Title: When September Comes
Author: spuffygrl
Pairings: Literati and Java Junkie
Summary: After Jess gets into some trouble, he find shelter in the home of his father's widowed wife's house. Now, two years later, she gets into an accident and dies. Jess has to deal with life, a little sister, and growing up. (Jess has never been to stars hollow or met any of the people there)
How it all Began
Jess stared forward, out onto the road. The sun was close to setting and he knew that he'd have to find them a place to sleep for the night. Going cross country from California to Connecticut, west to east coast, just so he wouldn't have to leave his car behind had probably not been the best idea. But, in all honesty, he wanted to delay this 'family reunion' as much as possible.
His uncle, Luke, had invited them to stay with him until they got onto their feet. He offered them a place to crash, food to eat, and-so he claimed-nothing in returned. Jess had learned early on that nothing came for free. His father's widowed wife, Maggie, had left them both some money but neither could tap into until all the legal mumbo-jumbo was out of the way.
Who knew that his life could change in the course of a minute? Just when life was starting to get good, maybe even close to perfect, that damn mugger had to interfere. He demanded that Maggie give him her purse. She did only he wasn't satisfied with what she had and instead proceeded to rape and kill her. That had been two months ago.
Jess's little half sister, Lilly, snored softly next to him. He sighed. He had to take care of her. As much hated to admit it, he'd grown attached to the little girl. She wasn't some disposable thing in his life anymore. He mentally kicked himself for letting her creep into his heart.
Stopping at a red light, Jess fiddled with the radio knob trying to find something that wasn't so cheery. It just seemed wrong to have that on in light of everything that had happened. Instead he settled for some soft rock song he didn't know the title of and hummed along. Sparing a glance at Lilly, he watched in amusement as she scrunched herself into a little ball in order to get comfortable with all their possessions packed into the crapped quarters, none of them boxed or even organized.
"Lil" he said softly trying to shake the girl awake after parked in the parking lot of the nearest motel he could find. "Lil." The little ten year old refused to wake up so Jess was forced to carry her up to the front desk. She wasn't that heavy so it wasn't a problem.
"May I help you?" Jess almost threw up at the sight of the guy. He had on an old tee-shirt with sweat and grease stains all over it. A not-so-subtle stench was flowing in waves off of him.
Reminding himself that beggars can't be choosers, Jess responded "Yes can I have one room, two beds preferably."
"Well…" the man belched loudly. "Here, the best room in the house. You know fewer rats than the others."
"Well um…thank you." He couldn't afford to piss off the man with the only available room in all of Illinois. Tomorrow they'd be in Starshollow, Connecticut and life in the motels would be over. Jess couldn't claim that he would miss it.
A/N: this is my very first literati fanfic and I'm kinda nervous about it. I hope you all like it. If you don't tell me, be brutally honest. If I get no reviews, I guess I can just take it off the site. Um…yea. Tell me what you think or any ideas you may have. Until next time…hasta.