Writing To Rory

by ZLizabeth

Rory and Jess have gone five years without each other. Miserable sums it up. But soon their paths will cross again, and this time maybe they both won't screw it up... to read go to chapters 15 and 16. Please look past that it's a Future and my First Fic!

16. The Complete Writing To Rory pt 2

Chapter Eight: Tracks of My Tears

~
Lorelai looked up at Luke and then down at her empty coffee cup.
"Guess what I want more than anything in the world right now."
Rory scrambled onto her mother's lap and grinned at Luke, "Mommy wants coffee."
"You are a smart little girl," Lorelai said, kissing the top of her head.
"Rory, you're getting bigger every day," Luke remarked as he carelessly poured another cup of coffee for Lorelai, "it's probably because you don't have coffee stunting your growth and poisoning your very soul."
"Ah. The doctor was wondering what was doing that to me," Lorelai said.
"Shut up Ms. Gilmore."
"Shut up Duke."
Rory settled back into her mother's soft sweater. It was so interesting watching her Mommy and Mr. Luke argue. They acted like they hated each other... but she was sure that they didn't. After all, Luke had never once charged them... as far as she could remember. And she couldn't imagine him ever doing so. That would have been the end of her world.

~

The memory she started off with was just something she'd remembered lying in bed. It was a happy memory... and now she was awake. She opened up her laptop and began to write.

~

She came out of the store in deep thought. She was thinking of course, of how furious she was at that idiot for saying things like that to her mom. He had seemed all right at first, but how could she like anyone who her mother didn't like? That was violating whatever rules she and her mother shared in the extremely strange mother daughter best friends relationship they had. She didn't even see him coming up to her.
"Hey."
"Hey yourself," she said tartly.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked. He sounded so *very*, *very concerned*.
"I needed something for school. What about you?" she replied.
"Oh yeah, same thing."
"Uh huh. So, that was quite a disappearing act you pulled the other night," she was finding herself quite ready to get into a fight with Luke's nephew, the boy she was supposed to respect, be friends with, etc., he was Luke's nephew!
"Potlucks and Tupperware parties aren't really my thing."
"Too cool for school, huh?"
"Yes, that is me."
"What are you doing?" her patience was running out.
"Oh this? Nothing. Just another little disappearing act," her anger was disappearing. Furious with herself, she tried to call it back.
"Little tip?" she said.
"Yeah?"
"If you ever want to speak to me again, don't pull that out of my ear."
"So I assume the nose is off limits too?" this was turning into a banter. The sort of banter she could have only with her mother. Feel safe within the conversation, the intelligent exchanges of simple words locking out intruders.
"Any place you wouldn't naturally find a coin, let's leave it that way."
"So what are you doing now?"
"I have some homework to finish."
"Okay, then I'll leave you this last little trick," he pulled out a book. It took her a second to recognize it.
"You bought a copy? I told you I'd lend you mine," it already looked worn. Maybe he was a bit of a reader.
"It is yours," finally. Another excuse to be angry. She felt, however, only the tiniest glimmer of anger returning. And it wasn't even anger, it was... it wasn't anything, she told herself quickly.
"You stole my book," she said at last.
"Nope, borrowed it."
"Okay, that's not called a trick, that's called a felony."
"I just wanted to put some notes in the margins for you."
"What?" she leafed through the pages and read a comment he'd written - the same thing she'd realized after quite a few rereads," "you've read this before." Now she had a definite emotion: delight.
"About forty times."
"I thought you said you didn't read much."
"Well, what is much? Goodnight Rory."
"Goodnight Dodger."
"Dodger?"
"Figure it out."
"Oliver Twist."
She smiled and nodded. They both walked away and she didn't even notice that the smile didn't leave her face until that night.

*

"Okay, Jess, here's one for you."
"What?" he asked, wiping away at the diner counter and avoiding her eyes.
"If Ayn Rand is so terrible, why does she use..."
"Enough with Any Rand," he said, throwing the dishrag at her. She threw it at his face and stared at his turned back.
"Jess..."
He spun around and looked at her.
*At least he makes eye contact* she thought.
"How about this one. If a snowman's head falls off in the middle of the field and only one hooligan is there to hear it - the hooligan who committed the terrible crime of beheading the mound of snow with the professionally made little carrot nose - does the crime still count?"
"If no one catches the hooligan then it's not his crime, is it? Because no one can prove he did it. Maybe he didn't do it."
She smiled, "I think he did."
"Think what you like."
"I think it was actually very nice of the hooligan."
"Hey, if the hypothetical hooligan did do it, it's only because the hypothetical girl deserved it."
She felt something melt within her when he said that. Something... she wasn't sure what... but something. She suddenly felt the strong desire to go home and lay down and eat ice cream and tell her mother everything. Not the kind of thing she wanted to want right now.
Instead she got up and gave the hooligan a smile before leaving the diner and heading off to school.
Once she was directly below the HARDWARE sign she turned abruptly around and sapphire eyes met a pair of dark ones that were staring very intently back.
She fell into her car and drove away faster then usual.
Her writer's heart was coming up with a thousand cheesy expressions and not a single one that made her very happy: no matter how fast she went, she wasn't going to get any faster then the thumping in her chest right now.

~

"Mrs. Forrester!" Dean said when he woke up late that night and found his wife bleary eyed and staring at her laptop screen. He glanced at what she'd written and saw only one line before she closed the screen... "Just wanted to," and then she kissed him.
"What are you writing?" he asked.
"Nothing," she shut down the laptop and walked to the bed, "goodnight."
"I have to go to the store," he said, "I just remembered we don't have any more coffee mix."
"You do that."
He smiled at her and left. She was the one he loved, she was. He pulled out of the driveway and repeated it in his head, even spoke out loud in the solitude of the driver's seat, "I love her, I love her."


Plunk. Plunk.
Rory grabbed her pillow, covered her ears with it and buried her head as far into the mattress as possible.
"Go away!" she murmured, sleep already claiming her.
Plunk. Plunk.
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter and curled up as small as she could. If she was smaller, then her ears couldn't hear things as loud. Oh, for the logic of the sleepy.
Plunk.
She rubbed the dust from her eyes and sat up in bed, letting loose a string of profaniti. Not exactly fitting for one of such a composed state in being awoken. She didn't exactly take after her mother. It must come with old age. She was such an old lady now. One profanity, two profaniti.
Once satisfied, she lay back down in her bed.
"Hey! You!" someone was calling from outside. The Plunker. They would have to wait their turn. She was lined up until morning. The girl fell back into her bed and greeted the date she was planning on staying out all night with.
"Hello, Sleep. You look lovely tonight."
She let her eyes drift shut and pulled Colonel Cluckers into a tighter hold.
Pl-
"Death to all Plunkies," she thought as the noise resounded throughout her airy bedroom. Plunk. At last she pulled herself up and walked to the window.
"What the hell is going on you little.... insignificant.... little plunking ...worm..." she yawned and opened her window. Rubbing her eyes she finished her round of insults with - for good and degrading measure -, "kid!"
"I missed you to," she heard. She was already half asleep so she simply opened her eyes then leaned out the window to look at whoever was there. Her body wasn't awake yet and as she threw her head out the now open widow she nearly toppled out. The Plunker had climbed up though, and she fell into someone instead. Her brain refused to digest the smell of his shirt, it was complaining that it was to early in the morning for thinking. So she simply raised her eyes and suddenly felt very, very, very awake.
"What are you doing here?" was all she could say.
"I just needed to tell you something."
"What?"
"You can stop crying, I'm back."

