A/N: I did say in January, after first watching the revival episodes, that there would be eventual fic from me. I really wanted to finish up my current future fics before I got into this, to keep from confusing both myself and my readers. So, this will begin on the day following the final day featured in 'A Year in the Life' and then spin on into the future...
Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino and other folks that aren't me.
Chapter 1 - 5th November 2016
"So, this is all the biggest con since Neal Caffrey faked his death."
Rory smiled when she heard his voice behind her, knowing he was right, loving that he just referenced a show they had discussed many times before.
"Both were to save everyone from imminent danger," she noted as Jess came to sit beside her on the bench, drink in hand. "The stress of waiting for this big day... I don't know what it might've done. Y'know Luke did try to call you-"
"He already told me about it, and apologised fifty times." Jess nodded. "Honestly? I'm happy that they're happy. It's been a long time coming."
"Sometimes that's just the way it has to be," said Rory, eyes never leaving her mom and Luke as they danced and laughed amongst the other wedding guests.
There was no way she could look at Jess right now. She wanted to, but she couldn't. Her head was full of things she couldn't say, and yet knew she must. He deserved the truth. Out of everyone in her life, he always deserved honesty from her. It wouldn't be long before he realised something was wrong, but Rory couldn't pre-empt it, she didn't know where to start.
"So, three chapters in already?" he said of her book that she had so excitedly spoken of just yesterday. "It's coming easy?"
"Even easier than I thought." Rory smiled, glad of the subject change, still every kind of enthusiastic about her new project. "I went over to Hartford, walked into my grandpa's study, sat down at his desk, and it just happened. It felt like the right place."
Jess nodded, even though she barely looked at him so probably didn't notice. There were no words he could say to that. Rory missed Richard like crazy, he knew that much. He was a hole in her life that would never truly be filled. Jess never really could understand how that felt. He never had anybody to lose before.
The silence wasn't awkward. It never had been with them, even in the worst of times. They were comfortable enough to be talking or not talking. Unfortunately, Lorelai was in hyper-drive today, and had maybe had a little too much champagne at this point. She saw the two of them sitting together and came barrelling over to remind her maid of honour and Luke's best man that they were supposed to be sharing a dance already.
Still without speaking a word, Rory and Jess got up to do their wedding day duty. His hands went to her waist and hers to his shoulders like the most natural thing in the world and they swayed to a slow song that was already playing. This was when the comfortable silence took a turn into awkward territory.
They hadn't been this close in so long. A brief hug here and there was about as far as things had gone these past ten years. The last time they were genuinely physically this close had been long before, at Truncheon, when Jess kissed Rory and she kissed back, before eventually pulling away and declaring she was still with Logan, that she still loved him. Jess hadn't thought he would ever get over the pain she caused him that day, but they found a way past it, in time. They had gotten to here, to this point, where they were friends again, the real kind that were always there for each other, never wavered. Didn't stop the closeness of this moment feeling so very strange.
"Er, if you need any help with the editing on your manuscript, you can send it my way," said Jess, deciding it was a safe enough topic to go with, just so long as he was saying something. "I'm pretty good at that these days."
"Thanks." Rory smiled, both at the sweet offer and the understatement of the century. "You know I don't expect to come to you for all my book writing needs. That'd be a little brazen."
"Hey, you need me, I'm there," Jess promised her, realising too late that had come out way too serious as their eyes met. "I mean, I could even pitch it to Chris and Matthew," he said, glancing away as they continued to move to the music, though not very much by now. "I know how well you write, Truncheon would be more than happy to publish your novel."
They stopped moving entirely then when Rory looked at him.
"You're serious."
Jess frowned, confused that she would even be surprised.
"When it comes to books, always."
She smiled at that, knowing it was definitely true. Jess was never so serious as when he talked about books. In the beginning, when they had first known each other, it was almost their sole topic of conversation. They would wax lyrical on the works they both loved, quoting passages, comparing notes, but the most fun was when they bickered over the writers and novels they just couldn't agree on. More than once lately, Rory had reminisced about those days and felt sad that she couldn't get them back somehow. Thinking of it now must have put too serious a look on her face because the next thing she knew Jess was calling her on it.
"Why do I think there's more on your mind than the book and the wedding?" he asked, his grip tightening on her just a little when she made to get away. "C'mon, Rory, talk to me. Maybe I can help."
A burst of laughter that held no humour escaped her lips then.
"It's not quite so simple this time," she told him, shaking her head.
Her eyes darted left and right, to her mom and Luke, to the other guests. Jess half expected her to run from him. At the same time, he almost wondered if she planned to make some ridiculous announcement to the assembled crowd. In the end, she did neither.
