A/N: For my wonderful friend, jordana60. Wishing you the happiest of birthdays, honey. I really hope you get a kick out of this madness ;)

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters from Gilmore Girls belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino and other folks who aren't me. Any additional characters and plotlines belong to me, Ultrawoman.

Rory & Jess, Into The Literativerse

January 2019

"How's the article coming?"

Jess hadn't expected to startle Rory quite so much with his question. Sure, she seemed to be concentrating on her work, but she had known he was in the next room and would be back the minute the dishes were done. She jumped almost a foot in the air when he spoke to her and the expression on her face was not a happy one.

"Ror?"

"I'm fine," she promised, even as she sniffled a little. "I'm sorry, I'm being so weird. I don't even know what's wrong with me."

Though he would admit that crying over an article based on comic book movies was a little odd, there was clearly something going on here that needed to be talked out. Rory wasn't the type to get upset over nothing at all.

Sitting down beside her on the couch, Jess encouraged the laptop out of Rory's hands and onto the coffee table.

"Come on, what's going on?" he asked her gently.

Rory shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, I just... I was looking at this piece from all possible angles, you know, trying to find something different to talk about? There's only so much to say about Marvel movies when everybody else has already written a million stories about it, you know? I figured, go with the latest piece of the franchise, try to find a new angle on that."

"The animated Spiderman that Jack thinks is the best thing ever," Jess recalled.

"That's the one." Rory nodded. "So, I'm thinking about all the notable parts of it. The whole equality thing is such an obvious choice - gender, race, age - so, I thought, what else is there? And I started thinking about all the different characters from the different realities, how their lives turned out so differently, even though they all kind of had the same start. It really makes you think, when you get deep into it, how one tiny change can make so much difference, you know?"

Jess considered for a moment, then nodded his head.

"Like the butterfly effect. The butterfly flaps it's wings on one side of the world, supposedly there's a tsunami on the other side?"

"Well, yeah," Rory agreed, "but I wasn't really thinking of around the world repercussions. Mostly, I guess, I was thinking about us," she admitted, glancing up to meet his eyes. "It's almost scary to think that with just one minor change, you and I wouldn't even be together right now."

So, that was what the tears were for. Jess got it now. It did sound a little crazy that anybody could upset themselves over the possibilities of a multiverse that probably only existed in fiction, but Rory had a very vivid imagination sometimes. It meant her writing was amazing, but unfortunately, it also meant she got a little too immersed in the what-ifs sometimes.

"You know what I think?" said Jess, pulling his wife close in his arms and kissing her temple. "I think no matter how many changes got made, good or bad, somehow, you and me were always going to end up together."

That at least got a smile out of Rory. "That's sweet," she told him, curling up happily in his embrace. "I don't entirely believe it, but it's sweet."

"You don't think we're destined?" asked Jess, unsure why that hurt just a little, when he wasn't so sure he truly believed in that kind of fate himself anyway.

"No, I do, sort of," Rory considered. "I'm sure we could've overcome a few minor changes. God knows, some minor changes might even have made things easier, like if I realised how I felt about you sooner and actually broke up with Dean."

"Or if I hadn't run off into the sunset like an idiot when I flunked out of school," Jess noted.

"Right, but think about the bigger changes that could have messed up everything," said Rory then. "What if you had never come to Stars Hollow? What if your dad raised you in California instead of your mom in New York? What if my mom never left home and I was raised to be a society girl? We would never have met at all, Jess. Isn't that crazy?"

Of course, Rory's vivid imagination was only sometimes match by Jess' own. It actually didn't take too much thought for him to come up with counterpoints for all her scenarios.

"I think we would've met," he told her, amused by the way her eyes went wide when she heard that. "Come on, fate and destiny," he reminded her. "So, what if I never came to Stars Hollow? That doesn't mean we would never meet at all. You could've come to New York, maybe after Yale or something. I mean, you had your heart set on the New York Times for a while, right? You could've come to the city, desperate for a place to live, and maybe my apartment had a spare room and I was struggling to make rent. There's a meet-cute, right there."

Rory giggled at the idea, but she certainly didn't object to it. Jess was having almost too much fun with this himself now that he'd started.

"Or maybe, somehow, I managed to write a decent book without ever coming to Stars Hollow, and this incredible journalist with the most amazing blue eyes was assigned to interview the up-and-coming author."

"Sure, that could happen," Rory grinned. "And hey, even if you were raised in Venice Beach, I could have gone on vacation there. You know I wouldn't be able to resist the bookstores on the boardwalk and I'm pretty sure that's exactly where I would've found you."

"Well, I wouldn't be surfing, that's for sure." Jess rolled his eyes. "Also, do you really think you being a blue blood type would ever have made me not want to be with you? You were all kinds of out of my league anyway and it never stopped me."

"Jess!" Rory shoved at his shoulder. "I was not out of your league, and I'm sure I still would've liked you too, even if we were from different worlds like that. I'm just wondering how we would've met. Me in Hartford, attending Chilton, you in Stars Hollow, attending Stars Hollow High..."

"Hey, I was smart enough to get into Chilton," he reminded her. "Maybe one of Lizzie's many husbands could've been from the Hartford set."

"Ooh, maybe Paris' dad!" Rory teased him, clearly finding whatever freaked out expression he made all too funny.

"You're hilarious," he deadpanned.

"What, you don't want Paris for a step-sister?" she goaded. "Actually, that might be a little weird. She always thought you were hot."

Jess shook his head - these were things he really didn't want to think about. Better to concentrate on the game at hand, which was strange but weirdly fun at this point.

"I was thinking more along the lines of you having some kind of rich kid party and maybe Hep Alien gets hired to play. You know, if you weren't around, I could see me being friends with Lane and the guys from the band anyway. I could've tagged along, met the beautiful blue blood version of you."

"Mmm, very Lovers in A Dangerous Time. Grandma didn't like you much when we were teenagers anyway, she really would've gone crazy if blue blood me got a crush on small-town band manager you."

"Wouldn't that be half the fun?" asked Jess, eyes sparkling with fun as he kissed her lips.

"Hmm, you know, we're probably overlooking a few scenarios that would actually have made life easier for us," she considered then. "If you had been raised in Stars Hollow the whole time, or at least come to live with Luke sooner, we could've known each other a lot longer. We probably would've been best friends as kids, and then, when we got older, pulled that whole friends-to-lovers trope that's so popular in movies."

"Well, if you wanna get really crazy, you could think about how we'd deal if one of us had amnesia, or was cursed by an evil witch like in Sleeping Beauty or something," Jess said then, teasing her mercilessly and they both knew it.

"Wow, that escalated quickly." Rory chuckled. "I suppose it is crazy to think of all the different ways our lives could've panned out, but I guess you're right. Somehow, we just had to end up here, right? You and me, together, with the kids and everything. No matter how it all started or developed, I certainly can't think of a better way for things to end than that."

"I'm sorry, this is the end of a story?" Jess checked.

"Not the end-end," said Rory, rolling her eyes, "but we're into that happily ever after part that technically comes past the end of the story that's in the book or the movie. This part is just for you and me... and the elephants that apparently live upstairs," she added, looking up when Jack and Tori suddenly clattered around loudly in their rooms.

"I can't think of a better way for things to have worked out either," Jess promised her, looking into her eyes the moment her gaze returned to him. "I love you, Rory."

"I love you too, Jess," she promised faithfully, leaning in when he did until their lips met in one more sweet kiss.

And yes, they were definitely going to live happily ever after.

The End