Title: What He Wants

Author: Erin Kaye Hashet

Rating: PG-13

Feedback: [email protected]

Spoilers: Through The Reigning Lorelai

Summary: Nicole reflects on Luke and their disintegrating relationship.

Disclaimer: Don't sue me. They're not mine, and I don't have any money anyway.

Author's Note: Okay, I'm a huge L/L shipper, so obviously I want the two of them together. But I thought looking at things from Nicole's perspective might be interesting, so I guess this is my devil's advocate fic.

What He Wants

by Erin Kaye Hashet

          In college I majored in English and pre-law. Senior year I took a fiction writing class, just for fun. I never was very good at writing stories. But one thing I remember from that class was a handout the professor gave us on how to create compelling characters. It said that all great characters have one thing in common: they want intensely

          If I was a fictional character, then, I'd be a very compelling one. All my life, I have wanted. It's the message I was raised with. My parents trained me to want the best things I could possibly imagine. I wanted to graduate at the top of my high school class. I wanted to go to Harvard, and then to Yale Law School. I wanted to become a lawyer with a top New York firm and buy a nice house.

          It spoiled me, I guess, that I kept getting what I wanted. I aimed high, worked hard, and then set new goals. That was just the way things worked. It was all part of being Nicole Diana Leahy. "Driven," is what teachers always called me. I knew what I wanted, and I went after it.

          One thing I never wanted, though, was a husband and a family. That was one thing I was never taught to want. My parents always stressed my independence, that I needed just to do what I wanted, by myself. And for most of my life, I wasn't really interested in guys. In high school I found friends to be my dates to dances, but that was it.

          College was the first time I ever started to question what I wanted. The girls in my dorm were only Harvard students during the week. On the weekends, they turned into boozy sluts. They all got drunk at parties and went home with guys they barely knew. I couldn't understand that at all, but they acted like I was the weird one.

          Eventually I decided that it would be less uncomfortable for me to just go to one of the parties like everyone else did instead of just sitting around the dorm. So I went out with my roommate to a party. I drank, and I flirted with guys. And one of them asked me home to his apartment. And I went.

          It wasn't rape, not by any stretch of the imagination. I drank a little, yes, and so did he, but we were both fully aware of what we were doing. But I hated it. Afterwards, I just went home and cried for hours on end. I hadn't wanted that guy, not at all. And he certainly hadn't wanted me. I'd seen him undressing me with his eyes as soon as we'd said hello. He didn't want Nicole, didn't want to know about everything that made me me. He just wanted a body to fuck.

          That was the last time I ever went after something I didn't want because other people expected me to. I stayed away from the girls on my floor for the rest of the year. For the rest of college, I didn't party and barely dated. As I got older, I had relationships that lasted anywhere from a couple of months to a year. None of them were in any way memorable. I really didn't like dating lawyers. Lawyers are people who have not only wanted intensely for most of their lives, but people who are trained to get what they want by any means necessary. They're skilled with words, and skilled at manipulating. And when their want is combined with their skill, they're usually pretty good at getting what they want, whether it be sex or a trophy wife to go with their big house in Connecticut. But I'm a lawyer, too. And I was good at recognizing when those lawyers didn't want me.

          Then I met Luke.

          Every month, someone new in the firm had to take this case in some tiny little town in Connecticut called Stars Hollow. I'd laughed when all my colleagues complained about it. They'd expected nice, down-to-earth, small-town folk— a nice change from the rude New Yorkers they constantly worked with. Instead they got Taylor Doose, this obnoxious, obsessive-compulsive control freak who wanted to put this soda shoppe in. But then it was my turn. Luckily, by that time, things with Taylor were about over. I just needed to witness the signature of a man named Lucas Danes.

          It was weird, but I liked Luke before I even knew him. I thought he was cute, a different kind of cute than I'm used to liking. He wasn't cute like he put a lot of thought into what he looked like. He was cute in a natural kind of way, like he rolled out of bed every day and put on a flannel shirt and baseball cap without really thinking about it. He liked Taylor just a little less than I did, which was attractive. And I don't know—there was just something about his manner of speaking that made me think he was a really nice guy.

          He was so cute when he asked me out. Nervous, I could tell. I got the feeling he didn't ask women out very much, and that just made me like him more. He wasn't some smooth-talking lawyer who wanted my ass. He wanted Nicole Diana Leahy—at least to get to know her.

