Disclaimer: I own nothing that isn't mine. Cute, huh?

A/N: For my sake, let us pretend that:

1. The whole money problem in "Those Are Strings, Pinocchio" happened, and was solved, before graduation.

2. Lorelai and Rory decided to defer Europe for at least another year, and they're going to work on the Dragonfly throughout the summer.

3.Rory and Kyka did talk at the bridge. That conversation is, however, meant for you to read later on.

4. Sookie and Lorelai bought the Dragonfly.

5. Two weeks have passed, Jess has started his G.E.D. classes in Hartford, since Star's Hollow High won't let him.

6. Rory aced all her finals. (Of course.)

7. Rhiannon's birthday has come and gone. I'll tell you about the party later on.

Chapter 12: Deuces Are Wild

It's the day before Rory's graduation.

The past two weeks had been hectic, to say the least, and everybody was still adjusting to the sudden changes that had been thrown at them during said time.

Rory Gilmore was graduating. That alone was going to be something big.

Lorelai Gilmore and Sookie St. James had gotten their own inn, and that, again, was something huge.

Star's Hollow had had to deal with Jason D'Antona, Erika Lairs, and Rhiannon Vianti, but that had been hilarious.

And Jess Mariano was taking G.E.D. classes in Hartford, and that... that was downright unbelieavable.

No. Correction. The most unbeliavable thing had been the town meeting.

Flashback

Where Taylor fairly attacked Luke for renting his apartment to an unmarried couple, said unmarried couple for spreading evil morals, and said evil morals for corrupting, ironically, Rhiannon. Said Pure Maiden, as Jess likes to call her, happens to have a very low tolerance level for insults thrown at the people she loves, and she suddendly stands up, stamping her foot, and begins yelling at Taylor.

"Stop that!" He's being mean. I don't like him.

"Excuse me? Somebody keep that child under control. See? That is exactly what I mean, the lack of proper parenting..."

"I said stop that! Why are you so mean to them? They're nice to me. They're nice to everybody..." They love me.

Erika wraps an arm around the Half Pint.

"Hush, don't worry." Nice going, market guy, you managed to upset the kid. She whispers in her ear. "Let him speak. As long as we don't care..." She raises her voice. "Because we don't care what you think. Really." Where does he get off thinking like that? People in Sicily don't think like that anymore... and we're talking Sicily, here...

Taylor looks about ready to launch into a Rant, when Rory speaks up, shooting Erika a look.

"Oh, leave them alone, this is insane." It's worse than when they dissect my relationship with Jess. She turns to Luke "Can we go to the diner and have coffee? I believe that Pearl, over there, would like some pie." I know where Rhiannon is coming from. This whole moral tirade is grating on my nerves.

Rhiannon nods, Jess catches the literary reference, and they all get up to leave, leaving behind a bewildered town meeting.

End of Flashback

Jess Mariano is sitting on the floor in the gazebo, at the center of the town square, a worn copy of Oliver Twist in his left hand, legs bent at the knees and spread apart, back and head resting against one of the walls. Rhiannon is slouching on the gazebo floor as well, her upper body draped over one of his legs, her arms wrapping around it, her head leaning on his knee. Her raven curls are a messily spread blanket, and he twirls his index finger in it as he reads to her. She makes a purring noise, and he laughs.

"See? I do remember." I couldn't forget. Locking it away, hiding it behind layers of indifference, pretending it was nonexistant... Not succeeding at any of those, I could do. Forgetting? No.

"You never forget anything..." she replies, moving to rest her head against his chest, curls spilling to cover her face.

"I was mad..."at you, for a long time.

He frowns.

"When?"

"When we left. I wanted you to come there with us."

"You know I couldn't."

She nods, solemnly.

"I wanted to stay mad at you. Then I read the e-mails you were sending to Jase... and I was missing you tons. And hating you tons, 'cause you were here and not there, at home with us. And last year, when I saw you, I hated you then, too."

"Did you stop hating me at some point?" My home wasn't where you guys were. It wasn't even New York. It was here, Star's Hollow, with its annoying people, the stupid festival, the let's hate Jess undertones... Luke... Rory.

"Yeah... You ask about me..." I liked that you were writing that... She turns her head to fix a somewhat liquid gaze to his. "Think they know..." what I'm doing, where I am, that I love them?

