Title- Kismet and Other Truisms
Author- Victoria
Rating- M
Summary- Jess never came back after the car accident. Years later, Rory finds an ad in the paper for a roommate and responds. Now she and Jess are living as roommates. But is that all that's between them? And, more importantly, can Jess keep it in his pants?
A/N- I had two Future Lit fic ideas that I really wanted to write, one with Jess and Rory as roommates, and one in which they knew each other but didn't have all their baggage. Somehow they morphed together in my mind and this is the result!
Also, you may notice that the rating is higher than in any of my other work. Yeah, I'm gonna try to write some steamy stuff in future chapters. For now, though, it's strictly PG. Except, y'know, when we're inside Jess' head, because he is a dirty, dirty boy... ;)
IMPORTANT: As for what the AU event (Jess not coming back) changed, just assume that Rory and Dean eventually did sleep together (only he wasn't married!), but broke up for the same reason they did on about the third go-around: that is, that Rory was moving into a world that Dean didn't feel he could live in. Rory did hook up with Logan, and everything there did happen, and eventually Lane and Paris staged the intervention that Jess otherwise would have caused. Rory turned Logan down, got the campaign job, etc. etc. Luke and Lorelai are together, but they've decided to take things slower this time around. The campaign is now over, and Rory is starting as a low-level reporter at the New York Daily News. And that is where we find our heroine, early one Saturday morning...
1. Old Friends and Roomies
A shaft of golden sunlight glared through the hotel curtains and blasted directly against the closed eyelids of a sleeping Rory Gilmore. As the brightness intensified with the rising sun, she groaned, pushing a hand across her face irritably in a futile attempt to drive away the glow. Eventually though, the sun (not to mention the various city noises filtering in from outside) forced her fully awake, and she sat up, rubbing her temples.
Her cell phone chose that exact moment to go off, vibrating loudly against the imitation wood top of the bedside table. Rory reached for it, glanced at the caller ID, and grinned widely.
"Mommy!" she exclaimed happily once she'd flipped the device open.
"I was very good and didn't call all week, just like you asked," Lorelai said, the pout obvious in her voice. "So now you really have to tell me everything. How was my baby's first week at work?"
Rory's smile was still firmly in place as she climbed out of bed and padded barefoot across the generic burgundy carpeting towards the bathroom. "It was just fine," she said. "My job entails a lot of coffee-fetching and grunt work, but I've made a few potential friends and they tell me it gets better after a few months." She sucked in her breath in an inaudible hiss as her toes found the shockingly cold tiles of the bathroom floor.
"What?" Lorelai gasped in mock-outrage. "You're not running the place already? You've interviewed our nation's president, and they aren't bowed down in awe every time you walk in a room?"
"I did not interview President Obama," Rory protested.
"You asked him questions, didn't you?"
"Yes, but--"
"Face-to-face?"
"Well, yes--"
"One-on-one?"
"Yeah, but it wasn't technically--"
"Face it, Ror, you interviewed Barack Obama. And wrote a killer article about it, too."
The youngest Gilmore girl blushed at the praise. "Okay, okay," she relented. "That was pretty cool. Not as cool as meeting Christianne Amanpour, though."
"No, that was awesome, wasn't it?" Lorelai concurred. "So how goes the apartment hunting?"
Rory sighed, her happy mood drying up somewhat. "Not too well," she said, perching the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she ran a brush through her unruly bed-head. "My salary isn't that high, and all the apartments that are within my price range are either total dumps or in really bad parts of town. I want to feel safe if I get home late, you know?"
"Well, you could always look for a roommate," Lorelai suggested.
Rory grimaced. "Mm, I don't know. After two years on a campaign bus, I was really looking forward to maybe having some "me space" for awhile, you know?"
She could practically hear her mother shrug. "I guess," she said. "But you did put up with Paris for two years, as well. And if you can handle that..."
"Yeah, I know," Rory said with a grin. "Speaking of which, Paris sends her regards. Did you know she's expecting?"
"What?" Lorelai gasped. "No!"
"Yep. She's due next July."
"Guess that explains why she and Doyle were in such a rush to get married all of a sudden," Lorelai said with a wicked smile apparent in her voice.
Rory chuckled lightly. It was probably true, and knowing Paris as she did made it all the funnier. She wished she'd been able to be there for the frantic planning of the wedding, rather than just the event itself. It had been a beautiful ceremony, despite the short notice, and Rory had been touched when Paris asked her to be the maid of honor. The two had had a strange relationship, straddling the line between friends and nemeses, but in the end, she had a feeling that they would be in each others lives for a very long time.
"So anyway," Lorelai pressed on, reverting back to the previous topic, "what do you say? Gonna find a new roomie?"
"Maybe," Rory said. "I'm running out of options, and this hotel thing is getting really expensive."
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Lorelai demanded. "Away to the classifieds with you!"
