Title: Another Round
Chapter 9, WIP
Rating: PG/PG-13
Parings: Rory/Logan, Rory/Jess, Lorelai/Luke
Spoilers: Nov 22nd's episode
Disclaimer: No profit is being made from this story. All rights and characters are owned by the genius mind of Amy Sherman-Palladino and her writers and the WB.

Lorelai picked up the plate giving it a strange look, "C'mon little fella, we'll try to find you a nice home." She said as she carried him back out into the dining room. She looked at Rory whose face was a bit red, she gave her an odd look and continued toward the man reading the newspaper, "Excuse me, did you order a tuna fish sandwich, because this one is looking for a home."

The man put down his newspaper and looked up at Lorelai, "y'know the service here really sucks." He smirked and took the plate.

"Jess..." Lorelai glared at him, "what are you doing here?"

Rory spit the water in her mouth out. How was she going to save him from her mom?

"Mom! Mom!" Rory yelled, a little too loud. "Sookie is calling you from the kitchen! I think she said something about a fire!"

Lorelai turned around, "Not again, we promised no fires at this inn in the contract." Lorelai took off toward the kitchen and Jess smirked at Rory.

"You know, you don't have to save me from your mom, I'm a paying guest here, I think that means she has to be polite to me."

"Is she ever polite to you?" Rory paused. "Anyways, uh, what are you doing here?"

Sookie turned around as Lorelai ran into the kitchen yelling. "Hey hun, the pizza caught on fire in the oven. No damage done, but we're going to have to start the pizza over." Sookie put the fire extinguisher away and pulled the pan out of the oven. "Somebody apparently thought that it was a gasoline powered oven..."

Lorelai sighed, "No more fires for today please," she said as she relaxed a bit. "And Sookie, pizza isn't necessary. We can live with tuna fish sandwiches."

"I just needed a place to stay on my way out of Hartford and since you never know if Luke is going to be sleeping in the apartment or not, and I would rather sleep in my car than at my mom's place with TJ." Jess cringed, "This was the only logical place, so I'm here."

Sookie laughed. "You don't eat tuna... oooh, speaking of tuna did you deliver the sandwich to the man with the wife?"

"You're here." Rory nodded. A few seconds later she realized that she should probably stop nodding. "You're here," She said again. Why is this weird, now? Because he caught my bullshit? It should have been weird before, but it wasn't then. So why now? It really should have been yesterday. The last time I saw Jess, was when he was begging me to go with him. And the time before that he told me he loved me... "You're here."

"There is no man with a wife," Lorelai said, "I think he must have vanished. But Jess is out there." She waited for Sookie's response.

Jess fought back a grin, "I think we've established that." He ran his hand through his hair. "I think the question is why are you here? I thought you were staying in Hartford with Loser."

"Jess..." Sookie looked at her blankly. "Is that short for Jessica? Oh! That's the girl who ordered the mushroom salad last night, right?"

"Oh, about that. I'm really sorry. He's... an asshole...among other things. And I'm sorry about the car incident, too." Rory glanced at him.

"Jess. Luke's nephew Jess, also known as the anti-Christ and the fiend of Stars Hollow." Lorelai waited for Sookie's reaction.

"Whatever, it doesn't matter." Jess said looking back to his newspaper. "Any idea why you're mom brought me a tuna sandwich?"

"Oh, that's right. He's out there reading the paper." Sookie nodded. "He's pretty cute..." She caught Lorelai's look, and added, "for the devil's spawn. He's very devil...ish..."

"Because she's decided to be nice to you from here on out?" Rory shrugged. "I have no idea," She looked down at the table. "And yes. it does matter. He was an #$ and you did nothing to him." She continued. "We're on a break. And I moved out of my grandparents house. And I quit the DAR, and my mom and I are good again... And I'm going back to Yale..."

Lorelai threw her hands in the air. "Sookie! How could you not tell me that he was out there? Rory and I were sitting out there talking about things and he...he was out there...reading the paper...very...smugly."

Jess nodded, "Sounds like a pretty good idea." He lifted his eyebrows at her in one of his patented-Jess looks. Was I the reason she made all these changes he wondered. He picked up the sandwich and examined it, "And I think Lorelai is trying to kill me, it's tuna, maybe Luke has been rubbing off on her."

"Rory's home! I was cooking. I was flustered." Sookie looked at her. "How does a person read the paper smugly?"

Rory laughed. "Maybe, but I doubt it." A few seconds passed, "Jess, I really am sorry about the whole mess. I had no idea that he was going to show up and insist on tagging along, and get drunk, and be an idiot. Well I guess I sort of did... maybe..." She said quietly.

