This is something that definitely keeps him awake at night.

Suicide rates that screw up REM sleep are a serious threat, yes... But nothing like this constant nagging feeling that he should pay closer attention to something. That he just about missed a very important information, just underneath the surface... Making sense of Lorelai's emotional rainbows and tornadoes seems like a task doomed to failure, and yet by now he could be doing it as a profession. This time however he has a feeling it is different.

Like... He-can-actually-make-sense-of-it different...

Like he-just-needs-to-focus-long-enough different...

Luke turned onto his other side, rubbing his aching neck. The stillness of the house smelled of last evening's dinner, and shadows created by the full moon danced to the choreography of wind outside the window. Lorelai mumbled something vaguely resembling the word coffee, and pulled all covers with her feet. She sighed contentedly, and rammed her nose into the crook of his elbow. Luke looked down at her peaceful, flushed face, and wondered for a moment about her sudden ability to fall asleep early. She has never been an early sleeper, possibly a result of her hyper nature and stomach swimming in the pools of caffeine. But now, she was out for the night. Dead to the world. Gone to the realm of good fairies of sleep. A paradox, maybe, passed through Luke's tired brain. Just when most other people would be going through sleepless, nerve-wrecking and adrenaline-filled hours of terror and guilt, there she is, peacefully asleep, serene and glowing...

And suddenly, it hits him.

She is running again, except this time instead of running away from him and the possibility of life together, like she has for many years, she is running right into him. Away from this gut-wrenching pain of losing her pal, Rory. When and how did he become this safe shore, those still waters, he does not know. The fact is, she is doing again what she has done always, but it is more difficult to spot when she runs towards him, not away.

He ponders for a moment, like he has done before, in passing because no matter what he says, he is not a relationships-pondering guy; he thinks about the relationships he had seen, and wonders about that thin layer of difference between healthy love and co-dependency. When loving someone, do we always run the risk of getting too close, taking responsibility for too much? Can this really, seriously, derail a relationship and hurt dreams of future together?

He decides they cannot go ahead with the engagement to silence the bigger pain. He cannot let her do this to them, to use their love as a band-aid. He knows the words. They have always been there, but now he knows the full extend of the message. She has to stand still and think, and feel, not run away from the pain. She has to stop buzzing noise, erupting in color and chaos to drown what her intuition is telling her.
Would she just stand still for once, and let her soul catch up to her, thinks Luke.
Would she just listen and let that happen?