WHAT IT IS: A sequel, to my other Trory, What Happens When. Now, I had no
intentions at all to do a sequel. However, you're getting one, because of
all the Jess/Dean/Rory angst currently on the show—it's stressing me out.
So, since I had decided that fluff was probably all I'd get out of a sequel
and fluff is what I need right now (it's either fluff or unbearable angst
coming out of me right now)—here's a sequel.
WHAT I OWN: Nada.
RATING: PG-13, just to be safe. It is fluff after all.
Rory went into work the next morning, greeted her co-workers and got down to work. She felt fine, but kept looking at the clock to see if she felt funny about the same time she did the day before. Frowning, she looked up yet again to see it was almost lunchtime. Her stomach rumbled, as if to reinforce that fact, and she sighed. 'It must have been car sickness or something,' she thought sadly to herself. She shook her head, as if to shake the thought out of her head. This wasn't supposed to be disappointing; she just couldn't get herself worked up over nothing. Kay stuck her head into Rory's office and smiled at her.
"Hey, are you up for lunch?"
"Sure. Where to?"
"There's a great little deli I found while you were away. It's just a few blocks north of here."
"Great. I just need to call Tristan real quick."
"Alright. I'll meet you at the elevators."
Rory watched her co-worker walked off, and picked up her office phone to dial.
"Dugrey," he answered.
"Hey, this is Dugrey, too!"
"Hey, Rory. How're you feeling today?"
"Good."
"Wow. You're the only person I know that can make that sound like a death sentence."
"I was just sort of hoping yesterday wouldn't be a one time event."
"I know. Boy, how weird are we? I'm hoping my wife will throw up, does that make me a bad person?"
"No, I call it very sweet. I need to go, I'm heading to lunch with Kay."
"Maybe you won't be able to keep it down," Tristan encouraged.
"Aw, you're the sweetest," she teased.
"See you at home."
They hung up and she gathered her coat and purse. She and Kay talked about their holidays and hurried quickly to the deli. Kay swore it was the best in their part of town, and worth the walk in the cold. They walked into the small deli and got into a long line to order. When they got their food, they looked around for a seat in the crowded restaurant. Rory looked around and noticed what she thought was Jess sitting with a girl. She wondered if it were the girl he'd told her about. There were two extra chairs at their table, and she nudged Kay to get her to follow her.
"Jess?"
Jess looked up from his conversation to see Rory and another woman standing next to his table. He was surprised to say the least, and blinked a couple of times.
"Rory, hey."
"It's sort of packed in here. Mind if we join you guys?"
Jess looked at Erin, who nodded. She recognized the name Rory, and was sort of curious about her. He then nodded to Rory and the other girl, and they quickly sat down.
"Jess, this is Kay," Rory introduced.
"Nice to meet you. Rory, Kay, this is Erin."
"Hi," Rory extended her hand to the girl sitting across from Jess. Erin smiled back at her and shook her hand.
"I've never seen you in here before."
"Kay found it while I was in Stars Hollow. She told me we'd been missing out, so we trudged down here for lunch. Do you come here often?"
"It's our normal lunch spot," Jess told her. She noticed he said 'our', which struck her as strange. Speaking in plurals wasn't Jess, but it sounded nice. She really hoped they were doing well.
"So, Erin, what do you do?"
"I'm an grad student at NYU, and I work at the same firm Jess does."
"Oh, that's great. I've been thinking about going to grad school, too, but I love my job so much right now, I can't imagine leaving it yet."
"That's good though. So many people don't find that."
"I know, I'm spoiled that way."
Erin nodded, and looked over to see if Jess was doing alright. He was eating, as if nothing in the world was different, so she continued eating as well.
"Hey, Jess, are you going to take Will anytime soon?"
"Probably not until after school starts up. I had been thinking about taking him this weekend, but we're going out of town."
"Really, where to?"
"Vermont."
