Please note: I'm begging anyone who leaves a review to NOT mention anything about Season 7 on TV. Absolutely no references to it at all please!!! I'm not boycotting it, I'm just temporarily in a TV market not carrying the CW. All the episodes are being taped for me, don't worry, I just don't want to be spoiled at all about anything until I can watch the tapes. This includes everything from the premiere onward, not just spoilers for future episodes. So, again, please, please, please, don't mention anything about Season 7 at all in reviews.
Chapter 5: Overtime
Lorelai had been right – the night was practically endless. Hours upon hours spent trying to reconcile her newfound feelings with the knowledge that there was no way she could act on them. In the end, the only conclusions she arrived at were, one, she was losing it, two, she really just needed to go home and wallow on the couch with some Haagen Daz or Ben and Jerry's, and three, that the crossing of the country that had to occur in order for her to get home in the first place was going to be exceedingly awkward and uncomfortable with Luke in close proximity the entire time.
So in the interest of keeping him at arm's length as long as she possibly could, and because she wasn't getting any sleep anyway, she rose from bed earlier than she needed to,– hey, at least the wall didn't get the best of her this time – quickly showered and dressed, and then grabbed her luggage and made a break for the lobby as quietly as she could.
Unfortunately, in yet another testament to her perpetually horrible timing with respect to absolutely everything in life, she'd arrived downstairs just in time to catch a whiff of exhaust fumes from the airport shuttle. Which meant she had to putz around the lobby for another half an hour while she waited for the next one.
And even more unfortunately, that extra half hour was enough time for Luke to catch up to her. Apparently she must not have been quite as quiet as she'd needed to be, and had probably woken him as she made her departure from the room. Lorelai had already situated herself in her seat at the back of the van and was contemplating asking for a seat far, far away from Luke on the plane, when, half a second before the shuttle's door closed, there he was sliding into the last empty seat towards the front.
He turned an gave her a quizzical look, silently imploring her for some sort of explanation as to her odd behavior, but Lorelai knew there was no way in hell she was going to be able to come up with enough inane babble to talk her way around her antics. She just looked away.
Once they reached the airport and exited the shuttle, though he remained silent, Lorelai could feel Luke's questioning gaze boring into her. She deftly evaded any forthcoming confrontations by quickly snatching up her bag from the sidewalk and making a break for the ticket counter, all the while doing her best to avoid any and all eye contact with him.
But of course there was no completely avoiding him. She practically whimpered aloud when she heard his footsteps right behind her and saw his passport slapped down on the counter right next to her. It was going to be a long flight…
If the flight attendant behind the counter noticed the odd dynamic between them, she didn't comment, rather kept her cheerful smile as she scanned their passports and began the preparations for the ticketing. All too aware of Luke's unsettling presence as he hovered just behind her, Lorelai silently urged the woman to hurry up.
"Well, it looks like there is some pretty severe weather along the Ohio River Valley and across the Northeast today," the woman at the counter finally chirped, clacking away on her keyboard. "I don't want to get you stuck in that, so I'm just going to check some other flights to see if we can't keep you south of all that for most of the trip. Is that okay?" she asked Luke and Lorelai.
Lorelai wasn't exactly prepared for such news, and instinctively whipped her head around to consult with Luke. Luke, however, was already in the process of hurriedly replying "That's fine," as she did so. He turned back just in time to meet Lorelai's eyes as she turned to him. The questions in his eyes were evident immediately; Lorelai flushed nervously and quickly lowered her gaze. To his credit, Luke didn't make a move toward any verbal inquiries, but he was still there.
After a few more rather uncomfortable moments in which Lorelai tried in vain to ignore Luke's presence, oh-so close behind her, the airline representative finally addressed them again. "Ok, we can get you on an American Airlines flight through Dallas, and then up to Hartford from there," she informed them. "You should be ok as long as things aren't too bad right as you're about to come in for landing at Bradley. Unfortunately, the Dallas flight is quite full and we don't have two seats together for you. Once you get to the gate, you can try speaking to the flight attendant there and try to arrange a switch if you'd like."
