Summary: Jess never went to Stars Hollow, continuing down a bad path living in New York, eventually getting punished with community service, where he happens to bump into a certain Gilmore fresh from her yacht-stealing escapades. Lit. Set around 6x03 and onwards.

A/N: Well, look at me, sticking to my update plan; frankly, I'm amazed. But also annoyed at how long Microsoft Word is taking to learn the word 'Lit' and its context in a sentence. It's not that hard. Anyhoo, thanks for all the reviews! See this as evidence that it really does make me write faster to have them, even if it's just an 'Update soon' or hell, even if it's just to tell me what colour your socks are, I still wanna know. But yeah, thanks to all who reviewed, and to all who have read this far, hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, not even something original to put in this disclaimer.


"Okay, so this isn't rocket science, people: all you have to do is drive around Hartford, looking for inebriates and offer them a ride home. This way you're performing a service to the community while ensuring that they don't get the bright idea to drive home dead drunk and end up having to do community service hours, themselves. And thus, the beautiful circle of criminal justice is retained," rattled off the probation officer, Ed, as he tried to remember what time his wife had said she'd be home that night. It was either nine or ten, though the difference was crucial; nine meant time for a Meaningful Talk about their relationship, while ten meant time for him to catch the first half of the game...

"Uh, sir?"

His inner diatribe was cut off by, um – he struggled around in his mind to remember her name – the well-groomed one (which, believe it or not, was a distinctive nickname in the community service line). He snatched a quick look at her nametag; Gilmore, right...

"Yes, Gilmore?" he asked, employing the typical impatient tone of a man who'd spent too long in his particular line of work.

"I was wondering if there was anything else that needed to be done – it's just...I think I'd work better on my own," and Ed noticed her gaze flicker slightly towards, err...surly, silent one, who she'd just been partnered with.

"Tough. You're the only one who signed up for evening hours tonight, and because Mr Happy –"

"Original," Jess scoffed, unnoticed.

"- over there decided not to turn up for his daytime hours, you two are the only ones here, and this has to be done in pairs, it's the policy. Besides, you're the only one around here who has anything resembling a work ethic, you should be able to stop-" he glanced at Jess' nametag "-Mariano from slacking off." He glanced at his watch: eight forty-five. If it was at ten that his wife got back from yoga, he had fifteen minutes to get back before the game started, ten if he wanted to grab a sandwich first. Mmm, pastrami...

"Sir?"

Again, Gilmore cut through his thoughts; he noticed that she always talked to him as if he were a teacher; he kinda liked that. However, at the moment, teacher-tone or not, the girl was working his last nerve. "Yes, Gilmore?" he sighed.

"Are you sure there's nothing else I can do? I mean there's still plenty of garbage on the side of the road, I could just pick up some of that, I'm sure Jess'll be fine on his own."

"I'm not gonna repeat myself, Gilmore, just get in the car. Sally'll be here to sign you out at eleven," he said, turning to leave. He looked back at his watch: eight fifty. His stomach rumbled. Gloomily, he mentally bade farewell to the idea of a sandwich as he started the walk back to his car, leaving a disgruntled Rory in his wake.

Rory looked reluctantly back to her fellow driver. "So, do you wanna-"

Jess opened the door to the driver's seat, stepping in and shutting it behind him.

"Drive," Rory finished, to herself. Sighing, she walked round to the passenger door, taking a seat beside him as silence enveloped the two. This was going to be a long night.


Rory stared fixedly out the window, under the pretext of spotting people to give a ride home to, but really she found the irate silence a difficult environment in which to cultivate concentration.

It was a couple of days after the whole black eye thing, and she'd meticulously avoided him since, not wanting to be the victim of anymore sporadic mood swings on his part. While this should have been easy enough, she found her mind wandering back to the book he'd lent her, leading back to the intrigue that'd led her to start the whole stupid conversation in the first place. This line of thought led to more curiosity: Did he write in all his books? Or only the ones that were capable of putting a raging bull to sleep? What was he reading now? And it was at this point in her thoughts that her eyes would always wander – without express permission from her brain – to find him, to see that tell-tale edge of novel sticking out of his back pocket in the hopes of catching a title. Of course, the situation of this book-storage place led to being accused by Liza of checking out his ass on several occasions, which was frustrating because it was nowhere near to the truth. Well, of course, since her eyes were already directed toward that general area, it'd be pretty hard not to appreciate- notice, but it was hardly her fault, and besides...

She shook her head, realising that she'd gone off on another mental tangent as she tried to focus on the sidewalk. Was that stumbling due to alcohol consumption or was it just a limp? No, definitely a limp...

"So, instead of interrogation you've opted for angry silence this time?"

She jumped as she heard his voice for the first time since their semi-argument. She looked over at him, but his eyes were fixed on the road ahead of him just as they had been before. She noticed that his black eye had almost healed up.

Quickly recovering, she snapped back, "Sorry, just trying to follow instructions."

"And what would those be?" he asked, his voice more passive than she'd ever heard it.

