Just a little drabble from a quote prompt on Tumblr. Actual quote not in the story, it just served as an inspiration.

I played fast and loose with the timeline of the show at this point. But, hey, so did the creators. This takes place in Season 6 after Luke finds out about April but before Lorelai finds out about April. Also mentions the dance marathon that was mentioned once and never again. Hope you enjoy!

"Go away!"

Lorelai half-mumbled into her pillow and tried to articulate to the one currently shaking her shoulder and encouraging her to get up. She rolled onto her side and swatted her hand blindly through the air, hoping to make contact, before pulling the cover over her head and sinking into the bed.

"You're acting like a child."

For a brief second, Lorelai pulled the covers from over her and stared into her daughter's eyes. "Am not!"

"Are too!" Rory argued, groaning when her mother buried herself back underneath the covers.

"I'm sleeping," Lorelai called out unconvincingly when she felt Rory trying to pull the covers away from her.

"No, you're not, you're talking to me."

"Sleep talking it's like sleep walking but….talking."

Rory rolled her eyes at the quick answer and sat down on the bed beside the lump of covers known as her mother. "We'll just go and watch."

"It's not the same."

"We have to go, at least for part of it."

"No."

"Come on, Mom."

"I was so close this year," Lorelai whispered before whipping the covers off of her face. "So close!"

"Here we go," Rory muttered under her breath.

Lorelai pushed herself up in bed, hair wild and eyes blazing as she continued on. "This year was my year. My year for the trophy. I had a ringer. A professional dancer who happened to be visiting some family nearby. He had the look, the stamina, the willingness to help me take down Kirk once and for all. But he gave it all up."

"Mom, he got a callback for an actual Broadway show."

"And?" Lorelai questioned, "That means he can just throw his commitment to me out the window?"

Rory nodded her head, the answer was clear even if her mother couldn't quite process it yet. "Yes. He literally met you a few days ago."

"But he had a commitment!"

"I know," Rory sympathized. "And it sucks that it was at the last minute but there's always next year."

Lorelai's eyes brightened and a smile spread across her face. "Unless…"

"Absolutely not," Rory cut in before her mother even had a chance to finish her sentence. "Not after last time."

"But it would mean so much to your dear mother."

"No," Rory said firmly. "We've had this discussion before. My answer is no."

"Some daughter you are."

"Yeah, but I'm the only one you have."

Lorelai huffed, the smile fading from her face as she threw herself back onto the bed and pulled the covers over her once again. "You can go, I'll be fine here wallowing in my own despair."

"You're being dramatic."

When her mother didn't respond to that with anything more than another huff and turning away from her, Rory spoke again. "And Luke absolutely said no, there was no convincing him?"

Lorelai poked just her head out of the blanket. "It was a firm no. I'm engaged to the guy and got nowhere with my request for him to be my dance partner."

"Well that's not surprising."

"Nope."

"And you're sure that you don't want to go, not even to watch?"

Lorelai shook her head. "I can't stand to see Kirk's smug face when he realizes that I don't have a partner."

"He doesn't have a lot in life. Winning this is good for him."

"He's just so smug about it."

"Yeah," Rory agreed. She moved off of the bed. "Well I'm going to go, I promised Sookie I would watch Davey on the sidelines so her and Jackson can dance a little bit."

"Go, have fun, I'll be fine here."

Rory gathered her coat from the floor where she had dropped in when trying to wake her mother. "Well if you're serious about wallowing, there's ice cream in the freezer."

"It's five in the morning."

"It's coffee flavored ice cream."

Lorelai smiled. "That's my girl."

"I'll be back soon," Rory said, starting to walk out of the room. "We'll go shopping or something later. Whatever you want."

"Bye hun."

Once Rory was gone and Lorelai could hear her footsteps fading on the stairs, she pulled the covers back over her head and closed her eyes once again. If she wasn't going to compete in the annual 24-hour Dance Marathon, there was no reason at all to be up this early in the morning. At least she could get a few more hours sleep.

Truth was, she had asked Luke only one time and didn't push the issue after his initial response of 'no'. He had something on his mind recently, that much she could tell, but he hadn't shared it with her yet. She just let him being her dance partner take a backseat to whatever he was preoccupied with recently.

