A/N: This really isn't a massively happy fic for the most part so far... Ah well, there are people reading and wonderful readers are reviewing (thank you so much!) and I kinda like the melancholy drama I'm developing, so I'll keep on going and see what happens ;) Now, watch out for the twist! lol

(For disclaimer, etc. - see Prologue)

Chapter 8

Jess was pretty sure he hadn't felt this nervous in a long time. No doctors office was going to be open at five in the morning and he wouldn't know where to find one if it were. The ER was the easiest option, and he rushed Rory straight there in a cab. It cost a fortune, and the medical bills might too if anything was wrong. The longer he sat here in the waiting area, the more Jess worried, first for Rory's health and second for the cash they were spending that they simply didn't have to spare. His elbows rested on his knees, one leg jiggling with pent up energy as time ticked on and on. He tried to tell himself it was probably something and nothing making Rory feel so woozy and all. He doubted it was anything she ate, not when he knew the Gilmores and their iron guts so well, but it could be stress and lack of sleep. That would be okay, they could deal with that, somehow. It was if it turned out to be anything worse then Jess didn't know how he would deal. He wanted to throw up, in that way where you knew you wouldn't actually do it, but you felt like it anyway. Somehow it was worse than actually puking.

The clock on the wall shifted on another minute. They'd been here an hour and a half, but Rory only got in to actually see a doctor a half hour before. God knows how busy this place got on weekends with the extra drunks and party goers. At least midweek there was much less of that, but it was still busy enough.

"How much longer is this gonna take?" he asked, suddenly dodging up to the reception desk the moment the woman there got off the phone.

"I'm sorry?" she looked confused, clearly not even realising who he was.

"My girlfriend went in to see the doctor thirty minutes ago. Her name is Rory Gilmore. I need to know she's okay," he insisted, hating how much he was panicking and making an idiot out of himself.

The receptionist didn't seem to mind. She was probably used to it after all. Jess couldn't care less either way, he just needed to know Rory was going to be okay already. So many scenarios were running through his head, nasty ones with terrible illnesses, and a phone conversation where he had to tell Lorelai her daughter was in the hospital with something bad. All of a sudden, a nurse appeared, apparently looking for someone she couldn't find. Somehow, Jess just knew it was him and moved towards her.

"Jess Mariano?" she checked, at which he nodded. "Come this way please?"

He followed her down the corridor, meaning to ask what was happening, but somehow unable to find the words all of a sudden. If he asked, she might tell him, and a large part of Jess didn't want to know the answer. He was having a serious case of the 'what ifs?' right now, and it was giving him the shakes.

"Rory," he rushed in the moment a door was opened and he could see her.

"Oh my God, Jess!" she gasped, grabbing onto him and hugging him tight, crying into his shoulder as if her heart would break.

Jess didn't even notice the doctor stood by the exam table with a clipboard in his hands. All his focus was on Rory, his beautiful girl that he loved so much. All these tears had to mean something bad, and he couldn't stand it.

"Mr Mariano," said the doctor after a few moments, clearing his throat to get the young man's attention. "Miss Gilmore asked that I call you in here to let you know what was going on, and I agreed given her distress. After all, this does concern you too," he explained, as Jess turned to look at him, never letting go of a sobbing Rory.

"What do you mean?" he checked, pretty much literally holding his breath until the doctor revealed the truth.

"We carried out some tests, and they confirm conclusively that Rory is pregnant," he said with an uncertain smile.

Usually when he told women they were pregnant, they were happy. He hadn't seen a young woman so desolate in a long time, especially not one who seemed to have such a dedicated partner. Dr Harper felt he had an instinct with couples, a sixth sense perhaps. He was usually right about whether or not their love was real or if they would make it in the long run. He could already tell these two were just meant to be.

"She can't be," Jess shook his head then. "She can't be pregnant. Rory, tell him! You took a test..."

