A/N: And finally, after 9 chapters I've managed to get to the beginning of the major plot line of the story.

Don't hit me too hard for the ending. There's a chance I might get one more chapter out this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed.

Making Progress

Luke got to the house at 10:15 the next day, just in time to see the movers leave and tell the Lawrence's goodbye. He waved as their minivan pulled away and then let himself into the house and started unloading the supplies he'd bought out of the truck and stacked them in the dining room so he could start working.

"First things first, got to figure out how to work this damn thing." He said to no one in particular and went about reading the instructions on the back of the carpet cleaner. He mixed up the solution in the kitchen sink and in doing so noticed that Angela had cleaned some before they left, undoubtedly embarrassed by the way the house had been when he had arrived yesterday. He dumped it back into the machine and pushed it into the living room. Turning it on it made a loud whirring sound and something clinked and then it started spraying the carpet like he assumed it was supposed to. He pushed it around the living room, feeling kind of dumb in the process. To him it felt like he was pushing a shopping cart all over the living room.

Thirty minutes later he'd managed to do half of the room and it seemed to be working fairly well. The carpet was back to close to it's original color, and it seemed to be in good condition other than the stains that were currently being sucked away by the Rug Doctor. He wasn't sure if they'd even keep the carpet down or replace it with hardwood, but it was nice to have the option to keep it and not have to replace it. He'd settled into a rhythm and finished the room quickly and dumped out the dirty water into the sink for the fifth time. He pushed the carpet cleaner back into the dining room and started his attack on the master bathroom.

He had successfully ripped up the tile in the bathroom by the time Lorelai arrived, and sat down the crowbar on the vanity and brushed his hands off when he heard her walk in the front door, her heels clicking on the hardwood of the foyer.

"Hello? Anyone home?" she called, her voice echoing off the empty rooms. She hadn't seen the place as a house before, other than the many times she'd told Old Man Twickham bye, but during those visits she'd walked through the foyer into the living room, told him bye and left. Plus, the old man had so much shit laying around the house you could hardly see the walls, let alone the floor. The place was big, really big.

"Hey babe." She said smiling when he walked into the foyer through the dining room. She wrinkled her nose into her "scrunchy-face" when she saw how dirty he was, but kissed him lightly anyway. "I'm here for my tour of my new house."

Luke took her by the hand and led her around. She marveled at just how huge the house was. The foyer was big and open with a curving staircase to the upstairs directly in front of them. He told her the door to the left led to a study that they could use as a joint office. The dining room was massive, big enough for a table to sit their small family and all of their closest friends.

"Oh my God. Sookie will be so jealous." She said as she walked into the kitchen that rivaled the size of the one at The Dragonfly. She ran her hand along the countertops and grimaced as she hit a sticky spot. "Gross." She said and went to go wash off her hand in the sink.

He led her through the entryway into the living room and now that the carpet was cleaned it didn't look too shabby.

"Needless to say, I have to paint." He said, gesturing at the wall that was covered in crayon from 2 feet up and below.

"Aw but it's cute." She said running her hand along the crayon scribbles.

They walked through the master bedroom and into the bathroom where Lorelai fawned over the size of the tub and the vanity. Luke showed her the tile he'd bought for the bathroom and described the new shower to her and she was almost giddy like a 6 year old. They walked hand in hand up the stairs to see the other bedrooms.

On the left side of the hallway were two bedrooms that shared a bathroom in between them. The first one was a bit bigger than the other and was the perfect size for a play room or some other kind of random rec room. The other one was painted a soft blue and had obviously been used as a bedroom for the twin boys. The room across the hall from that one was the size of the other two combined and then some, making it about ¾ the size of the master bedroom. It had a large adjoining bathroom, and in short was perfect for Rory and her books.

There were back stairs that led up to an attic, if you could call it that, behind the bathroom off of the larger room. The attic was big, and split into two rooms by the set of stairs.

"I thought if you wanted to we could make this into a sewing room, and the other side into like a guest room or another office." Luke said, snaking his arms around her waist.

"I'd like that. I'd like that a lot." She said, leaning back into him. "This house is perfect."

