A/N- One month of writing! Well, kind of. How far we've come. Anyway, don't get your hopes up and think that means I'm automatically going to launch you into a Literati wedding because we've hit a milestone (though you've gotta admit that'd be a twist...). But still, thought it was worth acknowledging! And I probably will again tomorrow. Anyway, I do really hope you enjoy this chapter. Big things are on the horizon and there are hints and whispers of it here, but I like the buildup, and hope you do too. Lots of love to my amazing readers, without whom this week would've been legitimately miserable. Keep reading, please, and reviewing and recommending if you'd like (I've loved seeing all the new readers! Welcome!). I don't own Gilmore Girls or any of its concepts or characters. Hope you all are having a great week.

Okay...something else...a P.S., if you will. In spite of all my incredible planning, I have to admit to you that I have not yet found a solution to an upcoming problem. From tomorrow night through the 21st, I will be traveling to England and Spain and am not yet sure of the internet situation. My plan was to write those chapters in advance and have them auto-post, kind of like the queue function in Tumblr or post on or whatever. But I haven't yet figured out how to do that here. If anyone has any tips or knows how to do this, or wants to be me for a week and a half (an option I'm VERY skeptically considering...don't count on it, but at this point, I'd really rather have them posted up than not), message me. I could use any and all advice I could get on this.


Chapter 30

A few days later, Jess hadn't heard anything from Rory. Neither had Luke or Lorelai, and although Lorelai was significantly calmer about the situation now that Jess had spoken with her, she still seemed distressed. Especially after Jess received a call on his cell phone when he was at work from her editor.

"Hello?"

"I'm sorry, who am I speaking with?"

"This is Jess Mariano. And you are…"

"Nathaniel Reed. I'm Rory Gilmore's editor."

"You're…" Jess stepped into the store room, ignoring both Luke and Lorelai's looks of confusion and the hoardes of angry customers, "Rory's editor? Not to be rude, but how did you get my number?"

"She listed you as her emergency contact. Well, changed it to you, about a month ago," he answered. Immediately Jess' heart fell into his chest,

"Is she okay?" Jess asked, breathing quickly

"I was about to ask you that," Nathaniel answered, "She hasn't shown up at work in four days and isn't taking any calls. She's missed two assignments and didn't show up in D.C. like she was called to. All I received was a voice mail last Sunday saying that she needed to take some time off, unexpectedly, and she understood if I needed to let her go or inflict some other kind of consequence."

"So she did warn you," Jess sighed, slowly catching up, "Well, then you should know she's fine and she's probably doing exactly what she said."

"Which is why I hesitated to call you until now," Nathaniel continued, "But it's just so unlike her! Gilmore always hands in her stories early, requests any time off, which is rare, months in advance, and takes over everyone else's work when they're swamped. It just seemed so out of sorts…I wondered if anything were seriously wrong with her. I wouldn't want to punish her if there were something serious going on that she for some reason was hesitant to share with me."

"As far as I understand, she's in fine health and the time she's taking off should be considered personal time," Jess answered, trying to keep his voice even, "And if I were you, I'd take those things into consideration, as well as her past performance, when you decide the consequences. If it were me, I'd probably be a little lenient with her given the unusualness of the situation, at least until she returned and I could demand an explanation, but you're her editor. It's your call."

"And who are you, might I ask?" Nathaniel asked, "I was surprised to see the name changed on the sheet. It had been a Luke Danes since she was hired." Jess smiled in spite of himself.

"Luke's nephew. Just a friend of hers. A little bit more accessible than Luke tends to be, with the generational technology gap."

"Well, thank you, Mr. Mariano. I'm sorry for disturbing you," Nathaniel answered, "Enjoy your week."

"You too," he replied, and hung up the phone. Breathing deeply, he walked back into the diner.

"What the hell just happened?" Luke demanded. Jess noticed Lorelai looking at them curiously.

"Shipment problem. Luke, you got a minute? I need you to help me figure out what's going on with this inventory so I can give them the firm kick in the ass they seem to need," Jess answered, looking at his uncle meaningfully. He smiled reassuringly at Lorelai.

"We'll be back in a second and you two can return to your nauseating banter momentarily," Jess mocked, drawing a grin from Lorelai.