*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter Nine: You Can Stop Crying, I'm Back


"You can stop crying, I'm back," was what he said.
"Well, come in. I guess we'll need to find you a hotel," was what she said. He climbed into her room, not believing he was standing in Rory Gilmore's bedroom. For the second time in two and a half days. In two different bedrooms. And he couldn't believe that there wasn't some sort of awkward silence that they tried to fill with, "so how have you been" and "how's work". But he had never had an awkward silence with Rory. Why should this be different?
"What, I can't stay here?" and suddenly he felt seventeen, dodging what Rory intended and buying himself as much time as possible with this marvelous creature. No reason that this was any different.
"Don't you wish. No, hotel. Ah, but I have to get dressed... so I'll get dressed..." he stared openly at her, "in the bathroom."
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving," he smiled at her and opened the bedroom door. A look of worry flickered across her face. Like she was remembering something.
"No," she said quickly, "you can't go downstairs. What's the point in my *guest* moving when I, marvelous host that I am, can simply change in this closet..." she walked over to her closet and threw open the door to reveal about enough space to hold her legs. She then grabbed some clothes out of her drawer and disappeared into the closet to find the door would not fully shut.
"Jess, could you hold this door closed?" she asked. He leaned against the door and listened to wire hangers topple off metal poles and bang against Rory.
"Why don't you leave on your stunning Hello Kitty pajamas and shock the town?"
"I don't think they'd notice. They really only pay attention to big things... like young girls not taking their husband's last names."
He laughed, "and who was the rebel who requested that?" sharp intake of breath from the closet, "Ms. Shoopa Coopa," came a quick reply.
"This town is messed up, then. Shoopa Coopa?"
"I know, why would someone want to keep that name?"
"If it was a real name."
"I was going for humor there."
"And was there a scandal when you requested a bookstore that sold more than drugstore paperbacks in this town?" he didn't know why he had changed the subject. It was a profoundly seventeen-ish thing to do, not let the conversation settle, never let himself reveal much. Towards the end of when he'd known her, the topics had remained in their little chats for more than five minutes.
"You noticed?"
"The eyes of a reader never miss and town seeped in ignorance," he had observed some of the shops on his drive in - and the bookstore seemed to be located in the front of Rite Aid.
"I haven't really requested anything to improve our literary structure yet," she said, and soundly very disappointed in herself. He changed the topic again.
"How long have you lived here?"
"About two years," she answered, stepping back into the room.
She did look beautiful. She looked ravishing, stunning, lots of verbs and he thanked the Jess Show's creators for letting them talk as if there were no memories between them.
Rory looked different. She looked a bit less naïve, and she looked tired. Her skin remained pale and flawless, yet her eyes were weary and not quite as shimmering as they used to be. She was slender and the timid child of the twilight, but the hints of the days worries were so prominent in something in her. He'd like to say that he could remember her so well and her image had so burned in his memory that he could tell these things without the slightest hints. But even a stranger could see the unhappiness eating away at her heart.
Her eyes had always been what he'd loved the most about her. He had found that he was unafraid to lose himself in their sapphire depths, and he would do anything to earn a glance from them. Or make the slight crinkle appear on the edges when he did something so very wrong, so very Un-Stars-Hollow-Ish, something only they two could laugh at, consider wonderful, share as an inside joke whenever their eyes met.
So it killed him now.
But there was another thing.
Her hair had never been something he had taken much notice of. Of course it was soft, perfect, impossibly wonderful for just a head of hair, blah blah blah. Yet all of Rory fit those qualifications.
Yet now her hair stood out as it was pulled back into a simple, plain, victorian housewife bun. It wasn't Rory.
"So," he had been staring, but it could pass as typical Jess behavior, "what do you say we bail?"
Her eyes widened and she let her lips creep up at the edges, remembering that night they'd first met, "I know these windows open."
Then she smiled and her features of fatigue melted. She was simply the Rory Gilmore he was *in love with*.
And the smile lit up her whole face.


He had been shocked when Rory was the first to jump out the window. She had scrambled down with clumsy and rolling movements, and he had laughed and flaunted his wall-dropping abilities in her face.
When they at last reached the sidewalk (Rory having fallen on top of Jess) he was hungry. And he was sure she was too.
"So, where can you eat in this hellhole?"
"There's a Starbucks..."
"Rory Gilmore reduced to chain coffee. Never thought I'd see the day."
"It's open pretty late," she went on, ignoring him pointedly, "and we can get real food."
"I'm all for it."
"We shouldn't eat there, though."
"Why not?"
"...uh... it's not a nice place," Rory, you are an awful liar, was all he thought. But he kept his mouth closed.
"So where should we eat?"
There was a second where Rory stared at him and then opened her mouth, "I know a nice little place."
"As opposed to your not nice place."
"Exactly."
"Take me there."

"This is terrible," he said after his first sip of orange juice.
"Isn't it?" she said, gloating.
Jess and Rory were seated on a log in a clearing in a forest. Rory had pulled him off the road and into the woods that surrounded the town. And then she had sat him down on a log in a place with a canopy thick enough to make it hard to distinguish her features. However, the tone in her voice, literally, spoke for itself.
"You shouldn't have gotten orange juice. Juice is the healthy competitor in the race for popular beverages. Coffee should prevail."
"In this case, I'm rooting for the other side. This is the single worst Styrofoam container of orange juice that I have ever tasted."
"Shouldn't the Styrofoam container tell you something?"
"That I'm a fool?"
"Maybe."
She leaned her hand against his shoulder then, and let it rest there as if this was the most natural position in the world.
They sat there in silence for what must have been twenty minutes. And then suddenly Rory spoke, breaking the peace he felt with the exact words she said. Not her voice. Rory's breathing or Rory's chatter, there wasn't a way he could choose. The words were so foreign and not like Rory that even her musical voice couldn't make them any better.
"Well, we can't have you loitering around here all night, I guess we should get you a hotel. Like I said before," her voice was embarrassed, ashamed.
"Well Rory, it's nice to know that you don't want me spending the night out here."
She looked slightly offended, then brightened, "wouldn't that be nice? Sleeping out here, in My Spot, just you and the squirrels and the beautiful air and the night. Like you're wrapped up in a silk sheet and a velvet blanket. I should do that sometime."
"Hey, Gilmore, there's no time like the present. Why don't you and I sleep out here tonight? I'm sure there has got to be at least two sleeping bags in this place."
Several emotions danced on her face. Rory was not one for concealing feelings, "no... I can't... I have to... you see..." she seemed lost on how to begin her sentence so he forced a laugh and gave a mild-toned, "that's fine."
"Good. So, I'll take you to a hotel. And we can get together tomorrow morning. Unless you have plans..."
"Rory, the only reason I would actually come to a place like this would be to see you."
She smiled up at him and then made her way back into the town. He followed her like an obedient puppy.

When they reached the jeep, she stopped and her jaw dropped.
"You have mom's car."
"Yea."
"Why?"
"She lent it to me."
And then he watched as she slumped over, realizing that this was going to be a game of dodging any comments or questions about what their life had been since the night five years ago.
She smiled again and took his hand, "the hotel here has terrible service."


Over the next week, Jess had a better time then he'd had in five years. He and Rory made fun of the so-called-books that the Rite Aid sold, ate at Starbucks, visited Her Spot, and enjoyed the banters of half a decade ago. They never talked about what had happened to him once he'd left, what she'd done, how Luke was, how Lorelai was, and they were very careful to stay away from memories. Because as many as there were that had turned Jess' life into *something* there was always that little person that could've wrecked the simple friendship they had managed to rebuild from the ruins of everything from Washington to the Diner Farewell.
It wasn't exactly forgiveness, as neither Rory nor Jess was sure anymore who needed to be forgiven. And the little bit of warmth they'd managed to rekindle from the ashes of the huge fireplace was so delicate that the slightest breath could blow it out.
The Salsvillians (Rory had shared with him her nickname : Sals-villains) were distant to Jess and took no notice of him. They never said hello, they never told him to keep away from their Rory, and they never even looked at him.
So they were safe. Rory had kept Jess to herself... when she saw friends on the street she had hurried on after waving, as if she was afraid of something they could reveal to Jess. And every night after the day they'd spent together she'd vanish into the place that now was home; the ugly ugly house. And in the morning there she would be, at Starbucks, waiting at "their table."
He didn't ask her anything. He was to afraid of tipping the scales out of balance and sending himself plummeting back into a Roryless world.
He had her back. And it didn't matter to him how little of her recent life he truly knew, how little she really did belong to him now. He would continue this charade of the same ole friendship as long as he could. The smallest word could tear her away.
He was doing something that he had only done once - his seventeenth year.
But even though he never would admit it, he was still not writing his own lines and letting the script rule from the shadows the pathetic excuse he had for a life.

