Frozen
by Megan Reilly
eponine119@att.net
December 22-23, 2002

He didn't linger in the diner after he closed up. Sometimes he did.

Sometimes he wanted to avoid Jess's constant presence in the upstairs apartment. They'd knocked out a wall to gain more space -- why hadn't they put in another wall, this time for privacy? Jess was a teenager. He needed his privacy. Hell, Luke hadn't been a teenager in more years than he wanted to count, and he needed his privacy.

Sometimes there were other reasons. One other reason, who sometimes like to come in for coffee even after the 'closed' sign had been turned to face outward.

She wouldn't be visiting tonight. Jess wasn't upstairs tonight. It wasn't a night that most people spent alone, and Luke had the diner to himself.

He stepped outside, the little bell jangling on the door behind him like shattered nerves. Luke took a deep breath of frozen air, putting his hands on his hips, pretending he wasn't cold even though his worn flannel shirt was no match for a night like this. In another couple of hours, it would be January.

He took another step, ears burning with the cold. Ice crunched and cracked as he planted his boots on the sidewalk.

Stars Hollow was deceptively quiet and still. On any other night, this late hour would find most people asleep. Luke knew that tonight they were up, gathered in heated living rooms, probably scented with the pine of last week's Christmas tree, not yet taken down. Dick Clark would be chattering on the TV.

Luke hated Dick Clark.

He told himself he should go back inside where it was warm. He had to open the diner in six and a half hours. He hated holidays, he was too old for New Year's parties, and he didn't really care anyway. No one would miss him. They'd be surprised if he showed up, since everyone in town knew he hated holidays and festivals and parties.

His boots cracked more ice as they began to move in the direction of the Gilmore house.

+ + +

The house was all lit up. He could hear the music coming from inside before he even reached the porch. The door was open, of course, and Luke stepped uncomfortably inside. "Glad you made it, doll," Babette cried, spotting him immediately. Luke tried to smile, tried to say something as Babette put a glass into his hands. "You look half-frozen. This'll warm you up."

"Thanks," Luke finally managed, looking down at the glass.

In the living room, a glitter ball twirled, catching and reflecting crazy patches of light. Dick Clark was on the TV. Luke turned his head and immediately spotted Jess. It was unnerving, this almost parental radar he found himself developing where his nephew was concerned. Jess was oblivious to his uncle's gaze and Luke watched the young man's eyes light up as Rory Gilmore approached him. Luke politely averted his eyes.

Moments ago, surveying the room, he'd merely seen people gathered together. Now all he saw were couples, as though everyone had paired off in the fifteen seconds he'd been looking at Jess. A glance at the TV suggested it wasn't mere paranoia. The camera was trained on the glow of the big red apple in Times Square, waiting for it to make its descent.

For the first time in months, Luke missed Rachel. He wondered where she was, and felt guilty for both. He gulped at the champagne in the glass in his hand and found it weak. He needed a beer. He needed to get away, out of this room of impending kissing. He knew that no one would be looking at him, no one would notice or care that Luke Danes had no one to kiss on New Year's, but somehow that didn't make him feel better.

He went into the kitchen, feeling like a burglar in the dark room. He felt a twinge of guilt as he pulled open the refrigerator, even though he knew Lorelai wouldn't care that he'd helped himself. Luke pulled out a cold bottle of beer, popped the top off and took a long swallow. Then he stumbled outside, noting that the lock on the back door was still flimsy.

The sky was black. No stars shone down on Stars Hollow that night. Luke tensed as he heard a strange sound. A gulp, a sniffle...it took him a moment for him to identify it. Someone was in tears. His first instinct was to turn around and go back inside. But he didn't.

Lorelai raised her head and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. "Luke? What are you doing out here?"

"Freezing to death." He crossed the yard to where she was sitting in a lawn chair underneath the chuppah. There was another lawn chair there. She and Rory must have sat out here one day in the summer and never brought the chairs in.

"Like the founders of our town," Lorelai said.

"What?" Luke looked up from brushing the snow off the seat of the chair.

"Stars Hollow?"

"I know where we live."

"The Firelight festival," Lorelai reminded him. "The two idiots who founded our town.."

"Oh. Right." Luke remembered. He sat down gingerly, waiting for the chair to collapse. He didn't trust lawn chairs, bits of plasticized ribbon and metal, strong enough to hold a slender Gilmore maybe, but he felt as oversized and clumsy as he would have felt in the dollhouse where Babette lived. But the lawn chairs were made of stronger stuff than he gave them credit for. "That's not...?" He didn't want to bring up the fact that he'd interrupted her crying.

