Chapter 2: Why, God, Why?
The night around Stars Hollow was still, save for the sounds of crickets chirping and frogs ribbitting. Up in the loft above the Diner, Luke sat by the window and lit a cigarette. He only ever smoked in very high-strung, stressful situations, and this was definitely one of those times.
After Lorelai's death, Luke was presented with a copy of Lorelai's last will and testament, ordering that he raise Rory if anything happened to her. In their years of friendship, Luke had heard all the sorry details of Rory's father being in abstentia and the estrangement between Lorelai and her parents. But even with all that, he had never expected Lorelai to turn to him as a suitable parental figure.
Now, on this first night without the energetic Inn Manager on Earth, Luke watched her child sleep in his bed (he had opted to sleep on a mattress on the floor). A child that was not even his, but that he - Luke - was now responsible for.
Just a few hours earlier, Luke had been at a show, blissfully unaware of how his world would soon turn upside down. Even so, he found himself thinking back to that performance, a question asked in it - one of many questions actually, questions that don't ever end:
"Why, God? Why today?... Who is the girl in this rusty bed? Why am I back in a filthy room? Why is her voice ringing in my head? Why am I high on her cheap perfume?... I mean you no offense, but why does nothing here make sense?"
Luke crossed to the bed and sat down on the edge, stroking Rory's hair, the questions still inundating his mind. "Why me? What's your plan? I can't help her! No one can! I liked my memories as they were, but now I'll leave remembering her..." Luke seriously thought about running away, too broken to face the task before him. But then, he lost himself in Rory's sleeping form. Even after losing her mother, she looked so peaceful, and innocent. Luke had watched her grow up, feeding her day after day. His heart ached when he remembered how, in those first few years he had known them, Lorelai and Rory would have to return to the potting shed they once lived in behind the Independence Inn, still cold and still poor, even if they were fed. Running away, however brief, had helped Luke deal with losing his father. But if he did the same to grieve Lorelai... Rory would die. Would she have to live in the potting shed? Or worse, beg on the streets? No! Luke would die first before that happened! If he left, Lorelai would never forgive him. And damn it if he didn't love Rory as if she was his own child! A stew of anguish and deep love eating away at him, Luke still sent up his thoughts of incomprehension to a seemingly irrational deity, even as he left behind the only thing he could - a part of himself. He was no longer just a man. He was a father.
"Why, God? Why this face? Why such beauty in this place? I liked my memories as they were, but now I'll leave remembering her! Just her!"
A/N: I have been listening to the Miss Saigon soundtrack lately, and this song and imagining Luke thinking about this with Rory gave me the idea for this fic.