I wrote this after seeing the previews for next week's episode. It's kind of an in-defense-of-Jess thing, and the later chapters (if there are any) will probably be R/J-ish. Review and I will love you forever! Tell me what you think.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls. ~*sigh*~ But I do own Mel.
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Luke rushed frantically through the apartment, pushing piles of clothing and CDs to the floor in his mad search for keys. Rory and Jess, in a car accident… he would never forgive himself if either of them died. Rory he cared for like his own daughter, and Jess… well, even though he never showed it, he really did care about the kid. A little.
Blood rushed to his head as he stormed around, heedlessly shoving anything unfortunate enough to be in his path to the ground in frustration. He was nearly frantic with anxiety. He had to get to the hospital.
"Aha!" A telltale glimmer caught his eye and he swooped down on Jess' desk, where his keys lay. Grabbing them and shoving them into his pockets, he was about to rush out to his car when a slightly crumpled piece of paper on Jess' desk caught his attention. Pausing, he glanced at it, shoving a battered copy of The Secret Sharer out of the way to get a better look. A half written letter, to one of Jess' friends… he must have been writing it when Rory came to ask him over to her house. The envelope lay nearby. It was addressed in Jess' strangely neat handwriting to a Mel Cervantes. Hesitating, he fingered the envelope for several seconds before grabbing a pen and a piece of paper, scrawling a quick message over it. It would be nice for Jess to have a friend with him… if he survived…
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The slightly disgruntled fifteen-year-old rubbed her eyes as she stumbled down the apartment stairs to the lobby below. Pushing open the creaking door, she made her sleepy way towards the mailboxes lined across the opposite wall. At 8:00 on a Saturday morning, it was deserted, and her footsteps were strangely loud as they echoed through the sun filled room. She glanced groggily out the window, taking in the smoggy traffic that clogged the New York streets. With fumbling fingers, she pulled the key to her family's P. O. box from her pocket, shoving it into the lock and swinging the door open. Three letters. Not bad.
Slamming the door shut, she made her way upstairs once more. Bills, bills, Jess! She paused, a smile flashing over her face. Tucking the bills under her arm, she ripped the envelope open, unfolding the slightly crumpled letter and glancing over its contents. She froze in shock, her eyes widening as she read it a second time, her lips mouthing the words as she read.
She slowly lowered the letter, her eyes dazed with shock. Then, without further ado, she stormed up the stairs to her apartment.
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Two days later…
She was going to kill Jess.
Lorelai stood helplessly over Rory's bed, tears spilling over her cheeks. Rory had always been the strong one; she never got sick, she never got hurt. It was always Lorelai who went to her daughter for comfort, who got her boo-boos kissed and her bruises patted. But now there Rory lay, the strong one, her pale face covered in bloody gashes and her left arm and leg in casts. She had nearly been killed. All because of Jess.
Rory had been conscious for an hour or so the day before, and had told them what had happened; how Jess had taken his hands from the wheel and told her to take control of the car. But she hadn't, and the car had smashed headlong into a tree.
It was all Jess' fault.
Rory's reaction to the accident had been odd. She had quickly asked if Jess was all right, and upon finding that he was in stable condition, settled back into her sheets, her face untensing slightly and some of the worry leaving her face. But still, her skin had been as white as the pillow she rested on. And her eyes held a strange, empty look that Lorelai had never seen in them before. It unnerved her. No, it terrified her, because she knew that the Rory who left this hospital would never be the same innocent little girl who had entered it.
She ran a trembling hand over her daughter's face, stroking aside the stray strands of hair that covered her face. It wasn't until then, seeing her daughter lying prone in a hospital room, that she realized how lost she would be without her.
"Excuse me, miss."
Lorelai, jolted, surprised, at the sound of the nurse's voice. She quickly turned, smiling and wiping tears from her flushed cheeks. "Yes?"
"I'm sorry, but visiting hours are over now. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
Lorelai had a wild urge to storm over and slam the door in the nurse's face, and spend the night there with her daughter, but she merely reaching down and squeezed Rory's hand, nodding. The nurse stood back slightly, holding the door open for her to exit through. Lorelai slowly walked from the room, her footsteps heavy. When she had crossed the threshold, she turned for one last time to gaze at her daughter. She was so pale, so vulnerable…
She sighed and turned, adjusting her purse on her shoulder as she began to walk down the unnervingly spotless hall. She gasped and stumbled slightly as someone collided into her and then rushed past, not even bothering to throw a quick 'sorry' over their shoulder. Lorelai spun around, preparing to snap at whoever it was, but the words died in her throat as she watched the offender.
