Summary: Jess gets his ex-girlfriend pregnant, which gets her fired and him panicked, which prompts a move back to Stars Hollow where the not-so-happy couple are joined on their journey to up-and-coming parenthood by everyone's favorite Stars Hollow couple. Hormones, snark, and name calling run amok as Jess struggles to get his life somewhere while coming to terms with fatherhood.

"Jess?"

He stood there in blank-faced shock, the whole situation incredibly surreal.

"Jess?" His girlfriend – well, ex-girlfriend – repeated, waving her hand in front of his face, her expression a mixture of stressed annoyance and genuine worry.

"Are you okay?"

"I have to," Jess snapped back to reality – as well as he could in the moment – and grabbed his coat from the lawn chair he'd tossed it on – the sole piece of furniture occupying the prized space next to his front door.

Most people had end tables and cute little bowls to dump things in, but he had a lawn chair. It had started as a stupid joke – somebody had brought the damn thing here at a party and nobody had taken it when he finally managed to get them to leave the next day.

"Don't sweat it, babe," Rachel had told him, slinging her arms over his shoulders and giving him a kiss where his shoulder met his neck – a guaranteed distraction at any moment. "We can always use it as a key holder."

He'd forgotten about finding its owner shortly thereafter while Rachel did amazing things with her tongue and her body…

His gaze involuntarily dropped down her body now, his eyes focusing in on her slightly rounded midsection.

A baby. With him. As the father.

It was both the most exhilarating and terrifying moment in his life. Even worse than when his mother unceremoniously dumped him on a bus for the dinky little town of Stars Hollow. Almost equal with the first time he'd locked eyes with a certain blue eyed brunette…

"I have to go," he finally finished his previous thought, his expression taking on the most peculiar tilt as he reluctantly raised his gaze from her stomach to look Rachel dead in the eye.

"Just, don't go anywhere. I'll be back, I promise. Make yourself at home." His gaze swept his apartment on a wince.

He had the bare minimum of furniture. A ripped up lazyboy, a second hand couch and a television stand the previous occupant had left behind because it wobbled.

"Jess? Are you okay?" Rachel hugged her arms around her middle, her expression so stressed Jess found himself taking a step forward, his arms opening instinctively.

Equally instinctive, Rachel threw herself in them. She shuddered for a few seconds before gradually stilling.

"It'll be okay, babe," he promised, the platitude taking on a genuine note as he kissed the top of her head. "I promise."

"I got fired from my job today," Rachel murmured into his chest before tilting her head back to stare up in his face, tears barely marring the lines of her lovely face.

And she was lovely. A blue eyed brunette – the first of his many girlfriends to interrupt the endless line of brown eyed blondes since Rory – she had flawless skin, full lips, and a body to die for.

"Can't have fat girls working the bar. Geezus, Jess, what am I going to do?"

"Nothing," Jess replied, giving her one last tight squeeze before releasing her to pull on his jacket. "You don't have to do anything, babe. I've got it covered."

His smile must have reassured her because some of the unhappy tension she seemed to be carrying in her shoulders dissipated as they slumped down.

"I'll just be a couple of minutes, I promise. Okay?" He searched her face for some reassurance which she offered in the form of a shaky smile.

"Okay," she agreed, rubbing her arms and smiling a genuine smile for the first time in weeks, it seemed. "You still have some Kung Pow chicken from General Yin's?"

"When don't I?" Jess joked with an adorable half-smile. "Help yourself. Just give me five minutes."

"Okay." Breathing out on a sigh, he watched her turn and head over to the small fridge in the corner, his eyes traveling the lines of her body, his heart thudding heavy in his chest for several long moments with the niggling reminder that she was carrying his kid.

Shaking his head, pushing that thought aside was the only way he managed to make it out of his apartment and down the three flights of stairs to the street below.

There was a pay phone there, the one he used to make calls when he needed to and boy did he ever need to make one now.

His mental lexicon of people to call was short and sweet.

He could call his mother – she and TJ had a cell phone plan with a great long distance plan and he had no doubt she'd be thrilled to hear from her eldest child. But Doula had an ear infection last time he called, and their newest kid, Robbie, was barely sleeping through the night.