"They know, Pure Maiden..." He nods.

"I miss them." she said quietly "there are days I wake up and can't remember their faces, or what they used to say anymore..." Jess follows a tear making its way down to her mouth, trying to breathe around the knot he feels rising in his throat. "I miss them so, so much... And I don't get to see them ever again. I hate them so much, for leaving like that..." She buries her crying eyes in the folds of his shirt, and his hands find their way to her hair, his arms drawn around her in a protective hug. He knows everything and can't stop dams from breaking and the resulting overflow from pouring into his head, those same thoughts and feelings he vowed to repress three years prior invading, pulling, pushing, claiming him as their own.

Why? Why did all this have to happen to her? To us?

He doesn't have the answers to give himself, much less her. He can't explain, and he can't solve, and he can't make everything all right. So he just holds her, as close to him as possible, as strongly as he can, to help her face the pain he knows will never stop, and that he knows is too big for her to bear alone.

She's only nine. His thoughts are angry and bitter. She's only nine, and she didn't need something so horrible to happen to her. She's only nine and she couldn't deal then, and she can't deal now...

"I guess you can't really help yourself, can you?"

The voice brings Jess out of his daze and Rhiannon out of her crying fit. Jess cringes, knowing full well who the scornful, taunting tone belongs to.

Bag Boy. Whom I could willingly unleash all of my current frustration on. And I would not regret a minute of it.

"Who's that?" she asks, pointing at the tall, floppy haired boy standing in the gazebo in front of them.

"A guy who was just leaving, Half-Pint." His stare never leaving the newcomer."Isn't that right, Dean?"

"Is that a special talent you have?" The intruder disregards Jess' last remark "Making people cry? Now, where did I see that before?" He fakes thinking, tapping a finger on his forehead. "Oh, wait. I know. Last time I saw you, you made Rory cry. Now, you're making a little kid cry. Do I sense a pattern here?"

The only thing keeping Jess from knocking Dean straight into unconsciousness is Rhiannon's weight against his, reminding him that he can't get into a fist fight in front of her.

"Leave, Dean." he all but glowers, as Rhiannon's eyes look from one to the other before finally coming to rest on his.

Before I hurt you and mentally scar this kid for life.

"Did you make Rory cry?" she asks him, bewildered. Rory's nice... and Jess can't make girls cry.

"We were fighting... but we made up afterwards." He says this in a slightly louder tone, more for Dean's benefit than for Rhiannon's.

There. Suck it up and shove it, Bag Boy.

"Oh..." she dries her tears with a finger. "But she was crying?" She asks, worriedly. Jess heaves a sigh, before smirking and rolling his eyes playfully at her.

"She was. But she stopped when we decided to stop fighting."Lorelai Leigh Gilmore belongs with me. To me. And as far away from you as possible, Frankenstein.

She smiles at him, making the tough guy forget everything about his personal enemy number one. It is small, tight, and shaky, but a smile nonetheless, and he is happy to see it gracing her lips, reflecting for a very brief moment in her eyes.

To kill for, Pure Maiden. You have eyes to kill for. In a few years' time some poor guy is gonna be wondering what in the hell hit him.

It is Dean again that intrudes upon them, his need for a personal vendetta, or a second round of the after party insanity, clouding his already failing judgement.

"Isn't she a little too young for you? I know you aim to corrupt, Mariano... but I never tought you'd go for something like this..." Dean watches as Jess' features shift from expressing disbelief to anger to downright fury. Knowing he struck gold, he piles it right on, uncaring, or reveling in, the damage his words are provoking "You are one sick puppy, man... she's what, six?"

"I'm nine!" Rhiannon pipes up, outraged. She doesn't understand what the tall, scary guy is saying, but her age... Noone can get my age wrong! She then squirms in Jess' embrace, whom is trying its best to emulate a boa constrictor kind of clutch.

"Jess, can't breathe." She whispers. What does it mean when you stare like that?

That jolts him out of his anger-induced state. Holding back from physically harming the clueless idiot, who deems it a good idea to stand within a fifty foot range from the person he's insulting, is proving difficult for Jess; hence the steadily increasing hold on Rhiannon, to keep a firm grasp on something resembling sanity.

"Jess!" She says, scared at the expression lingering on his face, the danger in his eyes, the taut lines his features have been pulled to form.

