title: Watercolors of the Past
disclaimer: Let's just say that if I owned GG, things would be drastically different. Starting with more Michel! And Milo, of course.
notes: I'm on fy-aa. Huzzah! lolz. Thanks again to Kat for the quick once over and the banner! Hope you like this one. :D
chapter.six: come be my fantasy
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He picked up his phone for the fifth time only to set it back on the receiver. Plastic on plastic made a muffled 'thud' that echoed through his apartment. The silence settled and Jess made his way to the fridge, retrieving a beer and downing half of it in one gulp. It was so quiet.
So quiet he could hear fucking birds chirping. Fucking chirping, for Christ's sake. In the middle of October. (Shouldn't they be south by now?) That pissed him off for some reason.
He would have turned on the television, but the setting sun signaled the impending evening. The only thing on in the evening is the evening news, and the thought of listening to the corporate sponsors that were continually clogging the media waves pissed him off even more.
Plus, he saw her face on every news anchor, every reporter, every correspondent in every fucking foreign country. He wasn't in the mood for that.
And he wasn't really in the mood for South Park, the only alternative.
He would have turned on the radio, but music these days leaves little to be desired. The always-declining music industry, filled with made-up teeny boppers and wanna-be thugs, had nothing to do with music anymore.
Plus, every song he heard made him think of her. In some random, arbitrary way, she'd float into his thoughts, riding the notes from the speakers to his ears.
It was ridiculous, really. How often he thought of her.
(No, what was ridiculous was that he had picked up and put down the phone five times trying to call her.)
He would have put on a CD, something loud, something obnoxious, something to beat the silence (and her) from his brain. Something new, something old, as long as it was something she had probably never heard of, something that had nothing to do with her. Something without memories attached.
But that wouldn't work, he knew. She'd wander into his thoughts anyway. He'd create memories that weren't there. He'd immediately want to tell her about the band, the song. He'd have to resist the urge to call her and tell her how much he loved the new Decemberists album, how much he'd love to see Cat Power in concert.
He would have picked up a book, but that has an obvious Rory Connotation. No explanation necessary.
He looked at the phone again. It's so far away, he told himself. Oh yeah, a whole four steps, he concluded sarcastically. Finishing the beer and crushing the can in his hand, he took those four steps to the phone and dialed unseeingly. Dialed before he could think about what in the hell he was doing, what in the hell he would say.
The tone of the ring pulsed in his ear. He counted, four, five, six, seven. She didn't pick up. Eight, nine, te-
"I'm here! Did you hang up?" she asked hurriedly.
"I was about to," he admitted.
"Jess?" she half-questioned, half-stated. Surprised. Nervous. Slightly nervous.
"Yeah. You busy, 'cause I can call back, or-"
"No," she cut him off. "I was just...um, well, I was juggling papers and coffee and I picked up my phone, but then I dropped it, and it skidded on the floor under my bed and I had to set everything down and actually get on the floor and...kinda, shimmy under my bed to get it and I touched a dust bunny and it was gross, but, no," she concluded. "I'm not busy."
"Well, then."
He sounded amused and she flushed, feeling stupidly childish. The butterflies that had invaded her stomach floated up to her throat, making it difficult to speak. "Sorry. I'll start over. Hello."
"Hey."
She grinned at the lazy sound of his voice. "How are you?"
"Good. My day hasn't been nearly as interesting as yours, but I'm good."
"Oh, well, up until the dust bunny encounter, I was having a pretty average day, too."
At sheer tone of her voice, that always kind, always compassionate, always cheery voice that made him soar, he decided he didn't mind the chirping birds. Not really.
"How are...things?" he asked, leaving the question purposefully vague. Not wanting to push her. Knowing that she needed to come to him, in a sense.
(Taking his time with this. With them.)
"Good," she sang back (he flew a little higher). "I tried calling the Dean of Admissions the other day, but he's out of town until the end of the month, which sucks. But I'm the first person on the list to meet with him when he gets back, so that's good." She sounded excited.
"That is good," he agreed, feeling his voice match hers.
She noticed and reveled in it. The idea that he was over the moon simply because she was. "And I got most of my stuff out of my grandparent's house without actually having to talk to my grandma, so that was nice," she continued. "And I...well, I broke up with Logan, which was delightful. But I'm good."
"Good," he nodded, feeling the pieces falling into place. Feeling that maybe they weren't as doomed as he had been fearing. Hoping against all hopes.
Feeling the need to jump around her room for some unexplainable and uncontrollable reason, she walked over to bed and sat, tapping her left foot, taking in the sound of his breathing over the line, taking comfort in the companionable silence they were able to achieve over the phone. Never awkward, even after all this time.
"Are you home?" she inquired suddenly. Almost regretful to break the moment, but not able to command her curiosity.
