A/N Thanks to all who have been supportive of this sequel. I hope you continue to enjoy the story. If you haven't read It's Like Breathing this will seem very odd. If you have a chance to at least skim it you might get a better understanding of what's going on.

I own nothing

Ch 1 Where did the night go?

Lorelai barely got to the bathroom in time. Luke had been great the first month getting up with her as soon as she bolted out of bed. Now he slept through the morning sickness although he stayed with her when the evening round happened.

Jess and Rory were weirded out by all the times Lorelai ran for the bathroom. They spent more and more time at the library in Stars Hollow studying since she seemed to get sick during prime time television. Lorelai also blamed this on Luke's child.

Luke was still so excited about this baby that he went around town all day with a smile on his face. Many regulars checked their food before eating just to make sure that it wasn't tampered with. They were so shocked that Luke was smiling they automatically assumed that he was up to something. Luke and Lorelai hadn't told the town about the baby yet. Lorelai wanted to wait until she was farther along incase something happened to it. Luke couldn't go there, he knew his baby was going to be great and strong and very healthy.

Lorelai was in her ninth week and the doctor said three to four more weeks of morning sickness and she should be through the worst. Dr. Hayward wasn't pleased with Lorelai's last check-up. She'd actually lost two more pounds and Dr. Hayward said she should be gaining by now. She hadn't told Luke, he wasn't able to make this appointment because he had to be in New York for a board meeting. He'd just get upset and it really wasn't anything major, she just needed to concentrate on eating more.

This baby though was not cooperating. She'd never had this much difficulty keeping food down with Rory. However if she heard her doctor utter the phrase, 'each pregnancy is different' one more time she was going to take someone out. She felt Luke pull her hair away from her face as she retched once again.

They were going to court today for the final paperwork on April so Lorelai figured that Luke couldn't sleep. Well it was nice to have company while she turned her stomach inside out even if she couldn't communicate with him. It was nice to not feel alone. Damn, Lorelai felt tears at her eyes and knew she was going to have a crying jag in addition to throwing up. What was the reason she wanted to get pregnant? She felt her stomach calm and Luke gave her a glass of water to rinse her mouth out with. He pulled her towards him as they both sat on the floor in front of the tub. Luke's back was to the tub and Lorelai was sitting between his legs with her back to his chest. He held her as she sobbed.

Luke was feeling helpless. He had woken up to find Lorelai gone and he heard her retching in the bathroom. He'd thought she was through with the early morning sickness since he didn't hear her get up anymore. He wondered if he was just sleeping through and allowing her to deal with this by herself. He was home most nights when she was getting sick and he held her then, but if she was also sick in the morning and he'd been sleeping through it he mentally kicked himself.

He'd stop asking if anything was wrong when she'd start crying, usually she'd just shake her head no as she continued to wail. It still tore through his heart to see her go through this and they had seven more months until baby. He held her in his arms and he noticed how thin she was. He made a mental note to call the doctor to make sure it was normal. She hadn't put any weight on at all; in fact some townspeople had asked him if she was ill. Her sobs were lessening and he held her tightly. She leaned her head against his chest and hiccupped as she tried to catch her breath.

Luke kissed her temple and rubbed her arms. "You feel cold. Maybe we need to get you to bed. You feel like you're ready to go back?"

Lorelai nodded her head as Luke scooped her up and carried her back. He wanted to gauge if she felt lighter and to his dismay she did. He started to think about things he'd made for his dad when he was sick and started to lose weight. He knew she craved milk so he'd bought whole milk, and she seemed to be able to keep that down. She'd stopped coming to the diner in the morning or later in the evening because that was when the smell of food would trigger the morning sickness. So something that didn't have a strong smell would be good.

"Hey, you in the mood for some eggnog or maybe ice cream?" Luke smoothed her hair off her face as she smiled back at him wanly.

"You're voluntarily offering me ice cream at five in the morning?" At least she hadn't lost her sense of humor.

"This is a limited time offer obviously caused by sleep deprivation." Luke smiled at her. He didn't want her to know how worried he was.

"Actually the eggnog or ice cream sounds great. Do we have any?" Lorelai was not fooled by Luke she knew he was concerned, the crease between his eyebrows deepened considerably.

