandered downstairs. The living-room was empty, just as the dinning-room and the kitchen.

But on the counter sat a staple of pancakes, a bottle of sirup, bacon and eggs together with a can of coffee and a glass of orange-juice. A hangover breakfast Luke had made her.

She sat down and ate the breakfast, not sure if she was still angry with him, jealous, or sorry. Maybe she was just too tired and hung-over to decide.

"Mummy!" Sara yelled when she burst through the kitchen door, just when Lorelai had finished her breakfast. She was dressed in her pink ski-suit, a black cap and black gloves.

"Ah, geez Sara, don´t yell!" Lorelai groaned and flinched.

"Mummy sick?" the girl asked and walked to her mother, eying her carefully.

"I have a headache, baby" Lorelai said and picked her up.

"Head auw?" she asked.

"Yes, my head is auw! And what are you doing, looking like you´re going on a polar- expedition?"

"No-man!" Sara smiled and pointed to the window.

"You´re building a snowman? Alone?"

"No, daddy, Laila an´ Will! You, too mommy!"

"Nah, I don´t think that´s a good idea. I bet your daddy is still a bit angry with your mommy"

"Insoor-voice!" Sara said and held her index-finger in front of her mothers face.

"Oh, baby we won´t yell again. I promise" she said and kissed Sara on the cheek.

"Carrot-nose no-man" Sara said and slid off her mothers lap and ran to the fridge. She opened it and pulled out a carrot, then slammed it close and ran back outside. Lorelai walked into the dining-room and looked outside the window. There was a huge snowman in the front-yard and Luke held up Sara so she could stick the carrot-nose in. Laila was standing in front of him in her baby-blue overall and clapped her hands excitedly, while William picked up some snow and threw it at Luke. It seemed like Luke told him to stop, but William just giggled and threw more snow at him. When Sara was done Luke placed her back on the ground and looked at William. Then suddenly the boy began to ran away and Luke chased him. He jogged more than ran, made sure he wouldn´t catch him immediately. When he then caught him after some time he swept him off his feet and swung him around while William was laughing.

Lorelai wished there wouldn´t have been a fight and she could just go out there and join them, but she wasn´t sure how Luke would react. Maybe he had just been holding back last night and would attack her today. But then she remembered the advil and the breakfast. This was his way to say "I´m sorry", but she wasn´t sure for what.

But it was her turn to make the next step and so she took her coat and stepped outside. Laila and Sara had their backs towards her and were trying to catch snowflakes, Luke was still fooling around with William. She silently walked behind the twins and then grabbed them and twirled around with one girl under each arm. They squeaked, screamed, giggled and laughed and Luke turned around to look what was wrong.

He saw Lorelai twirling in a circle with the girls, her curls flying around her head and he thought that this was one of the moments where he found her the most beautiful. Without make-up, in her sweat-pants and old coat. He stopped tickling William, who ran over to his mother.

Luke suddenly felt nervous. He didn´t want to argue anymore. Talk, yes. They needed to talk that was for sure, but he had had enough yelling for the next time.

When he had picked her up the day before the scene had reminded him what she had told him about her childhood, when she always had got drunk when she had been unhappy. It seemed like some things wouldn´t change when she met the wrong people in the wrong situation.

She placed the twins back on the ground and looked at him, just as unsure as he felt.

"Thanks for the advil and the breakfast" she said to break the tension.

"It´s okay" he said and gave her a little smile. She took his peace-offering, stepped forward and hugged him. It felt good to do it again after the last horrible two days and nights and the even longer time before. His hands slowly stroked over her back.

"How´s your head?" he muttered into her ear.

"It hurts!" she whined and hugged him even tighter, if that was possible. When her hand reached his neck, he realized that she wasn´t wearing gloves and was still in her slippers.

"You´re cold. You´d better go in before you catch a cold. Last night I was already thinking that you turned into an ice-block. "

" I can´t remember if it was cold. I think the alcohol kept me warm" she placed a kiss on the side of his neck.

"Go in!" he told her and stepped out of the embrace. She looked at him and started to pout. He rolled his eyes.

"I will meet you inside in a minute!". This answer wasn´t enough for her and she pouted a little more.

"My head hurts!" she whined.

"Go inside! We can talk then" he ignored her comment.

"Luke, head auw!" she baby-talked and he had to laugh

"You can get drunk, you can walk inside. Now go!"

"Meanie!" she said and turned around., but a smile appeared on her face. She was glad they were at least back to their usual banter and something like okay. The rest would hopefully be all right again after their talk.

Luke joined her half an hour later on the couch, still in his jacket and gloves. He had a red nose and red ears from the cold outside. Lorelai looked at him and smiled, then reached out an grabbed his ears.

"What are you doing?" he asked her confused.

"You have cold ears, they are all red and I bet they tingle now that you´re inside in the warmth again. I help you to make the tingling-thing go away." she explained.

"You´re head is better?" he asked her and lay his hand s over hers on his ears and then slowly took them away.

"A bit." she said embarrassed and looked down on her lap where their joined hands lay now.

"Lorelai what happened?" he asked her after a long moment of silence.

"I was just so angry yesterday. So I left. I drove around and ended up at the mall. I bought some stuff, just to kill the time. When I came back I saw that you were here and I didn´t want to face you so I drove to the diner. Then Jo called me, he and Kirsten had some liquor, I drank, you know the rest of the story."

"I´m not talking about yesterday only. What caused you to freak out over this whole Meeko thing? I mean you sure don´t yell at me just because I don´t want pets!" he asked her.

"No, yes, I mean... you said you don´t want them because you don´t have time for them. But at the same time you are always with Kirsten. You have time for her but nor for us. Ever since she moved here nothing is like it was and I hate it. I don´t want to hate her, but you are so close and I felt that when she walked in on Christmas. I just wanted her to go away."

