10: Bad Reaction
Jess
The town looks like the North Pole threw up on it. Everywhere Jess looks, he sees nothing but gaudy plastic Santas, skeletal wire reindeer laced with white lights, frighteningly huge Frosty the Snowmans (Snowmen? Snowmans? he wonders) that glow from within, and a few nativity scenes and menorahs, just to add some sufficiently commercialized piety to the picture. Even the diner looks more festive than usual, but that's not surprising, considering the fact that all Lorelai has to do is bat her eyes, and Luke will do just about anything for her—and really, there's no one in Stars Hollow who's more fanatical about holidays than Lorelai.
Then again, Jess realizes, Luke has been distracted lately, so maybe it didn't take much to get him to agree to more decorations than usual. He makes a mental note to ask if everything's okay—to keep an eye out for his family, even though he's almost sure he doesn't want to actually know what's wrong.
Jess steps away from the apartment window, letting the blind drop back into place, but even so, the glow from a million Christmas lights filters into the room. "Damn town," he grumbles, a tiny smile creeping up the corners of his mouth, despite himself.
The apartment itself is quiet, free of Christmas songs and decorations. Not, as Luke was quick to remind Jess earlier that evening, because he's a scrooge who hates Christmas, but simply because it seemed pointless. Christmas Day will be at Lorelai's, and since he had already helped her decorate the tree, he saw no point in doing two.
It's okay, though—despite the absence of carols, lights, decorations, a tree, or even company, Jess feels more Christmas-y than he has in a long time. Ever, maybe.
He's alone. Luke is spending the night at Lorelai's, after at least an hour of convincing him that no, Jess didn't need a babysitter; and no, he wouldn't be lonely spending Christmas Eve alone; and yes, it would be fine for Luke to stay at the Gilmores', even though Rory was there. The last one the biggest thing—Lorelai and Jess had both tried to convince him that it would be fine, especially since it was a holiday, but he insisted that it would be weird. Finally, Rory herself had gone into the diner and informed him that she didn't mind, and if he wouldn't come with her there, she would sleep somewhere else—he could decide what to do with the empty house. Luke had given in at that point, knowing how stubborn she can be when she makes up her mind, and all three of them had slept at Lorelai's.
Jess' solitude tonight matters as little as the under-decorated apartment or the over-decorated town. He's more than content, stretched out in the armchair with a book (nothing for work, though—he left that in Philly this time), a beer, and, in the slightest concession to the day, "It's a Wonderful Life" on mute, ignored in the background.
If it was anyone else—if Jess was seeing someone else spend Christmas Eve like this—it would be borderline pathetic. Instead, it's peaceful, relaxing, and, frankly, necessary. Christmas Day with Luke and Lorelai; Liz and TJ; Sookie, Jackson, and their kids; and, yes, Rory; not to mention any random townies that might drop by, will be enough togetherness for one holiday season.
It's late when he falls asleep in the chair, even though his old bed is only a few feet away. For some reason, he can't bring himself to move, even when his blinks get longer and it becomes more difficult to focus on the words in front of him. The book drops into his lap and his head falls back, and he's lucid enough to feel it happening, but too far past being alert to care. This is how he's going to sleep, and he things that his neck will kill him in the morning, and then… he doesn't care.
The loud, obnoxious ringing of his cell phone startles him awake. It's his default ring, not a preprogrammed number, and he wishes for the hundredth time that Matthew hadn't dropped his phone and cracked the display—it would be nice to know who was calling, rather than just relying on the ring. As he presses the "talk" button, he wonders who on earth would be calling him at… he looks at the clock… 8:38 on Christmas morning.
"Yeah?" he says into the phone.
There's a giggle and a deep breath on the other end, and then he hears off-key, enthusiastic singing. "We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!"
Jess makes a face and twists his torso as they sing, cracking his back and stretching out the kinks that have settled into his joints after spending all night in the chair. "Only one verse?" he quips when they finish.
"You want more?" says a female voice—Lorelai's, he's pretty sure, although it's hard to tell with the distinctly tinny, far-away sound of the speaker-phone. "We can sing about figgy pudding.
"No, that's okay," Jess declines, digging through his overnight bag to find some clean clothes—he may as well get ahead before they even ask if he's on his way.
There's a commotion on the other end, and then a different voice speaks. "Jess, honey." Ah, Liz. "Where are you? Sookie's making an amazing breakfast, and we're almost ready to open presents! Were you still sleeping? Don't tell me that you were still asleep on Christmas morning! Everyone else has been here since 7:30!"
"Well, I'm not four anymore," Jess says. "Christmas morning hasn't quite had that same 'up at the crack of dawn' appeal in… a lot of years."
"I know, I know. Just get over here, okay? We're all waiting for you, and Davey and Martha are getting restless."
No kidding, Jess thinks, hearing a male voice call Davey's name for the fifth time in their short conversation. "Give me half an hour," he says, giving in.
Forty minutes later, he opens Lorelai's front door, knocking lightly as he pushes it open with his foot, a large shopping bag of wrapped presents hung over his left forearm. He sets it down just inside the entry, brushing the snow out of his hair and prying off his wet shoes, then makes his way into the living room. Luke is crouched in front of the fireplace, fanning a small flame, and Jackson is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the Christmas tree with two small children—Jess assumes they're Davey and Martha—climbing on his lap.
