Disclaimer: Nothing's mine. Except for the previous AE seasons flashbacks - they're all mine bwahah.
A/N: Trying to dig around in Jess' head. Here's the result. Finally, more Lit to come. The time for Jess/Rory return has come, my dears. Enjoy :)
Your feedback is always welcome, so please - please, don't hesitate to share :)
The street was busy with late afternoon traffic, car lights dissolving into the distance, instantly replaced by new ones. The evening dusk spread over the city like dark blue smoke, traced by stark hues of orange and purple. An explosion of brightness and light over a palette of blues. It made for a spectacular view.
Jess Mariano stood by the wide glass windows of the ob-gyn ward and faced the sunset with both of his hands stuck deep into his jeans pockets. His car key was still between the fingers of his right hand. He had bought a car two weeks ago. A Passat. Screaming family car through and through. He, who believed owning a vehicle in New York was a parking suicide, had bought a sedan the size of a small cargo ship. It had felt like the right thing to do. He was about to become a father. Maybe he had already become a father.
Jess slid a sideways glance towards the obstetrics unit corridor before he focused back on the evening street traffic. He concentrated on the horizon. Somewhere above the line where the sky met the skyscraper rooftops, there was a trace of electric blue, a stark neon track of bold azure, and he thought of the color of Rory's eyes as she squeezed his hand and gave him a tight smile right before the nurses got her into the delivery room, pushing the wheelchair they had brought for her to sit into. That had been about an hour ago.
Rory had him agree he was gonna wait outside. They had led the debate for at least a couple of days in a row. Rory had told Jess this way she would be able to concentrate on giving birth to their one and only firstborn instead of being preoccupied by thoughts of his labile psyche and body. She would be too distracted by his emotional and physical state, she had said. He had rolled his eyes at the mention of his supposed disposition during natural labor, given he had spent half of his life working and studying in a hospital. He was a surgeon, for god's sake. A surgeon. A badass, manly surgeon, not some pushover who fainted at the mere sight of blood.
He wasn't labile. Neither his psyche, nor his body.
He would gladly show her just how big of a fan her own body would become of his very non-labile, very solid body, once they got out of the delivery room and her body was able to endure all of the fun his body was about to deliver. Rory had laughed, nodding appreciatively. And then had repeated she wasn't giving birth in the same room while he was present and that was that. He suspected she was being self-conscious. She suspected he was being stubborn. He had been insistent. She had been unyielding. As per usual in their arguments, she had won.
Jess remembered the feeling of her fingers, soft and covered by a light sheen of sweat, around his, as he parked the enormous Passat and supported Rory as they walked through the parking lot of the clinic. He remembered her slightly wobbly smile as they took her on a wheelchair towards the exam room to check the cervix dilation and monitor the baby's heart tones. The electric blue of her look as she mouth-whispered, 'See you later, dork'. The numbness of his hand frozen in a clumsy wave as he realized she had been taken away before he managed to mouth-whisper that he loved her.
The last rays of June sun squeezed out over the horizon. Jess thought about the first time he met her, one night shift five years ago. He had recently moved into his rental at the time and he had been bookshelf hunting in a secondhand furniture store during the day. He remembered the way she tried to speak up to him. How indignant and naive she had been at his attitude.
Nursery's over there.
She's eight.
I meant you.
The way he tried to mouth off, the way she ignited something within him, a spark that grew with each next day their paths crossed. How she had made him feel alive for the first time in his life. Him meeting her had been a birth to him, a starting line, a scratch. That was the certain point in his life where he found what caring about what came tomorrow felt like. And as they crashed and burned together, they found new facets to each other, rediscovered new facets to themselves, step by step building a bond stronger than anything they'd faced so far.
That poem you quote, it's Delilah. Why her?
Because Samson couldn't resist her.
She was a prostitute.
She was the only person that ever meant something.
And when their own fears and expectations scared them, when Rory was afraid she wasn't gonna be enough of a family to him, they held on to each other.
Don't give up on me.
I'm not finished falling in love with you yet, Gilmore. I'm not going anywhere. You taught me how.
And when a bullet and Jess' pride turned their lives upside down, and they lost each other, they rebuilt their relationship from the ashes,
I don't have any acts of bravery left in me.
