In the days following their marriage, they had easily slipped into a morning routine, not far different from most parents of an infant. Luke would rise first, always having to be at work long before her. After checking on Gabriel, who was usually sleeping as he had just been up only a few hours ago, he would shower and dress in his jeans, t-shirt, and flannel. Somehow the noise of the shower would rouse her from her deep slumber and she would slip on her flimsy robe and bunny slippers, grabbing the afghan off the chair by the door and wrapping it around herself, before padding down the hall to the nursery. By then, Gabriel would have sensed the stirring of the adults in the house and would be waiting for her to come change his diaper. She would be thankful that she's still half-asleep in her non-caffeinated state, her senses unable to truly take in the odor from the stinky diaper. However she'd be awake enough to tickle the baby's belly and make faces so that he'd relax and let her change him. Then she would lift the boy up into her arms, wrapping the afghan around him as well, and she would kiss his baby soft skin and hold him against her, remembering once again the reason why her life had taken such a dramatic turn in the past month.
After a few moments alone with her new nephew, as of the moment she signed her marriage license and Luke placed the ring on her finger, she would take him downstairs where she would find Luke putting breakfast together, the coffee steaming, the high chair set up with a bottle of Gerbers and a spoon waiting on the table. As she would settle Gabriel into the high chair, she would glance up at Luke, giving him a sleepy smile and receive a perfunctory one in response. He would tell her that he'd take care of it and she'd run her fingers softly over the baby's head and go upstairs to get ready while he would feed the baby and be off to work with his nephew in his arms long before she was finished with her morning prep, leaving her to eat breakfast, drink her coffee and sit in silent kitchen all alone. Some days she'd refuse to let Luke take over and she'd feed Gabriel as Luke finished breakfast and headed out the door with little more than a kiss on the head for both her and the baby.
Today the morning is ending differently. She got ready quicker than usual, piling her curls top of her head with a clip and ran back downstairs to find Gabriel in the highchair and Luke sitting in the chair in front the highchair trying to feed the boy, who was very obviously confused. She couldn't help the pride that warmed her heart, watching the man she loved doing his best to take care of the child that very much wanted nothing to do with Luke's attempts. For a moment she considers just staying where she is, just allowing herself to enjoy Luke's frustration, but she knew that things had to get done, the baby had to be fed. Things have to go perfect today. Of all days, this is the one when everything has to go just right and she has to make sure of that.
So she walks over, laying her hand over Luke's that contains the small blue, plastic spoon, the perfect size for Gabriel's small mouth. "I'll do it," she offers, hoping he understands that she's not trying to say she can be a better parent than him. Surely, after her words to Anna, he must realize that she knows he's a wonderful father. She perceives a slight agreement from him, as his hand relaxes on the spoon, allowing her to take it in her hand. As he draws his hand away, his rough skin brushes lightly against her own pale skin, and she can't help but look over at him. Did he notice? Did he feel the same thing she did? Whatever an electric shock actually feels like, this sensation must have been something close to that. She finds that he has also glanced at her, probably also seeing if she had felt the same jolt. Yet, his reaction she is unsure of, no smile plays on his lips, no shame in his eyes.
In the end, he stands, allowing her to take the chair from him and he walks over to the coffee machine. Retrieving a coffee mug, he pours the liquid slowly into the cup, giving himself a moment to contemplate. Was this how it was always going to be? This awkwardness? He knows that it is his own reluctance to let her in, to let her break through once again, that forces this uneasiness. It's only for his own safety that this is necessary.
After the loss of his mother and father, he just couldn't allow himself to be hurt again, he couldn't allow himself to lose someone he loved ever again. So instead, he kept everyone out. It was a pattern that went on for years. With Rachel. With Anna. He even kept his own sister out. When they first started dating, he had continued his ways, keeping Lorelai an arms length from what he hid inside, his sadness, even his love. So when Christopher suggested what Luke already feared, that he would lose Lorelai in the end, he decided to cut and run, keep her from really breaking in and then thus from being able to truly hurt him.
