AN: Hello everyone!! I;m back with a new chapter that I really hope you like. I would sincerely like to thank whoever it was that nominated Desperado for best Literati and Java Junkie at the Proud and Prejudiced website. I feel every honored to be nominated among other such fantastic authors. And thank you so much again to all that have reviewed!!!!!!!!!

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine
It's hard to tell the night time from the day

You're loosin' all your highs and lows
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?

May He Confess

They have all gathered outside to see Rory off. The lingering fragrance of marigolds only days gone hovers around them as they wave to the retreating car. Two small boys chase it's dust down the road, struggling to keep up, until they find themselves lost in a haze of dirt watching the car turn a corner and wondering how they could lose sight of it so fast.

Their shoulders slump as they walk back glumly to the house, looking over their shoulders to see if the car has magically reappeared. But their eyes remain disappointed and mouths turned down. One reaches for his mother's hand and says, "Why did she have to go? She just got here."

She gives his hand a squeeze and says in a reassuring voice, "Rory will be back tomorrow Ty. Besides, until than you have Jess to play with."

The grins have suddenly reappeared on their faces, mother always manages to make things better.

Later on, two adults sit uncomfortably in each other's presence on a porch swing watching the boys play in the front yard. One thinks of a hard sarcastic boy that hurt her daughter more than Rory would ever know or admit. And the other thinks of a woman who never gave him a chance and was just as sarcastic as he was. Neither really knows what to say or do, they glance at each other now and then, just to make sure they're not dreaming. Neither imagined themselves here tonight, sitting beside a person they once hated.

Finally, Lorelai simply cannot take the silence any longer. She never was one to keep her mouth shut. She says, "Why'd you come back?"

Jess is not surprised by this question, he has been expecting it. He knows the answer but takes his time anyway. For a moment he watches Mathew and Tyler jump into a pile of leaves and wishes for a childhood such as theirs. "To prove myself," he says.

Lorelai nods. She remembers clothes jumbled hurriedly into a suitcase and a note and a wish for independence and coming back years later to prove her happiness and herself. "I understand," she says.

"You do?" Jess says in a voice that doesn't believe.

"Yeah, I do." She says almost haughtily. "I've worked my whole life to prove to my parents I didn't need them. That I could make it on my own."

"Huh," he says.

"You know, we're not so different."

"That sounds incredibly clichéd."

"So call me a teenage movie," Lorelai says shrugging. "When I was younger I was a lot like you. Rebelling against the world around me, wanting what I didn't have."

"And what was that?" He asks.

"Parents who cared about what mattered and not about what other people thought. A place that I could be myself and not some pampered child." Lorelai paused to reflect on her past, her mistakes, and her decisions. "But what I didn't realize was that they loved me in spite of their misgivings and I never saw it. I left with a real goodbye."

"I didn't get pregnant."

"Obviously," she says dryly. "But you did leave with out a goodbye to anyone. You needed to be on your own. Like me, you never realized what you had; Luke cared for you as a son but you never saw it. He gave you a home and you never knew it."

He looks away knowing that everything she says is true.

"And now you finally get it. You know what you had." Lorelai turns to him now and looks him straight in the eye, "But you don't regret that you left."

Jess stares right back, "No, I don't."

"That's why we're so alike." She continues to stare at him and speak words to him that are a splash of fresh water in the face. "We both left to find ourselves. We left behind something really good without even realizing it, yet we came out the better for it. We found out who we are and what we're supposed to live for and we did it without any regrets. And we both went back to prove that we made it. We're not trailer trash or convicts. We are who we are because we left without a goodbye." Lorelai sits back once again and seems satisfied with her speech.

There is silence again, both thinking of the words just spoken.

One knows that she has just admitted her entire past to a man whom she barely knows and used to hate, she's told him something that has never admitted to herself or any other person. She is softly smiling.

The other is not smiling, his eyebrows are narrowed as though he finally gets it. He knows why he left. It wasn't about school, it wasn't about a girl with blue eyes like spilled ink, or a man that thought of him as a son. He did it for all the selfish reasons; to find out who he was and where he belonged. He finally gets it now- it really worked.

Two people sit on a porch swing silently lost in their own thoughts; the air is comfortable now because they understand themselves and each other.

***

When Luke arrives home he finds them that way, sitting next to each on the porch swing lost in thought, and he wonders again if the world has been turned upside down. Mathew and Tyler run up to him with scarlet leaves splashed in their hair, yelling, "Daddy!"

