LORELAI: Well, I guess both of us avoiding Doose's didn't work out that well, huh?
LUKE: Well, I wasn't avoiding Doose's. Just the closest market to Liz and T.J.'s house.
LORELAI: Right. Because you're not affected by this. You're not mad. I forgot.
LUKE: No, I...I was mad. I was really mad.
LORELAI: Yeah, I kind of figured.
LUKE: [Sighs] I know I was a jerk. I was just...mad.
LORELAI: I was the jerk. I was such a jerk.
LUKE: I'm not mad anymore. Well... [Sighs] That's not true, but... I won't be, you know, eventually. Really.
LORELAI: Yeah?
LUKE: Yeah.
LORELAI: Okay.
LUKE: It's not your fault. It's not my fault. It's just, we're not right together, you know? You're you, I'm me. I just… want to stop pretending we're something else. You don't belong with me. You belong with someone like Christopher. and I just... let's just stop fighting it, okay? And you go back to being Lorelai Gilmore. I'll go back to being the guy in the diner who pours your coffee. [Lorelai looks like she is about the break down, but holds on.]
LORELAI: My hand's getting cold. [holds up some ice cream]
LUKE: [nods] Okay.
LORELAI: Okay.

-oOo-

Luke watched her walk away… again. He watched her walk away from the diner after she asked him to elope three nights ago, not realizing that it was the end of their relationship. He watched her walk away now in the middle of a grocery store, clutching a pint of ice cream, and this time he knew it truly was the end.

The way she looked at him when he said they were not right together would haunt him for a very long time. She looked stricken, surprised – like a wounded animal who got kicked unexpectedly while it was already down. But she quickly put her guards up to hide the pain in her eyes, unwilling for him to see that he still had the power to break her heart.

And still he wouldn't, couldn't stop talking, telling her that she belonged to someone like Christopher, telling her that they should stop fighting fate. And even worse, he told her he wanted to go back to just being the guy who pours her coffee.

In his way, he thought he was trying to be kind, to let her know that he was not blaming her for the implosion of their relationship, that things will be okay because they were never meant to be in the first place. But he realized that it was all coming out wrong when she had to quickly look down in the middle of his speech and take a deep breath to stop herself from breaking down. He could see the sheer effort it took for her to give him a semblance of a smile before she slowly walked away, not knowing that her heart was breaking in a million pieces again.

At that moment, he never felt so conflicted in his life. Here was Lorelai - the love of his life, the woman he spent years pining for, his very best friend – here she was in obvious pain. A part of him wanted to wrap her in his arms and soothe away the tears that were about to fall down her cheeks. But she was also the woman who cheated on him, the fiancée who went to another man's bed the same night she thought they were over. And it wasn't just any man she went to – it was the father of her child, the one who left her and Rory over and over again, the man who caused their first breakup.

He briefly wondered if it was anyone but Christopher, whether he could forgive her more easily. What if it was Max, or Jason, or the fish guy (he couldn't even recall his name) or any of the other men she dated. What if she went to any of them? Would it hurt as much? Probably not.

What she did was unforgiveable. So he watched her walk away with a sigh, determined not to let her – or any other woman – ever hurt him again this much.

-oOo-

The emotions would come in waves. One minute he was filled with such rage that all he wanted was to drive back to Boston and punch Christopher one more time. But this time he wants a real fight. He wants to punch Christopher repeatedly until he sees blood. It was good that he had a lot of things to hammer in the diner – he could focus all of his pent up anger there.

But besides the anger, there was another emotion that would sneak in so intensely that it surprised him: mind-numbing pain. The betrayal stung him so badly, so suddenly, that he felt as if someone sucker punched him in the gut. Whenever that happened, he wanted to run somewhere as fast as he could, like he used to do in high school during track meets and training. There were nights when he would do just that – he would drive to a nearby park and just take off running. He didn't want to do it around Stars Hollow, knowing that the townies would be gossiping about Butch running away from a broken heart.

There were days when he was tempted to call Tom to finish construction in the diner so he could take off for days and go somewhere – anywhere. That would give the added bonus of ridding him of TJ. Going off would also allow him to deal with the breakup on his own terms – without an audience – for he knew the entire town was watching his every move and analysing his every word.

