Outside of Luke's, in Stars Hollow

Lorelai glanced down at her watch. She was running late. Her stomach ache had kept her in bed longer than she anticipated and now she was running late for her big opening at the inn. Her inn-she smiled at that beautiful thought. She would be working with Sookie again, best friends and coworkers and now co-owners forever. And Rory was happy at Yale; everything seemed so great. She was now at her crossroads. Should she just go on to the inn, as she was already late, or should she stop in for coffee?

"Well this is certainly a quandary," she thought.

She decided to weigh the options.

"Go to Luke's-get coffee. Go to inn and be on time, plus don't risk coffee upsetting my stomach. Well this isn't really a quandary, it's a no- brainer. Luke's it is."

She smiled at herself, knowing that there never really was anything to consider, Luke's always won in the end. But she knew she had to be fast.

"Must waste no time chit-chatting with my favorite diner owner," she muttered to herself as she entered.

She looked around and saw Luke taking someone's order. She also saw other tables waiting for his attention, and it didn't seem that he noticed her enter. She decided she would just have to grab herself a cup of coffee to go and slip out. She walked behind the counter, located the coffee pot, but could not find the to-go cups. She looked around, and finally spotted a pack on the shelf below. She squatted down and tried to open the plastic, and grew more agitated as she could not-

"I am talking about Lorelai, Luke!"
Lorelai froze, squatted by the floor, with the cups in her hands, as she recognized Nicole's voice, or rather her harsh whisper.

"Oh, not this again, Nicole. I told you, Lorelai and I are just friends. This jealousy bit is getting a little old."

"She's been hanging around here more lately than she used to."

"Well her daughter and best friend practically has just left for college. It's understandable."

Lorelai smiled. She couldn't believe that Luke was sticking up for her when Nicole was accusing him of-well, something, surely.

"And this summer, we could have-well, gotten married-" Nicole barely spit out, while Lorelai nearly collapsed the rest of the way to the floor from sheer shock at that news. "-and I believe that we didn't because of her. And her hold on you."

Lorelai heard Luke take a deep breath, and she assumed he then rubbed his temples with his hand, as he tended to do when he was exasperated.

"Okay, what do you want me to say?" he asked, clearly anger building within him.

"How about the truth," Nicole said, with all of anger, conviction and fear evident in her tone.

Luke, as if it had just built up in him, spit out, "Nicole, I have no feelings for Lorelai! Okay!? If she never came into this diner again, I wouldn't care! But she is here a lot and so I talk to her; I wasn't raised to ignore my neighbors, and even if I tried, she wouldn't take the hint; she can be so exasperating! And irritating! Like a bug! She gets under my skin and mark my words, we will never DATE, so if you don't stop with this ridiculousness once and for all, WE will never date either!"

Lorelai shut her eyes, to shut out the pain that those words had just caused her, and also to say a silent prayer that Luke would not come behind the counter. She listened intently, but could only hear her heart beating loudly, in pain.

Finally after a few moments, she heard the sound of a kiss--a peck, and Nicole stammering "thank you, I won't bother you again about this. I'm sorry," followed by a grunt from Luke. She heard a sound that she assumed was Luke picking up the coffee pot and then she breathed a sigh of relief as she heard them both walk away. She believed that to be the longest sixty seconds of her life. She stood up slowly, and noticed that they both had their backs to her. She quietly and quickly made her way out of the diner and to her car. Once safely inside, she turned on her car, and wiped her eyes, which she had only just noticed had been filled with tears, that were starting to brim over to her cheeks.

Meanwhile, at Yale-

"Students, I realize that this is your first day at school and this is just a core class, but I will do what I can to make the study of psychology interesting. So we will do many workshops and exercises in class and out, to keep us on our toes and learning via first hand experience. For today, your first assignment will be to look at a classmate for the length of the entire period in complete silence."

