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allthingsholy(Because it's nowhere on LJ, only ff.net and B&W&R, and I'd like to have a copy of it around here, for posterity or something. So. My very favorite fic I ever wrote, even though I only wrote half of it. Go poke Erica and ask her for more, why don't you?)
Author(s): holylulalicious! (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lulabo & allthingsholy)
Disclaimer: We're just borrowing. We promise to put them back where we found them.
Summary: "I love you," she says simply. She doesn't know if it'll matter, doubts that it will fix anything, but she's learned tonight that she can have the strength she's always thought she had if she's willing to be weak for just a moment.
Spoilers: General through Season Five
A/N: This was written as a collaboration between authors allthingsholy and LulaBo and is a first attempt at joint fiction. Please forgive us any rough patches; we're new to the compromising thing and tried our best to get this right. With help from Ruby Garnet and Arianna, it went through many, many revisions. Then it went through many, many more. Over the course of the summer, it grew larger and larger until finally it took on a life of its own. We apologize for the size; we too marvel at our own verbosity. We hope you enjoy it. Hopefully, it'll be the first of many joint attempts.
Note: Originally posted 10/7/04 (wow). LJ can't handle the bigness of the file, so it's split into two. This is 1/2
"I used to think my life was often empty, a lonely space to fill....More than words I tried to tell you; the more I tried I failed."
- Sarah McLachlan, "Plenty"
----
Lorelai whistles in the kitchen, and he knows he'll never understand how anyone can whistle disco. (He'll also never understand how she's got him listening to disco.) She's cleaning out the fridge while he watches the Yankees slaughter the Braves, his feet up on the coffee table. His hat is on the armrest and his toothbrush is in a cup in the bathroom; this is something that delights her more than him, though he doesn't really know that. He knows that in a minute she'll yell something completely profane, followed closely by his name in what he's sure she thinks is a coy voice, calling him to fix something or lift something or simply keep her company. He knows that he'll go, even though it means leaving behind the Yankees and being assaulted by the Bee Gees. He admits it reluctantly, but she definitely wears the pants in this relationship. Stylish and elegant, yet marvelously inexpensive pants, she adds in his head. This is evidenced by the fact that the Friday night dinner rush is about to start and he's left his diner in the questionably capable hands of Caesar and Lane for the second time this month.
"Fuck a monkey!" Luke hears and laughs to himself. Rodriguez hits into a double play, and he shakes his head. He holds his breath just a moment to see if he knows her as well as he thinks he does.
He does: Lorelai calls his name, drawing out the vowel in an attempt to sound like some kind of damsel in distress. He sighs, lifts himself from the couch, and walks into the kitchen.
She's sitting on the floor, surrounded by produce and bottles of soda. The Diet Coke is in there on her insistence, the lettuce on his. Her hair frames her face in a way that reminds him of midnight and rustling sheets. Their first time together, he'd been mesmerized by her hair and the way it was almost silver in the moonlight. Since then, he's been attentive to much more specific things. He's come to know her favorite spots for everything: a kiss, a touch, a breath. He's started mapping her body, the curves and crests, memorizing the movements she makes when she's above him. He's fairly certain that there's nothing more beautiful than the sight of her, barely visible in the darkness and haloed by the light from the window, face cast upward and arms at her sides, eyes closed and breath baited. He'll readily tell her that she's the most beautiful woman he's ever known, though he doesn't say it half as often as the thought crosses his mind.
She's juicy and she's in trouble, and he regards her a moment, sitting there looking so thoroughly pathetic. She swipes at the hair in her eyes and looks up at him, lip jutting out noticeably. "I think that since you're in charge of almost every perishable item in this house, you should clean the fridge," she says. She picks up a bag of broccoli from the floor. "This green, only slightly edible vegetable? Yours." She throws the bag at him and he catches it with ease. Next, she picks up a package of mushrooms. "These incredibly gross fungal specimens that we both know I'd never be caught dead eating? Most definitely yours." She throws the carton too low and he has to stoop to catch it.
He loves her like this, playful and easy. They both know she's not really complaining, just baiting him into conversation: she's become the master at getting more words out of him than anyone he's ever known. It's almost like a routine, and if it is then it's the more definite one they've got: she patronizes, he complains, she pouts, he gives in. It's something steady, like daytime or fishing season or the clearance at Bloomingdale's. It'd been awkward at first, the transition from friend to whatever they've become. Neither one is exactly sure where they stand, but they know it's better this way, that it's the thing that was always missing before.
Luke walks over to her, bypassing where she sits to open the freezer door. "One carton of Ben and Jerry's. Since I'm cleaning out the fridge, I've decided that this is the first thing to go." She's on her feet like she's defending her virtue rather than a half-eaten tub of Chubby Hubby.
"Close the freezer door and back away slowly. I don't want to have to get violent on your flannel-clad ass." She's staring him down like he's trying to steal the crown jewels, and he closes the door halfway. Raising a finger in warning, she narrows her eyes and motions for him to shut the door the rest of the way. He teases it, closing it inch by inch until the suction sound of plastic on metal is heard.
"Such a smart man, you are. You realize I'd leave you in a minute if Ben and Jerry came knocking on my door. My love for them is pure and unadulterated, it's not merely an infatuation," she says.
Luke lets rest the fact that she's called this thing mere infatuation as she steps towards him, hooks one finger in his belt loop and pulls him closer.
"Technically, my ass isn't flannel-clad. My boxers are cotton," he says, stooping slightly to kiss her. If he'd known that this was why she'd called him from the Yankee game, he wouldn't have complained half as much.
He wonders, as his hands go to her lower back, whether he's got any clean jeans upstairs, but quickly focuses on more important things. This is another of their routines, though one could only loosely call it that. He spends most nights at her house and has more than a casual few outfits in her closet. Though it's only been four months, they've gotten startlingly comfortable in the new boundaries of their relationship. There are some things that haven't changed: he still pours her coffee every morning, though the length of her visits at the diner is new; he still does all the household repairs, though he now helps himself to a beer and sprawls out on the couch after each fix-it session; she still nags him about his outfits, though now she's decided she likes his flannel better on her than on him.
Luke had worried, at first, how she'd react to having someone like him in her life; Lorelai never said, but she'd worried more than he had. In the beginning, it had been hard, the deciding of which imperfections to let show. She'd kept her habit of taking abnormally long showers a secret for weeks, though she'd let him know right away that she dog-ears her favorite pages of her favorite books and leaves her dishes in the sink. But it was easier in a lot of ways, she thought, having him know her so well already. He wasn't shocked by her caffeine intake or eating habits or the fact that she's never, if ever, on time. Likewise, she knew to expect rants on inane topics and the slight smell of grease and the beardburn. She thought for a moment that it was almost cheating, knowing so much about each other, but now she considers it reflective of the fact that this is really the best idea she's had in quite some time.
She's started to change little things about herself to make room for Luke in her life. The bathroom is perpetually cleaner and the bedroom floor at least visible in the most used paths. Most noticeably, she's started waking with him in the mornings though she's never been affected by an alarm clock in her life up to now. Every morning, he slides out of bed at 4:45 and tries not to wake her; every morning, she lets him believe he's succeeded. She waits until she hears the run of the shower before she opens her eyes and slides her hand to his rapidly cooling side of the bed. She's not quite sure why, but the indentation on his pillow stings her eyes every time. She's proud of herself, that she's come this far and not yet run away. Still, Lorelai knows there are things she needs to work on. She's never told him that she loves him, though she's fairly confident she does. She's never told him that she needs him, though she's fairly confident that she has for far longer than she'd ever admit.
It amazes her, the things she thought she knew about him that she's had to re-teach herself. She's learned to read between the lines of what he says, but she's still at a loss as to what his silences speak; she knows now what every line on his face indicates, but she still can't decipher what the touch of his hands seems to say. For being the least verbal person she knows–though she'll tell you proudly that he's on occasion started talking to her at such length that she's tuned him out–he communicates more than anyone she's ever been with.
Though she can't always read him, she knows what he's thinking when he starts kissing her like this, and she starts to drag him out of the kitchen and towards the stairs. They make it halfway up the staircase before the phone rings.
Lorelai drops her face and rests her forehead against Luke's chin. Closing her eyes and gripping his arms, she sighs. "Fuck a giant purple monkey, this time," she says, as she pushes off him and heads for the phone. Three rings down, he grabs her by the waist.
"You do have an answering machine, highly neglected and under-used," he tells her, his voice throaty.
He's pushed the hair away from her neck and is working at the tender skin behind her ear. This is her favorite side of him, she thinks, the part of his image that gets broken down only for her; when he's like this, she doesn't have to make any kinds of guesses at what he's thinking.
She turns to face him with every intention of giving in when she hears the machine click. "Gilmore residence: we're avoiding your call, so either take the hint or bother us further by not hanging up." She'd toyed with the idea of putting his name on the outgoing message but didn't want to have that conversation because of what it implied; she'd never made that much space in her life for someone else, he'd never liked to push his boundaries with her. It's not simple, this new melding of their separate lives, but it's easier than she'd expected it to be in most respects. She starts to draw his lips down to hers when she hears Rory's tinny machine voice echo around the living room.
"Mom, I don't know if you're there or not, but I wanted to let you know that–"
She's out of his arms faster than he can try to hold her, which is maybe Luke's biggest fear of all. He'd never exactly been there through the other men, the Maxes, the Christophers, the Jasons, but he'd watched from close enough to sense a definite pattern. She doesn't like to be held too tightly, he's learned, and she doesn't give anything up that she's not decided she can spare. He doesn't even admit to himself that he's disappointed that it's really been no different with him. He's tracked her relationships, has the advantage of knowing when she usually runs and the speed at which she's capable of leaving.
On the surface, these past months have been smooth sailing, but there's a current beneath, a riptide just dangerous enough to drag them both under. He loves her, though he's never actually been able to say it with words, but he's having a hard time working his way into the important parts of her life. He's almost sure that she doesn't do it on purpose and he's positive she feels for him deeply, but she still hasn't stopped moving, hasn't stopped staying just out of reach. He's tried to work away the distance, tried to stop her from compartmentalizing all the different aspects of her life, but hasn't much succeeded; try as he might, he's still on the edges of her life in many ways and he's not sure how much longer he can stand it.
She tucks the phone under her chin as she greets her daughter, throws him an apologetic glance over her shoulder on the way to the kitchen. Luke lowers himself down and sits on a stair, straining to hear the lilt of her voice, listening for sympathy or delight or collusion or motherliness. He's heard or overheard more conversations between the Lorelais than he can count, both on purpose and accidentally; he's always felt like a fly on the wall of the inner sanctum, but since his food and his clothes and his person have become fixtures in this house, he's been shooed out. He rests his elbows on his knees and waits.
