Jess had missed a session the previous week, but it wasn't because of the reasons you would think. Rory had sprung a surprise trip back to Stars Hollow for the both of them, she wanted to visit her mom and Jess always liked to spend time with Luke (who would have thought.) But he was back now, and he knew that Dr Bishop would be full of questions, she always was. He walked into his session, and greeted her warmly, he was still a tad standoffish but not where near where he was six weeks ago. She had seen the improvement even though it was only small things, she was glad that this young man had been improving, he had stuck her as a kind fellow who just needed to get a few of his issues in order, she had been right. He was already warming himself up, not only to polite greetings but he was talking a lot more than he had that very first session.

"Missed you last week." She told him, as he sat down across from her. He smiled sincerely, although he wasn't in the "I missed you too" stage just quite yet.

"I was our of town. Girlfriend's orders."

She smiled, "How was your trip?"

"It wasn't too bad." He shrugged, not giving her the detail she probably wanted.

"Did you get to talk with your uncle?"

Jess nodded, "a little."

By a little, he really meant to opposite. From the second their hire car had pulled into the drive outside Lorelai's house, Luke had been on his case. Luke wanted to make sure that he was treating Rory right, he was worried that Jess was the same little punk who ran away all those years ago and no matter how hard he tried to persuade his uncle, he could tell Luke still had serious doubts.

"How about you come with me down to the diner, we can catch up there." He suggested in front of the two women, Lorelai had shrugged, grabbing her daughter and walking her away from the boys. Jess shrugged, "Yeah, okay."

He had assumed it would have been alright, and maybe it was to normal people but Jess wasn't used to Luke being the concerned father, he wasn't used to anyone being that way even now as a 28 year old, he was still not getting the whole parenting thing.

"Has she said yes yet?" Was the first thing he had asked, he had walked Jess straight through the tables customers and out the back just near the staircase, just like old times.

"Who?" He played dumb.

"Rory, is she going to marry you? Because I think you should have told her grandparents or something."

Jess rolled his eyes, Luke just didn't want Rory's dad involved anymore than he had to be. "Are you implying that I need to ask their permission? Because I already asked her the question. It's too late for that."

"Oh right." Luke removed his cap from his head and scratched his hair. "I don't know how you got Lorelai on board but somehow you did and if you break her daughters heart again, you'll never be able to come back here again. I hope you know this. This town will probably throw deviled eggs at you again or worse, it wouldn't surprise me. This town is like family to those two, and you can't do that to her, not again."

"I'm not going to!"

Luke nodded. "Well good." He walked back out behind the counter, where Kirk sat nibbling at his toast. "Why did you take your nephew back there? Is he hurting Rory again?" He asked being nosy.

Luke shook his head, "ah geez." He grumbled, walking away from his least favourite customer.

Jess walked back out into the sea of familiar faces, Babette waved him over. He reluctantly walked in her direction, he didn't know why. Maybe he was getting soft in his old age.

"Hi sugah, I saw ya with Rory over at Lorelai's this mornin', are you two getting serious again?" She asked, with various hand gestures.

Jess nodded his head, he knew it was none of her business but he couldn't help it, everyone in this town had probably been wondering when Rory would get serious about someone, they probably expected her to settle down and come back home, and no matter how much that fantasy disturbed him, he was proud of the fact that he was that guy she was settling down with. "We're together if that's your crazy way of asking."

"Are you gunna marry her? Because I heard you were gunna."

Jess sighed, "Why don't you ask Rory that question?" He asked her.

"I will. Don't you worry about that!" She told him, turning to her husband. "Remind me to ask Rory will ya?"

Jess didn't stick around for the rest of their conversation, he wandered back outside the diner, memories of him leaving that same building for a smoke behind the dumpster filled his mind, he chuckled at the old him, a teenage boy walked straight past him, wearing a leather jacket not too dissimilar from his own. He watched this kid as he lit one up. Is that really what he looked like? A fish out of water? He shook his head at himself, huh. What did Rory see in that guy anyway? He didn't know what Rory saw in the old him but he was glad she saw it.

He walked down the familiar road, and stopped outside Doose's. He hadn't pegged himself as sentimental, probably because he had never really had anything he valued enough to give a damn about, but this feeling was strange to him, he felt like he was home. He knew that was ridiculous since out of all the places he had lived, Stars Hollow had been the place he had spent the least time in, but it felt oddly right walking down those streets again, watching Taylor have a screaming match with one of his customers, when was that guy going to retire? He chuckled to himself.

"Jess" he turned around to see Zach with both hands attached to first graders. "Hey, Zach right?" He asked, even though he knew Zach, he knew he was Lane's husband.

"Hey man" Zach waddled over, "Lane told me you and Rory would be coming to town."

"Huh, fancy that. Here I am."

