A/N: Ari rules. She read this four times looking for errors, and she sent it to both my email addies. Proof of rule-ness right there.
Welcome to Wonderland Ch. 5: Don't Make Me Get the Hose
"We're heading out," Rory announced as she exited the house with Jess behind her. "Be good."
Alice smirked at her mother from the front lawn, where she was kneeling with a tennis ball in her hands. "Okay, Mom."
Not ten feet away stood Frankie, with a small, novelty baseball bat in his hands, ready to swing. He was wearing one of Luke's very old baseball caps.
Jess shook his head. "If you break a window, run like hell," he told them.
Rory nudged him playfully. "We'll be at Grandma's. If you need anything, call."
"Or cross the street," Jess added.
Rory rolled her eyes and took Jess's hand. "Stay out of trouble, Alice."
Alice looked up. "Are you implying that I, your wonderful daughter, would get into trouble?"
"If you call kicking someone in the groin and stealing gnomes trouble, then yes," Rory nodded. "Bye, guys."
"Bye!" Frankie waved.
When they walked off, Alice turned to Frankie with the tennis ball.
"Okay, ready?"
Frankie nodded and got into a batting stance. It looked silly, being that he was only four, but cute silly.
Alice pitched the ball under-handed, and Frankie swung and missed.
"I'll get it next time!" Frankie said confidently as he ran and got the ball for her.
Alice smiled. "Of course you will." She took the ball from him. "Okay, are you ready?"
Frankie nodded and got back into place, readying his bat.
Alice threw the ball lightly, and Frankie hit it. It rolled out into the street.
"I HIT IT!" Frankie yelled excitedly. Then he became a little confused. "What do I do now?"
Alice laughed. "Run!"
"Run where?"
Alice mentally kicked herself. They hadn't set up any bases. "Uh... run around me!"
That was exactly what Frankie did. He dropped his bat and ran around Alice.
Alice sighed and sat on the grass. 'This should keep him busy for the next few minutes,' she thought. She pulled a book from out of her back pocket and started reading.
"You really are a strange girl."
She looked up and rolled her eyes. "Jeez, what are you? Some kinda stalker?"
Tristin shrugged and walked over to her from the nice car he'd emerged from. "You owe me a date."
"Go to hell," Alice snapped. She grabbed Frankie to stop him from running.
Tristin looked around. "I'd say I'm already in hell... how do you stand it here? It's so small."
"You'd know about small, wouldn't you, Junior?"
Tristin rolled his eyes. "One date."
"No."
"One meal."
"No."
"One cookie."
Alice raised an eyebrow. "Cookie? What happened to the onion rings?"
"Come on," Tristin sighed, exasperated. "I came all this way... again. You owe me."
She shrugged and got to her feet, lifting Frankie into her arms. "Junior, this is Frankie. Frankie, this is Junior, but you can call him Groin Guy."
Tristin rolled his eyes.
"Hi, Groin Guy," Frankie said with a wave.
"Hi, Frankie," Tristin muttered.
Lorelai smiled as she opened the front door. "Children!"
Rory smiled and kissed her mother on the cheek. "Hi, Mom."
"Hey, Sweets," Lorelai replied. She looked past her daughter and smiled. "Hi, Jess."
He nodded. "Luke here yet?"
"Kitchen," Lorelai nodded. "Come on in."
The couple walked past her, Jess heading for the kitchen.
"So he really made Ali stay home?" Lorelai asked.
Rory sighed. "She got caught."
"He's mean."
"He's right," Rory laughed a little. "She got caught... it's only one movie night at home."
Lorelai sighed and pouted. "Fine."
Tristin sat in the Marianos' living room, waiting for Alice to come back from putting Frankie to bed. He glanced around and noted that the space was cluttered. The large television was surrounded by videos and DVD's.
He got off of the couch to check them out. Sitting on top of the piles were Almost Famous, Ten Things I Hate About You, and The Graduate. He lifted up the three top movies to reveal High Fidelity, Sid and Nancy, and Moulin Rouge. He shrugged and put the movies down. He hadn't seen any of them.
She suddenly walked into the room carrying a cookie. She handed it to him.
He blinked. "What's this?"
"Your cookie," he replied. "Eat it and get out."
He sighed. "I don't want the cookie anymore."
"Yes," Alice urged. "Yes, you do. Take the cookie."
"Nope."
She rolled her eyes. "What do you want?"
"Movie."
"Movie?"
Tristin nodded. "Movie."
"Take a movie and leave," Alice replied, taking him by the shoulders and pushing him over to the stack of DVDs.
"I want to watch one here with you," Tristin told her simply.
"Nope."
"Yes."
Alice groaned. "Get out of my house!"
"One movie. Then I'll leave."
Alice sighed, defeated.
"Mama made me bring tofu," Lane said, looking depressed.
Dave smirked. "We went and visited this afternoon."
Rory walked over and hugged Lane, while Lorelai took the platter of tofu squares from her.
"Didn't go too well?" Rory asked.
"I brought tofu," Lane snapped. "How do you think it went?"
"God, I'm glad that woman isn't my mother-in-law," Jess muttered.
Dave gave him a brilliant smile. "So...how are them Friday night dinners going, Mariano?"
Jess smirked. "Better than your Sunday night ones, Rygalski."