Rory made a funny face. Somehow she couldn't see Jess driving up to the country for a weekend. Erin noticed the face, and realized what Rory had to be thinking. She spoke up to clarify.
"My brother had reservations at an inn, but his relationship broke up yesterday, making the romantic getaway kind of a downer. So he offered the space to me, and we thought it'd be nice to get away before school started."
"Oh, that does sound relaxing," Rory agreed. She thought for a moment, and looked at Jess with concern.
"I forgot you were starting school next week—are you sure you will have time to help us move?"
"The tenth, right?"
"Yeah, but if you're too busy—,"
"Rory, I promised you and Tristan, each like five times, that I was able to help. I'm the closest person to you guys, distance wise, anyway."
"But you have work and school--,"
"Stop, seriously. How many people will be helping?"
"Like twenty five. At least at the house end."
"So it's not going to take very long. I'll just beg off work and skip a class. Seriously, it's fine."
"Can I help?"
"Only if you want to, I mean, that would be great, but I'm already imposing on Jess," Rory started.
"And half our office," Kay interjected.
"And most all of Stars Hollow," Jess finished.
"I'd love to help."
"Thanks," Rory looked at Kay, to see if she'd finished her lunch. "We should get going, then."
"Yeah. Nice to meet you both," Kay smiled.
"You too," Jess stood up as they got up. He hugged Rory and whispered something in her ear, and she shook her head affirmatively. She waved to Erin, and they hit the cold streets again.
"What was that about?"
"The whisper thing?" Jess asked.
Erin nodded.
"I told her you were in fact the girl I'd talked to her about over Christmas. She gave me some advice, you could say."
"You sought out advice about me?"
"Well, since I was doing so well on my own," came his sarcastic response.
"That's sweet. What did she tell you?"
"Basically to suck it up and get over myself. That if I liked you, I should just let myself be with you. I wasn't so good at that when I was with her."
"So you two, dated?"
"Yeah, in high school. But now she's my cousin," he informed her.
"Wow, that's um, weird," Erin offered.
"Her mom married my uncle. You'll met them and Will again at the move. Thanks for offering, you really don't have to."
"No problem. Where's she moving to?"
"Rory and her husband, Tristan, they're moving from Manhattan to White Plains."
"Ah, the settle down and have kids move."
Jess laughed, "Yeah, but don't let on that you know that's their motive. They think no one knows."
Erin laughed with him as they gathered their things to head back to the office.
Rory was almost to her front door when her cell phone began ringing. She unlocked the door and pushed through it while trying to push the right buttons. She dropped all her stuff inside the front walkway, and got the phone up to her ear.
"Yeah?"
"Wow, your greetings are really going downhill."
"Mom! How are you?"
"You act like we never speak," Lorelai giggled at her daughter's joyous greeting.
"Can't a girl miss her mom?"
"I guess. So, I have some news."
"Patty's getting married again?"
"No, why, what have you heard?"
"Nothing, just seemed like the most likely newsflash from home," Rory murmured, slumping down into the couch to slip off her shoes.
"True. But no. So, I was in the diner last night, talking with Luke, and somehow the topic of kids came up."
"Some how?"
"I may have made a crack about Luke's advancing age, and how we're getting too old to have kids."
"You are not."
"Well, we sort of threw the idea of having another one around."
"When?" Rory's voice was anxious.
"Soon."
"How soon?"
"Now?"
"You're already pregnant, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not. We're just talking about it."
"Oh, well, good."
"You okay?"
"Yeah, it's just, wouldn't that be weird?"
"What?"
Rory realized that she was letting the cat out of the bag, and tried to think of something to cover with.
"It's just weird that Luke thought you were too old to have anymore kids."
"How'd you know Luke said that?"
"I guessed."
"Actually what he said was we should have one before you guys do, so I won't be a pregnant grandmother. For some reason, he thinks that Guinness would be knocking down our door if that happened."
"Oh."
"You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm great."
