A/N: This one is from Season 1, Episode 14: "That Damn Donna Reed." This is probably the most overused Java Junkie episode in FanFiction. I liked my first two of these the best because they weren't so obvious, but my last two have been. Oh well. Hopefully my next one will be more creative. Here's one to pass the time until then.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls. And I thank TWIZ TV (dot) com very much for the dialogue at the beginning of this story.
"I swear, she went over there." Lorelai pointed to the corner of her living room in frustration.
"We looked over there." Luke argued.
"Well, she went under that chair and she didn't come out." Lorelai knew the chick couldn't really be over there, but it wouldn't hurt to check again, right?
"We moved the chair; we searched the floor, nothing."
"Well then she went under the chair and through a hole in the floor."
"There is no hole in the floor." Luke rolled his eyes.
"Well maybe there was a hole in the floor and she crawled through it and fixed it."
"So she's a super intelligent chick with great physical and deductive skills?" Luke tried fruitlessly to show Lorelai how ridiculous she was being.
"Yes."
"Oh, this is not a chick I want to find."
"Hey, Luke, what did you mean earlier?"
"What are you talking about?" Luke was completely thrown by the giant jump in the conversation topic.
"When you got here. You made some comment about me not really having a chick in the house."
"Hmm. Damn. I thought she'd forgotten about that. Luke didn't want to tell her what he'd thought—what he had stupidly let himself hope. He had hid his feelings from her for so long, there was no sense in uncovering them now. It wasn't like he would get anything from it. It would just make things awkward between them. He couldn't stand it if that happened.
"I mean, if I didn't have a chick here, why did you think I was calling?" Lorelai continued. She was not about to let this drop. She was genuinely confused, and she wanted an answer.
"No, I thought you were calling about the chick." Luke tried to defend himself, but he was never very good at lying to her. He's become an expert at hiding things from her, at not telling her things, but outright lying to her was something entirely different. One look into her beautiful blue eyes and he just couldn't do it.
"It didn't seem like it."
"Well maybe it didn't seem like it but it was."
"Was what?"
"Was what I thought—can we just keep looking?" Luke saw he would not succeed in convincing her that he had believed her, so he tried to change the topic back to the Stella.
Lorelai however, would not go for that.
"No. We'll find her eventually. I want to know Luke. Why did you think I was calling you?"
In their arguing they had gradually been stepping closer together. Luke just noticed the distance, or lack thereof, and had an overwhelming urge to just pull her closer and kiss her senseless. Never one to act on his impulses, no matter how delightful they may seem, he began to think about whether he should. It would enable him to explain the situation to her without him having to search more for the words that just seemed unable to come. But then there was still the fact of her response, and how much she would freak out. He was just leaning in closer, about to let his impulse win, when Lorelai jumped away and dove over the couch.
"What are you—?"
"There she is!" Lorelai exclaimed.
Luke laughed to himself, happy to have escaped interrogation, but still a little remorseful at another kiss with Lorelai that didn't happen. "What happened to 'we'll find her eventually'?"
"Yeah, well, that was before, when she was nowhere to be seen."
Luke decided to drop it and just help her look for the baby bird. He got down on the floor next to her and lifted up the skirt of the couch. He looked under it and caught a glimpse of its yellow feathers before it tore out and ran toward the kitchen.
Luke and Lorelai jumped up and followed it, crashing into each other on the other side of the couch.
"Ouch." Lorelai complained, rubbing her head carefully.
Luke again noticed their close proximity, but this time he successfully pushed any of those kids of thoughts out of his head to concentrate on the problem at hand.
"Hey," he realized, "don't you have food for it or anything?"
"Probably, but we don't need to worry about feeding it right now. We kind of have to catch it first. Besides, if it's hungry, it can probably find its food itself—oh!"
"Yeah."
"God! Like bait! Why didn't we think of that earlier?"
"I don't know."
Lorelai ran over to her daughter's school bags and dug through them until she pulled out a bag of birdfeed. "Ah-ha!" She went over to the birdcage and poured some of the food in the bowl, and filled up the water bowl too for good measure.
When she finished, she quietly backed away and headed back to the couch, grabbing Luke's arm and pulling him along. Luke looked down at where her hand was holding onto him and gulped. Her hand was warm, and he was having more trouble keeping those thoughts away with every passing second.
The two sat on the couch in silence watching the cage and waiting. One minute passed, and then another, and soon they had been sitting there for far longer than they would have liked. But eventually their patience paid off and the tiny little bird came peeping out of her hiding place and jumped right into its cage. Lorelai sprung into action, running quietly over to the cage and locking it.
Luke got up and grabbed his coat, figuring he was no longer needed. He went over to Lorelai, who was leaning up against the wall trying to catch her breath.
"That was pretty impressive." He said.
"Yeah, even I didn't know my reflexes were that great."
"No, I meant, I didn't think you were capable of staying quiet for so long." He smirked.
Lorelai frowned at him. "You may think you're funny… but you're not."
Luke just laughed and turned to leave when Lorelai called him back.
"Luke."
He walked back over to her. "Yeah?"
"You still never told me what you meant before."
"Ah, jeez. This again?" Luke sighed.
"Yeah. I just—I want to know what you thought."
"Well, I guess," he fumbled for the words, "it wasn't really something I thought… but more something I hoped."
"What does that mean?"
Knowing he was never going to get away with lying, Luke decided to just act on his impulses for once in his life. He took another step closer and pulled her to him, leaning in for a kiss.
Lorelai froze, and Luke wanted to kick himself. Why? Why did I do that? He thought as he pulled away and waited for a reaction. He saw Lorelai's eyes wide open in shock and he frowned. But once Lorelai's shock faded, her eyes returned to normal, her lips curved up in a smile, and she threw her arms around Luke's neck to pull him to her for another kiss.