A/N- Hi all! Hope you enjoy this chapter, featuring JJ. The big one for JJ is coming up, I swear I'm not leading you on. I just really want to do it justice. Anyway, please keep reading and reviewing. I really appreciate all the feedback. I do not own Gilmore Girls or any of its characters or concepts but I do own a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in Latin.


Chapter 71

Lorelai threw a pile of laundry into a hamper violently. She was just about at her limit. Michel had left to go feed his dog, and Sookie had to go home to check on Davy again. So, in a fit of stress, she had decided to clean.

Although she'd never been very clean when it came to her own living space, she was immaculate about it at her Inn. And she had been like that ever since she was a maid. She had just been so grateful to get the job that she wanted everything to be absolutely perfect, her rooms to be the best, unrefutabley so. And they always were. Not a millimeter out of place. She liked the orderliness of it, the fact that in her constantly spinning mind and constantly changing world it was completely methodical, and that she could do it perfectly, every time, and she knew it. So whenever she became extremely stressed out, she would work, but if doing her own work wouldn't cut it, she'd clean. It always did the trick.

This time though, it wasn't doing as much for her as usual. She was trying not to cry thinking about all the things she had to do that she had no idea how to even begin to do. She needed to keep the guests happy and feeling safe at the Inn, not worried. She needed to keep morale high with her employees and she needed to figure out who was responsible for it. She also needed to secure her finances, immediately and perfectly, as well as any related to the inn. She'd always been awful with numbers, and now if she couldn't remember something correctly or didn't know how to handle a situation it could be hugely detrimental to the business that she worked so hard for, that she'd slaved over and for years to get. The Dragonfly had become another home in her life, on the landscape where she placed the shed she lived in with Rory and her home and Luke's apartment and the Independence Inn. She couldn't stand to let something or someone hurt it, and they had. On her watch. She was robbed blind under her nose and she should have prevented it. She should have prepared better, she should have worked harder, she shouldn't have left, she should have made sure…

Lorelai forcefully pulled the sheets taut before folding them into the bed in the exact perfect measurements. There was no way in hell she was letting this break the Inn. Too many people depended on her. Sookie, Michel, their families, her employees, their families, her customers! The hundreds of customers she had lined up to stay here. She had promised them safety and security and she had failed them, all of them, and she needed to make it right, she had to, she was the only one who could…

"Hey," she heard a gruff voice behind her. She turned to find Luke with a small, white paper bag and a cup.

"What is…"

"I brought donuts. Please, sit down, for just a…"

"I already made the bed."

"Then sit on the floor. You need to breathe, Lore," he smiled as she offered the bag to her gently. She grabbed a donut, sitting on the ground, and then took the coffee and started to gulp it down. She shouldn't cry, she wouldn't cry, not now. He was being so nice and so supportive and she'd screwed up and he was around to help fix it even though it was her mistake, she had to fix it, but he wanted to, and god, she didn't deserve him, she never had.

"The breathing thing means tuning out the voices of your other personalities as well," he added. She exhaled deeply and nodded. He sat down beside her and she leaned into him, their backs against the footboard of the bed.

"Look," he said, gently taking her hand in reassurance, "I'm not going to stop you or try to stop you from driving yourself crazy over this. I know you don't want to leave. So we can stay here."

"We?"

"We," he affirmed, "It isn't you and me. You know that. It's us. And I'm not gonna leave you to deal with this on your own. If I can't help, that's fine. But either way, I'll be there. You're not getting rid of me."

A few tears gathered in the corner of Lorelai's eye and she smiled through the pain and stress apparent on her exhausted face.

"I love you," she murmured, leaning against him again and allowing him to put his arm around her, her head resting in his lap and him gently stroking her hair.

"I love you too," he answered quietly.

A few minutes later they stood up and walked over to the bed. Lorelai locked the door.

"I still can't believe you're doing this."

"Yeah, you can."

"Yeah, I can."