*~*~*~*~*

Chapter Ten: Married In Blue

"Okay, now, I have to put this in this bowl... or is it that bowl? How much am I supposed to put in, speaking of whiches and whats... Is that a two or five? And that, three or an eight! Three or eight!" she demanded of the kitchen, "God, why haven't they invented inflammable recipes! Idiots!"
Rory was standing at her stove, and using it for the first time. The devils hands had already taken off a small portion of hair in the front, and had consumed the entire right side of the recipe for whatever she was making. She'd forgotten by now what it was and the aroma suggested only that she was trying to recreate in a dish the burning of Rome.
Dean, of course, was the reason Rory was standing in the blackened kitchen.
Naturally her over possessive boyfr - no, husband, had grown suspicious over her all-day absences. She was making him dinner to soothe his worries.
Her excuse had been that she was job-hunting. He never believed a word she said anyway, so hidden beneath his shifty glances was 'she never lies, but I have to act like she's a liar anyway'.
She was safe. For the time being.
Yet another side of her was scoffing at her attempt to hide Jess. You're not doing anything wrong, it said. Have you ever, in any way, committed any form of adultery. Are you entitled to tell your husband everything?
In a true, trusting, marriage, yes.
But she was a liar. Because, even though she never even let herself think it, it wasn't Dean she felt bad lying to.
It was Jess.
When her half-closed eyes had seen his face, she'd wanted to throw her arms around him and whisper in his ear how much she'd missed him. She'd wanted to scream at him for leaving her, then smile and say she'd forgiven him. Any sort of emotional exchange would've suited her.
But no. All they had now was this small little thing that wasn't allowed any sort of feelings at all. Not friendship-wise, not anything wise.
She'd kept him out of her house and away from the mantelpiece photos. She had covered when she'd almost said how she was married. She had allowed them one memory only. An innocent memory of a Jess furious with the world and an innocent Rory incredulous at the idea of prowling Stars Hollow at night. Before he had begun to change her and she'd begun to change him. Though she couldn't take to much responsibility for "nice Jess", the post-kiss Jess. She liked to think he'd done that because he wanted to. Maybe even for Luke.
Even though she knew it was all for her.
She hadn't told him how special Her Spot was. How he was the only one she could've trusted to share in it's splendor.
She was so very lucky this town didn't gossip. All she had to do was make sure Dean didn't see her with him, and she was fine.
She hadn't asked him about the jeep.
"Maybe he already knows," she mumbled, stirring the whatthehellisthat-in-a-pan around, "he has Mom's jeep. He must've seen the pictures mom has. Of the wedding."
"I'm home!" came a voice from the front door. A voice that didn't expect an answer. But she had stayed away from Jess today. Her explanatory phone call hadn't received any questions. As was expected. No questions asked, that was the "relationship" she and Jess had.
What sort of friendship was that?


Lorelai Gilmore lay on her bed, her fingers tracing the face of her daughter, standing in a blue dress and being towered over by her husband. The picture only came out of it's drawer when Lorelai was in the mood for a good crying session.
Her daughter hadn't been married in white.
Rory was supposed to have had the perfect perfect life. She was going to grow up, she was going to see it through high school, she wasn't going to get pregnant before she was respectfully married, she was going to go through college. She was going to have a job. She was going to be famous. She would find herself a wealthy husband she was in love with and they would have a huge wedding in a big church with stain-glass windows. The guests would all be famous people who really didn't care that Rory was getting married, only cared about being in the newspaper (there were going to be a lot of photographers there, but only the best to cover *Rory Gilmore*'s wedding). But in the front row would be Rory's real friends and family, and they would love that she was having the perfect wedding and they'd behave themselves throughout the wedding (at least, good behavior as far as Stars Hollow goes).
And she was going to raise an actress and a president, and she was going to live her life happily, and she was going to be everything Lorelai wasn't.
Maybe Lorelai had been a bit to concentrated on making sure she didn't end up like her.
Of course she hadn't been the stern mother *her* mother had been, but she had done little things to push Rory into a bright bright future.
Dean had been perfect boyfriend. And she was so happy when Rory and him began to have a nice little relationship. Sweet kisses and swooning "I love you's".
And then Jess had shown up and began to punch holes in the balloon that was Rory's perfect future. Lorelai had been so mad at him, and she had done the wrong thing, she knew.
A tear dropped on the picture.
Jess would've been a typical boyfriend. He had reformed and they would've had a little dating history and then would've agreed to remain just friends. Lorelai could see it now, the breakup. Rory and Jess would blurt it out and the same time and then they'd smile and hug and be back to a buddy-buddy relationship. And Rory would move on and her life would remain unscarred.
But Lorelai had refused to see that. She saw only her daughter with a nice, big round stomach. And she had shoved Jess out her daughter's life as fast as she could.
And somehow, that had led to her daughter, her perfect daughter, the daughter she loved more than anything, marrying the freakishly tall Bag Boy. The first boy she'd ever dated.
And turned her Rory's perfect, wonderful, formal, full-of-celebrities wedding into some stupid affair in a place that might has well have been a garage.
And Lorelai knew it was her that had melted the wedding dress from a beautiful puff of silk and lace into a plain blue dress made of cotton.


That morning Rory snuck away through the morning fog to her spot and found Jess there, leaned against a tree. She tried to smile and went to sit next to him. She was crying by the time she had reached the log.
"Hey Rory."
"Hey Jess..." her voice cracked and she buried her face in her hands. He stroked her hair. She looked up at him and gave him the most pathetic of smiles.
"Don't waste your energy on smiling like that Rory."
"That's the Rory smile nowadays."
"Don't say that. That's like forcing my admission to the Weepers club right now."
"Jess, just admit it. I have the power to make you cry."
"Ugh. When you phrase it like that it sounds so unprofessional."
"The truth hurts."
Silence.
Suddenly she sat up, "Jess, I need you to promise me something."
"Rory..."
She was perfectly aware she was violating the unspoken rules they'd established, "it's called throwing caution to the wind for a few moments. And this is serious. I need you to promise me that you won't leave me ever again."
"Isn't that Gone With the Wind of you?" he was smirking.
"Yes. It is."
He looked at her pleading features and gave her the smallest of smiles, "fine."
"Promise."
"I promise I won't ever... leave you. I am so disgusted with myself right now."
"Think how I must feel."
And then his lips parted. She wondered what he was about to say. But without warning, the fear of losing Jess came back and she stopped whatever might have possibly been said.
"Okay, we can go back to normal now." A forced smile from him.
"Good. Because kodak moments really aren't my thing."
She butted her head against his arm. And then leaned against him to watch the sun rise.
It felt all to natural, and wonderful...
And extremely inappropriate for a no feelings relationship.
The sun was just beginning to peek through the trees. She reached the back of her head and finally freed her hair from it's drawn back prison.

"The sun has arisen, and we can either go to Starbucks or go home. Or stay here."
A sudden deja-vu came to Rory.
Turn right, her heart and mind were screaming, turn right! The shouting, the damn furry thing.
Turn right!
"I have to go home," she said, "but I'll walk you back to the hotel."
"That's right," disappointment was obvious in his voice, "you haven't seen it since I've moved in."
"I'd love to see what you've done with the place."
"Well, with a bed, two chairs and television, the possibilities are endless," he said. She was already smiling, and she stood up to lead him out of the woods. The trail was hard to find.

"So this is your lovely little home,"
"Next time you'll have to show me yours."
She looked up at him and shook her head gently. She wanted to end this stupid little mimic of friendship right now and tell him the truth - the lies were eating away at the edges already. But she was to afraid to lose this... as pitiful as it may be.
He shrugged his shoulders and flopped down onto the couch.
There was the place they endured their first and most awkward silence.
"Rory..."
"Jess..."
It was over then as he half-smiled and took out a book. Reading together. Something she had always loved doing. The five seconds that had just passed seemed like an eternity, and she cared not to suffer that again.
"Where can I find a decent book?" she said, knowing very well the Jess she had known would not travel without one.
"My bag... front pocket. I must have something in there."
She left the room with a nod to him and opened up the first pocket. Nothing in here but a shoe box... maybe he had his books in there.
She gasped as she pulled off the lid.
On the top layer was pictures of her and Jess together. There were only about ten: neither one had been to interested in posing for cameras (not that anyone would have volunteered to take their picture anyway). Most of these were from the time Rory was in New York. Avid tourist that she was, she'd brought along a disposable camera (she hadn't told him it wasn't for him. It had been for her mother's graduation. Now she felt guilty as she realized there could be so many more in here if she had realized she would never make it to the graduation and needn't conserve film).
Underneath the pictures was a stack of papers with a single blue sheet of printing paper on top.
Writing To Rory
From Jess Mariano
She realized that this was NOT the book he intended for her reading. She also realized that her oh-so-disobdient fingers were already flipping the 'cover' off, and gingerly picking up the first sheet of paper.

