A/N: After writing about Jess and Rory being reasonably mature adults it's nice to have fun with them being a total disasterpiece. Rory was way too good in high school.


It took several days, but eventually Dean decided that his anger at Rory was unfounded, given the version of the story he was aware of. He said that he knew it was just like Rory to go out of her way to make someone feel welcome, and he should have been mad at her for being polite. Rory had graciously accepted his apology, and then proceeded to spew multiple apologies at him. It wasn't hard to sound genuine, because she was. She did feel bad for keeping it from him, just like she felt bad for keeping everything else that had happened between her and Jess from him. He had accepted her apology just as she had accepted his and they kissed and made up. By Friday morning, everything between the two of them was fine. And then Rory blew it, big time.

"I can't believe I have to baby-sit tonight," Dean said, sitting down on a bench after school got out Friday afternoon. "I hate town meetings."

"Town meetings are great!" Rory argued. "Taylor always gets so upset, especially if Luke is there to rile him up." It was the reason she and her mom always snuck a bag of Twizzlers in with them.

Dean shook his head. "I think the town's fascination with meetings is the one thing I will never understand about Stars Hollow," he said. "Are you going to the one tonight?"

Normally, Rory would have said yes. The only problem was, nearly a week had gone by and she and Jess hadn't made any progress on their science project. After their attempt to work on it Monday night, she was a little bit afraid to try again. Even though she was still doing her best to ignore Jess, they had set up a plan to work on the project at Luke's during the town meeting. Working after hours was no longer an option in Rory's mind. Even though the diner was technically closed during town meetings, Luke usually came back and stayed open for an extra hour or so to make up for the lost time. No one else would be there during the meeting, but it would be early enough for people to still be out on the streets and if Jess tried something Rory could just run across the street and duck into Miss Patty's. There was no way Jess would follow her right into a town meeting.

"I'm going to be over at Luke's, actually," Rory said lightly. "Jess and I are going to take advantage of the quiet and work on our chemistry project for a little while." And this time, they really were going to work on their project. She wasn't going to fall for going upstairs to "watch a movie" again. She knew better now.

Dean's face clouded over. "Why do you have to work on it at Luke's? Why not go to the library or something?"

"Well, it's hard to discuss things in the library," Rory said, trying to sound diplomatic. "At Luke's we don't have to worry about being yelled at for talking above a whisper. Plus I'll already be there when Luke comes back from the meeting so I can order cake." She kept her tone casual. "Hey, you should meet me there once your parents get back," she added in a last ditch effort to keep Dean happy. "We can get Luke to make us one of those giant ice cream sundaes."

"I can't," Dean said, not sounding nearly as apologetic as he would have in regular circumstances. "I've got basketball practice at nine tomorrow morning and my parents won't want me to be out late."

"The town meeting won't get over that late," Rory said. "You can't get out for a little while? Your parents let you stay out until ten on school nights, and school starts earlier than nine." Hanging out with Dean at Luke's while Jess skulked around in the background wasn't exactly her idea of a great time, but it made more sense than Rory walking over to Dean's after the meeting, only to turn around and go home a little while later.

Dean looked like he was about to come up with some sort of excuse, but instead he sighed. "Look, I don't really want to hang out at Luke's, okay? Not while he's there."

Rory watched the last of her classmates straggle out of the school, joking around and making plans for the weekend. She had the sinking feeling that she wouldn't have any plans for the weekend, given the way her conversation with Dean was going. "Why exactly don't you like him?" Rory asked. "I mean, I'm not exactly his biggest fan, but he hasn't really done anything wrong."

Rory really did think Jess hadn't done anything wrong, but Dean apparently thought otherwise. "He hasn't done anything wrong?" Dean said, looking at her disbelievingly. "Open your eyes, Rory. He's been causing trouble all over town. I bet half the people at the town meeting tonight are going to be complaining about him."

Rory wasn't exactly out of the loop when it came to town gossip, but she hadn't heard anything about Jess. Maybe it just hadn't made her way to the neck of the woods, or maybe it had and she just hadn't wanted to hear it. "Like what?"

"Let's see," Dean said sarcastically. "The collection that was in Doose's for that old bridge was stolen, and Taylor is pretty sure Jess did it. And there's a rumor going around that he set off a bunch of firecrackers outside the English classrooms the other day."

"Those are two things that might not have even happened," Rory said. "It's just gossip. Is that really enough to judge a person by?"

Dean looked at her like she was being naïve, which irked her. His face just screamed "you've got to be kidding me". "Why are you defending him?" he asked. "You just said you weren't friends with him at breakfast the other day."

