Metamorphosis
A/N: This is my first fanfic and I hope you like it! I came up with the idea and I thought it would be original, so this is how it turned out. I really like to know what you think of the story, so constructive criticism is more than welcome :)! Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think of it. I also want to thank my beta-reader, Lieke, very very much, she's the best ;)! She also came up with the title, which I think is great. THANK YOU!!!
It's gonna be a literati (J/R) and maybe some flashbacks of javajunkieness (L/L)
*****
You think you have the chance to apologize to him every day, you think you can say the things you want to say to him every day, you think he always will be there, but sometimes someone disappears, and this time, it's him.
*****
Chapter I ~ PrologueIt was late at night and the rain kept clattering on the roof. Jess was lying in bed, reading, he couldn't sleep. He almost finished his book, but just a couple of sentences away from the ending he was disturbed by the sound of his ringing phone. He picked it up, obviously annoyed.
"It is in the middle of the night right now, ok? So why the hell are you calling? Or is this you again, Brian? To accuse me of sleeping with your girlfriend? Because that was not me, I told you a hundred times, ok? So STOP CALLING ME, ESPECIALLY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT when normal people are trying to sleep."
"Hm...Hello?"
"Oh , sorry I thought you were someone else"
"Yeah, I thought so.."
Only then he noticed to whom that voice belonged, the girl he had loved many years ago, she now sounded like a woman, but he still recognised her voice...why was she calling anyway?
"Rory?" he asked her insecurely
"Hey Jess, um, I have something to tell you"
"Ok.."
"Well, uh, you better go sit down or something, because I have terrible news."
Jess started to feel scared, what was going on? She never spoke like that, so insecure...even during their last fight, when he had yelled at her and treated her so unfairly ...she never sounded this insecure...or afraid...to tell him things... Rory kept silent.
"Rory?"
"Uh, yeah, well…" she started sobbing, Jess hoped this wasn't about him leaving ten years ago, because that would be a bit pathetic, but Jess knew Rory, so he also knew that she wasn't crying without a reason. Something bad had happened, he realised, really bad.
"Rory, please just tell me what is going on."
Rory spoke with a soft and trembling voice: "Luke died this morning"
When Jess heard what Rory said, at first it didn't really got to him, but then, he realised what she was saying: Luke was dead? He couldn't breath for a moment, he felt like he was suffocating, he sank into a chair and a lot of thoughts kept running around in his mind, how could this happen? Why didn't he visit Luke before now? What did this mean? Did she want him to come back? Did Lorelai know? How could he have kept a distance for so long? What had happened to Luke? He totally forgot about Rory on the other end of the line, until she spoke again with a small voice:
"Jess? Are you still there? Are uh...... are you alright?"
Jess didn't answer, he didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do and he didn't know how to feel.
Rory considered the silence on the other end of the line as a sign that Jess was really, really hurt by the news she had just reported to him.
"Jess, maybe you can come here? To Stars hollow?"
Jess woke up from his thoughts.
"uh...yes, yeah...I guess I should do that, I guess......... I will...see you there" he stammered.
"Thanks for calling Rory"
"Yeah, well, you're welcome, take care."
Jess really didn't know what to do next, he just collapsed on his bed. He didn't even know what had happened with Luke, he hadn't asked Rory, he was too occupied with his own thoughts. How could the man that Jess had seen as a dad, the only true father-figure in his life, die? But that was not the feeling that drove Jess mad, it was something else: guilt. It crept over him, like pain creeps over you when you are stabbed with a knife. He hasn't seen or spoken to Luke in more than ten years, he never wrote him back, he never returned his calls, he never once came back to Stars Hollow. And now Luke was dead and Jess would never ever have another chance to tell Luke how much he had meant for him. And not only in the past, Luke still meant a lot to Jess.
*****
Jess booked a flight and at the airport he grabbed a cab to go to the quirky little town Stars Hollow. All this happened in a sort of blur. When he arrived in his former place of residence a couple of hours later, he had no idea how he got there. But then he saw William's hardware store, best known as Luke's Diner and it hit him again, Luke was dead.
