Chapter Notes: My attempt at relieving a few moments of quarantine boredom. Just a few fleshed out scenes from the wrap up in the last chapter. As always, I'd love to hear from you guys, and reviews and constructive criticism are warmly welcomed. I hope you're all doing well and staying safe.

Trigger Warnings: Off camera death. Grief. Nothing you didn't already hear about in the last chapter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my own obsession with Gilmore Girls

Jess wasn't expecting anything good. He had been feeling a fluttering of nerves in his stomach since the moment he'd received the text from Jeremy an hour earlier: 'Mom has parents' night at school tonight, right? Can I come by and talk to you while she's out?' And, watching Jeremy now, sitting across from him at the kitchen table, his son's expression serious as he focused on slowly pulling his tea bag out of the steaming liquid in front of him and flattening it against the edge of his mug with his spoon, Jess was sure his instincts had been right. This wasn't going to be good.

Jess knew that things hadn't been easy for Jeremy and Kristie lately, ever since the miscarriage a little over a year ago, really. That trying to get pregnant again had become a source of tension between them. That Kristie felt like she had moved back to Connecticut and settled for a lower paying job in Hartford to raise her child and has been questioning the validity of those choices the longer they went without conceiving. And, that Jeremy hasn't been able to give up on the idea of having a baby of their own. Jess was aware that they've been, if not outright fighting, more tense with each other than usual, or avoiding each other all together, with Jeremy dropping by the house for dinner, or according to Luke, by the diner to chat, without Kristie, more often than with her. Jess had only really asked about it once, his concern for his son outweighing his agreement with Mallory that they shouldn't pry, and Jeremy, seemingly caught off guard, had given him a vague answer, that they were just going through a rough patch, but they were fine, really. They just needed a little space at the moment. Jess had wanted to believe his son, but looking at him now, he knew what Jeremy wanted to tell him and his heart hurt for his son. They were separating. Jess could feel it and it was breaking his heart. He couldn't stand the idea of Jeremy and Kristie separating. Jess loved Kristie. Mallory loved Kristie. But, most importantly he knew how much Jeremy loved Kristie and he couldn't take the idea of his son being alone and heartbroken at almost forty years old. He felt like he had personally failed his child somehow. He wondered if getting married instead of just living together all these years would have cemented them together differently and kept them together through this. He knew even as he had the thought that it was pointless, that marriage provided no insurance against heartbreak, that marriages ended every day. Jeremy set his tea bag and spoon down on a napkin and finally looked up. Jess schooled his features into loving support, not wanting Jeremy to see his own hurt and fear for his son in his eyes.

"So, uh." Jeremy started. "Kristie and I are going to stop trying. To get pregnant. We're going to move forward with fostering and hopefully find a kid or two that wants us to adopt them." Jeremy gave Jess a small smile. "So, that's what I wanted to tell you."

Jess could feel a grin spreading on his face as relief swept over him and the nervous feeling in his gut finally subsided. "That's great, Jeremy! I couldn't recommend adoption more."

"Really?" Jeremy frowned slightly. "You wouldn't recommend having your own child over adopting?"

Jess could feel the smile fading from his own face. "What? Of course, not."

Jess watched Jeremy's expression shift to annoyance and when he spoke, his voice had an edge to it that Jess didn't appreciate. "Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me that getting to raise Evie, who was all yours from the moment she was born, wasn't better than dealing with all Darius's shit at nine, or mine at seventeen?"

"Jeremy." Jess made his voice more stern with his oldest child than he had in years, and Jeremy's anger seemed to deflate a little in the face of the reprimand.

"I'm just saying." Jeremy's voice was gentler now. "Having Evie was a totally different experience for you than adopting me and Darius. You didn't even get to raise me."

Jess took a deep, steadying breath. "That's true. I missed out on getting to raise you, but that doesn't change how I feel about you or how much I love being your dad. It doesn't, in any way, make you any less my child than Evie is."

"I know. I'm sorry. I just…...I wasn't ready to give up on having our own child." Jeremy looked away for a moment, and Jess wasn't sure what to say. "I sound like an asshole."

Jess shook his head. "No. No, Jeremy you don't. Look at me, Jeremy." Jess waited for Jeremy to comply. "You don't sound like an asshole. You're not an asshole."