He could call Rory…

Hell no. That was the last thing either of them needed. Ever. A call from your ex in the middle of the night saying 'Hi, it's me, Jess, listen, I got my ex-girlfriend pregnant, care to provide some emotional support and tell me what to do next?'

He couldn't help it, though – every major event in his life and his first thought was always 'Call Rory' or 'I have to share this with Rory'.

It was an instinctive knee-jerk reaction and at that second he was almost thrilled that he didn't have enough money to afford a cell phone. Depositing money in a pay phone provided for a few precious seconds he'd needed in order to regain his sanity.

There were friends and acquaintances – his publishers would probably help him. But were they really the first people he wanted to tell?

"Hello?"

Jess nearly dropped the phone as the familiar voice of his gruff-toned Uncle and the man he privately – and occasionally publicly – credited for saving his life sounded from the receiver.

"Hello? Who is this?" That familiar note of annoyed impatience had Jess grinning as he relaxed back against the bricks behind him.

"Luke?" He spoke on a sigh, his hand tucked firmly in his jacket pocket, the other gripping the receiver so tight his knuckles were practically neon.

"Jess?" Hearing that note of surprise in his Uncle's voice made the fact that his fingers had instinctively dialed his number without his minds expressed permission easier to bare.

"Yeah, it's me," Jess let out a short, humorless laugh. "Last person you expected to be hearing from, right?"

"How are you?" Luke asked, a genuinely warm note in his voice giving Jess pause. "It's been a while. Liz says you have an apartment in New York? Near Greenwich?"

"Yeah, you know – home of the beatniks and up and coming writers."

"Sounds like your version of heaven."

"Pretty much," Jess agreed before lapsing into a familiar pattern of silence. On the other end of the line, Luke's curiosity practically vibrated through the line.

"So," Luke – predictably – was the first to break the silence. "What's up?"

Here was the difference between old Jess and new Jess – Old Jess would react defensively. Old Jess would have made a snarky comment guaranteed to piss Luke off faster than you could sneeze. Old Jess would hang up the phone right now because he'd be convinced that he could take care of things all on his own.

Old Jess would never had made this call.

"I need your help." And Old Jess definitely never would have asked for anything until it was too late.

If you had asked Luke ten things he would have thought never would happen today, Jess calling him wouldn't have even been on it, the possibility was so slim.

But here he was, calling and admitting to something so odd – so strange for the Jess he knew – that he actually stuck a finger in his ear to clear out all of the wax before asking him to repeat himself.

"I need you help Uncle Luke."

It was the Uncle that had him straightening, all humor – small as it was – he may have found with the current odd little situation disappearing in a blink.

"Tell me."

How do you tell the guy who made you the man you are that you did something as incredibly stupid as getting a girl knocked up?

Granted, snarky Jess was pointing out that Luke had done the same thing – April was the perfect evidence of that. But that was different.

Luke hadn't found out about his daughter until she was almost a teenager. If he had known about her sooner there was no doubt in Jess's mind he would have been there from Day One.

Rachel was three months along and scared to death.

He hadn't even thought to ask her how she was feeling about this whole thing.

Stupid, stupid Jess.

He was fighting old insecurities and barely winning against them when Luke's voice came back through the line.

"Where are you Jess? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are you at the hospital or in jail? Do you need me to come bail you out?"

"Typical." There was a wry note to the word that surprised Jess. Even better, his defensive reaction segued effortlessly into amusement at Luke's obvious panic at the thought of Jess being in jail.

"What? That you're in jail?"

"No, that the first place you'd think I was was in jail."

"You're not in jail?"

"No."

"Then where the hell are you?"

"New York."

"Jess." There was that tone signaling the end of Luke's patience and Jess was full on grinning now. He remembered – fondly now – the days where annoying his gruff overprotective and hardass uncle were the highlight of his life.

"Luke," he replied, back to his old monosyballic smart-ass self.

"That's it. If you don't tell me what's wrong right now, I'm hanging up the phone."

"I got a girl pregnant." The words escaped in one quick rush and the light-hearted feeling he'd been getting from their banter was crushed under a sudden overwhelming weight of – was it apprehension?

Did he, Jess Mariano, actually – God forbid – care what his Uncle thought?

"Luke?" Lorelai's voice was a welcome break in the weird twilight zone his life had spun into.