Lorelai paces in the kitchen, chewing her lower lip. She knows he's waiting for her, knows he thinks he's been slighted and he's on the brink of severe frustration. Rory's already given her the everything's-fine-at-Yale-and-I'm-great-stop-worrying update and has moved on to the something's-come-up-and-I-can't-get-out-of-it phase of the conversation. Lorelai protests and Rory apologizes, and they go back and forth this way a few moments, mother wheedling, daughter resisting. Lorelai knows she won't get what she wants but she holds out as long as possible before Rory's voice takes on a stern edge and tells her to be a grown up and get over it. She sighs and there are I love yous and parting shots before the disconnection–no goodbyes, they don't do goodbyes in the Gilmore house.
Lorelai groans and slumps into a chair, already hearing the disappointment in her mother's voice that she's sure to find when she shows up alone, in the wrong outfit, saying the wrong things. She can already taste the disapproval that will ruin her dinner, sharp and metallic on the back of her tongue. And she'll do what she always does (and this is something she knows she won't ever tell him) when she finds herself in an emotional ditch: she'll think of Luke and then she'll claw her way back out.
She shakes her hair and makes her way down the hall, around the corner, stalks up the stairs till she's standing below him. She tilts her face up to him, bracing her hands on his knees. Luke keeps his head lowered as he looks up at her, and she knows this look by heart, this peeved and patient look. She gives him a smile for an apology that won't quite do. He lowers his eyes and draws a breath. Lorelai takes the opportunity for a sneak attack and kneels on the same stair where he rests his feet, placing herself squarely between his thighs. He lets her snake her arms around his neck, whisper kisses against his cheekbone.
"So," she says, "how does this one go again?"
"What's up with Rory?" he asks.
Lorelai tips her head back. "You really want to talk about Rory right now?"
When he only shrugs in response, she knows she's got something to make up for but damned if she knows exactly what it is. She won't brook resistance, this time, as she searches out his lips with her own. Her kiss is teasing, telling him to forget, and he's irritated that he'll give in, wants to swat his own hands away as they make for that favored spot on the small of her back. She leans into him and the kiss becomes something more than teasing: heady and sweet, needful. And he's not thinking of it as giving in as he hauls them both to their feet and they stumble up the last few stairs and down the hall, not giving in but taking what's being offered, holding onto it with both hands in a grip so fierce it bruises.
What Lorelai loves best–though what she loves best is something she can only think of later, when she's capable of articulate thought and the heat singing beneath her skin has abated a little–about being with Luke like this is the way he still surprises her. It never ceases to amaze her that she can know him backwards and forwards a hundred different ways, yet each time they come together is different. Every touch of his hands is new, even as he traverses familiar and well-explored territory. She wouldn't go so far as to say that every time they make love it's like the first time, because such sentiment is best reserved for really bad pop music, and besides that it really doesn't do the situation any justice. It's not like the first time, never like the first time. It's simply different: the single constant is change. She thinks this is something she can't get enough of–it's nothing she's ever had before, one more thing she won't think to tell him.
There are times when she lies in the curve of his arm, embarrassing him with pillow talk either too cutesy or too dirty for his liking, and she worries that the next time will be like this time, or last time, or any other time before; she worries that some day this will be like any other part of their routine, that they know each other all too well in too many ways for it to keep on like this. She thinks maybe this thing between them is like something old, refurbished and restored to new glory, but eventually the shine will wear away and they'll be left with the same thing they had before. Only it won't be the same as before because for a while, it was something bright and better and changed.
She shuts her eyes so as not to think of it today, presses her cheek into the hollow of his shoulder. Luke plays his fingers through her hair, winding and weaving it over his hand. She could begin her usual assault of verbal play, but he likes it best when it's quiet like this, when he can listen to the silence they so rarely share, and so Lorelai lets the impulse pass. She doesn't know how long they've stayed this way, a tangle of limbs and sheets, when she realizes he's fallen asleep. She raises her head, squints to read the hands on the fuzzy bedside clock. There's time for a shower and a cup of coffee before she has to leave to meet Emily if she hurries (which she won't, and so she'll be late like always). In his light sleep, he won't let her pull away; he wraps his arms about her tightly as she tries to disengage herself without waking him. She rests her chin on his chest.
"Luke," she whispers. He drowsily hushes her. "I have to go."
He opens one eye. "Go where?"
Luke hates the duh face, but she only ever remembers after she makes it. "Dinner with Emily," she says. "Much as I'd like to spend my evening listening to the symphonic overtures of your snore–and believe me, it's preferable to the alternative–I have to make an appearance at dinner. Clothed," she adds.
"Pity," he says. "And I don't snore."
Lorelai smiles and kisses him. "Yes, you do," she says.
He returns the kiss, speaks with his mouth against hers. "No, I don't."
She crawls over him towards the closet side of her bedroom. "I really do have to get ready. In more ways than one," she says. She wraps herself in a bathrobe and begins rooting through the contents of her closet.
"What's that mean?"
"Oh, Rory's not coming, so I'm entering the lion's den all by my lonesome. Lucky for me I have an arsenal of witty repartee with which to defend myself, and I have been known to avoid complete and total annihilation simply by confusing my opponents beyond their capability for rational thought. Still," she sighs, "I hate having to face my mother alone lately. I never know if I'm going to get Joan Crawford or Ivana Trump."
Luke swings his legs over the side of the bed. "I could go with you," he says.
She laughs. "Luke, that's like offering to be eviscerated for fun," she tells him. She looks over her shoulder. "You're very sweet, but I wouldn't ask you to put yourself through that on my account."
"You didn't ask," he replies, an almost undetectable sharpness to his voice. "I offered."
"And I am turning you down out of the goodness of my heart," Lorelai says lightly. "Trust me, Luke. This isn't something you want to do."
"Sure it is."
There's something in his tone she doesn't recognize, something close to dangerous. She knows they're on the edge of something but doesn't know how they got there or where they'll fall if they step too far. She has no idea why the air is suddenly thicker and her stomach's started to tie itself in knots. She wants to inch them back from where they stand, pretend she doesn't see something so close to anger in his eyes, the stiffness in his shoulders.
"Why would you? It's like the Russian roulette scene in The Deerhunter. And scary as Christopher Walken generally is, my mother is that much scarier, believe you me."
He's pulling on his jeans, his color rising slightly. "I'm not afraid of your mother."
He stares at his feet, seemingly gathering the strength for this all the way from his toes. He could let it rest, he knows that, but there are limits to the things a person can take before he starts to lose pieces of himself. He's not sure the exact distance, but he knows he doesn't have much further to go before he starts resenting her for the imposed barriers between the things she chooses to care about.
She's still faking ignorance, but he can see in the way she shifts on her feet that she's well aware of the line they're walking. Her tone is forced, all hollow sassiness as she speaks. "Well, that brings the global tally to three, then: Michel, my Gran, and you. Michel has only ever spoken to her in French–not Emily's native language–so clearly there was something lost in the translation, which means he doesn't count. Gran has gone on to greener pastures to further sow the seeds of discontent, so really, that leaves just you," she says. "And Emily would quickly show you the error of your ways."
"Would you give me a little credit, Lorelai?" he says. He stands beside the bed, his hands on his hips, his chest and feet bare. Despite the weight of the air in the room, he can see she's trying not to smile, can practically hear her thinking that it's impossible to take him seriously when he's half-naked like that, vulnerable and exposed and the opposite of fierce and offended. She's not helping the situation, smiling tolerantly like that. He hates that she thinks he's cute, that she's steering the conversation away from the serious. "I think I can handle her just fine."
"But you shouldn't have to," she says. "And you don't have to. It's fine–I'll go, she'll be passive aggressive, I'll say something inappropriate, she'll move past the passive part and just let loose with the aggressive, I'll roll my eyes, we'll leave a big tip, and we'll go our separate ways. It's an Oscar Wilde play without the droll civility or the pat ending."
She watches him walk around the room, picking through her dirty laundry for any and all articles that might belong to him. "Fine," he says curtly. "Do whatever you want."
Lorelai inhales sharply: the conversation's turned, taken on more than she intended. It's gotten bigger faster than she'd expected. "Luke, what is this? Why are you mad?"
"I'm not mad."
"Yes, you are. You're doing that thing with your eyes that you do when you're mad."
"I'm not mad!" he barks.
"Yes, you are!" she cries. "What? What's going on?"
Luke throws the small bundle of clothes he's collected as hard as he can against the wall and they fall with a soft, unsatisfying thud. He stares at the floor. "You don't want me to come with you," he says, his voice flat. "You'd rather suffer it alone than let me come with you."
"Well, yeah," she says. "What's wrong with that? I don't want to put you through the Chinese water torture that is dinner with Emily Gilmore."
"I want you to put me through that!" he bellows.
Lorelai is more used to being the one confusing than the one confused. Her forehead puckers and she works her lower lip between her teeth. She's seen him angry before, at varying intensities and volume levels; the dark flush under the stubble is something she knows she won't be able to laugh her way out of.
"Luke?"
He paces, his fingers laced behind his head. She wants him to wave a hand, tell her it's nothing, but she can tell by the erratic rhythm of his breathing she's about to be disappointed. He stops.
"Why don't you want me there?" he asks.
She's heard this tone before, pissed off and hurt and something else she's never been able to find the word for, something akin to hope, maybe–if the fluttering tightness she feels at her center whenever he pulls her close sounded like anything at all, she thinks it would be in the tremor of Luke's voice when he asks her this.
"It's not that I don't want you there," she says, "I'm just trying to protect you from a potentially scarring experience. Namely, any sort of interaction with my mother. What? What's wrong with that? I don't–"
"No, you don't, do you, Lorelai?" Luke asks wearily.
He's not entirely sure that the problem is that she just doesn't see the walls she's put up between the separate sections of her life. He has to give her more credit than being that oblivious or unaware. The thought makes him shudder, but he finds himself staring straight at the fact that there's a part of her that doesn't want him in her life. He blames it on shame, embarrassment, lasting emotional issues; whatever the fault, he's sick of ignoring it, of piecing together the parts of her life that she's willing to give up to him. He's not one for clichés, but as far as he's concerned this can only be all or nothing. He doesn't half-ass much and he isn't about to start with this relationship he's waited for so long.
"I want you to let me be there."
She tucks her hair behind her ears, passes her hand over her eyes. "Luke, we're talking about my mother, here." But they aren't, she knows, not really, and she has no idea how this managed to spin so far out of her control. "Things with us right now are–to say things between my mother and me are tense right now is a gross understatement. It's like saying the Empire State Building is sorta tall. Having you there, while it would be potentially entertaining and extremely comforting, is not going to make things easier for either one of us, and I don't want you in the middle of that."
"Why not? Why shouldn't I be in the middle of that? If I'm–and we're–what we are," he stutters, "then I want to be in the middle of that. I don't care if your mother threatens to take my tongue out of my mouth and serve it to me on a platter, I just want to be there."
"If she took your tongue out of your mouth, Luke, serving it to you on a platter would be sort of redundant, wouldn't it?" she says. She doesn't know where they are anymore and at least the sarcasm is familiar, as is the way he says her name in response. "Why, Luke? Why would you want to do that to yourself? I'm related to the woman and I don't want to do that to myself," she tells him. "You're not making any kind of sense, and traditionally, that's my strong suit, so I'm a little bit turned around here."
