RR 19 Starsky and Hutch

"No, I mean it! You are the perfect blend of Starsky and Hutch, Luke, although the original Starsky and Hutch, not Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller. They really don't have the sexiness and manliness that David Soul and especially Paul Michael Glaser have."

Luke smirked. "So you like your men tall and dark."

She looked him up and down. "Well, duh," she said distractedly as she dug around in her purse for the key to the Crap Shack. "I can't find my key," she said, then dangled a small plastic bag under Luke's nose. "Want a flattened Mallomar?"

Luke put the bag back into the purse. "Where's the key? You already borrowed my key and you lost your key. What about the turtle?"

"The turtle key is the one I'm looking for, Luke. Your key is at the Dragonfly in my candy bowl. My key is still missing, so I took the turtle key because you, my friend, keep insisting that we lock the door when we leave."

He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to remain patient. "OK, I can drive over to the Dragonfly to get the key. You wanna wait here?"

"Seriously, you wear an Army jacket, Starsky was in the Army, you look hot in leather, like Hutch, and you have a classic vehicle like the Striped Tomato. Oh! We need a name for your truck!"

"We do not need a name for the truck. It's a truck. It's green. Let it be," he grumbled.

"The Green Machine? The Green Hornet – floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee?" She giggled at Luke's face, his pretend annoyance betrayed by the smile breaking across his lips.

"Kermit the Truck?" she tried one last time. Forgetting that they had been looking for the keys, she grasped the doorknob and turned. "Luke! Look, it's open!"

"I thought you said you locked the door?"

"I did lock the door. You watched me lock the door," she said as they pushed the door open and walked inside. Lorelai had turned to Luke, prepared with another round of names for the truck, when she stubbed her toe on a giant lump.

"Ow! That hurts!" She looked down, then clapped her hands. "Rory's here! Rory, we're home!" she shouted. "Luke, stop that! We don't want Rory to see that! She'll be scarred for life!"

"I'm not even touching you," he said practically. "Rory, I'm not touching her! Your mother is crazy!" he called out.

No answer came for either of them.

"Huh," said Lorelai, "maybe she's tied up and stuffed in this duffel bag." She bent over and opened the bag. "Nope, just dirty laundry."

Lorelai picked up the bag and carried it to the laundry room while Luke went to the kitchen for some water.

Joining him in the kitchen, Lorelai sighed. "She must have come back to see Jess. This is not going to be an easy weekend for them." Leaning into Luke, he wrapped his arms around her, holding the icy cold water bottles away from her body.

"How about Fried Green Pickup?"

She screeched as he dropped a water bottle down the back of her sweater.

Rory locked her Prius, walked to Main Street and scurried up the steps to Patty's School of Ballet. She'd already looked into the diner window, but didn't see Jess. Now she had to walk the gauntlet of Miss Patty's probing questions before she could reach Jess's room behind the dance studio. Her heart racing, she slid the heavy door open.

"Rory, darling! We've missed you around here!" Miss Patty greeted her affectionately. "What, or should I ask WHO, has been keeping you away from us?"

It wasn't just the five year old ballerinas waving giant sticks with what looked like rainbow-colored cotton candy that startled her. Rory felt like the deer which had hit the Jeep several years before, because Miss Patty took one look at her and knew.

She seemed to know that, after the worst (romantically) freshman year in the history of college, Rory had finally met someone interesting. Logan Huntzberger was both maddening and attractive, but he was off-limits, at least until she resolved the situation with Jess.

After Jess ran off that night, Rory went after him. It was a disaster. He refused to discuss it, and finally she got in her car and went back to school.

Jess had only couple more weeks on his Miss Patty assignment. He would be returning to Philadelphia to continue with the bookstore as well as finish his articles.

"Oh Patty," Rory laughed, her voice sounding like a chicken's cackle to herself. "If you're talking about Ryu Murakami and F. Scott Fitzgerald, then yeah, they've been keeping me busy."

