A Year in the Hollow

by deepfriedcake

Follow Luke Danes and Lorelai Gilmore through their first year of acquaintance in the quaint little town of Stars Hollow. Month by month, their mutual love for Lorelai's daughter Rory causes the bond between the two of them to grow continually stronger. Starts with a story formerly posted as a one-shot, "Mother's Day Special."

4. Fireworks by Night

Sorry that this chapter took twice as long to write as I thought it would, but it's also twice as long as I thought it would be, so maybe it all balances out somehow? Hope you enjoy it, even if it is now deep into August. The good news is that I'm diligently working on the August chapter, and (famous last words) it shouldn't take me as long as this one did!

To recap where the last chapter ended: Luke took advantage of the diner being closed due to the 4th of July holiday and came over to put up the birdhouse he and Rory had made on Father's Day. He then went to work on the damaged back porch of the Gilmore's house. Although Lorelai wasn't happy that he'd decided to make repairs without consulting her, they made peace between them. The chapter ended with Luke allowing himself to be persuaded to attend the town's firework celebration with them. But first he needs to get cleaned up...

---

"Come on, Diner Guy! Move it! Aren't you pretty enough yet?"

Luke was using a towel sprigged with violets to dry his hair when he heard Lorelai's shout from the bottom of the stairs. A quick glance into the mirror over the sink confirmed his grin. Apparently he wasn't able to maintain his everyday grumpy face when in the company of either Gilmore girl.

He finished toweling off from his quick wash-up, and then used the comb in his pocket to get his hair tamed back down. While reaching backwards to grab his shirt off of the doorknob, he realized that the bathroom wasn't painted pink, which had been his first impression of the room. The walls were actually a lemony color. It smelled pink to him, though, like a combination of a dozen different flowery scents combined with a ton of sugar, maybe with a splash of vanilla added in for good measure. There were feminine touches everywhere he looked, with perfume bottles and vials of lip gloss cluttering the counter around the sink, lace panels billowing across the window, and jars of candles lining the back of the bathtub. It felt pink to him, no matter what was the actual color on the walls.

Picking up his own shirt was what finally made him frown. The cotton tee was practically crackling with dried sweat and definitely didn't smell flowery in the least. He deliberated for only a moment before opening the door and sticking his damp head out into the hall.

"Hey, Lorelai? By any chance, would you have a shirt around here that I could borrow?"

He heard her quick, light footsteps on the stairs. "If any of my shirts fit your broad, manly shoulders, I promise you I'll kill myself," she stated, appearing down at the end of the hall. She studied what she could see of him for a moment. "Hang on. I might have an idea."

Lorelai disappeared into what he surmised was her bedroom, and came back out a minute later with a folded shirt in her hands. "Try this," she offered, tossing it to him.

He paused before shaking the piece of clothing open. "This didn't belong to an ex, did it?"

"No. It's mine. I bought it a lifetime ago, and I bought it big so I could sleep in it."

His movements hitched for just a moment, the thought of her sleeping in the shirt now in his hands causing an automatic glitch in his brain. He managed to squelch his hormonal reflex and snapped open the crimson and cream tee. Thankfully he saw that the tee was an XL so there was a good chance it would fit him. The shirt had reached the buttery soft texture of an often worn and often washed piece of clothing.

"Harvard?" he questioned, seeing the logo on the front.

"Yeah." She raised her head proudly, almost defiantly.

"You went there?" he asked, surprise in his tone.

"Not me," she said, and although she sounded tough, she looked vulnerable. "Rory's going to, though."

Luke looked from the shirt in his hands to the suddenly almost-defensive woman standing in the hall before him. "I know she's bright, but isn't she still a little young for college, Harvard or not? I mean, doesn't she at least need to finish middle school first? Take the SAT?"

Lorelai smiled, visibly relaxing at his genial teasing. "She made that decision when she was four."

"Good to have a goal," he commented, sensing he shouldn't pursue the topic any further. "I thought most 4-year-olds didn't look any further into the future than hoping to watch cartoons on Saturday mornings." He gestured at the shirt. "You're sure you don't mind?"

"If it fits, be my guest."

Luke stuck his arms through the sleeves, shoved the shirt over his head. "Thanks," he said, pulling it down over his hips. "Much better than my stinky one, that's for sure."

"Looks good on you." Lorelai tilted her head, taking a long look, and nodded in approval. Her mouth curved up in a naughty smile. "Wonder what I'll dream about the next time I wear that shirt to bed."

"Don't. You sound like Miss Patty," he said gruffly, in disapproval.

"Hey, don't dis Miss Patty. She's one of my role models."

Except when she tries to set you up with a date, he thought, but didn't say. "You'd do better to channel Mia," he observed instead.

"Mia's the best," Lorelai easily agreed. "Hey, ready to go?"

"Sure." He ducked back into the bathroom, wanting to clean up the mess he'd made around the sink.

"Just chuck the towels and stuff into the laundry bin," Lorelai ordered, heading back to the stairs. "Put your dirty shirt in there, too."

"Oh, no, there's no need –"

"Do it," she insisted, pausing for two seconds at the banister. "You don't want to have to haul that stinky thing around for the rest of the night. I'll do the wash tomorrow anyway. It's no big deal." She went downstairs, putting an end to his protest.

Luke mopped up the water he'd splashed on the countertop with the towel he'd used. Then, feeling almost voyeuristic, he opened the dirty clothes bin and added the damp linens and his sweaty shirt. He did his best not to catalog the ribbon-like underthings he glimpsed laying inside the wicker container.

The girls were waiting on him by the front door. "Let's go, let's go!" Rory chanted, taking his hand and her mom's, anxiously tugging them both to the door.

Good-naturedly, he allowed Rory to pull him through the doorway, but he stopped once they reached the porch, waiting for Lorelai to lock the door. His resistance caused both girls to stumble back against him.

"Luke! Let's go," Rory implored again, pulling on him with all her might, trying to budge him.

"Just waiting for your mom to lock up," he told her.

Rory and Lorelai looked at each other in surprise, then both broke out in giggles.

"We don't lock the door!" Rory informed him merrily.

"Why would you not lock the door to your house?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Well, imagine this. It's a dark night, and you're being pursued by a hoard of angry zombies," Lorelai began.

"Zombies."

"Yeah, you know. Zombies. The undead. A whole flock of 'em, right on your tail, salivating over your brains. You'd want to be able to get inside your house as quickly as you could, right? A locked door would do nothing but put you in danger."

"You don't lock your door because of the threat of zombies?"

"Or vampires," Lorelai added.

Luke shook his head, not amused by her explanation. "You need to lock up your house."

"OK, let's say I do that. And then some not-very-savvy burglar comes along and decides to rob my house. He smashes in the door, and the new door costs me more than the total of everything inside the house potentially available to steal."

"But still –"

"Luke, can we shelve the safety lecture for tonight? I promise I'll listen to you another day. You can even make a chart or something to convince me. But right now Sookie's waiting on us to get down to the lake."

"And Lane!" Rory added, her little face beginning to look frantic.

Geez, that face. "Um, sure, let's go," Luke mumbled, giving in yet again.

Lorelai leaned in close to him as they followed Rory's rush to the truck. "You'd better toughen up there, Diner Guy," she advised him softly. "Remember, she's been trained by the best."

He gave her a desperate look. "Any chance you can teach me resistance?"

Lorelai chuckled. "Resistance is futile. You've already been assimilated."

Before he could comment on her NextGen reference, they'd reached the truck and Rory had doubled back to grab his hand again.

"Mom and I weren't sure we got your stuff put in the back right," she informed him, pointing.

"Your heavy stuff," Lorelai complained. "I mean, why can't they make lightweight hammers?"

Luke rearranged a few things, but they'd done a pretty good job. "Thanks," he said, slamming shut the tailgate. "Hop in."

"Come on, Mom! You get to ride in the truck!" Rory raced to the passenger-side door, causing Luke and Lorelai to exchange matching grins over her excitement.

"Isn't this neat?" Rory slid to the middle of the bench seat, making room for her mom.

"Pretty neat." Looking over her daughter's head, Lorelai grinned at Luke again.

"Seat belts," Luke ordered, and started up the truck.

---

"Hold up." Lorelai grabbed her daughter's shoulder as they piled out of the truck, halting her dash towards the long tent set up to shelter the barbecue eaters. She fished a ponytail elastic out of her shorts pocket. "It's hot," she explained, working her fingers through Rory's slippery hair until she could secure it on the back of the girl's head. Rory danced impatiently under her ministrations. "OK, go," she told her, giving her hair one last tug.

Luke looked around curiously. In spite of the number of years since he'd attended, this 4th of July celebration looked exactly the way he remembered it.

"Good old Stars Hollow. It never changes, does it?" he dryly commented to Lorelai.

