AN: Sorry it took so long to post this chapter. It was a real bear to write. Lots of revisions. Lots of "key" ideas scrapped for something completely different. Lots of disgust for my writing. Anyway I had a breakthrough last night and now I'm pretty happy with it. I hope you enjoy it! Please let me know what you think! Thank you to those who have already posted some words of encouragement!

SATURDAY EVENING

They were walking home through the dusk, down an unpopulated, picturesque path lined with trees. Rather, Jess was walking; Rory was skipping and bounding along beside him, a fact he'd already gone to great lengths to tease her about.

"There's something to be said for nonchalance," he added.

Rory ignored him, and his ever-smirking face, and tossed their joined hands up into the night air until Jess laughed. "But it's Guatemala, Jess! And I'm going to go there!" Nothing he said could dampen her excitement over the internship. Not that he was trying to dampen it, he was just a classically nonchalant person.

After a while he said, "You keep hopping like that and you're gonna pull my arm right out of it's socket."

Growling with a sudden triumphant impulse, she pulled his arm straight out from his side and, laughing, dashed around his body, drawing him into a slow rotation in the middle of the path. "Try decaf!" he cried. She loved the way he self-consciously laughed while scanning their surroundings to see if anyone had caught his moment of embarrassment.

When she'd completely circled him, and they were once again facing the right way down the path, he stopped her with a grunt and threw a strong arm around her shoulders. He hugged her to him so snugly with that arm, that her sneakered feet were almost lifted off the ground. They were laughing still, faces close together, as Rory threw her own arm around his waist and they continued on their way.

In a moment, the wooded path gave way to an open expanse and they found themselves coming upon a little, makeshift, outdoor ice rink. Here, strings of white lights that would have made Harry the Twinkle Light Man proud were wound around the trees, tall into the night sky, and all manner of skaters were gliding in circles beneath them. Off to the far side, next to a refreshment stand, little round bistro tables such as those found at any Parisian outdoor café, dotted a patio. Somehow the southern Connecticut landscape looked exotic in its beauty. But not as exotic as Guatemala! She thrilled at the thought.

"Look at that, Jess. So pretty."

"Mmm-hmm," he murmured.

"We should go skating sometime."

"Yeah, you can work off some of that energy. How many cups did you have at supper?"

"Mmm…" she considered her caffeine intake. "I'm barely subsisting on only three cups."

"My God, it's dire."

"It's money for nothing and your chicks for free," she agreed.

He raised an eyebrow. "You wanna skate?"

"No. My mind is more on the concession stand."

"Mm-hmmm. We can stop for some coffee, if you like."

"You actually feel the need to ask?"

"Just empty discourse, My Dear. Rhetoric, pure and simple."

Excited, Rory pulled his hand and led him right up to the small kiosk. True to his threat that morning, she had paid for dinner that night—and she was happy to do so considering he kept her fed more than she cared to admit—but now, as Jess ordered two coffees from the bored barista, he fished in his wallet for a few bills.

A coin his change, which he absently fiddled with while they waited, he turned to lean against the counter and regard Rory as she smiled and talked about nothing much, filling the silence as only a Lorelai might.

Her voice trailed off as the coin flashed, catching the reflection of a bright light. Though his eyes were on her, Jess flipped the coin over the backs of the fingers of one hand. The coin cascaded over his fingers—the index, middle, ring, then pinkie—before disappearing into his palm and smoothly re-emerging at the top, to cascade once more. For the thousandth time, Rory marvelled at the character that was Jess.

"You were saying?" he said, asking her to continue her story... but she'd already forgotten it.

She smiled. She was having a great time. Instead she said, "We should skate, here, before the winter is over. I'll teach you everything I know about skating. That won't take long, because I suck. I haven't gone ice skating in ages."

He chuckled.

"There'll be no ice skating in Guatemala!" she stated eagerly.

"No, there's a lot of things that won't be in Guatemala," he said pensively.

