"So you know where you're going, right?"

"Jeez, Lorelai, for the eighteenth time, I know where I'm going. I'm not using the north star to guide me," he grumped.

They had been on the road since nine in the morning and now, two hours later, they were starting to realize how odd it was to be trapped in a car together for hours on end. Sure, they had been friends for a few years, but that friendship mostly took place in the diner or at Miss Patty's during town meetings. In fact, she couldn't think of a moment that she had been alone with Luke for this long in the entire three years of their relationship. It was an odd thing, being alone with this man, who normally came off as a character not unlike Scrooge, but now it seemed that there was more to him than that, possibly more than she could have imagined.

"Hey we should play the license plate game!" Lorelai exclaimed.

"The license plate game?" She gasped, her mouth dropping open.

"Oh my God, is it possible that you have never heard of the license plate game?" He shrugged. "Oh man, you have lived in a cave your entire life. I'm so glad I convinced you to get out a bit."

Luke sighed, adjusting himself in his seat. He didn't want to admit that it really was the first time he had gone on an actual vacation from Stars Hollow since his mother got sick. Telling her the influence she had on him would only give her leave to try to convince him to do more things that he wouldn't want to do. Not that he wouldn't do them for her. For Lorelai, he knew, there was little he wouldn't do.

"Tell me about this game."

She squealed with glee, clapping her hands together. "Oh this is going to be so much fun!"

"I'm getting more excited by the moment," he deadpanned.

She gasped again. "Dirty!" He rolled his eyes. She turned to face him, tucking her left leg under herself as she prepared to explain the rules. "Okay there are two versions but we're going to go with the cool people's version."

"Fantastic."

"You just go through the alphabet finding license plates that start with each other. Like… there! That's AMD, so A is done." Luke raised his eyebrows.

"And this is fun?"

"Or we could play the version where you have to say the capital of the state that's listed on the license plates. That's the version Rory likes, that little smartie of mine." Lorelai smiled to herself, shaking her head.

Luke glanced over at her to see that the smile had disappeared from her face and she was now playing with the bracelet on her wrist. Well if she needed to use this trip as a way to keep from missing Rory, he was all right with that. He could hope for nothing more than to be the one she can go to during rough times, but he will never stop wishing it could be more than that.

Looking back out the window, he watched some of the cars pass. "BDR," he said.

She glanced up at him, her eyes suddenly lit up. "See I knew you'd get into it!"

"I thought this was trip around the US, how did we end up in Canada?" Luke asked as he parked the truck and they both got out.

"We talked to the security guy and he said we didn't seem like mass murderers or drug smugglers so we drove on through."

"But you said we were traveling around the US."

She crossed her arms ever her chest and glared at him. "If you're going to act like a baby this whole trip, then fine, stay by the car. I'm going to go see the falls and actually enjoy myself." With a huff, she strutted across the road to the lookout point.

He watched as she folded her arms over the rail, staring out at the falls. Immediately he felt guilty. He had joined her on the trip to keep her mind off things and all he had done so far was give her more things to think about. Try as she may to be that bright optimistic woman he always knew, he saw it in her eyes, in the way she leaned against the rail like the weight of the world was on her shoulders, she was having trouble continuing to keep it in. All he could do is just be there, give her a chance, and maybe, just maybe, she'd allow herself to open up to him.

"This is nice," he said walking up behind her. She made a small happy grunt, that let him know that she appreciated his presence once again.

He stepped next to her, leaning over the rail again, also just staring at the falls.

"I picked the Canadian falls because they're so much grander. I mean look at those dinky little falls over there and then look at these beautiful ones right here. Seriously, I'm never making fun of Canadians again." He chuckled.

"Well they do have that going for them." She nodded, a serene look on her face.

"You know, I read this story a few years ago about this guy who went over the falls in a barrel," she said.

"A barrel?" He grunted. "Must have been a pretty big one."

She smirked and then shrugged. "Maybe. But then again, it's amazing what people will do if they really want to do something. I mean, they get all those guys in a clown car, don't they? And Warren Beatty, he was Hollywood's biggest playboy for years, and then he met Annette Benning and she said she'd marry him if and only if he was faithful. What is it, 6 years later, and they're still married, he's still faithful and they've got 3 kids. I guess that's what happens when you really want to do something."

"Huh," he grunted, completely caught up in the melody of her words.

"Hasn't there ever been something that you wanted so badly but you couldn't do it because you were too scared?" she asked, taking her eyes off of the falls and glancing over at him.

