❝A ❛I NEED MY DAD❜ MOMENT❞
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⋆𐙚₊˚⊹ chapter six,
Gilmore Girls — Season Four

𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟕𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟑
―୨୧⋆ ˚ LUKE'S POV
( a whole luke pov chapter :0 )

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𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐃𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐀𝐘𝐒, ❝𝐈 𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔❞, 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄'𝐒 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐃𝐎, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓'𝐒 𝐆𝐎 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐄𝐑. It's close to midnight, and I'm driving as fast as humanely possible to reach my helpless, crying daughter. I couldn't ask questions because Lucy hung up shortly after telling me where she was, and now I'm speeding down the treacherous dark roads to reach my kid.

  Whoever hurt her will be killed, I swear to God. Nobody hurts my kid── no one.

  I don't know why she was crying, but I will get to the bottom of it. I know college has been hard on her, but she seemed so perfectly happy when I called earlier to ask what her plans were for the evening. She told me she had a job working as a bartender for Logan's party tonight, and she seemed raring to go. Did somebody in that party hurt her? Did somebody make her feel uncomfortable? Do I need to murder a couple dozen college kids?

  She was supposed to be driving home tomorrow for our weekly Sniffy's dinner, but now I'm the one driving to reach her in the cold, dark night of October. My daughter is sitting in the cold, waiting for me to show up, and despite my best efforts, I can't drive any faster than I am now.

  She needs you alive, Luke. Slow down.

  I'm coning, kid. I'll be there soon.

  After a very dangerous, very fast drive, I finally reach the bar my daughter is working at, and I get out of the car before I can even put it in park. If my truck starts to roll down the street, I don't give a crap. I need to get to Lucy.

I round the corner, stopping in front of the bar. She said she wasn't in the bar. No, her exact words were, "I'm in the alley", which frightened me on a whole other level, but I didn't have time to argue with her because she hung up the phone. I move away from the bar, passing a few partygoers that glare at me as I walk past, and I come to the alley next to the bar.

I step into the alley, moving blind in the dark to reach my kid. "Luce?" I hear a noise in the distance, and I quicken my steps to reach that faint noise── a noise that sounds a little too similar to the sound of crying. "Hey, kid?"

I come to a stop, and I look down at the ground to see my daughter── my beautiful, intelligent, perfect daughter── crying on the dirty ground in a dark, secluded alleyway. I immediately sink to the floor alongside her, and I pull her towards me without asking a single question.

With one hand on the back of her head, and the other around her back, Lucy rests her head on my shoulder, and she breaks down right there in my arms. Her sobs are the most devastating thing a father has to hear, and to know that Lucy has been crying in this alleyway for the past thirty minutes cracks my chest right open.

  This reminds me of the time she cried in the bathroom at Sniffy's after──

  "Lucy, did Tristan do something?" She shakes her head, but it's unclear whether he hurt her or not. If he did, I'll march into the party and drag him out by his hair. If he's not in there, I'll find his suite and I'll hurt him there.

  A little under three years ago, I told him to never, ever hurt my kid or I'd have the entire town hunting him down. Even now I still mean those words. I don't care how long they're together for, he never gets away with hurting my kid── especially when his hurt leads to her crying in an alleyway.

I lean back, placing my hand against Lucy's face. "Kid." I lift her face. "Come on."

  Somehow, with a lot of pushing and shoving, I get Lucy up and off the ground and into the truck. The second she gets in, she leans her head against the window, and all I can do is get in next to her and start the car.

  "Where do you wanna go?"

  "Home," she croaks out, and I already know that she isn't referring to her home here at Yale. No, she wants to go home to Stars Hollow, so I pull away from the kerb and I drive in the direction I came from.

We don't talk as we drive back to Stars Hollow, and while I have a thousand questions── all that point to her boyfriend── I refrain from bringing it up until she wants to talk. Even if she doesn't want to talk, I'm going to be here for her because she needs me, and I think I need my daughter just as much.

I know she's struggled at college, and I know something has been bothering her── something that she hasn't been comfortable talking about, but I hope she'll talk to me tonight. I've missed having her in the apartment and in the diner. I've missed waking up to having her drink a whole bag of coffee before we even open the diner. While she's only thirty minutes away, I still miss her every single day. I've gone from seeing my daughter everyday to only once a week with phone calls in between. It sucks.

With the apartment being so lonely, I've had plenty of time to clear my own crap out. I went through boxes and boxes of my belongings, throwing out everything that I didn't need anymore. I stumbled upon photo albums from when Lucy was a kid, and I even found a few home tapes that I recorded on my dad's old camera when Lucy was growing up. I stopped making home videos when she was about eight-years-old because I was busy with the diner, but I didn't stop taking pictures of her as she grew up, and the dozens of photo albums are evident of that.

