A/N: Season II is probably my favorite of all the Gilmores, and unfortunately I think after season five it went seriously down hill. I've always really loved Jess and Rory's relationship before they were together as an official couple. I only ask that you disregard some continuity errors that I feel sure will pop up as the story progresses. I hold no claim to any of the characters or settings, but I will take full responsibility for the writing.

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Her digits grasped at each other absent mindedly, a nervous twitch she had picked up over the years, as her bright blue eyes stared down at the cordless phone. The cheap white plastic sat snugly in its matching cradle, lifeless, openly oblivious to the urge that had welled up inside of the pit of her stomach and shot up through her chest and into her throat, where an inconvenient lump of awkward anxiety resided. Pulling her hands apart, one was forced to take the plunge into her coat pocket, safe from harm's way. The other was not so fortunate. Her free hand, now missing its partner, lunged towards the phone, and grabbed it. Phone in hand, and her mother outside talking to Babette, Rory's brow shot up to her hairline, amazed at the power her own body had over her allegedly logical and even rational mind. She bolted, phone in hand, to her bedroom, spun on her heel, gracefully kicking the door shut with her toe, kicked off her shoes, slunk off her coat, and padded her way softly onto the bed. Colonel Clucker sat, as though waiting for her return, perched on her pillow happily. The phone – more specifically who would soon be on the other end of it – had stolen the spotlight, however, leaving the stuffed rooster to fall by the wayside in the adrenaline rush Rory was suddenly experiencing.

It wasn't the first time she had called him, nor had it been a necessarily bad thing when her mother had found out whom she had been talking to. It was, however, the type of unspoken awkwardness that led to a number of things Rory attempted to prevent in any way possible on a daily basis. The first being that it put a clearly definable source of tension between mother and daughter, which, for any purposes apart from clearly labeling with the new label maker Lorelai had bought the previous week and allowing it to make the funny whirring noise, was never a good thing to have on call for a later date. The second being that, after seven whining noises and four petulant remarks and approximately two groundbreaking references to the CIA and J. Edgar Hoover, once Lorelai found out who Rory had been talking to it consistently resulted in the face that could mean only one thing: Lorelai was thinking. And not just thinking about whether or not the classic Kate Spade bag would ever go with her recently purchased Marc Jacobs heels and pearl necklace she got on her sixteenth birthday, should she ever actually take the plunge and buy the damn thing. That was the kind of verbal thinking that Rory was perfectly content to sit through, and even participate in providing she had enough caffeine in her. Instead, it was the kind of thinking that created a pause. Brows were often furrowed. A silence would inevitably fall over the usually chatty Lorelai in an awkward, sudden, halt. It was the kind of thinking that her daughter was never all that comfortable with, no matter how much apparent peace there was when it took place.

Despite the almost habitual routine, and the fact that she had a flashback to said routine each and every time she looked at a phone with her head tilted slightly to the right, her brow furrowed just so, Rory was already dialing his number. Tucking her hair back behind her ear just because she needed something to do with her hands, she made a mental note on the second ring to buy a stress ball. Or plastesine. Could she get that at Dosees? Dean would know, maybe.

"Hello," a very tired but strong male voice slurred on the other end, pulling Rory out of her thoughts with a bit of a start. It was Luke.

"Oh!" Awkard. But what wasn't when it came to a phone call these days. "Hi, Luke. Um, it's Rory. Hi."

"Oh, hey, Rory," Luke's tone softened, clearly curious. He was hardly aware of Rory's calls to his apartment to speak with his nephew, and this allegedly unusual call startled him somewhat. "Everything okay? Is you're mom, uh, there?"

"Oh, no," she snapped her eyes shut, a forced, sheepish smile plastered across her lips. "Everything's fine. I was actually looking for Jess." Admitting defeat, and so soon. On the other end of the line there was a pause. "Hello?"

"Sure, hang on a sec."

"Hello," a similar bored, but strong, male voice came onto the other line. Similar, but very different.

"Hey," she said, her sheepish smile had instantly made way for the knee jerk grin, the grin that tended made her cheeks hurt after a while, and somehow she suspected he was a mirror image on the other line. Requiring no more than her brief, monosyllabic greeting to recognize the caller, Jess called out to his uncle that he would take the call downstairs, along with some excuse about Luke's televised ball game being too loud. She smiled even harder, as if it were possible, at the embarrassment.

"Hey," he finally greeted her, his own goofy grin wiped from his face as he sat alone in the diner. The luminous glow of the moon poured in through the expansive diner windows, a puddle of moonlight welling up just inches away from the bar stool Jess sat at as he wedged the aged green diner phone in between his ear and his shoulder.

"What, didn't want to put a three-way on with Luke?"

"Been watching Streisand lately?"

"Relevance?"

"Funny Girl, Franny." Jess mumbled. Rory rolled her eyes.

"Good one. Are you busy?"

The right hand corner of his mouth twitched, a smile in the making. Thank god for the phone. "That Stars Hollow High really keeps me and the rest of the Clever clan chugging away. Don't do tomorrow what you could do today, Rory."

"I'm taking that as a no," she shrugged off his sarcasm flawlessly and continued on, the transition from chit chat to organization had already been made. Jess had yet to catch on. "My homework's all done. I haven't picked up any extra project stuff in a while, which I have to go do. Hey, where do you think I could find a stress ball? Never mind. I was thinking of going for a walk, actually."

"All by your lonesome? Are you sure that's the best idea, little missy? A pretty girl, all alone, with no tall, looming giants to tower over nearby ne'er-do-wells and frighten them away? And all this on a Friday night? You're playing with fire there, my friend." In his short wandering while she had been talking, he had managed to scour the back of the diner and find a jug of freshly made apple juice. He felt mildly proud of himself that he could simultaneously poke subliminal offenses to Rory's All American Boyfriend and pour a tasty, refreshing beverage for himself.

"You raise some awfully good points there," Rory agreed, nodding on the other end of the line. "Guess you'll just have to accompany me!"

His glass overflowed. "Come again?"

"See you on the bridge?"

"Rory,"

"Ten minutes. No, make it five!"