"Separate is fine," Lorelai blurted out immediately, her gut instinct to keep Luke at a distance reigning over any semblance of tact. She could practically feel Luke's inquisitive gaze boring into the side of her head as she nodded at the woman over the counter.
Giving Luke a slight double take, the woman refocused on Lorelai, forcing yet another bright smile. "Ok then, just give me one moment here…"
As boarding passes were printed, and Lorelai's bag tagged and sent off into the checked luggage abyss, Lorelai was sure she heard the faintest of pointed whispers of her name coming from Luke. Well, not faint, per se, but that would certainly be her stance should he call her out for blatantly ignoring her as they stood there.
As soon as they had their boarding passes and were out of earshot of the counter, Lorelai found herself with Luke hissing at her over her shoulder, the restraint he'd previously showed apparently fading, "What the hell was that?"
"Uh, what?" was Lorelai's innocent reply.
"Separate seats?" Luke demanded incredulously.
She gave a halfhearted shrug as she darted ahead of him towards the escalator. "What?" she asked, feigning ignorance.
Lorelai didn't have to turn around to know exactly the confused look Luke was sporting as he pressed further, "What is wrong with you?"
And to be honest, though she didn't see that confused face, it annoyed her nonetheless. "Nothing," she snapped. Like he didn't know what was wrong. Even ignoring the fact that she'd been in the midst of a little emotional crisis already when he'd kissed her, he'd still kissed her! She'd have flipped out anyway, whether that woman had planted ideas in her head or not. The more Lorelai dwelled on Luke's seemingly clueless behavior, the more she silently seethed. Was he really that dense that he couldn't figure out that that was what was going on here? And who was he to be accusing her of acting oddly when he was the one to cross that line that they'd always had? Sure, she'd been leaps and bounds past it in her head, but she never would have acted on it!
What had started out as a determined stride rooted in Lorelai's desire to keep Luke at a safe distance quickly evolved into her practically stomping across the airport. How dare he mess with her already-tortured mind and then have the nerve to say she was acting strange? Screw him…
As she neared the security area, Luke finally caught up to her, muttering in what sounded suspiciously like a joking tone intent on smoothing over the awkwardness, "You planning on ditching Rory all the time like that in Europe? I think that's child abandonment."
Lorelai, however, was hardly in the mood for jokes. "Oh look, hey, scary federal agents," she snapped tersely, "Just get in line."
As luck would have it, the security guards ushered Luke to a line a few rows over from Lorelai. And glad as she was to get him out of her immediate vicinity even for a moment, she could still feel his questioning eyes on her the whole time. Which just irked her even more, until she reached the point when she was half-wondering if she'd be able to make it through the flight without trying to throttle Luke at every word her said. The clueless inquiries were really getting to her. She almost wished she was still in awkward, embarrassed, jumpy mode from the night before. At least then, Luke had been too wrapped up in the stupid hockey game to notice anything wrong with her.
Of course, because she wasn't miserable enough already, the fates intervened to reinstate some of that embarrassed awkwardness. The security guard at the x-ray conveyor belt wasn't up to speed on his Fashion 101, and, convinced that Lorelai's blazer was outerwear, made her remove it and place it in the plastic tub alongside her actual jacket. Swell. Because, as she immediately noticed, sliding the fabric off her shoulders to reveal the flimsy tank top she'd worn underneath, in her hurried frenzy to leave the hotel room that morning, she hadn't exactly matched up the undergarments with the outfit. The bright purple bra she'd packed for under the casual violet-ish lavender-ish top she'd worn to the game the night before was in no way at all the thing to be wearing under a pale blue, halter-style tank. Shit…
The shirt itself was enough to make her uncomfortable in the crowd – trying to be trendy and 'Cool Mom' with the outfits was one thing, but she knew that for the time being she looked like she was trying way too hard to look Rory's age. Add to that bright purple satin-y flashes sticking out here at there, and Lorelai's face flushed bright red as she scurried through the metal detector. And why the hell was she in a relatively short-hair phase? Lorelai cursed her hairdresser inwardly – she totally could have used an extra few inches for coverage.
