A/N: Y'all seem to be very eager to know if Jess and Luke are related in this 'verse. Your first clue was in the previous chapter. The actual answer waits for you within this one! Thanks for all the reviewage on the previous - you know you rock! :)
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 7
Jess Mariano all but floated home after his date at Pacific Park. From the hotel to his own front door, he saw and heard nothing, his mind happily occupied by all things Rory Gilmore. She was amazing, and the craziest part was that for once the girl that he liked actually liked him back. The big L word had been used, in fact. She loved him and he loved her. After barely a week, they had to be insane, and yet, it was as true as any fact had ever been, and could not be refuted.
Passing through the living room, Jess changed his mind and doubled-back to the kitchen to get a glass of water before heading to bed. He hit the light switch by the door and nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Geez, Jimmy! What the hell, man?" he gasped, a hand over his heart that was hammering in his chest.
"Sorry," his father apologised, waving a beer bottle around in his hand. "I was just... Well, actually, I was waiting up for you."
"Seriously?" Jess checked his watch. "It's not even ten o'clock."
Contrary to what some may have thought, Jess did have a curfew, but they were nowhere near it right now, and even if they were, Jimmy was not the type to lurk in the dark and frighten the crap out of his son just because he was a little late home. Something else was going on here, and Jess suddenly remembered the weird look on his father's face when he left for his date with Rory. This wasn't about where he had been or for how long, it was who he was with.
"Jess, buddy..."
"This is about Rory. For whatever reason you've decided you don't want me seeing her."
"No, man, that's not it." Jimmy shook his head, sipping at his beer before realising there was none left to sip and abandoning the bottle on the worktop. "It's just... I really don't wanna have this conversation right now," he admitted then, going to the fridge for another beer.
The moment he opened the door, Jess closed it, almost taking his father's hand off in the process.
"What is going on?" he asked him seriously. "C'mon, whatever it is, just tell me."
They were pretty good at talking to each other when they had to. Since Jimmy and Jess were all each other had for a good twelve years, they had to be close, because there wasn't anyone else around. Now they had Sasha and Lilly, but it didn't change the fact that Jimmy and Jess could talk if they needed to. They'd covered all the awkward topics before. How Jess came into the world. His mother. Puberty, girls, the birds and the bees. Jess couldn't imagine what could be worse than all of that, unless Jimmy planned on telling him not to see Rory anymore, and apparently that wasn't it.
"Tell me," he repeated. "Please."
Jimmy took in a breath and let it out like a sigh. Jess waited a few beats and felt more relieved than worried by the time his father actually started to talk.
"Rory, she was... she was telling us about where she was from."
"Right, she's from Connecticut. So, what?"
"A little place named Stars Hollow, right?"
"Apparently. Again I ask, so what?"
There was a weird sort of a smile on Jimmy's lips that twisted into a grimace before he made hs admission.
"You know your mother was from there?"
Jess felt his eyes widen like a cartoon at the sound of those words. They never talked about Liz, never. Not in good ways or bad ways. It had been years since Jess stopped asking about his mother and Jimmy certainly never brought her up of his own accord, at least not until now.
The fact she and Rory were from the same town was like the mother of all coincidences, but these things did happen. Since Jess knew for a fact he was born in new York, clearly Liz got out. The chances of she and Rory ever having met were slim to none, at least he hoped that were true.
"Huh," he said, the only sound that made it out of his mouth, even as his mind ran with a million thoughts.
"There's more."
Jess didn't think he could be any more overwhelmed until Jimmy said that. He certainly didn't have the words to ask for an explanation and only hoped his father would take the hint and continue anyway.
"Er, Rory was talking about her step-father. Seems his name is Luke and he runs a diner in town."
"She told me that," Jess confirmed.
"Yeah, I figured." Jimmy nodded, rubbing the back of his neck as he paced the kitchen - not an easy task in so small a space. "Well, what she doesn't know - what she couldn't know, obviously - is that he is... Well, he would be your uncle."
"What?"
At that point Jess was pretty sure his brain spun so fast it fell completely off its axis. This was a lot to take in. He sat down on the nearest chair with a bump, staring into nothing and seeing less. This was crazy, beyond crazy. It felt like fate and destiny, meeting Rory the way he had, falling in love with her inside of a week. It was like some awful romantic comedy and yet not so bad that he wanted it to stop. Now came the shock that his girlfriend's step-father was his biological uncle, brother to a mother that Jess had never even met.
