A/N-Sorry that this is taking me a while! The chapters have been getting progressively longer and my time has been getting progressively smaller in its availability. Hence, the shout-outs will have to wait until next time :(.

As I said, in this chapter there will definitely be some Jess action. Sorry about the last chapter, I was getting long-winded and exhausted. Channeling Emily and Richard is not my favorite feat and I had to accomplish it anyway.

I said last time that this MIGHT be longer, but we'll see. I'm still outlining as I go. It'll be near the same size as FTBOMH, give or take a chapter. Thanks for all the Birthday well-wishes! It was very good indeed!

Disclaimer (I forget these and I'm constantly living in a state of blind panic because of it), I don't own this show, any of the characters, or anything else that involves actors and television. I am simply the owner of a Coach purse and a 1996 Nissan Pathfinder. That is all.

"Are you going to start getting ready or am I going to have to make you?" Rory asked as Lorelai flipped through another catalogue.

Lorelai shrugged. "I work better under pressure. If I try to put on mascara when I still have an hour to get ready I either poke myself in the eye with the wand or it gets clumpy and I have to start over."

"What if you poke yourself in the eye because you're rushing and you end up being late? What are you supposed to do then, huh?" Rory asked, trying to prompt her mother off the couch.

"You're being a little bit pushy, is someone excited for her in-house date that her mother for no reason in her sane mind allowed?" Lorelai asked as she looked over the magazine at her daughter who was bouncing in her socks. She was dressed in a short sleeve, red polo shirt and jeans and was already ready for Lorelai to leave.

"Yes, I'm excited. But, I also want you to be ready on time so you don't miss the movie trivia before the previews that you and I get in a fight about every time we see a movie. Luke deserves to see you jump up and down in your seat when you get the same five questions right," Rory said, gesturing uncontrollably in anticipation.

Lorelai smiled at Rory and got up, walking toward the stairs. "You are an evil, evil child," Lorelai said as she slowly ascended the stairs. "If I poke myself in the eye, it's your fault."

"Just do me a favor and don't do it on purpose," Rory said as she straightened the couch from where Lorelai had been sitting and ran to the hall mirror again to check her hair. The anticipation filled her with a sense of perfection but she checked to make sure it maintained. She glowed casually but it was lost to her in the mirror. It scared Lorelai. She knew that glow, that glow of agonizing anticipation that filled your bones and made them feel incomplete until you were with the one you were anticipating. She knew that feeling all-too well. That feeling was the feeling that followed her from the rim of her parent's crystal whiskey glasses, to the stairs of her parent's house, to the doorknob of her bedroom door, to the lock on her balcony, to the conception of her daughter.

Lorelai applied her makeup methodically and immaculately, and that glow that Rory was so accustomed to for the evening seemed to rub off on her and climb up her legs and make her complete as it changed the chemical makeup of her body until she felt simply halved with the expectation. And it felt so exquisite that she almost wanted to stay home.

Rory, meanwhile downstairs, was nervously tapping her foot against the coffee table as she read Cat's Cradle for the nine millionth time. Vonnegut never got old in her mind. There were only so many things you could pull from the demise of the earth the first time around.

She wished absently that she could concentrate, but expectancy had taken her over and she hummed unnoticeably while she watched her watch tick away the seconds. Defeated with the sluggishness of time, she returned to her book, an almost failed attempt at calm.

"Do I look okay?" Lorelai asked fifty minutes later, descending the stairs in jeans and a black button down shirt. Rory looked up from the final pages of her book, taken with visions of ice-nine and the sky looking full of snakes as tornadoes overtook San Lorenzo and then the entirety of the world.

Lorelai had her hair done curly and didn't look as if she had recently poked herself in the eye with a mascara wand, so Rory trusted that everything had gone fine. She smiled at her mother encouragingly.

"Perfect," Rory said as she closed the book, in vague acceptance that she knew how it ended. It was a little sad, the way that Bokonon would sit on the side of the road and end his book, almost sad the way it was every time she finished a book. A certain optimistic melancholy.

"You're reading? That's how you prep for a hot date, reading the world's most confusing book?" Lorelai said as she fidgeted with the collar of her shirt and looked at her daughter doubtingly.

Rory rolled her eyes in indignation. "It's not that hot of a date. I actually get the house to myself for a period of time and he's going to come over, eat way too much of Luke's food, watch movies, and probably fall asleep," Rory said, standing up and looking at her mother reasonably.

"There better be some full on clothed-ness if I find you two asleep in the same room. Or other rooms." Lorelai looked pleadingly at Rory for a moment. "Please do not remove any clothing tonight."

