Author's note: sorry for the lag. Trying to figure it out. This chapter is still dark, but I end it, well, not dark. Maybe.

Lorelai, NO! Let go of her! Lorelai "Lorelai!" the monitors start beeping.

The night nurse enters the room to check on Dean.

"Where am I? What's on my face?"

"Sir, calm down, you're in the hospital, you've had extensive abdominal surgery. Shhhh. I'm going to remove your oxygen mask."

Dean gasps and coughs, but he can breathe, AAAAAGH his side, no, his lungs feel like hot needles.

"The guys, they were after us. Where is Lorelai? She's okay, right? Where is she, I have to find her."

"Sir, you aren't going anywhere. You have to calm down, you're healing from very serious injuries. Your mother left your cellphone here so you could call her if you woke up alone. Drink some water first, your throat is going to be dry. Press this button if you need anything."

Why isn't Lorelai's number here? Did my mom erase it? Maybe it's still in the call log.

Lorelai grabbed for her cell and fumbled for the talk button.

"Yeah?"

"Lorelai, it's me, Dean. I'm in the hospital. Are you okay?"

"Dean." Lorelai started crying.

"Lorelai, are you okay?"

"Yes, yes. I'm hanging up and heading to the hospital right now. Stay awake. Count backwards from a billion. Sing the 99 bottles of beer song, or 99 red luft ballons just don't fall asleep."

Lorelai got to Hartford in record time. Funny how she was so much slower when she was visiting her parents.

She almost tripped running through the hospital to get to his room.

When she entered the room, she saw that his oxygen mask off, he was sitting up with a side lamp turned on. She shut the door. Within a millisecond, they were kissing. Lorelai cradled his head in her hands to keep him still.

"Don't move. I have no idea what to do with these wires if they disconnect. Your right hand is broken. After your surgery, it was bandaged, and yesterday afternoon they must have put a cast on it. Thank god you're awake."

She kissed him again, slowly, passionately. Dean's monitor started beeping. She backed off.

"It's like a lie detector. Your heart monitor will answer all my deep dark questions. Let's play truth or dare!"

Dean laughed, it hurt, but it felt good to see Lorelai and hear her say something light. She looked a little banged up, he saw the bruising across her knuckles.

"Hey slugger, are you going to join a gang now?"

"Sharks, Jets, I can't decide. Seriously though Dean, I'm so truly sorry that I got us into trouble. I spoke with the police yesterday, and both of those guys had long arrest records for assault and drug possession. The guy who grabbed me was high on meth. That's why I couldn't break away, much as my adrenaline was pumping, the officer said I was no match for a male high on meth. Dean, he was going to rape me. I will never be able to thank you enough for what you sacrificed. I'm so sorry you're here in this hospital bed hooked up to all of this like Young Frankenstein."

"I'd do anything to protect you." He looked down. Angered, he muttered, "Are those guys locked up at least?"

"The knife guy was here, his jaw was shattered, so he was in surgery. I assume he'll be jailed as soon as he's recovered? Do you want me to find out?"

"No. What about the guy who attacked you?"

"Dean, his windpipe was crushed, and by the time they got him to the hospital, he was gone."

"What?" Dean whispered, searching her face to see if she was telling him the truth. He must have heard that wrong.

"Dean, the guy is dead. He was an evil person. A violent drug addict. You didn't intend…"

"Lorelai, are you telling me that I killed someone?"

"Dean, you didn't intend to kill him. You were protecting me. You came to my rescue. The cops seemed matter of fact about it when they told me. Please don't focus on that. You have a lot of rehab ahead of you because of those men. Focus on your recovery."

"Lorelai, I killed him. He was hurting you and I wanted to kill him. I killed him."

"No, you didn't. He died because you didn't realize your own strength. You had an adrenaline surge, unhampered by narcotics, and you had to simultaneously stave off a knife attack. You were fighting to survive. He would have tried to kill you. The knife guy certainly tried. Thankfully you survived."

Dean was quiet. Lorelai sat on the edge of the bed, her hand rested on his cast.

Tears were rolling down her face. She was quiet too.

After sitting silently for a while, Lorelai started to speak, almost inaudibly.

