Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: Well, the second chapter came pretty easily. (I really, really hope my illness isn't my muse in disguise!) I don't know how long this story is going to be, but here's chapter 2. Enjoy!

Chapter 2

Rory woke to the familiar aroma of mashed potatoes. It wasn't as though they were a fragrant food, but she could still pick up the scent of them whenever she was ill. She sleepily opened one eye and saw Jess sitting in the kitchen, writing in a notebook. Feeling her eyes, he looked up and smirked.

"I should've known a Gilmore couldn't sleep through the smell of food."

Rory smiled weakly. "It's a blessing and a curse." She whispered, her throat very dry.

"There's a glass of water there for you." Jess nodded to the table. He closed his notebook and stood. "I'll get it."

He walked over to the table and picked up the glass. "Can you sit up?"

Rory nodded and pushed herself up with great effort. "I didn't know if you'd still be here." She said, taking the water from him.

Jess shrugged. "Told you I would be."

Rory took a sip of the water, letting it slide down her throat. The coldness of it was a nice contrast to her warm body. She winced and said, "I'm warm again."

Jess nodded and lifted the blanket off her body, letting it fall to the ground next to her. He made sure it was in reach of her hand if she needed it again.

"How long have I been asleep?" Rory asked, handing the now half-empty glass back to him.

Jess shrugged. He put the glass back on the table and said, "Few hours. I figured you'd be out for a while longer."

Rory smiled uneasily. "You underestimate the Gilmore nose when it comes to Luke's cooking."

"Do you want your mashed potatoes now?" Jess asked, walking towards the kitchen before she actually responded. He grabbed an oven mitt shaped like a cow and heard Rory giggle from behind him. He turned to her with a smirk and said, "A gift from your mom, back before…"

Rory nodded and sighed. Jess opened the oven wordlessly and retracted a covered bowl of mashed potatoes from it. He put it on a folding tray with a fork and the peppershaker and brought it over to Rory.

"Thank you." Rory said quietly. He remembered that she only used pepper on her mashed potatoes. She smiled a little at the thought. She lightly sprinkled some on her potatoes and delicately put a spoonful in her mouth. The moment she did, her head shot up.

She swallowed and said, "Luke didn't make these."

"Never said he did."

"You made them?" Rory asked, not sure why she was surprised.

Jess nodded. "Luke's busy. I learned from him, I just use a little more milk. I figured you'd like them OK."

"They're amazing." Rory said seriously, taking another bite. "They're better than Luke's."

"Yeah?" Jess asked. "Huh."

Rory ate the entire bowl quickly, eliciting a small laugh from Jess. "Guess you're feeling a little better." He gently placed his hand on her forehead, causing her to stop with the spoon midway between her mouth and the bowl. He then moved his hand to her flushed cheek and she stared at him, not completely sure how to react to his soft touch.

"You're still really warm though." Jess said firmly. "Finish up and I'll get the thermometer."

Jess walked into the bathroom and walked back out with the small glass tube. He silently commanded Rory to open her mouth and he placed it gently under her tongue.

"Waa aww yo dwoin' hee?" Rory mumbled, keeping the thermometer under her tongue.

Jess rolled his eyes and put a finger to his lips to shush her. She sighed impatiently and waited for him to remove the thermometer.

He squinted at it and said, "Geez, why can't Luke have a digital one? Looks about 104. You're still burning up. How do you feel?"

Rory shrugged, but she knew the answer. She felt tired, weak, and her head was pounding and spinning at the same time.

"Now that you've eaten, you can take some medication. I've got Advil, Tylenol, or I think Luke has some Flintstone vitamins." Jess offered.

Rory laughed a little and said, "Whatever's fine."

Jess looked at the bottles on the table and selected the Tylenol. He dispensed two tablets into his hand and gave them to Rory, followed by her water glass.

"So, what were you trying to say before?" Jess asked. He sat down in a chair he'd brought over from the kitchen and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

"What are you doing here?" Rory repeated her earlier question.

"Liz wanted to have dinner with me and Luke." Jess responded. "She's due in a few weeks. She wanted one more family dinner before there was another addition to the family."

"You're a brother." Rory grinned at the thought.

"Almost." Jess conceded with a small smile. "Weird, huh?"

"Very weird." Rory agreed. "So, that's why you came back?"

Jess nodded. "Yeah. Couldn't leave Luke alone with Liz and TJ, not after what happened last time." He shook his head. "He's not doing good."

"Yeah?" Rory asked sadly. "Neither is mom."

"What a couple of idiots." Jess said with a shake of his head.

"Pretty much, yeah." Rory shrugged. "Not much to do about it except…watch them screw up. She's dating my dad again. It's…"

"Wrong?" Jess offered.

"Yeah, wrong." Rory nodded, closing her eyes and settling her head against the pillow. "Very wrong. Luke and Lorelai. It was meant to be."

"Hey, even I could see it and I, well, I had other things on my mind." Jess said with a laugh.

Rory sighed and said, "It's good he has you. My mom's got me. Luke needs someone too."

'He's family." Jess said factually. "You take care of family."

"He used to say the same thing about you."

"Huh." Jess let a small moment pass before asking, "How's Yale?"

"Good. I just went back about two weeks ago. Paris is driving me crazy. I'm commuting from home. It's just easier." Rory sighed again and burrowed into her pillow.

"You shouldn't be talking." Jess said apologetically, making a move to stand. "You're still sick. We've gotta get your fever down."