Zach hadn't picked up on Jess' tone and kept on chatting. It wasn't long before the twins were complaining about being bored, and Zach had roped Jess into a dinner invitation for he and Rory. Jess knew that Rory wouldn't be impressed if he was rude to the husband of her best friend, so what could he do? He told him they'd be there at six. He thought it was too early for dinner, but hey he didn't have kids.

Rory couldn't help but laugh when Jess told her the dinner plans. She thought it was cute him leaving the house and coming back with dinner plans.

"It's not funny."

Rory smirked, "oh come on it is a little."

Jess stood his ground, "What was I meant to do? Say No thank-you?" He asked, clearly not amused by Rory's laughter.

"No, you said the right thing, I'm just proud of you." She cooed, snuggling up to him, she kissed the tip of his nose, "What time do we have to be there?" She asked, laying down on her old bed. Her mom had rearranged her old room, there was a crib in the corner, and a bare book case where it always sat on the other side. Jess looked around the room, "Do you remember when we first met in here?" He asked her, tapping her leg so she would move over. They lay there side by side on her single bed, Rory rested her head against his chest. "I remember, you wanted to climb out that window."

"You should have come with me."

"Where would we have gone?"

"Maybe we would have started a shindig at Miss Patty's."

Rory looked up with him, smirking, "You would have started a shindig with me?"

He nodded, "I would have started anything."

Rory couldn't help but smile, she knew he meant it.

Zach was talking Jess' ear off, he was hardly listening, he didn't have to. Zach would continue the conversation without waiting for a response, first he started off about the price of shampoo, next the amount of homework his kids already had in first grade, before easing in to a passionate review of the music that teens listened to now and how he disapproved.

Jess would nod occasionally, and smile when he had to, the things he did for Rory blew his mind, Rory was busy talking parenting with Lane, she let her pregnancy scare slip, causing the two of them to lock themselves in the bedroom to discuss it in full detail, Jess was in agony, between the twins and their playing sounds, and Zach with his ranting, Jess felt like the night would never end.

On the walk home, Rory wanted to stop by at Luke's, she was really getting into the old habits. "We just ate." Jess reminded her, trying, pleading, wanting to go home to bed. "You've had a long day, maybe we could just come back for breakfast." Rory ignored him, only smiling innocently, she walked up the front step, pulling Jess along.

Lorelai had named her doughnuts, she was animating their conversation when Rory snuck up behind her, "Doughnut humor, my favourite." She greeted her, pecking her cheek.

"How was dinner?" Lorelai asked her, handing her daughter one of the two sugary snacks.

"Dinner was just like old times." She reported, Jess walked behind the counter and poured Rory a mug of coffee, "My hero." She grinned, turning back to her mother.

"You still have your ears." Luke noted, and Jess frowned at him.

"What are you going on about?"

"You had dinner at Lane's right? Her husband could talk an ear off a deaf man."

Jess chuckled, "I survived." He confirmed.

"I was talking to Lorelai, Rory's bed is a little small. I thought you and Rory might want to stay upstairs while you're in town."

"Really?"

"Well, you're not seventeen anymore..." Luke said awkwardly, not wanting to go into any further detail.

"Thank-you."

Dr Bishop interrupted his story, "So you and Rory stayed in the apartment over your Uncle's diner?"

"We did." Jess confirmed, "It's not like it was an unfamiliar territory for us."

She jotted down what he was saying. "You and Rory used to spend a lot of time there when you first dated?"

"My uncle was naive when it came to teenage relationships, we could hear his footsteps at the bottom of the stairs every time we were getting into it, in a way he was helping us out. Giving us fair warning to cool ourselves off before he would come in claiming he needed something he clearly didn't."

She chuckled, knowing exactly how naive her own parents had been when she was that age.

"Ten years later and he's offering up his apartment to us. Who says people can't change?"

Later that evening Jess and Rory were getting ready for bed. "It was cool of Luke to let us stay here." Rory said, climbing underneath the covers. Jess was brushing his teeth in the other room. "Mhmm" He replied, toothbrush in his mouth.

"I just hope that he doesn't come up here during the night, checking that we're keeping our hands to ourselves." She giggled.

Jess laughed, walking back over to the bed, he climbed in beside of her, turning the lamp off beside him.

"So, I talked to Lane today."

"Really?" He mocked.

She snuggled into him, whacking him gently. "We talked about us, and having a baby someday."

"Oh yeah?"

:Yeah."

He couldn't see her through the pitch black room, but her tone told him that she was smiling.

"She thinks we would make good parents."

"We would." He agreed.

Rory kissed his bare chest, sighing loudly. "I'm still scared."

"You have nothing to be afraid of, you're a Gilmore, Gilmore's can get through anything.

Dr Bishop stopped him there, "So you talked about having a baby again?"

"We did, we talked about it a lot on our trip."

"But not about getting married?"

"Well everyone else seemed to want to talk about it, Rory never even brought it up."

"Maybe you should instead."

"Is that my homework for this week?"

"You know me so well."