"Hey what's with the rising and shining? It's Sunday! The day of rest. Why are my eyes open?"
"Well technically your eyes are still shut," Jess teased her. "Besides, are they not your words scrawled on the calendar?"
"It's too early for such trivialities," Rory huffed, pulling her pillow over her head.
Jess sat down beside her, slowly pulling the covers back as he held her freshly poured coffee within her olfactory range. He smiled as he counted in his head, waiting for her to register and react.
"7 1/2! That's a new record and a good indication of your stubbornness," Jess announced. "You know, we don't have to do anything today, I was never that keen in the first place as you remember."
"A promise is a promise," Rory sighed, removing the pillow from her face as she sat up in the bed.
Jess passed the hot beverage to her and she took it gratefully, taking a long sip before placing it on the bedside table.
"You're still up for this then?" she asked.
"Sure. How bad can it be?" Jess shrugged.
"I do recall an incident involving a sharpie and mom's newly refurbished floorboards a couple of years ago but I'm pretty sure she's grown out of that stage by now," Rory tried to assure herself as much as Jess.
She'd never spent much time with her half sister but with Boston so close they'd been seeing Gigi and her dad semi regularly and when he'd asked her to babysit she found it hard to turn him down.
"Do you want me to make you some breakfast while you shower or grab something to eat on the way?" Jess offered.
"I'm good with this," Rory lifted her coffee to her lips again. "We can take Gigi out for brunch. That'll fill in a couple of hours. What else are we going to do with a kid all day?"
"You're asking me? How would I know?"
"I guess we will figure it out as we go along," Rory smiled nervously.
"How hard can it be?"
Jess pulled into the car park at Christopher's building shortly after 10am.
"So, this is it," he looked across to Rory as he undid his seatbelt. "Hey, you okay?"
"I'm not cut out for this. Do you remember when the inn caught fire?"
"Yeah, I remember. First time I ever saw a cricket bat up close," Jess smirked at the memory.
"The next day I had to watch all the kids while the adults were having breakfast and it was the worst morning of my life," Rory sighed loudly.
"Come on, it can't have been that bad. I think you're overthinking this," Jess reassured her.
"Oh, believe me, it was that bad. I resorted to sock puppets it was so bad," she confessed.
"Okay," Jess tried to hide his amusement but failed.
"It's not funny Jess! I'm not cut out for babysitting. The last time I babysat was for Apricot and I turned my back for a moment and lost her!"
"First of all, who would call their kid Apricot?! And secondly, did you find her in the end?"
"Babette and yes."
"Babette had a kid?"
"No a kitten."
"So you never actually lost a kid you lost a kitten?"
"Yes but..." Rory attempted to explain.
"Rory, I promise you we are not going to lose your little sister today. Everything will be fine. Now let's get out of that car and go upstairs and get on with it," Jess opened his door and got out before Rory could protest further.
"You promise it'll be okay?"
Jess just pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
"Are you sure you're not a Gilmore, kid?" Jess sat back watching as Gigi inhaled a plate of pancakes having already eaten a full cooked breakfast and drunk half a strawberry milkshake.
"No silly! I'm Gigi Hayden but Aunty Lorelai says I'm an 'ornery," Gigi told him proudly.
"Do you mean honorary? She wasn't wrong!" Jess watched in awe and horrors mentally crossing off any kind of theme park ride from the list of possibilities for the day.
"So Gigi, what would you like to do today? We have a little under 5 hours before Dad will be back," Rory double checked her watch.
"What would you like to do today?" Gigi asked back.
"Well, I don't know Boston very well," Rory admitted.
"Well, I don't know Boston very well," Gigi repeated.
"So maybe we could go to a park or a museum?" Rory suggested.
"So maybe we could go to a park or a museum?" Gigi parroted back again.
"Okay, first rule of the day - stop repeating everything Rory says," Jess gave the little girl a serious look.
"Okay, first rule of the day - stop repeating everything Rory says," Gigi rose to the challenge.
Jess let out a heavy sigh and looked to Rory for backup.
"Gigi, if you continue copying what we say there will be no ice cream later," Jess bargained.
"We're resorting to bribes already?" Rory whispered to him.
"Hey, she may not be Gilmore by blood but she appears to be Gilmore by nature so I thought it was worth a shot," Jess whispered back.
Gigi, who had been watching them whispering to each other must have decided to abandon her annoying little games and instead announced, "I want to go to the beach."
"The beach huh?" Jess repeated, raising a questioning eyebrow in Rory's direction.