"No, thank God," she replied, surprising him with her for-once serious tone. He was going to question her, but then he spotted Sookie St. James standing beside one of the American Legion cooks who was working a barbecue mop over the grilling chicken. He nudged Lorelai and pointed.

"Sookie!" Lorelai yelled and waved her arms, getting Sookie's attention.

Luke knew Sookie, of course, the way he knew most of the people in town, but he didn't know her well. She'd been in the diner numerous times, freely giving him unasked-for advice about his menu items. He hadn't taken up any of her ideas, but he'd decided she was not an overly-irritating person to have around, and he could tell from her suggestions that she definitely knew how to cook. Of course, Mia hiring her as one of the undercooks at the Inn spoke volumes about her talent and character both.

Sookie headed over to them, pulling along a stocky man dressed all in olive green. Rory ran ahead and intercepted her, sinking into the warm hug she got from the auburn-haired woman.

"There you are!" Sookie beamed at all of them. "I was starting to think I'd messed up where we were meeting."

"We're just fashionably late," Lorelai said cheerfully, squeezing her friend's arm. "You know how I love to make an entrance."

"Luke!" Sookie looked at him in delight, but her face suddenly changed, her bright expression dimming as she looked him over. "Since when are you a Harvard guy?"

"Oh, that's mine!" Lorelai said with a chuckle.

"Yes. I know that," Sookie said plainly, giving Lorelai a piercing look.

"Sookie…" Lorelai pulled back her head at the comment, gave a small, disbelieving laugh. "Luke was at my house when I got home, doing manly, sweaty stuff involving hammers and sawhorses and nails and things. Rory –" Luke noticed how she put a little more emphasis on her daughter's name "– wanted Luke to come with us tonight, so I found him a non-disgusting shirt to put on. Otherwise the fair citizens of Stars Hollow would have given him the cold shoulder all night."

"Yeah, he was gross," Rory nodded.

"Well, it's nice you're here," Sookie said to him nonchalantly, bobbing her head. But her face still looked troubled instead of joyful.

The olive drab man standing slightly behind her cleared his throat.

"Oh, this is my friend Albert!" Sookie reached behind her and grabbed his arm, pulling him into their circle.

"Bert," he insisted, his square face breaking into a beaming smile. He held out his hand for Luke to shake.

Sookie quickly made introductions. "Bert's a line cook at that new fancy fish place in Hartford. We met last week at the restaurant supply store. I accidentally knocked over this display of melon ballers –"

"So I came to her rescue," Bert cut in.

"But he backed into a whole cart full of cookie cutters –"

"And away it went!"

Sookie and Bert laughed uproariously, enjoying their 'how we met' story. "Of course, they asked us to leave after that," Sookie added.

"I didn't mind, though, because that gave me a chance to ask her to go across the street with me and try out the bakery there," Bert admitted.

"Not as good as Weston's," Sookie confided to them, shaking her head. "Fran's sugar cookies just can't be beat."

"Weston's sugar cookies are the best," Rory said emphatically.

"They sure are, Pumpkin!" Sookie agreed. "Someday I'm gonna get that recipe figured out, wait and see. Or maybe I'll finally get Fran to crack and spill it to me."

"Crack." Lorelai nodded seriously. "Crack cocaine."

"What?" Sookie looked at Lorelai like she was the one who was cracked.

"That's what Fran's sugar cookies are like. Crack. You can't stop craving them. And when all of that sugar hits your bloodstream…Pow!" She spread her fingers wide, illustrating.

"Lorelai!" Sookie giggled. "You're terrible."

"Thought you already knew that," Lorelai said with a wink. "So I see that you two smart cookies have drinks," she observed, changing the subject, motioning to the bottles in Sookie and Bert's hands. "Why don't you find us a shaded place to sit, while I get a drink for this hard-working guy? And Rory, go see if you can find Lane, then come back to sit with us."

"She might not be here yet." Rory looked around. "Her mom might make her eat at home before they come."

"We've got seats," Sookie said, almost talking over the top of Rory. "My purse is there, saving them for us." She pointed over towards the industrial-size grill.

"That should be nice and toasty," Lorelai commented lightly, still sounding amiable. "Come on, Luke, let's grab a drink."

As soon as they got out of earshot of Sookie and her friend, Lorelai grabbed Luke's arm. "Oh, my God! That guy! Bert! He totally looks like your toolbox!"

Luke stopped walking to stare at her. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"Bert! I mean, look at him. He's the same color, the same shape. And look at his hair, it's just like the handle on your box!"

"How can his hair…" Luke turned back to glance back at Bert, ready to counter Lorelai's crazy observation, but his words faded away.

"Ha! You see it too now, right?"

"You're insane," Luke muttered, but his words lacked conviction.

"Your toolbox shall forever after be known as Bert," Lorelai informed him.

"You can't do that," he asserted, as they began walking towards the drinks area again. "Won't that hurt Sookie's feelings, you making fun of her boyfriend like that?"

"Eh, he's not going to be around long," Lorelai said carelessly.

"What makes you say that?"

"Sookie does this all the time. She dates someone just because they have some sort of food service job, thinking that's going to be enough of a bond. Or at least they'll both be working the same weird hours. She never digs deeper to see if she even likes the guy, if they've got anything else in common." Lorelai took a second, glanced back at where Sookie and Bert were settling into their folding chairs. "He seems like a nice enough guy, but I can already tell that Sookie's not that much into him. 'Course, she probably wouldn't mind if she got some…you know."

Luke shook his head, lost once again. "What?"

Lorelai waggled her eyebrows and smiled suggestively. "You know."

"Geez," he said, her meaning becoming clear. "Nothing gets filtered out with you, does it?"

Lorelai laughed as if he'd just handed her a compliment. "Not very much, Diner Guy!"

They'd arrived at the other end of the tent and surveyed the drink options. A folding table held large yellow barrels filled with lemonade and iced tea. Metal tubs were stuffed with rapidly melting ice and sweating cans of soda and bottled water. A beer keg was visible behind the security barrier created by a frowning Taylor Doose, who sat like a guard dog, judging the beverages chosen by the citizens of Stars Hollow.

"A beer, right?" Lorelai started for the keg, not even waiting for Luke's response.

"I trust you have some I.D., Lorelai?" Taylor said sanctimoniously.

"Of course I don't, Taylor," Lorelai said too sweetly.

"Then I can't allow you to fill a glass," Taylor ruled.

Lorelai turned back, rolling her eyes. "Taylor, you, along with everyone else in town, knows exactly how old I am."

"Doesn't matter, young lady." Taylor held out his hands, palms up. "No I.D., no beer. I certainly didn't make the laws. Blame the Alcoholic Beverage Commission of the State of Connecticut."

A flush of anger spread across Lorelai's cheeks. "You have got to be kidding me."

"'Fraid not, Lorelai. Don't want to take the chance of getting this shut down. Condoning underage drinking would give the Legion a black eye. Go home, get your driver's license, then come back."

Lorelai stepped a little closer to Taylor, her eyes flashing. "Or, while I'm at home, I could just grab a couple of beers from my own fridge, and not put any money into the Legion's coffers at all. How's that sound?"

Taylor shrugged coolly. "That's certainly your prerogative."

Before Lorelai could escalate the tiff further, Luke spoke up. "I was just going to get a bottle of water anyway, Lorelai. I'm still pretty thirsty, and I don't think chugging a mug of beer is a very good idea, at least not this early in the evening." He smiled at her, trying to tease her out of the argument, but she just glared at him.

"Fine," she sullenly capitulated. She pivoted and grabbed three bottles of water out of one of the tubs, thumping them down soundly on the table in front of Taylor. Several beads of moisture flew off the plastic bottles and splattered on Taylor. He made a show of wiping them off his arms before taking Lorelai's money.

"Ooh, that— that insufferable, tiny-brained, nasty little man!" she fumed, stomping back towards their table.

Luke lengthened his strides a bit, to keep up with her angry walk. He knew better than to even offer to carry the bottles, but he did chance a question. "Why don't you have your I.D. on you?"

"Why should I?"

He shrugged. "Why should you not?"

She snorted. "Wasn't driving tonight. Wasn't going to haul around my purse all night. Didn't know the Beer Nazi was going to be in charge."

"But you've got a little purse thing in your pocket anyway, with your money in it." He'd watched her pull it out to pay for the water. It was pink, and had what looked like a white cat's face on it. "Why not put your license in there?" he asked logically.

She stopped, fixing him with narrowed eyes. "Are you taking Taylor's side?"

"Nope, never. Just asking."

"That was just Taylor being his usual annoying self." She gave a huff. "Especially when it's me. He just loves to rub it in anytime he can."

"Rub what in?"

"About me."

