SUMMARY:  Post-ep for So... Good Talk, picks up right from fade-to-black.

DISCLAIMER: If they were mine, the camera would've stayed in the house, dammit. ::g::

THANKS: To my lovely flisters, who encouraged the insanity and gently pointed out the fixable stuff. ::g::

***

Lorelai digs her fingers into Luke's jacket, still feeling more than a little off balance.  He's here, suddenly and unexpectedly, so of course she's certain she's fallen asleep on the couch to the tortured strains of Judy Garland.

When Luke pulls back to take a deep, shuddering breath, Lorelai opens her eyes, searching for something -- shaven cheeks, green eyes, baseball cap on the right way -- that will confirm that this really is just a dream.  An I Dream of Jeannie dream, giving Lorelai exactly what she desires, which would be great, right up until she woke up on her spinster-couch-potato couch, wrapped in the quilt made of Rory's old baby clothes.

But he just looks tired, those brilliant blue eyes soaking her in as he stares right back at her.  "I'm sorry," he mutters, but she doesn't know why.  And then he's kissing her again, and she doesn't care why.  And even as she's kissing him back just as hard, she pinches herself on the forearm, just to be sure.

"Luke?" she asks, in between kisses, memorizing the feel of his stubble scraping against her cheeks.  His arms are hard and tight around her ribcage, squeezing the breath from her lungs.  Every time she inhales, she smells him, and her eyes sparkle with tears.

With obvious reluctance, he pulls back, nearly gasping for breath, his blue eyes intense and burning.  "We should talk," he says, but his voice is gravelly and low, like she's heard a hundred times in the middle of the night.  "Lorelai, I--"

"Later," she decides, looping her arms around his neck and pulling him in for another kiss.  Judy's still singing her heart out, but Lorelai has much more important things to concentrate on right now.

Like Luke's hands on her body, sliding under her shirt, smoothing along her spine, and she's half-convinced they'll sink to the floor right here in the foyer.  Which would be new and different, but probably painful.  Not Thomas-Crown-Affair-sex-on-the-marble-steps painful, but still.

She backs up, reaching between them to tug at his jacket, pulling it open, shoving it off of his shoulders.  He smells like the diner, like burnt food, like his all-in-one shampoo.  "Upstairs," she mumbles into his mouth, not bothering to open her eyes as she tries to angle them towards the stairs.  

"Lore--"

She cuts him off with a kiss, and then promptly backs into the banister.  "Ow," she says, temporarily knocked out of her lustful haze.  Wincing, Lorelai tilts to side a little, reaching for the spot just below her ribs that hurts.  "Stupid sharp edges.  I hate that banister."

"You do not," Luke says, and there's a strange look on his face, a mixture of reluctance and lust, and she doesn't know what that means.  He sighs, his fingers tugging at the elastic in her hair.  "We really should talk."

That tight, panicky feeling is back in her chest, not ten minutes after it finally left.  She's not ready to talk.  Not when they can't make it through a conversation without fighting and saying all the wrong things.  If they stop, she's sure she'll find yet another way to screw it up, and he'll storm out on her, and she'll be back on the spinster couch, watching Janet Gaynor instead of Judy or Barbra.

She knows she's avoiding the unpleasant, she knows they'll have to talk, but she just really, really, really needs to reconnect with him first.

She just really, really, really needs him.  Period.

"Luke," she says, her voice trembling almost as much as her fingers as she reaches for his cap and pulls it off, tossing it over her shoulder.

His hair is squashed flat against his head, with a couple wayward tufts sticking out awkwardly from her abrupt removal of his hat, and in pretty much any other situation, she'd mock him mercilessly.  But she can't crack jokes when he's looking at her like that.  "Lorelai..."

"Please."

It's fighting dirty and she knows it, because he's never been able to tell her no.  She hesitates, just long enough for him to refuse her if he wants to, and then she unzips her sweatshirt and shrugs out of it.  Her tank top is next, over her head in one fluid motion, and when she looks up at him, he's breathing hard and staring, and if she didn't know better, she'd think his eyes were a bit watery.

