Title: Four Two Two
Rating: PG-13 (entirely precautionary)
Summary: Travelling three thousand miles doesn't get rid of one's ghosts. Jess is merely starting his life in Venice, CA, yet can he let go of what he left in Stars Hollow? My take on Jess's life in Venice, an oft-done take, I know, but please do R&R!
Disclaimer: Jess, Jimmy, Sasha and Lily all belong to DPDH and ASP, I (unfortunately) own none of the above. Same goes for the chunks of dialogue and scenes that I still habitually rip right out from the show. But other than that, the story and other new characters are all, thankfully, mine.
Author's note: See Chapter 1 for most of what I had to say. Thanks for continuing to read, and once again, reviews and comments are much appreciated!! :0)
* * *
Jess nervously scuffed the edge of his shoes against the linoleum floor as he stood outside the kitchen, awaiting Sasha's verdict. They spoke within in quieted tones—well, at least Jimmy made the attempt.
"Come on, Sash, it's just for a month."
"Just for a month? And what makes you so certain it'll be just for a month?"
"Look, Sash, he's still my son, and he's got nowhere else to go."
"Well, he's your son, not mine. Why should I have to let him stay?"
"He's trying to find his own feet. Just help him out for awhile, then he's out of your life." There was a momentary pause. "Come on, Sash."
"How do I know he'll only stay that long? How do I know one month won't turn into two, three months? I don't want him living off us damn it, this isn't what we'd planned out for us."
"Sash—"
"Damn it, Jimmy! He wouldn't even be here if you hadn't lied to me! You say we're soul mates, yet you don't even tell me about an eighteen year old son that you have! And you still want me to just sit back and watch him move in and disrupt our lives? Forget it, Mariano! Don't you even think I'll let that happen!"
This was when Jess could stand by no longer. He swung open the kitchen door, the words bursting forth before the couple could even react to his interruption. "Look, I'd really rather not have to resort to all this, damn it, but I don't have a choice anymore! My life'll just waste away in New York with Liz, I left my home with things all up in the air— I left without even telling my girlfriend where I was going, and I don't think I could even go back to face her right now, not without a damn good explanation, much better than whatever Jimmy can give for not telling you about me. Luke's kicked me out of my home, I can't go back unless I go back to high school, and there is no way in hell I'm going wasting another year of my time in that oppressive place where no one gives me a chance! They think I don't know but I do. I never had a chance in that damn school, and I can't go back at all." He took a breath, then continued, his voice calmer now. "Look, just—please, just let me stay, let me get my life back on track. I wanna get back to a school here, graduate, be able to do something with my life, and have something to show for so that I can go back home. I'll work at the stand, I'll do odd jobs, pay rent if I have to. Just—please."
Jimmy and Sasha stared at Jess, shellshocked. Jess himself was rather taken aback by the words he'd uttered. Apparently that annoying little voice had just taken over his conscious mind. And Jess didn't really mind it all that much…
Sasha was the first to break the silence. "So now you want to go to school here? You want to stay a whole year here?"
"Well, quite frankly, I'm hoping not too, if I can help it. I'll graduate early, or something."
One perfectly plucked eyebrow arched high up. "Just like that? Graduate early and leave?"
Jess had no idea how else to respond. "Yeah."
"And you can do all this because…?"
"Look, I'm smart enough to do it, okay?"
"Well, apparently not smart enough to graduate high school at the first try."
Jess bristled at that, but before he could react, Sasha had ploughed onwards again.
"Fine, I'll give you what you want, on one condition."
Jess furrowed his brow in suspicion. "What's that?"
"You pass a test."
* * *
Jess could hardly believe the ludicrousness of it all. He sat at the table in Jimmy's study, twiddling his thumbs as he waited. Finally, the peculiar girl he'd met earlier, Sasha's daughter Lily, returned, the slight girl almost completely hidden by the stack of heavy thick textbooks that she carried. She dropped them on the table before Jess with a loud thump, then matter-of-factly said, "Read these, I'll give you the questions tomorrow morning."
"You think I need all night to be ready?" Jess sifted through the stack of books before him, perusing the titles and content pages. "Give me three hours, and I'll be set."
Lily frowned. "Well, that's three hours past my bedtime. Take your time, you'll be taking the test tomorrow morning when I wake up." With that, the bespectacled girl turned back and left the room.
