The looks carried with him as he walked into the dining room. Richard was sitting at the head of the table, which left him beside Rory. He didn't mind the seating arrangement with the exception of Lorelai and Emily being together on one side of the table. Sighing mentally, he prepared himself for not-good things. If Rory and her mother were any sign of what these women were like, he couldn't imagine what Lorelai and her mother fought about.
The salads were already on the table. He took one look at it and decided that he'd never even seen something so well set up in a restaurant, let alone one he'd had to eat in. He picked up a fork, the small one, and pondered where to actually start eating when Richard looked at him. He could feel the older man's eyes, and then the two women's, so he looked up from his plate, attempting not to cringe.
"What sort of books do you read?" Richard asked cheerfully.
"Mostly just classics, I don't like a lot of modern books," he said with a shrug, trying to keep himself from just fleeing the table.
"Ah," Richard said, still pleased with the situation.
"Well, this salad is lovely, isn't it?" Emily chimed in, almost as though she was attempting to take the pressure off of Jess. Although he suspected an underhanded attempt at something else, he couldn't help but be grateful.
"Yeah… good lettuce!" Rory answered with a smile.
Jess went back to poking in silence, separating pieces of the vegetables apart and then putting them back together. He wasn't precisely aware of how closely he was examining everything. He was just trying to keep the eyes off of him. Despite his attempts, he felt their eyes drift back to him, slowly.
"So, Jess, where do you come from?" Richard asked, breaking the silence.
"New York… Manhattan," he provided, realizing that he was probably supposed to answer the questions with more than two words.
"What brought you to Stars Hollow?" Richard inquired, sounding almost confused at the strange situation. Why anyone from New York would want to move to Stars Hollow was probably beyond most people, hell, if Rory wasn't there, it would be beyond him too.
"Well, I guess it was Rory that brought me," Jess told him, lifting his eyes for a split second.
"Rory?" Richard further prodded, as though he had no idea why.
"Yeah," Jess said with a nod. He then sat awkwardly for a second as no one spoke. After almost a minute of the silence, he figured it was probably a sign for him to keep talking. With a mental sigh, he continued, "When she came to see me, I knew that I had to do something."
"She came to you?" Richard further prodded.
"Yeah… she came to New York to see me," Jess confirmed with a nod.
"Alone?" Emily chimed in.
"Yes…" Jess answered before he saw Lorelai and Rory's combined signs of 'say no!' When he uttered the word, however, both of them seemed to do an identical 'shrinking' motion in their seats.
"Well, did you meet her at the bus station?" Emily asked, taking over for Richard.
"I didn't know she was coming," Jess answered. Her grandparents were cornering him, he could feel it.
"So she walked to your home, alone, from the bus station?" Emily said as a way of reaffirmation.
"Yeah, she did," he said, feeling angry at being cornered. He was a born fighter. It was just the way that New York kids were raised, even if it was just verbal.
"She must have been seeing you for some time if she knew where you live," Emily barked, and he knew this was probably about as cornered as he could be.
"We've been together for ten months," he told her, feeling the need to rise and shout at someone growing, but he suppressed it in favor of the two women who were both glaring daggers at each other. He didn't want to be in the middle of the dispute.
"Maybe we should have dinner brought in," Rory suggested, trying to get the steam off of her boyfriend.
"Dinner can wait," Richard told her and sent a very pointed look in her direction, which caused her to shrink down a bit more. He then looked at Jess again, who didn't shrink but seemed to rise to the challenge. "What was so important that she came to see you alone at night?"
"She was going to Boston and she wanted me to go with her," Jess half-shouted and had to grit his teeth to keep from doing just that.
"Boston?!" Richard and Emily both exclaimed. Richard's voice was a whisper of shock, Emily's was loud and shrill. It gave him a headache that he was not looking forward to dealing with.
"Why is Rory going to Boston?" she demanded of Lorelai.
"She isn't, wasn't, I was just trying to make her tell me what had been going on," Lorelai answered. Jess could tell that there were going to be fireworks between the two of them and stood up.