But as luck would have it, fate seemed to be sending her several signs recently, a perfect dance partner happened to fall into her lap which meant a cursory 'no' from Luke still allowed her the chance to take down Kirk once and for all. And then in a twist of bad luck, the good had to run out sometime, he cancelled on her just last night leaving no time at all to convince someone else to dance 24 straight hours with her in hopes of bringing home a trophy.

She could miss this year. It wouldn't hurt. But Kirk gloating about his inevitable win and carrying around the trophy for a week straight would sting just a little.

She groaned aloud when she could hear footsteps on the stairs once again. She swiped determinedly at the covers until she was staring up at the ceiling.

"Rory, I told you I would be fine here. I don't need a babysitter."

"It's not Rory."

Lorelai popped up in bed and turned to the source of the voice. "What are you doing here?" Her eyes roamed his body from the tie around his neck to the shiny shoes around his feet. "And why are you dressed like that?"

"Why aren't you dressed?"

"I am dressed!" Lorelai argued. She brushed her hair out of her face and glanced down at the flannel that had replaced a lot of her pajamas ever since their first night together. "What am I supposed to be wearing?"

"A dress, heels maybe, whatever you had planned to wear for this dance thing, because I know you had an outfit planned."

"But you said no, Luke," Lorelai replied. "You said, and I quote, "No way in hell could you get me to dance in the same room as Taylor for 24 hours."

"I still stand by that but I heard that your ringer left town last night."

Lorelai scoffed. "He's a Broadway baby."

Luke gave a little shrug of his shoulder. "Let's hope he breaks a leg."

"That's showbiz for good luck."

"Not that way I said it."

Lorelai smiled. "Wishing bodily harm on those who have wronged me."

"Taylor will be the next one if he keeps on with that megaphone this time."

Lorelai pushed the covers away from her legs and swung them over the side of the bed. "You know you don't have to do this. I can skip it this year."

Luke took a step back towards the bedroom door. "Okay, I can go back to the diner and open it up."

"No!" Lorelai shouted as she sprung up from the bed and rushed over to him. "You stay here, I'm going to go in the bathroom and get ready."

"Really I have no problem going back to the diner if you wanted to skip it."

"No," Lorelai said again, laughing this time, as she pulled him back to her. "I'm going to go put on my fabulous dress and get all dressed up to match you while you go downstairs and start some coffee for me."

He smiled. "Anything else?"

"Is it too much to ask for pancakes? I'm going to need something to sustain my energy for us to win this."

He nodded his head in the direction of the bathroom. "You go get dressed. By the time you're ready, breakfast will waiting for you."

She placed her hands on either side of his face and kissed him quickly. "Thank you."

"Couldn't let Kirk win by default, he needs some worthy competition."

She kissed him again, lingering a few seconds longer this time before she was pushing him out the door and hurrying down the hall to the bathroom while shouting that chocolate chips pancakes would be nice and a plus as the chocolate would provide a little more energy for the day ahead of them.

Hours later, Lorelai stumbled through the front door with her heels in her hand and leaning into Luke's side. He followed behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her tight against him as she laughed. He captured her lips mid-laugh and kissed her lovingly. Their embrace was broken up when a cough sounded behind them.

"You two are already out, I was just on my way back to watch you," Rory said watching as Luke put a little distance between him and Lorelai.

"We got disqualified," Lorelai said, dropping her heels onto the floor and moving past Rory.

"How?"

Lorelai looked over Rory's shoulder and smiled at Luke. "Our break lasted longer than ten minutes."

Rory shook her head. "I don't think I want to know this rest of this."

"Just don't ask where."

"Lorelai!" Luke barked, embarrassed and refusing to even look in Rory's direction.

Lorelai giggled, "I'm not saying anything else."

"Thank God," Luke muttered.

Rory agreed with a nod of her head. "On that note, I think I'm going to head back to school early this weekend."

"You don't have to sweets, we can still hang out today."

Rory shook her head. "No, it's fine. I have a ton of work to do anyway. You two spend some time together."

Before Lorelai could protest any further, Rory insisted that she really was fine with going back to school. After Rory had gathered her things and was out the front door, Lorelai walked back over to Luke and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"You know, I'm not actually that upset we were disqualified."

"You seemed to be enjoying yourself.

She smiled. "I could say the same for you. Let's just hope Kirk doesn't win because I don't want to see that smug face carrying a trophy."

"I can ban him from the diner for a week."

She swooned. "My hero."

As always, reviews are appreciated.