The rest of the day had gone smoothly. Rory and Lorelai had gotten their coffee, and the party had begun. Everyone had stayed until after eleven, and then, exhausted, Rory had collapsed into her bed in the room off the kitchen that had been turned into a bedroom for her two years earlier, Luke and Lorelai had put the boys down, and then gone to bed themselves. Jess had been given the couch, which was fine with him. After what Luke had told him about Rory's nightmares, he wanted to be as close to her as possible. And the living room was closer to her room than anywhere else in the house that a person could comfortably sleep.

But it wasn't her screaming that woke him up. No, she didn't scream. It was her door slamming, and her feet racing across the room simply to leap onto him that woke him up. As soon as Rory landed on him, he was awake, and struggling into a sitting position, confused about what was going on. She was clinging to him and sobbing, and before he even fully realized who it was that was in his lap, he was comforting.

"Rory, what's wrong?"

Rory just shook her head and burrowed into his shoulder, holding on as tightly as she possibly could. "Another nightmare."

He'd figured as much. He stroked her hair gently, shifting her in his lap so that she was more on his chest than his stomach, and kissed the top of her head. "Tell me about it."

"No. I can't."

"Sure you can. That's the best way to get them to stop. Talking about them."

When she sighed and tightened her grip, he knew he had won. "It was almost the same as the rest of them. Logan, and what happened, and then he starts laughing at me, and telling me its all my fault, and that I deserved what I got. And then normally, that's when I scream. Because after he says that, he hits me again, and starts the whole thing over, and the punch is normally enough to wake me up. It didn't this time."

"What happened?"

"He did it again, and then I got up, and got dressed and walked down the hall. I was pounding on someone's door, I don't know who, the number doesn't even exist. But I was pounding, and you opened it. And you had your bags packed, and you told me that I had deserved what he'd done to me, because I wasn't good for anything other than that, and that you were disappointed that you hadn't managed to get in my pants, and that was why you were leaving again. Because you'd come back to have sex with me, and when I didn't give in right away, you decided it wasn't worth your time."

Jess lifted an eyebrow. "Those aren't the types of dreams you're supposed to be having about me. The dreams you're supposed to be having about me would make you much happier."

It was such a Jess thing to say she had to laugh about it. She ended up hiccoughing because she was still crying, but at least she wasn't quite so scared. She laid her head on his chest, curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, and let his presence soothe her.

"Rory?"

"Hmm?"

He sat up a little farther. "If I said all those terrible things in your dream, then why in the world did you run across your house and jump into my lap?"

She could see that her logic was flawed, but she wasn't precisely sure how. It had seemed a logical choice when she'd woken up scared and crying. Go to Jess. "I knew you wouldn't ever actually do that to me. And I was scared. I'm always scared when I wake up from them." She shook her head. "You'll think I'm stupid."

"No I won't. Rory, if there's one person on this planet that I can say without a shadow of a doubt isn't stupid, it's you."

"Okay. Well, I woke up, and I was crying, and terrified, and the only thought that I could grasp was 'go to Jess. He'll make it better.' It's sort of the same principle as when I wake up and Luke and Mom are on their way down the stairs. I sort of always make a flying leap at Luke."

Because she knew that neither of them would ever hurt her. He kissed her forehead and leaned back against the arm of the couch. "I wish I could make it stop, Ror. I really do."

She shook her head. "No one can make them stop. The psychologist I went to for a couple sessions after I found out I was pregnant thinks that they'll stop when the baby's born." She looked up at him. "How is it that you've been back less than a day, and I already feel like you never left at all?"

"I don't know." He sighed, lifted one of her hands so that he could play with her fingers. "I want to say that you should have called me, and I'd have come back when it happened."

Rory shook her head again, in what was becoming a habitual motion. "No. It was hard enough keeping Luke from flying to Switzerland to kill Logan. Mom and I had to use every card in the deck. We wouldn't have been able to stop you. And you're hot headed enough, and impulsive enough, that you'd have been on a plane halfway there before you even realized what you were doing."

"I think Luke was more or less going to drag him back here by his bleached blonde hair and press charges. Boy like that wouldn't hold up well in prison."

"I don't want to talk about it if that's all right." The conversation was one she never wanted to have. She didn't try to forget about what had happened. She couldn't. She was pregnant. But neither did that mean that she wanted to sit and talk about everything.

"That's fine." Jess wasn't about to push her. It wouldn't do either of them any good.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

Rory giggled at the absurdity of the question. "Do you still smoke?"

Jess looked at her strangely for a second before shaking his head. "Nah. I never really did. Just a teenage rebellion thing."

