A/N: I don't own Gilmore Girls and I'm also not finished with the series. I'm very much team Dean. It took me far too long to realize that Narco on this site means narcolepsy, for when they fall asleep together, but now that I get it I think it's cute. So this is Narco-centric, but will deal with Lorelei and Jess.
Rory sat on her porch, eyes blank, staring straight ahead, willing her mind to think of nothing. She had been in this position for a few hours now and Lorelei was done with waiting for her to snap out of it.
"Honey?" Rory didn't respond. She didn't turn her head around to her mother's voice behind her. She didn't say anything. Nothing. Lorelei walked down the steps so that she was level with her daughter and sat next to her. "Rory, honey, you've been out here for hours. What's up, kid?"
Picking at her nails and refusing to look up, Rory answered in a small voice, "I don't want to talk about it."
However, a lifetime of living with her mother told her that an excuse so flimsy was clearly not going to work. She was right. "Kid, you came home last night crying and I left it alone. You were up half the night. I stayed downstairs because I was worried about you. I could hear you. This morning, you got up and showered and everything like it was all normal. But this afternoon you've been out here staring at nothing. And as your mother, I get to pry just a little to see what's going on." Here she paused, hoping that Rory would start to speak. When she didn't, Lorelei had to push a little more. "Okay, well without your commentary, I'll have to fill it in myself. You were tutoring Jess last night. Your car isn't here." Lorelei paused again, putting these two pieces of information together into a logical conclusion. "Are you going to break up with Dean?"
Rory's head snapped up, her face reddened. "No, mom. No! I love Dean." Her lip began trembling and tears pooled in her eyes. "But he might break up with me when he finds out what happened last night."
Seeing her daughter's tears always broke Lorelei's heart. "Honey, why? What happened? Did something happen with Jess?"
Wiping at her eyes, Rory sniffled. "You have to promise me that you won't freak out, okay?"
Throwing her arm around Rory's shoulders and rubbing up and down on her upper arm, Lorelei grinned, "now you know that's not something I can promise, sweetie. I'm your mom. I reserve the right to freak out over anything that involves my baby."
Shrugging out of reach, Rory replied, "then I can't tell you."
Sighing deeply, Lorelei scooched closer to Rory so that her daughter would have to all but stand up to move away from her again. "Sorry, kiddo, it involved tears. That gives me the right to pull the mom card and make you tell me anyway."
The look Rory responded with was one known all too well in that household, it combined "really" expertly with just a dash of "I hate you", but Lorelei held her ground. Folding her hands and sliding them down her knees to hunch over, as if to try to physically shield herself from the words that were about to come from her own mouth, Rory inhaled deeply, which was in sharp contrast to the small whisper that followed, "Jess kissed me."
Running her fingers through Rory's hair, Lorelei's voice was equally soft, "So this is about how you feel about Jess."
Stomping her feet back down onto the lower step, Rory's cheeks flamed once again and her anger was clearly visible in her eyes. "No, mom, it's not. This is about the idea that I've kissed two guys in my life before this. Dean and Tristan. It was bad enough that I kissed Tristan while Dean and I were broken up. Now, Jess kissed me and wouldn't leave me alone when I told him to stop. I had to run away from him to get him to quit! I just feel like I want to punch him and like I need to take a thousand more showers and go through ten bottles of mouthwash before I see Dean again." She huffed, but calmed down a little. Raking her fingers through her hair and pushing it back out of her face, she continued, "He's never going to forgive me for this."
Still stunned from the words that had come out of her daughter's mouth, Lorelei tried to rein in her anger. "Wait a second, kid, did you just say that Jess kissed you even though you told him to stop? Are you telling me that the reason your car isn't here is because you had to run away from Jess last night?" Rory nodded, not even making eye contact with her mother. "You go take that shower, Rory. I'll be back." Lorelei stuff her hands in her pockets and started to walk away.
Rory jumped up from the steps, "wait, Mom! You aren't going to overreact are you?"
Still walking, Lorelei turned around, "wouldn't dream of it, kid." The smile for Rory's benefit fell as soon as she turned back around. She'd never liked Jess and he'd hurt her baby last night. Luke was finally going to get a piece of her mind.
