Author's Notes: Another chapter, another phone call. I'm sorry it took so
long, but my laptop literally broke; it refused to open and then the casing
cracked. It's all better now, but much panic ensued for several days until
the problem was solved.
Anyway, this chapter's pretty much filler, just moving the timeline ahead, but there are some things resolved and revelations made to keep it interesting. I'm guessing at Lily's age; I couldn't find it mentioned exactly anywhere. I stink at estimating peoples' ages, but I think I've done all right here. If I'm way off, well, it's a bit late to change it now.
Disclaimer: I own nothing thus far other than the plot. All events through the end of Season 3 have occurred, but I'm trying to stay spoiler free for the upcoming season. Any similarities between what I've written and what will occur in Season 4 are coincidence. Chapter titles are borrowed from various Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers songs. I don't own those either.
**********
Chapter Eight: I Heard You Singing to No One
March 2004
Rory stumbled through the front door, tripping over the threshold in her haste. She'd spent a large part of her day with Lane, catching up and watching the band pretend to practice, even though all they really did was snipe at each other. As much fun as it was to watch Brian and Zack nearly come to blows over chord progressions, it had left Rory running late for her call to Jess. She wondered if she should be concerned that after just three months her calls to Jess were so important to her that she panicked if she was even thirty seconds late to make or receive the call.
Shaking off the thought for another time, she flipped up the couch cushions and pillows until she unearthed the phone. Rory then went to her room and shut the door tightly behind her in case her mother came home while she was on the phone. Lorelai still wasn't happy about Rory and Jess being back in contact. Rory flopped into her armchair and dialed the now very familiar number.
The phone was eventually answered with a giggled, "Hello?"
"Hi, Lily," Rory said brightly. After a few weeks of the young girl pestering him, Jess had started letting Lily answer the phone and talk to Rory for a few minutes. In the time that he'd been living there, Lily'd become very fond of Jess and was more than eager to have one of his friends to talk to in the hopes that she could learn more about him. It also gave Rory a chance to hear things that Jess would be unlikely to reveal himself, like the fact that he cooked for Lily every week and then spent an hour reading with her. The image of the two of them sitting side by side over the same book was one that Rory had some trouble matching to the Jess she remembered, but, in talking with him, she could tell that he was different in more ways that just paying attention to Lily, so maybe it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility.
"Hi, Rory," Lily returned, still laughing merrily.
"What's so funny?" Rory asked.
Lily continued to giggle. "Jess."
Rory smiled, "What's he doing?"
"He's outside with the dogs. He won't let me outside to see what he's doing, but I can hear him. He's funny." Lily paused and Rory heard the door creak open. "I'll tell him you're on the phone, and maybe then he'll let me out."
Once the door opened Rory could hear the barking and growling of dogs even over the phone. Jess' raised voiced was also clearly audible.
"Lily, I told you to stay in the house," he shouted. Then he gave a startled cry. "Legolas, cut that out! Jerry Lee, get off! That's it, I give up!" There were a few more moments of growling and then the door creaked again.
Rory was greeted with Jess' characteristic, "Hey."
"Hi. What was that about?" she wanted to know.
Jess laughed wryly. "The call of the wild," he responded cryptically.
Rory wondered what Jack London had to do with anything. "Okay?"
"One of the neighbors has a schnauzer in heat. It isn't something I want to explain to Lily."
"I see," Rory drawled, trying not to laugh herself.
"Sure, laugh it up," Jess snapped. "You weren't the one nearly violated by a Doberman."
Rory gave up all pretense and burst into a hysterical fit of laughter. She could hear Jess in her ear, protesting that it wasn't funny and she wouldn't laugh if had happened to her, but she didn't sober until her bedroom door swung open. Lorelai stood there, looking as though she was about to ask Rory a question, but when she saw her daughter on the phone her jaw set and she backed out of the room. Rory quieted immediately.
"Wow," Jess said, "you actually listened to me for once. How'd that happen?"
"What? Oh, no. It was my mother," Rory told him.
Jess sighed sympathetically. "You two still not talking?"
"We were never not talking. There are just certain subjects that we're avoiding."
"Like me." The dejection was evident in his voice.
"Jess, it's not your fault," Rory said quickly. "And it's not that bad. I don't talk about you, she doesn't talk about me talking to you, and we co- exist peacefully."
"Whatever."
"Don't do that," Rory told him sternly. "Don't shut down because you feel like this is your fault. I told you that it's not your problem, and it's not."
"You can say that, but I know that you and Lorelai are close. I don't like that I'm coming between you again," Jess admitted.
"Mom and I will work it out." Rory hoped that wasn't a lie. "Look, let's not talk about this anymore. What's for dinner tonight?" she asked.
Jess cleared his throat and went along with the subject change. "A request has been made for macaroni and cheese, though it would go faster if Lily stopped trying to duck under my arm to see what's going on and looked for the cheese grater instead." Lily's footsteps scampering across the floor echoed in the phone.
"How come you never cooked for me like that?" Rory pouted.