"I feel like an asshole. I appreciate being adopted so much."

Jess didn't like how stressed Jeremy looked at the idea that Jess could possibly think otherwise. "I know. I know you do."

"It's the single, most important thing that's ever happened to me. I'm so grateful that I was adopted."

"I know, Jeremy. It's all right."

"It's so stupid. I love you so much. I love having you for a dad." Jess took in the earnest, almost guilty expression on Jeremy's face.

Jess forced a smile as he tried to follow the segue in the conversation. "I know. I love you, too, son."

"I love being part of this family." Jeremy said.

Jess nodded and gave Jeremy a small smile. "Good to hear. So do I."

"And, I know how selfish this sounds…..but this was my last chance to actually be related to someone. I've never had that…..I didn't even realize how important that was to me until Kristie got pregnant…...I mean, growing up in foster care I always wanted to be related to someone. I used to have these fantasies when I was a kid about a long lost half-sibling showing up, like maybe my dad had a kid from a previous relationship that he didn't know about or something and they'd find me somehow and I'd have this older brother or sister. I would have settled for an aunt or uncle, or a cousin or a grandparent or anyone, just to have an actual family member. But, after you adopted me and I got all those things, I got all those people in my life anyway, people that I had real relationships with, not fantasies, not being related to anyone didn't feel like it mattered anymore."

"Jeremy, you're my son. It doesn't matter how I got you. I couldn't love you more-"

"I know." Jeremy cut in, his voice slightly agitated. "That's what I'm saying. It doesn't matter, or it shouldn't matter. I work with adopted families at work all the time. I know how great adoption can be. I didn't expect to feel this disappointed. I didn't realize how much I had been looking forward to finally having someone that I'm related to. Who might look like me, or be like me in ways that no one else is."

"I think that's a natural reaction, Jeremy. You wanted one thing, something that was very important to you, and now you've had to shift your expectations. It's hard and it hurts. I get it."

"And, it's not like I'm not open to adoption. Of course, I am. I want to adopt. But, I'd always kind of pictured doing both, with me and Kristie ending up with a family kind of like ours, with one or two biological kids and one or two adopted ones. I didn't realize how attached I was to the idea of having my own, but when Kristie told me that she wanted to stop trying…...it just hurt so much more than I expected. I felt so…...crushed. Which I know is stupid because I have so much in my life to be grateful for. And, I didn't want to make her feel bad because I know how hard this has been on her. The miscarriage. Trying all this time and not getting anywhere. It's been worse for her. I know that. And, I know I'm being stupid. I have a family. I got lucky and I should want to do the same for another kid who needs a family. I know what it's like to be an unloved child and I feel like, more than anything else, I should want to give another kid all the things you gave me."

Jess felt his heart hurt for his son, in an entirely different way than how he had expected at the start of this conversation, but it was real pain just the same. "There are no shoulds here, Jeremy. Ok? There's no one way that you're supposed to feel. How you feel is how you feel."

"Darius and Amaya want to adopt. Did you know that?"

"What?" Jess felt a spike of worry for his other, barely-out-of-college son.

"Don't get worked up, Dad. I don't mean right now, but in a few years, when they're ready. They've already talked about being open to the idea. Darius told me. Because they were both adopted and they want to pay it forward because they don't suck."

"You don't suck, Jeremy."

"I feel like I suck. I feel selfish. Darius doesn't care about being related to someone else. But, it's all I've been able to think about since Kristie got pregnant, and again since she said she wants to stop trying. I think she thought I'd be more excited about the idea of adopting, and I feel like I let her down, like now she feels like she's disappointing me or something and I just feel so shitty about everything."

"You aren't letting her down. You're respecting her choice to stop trying to get pregnant. But, you're allowed to be sad about what you're losing out on. And, I get wanting a blood connection to someone in your family. Growing up with Liz as my only relative…..I wanted that, too. It's the reason I ran away from Luke's to find Jimmy as soon as I was old enough to go. I get it. There's nothing wrong with how you feel right now."

"I just…...this isn't the way I thought of myself. As someone so ungrateful that we aren't having a baby that I can't get excited about adopting."

