Disclaimer: Singing a song, just like before... "Not mi-hi-hi-hi-ine!"

AN: Thanks for sticking it out, and for all comments, good or bad or whatever. I am aware it's odd to post a chapter a day, but it keeps me from re-writing them into gibberish.

For non-baseball fans, three strikes equals an out, and three outs retires a side. Yes, you do need to know this.

GG GG GG

Luke Danes was not yet thirty, but felt ancient.

He'd lost his mother young. Strike one.

He'd then lost his father. Strike two.

He'd yet to hold onto a girlfriend. Strike three.

And with that, Luke Danes concluded, he was out.

On the other hand, he'd grown fond of Jess in the last few weeks. He'd laid to rest that whole girlfriend issue, insofar as Rachel and her wanderlust were concerned.

And he'd lost Rory Gilmore while babysitting her.

Another out, on a pop-up to center that never gave him a chance to get on base.

Bottom of the ninth, at bat, facing a demon fastball named Lorelai, and he felt like he had two outs against him already. With two wild-swing strikes, though he hated to admit to either.

Strike one? He'd been moping over her having a date while supposedly watching ESPN, and that was why he hadn't paid enough attention to the kids. Staring at SportsCenter did wonders for his mood as a rule, but all he'd seen was Lorelai taut-faced and chilly, asking if he could watch Rory. He'd jumped at the chance, before he'd thought through that whole Lorelai-on-a-date thing. Rookie swinging for high and outside.

Strike two? He'd been comparing the Lorelai of their date to the Lorelai of that date, and as maddening as it was to find both were truly Lorelai, it was worse to discover he'd envied some low-life deadbeat loser like Rory's absentee dad. The man had a trust fund. He'd given her Rory. Rachel had left for, in his opinion, far less reason. Luke Danes, diner owner, overgrown grunge-skateboarder fashion misstatement, muffed that swing, too. He was just a him. With a nephew he didn't know how to uncle, yet couldn't send away. He made a great set-up for one of Lorelai's bits, he supposed, but a man she'd ever see that way? Nope.

Maybe, he sulked to himself, he was actually already on his third out, time to retire the side. Head back to the dugout. Well, the diner. After retrieving Jess from Babette's, without losing his temper at the woman's well-intended and completely annoying questions. At least he hadn't entrusted Jess to Mrs. Kim. The boy would never forgive him. And it was something of a gesture, he admitted, as he studied his toes, to drop Jess at Babette's to be not-babysat while he and Lorelai had their not-date to discuss what was probably going to be a long future of not. Not dating, not loving, not liking, not talking, not.

Agitated at the realization he might not even be able to go to Lorelai for advice on Jess, he stood, sweating from anxiety as well as August heat. The sunset flared the color of raw salmon. A color, Luke knew, Lorelai would have a much better name for, so long as it wasn't flaming disaster.

Evening dropped slow and lazy. Luke brushed at his t-shirt as he re-settled onto the top step of the gazebo. He couldn't help wondering if he should have worn his dress shirt and a tie. It was Lorelai, true, but the way she had said We need to talk made him feel like he was about to go to court.

Lorelai appeared at last. She'd changed from her manager-of-an-inn gear into loose denim shorts nearly to her knees, and a faded blue top. Her hair was pulled into a tail, and she had scrubbed her face free of cosmetics. His heart gave a lonely, hopeful hiccup at the sight of her.

"I apologize," she said formally, sitting on the step near him. He could smell her soap. "The kids were testing their volcano again, and I got too close. Actually, Babette's gnomes got too close. Lane should go into rocket science, I think the bucket's in a tree."

She was chattering to cover all the rest of her. He shut his eyes. That was not the Lorelai of their date. Or various conversations over the last few months. It was the Public Lorelai. He groaned. This was going to be a wicked curveball, the kind that broke hearts as well as batting averages. He just knew it.

"Since you're notoriously silent, I'll start…"

Words materialized out of thin air. "Would you ever leave?"

Appalled, Luke stared at his feet. He had said it. Aloud.

"Leave?"

"Town. Stars Hollow. This." He gestured at the twilit square, and fell silent, as he was notoriously known to do.

"I came here to get away from… not-this. My parents never have forgiven me for having Rory, no, for getting pregnant and not getting married, besmirching the family name." Lorelai made a face that Luke identified as why-is-this-broccoli-near-me. "Nobody looks twice, here. Nobody cares if her grandparents are Gilmores or Gilligans. I know people think small towns are suffocating, and yeah, Taylor is like a noose sometimes, but… Nobody cares. You smile, you wave, and that's enough. You don't need diamonds or a Mercedes or your name on a charity program to count. So…" Lorelai's sigh was weighted with a great deal of emotional baggage. "No. I can't imagine leaving. I can't explain, it's like…"

"People are people," interjected Luke gently, daring to put a soothing hand on hers, "but some people, what matters to them, drives you crazy in a good way."