Luke sits on the bed, his head in his hands. "Am I in your life?" he asks. The sound of his own voice falls on his ears and he hates the way he sounds: desperate, hopeful, and more than a little bit broken.
"What? How can–you're in my life, of course you're in my life, I cannot believe that you even just asked me that," she says, and she knows as she says it he'll think it's come out too quickly. She's almost figured out what the problem is here, she's catching up to his rapidly moving train of thought; she knows it's not exactly fair, the games she plays, intentionally or not, but she doesn't know how to stop playing long enough to stand still. There are still too many parts of herself she can't look at closely enough to fix.
"Am I really in your life, Lorelai?" He raises his head, looks her full in the eye.
This is the denouement, she knows, the summit of where he's been headed all along. She knows she's one toe over the edge but doesn't know how to pull back and answer the look he's giving her. He's radiating so much and it's all seeping into her, searing her skin and her eyes and the back of her throat, and if she could go to him she would, but they're on opposite sides now and if she takes a step towards him she'll fall.
"Luke–I–"
"Because if I were really in your life, I'd be going to this dinner with you. I'd be involved. I'd be there. For all of it. You just–you won't let me in. You've been keeping me at arm's length since we started this thing and I just can't keep doing this to myself," he says.
Her eyes are bright; she looks as though at any moment she'll sink where she stands, dissolve. He doesn't want to think about how he's the one causing her eyes to fill, her cheeks to blossom with hurt and confusion. He knows he could rise and go to her, he could take her in his arms and tell her he's being stupid and they'd both try and forget the whole conversation happened. But he knows it would only worry at them, stay between them and grow until they couldn't see around it anymore. And he's tired, exhausted in his bones, so he stays where he is.
"What I want is to be with you. That's all I want. You just won't let me do it."
Lorelai crosses her arms, hugs herself. "You are with me. I don't know what you want me to say, Luke. I don't even know why we're fighting about this. Yet another thing to thank my mother for. See? This is what I'm trying to avoid–I don't want her stirring things up. I don't want her–"
"This isn't about your mom and you know it," Luke says. "Don't change the subject. I'm trying to talk to you."
There's a bite in his voice, an audible sign that his patience with her is past thin. He's not a cruel man, he never has been, and he's not one for causing pain. But the things that are important to him–his family, his work, and now her–these things are what he'll fight for, what he saves his words for. He's not sure why he's pushing this now, tonight, why he's put so much distance between them when just moments ago she was in his arms; he does know that sometime between the feel of her palm pressed against his chest and the lightness in her voice as she turned down his offer, she changed the rules, changed the game they were playing. He has a hard time keeping up with the separate sections of her mind, and tonight he's finished being two steps behind.
The naked emotion in his eyes startles her and she's suddenly frightened by the feeling of him slipping away. She knows she should apologize, let him come to the dinner, make him realize that she'd been right all along as he walked away from Emily with his tail between his legs, but something in her stops the words before she says them and she's pushing him further away before she knows how to stop herself. She's all defiance and hard edges when she's backed up against a wall and the look that he's giving her leaves her no room to move.
"I can't do this with you now, Luke. I have to get to Hartford."
It's the absolute wrong thing to say and she knows it, knows he's right and she should shove herself out of her own way and make it up to him, but she's more her mother's daughter than she likes to admit. She turns her back to him, rummages through the closet without seeing a single article of clothing.
"Damn it, Lorelai!"
Even he's surprised by the strength of his voice and the frustration and pain echoing around the room. She freezes up, almost flinches from the sound. For a moment, she considers telling him to keep it down, that Babette and Morey are just next door, but thinks better of it this time as she hears him stand and cross the room.
Luke pulls the first shirt he can find over his head. "You can put your life in boxes all you want with other people, Lorelai. You can keep your parents out of the Stars Hollow box and you can keep the Inn and Rory there, but that's not something you can do with me. I won't go in the Stars Hollow box, and I won't go in the boyfriend box, either, outside family and work and everything else. I can't do it, Lorelai. I don't do boxes."
She knows he's not wrong, that this is what she does, how she sees the different parts of her life, but her throat's too tight and her mind's too full for her to say anything, let alone to ask for forgiveness.
He's just behind her now and battling the urge to physically turn her to face him. His teeth are clenched and his voice low; she'd be afraid of him if she didn't know that she deserves every harsh word he can throw her way, if she didn't know hurting her even this much is hard enough for him.
"This can't be halfway. This can't be what it is only when it's convenient for you. I can't do that. I can't. I want you to let me be there, wherever, whenever, for whatever–that's what I want. That's all I've ever wanted from this."
She thinks that if she were a different person, she'd look him in the eye, she'd apologize and mean it as she told him she'd be better, but she's too unfamiliar with admitting she's wrong to even turn around. If she does, she knows he'll see her almost broken and that's not fair to either of them. So she stays where she is, silent, one hand on her stomach and the other clutching her favorite black skirt. She thinks that if he were a different person, he would have stopped talking long ago and walked out of the house, but she knows that he's started and won't finish until he's said all the things he's wanted to say for weeks now.
He stares at her back, focuses on the slight rise and fall of her shoulders. He's far enough gone now to put the last of it on the line and he dives in before he really has a chance to think of the downside.
"I love you, Lorelai, and that isn't something I can only do part of the time. That's not the kind of man I am, and you should know that by now."
He's lost some of his edge; the bite in his voice is gone. She knows this side of him, recognizes the part almost pleading with her to turn around and tell him he's not wrong, that she loves him, too, that there's room enough for him in her life and she's more than willing to accommodate. She clutches the skirt tighter and digs her fingers into her abdomen. For reasons she doesn't even fully understand, she can't find it in herself to tell him that she does know him, does want to be with him, and that she's more in love with him than she really thinks is safe.
"Lorelai, please, I–"
His voice cracks and he grips her elbow. She feels the finality in his fingertips, senses that this is the end of something that's gotten too big to control. He slides his hand down her arm, lets her go, and she only knows she's crying when she tastes the salt on her lips, only hears his retreating footsteps just as she turns to face him.
She watches him leave, sees his blurred shape pass through the door. When he's gone, she crosses the room and lowers herself to the bed. She sits, silent and stunned. It seems sudden, his leaving; she's dizzy with the speed of it and can hardly catch her breath. She closes her eyes, tries to still herself, knowing it wasn't sudden at all.
She had better reasons for leaving in the past, she thinks. She ran from Max because she couldn't give up the space that belonged to her–her home, her town, her head, her heart. Independence is a tricky thing: she's discovered you can want it all your life, and when you get it, spend the rest of your life trying to give it up again. She's still trying. There were times when she could have, she thinks; she could have done it for Christopher, once–the things she'd need to give away were things he'd already had, maybe even things he'd given her. But the stars didn't align properly and in the end she thinks it was better that way. There would always be doubt, always be an edge of caution with him. She even thinks it would almost be like playing house, trying to go back and do it right when it's already all been done. But she's too old to play games and she knows it and what's more is now she knows that Luke is exactly what she's always needed because he doesn't know how to play games.
She tries to process the fight as she forces herself to stand and mechanically get dressed. She thinks she could have handled it better, said the things she wanted to, and maybe he'd still be here and they'd be laughing and kissing and everything would be fine.
But it wouldn't be, she knows. This sudden battle started because he doesn't let her play games: he'd make her be honest. She wouldn't be able to hide anything from him. She knows she's transparent as far as he's concerned. If he can see through her, he'd see the doubt and the guilt and the shame, see it coming long before she would, because she's certain it'll come. Lorelai knows that as well as Luke knows her, she knows herself, too. She loves him–loves him more than she'd thought she would, than she thought she could–and it's because she loves him that she keeps herself dancing just out of his reach. She loves him enough to want to protect him. The deeper she gets in with him, the more afraid she is of what she'll do to him. She knows she's hurt him today–and when she thinks of it, walking down the stairs, her breath stops in her chest and she has to sit until she can remember how to draw air into her lungs–but it's a smaller hurt, it's an easier hurt than what will come.
As she drives to Hartford, she can see it all happening: she'd stay with him, keep falling for him, and eventually she'd hit the bottom, look around and find herself flat on her back, loving him, needing him. But she'd turn her head to find him and he'd still be falling–he'll love her more than she's capable of loving him. It's a narcissistic, terrible thought and for a moment she hates herself more for her own arrogance than anything else, but she knows it's true. It's the one thing that keeps her distant, more than wanting to compartmentalize, more than wanting to keep herself to herself and have the things that are hers belong to her and her alone: she doesn't know how to love that way.
One of the reasons she loves movies is the knowledge that life can't be like that, and it's nice to have the illusion, even if it's only for ninety minutes. She won't be swept off her feet, she won't love herself sick, she won't run through airports or kiss in the falling rain or any of the things she's seen. Lorelai knows you can love someone too much, you can love him until he's the sun and he lights the world around you, makes it possible for you to live and thrive and be. But loving someone that way gives him too much power–one of these days, he'll look over and see what he's got and it won't be enough, she won't be enough, or he'll suddenly see all the small, mean parts of herself she keeps tucked in her pocket and he'll walk away. When he does, she'll be left in the dark alone. Maybe that's the thing that's kept her so independent so long, not wanting to let someone have that sort of sway over her life–she boxes people up so she's always in control, always sure that there's enough light to get by.
So she loves just enough. Loving Luke is easy, all too easy, and that way it's dangerous. She knows how to love just enough, how to love without being consumed. It's a careful orchestration, a balancing act, and Luke has already called her on it. She knows loving him just enough, loving him the way she knows how, isn't going to be enough to hang on to him. Loving just enough is what will make him leave. She's stopped at a red light and stares at her steering wheel a long moment. He's put her some place she's never been before, walking a rope between loving enough and loving too much.
It isn't fair to him. Luke deserves to be loved the way she wants to love him; he deserves to be the sun because he really is good enough for it. It's the way he loves, she knows. He won't be happy being the one loving more, the one loving better, and it'll make him go. It'll make him go and it will break him, and she can't have that. She loves him enough not to want him to hurt on her account, because she's not worth it. She loves him enough that the idea of pushing him away just by loving him makes her itch beneath her skin, makes the back of her throat burn, makes her stomach acidic and angry. But if she loves him more than just enough, if she's the one loving more, loving better, she'll still lose him because she's not bright enough to be the sun and when he realizes the world around him has dimmed, he'll leave her and she'll be in the same place, but alone and broken and full to the brim with feeling meant to be given away and with no one left to take it.
It's the little things, she thinks, that got to him. She's never been able to match his stride, run forward at the breakneck pace at which he wants this to work. The happy medium between his eagerness and her reluctance to upset the balance has eluded them. They've tried to ignore the distance, the disparity between his momentum and hers, but she can't catch up and they both know it.
She hasn't told Luke about the urge she's had to grab him in the mornings as he slides out of bed, the intense fear of his not coming back. She's gotten in this deeper than she'd expected to and now she's worried that when he leaves, when he decides she's really not worth it after all, he'll take so much of her with him that she'll never be the same person. He has no idea of the ferocity of her affection, of the need with which she holds him, and the lengths she knows she'd go to keep him scare her more that most things. She knew he'd reach his limit eventually, but she thought she'd had a while left to salvage a few pieces of herself, to try and pull the important things back out. But she didn't have enough warning this time, so now he's gone and taken her whole heart with him.
