Alternate Dreams Chapter 16

A/N Ok sorry for the delay again with the posting of this chapter and thank you for all the lovely reviews, I really do read all of them. I hope that you enjoy this chapter, I suck at writing conflict but hopefully, this turns out ok…. Read and Review, please!

Lorelai had made sure that both Sookie and Michel had left for the day, and made some calls to various people including Theresa and Lindsey Lister and her personal demon, Jess Mariano. To her surprise, it hadn't taken much to make him come down, just a line about how her daughter was making another colossal mistake like when she had told him that Rory had dropped out of Yale and was living at her Grandparent's house. Jess being the person that he was and still deeply in love with Rory got in his car and drove over four hours to Stars Hollow. The Dragonfly became her base of operations with Shira to attempt to stop the engagement party that evening, with all involved arriving by 4 pm, and began dressing in formal wear so that they wouldn't stand out in the crowd that would be gathering in Stars Hollow's town square that evening.

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By six-thirty Rory, her Grandmothers, and closest female friends felt completely pampered and fully refreshed from their day of fun and mini spa session in the dance studio, come town hall. They exited together to find their boyfriends, fiances, and husbands all milling around the gazebo, where Rory noticed they had set up numerous drinks bars. Logan spotted her immediately and grinned, she was wearing a gorgeous, navy blue, retro-looking dress with a halterneck and full skirt that emphasized her figure beautifully. Her hair was pinned in a twisted updo that showed off her neck and shoulders. He literally thought that he was going to stop breathing for a second.

'Wow, am I a lucky bastard' he whispered reverently to no one in particular as the girls approached, Richard and Christopher coughed to cover their obvious laughs and Colin and Finn outright snickered at his comment as Logan walked right over to Rory and she greeted him with a kiss.

'You look gorgeous Ace' he muttered as they separated and she smiled at him, looking him up and down.

'You don't look too shabby yourself mister' he smirked with his signature grin and leaned to kiss her again. She smirked as her grandfather walked over to Emily and kissed her hand in a courtly gesture. Finn and Colin sorted her and her friends out with drinks and the swing band that had set up in the gazebo tuned up to provide background noise.

The group was talking amongst themselves as other guests started arriving from the Dragonfly in shuttles, and entering the square in fancy black town cars. They were dressed in vintage-looking clothes similar to the dress that Rory was wearing. Logan smirked at Rory's mouth dropping open as she noticed the apparent theme of vintage chic that was a feature of the evening. The servers started wandering around the crowd with trays of finger foods. They were high school students who had been 'encouraged' rather shanghaied by either Sookie or more likely Taylor, into serving. Rory just hoped they would make good tips.

The food was cutesy, but bites of goodness, including baked macaroni and cheese bites, leaned topped with bacon chunks, mini hotdogs, and burgers, the legendary DAR salmon puff with a Sookie St James twist. There was plenty of booze too. The champagne was flowing around them but Rory only had eyes for the man she was going to marry.

'I love you Logan' she whispered into his ear as he laughed at Finn's impression of Shira. He smiled down at her 'I know you do Ace.' he smirked as she hit his chest ineffectually and pulled her to face him, 'Logan...I really don't know what to say other than I love you. You have made this whole thing so freaking special. You're so freaking special and I have no idea how I got even this far in life without you.' there were tears in Rory's eyes as she spoke which made Logan pull her even closer to him whilst away from the group.

'Well Ace, as long it's not eating the paste special I'm pretty sure that I can live with it.' He laughed at her raised eyebrow and taking his chin between his thumb and forefinger, he tilted her face up with a soft expression that made her heart melt even further as he continued. 'And I love you so much, Rory. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be as lucky as I am to have you in my life, let alone manage to convince you to marry me.'

Rory smiled at him as he leaned down to kiss her, unfortunately, the right hook coming across from the dark-haired short man interrupted them.

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Jess had been having a particularly strange day. First had been the call from Lorelai Gilmore a woman who, as far as he was concerned had hated him for years. Then he heard that Rory, his Rory, was holding her engagement party in the town that had posed as the background of the making and subsequent breaking of their relationship. The guy that she was reportedly marrying was the blonde dick that he had met once. It was actually impressive that Lorelai seemed to hate Logan Huntzberger more than she had hated him. When Lorelai told him that Rory wasn't working as a journalist she had changed tact to working for her father's company whilst she 'figured out what she wanted which was according to Lorelai simply planning the picture-perfect wedding in which she would tie herself to a guy who had already cheated on her at least once if not many more times and spending as much money as possible in a vacuous lifestyle that would not make her happy in the long term.

Jess knew that Rory couldn't be one hundred percent on marrying that douche. He thought that she would respond to a great romantic gesture from him coming in to rescue her from a mistake that she was about to make. So he got into his car and drove the four hours between Phillidelphia and Stars Hollow. When he got to the Dragonfly he was met with a woman in her late fifties who obviously was attempting to make herself look a lot younger and some chick he vaguely remembered outing him in high school as not attending, he thought that she had been with Dean at the time. The master of ceremonies was of course Lorelai. They were all dressed in formal wear before the event's start time of about seven pm.

Jess had tried to blend in, managing to avoid the people he needed to easily, namely Luke and Emily Gilmore, maybe even Christopher Hayden. Heck, this was a great event in a lot of ways, it had the same sort of vibe and atmosphere that had been created by the dance marathon, the town event that had allowed him to finally get Rory off of Dean. He smiled at that memory. He spied her across the makeshift dance floor that had been set up. She looked breathtaking. Her dress hugged her figure beautifully, her eyes sparkled and there was a perfectly drawn red lip on her mouth.

