** Operation Mariano **
CHAPTER ONE

Genre: Drama
Pairings: Dean/Shane
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Clara, Dean, Randy, May, Lane, Jess and all other recognizable "Gilmore Girls" characters belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, and the WB. There is no profit from the copyrighted characters or infringement intended.

Welcome to the first chapter of "Operation Mariano." This is a story about the other Lost Girl of Stars Hollow, Clara Forester, Dean's Forester's little sister. After you read the chapter, please take a few moments to review the chapter and then visit the Lost Girls of Stars Hollow profile page and have a look at the VIDEO OF CLARA ON THE GILMORE GIRLS, towards the bottom middle part of the profile page.

Clara sat at the counter in Luke's Diner sipping her second cup of black coffee and wondering what she was going to do with her life. She had just graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in Advertising and had moved back to Stars Hollow. Her parents had agreed to pay for her college if she agreed to move back home after she graduated and look for work in Hartford. Clara knew that was their way of controlling her, of keeping her close by. At the time she hadn't minded the arrangement because graduation day seemed so far off and Hartford hadn't seemed so close.

She was starting to think she should either renege on their conditions or return to school to get her masters. To seriously think you could get a decent job in the Advertising field in Hartford was a joke. Everyone, but her parents, knew you needed to work for a firm on Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

She was also less than enthused about being back in Stars Hollow. None of her other friends from high school had decided to move back to the town after college. There just wasn't any way to make money in this town unless you owned your own business. Plus, moving back home with May and Randy seemed to erase all her exciting life experiences over the past four years and made her feel like she'd never left home to begin with.

There was a time when she had loved Stars Hollow. Back when she was eight years old and she and her family had just moved to town from Chicago. In Chicago, her family had lived in a small, three bedroom apartment. When they got to Stars Hollow, they were living in a large two story home with a big back yard. The second week they arrived in their new home, her father had even put up a swing set for her to play on. Later on, her big brother, Dean, built her a little club house in the corner of the back yard for her and her little friends from the neighborhood to play in.

She thought of Dean for a moment and for some reason Rory popped into her head. In some ways she should have been jealous of Rory. After all, her big brother had always taken very good care of her, but when Rory came along, he took very good care of her, too. Clara took it all in stride, though, because she really liked Rory a lot and thought of her as the big sister she had always wished for. A few times, Rory even baby sat for her. She'd bring over DVDs and they'd watch Willy Wonka or Pippi Long Stocking and go through two boxes of Mallomars while they watched the movie together. Clara had hoped someday that Dean and Rory would get married so Rory could be her best friend forever.

Unfortunately, like most things you hope for in your childhood, it wasn't meant to be. Rory decided she liked Jess and basically gave her brother the shaft. The last time she got to hang out with Rory and her brother was at the Stars Hollow Winter Carnival, which is coincidentally where she first saw Jess. She should have hated him for not only taking Rory away from Dean, but from her, too. But she couldn't help it, she had a total crush on him from the moment she saw him walking arm in arm with Rory. She knew she was too young for Jess for him to even remotely consider dating her, so she got his attention that night by aggravating him. She discovered it was actually quite easy to get under his skin and delighted in pissing him off because every time she annoyed him, that meant his focus was on her and not Rory.

Clara laughed silently to herself, wondering whatever happened to that grouchy, sexy character. Even though she thought it was pretty crappy what Rory had done to her brother, she figured that if she'd been the same age as Rory, she would have stolen Jess away from Rory because even back then she could run circles around Rory's brain and it would have been easy to pull the wool over her eyes and take away her boyfriend.

Somberly, she had more thoughts of Dean and pondered what a lost soul he'd become ever since Rory had cheated on him and then dumped him. He'd tried to get over the whole episode by marrying Lindsay, but that'd been a disaster. Clara was almost glad they'd divorced. Lindsay was a clingy lady who didn't want any other women in Dean's life and that even included her and her mother. Clara was convinced that her insecure jealously probably drove Dean back into Rory's conveniently available arms.

She'd secretly hoped that he and Rory would reconcile for good and this time get married, but once again, Rory proved to be a fickle creature and decided to go along with her grandmother's wishes to only date Yale men. Shortly after that, Dean became so disillusioned with his life in Stars Hollow that he enlisted in the Army. Upon completion of basic training and specialty training he was assigned to a unit that was being deployed to Iraq.

He returned home about three weeks before Clara graduated and came home, so now they were both in the same boat - back at square one in Stars Hollow. Clara was going to try and talk Dean into going to college on the GI Bill. She knew he should have gone to college in the first place, but he'd gotten diverted by Lindsay trying to tell him that he needed to support her instead of "wasting" time on himself at school. She had second thoughts about blaming Lindsay, realizing that the real diversion was Rory Gilmore. She hated to think that Rory was now living happily ever after somewhere in the world after the way she'd had a hand in turning her sweet, confident, easygoing brother into a mistrusting, bitter man. But she had a jaded feeling that Rory was more than likely living her life to the fullest, without a moment of worry or guilt for all the damage that she'd done to Dean's youth.

