A/N: Thanks for the reviews, folks. Someone mentioned they'd like to see more Rory & Lorelai scenes and that is coming soon. Mostly, I write the Rory/Jess because that's why I fanfic for GG in the first place, but yes, there will be more of the family stuff too, both Rory & Lorelai and Jess & Luke too. In the meantime, I hope you'll like this chapter (which got longer than intended!) covering the Bid-A-Basket event. I love this episode in canon, so rewriting it was a blast and yet also quite daunting because I so didn't want to screw it up! lol

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 25

"I still have no idea why I agreed to this," Rory complained as she put two fruit roll-ups and a couple of cans of soda into a very small picnic basket.

"Because you want to feel like part of the wonderful traditions Stars Hollow has to offer?" Lorelai tried, the amused smile proving she already knew she was wrong. "I'm guessing it probably has more to do with the fact that Jess liked the idea of having somebody to bid on."

"Maybe," Rory grumbled. "Why does he even want to do this? I mean, it's a pretty dumb concept anyway, but I can kind of see how it'd be a way to get a date with someone without having to ask, you know, for the shy and the weird."

"You're thinking of Kirk, aren't you?"

"But for people who are already dating? It's insane. It would be so much easier if we just skipped the whole bidding part and went on our own normal date."

Lorelai wasn't absolutely sure how serious Rory was about this. She watched her even as she packed her own basket - with treats mostly donated to the cause by Sookie and partially bought from the discount shelf at Doose's market - and tried to figure out if now was the time for advice or a joke or what.

"You know, if you really don't want to do the basket thing, I'm sure Jess would understand," she said carefully, never entirely sure how Rory was going to take even the simplest of suggestions.

She certainly seemed less angry lately, somewhat since she had been dating Jess, but Lorelai liked to think also because Rory had really settled into life in the Hollow and had come to trust her as well. Of course, that didn't mean that Rory didn't have her moments of teen angst and dramatic rebellion still, because she absolutely did. Lorelai was still wary enough to tread carefully.

"I figure if he really wants to waste his time and money bidding on a crappy lunch, why not let him?" Rory shrugged, frowning at the contents of her basket. "You do know that's cheating, right?" she said then, looking up at the home-made pastries Lorelai was wrapping up to put in her own basket of goodies.

"Nobody said I had to personally make everything in my basket... or anything in my basket," she said smiling as she considered all the treats stuffed in there. "Here, be a cheater with me, babe," she said then, handing a box over the table to Rory.

"What is it?" she asked, prising off the lid and smiling at the sweet scent that floated out.

"Sookie's special raspberry tartlets," Lorelai told her. "I'm not so sure it's a good idea for me to have heart-shaped dessert in a basket that I'm hoping to use to lure someone into nothing more exciting than gutter cleaning. You and Jess enjoy them, okay?"

"Thanks." Rory smiled, before seeming to realise she was doing it and wiping the look off her face.

"Of course, this is all dependent on that boyfriend of yours bringing enough money to the auction."

"Yeah, because so many guys are gonna bid on me." Rory rolled her eyes.

"Are you kidding me?" Lorelai asked her with wide eyes. "Sweets, look at you, you're gorgeous, plus you have that whole 'tude thing going on that the guys totally go for."

"You're a crazy person."

"Yes, that is true, but that fact has nothing to do with the other fact about you being totally attractive to guys. Come on, you have Jess, don't you?"

"Jess is different."

"Granted, yes, Jess is better than most of the kids I know around here, and since I don't want to start a fight, I'm not going to mention that I like you seeing him way more than I liked you hanging around with Tristan Dugray, but my point is, babe, you are totally bidding war material. I should know. I may have been the subject of a couple of bidding wars myself in the past," she said, preening just a little.

"This was before they found out you just wanted them for yard work and stuff, right?" asked Rory, smirking some.

"Well, yeah," Lorelai admitted. "But still, won't it be just a little fun to have guys laying down hard cash for your attention?"