We arrive at the diner, and we immediately walk upstairs. She doesn't stop for coffee. She doesn't stop to look around the diner that I still need to clean. She doesn't stop for one second. She just walks upstairs to the apartment, and I follow behind her.

She moves to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her, and I stand in the middle of the apartment, lost on what to do. Don't get me wrong, I usually love the unexpected turns in fatherhood, but I really hate this. I don't know what I'm supposed to do── not when I have no idea what is going on with her.

I step to the bathroom, and I knock on the door, but then I hear the shower turn on so I step back. When she's ready to talk, she'll talk, and I imagine when she wants to talk, she'll need coffee so I go to make her some.

Thirty minutes later, she steps out of the shower dressed in pjs she hasn't worn in years. She moves to the kitchen, walking straight past me, and she grabs ahold of the coffee pot.

See, I do know my kid.

I stand up, moving to sit down at the table. Lucy grabs the nearest mug, pours herself a cup of steaming hot coffee, and she sits down across from me. I observe her with wary eyes, a little unsure on what to say. I don't want to make her cry more than she already has. I just want to figure out what happened to her tonight, and once I figure it out, I can comfort her and kill whatever harmed her.

I have a strong feeling that Tristan has something to do with her upset, and if that's true, I swear that boy will be dead── I don't care if he's in love with my daughter. He doesn't get to leave my beautiful kid crying in an alleyway in the middle of the night.

"Listen, Luce, what──"

"What's that?" She points to the stack of videotapes stacked next to the TV. I was watching them the other day, reminiscing over the days when my little girl was, well, a little girl.

  "Oh, uh..." I clear my throat. "...some home videos from when you were a kid. I was watching them the other day."

  She stands up, moving absentmindedly to the stack of videotapes. She picks up the first one, and I think a smile touches her lips as she sees my squiggly handwriting written on the tape to explain what it is. The one she's holding reads, "𝐅𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 '𝟖𝟗". She slots the tape into the VCR, and she grabs a cushion from the sofa, throwing it down on the floor before she sits down.

  Without saying a word, I join her on the floor, and the tape begins to play. We stare at the screen, and I grimace at the poor quality of the video, but we can just make out what this video is.

  Four-year-old Lucy sits on her grandfather's lap. This video was taken a few months before he died. He was ill in this video, and it's evident from how he looks so much paler in this than he did in previous videos. He was all skin and bones, and it breaks my heart to see him like this, but he made time for his granddaughter, he always did.

  She's picking up building blocks, and throwing them over to Jess who sits on the floor, dragging a train up and down the track he and Lucy had built that morning.

  Jess and Lucy didn't see each other much as kids, but when they did, they were always close. They always talked, always played with one another, and if my sister bothered to stick around and visit once in a while, Jess and Lucy wouldn't have been so hostile with one another when Jess moved here.

  In the end, Jess and Lucy became friends── so much so that Lucy mentioned him in her graduation speech and helped him receive his diploma. It was always comforting to see them getting along, especially when they were thrown into a lot of situations together. Together, they're stressful and damn annoying, but it was always nice to see them supporting one another. I think Lucy put Jess in his place most days, and even though it didn't work out in the end, I think she really knocked some sense into him which he really needed.

  I look to Lucy, and I see a soft, unfazed smile on her face. I shuffle a little closer, and I place a hand on her back as the screen displays Lucy and Jess building a tall, unstable tower with building blocks. She looks to me, tears glistening in her eyes, and then she looks back to the screen.

  "I had no idea," she exhales a shaky breath. "that you kept all this. I didn't even know there were videos of me as a kid, never mind me and Jess."

  "I completely forgot about them until a few days ago when I started clearing out the closet."

  "Did you find Aunt Liz's weed?"

  I gape at her. "You knew about that?"

  "Kind of."

I huff out a laugh, a little surprised that my own kid found my sister's weed stored in that old storage closet. My sister isn't the most... functional human being in the world, and she was always doing stupid things when we were teenagers── like hiding weed for my future daughter to find.

Lucy looks to the screen, and we watch as she and Jess stand in front of the camera I'm holding. My four-year-old daughter and nephew hold hands and bow for the camera just as the tower behind them comes crumbling down. On screen, they burst into laughter, and a laugh bubbles out of Lucy now.

"I don't remember seeing Jess that much as a kid," she says, her voice quiet and sad.

"You didn't." I do wish they could've grown up together, but my sister fled for New York City the second she left high school, and I wanted to stay here with Lucy, so we barely saw one another. "Your Aunt Liz didn't exactly like being tied down to this place, so you never really got to see Jess, and neither did I."

