Author's Notes: It's October! I don't know about all of you, but the last few months have flown by, probably because I've been in a writing frenzy. I can't believe how many words I've managed to string together recently. Because of my focus on writing the stories, I haven't been as good about replying to reviews and PMs, and I apologize for that. I know I've said to many of you how much reviews and messages mean to authors. They are truly the nourishment that keeps us going. I'm so grateful to all of you who take the time to still read these stories and respond to them. Thank you SO much!

And now, let's go see what Luke and Lorelai and Rory are up to this month, shall we?

"Is there any reason to even fantasize that this might be locked?"

"Probably not," Rory shrugged, standing beside Luke on her own front porch, her backpack slung over one shoulder.

His hand had been hovering above the handle on the Gilmore's front door, but now he snatched it away. "Should I knock?"

Rory looked mystified. "Why would you do that?"

"Because it's not my house."

Rory grinned at him. "That's just a technicality anymore, Luke. But if it makes you feel better, let me open the door, since I do live here."

He tapped her shoulder, nodding in approval. "Good use of one of last week's spelling words."

"Thanks. And yesterday I used 'aghast' because –"

From inside the house, they could hear Lorelai's impatient shout. "For the love of God, somebody open the door and get your behinds in here!"

Rory grinned at him again, then opened the door. Both of them made their way into the living room.

Lorelai was sitting on the couch. She threw the book she'd been reading aside, watching them instead.

Luke nodded a greeting to her. Rory plopped down on the easy chair opposite of the couch, spreading out as if she had no bones in her body at all. Lorelai continued to regard them intently.

"Well?" she finally burst out.

"Well what?" Luke wanted to know.

"What did you guys do?" When neither of them answered, she fired off more questions. "Where did you go? Who did you see? What was so crucially important that you had to steal my daughter away this afternoon?"

"I didn't steal your daughter away," Luke protested mildly, finally deciding to take a seat on the end of the couch, but keeping a respectable distance between himself and Lorelai. "That makes me sound like a marauding band of gypsies or something."

"I beg to differ. That's exactly what you said the other night when you were here -"

"Here fixing your kitchen sink –"

"You said I owed you compensation for your ongoing labor – "

"I only pointed out that since I'd been doing so much work on the house –"

"Which nobody actually asked you to do –"

"What? I'm supposed to ignore the way that faucet kept dripping? Let you waste gallons of water and let the annoying dripping sound keep Rory awake all night?"

"Did she say it was keeping her awake? Rory, did the teeny-tiny dripping sound from all the way over in kitchen somehow penetrate through your closed bedroom door and hit your eardrums in such a way that it kept you from a good sound sleep?"

Luke jumped in before Rory could respond. "Hey, you want me to undo the plumbing and remove the new washer, I can have that done in 5 minutes flat. You want to live with the drip, don't let me stand in your way."

"Well, the drip doesn't actually live here," Lorelai said pointedly.

"Mom!" Rory interjected, her worried face showing that she believed her mom had gone too far.

Luke ignored the jab. "All I know, it was time for some Gilmore payback. I've put in the hours around here. I have a project I needed Rory's help with. That was our agreement, that both of us would get something out of this arrangement."

"Slave labor, you mean."

"Possibly more like indentured servitude. But my point is, I did not steal your daughter away. I made an appointment to do something with her. Stealing implies I was sneaky about it instead of being completely aboveboard. Which I was."

Somehow during their teasing argument, both Lorelai and Luke had turned towards the other and inched ever closer on the couch as they parried back and forth. Now their foreheads were nearly touching, their determined eyes focused on the other's sparkling blue irises, waiting to see who was going to give first.

A bored, gusty sigh from Rory interrupted their triumphant staring contest. They blinked, registered their physical proximity, and instantly scooted back to separate corners of the couch.

"So, anyway, what was the project?" Lorelai tried to ask indifferently.

Luke didn't speak, and Rory looked perplexed.

"Well, I'm not sure," she said, looking to Luke for help in explaining. "We went out to the farm, to Ed's farm, and we worked in the shop. That's kind of all I know."

Lorelai gave a short laugh of disbelief. "How can that be all you know? You were right there, weren't you?"

Rory once again glanced at Luke, but he did nothing but sit back, looking smugly pleased. "I traced out some pieces of a pattern on a board, and Luke helped me use a special saw, a jigsaw, to cut them out. And I sanded them, and we drilled some holes…but he wouldn't tell me what we were making."

"Why not?" Lorelai looked at him quizzically. "What's the big secret?"

"You guys have secrets all the time. I can't?"

Rory sat up on the edge of her chair and bobbed her head knowingly. "Oh, you mean secrets like what happened at school today, while you were waiting for me."

"Rory," Luke complained.

Lorelai pounced. "Why? What happened at school?"

"Luke is very popular, it seems." Rory had a Cheshire cat grin on her face.

"Oh? Do tell mama all about it," Lorelai happily cajoled her daughter.

"When I came out to the front drive to meet him, he was buried in moms. It turns out that a lot of the kids in my school have moms who remember Luke fondly from high school. They all wanted to say hi," Rory said, trying hard to pull off an innocent look.

"Ha!" Lorelai crowed.

Luke sadly shook his head at Rory. "Sometimes I think there must have been a mix-up at the hospital when you were born, but then you act like this and I see that you are indeed a carbon copy of your mom."

"Thank you!" Rory and Lorelai both trilled at him.

