This Isn't A Meet Cute Romance

Lorelai Gilmore sits restlessly, she shifts her half full coffee cup in between both hands and twists it nervously in circles on the table. The lukewarm liquid whirls, spiralling upwards, spilling slightly over the edge then falling level again, repeatedly. They've been sitting in the Arrivals section of the airport for over half an hour and she can't contain her enthusiasm, she turns around to stare at the entrance every minute without fail.

"Lorelai, Put down the cup." Luke Danes sits across from her and places a hand, lovingly on her arm.

"I can't. I'm excited. My baby is coming home!" Lorelai bobs up and down in her seat as she says it, it's been nearly 6 months since Rory was in Star's Hollow. For any other family this is probably a completely respectable amount of time, but for Lorelai this is too much. She sneaks another look at the big arrivals door.

Luke sighs. "Yes but she's not coming in for another hour. So you can stop with all the mixing and the spilling." He looks at her exasperatedly, and dabs a napkin at the spills on the table. She shoots him a look that says 'This isn't the diner, honey' but he just shrugs.

"Urgh why are we here this early then?!" Lorelai pouts.

"You dragged me out here this early." Luke cocks his head and looks confused, exasperatedly confused. "It was all I could to stop you from bringing a Thermos and your sheets and camping here last night!"

"Puh-lease. You of all people know when I do something, I do it properly. I'd have packed up that air mattress and made a bed fort right over …There!"

She points and motions so loudly the poor man sitting in the collection of coffee shop sofas across from them gives a scared look. Luke waves him off with a smile and shoots Lorelai a look. She doesn't notice.

"… with all the pillows from my couch, right? And hot chocolates with little marshmallows and the can whipped cream. Well I mean that's the only whipped cream really. Don't tell Sookie I said that though, I'm sure all that crème patisserie is worth all the effort she goes to…"

The same sardonic look is still on Luke's face, eyebrow raised. "I'm rambling aren't I?"

"Yup." Luke is still at times the master of succinct. It must be a family thing for sure, Lorelai thinks to herself sarcastically, but he doesn't need the words when he lays his hand over hers and rubs his thumb over the back of her hand. It calms her as he traces little circles.

She nods. "Yup." In agreement.

"Speaking of airbed." Luke starts hesitantly, his other hand nervously rubs the back of his neck. "You're sure it's okay Jess is on it downstairs? I said Liz and T.J. and Doula could have the privacy of the diner apartment to themselves but then I forgot that I'd be sleeping on the couch…" he trails off and shrugs again.

"Because we're sleeping separately and not seeing each other from the wedding day eve!" Lorelai perks up, interjecting and saving him from the awkward silence he'd walked himself into. "I never knew you'd be such a stickler for tradition." She teases, smirking mercilessly. It makes her happy they've been living together, and everything that comes with that, for over a decade pretty much but Luke is insisting on some old fashioned wedding customs. There's a real softie under that gruff plaid coating.

"Exactly. But it's okay?" he looks nervously.

"It's …okay." Lorelai reassures, but can't stop herself from sounding hesitant at the end.

"It's… okay?" she feels mean that somehow he looks even more nervous, and Luke isn't really ever one to emote.

"Yeah, it's okay." She tries to loosen the tension suddenly building up in her shoulders and smile at him. "In my head she's still 12, but my baby is closer to 30 than 20 and everyone else is pretty much an adult as well. So it'll all be okay."

"Good." He kisses her hand and lets go of it, starting to stand up and collect up the coffee cups.

"You promise me it'll be okay, right?" she looks up, a thin glimmer of nerves showing through about the whole thing. Not just the Jess thing, the wedding thing, but Luke seems to understand that too.

"I promise." He kisses the top of her head before starting to walk over to the counter. "Now get back to surveillance on the arrivals. I'll get us some fresh coffees."

"No decaff!" Lorelai shouts after him.

::::::::

The angry outburst from the plane has long since dulled and Rory is happily staring out of the window on the drive back to Star's Hollow. Catching sights and road signs familiar from her rides to and from Yale, or even farther back to school bus trips, are comforting, nostalgic. Lorelai had graciously offered up her spot riding shotgun, but Rory knows this is just so she can sit in the back and rattle the box of wedding gifts from Karen.

She's awoken from the reverie though when she hears a groaning sound from Luke beside her and the sound of a loud power ballad on the car stereo. "Seriously guys, what is this?" she laughs.

"Oh this?" Luke gestures behind him. "Your mother is torturing me with a mixtape of 'first dance' suggestions. They're all terrible. The last three have been Steve Perry." He shudders. "She knows I'm getting 80's Journey flashbacks all over again."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Fiancé? How dare you slander 'THE Voice?!" Lorelai calls out over the sound of the rustling of the package she's playing with in her hands.

"I agree Luke, like Mom would do anything to torture you on purpose." Rory stifles her laughter momentarily. "What's the next one?" she clicks the button on the dashboard.

