"Where do you wanna eat?" Jess led the way onto his bridge.

"Don't care." Rory sounded bored.

"Okay." Jess sat down on the bridge.

"Where are you going?" Rory stared at him oddly.

"Thought you didn't care." Jess pointed out.

"I'm not jumping in the lake." Rory said, obviously wary.

"No underwater dining, got it." Jess opened the picnic basket.

"So why did you pick this place?" Rory asked, loosening up just a little bit.

"I actually kinda like this place." Jess admitted.

"Wow. A place in Stars Hollow you actually like. I'm stunned." Rory teased.

"It's got some good memories. You see right over there?" Jess pointed to a spot on the bridge.

"Yup." Rory glanced at him.

Jess almost smiled. "That's where Luke pushed me in."

Rory smirked at him, stealing his line. "Huh." She paused, pondering slightly. "It wasn't funny."

Jess looked confused. "What?"

"Outbidding Dean like that, it wasn't funny." She repeated.

Jess actually apologized. "I'm sorry about that. You wanna push me in the lake? It's cathartic, I hear."

Rory sighed and tried to start a conversation. "I hardly know anything about you. What's your life history?"

"My mother's a flake, I've had four step-dads, I have an annoying little sister, no pets."

"Jess." Rory groaned. "Fine, how old were you when Dani was born?"

"Two." Jess grimaced. "That was that first time I stayed at home by myself."

"Two?" Rory shrieked. Realizing how loud she had been, she blushed. "Sorry."

"It was actually two and a half." Jess's hazel gaze sparkled with mischief, reminding Rory of Dani.

"Cruel." Rory said with a glare that would have made her mother proud.

Dani stormed after Dean. "I'm not eating lunch with my friend's boyfriend!" She informed him.

"I bought the basket." He held up her basket.

Dani rolled her eyes. "I'd rather have had Kirk." She hissed, loud enough for him to hear.

"What?" He was confused.

She softened slightly having let out most of her anger on Jess. "Inside joke, sorry."

"It's alright. Where do you want to eat?"

"Can we eat in the square?" Dani asked quietly, feeling bad for snapping at him, her head was also starting to hurt. Badly.

"Sure." He plopped down in the grass, opening the basket. She followed him more slowly, afraid of making herself more dizzy.

"Why did you pick me?" She asked, almost scared of the answer.

He sighed and picked at the food. "I wanted to make Rory jealous."

Dani snickered, not unkindly. "Dean, please don't play me like this. Rory and Lane are the only friends I have her, besides Kirk, but he so doesn't count." That got a faint chuckle from the boy.

"I'm sorry." The apology was faint, but understandable.

Dani shuddered, now she had to hug him or touch him or something. She settled for waiting for him to come to her. Rory's boyfriend scared her slightly.

"Ten." Rory admitted.

"Ten?" Jess asked in amazement.

Rory smiled. "Yeah but I didn't understand a word of it, so I had to reread it when I was fifteen."

Jess frowned. "I've yet to make it through it."

"Really? Try it. The Fountainhead is classic." Rory advised.

"Yeah, but Ayn Rand is a political nut." Jess responded.

"Yeah, but nobody could write a forty page monologue the way that she could." Rory countered.

"Okay, tomorrow I will try again, and you will. . ." Jess prodded.

"Give the painful Ernest Hemingway another chance. Yes, I promise." Rory rolled her eyes.

"You know, Ernest only has lovely things to say about you." Jess teased.

"Why are you only nice to me?" Rory asked abruptly.

"Excuse me?" Jess thought he had misheard her.

Dani came running across the bridge. "Jess William Mariano!"

"Uh-oh." Jess leapt to his feet, ready for a stand-off.

"You are so dead!" Dani stopped in front of her brother. "You abandoned me!"

"Abandoned you?" Jess asked sarcastically. "I hardly think I abandoned you."

"Then what do you call just leaving me!" Dani asked hysterically.

"Kris." Jess tried to reason. "You're approaching hysterics."

"Who the hell cares?" Dani shrieked. "Certainly not you, if you had cared, I wouldn't have walked away from the worst lunch of my life with Rory's boyfriend!" Rory gasped at hearing that Dean had won Dani's basket. Dani then turned to leave.

Jess caught her arm, stopping her from leaving. "Kris."

"Don't you dare call me Kris." She hissed, her light blue eyes darkening with anger. "It's Danielle, or better yet, don't talk at all." She whirled around, yanking her arm out of his grip. On second thought she turned and pushed him in the lake, then stomped off without a backwards glance.

When Jess surfaced he looked at Rory, repeating his earlier sentence. "You wanna push me in the lake? It's cathartic, I hear"

A week later, Rory opened their front door to show Dani, jacket around her shoulders, eyes red from crying, standing on their front porch. "Dani?" Rory asked cautiously, inviting the younger girl in.

"He listened." Dani said quietly. "He won't talk to me at all."

Rory led her into the living room. "Really?"

"Yeah, this is not the first bad blowup we've had in a while. We had one in New York the day before we left." Dani confided.

"What was that one about?" Rory asked, prying just a little bit.

"I had kissed his best friend and he found us." Dani said simply. "And I told him he was crazy when he suggested Paul had ulterior motives."

"Sounds like you've just hit a rocky patch." Lorelai said from the doorway.

Dani looked up. "Yeah. He's been so awesome. I've been getting really sick the last couple of months. Of course, Liz didn't care, so when I was running fevers and throwing up, he was always there. Always. And now, I've just totally pushed him away."

"You've been getting sick a lot?" Lorelai asked, sitting on the chair across from Dani.

"Yeah, nothing too big, just some colds, a streak of really bad fevers, mainly at night." Dani played with the blanket on the couch.

"Huh." Lorelai stored this information in the back of her brain for later use.

"I'll be right back." Rory stood up and went to her room, grabbing the phone on her way.

"Hello?" Jess sounded annoyed.

Rory was suddenly tongue-tied. "Hi."

Jess's tone softened, recognizing her voice. "Hi."

"What are you doing?" Rory asked.

"Nothing, you?"

Rory curled up on her bed. "Nothing."

"Why'd you call?" Jess asked abruptly.

Rory panicked. "I... um, I wanted to..."

"I'm glad you called."

Rory blushed, even though he couldn't see her. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because maybe you can explain what the hell this crazy woman is talking about."

"Ah, The Fountainhead." Rory smiled, no more shyness now.

"Yes. Your fault, and you will pay." Jess teased.

"I promise. Commit to it one more time and if it still is awful for you, I will make it up to you."

"Oh yeah?" He sounded interested.

"Yeah." She said shyly.

"Okay. I'm gonna hold you to that." He said softly.

Dani knocked on Rory's open door, "Hey."

"Was that Dani?" Jess asked, hearing his sister.

"Um, I have to go." Rory hung up abruptly. "Hey."

"I'm sorry, was I interrupting?" Dani froze, turning and rushing toward the bathroom.

Lorelai entered behind her. "You done puking you-" She broke off mid-sentence as she saw the blood. "Dani, get up." She pulled the girl to her feet, feeling her forehead on the way. The teen was burning up. "Rory!" She called, grabbing her purse. "Call Luke, we're going to the Emergency Room!"