By Stew Pid

Rating: Should be okay

Disclaimer: I only own the Stew Pid stuff

A/N: You know, I was reading what I've written so far and I realize there are LOTS of typos and mispunctuation. I think I invented that word b/c there's that evil red line beneath it on Word and it's not in my dictionary. Sounds cool, though, doesn't it? Anyway, point is that despite the vexation these grammatical errors cause me, in the end, laziness wins out and I don't change them. I'm sorry. I don't think they affect understanding too much. While the interest of my readers comes first to me, laziness is a force I can't fight in the summer.

She walked nervously through the doors of the diner, not knowing what she would say or what he would say. Never had she felt this sort of discomfort around him. Their eyes met, and she tried to muster her normal smile, but she failed and he recognized it.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Come on, Luke. You're the first one to sputter off everything that's wrong with me. I drink too much coffee, ingest too much sugar, I buy my toothbrush for the cartoon character instead of for its effectiveness, I watch too many cartoons, I've named too many inanimate objects."

"You avoid the inevitable, you stall, you play around with people's sentences so as not to answer their questions."

"That's right. I do all those things. And still you like me and give me my coffee and sugar every day."

"How would you like your sugar?"

"In the vague shape of a donut."

"Got it."

"Thank you, Lukey."

"Calling people by names that annoy them. That's another thing that's wrong with you."

"The list keeps growing."

Luke brought her coffee and donut.

"Now are you going to tell me what's up?"

"Okay. You need to sit down."

"That bad," he pulled up a chair and sat. "Did somebody die?"

"No."

"Is someone going to die?"

"Possibly."

"Is it you?"

"No."

"Rory?"

"No."

"Me?"

"Not likely."

"This isn't getting anywhere. Just spill it."

"Okay, well, you know Rory's in New York visiting Lane."

"Yeah, stalling again."

"This isn't stalling. This is providing background information. Rory's in New York visiting Lane and she called me this morning to tell me she ran into someone."

"One of those New York punks took advantage of Rory!"

"Well, this does involve a New York punk we both know and…well, we know him, that's for sure."

Luke remained with a confused look on his face until the words finally sank in.

"You're saying Rory bumped into Jess?"

"Yeah."

"Well, how is he? Is he all right?"

"He's fine."

"He's fine."

"That's what she said."

"Well that's just great. I'm glad. Here I am worrying about him every day for four years practically, and he's just fine. Glad to hear that. That's great. Hasn't called to let me know that, hasn't even sent so much as a blank postcard, but that's okay. He's fine. And I guess he never cared whether I died of the heart attack he gave me when I found he never came back home. But that's okay. He's fine. That's great. Really, I'm glad."

"Come on, Luke. You? A heart attack? I think he knew that wasn't possible."

"I just can't believe it. Well, now I know. He just left and he has no intention of coming back. That's great to hear. I guess I can get rid of his stuff upstairs."

"Well, save the books and CDs. Rory might want them if she doesn't have them already. Luke, you're upset. That's understandable. I was upset for you, too, but I got a chance to calm down before I did anything, and I think you should too."

"Oh believe me, this is calm. You wouldn't want to see the furious reaction. Look, I need to get out of here and pick up some things. Tell Caesar to take over."

"Okay, but promise me we'll talk about this later."

"We'll talk about this later."

"Okay."

He gave her a peck on the lips and quickly rushed out the door, letting it slam behind him. Lorelai watched him through the window. She could feel the pain in his heart and an anger rushed to her own. Jess. She always tried to tell Rory he was no good, but she only now was she completely convinced on how right she was.

Another state, another diner, another Gilmore. She was surprised at how comfortable she actually felt with him still, after so many years of not seeing him. In just a half-hour they had already talk about great literature, the fate of reality television, classic comedy vs. the modern sitcom, and why Orzabal couldn't manage without Smith.

"So then my mom snatched Taylor's gavel and we ran out, and that's how we were banned from the town meetings."

"Huh. And they thought I was trouble. Sounds like Stars Hollow is turning into a fascist circus."

"Yeah. Taylor's going on a real power-trip right now."

"Sometimes I'm glad I got out of there."

"Only sometimes?"

"So what's the bride of Frankenstein like?"

"Okay. Fine. I'll let that one slide. She's very nice."

Jess noticed Rory's bracelet, and took her wrist to inspect it. He had never touched her much, and feeling his fingers lightly resting on her thin wrist, Rory felt her heart skip a beat and butterflies were released into her stomach.

