"Honey, are you okay?" Lorelai asked her pale daughter.
"Huh? Oh, I'm hungry. And it hasn't snowed yet, which is odd. We don't have a white Christmas this year," Rory replied. In truth she was beginning to back down on the thought of giving Jess his gift. Technically, it wasn't even bought for him, just with him in mind...a lot in mind. She looked around uneasily.
"Aw, well, Christmas isn't over till the fat Santa sings," Lorelai said.
"Our Santa is Kirk, Mom," Rory said.
"Yeah, so, Christmas won't be over until Kirk gains fifty pounds," her mother replied logically.
"That's a lot of peanut butter and banana sandwiches," Rory commented.
"Luke better stock up on supplies."
"What should I do?" Luke asked coming over to take their order.
"Stock up on peanut butter and bananas for Kirk so he can gain weight and make it snow," Lorelai explained.
Luke looked at her curiously. "Uh huh. Okay. Anyway, what do you guys want?"
"Can we have waffles with something green and red on top for Christmas spirit?" Lorelai asked.
"I can put brocoli and red peppers on top of your waffles," Luke suggested.
"Luke, that's blasphemous!" Rory said.
"Hey, she asked," Luke said.
"Let me rephrase. Can we have something green and red and sweet and unhealthy on top of the waffles for Christmas spirit?" Lorelai asked.
Luke sighed. "I'll put some strawberries with that red, sugary, gooey, artery-clogging syrup and green sprinkles on top," he grumbled.
Lorelai smiled. "Thank you. I'm so glad we got you a great present."
Luke's eyes light up momentarily and then nodded as he went to personally cook their order.
Rory sighed. "I'm so hungry from going around the houses giving the presents before breakfast," she whined lightly.
"It's tradition!" Lorelai replied.
"And every year I say that we hafta distribute the presents after breakfast so we're not so exhausted in the end that we start rambling about fat Kirks and banana sandwiches," Rory said.
"But it works up an appetite," Lorelai responded.
"We always have an appetite," Rory countered.
Lorelai opened her mouth but couldn't argue. "We'll do that next year."
"Sure...that what we always say..."
Lorelai and Rory ate hungrily once their food came, stuffing their mouths and gulping down coffee as though they were in a race. As Rory's face was down looking at her food, the coffee pot appeared in her line of sight to refill her cup.
"Thanks, Luke," she mumbled, her mouth filled with waffle.
"Not Luke, but you're welcome," a voice replied.
Rory stopped chewing and swallowed the large lump of food.
"Easy there, would be terrible to choke and die on Christmas," the voice said with a hint of amusement.
Rory nervously gulped again, but there was no food in her mouth this time. Her eyes met his, a small smirk playing on his lips as he stood there, coffee pot in one hand, the other resting casually on the opposite side of the counter. How can he look so casual? she thought enviously.
Jess' insides seemed to be in the middle of a thunderstorm as he looked at Rory, but his well trained exterior hid it. He wasn't about to be nervous and stutter in front of Lorelai. He still had his pride.
"Merry Christmas," Rory pleasantly said to Jess once her nerves were settled and food completely cleared from her mouth.
"Merry Christmas, ladies," he replied, slightly stressing the last word and looking at Lorelai with a pseudo-innocent glance, seeing if she remembered her retort the last time he was in front of her. She did and instead of glaring like she would have done, she ignored him and continued eating.
Jess noticed this, but did not let it phase him. "So, get anything good this year?" he asked, trying to make polite conversation with Rory in her mother's presence.
"Uh, clothes, books, Lane got me some CD's, stuff like that. Um...you?"
Jess shrugged. "Jimmy sent some money."
"Luke didn't give you anything?" Rory asked quietly.
"Well, he's letting me stay with him. I didn't expect anything else. I mean, well...you know...before, when, uh, I left..." Jess let his voice die out. It wasn't a really good idea to get into that on Christmas.
Rory shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, so, uh, did...did you get him anything?"
"Yeah, actually. I got him a new toaster. It's got a crumb rack on the bottom and can fit bagels too, real fine piece of machinery," Jess replied, giving Rory a knowing glance.
She smiled, recalling the time when he fixed Luke's old toaster but would not admit it. "That was nice," she said.
He shrugged again. "So, you all done giving out your presents?" he asked.
She hesitated. Minus his present, she was. "Um, yeah, yeah, all done," she replied, feigning cheerfulness.
Jess nodded his head slowly. "Good, good." Perhaps it was a bad idea to give her something if she had nothing for him. It would be awkward. He would ponder that later.
"Hey, Jess, enough socializing. Work," Luke said sternly.
"You know, Uncle Luke, you don't seem really into the whole Christmas cheer. We should go caroling later with Taylor, work on you being jollier," Jess sarcastically remarked.
"Work."