The news was all over, Jess had left town. Rory was pretty sure that it was because of where her mom went, presumably Luke's, right after she told her what happened. Jeez, if her mom had the power to get Luke to get rid of Jess because of what she had told her, it was a really good thing she hadn't shared the whole story. Unbidden, memories of the previous night started to flash across her mind. No. She shut it down. She didn't want to go there. She still had to think of what to tell Dean. Well, first she had to get her mom to agree to let her out of the Grandparents' Dinner tonight and then she had to figure out what she was going to tell Dean. She had even considered writing a letter to explain everything, but she had quickly dismissed it. There was almost no way that he would keep his cool long enough to make it through a letter explaining it. And even if he would, she would have to write it all down. As a writer, things that she thought about how to put on a page stayed with her longer than words that she spoke and she didn't want the events of the other night to stay with her.
"Hey, Mom!" She called, mostly for identification of her mother's whereabouts. She heard the faint "in here" come from the kitchen and followed the sound. She found her mother sitting at the table smelling half-empty take out containers. "Why are you smelling those? It's Friday, we have to go to Hartford tonight."
"Ahh, you see, if I have a snack now, then I'm only going to be irritated and annoyed at my mother's criticism of my life whereas if I don't eat this, I'm going to be irritated, annoyed, and starving." She smiled and pointed to Rory as if she had just scored some huge verbal point in a debate.
Pulling out the nearest seat and sliding into it, Rory responded, "Well, then you should definitely eat it so that you're only annoyed and irritated, which might be the same thing, and alone instead of adding starving to that list."
Not one to be tricked by fast talking, Lorelei put down the fork that she had been using to dig some food out of the bottom of a carton. She delicately folded her hands and licked her lips, "Did you just say alone."
Now they had gotten to Rory's real point for coming into the room, she had to tread carefully. Getting her mom to lie to her grandparents about the need for an absence from the usual family dinner was hard. Not because Lorelei had any issue lying to her parents, but because she detested being there without Rory to act as a buffer. Rory's smile was one of mocking-sheepishness. "Yes." She dropped the smile and went into her explanation, "Dean gets home tonight, Mom. I need to be here or he's going to hear some version of some story from someone else. And while there are some I'm more okay with him hearing, I would really like to avoid him hearing that Jess and I were alone at Luke's and that my car stayed there overnight from someone else."
Sighing and picking up the fork again, Lorelei returned to her previous mission to dig out some broccoli. "Yeah, that would be bad. I'll make up something. You take care of you, kid."
For a few moments, only the scraping of utensils could be heard, but when Lorelei realized that Rory still hadn't gotten up, she turned to look at her daughter. Rory was picking at the bracelet that had been a gift from Dean. "Something still on your mind, kiddo?"
Her voice had lost the previous confidence. It was shaking slightly now, "how do I tell him, Mom? He'll never trust me again, he shouldn't trust me again. I love him. I wasn't comfortable doing this stupid tutoring and then I was so desperate to get him to shut up that I agreed to go get ice cream and so we were alone in the car and that gave him an opening and I just messed up so bad."
"You wanna run that whole ice cream and in the car part past me again? I feel like I may have missed a few details in the first iteration of the story you told me." Concern briefly flooded Lorelei that she had wrongfully accused Jess of something prompting Luke to send him back to New York.
Adjusting uncomfortably in her seat, realizing that she had said too much, Rory tried to cover her gaffe. "Oh, I, I didn't tell you that part?"
"No, no you didn't, sweetie. I would be very interested in hearing it." Lorelei leaned over the table, closer to Rory.
Taking a steadying breath, Rory launched into the full explanation, watching Lorelei's face get darker at each sentence. By the end, Lorelei's chair had scooted right next to hers and Rory found herself cradled to her mom's chest.
"Honey, I know you're worried about telling Dean about this, but trust me, he won't be mad at you. I will kill Jess if I ever see him again. And if I've learned anything about Dean in the time that you two have been together, you might have to talk him out of going to New York to kill Jess." Lorelei straightened back up and tucked some of Rory's hair behind her ear. "You going to be okay?"
Rory nodded, "Yeah, this was why I didn't want to tell you. I feel like it was my fault. I gave him that opening to do it and I knew that you would only be mad at him."
Lorelei leaned to look her daughter square in the eye, "You're damn right I'm only going to be mad at him. You cannot blame yourself for this, Rory, at all. You need to promise me that you won't blame yourself, no matter what happens with Dean. Do you promise?"
Collapsing back against the chair in defeat, Rory assented. "I promise. Thanks, Mom. I love you."
Standing, Lorelei gave Rory a hug, "I love you too, kid. Now you've got a welcome home date to prepare for and I've got dinner alone with my parents to get ready to endure." With one more quick hug, Lorelei left the room.