Somehow he had come to his senses, realized that Lorelai was different, that if he let her in, let her see the real Luke Danes, he might have finally found the one person he would never lose. Maybe if he allowed himself to love her, to show her that he loved her, then she would never leave him. So he had gone back to her and for twelve wondrous months it seemed that he was right to trust in Lorelai. And then came the night that everything fell apart, his own Kristallnacht, and, yes, he had let her walk away. Maybe that was his own stupid mistake. Okay, no maybe, that was a ridiculously stupid mistake, he knows that. But she had run from him to Christopher's waiting arms, she had given herself to that man, she had permitted him to lay with her, to be the arms to hold her when she cried, to be the man to make love to her, a worse betrayal than Luke could have ever imagined. He had let down his guard with her, allowed himself to feel safe in their relationship, let himself trust in her love, that it would always be there, that it would always be for him, only for him. He had taken down that wall he kept up and in the process gave her leave to stomp all over his heart with those sharp spikey heels she always wore.
How on earth could she ever think that he'll just get over this? How can she think that he'll ever let himself let down his guard and feel secure that he is the only man for her?
He glances over his shoulder and watches her spoon feed the baby food into Gabriel's mouth. She cooes to the boy as she coaxes him to eat the mashed bananas that Luke had been unable to get the boy to eat. When some of the food dribbles down Gabriel's chin, Luke watches as she grins, wrinkling her nose as she laughs, the corners of her eyes crinkling into that face that makes his heart skip a beat. How can someone not feel like he was flying amongst the clouds when she smiles like that?
Before he gets a chance to reconsider his questions, the doorbell rings. Lorelai looks up at Luke expectantly, sharing a look between them as they both understood that this was it. Today was the day their fate would be determined. Would they become parents to the boy they adore? As he stares into her eyes, he knows that she wants to raise this boy just as much as he does and that barely surprises him. After all, she loves him and Gabriel is a part of him.
Leaving Lorelai in the kitchen to clean up the breakfast mess, he walks to the front door, taking a deep breath to calm his nerves before he opens it. Standing in front of him is a petite woman, shorter than Lorelai, possibly shorter than Rory, wavey blond hair that barely makes her seem flighty against her professional wardrobe and businesslike smile. "Lucas Danes?" she asks, glancing down at her clipboard and then back up at him.
He blinks for a moment before registering that she's waiting for a response. "Oh, uh, yes, Luke – Luke Danes," he responses, shaking her outstretched hand. "You're the case worker?" She nods.
"Yes, sir, Julie Moss," she answers in a perfunctory way, flashing a badge at him that would have meant nothing to him even if he had been able to read it that quickly. "I'm here for your home visit as directed in the case of Gabriel Lucas Matthews." He flicks his eyes over her, wondering for only a moment if this coarse attitude is something she keeps up for professional purposes or if she treats her family in the same manner. Then he wonders, if she does treat those close to her in the same way, then what she will appreciate about his home life?
"Come in," he says, stepping back to allow her to walk inside the house, closing the door behind her. "Can I take your coat?" She shakes her head stepping further and further into the house, seemingly critiquing every bit of the house with her eyes, even the random picture of a girl in a bonnet that always scared him but Lorelai had some kind of an odd attachment to.
"That won't be necessary," the woman answered.
"Well, uh, tour then..." Luke figures, but receives no response from the woman. He's feeling more and more every second like every word he says and every move he is makes is just wrong in her eyes. How to adjust this, he has to clue. "Well this is the front hall and if you'll…" He walks quickly into the living room with Julie following close behind. "This is the living room. You know, couch, TV, other things." He shrugs. "We're not TV addicts or anything, I mean, Lorelai is… I mean, I guess she's more of a movie addict. Well not addict per say, she's just… well she likes movies." As he comes to the end of his babble, Julie glances up at him, with a slightly interested eyebrow raise.
This woman scares him. It's more than her attitude: her words, her scary looks, that odd position she keeps her mouth in like she's consistently taking a bite into a very cold lemon. It's the fact that she's what stands between him and fatherhood. She is the one person who, if she disagrees with how he lives his life, could take Gabriel away and leave him lost and alone.
