A/N: This story shares the same storyverse as "Pay the Piper," "Don't Go," "Twitterpated," "House Rules," and the yet un-posted "If That Looking Glass Gets Broke/When the Bough Breaks" (still undecided on the title). It takes place when Jess is 40 (which would make Jessica 22, as a side point, though she doesn't appear in this story). At this point, he's married and has two more children, one of which you will meet here. And, yes, I know you're going to ask, but no, I'm not going to tell you if this is Lit…I left his wife deliberately unnamed and a little ambiguous on purpose. I'm already giving away too many spoilers with this one as it is. ;-)

One word of caution. This story contains a detailed description of some of the physical abuse Jess suffered as a child. I mention this for the protection of those who may have a history of abuse and for whom reading about such things can bring back painful memories or trigger panic attacks. I don't want to do that to anyone.

Though it does have such dark stuff, I hope there's still a sizable portion of this story that makes you smile. As always, reviews are like water and breath to a writer. I've poured my heart and soul into this, and since it's a one-shot, I'll only get one review per person. So, please, pretty please, let one of those people be you :D *bats eyelashes*

"Man to Man" Jess/Oliver one-shot.

Oliver was getting to the age when many boys start to act out in very specific ways, when they start noticing the few inches taller than mom that they've grown…that they're bigger and stronger than both their mother and older sister…and it starts to feel pretty good. They begin to lord it over the "weaker vessel," just because they can…or, at least, they think they can. His wife started to complain that Oliver had been acting obnoxious lately, but Jess hadn't seen it. Oliver seemed fine, and he wondered if the boy had been moody for a couple of days, and his wife, oversensitive. One morning, though, as he started to come downstairs, he heard quite plainly what his wife had been talking about. It was beyond obnoxious. He was flat-out ordering his mother around.

"You do it! It's your job anyway!" he heard Oliver sneer.

"Excuse me? What is that supposed to mean?" came his wife's voice indignantly.

"It's supposed to mean that maybe instead of relying on slave labor, you should get up off your fat, lazy butt for a change and do what's supposed to be your work!" he yelled.

"My-?"

"Yeah, y'know, cooking, cleaning-heard of it? But, no, you're too busy with your fancy career to be bothered with such menial-"

"Stop it, Oliver!" she cut him off. "All I told you to do was pack a lunch. Now, if you're going to-"

"Get out of my way!" he growled, shoving past her. Oliver strode toward the stairs angrily, but gave a quick start when he looked up and saw his father standing at the bottom of them. The involuntary motion betrayed that he might have behaved a little differently if he'd known his dad was standing there.

The look Jess leveled at him was frigid, and Oliver certainly froze in its steady gaze. His command was terse and cold, "Office-now!" Oliver turned on his heel, knowing better than to raise any objections. Inside, Jess pointed sharply at the futon. "Sit!" He turned, placing both hands on his desk as if he needed an anchor for the anger pulsing through him.

Jess had always made it a point not to deal with his children's behavior until he'd given himself time to cool off, if it was at all possible. But, in this instance, they were already here, now, and the best he could do was turn away so Oliver wouldn't see the fire in his eyes or the spasms in his jaw muscles.

"Dad, I-"

"Mouth shut!" he commanded abruptly, without turning around. The last thing he needed at this moment was further provocation. It was hard enough to figure out what to do with the kid as it was. He didn't even know where to begin - refusing to obey, absolute disrespect for his mother, the implication that women were supposed to be subservient, they're supposed to do what you say, but you'll turn around and shove them out of your way when you don't feel like talking anymore! It made his blood boil. Jess had seen enough of this 'he-man' attitude close-up-and-personal, that he'd vowed never to be tainted by it, and to make sure his kids knew better.

He took several deep breaths and eventually felt his heartbeat slow and his muscles slacken. Slowly, he turned and looked at Oliver. The anger in his son's face made his chest tighten momentarily and he took another deep breath before stepping forward and sitting next to the boy on the futon. He looked the kid straight in the eye.

"So, you're too manly to do 'women's work,' huh?" he challenged.

