Disclaimer: I am (not) the ruler of all that is Gilmore girls.
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Rory went to Lorelai's house to get her car and drove to the Dragonfly Inn. When she got there, Michel was on the phone, taking a reservation in his usual rude manner. She headed off to the kitchen to grab some coffee before finding her mom. "Hi Sookie," she said enthusiastically as she grabbed the pot of coffee.
"Hi honey, I haven't seen you around much this weekend," Sookie said and continued stirring something on the phone. "What have you been up to?"
"Mom and I went shopping yesterday," Rory said and sat down on a stool. "We added to her collection of shoes…"
"I heard, she's wearing a pair today,"
"She's very happy about her shoes,"
Rory wondered if she should tell Sookie about the wedding dress incident. She didn't know if Lorelai had told her anything; they were best friends. She hadn't told her mom certain things, and they were as close as two people could get. Then again, the being related by blood helped on that one. She decided to let her mom tell Sookie, so she asked, "Where is Mom anyways?"
"I think she's holding a meeting with the maids,"
"Oh… Is there anything I can do until she's finished?"
Sookie laughed, "In the kitchen?"
"Oh god, no," Rory said quickly. "I guess I'll ask Michel…"
"Kay, come see me again before you leave,"
"As long as you've got coffee," Rory joked and slowly made her way back to the entrance of the hotel. She really didn't want to deal with Michel. Rory wanted to talk to her mom badly and she hated waiting.
Instead of going to see Michel, Rory veered off and found her way to the sitting area and grabbed a book. She wasn't too interested in it though; she found her leg bouncing up and down and had to stop it.
"Fruit of my loins!" Lorelai said cheerfully when she saw her daughter.
Rory looked up and smiled, her mom looked happy. "Finally, I've been in here forever," she said and motioned to the book.
Lorelai looked at the book and laughed, "You're on page two." Rory looked back down at the book and sighed. "Got something on your mind?"
"Well now that you say it," Rory said and placed the book back in the bookshelf. "Can we go somewhere to talk?"
Lorelai noticed how concerned she looked and nodded, "Let's go." She grabbed Rory's hand and then passed Michel on their way to the stairs. "We're going to be in room four, don't bug us."
They could hear Michel scoff as they made their way up the stairs. "What's wrong honey?" Lorelai asked when they sat down on the chairs in the room.
Rory leaned back and looked at the ceiling for a moment, silent. She finally looked back at Lorelai, whose face was scrunched up in wonder and worry. "Nothing's wrong Mom."
"Then don't let Mommy worry like that, okay kid?" Lorelai got out of her chair and knelt on the floor next to Rory. "If nothing's wrong, what else is going on?"
Rory looked at her mom, wondering how to tell her. "We tell each other everything, right?"
"Everything," Lorelai repeated.
She couldn't look at her mom while she said this, "I slept with Jess." Rory closed her eyes and turned back to Lorelai. She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to see the horrible reaction she was sure she'd get.
Lorelai was quiet, trying to think of something appropriate to say. "Well, we tell each other everything…" Rory opened her eyes and she felt guilty. "I'm glad you told me…"
"Are you? I wasn't sure…I needed to tell you because I never want to have a secret from you and you would obviously find out eventually because we did it above your favorite eating establishment. I also had to tell you because I just thought.. I don't know, I just thought you should know," Rory said without taking a breath.
"Well I'm not going to look at that bed the same way," Lorelai said and laughed.
Rory smiled and she just had to ask, "Why are you glad I told you?"
Lorelai grasped her hand, "Remember before the speech on C-SPAN? Paris came over the night before and I brought pizza?" Rory nodded. "I over-heard you two talking. You said you hadn't had sex – with Dean or Jess. I was so proud of you. I knew you would tell me, I just didn't think it would be with Jess."
"Mom?"
"Yes," she said, concerned.
"I slept with Logan too, you know."
Lorelai gasped, "In the same night?" They both had a good laugh before she continued. "I knew about that. Another question, why didn't you tell me then?"
Rory shrugged, "I guess I wasn't sure if I was really into it. I don't think I took it seriously. I didn't want to tell you if it was going to be a one time thing, then when it progressed it wasn't that special."
"It should always be special," Lorelai said comforting her daughter. "So this – with Jess… It's serious?"
After a short silence, Rory whispered, "I think it is."
"And is my baby happy?"
"I think I am," Rory thought about their talk, about Jess going to Yale. "I am."
"Now, is there anything else you're going to make me worry about before I go back to work?" Lorelai said and stood up.
"Yeah, there sorta is,"
Lorelai sat down on the bed and faced Rory, "Good? Bad?"
"Good,"
"So…"
Rory paused, once again in an awkward situation. "Jess is going to go to Yale."
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After she assisted a shell-shocked Lorelai back downstairs to officially not do any work for the rest of the day, Rory went home to get her stuff and headed to the diner. Lorelai had taken the news well. She only fainted once. Rory had to pinch her several times and promised to take a lie-detector test to prove that she was telling the truth. Lorelai didn't have much to say on the matter, probably too lost in thought to create words – a rarity in the Gilmore family: even Emily was never at a loss for words.
