The Incredible Rising Lorelai

By Gigi

Author’s Note: This takes place after Lorelai sinks into Luke, crying in The Incredible Sinking Lorelai’s

A/N 2: Lorelai’s POV. Lorelai and Jason are not together in this

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. They belong to ASP and the WB.

Chapter 18: Friendship and a Moratorium

A/N: BTW, since Lorelai already has enough on her plate, Emily and Richard are not split up. However, they might still renew their wedding vows. I’m not sure yet. 33

Emerging into the dining hall, I put on a happy face; exactly the opposite of what’s really going on inside. Max comes out beside me a few seconds later and whispers something in my ear.

“Lorelai, meet me after dinner. It’ll just take a second.” He gives my arm a light squeeze and goes to sit with Lulu, Kirk, and Taylor.

Fixing my hair for the umpteenth time I walk down the hall and knock on Max’s door. Why am I so nervous? Maybe it’s because you spent like half an hour on the bathroom floor in his arms, crying! Gah! Why can’t the rational part of my head just shut up for once?

The door opens. “Hi, Lorelai,” Max greets me. I smile in response. “Come in!” He steps aside for me to enter the suite. I look around as if I didn’t design the place; as if Max actually lives here.

“Oh, dear god!” I exclaim, as I turn around and see Max has taken his shirt off and is now half naked. An optimist would say he’s half dressed! I really need to stop quipping with myself. It’s just starting to get weird. “Um, Max? Why do you have no shirt on?”

“Oh, sorry, I’m just changing into a different one. I had to wear the one you cried on all through dinner and I have mascara stains on it.” Max throws on a new, clean shirt.

“Oops, sorry about that, but how do you know what a mascara stain looks like?” Hehe, it’s fun to be twelve years old.

“Because of the eyelash marks all over my shirt that I had to wash off before I came out of the bathroom so it just looked like I spilled ink on myself,” Max answers, still completely aware of the fact that I’m twelve at heart and not thirty-five.

“Very clever,” I praise. “So what’s up?”

“I was wondering…” Max begins.

“Yes?” urging is one of my specialties.

“I-was-wondering-if-we-could-be-friends,” Max confesses in one big word. So un-Max of him

“Friends,” I confirm. Max nods emphatically. “As in Debra and Frank kind of friends or Ross and Rachel kind of friends?” Come on, he’s known me for years. He should get these references.

“Definitely not Ross and Rachel; they fight too much when they aren’t making out. I’d say Phoebe and Joey kind of friends.” I’m impressed. He can keep up much better now than he could when I was engaged to him.

“Oh, well, sure, why not?” I agree. Max’s face just screams relief. “So is that all?”

“Well, yeah…”

“So, I guess I should go then…I have some cleaning up to do downstairs. I mean organizing! God, you love to make fun of me when I actually have to do work!” Max follows me to the door, smirking.

Once in the hall, I turn around. “Thank you so much for everything. I’d still be on the floor of the bathroom crying if you weren’t there to help me,” I sincerely thank, hugging him. Once he closes the door, I turn to walk down the hallway to find Luke standing there. Oh shoot, he must have seen me hug Max. God, Luke, you really need to work on your timing! “Luke, wait!” And the chasing commences for the second time tonight.

Chasing him down the hall, I trip over something. “Ah!” I let out a squeal of pain as I hit the floor. Luke turns around in a heartbeat at the sound. Before I know it, Luke is picking me up, and I mean literally picking me up, and lying me down on his bed to recover.

“Luke?” I quietly say. He looks at me questioningly. “What did I trip over?” I stare straight into those penetrating blue eyes. For some reason, this moment reminds me of a time when he said he loved my eyes. I said they were too blue, and he said they were electric blue; that they stand out, which suits me perfectly. Of course, he would never say that in public. He’s not one for PDA other than a quick peck on the lips. He’s only ever hugged me once in public. God, I miss that.

“Flowers…” Aw! Luke was trying to make up!

“So, can we have a moratorium on the chasing? At least while I recover,” I plead, using my trademark pout.

“Yeah…just until you recover, and then it’s back to you seeing me storm away,” Luke attempts at a joke, but I don’t think he’s kidding. However, I smile shyly all the same. “Are, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that I fell on one of my bruises,” I explain. He deserves to know the truth seeing as he thinks I’m cheating on him. Luke’s face instantly relaxes.

Looking into his eyes, I try to say something, but there is something about this moment that warrants silence; a peaceful lull in the conversation. For a full ten seconds, Luke and I are just staring into each other’s eyes. It reminds me of when I convinced Luke to buy my basket at the Bid on a Basket charity auction. We sat in the gazebo, eating Luke’s food and just talked. This is nice.

8D

After about ten minutes, I finally have enough strength, and dignity, to get up (by myself, I might add!) from the bed and go to work. I think we just made up, but I’m not quite sure. I mean, he didn’t start running as soon as I had the strength to get up. We had a pleasant conversation. He actually suggested we go to a movie! Grudgingly, I start down the stairs.

Five minutes later, I sit at my desk, staring at a stack of papers piled high that I must now begin to organize. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Sighing, I get to work. Sign this, initial that, et cetera, et cetera. A knock at the door saves me from this mundane and tedious work.