Only one thing came to his mind immediately: kissing Lorelai. He glanced away in case the flush of his cheeks or the expression on his face gave him away. "Nothing I can think of," he got out, leaning over the railing, pretending to stare down at the canyon before him.

Noticing a lack of response from Lorelai, he looked over at her. She was just staring off into the distance. "What about you?" he finally asked.

"I think I always hope that one day I can go back to my parents's place and fix things between us, apologize for just leaving, apologize for being the daughter they got rather than the daughter they deserved, and finally, just finally, get them to see my point of view."

"I can't imagine that they wouldn't want that either."

"You've never met my mother."

"Hey," he said, lightly touching her arm. "You want to get a closer look?" She glanced over at him and gave him a relieved smile.

He was amazed how proud he felt of himself at this moment. Like he had just jumped the high bar and won the gold medal. But if that's what it took to get Lorelai Gilmore to look at him this way, he'd walk miles and miles under the falls.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the hike through the falls during which Lorelai spent much time harassing Luke about the lovely yellow raingear he was forced to wear. After that they bought a trip on the Maid of the Mist, changed into new raingear, blue this time, and took a trip down the Niagara River and into basin of the falls. Luke couldn't help but take his eyes off the falls and watch Lorelai as she leaned over the rail, her mouth open as she laughed, taking in the amazing scenery around her. It was a nice change from the solemn Lorelai he had been met with when they first parked at the site. She was so different that he wondered if he had just imagined the somber tones in her voice and the slight downturn to the corners of her mouth. But she was here, she was next to him, she was smiling and pulling on his arm and drinking in the electric atmosphere, and maybe that's all that mattered.

She had been so excited about the first day of their trip that she made him take another walk through the falls but this time at night. Somewhat surprising to her had been his eagerness to join her on the late night walk. Had she scared him when she crabbed at him back in the parking lot? Had she worried him that much with her solemn question by the railing? Whatever had happened, she was personally glad it had, it was amazing to her how much more she appreciated the view of the falls and the wonder of it all with Luke by her side, mocking the tour guides and teasing her about her fascination with the sound of the water hitting the bottom. He was almost a comfort. Strange how she had never really realized what a luxury her friendship with Luke was and she fears that if something were to ever change, she might lose this amazing relationship, the only one to sustain her when Rory was gone.

"So… music?" Lorelai asked, as they drove along two days later.

After leaving the falls, they had found the cheapest motel around and had crashed shortly after entering their respective rooms. In the morning, Lorelai had eagerly bounced into Luke's room after he opened the door, ready to get back the United States and continue their journey. He slowly got himself together, threw both of their suitcases in the truck and found a Tim Hortons for coffee for the caffeine-deprived Lorelai. From there, they headed back to the US and decided to head towards Blue Ridge Parkway. By the previous night, they had reached the parkway and were now making their way down from New York to North Carolina in between the mountains.

"Better than your incessant chattering."

"Hey, I've been told that I'm a witty conversationalist."

"By who, the Golden Girls?" She groaned in response and reached to tinker with the radio.

After a few minutes of flipping through stations and finding nothing more than fuzz and some of the worst country music she had ever heard, she flicked off the radio and sighed.

"Something wrong?" Luke asked. She pouted.

"You don't have a CD player and the radio stations in Appalachia suck."

"I told you to bring tapes."

Suddenly her face lit up. She leaned in the back and grabbed a bag, settling it in her lap. "You know, I forgot that you lived in the land before time when there was no such thing as CDs." She fishes around in the bag before selecting a tape and putting it in.

"If that's some annoying 80s band, I'm turning it off."

"Guess what, Buddy? You don't have a CD player, you don't get to pick. Besides it's not an 80s band, it's ABBA," she said just as the music clicked on.

He glanced over to watch as she leaned her elbow out the window, laying back and setting her shoeless feet on the dashboard, the glitter of her nail polish sparkling in the sun. She seemed so relaxed to him, the expression on her face so serene that he hesitated to tell her that ABBA wasn't a better choice. As he glanced between the road and Lorelai, he finally noticed that she was mouthing the lyrics to Dancing Queen. You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen. Her toes danced on the dashboard to the beat as the music seemed to electrify the air and he slowly understood what the song was really about. It was about her, Lorelai. She was the beautiful dancing queen at seventeen, the one that no man could take his eyes off of, who could break a man's heart without a clue.

Yes there was something fragile about her, like a baby bird with a broken wing, beautiful and innocent with a vulnerability few could see. Somehow he felt it was there, whether or not she had actually allowed him to see it. He wasn't sure how to get her to open up, to let him know what was inside, but he hoped that eventually he would figure that out.

