A/N: How I think A Tisket, A Tasket should have ended. This is my first posted fan fiction. So please give it a chance and review.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter Two: I Just Don't Get It

"What are you looking at, Jess?" she asked, a hint of annoyance evident in her voice.

"What? Oh! Um…there was a bird and…" he trailed off. "Look, we're here. Did you say you liked pepperoni or not. I don't remember…"

He was squirming. Jess, the look-at-me-I'm-from-New-York-I'm-so-tough guy was squirming. She didn't get it. She didn't get him. Every time she thought she had him all figured out he'd do something unexpected and all her theories went down the drain. She had never been able to fit him into a box like the rest of the town had.

It seemed to Rory that from the moment he stepped off the bus from New York, Jess was the 'Town Hoodlum'. No one ever really gave him a chance. Rory smiled, not that Jess had helped the situation any. He was proud of the title and he lived up to it gloriously. Between the gnomes and the chalk outline and the other assorted bad boy antics, Rory really couldn't blame the people of Stars Hollow for sticking with the label.

But she just couldn't.

She couldn't just write Jess off as a rebel without a cause and be done with it. She wanted to know why. Rory was determined to find out what made Jess tick. So she spent more time with him, that is, as much as she could without Dean and her mom breathing down her neck, and she talked to him. The more that Rory saw the less she believed he was just some punk fresh off the streets of New York.

For example; how many hoodlums are there who have read A Farewell to Arms by Hemmingway? How many of those same hoodlums could recite a poem by Pablo Neruda from memory? Jess could. He was the only person Rory had ever met that understood and shared her passion for books. She could argue with him about whether Tolkien was really a genius, or just insane. Everyone else just nodded and smiled when she went on about Charles Dickens being depressing and pessimistic, but not Jess. He was right there with an interesting factoid or an argument.

As Rory watched Jess order their food she smiled. She just didn't get it. Why was Jess only nice to her? When Rory told people that they were wrong about Jess they looked at her like she belonged in a loony bin or something. They just didn't know him like she did. Jess showed a different side of himself when it was just the two of them. No one else got to see what Rory saw. They certainly didn't see the smart, funny, well-read guy that appeared to Rory.

They don't get it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jess walked over to the table where Rory sat staring out the window, lost in thought.

"I doubt there's anything out there worth your attention," he said as he set the food down on the table and went to sit across from Rory.

She looked up at him, pulled back from her mind's wanderings by the sound of his voice. "You know, this town isn't as boring as you might think. Plenty of things happen here."

"'I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's nothing left to do.' And this town doesn't even have a cannon. The biggest news since I got here was the missing lawn gnome."

"Two references to Lenny Bruce in one day. I'm impressed."

"I try."

"Besides we don't need a cannon, we have Taylor."

Jess smirked. "Aren't you going to eat? I know you're hungry, I've seen you eat."

"Oh, yeah, the pizza!"

Rory looked down at the pizza sitting in front of her. It was half cheese, half pepperoni. She smiled and shook her head before grabbing herself a slice of each. I just don't get it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We only half-express ourselves and are ashamed of that half which is hidden.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: Hey, thanks for the reviews, here's the second chapter because I know there wasnt much to the first one, not that this one's much better, but what can I say? The quote is a variation of a quote from Ralph Waldo Emmerson.

Disclaimer: I tried calling Amy to arrange a meeting, but she hasn't called me back so it looks like my chances of owning Gilmore Girls is not so good...