"Don't beat yourself up, Jeremy. If there's one thing I've learned it's that you can't control how you feel. You can only control what you do. It's ok to be disappointed that things aren't going to go the way you hoped. That doesn't make you a bad person, or an ungrateful person. You've never been either of those things. You'll move past this disappointment and you'll get more excited. The way you feel right now doesn't mean that whichever kid finds his way into your home isn't going to have the most loving and amazing dad. And, it doesn't mean that you won't fall in love with that kid as completely and fully as you've ever loved anyone."

"I know I'll love whoever we end up parenting. I just keep picturing the parts I'll miss. Welcoming our baby into the world. Raising our child from day one. Seeing pieces of myself and of Kristie in our child. I'm just having trouble getting past the idea of not having a baby of our own."

"I know. This is a rough blow, son, I get it. It would be for anyone in your situation. I know you understand that we don't all get everything we want in life, Jeremy. And, you've been shortchanged in your life so much more than most, on so many levels, and it breaks my heart to see you missing out on something else you really want. But, you're a good person. You have a strong relationship with a woman who loves you and wants to start a family with you. I have no doubt that you will be an incredible dad to a whole house full of adopted children, if that's what you want to do. And, sometimes, what we are given has to be enough. But, feeling sad and disappointed isn't wrong. It's normal and human."

Jeremy sighed.

"And, I know how you feel." Jess continued. "I love your mother very much. But I felt like you do now when she first told me that she wanted to adopt instead of having a baby of our own. And, I already had you. I already knew in my heart that I could never love anyone more than I already loved you. But, I still wanted a baby of my own, and I was disappointed that Mallory didn't."

"But, then you got Evie." Jeremy said.

"We did. We did get Evie. But, I was willing to accept the trade-off if we hadn't. To have my family be just you and Mal, and any other kids we ended up adopting. I know how you feel about Kirstie and I know that you want to adopt, but you need to make sure you're ok with this trade-off, too."

"I am. There's no question." Jeremy said. "I would choose Kristie even if she didn't want kids at all. She loves me like no one ever has." Jeremy paused. "She loves me like you love me." Jess disagreed with the notion that anyone could love his child like he did, but he kept his mouth shut. "And, I love her so much. I can't imagine not being with her.

Jess nodded, his expression serious. "Ok, then. That's a good thing to know."

Jeremy sighed deeply and Jess wondered if anything he had said had really helped his son at all. "It is. It's a good thing. And, I'll be ok. Once I…...get over how I feel right now. I'll be fine. Kristie and I will be fine." Jeremy gave Jess a small smile. "I think I'll be pretty good at adopting."

Jess returned the smile. "I think so, too." Jess let his smile turn into a smirk. "I mean, how could you not? You had a pretty amazing role model, right?"

Jeremy huffed out a quiet laugh and Jess savored the sound. "My role model wasn't too terrible. I'll give you that." Jeremy smiled and it looked authentic to Jess for the first time since his son arrived. "Thanks for listening to me. I really needed to talk about this and I didn't want to dump any of it on Kristie. I didn't want her to feel like I was pressuring her or anything."

"I get it. Sometimes everyone needs to talk things through with someone outside of their relationship. Whenever you feel like you need to talk, about this or anything else, I'm here to listen. To just hear whatever you need to get off your chest. You know that, right? I'm always here for you."

"I know you are, Jess. Thanks."

"Good. Because I love you so much, Jeremy." Jess smiled as he scooted back his chair and stood up, walking around the table and stopping beside his still seated son. He gently cupped the back of Jeremy's skull and bent to drop a kiss on the top of his head. Jess pulled back and watched his son turn to look up at him, taking some level of satisfaction in what he saw in the boy's eyes, a hopefulness that hadn't been there when he had first arrived. Jess smiled and shoved lightly at Jeremy's shoulder. "Now, get your ass up. I need to hug my kid."

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Jeremy heard the front door open and close behind him and sighed. He'd been hoping for a few more minutes of solitude and wasn't sure he was ready to face anyone yet.

"There room for one more out here?" Darius asked.

Jeremy turned to look up over his left shoulder to where his brother was standing on Lorelai's porch, looking eager, but unsure. "Or, if you don't want company." Darius continued. "It's cool. I can just….." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder back toward the house.

Jeremy nodded and forced a small smile onto his face, not wanting to reject his brother's offer of companionship. "Sure, company sounds good." He picked up his half empty beer bottle to make room on the porch step next to him. "Come sit down. How have you been? Tell me all about life in Philly." Jeremy tried to direct the conversation toward Darius because he wasn't sure he was up for any more talk about Luke.

