This is my first time writing Gilmore Girls fiction in a long time, so I apologize if I'm rusty. This is also dedicated entirely to two people, Kyla (PyroQueenofFire/MissKylaKy) and Emily (luvtheheaven), for convincing me to write this.
I hope you girls, and everyone, enjoys this, and feedback is MUCH appreciated! Title:
Pairing: Literati
Rating: T
Words: 2,536
Summary: AU. Post series. Following the Obama election, Rory debates who to call first. She chooses Jess. Literati. One-shot.
Notes: Inspired entirely by "Need You Now" by Lady Antebellum. A fabulous song which Kyla and I both adore.
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing but my writing and fictitious plot. Characters belong to Amy Sherman Palladino.
They had done it. As much as Rory hated to admit it, she'd doubted the fact that Senator Obama could win the presidential election, especially in a country as prejudiced and opposed to change as the United States. But they'd done it. It had been a lot of hard work and by no means did it come naturally. Even a lowly little reporter like herself had to put in quite a deal of grunt work to make this dream a reality. But now it was here, and it was amazing. She hadn't felt this elated since…well, since ever. The happiest she had ever been was when she'd learned that her mom and Luke were actually going to get married, and the wedding itself where she and April stood side by side as the maid of honor and second bridesmaid, respectively. And on that summer day only a few months prior, Rory had told herself that she'd never feel happier than she did then.
But even what was then the happiest day of her life was tainted with a small amount of sadness.
She stood in the wings of the church, her soft coffee brown hair pinned back in an easy bun as she looked around, anxiously waiting for Lorelai to be ready. "Mom, for the millionth time, you look perfect. Luke hasn't been opposed to waiting all these years, but I think you might lose him if you make him wait any longer," the brunette called out playfully, rapping her knuckles against the door. When not receiving any reply, she sighed, and her sigh was accompanied by someone's voice.
"Rory."
She stilled suddenly. It was a voice she hadn't heard in quite some time, but a voice she would always know, despite how different it may have sounded. Why hadn't she realized he would be here? Of course he would. He was Luke's nephew. God, she'd been so focused on the exciting news of the engagement finally being made into more that she hadn't bothered to think it out more. Rory chewed on her lower lip ever so slightly, before turning to face him. She felt like she needed to say something to show him that everything was okay between them, that she was over him, that despite their awkward interaction two years prior in Philadelphia, them being the way they were was more than okay with her.
"Hi."
Her brows furrowed as she cringed at her lack of eloquence. It was by no means what she had wanted to say, but it was all she had at the moment. The sight of him caught her off guard. Jess Mariano looked nothing like the inexperienced, artsy, hopeful boy she had interacted with in Pennsylvania. He looked tired, worn, and cynical. His hair was shorter, and well kept, and he was clean shaven. He looked a lot more used to wearing suits as well, as opposed to the awkward look he'd been sporting a few years prior. She blinked then, realizing he'd said something while she'd been traveling down memory lane, and looked up at him.
"I'm, uh, supposed to come tell you that they're ready for you and Lorelai," Jess repeated, rubbing the palm of his hand against the back of his neck, before shoving his hands into the pockets of his dress pants.
He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since Philadelphia. That girl from Philadelphia seemed long gone, which made him smile. She'd seemed so sad back then, so tainted by the real world, almost to the point of being lost. He blamed that Logan guy for it all. He hadn't liked him when he'd met him in Hartford, and he still didn't like him now. It was this thought that caused his brows to furrow, something subsequently dawning on him. His gaze tentatively flickered to her left hand which laid over her stomach, fingertips fidgeting with the knitted pattern on her sky blue bridesmaid dress. As much as he disliked the fact that this had to be done, he was checking for any sign of a wedding ring or engagement ring, and when he found none, he mentally sighed in relief. Did that mean that Huntzberger guy was out of her life? Silently, he hoped so. It was then his turn to snap back to reality, realizing that Rory had spoken while he'd been allowing himself to be immersed in his own thoughts.
