Did you know how you would move me, did you know?
Did you know how you would move me?
well, I don't even think so.
but the moment's magic swept us away.
and it's so close, but we're so far away.
It's so close, but we're so far away.

We're So Far Away

"Christopher?"

She saw the look in his face and that is when she felt the tears threatening to fall. But they didn't, she wouldn't let them.

"I slept with him." And there it was, out in the open. And she waited for the fallout.

"What? When?"

"Last night, after we fought I went to his place, to talk and… it happened."

"It happened? It just happened? You went there; you went there to sleep with him."

"No, no I didn't. I went there to talk. I needed a friend. I didn't find one."

"What? Lorelai, did he…?" His voice softened in worry as he said this.

"No. But he didn't stop things, and he had to have known that wasn't what I wanted."

"Sure, because past behavior says you don't sleep with him at inappropriate times, like say when you're engaged to someone else."

"We broke up. I said 'now or never', you said never."

"No I didn't. And as for being broken up, look at your damn hand Lorelai, you are still wearing MY ring." He walked out the door then, she didn't follow.


Ten minutes later she was upstairs, in the shower. The water was warm, too warm, near scalding.

Tears were streaming down her face, uninhibited. Her face was contorted in sadness and self-loathing. The loofah in her hands being scrubbed roughly against her skin. In some areas, where she had scrubbed too hard, there were scratches and small droplets of blood.

As hard as she tried, she couldn't rid herself of the dirty feeling. She scrubbed and cried and screamed in frustration. She wanted it gone. She wanted the feeling of him touching her to go away, she wanted to remember what Luke's touch felt like. It hadn't been that long ago for them, a week maybe, but the memories were foggy now. The feelings wiped away by ten minutes of stupidity.

When she finally got out of the shower, she wrapped herself in her robe and lay down on her bed. Turning onto her stomach she began to sob again. She stifled the sounds with a pillow, until breathing became too hard and she began hitting and kicking at the pillow, the bed, and her own body. She screamed out, not caring if her nosy neighbors heard her.

This continued until she was too tired, sore, and hoarse to continue and passed out.


A week went by; she had heard nothing from Luke. She knew she wouldn't but she had hoped that maybe, maybe.

Her days consisted of going to the Dragonfly, coming home, heating up an abysmal TV dinner or some tater tots, and then going to her room to cry herself to sleep.

It was a phone call six days into her misery that made her finally see a light at the end of the very dark tunnel.

It was her mother.

Emily had heard of her split from Luke after a phone call to Rory, worried because Lorelai hadn't answered her phone in five days. Rory had even told her grandmother of what had happened with Christopher, an event that angered and upset the young woman to no end. Surprisingly to Lorelai, Emily did not reproach her for her actions, neither did she gloat at the fact that she had dumped Luke and found her way back to Christopher's bed.

Lorelai felt that the worry in her mother's voice was genuine, so when the elder Gilmore told Lorelai of a small apartment that she and Richard time-shared in Italy she was intrigued.

Emily thought that perhaps a few weeks, a couple of months maybe away from things would help her daughter. When Lorelai, surprisingly to Emily, agreed and said she would appreciate that, plans began to be made. In two days time she would be on a plane to a town on the Amalfi coast, where sun shine and endless beaches awaited her.


Saturday evening, as she was packing, Lorelai heard a knock at her door.

She went downstairs and opened it, Luke's pale defeated face staring at her when she did.

He didn't say a word, just came inside and into the living room. He sat on the couch and she stared at him from the archway, confused.

"They said- Patty and Babette, they said that you're leaving. You don't have to leave. I'll leave. I said I would. You shouldn't have to go if you can't be around me anymore."

She sighed and walked into the room, sitting down on the couch as far from him as she could.

"I'm not leaving. I mean I AM leaving, but I'm not moving. I'm taking a vacation. My parents, they have a place, it's in Italy. They think it'd be good for me. Who am I to argue with sun-soaked beaches?"

"Oh. So, you're NOT moving? It's just a vacation? One week, two? Then, you're back?" His voice was hopeful at that.

"No, maybe a month, maybe more."

"A month? More?"

"Yeah, just some time. Just, away. Sookie and Michel are okay with it. Michel was surprising, but I think Sookie threatened to serve him nothing but 2 milk and non-lean meat."

"Oh, I see." He started to get up and leave but then quickly say back down.

"Here's the thing, I love you. That should be enough right? It should be enough for us to be together. But somehow it's not because you slept with Christopher and that hurt me. But I want it to be enough."

"I do too. God, Luke. Did you know my parents were going to buy us a house?" His eyebrows jumped up at this. "No of course you didn't, I didn't tell you. They were, it's in Beacon Falls, but we could have 'greased' Taylor's pockets and moved Stars Hollow's town lines, it's THAT close. And it was perfect. I know I didn't want to move into the Twickham house but this house, this house was PERFECT, perfect for us anyhow. It was cozy, just like this place. But it had five bedrooms. Rory and April could have had their own rooms, and you and me, and the baby… if we had a baby. And we would have had a baby. A little boy and he would have been so much like you. There's a fishing pond on the property and when I saw it, I could see you, you and our son, out there on lazy Sunday's in the summer fishing together. And there were horse barns. I love horses. It was perfect." Somewhere in the middle of telling him about the house she began to cry, not blubbering but soft tears dampening her cheeks. "I wanted that, I really wanted that."

"Lorelai?" She looked at him, with a tear-stained face and shiny eyes. "I want that."

"What?"

"I want that, all of that. I still want it. I still want you. We both screwed up. And I'm still angry and upset about Christopher but, we can fix this. If it's still what you want, we can fix this."

"It is what I want Luke, I still want it too. But how?"

"You need to leave."

"Huh?" She'd never been so confused in her life.

"You need to leave. We need some time apart. I need to figure out where I went wrong and fix that and you need to think about what you need and what you need to do. So, I think that you should go, go to Italy or wherever and think and I'll stay here and I'll think. Then you'll come back, in a month, in two, whenever and we'll fix us." They both became silent then. He stared at her, hopeful. She stared right back, blankly. He couldn't figure out what she was thinking and mentally catalogued that as something he needed to fix, he was supposed to know her damnit.

"Okay. I'll go. And we'll think. And then we'll fix it."

"Okay." And he shook his head with a final affirmation and got up, walking towards the door. She stayed on the couch watching him walk away.

"Hey Luke," He turned and looked at her, "before I go, you have to know. No matter what happened or what will happen, you're the only man I've ever loved." He gave her a small sad smile and a nod, then left.

She sunk back into the couch and for the first time since the last time they talked, she didn't feel the urge to cry.


By Sunday morning, she was out of Stars Hollow and on a plane headed far away from home, from Luke but a lot more hopeful than she had been twenty-four hours before.