"Hmm, let me get this right," she paused for a moment, supposedly in deep consideration. "'Get the hell off my back'."

"Boy, you have a good memory." His calm tone was annoying her now. She hadn't made the whole incident up, and she didn't appreciate being talked to as though she was the drama queen in this situation.

"Or 'Back the hell off'? That ring any bells?" she asked, frustration mounting.

"Well, maybe you should actually leave people alone when they ask you to," he said back, still annoyingly placid.

She glared ahead of her, gritting out from behind clenched teeth, "Fine, if you want to show up looking like Petey the dog, be my guest, but if you, in turn, could drop the mixed signals with the garbage pickers and the books and the margin notes, that'd be real great, thanks." She turned back to looking out of the passenger windows, ready to settle into the thick silence once again.

Jess let out a sigh. Despite the fact that the fuming petite girl to his right was infuriating, had an interesting view on personal boundaries and – let's face it – turned a hilarious (and kind of cute) shade of pink when irritated, she was probably the closest thing to interesting he'd find during the two hundred and eighty-two hours of community service ahead of him. He braced himself for what was going to be an extremely painful experience for him.

"Rory? That's your name, right?" Despite the fact that she didn't turn around, he could practically feel her glare. He felt sorry for any pedestrians that happened to be in her line of vision as the car drove on. "Look, there's something that you should probably know about me."

Rory turned slightly, casting a sardonic eye up at the full moon. "You're a werewolf?" she asked, drily.

"No; believe it or not, this isn't the beginning of a Michael Jackson video."

Rory suppressed a smile, but Jess noticed the corners of her mouth twitch upwards slightly. "What, then?" she pressed.

"I'm kind of an ass."

The twitching of her lips turned into a full smirk at this, "Oh really? I hadn't noticed."

"I can't help it, I'm pretty sure it's hereditary."

"In that case: tough break," she replied, in mock sympathy, feeling her angry resolve dissipating, against her will.

"Anyway, this, err...hereditary defect –" Rory chuckled "could possibly have been directed at you at some point."

"I vaguely remember something to that effect, yeah," Rory nodded along, trying not to grin.

"Just so you know that – obviously – it was completely out of my control. Blame my father, I tend to."

Rory looked over at him; his gaze was fully back on the road once again, and she took this to mean that his little speech had finished. "You're good at that, you know," she observed.

"Good at what?"

"Apologising without actually saying the words 'I'm sorry'."

"Huh," he replied, still staring straight ahead. "There's something to add to my résumé, right next to the criminal record."

"Well, anyway, I forgive you."

"I never apologised."

"I'm good at reading between the lines," she returned. Then, after a second thought, she added, "And, judging by your margin notes, so are you."

He shot her a swift side-glance, "How do you even know it was me who wrote those?"

"Your handwriting." At his raised eyebrows, she elaborated, "You write like you look: slightly controlled, but in a kind of agitated sort of way," she explained, clumsily.

"Glad to see you paid so much attention," he replied with a smirk.

"Oh, don't go back to the smirking and the indifference, there's no point now, I know."

"Know what?"

"That you're not an ass. Or not a complete one, at least," she replied, in a satisfied tone.

"Shhh...you'll ruin my rep."

She continued regardless. "In fact, I'd go so far as to say that behind the glare and the leather jacket, you're actually kind of a nice guy."

"Oh, now you're just being mean."

"Aww, calm down, buddy," she pressed, enjoying getting to bait him for a change.

"Feel free to shut up at any point."

"Pal, friend, amigo..." she continued, grinning at his annoyance.

"Y'know, I thought I'd warn you now: I think this route's gonna take us past a dock. Now, at that point, I'm gonna need you to resist hi-jacking any yachts, fancy as they may be."

She shot him a dark look, "I think your 'hereditary defect' just reared its ugly head again."

"Darn," he replied with mock disappointment.

They lapsed into silence again, but a slightly friendlier one than last time. Rory gazed out the window absently for a few more minutes before remembering what they were actually supposed to be doing. "Hey, don't you think we should have picked up at least one drunk person yet? We only have 'til eleven."

"Sorry if the thought of giving a ride to someone who'll probably throw up during the duration of it doesn't thrill me as much as it does you."

Rory tried to bite back her dutiful, law-abiding (oh, the irony) nature, but could only manage to do so for roughly three point nine four seconds before interjecting again, "But this is community service – we're supposed to be helping the community."

"We are."

Rory raised her eyebrows, "Care to enlighten me as to how?"

"By not inviting someone in to puke in my car, we are saving someone from being thrown out of the car by me, which would either be murder or severe injury. Community served."

"This isn't even you car," Rory scoffed.

"I prefer not to have vomit in any car that I happen to be driving. Odd, isn't it?"

"Look," Rory said, pointing at someone out in the street. "Look at her – there's no way she's sober."

"Actually, I think she just has kind of a hump back."

Rory rolled her eyes, "No she doesn't, she's completely- no, wait, oh my God, she does...ouch, that looks bad."