"Not meant as a compliment," he explained sourly.

"It is to us!" Lorelai winked at Rory, who grinned back at her.

Luke got up with a sigh. "I need to get back to the diner. I want to be there and ready to go when the dinner rush starts."

Rory hopped up from her chair. "And I'm going to go get my homework started. Thanks for doing whatever it was we did today, Luke. See you tomorrow?"

"Hope so." He detoured over to where she stood, taking a second to smooth his hand over the top of her head. "Study hard, but not too hard, OK?"

"OK." She grabbed up her backpack and started for her room.

"I'm going to walk Luke out. I'll be back inside in just five minutes," Lorelai told Rory, standing up and beginning to follow Luke to the front door.

"I'm timing you," Rory called back over her shoulder.

"Hurry. She probably really is," Lorelai said, pushing on Luke's back, rushing him outside.

On the way to the truck, Lorelai talked fast. "Can you go with me on Saturday afternoon for a few hours? I've got a little extra birthday surprise cooked up for Rory, and I could use your muscles."

Luke snorted. "That sounds like a good reason to say no."

"No, don't do that. It's going to be fun, really."

"And why does Rory need yet another birthday surprise? You've already taken the whole idea of a birthday celebration and blown it up to the extreme. What's left to do? You're hiring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to sing 'Happy Birthday' to her or something?"

"Hey, her birthday is a big deal, mister. We celebrate it right."

"I've never seen so much fuss for an 11-year-old. And that invitation was ridiculous. The party starts at 5 PM and goes into the wee hours of a morning? Was that a typo or a joke?"

"You know I say what I mean and mean what I say. Look, the first part is for Rory and her pals, and then later, after the kiddies go home, the rest of the party is for me."

"For you? Geez, you're even more egotistical than what I previously thought."

"You're just now realizing that? Man, Danes, get with the program. Of course I deserve a party. For one thing, if not for me giving birth on that auspicious day, there would be no Rory to celebrate, which is a circumstance I don't even want to imagine. The day of her birth changed my life in every possible way. To me, it's bigger than Christmas, and I celebrate it in style."

"Whatever." Luke put his hand on the truck's door.

"So you'll go with me?" Lorelai quickly brought the talk back on topic.

"Depends," he said warily. "Where are we going?"

"Not far. Just to the other side of Litchfield. There's supposed to be a really cool pumpkin patch over there. They've got hayrides, a corn maze, and all sorts of fun things for kids to do. I thought Rory would have a great time checking it out, and I want to bring back pumpkins to decorate for the party."

"We're not carting every one of her friends over there, are we?"

"No, just Lane. I was going to have Sookie come along, but she has to work during the afternoon so she can come to the party later in the evening. And then I thought about you and your manly Popeye muscles, which is exactly what I need to haul the pumpkins home. Those things are heavy – I know that from experience."

Luke hesitated, looking somewhere past Lorelai's shoulder. "Just for a couple of hours, right? Because I can't leave the diner for the entire day."

"Right, not long. Maybe from 1 until 3? It usually quiets down at the diner by then, doesn't it?"

Luke nodded, but looked doubtfully at the truck. "Do you think the three of us plus Lane can fit in there?"

"I'll drive," Lorelai volunteered.

Now Luke looked even more skeptically at the sad, seen-better-days Chevy Corsica parked in front of his truck. Lorelai had purchased the once-wrecked car for a song several years ago, but Luke questioned its reliability. "But if we're hauling back pumpkins –"

"I'll drive," she insisted again. "This is my idea, and the girls will have more room in the back seat of the car."

"OK," he sighed, simply agreeing to everything because that was easier, and began to open the door.

Lorelai grabbed at his arm. "And you never said, for sure. You're coming to the party, right?"

Once again, he didn't look directly at her. "Parties aren't exactly my thing," he hedged. "And besides, now I'll be with her in the afternoon, to go to the pumpkin patch. There's no real reason for me to come back again later. I'll tell her happy birthday and make sure she gets her gift earlier in the day. She won't even miss me later on."

Lorelai gave him a reproachful look. "Luke, you know that's not true. She doesn't care about the gift, she cares about you."

He smirked. "Oh, she'll care about this gift."

"Why? What is it?"

He smiled mysteriously.

"Oh, another secret, huh?"

"Maybe. There are usually secrets at birthdays, right?"

Lorelai gave him a steady look, one that said she could see straight through him. "Secrets and presents are great, but if you don't show for her party, she's going to be crushed. You get that, right? You realize how important you are to her, don't you?"

"I hate parties," he grumbled. "Do I really have to?"

"No, of course not. Stay away and break her heart. Your choice."

He shook his head, knowing the decision was already made. "Someday you're going to pester me to do something and I'm going to say no," he warned her.

"But not as long as it's for Rory," Lorelai said quickly, knowing his weakness. "You are putty in my hands as long as I can convince you it's for the kid."

"Fine." He sighed, rubbed at the back of his neck. "So if I'm committed to coming to the party, do you need me to bring anything?"

"Nope. I just need you!" Lorelai responded immediately and brightly.

There was a beat of dead air, as her words reverberated between them.

"Oops," she giggled. "Freudian slip much?"

"Lorelai –"

"Kidding, kidding. You know you've got to take me with a grain of salt, maybe with a slice of lime, too. Don't take me literally or we'll both be in trouble."

He thought it best to let it go. "I've got to get back to work," he said, once again reaching for the truck's door.