The one bright thing in Dean's life right now was his dog, Ammo. Ammo was a stray mutt that had belonged to a nurse working at a combat support hospital in Iraq. For nine months, Lt. Amanda James pampered and cared for Ammo. Then Amanda died from injuries inflicted by mortar attacks in Baghdad's "Green Zone." Dean, knowing, that Ammo was almost like a child to Amanda, adopted and cared for her dog after she died. When it came time for him to return to the states, he was very fortunate to have the aid of Operation Baghdad Pups to help him maneuver through the maze of military bureaucracy and assist him with bringing the dog back to Stars Hollow.

When she returned home, Clara fell in love with Ammo immediately. She loved how unpretentious he was with all his crazy muttiness. He was a big, black, fluffy dog, with a smidgen of gray on the top of his head and a long shaggy tail that was constantly wagging. She hoped Ammo could keep working his magic and help bring back the old Chicago version of Dean to her that existed before he met Rory.

Clara drained her coffee mug and asked Lane for a refill, then thumbed through the UConn college catalogue to look at the requirements for entering the masters program for Advertising. All of the sudden she heard a voice going a mile a minute in a familiar, irritated tone.

"Luke, I'm appearing next week on Conan O'Brien's show to discuss my latest book project. I am not lowering myself to help you wait on your yahoos in this greasy spoon of a diner," Jess yelled out impatiently, not caring in the least that his words were echoing throughout the entire diner for everyone to hear.

Clara looked up and saw Jess and Luke running down the stairs into the diner. Some things never change, Clara thought with pleasant amusement as she spied Jess arguing with Luke. Then she took a double-take and thought, Maybe some things do change. Could it be possible Jess looks even better now?

Always sharp, Jess stopped in his tracks when he spotted Clara at the counter checking him out. She looked a lot different than she had as a child, but still looked familiar enough to make him wonder where he'd seen her before. Plus, he found himself attracted to her and since she was already checking him out, why not cash in on the opportunity?

"I know you from somewhere," he stated flatly.

"I'm that darling child with the annoying midget voice that drove you crazy at the winter carnival when you struck out at the bottle toss game. Remember me now?" Clara said back to him with amusement.

"I need you to add some more letters to the board 'cause that last clue isn't cutting it. No wait a minute…the winter carnival? Aren't you Dean's little sister?"

"Yep. Only, I'm not so little anymore."

"So, I see," he replied, as he thoroughly checked out the woman who had emerged from the impish child. He loved the way her silky, ash blonde hair fell playfully over her shoulders. He found her mischievous, blue-green, cat like eyes intriguing and her curves were so seductive, they should have been declared illegal. In a way, though, it felt strange to be lusting after her because images of her as a little girl from the carnival kept popping into his head.

Clara was impressed with how mature Jess had seemingly become, but she still wanted to get at least one rise out of him because it was so much fun to see him go off. "So…you won't help out your uncle Luke here because you're a big time author, but don't you think that attitude's a little high and mighty for someone who used to be a peon for Walmart?"

"Are you out of your friggin'—" Jess started to go back at her with a vengeance, but he suddenly recalled her tactics from the carnival and realized she was just trying to pull his chain. This time he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction. "Look, Luke has a way of taking it for granted that whenever I pull in to town that I'm automatically at his disposal to work in the diner. Usually I'd be glad to help him, but I only came into town for a little while to –"

"Brag about going on Conan O'Brien's show?" she teased back.

"No, Miss Smarty Pants, it just so happens I'm doing research on a new book I'm writing."

"'Miss Smarty Pants'? I expected a better insult than that. It appears you're losing your snarky touch, Mariano."

"Ooooh, I can come up with something way better than that, but this is a family establishment. If you want to hear the best that I got, meet me out front on the sidewalk."

"Nah! I have more important things to do than that," she replied, sounding bored with his suggestion.

"Like what?"

"Like, trying to decide if I'm going to go back to school to get my masters in Advertising," she replied, showing him her UConn catalogue.

"Why are you going to UConn for your masters in Advertising? You should be trying to get into the program at NYU, that way you can intern at one of the agencies in the City."

"That's true, but I might not be able to afford it. But I don't want to think about that right now, it's too depressing. Let's talk about you, what's your new book about?"

"My latest project is a book I'm writing about Iraqi War Veterans. I actually had a friend who went to Iraq and was killed about five months ago. So as a tribute to my friend, I wanted to try to do something to honor the men and women who've been fighting in this war. I understand there's a couple of veterans in this area, so I'm going to try and get together with some of them and see what their stories are about."

