Yes, yes, before you storm my inbox with torches and tar and feathers or simply boycott my stories, I AM aware that the Rory Jess road trip is extremely cliche. Rory and Jess can't stand each other or are "just friends" and go on a road trip together and fall in love and get married (oh, and don't get mad at me, people who write those, because I'm a junkie for them).

Look, basically, I wanted to read an original Rory road trip story. I'm responding to my own challenge to write a road trip story with a twist. Something original that blossoms out of this cliche idea. Now, I have none of this written yet, so you're going to need to let me know how I'm doing on this. I don't want to tarnish my reputation, and I don't want to make you read crap. So PLEASE, let me know what you think. I'm going to keep writing it, because I enjoy it, so writing "YOU SUCK, STOP WRITING THIS STORY" isn't going to get results. Just click the little back button and then go read something better. However, if you enjoy it or think that it has potential but have some ideas or critiques, feel free to let me know.

-Thena

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"Please put your pencils down." Rory placed her pencil on her desk and stretched. She had finished her history exam with time to spare, enough time to check the entire thing twice. She was fairly confident that she had done a good job. Nothing she could do about it now, she thought, as she handed it to her teacher, it was over.

She walked into the hall and packed her backpack. She didn't have too much homework over the break, but she wanted to take all of her books in case she suddenly felt the desire to study something. She doubted it.

She took the bus home and wandered into Luke's. "Hey Luke."

"Hey Rory. How was school?"

"Oh, good. It's over. Last final. I'm on break."

"Well, good for you! Can I get you anything?"

"Yeah, I'll have... fries... make those cheese fries. And coffee."

"Of course. Jess!"

"Got it covered." Jess grabbed a mug off the shelf and placed it in front of Rory. "How was your last final?"

"You know, if you think about it, last final is kind of redundant. You know. It's like saying, 'final final'." Jess raised his eyebrows as Rory said this all very fast.

"It was good," Rory said in a small voice, with a slight smile. Jess just raised his eyebrows and walked off again.

"Hey Rory!"

"Hey Mom!"

"How was your last final? Hey you know what's funny? Saying last final is kind of redundant. You know. It's like saying, 'final final'."

Luke and Jess looked at each other, and then just looked away, both confused and amused.

"What?" Lorelai asked.

*****

Rory was sitting on her bed flipping through her CD case, reorganizing them all. She could never decide if she wanted them in order of artist or genre. Today it was artist. She put a Floyd CD in her player and sat back down on her bed, tapping her foot in time to the music.

*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*

What was that? She stopped tapping her foot, even though she had been tapping it on the soft comforter and hadn't been making any noise.

*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*

Was it her CD? Damn, if her mom had scratched her CD again... She got up and turned off the player.

*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*

She looked over to the window, half knowing what she was going to see. She lifted the window opened and looked down at Jess.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey. So, whatcha doing?"

"Organizing my CDs. What are you doing? Taking a walk?"

"No, I came to pick you up."

"What for?"

"Your 100% bona fide road trip."