"You haven't seen the best parts." Luke said, taking her hand and pulling her back down the attic stairs, down the main stairs and through the house into the back yard. It was huge.

"It's big enough for a pool if we want, and still have room for a swing set or a play place type deal." Luke said. "The deck needs some work, and if we decide to put in a pool we might want to extend the deck some, hell we might want to extend it anyway."

Lorelai was floored. The backyard was bigger than huge and the deck was awesome. It wrapped around the entire back side of the house and onto the side a little, which was sectioned off and screened in.

"There's an entrance to that through the kitchen, it's where that other door goes." He said, answering her unvoiced question. "It'd be a great place to just sit and relax."

"When can we move in?" she asked, almost purring. She'd never seen a house so perfect for a growing family. Granted they were only 3 ½ when Rory was home right now, but it left them plenty of room to grow.

"There's still a lot of work to do. I might see if I can get some of Tom's guys to come help on the bigger projects, but if I work over here after I get off from the diner at night some nights I think we could be in here in a month." He said, running his hands down her arms. She shivered a little under his touch. "It's cold out here, we should go back in."

They walked back inside and Lorelai sat and watched Luke work on the tile of the bathroom and they talked about plans for the colors of the rooms and such before she left at 2, ideas flying around in her brain.

Luke had a third of the tile done when the Lowes delivery guys showed up with the shower to install it. He let them in and left them to their work. They made quick work of everything and got it all installed and working within an hour and a half. He tipped the guys, even though he wasn't sure if he was supposed to, and went back to work on the tile.

It was nearing 6 when he finished up his work on the bathroom and cleaned up in there. He bleached out the tub he'd just finished caulking and scrubbed it out along with the tile that surrounded it. He cleaned out the shower, and scrubbed the toilet and sink before running a swiffer over the floor and windex-ed the mirror before declaring that room done. It was one room down, minus getting a fresh coat of paint, and about a million to go.

He met Lorelai at the diner at 6:45 and they took their food upstairs and ate, still discussing plans for the house.

"The blue room, I think we should work on that one next. I don't want to do pink or blue though cause that's too normal. Yellow. I want it to be yellow." She said in between bites. She had been rapid firing suggestions for the house the entire time they'd been eating.

"You wanna come back with me? I don't want you doing too much but you can come keep me company?" he asked.

"Sure. I'll go home and change. I can help paint if we open the windows." She said excitedly. That was one thing Luke would never understand, the woman's fetish for painting.

"Well…I guess that's okay." He said after thinking about it for a few minutes. There were enough windows in the master to open and have it really well ventilated, and he could paint the bathroom where it was more enclosed…not that those rooms would stay that color for very long, but it'd give them a clean slate to start with when they did paint it a different color.

Lorelai squealed and jumped up to go change. She pulled Luke up and hugged him and then skipped down the stairs to go home and put on her painting clothes. He shook his head and stuck the dishes in the sink to soak and grabbed his keys to get to the house before Lorelai.

When Lorelai got to the house, all of the lights were blazing in the downstairs. She could hear faint music wafting out the open windows into the cool early March evening. She stood on the front porch of the house and looked out into the street. Soon this would be her street, these would be her neighbors, and their kids would run up and down the street with hers. Sookie's house was just two houses down, another plus for the house. She was sure baby-no-name Bellville and baby-no-name Danes would be best of friends and it'd be nice having Sookie just literally right next door. She absently rested a hand on her stomach and smiled to herself before turning and pushing the door open.

"Honey, I'm home!" Lorelai called in the foyer. Startling herself at both the echo and how normal it sounded for her to say that.

"Bedroom!" Luke called back. She wandered back through the house and into the bedroom, where she sat down her purse and immediately took off her shoes, causing Luke to raise an eyebrow.

"I never paint wearing shoes." She replied, before grabbing a roller and looked at him for instruction. All the windows in the room were open and the overhead fan was on as well as a smaller one in the corner that she guessed Luke had set up. She praised herself for wearing an old sweatshirt so she'd stay warm in the cool evening, soon to be cold night air.