"Rory, I don't mean to pry, but are you guys thinking about doing the kid thing soon?"
"Oh, well, I'm not sure."
"You haven't talked about it?"
"A little, you know."
"You sound funny," Lorelai prodded.
"I'm fine, just a long day at work."
"Okay. I should go get Will. He's at Sookie's."
"Alright. I'll talk to you soon."
Rory hung up the phone and sank back onto the couch deep in thought. Fifteen minutes later, she hadn't moved, and Tristan found her in this position. He was loaded down with work stuff and a takeout bag. He waved the bag in front of her, snapping her back to reality.
"I thought I'd surprise you with Chinese. It's the entire garlic column," he added.
She gave him a half smile, but didn't move off the couch. He put the bag on the table and sat down beside her.
"What's up?"
"Nothing, just thinking."
"About?"
"Mom called. She and Luke are trying."
"Trying? As in what we're doing?"
"Yep."
"You don't sound happy."
"Tristan, she can't get pregnant now!"
"Why not?"
"She's my mother, she's supposed to be there for me when I'm pregnant, to help me out, to be there when I'm giving birth, to come and tell me I'm doing it all wrong when I bring the baby home, she's not supposed to be giving birth in a room down the hall!"
"Oh."
"You think I'm being selfish."
"No, all those things, I can see her wanting to do for you. Except the telling you you're doing it wrong," Tristan mused.
"This isn't how this was supposed to go."
"Did you tell her all this?"
"No, cause we're not telling anyone," she said, laying her head on his shoulder.
"Maybe we could let her in on it, if this is important to you."
"Even then, I can't tell her not to get pregnant, she's getting older and if they want kids, they should have them now."
"Rory, she's, what? 39? 40?"
"She'll be forty this year. And Luke is a couple years older."
"Rory, she's got a few years left to have kids. It's not like its now or never for her. I'm sure if you talked to her, she'd understand. And Luke, hell, men can create babies 'til we keel over."
"You're right. I just, I don't know. Things have been getting to me easily lately."
"I know. This is all sort of daunting. Now come help me tackle the garlic column, will you?"
They got up and opened the big bag of Chinese food he'd picked up and settled down with the containers on the coffee table to watch the evening news. After dinner, they worked on packing some more. They just had a few days left to finish boxing all their stuff before the move. They were working on packing books in the study, while listening to the radio. She turned down the volume and looked at Tristan.
"So, I ran into Jess today," she informed him.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. He was at he deli Kay and I went to for lunch. And he wasn't alone."
"Who was he with?"
"A girl named Erin. He'd told me a little about her while we were home."
"He mentioned something about a girl to me, too."
"I think he really likes her, you should see her, she's gorgeous."
"I'm sure her looks isn't all Jess is interested in."
"No, he's not shallow. I just hope he gives her a real chance."
"He told me he wasn't sure about her. He asked me how I knew you were the one, when I talked to him about it."
"What'd you tell him?"
Tristan shrugged, uncomfortably. "I just knew."
"Bull. What made you know?"
"There wasn't anything you did, it was just you. I knew I wanted to be with you my entire life, I could see us together all our lives."
"That's sweet."
"How'd you know you wanted to marry me?"
"Well, mom always told me to make sure men had trust funds before I was tied down to them."
"Ha."
"I just knew. This is funny, but I think I knew back at Chilton. It was like I was too upset when you left. I just had this nagging thought that you should be in my life."
"You were upset when I left? After all the crap I did to you?"
"Yeah. You seemed to have weaseled your way into my mind."
"Good." He pulled her away from the box, and laid her back on the floor. "You know, I've been thinking, we really should up our efforts. If we're going to get you pregnant, we should be putting all our free time to it."
"Tristan, we need to pack."
He ignored her, starting to try to convince her of other necessities.
"These books aren't going to put themselves into boxes."
He lifted at her shirt, moving his head to her now uncovered stomach.