He'd considered the likelihood of a lot a possible outcomes for Jess – jail time or life as an angry homeless person among the worst – but getting a girl pregnant?

"Who's on the phone?" Lorelai moseyed up to the counter, curious expression in place. It was one of his favorite faces on her, which was good, because Lorelai was always curious.

Right now, though, he could only appreciate it peripherally. The majority of his focus was with the kid on the other end of the line.

"Are you okay?" That was his first thought because – Geezus – Jess as a father?

There was a harsh bark of humorless laughter on the other end – a sound that was damn near to the sound of a heart breaking.

"I'm great, all things considering." Luke could hear Jess taking a shaky breath, immediately followed by the sound of a choked sob.

"No," Jess answered honestly. "I'm not. I don't know what to do, Uncle Luke. I'm not…I'm not ready for this."

"What kind of not ready are we talking about? Liz pre-TJ kind of not ready or running-around-like-a-chicken-with-its-head-cut-off kind of not ready?"

"It's a tough decision," Jess let out a watery laugh and Luke could just picture his tough manly nephew reaching up and roughly swiping at the tears in his eyes. "But if I have to chose, it's more like the second with a hint of the first thrown in. I mean, I live in a dive barely habitable by one person, let alone two. And a baby? They need things like safety and security and the window by my fire escape hasn't been able to lock in years and the security chain on the door is broken. And the windows – they don't have screens. If I left one open, the kid could just roll out and – geezus – I left Rachel alone in my apartment. What if she rolls out the window?"

Jess was rapidly sprinting off into the land of paranoia – a place every perspective father usually found himself visiting on numerous occasions. Luke had been there a time or two with April, but he could only imagine how much worse it was for somebody whose progeny could not yet recite the elements of the periodic table in alphabetic order as well as weight and order in which they were discovered.

"Breath, Jess," Luke instructed into the phone, causing Lorelai's eyebrows to skyrocket.

"Is he okay?" she asked, her concern evident. While Jess wasn't exactly her favorite person in the world, he was a member of Luke's family and important to him which made him important to Lorelai by default…mostly.

Truth was, the kid had grown on her. Especially after his last couple of visits to Rory. He'd mellowed some, growing from a snippy insecure teen with a massive superiority complex to a slightly less snippy, more secure intellectual with a slightly smaller superiority complex.

"I don't know yet," Luke replied to Lorelai as he waited for Jess to say something, anything.

"I need you help," Jess repeated over the line. "Can you, I don't know, come up here? Please?"

There was such quiet desperation in those words that Luke was already reaching for his coat.

"Give me your address."

Rachel was sleeping on his couch when he got back and he was immediately swamped by a wave of guilt that he'd left her here by herself without offering her the use of the bedroom.

Granted, it was a crappy bedroom. A bed, a bookshelf, and a small table were the extent of his furniture. The table was good and solid, perfect for his alarm clock and books. The bookshelf was overflowing, but then again, it was always overflowing. And the bed…

It was a crap bed with a crap mattress, but the mattress had been free and the frame had been cheap. They'd been some of the first things he'd bought with the money he'd gotten from his publisher.

Now, watching Rachel sleep on the couch and feeling completely helpless to make things better for her, he headed for the fridge and a beer in an effort to stave off an impending panic attack.

Hartford was about a two hour drive. If he was quiet, Rachel could sleep and he could panic in peace for those two hours.

He lasted five minutes before he cracked. Dumping the rest of his beer down the sink, he quietly and efficiently set about cleaning up.

He started with the dishes, washing them carefully by hand and drying them equally careful before putting them away.

He cleaned the fridge next – dumping old foods, windexing the moldy shelves and having another spurt of panic.

He couldn't have a kid here, not with the possibilities of mold and asbestos. And what about lead based paint?

His mother had never come out and said it, but Jess was pretty sure some of the old places they used to stay in had had lead based paint in the walls. He blamed that for his stunted growth and overwhelming hormonal mood swings as a teenager.

Oh god, teenagers.

What if he had a boy? What if his boy got a girl pregnant? What then?

How was he going to deal with being a grandfather when he wasn't even sure if he could handle being a father?

And a girl…geezus.

That would be God's ultimate punishment: a blue eyed girl with Rachel's good looks and his smart mouth.

And boys…oh, boy.

She would never date.

Ever.

He'd lock her up in a nunnery if he had to.

