Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls.

When you think about it love is a really bizarre phenomenon. It shouldn't occur actually. Humans, by nature, look out for themselves. In a true 'survival of the fittest' manner they don't expend time and energy on things that won't prove beneficial in the race to take more breaths than the guy driving next to you on the freeway. It sounds utterly pessimistic and cynical, and maybe it is, but these days he just saw it as realistic. Such was the basic drive of humanity. Hence, no one ever really wants to fall in love, it just happens—you're getting along just fine in life and then some whirlwind of a person bursts into your life and you just can't breathe right if they're not slobbering all over your toothbrush or taking up valuable space in your sock drawer. Forget bizarre—it was stupid, plain old unabashedly stupid.

He tossed the rag, the white one with the red stripes along the fraying bottom, back under the counter where he'd found it, shut off the lights, and began his commute home from work—up a flight of thirteen creaky wooden stairs. It made sense that his commute was practically non-existent. It made sense that the mail for his diner and his personal mail, not that he got much, could be picked up from the same mailbox. It made sense that those envelopes shared the only town name that any and all envelopes ever addressed to him had shared. It was all practical and it all made sense, because he was practical, he made sense.

Reaching the top of the stairs he opened the door and flipped on the light revealing his apartment exactly the same way as he had left it. He liked that. If he put something somewhere it would only make sense that it be in that same spot when he went to pick it up again. He kicked off his shoes, watched them skip across the wooden floor in the direction of his unmade single bed. He had bought a queen a few years ago, in what seemed like another life, and just over a year ago he had replaced it with another single—a sturdy, reliable, sensible single.

Luke opened up the fridge and took out a beer. Popping open the top he leaned up against the counter and closed his eyes and he tilted his head back and brought the bottle to his lips. He breathed deeply as he felt the cool liquid flow down his throat. All too quickly he had finished it and his moment—a few minutes of head-clearing sanctuary, now a nightly tradition—was over. Luke sighed deeply and adjusted his baseball cap. For a brief second he let his fingertips absorb the feeling of the well-worn blue material, for a brief second he remembered…

"Looks good on you." She smiled.

"Good how?" He smirked, puffed out his chest a bit...

He ripped his hands away, bringing them together in front of his chest, one tight fist grasping the other until his knuckles turned white. He could hear his heart pounding as his breathing grew sharp and heavy. His upper body leaned forward slightly from the waist, his forehead coming to rest on his fists while he ground his lower body further against the counter, refusing to let his knees grow weak, fighting the urge to crumble.

Then, like a gust of wind, it was gone as quickly as it had come. He cleared his throat, straightened himself up, wiped the sweat from his palms on the sides of his jeans, and took a deep breath. It was not sensible to look backwards, to remember the past. It had taken him some time but he had come to terms with that lesson. A year ago, such a moment would have brought a flood of uncontrollable emotions, memories. It would have left him lying on the floor in a ball for half the night, or resulted in smashing yet another set of plates, or brought on days of obsessively calling dead-end after heart wrenching dead-end in an attempt for anything, any piece of information. But that was before. He was done with that now, he couldn't do it anymore.

As he reached into the freezer and pulled out a TV dinner he heard himself mutter, "damn spit," and crack a smile. This too was part of his nightly tradition—the TV dinners and, when necessary, the phrase "damn spit." That's all it was to him now, those flashbacks, remembrances—they were spit. It had taken over a year but Luke realized he couldn't live in memories. It would kill him. It almost did. He didn't want to die, and, more importantly than that, people needed him—the town needed him. He did things, he was Mr. Fix-It, he served their food, he gave people a place to go on Thanksgiving, he made sure to keep Taylor in check—after all, if the people in white coats were going to come for the citizens of Stars Hallow it was going to be because he called them, not because they all followed one of Taylor's crazy plans to the loony bin. April needed him. He was a father. That meant something. So he had forced himself to do what the great jazz musicians his father used to listen to did when they got too much spit clogging up their instruments, threatening to ruin their music—they found the spit valve. They opened the damn thing up and let it pour right out onto the floor and they kept playing, hardly missing a beat. That's what he did now, that's what he had to do. He couldn't have those memories anymore, they were no longer who he was, they were just spit. Damn spit.

He put the frozen tray in the microwave and opened another beer. He probably drank too much these days. No, not probably, he did, but it got him through. He heard the microwave beep and sat down at the table to eat. He stared at grease before him and knew that there had been a time he would have never considered putting such crap in his body. That time was gone now.