A/N: Always, my thanks to adina. I can guarantee that this story wouldn't be what it is without her guidance and help.
4: Not Here For This
Jess
He sits at the bridge for several hours, losing himself in his book, enjoying the break. Not that he's tired of the promotional tour (if he can really call it a "tour"), per se; just that, for someone who was an afterthought for most of his life, self-promotion is a pretty strange (and, to be honest, exhausting) concept. And despite the November chill, he's more than content to sit outside, legs dangling over the edge of the bridge, the cold breeze threatening to rip through the pages faster than he can read, fighting to control the book.
When he returns, the early breakfast rush is dying down, and Luke clotheslines him with the telephone cord, holding up one finger, signalling him to wait. Jess sighs and pulls his book out of his back pocket, sitting on the stool closest to the cash register while he waits.
"They came in this morning," Luke is saying. "Yep, all of them. Yours too." He rolls his eyes at Jess, and Jess can hear Lorelai's distinctive voice coming through the phone, although he can't make out what she's saying.
"Yes, Lorelai, Paul Anka's came, too… I don't know if it'll fit him. You can put it on him later." Jess' eyebrows shoot up, and he mouths, 'Paul Anka?' to Luke, who rolls his eyes again and mouths back, 'Lorelai's dog,' before turning his attention back to the phone. "No, you can't bring him in here… No, I don't care if he's coming with us later; he's not coming into the diner! Not even to try on his shirt."
Jess unsuccessfully tries to hide his smirk behind the pages of his book. "Three thirty. If we leave here by three, we'll be there in time… See you then. 'Bye."
Luke hangs up the phone and picks up a cloth, wiping down the counter as he talks. "Don't you have more stores to take your book to today?"
"Paul Anka?" Jess responds.
Luke shoots him a look. "Books? Stores? Why are you here?"
"Well, good morning to you, too. Glad to see you had a good sleep, and are your usual chipper self."
Luke snaps at him with the towel. "Don't be a wise-ass, Jess. I'm just surprised to see you today—I thought you were leaving early this morning."
"I decided to stay an extra day. Thought I'd give you a hand in the kitchen if you need me." Jess slides off the stool and heads towards the stairs. "I'll be back down in a few minutes—I'm just going to shower and change."
"Did you see—" Luke calls after him.
"Yes," Jess cuts him off, not turning around.
"How is she?" It's a far more loaded question than Jess can answer in a sentence, if it was even a question he could answer at all.
He turns and looks at Luke, shrugging his shoulders. "I really don't know," he says, taking the stairs two at a time before Luke can ask him anything else.
When he comes back down twenty minutes later, an influx of customers has entered, so Jess finds a clean apron and starts making omelets and flipping pancakes, thankful that he can avoid Luke's pointed questions for a while. With Luke and Lane taking care of the dining room, and Caesar in the kitchen with Jess, there's no danger of talking while they work, either—Caesar couldn't care less, and Jess isn't going to try to initiate a conversation with him.
When things finally slow down two and a half hours later, though, it's Lane, not Luke, who pulls him into a corner of the kitchen.
"Did you see Rory?"
And this is why I stay away, he thinks—this unnatural interest in everyone else's life. Plus, for someone so tiny, Lane can be scary when she wants information.
"Why?"
"Well, it's your second day here. I haven't seen you for more than a day since Liz and TJ's wedding. I know they're not the ones keeping you here longer; you had to have at least tried to see her. Plus, Luke told me about your book."
This catches Jess' attention. "He did?"
Lane grins. "He's so proud of you—he's been telling everyone, whether they want to hear about it or not. I think he's just about ready to break his 'we don't sell anything but food' rule and put up a display of them in the diner."
Jess fights the urge to roll his eyes. Great—all he needs is to become the town's prodigal son returned.
"Jess?" Lane snaps him back to reality. "I know Rory, and I know enough about your relationship with her that I'm pretty sure you couldn't do something like this without telling her about it."
He knows he's not going to get out of this one. "Yeah, I saw her last night. We talked for a few minutes; we're going to grab dinner tonight."
Something painful and hopeful crosses Lane's face, but it's gone before Jess can identify it. "How is she?"
This is getting to be too much. "What, is she not talking to you, too?"
"No. I mean yes—she is, officially. She's talked to some of us, and the only one she's actually avoiding is Lorelai. But I don't talk to her much these days. She's busy with Logan and the DAR and her friends from Yale—the ones she still hangs out with, even though she's not there. I think they're mostly Logan's friends. And I've got Zach and the band, and I guess… we just don't get a chance to hang out as much anymore."
