Time Heals All Wounds

Disclaimer: This is fanfiction. Define that yourself.

Author's Note: This is my first foray into the world of Gilmore Girls fanfiction so I'm hoping this isn't a total failure. This fic was inspired by the concept of 'cereal dating'. That is, where one, during a grocery shopping trip on a given night, places a box of cereal upside down in the basket of a shopping trolley (or cart, if you prefer) and proceeds to meet up with various other singles who have done the same thing.Oh, and I refuse to Americanise my spelling just because the series is American. That is all.

Chapter 1:
Singles' Night At Ally's

When one stumbled across Ally's, one quickly discovered that Ally's façade was in complete opposition to its interior. Beginning with the name, Ally's. There was no "Ally" who was the founder of the place. Ally's wasn't a bar, or a restaurant, like the name seemed to imply. When one stood on the street and looked in through either of the entrances, it wasn't immediately apparent that it was a bookshop/café. It looked a whole lot more like a garden centre.

But what was most confusing about Ally's was its Singles' Night. Friday nights from six 'til twelve. A shift that Jess Mariano had managed to avoid for years… until today.

Jess Mariano, a manager at Ally's, was a bit like the place himself. At first glance, he appeared to be the type of person who would mug you on some dark secluded street. The kind of man who would be found lurking in bars until closing, with far more alcohol in his system than healthy. On closer inspection, you'd realise that he was wearing quite an expensive white shirt beneath the worn leather jacket, and if he turned, you'd notice a well-read paperback lurking in his back pocket.

The night started out alright. Jess' shift began upstairs in the café. He and a couple of teenage boys were out front with their lone customer. It gave Jess the perfect opportunity to continue reading his novel. It was a new one, Loss of Patience by Abigail Walters. Reading it was just one of the perks of working in the bookshop. Generally, new additions to the store meant new reviews to be written by the staff. This meant that the staff were allowed to borrow copies of the books and read them, provided they were returned in perfect condition. Of course, Jess' lifelong habit of back pocket novel abuse lead to him having never managed to return a single book. It became a sort of running joke within the confines of the Ally's staff room.

As the ranking officer in the room, Jess had little to do other than supervise the gradually increasing number of staff serve the customers. When he felt enough time had passed, he began making the rounds of the newly acquainted singles. He made small talk with the budding couples, noting those which weren't working. He even took the occasional order. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad.

No one, not even Jess himself, knew why he had been avoiding the inevitable Friday night shift. It wasn't as though he actually did work the second job he'd always claimed to. It wasn't as though he did something else more important on Friday nights. In fact, he usually spent them at home, alone, relaxing with a book after a long working week. Sometimes he guessed that he was afraid of the large number of desperate and dateless who would be surrounding him. But he'd grown up in New York surrounded by people. It wasn't that he wasn't open to the idea of the singles' night. It brought in quite a lot of profit, as everyone participating had to buy a book, rather than the regular days when hundreds of people browsed, and not many bought. The thought of being here just irked him. Like there was something that might happen that he should be avoiding.

He shrugged it off, ignoring it as he returned to the kitchen with his orders. Seeing everything going well, he headed downstairs to the bookstore to see if there were any problems.


She wasn't entirely sure how she ended up here at Ally's. It was her first visit to New York in a while and she'd been intending to go sightseeing with her friends who lived here. But suddenly Lane and Paris both had dates leaving Rory alone with nothing to do. When they spoke to her about how sorry they were, Rory insisted that they go, and that she only needed a good book and she'd be fine. But she managed to miss the conspiratorial smiles her friends shared when they pointed her in the direction of Ally's, a bookstore gradually becoming a New York landmark.

Rory was surprised when she arrived. The place was full of people browsing the shelves. All of them were wearing pink or blue plastic bracelets, like the kind you got for concerts. A teenager standing at the door looked at her.

"Pink or blue?" she asked.

"What?"

The teenager held up a box of bracelets.

"Oh," Rory replied. "Blue, I guess." She'd never been the kind of girl who wore pink.

The girl nodded and handed her a bracelet. "Enjoy your night."

"Er, thanks," she said, curiously. She wrapped the bracelet around her wrist and observed the place.

It wasn't really a cosy bookstore, there were far too many people in here, and the lights were too bright. It bordered on sterile, as though this were one of a major chain of bookstores. But from what she'd heard, this wasn't the case at all. She wandered aimlessly, attempting to find a corner of the store that wasn't filled with people.