"What about you?" Luke felt like they were going around in circles.

"About how old I am."

"Why? How old are you?"

She shot him a withering look. "Luke, come on. You know how old I am. Everyone in town knows how old I am. Everyone in Hartford knows how old I am. It's possible the entire state of Connecticut knows."

He shrugged again. "Well, I don't. Why is it a big deal? I figure you're about my age, right?"

She looked at him appraisingly. "How old are you?"

"Going on 30."

"Oh my God!" she screeched. Her eyes opened in horror, and even though her hands were full of water bottles, she brought them up to her face. "You think I look like I'm 30?"

"No, I –" Luke closed his eyes for an instant, realizing he'd stepped right into something again with her. He opened them and tried to speak calmly. "Truthfully – don't lump me in with Taylor here – but you do look barely old enough to legally drink. I just thought, you know, Rory's ten, so that must…make you…at least…" He slowly let his reasoning come to a stop, the suspected truth now hitting him over the head.

"26," she supplied. "Ten years ago I was 16. In case you can't do the math."

He tried to loosen his tongue and say something not stupid, but it was hard to do, what with his foot planted so firmly in his mouth.

"You really didn't know?" Lorelai's voice and posture had both softened considerably.

"I guess…I'd heard gossip, but I never thought…to put it together with you."

"Oh," she said, making it sound like a sigh. She looked swiftly down at the ground, bobbing her head a couple of times. "Kind of refreshing, to meet someone who hasn't already judged me solely on my status of 'unwed teenage mother.'"

"I don't judge," Luke said gruffly, wishing he could take a swig from one of the bottles she still had clasped in her hands. "At least, not about something like that. Insanity, now that's another matter. I had you pegged as crazy the first day you came into the diner."

She looked up and met his gaze, a big grin breaking out across her face. "Crazy is not a bad way to be, my friend. I highly recommend it."

"No thanks." He tried his best to fix her with a steely look. "I'm just hoping it's not catching."

Her grin tempered into something more intimate, and her voice grew just a touch warmer. "You sure about that? Sure you don't want to at least try crazy sometime?" She tilted her head, and seemed to be issuing an invitation his body didn't want him to miss.

"Who's crazy?" Rory pushed her way between them, startling Luke and bringing the adult conversation to a halt. She leaned against her mom and looked at Luke with curiosity.

"I am, Sweets." Lorelai gave him an apologetic look over her daughter's head. "You've known that for years, right?"

"Shh, Mom, you told me that was our little secret!" Rory teased her mom. "But I guess it's OK if Luke knows it." She smiled at him, welcoming him further into their circle of two.

"It's OK with me," Lorelai agreed. It was said lightly, but there was something in her accompanying look that aimed extra meaning at Luke. "You couldn't find Lane?" she then asked Rory, shifting further into her role of mother.

"Not yet."

"No problem," Lorelai reassured briskly. "Come on, let's eat, maybe she'll turn up by the time we get done."

In a few minutes they were in line, trays in hand, loading their plates with potato salad, coleslaw, and overly-generous portions of pork and chicken, slathered with a sauce guaranteed to make mouths water.

Lorelai scoffed at the first sensible ration Luke put on his plate, so she took over the job of serving both of them.

"I can't eat all of that," he protested, which only got another scoff out of her.

He ate his words, though, along with the good food, once they sat down. Whether it was because of being outside, his hard work during the afternoon, or the fact that he'd barely eaten anything else during the day, he was able to polish off the plateful of picnic food faster than he ever would have thought possible.

"Pretty good, huh?" Lorelai asked him, licking some wayward sauce off of her thumb.

"Really good." He smiled over at her. "Or maybe I was tired of only eating my own food."

"Yeah, why is that?" Sookie nodded, munching on some chips. "Everybody else's salads always taste better than the ones I make, even if they have the exact same things in them."

"Salads?" Lorelai wrinkled up her nose. "Please. Although if I have to eat a salad, I'd rather have yours, Sookie." She stood up, using Luke's shoulder for leverage. "I'm going to go get us a pulled pork sandwich," she told him.

"I can't eat a sandwich on top of all of this!" he objected.

"Eh, we'll share it," she placated him, and off she went, leaving him shaking his head.

But when she came back – placing her hand on his shoulder once again when she did – he ate his half of the sandwich without complaint.

Eventually even the bottomless stomach of Lorelai Gilmore was filled. Rory got up and wandered over to the edge of the tent, watching a group of adults dancing the polka to live accordion music.

"Well." Lorelai roused herself from the post-feast stupor that had settled down over them. "Think I'll hit the porta-potties before we start walking around."

"I'll go with you," Bert offered jovially, extricating himself from the opposite side of the picnic bench.

Lorelai bent down close to Luke's ear, her hand once again on his shoulder as she stepped out and over the bench seat. "Oh yeah, that's not awkward at all," she whispered to him, and he chuckled.

"Keep an eye on Rory for me, will you?" she requested, then walked off with Bert.

Luke glanced over at Sookie, wondering if discussing salads would be a good topic between them until the others came back, but she beat him to the punch.

"So, Luke." She looked at him, sort of the way a teacher would fixate on a misbehaving pupil. "You and Lorelai, huh?"

He froze for only a second. "Me and Lorelai, no," he informed her.

"Hey, I don't care," she insisted. "In fact, I think that would be great. Lorelai could use a good guy in her life, and I know you're a good guy."

He let the silence after her assessment lengthen for a bit. "But?" he finally added.

"But?" She lifted her eyebrows at him.

He shrugged. "Don't know. That just sounded like a sentence that had a 'but' coming after it."

"But…" she drawled out. Then she sighed, looked at him regretfully. "You know the town we live in. You know anything you do is going to be discussed, analyzed, put up for a vote at the next town meeting. You being sighted wearing Lorelai's shirt is probably already burning up the phone lines from one end of town to the other."

He plucked at the front of the shirt. "Why is this such a sore point with you?"

"It's not. But has anyone ever once seen you sporting anything with a college name printed across it? No. Does the entire town know that Lorelai wants Rory to go to Harvard someday? Yes. Will it take more than ten seconds for anyone else to make the same connection I did? No, it won't. Whether they have personally seen Lorelai in that shirt or not, it won't matter. Two and two is going to get added together faster than one of those fancy calculators could do it."

Frustrated, he put his clasped hands on the table between them and leaned forward. "But that's not what –"

"That doesn't matter!" Sookie cut him off, leaning over from her side. "Don't you see? That's not my point! Besides, I'm in favor of it, if the two of you would get together. More power to you. The only thing I'm pointing out is that the town will talk, no matter what you two do, and everyone is going to hear it, including that little sweetheart over there." She motioned her head towards Rory. "Now, most of it is going to go right over her head, but eventually she's going to try and puzzle out why it seems to be a big deal that her pal Luke is wearing her mommy's shirt."

A chill ran down his spine, and he guiltily looked over at Rory, who was still studying the intricate steps of the polka dancers.

"You see what I'm saying?" Sookie prodded him.

"Yeah," he had to admit. The idea of Rory someday looking at him with those big sad eyes because of something he'd done with Lorelai made the pile of pulled pork he'd just consumed sit uncomfortably in his stomach.

"I'm not telling you to back off," Sookie continued. "I'm just advising you to be discreet."

He took a big breath. "There's not anything to be discreet about, but…I'll keep what you said about the town in mind. Even if we're not…even if there isn't…I wasn't thinking about how being around her could look to everyone else."

"You aren't? You haven't? Why the hell not?" Sookie inquired, obviously surprised.

"Hey, look who I found!" Lorelai came up to their picnic table, leading a small girl with thick black braids.

"Lane!" Rory came running back from the dance area.

"Lane, you know Sookie," Lorelai said, her hands on the newcomer's shoulders, turning her from one adult to the next. "And this is Sookie's friend, Bert."

"Hello, young lady," Bert said cheerfully, having walked up behind them as well.

Lorelai turned Lane to face Luke. "And this is Luke Danes. Do you know him? He owns the diner across the square from you and your mom."

Lane looked at him, somewhat awestruck, somewhat terrified. "You make french fries," she murmured.

"Uh, yeah." He shook his head slightly at her narrow view of his livelihood. "I make a lot of other things too, but sure, french fries are a big part of what comes out of my kitchen."

"Wow," Lane said dreamily, as if he'd just confirmed he'd been to moon.

Behind her, Lorelai smiled and shrugged at him, not understanding Lane's french fry obsession either.

"You own a diner?" Bert stepped up next to him, his tone eager. "Sookie, why didn't you tell me?" He touched Luke's arm. "Can I pick your brain about that?"