There is not a single brave thing you didn't do... I don't really think I deserve your love, but then again you never loved me cause I deserved so. You loved me because it was how you felt. And I'm not ever again walking away from that.
... Why are you so patient with me?
I still wanna make you insanely happy. And I'm still figuring out how.
Five years had come and gone and their lives would never be the same. Five years had come and gone and now they couldn't imagine their lives without each other.
The news for the baby had come as a shock to both of them. Maybe more to her than him. But they were gonna figure stuff out as they went. He had promised her they would rock that parenthood thing. And they would. He had no idea how but they would.
After gloating over her victory in the No Jess In The Delivery Room veto debate, Rory had decided to help him look from a philosophical point of view. Last week, she made a case of telling him all about how he could be her eyes and ears outside. While she was in the delivery room doing the actual work, he could be her mole as to what was happening outside. Once everybody arrived, it would be louder than an amusement park on a free weekend, more buzzed than an Oscar Nominee analysis broadcasting in a late night show in the second week of February. Jess had muttered something about the perks of being entertained while waiting for his wife to give birth. Rory hadn't tried to correct him. Not this time. He referred to her as his wife. He had been doing that for a while. When someone dared ask what he meant by that when they hadn't officially signed any papers yet, Jess said Rory was his wife if both of them had agreed that she was, period. And Rory found she didn't mind that - not the least bit, starting to see the actual signing of the papers legalizing her being Jess' wife as a matter of time, when both of them had agreed that she was his and he was hers, no papers were about to change that, right?
Jess licked a lip and rocked on his heels, his eyes adjusting to the dimming light outside. The city was covered by an inkish shade of blue. Rory had told him to enjoy the first hour or two where he was still alone. Enjoy the quiet, she had told him. There's gonna be an exquisite beauty in it. He had shaken his head and let out a low chuckle. It had to be the hormones, he had thought at the time. Her extra emotional, superhuman sense pregnancy hormones. Finding the glory in the silence in a Delivery ward waiting room. He had suggested most men couldn't make themselves useful in these couple of hours and probably that was how most baby/mama name tattoos on male pecs came to existence. She had laughed out loud for a good couple of minutes. They had led this conversation about a week ago, as they lied on the sofa, her back snug against his chest, both of their arms wrapped around her belly with their palms spread, fingers intertwined, feeling the occasional movement of the life inside her. Jess could still remember the smell of her hair under his chin, still feel the warmth of her fingers against his as the occasional kicks of their daughter moved the skin under their palms. It had been a moment of pure bliss, Jess realized now as he watched the smudged lights of the night traffic. Like free falling, he had been weightless with everything he'd ever needed right there in his arms.
Another hour or so passed. The waiting room started to slowly fill with people. They weren't too chirpy or nervous. Just... buzzed. The air filled with hopeful anticipation, a slow rush, a feeling of belonging to something bigger shared between a bunch of people who cared about someone so much and found themselves in the same place at the same time while that someone was giving birth. A quiet buzz. Just like you said, he thought, letting his lips stretch into the slightest smirk. God, he missed her right now. She would like to witness the sight in the waiting room right now.
Jess' look slid from one face to the other slowly. She had been right. It was like her whole life was written in the faces of the people in this waiting room. Lorelai sipping on her third (fourth? Jess doubted someone really kept count) cup of coffee while holding onto Luke's arm, their fingers entwined snugly over his knee. Luke sitting with a strained expression, stoically trying not to express emotion and failing miserably. The man had taken his baseball hat off, that had to be self-explanatory. Such a big softie indeed. Rory had to be given credit for having him pinned down when she told Jess about him and her mother's slowburn romance.
Emily Gilmore was sitting at the end of the bench, her posture a little stiff, her hand occasionally stroking the head of a sleeping three year old Kevin who was lying across her lap.
A little to the side, Josh and Aiden were playing a game on Aiden's tablet, their faces lit by the light of the display but lighting up a tad more every time a member of the staff passed through the corridor. Then the boys would pause the game and look up expectantly.
