^{lorelaithesecond}

_{THE DRIVE SEEMS TO TAKE YEARS, her hands set firmly on the steering wheel, music playing as loud as she dares in an attempt at distraction. she can’t think about what she’ll find when she arrives. she’ll worry about that once she gets there. for now she just has to drive. the temptation to allow her gaze to shift once she pulls onto the street is almost too much, but she manages to park and exit the jeep before she takes a look. so —— clearly not a small fire. everything’s dark, and charred. people are crowded at a far enough distance that it’s clear they’re trying to make it feel like they aren’t prying, though they obviously are. but lorelai pays no attention to them, her eyes move directly from the remains of the diner, to the nosy neighbors ( as if it’s all that hard to tell what’s happened ), and finally drift to her husband. she begins to walk, slowly as to hopefully maintain some composure ( she has to be strong, as scary as this is —— as RATTLING as this is —— she has to be strong for LUKE ). finally, she sits beside him on the curb, immediately wrapping both arms around him. “i’m here,” she mutters under her breath, unsure what else to say. “i’m here, i love you,” all the comforting words she’d tried to prepare on the drive over are gone. what is there to say? what can she say that’ll help at all? it’s not the time for jokes, or silliness. no, this is SERIOUS, and it’s clearly painful for him ( why wouldn’t it be? ), and in a rare turn of events, lorelai is left nearly speechless.} 

^{HE FEELS HER ARMS AROUND HIM AND HE FALLS INTO HER, his head coming to rest against her chest. she’s the only thing that feels real and stable. he’s aware of the town staring, a few of them were inside when the fire started. luke wishes he had enough energy to yell, to scream, to be the grumpy diner owner they’re all expecting, but he CAN’T. “i’ve disappointed him.” it’s the first words he’s spoken since rushing everyone out. he hasn’t had the chance to talk to the police or fire chief yet. everyone is distancing themselves from him and luke is grateful to not have to answer questions.  “and you. our baby isn’t born yet and i’ve already disappointed it.”}

^{lorelaithesecond}

_{IT’S BEEN A HELL OF A DAY. she’s been married, rory dropped her bombshell, she’s convinced patty to switch up the music for luke’s flashmob ( steely dan, ugh ), and it’s not over yet. now she’s getting married again. it’s one for the history books, that’s for sure. last night had been wonderful —– magical, even —– being married to luke already feels so right, but there’s something about being in the dress she’d picked out almost a decade ago that makes it all feel so PERFECT. it’s crazy to imagine that people can endure long engagements, and lorelai’s not sure how she even tried before. hell, her and luke hadn’t even lasted until the actual wedding —– they’d eloped less than twenty-four hours ago. last night, in the same spot she’s walking toward now. somehow she’d made it then without crying, but right now? with all their friends and family watching? in her actual dress? and just seeing luke STANDING THERE, looking even more handsome in his suit than he had in the living room yesterday? well, clearly it all just makes it all so much better. the smile on her lips is paired with eyes alight with joy —— the sort of confirmation that only affirms the knowledge that this is MEANT TO BE ( god, she’s lucky that waterproof makeup exists, because she’ll need it by the time this is all over ). her eyes remain locked on luke, and she’s conscious of her daughter at her side, just like last night ( it only feels right to have rory be the one to give her away —– especially in the absence of her father ), but it’s almost as if everyone else is invisible. she knows that they’re all here —– the whole town, her mother, other assorted family members —– but she only has eyes for LUKE. it feels like she’s walked an entire mile by the time she ascends the steps of the gazebo —– then suddenly she’s standing in front of her husband ( soon to be double-husband, as she’s decided to call it ) and lorelai’s not sure a single moment in her life has ever felt so RIGHT as this one.}

^{HE CAN FEEL THE HAPPINESS RADIATING TOWARDS them from the entire population of stars hollow. it’s only fitting that the town that raised them ( not that luke would ever admit to it ) was there to see their marriage. he’s allows himself the briefest moment of sadness, wishing for a second that his parents were here to see this moment. he lets go of the sadness once lorelai is standing in front of him. he feels his breath get caught in his throat. he knows how beautiful lorelai is, but she looks angelic, even more so than she did so many years ago in her dress. maybe it’s because he knows it’s for real this time, this time they aren’t sneaking out in the middle of the night and he’s not hiding a life changing secret. they are simply luke && lorelai, completely & utterly in love with each other. the moment she is standing in front of him, she’s all he can focus on. he hears their friends and family sitting back down, he hears the pastor speak, but all he can do is stare at his wife. GOD, they’re already married and yet- he feels like it’s the first time all over again. there’s something about how lucky he is to get to share a life with such a amazing woman. he knows nothing could ever compare to this moment.}

^{fortunefading}

        ^{❛ so — hey dad. how’s it going? ❜ april stalled, pacing the halls of the police station. luke was SURE to freak when she finally built up the courage to tell him where she was. she’d already tried jess, but he hadn’t answered and the twenty three year old was on the VERGE of a panic attack. ❛ i can’t talk long. i just called to say congratulations on the wedding and uh – i need you to pick me up from jail. okay, thanks. bye! ❜}

@ldcnes gets a starter.

