Title: There's Luke

Chapter: Eight (Luke's Point of View)

I talk about my dad a lot, so most people don't realize how hard it is for my to think about him. I like to tell stories about him, to tell other people how great he was. What I hate, what I try as hard as I can never to do, is to think about him. I hate to sit quietly and remember.

That's why that dream bugged me so much. It forced me to think, really think, about my dad. And it didn't make me think about him in a good, let's-tell-other-people kind of way. It made me think of him in an empty, he's-not-here kind of way. It's been so long, but it's still hard to think about the fact that he's not here.

And he won't be. Not when Lorelai and I get married, not when we have kids, not when I build that swing-set in the backyard.

I'm actually thinking about this as I sit here on this rotting wooden bench near the edge of the lake, or the fishing hole, as my dad always used to call it. Because that's all it was to him: a place to take his kid to catch some fish.

We were here every weekend in the summer. We'd fish on the shore or in the rowboat until it got too hot, and then we'd jump in the water. It's always been kind of greenish, but when I was nine and it was really hot out, I only cared about the fact that it was cool. Now, I'm kind of shocked I ever went in.

Now, it just seems cold and murky and unpleasant. Who knows what's in there? It's a cesspool.

It's the middle of the morning, but I'm sitting on the edge of this green pond, leaning forward, my elbows on my knees, just staring at the water. I hate missing work, so the fact that I'm letting myself be here tells me that this is pretty important. Whatever this is.

No one else is here; no little kids are swimming with their dads right now, no one is fishing from the banks. But Lorelai's coming, and that's a relief. At least someone is coming.

It hasn't been very long since we talked on the phone when I hear footsteps behind me. I turn, and find Lorelai walking towards the bench. I struggle to find a word that describes her expression. I'm debating between "concerned" and "upset" when I realize it's neither; she's focused. No sooner have I realized this and stood up than she's wrapped her arms around my neck.

"Hey," she says.

I say nothing; I just stand there with her for a moment. Her morning with Rory was probably awful, but from the way she's holding on to me, with her face pressing into my chest, I can tell that she'd rather just stand here in silence, so I don't ask about it.

"Are you okay?" she asks, finally breaking the silence, and pulling her face far enough away from me so that she can see my face. I love her for asking. After her morning, after Rory – and she's worried about me?

"Me?" I ask stupidly. "Yeah. I'm fine," I say, backing away from her. I look out towards the water. "You? How are you?"

"I'll be fine. Things are going to be fine. It might take ten years, but they'll be fine."

"Ten years?" I ask, suddenly very concerned.

"Well, maybe less. We'll see. They'll be fine." She sounds so calm about the whole thing, and I believe her when she says everything will be okay. "But you?" When I don't say anything, she takes my hand. "Want to sit?" she asks, tilting her head towards the bench.

I nod, and she sits next to me, and puts her hand on my knee.

"Luke, what's up?" she asks. She doesn't say it like she's upset that I haven't told her; she just sounds worried, and focused. I don't want her to worry any more than she has to today, so I know I better speak up soon.

"It's nothing," I say, but I don't know why because obviously it's not nothing. I'm still staring at the water, like I'm fascinated by it, and maybe I am.

"You didn't sleep last night," she says. I didn't think she'd noticed, and my surprise causes me to look away from the water, and to her. She just looks so focused, so intent on solving this.

"I, uh… I had a dream," I say, before I can stop myself. It sounds so insignificant when I say it like that.

"What kind of dream?" she asks.

I take a deep breath. "I dreamed about my dad," I say, averting my eyes again. I wait for her to say something – something like "It's just a dream; it doesn't mean anything" – but she doesn't, so we just sit here silently.

"It's stupid, I know. I just… it seemed so real," I say, leaning forward on the bench. "My mom was there, in the diner, and Liz was there. And you were there. And then my dad showed up, and then he was gone. He just left."

She shifts her hand to my shoulder, and squeezes a little bit.

"You know, at first I thought I was so upset about seeing him, just about him being there. I don't dream about him, Lorelai. Ever." I hesitate for a second, because I'm afraid to tell her the real reason why the dream bothered me so much. At least, I think it's the real reason. It's what I realized while I was sitting here, staring at the murky water. But I decide to tell her, because she's here, and she wants me to tell her, and I should.

"But that wasn't the real reason?" she says, when she senses that I've paused.

