Dark Roman Whine

Summary: Lorelai, a lonely night in Rome... and Luke? AU, of course, but what's life without a re-write? Spoilers for S3-4. Longish oneshot.

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Humor

AN: What I wish would've happened. Timeline my own and screwy, but hey, it's fanfic, not reality. Also, I love the Snow Patrol song Dark Roman Wine, so I punned on its title for this. I have a very odd mind. Run with it. (Or from it. Whatever.) Hope this posts right. Last time, glitches resulted in gaps and typos. Still getting used to FF. Apologies.

GG GG GG

Somewhere in Rome, Italy...

Lorelai Gilmore leaned back and stared at the stars. Somewhere, far away, those stars shone down on Connecticut. Alaska, too. And on her daughter, Rory, who was chatting excitedly with some Canadians at the hostel. One went to Harvard. Another went to Cambridge, in England. They were discussing the Renaissance. She'd left when Rory started taking notes. It was so... Rory.

Restless, Lorelai had walked to a café, but coffee was not a consolation.

Coffee was Luke.

Luke was Mister Nicole.

Lorelai had bought Luke nice clothing. This wasn't the point. Nicole convinced Luke to not wear flannel. For Nicole, Luke changed the menu. Skinny perfect Nicole who took Luke on a cruise, and why had Luke even asked Lorelai's opinion? He was with Nicole.

Was this how Luke felt when she asked about Max? Only... She'd been not-with-Max. Not really. She'd asked him if she should be. Or she thought she'd asked that. And she hadn't even been with Max the way Luke was with Nicole.

Lorelai sighed into her fancy Italian coffee. She'd love a cup of Luke's. She'd been so good, not thinking about Luke. Nicole. Flannel. Menus. Now, though, she couldn't help herself. She had to wonder. What next? New paint?

Self-pity rose in her throat. Lorelai could appreciate the paint in the diner, how important it was not to stray too far from the original colors, to keep spots unspruced. Nicole couldn't. So why was Luke on the Love Boat to Alaska with Nicole? Dating Nicole? Who got him out of flannel...

Oh God. Luke out of flannel. She needed iced coffee. Fast.

Maybe, Lorelai mused as she left the wholly inadequate coffee on the tiny table at the tiny café, maybe she was the one who had it all wrong. Maybe Nicole was Luke's perfect match.

Lorelai's body hitched. She wasn't sure, but she might have thrown up in her mouth at that thought. Just a little. She paused, leaning on the stonework around a fountain.

A man hesitated, frowning at her. The woman wrapped around his arm hissed at him, but he asked Lorelai, "Tutto bene?"

"Um?" she attempted. Where was Rory with her magic dictionary? Oh right. Making friends, having fun, living life. "Yeah. Uh. Si, bene, grazie."

She knew ten words of Italian, including those related to coffee, but those three sufficed to send the happy couple strolling away. Together. Chatting and laughing.

Lorelai moped her way from the fountain to a terrace with a view. In daylight, at least. At night? It showed lights from buildings where people ate supper and made love and raised families and laughed. Unaware that Lorelai Gilmore wanted to be on a cruise ship in Alaska. Hiding behind a potted plant like Meg Ryan in a rom-com with Kevin Kline, to find out if she had been wrong about Luke Danes from the start. McScruffy McGrumpy with the heart of gold liked skinny, impeccably groomed, ambitious lawyers. Not free-and-easy photographers. Not high-strung coffee-addicted inn managers.

She stared intently at the stars beyond the falling haze that she told herself was romantic mist and not smog. No answer came to the thousand questions escaping the rigorous discipline of babble, bits and bright distractions.

She sank to a stone bench. She rested her chin on her hand, her elbow on the balustrade, and ignored her uncomfortable backside. She deserved a pain in her ass. She was a pain in the ass. That was how she eventually got her way with Luke, wasn't it? Not friendship. Not love. Not heart-truths. She annoyed him into submission.

"Oh God," she whimpered. "I'm Emily!"

"Lorelai?"

"And now I'm hallucinating," she groaned, and pounded her forehead with her palms. "Out, evil spirits, out! The pope's around here somewhere! I'll sic the pope on you!"