When the server passed the coffees over the counter towards them, Jess dropped the quarter into the 'Have a penny, need a penny' jar and accepted the cups with a nod. She led him to the boards surrounding the rink and propped herself against it, to watch the skaters for a while. She took a long draw of coffee, which was surprisingly good considering the proprietor's lack of enthusiasm.

"Mmmm," she hummed, as much for the coffee as for the setting. The only thing that could make this night more beautiful would be a light snowfall, Rory mused. The snow-thing was really her mother's thing but an appreciation had been instilled in Rory nonetheless.

"I can't really skate. How 'bout you?"

"Yeah," Jess said, teasing. "Maybe I'll teach you everything I know."

She gave him a secret smile. "I know you will."

"Like take that guy for example." Jess pointed at a lonely skater. "He's not bending his knees enough."

"Oh I see," replied Rory seriously, playing along.

"And he's leaning too far back. He should be leaning more forward. For balance."

"Wait. You can skate?" She'd figured they'd both be pretty evenly matched in the skating department—that is to say, total beginners.

"Yeah. Didn't I just say that?" He stood leaning back against the boards, facing her now.

"Well, yeah, I guess. But I thought you meant yeah in the 'no' sense."

"Must be the reporter in you. You pick up on such subtle nuances. No wonder they're sending you on this internship."

Rory ignored his jibe. "You know, in answering a negative question you have to be very careful that the answer isn't ambiguous," she explained.

"Somebody should tell Cliff Goddard about you."

"As in, 'Yes, I can't really skate,'" she went on, as though they were having two separate conversations.

"So I hear."

"It's ambiguous."

"You're the one who asked the ambiguous question."

"Fine," she relented, accepting his newfound advantage. "When did you learn to skate?"

"Long time ago."

"How long?"

"When I was a kid."

"Really…" Rory smiled. She fingered the rim of her coffee cup in anticipation. "In New York?"

"Yes, that is where I lived."

"Where?"

"A place with ice." He paused as though considering. "And skates. And people wearing the skates."

"Rockefeller Center?"

"God no. Too many tourists."

"Are you actually going to tell me the story or just hint at it?"

"Not much to tell." He lifted the coffee cup from her hands. Her whimper went unheeded as he placed both cups on the ledge safely away from her.

At his affront, she pouted. "Well I want to hear it anyway."

He pulled her snugly into his arms and she gasped, her mind no longer focussed on the coffee nor the conversation. With a smirk he threw her a bone, "When I was a kid, my mom used to take me to a local rink. She enrolled me in some lessons and we used to do that before everything went to shit."

"What happened?" she questioned.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you said before, you 'barely had a mother'. You're not very close with her. You don't seem to get along."

"Boy, you're really batting a thousand today," Jess balked, dropping her from his arms. He ran his hand through his hair and shrugged his nonchalance in a gesture so infuriatingly sexy even James Dean could have studied him for pointers.

Rory rolled her eyes at his continued standoffishness. "When did you start using baseball metaphors?"

"It's more of a general-knowledge metaphor."

"But with roots in baseball. You don't like baseball."

"You understood the reference. You don't like baseball."

"Alright fine. But back to the original topic."

"Well one topic is as good as the next."

She raised an eyebrow at him and tilted her head. He rolled his eyes right back at her.

"But that's not what I want to talk about," he said petulantly.

"OK, fine. What do you want to talk about?"

"I don't want to talk," he growled, a twinkle in his eyes that rivaled those in the trees. And then she was in his arms again and, though she was so aware of it, he was successfully deflecting. His lips pressed into hers, persuasively searching, as his hands secured her body tightly to his. In the chill in the night air, his hands were cool and thrilling.

His tongue played coy, a mere hint at what he was capable of. And the more he dabbled, the more it convinced her that speech was unnecessary, that all that they needed could be found in a kiss.

Rory whispered between kisses, "Damn… How did you get so sexy?"

"It's you," he replied.

"No really," she murmured. "The way you kiss..." She began a more aggressive campaign, his dabbles suddenly not nearly enough. His lips were soft yet firm—in no way yielding to her pressure, meeting her aggression soundly—and tempting on a whole new level.