"That was part of it. It's hard for me to think about the fact that he's gone, you know? So at first I thought I was upset because the dream made me realize how much I don't think about him. But then I realized that wasn't all. I think that the reason I was so upset was because he left."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's face it, my life is not full of people who stick around. My mom and my dad died. My sister ran away the second she had bus fare out of here. Rachel… you know. Jess left. They all left. And in my dream, my dad left all over again. He was there, probably trying to tell me something really important, and then he was gone."

"Luke," she says softly, after a moment of silence. I look her in the eyes, and she just stares back at me, focused, because she's smart and she's realized what's bothering me. "You do know that I'm not going to leave? In fact, you're going to get really sick of me. There's going to be a day when your going to walk down the stairs, and find me in my Daffy Duck pajamas, without makeup, eating three-day-old donuts at the kitchen table, and you're going to think, 'I am really sick of her being here all the time. She needs to get out for a while.' That's how much I am not going to leave. You'll get sick of me. Just you wait." She smiles.

"I doubt that."

"Well, don't doubt it. Maybe doubt the Daffy Duck pajamas part because I think I lost those, but not the rest of it." She raises her left hand, and points to the silver band I bought for her. "This means everything," she says. "I am so serious about this." She pauses for a moment, and then takes a breath. "I didn't tell you about my conversation with Rory this morning."

"No."

"Well, it was hard, you know, to see her being like that. She was immature, and rude… but she was still Rory. And I don't know how this is going to work out, but during the whole conversation I kept thinking, 'When it's over, there will be Luke to go back to. He'll sit with me and let me be upset about the whole thing.' I just kept thinking how much I need you." She replaces her hand on my shoulder. "It goes both ways, Luke."

I close my eyes, and take a slow, deep breath. I'm not good at talking about this kind of stuff, but I know she's right. "I know," I finally say, and I feel a little bit of the weight that's been crushing me all day slipping away. A little bit of that hollow feeling that haunted me at the diner this morning starts to disappear.

She leans forward and kisses me. Then we both sit back again the bench, and I put my arm around her. Finally I start to talk, because I've thought of something I should tell her. This is different from the stories I've told people before, because this one is not funny, and it doesn't have a happy ending.

"When my dad was sick, once they knew what was going to happen, he stopped talking a lot," I begin, leaning back on the bench, resting my hands on my legs. "I was taking care of him, but it was like he didn't really want me to see him. He wanted me to remember him the way he used to be – you know, playing baseball, selling hardware, building stuff for the house. Not like that."

"It must have been hard for you, since you guys were so close," she says. I love that she didn't say "I know how hard that must have been," because she realizes that she doesn't know. Sometimes I wonder who was luckier – Lorelai, who has two healthy parents who she struggles to tolerate, or me, who has two dead parents who were great.

"Yeah," I manage to reply. "It was hard. A couple days before he died, though, he said he wanted to talk to me. My dad was not a philosophical guy by any means, but I guess he'd had a lot of time to think, and he made me sit down, and he asked me some questions. And one of them was, 'What are your happiest memories from when you were a kid?' I thought about it, and I gave him a list: playing catch in the backyard, helping him at the store, watching him build stuff, going fishing.

"So he's lying there in this bed, looking weak and completely unlike my dad, and he says, 'Do any of those memories involve a cemetery?' And I'm confused, so I just tell him 'no.' He looks back at me and says, 'Good. So don't go there when I'm gone. Cemeteries are where you go to bury dead people, not to sit around and be sorry that they're gone.'

"I remember being so surprised that I couldn't say anything. He was just talking about how he was going to die, how I wasn't allowed to go to the cemetery, like it was nothing. He said, 'So go there when people die, but if you just want to remember the good old days, go play catch with your kid in the backyard, or go to the store, or build something, or go fishing.'" I take a deep breath. "So, that's what I do."

"Wow," Lorelai says, after an appropriate moment of silence has passed. "I would have liked to have met your dad."

"He would have liked you," I say. "A lot, actually."

"You think?" she asks.

"Yeah. For one thing, you say what's on your mind. He always respected that. For another, you don't take 'no' for an answer. That was also a big plus for him."

"Well, I'm glad that by astounding lack of verbal restraint and my stubbornness would have appealed to someone."

"It appeals to me. It runs in the family." She's smiling, and I'm smiling, and for a moment I've almost forgotten why we're here in the first place. But I remember when I look out at the water, which is completely still because there is no one fishing today. "I wish he could have met you. I wish he could be here for all of this."

