SUMMARY: Lorelai has an anniversary present for Luke.

SPOILERS: Through S5.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. :)

THANKS: To Em, Jo, and Lu for the beta!

***

Lorelai sashayed into the diner, grinning broadly at Luke as she took a seat at the counter.  "Oh, Luuuke."

Leaning on the counter, Luke gave her a skeptical look.  "Hey.  Coffee?"

"Do you really need to ask?"

He turned to grab the pot, then placed a mug in front of her and filled it.  "You look pretty satisfied with yourself," he noted, setting the pot down on the counter.

"So will you in a minute."  She turned her attention to the coffee and took a big swig.  "Mmmm, caffeine."

Luke seemed puzzled.  "I'm going to be satisfied with myself in a minute?"

"No, you're going to be satisfied with me."

"Already am," he answered, quirking one eyebrow.

Lorelai's smirk softened, and she couldn't quite stop herself from reaching for a handful of flannel to pull him in for a kiss.  Because -- sweet.

"Lorelai," he grumbled as he pulled away.  "Customers."

Shrugging, Lorelai pulled two sheets of paper from her purse and very carefully straightened them out before placing them on the counter.  She made sure to keep her hands in strategic places, even as Luke tilted his head and tried to read the print.  "Am I the best girlfriend you've ever had?"

Luke snorted.  "What's this about?"

"Am I?" Lorelai pressed.

Rolling his eyes, Luke gave her an implacable look.  "Sure.  Whatever."

Feigning hurt, Lorelai leaned back and stared at him.  "Hey!  I do this really nice thing and that's all you can say?"

"What really nice thing?"

"Say I'm the best girlfriend you've ever had and I'll tell you."

"Are we trapped in some sort of conversational loop right now?" Luke wondered, arms crossed.  

"Say it," she insisted, drumming her fingernails on the papers she was waiting to show him.  He would flip.  He'd absolutely flip.  In a Lukeish way, of course, which meant he might go so far as to crack a smile in public.  Lorelai'd been anticipating his reaction since she'd managed to figure out the perfect anniversary gift for him.

"You," Luke said flatly, "are the best girlfriend I've ever had.  Now can we move this along?"

Lorelai snatched the papers off the counter and held them to her chest.  "Well, maybe I should take these back if that's the thanks I get!"

"See," Luke said, turning to place the coffee pot back in its place, "you want me to beg you to tell me what you've got there, and you're not going to be satisfied until I do."  He raised his eyebrows and enunciated carefully, "I don't beg."

It was too easy, and Lorelai aimed her best smirk his way.  "Oh, that's not quite true, now, is it?"

"Lorelai," he warned, glancing reflexively down the counter at Kirk.

"As a matter of fact," she continued, not bothering to lower her voice, "just two nights ago--"

"All right," Luke interrupted, rounding the counter and tugging her off of her stool.  "Let's go."

"Oooooh," she teased as she trailed along behind him.  "Speaking of begging."

"Stop it," Luke ordered, veering away from the stairs and toward the front door.  He pulled her outside and around the corner, then stood with his hands on his hips.  "What's this about?"

"Are you gonna beg me?" Lorelai prodded, knowing he was fast reaching the end of his patience.  He got the most intense, electric look in his eyes right before he snapped, and she wondered how it could've taken so many years for her to recognize that warm tug she got whenever he looked at her like that.

"You're not going to quit until I do," Luke pointed out in a particularly exasperated tone of voice.  Lifting his chin, he crossed his arms over his chest and flatly recited, "Please, oh, please.  Tell me what you have clutched in your hands."

Tilting her head, Lorelai pretended to think it over.  "Hmmm, I guess that'll have to do for now."  She leaned closer, resting one palm on his flannel-clad chest as she breathed into his ear, "Do better later."

Luke's eyes widened and he couldn't seem to manage a response, his mouth hanging slightly open.

Delighted by his reaction, Lorelai held out the papers so Luke could see them.  "Mets!  We're going to see the Mets!"

Luke stared at the garish orange and blue tickets, then at Lorelai, then at the tickets again.  "But," he shook his head, "you don't like baseball."

