Monday afternoon found Rory a nervous wreck.

She wasn't nervous about going on the assignment tomorrow, per se, but she had serious reservations about discussing it with Dean. Dean was great, but Dean was protective, and she couldn't think of a time she'd had a project involving men that he'd been supportive of.

She groaned thinking back to the year before, when she and her classmate Tristan were meant to kiss in a Romeo and Juliet skit. Dean had been less than cool about it, giving Tristan dirty looks and hovering over them during rehearsal. Granted, Tristan had instigated a lot, but it really wasn't her proudest moment of being Dean's girlfriend.

Rory looks at the town square, then at her watch, and again at the town square. She hadn't been able to focus all day at school waiting for the inevitable fight. It was nearly 3:00 now, and she knows that any minute Dean will find her on their bench.

Suddenly his tall, sweet frame comes into her peripherals and she stands up, immediately offering him a smile, peck on the lips, and the second cup of Luke's coffee she'd been holding.

"Hey, you," she says with a smile, fidgeting a little as he sits next to her, draping an arm over her shoulders.

"Hey," Dean returns with an equally big smile, taking a sip of his coffee.

"So how was your day?" Rory starts, leaning into her boyfriend. Her heart is beating a mile a minute, and she hopes he can't hear or feel it.

"It was okay, you know, school is school," he shrugs, kissing the top of her head. "Lane says hi."

"Oh yeah, she's in your Chemistry class, right?"

"Yeah, we're actually partners a lot of the time for lab," he nods, putting down his coffee to shift, wrapping his other arm across Rory's body.

"So how about you?" He adds, smiling down at her.

"Oh, you know, school," she says with a forced nonchalant wave, earning her a skeptical look.

"Rory, I know you," he starts, smiling uncertainly. "You love school."

"I do love school," she confirms.

"And you love talking about school."

"I do."

"So school was 'school'? Something's weird about that," Dean says certainly, ducking his head to catch Rory's eyes, who had been avoiding direct contact with him.

Rory takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, furrowing her eyebrows. Here it goes.

"Well, actually Dean," she begins, picking at a cuticle, "I have something to talk to you about."

"Okay," he says, chuckling a little at how strange she's behaving. His initial instinct is to feel nervous, but it's Rory. Rory felt everything was a huge deal, and he'd been learning to respond first with sincere warmth. It saved him a good ten minutes of beating around the bush with a classic Rory Gilmore ramble by doing so.

"Okay, so, you know I have that assignment for my class, my social engagement class, right?"

"Yeah," he nods slowly. "The one with the year long group?"

"Right, great memory!" Rory chirps, shifting on the bench to face him.

"And we were given assignments on Friday, which we have no say over, so of course that's not really fair, but it's Chilton, and we're seniors, so it's good for us to get a taste of the real world, you know what I mean?" She gushes determinedly, looking at Dean to continue.

"Sure," he checks, feeling a little confused as to where this was going. A classmate from the year before crossed his mind, and Dean felt himself grow irritated. "And by no choice, do you mean you have no say in who you're partnered with?"

"Oh, no, no, I'm partnered with no one. Just me, myself, and I," she assures him, her speech picking up pace.

He feels silly for jumping the gun and relaxes. He looks up, contemplating, but just shrugs and laughs.

"Rory, I wish you'd just say what you wanna say," he chuckles, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I'll be okay with whatever you need to tell me."

Rory considers this and smiles a genuine smile, feeling relaxed. "Really?"

"Really," he assures her, touching his forehead to hers, and planting a small kiss on her lips. Rory smiles into the kiss, and Dean can feel her nearly bounce from excitement.

"Okay! See, I have to go to an anger management group. It's going to be Tuesdays and Thursdays because that's good for mom's schedule, and it'll be 5:30-7:00 most days but sometimes until 7:30, which is when you work at Doose's lately anyhow, so it won't take away from the time I have to see you."

"Sounds fair," he nods.

"The only thing is -" Rory stops when Dean gives her a look, almost like she's pulling the rug from underneath of him "- don't give me that look! It's okay! It's just, it's kinda far, in Norwalk."

Dean grimaces.

"Norwalk, huh? Rory, that's pretty late for you to be driving home by yourself," Dean says, clear concern in his voice. Rory was still getting comfortable driving. Sure she'd taken Lorelai's Jeep, and she often used the car he'd built for her, but Rory rarely drove at night.