          I could tell he was rusty at the whole dating thing. He took me to this fancy seafood place where I could tell he'd never been before. Before the waiter came, the conversation consisted of him nervously tapping his fingers on the table in a little rhythm (I kept thinking I recognized the song he was tapping out, but I never figured out what it was) and saying, "So, have you ever been here before?" which I guess he forgot he'd already asked me in the car. I hadn't; I don't really like seafood, which I didn't tell him. When we ordered, Luke got a large salad, dressing on the side—unusual for a guy on a date. I got extra fries with my fish, so that way it would look like I'd eaten more than I actually had. Luke started to laugh then, nervously. "My friend Lorelai," he said. "You know, you met her back in the diner? She was at the diner once, ordered some fries, and then she and I got into an argument over something—I mean, not like an I'm-mad-at-you argument, like something stupid where we both thought we were right on, some little fact, and we both had very strong opinions about it…oh, I don't even remember what it was. But anyway, she was trying to make a point, and she slammed her fist down on the table, except it wasn't the table, it was the little basket the fries came in, and she hit it in exactly the right place so that the basket flipped over, and, you know, she'd already put ketchup on the fries, so the fries went flying everywhere, and one of them hit Taylor in the face, and he had all this ketchup smeared on him." Luke's face was red by the time he finished this. The story probably would have been a lot funnier if he hadn't been rambling so much, but it made it that much cuter. I just laughed, very sincerely, because at that point I knew I liked him, and then Luke started to relax.

          The food was bad, but the rest of the date went very well. We got to talking, and our conversation confirmed what I'd originally thought: he was different from anyone else I'd dated. He didn't want what all those lawyers and Ivy League guys wanted, namely money, sex, and a trophy wife. He had lived in Stars Hollow his entire life, and had no intention of leaving. Unlike me and most of the people I know, he hadn't aimed high. But it wasn't because he didn't want to work for better things. Those things, to him, just weren't better. He liked where he was. He didn't want much more than he already had.

          But what did Luke want? Most of what he wanted, unfortunately, was things he couldn't have. For one thing, he wanted his parents back. His mother had died when he was ten, and his father when he was twenty-two. He loved them and missed them very much. Not that he said so; I could just see it in his eyes and hear it in the tone of his voice when he talked about them.

          After the date we went back to his diner and I met his nephew, Jess. He'd talked about Jess, too. He hadn't wanted to have Jess around—it had just kind of been an accident, I guess. Luke's sister had just called him one day and said that Jess was coming to live with him. But now that Jess was with him, he did want him. And he wanted Jess to be okay, to get his grades up, to have a better future than his sister had had. And that was another thing he wanted—he wanted his sister to be all right. He'd barely mentioned Liz, but I could see that older-brother protectiveness come out in him when he did mention her, how she'd gotten pregnant too early and gone through a string of bad boyfriends, and how he hoped she could get her life back on track.

          We had coffee back at the diner, and Jess tried to leave—insinuating something not-so-subtly. Luke wouldn't let him leave and sounded annoyed when Jess said he should take an "extra-long shower." And that just confirmed what I really already knew. Luke didn't just want to sleep with me. He wanted to get to know me. He really was the good guy I thought he was.

          I took a sip of coffee, and Luke asked, "Are you a big coffee drinker?"

          "You could say that," I admitted.

          Luke groaned good-naturedly. "You don't drink five cups a day, do you? Lorelai drinks about that much. Someday it's gonna kill her, and I'll be able to say, 'I told you so.'"

          This struck me as kind of odd. It was the second time that night he'd mentioned Lorelai. Why would he do that? Why was he thinking about her so much? Luke must have noticed the weird look on my face because he quickly changed the subject.

          We kept dating, and every time I saw him I discovered at least one more thing that I liked about him. He was so different from other guys I'd dated. He wasn't like those super-smooth guys who couldn't stop telling me I was beautiful. He listened; he didn't just talk. We talked, we went out and did things, we got to know each other. He wasn't all about sex. And even when we finally were physical, it didn't seem like he was relishing the contact like a hormone-crazed kid. It felt more like him wanting to give me something. I remember being surprised when he held me. He was stronger than I'd expected, and his arms around me were firm but not possessive. He kissed me gently, like he was concentrating on doing it perfectly but enjoying it at the same time, and when he touched me his hands kept caressing my body, like he wanted to make sure there wasn't an inch of me that didn't feel good.

          By the time we went on that cruise, the word "love" had crossed my mind, and I wondered if it had crossed his. But the cruise was wonderful at first, except for the three times we had to hear the drinking glass guy.