"Okay," Rory agreed. "The beach it is." She pulled a map of the Boston area out of her purse and went in search of anything resembling a beach.
"Sure, because nothing says beach like March in Massachusetts," Jess smirked.
"We'll wrap up, it'll be fun," Rory assured him. "This looks like it's not too far to drive," Rory pointed to Wingaersheek Beach on the map.
"Um Rory? That's about an hour's drive away. We've discussed your navigational skills before but I hadn't realised it extended to your map reading abilities also," Jess teased her. He pulled the map across the table to examine it himself. "Here, Castle Island, why don't we go there? You want to see a beach and a castle Gigi?"
"A real castle? Will there be a princess there?" The little girl's eyes widened in excitement.
"There'll be 2 princesses there today," Jess winked at the little girl and Rory almost choked on her coffee.
"Who are you and what have you done with the real Jess Mariano?" she whispered in his ear.
"Just trying to make this day run smoothly," Jess kissed her on the cheek and turned his attention back to Gigi. "You finished your food?"
"Almost," Gigi sucked the last dregs of her milkshake through her straw until it made a satisfying slurping sound that seemed to echo around the half full diner. "Finished!" she announced gleefully.
"Shall we?" Jess left a pile of notes on the table to cover the bill then rose from the booth and held a hand out for each girl to take.
"You're sure you want to go to the beach Gigi?" Rory asked as they stepped out of the warm diner and into the crisp March air.
"I want to see the princesses!" she squealed with enthusiasm and Rory couldn't help but laugh as Jess cringed at the sound.
"Take us to the beach then, oh handsome prince," Rory looped her arm through Jess's.
"As you wish."
"I have never been this tired in my life!" Rory exclaimed as she flopped onto their bed that evening. She kicked her shoes across the room narrowly missing Jess where he stood in the bedroom doorway.
"Too tired to eat?" he asked her.
"All we did all day was eat!" Rory reminded him.
"That is true."
"I don't think I can move," Rory complained.
"Stay there then. I'm going to make myself some toast and then I'll come join you."
"Toast. Toast sounds good. And eggs. And bacon. Do we have any bacon?" Rory's interest in food suddenly returned.
"Last time I checked we did."
"That sure would be nice. I love breakfast food for dinner," Rory beamed a smile across the room to him.
"So you want me to make you breakfast in bed for dinner?" Jess confirmed.
"Wow Jess! What a lovely offer!" Rory exclaimed, sinking her head more deeply into the pillow.
"You'd better still be awake when I bring it into you," he lightly warned her.
"Oh, I will be, I promise. I've got a few emails to prepare to send out tomorrow. The weekend flew by didn't it?" she frowned at the realisation.
"Seems that way," Jess agreed.
Rory was deep in concentration when Jess arrived with her food. He placed her plate on the bedside table and returned to the kitchen to eat his own food at the table. It had been a long and tiring day and he was glad of some time to himself.
He ate in silence, thinking back over the talk he and Rory had had as they'd followed Gigi along the sandy shore. Moving here, living here with Rory, both of them sharing this space every day for the last 2 months, given their tumultuous past, should have been challenging but it wasn't. They moved around each other and blended together in the most natural rhythm. Walking along the beach today, holding her hand while the little blonde girl ran along ahead of them in search of shells he'd had a glimpse into what their future together might possibly look like and it had rattled him. He wasn't ready to get married. Hell, he didn't even know if he believed in the ritual. He knew he loved Rory and would do anything he could to keep her this time around.
Jess put his empty plate in the sink and went to see how Rory was going. Her laptop was discarded on the floor and her plate now sat empty on the bedside table. She had changed into her nightgown and her head was laid back against her pillow but she wasn't asleep yet.
"Hey," Jess leant across the bed to kiss her.
"Thanks for feeding me and for a wonderful day," she told him sleepily as she watched him undress and climb into bed beside her.
"It wasn't so bad after all," Jess agreed.
"Fun even. And no one got lost," Rory sighed contentedly. "We make a good team, you and I."
"You think so?"
"Yeah I really do."
Jess switched off the lamps and lay his head back against his pillow, staring at the patch of light that stole through the gap in the curtain each night to dance on their ceiling.
"Do you see us having a family someday?" he asked quietly, uncertain of where the thought had even come from.
When no response came he rolled onto his side to examine Rory's face for her reaction but found it etched with sleep instead. He let out a heavy sigh of relief then lay awake trying to answer his own question for himself.