Title:
This Feeling That Remains.
Summary: In
the aftermath of the car accident, the Gilmore Girls try to pick up the pieces
and move on.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the
characters of Gilmore Girls. This
story idea is my own, although it does contain some scenes from the actual show
in places. (mainly at the beginning)
Authors Note: This fic starts during the episode Teach Me Tonight, right after Lorelai leaves Rory at the hospital to go and find Jess. It's a Java/Lit fic.
This chapter contains an excerpt from Candide by Voltaire.
Thanks to Tye for telling me I suck and that this is the worst fic ever. It's much appreciated. lol. And to the other people who read and reviewed this fic, thanks for giving it a chance.
*~*~*~*
"G'night." Rory sighed, heading for her room.
"Hey, babe. You ok?" Lorelai asked, trying not to sound too concerned.
"Fine." Rory nodded, forcing the biggest and most convincing smile she could
muster.
"Ok, well… don't go having nightmares about Kirk's dancing." Lorelai
smiled softly.
"I'll try not to." Rory said lightly, not sure if she was trying to
convince herself or Lorelai that she was ok.
"Night sweetie!"
"Night mom."
Rory took a deep breath once she was in her room. Alone. She closed her eyes.
It'd been hours since she had heard about Jess leaving. It had been the
longest 3 hours she could remember. She had just wanted to come home and curl up
on her bed. But after the movie she had to sit thought Kirk's film again. And
then Lorelai had insisted they get coffee at Luke's.
She'd sat at the counter listening to Luke and Lorelai debating how much sugar
in coffee was too much. Her eyes kept wandering over to the stairs. Her heart
quickened when she was almost certain she'd seen movement. Almost certain
she'd seen him.
But it wasn't him. If there was movement back there that night, or the next
morning, or the day after that, or the week after that… it wouldn't be him.
Jess was gone.
She felt a single tear roll down her cheek and she wiped it away quickly.
"Stop it." She muttered to herself. "So he's gone. So what?"
She let out a long unsteady breath and sat on her bed. She looked down at the
bracelet on her wrist. Her Dean bracelet. She still had no idea how to tell him
that the car was gone. That Jess had crashed it. Because that meant telling him
she was with Jess. They'd been out driving in the car Dean built for her. Jess
had been driving.
She listened to the explanation over and over in her head. It sounded worse and
worse each time. She could already see the look of disappointment and
disapproval on Dean's face.
The fact that Jess was gone would be consolation for him at least. He'd be
glad to see him gone. And maybe it was for the best. Then she and Dean could
start over, and rebuild everything they'd once had. She wanted that. She was
almost certain she wanted that. She loved Dean. She was almost certain she did.
She lay down, letting her head sink into her pillow.
Jess was gone.
Jess was gone.
Jess was gone.
It didn't seem to register. She couldn't help but think that she'd see him
the next day. She'd be at Luke's having breakfast and he'd walk past her,
giving her one of those mischievous smirks. The ones that left her wondering
what he was thinking.
Rory pushed herself up into a half sitting position and switched on the lamp
beside her bed. As she pulled her hand back she knocked a book onto the floor.
She reached down to pick it up, and frowned.
It wasn't hers. She turned it over to look at the cover.
Voltaire. Candide and Other Stories
It looked worn. It definitely wasn't new. She wondered how she hadn't
noticed it sitting there earlier. She was about to call out to Lorelai and ask
if she'd put it there. But when she opened it, the familiar hand writing in
the margins pushed that thought out of her head.
It was Jess's book.
She smiled widely. Her first genuine and heartfelt smile since she'd found out
he was gone. She flipped through the Introduction, the Select Bibliography and
the Chronology of Voltaire, until she reached the beginning of the first
chapter.
Candide, or Optimism.
Rory looked at the clock. It was almost midnight, and she had been ready to fall
into a deep sleep. But with this book in her hands she found some kind of new
alertness. And she began to read. Taking it all in at quite a speed, but making
sure she remembered it all.
Several times she cautioned herself when she turned the page and closed her
eyes, finding herself lingering on the very faint scent of him that came from
them.
A lot of the notes he'd made seemed general, his thoughts on certain things.
But some of the notes seemed more specific than others. Some of them made her
wonder if he had written them for her.
Cunegonde dropped her handkerchief, Candide picked it up. Innocently she took
his hand, innocently the young man kissed the young ladies hand, and with quite
singular vivacity, sensibility, and grace. Their mouths met, their eyes shone,
their knees trembled, their hands strayed. Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh passed by
the screen and, seeing this cause and this effect, chased Candide out of the
castle with a number of hefty kicks up the backside.
