A/N: Thank you for the reviews, everyone. Keep 'em coming, it's nice to get some encouragement :).
Sugar cures everything
"Called the doctor yet?" Jess smirked, walking in the kitchen Monday afternoon and placing a quick kiss on Rory's cheek, wrapping his arm around her waist.
"Yes." Nodding, she turned around, cradling her cup of coffee in her hands. "She said nightmares are normal, but if they don't stop by Thursday when I was supposed to go see her anyway, we'll talk about it again and she'll see what she can do. And I should drink a glass of warm milk before bed." She rolled her eyes, grinning. "Like I have problems with falling asleep. The staying in said state is the trouble." Laughing, she shook her head before kissing him softly. "How was work?"
"Good. Why are you going to the doctor on Thursday and why did I not know about this?" He changed the subject back, cocking an eyebrow. "You dying or something and have decided to keep it from your loving husband?"
"Oh, please, give me some credit. I would have hid it much better if it actually a secret." Sticking our her tongue, Rory giggled, moving his free hand so he could feel the baby kicking. "I told you about it a while ago, wrote it on the calendar..." Lifting her eyebrows, she looked at the calendar behind him, on the wall and he turned around, glancing at it quickly before focusing his attention back on her. "...It's just the glucose screening thingy. Nothing for you to worry your pretty head about." She teased, kissing the tip of his nose.
"When did you tell me about this? Because I have no recollection of hearing about it."
"A couple of weeks ago."
"Huh." He smirked, shaking his head. "Did I have a book in front of me at the time?"
"When do you not have a book in front of you?"
"Touché." Shrugging, he placed a kiss on her lips. "I must be getting old, though, because I seriously don't remember it. Try getting me when I'm reading a boring book next time."
"That's why we have the calendar." She grinned victoriously before putting her mug down, having finished the last of her coffee.
"So, what time's this thing?"
"Nine, but you don't have to..."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever."
"Thank you." She smiled, kissing him again.
"Do we also happen to have any plans for tomorrow night that I forgot about?"
"Not that I know of. Why?"
"Matt and Chris want to go out for dinner. Matt's bringing Jane."
"Sounds fun. Where are we going?"
"To be determined."
"You have this all nice and planned out then."
"As usual." Jess smirked, moving closer to her, tracing kisses down her jaw line. "We're debating doing an open house, since it's been a while, and we figured it might end up with less bloodshed if there's food around."
"Not a chance."
"We're moronically optimistic, like every damn time."
"How sweet." hugging him tightly, she kissed his cheek. "Call me tomorrow and let me know what the conclusions was and if I need to hurry up at work or not, ok?"
"Will do."
"My brain is ridiculous." Rory groaned the next morning as they were having breakfast.
"What happened now?"
"Last night. My dreams were like a twenty time more terrifying sequel to Alien, with facehuggers and chestbursters and stuff. You don't want to know." She made a face, pushing her cereal bowl aside. "At least the stupidity has gone away. Monsters are easier to deal with."
"I'm not sure if I should be happy for you or not." He rubbed her knee, smiling.
"Be happy. It's a step ahead. And I'm pretty sure Alien bad dreams are mandatory in every pregnancy." Shaking her head, she stood up, getting ready to clean the dishes. "I'm sure they'll go away soon enough." Rubbing her stomach, she smiled down at it. "Now you just remember to use normal, yet equally terrifying methods of being born and we'll be fine."
"And on that note..." Standing up, Jess dropped his dishes in the sink, kissing her cheek quickly. "I'll call you later and let you know about going out."
"Ok. Love you."
Running his thumb over her stomach, he smiled. "Be nice to your mom." Kissing Rory one more time, he headed for the door. "See you later."
"Bye."
"How do I look?" Rory turned around to look at her husband, who was reading in bed.
"Great. Just like the last three times you asked me."
"Pft, you're a boy, you know nothing of these things. Plus, you're my husband, so it's your obligation to tell me that."
"Then send your mother a picture and let her tell you the exact same thing."
"I'm sure it's in mom's job description to lie to me as well."