He'd moved on to the bedroom and his piles of laundry while he processed his irrational thought processes.

He was being stupid and unrealistic; the rational part of him was quick to point that out.

The irrational part of him was too busy having a field day to pay much attention.

What if the kid had problems? What if it was autistic? What if it had some weird degenerative disease?

What if it was sick? What if it wasn't his?

That last thought stopped him dead – stone cold dead.

Was the kid even his?

He counted the months in his head.

It was March right now. That meant….December.

Were he and Rachel still together in December?

Holding on to a Ramones T-shirt, Jess scrunched up his face as he pushed his brain to remember.

Christmas…he'd visited Liz and TJ in Kansas. Dusty place, oppressive heat despite the season. He'd driven home instead of flying – planes were always too crowded and there was always that one kid who wouldn't shut up and you fantasized about choking until the person sitting next to you decided to see if the bathrooms were free…for the rest of the flight.

He'd made it home before midnight and Rachel had been waiting for him and she hadn't been wearing her happy face.

He was older than her by three years physically and about ten years mentally. She wanted to party and have fun – he wanted to read a book and write his novels.

She'd fallen in love with his artistic nature and it had taken him leaving her at home while he visited his mother to make her realize that that was pretty much the only thing she loved about him.

They'd had sex, once more for old times sake. He remembered thinking how beautiful she was – the power had been out and all they'd had were a couple of candles and the candlelight had flickered across her olive dusted skin to give her a golden glow.

He didn't remember a condom and he definitely didn't remember much of the following day. In love or not in love, Rachel had been a big part of his life for long enough that he'd missed her when she was gone.

It'd been an inevitable conclusion, though – neither of them was what the other wanted. They'd just been two people at a place in their life that happened to intersect.

And now it was intersecting once more and he was pretty sure he was the father.

One of the things he'd liked about Rachel was her solid nature. She may have been a bartender by night and a bohemian type by day, but she'd been loyal. She'd admired, but she hadn't touched other men and he'd done the same for women.

No, Rachel was a lot of things, but she wasn't a cheater and she wasn't a one night stand kind of girl. He'd paid enough attention to her life and knew enough of her friends to know she hadn't been seeing anyone since their break-up.

And now this…

God, Rachel. If this was hard for him, he could only imagine what it was like for her.

He was used to instability – he'd tried hard to build a foundation for his life these last couple of years, but it hadn't seemed to be going anywhere. He'd been resigned to the fact, determined to press onward and push a little harder each day.

But Rachel…she'd been a hit. Her boss loved her, her customers loved her, everybody had loved her. And now…they'd left her. Pregnant and vulnerable, they'd abandoned her because she no longer fit with their lifestyle.

It was unbelievably effed up.

Abandoning his now neatly folded laundry, he moved on cats feet back into the living room, carefully extracting the remote control from Rachel's grip and clicking the television on as he settled carefully onto the couch next to her.

A quiet minute passed, then another and another until he completely lost track of them – lost track of himself – in some meaningless Discovery Channel wash about baby penguins in Alaska.

He was watching but not really paying attention to some commentary about oil spills when Rachel stirred next to him.

"Jess?"

Her sleepy voice and sleepy eyes just about melted his heart and he found himself smiling at her with genuine warmth. Wrong for him or not, Rachel was carrying his kid and that made her something special in his life. Even if he had no idea what to do with a baby.

"Hey, babe," he murmured, running a hand across her tangled locks to smooth them away from her face. Bright liquid blue eyes blinked sleepily up at him as Rachel yawned and started to levy herself upright.

"What time is it?" she asked, already turning her head to glance for a clock.

"Almost eight," Jess answered, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder and pushing her back down next to him. "Just relax. My Uncle's coming over to help us out."

"Your Uncle?" Rachel turned her head so that she was staring at him upside down. "The one with the diner?"

"Yeah, Luke." He'd told Rachel about the diner in one of his weak moments – usually the women he dated knew nothing about his life outside of New York. His brief foray into the intriguing world of Stars Hollow was a private hurt and joy he reserved as memories on lonely days.

"How's he going to help us out?" There was both curiosity and morose resignation in that sentence and Jess found himself shifting uncomfortably because – honestly – he had no idea.