"Oh, wait! Wait!"

He turned back to see what was still so important, and was met with Lorelai's face connecting with his chest. She rubbed her forehead on his flannel shirt.

"Will you stop that?!" He took her by her shoulders and forced her upright, shaking his head.

"But it's a bit. It's our thing," Lorelai explained. "And it's also crucially important for the research I'm doing. I'm trying to see which color plaid is the softest. So far the blue and black one is winning. This one today? Way too scratchy. Use more fabric softener next time."

"I bet your five minute silliness allowance is up," he urgently reminded her, hoping that would allow him to make his escape.

"Crap," she gasped, and turned to run back to the house. "See you tomorrow!" she yelled.

"I suppose it's inevitable," he groused, loud enough for her to hear. But once in the truck, he smiled all the way to the diner.

"Here's an idea," Luke sarcastically told Lorelai on Saturday afternoon. "The next time someone offers you a map, take it!"

Lorelai stopped her pacing long enough to glare at him. "Remind me, who was it who said he had a stellar sense of direction? Who bandied about the phrase 'human compass?'"

Luke jerked his arms up towards the sky, visible above the tall cornstalks surrounding them. "If I could see the sun, I could get us out of here!"

"You know, there was nothing preventing you from grabbing the map if you wanted it that badly!" she snapped at him, continuing her pacing on the small square of dirt in the center of the corn maze.

"I thought it was a waste of time and money to try this thing in the first place! You were the one who insisted!"

"The guy offered us a deal. How could we pass it up?"

Luke snorted. "Easy. You say 'no, thank you' and sit and wait for Lane and Rory to come out of the kids' side."

"Boring. I thought this would give us something to do instead of just sitting there."

"Oh, it gave us something to do, all right. It gave us the opportunity to get lost and look like complete fools!"

Lorelai stopped and studied all sides of their cornstalk prison. "How can we not find our way out of here? It's got to be a simple solution, right? Surely people figure this out every day. Why don't we try going this way again?" She pointed to a path leading out of one corner in the open area where they were currently stalled.

"We've tried that way. It leads to a dead end. We've tried every way. They all lead to dead ends, or they lead right back here!"

Lorelai rubbed the spot between her eyebrows. "Well, we have to do something. We can't just stand here. What if we…what if we…" She suddenly pointed down at the stalks lining one side of the opening, sounding a little frantic. "Why don't we just force our way straight out from there? Like, burrow through? Wouldn't that get us out to somewhere? Come on, you're strong, you can forge us our own path! Let's go!" She clapped her hands at him, trying to be encouraging.

Tiredly, Luke sat down on a hay bale placed against one wall of their makeshift cornstalk room. "Even if we could do that, there's no guarantee that we'd walk straight and end up outside of this thing. Our best bet is just to wait for someone else to come through and follow them."

The panic increased in Lorelai's voice. "We can't do that! You heard the guy! This is a slow time for the grown-up side of the maze – that's why he offered to let us go through it at a two-for-one price. We could be stuck here all day, and we can't be, because Rory and Lane will come out of their side, and stand there waiting for us, and we won't be there, and then they'll be scared, and –"

"Lorelai."

"Luke! We have to do something!"

He scooted over on the hay bale and raised his arm, motioning for her to come join him. "Hey. Come here."

"No, we –"

"Come here," he insisted. "Let's just calm down a little bit. Think this through."

Reluctantly she approached and gingerly sat down next to him on the scratchy bale of hay. He put his arm around her, and gradually she relaxed, finally laying her head on his shoulder. Soothingly he rubbed his hand up and down her back.

"I'm just so worried that the girls will freak out when they can't find us," she admitted, her voice filled with anxiety.

"Well, that might be a good thing," Luke said softly, continuing to minister to her. "When they can't find us, then that will cause someone on staff to come look for us."

"But Rory's so polite. She won't want to cause any trouble. She and Lane will probably just stand there for hours."

"Lane's not like that, though. She'll ask somebody where we are. Or the guy at the ticket booth will notice them and finally put two and two together."

"I hope," Lorelai sighed, closing her eyes for a minute.

"Pretty soon another gullible person will fall for his sales pitch too. Someone else will pass through here. Maybe they'll have a map. We'll just tag along behind them." He gave her shoulders a squeeze. "It'll be OK."

Lorelai sighed again. "I just can't believe we're lost in here. At the Mill Festival we lost Rory, and now we're the ones who are lost."

"Let's hope this isn't becoming a trend. I don't ever want to have to search for Rory again," he muttered fervently.

She buried her face against him, seeking comfort this time instead of a softness rating. "Were you as scared that day as I was?"

He hugged her to him. "Yeah," he admitted quietly, and he felt Lorelai shudder in remembrance.

"There's always been this fear," she said, after a few moments of reflection. "Not that it's front and center in my mind, or that I worry about it all the time. But it's there, sort of lurking in the back of my head, that something awful will happen and I'll lose her at the mall, or do something equally stupid, and then my parents will swoop in and say 'Aha! We knew you couldn't be trusted to raise a child!' and they'll take her away from me."

"You've managed for 10 years," he pointed out. "I think that speaks in your favor."

"It's just…" She sat up, shaking her head. "It's just amazing, when you think about it. You go to the hospital, endure this incredible pain, and they hand you a baby. That's it. No requirements. No tests. Just, 'Hey, here's your kid. Don't drop her on the way home, OK?' and off you go. Suddenly there's all this responsibility. There's this tiny, perfect little person, and you have to keep her safe."

