As they pull up to the diner, Luke is standing outside, expecting their arrival. Lorelai, too excited to think, gets out of the car and runs to him.

"Lorelai? Why am I in a suit?"

"You love me, right?"

"I think that we have established that, yes."

She kisses him quickly at the corner of his mouth and grabs both of his hands. Then she drops the bomb. "I don't want to get married on Saturday!" she says matter of factly with a smile on her face.

Luke automatically goes into panic mode and searches Lorelai's smiling face, then quickly glances to an equally as smiling Rory. "What?"

"I want to get married now… not Saturday…can we do that?"

"Lorelai, why?"

"Because, I want my middle to start now." She says, but then seeing the confused look on Luke's face, she continues, "I was talking to Rory, and she was so kindly reminding me of my last wedding mishap, and I was trying to think about what made me call it off. Little did you know that it was you and something that I felt there that caused me to rethink things. It wasn't me being in love with you or anything like that, but you were and still are my best friend next to Rory and Sookie, and I knew that you didn't think that it was the wisest idea in the entire world when I was going to marry Max."

"That might not have been a friend thing as much as an I was in love with you thing on my part, just for the record."

"Totally beside the point! But I realized that there is one MAJOR thing that is there this time and it wasn't there with Max. I love you Luke, and I don't think that I have ever really loved someone like I love you, and when I think about what the two of us have and what we could have in the future, I don't freak out, I… I grin like an idiot, and I want that to start now!" she said in a huff, dropping his hands finally and meeting his gaze with a pleading stare.

"What do we do Saturday?"

"Do it all over again, but know that we really had our own little ceremony."

"You realize that nobody can know about this part but us, right? The town would kill us."

"I know… so…."

"Let's go."

Jumping up and down, Lorelai dragged Luke back to Rory's waiting car and sat with him in the back seat.

Without too much convincing, they were able to convince Sookie to come as another witness as well. Swearing her to secrecy was a feat on the way to the court though.

"What am I going to say when Jackson asks me where I went?"

"Tell him that you went out with me."

"Yeah, but what if he says where?"

"Then tell him you went with me to Hartford."

"But what if he asks me why?"

"Then you tell him it's stuff for me getting married, which it is, so you won't be lying."

"But what if he wants to know what stuff?"

"SOOKIE! Has Jackson ever asked you that many questions about your whereabouts when he knows that you were with me?"

"Well… no…"

"All right then… stop worrying about it then!"

After a few moments of silence in the car, Sookie is starting to get a scared look on her face and she finally catches Rory's eye.

"Sookie, what? Mom told you that you'd be fine, Jackson doesn't ask that many questions!"

"But there is always a first time for everything, and then he's going to ask me something and I'm not going to be prepared, and you know me… I… I crack under pressure… paper bags! Remember I freak out, and then I hit people with frying pans cause I get excited and then I end up in the hospital, cause I'm not thinking and I run into something or I slip on something, and then in the end when I'm in the hospital doped up on painkillers I'm going to let it out, and then you'll hate me for the rest of our lives, and I don't know what I'll do with my self."

"Oh Jeez!" Luke says from the driver's seat, not completely used to Sookie's major freak outs.

"See, and now your future husband is going to hate me too and I'm never going to see you again, and…. I shouldn't be going with you!"

Turning around in her seat in the front, Lorelai grabs Sookie's arm to reassure her. "Sookie, I want you there! The three of you are my best friends, and I can't think of anyone else I would rather have here with me today. Hold it together! You'll be fine and Jackson won't suspect anything, and if he starts asking questions, tell him that Martha said her first word or something like that to distract him… he won't think anything of it."

"Okay…" she says, finally relaxing and trying to keep her breathing down to normal.

The drive went by more quickly than their normal trips to Hartford. Perhaps the excitement of the day made it go more quickly than the times that they were dreading to go to Friday night dinners.

Standing outside the office of the judge that was going to marry them, they stopped and turned towards each other a final time.

"Luke, if you really want to wait until Saturday to make it official, we can."

"Lorelai, if I would have had it my way, I would have married you years ago, so any sooner is perfectly fine with me."

"I love you Luke, you know that."

"Yes, I do, or this thing that we're about to do would be seriously inappropriate."

At that, they heard a loud sniffling noise off to the side, and turned to see Sookie wiping her eyes frantically with a tissue.

"Sookie?"

"It's just… you two are so perfect for each other, and it's just… it's so great!" she says with another set of sobs.