He releases her.

"Listen, Pure Maiden, let's go to Luke's and see if we can get some pie." Before I give this fucker a beating he'll remember as long as he lives. He stands up and helps her off the floor, forcing himself not to look at Dean. If I so much as glance at him, I can kiss my self-control goodbye. Hand in hand, they stroll off to Luke's. Neither notices Jason moving from his previously held position, sitting on the outside of the Gazebo with his back leaning against one of its walls. He pauses to brush off his pants, before stepping inside where Dean is still standing, waiting for Lyndsay, a self-satisfied smirk twisting his mouth.

"Hey asshole." He says, by means of a greeting, and proceeds to sucker punch him to the gut. Dean doubles over, taken by surprise, and tries retaliating, only to get sucker punched yet again.

"What the...?"

The commotion attracts casual strollers to the show, and causes Jess to quickly take a look over his shoulder; deciding he doesn't want Rhiannon to witness Jase beating the living crap out of Dean, he urgently ushers her in the diner while yelling for his uncle. Kyka and Luke almost drop the plates they carry when Jess rushes inside.

"Luke! Here! Pie!" With that, he's off again towards the gazebo, while Rory and Kyka glance at each other, towards Rhiannon, outside, and hurriedly go to follow him. At the gazebo, the fight is in full fledge.

"You see" says Jason conversationally, much like he would discuss a grocery shopping list with Kyka."If I were you, I'd be just a little more careful about what you're saying in front," he delivers yet another punch to Dean's solar plexus "around," another punch "or about," he punctuates with another violent punch "Jess Mariano." Dean manages to shake him off long enough to try lounging at him, landing a successful hit on Jase's jaw, and another directly to his ab area.

"Big mistake, man." Jase punches Dean square in the face, proceeds to ram him against one of the walls, and deliver a knee to his groin. "Jess can take you, and you know it. Too bad for him that Rhiannon was there. And too bad for you that I was there." Jase drives his point home with one more punch to Dean's face "Stay away. Or I'll let Jess fight his own battles. And trust me, man, he can make this seem like foreplay. Pleasant foreplay." With that last remark, he lets Dean go, who slumps to a heap on the floor. He strolls off, before anybody can actually separate them, and the crowd who has gathered around the gazebo parts to let him through. Rory, Kyka, and Jess follow him back to the diner, where Luke is keeping Rhiannon busy.

"What the hell was that?" bellows Luke. Rory and Kyka just look at him with questioning gazes, and Jess shakes his head.

"You heard?" So it still works that way, doesn't it?

"I heard" Nothing changed.

The glance traveling the distance between them holds secrets and whispers of shared memories.

If they strike, we strike right back at them.

And if they mess with one, they mess with all of us.

"I could have..." handled it. But not in front of Rhiannon.

"Yeah, but the grapevine has it that you already had your fun with him. I wanted to have my ride." And that guy had it coming. Really. He doesn't have an iota of common sense, to say the least. And he definately has less brains than your average homo sapiens... And a huge death wish... And you wouldn't have fought in front of Rhiannon. The adrenaline rush is kicking off, leaving Jason less coherent than he'd like to be at that precise moment.

"He heard? He heard what?" Fighting? I thought that was Jess's specific talent... Shit! Luke's bellowing sums just everybody's next unexpressed words.

"What the big, tall, scary guy with that... floppy hair was telling Jess... Something about making Rory cry and... him being a puppy... and... " Rhiannon looks as confused as she sounds, and Jess sighs as the other people in the diner look to him for explanation.

"He basically called me a pedophile, 'cause Rhiannon was sitting on my lap." Like I could ever lay a finger on her... The very thought makes Jess nauseous. He suddendly wants to throw up, or throw Dean against a wall. Or throw Dean against a wall before throwing up all over him. Wait Bag Boy. Fuck up just once more, make my fucking day. "She was crying..." And I wasn't far behind, either. His chocolate brown eyes cloud, and Rory, sensing a change in his demeanor, goes to sit on his lap, feeling anger and fury turning liquid and flowing out of him, to be replaced by the pain and sadness she desperately wants to rip from him.