"You aren't Catholic."

"So what, the pope is," replied Lorelai nonsensically, and blinked out at the hazed night. "Wait. Did my imaginary Luke just talk back to me? Oh God, it's the coffee! I've got coffee poisoning!"

"Now that I'd believe."

Lorelai slammed her hands over her ears. "No no no. I am not hearing you. La la la! Do re me fa sol la ti do! Do ti la sol fa me re do!"

Pigeons burst out of some hidden recess and flew panicking into the night.

"Geez, can't you be not dramatic for once?"

Lorelai snarled, pushing her eyes into her head with her palms until she saw little sparkling starbursts. "Great. Even imaginary-Luke doesn't like me."

"Turn around."

Well, her hallucination certainly looked like Luke. She scowled. "You have stubble. And you're wearing plaid. It's short-sleeved, but it's plaid. And that's a baseball cap! Am I seriously hallucinating you in weather-appropriate Luke-ish attire?"

Forehead twisted into a knot, Luke Danes said, "What the hell kind of coffee have you been drinking?"

Relief flooded her. An accurate Luke! Just what she needed. Not Nicole-Luke, but her Luke! "Italian, and it sucks, it's nowhere near as good as yours and it has Rory leaving me for a bunch of Canadians talking about statues and I'm talking to myself because there's no one else who wants to hear me and even I'm sick of me!"

Luke's eyebrows tried to reach his hairline. Had it not been sneakily receding, they might have succeeded. "Are you okay?"

Her imagination was too accurate. Darn monosyllabic Luke! "Of course I'm not okay! I'm all alone and no one wants me and I don't get anything right, and the one time I finally do get it right, Rory turns around and says it was wrong anyway and do you have any idea what it's like to hear something for years and years and believe it and then find out it's not true?"

Luke replied evenly, "Gonna guess we're not talking about Santa Claus."

"Ugh!" she said, shoving at his chest. It felt startlingly real for a hallucination, but then, Lorelai knew she had a good imagination. "Even my imaginary friends don't understand me!"

Hallucination-Luke perched against the balustrade, arms crossed against his chest. Exactly like he'd be in the diner other than the short sleeves and the fact he was wearing a baseball cap that said Alaska or Bust!, in dainty embroidery along the back. "Who exactly is your imaginary friend?"

"You!"

Luke pointed to his chest. "Me?"

"You!" repeated Lorelai, sinking to the bench again. "I know it's sleep deprivation and weird food and that disgusting excuse for coffee, but yeah, if you're gonna pop up and be this really amazing hallucination, then yeah, you!"

Scowling, Luke took off the cap, ran a hand over his hair, slapped the cap against his jeans, and replaced it. Backwards, of course, but not before Lorelai saw the cruise ship on its front. "Me. I'm imaginary."

"Agh!" cried Lorelai, running her hands through her hair until her curls became a wild mass around her face. "Yes! A real friend would've told me he had a Rachel, hello, we met right after the second or third or millionth time she left and I didn't know about her till the sweatshirt incident! Then she came back and she's drop-dead gorgeous like Elle McPherson and she has that outdoorsy hiking-and-granola glow, and a real friend would've told me he likes skinny lawyers so I wouldn't be making an ass of myself to myself with a bunch of people probably getting ready to call the Italian equivalent of Bob Newhart!"

"What does Bob Newhart have to do with..."

"See? See?" she accused, on her feet and pointing an accusing finger at him. "That's it! Right there! Bob Newhart! Famous! Show! He played a shrink! Or psychologist! Whatever! The point is..." She stopped suddenly, head tipping to one side. "Wait. If I imagined a Luke, wouldn't he know what I know, and know Bob Newhart? No, wait, I'd know that Luke wouldn't know Bob Newhart, so of course my imaginary Luke wouldn't know about Bob Newhart!"

"Okay, you're scaring me now."

"Yeah, right, exactly," she pouted, and flipped her hair off her sweaty cheek. "Exactly. I scare Luke. I repulse Luke. I have no freaking idea what goes on in Luke's head. I thought I did, right up until he became Mister Nicole!"

With that, the last of Lorelai's manic energy fled, and she folded up, mouth quivering to hold in a sob.