"That's not what I-"

"Yes it is." Jess contradicted. He usually wasn't one to cut his kids off, refuse to hear their side of things, but this was one of the few times he really didn't want to hear it. Oliver clamped his jaws together and let out a huff at the floor. "You think your mother should do the cooking and the cleaning, while you sit back and give orders!" Oliver shook his head deliberately, glaring at his dad. "Well, that's sure what it sounded like! Telling her to get off her 'fat, lazy butt'!-I could've sworn you owned a dictionary, but obviously you don't bother to check your vocabulary. Because your mother works her butt off taking care of you, me and your sisters, and in her spare time, holding down a part-time job! Her 'big fancy' career, as you so kindly put it, is what she put on hold so she could do all that - which was, by the way, no small sacrifice! So, if, on occasion, your mom asks you to help her out, I'd think long and hard, if I were you, before referring to it as slave labor. Unless of course, you have a burning desire to find out what real labor is, because believe me, that could be arranged! And, for the record, anything your mom tells you to do, is, by definition, your job!"

Jess launched himself off the couch to a standing position and resumed pacing slightly. He could feel his jaws still clenched, and he was breathing heavily. So much for cooling off before dealing with the situation. His rant played back to him in his head, and he shook it in frustration. All of it was standard, run-of-the-mill, by-the-book, cliché dad twaddle. I didn't even have a dad to show me how it's done, and that's still how it comes out! Everything in the handbook of trite altercations between a father and his teenage kid was right here, from the tenor of his shouting, to the reference to somebody 'working their butt off,' to the direction to 'think long and hard' before doing this again, to the implication that the kid knows nothing, but teaching it to them unpleasantly 'could be arranged'…everything including the sulking teenager sitting there full of resentment, no doubt with his mind someplace else, to the very best of his ability.

He expelled all the breath from his lungs, ran his hands through his hair, grasping the ends of it in his fists as he bowed his head. His hands dropped to his thighs and he looked back to Oliver, head tilted to the side. His voice was calmer now.

"I understand that you're growing up, and that you want to be treated like a man, but if you're going to be treated like a man, you have to act like one..." As he finished speaking these words, Jess drew a sharp, wincing breath and his eyes closed. His breath quickened, shallowly and raggedly. His mouth formed what was almost a smile, but the soft sounds of his breathing sounded almost tearful.

Oliver sat up straight and leaned forward, concern for his dad overshadowing his adolescent apathy. "Dad?"

A Pandora's box of memories flashed helter-skelter before Jess' mind's eye, and they began to devour him. He was about to slam the lid shut, when he realized that part of it was something his son probably should hear. He kept his eyes closed. He couldn't look at anybody and say these things.

"I've never told you much about my growing up. Family, stuff like that," Jess said quietly and quickly, knowing his sentences were garbling, but that it was the only way he'd get the words out. "There's a reason." He was almost whispering, and Oliver drew closer, intent on every word. "Most of it's lousy, and you shouldn't have to hear it. But, I'm going to tell you a piece of it now, whether I should or not." His breaths were superficial and light. His voice didn't quite tremble, but sounded like it was on the brink of doing so throughout the narrative.

"When I was six - maybe seven - my mom got married for the second time. She'd had lots of boyfriends, but this was the first…actual step-dad. Which, basically for me, was the first person I met to officially hold any kind of 'dad' title in my life. It seemed like a good thing. When he was around, he was nice - much better than most of the guys Lizzie brought home. It was just a few days after the wedding, he decided to take me and Liz out to Coney Island. Spent the afternoon there. I couldn't believe how great all of it was. My mom was happy, and we were having fun. Maybe sounds strange to say, but that never happened.

"At some point during the day, don't remember exactly what happened, but I tripped over something - fell, scraped my knee up pretty bad. I was bawling and bleeding all over-" Jess stopped, and his eyes opened, looking puzzled. "I don't remember his name." He laughed a shallow, pained laugh and bit his lip. "That's ironic." He stopped in nothingness, expression blank for some time. Finally, he shrugged. "Prob'ly 'cause I was supposed to call him 'Dad,'" he surmised, sitting back down on the futon. "Oh, well." He closed his eyes and resumed the story. "Good old what's-his-name found a drug store and a men's room somewhere and proceeded to patch me up. Pathetically enough, that was also a first. Usually, the blood just dried, scabbed over, and fell off eventually. Or, if it a lot of blood, I'd soak it up with tissues or towels. This guy actually took the time to try to 'mend me,' so I figured I must have it pretty good. He told me to stop blubbering like a baby, but I'd been told that before. Didn't think much of it. He also told me that when we got back home, he was gonna-" Jess took a breath here. "-he was gonna teach me how to be a man.

