Helle 18: I didn't think Jess was being that mean, he was just being…Jess. A little on the cold side because he didn't know how Rory was going to receive him. And that whole he walked out on her thing, because Jess doesn't really like apologies so instead he acts like he didn't do anything wrong.

daphne-peneia: Your review was so sweet! I'm so glad you liked my story! teary eyes

Everyone: In this chapter I included an excerpt from Rory's book. I made up the title thinking it sounded good, but never actually thought about going into depth. I did some research on Russia and basically wrote a few short little blurbs for the story, and I picked the most believable-sounding one. Hopefully you don't think it sounds too horrible; I was going for a smart and worldly kind of feel, and I hope I didn't overdo it and make it sound really weird. Feedback on the blurb will be appreciated.

Also, I changed the chapter titles so now, except for the first one, they all feature an almost-randomly chosen line from the chapter. Some of the lines have everything to do with the chapter. Some of them just amused me.

And to everyone who's in love with Lily, she'll stick around a bit. So glad you like my interpretation of her character!

Jess sighed as he tried to undo his tie with impaired fingers. Lily stood in front of him with her hands on her hips, waiting for him to ask for her help. Instead he ignored her, and concentrated. Loosen…unknot…yank.

"Lily, get this thing off me." She smirked as she finished his task easily.

"You're so fucking drunk. I can't believe it; you wanted to eat and run, but you made me sit there for hours while you talked to the old men!" Jess rolled his eyes and walked away, unbuttoning his shirt. He walked into the corner of his bed, almost tripped, and sat down heavily.

"Don't tell me you need help with that too."

"Oh look, it's Lily's bedtime."

"I can't, Mom and Dad told me to call them tonight."

"It's two in the morning, call them when they're awake."

"Jess, just take your pants off and go to sleep." He complied, not having the energy to fight her, and she picked up the phone between their beds.

"Hey Dad, it's me. Did I wake you up?"

"Nope. Just sitting out, enjoying the stars. Your mom's asleep though," Jimmy said. Jess faintly overheard their conversation; the voices were keeping him awake.

"How're you two?"

"I'm good. Jess is drunk off his ass."

"Tattletale," Jess muttered as he shoved his pillow over his head, trying to block out the murmuring.

"Do they allow that on book tours?"

"We had to go to this party tonight, and Jess at first didn't want to go. But he got into this huge debate with a man who had an English accent over Hemingway. And it was open bar."

"Well, be a good sister and get him some Asprin tomorrow. You had better not be drunk, young lady."

"Please, Jess is going psycho control-freak on my ass. He won't let me leave the hotel room without him, much less get wasted."

"Good for him. I'll talk to you later, Lilylou?"

"Sure. Have fun with mom, but not too much fun. One brother is about all I can take."

"Ha ha. Goodnight, kiddo." Lily returned his goodbye and hung up, then turned to Jess's motionless form.

"Are you still conscious?"

"Shut up."

"Who was the girl?"

"Jess is sleeping"

"Looked to me like you knew her"

"What part of sleeping do you not understand?

"She was pretty. And, don't look now, but I think she has a thing for you." Jess sat up so fast the pillow he had been pressing over his ears went flying.

"Shut up you stupid bitch, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about!" Jess yelled at her suddenly, startling them both.

"What's your problem?" she asked with concern in her voice, but Jess stood up and grabbed the book from his bedside table. He stalked into the small bathroom and shut the door, completely bewildering Lily.

As soon as he got in the bathroom, he locked the door and turned around. Feeling thoroughly exhausted, he slid down the length of the door until he was huddled on the floor. Looking at the book on his hand, he groaned. His first impulse when Lily started prying had been to grab something to read and get out of there. He'd been too smashed to actually get up and go, but when she naively suggested that Rory might 'have a thing' for him, he'd fled from a mixture of emotions. Anger, anxiety, and fear.

He'd been angry, first of all, because she had no idea what had gone on between them. Sasha had deduced that Jess was 'Stuck on some chick', but he'd never officially said she was right. So Lily wouldn't know that Rory was THE girl. And she just started making assumptions based on nothing. It made his blood boil just thinking about what Lily didn't know, but thought she had every right to talk about.

