Disclaimer: You know I don't own it...my mediocre writing should be a telltale sign. By the way, the song from the last chapter was by Norah Jones, and this one is If I Had It All by DMB
Author's Notes: And here, you have the second chapter. I'm not exactly sure where this story is going to go, but...I'll keep writing until you all beg me to stop. Would I stop writing then? Maybe not. Point being, I'm in for just as much of a strange ride as you are, so just sit back and enjoy for what it is. If there's anything to enjoy.
Fate's Fingers
by ordinarywords
Chapter 2
The coffee shop became a quiet respite for Rory over the next few days. With midterm examinations looming over her head, she seemed to do nothing in her spare time but pour over various textbooks. And Jess seemed to enjoy nothing more than to observe her in quiet contentment. It was all the way it had been, simply in a different setting.
*
*
The night was quiet, dark, and December-icy cold. The whisper of the wind shook the glass on the door every so often, the rattling ringing clear through the nearly silent shop. Empty coffee cups sat on abandoned tables, begging to be cleaned, but Jess ignored it all and watched her hair spill over her back and her eyelashes blink and flutter tiredly like defeated angel wings as she studied.
"I think reading something 3 times qualifies for knowing the material overly well."
"You can never be too prepared."
"Or too insanely conscientious."
"Well, what happens if I fail? I mean, then I won't pass because they count for such a big fraction of my grade, and I'll have to repeat the year, and I'll never graduate-"
Jess resisted the urge to laugh at her rambling. She would never fail. A strange emotion came over him in the heavy glow of the shop. He fought the sudden urge to reach out to her, just to feel her warm skin against his, her eyes burning into him with an unnamed intensity, her skin quiet, heated and velvety under his work-withered fingers. Then he quickly shook that thought away as he cut her off to tease. That feeling was eerily familiar, and he hadn't intended to let it resurface so quickly.
"Or maybe that should've just been too insane."
"Sorry. It's the caffeine overdose," she admitted, her eyes dancing like tiny flames in the semi-darkness, a sheepish smile on her rosy mouth. Her eyes flicked over his well-defined jaw line, and his twisted lips.
"Never thought I'd live to hear a Gilmore admitting to a caffeine overdose. There's the shock of the day."
"I guess I have enough rationale left to say that 6 cappuccinos in a row is overdoing it a little....maybe."
"But do you have enough rationale to know when it's time to put a textbook down for five minutes?"
"I can only put my textbook down when I know I'm doing something else that's useful," she replied, and she let loose hidden undertones with that statement that were unintended and unnoticed by her. Jess picked them up and began to wish he were 17 again, all the while trying to press thoughts of possible useful things she could do with her mouth on his out of his mind.
She stared back, unblinking and wide-eyed for a moment, and then closed her textbook. She pulled an article out of her bag instead, trying her best to ignore a faint, familiar tremor in her legs, behind her knees. Jess immediately recognized the magazine, and his eyes crinkled the slightest bit at the corners.
"You've been following his articles too, huh? I should've known. Exhibiting predictability again, I see."
"Yep, and it was a comfort in consistency type of thing. His opinions were refreshing, but they all had that same pessimistic undertone. Until this week, that is, when he did a complete 180 and started talking about serendipity and all this other optimistic crap."
"Now that's where you're being unpredictable. I had you pegged as the sappy, hopeless-romantic-soul mates-and-all-that-shit type."
"Who says that I'm not?" she bantered back, feisty and burning, crazy happy and fighting back all at once.
"I'm just saying," she continued "That the author either has some type of muse all of a sudden or he's a complete schizophrenic."
"Maybe he just changed his mind."
"For no apparent reason at all? That's doubtful."
"Maybe something happened that caused him to change his philosophy."
"And how would you know? Why are you suddenly so familiar with this particular columnist?"
"Hey, just a wild guess," he replied, with an indecipherable smirk, and he finally decided to let her finish studying in peace. He had to get some work done. For a while, they just stayed that way, quiet and satisfied. Whole.