"Oh, that's not true," Lorelai protested, delighted that she'd managed to leave him momentarily speechless.  "I don't like sports.  It's nothing against baseball."

Luke squinted, but couldn't seem to make sense of her point.  "You understand that you'll have to sit and watch a whole game, right?"

Grinning, Lorelai said, "That's where you're wrong, mister.  You are in charge of watching the game."

Luke rocked back on his heels, crossing his arms and staring at her.  "Dare I ask what you're in charge of?"

"Duh!" she answered, practically bouncing up and down.  "Junk food!  I have it on good authority that professional sports stadiums are the best places in the world to get a whole bunch of really crappy overpriced food!"

"And beer," Luke conceded.  "Cheap beer.  Well," he corrected, "really it's expensive beer, considering the outrageous prices they charge for it.  It's just the quality of the beer that's cheap."

"See?  We'll both have a great time."

He tilted his head.  "We'll both have a great time while I'm drinking horribly overpriced beer and watching you eat five years off your life in the space of a single afternoon?"

She shook her head, still grinning.  "Don't be a spoilsport, Luke.  How long has it been since you've been to a baseball game?"  Luke's expression shifted, his body tightening, shoulders lifting upwards.  Lorelai's ebullient mood faltered -- why wasn't he reacting the right way? -- and she dropped the tickets to her side, hoping she hadn't blundered into one of those areas he never, ever wanted to talk about.  "Luke?"

Still tense, Luke forced a smile and said, a little bit wistfully, "A long time.  It's been a really long time."

She'd been prepared for a whole host of reactions from him, including an impromptu hug in the middle of the diner, one of those really great kisses that left her dizzy, or even -- and this one had admittedly been quite a longshot -- Luke jumping up and down with joy.  After all, he liked baseball.  A lot.  He watched it with a beer during nights Caesar closed the diner, and the only town activity he willingly participated in was Saturday morning pickup games of baseball.

So why wasn't he happy?  Still uncertain, she asked, "So this is a good thing, right?"  

Luke reached for the tickets and studied them, scanning the pages repeatedly as if he couldn't quite believe they were real.  "You really bought us tickets to Shea Stadium?" he asked.

She shrugged, a little embarrassed by his obvious shock.  She made a mental note to do more nice things for him.  "You like baseball."

He reached out and cupped her jaw, then pressed a quick kiss to her lips.  "I like you."

***

"Ten dollars," Luke groused, glaring indiscriminately at the sea of orange-and-blue-wearing fans around him.  "Ten dollars to rent 50 square feet of pavement for four hours.  That's highway robbery!"

Lorelai patted his arm.  "Look, we made it into Queens without a problem.  We didn't have to park in the ghetto--"

"Yes," Luke muttered, "and now we're more than an hour early."

Laughing, Lorelai chided, "Oh, would you stop worrying about the car and look around."  She was oddly excited for the game, especially considering she didn't know much about baseball at all.  But Luke actually seemed relaxed and happy -- despite the customary griping -- and more than a little pleased that she was making an attempt to do something that he liked.  She'd been more than a little worried about his strange reaction to the tickets, but every time she'd tried to wheedle more information out of him, he'd changed the subject.

Ever since, she'd wondered if the baseball game had been a phenomenally bad idea.  And she'd worried that he'd have an awful time and he wouldn't tell her why and it would be all her fault that their anniversary sucked.  Today, though, he seemed genuinely happy as they strolled toward Shea Stadium.

The big bright blue stadium looked perfectly round from the outside, which was mildly surprising to Lorelai.  Somewhere in the part of her brain that inexplicably retained useless sports knowledge, she was almost positive the game was played on a baseball diamond.

"Over here," Luke told her, guiding her toward Gate C.  "I can't believe how many people are here already."

"And already drunk," Lorelai added.  There'd been more than a few groups of fans sharing barbecue and Budweiser in the parking lot  "Maybe the ten dollars would've been worth it if we'd brought a case of beer and a hibachi.  Oooh!"  She ran toward a vendor selling oversized foam fingers.  "I have to have one of these!"

Luke, without a single team-affiliated item on, right down to his logo-less blue hat, rolled his eyes at her.  Still, he obligingly shelled out the cash.  "You look like an idiot," he opined, watching as she stuffed her hand into the thing and started gesturing grandly.

