Author's Notes: Paul Anka's Legacy was a big deal for me. Before this story, I'd only written one-shots, and they were happy, romantic tales. Committing myself to writing this one took a leap of faith that I could pull off the dark, angst-ridden story I'd envisioned, and also that I could force myself to see it through to the end. Fourteen chapters later it was done, to my relief, but yet I was very glad that a couple of writing buddies had convinced me to give it a try. The story starts on the day that should have been Lorelai and Luke's wedding day, June 3rd. They haven't started to heal yet from their break-up. They're angry, disappointed in each other, and disappointed in themselves, too. This story takes them through the next year of their lives as they try (with a little help) to get back to where they never should have left. I'm sure I'm going to be really tempted to edit a lot of stuff in these chapters, because I've learned an awful lot about writing since this one was created, but I'll try my best to let it remain close to what it was. As always, thanks for your support. And remember, I love hearing your thoughts!
Un-Wedding Day
Lorelai breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled the Jeep into its customary parking spot under the tree at her house. She hunched her aching shoulders over the steering wheel for a moment, trying to loosen the soreness that had accumulated from the strain of the day. She knew it had to be nearly eleven by now. This awful day was finally nearing its end.
She'd made sure she was scheduled to work today and she had deliberately given other members of the staff the day off, just to ensure that she would be so busy she couldn't sit around and brood. She'd insisted that Sookie take the day off. There was no way she could handle Sookie looking at her with those big, sad eyes today.
June 3rd. Her un-wedding day.
The plan had worked, almost too well. She'd been so busy with check-ins, a major linen crisis and a dozen other minor disasters that she'd had no time to agonize over the lives and hearts she'd destroyed. She could only do, not think, which was the only way she could cope right now.
She'd run home sometime during mid-afternoon, just long enough to check on Paul Anka and trade the ill-advised purple strappy sandals for some black ballet flats. Otherwise she'd been in non-stop mode all day.
Sighing, she pulled herself up the porch steps, fumbling for the key. Yes, she locked the doors now. She had suddenly become aware that she was a woman alone, and long nights of no sleep had amplified noises and creaks in her old house until fear had become a new roommate.
In so many ways, she barely recognized herself anymore.
She leaned against the door for a moment, fitting the key into the lock. She hoped that by the time she took a shower, looked through the mail, and gulped a glass (or two) of wine, the day would be done. She was so tired. Maybe she'd be able to sleep tonight in her bed, like a normal person, instead of on the couch with the TV droning in the background for company.
The second the door swung open, though, she knew something was wrong. Everything inside the house was quiet and still in a way that felt like nothing had ever been alive in there, ever.
She held her breath, tip-toeing towards the living room, her heart pounding.
The moonlight mixed with the faint glow from the slightly pornographic monkey lamp shining out from the desk was enough to illuminate the little gray-white lump lying by the fireplace.
Lorelai found herself kneeling beside her pet, her shaking hands clutching his fur.
"No, no, no!" she whispered frantically. "Not today! Oh, please, God! No! Not today! Please!"
Paul Anka was stiff and cold, his head lying on an old sock of Luke's he'd found under the bed a few weeks ago and had refused to give up. Lorelai stroked his coarse fur blindly for a few minutes, unable to believe he was really gone. She leaned her head against the wall, totally numb. She couldn't think. She couldn't think what to do.
Her hand fumbled in her pocket and pulled out her phone. Flipping it open, she pushed a number automatically.
"Yeah? It'd better be good." His voice was rough in her ear, and it was only then that she realized what she'd done, but even so the shock she was in left her unable to commandeer the situation. She stumbled on, helplessly.
"I…I walked in the house," she started to babble, not even realizing she was crying, "and I found him, and…"
"Lorelai?"
"…and I don't know what to do; I can't think, and…"
"Are you OK?"
The sharp concern in his voice suddenly brought her back around and she took a needed breath. "I'm sorry." She took another deep breath and swallowed down some tears. The huge wrongness of what she'd just done in calling him finally caught up to her. "I just couldn't think about what to do, and I guess I called you instinctively, you know? But I'm sorry. I'll handle it. Go…Go back to sleep. Sorry," she whispered.
"Lorelai, what—"
She clicked the phone shut.
She leaned her head back against the wall and let the tears run silently down her face. She was just too tired to sob.
It's amazing how fast you can do anything when you have to. Luke found himself pulling up to Lorelai's house—"Our house," his brain still noted—in under five minutes. He'd pushed his feet into some sneakers and grabbed his keys and ran. There was never any question of whether or not he'd come. After all, it was Lorelai.
It would always be Lorelai.
He figured it was some huge, hairy spider or something along that line that had her spooked, but he knew he'd never get back to sleep without checking on her. He was secretly thankful to have an excuse to see her, because since that gut-wrenching night in front of the frozen food case she'd done a thorough job of hiding herself from him. He told himself constantly that he hated her, hated what she'd done, hated the hollow achiness in his chest that she'd placed there. But yet his eyes searched for her brown curls outside the diner's windows continually.