She was a mere girl of fifteen, her blue eyes flashing worriedly as she scanned the doors lining hallway. Hair the same shade as her eyes hung messily over her forehead, and several metal studs made themselves known on her lip and eyebrows. An incalculable amount of zippers clacked on plaid pants as she stalked up and down the passageway, her eyes darting back and forth. She was clearly concerned, and was nearly twitching with anxiety. She probably hadn't even noticed Lorelai, preoccupied as she was. Lorelai's eyes softened as she watched the girl, hovering like a clumsy, overgrown moth in the hospital hallway. She looked so out of place, so helpless in her fear.
"Hey, hon," Lorelai called softly, "I'm sorry, but I think visiting hours are over."
The girl glanced up, her intense blue eyes burning into her. "I know. That nurse just told me. I punched her lights out."
Err… ok. Maybe not so helpless.
Lorelai raised her eyebrows. "Oh… really? Did you? That's very… nice of you."
Her comment went unnoticed. The girl continued prowling up and down the hall, staring at each room number as she past. Finally, she paused, brushing a clump of her clipped electric blue hair from her eyes as she stared at the door before her. "Here it is," she said softly, "Room 642."
She slowly swung the door open, peering inside. Lorelai, always curious (Nosy? Lorelai? Never!), couldn't help peeking over her shoulder. A dark head, a pale face… Jess. Her heart constricted with anger as she stood, frozen, in the doorway.
The girl, however, crept slowly into the darkened room, slipping her ragged duffel bag from her shoulder and gently depositing it onto a chair. She carefully settled herself on the edge of the bed, making sure not to wake the boy who slept there. Adjusting his pillows and smoothing his blankets, she looked almost like a mother, hovering worriedly over her sick child.
Blinking to adjust her eyes to the darkness of the room, Lorelai realized that Jess was just as beat up as Rory had been, if not more. Stitches laced his face, making his head look somewhat like an overgrown baseball, and both his arms were in casts. The girl bent over him, gently patting his face and smoothing his hair.
Lorelai blinked, realizing how uncannily similar this girl was to herself. She was treating Jess in nearly the exact same way she had handled her daughter, with tender anxiety. But why Jess? Why would anyone treat that… that delinquent freak with such affection? He had almost killed Rory with his carelessness. He had only brought pain and frustration into her life and Rory's. How could anyone care so much about such a person?
She couldn't suppress the boiling anger and hate that bubbled in her chest, begging for an exit. Clenching her fists, she let images of Rory's torn face flash through her mind, only igniting her frustration and anger. She had to let it out, or she would explode…
"How can you be so concerned about him? He only cares about himself; he's a selfish egomaniac!" she hissed, inwardly twinging for being so unreasonable and yelling at a girl she had just met and didn't even know, but she had to let her frustration out somehow.
She glanced up in surprise. "You know Jess?"
"Yes I know Jess, he just almost killed my daughter!"
The girl cocked her head to the side, observing Lorelai with keen eyes. "You must be Lorelai. Jess told me about you. You mean he almost killed Rory?"
Lorelai blinked. "Wait. Hold up. How do you know my name?"
She shrugged. "Jess told me. He writes to me sometimes, I was his best friend back in NY. He's told me about Stars Hollow and stuff, but the main topic of his letters is usually a certain Rory Gilmore. So she was the girl he was in the accident with?"
"Yeah, she was! And this delinquent here nearly killed her with his recklessness and his irresponsibility! He doesn't care what he does or who he hurts, as long as he has his fun and comes out unscathed!" Lorelai stormed, digging her nails into the palms of her hands. She couldn't stop herself from yelling; Rory's pale, lifeless face had sent her over the edge. It was all because of Jess. It was all his fault that this had happened.
"But he didn't," the girl said quietly.
Lorelai blinked. "What?"
"He didn't come out unscathed. I mean, just look at him. I don't think he would have done whatever he did to crash the car just for the heck of it."
