5 – The Right To Write Me Off

Hey strangers! Well no that would be me who's the stranger around here. Finally finished the next chapter of the fic. Things have been hectic lately and have just been starting to die down a bit the past week. Next chapter has been started and will all
being well be posted on Sunday/Monday. My other fics will also be updated too (finally).

Thanks to everyone who's stuck around and continued to read, I apologise for the hold-up!

Cat xx

Lorelai had heard the vague sound of footsteps on the bridge and hoped whoever it was would walk past and ignore her. Whenever the person stopped and made no other move she glanced up, fully prepared to make a snappy comment like 'Take a picture, it'll last longer' but when she saw who it was all words flew from her mind.

"Hi" she managed to get out, her hands moving to try and wipe around her eyes, knowing she probably looked like death warmed up.

"Hi" he said, swallowing hard at the sight of her. She'd been crying, there were mascara stains down her face and her eyes had very faint but still visible dark circles under them. She seemed a mere shadow of the woman he remembered.

There a few moments of uncomfortable silence, the two of them hadn't been alone since that day on her porch and that fact didn't go unnoticed by either of them.

"Need a break from the craziness?" Lorelai asked, motioning back towards the festival.

"Something like that" he nodded. After everything that had happened between them there was still a part of him that wanted to comfort her but the other part; the part that was still haunted by their memories stopped him from doing so.

"You going to sit down because my neck is starting to hurt" she asked, trying to use humour to ease the tension but it fell flat. Without a word he took a seat next to her, his legs hung over the side of the bridge and for a few seconds he distracted himself by skimming the toes of his boots over the surface of the water.

"Rory's in London" she blurted out to pierce the somewhat deafening silence. The subject of her daughter was pretty neutral territory so she went with that as the safest course of conversation.

"How come?" he queried.

"Visiting Logan"

"Same kid then"

"Yeah, he's actually not too bad." Lorelai said, surprising herself in how much she'd actually grown to like the kid or at least grown so that she didn't dislike him anymore. Rory was happy and that's all that truly mattered to her.

"That's good"

"How's… Doula?" she asked, in her head she'd been going to ask about April but went with the safer and less controversial option first.

"She's good; Liz and TJ seem to be getting on well with her."

"And April?" Lorelai asked; her voice a little unsteady.

"…She's good. Anna wants to move to Mexico so we're going to trial soon about it" he replied quickly, trying to hide how he was feeling about the whole thing. Truth was he was scared to death of the judge taking one look at him and granting full custody of April to Anna.

"You hired a lawyer?" Lorelai said, a small smile playing on the edge of her lips.

"Apparently they're required in court" he muttered, in no mood to be joking around with her about the irony in him hiring a lawyer.

"Yeah so I hear" she replied quietly and an uncomfortable silence fell between them for a few moments.

"So Rachel's back?" 'Duh' she thought kicking herself for the idiotic question; although it was the only way she could think of to broach the subject.

"Yeah she's back for now" he replied after a few moments.

"That's good?" Lorelai added after waiting a few seconds for Luke to add something to the conversation but getting nothing but silence from him. 'It's like getting blood out of a stone.'

"It's good to have her around again; she can fit in anywhere she goes so she's been helping me out around the diner again. It's good to have some…company" he said, choosing his words carefully. Although part of him, the same part that had wanted to comfort her before had wanted to see if she was jealous about his ex being back in town.

"Right" Lorelai replied in a quiet tone because she couldn't help but think about the two of them in that small apartment together every night. Sure, Rachel had said they weren't back together and she was just there as a 'friend' but Lorelai knew better than most people how history could repeat itself.

"So where's your husband?" Luke asked, almost choking on the word as he said it.

"France, he's there collecting Gigi from Sherri's" she said, closing her eyes when she heard him say 'husband'…it had never sounded right when people referred to Christopher as her husband and it sounded even worse when Luke said it. Her heart literally constricted in her chest with the use of word.

"Well isn't that a pity" he muttered, a strong undercurrent of anger and sarcasm in his tone.

"So this is how it's going to be from now on?" She replied in a tone barely above a whisper.

"I don't see it being any other way"

"We were friends once" she reasoned half-heartedly.

"Do you really think we can go back there?"

