Disclaimer: Blah, blah, I own nothing.

"Name: J-e-s-s M-a-r-i-a-n-o" Jess mumbled to himself as he scrawled his name across the application. It was a Friday evening in the first week of October. From the diner window, he could see that the trees of Stars Hallow were starting their ritual of changing their leaves. Working in the diner seemed like the only thing for him at the moment as he got settled. Sure, it wasn't glamorous or anything, but it was the only way he knew how to pay Luke back for letting him stay.

"Jess!" Lorelai came sweeping into the diner looking disgruntled.

"Well, hello sunshine," he smirked. Lorelai glared back at him.

"Jess, I'm really in the mood to hurt someone right now, and that someone just might be you. Where's Luke?" Without another word, Jess walked over to the doorway to the back.

"LUKE!!!" he bellowed.

"What?! What's wrong?!" Luke came rushing up to Jess in a panic.

"Your wife is here and she threatened to hurt me. What are you going to do about that?" Luke's face fell as Jess reported the information.

"Thank her obviously," he made his way over to Lorelai.

"What's wrong? You look upset."

"Upset? I'm not upset, what makes you think I'm upset?"

"Well, for one thing, you just threatened to kill my nephew and friend of your daughter. That and you have that look on you face like you're about to explode and go on a rampage, wiping out Stars Hollow."

Lorelai stared at him in astonishment.

"Wow...that is highly accurate of you. But not Stars Hollow really, just my mother."

"Why?" Luke leaned across the counter.

"What did she do now?"

"This." Lorelai pulled a folded package of paper out of her purse. With a flick of her wrist, the paper unfolded itself to it's full length, revealing a list that reached the floor.

"What is that, you may be asking yourself. Well, it's a list of guests that my mother has demanded we invite to the wedding."

Grabbing the list, Luke scanned it quickly, his eyes getting wider by the second. Jess stared over his shoulder, reading it.

"But we can't possibly invite..." Luke paused, counting.

" 400 people," Jess pointed out.

"How'd you know that?" Luke asked. Jess shrugged, sticking his pencil behind his ear and beginning the task of wiping down the counter.

"The point is," Lorelai continued.

"That the more time goes by, the bigger this wedding is getting! My mother is completely taking over!!"

"Did you tell her that we just wanted something small, here in Stars Hollow?" Luke asked.

"Of course I did! But this is Emily Gilmore we're talking about here!" The sound of the phone interrupted Lorelai's rant and Jess sauntered over to answer it as she and Luke continued.

"Luke's."

"Luke?"

"Rory? Is that you?"

"Jess! Thank god!" Rory's panicked voice met him.

"Is everything okay?"

"Is my mom there?"

"Yeah, hold on a sec." Jess snapped his fingers at Lorelai.

"It's Rory."

Lorelai slid off her diner stool and grabbed the phone from Jess.

"Ror?"

"Mom! How could you just abandon me here at Grandma's! She's trying to make me watch her ballroom dancing tapes again!" Lorelai smacked her forehead.

"I'm sorry! I totally didn't remember that we drove together! I'm used to you coming by yourself from school all the time. I just got so mad at her! I had to leave or there would have been a hard core S.E. Hinton rumble right then and there, and believe me I would have pulled a Tim Shepard and snapped her!"

"Right. Well, I'm still stuck here! She thinks I'm in the bathroom right now! Uh oh," Lorelai could hear her mother's voice in the background, calling Rory's name.

"I gotta go. Save me, please!" and the phone line went dead.

Sighing, Lorelai hung up the phone.

"Everything ok?" Luke asked.

"I totally forgot Rory at my mother's and now she's stuck watching reruns of 80's ballroom dancing. I'll go pick her up and then we can talk about this," she pointed at the list on the counter like it carried a contagious disease.

"I'll go."

"What?" Lorelai stared at Jess like he had just said he'd go amputate his hands.

"Seriously, I'll go pick up Rory. She's at Richard and Emily's right?"

"Yeah but-"

"Ok, so I'll go," Jess grabbed his keys off the back counter.

"You remember how to get there?"

"I think so," he nodded, shrugging on his jacket. Lorelai sat back down at the counter across from Luke.

"Thanks Jess."

He was almost out the door when he stopped, turning back to them.

"Oh, and no sex while I'm gone, I just cleaned the counters," they both stared back at him with shocked expression. He closed the door and smiled to himself.

DING DONG.

The shrill bell of the Gilmore house sounded as Jess waited for what felt like hours at the door. Finally, a maid answered the door.

"Hi, I'm here for Rory." The maid looked him up and down.

"And you are?"

"Jess Mariano, I'm a, uh, friend of Rory's. Her mom sent me to come pick her up."

The maid hesitated before letting him inside. Jess glanced around, wondering why two people required so much space.

"They're down the hall, the first room to your left," the girl disappeared quickly before Jess could utter another word. He slowly made his way down the hall, hearing the sound of the TV as he got closer. He ducked in the doorway to find Rory sitting on the couch as her Grandmother animatedly explained something to her. Her face lit up when she saw him and he smiled at this.

"Jess!" her Grandmother quickly turned her attention to where he stood. Her expression immediately turned sour as she remembered him. Rory stood up moving closer to him.

"Grandma, you remember Jess."

"Nice to see you again Mrs.Gilmore," Jess stuck out his hand. She looked at it in disgust but slowly placed her hand in his, pulling away quickly after shaking it. Jess restrained himself, knowing that if he was going to be in Rory's life again, he needed to learn to stand her grandparents. Getting them to like him was a whole other story.

"I assume Lorelai sent you. She couldn't very well come back here after the performance she put on this evening." Jess felt himself holding back his sarcasm like vomit.

"Well, Lorelai was actually very tired, so I offered to come and pick Rory up."

"Well, how kind of you James."

"Jess."

"My mistake."

If looks could kill, Jess would have been dead the moment he walked in the door.

"Well, thank you for a lovely evening Rory, even if it was interrupted slightly. I think I'll retire to bed now. Have a good night." And with that, Emily flounced out of the room.

"I'm sorry about grandma," Rory said in the car on the way back to Stars Hollow.

"It's ok, I'm used to it."

"I think she just remembers you from...the last time you visited," she looked away from him, pretending to be interested with the something outside the window.

"I know."

Silence followed Jess' answer until finally Rory's voice broke it.

"The look on Grandma's face when she saw you though was priceless."

Jess had to grin at that.

"I thought she was gonna collapse and die of shock."

"Hey," Rory smiled at him.

"Thanks for coming to get me."

"You're welcome."

"So...how about you take me for ice cream."

"What are you, five?"

Rory laughed.

"If it means that you will but me two scoops, then yes."

"Okay, but if we get back and the counters are dirty, you are cleaning them."

Author's Note:

Okay, so my life has been crazy hell the last few weeks, hence the no update. Thank you soooooooooooooooo much to everyone who reviewed, I really appreciate all the feedback! I'm sorry for not allowing anonymous reviews before, I didn't realize I wasn't, but I am now, so you can all review away! Also, I apologize for the bad format, I write it all out properly but when I load it, the formatting goes all screwy. If anyone knows how I can fix this, please let me know since it has happened to me twice now. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed this chapter even though it was a bit of a filler and kind of sucked. Please let me know what you thought anyhow!