"I cooked for you all the time," Jess reminded her.
Rory huffed and continued to pout. "Sure, in the diner when I had to pay for it."
"When did you ever pay for a meal I made you in the diner?" Jess wanted to know. "Because I clearly remember Luke busting me for not charging you at least once a week."
"It's not the same," Rory insisted.
"Fine," Jess sighed, "some day I will cook for you, outside of the diner, and you won't owe me anything for it."
Rory paused and considered what Jess just said. "So . . . does that mean that, maybe, you're planning on coming back here someday?" she asked softly.
Jess swallowed audibly. "Ah . . . I don't know, Rory. It's just that . . . Lily, don't touch that yet; it's still hot. Rory, hang on." He set the phone down, and Rory could hear him giving vague instructions to Lily. It was a few minutes before he came back.
"Rory?" he asked when he picked up the phone again. "You still there?"
"Yeah, still here." Rory waited for him to pick up where he left off with her, but he didn't. She had to bring it up herself. "What were you going to say?"
"When?" Jess version 1.0 reared his head, dodging questions with questions.
Rory huffed, "Jess, you know when."
"I told you, I don't know," he growled. "I don't know if I can ever go back there. And even if I did, it wouldn't be for long. I couldn't live there again. Stars Hollow and I just don't fit, Rory."
"Oh." Rory hoped the hurt in her voice was hidden well enough for Jess not to notice. "Does California fit?"
"I'm not sure. It's sort of like a shoe that's just a little too big. It's okay at first, but eventually it starts to rub and gives you blisters." Jess broke away to give Lily another instruction. "I think it'll be a little better once I get out of this house and can really do my own things without someone looking in on me every twenty minutes," he told Rory. "Sort of like a Band-Aid on the raw spot."
"You're moving?" Rory wondered how long he'd been planning it and why he hadn't mentioned it before. She wasn't sure what she'd do if he disappeared again.
"Yeah," Jess answered, "but not far. It's walking distance from here. Of course, most places I go around here are walking distance."
Rory breathed a mental sigh of relief. "Really? I didn't know you were thinking about moving out on your own."
"I didn't really either. This guy that works for Jimmy, Lee, is moving into some house with a couple of friends of his. He's been living over his step-dad's body shop, and he's got to find somebody to take the place over. He asked me the other day if I wanted it, said his step-dad'd give me a good deal on it, so I took it."
"Well, that was fortuitous." Rory winced at how stupid that sounded.
Jess snorted, "It's not much. Basically one room and a bathroom. There's a stove and refrigerator in the corner. It's closer to the beach, but it's also loud as hell during the day." Jess stopped for a second and then asked, "Why is it making you uncomfortable?"
Rory jerked in her chair and almost dropped the phone. "What do you mean?"
"'Fortuitous?' Either you've gotten a new word-a-day calendar, Yale is making you really pretentious, or my moving is making you uncomfortable," Jess said rapidly. "Now, option one is possible but not likely, I'm hoping it's not option two, and option three is possible, likely, and . . . weird."
Rory tried to laugh off Jess' comment, but it ended up sounding like she was choking on something. "That's crazy, Jess. Why would it matter to me if you move out?"
"I don't know, Rory, why would it matter to you if I move out?"
Rory could see Jess in her mind, leaning against the counter, arms folded across his chest, crooked half-smile on his face, all designed to make her squirm. "It doesn't matter."
Jess laughed softly under his breath. "Uh-huh."
"Fine," Rory whimpered. "Maybe I was nervous for a second that you were vanishing again."
"And . . ." Jess prodded.
"And nothing."
Jess laughed again, "Whatever you say."
"I hate it when you do this," Rory told him.
"Then tell me what else is bothering you, and I won't have to."
Rory stood up and milled around her room, stopping to kick petulantly at the foot of her bed. "Maybe I'm jealous," she mumbled.
"What was that?" Jess asked. "I missed that."
"Maybe I'm jealous," she repeated so that Jess could hear her.
"Of me?" Jess asked incredulously. "What for?"
"You're doing stuff on your own, for yourself." Rory felt herself blush. "I wish I could do that."
Jess seemed to be contemplating something. "Okay, and correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Yale something you're doing on your own, for yourself? I mean, I've never been to college, but I don't remember hearing that it had become a team sport."
"My grandparents are paying for it," Rory reminded him. "It's hardly something I can claim to be doing on my own if I couldn't do it with out them."
"You could do it on your own," Jess protested. "You'd have to take out massive loans, but you could do it."
Rory kicked her bedframe again. "It's not that easy, Jess. You've met my grandmother. You don't honestly think she'd have let me take out loans from a bank when she could offer me the money, do you?"
"All right. So, you may have me there." Jess paused, and there was a noise like he was chewing something. He swallowed and spoke again. "Listen, someday, like twenty years from now, I'll turn on CNN or some other channel, and there you'll be, standing in the middle of some war torn country, all crazy-eyed 'cause of the night vision camera, and I will be incredibly jealous of you."
