A/N: Finally I managed to finish another chapter. I started it weeks ago, then got caught up in my work schedule and finally last Sunday I was able to continue on a very long train trip and finished it yesterday. Jessi, it was really fun to talk about the chapter for real for a change instead of MSN. Thanks for your help, as always!

Thanks to those of you who read and reviewed the last chapter. Hope you like this one as well!

Chapter 5 Parents

Another week later they were seated in Dr. Spencer's office again.

"So…" Spencer started. "Last time we discussed how you met and how slowly your friendship turned into something more. I want to use this session to learn something more about your parents. From our previous sessions I learned that your parents had and have a big influence in both your lives. Luke, because your parents aren't among us anymore, I want to start with yours. Can you tell me what your parents are like?"

Talking about his parents has never been easy for Luke. Lorelai knew this and grabbed his hands, squeezing it in encouragement. Luke turned to look at her and saw the compassion in her eyes. This was enough encouragement alone to start talking.

"My parents were amazing people. They cared about me and my sister Liz very much. My mother taught me how to cook and let me help around the house as much as I wanted when I was growing up. My dad worked long hours in the hardware store and wasn't always around, so I felt really important at the time. One evening when I was 12 I said goodnight to my parents and everything was normal. I could have never imagined that when I would wake up the following morning, my mother wasn't with us anymore…"

He swallowed. It had been a long time since he thought about that morning, and he had never talked about it, with no one, not even Lorelai. He had told her stories about his mother once in a while, and that she died in her sleep one night, but never the details.

Spencer noticed Luke's discourage to move on and asked. "What happened that morning?"

Luke swallowed again before he continued. "It was a Sunday morning and we never went to church and as I got older, I started to sleep in a little. I remember Liz walking into my room that morning. It was still dark so I yelled at her that she should let me sleep. When she didn't leave my room like she usually did, I sat up, starting to get angry. That faded away when I saw she was crying. I instantly knew something was wrong and I jumped out of bed and walked to my parent's bedroom. My father was standing there, talking to our primary care physician and when I looked at the bed, I saw a white sheet covering my mother's body."

Luke shook his head, trying to get the images of that night out of his head. Lorelai squeezed his hand tighter, trying hard not to imagine how that must have been for him, finding his mother dead that morning. It was simply too painful.

After a few seconds Luke was able to continue his story. "My father had woken up that morning and found my mother not breathing. Her body was already cold so he knew there was nothing he could do to safe her. Later we found out that it was a pulmonary embolism that killed her. She didn't feel anything. She just went to sleep and never woke up again.

My father was devastated after my mother died and in the beginning it was hard for him to continue life without her. I tried to do as much as I could to help him around the house and the hardware store. After a while things got easier for him. He never looked at another woman again, but he did do the things he used to do before. He became a re-enactor again and he started working on his boat."

"The boat Lorelai stored in her garage all those years later?" Spencer asked.

"The very one."

"How did your father die?"

"He died of lung cancer when I was 25. He left me the hardware store and he made me promise to take care of Liz, and of Louie, his brother."

"That must have been hard."

Luke nodded. "I was 25 and just starting life and suddenly I was left without both my parents and with a huge responsibility."

"That's when you turned the hardware store into a diner?"

"I didn't like the hardware business as much as my father did and I knew how to cook."

"And you thought it would be more fun." Lorelai added with a smile, looking directly in Luke's eyes.

"Yeah, that too." Luke said, smiling slightly as well, touched that Lorelai remembered he once told her that, many years ago.

"What about your sister and your uncle?"

"My sister had gotten pregnant when she was 18. After Jess was born, Jimmy, Jess' father left her. She stayed with my father and me for a while, but after a few months she fell in love with some other punk and moved to New York. After that she dated one guy after the other and there wasn't much my dad or me could do about it. Most of the time after she broke up with whoever she was dating at the time she called for help. Needing a new place to live or money or something like that and I ended up giving her what she wanted."

"And you took Jess in when Liz couldn't take care of him anymore." Lorelai added.

Luke nodded in confirmation.

"And I still remember Louie." Lorelai smiled.

"You met Luke's uncle?" Spencer asked.

"Depends how you take it." Lorelai replied.

Spencer raised his eyebrows, confused.

"My uncle died a couple of years ago." Luke started to explain. "It was my father's wish to have him buried next to him, in Stars Hallow. So I arranged his funeral. Louie was a unusual man and he wanted to be buried with almost everything he owned and I couldn't get the casket to close."

"Luke called me, clearly upset so I drove to the funeral home to help him out. In the end Luke just bought a bigger casket that fit Louie and all the stuff he wanted to be buried with."

"And Lorelai made sure Louie got the funeral my father wanted Louie to have, when the rest of the town wasn't willing to cooperate."

Lorelai raised her shoulders. "It seemed important to you. All I did was make clear to Taylor how much you mean to the town and that they had to set their feelings for your uncle aside and do this for you, and your father."

Luke nodded, still appreciating what Lorelai had done for him back then.

"So you were there for Luke when he needed you?"

Lorelai nodded. "I was glad that I could help him for a change. Most of the time it was Luke helping me, whenever I needed to have something fixed around the house. Also, it was Luke who closed the dinner during dinner rush to get me to the hospital after my father collapsed. He brought me food every day after I broke my leg in yoga class and I wasn't allowed to walk on the cast. And I could go on like this forever."

