A/N: This chapter got long, but hey, its the morning after the night before so there's a lot to say! You guys are not going to complain about a lengthy chapter of full-on Literati, right? ;) Thank you sooo much for all the reviewage. You make me grin :D

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 10

Rory woke up slowly and with a sudden realisation that things were not as they usually were in her world. She had a habit of sleeping in the centre of the bed as a rule, since she had no reason to pick a side. This particular morning she found herself decidedly on the right side of the bed, facing the window. She forgot to draw the curtains last night, and for a brief moment she couldn't remember why, then she glanced down and saw the arm slung casually across her waist from behind.

"Oh my God!" she whispered to herself, a mild panic spreading through her.

She slept with Jess last night. Rory Gilmore, on her second date with a guy, had allowed him into her bed. She was a slut, a moralless tramp! Of course whilst the practically saintly voice in her mind yelled these awful things, another brain-voice chimed in much more loudly to remind Rory that the whole experience had been amazing, mind-blowing actually. Truth be told, Rory hadn't felt that good in a long time, if ever, and hey, at least she hadn't let it happen on the first date, that would've been much worse.

Carefully turning over with Jess' arm across her body, Rory was amazed to find he was still sleeping soundly. A smile came to her lips as she looked at him. He was just so peaceful and so nice to look at it. She could stare all day and be perfectly content. Well, maybe that was going too far. Lying here just looking was never going to be enough, as proven by the way her hand came up to touch his cheek, fingers moving through his hair and over the plains of his face. That was when he started to stir. Rory froze.

Jess' eyes came open and he looked across at the face on the next pillow. He smiled.

"Hi."

"Hey," Rory replied, realising too late her arm was still out-stretched, her hand resting near his face.

She stopped worrying about it when he picked up that same hand and kissed her palm. It made her blush, that action, and the fact she had been lying here wondering at how great Jess looked there beside her in her bed.

"What?" he asked, sure there was something on her mind that she wasn't saying.

Rory shook her head slightly against the pillow, pulled her hand back to herself and bit down on her thumb. She knew what he wanted to hear, the very thoughts in her head right now, but in spite of what they had done last night, she felt stupid saying it. With her eyes closed against his intense gaze, she suddenly confessed.

"I was just thinking... that you're beautiful," she admitted shyly.

She opened her eyes and found that Jess' expression was mostly unreadable, a strange mix of amusement and surprise.

"That's not what a guy usually wants to hear," he admitted eventually. "But thanks, I think?"

"You're welcome," Rory giggled, unable to help herself. "This is weird," she admitted then, turning onto her back to stare at the ceiling.

"Yeah," Jess agreed, copying the position. "I mean, not bad weird, but... I've got to admit, I haven't woken up with anybody in a long time," he confessed, putting one arm behind his head.

"Me either," Rory sighed. "And I've never... I mean, I'm not usually that kind of person that would just... after two weeks, on two dates, I wouldn't normally go ahead and... but we did," she rambled, as Rory was want to do, becoming more frantic by the second, Jess noted. "You and I, we... we did. Oh God!" she gasped suddenly, hands covering her face.

"Rory?"

Jess turned to face her again, a little disturbed by what he saw as an over-reaction to what had happened here. He seriously wasn't sure if she was crying or what. The moment he reached out to move her hands from her face, they came away of their own accord.

"I'm sorry," she told him, dry eyed but clearly upset. "This isn't flattering for you. I really don't mean to make you feel bad. You didn't take advantage of me or anything, I'm not accusing you of that, and what we did was good, so good," she emphasised, in spite of her panic. "I mean, I don't think I could walk right now even if I wanted to, but I still can't believe we did that. We're practically strangers, Jess!"

"Okay, first, please, would you take a breath?" he urged her, sitting up against the head board as she did the same, pulling the covers up with her so she wasn't showing everything. "Second, we may not have known each other all that long, but you do know me, Rory," he told her definitely, encouraging her to meet his eyes. "You know me, and I know you. I've told you things my best friends don't even know about me. Those two dates we had, the coffee before that, the interview even, that adds up to more conversation than I've probably had with anybody else in my entire life."

Rory's eyes went wide.

"That's crazy."

"It's also true," Jess insisted. "Rory, I can't speak for you, but as far as I can tell, what happened here last night happened because we wanted it to, because it felt right."