"Yeah? Well, you're wrong. Listen, whatever your name is…"
"Mel."
"Yeah, well listen, Mel, Jess was the one who let go of the wheel and it's his fault the car crashed! My daughter wouldn't have to go through all this pain if he hadn't been such an idiot."
Mel's eyes darkened as she ran her fingers through Jess' tangled hair, smoothing out the knots. "He must have thought she was going to take the wheel," she said quietly, "We did that a lot when we went out. When the driver's hands were full, the person in the passenger's seat would take the wheel. It was the natural thing to do for Jess."
"But Rory isn't that reckless! You would think that after spending so much time with Rory, Jess would know that."
Mel was silent for several moments, her hands folded in her lap. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet and determined. "It takes more than six months of Stars Hollow to eradicate seventeen years of life in New York. From what I've heard of your daughter, she's different from anyone he's ever met in the city; there just aren't girls like that back at home. It was a force of habit to tell her to take the wheel. I would have done it, any other friends of ours would have done it. It would have been a perfectly natural thing to do back at home. So back off him, ok? You can't just toss someone into Hicksville and expect them to change! It just doesn't work that way. Has Rory ever nearly been raped? Yeah, well I have. Jess beat the guy up before he could get his hands on me. He's used to living on his toes, pounding the crap out of anyone who tries to cross him, or any of his friends. He's not used to this kind of environment. Did you think the whole happy-happy-joy-joy atmosphere of this town would just seep into his brain and turn him into a giggling, flower picking nancy boy in just one day?'
'So don't blame Jess. He was thrown into a place he never wanted to be in, a place where he's totally out of place. No transition phase. He's not used to life here. So stop laying all of your blame on him!"
Her voice rose as she spoke, and she raised her strangely intense blue eyes to Lorelai's face, almost daring her to speak. Lorelai flinched at her words, and glared back at Mel, anger flaring in her heart at the girl's sharp words. But even as a biting retort formed on her tongue, her resentment slowly began to ebb away, to be replaced by an intense weariness that seemed to seep into her very bones. Her eyelids suddenly felt heavy as lead and all she wanted to do was to collapse in bed and try to forget everything that had happened in the past few days. Tiredly, she ran her hands through her hair, too worn out to snap back at the girl. It was just too much for her to handle. Rory's accident, her fight with Luke, and now arguing with Jess' friend, who she didn't even know. She just didn't have the energy to fight anymore. Even worse was the growing pang of sympathy for Jess that had been growing in her chest ever since she had seen how tenderly Mel had cared for him. She had lashed out even harder at Mel because of that, trying to tell herself that Jess was the one at fault, trying to lay all the guilt she felt on a different person.
And her talk with Mel had made her realize that. It had made her realize that she was just using Jess as someone to lay her blame on, trying to convince herself that it wasn't her fault that this had happened. Even though she knew it really wasn't her fault that the car had crashed, she still couldn't eradicate that immense weight of guilt that hung over her head.
Lorelai lifted her gaze, meeting Mel's eyes. "Do you have a place to stay?"
"What?" Mel blinked, baffled by the sudden change of topic.
"I asked if you have a place to stay."
Mel frowned, looking down at her hands, folded in her lap. "Well… no. I don't. Why?"
Lorelai let her lips curve into a half-smile, the first one that had crossed her face since the accident. "Well, come on then. You're staying with me."
Mel stared at her blankly for several seconds, and then slowly rose, smiling as well. She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, and with one last look over her shoulder at Jess' sleeping form, left the room, Lorelai at her side.
Lorelai smiled as they walked down the hall, not quite sure why she was so readily trusting such a girl. She probably stole, probably did drugs, probably had no respect for authority. But she was trusting her anyway. It was something in Mel's eyes as she had shot out her opinion at her, a spark of angry honesty that had flared in those piercingly azure depths.
Maybe she had to take that same attitude towards Jess… maybe she had to stop jumping to conclusions so quickly. Maybe she had to give him a chance, in the same way that she was giving this girl a chance and not immediately assuming, because she had blue hair and a lip ring, that she was a delinquent.
Maybe she would give Jess a chance.
Maybe.
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So, that was the first chapter. Please r/r! I want your honest opinion! Flames accepted. Should I write a second chapter?