"It was nothing really." Luke said, embarrassed to be put in the spotlight.

Spencer smiled, watching them interact. The intensity of their relationship became more clear every time he heard them talking. He did realize they had some issues to work out, and that that's why they were here. "Lorelai. Tell me about your parents."

"The relationship I had with my parents was the complete opposite of the one Luke had with his. Even as a young girl I knew that the things my parents wanted for me weren't what I wanted. They didn't give me the space to do the things I wanted. They smothered me.

My father is a business man. He travels a lot and his job means everything to him. He's loves numbers and I have nothing with numbers, so it's safe to say we don't have much in common. I'm sure that I am everything he did not want in a daughter. And it's safe to say I have even less in common with my mother. The things that are important to her, definitely the things I don't want in my life."

"For example?" Spencer pressed.

"My mother lives for the values of the high society. The DAR, all sorts of social events. As a little girl she brought me to these events and I had to sit on a chair the entire afternoon in a dress I hated. I wanted to play but all I could do was sit still and drink tea. My parents find it important to impress other people with the things they have and didn't understand why I don't.

The older I got, the more I rebelled against my parents and their strict rules. In the end this resulted in me getting pregnant at 16, although I don't really blame my parents for that. I do think that maybe things would have turned out different if my parents had given me more space. Not that I regret how things worked out. In the end it gave me an opportunity to get away and to start a live of my own.

After Rory was born my mother interfered with the way I was raising Rory. I couldn't take that anymore and decided to leave. That's how I ended up in Stars Hallow. I found a job as a maid in the independence inn and the owner, Mia, allowed me to live in the tool shed.

After I moved out I only saw my parents on the holidays until Rory got accepted to Chilton and I couldn't afford the tuition. The only thing I could do was go to my parents and beg them for the money. My father was willing to write the check immediately but my mother wanted weekly dinners in return."

"How was it to suddenly have to see your parents on a weekly basis?"

"I hated it. There were many uncomfortable situations where we didn't have much to talk about. My mother still felt the need to control my life and still wanted the wrong things for me.

The craziest thing is that she pointed out to me many times that there was something more between Luke and me than friendship but when we finally got together she had this stupid idea that I should really be with Christopher, Rory's father, and she forced him towards me and with that, she forced Luke and me apart."

"How did that make you feel?"

"Betrayed of course. It took months until I so much as forgave her for what she did. Long after Luke and I had gotten back together. Then a year later they betrayed me again when Rory got into trouble and I went to them for help."

"What happened?"

"It's a long story but to make it short, Rory wanted to drop out of Yale and I went to my parents for help, wanting the three of us to sit down and talk some sense into her. When I came back that evening they had already talked to Rory and decided that it was okay for her to quit school and that she was going to live with them for a while."

Lorelai shook her head. It still hurt to think back to the time when she and Rory were separated. Now it was Luke's turn to squeeze her hand.

"How is your relationship now?" Spencer asked.

"Better than it's been in a long time. I'm still going to Friday night dinner even though I'm not obligated to anymore. It's weird to go there without Rory, but it's also kind of nice to spend time with my parents on my own free will. If you would have told me a year ago that I would be saying this now, I would have called you crazy, but I don't know. It really is nice to talk to my parents once in a while. I'm just afraid that there will be a point where they will do something to set me off again. I can only hope that will never happen."

"How do your parents feel about you and Luke now?"

"They're okay with it. They realized that he's the guy for me." She smiled, feeling the exact same thing.

"Luke, how was it for you when Emily tried to mingle in your relationship?" Spencer asked.

"I tried to understand why she thought that I'm not good enough for Lorelai. I understand that Lorelai and I grew up in complete different worlds, but why was it so bad that we wanted to be together? I tried very hard to please her but I realized that I can't be someone else."

"And I don't want you to be." Lorelai said, once again wanting to make that clear.

"I know." He said, looking directly into her eyes. Then he turned back to Spencer. "Back then I needed time to think. I realized that Christopher will always be in Lorelai's life, and so will Richard and Emily. They are part of her life, whether she wants it or not."

"And you were not sure if you could live with that?"

"At the time I wasn't. But then I realized that I love Lorelai and being apart made us both miserable. One evening Emily came to see me at the diner and told me that I had won. That Lorelai wanted to be with me and that she had to accept that. That there was nothing she could do about it and that she would leave us alone."

"And so you went back to her?"

He nodded. "I went to her house, rang her doorbell and kissed her when she opened the door."

"The best thing I ever found when opening the door." Lorelai said and smiled. Then she added. "After that we talked things through and things were better than they were before."

"And how do you feel about Lorelai's parents now?" Spencer asked Luke.

"I'm still not completely comfortable going there, but we accepted each other for who we are and that's okay. They are Lorelai's parents and I find it important that they have a relationship. After having lost my parents too early in life, I know how important it is to spend time with your family while you still can."

Spencer nodded, happy with that answer. "So I think this is a good point to end this session. I now know what influence your parents had in your lives and a little more about the role Lorelai's parents had in your relationship. There are still a few more subjects we have to discuss, but I really feel that we're making some progress here. I'll see you again next week!

T.B.C.