"No," Lorelai said, almost a laugh.

"Wanna talk about it?" Luke offered.

"No," Lorelai said. She wrinkled her nose and focused her eyes on a faraway spot, then turned to him. "Relieved?"

"Will you think less of me if I say yes?" Luke asked, and she smiled.

"Let me have some of that." She held out her hand for the beer bottle. Luke handed it over willingly and Lorelai finished it. Then she threw the bottle as hard as she could. It landed in the snow somewhere, instantly invisible in the darkness.

Luke looked at her. Marveled momentarily at the bundle of contradictions she represented. Then he noticed she wasn't wearing a coat, just a sparkly sweater and a skirt. He started to shrug out of the flannel he was wearing.

"No, don't," Lorelai murmured when she noticed what he was doing. Luke stopped, halfway, not sure what he should do. Whether he should obey her or insist. He decided to insist, but she took the shirt from him wordlessly and draped it over her like a blanket. He didn't allow himself to feel deprived -- had he really intended to tuck it gently around her shoulders? Who did he think he was, some lovesick dope in a movie?

"Missing a great party," he said.

"I'm not in the mood for a party," she said, shaking her head.

Luke put his head down. He didn't know what to say.

"Why are you here?" she asked. Not angrily. There was no implication in her voice that she didn't want him there. "I thought you were Mr. Early to Bed, Early to Rise."

"You have me confused with Ben Franklin."

"When I mentioned the party this morning, you were all 'bah, humbug.'"

"Scrooge says 'bah, humbug.'"

"Scrooge also makes damn good coffee," Lorelai said. "Luke, you hate parties. You hate New Year's. You hate Dick Clark."

"No I don't."

"You did a really good impression of someone who hates Dick Clark this morning," Lorelai pointed out.

"All right, I do," Luke admitted. "Maybe I was..." he trailed off.

"Was what?"

He should have known Lorelai wouldn't let him off the hook that easily. "Trying to make an effort."

"HA!" Lorelai scoffed. "I saw your new year's resolutions: Be more grumpy. Wear more plaid."

"I don't make resolutions, they're a waste of time. If you don't like something about yourself, why wait to make a change? It's marketing tool, designed to sell gym memberships and inspirational calendars."

"Thank god," Lorelai said. Luke frowned, confused. "The pod people didn't get you. For a minute there, I thought Pod Luke had come for a visit. Going to parties, drinking beer...that stuff'll kill you, you know."

"You're just making fun of me now." He started to get up. To go back to the diner, where he belonged. To fall asleep, alone, in his nice warm bed, so he could get up in a few hours and start another damn year that would be no different from the ones that had come before.

Lorelai stretched out her hand and laid it on his arm. "Sorry, Luke. Don't go. I didn't mean it. I'm just in a funk tonight."

"A funk?"

"That's what I said," Lorelai confirmed. She rested her head against the back of her lawn chair, sprawled out, staring at the sky. "No stars."

"I noticed."

"If we were the idiots who founded our town, we wouldn't call it Stars Hollow, would we?" Lorelai said. "We'd call it No-Stars Hollow. Or New Year's Sucks, or Single and Alone. Or, There's a Glass Beer Bottle Somewhere, Out in the Snow, and Someone's Going to Break it in the Dark and Catch Lockjaw and Die."

"Catchy."

"I thought so. Maybe we should petition Taylor for a name change." Lorelai snickered. "Taylor. You ever stop to wonder why Taylor runs everything in town and he's not even the mayor?"

"Oh, but he's the head of the Stars Hollow Business Association and the Stars Hollow Beautification Organization and the Committee to Ensure Stars Hollow has a Festival Every Damn Weekend," Luke said.

"Now you're just making stuff up. Everybody knows there's no Stars Hollow Beautification Organization," Lorelai replied.

"We could start one," Luke suggested.

"Too much trouble," Lorelai dismissed the idea, then laughed. "I guess that's why Taylor runs everything. He would never think it's too much trouble."

"Taylor measures people's grass. He has too much time on his hands."

Lorelai suppressed a yawn and seemed to burrow deeper into the flannel shirt.

"How long are you going to stay out here?" Luke asked.

"You don't have to keep me company," Lorelai said, and her expression turned sad and strong again. She hitched herself up in the chair and looked back at the house. "Isn't it past midnight yet?"

