White Stripes own lyrics, although I don't make a big deal about the song this time. Yay for you!
miloluver: I've considered making a sequel, but what I've decided is to write a really long epilogue to the story, set in the future when Rory and Jess have kids. It'll be several times the length of my other chapters, but I really wanted to keep all the Pennames stuff together in the same story. Look for it. It will more than likely be chapter 26.
Rory pulled her wet jacket off as she came in the door.
"Hon, you need to change before you get sick and die."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence in my immune system."
"Oh, anytime. So what did you and Jess talk about?"
"Just stuff." She couldn't really remember a distinct topic, they'd skipped around.
"Okay, stuff. Any stuff in particular?"
"Well, I distinctly recall the words 'Hemingway' and 'Guillotine' being used several times, and in combination, but we really didn't have a subject."
"You do realize that you were gone for over an hour, don't you? Is it possible just to talk about nothing for that long?"
"You do it with Luke all the time!" Rory defended.
"True, but he's right in front of me. I don't think we've ever had a phone conversation that lasted more than five minutes."
"I'll take what I can get. And why are you so interested in what we were talking about?" Rory said this as she slipped out of her wet pants, and into an old pair of modest jeans from her high-school days. Back then, she'd looked like some bizarre combination of tomboy and nun. Luckily, she'd outgrown that stage.
"I dunno, I just want to know what you're going to do once you're all settled in."
"Meaning?"
"I don't know what I mean, I'm just talking off the top of my head. The acid rain water could have affected it, and made me start talking nonsense, but I want to know if this thing with Jess is going anywhere. What I mean to say is…how soon are the grandkids coming?" Rory almost choked in surprise.
"Mom, we're definitely not even close to thinking about that yet!"
"Ah, but you're a chick."
"Why does everyone keep saying that?"
"Because unless A LOT went on in California that we don't know about, I think it's safe to say you are. Aren't you?"
"Yes, of course I'm still a girl, weirdo. I'm just saying that maybe I'm a little more career-focused than most 'chicks'."
"Rory, no one loves their job more than you do. But you could be on your deathbed, and still write a book. I don't think getting pregnant is going to interfere, other than the select male characters who die horrible, gruesome deaths at the hands of a hormonal woman."
"What is with the sudden interest in me getting pregnant?"
"I've just been waiting for the day when the topic of YOU being a mommy comes up, and now seems like a good time."
"Mom, as much as I love Jess, we're not ready to go there yet," Rory claimed defensively. Well, they weren't. Although she was starting to think like 'a chick'.
"I know, I don't expect the two of you to be contemplating parenthood already, I'm just saying, when it happens…be married." Rory looked sideways at Lorelai from the couch they'd plopped down on to shed their shoes.
"I'm not trying to be mean, but who are you to give me advice about that?"
"Harsh," Lorelai responded coldly, settling back into the cushions.
"I know, I'm sorry. I just mean after everything Grandma and Grandpa put you through when they were trying to force you to marry Dad, I'd think you of all people would understand that not everything is black and white, as in the perfect sixties black-and-white prime-time family."
"Rory, I would have given anything for Chris to be the guy. But he wasn't. And it wasn't easy being by myself. I promised myself that if there was anything I'd raise you to believe in, it was the importance of waiting to start a family until you found the guy."
"Jess is the guy, but what does that have to do with being married?"
"It's easier on everyone involved? You, him, parents, children, friends."
"Or maybe you're just feeling very, very…single."
"I've been dating Luke for six years!"
"Exactly. Dating. Has he said anything about getting married?"
"Sorta." Lorelai stood up and headed for the kitchen. Puzzled, Rory followed.
"What did he say?"
"Oh, I don't know, something about not seeing the point?"
"You're kidding me," Rory said in disbelief.
"I wish I was, babe."
"Luke doesn't want to get married?"
"He says it complicates things." Lorelai's voice went from sad to sadder.
"But-but he's supposed to be moving in! Why not just say 'what the hell' and make it legal! He loves you, and he wants to be with you. So what's so hard about signing a paper, and wearing a piece of jewelry?"
"I don't know, but he's pretty firm in his decision." Rory sighed angrily, and stomped over to the CD rack.
"Whatcha doing?"
"Looking for a CD. It's too quiet in here." Finding a good one behind a Used album (which she didn't comment on, as she was trying to help her mother out), she put it on. Lorelai smiled as one of her favorite songs came on, and she bobbed her head to the music.
"Said thirty-nine times that I love you to the beauty I have found…" she sang, as Rory joined her back on the couch.
"Talk to Luke," Rory urged. Lorelai exhaled slowly.
"Honey, maybe it's best this way. I mean, we're still together. We still love each other, and we've still got our little coffee-will-kill-you bit going."
"I don't think Luke means that to be a bit," Rory commented, but Lorelai waved it aside.
"Someday, maybe he'll change his mind. Until then, I'm not unhappy. But, precious daughter of mine, you changed the subject."
"I didn't have anything to say, me and Jess are just…enjoying being young and in love. There'll be a time for talking about marriage and kids and all that, but until then, it's just me and him."
"Promise you'll tell me when that time comes?"
"Hello, of course! Just because I won't be living here anymore doesn't mean that you don't get to be my advice-giver, my confidante, my shrink!"