^{“april !” he responds, anger in his voice. “ what do you mean you’re in jail ! what did you do?” he’s trying to calm down, he’s sure his daughter is scared. luke is trying to keep his voice level and not to worry so much but he can’t help it. his daughter is in jail.}

^{lorelaithesecond}

_{“WE’RE FINE,” she answers immediately, a heavy pause lingering as she tries to find her words. letting out a sigh, she shakes her head —– they’re fine now, at least. she hopes they’ll keep being fine, but there’s no knowing for sure. hands raise to rub down her face, terror gripping at every inch of her as the seconds tick on. in fact, lorelai isn’t sure she’s ever been so scared —– the last thing she wants is to lose luke. she can’t lose luke. rory can’t lose luke. eyes shut tightly, hoping that it’ll hide the fact that she suddenly feels like she might cry. the mere idea that this might drive luke away is too much. she can’t risk it ( the fact that he’ll find out soon enough regardless of whether she says anything doesn’t occur to her ). eyes open as she plasters a smile on her face, shaking her head. “you know what? never mind, it’s not that important. let’s just watch the movie,”}

^{HE KNOWS SOMETHING IS GOING ON. he can sense it in her actions and how there’s a space between them on the couch that’s normally not there. luke holds the remote far away from her, not wanting to leave this conversation like this. “ lorelai please. something’s up. i’m not an idiot. you’ve been distance lately and i’m scared you’re going to leave, so please just tell me. ”  he doesn’t want to go back to life without her. they’ve started to build something together- even if they live in an all-too-small apartment. they’re both working towards the same goal, a goal to have a family and a house without the help of either of their families.}

^{lorelaithesecond}

_{SHE CONTINUES TAKING DEEP BREATHS, reminding herself over and over that they don’t know anything yet —– for right now things are mostly okay. for all she knows, they might not actually be, but until they know for sure, the only way she knows to survive is to be positive. now that luke’s here, though, it seems harder. it seems real. there’s something wrong with their kid, and they don’t know what it is, and she’s scared out of her mind. still, lorelai forces herself to smile as he speaks, “i know that. i know —– i just…. having you here is probably the only thing holding me together right now,” another deep breath. there’s no way either of them could be doing this alone. having somebody else, somebody like luke by her side makes parenting so much easier. especially in moments like these. “good idea, yeah. better to keep things to ourselves for as long as we can,” which won’t be long with a community as tight-knit and gossip-driven as stars hollow, “we don’t know anything, it’ll be a nightmare the second anyone finds out,”}

^{HE WRAPS HIS ARM AROUND his wife, pulling her close to him. he holds her for a moment, both of them quiet. he needs this moment with his wife, where they still believe everything is fine because soon they’re be known as the parents of a sick kid. luke lets out a small sigh, he’s always been rather pessimistic about life but right now, he’s trying to hold on to the hope that everything is going to be okay. “come on,” he states, letting lorelai go to take a hold of one of her hands. “let’s go see our boy.” he can’t say anything more, everything is falling apart around them. their miracle little boy is sick, very sick. they are unaware of how sick but luke doesn’t have a good feeling about this. “ i need to see him before we get any news.”}

^{lorelaithesecond}

_{IT WAS ALMOST FUNNY TO THINK THAT SHE’D BEEN SCARED. that she’d thought that too much time had passed since rory had been little —– that there was no way she could do this. but now? standing here? she’s never felt so much CONFIDENCE. she can do this. they can do this. that’s not to say it won’t be hard, but at least she’s not a seventeen-year-old single mom this time. this time she has luke, and she has rory. hell, she’s got an entire TOWN who loves her little family, and lorelai knows that all of them will do whatever they have to to ensure this little boy grows up knowing how much he’s adored. there’s nothing more a parent can ask for than that, and she has so much more. the citizens of stars hollow, her daughter, a semi-stable relationship with her mother, and luke. she’s lucky every day to have luke, but especially now —– especially realizing that her son ( THEIR son ) is going to have a reliable father. it had always been a BLESSING having luke around to help with rory, maybe one that lorelai had taken for granted sometimes, but now? now she gets to see him be a father to his own kid. she gets to see him be a father all day every day, and the thought is enough to widen the smile on her face.}

_{there’s nothing more comforting than his arms around her, no feeling more safe. and she KNOWS that they’re going to be just fine. their son is going to be just fine. no —– it’s like she just said: he’s already perfect. she can just tell ( with only a little maternal bias involved ). little liam. he’s all THEIRS. they get to hold him, and love him, and take care of him. no one has ever been more lucky than lorelai is right now. tears spring to her eyes as she begins to fully wrap her head around how BEAUTIFUL this moment is. gaze shifts to once more lock on their son, and she laughs a little at her husband’s comment, “and his DAD,” she amends softly, as if there’s a sort of reverence to this moment, and it has to be maintained. “i’m pretty sure i’m the luckiest woman in the whole world,”}