"Now, if you're finished using me in this episode of 'Family Feud,' I think that it's about time that I leave. Thanks for the invite," Jess snapped, standing up and throwing his fork down with a 'clank'.
The room was left in complete silence as he left, and he continued to not hear anyone move until he opened the door and slammed it on his way out. Standing outside, he fumbled with his pockets, trying to find his cigarettes, but they weren't anywhere to be found. Fuming, he remembered that Rory had gone through is stuff earlier. She'd probably taken away his emergency smokes.
"Rory, don't you dare leave this house!" he heard behind him as the door opened and Rory stepped out. Emily was close on her heels and Lorelai was chasing Emily. Richard was standing behind them all.
"You shouldn't have done that to him!" Rory yelled at her, there were tears rolling down her face. Jess dashed to her side in a second, standing on the threshold of the house.
"Jess, I'm sorry, we don't have to do this again," Rory told him and he shook his head, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close.
"Young man, you are a very bad influence on my granddaughter," Emily told him, and he looked up at her tiredly.
"Listen, you may be able to boss around every other person in your house, but don't you dare try it with me. Don't shout at Rory, don't shout at me… and don't shout at Lorelai. It was our decision not to tell you, and I think we made the right one. I love your granddaughter and I'm going to marry her," Jess told them, his eyes burning with every syllable. "If you have any problems with that, then I'd suggest you steer clear of us, because I'm not leaving."
"Marry?" Richard asked from behind Emily, coming to join the circus.
Rory turned in his arms, but he didn't let her go. She placed her left hand on top of his around her and everyone's eyes were instantly drawn to the ring.
"You're serious?" Richard muttered. The emotions written on his face were a mixture of shock and calculation.
"Yeah, we're serious," Jess said, calming down a little bit now that they'd stopped yelling.
"I forbid it," Emily told him, standing a foot in front of him and glaring daggers.
"As I said, if you don't like it, you don't have to be apart of it. I'm sure as hell not going to force you," Jess almost hissed, angry at still being pressed about this.
"Neither am I," Rory said with him.
"I-," Emily started, but was silenced with a hand on her arm from Richard.
"Go inside, Emily," he told her. His face was a mask of passiveness and conclusion. He'd decided what to do about this situation.
"But-," she protested, but a firm shake of his head sent her inside. It wasn't often that Richard demanded things of his wife, but Richard had grown too close to Rory to have her taken away like Lorelai.
"Rory, is this what you want?" he asked.
"Yeah, I love him," Rory agreed, nodding her head and wrapping his arms tighter around her.
"I know better than to argue with Gilmore women. I don't happen to agree with this happening so young, but I think you have chosen a fine young man," Richard said, giving Jess a look of warning. Jess nodded slowly, saying that he'd gotten the message loud and clear.
"Thank you… Mr. Gilmore." Jess felt the words deeply. Someone in the family was finally accepting him as not being a total delinquent, too pathetic for their precious Rory.
"Don't disappoint me. Where do you current work?" Richard asked, and Rory tensed in his arms. He had a feeling this was probably another warning, but he wanted to try to trust this man.
"I work with my uncle at Luke's," Jess answered honestly.
"A diner? How would you like a real job?" Richard prodded.
"The diner is a real job… what were you thinking?" Jess first started with anger, pissed off at being told his job wasn't 'real'. Luke was being good to him, letting him stay. He didn't want to be bad mouthing him.
"I am one of the top business men at an insurance firm based here in Hartford. I can get you a starting position where you have the opportunity to build a future for yourself," Richard told him, and Jess could see where the warning came from.
"I'm still in school," Jess said with a shrug, not sure why he was even being offered the position if he couldn't have it.
"You can start after your school day," Richard pointed out.
"Okay," Jess said simply, much to the shock of all three of his witnesses.
"Okay?" Lorelai asked from behind her father. He'd forgotten that she was still there.
"Yeah, it's better than shoving stock at Wal Mart," Jess said as an example.
"Good man," Richard finally said, cutting Lorelai off and patting Jess's shoulder. "I'll give you a call and tell you when you start. You will need to get some more… professional clothes."