Darius walked down two steps and sat down a couple of feet from his brother. "Life in Philly is good. Expensive, but good. We're thinking of moving somewhere cheaper in a couple of years or so. Maybe buying a condo or something."

"A condo?" Jeremy infused playful disbelief into his voice. "Wow, you're turning into a real grownup."

"That I am. Amaya's been a…...maturing influence on me. She's really got her shit together."

"And, how are things with you and Amaya? You guys seem good."

Darius grinned. "We are good. Amaya's very good. She's great." Darius tipped his head in the direction of the house behind them. "She's in there hanging out with Harrison's daughter. Sophie really bonded to her and hasn't let her out of her sight all afternoon. Kids always love her. She's going to make such a great mom, someday."

Jeremy smiled as he took in the happiness on his brother's face at the idea of Amaya mothering his future children. "I'm sure she will. I picture you both being pretty good at it."

"Thanks." Darius said. His expression grew serious. "But, hey, I didn't come out here to talk about me." He reached out a hand and lightly knocked his knuckles against Jeremy's arm. "Are you doing ok?"

Jeremy didn't really feel ok, but he nodded anyway. It had been a hard day. Kristie had already left the funeral reception to go home to relieve the babysitter, but Jeremy was determined to stay until Jess left. As hard as today was on him, he knew it had to be worse for his dad and he wanted to be there for him as much as he could. He had come outside because he'd needed a minute after accidentally walking in on Lorelai quietly crying in the bathroom. She had composed herself quickly and hugged Jeremy tightly, telling him how much Luke had loved him and how proud his uncle had always been of him. It had been almost more than Jeremy could take and he had come outside to collect himself afterward. He trained his eyes forward, staring out into Lorelai's yard, fiddling with the bottle in his hands. "Yeah. I'm all right. How are you doing?"

Jeremy could see Darius shrug slightly out of the corner of his eye. "I'm ok, I guess." Jeremy could feel his brother's gaze on him, but didn't turn toward him. "It was so sudden. I mean, Uncle Luke was such a healthy guy for someone his age. It's hard to wrap my head around him having a heart attack and being gone, just like that."

Jeremy nodded again. "I know. Me too."

"It's been hard on me, and I know you were closer to him than I was." Jeremy looked over at Darius at that, his brow furrowed. "I mean, I loved him, too, and I'll miss him. A lot. He was a great guy and he was always really good to me, to Evie, too, but you guys always seemed to have a next level kind of thing going on. It always felt like he was more like your second dad." Jeremy gave his brother a small smile for acknowledging his bond with their great uncle. "So, I just wanted to check in with you and make sure you're all right, or if you want to talk or anything."

Jeremy raised a hand to squeeze Darius's shoulder. "Thanks, Darius. I appreciate that. I'm not really ok right now, but I will be." The door opened behind them and Jeremy took back his hand as both men turned to look behind them.

"Hey, here you guys are." Evie said. Jeremy took in how mature his sixteen year-old sister looked in her plain black dress and shoes. From the look of her she had been crying more recently than what Jeremy had witnessed during the funeral that had ended a few hours ago.

"Hey, sad munchkin, come hang out with your big brothers." Darius scooted another foot away from Jeremy to make room for their sister. Jeremy watched Evie try to smile as she crossed the porch toward them, taking a seat on the porch step between them. Jeremy's mind went back to an incident soon after Darius had come to live with their parents, when Jeremy had inadvertently moved one of nine-year-old Darius's action figures and Darius had lashed out at him viciously, unleashing an angry tirade of homophobic slurs that had left Jeremy with the distinct feeling that if they had been the same age and known each other in foster care, Darius would have been one of the kids who had bullied him. He watched Darius wrap an arm around Evie and rub small circles on her shoulder with his thumb and thought about how surprisingly kind Darius had turned out, and what a good brother he was to both Evie and Jeremy.

"You doing ok, Evie?" Jeremy asked. The girl looked toward him and nodded, her sad eyes undermining her response.

"I guess." She said. "It's just so sad. I'm going to miss Uncle Luke so much."

"Me too." Jeremy said.

"We all will." Darius agreed.