She pulls up to the house, an extra half hour added on to the usual drive time, and sits in the Jeep for awhile to fix her makeup and compose herself. She's pretty sure she's unsuccessful. As she walks up the drive, she tries to come up with excuses for her appearance and her tardiness, but all she can think of is the hurt in Luke's eyes and the slump of his shoulders as he sat with his head in his hands. She's never enjoyed causing anyone pain, but the fact that she's hurt Luke, this man who's done anything and everything for her, this man that she loves, eats at her insides until she's all twisted up and ringing the doorbell in tears.
"Lorelai?" Emily answers the door, is taken aback by the sight of her daughter biting back the anguish she's emanating. Lorelai raises her head and wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand.
"Mom, hi," she sniffs, fingers mascara out of the corner of her eye. "Where's the maid?" Her voice is unbalanced, void of the usual life and wit, full of grief and heartache.
"Lorelai, what's the matter with you? What happened?" Emily's hand is at her daughter's elbow, pulling her into the foyer. Lorelai doesn't resist, doesn't put up her usual fight at being lead somewhere, and Emily knows that something's really wrong. She tightens her fingers around Lorelai's wrist and stares up into her face. She sees red-rimmed and puffy eyes and her heart breaks a little for the pain that's so evident.
Lorelai's head is down, avoiding her mother's gaze. She doesn't want to be here, doesn't want to talk about it, not with anyone and least of all with Emily. Her mother hasn't ever disapproved of her relationship with Luke, which, shockingly enough, has caused more of a rift than either had expected. When Emily found out that she and Luke were dating, the sly smile and 'I told you so' that settled into her mother's eyes had driven Lorelai over the edge. Emily had listened with an almost condescending satisfaction and Lorelai had resisted the urge to walk right out of the room.
Emily didn't do it on purpose, has never intentionally done anything to try and push her daughter from her life, but Lorelai knows she couldn't resist rubbing in just a little that she knew Lorelai better than her daughter would admit. Unfortunately, what Emily had thought would be evidence of the fact that she's paid more attention over the years than she's ever gotten credit for turned into yet another thing Lorelai thought was judging. They've never shared a common language and they both know that–Lorelai doesn't expect Emily to say the right thing any more than Emily herself feels prepared to do, and she's too surprised to pull away when her mother takes her chin in hand and forces her eyes, rapidly refilling with tears, to meet her own.
"Lorelai?" Emily's voice is gentle, not questioning or probing or anything that Lorelai has reason to take offense over. Still, she can't help the sharp edges she takes on when she's this hurt and she pulls away from her mother's hand.
"I don't want to talk about it, Mom." She shrugs out of her coat and heads into the parlor, her gait leaving no room for sympathy.
Emily follows, slower, not wanting to push her daughter any farther away. Lorelai's sitting on the sedan with her coat in her lap brushing tears off of her cheeks. Emily's eyes sting seeing her daughter, always so strong, look so fragile. She crosses the room and sits next to Lorelai tentatively, braced against the fight she's sure will come.
Lorelai doesn't move, doesn't lash out. She sits, still as stone, and lets tears run from her eyes. She hurts inside, has never hurt like this before, and thinks that bottling it up and keeping it inside is maybe why there's so much pain. Letting it out, releasing a little into the world, maybe that will make the tightness in her chest fade slightly, will give her back the ability to breathe.
Emily puts her hand on Lorelai's knee and immediately Lorelai dissolves. Her shoulders slump forward and her arms go limp–she can't keep herself from breaking down, from responding to the slight touch of her mother's hand, though she knows at any other moment she would do her damnedest and succeed. Silently, she shakes with sobs and Emily sits with her daughter's head on her shoulder, one arm wrapped around her and a palm pressed to her back.
After several minutes of sniffling and tissues, Lorelai is still. "He left."
The admission stings her throat, leaves an evil taste in her mouth that's usually reserved for migraines and horrible Friday night dinners. She knows this Friday is one of her worst but she also knows that it's entirely her doing.
Emily is silent as she sits and waits for the rest of whatever Lorelai needs to say. "We fought and he yelled and then he left." Lorelai chokes on a bitter laugh, the irony of it. "Luke left."
This is unfamiliar territory for these women who've never shared their feelings with each other; Emily knows it should be easier, isn't sure exactly who's at fault for it being this difficult. She doesn't know exactly what to say, isn't sure what's safe and what's too much, so she keeps her questions simple, her statements basic.
"Why did you fight?" Emily heads forward with caution.
Lorelai fidgets in her lap, works hand over hand as she tries to figure out what to say. She doesn't know what happened exactly, though she knows what it all comes down to. She's sidestepped him too many times, avoided owning up to anything she knows she's guilty of. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and says, "He wanted to come to dinner with me tonight and I wouldn't let him. He thinks that's important, that it means that I don't want him in my life." She pauses, eyes down, wavers between the truth and the thing that's easier to say. "He told me that he loves me." Lorelai shuts her eyes, fights the tears, wills the lump in her throat to lessen just a little; she doesn't succeed.
She can't see the confusion on her mother's face, that Emily doesn't see what the problem is. She recognizes the familiar trick Emily uses as she sticks to what's safe: repetition. "He told you he loves you."
Lorelai's shoulders shake and she presses a hand to her chest; she doesn't know if it's entirely possible, but she's almost sure that she can feel her heart breaking. It's a pain behind her ribs like shards of glass, like splinters and ragged edges. Even she can hear it in her voice as she speaks, knows her mother will, too, but the pain overwhelms any resolve she might have and she doesn't really care. "He told me that I don't let him into my life, that he loves me... And I couldn't say anything." She covers her mouth with her hand, tries to force what she's said to be untrue.
Lorelai's never really given it much thought because it would mean admitting she's been as much in the wrong as those she thinks are wronging her, but she knows somewhere beyond words that Emily understands the frustration that drove Luke out better than anyone. They both know the reasons Lorelai wouldn't bring Luke here, didn't want him here; it's another thing that Lorelai would never admit, never verbalize, but she knows how it's hurt Emily to be shut out just as much as she knows Luke's reasons for leaving aren't bare figments of his imagination. She's grateful Emily doesn't say all the things she has a right to–just as much as Luke–all the things that she's been saving up so long. She's grateful that Emily is willing to withstand the wounds sharp edges can inflict and hold her close, that they've come far enough together for Emily to hold her tongue, not to tell her the things about herself she'll never understand. She lets Emily stroke her hair and keep those things to herself, things like the knowledge that Lorelai is someone who can't quite help how it's so easy and so hard to love her. Rather than say anything so hollow as false comfort, Emily clasps Lorelai's hands in her own, wipes a tear away, struggles to look her daughter in the eye. This is the part that's always been hardest, walking the line between honesty and what will offend Lorelai and make her walk away.
Emily takes a small breath, steels herself against the storm she knows she's tempting. "Do you love him?"
Lorelai turns to face her, a spark of something in her eyes. Lorelai can see Emily preparing herself for the hurtful words that will be flung her way, for the tone of her daughter's voice that cuts so deep. Emily's fortified herself so strongly she almost misses Lorelai's exhaled "yes," her nearly inaudible breath of an answer.
Lorelai's voice, barely more than a whisper, is thin and frayed. She sits, suddenly still, hands in her lap and looking straight ahead. The way she says it implies that it's not some great revelation, not some conclusion she's drawn in the heat of the moment, but a rational and real decision. Emily is taken aback by how old, suddenly, her daughter looks; the wrinkles around her eyes are more pronounced, the press of her lips is mature in its thoughtfulness. She's older, this woman who's just admitted to loving a man she may have pushed too far, than she's ever been before; she lowers her head, then looks into her mother's face.
Emily's looking at her with something like shock in her eyes, and something like respect, and something that's definitely compassion. Lorelai's eyes are dry now, finally, and she puts her hand over her mother's. "I love him."
Emily is speechless a moment: this statement of her daughter's has erased any tried and true ready response. The only thing she knows to do is gather Lorelai into her arms and hold her close, and tightly, and stroke the back of her head. Against her mother's shoulder, Lorelai's tears start fresh and she clutches at Emily's back. She can't remember the last time she did this, if she's ever done this before, cried so openly with her mother. But she's worn out now, worn out by this unfamiliar outburst of emotion, worn out teetering on the edge of losing what she values most. Emily hushes her and takes Lorelai's face in both of her hands.
"Lorelai, since you were a little girl, you've always fought for the things you wanted, for the things that were important to you. This isn't any different. You'll do what you have to, if you love him, to make this work." Emily thumbs a tear away from her daughter's face; Lorelai leans into her hand just slightly and Emily's eyes threaten to fill. "I think you need to tell him." She drops her hands, studies Lorelai's face.
"I know, Mom. I should've said it before, but...I don't know why I didn't, why I couldn't just tell him."
"Because you're a Gilmore, Lorelai. Sometimes it takes us losing someone to realize how much we love them." Emily looks into her daughter's eyes, and in that moment, Lorelai regrets fully everything that's ever come between her mother and her, regrets the things she's done to keep her at such a distance.
"Mom?" Lorelai lifts her chin, looks her mother fully in the eyes. "I love you."
Emily's face softens and the tears that threatened to spill over before now track silently down her cheeks. She clasps her hands tightly in her lap and looks down a long moment, collecting herself. When she looks back up, she's rubbing tears from her eyes. "I love you, too, Lorelai."
It's a moment that neither will forget, though both will never speak of it again. It's something private, something fragile, something that will break if they disturb it. Lorelai realizes that this is what she should've done earlier with Luke, let her guard down and been forward with him. She knows the situation wouldn't have been resolved, but maybe the ache in her heart wouldn't be quite so strong.
"Mom, I need you to tell me this'll work out." There's a pleading urgency in her voice, a willing blindness and hope for an answer that will magically make the situation better. But neither one believes in magic, and neither one makes false promises, so Emily does the best she can.
"Well," she sighs, "I can tell you that dinner's ready."
Lorelai lets out a small laugh; she wipes her face with her hands and takes a deep breath, turning to face her mother. "Dinner would be great."
They eat in relative silence, looking up frequently to watch the other for a moment. Lorelai knows she's bridged some great chasm tonight, that something about the events of the day are monumental. The situation with her mother, with Luke, they're the end of something old and the beginning of something better, she thinks. She doesn't know what to say to him to make him understand how she feels, but she knows now, looking up at Emily smiling slightly at her, that there are things in her life she's capable of overcoming.
After dinner, Lorelai gets her coat and heads to the door. Emily stands in the foyer, unsure of herself, watching Lorelai get ready to leave. Finally, she closes the gap between them and wraps her arms around her daughter.
"Good luck," she says over Lorelai's shoulder. Pulling away, Emily smoothes her daughter's hair. "It'll all work out."
Lorelai smiles faintly and squeezes her mother's hand. She glances over her shoulder before shutting the door, sees Emily alone in this giant house and is suddenly sad, suddenly determined.