"Without replacing it?" Rory tried to clarify.

"Just…generally," Lorelai managed to blurt out.

"Mom, what if I want to change into pajamas?" Rory said, hand on hips, confused.

"Wait until I get home," Lorelai commanded as she rooted around in her purse for her lipstick.

"What if you don't come home tonight? I can't sleep in jeans," Rory pointed out while reaching down on the coffee table and walking across the room to hand her mother the tube of lipstick that she had left there.

Lorelai took the lipstick and looked at her daughter with lowered eyebrows. "Dirty."

"Mom."

"Use good judgment," Lorelai said. They both stood there, staring one another down and trying to define 'good judgment'. The doorbell rang and Rory followed Lorelai to the door, standing off to the side and behind her as she swung open the door.

Behind the door, Luke was standing closest to the door, with Jess hanging back with bags in his hands. Luke walked in and gave Lorelai a sweet but noncommittal kiss on the cheek and Lorelai returned it. Jess and Rory exchanged a smile and then grimaced.

"Ready?" Luke asked as he waved subconsciously to Rory.

"I am," Lorelai said, grabbing up her purse and linking arms with Luke.

"We will call to tell you when we will be back," Lorelai said as they walked toward the door. "Keep it clean."

Luke looked at the teenagers sternly. "No joke."

Jess shrugged and walked toward the door. "We will if you will."

Luke and Lorelai glared. "Yeah, right," Lorelai said and smiled sweetly as she closed the door and walked off the porch with Luke.

Jess smiled at Rory and peaked out the window to make sure that Luke and Lorelai were far enough away from the house to constitute their date as actually beginning. He confirmed their absence and leaned in to kiss Rory who responded by intensifying the kiss my lifting her arms to his neck and wrapping them around it tenderly.

This, was that mind-bending comfort that she had in his arms.

Even though both of his arms were at his sides holding the bags he had brought over.

"Hi," she said once they broke the kiss, smiling sweetly at him. He gave her one of his rare, bright smiles that created for her, reason to never even be able to imagine loneliness as palpable as the loneliness she knew she felt before him. With or without Dean.

"Hi," he responded. He kissed her nose gently once and then walked into the kitchen to deposit the bags. "I brought food from Luke's, that's still what we want, right?"

"Unless you've changed your mind about Indian food, yes," Rory said, grinning appreciatively and bringing down a few plates, placing them on the table among the take-out boxes and bags.

"I've already explained to you my standpoint on Indian food. I don't think your mother would like it very much if I had to burn down the house because you had a supernatural craving for garlic gnon."

"I'd be willing to tell her it was my fault," Rory offered as they sat down and began to dig into the boxes. Jess looked at her doubtfully and she shrugged.

"What movies are you forcing me to watch?" Jess asked after a few minutes of eating.

Rory smiled diabolically. "It's a surprise," she said around a French fry.

"Rory," Jess whined pathetically, reaching over and putting a hand persuasively on her thigh. She kept smiling and kissed him.

xxx

"Please say I get to choose the movie," Lorelai pleaded as they walked into the theater. Luke looked at her again like she was crazy and she smiled sweetly, squeezing his hand and then resorting to full-pouting.

"Are you going to take me to some Jennifer Lopez, completely mockable, almost makes me want to puke, sort of movie?" Luke said, complaining.

Lorelai grinned. "Nope."

"Then what?"

"Finding. Nemo," she said smilingly. Luke blinked at her a few times, trying to be sure he heard her correctly.

"The cartoon?" Luke sputtered. Lorelai nodded. He sighed. "Let's go," he said, guiding them toward the ticket counter. Luke paid and he let Lorelai stock up on popcorn and Sour Patch Kids, much to his dismay. They entered the theater, Luke in an immediate state of panic at the site of nearly every ten-year-old from the greater Stars Hollow area.

"Are you going to start hyperventilating?" Lorelai asked, leaning toward him from her seat. Luke was sitting there, staring straight ahead, trying to think of a happy place.

"Lorelai."

"I just need to know how fast I need to eat this popcorn," she said calmly. Luke paused and sighed.

"Did you know there were this many kids in town?" he asked frantically. Lorelai looked around observantly.

"Well, apparently a couple of couples around here were humping like bunnies for a 15-month period, but I'd say it's not a far cry from what it's usually at." She looked back at Luke and smiled at him, reassuringly. "I really appreciate this if it makes you feel any better," she said. They were seated in a dark corner of the theater. Lorelai always knew good date seats.

"A little bit," Luke said, almost smiling. They met halfway across the seat and their lips touched in the sort of slow burn that killed them both a little bit and then brought them back up to life.

