"Luke," Lorelai whispered softly as she gently prodded her lover's shoulder. "Time to get up."
"Why?" Luke grumbled. "I have no where to be."
"No," Lorelai agreed. "But it's almost noon and Jess and Rory will be here by one o'clock."
Luke jumped when he heard the time. "How did you let me sleep this long?"
"There was no waking you. I tried three times. What's going on?" Lorelai asked wrapping one arm around Luke. "You came up late last night."
"I couldn't sleep. I've got things on my mind," Luke confessed.
"What things?" Lorelai asked. "The doctor said to avoid stress."
"Yeah, easier said than done," Luke sighed. "I have no money, no way of getting money unless I pull a bank job, and I have a nephew who is under the delusion Rory wants him to remain in a wheelchair, lots of stress inducing stuff there."
"What about Rory?" Lorelai asked. "Did they fight again?"
Luke nodded, "When I visited Jess yesterday she stormed out all upset. He told me she got a little crazy when he talked about the surgery his doctors mentioned."
"I knew she wouldn't take that well," Lorelai sighed. "What did she say?"
Jess said she told him she's content the way things are and that got misconstrued. He also told me she said the benefit doesn't outweigh the risk," Luke explained.
"I understand why she's upset about it," Lorelai told him. "But I understand Jess too. He wants to seize every chance."
"Yeah, the sad thing is Jess doesn't see why Rory's scared. He's got it all warped in his head to she wants him to live the rest of his life in that chair," Luke declared. "In reality though, no."
Lorelai gently kissed the back of Luke's neck, "I'm sure Lucy and Kevin will be able to help, if not just to show them that a normal relationship, a normal fifty/fifty relationship even with Jess in the chair."
"What were you thinking bringing them here, Lorelai? They have no idea about Rory or Jess," Luke finally voiced his opinion on Lorelai's helpful guests. "We should help them through this rough patch."
Lorelai ran her hand down Luke's arm, "We've done all we could. We'll never know, God willing, where Jess is or where Rory is. Lucy and Kevin, they do. They are living that life," Lorelai explained. "It's at least worth the shot."
Luke nodded, "I hope it works. It could backfire."
"I know that," Lorelai acknowledged. "But our kids need help. They can't go on like this."
Luke nodded, "Like I said, I hope it doesn't backfire." He rose from the edge of the bed and headed for the shower. "Make me some tea, I'll be ten minutes."
Half an hour later, Luke was outside on the porch, watching as Jess maneuvered his wheelchair up the ramp Luke put in, "Hey, Kid. How you feeling?"
"Not bad," Jess replied. "You?"
"Never better. It's good being here," Luke replied. "Hey, Rory."
Rory moved quickly and hugged Luke, "Hey. Where's my Mom?"
"Guys, listen," Luke began. "Your Mom invited some friends over, Dr. Camden's sister and brother-in-law. They're inside."
Rory had heard Lorelai speak of Dr. Camden's sister and brother-in-law. Lucy and Kevin he said their names were and Rory knew why they were here. She turned to Jess, "You be nice in there. I mean it."
"Don't give me reason to not be and we'll be fine," Jess snapped clearly still angry about the previous night. With that he pushed himself inside.
Rory let out an angry sigh. "Luke! He is impossible!"
"Let him have his hope, Rory," Luke told her. "It's all he's ever had."
Rory's lower lip stuck out and her jaw quivered, "I can't watch it anymore, Luke. I can't."
Not knowing what else to do for her, and feelin the same way himself, Luke took Rory in his arm and held her close, "It'll be okay, Rory. It'll be okay."
Rory vehemently shook her head, "No, Luke. It won't. He's not…and I can't watch it Luke, I…" Rory took a few deep breath to try to calm herself down. "I can't go in there now. I need some air."
Gently, Luke wiped the tears from Rory's eyes, "Go for a walk and calm down. Maybe when you come back you and Jess can talk this out. Maybe Lucy can help you. She's been there," Luke comforted.