"Maybe," said Rory, unwilling to give more than that. "So, you're not expecting anyone special to bid on your basket? Just guys you might be able to trick into cleaning gutters?"

"Who would there be that's special?" Lorelai shrugged, eyes very much down inside her basket again by now.

"How should I know?" said Rory, trying to keep a smile at bay.

The only fun she really planned on having at this picnic basket auction was seeing if she couldn't get Lorelai hooked up with Luke. She wasn't really sure why she was doing it, truth be told. When she pitched it to Jess, it was more from an amusement angle, that and the fact that it might do both the adults some good to get some. The look on her boyfriend's face when she suggested that was just priceless.

Still, in the end, he had agreed that he always thought Luke liked Lorelai and that she probably liked him back. He said he never actively encouraged it, in fact, he never talked to his uncle or his aunt-type figure about the situation at all, but he figured pushing them in the direction of a picnic lunch couldn't really do any harm. Rory was convinced it might actually do some good.

"I still can't understand why you wanted me to come along to this insane mating ritual." Luke rolled his eyes as he walked into the square on Jess' heels. "You know I avoid these crack pot things, especially if they involve Taylor and a gavel."

"C'mon, Uncle Luke, it's for charity," Jess reminded him with too big of a smile.

"You're up to something, kid. I can always tell," said Luke, narrowing his eyes.

"What would I be up to?" His nephew shrugged. "I'm just here to bid on Rory's basket."

"How you talked her into this thing, I have no idea. She was so anti-town craziness before, it was great to have an ally, until you and Lorelai ambushed her," he grumbled.

"Hey, it's starting." Jess shushed him then as Taylor took the stage and began the auction.

While Luke stood there, arms folded, being his usual grumpy self, Taylor sold off a very large, impressive looking basket belonging to Sookie St James, a similarly-sized but less flamboyant one that came with Miss Patty's company, and something that was bound to be filled with a lot of tofu which Lane's cousin bought under duress. In the midst of all this, Jess found Rory in the crowd and tipped her a wink which she returned. Lorelai didn't even notice.

"And now a very pretty basket," Taylor declared, lifting it up onto the table. "Smells like home-baked goods to me. Who'll start the bidding?"

Jess watched one guy bid five dollars and another go to ten before he elbowed Luke in the ribs.

"You know that's Lorelai's basket, right?"

"With home-baked goods inside?" Luke said with a look.

"Sookie hooked her up. I'm telling you, it's her basket. Rory told me, they both had purple ribbons on them, and Lorelai's was the bigger of the two."

The bidding rose to fifteen dollars, then twenty, and promptly stalled.

"You're seriously going to let her be embarrassed like that?" said Jess, staring at his uncle. "Twenty bucks? Sookie's went for fifty. Hell, Miss Patty got thirty-five."

"Lane only made five," Luke noted.

"So not the point, Luke." Jess rolled his eyes. "C'mon, you said you've been looking for a way to pay Lorelai back for the Christmas gift, this is your shot."

"Do I hear twenty-five?" Taylor asked, gavel raised in anticipation.

"Thirty," said Luke out of nowhere.

Jess hid a grin behind his hand as one of the guys from before bid forty and Luke countered with fifty. He looked across at Rory who was doing a much better job of keeping a straight face, even as Lorelai's own expression phased from confusion to something that looked a lot like delight.

"Sold!" Taylor declared at last as the crowd cheered.

"You won," said Jess, smiling widely at Luke.

"I should take the money out of your allowance," his uncle told him.

"But you won't."

"But I won't," he agreed, going up to pay his money and claim his basket.

"Hey," said Lorelai, stepping up beside him. "Did you know...?" she checked, gesturing to the basket now clutched in Luke's hand.

"Jess mentioned something," he said nonchalantly. "You, uh, wanna go someplace and... eat?" he suggested, wondering why it suddenly seemed like such a big deal to spend time with her - he had done it plenty of times before.