"That sounded pretty good to me. I didn't know much about dads, but I figured that was kinda what they were for, so I was glad he intended to do his job." Jess got quiet again. Oliver waited, wondering if Jess had changed his mind about telling this story. "When we got home-" A choking sound came from Jess' throat, barely audible, and he recovered quickly and resumed. "-he sent Liz off somewhere. I don't remember what he told her." Frequent pauses attended the rest of the story, as if Jess only had the strength to get out one, or sometimes two sentences at a time. "He brought me to the middle of the main room in our apartment. And, he told me that he was about to start 'training' me. He said that he was going to teach me to be a man. Next, he told me that no matter he said or did, he didn't want to see any tears. Tears were for babies, and there were only men in this house. Without any other warning…he backhanded me across the room. I hadn't seen that coming at all…and there were definitely tears in my eyes.

"When he saw I was crying-" Jess drew and released a loud breath and swallowed, "-he took off his belt…and let me have it. He preferred to use the end with the buckle. I have no idea how many times he hit me with that thing. I just know that when he was done, I was a sniveling heap covered in bruised, burning lines. He told me that was what would happen when I cried.

"The next day, when he sent Lizzie away, I had a better idea what to expect. I was determined to let him slap me as much as he wanted without crying. But I prob'ly only made it to three or four. It happened every day. Eventually, I could take getting slapped quite a lot. And one day, at long last, I seemed to master it well enough that he actually stopped slapping me. He patted me on the back, and told me he was proud of me. I was proud too. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done. I think he even gave me a popsicle or something.

"The popsicle was great, but I was a little more focused on the fact that maybe, now that I'd proven to him that I could be a man, he'd stop hitting me, and beating me to a-" Jess dropped the end of the sentence and choked through the next one. "But, I was wrong. The next day…he sent Lizzie off, and I thought I was gonna throw up. I'd already proven it to him. I didn't know what more he could possibly want.

"I'd graduated. Now, he started with the belt. I have no idea how long it went on. How many days. It seemed like forever. Like that was what hell must mean. Eternal torment. But after forever-I stopped crying. Just stopped. Didn't cry again 'til I was 31. Didn't think I could. 14...15 years…bottled it all up.

"When the tears finally came…I was so scared. I was so scared that I'd never be able to stop. Scared that they'd just keep…pouring out of me until I shriveled up and died!"

Jess curled in on himself at these last words. Jaws clamped shut. Eyes clamped shut. Silent.

When his eyes finally opened, he saw his son's face washed in rivers of silent tears - large, pale eyes glistening in depths of sorrow. He was a pretty sensitive kid, current behavior notwithstanding, and hearing what his dad went through...hurt.

Neither of them spoke for over a minute.

Finally Jess' jaw tightened, and he looked downward, gauging his next words. "My first step-father…was the kind of man…who demeans women, and orders them around…and takes pleasure in beating their children." Suddenly, Oliver began to sob. He knew what his dad was saying. It killed him. Jess understood why he'd begun to cry harder. Sometimes a long, hard look in the mirror hurts far worse than anything else. Jess' voice was virulent. "The only thing he ever taught me was that I would never, ever be that kind of a man!" Oliver's sobbing continued. "The only thing that I will ever have in common…with him…is that I intend to teach you to 'be a man'!"

Oliver's breath whistled inward, as his whole body gave a jolt, and he sat bolt upright, eyes huge and terrified. Jess cringed. He hadn't meant that, and hated that Oliver thought he had. He willed himself to just keep talking. Oliver would understand in a moment. His voice was deliberately very gentle.