"Yeah."

He forced out some words. "I did love Rachel. A lot, at first. But… She can't stay and, yeah, this town makes me nuts, but it's…"

Lorelai provided, "It's nuts you like?"

Luke smiled at her shadowed face. "Yeah. Other than Taylor."

"Well, that's a given."

The darkness deepened. So did their silence.

"I wanted to strangle her, showing up like that," blurted Luke, clenching and unclenching his hands on his knees, his eyebrows a solid line of suppressed emotion. "Like she left last week, not years ago. After the diner got started. Anna… Hell, I dunno, all she is... She's her shop. Boutique. Whatever the hell it is. And her house smelled like a vanilla extract factory blew up!"

"Shh," soothed Lorelai in turn. "I get the idea."

"It was so…" He gestured hopelessly, blindly, trying to recover his rant. What had she done to his rant? She had, in their acquaintance, cheered his rant at a town meeting, although so did others, what with him telling Taylor Doose that he'd change the sign over the diner when hell froze or Taylor grew a brain, whichever came first.

Lorelai prattled nervously, "Hence the wine, it's okay, you don't owe me…"

"Yeah, I do, I lost your kid, you trusted me, and I can't get past the look on your face when you saw Anna and Rachel, and then you still gave me a shot, you trusted me with Rory, and I lost her," Luke ranted, getting to his feet to pace before his cells flew apart. Lorelai had that effect on him, and he usually enjoyed it, but he had to seize his chance before some invisible umpire yelled Strike three and sent him to the dugout. "When you helped me with Jess, I mean, yeah, you're beautiful, and you're fun, and you don't let people see how smart you really are, but then you helped me with Jess…" His hands rose, fell, flew around in random patterns. "You're so much more, and I never show anyone that spot where my dad wrote on the wall, I never take someone to Sniffy's, and…"

"Luke!"

Her voice lacked its usual melody. He jerked to a halt, drooping to the bottom step of the gazebo in misery. And he was out, that was it, back to the locker room to shower (cold) and watch the replay (all night in his head) of how he blew it. The guy in left field who let the winning triple bounce off his glove and there went the series. Or something to that effect.

"People talk about you and Rachel like it's Romeo and Juliet, Harry and Sally, Lucy and Desi. Babette, Miss Patty, they all told me. You didn't." She fidgeted with something in the dark, and Luke's guilt pinged tight in his chest. "I told you about Chris. I told you how it was. I even told you…" Her voice broke. "About how other dates ended."

Luke's face burned with fury. "Yeah, well, any guy who thinks…"

"That's not the point! I told you! I never tell people that! Sookie doesn't even know all of that! And then suddenly there's this Casanova Luke I don't know existed and everyone's telling me it's you and Rachel like it's Bogey and Bacall, and she'll always come back and you'll always let her and there's no point being more than friends, and I just wanted to say I'll help out with Jess. Just… If Rachel's it for you, then you need to… I can't make it work with Chris, people pushed us to get married, we were kids, and I know we'd have been a huge disaster, like that 19-oh-whatever San Francisco earthquake, but you and Rachel…"

"Lorelai," he said harshly. "Stop."

"No, I have to say this! I don't want to risk me, and Rory, when it all vanishes the next time Rachel comes back," whispered Lorelai forlornly, the moreso for having no cosmetics to hide her pallor, and only street lamps to show him the scant outline of her sorrow.

Why it all rearranged in his head, Luke did not know, but it did. With the simple devastating directness of one of those disasters Lorelai mentioned, it shifted.

Anna of the "eclectic boutique" struck him as a cash register with a scheduled life plotted out, awaiting proper numbers to plug into the blank slots. A calculated life.

Rachel would wander until she dropped. Rachel's home was wherever her camera took her. An adventurous life.

Luke wanted a home life. Full of plans and small adventures and, yes, even Taylor Doose's presence.

Right where he had a home. And it happened to be sitting on the gazebo step, within arm's reach. Smelling of laundry and soap and potential joy.

"You don't mind my flannel," he said out of nowhere. He did not quite smack himself for the inanity of the statement.