Calling Luke had been an instinctive reaction to things – every emotional thing in his life since he'd turned seventeen had most of its ties with Luke, Stars Hollow, and that damned diner.

And Rory…

"I don't know. Advice, money maybe." Luke always gave him money and he always promised to pay it back. And he was, too. Small, incremental payments deposited in Luke's accounts once a month. He'd made a significant dent over the last two years and the thought of going back into the private debt didn't exactly sit well, but he wasn't going to let his stupid pride ruin this. Kids needed care, and care cost money. If Luke was willing to help while Jess tried to find a better job with higher pay, Jess wasn't going to say no.

"Oh." Rachel was quiet for a long moment – both of them were. Jess brushed his hand in steady strokes across her head while Rachel frowned up at the ceiling, thinking deep thoughts.

"Can I stay with you?"

"What?" Jess was startled out of his own thoughts by the question.

"In your apartment. Can I stay with you? I have no problem sleeping on the couch," she hastily added when she caught sight of Jess's less than happy face.

"What? No! No." Rachel's face fell and tears were actually forming and Jess was suddenly high on a cloud of pure panic.

"I mean, no, not on the couch. You can have the bed, except, I don't know. Maybe the couch is better for you? I know baby's make your back hurt, and so does my bed, but I don't know about the couch since I've never actually been able to fall asleep on it and geezus. Just…geezus."

Rachel was a little flabbergasted and a lot amused by verbose Jess. They'd had long conversations before, but this was the first time ever that she'd heard him babble, much less seen it.

It was kind of cute – enduring, even – and for the millionth time she found herself wishing that he had fallen in love with her instead of her hair and her eyes and that she could love him for more than just his way with words and soulful expressions.

"It's okay," Rachel pushed herself upright, the task encumbered somewhat by her belly. She hadn't known she was pregnant until she was three months in – her periods had always been irregular and she'd always had digestion issues, so throwing up really hadn't been much of a surprise. But she'd been tired all the time and her body ached all the time.

She'd gone to the doctors expecting to be told she was coming down with a cold or the flu and instead received one hell of a shock in the form of a positive pregnancy test and an offer to do a sonogram.

She'd politely declined, in too much of a state of shock to really appreciate or understand the offer.

The first person she'd told had been her roommate and former friend Tanya.

Tanya had promptly and – Rachel had been told – gleefully informed Terry, their boss.

Who'd promptly fired her.

"I can't have a pregnant chick manning the bar, kid," he'd informed her in his dry raspy six-packs a day voice. "Not good for the image and definitely not good for the baby. Come back in six months or so and we'll talk."

In six months or so she'd have a kid, a living breathing human being with wants and needs and she wasn't even twenty-one yet.

What the hell was she supposed to do with a kid?

Going to Jess had been the next logical step and the only option she'd really had. She couldn't go home and there was no way she wasn't going to tell him. She'd been down that path before – not knowing who your father was because he didn't even know you existed.

And Jess for all his attitudes and ideals, was a decent guy. She knew he'd take care of her, which was good because she didn't think she could handle taking care of herself.

With her job went her insurance and with her insurance went any possibility for pre-natal care. She could find another job, but she didn't think anybody would hire a high school dropout whose only qualifications were making a mean ass mojito and being able to calculate change from a fifty in five seconds or less.

She'd thought about an abortion for all of five seconds before dismissing the idea out and out. There was no way in hell she could be responsible for killing another human being, even one who technically didn't exist yet.

Still, having a baby…

Wasn't she supposed to have some warm glowy feelings right about now? A Hallmark moment where she placed her hand on her stomach and felt the baby kick?

Did she even care?

She was having some real connection difficulties with this new life that suddenly decided to invade her body. Right now, the only thing she felt was tired…and a little hungry.

She was about to ask Jess if they could order a pizza when somebody started pounding on the door.

"Jess?" He was being loud, but Luke really didn't care and he was even more positive that nobody in this building even cared. He'd passed two hookers, a pimp, three drug dealers, seven users, and an innumerable amount of whatevers on his way up, and those were only the visible freaks. There was no telling how many lowlifes were hidden behind closed doors, his nephew not included.

"Luke," Jess yanked his door open, his obvious relief giving way to a huge scowl when he caught sight of the person directly behind his uncle.

"Lorelai," he greeted the woman with a frosty nod.

