A/N: Hello, my loves! It has been a long, long time since I've written a Lit fic, but I am so happy to be here again. After AYITL, I couldn't bring myself to watch much GG anymore, but I'm back because three years later, I'm still mad. Although my work and writing life are insanely busy as of late, I took time to write this because I have years of anger to put into it now.
To set the tone of this first chapter, I suppose it officially takes place in the episode titled Summer where Jess visits Rory at the Gazette. However, although it is canon compliant for the most part (including dialogue), I will not be letting this fic end where AYITL did. I can't do that to myself or anyone else. From here on out, it will pretty much not follow canon and I prefer to keep it that way.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this! Please go easy on me, I haven't been in the land of FF in awhile so I'm a bit rusty. With all that said, I hope you all like it! If you want me to continue this, please let me know in the comments!
Rory Gilmore, infamously known to Jess Mariano's brain as the one that got away. Hell, most days he better than that, that she couldn't be referred to as that due to the fact that it was him that ran away. He ran out of Stars Hollow, away from Rory's shaky grips, away from his uncles safe haven that he had desperately built to give a boy who was hard to love. Although Jess has grown up, figured out that life isn't always necessarily out to get him or bite him in the ass, he has learned that he wasn't always hard to love... He was just unwilling to accept anything that felt unusual. Also, in the process of growing up, he's learned throughout time that he threw away one good thing that could've stabilized him much sooner rather than later. That was one of his biggest regrets. But hey, kids will be kids. Especially the screwed up ones.
Rory Gilmore, a name that Jess Mariano's mind has called out several times whether it be in frustration, anger, denial, guilt, heartbreak... even love once or twice. He's shouted the name many times through fictitious characters he named Delia or Summer, both with their glistening brunette locks and eyes so blue they could bring you to your knees. ("Subtly has never been your strong suit, nephew.")
Rory Gilmore, an infectious disease that Jess Mariano will never be able to shake, no matter how many other woman are prescribed to completely change his world view or take his heart and try to mend it and make it whole. Other women had mended his heart, soothed his brain, reached his intellect, and tickled his fancy. They'd gotten dedications in his last Best Seller or their own display at Truncheon, along with poetry readings, large posters with their faces, anything that would make them happy. Jess gave himself to them.. just not completely. Not the way he knew he could with Rory.
It'd been four years since they'd last come face-to-face, meeting again in London by pure coincidence - wonderful, always enticing, coincidence. It'd been four years since Jess slipped out of the hotel room at four in the morning, careful not to wake her. The soft lighting from the hallway casted one singular light upon her face as it gently lay against the pillow, her lipstick now worn off, but her mouth still turned slightly upwards from the night they'd shared. He remembers the feeling of reaching up at his jawline, slightly pinching where his skin was stained a raspberry red from the makeup she swore wouldn't budge from its place. That last image of Rory was now burned into his brain, branded there as yet another reminder of his one too many screwups in their timeline. If he had just gotten good grades and attended school, he could've taken her to prom. If he wouldn't have left Stars Hollow. If he wouldn't have been too brash about running away with her. If he would've just kissed her with everything in him. If he would've loved her the way she deserved to be loved... If he would've just stayed. Maybe, just maybe, they could've gotten something right for once. But he never did, so they never did.
Rory Gilmore, it's a name that haunts him, yet fills his chest with a tremendous amount of hope. It's now the name he's staring at as his feet are planted outside of the Stars Hollow Gazette. While her name is only etched on a piece of masking tape and not written in stone like one Bernie Roundbottom, it's as permanent as everything else in this town. As he stares it down, he remembers that perhaps she won't be thrilled to see him. Maybe he broke her heart again when he left that hotel room after a night that could never be forgotten. Maybe Luke's ramblings about Rory needing guidance was being placed in a very unsteady pair of hands, by someone she could truly never want to see again. But still, he was here, in the town that he still despised, and she was there, seemingly losing it if she could only find solace in a job under Taylor Doose. With a hefty sigh, he braces himself as an arm extends to open up the door. He's quick to come around the corner with anything but a true greeting.