Jason and Kyka exchange a look. It is that time of the year again, when Rhiannon becomes moodier, broodier, than ever, bestowing the hurt caused by her unhealed wounds freely on the world at large. To witness while she rides her personal emotional rollercoaster and her personality takes a ninety degree turn towards its darker side is, to say the least, unsettling. Disturbing. It takes a ridiculous amount of inner strengtening, steeling and bracing to master the whole ordeal and help her through it.

"He what? I mean... what?" Rory jumps up. That is too much. She has tried. She has accepted to be friends with Dean and while trying to force Jess down that path as well. She has been tolerating withering glares, snide remarks, glowering and muttered insults, as well as the sheer amount of testosterone that made both of those guys turn into uncivilized mammals.

Now, she thinks, I've had it.

"Not in so many words, Ror, but the implication was all there. " He pauses, questing and succeeding in recollecting the words that had cut deeply into him: "'Isn't she a little too young for you? I know you aim to corrupt Mariano' and 'You are one sick puppy' kinda spelled it out."

"I'm gonna talk to Dean" She makes for the door, but Jess stops her by means of his voice.

"Don't go." Please. Stay. Hold me. Tell me you don't believe him.

The blue eyed beauty nods and goes to settle back in on his lap, in his arms, safe in their cocoon. She complies to what she understands he's asking, resting her body against his, placing her mouth on his for a brushing kiss. There is something shockingly intimate and unbelievably chaste about this gesture, something only for them to take notice of.

Huh.

"Are you going to say anything to me?" Jase asks his girlfriend, starting their usual post- fist fight routine.

Come on, Amore, this is usually when you walk towards me...

She walks over to him with an angered expression and smoldering eyes. She looks like she's about to launch into a ranting, me civilized woman, you uncivilized man, tirade.

"You, James D'Antona" she pauses for dramatic effect "Are my hero!" she squeals, imitating a school girl who gets to meet her favorite movie star and throwing her arms around him.

"You encourage this?" asks Rory, not believing a word she's hearing. I hate it when Jess fights. I worry when he fights. I think it's stupid when people fight.

Kyka shrugs.

"I tried going against it. Then, one night, we were coming out of a bar, and a guy started hitting on me. When he didn't take the hint and mistook my 'no' for a 'I'm all for it', Jase put a damper on his 'I'm getting some whether you like it or not' intentions." She shakes her head in utter disgust."That's when I stopped." 'Cause I know he does what he does for a reason. And I know it's as much a part of him as dancing.

"Oh, crap! It took that for you to understand I don't just go around hitting people for the hell of it?" He deadpans to her.

"How was I supposed to know?" She puts a hand to his face, jokingly trailing it towards his jawline "You're a man. I'm not supposed to understand how your..." testosterone driven mind works. She breaks off the routine when she sees him wince.

"He hit you." She says, noticing the bruise and the swelling forming, and remembers Dean punching him. "Luke! Ice for the Gladiator over here!"

Luke rolls his eyes, Jase and Jess smirk, and Rory and Kyka share a smile.

Later That Day

Rory and Jess are laying on her bed, holding each other tightly.

One of Lane Kim's patented burns is playing for them, this time a mix of weird, mostly fast paced, not meant for candle lit dinners songs. The Distillers are currently clashing with the conversation that's about to be had...

"I bet you killed someone

oh yeah?

come on I beg you

my world comes tumblin' down"

"About Dean..." He needs to tell her why his words angered him so much. "Rory..." Tell me you didn't believe him, you don't believe I would do something so unthinkably low.

"I don't believe him" She reaches to kiss him lightly.

Flashback

"This is an old subject, Jess. You know that Dean and I are friendly." And I chose you, you big idiot. Please don't pull a Dean and go obsessively jealous on me. I couldn't take it.

"I know you're friendly. That doesn't mean I don't wanna punch him." That would be the highilight of my day.

"This was not a plan. I was kidnapped by Miss Patty, so was he, that's it." Stop feeling threatened by him, Jess. I'm with you.

"Then you two should press charges." So is this what it feels like?

"I think we should." she smiles, feeling the tension letting up and their usual connection vibrating through the phone line.

"Just..." he hesitates, trying to regain control of the free fall he seems to be on. Is this how the insecurity, the fear of losing you are? I don't want to be like this...

"What?" C'mon Jess. You know I'm not playing mind games with you...

"Just tell me these things first so I don't have to read about them on telephone poles." Is this jealousy? Part of the package of being in a serious relationship with someone you... love? Love? Oh God.