"Yeah, I figured," Jess said, and cringed at the idea of being in any sort of suit. It wasn't really his style.
"Alright," Richard finally finished with a nod and moved back inside the house. "Thank you for coming."
"Yeah… thanks," Jess muttered after Lorelai came out of the house and the door was closed.
"Why did you answer them?" Lorelai piped up.
"Huh?" Jess asked, having to reel his mind to figure out what she was talking about.
"That, in there! Why did you answer them?" she clarified.
"Mom," Rory protested, but was ignored by both parties.
"And what, lie to your parents like you did?" Jess asked.
"It wasn't like you two were completely honest either," Lorelai shot back.
"That wasn't my choice," Jess muttered under his breath, and the tensing of Rory's back told him that she'd heard it. Out loud he said: "Would you have told your parents? Jeez, you people are completely psychotic. You keep yourselves on such tight leashes, strangle yourselves, and then start attacking everyone around you to get free. Live a little."
"Live a little? My daughter was going to New York, alone, to meet some guy. Would you have let your kid do that?" Lorelai asked him.
"Sure, why not? If I 'trusted' my daughter, then I'd trust her to be able to choose who she wants to be with," he told her, stepping away from Rory and going face to face with Lorelai. They were about the same height when she was in her heels.
"Well I guess that I don't trust my 'seventeen' year old daughter to be the best judge of character, and from where I'm standing, I think I'm right," she hissed, getting into his face as well.
"Stop it!" Rory shouted and stepped between them.
"What? You going to tell me that I stole your daughter again because I'm some punk kid from New York who doesn't deserve her?" Jess fumed. If Lorelai was Rory's dad, he was almost positive that they would have come to blows by now. Then of course, if Lorelai was this bad, what the hell would her dad be like?
"No, I'm going to tell you that I don't want my daughter to be hurt by some jerk from New York," Lorelai shouted, slamming a finger into his chest.
"You know what, I'm finished with you. If you don't want to see me, that's fine. Rory and I love each other and there's nothing you can do about it. I'm a part of your life now whether you like it or not," Jess told her before turning around and marching away.
"What are you going to do, walk home?" Lorelai shouted after him when he didn't stop.
Jess turned just enough to shout, "Whatever!" back at her, before continuing on his way.
Rory looked at her mom for a second, pondering if there was anything to say. She shook her head and looked up at her, feeling deeply hurt by the comments and the constant cutting down of Jess. He was her boyfriend, she expected her mother to be more supportive, but that was just asking too much.
"I'm going to marry him, mom. Please, try to get along with him?" Rory asked her. It was the first time in months that she'd actually taken the time to plead with her over Jess.
"What do you see in him?" Lorelai asked him after a few seconds. They both turned to look at Jess marching down the driveway.
"I don't know, I just love him," Rory said, the goofy smile appearing again.
"I don't want to lose you," Lorelai told her, both still watching Jess.
"Then don't," Rory said simply and ran after Jess.
Lorelai watched them stalk off and sighed. She walked to her car and thought over the situation. They weren't precisely giving her much choice. First it had just been Jess, then Richard, and now Rory was telling her that she 'had' to like him, or lose her. Sighing, she started the jeep and drove out of the driveway. She slowed down to offer Jess and Rory a ride, but they were already ducked in the bushes, making out. Not wanting to interrupt them and risk another fight with Jess, she just drove home instead.
"Rory… I think we should wait," Jess told her calmly.
"Are you sure?" Rory asked him, although he could tell that there was relief in her voice.
"I don't think you should risk it. You have so much ahead of you… I don't want to screw it up like your mom and dad did," he told her, holding her close.
"We, Jess, we don't want to screw it up," Rory reminded him. There was a shared smile, after which Rory grabbed his hand and they headed for the bus station.
"Yeah… we," Jess agreed, letting go of her hand in favor of draping an arm around her shoulders and stumbling to the bus stop with her, almost getting hit by a few cars in the process. They were still kissing when the bus arrived.
"You know, my mom could have given us a ride," Rory told him.
"It doesn't matter, she doesn't want me around," he said, shrugging the comment off and leading her towards the bus.