"I'll talk to you next week," Rory said. "Bye."
"Bye, Loin Fruit."
Hanging up the phone and finishing with her hair, Rory left the bathroom and crossed to the minibar, above which stood a microwave and a small coffeemaker. She poured the packet of pre-ground coffee beans into a filter and placed it in the machine, then filled it with water and waited. A few minutes later, she had a steaming cup of brown, delicious goodness in her hand and, picking up the complimentary paper that had been left on her doorstep, she sank onto the couch. Flipping open to the classifieds and set to work marking out her options.
Half an hour later, Rory was getting frustrated. She had immediately crossed off those apartments whose rent would be out of her price range even with a roommate, then systematically narrowed it down from there based on location, qualifiers within the add, and other factors. She was left with two options, one of which would put her a little too far from the NYDN's offices for her liking, though it was still doable.
She reread the second advertisement: Roommate wanted to share 2-bedroom, 1-bath apartment located on Pallisade and 10th. Male or female, must have good taste in music. $850 a month.
$850 was acceptable, well within her means. And it was literally right across the river from the Daily, so that was convenient. Thanks to Lane, Rory thought with a smile, she did in fact have good taste in music, though the person who'd posted the ad didn't specify what, exactly qualified as "good taste" so she couldn't be sure. Overall, though, it seemed like a good fit.
A telephone number was listed. She dialed, but got a generic "You have reached the voice mailbox of 212-6324. Please leave your message at the tone" message. Electing not to leave a voicemail, she hung up. Tapping her cell phone against her chin absentmindedly, she debated with herself. Then, deciding it was worth it, she circled the ad in red pen and shoved it in her purse. She had the whole day off today, for probably the last time for a long time. It was a good day to physically go down to see if her potential future roommate was home.
Quickly, she got to her feet and hurried back into the bathroom to get ready to leave the hotel.
Jess Mariano let out a heavy sigh as he read the last couple of pages on the screen of his laptop. Yeah, that was officially the last time he ever tried to write while smashed. It always ended up as garbled nonsense and occasional references to things no one but him would actually understand or find entertaining.
It was fully Matthew's fault, though, he contested with himself. His friend and co-worker had been the one to suggest a pub crawl to celebrate the successful first month of Truncheon's New York location. Mentally, he swore at the other man, wishing Matthew were here so that he could strangle him before going back to nursing his hangover.
Eventually, he gave up the fight. He tossed back a couple of aspirin, dry. Then he turned back to the screen, practically begging the little white pills to do their work quickly. He read over the additions he apparently had made to his manuscript in the wee hours of this morning. After discovering that a few sentences might actually be salvageable, he copied the section, pasted it into a new document, and saved it before removing the aforementioned section from the main document. He'd go over it later, when he was feeling a little more human.
He dragged himself into the shower, allowing the scalding water to wash the grit from his eyes and purge the stale feeling from his skin. It had been quite some time, he reflected, since he'd been that wasted. Actually, it had been since the last time Jimmy had decided to waltz back in. Jess had gotten very, very drunk that night as well, and not without reason. He suspected that his father had meant well, but his inconsistent visits tended to throw Jess for a loop and leave him feeling- ashamed though he was to admit it- insecure.
Just as he was pulling a fresh T-shirt onto his slightly damp body, a knock sounded on the door. Grumbling about colleagues and muttering a few choice death threats in order to try them out on Matthew, whom he assumed was the one at the door, he crossed the apartment and slid the chain back.
Jess almost had to pinch himself when he saw who was on the other side of the door. It was not, in fact, his soon-to-be-butchered friend.
Her face was turned to the side as she dug into her purse for something, and a curtain of dark half-obscured what was visible, but to Jess, there was no mistaking her. It had been almost seven years since he had seen her last. Neither of them had spoken to or seen each other since they were sixteen, but her image was permanently etched in his brain. You didn't forget someone like her.
"Sorry to just appear without calling ahead," she said, still not having looked at him, preoccupied with whatever she was looking for in her purse. "I just... well, I tried calling, but there was no answer. Anyway, I'm here about the room... God, I'm sorry, I promise I'm not this much of a flake most of the time--"
At the sound of his laughter, Rory Gilmore looked up at him. For the tiniest sliver of a second, he saw her trying to place his face. Then her jaw dropped in shock. "Jess?" she gasped. "Jess Mariano?"
"The one and only," he said with a grin.
For another several seconds, she stared at him in utter surprise. Then she said what was apparently the first thing that came to her mind. "You smile now," she said bluntly.
His smile widened. "I've been told it makes a nice change of pace," he said. "Well, this certainly is a day of surprises. Come on in."
He stood aside to let her enter the apartment.
Jess would like to ask you for your reviews.
So in the end, it's not Future Lit with all their baggage and all their history, but it's not "they meet for the first time as adults" either. I think it'll make for a nice blend.