A/N: Sorry it is taking me so long to update. I'm really busy at work right now and I don't have much time to write, but here is the long awaited chapter with Luke. Hope you like it.

Chapter 5

Luke got up from his chair in the waiting room and made one of his many trips down the hall to check on Rory and Lorelai. He checked on them a lot, he couldn't help himself. He didn't want to intrude, or even let them know he was still there. He just wanted, no, he needed to know that they were okay. He shook his head as he walked down the hall. Of course they weren't okay. They were about as far away from okay as anyone could get and he didn't know if either of them would ever be okay again.

He reached the door to Lorelai's room and he pushed on it ever so lightly as he always did. The door opened just a crack and he saw both Rory and Lorelai sleeping. Lorelai's head rested on Rory's shoulder and her arm was draped across Rory's stomach. Rory still had her arms around her mother's waist protectively. Luke felt like he was intruding on something, like he shouldn't be watching them but he couldn't force himself to turn away. He was glad that they were finally sleeping. Both of them needed some rest and both of them needed to escape the tragedy that had invaded their lives on this horrible day.

He watched them, noticing every time they breathed in or out and he was grateful that they were still alive. He examined their faces and he noticed that the peace that he wanted for them in sleep was not there. Even in their sleep he could see the pain and the fear that they felt deep inside their souls. He knew that they would never be the same, that somehow, something very valuable had been stolen from them today and he knew that even if they were able to get their lives back on track, they would still be different. He knew that his family had been changed forever. He shook his head. He knew that they weren't his family, not really, but in his mind they were. He loved Lorelai, even if she didn't know it, he loved her like he had never loved anyone in his life before. And Rory, what was there to say about Rory, she was the daughter he never had. She was so sweet and she cared about everyone, she was like her mother in so many ways and yet she was her own person. He wanted to be there for her like a Dad was supposed to be there for his daughter. He wanted to protect both of them but he hadn't protected them this time and it was killing him inside.

He felt the anger building up in him again. Never in his life had he wanted to kill another human being, but he seriously wanted to kill the man that had done this to Lorelai. He had been angry when his parents had died, but his anger was at the world in general. This was different, this time his anger was concentrated and focused and he almost couldn't control it. This man, if he could call him that, had taken all that Lorelai was, all the love and the laughter and that incredible spirit and he had tossed it all aside and used her like she was a piece of garbage. A tear slipped down his cheek and he reached up and wiped it away roughly.

Suddenly, Lorelai's eyes opened wide and she let out an ear piercing scream unlike anything he had ever heard before. Luke rushed into the room to try to help. "Lorelai it's okay." He didn't know what to do, but Rory did. Instinctively she wrapped her mother up in her arms and talked into her ear. "Mom, its Rory. Its okay, you're safe now. Mom, wake up. I love you Mom." Lorelai clung to her daughter as she tried to rid herself of the overwhelming fear in her heart. Luke stood in awe of Rory's strength and love for her mother and then he sensed that he should leave them alone, so he slowly made his way to the door.

"Don't go." Lorelai said quietly as Luke was just about to leave the room. He couldn't see Lorelai's face, as Rory still had her wrapped up in her arms and she wasn't about to let go anytime soon. Luke didn't think that Lorelai even knew he was there but he turned around and looked at Rory for confirmation. She nodded for him to stay and then she turned her attention back to her mother.

"Hey." She said quietly, still holding on tight. Lorelai's only response was to snuggle in closer to her daughter and Rory understood that she wasn't ready to talk yet, she just wanted to be held. Rory held Lorelai for a long time and eventually she felt her Mother's arms relax and she knew that she was once again asleep. Rory let out a sigh, laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. It wasn't long before she was asleep again too.