*~*~*~*~*

Chapter Eleven: Erasing The Truth

The jeep was still parked in front of the motel.
Jess tossed the keys up in the air and caught them. He glanced out his window at it sitting so calmly in the street.
Just waiting for him to screw things up. Patiently waiting for him to fly from her side again. He could already see it rolling down the unpleasantly silent street. And it was just waiting. Just waiting and waiting and waiting.
Not that he had anything against the poor jeep. It had been nothing but helpful to him. It had born him all the way to California from Connecticut. It was a symbol of Lorelai's trust.
Yet it was his way of escape. And personally he found that he was too tempted by escape.
And not escape from this stupid town - which he had discovered he hated twice as much as he had originally hated Stars Hollow - he wanted to escape from Rory. He wanted to get away from those constant pangs of guilt: you stayed fixed on her for five pathetic years. You worked in a underpaid coffee shop so you could be reminded of her. She's moved on, she moved away, she...
And then there was what was keeping him here.
He really knew nothing about Rory. Nothing more than he had known since the night in the diner when she kissed him for the last time. And as much as it tore him apart to be so close, yet so far....
Oh God. If his thoughts were a book he'd be erasing and scribbling and erasing over that last line. So close, yet so far? Cliché, cheesy, and the kind of line he and Rory would never stand for in a book.
Why couldn't anyone have come up with another saying for that? That was something that they could do together tomorrow. Come up with sensible expressions in exchange for painfully disgusting time-honored phrases.
But he was just that - near and far. He would sit next to her in the beautiful place that made her happy, she would rest her head on his arm and he could feel her breath as well as see it as it floated away. But then she would run off, go back to her home and disappear entirely. And he would realize that the moments were nothing compared to how much she had cut herself off from him. How little she let him know.
He still wouldn't give up those moments for anything. Not anything.
Erase. Cross out. Erase.

Rory wouldn't look at him later that day. She stared into her coffee, out the window, anywhere but at him.
"Rory?" he asked.
"Yes?" she said, her head snapping up. Once their eyes met she looked away again.
"Are you all right?"
She gave him a feeble smile, "no. Not really."
"What is it?"
"A whole new Jess. Concerned, considerate..."
"It's been five years, Rory."
"That's just it!" she cried, suddenly very in the moment, "we haven't seen in each other in five years? I mean, how do we know if we haven't changed? How do we know if one of us... say me... is an evil monstrous evil embodiment of... evil?" he tried not to laugh, "Maybe one of us... say you... is still the same person that they used to be... that used to be friends with... say me... but the other one... me ... is all different. You shouldn't like that person anymore, right?"
He had no idea what she was saying, "all right... so you don't want us to continue these small movements of friendship?"
"It's not that!" she said hurriedly, "no, not that at all. I just think that we should reconsider our feelings. For each other."
"Well, Rory, I think our feelings for each other are pretty obvious."
Her lips parted. She smiled then, "I guess they are," she said softly.
"Right," he said, swallowing, "if we were so desperate for a more close relationship - in friendship or otherwise - don't you think that one of us might've acted on those feelings by now?"
A look of surprise flitted across her eyes, but the smile stayed plastered on her face, "exactly my point."
"Good."
"Good."
She began to write on her coffee cup.
"What are you doing?"
"Writing on a coffee cup," she answered, "I want you to read this..." she suddenly crossed out whatever it was she had written, "uh... something... I picked up at a bookstore the other day."
"Where is it?" he asked, immediately curious about the coffee cup.
"At my house..." she said, "but we can't go there..."
"Rory, can we talk?"
"That I would like."
"Okay. We'll go to the hotel if we can't go to your house."
"Okay," she said in a meek voice. He held open the Starbucks door for her. She went through and muttered something about meeting him back here in twenty minutes. He nodded, but she was already running away.
With twenty minutes to kill he wandered back to their table and reached for the coffee cup. Another hand met his. He looked up and saw a waitress - maybe seventeen - smiling guiltily.
"Everyone in town wonders about Rory's coffee cups. She's never left one here before. But I saw you two talking. It's probably none of my business to read it."
"No, it probably isn't."
"Just... could you tell me what it's about? A diary entry, a poem, a picture, anything?"
He looked at her quizzically, "and who are you to read Rory's coffee cups?"
"I'm Diana," she said, shaking his hand, "I've been serving Rory coffee for two years."
"So you can be trusted," he looked down at the coffee cup. She had thoroughly crossed out everything that had been written. All he saw was one word: lying.
His imagination took flight. What had she been lying about? Did she think he was lying?
He sighed and fell into his chair. The knowledge was nothing new. He hadn't told Rory the exact truth about his life, and she had done the same to him. It wasn't exactly lying, but it came close enough.
"Diana?" he called out.
"Yes sir?"
"Jess."
"Yes Jess?" she fought back a smile at the rhyme.
"Can I ask you something about Rory?"
She looked at him, "I don't know. Should you?"
"It's not anything personal."
"Then go right ahead," she leaned against the counter and crossed her arms.
"Is Rory..."
Speak of the devil. The door banged open and Rory ran in, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of Starbucks.
"There is something I need to tell you," she said as they hurried along, ignoring traffic lights and unaware of all other pedestrians, "and there is only one way I am going to be able to tell it to you. And there is only one time that I am going to be able to tell it to you, and that is now. And if I wait to long, I will not be able to tell you."
She came to an abrupt halt in front of a brown door. It wasn't big, but to Jess it seemed to be looming above him. She took out a key and unlocked the door, careful, he noticed, to cover up her left hand.
And then they walked into her house.

The inside was unimpressive. Just a few photos here and there - none of which he paid attention to. His gaze was fixated on Rory's fist... clenched so tight he couldn't see her fingers.
They came into the living room. She gestured awkwardly to the couch and they both sat. She looked up at him and began to babble incoherently.
"Okay, Jess, I am going to say this in one breath and you're going to hate me and I am so sorry and I hate myself and I hope you hate me and I miss my mom and I..." he looked at her, "right. I'm..."
The door opened, "Mrs. Rory Forrester, I'm home!"
Jess' jaw dropped.
Bag Boy stood in front of him and Rory. Taller than ever - if that was possible. And he looked.... upset.
Jess quickly turned away from Rory and dropped her hands.
"That's what I was going to tell you," she said, staring at her feet.
"Ah," Jess said. He was speechless. And then he said the first thing that popped into his head, "why wasn't I invited to the wedding?"

*~*~*~*~*
Chapter Twelve: Bumping Into Bag Boys


"Is there any affordable gas in this town?"
"Why?" Diana looked up from wiping tables, "are you leaving?"
"The thing I came for turned out not to be here," he answered simply, sitting down at one of the empty tables.
"What do you mean?" she sat down across from him and smiled, "Rory?"
"She's married," he said quietly.
Diana's head snapped up, "you didn't know she was married?" if Rory wasn't a person she cared about she'd be grabbing a soda and sitting down to watch the soap opera.
"And it's not that. I could deal with it if she was married to anybody else. But married to Bag Boy? Is the universe trying to rub it in?"
"Dean's not my favorite guy either."
"So the nickname stuck?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, "he's a bag boy here, too."
He laughed at that. It was a dry, hollow, laugh, but it was a laugh just the same, "I always imagined he'd be something for her."
"He's a nice man," she said, as if it offered any comfort.
"That's just what I couldn't stand about him," she looked up and kept her sympathetic face on for the whole monologue. The guy looked like he needed somebody to show sincerity, "I was seventeen years old. I hated the world. I had moved to this hellish plastic Hallmark card town. I was miserable. And then I met Rory Gilmore. Everybody loved Rory Gilmore. She was nice, she got perfect grades, and she the perfect little girl. I was so pathetic. And she had that idiot boyfriend, about twice her size, always following her everywhere she went. And so he's finally snagged her for good."
"I'm sorry, Jess."
"You win some, you lose some," he said as he stood up.
"What did you win?"
"I got to see her again."
"And you lost?"
"The chance of ever seeing her again," he half smiled at her.
"Not much of a win, huh?" she said.
She shuddered after he left. Rory's life was not so much of a mystery anymore. She had thought that maybe Jess could get her out of Salsville. No such luck for Rory.
The waitress took off her acorn and turned around the "we're open" sign. Pulling on her coat she shivered again. To end up like Rory Gilmore would not be a happy fate.