She found what she was looking for in the non-fiction section. Unfortunately, she didn't actually want to read a non-fiction book. As she skimmed the titles uninterestedly, another woman about her age appeared beside her. Rory noticed that the other woman was also wearing a blue bracelet.

"Did you get dragged in here, too?" the other woman asked.

"No, actually," Rory asked. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you're here, all alone, in the one place in this store where a guy wouldn't want to find a girl."

"What?" Rory was definitely confused.

"It is customary for people who are willing to attend singles' nights to scout out the room and pick up a date," the woman nodded.

Suddenly Rory looked up and spotted a sign that read "Friday Night is Singles' Night at Ally's".

"You mean you didn't know?" the woman asked.

Rory sighed. "I can't believe I walked in here without noticing. And I'm wearing a blue bracelet which has been confusing me all night. What does it mean?"

The woman laughed. "It means you're on the lookout for a man."

"Thank goodness that's all it meant," Rory smiled. "And thank goodness I picked up a blue one."

"I'm Elise," the woman said, holding out a hand.

"Rory," she said, taking her hand and shaking it. She sighed. "I can't believe I didn't know. And I guess I was roped into this, without knowing. And the girl at the door, shouldn't she have said something? Anything, really. Like explaining what the colours of the bracelets meant?"

"Maybe you should talk to the manager about it," Elise suggested.

"I would," Rory sighed. "But I'd be too embarrassed to tell the manager something like that."

"Something like what?" A male voice interrupted the conversation.

Rory turned to look at the man. "I'm not about to tell you." He was a man about her age, of average height. A bit on the scrawny side with dark hair and eyes. He looked vaguely familiar, but Rory just put it down to her ability to mesh all faces together until they became one.

"Well," he continued. "I'm the manager here, and if you have something to tell me about the efficiency of our staff, you'd have to consider it your civic duty, wouldn't you?"

Rory didn't answer because she was noticing the man's nametag. "Jess?"

He looked at her. "Yes?"

"You mean you don't remember me?" She looked at him.

"Rory?" He grinned when she nodded. "Rory Gilmore. I haven't seen you in years."

She let out a breath as he embraced her. She patted him on the back, looked over her shoulder and realised they'd ignored Elise. "Oh," she said, drawing back. "Jess, this is Elise. Elise, Jess."

"Pleased to meet you," Jess said, extending a hand.

"Likewise," she returned, taking his hand. "Well, I think I'll have a look around. Leave you two to catch up."

Rory nodded. "Bye Elise. And thanks for not letting me wander around here completely hopelessly."

"So, you two are here together?" Jess asked, as Elise ambled toward the less-filled fiction shelves.

"Oh no," Rory replied. "We just met. Paris and Lane ditched me on my first night here."

"You guys are still friends, then."

"Yeah," she said. "Though I'm reconsidering that after tonight."

"I didn't think this was really your thing."

"It's not," Rory agreed. "I didn't even know that tonight was singles' night 'til Elise-" realising she'd said too much, she slapped a hand to her mouth and stared at Jess.

He couldn't stop himself from smirking. "I think I just found out what you were too embarrassed to tell the manager."

Rory slapped him on the arm. "Don't you dare."

"Since I already know that you stumbled in here unknowingly, mind telling me what the rest of the complaint would be?"

She glared at him, then sighed as he managed to control his smirk. "Well the girl at the door just asked me if I wanted a blue or a pink bracelet. She didn't explain them or anything. What if I just preferred the colour pink to blue? I could have been hit on by girls all night. I don't think I've ever been hit on by a girl before."

"That's certainly something to bring up at the next staff meeting."

She frowned. "You're not taking me seriously. And why is it that this system is in place so that more men are wandering around with pink bracelets than blue ones? You'd think they'd take it as an insult to their masculinity."

"We like not to reinforce stereotypes here at Ally's." Jess took her hand. "Let me get you a coffee."

"I don't want a coffee," she said, petulantly.

"What?" Jess queried, exaggerating his shocked expression. "If there's only one thing I remember about you it's that a Gilmore would never refuse a coffee. You're not pregnant are you?" he teased.

"A Gilmore is perfectly well equipped to resist the temptation of the elixir of life. Given the correct circumstances, of course. I hear immortality's not all it's cracked up to be. And of course I'm not pregnant. Do I look pregnant to you?"