"Merry Christmas," Jess says, tucking the bag of gifts under the tree, towards the back, hoping tiny hands won't destroy it too soon.
Jackson sends the toddler running on chubby, unsteady legs into the kitchen, Martha crawling after Davey, and as his chest is freed from their weight, he pushes himself up on his arms and stands, stretching out his shoulders. "Merry Christmas," he replies, shaking Jess' hand.
"How was your night?" Jess asks Luke, giving him a quick hug and a slap on the back.
Luke gives him a pointed look. "It was fine." Jess cocks an eyebrow. "I couldn't sleep. It was just too weird."
Jess laughs. "You'll have to get used to sleeping here while Rory's here eventually," he says. "You'll both live here after the wedding, right?"
"That's… different," Luke says. "Right now, it just feels weird."
Jess' sarcastic comeback is cut off by a commotion coming from the kitchen. "What's going on in there?"
"They're Christmas caroling Rory awake," Luke says, a note of resignation in his voice.
As if on cue, a chorus of voices comes from the other room. "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…" The voices get louder and more off-key with each phrase, and Sookie interjects every few seconds with a "Sing, Davey!"
Jess laughs, rubbing his jaw, wondering out loud if they've been hitting the eggnog a little too hard, a little too early. "Rory's going to kill them," he adds, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a grin. "Whose idea was the caroling?"
Luke rolls his eyes. "I'll give you a hint—my Christmas carol was sung two inches from my face, while I was still asleep, and there's only one person who can get two inches from my face while I'm sleeping. She's been getting more voices for every wakeup call."
"How is it even possible that Rory's managed to stay asleep this long?" Jess wonders.
Luke shrugs. "Lorelai said something about the effects of living with Paris for two years—apparently, that's made her able to sleep through anything. Plus, she wears really heavy-duty earplugs."
Two years living with Paris? Brave girl. A grin crosses his face as all the other ramifications are quick to hit him, too. "See?" Jess ribs, nudging Luke with his elbow, "You never had anything to worry about."
"Oh, shut up," Luke growls, and Jess laughs.
The singing in the kitchen stops, so Jess ventures in, bracing himself for anything. "Merry Christmas," he calls, heading directly for the full coffeepot on the counter.
"Jess!" Liz squeals, flying over and hugging him—he barely manages to get his coffee mug safely set on the counter before her arms are around him, narrowly avoiding a festive trip to the emergency room with scalding coffee burns down both of their arms.
"Hey, Liz," he says, returning the hug, surprising even himself with the warmth of his greeting.
"I'm so glad you're here," she gushes, kissing him on the cheek, then turning him over to a variety of handshakes and one-armed hugs from Lorelai, Sookie, and TJ; a quizzical look and quivering lip from Davey; and a tentative tug on his sock, complete with huge eyes staring up at him, from Martha.
Jess shoots his own puzzled look at the tiny girl, who seems to have attached herself to his foot, wondering how he's supposed to get back over to the counter to retrieve his coffee without hurting her or stepping on her. Thankfully, Sookie notices his discomfort and swoops in, picking Martha up and swooping her around the room like an airplane.
"Let's go find Daddy!" she exclaims, picking Davey up in the other arm and taking them back into the living room, TJ wandering in behind them. Jess shoots her a grateful look, and she winks at him, saying, "Are Daddy and Uncle Luke with the Christmas tree? Let's go find the Christmas tree, and soon we can open the presents!" Both children squeal at the word, and within seconds, Jess hears the babble of Davey's voice and Jackson's attentive response coming from the other room.
"How was the drive?" Lorelai asks, refilling her own coffee cup as Jess doctors his.
"Uneventful," he says, shrugging slightly. "The highway wasn't as busy as I thought it would be on Christmas Eve."
"You should have come to our place last night," Liz chimes in. "We've got the guest room—you can always stay there."
"Maybe next time," Jess hedges. "It was fine at Luke's last night. Nice to have it to myself, actually. The guys I live with are great, but it can be wearing sometimes."
The conversation hits a lull when Liz excuses herself to the living room, but it's kept from utter silence by spoons clinking on coffee cups, the snapping of the freshly-built fire in the living room, the conversation and laughter drifting in, and the undertones of the Vince Guaraldi "Peanuts" music—ubiquitous Christmas classic that it is (Someone must have put it on as a joke, Jess thinks)—weaving in and out through it all. It's the sound, he realizes, of a typically happy, truly all-American family holiday, oddly enough. It's almost enough to prove that the "typical" is just a myth, and that family is anywhere you can find it, even in the rag-tag bunch assembled in Lorelai's house—Jess' slowly mending relationship with Liz, his slightly-more-than-tolerance of TJ, his slight discomfort around the children, the awkward history and tentative truce with Lorelai, and whatever's been eating at Luke lately notwithstanding.
