This story started out from a Tumblr thread that questioned the fact that Jess and Rory had not seen each other for four years prior to their meeting up in AYITL. I thought it might be fun to play with that concept and this story was born. I also wanted to deal with some of the plot holes and unanswered questions that ASP left us with and see if I could come up with some satisfactory answers. I've never written fanfiction before and I haven't even attempted to write fiction for twenty years, so please be gentle with me. Any reviews or comments are always welcome.

June 2012

The first thing that hit Rory Gilmore when she woke up was an overwhelming sense of vertigo.

The migraine was encroaching on the borders of her skull soon followed.

Where was she?

This was definitely not her bedroom back at home, with the Yale paraphernalia still plastered on the walls and the handful of books and beauty supplies scattered on the dresser. It also wasn't her tiny Brooklyn apartment, with the walls and floor that she haphazardly tried to keep clean and pest-free but yet always seemed to succumb to an ambiguously sticky muddle.

These brown walls did look awfully familiar to her, though.

Rory's gaze lingered on the free weights scattered in the corner. She shook her head and tried to get her bearings, and let her eyes rotate to the coffee table with the discarded shot glasses and battered paperbacks.

Suddenly it all came back to her.

Oh no. Oh hell no.

Jess met her gaze from the doorway of the bathroom, a towel slung halfway across his bare chest.

"Sooo . . ."

Rory flopped back to the bed with an exasperated sigh.

It all started out so innocently.

April had spent most of June volunteering at a kids science camp in Boston, and was planning to spend a few weeks in Stars Hollow before she flew back to New Mexico to visit her mom. Rory had plans to spend the first week of July at a "Christmas in July" festival for a freelance piece she was writing on Civll War Reenactments, thus missing the annual Stars Hollow Independence Day soiree. It had been Lorelai's idea for her to swing back to town for the belated Father Day party being thrown in Sookie's backyard. Rory hadn't been back home for a few months: she had spent most of the last year flitting around to various locations working on different projects. She missed the structure of a regular news job, but she also liked getting the opportunity to travel to new places and experience different things. It wasn't quite as glamourous as the job she originally envisioned as a hard-hitting news reporter, but her years spent working the political beat had taught her that that kind of job could be dispiriting and dull. The nuts and bolts of political reporting got to be too much after a while: there was only so much you could say about the neverending gridlock and infighting, and the way her fellow reporters salivated at the mere whiff of scandal often made her feel three degrees away from working for Access Hollywood. It was nice to take a break from that, and focus on a reality where life wasn't about those types of things all of the time.

Of course, maybe all of that was just the crap she told herself to justify her choices after she had been laid off a year ago. She tried not to think about what she would have actually been reporting on if she had been able to keep her old job. Sure, the idealism of her youth had mostly been sucked away long ago, but it was an election year. She sometimes wondered what it would be to be writing a piece that she wouldn't be able to incorporate her quasi-stepfather's rants about the futility of tradition next to her observations of the bizarre small-town festivals that weren't so different from her own childhood. But it was what it was, and for the most part she enjoyed it.

She did miss home a lot. She missed her mother, and the diner, and that same quasi-stepfather who had become more and more of a dad as the years went by. She missed the junk-food-and-binge-watching routines she and her mother would settle into whenever they were together. She missed her own town's festivals, and the camaraderie that she always felt from being surrounded by so many people who had known her since she was small. She missed Lane, now firmly ensconced in family life and random musical projects, but who still knew her better than anyone else, no matter how different their lives had turned out. So much in her daily routine was unpredictable and bewildering, and she had grown to like that. But Stars Hollow was always a whirlwind of nostalgia and community that truly felt like home no matter what else was going on. It was always nice to have something to count on.

