AN: So let's try another multichip, right? Yeah sure whatever, but knowing my track record this will take forever, so y'all better be ready for the long ride ahead. Anyway, thanks all y'all who read Making Plans, and I hope you like this one too!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Desperation
There's danger in frustration
Complicated words slippin' off of your tongue and ain't one of them the truth
I'm still desperate for you

-"Desperation" Miranda Lambert

Lilly marched into the diner with a purpose. She had run late to help her grandpa at the old place, and she knew that he loved her, but man she hated to disappoint him when she was late. She also hated to disappoint her mom who had been running low on money lately, and had been working extra hours and picking up other people's stories to get the money from the paper that she needed. It killed Lilly to see her mom have to write about anything Taylor wished, but it payed the bills and kept food on the table. Well, Luke kept food on the table, but that's beside the point.

"I'm so sorry, Grandpa. I had, like, this super crappy assignment, and the teacher assigned the groups. So I was stuck with a bunch of idiot bimbos who didn't know what they were doing. I was so mad cause me and Cat and Mark had this really good idea planned for it and just—" the teenager was cut off by Luke. He placed a to go cup of coffee in her hands, willingly which was unlike him, and the way he was looking at her, it looked like he had something to hide.

"Its fine, Lil. Just get to work before I die of old age." He smirked at her, and she smirked back, but not before glancing at him warily. He never kept things from her. Her grandfather had been one of the few constants in her life, and next to her mom he was her best confidant. And she could tell that he didn't like keeping whatever information he had from her.

Lilly grabbed her apron, and tied it tightly around her waist while turning the radio on. She remembered how much convincing it had taken to get Luke to get one for the diner, but he did and he did it for her. That made the blue eyed girl smile. She knew that the only way for her to keep it on was to play the country music that Luke liked, and she would never tell her music crazy mom and Aunt Lane, but it was starting to grow on her. She shifted from the radio to the empty tables that needed to be cleaned and groaned.

Luke had excused himself to go upstairs, and Lilly promised she would keep an eye on the place. With all the extra shifts she picked up, she felt like half the time she was running the place. She was refilling Kirk's coffee for the fifth time in the past twenty minutes when a new customer had come in. Looking the customer's way, Lilly was puzzled to not recognize this person considering how small Stars Hollow was. She informed the man she would be with him in a minute, and slowly walked back to the cash register while trying to get a good look at the newcomer.

"What can I get you, sir?" Lilly asked while pulling her notepad out and clicking her pen. The man flipped through the menu, but seemed to not really be looking as he kept turning his head to look out the large window. He started his order, but stopped immediately when he got an actual look at Lilly.

"Rory?" He asked incredulously. Lilly shook her head with a look of confusion, so this guy knew her mom? She was ever more confused when the guy looked intently at her. Sure, she did have a striking resemblance, but the 16 year old had never actually been mistaken for her mom.

"N-no. I'm her daughter, Lilly." She said her nose scrunching in confusion. The man stared at her for a moment more before finishing his order, Lilly nodded and walked back to tell Caesar what was needed. The bell rang again, and both she and the stranger looked up quickly. The guy ducked his head behind the menu when Lorelai walked through the door.

"Lilly, my precious granddaughter. You know I love you, but I love my coffee. So gimme, the whole pot will do." The older woman said, making Lilly chuckle. She knew that her grandfather wouldn't approve of the amount of coffee she was about to give her grandmother, but she got the largest coffee mug anyway, and poured half the pot into it. "You're the best, Lil. So where is my coffee hating husband?" She questioned as Luke stepped from behind the curtain leading upstairs.

Lilly was handed the meal that the guy hiding behind the menu ordered, and placed it in front of him before turning back to her grandparents. The way Luke was looking at the guy, the girl knew there something going on. She didn't say anything, and neither did Luke they seemed to have an unspoken agreement. Lorelai was oblivious in her coffee world, but the mystery guy was not. He got up to leave, but was stopped by Luke who had grabbed his jacket to take him up the stairs.

When Lorelai noticed the man Luke had with him, she gasped and looked at Lilly. The 16 year old was distracted, and the older woman lost a bit of her worry when she heard what she had said. "No, Kirk. I'm not joining your cult. Now get out." She reminded Lorelai of Luke when she did that. As Kirk walked out the door, Rory walked in.

"What's this about cults? Don't let Taylor know there's one, he'll send me undercover for the inside scoop." She smiled at her daughter who poured her a cup of coffee. Lilly giggled, and turned to the cash register. Before Lorelai could tell her daughter that they had a surprise guest, Luke came down the stairs and shot his wife a look that meant it was the end of it for the moment. Lilly had been too caught up with work to notice that the mystery guy didn't come back downstairs.

XXX

Jess heard a lot of stuff going on in the diner downstairs, but didn't dare go back down. He knew that Luke would probably take no time to shoot him if he did go down during working hours. He hadn't really heard all that much lately besides Lilly (Rory's daughter?) and some kid named Will, who seemed to be Luke and Lorelai's kid. Luke had left about an hour ago, and instructed Will to help Lilly close up shop.

"Lil, do you want ice cream?" Will asked his niece. It was weird considering Lilly was three years older than him. Jess heard the music switch from some country song to some alternative song and smiled.

"No, we don't have cones! And the first lesson my mom taught me was to never accept ice cream without a cone." She said, and turned the radio down slightly. "Nah, I'll just have coffee and some cake." And then there was some rummaging and then the clanking of cutlery against dishes. What Lilly had said brought Jess back to the night when he crashed Rory's car. He still felt bad about that.

"Alright, Little Man. You can go, I gotta wash these dishes, and I gotta, uh, study." He heard the 16 year old say, and then some harrumphing from Will. A chair scuffled, and the door to the diner opened.