"Do you think this night will be better now?" Lorelai asked, her face still close to his. Luke nodded and took her lips for another slow-burning kiss.

xxx

"It took you two tries to catch on to the beginning of Cat's Cradle linking to the end?" Jess said incredulously to Rory, who was facing him on the couch, sitting cross legged and smiling, almost embarrassed.

"The first time I read it, I was twelve. I didn't pick it up again until I was fourteen. I had forgotten what happened!" she pleaded, moving in her seat a little bit.

"How can you let Vonnegut sit on a shelf for two years? That's almost blasphemous," he said, matter of fact.

"I read other stuff between that," she reasoned, moving closer and letting him wrap and arm around her back, pulling them closer. She felt the meaning of their conversation beginning to mean less and less with the more they touched and touched.

"Like what?" he wondered, feeling his soul warming and the stiff armor that he threw over his heart beginning to melt and break as her heartbreaking eyes and skin and hair and smile tore into his skin.

"I read Breakfast of Champions, and Slaughterhouse-Five," she said, proud of herself but quieting as she felt the heat radiating off of Jess's body. She knew of the fire that burned within Jess. A fire that burned demons. A fire that killed his evils. A fire that sometimes couldn't work as fast as the rate that the demons entered him. She saw that fire and she felt that fire and she could absently feel all the burns from where they had touched and it only made her want to get burned again. That sweet, incredible burn that sticks in your skin and never leaves. The kind of burn that warms your soul and makes you beg for more. It was a lovely, lovely fire.

"Slaughterhouse-Five has to be one of the best books ever written," Jess pointed out.

"Billy Pilgrim in his blue toga and golden boots, then getting abducted by aliens and put into a human zoo with a movie star. That surely beats out Ayn Rand," Rory said, doubtfully.

Jess looked at her with wide eyes and Rory rethought.

"Yeah, it kind of does," she said, laughing. He smiled at her and then lifted her so that she was straddling his lap, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory running idly in the background. It had been forgotten the moment Jess complained and they started off on one of those long running, irreverently brilliant tangents that the two of them were prone to forming.

They felt the moments passing by as they looked at one another, the thoughts of Billy Pilgrim and Ayn Rand floating out of their heads as their passionate burns became deeper and more severe.

Rory smiled at him, at a loss as to what to do with her positioning. He rolled his eyes and smiled back at her, absolutely enamored of her naïveté. Without recognition of the movements that were becoming so automatic and beautiful, their lips touched and those fires that they both felt were completely torched again.

Jess moved to put his hands on Rory's back and pull her closer, feeling the world around him open up and go silent. Then fall back into him and her and sweet, sweet lips, synching tongues, eyes, hair, jaw lines, earlobes, veins in their necks, the scandalous appeal of collar bones and the way they were cut under her thin, ivory skin. He felt it all and smelled it all and kissed it all.

She felt the weight of herself on him, the effect that she could have on the fierceness of his reaches toward her soul. She felt her arms around his back, her fingers in his incredibly perfect hair, her eyes sometimes on that immaculate olive of the skin just below his ear, the slender strength of his neck. She heard the quiet but demanding breaths from his mouth when it left her skin, her lips. She heard her blood pounding through her ears, little sounds that shocked her falling from her occupied lips, helpless breaths between touches. More than anything, she felt a tingling, burning sensation, blazing and screaming from every nerve ending.

It was exquisite.

xxx

"I told you it wouldn't be that bad," Lorelai said, smiling like a fool.

"Be quiet."

"You liked Finding Nemo. I can see it on the special's bored tomorrow. 'Luke has stopped serving any fish products due to his newfound love for Finding Nemo'," Lorelai said, laughingly as he nudged her.

"If that ends up on the special's board tomorrow, one, you're going to find yourself single, and two, you'll have to rewrite the omelet thing," Luke said. He smiled at her and Lorelai snuggled closer to his jacket. They reached the front of the diner and they stood, awkward for a moment outside its locked door.

"You want coffee?" he said slowly.

"Sure," she said, shrugging, attempting nonchalance.

"Right, of course you want coffee. Thought I was talking to a normal woman for a minute there," he said, getting the key from above the doorframe and unlocking the door. They heard the lonely but ever-present bell as they entered, alerting no one in particular.

"Lots of normal women like coffee," Lorelai countered, removing her jacket and placing it on the coat hook.

"Not many women can drink twenty cups in a twenty-four hour period and not need to be hospitalized," Luke said as he dumped grounds into the coffee maker and pressed the start button. She had taken a seat at the counter, directly in front of the coffee maker and where Luke was now standing.