"Go away," she mumbled, and turned her back on her too-real hallucination. "Go away. Go back to Alaska and your cruise and your lawyer and your fancy shirts and," she hiccupped, "and your cocktail parties and smelly cheeses!"

"Cheeses?"

Forlorn, Lorelai sneezed because part of the charm of Rome in summer seemed to be air that had a physical presence, not unlike salt off an ocean, but less pleasant. "Is my mother going to appear next? Is this the Roman Holiday version of Dickens, only I don't get to look nearly as cute as Audrey Hepburn?"

"I have no idea where to even start with all that."

"Of course not. I'm just Lorelai the ditzy flaky flighty does-no-right only-does-wrong Gilmore! Fetch the forklift, it's baggage time!"

"No more Italian coffee for you."

"And I'm here alone whining to my imagination! While real you is on a ritzy cruise with Kathie Lee Gifford singing the theme song and you and the skinny lawyer get glacier tans and feed baby polar bears."

Luke's face quirked as it only could when trying to translate Lorelai into everyday English. "Uh-huh."

"Oh hush you. I mean, me," groused Lorelai, and let her head fall back. The stars were dim, but visible. "I did so well until tonight. I really did."

Her hallucination felt so real. Warm and sweat-making next to her on the stone bench in the humid swirl of the city night. "Can you tell me what this is about? In fifty words or less. Please, less than fifty."

Studying the stars in hopes of finding one to wish upon, Lorelai rattled out the agonizing truth. "Rory always wanted me with Chris until suddenly Chris goes off with Sherry and now Rory says it's okay to not be with her dad, all her life she wanted me to make Chris come and stay with her, and she said I couldn't date Luke, because I'd just mess it up and we'd starve, and I know that's way more than fifty words but it's years of hearing Emily and Rory telling me I should be with Chris and finally Chris actually wants it for all of three days and then he doesn't, I'm not good enough again, and it's all pointless anyway because anyone who likes skinny wine-tasting carrot-nibbling lawyers won't like me, and I thought we were friends, but it turns out this person I think is my best friend is someone I don't know at all. It's like life is this huge test I keep failing, and nobody tells me where to find the study guide!"

Mouth ajar, eyebrows tangled, Luke remarked, "Wow. Do you ever breathe?"

Lorelai rapped her own head. "Stop. I hate it when I mock me. It's not nice to mock me when I'm down. Even I know that. And I was a really good student in school. Just because I flunked birth control doesn't mean I wasn't smart at other things!"

"Hey," soothed imaginary-Luke, the way she wanted real-Luke to, "I know you're smart. Rory couldn't get it from her father."

She snorted wetly, and scrambled in her pockets. Paper napkins from a variety of cafes spilled out. She blew her nose noisily. She squeaked out a tiny laugh. "No. She has Chris's knack for getting along with everyone no matter what. I'm too much like my mother, God help me, I said that out loud, but it's true, growing up with Emily breathing down my neck like a demented dragon was great training for the hospitality industry. I could make my bed so a quarter bounced off it when I was six, and I can tell ivory from ecru from cream from winter white at a glance. I can plan events and run parties in my sleep. I think I have." She turned a small sad smile on her hallucination. "You're easy to talk to, imaginary-Luke. Like real-Luke used to be. But Nicole doesn't like me, so I don't have my friend anymore, so I'm hallucinating that I do because it's two in the morning and I'm all alone in Rome and now I'll never know if real-Luke meant to kiss me when we were painting the diner or..."

Warm, stubbly lips slid over her tear-dampened cheek and to her mouth, muffling her mid-word.

All of a sudden, there were plenty of shooting stars to wish upon. They were sparkling in Lorelai's veins.

She recoiled. She squeaked, and a bat veered off-course, flapping violently to avoid collision with a lamp post. "You're really here?"

Grinning that small cocky infuriating grin he usually saved for outwitting Taylor, Luke chuckled, "I take it back. Rory didn't get her brains from you."

Horrified, Lorelai stumbled to her feet, hands over her mouth, head shaking back and forth in furious denial, her eyes huge.

