"You honestly don't know what he's going to say?" Mom whispers softly to me as the waiters begin to hand out the desserts.
I sigh. "Mom, if I had any idea what his speech was about, I would have told you. You know that."
"I also thought you would help me finalize the details for my wedding." She mutters darkly.
"Yes, well, I thought you would respect the fact that I had midterms this week, so lets just call it even, shall we?" I clip.
"Okay!" she lifts her hands in defeat. "I'll drop it. It's just that…they're filming kid, and this is an important part."
"He's not going to embarrass you Mom." I tell her calmly. "He might embarrass me, but he would never embarrass you."
She nods carefully as the waiters finish distributing the dishes. "As long as you're sure." She whispers, watching warily as Finn stands.
I smile. "I'm sure."
He winks at me before tapping his glass lightly. "Excuse me!" he offers clearly. "Excuse me! Before we eat these lovely mocha mousses that the delicate Sookie has so graciously prepared for us this evening, I've been granted the honor of speaking to the Bride and Groom in front of all of you." he grins suddenly. "That means put down your spoons, it's my turn now." He watches as everyone places his or her spoons to the side. "Now, I've been clearly informed that the mousse can only sit for three minutes on the table prior to being consumed in order for Sookie not to panic, so in three minutes, I'll tell you to start eating, whether I'm done or not, don't worry.
"I've not known Luke and Lorelai as long as some of the rest of you have, and so as I was writing this speech, I discovered that I didn't really know much about their lives before they fell in love. As you all know, however, I'm dating Rory, and she loves research. Bloody brilliant at it too, if you ask me," He smiles at me briefly. "Now, you can't date a research buff without picking up a few tips, by osmosis if nothing else since I generally sleep when she's studying or researching. This is obviously boring the lot of you though, as it has nothing to do with the happy couple, so I'll come to the point: I did some research, and discovered one important fact: my research wasn't to center around their lives before they fell in love, as I originally thought. My research would instead focus on their lives before they realized they were in love with one another."
"Hey!" Mom cuts in quickly.
"Trust me Lorelai, this is entirely true." Finn offers, and then he gestures at the wall, where a curtain is drawn back. "Luke, Lorelai, this is the courtship you never knew you had. Ladies and gentlemen, as you enjoy the show you helped me create, eat your mousse, Sookie's giving me death glares again."
He sits down next to me, and leans in close. "I figured I would be less likely to veer from a plan if I put it on video." He admits as the music begins.
"Sophie B. Hawkins?" I ask carefully.
He shrugs. "It fits with what I was told."
A few bars into the song, Grandma's voice is spliced in as a collage of photos of Mom and Luke at my sixteenth birthday appears: "It was…it had to have been Rory's sixteenth birthday, her party in Stars Hollow. I saw Lorelai asking Luke to go for more ice, and there was something in her eyes: a sparkle I'd never seen before, not even when she was with Christopher as a teenager. When I asked her if she was dating him, she seemed surprised." There's a short pause, and a video of Grandma at home fades through the collage. "Scares you a little to know I knew before you did, doesn't it Lorelai?" she asks archly.
The picture fades out to slowly reveal a series of photos of them in the diner, and Taylor's voice echoes in the dining room. "He let her paint that diner. That's when I knew he was gone over her. Neither of them had any idea, of course, but I knew. I always know."
I glance at Mom and see tears forming in her eyes as she leans into Luke, and then turn back to the film, where a picture of Mom and Luke in front of the huppa has appeared. "He built her that ridiculous arch." Michel's voice clips. "He built her that ridiculous arch and spent so much time on it, he wanted her day to be perfect, even though all of us could see it was driving him up the wall. He left the diner to be run by Cesar and all of the food was terrible, terrible! Everyone knew she wouldn't marry the daisy man, but he didn't, so he built her that arch and all of us had to eat charcoal for weeks."
A picture of the house comes up, and I tilt my head a bit as Miss Patty's voice comes on. "He was always over there, fixing things for her."
Babette's voice comes on. "He fixes things for everyone in town, but it was different with her. She would ask him to do little things the rest of us would have just done ourselves."
"Like change the front porch light bulb." Patty cuts in. "Or paint the trim around the doors and windows."
"He built most of Rory's bookshelves." Babette offers. "He never would do those things for anyone else."
"He always made sure she was safe. That she and Rory both were safe, they were his girls and he didn't even know it." I can almost see Patty smiling.
"He never let them down, not even when she was mad at him." Babette's voice says softly.
I can't help but place a soft kiss on Finn's cheek. "Thanks." I whisper.
He nods. "Keep watching." He indicates the screen.
A silent clip of the diner comes on, and Mom seems to be arguing over the counter with Luke about something. "He can't say no to her." Kirk's voice points out. "Every day, she drinks somewhere around twenty-seven cups of coffee, and at least half of those are from him. He's always complained about it, claiming it was bad for her, but he's always given in. Every single time." The clip fades out as Luke shakes his head and pours a cup of coffee before placing it in front of her.
An assorted collage of pictures appears. "I came back a few times after high school, for him of course. I held onto the idea of him for a long time." Rachel's voice filters through the hall and I feel my eyes go wide. "The last time I was in town, she had just gotten engaged to some teacher from Rory's school. His eyes…they weren't comfortable anymore. They had always been warm, accepting; but when he talked about the two of them…I asked him if he knew he was in love with her: he denied it, but I think it was there, in the back of his head that he might be."
Jess comes on the screen. "I had just started my shift, on my first day in town, and she blew into the diner like a hurricane, demanding coffee by the gallon. I poured the cup, and put it in front of her, and she just stared at me blankly. Her eyes were a little wide when she asked where Luke was. That was when he came out, and her eyes brightened. She asked if he'd made the coffee, he grunted, and she drank it with a smile. I thought they were dating. Imagine my surprise when I found out they weren't."
A photo of the old Independence appears, and Sookie's bubbly voice comes on. "After the fire, she convinced him to let me take over the diner's kitchen. He's as territorial as I am about his kitchen, but something she said, something she did: he let me in that day. I knew it wasn't about me, and it wasn't about the guests. It was about her, and she needed his help."
The music gets a little louder, and a series of pictures of them flashes slowly, until a video of me comes on. I snap my head to face Finn, and he grins. 'Just listen, you'll remember' he mouths quietly.
"For as long as I can remember, we've eaten at Luke's. Except for a couple weeks when I was in high school. Jess and I had gotten into a car crash, and Mom blamed Luke for not being able to control Jess. She was furious with him, it was a little scary. I was afraid I was going to lose him…but more than that, what scared me was the look in Mom's eyes. She was so determined to blame him that she was going to cut him out of her life, and it was slowly killing her. She kept finding things she wanted to talk to him about, bug him about. I came home from school one day and found her sitting on the floor across from where he'd left Bert, sobbing. That was when I told her just to go talk to him: I knew from that moment that one day he'd be my dad, it was just a matter of time."
As the last bars of music fade away, Finn stands again. "To Luke and Lorelai." He raises his glass. "May you keep your eyes and hearts open, and always remember that you're meant to be together, whether you can feel it or not."
I raise my glass after everyone else, and meet Mom and Luke's curious looks. "Mom and Dad." I whisper, taking a sip of my champagne.