"I know, but I figured that I could try it, and if I got nervous at all, you'd know where to find me," she smiles widely now, tugging on his hand. "Wouldn't that be fun? An hour of just talking and listening to music and drinking coffee at night?"

Dean can't help but smile. He rolls his eyes playfully, shakes his head, and kisses Rory's forehead.

"That doesn't sound so terrible," he admits. Rory leans in to kiss him again before pulling away, smiling. She checks her watch and frowns.

"Don't you have to get ready for your shift tonight?" She asks, pouting. Dean looks at his own watch, returns her frown, and grabs his coffee.

"Yeah, I better get going. Taylor's been on everyone's case lately ever since a few beets went missing." Dean shrugs and the two get up, walking towards the market.

"Beets?" Rory asks incredulously, taking a sip of her coffee. She clicks her tongue in annoyance; the coffee had gotten cold. Probably from her gripping it so tightly while she'd been waiting.

"Yeah," Dean shakes his head. "Apparently beets have been going missing every week, so he's monitoring when we clock in with the count of beets."

"Are beets that big of a seller?"

"No, Taylor's just nuts."

The pair shrug and hug once they reach the doorway. Dean keeps his arms wrapped around Rory's waist as he pulls away, looking at her again.

"There wasn't anything else you needed to tell me right?" He checks, eyeing her softly. "You were just nervous about being so far for your project?"

Rory hesitates. The conversation had gone swimmingly as far as she was concerned. She was elated, because any other time she'd talked with Dean, it left her feeling kind of nauseous. She knew she hadn't told him it was an all-boys anger management group, but she wasn't sure it would be necessary.

The pit of her stomach hurt. She didn't want to lie to Dean. She studied his face, but her need to keep the peace won out over being completely honest with him.

"Yeah, I think that's it," she fibbed, quickly pulling away.

She held up her coffee. "I'm going to go get a new one and head home to study," she informs him, taking a step back.

"Alright, well hey, I'll call you when I'm done, okay?" He asks, kissing her one last time before letting her out of his reach.

"Okay!" She chirps and waves, nearly running away to Luke's.

As soon as she pushes through the diner door and takes a seat at the counter, Luke appears with a steaming coffee pot.

"Back already?" He asks, frowning. "You know, your mother is a horrendous example for you."

Rory giggles and shows Luke her nearly full coffee cup.

"Don't worry, this one just got cold," she reassures him. He smiles, shakes his head, and hands her a new cup.

"Thanks Luke," she says softly, staring down at the cup.

Luke cocks his head and puts the coffee pot down. He leans onto the counter, eying Rory a little.

"You okay?" He asks uncertainly. He wasn't very good at this - the asking of the feelings thing. But Rory was a great kid so he tried his best when it came to seeing her sad.

"Yeah, just feeling a little nauseous," she admits, shrugging with a small smile. "I'm okay, Luke. Thanks."

He nods but before he can really pry, Rory is getting up from her stool, heading back towards the door.

"I'll tell mom you say hi," she calls over her shoulder. He waves as she scurries away, making her exit.

A deep sigh escapes Rory's throat as she drags her feet home. She was feeling pretty awful about withholding the entirety of her assignment from her boyfriend. She bites her lip and takes a sip of coffee, hoping to fill some of the nervous void in the pit of her stomach. She spends the next few minutes walking home, trying to convince herself that she did the right thing.

Tuesday afternoon found Jess an irritable wreck.

The last thing he wanted to do was travel an hour out of the city to go to some stupid hippie group. He hadn't grown up talking about his feelings, and he had no intention to start now. And definitely not in a group with a bunch of pathetic losers who couldn't control their tempers.

He checks his watch, tapping his leg anxiously. He only had another twenty minutes on this bus before he had to walk ten minutes to the facility.

He grits his teeth, fidgeting with the magazine in his hands. He had bickered with Liz before leaving for the Intrepid Center, forgetting to bring decent reading material along. He really just wanted a cigarette.

He runs his right hand through his hair, frowning. He was feeling some mixture of annoyance and guilt over his conversation with his mother. He hadn't meant to prove her point in him maybe needing this more than he thought by raising his voice at her.

He bites his lip, looking over his shoulder to see the bus station in sight. Maybe he hadn't raised his voice, more like yelled and slammed the door on his way out.

He gets off the bus after it's pulled in, checks the side streets, and takes off in the direction he thinks is the Intrepid Center. He'd thought of every way possible to ditch, but with Principal Jeffreys breathing down his neck about it, he knew he had to go to at least the first week. Show some promise before disappointing the old man.