Her eyes wandered over to the margin.
Cause: Love. Effect: Loss? If there really is no effect without cause, then
maybe there's no loss without love. Not significant loss, anyway.
She read it a few times thoughtfully, and then continued with the rest of the
story.
Life is full of struggles, but it would be unproductive if people
submissively accepted whatever fate had in store for them, shrugging off their
personal responsibility.
That one had her thinking for a while, wondering if she spent too much time
waiting for things to happen to her rather than making them happen for her. Had
she shrugged of some kind of responsibility she had to herself? Did Jess think
she had?
She shook the idea from her head. It was stupid of her to even think for a
second that he was trying to tell her something.
She blamed the late hour for what she considered her insane and inappropriate
thoughts, closed the book and switched off the light.
* * * * *
A CD case hit the window and bounced back onto the passenger seat of the jeep as
Lorelai drove the 30 minutes from her business class in Hartford, to Stars
Hollow.
"Damnit, where are you?" She sighed, trying to focus on driving while
looking for a CD.
She had a sudden longing to listen to a particular song and she couldn't find
the right CD. She'd checked several CD cases before looking in the proper
case, the last place she expected to find it.
She looked up and quickly swerved back onto her own side of the road before
deciding it was safer to pull over and look.
"Oh Miss Matthews, come out, come out where ever you are!" She called,
peering under the passenger seat.
Had she been looking for an empty box of cookies, some old lip gloss, a Dido CD
or a handful of lint, she would have considered her search a success.
She reached around into the backseat, groping aimlessly until her hand fell upon
something that felt like a CD case.
"I have you now!" She almost cackled, opening the Texas case and grinning at
the sight of her Catatonia CD. "All chilled out and mellow are we, Cerys?"
She slipped it into the CD player and skipped to the track that had been playing
in her head all morning for no particular reason.
"I put horses heads in peoples beds, 'cos I am the Mob!" She sang in her
most convincing Cerys voice, starting the jeep and pulling back onto the road.
Five minutes later she was pulling over to the side of the road again, cursing
as her gas tank hit empty.
"No fair! I only just filled you up!" She shouted in frustration, hitting
the steering wheel for good measure.
She sighed deeply and ran her hand through her hair, wondering what her best
course of action would be.
* * * * *
"Luke's."
"Burger boy!" Lorelai chirped into the phone.
"I'm sorry, you have the wrong number." Luke responded dryly.
"I need you." She whimpered helplessly.
"I'm not bringing you coffee at the Inn. You want it, you come and get
it."
"I'm out of gas."
"You're what?" Luke frowned.
"Gas. I have none."
"Tell it to the head of the Tums Corporation, I got customers to serve."
"You're extra witty today Mr. Danes." She said in a warning tone.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm out of gas! I'm stranded half way between Hartford and home and I
think there's a psycho killer in the woods just over the road. He's leering
at me Luke! I can feel it! He's going to get me! You have to save me!"
"It's 4pm. I doubt he'll strike in broad daylight. You've probably got a
couple of hours before he'll venture out to gut you. May I suggest you get out
and start walking while you still have a chance?"
"Luuuuuuuuuke!" She cried like a 5 year old.
"Where are you?" He sighed impatiently.
* * * * *
Lorelai smiled as Luke's truck approached. He pulled over behind the jeep and
got out.
"Lorelai?" He called, waiting for her to join him.
Lorelai rolled down her window and stuck her head out.
"What are you doing?" He asked incredulously.
"Fill 'er up, buddy!" She smirked.
"I am not a gas pump attendant!" He sighed.
"I can't get out. It's just what Boris wants!" She scolded.
"Who is Boris?!" Luke asked in total confusion.
"The psycho killer in the woods!"
"You named him Boris?"
"I think it suits him!" She nodded for emphasis.
"Of course you do." He sighed, rolling his eyes. "Do you really expect me
to fill your tank?"
"Diiirty!" Lorelai chuckled.
"You know what I mean!"
"I know, I know." She smiled, getting out of the jeep and taking the gas
canister Luke had brought with him.
"Why did you try and drive home on so little gas anyway?" He asked, leaning
against the jeep as she refilled the tank.
"I wasn't paying attention. I'm getting ready for finals in my business
class and… my mind was too full to process any new information."
He nodded and continued to watch her.
"Have you uh… heard from your sister?" She asked idly.
"No."
"Jess?"
"No."
"Not even a courtesy call to let you know he got home safely?" She frowned.
"Nope, nothing."
"I'm sorry, again." She said gently.
