Set right after Rory finds out about Logan's Thanksgiving adventures with Honor's bridesmaids in season 6 episode 16 "Bridesmaids revisited".
Instead of running into Doyle at Rich Man's Shoe, she runs into Jess, who's visiting New Haven on a book tour, but is that really his only motive for visiting New Haven?

Some conversation borrowed from season 6, episode 18 "The Real Paul Anka", and the conversation in the beginning of the episode is from season 6, episode 16 "Bridesmaids revisited".

I'm not a native speaker of English, and I've tried my very best to avoid spelling mistakes, but some grammatical errors have probably snuck in there, hope you'll be able to overlook that! And also, this is my first Fan Fiction writing ever, so be gentle, and I'll be thankful for all tips and constructive criticism you'll hopefully be sending my way.

And last, but definitely not least: Amy Sherman Palladino and the other writers that created this series are geniuses and I can't possibly live up to their standard, but since the show was cancelled (and honestly didn't end the way I wanted it to), FanFiction seems to be the way to go!


Trying to numb her pain after finding out about Logan and the bridesmaids, Rory, already intoxicated by the drinks she managed to fill herself with since she walked in to Rich Man's Shoe not long ago and the several glasses of champagne she poured herself waiting for Logan to show up after the ceremony, leans over the bar to get the barkeeps attention.
"Hit me, barkeep"
The man looks at her, sighing.
"That's your third one", the barkeep leans his forearm against the bar and looks her in the eye.
Rory looks up at him with an irritated face.
"What are you, my mother?"
"Nope" The barkeep looks at her, indecisive, trying to make out whether to refill her drink or offer her a glass of water.
"No, you're not. I'm not driving, and I live right over…there" Rory points her arm aimlessly around her. "or somewhere near there." Hesitatingly she waves her arm in the opposite direction. "Or there. But it's close, and I'm walking, and I want another drink."
"Okay", the barkeep sighs, gives up, and hands her another drink.

A waitress walks by, reaching for a bunch of napkins stashed up in a pile in front of Rory. Rory grabs the napkins, looks at the waitress and says, in an irritated voice:
"Hey! These are mine."
The waitress looks at her, a bit confused.
"I was just gonna get them out of your way"
Rory looks at her, clutching her napkins.
"Don't take what's mine. These came with my drinks. He put them down in front of me. I did not ask you to move them, did I?"
"Whatever", the waitress shrugs her shoulders and leaves Rory with her napkins, which she carefully puts down in front of her.
"Snappy comeback. Dorothy Parker knows about you?" She says in direction of the waitress. "Sick of people touching my stuff", she continues to mumble to herself, while putting the napkins down in front of her and taking a big sip from the drink the barkeep put down in front of her.
"Is it okay for an old friend to sit down here, or do you need the extra chair for your collection of napkins, which you seem to hold very dear?", a voice says behind her. She turns around in the direction of the voice and almost falls off her barstool when she sees who the voice belongs to.
"Jess?" She says, as if she can't really believe her eyes.

He just stands there, looking at her, smiling.
She jumps down from her barstool, and for a minute she forgets all about the excruciating pain that had driven her to the pub, and more specifically to the bar of the pub.
"Oh my god, Jess! What are you doing here? I haven't seen you in like…since…well, when we where…you know, with him…in this pub…with your book…and you left"
He shrugs his shoulders.
"I'm here on some publishing business, and I thought I'd swing by this pub and grab a bite before hitting the hotel. Heard the burgers are good here, didn't really get to try one last time though, but enough about me, what about you? You looked a bit distracted here, with your napkins and all, wasn't sure I dared come over. So… what's the deal with the napkins? You started a collection of bar napkins?"
"Well…I just…they come with the drinks…you know…", she answers, not really sure how much she wants to tell him about what is really going on. She doesn't know where they stand with each other, he had seemed pretty upset last time they met.
Jess lifts his eyebrows and smiles at her.
"You wanna come sit down with me? I have a table over there", he points towards a more secluded area of the pub.
She looks first at him, then at his table, and then at him again. She seems nervous, fiddling her hands.
"You can bring your napkins if you want.", he says smiling with a gesture towards the napkins.
"Naw…no…she, she can have them now…if she still wants them…I mean, they're just napkins, right?"
Jess looks confused and starts leading Rory towards his table. She staggers a bit, and he offers her his arm for support. After hesitating just a second she grabs his arm.

An uncomfortable silence emerges as they sit down at Jess' table. Rory spins the glass with her drink slowly back and forth in front of her, and Jess looks down at his plate, aimlessly moving some of the leftovers from his dinner around with a fork.
"So…", he says, putting the fork down and looking at her.
She puts down her glass and interrupts him.
"So you're here on publishing business you said? Tell me more about it."
He sighs.
"So apparently, your newfound interest in napkin collecting is not something you want to discuss?"
She avoids eye contact with him and looks down at her drink.
"Maybe later, right now, I would be happy to talk about anything other than the reason for me ordering enough drinks to start a small collection of napkins."
"Okay." He looks at her with a worried face, but decides to humor her and let her tell him what's wrong when she feels like it. "Well, I'm out on a small tour again, advertising my book, actually went kind of well last time I was here, so now I teamed up with two other guys, trying to talk even more people into reading our stuff and putting it on stock . We're keeping it kind of low key, hitting small bookstores, nothing fancy really."
She smiles and looks up at him.
"That sounds great Jess! I'm so happy for you!"
"Hey, the tour just started, don't get too excited, we could still end up having to drag almost all the copies of our books back with us to Philly."
"But still, that's great!"
"Yeah, kind of, I'm content with the way things are going."
"Content? That's very modest of you."
"Well, you know me, always been a very modest type of guy.", he smiles and continues: "So, hoping this is still on the avoiding the napkin collection track we're on, but what are you doing these days? Still in the DOR, or what was it?"
"DAR, and no, or yes, I'm probably theoretically still in it, but I'm back at Yale."
"Good, good. I never liked that you dropped out you know."
"Yeah, you said something to that end last time we met. Actually, you're now looking at the editor of the Yale Daily News."
"Are you kidding? That's amazing!"
"Not as amazing as you, Mr. Writer. But yeah, feels great. Don't get to write as much as I would like though, mostly assigning and motivating, hand-holding and rewriting."
Jess smiles.
"Yeah, and you love it, every minute of it. Come on, tell me you don't."
Rory smiles back at him, whatever it was that troubled her before seems to have been pushed away for the time being.
"I do. I do love it. It's exciting."

They kept talking and catching up for quite some time, still smoothly avoiding the napkin collection reasons.
Jess looks around them, they're almost the last ones left in the pub, and the waitresses are hovering around them, waiting for them to leave so they can start cleaning up. He leans over the table and whispers to Rory:
"I think if we don't leave they're gonna kick us out."
She looks around and they get up and leave the pub.

"So.." Jess hesitates, looking a bit nervous. "You have some place you need to be, someone ready to call the cops if you don't show up, or do you wanna continue catching up? I do have a pretty nice hotel room just a few blocks away."
Rory looks at him, hesitating, and he quickly continues:
"I really mean catching up, as in talking. Nothing else, even though hotel room might gave you the impression I meant something else, I just meant…it's freezing cold out here…and hypothermia isn't all that fun…so I hear…I'm sorry. I'll stop talking and walk you back to your place now. I didn't mean to…"
"Some more catching up sounds nice", Rory interrupts him. "Which way is your hotel?"