"The way he was reading the paper...he just...it was smugly." Lorelai concluded. "You should have told me Sookie, you said he was attractive you should have said it was Jess."

Jess shrugged, "It's alright Rory," he said simply. "I hope I didn't mess things up with you and whatshisname."

"I just forgot, Lorelai," Sookie shrugged.

"Oh, no. Actually you made everything really clear," Rory told him. "I should be thanking you."

Lorelai sighed, "I should get back out there, I left her alone with him." Lorelai said collecting herself, "wish me luck. And be prepared to run out with a frying pan just in case."

"Huh," Jess said fighting back the urge to grin.

"Aw, maybe you should leave them alone for a few minutes, don't you think?" Sookie suggested.

"Wow. You're exactly the same, yet so much different," Rory said with a laugh.

Lorelai paced the kitchen, muttering to herself "why is he here? with her? she's with Logan, or was, and I didn't like that, but I don't know that I like this either."

"The same could be said of you, Ror." Jess said catching her eye. He paused and then asked, "so...we should do that catching up thing sometime." He suggested hoping she would say yes.

"But you'd rather her be with Jess, then with Logan wouldn't you?" Sookie asked as she started to make a pie crust.

"Yes," Rory said eagerly. "I mean, yeah, that'd be nice. Non interrupted. No jackasses invited."

Lorelai stopped her pacing, "Ohmygosh Sookie, that's such a scary thought. I hadn't even realized that I disliked Logan worse than Jess. I wasn't supportive enough was I? Is that part of the reason why she left?" Lorelai poured a cup of coffee and took a sip.

Jess nodded, "Okay." he said.

"Lord only knows why she left. But what's done is done. It doesn't matter anyhow, she's back!" Sookie spun around. "She's back, she's back," She sung.

"Okay. So, how long are you staying? Are you just going to go back home? What is home? Tell me all about you," Rory insisted.

Lorelai took another sip, "She is." She smiled. "Hey can you make a coffee cake or something, I want to have like a mini-party for her." Lorelai decided spur of the moment.

"See, you have that reporter thing down, really well," Jess smirked, "I'll hang around for a while, I still have some other stores to go to in Connecticut about carrying my book."

"Coffee cake. Yes, I can make coffee cake. Did you hear that people?" Sookie asked around the kitchen. "Coffee cake!"

"Oh, your book. I found that one you shoved in the bookstore between those two big books. I wanted to buy it, but I resisted," Rory told him.

"Well, I'm going to head back out, I think it's been long enough," Lorelai said grabbing another cup and filling it up. "And she should welcome me since I'm bringing her coffee."

Jess laughed, "I didn't shove it there. Andrew put it there, that guy has no idea how to categorize a book store, I swear. Why would you buy it though, to prevent an unsuspecting person from reading it?"

Sookie just nodded and watched Lorelai walk back out of the kitchen.

Rory smiled. "No, I don't know... because I just thought it would be cool, to walk around with a book written by you, saying that I had a book written by you."

"Huh, so the copy I gave you, you flushed down the toilet?" he asked.

"No, I have it right here," Rory pulled the book out of her purse and set it on the table. "I just wanted to actually buy one. Support you... I don't know."

"You don't have to buy one," Jess said simply as he looked down at his book, "I'm not a starving artist or anything." He folded up his newspaper and laid it next to the book, "Have you read any of it yet?" he asked.

Rory smiled slyly. "Open it and see for yourself."

"Intrigue," Jess said slyly as he opened up the book and saw numerous notes in the margins, "oh so you wanted a non-graffittied one." He smirked. He glanced up and saw Lorelai walking toward them. "I should probably get going, I have an appointment in New Haven soon. It was nice to see you Rory." He stood up. As Lorelai made it to the table.

"Jess." she said simply.

"Ma'am." Jess said as he walked out of the dining room and to the front door.

"Bye," Rory said softly. She felt her mothers presence and looked down. She needed something to do. She picked up the paper he had been reading and glanced at it. It was the Yale Daily Press. An old copy. She looked at the date and was amused to see that her article would have been in it.

Rory grinned as she saw notes in the margins. She quickly panicked that her mom might take the paper and she threw it into her purse. She looked up at her mom and waited.

"I feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone," Lorelai said as she sat down across from her daughter. "So how was that? Weird? I imagine it must be since you haven't seen him since..." she stopped herself there. "So I got Sookie to agree to make a cake and I'm throwing a welcome home surprise party, except I know you hate surprises so I'm telling you about it."