"Please," she repeats, reaching for him.

Luke takes her hand and she leads him up the stairs, down the short hallway, and into her room, the room she'd started to think of as their room, before.  Still shaking, she turns and waits, struggling a little under the weight of the moment.  He holds her gaze for a long, long moment before he snaps, and they're kissing again, like before, like they'll never, ever stop.

Lorelai clumsily unbuttons his flannel and reaches for his jeans.  He's equally busy, unclasping her bra, tugging at the waistband of her jeans.  They tumble onto the bed together, landing awkwardly, but she doesn't care.  She wraps him in her arms, in her legs, and they're not even all the way on the bed, but none of that matters when he pushes his way inside of her.

They shift and surge against each other, hard and fast and desperate, and she doesn't even realize that she's crying until Luke stops, brow furrowed, and asks, "Hey, what's wrong?"  His fingers trace the line of her jaw.

It's not something she can put into words, so she shakes her head and cups his face to pull him in for a slow kiss.  Her legs tighten around his hips, and he starts to move again, staring down into her eyes, and it's intense and perfect and it has to be the first time she's ever remained utterly silent during sex.

"Lorelai," he mutters, and it's the sound of his voice when he says her name that pushes her over the edge.  He follows quickly, collapsing onto her in the aftermath.

She's missed the feel of him, his sweat-slick skin sliding against hers, his chest heaving against her ribcage.  Lorelai closes her eyes and tightens her grip on him.  He's pressing kisses against her neck, along her collarbone, below her jaw, and she tilts her head back to give him greater access.

"So," she says, running her hands aimlessly down his back.  He really has a delicious ass, and she gives it an appreciative squeeze.  "Good talk."

It's not quite a joke, but Luke chuckles against her skin anyway, rolling off of her, pulling her with him as he straightens them out on the bed.  She wiggles closer, half-lying on his chest, and throws her thigh across his.  She pulls the sheet up partway, then folds her hands on his chest, rests her chin on her knuckles, and simply watches him.

"We should talk," Luke says.  Again.

"My God, Luke.  Groundhog's Day already happened."  He blinks.  "Never mind," she says, as his fingers dance along her spine.  "Can I pick the topic?"

"Only if you pick me apologizing for being a dick," he answers.

She can't help but smile at that, even if it's not true.  "How about we start with something a little easier," she suggests, still unwilling to shatter this fragile reconciliation.  "I heard a nasty rumor that you were forcibly removing people from the diner."  Rory hadn't been particularly eager to tell her mother about The Terrible Cheeseburger (Rory capitalized it during the telling, because it was just that bad).  True to form, Lorelai had whined until her daughter spilled the story about poor, sad Luke.

Who is, at the moment, lucky, sated Luke.  Or so Lorelai wants to believe.  As her post-coital languor begins to fade, however, she's becoming more and more convinced that whatever this is, it's a prelude to something she's not going to like.  At all.

Luke shifts uncomfortably, his gaze sliding away from her.  "Yeah, well...  They were bothering me."

"Your customers?" she asks, skeptical.

"Kirk is a customer," Luke points out.  "Kirk bothers me all the time."

"You threw Kirk out?"  She's kind of sorry she missed that, despite the circumstances.

"Well... no," he admits, frowning a little.  And he's still not looking at her.  "Listen, Lorelai, I need to tell you something."

She tenses up.  She can't help it, because conversations like this never, ever go well.  She's suddenly certain he's come to tell her he's keeping his idiotic promise to close the diner and leave town, and this was just his way of saying goodbye.  And how the hell did she end up Ross to Luke's Rachel, anyway?  And, ouch, because -- Luke's Rachel?

"Hey," Luke says, his tone softer.  "It's not -- I missed you."  His fingers tangle through her hair, pushing it out of her face.  "I missed you a lot."