And of course, as if it wasn't bad enough to have the eyes of every guy in a 10-foot radius giving her a once-over, Luke, a couple of lines over from her, had made it through the metal detector as well. His blatant stare, which only a moment or two ago, had just been making Lorelai angry, was now making her feel utterly naked there in front of him. It was no longer just a 'why-the-hell-are-you-acting-bizarrely' stare. Oh no, the way Luke had his eyes on her was… Well, she couldn't quite place it exactly, but as best as she could figure, it was some twisted amalgamation of the 'you're-annoying-the-hell-out-of-me' from a few moments ago, some generic 'male-ogling-female-with-bra-showing-because-he-has-a-y-chromosome-and-can't-not-look,' and something else. Something else…
Unfortunately, Lorelai never did get to figure out that something else. The next thing she knew, Luke's eyes darted up, inadvertently making eye contact with her. Before she could catch a glimpse of the red that tinged the tops of Luke's ears, Lorelai tore her eyes away from him, blushing furiously herself. The plastic trays holding her belongings clattered to a stop in front of her with impeccable timing, and before Luke, still in his own line a few feet away could even react, she was yanking her jacket back on and racing off to their gate.
By the time poor Luke caught up to her, his expression was most certainly squarely back in the 'you're-insane' category. But at that moment, Lorelai could not have cared less. Lack of sleep, lack of caffeine, anger, embarrassment, and the persistence of inappropriate Luke-thoughts came together to form Hurricane Lorelai; mumbling something incoherent about the bathroom to him, she practically shoved Luke into a seat at the gate and dumped her carry-on junk on his lap.
And until Lorelai heard their flight being called to board, hide in the bathroom was exactly what she did. Given the multi-stage meltdown she'd been going through since the night before, she simply could not wrap her frazzled mind around the concept of being anywhere in Luke's general vicinity for more than five seconds at a time. As much as she really didn't want to have to take a detour to get home, she was thanking the weather gods for diverting them through Texas on a flight with only single seats. Maybe, just maybe, she let herself believe, with Luke half a plane away, she could get some mental distance from the situation in addition to the physical.
Which was why she looked on in horror as, once they were on the plane, Luke casually slung his jacket into the overhead bin above her seat instead of continuing further down the aisle. "What are you doing?" she stuttered nervously.
A question with such an obvious answer did nothing to lessen the wary expression with which Luke was still eyeing Lorelai. "Sitting," he replied, lifting a single eyebrow slightly.
"We had separate seats," Lorelai blurted out immediately in protest. Not that it mattered; even as she spoke, Luke was situating himself in the aisle seat of the pair. Her instincts screaming at her that physical contact with Luke of any sort would be a bad, bad idea, she practically plastered herself to the window, contorting her body such that she remained as far as humanly possible from him, given the teeny, tiny space she was working with. Of course, this all while trying not to bang her head on the ceiling in an encore of her 'Nighttime Adventures with a Wall.'
Buckling his seat belt, Luke looked on in amusement at her antics. "I had mine changed while you were in the 'bathroom,'" he explained, air quotes not even necessary to convey his skepticism of the necessity of Lorelai's trip to the ladies' room.
Lorelai's shoulders sagged in resignation. "Oh," she mumbled. She lowered herself shakily to sit in her seat, thought still managing to take care to keep as far from Luke as the seating arrangement would allow.
To elicited the expected response from Luke: "Are you going to sit like that the whole time?"
"Huh?" Lorelai blinked absently at him, still focused more on not touching him rather than what he was saying.
"You are as far away from me as you can possibly get," Luke pointed out, only slightly accusingly. "These seats aren't exactly big either," he added, gesturing down.
Her normally timely wit failing her, Lorelai resorted to the same flimsy excuse she'd offered the woman who'd started the whole debacle, "Well thank God for fast metabolisms then." And needing any sort of out she could get, she quickly added a muttered, "I'm tired," as she balled up one of the flimsy airline blankets to use as a pillow.
Coupled with the fact she'd barely slept the night before, she was actually so intent on feigning sleep in order to avoid further conversation with Luke that she eventually did fall asleep.
She may have slept for the duration of the flight, but once they landed in Dallas, Lorelai was off the plane in record time. If she could have gotten away with it, she would have pushed it even further and tried climbing over seats just to put some semblance of space between her and Luke. After that plane ride, she was feeling that she was liable to spontaneously combust at any given moment.
