Well, so far things were going pretty smoothly. Minus Lorelai's outburst, Jess wasn't confronted about his return from many others. Taylor had left him alone and Miss Patty kept her flirting down to a minimum. Who would have thought that possible? Things really must have changed in Stars Hollow; either that or people saw him and didn't take his return seriously. Like he had done twice in the past, they probably thought he had come only to leave again, making his arrival all too common and unworthy of much gossip. That was more likely, though Jess couldn't quite understand why he was so interested in the townspeople's reactions towards him anyway.

He shook his head and changed his line of thought. So far he had tried to keep Luke happy, or at least tolerable towards Jess. Luke was, in fact, pleased with Jess, which made Jess strangely happy. He never really understood Luke's insistence on him graduating high school until he saw Luke beaming at him when he had given him that GED certificate. It was like Luke was looking at his son instead of his nephew, and Jess liked that, though he would never tell Luke that.

Granted Jimmy was cool, but he wasn't really father material. He let Jess do and say as he pleased, never setting restrictions on him, and he acted more like an older, older brother than a father. Even when Jess was eighteen Luke still restricted certain things, like sneaking out of working duties to see Rory. But what Luke didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Jess smirked as memories of Rory poured into his head as they had done countless times for the past six months. After all the crap he had done, he was amazed that she was still even looking at him in the eye. And what was up with sitting on the bridge for an hour after a really superficial talk? Numerous times Jess wanted to uncharacteristically break the silence and tell her everything that had happened to him since he had last seen her, and he wanted to know all about her new college life. Well, minus any of the guys she had gone on dates with, he really didn't want to know about those. But he had kept quiet, figuring if she didn't want to talk, he wouldn't make her. A whole hour! Yet he was so grateful that she stayed beside him after they had stopped talking; the awkward silence was infinitely better than seeing her walk away. It was as though the silence was a form of reconciliation, in a weird way, like Rory was telling him she wasn't going to run from him.

He had to make sure he wouldn't turn into a coward once again and run from her in shame. No, he too was through running. Running only brought pain upon her and himself. Sure Jess knew he would miss her and Luke, but he never imagined there would be a gnawing hole within him that slowly expanded throughout his stay in Venice as a constant reminder of his abrupt and rude departure of Stars Hollow and all that was important to him there. He never really understood how important this crazy town was to him until he was out of it.

He needed his closure here before he could move on with the rest of his life, before he could truly get over Rory. Wait, did he really want to get over her? If not, what exactly did he want from her? The answer was simple. He wanted a second chance, well, technically it was a third chance since he had screwed up on two previous occasions. But he didn't deserve a third chance; he should have appreciated the second chance more. He should have appreciated her more.

He was being a complete idiot. Rory didn't want to give him a third chance. She probably wanted closure as well and that was it. And the most Jess could possibly hope for from Rory was a second-and-a-half chance, a chance at a friendship. But if he was leaving soon, did he really want just a friendship? Jess frowned, this was all so confusing.

"That's a stupid book," a voice said, pulling Jess out of his thoughts and back into reality as the owner of the voice sat down.

His bottom ached from sitting on the hard wood of the bridge for what felt like hours. Jess shifted around and looked at the unopened book in his hands, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.

"I like it, it's realistic," Jess replied.

Rory scoffed. "Please, Stephen is an arrogant jerk who knows he's smarter than his peers and looks down on them. I understand that he's striving to find his place in the world, but he gets all obsessive and preachy. And what's up with his view of women? They're either an angel or a hoar, there's no gray area for girls in his life. It's..."

"The typical male," Jess completed for her.

Rory frowned. "What?"

"Well, I mean, guys are arrogant and think that they're hot shit just like Stephen does. He does have a pretty messed up view of women, I give you that. But we all try to find where we belong. Okay, Stephen gets all obsessed, first with sex and then with religion, but he's just trying to find himself. He just takes a weird path," Jess explained.

"So you're telling me that all guys are like Stephen?" Rory asked.

Jess thought about how to answer. "I saying that guys are versions of Stephen. There's something that people can identify with him, or at least, I can identify with him."

"What do you identify with?" Rory asked quietly.

Jess shrugged, feigning casualness. "Just trying to figure out where my life's going, like Stephen does," Jess replied sincerely.

Rory understood. "I thought you were going to say that you identify with the arrogant, smart-ass, distorted view of women part of Stephen," she jested, smiling at him.