"She's not jealous that you wear her boyfriend's bracelet?"

"Oh, this isn't the bracelet Dean made for me. I got this in Chinatown."

"Ah."

He took his eyes off the bracelet, but not his hand off her wrist. Her entire somatosensory system was invested in that touch. Someone could have stabbed her in the chest and all she would feel was his thumb over her pulse. Jess too was totally engaged in the physical contact. He didn't know what boldness possessed him to take her wrist, but once he did, he couldn't let go. He counted the beats that pulsed under his thumb, the beats that sustained life within her. He wanted to thank those beats, to kiss them, but then he felt foolish for thinking it. Listen to yourself. You're such a stupid ass, he thought to himself.

The moment was broken when Rory noticed the time.

"Oh no," she gasped.

"What?"

"I'm supposed to meet Lane at Times Square in seven minutes."

"Lane?"

"Yeah. I came here to visit her, remember?"

"That's right." He called for the bill, paid it, and rushed out with Rory.

Jess pulled up around the corner of Times Square so that Lane wouldn't see them.

"Tell her the trains were backed up. New Yorkers always blame the trains."

"Thanks."

"So when do you leave?"

"Tomorrow evening."

"Oh." Rory could not say anything and she couldn't leave the cab. They sat in uneasy silence.

"Maybe I'll see you tomorrow before you go."

"Okay," she said too quickly. Still, she couldn't leave. Jess imagined she was waiting for him to open her door, so he got out, walked over to the other side and opened for her. As she got out of the cab, rising toward Jess, he cupped his hand under her jaw and kissed her. Second thoughts are wiser, but he couldn't regret not waiting for them.

Lorelai walked back into the diner that evening. Luke was nowhere around.

"Caesar, Luke hasn't gotten back yet?"

"He's upstairs."

"Thanks."

She found Luke in Jess' room, going through Jess' boxes of stuff with trash and recycling bags.

"What are you doing?"

"Just cleaning some stuff out."

"Luke, I thought you promised we were going to talk about this."

"We are. Once I'm done here."

"You're not hurting him by throwing out his stuff."

"I don't want to hurt him. I want this room back. I could do a lot with this room."

"It's true, you could. But you've done nothing with it for almost four years. This isn't about the room. This is about Jess."

"I know it's about Jess. I did nothing with it so that when he came back he would have all his stuff here still. He's not coming back. There's no sense keeping this."

"Luke, you're angry with him."

"I really don't care. He can do whatever he wants with his life. It's his, not mine."

"And you're hurt."

"I'm not hurt."

"Okay. So you're just jamming that box-cutter like that because those cardboard boxes are actually monsters trying to attack you. I think I saw a movie like that once."

"Look, if you're not going to help, why don't you go downstairs and keep an eye on Caesar."

"I'll help."

She started digging through a box.

"Hey! I didn't know Jess liked Lenny Bruce. I'm keeping this."

"Why do I have a feeling that instead of lugging this stuff to the trash outside, I'm going to have to lug most of it to your house."

"No. I don't want these pictures of diseased lungs. That kid is sick."

"I got him those. It was supposed to help him stop smoking."

"Okay, so you're sick. That's a distortion of parenthood that I have never seen before."

"Hey, it worked, I think."

"Hey, look at this. Jess put notes in his planner. Let's see. The first day he was here. 'My uncle's insane. Met a pretty cool girl, but her mother's cracked. This town is stupid.' Hey, that pretty cool girl had better not be Rory because I'm not cracked. Maybe he was talking about Lane and Mrs. Kim."

"He was talking about you."

"How would you know? You're insane." She flipped some pages and read another entry. '"Liz hasn't called for two weeks, not that I'd speak to her. Rory has a boyfriend. I hate this frickin' town.'"

Turning over some more pages,

'"Home sweet home. I'm such a stupid screw up.'"

She considered and flipped over some more pages.

'"Luke's all right, I guess.'"

Luke shifted uneasily.

"You shouldn't be reading that."

"I guess not."

He snatched the planner from Lorelai and threw it in the trash bag.

"I'm going to start bringing these bags downstairs."

He stood up, took the bags, and left Lorelai staring around Jess' room at remnants of the Jess she never knew.

Outside, Luke arranged the garbage neatly, lingering there, wondering if he would regret this someday, or if he already did.