21. Under the Christmas Tree
'Verse: AU, in which Rory & Jess never met before
Timeline: post-series - Part 3 of 3; following 'O Christmas Tree' (LAC'17 #1) and 'Our Christmas Tree' (LAC'18 #23)
Date: December 2010
"What are you doing?" asked Jess, crouching down on the floor and peering under the tree. "Rory?"
"I'm trying to prevent a tragedy!" she called back to him, both her arms and part of her head lost in the lower branches of their oversized Christmas tree.
It was bad enough that Rory had got herself a ridiculously too-big tree for her apartment two years ago, and even more crazy that she insisted on something similar last year as an anniversary-type celebration of their first meeting.
This year, Jess had insisted it was impractical to have a tree of any kind, except for maybe a small one they could put up high, out of the way of Rory's baby. Of course, Jess was over-ruled.
"Come on, out of there," said Rory as she finally extricated both herself and the small fluff-ball from the tree. "You're usually only so active at night."
"She and I have that in common," said Jess with a smirk. "You making trouble, Dots?" he asked then, sitting down and scratching the little critter behind her ear.
"She has that in common with you too," Rory teased him as the cat leapt right out of her hands to rub up against Jess instead. "Why does she like you better than me? I'm the one who rescued her. I feed her, I clean her litter box, I named her for crying out loud, but oh no, she's a Daddy's girl."
"For the fortieth time, Ror, I am not the cat's father," he reminded her, rolling his eyes, though he continued to make a big fuss out of the cat all the same. "I mean, we're buds, right, Dots? But that's as far as it goes."
"Well, thankfully she still likes you better than she likes the tree." Rory sighed. "It's going to be a nightmare keeping her off this thing." she said, peering back over her shoulder at the six-feet of spruce shoved too hard into the corner behind them. "Maybe I shouldn't even try to put on more ornaments, they'll only end up smashed."
"Maybe we can train her to stay off the tree?" said Jess hopefully.
Rory didn't look convinced and, honestly, Jess couldn't really say he believed his own words either. Cats liked to attack Christmas trees, and ornaments, and anything really that dangled, sparkled, or lit up, so basically, anything a regular person might hang up in celebration of the holidays.
"I guess we're just lucky you didn't have her two years ago," he said thoughtfully then. "You might never have bought a tree at all and then where would we be?"
"Not here." Rory shook her head. "Not together. That would suck," she said, pouting.
"Yes, it would," Jess agreed, smirking at her expression as he leaned over to kiss her.
She kissed him back, the two of them getting lost in the moment for a while, completely missing the part where the cat leapt out from between them and straight up into the Christmas tree again. The first they knew of it was when the tree rustled then creaked a little. Rory barely got out a gasp and Jess just had time to shove her out the way and leap clear himself, before the whole thing came down.
Rory scrambled to her feet on one side of the tree as Jess did the same on the other, little Jennyanydots darting off into the bedroom as if her tail was on fire.
"Lucky you didn't put any more ornaments on," said Jess, biting his lip.
Rory started to laugh and then Jess laughed too. Maybe they really didn't need a tree this year after all.