Professor Leafus smiled as he heard the familiar groans that permeated the classroom. It was the same every semester. It truly marked a beginning for him. It kept his job interesting to study how students struggled so much and so uncomfortably with such an easy assignment. He called out students names who would be teaming up with one another.

".And Rory Gilmore with Paris Geller"

Rory and Paris shot fearful and angry looks at one another, not believing this. How could fate be frowning on them so much. First they have to attend the same university, after suffering (mostly) at the same high school and then they have to live together, and now they could not even have a little privacy from one another for their first college period, as it would be spent staring at one another. Rory sighed and decided that she would just suck it up and replay the events of yesterday's Days of Our Lives in her head during the assignment, but before she could even get the main title in her mind, Paris, she noticed, was in front of the professor, telling him of the unfairness of life and how this is inhumane and intolerable and if he indeed valued his job as a teacher, he would not make her do this.

"But Miss Geller, you both need partners and everyone else has already started. In fact, I think you are disturbing the peace in here," the professor said, amusedly at Paris.

"You will be my partner, Professor," Paris said, already pulling her seat to the front of his desk and sitting with her chin in her hands.

"But Miss Gilmore doesn't-"

"I'll be her partner," a voice said from behind Rory, who turned immediately, recognizing the voice to be that of-

"Jess!?"

"Long story, but I believe we have to be completely silent for now, isn't that right Professor?"

The Professor just rolled his eyes, as he noticed Paris making a face that clearly said she was annoyed that he. the professor. was not taking this assignment seriously enough.

"This is gonna be a long and interesting school year," Rory muttered as she seated herself some feet away from the poor professor.

"We need QUIET Miss Gilmore!" Rory noticed this was Paris yelling this, not the professor, and she obligingly turned her face to stare at the face of. well, someone she didn't think she liked a whole lot. But would have to stare at. for a long time. "Days of Our Lives" she thought inwardly. "Bo and Hope. Shawn and Belle.. Jess." Rory sighed a deep breath and finally did it-she looked into those brown, liquid eyes, which were staring into her blue pools with a look she couldn't quite detect, but was making her realize that this was going to be the longest stretch of sixty minutes in her life.

Meanwhile, at Luke's Diner-

Luke glanced at his watch. Only nine o'clock? "God, this is gonna be a long day," he thought agitatedly, as he watched Nicole's retreating form leave the diner. He breathed a sigh of relief. He was already having a bad day, with Nicole's usual Anti-Lorelai anger and questions.

He smiled at the mere idea that he actually may have silenced her for good on the issue. Even he almost bought his performance, which was made to look like agitation at Lorelai, but which he truly knew was actually annoyance at Nicole, and only Nicole for her constant nagging.

"Luke, honey, now that she's gone, I want to ask you, what were you talking about with Nicole before? It looked intense!" Luke squatted down to pick up some to-go cups that had fallen on the floor, in their plastic.

"None of your business, Babette," he grunted, realizing this day would be longer and worse than he anticipated.

"Well, whatever it was, Lorelai seemed really upset about it."

"You mean Nicole?" Luke said casually, now wiping the counter.

"No, Lorelai. You were arguing with Nicole, but in the end, I'd say she seemed okay, but Lorelai! Now she looked upset. Or maybe that was because she was running late for something, because she ran right out of here-"

Luke held up a hand, now giving the rambling, seemingly-crazy woman before him his full attention. "What do you mean Lorelai seemed upset? Where was Lorelai? She didn't come in here today, Babette."

"No, she did. I saw her. She moved the coffee pot, looked at it, and then squatted down behind the counter. I remember because I said to myself 'when I finish my pancake, I have to go ask Lorelai how Rory's doing at school, I miss her already, don't you-"

But Luke heard nothing else that Babette said. He looked at the to-go cups that were in his hand now, that had been on the floor, the plastic pulled at, but not broken, and all the pieces started falling into place. All the color drained from his face. He steadied himself and turned to Babette again.

