A/N: Hello again! First of all, thank you all for your kind reviews. I love them all, and I appreciate everyone taking the time to give feedback!

Onto a new chapter! In that 7x01 scene, Rory simply mentions that some "pom-pom socks" are getting trashed; there is no context at all so this one is 100% from my mind. I decided to craft it as a fight and some fluff. It could really be set anywhere but I'm choosing to say late season 5/early season 6 but before the renovations to Lorelai's house.

Enjoy! x

Luke was wholly unsurprised that Lorelai's front door was unlocked. It had been unlocked every single time he had ever come over, as far as he could remember, and no amount of rants about personal safety and burglars could convince Lorelai that Star's Hollow could, in fact, have robberies.

He pushed the door open, halfway through the sentence: "Lorelai, for the love of-" but he trailed off. The house smelled funny. Like… ashes? He took a few steps forward before he noticed that there was a cloud of thick grey smoke coming from the kitchen.

"Oh God," Luke said. He dropped the grocery bags he was carrying and raced into the nearly obscured room. "Lorelai!" he yelled. "LORELAI!" He instantly perceived that the source of the smoke was the oven.

He coughed loudly, fanning the air, and quickly turned the appropriate knob to cut off the oven. "LORELAI," he screamed frantically as he unlocked (of COURSE it was locked) the back door and flung it open to relieve some of the smoke.

Feeling confident that he wouldn't suffocate now, he turned swiftly to the drawer where he kept his oven mitts and smashed them onto his hands. "LORELAI, WHERE ARE YOU?" he yelled loudly. Still hearing no response, he groaned and yanked the oven open.

As expected, he saw nothing but flames. "Dammit, dammit!" he yelled in frustration.
"LORELAI, GODDAMMIT!" He fled quickly to the back porch and yanked up the bucket he kept there for when the porch roof leaked. Thankfully, it had rained recently and it was nearly full of water. He raced back into the kitchen and, never pausing, threw the entire contents into the oven.

A loud hissing noise and some weak flickers of flame. The fire was out. Luke was briefly triumphant before realizing that he still didn't know where Lorelai was.

He glanced quickly into Rory's room, which was visible now that most of the smoke had cleared, then vaulted up the stairs. She wasn't in the bathroom or her bedroom or her closet. At this point, Luke was a little panicked. "LORELAI!" he cried yet again as he thundered back down the stairs.

"What?"

Luke skidded into the kitchen and then backtracked quickly to see Lorelai coming in the front door, bewildered. "Why are you screaming?" she asked in confusion.

"Lorelai, Jesus," Luke said, striding over to her and hugging her quickly.

"Oh well, hi," she laughed into his shoulder, bewildered.

"Where the hell WERE you?" he asked, pulling back to grasp her at arm's length.

"I ran to Babette's for a second to help her decide which sunglasses she should get Morey for his birthday. Do you know she actually gets him a new pair once a year? Who knew, they always look the same to you, right?" She paused in distraction and wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Why does my house smell like death right now?"

Luke dropped her shoulders. "Yeah, well probably because when I got here your OVEN was on fire," he said.

"Oh no!" she cried out, running towards the kitchen. "My pom-pom socks!"

Luke turned and watched her for a minute in disbelief before stalking off after her.

"Lorelai, do you mean to tell me that the fire in your oven was because of-"

"My pom-pom socks!" she wailed, shoving a crispy black thing into his face sadly. "I put them in there to toast a little before you got here and I guess they caught on fire."

Luke gaped. "Your pom-pom socks?"

"They are- or, well, they WERE my favorite socks," she said, plucking the matching crispy black thing out of the oven with a frown and a cough.

"Is this seriously your explanation?" he said, his tone deadly.

"Well… yeah. I would have put them in the dryer," she said, taken aback by his sudden attitude. "But I have a load of clothes in there right now and I just wanted the socks so I popped them…. in…. for a minute." She trailed off. "Luke, stop GLARING at me!"

"So you 'popped your socks in'," he said in a sarcastically peppy tone. "Into an oven which, by the way, has been cooked in recently so there was all kinds of grease and residue to catch your idiotic pom-poms on fire. And then, after you made that wise choice, you ran to Babette's for a minute and left the oven on?" He was in disbelief, pausing nearly between each word for emphasis.

Lorelai sat down on the closest chair and shrugged defensively. "Well, Luke! When you say it like that, it sounds stupid."

"It WAS stupid!" he burst out angrily. "It WAS stupid, Lorelai! It was extremely stupid! You could have burnt your entire house down, with you in it! And what happened to your smoke alarm, huh?"