"Oliver…do you know what it means…to be a real man?" he asked seriously. He let the silence hang in the air until Oliver finally shook his head in the negative. Jess spoke slowly. "A real man shows dignity and respect to all people, women especially; and to the women in his family…his wife, mother, sisters, daughters, etc…he shows honor, tenderness and love. And with his children, a real man does his best to raise them with fairness, wisdom, understanding…and love." At the last two words, his voice had softened to a whisper, and after them, Jess reached forward taking the side of his son's face in his hand - then tenderly began wiping away the copious tears from his cheeks and neck. As he did so, a few more fell. He wiped them too.

Jess pressed his lips together and looked down, then up again. "I think we're done here," he said softly, and stood, pushing himself up with his hands on his knees. Oliver stood, but with a puzzled expression…but seemed hesitant to speak. "What?"

"You aren't…" Oliver began, but trailed off. Jess waited for him to finish the question. "You aren't gonna punish me?" Jess' eyes smiled, though his lips barely betrayed the expression. He shook his head. "You're not even grounding me?" Oliver's voice sounded confused.

"No," Jess answered, his honest eyes warm, "Just thought you and I should have a talk…man to man."

After holding his son's gaze assuringly for several long seconds, Jess held out his hand for Oliver to shake, and once he had hold of it, pulled the boy into a hug - strong arms around solid shoulders, backs - strength of muscles reaffirming strength and peace of hearts. They stepped back and Jess clapped Oliver on the shoulder, nodding for a moment before turning to the door.

Jess stepped out of the office, and looked at his wife drying her forearms with a dishtowel and trying to look as if she hadn't been wearing herself out with worry waiting for them. He gave a weary, long sigh. "Well, I guess we-" He stopped, puzzled, realizing that Oliver wasn't a half-step behind him, as he'd thought. As he leaned backward to look through the doorway, Oliver emerged. Both his parents stared in utter shock at what he was holding in his hand.

That thing hadn't made an appearance since Oliver was 10!-Once - when he and his also ten-year-old uncle decided to hold their respective sisters submerged underwater for a trifle longer than their lung capacity would allow - Dad had rescued the spluttering damsels from their 'innocent' captors in a frantic surge of adrenaline and marched the would-be juvenile delinquents directly to Luke's. Afterward, Luke had sent it home with him. The one other time - when the fire department had to be dispatched to ensure their home's structural integrity - Jess had made it very clear that campfires are meant to be built outdoors, rather than in boys' bedrooms, and no place by a ten-year-old with no adult present!-But Oliver had held a fear for the thing all out of proportion to the actual pain it caused, so Jess had abandoned its use, having no desire to scare his little boy half to death in order to 'teach him a lesson.' So, why was Oliver holding it now? Why did he bring it from his father's desk after Jess had assured him that he wasn't being punished?

Jess' glance shot rapid-fire from the heavy paddle to the horrified expression on his wife's face. Oliver stepped toward his mother, head down, holding the paddle out in front of him, handle outward. Jess quickly raised his palms up, eyes wide, and took a step backward, letting his wife know clearly, I had NOTHING to do with this! because he knew that handing her a paddle to spank one of her children would receive about as warm a welcome as handing her a live snake. Had the kid lost his mind?

"Ol-Oliver!" his mother stammered, "What-what are you- WHY?" She took a stumbling step backward, as if it was indeed a viper's head being thrust at her. The boy, eyes still clouded by tears, head still clouded with guilt, apparently didn't discern his mother's reaction clearly.

"'Cause I was a jerk…" he warbled, barely coherent.

"Oliver! I'm not going go- Put that thing away!" she insisted, vehemently. The boy choked on a sob and the paddle dropped to the floor with a loud wooden clatter. Burying his face into his sleeve, he fled upstairs weeping, leaving his parents to gape at one another in dumbfounded confusion.

Jess watched as his wife gazed unseeing at the room around her, trying to make some sense out of what had just passed. "What was-? Why would he-? What did you-?" Her hands seemed to be grasping for answers in the air as she spoke. Jess shrugged with his entire body, shook his head in abject incomprehension, and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Nothing! I didn't- I don't know why he would . . ." He sighed, shook his head absently once more, staring off into space.