"And the fact that you were just pointing and staring at her can't help."

Rory's eyes widened, "Oh, my God, I was! I'm a horrible person!"

"Calm down, I doubt she even saw you."

"Are you sure?" Rory asked, and the clear guilt shining through her eyes caused Jess to bite back the sarcastic response he had in mind.

"She definitely didn't see you," he replied, snatching another glance at her. With a sigh, he noticed the only way to distract her from her current mortification stumbling drunkenly along the opposite sidewalk. He nodded his head towards the guy, drawing him to Rory's attention. "There you go, a genuine contender," he said, pulling over to the guy.

Throwing him a genuine smile, Rory got out of the car to talk to the guy, who'd just fallen over his own feet and was now lying flat on the pavement. Jess sighed again; if there was any hope of him getting through the night without something throwing up in the car, it'd just gone out the window.


"That's ridiculous," Rory dismissed, at the suggestion that High Fidelity was better as a movie than it was a book. Somewhere inbetween managing to get their single charity case (whose name was Greg, as it turned out) of the night to remember his address, and then Jess managing to get them lost on the way there (not that Greg noticed, as he'd passed out by that point), they'd managed to get onto that topic.

"Have you heard the soundtrack?" Jess shot back.

"Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that they completely screwed up the setting: no way was it supposed to be in Chicago- hell, it wasn't even supposed to be in America!"

"If they hadn't set it there then John Cusack wouldn't have been the lead," Jess shot back.

"All the same, it didn't feel right," Rory persisted, before another one popped into her head. "The Shining."

"Agreed," he replied, with a curt nod of approval. "It."

"No way."

"Are you seriously gonna tell me you're a Stephen King fan?"

"Not as such, but I still can't take seriously a movie where the final monster looks like it's constructed out of Twiglets."

Jess let out a chuckle at that, "Touché."

"Wow, a concession from Jess Mariano, I feel honoured. Now if only he'd admit to being lost."

"And if only Rory Gilmore would stop talking about him in the third person," he teased, successfully averting the subject from the question of whether or not he was lost. Which he wasn't.

"Hey, Rory Gilmore's a criminal now, she does what she wants," she replied.

"I have to say, I really can't imagine you stealing anything."

"Really?" she replied, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "I thought I was the type – 'y'know, spoilt'," she said, going back to quoting him.

"What'd I say about the hereditary defect?" he joked, before returning to his previous train of thought. "It just seems like the girl who freaks out at the suggestion that she may have offended some random passerby in the street, wouldn't be the type to joy-ride yachts."

"Well, I wasn't exactly alone, I was with my boyfriend," she replied, frowning slightly as she realised this was the first time she'd alluded to Logan.

"Huh."

"And, I dunno, I was angry and I felt like doing something," she carried on, trying to pick apart her frazzled motives once again. There was a long pause, and when she looked back over at him, his expression was unreadable, "What are you thinking?"

"You just don't seem like that kind of person," he said, his eyes staying on the road. "You should be at a fancy college, with your books alphabetised and post-it notes on your wall, that's how I see you."

Rory was slightly stunned, wondering how the hell someone who until a few hours ago had been almost a stranger had managed to pretty much figure her out completely in a matter of hours. The surprise gave way to a kind of deep sadness, one that she'd been repressing steadily ever since everything blew up in her face. "I- how did you...?"

Jess shot her a probing look, another question already forming, when he was cut off by the unmistakeable sound of several beers, a couple of bags of chips and a few stale nachos being spewed out in the back of the car. Rory held back laughter at his murderous expression as he glanced over his shoulder, silently thankful that he hadn't been able to probe further into why she was there; for some reason she had a feeling that he wouldn't take her stance on everything that'd happened.


"Well, do you think the community's been adequately served for one night?" Jess asked, as they walked out of the building, having just signed out. He took a deep breath of fresh, not-smelling-of-vomit air, thankful to finally be out of that car.

"If that one guy counts as the community, then sure," Rory replied, sitting down on the grass by the road as she waited for Logan to come and pick her up, as promised.

"You planning on sleeping out here tonight?" Jess asked, sarcastically, looking down at her.

"Yeah, then I was going to go hunt a gazelle for breakfast. A meal and exercise in one, and they say Americans aren't healthy..." she trailed off, with a grin, before replying seriously. "I'm waiting for my boyfriend; he said he'd give me a ride home."

"Guess I'll see you around, then," he said, turning to leave.

"See you." She replied, before calling after him, "And try to work on that whole 'not being an ass' thing!" She watched him as he turned around to give her a brief smirk, before saying "Night, Rory," and disappearing round the corner.

She chuckled into the darkness, the smile lingering on her face afterwards. Her smile widened as she saw Porsche lights up ahead, becoming a proper grin as she approached the car, seeing Logan's face for the first time that day.


A/N: Thanks for reading! Hope it wasn't OOC or bad or any of the other constant insecurities that I have about everything that I write.

Please review! I was serious up there about what I was saying about the socks!

Julia