"As long as they're hot, that's all that matters," chuckled Patty. She bent her head towards the back door of the studio. "He's in his room. All he does now is write."

"Thanks," she said. "Uh, Patty, there's a naked ballerina in the corner."

Patty turned to the children. "Girls, girls, clothes on! This ain't a strip club," she cautioned. She turned back to Rory. "At least not during the daytime!" she laughed.

Rory waved as she slipped out the back door.

Why in the world was her hand shaking? All she needed to do was knock on the door and she could finally figure out what was going on with Jess.

He opened the door silently. He stood there without saying a word. Finally, he opened the door all the way, turned around and let her enter.

"So," she said. He remained silent. She looked around the room, seeing the messy bed, the trash can overflowing with Luke's bags and miscellaneous junk food trash.

"How's it going?" she asked, feeling more awkward every moment.

His back stiffened as he put on his mental protective suit. "It's going," he answered. No way was he going to start this discussion.

She stared at him blankly wondering if he was ever going to make a full sentence.

"Jess, what are we doing here?"

"I'm getting some writing done," he shrugged.

She stomped her foot. "Jess! Be serious here! I'm talking about us! You haven't called. You haven't come to see me. What's going on with you?"

"Like I said. Seems to me you didn't call me either."

"But you love me!" She exclaimed.

"Can you say the same about me?" He asked.

Rory froze. She did love him. She had to. She also had to be a success at Yale for her grandfather, and be her mother's best friend, and help Paris get over Asher, and help Lane understand her feelings for Zach, and help her grandmother get back together with her grandfather.

"See?" he said bitterly, reaching to his desk for his open beer bottle. "You, Rory, the angel of Stars Hollow. Always wanting to be loved, never loving back." A swig took care of exactly none of the pain.

"No! I do! I do love you! It's just that there are so many things going on right now that I can't get a handle on any of it."

"Let me clue you in, Miss Perfect. No one ever gets a handle on it. Not you, not me, not Luke and Lorelai, not even your rich, snobby grandparents. All there is, is love and all of the shit the rest of the world puts on you. All we've got is love; all anybody's got is love."

"But I have to do these things. There's so much to do. People need me! I can't let them down," she said pitifully.

"Why not?" He challenged her. "They've let you down time after time. They will always let you down. The minute you let them have a piece of you, they take everything from you."

He sneered bitterly.

"Liz needed me," he continued. "My whole childhood she needed me. She needed me those times she panhandled on the street for drug money. She needed me to be on the phone and polite when she called Luke for money. She needed me to keep the apartment together and clean her up when she was sick from drinking. She needed me to be gone when a new boyfriend came along."

"Do you think she sent me to Luke because I was impossible to handle? Bullshit. There was a new boyfriend and she needed me to be out of the way, because the genius actually thought she was ten years younger than she is."

"Jess." Rory wasn't upset anymore, at least not about the past few weeks. She threw herself into his arms. It was like throwing herself onto a power line; his entire body was as taut as a suspension bridge.

"I do love you, I do! But I have to do these other things. I have to finish Yale. I have to be there for my family."

"No you don't!" He cried. "We can go anywhere, do anything! Why do you think we have to stay? They will only let you down."

She slid her arms from around his neck, letting them fall to her side. She looked at him sadly. "Because I love them, too. I want to be there for them as well."

"Then I have to go," he said, repeating the words from Luke that gave him nightmares for weeks.

"No you don't! You can stay!"

"For what? To watch them destroy our love? To suck us dry? They will never stop wanting more and more from you. They'll use you until you have nothing left."

"No, Jess, to let them learn to love you, too. To love us."

"I'll be in Philadelphia." He turned away from her, hiding his face as he cursed himself for his weakness. This should be easier. After all, he'd left once already. "You can come see me sometimes if you want."

"Oh. Um, OK, that's good. Right. We can still see each other. We can make it work. Right. Sure." She looked at him uncertainly. "When are you going to leave?"

"Tomorrow. They guys down there said it's OK if I finish up down there. They like my new Patty stuff."