"You must be the case worker," he hears and glances up to find Lorelai standing in the doorway between the living room and kitchen with Gabriel on her hip, both looking much cleaner than when he had walked away. Lorelai has a pleasant smile on her face, dressed in jeans and shirt that Luke figures she must have worn to impress as it has no odd saying or weird design on it as most of Lorelai's other clothes do. He wants to tell her to act like herself, that no one could dislike Lorelai Gilmore, that if they can't win custody by being themselves then maybe they shouldn't be considering raising the boy. And then he looks down at himself, seeing his brown loafers, black jeans and brown sweater, that Lorelai had once teased was the reason she had decided to give into his kiss all those years ago.
"Oh, uh, Lorelai, this is Julie Moss. Ms. Moss, this is… my… wife, Lorelai," Luke finally manages, sharing a timid look with Lorelai as he introduces her with her new title for the first time. Her eyes don't light up at the sound of the word 'wife', he notices. She just adjusts the baby on her hip, rubbing his back. "Oh and this is Gabriel."
The woman nods to him and walks forward to shake Lorelai's hand as well. "Yes, odd to say now, but you'll get used to it. Congratulations on your new marriage," Julie says, her voice degrees warmer than when Luke first opened the door. It was either the presence of Lorelai or the distance between the door and the kitchen that had raised the temperature of the woman's voice.
"Thank you. You seem to be familiar with this, are you a newlywed too?" Lorelai asks.
Julie smiles, waving her fingers in Lorelai's direction, flashing her rings for a long period of time than she had showed her badge for. "Going on year four." Lorelai's eyes widen in surprise.
"Four? But you're so young."
"Yes, we got married young but it works for us. When it's right, it's right, you know what I mean of course," Julie answers without a clue as to what affect her words are having on Lorelai, who smiles softly in response. Here's this young, not nearly thirty-year old woman, standing in front of her, married, for four years, trying to teach her about knowing when it's right. Her, Lorelai, the woman who never thought about marriage until the ripe old age of 37, who has been married only a few weeks as she approaches her 40th year of life, who thought she had been getting married because it was right for them but now it seems that she only got married because it was right for Gabriel.
It kills her to know that there are people out there, like this woman in front of her, women who can fall in love with a great guy and get them to commit the rest of their lives to them. It makes her think that there's something wrong with her. She found that great guy. She fell in love with him. But when it came to getting him to commit to her, everything had gone wrong.
Julie walks past Lorelai into the kitchen checking it out and then glancing into Rory's room. "Oh, uh, that's the kitchen and, uh, Rory's room," Luke says walking over to join them in the kitchen.
"Right, Rory, your daughter, Lorelai Leigh Gilmore," Julie recognizes, reading them name off the clipboard in front of her as she glances up at Lorelai.
"Yeah, Rory, she's at Yale," Lorelai answers. She watches as the woman's forehead crinkles, very obviously thinking hard about something. "And, yes, I was sixteen when I had her," Lorelai admits, looking over at Luke. He had accepted her pregnancy with little of the response of anyone else. Huh, nice age. Beat my sister by two years. That was it. That was all he said. In fact, as she remembers it, all he had ever done was comment that it was a mistake, people make mistakes, but thankfully hers had turned out nicely, she had gotten Rory.
However today she fears that the thoughts running through his head are somewhat different. She wonders if he's ashamed of the fact that the first red mark on their record is due to the fact that she had Rory at such a young age. "And she did a great job raising Rory. I mean, getting into Yale, that's no small potatoes," Luke speaks up to Lorelai's amazement. She's glad to be holding Gabriel at this moment, keeping her from running across the room and throwing her arms around Luke. It's not that she's embarrassed by the situation she got herself into, in fact she'll proudly tell the world what happened and how she got through it, but if there is even the slightest chance that her early conception of Rory keeps them from adopting Gabriel, she'll be crushed.
"And you have a daughter too, Luke?" Julie asks, with barely a blink of an eye after Luke's response about Rory.
