A/N Hope you enjoy this chapter. Thanks to all who review and read it does help.

I own nothing

Ch 38 What makes a home

They arrived at the new house and Luke and Lorelai went up to bed. As they lay together Luke said, "I still am amazed that your grandmother can fill Emily with such fear. Has she always been this way?"

Lorelai snuggled closer to Luke, "Gran has lived in London for most of my life, the last time she was here I was around twelve or thirteen, but yeah, mom reacted in much the same way. Tonight I really thought she was having a seizure with her Tourette's symptoms, when she yelled out hat-rack I thought she'd flipped."

"What was that anyway?" Luke was stroking her back and he was well on his way to sleep.

"Well, Gran gave her that horrid hat-rack that's in the garage and mom gave it to me for Christmas a few years back. Now that Gran is actually going to be here mom needs to salt her house with all the gifts Gran gave her over the years, or else hear about them for the duration of her stay."

"Ah, re-gifter."

"Exactly." Lorelai sighed contentedly as she too was falling asleep.

Luke started to make lists in his mind of things they needed to finish for the wedding. Running his fingers through her hair he started to think of all the other things she had in her garage and the rest of the house.

"You know we need to start packing up all your belongings and bringing them here."

Lorelai's eyes popped open. "Why do we need to do that?"

"Well, Rory and you're going to live here when we get married aren't you" Luke chuckled. In the silence that followed Luke opened his eyes to look at Lorelai who wasn't looking at him.

"Lorelai, you weren't planning on living in your house after we got married were you?"

"Well, not exactly." Lorelai was looking intently at her hands.

Luke was starting to get ticked off. "What do you mean not exactly? Either you live with me in our house or you live in your old house. Really not rocket science here."

"I just didn't think about it Luke, I mean if I analyzed the situation then sure we're living here. But I didn't think about the fact we wouldn't be living in our house. That house was a huge step of independence for Rory and me. It was the first really grown-up thing I owned and I did it all by myself. For ten years we lived in a one room shed, scrimping and saving every penny just to have that roof over our heads. It's more than a house for me and I'm having a hard time letting it go." Lorelai is sitting up in bed and her voice is getting a little defensive.

"I know it was difficult for you Lorelai, I never said it wasn't but couldn't you have figured this out before we decided to buy this house? You said you loved this house you loved the idea of building a life with me here where our children and grandchildren could have a place to come home to. Well damn it, you have to live here for it to be a home!" Luke got out of bed and was pacing around the bedroom moving into full rant.

Lorelai had also gotten out of bed and was standing in a very defensive position. "I do love this house I love the idea of having children with you and raising them here. I love the future we have planned together. I just didn't think about how I'd feel leaving my past that's all. Jeez Luke, I'd think you of all people would understand how I feel. You've lived in your dad's old store for eleven years. Didn't it feel bad to move here even though it's because of a good thing?"

"Yes, but I did it! I moved my life here because I want to be with you and this is our start. I can't live in the past anymore Lorelai, it's just too painful. Now that I know what can be I can't go back and I can't live without you. So you tell me just exactly what I'm supposed to do?" Luke was really getting upset, he couldn't believe that they were so far apart in their desires.

"Luke, logically I know Rory and I will live here, but I love my house and I can't see giving it up right now. I can't live without you either and I really don't want to try, but I'm having a hard time letting go of my house. Can you see that?"

Lorelai had tears streaming down her face and Luke stopped pacing. He walked over to her and gathered her in his arms and rocked them both.

"Lorelai, I'm sorry. I just heard that you didn't want to let go of your past and I got scared that you didn't want our future."

"Oh, Luke, I really want to marry you. I thought the fact I railroaded you into pushing the date up showed that." Lorelai clung to him.

Luke chuckled, "I guess I just forgot for a second, I really didn't think. Tell you what, how about we find someone to rent your house? Then we can keep it until you want to sell it, or when Rory graduates from college, maybe she would want to write the great American novel there."

Lorelai was feeling better with Luke's rocking but she wasn't too sure about the renting, "I don't like the idea of someone I don't know living in my house. It's a very special house made for special people and Babette may not like the people who move in."