"I missed you more," she says with a tiny smile.  If only they could just... skip over the part where they talk about how she'd pushed him until he snapped, Lorelai would be a very satisfied customer.  It doesn't reflect well on her that he'd taken a small forever to decide that her pros outweighed her well-documented-in-Stars-Hollow cons, and Luke isn't the type to pull punches.  She could write a thesis on how badly she sucks at relationships, and how she does thoughtless things that end up breaking people's hearts, but to hear Luke describe the ways she'd hurt him might just be too much.

"It's not bad," Luke says again, and that's how she knows for sure that it is.  "It's just..."  He frowns, his fingers digging into her spine to hold her still, "your mother's not going to try anything like that again."

Lorelai freezes, eyes wide.  "Of course she's not.  I'm not speaking to her or seeing her or putting myself -- or you -- into any possible contact with her, so she obviously can't--"  And then she stops, turning his words over in her mind.  "Wait.  How do you know that?"  Because Rory swore she hadn't actually talked to Luke.

"Your mother," Luke admits on a sigh, "came to the diner.  Lorelai, wait."

She pushes away, struggling out of his grasp so that she can sit upright and concentrate really hard and maybe, just maybe, bring the earth back into its proper orbit.  "What?"

"She came to the diner."

"My mother," Lorelai says, just to be sure she heard him correctly, because her heart is pounding quite loudly in her ears, so maybe he didn't really say what she thinks he just said.  "Emily Gilmore."

"Yes."

Lorelai tilts her head.  "Came to Stars Hollow."

"Yes.  Lorelai--"

"To your diner."

"Right."  Luke reaches up, catching her hand in his.  He places her palm against his chest and covers her hand with his, tracing small, soothing figures on her knuckles.  "Listen--"

"When was this, exactly?"

His expression shifts, concerned to sheepish, and Lorelai climbs over him and out of bed.  "Oh, my God," she says, and she's pretty sure she can't feel her extremities.  Because-- "Oh, my God."  She tugs his flannel on, crossing her arms instead of buttoning it.  "Tonight?"

"Lorelai, that's not why I'm here," Luke says, sitting up, the sheets pooling in his lap.  "I just--"

"What did she say?  I mean, I assume she came to see you, since Rory chewed her out pretty good the other night for breaking us up, so it's not like she thought she'd see me there."  Lorelai starts pacing in random geometric patterns, skirting around their discarded clothes.  "Obviously she came to see you, which is just all kinds of bad, and she never does anything without some twisted, Emily logic as inspiration, so what the hell could she possibly have wanted to say to you?"  Lorelai ignores the pain flaring in her temple.  "I'm pretty sure she didn't deign to apologize."

"She came to tell me that she wouldn't interfere again," Luke says.  "It's not important, Lorelai, but I didn't want you to hear about it from Kirk--"

"Why would I hear about it from Kirk?" Lorelai asks, pausing mid-step to squint at him.

"Kirk was there," Luke answers, and his voice has that soothing, talking-Lorelai-down-from-another-one-of-her-freakouts quality, and it's enough to send her to another level of angry.

"So Emily gives her little I don't really approve but at least I'll stop actively trying to hurt my daughter speech, and that's what it takes for you to forgive me?"

Luke's mouth drops open.  "Forgive you?  Lorelai, what--?"

"Don't," she says, slashing one hand viciously through the air.  Her anger isn't at him, not really, and her focus has already shifted.  "I'll kill her," Lorelai says, and she's out the door and halfway down the stairs by the time Luke starts hollering after her.  "Where is it?" she mutters, turning circles in her living room, crying big, angry, frustrated tears because where the hell is her goddamned phone hiding?  "Fuck it," she mutters, reaching for her purse.  Free nights and weekends anyway.

"Lorelai," Luke calls, taking the stairs two at a time.  "Don't."  He reaches her side as she scrolls through her phonebook, unable to really read any of the names because she can't stop crying.