"We have chocolate and vanilla ice cream, from Ashley's so very pure ingredients and I can have eggnog ready for you by lunch. Would you like some ice cream right now?"

Luke wanted to get some weight back on her and he'd have made the damn eggnog right then even though it'd take five hours to cool. He also thought about making her a cheesecake, she liked cheesecake right?

"Chocolate sounds really good. Your baby seems to like Ashley's ice cream. At least it let's me keep it down."

"You realize that by having it in your body it's your baby too." Luke chuckled.

"Oh, no bucko, this kid's dietary influence is all you. For the past two months I haven't been able to have coffee, burgers, chili fries or chocolate chip pancakes. And don't even talk to me about syrup, on the blueberry or banana pancakes I can have there has to be fruit on top, no syrupy goodness at all." Lorelai stuck her bottom lip out and pouted.

"Maybe my baby wants its mother to be healthy and live a nice long time, like its father wants her to."

"Yeah, well obviously your baby has no idea about what a pain in the ass its mother can be when she doesn't get any coffee. It isn't going to want mommy to live a nice long time."

Lorelai was actually feeling better just being able to spend time with Luke and she realized that they hadn't had a lot of alone time since they'd found out about April.

"Hey Luke, do you think you could take the whole day off? After court we could just come home and hang out. We really haven't done that all summer and I miss being with you."

She didn't want it to, but she felt her eyes fill up with tears and one escaped down her cheek. Luke wrapped her in his arms and rocked her as he whispered, "Sure Lorelai. I'll let Caesar know and we can just hang out maybe sit out on the porch and watch the world go by. How's that sound? I'll make us some lunch and we'll just spend time together."

He felt her physically relax and his heart soared. Maybe part of the problem she was having was because they were spending too much time apart these days. The end of July caused a huge influx of last minute tourists who wanted to vacation in a quaint New England town.

"Why didn't you tell me you were still having morning sickness?" They were sitting in bed, Lorelai had a bowl of chocolate ice cream in front of her and she was devouring it. She paused mid spoonful and looked thoughtfully at the spoon.

"When I wake up I can barely get to the bathroom in time so I can't wake you to tell you I'm going to throw up now. I figured if you knew you'd feel bad because you didn't wake up too. So I guess I didn't tell you because you'd feel bad about something that you didn't need to feel bad about."

Luke grinned because he did feel bad about not waking up.

"I just feel like you're going through this pregnancy by yourself even though we're married and I hate that you are. I was thinking that you'd gotten over most of the morning sickness and here it's just that I can sleep through a marching band." Luke cuddled her and ran his fingers through her hair.

Lorelai's eyes filled with tears again and she nodded.

"I feel that too and I know it's not true, but we don't see each other much and we don't have anytime to ourselves lately, not that I'm sad that Rory's out of school, it's been nice to have time with her, but it's almost like a trade off that I lose time alone with you."

Luke held her and exhaled quickly. "Oh Lorelai, I'm so sorry. I've been so preoccupied with the lawyers and getting everything settled that I think I've let us go a bit. I've counted on you being there and I messed up. I love you so much and I haven't paid as much attention to that as I should."

Lorelai started to cry silently, it was as though she couldn't stop the flow of tears that were cascading down her face. "Do you know that the last time you told me you loved me was last week after the last time we'd made love? I hate I'm that girl Luke, but I need to hear it a little more. I know you love me, but sometimes I need to hear it."

What shocked Luke as much as her telling him he'd last told her he loved her after they'd made love was that it had been a week since he'd last made love to his wife. How the hell had he let her get to this? What kind of self involved jackass had he become?

"Lorelai, don't ever apologize for telling me when I've been a schmuck. If I've let my beautiful wife alone for a week when I could have made love to her everyday then I'm a schmuck. If I've let my gorgeous, vivacious, sexy, every man's fantasy wife go more than twelve hours not hearing me say how much I love her, then I'm a schmuck. Please don't ever hesitate to tell me this because unfortunately I'll probably get inside my head again sometime in the future and be a schmuck again."

As Luke was ranting he was kissing Lorelai's neck, her collarbone, and proceeding farther south as he removed pieces of her clothing. She was giggling and when he got south of her bellybutton she moaned. Luke stopped for just a second when he realized that he could see her ribs. Tears filled his eyes but he pushed them away as he continued to make love to her.