"Sure," Luke said, and as the next two hours wore on, he'd never regretted any word more, because Bert had a lot of questions. An unending supply of questions. They moved from the tent to the lake, watched some more of Miss Patty's dance groups perform, took the little girls to get their faces painted, picked up something more to drink…and still Bert pestered him with questions.

"But I don't understand," Bert was saying relentlessly. "How did you know that was the best brand of dishwasher to install?"

"Because it was the cheapest one," Luke said grumpily. Would this guy never shut up?

"Time for more bug spray!" Sookie abruptly dug through the massive bag on her shoulder, and pulled out a green can, which she then threw to Lorelai. Lorelai caught it, gave a perfunctory spray at both of the girls, then aimed the can at Luke's legs.

"I hate bug spray," he complained, trying to duck away from the stinky mist. "I hate knowing I've got chemicals sprayed all over me. Hate having to wash it all off before I can climb into bed."

"Oh, hush you. You need to shower before you go to bed tonight anyway, since all you did at my house was freshen up. And this is better than scratching bug bites for the next week. You'll thank me later," she assured him, right before she emptied the remainder of the can on her own long legs. "Oops, sorry, Sook – I think I used it up."

"No problem," Sookie said quickly. "I have more in the car. Come on, Bert, let's go get it." Without waiting for his response, she grabbed her date's arm and tugged him along the path to the parking lot.

"Oh, uh, sure…Be back soon – we can continue our talk!" Bert called back to Luke, even as he was being pulled away.

"Thank you!" Luke fervently said to Lorelai, not sure why he felt like he needed to thank her.

She chuckled knowingly. "Yeah, Sookie had been giving me the 'help me' sign for the last 30 minutes, and I could tell you were at the end of your rope. Glad she came up with a solution I could work with." She clapped her hands at the girls. "What do you say, ladies? Snow cone time?"

"Yes!" they both said, and turned to cut behind the baseball diamond, heading for the snow cone concession booth that had been set up, debating which flavor they should get along the way.

Rory got blue raspberry, Lane got black cherry, and Lorelai got tangerine. They walked off, crunching on their frozen selections, and ran right into a stern Korean woman.

"Oh, Mrs. Kim!" Lorelai tried to recover her social skills after the shock. "How are you enjoying the festivities? Not as hot as last year, right?"

Mrs. Kim sternly looked at Luke, then at Lorelai. "You have a boy."

"Well, if you divide the world into boys and girls, I guess Luke would be a boy," Lorelai tried to joke, but stopped abruptly at Mrs. Kim's icy glare. "You know Luke, right? He owns Luke's, right across from your store."

Mrs. Kim was a petite woman, but her scowl felt big enough to fit on Godzilla's face. "We do not eat fried foods. And Lane does not walk around the lake with boys."

"Mama," Lane said, already knowing she needed to plead.

"Mom?" Rory sounded worried.

"Lane, come with me," Mrs. Kim instructed her daughter.

"Mom!" Rory was now desperate.

Lorelai sprang into action. "Mrs. Kim, would it be OK if Rory tags along with you and Lane? Just until the fireworks start?"

Mrs. Kim paused, looked at Lorelai, at Luke again, and finally at the begging look Lane was giving her. A small crack developed in her scowl. "Yes, Rory may come with Lane, if you wish."

"Great! Thanks!" Lorelai thrust her snow cone into Luke's hand, then pulled out her coin purse. She drew out a few dollars and tucked them into Rory's pocket in the back of her shorts. "In case you need anything. You behave, now. And I'll meet you by our spot next to the pier when the fireworks go off, OK?"

"Thanks, Mom," Rory said gratefully, skipping over to join her friend.

"She's…intense," Luke observed, as they watched Rory walk off with the Kims.

"Yes, she is," Lorelai agreed, with a little shudder. But maybe that was from the tangerine syrup on her snow cone.

"I guess that explains why I've never seen them in the diner."

"She's a firm believer in healthy eating. Tofu. Sprouts." Lorelai shuddered again.

"Seems like Rory and Lane have a strong bond between them, though."

"Yeah. I think at first it was because they were both a little different from everyone else in their kindergarten class, and they sort of stuck together. But I think they would have become friends no matter what. They just fit together."

"That's nice," Luke observed.

Lorelai smiled swiftly at him. "Yeah, it is. I try my best to give Lane a taste of normalcy while she's with us, but I try to respect Mrs. Kim's wishes, too. I want to stay on her good side. It would hurt Rory so much if she couldn't be with Lane anymore."

They started to stroll around aimlessly, enjoying the quiet between them, now that Bert's questions had been stopped.

"Wish I had my hat," Luke commented, shading his eyes from the setting sun.

"Where is it?"

"Probably in your bathroom. I think I took it off when I was cleaning up and never picked it back up." He bumped against her shoulder. "Somebody was rushing me, as I recall."

She laughed, bumping him back. "What's the deal with the hat, anyway?"

He shrugged. "Deal?"

"Yeah, why do you wear it all the time?"

"I'm a cook. I serve food. I need to wear something over my hair. A baseball cap seemed like a more fashionable alternative than a hairnet."

Lorelai laughed again. "Yeah, that's for sure." She glanced over at him. "You look good without it, though."

He smirked a little bit. "Good how?"

"Better than a hairnet good," she told him, refusing to build up his ego further than that.

The comfortable silence made itself at home between them again. Lorelai offered him a taste of her snow cone, he refused, and she crunched the last mouthful of ice and slurped up the syrupy liquid in the bottom.

"You ready for that beer now?" he asked her, when they'd circled around to the other side of the Legion tent.

"How do you propose I finagle that?" she asked, pointing out that Taylor was still keeping vigil over the keg.

"I'll buy."

"No." Lorelai caught his arm. "This is my treat, remember?"

"You've treated me enough," Luke objected. "I've let you buy my food without a fuss, but now it's time for me to treat you. Come on, don't make everyone question my manhood here."

Lorelai chuckled, but looked conflicted.

Luke sighed. "Look, I want a beer. Do you?"

After a slight pause, she nodded.

"OK then. I'm off to confront the Beer Nazi. You stay out of sight, so Taylor won't refuse to serve me when he realizes I'm also buying for you." Luke moved off, pulling out his wallet as he went, making sure his driver's license was clearly visible.

When he came back, Lorelai seemed to be furtively hiding behind one of the tent poles. "Thanks," she said, taking a foamy sip from the top of the large plastic cup. "Kinda feel like I'm back in high school, with the older kids buying booze for the party."

They walked off, and once again Luke was conscious of how comfortable he felt in her company. How it felt like he'd known her for much longer than he actually had. Although that was how he felt, he was acutely aware of how much he didn't know about her. He took another gulp of beer, letting it loosen some of his natural reserve.

"So, could I ask you some questions?"

"Me? Of course. Well, as long as you're not as obnoxious about it as Bert was, you can."

"I'll try." Another sip of beer, for courage. "Earlier, you said something about 'unwed teenage mother.'"

He sensed her tensing up. "Yeah?"

"He didn't…You didn't marry the guy?"

"I didn't." She looked far away, somewhere out over the lake. "He wanted to. I didn't want to compound our problems."

"You didn't want to get married?"

She looked at him then, smiling without humor. "Get married at 16? No, thanks."

"But he was willing?"

Lorelai sighed. "He was…brainwashed. Our parents all thought that was the solution, and he was willing to go with the flow. I thought that at least one of us should be able to continue with a normal life, go to school, college…See what happened after we grew up."

"And what happened?"

Lorelai laughed, a truer laugh. "I grew up. He didn't."

"You had to," Luke surmised.

"I did," she nodded.

"What happened with him?" Luke pressed.

"He finished high school. He graduated, went to Europe with his buddies…" She paused, indicating a small, painful gap between her memories. "We were supposed to do that together," she confessed, grimacing from the hurt still found there. "He went to college. Flunked out. Went to Europe again. Came home. Got into another college." She blew out a breath. "Made it through that time, but barely. Since then he's roamed around the country, trying out jobs the way you'd pick an entrée at a restaurant you're not familiar with."

"He doesn't sound too dependable," Luke observed, as neutrally as he could.

"No, he's not. Sometimes, it sounds like he's got it all together, and I think, you know, maybe this time…" She sighed heavily again. "And then he falls off the grid for three months, and I'm left explaining to Rory why her daddy's not calling her."

"That's rough," Luke said softly. He leaned his shoulder against hers in comfort.

"It's rough on Rory. I can deal with it."

Luke was in mid-scoff when a rocket burst overhead. Lorelai jumped at the boom, sloshing beer over the edge of her cup. Automatically he put his free arm around her shoulders, calming her after the shock of the explosion.

"It's OK," he murmured. "They always set off a couple of charges before the show, remember? They check for the wind direction and stuff like that."

"Right, right," she agreed. She continued to lean against him, and he was in no hurry to remove his arm.