"Thank you sweetie, I always wanted to be a shrink. It rhymes with pink, so my office will be pink, and everyone will go there so I can help them think, and they can look at blobs of ink."
"Listen to the pretty music, mom."
"Heck no, you can call me butter cause I'm on a roll! Okay, so the office will stink like coffee, not saying that coffee smells anything less than heavenly, and they can fink all about their crappy love lives to me, and I'll just sit there and blink, while I stare at the rug, which will be made of mink."
"You're going to make a rug out of a poor, defenseless animal?"
"It's not my fault it rhymed with shrink!"
"Thank you for not at least incorporating 'dink' and 'wink'."
"Watch me."
A whole week without Rory. Not as unthinkable as it felt like. Previously, he'd spent almost seven years without her. And before that, seventeen long and empty years. So seven days should have been a piece of cake, right?
Instead, the house was empty, the bed was empty, HE was empty. He'd always been introverted, and thrived best when he was alone. But without her laughter and her presence, the seconds dragged by.
He sighed for what could quite possibly be the hundredth time in the past ten minutes. Ten sighs a minute. This was not good.
He sighed again. And again. And again, before he finally threw his hands in the air.
"I give up," he said to no one in particular. Glancing down at the small table where his laptop sat, he tried to concentrate. His eyes wandered from the screen across the table to Rory's seat. She'd loved the café style two-person table. It was situated strategically at the end of the counter, so you could simply glance sideways out the sliding glass door to the ocean as it rolled in. And it was large enough to hold two plates, but small enough that their knees touched underneath. He sighed.
He would have sat there all day and pretended to try and work, but luckily his day was interrupted.
"Delivery," Sasha's voice rang out as she entered the house, keys in one hand and a casserole dish in the other.
"Kitchen," he called, placing his hands above the keys. It at least looked like he'd written something this past hour. His stepmother entered the room and threw open the fridge door with her foot.
"Takes two minutes to heat up, it'll go bad in four days, and there's no meat in it."
"Thanks, although I'm curious as to why you brought me food."
"Haven't seen much of you this week, and I wanted you to be well fed."
"So the fact that Lily's trying out recipes for her Home Ec project doesn't have anything to do with it."
"None at all. By the way, if you like it, let her know." She walked over to where Jess was sitting, hands on her hips.
"Get much writing done while Rory's not here?"
"Nope."
"That's about the sweetest thing I've ever heard."
"Why are you still here?"
"Wanted to see how you were doing. And Lily still has yet to find a decent recipe for her dinner project."
"I'll eat it and let you know."
"It's much appreciated. Pay special attention to how filling it is." She smacked his head affectionately, and then turned to grab her keys and leave.
"Sasha?" Something in his voice made her put her keys back down.
"Yea, kid?"
"Do you ever worry that Jimmy's going to pull a disappearing act?" The question made Sasha blink. Deciding that she had to put down more than her keys for this one, she crossed the room once more, and sat down across from him.
"Where is this coming from, Jess?" She pushed the screen down onto the keys of the computer and watched him drum his fingers on the table. "Is this about Rory?"
"Yes."
"You're afraid she thinks you're going to run off again?"
"No."
"Then I'm sorry, but me no comprehendo."
"Her."
"You think Rory's going to be the one to split?"
"I didn't say that," he said, getting mad.
"Then what the hell are you talking about? That girl's crazy about you, she wouldn't do that to you."
"Where is she now Sasha? She's in Star's Hollow, saying goodbye to practically her entire life. People who knew her before she could walk. People who saw her grow up. People who warned her to stay away from me."
"You're worried about them convincing her to stay there? Don't you think if she was ever going to take their advice, it'd have been a while ago?"
"I'm worried that she won't be able to leave them." There. It was out. He'd confessed what he'd been worrying about for days- she'd realize that it'd been a mistake to move her life. She'd forgotten how much Star's Hollow depended on her while she was in Venice Beach, and she wasn't going to come home to him.
"You're an idiot, you know that?"
"It's my middle name."
"You have a great thing going, and instead of cherishing it, you're worried about losing it. Going back to your earlier question, I know that Jimmy could leave whenever he wanted. I just have to trust him. And you have to trust Rory."
"I do. I'm just unfamiliar with the idea of giving up an entire life just to be with someone."
"Watch daytime television; it'll give you some good advice about that. Just don't have an affair with a nurse who happened to marry your brother in Las Vegas for a night years ago, and then impregnate your childhood sweetheart who's being blackmailed by her sexually-harassing icky old boss."
"Someone has a soap fetish…" he sang lightly, earning a death-glare.
"Forget I ever tried to help you."
"I'm joking; you know I value your input."
"I'm still going home now." She stood up and once again took her keys from the countertop. "I leave you with one last piece of advice- if you're unfamiliar with the idea, it's because you've never had something like that to give up. Trust me when I say that this isn't easy for Rory, but she's going through with it. She loves you. And you have to believe it." Normally Jess would have pointed out that Sasha had given him more than one piece of advice, but instead he turned his head sideways so he could look out the glass doors at the water.
Sasha left quietly. Jess sighed, and then stood up and headed for his room. Grabbing a jacket from the back of his closet, he got into his car and headed for the city.