"Alright, alright. But isn't Christmas a national holiday or something? I mean, Wal-Mart even gave employees the day off and we all know how labor-friendly Wal-Mart is," Jess commented, leaving Rory to fill up more coffee cups.
"Yeah, well, I'm subjecting you to slave labor so deal with it," Luke replied grouchily.
Jess smirked at Luke and glanced briefly to Rory. She held his gaze momentarily before resuming her breakfast, all while Lorelai remained quiet.
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It was the first time since the beginning of the school year at Yale that Rory walked with such purpose. She would do this and become stronger because of it. She walked right up to the front door and peered through the slits of the blinds that covered the window. No…no, she couldn't do this. But she had to. She had to. She knocked quietly on the door, halfway hoping he wouldn't hear and she could go back home.
Jess heard the light, almost hesitant, knock on the door and looked up. If it were Kirk giving him more free samples, Jess would punch him. Forget the "let's try to be good to the citizens of Stars Hollow" crap he was constantly chanting in his mind to remain sane, he would punch the guy. He stalked over to the door, unlocked it, and swung it open with an annoyed expression on his face.
It softened when he saw it was Rory.
"Hey," he said, moving back to allow her entrance into the closed diner.
"Hi," she replied quietly.
"So, uh, good Christmas dinner with the grandparents?" he asked casually, resuming his final wipe of the counter until the next morning. He wondered what she was doing there, but did not want to scare her off by questioning her.
"How…how did you know about that?"
"This is Stars Hollow after all," Jess said with a small smile.
"Yeah, right. It was good, no bloodshed. But, um, I lied," Rory said, getting to the point of her late-night visit before she wimped out.
Jess furrowed his eyes. "There was bloodshed?"
"Huh? Oh, um, no, no, no bloodshed. I meant that I lied this morning about finishing giving out my gifts because I didn't give you yours. I wasn't sure if I should because, well, you just got back and I didn't want it to be weird, but I want to give you this. And I hope you like it, but, um, yeah, here," Rory rambled pulling out a neatly wrapped gift from her jacket pocket and handing it to Jess.
He was silent for a long time, just staring at the gift in his hands.
"Well, um, that was it, I'll see you later then," Rory said uncomfortably.
"No, wait. Your…your gift is upstairs. Can you hold on for a sec?" Jess said, snapping out of his thoughts.
"Yeah."
Jess ran up the stairs and grabbed the package.
"Here," he said, handing over the gift that was wrapped in newspaper comics. "Merry Christmas, Rory."
She couldn't help but smile. "Merry Christmas, Jess."
There was silence for a while as the two looked at their presents.
"Jess?"
"Yeah?"
"Could you not open it until I leave?" she asked softly.
"Sure. Um, same with mine."
"Okay."
It grew rather uncomfortable as the two wanted to open the presents but couldn't in front of the other.
"Well, I should go," Rory said eventually.
"Okay."
"I'll see you later, Jess."
"Yeah, later."
Rory closed the door behind her and ran back to her house, feeling elated, just as the first snow of the season fell onto her eyelashes.
Jess stared at Rory's gift and tore it open. In his hands laid a very new looking copy of Ernest Hemmingway's Farewell to Arms. He smiled slightly and thumbed through the pages, when something unfamiliar caught his eye. There, in the margins, were Rory's thoughts as she read the book in small, neat writing. Some of the comments for passages such as, "egotistical jerk," made Jess laugh while others gave a completely new angle to the book that Jess never thought of. While turning the pages, he couldn't help but grin madly as he recalled their first talk on the bridge as they ate from Rory's disgusting basket of food that he had bought to piss Dean off. He couldn't stop grinning as he clutched the book in his hands. She had given Hemmingway another chance…perhaps he would receive the same.
Rory sat on her bed and contemplated whether or not she should open it. Who know what would happen after she saw the gift? Oh, forget it. The suspense was killing her. She ripped the paper anxiously and her eyes lit up when she saw it.
In her hands laid a battered copy of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead. She stroked the worn spine gently, almost lovingly, and then opened the book to see Jess' familiar scrawl littering the margins. She couldn't help but smile as she remembered him whining on the phone about how painful it was to read the book. But he did manage to get through it after all this time.
It was almost eerie how similar their gifts to each other had been, suggesting the mutual need to recall the happier times in their past and how everything from then fell apart. Rory inhaled deeply, feeling a new surge of encouragement course through her veins as she held a piece of Jess in her hands and he held a piece of her in his across town.
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Author's Note: I hope that was satisfying. You know that feeling where you have this great idea and no matter how many times you write it out, it doesn't quite match the idea you had? This chapter was a lot like that. But, this was the closest I got to what I envisioned. I hope you liked it. Thank you all for the support, if someone were to tell me that I would get over 150 reviews for one of my stories I would have probably laughed in their face. So thank you, each one means so much to me and gives me the encouragement I need to continue. Thanks! Next up will be the beginnings of addressing the past. YAY!