"Honey, where did you go? One second you were behind me as I was talking to Luke and the next you had pulled an inverted white rabbit!" Lorelai said as Rory came into the house about two hours later. She had stopped by Luke's to get some breakfast alone before returning home.

"Inverted white rabbit?" What was her mother talking about?

"You know, a white rabbit appears out of the hat, but you sorta disappeared..." Lorelai tried to explain.

"I disappeared into a hat?"

"What? No, never mind. It sounded better in my head. Where were you?"

"I didn't feel like being in the diner where all those people were watching us after you screamed at Jess," Rory explained. She omitted the part about spending over an hour in silence with the guy.

"Well, you could have told me where you went or something. And I wasn't really screaming at Jess..."

"Gesticulating very loudly?" Rory suggested instead.

"Ooo, five syllable word. I knew Yale was good for something," Lorelai joked.

Rory laughed. "Who knew?"

"Anyway, honey, we need to talk about this whole thing," Lorelai said seriously, sitting down on the couch.

"There's nothing to talk about," Rory lied. There was plenty to talk about, it was just that she had no desire to talk to Lorelai about it. She knew exactly where her mother stood when it came to Jess. Rory now had to decide where she stood with him.

"Rory, he's back. This is a big deal," Lorelai said.

Rory sat down next to her mom. "Yeah, but it's okay. Jess has free reign over where he goes so long as Luke is okay with it. I just have to deal with this myself, and I will," Rory stated rationally.

Lorelai scrutinized her daughter for a few moments before saying sadly, "You're not over him."

"Mom..."

"You're not, it's so obvious. The way you two were staring at each other at the diner, the way you talk now, like in pseudo-calmness, no, Rory, I know you, and I know you're not over him," Lorelai said. She wasn't angry, but she was becoming impassioned. In truth she was just scared about Rory getting hurt again.

"Mom, I just have to figure this stuff out. When he left before, I just sort of pushed it to the back of my mind, kept myself busy, and never dealt with it. Now I have no choice but to deal with it. It'll be fine," Rory explained.

It really would be fine if winter break would end already and she could go back to Yale and forget Jess. So typical, Rory Gilmore running away from her problems. She was sick and tired of running; she would face them, she would face him, proud and resolute. If she kept repeating that in her head, she might just start to believe it.

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The diner was strangely busy for a Monday morning. So busy, in fact, that Jess rarely thought of Rory. The only times he did think about her was when someone ordered coffee, a Danish, or pancakes, which was only one in every two customers. So, he only thought of Rory half the time. He wryly thought that was an improvement from two days ago when she dominated his thoughts as he laid in bed.

The door jingled and Jess held his breath as Lorelai and Rory walked in together.

"Are you sure you want to eat here?" Lorelai asked her daughter. "Cause we can go to Al's and have breakfast there, you know. Really, I don't mind. Coffee might not be like Luke's but..."

"Mom! I'm fine, are you fine?" Rory replied sternly but softly.

"Oh, I'm right as rain," Lorelai replied, feigning cheerfulness as they sat at the counter.

Luke was upstairs doing something or other and so Jess prepared himself for another telling-off as he approached the Gilmores.

"Can I get you guys something?" Jess asked, not looking at the women but instead at the pad and pen he was holding.

"We're ladies, if you haven't noticed," Lorelai replied curtly.

Jess was about to make a nasty remark, but held his tongue. Luke had warned him that Lorelai would do this. "Can I get you ladies something?" Jess asked, rephrasing the question to Lorlai's liking.

"I'm not sure what I want yet," Lorelai replied, never looking at Jess. "Sweetie, what do you want?" she asked Rory.

"Mm, not sure. What are the Specials today?" Rory asked no one in particular as she looked up to the Specials menu.

Lorelai's head followed Rory up to the menu. "Hey, what's that thing hanging next to the Specials?" she asked.

"Dunno..." Rory said.

"It's nothing," Jess replied quickly.

Lorelai looked at Jess for the first time that morning suspiciously. Just then, Luke came down from the apartment and Jess walked over to him.

"Good, you're just in time, they're here. I hafta refill some coffees," Jess said uncomfortably to Luke, handing him the pen and pad. Jess grabbed the coffee pot and began pouring.

"What's with him? And what's with that thing next to the Specials menu, Luke?" Lorelai asked as Luke greeted them.

Luke smirked. "Read it."

"This General Educational Development certificate, the equivalent of a high school diploma, is awarded to Jess Mariano who has successfully passed the five battery tests in California this seventeenth of October, two-thousand and three," Lorelai read.

"Wow," Rory said quietly, looking over at Jess who made brief eye-contact with her. She smiled proudly at him and he nodded.

"Looks real," Lorelai commented.

"It is real," Luke declared, getting a little annoyed with Lorelai's snide remarks.

"Well, I'm just saying, you could get these things online, you know. It's not really hard."

"It's real," Luke asserted. Jess may have been a lot of things, but he wasn't a fake.

"I believe you, I believe it. I'm just surprised, didn't actually think he would do that," Lorelai said.

"I was surprised too," Luke admitted. "But I guess he just realized he needed to do something. I hung it right there so people will see it, and I love how it makes Jess squirm," Luke added with a smile.

Lorelai laughed.

"Already four people have asked me about it, two of them being Babette and Miss Patty, so hopefully by the end of the day, the whole town will know. Maybe they'll lay off of Jess for a while if they know he's got a GED," Luke surmised.

"Yeah, it has been pretty quite regarding the hoodlum. Guess he's waiting out to strike it big, catch us off guard. We'll need constant vigilance. Maybe he'll rob Doose's this time instead of just chalking dead bodies," Lorelai commented.

"You're sounding like Taylor," Rory warned.

Lorelai's bottom jaw dropped and her eyes became really big, rendering her speechless. "Oh...oh God, you're right. Look what he's doing to me!" Lorelai said excitedly.

"Luke, you better give her some coffee to calm her down," Rory suggested.

Luke looked at Rory quizzically. "Wait, coffee doesn't calm people down."

"Coffee, coffee, coffee! Now, now!" Lorelai said. She was not Taylor. She was the anti-Taylor. Talking like Taylor was just...wrong.

"Alright, alright, be quiet, you're scaring the other customers," Luke said, grabbing the other pot of coffee.

He poured her a generous cup and Lorelai gratefully gulped it down. It's calmed her nerves and Luke gawked at her as though she were an alien, granted a very pretty alien, but an alien nonetheless.

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Author's Note: YAY!! Reviews!! Wow, you guys are super awesome. Thank you for your constant support of my story. It's a challenge to write this, but it's very, very fun, and more fun knowing that people are enjoying it. I know some of you were confused regarding the whole "Specials" thing in the previous chapter, but that was intentional and hopefully now all is cleared up. In the first conversation Luke and Jess have, Luke jests that he would frame the GED, and he followed through on that. Next chapter will be Rory/Jess interaction, promise. Thanks again, let me know what you think.