Chapter 4 Criminal Minds

"Huh. Guess you never thought you had the good kid when it came to Rory and me, did ya, Uncle Luke?"

Jess and Luke trailed behind Lorelai as she imperiously led her little band to the ice cream store.

"Shut up," said his uncle, discombobulated from Lorelai's sudden baby reversal, Jess' poverty, and whatever the heck was going on with Rory.

Luke watched the ground as they walked, but didn't miss seeing Jess look at Rory frequently as she followed her mother at a short distance. They couldn't quite make out what Rory was mumbling under her breath, but he thought he heard the word Prius.

"What's up with her? What's about this yacht?" asked the scrawny young adult.

"One bonehead maneuver at a time," growled Luke. "You're up first. She's on deck, and Lorelai's warming up. This is the damndest, most screwed up family I ever saw. Gives me a whole new perspective on Liz and TJ."

He suddenly stopped and faced Jess, who took a step back to create some distance.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Jess? You know I'm there for you. Homeless? Starving? Are you kidding me? I thought you heard me last year when I said I'd be there for you. Why didn't you call?"

Jess shrugged. "It's only been bad a few weeks. I was busy writing my book, then selling it, then editing started, and things just kinda got out of hand."

Lorelai turned as she reached the sidewalk in front of the ice cream shop and waited for Rory as she moped along by herself. She looked at Luke, who was in full-rant stance: legs spread-eagled, hands flying like bats confused by wind turbines as he lectured Jess.

Rory turned and dispassionately watched with her for a moment. "Do we need to save Jess?" she asked.

"Nah," said Lorelai. "He's keeping out of the way pretty well. And if Luke should connect once or twice, it would probably be good for him." With that she flounced into Emmylou's Ice Cream Emporium.

A lot was settled by the time Jess and Luke joined Rory and Lorelai at their table in the ice cream shop. Jess had agreed to accept cash and a check from Luke, and promised to let him know if things ever got that bad again. Lorelai had ordered for everyone, and soon after the men were seated, she and Rory split a ten scoop extravaganza.

"Eat," commanded Lorelai to Jess, who had been given a large banana split.

Luke looked up at the picture board which showed the main offerings, then eyed his dish warily. "What the heck is spaghetti ice cream? Sounds disgusting."

"It's a child's treat, babe."

"It would be practically child abuse to force a kid to eat something like this." He shut down all of his social skills like talking as he realized that, thanks to Lorelai's latest profession, punishing his future kid was never even going to be a possibility.

"It's your favorite vanilla, hon, and there are plain nuts on top. I even had them crush fresh strawberries for the sauce instead of the really good sweet sauce they normally put on."

He said nothing, causing his fiancée to sigh. It was not a good sign when Luke shut down. But there were other priorities. Jess' and Rory's problems hadn't been discussed yet, plus her own ice cream was melting, at least that part that wasn't being wolfed down by Rory.

"So, Jess," she began before Luke's mumbling under his breath became louder than Rory's mumbling under her breath as Lorelai caught the words 'if you don't want kids, do you even want to get married anymore?'

She softly petted his scruffy cheek, which she had carefully trimmed the day before so the wedding photos would show exactly the right amount of sexy shadow without entering Grizzly Adams territory. Then she gave one slightly hard swat, saying, "We'll get to you when we get to you." Luke rubbed his cheek more from surprise than pain. Lorelai added after a beat, "And yes." She tapped on his ice cream bowl and pointed at him to get eating.

Lorelai directed her take-no-crap manager persona, the one that actually got Michel off his ass, and arched an eyebrow at Jess.

"I'm eating! I'm eating!" he said, waving a maraschino cherry at her.

"You need money," she stated, sounding more like Richard Gilmore than Rory ever imagined she could.

"Got it covered," he replied in all his Jessness.

"Food?" she joined his staccato pace.

"Got it covered."

"Place to sleep?"

"Got it covered."

"Just where are you getting this money and bed that you didn't have ten minutes ago?" Lorelai knew stubborn when she saw it, and it was like looking in a mirror at the moment.

"Your fiancé."

She beamed at Luke. "Sometimes we really are Boris and Natasha, working in perfect sync. Good job, Natasha," she complimented teasingly.

"Moose and squirrel," came the grumbly response from the spaghetti ice cream eater, deliberately avoiding the Natasha insult. He still wanted to get married tomorrow.

All heads snapped to Luke.

"What?" he said, offended, "I know stuff. We're more like Rocky and Bullwinkle."

Lorelai chortled with delight, as she bounced closer on the booth's seat, giving him a rum-raisiny kiss.

Rory's stomach started to hurt, and not from the ice cream. She was up next and she hadn't come close to having enough ice cream to survive disappointing her mother.

"How's my little felon doing?" asked Lorelai. "Huh. Always thought I'd use that term to describe Jess, not my precious loin fruit."

"I'm not a felon. I almost stole a yacht, not I DID steal a yacht. Why are you selling the Crap Shack?"

"I'm not selling the Crap Shack!" protested Lorelai. She turned to Luke. "Why did you buy the Twickham house?"

Luke snorted despondently. "Apparently I'm taking up gardening. It was gonna be for the kids or the plants, but that's a solved problem now, isn't it?"

Lorelai frowned at him. Tedious, resentful Luke was not one of her favorite Lukes. She knew he'd come around, but she hadn't yet had the chance to talk him into acceptance, because, after all, grand theft yacht takes priority over not having kids that they might not even be able to have.

But this instantiation of resentful Luke was instigated by her and she knew she would have to deal with it. Soon.

"Well, that's good," said Rory. "I need a place to stay, so when you guys move into the Twickham house, I'll move into the Crap Shack."

"You already live at the Crap Shack," commented Luke. "You live there with us. You're just gone most of the time at Yale."