"Good, good," she said. "I guess we better start packing you up, then." She went to his closet, pulled out a duffle bag, and began gathering his things. She cracked a half smile as she recognized one of her duffle bags that she'd left here when she visited him occasionally, enjoying that intense tenderness and joy in simply being together for a night. A sniffle betrayed the tears that had started down her cheeks.

"Rory, come here. We've got some time. There's no hurry." He pulled her into his arms.

Luke was in the middle of fixing breakfast when Rory came through the door of the Crap Shack.

"Hey Rory," he said without looking up from the stove.

"Hey Luke." Her voice cracked, getting his attention. On the verge of tears again, she continued, "He's gone. Went back to Philadelphia."

Luke walked over to her, enveloping her in the warmth of his soft flannel hug. She gripped him tightly.

"You want me to go get him? Because I will, you know. I've got some rope in the back of my truck. I've been wanting to practice my hogtying skills."

"No, no, it's good. We want it this way," she said unconvincingly, puzzling on the notion that Luke know how to tie a hog. "Is Mom up yet?"

He squeezed her one more time, ruffled her hair and stepped back. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's awake. Why don't you take some coffee upstairs? You can talk."

Rory took two mugs of coffee upstairs and Luke added more bacon to the frying pan.

"Mom?" Rory called after knocking on her bedroom door.

"Rory?" Lorelai opened the door, still in her pjs. One look told her everything. She took the mugs from her daughter's hands and they climbed onto the bed, pulling a quilt over both of them.

"I know, baby, I know," she chanted as Rory's tears flowed.

The tears were gone half an hour later when Luke came into the bedroom with a platter full of food. "There's more in the oven," he said pragmatically. To Lorelai he added, "You remember I'm working late tonight? I'm doing that deep clean on the floor."

"You betcha, hon. I'll be in later probably. Depends on stuff." She pointed at Rory using the hand behind Rory's back.

"Good. Rory?"

"Not me, Luke. I have a ten o'clock class."

"Too bad," he replied. He kissed Lorelai, the waved goodbye as he shut the bedroom door.

Rory looked at her mother with knowing eyes. "So I'm 'stuff' now?"

"Stuf n Puf, H. R." She quipped. "So, are we going to wallow today?"

"No wallowing. There isn't anything to wallow about. Jess and I are still together. We're just together a little farther apart."

"Philadelphia?"

"Philadelphia," she nodded, her mouth full of bacon and toast.

"Philadelphia is in a whole different state. I think that deserves a little wallowing," said, Lorelai, for once not competing with Rory for the best pancakes and bacon pieces.

"No wallowing," insisted Rory. "I'm going to go visit him as soon as I have a free weekend, and he's coming to visit me when he's finished the Miss Patty story." She nodded her 'If I can get Mom to believe it, then eventually I will too' nod.

"So, a distance relationship, huh? Like Paris and what was his name? Jimmy?"

"Jamie. And thanks, Mom, for helping me believe this will work out," she said sarcastically.

"Sorry, bad example. Luke and Rachel? Never mind, my bad." She grinned. "Actually that worked out pretty well for me, so …"

"Mom! You are the worst consoler ever! You might as well sign me up for a dating service."

"1-800-James-Dean-Types?"

"That doesn't even resolve into a valid telephone number. And you promised to be nicer to Jess."

"Rory, I have been nice to him. You've made him into a better person, just like Luke hoped."

"Luke thought that?"

"He sure did, hon. He was behind you all the way, ever since before the car accident."

"Wow." Rory began to rethink his offer to hogtie Jess and keep him here.

"Ok, ok, I got one! Sleepless in Seattle. Seattle to Baltimore. True love. Empire State building. Rosie O'Donnell. Sam and Annie." She preened triumphantly. "They even fell in love, not just stayed together."

"Magic," sighed Rory and Lorelai simultaneously.

"So you, me and Annie? I can have Luke send us over some muffins."

Rory licked the last of the syrup off the plate. "I said I have class, Mom, but maybe this weekend?"