“Hey, mom, Sookie said you wanted to see me,” Rory declares, coming into my office. I get up and hug her with all my might. “Ah!” a muffled cry for help escapes Rory as I refuse to let go thereby refusing her oxygen.

“Honey, I haven’t seen you all day. You know mommy needs to see or talk to you at least five times a day or she goes through withdrawal pains!”

“Okay, I get it! But you will have to get used to that if you don’t let me breathe!” Rory forces her head out from under my arm. “Mom what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, mommy just misses you,” I say.

“Okay, well mommy needs to stop referring to herself as mommy and actually talk in first person.”

“And for that, you have to go home and get CDs for the guests in case they want to play something in their room!” I punish, sort of. I am completely serious, but it isn’t a punishment, just a request.

“Fine!” Rory mocks aggravation. “I’ll be back later!” Rory kisses my cheek and leaves, leaving me to do jolly paperwork! Gah!

I intend to head toward my desk, but my feet have a different idea of where they want to go. I find myself standing in front of Luke, who looks a little agitated.

“Hey!” I say. “You’re the last one up!” I look into the salon, which is empty. Wasn’t Christopher sitting there? Doh! That’s why Luke looks so aggravated. He just talked to Christopher! Oh, this isn’t good.

“Well, not the last one!” Luke points out. Who else? Oh, right, me.

“Are you okay? I heard Babette was kicking your butt at Yahtzee!” I joke. It’s true, she told me herself on her way upstairs.

“I’m not a mysterious man, am I?” Luke accuses. Rant incoming!

“Well, the wardrobe’s a bit of a head-scratcher,” I defend. I mean, would it kill him to not wear plaid for one day without being coerced?

“I think I’ve been very, very clear with my intentions!”

“Your…?” What the hell is he talking about?

“You know, the wedding, the movie invite, the flowers!” wow, this has got to be the weirdest Luke rant I have ever witnessed! But it’s cute. I look at my shoes, and smile at him.

“Luke—” I say, chuckling.

“You knew what I was doing!”

“Well, no! Not officially!” I defend. Okay, so are we fighting over the fact that he was trying to make up for the fight we had? And what about the wedding? We hadn’t even broken up when we went to Liz’s wedding!

“Not officially, oh come on! I mean, I didn’t have a ref present but other than that!”

“Well you didn’t say anything official!”

“What was I supposed to say? I did things! I let my actions speak! That’s the romantic way to do this, damn it!” Yep, the weirdest rant: bar none.

“Okay, you’re right, I’m sorry!” I try to pacify him.

“And you went along with all of it! And so, naturally, I assume we’re on the same page and then they show up, here, at the inn, that I invested in!” (A/N: Sorry, since Jason was never in the picture in this fic, this awesome part had to be edited!)

“Whoa, whoa, who are they? You talking about Max and Christopher?”

“No, Tom and Pete—yes them! Gah!” Luke throws his hands in the air and power-walks out onto the porch.

“They’re my exes!” I explain.

“Well, apparently, they don’t know that!” Luke yells.

“Well, just calm down!” I move my hands, fists really, up and down to rest clutching my skirt.

“No! I don’t wanna calm down. I did everything right! I did exactly what the book said!” Luke’s hands are all over the place, emphasizing every point.

“The book!” What book?

“I thought we were on track, and now you’re standing there, looking at me like I’m crazy!”

“I’m not looking at you like you’re crazy!”

“You know the last time I bought flowers for someone? Never! That’s when! Very easy stat to remember!”

“I loved the flowers!” even though I tripped over them!

“And then when I talked to you in my room, there was a moment! I thought there was a moment!”

“There was!” I finally get in. That shuts him up. “There was a moment,” I softly declare. He looks at me for a second and abruptly starts to move toward me. “W-what are you doing?” I say, more out of reflex than actual concern.

“Will you just stand still?” Well that’s very—

All of a sudden, Luke is kissing me. Eagerly, I return the kiss. God, how I missed being able to do that these last six hours. Wait, we were just fighting, and now we’re kissing? I pull away, panting. An out of breath Luke finally releases me. Before I know what I’m doing, I am moving toward him.

“What are you doing?” Luke asks. He steals my line so I can steal his!

“Will you just stand still?” I place my hand on his face and gently kiss him. Soon, our arms are wrapped around each other and are delving into each other’s mouths with our tongues like a couple of high schoolers. I pull back, again, panting and out of breath. As Luke reels me in for another round, we jump apart at the—

“AHHHHH!” as Kirk, runs down the stairs, naked! Oh. My. God.

“I’ll be right back!” Luke reassures as Kirk runs past us. Oh, I just got a visual of Kirk’s butt. That is not pleasant!

“Why?” don’t go!

“I’ll explain later!” Luke runs after Kirk, who is still screaming his head off.

Next on the Incredible Rising Lorelai: Lorelai comes home to find Rory, Dean, and an unmade bed. Rory and Lorelai have the argument of all arguments, while Lorelai and Luke celebrate their making up (nothing dirty intended! Let’s just say that Luke has a romantic evening planned for Lorelai).

A/N: How was it? Sorry, I take way too long! But I have a school writing piece that I have to use up all my time with. So, click the button and review, for the more reviews I get, the quicker I whip out the next chapter!