Coming Home
Summary: Once Luke hears the news about Lorelai and Christopher's elopement, a simple drive to clear his head, leads him on a journey.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, I think I would be a little happier with where things are going on Gilmore Girls. Also don't own Dallas Green, or the song.
For now it is a Luke p.o.v story.
Do people like this? Cause I only got 3 reviews, and usually that's just a sign that no one is interested…. Well I hope you guys like this more.
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When Luke didn't return a few hours after he was supposed to, Cesar started to call around. He wasn't in any of the usual places, and with that Cesar called in lane to cover for Luke until they could figure out what was going on. Luke never came back and they closed the diner, without anyone else noticing. No one realized, that since the breakup between Lorelai and Luke, Luke had pretty much became the invisible hermit ,that he had been before.
The town of Stars Hallow continued on, and few were disgruntled by the blatant disappearance of the Diner's owner. The Diner sat dark and quiet and deserted, and only few regulars thought it was a little weird. The town were focused on the new events that had been happening. A local, had up and gotten married with no warning or notice.
It wasn't until the Diner sat dark and deserted for two weeks that the townspeople thought it was strange. There was no fishing sign, no notice or warning that he was ever coming back. The person most concerned in the disappearance of Luke Danes, was Lorelai Gilmore-Hayden.
She loved him, but that wasn't enough. The Beatles were wrong, and in her case, Lorelai figured it was better to have gone through one year of heartache than a lifetime of not being sure that Luke really wanted to marry her. That's the hard part of taking the plunge.
But after almost three weeks on no word on Luke, Lorelai finally bit the bullet and decided to call the people that were involved in Luke's life. At one time she could have been the first person to know where Luke Danes was. But she had ruined that, and there was no point in fretting over something she couldn't change.
Lane and Cesar had no idea where Luke was. Liz, who was so focused on the upcoming birth of her baby and keeping TJ from doing something stupid, also had no clue. April who was back with her mother was her next choice.
Finding the number was simple enough, especially when Lorelai had slipped unnoticed in the now deserted diner. Luke hadn't changed his 'hiding' spot for the key, and maybe Lorelai had taken some extra time to look at the things she would never see again. Who knew you could miss the musty décor of a very bachelor apartment. She had called April, and April was just as stumped. The phone was suddenly grabbed on Aprils end, and she had the most awkward conversation with Anna Nardini.
'Where is Luke?' Anna had demanded. When Lorelai had answered honestly that she had no idea, she had to hear the diatribe of Anna's opinion on Lorelai and Luke. She finally had to make some random excuse and get off the phone. Mystified to Luke unexplainable absence in the lives of the people who were the most important to him.
Lorelai concluded that a pit stop at Sniffy's tavern and a call to Jess would be her last attempts at trying to find Luke. Beyond that, she would begin to worry so much that she would have to admit things she really couldn't admit.
Jess had said that he hadn't really heard from Luke. Just some message saying that he would be unavailable for awhile, so if he could look in on Liz every once in awhile. Lorelai was grateful for that information, and she tried to forget about the picture that she found when she was making sure she left Luke's apartment, just as she found it. A picture of them together, when things were perfect. When she thought that she had found everything she had wanted.
So she went home and there was Chris reading to GiGi and she had to smile at how domestic her husband looked. She tried to forget about Luke, Tried being the operative word.
Meanwhile, Luke had just crossed the border between Detroit to Windsor and was reveling in the distance he put between himself and his pain. He figured he should call Cesar and Lane, and let them know that he wouldn't be back for awhile. What a little drive had become a three week stint of driving and thinking. He had heard constantly that the open road gave time to think about things, a man doesn't normally think about.
And the one thing that kept on coming to him was that his hope for things to work out between him and Lorelai was permanently over. He would never get the chance to tell her all the things he wanted to. To take her to all the places he had meant to, but never got around to going. She was married, and even though in his experience that wasn't a permanent thing, Luke knew that Lorelai wanted it to be permanent, and she wouldn't just jump into something without thinking about it first.
Or did she? She could be totally aware that by her marrying Christopher, that things were at an end between them. After all she did sleep with him, and she didn't show that much remorse over him like she had done previously. He had heard about her sorrow after the first break up. And it took a whole province of Canada to help him discover why that was. Why she didn't need to grieve this time.
He could say that it was entirely her fault. That she was the one who had given him an ultimatum, and not liking his answer, had gone and slept with another man; an event that had happened probably too many times to count before. But that wouldn't be true. It would be highly arrogant and stupid to say something like that; when Luke knew he had a huge part in how the events had played out. He should have seen that she was at her breaking point, but instead he chose to ignore it and even though he wasn't entirely responsible, he had a hand in the ending of his relationship.
Somewhere between their first kiss and hearing the words that Lorelai had eloped in Paris, Luke's whole idea of his future disappeared. Somehow he had thought that the postponement of the engagement was merely a way to give him some time. But the marriage and everything he had wanted for the both of them would never happen. Maybe Luke was a fool he had thought later on. He was too quiet about his plans; he hadn't done what he swore he would do, if Lorelai ever gave him a chance. He was going to be different from the other guys she dated. He would be dependable, he would never hurt her like the others had, and he would appreciate every second he got to be with her. He wished he could just concede and say to the man that took Lorelai away, 'Just make her happy' to him and just move on. But he couldn't. Instead he continued to drive, fiddling with the radio every time he drove through the radio stations frequency. He had heard sad songs and songs about hope. This time last year he was the latter. Waiting for his happily ever after to happen, and knowing that the way things were going, it was in his grasp. A mere year had changed that.
He stopped at some hotel for the night and wished that there was something for him to hold onto. He had a daughter who merely tolerated him, a sister who had finally done something with her life, and she didn't need him to fix things for her, and a nephew who may have done something with his life, but Luke couldn't claim he had much to do with it. Maybe he had hidden for too long, and he had lost his chance of having any of the things he had wanted.
With that, Luke turned over and tried to close his eyes and go to sleep with any other feeling of hopelessness. With his eyes shut, he didn't see the blinking light on his cell phone going off. If he had seen it, he would have probably been happier.
Lorelai Gilmore-Hayden hung up after too many rings and sighed dejectedly. She had to pretend to be a happy newlywed once she gave up trying to reach him. She wondered if she had really screwed up her life by letting Chris get her all hyped by the idea of them marrying. She didn't feel the excitement that she felt when it was her and Chris on the gazebo.
So, Lorelai hung up the phone and didn't say the words she wanted to on the answering machine. 'Come home' or maybe it was 'I made a terrible mistake, come home and save me.' Instead she just hung up before she could make another mistake.
TBC