"Oh, sure, yeah, but could we just wait a second, see what happens with Rory's basket?"

Luke nodded and backed up into the crowd again as Taylor started the bidding on the next lot.

"Hmm, this looks suspiciously like that last basket, I wonder why that would be?" he said, none too subtly as he glanced Rory's way. "Who'll start the bidding at five dollars?"

"I will," said a voice that was distinctly not Jess and all eyes turned towards the raised hand in the back.

"Who is that?" Rory hissed to Lorelai.

"Um, that would be the guy who works in the market. Donny?" she checked with Luke.

"Dean," he corrected.

"Twenty bucks!" Jess called to Taylor, raising his own hand.

Though the selectman complained about not following proper procedure, he took the bid anyway. Dean bid twenty-five.

"What is he doing? I don't even know him," Rory complained. "He does know even if he wins this thing, I'm not going to eat lunch with him, right?"

"Rory, it's tradition," Lorelai told her.

"He's twelve feet tall!" her daughter countered. "God, I'd get a crick in the neck just looking at him for too long."

"He is freakishly tall for his age," Luke agreed.

"And the forehead on that guy?" Rory shook her head. "Look under the turtleneck, I dare you, he probably has bolts in his neck."

Though the bidding climbed a little higher, Dean soon dropped out of the running, though he had cost Jess sixty dollars with his meddling. Rory sighed with relief that the best man won, glaring at Dean even as he shot her a winning smile.

"So weird," Rory muttered as she walked up to the front, grabbed Jess' arm and steered him away from the crowd.

"Geez, are you really so desperate to get me alone?" he asked with an amused smirk.

"I want to get away from the weirdo who tried to outbid you. He keeps smiling at me like we're friends or something," Rory explained. "Besides, if Luke and Lorelai are going to do the date thing, I'm happy for them, I just don't want to see it happen. Do you?"

"Probably not," Jess agreed as they kept on walking.

Without even discussing it, they headed for the bridge. It seemed to have become their spot over time, without them really meaning for it too. Sitting down together, Jess placed the basket between them and prised off the lid, marvelling at what he found inside.

"You made these?" he checked, lifting out the raspberry tartlets.

"Maybe," she told him, though the smirk that pulled at her lips gave her away.

"And maybe I'm the President of the United States," Jess countered. "They look a lot like Sookie's."

"There's a reason for that," Rory told him, reaching for a soda from the basket. "I did tell you not to get excited about what would be in this basket," she added as Jess frowned at the lack of anything else truly edible. "You paid way over the odds for this thing."

"No, I didn't," Jess assured her, moving the basket aside and shifting closer to her. "It was never about the basket."

"Is that so?" she said, smiling as he leaned in closer and finally kissed her.

When Jess moved as if to pull away, Rory brought her hand up to his head and tried to keep him close, deepening their kiss, getting lost in the moment for a while. When they finally parted, Jess looked dazed.

"Well, that was definitely worth sixty bucks," he told her, before realising how that sounded. "Yeah, I didn't-"

"I get it," she promised. "Believe me, if I thought you were calling me a hooker, you'd be drowning right about now."

"Okay." Jess laughed at that though it came out a little more nervous that he intended. "You know I can swim, right?"

"Trust me, you'd still be drowning," she said a little too seriously before the smile came back to her lips and her hand cradled his face. "You really can't tell when I'm kidding, can you?"

"Not always," he admitted. "I guess I'm just not as smart as you. I mean, your PSAT scores proved that."

"Oh, good. School stuff." Rory sighed, pulling away from him very abruptly. "Because that's exactly what I want to talk about on a date."

"Well, you didn't want to talk about it at school either," Jess noted. "I'm sorry, I just think it's weird that you're not psyched about your scores. Most people would kill to be as smart as you, Rory. You could probably get into any college you wanted."

"That would be so useful if I wanted to go to college," Rory said sharply, picking up her soda and getting to her feet.

"Rory!" Jess called after her as she stomped off the bridge.