Joey smirked when he walked in and saw Emma sitting on the couch with her brother. He casually walked over and plopped down next to his girlfriend. "Hey."
Emma smiled and leaned in to give him a short kiss. "Hi."
Mike glared at them.
Joey cleared his throat nervously. "Hey, Mike."
Mike glared harder. "Joe."
Joey laughed nervously. "How 'bout them Yankees, huh?"
"I'm a Cubs fan," Mike growled.
"I need the restroom," Joey said quickly, getting to his feet and running.
Dean smirked at his son from his spot on the floor. "Good boy."
"Bite me," Mike muttered.
"My son, ladies and gentlemen," Dean muttered to himself.
Lindsay walked around with a bowl of chips and sat next to Dean. "Behave, you two."
"Okay," Lorelai said, plopping down on the couch. "What are we watching?"
"I vote Apocalypse Now," Dean said.
"This is Spinal Tap!" Dave cried.
"Good Will Hunting," Jess and Rory chorused.
"You all lose," Luke told them. "We're watching Indiana Jones."
A collective groan arose from a part of the room.
"This is so lame."
"It is not! It's romantic," Alice argued.
Tristin blinked at her. "Romantic? So... this is a date."
"Nope."
"It's a date."
"No, it isn't."
"We're watching Ewan McGregor throw himself at Nicole whats-her-face-"
"Kidman."
"Whatever!" Tristin cried. "This is a date."
"Are you hungry?" Alice asked. "I'm hungry."
She started to get up, but he pulled her back down and into a kiss. She pulled away and slugged him in the face.
"AH!" He put a hand to his right eye. "Dammit! Why did you do that?!"
"Reflex! You got in my personal space!"
They sat in silence for a moment.
"Was..." Tristin sighed. "Was it a good kiss?"
Alice shrugged uneasily, avoiding his eyes. "I don't know... I've never been kissed before."
More silence.
He glanced at her. "If I kiss you again, will you hit me again?"
She merely stared at him.
Jess had gone on ahead, while Lorelai and Rory had their infamous mother/daughter time. He didn't mind. He never minded quiet walks. Quiet was fairly rare in his life these days. Alice and Rory made sure of that. He missed quiet sometimes, but he wouldn't trade what he had for all the silence in the world.
When he reached the house, his calm was instantly broken by the sight before him.
His daughter. His sweet, little girl, apple of his eye, sunshine of his life.
Kissing a boy.
The kiss looked innocent enough. Alice knew nothing about the art of lip-locking.
Yet.
All of the sudden a rush of very frightening ideas attacked Jess.
Buying a shotgun.
Having "the talk" with his daughter.
Lecturing on... condom use... and... the pill...
His eye twitched and a force like no other propelled him toward the side of the house.
Tristin gave Alice a grin as they pulled apart.
She blinked. "Uhm..."
Before she could say another word, he leaned in and kissed her again.
And just as the kiss became a little more serious, they were hit with a blast of ice-cold water.
They pulled apart quickly and Alice turned to her father, who was holding the garden hose.
"Dad!" Alice yelled. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"My job."
Rory approached them quickly from the sidewalk. "Did I miss something?"
"Dad's an asshole!" Alice cried. With that, she rushed into the house and slammed the door.
Jess sprayed Tristin again. "Go home."
Tristin rolled his eyes and walked off to his car.
Rory turned to Jess. "Explain."
"They were kissing."
"Ah... huh," Rory nodded. "And you..."
"Sprayed them with the hose," Jess replied.
They stood staring at each other for a long moment, until Rory wrestled the hose away from him and let him have it.
Alice almost didn't hear the knock on the door over her guitar playing. She'd turned her amplifier up quite a bit, trying to work off her anger.
She sighed as she put her instrument down and swung open the door. She rolled her eyes and went to close it, but Jess stopped her.
"Sorry."
"You're a jerk," she snapped.
"Born and bred," Jess replied. "Can I come in?"
"You're wet."
"So're you."
She let him in.
"You're mom hosed me down," he told her.
"Well-deserved," Alice nodded.
Jess sighed. "I don't like Tristin."
"Don't care."
"Kinda figured," he replied. "I won't... do that again... or anything equivalent to it."
His daughter gave him a wary look. "Promise?"
He nodded. "Promise."
"Then you're forgiven."
They stood in silence as Alice began to pick up her guitar again.
"Uh... Ali... do uh... we need to talk?"
"We are talking," she reminded him.
He shuffled his feet. "I mean... about..."
Alice stared at him. "Mom and I had the sex talk when I got my period, Dad."
Jess set his jaw and nodded slowly. He silently thanked whatever entity had taken merciful pity on him.
"...So I come home, and Alice and Tristin are drenched and Jess is holding the hose!"
Lorelai laughed a little. "You're kidding."
Rory shook her head as she held the phone to her ear. "No! It turned out Jess saw them kissing and spritzed them!"
Lorelai cracked into full laughter. "Oh my god! It's like that time when Dean broke up with you, and Luke put him in a headlock!"
Rory snickered. "I remember that. I was so heartbroken." Her face wrinkled. "If Groin Guy dumps Alice, I'll gouge his eyes out a la Kill Bill."
"The true colors of a mother," Lorelai said sentimentally. "I'm so proud."
Rory laughed.