"Not going to Philadelphia?"

"No, there's a study group Saturday morning."

Lorelai pouted. "Better than nothing," she said as she acquiesced. "C'mon, let me at least buy you the new latte at Weston's before you go. It's a mocha-caramel-almond orgasm."

"And has enough sugar to get me through Japanese Fiction today. You're on!"

Just before Lorelai was expected for her late lunch, Luke walked around the edge of the diner, surreptitiously bending over and rubbing sandpaper over several places on the baseboard that Lorelai had painted when she spruced the diner several years before.

"Hey, Luke," called Kirk.

"Whaddya want, Kirk?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm buffing out some spots that need repainting." Luke moved a couple of feet over and sanded another bare spot in the baseboard. His story needed to convince Lorelai that he really needed her to paint.

"Who did the damage? It wasn't a dog, was it?" Kirk looked around the room innocently.

Luke stood up and stalked over to Kirk's table. "You didn't bring another dog in here, did you Kirk?" he said threateningly.

"No dogs in here. That's what you said. No dogs in the diner. Caesar will tell you the same thing." Kirk smiled his thin-lipped smile, trying to win Luke over.

Luke's head snapped to the kitchen doorway. "Caesar! Front and center! Have you been letting Kirk bring his dogs in when I'm not here?"

Caesar stuck his head out of the pass-through, sweating a little. "No boss, no dogs in the diner. Nope. None. Nada."

"Kirk!" Luke turned his attention to him again. "I ought to make you pay for repairing the baseboards!" He enjoyed tormenting Kirk, conveniently ignoring the fact that there was nothing wrong with the baseboards. He was rubbing off perfectly good paint, but a chance to strike a little fear in Kirk almost always improved his day.

"I'm sorry, Luke. It won't happen again. I'm really really sorry."

"Don't ever let me even hear of you bringing a dog in here again, Kirk." grunted Luke. He then walked back to the commercial refrigerator where he placed a bottle of champagne and a small bouquet of flowers he'd purchased earlier that day.

"Feed me Seymour!" called Lorelai as she pranced happily into the diner.

"You're taking this carnivore thing a little far, aren't you?" commented Luke as he leaned across the counter for a kiss.

"What? You know Little Shop of Horrors? Luke, I'm impressed," she said, grinning.

"Any boy who had a Venus Flytrap as a kid knows Little Shop," he shrugged.

They chatted back and forth as Lorelai ate her lunch. When she got close to the end of her meal, Luke came around the counter, sat down next to Lorelai, and sighed dramatically.

"Got the floor cleaned, but the baseboards are in bad shape," he complained. "I think they need to be repainted."

"Really?" she asked. "I can't imagine that. Do you know what happened?"

"Luke," began Kirk.

"Later Kirk," growled Luke. He touched Lorelai's arm and went over to the baseboard below the window. "See? All these scuff marks. They need to be repainted."

"Uh, Luke." Kirk tried again.

"Go away, Kirk, I'm busy." Squatting near the baseboards, he pointed out a bare spot. "Right here is really bad. I can see bare wood. If mop water soaks into that wood, I'm gonna have to rip the baseboards out and put new ones in." He nodded, his wide eyes innocently emphasizing the problem.

Luke nearly fell on his butt when Kirk, who had come up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder.

"Kirk! What did I say?"

"Luke, I just wanted to let you know that I have a painting certificate from the Do-It-Yourself shop. I would be honored to be chosen to paint your baseboards." He handed Luke a business card with 'Stroke Master' and Kirk's name and phone number. Lorelai's face turned red as she coughed trying to repress laughter and the inevitable 'Dirty!'

"Kirk, honey," she said, "I'm gonna do this little job for Luke. As the girlfriend, I'm the only one who should be stroking his stuff." She wiped tears from her eyes, watching Luke's face turn several shades of red.

Kirk's blank look immediately began to pucker with concern. "Are you sure? You could always subcontract to me," he offered.

