One More Maybe
"She can't risk losing him, and she's certain she will if she dwells too long on the maybe of it all." Luke/Lorelai
Summary: "Tell me about Romeo and Juliet, she hears him say in her head as she turns on the darkened street and looks back at the diner. She thinks she could tell him one hell of a tale, if they're ever together in the right place and time." Spans from 2.09 "Run Away, Little Boy" to 5.14 "Say Something".
~*~*~
Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start – Dire Straits
"Tell me about Romeo and Juliet," he says, and she smiles and begins to talk. She likes how he concentrates on her, even when she's babbling incessantly about things she knows he doesn't care about. She watches him smile and tease in response, and a small part of her wonders if maybe Sookie was right. But the next day he growls at her when she orders a gallon of coffee, and it's all too easy to revert to routine. She works and watches movies with Rory and goes to the diner twice daily, and when her mother asks her during Friday night dinner if she ever intends to date "that man from the diner," she ignores the miniscule voice in her head that says hey, yeah. What about Luke? Even though she flirts with him and thinks he'd look incredibly hot as Dr. Frank-n-Furter (a thought she plans to take to her grave), she never allows herself to seriously consider him.
She knows there have been moments and glances and almosts; she's not a stupid woman. He buys her basket and then replaces its contents with actual edible food, and they eat and talk and for one second, she thinks maybe. But then Christopher blows back into town with a new girlfriend, a new lease on life, and she's too busy being miserable that he's so settled, so together, that she can't really think about anything else. She looks up at Luke after Chris storms out of the diner, away from her, and quickly looks away. He walks over, looks down at her, and repeats his offer of bagel hockey. "I'm no Schmidty, but I can get by," he says sincerely, and she responds with a watery chuckle and a smile that she knows doesn't reach her eyes. She looks at him and thinks maybe she sees something there, an invitation, an offer beyond a round of bagel hockey. Maybe if she asked, he'd take her hand and lead her back to the crowded, dusty storeroom and make her forget; crowd her head with touches and whispered words until she can't remember anything but the feel of his hands on her skin. But she won't ask, because she doesn't do well with maybes.
One night when she can't sleep, she wraps herself in her quilt and stuffs her feet in fuzzy bunny slippers and slips out onto her front porch. Curled up on the bench outside, listening to the night sounds, she wonders why all her maybes never come to anything. Like she told Luke, she has her definites in her life, the things that she can always count on. Rory is and always will be the greatest gift life could have given her. Sookie is as close as a sister; in fact, this whole town feels like an incredibly weird, yet close knit family. And none of that will ever change. It's the maybes, the what-ifs, that get her into trouble. Her definites and her maybes just don't mix. She's learned that the hard way, with Max. Trying to turn that hazy, vague idea of marriage into a defined, flesh and blood thing - it wasn't pretty, it hurt them both, and she knows the failure was her fault. And this is why she won't let Luke become anything but a vague possibility. He's already part of her world; he's her good friend Luke, the one she runs to with everything. She can't risk losing him, and she's certain she will if she dwells too long on the maybe of it all. Better to keep things how they are. It's safe that way, comfortable.
Somehow, she's forgotten her innate ability to fuck things up, no matter the circumstances.
She loses him to stupid, cruel, thoughtless words. She's belittled his need to take care of his family and questioned the one thing he's never wavered on - his love for Rory. As much as she tries, she can't fix that with Garfield stationery. When he bothers to glance her way at all, he looks at her like they haven't known each other for six years, like she's never cried on his shoulder or driven him to the brink of his patience, like he's never built her a chuppa or offered to pay for the repairs to her house or helped her look for that stupid bird. He looks at her like they've never met before in their lives, and he talks to her the same way. She's not lying when she says she wants the old Luke back. This Luke is breaking her heart, though she won't admit it.
With Christopher, she chooses to believe in possibilities again. Maybe she can make this one thing work. Maybe she and Chris and Rory really can be a family, just like she'd once dreamed of, in the back of her mind. She doesn't realize her mistake until he walks away the day of Sookie's wedding, leaving her to curse her own stupidity. God damn it, Lorelai. You really just never learn.
And then Sookie is married and Rory is gone and she's alone, more alone than she's ever been, and she can't run to Luke, because she's burned that bridge in a spectacular fashion. He's in her dreams more than she cares to admit, that summer. It's not all about romance and marriage and twins; most nights she dreams that she's sitting in the diner, watching him work. He doesn't even notice her, just goes about his business, and that in itself is scarier than the wackiest dream, because she knows it's the closest thing to the truth.
