On the morning of the Firelight Festival, Lorelai was sitting at the counter at Luke's, drinking coffee and chatting with Luke. The bell above the door jingled as it opened and a fresh looking, curly blonde-haired woman carrying traveling bags entered.

"Rachel," Luke said as he stared at the woman with an expression of awe.

Lorelai's mouth dropped open and she looked shocked. "Rachel? Your Rachel?" He nodded, and she turned around to face the new arrival. "You're Rachel?"

"Yup. I'm Rachel," she confirmed.

Luke asked, "What are you…I mean, I thought you were in the Congo or Philadelphia or something."

"Actually, though very similar to both the Congo and Philadelphia," she quipped, "I was in the Mideast."

"Oh. Guess that postcard must've gotten lost," he said sarcastically.

"Yeah, yeah, well things pretty crazy over there, not a lot of writing time. But I finished up my assignment, and I flew back to Chicago and I was walking through O'Hare, and I look up and there's a plane leaving for Hartford in like 20 minutes, and all of a sudden, I'm on it."

"Nice story." He was being cold to her.

"I should have called."

"No. Well, yeah, maybe."

"You look good."

"Thanks. You um, you look, you, you uh look…"

"He thinks you look good too. Right?" Lorelai offered.

"Right."

"And you do," Lorelai directed to Rachel.

"Thank you."

"I'm Lorelai."

"Oh yeah. She's Lorelai," Luke said.

"I'm Luke's…" she looked at Luke to see if he would help here, but he was still gazing fixedly at Rachel, "friend," she completed.

"Yeah. She uh, uh, works at the Independence Inn," Luke said helpfully.

"I run it, actually," Lorelai corrected.

"Sorry, she runs it."

"Seriously? I checked in last night. Wow, I love that place. That must be a pretty big job."

"It is! It's crazy. There's always something happening. Like, we just put these coffee makers in all the rooms, but only half of them work. They just like shake and gurgle, like they're having some kind of a fit." With a struggle, she ended her babbling. "Why were you in the Mideast?"

"I was doing a photo story, on how Palestinian and Israeli families have been affected by the violence."

"Uh huh, well, so you understand about the job pressure."

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna go." Lorelai grabbed her purse and turned to get off of the stool.

"Please, don't let me drive you away."

"That's okay, you're not. I have to go sit in a… closet or something. So, it was really nice to meet you."

"Yeah, you too."

"Okay, bye."

Luke finally broke out of his trance and watched Lorelai flee from the diner.

In Rory's room, Lorelai was helping Rory get ready for her big anniversary date.

"'Oh, we got new coffee makers.' Ugh! What was I thinking?"

"Well, you spent a lot of time picking out those coffee makers," Rory said.

"Oh yeah, I'm Mrs. Coffee." Lorelai jerked on the brush while it was still in Rory's hair.

"Ow! Okay, I'm still attached to the head."

"Okay, sorry. I'm a little worked up."

"Mom, it just Luke's ex-girlfriend."

"Well according to the whole town, she was the love of his life. What if he wants her back? He hasn't even asked me on a date since the painting thing, and I just don't know where this is going!"

"You said you wanted to go slow, maybe he is waiting for you to initiate. Although it didn't look like you two wanted to go slow when I saw you the night that Dad left."

Lorelai's cell phone rang, she looked at it, sighed, and hit ignore. "You know, it doesn't help that you're not answering his calls. You could have solved this already."

"I just don't think I'm ready to hear that he's back with her," Lorelai whined.

"You don't know that – OW! OW! Okay, you are officially off hair duty."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take it out on your hair."

"It's O.K. I just think it's a little early for Dean to see me completely bald."

"Right, that's more of a six-month thing."

"Hey, why don't you go over there now, before dinner. If you go to dinner this bummed, Grandma is going to know and she'll try to drill the reason out of you making you even more miserable in the process. It's a vicious cycle."

"I don't have time to go by the diner; you've taken up all of my free time this afternoon. If I leave for Hartford right now, I might barely make it in time."

"Then go after."

"I don't know…"

After gaining an early escape from Friday Night Dinner, Lorelai drove home and wandered over to the Firelight Festival. She saw Rachel get up from sitting with Luke on a bench, and she sighed and said to herself, "Might as well get it over with," and went to sit down with him.

"I've been trying to find you all day! Where have you been?" Luke almost yelled.

"I had to help Rory get ready for her big date, then I had dinner at my parents' in Hartford, you know that's every Friday night."

"Oh, yeah, I just – Hey shouldn't you still be there?"

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"Climbed out the window."

"Okay."

"That's it. You're not curious why?"

"No."

"That's what I love about you," she flinched as she realized what she said, but Luke didn't react to it.

"So you haven't been avoiding me?" He asked.

"Well, maybe a little," she said softly.

They sat together quietly and watched the bonfire for a while. Lorelai started, "You know, if you want to get back together with Rachel, I'll be okay."

"What makes you think I want to be with her?"

"Well… the whole town talks about how she was the one who got away, and the way you two started at each other this morning made it seem like – "

"I don't want to be with her," he interrupted.

"Oh."

Luke stared down at his hands. "All of this stupid town talk. I don't know why you listen to it. The last time she was here; I proposed." He was in full rant mode now, "she said she needed to sleep on it. Well when I woke up the next morning, she and all of her things were gone. She didn't even leave me a note saying goodbye. She just took off. She's the 'everywhere but here' woman. If I let her back in, she would pick up and leave in a few months because that's what she does. She leaves. I'm amazed that she had the nerve to show up and act like nothing happened."

"Wow. I can't imagine anyone turning you down."

Luke smirked. "You and me never got around to planning our next date you know."

"Oh so now that was a date? I thought you said it didn't count?"

"I'm a compulsive liar."

"Good to know."

"What about tomorrow night?"

"I'm free. What have you got in mind?"

"It's a secret."

"No fair," Lorelai pouted.

"I like to be mysterious." He sat back and laid one arm on the top of the bench behind Lorelai.

"Luke Danes; International Man of Mystery."

"Why do I get the feeling that's from some stupid movie?"

"Because it is! Hello; Austin Powers. So much fun to mock." She scooted closer to Luke and leaned back against his arm. They either did not notice, or did not care that practically everyone was sneaking glances of them and gossiping. They sat and people watched for a short time until Lorelai checked her watch and began to get up. "It's almost time for Rory's date to be over and I wanna get first dish on the details." Impulsively, she quickly kissed Luke on the cheek and said, "see you tomorrow."

A small smile played on his lips and he resembled the cat that ate the canary.