A/N: Luke sighting number two! This will be the last chapter in which he physically appears, though, until the final chapter.

Thanks to everyone who has followed/faved or reviewed!

Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore girls and the title of this chapter is borrowed from Hamilton.


Chapter 2: For Your Love

Jess's mommy was cleaning again. That usually meant one of two things: they were getting a visit from his uncle Luke, or from the social workers. Either way, Jess was nervous. The social workers could take him away from his mommy and bad things could happen to him, and he hadn't seen his uncle Luke in years. He barely remembered the last time Luke actually visited them. He thought it might have been his birthday, because Luke gave him a book, but that's about all he remembered. The rest was already lost to time. The only other thing he remembered was that Luke had actually seemed to like him. He couldn't remember what he'd done to make Luke like him, though, and now he worried that he'd do something wrong and Luke wouldn't like him anymore. The thought made him jittery. He drummed his fingers against his leg and bounced on the balls of his feet, filled with energy that he didn't know what to do with.

"Mommy, can I help?" Jess asked. She paused her hurried preparations to look at him. There was a calculating, evaluative look in her eye as she gazed at him, measuring and judgmental. Jess looked back at her with an earnest expression on his face.

Eventually, Liz nodded, and Jess grinned. He performed his first task, dusting off the kitchen table, perfectly. His mommy saw and actually smiled at him! It was a small, distracted smile, but it was a smile and it made his heart race.

"Now go over and clear off those bottles from the coffee table, recycle them, and dust off that table like you did in the kitchen," Liz instructed. Jess rushed off to do as he was told. He wanted to get the job done quickly, hoping to please his mother and get another smile, so he picked up as many bottles as would fit in his small arms. He made it all the way to the kitchen, steps away from the recycling, before the first bottle started to fall. Instinct made him reach out for it, which only caused the rest of the bottles to go crashing to the floor. Most of them broke.

"Jess!" Liz yelled, "What the-" She cut herself off as Jess bent to pick up the broken glass with his bare hands. She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the mess. "Don't do that!" she shouted, and Jess stilled. There was no drumming of fingers or bouncing. The nervous energy he'd been feeling earlier had evaporated, replaced by another kind of nerves: the kind that made you freeze in place, hoping whatever was making you nervous wouldn't see you. He stared at the floor and barely breathed. He'd messed up. Big time. He was just glad she hadn't been drinking any of the stuff in those bottles today. The bottles made her meaner.

"I'm sorry," Jess managed to stutter, "it was by mistake!" Jess could tell Liz was angry by the way she continued to grip his arm, but after a few moments she seemed to regain control of herself. She let out a rough sigh and released his arm.

"Just… go to your room, Jess. I'll clean up your mess. You just stay out of my way until your uncle gets here. Got it?" Jess nodded and scampered off to his room. He was relieved he hadn't gotten in more trouble, but he also felt sick over the knowledge that his mommy was working hard to clean their apartment (for his uncle, apparently), and he'd just made her job harder. He was trying to help, but all that really mattered was that he'd made things worse. He always seemed to make things worse.

# # # # #

Jess was still in his room sometime later when he heard the door open. He could hear voices, but not what was being said. He stayed where he was, figuring it was safer to wait until being called. He held a book open on his lap, but he didn't need his uncle to read it to him anymore. Over the course of the last two years, he had somehow managed to learn how to read it by himself, picking up a habit of getting lost in the words in addition to the pictures. He'd acquired a few more precious books in the years since his uncle had last visited. The nice lady who used to live down the hall had noticed Jess always walking around with his book, and when she and her son were moving she'd knocked on their door and given him a number of books her son had outgrown and didn't want to bring with him to their new place.

Jess started a little when his door opened and his mother came in. "Jess!" she said, tone sharp. "Your uncle's here. I've been calling you!"

"Sorry!" Jess apologized, setting the book aside. "I didn't hear you."

"I was right outside your door!"

"I was reading," Jess explained. Liz rolled her eyes.

"You were looking at the pictures. That's not reading. Now get out here!" Jess didn't bother to correct her. He just did as he was told. They walked out towards the kitchen together, and Jess watched the anger and annoyance on his mommy's face fade into a look of happiness and excitement.

"Here he is, Luke!" she said to her brother before turning to her son with a kind look. "You remember your uncle Luke, right, baby?" Jess smiled a little at the rare endearment and nodded.

"Hey, kid," Luke greeted, continuing after a few seconds of silence. "You've, uh, gotten bigger." Jess looked down at himself, then back up at his uncle and nodded again. Luke struggled with the concept of making small talk with a 5-year-old, but Liz bailed him out.

"Jess can be kind of shy," she explained, placing a hand on top of her son's head. Jess subconsciously leaned into the touch. A part of him knew it was just for Luke's benefit, but the rest of him denied that hurtful truth.

"You guys hungry?" Luke asked. "I could make you something." Liz rolled her eyes.

"It's my apartment, Luke!"

"So? Last time I checked, you couldn't cook!" There was a challenge in his voice, but Jess could tell it wasn't truly hostile.

"I'm hungry!" the little boy piped up. Both adults looked at him in surprise, but the child was starving. He'd missed lunch after being sent to his room. Luke grinned at him and then turned to Liz.

"Two to one," he told her, heading for the kitchen, "guess that settles it!" He missed the brief look of betrayal that Liz shot towards Jess. Jess suddenly felt ashamed. Hungry or not, he never should have taken Luke's side against his mommy.

"I love you, Mommy," Jess said, trying to placate her. Those words had never really worked in the past, but he tried them anyway. Liz looked at her brother's back, knowing he was still within earshot.