Jess and Lorelai had gotten along very well since he came back. They had the inside joke about cooking, and they hadn't had any fights that Rory knew of. The problem was that Lorelai was still suspicious of Jess, Rory knew that. She would always be; it came with the Mom territory. It was one of the few places that Lorelai played the Mom card, and Rory didn't mind. She just knew that she had to prove it to her mom that Jess had changed. Yale was definitely a big change to the rebel that flunked his senior year of high school.
The town square seemed a lot more active than when she left the diner earlier. Kirk was holding a sign upside down; she turned her head to read it but almost veered off the road. It couldn't be that important if the writing was so small you couldn't see it from the street, she thought. Rory parked in front of the diner and noticed how busy it was as she walked in front of the window.
Almost all of the eyes inside focused on Rory once they noticed her. There wasn't much food on the tables and everyone stopped talking. Rory halted in front of the window and stared them back. Didn't they know that staring was rude? She looked for Luke or Jess, but couldn't see either of them behind the counter. Maybe that's why nobody has any food…
Rory sighed audibly and decided to enter the diner. Something was going on and she was going to find out. The silence was deafening and all eyes were following her still. They weren't even trying to hide it. Rory did her best to ignore it and found Caesar in the kitchen. She shot him a questioning look.
"Nobody's ordering. I've been sitting here for two hours and nobody has ordered anything except for drinks. I've had nothing to do,"
She thought he looked sad, but this was a guy who actually enjoyed his job. "Why don't you make me a burger and fries – extra cheese and chili on the fries." Caesar stood up happily and turned back on the grill. She always liked making people happy; plus she got amazing food. It was a win-win situation. "Caesar, where are Luke and Jess?"
His body tensed up and she sensed the eyes on her again. "I, uh, don't know," he stuttered.
"Okay," she said slowly. "I'll come back in a few minutes for the food."
Caesar relaxed a bit and continued cooking her food. Rory turned around and found everyone staring at her still. She walked in front of the bar and sat down on one of the stools. "Okay, what's going on?"
Many people looked away at her question, but she noticed a few people formulating their answers. "I'm waiting," she said after a short silence. It was unnerving to have so many people look at you without knowing why.
"Jess loves you," said a woman in the corner who was looking away.
"And he's going to Yale," another voice added. Everyone else nodded to produce the effect of twenty or so bobbleheads staring at her.
Rory thought for another minute before talking, "You know this, how?"
The group looked at each other, trying to silently decide who to talk. "Jess basically yelled it loud enough for the whole town to hear," someone finally admitted.
An elaboration wasn't long after, "Babette and Patty were here."
Rory sighed and closed her eyes to avoid the scrutiny. She didn't know how to deal with this. She knew the word would have gotten out somehow, but this was weird. Rory and Jess were going to be the topic of the town until something equally as crazy happened…which could thankfully be tomorrow with the rate of insanity in the townspeople. Rory could smell her food and turned around. Caesar was holding two plates of greasy goodness and she smiled when she saw them. "Thank you," she said and took them from him, heading upstairs.
Halfway up the stairs the diner erupted into a loud conversation and she could hear Caesar trying to quiet everyone down and take their orders. Nothing like an awkward public moment to make people hungry. Rory ignored the voices coming from the diner, but by the time she reached the top of the stairs, she could hear two more voices.
"You can't just say things like that with no explanation!" Luke's voice carried through the closed door on the apartment.
"I've gone over it a hundred times!" Jess replied.
Rory sat down on the top step and started to eat her food, not wanting to interrupt the obvious argument. She focused on what was being said though; she needed more information as well.
"I finished high school, I went to college already. I'm going to be with Rory at Yale and that's all you need to know!"
"You just came back after years, and you expect her to be happy and not question you?"
"She knows me! I know her! It doesn't matter how long we've been gone, why don't you understand this?" Rory smiled, Jess was right. She didn't feel the need to question him. She knew he'd tell her everything eventually.
"Are you going to live up there? Because you asked if you could live here first!"
"Of course I am. I can't start until the spring, so I'm here until January. I'm going to look for a place to live soon. I saved up money while I was in New York. I applied for financial aid. I've got everything settled." Rory could hear Jess's voice calm down. She couldn't wait to talk to him.
"And what about Rory? I saw you two this morning," Luke said, causing Rory to stop mid-chew. "What are you two planning on doing?"
"That's between us. We have a lot to figure out before anything serious happens."
"And you're not going to leave again? You're serious about all of this?" Luke sounded concerned, just like Lorelai did when Rory was talking to her earlier.
"Completely serious. I'll never do that to Rory again,"
"Okay," Luke said, and there was a silence. Rory grabbed her plates and ran down the stairs as quietly as she could. She turned the corner into the back room just as Luke headed down the stairs.
Rory waited until she could hear him taking orders again before heading up to the apartment. She knocked on the door quietly.
"Hey," Jess said and smiled.
Rory kissed him hard on the lips and pushed him farther into the apartment, embracing him. "Hi," she said when she had him against a wall.
"What a greeting," he said and laughed. "Why?..."
"No reason," she said, shrugging. "I've got a couple hours before I have to go back to Yale," Rory giggled and winked.
"I think I've got an addict on my hands," Jess said and kissed her again, holding her close.
Rory broke the kiss to speak again, "And is that a problem?"
"Never."
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Wow, that was a whole lot longer than I thought it was going to be. Chapter 20 sucks, just a warning in advance. Don't get too excited when I post it. I was having writing issues.
Please review, you guys have been awesome on that.