Rory sat in her bedroom, knees curled to her chest. She hadn't left the house all day. It was beginning to cool down and she'd turned on the heat for comfort. Just a light setting so the room didn't become too unbearable. In Stars Hollow the winters had been about the hum of the radiator, and the snow. Winters here weren't very cold. Or very pleasant. A few trees were added to the households. The stores put up christmas lights. The Goods and Gorp even played carols on a broken tape that skipped every time the word "the" came up.
The radiator hissed. She wanted to bury into her covers and live forever in her bed, away from all the hurt of the outside world.
Dean hadn't come home yet. She didn't know where he was and found she didn't particularly care. He had just turned and left the house after he had found her there with Jess. Jess had done the same. Without a word. Left her alone in the huge house that she hated and hated her.
She crawled out from under the huge sheet and made her way down to the living room. Her slippers didn't make any noise as she padded down the stairs. As slow and as solemn as death itself.
She came into the living room and sat down on the couch. It was this horrible bright yellow that had faded into a... dull bright yellow. It looked, to her, like a sick canary.
Rory reached under the couch and pulled out a huge dusty box. She pulled off the tape. It gave no fight, the stickiness had probably worn off years ago.
She opened the first huge binder that came out of the cardboard box. It was filled with baby pictures. The tool shed. The wonderful tool shed. She glanced around her and shuddered, not daring to let the thoughts enter her mind. She wasn't in a mood for crying.
The next binder was her all around Stars Hollow - as a toddler, a seven-year old, and then her in the Crap Shack. The Gilmore's first real house.
She closed the binders quickly and replaced them. Now was not a time to stray into the past.
She had to think about her life. Her marriage was in the position to be saved, and the past held nothing but memories and...
Jess still loved her.
The thought came from nowhere. Or maybe just from thinking of the horrible memories. Such wonderful memories! Her head was babbling. She was even babbling as she analyzed her babbling.
She needed fresh air. A walk.
Jess still loved her. The thought was taunting her.
Should have never read those stupid letters.
He still loves you, came the sing song voice.
None of your business, reading the letters.
He said he still loved you! He said it! But he didn't say it to you!
She opened the door and paused in the doorway. The crisp air reawakened her dulled senses.
Do you still love him?

He did not mean to bump into Rory.
He meant to drive to Stars Hollow, drop off the jeep, avoid meeting any people, get back to New York, and start over. New York City was full of new things for him to find. He could start writing or something. Quit the coffee shop.
Instead he crashed into Rory. The perfect way to start getting her off his mind.
She was walking slowly, eyes gazing into the night sky. She looked lost and helpless and she didn't look like she had any destination in mind.
He was hurrying down the desolate sidewalk, eyes down. He didn't see her, she didn't see him. Not until they were both lying on the sidewalk and glanced up to see who they could yell at for being careless.
Her eyes were big with surprise. He sat up but stayed there, frozen. She crawled over to where he was sitting and hugged her knees to her chest.
"I'm sorry for bumping into you, ma'am," he said, looking straight ahead.
"Jess!"
"People these days are so clumsy. Like me, they just walk down the streets, careless, and then bump into innocent young ladies like yourself."
"You can't give me the casual treatment! That's not fair!"
He got up and wiped imaginary dirt off his shirt, "once again, I'm sorry. I hope that we can meet again under more pleasant circumstances."
*You're squirming. I've never seen you squirm before. It's very entertaining.*
He was already turning away.
"I don't," she said icily as she stood up and came to stand next to him. Then she reached forward and prepared to slap him.
"Rory?"
Her hand lost momentum and paused on his face, "Dean."
Her husband smiled coldly at her, "sorry to interrupt."
"Oh, you're not interrupting anything," Jess assured him, "I was just leaving."
Dean forgot about Rory then, "it was nice having you."
Jess rolled his eyes, "sheesh, look at you, towering over me, acting like we're seventeen. Grow up," Dean's eyes narrowed, "yes," he went on sarcastically, "your wife and I are having an affair. All the clues point to it. I never was able to stand you, Mr. Dean, and I never will be able to,"
He turned to Rory, "and you. You said to me that you hated your life here. You told me that you were unhappy. And I don't blame you for hating it. But it's your fault, Rory. You're the one who married the Bag Boy."
She grabbed Dean's arm, ignoring how much he had just hurt her, "Dean, you can't believe what he said. I love you, I've always loved you..."
"Whatever Rory," he tugged loose of her and began to walk away.
"DEAN!" she screamed, her pace quickening as she ran after him, "Dean!" he entered the house and slammed the door. She banged on it and the gates that had been holding back her tears burst open, and the tears burst forth.
The door remained closed. Tall and impassive.
She mutely walked down the sidewalk. She stopped when she came to Jess. She looked up at him and stared, her eyes and face glistening in the dim light of the Goods and Gorp. She stayed staring at him for few seconds before she walked down the street.
"Rory, wait!" he called, his idiocy just hitting him. She continued walking and stopped when she reached the jeep. Tugging open the door she climbed inside and closed the door. He heard the engine come to life.
And he ran after her.
The car began to roll down the street. He ran after it and grabbed hold of the side door, then opened it and jumped in.
She didn't look at him, "You could've hurt yourself."
"I live on the edge. And I'm not jumping out."
"You do know I hate you right now?"
He didn't answer. Instead he just watched as she drove the jeep down an road free of destination: turn right at this fork, left at this one, take this exit, turn off here.
After what seemed like years he finally spoke.
"Do you have any idea where we are?"
She still wouldn't look at him, "nope."

*~*~*~*~*

Chapter Thirteen: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Rory's knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel. The Diego vu of the day was close to driving her insane. Dean and Jess fighting. Jess running after her. Jess and her in a car. None of these were pleasant memories.
Add to that they were lost. And it was her fault.
He hadn't tried to get her to speak. They had been driving and driving and it was a silent night in the Gilmore jeep. She was so mad at him for what he did. Dean had been hovering on the edge since the beginning. And Jess had finally pushed him over. She would have been happy of this earlier. But she had decided about five hours ago that she wanted to make her marriage work. She had loved Dean, and Dean had loved her, and she had been truly happy with him... once. If they were married, there had to still be something there. She was going to find that spark and blow on it until it lit a fire and her cheeks were red.
Yes, she was sure she loved Dean. Of COURSE she loved Dean.
Of course that was before Jess came and stomped on the spark.
So why was she in a car with him? Driving away from her husband when she should be with him, starting over, soothing his fears? She loved HIM, after all.
She was with Jess in her mother's car on a road that could've been in Canada for all she knew of their location.
Oh yes, she loved Dean. She knew she loved Dean. It was perfectly right that she told Dean she loved him, because she did love him. She did. Yes, she loved him. He was her husband, after all. Why wouldn't she love her husband?
"Rory..." came the voice next to her.
"Don't say anything to me, Jess," she said evenly. Calm and cool. She wasn't going to explode. That would start a fight. And what she wanted now was to put distance between them. And every fight she'd had with Jess had led her closer to him.
"I won't after this, I promise."
"What is it, then?" trying to make her voice as stone like as possible.
"You see, the car..."
She was thrown back into her seat as the wheels grabbed onto the concrete and the engine shut off.
"Is out of gas," she finished.

