Thirteen

"You did what?" Lorelai was shocked. In all her years of knowing him, Luke had never done a spontaneous thing in his life. It had taken him weeks of careful research to figure out where to buy new coffee after the old place went bust, but now he'd done something so monumental with barely a thought.

"It's not that big a deal, Lorelai."

"You bought a house!"

"A small one!" Even as he said it he knew it was a terrible counter-argument.

"Fine, you bought a small house. A small, life changing house." She was still shaking her head, trying to make sense of it.

"It just seemed like the right move. Jess is fourteen now, we can't keep sharing one room."

"Oh, I'm not arguing that you outgrew the upstairs apartment the second Jess came into your life. That's been obvious for the last decade or so. You didn't even tell anyone!"

"What's to tell? I saw the house, I liked the house, I bought the house. It's not Oscar-winning material."

"Does Jess know?"

"I thought it'd make a good birthday present."

"Because all fourteen-year-olds want home equity."

"I got him store credit at Andrew's too."

"Hey, that's what I got him!"

"Good, he can cover the new place with books."

It was a late August afternoon and the two were currently preparing the diner for Hurricane Sookie. Jess wasn't much for parties, or people really, so it was just a small group of friends having lunch and cake. Of course telling Sookie not to go overboard was always a waste of time, and Lorelai imagined they'd be eating leftovers for the next week. Especially considering Lane was away at bible camp, and the chef herself couldn't stay as she had to work overnight at the inn. Sookie had taken a special liking to Jess, something about wanting to feed him as much as humanly possible when he first arrived in Stars Hollow. She had a manic energy that Jess found annoying, but he knew she cared about him so he dealt with her the same way he dealt with Lorelai: sarcasm and eye rolling.

Meanwhile Rory was hidden in her bedroom, trying to wrap her present for Jess. She'd been the person Luke confided in about the property purchase, and had helped him pick out most of the furniture. It wasn't something she could ever tell her mother, she knew how upset she'd be about not being chosen to go shopping. Rory knew it was because she had sensibilities that Lorelai didn't possess, and was more likely to choose something practical over something furry or shiny. The inside knowledge of the move had allowed her to pick a practical present for her friend. Luke had already built him a bookcase, but she knew he'd appreciate the beanbag chair she was attempting to cover in green paper. Every time he came over to read he plopped himself into her hot pink chair and made himself very comfortable. He hadn't been around much lately, with soccer practice starting up and what Rory was pretty sure was an accurate rumour regarding him and Becky Harrison. It wasn't surprising that Jess was the first person in their little group to start dating, especially considering Lane's predicament. As for Rory herself, she couldn't see the appeal. Just yesterday she'd seen a boy about her age pick his nose and eat it, she couldn't imagine trying to kiss someone like that.

Finally admitting defeat, she decided just to place a ribbon on top of the black beanbag chair, before dragging it along to the diner. It took longer than normal considering most of her vision was impaired by the giant bag in front of her, but eventually she made it to find everybody a lot calmer than she expected. Sookie must have already left, because it was just Luke and Lorelai playfully bickering.

"I'm just saying, if you want to see something more recent than 'The Horse in Motion' we have weekly movie nights that your nephew attends. You can tag along."

"And watch you all kill yourselves with sugar? I have enough of that here, thanks. Rory!" Luke had noticed her lugging in her giant gift inside and went to help her. He was much better at manoeuvring large objects, and she relented it gratefully.

"Hey guys, where's the birthday boy?"

"Upstairs still, but I told him lunch was at one. You mind going to drag him down here?" Luke asked, but Rory was already halfway to the curtain. Bounding up the stairs she resisted the urge to start singing 'Happy Birthday', knowing how much it would irritate her friend. To her surprise the door was wide open. Even more surprising was that no one was inside.

The place was in disarray, with bits and pieces of Jess' life thrown across the room. After checking the bathroom and closets she confirmed that he was definitely not in the apartment. That's when she noticed the box on the table, its contents having been spilled out. Plenty of paper, as well as important looking legal documents. Rory glanced at the ones on top and was shocked at their contents. Short notes, hardly worthy of being called letters, all from Jess' mother. Some documents she'd signed to make Luke his legal guardian. That she wasn't surprised by, it made sense with things like school enrolment. The fact that every letter she saw held no mention of Jess, that was what made her angrier than she'd ever been. There were envelopes too, all addressed haphazardly. Rory noticed a trend in the addresses, though they were all different.