Jess didn't need anger management, he was sure of that. He just didn't take anyone's shit, especially not from the wealthier students; that wasn't a crime, that was self-preservation. And it really didn't have anything to do with money, more that he could talk circles around them when it came to school, and the rich kids got so worked up over it. He couldn't remember the last time he'd ever been the one to throw the first punch.

He makes a right and surveys his surroundings. He notes a large, sterile looking building about three blocks down, and decides that could be the place.

The closer he gets, the greater his feelings of not wanting to be there grows. Now he is a block away and sees bright green signs indicating that the building was, in fact, the Intrepid Center.

Jess sighs and checks his watch. It was 5:15, which was plenty of time for a cigarette.

He stands outside of the building, rocking on his heels. He holds the cigarette in his lips as he zipped up his jacket, tugging it closed roughly. It was unusually cold in Connecticut for September.

Who he assumes is a staff member walks by, comments on his smoking too close to the building. Jess just stares at them and blows out a ring of smoke. The staff member shakes her head, huffing, and walks inside, muttering about the punks that hang around this place. He smirks, looking away. Too easy.

"Excuse me?"

The small voice comes from behind him. He rolls his eyes, not bothering to turn as he talks.

"It's a free country, okay?" He mutters, waving his cigarette.

"That's good, but is this the Intrepid Center?" The voice counters.

Jess squints and turns around, taking another drag of his cigarette.

Rory stands there awkwardly as the boy in front of her turns around. She flushes a little bit, noting that he has a really nice face and dark eyes. They lock eyes and she feels a little strange with neither of them talking.

"Huh," he marvels to himself, shifting his weight lazily to look at her. Rory looks at him quizzically.

"So…?" Rory tries, rocking on her feet. She's feeling impatient now.

"What, no hello? That's not how you get what you want," he smirks. She raises her eyebrows at him and blushes a little. She doesn't know whether to agree with him or be annoyed that he isn't being helpful.

He seems to pick up on this and he nods to his right. She follows his nod and sees the bright green sign. A clear look of embarrassment crosses her face and Rory chuckles, shrugging her shoulders.

"Sorry, I'm running late, it screws up my vision and my manners," she jokes. "Hi," she adds as an afterthought.

"Hi," he repeats, chuckling. He takes one last drag of his cigarette and throws it on the ground, grinding it out with his foot.

Rory watches as he walks over to the door and holds it open. He looks at her and raises his eyebrows.

"Oh," she mumbles, scurrying past him. "Thanks!"

"Sure," he says easily.

Rory walks over in a rush to the front desk, where a frowning staff members grimaces as she comes to the desk.

"Yes?" She all but barks.

Rory is startled by her tone and fumbles over the sheet of paper in her hand. The boy from before stands to her right, leaning on the counter.

"Don't give her the third degree because you're pissed at me, lady," he says flatly, giving the staff member a bored look.

"Er?" Rory asks, turning to look at him and then again to the staff member. The staff member and the boy exchange dirty looks before the staff member sighs and asks for her name.

"Gilmore, Rory Gilmore."

"Nice name," the boy comments, but Rory can't tell if it's sincere or not. He's hard to read, but he doesn't look like he's being a jerk, so she smiles at him.

"And yours?" The staff member asks, forcing herself to look at him.

"Mariano."

"Jess?"

"That'd be me."

"Your dad must be so proud."

Rory looks as the boy, now Jess, she supposed, quickly sucks his teeth. Rory chuckles softly, watching as he bites back a snide remark.

"213," the staff member says to the two of them, handing them name tags and blue passes.

Jess looks at Rory from the side, cocking his head. His papers had said that it was an all boys group. He wonders if she's the shrink leading it. She doesn't look old or qualified enough.

"Thanks… Linda," Jess waves, squinting at the name tag. The staff member frowns again and flips her name tag over, burrowing herself into her chair behind the desk.

"So you're in 213, too?" Rory asks, looking hopefully at Jess. She wonders if he's also a student.

"Looks that way," he offers her with a half smile, pointing to the door on their left hand side.

"Are you a student too?" Rory asks, taking her turn to hold the door open for him.

He smirks and gives her a playful look.

"Somethin' like that," Jess shrugs, turning to hold the door above Rory's head to let her through.

AN: Thanks for the feedback :) Keep it coming, it means the world to me! I'm having fun with this so far.