The first Friday night dinner of the summer is a bust, as expected. She sits and listens as her parents expound on how Lorelai has screwed up, yet again. On the drive home, she tries to ignore the part of her that agrees with them, that says she's missed her chance to have "the whole package". She can think of only one person to make the voices stop, and that's why she pushes open the door of the darkened, empty diner. She knows she has no right to ask him for anything, but she's desperate enough for forgiveness or comfort or absolution that she'll pretend to be a different person, if he'll say what she wants to hear. Which he does. "You'll get it," he says. She wishes she could be so certain. She wishes she could press him for answers, ask him how he's so damned sure, but tonight is not the night for interrogation. She came in as Mimi and leaves as Lorelai, and things with Luke are more or less stable again. She eats her donut when she gets home, and thinks of him.
Lorelai doesn't know what to think the first time she meets Nicole. She watches Luke, clean-shaven, leather jacket wearing Luke, as he begins this relationship, and it bothers her more than she thinks it should. She wants to be happy for him, and outwardly she is. She's with Alex and then she's not, and then Max happens again, and all the while Luke's with Nicole. He's meeting her parents and letting her make changes to the menu; he's letting her into his life. Lorelai's unsettled by it all, but she hides it well. He's still her friend Luke, the one who teaches her to fish, the one who lets her crash at his apartment and use his kitchen when the Inn catches fire. That doesn't have to change, she convinces herself. She manages to smile and tell him goodbye before he leaves on his cruise and she heads off to Europe, because she has no right to do what she'd like to do. It's not her place to ask him to stay.
When he tells her he's married, she wishes she'd asked him anyway.
She's horrified when he tells her about the marriage, relieved when he follows that up with the news of the divorce. He helps Rory move into Yale and she cheers on the inside. She was thisclose to losing him again, but here he is, arguing with her about the stupid mattress and lending her his truck and just being Luke, her Luke. And if she thinks it's unfair to call him her Luke, unfair to lay claim to a man she's already decided a hundred times over not to get involved with...well, she tries not to think about that. But it's hard to avoid when she finds out that Nicole and Luke have reconciled, that they're trying to make something out of their marriage. Because he doesn't belong with Nicole, damn it. His life is here, in Stars Hollow, in the diner. Not in some townhouse in Litchfield. And she can see that, even if he can't.
It's dark and blessedly quiet the night they break the bells, and he's standing so close, and she thinks that maybe, if she finds the right words, he'll stay. Maybe he'll realize that she needs him here, needs him in a way that she's never fully understood. But all she can say is "I don't want you to move," and she knows that's not enough, because he's not hers to keep. He might have been, once, but she's thrown that opportunity away, and she's not sure she'll ever get it back.
She's with him when he learns about the sock man, and it's all too easy to be angry on his behalf. She wonders how on earth Nicole could choose someone else over Luke; how she could hurt such a good man. But the tiny voice in her head, the one that will not shut up no matter what she does, points out all the times she's done the same thing, reminds her that she really should be talking to her own reflection.
He sends his divorce papers at Mailboxes, Etc., which she protests on principle. But she's happy, even though she doesn't quite know why. Maybe it's the same reason she's not shattered after the breakup with Jason. Maybe it's because she's lying awake at night and contemplating possibilities again.
Luke invites her to his sister's wedding, and when he asks her to dance, she hears something in his voice, something that might have always been there, if she'd only learned to pay attention. She's cradled in his arms as they turn to the slow beat of the music, and when he draws her closer, she thinks they could be like this forever.
It's barely a week before they're arguing again, standing on the porch of the Dragonfly. But this is different, somehow, from all the fights and bickering matches they've had in the past. Things are changing, she can feel it. "Will you just stand still?" he says, exasperation in his voice, and she does. He kisses her, and it's better than she ever imagined; it's enough to make her wish desperately for this maybe to come true. Maybe she really can do this. Maybe she can take this step, let Luke into her life, her heart.
Luke's gone before she can really grasp the situation, before she has more than two kisses and years of almosts and maybes to take into consideration. He leaves for Maine just after Rory leaves for Europe, and she's alone, again. She misses him, but at the same time there's this anticipation of his return. She gets used to hearing his voice on the other end of the line just before she settles in to sleep, which she takes as a good sign. It's the beginning of something, and if nothing else, she's always been good at beginnings. They talk almost every day that he's gone, nearly seven weeks. When he comes back, it's different, awkward, but in a way she feels like it's right, too. New relationships are supposed to be awkward and slightly exciting. They're right on track, she thinks.
He finally asks her out on a real date. She jokes about glass slippers and Some Kind of Wonderful, but it's not a joke, is it? When they're together at Sniffy's Tavern and he pulls out the scrap of paper, the one he's saved for eight years because she told him to, she realizes somewhere in her mind that this is a fairytale. It might not be Sleeping Beauty complete with a kiss from Prince Charming, but when your best friend in the world admits, in his own way, that he's been in love with you for the better part of a decade, you can't help but recognize the simple magic in that.