"Have you, uh, spoke to Jess?"

  "No." I haven't been able to get in contact with him, but I also haven't tried hard enough to get in contact with him. "Have you?"

  She shakes her head. "No."

"Do you think he's..." I pause, and Lucy nods.

"I think he's okay," she replies, leaning forward to pull the videotape out of the VCR. "If he needs us, he's got us── he knows that."

"I know."

I don't know if Jess will ever confide in me again, not after I kicked him out, but he promised me he'd graduate, and if it wasn't for my daughter's meddling, he wouldn't have a freaking diploma. One day, I hope he can turn to me again because no matter what happened, I'm here for him. I only want the best for him, and I hope he realises that one day.

Lucy grabs another tape, pushing it into the VCR, and a video starts playing of me holding two-month-old Lucy. I'm in my old bedroom, holding her in my arms when my dad steps in to film me and Lucy.

I turn to look at Dad, scowling at him and insisting that he lowers the camera, but he doesn't. He keeps it trained on me and Lucy, and I'm grateful he did keep the camera on because I wouldn't get to rewatch this moment when she was small enough for me to hold.

Lucy rests her head on my shoulder, and I press a kiss against her head. "Sometimes I wish you could be that small again," I say, resting my hand against the back of her head.

  "So do I," she replies, her voice solemn.

  It's three in the morning when I next check the time, and Lucy is falling asleep on my shoulder. We haven't moved off the floor. We've been watching tape after tape of her as a kid── tapes of her dancing with Addy in the kitchen, tapes of her doing her homework, tapes of her helping me cook dinner, tapes of her decorating the apartment for Christmas, tapes of her blowing out the candles on her birthday, and so much more. It's overwhelming to rewatch the old memories of me and Lucy, but I'm forever grateful for these videos. I blink, and she's eighteen-years-old, still relying on me just like she did in these videos.

  I can't sleep now, not when Lucy still hasn't spoken to me about what's going on with her, but I don't need to sleep anyway. I have to get ready for work in an hour anyway, so I might as well stay awake, but Lucy definitely needs to sleep.

It's Saturday, so she can stay here for the entire weekend if she wants. So far she's spent every weekend here at home, but perhaps in the future, she'll actually spend a weekend at Yale. However, I think pigs will fly when Lucy finally decides to sleep at Yale. I've pushed her to stay at college on a Sunday instead of driving back Monday morning, but she doesn't bite. I don't mind anyway, I like spending time with her.

  "Dad." Her voice is so quiet that I barely catch onto the syllable.

  I clear my throat. "Yeah?"

  "We're taking a break," she says quietly, and I rear my head back, looking down at Lucy who keeps her eyes closed. "We..." She inhales sharply. "...are on a break."

  "You and Tristan?" She nods weakly, and my eyes widen, completely surprised by that. Tristan and Lucy have been hopelessly and disgustingly in love for the past two years, and now they're on a... break. "Why?"

  I suspected Tristan has something to do with her upset, but I didn't want to say anything until she said something. Now I want to know what the hell he did that inflicted this break because it must be his fault.

  "We've barely been..." She shrugs. "...a couple lately, and I just snapped tonight." She lifts her head, and moves her hair away from her face. "I said we should take a break to think about what we want outside of our relationship."

  "And what do you want outside of it?"

  "I── I don't know what I want," she mutters, her head falling forward into her hands. "For the first time in a long time, nothing is clear to me. I don't know if I want Tristan── something I always thought I did want. I don't know if college is right for me, I've been..." She lifts her head, and I catch the vulnerability in her eyes. "...It's been really hard, Dad."

The other week when Lucy came home in a hurry, I suspected that college had been bothering her, but I didn't know the extent of her worries. She cried herself to sleep that night, and all I could do was sit alongside her and hold her. Sometimes that's all I can do as her father. For the rest of the night, I sat next to her bed and watched her sleep, afraid that she'd need me if I fall asleep. The next morning, she woke up and acted like nothing had happened.

I know college has been hard for her, and if I could take away all the troubles, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

College has been an adjustment for her, and while I always assumed she'd be undefeated and unafraid at college, she's human. After years of being in a safe bubble at high school, it's normal for her to react differently at college. I never went to college, but I imagine it's difficult for anyone, even the ones who appear to be stoic and brave.

"I know, Luce." My hand rests on her back, trying to provide her with as much comfort as possible, but it doesn't feel like enough. "But do you think one of the reasons it's been hard is because of your relationship── because you and Tristan haven't really been together?"

"Maybe."

"Do you want to be with him?"