Rory felt warm at Jess' words. "You really think so? You still think I can do that?"
"Hey, I would not have offered to drive down the road at you, screaming in a foreign language, if I didn't think it would be beneficial."
"I always thought that was a very sweet offer," Rory admitted.
Jess made a wordless noise in his throat. "So, how's your break going?"
Rory laughed out loud. "That was a pretty obvious subject change."
"I try," Jess said sarcastically. "You gonna let me get away with it?"
"Break is fine," Rory said in response. "I've been doing a little reading now and then, but I'm mostly vegging. It's nice not having piles of work stacked around the room or witnessing Paris have yet another meltdown." Rory sat on the edge of her bed, plucking at a stray thread. "What are you up to?"
"Same old thing," Jess sighed. "Work, work, and still more work. I toss some stuff in a box to move every now and then, but that's about it."
"Are you still going to stay with Lily on Thursdays?"
"Yeah. I can't leave her alone in the middle of Narnia, now can I?" The affection in Jess' voice was undisguised.
Rory still couldn't get over how much Jess seemed to care about Lily. It was completely against his nature, and Rory wished she could meet Lily to know what was different about her that made the Jess that Rory knew, the one who cringed at the sight of a baby, become what sounded like a teddy bear. A teddy bear made of a rather scratchy material, but a teddy bear nonetheless.
"You've moved onto C.S. Lewis?" Rory asked.
"A couple of weeks ago. Lily likes Swift, but I didn't think Sasha would appreciate me reading her 'A Modest Proposal,'" Jess said.
"Probably not," Rory agreed. There was a thudding on Jess' end of the line. A metallic clinking revealed what he was doing; he was setting the table. "I should let you go. I don't want to keep you from your dinner."
"Okay. Lil, come here." Jess passed the phone off to Lily, something else she'd pestered him into doing after a few weeks of calls.
"Hi, Rory," Lily chirped. "Next week can you tell me something else about Jess? Something like the egg thing? He turned a really neat color when I asked him about that."
Rory laughed, "Sure, I'll think of something. You guys have a good time tonight, okay?"
"Okay. Bye, Rory."
"Bye, Lily." Rory waited for Jess to come back on the line.
"I really wish you wouldn't tell her stuff," he grumbled. "Do you know how hard it was to tell her why you threw deviled eggs at my car without going into too much detail? There isn't an eight year old alive who will accept 'she was mad at me' as an answer."
"There also isn't one who thinks 'I don't know anything else' is a good answer either," Rory shot back.
Jess chuckled, "I'll call you next week. Good night, Rory."
"Good night, Jess."
Rory hung up and lay back on the bed. She usually took some time to think about her conversations with Jess after they hung up. He sounded a lot lighter than she remembered; he laughed a lot more. And it wasn't always sarcastic laughter. Rory wondered if he looked different, too. Did he still carry himself like he was waiting for someone to attack him somehow, shoulders hunched with his hands in his pockets? She hoped not. There were times, when it was just the two of them, that he would relax and drop his guard. Rory never told him, but he looked so much younger during those times, and it made her wish he would tell her what made him close off and have to grow up so quickly. She had the irrational notion that she could fix him somehow. She knew in her heart that she couldn't, but maybe getting to know Jimmy and having some sort of stable family around him was exactly what could fix him. Rory hoped so.
Rolling off the bed, she opened the door to her room and went to see what her mother had wanted earlier. She found Lorelai curled up on the couch watching an infomercial.
"You know, this vacuum saver thing is really cool. I think we should get one," Lorelai said idly.
Rory flopped down next to her mother. "You just want to see what happens if you put a Twinkie in one." She expected answer about all the possible benefits that might be derived from snack food experimentation, but that wasn't what she got.
"He makes you happy," Lorelai said instead.
"Jan the Food Saver guy?" Rory asked, confused.
"No, Jess." Lorelai turned to look at Rory. "I haven't seen you as happy as you were on the phone in a long time."
Rory blushed and stared intently at the television. "I've been happy," she insisted.
"Not giggle until you can't breathe happy." Lorelai shifted and faced Rory directly and poked her in the shoulder. "Tell me."
Rory regarded her mother with a skeptical look. "Tell you what?"
"What it is about Jess that makes you smile like that? Why Jess at all?"
"I don't know why, exactly. There isn't one specific thing," Rory said quietly. She'd thought about why she was drawn to Jess before she'd started dating him, while she was dating him, and even now that she wasn't sure what they were doing. Not once had she been able to figure out what it was that drew them together. Yes, they shared a lot of common interests in books and music, but that wasn't completely it. "It's just him, I guess."
Lorelai sighed and nodded. "I was afraid of that."
"What's that mean?"
"He's your Christopher."
"Mom," Rory groaned, "stop saying that. Jess is not like Dad. He isn't even the guy you remember. He's a lot different since he moved to California. He's not as angry all the time; he talks about things. He's really trying to change."
"And he makes you smile," Lorelai said quietly, tucking a lock of Rory's hair back. "He didn't do that before."