"I told her that she needs to give you a chance. Hey!" Rory greeted the bus driver. They hadn't seen him since they'd come back from New York.
"I see that you two are still together," he returned, happy that they weren't split up. All the times they'd been on the bus, they'd seemed perfect for each other.
"Whatever," Jess said and nodded his head at the bus driver.
"Trouble in paradise?" the driver asked, noticing Jess's hesitancy.
"It's nothing, her mom doesn't like me," Jess answered with a shrug and led Rory to the back of the bus.
"It was nice talking to you!" Rory told him as she was being taken away.
Once they got to the back, Jess sat down and started sulking. Rory watched him for a few minutes before she got sick of it. Sighing, she grabbed one of his hands and squeezed it, trying to get his attention. He turned to look at her, giving her a look that meant 'what?'.
"Jess, please, give her a chance?" she asked him, giving him her 'puppy-dog eyes'.
"A chance? I didn't do anything!" he objected.
"She's protective over me. Please?" she pleaded further.
"Protective is one thing, telling me that I stole her daughter away and that I'm the worst thing that's ever happened to you is another," Jess accused. If it weren't for the fact that she was sitting in between him and his only exit, he would have jumped off after the comment. Fleeing again, it just seemed to be what he did best.
"Jess, you 'will' give her a second chance. If you love me, at all, you will try to get along with her," Rory told him. She was not going to lose her mother over this.
"What if I say 'no'? What if I don't want to deal with her bullshit anymore?" he asked her.
"Then I don't know if I can marry you," Rory told him, her mouth in a firm line, even though inside she was screaming.
"What?" Jess asked, shocked that this was happening.
"I'm not going to make you choose you over my family. If you make me do this, you will lose," she told him. Even though she felt like standing up and leaving, she knew that Jess would just storm away and there was the decent chance that she'd never see him again. There was the 'look' in his eyes that said he didn't want to answer. Jess avoided questions like the plague, she'd found that out during the summer.
"You know what, Rory? I'm sick of it. First you hide me from your family, because you know this is going to happen, and now you're acting as though it was 'my' choice, as though this shit was 'my' fault. You know what? Until you stop being a fucking hypocrite and apologize, get the hell out of my way," Jess roared, standing up.
"Jess, I didn't mean-," she said, but was abruptly cut off when Jess vaulted over a seat and took off out of the bus at the stop three away from Stars Hollow. It would take at least another hour to get back, walking.
Rory took off after him, jumping out of the bus and after his retreating figure. "Jess! Don't do this! I'm sorry, please don't leave!" she begged, finding it hard to run in her high heels.
"Rory, get back on the bus and leave me alone!" Jess snarled at her, not bothering to turn around. He marched up to a gas station, slamming the door and almost shattering the glass. A crack ran down the middle, and it only extended when Rory stormed in.
"Jess, get back here!" she screamed, tears running down her face and limping slightly.
"Rory, I am not ready to talk to you yet," he told her, marching to the register. "Give me some cigarettes."
"You over twenty one?" the attendant asked.
"Yeah, sure," Jess told him, handing him a piece of modified ID.
"Hunh…" the attendant said, and then gave him the smokes. Once they were firmly in his hand, he turned and left the store.
"You're not smoking those," Rory told him, continuing to follow him out of the store.
"Get back to the bus stop, get on the bus, go away," Jess told her, taking out the cigarettes and popping one into his lips.
"No," she barked, and half-ran-half-limped to get in front of him. She yanked the cigarette from his lip and crushed it beneath her shoe then grabbed the smokes out of his hand and threw them in a garbage can.
"What the hell, Rory?" Jess shouted, walking to the garbage can and fishing out the cigarettes.
"Jess, this is not going to ruin our relationship," Rory told him, taking a stand.
"I'm not doing this to us. I'm not the one who gave an impossible ultimatum. I'm not the fucking one who decided to call this off," Jess told her, and looked at her hand. "May as well take it off."
"You're serious…?" Rory asked, her was voice barely above a whisper.
"Aren't you?" Jess asked, taking out a smoke and placing it in his mouth again.