"Whatever." He said, knowing better than to question her. "Your paint is in the blue tray, start where ever you want to…that's taped off." He clarified as she started for the one wall he hadn't gotten to in taping off the molding. She grinned and headed for the opposite wall. "I'm gonna finish taping off this wall and then start in the bathroom, take it easy and if you get tired take a sit and watch. There's tea on the kitchen counter if you want something to drink." He said, shifting the ladder and picking up another role of blue painters tape and climbed up in order to start taping off the molding.

Lorelai sang along softly to the radio as she painted, she'd always loved to paint and had no idea why. Sometimes it just helped her relax and sometimes it just allowed her brain to slow down and focus on one thing instead of zipping around like some canary on speed, and this was one of those times. She ran the roller over the wall and watched as the paint spread out, the paint was a little lighter than what was on the walls, but no big thing, it would probably dry darker anyway. She watched as she covered a big purple smiley face, and the name "Riley" written in blue crayon with the R backwards. It tugged at her heart to be painting over someone else's memories, but she was sure she'd be scrubbing crayon off the walls in the not so distant future. She painted along happily for a good chunk of time and was finished with three of the four walls before Luke barely even got the bathroom completely taped.

"Done already?" He asked as she plopped down on the bathroom counter.

"Almost. One more wall, I'm taking a breather." She said, fiddling with the ends of her hair.

He looked at her and grinned, she had paint in her hair, on her nose, and even in her eyelashes not to mention all over her clothes.

"Looks like you got more paint on you than on the walls, good thing I laid down the drop cloth." He chided her gently.

She pursed her lips and glared at him, before dissolving into giggles when she realized what a mess she was. She pulled a hair tie off her wrist and pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail on top of her head, making her look like an overly tall six year old.

"You look like a little kid." He said, smiling at her.

"Well I am young…" she started.

"Young at heart…" he finished.

"Hey now." She said, throwing a wad of tape at him and throwing her head back in laughter when it bounced off his forehead between his eyes.

And she purses her lips,

bats her eyes,

and she plays with me sitting there slack jawed with nothing to say

"You best get out there and finish your last wall before I paint you!" he threatened, shaking his paint brush at her menacingly.

"Would have worked a lot better if there had been paint on it." She called over her shoulder as she walked into the other room and picked up her roller again. "Lukey?" she called after another half hour had passed.

"I told you not to call me that." He yelled back

"You're supposed to say 'what-ty'!" she said, her pout evident in her voice.

"I'm not going to say that, I've never said that."

"You said it once."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did may saying it depend on me getting laid?"

"Probably."

"Well there you go. Did you need something or were you just trying to annoy me?"

"I can't reach the high up parts and you have the ladder."

"I don't want you climbing on ladders." He grumbled as he came out of the bathroom.

"What am I supposed to do? Scale the walls like some…I dunno…super hero or something? I'm not Batman." She said poking him in the side.

"Batman couldn't climb walls anyway." He said, poking her back. "I'll get those parts later. Don't worry about it. You did good kid." He said kissing her temple.

"I always do a good job painting. Are you implying that I don't?" she asked, her hands planted firmly on her hips.

"Of course not." He said hugging her from behind.

"How much more do you have to go?" She asked, leaning her head back against his shoulder and looking up at him.

"Not much, wanna come keep me company and then we'll go home?" he asked. She nodded and followed him back into the bathroom. She sat back on the counter where she'd been sitting earlier and watched him paint. He only had a wall and a half to go, and the entire wall he had left was mostly taken up by the tub, so he finished quickly. They put the rollers and brushes in a bucket of water to soak for the evening and cleaned up the mess. The master bedroom was pretty much done. Lorelai had gotten all but the last foot before the crown molding done, and Luke could finish that tomorrow before he cleaned the carpet in there. Tom had said that he could get some guys in on Thursday to redo the floorboards in the kitchen and dining room, so Luke would probably work in the diner Monday and Tuesday and then spend all of Wednesday and Thursday at the house. He had told Tom he'd call him back if they decided to do hardwood into the living room or not.

That reminds me.

"Hey, babe?" he called out, Lorelai had left the bedroom and was leaning against the island in the kitchen.

"Did you think about if we want to do hardwood in the living room?" He asked.

"I don't know, what do you think?" she asked, coming into the living room with him.

"I think it'd make the downstairs flow better if we did, but if we don't it's not a big deal. The study doesn't have them either." He said.