"Try to find your nice twin when you're in there and ask him to kill you!" Lorelai called.

"Pretty sure that's not how nice twins work," Jess yelled back, maintaining the smile until he'd dragged Luke out of sight.

"Alright, Jess, what is going on?"

"That was Rory's editor," Jess responded, "Short version is she took a week off work, completely unannounced, and has gone off the grid. She didn't show up in D.C. to cover something and hasn't been answering her phone or turning in assignments. She just told him last Sunday that she needed to take the week off and she'd deal whatever the consequences were."

"Okay, I'm gonna need to know what happened when you went up there," Luke crossed his arms, standing against the door, "And a little more than 'We talked' this time. That's not gonna cut it."

"Look, I agree, but right now Lorelai is sitting out there, and finding out about this before we know what's going on is going to make her even more of a mess than she already is. Why don't you just try to keep it together until she's gone, tell her that you and I need to bond or something tonight, and we'll talk about it then?"

Luke couldn't repress a smirk. "Bond?"

"We'll hold hands and skip," Jess rolled his eyes, walking out of the storage room.

"Hey," Jess said to Lorelai as they walked out. Luke rolled his eyes.

"I gotta check on the burgers," he said, avoiding eye contact with Lorelai as he walked over. The second he was gone, Lorelai leaned over.

"Don't even try to act like I don't know what's going on. Was that Rory?" Lorelai accused, "I heard you say her name when you first walked out of here."

"It wasn't Rory," Jess sighed, "Look, everything's fine. It wasn't Rory, but yes, it was about Rory, and she's fine. She's…gonna be okay. Just give it some time."

"She's my only kid!" Lorelai burst out, ignoring the looks from the other patrons. At that, Jess sighed and put down the coffee mug.

"Cesar, you're in charge, 5 minutes," Jess called, ignoring Luke's look of confusion as he ushered Lorelai out.

"Look, I know you're upset, and you have a right to be," Jess said quietly, as he and Lorelai walked over to the gazebo, "And confused and worried and all the other things that any functional parent feels when their kid seems to be going off the rails. But you have to keep it together."

"Don't you care about her anymore?" Lorelai demanded. Jess recoiled, confused.

"What?"

"Look, no matter how much I hated you, I always knew how you felt about her. And I didn't think it was a temporary thing. So how can you just stand by and watch this…"

"How did you stand and watch when she slept with a married man?" Jess demanded, "Or when she left Yale? Joined the DAR? Almost got engaged to that prick?"

"I didn't have a choice," Lorelai said quietly, sitting down, "It's her life. Whether or not I like what she's doing with it."

"Did you ever think," Jess sighed, perching beside her, "That maybe she needs to realize that still?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know," Jess muttered, "I'm still trying to figure it out. Look, Rory's gonna be okay. And I'm doing everything I can, and the second she comes to me, and wants my help, I'll be right there. I was and am and will be. But it has to be her choice."

Lorelai looked at him incredulously.

"What now?" Jess said, annoyed, "Surprised that I'm capable of maturity again?"

"Surprised how much you sound like me," she murmured, looking down again, "Look, I'm sorry for getting angry and personal with you. I don't have that right. You've been great about…all of this. Everything, really. I just want her to be okay, you know?"

"And she will be," Jess reassured slowly, "But right now she's not, and she won't be for a while, and we can't help her yet. The best thing that we can do, all of us, is be here when she's ready. No matter how much shit she throws at us in the meantime out of whatever confusion or anger she's going through."

"How did you figure all this out?" Lorelai asked him, looking into his dark but calm eyes, "I've been a parent for twenty something years and it took me ages to get that kind of thing figured out. And I still get confused."

"It's Rory," he said simply, "I might not know women or people or Gilmores, but I definitely know Rory. No matter what she'd like to think."

"She knows you do," Lorelai nodded, a tear rolling down her cheek, "She does."

Jess smiled gently. "Look, I'm not good at all this emotional crap, so why don't we get you back to Luke and he'll take you home? He and I have plans tonight but I can handle the diner until then."

"You sure?"

"Absolutely. Though I might let my evil twin out to wreak some havoc if Taylor comes by again."

"If that happens Taylor probably deserves it," Lorelai replied with a small laugh, and they walked back towards the diner.