          Before we heard him the third time, we had dinner with this couple we had met earlier. They were a fortyish couple from New Jersey, Rob and Kati Gordon, and they were on their honeymoon. They'd actually been married a few months earlier, but it was the second marriage for each of them, and they both had kids who they didn't want to leave alone during the school year. Luke hadn't specified what we were when we'd met; he'd just said, "I'm Luke, this is Nicole." Maybe that's why at dinner that night Rob said, "So how long have you two been married?"

          Luke and I looked at each other in surprise. "We're not," we said in unison.

          "We've been dating a few months," I added.

          Rob and Kati looked at each other, surprised. "Oh," Kati said with a laugh. "You guys seem so comfortable with each other, I guess we just assumed…"

          Luke and I laughed. But we weren't comfortable anymore.

          After the third night in a row of the drinking glass guy we were ready to shoot ourselves, so we went to one of the midnight buffets. We got some champagne, and I wet my finger and traced the edge of the glass. Luke winced and said, "Oh, stop, stooooop…" before we both dissolved into laughter.

          A couple of glasses of champagne later we found ourselves on a deck where a man was playing jazz on a saxophone. Just a single man with a single sax. Very romantic. Couples were dancing all over the place. "Want to dance?" I whispered to Luke.

          I knew he wasn't much of a dancer, but he whispered back, "All right."

          We held each other and danced, swaying to the jazz music. It was a beautiful night—very clear, a big full moon, stars that never ended. All around us were people in love, dancing just like us. Over Luke's shoulder I could see this adorable elderly couple, smiling at each other like their love had been strong and unchanging for years.

          I lifted my chin up, and Luke bent down and kissed me. I rested my head on his shoulder, and maybe it was the champagne, but I finally said it: "I love you."

          Luke said nothing for a second. Then he responded, "Let's get married."

          I pulled away, shocked. "What?"

          Luke's face spread into a huge smile. "You heard me," he said. "Why not?"

          I stood there, letting it sink in. And then I began to smile, too. He loved me, too. That was all we needed. I leaned up and kissed him again. "All right," I said.

          The captain married us as several couples we'd met stood around. We went to bed that night husband and wife.

          But the next morning when I woke up, I thought, What the hell? Why had we just done that? We'd only been dating a few months. We hadn't talked about anything— where we were going to live, whether we wanted kids, if we'd keep the same jobs, none of that. And marriage had never been part of my big plan, but I'd always thought that if I did get married, I'd have my parents there, and a nice white dress, and bridesmaids, and flowers. Not on a cruise ship with a bunch of strangers.

          When Luke woke up, we looked at each other. The silence between us was huge. "Hi," he said finally.

          "Hi," I echoed.

          Another long silence. Finally, he said, "Wanna go snorkeling?"

          "Okay."

          We did go snorkeling, which allowed us not to talk much. Then we decided to continue with that trend and not talk for the rest of the cruise. Every day we woke up and went off and did our own things.

          When we got off the ship we'd decided to divorce. By that time I was worrying about worse things. How could I have been so stupid? Why would a small-time diner guy suddenly decide to marry a New York lawyer he barely knew unless he was after her money? I was so embarrassed at my stupidity and recklessness that I felt like I never wanted to see Luke again. I had the partners at my firm come down to try to talk to him so he didn't screw me out of anything. They came back looking more frustrated than I'd ever seen them. "God, Nicole, what were you thinking marrying someone from that town?" Stein #1 asked me. "First that crazy Taylor guy, now this idiot husband!"

          "Why?" I asked warily. "What did he do?"

          "He wouldn't negotiate anything," Petrucchio replied disgustedly. "He kept saying he didn't want anything, he just wanted us to leave him alone."

          "So then," Stein #2 added, "we tried to tell him that nobody wants nothing, and he said he wanted these three hours back where you guys heard someone playing drinking glasses on the cruise or something. We were trying to figure out what to do about that."

          At that I burst out laughing and couldn't stop. "What?" asked Blodgett. "What's so funny?"

          I just kept laughing. And all of a sudden I remembered why I loved Luke. Of course he didn't want anything. That was one of the things that had attracted me to him in the first place. He just wanted to keep his old, uncomplicated life. Money and possessions only messed things up for him. That was the mentality of his that had made me love him—so different from everyone else's.

          "Forget it," I told the partners. "I'll go talk to Luke myself."

          And the next chance I got, I asked him if he wanted to postpone the divorce. He agreed. And things went back to semi-normal.