The first moment of panic comes when he fixes her breakfast at her place. Maybe it's too eerily close to her long-past dream, maybe somewhere deep down she really does love the diner's décor and homey atmosphere, she doesn't know. But she launches into this explanation about "I don't want to lose my cooking Luke," which, loosely translated, means this house is mine and Rory's space alone, and letting someone this far in is much too close for comfort. She doesn't like to think of herself this way, but she knows to a certain extent she distances herself from people, even her closest friends. They're used to the whirlwind that is Lorelai Gilmore, the woman who goes a mile a minute and talks at twice that speed, always handy with a quip and a smile. This house is where she can drop the act, where she can be quiet and still and not feel pressured to be everything to everyone. She's finally realizing how huge this thing is, being with Luke. He's already so intricately involved in her life, every aspect of it, that bringing him into her home seems so much like breaking down that final wall.
This absolutely terrifies her, but she won't admit it, not even to herself.
Her parents disapprove of Luke on principle, because he wasn't born with a trust fund and doesn't belong to a country club. He's a small town man through and through, firmly grounded in Stars Hollow, and while there's something beautiful about that in her eyes, Lorelai knows how that comes across to Richard and Emily. Her mother demeans him every time they speak, and Lorelai doesn't say word one on the subject. She knows she could say how much Luke has done for her in the past eight years, how he's the most decent man she's ever met and cares for her daughter as much as she herself does. She should say these things, she knows. But she keeps silent. If she were to make the effort, to defend her relationship with Luke to her parents, that would make all of this far too real. And she's not ready for that, as much as she knows she should be. So she says nothing, and comforts herself with the litany of excuses she's always used – it's none of their business. She's keeping her Stars Hollow life separate from her family life, as she's always done, and there's nothing wrong with that.
And there's nothing wrong with spending time with Christopher, either. His father's just died and he's hurting and above everything, he's always been a part of her life, even before Stars Hollow became the center of it. They're old friends more than anything; they have a history of which Luke only knows the bare details. She's had him and let him go a hundred times, and she's been there for every major moment of his life, even if he's not so good at returning the favor. And if she wants to have a drink with her old friend to commemorate the father that he hated and loved his whole life, then that's nobody's business but hers. Luke doesn't need to know. Building her an ice rink doesn't mean he's any more entitled to this information, in her opinion. So she stamps out the feeling of guilt in the pit of her stomach and glides smoothly around the ice, feeling his eyes on her all the time. Watching, as he's always done.
He buys her a television. She drifts to sleep with Jon Stewart on the screen and Luke's breathing next to her ear. She turns her head slightly to glance at his sleeping face. "You really are too good for me," she says softly, brushing back a lock of hair from his forehead and pressing a kiss to his stubbled cheek. Luke stirs slightly, but doesn't wake. Lorelai closes her eyes and thinks maybe. Maybe tomorrow, she'll stop guarding herself from him. Maybe she'll quit holding back.
Or maybe he'll realize what she already knows - she doesn't deserve him. She's lied to him about a million things, and she sees all of them reflected in his eyes. She's never told him why she's been holding back, why she's never fully let him in. And she's lied to him about Christopher, and despite all her justifications to herself, there's nothing worse she could have done. She sees it in his eyes just before he turns and walks out of the reception hall.
She doesn't do well with maybes. She thinks he gets that now.
Lorelai realizes too late that she doesn't want him to be one of her failures. She wants him to be the dream that comes true; she wants the beginning and middle and end of this story, but she doesn't know how to tell him that. She's never been good with words when he's around. She pushes too hard, as she's always done, and he snaps, which is new. He storms out of Doose's, and her heart constricts in her chest. She's lost him, this time for good.
Tell me about Romeo and Juliet, she hears him say in her head as she turns on the darkened street and looks back at the diner. She thinks she could tell him one hell of a tale, if they're ever together in the right place and time. It happened like this. Romeo waited eight years to go after what he wanted. He watched his Juliet, watched and waited as she lived her life, loved and lost, all the while ignoring the man behind the counter. Juliet knew what Romeo wasn't saying. She's a sharp one, that Juliet. She could see it in his eyes after every almost, every moment. But she said nothing. She was scared; she knows that now. And she never stopped being scared, even after Romeo made his move, even after they started...whatever it was they had. He was all in, and she was still stuck back at "maybe".
"I'm not scared anymore," she whispers to no one in particular. Maybe he'll hear her and come running down the stairs, out the door and onto the street.
She turns toward home, pulling her sweater tighter around her chilled body.
Maybe he won't.
end
Posted by Carrie on 05:50 PM