The smile faded from Luke's face. "Lorelai? What is it? C'mon, that wasn't one of your bits?"

The words struck her in the chest, bypassing her ears completely. Air whooped into her lungs. And out through her vocal cords. "One of my bits? Oh my God!"

Abruptly aware that the Roman summer night was growing incredibly chilly in Lorelai's vicinity, Luke swallowed hard and tried, "Um. Yes? No? Oh geez."

Blood thudded hot into her face, blinding her. "You really think I'd say that to you when I know you're with someone? Hey! You kissed me! On the mouth! You're with Nicole!" Jaw set, Lorelai snarled, "You cheater! Cheater cheater..."

"Hey! How am I supposed to know when you're serious and when you're doing a bit!"

"So that's why you kiss me," huffed Lorelai, and pulled her arms tight around herself for comfort she desperately craved. "As part of a bit. Of course. Lorelai and her life, the big joke."

Ashen under the amber glow of Rome's night, Luke choked out, "I'm not laughing."

Lorelai marched away, shivering. Having strangers see her backside exposed during labor hadn't been this cringe-worthy.

She heard him striding quickly up behind her before his voice panted, "Hold on, I'll walk you..."

Lorelai growled, eyes narrowed to sapphire lasers. "Why are you in Rome, God, tell me you're not here to get married, it'd be bad enough if you went and eloped on a cruise but eloping to somewhere in Europe? Would that even be legal? Wait, she's a lawyer, of course it'd be legal. God, you're probably even wearing socks she picked out for you! If this is who you are, then you're not the Luke I loved!"

At which moment, the cosmos preyed one last time on the deeply mortified emotions of Lorelai Victoria Gilmore. As the words Luke I loved rang out and echoed along the street, her bag caught on a random post. Instead of breaking, the strap held. Lorelai was yanked off her feet with an undignified grunt, arms flailing. Leaving her flat on her rear end, tied to a post by her own shoulder bag. Crying softly into her arms because her butt hurt, and she was pretty sure she'd used the most dreaded four-letter word in her universe.

After Luke pulled her free and set her on her feet, and checked her for serious injuries to anything other than her pride, Lorelai spat, "I didn't buy you a present."

Tight-jawed, Luke commented, "I'm touched."

Lorelai's arms spread wide in frustration. "Duh! I can't! Anything I get you won't be Nicole-approved!"

Arms folded and face shadowed, Luke snapped, "I don't need my life to be approved!"

"Wrong, Einstein," Lorelai retaliated shakily, "if Nicole gets mad, you'd feel like you have to defend me because I'm poor stupid loser Lorelai who doesn't realize we're not actually friends, just like you'd defend Kirk, and..."

"How did Kirk get into this?"

Ignoring him, she flapped a hand in the air as if smacking a gnat, and concluded, "No present, no Lorelai, no problem! Ta-da! You're welcome!"

"You're an idiot."

Shuffling back to the fountain from which she could find the hostel, Lorelai sniped in return, "Thanks, back at ya."

The fountain by the now-closed café loomed into view. Lorelai dug into her pocket for an American penny. She'd brought them solely for throwing into fountains. She wished mightily that this night would rewind and she could stay at the hostel, listening to Rory and the impromptu seminar on sixteenth-century Italian sculpture.

It didn't work.

"You're exhausted," said Luke finally.

She shrugged. "I walked a lot today. And talked a lot." She glared, wiping at her face to scrub away tears. "Don't say it! I thought I was talking to my imaginary friend. Like Harvey, only not a rabbit. I need to... I can't let Rory see me this way. She needs to have fun. Not have me drag her down."

Anger flashed over Luke's face. The patented Luke Danes Rant Stance made its appearance, though it looked odd to Lorelai without his order pad or cleaning rag sticking out of a pocket. Muscled arms bunched clear to his forehead. "You. Would. Never. Drag. Her. Down. Never. Your whole life is about Rory having everything no matter what it costs you. You think I don't know that? What it took for you to ask them for help for Chilton, for you to go to those dinners and have them hurt you, all for her sake? You think I never heard about how you remade clothes from Goodwill to save money so you'd have it for Rory? You really think I've known you this long and I don't know you'd give every drop of blood if it meant she'd be happy?"