And he's still free falling. Her next words shock him right out of his reverie.

"I will, I promise." That I won't hide anything from you. That we're going to be ok.

"Okay." I think I'm gonna hold you to that, blue eyed beauty.

"Okay."

End of Flasback

"I'm not sorry I fell in love with you in NYC

she ran away"

"Tomorrow's the big day, huh?"

"Yes. Tomorrow." She feels his body against hers, the way his arms rest around her.

"Are you sorry you won't be going to Europe?"

"No. Mom and I decided to defer it for a year, when the Dragonfly will be up and running. I want to work this summer, put some money away for Yale."

He kisses her gently.

"Is that your way of telling me you're happy I'm staying?"

"Nope. That was 'Congratulations, you're graduating'"

"Yay."

Holding her in his arms, he rolls them both over to straddle her. His hands thread slowly over her clothes, barely touching her until he lets them rest on the pillow on each side of her hear. His lips become passionate, then, the kissing breathtakingly drawn out.

"Ask the angels who they're calling,

go ask the angels if they're calling to thee"

A smirk flits through her features.

"Was that a 'I'm glad you're staying?'"

"Nope. That was a 'thanks for putting up with me.'" His voice is truthful, even though his eyes are tainted with mischief.

"You're welcome, then."

She respond teasingly, mischief sparkling in her gaze as well.

"Ask the angels while they're falling"

He pins her hands to the bed and kisses her forcefully, then, almost bruising her lips and claming her entire mouth as his own, leaving her no time, no response, no coeherent thoughts.

Oh yes, angels are definitely falling. The Distiller's song shockingly appropriate.

"That, was a 'I'm happy you're staying'" He informs her, releasing her hands but still straddling her, effectively trapping her in place. She doesn't mind.

She becomes serious, though, when she feels his hands retracing their earlier steps, this time the touch is heavy, even over her clothes, and her own fingers move to grasp a hold of something, anything on Jess. His clothes, his hair, his bare skin under the shirt, as she feels his finally managing to slip under hers. He shakes his head at her.

"No, Rory..." He takes her hands off of him and holds them to her sides. "No touching."

She pouts, while her eyes show she's intrigued.

Disorganized chaos gives way to organized chaos as Green Day's 80 begins playing.

"What game are you playing?" Her question part curiosity, part excitement, part disappointment.

"The game where I get to keep my sanity as well as my clothes... and I make you lose both." Wanna come out to play, blue eyed beauty?

She widens her eyes, then, but refuses to struggle.

Should I play, Dodger?

He seems to sense this and puts his lips to her ear, his breath tickling her neck.

"Trust me..."

"Is there any cure for this disease someone called love
Not as long as there are girls like you"
She can barely nod. She knows she can tell him to stop and stop he will when she'll as much as hint at it.

He sets to work on his gameplan, then, fully set on making Rory Gilmore give up on both sanity and clothing. His mouth trails kisses from her mouth to her neck, eliciting moans from her when he nibbles gently behind her ear, and again when his teeth pull at the hollow where collarbones meet sternum.

"Everything she does questions my mental health
It makes me lose control
I just can't trust myself"

One hand laces with hers, and the other reaches to play with a marble-like nipple, rolling on and off of it, teasing it with his fingers, then going to hold the entire breast. She arches her body against him, and he wills himself to ignore the way his jeans, until a moment ago as baggy as they could possibly be, suddendly tighten on him.

"So I loose my head or I bang it up against the wall"
His tongue grazes the other, until now neglected, breast, and something undefinite shoots trhough Rory, feelings cascade through her with a chilly waterfall, mingling with the now familiar vulcanic explosions he provokes deep inside of her. She lets herself slip from reality, from present time and current space... she is beckoned to go down a starlit path to go see the other side of the moon, and she tentatively takes a step.

"I do not mind if this goes on
'cause now it seems I'm too far gone"

"Jess..." it is barely a whisper, this name leaving her lips. He feels it hitting, bouncing off of him, pulling him back to look at her. He forgets why breathing is so important, until a a fit over the pit of his stomach reminds him that oxygen is, in fact, necessary for him to live. He watches as Rory's eyes become two battlefields, a coup d'etat staged in each of them while pupils so enlarged take almost comletely the entire space, the irises reduced to a thin, sapphire circumference. Her mouth is pouting and slightly open, her features look like they've been taken apart and put back together.