"She can't just do this," Lorelai gasps.  She gives a frustrated yell and turns to Luke, standing there in hastily donned boxers, and holds out the phone.  "Does that say 'Gilmore'?"

He doesn't even look at the phone, just gently takes it from her hand and pulls her to his chest.  "Lorelai, don't."

"She can't keep doing this to me, Luke," Lorelai protests, still fighting, still determined not to cry even though she's already crying.  "She can't turn you against me and then glide back into town and meddle some more whenever she feels like it!  She can't!"

"I know," he murmurs, his hand cradling her head, smoothing her hair.  "It's okay, Lorelai."

She's crying in earnest, now, and she's mad because she hates crying when she's angry, and that just makes her more upset, which makes her cry harder, and she's slobbering all over Luke's very nice chest, and why couldn't she have married some rich guy and put Rory through school without having to deal with Emily Gilmore ever again?  

She's ignoring the part where marrying some rich guy would've meant not ever having this relationship with Luke, who is really one of the best men she's ever known.  "Shhh," Luke soothes her, holding her tight as her sobs devolve into hiccoughs.  "Lorelai, she's not worth it."

She pulls away slowly, scanning the room for tissue.  Trudging to the desk, she grabs a Kleenex and wipes at her eyes, then unceremoniously blows her nose.  So sexy, she thinks.  When she turns, Luke is just two steps away.  He reaches out and gently buttons the flannel over her breasts, over her belly, and if she hadn't just cried herself out, she's pretty sure she'd be crying some more over the way he touches her.

But she needs to know the truth, even if it's going to ruin everything.  "Luke?"

"Yeah?" he asks, finishing up with the last button.  He lifts his gaze to hers.

She takes a breath, lets it out.  "Why did you come over tonight?"

He sighs.  "Because I missed you."

"Why tonight?"

"I couldn't take it anymore," he answers, and he sounds sincere.

Lorelai looks down, fingering the buttons on his shirt.  "Luke..."

"It wasn't because of your mother, Lorelai," he tells her levelly.

She wants desperately to believe him, but she can't.  "It was," she counters.  "Or you wouldn't have come over here as soon as she left."  She lifts her chin, meets his gaze.  "You did, didn't you?"

Luke swallows, his gaze sliding away from her for a second.  "Yes."

She wraps her arms around her rib cage and says, "So... it was because of her."

"Don't make our relationship about your mother, Lorelai," Luke tells her, sounding weary and worried.  "I came over here two weeks ago--"

"To yell at me," she interjects, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the garage.  "That's hardly the same thing as your dramatic kissing earlier."

"Dramatic kissing?"

"Yes, dramatic kissing, with the soundtrack and--"

Luke lifts an eyebrow, obviously amused despite himself.  "Soundtrack?"

She glowers at him.  "I was watching a movie, and you happened to arrive at a particularly... opportune time."

"Opportune time?" Luke echoes.  "Was Rory home this week?"

"What, I can't use big words all on my own?"  Then Lorelai throws her hands into the air.  "You're changing the subject.  You didn't come over here two weeks ago to fix things between us."

"The hell I didn't!" Luke answers, his voice raised.  "I went to a damn elementary school every day for a week to fix things!  An elementary school, Lorelai, filled with annoying children who don't know what a screwdriver is!  I had to explain to Damon that his mother being a lesbian was not the reason Susie McPherson doesn't want to kiss him!"

Lorelai shakes her head slightly, a little curious about Damon and Susie.  "Should I--?"

"Don't ask," he says.  "I did all of that so I could see if there was still a chance for…"  He glances down, shrugging, "this."

She spreads her arms and glances around her living room.  "You could've come here."

His head snaps up.  "I did!"

Exasperated, Lorelai says, "I meant two weeks ago, you could've come here instead of building sets that you obviously didn't want to build."