"Not many women are anything like me," Lorelai said quietly as Luke leaned down on the counter and listened intently. He smiled and there were a few beats of silence between them.

"Listen," he started, pulling back and running a hand over his hair. "I'm not good at saying, or even executing, this sort of thing, but this thing that you and I have going. It's good. And I'm willing to ride this out as long as it's going to take," Luke said slowly, honestly.

Lorelai smiled lazily, absolutely inundated. "Ditto," she managed to utter from under the sheet of happiness that he had thrown over her. She managed to throw in a sip of coffee before the happiness settled into her muscles and took over her actions. Before she knew what she was doing she was kissing Luke and pulling him from around the counter by his collar, taking the kiss with fierceness and adoration.

He could feel her take a hold of his shirt, take a hold of his heart, and effectively dissolve his reason as they both disappeared behind the curtain in a veil of love.

xxx

Rory found herself, laying back on the couch, fighting for her breath, Jess's arms around her admiringly. She came up with a breath and Jess rested on her, pulling them up so that they were both close on the corner of the couch.

"It's probably about time for us to talk about some stuff," Rory said, still fighting for her breath. Jess's stomach went icy at the idea when it first came to him, then reassured himself that Rory's love for him, whether it was boyfriendly or not, was unconditional.

"Okay," he conceded. Rory took in a deep breath to ground herself and spoke.

"You know I love you. And it's clear that we both want something tangible and something that's promising itself to be amazing," Rory said, looking at him with sparkling eyes. They sparkled so brilliantly.

Jess nodded, in accord.

"But here's the deal," she started, looking at her lap. Jess lifted her chin and looked her in the eyes.

"Okay," he repeated.

She sighed. "I want to wait to do anything…else, until after graduation," she said, unsure.

Jess nodded. "That sounds about right."

Rory smiled. "I mean, both of our graduations. I want you to graduate more than anything Jess. And I don't mean to sound stupid or manipulative, but that's the deal. When we both are graduated from highschool…we can move this along." She sighed again and Jess smiled at her.

"Miss Gilmore," he said, helping them rise from their position on the couch to standing before it. "It has been a truly amazing evening. However, seeing as how your mother will be home soon, I should get going," he said, pointing to the door as he attempted cheesy politeness gradually fell back into normally monosyllabic slang.

Rory nodded and smiled. They walked to the door and Jess put on his jacket, looking at her the entire time. He saw that she was embarrassed, he could read it as easily as Hemingway across her forehead. But he wouldn't let on that he knew.

He leaned in and kissed her again, his hands flanking the sides of her face.

"I'll probably see you in the morning," Jess said as he looked at his watch and let go of her. "It's already almost ten, Luke's probably pissed that Lorelai won't let him go to sleep at nine," Jess said as he descended the porch. He turned around and walked backwards, hands in his pockets.

Rory laughed at him, his post-make-out goofiness completely out of character.

"Bye Jess," she said, moving to close the door but too taken with the image to bring herself to do it.

"Love you," he said, turning around and waving in a more in-character, offhand way.

"Love you too," she responded, closing the door and falling against it. She felt those butterflies start to take their places back where they belonged and Rory went into the kitchen to clean the mess they had made.

Once she had finished cleaning, she went into her room and changed into her black sweat pants and tank top, curling back up on the couch and finishing her finals pages of Cat's Cradle that she had left lonely on the coffee table.

Then she heard the knock at the door.

With panic rising softly, Rory got up slowly and put her book aside, walking silently to the door and picking up an umbrella on the way, brandishing it in the hand that wasn't opening the door.

"Jess?" she asked, squinting.

"Your mother's purse is on the counter and the coffee maker is on, but they're not in the diner. Needless to say, I can't go home," Jess said, entering without ceremony and pacing across the living room, running a hand through his hair.

"That's sincerely disgusting," Rory said, grimacing herself as she closed and locked the door again.

"It could've been worse," Jess said. "I could've not made the connection and gone upstairs. Or inside for that matter," Jess said, stopping and looking at her. "I need to sleep on your couch."

Rory nodded and laughed, going to find the pillows and blankets, assembling him what she thought of as a comfortable bed and what most would look at and think back problem.

"I'm beat," she said, stretching and kissing him good night.

"This'll be okay with your mom?" he said, glancing from her to the couch.

"She has no option but to accept it, I'm pretty sure," Rory said, assured.

"Night," he said, taking another look at the bed and smiling at her.

"Night, Jess," she said, turning out the light and walking into her bedroom.

(Convenient? Yeah. Dirty? Yeah. Did I need fluff? Yeah. Reviews? Yeah?)