"You're avoiding midnight," Luke realized.

"That whole countdown thing makes my skin crawl. And I hate champagne," Lorelai said.

"Me too," Luke agreed.

"It's just...I wasn't supposed to be alone this year. Or last year, either, for that matter." She was staring up at the chuppah now, avoiding looking at him. "And I want to grumble that it's their loss. Stupid Christopher. Stupid Max. But that's not it at all. It's stupid Lorelai, all the way."

"You're not stupid," Luke told her.

"No, I just do stupid things. Things that are the opposite of what I think I really want. I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be sitting outside in the snow on New Year's to avoid facing the fact that Rory's leaving and I'm going to be alone and every single person in there has someone to kiss except me." She was crying again.

"Not everyone in there," Luke said.

"Huh?" She raised her head and looked at him.

"You invited Kirk, didn't you?"

Lorelai nodded miserably. "You didn't see?"

"Kirk brought a date?"

"Kirk brought his cat," Lorelai said.

"I hope the paramedics are nearby."

Lorelai broke into a smile and low laugh erupted from her lips. But the shaking of her shoulders turned again into tears and Luke wished he could do something.

They could hear people shouting numbers inside the house.

"Finally," Lorelai grumbled.

"Hey," Luke said. She blinked and another tear fell and he reached out. Stopped it with his thumb. "Your eyes are going to freeze shut if you don't stop that."

"You're losing your edge, Luke," Lorelai said. "That sounds like something I'd threaten Rory with. Not something that could ever really happen."

"TWO!" came the shout from inside.

Lorelai gripped the arms of the lawnchair as though she was on a plane about to take off. Bracing herself.

"Lorelai --"

"ONE!"

She looked at him, wondering why he'd said her name like that. "Luke," she said, cautiously, when she realized his intent, but it was too late. His lips touched hers, ever so softly, as screams and horns rang from the celebration inside.

He sank back on his heels, kneeling in front of her. Waiting. He couldn't breathe, didn't dare, and the world seemed to spin crookedly. She smiled, the same look she'd given him so many times when he did something for her that was too nice. It was her Santaburger smile. "You didn't have to do that," she said.

"I know." There was still no air in his lungs.

"It was sweet," Lorelai said.

His heart pounded. She was going to tell him he was a good friend, a great guy, and some girl was going to be lucky to have him someday. And he was going to faint. Or die. He thought at that moment he'd prefer the latter.

"Why aren't you getting up?" Lorelai asked.

"I'm frozen," Luke said.

She smiled. "Say 'oilcan.'"

"What?"

"You're the tin man. Say 'oil can.'" She made her voice creak out the words. "The Wizard of Oz?"

She got to her feet and put out her hand. He took it, and lumbered to his feet. "Thanks."

"Thank you," she said, untangling herself from his flannel and handing it back to him.

"I'm not the tin man," he blurted.

"Luke, I know. I didn't mean...it was a movie reference. It's what I do. When I don't know what the hell to do, that's what I do," she babbled.

"I'm the cowardly lion," he finished his correction.

She looked at him, considering. "Luke --"

"Never mind." He shook his head and turned around to go inside. It felt too warm in there, too stuffy, too close. He'd been outside so long the heat seemed to burn his skin. This is what happens to people who stay up late, he told himself angrily. He looked around for Jess and spotted him near the door with Rory. People were leaving.

"Hey." Lorelai caught up with him. "You're leaving?"

"Past midnight. Party's over," Luke said.

"I thought we were talking."

"I thought we were done," he said. He didn't want to talk about this. As usual, she saw him as a friend who'd done something nice for her. As usual, he was going to continue to let her think that. It was a dance he knew all the steps to. She looked like she'd forgotten some of them.

"Why did you kiss me tonight, Luke?"

"You were crying."

"I've cried lots of times. Right in front of you. Nothing like that ever happened before."

"It was midnight."

"Yeah," Lorelai said. Giving in. "It was."

"Jess! We're going!" Luke called. He looked at Lorelai to see if she was going to let him go. She was. "See you in the morning?"

"Bright and early," she promised. He nodded. "Thanks," she said.

Luke just nodded. He knew he should go, but his feet weren't moving. Frozen. Luke nodded. "Happy new year, Lorelai."

"Happy new year," she said.

Another year just like all the others, he thought. One of these years, he was going to have to do something about that.

end.