"Lorelai, you know that we can afford to keep your house empty, but a home should be occupied, there're too many things that can happen to an unoccupied house and these things can cause serious damage to the structure. Imagine if the furnace goes out and a pipe bursts flooding all that wonderful hardwood which would cause it to warp and then we'd have to replace all the floors not to mention that it could also do damage to the joists and that sort of damage just invites termites. If someone lives there they can call me if the furnace goes out and we get it fixed before the pipe breaks. Tell you what, how about if we're very picky who we rent it to? It'll have to be some one who'll love the house as much as you do, or close to it. Also we can choose the person and then adjust the rent to what that person can afford. So maybe it'll be someone who's in a situation like you were. How about that?" Luke was clutching at straws here, he understood the feelings Lorelai was dealing with, but he needed to get her moving into their future and that meant letting go of some of her past.

"I guess that sounds OK. I know it needs to have people in it. It's such a happy house it should give other people the joy it's given Rory and me. I'll ask around to see if there're people who might be interested in renting a house and we can go from there. Is it OK if I don't put an ad in the paper?"

Luke was leading her back to the bed. "Sure, if you put an ad in the paper Kirk will see it and it's going to be hard enough to tell him no as it is."

"Oh Luke he's going to want to rent it as soon as he hears that it's for rent what am I going to say to him?" Lorelai didn't want to see Kirk in her precious home but she didn't know how she was going to say no to him.

"Just tell him that the person who rents your house has to have five years of full time employment with a single employer."

"Luke that's brilliant! Kirk hasn't had a single job for more than two weeks! That lets me concentrate on finding someone who'd be perfect for the house." Lorelai was feeling more comfortable since she didn't have to take the first person who wanted her house.

Monday morning Lorelai is thinking about who she could find to rent her house as she walks into the Inn's kitchen. Sookie meets her at the door with a spoon. "Here taste this."

Sookie shoves a spoon into Lorelai's mouth before she can respond and she tastes a very rich creamy sauce with a hint of some citric fruit covering a very tender piece of meat, dirty. "Sookie, that's amazing! What is it?"

"It's organic duck in a cream sauce with pomegranates juice. I'm going to serve it for your wedding dinner!" Sookie lowers her voice, "It's filled with ingredients that are supposed to increase your fertility" She giggled as Lorelai's eyes got huge.

"Sookie! If you tell Luke that he'll flip!" Lorelai started laughing, "He gets so embarrassed when he thinks people know we have sex. You should see him when we .."

Lorelai knew she was crossing into dangerous territory, she'd never admitted that they had done it in her office to anyone before. "Never mind."

"You mean when you have sex in your office?" Sookie giggled secretly.

Lorelai laughed out loud. "Don't you ever tell Luke you know, I'll never see him at the inn again!"

Speaking of Luke reminded Lorelai about what they had talked about that weekend. She was frowning slightly and Sookie thought it was about Luke.

"Lorelai, did something happen with you and Luke this week? You look upset." Sookie went back to stirring her sauce.

"No, not with Luke, we just talked about how I'm going to have to move out of my house in the next month, that's all."

"Well, Lorelai, you're marrying Luke, I would assume he'd like to live with his wife, right?" Sookie knew how much Lorelai loved her house so she knew it was going to be difficult to move from there.

"Yeah, I know. We're talking about keeping it, but Luke doesn't want it to stand empty, he said too much can go wrong when someone doesn't live there. You know, a furnace can go out, a pipe can break, whatever."

"Classic Luke rant?" Sookie smiled.

"Yep, but he does have a point. I just want someone there who would love the place as much as I do. So we're going to look for someone who could rent it, even if it isn't much, just so long as they love it and call Luke to fix anything that would need fixing. Then maybe Rory would want it when she gets out of college. Silly huh?"

"No, Lorelai, it's not silly. I know someday I'd love a house like yours. Taylor keeps raising the rent on my apartment each year almost the exact amount I get from Mia so I really can't save for a house." Sookie sighed, "Maybe someday."

Lorelai looked at her, "You rent from Taylor Doosey? You live on Peach Street Sookie, how do you rent from Taylor?"

" Taylor owns all of the rentals on Peach Street and half of the ones on Cherry. I even heard he was going to buy the building next to Luke's when he can get the financing together."

"Oh, my God! Does Luke know?"

"I don't know, I only know because of Mrs. Hackett. You know Reverend Hackett who is doing your ceremony, his wife works in the court house and Taylor was down there getting title information and being his very chatty self, told her what he was wanting to do."