"I have to be friends with someone to defend them?" Rory asked. "That's a little unreasonable. I'm not even defending him; I'm just pointing out that there's absolutely no proof that he did either of those things, and you're acting like we should form a pitchfork mob and run him out of town."

"That's a little dramatic," Dean said, pulling a water bottle from his bag and taking a long drink. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I don't like the guy, and I don't have to. And I don't have to like you hanging out with him."

"It's a project for school!" Rory cried. She could feel the frustration mounting, and she really didn't want to explode with people around. They'd only made up a few hours ago. Life was supposed to be more like a rollercoaster, not seventeen years of smooth sailing followed by two weeks of a ridiculous amount of turmoil. She felt like she was in some cheesy CW teen drama. "Do you want me to ask Mr. Chambers to switch me and you around so I'm working with MacKenzie and you're working with Jess? You don't like him, but at least I wouldn't be working with him then."

Dean shook his head, like he couldn't even deal with the conversation they were having. "You don't have to be sarcastic," he said.

"Well, I have no idea what else to do when you're blowing this entire thing out of proportion," Rory said. "I have one school project with the guy, and you're acting insanely jealous."

The J-word was not the right one to use. Dean barked out a harsh laugh. "Jealous of that guy? Yeah, right. I just don't like him."

"Well, I do," Rory blurted out. Once the words were out of her mouth, it was impossible to take them back. Judging by the shocked look on Dean's face, he hadn't picked that particular moment to zone out. "I haven't been talking to him out of respect for you, but last week we talked about a book he was reading and I think he'd probably be pretty cool if I got to know him, and you got to know him."

Dean stood and slung his backpack over his shoulder angrily. "Well, that's great. I'm glad he's so 'cool'. Sorry I'm not cool enough for you." Rory couldn't even think of anything to say to bring him back as he walked away. She called his name, but he didn't even turn around. He just stalked off, fueled by some sort of righteous indignation that Rory couldn't make heads or tails of.

After Dean disappeared around a corner she just sat there by herself for a minute, hoping he would change his mind and come back. When he didn't, she buried her face in her hands. "Damn it!" she yelled, the sound muffled against her palms. It was like some sort of sick cosmic joke. Suddenly, Rory was incapable of doing anything right. She wasn't making the right decisions and she wasn't saying the right things when it came to the backlash from the decisions. She was just sick of it. And she couldn't even really complain, because it was all her friggin' fault.

When she showed up at the diner later to work on her chemistry project she was not in the most sunshiney of moods. "That's a good look for you," Jess said, referencing the scowl that had been plastered on her face since her fight with Dean. Luckily her mom had worked late at the inn and had to head right to the town meeting from there, so she hadn't been witness to Rory's funk.

"Let's just talk about chemistry," Rory said, flipping over her notebook. "You have any ideas for this project?"

"I was thinking the cake should be chocolate," Jess said, handing her a cup of coffee without even asking if she wanted one. "I've always preferred chocolate to vanilla."

Rory sighed, but it was half-hearted. "Okay, chocolate cake," she said, writing it in her notebook. "Do you know how to bake a cake? Because I've never made a cake before."

"Well, we are in a diner that serves cake," Jess pointed out. "I bet Luke has a recipe around here somewhere." He looked over at the counter, like he expected a cookbook to be sitting on the counter.

She shook her head. "I've seen Luke mix up cake batter before. He doesn't use a recipe. He's made it so many times he doesn't need to."

"I can have him write it down," Jess suggested. "And then we can bake a cake."

"And stare at the oven while it bakes?" Rory said, shaking her head. "This project is stupid. Let's just light a piece of paper on fire or something. Or the inn has fireplaces in the rooms. We could just go light one of those."

Jess sat down across from her, straddling his chair backwards. "Okay, what's wrong?"

"Excuse me?" As conflicted as she felt about Jess, she had known him for less than two weeks. She wasn't comfortable with him asking about her problems already.

"You walked in here looking like you've been sucking on a lemon all day and you looked like you wanted to bite my head off when I gave you your coffee," Jess said. "And you called this project stupid. The Rory I know wouldn't refer to school as stupid."

"There is no Rory you know," she pointed out. "You just met me, and I haven't even told you that much about myself. All you know is that I like reading and some punk music and I do well in school."

"I know you like coffee," Jess added. "And all parts of peach pie, not just the crust. You like extra pickles on your cheeseburger, extra cheese on your cheese fries and massive amounts of whipped cream on your ice cream."

Rory just waved him away. "That's just stuff you've learned working here, not real things about me," she said. "I like pepperoni on my pizza too, but Luke doesn't serve that."