  "Yes." There's no hesitation in her voice, but I didn't think there would be. I know how much she loves that boy, and even though it's terrifying to see her so in love at just eighteen years old, I admire how mature and loving their relationship has been. "But we're not the same, Dad. What we were before isn't what we are now, and he's been... distant, and I keep worrying about him, so I asked for a break and he respected that but part of me wished he'd..."

  I fill in the blank. "Fight for you?"

  She sighs, head falling into her hands again. "Yeah, I know how stupid that is because I wanted the break, but I do wish he'd fought a little harder, I don't know. Sure, he was shocked and upset, but then he just walked away. I guess I was just clinging onto him, and now I... I can't keep clinging on to something that isn't working. I need time to myself."

  "You can take all the time you want, Luce, but you have to decide if you want to be with him after the break."

  "I do. I-I──" She pauses. "I think I do."

  "How long is this break?"

  "A month," she answers.

  "But that's your──"

  "Three-year anniversary? Yep, I know." She lifts herself off the floor, and she moves to the table where the coffee pot rests. She pours herself a cup of coffee at three in the morning, but I don't question her── I've accepted that my daughter is a coffee addict. "I don't know what to do, Dad. I love him, but is that really enough anymore?"

  "I don't know, kid."

  I wish I could be more help, but I'm not the greatest at relationships. For starters, I had a kid with a woman who abandoned said kid. Then I was with Anna who took off for Woodbridge, and I haven't heard from her since. There was Rachel who I thought I'd marry, but she took off when Stars Hollow became too boring for her. Now there's Nicole who I'm divorcing. Basically, I'm lost on what to say to my daughter who has been in a relationship for longer than I ever have.

  I get up and off the floor, my legs feeling achy and sore. It's not like I'm old, but I certainly feel it. I then step towards her, and I place my hands on her shoulders. "I think you bring the best out of people," is what I decide to say.

  Her brow raises, confused. "What?"

  "You bring the best out of people," I repeat. "You've brought the best out of me just by existing. You brought the best out of Jess by giving him a chance. And you've brought the best out of Tristan." She stares at me, dumbfounded, so I continue, "If Tristan knows what's best for him, he won't let you go, Luce, and..." I exhale, realising I'm about to defend my daughter's boyfriend. "...I think he brings out a really great part of you."

  "Am I not great already?"

  I breathe out a laugh. "Luce, you know I think you're the greatest person alive." She smiles softly. "And as much as I'll hate Tristan if he ever hurts you, I do think you bring out the best sides of each other. I think you've pushed and helped him, and I think he's given you a little more confidence, and now that's he's not around as much..." I lean back against the table. "...I think it's affecting you because he was always there."

  "You're defending him." She says it like it's the craziest thing for me to do, but I won't lie, Tristan is annoyingly the greatest first boyfriend a father could wish for their daughter to have. However, if he ever did harm my daughter, I'd make his death slow and painful.

  "I think he was a good pick."

  She snorts a laugh. "Good pick?"

  I exhale a laugh. "I don't know."

  "I want to make it work, I just want to figure out who I am outside of us," she explains, and I understand her completely. "Sure, the concept of a break is ridiculous to me, but I really think it's needed."

  "And you will make it work."

  "What if we can't?"

  "Kid, you've been in a relationship for nearly three years and you're eighteen. At your age, I was..." I pause, and Lucy jerks her head back, amused. I shouldn't tell my own kid what I was doing at her age because it definitely isn't appropriate. "...uh, anyway, you have what most people search their whole lives for. Take some time away from him. Be selfish. Do crazy, wild college things── just don't tell me about them." Lucy cracks a smile. "And when you've taken that time, Luce, decide if you want to fit Tristan into your life. Choose him if he's the one you still can't forget about when you're trying to focus on yourself."

  Lucy nods, hearing me, but I'm just relieved to see her smile. "You're pretty good at the whole advice thing, Dad."

  "Well, thanks. I think the advice things comes with being a dad."

  She steps forward, and her arms fall around me. "Thank you, Dad." I wrap my arm around her. "I'll figure it all out, right?"

  "Oh, yeah. If anyone can figure it out, you can."

  "Thank you, Dad."

  "Thanks for still needing me, Luce."

  She pulls back, looking up at me. "I think I'll always need you, no matter how old I get."

  "Well, I'm not going anywhere."

Even in ten, twenty, thirty years from now, I've got her back for the rest of her life.

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authors note:

luke & lucy r my all time favourites

i really wanted to focus on their relationship bcos at the end of the day, there's nobody more there for lucy than luke

as you know, tristan and lucy r on a break so there will be a few chapters where we see a lot of lucy trying to figure out who she is outside of her relationship . . . but i am going to miss writing about my favourite couple for a lil while

anyway, thankyou so much for reading!