"Yeah but that's more like a bedroom or something like that anyway. I think we should." She said nodding her head definitely.

"Alright, I'll let Tom know and maybe they can start on it when they come to repair the other flooring." He said, slipping an arm around her waist.

They walked out to the cars after making sure all the windows were shut and the lights were off. Luke locked the door and pocketed the keys before joining Lorelai at the cars. They climbed into their separate cars and headed for home. Lorelai went ahead upstairs to get in the shower while Luke checked the voicemail and checked the back door to make sure it was locked before grabbing cookies for a snack for Lorelai and heading upstairs. He slipped into the bathroom after her and disrobed before stepping in the shower behind her.

She jumped a little when she felt him behind her, but smiled after turning around and discovering it was in fact him and not some random burglar that had decided a nice shower with her would be fun before robbing the house. She was rinsing the last of the shampoo out of her hair when he got in, so she dipped her head back one more time and rinsed the rest before sliding around so he could get under the water. She reached over and grabbed a razor and proceeded to shave her legs.

"Oh that's sexy." He said, rolling his eyes.

"Hey, this was an unplanned meeting in the shower. Plus, you don't want like, rug burn if my legs rub up against you in the middle of the night do you?" she asked, looking up from her bent over position to squint up at him through the water droplets bouncing off of him and all over her.

"No I guess not." He replied, smacking her on the bottom lightly.

"Not when I have a sharp object." She said, gesticulating with the razor.

"Roger." He said as he quickly bathed and washed his hair and stepped back out of the water to let her rinse off her legs.

They stepped out of the shower and dried off and took turns at the sink brushing their teeth before retiring to the bedroom. Lorelai put on a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeved navy Yale t-shirt, that she'd undoubtedly stolen from Rory, before climbing into bed. Luke pulled on boxers and a t-shirt and slid in next to her. He rolled over to face her and noticed she looked a little green.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked, running a hand down her side.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I think just the incredibly hot water mixed with the residual paint fumes kinda made me nauseous, but I'll be okay." She said tilting her chin up and kissing him goodnight before turning over. Luke turned off the light and was asleep in minutes.

Two hours later, Lorelai was very much awake. She shifted, trying to get into a position that didn't send short jolts of pain through her body, but nothing seemed to work. Her head was pounding and she thought she could probably throw up until all of her internal organs were laying in a puddle at her feet. The sheets were all stuck to her legs, and arms thanks to the layer of sweat that coated her from head to toe. She pulled the sheets off her arms and wincing rolled over to face Luke. He was sound asleep and snoring softly, which she'd come to learn was a signifier that he was in a deep sleep. She didn't want to wake him up.

She managed to kick the sheets off her legs and swing them over the side of the bed to sit up and try to make it to the bathroom. The instant she swung her legs over the side of the bed she let out a loud groan that despite best efforts had slipped through her lips and echoed into the room. She put her elbows on her knees and rested her head on her hands. She took a shaky breath and let it out. Her head was spinning, the floorboards were engulfed in a whirlpool spinning quickly away from her feet. She squeezed her eyes shut and that only made it worse.

"Lorelai?" a groggy voice said behind her, and she felt the bed shift.

"I'm sorry, go back to sleep." She said meekly, her voice cracking twice. He sat up quickly, noting the pain and panic in her voice, the bed shook and her head and stomach reeled again.

Luke threw the covers off of his legs and quickly crossed around the bed and knelt in front of her.

"Baby what's wrong." He asked, putting the back of his hand to her forehead and resting the other one on her knee.

She was completely white. He'd never seen someone as pale as she was. She was burning up to the touch but her teeth were chattering in addition to the sweat that was pouring off of her. Her eyes were dull, and even the pigment to her lips seemed to have vanished.

"Here, lay back down." He said, trying to ease her back onto the bed. She cried out as she tried to lay back and so he helped her sit forward again. "What? What's wrong?" he asked, completely panic stricken.

"I can't, it hurts too much." She said, curling one arm around her middle.

