"Has he said anything to you?" Andrew asked Matt and Chris.

Both men shook their heads sullenly. "You?" Matt asked Andrew.

"You two are the ones who live in this house with him," Andrew said. "If he hasn't said anything to you, why do you think he'd talk to me?"

"Man, he's the same way with us that he is with you and Joe when you're here," Chris said with a sigh. "When he's not working, he's holed up in his apartment. He hasn't even had to venture out for the sake of food. It's a good thing he can cook,"

"Really? He and Rory had the fight to end all fights and you think he's up there cooking? One of us should really check on him –make sure he isn't living on nothing but rum and coke and cigarettes," Matt said.

"He's smoking again? I haven't seen him with a cigarette since…" Andrew trailed off.

"I haven't seen him light up since the afternoon of our February open house," Chris said. "I don't think he's touched them since he's been back with Rory. He just quit –cold turkey. It's like she showed up here and he realized he didn't need them."

"Guys, we have to do something," Matt said.

"Like what? Do you even know what they fought about?" Andrew asked.

"No, he won't say. Any time we even try to bring it up, be supportive, he just bottles up. We've all seen it. All he'll talk about is work. We can't exactly get mad –guy may be depressed, but he's working like a dog. He met all five deadlines we had this week. I mean I feel bad for the guy, but gotta respect the work ethic."

"Jess has always had a work ethic, Matt, a damn impressive one," Joe said, easily sliding into the conversation as he came in the front door. "This isn't a work ethic, it's desperation. Whatever happened with Rory at his uncle's wedding has seriously messed with him. Why do you think he does all his drinking at night? He needs to stay sharp when he works, because work is the only thing he has. He drinks enough to help him fall asleep –no more, no less. We've all seen each other drunk and hung over. If Jess were struggling through the workday –if he even drank enough to give himself a headache- we'd be able to tell. He's hurting, Matt. Like, a lot."

"Do you think maybe we should call his uncle –what was his name, Luke?" Chris suggested.

"Right. And what exactly would we say? We only met the guy that one night he was here for the February event. We can't just look him up and call him and be like, 'Hi Luke, you probably don't remember us, but we're friends with Jess. And, well, if you wouldn't mind, can you tell us what exactly Rory and Jess fought about at your wedding last week? He's scary depressed and we just want to help.' Come on Chris, you know we can't do that. Jess would blow a gasket if we phoned his uncle behind his back. Besides, do you honestly think his uncle isn't trying seriously hard to help him already? When Jess is ready to talk, he will. But I really think right now we just need to give him space," Andrew said.

"And make sure he has food to eat," Matt interjected. "Seriously guys. If he needs to throw himself into work, then we should let him –it's better than him sitting around under a dark cloud, obsessing over whatever happened at that wedding for every waking minute of the day; work should offer him a complete escape, whenever he needs it. He won't take kindly to being babied or having the room go quiet every time he walks in, that's not what he needs. He's in a really dark place right now so we just need to let him be in it. We can't do much for him, but we can make sure his fridge is stocked with his favourite stuff. So we need to take turns sneaking out to shop and we need to sneak it up to his apartment while he's down here working with us while his door is unlocked. We can split the bill between the four of us for as long as it takes. Andrew's right, Jess will talk to us when he's ready. In the meantime, until he starts to find his way out of the dark place, the least we can do is make sure our boy doesn't starve."

All four men let out a heavy sigh and agreed. They wanted nothing more than to help Jess, but they knew him well enough to know that he needed his space. For as long as it took –and even after he started talking to them- his friends would pool their resources to make sure his fridge stayed full and they would take turns checking his supply levels to make sure he was actually eating. All of them felt like it wasn't much considering the magnitude of what Jess was going through, but they would do it until their friend found his way out of the darkness.

Since Lorelai and Luke's wedding, whenever Jess wasn't completely thrown into his work, his mind was littered with images and scenarios of Dean making love to Rory –his Rory. Jess didn't blame himself for Rory's poor judgment, but he did torture himself with thoughts of how the whole thing might not have happened at all if he'd stuck around after the first time he told her he loved her. He blamed himself for being too scared to stay and fight for her. Her one biting comeback from their fight rang in his head like a bell: 'Don't you stand there all self-righteous and demand to have an explanation as though you actually have a right to judge me! You left. You bolted to California –you never called, I didn't hear a peep from you. Do you have any idea what that did to me? Any idea at all? And then, you show up here, you tell me you love me and then you leave, again.'