There's a soft click and the faint creak of a door, and Jess instinctively turns toward the sound, knowing that she's got to come out eventually, but still fully unprepared to see Rory in the doorway, bleary-eyed, hair in a messy knot on top of her head, dressed in a pair of flannel pyjama pants and an old Chilton gym shirt. His hands tighten around his coffee mug as he takes her in—as he sees her without her defenses for the first time in years. Shit, Jess thinks, feeling his heartbeat speed up slightly. This was not supposed to be the reaction.
"Morning, Mommy," she mumbles.
"Merry Christmas, hon," Lorelai says, tucking a sprig of holly into Rory's hair and kissing her on the cheek as Rory lets her forehead drop onto Lorelai's shoulder.
"Too early," Rory mutters. "Too much singing. Need coffee."
"It's early, but it's Christmas!" Lorelai exclaims. "There's no such thing as a too-early Christmas morning."
Rory groans something unintelligible, and Lorelai rubs small circles around her back, visibly loosening some of the tension in her shoulders. "Took a while to fall asleep again?" she asks. Rory nods, the weight of her head acting as its own pendulum, rocking itself up and down where it rests on her mother. "Well, have some coffee," Lorelai suggests, "and we'll wait until you're awake to open the presents, okay?"
"Mmmkay," Rory sighs, exhaling the word as if it's too much effort to say, pushing her head up and wiping a finger under each eye, digging in the corner of the right one for an elusive crusty. He catches his breath as she raises her head and he sees her face for the first time. She looks exhausted—like she's going to fall down if someone's not holding her up. Her eyes are rimmed with dark circles, and the skin across her cheekbones looks taut and chalky. This isn't—she was doing better, wasn't she? That's what it seemed like, anyway. At the bar, she hadn't been herself, but at least she'd had a spark. Today, Jess realizes that the best word to describe her is simply "extinguished."
"Jess?" Lorelai calls over to where he's standing, still holding his cup of coffee. He's been trying to fade unobtrusively into the cupboards and not intrude on their moment, but apparently he's been noticed.
At his name, Rory's head snaps up and a flush of red rises in her cheeks, a bright stain against the white, as she looks in his direction. He tips his head toward her, smirking slightly at her embarrassment, and she raises a hand in a half-hearted greeting, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Yeah?" he answers.
"Can you pour Rory a cup of coffee? I'm assuming you remember how, even though it's been a while since you were a regular fixture in the diner. Plus, you're standing right there, and neither of us wants to move." Lorelai flashes him a grin, wrapping an arm around Rory's shoulders again.
He's reaching for a mug before the sentence is fully out of her mouth, and as he begins to pour, he feels something tapping on his toe. The contact breaks the melancholic mood over the room, and Jess suddenly tunes back in to all the noises that have been filling the house the entire time—the ones that, in a cliché too cheesy for words, seemed to disappear when he saw her. TJ is expounding on the history of Christmas trees, and from what Jess can hear, it's no history that ever even came close to happening; Jackson and Sookie are playing a peek-a-boo game with Davey; Luke and Liz' low, conversational tones rise and fall in waves under the noise of the rest of them.
He looks down in surprise, ready to brush off whatever fell on his foot; instead, he finds Martha, who has apparently escaped the living room and come to see what's interesting in the kitchen. A befuddled look crosses his face as he looks again at the 8-month-old attached to his pant leg and then hands the coffee to Rory with a faintly apologetic smile. "I'll let you add your own stuff to it."
"Thanks," Rory replies, finally meeting his eyes and allowing a small, yet heartbreakingly genuine, smile cross her face before she raises the mug, inhaling the steam with a deep sigh.
At his feet, Martha pulls herself up on his jeans, standing on unsteady legs, clutching handfuls of the stiff fabric as she beams up at her Aunt Lorelai, obviously proud of her accomplishment. Jess freezes, one hand braced on the counter, afraid to move, as Lorelai and Rory both ooh and aah over the little girl.
"I'm gonna…" Jess gestures toward the living room with his head, careful not to move the rest of his body.
"Okay," Lorelai says, still making a face that makes Martha giggle and bounce with glee.
"Can someone take…" Jess starts, then tries to take a tiny step forward without knocking Martha over. Lorelai laughs at his attempts, and even Rory manages a believable grin, but neither one reaches out to help him, preferring, instead, to watch him from across the room and keep the baby laughing the whole time. Jess lets out an exasperated noise, shoots them both a dirty look, and sets his coffee mug back on the counter, reaching down and picking up the little girl. He holds her gingerly under the arms, but she giggles with delight and reaches for his face, grasping at his hair with her tiny fingers.
He sighs, pulling Martha in, holding her in the crook of one arm, aware of the discomfort evident on his face, as he picks up his mug with the other and squares his shoulders. "And back into the asylum we go," he comments, flashing a dirty look at Lorelai and a grin at Rory as he walks back into the bright, cheerful, noisy, festive madness. "See you when you're awake," he calls to Rory over his shoulder as she yawns and shuffles toward the stairs.
Author's Note: Always, biggest thanks to my beta, adina (whom I constantly forget to credit for her ideas!). This chapter is dedicated to all the Dirty!Jess girls who are clamoring for a scene with Jess and a baby. Any baby. I hope this helps tide you over until we actually see it on the show!