Fake Gold

A/N: Reviewers, I love you all. I had forgotten how great it feels to get a review.

A/N2: Things are going to start out slow, but they'll pick up as the story continues. I just want to give you a context and make sure you know how these characters will interact. The chapter will get longer too. I just need to get back into the swing of things.

A/N3: This is the last one. I swear. I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that Cohlie is pronounced like Cole-y. I met a kid named Cohlie once and I just found that name so strange and endearing that I had to use it.

Chapter Two: Weird

Dinner that night was weird. Yes, weird. There is no more appropriate word. Everyone sat around an antique dining room table, which had been dug out of some mysterious storage place just days before, eating diner takeout amongst boxes of miscellaneous crap that had yet to be unpacked. Conversation was lacking, to say the least. Lorelai's normal conversation skills were not quite prepared for this dinner. She was a little star-struck and every topic that formed in her mind was vetoed before anything but a "so" or a "how" could escape her perplexed lips. So, they ate. The chewing was grotesquely audible.

Rory ate little, dainty bites of her huge burger. Her eyes would flicker from Jess to her mother to Cohlie and back to Jess again.

Lorelai would catch her daughter's glances and telepathically scream along with her. She would have noticed Rory's subtle preoccupation with Jess if her own focus hadn't been magnetically pulled to Cohlie. He fascinated her. She'd read something in Us Weekly a few months before about how he had worn an Armani suit to the Tony Awards. She stared at him now, picturing him in an Armani suit at her dinner table, thinking about what he might be thinking. Maybe he was thinking about that Armani suit too. She found him quite distracting. He was famous for his eyes and understandably so. They were an intense, almost cobalt blue, but due to some sort of pigment problem his left iris had a shocking stripe of indigo across the bright blue. She wondered if he were self-conscious about that because he kept his long hair parted in such a way that it fell in an almost Veronica Lake-like fashion across the intriguing eye. His hair was a dirty blonde, cut to form a neat mess that fell to his jaw-line. His jaw was boyishly soft, but it was beginning to sharpen with age into an angular, artistic structure. His lips were small, but full dollops of near-red in the midst of his lightly tanned skin. In the center of his perfect little face was a perfect little nose with nostrils that seemed to be permanently flared. His angry nose atop his kindly lips left him virtually unreadable. But Lorelai tried to read him anyway.

For his part, Cohlie was looking around the room, trying not to see Lorelai looking at him, watching the way his uncle seemed unfazed by the weirdness of this dinner, and looking at the way his brother's eyes were scanning over Rory. He knew that Jess was probably writing up her description in his mind and finding questions to be answered later. Cohlie couldn't handle a silence like this. He was used to a constant chatter, either with him or about him, preferably the former. So, he did the only thing he could think do to: he knocked over his glass.

Soda went everywhere. Ice cubes skidded across the table and clattered to the floor. In an instant everyone was back to life. Lorelai and Rory jumped away from the puddle while Luke leapt to the rescue with a rag.

"Oh, I'm so sorry." Cohlie exclaimed sincerely as he bent to pick up sticky ice-cubes from the wooden floor. He really was sorry. He just had to do something and a beverage upheaval was the only plan he could conjure.

"It's fine." Luke decreed as he dabbed at the mess with a multitude of rags.

"Yeah, thank God for klutziness because that meal was getting boring." Lorelai added. Apparently a coca-cola spill was all it took for her to find her voice again. When she caught the guilty yet proud little grin on Cohlie's lips she let her own grin shine. He sent her a wink and she sent him one back. This was a kid after her own heart.

IIIIIIII

In a cluttered corner of the large, blue room Jess stood with his left hand in the pocket of his jeans and his right hand gripping a half a cheeseburger. The smirk sitting in his hazel eyes took over a corner of his mouth when he noticed Rory shrinking into his little area. Together, they watched the frenzy of cleaning from a safe, but involved distance.

"Luke hates stickiness." Rory commented quietly with a little, good-natured smile. She didn't turn to look at Jess, but she knew he was listening.

"I remember." He said with enticing simplicity. This got Rory to turn and look at him with a raise of one of her sharply gentle eyebrows. Even her look of daring inquisition held a dose of laughable innocence. He knew that he shouldn't let himself judge her by her appearance, but sometimes it was unavoidable. That was life. He had grown up in the business of appearances and taking things at face value. He could feel her judging him and putting him in a category. He had given up on trying to make people get to know him. Now he just shut them out. It was easier. Except when it wasn't. "The last time I really saw Luke was about eleven years ago and I just remember him mumbling about "jam hands" or something equally insane." He shrugged for good measure.

"Ah, the jam hands spiel. I know it well." Rory smiled warmly, but Jess didn't return it. He didn't really know why he didn't smile back. It would have been simple. It would have been too simple. She shouldn't like him just yet. It was too soon. He felt a slight pang of disappointed relief when he saw her smile fade and her eyes turn back to the family. It was for the best.

IIIIIIII

After the spill dinner got better. It was definitely still weird, but a better weird. In an effort to avoid any sensitive topics, the main conversation had focused itself on music.

"I like rap." Cohlie said with a shy grin that made little dimples appear in his cheeks.

"Is that the stuff with all the swear words and the men in track suits complaining about their moms?" Luke asked with a displeased look around his eyes.

"Yes, but it's not just that it's-" he drifted off, unable to explain.

"Pleasantly angry." Jess supplied in an even tone.

"Yes." Cohlie smiled. "Exactly. Music is about conveying an emotion and rap has a way of capturing anger very well."

"What about other emotions?" Lorelai asked quizzically. "Patsy Cline does a rather stellar job at expressing her feelings without talking about drugs or violence." She added with smirk.

"Oh, I love Patsy!" Cohlie cried with glee. "Hey, what about Gladys Knight and the Pips?" He tossed out.

"Love them." Lorelai had a broad smile on her face. "XTC?"

"Of course." The boy laughed. Jess watched with masked delight as his brother got comfortable in their new surroundings, but there was a distinct uneasiness in his stomach. He had always been very protective of the boy. He didn't want Cohlie to suffer like he had. He tried to shield him from disappointment. That's why he was growing increasingly wary of Lorelai. She was a character that people would always feel strongly about. Whether they were good feelings or bad feelings, they would be strong and Jess saw that Cohlie would be fond of this woman and all he saw was the opportunity for grave disappointment.

"Ok," Rory jumped in, "Here's the big question: the Offspring or Metallica?" She let her glance wander to her mother and they both shared fleeting thoughts of Christopher, and they both thought about the old days for a split second before being reminded that the new days were looking pretty good.

"Metallica." Both Cohlie and Jess said. They shared a smileless grin before the ladies erupted in laughter.

Yes, the new days might be ok.