Luke exhaled slowly. "Wow. Yeah. I guess I'd never thought much about how few requirements you have to meet to have a baby. And I guess I should have, because my sister is the poster child for irresponsible parenting."

Lorelai nodded. "And most of the time, there's so much to do with a new baby, you just do it and you don't think about the big, scary picture. Because every day you have to keep her clean and keep her fed and keep her warm, and for a long time that's all you think about because just doing those few things over and over and over again keeps you so busy there's no time to think about anything else. But eventually other things start to creep in. You hear news about some evil flu strain, and if babies get it they end up dehydrated and in the hospital, and that makes you become a hand washing fiend. Or you see some nasty movie about a birth father demanding custody and you lay awake for nights to come, worrying about that happening. Or you read in the paper where a toddler was snatched off the street and never seen again. Or some lunatic goes into a McDonald's and shoots everybody who just happens to be there, even if it's just a mom and her kid in the playland –"

"Hey, hey now," Luke interrupted. "That's a lot of worries about things that are never going to happen."

"Oh, that's just the tip of the iceberg," Lorelai scoffed. "If I really try, I bet I could come up with enough worries about raising Rory to stretch clear around the world. And every year the list grows longer. I mean, wait until she's old enough to date! There's a whole nightmare of stuff just waiting to happen."

Now Luke shuddered. The idea of his sweet little Rory growing up and dating some sullen punk who didn't deserve her made his skin crawl. "Let's not borrow trouble, as my mom used to say."

"Yeah, we've got enough here the way it is, don't we?"

He settled back and pulled her against him, trying to find them a more comfortable spot. "In the car on the way here, I heard Rory saying something about you waking her up early this morning. What was that about?'

Lorelai's face lit up. "That's my birthday tradition with her. I wake her up at the time she was born, 4:03 in the A.M., and tell her all about her arrival in this world."

"That's nice," Luke said, smiling at the thought of Lorelai creeping into her daughter's room, probably cuddling with her, waking her up and telling her about the day of her birth.

"Yeah, it is. I tell her all about my big fat stomach and my big fat ankles, and about pelting the nurses with the useless ice chips they gave me."

"Why would they give you ice chips?"

"Because you can't drink anything while you're in labor, and your mouth gets dry from all of the swearing."

"You actually tell her that?"

"Of course I do."

"And you don't think this may dissuade her from ever having kids of her own?"

"Nah. I also tell her about the moment when I first got to hold her, which was the best moment of my whole life, and how she's the best kid in the whole world, and it makes me so incredibly happy that I'm her mom."

"That's nice," Luke said again, feeling sappy.

"It is nice," Lorelai agreed, sounding content.

"Was Christopher there with you, when she was born?" He didn't know why he asked that. He didn't really want to know.

"No," she said shortly.

"Did he…not want to be? Or…?" Luke tried to tread carefully.

"I don't know if he did or not, to be honest. Having the baby was my job. I was focused on getting through it. And…I was 16, Luke. Truthfully, I really didn't want my boyfriend there, seeing me like that. I didn't even want to see me like that. Sure, there are all of these lovely soft-focus pictures of delivery and birth, but I knew it was going to be gross, and why would Christopher want to be around for that? Plus, if he was there, then my mother would want to be there, and that just opened up a whole 'nother can of worms."

"Then who…?" Luke shook his head. "Who was there with you?"

Lorelai shrugged. "Every doctor my dad had ever played golf with. Nurses. Trust me, more people saw me naked that day than in all the years since."

A cold pit had opened up in his stomach. "But didn't you want someone there? Someone to hold your hand? Someone to…" He paused, took a breath. "I don't know, somebody who could give you a kiss after she was born? Tell you 'good job' at least?"

Lorelai stared down at the toes of her cowboy boots and thought about what he'd said. "I think I told you, when we talked about the apples, how I had to pretend to be so cool and calm and OK with everything. Going into the delivery room alone – that was still part of that façade, Luke. That was part of the image I was trying to project, that I was capable enough and strong enough to take care of this baby. At the time – I really didn't see that I had a choice."

"And Christopher didn't even try to change your mind?"

"Look, don't think badly of him because he didn't, OK? If I'd asked him, he probably would have. Let's face it, he was doing whatever anyone told him during those months, but his parents didn't want him involved at all, and I didn't especially want him there, so it was easier for him to come to the hospital after I was on my feet and she was all cleaned up and glowing like some enchanted princess baby. It was best for all of us that way."

"Except that you were alone."

"Come on, Luke. You know I wasn't alone."

"Then who…?"

"Rory was there." She grinned over at him. "I haven't had a minute to myself since she was born."

"Still –"

"Hey, if I ever do it again, I promise to drag the guy in with me, to hold my hand and pick up the ice chips I throw. Or if he doesn't want to, maybe I'll draft you. You'd be willing, right?"

Luke gave her a look, only half-horrified at the idea.

"Or is that one of those 'don't borrow trouble' things again?"

"Probably."

She chuckled, and he was happy to hear that she was relaxed enough to see the humor in it.

"Is he coming to the party?" Luke asked after a minute. It was one of those things he'd been dreading to find out.

"Who?"

"Rory's dad. Christopher." He choked out the name.

"No," she said, her tone telling him it was a ridiculous question.

"Why not?"

"Why yes?"

"Because…because it's her birthday? Because he's her dad?"