His favorite part of the day is when he comes home, tired after a long day at the diner, but still with enough energy to scoop up his two sons as they run to him. He can bury his head in their hair, inhale their scent of peanut butter and milk and Johnson's baby shampoo; he can let them throw their sticky hands around his neck and shout in his ear and pull his hair and ask him questions. It's everything he never wanted, and it's everything he loves.

Blue eyes appear before him and soft lips find their way through two boys to brush his. "Hey," she says, love sprinkled across her face.

Luke smiles back and lowers Mathew and Tyler to the ground. "Hi there," and he quickly kisses her again. He still isn't overly used to public affection.

But Lorelai knows this and winks at him. "How was work?"

"Taylor tried to put up a sign in my window when I told him no, and Kirk brought in his new instrument to play for me."

Lorelai giggles, "And what was that?"

"A banjo that his uncle gave to him."

"A banjo?!"

"What's banjo?"

"It's kinda like a guitar sweets."

"Yeah," Luke raises his eyes heavenward and sighs, a new subject would be more appealing to him. "You and Jess seem chummy."

"We talked."

"Talked?"

"I'll tell you later."

Luke nods and makes his way to the house with his two sons still hanging from his legs. He looks around, "Did Rory leave already?"

"Yeah," Lorelai says, "about an hour ago."

"How'd the cookies come out?" Luke asks.

"I had five!" Mathew yells proudly.

"And me too!" Tyler pipes up.

Luke turns to his wife with his eyebrows raised, "You let them eat five cookies?"

Lorelai feigns innocence and points to Jess, "It was Jess!"

Having been lost in his own world, Jess looks up surprised and confused at the sound of his name. "What?" he says.

"You forced my sons to eat five cookies each?" Luke asks in mock anger.

"Hey, Lorelai and Rory passed them out while they shoved ten into their own mouths." Jess pushes himself off the swing, "We only had fifteen to give to Lane."

"Ten," Lorelai says quickly.

"I can count."

"Yes, but the ride there."

"There were twenty in there when she left."

Lorelai laughs, "Very smart of you."

Jess shrugs, his expression light, "I do my best."

Luke fights the urge to roll his eyes and says, "Did you find everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah." Jess says smirking, "After we called you."

"What? You couldn't find every thing yourself?" Luke asks his wife.

"I was still sleeping." Lorelai says haughtily and flounces up the porch steps without looking back.

"I'll guess it was twenty minutes before you finally called me?"

"Thirty."

"Well, I was close." Luke looks down at the boys who still stare up at him adoringly and says, "How was preschool today?"

From there Mathew and Tyler go into a long speech, filling in each other's sentences, about their wonderful teacher, and the coloring books with dinosaurs in them, and show in tell.

"I brung my bear."

"Brought Ty."

"I showed my favorite book!"

"What's that?" Jess asks suddenly interested.

"'Where Wild Th . . .Things Aaaaare.'" Mathew says with an intense look of concentration on his face. "I can read the whooole thing! Rory gave it to me!"

Jess smiles, "I bet she did."

"It's old." Mathew says very seriously, nodding his head in an important manner. "She said I had to take special care of it."

"Oh yeah?" Jess says.

"It's 23 years old." Luke explains to him, "Rory gave it to Mathew, it was her first book also."

Jess nods and finds himself yearning to hold this book in his hands and read it; he would imagine Rory delicately grasping it in her small hands as she so often did with other books.

They're in the house now, entering the kitchen when Lorelai bounces out asking what's for dinner, seemingly over the little incident out in the yard.

"Steak." Luke answers her. "On the grill."

"I think it gives men a lot of pleasure to say that." Lorelai says and than mimics Luke in a deep manly voice, "Steak. On the grill. Bring me food woman."

Jess smirks and says, "You even have a grill now?"

"Oh, yes!" Lorelai says scooping up Tyler into her arms and holding him close. "Not that I know how to use it. I singed my eyebrows on a grill once and haven't gone near one since. I had to actually draw them on for weeks, it was horrible. Half the time I didn't even have the patience and just went around eyebrowless."

Tyler touches one of her eyebrows, "You're pretty Mommy."

Lorelai grins and nuzzles his nose with her own, "I knew I loved you for something."

"Eyebrowless is not a word." Luke says searching the fridge for the steak.

"Now it is."

Luke pulls out a large piece of meat successfully and says, "I need to change, but I'll be right back down. Jess, could you fire up the grill?"

"Sure." Jess says wondering if he's ever even worked an outside grill before. But how hard could it be?