Jess held up a finger to silence her and continued. "Your mom is your best friend, you're friendly to everyone at school but you'd rather just talk to Lane, you're part of a ridiculous amount of extracurricular activities to look important, and you keep your backpack more organized than a filing cabinet."

"I do not do extracurriculars to look important!" Rory argued.

"Okay, to look good for colleges then," Jess relented. "But admit it, everything else I said is true."

"You see me in here with my mom all the time, you go to school with Lane and me, and my backpack is literally open on the table right now," Rory said, pointing at it. "Anyone could list off all the things you just did. It's a little pretentious to assume you know any real things about me. I'm not sitting here pretending I know anything about you." She didn't know anything about him, after all. Aside from the obvious lack of caring toward school and his interest in music and reading, Jess was a closed book. Fed up with having ridiculous conversations, she rested her chin in her palm and took a sip of her coffee. "Look, let's just work on the project, okay?" she said tiredly. "It's been a long day."

For a beautiful moment, Jess actually busied himself with reading the project instructions, even though Rory had looked them over a hundred times. The silence only lasted a few scant minutes, though. "I saw you earlier," Jess offered, nodding at the high school. "You and Dean. He looked pretty pissed."

There was no point in denying it, really. "Such is life," she said with a shrug. "At least lately."

"Lately since last Tuesday?" Jess suggested.

"Somewhere around there," Rory admitted. "He doesn't like you. He thinks you steal things and set fires and even though he didn't say so, I'm assuming he thinks that you're out to kidnap me or something."

Jess raised an eyebrow, but he didn't tell Rory she was wrong. "Dean seems like a swell guy," he said. "Trying to protect you from a thief and arsonist. He's like a regular Ward Cleaver."

"People are saying you took the funds for the bridge from Doose's," Rory said, feeling the need to elaborate. "If you did, that was a really shitty thing to do."

"Maybe the just misplaced it," Jess suggested.

Rory heaved a sigh that seemed to come from the soles of her feet. "This isn't about the bridge fund. Dean just doesn't like you, and he's not going to be happy until this project is over and I can go back to spending all my spare time with him." The bitterness in her voice was harsh and uncharacteristic. She shook her head vigorously, trying to clear away all the negative thoughts. "I'm being unfair to him," she said. "He's just used to things being one way and now they're different. I'm sure he'll adjust."

"You're defending his behavior?" It was obvious he thought Rory was making a mistake.

"I can't have this conversation again today," Rory said. "I already had it once today, about you. I can't…" She trailed off, not sure what she even wanted to say next. When she tried again, she didn't get much further. "I'm not…" She threw up her hands in frustration. "I can't deal with this. I'm not supposed to have to deal with this."

"Why not?" Jess challenged her. "Why not you? Other people deal with tough decisions all the time, and I bet none of them think they're supposed to have to make the hard choices. But they deal with it, and so can you."

"I'm just in the middle!" Rory cried. "I got in an argument with Dean earlier about you. Now I'm arguing with you about him. I'm just being pulled back and forth, and I didn't even do anything!"

After Rory was done with her outburst the diner felt unnaturally silent. She could hear the ticking of a clock she had never noticed once before in all her time at Luke's. In the kitchen, a sink was dripping. If she had been closer to the windows, she probably could have heard the leaves skittering on the pavement outside and the conversation going on at Miss Patty's. Jess just stared at her, looking incredibly serious. Rory didn't even want to make eye contact with, because when she did it felt like he was seeing a part of her that she didn't want to acknowledge. At long last, Jess spoke up.

"You didn't do anything?" he asked, getting off of his chair. He walked around the table slowly and stood in front of Rory, making her nervous. "You didn't do this?"

He bent down slightly and tilted Rory's face up to his own, brushing his lips against hers. He didn't even kiss her, really. It was the merest suggestion of a kiss. That was enough, though. It reminded Rory of when they had actually kissed and despite everything she knew to be right, she wanted more. "No," she whispered, her face just inches away from his. "You did that."

"So what are you going to do?" he whispered back. "What are you, Rory Gilmore, going to do?"

She should have left. She should have bolted from her seat, grabbed her backpack and ran until she was safely in her room at home, or at least with her mom at Miss Patty's. And when she was there she should have called Dean and apologized—again—for the whole crappy day. Then she should have hid in her room all weekend until it was time for school on Monday, when she should have marched up to Mr. Chambers as soon as the school was unlocked to demand that he switch her lab partner.

But she didn't do any of that.

Instead, Rory kissed him back.