He was anxious because there was a small part of him that hoped she was right. He'd first figured out Rory 'had a thing for him' when Luke had forced him to attend some crazy Bracebridge event at Lorelai's Inn. He'd been bored out of his mind, so he'd decided to wander around and check out the art on the Inn walls. In New York as a child, his mother had taken him to a different art museum each month if he was good. To Liz that meant cooking (soup and Ramen on their budget) for the two of them and keeping the apartment they were living in semi-clean. It was unreasonable to expect that much from a seven-year-old, but most months Jess had taken care of them both, and gotten his reward. He liked to walk around and try to imagine what the artist had been thinking while he or she was painting.

So he drifted around the Inn, admiring for a bit. Rory had been standing in the lobby crossing off the names of the guests who had arrived. Just as he'd seen her out of the corner of his eye and looked her way, she turned around and saw him. Blushing, she faced forward again as quickly as she could, and her glance determinedly did not waver. At the time he'd thought it was because Dean had told her about the fight. But there was no reason for her to act embarrassed. So he had a hunch it was something else.

Dean left Rory by herself to take a sleigh ride with his bratty younger sister, and Rory had bundled up and headed out alone. Throwing caution to the wind, Jess had ran outside after her and jumped in her sleigh, trying to discern if his suspicions were correct. She'd gotten immensely flustered, and he knew. That's also about the time when he realized that he was interested in this shy, sweet, smart beautiful girl.

He was, above all, scared when he heard Lily say that. It was mainly what had prompted his flight from bed. Jess was the kind of person who didn't believe in regrets, but if there was ever a situation that he sometimes questioned how he'd affected it, it was leaving Star's Hollow without telling Rory. He'd give anything for a second chance, but didn't know if he deserved one. The fear that Rory would get hurt, no matter what did or didn't happen, scared him. And when she'd left to go to the 'Ladies Room', he knew she was hurt. He couldn't remember why, though. Possibly his mere presence in her life after six empty years.

He sighed loudly and looked at the book again. Why the hell not, it was better than Lily grilling him. He opened the novel, forcing himself not to focus on the author. He'd taken Rory's book with him. He had dropped his bookmark in his haste to the bathroom, so he opened it to the beginning. Holding it close to his face, he threw all of his concentration into the words.

"It would seem to the casual observer that Russia cast its immense protective shadow over its allies. The sheer size of the empire as well as its many sources of vigor appeared to drape a loyal arm of defense over the shoulders of those with lesser power. The veneer was paper-thin to all those who'd personally dealt with this monster, and couldn't be more transparent to the dweller-ins of a particular Moscow vicinity called Odintsovo.

Terrorism, per say, did not run rampant in the streets. Fear of terrorism was very much present, but in the back of people's minds. Getting struck by lightning or hit by a zooming car also existed in the back of one's brain. But short of staying inside all day, there was nothing you could do other than the obvious and necessary.

Someone who regretted pushing these fears to the back of their mind sat, and would always sit, on the window seat of a pane on the first floor. The ground floor below hummed with the noises of life. Children scuttling and women scolding. Men growling and dogs howling. It was all the same, and it all faded together into a bulky blot on the music scale. These lively noises held nothing for our unnamed antagonist except a bitter aftertaste. As he'd smoked since his fourteenth birthday, this was nothing new.

The truth about Chechnya and the knowledge that his legs would never move on their own again mingled together in his head, until they hit an inaudible frequency and were replaced by a dull white noise that sounded much like a muffled animal. This animal never died, never slept, never ate, never sneezed, never nothing. He was there when our nameless friend woke, slept, ate, and sneezed. He would always be there. He would always be composed of sheer depression and dangerous truths.

These truths begged to be flipped over, and their underbellies exposed. Secrets are always brought to light, and you'd know this if you grew up in a small town. Odintsovo was not a small town, and hence its gossip chain was broken in places and rusted in others. The fact does not change that the reality would become obvious with time's passing. This mystery stranger would have nothing to do with the revealing though. He never moved from his prime spot by the window."

Jess groaned and shut the book slowly. Small town. The book, Rory slipping through her glossed plot and referencing small town gossip, reminded him what he'd said before she'd run out. Liquor made him do stupid things, like call the girl whom he'd once loved a simple, generic term like 'small town virgin'. If he had actually meant that in his earlier stupor, it had been in a good way. The fact that she was completely untouched, even by Dean, had made him feel significant and protective. Knowing that he might be her first had blown his mind at the time. It never happened, somehow. Jess Mariano could have pretty much any girl he wanted, but when he'd actually stuck around long enough to have a relationship, and eventually fallen in love, Rory had left almost as pure as she'd come to him.

