Thanks for the reviews! I'll hve to study for the next two weeks, so this will be te last update for at least two weeks... at least I think so. Maybe I'll find some time at night to write, but I don't know yet. Hope you like it!

Chapter 25: Whispers

She stared into his eyes, blinked and stared again. His eyes were still open, the blue as clear as it has always been. She was frozen to the spot and couldn't react. Was he really awake? Was he okay? Did he even see her? She wasn't sure if she was still breathing, she wasn't sure this wasn't one of the many dreams she had had.

"Crazy woman" Luke rasped and tugged at her hand, bringing her out of her daze. Without saying a single word she tumbled down on top of him, slung her arms around him and cried hysterically like she had done so often during those horrible last weeks. Only this time he wasn't just lying there. He held her close and his hand found it's way into her hair, stroked it while he breathed her in.

She couldn't believe that she was lying on top of him crying and he was soothing her again. This had been her dream for the past weeks and now it came true. For her it wasn't important at that moment if he would be disabled, not talking, in a wheelchair or anything else. He was there, he was there for her, she was there for him and they would be together. All the rest could be arranged, as long as they were only together.

"Mrs. Danes? Mrs. Danes?" A nurse said some minutes later and touched Lorelai's shoulder. Lorelai held Luke tighter and mumbled something into his shoulder.

"Mrs. Danes please. You can't lay on him" the nurse said. Suddenly Lorelai laughed out loud. She was cracking up and slowly pulled back a little from Luke. She looked into his eyes again to make sure he was really awake and calmed down when she saw his concerned look.

"He's awake" she told the nurse then, repeated what she had said before.

"I will get a doctor" the nurse said quickly, after looking at Luke and rushed out of the room.

"Don..." Luke said when the nurse had left the room. He tried to speak, but his voice was raspy and came out as a whisper.

"What?" Lorelai asked him softly and stroked her hair away which had landed on his face.

"Don't go!" he whispered and laced his fingers through hers. That sentence made it clear that he had heard her speech minutes before. He knew that she wanted to go and never come back. She wasn't ashamed of what she had said, she was only ashamed of what she had done nearly two months ago. In her head and in her heart she was the one to blame for the accident. Maybe he didn't remember yet. She looked down, focused on their joined hands.

"Lore..." he said and his voice broke. She looked up at him and tried to give him a reassuring smile, but didn't really succeed. Before any of them could say something more a group of doctors and nurses rushed into the room and interrupted them.

"Mr. Danes I am Dr. Nelson, this is Dr. Brix and Nurse Sally. We were looking after you those last weeks. Do you understand me?" the doctor asked and Lorelai stood up from the bed, what caused Luke to grip her hand even tighter.

"Yes" Luke whispered and nodded slightly.

"Are in you in pain?" was the next question of the doctor. Luke shook slightly and slowly

"I... I am thirsty" he whispered after another moment and tried to clear his throat.

"Sally would you get him some water?" Dr. Brix turned to the nurse, who nodded and left the room.

"We will get you something to drink." the young doctor smiled at Luke while his older colleague had started checking the monitors and writing some things down on a file.

"Mr. Danes do you remember what happened?" he went on and Luke just stared at him blankly.

"Do you know why you're here at the hospital?" Luke remained quiet for another second, then looked up at Lorelai, giving her a look of confusion and helplessness before he shook his head again.

"No", he said.

"What is the last thing you can remember?" the doctor wanted to know.

"The diner. We were at the diner. And there was a ... a... they were all in the town-square" Luke said with a lot of effort.

"Here is the water Mr. Danes" Nurse Sally said when she got back that second and the doctors took Lorelai aside, so she had to drop Luke's hand.

"At the moment we can't find anything abnormal. He is slightly disorientated and has problems speaking, but that will be gone tomorrow and we can do some tests. I think the best would be if you tell him what happened and if you realize anything, that he is ... I don't know, not remembering, out of it for some time, that he can't follow you or his memories are gone. It is important that you tell us. It is normal that he is weak and his voice will come back very soon, but pay attention to little details, they could be important." the doctor advised her, before they left the room together with the nurse. Helplessly Lorelai stood beside his bed, overwhelmed by the situation and debated what to do, while Luke stared at her, observed her.

"Come here" he said then and held out his hand for her to take it. She realized that his arm was shaking from the effort of holding it up, took it and let herself being pulled onto his bed again. She sat down and quietly played with his fingers while she tried to get her emotions under control.

"We were at the diner talking about Rory and then we went outside, right?" he started to whisper and she nodded in response.

"There was the chocolate festival outside and you didn't wanted to go so I came, send Will outside and dragged you out there. You said you didn't wanted to, but I... I begged and pleaded so you gave in" Lorelai added and quickly whipped away the tear which had escaped her eye, but Luke had already seen it.

"We had a nice time..." Luke started but was interrupted.

"I had a nice time, you wanted to go home" she corrected him.

"We had a nice time and I wanted to go home" Luke gave her a little smile and had to cough when he wanted to go on.

"Can you hand me the water?" he asked. Lorelai took the glass from the nightstand and handed it to him. Luke took it and led the glass to his mouth, but his hand shook so much that Lorelai took the glass out of his hand and positioned it at his lips.

"Thanks" Luke said embarrassed and she stood the glass back on the nightstand.

"We were waiting for something and I..."

"We were waiting for Will and Sara so that we could go home" Lorelai completed.

"And I.. I was..." Luke thought about it and suddenly his eyes opened wide.

"Oh my god... Sara! How is Sara?" He asked upset and sat up, then groaned in pain.