Suddenly his eyes snapped into focus. Jess raised his fist to his lips, eyes closing as he realized what had just happened. "That was an apology," he stated quietly, steadily, his voice having lost all confusion. "You rejected it."

His wife stared at him. He could see that she was putting the pieces together too. "But I couldn't-" she objected, finishing only the half of the thought that required finishing.

"You didn't have to," he told her resolutely. More pieces began to fall into place in his mind, and the picture was almost complete. "He's been rejecting your authority-taking it from you, flouting it, shoving it in your face. Just now…he was handing it back to you." The men in the Danes family line had always spoken more clearly with their actions than with their words. Oliver may have been far more talkative in general than his father or his Grandpa Luke, but the propensity for concrete gestures was still in him. Jess saw this more clearly than ever.

"What could I have done?" she asked, helplessly.

"Doesn't matter now." With Jess, such questions always seemed useless, unless he was the one asking them.

"Yes it does! What could I have done!" she repeated insistently. Jess considered this for a moment. What would have reached Oliver? Had he really wanted her to take that thing and use it? Would that have given him some kind of absolution? Knowing his wife as he did, he knew that the actuality of that course would never even be open for discussion. But, what was it Oliver really needed from her? What should she have done? He considered it a moment longer.

"Taken it from him," he answered plainly, "accepted it, then put it aside and…talked to him, got him to open up. Let him back in…your arms…your heart."

Her eyes filled up with a pained 'too late,' and her arms wrapped around herself protectively. "But, what can I do now?" She sounded small, and plaintive. Jess bit his lip and drew his brows in thought. The next moment he gave a slight shrug.

"Go talk to him." He lifted his chin, indicating the paddle on the floor. "Take it with you."

She shook her head. "If I bring it with me, he'll think I'm going to use it!" Jess shook his head, bottom lip protruding.

"You hold it by the handle, it looks like you're gonna use it. Hold it horizontally, two hands. Once he's seen it, set it to the side. Tell him you appreciate it. You're not gonna use it, but you appreciate it." He looked her in the eye with a gentle gaze. "You appreciate his humility. Because, that's what that was."

She drew a long breath, arms still folded. "It was, wasn't it?" she conceded, sounding weary. Jess nodded. She took a step forward, standing in the spot where Oliver had been when he dropped the paddle, and looked down at it lying there on the floor. "My authority…" she mused almost ruefully.

"Symbolically," Jess replied.

"You're sure?" his wife asked.

Jess gave a short mirthless laugh, eyebrows flashing upward for a moment. "No." He shrugged, shaking his head. "I'm not sure about any of it. But, it seems likely."

She sighed and slowly reached down to pick it up, cringing as she did so. Her face betrayed her distaste, and the raise of her eyebrows, how much she wished her son had chosen something else, anything else, to represent his repentant attitude. But, she would meet him on his terms. She had to.

Jess gave her a soft smile of encouragement, mostly with his eyes, and placed a hand on her upper arm, warmly assuring her that she could do this. "Just talk to him." She nodded, her lips returning the smile while her eyes held on to their pain.

The steps creaked as she climbed them. She went down the hall and knocked on Oliver's bedroom door. When her knock was met with silence, she opened it a crack, peeking in. Oliver was lying on his bed, arms folded beneath his chest. He looked up at her, tears dried, but brooding.

"Can I come in?" she asked softly. Oliver tilted his head, not quite nodding, but assenting. His eyes widened, but only a fraction, when he saw what she was holding. She made her way over to him, sitting down carefully on the bed in front of him, and laid the paddle next to them, near the wall. "That was your way of apologizing to me, wasn't it?" she asked him softly. Oliver nodded. "That was brave," she told him, running her fingers through his hair in the gentle, caressing fashion that somehow only mothers possess, "…and humble." The boy raised his eyes to meet hers, grateful for the words of approval. "I wouldn't use it in a million years!" she hastened to add, looking over at the paddle, and back to her son's eyes, which filled with confusion at this statement. She laughed quickly and quietly, rumpling her son's hair, then looking away from him for a moment with a sigh.

