Jess rounded the corner into the Gilmore's garden just in time to witness Lorelai kicking one of Babettes gnomes. His mouth fell open and he glanced to Babbete's front window to check there wasn't a rifle levelled on Lorelai. "Huh," he said without his usual bravado.
"Jess." Lorelai took on a defensive stance.
"Lorelai, everything alright?" He wandered over. "With the neighbours..." he said pointing down at the crowd of gnomes staring up at her. He could have sworn their creepy ceramic faces looked more panicked than usual.
Lorelai swallowed a tic of a smile, she hated that they had a similar sense of humour. "Yep. Peachy. Just rearranging them after the err strong winds last night."
"Mom," Rory came out with a foot long wrench, "you don't think we'll incriminate Luke by using 'Alf' to vandalise Babette's gnomes?" She asked indicating that the wrench had been named. She didn't spot Jess till she came round Lorelai's side. Her face only held a slight chagrin at what he'd just heard.
"Hey."
"Hey."
Dean chose that moment to pull into the driveway.
"No, no, not Dean!" Lorelai whined. Jess' expression was pure curiosity. "Hey, usually I'm all Dean all the time, but right now your unlawfulness would be preferable to his do goodery." Lorelai's eyes gleamed in annoyance at their gnome plans being stalled.
"Jess, could you go get my mum a soda? She's dehydrated." Rory said glaring at her mum. Jess nodded in amusement and went nonetheless. Life at the Gilmore house was never boring.
"What's Jess doing here?" Dean asked kissing her barely and watching Jess go into his girlfriends house.
Rory hugged him. "Luke sent him over to fix the drains." She whispered into his ear so as not to remind her mom about the drains. Back to normal volume she said, "Me and my mum are just about to do some...remodelling, can we hang out tomorrow?" Lorelai was swinging the wrench lightly back and forth in her only hand, eyeing Beauregard the gnome. Rory didn't care what Dean thought of her mother but something in her wanted him to leave in this particular moment. She didn't think he would understand.
"Oh, I guess." He frowned and tried again. "I got the afternoon off, I thought..." She knew what he thought, but that didn't matter right now.
"Tomorrow." Rory beamed. Dean slumped and climbed back into his car not looking at her. When the car had pulled away Jess reappeared, soda in hand. "So...what are you guys up to?"
Lorelai's small controlled smile that had on occasion scared Jess appeared now. "If I can't have two hands, then neither can these lesser garden ornaments." Her eyebrows quirked as she raised the wrench over her head and cracked the head off of Beauregard.
"Mom!" Rory shouted jumping back.
"Hmm, maybe a wrench was the wrong choice." Lorelai said standing over the pile of ceramic shards.
Jess held out his hand for the wrench. Lorelai passed it over begrudgingly and Jess leant it against the tree.
"There's an easier way." He stepped past her, stepping over the deceased Beauregard and spotting Pierpont. "Perfect." Knocking the familiar gnome over with a tap he put one foot on the arm and then all his weight behind it. The arm disintegrated under his shoe and he smiled at Lorelai.
"Just like that..." Lorelai said walking up to Ninon and stamping off her eternally fishing arm. "Not fishing now are you!?" Lorelai smiled, and then her and Jess looked at Rory expectantly. Rory fiddled with the hem of her top but took a deep breath.
"Alright," she walked up to the closest gnome and pressed against its arm before she could talk herself out of it. Helping her mom get through this was her job, and she was going to do whatever it took.
The three of them jumped and hopped their way around a whole garden of gnomes, laughing and hypothesising on how Babette would take her revenge.
When they'd run out of right hands to remove they all sat on the front porch panting. After a while Lorelai swivelled and went to high five Jess for his gnome expertise. The sudden embarrassment as she held up her right arm and no hand flooded through her and the grief reminder that she didn't have a right hand made her want to throw up. Frowning and blinking to clear the headache that instantly descended, she got up and went inside the house ignoring Rory's quiet "Mom."