"Luke! Are you okay?" Lorelai asked him concerned and he nodded. His muscles were cramped in his back from lying for such a long time.

"How is Sara?" he asked again with such an urgency and fear in his voice that Lorelai's eyes welled up again. Luke misunderstood Lorelai's tears and all color disappeared from his face.

"No!" he whispered hoarsely.

"No, oh god, no Luke. Sara is fine" Lorelai cried when she realized what he assumed.

"She's fine?" Luke asked and looked like he was about to cry.

"She had some broken bones and they needed to operate her, but the bones are healed and she will be fine" Lorelai assured him. Luke looked at her and she could see in his face that he was thinking about something. She lifted their hands up and placed a kiss on the back of his hand, like she had done so many times during the last weeks.

"How long?" Luke suddenly asked then.

"How long what, honey?"

"How long have I been lying here?" Luke asked and saw her take a deep breath.

"Nearly two months" Lorelai answered and felt him squeeze her hand.

"I'm sorry" he said.

"You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about. If one should be apologizing it's me. I dragged you out to the festival and if I wouldn't have begged you, nothing of this would have happened and you wouldn't be lying here. Luke if you want me to go, I promised you that I would do it while you were asleep. I understand if you hate me now and I swear I didn't..." Lorelai started to ramble.

"Stop it!" Luke interrupted her, his voice suddenly harsh.

"I remember the accident not that clearly but it was not your fault!" Luke told her.

"But I..."

"It was not your fault!" he told her again and pulled her into his arms, repeating the words over and over again.

"It was not your fault!"

"What happened?" he asked after a while, when Lorelai had calmed down from her newly upset state.

"You wanted to save Sara and the car crashed into you two. You flew through the air and crashed down on the street. Sara had some broken bones, a concussion and several minor things, but your heart stopped right after the accident and the paramedics had trouble getting you back. I drove here with Sara, I had to leave you, and then we sat here for hours and nobody could tell me if you were dead or alive. They told me that you were brought here as an emergency and were brought to the operating room immediately. Your heart stopped again during the operation. You had severe injuries like internal bleedings and some organs weren't okay... your kidneys, your lung, your liver...some broken bones and they couldn't say how much your brain was damaged." she told him and wiped away tears repeatedly.

"Will something remain?"

"Until now everything healed well. You were able to breathe on your own again and your kidneys fully recovered, at least one. They will perform some tests tomorrow." she said and was quiet for a second.

"Luke?" she asked then.

"Yeah?" he replied.

"Never leave me alone again!" she said and lay her head on his chest and let his arms wrap around her body, snuggled into him.

"Okay" he said and placed a kiss on her hair before she nodded off to the sound of his heartbeat.

Two hours later Lorelai was shaken awake by her mother.

"Lorelai? Lorelai?" Emily said and nudged Lorelai repeatedly.

"Mmmh?" came Lorelai's sleepy reply. She was so comfortable lying in Luke's arms again that she didn't wanted to get up.

"Lorelai what are you doing? Are you okay?" Emily asked and Lorelai could hear the concern in Emily's voice. She sat up and untangled from Luke, carefully not to wake him. She looked at his sleeping form and wondered if it all had been a dream. But something was different. He was asleep like he had been for the past two months, but for her it was different. It felt different because she knew he would wake up in the morning. She leaned over and kisses him before she faced her mother.

"He's woken up, Mom" Lorelai said.

"Lorelai... he is still asleep... I think you should go home and..." Emily rambled confused while she looked from Lorelai to Luke and back.

"He woke up, mom. I talked to him and the doctors were here." Lorelai interrupted her and the emotion in Lorelai's voice made it clear that it was true.

"Is he okay?" Emily asked

"Yeah... at least I think so" Lorelai said and a smile showed on her face. The first real smile in two months.

"Oh thank god!" Emily exclaimed and hugged Lorelai. Her daughter thought she even heard her sniff.

"The kids are asleep. If you want to stay here under the given circumstances I could take them with me" Emily offered and pulled back.

"No, I'm coming. They are scared at night sometimes since all that happened. I will take them back home with me. Luke is asleep and I'll come back tomorrow and maybe the doctors can tell me more then." Together they walked out of the intensive care and Lorelai didn't even realize that her mother still held her hand until they were halfway in Sara's room.

"Mom you can let go of my hand now, otherwise our two husbands maybe would be scared" Lorelai joked. Emily looked at her, her hand still in hers and then gave her a kiss on the forehead.

"Glad you are back" she said before she let go of her daughters hand and walked into her grand-daughters room.

Lorelai followed her, a smiled still on her face and it got even wider when she saw her three sleeping kids cuddled close together on the same bed. She kissed Sara good-night and untangled her from Laila.

"Can you help me and take Laila. I don't want to wake them up" she whispered to her mother.

"Of course I can" Emily whispered back and took Laila from Lorelai.

"Come here honey" Lorelai whispered to the sleeping William and lifted him up.

"God, I'm getting to old for this" Lorelai muttered when she had her son in her arms.

"Well what should I say?" Emily shot back.

"Mommy?" came Williams sleepy voice.

"Yeah, honey I'm here. We're going home now" Lorelai told him and kissed his cheek several times.

"Where were you mommy?" he asked

"I was with your daddy" she told him.

"Is he okay?" William wanted to know and yawned.

"With Piggy , Barbie and the pics he is all right. And if some monsters attack him at night he has your bat right?" she asked him while they left the room.

"Right" Will said, half asleep again and snuggled more into his mothers shoulder.

TBC