"Walk with me?" she urged him, offering her hand.
"Sure."
Jess nodded easily, grabbing her hand and taking a double quick step just to keep up with her when she set off at a pace. He paid no attention to where they were going. Mostly Jess was wondering why they were headed there at all. Rory clearly needed to talk about something that was bothering her. It wasn't the wedding or the book because they already covered that, but it was clearly something pretty serious.
It was too much for him to dare to dream that this was about the two of them. For all that he told Luke he was over her, and told himself the same thing as regularly as necessary, Jess never had gotten over Rory Gilmore. Seeing her again had only proven to him that he probably never would, and maybe even that he never truly wanted to.
When suddenly there were wooden planks beneath his feet and the journey seemed to be over, Jess realised he was on the bridge and that Rory was no longer holding onto his hand. There were a million reasons why she might've brought him here and Jess wasn't sure he was entirely ready for any of them.
"So, should I brace to be pushed or...?" he asked, the dead-pan joke dropping from his lips like a defence mechanism.
It did not lessen the blow when Rory finally met his eyes and answered him.
"I'm pregnant."
"Huh."
Rory smiled at his lack of response. She couldn't do anything else.
"Nice to know some things never change," she remarked, all the breath seeming to go out of her body in a rush then as she lowered herself to sit down.
Jess took a moment to regroup. Of all the things he could've ever expected her to say, that didn't even make the top one hundred, he was sure. The processing of it took longer than expected. Eventually he sat down beside Rory.
"I'm guessing the father is the ex?" he said, looking everywhere but at her - Rory didn't notice since she was doing the exact same thing. "The famous P you kept on forgetting to dump?"
"No," she confessed, looking down at her hands in her lap. "No, it's not Paul. It's Logan," she said eventually, glancing up at the last moment because she had to see his reaction, good or bad, the latter being what she expected. "And I know what you're going to say-"
"I doubt it," Jess cut her off unceremoniously, scrambling to get to his feet and walk away.
In five seconds she had done it again, just torn his heart out and stomped all over it. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair. It wasn't exactly her fault either, but that didn't stop the pain. She had been seeing Logan again. That worthless, stupid, blond dick from Yale, who cheated on her back then and probably more recently too. Jess found himself suddenly back at Truncheon, on that day ten years ago, when the same asshole was the reason Rory was crying and telling Jess she was sorry. Here they were again and Jess was bearing the same wound in his heart, whether he had a right or not.
"Jess!"
"What do you want from me, Rory?" he yelled back at her, hating himself in a second but unable to keep his temper right now.
"I want the friend who has always had my back!" she told him, tears in her voice that it killed him to hear, killed him to see when he made himself turn back to her. "I need him right now, maybe more than I ever did before. And yes, I know it's so wrong of me to ask because... For so many reasons," she told him desperately, "but that's what I want. It's what I need, Jess."
She was so broken, so lost, so not his Rory right now, and yet Jess knew that was exactly who she was. No matter what happened, no matter if she was pregnant with another man's child, crying on a bridge in the middle of a crack-pot town on her mother's wedding day. None of it mattered. She was always his Rory and Jess would always be there for her. He didn't know how to be anything else.
Moving towards her, he wrapped his arms around her shaking form without another moment's pause, and Rory cried openly into his shoulder.
This was so far from how today was supposed to go, but right now it didn't even feel like Luke and Lorelai's wedding day or any normal day in Stars Hollow. It felt like the end of something, maybe the beginning of something else, a strange blip in time that Jess would worry about later. Right now all that could matter was bringing Rory some kind of comfort, now that her crying was down to a dull roar.
"If you need me, I'm here," he promised in a whisper. "You know that."
"I'm sorry," she mumbled against his shoulder.
"For what?" Jess pulled away enough to see her tear-stained face, pushing her hair back behind her ear as he spoke seriously to her. "You don't owe me anything. It's been a long time, Rory. You didn't cheat on me, you never did."
"I know," she told him, sniffing hard, "but I'm still sorry."
Jess really had no idea what else to say to her, so he said nothing at all. He pulled her close again, rubbing her back and promising her a couple more times that it'd be okay. Maybe that was the biggest con in history, because honestly, Jess had no idea how to fix any of this. Of course, that didn't mean he wasn't going to try.
A/N2: As the title 'Snapshots' implies, this isn't going to be a long, linear story but rather a short series of one-shot scenes through time. They will be in time order but there will be gaps in between of several months at a time. I need to show key events and not get bogged down in the in between. I hope it works out as well as I've planned :)