"Don't smoke that…" Rory said, the shock in her system expanding in waves, trying to register the information.
"Or what?" Jess snapped and lit the smoke. He took the first drag and blew the smoke out. "Get out of here, Rory."
"Jess… please," Rory said, silent tears running down her face.
"Tell your grandpa that I don't want the job, I'll be out of Stars Hollow by Monday," Jess told her, flicking the cigarette out halfway through. He then looked at the pack itself and threw it into the garbage. "Disgusting."
"Don't do this," she finally said, her hands falling together.
"I didn't do anything," Jess said after a few seconds, and his body shook slightly at the shoulders. He turned away from her, pushing the emotions away. "Goodbye."
Rory watched, stunned, as Jess walked away. Her body was trembling, the shock finally settling in. Sobs started to wrack her body and she sunk down to the ground. Her hands shook painfully as she took out her cell phone and speed dialed number one.
"Mom…?" Rory asked. Her was voice cracking and the sobbing causing loud reverberations on the phone.
"Rory, what happened?" Lorelai asked, but Rory didn't hear it. She was sobbing so loudly that she could barely focus, let alone talk. "Where are you?"
"At a gas station… about ten minutes away," Rory managed to get out before she started shaking so badly that the phone slipped through her fingers, fell to the ground and shattered.
The rest of the night passed in a blur, as did the rest of the weekend. When she finally managed to gain some focus, she remembered that Jess said he was going to leave by Monday. It occurred to her that it was quite possible she only had one more chance to get to him before he disappeared, as she had every idea he was going to do. He may have broken her heart, but it was obvious that she'd broken his as well.
Stumbling to Luke's in her pajamas was not a fun event, especially with the flock of people that followed her. By this time, everyone in town knew about her and Jess's break up.
"Jess?" Rory asked as she got into Luke's. The pack all waited outside and the people inside rushed outside to offer privacy, as well as to watch from a safe distance. Luke was left behind the counter, standing tensely and awkwardly.
"He's upstairs," Luke said, motioning and feeling guilty for exposing his nephew, who'd distinctly asked him not to.
"He is?" Rory asked, but didn't wait for a response as she tripped over herself, caught onto the edge of a table and proceeded to run up the stairs.
Jess was slamming things into a bag and talking on the phone. There was quite a bit of swearing involved, including his mother's name. Finally Jess threw the phone against a wall, destroying it. More swearing as he attempted to shove it back together. He then grabbed his bag and turned around to find himself directly facing her. At first he looked like he just wanted to run up and kiss her, before he remembered that he's angry at her and just stared.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, shoving more crap into his bag.
"Don't leave," she said, unable to think up anything else to say. "I don't care about my family, I don't care… just don't leave."
"I have to go for awhile," he informed her, ignoring her comment and grabbing the last piece of his clothing out of the closet. He shoved it roughly into the bag and walked in front of her again.
"I'm not letting you leave," she assured him desperately, and stood firmly in front of the door.
"I'm not giving you a choice," he informed her clearly, but there was no conviction in the words. He moved towards her but she stood her ground. He swung his bag over her and she flinched.
"Don't leave," she repeated, her body trembling at being so close but not being able to touch him.
Jess didn't say anything. He just grabbed her shoulders and kissed her. She kissed him back, taking it as a 'yes' to her apology. She felt them moving and soon felt a wall against her back. Happiness ran through her, exploding like rockets in every single vein of her body.
Just as she was about to wrap her arms around him, he jerked away from her. There was a look of sincere physical pain in his eyes when he did and he turned around, walking out the apartment door and out the door. She stood in shock, realizing that he'd used the distraction to get her out of the way of the door. Shaking again, she fell to the ground, not crying, just feeling numb. The jingle of a bell confirmed everything, every single thought that her mind had.
A scream was bubbling in her throat. Instead of screaming, crying, kicking or shouting like her body was begging her to do, she pulled off his ring and held it in her palm. She squeezed her hand until she felt the pain and felt wetness on her skin. She opened up her hand to see blood surrounding the diamond. Sobbing her eyes out, she crawled to her feet and down the stairs again. The mob was waiting outside, all of them looking distraught.