"I don't know, I just…I miss it" Lorelai said, her gaze moving to her feet as they hung over the bridge. Luke knew Lorelai wanted to start repairing things between them but when she said she missed their friendship it made him angry more than anything. She'd gone off and gotten married in Paris, Luke had spent weeks in his apartment alone with the occasional company of his crazy sister, her insane husband a thirteen year old girl. 'She thinks she can have everything just how she wants it' he thought angrily.

"It's never going to go back there and I don't want it to. You got married to him and you moved him into the house I renovated for us. I won't want to hear about him or your lives together because I don't have any respect for him or your relationship" he practically spat out, his voice raised to a shouting tone by that point.

"Well it's not like you respected our relationship either, when you started keeping secrets and shutting me out of your life did you?" she countered in harsher tone than she'd spoken yet.

"That's rich, you cheated on me but yet you say I disrespected our relationship?"

"You let me walk away so as far as I was concerned we were done" she shouted.

"We weren't done! You came at me with a crazy ultimatum after I hadn't seen you for days and when I don't jump at the chance to run off and elope you go and sleep with someone else. You didn't just sleep with anyone either; you picked the one person that you've told me repeatedly to trust you with because there was nothing left there anymore. The one person you knew would hurt me the most" he yelled back, both of them standing on the bridge by that stage. When he saw the tears start to fall he moved his gaze to his feet because even during their darkest times he wasn't completely immune to her tears.

Luke knew he had gone too far, it wasn't just her fault their relationship fell apart but he hated her being married to someone else, especially him of all people. He hated himself for ruining what they had and driving her away. More than anything he hated not having her in his life everyday but knew he wouldn't be able to go back to being friends knowing how much more they could have been.

"I'm sorry Luke" she managed to choke out.

"I should go" she said brushing past him quickly, trying to wipe the tears from her eyes as she walked but was a hopeless task as more just kept flowing.

Luke watched Lorelai practically run away from him and realised just how much he was missing her, even when she was right next to him he missed her. 'It's over', she's married' a voice in his head kept reminding him and he knew it was true but still it was hard for him to accept. Luke had tried to make himself hate her and to forget her but not surprisingly it never seemed to take.

Lorelai dodged the festival by going up one of the side streets and down peach street to get back to her house, most of the townspeople were at the festival so there was no-one around. When she reached her house she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Christopher's car in the driveway.

'He's not supposed to be back for another two days' she thought as she moved round to the side of the house and quickly pulled a small mirror from her purse and wiped her eyes, trying to hide the fact she'd been crying. Whenever satisfied she walked back around to the front of the house and up the porch steps to be greeted at the doorway.

"Hey" Christopher smiled as he opened the door to greet.

"Hey" she greeted plastering a fake smile on her face that Christopher always seemed to think was genuine.

"What happened to spending some time in Paris with Gigi?" Lorelai asked as Chris moved to embrace her with a hug.

"Well I missed you"

"It was only two extra days, I'm sure you could have survived"

"So you didn't miss me?"

"Sure I did" she said, not believing her own words but sure he would. It was times like this she realised how much Luke knew her better than Christopher ever would…at least he used to. There was a time when Luke knew exactly what she was feeling without her even having to say it, sure the last months of their relationship didn't reflect this but it was still more than Christopher ever knew.

"So where were you?"

"Christmas festival, you know how this crazy town loves them"

"I'm beginning to get that. You're home pretty early though" he said glancing at his watch.

"Yeah, I wasn't feeling well" she lied.

"Why what's wrong?"

"Headache, think I'm just going to go to bed. You'll have to tell me all about your trip tomorrow" she said giving him a quick kiss before making her way past him to go upstairs.

The next couple days were busy for Lorelai as it was only a few days until Christmas. Rory was coming home on Christmas Eve which she was excited about; felt like forever since she'd seen her even though it had only been a few weeks.

It has been two days since the town festival and her run-in with Luke and still she couldn't erase it from her mind. In all the years she'd known Luke she'd never seen him so angry, even the argument about Jess after Rory's car accident years ago didn't compare to how he had shouted at her on the bridge. 'Can you really blame him?' she asked herself as he looked back at how everything had turned out. Not even waiting an hour after giving Luke an ultimatum she'd slept with Chris; and then proceeded in marrying him only months later…if the roles had been reversed she wasn't sure she'd even be able to look at him much less argue.

As she went along doing her daily duties around the Inn she constantly tried to put Luke out of her mind and tried to concentrate on her mile long to-do list.