"When did you see Mrs. Hackett?"

"She was here the other day for lunch and they live in Taylor's apartments on Cherry. So we're talking about his rents and it came up. Mrs. Hackett is afraid Taylor will raise our rents to enable him to finance the building."

"Wow, Luke is going to flip. Hey Sookie?" A light goes on in Lorelai's brain. "How would you like to be able to live in a house and still save enough towards your own?" She grinned wickedly. "As an added bonus we could stick it to Taylor by having you move out of his Taylorville existence?"

"Oh, Lorelai! You want to rent your house to me?!" Sookie starts jumping up and down. "I can't believe it! I would love to take care of your home for you! Oh, do you really think it would work? What if I can't get out of my lease? I have two more months on it and Taylor insists on a three month notice or else it's automatically renewed. Oh, I can't do it. Drat!" Sookie went from high to low in three seconds Lorelai was amazed.

"Sookie, get me your lease and I can have one of our lawyers look it over to see if this is even legal. If it is, then we'll get it broken, that is if you want to move into my house?"

"I'd love to Lorelai! Do you really think it can be broken?"

"Sooks, I happen to know some lawyers who can finesse their way out of anything. I'm sure we can get this fixed. Now, I've got to go talk to Luke to let him know Taylor's plan to make Luke's life miserable." Lorelai took off and decided that face to face was much better.

The bells rang in the diner and surprised Luke who was in the kitchen. It was only nine o'clock on Monday and Lorelai shouldn't be here at this time, but he could swear she was. Caesar came into the back and said, "Boss, Lorelai's out front wanting to talk to you, she even turned down coffee."

Immediately Luke is concerned. "Does she look upset?" he asked Caesar.

"No, but I get the feeling it's a private conversation, she asked me nicely if I'd take the floor for about ten minutes."

Luke thought, 'well no mid morning lull' wonder what's wrong? "OK, if you can handle it I'll find out what's up."

"Sure boss."

Luke and Lorelai went up to his office and she told him about Taylor's plan. Luke went into one of his classic rants.

"How can he do this? Are we going to live in an authoritarian state where Taylor dictates when we are able to eat and sleep? Soon he's going to take over the entire town and my diner will be the only oasis in a vast sea of Doosey owned businesses. And to think he keeps raising the rent on those poor people who can't get out from under his thumb. Why does this sound so familiar to me?" Luke looked at Lorelai quizzically.

"It's a Wonderful Life," Lorelai said.

Luke reached for her hand, "Yeah it is."

"No, the plot is from that movie, It's a Wonderful Life. Potter is Taylor and you my wonderful fiancée are George Bailey, fighting for the underdog, going to make sure Sookie can get out of her lease by running it by your shark lawyers and sticking it to Taylor."

"Yeah! I'll make sure Sookie can rent your house and I'm even going to go one step further!" With that Luke ran out of the apartment leaving a very confused Lorelai in his wake. Since he didn't come back within ten minutes Lorelai went downstairs and ordered some bacon and eggs. Caesar didn't make pancakes as well as Luke did, but his eggs had a little more kick. She thought he probably put some chili in them, but they were good, so what the hell.

She had been sitting there for about an hour and they were in the middle of the mid morning lull. Caesar was in the back doing dishes and Lorelai was nursing her only cup of coffee that day. She had gotten to the point where she would only drink Luke's coffee since she cut back, no other was worth it. As she was daydreaming about what she had to do the door was flung open and in strode Luke.

She couldn't ever remember seeing him look so, she searched for the word, intense. Like every atom of his being was vibrating at an increased velocity. He looked directly into her eyes and her stomach lurched with desire. His eyes blazed and he had a very wicked grin on his face. Without saying a word he took her by the hand and led her up to his office. As soon as they got inside the door he locked it and gave her the most searing kiss she had ever had. She felt herself being completely possessed, his hands were determined, sure, not frantic as he disrobed her and himself. He led her to the bed they kept there and began the most intense foreplay ever. Each touch was on fire and within a short amount of time she wasn't sure where she ended and Luke began.

In the diner Caesar came out to find Lorelai gone and the diner had one customer. He went over to take his order. Luke had runoff with barely a nod and he had no idea when he would return. As he gave the man his burger he heard Lorelai moaning from upstairs. "Ohhhhh, Luke, oh, my God Luuuuuuke! Oh, yes! Oh, yes, God yes!"