She opened the door and jumped out. He followed her wordlessly. They each went in opposite directions down the road and called out, searched the night for signs of life. She felt the tears roll down her cheeks and she felt as the wind froze them on her skin. It was colder here. She rubbed her arms and wished that she'd taken the time to pack before she ran away.
Jess came up behind her and slipped his jacket over her shoulders. She took it without and word and looked up at him. He was staring off into the woods.
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
"We are going to talk."
She glared at him. He ignored the glare and sat down on the hard, cold ground. She reluctantly sank to eye level.
"Where should we start?" she asked.
"Why you didn't tell me that you were married," he was looking straight at her and she tried to focus on exactly what reason she could make up for not telling him that would sound reasonable. She shifted uncomfortably.
"We're in the middle of some highway... maybe we should..."
"Start somewhere else? All right. Why did you marry Dean?"
"Now that one isn't any of your business," she snapped, silently thanking anyone from making him switch topics.
"To bad for me. Tell me."
"No."
"Rory, we are desperately lost in the middle of no where. Now, if we both get eaten by bears, won't you be happy that you died with that terrible weight off your chest?" sarcastic voice.
"It's not a terrible weight on my chest. Why would it be a terrible weight? A weight of any mass, for that matter," on afterthought she barked, "and we aren't going to be eaten by bears,"
"Okay, we'll starve to death."
"We're not going to starve."
"Get run over by a car?"
"No."
"Die of boredom?"
"You have a book in your pocket," she leaned forward and tapped it.
"Ah-ha. We'll kill each other in hopes of solving all our problems."
"How would that solve our problems?"
"You won't have someone breathing down your neck while you read the book. And I have this strange feeling you really want to kill me," she tried to intensify her glare, "yes, for some reason your beautiful eyes seem to be sending that message."
"You're off topic, Mr. Mariano."
"This is more fun than talking about serious stuff."
"Good. Then we can make you suffer."
"All right. Why'd you marry Dean? Why didn't you tell me you did?"
She looked away, "I married Dean because I loved him."
"Right."
"Please. Like you know anything about how I felt for Dean. You were gone for a year. I did get a chance to change in that time."
"You told me it wasn't working out."
"And then it did over the course of the year."
"Did he cry when you dumped him?"
"I didn't dump him."
"You did. And then he panicked and proposed."
"That is NOT true! We got married during college!"
He smiled, "so he wanted to keep you to himself, so he proposed, and you were forced to leave your school."
"Wrong," she lied.
"Well, I went back to New York and became a reporter."
"You went back to New York and moved in with a senior platinum blonde."
He looked at her. She put a hand to her mouth then crumpled into the road.
"And I spent my whole time there Writing To Rory," he said softly.
All she wanted to do was melt. She wished fiercely for the powers of the Wicked Witch of the West... and then she wished for rain.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth Jess."
"Sorry, schmorry. Why's the question. That's interrogative. Explain. No yes or no."
"I was afraid that you'd leave," she said quickly and loudly.
If a bear was to eat me now, I'd be happy I said that.
He didn't speak for a while, "I wasn't going to."
"Not until you found out I was married."
"Maybe it would've been different if you'd told me in the beginning."
"I'm sorry, okay?"
"Whatever."
She frowned, "I can't get two whatever's in one day. That's just not fair!"
"Well, Rory, a lot of things aren't fair!"
She stood up and marched to the jeep. She pulled the door open, jumped inside, and slammed it.
He stared at the door for a while. Then he walked to the jeep and climbed in. She was lying across the back seat, lost in slumber and shivering. He threw a blanket (so conveniently stashed under his seat) over her and tried to find a comfortable way to sleep on the seat. He fell asleep during his trials.

She woke up and dropped the corner of blanket she was holding. Wiping her eyes, she rose slowly and hit her head on the jeep.
"I didn't used to be that tall," she mumbled, falling out of the back seat and wrapping the blanket around her as she stumbled out of the jeep. Jess was up and about, leaning against the back of the car eating a sandwich. He handed her one and she took it and bit out of the side before speaking.
"Where'd you find this?"
"Trunk."
"Not sure I if I should eat it."
"Give it to me than. I'm famished."
She woke up and protectively clenched her food, "nuh-uh. The man gives the lady his sandwich, that's what is says in 'Essential Etiquette of Being Lost on the Road with Someone You Are Fighting With.'"
He stared at her for a second, "I never read it."
"You should."
"Since I've never read it I am in no way entitled to forfeit my sandwich."
"Half of it."
"No."
"One third."
"Doesn't it say somewhere in that book of yours that to get lost on the road with someone you're fighting with is a stupid thing to do because if you're fighting they are most likely not going to readily give up their sandwich to the person they are fighting with?"
"Ahh. So you're trying to confuse me. You can't confuse a Gilmore."
"No," he answered before she asked.
"Can I please have just a bit of your sandwich?"
"No."
"Okay, you either give me sandwich or you give me coffee."
He disappeared into the jeep for a few seconds and came out holding a bottle of something. It was unlabeled and she suspiciously sipped it. Under normal circumstances she would've inquired as to it's contents, but a caffeine-deprived Gilmore is an unpredictable force.
The taste arrived in her mouth and her deadened taste buds screamed for her to shove the horrendous thing out of her mouth. She most happily spit it out at it's supplier.
Jess, drenched in orange juice, simply looked at her.
"What is this?" she demanded, tossing the bottle in his direction and not caring as more splashed out and hit him.
"It's called juice. You should try it sometime."
"Juice. Not an experience I care to repeat. I thought I'd made it clear before that..."
He rolled his eyes and interrupted, "these are the only clothes I have."
"Punishment for decieve-ment."
She opened the jeep door and went in, but not before giving him a devilish smile.

The light flickered again. In the woods. He wouldn't have noticed it, maybe it wasn't there... but there it was again.
"Jess!" Rory called.
He was embarrassed by how quickly he dashed to her side. But the door was open and he found a hysterical Rory, hands slapping the steering wheel.
"Jess! We have no food! No food and no gas and no anything! We're going to die!"
"We're not going to die, Rory. Someone is going to drive along this road and..."
"We're going to starve! Or get eaten by BEARS! Or kill each other! What if we kill each other and go insane..."
"Wouldn't it be the other way around?"
"...and grow our hair down our knees and don't bathe and have black teeth and long yellow fingernails and live in the woods and make a home out of the jeep and become the hermits of nowhereroad!"
"They could write a book about us."
"And we'll die and no one will know about us!"
"Did you have big dreams in mind?"
"You know I did! This is all..." she looked around and her flashing eyes fell on him, "your fault! It's all your fault!"
"How so?" he had to keep calm. Maybe he could make Rory shut up if he just kept his head. Two panicking people would not do much good.
"You made my life go bad!"
"Your life isn't something that I can just completely alter. It's like milk. If it's left out to long, it's going to go bad eventually."
"I was fine 'til you came along! I had a nice, steady, routine," she was taking breaths now. Her hands had stopped flailing, "and then you come and decide that my life isn't bad enough. You decide that you have to ruin my marriage."
"Rory, no one deserves that kind of marriage. You're not making sense."
"I am too making sense!" she stamped her foot on the jeep floor so hard that the snowman sitting on the dashboard shook, "Dean and I were fine. We weren't star crossed lovers, but we were just fine."
"You were miserable."
"I WAS FINE!"
"Then why did you lie to me?"
She started crying and made a small choking noise before inching away from him into the passenger seat, "I don't want to talk to you anymore."
"Rory..."
She stepped lightly out of the car and walked down the road. He exhaled. She turned around, most likely to give him a 'what have you done to me?' guilt-trip-ing, pitiful look. He didn't give her the opportunity.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her off the road, then down a slope into the woods.

She didn't bother to ask where they were going. She allowed him to pull her limp body along with him through the trees and branches. She felt numb and barely noticed the stinging slap of the dead twigs.
He stopped running abruptly at the base of the slope and she fell into his back. He pulled her up by the wrists and placed her in front of him. His chin rested on the top of her head and he placed his hands over her eyes. Her eyelashes brushed against his palms and he began to walk forward, forcing her to stumble blindly and finally cry out in exasperation,
"Where are we?"
He removed his hands.
She caught her breath at the sight before her.
It was an old cabin, the window panes falling out of the logs and the glass shattered. There was a white sign hanging over the door that read, "Holiday 24/7", and a few christmas lights hung in the windows. The snow wouldn't fall here for another week, so the panes of glass were sprayed with fake snow that was peeling off and had arranged at the base of the cabin in a sloppy pile. Through the windows was a diner, lit with a soft and sickening yellow fluorescent candlelight color. A giant christmas tree sat in the corner, overly decorated with tinsel and lights and ornaments. There were flickering christmas lights hung around and inside the diner, and a huge bunch had been thrown over the "Holiday 24/7" sign stuck in the ground a few feet away.
Laughter drifted out from inside.
She looked up at Jess. But he simply gave a mock bow, pushed open the screen door, and pointed a hand inside.
Rory looked up at him and made a slight sound of protest. He shrugged and walked in, and she dashed in after him before the door swung shut behind them.

