A/N: I know this is a very UC couple, but please give this story a chance and review…Tell me what you think. I want to try to make this believable in only a slight ooc way.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls or the lyrics from "Speeding Cars"

Lorelai sat on the gazebo quietly. Once again, she had ended an awful relationship. After Luke, it was Chris, and now it was no one. She and Chris had ended yesterday after she had discovered something especially grisly.

Lorelai walked into Chris's apartment in Boston. It was especially quiet, all the lights were turned off.

"Chris?" She called out. She walked towards his bedroom, and opened the door. She turned around. She was in shock. There was Chris, hurriedly getting dressed and a blonde doing the same.

"Lor! I can explain, you misunderstood!" Chris yelled running after her in the hallway. She whipped around, angry.

"What were you doing, then? Just showing her your underwear? Were you doing a breast exam, Chris?" She turned around and walked off. He caught up with her and grabbed her shoulder, she threw his hand away. "Get the fuck away from me!" She yelled, then ran.

He didn't run after her. She didn't know whether to be relieved, or hurt. So she was both. To be honest, her heart hadn't been in the relationship anyway. In the end, with Luke, her heart had disappeared, she still hadn't found it. Now, here she was, almost thirty-nine and still alone. She looked through the window of Luke's, there he was wiping off the counters. It was almost ten. He looked up, and for a moment they stared at each other. She smiled at him, and lifter her hand to wave. He did the same, and nodded at her.

It had been five months since they had broken up, and finally they were past it. She even occasionally stopped by for coffee or breakfast. The first few months, it was painful to her to just pass Luke's. But once they had both lived through those months, it got better- she wasn't hurt by him anymore. She hoped that they could even be friends with more time. Maybe not friends like they used to be, but still friends. She was one of the people that could get past his icy exterior. She missed his friendship, she only slightly missed him in a romantic sense. Just then, a beat-up old car pulled up in front of Luke's. She immediately recognized it. Jess. She remembered Rory telling her about visiting Jess in Philadelphia, supposedly Jess had reformed but she wouldn't believe it until she saw it.

Jess got out of his car. Stars Hollow. Why had he let himself get roped into living here again? Philly had been great, but the gallery that he had been working at had been sold, and the new owners wanted to completely change the look of the place, which had left him with a good chunk of money, but no job. Luke had convinced Andrew to give Jess a job, then begged Jess to move back.

He looked around, and spotted a lone woman with wild hair sitting at the gazebo, looking at the ground. He wondered why she looked so sad, what had happened to her to make her look so jaded. He looked closer to her, and realized he recognized her. It was Lorelai Gilmore, and despite their past treatment of each other, he felt bad for her. Although Luke made their break up sound like it was her fault, he could see that Luke had been too wrapped up in his daughter to see who Lorelai was anymore. She looked up and studied him, for a short moment, their eyes met, then he turned around to get his bag. He heaved it onto his back, shut his car door, then walked into the diner.

Luke gave a wide grin when Jess walked through the diner's door.

"You actually came!" He said happily, then walked over and gave Jess a hug, patting him on the back. He looked over Jess's shoulder to see if Lorelai was still sitting sadly on the gazebo, but she had disappeared. They broke away from each other.

"How is everything…I know after your break-up with her it was bad…" So Jess had seen Lorelai, too.

"I didn't think we'd ever see each other again, but she stops in once in a while, and from time to time we have a friendly conversation. It's better. I think that we can be friends, we could never be more after she slept with Christopher the night we broke up, but we're better." Jess smiled.

"That's good. You do have to move on from that stuff." Luke nodded in agreement.

"So," He said shifting to another subject, "Andrew said you can start tomorrow if you're ready, but you have to at least go there tomorrow so you guys can discuss what the job entails and everything. He said you could also do the job part time , if you want to go back to Stars Hollow High." Jess shook her head and gave Luke a smirk.