Jess rubs the back of his neck, trying to work out some of the tension that suddenly seems to have settled there. How did he get caught in the middle of this, anyways?
"She's…" what to say? "Geez, Lane, I don't know. I hadn't seen her in years; I talked to her for maybe fifteen minutes. We didn't exactly get into the intimate details. She seemed okay. Tired. It was two o'clock in the morning."
Lies fall too easily from his lips, but what else is he supposed to say? iShe looked awful, Lane. Her eyes were the loneliest things I've seen in a long time—and believe me, I've seen hopelessness and despair before—and her laugh would break if it hit the floor. I know she didn't sleep after I left, because I saw her roaming the streets of Stars Hollow at five thirty in the morning, and when I gave her my book, she tried so hard to be happy, but it was killing her, and even I could see that./i No.
Lane looks at him sideways. "Just… try, Jess. Please? This is too hard on everyone, and I don't know what else to do."
"Lane!" It comes out louder than Jess intends, and she jumps back, startled. "I can't do this!"
"Do what?"
"Any of it. I didn't come back to be her saviour, or her unrequited love, or the healer of all Gilmores' broken relationships. I went to see her to say thank you, and to be honest, I'm not even sure why I'm going tonight. We'll talk, we'll catch up, and if it comes up, I'll tell her that I think she's being an idiot, but that's it. I'm not getting in the middle of all this. I'm not going to be that guy."
He stops abruptly and tries to get past Lane, out of the corner, but she's laughing at him now, and that stops him. "What?"
"I think that's the most I've ever heard you say at one time."
Jess lets his expression soften slightly. "Yeah, well, don't let it get out." He flashes her a crooked half-grin and walks past her, grabbing a broom on his way back out to the front of the store.
"Jess?"
He stops, doesn't turn around. "Yeah?"
"She'll listen to you."
No. He doesn't need to hear that. "What makes you so sure?"
It takes a long time for Lane to answer, and Jess is ready to keep walking when he hears her, very softly, say, "She needs you to believe in her, because she believed in you, and it changed you."
He has no response to that, and Lane brushes past him, untying the strings of her apron and grabbing her purse from the small employee locker. "Luke!"
Luke comes around the end of the counter as Lane bursts out from the kitchen, and she almost loses her balance in the collision. Luke and Jess simultaneously, instinctively, reach out to grab her. "Sorry," Luke mutters.
"No problem," Lane grins. "I'm off—just wanted to remind you that I'm leaving early today." At Luke's blank stare, she says, "The band has that gig? Remember? I cleared it with you a couple of weeks ago? I'm leaving now?"
Luke's face is still puzzled. "Um, right. Yeah—go. Good luck? Break a leg?"
Lane laughs. "Yeah, good enough. Good thing Jess is here to cover for me, since you forgot to change the schedule." She pulls open the door, bells jingling, and calls over her shoulder, "Bye Luke; bye Jess."
Luke turns to Jess as the door closes. "I know I should have some idea what she's talking about, but I really don't. Between renovating Lorelai's house, and everything going on with Lorelai and Rory, not to mention dealing with that damn dog, it's a good thing the diner can almost run itself by now."
"Relax, Uncle Luke," Jess says, punching Luke's shoulder. Luke glares at him. "I've got you covered for the next…" he looks at his watch, "four hours. I've gotta take off around six thirty, but I can stick around here until then."
"Thanks—I've just got this thing to go to with Lorelai… I appreciate the help."
"Yeah, I've got it," Jess says. "When do you need to leave?"
"Twenty minutes or so. Lorelai's coming over from the inn, and we'll go whenever she gets here." Luke stops cleaning and looks over at Jess. "You're really okay watching the place for the afternoon? Even though it means you'll have to work the dining room, since Caesar's in the kitchen? And you'll possibly be seen by other human beings?" Jess just stares back wordlessly. "Huh," Luke mutters. "I've got to run upstairs before Lorelai gets here. You can start your afternoon shift now."
Jess picks up the broom and heads out to the furthest corner of the dining room, working around the two customers that are still picking at their lunch. As he sweeps, his mind begins to drift. He had forgotten how easily this kind of work facilitates a stream-of-consciousness type of thought, but two days back in the diner have quickly reminded him.
When he used to have this time to let his mind roam at will, what did he think of? Well, Rory, for one. How to escape Stars Hollow. What he was reading—what he had just finished reading—what he wanted to read next. What pranks he could pull to alleviate his utter boredom. What he left behind; what lay ahead, sometimes, but it wasn't until after California that "the future" became a real consideration.
