Title: Hindsight
Author: Karleen
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Warner Brothers, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions and Hofflund/Polone. This was just written for fun.

Chapter Six : A Not So Subtle Awakening, Quite Frank In Fact

His head felt as heavy as a boulder the minute he woke up one morning. He figured if he slept it off, it would go away. When he woke up again, it was still there, the pain worse than before. Her visits reduced to twice a day, to bring him lunch and dinner. Since their fight a couple of weeks ago, their conversations (if you can call it that) reduced to nothing more than a 'do you need anything else?' Not that they were chatty to begin with, but they both felt a shift between their dynamic again. He patted his bed in search of his phone. 'oh what I would to get this damn thing off my face..' he mumbled to himself. He knew his phone well enough to know where the number one and call buttons were. It rang, but went directly to her voice mail.

- - - - -

"Ok so that concludes the meeting for this week. Thank you guys and keep up the good work!" The Dragonfly staff soon dispersed back to their normal positions while Lorelai gathered her notes and noticed that her phone was blinking on the screen that indicated she had voice messages. She was about to check the message but was distracted when she heard someone call her name and she placed the phone in her pocket.

"Mom!"

"Rory!" she hugged her daughter as she was surprised to see her early in the morning where she was usually at her Stanford office. "What are you doing here so early?"

"I can't visit my lovely mother on a day like today?"

"Oh no, what did you do? Do I need to get a lawyer for you again?"

"Oh Jeez mom!" she rolled her eyes.

"I'm just kidding." she smirked as she let go of her daughter. "What are you playing hooky?" she laughed at the thought.

"Actually I am." Lorelai gave her a look.

"Apocalypse now anyone?"

"I just needed to get away from the newspaper for awhile. I know, I know.. I wanted to be a journalist..."

"Just to get the record straight, I didn't say a word." she patted her daughter on the shoulder. "So you played hooky to hang out with Mommy?"

"Absolutely... and also to tell you that I can't be at Friday Night Dinner this week."

"You just keep dropping bombs like it's D-day today."

"Sorry but I have a deadline I have to meet."

"All right kid, but you owe me. You owe me big." she gave her daughter a grin.

"Who were you going to talk to earlier? you know before I distracted you, you had your phone in your hand."

"Thanks for reminding me." she dials her voice mail number then held her phone to her ear. She had ten messages total, the first five were from Christopher, pleading to talk to her which she quickly deleted, two from Rory telling her that she was going to stop by, two messages from Pete, the Dragonfly's linen delivery guy, and the last one from Luke.

"Hey Lorelai...It's Luke, I don't want to bother you at work but can you swing by earlier than you usually do? My head is hurting and I just want it to go away but I don't know where my pain relievers are... ok so.. bye."

As soon as she heard his message, she told Rory that she needed to run an errand that was strictly business that unfortunately she couldn't tag along. She told her daughter to stay as long as she wanted and that she'd return as soon as she could.

- - - - -

She opened the door to his apartment and found him trying to sleep off his headache. He shifted back and forth and tried to hinder the pain. Lorelai sat next to him and began to soothe his forehead with her fingers.

"Lorelai?"

"No Shirlock, it's Jeeves." she quipped. She felt him relax with her touch.

"I expected you to be here much later."

"I aim to confuse." she remarked with a smile. "I'll just get you some water and Tylenol before I go." she walked towards the kitchen, drew water from the sink and found the medicine in his cupboard. She sat back down next to him and handed him the glass and pills.

"Thank you." he whispered.

"and maybe later, you'll let me help you trim that beard of yours. Because frankly it just looks scary." she joked and he gave her a tiny smile.

- - - - -

"You're back so soon!" her daughter greeted her while she was typing on her laptop in Lorelai's office.

"It was a quick errand. So what are you occupied with daughter of mine? I thought you were playing hooky, what's with the work face?"

"Jared forgot to send me some extra pieces for next week. I swear the guy is like a Paris- reincarnate."

"Well you do attract the best of them." she said and gave her daughter a look.

"I'll be done in ten minutes then we can go have lunch together."

"That's all I wanted to hear." she walked out of her office and headed to the kitchen.

"and remember to degrease before you de glaze Steve, ok?" Sookie was lecturing one of the newly hired cooks.

"Hey Sook!" Lorelai said with a smile.

"Hey, someone's all smiles today" it was the first time in months that she'd seen her wear a genuine smile on her face.

"I smile."

"So you and Christopher made up?"

"What?"

"That's why you're happy right, because things are right again?"

"Sookie.." she wanted to avoid that subject, but Sookie seemed to have the knack to bring up topics she did not want to discuss. "It's not that."

"Then who is it, Luke?" she said it as a joke then she saw Lorelai's expression. "Luke? You're happy because...How... Whe.. Huh?"

"It's not what you think."

"I don't even know what to think. We haven't even seen him around since he just disappeared one day and Liz closed the diner. I'm confused."

"He was in a car accident. Liz asked me to look after him and I agreed."

"How long have you been doing this?"

"A while." kept details vague.

"Does Christopher know about this?"

"No." she paused. "I ended things with him last night.

"To be back with Luke?"

"No."

"Then you're happy because you're with neither of them?"

"No. I'm just happy to smile again."

She told Sookie about everything that she'd bottled up inside her this past year. She told her about feeling out of her element since her breakup with Luke, that she only resurfaced when she saw him again, the first time they spoke to each other again.

- - - - -

"Are you sure you're fine? You seemed like you wanted to say something earlier." Rory said as they both walked towards her car. She knew her mother well enough to know something was off.

"I did actually." she paused "So next Friday night, you're going to be there right?"

"Yes mom, and for the rest of forever, I'm going to be your buffer."

"I'll hold you to that missy."

"I'm sensing that's not it."

"I ended it with your dad." she watched her daughter's expression. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

"Well, I just severed ties with him. It would be my fault if your relationship goes down the drain as well."

"That's his choice then. Are you sorry things didn't work out between the two of you?"

"Truth be told Hon, I wasn't myself when I was with him. I mean how could I have been?" Rory didn't respond but simply gave her mother a hug. Lorelai closed her eyes and hugged her daughter back tightly.

- - - - -

"Did you like the pot roast?" she asked as she ate next to him.

"It's delicious." He took his fork and accidentally stabbed at the table. "Crap." she giggled but stopped herself. "You can laugh you know"

"I'm sorry."

"No really, you can because I do." he gave her a smile.

"Do you want some more?" she asked as he drank water.

"That would be good." she opened another to go container and spooned some on his plate. She guided his hand with the fork over the plate to avoid him stabbing at something else. Before she let go he placed his hand on top of hers, she didn't budge. "Lorelai." he said in a tone that melted her stability. He felt her breath so close to him. Without sight, he knew her exact position and what was about to happen. She leaned in closer, and their lips touched gently. It was brief, but the connection they just had, made them feel more alive than they had been for the past year. They slowly broke off the kiss and let go of each other's hands.

"Do you need anything else?" she asked nervously.

"No."

"Then I think I'm gonna head out now." not knowing what to say next.

"All right." he simply said and nodded his head as she cleaned up then left a couple of minutes later.

He walked towards his bed, having memorized a way where he won't hit anything in his path. Earlier he couldn't sleep because of his painful headache, now he couldn't sleep because of that one gesture, that one kiss resuscitated his faith back to life.

Where I'm supposed to be?
I lost my heart, I buried it too deep
Under the iron sea

Oh, crystal ball, crystal ball
Save us all, tell me life is beautiful
Mirror, mirror on the wall

Keane- Crystal Ball

to be continued...