Set somewhere during season 5, when we don't get to know anything about the one and only Jess. This is just musings in my head after watching Let Me Hear Your Balalaikas Ring Out and seeing him so grown-up made me wonder where he got his drive to write The Subsect. This is short, I know, but I hope this makes someone just a tiny bit happy...

-C

Jess Mariano could not get her off his mind. Again.

He was sitting in a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in Philadelphia he had found a few months ago after his move out to Pennsylvania, trying yet again to see what she saw in We The Living. He told himself he walked in the first time because he liked coffee, but the real reason was because the menu was hand-written on special boards, and it reminded him of…the only place that he ever found what a home should have: love. I've got to call Luke, he thought. I need to apologize for all the shit I put him through.

He drummed his fingers on table and sighed. It had been three years since he moved to Stars Hollow. Three years since he met her. The Girl, Matt and Chris called her. The one that inspired Jess Mariano to be great. That had been their little joke, but they didn't realize how much it hurt Jess to hear about it. About her. He had grown up a lot in three years, even he would admit. He got his GED, moved away from New York, and Matt and Chris had convinced him to take a few night courses at a community college close to their apartment. He could imagine how proud she would be if she knew. How proud she would've been two years ago if he'd done what he was supposed to. Why did he have to be so stubborn? Why couldn't he have just listened to her and Luke? She would sill be with him, instead of with Dean (God, he prayed that she wasn't...) or some rich Yale kid. The thought made him cringe. Yale...he hated Yale.

It had been a year since the horrible meeting at Yale in which everything had gone wrong, but he still thought of her every day of his life. Her hair, her face, her hips. God, her eyes! He missed those eyes…

He let out a snort. If Matt or Chris found out the whole story about Rory, he would never, ever, live it down. Sap! they'd call him, which was probably true. He was still whipped for her, and he hadn't seen her in more than a year! Was he insane? Probably, he thought.

He got up, threw a 5 on the table, and walked out into the pouring rain. A group of college girls were under umbrellas laughing and screeching about getting wet. One of them caught Jess' eye and smiled. He grimaced in response. I need to be nicer, he thought to himself. No one likes an angry moron. Well, one person did. And I blew it.

When he had come to Yale, he was so sure that he would run away with him, but she was way angrier that Jess had figured she would be. What did that mean? Did she hate him? It sure seemed like she did. But a smaller part of Jess' capable brain told him that it was because she loved him back, and he had broken her heart when he'd left to chase his bum of a father to California. Rory, I ran away to face my problems head on! Not because I didn't like you or you made me angry! I love you, Rory. I love you…

He had actually said those three words only once in his life and it was at a horrible time. Probably the worst timing imaginable. But that's what you get with Jess Mariano: bad timing and broken promises.

He was such a failure. A pathetic failure to everyone who even remotely loved him: Luke, Liz, and most of all Rory.

By the time he made it back to the tiny apartment he shared with Matt and Chris, he was soaked and in an awful mood.

He had changed for her. He had made himself a better person just for her. And here's the dealbreaker, idiot. She doesn't even care.

Was it possible that Jess Mariano loved a girl more than the girl liked him? He didn't know. It had never happened before. He was always the one that broke up with girls. Not to mention, none of those girls knew Dickens. He smiled slightly, throwing that horrid Ayn Rand he was (unsuccessfully) reading earlier on his bed. She had let him borrow that one before he ran from Stars Hollow.

He decided that things needed to change. Now.

He pulled out that old notebook he'd been meaning to use, and wrote down every mindless thought he had in his mind. Maybe there's something worthwhile in there. Maybe this is my saving grace, like Rory said years ago.

"You've got a great brain, Jess."

Well, if she said it, it must be true. So he would sure as hell use his brain to win her back.

He had to win her back.