"Hey Luke." Jess said when he walked into the diner. He'd taken the long route back.

"Jess, where the hell have you been?" Luke demanded.

"Sanford, Maine and Boston." Jess replied.

"Upstairs. Caesar I'm going upstairs."

"Luke you know where I went we told you yesterday." Jess said when Luke closed the door. "Rory was stood over there and Lorelai took money out your wallet to give us money for gas."

"Lorelai got a call from Rory's father two and a half hours ago; she couldn't get a hold of Rory so she's been panicking."

"Rory must have switched her phone off." Jess guessed. "It didn't exactly go well with her father so she wasn't in a very talkative mood. She stormed out when he started blaming me."

"I know. Lorelai told me. Christopher had a lot to say on the subject." Luke said.

"I offered to go with her but she wouldn't let me." Jess sat on the couch.

"It's something she needed to do herself." Luke crossed his arms.

"I know." He paused. "Women are strange, especially if their last name is Gilmore."

"I thought you would have figured that out a long time ago. What did Rory do?"

"I gave her a milkshake and a Hershey bar to make her feel better, that whole chocolate endorphin thing and she tells me to stand still, mutters something about you and Lorelai, tells me to stand still and then she kisses and I dropped the milkshake."

"Sounds like a Gilmore." Luke nodded.

"Do you know why she was talking about you?"

"The first time I kissed Lorelai, we were at the test run. Her ex-boyfriend didn't want to take the fact that they'd broken up seriously so we were having a debate, I stopped told her to stand still and kissed her, she told me stand still and kissed me, then Kirk ran out with only a strategically placed pillow and I had to run after him."

"I'm not going to even ask why."

"Good idea." Luke suggested. "So Rory is okay?"

"She was fine when I left her at the Dragonfly."

"I should get back to work." Luke said.

"I'll just change and come down and help out."

"You can take half an hour." Luke told him. "We'll manage."

"Okay." Jess agreed.

"And then tonight I want the story of TJ passing out."

"Not a problem." Jess said. "But giving free coffee out was a little over the top."

"Lorelai and Kirk were the only people here." Luke admitted.

"Ah."

GG

After their talk Lorelai had to get back to the Dragonfly. She'd had a stack of paperwork which she had just run out on that needed to be done.

Rory went outside to get some air after she left.

"Rory honey." Babette said from where she was sat.

"Hi Babette."

"Do you want to come and sit with me for a while doll?" Babette inquired.

"Sure." Rory knew where this conversation was likely to go and it would be quicker to take care of it now.

"So you took a little trip."

"That's right. It was just overnight, I go back to school on Saturday."

"And Jess went with you?" Babette inquired.

"Yes."

"Are you two kids getting back together?"

"We're just friends right now." Rory replied. "We'll see where it goes from there."

"So where did you go doll?"

"Jess needed to see his mom in Maine so since I had a few days and I've finished packing I offered to drive him to see her. I've never been to a Renaissance fair and I was at school so I didn't get to see all the wedding festivities."

"That was nice of you."

"It was nice to take a break after all the packing." Rory replied.

"Is he back for good?" Babette inquired.

"I think so."

"Things are going to get interesting."

"You have no idea." Rory muttered.

"What was that doll?"

"I said they would never be dull. So what else is going on in town?"

Babette proceeded to fill Rory in on all the non-Jess related gossip.

TBC