"Dean, I have a lot of regrets in life. I'll never forgive myself for letting things go so far. You getting hurt, but let me get this out. I don't want to add to the list today. I should have said this sooner, I didn't, but I can say it now, I love you, and not because you saved me at the rest stop, I'm eternally grateful that you did, but I loved you before that. You made me feel like I never had before. Not with any of the men I've been with, even Rory's father. I've had myriad serious relationships, and I was sure I was all in, consumed with love, willing myself to feel love, but it wasn't true with Max, never possible with Jason, and while Christopher is always going to have a special place in my heart, we're forever connected, but he isn't it; I feel love when I talk to you. I feel love when I look at you. I feel love when I think of you. This isn't because the feeling is merely different. Hot as it was to kiss you and harbor lusty fantasies about you, that isn't it either, I mean, it isn't all I feel and if I waste time denying it, I'll talk myself out of it. It's love, and it's taken me a lifetime to feel it, but I do. With you. Regardless of what happens now, or how you feel after this attack, I thought you should know, because you are an incredible person, that I love you. You're so good. You need to hear it from someone who believes it to be true. I am in love with you. You got me."

Dean couldn't find words.

"Look, I don't want you to say anything. Please rest. I can go, I can stay with you, blink once for go, two blinks for stay."

"Lorelai, I love you too."

She wanted nothing more than to add a third modifier, to the love list, make. She loved Dean, she was in love with Dean, she wanted to make love to Dean. She was well past the point that she could pretend this was a crush or just filthy lust. Her heart would be causing some major monitor malfunction right about now were it hooked up to that machine.

Dean's good hand was within reach of the heart monitor. He flicked it off so it wouldn't alert the nurses, his heart thumping so wildly, and then he reached for Lorelai's back and slowly guided her body closer to his upright torso. He took her hand and placed it on his heart.

"Will you monitor this while I kiss you?"

Lorelai smiled into the kiss. What a cheesy line. She loved him for it. Heartbeat strong as a muscle car cylinder, piston? Both? Who cares.

Dean's good hand was grabbed by her hands, and she placed it over her heart. Of course, there was more than just her heart under his brawny hand. His fingers splayed out, some finding where the elastic band of her camisole met the skin, the others pushing softly into her breasts.

Can I break him out of this hospital? This hoodie is roasting me. Gotta take it off.

"Is that door locked? I mean, I'm not going to stop you from stripping off that hoodie and this camisole…"

"Hey naughty, I'm not going topless in your hospital room. The camisole stays on me, but if you want to shift it around a bit…"

"Well I am wounded. Come a little closer. I need to adjust that strap." She bounced a little bit and Dean couldn't take it any longer. He pulled her towards him, kissing just below the collarbone, and then using his tongue, he lowered the light fabric down and her breast popped out, and she let out a long moan as his tongue flicked and teased her nipple to attention.

"Oh Dean *sigh* that feels so good." He brought his good hand over to massage the fabric covering her other breast, pinching her hardened nipple.

They were getting really sweaty now, and she slid her hand under his hospital gown, gripping his giant pulsing erection in her hand and she started stroking him, and he moaned into her breast.

"Do you always go commando in hospitals?" She murmured into his ear.

"Always. What about you?" he huffed back into her neck.

Knock knock!

"Just a minute!" Dean called out, while they sprang to action, quickly covered their tracks, Lorelai zipping her hoodie to the top so fast she knocked her chin as she sailed into a chair at the end of his bed.

He turned the monitor back on.

"Come in!"

The nurse looked between the two of them and mumbled, "Mmm hmmm."

"The wire came out and we were trying not to bother you and-"

"No explanation needed. Let me hook this up, take your vitals, and and the two of you can get back to your con-ver-sa-shun."

The nurse scribbled on Dean's chart, glanced back between the two of them, winked, and left the room, shutting the door.

"Well, now that I'm the hospital strumpet, I'd better go. Taking you with me of course, because I can never show my face here again. Obviously."

"Lorelai, I want to ravish you. You cannot visit me, like this, and say you aren't coming back. That's mean. Now that I've had a taste, I want more."

"Down tiger, the next time that door opens there won't be a knock and it will be bad. Catastrophically bad. Waterworld bad. This will seem lame following that fevered make out session, but I have my iPod here, and I made a playlist for you. Do not mock. Listen first, and then if you must."

"Come over here and give it to me."

"Dirty. And to think you only have one operational hand. What am I going to do when that thing is free?" she said pointing to his cast.

"Dirty." he said while giving her a devilish grin.

Lorelai queued something up on the iPod, and she put the earbuds in his ears. She kissed him on the forehead.

"Come on, you can do better than that."

"Dean, my knees are going to buckle. Listen, sleep, recuperate. I'll text you later. I'll give you my sinuous walk now. Goodnight."

The image of her Mae West walk sashayed under his drooping eyelids. A content Dean listened to the lyrics of Spellbound by Rae & Christian:

You got me, you got me

so hooked up on your love

you got me you got me

I'm yours completely

I'm spellbound

and your love, your love, its got me