Rory's blush came back. "He did. We were just usually alone."
"That was entirely too much information, babe. I'm getting mental images now. Is it possible to bleach your brain?" Lorelai wondered.
"Mom!" Rory squealed and pushed at her mother's shoulder. The two started laughing and playfully shoving each other. "Does this mean we've made up?" Rory wanted to know.
"There could be a very small chance that I was wrong about you talking to Jess," Lorelai admitted. "But only very small," she said quickly. "Teeny- tiny, microbial small."
"Microbes multiply, you know," Rory reminded her. "Someday that tiny bit of wrongness could grow into you and Jess being best friends."
"Hey, now. We're finally mostly cool again. Let's not push it." Lorelai turned back to the television. "What do you think would happen if we tried to vacuum save a full soda can?"
Rory sighed contentedly and rested against her mother's side. This is the way things should be. Well, almost the way they should be. She looked up at Lorelai. "You know that you have to apologize to Luke too?"
Lorelai rested her cheek on the top of Rory's head. "Hush, sweetie. Mommy's learning about all the money she can save buying cheese in bulk."
**********
The door squeaked open and let in the sound of a few dogs half-heartedly squabbling in the yard. Footsteps followed by the jangling of keys entered the house, and then the door clicked shut again. Jess caught sight of Jimmy out of the corner of his eye and held up a hand to stave of the probable comment on the state of things outside. Finishing the page they were on, Jess dog-eared the corner and handed the book to Lily.
"Go get ready for bed early, and I'll come to your room in a little bit to finish the chapter, okay?" he asked the young girl. "I want to talk to Jimmy about something."
Lily shrugged a shoulder. "Okay." She tucked the book under her arm and skipped down the hall leaving Jess and Jimmy alone.
"You know," Jimmy said, "she was six when she told me she didn't need to be read to at night anymore." He sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him. "She really likes you."
Jess shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. "Yeah, well, she likes it when we talk about what we're reading instead of me just reading the words to her." He shifted again, pulled something out of his back pocket and tossed over to land in Jimmy's lap.
"What's this?" Jimmy asked, looking down at what Jess had thrown at him. It was a picture of a girl perched on a stool in what Jimmy faintly recalled as being Luke's diner.
"That's Rory," Jess told him.
Jimmy looked up and tried to hide his surprise at the rather sudden turn in Jess' willingness to share this mystery he'd been keeping. "She's the one you've been calling?"
"Yeah."
"She looks . . ." Jimmy trailed off and looked at the picture again. The girl in the photo was smiling brightly at the camera, and, he assumed, at Jess behind the lens. She was petite, long brown hair pulled into a ponytail. Her clothes were neat and conservative but there was tinsel caught in the ponytail and a red Christmas garland looped around her neck like a shiny metallic feather boa. Jimmy wasn't sure how to finish his broken thought.
Jess did. ". . . nothing like you thought she would. You were expecting a bleach job, tight clothes, and more make up than a kabuki theater." Jess watch Jimmy stumble in denial before helping him out. "That's okay. I dated girls like that. I dated a lot of girls like that. Even managed to find one in Stars Hollow."
"So, how'd you end up with this one?" Jimmy wanted to know.
"Her mom and Luke are friends. When I first got there they had us over for some 'getting to know you' dinner. She was sitting there, and she smiled at me. . ."
"And someone cued a choir of angels," Jimmy concluded.
"Something like that," Jess agreed. He then gave Jimmy a condensed history of his relationship with Rory, concluding with his letter and their recent phone calls, all the more personal details deleted, of course.
Jimmy nodded along as Jess spoke. "So, why are you telling me this now?" he asked when Jess finished.
"Not sure," the younger man shrugged. And Jess wasn't sure exactly, but he did know that it felt sort of unfair to keep that part of himself closed off when Jimmy was trying so hard to be open and make Jess feel welcome. Maybe he was opening up about Rory out of some kind of misplaced guilt over moving out of the house. Maybe it was because he was starting to see how alike he and Jimmy were, and he wanted the man to know that he'd had someone special too, that he wasn't a complete emotional void. Maybe spending all that time with Lily was making him soft. Whatever was causing the change, Jess couldn't stop it, and he was pretty sure he didn't want to.
Standing, he collected his picture and turned to go find Lily and finish their chapter, but Jimmy called after him before he got too far.
"Jess, I know that you've had a rough time, but . . ."
Just then, Lily's voice echoed into the room proclaiming that she was ready, and Jimmy trailed off.
Jess nodded toward the hall, "So, I should get back to Lily so she can get to sleep."
"Yeah," Jimmy agreed, "Sasha gets a little cranky if Lily's up late."
Jess laughed under his breath, "Go figure."
Jimmy laughed lightly with his son. "Go. Read. But, Jess? Thanks for telling me about your friend."
Pausing at the edge of the room, Jess gave Jimmy a slight nod and small smile before continuing toward Lily's inquiry about whether or not he was coming.
