Lorelai pulled up the gravel drive to the Crap Shack. Stepping out of the car and making her way across the yard and up the steps to the house, she takes in her daily inventory of all the little things that she has become accustomed to since she married Luke. The door to the garage is perpetually ajar. A rake is leaning against the porch rail seemingly ready to fall into the bushes. His truck is nestled in the grass in front of her updated Jeep. Even more recent is the play-pen full of dolls and stuffed animals that sits next to the porch bench. She smiles as she pictures Luke raking the leaves and little 9 month-old Leah sticking her fingers through the mesh siding of her pen as she watches her daddy with awed interest. Anxious to see her musings in person, Lorelai unlocks the door and calls out to Luke as she steps into the foyer.
With no answer, she hangs up her coat, toes off her heels, and drops her keys into a bowl on the front table. Rounding the corner into her living room, Lorelai catches sight of a tuft of messy hair on the arm of the couch and a very manly arm sticking straight out over the faceless but recognizable tuft. She giggles to herself and continues her way quietly into the living room. Finally getting a full view of the couch, she sees what has never failed to hit her right in the gut. Luke is asleep and sprawled out on the couch, his socked feet stretched all the way to the other end. He has his left arm stretched back over the arm of the couch, but his right rests on his daughter. The little girl lies on her belly stretched out over Luke's chest. Her right fist is clutched at Luke's shirt collar and her left arm dangles to the side of Luke's chest. Leah is wearing only a diaper and her mop of unruly, curly brown hair is damp. Naps after bath time are always the best, Lorelai decides. Leah's bright blue eyes are hidden by sleep and her eyelashes flutter as she dreams. She coughs in her sleep and her lips stay apart and puckered. Luke's fingers unconsciously moving up and down in an effort to calm the girl. Both of them are still and so vulnerable, and Lorelai thinks that this is when she likes them best; in a place where you can see nothing but the love the little girl has for her father and the proverbial finger that she has him wrapped around.
The phone vibrating in her pocket distracts Lorelai from her watch. Checking the caller ID, she raises her eyebrows. Maybe Emily learned her lesson. After all, babies plus naptime plus ringing house phones do not equal a fun time much less a productive phone conversation. She answers the phone quietly as she backs up the stairs to the landing, keeping her sleepyheads in view. Only mumbling in the appropriate places, Lorelai isn't paying much attention to her mother as she gets distracted by Leah's attempt to stretch her sleepy limbs. Leah bends and un-bends her knees as she wiggles her toes. The fist clenched around Luke's shirt hardly moves as the other hand fully stretches then curls back to it's tired state. Lorelai sighs and tries to shoo her mother off the phone with a perfunctory promise to see them at Friday Night Dinner. Before she hangs up, Emily startles her by requesting that Lorelai give Leah a kiss on Emily's behalf.
"Oh! Of course, Mom." She grins. "Absolutely."
Intent on doing just that and adding one on for Emily, Lorelai pads back over to the couch and kneels next to Luke's hip. Careful not to jostle them, Lorelai leans over to press a kiss to Leah's heel and making good on her promise, she adds another. As she leans back, she runs her finger across Leah's toes and watches them attempt to curl around her finger. As Lorelai leans back onto her heels, she watches the rise and fall of both Luke and Leah's chests – the girl's tiny body moved just by Luke's breathing. Lorelai smiles and traces her fingers along Leah's lower back and brings her hand to a rest just below where Luke's had stilled.
Seeing movement out of the corner of her eye, Lorelai turns her head just as she feels Luke squeeze the hand that rests on Leah's bare back. The corners of her mouth turn up as she sees Luke's eyes, though barely open, staring at her under those long eyelashes. She grins at him as she reaches up with her left hand to brush the fringe on his forehead. He clears his throat softly in an attempt to speak without waking Leah.
"Hey," he says throatily. Lorelai smirks and adds one more thing to her daily inventory.