Disclaimer: As always, I own absolutely nothing.

A/N: Hee. I'm having so much fun writing this. I hope you're having fun reading it. Enjoy and review.

Chasing Fate--Chapter 4

"Mom!" Rory said, walking into the house. No response came, and Rory walked into her bedroom, placing her laptop bag down on her bed. She walked into the kitchen and called again, "Mom!"

Rory walked over to the refrigerator and saw a note held up with a magnet that was shaped like Tweety Bird. Rory, In Hartford doing stuff for the inn. I'll meet you at my parents' house for dinner. Love, Mom. P.S. Try to do something besides study.

Rory opened the refrigerator and debated going down to the diner. It'd been almost three weeks since she'd been home for Dean's wedding, and she hadn't seen Luke to find out anything. She thought about calling him several times, but talking to Luke on the phone just seemed like a level of awkward that she didn't want to encounter.

She took out a can of soda and sat at the kitchen table while she thought. By now Luke would have an answer-- he either knew where Jess was or he didn't. Either way, Rory was ready to do something. She was ready to take a bold step and seek him out, or she was ready to get over him completely. She was ready to take whatever next step she had to, and she just wanted to know what step that happened to be.

Rory opened her soda and took a sip as she pondered. She decided that she'd relax for a little while, get her laptop set up in her room for the weekend, and then go down to the diner and talk to Luke.

Rory stood and walked into her room. She placed her soda down on her desk and retrieved her laptop from its bag. She put it on her desk and attached the power cord. As she bent over to plug it into the wall, she heard a knock on the door. "Come in!" She called as she stood up.

She walked back into the kitchen as Luke opened the back door and walked into the house. "Luke!" She said, surprised. "I was just about to come down to the diner."

"Hey, Rory." Luke said, uncomfortably. "I didn't know you were home. Is, uh, your mom here? I was looking for her."

Rory shook her head. "No, she's in Hartford."

Luke nodded. "OK. I'll just talk to her later then."

The two stood, avoiding eye contact for a moment before Luke said, "Well, I guess I'll just get going…"

"Wait!" Rory said, surprising both herself and Luke with the urgency in her voice. "I-, well that is to say…did you…you know?" Rory finished, hoping Luke would catch her meaning.

"Oh." Luke said uncomfortably. "Well, you see…" He started. "Jess's mom is in town, actually."

Jess's mom. It was an odd thing to think of Jess having a mother. He never, ever mentioned her. Even when he talked about his life in New York, his mother never made her way into the conversation. "And she…knew?" Rory asked, swallowing nervously.

Luke nodded. "Yeah. She, well, she called him. He's with his dad, which I kind of thought I knew. Asked if it was, you know, OK for you to contact him. Why she chose now to be a mom is beyond me, but…He said no, Rory." Luke blurted at the end of his halting speech.

Rory frowned, letting his words wash over her. "Oh." She said, finding that she needed to sit down. "Oh. He doesn't want to…oh." She repeated.

"I'm sorry." Luke said quietly, still standing awkwardly.

Rory shook her head and looked up at him. There were no tears in her eyes, but that did nothing to take away from the hurt look on her face. "Don't be." She said. "I'm sorry that I asked you to do it. It was just a dumb…"

"Whim." Luke finished, using her word from the diner.

"Yeah." Rory said. "A dumb whim."

"OK." Luke said. "I'm gonna go."

Rory nodded distractedly. "Thanks, Luke. For…indulging me."

Luke shrugged. "I…" He wanted to tell her that he did it for him as much as for her, on some silly notion that maybe this could prove fate's existence to him. It seemed like to profound of a discussion to get into though, especially since Jess had gone and proved that there was no such thing as fate to everybody. "I'll see you later."

Rory attempted a smile as Luke walked out the door. As soon as it closed behind him, Rory put her head in her hands and sighed deeply. She didn't cry. This wasn't a crying matter by any stretch of the imagination. It was just a quietly tragic matter that needed to be put behind her immediately. She had tried. She tried to see if maybe there was something out there that she was missing. That wasn't true. She knew something was missing. She just wanted to know if maybe it had something to do with Jess. Now she had her answer. What they had was done. There was no great force leading her along like a dog on a leash. Everything was up to her. Jess was gone. She was alone…for now. She'd find someone else. She'd find him. The universe would have nothing to do with her next relationship, just as it seemed that it had no bearing on her past relationships as well.

Rory sighed and stood. She had a few hours before Friday night dinner, and she could get some good work done on her review for the paper before then. She walked back into her room and hooked up her internet cable. She pulled out all her notes on the play she was reviewing. She wanted to start the piece with a quote from Dante's Inferno, but she'd left the paper with the quote on it in her dorm. Annoyed at herself, Rory typed in the address of a search engine. It was only after she pressed SEARCH that she realized that she'd typed "Dante's Inferno + quoted" instead of "Dante's Inferno + quotes." She sighed and hoped that it would give her the result she needed anyway.

Rory's eyes skimmed the results for her search. She was about to click on the first link when she noticed one of the ones towards the bottom of the page. It seemed to be a newspaper article, and the search engine had come up with the text The original Dante's Inferno opened in 1922…new owner Jimmy Mariano is quoted….

Rory's heart leapt into her throat as she impulsively clicked on the link. It was, in fact, a newspaper article from a paper in Santa Monica. Rory read the article, which talked about Jimmy Mariano, who had restored the old Dante's Inferno hot dog stand to its original glory.

It was ridiculous, and Rory knew it was ridiculous. Mariano may not have been an overly common name, but it was in no way unique to Jess and his mystery father. There was no way that she had just, by way of a mere spelling error, stumbled upon the general location of Jess's father, and therefore Jess. There was no way that this man was Jess's father.

Rory looked at the pictures that accompanied the article. The first was a black and white picture of the stand during its original run in the 20s. The next picture was of the stand now, with the owner standing in front of it. The caption read, Dante's Inferno owner Jimmy Mariano, a native of Venice Beach, in front of the stand on a normal business day.

Rory was struck with a strange feeling of familiarity as she looked at the photo. The man didn't resemble Jess, but there was something about the smirk and the awkward, uncomfortable posture that reminded her of Jess when people were paying too much attention to him.

Rory knew that she was reaching, searching for something that wasn't actually there. She wanted to see some proof that this man was Jess's father, so she was inventing similarities between them. There was no way that she had just stumbled across an article on Jess's father that gave the exact town he lived in. There was no way.

Rory looked at the picture again, but this time her eyes focused on something else. There were customers in the background of the picture, going about their business normally. There were several people milling around the stand, some with hot dogs and some still in the process of ordering. A few were seated at tables with large umbrellas covering them.

In the very corner of the picture was a boy sitting alone, shoulders hunched as he read a novel, looking ridiculously out of place in his black leather jacket.

Rory swallowed hard. There he was, almost unrecognizable in the background of a photograph, but Rory knew it was him. It was Jess. Through absolutely no fault of her own, she had found him. Even though he had refused, she had still found him.

"Wow." Rory whispered, incapable of any other thought. Still in a complete daze, she walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone. She dialed information numbly. When the operator answered, she said, "I need an address in Venice Beach. The name? Jimmy Mariano. It might be under James. I don't know." Logic slowly returned to Rory as she spoke to the operator.

She searched for a pen, and wrote down the information on the back of her mother's note. She mumbled a thank you and hung up the phone. There it was, staring up at her in her own handwriting. Jess's address and phone number. A way to get in touch with him. Exactly what she'd asked for.

Rory sank into the chair and stared at the address. "Alright, fate." She whispered, talking directly to the culprit in charge of this misadventure. "What now?"