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Luke stood up defensively, as the door opened to Lorelai's room, but when he saw that it was only the nurse, he relaxed and sat back down in his chair. He looked at his watch and saw that it was 7:15 in the morning. He had sat there all night. After Lorelai and Rory had gone back to sleep, he wasn't sure what to do. He was glad that Lorelai wanted him to stay and if she wanted it, she was going to get it, if he could do anything about it. He had pulled a chair to the corner of the room and watched the girls sleep. He had thought and thought and thought about what he would say to them when they woke up. He wanted to say the right thing, he wanted them to trust him, but he was a man and he knew that that was going to work against him right now. He watched them breathe and noticed when it fluctuated or increased. He worried that Lorelai would have another nightmare and he never ever wanted to see the terror in her eyes that he had witnessed before Rory had wrapped her mother up in her arms earlier.

The nurse went about her duties quietly. She changed Lorelai's intravenous bag, she took Lorelai's temperature and she didn't wake up, but when she tried to take her blood pressure, Lorelai jumped and pulled her arm away frantically. "It's the nurse." Luke told her, getting up from his chair and walking towards the bed. "She won't hurt you, I promise." His voice was steady and calming, but he saw Lorelai's whole body begin to shake. Rory woke up and again talked into her mother's ear, explaining what was happening and reassuring her that no one would hurt her. Slowly, Lorelai calmed down and although she didn't stop shaking entirely, she allowed her blood pressure to be taken, but as soon as the nurse was done she tucked her arm in front of her and snuggled closer to Rory. The nurse apologized and left the room.

Rory held Lorelai tight for a long time and talked to her quietly. "Remember when I was little?" Rory asked her gently. "And I was too scared to sleep in my room alone." Lorelai nodded, all she wanted at that moment was to listen to her daughter's voice and be held tightly in her arms. "Remember what you did."

"No." Lorelai said softly

"You'd sit on the side of my bed and pub my back and tell me funny stories. Do you remember that?"

"Yeah." Lorelai whispered.

"You'd tell me stories about the people who stayed at the Inn, or about some funny animal family or about the people of the town of Bars Follow." Rory paused, remembering the stories. "Sometimes we'd make them up together, but my favorite stories were the ones about the mother and daughter, who lived in the one room house by the lake. They always ended up as a queen and princess in some far away land that had candy growing on trees or burgers that grew by the side of the road and everyone in the land would eat them and be happy. There would be rivers of coffee and houses made out of chocolate. Mmmm. It always sounded sooo good. I would fall asleep dreaming of magical kingdoms. You made me forget that I was afraid."

Lorelai looked up at her daughter and smiled. "I remember those stories."

"I'll always remember those stories." Rory smiled thinking about her mom while she was growing up. "But more than that, I'll remember how you always stayed with me until I fell asleep, in case I got scared again."

"I didn't want you to be afraid." Lorelai said quietly. "I didn't want you to ever be afraid,"

"I wasn't ever afraid, not when I was with you." Rory stroked her mother's hair. "You have protected me and comforted me and made sure I knew I was loved every day of my life. You were Super Mom." Rory stopped for a minute to formulate her words in her head. She wanted to say this right. She wanted her Mom to understand.

"I wasn't Super Mom." Lorelai protested strongly.

"You were Super Mom. You are Super Mom." Rory insisted. "And yesterday," Tears started running down her cheeks. "What you did… you sacrificed everything for me." She was having trouble continuing but this was important to her. "I don't know what to say, or what to do. There are no words to tell you how much I love you. I am the luckiest person in the world, because I have you for a Mother." Rory hugged her mother so tightly that Lorelai had to stop her.

"Hey." Lorelai said softly into Rory's ear. "Careful, Mommy's kind of breakable right now."

Rory immediately let go. "Oh, I'm so sorry." She said with tears streaming down her face.

"Don't let go." Lorelai pulled her daughter's arms tighter, just not quite that tight. "You know that you did the same thing for me don't you."

"I did not." Rory said in a disbelieving tone.

"You did too." Lorelai countered and looked her daughter in the eye. "You saved my life…and you scared me half to death in the process." She smiled at the irony of her words and continued. "When you stood up to face those gunmen, I couldn't breath, I was so scared. I thought I was going to die right there from lack of oxygen."

Rory smiled at her Mom's words. "You did not."