Author(s): holylulalicious! (
lulabo & allthingsholy)Disclaimer: We're just borrowing. We promise to put them back where we found them.
Summary: "I love you," she says simply. She doesn't know if it'll matter, doubts that it will fix anything, but she's learned tonight that she can have the strength she's always thought she had if she's willing to be weak for just a moment.
Spoilers: General through Season Five
A/N: This was written as a collaboration between authors allthingsholy and LulaBo and is a first attempt at joint fiction. Please forgive us any rough patches; we're new to the compromising thing and tried our best to get this right. With help from Ruby Garnet and Arianna, it went through many, many revisions. Then it went through many, many more. Over the course of the summer, it grew larger and larger until finally it took on a life of its own. We apologize for the size; we too marvel at our own verbosity. We hope you enjoy it. Hopefully, it'll be the first of many joint attempts.
Note: Originally posted 10/7/04 (wow). LJ can't handle the bigness of the file, so it's split into two. This is 1/2
"I used to think my life was often empty, a lonely space to fill....More than words I tried to tell you; the more I tried I failed."
- Sarah McLachlan, "Plenty"
----
Lorelai whistles in the kitchen, and he knows he'll never understand how anyone can whistle disco. (He'll also never understand how she's got him listening to disco.) She's cleaning out the fridge while he watches the Yankees slaughter the Braves, his feet up on the coffee table. His hat is on the armrest and his toothbrush is in a cup in the bathroom; this is something that delights her more than him, though he doesn't really know that. He knows that in a minute she'll yell something completely profane, followed closely by his name in what he's sure she thinks is a coy voice, calling him to fix something or lift something or simply keep her company. He knows that he'll go, even though it means leaving behind the Yankees and being assaulted by the Bee Gees. He admits it reluctantly, but she definitely wears the pants in this relationship. Stylish and elegant, yet marvelously inexpensive pants, she adds in his head. This is evidenced by the fact that the Friday night dinner rush is about to start and he's left his diner in the questionably capable hands of Caesar and Lane for the second time this month.
"Fuck a monkey!" Luke hears and laughs to himself. Rodriguez hits into a double play, and he shakes his head. He holds his breath just a moment to see if he knows her as well as he thinks he does.
He does: Lorelai calls his name, drawing out the vowel in an attempt to sound like some kind of damsel in distress. He sighs, lifts himself from the couch, and walks into the kitchen.
She's sitting on the floor, surrounded by produce and bottles of soda. The Diet Coke is in there on her insistence, the lettuce on his. Her hair frames her face in a way that reminds him of midnight and rustling sheets. Their first time together, he'd been mesmerized by her hair and the way it was almost silver in the moonlight. Since then, he's been attentive to much more specific things. He's come to know her favorite spots for everything: a kiss, a touch, a breath. He's started mapping her body, the curves and crests, memorizing the movements she makes when she's above him. He's fairly certain that there's nothing more beautiful than the sight of her, barely visible in the darkness and haloed by the light from the window, face cast upward and arms at her sides, eyes closed and breath baited. He'll readily tell her that she's the most beautiful woman he's ever known, though he doesn't say it half as often as the thought crosses his mind.
She's juicy and she's in trouble, and he regards her a moment, sitting there looking so thoroughly pathetic. She swipes at the hair in her eyes and looks up at him, lip jutting out noticeably. "I think that since you're in charge of almost every perishable item in this house, you should clean the fridge," she says. She picks up a bag of broccoli from the floor. "This green, only slightly edible vegetable? Yours." She throws the bag at him and he catches it with ease. Next, she picks up a package of mushrooms. "These incredibly gross fungal specimens that we both know I'd never be caught dead eating? Most definitely yours." She throws the carton too low and he has to stoop to catch it.
He loves her like this, playful and easy. They both know she's not really complaining, just baiting him into conversation: she's become the master at getting more words out of him than anyone he's ever known. It's almost like a routine, and if it is then it's the more definite one they've got: she patronizes, he complains, she pouts, he gives in. It's something steady, like daytime or fishing season or the clearance at Bloomingdale's. It'd been awkward at first, the transition from friend to whatever they've become. Neither one is exactly sure where they stand, but they know it's better this way, that it's the thing that was always missing before.
Luke walks over to her, bypassing where she sits to open the freezer door. "One carton of Ben and Jerry's. Since I'm cleaning out the fridge, I've decided that this is the first thing to go." She's on her feet like she's defending her virtue rather than a half-eaten tub of Chubby Hubby.
"Close the freezer door and back away slowly. I don't want to have to get violent on your flannel-clad ass." She's staring him down like he's trying to steal the crown jewels, and he closes the door halfway. Raising a finger in warning, she narrows her eyes and motions for him to shut the door the rest of the way. He teases it, closing it inch by inch until the suction sound of plastic on metal is heard.
"Such a smart man, you are. You realize I'd leave you in a minute if Ben and Jerry came knocking on my door. My love for them is pure and unadulterated, it's not merely an infatuation," she says.
Luke lets rest the fact that she's called this thing mere infatuation as she steps towards him, hooks one finger in his belt loop and pulls him closer.
"Technically, my ass isn't flannel-clad. My boxers are cotton," he says, stooping slightly to kiss her. If he'd known that this was why she'd called him from the Yankee game, he wouldn't have complained half as much.
He wonders, as his hands go to her lower back, whether he's got any clean jeans upstairs, but quickly focuses on more important things. This is another of their routines, though one could only loosely call it that. He spends most nights at her house and has more than a casual few outfits in her closet. Though it's only been four months, they've gotten startlingly comfortable in the new boundaries of their relationship. There are some things that haven't changed: he still pours her coffee every morning, though the length of her visits at the diner is new; he still does all the household repairs, though he now helps himself to a beer and sprawls out on the couch after each fix-it session; she still nags him about his outfits, though now she's decided she likes his flannel better on her than on him.
Luke had worried, at first, how she'd react to having someone like him in her life; Lorelai never said, but she'd worried more than he had. In the beginning, it had been hard, the deciding of which imperfections to let show. She'd kept her habit of taking abnormally long showers a secret for weeks, though she'd let him know right away that she dog-ears her favorite pages of her favorite books and leaves her dishes in the sink. But it was easier in a lot of ways, she thought, having him know her so well already. He wasn't shocked by her caffeine intake or eating habits or the fact that she's never, if ever, on time. Likewise, she knew to expect rants on inane topics and the slight smell of grease and the beardburn. She thought for a moment that it was almost cheating, knowing so much about each other, but now she considers it reflective of the fact that this is really the best idea she's had in quite some time.
She's started to change little things about herself to make room for Luke in her life. The bathroom is perpetually cleaner and the bedroom floor at least visible in the most used paths. Most noticeably, she's started waking with him in the mornings though she's never been affected by an alarm clock in her life up to now. Every morning, he slides out of bed at 4:45 and tries not to wake her; every morning, she lets him believe he's succeeded. She waits until she hears the run of the shower before she opens her eyes and slides her hand to his rapidly cooling side of the bed. She's not quite sure why, but the indentation on his pillow stings her eyes every time. She's proud of herself, that she's come this far and not yet run away. Still, Lorelai knows there are things she needs to work on. She's never told him that she loves him, though she's fairly confident she does. She's never told him that she needs him, though she's fairly confident that she has for far longer than she'd ever admit.
It amazes her, the things she thought she knew about him that she's had to re-teach herself. She's learned to read between the lines of what he says, but she's still at a loss as to what his silences speak; she knows now what every line on his face indicates, but she still can't decipher what the touch of his hands seems to say. For being the least verbal person she knows–though she'll tell you proudly that he's on occasion started talking to her at such length that she's tuned him out–he communicates more than anyone she's ever been with.
Though she can't always read him, she knows what he's thinking when he starts kissing her like this, and she starts to drag him out of the kitchen and towards the stairs. They make it halfway up the staircase before the phone rings.
Lorelai drops her face and rests her forehead against Luke's chin. Closing her eyes and gripping his arms, she sighs. "Fuck a giant purple monkey, this time," she says, as she pushes off him and heads for the phone. Three rings down, he grabs her by the waist.
"You do have an answering machine, highly neglected and under-used," he tells her, his voice throaty.
He's pushed the hair away from her neck and is working at the tender skin behind her ear. This is her favorite side of him, she thinks, the part of his image that gets broken down only for her; when he's like this, she doesn't have to make any kinds of guesses at what he's thinking.
She turns to face him with every intention of giving in when she hears the machine click. "Gilmore residence: we're avoiding your call, so either take the hint or bother us further by not hanging up." She'd toyed with the idea of putting his name on the outgoing message but didn't want to have that conversation because of what it implied; she'd never made that much space in her life for someone else, he'd never liked to push his boundaries with her. It's not simple, this new melding of their separate lives, but it's easier than she'd expected it to be in most respects. She starts to draw his lips down to hers when she hears Rory's tinny machine voice echo around the living room.
"Mom, I don't know if you're there or not, but I wanted to let you know that–"
She's out of his arms faster than he can try to hold her, which is maybe Luke's biggest fear of all. He'd never exactly been there through the other men, the Maxes, the Christophers, the Jasons, but he'd watched from close enough to sense a definite pattern. She doesn't like to be held too tightly, he's learned, and she doesn't give anything up that she's not decided she can spare. He doesn't even admit to himself that he's disappointed that it's really been no different with him. He's tracked her relationships, has the advantage of knowing when she usually runs and the speed at which she's capable of leaving.
On the surface, these past months have been smooth sailing, but there's a current beneath, a riptide just dangerous enough to drag them both under. He loves her, though he's never actually been able to say it with words, but he's having a hard time working his way into the important parts of her life. He's almost sure that she doesn't do it on purpose and he's positive she feels for him deeply, but she still hasn't stopped moving, hasn't stopped staying just out of reach. He's tried to work away the distance, tried to stop her from compartmentalizing all the different aspects of her life, but hasn't much succeeded; try as he might, he's still on the edges of her life in many ways and he's not sure how much longer he can stand it.
She tucks the phone under her chin as she greets her daughter, throws him an apologetic glance over her shoulder on the way to the kitchen. Luke lowers himself down and sits on a stair, straining to hear the lilt of her voice, listening for sympathy or delight or collusion or motherliness. He's heard or overheard more conversations between the Lorelais than he can count, both on purpose and accidentally; he's always felt like a fly on the wall of the inner sanctum, but since his food and his clothes and his person have become fixtures in this house, he's been shooed out. He rests his elbows on his knees and waits.
Lorelai paces in the kitchen, chewing her lower lip. She knows he's waiting for her, knows he thinks he's been slighted and he's on the brink of severe frustration. Rory's already given her the everything's-fine-at-Yale-and-I'm-great-stop-worrying update and has moved on to the something's-come-up-and-I-can't-get-out-of-it phase of the conversation. Lorelai protests and Rory apologizes, and they go back and forth this way a few moments, mother wheedling, daughter resisting. Lorelai knows she won't get what she wants but she holds out as long as possible before Rory's voice takes on a stern edge and tells her to be a grown up and get over it. She sighs and there are I love yous and parting shots before the disconnection–no goodbyes, they don't do goodbyes in the Gilmore house.