He tilted his head the other way, taking access to his tongue away from her wanting mouth. She sighed.

"I've got great inspiration," he said, now sampling her cheek.

"So do I." She gulped. His lips were charming as they trailed further along her jaw. "You should know… The way you kiss inspires me to... other things."

"Other things," he urged, against her neck, where his kisses had ventured. Though it wasn't inflected like a question, she heard a question nonetheless. Her heart pounded.

"You know. Other things."

He stopped kissing her entirely and read her for a while. What he saw there made him smile. "Good."

She smiled. "Let's get out of here."

"Hang on. I'm not done."

"Mmm," was her response as he went in for one more lengthy kiss, which led to another.

Always a step ahead of her, his kisses ceased just as her lips again craved more. She was doe-eyed as he grabbed his cup of coffee and tugged on her hand. "Come on," he said.

She remembered herself in the nick of time—to grab her own coffee cup—before he led her eagerly away.

With coffees in hand, the two walked away from the lights of the plaza, to continue along the same path through the trees that had brought them there. The sun had set while they'd been out. The lighting was low here, no twinkle lights, only the occasional street lamp and the clutches of tree branches shading them from it. And it was this new level of light which allowed Rory, with awe, to look up into the clear night sky at the vastness of the stars.

"Jess, look at all the stars."

"It's clear tonight."

"There's Cassiopeia."

"Is it?"

"Yeah, it's that zigzag of stars there."

"Oh so it is," he teased. "And there's Plungeretta, the great toilet-plunger in the sky."

She elbowed him, barely amused. She was still in awe. "You know the constellations are actually explained by beautifully eloquent and tragic morality myths, right?"

"Oh yeah," he argued ardently. "See Plungeretta was sent to live in the sky because all the toilets in all the land were replaced by beautiful non-clogging toilets." Jess looked at Rory pointedly and continued, "The fair maiden, Plungeretta, spent her whole mortal life on a crusade to get those nasty low-flow models replaced by their former water-guzzling counterparts. She was banished to the sky by Aquarius, guardian of water, sent to live out a torturous and tragic immortality for instilling mankind's lack of a water-conserving morality." He added as an aside, "Besides, once the toilets worked again then she wasn't really needed anyway."

"Of course," she agreed, more amused.

"Once banished," he added mournfully, "She was forced to think about what she'd done forever and to eternally watch all the toilets flush wastefully, if you'll pardon the pun." He pointed in the general direction of the sky. "See? Right there, that straight line of stars with the bowl shaped cluster on the end? That's her."

Laughter broke through her mock-severity. "Now you're just making up stories," she teased.

He laughed too. "Well someone makes them up. Why shouldn't it be us?"

"Is that what your novel's about? Plungeretta and the low-flow toilets?"

"I'd like to think it's better than that."

"I know it is."

"Pretty presumptuous. Now your turn."

"What?"

"We're making up constellation back-stories. What about those stars over there?"

"Which ones?" She turned her face to the sky and came closer to Jess, just to his side, to gaze over his shoulder.

"There."

She followed the line of his arm, past his shoulders and into the sky. Then her eyes trailed that arm back down to his face, to find it turned peacefully towards where he had pointed. He smelled of coffee and soap and she smiled. When he caught her looking, he placed a palm on her shoulder and gently pulled her in front of him, her back nestling into the crook of his arm.

She paused a moment, her pulse quickening. She'd dropped hints all night but he'd refused to pick them up. Maybe it was time to make her move, one more decisive hint that he couldn't ignore. Biting her lip, she regarded the stars for a moment, considering her words. "They're lovers."

"Oh yeah? How can you tell?"

She leaned very close to his face so that, as much as possible, they shared the same field of vision. She pointed up thoughtfully, drawing in the sky. "Well, see this line of stars angled towards that line of stars?"

"Yeah."

"Well she's leaning this way, towards him. And he's over here, leaning towards her."

"OK, yeah."