^{THERE’S NO ONE ELSE IN THIS WORLD he would want to have a child with. sure,  he has a daughter with anna, but it’s not the same. when he was younger, and his father had just passed away, he thought that he was in love with her. hell, he almost proposed to her, but the moment he laid eyes on lorelai- everything changed. he had been terrified once when realised that he was in love with her, so brokenhearted when it came to both of their breakups, but now they’re here. they’re close to celebrating their two year anniversary and they have the most perfect little boy who is all THEIRS.} 

^{HE HAD BEEN SO scared when lorelai him that they were having a baby. luke’s never done this whole baby thing before. he likes to believe that he has the parenting a teenager down, especially being there throughout both rory and april’s teenage years, but a baby is a entirely new thing. he knows now that he would do anything to make his boy happy, he’ll do anything to make his family smile.} 

^{LUKE TABLE-FOR-ONE DANES has a family now. something he hasn’t had since 1989, since his father passed away. it was some sort of magic, some houdini act that he was given the chance to have such a beautiful wife, a nearly perfect step-daughter ( and step-granddaughter ), an einstein-level smart daughter and the most handsome son he could have ever asked for.} 

^{HE PRESSES A KISS to the side of his wife’s head as he stares at the bundle of blue sleeping peacefully. “i’m so lucky to go on this adventure with you.” he tightens his arm that’s around her waist, his cheek coming to rest on the side of her head but his eyes never leave their son. “thank you.”}

^{thereigninglcrelai}

_{continued from here for @ldcnes}

_{❝ We are not spying; we’re observing. At least, we were, until you completely blew our cover back there, ❞ Lorelai replied defensively. Rory had barely spoken to her since their conversation in the gazebo. She hadn’t meant to freak out over the whole pregnancy thing, but this was Rory, for god’s sake. She was supposed to be travelling the world and writing articles for The New Yorker, not having a baby with someone else’s fiancé.}

^{“observing from behind a bush is what most people call spying.” he knows that the mother-daughter duo haven’t been speaking since rory’s big announcement, but this whole spying issue has been taken a little too far. luke danes isn’t the type of person to hide behind a bush and stare into an apartment window.} 

^{lorelaithesecond}

_@ldcnes

_{RORY WAS FINALLY ASLEEP, it had taken four stories, but there was no denying she was finally out. hopefully for the night. with a sigh lorelai reclaims her spot on the sofa, legs folding under her, shoulders sagging with the weight of the length and stress of the day. she glances sidelong at luke with a soft smile, “sometimes getting her to go to bed is like pulling teeth,” she notes, gaze drifting to the tv, though she can’t quite bring herself to pay attention. something heavy has weighed on her mind for several days now, and it’s not a subject she’s eager or prepared to bring up. it’s more terrifying than anything, regardless of the rational parts of her mind that continually remind her that luke probably won’t react badly —— but the chance that he might is enough to hold her back. sitting silently, she picks distractedly at her nails, trying to build up the nerve to say what she needs to. the minutes tick by, and she finally decides it’s best to get it over with, so with another belabored sigh, lorelai’s attention shifts back to luke, “hey, i, uh —— we need to talk about something. it’s kind of IMPORTANT,”}

^{HE WAS WAITING ON HER TO WATCH the breakfast club. luke had started to notice that lorelai was off her game as of late, but he thought it was just because rory hadn’t been sleeping well. now, he wonders if something else is wrong. he worries, even if for a second, that she’s going to break up with him, that for some reason, he wasn’t good enough to share her life, but luke knows. he knows how much he means to her, how much he means to rory and how desperately she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. he turns the tv off, important conversations can’t be had while a tv is on. “are you okay? are we okay?”}

^{continued || @lorelaithesecond}

^{“YEAH YOU ARE,” her own excitement was almost too much to handle, but something about the look on luke’s face made it so much more. it was like her own feelings had been partially obscured by clouds, but sharing with luke, seeing his reaction —– it was like the clouds had parted to show how MAGNIFICENT everything really was. as was true with her whole life since she’d met him, luke was like her SUN. everything was so much better when he was around. and when luke was happy? god, it was infectious. her cheeks hurt from smiling as she nodded. “luke, we’re gonna have a kid,”}

^{“A KID. OUR KID!” the feeling that overwhelms luke at this very moment is something indescribable. they’re having a baby, something that they have been working towards for the past year. lorelai is pregnant, with their baby, and the look on her face causes him to perk up even more. they both already have a daughter, they’ve done the kid thing before; even if luke missed the first twelve years of april’s life, but sharing a kid with lorelai. a cute baby with sparklingly blue eyes and tuffs of brown hair, a kid who will call him ‘dada’ and ‘daddy’, a kid he can throw a ball with and teach how to ride a bike. he gets to be there for all the things he missed with april. “are… are you sure? how far long are you?”}