Five minutes later he stands in front of it with his hands in his pockets wishing for a cigarette. How long could it possibly take Luke to change one flannel shirt for another? There is a presence behind him and he turns around to see Lorelai standing there looking just as confused as he is.

He opens his mouth to speak when she says, "I'm not going anywhere near it. My hair is precious to me."

"I'm somewhat taken with mine also." Jess says searching his pockets for a cigarette and than remembers he gave them up for Sidda. His hands still and he frowns a little. It's funny how he hasn't thought about it for days, and than all of a sudden something as simple as searching for a cigarette can bring back every single emotion he's ever felt for her. It's as fresh as the day she left six months ago, he can even feel his pride being trampled on all over again.

He remembers Rory's mouth against his and how different it was from years ago. She was all sugary and sweet and good; but there was something that was very different, something he could not place. He regrets that he ever kissed her. He does not want to be involved, and yet he yearns to taste her again. Perhaps he will have a cookie later.

"Jess!" Lorelai nearly yells.

"What?" Jess snaps his head up at her surprised.

"I lost you for a minute there." She looks at him suspiciously, "Where'd you go?"

None of your god damn business! nearly bursts from his mouth. But he sat on a swing with a woman, whom he thought he despised, that seemed to know him better than he did himself. "Just thinking," he says finally.

"It happens to the best of us." She says nodding, a secret smile forming around her lips. "But I was just asking if you wanted a beer."

"A beer?" Jess asks, his eyes suddenly laughing. He had been an irritable young boy, thinking he owned the world taking beer from a fridge that belonged to a woman he barely knew.

"Yeah, I mean now that you're of age and everything, I thought it would be refreshing. I've never minded drinking alone, ask my daughter, but I thought you'd like one too." Lorelai is smirking now, "Or I could turn my back and pretend not to watch while you sneak one from the fridge." She pauses, "For old times sake."

Jess laughs and says, "A beer would be great."

It is Luke who strolls out the back door minutes later with two beers and the steak in his hands finding Jess still staring bewildered at the grill in front of him. Luke holds back a laugh and hands the beer to Jess. "Having some troubles?"

"Just a little," Jess says holding the cold bottle in his hands. "How exactly does this work?"

It takes only minutes for Luke to get the grill going, ready to cook any steak it meets.

"Huh, that was easier than it looks." Jess says and takes a swig of his beer.

"Once you get the hang of it."

"Guess so." He lets the cool liquid slide down his throat refreshing and crisp.

For a moment only the sound of the grill and voices from inside the house can be heard. Jess realizes once again that he is completely comfortable around Luke.

Luke turns his face to the sky, "This'll be the last warm week before fall really sets in. You came at a good time."

Jess looks up also to see the sun setting slowly in the west; her colors drip and splash along the sky line as though painted on a canvass. Orange tangerine, sharp and satisfying, mixes with red satin and purple like lilac petals at night when the stars struggle to shine. For some reason he's never enjoyed a sunset more.

"How long are you staying?"

His eyes remain on the sky in all its wonders. "Until Friday I think, maybe longer."

"Rory leaves Sunday, maybe you can hitch a ride with her."

"Maybe," Jess says. Nearly three hours alone in the car with Rory Gilmore? His ex-girlfriend? The one he left without even having the courtesy of breaking up with her first? The one he has barely thought about for the past six years? The one he still surprisingly desires? He can't even imagine how awkward it would be.

Luke sips at his own beer. "You said you had something to tell me. Something important. Are you ever gunna let me in on it?"

Jess is surprised, "You remembered?"

"Yeah, I mean I hadn't heard from you in two years and all of a sudden you say you'll be visiting sometime in the fall. There's no real date or guarantee that you'll actually come, you just say you have something to tell me sometime in the fall." Luke turns to him, "So here we are."

The pain is once again creeping its way into the very depths of his mind. How can he tell Luke that he had been rejected? He had offered his life to a woman and she had refused. Jess suddenly wishes for a dozen more beers to drink himself silly. Would that make it go away? "I was engaged." He says simply.

"Was?"

"Yeah, for a couple of months until she decided it wasn't right." Jess takes another rough swig of his beer and stares once again at the sunset. The colors are fading, following the path of the sun and trickling down to the other side of the earth; they leave trails of twilight blue and filmy lavender.

"Wasn't right?"

"She said I didn't love her."

"Did you?" Luke asks. He is trying to hide his surprise. Jess was engaged? Luke always imagined, as shameful as it was, Jess doing the leaving.

