Summary: Future Jess-centric fic. "Night was a time of repentance, of forgiving not only others, but yourself, a time of remembrance (and sometimes the act of not-remembering, known as forgetting)."
Disclaimer: As you probably already have noticed, I do not own the show, Jess, or any other characters from Gilmore Girls that were mentioned.
Author's Note: Okay, for this fic, just go with it… any back information that's needed will be provided in time. It takes place about five years in the future, I'd say, but Luke and Lorelai aren't married yet. You can assume that Rory went back to college, graduated, etc., and everything's fine with her.
A MIDDLE GROUND
CHAPTER 2
By Occhio di Lince
"Jess Mariano," a monotonous voice called out. Jess dropped his book in surprise and looked over his shoulder to see the head of the English department at the high school.
"Yeah?"
"You were subbing for Henson's American Lit class today?" he handed Jess a few pieces of paper, and continued before waiting for an answer. "Mr. Henson broke a few ribs while he was skiing. He'll be out for at least a month, and we need you to stay with that class."
Jess stood up, glancing at the paper. "But that's not my job. Aren't there other people who fill in like that?"
"There aren't enough of them. Apparently, people don't have the desire to be a long-range substitute teacher these days." Jess snorted, and the man glared at him. "Anyway… these papers include a list of students and the curriculum for the year. You can contact the teacher of the class if you need any more information." The man turned to leave and began walking out of the teacher's lounge.
"Hey!" Jess called out after him. "Don't I have to agree to do this?"
"Do you want to keep your job?" the man asked. "Then you have to agree with it."
Jess sat down back in his chair in the now empty teacher's lounge, and sighed. He didn't like school, the students, or the other teachers any more now than he had when he was a student, and he couldn't really figure out what he was doing here. He had thought about quitting many times, but then he reminded himself that it was a job, a real job, and he made decent money doing it.
He stuck his book in his back pocket and walked out of the room, to the main office. In the office, he stood in front of the desk for a few moments, while the secretary searched was searching through a drawer for something.
"Excuse me," he said when she didn't look up. She held one hand up in the air and waved at him as she continued looking in a second drawer.
The woman finally looked up, and Jess held the papers up.
"I was given these and told that I have to be the sub for this class for the next month. I don't think-"
"Name?" she asked, cutting him off.
He raised his eyebrows. "Jess Mariano. But what I was saying is that I can't-"
She began typing something into the computer and a second later nodded. "Yep, Mr. Hanson's English class, right?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do about it. You'll be subbing for his period 2 class for at least the next three weeks."
"Can't I do something about it? I'd rather not be stuck with one class for so long."
"Nope," she said. "Excuse me." She stood up and walked into a back office, leaving Jess standing in front of her desk.
&&&&&&&
Jess fumbled in his pockets for the key to his apartment, trying to balance a stack of books in one hand while he unlocked the door in the other. Just as he got the door unlocked the books began to fall, and he rushed to dump the pile onto the table.
He had called the teacher of the class that afternoon, and had stopped by his house to pick up "a few" papers that the students had written recently. "A few" turned out to be a huge stack of them, and Jess had tried not to grimace as Mr. Hansen had handed him the huge stack of papers. Luckily, they were already graded, and Jess made a mental note to himself not to assign too many papers so he wouldn't have too much to grade.
Jess made himself a sandwich and sat down on the couch with the phone in his hand, ready to call Luke back. He was actually going to do it this time.
He dialed the number, and waited for Luke to answer. The phone rang repeatedly, and Jess waited impatiently. What could Luke be doing at 9 o'clock on a Wednesday night? Just as he was about to hang up, the answering machine clicked on.
You've reached Luke Danes, 860-354-2352, please leave your name and number at the beep. If you're calling for Luke's Diner, call 354-9235.
Jess waited for the beep, but it didn't come immediately after the message. A second later, he vaguely heard someone else talking on the machine again.
Why isn't it stopping?
Did you press stop?
Yes, I pressed stop!
Well, I don't know, press it again. Why are you asking me; you're the one who fixes things.
It's not stopping!
The voices became louder and more clear then, and Jess heard a woman's voice.
Be sure to come to the party Friday night! And yes, presents are expected.
Lorelai, stop it! Oh, I know what to do-
Beeeeep.
Jess cleared his throat before speaking. "It's Jess. You called me, so I'm calling you back. I'm very sad that I wasn't invited to this party your having on Friday… with Lorelai? Since when do you two throw parties together? Call me back when you get this."
&&&&&&&
At 8:05 the next morning Jess found himself walking into the classroom, arms full of papers. The room was about half full, with students walking around and talking loudly. Jess walked to the desk, and set the papers down. As the students noticed him, they began to stop talking, and a few even sat down at their desks.
"Are you the sub?" someone called out from the back.
"Yeah," Jess answered, before realizing that he should probably say more than that. "Uh, I'm Mr. Mariano, and I'll be your teacher for the next three weeks." He grabbed a piece of chalk and scribbled 'Mariano' on the board.