The scrambled words of a christmas carol burst in their ears. An old radio seemed to be the source of the noise, and it was blaring out static. The only legible sounds were the words "christmas" and "year".
They wandered farther into the place that seemed to be a living, breathing, Hallmark card gone bad - Luke's Diner's alter ego. Several plastic Santa's with jiggling bellies adorned the corners and a life-size glass reindeer with a blinking red nose sat in front of the kitchen. Under the tree were gnomes wearing Santa hats and turned up shoes, a present rocking unsteadily in their outstretched hands. Once she got closer, Rory could see each present was wrapped in Happy Birthday wrapping paper.
She slowly turned to Jess, "this is the most hideous diner I have ever been to."
She then eagerly sat down at one of the picnic tables.
"I know," he smiled, "Luke would've had a heart attack at it's pure cheesiness."
"How did you find this place?" she asked suspiciously.
"I saw lights from the road and I was sick of being lost," he smiled again and passed the menu from across the table. Red and green with caroling and frightening cabbage patch-like children painted at the top.
In an instant, two elderly people dressed like elves were at the table. They sang a chorus of "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" and bowed, time enough for the two guests to see that, under the sagging hats, were two women with smiling faces.
"It truly is, isn't it?" one remarked to the other as soon as they'd finished, "I mean, beginning to look a lot like Christmas." She turned to address Jess and Rory, "the customers start pouring in around this time of year, they won't come when it's not Christmas, they say that it's not genuine enough. Well, Jenny and I decorated this place ourselves, and if it isn't genuine enough for the mess of people that live around here, that's their problem. But you're here, and only at the beginning of winter. You're such darlings. No charge for our first customers of the season!" she cried, clapping her frail hands. Rory couldn't help but smile.
"Thank you but..." she began to decline, but was interrupted.
"It's our pleasure, dearie," the other one said, waving off her remark with a toss of her 'beringed' fingers, "we do love seeing young couples. Warms our hearts."
Neither of them assured Ms. Jenny that she was right.
But neither of them corrected her.
After ordering the only seemingly appetizing thing on the menu (two cokes), Rory laid her hand on top of Jess'.
"Thank you... for this sickening place, and for being here."
He didn't look at her, "this menu sounds like you cooked it," he remarked as his eyes rapidly scanned the items.
"Seriously. Thanks."
He looked up, "you're welcome, Rory."
The two "elves" began to carol, as Rory Gilmore and Jess Mariano sat across from each other at a picnic table in a deserted diner in a place they were soon to discover the name of.
And so it was to the tune of "Jingle Bells" that their lives abruptly righted themselves, and to the same tune that they finally - without words - admitted what had been on their minds for a very long time.
Almost six years, in fact.

*~*~*~*~*

Chapter Fourteen: Final Answers

Lane Kim ran a finger down the list of guests. The name under maid of honor had been hastily scribbled as "Lorelai Gilmore."
"Lane, why are you still awake?" Pete groaned, coming down into the kitchen and seeing his fiancé staring at their wedding plans under the dim light of a single lamp, "we're getting married in a week! You can't be staying up this late every night! You'll be falling asleep as you walk down the aisle!"
"This is important!" she said wearily, "I think..." she hesitated and looked up at Pete, as if she needed an answer from him on whatever was plaguing her.
"What is it?" he asked, sitting down next to her.
She stood up and began opening the cupboard doors, standing on her toes to search inside, "have you seen my blue address book? That old one from when I was seventeen with the picture of Eminem on the front?"
"Uh..." he opened up their freezer and pulled out something, "this one?"
She snatched it out of his fingers and brushed off ice, not at all caring about it's unusual location. She thumbed through the old pages until she found the number.
Sitting down at the table, she took their phone and began to dial rapidly. Pete placed a hand on her shoulder, "what is it, Lane?" he inquired groggily.
"I just..." she smiled as the phone began to ring, "I think that I have the wrong Lorelai Gilmore as my maid of honor."
To say the least, her dear Pete was confused, "You don't want Lorelai Gilmore? But she's so..."
"She's just..." her voice faded off as the rings continued. To many rings. What if this wasn't her number any more? The tears returned to her eyes as she saw her best friend standing next to her Frankenstein fiancé, small and forcing a smile. Taking the cellphone Lorelai held out, "so I can talk to you anytime. It has to be on constantly..." Rory had just nodded, but taken it.
"But you said that she was like your other mother while you were growing up?" Pete was still blabbing. Poor guy never liked it when Lane went into one of her strange Gilmoresque periods of time - not answering questions, doing things that are seemingly out of nowhere, leaving sentences unfinished......
"Yes. But her daughter..." she had begun to answer but...
A voice came through on the other end. The same childish light voice that she hadn't heard since the day a few years ago at the bus stop, "Hello?"
Lane breathed out, "hi. Rory?"

Lorelai entered the diner with the most unusual craving for coffee.
"LUKE!" she called.
He didn't appear at the door. She entered anyway and sat at the counter, drumming her fingers until he almost fell down the stairs, rubbing his eyes.
He went to make coffee and didn't talk until she had downed her first mug, "why so late, Lorelai? Why always so late?"
"I think I've figured out why I like coffee so much," was her answer.
"Why?" he asked, yawning.
"Whenever I want coffee, something wonderful is happening somewhere in the world. Someone is intensely happy and that makes me want coffee. It's a great burden I carry, Luke. You just have to support the happy people in the world. Are you so selfish that you don't want them to be happy - even if it is at an odd hour?"
"That is one of the most unoriginal excuses you have ever come up with for wanting coffee."
"Well it's late," she said in defense of herself as he poured her more, "my brilliant mind has not begun it's brilliant thinking yet," she watched him for a moment, "Jess visited me the other day."
Luke's eyes snapped open, "what?"
"He borrowed my jeep."
"To...?"
"See Rory."
She never mentioned Rory. Luke's voice softened, "oh. Did you tell him..."
"About Dean? No."
"Ah."
"Ah is right. Now he's going to be miserable and in my carelessness and misery I have made another miserable!"
"You're miserable?"
She looked up at him, "aren't you?"
"Pretty much. Rory made you Lorelai. I think the absence of the Gilmore's with a death wish might actually be making me unhappy. I can still remember every cup of hell I've poured to suit your suicidal cravings."
She smiled at him and gave a snorted laugh into her coffee, "well, I'll admit that there was something that kept me from jumping off a bridge," he looked at her, "Luke..." she paused for a moment and studied the man who she had known for quite a long time that she loved. He loved her too. The man that kept from ever being in a real relationship except for the strange one she had with him. The relationship they had that was so strange yet perfect. She finished, "...'s coffee."
"I'm touched," silence, "I actually miss that kid."
"Suddenly opening the Rory door is opening lots of other doors?"
"You get to talk about your daughter, I get to talk about my nephew."
"Shall we cry together over our lost little kidlets?"
"I just wish..." obviously this conversation was not something Luke found easy, "I wish that... he liked me more," he shrugged, "but I don't care. I didn't love him like you loved Rory."
"Is that your final answer?" she asked.
"No," he admitted begrudgingly.
"He liked you, Luke."
"Sure."
She sighed, "I'm not going to continue this, since you're just fishing for sympathy."
"Lorelai, you know how you always felt you had something in Rory that was always there for you to love and loved you back, even when things weren't exactly jumping on top of tables and tap-dancing?" she bit her lip and nodded. That she missed.
"The unconditional love."
"Yea, I guess. I just felt like when I had a family member... someone younger... I might be able to have that someone who does love you and who you can love back because you care about them so much. And I fought for it so hard, but I guess I didn't do it right."
"He loved you, Luke. But Rory's a girl. Girls are allowed to love that. Bad boys aren't."
"There were a few times - when we were arguing - that I was actually scared of how much he understood me. I thought maybe that meant something. And when we stopped being mad, I just felt so happy that I had that tiny little fraction of love back in my life. And this sounds so wrong and I am never going to talk when I am half-asleep ever again."
"I love you, Luke."
She had always wondered what his reaction to that would be. But what he did now most definitely shocked her the most.
He smiled.
And then he opened his mouth to say it back but she interrupted, not sure how ready she was to hear it from him, "coffee! coffee! I think that two people in this world are very happy right now! I need coffee!"
He refilled the mug, "I wonder who they are."