"Dad's going to miss Uncle Luke even more than we are." Jeremy said. "This is like losing a parent for Dad. So, we all need to be there for him a little extra for the next while. He's going to be sad and he's going to want to be around us, but since he's Dad, he isn't going to ask outright because he's going to worry about being a burden. So, we all just need to…...be there. Check in with him more. Listen to him if he wants to talk. And, just be there for him, like he's always been there for us." Jeremy thought about Mallory's mother being killed all those years ago and how badly he had failed at being there for her and how he wasn't going to make the same mistake now, and wasn't going to let his little brother and sister make that mistake at all.

Evie nodded solemnly. "Jeremy's right." She turned toward Darius. "Maybe you should stay in town longer so we can all hang out as a family more. Dad would really like that, don't you think?"

"Oh, munchkin." Darius played with an end of Evie's long, black hair, idly running it between his thumb and index finger. "We need to head back to Philly tomorrow. I have to be back in the office on Thursday for a meeting that I can't miss, and Amaya's got work stuff, too. But, I'll call and facetime him a lot more often. You too, if you're lucky."

Darius smirked and Evie frowned at him and turned back toward Jeremy, lowering her voice slightly. "Don't you guys think it's weird that Uncle Logan didn't come with Aunt Rory and Leelee? It's disrespectful, right?"

"Yeah. It's pretty messed up." Darius agreed. "Uncle Luke was Aunt Rory's stepdad and Leelee's grandfather. I feel like he should be here for them."

"And, I feel like Aunt Rory's embarrassed by it. I was here with Aunt Lorelai when Aunt Rory and Leelee got in yesterday, and I could tell she was embarrassed to say that he hadn't come with her."

"It's probably for the best." Jeremy said. "Uncle Luke never liked him, anyway." Darius laughed lightly at that. "Neither does Dad. It's probably better that he's not here in Dad's face today."

"Maybe." Evie conceded. "But, it doesn't seem like it's the best for Aunt Rory. She lost someone who was like a Dad to her and she doesn't even have her partner here for emotional support."

Jeremy nodded his agreement. "I agree with you. I think she should be able to expect more from him. You should definitely hold out for a guy who you can expect more from."

Evie smiled at him. "Ohh-kay, Jeremy." Her response was colored with a mix of familiarity and amusement that let Jeremy know she'd heard this from him before, probably too often. Jeremy couldn't help it. The older Evie got, the more Jeremy worried about how quickly an attachment to the wrong guy could derail her life. He saw it often enough among the foster youth he worked with, how common low self-esteem could be among even smart, pretty girls and how easily some could form unhealthy relationships with young men who didn't value them. He saw it with the biological mothers who lost custody of their children because of their unwillingness to separate from a physically abusive or substance-addicted partner. He felt it in his own story of his father pushing his mother to her death. He worried about Evie more than he had about Darius at her age. The world view that had been crafted by the narrative of Jeremy's life had left him with the distinct feeling that being a girl was intrinsically more fraught with the potential for victimization.

"Aunt April seems like she's doing ok, but I wonder if she really is. It seems impossible to be ok when she's losing her Dad so soon after getting divorced. I worry about her. I'm glad Aunt Doula and Uncle Mike live in Boston now, too, but I still feel like Aunt April and Marie should move back to Stars Hollow."

Darius chuckled. "You sound like Uncle Luke."

"April's tough." Jeremy said. "And, I honestly think she's happier just being with her daughter than she was with her husband, at least for the last few years. I think April and Rory are alike in that way. I don't think you need to worry about either of them."

Darius nodded. "I think Jeremy's right, munchkin. Aunt April seems like she's doing all right to me."

"I guess so." The girl shrugged, clearly unconvinced. "They invited me out to Boston for a girls' weekend next month. Aunt April said she'd give me a tour of her lab."

"That sounds like it'll be fun." Jeremy thought back to what a happy, unbothered kid Evie had been until she'd reached her teens a few years ago and her positive energy had expanded to make room for what felt like outsized worry and concern, for herself, the people she cared about, and even strangers going through hardship. Jeremy told himself it was a natural transition, to develop stronger empathy with maturity, and greater anxiety and distrust from life experience, but he could see more of himself in his sister than in anyone else in his family, and sometimes that worried him.