"Me too," she says, falling against me, resting her head on my shoulder. Even now - months after our first kiss, months after the first time I woke up with her – it still makes me feel good to have her beside me. There is always going to be the occasional morning like this one, and it's nice to be reminded that no matter what, there's Lorelai.

I have a feeling, though, that most of our mornings aren't going to be like this one. Most of them are going to be happy, because we'll be together, and apparently that's pretty damn important to me. As I'm thinking this, a truck has pulls up to the fishing hole. It's a father and his son, and they're working to unload a rowboat from the bed of the truck. They finally get it out of the truck, they get their supplies, slide it into the water, and now the lake is not still.

Suddenly the lake doesn't look so green and dead. I can see why I used to swim in it. Things are a lot better this way.

Eventually, after an angry phone call from Michel in which I believe more than a few French curse words were used, Lorelai leaves to go to work, and she drops me off at the diner on her way. As I refill coffee cups and serve burgers for the rest of the day, I don't feel empty or sad at all. I'm just really happy that it's Lorelai who I'm going to see at the end of the day.

She comes in around ten, just after closing. That's one of the things she loves about being the girlfriend – or the fiancée, I guess. She loves that she can walk in after closing, order anything she wants, and I can't complain. I mean, I could complain, but it would definitely work against my best interests.

She sits down at the counter, looking tired, but oddly content. She picks up a menu, another one of her favorite ways to torture me, and begins to scrutinize it as if she doesn't already know what she's going to order. "Excuse me sir," she says. "I'm looking for a dessert. What would you recommend?"

I'm counting the money in the register when she says this, and I just glance at her and roll my eyes. When I look back, she's trying to stop herself from grinning, which would end her game, but I can see it peeking through at the corners of her mouth.

"I mean, the brownies sound good, but some places use too many eggs in the brownie batter, and there is really an important distinction between a fudgey brownie and a piece of fudge, so I was just curious about your recipe."

I look at her for a second, but still say nothing, and I continue counting money.

"On the other hand, this chocolate cake looks awfully appealing. I'm always a fan of a good piece of chocolate cake. Oh! There's cheesecake! Decisions, decisions…" She taps her fingernails on the counter. "Really, the issue with the chocolate cake is the same as the brownie issue--"

Before she can finish explaining the chocolate cake issue, I snatch the menu from her hands. "Cheesecake. You're having the cheesecake."

"And why is that?" she asks.

"Because. The brownies are fine, which you know because you've had them a thousand times before, but I don't want to listen to you trying to guess how many eggs I used in the batter. The chocolate cake – also fine, but I served the last piece around 9:30. The cheesecake is right here," I point to the glass-covered plate at the other end of the counter, "so that's what you're having."

She smiles. "Okay then. Cheesecake me, Dinerman."

I cut her a piece, and slide it down the counter. She takes a bite, closes her eyes, and sighs.

"You know, I made a great decision with this. Cheesecake is a great food." She takes another bite. "When I think cheese, I think "good." Cake, also good. Whoever thought to put them together," she says, as she sticks a forkful into her mouth, "was really an innovator." She finishes chewing. "Do you want some?"

"I don't eat cheesecake," I say.

"Oh, right. I mean, the vegetable to sugar ratio isn't quite high enough for you." She takes another bite. "We're going to have to work on that," she says.

"Work on what?"

"Lowering your minimum vegetable to anything-that-tastes-good ratio. I mean, I don't want our kids to be eating rabbit food during their formative years. Donuts, pop-tarts, Cheetos, Frosted Cheerios, cheesecake – this is the stuff of a well balanced diet, my friend."

"We'll see about that," I say.

"The food thing we'll definitely have to work on, but I meant to tell you today that I do give you permission to take them fishing," she says. "Although I can't promise I'll go with you. I think we all know how I feel about fishing."

I smile. "It's good we're sorting all this out now," I say.

"But you can't let them actually catch any fish…"

She's still talking, in between mouthfuls of cheesecake. What she's saying is ridiculous – Pop-Tarts are not a part of a well balanced diet, and catching the fish is kind of the point – but I'm so happy to hear her talking about "our kids" that I let it go. I just let her talk, and I stand across the counter from her, pretending to be bothered by everything she's saying. But we both know I'm not. I'm not bothered by it all, because it's just Lorelai, and she's here.

So I think that's it. Thanks SO much for all the great reviews, and for reading this whole thing. I had fun writing it, and I hope you had fun reading!