This weekend was no exception. Luke and Jackson manned the grill, passing out an assortment of burgers, hot dogs, and vegetable kebabs (Lorelai and Rory predictably refused the latter) to anyone who showed up. The boisterous products of the 2007 Stars Hollow baby boom all showed up to partake in the festivities, along with their parents: Rory's head felt dizzy from seeing Doula, Steve and Kwan jump around in the backyard along with Sookie's kids, darting from distraction to distraction. Zach and Lane had brought their guitars, but after seeing Sookie's youngest son approach the instruments with a bit too much of a devilish glee in his eye it was quickly decided that the spontaneous sing-a-long wasn't going to happen, and the instruments were stored in the safety of Sookie's kitchen. Zach brought out a soccer ball to distract the kids, and Jackson, Kirk, and Luke quickly joined in. (Luke's unexpected enthusiasm for kid-inspired endeavors is something Rory had gotten used to over the years, even though this time he claimed it was merely to rein in Kirk). April spent most of the evening chatting up Lulu's nephew, who she'd enjoyed a brief fling with two summers ago, a spectacle her father attempted to ignore. Eventually, Kirk decided to make the kids soccer game a bit too competitive, and the party dispersed. Luke and Lorelai, giddy with exertion and a bit too much red wine, departed for the Crap Shack while those with drowsy offspring absconded to their own homes and April disappeared to a friend's house. Jess and Rory were the only ones left standing.

Rory wasn't quite sure how they ended up back at the apartment. Jess looked a little more withdrawn since the last time she had seen him: she knew that the book press in Philadelphia had been supposedly temporarily shuttered, and Jess had ended up taking up residence in Luke's old apartment. He was fairly vague with the details when she asked him about it, but he did want to know as much about her cross-country adventures as she was willing to tell. Soon the talk turned to old friends and boyfriends, and the weirdness of remaining single and independent when so many of the people they had grown up with were settling down and getting married. Jess told her about running into Dean and his family the last time he was in the city (minus fisticuffs this time): Rory confessed how strange it seemed to her that even Paris, fearless slayer of all those who dared to stand in her path, was fully domesticated and pregnant.

It wasn't long until Rory was remembering all they had had in common, once in a while, long ago. She remembered the glee she felt as a teenager to finally be with someone who liked all the same things she did but yet had just enough of a dark edge to make her want more of it.

The glint in the eye was the same. Sometimes, he looked just the same.

"I can't believe this." Rory moaned, staring at the ceiling.

"It's a little weird for me, too," Jess admitted, plopping into a nearby armchair.

Rory shifted and sat up against the pillows, trying to keep herself from falling off of the edge of the single bed. "Don't get me wrong. It's not that it wasn't . . ."

"Glad for something resembling a compliment," Jess smirked, gazing out towards the window.

"It's just wrong."

"They're not married."

"I don't think it makes a difference at this point," Rory reasoned. "I mean, think about it, Jess. I'm here for a Father's Day celebration. We hooked up an occasion meant to honor our mutual relative. It's just too . . ."

"Hey," Jess countered, focusing his gaze on hers. Rory averted her eyes, suddenly all too aware that he was still half dressed. "We were connected way before they were. It's not like we don't know each other. I mean, were you really thinking about that the last time you tried to kiss me? We're adults now. It's a different situation."

"I'm pretty sure that wasn't a good idea ten years ago, either."

"Because you were with someone!" Jess insisted. "Is that the same thing now?"

"No", Rory sniffed. She forced herself to look Jess in the face. He arched his eyebrows. "I promise you, it's not."

Rory looked away. "How about you?"

Jeff scoffed. "In Stars Hollow? I think I've had enough of being grist for the rumor mill for one lifetime." He paused. "Well, nothing serious, anyway."

Rory smiled. "I think your mere presence here might qualify you for that distinction."

Jess groaned and walked over to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. "Wasn't exactly what I had planned."

Rory glanced in his direction. "So you still don't want to talk about it, I guess."

Jess put the glass down and looked out the window. "Not really."

Rory fiddled with the sheet in her hands. "You know, I called my dad on Father's Day. He didn't call back. I haven't seen him since last summer. It turned out he's not that interested in me unless my mother's there to hold his hand."

Jess retreated back to the armchair. "I haven't seen mine since the summer after high school. At least yours put forth the effort for a while."

Rory sighed. "It was never about me as far he was concerned." She forced herself to meet Jess's gaze. "I did have a great time, you know. I just don't want things to get more complicated than they have to."

Jess nodded. "I get that." He grimaced "It is what it is. You, me."

Rory smiled, remembering. "I better get home."