"I know you are."
"I know you were just trying to do the right thing by him. He's your nephew
and you said you'd take him in." Lorelai sighed, looking down at the ground.
"I shouldn't have been so hard on you."
"I thought we already cleared all this up."
"I know. I just still feel bad." She admitted. "Last week, when Rory found
out Jess was gone, I think she took it pretty hard. And I felt like it was
partly my fault, you know?"
"They were getting to be good friends, I guess it's natural she'd be sad
to see him go."
"Yeah." Lorelai forced a smile. "Good friends."
"If she wants, I could give her his number." Luke offered.
"Uh…" Lorelai cringed inwardly. "Sure, I'll let her know it's
available."
"Good. I mean, she was a good influence on him. It'd be nice if that could
continue in some way, even if it is long distance."
"Yep." Lorelai agreed nonchalantly.
She still didn't want Rory to have anything to do with Jess. She had felt bad
for how she'd acted, but it didn't change the fact that Jess was a screw up
in her eyes. He had crashed into their quiet lives and left nothing but
destruction, before crashing his way back out again.
She pulled the empty gas canister away from the jeep, screwed the cap back on
and held it out to Luke, only to find him holding a cup of coffee out to her.
"My hero." She beamed.
"You're welcome." He smiled, exchanging the coffee for the canister.
He waited for Lorelai to pull back onto the road and start driving before he
followed, wanting to make sure nothing else went wrong on the way back to Stars
Hollow, so he wouldn't get back to the diner only to find he had to turn
around and come back out to the middle of nowhere to help her again.
* * * * *
Dean smiled as Rory animatedly regaled him with the tale of Kirk's movie.
"And then he got up and said 'I love your daughter'…"
"Poor daughter." Dean smirked.
"And the scary father guy said 'Who are you to love my daughter? What do you have to offer her?'"
"A toaster oven and a goldfish."
Rory hit him on the arm playfully and continued.
"And then Kirk's all 'Nothing. Only this…'"
"And then the dancing started?"
"And then the dancing started." Rory nodded solemnly.
"Any chance it'll be available to rent?"
"Doubt it. Taylor wasn't too pleased when Kirk's shirt came off. He said it made the movie PG instead of G."
"It sounds like a 5 minute version of Dirty Dancing."
"Hey! That's slander!" Rory scowled at him.
"Insulting Dirty Dancing isn't slander, it's warranted!" He protested with a smile.
"Oh really? Tell it to my mom and see how far it gets you. You'll be on boyfriend probation until you're 65!"
"Your mom loves me." He chuckled.
"She won't if she hears you criticizing one of her favorite movies."
"I guess I shouldn't tell her how stupid I thought High Fidelity was then, huh?"
"Oh my god. Who are you and what did you do with my boyfriend?" Rory gasped.
"You already knew I hated that movie." He laughed.
"Next you'll be telling me you hate David Spade and you only watched Chasing Amy because I asked you to!"
"Well…"
"Dean!" She gaped at him in disbelief.
"Hey, I can't help it if I find David Spade annoying!" He smirked.
Rory made a choking sound and placed her hand over her heart.
"And I figured I'd just pretend to like Chasing Amy because it was only 90 minutes of my life I was wasting to watch it with you, and you liked it!"
"I feel so deceived." She sighed dramatically. "You're a stranger to me!"
"A stranger who still gets to come over to your house and kiss you though, right?"
"Sure, sure." She nodded, a small smile playing on her lips.
It had been almost a week since she'd told Dean about the car accident. At first he'd been upset. He'd wanted to know why she agreed to tutor Jess, and why she'd agreed to go for ice cream with him and why she'd let him drive her car.
At least the truthful answers to those questions hadn't been so bad. She'd tutored him because Luke asked her to. She'd gone for ice cream because he'd promised to study if she did so. She'd let him drive so she could read him Othello instead of wasting valuable tutor time.
He'd been about as satisfied with those answers as she'd expected he'd be. The fact that Jess was gone had made it all a lot easier. He'd just wanted total confirmation that Jess had really left Stars Hollow, and he hadn't mentioned it again since.
She'd promised to make it up to him. Not just the car accident in which the car he'd built her from scratch had been returned to the junkyard, but everything. She knew that ever since Jess had moved to Stars Hollow, Dean had felt threatened. And she knew that she had, unintentionally, made it worse by hanging out with Jess when she knew Dean didn't want her too.
But things were going to be different now. Jess was gone and she and Dean had an opportunity to rebuild their relationship and make things right again, and she had decided to make the most of that opportunity.
Jess who?