"Rory, sweetie," began someone, but she ignored them and ran. She kept running until she reached her house.
Once inside, she went into her room and curled up in the middle of her bed, just shaking with grief. Her mother came home sometime and curled up with her. The next day, Rory couldn't get up. She wasn't even able to go to the washroom. Her entire body and mind just felt numb. She couldn't cry, she couldn't react, she didn't respond to anything. The world was moving around her, but she wasn't moving with it.
"Stop that," she muttered, batting away the light.
"Rory?" someone asked, "Rory, are you with us?"
"Who's there?" she asked, continuing to bat weakly at whoever was attempting to talk to her.
"Rory, my name is Doctor Mathews, do you know who you are?" he asked her, and she blinked at him blearily.
"Rory Gilmore?" she asked, trying to sort through her thoughts.
"Alright, Rory, do you know what day it is?" he further prodded. All the while he was poking her with different objects, but she was too weak to stop him.
"Uh… Sunday… March?" she said, unable to pick a day out of her mind.
"Today is March the 16th," he told her, and the numbness in her body almost seemed to be extending., she'd been out for three days.
"Sir… oh! She's awake!" called a nurse from the door.
"He's here?" the Doctor asked, and then turned to Rory. "Do you feel up to visitors?"
"Who is it?" Rory asked, still feeling like she'd been hit with a truck.
"A young man, he's been coming every day," the Doctor told her, and Rory couldn't honestly figure out anyone who'd want to see her.
"I… guess?" Rory said, placing a hand to her forehead.
"Alright, bring him in, but only for a few minutes. She still needs some recovery time," the Doctor told the nurse and she nodded, going to get the visitor.
Things were silent for a few minutes as the Doctor ran a few more tests, she barely noticed. Curiosity thrummed through her at who would be visiting her. Her eyes stayed completely glued to the door. When the nurse appeared, her breath caught. Jess appeared at the door and they froze. Their eyes caught and both just stared. The Doctor and the nurse were talking for a few seconds, but neither of them could get a response out of the two teenagers.
Jess was dressed sharply in a black suit with a white undershirt. He didn't have a tie and the first button was undone. His hair was slicked back, not just gelled. The suit was expensive. It looked like he'd taken Richard's job offer after all.
"Jess," she whispered, and it seemed to shock him back to reality.
"You didn't tell me she was awake!" he shouted at the nurse, betrayed, before turning on his heel and marching out of the room.
"Jess, don't go!" Rory shouted, and tried to launch herself out of the bed. The doctor grabbed one of her arms and dragged her back to the bed.
"You're not ready to go out yet, we need to make sure you're stable," the Doctor told her sternly, but she didn't let him pacify her.
"No, I have to get him, I have to make him understand," Rory cried, and jerked again. The nurse then made her way over and grabbed her other arm.
"I don't want to restrain you, Rory, please, calm down," he told her.
"I can't, I have to get him," she begged, still not focusing.
"Tie her down," the Doctor declared, and the two of them pinned her down on the bed. Before she knew what was happening, she felt a sharp pain in her arm and blinked at the doctor as a needle was pulled from her skin. She slumped back in the bed, unable to move a muscle.
"Rory? Rory?" someone called, and for the second time in as many days, she was pulled out of the smoke that her mind had used to protect her.
"Huh?" she mumbled and tried to sit up. She frowned when she realized that her wrists were tied down. "What's going on?"
"Let her go," a different voice barked, and the smoke finally started to clear enough to see. Over her was a woman with dark hair and blue eyes. After a few seconds, her mind registered her mother, and then her grandmother and grandfather appeared over her shoulder. In the corner, on the very edge of the room, was Jess. All this time, the nurses were wandering around her, undoing her arms and legs so she could move.
"Mom?" Rory asked, and then saw Jess, her body jerked up. His eyes instantly changed to ones of panic. "Jess!"
"I'm going," Jess said, and darted out of the room.
"I'll go talk to him," Richard stated. He gave Rory a nod before leaving the room.
"What's going on?" Rory asked, pressing a hand to her forehead and trying to clear her headache.