"Remind me why you brought her?"

"Because she's my other best friend, and I wanted to have Mia come too, but if my mother ever does find out, which she has a knack for doing, she would hold it over my head until my funeral, and I didn't want my parents to come because they would have judged the whole thing, and…. well… that's why… she might cry about everything, but she's still Sookie and I love her."

Again, sobs rang through the hallway at the compliments.

"Sookie, can you hold yourself together long enough for us to get hitched?" Lorelai says, as she crouches down in front of Sookie.

"Lorelai…you're sure that you want to do this now?"

"Sookie, look at me…look at my eyes."

Sookie takes a moment to look at Lorelai, staring at her in search of answers that can only come from the eyes. After a few moments, she starts to smile.

"What?"

"I just can't believe that after all of these years, the two of you finally figured it out, and I can't believe that you are finally getting what you deserve…as schmoopy and corny as this is going to sound, Lorelai, I'm glad that you've finally found it."

"I have… and thank you."

After watching the exchange, Luke steps beside Lorelai, looking down at her with a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He reaches out a hand to help her up from her crouching position. "Come on, they're waiting for us in there."

Standing up, and grabbing Luke's arm, she quickly glances at Rory, who wears quite a grin on her face.

She stops Luke with a hand to his shoulder. "Can I have a minute with Rory, and then I'm as good as yours?"

"Promise?"

"Forever…my friend… forever…so if you were going to leave me at the alter, this is your cue to magically decide to go to the bathroom and slip out the window or pay the judge to fake a heart attack so we won't go through with it."

"Well, it's a good thing that I've got a couple bucks in my pocket, cause I'm having second thoughts now…" he says with a smile as he leans in to give her a quick peck on the cheek.

She turns around to meet the eyes of her daughter, and puts a hand out for her to grab onto as she pulls her to sit down on a bench in the hallway.

"So… what do you think, can we deal with a boy in the house once and for all?"

"Well, you did get rid of the 'no boys allowed' sign that we had, so maybe we've gotten to that point." Rory says, as she lays her head on her mother's shoulder.

"And Luke…you know…don't you?"

"You mean do I know that he loves you, that he would die for you, and that he plans to cherish you for the rest of your life? Yeah… I know that."

"No… not that."

"Then what?"

"That he loves you, that he would die for you, and he plans on cherishing you as a daughter for the rest of his life?"

"yeah, I knew that." she says, just above a whisper before they bask in a few moments of silence. "Mom?"

"I'm glad that you finally found it too, and I'm glad that it was with Luke, cause I love him too."

"Well, that my darling daughter is all that I needed to hear." she says as she turns to face Rory, putting her hands on her shoulders. "And now… I can go marry that beautiful man in there."

"You mean that you would have called it off if I didn't like the idea?"

"Rory… you have always been and will continue to be my number one priority as long as I walk this earth, and what you say means more to me than anything else. Once I marry Luke, that isn't going to change… I mean… there will be one more opinion in the mix, but you are still number one on my list, okay?"

"I know that mom, you have always made that clear to me."

After a few minutes of mother-daughter bonding with a hug, Rory finally separates from her mother.

"Someone's waiting in there for you, and I don't think that you should keep him waiting any longer."

"Well, then let's go get me married already!" she says starting to walk to the door.

"Okay, but I hope that Luke didn't get bored and make a run for it while he was waiting."

"Rory!" she says chastising her daughter for the comment, but quickening her pace to the door just in case.

She opens it to see her Luke sitting in front of the judges desk, with Sookie off to the side. At this she smiles and walks up to stand next to him.

"You didn't leave me."

"I never could Lorelai, you'd always find me."

"Not in some creepy, stalkery kind of way though…"

"No, just because someone somewhere has always wanted us to be together…at least that's what I'm thinking."

"Good thoughts."

Wanting to get on with things, the judge clears his throat to get their attention. "Are you two ready?"

With one glance to each other, they both nod, and the judge begins the small court ceremony.

Okay, I know that all of you kind of want to kill me right now… but LONG before the Vineyard eppy I thought about the whole Luke/Lorelai eloping thing… just ask my friends. So, I had this idea to have them go all out with this. They're gonna pull a Mad About You thing though and just go through the wedding on Saturday. Now… who should find out first that they got married? Emily? Richard? Mia? We shall see… and how long until baby Danes enters the picture? All this and more is going through my head right now. Read and Review to motivate me! Hehe!