Laughing, Lorelai ignored him.  The foam finger, a blue Mets cap, an oversized Martinez jersey, a tray of nachos, and two overpriced beers in souvenir cups later, they were at their seats.  They were a dozen or so rows behind the visitors' dugout, which Luke assured her was a very good place to be.

But as Lorelai settled in and took in the view, she was more than a little confused.  "What the hell is that?" she asked, pointing to the giant, cage-like contraption covering home plate.  It looked a little bit like a chain-link cave, spitting out the occasional baseball at high velocity.

"Batting cage," Luke answered.  "The players take batting practice before the game."

"Huh."  She munched contentedly on some nachos, scanning the field until she saw a player with a 45 on his jersey.  "Oh!"  She elbowed Luke and pointed.  "That's Martinez," she said, half-turning to display her matching jersey.  "Is he good?"

Snorting, Luke assured her, "Yes, he's good."

"Excellent," Lorelai decided.  The nachos really were awful, but in a strangely addictive kind of way.  She watched Martinez for a moment, but he was simply standing around in the outfield, looking a little bored.  "When is he going to the batting cage?"

"He's not," Luke answered.  "He's pitching tonight."

"Oh."  Lorelai ate another nacho.  "I thought pitchers had to hit, too?"

"They do," Luke answered.  "Or at least they do in real baseball games like this one.  The designated hitter is an abomination."

Surprised by his vehemence, she turned in the uncomfortable red plastic seat.  "Wow.  An abomination?"  Then she considered his statement.  "What's a designated hitter?"

"Someone who hits in the pitcher's spot.  They sit on the damn bench for an hour, and then they walk up there and hit the ball out of the park.  No strategy, no tradition," Luke explained with a dismissive wave of his hand.  "American League rules.  This," he said, nodding toward the field, "is the National League.  Real baseball."

Lorelai decided that she didn't really care all that much about real baseball versus the designated hitter, so she let the subject drop.  She watched Martinez for a few more minutes, still just standing around in the outfield.  Then she nudged Luke.  "Why is he just standing around out there?  Shouldn't he be... doing the pitcher equivalent of batting practice?"

"A bullpen session," Luke explained.  "He will.  He and the other pitchers are out there shagging fly balls."

"Excuse me, what?" Lorelai asked, turning an amused grin his way.

Taking a swig of his beer, Luke repeated slowly, "They're shagging fly balls."  She could tell from the resigned look on his face that he knew what she'd say to that.

"Dirty!"

"Lorelai--"

"No, seriously, shagging fly balls?"  Lorelai chewed contemplatively on a nacho.  "That's dirty."

"It is not," Luke countered.  "All it means is that they're catching fly balls."

"Hey, do you think the reason that they slap each other's asses all the times is that there's all this latent homosexuality between the players?"

Half a dozen fans in their section turned and gave Lorelai seriously dirty looks.  Luke lifted a hand and said, "She's just kidding."  Lowering his voice, he hissed, "Would you shut up?"

"I'm so not kidding," she insisted, grinning.  She loved the way he looked at her when she managed to fluster him.  "You know, like on all those teen dramas on FOX, where the two teenaged boys are 'best friends' --" She made sarcastic air quotes-- "but they're always way more interested in each other than in whatever vapid stick figure they're in some unbelievable love triangle with?"

Luke turned his best pained expression in her direction.  "Do you really think I have any idea what TV shows you're talking about right now?"

Frowning, Lorelai considered his point.  "No," she admitted, reluctant to let such an interesting topic go.  She sat quietly, coming up with as many euphemisms for sex as she could, and then turned excitedly to Luke.   After a moment, she turned back to him.  "Shagging balls, getting to second base, getting to third base," Lorelai recited.  "Why are all sexual euphemisms taken from sports?"

With an exasperated look, Luke leaned in and lowered his voice, "Because there's a certain... exhilaration that comes from winning a game that is not entirely dissimilar to..."  He shrugged.

"Luke Danes!" she exclaimed, delighted by his reluctant explanation.  "Are you comparing sex with me to a football game?"