*
*
After one last warm mug had been downed, and Rory had spent her last free minutes glancing over her books again, she finally decided it was time to go. Gathering her things slowly and methodically, she silently willed him to come out from the back. Within seconds, he emerged, his arms full of replenished sugar canisters. As he set them on the tables, Rory bid him goodnight, but turned and asked one more question.
"Hey, how come this place isn't decorated for the holidays?"
"Not everyone is as Christmas-crazy as your average former Stars-Hollow resident."
"Couldn't you at least put up some lights or something?"
"Commercialism at it's best, that's all it is."
"Grinch," she accused softly, a smile floating somewhere in the dim air between them. With a final wave, she left and headed out into the night, leaving Jess with only his pen and paper for company.
*
*
Much later, Rory found herself up thinking about him again. This was just like old times. Only Dean wasn't here. Shane was a distant memory. There was nothing standing in her way. The she vaguely acknowledged the fact that he could have a girlfriend. She watched the city slowly surrender to the night and early morning as she wondered why she was even bothering to think this way. They had just met up again, and she couldn't be thinking like this after only a few days. But memories resurfaced, and the more she thought about their past, the more she began to long for him the way she couldn't have him before.
*
*
RORY: You know you're smarter than most everybody at your school. It takes you like five minutes to finish a book. You read everything, you remember everything, you could ace those classes easily. Why don't you? You don't need a tutor. It's crazy that they're talking about leaving you back.
JESS: Whatever.
RORY: You can do anything you wanted, you can be anything you wanted.
JESS: Rory.
RORY: I. . .is it like a cool thing?
JESS: I could care less about being cool.
RORY: Well, inform me, please.
JESS: I'm never going to college, why waste the time in high school?
RORY: And why aren't you going to college?
JESS: Please.
RORY: What? Please what – why is it so crazy?
JESS: Ask my mother, she could give you a couple reasons. Oh, and I'm sure Principal Mertin can chime in with a few good ones. In fact, ask your mother. She doesn't know me all that well but I'm sure she could improvise a few things.
RORY: Do not give me that whole 'I'm so misunderstood, Kurt Cobainy' thing. You are way stronger than that and I don't even wanna hear it. You have to go to college.
JESS: No, you have to go to college.
RORY: But don't you have any plans?
JESS: Yes, I plan to get out of Stars Hollow.
RORY: And go where?
JESS: Wherever.
RORY: And do what?
JESS: Whatever.
RORY: Wherever, whatever.
JESS: I'll live where I live, I'll work when I need money, and I'll see where I end up.
RORY: You could do more.
JESS: Oh, here come the pompoms.
RORY: No, no pompoms, just me saying you could do more.
JESS: So, Courtney, what about you?
RORY: What about me?
JESS: What are your big ambitions?
RORY: Harvard.
JESS: And after Harvard?
RORY: I'm gonna be a journalist.
JESS: Paula Zahn?
RORY: Christiane Amapour
JESS: You're gonna be an overseas correspondent?
RORY: Yes, I am.
JESS: You're gonna crawl around in trenches and stand on top of buildings and have bombs going off in the background and some wars raging all around you?
RORY: What, you don't think I can do it?
JESS: No, I do. Just sounds a little too – .
RORY: A little what?
JESS: Just sounds a little too rough for you.
RORY: Well, it's not a little too rough for me. I hope it's not a little too rough for me, I've been talking about this forever. I mean, I don't even know what I would do if – .
JESS: Hey, I didn't mean to freak you out. I'm sorry. I'm sure you'll do it. You will, I promise. I'll help you practice, okay? Tomorrow, you'll stand in the middle of the street and I will drive straight at you screaming in a foreign language.
RORY: Well, you're gonna have to learn a foreign language first.
JESS: Well, it's lucky I've got me a tutor, isn't it?
*
*
RORY: What are you doing here?
JESS: Hello to you, too.
RORY: Is everything okay?
JESS: You look nice.
RORY: Thank you. What are you doing here?
JESS: I moved back.
RORY: What?
JESS: I moved back.
RORY: But – what – why?
JESS: Just wanted to.
[Rory kisses him, catching them both off guard.]
RORY: Oh my God! Oh my God!