Jess didn't know what else was going on in her life that drove her to Dean, but he knew his leaving was a contributing factor –a big one. He was quite the misanthrope that year and even though her name was only mentioned in a 'Stay away from her!' context, Jess could read between Luke and Lorelai's angry lines. They were being too severe when they told him to keep his distance. When Lorelai saw Jess outside of Gypsy's garage and she told him, 'She is over you. She has moved on and she is very happy,' he could tell plain as day she was trying too hard. He had no pieces to put together, but he could tell just by the way Lorelai had said it that Rory clearly wasn't as happy as her mother was trying to make her seem. Between his cameos in her life that year and now knowing about Dean, Jess was positive that no new guy came into her life until she met Logan. Though he knew he wasn't the only factor, Jess knew that a big chunk of Rory's less than perfect mindset two years ago could be traced back to him. He broke her heart and she struggled to find a way to move on, which was made worse by the brief and highly charged appearances he made. Jess could not have known at the time how wise Luke was to chew him out for telling Rory he loved her and then leaving.

"The ball was not in her court. How could you be so stupid?" He muttered to himself every day.

At night, he was kept awake by the heartless things he said to her. 'Sad Rory, with more pliable legs … Was he good? Is it true that God gives men a penis and a brain and only enough blood to work one?' Before he left her that night, he told her he'd said things he wouldn't be able to live with easily and ever since then, he barely felt alive at all –he merely existed. Work was his only outlet, the only thing he could pour his energy into. He marked up manuscripts like a fiend, replied to all the emails he'd been ignoring for a month and had two screaming matches with the printers who dealt with the 'zine. Without his nightly double rum and coke, he wouldn't sleep at all. On one hand, every waking moment was torturous; putting on a good face or a courteous tone when he was working was exhausting. But at the same time, sleep became his enemy –his dreams invaded by explicit visions of Rory and Dean, complete with digital surround sound and punctuated with his own spiteful words: 'I guess now I know where you honed your skills.'

Jess told Rory he would never hate her; that was true. He asked her to let him go and to give him time, but he had no idea what that meant. Jess didn't know what to hope for –he didn't know whether he hoped for the days to get easier or if he secretly harboured a desire to stay in the depths of misery –because the idea of enough time passing to dull the pain was more terrifying than the agony.

A week and a half after the wedding, Jess woke up in a cold sweat to the sound of his phone buzzing next to his bed. "What?" He muttered sleepily.

"Jesus Jess, you sound like death," Luke said.

"Yeah, well, I feel pretty dead. What's up, Luke?"

"Nothing. Just calling to see how you are,"

"I'm the same as I was when you called me two days ago. Did you know you got married ten days ago? Do you really want Lorelai thinking you're being unfaithful already?"

"Hey, watch it, you. I care. I'm calling because I care. People check on people they care about when the people they love are going through hard times. It's a thing,"

"Geez Luke, and how many 'people' are living in your head right now?"

"How many people are living in yours?" Luke countered.

After a beat, Jess said, "Three. And lots of dark rum –but I only drink after six, I promise."

"Are you smoking again?"

"Why yes Mom, I am. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Jess,"

"What?!" Jess snapped.

"Nothing," Luke faltered. "If you're drinking, make sure you eat –you gotta sop up the alcohol."

"I told you Luke, I drink after six, once I'm done work for the day. Have you been trading telegrams with the guys? They've snuck up here a few times to stock my fridge when they think I'm not paying attention. And then, because they're weird, another one sneaks up with nothing –I'm pretty sure the one who has nothing is checking my supply levels, to make sure I'm eating."

"They're your people Jess. They care about you,"

"Christ, again with the 'people'. I don't need 'people'. I'm not a 'people' person."

"Jess…"

"Luke…"

Luke sighed. "Rory, she didn't –"

"Luke, I love you. But I swear to fucking God, if you tell me she didn't sleep with Dean with the explicit intent of hurting me, I will throttle you through the phone. I know she didn't. But just because the knife wasn't intended to be twisted in my gut doesn't mean it's any less fatal once I've been stabbed."

"Lots of stab wounds to the gut aren't fatal at all actually, I mean it all depends on the placement. The most likely area to suffer a guttural stabbing is in your intestines, which is way less severe than say, a knife to your kidney –you're pretty much a goner if that's the case –"

"How the hell do you know all this, Luke? You don't have murdered women stashed in a crawlspace somewhere in Lorelai's house, do you? Not the best way to build the foundations of your marriage. 'The call is coming from inside the house,'" Jess said with a tiny snicker.