"Why didn´t you tell me?"

"Tell you what? That I don´t like her ? That I don´t want you to spend time with her? You knew that Luke. I know you knew it and you ignored it" she said, getting upset again.

"I suspected that there might be a problem. You weren´t friendly and I assumed you just don´t like her."

"So you didn´t talk to me either. You assumed, but you never asked! But we both know that we need to talk. And I have a lot to say, not only about Kirsten."

"Me too." he said and looked at her, trying to figure out what she was thinking.

"Luke?" she said after another moment of silence.

"Mmmh?"

"I don´t want to yell anymore. Not just because of my headache. But also because it´s getting us nowhere and scares the kids. Sara was scared that we would yell again and I promised her we wouldn´t. We scared them and I don´t want to scare our kids that we might break-up. Because this will never happen. Right?" The last part she asked after another time of silence.

"No, it will never happen!" Luke smiled a bit and squeezed her hand.

"Daddy, daddy!" Laila came suddenly through the door, followed by a yelling William who was kind of pushing her inside. The girl was crying, her hands on her face.

"Will what happened?" Luke and Lorelai both jumped off the couch and Luke kneeled down in front of Laila, softly taking her hands away. She had nose-bleeding and some scratches around her nose.

"Sara throwed a snowball and it hit her nose and then she bleeded" William explained upset.

Luke picked up Laila and went with her into the bathroom, soothing her and cleaning her up.

"Where is Sara?" Lorelai asked William when she saw that Laila was taken care of.

"She hides in the garden. I´m sorry mummy!" he said and also began to cry.

"Hey, hey, Will! This is not your fault. It can happen, maybe there was a little stone in the snow, Laila will be fine!" she hugged him and kissed him several times.

"Go and help your daddy, then you´ll see that it is no big deal. I go and search Sara" she told him and went outside.

Because of the footsteps in the snow it didn´t take long before she found Sara hiding in a corner of the garage. When she saw her mother her chin began to tremble and she started to cry.

"Oh baby, come here. It´s not your fault. Laila is fine. My baby!" she said in a soothing voice, picked her up and hugged her. Sara clung to her and cried in her shoulder. Lorelai knew that it was time for their nap and they were also whiny because they were tired. Sara´s face was cold and her curls were wet from the snow. She walked back inside with her and undressed her, throwing the wet clothes on the living-room floor. She took a blanket and warped her in it, then lay down on the couch and lay Sara on her stomach, so that her head was lying on her chest. This was a position all her kids knew, because she always soothed them like this since they were babies. Then they had recognized her heartbeat they knew from the time they had been inside of her and that always helped. Sara started to suck on her thumb and Lorelai reached out to the table and gave her her pacifier.

Luke came out of the bathroom some minutes later with Laila on his arm, still sobbing and a still upset William walking beside him. Laila was, like Sara, just in her undergarments. She held her arms open for her mother and Luke positioned her also on top of Lorelai and covered her with the blanket. He kissed her forehead and caressed Sara´s cheek. She opened her closed eyes just for a second.

Luke took the other pacifier from the table and Laila opened her mouth a bit so he could just stuck it in. Lorelai smiled at that kissed both of the twins softly several times. She lulled them to sleep, pressing her cheek against her daughters or or caressing their faces with the tip of her nose.

Luke in the meantime had taken William and went upstairs with him into his room. He changed his clothes and dressed him in sweatpants and a T-shirt. He reassured him again that it hadn´t been his fault and that Laila was fine. He carried him back downstairs and brought a blanket from his room. He lay down on the other end of the couch and William snuggled against him just like the twins against their mother. Luke stroked up and down his neck with one finger, because he knew it made him sleepy, just like when Lorelai did it with him. It didn´t take long and William was also asleep. Luke rearranged the blanket and covered Lorelai´s feet with it, which she had under his shoulder.

They stared at each other and smiled.

"Look how big they are. I can´t believe that they fit in my stomach not that long ago." Lorelai said quietly.

"Well, now they sure wouldn´t" Luke laughed.

"The last time made me think of the time when I found out I was pregnant with them and everything that followed. You thought about a divorce." she ran her hands through their daughters hair.

"I never thought about it again after that." Luke said.

"Me neither. And I think that´s good because we said some nasty things."

"Let´s not talk about this now. What do you think: We will call Emily and ask her to look after the kids, then we´ll drive to Sniffy´s, have dinner and talk about it. We don´t have a chance to yell over there and I´m sure Maizy and Buddy won´t let us go when we are fighting. They would make us sit down and talk until we solved it." Luke smiled.

"Good idea! But let´s first try it without their help." Lorelai smiled back.

"Deal. Otherwise it would be like my parents would advice us and that´s strange."

"Yeah, although you should be used to it by now. Richard and Emily surely don´t hold back with advices."

"True. I had a talk with Emily yesterday after you left" Luke admitted.

"Oh no, I totally forgot about them.I´m sorry you had to deal with them alone!"

"No, you´re not. You are thinking:" Just serves him right!". But it´s okay, it wasn´t that bad, she was just upset about us yelling in front of the kids. And she is right, we should never do it again. And then she told me that she knows that you were unhappy the last weeks. Were you unhappy the last few weeks?" he asked her.

"Yes, but we´ll talk about it later, okay? But I´m happy at the moment"

"Me, too!" he smiled when their eyes met again. With his right hand he signalized her to take out her feet from under his shoulder and then started massaging them, to warm them up. Lorelai sighed contentedly, Kirsten and the talk they would have in the evening far away and closed her eyes.

In that position they also drifted off to sleep. It was the first time in nearly a week that they were able to sleep peacefully until the kids woke up.

TBC Please review