"Actually," he said pulling a piece of paper out of his bag, "I got my G.E.D. I wanted to surprise you." Luke grinned and took the certificate from Jess's hand.

"Wow! This is real." He paused, "I'm proud of you, Jess." Jess nodded.

"Thanks, Luke." They both were silent for a moment. "I'm kind of tired, so I think I'm going to go to sleep." Luke nodded and went back to the counter, while Jess lugged his stuff up, and set his bag by his bed. He had shipped the rest of his stuff. It was so weird to Jess, five years ago he had come here in almost the same way, but now he was changed and responsible. He was glad he had changed. He set his head on the pillow and pulled the covers over his shoulders. Then, he closed his eyes. Except he couldn't get Lorelai's face out of his head, so tragically beautiful. Like she had been through a war, and now she had to deal with all the aftermath.

Lorelai walked away from the gazebo, slowly back to her house. It was late, but she wasn't tired. After losing her heart, she couldn't quite grasp how she was feeling. She was happy, but she was sad too. Looking into Jess's eyes immediately made her realize that maybe he had changed, he looked so much softer, and his face when looking at her was almost friendly.

She robotically got ready for bed. First, she put on her pajamas, then brushed her teeth, and finally she lay down, letting her head hit the pillow. She began to think of Jess, was he back permanently? What was he doing here? She shook her head. Why was she thinking about this?

The next morning, she got up early to head out to the inn. She changed into her favorite dress that wrapped around her, with a white flowery design on the bottom. She did her make-up flawlessly, and put her favorite necklace on, a small diamond hanging just below her neck. Her father had given it to her when she turned thirty. Her mother didn't know, she just assumed that they were still ignoring each other.

She drove the Jeep to Luke's, she felt like coffee today. She was feeling so much better, now that she and Chris were done. Her heart had disappeared way before Chris. When she lost Luke. Now that they were slowly coming back into each others lives, she felt like parts of her heart were re-appearing. She sat at a small table by the window and waited for Luke to come up to her table. But it wasn't Luke. She was looking up at Jess, who immediately poured her coffee. She smiled at him, she would be friendly.

"Hey…Are you back here for good?" She asked him. He nodded.

"For awhile, at least." He said, being friendly too. They paused, looking at each other again. "Do you know what you want?" He asked, coming out of his trance. She nodded.

"Oh! Um, yeah… Can I get blueberry pancakes and a side of bacon?" She asked. He nodded. She sat quietly for the twenty minutes her food cooked. Jess watched her, she looked so pensive, and so different from when he had last seen her. She looked jaded, like the world had finally got to her, but still warm and funny like she used to be. She had the same spark, but more real. Finally, Cesar called "Order Up!" And Jess took Lorelai's plate before Luke got to it, and served it to her.

"Miss Gilmore." He said in a waiterly voice. She smiled and laughed a little.

"Mr. Mariano." They paused.

"I saw you on the gazebo last night." He said, softer.

"I saw you come out of your car." He sat down across from her,

"You looked sad." He stated, like he didn't need an explanation, but she could supply one if she wanted. She looked down at her food and began to pick, then she looked up at him for a moment.

"Hard couple of days." She said taking a bite of her pancakes. "My boyfriend was cheating on me." She added, for some reason it felt good to just say it and he was so easy to talk to.

"That's really tough." He said. "I'm sorry. You've had a hard couple of months, haven't you?" She nodded.

"I have…How could you tell?"

"You look different than I remember you, good different, but also like you've been dealing with a lot of shit for awhile."

"Yeah. You look different too, like you have a grasp on life." He smiled, and she smiled back. How could she read him so well?

"I do. After all these years."

"After all these years." She repeated, they were staring closely into each others eyes when a customer called for Jess.

"Come for dinner. I'm working at the bookstore, but I'm working here at the dinner rush." He said. And she wanted to come, somehow she felt a hunger for more Jess. She didn't know why.

Luke stared at Lorelai and Jess, they looked so different than how they used to interact. They were friendly. There was almost a romantic spark.