"We'll be out momentarily," the petite brunette woman spoke with a half sad smile, corners of her mouth twitching as her emotions towards the man before her began to seep through.
"Okay, thanks," Jess replied with an affirmative nod, a light smile of his own settling in on his features. He wanted to say something else, something, anything, to make this situation slightly more bearable. And just as he found the words to say, as soon as he'd opened his mouth, April entered, stomping her foot impatiently and declaring the fact that everyone was waiting for them.
"I'll be seeing you, I guess," he offered after the impatient teenager had finished her rant, offering an awkward half wave once he'd spoken.
"Yeah…I'll see you out there," Rory replied, speaking mostly to his back since by the time she'd spoken, he was already walking away.
Again.
That was the last time she'd spoken to Jess Mariano, and until this point, she'd always thought it was the end for them. It was awkward, perhaps more so than their meeting in Philadelphia, but it had felt okay to her. But as 1:00 am on November 5th, 2008 rolled around, she found herself wavering. Her cell phone was sitting only a few inches away from her at her desk in the small office she'd been practically calling home in the past month of election coverage. She bit her lip as her gaze flashed from the Microsoft Word open on the screen in front of her to the Sidekick sitting a few inches away. She made a move to reach for the phone, but drew her hand back and instead placed it on the keyboard. She had to write the article of all articles within the next two hours, since her deadline for the spur of the moment article had been announced as 3:00 am.
"I should focus on the article," she told herself, almost as if she required convincing, and she nodded weakly shortly thereafter. "Yeah, I'll focus on the article."
Soon enough, she was tapping away on the keyboard, completely unaware of exactly what it was that she was writing. But a few minutes later she stopped, and actually looked at everything she'd written. While the first few sentences were concise, poignant remarks about Obama actually winning, the remainder of the paragraph consisted of little statements such as "Call Jess," "You have to," "You love him," and perhaps the one that struck her the strongest, "You need him now."
Rory hadn't called anyone since the news of the election results had been announced. Her mom and Luke had called twice, but she'd let it go straight to voicemail both times. She was supposed to be calling her family first in such a momentous occasion, right? It made sense for it to be that way. But if that was the case, why was she scouring through her outgoing calls to find Jess's number?
It took her five minutes, and just as the clock on her cell phone read 1:15 am, she hovered over Jess's number and pressed send. Hesitantly—almost as if she was considering hanging up and pretending that she'd never dialed this number—she brought the phone up to her ear and chewed on her lip, waiting for him to answer. She wanted him to answer. She didn't truly want to speak to him, but she wanted him to answer. She was never good at leaving messages on people's answering machines. You didn't have reaction time in those scenarios. You were the awkward one, and that was that. Sure, she was a journalist, but that didn't make her any more eloquent.
Her breath caught as she heard a pause in the dial tone. He was answering. He had to be. But then she heard it. The prerecorded audio of You've reached Jess, you know what to do., accompanied by the typical beep heard at the end of a message. She started then, sitting upright before abruptly getting to her feet.
"Um, hi, Jess," she began, suddenly finding it was necessary for her to pace. Her lip caught between her teeth as she walked along the length of her office, choosing her words carefully in her mind before she spoke them.
"This is completely out of the blue, and random, and…un-Rory-like, and trust me, I know it. You know me. I'm the girl who makes pro and con lists for what she decides to get for dinner at a restaurant she's never been to before." Rory paused there, letting a slight, awkward laugh escape her. She then shook her head a little, mentally cursing herself for doing this. She shouldn't have done this.
"But um, so…Yeah. I'm sure you've heard, but I've been covering the Obama campaign, and well, he won. And it's…surreal, you know? It's one of those things you want to happen more than anything else, but you think it never could, and it's just too good to be true." She bit her lip as she leaned against the wall near the doorway of her office, feeling fatigued all of a sudden.
