Title: Finding Family (Part 10) Author: Sirius Rating: PG Spoilers: None Pairing: R/J Summary: Rory and Jess find that they are supposed to be together. Jess gets a visit from someone in New York, which leads to a very complicated week.

[HOSPITAL ROOM]

(Jess is sitting in an uncomfortable chair by the window when Dustin speaks his name. He stands up stiffly and makes his way over to the bed where his dying friend lays. Mrs. Freeman leaves the room to let the two talk and takes Carly out in the hall with her.)

Jess: Hey man, how are you holding up?

Dustin: I can't complain. (He gives a small smile)

Jess: Look, dude, I'm sorry I haven't been around a lot lately.

Dustin: Don't worry about it, everything's cool. The guys need you though. They come in here just about everyday and hang for an hour or so, but that's only when they get time away from practice.

Jess: How are they doing?

Dustin: They're starting to cave a little under the pressure.

Jess: Blake graduated already right? And Michael too?

Dustin: Yeah, and they've both skipped college to practice full-time. I think they're starting to regret it.

Jess: They can't regret it! Not now, when they're so close. They've got such a great thing going!

Dustin: I know, but with you and I gone I think they're starting to fall apart. Zachary is trying to hold them together, but I don't think he sees it from the same perspective.

Jess: Oh man, this isn't good.

Dustin: Yeah, I know. Listen dude, I'm real tired, I think I'm gonna try to go to sleep.

Jess: Okay, I'll be back in a few hours. See ya later man.

(Jess quietly leaves the room and goes out into the hallway where Carly, Mrs. Freeman, and Rory are waiting. Carly eagerly goes up to Jess with an anxious look on her face.)

Carly: How is he? Is he okay?

Jess: Yeah, he's fine. He's tired though and he said he was going to take a nap.

Mrs. Freeman: He hasn't been sleeping much at night, a nap will be good for him. (Carly looks relieved. Jess walks over to Rory and she stands up. He wraps his arms around her and she hugs him close.)

Rory: (Whispers) Are you okay?

Jess: Yeah, I'll be fine.

Rory: You sure?

Jess: (Sighs) Yeah, positive. I'm gonna go for a walk though.

Rory: Want some company?

Jess: I need to be alone if that's okay. I'll be back in an hour or so.

Rory: (Doesn't seem to be bothered, just sympathetic) Okay, I understand.

(Jess walks off down the hall, watched worriedly by Rory, Carly, and Mrs. Freeman. He leaves the hospital and hurries down the street. He needs to get away from Dustin, from the hospital, from everything. But he can't go home; he doesn't have a home to run to. Instead, he just keeps running. Finally, he ends up in Washington Square Park and stops to sit on the bench Rory found him at months ago.)

Jess: (Talking to himself) Oh my God. Why Dustin? What did he ever do? He was always the best one of us, the one with the tighter grip on reality. Why him?

(Behind Jess in the park, you see three guys walking and looking around. Two have guitar cases with them and they all are dressed in semi-skater attire.)

Guy 1: God, where is he?

Guy 2: Jess!

Guy 3: Jess, where are you, man?

(Jess looked up at the three guys and smiled. It had been so long since he's seen them. They looked exactly the same though.)

Jess: Blake? Zachary? Michael? What are you guys doin here?

Zachary: Trying to find you! Dude, come on! (Starts running, the other two guys run after him, toting their guitars.)

Jess: Come on where? (Following them and running too.)

Blake: The hospital.

Michael: Carly is going crazy man.

Jess: What happened?

Blake: The machines started beeping and the nurses came in. It's complete chaos dude.

Jess: Is he okay?

Michael: It's not looking good.

Jess: Dammit! (Starts running faster)

[HOSPITAL HALLWAY]

(Jess, Michael, Zachary, and Blake run out of the elevator and see Mrs. Freeman, Carly, and Rory sitting in the uncomfortable chairs.)

Jess: How's he doing?

Carly: (Stands up and runs into his arms. She's been crying for a while now, Jess can tell, and he wraps his arms around her small body.) Jess. (sniffle) Dustin, he's . . . (sniffle) he's in a coma. The machines went haywire and . . . then the doctors came in and . . . they say there's not much time left.

