They had planned their third first date thoroughly but had eventually landed in bed, which had led them to not leaving those comfortable bed sheets for the whole night.
Originally they had wanted to start with a movie. Then take a walk and have a late night picnic in the park.
But they had not even managed to start to the movie, as Luke had swept her into his arms at the door already, kissing her deeply. And suddenly it was, as if they'd never been apart. As if all those horrible things hadn't happend. As if Lorelai had not been married to Christopher, of all people, in the meantime.
Lorelai had almost fainted, her heart had been jolting, her knees had given in. Oh, how she had missed his kisses, his touches, his scent ... how had she loved him. And Luke had lifted her up, as if she was light as a feather, carried her inside and closed the door with his foot. Primordial Luke was still her favourite kind of Luke.
They hadn't left the bed for hours, not caring about anything else than their own pleasure, their sultry bodies and their deepest desires, their love for each other. Their make up sex was still one of the best ones they've ever had.
"And now?" Lorelai asked lowly, while Luke's body was covering hers and his lips dropped kiss after kiss on her face.
"Let's get water and wait until we're ready for round three?" Luke suggested and Lorelai laughed, but quickly realising that he meant it as his kisses left her face and travelled lower.
"Oh my God, how I love you," she moaned, not for the first time this evening. Luke looked up, connecting their eyes.
"We'll make it. This time there won't be any secrets between us. We'll grow old together."
And Lorelai agreed with tears in her eyes.
"Take all the time you need," he whispered and Lorelai knew what he meant.
And she knew that she didn't need time, she wanted to be with him forever. And she would never ever take off the necklace that Luke had given to her.
A week later, Luke finally and officially moved in.
Lorelai knew she had to inform her parents sooner or later, that it had happened now and that Luke and her were living together. That they were dating again.
But Lorelai figured that, in their case, later was better.
Sure, Emily would disagree. She would scold Lorelai again for not telling her earlier, but Lorelai couldn't care less.
This was her life, not Emily's.
And Emily didn't seem to like Luke anyway, so why did she care?
Lorelai was happy. Finally.
And that was all that mattered. Right?
The day after Luke had moved in, Lorelai called her daughter.
Rory was very busy, though, and told her mother that she had only two minutes, in which only she talked.
About her job.
And Lorelai, the good mother she was, did not interrupt her kid to tell her about herself and Luke. She decided to tell her when the time had come.
Thus, Luke and Lorelai spent their togetherness secretly. At least for the beginning - alas, a lot would change for them, without them being properly prepared for it.
"Now when's our anniversary date?" Lorelai asked her boyfriend one night. They were in the bed, naked and entwined with each other. Nothing new, they mostly spent their evening devouring each other nowadays. "Should we keep the old date, the night we first kissed, or set a new, official one? We've been separated for a while, so ..."
"Why do you need to set a date? I love you, you love me, why do we need a date to remind us of our love every year?"
"I want something official. Imagine if someone asks us when we got together and we start fighting over the date? Or over the year, that's even worse! Because we got together two times."
"Three times," Luke reminded her and Lorelai groaned.
"Right. So which one, Luke? Our very first kiss? Our first date? The first time you told me you loved me?"
"The date of our first time sounds good, right?" Luke said with a grin.
"You want this to be our anniversary date? The night we first had sex? Oh my god, Luke."
"It was our first official date too," Luke said and kissed his girlfriend's forehead. "That and the first time we had sex. Which lead to falling in love with you even more and realising that you are the one for me. That night is special to me, not only because of our first time. I also told you what I feel. Remember?"
"You knew you loved me, then?" Lorelai whispered and looked at her boyfriend, who smiled gently.
"I always loved you. From day one. It just took me years to realise and that's why I want this date to be our anniversary."
"Oh. Okay," Lorelai whispered and buried her nose in Luke's upper arm, inhaling deeply.
"Speaking of it - when did you realise you loved me?" Luke asked and Lorelai closed her eyes. She knew exactly when.
"Remember when you broke up?" she mumbled. "After the wedding disaster."
"Oh."
"Yes ... oh. I was crying for such a long time and I think this was when I realised."
Luke caressed his girlfriend's head. She was lying on his chest with her eyes closed. "Oh, baby. I am so sorry. I swear, it'll never happen again. We'll stick together from now on, alright? Forever."
Lorelai smiled happily. "Yeah. Sounds good."
"So ... our first time it is?"
Lorelai lifted her head and nodded slowly. "Okay. I like that. The day our relationship took a huge step forward, ignoring one year of separation."
"Sounds good," Luke replied and kissed Lorelai's hairline.
"So whom to tell first - Rory. If she's not too busy. And Sookie."
"We've been together for almost three weeks now and whether Rory nor Sookie know yet?" Luke asked. "That's hard to believe."
"Sookie's been really busy, babe. The babies, you know. Three kids is hard work, even if the third kid isn't even here yet. And Rory ... I don't know, that one time a week we talk on the phone, she only tells me about her news. It's fine, she's got a lot to say, only two minutes of time, and I'm really interested in her life, so -"
"Your parents?" Luke asked.
Lorelai snorted and looked up at her boyfriend. "Seriously?"
"You shouldn't keep it a secret again, Lorelai. Last time it didn't go well either."
"Nothing goes well if they're involved," Lorelai muttered but then she sighed. "Fine. I'll tell them upcoming Friday. And after that, you'll be coming along every Friday, hear me?"
"You are a gorgeous devil," Luke decided, which made Lorelai laugh out loud.
Lorelai was clutching her purse.
Almost every Friday, for the past six years, she had tried to prepare herself for dinner with the Gilmores and failed again every time.