Lorelai groans and slumps into a chair, already hearing the disappointment in her mother's voice that she's sure to find when she shows up alone, in the wrong outfit, saying the wrong things. She can already taste the disapproval that will ruin her dinner, sharp and metallic on the back of her tongue. And she'll do what she always does (and this is something she knows she won't ever tell him) when she finds herself in an emotional ditch: she'll think of Luke and then she'll claw her way back out.
She shakes her hair and makes her way down the hall, around the corner, stalks up the stairs till she's standing below him. She tilts her face up to him, bracing her hands on his knees. Luke keeps his head lowered as he looks up at her, and she knows this look by heart, this peeved and patient look. She gives him a smile for an apology that won't quite do. He lowers his eyes and draws a breath. Lorelai takes the opportunity for a sneak attack and kneels on the same stair where he rests his feet, placing herself squarely between his thighs. He lets her snake her arms around his neck, whisper kisses against his cheekbone.
"So," she says, "how does this one go again?"
"What's up with Rory?" he asks.
Lorelai tips her head back. "You really want to talk about Rory right now?"
When he only shrugs in response, she knows she's got something to make up for but damned if she knows exactly what it is. She won't brook resistance, this time, as she searches out his lips with her own. Her kiss is teasing, telling him to forget, and he's irritated that he'll give in, wants to swat his own hands away as they make for that favored spot on the small of her back. She leans into him and the kiss becomes something more than teasing: heady and sweet, needful. And he's not thinking of it as giving in as he hauls them both to their feet and they stumble up the last few stairs and down the hall, not giving in but taking what's being offered, holding onto it with both hands in a grip so fierce it bruises.
What Lorelai loves best–though what she loves best is something she can only think of later, when she's capable of articulate thought and the heat singing beneath her skin has abated a little–about being with Luke like this is the way he still surprises her. It never ceases to amaze her that she can know him backwards and forwards a hundred different ways, yet each time they come together is different. Every touch of his hands is new, even as he traverses familiar and well-explored territory. She wouldn't go so far as to say that every time they make love it's like the first time, because such sentiment is best reserved for really bad pop music, and besides that it really doesn't do the situation any justice. It's not like the first time, never like the first time. It's simply different: the single constant is change. She thinks this is something she can't get enough of–it's nothing she's ever had before, one more thing she won't think to tell him.
There are times when she lies in the curve of his arm, embarrassing him with pillow talk either too cutesy or too dirty for his liking, and she worries that the next time will be like this time, or last time, or any other time before; she worries that some day this will be like any other part of their routine, that they know each other all too well in too many ways for it to keep on like this. She thinks maybe this thing between them is like something old, refurbished and restored to new glory, but eventually the shine will wear away and they'll be left with the same thing they had before. Only it won't be the same as before because for a while, it was something bright and better and changed.
She shuts her eyes so as not to think of it today, presses her cheek into the hollow of his shoulder. Luke plays his fingers through her hair, winding and weaving it over his hand. She could begin her usual assault of verbal play, but he likes it best when it's quiet like this, when he can listen to the silence they so rarely share, and so Lorelai lets the impulse pass. She doesn't know how long they've stayed this way, a tangle of limbs and sheets, when she realizes he's fallen asleep. She raises her head, squints to read the hands on the fuzzy bedside clock. There's time for a shower and a cup of coffee before she has to leave to meet Emily if she hurries (which she won't, and so she'll be late like always). In his light sleep, he won't let her pull away; he wraps his arms about her tightly as she tries to disengage herself without waking him. She rests her chin on his chest.
"Luke," she whispers. He drowsily hushes her. "I have to go."
He opens one eye. "Go where?"
Luke hates the duh face, but she only ever remembers after she makes it. "Dinner with Emily," she says. "Much as I'd like to spend my evening listening to the symphonic overtures of your snore–and believe me, it's preferable to the alternative–I have to make an appearance at dinner. Clothed," she adds.
"Pity," he says. "And I don't snore."
Lorelai smiles and kisses him. "Yes, you do," she says.
He returns the kiss, speaks with his mouth against hers. "No, I don't."
She crawls over him towards the closet side of her bedroom. "I really do have to get ready. In more ways than one," she says. She wraps herself in a bathrobe and begins rooting through the contents of her closet.
"What's that mean?"
"Oh, Rory's not coming, so I'm entering the lion's den all by my lonesome. Lucky for me I have an arsenal of witty repartee with which to defend myself, and I have been known to avoid complete and total annihilation simply by confusing my opponents beyond their capability for rational thought. Still," she sighs, "I hate having to face my mother alone lately. I never know if I'm going to get Joan Crawford or Ivana Trump."
Luke swings his legs over the side of the bed. "I could go with you," he says.
She laughs. "Luke, that's like offering to be eviscerated for fun," she tells him. She looks over her shoulder. "You're very sweet, but I wouldn't ask you to put yourself through that on my account."
"You didn't ask," he replies, an almost undetectable sharpness to his voice. "I offered."
"And I am turning you down out of the goodness of my heart," Lorelai says lightly. "Trust me, Luke. This isn't something you want to do."
"Sure it is."
There's something in his tone she doesn't recognize, something close to dangerous. She knows they're on the edge of something but doesn't know how they got there or where they'll fall if they step too far. She has no idea why the air is suddenly thicker and her stomach's started to tie itself in knots. She wants to inch them back from where they stand, pretend she doesn't see something so close to anger in his eyes, the stiffness in his shoulders.
"Why would you? It's like the Russian roulette scene in The Deerhunter. And scary as Christopher Walken generally is, my mother is that much scarier, believe you me."
He's pulling on his jeans, his color rising slightly. "I'm not afraid of your mother."
He stares at his feet, seemingly gathering the strength for this all the way from his toes. He could let it rest, he knows that, but there are limits to the things a person can take before he starts to lose pieces of himself. He's not sure the exact distance, but he knows he doesn't have much further to go before he starts resenting her for the imposed barriers between the things she chooses to care about.
She's still faking ignorance, but he can see in the way she shifts on her feet that she's well aware of the line they're walking. Her tone is forced, all hollow sassiness as she speaks. "Well, that brings the global tally to three, then: Michel, my Gran, and you. Michel has only ever spoken to her in French–not Emily's native language–so clearly there was something lost in the translation, which means he doesn't count. Gran has gone on to greener pastures to further sow the seeds of discontent, so really, that leaves just you," she says. "And Emily would quickly show you the error of your ways."
"Would you give me a little credit, Lorelai?" he says. He stands beside the bed, his hands on his hips, his chest and feet bare. Despite the weight of the air in the room, he can see she's trying not to smile, can practically hear her thinking that it's impossible to take him seriously when he's half-naked like that, vulnerable and exposed and the opposite of fierce and offended. She's not helping the situation, smiling tolerantly like that. He hates that she thinks he's cute, that she's steering the conversation away from the serious. "I think I can handle her just fine."
"But you shouldn't have to," she says. "And you don't have to. It's fine–I'll go, she'll be passive aggressive, I'll say something inappropriate, she'll move past the passive part and just let loose with the aggressive, I'll roll my eyes, we'll leave a big tip, and we'll go our separate ways. It's an Oscar Wilde play without the droll civility or the pat ending."
She watches him walk around the room, picking through her dirty laundry for any and all articles that might belong to him. "Fine," he says curtly. "Do whatever you want."
Lorelai inhales sharply: the conversation's turned, taken on more than she intended. It's gotten bigger faster than she'd expected. "Luke, what is this? Why are you mad?"
"I'm not mad."
"Yes, you are. You're doing that thing with your eyes that you do when you're mad."
"I'm not mad!" he barks.
"Yes, you are!" she cries. "What? What's going on?"
Luke throws the small bundle of clothes he's collected as hard as he can against the wall and they fall with a soft, unsatisfying thud. He stares at the floor. "You don't want me to come with you," he says, his voice flat. "You'd rather suffer it alone than let me come with you."
"Well, yeah," she says. "What's wrong with that? I don't want to put you through the Chinese water torture that is dinner with Emily Gilmore."
"I want you to put me through that!" he bellows.
Lorelai is more used to being the one confusing than the one confused. Her forehead puckers and she works her lower lip between her teeth. She's seen him angry before, at varying intensities and volume levels; the dark flush under the stubble is something she knows she won't be able to laugh her way out of.
"Luke?"
He paces, his fingers laced behind his head. She wants him to wave a hand, tell her it's nothing, but she can tell by the erratic rhythm of his breathing she's about to be disappointed. He stops.
"Why don't you want me there?" he asks.
She's heard this tone before, pissed off and hurt and something else she's never been able to find the word for, something akin to hope, maybe–if the fluttering tightness she feels at her center whenever he pulls her close sounded like anything at all, she thinks it would be in the tremor of Luke's voice when he asks her this.
"It's not that I don't want you there," she says, "I'm just trying to protect you from a potentially scarring experience. Namely, any sort of interaction with my mother. What? What's wrong with that? I don't–"
"No, you don't, do you, Lorelai?" Luke asks wearily.
He's not entirely sure that the problem is that she just doesn't see the walls she's put up between the separate sections of her life. He has to give her more credit than being that oblivious or unaware. The thought makes him shudder, but he finds himself staring straight at the fact that there's a part of her that doesn't want him in her life. He blames it on shame, embarrassment, lasting emotional issues; whatever the fault, he's sick of ignoring it, of piecing together the parts of her life that she's willing to give up to him. He's not one for clichés, but as far as he's concerned this can only be all or nothing. He doesn't half-ass much and he isn't about to start with this relationship he's waited for so long.
"I want you to let me be there."
She tucks her hair behind her ears, passes her hand over her eyes. "Luke, we're talking about my mother, here." But they aren't, she knows, not really, and she has no idea how this managed to spin so far out of her control. "Things with us right now are–to say things between my mother and me are tense right now is a gross understatement. It's like saying the Empire State Building is sorta tall. Having you there, while it would be potentially entertaining and extremely comforting, is not going to make things easier for either one of us, and I don't want you in the middle of that."
"Why not? Why shouldn't I be in the middle of that? If I'm–and we're–what we are," he stutters, "then I want to be in the middle of that. I don't care if your mother threatens to take my tongue out of my mouth and serve it to me on a platter, I just want to be there."
"If she took your tongue out of your mouth, Luke, serving it to you on a platter would be sort of redundant, wouldn't it?" she says. She doesn't know where they are anymore and at least the sarcasm is familiar, as is the way he says her name in response. "Why, Luke? Why would you want to do that to yourself? I'm related to the woman and I don't want to do that to myself," she tells him. "You're not making any kind of sense, and traditionally, that's my strong suit, so I'm a little bit turned around here."
Luke sits on the bed, his head in his hands. "Am I in your life?" he asks. The sound of his own voice falls on his ears and he hates the way he sounds: desperate, hopeful, and more than a little bit broken.