He could see Lorelai slowly starting to fume. "Yeah, he is her dad. And yeah, he should know when her birthday is. And if we're lucky, when we get back home there will be a message on the answering machine from him, telling her happy birthday. If we are extremely fortunate, he may have remembered in time to send her a card which we'll find in the mail today. But most likely, the day will pass and she'll get a belated card and a bunch of apologies sometime next week."

"You shouldn't let him get away with that," Luke grumbled.

"Me? I shouldn't let him get away with it? Luke, he's her dad! Why can't he remember it's her birthday? Why can't he come and see her? You're complaining to the wrong person. He's a grown man, just as old as I am. He can be just as responsible as I am, too."

He wanted to make sure he had it straight. "It's OK with you if he'd come to her party?"

"Of course it's OK! He knows he'd be welcome, anytime he'd want to come see us. What, do you think I've instructed him to stay away?"

Luke hung his head, ashamed because he had thought that. "I wasn't sure what your agreement is about her."

"Our agreement is that he knows where we live. We're here, and the door's unlocked. After that it's up to him."

"I just don't understand how he could not want to be with her, Lorelai." Luke shook his head. "She's a hell of a kid."

"Yeah, she is." She took a deep breath. "And maybe someday he'll get to the point where he can see that too, and realize what he's missing."

"What about his parents?" Luke didn't know what had gotten into him, why he was bringing up such personal stuff with her. Maybe he was just trying to distract her from their current predicament. Or maybe he wanted to find out because he'd grown to care so much about both of them.

Lorelai snorted delicately. "Lord and Lady Hayden? They refuse to acknowledge that the young lord ever had relations with the dirty serving wench."

Luke cleared his throat. "Rory indicated to me that she'd never even met her other set of grandparents."

"Which is probably for the best," she muttered.

"Again, how anybody could not want to be around Rory…"

"Oh, it has nothing to do with Rory! It's all about me. Haven't you heard? I'm the filthy slut that seduced their poor, innocent little boy. Because of my wanton ways, their son was robbed of his rightful place in the world."

"Stop," he growled.

"What? You think I'm making this up, or being overly dramatic, or something? No, Luke, maybe I'm not using the exact words they said, but believe me, that was precisely their message."

"Come on, Lorelai, you were a girl of 15!"

"Do you think I don't know that?"

"How could they be that mean? How could they not want to be her grandparents? You need to explain that to me, because I don't get it. Are rich people so much crueler than the rest of us?"

Her face crumpled up and he realized too late that she was close to tears. "Yes," she whispered through her clogged throat.

"Oh, hey now…"

"Sorry." She shook her head, one hand rubbing over her heart. "I know it seems like I'll talk about anything, but this is the one thing that I just can't –"

"No, no, no. I'm sorry. I am." He hugged her to him, let her hide her face in his flannel without protest. "We'll drop it. Forget I brought it up."

She sniffled against him for several minutes. "You're consigning them to hell right now though, aren't you?" she finally asked.

"Yep."

"Good." She sat up with a sigh, hunching her shoulders. "Oh, God, the party. What if we don't get home in time to set up for it?"

"We will."

"You're just Mr. Positivity today, aren't you? What time is it, anyway?"

"Hmm, not sure."

"Well, look at your watch."

"I think it stopped," he said, tucking his left wrist underneath him.

"You're a really bad liar."

"Yes, I am," he agreed.

"But it's still early enough that we can get home in time? Truthfully?"

Luke squinted up at the sky, where he still couldn't see any sign of the sun. "Sure. We've probably only been sitting here for 10 minutes."

"I can't tell. Are you still lying?"

"It's my best guess that we've been here 10 minutes. 15, tops."

"Oh, God." She leaned against him again. "What was I thinking?"

"Now that I can't begin to tell you. I never know what you're thinking."

Lorelai groaned.

"So tell me who else will be at the party tonight," he prodded, hoping to get her mind off of their situation again.

"Oh, the usual crowd. All of Rory's friends from Scouts and anyone else she wanted to invite. Lane, of course. Babette and Morey, Miss Patty. Basically anybody who wants to come, and of course everyone wants to come because this town is crazy about Rory. Oh, and Sookie's bringing a ton of food over, so you'll be well-fed."

"Not your parents, though?"

She stiffened up beside him. "No, Luke, not my parents."

"Why not?"

"They wouldn't enjoy it," she said flatly.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Look, I understand you met my father once and are now convinced he's this big, fluffy bunny of a guy, but that is not his true self. Not only would he and my mom have an awful time if they came, but they would make sure that nobody else had a good time either, including the birthday girl."

Luke sat motionless, not responding to her assessment.

"Don't say it," she warned him.

"I'm not saying anything," he protested.

"Yeah, and you're not saying it really loudly. It's annoying."

"But still, wouldn't they –"

"Luke! Geez! They sent Rory a card and a check for an obscene amount two days ago. They always make sure she gets her card two days early, 'just in case.' Over the weekend Rory will write them a gushing thank you note. I will include her newest school picture. Next month is Thanksgiving and we'll see them then. Trust me, we have evolved this cautious family dynamic that works for us. If we included one more get-together in a year's time we'd probably all be on Prozac."

"OK," Luke said, putting up his hands.

"Really OK, or you're just letting it rest because you know I'm in a fragile mental state right now?"

"OK," he repeated. He was going to continue, but just then the dirty face of a small boy peeked at them from between the stalks of corn opposite them.