"She is so pretty and talented. I really think-"

"Enough about Rory, Babette. Tell me everything that happened. What did you see?"

"Oh, well, I saw Lorelai come in and I was eating my pancake and talking to Miss Patty. We were in that corner over there-" she said, pointing.

"I know where you sat, I served you. Now get to the point, please," Luke demanded, his patience wearing thin now.

"Well I saw you and Nicole walk over to the counter, and the conversation seemed heated. I mean, it looked dramatic! And then she said something. And then you said something-" (Luke rolled his eyes, as obviously he knows that this was how their conversation went). "And I thought it was odd Lorelai hadn't stood up again. I thought maybe she was scrubbing the floor though, like she sometimes does," Babette continued, to which Luke made a confused face, like he wasn't believing he was giving this woman this much of his time. "And then you took the coffee pot and walked away, and after a moment, Lorelai stood up, looked around and left really quickly. I thought she looked a little pale. A little upset. That's why I wanted to come over here and see-"

But Babette didn't have a chance to finish her sentence because Luke had already walked away from her. He walked over the phone, picked it up and dialed a number.

"Sookie, hi, is Lorelai there yet? Damn! Listen, tell her to call me when she gets in, it's important." Luke hung up the phone and grunted, placing his hands impatiently onto the countertop.

"Bye hon, take care." Luke looked up to see Babette leaving, a smile on her face, clearly not detecting that anything she had seen earlier was problematic.

"Oh, to live in her world," he thought.
He thought back to his conversation with Nicole, tracing through it, and growing madder every time he went over it. He grew madder with Nicole, but moreso with himself. He thought that conversation was about the longest minute of his life, and the only minute of his life he wished he could get back and make right. Now, he knew, this day was going to last forever, and nothing would seem right until he could see and talk to Lorelai and just explain himself. And apologize. How he just wanted to apologize for making her-oh God, he shut his eyes and just prayed that he hadn't made her cry.

Meanwhile, in the car, enroute to her new inn-

Lorelai drove on an abandoned little road that she believed would get her there faster, as she was already running late. She just drove without really thinking about where she was going-she was in automatic pilot. But her thoughts, on the other hand, were all over the place, not knowing where they were going, and leading her heart to a million places she had never considered before.

"Why do I even care? I mean, Luke doesn't care for me in any special way, so what? I am just like all the other townspeople that come into his diner and give him business. I mean, it's not like I am in love with Luke, so why do I care?"

Another part of her crushed spirit spoke up just then-"Maybe I do care. more than I've admitted. and this just killed that small hope I had had. I don't know!" She said those last three words out loud, and continued driving. "I mean, I'm just a customer to him. Nothing more. That's okay. It's not like we had the promise of it turning to more than friendship someday, so the fact that he doesn't want me romantically shouldn't upset me. Or the fact that he almost got married this summer. Do not care. At all."

But her heart was wiser than her brain just then, and she knew deep down, that she did care. Perhaps, she thought, she had waited too long to discover her possible feelings for him and now it was too late. "No, it is something more than that."

Friendship. "He's my friend and I thought I was at least his, also. And friends don't say those things about each other. They don't." She found herself, then, thinking about one of her old favorite shows, Cheers. "Okay, so even if I am just a customer, I am a regular! And Sam Malone would NEVER have treated Norm or Cliff that way behind their backs," she decided, smiling at the fond and comforting feeling her old favorite sitcom brought to her. "Ah!" she screamed aloud, as a pain in her stomach came suddenly, the worst of all the pains in her stomach she had yet experienced, since it had started a few days back.

In terrorizing agony, she steered her car slowly to the side of the road, where she stopped it and collapsed in pain over the steering wheel. She forced herself to look at the clock on the radio of her car. 9:10. "oh, God," she thought. "I am late." She started to feel herself losing consciousness from the pain, as one final thought entered her mind. "Don't take too much time, Luke."