Well, that one's certainly a strange one…, Jess mused. Sighing, he took the first book of the stack that stood before him, cracking open the cover and beginning.
* * *
Well, so it hadn't quite taken a mere three hours for Jess to digest all the information before him. European history and politics, advanced calculus, physical and human geography, human anatomy, organic chemistry… The collection that Lily had handed over certainly was comprehensive, and not everything was covered in the average twelfth grade syllabus. Even reading at the pace that he did, Jess would have needed at least six hours to go through everything. His eyelids only managed to stay open due to his personal expertise with brewing a good strong cup of coffee, and even then, he'd found his mind shutting down more than once during the night. Finally, as day broke and Jimmy and Sasha emerged from their room, he embarked on the last chapter of the final textbook.
Lily emerged at seven in the morning, freshly washed up, but the thick glasses still perched on the tip of her nose as though it had been slipping down all day already. She looked expectantly at Jess, who was still running his eyes over the last pages, his hand raised out towards her in a gesture to acknowledge that he'd seen her, but that he still needed a little more time. Lily waited for a few more seconds, then Jess finally flipped the back cover closed, placing the book on the top of the stack. "Done."
Lily held out a single sheet of paper to him, a list of questions written in her childish print on it, along with a fresh pad of writing paper and three pens. "Six essays, they shouldn't be a problem at all. I'll be back from school before four, you should be done by then. You'll know how you did by tonight."
Inside, Jess was chuckling at the sight of this diminutive girl giving him such serious instructions, but he knew how much depended on this test that the little girl was giving him, and he accepted the list of questions, keenly aware of Sasha watching from the door. Lily picked up the stack of textbooks from the table, frowning slightly under the effort of the load, then turned and left the room. Jess silently watched her go, then looked down at the list of questions that she'd left him. Quietly, he perused the questions, his mind already formulating the required answers, still sensing Sasha's watchful gaze. Wordlessly, he picked up the pen that Lily had left, and bent over the pad of writing paper, his hand moving swiftly across the lines as he scribbled down the answers.
Jess had never been much for doing schoolwork. But now that he was actually doing it… he'd hit a groove. Now, more than ever, he was truly in his element.
* * *
Sasha stood at the doorway for another moment, watching the teenaged boy before her, observing the intensity with which he wrote, noting how it was not unlike Jimmy bent over his notes and papers for the refurbished stand. Sighing internally as she struggled to come to terms with the recent developments, she turned towards the kitchen, aware that Lily still had school to deal with.
She jumped, startled, at the sudden appearance of Jimmy behind her. The pleading look on his face instantly told Sasha what their conversation was going to be about again.
"Sash—I can't thank you enough for—"
"Jimmy, just shut up for a minute." Sasha walked from the study to the kitchen, out of earshot of Jess. "I'm not giving Jess a chance just because he's your son. He's a troubled kid, he's trying to find his own feet, that's why I'm willing to give him a chance, same as how I'm willing to give every other person out here their chance, as long as he shows me just how serious he is about this high school thing. He does this thing properly, he stays, but only for up to a year, and only if he actually helps out around here. He doesn't, he's gone. And as for us, don't even think for one second that it's going to be resolved quite so simply."
"Sasha, look, I know whatever I say isn't going to help you forgive me any sooner, but can you at least let me say it?"
Sasha fixed Jimmy with an impatient glare, which he took to be his cue to continue.
"I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, a lot of which I'm not proud of today. I screwed up a lot before you knew me. What happened between me and Jess's mother—that was one of those things I screwed up. When I met you, I was only just beginning to get my life back on track. I—I didn't dare to tell you about Jess simply because I was afraid. I was afraid that if you found out that I'd abandoned my own son you'd see me as this screw-up irresponsible asshole, and you wouldn't want anything else to do with me. I'm not denying that I wasn't exactly that before you knew me, but that's not who I'm trying to be anymore. What I've got here today—the stand, you—I couldn't be more thankful for it, but—I've had regrets with what I've done before meeting you, and abandoning Jess is one of those things. I know I can't rationalise not telling you about going to see him, but I had to go. I had to see that leaving Jess didn't completely screw up his life, so I could get that bit of closure on my past before I could move forward. I thought I saw just that—he was working at his uncle's diner, he seemed to be doing well—I didn't expect him to come out here. I certainly didn't give him the open invitation to do so either."
