Chapter 2: Don't wake me up!

After a restless night of sleep, Luke woke up at five and started to go about his morning routine; however, he quite discovered that his routine required the entirety of his space.

"S!!t" was the first words he uttered that morning as he ran into his own nightstand trying to find the bathroom with only the light from the street lamp to work with. He also would commonly go out for a run before the rest of the sleepy town woke up; a practice he had begun as a track athlete in high school. However, this morning he didn't know if he would be breaching the rules as the parental figurehead by leaving his nephew alone in the apartment; even though Jess would probably sleep through it and never know the difference. Luke decided to hold off on the run today and focus on the more urgent tasks at hand: mainly opening the diner quietly and using more kid friendly cuss words before he got caught.

Later that morning while Luke was serving his regular morning customers a sound come from upstairs.

THUMP!!! Jess had gotten tangled up in the bed sheet and fallen of the couch. Luke quickly excused himself and ran up the stairs to find out what or more likely who had created that noise. When he arrived he saw Jess righting himself from his little tumble; he had major bed head (or couch head in this case) and looked quite shocked that he had fallen.

"Are you ok?' Luke questioned the stunned boy.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just forget where I was for a moment," Jess answered.

"Cool. Do you want so breakfast or something now that you're up or would you rather shower or watch cartoons or something?"

Jess smiled at his uncle wide leap between him being old enough to want to shower first thing in the morning to being so young that the only thing he wanted to do was watch cartoons, and all in one sentence. Jess decided to take choice A or door number one as some would say. "Breakfast would be good."

And with that both men venture back to the diner.

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Rory woke up to her morning alarm blaring on the other side of the bed.

"Mom" Rory tried "MOM!" a little louder this time.

"What?" Lorelai groaned, "oh" was her only response as she went to hit the snooze button on her alarm.

"Mom, you have to get up!"

"Why?" Lorelai asked defiantly.

"Because you have work to do, shoes to buy, and coffee to drink," Rory repeated verbatim from her mom typical morning speech.

"Your right what would I ever do without you?" Lorelai asked as she kissed her daughter and rose out of bed to begin her day. Rory was quick to get up after her mom had went to shower in their tiny bathroom; she made the bed and got their pop tarts out for breakfast. Then read until her mom came and joined her for breakfast; this was their normal morning routine even during the school year. They only ate breakfast at the inn on weekends, special holidays, or if the head chef had gone way overboard on some specialty. After breakfast the girls went into the inn for the day to start when they saw Ms. Patty talking to Mia about something seemingly important. Naturally they were both curious about what brought Ms. Patty to the inn this early in the morning.

"Patty. What bring you here this fine summer morning?" Lorelai asked her daughter's formal ballet instructor with a huge smile.

"Just telling Mia the newest news about town. Babette's got a new gnome and Morey's gone and named in Glenn after Glenn Miller the jazz musician/bandleader. Kirk has another new job; he's working at his mother's cat store for the next couple of weeks, while she goes and visits her sister in South Carolina. Taylor is planning to hold a town meeting tomorrow about some new problem he has with someone or something. Samson and Delilah Sapperstein are back from their honeymoon and look as in love as ever. Oh and Liz's son, Jess, is in town and staying with Luke this summer."

"Really," Mia said, "Well that should be good for both of them. Thank you Patty for dropping by, but I should get back to work." She gave Lorelai a poignant look and went to her office. With that Lorelai quickly found her cart and went about her shift, Patty got back to her ten o'clock kinderballet class, and Rory was left again to her own devices.

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Meanwhile back at the diner Jess had finished breakfast, the book he was reading the day before, and found himself once again watching him uncle make the rounds of the diner. When things slowed down Luke began to feel Jess's eyes following around as he worked.

"So what do you do for fun back home Jess?"

"Not much. I read a lot either: in our apartment, the library, or the park across the street," Jess answer honestly.

"Do you play any sports, or have any other hobbies? What do you and your friends play after school" Luke asked desperate for something Jess and him could connect on or at least talk about.

"Not really. We move around a lot. I usually don't get the chance to make a lot of friends."

Luke knew his sister moved around frequently, but he had never seen how it affected his young nephew until just that moment. "We'll see what we can do about that this summer. Ok?"

Jess smiled, "Ok, but for now I think I'm just going to start another book."

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Rory and Jess were simultaneously looking at their respective book collections trying to decide what to read next; it just so happened they both picked up 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. Although their books looked very different, Rory's was a beautiful new hardback copy, a gift she received at Easter from her grandparents; Jess's on the other hand was a ratty paperback missing half it's cover and had quite possibly been caught in a rain storm at some point. After their decision was made, Rory sat on a bench by the pond and Jess got comfortable on his uncle couch, and they start the book. (Coincident or fate?).

"Chapter I A shifting reef. The year 1866 was signalized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon…."

OK. As you can tell my story isn't exactly fast pace. I've always enjoyed the small nuances of a scene, where a person is standing, a look in their eyes, and other things of that nature. Attention to detail. I do promise not to go as far as Tolkien in the second half of The Two Towers; it seemed like Sam and Frodo were walking for years. Anyway… As for music try "Don't wake me up" by The Hush Sound. I do hope you continue to read; I've been doing research for future chapters. And please review; I loved reading the ones for the first chapter.