Again, some of their fellow fans turned around with varying degrees of disbelieving looks, but Lorelai didn't particularly care.  Luke, on the other hand, was turning bright red.

"No," he muttered.  "You're deliberately missing my point.  And can we please stop talking about this?"

Lorelai kissed him quickly.  "You're red.  Do you want some sunscreen?"

"I already put some on."  Luke narrowed his eyes and looked at her.  "Please tell me you put some on, too.  I don't want you to get burned."

"Are you suggesting that I'm pale and pasty?"

"Pale," he answered.  "Not pasty."  Before she could answer, he glanced down at the field and pointed, "Look, Martinez is off to the bullpen."

"Can he be my favorite player?" Lorelai wondered.

The baffled look on Luke's face was so amusing that Lorelai just had to lean over and kiss him.  He shrugged.  "Why are you asking me?"

"Well, duh, we can't have the same favorite player," Lorelai answered.  Because everyone knew that was against the rules.  That particular rule had once sparked an epic battle over which Gilmore girl could claim Michael Stipe as their favorite R.E.M. bandmate.

Luke didn't seem familiar with the rules.  "I don't have a favorite player."

"Oh, that's no fun," Lorelai chided.  "What's your favorite... you know, position?"  Luke merely lifted an eyebrow, and Lorelai started to laugh again.  "See?" she said.  "Dirty!"

***

Lorelai tried to pay attention to the game, she really did.  Problem was, nothing happened during the game.  Well, okay, every once in a great while, there was the crack of a bat and the flurry of activity as the men on the field ran around.  But it never lasted very long, and then there would be another giant helping of nothing happening.

So she entertained herself by studying Luke.  He was watching the game intently, muttering incomprehensible things like, "good slider" and "nasty changeup" under his breath, but Lorelai didn't bother to ask him to explain.  He'd already confused her once with the "you can foul off as many pitches as you want, and they count as strikes up to two strikes, but you can't strike out on a foul ball -- unless you foul tip it into the catcher's mitt" thing, and she had no desire to learn more about the game.

It was kinda fun to stand up and stomp and cheer along with the crowd whenever the Mets did something right, though.  To her absolute lack of shock, Luke never joined in the jubilation, but he watched her with a warm half-smile, and that in itself made the day a rousing success in Lorelai's book.  (Well, that and the seventh inning stretch -- there was singing!  And stretching!  And general lunacy, including two very excited teenagers shooting t-shirts into the crowd with bright orange air guns!)

But it was sometime during the sixth that she started noticing a strange hush settle over the crowd when Martinez walked out to the mound.  Lorelai glanced around, wondering if it was just the beer consumption getting to everyone, but as he continued to pitch well -- or so she gathered from Luke's comments -- the strange hush was supplanted by lusty cheers.  "Um, Luke?" she asked, as the fans jumped to their feet when Martinez struck out the third batter in the sixth.  "Why's everyone all," she waved a hand around, "bizarre?"

Turning on her with wide, panicked eyes, Luke shushed her heartily.  "Do not talk about it!"

"What?" Lorelai said, half-laughing.  

"Just -- please, just watch the game."

"Because I'm not supposed to talk about something, but I have no idea what?" Lorelai surmised.

"Stop. Talking. About. It," he ordered, eyes wide, and he seemed so upset that Lorelai complied, utterly baffled.

Lorelai shifted impatiently in her seat, and decided to go on a beer and nachos run.  Luke didn't seem particularly inclined to move, so she squeezed past him, taking her time eyeing the brightly colored merchandise.  She bought a cute blue tank top for Rory, who would surely never believe her mother had attended a professional sporting event without tangible proof.  (Lorelai wasn't entirely sure Luke was going to let her into the truck with the foam finger.)

She returned to find Luke in an even greater state of agitation, the rest of the crowd sharing his restlessness as Martinez walked out to the field for the eighth.  Lorelai glanced at the scoreboard and made sure the other team hadn't scored, then leaned in and placed her hand on Luke's thigh.  "He's pitching well, huh?"

Luke gave a strangled laugh.  "Uh, yeah.  Don't talk about it."