They began to stroll around again, physically keeping close, which mirrored their mental state.

"Can I ask you something else?"

"Yeah," Lorelai agreed, her voice low and quiet.

"Rory said you guys moved here when she was one."

Lorelai nodded.

"Just you and her?"

"Yeah." She looked sideways at him, her eyebrows pinched together as she tried to see what he was getting at. "Chris was never in the picture with us."

"I understand, but you were what? 17? Where were your parents?"

She stopped walking, so Luke stopped too. He looked at her in the falling light, wondering how much she'd had to bear in her life. "Did they kick you out?" he asked gruffly.

She swallowed hard. "No. No, they…" She shook her head, looked away, then swiveled back to face him again. "I ran away from them, Luke."

"At 17? With a baby? Why would you –" He stopped abruptly, his brain suddenly churning with all sorts of grim newspaper headlines that might explain her running away.

"No, no, it wasn't that like," she said, once again able to read his mind. "It was more like Mrs. Kim. You know, how she has such rules and expectations for Lane? The house I grew up in didn't allow for much deviation, either. I hated it, but it was OK for me while I was growing up, because I was a strong kid and very determined, and I knew that someday I'd be free of their rules. That someday I could live the way I wanted to. But once I had Rory, I realized I'd run out of time. I didn't want Rory to grow up the way I had. I didn't want her to think my parents' world was her only choice."

He thought about her words, and was still at a loss. "What was wrong with their world?"

"It was rigid. Gray. Structured. No acceptance of any deviations. No acceptance of a girl like me, who didn't want to get married when she got knocked-up. I saw options, and all they saw was shame." She steadily looked at Luke. "I didn't want Rory to feel that shame, as it flowed all around me. And she hasn't, here, at least not as much as she would have if we'd stayed in Hartford. I know I get talked about here, but it's nothing like in my parents' circle."

Luke was shaking his head, trying to imagine what it had been like. "How did you do it? Going out on your own so young?"

She made a snuffling noise, part laugh, part sigh. "I'd thought about running away for most of my life. By the time I actually did it, I had a check list all ready to go."

"Like what?" Luke wondered.

"Oh, I'd always stashed away some cash, from every birthday or Christmas check. Extra lunch money. That sort of thing. And I'd always made a habit of talking with the maids at our house —"

"Maids?" Luke broke in, unable to hide his surprise.

"Yeah." Lorelai grimaced again. "That was the life I was running away from. One of real hardship. A life with maids and gardeners and pool boys. You gonna judge me now?" she challenged him, her chin tipped up in defiance.

He shook his head, wanting to hear more.

"There was one maid, not all that much older than I was. We talked a lot, and she told me about her sister, who worked here in Stars Hollow. The sister was a maid at the Independence Inn. I wheedled as much information out of her as I could, without tipping my hand too much. And then one day, I took the bus here, checked out the town. I stopped by the Inn, filled out an application, met Mia." Lorelai shook her head, guzzled down some more beer before she continued.

"I didn't exactly tell the truth on my application, or to Mia when she interviewed me. I owe Mia so much, because when I did show up to accept the job, she didn't throw me right back out when she saw I came with a baby on my hip. Instead she decided to love me and Rory and help us make a life here. I don't know what I would have done without her."

"That sounds like Mia."

"She saved my life, I think."

Luke let the silence fill up between them, letting Lorelai have her moment of remembrance.

"What did your parents do?" he asked a little bit later.

"They pretty much…dropped me."

"Dropped you? What do you mean?"

"Once Mia had coaxed most of my story out of me, she insisted that I contact them, let them know I was safe. I didn't want to, but I did, and then I waited, scared to death. I expected them to pull up in front of the Inn at any moment. I knew that they'd demand I come back home. Or at least they'd insist that I give them Rory, because I wasn't fit to take care of her."

"But they didn't, huh?"

"No. Instead I got a letter, very cut-and-dried, almost formal, as if I was a business associate. They said that since I obviously didn't wish to remain in their lives, they would bow to my wishes and also stay away from mine. But of course, that meant there would be no financial support from them, either." Lorelai glanced over at him again. "I really think they thought that would be enough to make me scurry back home to them. More proof that they didn't understand me at all."

"They never tried to see you after that?" Luke asked incredulously. "They didn't want to see their grandchild?"

Lorelai chewed her lips, thinking back over those years. "Sometimes I thought maybe someone was watching us, every now and then. But it might have been just a tourist with a camera, you know?" She shrugged. "Then, the year before Rory was ready to start school, I got an invitation to their Christmas party, with a short handwritten note from my mother tacked onto it. Saying that they'd like to see us, and could we possibly at least try to have holidays as a family again. So I screwed up my nerve, and dressed up Rory, and got on the bus and went back to that house full of sorrows. And…it wasn't bad. It wasn't great, either, mind you, but it was doable. After that, we went over at Easter, Thanksgiving…usually times when there were others in the house. Company made it less likely we'd kill each other," she said, sounding like she was ready to make fun of herself again.

"But they never offered to help you?"

"Even if they had, I wouldn't have accepted it," Lorelai said quickly.

"Because you won't take charity," Luke said dryly.

"Something like that!" she agreed, smiling that special smile at him.

They continued their walk, and a few minutes later, Luke nodded at her. "Congratulations."

"For what?"

"For this. For making it work. For making a good life for Rory. It's remarkable, what you've done. You should be proud."

She looked down bashfully, an emotion Luke would have never expected to see displayed from her. "She could have had a lot more, if I'd stayed with my parents. Someday I'm afraid she'll blame me for that."

Luke looked at her steadily. "Would she have a happy mother, if you'd stayed in Hartford?"

Lorelai didn't hesitate. "No."

"Then, like I said, congratulations. You did the right thing."

They'd paused in front of a small bonfire at the edge of the park. They stared at the flames briefly, and then, in what was becoming common for them, they had a shared idea. They looked at each other, tapped their plastic glasses together, and drained down the rest of their beer. They laughed at themselves, then walked over to a recycling bin and pitched in their cups.

As they walked off, Lorelai bumped her hip into his. "Thanks," she said, and Luke understood what she was thanking him for. What she didn't know was that he felt like he should thank her as well. It had been a long time since he'd had someone to share life stories with.

They walked companionably around the lake. A little breeze blew by them, blowing the scent of flowers his way. He sniffed, deeply. He couldn't help it.

Lorelai turned instantaneously, catching him at it. "Did you just sniff me?" she asked, delighted at having something else to tease him about.

"No," he immediately denied. "I'm just trying to figure out why you don't stink of bug spray. I mean, I watched you empty half of Sookie's can on your legs."

"I do smell like bug spray." To confirm it, she smelled her own arm, then nodded vigorously. "The overwhelming smell of summer, my friend."

"No you don't." Without thinking about it, he leaned over, brushing his nose against her hair. "You smell like your bathroom."

She stopped dead at that. "That doesn't sound like a compliment."

"I mean –" Geez, how could he be so bad at this? "I mean, you smell good."

Lorelai snickered. "Good how?"

"Good like…" God, how had he gotten trapped in this dialogue from hell? He reached for a loose curl of her hair, wrapped it around his finger, and with great care brought it closer to his nose, hoping to find a way out. A memory from childhood, from a visit to his grandmother's house, suddenly leaped in to fill the void. "You smell like lilies of the valley, when they all bloom at the same time in the spring."

He heard her suck in a shaky breath.

"Luke, tell me the truth." There was no longer any hint of teasing in her determined voice. "Why did you come over to fix my porch today?"

Somehow they'd turned to face each other, and somehow her left hand had ended up in his. He ran the pad of his thumb over her thumbnail, figuring that since she was right-handed, it was the left thumb that she'd clobbered with the hammer.

"Rory told me that you'd tried to fix it yourself, and that you'd hurt yourself doing it." His voice was deep and gruff, full of feelings he couldn't quite name. "I didn't want – I didn't want you to get hurt again."

The moon was rising up from behind his shoulder, shining into Lorelai's eyes. He thought he could see some of the same nameless things that he felt shimmering there as she stared at him in wonder. And even he knew that at a moment like this one, the only thing to do was to kiss the girl.

So he did, leaning over just enough to brush his lips against hers, just enough to satisfy the demands of the moment.

Intensity crackled, surprising him, taking away his breath, leaving him weak and craving more.

He lowered his lips to her mouth again, this time letting the surge of her sweetness wash over him for a longer moment before he reluctantly pulled away.

Geez, kissing. How was it possible that he'd forgotten how fantastic kissing was?

For a third time he was drawn to her lips, and this time he took full advantage, reveling in the play of her lips and tongue for as long as he could.

It was Lorelai who eventually pulled away. "Oh, we shouldn't have done that!" she said as soon as she'd gasped in enough breath to speak.