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Author's Notes the Second: Thanks to everyone for reading! Coming up next - lots and lots of Luke, I promise. And Jimmy'll make Jess an offer he can't refuse . . . or can he?
Anyway, this chapter's pretty much filler, just moving the timeline ahead, but there are some things resolved and revelations made to keep it interesting. I'm guessing at Lily's age; I couldn't find it mentioned exactly anywhere. I stink at estimating peoples' ages, but I think I've done all right here. If I'm way off, well, it's a bit late to change it now.
Disclaimer: I own nothing thus far other than the plot. All events through the end of Season 3 have occurred, but I'm trying to stay spoiler free for the upcoming season. Any similarities between what I've written and what will occur in Season 4 are coincidence. Chapter titles are borrowed from various Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers songs. I don't own those either.
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Chapter Eight: I Heard You Singing to No One
March 2004
Rory stumbled through the front door, tripping over the threshold in her haste. She'd spent a large part of her day with Lane, catching up and watching the band pretend to practice, even though all they really did was snipe at each other. As much fun as it was to watch Brian and Zack nearly come to blows over chord progressions, it had left Rory running late for her call to Jess. She wondered if she should be concerned that after just three months her calls to Jess were so important to her that she panicked if she was even thirty seconds late to make or receive the call.
Shaking off the thought for another time, she flipped up the couch cushions and pillows until she unearthed the phone. Rory then went to her room and shut the door tightly behind her in case her mother came home while she was on the phone. Lorelai still wasn't happy about Rory and Jess being back in contact. Rory flopped into her armchair and dialed the now very familiar number.
The phone was eventually answered with a giggled, "Hello?"
"Hi, Lily," Rory said brightly. After a few weeks of the young girl pestering him, Jess had started letting Lily answer the phone and talk to Rory for a few minutes. In the time that he'd been living there, Lily'd become very fond of Jess and was more than eager to have one of his friends to talk to in the hopes that she could learn more about him. It also gave Rory a chance to hear things that Jess would be unlikely to reveal himself, like the fact that he cooked for Lily every week and then spent an hour reading with her. The image of the two of them sitting side by side over the same book was one that Rory had some trouble matching to the Jess she remembered, but, in talking with him, she could tell that he was different in more ways that just paying attention to Lily, so maybe it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility.
"Hi, Rory," Lily returned, still laughing merrily.
"What's so funny?" Rory asked.
Lily continued to giggle. "Jess."
Rory smiled, "What's he doing?"
"He's outside with the dogs. He won't let me outside to see what he's doing, but I can hear him. He's funny." Lily paused and Rory heard the door creak open. "I'll tell him you're on the phone, and maybe then he'll let me out."
Once the door opened Rory could hear the barking and growling of dogs even over the phone. Jess' raised voiced was also clearly audible.
"Lily, I told you to stay in the house," he shouted. Then he gave a startled cry. "Legolas, cut that out! Jerry Lee, get off! That's it, I give up!" There were a few more moments of growling and then the door creaked again.
Rory was greeted with Jess' characteristic, "Hey."
"Hi. What was that about?" she wanted to know.
Jess laughed wryly. "The call of the wild," he responded cryptically.
Rory wondered what Jack London had to do with anything. "Okay?"
"One of the neighbors has a schnauzer in heat. It isn't something I want to explain to Lily."
"I see," Rory drawled, trying not to laugh herself.
"Sure, laugh it up," Jess snapped. "You weren't the one nearly violated by a Doberman."
Rory gave up all pretense and burst into a hysterical fit of laughter. She could hear Jess in her ear, protesting that it wasn't funny and she wouldn't laugh if had happened to her, but she didn't sober until her bedroom door swung open. Lorelai stood there, looking as though she was about to ask Rory a question, but when she saw her daughter on the phone her jaw set and she backed out of the room. Rory quieted immediately.
"Wow," Jess said, "you actually listened to me for once. How'd that happen?"
"What? Oh, no. It was my mother," Rory told him.
Jess sighed sympathetically. "You two still not talking?"
"We were never not talking. There are just certain subjects that we're avoiding."
"Like me." The dejection was evident in his voice.
"Jess, it's not your fault," Rory said quickly. "And it's not that bad. I don't talk about you, she doesn't talk about me talking to you, and we co- exist peacefully."
"Whatever."
"Don't do that," Rory told him sternly. "Don't shut down because you feel like this is your fault. I told you that it's not your problem, and it's not."
"You can say that, but I know that you and Lorelai are close. I don't like that I'm coming between you again," Jess admitted.
"Mom and I will work it out." Rory hoped that wasn't a lie. "Look, let's not talk about this anymore. What's for dinner tonight?" she asked.
Jess cleared his throat and went along with the subject change. "A request has been made for macaroni and cheese, though it would go faster if Lily stopped trying to duck under my arm to see what's going on and looked for the cheese grater instead." Lily's footsteps scampering across the floor echoed in the phone.
"How come you never cooked for me like that?" Rory pouted.
"I cooked for you all the time," Jess reminded her.
Rory huffed and continued to pout. "Sure, in the diner when I had to pay for it."