"Yeah. It will be." She leaned into each of her brother's sides, one after the other, hugging them each tightly. "I love you guys."

Jeremy reciprocated the hug, telling her he loved her, too, and then watched Darius do the same when it was his turn. Darius ended the hug by furtively reaching up a hand to playfully ruffle his sister's hair. Evie told him to stop as she pulled back, her expression both annoyed and amused. She got to her feet, a small smile firmly in place on her face. "Ok. I'm going to go back in and check on Dad and hang out with Marie. I just wanted to come see you guys and make sure you were all right."

"I'm glad you did." Jeremy said.

"Later, munchkin." Darius said.

Jeremy watched his little sister head back into the house. He turned back to Darius. "I don't want to keep you out here, if you want to head back in with everyone, too."

"I'm good here." Darius reached for Jeremy's beer bottle and took a long sip before handing it back. The intimacy of the action touched Jeremy and made him think about the concern he had harbored so long ago, the one that seemed unfounded now, that the large age difference would awkwardly distance him from Darius and Evie and keep them from having a real sibling bond. "I'm staying with you until you're ready to head back in."

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Jeremy started the car and pulled out of his freshly shoveled driveway. His mind went back to his family, still sleeping snuggled in their warm beds the morning after the snowstorm, Kristie in their room with their infant daughter a few feet away in her crib, and Phoebe and Justin in their bedrooms down the hall. Today was Jeremy's day off from the Department of Child and Family Services, and while he planned to spend the majority of his day with Kristie and the kids, he had a few things he wanted to take care of first.

Jeremy's first stop was Lorelai's house because he knew she liked to get to the inn early. He wondered if she would ever sell the inn and just relax, maybe spend more time with Rory and Leelee in New York, or if she'd be like Luke and run her business until she no longer could. He could tell the plows had already been down her street as he parked in front of her house. He pulled his shovel from the backseat and was about halfway through shoveling out the jeep in Lorelai's driveway when he heard a knock and looked up to see Lorelai watching him from her kitchen window. She grinned when they made eye contact and joined the fingers and thumbs of both hands to form a heart. Jeremy lowered his scarf so that she could see him smiling back and waved. Lorelai held a mug up to the window and pointed at it, then at Jeremy, a questioning expression on her face. He shook his head and mouthed no thank you, then waved again and returned to his shoveling. Jeremy liked doing things like this for Lorelai, things that his Uncle Luke would have appreciated. He liked the idea of his uncle watching over him and smiling down on him in approval. As Jeremy shoveled, he thought about his second Thanksgiving with his family, when Harrison had spent the holiday weekend riding out the snowstorm in the apartment above the diner with him and Jess and Mallory. He reflected on how he had barely known Harrison back then, at the early stages of a now over twenty-year-old friendship, and how lucky he felt that he still had Harrison in his life. He thought about how he and Harrison had helped Luke and April shovel out the diner, and then Lorelai's driveway, where she had greeted them with hot chocolate and cookies from Weston's when they were done. He remembered how good that weekend had been, and how proud and grateful he had felt to have a family to share with Harrison. He thought about how, even back then, he had already understood that Luke was the glue that held their extended family together, bonding Jess and Jeremy to Lorelai and Rory, April, and Liz and TJ in ways they wouldn't have been without him. Jeremy wanted to make sure things stayed like that. He wanted his children to grow up with all the family that he had had, and he was willing to be the one to put in the work to keep them all connected.

Jeremy's next stop was his grandparents's house. Neither of them worked anymore, and Jeremy knew they likely weren't even up yet, but he wanted them to have a clear driveway in case they wanted to go out at any point today. He didn't want his eighty-two year old grandfather out there shoveling their cars out. He didn't need to lose a second family member to a heart attack in less than a year. As Jeremy shoveled, he thought about the time he had built his first snow people with TJ and a ten-year-old Doula. And, how Jess had come to pick him up and agreed to stay for a family Scrabble night. Jeremy knew Jess's relationship with Liz would always be complicated, but Jeremy looked back at that night as a turning point in their relationship, when Jess had started down the path toward forgiving his mother and he and Jess had started to gel with Jeremy's grandparents more like a real family. He thought about his plan to take his two older children outside to build snow people when he got home, and wondered if Kristie would be up for them taking the kids over to their great-grandparents' house and playing in the snow there, instead. He knew Liz and TJ would really enjoy that.