I do that to her. Proverbial ton of bricks leaning, tilting, falling, crashing on top of him, full force, straight on. He feels himself staggering, reeling, stumbling, tripping and reaching blindly to hold on to her.

"Jess" here it is again, his name, from her lips. She disobeys him, when she feels his arms hugging her and his body pressing to hers, and her hands find his skin once more, traveling up to his shoulders and begging for him to take his shirt off.

"No." He drawls out, as her fingertips find his nipples and clench around them, while her hips push upwards. He resumes kissing her, his lips and tongue and mouth leaving glistening trails on her sternum, ribs, sides, stomach, as his hands wander and trail over her face, neck and breasts. She fights, him, then, wriggling to get free of his hold and needing to step out of this maddening game. His chocolate brown eyes show worry for a minute as she pushes him off of her, only to widen when he suddendly registers her weight on him, her knees at his hips, her hands up his shirt, sliding it up and over his head.

"We're playing by my rules, now, Dodger." Let's see how you like someone torturing you.

She leans over to kiss him on the lips, pinning his wandering hands to the edges of the bed. He watches, part curious and part amazed as she mimicks the moves he had put on her earlier, and realizes that she has stored every bit of information he might ever have given her by means of his body language and actions... Coherence flees when her mouth latches on one of his nipples, the fingers of her hand racking around the other one. Common sense abandons him when her hips slide slowly up and down, and she rubs herself against him, mouthing the words to Deuces are Wild on the background.

""I love to look into your big brown eyes

They talk to me and seem to hypnotize"

Oh God

He throws his arms around her, then, pulling her to him, matching movement to movement, skin to skin, as he rolls them both over so he is, once again, hovering over her. Struggling to keep his sanity is an effort proving itself to be completely vain the moment he hears the sound of a pair of jeans being unbottoned, and it cannot be him undoing hers because, let's face it, she is wearing a skirt. His eyes search for her, an attempt to read her in order to key his reactions off of her. The moment she finally lets him in her sapphire blue twin pools, he feels the sudden urge to laugh, for the words "What do I do now?" are written plainly on her features.

"I really love you little girl

I don't need to explain"

"Ask me" she all but orders, confusion melting into decision, decision into resolve, resolve into steel.

He brings his face close to hers, drowning himself in her eyes, breathing carefully shaped words to her parted lips. His mind is reeling, he doesn't know what to say or what to do

"Rory. Are you ready?"

"Yes." she breathes just as carefully.

"I love you 'cause your deuces are wild, girl

like a double shot of lovin' so fine"

The next minutes, hours, are a blur, as clothing is hastily shed, protection sought, and cajoling caresses are exchanged. He asks her once more, with the same throaty drawl.

"Are you sure?"

He takes her, then, claims her, all of her, and sends them both towards a precipice, catastrophy awaiting them, surrendering to overwhelming sensation, coursing blood, racing hearts, ragged breathing. It is a steady stream of whispered reassurances and instinctive motions, as he slowly guides her through her first adult journey into uncharted and unfamiliar territory. He forces his body to pace itself, knowing she will have to acquire information one piece at the time. She hangs onto him, trading "I love you"'s with his voice, matching him move for move, thrust for thrust, kiss for kiss; and they are reeling, hurtling, falling together into oblivion.

"I been lovin' you since you was a child

'cause you and me are one of a kind"

"I hope you don't regret this, Blue Eyed Beauty", his private name for her slipping out of his lips, his filters completely askew and malfunctioning. How long till you see I'm not worth it? His insecurities menacingly scheme a mutiny against rationality. He is rewarded by her pulling his arms tightly around her body, and the solemn

"Shut up. I love you. I'm never going to regret this." She gives him, followed by a playful "You gave me a pet name, Dodger. That means we're stuck together." Somehow, she doesn't worry about the answer she might get, her thoughts gently occupied with seven annoyingly repeating words.

Look at me, I'm all grown up.

"As long as we're within reaching distance..." he picks the word out of thin air, part of their relationship as much as Oliver Twist

"We can deal with that." They finish together, voices drawling and strained with sleep and exhaustion.

"I love you." He finger-writes on her stomach.

We made love.

We made love.