So that *was* it.  Lorelai grinned and sat back, dipping a nacho into the half-melted cheese.  The nachos were so bad that they were awesome.  She and Rory needed to come to a game, just so Rory could taste the wonderful awfulness for herself.  "Obviously," she told Luke, "I am a good luck charm."  Off his look, she pointed her chip at the number "45" on her jersey.

"Watch the game," he told her with a small grin.  "Trust me."

Lorelai usually hated to be out of the loop on anything, but this was some superstitious sports thing that had Luke acting all paranoid and jumpy, so she decided to let it slide.  She watched the game with a little more concentration than before, even though a lot more of *nothing* happened.  The Mets had scored twice, but the other guys still hadn't managed a run.  Lorelai told herself to pay attention, because this was something that was clearly very important to Luke.  She'd always known he loved baseball, but she'd never thought to watch a game with him.

Splitting her attention between the field and Luke's oddly tortured expression, Lorelai spent the ninth inning on her feet with the rest of the crowd, cheering each pitch from Martinez.  The first batter hit the ball hard, and everyone around her gave an agonized gasp and watched the small white sphere sailing, sailing, and landing in the outfielder's glove with a plop.  The sigh of relief was palpable, and when Lorelai glanced over at Luke, he was sweating and looking vaguely ill.

With two outs, Luke grabbed her hand, holding it tight.  "C'mon, c'mon," he muttered.  "Fastball inside, change away."

Lorelai added her voice to the thousands cheering, as Martinez threw one last pitch and ended the game with a strikeout.  The crowd positively erupted, and Lorelai decided to rethink her skepticism over the sports-based sex euphemisms.  Especially when Luke turned to her and hugged her really, really tightly, his hands low on her hips.

"Do you know what we just saw?" Luke practically shouted, holding her by the shoulders.  He looked dazed and jubilant as he grinned goofily at her.

Glancing out to the field, Lorelai was surprised to see a pile of blue-and-orange players surrounding the pitcher.  "Um, a really good game?" she guessed.

"A perfect game, Lorelai," Luke told her, his excitement obvious.  "A perfect game by Pedro Martinez, future Hall of Famer.  His first perfect game."

Feeding off of his excitement, Lorelai leaned in and hugged him, eager to share the moment.  "So a perfect game is good," she surmised with a little smirk.  "Have you ever seen one before?"

"Have I...?"  Luke trailed off, shaking his head in bewilderment.  "Lorelai, this is, like, the eighteenth perfect game in the history of baseball!  And we're here."  He gestured wildly at the stadium.

"Wow," Lorelai murmured, starting to understand why Luke was so worked up.  "Eighteenth ever?"

"Yes, and we saw it live because of you," he continued, turning back to her, grinning madly.

She sniffled once and wrapped Luke in another hug.  "I'm just glad you had a good time today," she said into his neck.  "I wasn't sure."

"Are you kidding me?" he demanded, gesturing at the field.  "Do you see that?"

"No, not the game," Lorelai said, taking his hand as he started moving slowly toward the exits, melting into the giddy crowd.  She leaned closer to his back, speaking beside his ear so he could hear her.  "You seemed a little... iffy on the idea when I gave you the tickets."

Luke glanced at her over his shoulder, his eyes clouded a little, and simply nodded.  But the jostling crowd was hardly the place for any serious discussion, so she just followed him out into the brilliant sunlight.

***

Halfway home, Luke finally ran out of things to say about the pitching performance of one Pedro Martinez who, Lorelai learned, had a lifetime ERA of 2.71.  Apparently, that was good.  Sandy Koufax-good, or so she was told.  (She didn't really get the reference, since as she understood the rules of baseball, women weren't allowed to play.)

After a few moments, Luke grimaced and glanced over at her.  "Centerfield is on this CD four times."

"Did you know that John Fogerty got sued over this song?" Lorelai asked.  Before he could answer, she explained, "Seriously.  He sued the rights to all the CCR songs he'd written to the record company, and then they sued him for plagiarism because Centerfield sounded like CCR, so they were really suing him for writing a song that sounded like all the other songs he'd written.  Crazy, huh?"

"Okay, that's..." he shrugged, "mildly interesting, but still -- four times."