Late that night, Lorelai unlocked the door to her hotel room, setting her suitcase on the ground inside. It had been a nice drive through the mountains. The scenery had been so exquisite, nothing she had ever experienced before, and she felt on the drive, listening the jivy 70s music, she had achieved a sense of peace with the turn her life was taking.

Rory was about to head off to high school and before she knew it, she'd be driving Rory to Harvard, never to see her for months at a time. Then she'd have no one.

Christopher would still be in California, involved in another losing business adventure. In the end she wasn't sure if she wasn't just happy that he stayed out there, visits from him always seemed to complicate her life more than improve it.

Her parents would still be on the same rough terms with her as always.

She'd have no one to turn to, just as she has no one there for her now… but Luke. After everything, after her years of calling him Duke and harassing him about his wardrobe, three years of being his patron, he was still there. In fact he was more than there, he was here. For some strange reason, she felt her heart warm and relax with that thought.

Suddenly she felt unbelievably tired, looking at the clock she knew why, it was almost midnight. But, she realized, that meant it was nine o'clock in California. In an instant she was on the edge of the bed dialing the familiar number.

"Hello?" came Rory's soft voice over the phone. Lorelai settled herself back against the headboard, ready for a needed chat with her daughter.

"Hey Sweets, it's me."

"Me, who?"

"Oh Shakey, you kill me." Rory giggled. "So how's life with father?"

"It's good so far. He's just been walking me around, showing me the sites. Although he did ask if I wanted to go to the zoo tomorrow like I was eight."

Lorelai can't contain her laughter at that one. She knows that Christopher will never see Rory as anything but that little girl that Lorelai sent pictures of twice a year. Though she'd love for him to finally grow up and understand that his daughter needs him in her life, she wonders if that's even possible anymore with Chris now age 30 and Rory now age 14. Maybe this trip was a start, but Lorelai didn't feel so sure about that.

"Well that's Chris for ya."

"How's the trip with Luke? Both of you still alive? I don't hear sirens over the line so I'm guessing this isn't your one phone call from jail."

"You're hilarious, Rory. I forgot you were so funny. Actually, Luke and I are getting along just fine. We went to Niagara Falls and I convinced him to wear one of those giant blue raincoats so we could walk under the falls."

"I'm picturing this, I swear. Did they make him take off the baseball cap?"

"Heaven forbid!"

Since the first day she and Rory had sat down and had a cup of coffee in the diner and noticed Luke's unusual wardrobe, this had become a common thing for them. They often spent time joking about his clothes and his disgruntled attitude, even when he was around. Yet something about having the conversation now, while Rory's in California with her father, jarred Lorelai. Maybe it was the fact that Rory seemed so at ease with Luke from the start, which had never shocked Lorelai before, but maybe it should have. She wondered why it was suddenly so odd that Rory had taken such an interest in a man who did little but serve meals to them. Maybe because Lorelai was just starting to realize that he actually did much more than that for them.

"So what else did you do?" Rory asked, more than a little fascinated by the trip her mother was taking.

"Today we took a drive down the blue ridge parkway."

"Oh cool! See any mountain men?"

"Only the one sitting next to me in the driver's seat." She could clearly hear Rory scoff over the phone. "And then we just drove to this hotel to crash."

"In the same room?"

"What? No… Rory!"

"Well… you took this trip together, just the two of you, and Luke so definitely has a thing for you."

"No, Rory, he doesn't. Where would you get an insane idea like that?"

Before the words were out of her mouth, Lorelai was already questioning it. Had her daughter noticed something that she had never realized? But she never got along with Luke, she drove him crazy by calling him nicknames and eating junk food. Through her thoughts she could hear Rory's incessant chatter. "And he makes you special breakfasts even when you harass him for it. And he came on this trip with you which is a total conflict to his whole woodsman existence…" As Rory kept going on, Lorelai considered her daughter's words. She still hadn't been able to figure out why he had gone on this trip. Could Rory be right? If Rory was right, did that give her any idea why she had agreed as well?

All she could think was that, right now, as she was talking to Rory, he was in the next room. Probably laid out on his bed completely passed out.

"Hey Rory, not to interrupt or anything, but do you remember the first episode of X-files?"

"Is it kinda like that?"

"Yeah, it's kinda like that."

"Well don't run naked into his room, or at least, don't tell me if you do. You know, you do realize that Mulder and Scully had feelings for each other then."

"Depends on what you believe."

"Well I was a big shipper if you remember." Lorelai cracks up.

"I can't believe you just used the word shipper."