Tears In Heaven

The first part is Lorelai's life after Rory's death, then the AU thing, then Lorelai again, and then the AU thing again. Got it? From now on, any time you see these: -------- that means that it's switching from Lorelai's life/the AU thing to the other.

Thanks for reviews; I'm glad you guys are reading.

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Lorelai heard that William Danes had collapsed halfway through turndown service.

Almost immediately she shoved her basket of mints at Vic and headed downstairs, already calling to the front desk to dock her pay for the rest of the day, she was going on an extended break. It seemed like she teleported across town, suddenly in the hospital for the first time in a year and striding towards Luke.

"Luke," she said quickly, "I got here as soon as I could."

He stood from his seat, pale and nervous and shaking. Her heart sank, feeling for him.

"Um," he started, fidgeting, "they think his cancer's back." He finally pulled his gaze from the fascinating floor tile to show Lorelai the tears glittering in his eyes. "It doesn't look good."

"Oh, Luke," she sighed, reaching out for him. He sank his head into her chest, sobbing. "That's right. Just let it all out." She moved them over towards the chairs, and then sat them down. He really started bawling then, moving his hands to wrap around her neck, letting all his frustrations out.

Two days later, after only slight unsettled sleep and absolutely no good coffee, the doctors rushed into William's room and then out, slowly. His main doctor stopped at Luke's hopeful face and shook his head once, twice, a sorrowful look on his face. As Luke sank into the plastic chair, shocked, the doctor took Lorelai aside and said that he'd known Mr. Danes, he'd been a good man, looking out for everyone, and he was very sorry this had happened. Lorelai nodded, shocked herself, and then turned back to Luke, already wrapping her arms around him and allowing him to take solace in something real.

Four days later, after the funeral and memorial service, Lorelai saw Luke's house for the first time.

Both of them feeling vulnerable and tired and just wanting to hold onto something, someone, they had sex for the first time that night, and lay wrapped in each other's arms tightly for the rest of the night.

Luke sold his dad's house not long after that, opting instead to move into his dad's office. He moved everything that wasn't necessary into storage—except for the blue baseball cap his father had always worn. Picking it up out of the box of personal effects his father had left at the hospital, he slid it onto his head, backwards. After that day, he stayed on his head most of the time, wanting to keep a part of his father always with him.

A week later, Lorelai and Luke were sitting on the floor of the hardware store, in the middle of aisle three, leaning against the shelf of nails and sipping from beer bottles.

"What should I do with this place?" he asked, gesturing. "I don't know the first thing about keeping a hardware store running."

"Well," Lorelai started, discarding her bottle and reaching for a second, "what are you good at?"

"I don't know," Luke sighed, leaning forward and resting his hands on the bill of his father's baseball cap.

"Coffee," she said suddenly. "You're good at coffee."

"I'm not turning this into a coffee place. They're all…hoity-toity."

She laughed at his choice of words and shook her head. "No, not a coffee place. A…diner. You can cook, can't you?"

He reached over her for his second beer and nodded. "A diner, huh?" He glanced around, imagining it. "Okay."

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Lorelai waited until the not-ungodly hour of nine-thirty the next morning before rushing down the stairs and throwing open her sewing room door. Saddened by the sight of her sewing room, devoid of anything even remotely teenage-Rory-like, she sank into a chair at the kitchen table. She was seconds away from contemplating going coffee-less, and therefore caffiene-deficiency-hallucinations-less, when the downstairs bathroom door opened and Rory walked out.

"Oh, hi," she said, stopping suddenly at the sight of the different-version of her mother sitting at the kitchen table. It hadn't been a dream, unfortunately.

"Hi!" Lorelai jumped up from the table and moved over to her daughter, wrapping her in a hug. "How are you?"

"Okay," Rory answered, subtly ducking out of her mother's hug and walking back to her room. She was still in her robe from her shower. "Can I…go change?" she asked as Lorelai followed her.

"Oh! Yeah, sorry." Lorelai laughed and headed back for the kitchen table. Rory nodded and entered her room.

Ten minutes later, after re-parting her hair fifteen times, she emerged, to find Luke and Lorelai exchanging playful banter near the coffee. Smiling—this was the way she remembered them—she headed over and poured herself a cup.

"Good morning," she said, feeling a little less out-of-sorts.

"Good morning," they chorused back.

"So, what are we going to do today?" Rory asked, taking a sip of her coffee and leaning against the counter. "I mean…I wonder what the town's like. If it's my…town or yours. 'Cause, I mean, if they know who I am, it's my town, but if they think I…died twelve years ago, it's your town." As Luke and Lorelai stared at her, she shrugged and took another sip of coffee. "I dunno, this is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me."