Lorelai drew a quick breath. Once Rory began speaking, Luke dropped everything he'd been moping about and focused on her with "Dean in a headlock" intensity. Caring for Rory and taking care of Rory. One of the many reasons she loved him.

"I'm not going back."

Lorelai's head reached whiplash speed as Rory became defiant. "Not going back to … Ol' Missouri? My Old Kentucky Home? The Future?"

"I'm not going back to Yale."

"You can forget all about that idea, Missy!" All heads turned toward Luke, since everyone thought he said it. Except he didn't. A father at a nearby table was arguing with his fourteen year old daughter about the temporary tattoo on her arm that she wanted to change into a permanent one.

Still, it covered the only rational response to Rory's insane idea.

Rory clutched her purse as if her work notebook contained therein would jump out and accuse her like Mitchum did of not having "it." That notebook was filled with what she thought was "it." She'd done massive research on Mitchum Huntzberger, trying to understand him so she could impress him. She'd quizzed Logan pre-coital until he pleaded for respite. Turns out, Mitchum Huntzberger's likes and dislikes were a real sexual turnoff for his son. She had brainstormed every profile question she could, trying to understand all the facets of him, because she was sure that one day Mitchum would be as impressed as all get-out by her encyclopedic knowledge of all things Huntzberger.

Her mind flashed back to the moments before Mitchum identified the "it" that Rory was missing. She had trailed him through the office, obsequiously trying to meet his every need. She sat silently as he waited for his meeting to start, and unknowingly threw away her career at Huntzberger Inc.

Frequently it's the questions you don't ask that get you into trouble. And the question she completely missed, that Mitchum was sitting there waiting for her to ask in some form or another, was "What will it take to be successful in the Huntzberger empire?"

Rory fretted, "I have no career. I have no plan. I don't want to waste Grandpa's money. I don't want to fritter away my college like the Life and Death Brigade does with their gorilla masks and In Omnia Paratus."

"Well don't!" cried Lorelai. "Go to Yale and study journalism anyway! Don't let any billionaire jerk tell you you can't!"

Lorelai mangled three napkins and the little plastic clown spoon that she'd sneaked from the counter as she ordered their ice creams. "I still can't understand what you see in that smarmy Logan. He's his father all over again, except for the ambition and work ethic."

"He's not his father, Mom. I really care about him." Her mind flashed to Jess' last proclamation to her, and realized that Logan had easily and completely replaced her feelings for Jess. "He might be the one," she added softly.

Luke's heart hit the ground as he thought of his stepdaughter-to-be. A billionaire's son is the love of her life? Lorelai mulls over a job offered by some big shot corporate guy who wants to buy her inn, and her daughter's going to marry a boy who will be a billionaire one day. He pushed thoughts of him not being enough out of his head.

"Rory, sweets," continued her mother. "Logan induced you to steal a yacht! You, my perfect angel daughter, who never stole a thing or committed a crime in her life."

A pink-cheeked Rory corrected Lorelai. "Except for corn starch. And Cocoa Puffs. And the eggs. We took the Yale mattress without making arrangements. And we weren't exactly on the right side of the law when we tested so many cakes at Weston's without intending to buy any."

"Eggs? Cereal? Corn starch? Well geez, I always figured Jess was the one harassing Taylor," commented Luke, still finding it nearly impossible to imagine Rory pilfering those things from Doose's.. "Looks like I was wrong." He chuckled.

"It's the eyes," added Lorelai. "She could get away with murder if she wanted to."

Rory rolled her eyes, while Jess knitted his eyebrows and became very quiet, trying to process this new information about his ex-girlfriend, soon to be cousin.

She unfolded her paper napkin on her lap and calmly looked at each person in turn, with an expression that Lorelai knew all too well. Lorelai shuddered as this young Emily Gilmore looked her in the eye, then shrugged her shoulders.

"Anyway, it's no big deal. It was my idea to steal a yacht. Logan tried to talk me out of it. And when I insisted on doing it anyway, and we got caught, he managed to talk our way out of an arrest. All because his family knows the family of the people who own the boat."

Her family looked at her as if she really were Emily Gilmore. Rory stamped her foot in frustration.

"C'mon, Luke, back me up here! Remember how everyone blamed Jess for the accident, when I was the one who told him to not go back to the diner!"

Luke opened his mouth before he had a clue of what to say that wouldn't upset one of the other three. "Ah, um, Rory..." he began.

"What the hell is so bad about your life that made you want to commit grand larceny?" sneered Jess.

"Because I don't have it!" she cried.

"Don't have what?" puzzled Lorelai. She'd busted her butt, given up so much, just so Rory could have whatever she wanted.

Rory armed herself with more paper napkins as she explained how Mitchum first gave her a job, but never encouraged her or even told her what he expected. The tears didn't come, though, not even when at the part when he said she was more suited to be a secretary than a journalist.

They didn't come, either, when Lorelai started a rant on Rory's talents and how those rich Hartford types were always bent on tearing others down.

Both laughter and a few tears broke through when Jess summed matters up in a way only he could.

"Why in the world are you even listening to this guy? He's basically Paris with a billion dollars and a dick."

"Probably a tiny one," muttered Luke. Lorelai's bark of laughter at Luke's rare public profanity got everyone at the table tittering.

"What do you say if we get back on the road?" asked Lorelai. "We've still got a wedding to throw." She grinned at her fiancé. "Even if it's just a tiny one."

Twenty minutes and one to-go coffee into the drive, Jess blurted, "You devil-egged my car!" Then the Jeep erupted into a cacophony of laughter, accusations and denials.

A/N: A tweak here and there to canon. It was always weird that Logan couldn't talk them out of trouble over the yacht thing.