"It did," she agreed, nodding her head. "It did feel right."

"So then what is the problem?"

Rory couldn't answer that and said as much.

"I don't know," she confessed. "I guess it's just... it's because I only ever slept with two guys before this. Two serious boyfriends who I'd been dating for a good long while before I made that leap, and yes, I know, I'm older now and the world is changing, and... and I know that I'm not making sense, Jess," she admitted as she faced him. "I'm sorry for coming off like such a complete freak right now, but this is what you do to me. You do, you... you overwhelm me. Can you understand that?" she asked him desperately.

Jess didn't have words to answer her, at least not at first. She was so beautiful, and crazy, and like no other woman he ever met. Here she was, his wonderful Rory, throwing compliments with one hand, and telling him he was a terrible mistake at the same time. Such was the enigma of this woman he was falling hard and fast for, and he wanted her to know that he understood exactly how she was feeling, because he was feeling it too. His hand slid into her hair and pulled her head closer so he could kiss her deeply.

"Yes, I understand being overwhelmed," he promised her when they parted. "Because that is exactly what you do to me too."

Rory leaned into his touch, shifted her body closer so she could kiss him again. Jess Mariano was fast becoming all she could think about and all she wanted. Maybe that was crazy, maybe she was completely mentally unstable at this point, and still Rory couldn't care. This all felt far too good to give it up, to want to be cured from whatever the heck might be wrong with her. Unfortunately, all good things did have to come to an end, or at the very least a pause. As Jess tried to lay her down again, Rory very deliberately shifted away.

"I'd love to just let this happen... again," she confessed. "But honestly..."

"You want me to go," said Jess with genuine regret, trying to be the bigger man here and not show he was disappointed, even hurt by her decision. "It's okay, I get it."

"No, you don't," Rory told him, grabbing his arm as he tried to roll away from her. "I don't want you to leave, Jess, I really don't. I just think maybe some food, and definitely some coffee, might be good before any more physical activity takes place, okay?" she told him as he looked back and met her eyes.

Jess smirked at the misunderstanding and then leaned in closer to kiss her lips.

"You put the coffee on, I'll run to the store," he told her. "Then I can cook you breakfast."

Rory would've said he didn't have to, but honestly, she loved that he would offer. She had already confessed several times that her cooking skills were non-existent and her apartment rarely contained anything edible that wasn't leftover take-out. Clearly Jess had been listening and was going to be a real sweetheart about that as well as everything else.

"Sounds good," she agreed, biting her lip as she watched him hop out of bed buck-naked and go searching for his clothes that were well-spread in a haphazard path from the bed out to the living room.

Rory fell back against the pillows the moment he was out of sight and a giggle of laughter escaped her lips. This was not how she had pictured the weekend turning out, but honestly, she couldn't complain at all so far.

They ate breakfast at the kitchen table, him in his pants and undershirt from the night before, her in nothing but her underwear and a stretched-out over-sized T-shirt that she clearly slept in, when she wasn't getting naked with 'strangers'. In spite of the fact they had only known each other a couple of weeks, and Rory's severe amount of awkwardness when they first woke up together, it was all surprisingly comfortable and domestically normal. Jess even offered to do the dishes while Rory hopped in the shower. She told him he didn't have to. Jess only smirked and said he wanted to, because then she would have a reason to thank him later. It was worth the joke to make her blush. How a woman could do that after what they had got up to last night, Jess had no idea, but he kind of loved the strange intricacies of Rory's character that way.

Jess was long done with the dishes and general tidying up before Rory ever got out of the bathroom. He wandered back to the bedroom not really knowing what to do with himself, when he spotted the pile of books on the nightstand. Obviously he had other things on his mind last night and hadn't notice the reading material at all. Now Jess saw familiar titles that made him smile. Throwing himself on top of the covers, he got comfortable against the pillows and opened up the top book from the pile. He was engrossed by the time Rory emerged from the shower, wearing sweats and towel-drying her hair.

"What are you...?" she began to ask, and Jess immediately flashed the cover of the book her way. "Oh, yeah. I was reading that the other night," she admitted, sitting down on the edge of the bed beside him.

"Because we talked about it?" he checked, replacing Ginsberg's Howl on her pile of books.

