As she reaches the front door to the diner, she sees Luke sitting at the counter, no doubt contemplating his conversation with Rory. It's now or never Lorelai, you need to go in there…you love him. She pauses as her hand reaches out for the door. Here goes.
He looks up and meets her eyes with a questioning look.
"Hey."
"Hi, I saw you leaving my place and…I needed to come talk to you."
They sit awkwardly, almost as if they had never had a successful conversation in their entire lives. It's Luke who finally breaks the silence, "I lost you… I screwed up. I want you back, Lorelai."
"You have always had me, Luke. Even without a ring on my finger, you have always had me," she says flashing the velvet box in his direction with the mention of the ring.
"No, I mean, I want you back."
He has noticed.
"After you left, I sat there, letting myself be pitiful, thinking about what could have been, and then I realized that this was a lot my fault, and I needed to be the one to fix it. I can't believe that I didn't notice everything that was going on with you and with us. You were right, I've been completely out of it because of this whole April thing."
"Luke, it's okay, you were stressing, and you were thinking about other-"
"No! Lorelai, You NEVER let anyone get away with crap, including me, so don't start now. I screwed up, and I know it."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Yes."
"Will you be honest with me, and not get mad?"
"Always."
"Why didn't you want me to meet April? Why couldn't you tell me about it?"
"When you found out, I told you that I freaked out and then realized that you just got Rory back, so you didn't want to have to deal with all that extra baggage."
"I didn't?" she says with an amused grin on her face.
"Well, I thought that you didn't. It just became easier to not tell you about it, and then you found out. As for meeting her…I didn't think that you wanted to meet her, and I didn't know how she would react to it either. I mean I told her about you and she didn't really say anything about it, so I kept quiet about it and then just thought that you were okay with it."
"Yeah…well…"
"I know." he says, grabbing her hand in his, and letting his eyes lower to the ground.
He's completely beating himself up over this. He's not the only one who screwed up.
"Luke, you can't be this upset with yourself… yeah, you might have messed up, but you couldn't have known cause I wasn't talking to you about it. It's partly my fault because I wouldn't even step on the idea."
"I should have automatically involved you though. We can't have these huge blowouts because of our lack of communication. Why can't we just talk to each other!"
"Because we love each other."
He turns away from her, dropping her hand as he starts to pace. "Yeah, that's how love is supposed to work."
Well, I think it is, but hey, you're the first person aside from my daughter, who I'm partial to since she was inside me for nine freaking months, that I have loved. They say that love is work. Maybe it's true.
"We were both so concerned that our news was going to upset the other person, so we didn't want to hurt them by talking to them about it."
"It wouldn't have hurt me to know you were pregnant, Lorelai."
"I know, and I planned on telling you Luke…I had it all planned out, but…it…"
FLASHY
I can't believe that I'm doing this. Not twenty minutes ago, I was sitting in my doctor's office having a massive freak attack, and now I'm standing in front of a store filled with pink, blue, duckies, teddy bears, and strollers.
She walks into the store, allowing herself to drift over towards the boys section. Showing her enthusiasm for the possibility of getting a little boy this time. Luke would be thrilled if we had a boy. Well…I don't know if Luke will be thrilled period, but if it was a boy, I think he might show some excitement. Oh, Flannel!
She drifts over to a little rack of plaid shirts, picking one up. With this in her hand, she quickly finds herself in search of baby baseball caps. I know how to tell Luke about the baby. I could have the outfit there and see what he thinks of it…he'll hate it, but it'll be a conversation piece. Oh, hats!
Finally settling on a red baseball hat, she takes her purchases up to the front registers, with a smile on her face.
"Are you the mommy to be?" the cashier asks in response to the glowing smile now plastered on Lorelai's face.
"I guess so, I just found out today."
"Well, let me be one of the first to say congratulations!"
"Thank you very much."
"So…" holding up the plaid shirt and baseball cap after ringing them up, "you're shopping early?"
"Well, it's part of my plan to tell my fiancé, cause I'm thinking that he's smart enough to see the clothes and catch on, so that I won't have to actually formulate the words."
"Worried that he's gonna freak and run?"
Well…not until you mentioned it. Wait, no, Luke would never do that. He would always be that amazing guy that sticks through the worst of things.
"Actually, no…not at all…"
"That's nice."
"Yeah."
She hands the girl payment for her small items and picks up the bag, heading towards the door. So, when do I tell Luke about his little offspring down there? She thinks while she walks through the mall with a hand on her stomach and a baby clothing bag hanging on her arm.
END FLASHY
Funny…that was about two days before I found out about April.
"Lorelai?"
"huh?" she asks, snapping out of her stroll down memory lane. "Oh, I just wanted it all to be perfect and I had just found out about April, so things were a bit tense with the two of us. I didn't want to come out and say it then."
"I wish that…"
She interrupts him by standing up and pulling on his arm to lead him upstairs.
"Lorelai?"
Still dragging him up the stairs, she stops when she reaches the front door. "How many times have you been in this apartment since our engagement?"
"Well…in the last month or so, a lot more, but not really that much, why?"
She moves away from him, going into the "second bedroom" as he referred to it, because it had a second bed for Jess or whoever needed it. When she comes back, she has a small bag in her hand, and hands it to him.
"What is this?"
"Even though it's too late, this is me telling you." I only wish that this could be a happy moment for the two of us.
"What is it though?"
"Open it Luke, please?" she asks him, nearly pleading with him to open the bag.
As he slowly opens up the bag, she sees his eyes soften at what he encounters there, but she looks quickly down so their eyes won't meet.
"I was going to make it a bit more special than that, but I was essentially going to do this…give you the clothes and have you figure it all out on your own."
He picks the shirt out of the bag, allowing the bag and cap to fall to the floor without a thought. He's examining the shirt when he hears her sniffle. Looking up, he sees the tears falling from her eyes.
"Knowing me I probably wouldn't have gotten it, but I would have loved this." he says, carefully, knowing that she was already upset.
God, I wanted this so badly. I wanted him, I wanted a family, I wanted the whole stupid thing, and now look at us.
"Yeah…well…" she says, hugging her stomach.
He senses what is going through her head and calls her to him, with his arms outstretched. She instantly lays her head on his shoulder and sobs.
"I'm sorry Luke, I'm so sorry for not telling you."
"You have nothing to be sorry about…I just…I wish that I could have been there."
"That morning when I drove to the hospital, I was so scared. Then, when they finally told me that I lost the baby, I was so upset, but I couldn't even cry, because I let myself think that I didn't want it and that you didn't want it. And now…I just…I wanted it, and I wanted you there with me…"
"It's okay…you're okay now."
Straightening up, and pulling away from his embrace, she quickly wipes at her tears. "Well, what about us? Are we okay?" she asks.
"We're going to be okay."
"Luke…"
"Lorelai, I want to marry you. I want to marry you, and I hope to God that you are going to say that you want the same thing. I know that I love you, and I know that this can work out."
Is this still what I really want?
So... yeah, that's that one. It's a short one. I'm hoping that you're enjoying this fic. I might try to work on updating my other ones to. I hate it when people wait forever to update fics, and then I realized one day that I was one of those people that I hate... so I apologize for any of you that are reading all of my stuff. Let me know what you're thinking!