"Hey," she protested, "Do you know how hard it is to find songs about baseball?  I have a Pearl Jam song about Bush because apparently Eddie Vedder was using baseball terminology to diss the president."  Reaching forward, Lorelai skipped to the next track.  

The new song was from Ragtime, but Luke didn't seem impressed.  "Maybe we can listen to the rest later?" he suggested, turning the volume down.

"See if I ever make you a baseball soundtrack again," Lorelai muttered, trying to hide her grin.

Luke just rolled his eyes.  A few miles slid past in silence, before Luke's hand landed on her thigh.  "Really, Lorelai, thank you.  Today was amazing."

She beamed at him.  "Good."

"I'm sorry that I--"  He stopped, frowning at the highway.  "I didn't mean to come off like I didn't appreciate the tickets."

"You didn't," she assured him.  "I just wasn't sure you wanted to go to the game."

Luke's brow furrowed.  "What's the difference?"

"I thought that maybe you thought my gesture was sweet but misguided.  Like maybe you'd prefer a hockey game."

Luke spared her half a grin.  "There is no hockey."

"Yes, there is," she scoffed.  "Disney owns a team.  There was a movie with Pacey and everything."

With a slow shake of his head, Luke said, "I have no idea what you just said, but the NHL is in the midst of a lockout, so right now, there's no hockey."

She waved an impatient hand.  "Football, then.  Whatever.  I just thought that for some reason baseball dredged up something not-good for you."  His silence confirmed her guess, and she placed her hand over his, tangling their fingers together.  "I'm sorry, babe."

"No," Luke said, glancing over at her.  "Don't apologize.  I just -- I haven't been to a game since my dad died."

Lorelai's eyes stung with tears.  "Luke."

"He used to take us, me and Liz," Luke explained.  "He was a Dodgers fan from when he was a kid, but he liked the Mets, too.  Every year before my mom died, he would close the store for a day when our summer break started, and we'd all go into the city for a game."

She remained silent, letting him tell the story, tracing little figures on his hand.

"And after my mom died, he kept taking us until Liz refused to go.  She was a little..." Luke glanced over at her, and she nodded her understanding.  "Then," he continued, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, "it was just me and him."  Luke stopped, swallowing hard.

"Oh, babe," Lorelai murmured.  Luke very rarely talked about his father and his mother, so Lorelai knew only the barest outlines of his childhood.  Still, from the man they'd managed to raise, she knew she would have loved the Danes.

"I played in high school.  Pitcher," Luke said, answering her unasked question.  "I wasn't bad.  Worst fight I ever had with him was over this baseball scholarship."

Lorelai had never heard a peep about Luke and baseball.  Luke and track, yes, because -- Butch Danes!  But baseball?  "A scholarship?"' she asked, impressed.  He must have been more than 'not bad' to merit a baseball scholarship.  "To where?"

Luke glanced over at her.  "School down in Georgia."

"Georgia?" Lorelai echoed, trying to picture Luke talking to people who said things like "fixin' to" on a regular basis.  "Wow."

"It was a decent baseball program," Luke explained.  "But my dad needed the help and I couldn't just up and leave."

Lorelai lifted his hand and held it between hers, clinging tightly.  He was just such a good man.  So loving and loyal and how the hell could it have taken her so many years to see him for what he was?

"My dad," Luke continued in a halting voice, "disagreed with my decision.  And we -- we never went to another game."

"Luke," she murmured, lifting his hand to her mouth to press a kiss against his knuckles.  "I didn't mean to bring all this stuff up."

"No, it's -- it's good," he countered, his voice suspiciously rough.  "I didn't realize how much I missed going to the ballpark until today.  It's not quite the same watching on TV."

She nodded, her tone hesitant when she said, "So you're glad I sprung those tickets on you?"

He gave her a look.  "If you'd asked first, I would have said no.  I have been known to be stubborn on occasion."

And then Lorelai was laughing, watching his smirk as he kept his eyes on the road.  "Smartass," she said.

"Like you're one to talk," he countered.

"Which is why we're perfect for each other," she said, still grinning.  His smile softened and he glanced over at her, but didn't speak.  "Hey, Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"Happy anniversary."

THE END

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