"When did you ever pay for a meal I made you in the diner?" Jess wanted to know. "Because I clearly remember Luke busting me for not charging you at least once a week."
"It's not the same," Rory insisted.
"Fine," Jess sighed, "some day I will cook for you, outside of the diner, and you won't owe me anything for it."
Rory paused and considered what Jess just said. "So . . . does that mean that, maybe, you're planning on coming back here someday?" she asked softly.
Jess swallowed audibly. "Ah . . . I don't know, Rory. It's just that . . . Lily, don't touch that yet; it's still hot. Rory, hang on." He set the phone down, and Rory could hear him giving vague instructions to Lily. It was a few minutes before he came back.
"Rory?" he asked when he picked up the phone again. "You still there?"
"Yeah, still here." Rory waited for him to pick up where he left off with her, but he didn't. She had to bring it up herself. "What were you going to say?"
"When?" Jess version 1.0 reared his head, dodging questions with questions.
Rory huffed, "Jess, you know when."
"I told you, I don't know," he growled. "I don't know if I can ever go back there. And even if I did, it wouldn't be for long. I couldn't live there again. Stars Hollow and I just don't fit, Rory."
"Oh." Rory hoped the hurt in her voice was hidden well enough for Jess not to notice. "Does California fit?"
"I'm not sure. It's sort of like a shoe that's just a little too big. It's okay at first, but eventually it starts to rub and gives you blisters." Jess broke away to give Lily another instruction. "I think it'll be a little better once I get out of this house and can really do my own things without someone looking in on me every twenty minutes," he told Rory. "Sort of like a Band-Aid on the raw spot."
"You're moving?" Rory wondered how long he'd been planning it and why he hadn't mentioned it before. She wasn't sure what she'd do if he disappeared again.
"Yeah," Jess answered, "but not far. It's walking distance from here. Of course, most places I go around here are walking distance."
Rory breathed a mental sigh of relief. "Really? I didn't know you were thinking about moving out on your own."
"I didn't really either. This guy that works for Jimmy, Lee, is moving into some house with a couple of friends of his. He's been living over his step-dad's body shop, and he's got to find somebody to take the place over. He asked me the other day if I wanted it, said his step-dad'd give me a good deal on it, so I took it."
"Well, that was fortuitous." Rory winced at how stupid that sounded.
Jess snorted, "It's not much. Basically one room and a bathroom. There's a stove and refrigerator in the corner. It's closer to the beach, but it's also loud as hell during the day." Jess stopped for a second and then asked, "Why is it making you uncomfortable?"
Rory jerked in her chair and almost dropped the phone. "What do you mean?"
"'Fortuitous?' Either you've gotten a new word-a-day calendar, Yale is making you really pretentious, or my moving is making you uncomfortable," Jess said rapidly. "Now, option one is possible but not likely, I'm hoping it's not option two, and option three is possible, likely, and . . . weird."
Rory tried to laugh off Jess' comment, but it ended up sounding like she was choking on something. "That's crazy, Jess. Why would it matter to me if you move out?"
"I don't know, Rory, why would it matter to you if I move out?"
Rory could see Jess in her mind, leaning against the counter, arms folded across his chest, crooked half-smile on his face, all designed to make her squirm. "It doesn't matter."
Jess laughed softly under his breath. "Uh-huh."
"Fine," Rory whimpered. "Maybe I was nervous for a second that you were vanishing again."
"And . . ." Jess prodded.
"And nothing."
Jess laughed again, "Whatever you say."
"I hate it when you do this," Rory told him.
"Then tell me what else is bothering you, and I won't have to."
Rory stood up and milled around her room, stopping to kick petulantly at the foot of her bed. "Maybe I'm jealous," she mumbled.
"What was that?" Jess asked. "I missed that."
"Maybe I'm jealous," she repeated so that Jess could hear her.
"Of me?" Jess asked incredulously. "What for?"
"You're doing stuff on your own, for yourself." Rory felt herself blush. "I wish I could do that."
Jess seemed to be contemplating something. "Okay, and correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Yale something you're doing on your own, for yourself? I mean, I've never been to college, but I don't remember hearing that it had become a team sport."
"My grandparents are paying for it," Rory reminded him. "It's hardly something I can claim to be doing on my own if I couldn't do it with out them."
"You could do it on your own," Jess protested. "You'd have to take out massive loans, but you could do it."
Rory kicked her bedframe again. "It's not that easy, Jess. You've met my grandmother. You don't honestly think she'd have let me take out loans from a bank when she could offer me the money, do you?"
"All right. So, you may have me there." Jess paused, and there was a noise like he was chewing something. He swallowed and spoke again. "Listen, someday, like twenty years from now, I'll turn on CNN or some other channel, and there you'll be, standing in the middle of some war torn country, all crazy-eyed 'cause of the night vision camera, and I will be incredibly jealous of you."
Rory felt warm at Jess' words. "You really think so? You still think I can do that?"