"I swear." Lorelai hugged her daughter and continued seriously. "You stood up there, risking your life, to try to save mine. I don't know why they let us go, but I do know that if you hadn't asked them, it wouldn't have happened."

"I was just more afraid of loosing you, than I was of facing the gunmen."

"And that tells me that you love me…" Lorelai paused. "Well that you love me more than you value your own life." Tears were running down Lorelai's face now. "Don't ever do that again." She said softly and she put her head back on Rory's shoulder.

"I do love you that much, Mom." Rory thought back to how she felt when she thought that her Mother might die and she shuddered violently. "I couldn't live without you mom, I couldn't."

"You don't have to Rory." Lorelai answered immediately. "I'm right here." They were quiet for a few minutes in each others arms, but then Rory broke the silence.

"Mom?" She wasn't sure if her Mother was asleep or not.

"Yes sweetie." Lorelai was thinking about her daughter and all that had been said.

"Can I say one more thing?"

"Sure sweetie, anything."

"Remember when I said you were Super Mom."

"Yeah."

"You don't have to be Super Mom this time."

"Thanks Sweetie."

Rory could tell that her Mom didn't really believe her. She knew Lorelai and she knew that she would once again put her own feelings aside as much as she could to help her daughter. "No, I mean it." She said with more feeling behind her words. "This time you need to take a break. You need to let me take care of you. You need to think about yourself for once and not me. This time I get to be Super Daughter."

Suddenly, Lorelai knew that Rory was serious about this and she looked up at her daughter's face. "You are always Super Daughter, you have been since the day you were born."

"Mom you know what I mean."

"I do sweetie and I love you so much for that." Lorelai reached up and tucked her daughter's hair behind her ears. "You're already taking care of me. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been here with me last night. You talked to me and held me and eventually I felt okay enough to fall asleep again and it was all because of you. I am going to need you and I know that you will have lots of opportunities to be Super Daughter, but…" She paused and Rory prodded her.

"But what?"

"But I want to be Super Mom once in a while too." Tears once again ran down her cheeks and onto her daughter's shoulder. "I need to take care of you too. It's a big part of who I am and I don't want to loose that, I can't loose that." She looked up at Rory to see if she understood what she was trying to say.

Rory was nodding her head. "Okay, you can be Super Mom once in a while if you promise me one thing."

"What?"

"Promise me that you won't push your needs, or feelings aside to help me."

"But…" Lorelai stammered.

"But nothing."

"But that's how I go from Mom to Super Mom."

"No it's not." Rory hugged her mom again. "You're Super Mom just by being you."

"Okay." She hugged her daughter back. "We have a deal."

They had both forgotten that Luke was in the room but when Rory finally noticed him she smiled. "Luke's asleep." She told her Mom and she felt Lorelai's body instantly stiffen. "What's the matter Mom?"

"I'm nervous." Lorelai told her daughter the truth.

"About what?"

"Luke."

'What about Luke?"

"He knows what happened."

"Yeah."

"What will he think of me?"

"He won't think anything, he loves you Mom." Again Lorelai's body started to shake. "Mom what's the matter?" Rory was really getting worried.

"I'm scared." Lorelai snuggled close to her daughter again.

"Of Luke?" Lorelai nodded. "Mom Luke would never hurt you, he only wants to help."

"I know."

Rory didn't know what to do or say. This made no sense to her, so she was quiet for a minute trying to understand what was happening and then suddenly she remembered when Luke had touched her knee and she had flinched for no reason. His touch had made her feel very uncomfortable and she remembered the paramedic in the ambulance touching her arm and how she had snatched it away. That had made her uncomfortable too. And if she thought about someone else, besides her mother, touching her now she didn't like the thought, especially if it was a man. Suddenly she knew exactly what her mother was feeling but she tried to imagine it ten times worse. Her mother wouldn't just be uncomfortable, she was terrified. "I can ask him to leave." She suggested but Lorelai shook her head.

"No I want him here."