Misery thumped through him as soon as she said that. "No. Right. Of course. Shouldn't have done that," he mumbled, wanting to save face, if such a thing was possible after sucking face. Her gorgeous face. Geez, those lips...

She was frantically looking about. "I think it's OK though. I don't think anybody was watching us. Come here, just follow me…" She took his hand and pulled him off the path and into the trees lining the lake. "You're going to be glad I blasted you with the bug spray now, Mr. Incredible Kissing Diner Man."

He followed her blindly, letting her lead him through the undergrowth, until they found themselves in the middle of a small grove of pine trees. Lorelai dropped his hand, turned to him and threw her arms around his neck, her mouth landing unerringly back on his.

The force of her embrace knocked some of the air out of him, and the need in her knocked out the rest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, letting her take the lead, happy to comply with whatever she wanted. To give her as much as she wanted, for as long as she wanted. Tonight, he was more than willing to be all hers.

"God, Luke." She sounded breathless, raining little kisses all over his face. "You feel…just…fantastic, you know that?" She pressed herself even more tightly up against him, and he gladly molded his body against hers.

"Right back atcha," he muttered, moving his head to get to her lips again. He raised his hands up her arms, over her shoulders, his thumbs sliding under the dual straps of her tank tops. The feel of her skin and kissing her into senselessness effectively brought all conversation to a halt for several long, glorious minutes of closeness.

Lorelai pulled away again, needing to draw breath. She whispered something next to his ear.

"What?" he asked, not quite catching what she'd said over the clattering noise of his hard-pumping heart.

"I said you're so good at this, we should be bedroom buddies." She leaned back a little farther, grinning at him, giving him that same awkward wink of hers, but this time it seemed sexy as hell.

Panic shot through him. "No," he said, suddenly putting an arm's-length of space between them.

"No?" she whispered, sultriness surrounding the word. She reached for his face. "Why no?"

"Because I can't. No, Lorelai. That's not a possibility."

The inflexibility in his words seemed to get through to her. She looked at him quizzically, and started to backtrack. "Hey, I was just joking. Kinda. Sorta. You know me, I say whatever pops in my head. I didn't mean I was going to jump you right here in the woods or anything." She took a step towards him, and he backed away an equal distance. "Luke?" she questioned, looking even more confused.

He voiced what he should have remembered the first time he'd felt the pull of her attraction. "I'm in love with someone."

She halted her movement towards him, seemed to become rooted to the spot. He saw her eyes open wide. "Oh, God," she gasped out, sounding tortured.

"I'm sorry," he said, locked in an agony of his own. "I'm sorry. I should have said, but I thought…I thought maybe I could…but I can't. Lorelai, I'm so sorry."

She began to look behind her desperately. "I need to go."

"No, don't."

"Yeah, I need…I need to get out of here." She started to back away.

"No, Lorelai, don't." He took long strides in order to reach her before she disappeared, and snagged her arm.

"Don't, Luke. Just let me go!"

"No." He folded his arms around her from behind, holding her gently in place. "If you go now, we'll never talk about this. We'll never get the chance to put this right. Please, please stay. Please give me a chance to explain."

He felt her body shaking, but she wasn't fighting him, she wasn't trying to flee. He took a breath, trying to calm down. "Will you stay? Please?"

She nodded and he let go, taking a step back from her, knowing he shouldn't touch her now. But then he didn't know how to begin. Words, never his friends in the best of times, refused to spill out.

Lorelai held her arms banded over her chest, staring dully down at the ground. "I didn't know, Luke. You have to believe me about that. I had no idea."

"No, of course you didn't."

She still wouldn't look at him. "I would never poach somebody else's boyfriend. Never. God, they gossip about everything else in this town! Why didn't anybody ever tell me that you have a girlfriend?" She started to rock back and forth. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Luke snorted. "Because I'm not that egotistical. What was I supposed to say? 'Oh, hey, Lorelai, just in case you're thinking about kissing me, don't, because I'm taken.' Yeah, that would have been great."

"Better than telling me after we'd done that!" she flung out at him, starting to sound angry. She pulled in another breath, forcing herself back into control. "So where she is, this love of yours?"

"Well, that's…complicated."

This time Lorelai was the one to snort. "When isn't it complicated?" She held out her hand, as if she was asking for a moment to deal with it. "OK, why is it complicated?"

Luke squeezed his eyes shut, knowing how this was all going to sound. "She thinks we're done, broken up forever, and I think – I know – that someday we're going to make it work between us."

Lorelai was shaking her head at him, sadly. "Oh, Luke," she said, her voice reproachful.

"I know how it sounds, but that's what I believe. That's what I have to believe."

"How long has she been gone?"

He pretended like he had to think about it, but he knew. "A little over a year."

"Why did she leave?"

"Short answer: she had a job."

Lorelai's head jerked up to stare at him accusingly. "There's nothing wrong with her leaving to take a job. Did you want her to put her career on hold for you?"

Now Luke started to feel anger building up in him. "Hey, you don't want to hear this, it's fine with me."

With effort, Lorelai stopped up her protests, but apparently couldn't control her sarcasm. "No, I want to hear. Go on. I bet this is going to be good."

"She left because she was going to go take pictures in the Sudan. Then she left because she wanted to see New Zealand; thought she could sell pictures of the glacier in a national park there. Then I think she decided to go to someplace in Russia after that."

"I don't understand."

"She's a photographer. Pretty good, too. And kind of convenient, that the one job she wants to do, the only thing she'll even consider doing, is taking pictures all over the world."

"Why convenient?"

"Because that way, she always has an excuse not to stay in Stars Hollow. There's always some reason to pack up and fly away. Because for Rachel, anywhere but here has always been her goal."

Lorelai had grown still as he grew more agitated. He began to pace back and forth in rhythm with his words.

"Rachel, huh?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah, Rachel." He faced away from her, trying to get his bearings. "We've been together since high school. We were trying to plan out our life. A picture that Rachel took for the school paper won an award, then got picked up by a newspaper syndicate. It was pretty heady stuff for her. Suddenly she realized she had a ticket out of town, that she didn't need to settle for going to junior college in Hartford, maybe doing nothing more exciting than taking wedding pictures for friends and neighbors for the rest of her life."

"But…that's good, right? Good that she could pursue her dream?"

"Sure, it was good. I wanted her to succeed; to be happy. Of course I did. I just wanted to be a part of her happiness."

"Why couldn't you be a part of it?"

"Because she wouldn't stay here! She didn't want to be stuck in Stars Hollow!"

"OK, so why couldn't you –"

"Because my dad got sick!" he roared. "My dad got sick, and she accused me of using his cancer as an excuse for why I couldn't go with her!"

"Wow. That's sort of…despicable."

"Yeah. It sort of is."

"Then what happened?"

"Years of coming and going. Years of hope and getting my heart stomped on. Years of 'I'm back, Luke, this time I'm really back. Just let me take this one last assignment, and then I'm back for good…'" Luke faded off, shaking his head. "And I believed her, every time."

Lorelai cleared her throat. "Luke, I don't want to step wrong here, but what's preventing you from going to her now?"

"I've got a business built up here now. If I left here, followed her around the world, what would I do?"

"I don't know. Could you rent the diner out, maybe? Get an income that way?"

"Maybe," he sighed. "Maybe that'd work for money. But what would I do?"

Lorelai shrugged. "Uh, do you hear from her?"

"Not since she left this last time."

"Why? Was the last time really bad, when she left?"

"Yeah." He looked off in the distance, debating how much to tell her. "I told her if she left this time, don't come back. I told her that if she flew off again, that was it, I was done."

"Oh, Luke," she chastised him. "An ultimatum? You surely know those never work."

"I know. But she knew I didn't mean it. She knows that if she comes home, I'll take her back. I always do. I always will."

"I see." Lorelai was nodding her head, looking uncomfortable. "And all this time, even with what you told her, even with her not communicating with you; you've still been faithful to her?"

"Yeah." Luke rubbed at his face. "Because I still love her, you know? How can I be with someone else –" He suddenly realized who he was talking to; what they had just stopped doing. "I don't want to lead you on, Lorelai. You're beautiful, and funny, and I wish…I wish I could close the book on Rachel and move on, but I can't. How can I, when I believe that someday, this is still going to work out between us?"

"You can't," she softly agreed with him.

"Are we – Can we get past this?"

"Oh sure. No problem."

"Really?" He hoped so, but he was skeptical it was going to be that easy.

"Oh, yeah. I mean, we're adults, right? And sure, it might take a little bit, you know, for me to, uh…" She stopped, staring at him for a few beats. Slowly, she pushed a few curls that had come loose back behind her ears, and turned partially away. "Luke, can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can. Anything, really."