Lorelai dropped her chin and mumbled, "She's my kid, you do that for your kid."

"No, you do it for your kid! In case you didn't notice," Luke ranted at full steam, gesturing in the general direction of Connecticut, "that's not what Liz did for Jess, or Mrs. Gleason did for Kirk, and I'm pretty sure Taylor's mom must've dropped him on his head more than once! You've raised her to think anything is possible and she's healthy and happy and you did all that without a damn dime from your damn parents, so don't you ever say you're not a good mother, ever! Hell, you tried to be nice to Jess, and he's a pain in the ass! You keep Lane from turning into a Mrs. Kim clone! You put up with Michel, and God knows he's about six years old on a good day, and..."

"Ahem."

They whirled.

Two police officers, neither amused, stared at them.

"Excuse," said one, "but lovers should quarrel off the street, eh?"

Having successfully shut them up, the officers shooed them away from the fountain.

Near the alley where the entrance to the hostel could be found, Lorelai stopped to say something, and found no words. Lorelai Gilmore, silent. It was officially the end of the world.

"Everyone was in love or getting married, and I was drunk and I said why not."

He waited for her to respond. She stared at him in kicked-puppy misery.

"The captain could do the ceremony. When he said 'dearly beloved'..." Luke winced. "I threw up."

Lorelai brightened hopefully. "On her shoes?"

"Actually, the captain's," sighed Luke ruefully, rubbing his face. "I tried to claim seasickness but, uh, yeah, once the ship got back to port, I bought a plane ticket for Rome."

A small smile curved her mouth. "So you flew to Rome just to tell me you dumped Nicole?"

"Ah, well, we sort of dumped each other," said Luke helplessly, then quickly blurted, "I called Sookie. She gave me the address for the hostel."

"You do know you could've just called me to tell me about how your cruise ended," Lorelai purred, smirking ever so slightly.

Red to his ears, Luke mumbled uncomfortably, "Oh. Ah. Yeah. That. Uh."

She patted his arm and opened the hostel door. "Don't worry. I won't tease you about it."

"Oh thank God," sighed Luke in relief.

"Yet."

"Figures," grumped Luke, but his eyes glinted. "I think I checked every coffee shop in Rome."

Lorelai replied, "I don't like their coffee."

"Good. I don't like competition."

"Just so I'm clear. You're single?"

She received a definitive, "Yep."

"Wanna get some sleep?"

"God, yes."

She frowned, shaking an admonishing finger. "No funny business with my kid around."

He gaped, flushing bright red. "Lorelai!"

She flipped her hair with sparkling intent. "But maybe once we're, uh... Y'know. Back in normal-world?"

"Yeah. Then," agreed Luke hastily. "In a few weeks. Finish your Europe thing. And I'll, uh, fly out in a day or two, and, uh, okay, well, I told you what I wanted to tell you, so, uh..." He scrubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah."

"Yeah," agreed Lorelai sleepily. "A few weeks."

"I mean, it makes sense," whispered Luke nervously as they tiptoed to the pile of bedding in a corner with Luke's bought-just-for-the-cruise suitcase atop it. "Gives me time to process this Nicole thing and, uh, y'know, all that. So, uh, where's your, uh..." He glanced around, peering into the dimly lit room that resembled nothing so much as a cross between a dormitory and a laundry. "Bed? Is it safe here? Are you sure? Rory said it is but she's so young and you know I've read about..."

"Luke."

"Yeah?"

"I never thought I'd say this to you of all people," yawned Lorelai as she burrowed into a pile of blankets. "Would you please shut up?"

Lying gingerly upon his own assigned stack of bedding, Luke snorted a laugh, and the dark Roman night closed around them, blessedly lacking in whine.

AN: Those are about all the Italian words I know, so I beg forgiveness. I did visit Rome, but in an English-speaking group. The purse-strap incident happened to me in London. (It was my camera bag.)

As for why it took Lorelai a while to realize Luke was really there... Have you ever been in a city six thousand miles from home, alone at two in the morning with only your deepest fears and secrets for company? Reality is never entirely welcome in those moments. Denial, however? Oh, it's a good friend.