Caesar was getting a bit uncomfortable and he wasn't sure what to say to the stranger in the diner, he didn't want anyone else coming in so he went over to the door and locked it as her turned the closed sign over. He collected the salt and pepper shakers on to a tray and brought them to the counter top where he started to fill them. From up stairs he could still hear Lorelai moaning, he looked at the clock, fifteen minutes nonstop so far. His respect for his boss went up considerably. Then he heard, "Please Luke, please!"

Then silence and, "I want you, pleeeeeaaaasseee."

More silence and, "In me plllleeeeeaaaasssee, Luuukkke!" At this Caesar dropped the salt all over the tray. Good God, Luke had only been doing foreplay!?! For twenty minutes!

A few minutes later he heard Lorelai moan which turned into a scream and he really just wanted to go home to his girlfriend and make her scream like that. After that things calmed down and he was able to walk over to the man and take his plates. Caesar went back into the kitchen to clean up and opened the door back up. Miss Patty came in shortly as did Babette looking for Luke. "Caesar, you seen the boss?"

"Not since he left this morning, I think he may be in his office though." Caesar didn't want to talk about the fact he knew his boss was in the office with his fiancée.

Upstairs Lorelai was recovering and looked at Luke who was looking very self satisfied. "OK, I admit I really enjoyed that, but what happened?"

"Well, after I left you I went to the real estate office and bought the building next door." Luke grinned wickedly. "Then when I got back and saw you were still here, it just made a great day stupendous and I wanted to share my happiness with you."

Lorelai laughed, "You bought the building!?! Luke since when do you make snap decisions? You don't even know what condition the building is in!"

Luke looked at her and grinned, "Well, if Taylor was going to buy it, which he had put a statement of interest in on it, he would have had it checked out thoroughly before hand so I figured it had to be in fairly decent shape. But I got it first!"

Lorelai couldn't stop laughing. Luke was acting like a little kid who won a bet off of the school bully. He'd bested Taylor and looked like he could take on the world. "You know I didn't see you this excited when you took over Hayden Industries. Why is this more enjoyable to you?"

"I guess it's because it's personal. Hayden was business, boring, nuts and bolts. This time I get to see Taylor's head explode." Luke laughed out loud.

"I can't believe you, my little corporate raider!" Lorelai was laughing with him.

Luke got that look in his eye again and said, "I know something else I want to raid right now."

He flipped her under him and swiftly went to work. Downstairs the customers were surprised to hear Lorelai's moans and finally a shriek. Caesar was very happy that Luke must have headed for the gate straight away and skipped a lot of the foreplay. He knew that Luke would be mortified if he knew how many people were here. Still he was very impressed, twice in less than an hour. He was ten years younger than Luke and that wasn't something he could do anymore.

Upstairs they took their showers and Luke finished dressing as Lorelai sat at the table, "So what did you pay for this building?"

"A hundred thousand." Luke was looking for his other shoe, he must have kicked it off.

"Wow, how did you pay for it?"

"I wrote a check."

"Hon, don't you think people are going to start to suspect that you have money since you just bought a house and now a building, with cash?"

"Oh, I didn't think about that. I was just so focused on besting Taylor I bought the building the fastest way I could, with cash." Luke was sitting on the ground putting on his shoe and Lorelai was having a hard time from laughing. This was such a different side of Luke and she enjoyed seeing him so delighted.

The both walked downstairs together and found a diner full of people. Luke stopped as a cheer went up and Miss Patty called out, "Lorelai you look positively radiant my dear."

Lorelai was horrified, thinking of how Luke was going to react and then she looked at him. He had blushed but he was far from overly embarrassed. She leaned over the counter and hissed, "You're not embarrassed at all are you? You're pretty proud of yourself making your fiancée scream?"

Luke leaned over and whispered, "Yep." Then he kissed her cheek.

"Want a coffee to go?" He smiled wickedly. "Keep your strength up?"

Lorelai shook her head and sighed, "Just a small, I had a cup waiting to be ravaged this morning."

She grinned as she picked up the cup.

Just as she was about to turn around the stranger who had been in the diner the whole time came up from behind her and said, "Hey Lor. Can we talk?"