Lorelai colored visibly. "Oh. That. Um… the one in the kitchen started making this annoying beepy noise a few months ago and I was going to mention it to you, but then it just kind of stopped so I thought maybe it wasn't important?" she finished, a note of pleading in her voice.

"So the battery died," Luke supplied.

"Oh, um, yeah, well that could have happened, sure," she volunteered. "I was thinking more along the lines of the smoke detector got over its' beef and it just kind of stopped whining at me once every thirty minutes."

Luke stared at her, shaking his head angrily.

"Are you going to say anything?" she asked in annoyance, finally responding appropriately to his mood.

"I don't know what else there is to say," he spat. "You let your smoke detectors die and then did pretty much everything in your power to burn the house down, so no. I have nothing to say about how childish and irresponsible that was."

"Okay, that's enough," Lorelai stood up, suddenly riled. "Watch it, Luke. Don't you dare come bursting into MY house and then lecture me about how I live."

"Oh, hah," he laughed bitterly. "Yeah, how DARE I? How DARE I come into this house through the UNLOCKED door and then put out the fire that you set by roasting your socks. How DARE I do that so that you can actually still HAVE a house! Man, that was a bad decision, shouldn't have done that, Danes!" he threw out sarcastically.

"Hey!" Lorelai cried. "Stop it right now. I will not have you chastise me because I made a mistake, Luke. People make mistakes, people have accidents!"

"Not by nuking their socks, they don't!" Luke lifted his arms in exasperation. "Normal people cause small fires because they don't know how to work the new gas range or because they forget to turn the back - "

"Burner off," Lorelai finished, looking down at her feet. "Yeah, I get it, Luke. Normal people are much wiser and better and SMARTER than me."

"Lorelai," he said softly, feeling a twinge of guilt for his harshness.

"So thanks for saving the house," she said, speaking over him in a robotic tone. "I don't really feel up to a date so I'll just see you tomorrow, good-night." She shoved past him without ever meeting his eyes, but Luke could tell that she was near tears.

He slumped into the nearest chair and hung his head in defeat as he heard her footsteps ascend the stairs. He could let her cool down for the night, but that might also give her time to stew. That was never good.

After several minutes, Luke pulled himself away from the table. He was not the best at dealing with conflicts, so he decided to just do some practical things until he could make up his mind.

Luke walked slowly back into the foyer to gather the groceries he had dropped. He was supposed to cook dinner for himself and Lorelai; that plan being obviously cancelled at this point, he simply placed the groceries in various cabinets and shelves that seemed to make sense. There was very little non-processed food to guide him, but he felt ok about it in the end. Then he set about checking and repairing the oven. Luckily, there was next to no major damage; it appeared to have been mostly a smoke fire. Luke scrubbed the racks and sides until he felt confident that no more fires would be starting anytime soon.

Finally, he grabbed a stool from Rory's room and pulled down the smoke detector. It just needed batteries, but of course the shelf where the batteries were kept contained one AAA battery and a 9 volt which had seen better days - NOT the six AA's he needed.

Luke returned from the store a half hour later with a small bag and a small smile. He had really only gone for the batteries, but a little display at the check-out line had given him inspiration. He changed the batteries quickly and tidied up the kitchen. Then, taking a deep breath, he headed up the stairs.

Lorelai had not closed her bedroom door, which was an excellent sign. Luke knew this meant that she was hoping he would eventually come upstairs to resolve their fight. He peeked his head tentatively around the door frame. She was curled up in the middle of the bed, facing away from him. He knew that she heard him as he removed his shoes and placed the crinkly paper bag on the table beside her. She said nothing, however, so he went ahead with his plan and crawled into the bed with her.

Lorelai stiffened slightly as Luke's arm snaked around her waist, but he placed a gentle kiss on her neck anyways. "I was scared," he said, his mouth on her ear.

She huffed loudly and rolled over to face him. "You WHAT?"

"When I came into the house and it was smoky," he explained, brushing her hair from the side of her face so he could cradle her cheek. "And I couldn't find you."

She smacked his hand away impatiently, but gently. "What, did you think I was DEAD?" She was trying to sound harsh, but Luke heard the genuine concern in her voice.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I don't know what I thought. I just knew that I needed to find you and make sure you were okay."

He thought he detected a slight softening in her expression, but she instantly hardened again. "Still, you didn't have to be such an ass," she grumbled.

