AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have never before written a GG fic, so be kind.  I realize this "morning after" premise has been beaten to death, but it doesn't stop the scenes from unrolling in my brain and asking to be written down.  So now I subject you to it!  This will probably be a short piece, a two-parter.

CHAPTER ONE- Finding a Place to Go

            She didn't know where to go.

            That wasn't necessarily a new thing; after all, Lorelai Gilmore thrived on confusion.  She was certain if her life was ever simplified, it would simply… fall apart.

            But when so many things had changed—in seconds, how did that happen exactly?  Did the whole universe conspire to scramble things?—she felt more than just confusion.  She felt directionless.

            She hadn't felt so misdirected since she'd found herself pregnant and fed up with her overbearing parents.

            Lorelai let herself into the inn, her feet dragging wearily, her heart no longer in the spirit of opening.  What her parents and Jason hadn't been able to accomplish, a few shocking moments with her daughter had—she was, for the time being, exhausted in every possible way.

            She started up the stairs, wishing only to sleep, to lay down and have a rest in a room that wasn't hers, in a room someone else would make up in the morning.  In a room that didn't exist under the same roof as Dean's infidelity.

            The noise made her freeze with her hand on the banister, one foot higher than the other on the stairs.  A huffing noise, the sound of a breath exhaled in sleep, the sound of a person—a man—shifting dreams and positions. 

            Jason, Lorelai thought, her face hardening.  Her patience was worn to nonexistence, and Digger Stiles was the last person on earth—aside perhaps from Dean—whom she wanted to see. 

            She turned and stomped down the stairs, sadistically hoping to wake him.  What sort of lunatic slept in the lobby, anyhow?  It was bad enough he'd camped out in the small den all through dinner, but sleeping there? 

            Lorelai was going to clobber the hell out of him.

            She already had a hand raised as she trod heavily around the big armchair—

            And stopped, her hand drooping and her face softening.

            Luke.

            He had his chair angled so he could see the front door and the door from the kitchen, and even as she cursed herself for jumping to ridiculously romantic conclusions, Lorelai knew he'd fallen asleep waiting for her to come back.

            Her fingers itched to touch, to reach out and stroke over the soft hair only rarely visible, but she caught herself before she actually did it.  A man who chased a naked friend through the town square deserved a good night's sleep, she guessed.  And besides, if she woke him now, there would be questions.

            Yes, there would probably be good things, like Luke holding her and letting her pour out her current misery… but there would be questions, too, about what had upset her, about what exactly had happened earlier on the porch. 

            She wasn't ready to answer questions.  She'd opened an inn, alienated her parents yet again, broken up with an ex who had already been broken up with, kissed her best friend, and felt her heart break into a million pieces as she watched her daughter make a terrible mistake, so really, was it so much to ask to give her a bit of a rest? 

            Dragging a soft, woven throw off a settee, Lorelai covered Luke with it and felt her heart twinge with the sheer naturalness of the action.

            Yes.  There would be questions.

            So, instead of going back up the stairs to the room she and Rory were to have shared, beside the room Luke was to have slept in, Lorelai turned and walked out the front door, wondering where on earth there was left for her to go.

            His neck was broken.

            He wasn't really sure, but Luke was fairly certain you didn't have to be a doctor to diagnose your own broken neck.  The angle he'd slept at had buried a crick so deep in his neck he was sure paralysis was next.

            Stupid overstuffed chairs.

            He stood slowly, barely bit back a groan—he wasn't old enough to make noises when he got up, dammit—tried to take a few steps forward—

            And fell straight back on the chair when his feet tangled and his knees buckled, jerking his neck at the exact opposite angle of how he'd slept.

            So much for paralysis—he could certainly feel that, and it hurt like hell.

            His feet were tangled in a blanket, a soft, multicolored knickknack he'd last seen on the back of the settee across from him.

            Where in the hell had that come from?

            Broken neck forgotten, Luke tossed the blanket away and took the stairs two at a time, reaching Lorelai's room with a hand raised to knock.

            "She's not there."

            Patty stood outside her door in her bathrobe, arms crossed over her not-insignificant bosom, mouth pursed in a knowing moue.  "She came in around 2 this morning, turned right around and left."  It was on the tip of her tongue to say Lorelai had spent an awfully long time down in the foyer, doing heavens knew what, but Patty left it to herself.

            This was different, this dance between Luke and Lorelai.  Patty could pump Lorelai for all the information in the world about any of those other young bucks she'd dated.  But this was Luke, and in Patty's not-so-humble opinion, this was not to be toyed around with.

            This was right, and Patty would strike herself mute if she'd have any part in scaring either of them off.  God knew it had taken them long enough to get to the point where they were now, casting glances at each other like the whole world couldn't feel the sparks.           

            It made Patty wish to be young again, just a little.

            "Do you know where she went, Patty?"  Pride was easy to swallow when it involved Lorelai—how hadn't he seen that earlier?—and he asked without hesitation.

            For once, Patty didn't know, and she told him as much.  As she watched the temper of frustration boil, the carefully controlled emotions Luke held as he turned and went back down the stairs and out the front door, she fanned herself and rolled her eyes back toward Babette's door.

            Time to wake her up.

            He'd gone to her house, Sookie's house, and around the square twice when a nasty, niggling little thought wormed its way into his brain.

            What if she didn't want to be found?

            Ridiculous, he knew, to think a woman who thrived on attention had somehow secreted herself away somewhere on what was, professionally speaking, the biggest night of her life, but it was that thought that kept returning to his brain.

            Besides, the eternal cynic in Luke piped up, You never saw where Jason went last night.

            He wanted to scoff at the thought, to dismiss it as ridiculous, because the way she'd kissed him last night, the way she'd felt in his arms… well, it was simply impossible for him to juxtapose that Lorelai with a Lorelai who would stay out all night with a man she seemed to loathe.

            At a loss, confused, and miserable, Luke turned and headed to the place that had always been safe for him, had always been home. 

            It was nearly time to start getting things ready for the breakfast crowd anyway, even though he knew his crowd would be depleted, enjoying Sookie's breakfast at the inn.  And it was just as well, as he certainly was working himself into a mood that wouldn't be his usual sunny air of quality customer service.

            Luke reached the door of the diner, found it unlocked, and mentally started preparing the lecture he would give Cesar and Lane.

            The sound of the water running in his apartment hastened his steps, and Luke rolled his eyes.  Jess, no doubt, or Liz.  It seemed the two of them could neither announce their presence ahead of time or show up at a normal hour of the day.  "Jess, is that you?" he called, shouldering his way through the door and stopping with Liz's name on his lips.

            It wasn't Jess or Liz but Lorelai, standing at his sink and washing the dishes he hadn't yet gotten around to.