A/N: Completely free of context, this one-shot may eventually be part of a chapter of one of my stories, but right now I'm leaving it at a: We'll see. It was just a conversation that popped into my head that always...should have happened. But, it never did. So, here, I'm inserting it, supposed to take place 4+, maybe as many as 10 or 11 years post-series. Hope you enjoy!
"I thought you were like Christopher." There, she finally admitted it.
He stood there nodding like he knew that already.
"I thought you would leave whenever things got tough. I thought you would get her pregnant. I thought you would break her heart over and over again her whole life long."
He kept nodding, hands in pockets, eyebrows responding to her words in varying degrees of yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I expected.
"I guess I just figured it's about time I told you I was wrong - that I know that now. That...you're the best thing that ever happened to her - except for me, of course - at practically every stage in her life, except possibly at first, or, you know, middle first. I could have done without the whole car crash, antagonizing her first boyfriend, dropping out of high school and skipping town bit. That, I wasn't so fond of."
He looked at the ground, an exhaled, voiceless laugh acknowledging that she couldn't very well skip a summary of his major shortcomings. That would have been too much to expect, even in a speech of peacemaking, confessing prejudgment, and slightly belated gratitude.
"But, the rest? You know, the saving her butt over and over again and being a regular Sir Galahad...that I should probably thank you for."
A smirk struggled mightily to suppress itself as his nodding resumed. "Thanks," was all he said, but the expression of extraordinary amusement, bordering (with twitching lips that he bit back inside his mouth) on actual laughter, irked Lorelai in its I know something you don't know mockery.
"What in H-E-double-hockey-sticks is so funny?" Lorelai demanded, voice with something close to a warble of a laugh caught up in it.
"H-E-double-hockey-sticks...?" he repeated, amused.
"Stop giving me the Spock eyebrows and answer the question!" she said, very close to stepping forward and smacking him for his non-mocking mockingness.
"Nothing," he shrugged, looking just as bemused as ever, "It's just...thinking of you raising me in a nunnery is a mental image that never would have occurred to me." As he spoke, the laughter he'd been holding in shook his shoulders.
"Well, clearly it did, though I'm not getting why." Lorelai's hands went to her hips and it was her turn to adopt the eyebrow positioning of the most famous Vulcan in all of sci-fi history.
"Sir Galahad," he stated simply. "Raised by his aunt the abbess. Though clearly the rest of the story applies!" he continued sarcastically. "Hand-picked by God to fetch the Grail, descended from and knighted by Lancelot, destined for lifelong celibacy..."
"If you call me a mother superior again, that could be arranged."
Jess bit his lips inward and closed his eyes, head bowing with carefully contained mirth.
"I try to say something nice!" Lorelai complained, and the young man in front of her started to chuckle audibly.
"Prithee, most humble thanks for your praise of a most bountiful and honorable nature, Lady Gilmore. My sword is thine to do thy bidding." He swept her a gallant bow and Lorelai's eyes nearly popped out of her head.
"Careful, I'll take you up on that!"
"I don't doubt it for a second." Jess paused, the merriment in his eyes shifting and the two of them locking in a subtle, vinegar tinged gaze with silence eating up seconds. A soft breath escaped him. "I thought you only wanted to make nice with me in order to get to Luke." The words came in a bit of a rush and made Lorelai's eyes widen. "Most of the guys who hung around my mom hated my guts, but would be uber-nice until they married her or got her in bed with them, then they tried to get rid of me. I learned to keep my guard up so they wouldn't be able to make my life hell," he shrugged. "At least not completely."
Lorelai's nodding was more stunned than knowing, and her jaw hung open just a touch. "I can see how it would have looked that way." Her voice was shallow and mixed a little with pain.
"I just thought I should return the favor by telling you I was wrong." He tipped his head with the admission. "If I hadn't gone on the preemptive offensive, we might have had a decent relationship from the start...or at least, you probably wouldn't have thought I was a complete jerk who was going to get your daughter pregnant and break her heart." He shrugged, lips and jaws set in a tight, rueful expression, accepting his share of the blame.
Lorelai's long, black lashes framed her wide eyes in a blown-away look. "Very Yentl - Piece of Sky," she murmured.
Jess tipped his crop of mangled curls to one side indicating he didn't get what she just said.
"The more I learn, the more I realize the less I know," she quoted.
He smiled...looked downward, kept smiling. "We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding." His eyes jerked upward to meet hers, not expecting her to recognize the quotation. The author was well known, but the book not widely read. "Kipling," he specified. "Let's go inside."
She smiled...quietly, putting an arm uncharacteristically around his shoulders and ushering him inside the house. "All right, Galahad."
A/N: You know reviews are what keep me alive, right? ...ensuring the whole continuation-of-writing-and-posting process. 'Cause, if I wasn't alive, I couldn't write stories for you...and that would stink.