"Ah, yes, we had this conversation," Dr Harper cut in when Rory seemed incapable through her tears. "As I explained to Rory, false negatives can occur, particularly with the cheaper store-bought tests," he said to Jess. "Sometimes if a test is taken too early it can't find enough hCG in the urine to identify pregnancy. With others, the test strips just aren't sensitive enough, they're looking for a larger amount of the hormone than the body is ready to produce."

Jess stopped listening after 'false negatives'. The whys and wherefore didn't matter. What mattered was that they knew now why Rory had been feeling so unlike herself, so wobbly, tired and sick. Pregnant. After the scare that seemed to be just that, now the truth was out, confirmed by a doctor no less. Rory was having a baby, and she seemed heart-broken at the idea. Jess kissed the top of her head and held her closer.

"Rory, it's okay," he promised. "We'll figure this out, we will."

The doctor muttered something about giving them a few moments alone, but before he got out of the door, Jess had a question he couldn't wait to ask.

"Hey, doc. How, er... how far along is she?" he asked awkwardly, using words he never thought he would ever need.

"Six weeks," Dr Harper confirmed, glad to see a smile curve Jess' lips.

He didn't know why, but a little happiness in this situation was good to see, and the thanks from the young man was good to hear too. Dr Harper left the couple alone and Jess moved his hand to the side of Rory's face bringing her head away from his chest so he could look at her.

"Rory, c'mon," he urged her. "I know this is a shock, but it's okay. Do you know how freaked out I was when I thought you were sick or something? It was scaring the hell out of me to think..."

He couldn't even tell her some of the awful things he had been thinking. Losing Rory just wasn't an option, not in that way. It broke his heart enough to think of her going home to Stars Hollow and leaving him. If she wasn't even here in the world for him to dream about, he didn't know how he would deal.

"Pregnant, Jess," she told him with a sniff, as if he didn't know. "Having a baby. Do you have any idea what that means?"

"Yes," he told her definitely. "Six weeks, Ror," he echoed what the doctor had said. "Six."

Rory's brow furrowed as she did the math. Six weeks, that was how long she had been here now. It could easily have been the first night they slept together that made this baby. One thing was for sure, Dean Forester had nothing to do with it.

"Oh," she gasped then. "Your baby."

"Our baby," he told her, leaning in to kiss her lips. "I know it's crazy and huge, I know we were relieved before, but... but don't you think we can do this?" he asked her.

Maybe it was the relief of knowing nothing awful had befallen the woman he loved. Maybe it was knowing for sure this time that the kid she was carrying was his own, versus last time when it might have been another man's child. Ultimately, Jess knew he could love this baby and make this work because he loved Rory. Deep down, that had always been the only thing that really mattered.

"I am so scared, Jess," she admitted, clinging too him still. "I... I just don't know how we're supposed to do this. Have a baby? Be parents? I'm not ready!"

"You think I am? You think anybody ever is?" he asked her seriously.

She shook her head and the tears came falling again. It was such a shock and she was so emotional, and Jess could understand that. He just pulled her close in his arms again and held her tight for as long as she needed. As relieved as he was, as okay as he was trying to be about all this, the truth was, he was kind of scared too.

Lorelai looked okay. She had checked her hair and make-up in the mirror, picked out an outfit that flattered her, and to the outside world she was pretty sure she looked okay, fine, just dandy. They didn't understand how much she was really not okay at all. Luke got it, because every time she tried to put on a brave face, especially for him, he called her on it and made her tell the truth. Sometimes he just held her while she cried. Other times, she actually felt positive, like Rory would be home any time now and everything would get back to normal. Today was one of the more regular numb days, when Lorelai looked fine from the outside, and inside she just wasn't feeling anything at all. She went to work, she ran errands, but all the time her mind was elsewhere. She wondered where Rory was, if she was okay, what she might be doing. She blamed herself for the way her daughter left town, then she blamed Rory, and sometimes she blamed other people, like Emily, or Dean.