After racing up the hallway to the terminal and determining that their next flight would be leaving from a gate only one over from where they'd arrived, Lorelai quickly surveyed her surroundings. Darting over to the new gate, she pulled a repeat performance – if it worked in LA, it could work in Texas. Without a word, she shoved her belongings into Luke's arms and turned to make her escape.
She didn't have quite enough stuff to prevent Luke from managing to free one hand to hastily grab her arm. "Where are you going?" he demanded incredulously.
Lorelai offered a weak smile, wresting herself from his grasp. "Bathroom?"
Luke just rolled his eyes, the undertone of skepticism not lost on Lorelai. "You realize we have almost three hours before we have to board again," he pointed out. "You take that long in there," he warned, gesturing to the nearest bathroom with a tilt of his head, "I'm coming in after you."
Foiled again, Lorelai winced inwardly. Fishing for any sort of excuse, she quickly yanked her purse out of Luke's arms. "I have to get Texas souvenirs too," she lied awkwardly, "For Rory…" And already taking off, she called behind her, "I'll be back."
Precisely two and a half hours later, right on time – a feat Lorelai for which congratulated herself, Lorelai cautiously approached Luke, not knowing what exactly his reaction might be after she'd ditched him.
She wasn't quite prepared to find him with smoke practically coming out of his ears. The minute Lorelai made her presence known, Luke whirled around with an enraged "Where the hell were you?"
"Souvenirs…" Lorelai began, holding up a 'Don't Mess With Texas' bumper sticker as proof as she trailed off. Luke just glared at her, leaving her to wonder if perhaps there wasn't something in the water in LA that had caused them both to go a little off their rockers.
Thankfully Luke's anger faded quickly. Regarding her with considerably less animosity than a moment ago, Luke just let out an exasperated sigh. "I was about to have you paged," he chastised.
"I'm here," Lorelai pointed out petulantly in her own defense, not particularly fond of the high-and-mighty air Luke's last statement had had. She surprised herself with the lack of awkwardness that came with her retort – hey, who knew that arguing could take your mind off the fact that you hadn't been comfortable around the guy for almost a full day? "Half an hour before take-off," she added huffily, yanking her boarding pass from her purse and flashing it in front of Luke's face, "That's what it says."
Luke, obviously neither a fan of waiting around for her nor the tone that she'd just taken, eyed her with a withering stare. "We're not taking off," he snapped.
Lorelai felt her jaw go slack before she managed to force out some semblance of a stuttered, "Wh-what?" She hadn't been in the mood for jokes at any point since the stupid game, so Luke was tempting fate if this was some kind of joke to mess with her head even further.
"With the storms, hardly anything is landing in the Northeast," Luke explained flatly. "Things are flooded, there were a couple tornadoes up past Albany, and more coming in from out near Buffalo and Pittsburgh. There's storm warnings and tornado watches all over the Berkshires and down near us…" His voice faded out for a moment as he took in Lorelai's stunned expression before shrugging. "The closest they could get us is Philadelphia, and then we'd have to drive." Lorelai didn't even have a chance to grasp the fact that the plot she was quickly formulating – yes, rent a car and drive from Philly just so she could get the trip from hell over with – would just stick her back in a small, enclosed space with Luke for hours on end; as soon as she even parted her lips to form a single word, Luke read her like an open book. Blue eyes flashing a warning in her direction, he uttered a curt, "I am not driving in storms like that."
Lorelai's shoulders slumped in defeat, her bags of souvenirs hanging listlessly from her limp hands. With a forlorn scan of the terminal in search of some sort of solution, she finally resigned herself to the inevitable, asking, "So now what?"
Luke folded his arms across his chest as he informed her, "They're putting people up in the airport hotel, then we get the first flight tomorrow morning. And a free ticket to wherever."
"Here?" Lorelai squeaked in disbelief. She'd been mentally preparing herself for playing jumbo-jet hopscotch, jumping from airport to airport across the eastern half of the continent until they made it to Connecticut, or even New York. But another night in a hotel, her mind raced. With Luke? She wanted to break down and cry right then and there. She didn't even know how much time had passed before she was finally able to come up with her next stellar comeback. "We're staying?" she practically whimpered.