"I don't understand" Rory looked at her mother. "I know why you're scared, but if you're scared of him, why do you want him to stay?"

Lorelai shook her head. "It's hard to explain." She said, not really understanding it herself.

"Try." Rory said softly.

"Well." Lorelai started then stopped, not knowing exactly how to convey what was in her head. "It's kind of like one part of me is afraid and is saying 'get rid of him, I don't want him anywhere near me.' And another part of me that is just as afraid, but for different reasons, is saying 'No wait, he will protect us and help us' and then the other part pipes up again and says 'I really, really don't want him anywhere near me'. And it sort of goes on from there, kind of like a tug of war in my brain, but then every once in awhile there's a third part that says 'but Rory called him and asked him to come and she trusts him and you trust her and she loves him and even if I really can't feel it right now, I know that somewhere under all the other stuff going on in my mind right now, I love Luke too. I don't want to lose that. If we send him away now, I'm afraid that we will both loose that feeling. And even though the part that says I really, really don't want him anywhere near me is screaming in my head, I can't ignore the little one that says Rory trusts him and you should trust him too. Am I making any sense?" Slowly, Lorelai turned to look at Luke. She groaned at how sore her body was, trying to perform this simple action and she closed her eyes, afraid of actually seeing what she had turned to look at.

"Perfect sense." Rory said, the admiration she had for her mother coming through in her voice. "I do trust him Mom." She added quietly, trying to give her Mom the strength she needed.

"I know you do." Lorelai said under her breath, not quite able to believe it herself. She lay still for a minute, allowing the pain in her body to subside, then she slowly gathered her courage and opened her eyes. Her whole body shuddered as she saw Luke sleeping in the chair and she closed her eyes tightly and returned to her original position so that her back was to him.

Rory hugged her mother tightly and heard her groan again at the extreme pain the movement had caused her. "Mom." Rory said softly, but she gritted her teeth at the unfairness of it all and felt the tears slide down her cheeks as she thought about what her mom was going through.

"I'm okay sweetie." Her mother said after a few minutes. "I'm just sore."

"Yeah." Rory said silently, wishing that that was all it really was.

Both girls were silent for a few minutes, and Lorelai once again snuggled up to her daughter trying to feel safe in her arms. She thought about Luke and her body began to shake, as if it had a mind of its own. She thought about all the years she had known Luke and all the things he had done for her and Rory, and all the times he had been there for both of them and she knew that she had no reason to be afraid of him, but she couldn't seem to make her body understand that. She couldn't seem to shake this overwhelming fear that enveloped her when she thought of him. She had talked to the doctor and not been afraid, she didn't understand why. Why was she afraid of Luke, someone she knew and not the doctor, someone she had never met before? It didn't make any sense. She shook her head slightly, trying to shake the feeling and get a new perspective on her thoughts. She wondered if maybe it was because she didn't see the doctor as a real person. He was a professional, a doctor, not someone with a life outside of the hospital, not someone with thoughts and feelings, just a doctor, telling her what she needed to know. Luke was definitely a real person, and whatever the reason, she was definitely afraid of him.

"Mom." Rory said again quietly, breaking the silence in the room. She could feel the fear in her mother's body.

"Hmmm."

"It's okay, you know."

"What is sweetie?" Lorelai looked up at her daughter and Rory met her eyes.

"It's okay, that you're afraid." She said softly.

Lorelai felt the tears run down the side of her face and she looked at the love and acceptance in her daughter's eyes. "Thank you sweetie." She said as she hugged her tightly. "That means a lot to me."

"Well it's true you know. There's no right way or wrong way to feel."

"That's why I need you so much." Lorelai wiped away her daughter's tears. "With you, I'm just me and you understand me."

"I do understand you, and you understand me. We are a perfect match."

"Yes we are." She agreed and then snuggled closer to her daughter and hid her face as Luke yawned and stretched.

A/N: Hope you liked it. Let me know what you thought. Please review. I probably won't update for a couple of weeks now, but I'll get it up as soon as I can and don't give up on me. I will finish this story eventually.