"I'm not lying." Putting his book down, Jess walked to her, putting his hands on her shoulders and making her turn around to face the mirror again. Moving closer to her, he glued his body to hers, trailing kisses down her neck. "Trust me, I can demonstrate just how hot I think you are, but that would make us late and then Matt and Chris would make jokes and you'd blush and kick me under the table and you're wearing heels."
"I haven't worn heels since the wedding, it was about..."
"I'm not protesting the heels, just the possibility of suffering their attack."
"So I don't look like a beached whale?"
"No." He shook his head, kissing her neck. "Although, now that I think about it, I'm sure I have some shin pads somewhere so we could..."
"Hey, let's go." She grinned, turning around and taking his hand in hers, starting to drag him towards the door.
"Spoil sport." He tried to whine, catching up to her.
A while later, they were sitting in the quiet pub, almost empty plates in front of them.
"I think turquoise should be our theme!" Matt announced, making the other two guys groan.
"Turquoise is not a theme." Jess pointed out, shaking his head.
"It's a perfectly good theme."
"No." Chris shook his head as well, picking up a now cold fry between his fingers. "I don't care, there is no way I will ever agree to that."
"Add me to that, give or take a few profanities." Jess smirked, picking up his beer. "We don't even need a theme. The theme is books, isn't that good enough?"
"And whatever people try to pass of as art these days. And poetry." Chris smiled at Jane. "If Jane agrees to graciously provide her services again in exchange of free publicity and nothing else."
"Always." The young woman smiled back, nodding.
"It's not like you have a choice anyway, I'd just bug you until you said yes." Matt kissed her quickly, smiling.
"Ok, too much couple-iness going on around here." Chris grimaced, finishing his drink. "I don't like any of you anymore."
"You never liked us." Jess smirked, picking up his empty glass as well as Chris's. "I'm gonna go grab some more drinks, who else needs anything?" Looking at Chris who was getting ready to open his mouth, he smirked. "Other than you, I already assumed your life would be over if I didn't return with more beer."
"Coke, please." Rory smiled at him, running her hand over the back of his leg behind the table.
"Beer."
"Coke." Jane added after Matt, winking at Rory. "Good to not be the only one not drinking for a change."
"I'll be back."
"Say that in a Terminator voice next time!" Chris called after him, chuckling.
"Seriously, help me out here." Matt looked from his girlfriend to Rory, completely ignoring Chris. "Turquoise would be a wonderful theme, right?"
"No." Jane shook her head, leaning over and kissing his cheek. "I love you, but no."
"And, no matter how you want to pretend it's not true, I have veto power." Chris pointed out, grinning.
"Damn you."
"Hey, you're always free to leave and start your own business."
"And deprive you of the pleasure of spending five days a week in the same office as me? Never!"
"When you put it like that, I may have to quit myself." Chris shook his head, staring at his empty glass. "Hey, your husband's taking a lot of time with that drink. Does he not know what I have to deal with here?"
"What, you think we have some sort of super-special bond that will bring him back?" Rory grinned, glancing at the bar, seeing Jess talking to a woman who was standing there while the bartender was pouring their drinks. "It looks like he'll be back soon, I don't think you'll die of dehydration."
"I'm not sure, there's a serious risk over here." Chris grinned again, shrugging. "So...open house?"
"Yes. We've already decided it's going to be yes."
"No theme, nothing. I don't care." Chris shook his head. "Two weeks from Saturday. That should give us enough time to organize everything but not be stale and..."
"A month." Jess walked back to the table, putting a couple of glasses on it. "No way we're doing it like last time." Leaving again, he came back with the other three glasses, placing them next to the others. "I want to sleep in the next couple of weeks, thank you very much." He sat back down next to Rory, resting his hand on her leg.
"You seemed preoccupied with the girl at the bar." Rory whispered in his ear, while the other two guys kept bickering about the open house.
"I think she was preoccupied with me." He smirked back, moving his hand over her shoulders and placing a kiss on her temple. "I'm sure she's a very nice person, but I couldn't care less. Chris, you might want to go get the next round." He raised his voice enough for the other people to hear, smirking at the guy glanced at the bar, chuckling.
"You're a very good friend."
"Just trying to get rid of you."