He dashed for the porch, jiggling the keyring, ready to access the key to the front door. Somehow he kept forgetting to get it back to her. He hurried up the steps and saw that not only was the door unlocked, it was standing ajar. For the first time all of the awful things Lorelai could have encountered entered his mind. His heart leapt to his throat as he silently pushed the door open.
"Lorelai?" he ventured, very quietly. Thinking he sensed movement, he made his way into the living room.
"Ah, no," he muttered, taking in the scene. "Ah, hell no."
He dropped instinctively to his knees beside her, one hand clasping her shoulder, the other laying on top of hers tangled in Paul Anka's fur. He saw his sock under the little guy's head and the guilt hit him full-force.
Luke and Paul Anka had bonded during countless nights on the couch, waiting on Lorelai to come home, Luke's hand scratching behind doggie ears until they both fell asleep 'watching' Sports Center. He'd soon discovered that the dog wasn't nearly as neurotic as Lorelai insisted he was, and Luke then treated him like a dog, for which Paul Anka was grateful. He'd enjoyed many games of fetch played with a pair of Luke's balled-up socks and thought that Frisbee in the backyard was a special treat. Lorelai had often pouted that "Paul Anka likes Daddy best," and Luke had kept the truth a secret, which was the turkey burger leftovers he occasionally brought home. Luke had even on several occasions, (although he would never admit this, even under torture), made one of Rachael Ray's doggie recipes for Paul Anka. So it was with a pang of agony that Luke realized he hadn't given a thought to poor Paul Anka since the spectacular explosion of their relationship. Of course the dog would miss him.
"Poor little guy," he said gruffly, squeezing Lorelai's hand under his.
"It's my fault," Lorelai mumbled, her head still resting against the wall. "It's all my fault."
"Lorelai, no, of course not," Luke said reasonably.
She nodded, pulling her head upright, but not looking at him. "It is. It's my fault. It's all my fault, Luke. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry!"
"It's nobody's fault," he said, still calm, trying to tamp down the hysteria he sensed flowing from her. He kept his voice low and deep and gentle. "It's just one of those sad things that happen in life."
"It didn't have to happen. If I'd been here for him today, instead of running around like a crazy person, trying to ignore what I've done, maybe…Maybe—" Tears choked off the rest, and she struggled to get a breath.
"Lorelai," he started, again.
"My fault, Luke, my fault! It's my fault! My fault! I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry! I'm so sorry!" Lorelai put those two phrases on repeat like a bad episode of 'Whose Line' and Luke soon realized that the words were no longer really about Paul Anka.
As she reached an even higher level of hysteria, Luke stood and hauled Lorelai up to her feet too, pushing her with his hands on her shoulders out of the room, towards the stairs, away from the little body.
"My fault! My fault!" she continued to cry out, her palms flat against his chest, tears still running down her face.
"It's OK. It's OK," Luke kept murmuring to her, even as he felt his own panic starting to consume him because of his inability to comfort her. Her wild eyes darted around the room while her hysterical keening reached an even higher pitch. Luke flashed to hundreds of TV scenes where someone always slapped a hysterical person across the face to bring them around, but no way could he ever do that to Lorelai. At a loss at how to calm her down, he did what he had always wanted to do with Lorelai: He wrapped his arms around her tightly, holding her to him.
"Don't think," he pleaded with her, his mouth murmuring against her ear. "Don't think," he insisted again, his mouth now traveling over her cheek. "Don't think," he all but begged, his mouth hovering over hers.
"Don't think," she agreed breathlessly, and that slight movement was enough to bring their lips together.
Once their lips touched there was no going back.
Luke realized that 'don't think' was a perfect mantra for both of them. Don't think about the pain, the hurt, the betrayal. Just revel in the warmth of the touches, the electricity in the kisses, the love that was still there no matter what.
They wrestled each other up the stairs. Clothes were discarded and eventually they all disappeared. Luke kept his arms around her as they sank to the bed.
"I love you," Lorelai whispered. "I love you. I love you, Luke." Every time her mouth was free she whispered those words, over and over. It was plain that if this was her last chance, she wanted him to hear. She wanted him to know.
Afterwards Luke pulled a sheet over them and held her around her waist, pulling her against him as they shifted towards sleep. Just as Lorelai was about to drift off, she heard his whisper, so low that it could have been just a wisp within a dream she'd once had.
"I love you, too," he said.
Everything within her wanted to cry out at that, but she held herself still, and tried to ignore the two tears that managed to squeeze out from under her tightly closed lids. She regulated her breathing to his and soon both of their bodies gratefully slid over into sleep.
Lorelai gradually woke up to bright sunshine filtering across the bedroom.
It's OK, she told herself, lying there perfectly still. You didn't expect him to be here. No matter what, he wouldn't still be here. So it's OK. It's fine. You're not expecting anything.
