Am I Missing?

Disclaimer: I own nothing. That includes Gilmore Girls, Luke and Lorelai, and especially Dashboard Confessional.

Summary: Lorelai gives Luke back the ring when she realizes she can't handle the lies anymore. It's up to Luke to fix what he broke

Authors Note: I really don't know how I am going to fix this story. I've gone over the plot line a million times, trying to find a reasonable and believable solution. So I am going to postpone the solution until I have one. Does anyone have a suggestion? I want it to be a happily ever after kind of deal, but Lorelai is stubborn.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Anna Nardini was once called Lucas Danes 'the one'. They had sparked in that way that made others jealous in high school. She was a tried and true Stars Hallowian. She knew the quirks and she was the exact opposite from Luke. From the time that she was aware of the town, she knew that there was something out there. Something better and exciting.

The only hitch in that plan was one Lucas Danes. He enthralled her and he was always a little out of reach. There was just something that made him not 100 there. His sister's messes or his father's business that he had to hold onto. It just seemed to Anna that there was never enough room for her.

But that didn't mean that Anna stopped hoping that one day Luke would look up at her and it would suddenly click in. That she was the one. That he was all in.

Waiting is not a joyous game for the impatient. She moved away went to design school, travelled the world and when she came to help clear out the Nardini house, there he was again. He was sweeping in the darkened space that once held the town's hardware store. He looked up and the spark that ruled their whole relationship in high school, was a' blazing again.

Luke filled her in on what had happened since her departure. And everything was peachy keen and suddenly the world outside of Stars Hallow wasn't so great anymore. Luke's diner was doing really well, and a regular stamp of the town. A town that didn't take new things well embraced this establishment. Luke was dealing with his father's death, his messed up absent sister and of course Rachael leaving in the middle of the night once again.

Things between Anna and Luke were always easy. You could say that both of them were laid back and their relationship followed suit. There were usually no mixed messages, or misunderstandings that resulted in fights. Some might say that there just wasn't enough fire to make any argument that important.

Soon, she felt that their relationship was just done. He became busy with his diner and helping Liz out once again, and Luke was out of reach once more and Anna left. Not realizing that she took away something a little more important than Luke's favourite Star Trek t shirt.

Now thirteen years after that last time she left Star's Hallow she drove into the little town that drove her nuts. She drove past the gazebo she would secretly wish Luke would take her to and dance with her under the stars. Pass the shops she would beg Luke to go with her. She walked into the diner and saw Luke himself, looking worse off than ever.

She flashes to when she first came back, and he had that lost and lonely look in his eye. The permanently wounded puppy, but this time it wasn't the death of a parent or loved one. His heart had been broken into a million pieces.

She had heard little snippets of what happened that day in the diner, when some women broke his heart. All her daughter (their daughter no less) had said was that this beautiful women had walked in and handed Luke a velvet box, said what a great dad he was and walked out, never to be seen again.

And now to look at him, it looks like he hadn't slept in weeks. There was nothing going on in his usually busy eyes. She had to sit him down and make him explain what happened, and he had simply said that he had driven away the one woman who would have never left. 'She's the one Anna, I was all in. I was there. What more does she want?' Luke said in a whisper of misery.

Anna suddenly got it. She got why it was always so hard for him to be all there; focused on her and their relationship. Luke was just waiting for that person, and she wasn't that person. Luke then told her about Lorelai's history. How she had an on going thing with the father of her daughter, and they were almost what Luke and Anna had been in their heyday.

'I can't keep on living like this Anna.' Luke says and he looks miserable, and that's when it occurs to her. Luke and her weren't something that was meant to be. She was definitely not Luke's 'one'. She was simply a practice run.

And once she talked to Luke, made him understand that he had to fight, and Lorelai would come to her senses, she left, determined to find the Luke to her Lorelai.

They would always have April, and the memory of their past, but Luke was just too occupied to be the person that she once wished he'd be. But that was ok for now.