"There are some things about which a husband and wife agree to disagree." She looked back into his eyes. "I think you're old enough to understand that." She cupped the side of his face with her hand and smiled down at him. Oliver looked down at his bedspread, mouth twisting to the side in a smirk, one eyebrow quirked upward. His mom's smile widened involuntarily. Her son may have inherited her general coloring, and his features may have more strongly resembled her father's than anyone else in the family, but every so often, his expressions were pure Jess.

"So, I guess Dad won that argument, huh?" Oliver deduced, still smirking. His mom laughed again, understanding the smirk. Her son still had a lot to learn.

"It's not that simple," she explained, her fingers combing through his hair once more. "I'm not going to pretend there wasn't an argument…or, rather, several," she said, smiling at the memory which only the passage of time allowed her to look back on fondly. "But we came to an agreement…a mutual agreement, a very long time ago." Oliver's smirk was gone, and he listened, realizing that what she was telling him had something to do with what his dad had said about being a real man.

"But," she said, "that wasn't what I came in here to talk to you about." He met her gaze again. She paused. "You were," she stated. He quirked an eyebrow once more. "Being a jerk." Oliver's face clouded and he looked down at the bed again, biting his lower lip. "Don't worry," she told him. "I know how to handle jerks." She smiled and he looked up, hearing her tone of voice change, and saw the glimmer in her eye. "I've got quite a bit of experience, actually." His mouth twitched. "Don't tell anybody, but I've actually done a few jerkish things myself." Oliver heaved a sigh, realizing this was his mother's way of saying apology accepted.

"And, don't misunderstand," she told him, tone still light, "even though I'll never take a swing at you with that thing, I do still reserve the right to smack you upside the head if and when you resume your jerkish ways!"

Her son nodded, lower lip stuck out, as he stood, and his mother smiled to herself again at the uncanny resemblance in mannerisms. "Yeah, I think that's in the mothers' Bill of Rights - non-revocable," he acceded, smiling. She stood up, a few feet away from him.

"Hey you," she looked at him sweetly, "come here." She opened her arms, inviting him in for a hug. He practically dove into them, squeezing tightly, but not too ferociously, conscious of her slight build.

His face tucked down into her shoulder and his breath hitched in his chest a little. "I'm sorry, Mom."

She leaned back and frowned, deep grooves appearing between her eyebrows, and she held a finger to his lips. "Shh!" She shook her head. It was the same gesture that had attended each one of her children's apologies, from the time they were little. They each knew it was Mom's sweet way of telling them, already forgiven. He pressed his lips together, and looked at the floor, grateful for his mother's forgiveness. She leaned back in his embrace, looking up at him, and his eyes slowly rose to meet hers. "You know," she said, "I know you're growing up. I don't tell you often enough how proud I am of you for all the things you do." He scoffed lightly. "All the ways that you're getting to be a man."

His jaws tightened and he looked down again. "I've got a long way to go," he said quickly and bitterly.

She lifted his chin to look at her again. "But you're getting there," she assured him. "And if you grow up to be half the man your father is, I'll be proud beyond belief!"

Oliver smiled and let his eyes fall. He looked back up at her with an expression she couldn't quite read. His voice was quiet and earnest. "I just hope I find somebody who's half the woman you are."

She blushed and looked away, blinking rapidly, swallowing the lump in her throat before she could respond. "Aw, quit your sweet talk!" she chided, batting the tip of his nose with her forefinger. She took a step backward. "Let's go downstairs so your dad can quit pacing a rut into the floor."

Oliver grinned. "Yeah, we better!"

As well as they both knew him, when they reached the bottom of the stairs, they discovered that Jess wasn't there pacing after all. He was in the kitchen, apron wrapped around his waist, towel slung over his shoulder, standing at the stove, spatula in hand. His wife and son smiled. All that was missing was a backwards baseball cap, a flannel shirt and a pencil over one ear.

His wife walked up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Mmmmmm-mmm!" she appreciated. "All that, and he cooks too!" she said playfully and kissed his earlobe. He shivered and rubbed the ear against his shoulder, trying to relieve the tickle.