Rory lay in her bed, a few floors up. She'd slept fitfully and only woken when her mother cracked and called her back. Lorelai had tried to leave things alone and wait for Rory to call her, but by ten AM the next day, she was so jittery and concerned that she had to do something. So against Luke's wishes she called her daughter back.

"Ror? It's Mom. Did I wake you?"

"Kind of. It's okay, I was just getting ready to get up. Almost."

"So I know I might be overstepping those cute little dotted lines into your personal life, but I couldn't sleep last night not knowing why you were calling me wigging out and babbling about Jess." Jess. Last night came back to Rory.

"Oh no. Why did you have to remind me?"

"You forgot about Jess?"

"No, I thought it was another weird dream."

"Another?"

"It wasn't."

"Another?" The pitch of Lorelai's voice rose a few notches.

"God, what am I going to do?"

"You've been dreaming about Jess," Lorelai said, trying to be calm. At the diner, Luke sat down at the stool beside her and mouthed 'What?'

"Yea. Did I make an ass of myself last night, I can't remember."

"Well sweetheart, I wasn't there so I wouldn't know. So these dreams…dirty?"

"I remember flirting with him-damn it, I flirted with him- and then I left really suddenly." She remembered what he'd called her and got out of bed to find something for her headache.

"Dreams, Rory! Dreams!"

"What about them?"

"I can't figure out if you're avoiding the question, or exhibiting typical signs of a hangover." By now, the other diner patrons were eavesdropping openly. Miss Patty went as far as to sit on the other side of Lorelai and stare at her face. Luke tried to shoo her away, but Lorelai didn't notice any of it.

"I don't remember you asking a question, you just kind of made some general statements concerning dreams."

"Yes! Now we're getting somewhere. Now, talk to me. What's going on?"

"I have no idea. Are we talking about last night or my subconscious habits?"

"You can use words like 'subconscious' when you're hung-over? Boy, do I envy you."

"I need to go find a drugstore; they have no OTC medications in this room."

"Wait! Were the dreams dirty?" Rory pushed the 'End' button on her cell phone. After throwing a coat over the slept-in blue dress and going downstairs she began to analyze the conversation with her mother. She stopped thinking for a second to ask the concierge where the nearest drugstore was, and resumed as soon as her feet hit the busy New York pavement.

Lorelai was freaking out after she'd just mentioned Jess. Her mother had never approved of him or their relationship, but she'd never stood in their way. And Rory knew it had killed her to stand by like that when her gut was screaming at her 'Jess is trouble!' After all these years, Rory would have thought old feelings died hard, but at least they died. Apparently Lorelai was still terrified that Jess would hurt Rory just like Rory was terrified that she'd still find herself in love with him.

Not that being in love would be bad. Rory desperately wanted to feel like Jess had made her feel. After he left she craved it so much that she wrecked Dean's fresh marriage by trying to pull him back into her arms. After losing her virginity to him and being dumped, she'd been in a whirlwind of short relationships that tended to end as soon as she gave herself to the guy. It was with dry irony that she thought of the meaningless trysts she'd had, and yet never got there with Jess. He'd tried, one night at a party. And she'd refused for some childish reason. On top of everything else in his life, that didn't do anything to keep him around Star's Hollow.

Yes, sweet little Rory Gilmore had had 'trysts'. She was still very much the same girl Jess had known her to be, but also very different. If Jess hadn't left, would she be so different? That was mainly what the dreams she'd mentioned to Lorelai about centered on. They'd started the night of the Bracebridge dinner, when she realized that she had feelings for him for the first time, and grown in intensity and frequency when they got together. She'd always assumed that after they broke up, the dreams would cease. When they didn't, she just decided to give it time. Well, it had been six years, and she was dangerously close to saying she was still in love. She wouldn't admit it though. Infatuated, yes. He wore his tan like he'd been born golden-skinned, and his brown eyes were as gorgeous as they had been back then.

Those brown eyes were lazily staring in the mirror that that exact moment. Slightly bloodshot, but other than that, normal. Jess leaned his head down so he could splash water on his face more easily, and then turned the faucet off. He had fallen asleep on the bathroom floor, and woken up when Lily started banging on the door.

"I'm OUT," he said annoyingly to the girl as she rudely brushed past him. She slammed the door behind her, and he winced. Headache…not good. He picked up the phone and called the front desk, asking where he could get some Asprin. Instead of being hospitable to him and offering to send some up, like he would have liked, they told him that they'd been sending seekers of headache medicine down the street to Kramer's Market. Sighing, he knocked on the bathroom door and told Lily where he was going. He grabbed a coat and headed for the stairs.