"I'm sorry, Jess. I wasn't going to tell you. I thought, y'know, what was the point? Rory would go home soon and then it wouldn't matter, maybe you never had to know, but you know Sash. The second she found out, it was... She thought I should tell you anyway."
"No, she's right. You had to tell me," Jess agreed, not even mad that Jimmy had considered keeping it a secret.
At the end of the day, it shouldn't make any difference. The relationship he had with Rory, new and intense as it was, shouldn't and couldn't be affected by something like this, but it might have been easier not knowing. Liz was such a weird topic area. Some days, Jess felt mad at her for not getting over herself enough to be his mother, for not trying to track him down over the years. Other days, especially when he was younger, he just wanted a mommy of his own. Right in this moment, he didn't know what he wanted. He told Rory he would love to meet her parents, her mom and her step-dad. Now that whole situation was a different thing entirely, because it meant meeting Liz's brother.
"A lot to process, huh?"
Jimmy's voice sounded too far away to be real, even with his hand on Jess' shoulder. He nodded anyway, brain still whirling.
"I told her I love her," he blurted out suddenly.
Jimmy sunk down into the chair on the opposite side of the table, eyes and mouth both wide open now.
"You... you what?"
"Rory. We were on the Ferris wheel and she was talking about how much she liked you guys, and how important I was, and... and I told her I love her."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
Silence reigned after that particular revelation. The fact Jess had found words after the first one was a miracle to him. Now he was out, all done, nothing left to give. This was way too much to process, though he was doing his best. He couldn't focus his eyes enough to even know if Jimmy was still there, but he figured he must be. Sat there together in the dark, the Mariano men had nothing left to say, so they said nothing for a good long while. Jess couldn't have said if five minutes passed or five hours when a question finally came to mind that he needed to ask.
"Does he know?"
"Does who know what?" asked Jimmy, frowning in real confusion.
"This Luke guy. Does he know I even exist?"
"He does." Jimmy nodded. "I mean, he knows Liz had a kid, obviously."
"He know my name?"
"No. No, we didn't talk about names. I registered you, after. Named you after my dad," Jimmy reminded him with a smile. "Your grandfather would have loved you."
Jess smiled at that, he couldn't help it. He never had grandparents. Neither of Jimmy's parents had lived to be old, and one of the few facts he knew about his mother's side of the family was that her mother was gone when she met his dad, and her father was on the way out. Apparently, there was very little to gain on Liz's side except for an uncle, an aunt, and by marriage, a cousin... who he was dating. Jess felt a little sick.
"Oh, geez!" he groaned, covering his face with his hands. "This is just... How the hell did this happen?"
"Coincidence?" Jimmy tried. "Maybe fate? Who's to say?"
Jess dragged his hands down his face and tried to focus. This was too weird, way too strange to contemplate. Maybe he could have handled suddenly running into Liz or mysterious uncle Luke, just maybe, but having Rory all tied up in this? It was way too much!
"Hey, you okay?" asked Jimmy then, a hand on his son's shoulder again. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," said Jess, looking him in the eye. "It's not."
Jimmy didn't control the universe. He didn't make Rory come here. He didn't cause Luke to be her step-father. All he did was the best he could for Jess. It was all he'd ever done. Unfortunately, this time around, there was no fixing the situation, no making it not complicated.
"So, what do you want to do now?" asked Jimmy then. "It's totally your call."
Jess shook his head.
"I don't know," he admitted, completely at a loss. "It is what it is. Rory's step-father is... my uncle, apparently. I have to tell her. There's no way I can't. She wants me to meet her family..."
His voice faded out as humourless laughter took away his words. This was truly insane.
"You think he'll tell Liz?"
"I don't know," Jimmy admitted. "I guess he might, if he still sees her. If she's still... I mean, she could be anywhere."
He changed tack at the last but Jess knew what he meant, nodding his head to prove it. There was a chance Liz was dead by now. The way she drank, did drugs, put herself in stupid situations, there was more than a chance she was no longer for this world. It was weird how Jess had never really thought of that possibility before, not seriously, not until now. It was weird how much it hurt.
"I'm going to bed," he said, getting up very abruptly. "I don't know if I can sleep, but I can't deal with this right now. I just can't."
"I get it," his father agreed. "And it's late, we should at least try to sleep, but Jess?" he called after him, loud as he dare in the house where two others slept on. "Buddy, I'm here for you. You know that, right?"
"Always". Jess nodded, forcing as much of a smile as he could manage before he walked away. "Weird night," he muttered to himself. "Way too weird."
To Be Continued...