He turned around and looked at the class, not really sure what to say. Usually he just wrote the assignment on the board and then sat down and read as they worked, but now there was no assignment.
"I have your papers," he remembered, and picked up the stack of them from the desk. A few people sighed, but for the most part they just sat there, looking at him expectantly. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard. He looked at the papers with the intention of passing them back, but then he realized that he didn't know anybody's name.
"Uh, I'm gonna call out the names and you can come get your own paper," he said, looking at the class. "Molly Sanderson." He held the paper out to the girl who walked up.
"Jack Rigby… Chris Tiffans… Natalie Dylan… John Newton…" a few minutes later the papers were all passed back, and he leaned on an empty desk in the front row.
He was surprised that the class wasn't going talking or anything like that, they were just sitting there. Doing nothing. Expecting him to tell them what to do.
"So… Where did you leave off with your teacher?" he asked the class. At first, no one answered, but eventually one girl raised her hand.
"You don't have to raise your hand or anything like that, just say it," he said, nodding at the girl.
"OK, well, we were reading A Separate Peace, and he said we were going to write an essay on it next week."
Jess nodded slowly, debating about whether he should just tell them to read the book or…
Leaning on the desk, he looked at the class. "Do you like A Separate Peace?"
They stared back at him.
"I mean… what do you think about it? Is it any good?"
"Haven't you read it?" someone called out. "You are the teacher, you should know if it's good or not."
Jess glared back at the kid. "Yes, I've read it. And from your lack of response to my question, I'm guessing you haven't yet." He scanned the classroom. "Has anyone?"
"Mr. Henson never made us talk about it until the day before the essays were due," a girl in the front row told him. "We just take notes in class." She stared expectantly at him.
Jess stared at the class for a moment. "Fine, then." On the chalkboard, he wrote the word 'psychological.'
"Take notes on whether the issues that bother Gene are real, concrete issues or psychological problems that he creates in his own mind," Jess told the class. He sat down behind the teacher's desk, and took out his own book. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all.
&&&&&&&
Jess opened the door of his apartment to hear his phone ringing.
"Damn it," he exclaimed as he dropped his pizza box in an effort to reach the phone in time.
He attempted to answer the phone with one hand as he picked the now open pizza box off the floor. "…Yeah, hello?" he answered quickly.
"Jess, it's Luke."
"Oh, Luke," Jess replied.
"Yes… Luke." Jess waited a moment. "So, how are you?"
"I'm good…" Jess responded slowly. "How are you?"
"Oh, you know. Good."
"Great."
"… yeah."
"So, you called because…?"
"Oh, right. Well, it's been awhile and I thought we should catch up. You know, family stuff. Tell me what's going on in your life," Luke suggested.
"Well…" Jess took a bite of a slice of pizza and ate it before answering. "I've got this class."
"A class."
"Yeah."
"Of what?"
"… students, Luke. What else would I have a class of?"
"Right, students. From the school."
"Yes." Another bite.
"I've kind of got students here…"
"Huh?"
"Well, not really. Just, the kids in the diner, and there's this soccer team that I'm sponsoring-"
Jess snorted out loud. "Really?"
"Yeah. And the kids come in, and it's kind of like students."
"You teach them anything?" Jess asked incredulously.
"No!" Luke responded quickly. "It's just that they're kids, and they're around…"
"Of course." Another bite.
"Jess, are you eating something?"
"… yeah. Pizza."
"There's good pizza out there?"
"Nah."
"I see."
"Luke, was there some specific reason you called? Because so far, I'm guessing there's not."
"Oh, no, there is. Definitely."
Jess waited. "And that would be?"
"Lorelai and me—I, Lorelai and I… we're getting married. March 7th."
"Congratulations," Jess responded. "I could have guessed—wait, this March 7th?"
"Yeah."
"That's less than two months away."
"I know."
"Why?"
"… it's Lorelai, Jess. I don't know why."
"Well… congratulations. That's… great."
"Thanks," Luke said sardonically. "You sound like you really mean it."
"I do!" He took another bite. "It's not like I'm surprised, though—"
"Why not?"
"Geez, Luke… You guys have only been flirting and stuff for, what, twenty years? C'mon, it's long overdue."
"It has not been twenty years."
"Uh, yeah, it has. Didn't she move there when Rory was little?"
"Yeah…"
"And I'm 25, which means she's 25."
"Okay…"
"So it's been twenty years," Jess concluded.
"Twenty years…? Wow, it has been twenty years."
"As I said. So you can see why it doesn't take me by surprise."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
Neither spoke for a moment.
"Well, if that's all…"
"Yeah, yeah. That's all."
"Okay. Later, Luke."
"Yeah, bye."
Jess hung the phone up and picked up another slice of pizza. He stared at it for a moment. It really wasn't tasty looking, being dropped on the floor and all of that didn't do much for it.
"There really isn't good pizza here," he muttered to himself, and put it back down in the box before shuffling through a stack of papers for a Chinese take-out menu.
END OF CHAPTER 2
I got a little carried away with the Luke/Jess conversation… was it too long? Review?