"Yes, April, but she lives with her mother most of the time and when she's here she sleeps in Rory's room," Luke answers, sharing a gaze with Lorelai the entire time. Lorelai slowly nods along with every word as if he's checking her opinion on what he's telling the case worker. Maybe he is. It almost seems to him that they just came to an agreement on April without a single word being spoken. And a rush of memories come running back to him, all the moments when they barely had to utter a word to know what the other was thinking. Through all those months when Rory was in Hartford, she never said a word but he knew she was hurting. It had worked the same for her, she had seen how deep his love for his father ran and had known that he would want to keep his father's boat despite the words he had vocalized in her presence, she knew that in his heart he would want it.
That was their special thing. Long before they had ever gotten together, that was what made their relationship so special. Words were unnecessary. He could just see. She could just see. It was all clear to both of them, just a look, just a touch, a flicker in the eyes. It only made him appreciate Lorelai more.
Somehow the introduction of April into his life, and thus into her life, had erased all that. It was clear when he realized that he had been able to keep April a secret from her for two months. How had she not noticed? How had she not seen it in his eyes that his insides were churning and his shoulders were slumped from the weight of his secret? In some way he had responded by not noticing when her life seemed to be crumbling at her feet, not noticing how the sparkle had disappeared from her eyes, not seeing how her smiles were forced and tense. It wasn't April's fault, he knew that, it was…well, it just was. Forget it, it was ridiculous to think that it was anyone's fault but his own. He had done what he always did, concentrated on one thing at a time, it had always worked for him the past, but then again, he had never been engaged to be married in the past. Postponing the wedding had done nothing but drive Lorelai to the idea that he never wanted to marry her, it hadn't helped to convince him that he'd be a good father to April and, more than that, it hadn't changed how much he concentrated on fixing things with April. When he thought back to the night that he realized Lorelai's doubts about their future together, all he could wish was that he hadn't just stood there, that instead he had wrapped his arms around her and held her close and let her cry, let it all out, until she wasn't afraid anymore, until he wasn't afraid anymore to give her what she always wanted, a true commitment from him, a marriage.
Meanwhile, Julie had finished checking out Rory's room and the kitchen. "Here I'll take him and finish cleaning him up while you show her the upstairs," Luke offers holding out his arms for Gabriel. Lorelai only nods and places a kiss on the boy's head before placing him safely in his uncle's waiting arms.
She motions for Julie to follow her up the stairs. "Well this here is Gabriel's room. A lot of the furniture is from Liz and TJ's house, we thought it would be familiar to him, make the change a little easier. You know, a bit like a safety blankie, but Gabriel doesn't use a blankie, in fact Luke doesn't even like me to use the word blankie in his presence," Lorelai explains to Julie who nods along. "And then, here…" She walks along the hallways with Julie following behind. "This is my, uh, the bedroom." She chuckles to herself, hoping that she's not coming off as nervous as she feels. "We remodeled the house just after we got engaged."
"Oh that's sweet, it's nice that the remodeling was finished before you two got married," Julie says.
Lorelai smiles faintly. "Well, uh, we got engaged back in May of 2005, so we had time."
"Yeah, it was nice not to live in the living room anymore," Luke adds as he walks over to them, Gabriel in his arms. Lorelai smiles to herself, remembering the crazy days of living in the living room. Sure it had been odd, showering at Babette's, sleeping in front of the window where anyone could just look in and see so that most nights they had to double up the drapes and make love on the sofa. And while it hadn't been the most convenient way to live, that had been doing it together, to her it seemed like Bruce Brown and Lane Morgan, two people lost in the wilderness, forging their way together. She had never felt closer to him.
She rubs her forehead. Maybe this was something like it, working together to raise this child, to adopt this child, to give him the life that he deserved.
"Well, we were thinking of strapping Gabriel in the stroller and giving you a tour around town," Lorelai tells Julia.
"That sounds fine, I'm just going to make a phone call," Julie says and walks back down the stairs. Lorelai looks up at Luke and he can see the worry in her eyes.
"You're doing great," he assures her and she smiles, a smile that reads nothing but appreciation and adoration. And he can do little to keep from smiling as well.