"No." Rory said with a frown. "Don't stop…talking to me." This was what she wanted, what she needed right now. Logan couldn't comfort her like this. Even when they'd been in the same room, he could never talk to her like this. It was worse now, the tension she felt during the phone calls where they didn't actually say anything. There was none of that tension here. There probably should've been, but there wasn't.

"What were you writing before?" Rory demanded.

Jess sat back down and said, "Just…fragments, I guess. The guys want me to write another book. Can't say I'm opposed to the idea."

Rory looked up at him, finding it hard to keep her eyes open as she whispered, "You can feel it every time the wind blows in your face, chapping your lips and forcing your eyes to close. It isn't something that you can describe, or even something that makes sense. It's there though, and you can feel it. That strange numbness that isn't lack of feeling, but really so much feeling that you think you're going to burst."

Jess's eyes went wide. "You memorized the opening of The Subsect." He said, shocked and embarrassed for a reason he couldn't pinpoint.

Rory nodded solemnly. "I told you it was amazing. You thought I was lying." She accused.

"I guess there's a couple things I don't know about you." He teased.

"More than a few." Rory said, then cringed. Was that bitterness in her voice? That hadn't been intentional.

"I guess you're right." Jess's voice got quiet and he was upset again. Yes, there'd definitely been bitterness in her voice. He stood and walked over to the kitchen, where he sat down with his notebook.

A shiver went through Rory's body and she grasped at the floor until she found the blanket. She pulled it up to her shoulders and said, "We came in here out of the snow, and it was so cold. Remember?"

Jess looked up from his seat at the kitchen table. He tilted his head to the side. She was rambling, probably because of the fever.

"It snowed a lot that winter." Jess responded uncomfortably, not really knowing what she was referring to but assuming she was reminiscing about something they'd done when they dated.

Rory started shaking a little more. "I was in my uniform, and that damn skirt…I was so cold. We sat down on the couch with a copy of Nine Stories and you threw the blanket over us. This blanket."

Jess smirked a little at the memory, mostly because he remembered the next part. "Yeah. That blanket." He responded, eyes getting dark with the memory.

"And you, your hands, they were so warm. How were you so warm?"

"It's the Italian blood." Jess said, remembering exactly where his hands had started traveling that day.

Rory was lost in the memory, still shaking from how chilled she suddenly felt. She smiled through it though, and her teeth began to chatter. "No one had ever touched me like that before. It was so…intense. And good, so good. I never wanted it to end."

Jess smirked a little, not embarrassed but suddenly a little shy, and opened his notebook, inspired to write again.

"So cold." Rory murmured. "Jess, I'm so cold."

Jess looked up at her shaking form, but just sighed. "I can't give you another blanket, Ror. Your fever needs to go down. You don't need anymore heat."

Rory laughed. "You're gonna be a good brother."

Jess shook his head, amazed that in her illness she could be talking about their limited sexual past and then moments later talk about him as a brother.

"Really." Rory continued. "You can take care of people. Luke, me…when the Hell did that happen?"

"I dunno." Jess said honestly. "Just kinda did."

"I like being taken care of." Rory declared in a murmur.

"It's why you're with the rich boy." Jess said, a little bitterly.

"Not like that." Rory shook her head. She turned over so she was lying on her side and curled herself into a ball in an attempt to keep warm. "Not financially. Who cares about that?"

"You do." Jess said with a smirk. "Don't forget who you're talking to. I know you."

"Fine." Rory conceded. "But it's not as important as other ways. As mashed potatoes and blankets and bite-sized pineapple."

Jess just sighed at this. She wasn't even going to remember saying any of this once her fever broke, and he knew that. He couldn't fool himself into believing any of what she was saying mattered, because it really didn't. It was the fever talking. It was the fever reminiscing over the ways he used to touch her, complimenting the way he took care of people, implying he was better for her than her boyfriend. If he could only date the fever, life would be fucking grand.

"Read to me." Rory commanded through chattering teeth.

Jess looked up at her again. "Well aren't you a bossy little sick girl?"

"Keyword is sick, which means you won't say no." Rory retorted. "I know you too, Mariano."

Jess couldn't deny this fact, so he grabbed his notebook and sat down next to her. "You don't get to comment on anything I read. Deal?"

Rory nodded her agreement and Jess opened his notebook. He hesitated for a long moment, causing Rory to open her eyes. He offered a wavering smirk before he looked down at the notebook and started reading.

"I used to think that beauty was just some idea that magazines were trying to pawn off on high school cheerleaders to make them want to be skinnier, more fashionable, whatever. Something that subjective can't really exist, right? There's no universal truth behind it; nothing you can definitively point out as beautiful and know that everyone else will agree with you. So it can't possibly exist, at least that was my theory on the subject. I was wrong though, wrong on a scale that I didn't even know existed. It's not something I've accepted lightly, in fact part of me still thinks that everything I'm about to write is a lie. I've been wrong before and maybe I'm wrong now.

This story probably won't provide any sort of answer to any life-altering question. It won't offer you any perspective or lead you to some obscure epiphany. That's not the kind of person I am so fuck that if you think that's the kind of book I'm going to write. I'm just trying to get this all out onto paper before I forget it, or before I become so bitter that the beauty is lost on me. I guess I'd better hurry up then. This is the story of a girl, because I'll be damned if every story isn't about a girl."

Jess looked up at Rory's form. Her muscles had relaxed a little and she was sleeping again. He stood and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. He was tempted to bend over and kiss her forehead, but he didn't think it'd be appropriate. He went over to the kitchen table so he could write some more.