But dropping things and running away – that's not him. He's never been the spontaneous type who would go off on a reckless road trip once his engagement falls through. In fact, the most spontaneous thing he has ever done in his entire life was to pack everything into his truck when he went to Lorelai to tell her he's ready to elope. Of course, it turned out that it was too little, too late.

-oOo-

He kept waiting for her to take off on a road trip herself. After all, that's what she did when she broke off the engagement with Max. But Lorelai didn't go anywhere. From what he could infer from some of the whispered conversations in the diner, she was still around, going to the Dragonfly early every morning, driving home in her Jeep late every night. Perhaps she was also intent on showing the world – especially him – that she was okay. Perhaps she thought that for this particular breakup, there was no need to wallow because the relationship has been dead for months.

The only difference in her routine is that she never went to the diner, or anywhere near the diner, anymore – not even to Doose's. She sometimes pops by at Weston's for coffee in the morning, but he had no idea where she went for dinner now. She always had someone with her anywhere she went – whether it was Rory, Sookie, Babette, Miss Patty or some other townie. He wasn't sure whether Lorelai was the one who wanted a perpetual companion, or whether it was her friends who never wanted her to be alone when she was out and about.

The days and nights went by in a haze for him. All he could think about was rebuilding his diner so he can re-open as quickly as possible. He talked to no one but April and Liz, and TJ when he had to. And he refused to talk about his breakup.

Weeks passed and the anger and pain would still come and go, but now there was another emotion that would hit him with such force – grief. Grief over what he lost, grief over who he lost. He tried hard not to be too angry at Lorelai, reminding himself again and again that they just were not meant to be, but in his mind it was her fault – her inability to wait for him when he asked, her insistence in eloping that very night, and most importantly, her sleeping with someone else when he refused to jump.

-oOo-

One day, he drove to a hardware store at Hartford, when he overheard the cashier telling someone over the phone that the delivery would be on June 3rd. He dropped the box of nails he was holding at the sudden memory of Lorelai in her wedding dress, so excited for June 3rd, so excited to be his wife. She was radiant. She was so happy. The clatter of nails scattering everywhere caused everyone to look in his direction, and he grunted an apology and began to pick up the nails one by one.

He always felt guilty about not being too invested on June 3rd – and not because Lorelai pretty much planned the whole thing herself. After all, what does he know about flowers and cakes and invitations? The reason he couldn't focus was because his mind was completely consumed with April and his new role as a father, and yes even Anna. How to keep her happy so that he can keep seeing his child.

He tried to figure out how to tell Lorelai about April, but there was never a chance – or at least that's what he told himself. Until chance itself brought Lorelai and his daughter together.

He was amazed at how kind and understanding she was then, not noticing that there was something different in her eyes. Perhaps that was the moment when the trust and the connection between the two of them began to break. She offered to postpone the wedding, and he jumped on it a little too eagerly, not noticing the slight widening of her eyes before she nodded with a fake smile and looked away.

Somehow he forgot that whenever she was hurting, she would always try to hide it from everyone. But Luke could always see past that, even when they were only friends. He used to be able to tell at a glance when something was bothering her, but this time he didn't. Perhaps he lost that connection to her. Or maybe he just stopped paying attention.

-oOo-

Now that he knew June 3rd was approaching, he started to miss Lorelai more and more. Yes, the anger was still there. Yes, the hurt was still there. But the longing and the love… oh that was all there as well, never more intense than in the days before June 3rd. He was a practical man who never daydreamed, but at night his dreams took him places he's never gone before. One dream had him carrying Lorelai into the Twickham house in her wedding dress. Another had the two of them getting married under the chuppah, but they were both wearing jeans while Rory and April were wearing white wedding dresses. It was all very weird and he tried to shake it off in the morning.

He knew from his multiple experience with Rachel that only time can heal a heartbreak, and he wondered how much time he would need to get over Lorelai. It took him a year to get over Rachel the first time, a few months the second time and a few weeks the third time. He had a sneaking suspicion that this time, forever may not be enough to get over someone like Lorelai Gilmore.