"Well," he said. "You do seem to have a bit of a glow."

"The glow of frustration."

"I think your stomach may be protruding slightly."

"The way to a woman's heart is not through insulting her stomach," Rory said, self-consciously covering her stomach with her arm.

"Now, now. None of that," he said, taking her arm. "You look as gorgeous as the day I first met you. Now come on," he began leading her toward the staircase. "It's the least I can do after my staff so rudely chose not to enlighten you about tonight's proceedings. If it makes you feel better, this is the first time I've been to one of these."

"But you're a manager, aren't you? That generally requires multiple shifts and years of working in a place. Unless of course you've just printed yourself out a phony badge and you've actually been in cahoots with Lane and Paris with the ultimate goal to get me a free cup of coffee."

"Babble much, Gilmore?" he asked, as they reached the top of the staircase. "I've never thought that Singles' Night was the highlight of working in this place." He paused and choked back his laughter. "You said 'cahoots'."

Rory merely glowered at him.

They walked over to the counter. "Sorry milady," Jess said, pretending to tip his non-existent cap. "There are no tables vacant." He pulled a plain black stool from behind the counter and polished it a little with a tea towel. "I hope the seating meets your high expectations."

Rory was a little overwhelmed. She'd arrived in New York that morning intending to spend the night with Paris and Lane, reminiscing about old times. Then they'd both had dates, so she thought she'd spend a quiet night in Lane's flat, reading a book. Now, she discovered that Lane and Paris had a plan to get her to a singles' night in a bookstore (which she had to admit was quite an imaginative idea) and was being waited on by Jess Mariano, her almost forgotten high school boyfriend. He was being perfectly amiable, something she didn't remember him being capable of, and seemed to have completely forgotten the less than amicable way they'd parted. He was, this very moment, standing in front of her with an apron tied around his waist and a notepad and pen at the ready.

"What would you like?"

She looked at him, and was vaguely reminded of the same man in a similar situation so many years ago. "Pancakes with maple syrup, bacon and scrambled eggs, two slices of toast and an extra large coffee."

He smiled at her. "So now Rory wants to come out and play. Sadly, this isn't Luke's and we don't serve our breakfast menu all day. Bear in mind that this is a café and I'm not going to recite you the menu since I'm sure you have a pretty good idea of what it is already." Regardless of what he said, be pulled a laminated menu from a holder beside him and held it out to her.

She didn't take it. "Just give me a big slice of that chocolate cake over there, and the biggest cup of your house blend."

"Will do," he saluted and turned to leave. At that point Rory noticed the paperback in his back pocket and snagged it. He didn't notice and Rory examined it. It was a new book, from an author she hadn't heard of before. She had just finished reading the first page when he returned with her cake and coffee. "You've turned into quite the Artful Dodger yourself."

She looked up at him, then back to the book. "I guess so. I can't believe you still remember that."

"It's funny," he said. "I hadn't thought about you in ages. Every now and then I'll notice a book, and it'll remind me of you, but that's about it. Then suddenly you're here, and it's as though no time has passed, and I can still remember clearly every single word you ever said to me."

"Well, I'm sorry for all the bad things I said that I never apologised for."

"Don't be," Jess said. "There's really no need for apologies. That's water under the bridge. I wouldn't be who I am if people hadn't said what they said to me. And I'm quite content being me."

"This is nice. Isn't it, Jess?" Rory said, chewing a forkful of cake.

"The cake? Well, I certainly didn't make it."

"Not the cake," Rory shook her head. "Seeing each other again. Being friendly."

"Yeah," he smiled.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash from the kitchen. Several different voices were yelling indistinctly.

"I'd better go," Jess said. "Apparently I'm supposed to be in charge here. And without my help, they seem to be getting into a lot of trouble."

"Better re-think your staff," she said.

He hugged her gently, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Don't be a stranger now, Ror."

She only smiled and went back to eating her cake and coffee.


When Jess returned from the mess in the kitchen, he found there was no trace of Rory left. The stool was back in its place and her dishes had been cleared away. Not even a crumb on the floor gave any indication of the girl from his past's previous presence. He sighed and sat on the stool, reminiscing.

Maybe a Friday night shift at Ally's wasn't so bad after all. If only she hadn't taken his book.


A/N: Well, that's that. If this does become a full story (and I'm not known to finish what I start), it's not likely to be a romance.