"Enough!" demanded Luke. "Uh, sorry Kirk," he added as Lorelai gave him a look to take it easy on the guy, "Lorelai's gonna do this job, but, uh, …"

"How about if Luke keeps your card and considers you the next time he needs painting?" finished Lorelai, pinching Luke's side gently in the way of reprimand.

That answer comforted Kirk, and he left the diner shortly thereafter to walk some dogs.

"Any chance you can get the painting done tonight?" asked Luke. "I'd like to have the job done as quickly as possible."

"Don't see why not," replied Lorelai. "Rory's not coming home and you're closing. It shouldn't take very long."

"Good," he said. "So I'll see you about 8:30?" He escorted her to the door.

"You bet, sugar, see you then. I'll make up a couple of new painting songs."

Stepping out onto the top step of the diner, Luke watched until he was confident that she had really gone. The diner was nearly empty, so he pulled out a photocopy that he had stashed underneath some old menus. Picking up a pencil, a brush and his glue pot, he went to work.

At quarter past eight, Kirk was not the craziest person in the diner. Luke had been pacing around the room, removing his cap, putting it back on, removing it again. He checked on Kirk's progress repeatedly, trying not to say anything because he knew that to engage him in conversation would delay his departure.

What if she changed her mind? What if she ran? She ran the last time they were in the very position that he would put her in tonight. She was a runner. What kind of backup plan did he have? None. This was all or nothing.

"You know it's not just the baseboards, Luke," said Kirk.

Luke turned to see Kirk's hopeful expression. "What?" he barked.

"Look at the corners near the ceiling," he said calmly. "They need touching up too."

Luke walked to a corner and inspected it. "The corners are fine, Kirk. There's nothing wrong."

"See?" Kirk said. "That's why you need a professional like me to do your painting. I see what needs to be done, and I don't pull any punches. What I say is what you need."

Luke rolled his eyes. "What Luke says is that you NEED to get going. I'll see you tomorrow." He removed Kirk's empty plate and glass.

"You're sure?" he asked one last time. "I'd be willing to give you a first-time painting discount."

"I've painted before, Kirk," growled Luke.

"Not you, Luke, me. I'm offering a special deal for the first customer of the Stroke Master painting company."

"Goodnight, Kirk." He held the door open, and finally Kirk left a business card behind and walked out the door.

After letting Kirk get half a block away, Luke stepped out onto the top step again, looking for Lorelai. The waiting was killing him.

He checked everything for the fifteenth time. The glue was dry, everything else was in place. The paint and the accompanying tools were just where he wanted them. Everything was in place except Lorelai.

Back to the kitchen to invent something to do while he waited and worried. Just when he'd begun to clear some crud out of the dishwasher, the bells rang. Lorelai moved quickly to the kitchen, coming through the door before Luke could close up the dishwasher again.

"Show me to the paint, mister," she announced with a grin, all dolled up in her painting clothes. I've been working on some new painting songs. Wanna hear them?"

He dashed to the door and inserted himself between her and the glass-front commercial refrigerator, where the flowers and champagne were visible.

"Back out in the diner! You can't come back here!" he ordered, wiping his hands on his pants. He turned her by the shoulders and thrust her back through the doorway.

"Hey! Watch it mister! You're the one who asked me to paint. I don't remember you complaining that night when you had me back here washing dishes for an hour after you closed, either."

"Just get to work," he sighed. This was going all wrong.

"Do you like my outfit?" she giggled. She'd donned the same outfit that she wore that night they selected paint colors. That night he almost kissed her. The night he kicked himself up one side and down the other for not kissing her.

"You look fine." He showed her where to start, just behind the door to the diner. "You need to work your way around to the kitchen door. Everything else is in good shape."

"You wanna get me some painting music?" she asked. "Or shall I sing? I've got a whole new verse about those fancy sponge paintbrushes."

"Music! Damn! That's a great idea!" he dashed up the stairs to the office and grabbed his old, tiny boom box, the one he'd listened to that silly self-help tape on. Scrambling around in the desk drawer, he found an old Ella Fitzgerald tape, dropped it in and carried it back downstairs.