"Good." She looked up at him, smiled in a way that put a clamp around his heart. "I didn't like that habit of yours."

"I know. But no one else did either, which was the point. Most of my other irritating qualities were ones that you liked."

"Learned to live with." She corrected, snuggling closer. She was thinking that on top of Jess wouldn't be a bad place to sleep, and was considering simply falling asleep on him, which would force him to let her stay and cuddle him all night.

"Okay, learned to live with. I was sort of annoying, I can admit that now. But I still got the girl."

Rory lifted an eyebrow. "Well, at first, half the reason you wanted me was to make Dean mad."

"No it wasn't. I wanted you the second I laid eyes on you, and that was before I even knew about Dean."

"Really?"

Jess sighed. "I never told you that, did I?"

"No." Her voice was very small and she nestled her head further into his chest. "You never did. I'd have been a lot quicker to forgive you if I'd known that."

"Then I guess it's a good thing I didn't tell you. We needed that time apart, Ror. We really did. We needed to learn to be apart so that we'd be better together."

"Jess?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I stay here tonight?"

Jess's brow furrowed. "Here, as in on top of me on the couch here?"

"That's the basic idea, yeah."

"When you have a much larger bed just down the hall where we could actually be comfortable?"

Rory nodded. "If we're here, neither of us will be tempted to do something we shouldn't. If we were in my room, the only thing stopping us would be self control, and you've never had any, and mine around you isn't worth mentioning. So here is the safest place, and I don't want to be alone."

"Rory, I'm not going to do anything at all if we go in there. I'm not a teenager anymore. And you don't need anything mucking things up anymore than they're already mucked up."

Rory stood and pulled him up. "In that case, let's go to bed."

Jess followed her willingly into her bedroom, though he quite consciously left the door wide open. The less temptation the better, despite his pledge not to touch her. Better safe than sorry. Especially when it came to someone he actually cared about.

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Jess woke up when Lorelai leaped onto the bed with him and Rory. Rory shrieked as she woke, and grabbed him to keep from falling off the bed. Lorelai chuckled maniacally and tossed her arms around them both. Jess rubbed his forehead in confusion, and peered at the older woman through sleep fogged eyes.

"Lorelai? What the hell are you doing in here? At-" he looked at his watch, "seven on a Saturday morning?"

"The carnival silly! We have to go to the carnival. We must go to the carnival. I can't survive unless we go to the carnival. So get up! Come on, Jessy wessy! We must leave immediately and go ride rides and eat a ton of food and play games! And coffee! They have coffee!"

Jess lifted one eyebrow. "I think you've have entirely enough coffee for today. How much have you had already?"

"Two pots. Plus four cups."

Jess did the math. "You've had twenty eight cups of coffee. How long have you been up?"

"Four hours. Not long. Come on, come on, come on. It starts in an hour."

Rory was giggling. "Mom, you need to ease off the coffee."

"I'm not pregnant, thank God. I don't have to ease off anything, little miss 'I only allow myself one cup a day because caffeine isn't good for the baby.'"

"Well, it isn't, mother. And sometimes I just can't make it without two cups." Rory threw off the blankets and stretched. "I'll go get dressed. Jess, you'd might as well listen. If you think I'm bad about the carnivals, you've never met my mother. She taught me everything I know."

Lorelai's head bobbed up and down in exuberant agreement. "I did, I did, I did. Yay me."

Jess rolled his eyes and stumbled into the living room, stopping to pour himself a cup and ruffle the hair of Lucas and Garrett who were eating some cereal comprised of nothing but sugar and drenched in coffee. The boys were going to have a major problem when they got older.

He had barely buttoned his shirt when Rory ran from the bathroom fully dressed and ready to go. She made a beeline for the kitchen and started making a fresh pot, though he noticed she used half regular coffee, and half decaf. That made him smile. She was forsaking her addiction to coffee for the well being of her child.

She guzzled two cups, ate a bowl of cereal and a plate of pancakes that Jess made for her, then grabbed a jacket. "Ready to go everyone?"

Five seconds later, she was yanking him down the street with just about everyone else who lived in Stars Hollow. She linked her arm through his and smiled up at him. Very suspicious.

"What do you want?"

"Candy apples, bloomin' onions, pizza, cotton candy, caramel apples, hot dogs, funnel cakes, elephant ears, a gyro, one of those candy apples with sprinkles and ice cream with whipped cream and chocolate syrup."

The fact that he knew she could, and most likely would, eat almost all of what she had named made him sick to his stomach. Never the less, he looked down at her and returned the smile. Then he said that three words every Gilmore waited all their lives to hear from a man in regards to gargantuan amounts of junk food. "Whatever you want."