"Yeah, I got back yesterday. That's actually why I called," he explained.
Rory lay back on her bed, curling her legs up, knees pointing towards the ceiling. "Really?"
"You still want to come up?" he offered without hesitation. Might as well just get it out. "'Cause, like I said, I'm back now, and I don't have anything going on. Besides work, but that's flexible..." he trailed off, waiting for an answer. Hoping for a certain answer.
"Well, I'm sort of at a standstill till I hear from the Dean." She paused, biting her lower lip. "And I...I'd really like to see you," she admitted shyly. Why she felt self-conscious, she didn't know. She was just being honest.
She hadn't really been honest in a while. Maybe that's why it felt so foreign.
He couldn't help but smirk at her timid declaration. "There's a train that leaves from New Haven to Philly Friday at 10am," he offered casually.
"And you just know that off the top of your head?" she teased, already planning what to pack and how long she could stay.
"It's one of my hobbies; memorizing train schedules," he told her in a 'Duh' sort of tone.
"As well as private driveway stalking and author extraordinaire?" she bit back cleverly. "Where do you find the time?"
Ignoring the 'author' comment (he hardly considered himself one), he retorted, "Isn't it convenient?"
"It really is."
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As if packing was the hard part. If only packing was the hard part. But, no; packing had been relatively easy. Well, easy compared to what she still had to accomplish before she left the next day.
She had to tell Lorelai.
And that definitely wasn't going to prove to be anything remotely resembling the definition of 'easy.'
She had been putting it off for days now. Every opportunity that presented itself fell away before Rory could seize the moment. And those opportunities were few and far between.
The day was creeping up on her slowly, time disappearing faster than she could comprehend. And as excited – no, elated – as she was to spend some quality time with her 'friend'? boyfriend? lover? yes, definitely lover, she almost wished she had another day, another week, another month to prepare herself for this conversation.
Almost.
The majority of her brain (and of her body) felt the next 18 hours couldn't go by fast enough.
Rory was going over the short list of pointers she had made in light of the occasion when she heard the front door open and close. Jumping up quickly, preparation momentarily forgotten, she lifted her suitcase off of the bed and shoved it under the sagging mattress. No reason to give Lorelai any unnecessary clues.
At least, that's what she told herself.
She met her mother in the living room for Chinese food and Untamed Heart, of all movies.
They sat, eating and talking and mocking for the next two hours. Two more hours of delay. Two more hours of peace. The calm before the impending storm.
The credits were rolling when Lorelai unexpectedly broached the subject, unknowing to what she was really getting into.
"'You talk to Jess lately?" she asked as casually as she could muster, carefully threading him into the conversation in order to quell her own curiosity.
"Actually, yeah, I have," Rory answered, picking at the remainder of her sweet and sour pork. Not able to meet her mother's eyes, knowing what she'd see in their reflection.
"Really?"
Her surprised tone confirmed Rory's initial fears, not needing to look at her to sense the disappointment. Gaze still trained on her food, she grunted an indistinct, "Uh-huh."
Lore clicked her tongue, obviously not expecting that answer, completely at a loss as to where to take the conversation. Still unsure of how to talk to her daughter, let alone talk to her about this, she sat twiddling her thumbs, feeling useless.
Looking up now, Rory tried to choose her words carefully, feeling how fragile their relationship still was. Unable to come up with a painless way to tell her and not wanting to sugarcoat it, she dove in. "I'm going to go see him," she announced, nodding confidently.
Silence descended upon them, mother and daughter at a standoff. Rory took the few pregnant moments to mentally prepare herself for the onslaught, and Lorelai didn't disappoint.
"You're kidding me," she exclaimed, incredulous, shocked, positive that she hadn't heard her correctly. There's no way…
"I'm leaving tomorrow," Rory continued, "and I'm sorry I'm just now telling you. I just couldn't find the words until I was forced to, I guess."
"When did you make these plans?" Lorelai asked, voice laced with mock-sincerity.
Trying to attain her sense of calm, Rory was able to keep her tone relatively even. "Earlier this week. He called me and asked if I wanted to come and see him."
She laughed, her disdain turning to condescension. "That's quite a ways to travel for a booty-call, Rory."
"It's not like that, and you know it," she snapped back.
"So, what? Are you two dating now? Or are you just going to 'hook up,'" she finger quoted, "whenever he's in town?"
"Don't be like this, mom," she pleaded.
Lorelai persisted in her sardonic quest for answers, "What? I'm just trying to get a feel for what's going on here!"
"I don't know what's going on here, okay!" Rory shouted back. "But I need to find out. Alright? Is that okay with you?"
Apparently, the question was meant to be rhetorical, for Rory rose as soon as the words left her lips and hurried to her room. Hurried to her room as the tears began to fall for the umpteenth time in only a matter of days.