She nodded her head vigorously, but kept her eyes looking downward. "It's just, those kisses. Was I the only one who felt…what I felt?"

"No," he confessed. "You weren't the only one."

She nodded again, quickly, over and over. "So, if you ever come to the conclusion that Rachel's not coming back, or if you wake up one day and decide that maybe you are ready to move on, could we…" She looked up abruptly, catching his eyes.

He didn't look away. "We'd be fools if we didn't."

"OK," she sighed. "But until then, we just…?"

"Stay friends?" he hopefully suggested.

She bit at her lips, still watching him closely. "I can do that," she finally agreed.

"You're sure?"

Again, she paused. "I'm sure," she said, almost in a whisper.

He was relieved by her words, but concerned by her body language. "Lorelai, again, I'm so sorry that I –"

A firework, a real one, shrieked and burst over their heads.

"Oh, geez! Rory! I've got to go." She turned, started to briskly walk back towards the path.

Luke stood still, watching her go.

Several yards away, she turned back and looked for him. "Aren't you coming?"

"Do you want me to?"

"Are you kidding? Rory would never forgive me if I left you out here in the woods somewhere."

Still, he hesitated.

"Luke, come on." Lorelai shifted from foot to foot, looking ill at ease. "Let's just do this, and pretend nothing's changed, OK? For Rory's sake?"

"For Rory's sake," he agreed, and began to follow her back to the pier.

---

"Here."

A white plastic bag rustled down onto the counter. A cat's stylized face was printed on it in fat black lines, a pink bow sitting sideways on its head.

"Rory." Relief eased between his shoulder blades. He'd seen nothing of either Gilmore since the fireworks four days earlier. He'd been worried that in spite of their honest post-kiss talk, Lorelai had decided it was easier to draw a line between them and stay away. Luke took a deep breath, decided to ignore the wings that had sprouted on Rory's back and instead questioned the bag sitting on the counter. "What's this?"

"Your stuff."

"My stuff?"

"Yeah." She'd climbed up on a stool and was now twisting her body back and forth on it. "Your shirt and your hat."

"Oh, OK." He opened the bag to confirm the contents, and was instantly aware of the feminine scent wafting out of it. Hastily he rolled the top closed and stashed it underneath the counter, out of sight, and hopefully putting the memory of that scent completely out of his mind. He cleared his throat. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Rory continued to twist back and forth, displaying her fanciful clothing choices even more fully.

"Costume party today?" he asked, pointing at the iridescent wings held to her back and the headband sporting wiggling antennae bopping over her forehead.

Rory went still. "No," she said, barely whispering. "It's for a funeral."

The dread from just hearing that word made him go still too. "What are you talking about?"

Rory's head dropped, the plastic balls on the ends of the antennae stalks almost hitting the countertop. "I did something bad," she confessed, her voice wretched.

"You?" Luke shook his head. "I don't believe that."

"I did," Rory insisted. "I killed a caterpillar."

Luke almost laughed, both from the ridiculousness of her statement and the relief that it wasn't anything worse. He cut off the laugh when Rory looked at him in sadness.

"What happened?" he asked gently, leaning over the counter towards her, closing the space between them, so she could keep her explanation just between them.

She sighed brokenly. "I was at camp this week, during the days. Sort of a science camp, with my Girl Scout troop. And yesterday I found this caterpillar on a weed in the lot where the bus picks us up, and I put him in my lunch box to bring him home. I thought I'd raise him for the rest of the summer, and watch him turn into a butterfly, and it would be a neat project to sort of brag about when school starts again." She glanced up at him, her eyes swimming. "I put him in a jar when I got home, and tucked in some weeds and grass, but I guess I didn't know what I was doing. When I checked on him this morning, he was dead."

Luke chewed on bottom lip, not sure what to say. The death of a caterpillar was such a small loss in the grand scheme of things, but yet he could see Rory's guilt over it.

"It's my fault he's dead. It's my fault that he'll never be a beautiful butterfly," she added mournfully, breaking his silence.

Slowly, Luke shook his head. "Rory, I imagine a whole bunch of caterpillars never make it to the butterfly stage. A lot of them get eaten by birds, and this one could have just as easily been run over by the bus in that parking lot. That's why there's so many of them, to insure that some of them make it."

"But I'm responsible for this one. I should have just left him there. He was happy on that plant. But I didn't think about that, I was only thinking how cool it would be to tell everybody about my butterfly. And now he's dead."

Luke looked around a little desperately, wishing that Lorelai would magically appear and take her daughter home, saving him from trying to find something to say to make her feel better. He searched his mind for some soothing words, but all he found was blank, empty space.

"Mom said we can have a funeral. Will you come?"

"To a…caterpillar's funeral?"

"Yeah." She nodded glumly. "Please?"

"I…" He looked around, choking down the desire to laugh again. "When is it?" he asked, hoping he could use the diner as an excuse.

"2:30."

"Today?"

"Yeah. Mom's off today, and Lane was coming over anyway, and if you come too, then that's four of us." Rory's deep blue eyes pleaded with him. "Maybe if we give him a good funeral, he'll see that I didn't mean to kill him."

He sighed, hearing Lorelai in his head. Resistance is futile, she'd warned him. He was beginning to acknowledge how true that was.

"I'll be there, unless the diner gets extra-busy this afternoon," he reluctantly promised.

Rory's face lit up. "Thanks, Luke!" She pushed off from the stool, the wiggling antennae stalks bopping away as her feet hit the floor. "2:30. Don't forget!"

"No chance I'll forget," he muttered to himself, watching the fairy wings flutter to the door, his freewill and common sense disappearing right along with the little girl who'd stolen his heart.

---

Luke was still feeling foolish when he parked in front of Lorelai's house at 2:25 that afternoon. He couldn't believe that he'd actually put on a dress shirt to attend a caterpillar's funeral. It was ridiculous that he'd left his business just because a 10-year-old asked him to. More than that, he felt like an idiot because he knew damn well one other reason why he was here. He was here to see Lorelai, to judge whether or not they were going to be able to get past the fireworks that had flared up so hotly between them. He was here because he desperately hoped they could.

"Hi Luke!" Rory had spotted him and was running across the lawn to greet him. Lane was close behind her, sporting her own set of fairy wings.

He climbed out of the truck, smiling at both of the girls. "You're sure it's OK that I'm here?" He gestured at their backs, and then his own. "I didn't know there was a dress code."

Lane giggled, and even Rory's face lost some of the sadness. "Yeah, it's fine," she assured him. "Nobody else has on wings either." She pointed at the porch.

Babette and Patty were sitting together on the glider, no doubt gossiping about some poor Stars Hollow soul. Morey's long legs were stretched out down the length of the steps, where he was idly blowing notes out of the harmonica at his lips. Kirk was under the shade of the tree in the front yard, bending the ear of Andrew, the guy who ran the bookstore, probably hitting him up for a job. And Lorelai…

Lorelai was standing at the corner of the porch, her arms folded over her chest, watching him. Smiling at his presence, but yet somehow he could sense it wasn't a genuine smile. A little breeze lifted the curls off of her neck and made the ruffles on her bright orange sundress dance. She lifted her hand at him, welcoming him, bidding him to come up the steps and join them. He saw the thin straps of her dress flex as she waved to him, and his mind remembered the softness of her skin, the feel of her shoulders as his thumbs slipped under the cotton straps in the midst of kissing her.

Shaking off those memories, he turned back to the truck, grabbing a box from the passenger seat before he let the girls lead him up to the porch.

He walked through the chorus of greetings, nodding to everyone gathered there. "Brownies," he said diffidently, handing the box to Lorelai when he reached her.

"Brownies to you, too," she teased him, raising her eyebrows. "Oh, you mean you brought brownies?" She sniffed appreciatively at the box. "Good call."

"I wasn't sure what was appropriate, but brownies seemed like a safe bet."

She chuckled quietly, after first making sure that Rory had vacated the porch. "Yeah, I doubt Emily Post has a section on proper caterpillar funeral etiquette." She opened the box, tucked the lid under it, then placed it on a card table set up in the middle of the porch. The table was already holding a platter of Weston's sugar cookies, several bowls of chips and party mix, as well as a pitcher and some glasses.

"Thanks for coming." Lorelai smiled at him, but still seemed to be holding back. "You're a good sport to do this for her."

Luke shrugged. "I could tell she was beating herself up about it. If this helps, I'm all for it."

"Yeah." Lorelai looked over at her daughter, spinning around in circles with Lane. "My poor, sensitive kid." She brought her focus back to Luke. "You want some?" she asked, pointing at the pitcher on the table.

"Sure," he agreed, thinking that having a glass in his hand might lessen the awkwardness between them.

She poured and handed him a plastic cup full of a purple liquid. He sipped at it guardedly.