Lorelai stood at the bottom of the stairs. "Luke, are you all right? You're acting weird."

"I'm fine," he insisted. "It's a lot of work trying to keep my painting crew happy."

A short time later, Lorelai was wiggling her butt to Ella's Blue Skies and singing along in her enthusiastically off-tune voice. Finally relaxing a bit, Luke went to the kitchen to put the flowers, champagne and glasses on the staff table.

As Lorelai morphed Ella's Tea for Two into a sadly non-rhyming version of 'coffee for me, tea for you,' Luke began to relax. For better or worse, he was committed to this evening, this proposal. She would not finish the painting without seeing the surprise he'd left for her. After that, it was up to him. Once again he touched his fingers to the ring box safely tucked into his pocket.

Everything ready, he went back out to the diner to make a pretense of cleaning things that he'd already cleaned earlier. He found himself unconsciously copying the exaggerated movements Jess had made as a teenager when he mocked Luke with both a backwards baseball cap and plaid flannel shirt. Lorelai watched him secretly for a moment, suppressing a giggle.

"Tall and tan and young and handsome, the boy from Luke's keeps wearing his flannel, and when he passes I smile, but he only scowls," she mocked as Ella crooned on. Luke balled up his cleaning rag and landed it accurately on her butt. She gave it a backward kick and continued painting.

"Luke, can you come here?" she asked suddenly.

Showtime, he realized. He wiped his slightly clammy hands dry, hung the towel over the back of a chair and came around the counter.

Lorelai sat on the floor, staring at the side of the back counter, where Luke's father had written his hardware list. He ducked his head, smiled a little, then sat down beside her.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself. Did you know someone tagged this cabinet?" She stared resolutely at the side of the counter, holding her hands tightly closed so he couldn't see how they shook.

"Tagged? What's that?" he asked, moving closer, placing one arm behind her back and leaning on his hand. He nuzzled her hair, breathing in the fruity fresh scent of her shampoo.

Still not looking him in the eye, she explained, "Well, there are lots of different things called tagging but I'm talking about the graffiti artist who did this here." She waved her paintbrush at the scrap of paper which had been glued to the wood just below his father's penciled list.

He took the brush out of her hand and set it off to the side, smiling modestly yet a little nervous. "Well, it seemed to be the right place," he murmured.

She traced the edge of the small square of paper with her fingernail, testing the glue a little. "Give her coffee and she will go away. Luke, I can't believe you did this," she said. "You took it out of your wallet?"

"Only long enough to copy it," he said. "The original is staying where it belongs."

"Close to your ass?" she joked.

"Lorelai, geez. I'm trying to be romantic here. Give me a break."

"OK, babe, lay it on nice and thick. I'm listening." She twisted a little so she could lean back against the door frame.

He sighed. "You're never going to cut me any slack, are you?"

"Not as long as we live, and probably for quite a while afterward, when we're up in heaven, all floaty and stuff." She giggled, blinking furiously as she began to see the tender, nervous Luke coming out. He clearly had a plan.

"Dad was taking an order on the phone when Mom, except she wasn't my Mom yet, they were going steady, came flying through the door." He looked back at the front door of the diner as if he expected her to come into the room at any moment.

"She told me she was mad and she yelled at him. 'William! What do you think you were doing, running away like that? You were going to ask me a question! Finish what you started!' Boy, was she mad. He called her a firecracker whenever she got that mad." He chuckled at the memory.

"She loved telling the story. He had run off in mid-proposal. She accused him of getting cold feet, which he denied, but then he remembered the order he'd just gotten over the phone."

"Ah, so that's where you get it. It all comes straight from Daddy," she smiled.

"Yeah, right. Whatever. Anyway, she stood there and looked at him, not saying a word. That really freaked him out, so he tried to write the order down, but couldn't find any paper."

"That's when he grabbed his pencil and wrote it here," she breathed, realizing he'd chosen to preserve their sweetest memory in the same place his father had created his. "Were you going to tell me this story that night we chose the paint?"