"And the two bunches of stars, in the middle of each? Those are their hearts, glowing with love.

"Mm," Jess's little laugh was warm and nasal and sexy as it swirled past her ear. Her comment had been sappy but it had elicited a perfect response.

"How did they get there?" he whispered.

'What?"

"Their backstory."

"How do any two people fall in love? All I know is they're lovers... and the moment is right."

"Mmm," he said again, in easy agreement. Agreement with what, she didn't know, but it didn't matter. She went on.

"And this line of stars is his shoulder and neck and head. And his hair's all punked out." She paused, taking a deep breath. "Like yours." That was all she could say at that moment. She knew Jess would pick it up from there.

Jess was silent for a long time; Rory's blush grew more heated with each passing moment.

"Rory, can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah, certainly."

"The subject of sex has come up a lot this weekend. And not just in our normal innuendo kind of way but… way more specific. Why is that?"

"Oh," Rory stammered and her cheeks prickled more intensely. "I've just… I've sort of been rethinking the whole May thing."

"What?" Jess teased carefully, warmly, in a low voice that revealed she had his full attention. His arm around her shoulder squeezed more tightly. "You think the calendar would be better off skipping straight to June?"

"I mean, about what we have planned for May."

"You don't want to?"

She dared to look at him fully, turning slightly in his arms. "No, I do. You know that."

He nodded, slowly mulling. "Just wanted to be sure." He cleared his throat. "You were pretty adamant against it before."

She nodded too. She had been. "Well I want to. And that's the whole point. I don't think we should wait that long."

"Really," he stated, intrigued.

"Really. Unless you want to wait."

Jess smiled warmly. "No…"

Now that she had his full attention, she mentioned, "I think about it. A lot."

"A lot, huh?"

Jess's rate of respiration had increased. She matched him breath for breath. "Yeah. Don't you think about it?" she whispered.

"Only all the time," came his soft reply. "When?"

She gasped. "How about tonight?"

"Well well well." But that was all he said.

His pause prompted her to say, "And?"

"I wonder if you'll be able to see these stars from Guatemala, these lovers," he teased in a liquid voice.

"Jess," she issued in reprimand, staring him down until his eyes finally convinced her to answer, although in complete exasperation, "The stars? I don't know. It's pretty close to the equator. I think they'll look completely different there. But don't avoid the question. Not this question. You're leaving me hanging."

He kissed her forehead. "I'm in. Of course I'm in," he said seriously and she giggled. "That came out with more double entendre than I intended," he added.

She agreed, "Dirty."

Jess didn't say much as they stopped at the corner store on the way to her apartment, save to ask her more about her excitement over Guatemala. In her state of sudden eager nervousness, she was all too happy to oblige the neutral conversation. As she unlocked the door to her apartment, however, the exchange turned again to the subject at hand, and her heart fluttered wildly. "Here we are…" she lead.

"Here we are," he affirmed.

Once inside, they eyed one another thoughtfully as they each unbuttoned their coats and removed their winter accoutrements. Rory didn't bother to hang up her coat as she usually did. She dropped it to the floor and Jess smiled at that. After he'd removed a small bag from its pocket, his jacket followed hers to the pile on the floor.

Jess looked so serious. His eyes burned. Rory gave him a kiss, then slid her palm down his arm to eventually grasp his hand. She smiled at him and guided him the few steps into the living room. Jess placed the paper bag containing their purchase on her computer desk next to the couch and watched as she pulled the coffee table aside and unfolded the hide-a-bed.

Knowing herself to be so singularly regarded, with a fiery blush, Rory grabbed the blankets and pillows, tossing them into some semblance of a made bed. She snuck a peek as he set about removing the watch from his beautifully solid wrist.

Rory suddenly had no idea how to be sexy. She was tugging at a wrinkle in the blanket when Jess tapped her shoulder from behind. She turned to his solemn expression and the kiss that awaited her and knew then that the inherent sexiness that was the way of their relationship would lead her.

AN: Ok, yes, I did steal a line directly from the show. Bonus points if you caught it. Please review!