She remembered feeling his arms sometime during the night, insistently tugging her to him again. She'd turned to him blissfully and their lovemaking that time was much softer and gentler, much more appropriately dream-like.
For a few moments more she laid there alone, cataloging all of the feelings and touches and words she could remember, depositing them where she could go and visit them when she was missing him again.
Suddenly impatient, she swung her legs over the bed and started grabbing up items of clothing scattered about, shoving her long legs and arms through openings. She snatched open the door, pausing, praying for just a sniff of bacon frying in the kitchen.
The air was unscented. The house was still, with that same overwhelming silence that had hit her so hard last night.
She made her way down the stairs slowly, dreading what she was going to have to see in the living room. But when she stepped into the room, there was nothing there.
Nothing except for a note with 'Lorelai' on the front of it, folded so it would stand up on the mantle.
Luke always half-printed his words, finishing up in cursive, as though the printing was taking too long. She let her fingers trace over the letters of her name that he'd written there.
She sank down on the couch and flipped open the paper.
Lorelai, he wrote.
I don't mean to be taking this over, but I couldn't stand thinking about you having to deal with it all this morning. I wrapped him in his blanket, and I'll drop him off at the vet's. You can go there later and make arrangements. I found an empty box and I put all of his stuff in it and stashed it in the hall closet. It's probably on top of the 'Luke Box' if I know you.
She felt a smile quiver onto her lips at his attempt at humor.
I feel like I should say something about last night. I'm not going to say I'm sorry. We ended so abruptly a month ago that there was no opportunity to say goodbye. I hate the word 'closure' as much as I do the word 'vibe' but it was good to have the chance to be with you one more time. I'm just sorry it was because of Paul Anka.
If you decide to bury him or anything like that, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me be a part of it.
Luke
It was then that Lorelai realized that somewhere, deep down inside, she had been harboring a teeny, tiny, miniscule particle of hope that somehow, sometime, Luke would forgive her and they'd still get their middle, that the fairy tale of Luke and Lorelai would still come true. She didn't realize that the hope was there until it crumbled away and she sat frozen on the couch, knowing that she was still breathing and her heart was still beating, but unable to feel anything at all.
A few hours later Lorelai found herself stumbling down the street towards the diner. Earlier she'd called Rory and Sookie with the sad news, pulled herself together as best she could, and made the dreaded stop at the vet's. All that was left was stopping to see Luke. The numbness that shrouded her was a blessing now.
Just as she fumbled open the door she realized she could have phoned him with the burial update. It still felt normal to come and see him; to pull open the door and hear the bells cheerfully herald her arrival. With her heart thudding against a layer of ice in her chest, she plastered on what she hoped looked like a smile and walked into what had once been her refuge.
Luckily Gypsy and Andrew were the only locals present, and they sat at the table furthest from the counter, seemingly oblivious to her arrival. She spotted the bill of his baseball cap—Black? Why in the world was it black?—out of her peripheral vision and aimed herself that way, locking her focus on the first 'L' of the "No Cell Phones" sign. If she could just somehow avoid looking at him, seeing his eyes, she could maybe get through this.
She grabbed hold of the counter and bobbed her head, hoping she was bobbing towards him. "Hey, Luke, I wanted to say…"
Her mind froze. Why hadn't she planned this out better? There was nothing she could say that wasn't going to sound filthy, considering what had gone on between them last night. Thanks for coming? Thanks for being with me? Thanks for your comfort in my time of loss?
"I wanted to say…" She tried again. "Thanks." She thought that was safe. "Yeah. Thanks." She was still doing the head-bob thing. She raised a hand up to her forehead, trying to physically force herself to stop.
"You don't need to thank me. I was glad I could help." His voice was gruff, but she could hear the sincerity in his tone. Her ears wanted to cry.
"So, Rory's coming home on Saturday," she willed herself to continue. "We thought we'd bury him then. Around two. If you wanted. Just, you know, you said…"
"Sure. Of course. I'll be there," he confirmed.
She nodded again, but this time with reason, and turned to leave, thankful that the ordeal was all but over.
But suddenly her hand was on fire. She looked to see why, and saw his hand on top of hers.
"Listen, why don't I just stop at the vet's and bring him home with me? That way you don't have to go through it," he urged with kindness.
The fire from his hand was slowly inching its way into the rest of her body, reminding her of their closeness from the night before. Her heart caught hold of his use of the word 'home' and was slowly twisting it deeper into its chambers. She was powerless to stop her head from rising up and crashing into his clear blue eyes. The numbness was wearing off.
"Sure," she whispered without thought. "That'd be great. Thanks."
Desperate now, she turned and left the diner, her head and shoulders straight in the way she'd been taught to carry herself. She didn't look back. She walked down the steps, down the street, always looking straight ahead. She veered off down the alley behind the second porcelain unicorn shop, hiding herself as much as she could behind the dumpster there. Then she pressed her hands tightly over her mouth, because today she had enough strength to sob.