"Hey, I would not have offered to drive down the road at you, screaming in a foreign language, if I didn't think it would be beneficial."
"I always thought that was a very sweet offer," Rory admitted.
Jess made a wordless noise in his throat. "So, how's your break going?"
Rory laughed out loud. "That was a pretty obvious subject change."
"I try," Jess said sarcastically. "You gonna let me get away with it?"
"Break is fine," Rory said in response. "I've been doing a little reading now and then, but I'm mostly vegging. It's nice not having piles of work stacked around the room or witnessing Paris have yet another meltdown." Rory sat on the edge of her bed, plucking at a stray thread. "What are you up to?"
"Same old thing," Jess sighed. "Work, work, and still more work. I toss some stuff in a box to move every now and then, but that's about it."
"Are you still going to stay with Lily on Thursdays?"
"Yeah. I can't leave her alone in the middle of Narnia, now can I?" The affection in Jess' voice was undisguised.
Rory still couldn't get over how much Jess seemed to care about Lily. It was completely against his nature, and Rory wished she could meet Lily to know what was different about her that made the Jess that Rory knew, the one who cringed at the sight of a baby, become what sounded like a teddy bear. A teddy bear made of a rather scratchy material, but a teddy bear nonetheless.
"You've moved onto C.S. Lewis?" Rory asked.
"A couple of weeks ago. Lily likes Swift, but I didn't think Sasha would appreciate me reading her 'A Modest Proposal,'" Jess said.
"Probably not," Rory agreed. There was a thudding on Jess' end of the line. A metallic clinking revealed what he was doing; he was setting the table. "I should let you go. I don't want to keep you from your dinner."
"Okay. Lil, come here." Jess passed the phone off to Lily, something else she'd pestered him into doing after a few weeks of calls.
"Hi, Rory," Lily chirped. "Next week can you tell me something else about Jess? Something like the egg thing? He turned a really neat color when I asked him about that."
Rory laughed, "Sure, I'll think of something. You guys have a good time tonight, okay?"
"Okay. Bye, Rory."
"Bye, Lily." Rory waited for Jess to come back on the line.
"I really wish you wouldn't tell her stuff," he grumbled. "Do you know how hard it was to tell her why you threw deviled eggs at my car without going into too much detail? There isn't an eight year old alive who will accept 'she was mad at me' as an answer."
"There also isn't one who thinks 'I don't know anything else' is a good answer either," Rory shot back.
Jess chuckled, "I'll call you next week. Good night, Rory."
"Good night, Jess."
Rory hung up and lay back on the bed. She usually took some time to think about her conversations with Jess after they hung up. He sounded a lot lighter than she remembered; he laughed a lot more. And it wasn't always sarcastic laughter. Rory wondered if he looked different, too. Did he still carry himself like he was waiting for someone to attack him somehow, shoulders hunched with his hands in his pockets? She hoped not. There were times, when it was just the two of them, that he would relax and drop his guard. Rory never told him, but he looked so much younger during those times, and it made her wish he would tell her what made him close off and have to grow up so quickly. She had the irrational notion that she could fix him somehow. She knew in her heart that she couldn't, but maybe getting to know Jimmy and having some sort of stable family around him was exactly what could fix him. Rory hoped so.
Rolling off the bed, she opened the door to her room and went to see what her mother had wanted earlier. She found Lorelai curled up on the couch watching an infomercial.
"You know, this vacuum saver thing is really cool. I think we should get one," Lorelai said idly.
Rory flopped down next to her mother. "You just want to see what happens if you put a Twinkie in one." She expected answer about all the possible benefits that might be derived from snack food experimentation, but that wasn't what she got.
"He makes you happy," Lorelai said instead.
"Jan the Food Saver guy?" Rory asked, confused.
"No, Jess." Lorelai turned to look at Rory. "I haven't seen you as happy as you were on the phone in a long time."
Rory blushed and stared intently at the television. "I've been happy," she insisted.
"Not giggle until you can't breathe happy." Lorelai shifted and faced Rory directly and poked her in the shoulder. "Tell me."
Rory regarded her mother with a skeptical look. "Tell you what?"
"What it is about Jess that makes you smile like that? Why Jess at all?"
"I don't know why, exactly. There isn't one specific thing," Rory said quietly. She'd thought about why she was drawn to Jess before she'd started dating him, while she was dating him, and even now that she wasn't sure what they were doing. Not once had she been able to figure out what it was that drew them together. Yes, they shared a lot of common interests in books and music, but that wasn't completely it. "It's just him, I guess."
Lorelai sighed and nodded. "I was afraid of that."
"What's that mean?"
"He's your Christopher."
"Mom," Rory groaned, "stop saying that. Jess is not like Dad. He isn't even the guy you remember. He's a lot different since he moved to California. He's not as angry all the time; he talks about things. He's really trying to change."
"And he makes you smile," Lorelai said quietly, tucking a lock of Rory's hair back. "He didn't do that before."
Rory's blush came back. "He did. We were just usually alone."