          They started to get weird again when I bought the condo in Litchfield. The location was great—close to both New York and Stars Hollow. Both of us could commute to work from there. When I asked Luke to move in with me, he'd hesitated and said, "Sure…" really slowly. He wasn't exactly enthusiastic about it, but he was committing to it, which I took as a good sign.

          But he couldn't seem to bring himself to move in with me. He spent the night sometimes, but his stuff never did. When I suggested that he could rent out the apartment above the diner, since he owned the building, he just said, "Mmm," and changed the subject.

          Finally one day everything came to a head. I was visiting him to ask about taxes, how we were going to file them and everything. Luke was in a bad mood to begin with, so he just snapped, "Nicole, I don't want to talk about it. I'm trying not to think about money, especially considering I'm short $30,000 at the moment."

          "What? Why the hell are you short $30,000?"

          "I loaned it to Lorelai."

          "You what?"

          "Nicole, did you hear me say I didn't want to talk about it?"

          "$30,000? What the hell were you thinking? Was she dying or something?"

          "No, she was not dying. She's opening an inn, Nicole. I told you that."

          "Yeah," I said shortly. "You did."

          Luke sighed. "Nicole, we'll talk tonight. I have to get back to work. See you later."

          When we did talk again, it was another fight. "Luke," I said to him, "I don't know what to do about the taxes! Are you living with me or not?"

          "I'm living with you!" he said.

          "Oh, well, that's funny. You'd never know it by looking around this apartment!" Just then the phone rang. "See? See?" I cried triumphantly. "You haven't even taken the phone out! You still have an answering machine!"

          Just then the answering machine went on. "Hi, Luke, it's Liz," a voice said. "Call me back as soon as you can. T.J. and I are thinking of moving back to Stars Hollow. You know, he liked it so much when he was here with me a few weeks ago. Can't wait to hear from you again."

          The room fell silent. "Liz was here a few weeks ago?" I said finally. "And you didn't feel the need to introduce me to her? To your sister?"

          "Nicole, it was kind of a crazy time. I was busy…I didn't exactly have time to…"
          "And who did you introduce her to? Lorelai Gilmore?" I was losing my cool by then, and that pissed me off even more.

          "What the hell does Lorelai have to do with anything?"

          "She sees you more than I do, Luke! Whose fucking husband are you?"

          "I married you, Nicole!"

          "And do you want to stay married to me?"

          "Do you see me getting a divorce lawyer?"

          "No, but I don't see you moving into my townhouse, either!"

          "Fine, is that what this is all about? I'll take everything and move it up there tonight!"

          "Don't sound so excited about it," I said sarcastically.

          "Well, for the love of God, Nicole, do you want me to do cartwheels when you just show up here and chew me out?"

          "Maybe I should stop showing up here!" I replied angrily. "Maybe I should bring down the lawyers from my firm like I did back in Septe-"

          With that, Luke stormed out.

          As soon as I got back to what Luke still inexplicably called "our place," I burst into tears. I cried like I hadn't since I slept with that guy back in college. I ached inside. It felt like losing my virginity all over again. Only this wasn't my first time having sex; it was my first time being in love.

          How could have I forgotten? There was one thing Luke always wanted and always would. He wanted Stars Hollow. He'd given up his girlfriend Rachel to stay in Stars Hollow. He wanted the diner with his father's sign outside and the same old pictures on the wall upstairs. He wanted to keep his old, simple life, to watch baseball and go fishing without worrying about anything else. He wanted to see the same people every day, to serve them coffee and get annoyed with them for the same reasons every time.

Like Lorelai. Lorelai-thirty-fucking-thousand-dollars Gilmore. What does she want? If we were both fictional characters, what would make her more compelling than me?

          I've always been good at getting what I want. That's why I'm a lawyer. Even in this relationship, I got Luke to commit to me for a few more months when he said he would meet my parents again. I got him to stay married to me because I knew he didn't want to deal with divorce.

          But now my heart is breaking. For the first time in my life, I can't have something I want. I've seen the way he looks at her. What he wants is not me.

-End

Okay, kids: SAY NO TO FANFIC!!! It is ADDICTIVE, I tell you! There's no getting away!

Like Nicole, I am an English major and am taking a fiction writing class, so now that I've finished this story, I need to write some original stuff. So no fanfic for me for awhile now.

Also, I want to sincerely thank everyone who took the time to give reviews. I appreciate it so much.