"Hey!" Luke yelled, jumping off the bale of hay.

The face disappeared.

"No, no! Come back!" Lorelai ran over to where the face had been. She squatted down and thrust her hand between the stalks. "Please, can you help us?"

The bright little eyes returned.

"Hi," she said, in that friendly, easy way of hers that made everybody she met gravitate towards her, or at least, that's what Luke had observed. "I'm Lorelai, and this is Luke. What's your name?"

"Eli."

"Hi Eli. It's a real pleasure to meet you. By any chance, do you know how to get out of this maze?"

"Sure. It's easy."

"Maybe it is for a smart boy like you. Not so much for big dummies like us."

Eli looked at them with concern. "Did you lose your map?"

"Something like that, yeah. Can you show us how to get out?"

Eli pushed aside the cornstalks and stepped into their bare spot of ground. "Are you sure you want me to show you? Figuring it out is half the fun, my dad says, and I don't want to spoil it for you."

Luke couldn't believe how little the kid was. Six, seven tops. "Do you even know the way out?"

"'Course I do. This is my farm," the little boy bragged.

"And it's a great farm. A really great maze, too. An a-mazing maze. Ha, get it? Maybe it's just too amazing for us," Lorelai said, jumping in to soothe any hurt feelings.

Luke pulled out his wallet. "Tell you what, you get us out of here, and I'll give you $5."

"Really? Cool!" The little boy ran to the corner where the trail was that Lorelai had suggested following earlier. "Come on!"

"Told you this was the way," Lorelai sing-songed, flashing Luke a quick smile before following Eli out.

Unbelievably, the girls had just gotten out of the kids' side of the corn maze when Luke and Lorelai stumbled out of the exit by the ticket booth, thrilled to see the light of day. Lane and Rory were looking at some crafts displayed under a tent and drooling over an array of baked goods available for purchase there. They hadn't even noticed that the adults hadn't been waiting to meet them.

Luke paid off their diminutive tour guide, thinking it was the best $5 he'd ever spent.

They grabbed up a dozen medium-sized pumpkins and were soon on their way back to Stars Hollow, the girls munching on pumpkin-flavored doughnuts in the back seat. Between bites the youngsters related the different twists and turns they'd encountered on their side of the maze, including a calico cat that had demanded to be petted.

Luke and Lorelai kept their maze adventure to themselves.

Lorelai drove a little faster than what Luke was comfortable with. He understood it was probably because she wanted to get home and set up for the party. Instead of complaining, he merely held on to the door handle every time she sped up.

The tattered Corsica screeched to a stop in front of the Gilmore's garage.

"Everybody out!" Lorelai yelled. "Everybody grab some pumpkins!"

"Mom, look!" Rory pointed to the front porch, where a large box was visible.

"OK, ignore the pumpkins!" Lorelai ordered. "Everyone to the front porch!"

"Do you think it's for me?" Rory asked eagerly as they all trooped up to the house.

"Hmm, I don't know. Is anyone else having a birthday today?" Lorelai teased.

A cute little fox was peering at them from all sides of the box, making Rory stop in her tracks. "It's from Fox Books!" she announced in excitement.

"Wow," Lorelai said, eying the size of the box.

"Give me a hand here," Luke said, feeling the heft of it. Lorelai and the girls took one end of the box, he lifted the other, and all together they got it inside.

Lorelai held her hand out to him. "I need that cutter thingy I've seen you use in the storeroom."

"You think I carry a box cutter around with me all day?"

"If you don't, you should."

Luke sighed and pulled out a pocket knife. Lorelai put out her hand for it. "No way," he told her. "Not after I saw what you did to that potato I told you to slice up last week." He smoothly swiped the knife blade through the packaging.

Rory pounced on the box. "It's from Grandma and Grandpa!" she announced, pulling out a packing slip.

"Oh, boy," Lorelai muttered, just under her breath.

"Be nice," Luke warned her in a whisper.

She glared at him, but nodded.

Rory peered inside, then gasped and sat back on her heels. "It's that whole set of fairy tales!" She pulled one out. "All of them! Oh my gosh!" She handed the first book to Lane, who was right on the floor next to her, then pulled out the next one.

"Wow, Rory, you're lucky!" Lane said. She opened the cover. "Hey, here's a note for you." She handed the piece of stationery over to Rory.

"Dear Rory," Rory read. "Happy birthday to our favorite granddaughter. I hope you'll enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed our time together at the bookstore. Maybe you could bring along a few of your favorites the next time you visit and we could read them together. Love, Grandpa and Grandma."

Lorelai sighed.

"That's very generous of your grandparents, Rory," Luke commented.

"Yeah," Rory agreed, but she was already deep into the beautifully illustrated story of Rumplestiltskin.

"OK, OK," Lorelai grumbled, her words for Luke's ears only. "Tomorrow after she writes her thank you note, maybe we'll get in the car and drive over to Hartford and deliver it personally."

"Sounds like a plan," Luke said mildly, not wanting to put her off it by seeming too eager. "Hey, Rory, you know what we need to do now, don't you?"

"What?" She looked up briefly from the words on the page.

"I need to show you how to make a bookcase."

Rory glanced at the box of books and then back to Luke. "Yeah," she laughed, "you do!"