"Yeah." Lorelai looked so beautiful, like she was glowing as she listened to his story. He always felt safe telling her things he never even discussed with Liz anymore, the happy moments in his childhood, ones he used to only dare to remember when he was alone.

He coughed, breaking his sentimentality. "Long story short, Dad asked her to marry him right then. Two years later I came along."

"So you set up this painting thing so you could get me here and finish your story?" She giggled. "Man, that's an elaborate setup."

A little exasperated, Luke crumbled. He grabbed her hand, rubbing at the splotches of paint still adorning her delicate fingers. "Lorelai, marry me. Marry me soon, as quickly as we can. I told you the story so you'd know that I love you and I want to marry you whenever you'll have me."

"Oh Luke." She leaned in and kissed him sweetly, which he took as encouragement, pulling her in closer to deepen his response.

Suddenly he broke away. "I forgot the ring! Wait a second!" He stretched his leg out fully and leaned up against her so he could slide his hand into his pocket.

Pulling out the box, he flipped it open with his thumb, pulled out the ring and held it up to her. She squealed with joy.

"It's perfect, Luke! So beautiful."

"Rory helped me find it. We went shopping in New Haven," he confessed.

"You two have permission to shop for jewelry for me for the rest of my life," she decreed, holding it out to him. "Put it on."

He grinned. "Not until you say yes. No yes, no ring."

She pressed her index finger to her lips, a vixenish look fleeting across her face. "Let me think about it for a minute."

Luke's back stiffened as he began to worry that she might say no. He looked around, unconsciously looking for an escape route.

"That hat," she said.

"What about my hat?" he exclaimed, the stress building by the second.

"I gave you that hat," she said smugly. "And I showed you how to wear it."

He snorted his denial, but before he could escalate, she interrupted. "I like the way you wear it." She ran her fingers through the small curls under the brim.

He slumped in relief. She tipped his chin up. "Smile for me." Relieved, his smile grew to full illumination as her steady happiness comforted him.

"Your smile just beams," she murmured. "I love that smile." Running her thumb over his lips, he kissed it gently.

"I still remember our dance, and the way you take care of us, and the way you helped the Dragonfly. You've changed my life Lucas Danes, and I'm never giving that up. No one will ever take you away from me."

"That's a yes, then?" he asked.

"It's a yes, silly. You've been in my life so long, I'll never let you leave it."

She was prepared to say more, but Luke had kissing on his mind and his lips. He pulled her to him, kissed her with all the passion he had. As she responded, he fell backwards with her lying on top of him. They kissed impatiently, sealing the engagement with promises and love.

Eventually she pushed up from his chest and sat on his stomach.

"Oof! What's that about?" he groaned.

She wiggled her left hand. "Close the deal, baby. Mama wants her rock."

He pushed up on his elbows. Taking her left hand, he used his thumbnail to scratch some dried paint off her ring finger. Sliding the ring on, he kissed it, asking, "Satisfied now?"

"More than satisfied," she acknowledged. "Downright happy." She pushed him down to the floor again for more kissing.

After a few minutes she sighed and rested her head on his chest, facing the cabinet where Luke had pasted the copy of the horoscope. Looking more closely, she asked, "What's that?"

He followed her gaze, then shrugged. "Oh that. That's the end of the story."

Sliding them a little closer to the counter, he began to read the penciled words he'd written below the horoscope.

"But she didn't go away. She kept coming back again and again, and that made him very happy."

Fin

A/N: Yes, hogtying has nothing to do with hogs. I know. Not being well-versed in cowboy skills, Rory didn't know this.

That's it for this story, kind readers.

For those of you concerned about Rory and Jess, here's what happened post-story. They struggled with the distance relationship for a while, but sometime after Lorelai and Luke had their speedy wedding, they drifted from a long-distance relationship to dating other people too, finally letting each other go. They managed to stay friends enough to be together for family events, and after several years were even able to be happy as each found deeper, more mature loves with other people.