"What? How can–you're in my life, of course you're in my life, I cannot believe that you even just asked me that," she says, and she knows as she says it he'll think it's come out too quickly. She's almost figured out what the problem is here, she's catching up to his rapidly moving train of thought; she knows it's not exactly fair, the games she plays, intentionally or not, but she doesn't know how to stop playing long enough to stand still. There are still too many parts of herself she can't look at closely enough to fix.
"Am I really in your life, Lorelai?" He raises his head, looks her full in the eye.
This is the denouement, she knows, the summit of where he's been headed all along. She knows she's one toe over the edge but doesn't know how to pull back and answer the look he's giving her. He's radiating so much and it's all seeping into her, searing her skin and her eyes and the back of her throat, and if she could go to him she would, but they're on opposite sides now and if she takes a step towards him she'll fall.
"Luke–I–"
"Because if I were really in your life, I'd be going to this dinner with you. I'd be involved. I'd be there. For all of it. You just–you won't let me in. You've been keeping me at arm's length since we started this thing and I just can't keep doing this to myself," he says.
Her eyes are bright; she looks as though at any moment she'll sink where she stands, dissolve. He doesn't want to think about how he's the one causing her eyes to fill, her cheeks to blossom with hurt and confusion. He knows he could rise and go to her, he could take her in his arms and tell her he's being stupid and they'd both try and forget the whole conversation happened. But he knows it would only worry at them, stay between them and grow until they couldn't see around it anymore. And he's tired, exhausted in his bones, so he stays where he is.
"What I want is to be with you. That's all I want. You just won't let me do it."
Lorelai crosses her arms, hugs herself. "You are with me. I don't know what you want me to say, Luke. I don't even know why we're fighting about this. Yet another thing to thank my mother for. See? This is what I'm trying to avoid–I don't want her stirring things up. I don't want her–"
"This isn't about your mom and you know it," Luke says. "Don't change the subject. I'm trying to talk to you."
There's a bite in his voice, an audible sign that his patience with her is past thin. He's not a cruel man, he never has been, and he's not one for causing pain. But the things that are important to him–his family, his work, and now her–these things are what he'll fight for, what he saves his words for. He's not sure why he's pushing this now, tonight, why he's put so much distance between them when just moments ago she was in his arms; he does know that sometime between the feel of her palm pressed against his chest and the lightness in her voice as she turned down his offer, she changed the rules, changed the game they were playing. He has a hard time keeping up with the separate sections of her mind, and tonight he's finished being two steps behind.
The naked emotion in his eyes startles her and she's suddenly frightened by the feeling of him slipping away. She knows she should apologize, let him come to the dinner, make him realize that she'd been right all along as he walked away from Emily with his tail between his legs, but something in her stops the words before she says them and she's pushing him further away before she knows how to stop herself. She's all defiance and hard edges when she's backed up against a wall and the look that he's giving her leaves her no room to move.
"I can't do this with you now, Luke. I have to get to Hartford."
It's the absolute wrong thing to say and she knows it, knows he's right and she should shove herself out of her own way and make it up to him, but she's more her mother's daughter than she likes to admit. She turns her back to him, rummages through the closet without seeing a single article of clothing.
"Damn it, Lorelai!"
Even he's surprised by the strength of his voice and the frustration and pain echoing around the room. She freezes up, almost flinches from the sound. For a moment, she considers telling him to keep it down, that Babette and Morey are just next door, but thinks better of it this time as she hears him stand and cross the room.
Luke pulls the first shirt he can find over his head. "You can put your life in boxes all you want with other people, Lorelai. You can keep your parents out of the Stars Hollow box and you can keep the Inn and Rory there, but that's not something you can do with me. I won't go in the Stars Hollow box, and I won't go in the boyfriend box, either, outside family and work and everything else. I can't do it, Lorelai. I don't do boxes."
She knows he's not wrong, that this is what she does, how she sees the different parts of her life, but her throat's too tight and her mind's too full for her to say anything, let alone to ask for forgiveness.
He's just behind her now and battling the urge to physically turn her to face him. His teeth are clenched and his voice low; she'd be afraid of him if she didn't know that she deserves every harsh word he can throw her way, if she didn't know hurting her even this much is hard enough for him.
"This can't be halfway. This can't be what it is only when it's convenient for you. I can't do that. I can't. I want you to let me be there, wherever, whenever, for whatever–that's what I want. That's all I've ever wanted from this."
She thinks that if she were a different person, she'd look him in the eye, she'd apologize and mean it as she told him she'd be better, but she's too unfamiliar with admitting she's wrong to even turn around. If she does, she knows he'll see her almost broken and that's not fair to either of them. So she stays where she is, silent, one hand on her stomach and the other clutching her favorite black skirt. She thinks that if he were a different person, he would have stopped talking long ago and walked out of the house, but she knows that he's started and won't finish until he's said all the things he's wanted to say for weeks now.
He stares at her back, focuses on the slight rise and fall of her shoulders. He's far enough gone now to put the last of it on the line and he dives in before he really has a chance to think of the downside.
"I love you, Lorelai, and that isn't something I can only do part of the time. That's not the kind of man I am, and you should know that by now."
He's lost some of his edge; the bite in his voice is gone. She knows this side of him, recognizes the part almost pleading with her to turn around and tell him he's not wrong, that she loves him, too, that there's room enough for him in her life and she's more than willing to accommodate. She clutches the skirt tighter and digs her fingers into her abdomen. For reasons she doesn't even fully understand, she can't find it in herself to tell him that she does know him, does want to be with him, and that she's more in love with him than she really thinks is safe.
"Lorelai, please, I–"
His voice cracks and he grips her elbow. She feels the finality in his fingertips, senses that this is the end of something that's gotten too big to control. He slides his hand down her arm, lets her go, and she only knows she's crying when she tastes the salt on her lips, only hears his retreating footsteps just as she turns to face him.
She watches him leave, sees his blurred shape pass through the door. When he's gone, she crosses the room and lowers herself to the bed. She sits, silent and stunned. It seems sudden, his leaving; she's dizzy with the speed of it and can hardly catch her breath. She closes her eyes, tries to still herself, knowing it wasn't sudden at all.
She had better reasons for leaving in the past, she thinks. She ran from Max because she couldn't give up the space that belonged to her–her home, her town, her head, her heart. Independence is a tricky thing: she's discovered you can want it all your life, and when you get it, spend the rest of your life trying to give it up again. She's still trying. There were times when she could have, she thinks; she could have done it for Christopher, once–the things she'd need to give away were things he'd already had, maybe even things he'd given her. But the stars didn't align properly and in the end she thinks it was better that way. There would always be doubt, always be an edge of caution with him. She even thinks it would almost be like playing house, trying to go back and do it right when it's already all been done. But she's too old to play games and she knows it and what's more is now she knows that Luke is exactly what she's always needed because he doesn't know how to play games.
She tries to process the fight as she forces herself to stand and mechanically get dressed. She thinks she could have handled it better, said the things she wanted to, and maybe he'd still be here and they'd be laughing and kissing and everything would be fine.
But it wouldn't be, she knows. This sudden battle started because he doesn't let her play games: he'd make her be honest. She wouldn't be able to hide anything from him. She knows she's transparent as far as he's concerned. If he can see through her, he'd see the doubt and the guilt and the shame, see it coming long before she would, because she's certain it'll come. Lorelai knows that as well as Luke knows her, she knows herself, too. She loves him–loves him more than she'd thought she would, than she thought she could–and it's because she loves him that she keeps herself dancing just out of his reach. She loves him enough to want to protect him. The deeper she gets in with him, the more afraid she is of what she'll do to him. She knows she's hurt him today–and when she thinks of it, walking down the stairs, her breath stops in her chest and she has to sit until she can remember how to draw air into her lungs–but it's a smaller hurt, it's an easier hurt than what will come.
As she drives to Hartford, she can see it all happening: she'd stay with him, keep falling for him, and eventually she'd hit the bottom, look around and find herself flat on her back, loving him, needing him. But she'd turn her head to find him and he'd still be falling–he'll love her more than she's capable of loving him. It's a narcissistic, terrible thought and for a moment she hates herself more for her own arrogance than anything else, but she knows it's true. It's the one thing that keeps her distant, more than wanting to compartmentalize, more than wanting to keep herself to herself and have the things that are hers belong to her and her alone: she doesn't know how to love that way.
One of the reasons she loves movies is the knowledge that life can't be like that, and it's nice to have the illusion, even if it's only for ninety minutes. She won't be swept off her feet, she won't love herself sick, she won't run through airports or kiss in the falling rain or any of the things she's seen. Lorelai knows you can love someone too much, you can love him until he's the sun and he lights the world around you, makes it possible for you to live and thrive and be. But loving someone that way gives him too much power–one of these days, he'll look over and see what he's got and it won't be enough, she won't be enough, or he'll suddenly see all the small, mean parts of herself she keeps tucked in her pocket and he'll walk away. When he does, she'll be left in the dark alone. Maybe that's the thing that's kept her so independent so long, not wanting to let someone have that sort of sway over her life–she boxes people up so she's always in control, always sure that there's enough light to get by.
So she loves just enough. Loving Luke is easy, all too easy, and that way it's dangerous. She knows how to love just enough, how to love without being consumed. It's a careful orchestration, a balancing act, and Luke has already called her on it. She knows loving him just enough, loving him the way she knows how, isn't going to be enough to hang on to him. Loving just enough is what will make him leave. She's stopped at a red light and stares at her steering wheel a long moment. He's put her some place she's never been before, walking a rope between loving enough and loving too much.
It isn't fair to him. Luke deserves to be loved the way she wants to love him; he deserves to be the sun because he really is good enough for it. It's the way he loves, she knows. He won't be happy being the one loving more, the one loving better, and it'll make him go. It'll make him go and it will break him, and she can't have that. She loves him enough not to want him to hurt on her account, because she's not worth it. She loves him enough that the idea of pushing him away just by loving him makes her itch beneath her skin, makes the back of her throat burn, makes her stomach acidic and angry. But if she loves him more than just enough, if she's the one loving more, loving better, she'll still lose him because she's not bright enough to be the sun and when he realizes the world around him has dimmed, he'll leave her and she'll be in the same place, but alone and broken and full to the brim with feeling meant to be given away and with no one left to take it.
It's the little things, she thinks, that got to him. She's never been able to match his stride, run forward at the breakneck pace at which he wants this to work. The happy medium between his eagerness and her reluctance to upset the balance has eluded them. They've tried to ignore the distance, the disparity between his momentum and hers, but she can't catch up and they both know it.
She hasn't told Luke about the urge she's had to grab him in the mornings as he slides out of bed, the intense fear of his not coming back. She's gotten in this deeper than she'd expected to and now she's worried that when he leaves, when he decides she's really not worth it after all, he'll take so much of her with him that she'll never be the same person. He has no idea of the ferocity of her affection, of the need with which she holds him, and the lengths she knows she'd go to keep him scare her more that most things. She knew he'd reach his limit eventually, but she thought she'd had a while left to salvage a few pieces of herself, to try and pull the important things back out. But she didn't have enough warning this time, so now he's gone and taken her whole heart with him.