"I love you too, pumpkin." Chris grinned. "We've decided on April 20th. Good with you?"
"Yeah." Jess nodded, picking up his beer. "Same distribution of tasks as usual?"
"I'll get started on the invites." Matthew nodded, kissing Jane's cheek quickly.
"She was very pretty." Rory smiled, sitting on the bed later that night, kicking her shoes off.
"Who?" Jess mumbled, standing in the doorway between the room and the bathroom, brushing his teeth.
"The girl at the bar."
"The one that went home with Chris?"
"Did she?" She looked at him, surprised.
"Yeah." Jess mumbled again, nodding. Walking back to the sink, he rinsed his mouth as she walked past him, picking up her toothbrush.
"She hit on you first."
"So?" He smirked, leaning in the doorway again as she squeezed toothpaste on the brush.
"I don't like it when women hit on you." She shrugged, pouting slightly and kissing him quickly before starting to brush her teeth.
"Because I enjoy so much seeing guys ask you out the second I'm more than five feet away from you?" He cocked an eyebrow, watching her as she kept brushing her teeth.
"Wike awywone's..." She started mumbling but Jess shook his head.
"Spit first."
"Like anyone's going to hit on me now!" She grumbled after she spit, looking at her stomach. "I'm not exactly a candidate for Miss Universe."
"You're beautiful." He walked to her, placing a kiss on her shoulder. "And I'm pretty sure you're very wrong on the whole hitting on you issue."
"I don't think you have anything to worry about." Rinsing her mouth, she put her toothbrush back, taking Jess' hand and starting to walk towards the bed. "I know it's stupid, but she was so pretty and her hair wasn't a mess and she was drinking wine and wearing seriously high heels and I really, really miss feeling that put together right now and I know I'm not going to get to feel like that any time soon and I'm happy, because I love our baby and definitely don't want her to come out before it's time, but I'm also sad." Letting out a breath as soon as she reached the end, she pouted slightly and he lifted his head, kissing her softly.
"I wasn't interested..."
"I know you weren't. I just miss feeling like a grown up instead of a baby incubator."
Chuckling, he sat down next to her, hugging her tightly as she wrapped her arms around him as well. "Anything I can help with?"
"Let me be silly and not mock me?" She smiled, running her hand through his hair.
"I wasn't going to."
"Even though I'm a crazy mess?"
"Even though." He nodded, lying in bed, taking her with him. Curling up on his shoulder, Rory wrapped her arm around him, smiling as she looked at him.
"Promise me I'll be pretty again someday."
"Nope."
"Hey!" She slapped his arm, blinking rapidly.
"You're already pretty, I can't promise you anything stupid like that."
"Thank you." She buried her face in his shoulder, kissing his skin.
"Don't mention it."
"What are you doing?" Rory asked groggily, opening her eyes on Thursday afternoon. "Work. You should be at work. I should be at work."
"Shut up." He leaned down, kissing her forehead. "How's the headache?"
"What headache?"
"Loopy much?" He smirked, hugging her close.
"What am I missing?" She mumbled, burying her face in his chest, thankful that the room was dark.
"You got a headache from the sugary crap they made you drink. Really, we all expected better from you. Lorelai may disown you."
"I passed the test, right?"
"Yes, you did." Kissing the top of her head, he smiled. "Like you've ever failed a test."
"Hope the kid takes after me then." She mumbled again, pulling the blanket tighter around them. "You're comfortable."
"Thank you."
"Gah, my head is pounding." She closed her eyes again, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers. "Times like these, I really miss painkillers."
"Anything I can do?"
"No, but thank you again."
"Just doing my job." He kissed her forehead again. "I think this is the first time in the last few days when you sleep for more than a couple of hours without waking up."
"Monitoring my sleeping habits?"
"Maybe. What are you going to do about it?"
"Thank you?" She smiled softly, lifting her head and kissing him. "You spoil me too much."
"Nah, I've been spending my time thinking I should have let you get that baby monitor so I could make sure you were sleeping while reading in another room. You sleep on me, it makes it very hard to hold up a book." He joked, cupping her face in his hand. "Feeling better?"