JESS: Rory.
RORY: Don't say a word!
JESS: Okay.
RORY: I have to go. [runs away] Oh, welcome home!
*
*
JESS: Her name's Shane.
RORY: As in 'come back'?
JESS: Yup.
RORY: Well, great. That's great. Really, it's great.
JESS: So I've heard.
RORY: Well, it is.
JESS: Are you upset about something?
RORY: No.
JESS: I mean, me and Shane –
RORY: What about you and Shane?
JESS: I don't know, it didn't exactly bring a smile to your face.
RORY: Well, I'm still freaked out about the, uh, snowcone machine.
JESS: Okay.
RORY: I could care less about you and Shane.
JESS: Good.
RORY: It just surprised me, that's all.
JESS: Why?
RORY: Because.
JESS: Because why?
RORY: Because of what happened at Sookie's wedding.
JESS: Ah.
RORY: Yeah, so me coming back here and just seeing you with Shane just kind of threw me for a sec.
JESS: I'm sorry, did I hear from you at all this summer? Did I just happen to miss the thousands of phone calls you made to me, or did the postman happen to lose all those letters you wrote to me? You kiss me, you tell me not to say anything. . .very flattering, by the way. You go off to Washington. . . then nothing. Then you come back here all put out because I didn't just sit around and wait for you like Dean would've done? And yeah, what about Dean? Are you still with him? 'Cause last time I checked, you were, and I haven't heard anything to the contrary. Plus, the two of you walking around the other day like some damn Andy Hardy movie. Seemed to me like you're still pretty together. I half expected you to break into a barn and put on a show.
RORY: When did you see me with Dean?
JESS: At that stupid summer insanity plea the town put on.
RORY: Oh, I'm surprised you could see anything with Shane's head plastered to your face.
JESS: You didn't answer me.
RORY: About what?
JESS: Did you call me at all?
RORY: No.
JESS: Did you send me a letter?
RORY: No.
JESS: Postcard?
RORY: No.
JESS: Smoke signal?
RORY: Stop.
JESS: A nice fruit basket?
RORY: Enough!
JESS: Are you still with Dean? Come on, Rory, yes or no – are you still with Dean?
RORY: Yes, I'm still with Dean, yes!
JESS: Glad to hear it.
RORY: Glad to tell you.
JESS: See you around.
RORY: Whatever.
JESS: Right back at ya.
*
*
Reminiscing further, Rory sank back into the couch, shutting her eyes and remembering more moments that stood out in her memory, moments that marked the past with what should have been. Before giving herself over to bleary, colored, morning dreams, she wondered if Jess ever though about it. If she only knew.
*
*
Sometimes I can't
move my feet it seems
As if I'm stuck in the ground somehow like a tree
As if I can't even breathe
Oh, and my screams come whispering out
As if nobody can even see me
Like a ghost, sometimes I can't see myself
Sometimes, then again, oh
If I were a king
If I had everything
If I had you and I could give you your dreams
If I were giant-sized, on top of it all
Then tell me what in the world would I sing for
If I had it all
Sometimes I feel lost
As I pull you out like strings of memories
Wish I could weave them into you
Then I could figure the whole damn puzzle out
Then again, oh
And if I were a king
If I had everything
If I had you and I could give you your dreams
If I were giant-sized, on top of it all
Then tell me what in the world would I go on for
If I had it all
I could take anything
If I had no greed to bring
Only the poison that's tainting the clean
Oh, then nothing
Remembering times much younger than me now
When my breath was light
When the world raised me up kind
And here mother comforts child
Every moment was waking up
But now I've grown tired... out
If I had it all, you know
I'd fuck it up
If I were a king
If I had everything
If I had you and I could give you your dreams
If I were giant-sized, on top of it all
Then tell me what in the world would I sing for...
If I were a king
If I had everything, piece by piece
If I had you if I could give you your dreams
If I were giant-sized, on top of it all
Then tell me what in the world would I go on for
If I had it all
If I had it all
If I had it all
*
*
Drop me a line...I know it isn't much of a plot yet, but it'll get better, don't worry.