"That was entirely too much information, babe. I'm getting mental images now. Is it possible to bleach your brain?" Lorelai wondered.
"Mom!" Rory squealed and pushed at her mother's shoulder. The two started laughing and playfully shoving each other. "Does this mean we've made up?" Rory wanted to know.
"There could be a very small chance that I was wrong about you talking to Jess," Lorelai admitted. "But only very small," she said quickly. "Teeny- tiny, microbial small."
"Microbes multiply, you know," Rory reminded her. "Someday that tiny bit of wrongness could grow into you and Jess being best friends."
"Hey, now. We're finally mostly cool again. Let's not push it." Lorelai turned back to the television. "What do you think would happen if we tried to vacuum save a full soda can?"
Rory sighed contentedly and rested against her mother's side. This is the way things should be. Well, almost the way they should be. She looked up at Lorelai. "You know that you have to apologize to Luke too?"
Lorelai rested her cheek on the top of Rory's head. "Hush, sweetie. Mommy's learning about all the money she can save buying cheese in bulk."
**********
The door squeaked open and let in the sound of a few dogs half-heartedly squabbling in the yard. Footsteps followed by the jangling of keys entered the house, and then the door clicked shut again. Jess caught sight of Jimmy out of the corner of his eye and held up a hand to stave of the probable comment on the state of things outside. Finishing the page they were on, Jess dog-eared the corner and handed the book to Lily.
"Go get ready for bed early, and I'll come to your room in a little bit to finish the chapter, okay?" he asked the young girl. "I want to talk to Jimmy about something."
Lily shrugged a shoulder. "Okay." She tucked the book under her arm and skipped down the hall leaving Jess and Jimmy alone.
"You know," Jimmy said, "she was six when she told me she didn't need to be read to at night anymore." He sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him. "She really likes you."
Jess shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. "Yeah, well, she likes it when we talk about what we're reading instead of me just reading the words to her." He shifted again, pulled something out of his back pocket and tossed over to land in Jimmy's lap.
"What's this?" Jimmy asked, looking down at what Jess had thrown at him. It was a picture of a girl perched on a stool in what Jimmy faintly recalled as being Luke's diner.
"That's Rory," Jess told him.
Jimmy looked up and tried to hide his surprise at the rather sudden turn in Jess' willingness to share this mystery he'd been keeping. "She's the one you've been calling?"
"Yeah."
"She looks . . ." Jimmy trailed off and looked at the picture again. The girl in the photo was smiling brightly at the camera, and, he assumed, at Jess behind the lens. She was petite, long brown hair pulled into a ponytail. Her clothes were neat and conservative but there was tinsel caught in the ponytail and a red Christmas garland looped around her neck like a shiny metallic feather boa. Jimmy wasn't sure how to finish his broken thought.
Jess did. ". . . nothing like you thought she would. You were expecting a bleach job, tight clothes, and more make up than a kabuki theater." Jess watch Jimmy stumble in denial before helping him out. "That's okay. I dated girls like that. I dated a lot of girls like that. Even managed to find one in Stars Hollow."
"So, how'd you end up with this one?" Jimmy wanted to know.
"Her mom and Luke are friends. When I first got there they had us over for some 'getting to know you' dinner. She was sitting there, and she smiled at me. . ."
"And someone cued a choir of angels," Jimmy concluded.
"Something like that," Jess agreed. He then gave Jimmy a condensed history of his relationship with Rory, concluding with his letter and their recent phone calls, all the more personal details deleted, of course.
Jimmy nodded along as Jess spoke. "So, why are you telling me this now?" he asked when Jess finished.
"Not sure," the younger man shrugged. And Jess wasn't sure exactly, but he did know that it felt sort of unfair to keep that part of himself closed off when Jimmy was trying so hard to be open and make Jess feel welcome. Maybe he was opening up about Rory out of some kind of misplaced guilt over moving out of the house. Maybe it was because he was starting to see how alike he and Jimmy were, and he wanted the man to know that he'd had someone special too, that he wasn't a complete emotional void. Maybe spending all that time with Lily was making him soft. Whatever was causing the change, Jess couldn't stop it, and he was pretty sure he didn't want to.
Standing, he collected his picture and turned to go find Lily and finish their chapter, but Jimmy called after him before he got too far.
"Jess, I know that you've had a rough time, but . . ."
Just then, Lily's voice echoed into the room proclaiming that she was ready, and Jimmy trailed off.
Jess nodded toward the hall, "So, I should get back to Lily so she can get to sleep."
"Yeah," Jimmy agreed, "Sasha gets a little cranky if Lily's up late."
Jess laughed under his breath, "Go figure."
Jimmy laughed lightly with his son. "Go. Read. But, Jess? Thanks for telling me about your friend."
Pausing at the edge of the room, Jess gave Jimmy a slight nod and small smile before continuing toward Lily's inquiry about whether or not he was coming.
**********
Author's Notes the Second: Thanks to everyone for reading! Coming up next - lots and lots of Luke, I promise. And Jimmy'll make Jess an offer he can't refuse . . . or can he?