"Partly," Rory nodded, still focused on drying her hair with the towel.

Something about the way she said it and tried to keep her face hidden proved there was way more to it than that. Jess pulled the towel away from her, making her look up sharply and with surprise written on her face.

"Rory," he said in such a way that she knew he knew she had something to hide. "C'mon, tell me. You know you want to," he teased her.

"What is this, truth or dare?" she asked, rolling her eyes like he was being just so annoying.

"If you want," Jess shrugged easily, even as Rory laughed at his agreement. "Hey, you're the one who said we didn't know enough about each other. I'm not so much for the dares, but we can play 'truth' if you want to. I've got nothing to hide."

"You're serious," Rory realised.

"Deadly."

Rory moved further up the bed, shoving Jess until he moved to the left side. They both reclined on top of the covers, facing each other and Rory smiled.

"Okay, hit me."

"First question," Jess nodded once. "Why's the book making you blush so bad all of a sudden, when we both know you've read it, like, forty times before?"

"Because..." Rory started, feeling dumb. "I may have pictured a scene similar to this morning, with you here, kind of naked, reading Howl to me," she confessed, sure her face was scarlet all over as she confessed it.

"Really?" asked Jess, fighting the grin that wanted to be all over his own face.

"Yes, really," she agreed, looking away a moment. "That was the night I called you. Hey, don't be smug!" she told him sharply as she caught him smirking terribly.

"I'm not!" he argued, even though he was clearly flattered and loving it. "Hey, you don't think I imagined you naked before I saw the real thing? Because if that's true then you know nothing about guys," he countered. "Now, your question."

Rory bit her lip appearing to consider her options carefully. She was pretty sure she was convincing, that Jess would have no idea she ended up asking the only question that was in her head in this moment.

"Do I measure up to the picture in your head?"

"No," he shook his head then, before immediately continuing without missing a beat. "You're a thousand times better."

"Good answer," Rory told him, leaning in close enough to kiss.

"I know," he replied, letting his lips drop onto hers. "Now, my turn..."

The back and forth continued, with questions both silly and serious. Certain answers prompted rewards of kisses and more, the pair of them rolling around on the bed like giddy teenagers in the first throes of love. Maybe they really weren't so very far away from being exactly that. Sure, neither Rory nor Jess was a teen anymore, but what was developing between them was way more serious than either could have imagined when they first met, there was no doubt in either of their minds about that.

Their game of 'Truth' eventually turned into several rounds of 'I Never'. By her own admission, Rory was coming off pretty lame as she confessed to never having tried a cigarette, and had also never gone skinny dipping. Jess mocked her mercilessly but in the sweetest way for her angelic tendencies, and the game went on.

"Okay, I've never... slept with a guy on the first date," she said, certain in her reputation still since this had all happened as a result of a second evening spent in each other's company.

Jess thought hard of something viable to say, since his list of things he had never done was already much shorter than Rory's own, it seemed.

"Hmm, I've never kissed a person of my own sex."

"Really?" asked Rory, raising an eyebrow. "I have."

That got a wide-eyed reaction, as she had known it would. Jess looked genuinely shocked.

"Okay, that's going to require explanation."

"It was nothing," Rory waved away his interest as if there was no reason at all for him to care about this. "My best friend in college, Paris, she and I did Spring Break in Freshman year and she kissed me to get us served at a bar, or into a club maybe? I can't even remember now. It was so stupid," she giggled at the memory, but Jess still looked oddly impressed.

"Wow," he declared. "And you come off so innocent in the first meeting, but now it's all clear to me, that's just a ruse to reel a person in. The truth is you kiss girls, you jump innocent authors..."

"Hey, you were a willing participant!" she argued against his terrible teasing, trying not to give in and laugh even though she wanted to. "More than willing if I remember right."

"Can't argue with that," Jess told her, his arm around her body pulling her closer.

Rory rolled over, finding herself practically nose to nose with him again. His eyes searched her face and she wondered what he was thinking, apart from the obvious. When Jess moved to kiss her, she let him. Rory wrapped her arms around him and pushed herself ever closer, their bodies pressed together tightly. Memories of last night were fresh in their minds and repeating the pleasure of those activities seemed like the most natural next step. Even so, Rory felt strange about it by the light of day.