God he wanted to grab her and run. Kiss her and make everything that he had ever done wrong go away. He just had pull her away from the group of the Blonde Dick's sycophants that seemed to be surgically attached to her. The Blonde Dick was pawing at her constantly, and when he saw Rory lean up to whisper in his ear and he pulled her away from the group, and off on their own. They seemed to be talking to each other, what about Jess didn't know, but when the guy pulled her tighter and tilted Rory's head back after she hit him across the chest, Jess lost what little control he thought he had, steamed across the dance floor and hit the guy.

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Lindsey's night could be going better, she was crashing an event that was for a girl that she still disliked but when she noticed that some of Rory's finance's extended friendship group were hot, seemed to be single and probably looking for women to at least chat up she changed her mind about spending the evening bad mouthing the girl. She instead turned on the charm to one of the quieter guys, his name was Seth and he knew Logan and by extension Rory through Yale.

Seth ordered them two drinks from the bar and upon talking to each other they noticed that they actually had a lot in common, they had similar movie tastes and music and he was single, an Ivy League graduate, and fairly attractive. That had Lindsey practically falling into his lap until the altercation happened

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Shira was floating around the party managing to avoid her son, her husband, her daughter, Emily Gilmore or Francine Hayden. She made small talk where possible but every three steps it seemed someone came up to her to comment on the beauty or the ingenuity of the event and how it was a breath of fresh air just like the gorgeous girl that Logan had picked to be his wife. Her society smile in place, Shira would comment about it only being an engagement and how both were so young and just getting started in their lives. If questioned further, Shira would veil comments about Rory's background and lack of social standing before she had met and become engaged to Logan. She also made a comment about Rory's reputation in the town they were standing in and how she liked to go after boys that were unavailable, sleeping with an ex-boyfriend when he was still married.

The monster-in-law to be made a few comments here and there just enough to start tongues wagging and let the journalist Mitchum had invited hear what was said about the girl that she hated so much. The plan was working until she saw Jess the ruffian that Lorelai had encouraged to be there strode across the dance floor and hit her son straight across the face with no provocation.

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The second that Jess' fist plowed into Logan, Rory was shocked as she was instinctively pushed away. She landed on her left arm, which immediately started to throb as she cradled it to her chest watching as a man she hadn't seen in over a year and a half was hitting the love of her life.

'Logan! What… Jess. Please stop! Please stop! what the hell are you doing?!' Rory pleaded as other voices joined in, including Richard and Christopher who with an assist from Colin and Finn pulled the two men apart, and held Jess back with Logan immediately going to Rory despite the blood trailing from his mouth and bruise on his cheek. It didn't matter that he was bleeding he was more concerned about her.

'Ace are you ok?' he noted how she was cradling her wrist, pulled her against him, and kissed her forehead 'I'm going to take your engagement ring and watch off baby ok?' at her confused and worried look he continued 'I can see your wrist is swelling and we don't want you to lose any fingers ok.' she smiled through the tears that had appeared in her eyes as Logan kissed her forehead again and gently removed her ring and watch, storing them securely in his breast pocket as Rory commented quietly so only he could hear 'I want that back' Logan's smile at her would have lit a city until it turned to Jess who was being held by his two best men. He let Rory start though as he glared with 'Jess, what are you doing here?'

Jess was still being held by the two guys that had pulled him off of Logan as he began his impassioned plea to Rory. 'Rory, come on you can't be happy like this. You're not chasing your dreams. You're not writing your working for your Dad's company, you always hated your Dad, you turn away from your mom, and you're engaged to the guy who cheated on you with an entire bridal party. You told me that you would fix it. You came to Philidelphia and told me that you would fix everything, including him. What happened to the girl that I knew? You wanted to travel the world and write about it. What happened to you, Rory?'

Rory looked on at Jess who was being held still. 'I grew up Jess. The girl that you love doesn't exist anymore. I'm Lorelai Leigh Gilmore-Hayden soon to be Huntzberger….'

'It's not too late though. You can still fix everything, Rory. Your Mom told me that, she and that blonde woman there' he gestured to Shira, and Logan and Mitchum's faces both drew very serious expressions at Jess' comments 'both of them said that you can still fix this. Come on Rory. I know that kiss in Phillidelphia meant something to you too, our spark it's still there, please…'

Rory was actively crying now as Logan tightened his grip on her waist. 'Jess I don't love you anymore if I ever did. I love Logan. I'm going to marry Logan. And if you thought that telling him about that kiss would help your case too bad. I told him all about it when I saw him next which was when he was in a hospital bed. I love him It will always be him. Until the day I die. Him. And you, you are the prequel that allowed me to know what I was feeling. Thank you for that but you've ruined our night, potentially once again broken my wrist and we should probably get to a hospital. You will be spending the night in jail. I'm sure we'll press charges. So you can go to hell.' With that she allowed a police officer who had arrived at some point to take him and was whisked away from the fray by her fiance, closely followed by her grandfather and dad.

Lorelai looked on as Rory turned her back on Jess heading to a car that was pulled up. She hadn't had the opportunity to talk to Rory. she probably never would again and if Luke and Sookie's faces were anything to go by she was done. Done in Stars Hollow anyway so she did what she did best. She ran.