"Okay," Lorelai nodded, "I think we should go to Luke's. I mean, you have to go there anyway," she said, turning to Luke, and then back to Rory, "and we can get a table in the window and people-watch and see what's going on."

"Okay," Rory nodded. "That sounds good."

"Good!" Lorelai smiled at her daughter, and then her boyfriend, glad that she'd figured out a way to make everyone happy.

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"Yes, Mia?" Lorelai glanced up from the registration book and looked into the eyes of her boss.

"Lorelai," Mia smiled, "may I talk to you?"

"Um, sure. Kay, watch the desk," Lorelai told the girl standing to her left, the one she was training to be the early morning front desk personnel. The girl nodded, and Lorelai followed Mia to her office, set off to the right of the front desk. As she settled into the chair in front of Mia's desk, she couldn't help but feel a little giddy. Every other time Mia had called Lorelai in, she'd gotten a promotion or raise, and she didn't see why today could be any different.

"Lorelai," Mia sighed, "I must tell you something. I'm retiring as manager."

"Mia, no!" Lorelai gasped. "You can't! What will we do without you?"

"Well, I'm hoping that you can run this place for me. I'll still own it, but you'll run it. And," she added as Lorelai's eyes got bigger, "I'm giving you my house. It is definitely about time you moved out of that dirty potting shed."

Lorelai screamed and jumped from her seat.

Twenty minutes later, she was running into Luke's Diner, still screaming intermittently.

"LUKE!" she screamed, running directly behind the counter and into the kitchen.

"For God's sakes, what, Lorelai? Take that plate."

She picked up a plate and bounced on the balls of her feet, following him around the diner.

"I got a promotion."

"Tha—"

"And a house."

Luke plunked his last plate down in front of a costumer and turned to face his girlfriend of six years. "Wow."

"I know!" she squealed, pulling his arms and jumping up and down. "Mia gave me a house!"

Luke grinned and hugged her quickly, stopping the jumping. "That's wonderful news."

"I know!" she squealed again, before jumping up and down and then suddenly stopping. "I'm gonna have a housewarming party. Oh, I gotta plan! See you later!" She gave him a peck on the lips and practically shot out of the diner, like a rocket of energy.

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Rory, walking into Luke's diner behind Lorelai, bumped into someone, and only after he'd muttered, "Sorry," did she realize who it was. She stared after her boyfriend in shock as he wandered down the street, stopping only to wrap his arms around a tall lanky blonde and practically suck her face off.

Hadn't they only reunited a month ago? It had been the same day all the daisies had showed up at her mom's Inn…but wait…the daisies were from Max, her teacher at Chilton…since she'd never gone to Chilton, Lorelai had never met Max and had never gotten engaged and that's why the last few flowers scattered around the town were suddenly gone.

This was her mom's universe. This was the other Lorelai's universe. This was…the place where she didn't exist. The only place that was the same was her room. This was…weird.

Miss Patty stopped at their table and greeted Lorelai warmly, before turning to Rory. "And who's this pretty young thing?"

Luke walked up to them, quickly, and plopped coffee in front of them. "This is my sister's kid," he told Patty, hoping to get her on her way.

"I thought Liz had a boy," Miss Patty said, confused.

"She, uh…she did," Luke nodded, "but this is my sister's kid's girlfriend. She's visiting us and then she's gonna try to get Liz and Jess to come visit."

"Oh. All right. It's nice to meet you—"

"Leigh," Lorelai said quickly, supplying Rory's middle name.

"Yes. It's nice to meet you, Leigh." Miss Patty shook Rory's hand and walked off.

"That was close," Lorelai sighed.

"Yeah," Rory said, her mind somewhere else. Lorelai noticed, and reached out and touched her daughter's shoulder gently.

"Hey. You okay?" she smiled.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. It's just…weird."

"I agree," Lorelai nodded. "So, um, am I any different than you remember? From…I guess, the other me?"

Rory shook her head. "Not really. Except…except her hair's longer, and darker, and she just got engaged and so she's frantically trying to plan a wedding…and…and…she's only friends with Luke, except she flirts with him a lot, but it's all friendly, and she really loves this guy she's marrying, and she's one of my best friends and I just love her a lot." Rory paused, suddenly desperately missing her own mother, her real mother, the one who was waiting for her among the debris in the living room, laughing at every other word Al and Sam said, the one who was going to figure out those trilogy episodes for her, and whatever happened to Sam's daughter….

And Rory broke down in the middle of her new mother's boyfriend's diner.