"No cigar?" he calls out, hoping to catch the attention of the youngest Gilmore. Once he rounds the corner and catches her eye, there's a grin that appears on his lips all too quickly. If he was still an angst-ridden teenager, he'd still damn her for having that effect on him. "I pictured you chomping a fat cigar."
The surprise doesn't seem to vanish from seemingly ageless features, though hints that she was suddenly amused were showing. It was quite the relief. "Doctor told me to cut back."
It was a warm, brief greeting, followed by one of the many elders that called him punk still to this day. Oh, how he missed this. It was split instances such as those where the former teenage punk within him truly wanted to rebel, to go off, to be released for the first time in eons. However, with time, came better judgement. Instead he sat down, ignored what sixteen year-old Jess would want, and instead focused on Rory. First came the story about his mother and TJ, caught up in some weird vegetable cult with thousand year contracts. Seemed that Rory already knew the story, as she should, as editor of the sleepy towns daily newspaper. It was the story of why he was here in the first place - the reason he came back for a brief visit. What later flowed out of Rory's mouth (secrets of being broke, breaking up with this P guy, being a contender, not having money for new underwear) was the reason why he made a very quick and rash decision to stay, even if it was only for a few days longer than he originally planned.
Though he zoned out to mentally make a note of all the things he'd have to add to his Amazon Prime or get from Doose's and tell Luke that he needed the old apartment above the diner for a few days longer, he did catch on to everything Rory was saying. After all these years, he'd never let a single word she said drop from her lips without giving it a worthwhile listening to. The longer she ranted, the more frustrated he grew. Not because of her inability to keep it together, but because their roles seemed to be reversed for the first time in their lives.
The single moment Rory has a passing thought about being one of Paris's surrogates, Jess puts an end to it. "Stop. This is a rut. It's temporary." Everything was temporary. That's something that this stupid town taught him all those years ago - along with all of the mistakes that followed briefly afterwards. "You're a writer! Ruts are normal."
They were literature lovers together all those years ago. Children who both grew up to go into the industry of written word. It was shared, sacred ground. This would hopefully get her to slow down and listen up. "You need to find something to write about that you're passionate about." That doesn't involve the going on's around Stars Hollow, he wants to adds, but he's sure she can pick up on that from his tone.
She demands emphasis on the dramatic scoff that travels its way from her throat. "What is that foreign concept you speak of? "Passion"? Is that really a thing?"
He would smile if it wouldn't take away from the rather serious tone of their conversation. "You just gotta find that thing that makes you feel, so that your readers feel it." And he's speaking from experience, remembering the stories he wrote of Delia and Summer and his other characters that female readers got hooked on, for they finally felt seen by some pessimistic ex who owed them apologies. "What makes you feel?"
"Did I tell you I lost my wallet?"
There's a side of Rory Gilmore he forgot existed and she was stubborn as all hell to listen to what he had to say, but still, he had to try...
Jess readjusts himself in the old leather chair, picking up his second glass of scotch, and leaning in closely so she can finally understand what he's saying. "You should write a book. And I know what you should write."
After dropping the lines, about writing a book about the only Gilmore girls to ever exist, he sees Luke in the window, waiting outside for him. Nearly giving him deja vu, he stands from his chair as he finishes off his glass. Rory was now quiet, seemingly caught deep in thought, as Jess thanks her for "lunch". It was something that Jess was happy to see, even if she looked slightly shocked and horrified by the whole ordeal. Still, if anyone knew of good books, it was the two of them and that, right there, was a million dollar idea.
Before he reaches the doorway, he turns back around to give Rory one last look. "Listen, Rory, you've gotta trust me on this one." Trust me just this once, he wants to plead with her in a way he had many times before. "I'll be at the diner later if you want to flesh out any ideas." Eyebrows lift only for his head to nod once before taking off to go on a true rescue mission. He only hoped that Rory would follow through, take him up on the idea, perhaps get a best seller out of it all, or even one last shot at redemption in the meantime.