Jess: Shh, it'll be okay. Dustin's a fighter. Shh, don't worry. He'll be fine. (Jess looked hopelessly at Rory who looked very uncomfortable. He didn't know what to do. There was nothing he could do and he didn't like it.) It's okay Carly, everything's gonna be fine. He's gonna be fine.

(Blake, Michael, and Zachary are trying to comfort Mrs. Freeman as a doctor came out of Dustin's room. Mrs. Freeman stood up quickly and wiped the tears from her face.)

Mrs. Freeman: How is he?

Doctor: (Looks grim) I'm sorry Mrs. Freeman. We did everything we could, but we lost him.

Mrs. Freeman: (Puts a shaky hand to her mouth, closes her eyes, and sobs. Blake comes up to her from behind, lets her fall into his arms, and tries to console her.) Oh God. Dustin. Oh my God.

Blake: I'm so sorry Mrs. Freeman. Don't beat yourself up about it. There was nothing we could do.

(In the background Michael and Zachary hang their heads, Carly clings helplessly to Jess who continues to try and comfort her, and Rory looks even more uncomfortable than before.)

Jess: Shh, Carly it's okay. He's not suffering anymore. It's better for him now.

Carly: No! You don't understand. You can't ever understand. It's Dustin! That wasn't supposed to happen to him! I loved him!

Jess: I know, Carly, I know. (He hugs her close and whispers into her ear.) We all did.

Carly: (Quietly) I never even told him.

Jess: He knew.

Carly: (Looks up at Jess) How do you know?

Jess: When you love someone, they just know. (Jess looks up at Rory and Rory nods back to him.)

(After another ten minutes or so, the group slowly starts to leave. Blake, Michael, and Zachary leave together in one car to go back to practice. Rory, Jess, and Carly leave in their own car and head back to Stars Hollow. They told Mrs. Freeman that they would be back in a few days, and she left to go make funeral arrangements.)

[JESS' CAR]

(The ride back to Stars Hollow was a quiet one for the most part. Carly sat in the backseat crying silently and Jess was still behind the wheel. Rory couldn't remember a time where she had no idea how to act. If she spoke, she might say the wrong thing, but then again, she felt bad not saying anything to comfort either of them. Thankfully, it was Jess who spoke first.)

Jess: It's not fair.

Rory: (Looks up startled when Jess talks) It's never fair.

Jess: Why him though? He's never done anything.

Rory: You don't have to have done something to be unlucky.

Jess: That still doesn't make it right.

Rory: I know. But it's true.

Jess: What are we going to do without him? He was my best friend. I needed him. We needed him. We can't find another guitarist.

Rory: What?

Jess: We're a band.

Rory: You have a band? You never told me you had a band.

Jess: Yeah, well, I didn't know how to tell you.

Rory: What's the name?

Jess: Good-Natured Delinquents.

Rory: Hmm, interesting.

Jess: We started in the seventh grade, we need to work on the name.

Rory: No, it works. For you at least. (They sit in silence for a minute until Rory starts to crack up laughing.) Oh my God, do you sing?

Jess: What?

Rory: In the band, do you sing?

Jess: What does that have to do with anything?

Rory: Oh come on, you sing don't you.

Jess: I, wha . . .

Rory: You sing! When's your next gig?

Jess: Next Friday.

Rory: Okay, I am so coming to see you.

Jess: Don't tell Luke. I am serious. You tell Luke and you're in big trouble. Plus, what about your dinner with your grandparents?

Rory: Oh, I'll get out of it. This is too good. Besides, you wouldn't punish me.

Jess: I just might be forced to.

Rory: You like me too much to hurt me.

Jess: Well, I won't have to because you are not going to tell Luke. Anyway, without Dustin we might not have a band anyway.

Rory: Can't you go without a second guitarist for one gig?

Jess: We can't find anyone as good as Dustin. And even if we did, he wouldn't have the chemistry.

Rory: Maybe not, but would Dustin want you to give up on your dream?

Jess: Who said it was my dream?

Rory: I don't know, I guess I just thought that if you were in a band, that was what you wanted to do with your life.

Jess: Well, maybe it was. I don't know anymore. I can't do it without Dustin.