"We ... should ... ah, screw it," she gave up as he moved farther down, making her lose all interest in anything that didn't concern what his mouth was up to at the moment. He smiled into her, and they lost all track of time, making love in the den amongst the boxes.
WHAT I OWN: Nada.
RATING: PG-13, just to be safe. It is fluff after all.
Rory went into work the next morning, greeted her co-workers and got down to work. She felt fine, but kept looking at the clock to see if she felt funny about the same time she did the day before. Frowning, she looked up yet again to see it was almost lunchtime. Her stomach rumbled, as if to reinforce that fact, and she sighed. 'It must have been car sickness or something,' she thought sadly to herself. She shook her head, as if to shake the thought out of her head. This wasn't supposed to be disappointing; she just couldn't get herself worked up over nothing. Kay stuck her head into Rory's office and smiled at her.
"Hey, are you up for lunch?"
"Sure. Where to?"
"There's a great little deli I found while you were away. It's just a few blocks north of here."
"Great. I just need to call Tristan real quick."
"Alright. I'll meet you at the elevators."
Rory watched her co-worker walked off, and picked up her office phone to dial.
"Dugrey," he answered.
"Hey, this is Dugrey, too!"
"Hey, Rory. How're you feeling today?"
"Good."
"Wow. You're the only person I know that can make that sound like a death sentence."
"I was just sort of hoping yesterday wouldn't be a one time event."
"I know. Boy, how weird are we? I'm hoping my wife will throw up, does that make me a bad person?"
"No, I call it very sweet. I need to go, I'm heading to lunch with Kay."
"Maybe you won't be able to keep it down," Tristan encouraged.
"Aw, you're the sweetest," she teased.
"See you at home."
They hung up and she gathered her coat and purse. She and Kay talked about their holidays and hurried quickly to the deli. Kay swore it was the best in their part of town, and worth the walk in the cold. They walked into the small deli and got into a long line to order. When they got their food, they looked around for a seat in the crowded restaurant. Rory looked around and noticed what she thought was Jess sitting with a girl. She wondered if it were the girl he'd told her about. There were two extra chairs at their table, and she nudged Kay to get her to follow her.
"Jess?"
Jess looked up from his conversation to see Rory and another woman standing next to his table. He was surprised to say the least, and blinked a couple of times.
"Rory, hey."
"It's sort of packed in here. Mind if we join you guys?"
Jess looked at Erin, who nodded. She recognized the name Rory, and was sort of curious about her. He then nodded to Rory and the other girl, and they quickly sat down.
"Jess, this is Kay," Rory introduced.
"Nice to meet you. Rory, Kay, this is Erin."
"Hi," Rory extended her hand to the girl sitting across from Jess. Erin smiled back at her and shook her hand.
"I've never seen you in here before."
"Kay found it while I was in Stars Hollow. She told me we'd been missing out, so we trudged down here for lunch. Do you come here often?"
"It's our normal lunch spot," Jess told her. She noticed he said 'our', which struck her as strange. Speaking in plurals wasn't Jess, but it sounded nice. She really hoped they were doing well.
"So, Erin, what do you do?"
"I'm an grad student at NYU, and I work at the same firm Jess does."
"Oh, that's great. I've been thinking about going to grad school, too, but I love my job so much right now, I can't imagine leaving it yet."
"That's good though. So many people don't find that."
"I know, I'm spoiled that way."
Erin nodded, and looked over to see if Jess was doing alright. He was eating, as if nothing in the world was different, so she continued eating as well.
"Hey, Jess, are you going to take Will anytime soon?"
"Probably not until after school starts up. I had been thinking about taking him this weekend, but we're going out of town."
"Really, where to?"
"Vermont."
Rory made a funny face. Somehow she couldn't see Jess driving up to the country for a weekend. Erin noticed the face, and realized what Rory had to be thinking. She spoke up to clarify.
