A/N: Thanks so much to all of the reviewers. And thanks to Loz, Helen, Summer, Katherine, Joan, and Lauren.

Hey, everyone, I know this may be the wrong audience, but I'm cowriting a Trory with Joan (bibleboymary4ever) called "Lost Without You." You should definitely check it out.

Disclaimer: I figure since this is my longest preamble yet, I should add another one of these just to be safe . . . anyway, I have nothing. So please don't sue me, Amy Sherman-Palladino, I really admire you and it would suck if you were the first to put me in jail.

Oh, and if anyone caught it, I labeled the last chapter as Chapter 3 before the actual chapter started . . . I was tired. It was Chapter 5. So, by the laws of numbers, here is . . .

Chapter 6

Rory walked into the office Monday morning with an uncertain stride and a shaky smile on her face. She got the paranoid feeling that everyone around her knew what had almost happened Saturday night. She shook it off -- not possible, most of them didn't even know her name, much less exactly who she worked for.

She passed the front desk. "Miss Gilmore," Cheryl, the front desk receptionist, called out to her.

Rory froze. How did she know? Was Jess talking? What if everyone knew, and --

Stop it, Gilmore. You're being ridiculous. No one knows or cares what happened on that bridge.

She turned back to the desk. "Yes?"

Cheryl handed her a piece of paper. "Evan Anderson gave this to me for you to proofread."

Rory breathed an unnecessary sigh of relief. "Oh. Okay." She mainly worked for Jess, but every now and then, she was asked to help out another staff writer.

She took the article and walked to Jess' office. Rory stopped and considered going to the bathroom to avoid him for five more minutes, but decided against it. Instead she raised her hand to the door and knocked.

No answer. She knocked again. Still nothing. And surprisingly, the door wasn't locked. Rory decided to walk straight in.

She entered the empty office. The computer was already on and papers were sufficiently shuffled on the desk. Rory assumed Jess had already gotten to the building and had just stepped out of his office for a moment.

Her theory proved correct, since as soon as she thought it, Jess walked in the door, holding a cup of freshly poured coffee. He stopped when he saw her standing next to his desk.

"Oh. Hello," he said.

"Hello," she answered in a voice a little higher-pitched than usual due to nervousness. She gestured to the cup. "You got your own?"

"Yeah," he said. Now he was forced to move closer to her in order to set the hot cup down on his desk. "I figured I'd spare you the torture of making a cup of fake coffee."

She smiled. So far, so good. He was being pretty nice to her.

"Well, thanks for thinking of me," Rory said.

"Not a problem."

She took in the possible double meaning of that statement. Did he mean the coffee was no problem? Or that thinking of her in general was easy for him? Or was she -- and this was a distinct possibility -- overthinking it all, and he had just been trying to make a casual reply to clear the air?

Jess wasn't sure what to do in this situation. He hadn't ever dealt with anything like this before. Was he supposed to talk directly to her about it, or were they supposed to move on as if nothing had ever happened? His head was full of thoughts, unfortunately, they were swimming together and he couldn't separate one from the other.

He decided to sit in his chair. "So, uh, I have this article for you to proof," he stammered.

She raised her eyebrows. "You want me to what?"

"Are you deaf? I want you to proofread it. You know, check for mistakes, flaws in the style --"

"I know what proofing is," she interrupted. "Just . . . I thought you didn't make mistakes."

He looked at her. "Sometimes. Everyone makes a mistake every now and then."

Rory understood what he was telling her. Saturday night had been a mistake; it was just something that happened that they would never speak of again.

She swallowed. "Okay, what's the article on?"

"The article on New York City's Teacher of the Year," Jess told her with a roll of his eyes. "Every now and then they throw me this human interest crap and I have to do it."

Rory smiled. "Human interest crap? I think it's nice, honoring a teacher like that for their hard work. What they do is important."

"Yeah, you obviously never had any teachers like mine," Jess answered. "They would make you swear off ever stepping inside a school again."

Rory smiled a little. "Well, I guess I'll go proof this and get it back to you as soon as possible."