Quickly gathering up the picnic basket, he scrambled to follow her, having to run a little to catch up. He grabbed her arm just as they reached the trees and pulled her back around to face him.

"Rory, come on," he urged her. "I'm sorry, okay? I just don't understand."

"What is so hard for you to figure out, Jess?" she asked him, arms folded across her chest. "I don't want to go to college. It's a pretty simple concept, and as we've already established, you're not stupid either, so I thought you'd be able to grasp it."

"I heard you say you don't want to go, I guess I just don't understand why."

"Because... it's not for me" she told him, knowing as well as he did that it was a really lame answer. "Not everybody has to go to college, you know? Mark Twain didn't. H.G. Wells, Truman Capote, Maya Angelou."

"I know that." Jess nodded.

"Then would you please not make a big deal out of this?" Rory urged him. "Because if that's what you plan on doing-"

"I don't," Jess assured her. "I'm sorry, okay? I just... I wanna say one more thing and then I promise I won't talk about it anymore."

"Fine, what's the one thing?" Rory asked, foot tapping slightly with frustration as she waited for the answer.

"I just want you to know that I believe you can do anything you want to do, Rory," he told her, his hand on her arm and his eyes locked on hers. "You are so smart, so gifted. You can do anything."

Rory didn't answer at first. It might've surprised Jess to realise that it was mostly because she didn't trust her voice to work at all. She still couldn't understand why he cared so much, why he believed in her so much, for lack of a better phrase, but it didn't suck. She looked around fast when she heard movement, realising that for as long as they were outside with a town event going on, they would neve truly be alone.

"Can we go somewhere else?" she said eventually, swallowing hard. "Your house, maybe?"

"Sure." Jess nodded his agreement, only glad that she wasn't mad at him anymore.

Putting his arm around her shoulders, he was happy to feel her lean in to him and then her arm creep around his back as they headed for home. Maybe this date could yet be salvaged. Jess only hoped Luke and Lorelai were having a better time, though he wondered if either of them would admit it even if they did.

"This is nice," said Lorelai, looking around town square from the bench in the gazebo.

"You said that already," Luke told her with an amused smile as he bit into his pastry.

"Oh, I did? Huh." Lorelai laughed at her own mistake. "Well, it's still true."

"Not gonna argue with that."

Silence came over them again and Lorelai tried not to sigh. It was nice to be there with Luke, but at the same time, it was really awkward too. This was really, really date-like, and to be honest, she wasn't sure if that was what he had intended or not. She still wasn't ckear if Luke even realised he was bidding on her basket when he started doing it, and yet, she wondered who in the heck he thought he was getting if not her.

"Okay, so this is driving me crazy," she said at last, turning to fully face him. "Luke, why did you bid on my basket?"

"Why did I...? Uh, because," he began awkwardly, adjusting his hat, "I was... Well, it was sort of Jess' idea."

"Jess' idea?"

"Yeah, but I could've said no. I didn't, because the idea of lunch with you, well, that's never bad. You're good company and you bought me the hat, so, you know?"

His rambling was rivalling her own and yet Luke didn't feel like he was explaining himself at all well. If Lorelai even had half a clue of what he was trying to tell her it would be a miracle, and yet, she was smiling, so that had to be a good sign.

"Luke, I told you, the hat was my gift to you, and dinner was your gift to me," she said definitely, "not that there has to be a trade-off, but still."

"You didn't want me to bid on your basket," he said, eyes going down.

"No, that's not what I meant," Lorelai assured him, her hand on top of his own getting his attention right back. "I didn't expect you to do it, I mean, you never did before or anything, but... but I'm not exactly sorry that you did," she admitted with a smile.

"Okay." Luke nodded, eyes dipping to Lorelai's hand on his still. "So, this is a good thing?" he said, turning his hand over and squeezing her fingers.

"It's not a bad thing," she admitted as they looked at each other again.

"No, it's absolutely not."

To Be Continued...