When there was a knock on the door of her office she rolled her eyes assuming Michel was back for the tenth time to hint in a not-so-subtle manner about the exercise ball he wanted for Christmas.

"Not in, come back later" she called out hoping whoever was there would go away.

"It's Luke" a deep voice from outside the door replied.

Lorelai's eyes widened in surprise; quickly she got up from her desk, hands swiftly moving to her hair to smooth it before doing the same with her dress. Just prior to opening the door she took a deep breath; preparing herself for seeing Luke again.

"Luke, hi" she stammered as she opened the door, unsure of how to act with him after their last run-in on the bridge.

"I'm sorry to just barge in like this…especially after what happened the other night"

"It's fine Luke, what do you need?" she asked, curious as to why he was here. He hadn't stepped foot in the Inn since before they split up so he knew for him to come here was a big deal.

"Well the other night, I didn't mean to…it wasn't" he started, stumbling over his wording until she stopped him.

"Don't worry about it, you were angry and I deserved it" she admitted shrugging her shoulders in a defeated manner that Luke didn't seem to recognise.

"I shouldn't have behaved that way" he reiterated.

"It's fine Luke really"

"I'm sorry for what I said, you didn't deserve it" he apologised, feeling bad that she felt she deserved everything he had practically screamed at her.

"Okay well it's forgotten now."

"Good, good" he murmured before an uncomfortable silence erupted between them, each waiting for the other to speak first.

"Can we talk?" he finally asked after few long seconds of silence,

"Um, sure." She nodded, motioning to the couch in her office. The two of them say down, each drowning in the awkwardness of the moment, a wave of sadness overcame them both as they realised how much things had changed between them to where they felt strange just being within a few feet of each other.

"Remember I said I was going to court to fight for custody of April?"

"Yeah"

"So, anyway, um, the court date is coming up. And I need a character reference. And Liz wrote one, but my lawyer read it, and he said it was sweet, but it was filled with all these weird childhood anecdotes that I probably don't want to share with anyone, much less a court of law. And I need another one, and I just don't know who to go to. And I know it's an awful lot to ask. And if it's weird or whatever…I mean I'd ask Rachel but she's been gone so long and you've…"

"Yes…" Lorelai answered.

"But if you could, uh..." he trailed off, realising she'd already agreed to it.

"Yes, I'll do it." She repeated.

"Yeah? Okay. All right, well, this is my lawyer's address, and you can just mail the letter directly to him."

"Okay" she replied taking the paper from him, feeling her stomach flip when her fingers brushed his.

"Yeah, and, look, if you don't mind, if you could do it as soon as possible...the court date's right around the corner."

"Definitely"

"Thanks. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Yeah. Um, okay, well...I'll just... thanks." He said a small smile present on his face as he stood up.

"Sure. I'll get right on it."

"All right. Thanks. Okay." He said putting his hand out for her to shake, unsure of what other form of showing his appreciation would be acceptable. Slipping her hand into his she shook it quickly; feeling awkward shaking his hand like it was a business transaction. Luke gave her a brief nod before leaving.

Lorelai sat on the couch for a few minutes after he'd left, going over their encounter in her head. The handshake had been beyond strange. 'Ten years' flashed through her mind as she thought of everything they'd been through… now it seemed they weren't more than just two casual acquaintances. Maybe in a few more years they'd be the kind of people who would pass in the street and have that cliché shallow two-minute conversation; she hated those meaningless exchanges. Just the thought of ever being like that with Luke was enough to send her into deep cloud of depression.

Sitting back down at her desk she took out a notebook from her drawer to start the character reference. Even though she had a list of things she needed to do for the Inn, it seemed important that she do the favour for Luke before any of her other seemingly trivial tasks.


An hour later…

Lorelai was sure it would take her most of the afternoon to write the character reference which is why she had started so soon after Luke had left; however it had been surprisingly easy to write. This was probably due to the ten years of him being there for her and Rory anytime they ever needed him. However Lorelai knew she could fill many more pages about how good a man and father Luke was… he had after all been the only stable father figure in her own daughters' life.

With that she got up from her desk, grabbed her car keys and left her office, shouting to Michel that she had to go and would be back in a while. There was one thing more she knew she could do to start mending some bridges with Luke…

Next chapter is going to be the best so far I think and should be up at beginning of next week, Monday or so.


Anyway please review!! xx