"I think I did." Jess shakes his head. It's always the same answer, doubtful and unsure, even to himself.

"It's yes or no." Luke says firmly.

"I don't know." Jess says staring at the ground now, not wanting to see the colors disappear. Not wanting it to end. "I just don't know."

Luke nods because he understands. There had been a woman he thought he had loved, she had red hair and a tendency to disappear. And than there had been a woman he never knew he truly loved until it hit him so hard that it was difficult to breathe sometimes.

He squeezes Jess' shoulder in a fatherly manner and says, "You will. Someday you will."

Surprisingly, Jess feels comforted. He looks up into the sky to see that the sun has left him to the beginnings of stars and a half moon. Jess finds that he doesn't mind this dusky night at all. He enjoys it.

***

It is the beginning of the new day that awakens him. A fragment of sunlight shines through the dirty window next to him, and he can hear a birds song mingled with that of early morning risers. The bell from the diner rings through the open window and he wonders if Luke has already awoken and is serving chocolate chip pancakes.

In sudden earnest he wishes to wash the window near clean. It is riddled with dirt and dust and neglect. Luke has not cleaned the apartment in too long a time. He wishes to take an entire bottle of Windex and scrub the window down until he can see himself staring back. In days before that window was his lonely vigil, his night post, his watch.

While Luke slept, Jess would wait for hours by that window, sometimes reading, other times simply watching. He never knew what for.

But that is a lie. He always knew, just never admitted it to himself.

Nights of a full moon and a clear sky had been his favorite, he could see the town clearer and make out each constellation that he so wanted to know. Astrology had been his first choice when he stared attending night school in sunny California. He had seen Rory through that window just two nights ago; she had turned her eyes to the night sky and Jess had seen her face silver in the moonlight.

Jess turns away from the window in bed, he would rather gaze through it at night. At night you can wish upon a star and not feel foolish, at night you can make deals with God and keep them, at night you can believe in hope. Every single night in Stars Hollow was made of hope by that window.

Years ago he had been hoping for a mother. One who made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and left love notes in a lunch box. A mother that would drive him to baseball practice, not make him walk until he finally was forced to quit the team. A mother that made him say his prayers at night and believe in the unbelievable. A mother that loved him.

Years ago that was all Jess wanted. He just wanted to be loved. And yet he never saw it when it was offered to him. First by Luke and than by Rory. Each had opened their hearts to him and he trampled all over it without even realizing that he was destroying exactly what he yearned for every single solitary night. Then he had left without a goodbye or even an apology. He hasn't changed as much as he thought it seems, Sidda had also offered him her love and look what happened.

But now, as Jess turns back to stare through the window into the bright sunshine he wants something more. He understands now that he has been loved by people in their own way. His mother loved him but never knew how to show it, she never understood. Luke had loved him by trying to show Jess how to live your life the right way, but he had turned away from this thinking he knew everything there was to know. Rory perhaps had loved him once, before he squashed that to smithereens by turning his back on her in the worst possible way.

And Sidda had loved him, over everything else Jess knows this is true. He can still remember the way her soft brown eyes would sparkle when she looked at him, and the way she reached from him in the middle of the night, softly calling out his name.

Jess just wishes he knew how to return this love. He wishes he could love them back, but it seems that he doesn't know how. Sidda knew that he didn't when she returned a certain diamond ring to him. And Rory certainly seemed to know when she spoke to him over an unexpected phone call.

Jess thinks of the kiss again and regrets it again. He wants no involvement with anyone, he just can't stand the hurt, but he is already yearning for her taste. It has been so long since he's held a woman tightly against him, inhaled her flowery sent and spoken soft words in her ear. But he doesn't need this or want it, it only brings pain, which he would rather live without. In his opinion love only hurts, yet, beyond all reason, he still wonders what it would feel like.

The clock reads nine, and Jess is surprised to see that it is so late already. He pulls himself out of bed and stretches, his feet carry him to the window that has occupied his thoughts of late. The harsh sunlight dashes across his face, making him squint and take a step backwards. He is so fucking scared of love, he just wouldn't know what to do with it.

He is about to turn away when a familiar figure walks casually across the streets of Stars Hollow causing him to stop abruptly and take another step forward. Although she is far away, he can see her blue eyes and the spirit that resides there; he can imagine her face very close to his and the softness of her presence. His heart thumps loudly in his chest, the tips of his fingers itch.

What is it anyway? Love.

I think you know what to do . . . . .