"My brother had reservations at an inn, but his relationship broke up yesterday, making the romantic getaway kind of a downer. So he offered the space to me, and we thought it'd be nice to get away before school started."
"Oh, that does sound relaxing," Rory agreed. She thought for a moment, and looked at Jess with concern.
"I forgot you were starting school next week—are you sure you will have time to help us move?"
"The tenth, right?"
"Yeah, but if you're too busy—,"
"Rory, I promised you and Tristan, each like five times, that I was able to help. I'm the closest person to you guys, distance wise, anyway."
"But you have work and school--,"
"Stop, seriously. How many people will be helping?"
"Like twenty five. At least at the house end."
"So it's not going to take very long. I'll just beg off work and skip a class. Seriously, it's fine."
"Can I help?"
"Only if you want to, I mean, that would be great, but I'm already imposing on Jess," Rory started.
"And half our office," Kay interjected.
"And most all of Stars Hollow," Jess finished.
"I'd love to help."
"Thanks," Rory looked at Kay, to see if she'd finished her lunch. "We should get going, then."
"Yeah. Nice to meet you both," Kay smiled.
"You too," Jess stood up as they got up. He hugged Rory and whispered something in her ear, and she shook her head affirmatively. She waved to Erin, and they hit the cold streets again.
"What was that about?"
"The whisper thing?" Jess asked.
Erin nodded.
"I told her you were in fact the girl I'd talked to her about over Christmas. She gave me some advice, you could say."
"You sought out advice about me?"
"Well, since I was doing so well on my own," came his sarcastic response.
"That's sweet. What did she tell you?"
"Basically to suck it up and get over myself. That if I liked you, I should just let myself be with you. I wasn't so good at that when I was with her."
"So you two, dated?"
"Yeah, in high school. But now she's my cousin," he informed her.
"Wow, that's um, weird," Erin offered.
"Her mom married my uncle. You'll met them and Will again at the move. Thanks for offering, you really don't have to."
"No problem. Where's she moving to?"
"Rory and her husband, Tristan, they're moving from Manhattan to White Plains."
"Ah, the settle down and have kids move."
Jess laughed, "Yeah, but don't let on that you know that's their motive. They think no one knows."
Erin laughed with him as they gathered their things to head back to the office.
Rory was almost to her front door when her cell phone began ringing. She unlocked the door and pushed through it while trying to push the right buttons. She dropped all her stuff inside the front walkway, and got the phone up to her ear.
"Yeah?"
"Wow, your greetings are really going downhill."
"Mom! How are you?"
"You act like we never speak," Lorelai giggled at her daughter's joyous greeting.
"Can't a girl miss her mom?"
"I guess. So, I have some news."
"Patty's getting married again?"
"No, why, what have you heard?"
"Nothing, just seemed like the most likely newsflash from home," Rory murmured, slumping down into the couch to slip off her shoes.
"True. But no. So, I was in the diner last night, talking with Luke, and somehow the topic of kids came up."
"Some how?"
"I may have made a crack about Luke's advancing age, and how we're getting too old to have kids."
"You are not."
"Well, we sort of threw the idea of having another one around."
"When?" Rory's voice was anxious.
"Soon."
"How soon?"
"Now?"
"You're already pregnant, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not. We're just talking about it."
"Oh, well, good."
"You okay?"
"Yeah, it's just, wouldn't that be weird?"
"What?"
Rory realized that she was letting the cat out of the bag, and tried to think of something to cover with.
"It's just weird that Luke thought you were too old to have anymore kids."
"How'd you know Luke said that?"
"I guessed."
"Actually what he said was we should have one before you guys do, so I won't be a pregnant grandmother. For some reason, he thinks that Guinness would be knocking down our door if that happened."
"Oh."
"You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm great."
"Rory, I don't mean to pry, but are you guys thinking about doing the kid thing soon?"
"Oh, well, I'm not sure."
"You haven't talked about it?"
"A little, you know."
"You sound funny," Lorelai prodded.