"Maybe, I don't know anymore," Rory shook her head. "I just wish he'd stop pretending this will go away. We can't deal with it until he realized the facts. He's not getting better, no amount of time is going to change that. He's won't face it, Luke. He won't face it."
Solemnly Luke nodded. "I know, Rory I know. Go on now, get calmed down. I'll deal with this."
Rory hugged Luke again quickly and left the porch turning her steps toward the bridge where she could breathe, think, and plan for a future which, at this point, may not include Jess.
When Luke went inside, he was faced with Lorelai and Jess' worried faces along with Lucy and Kevin's expectant ones.
"Where's Rory?" Lorelai asked.
"She um, she needed some air," Luke replied. "She was very upset." He looked pointedly at Jess who closed his eyes and sighed.
"I better go talk to her," Jess said. "Lord knows I'm the cause of it."
"I think you should let her be for a little while, Jess," Kevin commented. "Give her some air."
"What would you know about it? You are in the same chair, not the same life," Jess snapped.
"Jess," Luke sighed. "Kevin and Lucy are our guests."
Jess nodded. "I'm sorry. I just don't know what we're supposed to do anymore."
"It's all right," Lucy soothed. "It happens."
"Yeah," Lorelai sighed. "Let's have lunch on the porch. Rory will join us when she calms down."
The five people adjourned to eat the meal Sookie brought over on Lorelai's back porch. She kept the conversation up asking Lucy and Kevin about Glen Oak, about how they met, all sorts of things until the tide turned to Kevin's accident.
"So um," Jess asked with some hesitation. "How did this happen if I can ask?"
"Sure you can, it's a fact of life," Keving replied. "It was a little over a year ago, I was assigned a stake out…" Kevin paused when Rory came out the back door.
"I'm sorry I'm late," she said. "Any chicken left?"
"Yeah, hon. There's plenty," Lorelai replied. "Rory this is Lucy Kinkirk, Dr. Camden's sister and her husband, Kevin. This is Rory."
"Hey, it's great to meet you," Lucy smiled. "Jess and Lorelai told us a lot about you."
"That's nice to know," Rory said sitting down.
"It's nice to meet you," Kevin smiled. "Jess just asked me a question about my wheels here."
"Oh," Rory looked uncomfortable. "Is that…"
Kevin smiled, "Its okay, Rory. Like I told Jess it's a fact of life. I was assigned by my superior to a stake out of a convenience store on an established trend for hold ups. I was working sixteen hour shifts, so I was pretty tired and the dark blue Dodge wan with tinted windows pulled up outside. It had the right partial plates. So my partner and I got out of the car, watched what was going down, and went in. As soon as we identified ourselves, one of the perps opened fire on us. Before Roxanne or I could respond the perp got a shot off and I went down like a puppet without strings," Kevin described plainly.
"Wow! SO did you get your man?" Lorelai asked.
"Yeah, those shots really pissed Roxanne off," Kevin laughed. "She took them both down. If the shot wasn't so painful I might have laughed. So what about you Jess?"
"I got in a car accident. Some jerk on a motorcycle cut me off, I swerved the car and spun out, put me in the path of tractor trailer, which of course, hit me. My car flipped over and my back snapped," Jess said deadpanned.
Rory's face got white as she listened to what Jess described. It was her fault he was on that road when he was. If only she'd listened to her heart, "Excuse me," she said a crack in her voice. She left the table.
Lorelai rose to go after her, but Jess restrained her, "Let me."
Jess went into the house and saw Rory on the sofa her head in her hands, tears falling from her eyes. This killed him, the pain it caused her, the guilt she still suffered. He knew that was the cause of her mother hen nature, her guilt, for he doubted that it all if any of it, came from love.
Jess didn't know what to say so he stayed silent, and quietly returned to the porch leaving Rory to cry herself out.
A/N: This chapter seemed to want to end here, and I didn't want to run this together with the next part. I will more than likely not post next in Love Equals Sacrifice sections because that is making the chapter flow more difficult. I think it is better to let it flow. Please read and review. I will update soon.