Rory: You can if you want to. Don't think of it as doing it without Dustin, think of it as doing it for Dustin.

(Jess looked over at Rory and stared at her for a minute. His mind was so screwed up then that he didn't want to risk saying anything. He couldn't play without Dustin. He knew he couldn't. It wouldn't be the same. Nothing would be the same anymore. The three drove on for another ten minutes or so and no one said anything. Carly continued to sit quietly in the back of the car but she had stopped crying. The radio had been turned on at a low volume a few minutes ago because the silence was hard to any of them to bear.)

Carly: (Quietly) Play the gig.

Jess: What? (He turned the radio off so he could hear Carly's soft voice.)

Carly: Play the gig.

Jess: No. (His voice was firm and there was a sadness in it that was discomforting.)

Carly: Play the gig. He would want you to.

Jess: I can't.

Carly: Do it for Dustin.

Jess: Not Saturday. Maybe the week after.

Carly: If you don't do it now, you never will. Play the gig.

Jess: It's too soon.

Carly: Jess, please. Play the gig.

Jess: Why is this so important to you?

Carly: Because it would have been important to him.

Jess: (Looks at Carly through the rearview mirror and sighs. He doesn't agree but she knew he would do it.) I'll talk to the guys.

Carly: Thank you.

(About twenty minutes later, the trio pulled into a parking space to Luke's and they all stepped out. Carly's face was tear stained and Jess looked exhausted. Rory's mood was brightened by the knowledge of Jess in a band, but she still looked tired. It had been a long night. Jess opened the door to the diner and let Rory and Carly walk in before he did. Lorelai was sitting at the counter, talking with Luke and drinking her fourth cup of coffee for the night. No one else was in the diner because it was closed, seeing as how it was 9:00. Carly went directly upstairs and Jess knew not to follow her. Rory ran to her mother's side and hugged her closely. Luke came around from the other side of the counter and stood awkwardly in front of Jess.)

Luke: How is he?

Jess: How did you know?

Luke: Liz called.

Jess: Ha, for once she cared.

Luke: She said you stopped by to use her phone or something and that you were real worried about a friend of yours. How is he?

Jess: He died. Cancer. The doctors couldn't do anything to stop it. (Jess started to cry. Luke had never seen him cry and he got really uncomfortable. He wasn't sure what to do and in the end he put a hand on his shoulder. Lorelai, who'd been listening in on the conversation while sitting with Rory, came up and hugged Jess. Of all people to hug, Lorelai was the last one he'd expected, but the hug came as a comfort and he let her.)

Lorelai: I'm so sorry Jess. That's not fair to happen to someone so young. (Lorelai motioned Rory over and let her daughter take her place in hugging Jess. This time Jess held on for dear life and cried harder. Lorelai mouthed "I'm gonna go" to Luke and gestured for him to leave Rory and Jess alone. Luke waved her goodbye and started up the stairs that Carly had climbed earlier. Jess let go of Rory after a few minutes and looked embarrassed.)

Jess: Sorry.

Rory: Don't be. This must be incredibly hard for you. (The two sat opposite each other in a booth and Jess set his hands out on the table to stabilize him.)

Jess: He was my best friend. The best guy I ever knew.

Rory: Tell me about him. (Her eyes looked straight into his, telling him to go on if he wanted, but she understood if he wanted to drop it. After a minute of silence, the words started to come.)

Jess: It . . . he . . . there couldn't have been a greater guy. He knew everything about music, and he was always the one pushing us to do better in the band. He was smart, he was nice, and he was cool. He had the bad- ass, punk, don't give a damn about anybody act down pat, but the best part was, he really wasn't any of that when you got to know him.

Rory: He sounds a lot like you.

Jess: He was so much better than I was. He had plans to go somewhere with his life. He wanted to be somebody.

Rory: Sounds like he was. (The pair sat in silence for a minute and Jess smiled.)

Jess: Man, I remember one time . . .

(A/N: Hey guys, sorry this took so long to update. I always want to start a new story rather than update an old one, but I forced this chapter out. There will be at least one more chapter to this story, but after that, I'm not sure. I want to focus on finishing my others. Thanks for reading, and as always, please review! ~Amanda)