He didn't know what to do. He was starting to panic, but knew he had to keep himself in check so that she didn't get even more upset than she already was. Tears were pouring down her face in addition to sweat. Instead of easing her straight back on the bed he helped her lay down on her side and she curled even further into the fetal position. He went in the bathroom and grabbed a washcloth and dampened it and returned to the bed to put it on her forehead. She whimpered slightly as he did and he smoothed out her hair and kissed her on the cheek and got up to go call someone to find out what to do.

She felt him get up off the bed and reached out blindly with one hand and grabbed his shirt and pulled him back to her, fumbling for his hand. He immediately returned and sat down next to her, squeezing her hand softly.

"Luke I don't know what's happening." She said, her voice wavering.

"Me either, but I'm going to go call somebody…okay?" he said running his hand over her hair.

"Okay." She said, sniffling as she cried. He got up and calmly walked out of the room and made sure he was clear of the bedroom before sprinting down the stairs two at a time and sliding along the hardwood in his socks and grabbing the phone. He realized as he hit the talk button that he had no idea who to call, so he grabbed the phone book and looked up the number for Hartford Memorial.

After two rings, a bored sounding receptionist picked up.

"Hey, I have no idea who I was supposed to call. My girlfriend is burning up, sweating, and can't straighten out to lay down, she can't move without pain shooting through her." He said quickly, realizing as he talked how dumb he sounded.

"Okay sir, take a deep breath. We're gonna go ahead and have you bring her in. What's her name so we can go ahead and put her on the list so you won't have to wait as long." The receptionist replied calmly.

"Gilmore, Lorelai Victoria Gilmore." He said quickly.

"Okay sir, we'll see you when you get here." She replied before hanging up.

He hung up the phone and ran back upstairs and then collected himself before going in the bedroom and putting clothes on. He pulled on the first pair of jeans he saw and a black t-shirt. He ran his hands through his hair and stuffed his feet in shoes before going over to her side of the bed. He pulled the covers he'd put over her away from her and checked to make sure what she had on was decent before sliding one arm under her knees and putting the other behind her head.

He stood up and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She was absolutely burning up. He carried her quickly but carefully downstairs and out the front door and out to the Jeep. He sat her in the passenger seat and reclined it back and she curled back up into the fetal position immediately. He closed the door and ran back inside to grab her purse and his phone as well as the keys. He locked the front door behind him and hurried out to the Jeep.

Twenty minutes later he pulled the car under the overhang of the Emergency Room and was scooping Lorelai out of the front seat and headed inside. He situated Lorelai in a chair and told the nurse who she was and that he'd be right back and not to do anything until he got back. He frantically ran outside and parked the car before coming back inside and sitting next to Lorelai, filling out the necessary paper work.

Okay this is easy, just breathe, she's going to be fine. Okay…name…Lorelai Victoria Gilmore…age…37…

Luke went through the paper work easily and fairly quickly until he got to the medications and medical history section. He gently shook Lorelai who had fallen asleep curled up in the chair next to him.

"Hey…I don't know some of this…" he said softly. She went to take the pen but he stopped her. "Just tell me."

"Um, medications…basic prenatal vitamins…allegra for allergies…medical history…tonsils out at age 6 and then Rory at 16. That's it." She said weakly. He finished up the paper work, citing Rory as her next of kin and himself as the emergency contact and turned the papers back into the nurse.

They sat in the waiting room for an hour before she was taken into triage, where the nurse deduced that she was very dehydrated and had a fever of 102.5. The nurse wheeled her back over to Luke in the wheel chair she'd been put in while in triage and Lorelai leaned forward against him. He felt her get heavy as she drifted off again, and dozed off himself for a few minutes before waking up to another nurse calling her name. He shook her awake gently and let the nurse know who she was.

Two hours later Lorelai was still laying in the bed in the emergency room, nothing had been done other than an IV to get fluids in her and her vitals had been taken. Luke was going out of his mind, he hated hospitals and he hated them even more when it was somebody he loved more than life itself sitting in front of him, even more helpless than he felt.

It took another hour and a half for a doctor to come in and check Lorelai out completely, from head to toe. He asked Luke to leave the room for a minute while he finished all the tests they needed to do, and when the doctor came out into the hallway he delivered a message to Luke that stopped his heart.

No.

Luke crumbled into a chair, with his head in his hands.