Aki- This is really a filler chapter, setting up the important character's thoughts and feelings toward different stuff. As I am planning right now, next chapter will have…well I can't tell you that, but it will have stuff you've been waiting for.

Chapter 8

Rory couldn't get to sleep that night. She had stood at the bridge after Jess had run off for she wasn't sure how long. It was shorter then it had seemed, she knew, judging by the time on the wall clock. She hadn't moved from the spot on the bridge until after a chilling breeze snapped her back to reality. She had immediately rushed home, avoided her mother, and barricaded herself in her room.

She claimed she was still jetlagged from her recent business venture, but there she laid in the dark of her room, barely nine thirty with sleep farther than ever. She wanted to do something, but she couldn't. Even just turning on the light would alert her mother that she was awake.

Rory rolled over in her bed and grabbed two things off her bedside table, a flashlight and a book. She made her covers like a tent over her head and turned on the flashlight onto the novel Jess had handed her earlier that day.

She read the cover; In the Eyes of a Small Town by Jess Mariano. She flipped in open to discover a dedication on one of the first pages. It said, "To my one true love, my daughter, Amber." Rory smiled sadly as she read it. It was sweet, but it made her regret…

She turned again to the first page of the narrative. "Chapter 1," it was titled, she read, "The small town of Franksville, Connecticut sat in the New England backdrop of a mid-seventies summer. It had long lain untouched and unmarked by the changing world around it, seeming to stand still in the rapidly moving world. The citizens of Franksville were happy with the way things were, living in tradition year by year, until that one day it would be changed forever…"

Rory paused. Hell he wrote good. She wished things could change, she wished things would change, but she knew if it would it would be by her doing. Even if she did admit it, that Amber was her daughter, Rory couldn't see how it would work out…but, hell, Christmas was coming, good things happened on Christmas.

In room six of the Dragonfly…

Amber turned over in her bed once again, sleep ever evading her. There was so much on her mind that it repeatedly stole sleep right out from under her fingertips. Why were all the things Aunt Lorelai had said earlier still tormenting her?

She could have growled with frustration as she flipped over again under her covers. Amber closed her eyes but words haunted her ears still, "She used to have this overwhelming hope," whispered Lorelai's voice, "that things would be different…But then she kind of gave up on it."

Amber had always famed herself as being mature and rather grown-up for her age. She had never thought it a bad thing, no one did really, unless she got a little sarcastic. In fact, she had been proud of herself, to be grown-up; that was a cool thing. Maybe growing up with just your dad helped that along. Maybe living in a run-down apartment in the downtown of Philly for the first several years of your life did something too.

But what Lorelai had said about being hopeful versus being realistic…what was better. Had not believing in Santa meant she had grownup too much? Okay, bad example. Had giving up on ever having a mom, particularly her Mom, meant that she had lost her faith in people? Had she lost all she had trusted? Had she lost hope? It was a scary thought, to lose hope. To lose that little bit of optimism or any confidence that she would find her mother or her mother would find her.

Amber hadn't noticed that tears were welling in her eyes until she felt the wetness of one running down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly with the back pf her hand. No time for tears. Grown-ups never cry…right? Amber realized she didn't want to be a grown-up anymore. She didn't care mature she had become; she still wanted to be able to cry and laugh and hope. She wasn't going to give up, not now, not now that she had more family then she had ever had before. Not now when things were going good. Not now when she had a father who loved her and it was Christmas.

Christmas was a time for happiness and giving and getting….and hope.

Amber didn't know that her father was lying awake too. He just couldn't get to sleep; Amber's constant moving in the next bed didn't help. He was haunted at what had almost happened today. What he did and what he almost did.

He had almost kissed her. Damn, he did kiss Rory, just barely. He had succumbed to these feelings that he didn't know he had had. Jess was still mad at Rory, angry even.

He had never fully worked out his feelings for Rory. Not since that night, many years ago, not since she left him with a daughter.

He knew he was mad at her, that was easy, but he was also upset, and surprised with her actions. He was regretful, for not trying to make her stay harder, for not calling her every night after she left to give her a guilt trip. Jess understood those things, it was the other things he felt he was confused about.

He had loved her once, he had told her so, and he thought he had loved her the night they created Amber. But now, after all these years, after all the hurt she had caused, he wasn't so sure. But what happened early today on the bridge…what was that? He had definitely felt something. Was it the spark of dieing love? Or the memory of a past one? Perhaps it was something new? Maybe, he hoped, it was nothing at all.

Jess turned over in his bed to get more comfortable. .He could not wait for these next few days to be over. He could not wait to get home and get out of this web of lies and deception, always hiding something and always losing. Hopefully no big discoveries or fights or explosions would happen. He almost laughed at the thought that things would go smoothly, it would be a miracle, but, hey, Christmas was a miraculous time…

At the Gilmore house…

If three people weren't enough to be stuck awake, one more wouldn't hurt anything. Lorelai lay in her bed, next to a peacefully sleeping Luke, staring straight up at the ceiling. Something was off; she could feel it, sense it. There were these uneasy tensions surrounding her and her family. Could no one else feel it?

She had gotten one of those vibes from Rory just today as she came home a few hours ago and immediately locked herself in her room, feigning tiredness, and obviously upset about something. Lorelai had one guess what that something was, Jess. Had her daughter run into him or the street or something?

Lorelai tried as she could to convince herself that that was all that was eating at her daughter, but she failed miserably. There was something else going on, something deeper, darker, and mysterious. It had something to do with Jess and Rory or Jess and Amber or Amber and Rory.

Lorelai shook her head to get these foolish thoughts out of her head. She needed some sleep. Luke had to get up early to receive a shipment for the diner and she would probably be woken at five or some other ungodly hour when he was getting ready.

The women closed her eyes to try and force herself to sleep. Amber face instantly popped into her mind's eye. There was just something about her that reminded her of something else. It was something about her eyes. Didn't Amber say earlier that Jess always told her she had her mother's eyes…Luke would have said she was crazy if she spoke all these thoughts aloud. She just hoped everything would work out, but she had said earlier today, good things happen when it snows, magical things, and it was going to snow on Christmas; she could feel it.

Though their stories were different and they were kept awake by differing reasons. Rory, Amber, Jess, and Lorelai were all waiting for the same thing under different names…Christmas miracles.