"Bet I could help you with that," Clara replied. This could be her in to see Jess again since she knew she had something she could give to him to add to his book.

"Okay, what's the punch line, Forester?" Jess asked, not expecting her to be serious.

"The first name is Clara, by the way, and there is no punch line. Dean just got back from Iraq and you might find it interesting to know that he is one of the veterans who brought over a dog with him from Iraq."

"Well, I'll concede that's mildly interesting," Jess responded blandly, sounding almost snobbish.

"Mildly interesting? Well, I happen to think that's very interesting," Clara responded defensively. "However, there is more to the story than that. It just so happens this dog belonged to someone who was killed in action and he assumed the responsibility of going through all the red tape to make sure the dog got over here safely when he transferred back here to the states."

"I think that is definitely a worthy enough story for my book. Do you think Dean would agree to be interviewed?"

"Let me talk to him first," Clara replied.

"Fair enough, he and I were never exactly Woodward and Bernstein."

"No, you two were more like Dumb and Dumber. Here is my number," Clara said as she scribbled it on a napkin. "Call me tomorrow and I'll let you know the status."

"I'm going to let the Dumb and Dumber comment slide just to disappoint you. Catch you tomorrow," Jess replied.

Clara gave a quick wave and put on her sunglasses and walked out the door and over to the gazebo in the town square. She sat down on the floor of the gazebo and hugged her knees close to her as she thought about how she was going to approach Dean about the interview. She knew it'd be a rough conversation, but she desperately wanted to go out with Jess and this looked like the perfect way to gain that opportunity. She realized her only shot was to try and convince Dean that Jess had changed into a better person.

Since she had been a little girl, she had felt that Jess was the right man for her and she knew that fate had their paths cross again because she was a grown woman now and they could be together at last.

She got up from the gazebo floor, smoothed her jeans, adjusted her sunglasses and headed over to the pet store to get a treat for Ammo. Thinking of Ammo made her feel sunny and confident because he was such a furry little survivor. It might also soften Dean up a bit if she brought his dog a couple of treats.

As Clara approached the Stars Hollow Bow Wow Emporium, she spotted Rory and Lorelai walking through the street, eating chocolate ice cream cones from Taylor's Soda Shoppe. She hid behind her sunglasses and observed them. She hadn't seen either of them in years because she rarely came home on weekends while she was away at college.

She noticed neither one of them were sporting wedding rings and wondered why her mother hadn't at least broken down by now and married Luke. Then she looked at Rory, who wasn't nearly as attractive as she remembered. Her hair was cut rather short and it looked as though she'd put on a few pounds. Clara almost laughed, remembering what a junk food junkie Rory had always been. Guess those Mallomars finally caught up with her, she thought with amusement.

Finally, she couldn't be silent anymore and decided she should just say hello to them and get it over with. She flipped up her sunglasses and Rory looked in her direction with a confused expression on her face. She, like Jess, knew Clara looked familiar, but couldn't quite get who she was.

"Rory!" Clara called out.

"Oh, uh…hi," Rory said back, feeling bad that she still couldn't place the face.

"Rory, I'm the all growed up version of little Clara. Don't feel bad if you didn't recognize me. I look a lot different than I did when I was a child."

"Oh my gosh! Clara! It's so good to see you," Rory cried out enthusiastically, hugging her. "I can't believe how long it's been."

"I know…well…if you hadn't dumped my brother for Jess, guess we could have been sister-in-laws by now," Clara laughed, joking that way to hurt Rory on purpose.

"Oh, yeah, well….I guess that's true," Rory replied, not really knowing how to take Clara's sense of "humor."

Next, Clara wanted to get inside Rory's head. She hadn't expected to see Rory in Stars Hollow, the last thing she had heard through the grapevine was that Rory was working for the New York Times. Her unexpected appearance in town could possibly add a wrinkle in her plans to pursue Jess. She knew old love could have new power and if Rory ran into Jess, he might end up wanting to pick up where they left off.

"So speaking of Jess – whatever happened with you two? Do you still see each other?"

"Oh, no….I kinda lost touch with Jess after I graduated from Yale and my mom doesn't really date Luke anymore, so I don't even know where he is these days."

"What a shame," Clara said sarcastically. "Gotta run," she added hastily and darted off for the pet store. She had all the information she was looking for out of Rory and decided not to waste anymore of her precious time by entertaining her or her mother. She was glad to hear that Jess was no longer in Rory's world. But what she hadn't stopped to consider what the fact that Lane knew Jess and Rory were in town at the same time, and the odds were pretty good she was going to open her up big mouth and let Rory know he was around.

Lorelai looked at Rory with question marks in her eyes at Clara's abrupt departure, but Rory hadn't even noticed. It'd felt so good to relive a memory from her youth by running into Clara. These days she was starting to feel downright old, especially since she hadn't had a man in her life for years.

To Be Continued…