The new maid, Lola, opened the door to the big mansion and Lorelai entered. Lola took her coat and Lorelai stepped inside, getting greeted by her mother instantly.
They chatted about Rory, Lorelai got a martini - with an olive - and they talked about the inn.
Richard asked about insurance things, Emily asked about Michel and Sookie, and Lorelai got more nervous with every second that passed.
Finally they were seated by the table and Lola served suspicious looking meat. She declared it as fish and Lorelai ate it, just for her father's sake.
She suppressed the urge to vomit while gulping down the - definitely not cooked through - fish and then she blurted it out.
"Luke and I are back together."
"Oh, is that so?" Emily said and no sign of anger or disappointment were shown on her face. But neither was surprise.
"Yes. After Rory left, we had a talk." Halfway true, they did not really talk a lot that night "We both still felt for each other so we decided to give our relationship another try."
"Congratulations, then," Richard said, his face straight.
"This time, try not to make any mistakes," Emily added and Lorelai sighed quietly.
"No, Mom, I won't. I promise. And you two, please promise to treat him with respect. No comments about his diner, clothes, hair or car. Please."
Emily and Richard exchanged a look and then both shrugged.
"As you want it."
"And he'd like to join dinner too, once in a while," Lorelai said and Emily nodded again.
"Of course he may. He's always welcome here. Maybe he could bring his daughter too."
Lorelai looked at her mother in surprise but quickly collected herself. "Okay. One day, maybe," she said and continued eating.
On the way home, she already felt that something was wrong.
Her stomach was rumbling and she felt that a heartburn was about to start.
"Damn fish," she mumbled and stopped by the pharmacy to buy some antacids and relief for stomach flu.
She swallowed them all at once, hoping she'd catch it on time, but as she entered the house, she felt everything coming up already. Now a food poisoning was the last thing she needed.
"Oh god," she muttered, running to the bathroom.
Luke had been already asleep and was now woken up by his dearest, puking her guts out.
He carefully entered the bathroom. "Oh no, dear ... what happened?"
"It was the fish." Lorelai's voice was only a rattle. "The fish that their maid served. It was undercooked or ... or just bad or whatever, I don't know."
"Should I call your parents? Maybe they're sick too," Luke offered and Lorelai gave him a sad smile.
"No. Don't, please don't."
"Didn't you tell them about us yet?"
"I did. And they're okay with it, although not exactly happy either. As far as I know they've accepted it. But I couldn't care less and I couldn't care less if they're sick. They deserve a food poisoning."
"You're mean," Luke said and placed his hand on his girlfriend's back. "Do you need anything, honey?"
"Tea," Lorelai mumbled and Luke's eyes went wide.
"Okay - you are sick. I'll get you some chamomile tea."
The next day Luke called the Dragonfly for Lorelai, telling Michel that she wouldn't come until Monday. And right after that he told Caesar that he wouldn't come either.
He prepared a light breakfast for his lady, another big cup of chamomile tea and then brought it upstairs to feed the sick woman.
A sick woman, who grimaced at the sight of tea and yoghurt.
"Coffee?" she asked and Luke sat down next to her. "Eggs? Ham?"
"How are you feeling?" he sighed.
"Better. Way better. I vomited everything out and now I need to have a real breakfast, not this stuff you're trying to give me."
"Okay," Luke said and got up again. "I'll prepare something else. But drink the tea anyway. And we both won't be at work today."
"Oh, what did you plan to do?" Lorelai asked with a wiggle of her brows.
Luke smiled. "We will think of something."
Another week passed and Lorelai had finally told Rory about her relationship. Rory had simply laughed though, and told her mother that she had already known.
It had been impossible to oversee those intense stares and heavy flirts that she and Luke had exchanged in the diner, right before Rory had left.
"I'm not blind, Mom," she had told Lorelai and then congratulated her. Really congratulated her, with tears in her eyes and and a warning on her lips to better not mess it up this time. Lorelai promised that she wouldn't.
The next weeks, Lorelai was busy at the Dragonfly inn, as Sookie had one more week to go and had once again received the order not to leave her bed.
Lorelai felt really worn out after a while and felt a cold approach. She went to a store in Hartford after a Friday dinner and bought vitamin supplements.
And apples.
She didn't know why at first but did not think about it too much. Apples were healthy, she was getting a cold, so why shouldn't she eat this apple right now, on a car park in front of a store in Hartford? She sat in the car, eating her apple and thinking about nothing while staring into the sky - as it suddenly hit her.
This wasn't the first time she had a craving for apples.
No, in fact it was the third time that she had a sudden appetite for something healthy. The first time she had been pregnant and the second time had been a false alarm.
But now she wasn't sure.
It could be.
She could really be pregnant this time.
Luke and her had quit using a condom after they had agreed to get tested on various diseases. The results had been negative for both of them, whereas they had decided that the anti baby pill should be enough protection, as it was harder to get pregnant at the age of forty.
Lorelai's mind turned as she remembered how it probably had happened - it had been that evening she had vomited. Because of the fish.
She usually took the pill every day before dinner. So this night she had eaten the dinner and then retched it all out again ...
And the next day she and Luke had barely left the bed.
She hadn't been concerned as her period had decided not to show up - she had simply blamed it on the stress, her body skipped periods in stressful times. But now ...
Oh god.
She jumped out of the car again and right back into the store.
Quietly she unlocked the door.
She snuck right into the bathroom, ready to take the test. She needed to know now - the box said that the test was better to be taken in the morning, but she couldn't wait any longer. She needed to know.
She had had a cup of coffee on her way home and was now ready to find out if her body betrayed her again.
Minutes later she could see two lines on the test and she knew that her body wasn't betraying her.
She was pregnant.