"Good God. What is this?" he asked, his lip curling at the intense sweetness.

Lorelai giggled at his face. "Kool-Aid."

He glared at the cup, then at her. "How much sugar did you put in this?"

"Um, maybe a little extra."

He continued to glare, and she giggled a little more. "Maybe a lot extra," she admitted. "Do you want some water instead?" she offered, holding out her hand to take back the cup.

"Yes." He followed her over to an ice chest in the corner, where she fished out a bottle of water for him. "How do you and Rory have a tooth left in your head? Your dentist must love you." He twisted off the cap and swished the cool water through his mouth, rinsing out the sugar and the artificial grape taste.

"I'll have you know that my teeth are just fine. Rory's too," she informed him proudly.

"I don't know how," he refuted, taking another cleansing gulp of water.

"Our teeth enamel is strong because of all of the calcium from the ice cream we eat. It's our summer diet."

He turned to counter that, but saw the teasing sparkle in her eyes and didn't bother.

"And then in the fall, we switch to grilled cheese sandwiches, which gives way to chili cheese fries all winter long, and then spring brings milk shakes. So you see, we make sure we get our quota of dairy products all year long."

Suddenly he was barely able to hear her chatter. Suddenly all he wanted was to get them back on solid ground. He needed to know that they had a future, in spite of those minutes spent hidden behind the trees.

"I haven't seen you all week," he blurted out.

Lorelai looked taken aback as he pointed out the obvious. "Rory was at camp, came home every night pretty much wiped out. I was working. You know." She tried to shrug it off.

Luke didn't want them to ignore what had happened any longer. "I was afraid you were deliberately staying away. I thought maybe you thought it was going to be too uncomfortable to be around me." He glanced around, making sure that none of the other guests were close enough to hear his words.

Lorelai looked around too. "No, of course not." She tried to laugh, as if it all was of no consequence. "I told you, I'm perfectly fine with it. With you. It's all fine."

Liar, he thought, and he was pretty sure she could read the word right there on his face.

Her whole body bristled up, ready to fight, but then just as abruptly, she let the tension go, made the decision not to challenge him. "I might…" She shook her head, considering her words. "I might have needed some time to readjust my thinking." She sighed. "But I will. I want this to be OK, Luke. I promise I'll get there."

Luke swallowed hard, his eyes drifting out over her yard, lighting on Rory and Lane as they danced about. "I'm lonely," he murmured, stunned when he registered what he had just let slip.

"Luke?" Lorelai turned to him, full of concern, her forehead wrinkling as she tried to understand.

"I am." He forced himself to continue what his subconscious had started. "I suppose that sounds really stupid, since I'm surrounded by half of Stars Hollow for most of the day." He shook his head, thinking of the annoying townsfolk who drifted in and out of the diner every day. "But when you get right down to it, I'm alone. My parents are gone, my sister and her boy aren't close. Got an uncle in Florida who'd cut off his hand rather than reach out to family. I can't think of the last time I called a friend. And I thought I was OK with that, that this is the way I wanted my life to be. But then Rory walked into the diner, and blew a big, fat hole through that theory. Being around her…being around you…it made me aware of how much I miss having family around. I want…" He had to stop, to regroup.

"I wish I could be a part of what you have, Lorelai, if you'd let me. Let me do what I can to help you. Could you…let me feel like I have one place I can call home, where I'm wanted, where I fit in? I know I came close to blowing it all up the other night at the lake, but if you can see past that mistake, and still let me be your friend…and maybe share Rory a little bit…" His words faded away, not sure what else he could add to convince her.

Lorelai had gone back to hugging her arms over her chest, carefully looking anywhere but at him. Slowly she pulled in a big breath of air, closing her eyes for the briefest moment. "Look at her," she said then, nodding her head at where Rory still romped with Lane.

Luke glanced over at the girls, watching the glitter on their fairy wings sparkle in the sunshine.

"I'm losing my little girl," Lorelai said softly.

"What?" Instantly Luke switched into fight mode, ready to tackle the unknown father, the snooty grandparents, anyone who was threatening to take Rory away from Lorelai.

She smiled gently at him. "No, I don't mean that," she said, reading his thoughts again. "I mean, she's growing up. Every day. She's always been mature for her age, but lately I can almost see her shedding her childhood like a snake's skin. And God help me, sometimes I can't wait for her to grow up."

Luke looked at her curiously, not sure what she was getting at.

"I like being able to treat her like a grown-up, to not watch every word out of my mouth. I like having somebody around to share my problems with. I like having an equal in the house, so that maybe the whole responsibility of adulthood doesn't rest solely on me. I can't wait until Rory's on my level, when we can share clothes and she can drive me to work sometimes."

Lorelai took a shaky breath, nodded over at Rory again. "But then I see her like she is today, playing dress up again, making up fairy stories with Lane, and I hate myself for wanting her to grow up. It's already happening too fast. By Christmas she'll die of mortification when she thinks back on today. Soon she won't be a little girl at all, and that's going to kill me. Already I miss the feeling of her little arms around my neck, those nights when she was tiny enough to fit beside me in the rocking chair, reading stories about mermaids and poisoned apples –"

Lorelai's voice choked off and Luke instinctively stepped closer to her, letting his shoulder brush against hers, wanting to comfort her but not knowing exactly how. She looked at him gratefully, with wet eyes.

"I guess that's my long-winded way of saying I'm lonely too." Tentatively she smiled at him. "I've got Mia, I've got Sookie, and just like you, I've got people milling around me all day long. I shouldn't be lonely, but I am. I'm so lonely I'm wishing away my little girl's childhood, just to have a pal around the house to keep me company."

He nodded, watching her closely.

She blew out a big breath. "I accept your offer of friendship, Luke. Or family ties, maybe. Whatever we want to call it. From here on, just know that mi casa es su casa. The welcome mat is always out for you. The door is never locked." With some effort she pulled herself together and smiled mischievously at him. "As you already well know."

"About that –" he began to lecture, his voice gravelly from the emotion of their discussion, but like her, he was ready to now downplay the commitment to which they'd just agreed.

She interrupted him with a laugh, but wiped a finger at the corner of her eye at the same time. "Maybe I'll have to give you a key, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," he said dryly. "The Stars Hollow gossip brigade would absolutely love that." He lowered his shoulder, indicating the ladies sitting on the front porch.

Lorelai laughed again, gracing him with a look of total understanding.

At the same time, Rory ran up to Morey. "We should start, I think. Will you play, the way you showed me?"

"You bet, Angel," Morey told her warmly, surprising Luke by stringing together more words in a sentence than he'd ever heard from the quiet man.

'Amazing Grace' warbled out of the harmonica, drawing everyone's attention.

"Could you all come over here, please?" Rory skipped backwards, towards the side of the house. Lane skipped along beside her, and the adults slowly followed. Morey brought up the rear, still providing the music.

They all gathered beside a small hole scrabbled into the ground. A white cardboard jewelry box, tied with a fresh pink ribbon, was already tucked down into the dirt.

Rory looked shyly at all of the faces watching her, then stared down at her bare toes in the grass. Lane bravely stepped up beside her friend and held her hand.

"Rory has something to say," Lane announced with authority. "Go on Rory," she encouraged her.

There was a pause, while Rory licked her lips and looked at Lorelai.

"Mom says that at a funeral you usually start out by saying something nice about the person who's died." She stopped again, looking at the tiny box in the ground at her side. "Well, I didn't know Mr. Caterpillar very well, so I don't have a story or anything to tell you about him, but I know he would have changed into something amazing, if I would have left him alone." She dropped Lane's hand and then pulled a folded piece of notebook paper out of the pocket in her shorts. "I went to the library and looked up butterflies in the encyclopedia. I thought I'd read what I found out, and that would sort of make up for not knowing anything else to say about him."

"That's a great idea, Dollbaby," Babette praised her.

"OK then." Rory took a deep breath and began to read, her eyes glued to the page, her tone serious. "This is what the Encyclopedia Britannica says about butterflies. There are 14,000 species of insects belonging to four families. Butterflies are nearly worldwide in their distribution. Butterflies are active during the day and are usually brightly colored or have a striking pattern on their wings. Their life cycle has four stages: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and adult. The caterpillar and adults of most butterflies feed on plants, often only specific parts of specific types of plants…"

As Rory read, Lorelai leaned against Luke. "I know I'm completely prejudiced, but she's amazing, isn't she?" she whispered to him, her eyes shining, watching her daughter. "I mean, it's like she's full of light."

For the first time in recent memory, Luke didn't care what anybody else might think about his actions. He put his arm around Lorelai's shoulders, delighted to share her pride in Rory.

"She is absolutely amazing," he whispered back, filled to the brim with warmth from being included in this family moment, and gave his friend's shoulders a thankful squeeze.