"But Jimmy, don't you see? He's here. There's nothing else you can do about that already. Stop trying to give yourself excuses for what's happened," Sasha answered, bristled with his comments. "The thing that annoys me most, Mariano, is how you can act as though it were my fault. Claiming that you didn't tell me about Jess because you were afraid I wouldn't be happy about it? That's rich, that's just absolutely fucking rich, Jimmy. We've been together for so long now, certainly you could have told me something as big as that before you went off to Connecticut to see him! Would I leave you so far along into our relationship just because you told me about your abandoned son only now? You'd have to be a fool, and truly not know me at all, if you thought for one second that I would, Jimmy."
"Sasha—"
"No, Jimmy, I don't want to talk about this anymore. I can't, not right now. All I want to do right now is to make sure my daughter gets to school, that the kid in your study right now isn't left out on the street, and that everything else in my house is going fine. I can't talk about us right now. You know as well as I do that I'm gonna need time, we're gonna need time, before things can even remotely resemble what they were before this. Okay?"
Jimmy was silenced, taken aback, but when he saw the tired expression on her face, he realised he had to drop the subject now. "Okay."
With that, Sasha turned away from him, busying herself with preparing breakfast.
* * *
The hours passed by like minutes for Jess, engrossed in the zone that he'd reached a page and a half into the questions. His hand was cramping badly, yet his mind registered none of the pain as he wrote on. He only peripherally registered the regular presence of Sasha at the doorway, peering in to check on him, her impression of him growing with each visit as she saw the continued intensity with which he worked. Lunchtime came and went, Jess's stomach growling with hunger, having remained unsatiated since the previous night, but still Jess ploughed ahead, determination driving him forward. Fatigue did not stop him either, despite drowsiness almost overcoming him on more than one occasion, the nearly thirty-six-hour stretch of no sleep often threatening to take its toll. Nonetheless, he knew what he had to do, and by three thirty in the afternoon, he'd completed his task.
Triumphant, he set down the pen, leaning back in his chair and heaving a huge sigh. He stretched back, yawning, as he stood up, cracking his stiff back as he moved his sore limbs, thoroughly exhausted. He peered at the stack of CDs and records in the corner, marvelling at the collection that stood before him and deeply missing his own back in Stars Hollow, when Sasha came by again.
"So, you're done?"
Jess straightened his back and faced the woman upon whom all of this hinged. "Yeah, I am."
"Not too much for you to handle, was it?"
"Not really, despite the fact that about a third of that comes from first year university courses."
"Well, you've set your standards high, so we might as well make sure you can live up to what you aim for."
"Look, I can do this, okay?" he snapped. "I don't need
anymore people doubting me, I've got enough people
back in Stars Hollow to do that."
"I'm not doubting you," she replied, her voice firm and calmer than Jess's. "I saw the way you were working back there. I gotta say, not many people impress me the way you did with how you were working. You were exactly like Jimmy was when he was still trying to get the stand back on its feet. He had the drive to follow through on what he wanted, and I'm not doubting that you have those same genes. I may or may not be right about you, but I've always trusted my instincts, so… we'll see when Lily gets back."
Jess was floored by her words. He silently watched as Sasha turned to leave, then hastily added, "Thank you."
Sasha turned to face the boy standing before her, mildly surprised by what she'd just heard, and almost expecting it to have been a figment of her imagination.
Damn it, Jess, just say it… "Thank you… for giving me this chance."
A hint of a smile played across her lips. "Well, you haven't exactly secured that chance yet, now have you?"
Jess sensed he knew what she was playing at, and he dutifully played along. "Trust me, that chance is in the bag."
"As cocky as your father." Sasha left Jess with an arch of her eyebrow, then turned around. "There's a mattress out next to the couch, you can sleep there if you want to," she called back to him as she left.
Jess stood there for another second, absorbing what had just happened, revelling in the notion that he finally had his chance. Then, he wobbled precariously, the lack of sleep almost overcoming him right there, requiring a quick outstretched hand to prevent himself from falling. Damn it, Mariano… Way to go with the motor skills there.
Blinking, he stumbled out of the study and into the hall, barely aware as he found the mattress and collapsed upon it, out like a light bulb before his head even hit the lumpy makeshift bed.
* * *
A/N: That's all I've got for now! A longer chapter than normal, I realise, but I cut it off where I felt was most appropriate. Don't forget, reviews are much beloved! :0)