At the opposite end of the waiting room by the vending machine, Tristan was pacing in front of a murderous looking Paris who was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, fidgeting with an unopened pack of dried papaya in her hands and checking her pager every five seconds. Jess supposed she wasn't even on call tonight, but needed the gesture to spend some pent up energy. Paris would snap at Dugray to stop the hell pacing, he would say something back and she would give him a scolding look but her lips would crack the slightest smile, their hushed voices carrying over to Jess every now and then. Sometimes, he would hear Tristan's low laughter, followed by Paris' sarcastic reply.
Jess wished he had a photographic ability to capture their faces right now, and show them to Rory later on. Because he wanted to be her eyes and ears and there was a whole lot to be heard and seen in this waiting room tonight. The way everybody's anticipation formed a bubble of nervous energy, circling around, bouncing into each and every one of them, growing brighter. The way their eyes lit up when Dr Rosenberg came through the corridor and called,
'Mister Mariano?'
The way Lorelai stood up with Luke following shortly after, their hands clasped into each other. Emily's posture becoming even stiffer, her hand freezing in Kevin's hair. The way the boys put the tablet down and stood straighter in their seats, their shoulders pressing together in unspoken support. The way Paris and Tristan cut their bickering and he gave her a hand so she could stand up from the floor and his palms rested against her shoulders, bracing her in an unconscious protective gesture. Jess wished he could capture that, and more. He wished he could tell Rory how her family were there and how they were breathing in unison, filled with the same buzzing nervous anticipation. How this filled him with gratitude that she had so many people who loved her, so many people she could call true family. He wished he could communicate the itchy, disturbingly recurring mosquito of a feeling he got at the way everyone had someone to hold while he felt his hands empty, free falling with no hand to grasp. How he felt inadequate to the concept of happy anticipation. The concept of family to call your own. Because he was new to this. He was so clueless as to what happy anticipation was supposed to entail.
Jess' look moved behind doctor Rosenberg and on to the nurse behind her, holding a small bundle in her arms. And everything else disappeared. Jess felt his feet move on their own accord, leading him towards the fidgeting baby wrapped in a familiar yellow blanket - the one they had prepared earlier as they packed the things for the hospital two weeks ago.
'Congratulations, Mr Mariano. Meet your daughter.'
His daughter weighed less than seven pounds and from what was seen under the blanket, had some impressive mane of black hair. Other than that, she was puffy and pink, her eyes closed and her lips puckered into an instinctive suckling gesture.
Jess instinctively took the bundle that was given to him to hold and somehow, all the noise of the outside world, as well as all the noise in his head, stopped. Like a part into a giant clock mechanism finally falling into place, something within him clicked. Something within his heart rearranged. And he realized he had someone to hold on to. He had someone to hold on to with both of his arms. He had a Gilmore girl for each of his hands to hold on, to take lead and be led, to call his own and be called their own. He was head of a family now, as wild as that sounded. This was the day a family was born. A family that was no one else's but his.
'Miss Gilmore is ready to see you,' he heard through the buzz in his ears.
He managed a wobbly smile, looking down at the baby in his arms.
'Come on, Allison. Let's go see your mommy.'
Yesterday when you were young
Everything you needed done was done for you
Now you do it on your own
But you find you're all alone, what can you do?
You and me walk on, walk on, walk on
'Cause you can't go back now
You know there will be days
When you're so tired
That you can't take another step
The night will have no stars
And you'll think you've gone as far
As you will ever get
You and me walk on, walk on, walk on
'Cause you can't go back now
And yeah, yeah, you go where you want to go
Yeah, yeah, be what you want to be
If you ever turn around, you'll see me
I can't really say
Why everybody wishes they were somewhere else
But in the end, the only steps that matter
Are the ones you take all by yourself
You and me walk on, walk on, walk on
Yeah, you and me walk on, walk on, walk on
'Cause you can't go back now
Walk on, walk on, walk on
You can't go back now
2nd Disclaimer plus Author's Note: The song lyrics you see right above belong to The Weepies. I've been humming this song as I was writing this chapter and opened the lyrics to read online. Once I read The Weepies wrote this song when their son was born and it was meant to show how family supported each other through thick and thin and how they encouraged each other to be their true selves even as everything else changed, it felt right to have it in this chapter so yeah. Here it is.
Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read and review, your feedback means more to me than you'll probably believe :)
TBC