"Geez, it's like a frat house," Luke muttered, walking down the street to Lorelai's house around 9:00 that night. It looked like every light in the place was on. Music was blaring and Luke's skin started to itch – a sure sign that it was a Journey song. Clumps of laughing people were clustered in the yard and on the porch. He dodged them all, ignored the music as best he could, and entered through the open front door.

The first thing he saw were a couple of girls Rory's age standing at a card table, decorating several of the pumpkins they'd brought back that afternoon with some kind of squeeze-paints in tubes and thousands of sequins. They were bopping along in time to the too-loud music and seemed to be having a blast.

The next thing he saw was a long table full of food. It had been pushed over to one side of the living room, and Sookie was regally presiding over it.

"Luke!" she yelled, spotting him at the same time. She waved for him to come over.

"Hey, you're here!" She had to speak loudly to be heard over the music. "Rory was looking for you just a minute ago." Her hands were busy putting an assortment of appetizers and cookies on a plate.

"Yeah, I couldn't leave until I got everything closed down at the diner," he explained, momentarily dazed by how many different foodstuffs could apparently be wrapped in bacon.

"Rory didn't want to cut the cake until you got here, but we finally convinced her it was OK." Sookie motioned to the remains of what had been a full-sized sheetcake, liberally covered with multicolored butterflies. "She'll be happy to see that you're finally here!"

Luke winced, feeling indescribably guilty. "She was waiting on me?"

Sookie nodded. "You're pretty important to that little girl these days." She handed him the plate she'd been loading and held his gaze, suddenly serious. "You know that, right? How much you mean to her? How devastated she would have been if you hadn't shown up tonight?"

"No, I…" He gave his head a shake, trying to overcome the distracting music. "I promised her I'd be here. Well, I promised Lorelai, actually. I just…I didn't know that Rory would want to delay things until I got here. I mean, it's not like I'm…you know, part of…" He faded off, not sure of the words to use, still staring at Sookie.

She gave a scoffing laugh. "Yeah, well, you are. And it's too late to go backwards now. Just remember that in the future, OK? Or at least make sure she knows your schedule or when your ETA is. That would make it easier on the rest of us."

"Yeah," he sighed. He finally looked down at the plate she'd given him. "Do you need me to take this someplace?"

"No! That's for you!"

"For me?" He studied the overflowing mountain of goodies piled on the Styrofoam. "What am I supposed to do with it?"

She held still for a moment, looking at him sadly. "Most people would eat it, Luke. Do I really need to explain the way parties work to you?"

"Um, maybe later." He handed the plate back to her, and gestured to a wrapped box in his other hand. "I want to give Rory her present first."

"OK, but I'm holding on to this for you. You are eating at least one piece of cake before you leave, you hear me?"

"Yeah, OK." He felt confident that he could find a way out of the house and bypass Sookie and the treats table completely when the time came. "Do you know where Rory is?"

"She and Lorelai are in Rory's room. That's where the whole present-opening thing is happening."

"Thanks," he said, and ducked away through the archway. He fought his way through the tightly-packed kitchen and was finally able to stick his head into Rory's room.

Rory saw him immediately. "Luke!" She jumped off the bed, ran to the door, and grabbed his arm, pulling him inside the room.

"At last!" Lorelai said with a strained smile. He could tell she was a little peeved at him.

"Sorry," he said to both of them. "Sorry I didn't make it clear this afternoon that I couldn't come over until after the diner closed for the night. I figured you had so many other guests, it wouldn't matter when I showed up."

"You figured wrong," Lorelai said to him in a pleasant voice, but that same insincere half-smile was still on her face.

"But you're here now!" Rory was sort of hopping up and down beside him. Her cheeks were flushed and Luke guessed she was running on pure adrenaline from all of the excitement of the day.

"Here you go, doll." Babette tried to hoist herself off of the side of the bed, where she'd been sitting. Morey grabbed her arm and helped her to her feet. "Sit here and give the birthday girl her gift."

"Oh, I don't need –"

"Do it," Lorelai commanded, her voice as sweet as the spun sugar butterflies on the cake in the other room, but still she managed to make each word sound like it was edged in steel. "The birthday princess is holding court here. All of her loyal subjects are bringing in their offerings for her to open."

"Uh…OK," he shrugged. He sat down on the smallest portion of the bed that could hold him. Rory leaped around him and landed on her pillows, next to Lorelai. She tucked her hair back behind her ears and looked eagerly at him, bouncing a little bit on the mattress.

Suddenly he felt shy and completely convinced that the gift in his hand was not the brilliant idea he'd once thought it was, but was instead the stupidest thing he could have done. No way to hide it now, though. He had to go through with it.

"For you," he said simply.

"Heavy!" Rory gasped, taking the gift from him. Proving once again that she was indeed her mother's daughter, she ripped off the wrapping in one long tear.

Then, for a drawn-out, excruciating minute, she didn't say anything. Her hands smoothed over the stained wooden handle. Her fingers touched the hammer and screwdriver and the folding carpenter's ruler standing proudly upright in each of the sectioned compartments. Finally she looked up into Luke's face.

"It's a toolbox," she stated.

"It is," he agreed.

"It's…my own toolbox. For…me."

Luke leaned over and tapped against the front, where 'Rory' was carved into the wood. "Nobody else."

Once again her fingers examined the details, more closely than what her eyes could. She traced over the rounded ends of the box. He could see when it all fell into place. Her face lit up and her eyes sprang to his.

"This is what we made the other day! I cut these pieces out!"

"I told you I couldn't do it without you."