Jess chuckled, "I resent that," he said, still smiling. "And since when did you start saying things like 'smart-ass'? Is that the sorta thing they're teaching you at Yale?"

"No, I picked that up off the streets of Stars Hollow," Rory replied.

"And here I thought Taylor made sure these streets were spotless."

"They are. I confess, my mom has a potty mouth that rubs off on me occasionally," Rory said.

"Ah, I see. That's more likely."

"What do you mean by that?" Rory asked, somewhat defensively.

Jess gulped. He shouldn't have said the last part. "Nothing, but your mom is pretty free with the unfriendly words when I'm nearby," he said as nicely as he could while remaining candid.

It was true, so Rory didn't fight him on it.

"So, what are you doing out here?" Jess asked. He hadn't meant it to sound harsh, but it did.

Rory tensed. "Oh, um, I'm sorry, I'll go," she said quietly, getting up.

"What? No, I didn't mean it like that. It's just, it's cold and you're out here and well, you know, it's cold," Jess rambled uncomfortably.

She smiled a bit and looked at him, her blue eyes mocking him slightly. "You're very observant," she teased as she wrapped her jacket around her small frame a little tighter. She noticed that Jess had changed from his light denim jacket to the bulky olive green one he had worn last winter. It was much smarter of him to wear that one.

"Thank you. But you never answered my badly-phrased question," Jess said.

"What and I doing out here?"

"Uh huh."

Rory shrugged. "Boredom. Lane's having one of her marathon talks on the phone with Dave and my mom's probably on her seventh cup of coffee at Luke's. I finished all my Christmas shopping. So there's not much to do in the town than sit here and stare at the ice cold water and dangle my feet over the edge and talk to you about what a stupid character Stephen Dedalus is," Rory replied.

"I see. Why is Lane talking to Dave on the phone? She could just meet up with him somewhere. It would probably be safer than talking on the phone with him. Her mom might get all pissed," Jess said.

"Oh, you left before he did. He's in California now. Moved away in October. He really didn't want to go and Lane was devastated, but they've been keeping in touch through phone and e-mail and so it's working out really well for them. I really didn't think the long distance thing was gonna work, but they seem really devoted to it," Rory said.

"Wow."

"Yeah, I was surprised his family moved to California, seems like a lot of people go there unexpectedly," Rory said, letting the last part escape her lips before she realized what she had said. She had hinted that she was still hurt and that implied weakness, weakness she was unwilling to show Jess.

Jess gulped. "Rory..."

"Don't. Just don't, Jess," Rory said, almost pleadingly. She hated herself for showing such vulnerability to him. This wasn't the warrior-like persona she had promised herself she would display in front of him. Instead, it was the hurt-girl-who-had-(sadly)-pined-after-the-boy-when-she-said-she-wouldn't persona. Things never seemed to go as planned when Jess was around, she thought gloomily. But at the same time, she was still deep down happy that he was back. What was wrong with her? She was a jumble of indeterminable emotions.

"Okay," he said quietly. It was too soon to get into that talk. The inevitable talk.

"So, you...you never saw Dave in California?" she asked lamely. She castigated herself for asking such a ridiculously stupid question and held her breath for the cocky reply she would undoubtedly get from Jess.

Jess looked at her strangely, but simply replied, "No."

Rory nodded her head, now somewhat disappointed that Jess didn't make a more 'Jess' response to her question. She had missed his retorts, banter, and comebacks more than she thought she would. Conversations sort of felt empty without them.

"Then again, California's slightly bigger than here. Sorta like Stars Hollow times four thousand," Jess said, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

Rory's eyes locked with his as she smiled. It was times like this that she was happy he was back. She wanted to bottle this moment like she would a firefly to keep his coffee colored eyes on hers forever. If only that were possible. If only he would promise her he would really stay this time.

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Author's Note: So sorry this took so long to write. I started writing this chapter with some Lane interaction in it and realized that I didn't like that, so I had to rewrite it all. And then I wanted it to make it as good as I could, so I spent a lot time thinking about what Jess and Rory would be thinking, etc. Needless to say, it took longer than I thought it would.

SPECIAL thanks to Stew Pid for mentioning my story as one of the eight she thought were cool in her A/N of Season Four as NOT Seen on TV. It is an honor.

Anyway, please review, that would be great! I always love to know what people are thinking and I'm so glad that you guys think my story's cool.