"Lorelai," he sighed, placing his hand firmly on her cheek again. "Imagine if you came into the diner and it was filled with nothing but smoke. And you went into the kitchen and you put the fire out with water or baking soda or something and the whole time you were screaming for me to make sure I was okay, but I wasn't answering."

"That sounds a little scary," she conceded reluctantly. "Overlooking this alternate reality where I know to put out a fire with baking soda."

He grinned slightly at her returning banter. "Yeah, well. You did know in this world, and you put the fire out. And then imagine that you came upstairs and I was asleep in the bed, and I basically said, 'Oh, a fire? Yeah, now that I think of it, I did leave that hamburger on the grill before I went to bed. And I probably shouldn't have let the smoke alarms die three months ago, either. Oh well!' How would you feel then?"

"I would probably be pissed at you," Lorelai admitted in a very small voice.

"Exactly. I was annoyed because it would mean a lot to me if you would take your safety a little more seriously, okay?" Luke said, kissing her gently on the forehead. "Though, for what it's worth, I am sorry for how mean I was. You are not irresponsible or stupid."

"Well, you never actually called ME stupid," she sighed, sitting up and running a hand through her curls. "I overreacted when you said that word." She laced her fingers through his and continued speaking while staring absentmindedly ahead of her. "I don't know, Luke, I guess you just hit a nerve when you said that because of my parents, and my life. You know, I've always - "

"Lorelai," Luke interrupted, gazing at her from his horizontal position.

"Hm?"

"I love you."

Her eyes snapped to his. "You… what?"

"I love you," he repeated, pulling himself into a cross-legged position in front of her. "I was scared when I saw that smoke because I couldn't find you. In my head, I know you're smart and competent and can take care of yourself. And I also knew that the fire wasn't big enough to put you in danger. But in my heart, I just - I just had to find you. Nothing else mattered. It was just you. It's just you, because… I love you."

Lorelai stared at him in shock. She clutched her hands in front of her heart and gazed at him for several moments. "Oh, Luke, wow. You know I love you, too. So much, God. I love you so much," she babbled, nearly crying as she tried to verbalize her affection for him.

"Well I do now," he grinned. She laughed awkwardly and pulled his face to hers for a long, sweet kiss.

"I got you something," he murmured against her lips.

"Mmmk," she murmured back, pulling his face more firmly against hers.

Luke pulled away momentarily. "I won't remember to give it to you if you don't stop," he laughed.

"Ugh, a quandary!" Lorelai cried as she flopped backwards onto her pillows. "Present… kissing Luke… present… kissing Luke," she said, making the scale motion with her hands. "Okay, how about - you give me the present and then we kiss?"

"Sounds good," he agreed, tossing the paper bag at her playfully.

"Elegantly wrapped, babe," she said sarcastically, tearing off the paper like a three-year-old. "Oh Luke!"

She pulled the hot pink and red pom-pom socks out of the bag and hugged them to her chest. "You got me new socks."

"I did," Luke confirmed. "As long as you don't toast them."

"Agreed!" Lorelai cried, flinging them off the bed happily. "Now let's kiss!" He laughed against her mouth as she launched herself at him. He managed to maneuver her onto her back while suspending himself above her. He broke their mouth-to-mouth contact to trail kisses down her neck and collarbone...

"Um, Luke," she interrupted. He sighed and lifted his head to look into her eyes. "I really enjoy where you're going right now, I do," she explained, "but you were supposed to cook me dinner and I'm starving to death slowly."

He rolled his eyes. "Starving to death, really?"

"Have you ever met me?" she asked innocently.

Luke heaved a sigh and reluctantly pulled himself off of the bed, extending his hand to help her up. "Let's go."

"Ooh, wait," Lorelai said as he started to pull her towards the door. "Let me put my socks on first!"

Luke dropped her hand and watched her back as she giddily pulled the socks over her feet. He couldn't help but grin. He was a grumpy guy, and he didn't always appreciate the good things in his life, but he found himself wondering, yet again, what he had done to deserve this woman.

A/N2: When I published this story previously, a few reviewers were unhappy with my characterization of Lorelai as overly childish or unreasonably careless. That is a completely valid critique and I truly value each and every constructive review I get. For the record, I based this idea on the beginning of episode 5x06, where Luke picks up Lorelai for a date and she explicitly mentions leaving her socks in the oven to "toast" and also not locking her door, not changing her front porch light, and a whole variety of other unsafe behaviors. I'm not trying to be defensive, because I see in hindsight what those reviewers meant. Although no one but ASP could really know whether or not this is something Lorelai would do, I still feel like it's a valid representation of her. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed it regardless!