"Luke, thank you!" She launched herself across the bed, into his arms. "I love it," she declared, hugging him tightly, her face smushed into the same spot where Lorelai's had been earlier in the day. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

His throat got scratchy for a minute, and he knew this time it wasn't because of a Journey song. He hugged her back, letting his chin rub against her hair.

When he looked up, Lorelai was benignly watching them both, her deep blue eyes beaming. "Good job, Danes," she observed. "I think you won the birthday gift lottery tonight."

And when Rory's skinny arms hugged him even tighter, he thought he had, too.

As soon as he'd given Rory her gift, he wanted to leave. But first she insisted he come with her to the pumpkin-decorating table so they could design one together. Once he'd dusted all of the sequins off of his hands from that project, Sookie waylaid him, and although he got away from her without eating a piece of cake or any of the bacon-wrapped cholesterol nuggets, he did sample some sort of dip made out of chickpeas that was delicious, and he made sure she knew he thought so. Then Patty tried to get him to dance, but he'd lived in Stars Hollow all of his life and knew how to sidestep that proposition. Finally he found the girls in the kitchen.

"Hey, I need to take off, you know my morning starts early tomorrow. Happy birthday again, Rory."

Still high from her birthday buzz, Rory was feeling no embarrassment and gave him another big hug. "Thank you, Luke, for my tool box. It's really awesome!"

"You're welcome. Bring it with you next week when we start working on your bookcase."

She looked up at him in amazement. "Are we really going to build a bookcase?"

"You need someplace to put all of your new books, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Then we'll go over plans and take a trip to the lumberyard next week."

"You're the best!" she announced. She threw her arms up over her head. "This has been a great birthday!" she proclaimed to the room at large.

"Hear, hear!" Morey said, raising the mug of coffee he'd been drinking.

"Hear, hear!" Everyone else chanted.

Rory giggled, looking around at her court.

Lorelai put her hand on Rory's shoulder. "Listen, Sweets, I'm going to walk Luke out. I'll be back in just a couple, OK?"

"OK," Rory agreed. "And because it's been such a great night, I'm letting you guys have 10 minutes to be silly instead of 5."

Luke was surprised to see Lorelai's cheeks pink up. "We're not going to be silly," she informed Rory, a little huffily.

"Whatever," Rory shrugged, obviously not believing her mom. "Bye, Luke!" she chirped, and ran off into the living room.

He and Lorelai walked out of the back door, across the repaired porch, and cut across the yard to the street. It was a relief to be outside in the dark, away from the heated atmosphere inside the house, away from the loud music.

"Thanks for coming tonight, Luke. You see how much it meant to her."

"Yeah. About that." He stopped walking, and turned to face Lorelai. "Let me say again I'm sorry. I really didn't think it would make that big of a difference to her."

Lorelai was shaking her head. "I told you it would."

"I know, but…She had so many other people here, and so much else was going on…I really didn't think it would matter if I was one of the crowd or not."

"You've wormed your way into her heart. There's no way you can step away now, not without hurting her. You do get that, right?" She folded her arms over her chest and looked solemnly across the dark street.

"Yeah, I get that. I'll be careful with her, Lorelai, I promise. I won't underestimate her feelings again."

"Good." She continued to peer across the street, as if she was looking for something specific in the neighbor's yard. "And you've been around me for long enough now, you should be able to tell if I'm saying something ridiculous or something true, right? You can tell when I'm serious, can't you?"

"Yeah, I think so. Not that you're serious very often, but yeah, I'm aware that happens occasionally."

"Good," she repeated. Then she took in a deep breath. When she let it go, she turned and looked at him gravely, bringing her arms up towards him.

Surmising that she wanted to hug him goodbye, and thinking that a hug would be a welcome closure to the family birthday atmosphere he'd been treated to tonight, he opened his arms to her.

She stepped into him, but instead of a hug, she put a hand up to tenderly cradle one of his scruffy cheeks. The other hand went to the back of his neck, under the hat, and firmly forced him to lower his head, until his mouth was at the correct level to receive a kiss from her soft lips.

She kept the kiss sweet, but he could feel the enticing promise of heat hiding just underneath the chasteness. During their few moments of connection he fought the desire to glue himself to her.

She broke the kiss, then gave his lips one more quick peck before stepping back.

He took a breath, floundering for what to say. His thoughts were in a jumble about what had just happened.

"That was your Desperado warning," she explained, in the quietest voice he'd ever heard from her.

"It was…what?" He was shaking his head, trying to understand, wondering if the kiss had completely scrambled his brain.

"Desperado. You know, the Eagles? It was playing tonight, while you were giving Rory her gift."

"Uh, OK," he said, still confused.

She sighed, stepped up and took hold of his upper arm. Then, softly, she sang the lyrics she wanted him to hear, all while very carefully not looking at him.

"You better let somebody love you…before it's too-o-o-o…late."

He gulped, stunned at her message, surprised by the richness of her singing voice.

"Lorelai –"

"No, don't." She put a finger over his lips. "We don't need to talk about this. At least, not now. It's just something for you to think about. Something to ponder."

She took her finger away, and for a crazy moment he thought about bringing it back to his mouth and kissing it.

"Ponder," he repeated instead. "Ponder what?"

For the first time she looked directly at him. "The fact that she's not here." She took a quick, gulping breath. "But I am."

Before he could come up with any sort of response to that, she fled back towards the brightly lit house.

And all he could do was to stand there and ponder what she'd said.