"Well, I'd rather leave the actual terminal if that's ok with you," Luke replied, stooping down to gather Lorelai's carry-on items that he'd laid on the seat beside him. And without another word, he headed in the direction of the baggage claim.
Left alone and rendered nearly speechless by the simple fact that she was stuck in Dallas, where she was never supposed to be in the first place, Lorelai didn't have a clue as to how to proceed. But as Luke's form quickly grew smaller and threatened to disappear into the crowds, she pulled herself together, uttering a few plaintive "Luke, wait!"s as she scurried after him.
Before she knew it, they'd grabbed luggage from the carousel, hopped on the airport shuttle, and were up close and personal with a receptionist at the front desk of the airport's Hyatt Regency.
While Luke began making room arrangements, Lorelai stepped off to the side to make a quick phone call to check on Rory, who in turn assured her that the storms actually weren't that bad right around Stars Hollow, and that if a tornado did threaten to whisk her off to Oz, she'd be sure to go stay with Babette.
After hanging up with Rory, Lorelai ventured back over to Luke at the desk. Still dazed over the turn of events back on the western side of the country, never mind at home with the storms, the reality of the new accommodation situation didn't hit her until she overheard the desk clerk ask Luke if he needed two keys or one. She immediately tugged on Luke's sleeve – sounding absolutely ridiculous in front of him be damned. There was no way she'd survive another night with him in the same room. Not after last night. Not after everything. Pulling harder on his arm, she hissed violently in his ear, "We need two rooms"
"What?" Luke squinted at her, still half listening to the man behind the desk.
"I want my own room," Lorelai insisted through clenched teeth. She paused long enough to flash an angelic smile to the desk clerk, in an effort to appear at least close to normal in front of perfect strangers.
Luke swatted at Lorelai's hands, shooting a less-than-amused "Excuse us…" to the receptionist. Dragging Lorelai less than gently a few feet away, he practically snarled at her, "What? What is wrong with you?" he demanded roughly, "Two rooms is a waste."
"I need my own room," Lorelai declared, though her resolve was fading far faster than she'd have like.
She had to give Luke credit for trying to reason with her, but he rebuff of "Our ticket reservations were together, the airline is only covering one room," wasn't holding a candle to the absolute necessity that she have her own room, lest she develop a new-found sleep-walking habit and unconsciously end up acting on one of her illicit little fantasies.
"Well, tell them we're on a business trip and my big scary super-possessive husband back home won't let me room with anyone," she shot back as forcefully as she could manage.
"Lorelai, just…" Luke sighed impatiently. His gaze darted back to the confused-looking clerk. Turning back to Lorelai, he motioned for her to just shut up and not move. "Hang on…" With a sidelong glance back at her, he went back over to the counter.
Lorelai was one-hundred percent convinced she'd been successful in her attempts at coercion right up until the point that Luke re-approached her. "Look," he stated, "We're in 603…"
"What?" Lorelai shrieked, cutting him off with her protest. "But I…"
"I got one room," Luke reiterated, not letting her finish her complaint. "You can do whatever," he added with a shrug, pointing towards the elevators, "but I'm going up there."
With a scowl, Lorelai glared at Luke through narrowed eyes. And cursing him in her mind, she defiantly flopped down on one of the lobby's cushy armchairs. Pointedly ignoring him, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and looked the other way in a silent tantrum not at all unlike the many she'd thrown over the years in the Gilmore house.
Unfortunately for her, Luke didn't seem to care one way or another whether she stayed in the lobby all night. After a moment or two of not getting a reaction from him, Lorelai jerked her head back around just in time to see him stepping on the elevator, taking every single one of her bags – purse included – with him.
Lorelai froze at the sight, her first instinct to jump up and run after him. Which, of course, would have been the smart thing to do. The logical thing. And then just deal with whatever followed in terms of having to either share the room or fight over getting a second one.
But no, Lorelai was determined to stand her ground, however 'terrible-twos-temper-tantrum it might have been. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, remaining firmly planted in the chair. He wanted to leave her alone in the lobby all night? Fine. Screw him…
To be continued…