Jess and Rory's eyes hadn't moved for what seemed like hours. She wanted to stay exactly as she was for a very long time more. This was different then anything. It was like sitting with her mother on the couch, not doing anything but basking in the other's presence. She had never done this with anyone else before. She hadn't thought it possible.
She wondered what would happen if she kissed him. Was she allowed to kiss him? Was this moment trying to tell her that the love between her and Jess should be the love of a brother and a sister? For with her mom she felt the sweet bonds of sisterhood... she wanted her head to shut up. She didn't care about what was right and wrong. She'd spent to much time in her life debating what the next move would be. She was content now to be with him - not watch or stare or smile at like she would with someone else, just *be* with - in a small diner in the middle of nowhere.
Her hand was still on top of his. The diner's radiator wasn't working, it seemed, and the only warmth she felt was the air in-between their hands. She didn't mind the cold as long as she had that precious oxegon hovering between her fingers and his.
And then her phone rang.
The sound made her jump slightly in her seat. It was coming from the small bag that she always carried - it usually just had the book that she slipped in when she woke up. It had no book now - just the little cellphone that her mother had given her... God knows how long ago. It was always on, but it had never rung before. She'd never even used it before. She'd forgotten a while ago that it was even there. She had notes on her mirror at home to charge it again, but it was only then that she remembered it.
Jess had raised an eyebrow. A "if you had a cellphone we could've called for help when we were lost" look was being directed at her. But it wasn't smug. It was more of - relief? That she hadn't realized, because then they wouldn't have come here and...
She grabbed the phone - ringing madly to the tune of "These Lazy Hazy Crazy Days". She gave a hollow laugh. So her mom had been trying to send her a message when she went away, trying to remind of her of that nightmarish festival, trying to make her realize something, or at least rethink her engagement to Bag Boy. How did you feel, asked the therapeutic phone in a sing- song voice, when you saw Jess and Shane? Did Dean really matter to you then? Does he really matter to you now? To late for that. She pushed it against her ear.
"Hello?"
"Hi. Rory?"
The voice was so familiar and it killed Rory that she couldn't remember it. She knew she should remember it. She didn't speak for a moment, and the door finally opened, and the memories flowed out.
"L-Lane?"
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hello."
"Hello..."
What was there to say? How are you? The friendship between the two girls had been strong - and then yanked away once Rory got on the bus to the airport... with Dean.
A tear escaped her eye. Her voice left her and Jess reached across and wrapped his fingers around the phone. Her grip fell away and he spoke - the obvious concern for Rory in his voice - in her place.
"Hello Lane," the two elves had stopped their caroling to eavesdrop on their customers.
The surprised voice of the woman in Stars Hollow echoed throughout the silent diner, "who is this?"
"Guess."
"Jess?"
"Yes," Lane didn't speak. Rory wasn't looking in any particular direction. Her eyes stared ahead, unfocused and brimming with tears, at a plastic santa. He tried to end the dear reunion so that he could talk to her, "why did you call?"
"Well... I was... um..." the other voice in place of Rory's had obviously confused her, "wondering if Rory would like to be my maid of honor?"
"You're getting married?"
"Yea."
Rory snapped out of her trance. All she had been thinking about was how she had forgotten Lane's voice. And now Lane was married and she hadn't hear about it. She had told Lane about her first kiss and they had squealed together - but now she was married - a bit more important than first kiss - and she didn't know about it.
"When?" he was asking.
"Next Sunday."
"When should we be there?"
Rory looked up at him. She managed a smile.
"If you could be here in... about... two days?"
"Sure, we'll be there," he said quickly, "g-"
"Okay..." the disappointment in her voice made his worry for Rory dim for a second.
"Look, Lane, Rory's just not... feeling well. She'll call you tomorrow and you two can have your ya ya's."
"all right," that satisfied her, "goodbye Jess."
"Bye."
He handed the phone to Rory and she looked up. He looked at her. She didn't take the phone. To much looking. He wanted to talk to her but still, Rory and Jess just looked at each other. Forgiveness wasn't necessary right now. The precious air had flown away way Rory's hand had flown from Jess to her bag. The hardest thing, it seemed, was to start a conversation.
"So, where are we going to go from here?" Jess ignored the question at first. She had said we. Like it's natural. Like we exists now.
"I don't know," he quickly tried to cover up the pure lameness of that, "Stars Hollow?"
Rory caught her breath, "I don't know if I want to. I haven't been there in so long and I don't know how my mother would react to seeing me without Dean and I haven't spoken to anyone there in awhile and I'm afraid that she won't love me anymore," it came out quickly.
He almost laughed. The idea of the two Gilmore's not being the most linked creatures on the earth, the idea of Lorelai not being as protective and loving as a lioness mother, the idea of Rory actually being able to escape their strange mother/daughter bond... that was lost on him. But Rory was actually crying - again.
She was crying and it tore him apart. His body had been scattered along the road from Salsville to Holiday 24/7 with her guilt-wrenching, soul-tearing tears.
But in a way her tears comforted him. It meant that he could jump through that open window and actually be able to hold her.
And that's what he did, "Rory, Lane wants you to be her maid of honor. I think that you should go. This means a lot to Lane."
Of course, just as she had turned to cry into his jacket, her cellphone rang again.
Honestly, it didn't shake him in the least. Fate had been against the idea of him and Rory for a long time. But who said Fate knew anything about anyone?
Rory leaned against him as she spoke. He pulled her close and smiled out into the woods, and at all the stupid hollow plastic Santa's with beanbag stomachs. Rory was his at this perfect perfect moment. And no matter how much destiny and the all-powerful forces of the universe tried to rip her away, he was going to hold on.
"Hello..." Rory's expression turned from that delicate, tired half-smile that had appeared when she let herself fall away from her "old life" into a mix of delight and shock,
"Lane?"
"Yes, it's me again. Rory, I miss you so much and you are NOT going to get away with not talking to me for a whole day! And where are you? And how are things? And why did Jess answer the phone? And why..."
He kissed the top of her head. And she tilted her face up and smiled. So it was Lane and two diner owners who had to maintain respectful silence for a minute while Rory and Jess had their third yet most official kiss.

The divorce of Rory Gilmore and Dean Forrester went quietly. Rory only had to see Dean once or twice, and every time she refused to let Jess stand behind her. She said it would be like rubbing it in that she had left him and that he wasn't good enough and that she thought Jess was better. For, she had told Jess, even though he was a strong factor in their third breakup, there were many other reasons that she and Dean were never going to work. And she was not going to flaunt all of them in his face.
Rory returned to Stars Hollow on the arm of one of the only deliliquent's the small town had ever known. It remained unchanged. Lane's was the perfect wedding. And the reunion of the Gilmore's was - to sum it up while leaving out many screams and laughs and tears - heartwarming. The most perfect Disney scene to end a movie.
Except that was not the end.

*~*~*~

For the story I have told you, oh reader that will never be, is mainly about me. Though I'll admit that I can never hope to be as important in Rory's life as Lorelai, I am quite a prominent figure. The loud whispers that had been centered around the relationship of the two town bookworms had been on hold for five years. Once Rory was seen standing next to me, it was if we'd never left. The blood of the gossip topic began circulating and Rory was left to smile at me sideways.
Thank God the Stars Hollow Folk had some respect. The Bag Boy subject was not mentioned in front of Rory, save for some midnight talks between the mother and daughter (on which I did not eavesdrop, but simply know of because... well, it's really none of your business).
I visited Luke a day after Lane's wedding. I'll admit mine were not the most honorable intentions - I needed a place to sleep and I was basically going to beg it from him. But he offered it to me almost right away. I guess I wasn't as subtle as I thought. Or maybe it's just some family thing. I haven't had to much of a family and I guess I wasn't sure exactly what the strange relationship Luke and I had could be defined as. Normal? Abnormal? I find it doesn't matter. We are both fine with it.
I loved Rory about a day into knowing her. And I love her more today. Thank God (again) that no one will ever read this, as it would not be good for my aging heart if I knew such junk from me was loose in the general public.
I see her every day. Every day I am the one who gets to brush her hair out of her face and kiss her.
But still I end every night by Writing To Rory, while she sleeps about two feet away from my desk.




THE END