He sweeps up the pile of dust and crumbs, hangs the broom and dustpan on the hook in the back room, and pulls a package of napkins from under the counter, starting to refill the dispensers.
It's amazing how some people have to take the long way around, he thinks. And yet, here he is, three years later, wiping the same tables and sweeping the same floor, and somewhere along the line, this has become the place to escape ito/i rather than ifrom/i.
Luke is still upstairs and Jess has gone into the kitchen, momentarily leaving the two anonymous customers alone in the front, when the bell above the door rings.
"Luke!" Lorelai yells, pushing aside the curtain and calling up the stairs. "Luke! We need to get going, or we're going to be late. Isn't it weird for me to be saying that to you? That never happens!" Jess comes out of the kitchen, but doesn't say anything—instead, he leans against the doorjamb as she blows through the diner.
"I'm taking a donut and coffee with me," she calls, slipping behind the counter and pouring herself a to-go cup. "I had to pop into the Inn for a few minutes—it's Saturday, so I wasn't planning to go in at all—and then a few minutes turned into three hours when Cletus and Desdemona decided to get up close and personal with our flower beds, and I had to talk the gardener down from a ledge, and then wait for someone to fix the corral fence, but it's just a temporary thing until you can get there are fix it properly." She pulls a paper bag out from under the counter and puts two donuts in it, chattering the whole time.
"Paul Anka really wanted to come with us, but something's still wrong with him, so I told him he needs to stay home this time. I really need to ask Kirk if any of the other dogs have been sick recently. I told him—Paul Anka, not Kirk—that he can come with us and wear his shirt next time, and that seemed to make him feel a little bet…" She stops, her voice trailing off as she finally notices Jess standing there.
"Jess."
"Hey, Lorelai." He doesn't move from his post in the doorway.
"Uh, how are… I wasn't expecting to see… Congratulations on your book," she finally says.
"Thanks."
"Luke told me you were here; I just didn't expect to see you… here."
"Yeah, well, the world's full of surprises."
She paints a smile on her face, obviously determined to at least be civil to him. "How long are you in town for?"
"Just today. I'm heading out tonight—told Luke I'd cover for him while you guys go… where are you going?"
Lorelai looks at him strangely. "Soccer game," she says slowly. "Luke's is sponsoring a team."
"Explains the jacket." Jess gestures at her blue and white sweatshirt with the matching baseball cap.
"Right." Lorelai is still looking at him as if he's grown a second head, but this—shattering her expectations of his usual monosyllabic responses—is kind of fun. Throws her off.
Now, though, she sets the coffee and donut down on the counter and walks towards him. When she reaches the far end, she sits on the last stool and rests her elbows on the counter. "Jess?" Her voice is softer, commanding his attention.
"Yeah?"
"Did you see her?"
Geez, what it is with this town and keeping track of Rory? Has he suddenly become the official liaison between Rory and everyone she loves but has managed to alienate? He's not so sure he wants the job—no, he's actually quite positive he idoesn't/i want it. But Lorelai is still looking at him with eyes that mirror Rory's, and he has to answer.
"Yeah," he concedes.
She sighs, buries her face in her hands, and mutters something under her breath, quietly enough to be muffled, but clearly enough that Jess hears her say, "And now she'll even talk to him before me."
He fights the initial instinct to be offended and pick a fight—you're not getting involved with this, he reminds himself—and stands silently instead, waiting for Lorelai to say or do something, to give him an indication of where this conversation is going to go.
After a moment, they hear Luke's footsteps stomping down the stairs, and she raises her head, runs a finger under each eye, and looks directly at him. She stands and picks up the coffee and donut, never breaking eye contact with Jess, and, as Luke pushes aside the curtain, says, "Congratulations again on the book, Jess. That's… really amazing. I'll have to read Luke's copy when he finishes with it."
"Hey—you ready to go?" Luke asks, pulling on the second arm of his matching jacket, giving Lorelai a kiss, and wrapping an arm around her shoulder to walk her out the door, all in one fluid motion.
"Yeah," she says, smiling brightly. "I was just catching up a bit with Jess while you were upstairs primping."
"Aw, geez," Luke says, pushing open the door, "I was not primping." Lorelai giggles. "See you later, Jess, and thanks again," he calls over his shoulder as they leave.
Jess stands, frozen, watching, as they get into Luke's truck and drive away. He has the strange feeling that far too many hopes are resting on his shoulders, and he's tempted to cut his losses and leave as soon as Luke gets back, but he knows he won't. He may not be officially involved, but all of a sudden, "not getting involved" feels too much like caring.