It was really an unfortunate coincidence than on this one particular morning when she was in full 'blame Dean Forester' mode that Lorelai ran across him in the street. The overly tall, previously pleasant, daughter violator was walking along like he hadn't a care in the world. Not only was he holding hands with his wife, Lindsay, but they were swinging their arms like kids in love, smiling widely at each other. Lorelai wanted to vomit the moment she saw them. How dare he? How dare this guy wander around Stars Hollow like life was so great when he was the reason Rory had run away?!

By the time they passed each other on the street, she couldn't help herself.

"Asshole," Lorelai muttered, as close to Dean's ear as she could.

She honestly didn't want Lindsay to hear. As much as the poor girl deserved to know what her husband was really like, it didn't need to happen like that. She just wanted Dean to know that she knew what he did and she was not in any way okay with it. He should've realised that when Lorelai first caught him in Rory's room, that day when her little girl became a woman. She swallowed hard at the memory, then almost jumped out of her skin when a heavy hand landed on her shoulder. Spinning around, Lorelai never expected it to be Forester sneaking up on her.

"Lindsay is in Doose's," he explained in a low voice. "I said I'd catch up. We need to talk, Lorelai."

"Do we, Dean?" she asked, too loudly. "Do we really need to talk? Now what on Earth would you, ex-boyfriend of my missing daughter, need to talk to me about?"

She was talking loud on purpose, hoping to embarrass him maybe, Dean was sure. He wouldn't rise to that, he couldn't. As much as he had to keep his and Rory's secret from Lindsay, the Gilmores still mattered to Dean, both of them. They were good people and he had always felt like he belonged in their home, in their lives. It hurt so much to lose Rory and not be a part of that life anymore. Maybe cheating on his wife with his ex was wrong, but it had felt so very right at the time. Now Rory was gone, nobody seemed to know where, not even Lorelai, but whatever she did know, Dean needed to know too.

"I'm sorry," he said at length. "I know you probably blame me in part for Rory running away..."

"Huh!" Lorelai scoffed at his gall. "In part? Blame you in part?" she echoed, just this side of hysterical until she realised people were staring - she lowered her voice. "Who else should I blame, Dean? You made my daughter your piece on the side! How could you do that to her?"

"I never meant to!" he said desperately. "Look, this isn't all my fault. I never wanted to break up with Rory. You have Mariano to blame for that."

"Oh, that's ancient history, Dean. Grow up!" Lorelai told him, practically spitting in his eye with the way she said it. "If you loved Rory like you always said, how do you explain moving on so fast and marrying Lindsay?"

Dean didn't have an answer for that. His jaw worked with unspoken excuses and reasons, but none were said aloud. He knew he'd been a fool, both with Rory and with Lindsay. He had handled it all wrong, and that was his fault, but he couldn't be the whole reason that Rory ran away. She was stronger than that, he knew it. Lorelai knew it too, and the longer she stood there watching Dean flounder, the more she remembered.

"Look, I'm sorry," she said eventually and with a heavy sigh for good measure. "It's not all on you. I didn't handle things well either... I'm not handling anything well lately," she admitted sadly, pushing her hair back off her face.

Dean nodded in understanding. His life wasn't exactly on the up and up either, and nothing like he expected it to turn out. Sure, he and Lindsay probably seemed happy enough and she didn't exactly make him miserable, but trying to make it work was tougher than he ever thought it would be.

"I should go," he said then, checking back over his shoulder to make sure Lindsay hadn't come looking for him yet. "But if I can help at all..."

"Unless you have the GPS co-ordinates for my daughter, you can't," Lorelai admitted, shaking her head sadly as she turned and walked away.

Dean watched her go and then moved away himself, back towards Doose's market where his wife waited for him. There was no-one waiting at home for Lorelai. She had Luke, she had Sookie and everyone at the inn, but at home there was just her and an empty space where Rory should be.

She looked up to some empty spot in the blue sky above Stars Hollow and sighed;

"Where are you, baby? Mommy misses you."

To Be Continued...