"I'm fine, just a long day at work."
"Okay. I should go get Will. He's at Sookie's."
"Alright. I'll talk to you soon."
Rory hung up the phone and sank back onto the couch deep in thought. Fifteen minutes later, she hadn't moved, and Tristan found her in this position. He was loaded down with work stuff and a takeout bag. He waved the bag in front of her, snapping her back to reality.
"I thought I'd surprise you with Chinese. It's the entire garlic column," he added.
She gave him a half smile, but didn't move off the couch. He put the bag on the table and sat down beside her.
"What's up?"
"Nothing, just thinking."
"About?"
"Mom called. She and Luke are trying."
"Trying? As in what we're doing?"
"Yep."
"You don't sound happy."
"Tristan, she can't get pregnant now!"
"Why not?"
"She's my mother, she's supposed to be there for me when I'm pregnant, to help me out, to be there when I'm giving birth, to come and tell me I'm doing it all wrong when I bring the baby home, she's not supposed to be giving birth in a room down the hall!"
"Oh."
"You think I'm being selfish."
"No, all those things, I can see her wanting to do for you. Except the telling you you're doing it wrong," Tristan mused.
"This isn't how this was supposed to go."
"Did you tell her all this?"
"No, cause we're not telling anyone," she said, laying her head on his shoulder.
"Maybe we could let her in on it, if this is important to you."
"Even then, I can't tell her not to get pregnant, she's getting older and if they want kids, they should have them now."
"Rory, she's, what? 39? 40?"
"She'll be forty this year. And Luke is a couple years older."
"Rory, she's got a few years left to have kids. It's not like its now or never for her. I'm sure if you talked to her, she'd understand. And Luke, hell, men can create babies 'til we keel over."
"You're right. I just, I don't know. Things have been getting to me easily lately."
"I know. This is all sort of daunting. Now come help me tackle the garlic column, will you?"
They got up and opened the big bag of Chinese food he'd picked up and settled down with the containers on the coffee table to watch the evening news. After dinner, they worked on packing some more. They just had a few days left to finish boxing all their stuff before the move. They were working on packing books in the study, while listening to the radio. She turned down the volume and looked at Tristan.
"So, I ran into Jess today," she informed him.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. He was at he deli Kay and I went to for lunch. And he wasn't alone."
"Who was he with?"
"A girl named Erin. He'd told me a little about her while we were home."
"He mentioned something about a girl to me, too."
"I think he really likes her, you should see her, she's gorgeous."
"I'm sure her looks isn't all Jess is interested in."
"No, he's not shallow. I just hope he gives her a real chance."
"He told me he wasn't sure about her. He asked me how I knew you were the one, when I talked to him about it."
"What'd you tell him?"
Tristan shrugged, uncomfortably. "I just knew."
"Bull. What made you know?"
"There wasn't anything you did, it was just you. I knew I wanted to be with you my entire life, I could see us together all our lives."
"That's sweet."
"How'd you know you wanted to marry me?"
"Well, mom always told me to make sure men had trust funds before I was tied down to them."
"Ha."
"I just knew. This is funny, but I think I knew back at Chilton. It was like I was too upset when you left. I just had this nagging thought that you should be in my life."
"You were upset when I left? After all the crap I did to you?"
"Yeah. You seemed to have weaseled your way into my mind."
"Good." He pulled her away from the box, and laid her back on the floor. "You know, I've been thinking, we really should up our efforts. If we're going to get you pregnant, we should be putting all our free time to it."
"Tristan, we need to pack."
He ignored her, starting to try to convince her of other necessities.
"These books aren't going to put themselves into boxes."
He lifted at her shirt, moving his head to her now uncovered stomach.
"We ... should ... ah, screw it," she gave up as he moved farther down, making her lose all interest in anything that didn't concern what his mouth was up to at the moment. He smiled into her, and they lost all track of time, making love in the den amongst the boxes.