They laid in bed together afterwards and Luke held her close. Lorelai felt more content and at peace then she had for some time. Luke realized that his life had changed drastically and he was failing to keep up.

Before Lorelai and Rory were an intimate part of his life, before Jess was here, before April and before the new baby; he grinned at that thought. Before all of this he waltzed through life. His life was like a slow dance, very predictable. Now it felt like when his mom tried to teach him the Lindy Hop when he was in grade school. He never figured out where he was supposed to be and the steps seemed too far out there for him to grasp. He worried that his life had gotten so complicated that he'd never learn the steps.

"Lorelai, I need to ask you to help me."

"Sure babe, what is it?" Lorelai looked at him full of concern.

"I'm learning a new dance and I can't seem to get the steps right." Luke was making circles on her stomach as he talked with her.

"I'm not following Luke." Lorelai was trying to sort out what he was saying and Luke grinned as he looked at her.

"You have to know that I love our life. I love being married to you." Luke kissed her deeply. "I love our new house; that Rory and Jess are doing well at Chilton. I'm so happy about the new baby that I can't keep this stupid smile off my face and half the town thinks I need to be committed. I'm anxious and excited about meeting April. But I feel at sea right now. It's like when my mom tried to teach me to dance as a kid."

"The slow dance I got quickly, it was methodical and I could see where I was going. But she tried to teach me swing dancing and I never felt comfortable with it. I want to learn this new dance, I know it's going to give me more pleasure then I deserve. But right now I'm not sure what the moves are and I'm stepping on your toes as I try and learn. I need you to let me know when I've done that, even if you think it might hurt my feelings, because if you don't then I'm afraid that we'll never learn this dance together and I can't do it without you."

Lorelai hugged him tightly and whispered, "You got it dude."

She was so happy, it finally felt like Luke had realized that he had been drifting along side her, but not in the same boat with her. Or to use his metaphor, it felt like they were dancing to different songs. Luke wrapped his arms around her and he felt her relaxing back to sleep. When he thought she was asleep he did what he'd done every night since he learned she was pregnant, he talked to his child. While she slept he put his mouth close to her stomach and whispered to the baby.

"Hey baby, this is Dad. You're giving your mom a hard time right now and I'd like you to ease up. Let her eat some of that crap she wants, she needs to get some meat back on her bones. You'll need her to gain weight too. I'm really excited about seeing you so I want you to grow big and strong. Today we're going to sign the final papers to be able to set up a time to see your big sister. We've talked about meeting her for the first time somewhere neutral and when I got your mom the ice cream I thought maybe we could meet at Ashley's I mean all kids like ice cream right?"

"I can't wait until you're ready to come out, but stay in there the full nine months, ok? But when you come out I'll show you everything I know. I'll teach you how to cook, how to throw a ball and how to hit the ball. I'll take you fishing, camping and even teach you to dance. You're mom's parents will be your only grandparents because my mom and dad are in heaven, maybe you saw them before you came here? Well, the Gilmore's are good people and they already love you like your mom and I do. Your other sister loves you too and so does your cousin, although he doesn't show it all the time he's really excited about being here when you arrive."

"I'll also keep you from being attacked by the nuts in Stars Hollow, although they mean well and they'll only be attacking you because they'll love you too. Miss Patty and Babette are the two you need to watch out for. They'll pinch your cheek until it's raw, but I'll keep them away from you. Kirk is harmless but stay away from him anyway. If you could cry each time Taylor comes by you'd do your dad proud."

"Wow, dad. I'm your dad. I can't believe that I never thought I'd be a dad and here I am twice in a year. The difference that you'll experience from all the other kids is that your mom and I will raise you together and we'll always be there for you as a united front. Sometimes that will suck for you, because the answer will be no, but you'll always know that we loved each other so much that we wanted to have an expression of that love and that's you. I'm going to catch a couple more hours of sleep too but I want you to know I'm here and I love you. 'Night baby."

Luke kissed Lorelai's stomach and then sat up and kissed her forehead and whispered, "Night baby. I love you too."

Luke laid back down and felt himself drift off to sleep with Lorelai wrapped in his arms.