"You know," she said between fevered kisses, "at some point we should probably get up from this bed again," she gasped as Jess' lips moved against her neck. "Shouldn't we?" she asked, feeling her head start to spin.

"That's just crazy talk," he told her, lips returning to hers to kiss her breathless. "I think you really need to lie down," he said, putting her on her back.

Rory meant to argue but forgot how as she looked up at him. Her fingers grabbed onto his shirt and pulled him down on top of her.

"Jess," she gasped as he moved against her. "I did mean what I said, that we should get up."

"Way ahead of you," he whispered in her ear and she groaned as she very much felt precisely what he meant.

It was almost painful to realise he might have listened to her then as he pulled back to hover over her.

"Rory," he said seriously. "You really want me to stop?" he asked her out-right.

It took all of two seconds for her to answer.

"No," she confessed, and that was the last word spoken, the last coherent thought either of them had for a good long while.

They ended up staying in bed pretty much all day. Neither Rory nor Jess was willing to move unless absolutely necessary, which pretty much limited them to only leaving the bed and each other if they had to fetch food and drink or take turns visiting the bathroom. It was years since Rory had done anything like this, and she was pretty sure she never enjoyed it quite so much. It wasn't just the sex either, though that was pretty damn amazing all by itself. The talking was good too, and the quiet moments just lying there in each other's arms. Rory got a little fantasy moment when Jess grabbed Howl from her nightstand again and started reading it aloud. To be fair, he only got three pages in before she was on top of him, but it was the thought that counted, she supposed.

It was late in the afternoon now, and they were sprawled against each other reading separate books in silence. Jess couldn't think of a time when he was last this comfortable, and unwittingly confessed it aloud.

"I would love to agree, and at any other moment today, I probably would," Rory admitted. "But right now, I need a bathroom break," she said, excusing herself, planting a kiss on his chest before she hopped out of bed and rushed away.

Jess watched her naked form disappear out the door and then looked back to the book in his hands. It wasn't exactly a comedy, and yet the grin on his face would not shift at all. This was definitely not the worst day of his life. In fact it was right up there in the top ten greatest as far as he was concerned.

A buzzing sound got Jess' attention then and he reached over onto the nightstand where Rory's cell was hopping around. He check the screen and then called out to her.

"Hey, Rory! Your mom is calling. You want me to answer it?" he teased her.

"No!" she yelled, racing back fast and grabbing the phone from his hand.

"I was kidding," he clarified.

Rory stuck out her tongue as she accepted the call but refused to get back in the bed, even when Jess gestured that she should.

"Hey, mom," she greeted Lorelai with a forced smile she hoped she would hear as a real one, grabbing the comforter off the bottom of the bed and wrapping it around her naked form.

Jess found the whole thing weird but amusing. Clearly Rory didn't feel okay about taking a call from her mother whilst naked in bed with a guy. Honestly, Jess could relate. He wasn't so sure this was a moment he would want to be talking to Liz either, but then he pretty much never wanted to talk to her anyway, so it was by the by.

Of course Jess didn't know what Lorelai asked Rory on the phone, but from the way she glanced at him and then was fast saying 'it went pretty well', he had to assume the conversation was about their date, at least to start off with.

Rory put her back to Jess then, feeling odd. She loved her mom dearly and she really, really liked Jess, but those two worlds colliding this way felt strange. She focused on Lorelai's voice and tried not to think too much about what had been happening just an hour or so before. It helped when Jess whispered that he was going to take a turn in the bathroom.

"I'm glad it was good, sweets. That's really great," said Lorelai happily. "But listen, er, I kinda have some news."

"Good or bad?" asked Rory worriedly.

"Neither exactly," her mother confessed. "More informative."

"Okay."

"Um, well, kind of a funny story actually. Um, you know your pal Jess? Well, it turns out, he's Luke's nephew!"

Rory's eyes went comically wide at that confession. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. Of all the weird coincidences in the world, she was not expecting this one, not even a little bit. She barely heard the rest of what her mom said and was quick to say she would have to call Lorelai back before hanging up the phone. Jess returned and found her sat on the edge of the bed with the weirdest expression on her face.

"Rory?" he checked, full of concern as he crouched down to meet her eyes. "You okay?

"Er, yeah, I think so," she nodded slowly. "Um, Jess, I kind of have something to tell you..."

To Be Continued...