The opening bars of slow piano have Luke immediately groaning and Rory looks questioningly back at Lorelai, who is now miming playing a giant keyboard behind them, waving her head around eyes shut miming like she's singing her heart out.

"Open Arms… Journey." Luke huffs, shaking his head at his Fiancée's antics in the back seat.

Leaning forward Lorelai props up her head on her hands and looks in between them, switching between grinning at Rory and completely straight faced at Luke. "I'm actually totally serious with this one."

"Uh huh?" Luke says it like it's a grouchy question.

"No, no listen!" Lorelai bats as the back of his baseball cap, then proceeds to sing along loudly. "'We sailed on together, we drifted apart, and here you are by my side.'"

"Sounds pretty depressing to me!" he quips.

"No, its sweet! Its love reunited! 'Hoping you'll see what your love means to me, Open Aaaaaaarms!"

"I think I'm gonna barf over here, Mom" Rory laughs. She feels better already and she's not even home yet, the easy banter between the three of them makes her feel like time hasn't passed at all.

"I'm being serious, we're the on again off again kings, but now this is it, this is cereal love! You're marrying me!" Lorelai protests.

There is a long pause as Luke looks away from the road long enough to give Lorelai a seriously disgusted look, eyebrow cocked in contempt.

"What d'ya think, Kiddo? Open Arms?" Lorelai turns back to Rory. "You gotta side with me?"

"I think you were crazy judging Sookie for the Nina Simone. Let's talk to Lane tomorrow." Rory decides quickly, tossing a look over at Luke.

Luke looks beyond appreciative. "Please!'

"Ooh, ooh, ooh" Lorelai excitedly jumps up and down. "I've just had a thought! What about Adele?!" Luke stops at the stop light and slumps his head down to the wheel. Rory swears she hears a muffled "Oh God."

::::::::

"Hey before you go in, I gotta check something with you."

Luke starts carrying in the present box and has a large backpack of Rory's slung over his shoulder too, leaving the girls with little more to carry than handbags. Lorelai hugs into Rory before she continues talking and gives her a possessive squeeze. Rory smiles, this is her Mom's favourite part, the part where she's arriving at home for the holiday, or visit, in this case. There's an apprehensive look on her face though as she continues.

"Your ummm step-cousin is staying here tonight too, driving in later. There was literally a kind of no room at the inn situation. A last minute thing, that's cool right? You guys are okay?"

"My step cousin… Jess, you mean?" Rory feels her nose wrinkle up without even trying. Stay cool, just stay cool.

"No, no, - Yes!" Lorelai continues, ushering her up the front stairs. "Of course Jess, you have no funky history with Doula. I mean she's probably at some maddening, question everything, persistent ten-year-old phase if she's anything like you were - at that age - but- "

They open the door that had closed shut behind Luke and are briefly met with the sound scuffles and a fluffy missile of fur launching at Rory's haunches. Paul Anka wastes no time in pawing at her legs persistently until she pets at his head.

"Hey there bud" she murmurs giving his grey ears a scratch, before remembering what they'd just been saying.

"And! - Hey! I resent that but It's fine." Rory sighs and nervously pinches at her nose. She wasn't intending on talking to Jess so soon, she's not really formulated anything that she'd even try to say to him.

"We've not seen each other for a long time, but…I'm sure we'll find something to talk about. Don't worry, Mom." She hopes Lorelai doesn't spot the worry in her face and the grimace she feels coming on.

"The price of gas these days. Inflation. Whether Paul Anka here needs a haircut." Lorelai offers closing the door behind them.

"What?" Rory replies, perplexed. She must be distracted, usually the quick fire quips from her mother are lost on everyone but her.

"Things you two can talk about? You okay, hon?" Lorelai starts pulling her coat and layers off and sticking them by the front door.

"Oh sure, I'm just gonna go for a shower, okay? I'm all gross from all these warm clothes I've layered on, and you know … Plane Hair!" Lorelai nods and ushers her, half pushing her over to the bathroom door funnily, as she's not even got her bag with all her stuff in it.

"Oh yes, Amen to that. Go! Wash, my child, banish the plane hair. When you get out I'll reheat some of Luke's food we saved, kay?"

Locking the door behind her Rory chuckles. Twenty minutes at least of peace and hot water are exactly what I need to clear my head maybe. Lets see what fresh clothes I stuffed into my carry on bag.

::::::::

"Ehrr… Hey."

Rory looks up, she's wrestling a dressing gown from Paul Anka and dripping all over the floor. Hopping straight into the shower was a bad idea, all the clothes she had stuffed in her smaller bag as she zipped though her apartment had been some humorous elmo pyjama shorts (she thought her Mom would find them funny) and the silk slip for wearing underneath her bridesmaid's dress. She was sure they made for a hilarious combination, cheeks flushing red.