"Oooh, cake." Rory nodded, then thought about it and decided to go for it. "Well, don't you agree that Jess treats me better than Logan? Because well-" She paused. "Oh, you don't know about that. I might as well tell you..." She took a deep breath. "Jess came to the grandparents house while I was there, two nights ago, and we planned to meet up the following night and go out and talk, but then Logan showed up so the THREE of us went out. Which was lovely, by the way, and Logan had a bit too much to drink so he basically was a complete and total jerk to Jess who did nothing at all to him. So Jess got up to leave, and I followed him, and he gave me the reality check that I so badly needed. And Logan and I got into a fight, thus the basis for the 'break'." She purposely left out the part about the book.

"Wow," Lorelai said when Rory was finished, "The Huntzbergers look better and better all the time," she said sarcastically. "So Jess, came to see you. Why did he come to see you? He was just driving around the middle of Hartford and decided that it would be a good idea to stop by The Gilmores to see if you were there by some strange coincidence?"

"Uh," Rory shrugged. "I'm not 100 sure." Well, it isn't a complete lie, she thought to herself. "Maybe he decided to make up for all the spontaneity he lacked when we were dating?"

Lorelai nodded absently. "Yeah, so Jess is good for something after all," she muttered to herself. And then to Rory, "So, you're okay with him? You don't need me to beat him off the property with a pitchfork?"

Rory thought about it, before answering "Nope, Jess and I are... good. Wow, Jess and I are good. Words I never thought I'd be saying again."

"Aww hun," Lorelai said sadly, "I'm not saying that that's not a good idea, but don't get your hopes up for anything. And you need to keep in mind you're only on a 'break' with Logan, you haven't actually broken up with him."

"So you agree that I should break up with him?" Rory asked quickly.

"Yes. No. Gah!" Lorelai looked flustered. "I can't make those decisions, only you can, kid." She bit the inside of her lip thinking, "I would tell you not to make any quick decisions, but those seem to be working for you right now, so I don't know. It's your call, I'll support you either way. But don't break up with Logan just for a what if with Jess, it has to be about more than that."

"I did psycho things when I was with Logan. Part of the freaky, drop out of Yale, work at DAR, live with grandma and grandpa, avoid my mom, crazy me was with him. I don't think I can be with him. Normal, thinking, me would not be with him." Rory shook her head. "I don't know... I love him, but I'm not in love. And this has nothing to do with Jess..."

"I'm glad that crazy-psycho Rory is gone." Lorelai concluded, "It seems like you've made up your mind. If you're sure can I go run over his parents with a golf cart at the 'club'?" Lorelai grinned.

Rory laughed and then looked at her. "How..do I... break up with him? I've never broken up with anyone before. I don't know what to do. Dean broke up with me. And Jess and I... didn't really every break up, break up," Rory rambled.

"Well," Lorelai wasn't sure what to say, "I think it's like a band-aid, not a cute Barbie or Care Bears band-aid but a band-aid that needs to be pulled off, and you know that you can do it slowly but then you might miss it when it's gone, so you should do it quickly, it might hurt a bit, but it's over with quickly and you can move on without the band-aid anymore so your cut can get some air and heal."

"And I can't pull the band-aid off over the phone, right?" Rory asked. "Maybe I should meet the band-aid for dinner, and let him down gently, and... the end," Rory nodded.

"Okay, see I think you missed the part about the band-aid. The band-aid is your "break" with him but not your break-up with him." Lorelai paused, "but your interpretation works too." She patted Rory's arm. "So dinner with a band-aid, does that mean the restaurant serves neosporin on the menu? Is that what a band-aid eats?"

"With a side of alcohol! Served on a cotton ball." Rory picked up her cell phone. "So I'm going to call him... and make plans for tonight..." She dialed his number and waited. "Hi...Logan, this is Rory...Oh, yeah, I'm sure you did know that..."

Logan was trying to play it cool but was relieved that she called, "I didn't expect to hear from you so soon, Ace, what's up? Everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah, um, everything's just dandy." She frowned and looked at her mom, 'just dandy?' she mouthed. "Well, I was calling to see if you wanted to go to dinner, maybe?"

Lorelai mouthed "dandy" back and made a cut it motion across her neck, trying to save Rory from digging herself into a grave on this one.

"Dandy." Logan didn't like the sound of dandy, "So what time should I pick you up?"

"Oh you don't need to pick me up. I have to do some things, in Hartford, so I can just meet you at a restaurant. Wherever you want to go is fine with me," Rory told him and waited.

Logan resisted the urge to sigh, this was not going well, "This reminds me strangely of my father's life lessons. You take the employee you are going to fire to a restaurant of their choice and do it there in hopes of avoiding a scene." He waited for her to respond.

Lorelai looked at Rory giving her a 'what's he saying' face.

"Oh, so that's what was missing when your father and I had our special chat," Rory said cheerfully. She motioned for her mom to get her cellphone out. 'Call me! Hurry!'