She pulls up to the house, an extra half hour added on to the usual drive time, and sits in the Jeep for awhile to fix her makeup and compose herself. She's pretty sure she's unsuccessful. As she walks up the drive, she tries to come up with excuses for her appearance and her tardiness, but all she can think of is the hurt in Luke's eyes and the slump of his shoulders as he sat with his head in his hands. She's never enjoyed causing anyone pain, but the fact that she's hurt Luke, this man who's done anything and everything for her, this man that she loves, eats at her insides until she's all twisted up and ringing the doorbell in tears.
"Lorelai?" Emily answers the door, is taken aback by the sight of her daughter biting back the anguish she's emanating. Lorelai raises her head and wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand.
"Mom, hi," she sniffs, fingers mascara out of the corner of her eye. "Where's the maid?" Her voice is unbalanced, void of the usual life and wit, full of grief and heartache.
"Lorelai, what's the matter with you? What happened?" Emily's hand is at her daughter's elbow, pulling her into the foyer. Lorelai doesn't resist, doesn't put up her usual fight at being lead somewhere, and Emily knows that something's really wrong. She tightens her fingers around Lorelai's wrist and stares up into her face. She sees red-rimmed and puffy eyes and her heart breaks a little for the pain that's so evident.
Lorelai's head is down, avoiding her mother's gaze. She doesn't want to be here, doesn't want to talk about it, not with anyone and least of all with Emily. Her mother hasn't ever disapproved of her relationship with Luke, which, shockingly enough, has caused more of a rift than either had expected. When Emily found out that she and Luke were dating, the sly smile and 'I told you so' that settled into her mother's eyes had driven Lorelai over the edge. Emily had listened with an almost condescending satisfaction and Lorelai had resisted the urge to walk right out of the room.
Emily didn't do it on purpose, has never intentionally done anything to try and push her daughter from her life, but Lorelai knows she couldn't resist rubbing in just a little that she knew Lorelai better than her daughter would admit. Unfortunately, what Emily had thought would be evidence of the fact that she's paid more attention over the years than she's ever gotten credit for turned into yet another thing Lorelai thought was judging. They've never shared a common language and they both know that–Lorelai doesn't expect Emily to say the right thing any more than Emily herself feels prepared to do, and she's too surprised to pull away when her mother takes her chin in hand and forces her eyes, rapidly refilling with tears, to meet her own.
"Lorelai?" Emily's voice is gentle, not questioning or probing or anything that Lorelai has reason to take offense over. Still, she can't help the sharp edges she takes on when she's this hurt and she pulls away from her mother's hand.
"I don't want to talk about it, Mom." She shrugs out of her coat and heads into the parlor, her gait leaving no room for sympathy.
Emily follows, slower, not wanting to push her daughter any farther away. Lorelai's sitting on the sedan with her coat in her lap brushing tears off of her cheeks. Emily's eyes sting seeing her daughter, always so strong, look so fragile. She crosses the room and sits next to Lorelai tentatively, braced against the fight she's sure will come.
Lorelai doesn't move, doesn't lash out. She sits, still as stone, and lets tears run from her eyes. She hurts inside, has never hurt like this before, and thinks that bottling it up and keeping it inside is maybe why there's so much pain. Letting it out, releasing a little into the world, maybe that will make the tightness in her chest fade slightly, will give her back the ability to breathe.
Emily puts her hand on Lorelai's knee and immediately Lorelai dissolves. Her shoulders slump forward and her arms go limp–she can't keep herself from breaking down, from responding to the slight touch of her mother's hand, though she knows at any other moment she would do her damnedest and succeed. Silently, she shakes with sobs and Emily sits with her daughter's head on her shoulder, one arm wrapped around her and a palm pressed to her back.
After several minutes of sniffling and tissues, Lorelai is still. "He left."
The admission stings her throat, leaves an evil taste in her mouth that's usually reserved for migraines and horrible Friday night dinners. She knows this Friday is one of her worst but she also knows that it's entirely her doing.
Emily is silent as she sits and waits for the rest of whatever Lorelai needs to say. "We fought and he yelled and then he left." Lorelai chokes on a bitter laugh, the irony of it. "Luke left."
This is unfamiliar territory for these women who've never shared their feelings with each other; Emily knows it should be easier, isn't sure exactly who's at fault for it being this difficult. She doesn't know exactly what to say, isn't sure what's safe and what's too much, so she keeps her questions simple, her statements basic.
"Why did you fight?" Emily heads forward with caution.
Lorelai fidgets in her lap, works hand over hand as she tries to figure out what to say. She doesn't know what happened exactly, though she knows what it all comes down to. She's sidestepped him too many times, avoided owning up to anything she knows she's guilty of. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and says, "He wanted to come to dinner with me tonight and I wouldn't let him. He thinks that's important, that it means that I don't want him in my life." She pauses, eyes down, wavers between the truth and the thing that's easier to say. "He told me that he loves me." Lorelai shuts her eyes, fights the tears, wills the lump in her throat to lessen just a little; she doesn't succeed.
She can't see the confusion on her mother's face, that Emily doesn't see what the problem is. She recognizes the familiar trick Emily uses as she sticks to what's safe: repetition. "He told you he loves you."
Lorelai's shoulders shake and she presses a hand to her chest; she doesn't know if it's entirely possible, but she's almost sure that she can feel her heart breaking. It's a pain behind her ribs like shards of glass, like splinters and ragged edges. Even she can hear it in her voice as she speaks, knows her mother will, too, but the pain overwhelms any resolve she might have and she doesn't really care. "He told me that I don't let him into my life, that he loves me... And I couldn't say anything." She covers her mouth with her hand, tries to force what she's said to be untrue.
Lorelai's never really given it much thought because it would mean admitting she's been as much in the wrong as those she thinks are wronging her, but she knows somewhere beyond words that Emily understands the frustration that drove Luke out better than anyone. They both know the reasons Lorelai wouldn't bring Luke here, didn't want him here; it's another thing that Lorelai would never admit, never verbalize, but she knows how it's hurt Emily to be shut out just as much as she knows Luke's reasons for leaving aren't bare figments of his imagination. She's grateful Emily doesn't say all the things she has a right to–just as much as Luke–all the things that she's been saving up so long. She's grateful that Emily is willing to withstand the wounds sharp edges can inflict and hold her close, that they've come far enough together for Emily to hold her tongue, not to tell her the things about herself she'll never understand. She lets Emily stroke her hair and keep those things to herself, things like the knowledge that Lorelai is someone who can't quite help how it's so easy and so hard to love her. Rather than say anything so hollow as false comfort, Emily clasps Lorelai's hands in her own, wipes a tear away, struggles to look her daughter in the eye. This is the part that's always been hardest, walking the line between honesty and what will offend Lorelai and make her walk away.
Emily takes a small breath, steels herself against the storm she knows she's tempting. "Do you love him?"
Lorelai turns to face her, a spark of something in her eyes. Lorelai can see Emily preparing herself for the hurtful words that will be flung her way, for the tone of her daughter's voice that cuts so deep. Emily's fortified herself so strongly she almost misses Lorelai's exhaled "yes," her nearly inaudible breath of an answer.
Lorelai's voice, barely more than a whisper, is thin and frayed. She sits, suddenly still, hands in her lap and looking straight ahead. The way she says it implies that it's not some great revelation, not some conclusion she's drawn in the heat of the moment, but a rational and real decision. Emily is taken aback by how old, suddenly, her daughter looks; the wrinkles around her eyes are more pronounced, the press of her lips is mature in its thoughtfulness. She's older, this woman who's just admitted to loving a man she may have pushed too far, than she's ever been before; she lowers her head, then looks into her mother's face.
Emily's looking at her with something like shock in her eyes, and something like respect, and something that's definitely compassion. Lorelai's eyes are dry now, finally, and she puts her hand over her mother's. "I love him."
Emily is speechless a moment: this statement of her daughter's has erased any tried and true ready response. The only thing she knows to do is gather Lorelai into her arms and hold her close, and tightly, and stroke the back of her head. Against her mother's shoulder, Lorelai's tears start fresh and she clutches at Emily's back. She can't remember the last time she did this, if she's ever done this before, cried so openly with her mother. But she's worn out now, worn out by this unfamiliar outburst of emotion, worn out teetering on the edge of losing what she values most. Emily hushes her and takes Lorelai's face in both of her hands.
"Lorelai, since you were a little girl, you've always fought for the things you wanted, for the things that were important to you. This isn't any different. You'll do what you have to, if you love him, to make this work." Emily thumbs a tear away from her daughter's face; Lorelai leans into her hand just slightly and Emily's eyes threaten to fill. "I think you need to tell him." She drops her hands, studies Lorelai's face.
"I know, Mom. I should've said it before, but...I don't know why I didn't, why I couldn't just tell him."
"Because you're a Gilmore, Lorelai. Sometimes it takes us losing someone to realize how much we love them." Emily looks into her daughter's eyes, and in that moment, Lorelai regrets fully everything that's ever come between her mother and her, regrets the things she's done to keep her at such a distance.
"Mom?" Lorelai lifts her chin, looks her mother fully in the eyes. "I love you."
Emily's face softens and the tears that threatened to spill over before now track silently down her cheeks. She clasps her hands tightly in her lap and looks down a long moment, collecting herself. When she looks back up, she's rubbing tears from her eyes. "I love you, too, Lorelai."
It's a moment that neither will forget, though both will never speak of it again. It's something private, something fragile, something that will break if they disturb it. Lorelai realizes that this is what she should've done earlier with Luke, let her guard down and been forward with him. She knows the situation wouldn't have been resolved, but maybe the ache in her heart wouldn't be quite so strong.
"Mom, I need you to tell me this'll work out." There's a pleading urgency in her voice, a willing blindness and hope for an answer that will magically make the situation better. But neither one believes in magic, and neither one makes false promises, so Emily does the best she can.
"Well," she sighs, "I can tell you that dinner's ready."
Lorelai lets out a small laugh; she wipes her face with her hands and takes a deep breath, turning to face her mother. "Dinner would be great."
They eat in relative silence, looking up frequently to watch the other for a moment. Lorelai knows she's bridged some great chasm tonight, that something about the events of the day are monumental. The situation with her mother, with Luke, they're the end of something old and the beginning of something better, she thinks. She doesn't know what to say to him to make him understand how she feels, but she knows now, looking up at Emily smiling slightly at her, that there are things in her life she's capable of overcoming.
After dinner, Lorelai gets her coat and heads to the door. Emily stands in the foyer, unsure of herself, watching Lorelai get ready to leave. Finally, she closes the gap between them and wraps her arms around her daughter.
"Good luck," she says over Lorelai's shoulder. Pulling away, Emily smoothes her daughter's hair. "It'll all work out."
Lorelai smiles faintly and squeezes her mother's hand. She glances over her shoulder before shutting the door, sees Emily alone in this giant house and is suddenly sad, suddenly determined.
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Date: 2010-03-13 03:33 pm (UTC)It has been great fun rereading this.
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Date: 2010-03-21 08:07 am (UTC)