He told the driver to stop the cab, he paid him, grabbed his backpack and walked towards the diner. He didn't think anyone would be there, but when he peeked through the window, it turned out to be otherwise.
Lorelai and Rory were sitting in the diner with a huge cup of coffee in front of them. Jess wanted to open the door, but it was locked, so he knocked lightly on the window. Lorelai started yelling immediately, without even looking in his direction: "Go away, I don't want your sympathies, I just want to have a cup of coffee with my darling daughter in the diner of my DEAD HUSBAND, is that too hard for you to understand?" Jess realised that probably all the town-geeks had been coming by to check on the diner and the two Gilmore Girls. He heard the soft tones of Rory's voice, by which he assumed she was comforting her mother.
And only then it hit him, what did Lorelai say? Her husband? So his uncle finally had been happy with the woman he loved? A small smile crept on his lips, he never thought those two would find out how much they meant to each other, but luckily they did.
Suddenly the door of the diner opened and Jess came face to face with his ex-girlfriend, the one he left about ten years ago without saying goodbye, the one he truly loved, the one he never stopped thinking about, the one who was still beautiful, despite the dark shades around her eyes and the mournful look in her eyes.
When he saw her, all he wanted to do was hug her, because at this moment he really thought that would comfort him a little bit. She woke him from his thoughts by calling out his name in a friendly way.
"Uh...hi Rory." He didn't really know what to say to her. What could be said in an awful and awkward situation like this? He never even apologized to her, she never heard anything from him again after that weird phone call, in which he didn't even spoke.
Rory was never at a loss for words, but this time she was. She didn't know what to say and how to say it to him, when he was standing there like a little sad boy. He was lost because someone he loved very much, Rory knew he did, had died. Rory didn't even think about his dreadful leaving and the tears she had shed over him, she just wanted to comfort him and she wanted to be comforted by him. She needed him right now, more than she needed him ever before and by the look in his eyes she could tell he needed her too.
He dropped his backpack on the ground and moved towards her, she wrapped her arms around him and he held her fragile body in his strong arms. She started to cry and he softly patted her on her head, he wasn't really familiar with a situation like this, he wasn't good with crying people, especially the crying-ex-girlfriend-he-left-ten-years-ago-without-saying-anything kind of people. They looked at each other and then Rory started to wipe the tears of his face with her soft hands; he didn't even realise he had been crying. He sensed the warm touch of her fingers on his face and he acted on his urge to take her head in his hands and with his thumbs he also wiped her tears away. She smiled a little and he smiled back, glad he could make her smile, even if it was only for a little while.
In the meantime Lorelai had approached the two and she cleared her throat. Rory and Jess looked at her, and immediately let go of each other.
"Hey Jess" Lorelai spoke with a small smile.
"Hey Lorelai…I…uh.." Jess stammered, he had no idea how to act towards Lorelai, she hated him, he knew that for sure, not only because of what he did to her beloved daughter, but also because of what he did to Luke. Her now beloved husband, well, dead husband he added to himself.
Lorelai continued speaking: "You don't have to say anything, Jess, I'm glad you're here, Luke would have appreciated that. You know you're not one of my favourite people, but why don't we try to be civil to each other for a couple of days?"
"Yeah, I'd really appreciate that. Lorelai, I…I am really sorry about everything, I know me saying that doesn't make it okay, but I just wanted to let you know that I truly am sorry how things turned out."
Jess looked from Lorelai to Rory, it seemed to him that they were a little touched by his words, but he knew that this was just the beginning, he did a lot of things wrong and one simple sorry obviously didn't make it right.
"Thanks, Jess." Lorelai said to him.
She led him into the diner and he looked around, nothing had changed, except for a few frames on the wall behind the counter, one that showed a wedding picture of Luke and Lorelai and one that showed a picture of Luke, Lorelai, Rory and a little boy, unknown to Jess. They were all genuinely smiling into the camera. Jess felt a little sad that he wasn't part of that family, even though he perhaps could have been. He expected the young boy to be Lorelai and Luke's son. Realising that Luke had such a nice life after all, that Luke really got what he deserved and that he got what he wanted made Jess truly happy and his eyes were filled with tears once again on this tragic day.