Pulling open the shower curtain she'd found the Houdini dog had somehow ended up inside, door mercifully mostly shut, and was happily chewing on the fluffy dressing gown her mother kept hanging behind the door and pawing through her bag. She'd thankfully heard two sets of voices upstairs so had quickly thrown on the clothes and started wrestling the furry menace into the hall. Running straight into Jess. He'd just let himself in it looked like, satchel hitched over his shoulder and a big duffel bag in his hands.

He looks just the same but much different somehow too, the wavy dark hair is a little longer, falling along the hood of his jacket and grazing his chin. Rory resists this strange strong urge to run a hand through it. His jaw is flecked with scruffy stubble that's more pronounced than she's ever seen it too. He looks older, gruffer maybe. Like twenty-one-year-old Jess took a trek in the wilderness and came out tougher.

"Hey" she realises didn't reply for what seemed like an age as she looked him over.

"You want this?" he reaches into the duffel and yanks out a grey hoodie, pitching it over to her.

Catching it roughly Rory is still a little stunned. It's a kind gesture for a soggy sesame street clad woman and it leeches away a lot of the anger she was hoping to maybe confront him with. Or well might have done, if she'd even worked out what to say.

All she does say is "I … Okay."

"No problem." He half smiles a crooked smile and nonchalantly walks over and takes the gown out of Anka's mouth. "You don't wanna wear this. It's kinda covered in drool now." She lets go and he dunks it in the nearby wash basket. How is he this... cool?!

"Can we talk for a sec-" she sees him stop as he looks behind her. Turning they both register at the same time that he's looking at the book poking out of her bag.

There's a loud click as the door closes behind us and suddenly we're alone again, in a room, not a car.

I'm exhausted, you're exhausted. We just drove most of the night and the dawn is peaking through the windows. I put down the bags and you put the room keys down on the table and suddenly here we stand, staring at our shoes.

You're wearing tatty sneakers peaking out from under that dress. It makes me remember that 'that dress' is under the hoodie and my jacket.

I half crack a smile and you swat me on the arm when you see exactly what I'm smiling at. "I needed them for driving!"

Your hand hasn't left my arm yet. It slides down and you interlace your fingers with mine, I grab your other hand, so here we are just holding hands. Alone, in a room. I feel like I'm 18 again, trying to sneak a proper first kiss with you above the diner.

Only this time you're not nervously biting your lip and looking at the floor a foot away from me, you're stepping closer, you're looking up at me with all the same bravado from the car ride and this kind of lustful look.

There it is again, you look up and you bat your long lashes at me and its definitely desire in those big blue eyes. I close the gap and suddenly your hands are on my neck and in my hair and it's me who can't breathe because you're kissing me with more insistence than I have ever felt from you.

The jacket ends up on the floor, and my sweater on a chair, and my hands are sliding up your legs as you kick off those shoes. You're pulling off the hood hurriedly over your shoulders and I'm helping you, my fingers get tangled in the flowers that are still pinned in your hair and you're giggling.

Your laughter is infectious, it makes me smile, properly this time. We pause and it's hilarious, this tangle of limbs and flowers, and outer layers strewn all over the room. You're half flopped on top of me, kind of straddling me actually and my hands drift to your hips. I place them down firmly and look up at you.

"So…" You look back at me. You're spectacular. Do you even realise how amazing you look? How mind blowing this feels?

"So…" You reply questioningly. "We take a breather?" you suggest, somewhat warily.

"We're not short on time." I lean up and tuck your hair behind your ear, it's a stunning mess compared to the moment we walked in the door. "We get a little rest, we get ready and I take you out for breakfast before we stick with the plan, sound good?"

"Mmmm, what kind of breakfast?" You lean down and run your nose down mine, grinning impishly.

"Oh, Miss Gilmore! How did I not know that the food would be your first question?" I pat a spot on the bed next to me and you reluctantly get off me and snuggle in under my arm instead quickly. "Pancakes?" I offer.

"Tell me more. What kind of pancakes?" You drape your arm over my chest.

"Eurgh, what do you think? You've spent to much time in Europe. Thick American Pancakes! Maple syrup, Bacon!"

You wrinkle your nose at me and it's adorable. I wish that you'd stop being this sexy, adorable, cruel woman while we're trying to show some restraint. You're driving me crazy.

Grudgingly I get up and walk over to our stuff, I pull out a big pair of sweatpants and a clean gym shirt and throw them over to you. You look at me questioningly and I motion to the bathroom, "Please. Do me a favour put them on, none of this silky slip business, I'm already going insane over here and it's been about 30 seconds since we were..."

"Okay, okay. I'm going, I'm going!" You huff at me, jokingly waggling a finger. "I expect you to at least have a shirt on!"

You close the door and I let out a huge sigh. I secretly hope you'll never stop driving me this crazy.