"Jess." Lorelai was not a member of Jess's fanclub. He'd done a lot of stupid things and caused too many problems for both her family and Luke's in the past for her to think she'd ever be, but she'd been here. She knew what it was like to suddenly find out you're going to be a parent and have no idea what to do.

It was a point of sympathy and if he had called for any other reason, there was almost zero chance of her being here now.

"Where's the girl?"

"Inside." Ignoring Jess's scowl and his obvious desire for her to be elsewhere, Lorelai pushed past him into the apartment, expertly hiding her wince as she focused in on the sole other occupant of the dingy room.

"You don't look like a Luke," was the first thing the girl said to her.

"Oooh, nice. I like you already." Lorelai gave the girl a quick once over, smiling as she extended her hand. "Lorelai Gilmore. I'm Luke's girlfriend."

"Fiance," Luke reminded her from the doorway.

"Right," Lorelai agreed, her smile never wavering. "Forgot. Fiance. As in, we're getting married. Cause we love each other."

"Right. Just remember to keep telling yourself that," Luke muttered as he brushed past them, heading into the kitchen.

"I will," was Lorelai's chipper response.

"Seriously?" Jess's gaze darted between the two older adults, his expression borderline horrified. "You two?"

"Yes, us two. Why? Is that surprising to you?" Lorelai had him in that annoyingly perceptive gaze of hers and it was just so damn similar to Rory's that he actually averted his gaze, turning his attention elsewhere rather than answer her.

"Your windows are fine, Jess," Luke came to his nephews rescue, keeping his eyes on the window locks even as he felt the weight of his nephews grateful gaze.

"Was something wrong with the windows?" Rachel liked Lorelai; she was weird and cheery and you couldn't help but smile at her, but she was confused about the windows. What did they have to do with anything?

"I was afraid, you know," Jess rubbed the back of his neck and shifted his gaze to the ceiling, uncomfortable now with the realization that he'd been suffering from a moment of absolute stupidity when he'd been ranting to Luke earlier.

"Uh, nothing's wrong with the windows, sweetheart. Luke's just being Luke."

"Uh, huh. And Jess is just being Jess." Rachel's eyebrow arched and her tone had just enough snark to cause Lorelai's grin to widen.

"Ye-huh. Now you're getting it. Come on, let's go find some ice cream. My treat."

"It's the middle of March," Jess protested as Lorelai grabbed Rachel's coat and helped her put it on. "She doesn't need ice cream! It could make her sick!"

"I could go for some Chunky Monkey," Rachel admitted as she shrugged into her coat. "Or some Rocky Road."

"Oh! Oh! Phish Food."

"What? No! No way!"

"Jess," Luke started, his voice a mixture of amusement and warning as the younger man visibly freaked.

"No, Luke! I don't care how much you love her, she is not feeding the mother of my child fish food!"

"Why not?" Lorelai blinked innocently at Jess. "It's so good."

"Lorelai." Lorelai grinned at Luke's annoyed face.

"What?" She turned that devilishly innocent gaze towards him.

"Phish Food, Jess," Rachel took pity on her ex. "It's a type of ice cream."

"I don't care – what?" Jess cut himself off mid rant to duck his head and peer at her in confusion. "Seriously?"

He turned his doubtful gaze to Luke who shrugged his shoulders, then fixated on Lorelai, who's grin widened at his doubtful expression.

"Seriously, dude. Ben and Jerry's. Look 'em up."

Jess was remembering now one of the reasons he'd found Lorelai so annoying in his youth – her ability to so totally twist reality around him that he found himself wanting to apologize despite the fact that he was positive he hadn't done anything wrong.

He'd never been so happy to see her leave as he was then until he realized her hasty exit with Rachel left him with Luke – a scowling, obviously upset, hands-on-his-hips Luke.

Shit.

A/N: This seemed like a pretty good place to leave off. I only have this chapter written as of right now, but I wanted to see what you guys thought. Is it good? Tell me your thoughts, hopes, and dreams! Offer suggestions and I'll try to include them! And any information you have about pregnancy would be great since I'm flying blind in that category…

On another note...be forewarned - while I have plans for this story I'm lacking in time and inspiration. Updates may be extremely slow. Like more than a month slow. I'm sorry but life...what can you do?

-Abandon