Jess was already outside, shoveling out Mallory's car, when Jeremy pulled up at his parents' house. Jeremy watched from the driver's seat as his father looked up at his approach. He took in the grin that appeared on the man's face at the instant of recognition. Jeremy never got tired of that grin, or the warm feeling he got at knowing he could cause it with his mere presence. His mind flashed forward, unbidden, to a future when he would lose Jess the way he had Luke. He did his best to push down his maudlin thoughts and focus on the moment as he turned off the ignition and got out of the car, pulling his shovel out of the backseat.

"Hey, kid!" Jess greeted him halfway down the driveway, his smile still bright and a shovel in hand. He pulled Jeremy into a half hug, grinning playfully as he pulled back. "This is a nice surprise. Thought your ancient dad needed your help, huh?"

Jeremy smiled. "Maybe I just needed the company." Jeremy looked around. "Shouldn't Devon be out here helping you? Isn't free labor the whole point of fostering a seventeen year-old boy?"

"Devon had a visit with his mom yesterday. He wasn't doing that great after and he couldn't sleep last night. Mallory stayed up talking to him, so I'm letting those guys sleep in. And, really?" Jess asked. "Is that all you remember from me fostering your seventeen year-old ass? Just putting you to work around the house?"

Jeremy smiled at that. "I did do an awful lot of your laundry those first couple of years."

"Hey!" Jess laughed. "You did that all on your own! Don't blame me just because you thought you needed to do domestic labor to earn my love."

"You're ridiculous." Jeremy laughed and angled his head toward the still snow covered driveway. "So, you want a hand since I'm already here, or what?"

"Well, it's not that I don't appreciate the offer, and I always love your company, but don't you think your grandparents could use your help more than me?"

"I'm way ahead of you. I already shoveled out their cars. Lorelai's, too."

Jess grinned as he reached out and patted the side of Jeremy's face with a gloved hand. "What a good boy you are."

"That's me." Jeremy agreed. "You're my third stop this morning. Does that make you feel any less ancient?"

Jess laughed. "Yes, yes, it does, my friend. Thank you for that." Jess turned and headed back toward Mallory's car, and Jeremy followed.

They set to work shoveling side by side for a few moments in companionable silence.

"I miss him." Jeremy said, keeping his eyes trained on the pile he was shoveling.

"I know." Jess looked over toward Jeremy as he dumped another shovelful of snow to the side of the driveway. "Me too."

"I'm glad he got to meet my kids." Jeremy kept shoveling as he spoke, appreciating having something to do with his hands. "I'm glad he was still around when Rachel was born and that he got to know her, even just for a few months."

"I am, too. Nothing made your Uncle Luke happier than getting to welcome a new member of the family." Jess paused, looking over toward his son as he dug his shovel into a new pile of snow. "He was…...so proud of you, Jeremy, and he loved you so much. You know that, right?"

Jeremy nodded, a little choked up. He could feel Jess's gaze on him, but didn't look away from the snow drift he was working on. "I know."

"Did I ever tell you that when I first introduced you to Luke, for…...the first year, at least, I was a little….jealous of your relationship with him."

Jeremy felt himself smile at the admission. "I think I could maybe sense that, sometimes. But, there was no reason for you to be jealous."

"That's not how it felt from where I was standing." Jess's voice was light, playful. "You guys just clicked right away. You liked him right off the bat."

"I liked you right off the bat, too." Jeremy felt the need to defend his teenage self.

"Sure, how could I not get that with all the 'whatever, Mr. Mariano's' you were giving me all the time."

Jeremy laughed hard enough to shake his shovel and spill some of the snow he was carrying before he could discard it at the side of the driveway. "Stop. That was one time." It still made Jeremy queasy to think of how close he had come to fucking things up with Jess back then and everything that he would have missed out on.

"But you took to Luke like he was your long-lost dad, always talking about baseball and hanging out in the garage with him, sanding wood and watching paint dry and doing whatever the hell else you two did out there." Jeremy chuckled at that and looked over at Jess. "Having your own private text chats. I felt like you two had your own dorky little club from day one."

Jeremy grinned. "Uncle Luke was a good guy. He was so nice to me. And we liked a lot of the same things. What was I supposed to do, just ignore him to make you feel better about yourself?"