"I don't care about the sets, Lorelai," Luke shouts.  "I'm saying that I've been trying to test the waters for two weeks, and I haven't slept for more than an hour at a stretch, and I miss you whining for coffee and watching Patrick Stewart in my bed while I'm trying to sleep and how was I supposed to know you weren't back to dating completely inappropriate men and trading barbs with your mother over Friday night dinners?"

His words reverberate in the sudden silence, and Lorelai's mouth is hanging open as his meaning starts to sink in.  She realizes how badly she's screwed this up, how completely she's managed to mask her feelings for Luke, even when she wasn't aware she was doing it.

"Luke," she murmurs, stepping closer to him, placing her hands on his biceps.  "You're supposed to know that I'm not back to doing anything like that because I still--"  It's harder than she wants it to be, and she hates that he looks so hopeful and so disappointed at the same time.  She lifts her chin.  "I love you.  And you should've known that before.  I should've told you."

Luke's hands settle low on her hips and he steps closer.  "You do?" he asks, tentative and hopeful.

Her throat closes up, so she simply nods and presses a soft kiss to his lips.

Luke's eyes drift shut for a moment, and his chin drops almost do his chest.  He lets out a long breath, then meets her gaze and says, "I love you."

Her smile is wide and she can't even bring it under control when he tries to kiss her.  She laughs into his mouth, then clutches his biceps and kisses him, hard, before pulling back.  She stares into his eyes for a moment.  "I'm sorry, Luke, but I still don't understand--"

"She said you weren't speaking to her," Luke interrupts impatiently.  "And I figured that meant you were still mad, and if you were still mad, there was at least a chance you were still..."  His fingers tighten on her hips.  "Interested."

"Okay."  Lorelai nods.  She doesn't want to keep picking at the subject, but she needs to explain her overreaction.  She needs to be sure of his reasons.  "I just... I know my mother, and it's never easy with her, so if you only came back because you thought she was okay with us, then--"

"She's not okay with us."  Luke grimaces, his arms tensing beneath her fingers.  "I don't think she'll ever be okay with us -- with me -- but I'm not planning on going anywhere.  I'm still not sure you won't regret this, Lorelai."

She's honestly flabbergasted.  It takes her a minute to form words.  "Regret this?" she sputters, sliding her arms up around his neck.  "Are you crazy?"

He actually gives her a half-smile for that.  "Obviously."

The hollow ache she's been carrying in her chest for weeks has finally eased.  Lorelai feels like she just watched The Ring all by herself in the dark -- all tense and jittery as the adrenaline starts to fade.  She's exhausted, and she can tell from the smudges beneath his eyes that he's not much better.  "Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"I know there's all this stuff we haven't talked about, and that we should talk about, but--"  She slumps against him, burying her face against his neck, smiling as the stubble scratches her nose.  "Can we please go to bed and finish this talking stuff tomorrow?"

He chuckles, his hands clasped together and settling against the small of her back.  "Definitely," he answers, and she can hear the relief in his voice.

"I haven't slept well either," she confesses softly, "without you."

His arms tighten around her, then he releases her and reaches for her hand.  "Then let's get some rest."

She leads him up the stairs for the second time.  On the top stair, she pauses and turns, giving him a tired smile.  "Tell me a bedtime story?"

Luke gives her a heartfelt groan, "Lorelai."

"I'll help you," she offers, tugging him up the last few stairs.  "They start 'Once upon a time...'  Okay, now you go."

"Lorelai," he mutters, following her into the bedroom and dropping onto the mattress.  "I'm not telling you a bedtime story."

"And then," she continues, ignoring his protests as she lifts the sheets and slides into bed, "there has to be a princess.  Probably you should name her Lorelai."

"You're impossible," he tells her, settling in beside her, turning on his side and tossing his arm across her abdomen.

"It's part of my charm," she answers breezily.  "And there's always a prince.  We could call him--"

"We are not calling him Luke."

"Spoilsport."

"Good night," he says, leaning in to kiss her softly.

"'Night," she answers, grinning up at the ceiling.

THE END