"You could get a little GQ help, but you're a flannel guy," said Lorelai, puzzled-sounding. "I like fluffy pink bunny slippers, you like flannel. Besides, I don't think a silk-blend French-cuff button-down would last long around the grill. And don't get me wrong, I love clothes, but why are you discussing fashion?"

With food, Luke could say much. With words, he faltered. "Why Stars Hollow?"

Her prompt answer startled him. "When I was little, I'd watch TV shows where people had festivals in town squares, and diners, and little grocery stores, and everyone wore jeans and nobody drove fancy cars, and it was so much more real than where I was. I know it's stupid to say that about TV, but…" She drew a loud breath, exhaled it as, "When I came to my first town festival, I felt like I'd found my home. I know that's weird, I grew up in Hartford, but it's like this is my hometown, and someone finally gave it back to me, and…"

His heart a fluttery lump of goo, Luke leaned over and kissed her. It wasn't a huge success, what with the Gilmore mouth babbling away, but it did shut her up.

"Um," said Lorelai, and Luke was glad the darkness hid both their faces.

"I want to give you a happy ending," he said softly.

"I don't want a happy ending."

Luke drew back, scowling. Of all the rebuffs he'd gotten, that was the oddest. Didn't all women want a happy ending? Even most of Jess's books managed some sort of happy ending.

"The fairy tales always talk about happy ever after, but I want the happy part in the middle," mused Lorelai wistfully. "The in-between stuff. The mortgages and car repairs and sitting on a porch watching fireflies and you drink too much green tea and I have too much coffee and…"

That time, the kiss was rather more successful.

Head snuggled into his shoulder, Lorelai asked in a tiny voice, "You never took…"

His thumb rubbed along her hand. "Nope. Sniffy's is for you."

And he knew they'd have the happy in-between, and ending even, when she said solemnly, "Thank you," because she understood he had given her a valuable gift.

"Second date?" he hoped after a time.

He felt her smile curving her cheek, through the fabric of his shirt, against his shoulder. "Second date. Who'll babysit?"

GG GG GG

AN: Okay, we could go on forever, or stop at a reasonable word count. Being me… I wanted to do one tiny more little thing. Read on for the Epilogue. It's just below this….

GG GG GG

Epilogue

Eighteen months after their second date, Luke dropped flat onto the chilly ground and said, "You're sure?"

"Yep."

He rolled over to examine Lorelai's profile, sunlit and relaxed, her eyes sparkling as she surveyed the Crap Shack. It boasted a new coat of pale yellow paint, crisp white shutters, and a porch with accents picked out in dark green and deep gold. It was also somewhat larger, having been bumped out here and there. Rory's former bedroom was now a second bathroom. Both Jess and Rory had actual bedrooms, although Jess demanded his be in the converted attic space, and nobody could argue him out of it.

"We could still…"

"Luke. We are not selling the house after we put so much into it. That's a heart-investment, not a money one."

He grinned at her vehemence, taking her hand in his, and sat up. "I should've built a second garage. My dad's boat, the tools, all the…"

Lorelai's quick kiss silenced him. "Hey. We don't need perfect. This is better."

He wanted her to never regret the world he could give her. "You're sure?"

She batted her eyelashes, with a snicker. "Seriously, do you think I'm going to leave you at the altar? When we've got two kids? Why, Mr. Danes, what kind of girl do you think I am?"

"Mine," said Luke at once. Something inside him melted a little, hearing her decide Jess was theirs, although law stated Jess was still technically the son of Elizabeth Danes. Luke was his guardian, no more, but Lorelai shrugged off such legal niceties in favor of doing that Lorelai thing she did. Coaxing out the mushy center of gruff and grumbly Danes men, apparently. Jess shied from all affection, unless it came from Lorelai. She alone could hug him in a big squishy mom-hug, and when he and Rory shared the chicken pox, only she could coax Jess into eating. It was only fair, Luke surmised, since Rory had kept him busy making mashed potatoes for a week. He'd never imagined sweet little Rory could be such a pain in the neck, nor that Jess would be a docile (or at least silent) patient. Parenting, he'd begun to learn, truly was as insane and crazy-making as Lorelai had warned.

He wouldn't trade it for the world. Not the chicken pox, the nightmares, the face-offs with his sister and Lorelai's parents, the gossiping town, the renovations that drained his savings, even the parent-teacher conference that meant he needed to buy a second necktie, to give a good impression. Mainly, that he owned more than one tie.

"It's a lot," he mused aloud. "House, two kids, and you're working on your degree, and at the inn, and I have the diner. Your mother might be right. We might be crazy."