"Sit down, you!" he laughed, pointing to the table with the spatula. She plopped herself down on one of the chairs with a tiny smile and sparkling eyes, folding her hands primly in front of her.

"Chocolate chip pancakes, please!" she requested in a chipper tone.

"Oh-ho! Placing orders now?" Her husband raised his eyebrows and shook his head, loving it.

"And bacon!" she added.

"I'll make the coffee!" Oliver volunteered eagerly. Jess smirked at him, wondering how it was possible not to smell that it had already been made.

"Already done, but I'm sure getting your mom's mug and filling it up would be greatly appreciated," he told him, motioning to the coffee-maker, the cupboard, and the table, each in turn.

"Mmmm-hmmm!" his wife enthused. "My favorite son bringing me the elixir of life! I'm not sure that can be topped!" she chirped. Oliver eagerly attended to the task.

Jess turned back to the stove, but looked over his shoulder at his wife. "Your sudden craving for bacon couldn't possibly have come from the smell of it wafting over to you from the stovetop, could it?"

"Don't be silly! I always want bacon. Ooh! And orange juice! And hot chocolate! With marshmallows!" Jess began to laugh heartily.

"You heard the lady!" he told Oliver, "And, if I were you, I'd get the apple juice, herbal tea, apple cider, and possibly even a soda-pop ready. It doesn't sound as if this beverage order will be finished anytime soon!" He chuckled as he glanced back at his wife and saw her sticking her tongue out at him. "What, no sausage?"

"Wouldn't complain," she shrugged.

"And, what if I were to serve you blueberry pancakes instead, since I kind of already have the batter mixed up?"

"If you throw in some chocolate chips, that would be perfect!" she grinned. He laughed softly, shaking his head again.

"You're lucky I'm not Luke!" he told her. "He'd serve up quite a lecture with this breakfast!"

"I am lucky you're not Luke, and that's got nothing to do with breakfast!" she observed. Jess looked at her quizzically. "Well, if I were married to Luke, wouldn't you find that the least bit disturbing?"

"Come to think of it, I never have visualized you as a member of a harem," he mused.

"That's reassuring!"

"Though the thought of the wardrobe isn't exactly unappealing…" He bit his lower lip let his eyes linger for a second, traveling up and down his wife's body.

"Yeah, but Lorelai would be wearing the same costume, and it'd be Luke in the turban," she reminded him. Jess closed his eyes with a sudden grimace.

"Please get that picture outta my head!"

"You're burning the eggs!" Oliver reminded, pointing to the frying pan.

"Ooh, eggs!" his mother exclaimed.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah - omelet coming, diced ham, cheese. Keep your shirt on," Jess told her.

She sighed dreamily. "I married the perfect man . . . Except for the fact that he wants me to keep my shirt on." She frowned.

"Just for the moment," he corrected.

"Does pointing out that there's a child in the room have any effect on you two, whatsoever?" Oliver scowled, trying to look greatly disturbed.

"No, not really," his father replied. Oliver rolled his eyes. A look of pure mischief flashed across Jess' face. He crossed the room and did something to the nape of his wife's neck that was obscured from his son's view, but which made her suddenly, moan, squeal and turn bright red, slapping him sharply on the shoulder for her embarrassment.

"Jess!" she exclaimed, smiling broadly, but still mortified that her fourteen-year-old son had witnessed this salacious maneuver, however innocent it may have been, and however impossible it was that he actually witnessed anything. The mischievous look Jess wore was only exponentiated, with more than a touch of smugness stirred in for good measure. He sauntered back over to the stove and flipped a perfect omelet onto his wife's plate, delivering it with a flourish and a flower, which he mysteriously produced at the last moment using one of his old sleight of hand magic tricks. There was laughter in his wife's eyes and a playful, hesitant smile upon her lips, which he leaned forward and kissed.

He half turned to Oliver. "There are a few things about being a real man that I'll have to explain to you when you're a little older," he said with a cheeky grin followed up a moment later with a surreptitious wink.

Oliver cleared his throat and blushed a little, struggling mightily against a smile. His eyebrows flashed upward for a moment as he refilled his mother's coffee. "I think I got the gist."