Lorelai sat alone in the living room, watching herself physically deflate. Having been miles high a moment ago while berating her daughter, she sunk into the couch, now mere centimeters tall.
It never used to be this hard. And she had no idea how to fix it, especially with Jess in the picture.
Jess.
This can only end badly, she thought. And the last thing she wanted was for Rory to get hurt by him. Again. For the second, third, fourth (she had lost count over the years) time.
The idea that he had changed, that he had grown up, never even entered her mind.
The idea that she was the one doing the hurting this time lingered for a moment, but she couldn't bring herself to face it, let alone admit it.
Instead, she shoved it aside.
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It was official; 4:59 on Thursday evening had just proven to be the longest minute of his life.
Jess sat at his small desk oblivious to everything around him save the clock for the last 60 seconds. A pencil dangled between his parted lips as he watched the thin red hand tick tick tick slowly, slower than it even had before.
"Who's the skirt?" a voice demanded from behind him. Startled, the pencil fell from his mouth and he swiveled around in his desk chair to find Eddie's excited eyes scrutinizing his every move.
"Excuse me?" Jess asked coolly, raising an eyebrow to complete his patented 'Why in the hell are you talking to me?' look.
"The skirt. The one that's got you all googly eyed." He grinned and took a seat across from Jess, expecting a story of some sort. "Come on, spill."
Instead, Jess shrugged and turned back around to begin gathering his things, seeing as how the clock had since struck the black 5.
Eddie, however, was not the sort to be ignored. Rising swiftly, he moved around Jess's desk and continued the interrogation. "You hooked up with some hottie while you were out and about, didn't you? Mariano, you dog you," he winked. Turning to the rest of the office, he proclaimed, "Hey! Mariano got some puss-"
Cutting him off, Jess did his best to keep the details indistinct. "It wasn't like that."
"But there was a girl," Eddie nodded, not needing his confirmation.
"There's always a girl," Rick, their boss, chimed in from the back.
Giving Jess a solemn look, Eddie took a moment of contemplation. "Was it the girl?"
Jess shook his head, regretting the far away look he'd let capture his features this week. He should've known one of these guys would catch on. After all, they did spend the majority of their days in that office on Locust Street. You might not be able to call the five friends, but they had gotten to know each other. And everyone knew that Jess always had a certain disinterested aura about him. Unless something was up.
He'd been caught.
"I am not discussing this with you," he offered lamely, tried desperately to put an end to the conversation.
"Oh my fuck, it was!" Eddie cackled, doubling over in shock and glee.
"What girl?" Todd spoke, moving towards the discussion.
"The girl," Eddie explained, still giggling. "The one who broke his heart and turned him into the empty shell of a man that he is today."
"Oh. That girl," he nodded, not necessarily knowing the story behind this particular situation (just as Eddie didn't), but knowing that everybody had one of some sort.
"There's always a girl," Rick speculated again, passing by the guys, not stopping to hear the bones of the tale.
Eddie shook Jess by the shoulders, still grinning like mad. "I want to meet her."
"Hell no." Shaking him off, Jess waved his arms pointedly with each syllable.
"Ha! So there is a 'the girl'," he sing-songed in triumph.
"Well, would you look at that," Jess gestured to the clock, now reading 5:02. "It's time for me to leave."
"No. No, Jess, details," Eddie wailed, drawing out the last word in a bemoaned plea. "Come on. Throw me a bone."
Passing by again, Rick nodded to Jess, "I need you in here early tomorrow."
"I'm off tomorrow."
This got Rick to stop and face the trio. Pausing as if he was recounting the crew's schedule in his head (he wasn't), he shook his head. "No, you aren't."
"Yes, I am," he reiterated.
"You just had a vacation," Rick dismissed his claim. "You were traveling."
"Oh, yeah. All around the vast magnificence that is New England. That was for work," Jess argued.
Rick shook his head again, coming up with, "Work that you volunteered for."
"'Still work," Sighing, already feeling defeated, he tried again. "You already said I could have the time off."
"He probably already made plans," Eddie speculated. "With the girl. Come on, let him go."
Rick contemplated this for a moment, coming up with a compromise. "I need someone in here tomorrow."
Turning to Jess, Eddie threw up his arms. "I'll cover your shift if you give me details."
Resigned to his fate, Jess reluctantly nodded. "Fine."
"Hot damn!" Eddie yelled, high-fiving Todd. Rolling his eyes, Jess grabbed his jacket and his bag, and cut between his two rejoicing co-workers.
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notes: I have the next chapter done, too! It was originally part of this, but I really want the Rory and Jess goodness to be all together in a happy Lit-verse. So, the sooner you review, the sooner the next installment will be up! Thanks for reading!