The sound of Jess' laughter –brief and bitter though it might have been- caused Luke to release a tiny, silent sigh of relief. "Jess, that isn't what I was going to say. I understand why you're mad and even why you feel betrayed. Those feelings are very justified. I was going to say that you know she had no intention of ever telling you; you understand why omitting this particular truth from you was for the best. Rory knew how it would wound you and she wanted to save you from the pain it would cause. You've always loved each other passionately and intensely, so it stands to reason that you'd fight the same way. Couples who never fight are almost always unhappy. The more intensely you fight, the more in love you are. If you didn't love her so much, you wouldn't bother to fight. Your love is real Jess; if you didn't really love this girl in a serious-but-terrifying-I-want-to-spend-my-life-with-you way, you wouldn't be in so much pain."

"Wow, when the hell did you get so wise?"

"I've always been wise, smartass. People have a thing for not listening to me sometimes,"

"Nice subtle dig at me there, Luke," Jess said.

"I wasn't taking a dig at you," Luke said, "Jess, Rory understands all too well what this is doing to you. There's a reason she made the decision not to tell you and underneath your righteous anger riff, you understand the logic behind her choice. You know you do. The whole thing is a disaster and your anger is totally justified. But Rory will not be the one to reach out here. She doesn't think she deserves to be forgiven for hurting you this way; she'll never ask."

"Luke, I can't just –"

"I know. But this is the part where I remind you –very gently- she didn't do this to you, Jess."

"I know she didn't," Jess sighed. "I just need –"

"You need time. And you should take it," Luke reassured him.

"I said some awful things to her, Luke," Jess said quietly. "Disgusting things. Things I don't think I can forgive myself for. Things she shouldn't forgive me for."

"Jess, listen to me. Everyone says things they regret when they're angry, when they feel like they've been betrayed. I've been on the receiving end of your rage more than most, so I think I have a pretty good idea of the types of things you spat at her. You probably shouldn't have said what you did –but you did. You can't change that now. Do you really think she won't be able to forgive you? Rory is carrying the burden of guilt here, Jess; whatever you said, no matter how nasty –she probably felt like she deserved it."

Jess winced; he knew Luke was probably right.

"Remember who you're talking to kid. You should've heard some of the choice words I've spat at Lorelai over the years about Christopher. I've said things to her that I couldn't easily live with, lots of times. I understand what you're going through –I've been right where you are. Lorelai and I got through it. She married me, for Christ's sake. There's one key difference between my experience and yours –I still have to deal with Christopher, whether I like it or not, he'll always be a part of Lorelai's life; but Dean's out of the picture, Jess. He won't be back. That's over. Rory chose you."

After a long silence, Jess asked, "How is she, Luke?"

"How do you think she is, Jess?"

Jess let out a heavy sigh and dropped his head into his hand. "I gotta go. The guys are waiting for me."

"Okay. Take it easy, Jess."

"I will,"

"Okay, good. I'll talk to you soon."

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Luke smiled. "I love you, kid."

"Yeah, you too. Bye Luke."

Jess threw his phone on the bed and shuffled into the bathroom. He looked haggard. He was pale, he had huge bags under his eyes and he felt like he had a piano strapped to his back. Being depressed meant that personal grooming went by the wayside –Jess' hair was getting long, soon he'd have to buy elastics to keep it off his face. What started out as a five o'clock shadow had progressed to stubble and then scruff –his chin and cheeks were prickly to the touch. Jess was astounded that he had the wherewithal to shower regularly.

After washing his face, Jess grabbed his phone off the bed and went over to his leather armchair. He sat there for a long time, tossing his phone back and forth between his hands. Eventually, he slowly dialed Rory's number. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears as he listened to it ring; he was shaking like a leaf.

"He–hello ?" Rory said weakly.

Jess froze. He sighed heavily into the phone and sat in silence, listening to Rory's halted breathing. When her breath hitched and she let out a tiny sob, Jess hung up.

He got up angrily and turned on his music. He was listening to Elliott Smith on a constant loop. Sounds of his current album of choice, 'From A Basement On A Hill' filled his tiny apartment as he sent a text to all four of his friends downstairs: Unless you guys need me, I'm gonna work from my apartment today.

Jess' friends hung their heads as the melancholy and angry sounds of Elliott Smith floated down the stairs.