"Better rested, in any case. Maybe the solution all along was sleeping during the day."
"If only that pesky job thing wasn't in the way."
"There's a downside to everything." Yawning, Rory stretched her arm and neck. "God, I'm starving."
"We can go get some food in you."
"It may be the only option if you want me to live." Pulling herself up, awkwardly, she started walking towards the kitchen with Jess following behind her. "Why do I have shoes on?" She looked back at him, confused.
"You kidding me? I barely got you in bed. I was not going to even try to get your shoes off."
"I remember waking up at some point..."
"Yeah, when the nurse had to draw blood. Also, she tried to coerce me into promising I will repeat her lecture about having food before doing this, if there is a next time. I'll skip the whole thing, but point is-eat something."
"But early morning grogginess couldn't have helped me trying to remember the no sugar thing." She started scouring the fridge, pulling out a container of Chinese food and putting it on the counter next to her. Taking it away, Jess dropped it in the microwave while she grabbed a peach, biting into it. "Food-awesome invention!"
"Yeah, I heard you're a fan. By the way, your phone was ringing earlier."
Nodding, she kept chewing on the peach, glancing at the microwave to check the time before picking up her phone, dialing the voicemail number.
"Grandma." She mouthed to Jess, grimacing. "Baby shower."
"Again?"
Rory nodded, throwing her peach pit as she kept listening to the message. Dropping her food on a plate, Jess sat down, waiting for her to be done.
"Argh!" She grumbled, throwing the phone on the table and he caught it in his hand before it hit the wall. Picking up a fork, Rory started eating, looking at him at the same time. "I really, really wish she would stop talking about this. Really." She grinned between bites.
"Do I even want to know what she wanted?"
"To talk canapés and to inform me that there won't be any ridiculous games like there were at the shower her friend was telling her about."
"Yeah, I didn't."
"Trust me, that's the very condensed version."
"I don't doubt it. So she's still going ahead with the shower thing?"
"Apparently so. I don't have the energy to fight her."
"Good luck." He chuckled, leaning back in his chair.
"Way to be supportive. You should call her back and tell her you won't allow me to go or something. Pull the furious husband act."
"Sure." He drew out the word, chuckling. "'Cause that would totally work with Emily."
"Lock me in the house, please?"
"Immediately." Jess smirked, standing up. "I'll be in the office when you're done eating, I have some work to catch up with after lazying it up in bed all day."
"Thank you."
"For?" He leaned down, kissing the top of her head.
"Staying in bed with me."
"Anytime."
Leaning down and placing a small kiss on Jess' forehead the next morning, Rory waited for him to wake up, a couple of cups of coffee on the nightstand.
"Morning." He mumbled, opening one eye.
"Good morning." Kissing him again, she smiled, running her fingers through his hair.
"I don't wanna."
"Don't wanna what?"
"Wake up. Work. That crap." Jess sighed, sitting up in bed and grabbing a cup. "Though I like being waking up to this."
"Figured I owed you as much. I'll go bring breakfast as well." She tried to stand up but he caught her, wrapping his arm around her waist, keeping her in bed.
"I'll live." He pulled her closer to him, smiling. "How'd you sleep?"
"Great."
"Seriously?"
"No nightmares." She shook her head, grinning.
"Finally." Jess kissed her, smiling. "So now what we need to do is schedule any sort of doctor's appointment for you every time you have a bad dream?"
"I think it'd be safest."
"I'll make a mental note."
"I'll probably spend the entire weekend sleeping to catch up after last week though." Rory leaned over, grabbing her coffee mug.
"You spending a whole weekend in bed? That I'd like to see."
"I sense disbelief."
"I've known you too long to buy that for even a second. Very cute of you to try."
"I'm going to prove you wrong. I'm going to do nothing but stay in bed all weekend. You just wait."
"Huh. Can't wait." He smirked, kissing her quickly and she shook her head.
"Damn you."
"You can't go back on your word now, I'll be very disappointed." Jess chuckled.
"Go to work." She pointed to the door, laughing as well.
"Keep the bossiness for the weekend." He teased, kissing her neck before jumping out of bed and heading for the shower.