Jess had run away from home on many occasions in their childhood. Mostly he would run to her place, to the inn or their apartment. Lorelai would never push him away, knowing what it felt like to need to run from everything. Instead she'd make up the couch for him and call Luke to reassure him that everything was fine. He'd always go back to the diner the next morning, happier than he'd been before deciding to leave home. On a few occasions he'd gone somewhere different, if he was mad at Rory or distrusting of their intentions. Those were the more serious times, when he'd attempted to leave Stars Hollow entirely.

Suddenly it hit her where Jess had gone.

She hoped it wouldn't be too late, because judging by his can of soda he couldn't have been gone for more than half an hour. Running downstairs she made some lame excuse of forgetting some streamers, explaining that Jess had been asleep and was just getting in the shower. With speed she didn't know she possessed she sprinted towards Stars Hollow's main bus station, praying to any deity that she could catch him here. Her mother had taken her to New York on the bus once, after an attempt that involved driving in gridlocked traffic. She knew there were two buses from Hartford each day, at six-forty and one-forty. For the life of her she couldn't remember the Stars Hollow-Hartford timetable, and that was the issue now. Stopping to breathe, she calmed herself slightly before walking into the depot. He wasn't hard to spot, a head shorter than the other people in line and wearing the surliest expression she'd ever seen. She blindsided him and pulled him from the line, immune to his complaints until she'd dragged him to a nearby bench.

"What the hell, Rory?" He sounded furious with her, but it only made her angrier with him.

"What the hell's right, Jess! Did you think your little skipping town act would fly with me? With Luke, even? You can't just run off to New York without telling anyone!" If he was shocked that she'd figured out his plan he didn't show it.

"I can do whatever I want!"

"Sure, why not? Tell me, have you even got her address?" Rory looked at him pointedly, and he pulled an envelope out of his pocked to show her. "Jess, this is dated almost a year ago!"

"So?"

"So, you saw all those other addresses right? They changed so much, there's no way for you to know if she's still there."

"Same city though."

"That narrows it down to about what, four million places? It's New York Jess. You've never even been!"

"I was born there!"

"And you left when you were three!" Rory's argument seemed to trigger something in him, and in an instant all the bravado was gone. What sat next to her was a scared little boy, confused and angry with the world.

"Why did she want me?" He asked weakly, as though he verging on tears.

"You don't know that, Jess." She went to put a hand on his shoulder but was rebuffed. Shaking his head he removed a crumpled piece of paper that had yellowed a little with age. Rory opened it and had to stop herself from gasping. It was the note Luke had been given when Jess was three, the note that said in no uncertain terms that Liz was abandoning her child to find her husband. That even went so far as to blame Jess for everything wrong in her life. Rory had to compose herself to avoid breaking down and crying, though the way Jess was sitting with his head in his hands she thought he may have finally succumbed to tears.

"Pretty brutal, huh?" Jess said finally, his voice icy.

"Jess…"

"Rory, please."

"You know what? Fuck her," Rory's outburst surprised them both. Her mouth widened in shock, and his head swivelled to look at her in a flash. His eyes were reddened, but any trace of tears were non-existent, "it's her loss. You're one of the most amazing people I know, and you did it without her. So yeah, screw her. You've got a whole lot of people here who love you, who want you to have an awesome birthday. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but Luke just bought a house for you guys!"

"Excuse me?" As if hearing Rory Gilmore swear wasn't enough of a shock, he was now being told that his uncle had invested in property. The same uncle who once took five hours to find a suit and tie.

"It's great Jess, just wait until you see it. Luke trusted me with a lot of the decorating, so if you hate your room-"

"My room?" In his entire life, he'd never had a room to himself. Even in his blurry memories before Stars Hollow he knew he'd always shared with someone. Luke had bought a house, and it wasn't hard to see that it was mostly for him.

"It's a cool place Jess, you'll like it. You're only a few doors down from Lane too."

"I can't believe you said 'fuck'," he interrupted her rambling, causing her to blush bright red.

"Don't tell mom, and please don't say it again. You know how I get around cuss words." They were walking back towards the diner, high spirits returning as they forgot about the bus incident. Rory knew that this wasn't the end of it, that Jess would act out again and again, probably try to run away on more than one occasion. It was bubbling on the surface, worse than it had ever been as children. Like a land mine, Jess Mariano was going to explode sooner rather than later.


A nice, quick update for you all. The reception to this story has been incredible, thanks so much! We're getting close to overlapping where the show started, but first I need to throw a little party...