Lorelai sang, "And it just might be a lunatic you're looking for."

Luke groaned, in mock despair, and nudged her shoulder with his. "I'm surprised your parents are okay with this."

"Oh, they're not okay, they hired a private investigator to dig up all your dirt," shrugged Lorelai, "and then some, but I already knew all of it. Oh, and they invited Christopher."

Luke snarled wordlessly at the name of the man who made Rory cry.

"Don't worry, he won't show up," Lorelai soothed him, patting his hand. "He never does. It's his MO. Now, what about Rachel?"

"Borneo. Or Indonesia. Somewhere like that. That was the message from her parents, anyway."

"Huh. So basically all that's left is you go have a stag party and I go have a hen party, and that makes no sense since it should be a rooster and hen or a stag and a doe…"

Luke rolled his eyes, swung her tight against him, and gave her a resounding kiss. "And in the morning, we freeze our butts off standing in front of the gazebo so your psycho mother can have her Romanov wedding in a damn nor'easter!"

"Snow is magical. We want snow."

"Nobody'll see anything but white flakes of falling crap!"

Lorelai stood, tugging Luke to his feet mid-rant. "I know, and innocent animals died for the fake fur trim on my ridiculous Scarlett O'Hara dress, and the bridesmaids will have to shove hot water bottles down their dresses to keep from freezing, but smell that air!" She took such a deep appreciative sniff that Luke had to do the same. "That's snow," she beamed, clapping her mittened hands. "Magic happens in the snow. You asked me in the snow."

"Since when does it snow in August," groused Luke, hiding his smile. He'd hired the snow machine, of course, and had to trade a free week of meals at the diner to a few people, but the look on Lorelai's face had been worth it. The moment was framed somewhere in the house, alongside a haunting portrait of Lorelai done by Rachel at some point, which Lorelai hated but Luke loved. Rachel had sent it as a black-and-white, and the sad-angry-resolved Lorelai never failed to take him back to the talk at the gazebo that ended in their first two kisses.

"And it hasn't snowed since, Mr. Wizard," pointed out Lorelai, heading for the porch. "So we got the house done in time. See? Magic! Just for us!" She spun with a gleeful, "Maybe even magical vanishing in-law powder for you! A golden retriever for me!"

"Ah geez," muttered Luke. He knew Lorelai would never end up with something as normal as a golden retriever. She might, however, find a formula for an in-law-be-gone powder. A few encounters with the elder Gilmores had Luke ready to endorse Jess's plan to build Lane's volcano in one of their toilets.

Lorelai flung out her arms. "And Jess and Rory and who knows? Lots of Gilmore-Danes DNA!"

"On top of the diner and the inn and college and kids and…"

"You worry too much."

"You don't worry enough," worried Luke as he held open the front door for her. Rory and Jess could be heard griping in the kitchen over what Jess was terming a "useless" homework assignment, while Rory insisted she'd love a chance at pre-algebra.

Lorelai chattered on, "Say that again when I'm trying to walk in that idiotic dress Mom insisted I wear. At least Rory can wear her snow boots under hers."

It was now Luke's turn to play the mediator. "It got them to agree to the wedding. To show up. To call me Mr. Danes instead of 'that greasy redneck'."

Lorelai snorted a laugh, made a face of exaggerated surprise. "Oh! My mother would never ever call someone a greasy redneck! It was greasy backwards hick."

"Gah," was all Luke found to say. He'd have much preferred a night in with a beer, ESPN, and a quick trip to a judge or far-distant minister. Instead, he had to wear a tuxedo, deal with Taylor's complaints about space heaters on five-hundred-foot-long extension cords, and pretend he wanted a stag party at KC's.

Lorelai paused mid-fuss over a box holding their umpteenth blender. She ran a hand along his cheek. "Hey. It's okay. It's one day. That's all. One day, and then we get twenty thousand more. And if you hate it that bad, show up looking like a lumberjack. I won't care."

"I'll wear the tux," he grumped, then surprised her with a grin. "Over my thermal underwear, but I'll wear the damn tux. It's funny what you do for love."

GG GG GG

AN: Now that's the end-end. I just couldn't bear to write more angst, so fluff had to occur. Also, since both Ls are younger in this now-finished tale, I figured they'd be less set in their ways (neuroses). And, of course, it will snow conveniently during proposals and weddings. For those who don't know what nor'easters are, treasure your ignorance of that particular meteorological headache.

"It might be a lunatic you're looking for" is from a Billy Joel song.

PurryCat shout out for the in-law-be-gone idea! Woot!