Jess laughed. "I'm pretty sure that's what a good son would have done. That's all I'm saying."

Jeremy laughed. "You're ridiculous."

Jess's expression turned serious. "I remember that first Thanksgiving when we were back here helping out at the diner and I walked in on you guys in the kitchen. You were crying and Luke was hugging you. He told me later that you two had been talking about your parents and how hard the holidays were without them." "You opened up to him about stuff pretty early on. I was jealous of that."

Jeremy opened his mouth to tease his father again, then paused. He tried to put himself in Jess's shoes over twenty years ago. He wasn't sure how much he'd like it if he felt that Phoebe or Justin had preferred Jess to him when they had first come to live with him and Kristie. And, he knew that Jess, with no real experience with children then, and taking in a teenager of all things, had to have felt much more insecure about fostering than Jeremy did. He figured the guy deserved an honest response. "Uncle Luke just…...made me feel comfortable. Right away. I remember when I first met him, thinking that he seemed right for me in all the ways that I was still…...unsure about with you. I remember thinking this was the guy I always pictured having for a dad. He made me feel accepted…...and just…...really seen…...and I don't know…...safe, I guess."

Jess nodded. "Yeah, I'd hold it against you, but I guess he made me feel that way when I was seventeen, too. We were both pretty lucky to have had him."

"We definitely were." Jeremy stole a quick glance at his father. "But, I was luckier."

"Oh, yeah?" Jess wasn't making eye contact and Jeremy followed suit, turning his own attention back to the task at hand as he dug his shovel into the next bit of snow in front of him. "How do you figure that?"

"You only got Uncle Luke and I got both of you. And." Jeremy shrugged nonchalantly. "You're not too terrible. You're actually a lot like him."

"You think so?" Jess asked, glancing over at his son.

"Yeah, but not on the surface. At all." Jess laughed at that and Jeremy felt himself smile in response. "But, at a deep down level, I think you guys are a lot alike."

"Thank you for that, but I actually think you're more like him than I am."

Jeremy liked hearing that comparison. "I like to think I'm kind of like him. That how he was might have rubbed off on me, in some small way."

"I think it did. Definitely. You know, once I got over my initial jealousy, I was actually really grateful that I was able to bring you two together, and give you guys each other. It might be one of the best things I've ever been able to give someone I love. Two someone's I love."

"It's up there, for sure. Having Uncle Luke in my life was the second best thing you've ever given me."

"Oh, yeah, what was the first?" Jeremy was amused at Jess's show of casual curiosity.

"Huh." Jeremy smirked at his father. "All these years and you've still never stopped fishing for validation as a parent, huh?"

"Hey!" Jess laughed and lightly tossed a shovelful of snow in Jeremy's direction. Jeremy laughed and dusted off the little that landed on his jeans with a gloved hand. "Wait until your three get a little older and they start judging the shit out of you. I think you'll find that parental validation isn't always easy to find. You'll take it wherever you can get it because you'll never feel like you know if you're doing a good job. And, yeah, sometimes you have to ask for it."

Jeremy laughed softly and stood facing his father, his shovel idle in one hand. "You were a good dad because you always did the best you could for me, accepting me that night Ms. Garcia brought me to your house, keeping me, loving me, being my dad. That's the best thing you've ever given me. I'm glad I got Uncle Luke, and Mom and Darius and Evie and everyone else out of it, but if it had kept being just me and you, if we had had more of a Lorelai and Rory thing going on, it still would have been the best thing I'd ever been given to have you for a dad. It would have been enough. I hope you know that."

"Jeez, Jeremy." Jess huffed out a laugh and rubbed at his eye with a gloved hand. "It's like you want to see my tears freeze to my face like icicles."

Jeremy smiled. "I'm sorry. I just…...losing Uncle Luke so suddenly like that has really made me realize that I want to tell the people I love how I feel while I still can."

"You're a wise man, Jeremy Mariano." Jess removed a glove and cupped the side of his son's head with his bare hand. "And, I love you so much and I'm so glad you're mine. I hope I tell you that enough."

Jeremy gave in to the touch as he had countless times before, letting his head tip forward, feeling the kiss Jess landed just below his knit hat, savoring the contact with a full heart and the aching recognition that he would never know when it would be his last.