"And it's one of those extremely life changing events, where suddenly, everything gets put into perspective for you. I haven't had many of them. I don't think you're supposed to have many of them, because then they wouldn't be as effective as they're meant to be. But I've had two others I can distinctly remember." Another pause occurred then, almost unthinking, but perfectly placed as she decided how she wanted to put it, choosing her words more carefully than she normally would have.
"And they both happened with you, Jess." She slid down the wall into a sitting position on the floor once she'd spoken the words that had been weighing down upon her for a long time. She wished more than anything that he had picked up. She wanted to know what the hell he thought of her rambling. Was she even making sense? She was beyond caring about how she sounded now. She needed to get things off her chest, and now might have been the only time she had to do so.
"I mean, that's got to say something, right? The first time was when you came to Yale after my freshman year. You asked me to go with you, to go on some wild adventure and leave Stars Hollow and Connecticut behind. I said no. Boy, did I screw up. You told me to only say no if I didn't want to be with you. I said no, again." Another pause, accompanied by the sound of sniffling as tears began to overcome her.
"I lied, Jess. I wanted to be with you more than you could ever know. But I was afraid, you know? Like I said before. I'm so logical, so…paint by the numbers, cut on the dotted line, cheerios for breakfast…boring. You're not that, Jess Mariano. You've never been. And I think, that scared me. But it's what made me love you, too. You brought a perfect balance into my life. And I think…the prospect of having that balance forever? The idea of never having discord or unhappiness in my life again, after having so much of it growing up…it caught me off guard. I would give anything to go back to that moment, Jess, you have no idea. But that's just the first moment.
"The second one changed my life more drastically than the first. It was when I came to visit you in Philadelphia. I realized then that my saying no to you at Yale was a mistake. I didn't come just because I got the flyer in the mail. I'm sure you could tell that then. I came because I wanted to be with you, Jess. But when we kissed…I got scared. Again. You told me Logan wasn't good for me, and I knew you were right. But I stayed with him. Until I graduated from Yale, actually. He proposed to me. But…I said no. He wasn't what I wanted. Logan Huntzberger was never what I wanted, or who I wanted to be with."
Rory paused there and glanced at the clock on the wall, seeing that it was 1:22 now. She'd officially clogged up his inbox with seven minutes so far, and she felt like she still had so much she needed to say. Sniffling back another onslaught of tears, she continued.
"It's you, Jess. It's always been you. I'm sitting here, alone, on the floor of my office…and I'm realizing, I don't want to be alone. I need you in my life, Jess. It's more than that. I love you, Jess Mariano. I don't think I've ever fallen out of love with you, either. To go all literary on you, Shakespeare put it best, when he said, My love is as a fever, longing still. I'm not going to get over you. And I know, when you hear this…if you hear this and don't delete it from your machine straightaway, you're going to think I'm crazy. And plainly, I don't blame you. But I just..
"I needed to let you know the truth, for once." Rory took a deep breath in then, and wiped her now tear filled eyes, before concluding. "I'm sorry for clogging up your voicemail, but I just…I need you now. It can't be just me that it happens to, right? Please don't tell me I'm the only one it happens to."
She bit her lip and quickly pressed the end button on her phone, not trusting herself to go on any further as tears rolled down her cheeks. Part of her really wanted him to delete the message right away. He probably would, right? As soon as he heard her name in the beginning. This gave her some reassurance. He wouldn't hear the message, and things could go on like they had been, except with her feeling a little better about herself.
But she was wrong.
Jess had heard. He'd heard the entire message, had heard her pausing to wipe her eyes, and he'd heard her say that she needed him. He'd heard her put her entire heart out on the line to him, and he'd been too afraid to answer the phone. He'd rushed into his apartment to answer it when he heard it ringing from the hallway, but the moment he set foot in the door he heard her voice, and he was terrified, stunned into silence and unable to move. But as he wiped the uncharacteristic tears from his eyes, he moved over to the answering machine and sniffed in, pressing the delete button.
He then spoke to the emptiness of his apartment something that Rory would never hear.
"For me it happens all the time."