"I'm not so little!" Will said as he walked out, and Lilly chuckled. The music stopped, and the sink started running to wash the dishes. With Will gone, Jess took the opportunity to take a look at the diner, and Rory's daughter. He couldn't see much from behind the curtain, but Lilly stepped out from behind the counter top, and started talking animatedly. Well, singing animatedly.

"Marius, you're no longer a child. I do not doubt you mean it well…" He heard her sing. She giggled a bit when she looked at herself in the reflection of the window, and Jess took this to notice the similarities and differences between the teenager and Rory.

While Rory had pale skin, Lilly's was a bit tanner. Also Lilly's hair was a darker shade with soft curls and thicker than her mothers, but that could easily be attributed to Lorelai. Though despite the very few physical differences, they seemed to be almost the same in looks and personality. Both being witty, and from the sounds of what he had heard earlier that day they both loved books. He listened and watched a bit more, and had to stop his profiling to watch the girl's dramatics.

He had long ago realized that Lilly was singing songs from Les Miserables. He had read it years ago, and the names of the characters stuck with him through that whole time. Jess watched intently as he heard her begin to sing "I Dreamed a Dream." Her face screwed up a bit to show pain, and it made him actually think she was in it. Her singing was brought out even more by the emotion she put into the song.

"I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I'm living." She sang with tears in her eyes, and the performance that she held really moved him, the supposedly emotionless man. As she finished, he couldn't stand being in the shadows any longer, and stepped from behind the curtain clapping his hands. She jumped and turned to him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone was here." She said in a small voice, like she had been caught taking the last cookie. Jess waved his hand and sat down on a barstool. She followed, and stood behind the counter. "Is there anything I can get you?" She tried to do her best customer service act. Jess again waved his hand.

"You were good. Have you read the book?" He asked hoping that she had at least read Les Mis before watching the musical or movie. Lilly nodded quickly, and then came around the counter and sat on a bar stool.

"Yeah, it's my favorite. I like how the revolution was portrayed. And the turmoil that they faced. Reminds me that not all people had it good, even when that's what history wants you to believe. Actually, I just really like Victor Hugo." She rambled a bit. Jess nodded. They sat in an awkward silence for a few seconds when Lilly started talking again. "Who are you? And why did my grandpa throw you upstairs?"

Jess looked around the diner, and even though no one was there, he feared that Miss Patty and Babette would have it all over the town the next day. No doubt it already was. "I'm Jess." He stuck his hand out to shake. Lilly smirked, and shook it.

"That's my name." She said with a smile. Jess looked at her funny, and she realized what she said. "Well, I mean it's my middle name. Technically, my name is Lorelai Jessica Gilmore, so I guess kinda not the same thing…" She blabbed again. He nodded knowingly, he had heard the babbles of the previous Lorelais many a time.

"So, you're Lorelai IV?" He chuckled, and Lilly nodded. "And to answer your question, I am Luke's nephew. That's why he threw me upstairs." Lilly smiled, and remembered how when she and Rory had lived in the apartment she was thrown upstairs many times for getting in trouble. "So, you got any other books you like to read?" He questioned, but probably knew the answer since she was Rory's kid.

Lilly nodded, and wracked her brain for her most recent conquer. "Well, I just finished re-reading Anna Karenina, and I really like Austen, and I surprisingly like Dickens. Oh, yeah I love John Steinbeck! We read Of Mice and Men in school, but I had already read it like 20 times." She didn't know why she was telling all of this to some guy who she didn't know, and apparently was a far off relative that she had heard nothing of. Jess smiled, and continued to listen to the ramblings of the 16 year old, and it reminded him of Rory. "But, I really really like Les Mis. I keep re-reading it, and I read it when I was 10 so it was difficult the first time, but it keeps getting easier to understand each time I read it." She continued to babble.

The bell rang to the front door, and they both turned to yell at the person that the diner was closed out of habit. Instead, Lilly jumped up and hugged the new inhabitant. It was a girl about Lilly's age, and short and blonde. "Cat, I didn't realize the time." Lilly exclaimed. "And, oh my lord, I have so much to tell you about that stupid English assignment that I got assigned to do with the biggest idiots in the school." The subject had changed, and that was the end of the conversation between Jess and Lilly.

The two teenagers walked out of the diner, and Lilly began locking the door behind her. "Wait! I just wanted to say it was nice to meet you." She told Jess, who smiled.

"Ditto." And then he walked upstairs, and she walked outside to be with her best friend that was not her mom. Cat asked who he was, and Lilly gave the story of the new relative she never knew she had. Then they went to Lilly's house for movie night and a sleepover.

XXX

The next morning, Lilly and Cat walked up to the diner for Lilly's early shift, and were surprised to see a long line coming from the restaurant. Lilly pushed her way to the front to see what all the commotion was, and she busted out laughing when she saw the sight in front of her.

There was the door, unlocked and opened, but it was barricaded with all the tables and chairs from the inside. Luke looked more than pissed, and he noticed Lilly laughing and shot her a glance that shut her up. It took some time, but the barricade was done away with, and there at the bar top sat Jess sipping a cup of coffee. He looked to Lilly and raised his mug.

"To the barricades." He said with a smirk. She held in her laughter as much as possible.

"Viva la revolution." She returned, glad to have begun a new inside joke. The two's joke was stopped by the door opening, and a loud gasp ringing through the entire place. Jess sat up a bit straighter with the person entering. Lilly whipped around to see her mother standing in the doorway, not moving.

"Jess?" She questioned. Jess looked down at his coffee, and then back up to the woman standing in front of him.

"Hey."