"You do that," Jess said, swiveling his chair toward the computer. "I want it on my desk at lunchtime."

She smiled once more, and then left to sit in her small cubicle and proofread.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jess thought he had done a pretty good job with the situation he had been handed. Rory seemed all right, he felt all right, and he could even feel himself being nicer to her.

He yawned as he put some file folders back in order on his desk. He was about to get up and go get lunch when he caught some movement out of the corner of his eye.

"Jess."

He looked up. The door was standing open, in contrast to how Rory closed it when she left earlier.

"Elizabeth." Jess got her name out through clenched teeth. This would be fun.

"Hi," she said, walking over to him.

"Hi," he answered, standing up. "Now, if you'll excuse me, it's my lunch break."

"One syllable and I'm excused?"

"Well, I figured I wouldn't string you along for two years and then excuse you," Jess retorted.

Elizabeth sighed. "Look, Jess. I'm sorry about that. I'm here because I really want to talk to you. I want to talk about . . . us."

"Kind of hard to talk about something nonexistent, wouldn't you say?"

"Jess, just stop being a wiseass for one second and let me talk!" Elizabeth nearly shouted. "Look, about 'us' being nonexistent . . . I want 'us' to come into being again."

"Fabio left you?"

"Jacob," Elizabeth said, narrowing her eyes. "And no, he didn't leave me. I left him."

"Gotta say, Lizzie, you're not making your case real strong here," Jess said sarcastically. "I mean, you've left me once, the guy you left me for once, and who knows how many other relationships you've bailed on."

"But I bailed on Jacob because I realized it was the wrong thing to do with you," Elizabeth pointed out. "And I really want to start seeing you again."

"How does it feel to want?" he asked. He snatched his coat. "Elizabeth, you can't turn our relationship on and off like a faucet. You said it's over months ago. So, it's over. Now, really, I have to go eat."

Jess turned to go, but Elizabeth put her hand on his shoulder. "Let me eat with you."

Jess knew he shouldn't even answer her. He was going to fall back into her trap if he wasn't careful. But he couldn't help it -- her mere hand touching his shoulder brought back a flood of memories, good and bad.

The good overpowered the bad, as was the norm in the male mind, and Jess slightly relented. "Whatever. I'm going to the pizza place down on the corner." Elizabeth hated pizza joints -- if she declined, Jess wouldn't feel guilty about not giving her a chance.

Elizabeth smiled. "Okay. I'm coming too."

"You hate pizza places. You think they're all seedy and poor because they can't afford good lighting and --"

Elizabeth silenced him. "I'm coming too."

Jess looked at her for a minute. Then he pointed out the door. "Okay then. After you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rory stood up from her cubicle, cramped from sitting in such a small area for so long. She picked up her two edited pieces, one for Evan and one for Jess, and set off to deliver them to their writers before stopping for lunch.

Rory first took Evan his piece. "Hey," she said, stopping in his door. "Cheryl gave this to me to look over. Here's my revised copy."

"Thanks," Evan muttered, not looking away from his computer. Rory set the paper down on his desk and tiptoed out, hardly wanting to disturb the silence in his office.

Then she went to Jess' office. But before she quite reached the door, she saw something very unexpected.

Jess was walking to the front entrance of the building with a girl. A very pretty blonde, around his own height. They appeared to be leaving together.

Rory wondered who the girl was. She didn't recognize her from around the office; no, it was someone Jess knew from somewhere else. A sister, maybe? Yeah, right, an obvious Italian with a blonde sister.

Then who? Surely he wasn't seeing anyone, not with the situation Saturday night.

Rory found herself wondering why she cared so much. Then she realized (or maybe it was that she finally acknowledged) it -- in the week since she met Jess Mariano, or even possibly in the day and a half since the bridge, she had fallen for him.

And the emotion she felt watching him go somewhere with another girl? Definitely jealousy.

A/N: So what did you think? Tell me and I'll love you forever. Well . . . don't feel like writing a big ending note like I planned, so I'll just say I hope to update again in the next couple of days. So until then . . .

~Lauren