"I love you, too, baby," she answered. Jess's face lit up. Those five little words felt like forgiveness for his betrayal. They felt like redemption. They felt like absolution for all he'd ever done wrong, and he'd done so much wrong. They felt, too, like hope. Jess had told his mother he loved her on many occasions in his short life, but she usually ignored the words and turned away from him. Every once in a while the words would provoke a small softening in her eyes, but even on those few occasions, she had never said them back. Jess hadn't expected her to say them back on this occasion, either. The fact that she had done so left him feeling incredibly light. As the evening wore on, Jess would find every reason he could to tell his mother he loved her. The joy of hearing her say it back never diminished.

# # # # #

"I can't wait for you to meet him!" Liz gushed at Luke as the trio finished their meal. "He's amazing! I'm telling you, Luke, he might be the one!"

"Uh huh," Luke responded with poorly hidden skepticism, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"I'm serious, Luke! Wait 'til you meet him. He's smart, he's funny, he's sexy as hell…"

"Ah, jeez."

"Oh, grow up! John's such a good man, Luke! You'll like him. He's not like the others."

"I'm sure he's not," Luke said, still doubtful.

"He even likes Jess," Liz added as an afterthought. "He's so sweet with him!" Jess had been listening to the conversation impassively while munching on the last of his meal, secretly siding with Luke the whole time, but at the mention of his own name Jess dropped his gaze. Jess looked down at his right forearm. He was wearing long sleeves so that no one else would see, but he was suddenly very aware of what he was hiding beneath them. John wasn't so sweet with him when Liz wasn't around. He'd been hiding the large, ugly, dark bruise for days. John had made Jess promise not to tell. Not even Liz. He'd threatened to hurt him even worse if he said anything. Jess set his fork down. He wasn't hungry anymore.

"You like him, right, baby?" Liz asked, turning to Jess and raising her eyebrows. Jess glanced between his mommy and his uncle before answering, but he knew his line well enough. His mommy hadn't exactly told him what to say, but he knew disagreeing with her wasn't an option. She wasn't asking because she wanted to know the answer. She was asking because she wanted Jess to back her up.

"He's nice," Jess lied.

"You see, Luke," Liz declared triumphantly, "he's great! Jess likes him, and I love him!"

Luke studied Jess for a moment. "You really like him?" he asked the boy, somehow trusting the judgment of the 5-year-old he hadn't seen in two years over the judgment of his sister. Jess pulled his arms under the table and nodded. He could feel Liz's eyes on him and knew the nod wasn't enough.

"He plays hide and seek with me," Jess told Luke, and makes sure I really don't want to be found. Jess may have been only five, but he knew perfectly well that some things were better off left unsaid. Luke didn't need to know that Jess hid from John because John got angry and Jess got scared, not because he was playing a game and having fun. Luke's eyes softened. Jess's stomach twisted. He'd lied to his uncle, and his uncle had believed the lie. Jess wasn't sure why this lie felt so horrible. Not when he'd told so many different lies, to so many different people, in the past. He lied to John all the time, and he never felt bad about that. He felt concerned about getting caught in a lie with John, sure, but he didn't feel bad about the lies themselves. He lied to the social worker when she came to visit and asked him questions. She'd believed his lies, too. He lied to his mom sometimes, too, although he did usually feel guilty about that. Still, for some reason Jess couldn't identify, lying to Luke felt worse. It made his mom smile at him, though, and that almost made it worth it.

"That sounds like a lot of fun," Luke told Jess. The boy simply nodded again, not feeling up to another vocalized lie. This time, however, it seemed to be enough for both of the adults in the room.

"I told you," Liz said to Luke, rolling her eyes. "He's amazing!"

"All right, all right," Luke conceded, reaching out to pick up their empty plates and bring them over to the sink. "If he's as great as you two seem to think he is, then I'm sure I'll like him."

"You will!" Liz insisted. She kept talking, but Jess had stopped listening. Neither of the adults was paying him any attention, and he took the opportunity to slip off his seat and make his way over to his room. He knew he might get in trouble for disappearing entirely, so he just picked up his abandoned book and returned to the living room. He read it over and over again, imagining himself into a world without John. A world where he didn't have to lie. A world where hide and seek was just for fun. He tried his best to forget the world he really lived in.

"Jess!" Liz's sharp tone broke through Jess's concentration, and he looked up to find that she was standing in the living room. "Come say goodbye to your uncle," she ordered, taking his hand and pulling him back towards the kitchen. His uncle knelt down and gave him a hug.

"It was great to see you, Jess! Be a good boy for your mommy, ok?" Jess nodded. "Bye, Jess."

"Bye, Luke," Jess answered quietly. He still felt guilty. His uncle left, and then it was just him and his mommy again. Liz sighed as the door closed and then started clearing off the few glasses Luke hadn't put in the sink.

"Can I help?" Jess asked. He wanted to make up for his mistakes.

"No. Just go back to your room, Jess." Jess did as he was told, but just before he reached his room he turned back.

"I love you, Mommy," he told her.

"I heard you the first thirty times," Liz snapped. "I told you to go to your room. I'm too tired to deal with you right now." Jess hunched his shoulders and slipped into his room without further comment. He shouldn't have said it. It was his own fault, really. If he hadn't pushed it, he never would have known she'd only been saying it back because of Luke. If he hadn't been so greedy, if he hadn't needed to hear it again, then he might have still been able to believe that she truly meant it.


A/N: Future chapters will be longer than this one. I'm hoping to get the next chapter up within the next week, but no promises. I'd love to hear what you're all thinking about the story/what you think about the chapter (good, bad, random, anything...), so I'd appreciate it if you took the time to leave a review or shoot me a PM!

To the person who left a review as a guest: Thank you so much! I agree that it was kind of strange how they tried to change Liz's character and it never really fit with my early season impressions of her. I really appreciate your feedback, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story!