"You passed out, Rory…and you didn't come back," Lorelai told her and pulled her into a hug.
"Passed out…? The last thing I remember, I was at Luke's and Jess…" she trailed off, remembering precisely what he'd done to her.
"That… boy, told us," Emily bristled.
"Mom," Lorelai snapped, and Rory frowned at her mother. Was she actually defending Jess?
"So… what happened?" Rory asked, although she was almost positive that she knew precisely what happened.
"When Jess left, we found you in your room, and you weren't responding to anything. You didn't… you weren't there. You just woke up, yesterday," Lorelai told her, petting her and kissing her head.
"We've been worried sick about you," Emily said, tears appearing in her eyes. Rory smiled at her grandmother and motioned her over. Emily almost seemed to skip over. She sat down on the edge of the bed and hugged them both.
Richard came into the room, his steps very precise and angry. "He won't come back," he snapped, then noticed the hug. "Oh, I'm sorry."
"It's alright," Rory said, and motioned him over as well. Awkwardly he moved over beside him and hugged her as well. She felt very loved at the moment, and realized how much her family meant to her.
A few hours later she was discharged and returned home. On the car ride home, the silence was repressive. She barely felt like she could breathe.
"What am I going to do?" she asked, still feeling numb.
"About what?" Lorelai asked, looking at her out of the corner of her eye.
"School?" Rory offered, although they both knew that wasn't what they were thinking.
"I already have you registered for summer school. You can take the rest of the year off because you're already too far behind with this… and the attack," Lorelai told her, sounding a bit strained with this year's activities.
"What's Jess been doing?" she asked after a few more minutes of silence.
"He's finishing his grade eleven year early and has been working full time at your grandfather's company," Lorelai told her evenly, not giving any other hints to his life.
"How could he finish early?" Rory asked, picking up on the comment.
"He's taking the courses in college," Lorelai told her, and Rory frowned.
"How can he do that?" she prodded.
"Your grandpa pulled some strings when he saw Jess's potential," Lorelai told her, and it almost sounded like she admired him.
"So he's doing well?" Rory asked, looking down at her hands and feeling the first strike of tears.
"Yeah, he's going to Chilton for summer school, and then starting his senior year in the fall," Lorelai told her, dropping the final bomb that she'd intended to keep until later.
"Jess is coming to Chilton?" Rory sputtered. Her jaw dropped.
"Yeah, he managed to impress them with his achievements," Lorelai said with a nod.
"Right," Rory said, nodding and rocking in her seat a little bit.
"Are you alright?" Lorelai said, noticing the rocking.
"Yeah, I'm fine, totally okay," she said, not noticing the rocking, or her mother's looks.
"Rory, do I need to stop?" she asked, carefully slowing down so she'd be able to stop in a second.
"No, go… please go, I just…need to get home," Rory said, shaking her head and trying to keep her body from trembling.
Lorelai pulled the speed up and got home with ten minutes shaved off their estimated time. When they got there, Lorelai ended up having to help her get into the house and into her room. The second that she got into her room, it was almost as though the familiar ground snapped her out of her latest lapse.
"I'm tired… I'm going to sleep," Rory told her, stumbling to her bed and falling asleep the second her head hit the pillow.
A knock on the door startled Lorelai from watching her daughter sleep a few hours later. She hadn't moved from the spot after changing her daughter and tucking her in. This would be the first time she was leaving Rory's room since she'd gotten into the room. She went to the door and opened it to see Jess standing there.
There was no other way to say it, he looked like shit. His hair was ruffled and sticking out at odd angles, his suit was rumpled and looked like he'd decided to sleep in it, even though it hadn't been any more than three hours since she'd last seen him.
"What are you doing here… and what happened to you?" she asked him, leaning against the doorframe so he couldn't get past her.
"I just… want to make sure that she's okay," Jess told her, running a hand through his hair again, pulling the gel apart again.
"Rory's fine, now what's the matter with you?" she asked him again, but he just stumbled down the stairs.
"I did this… I put her into this, and… I almost sent her back. I'm such an asshole!" he shouted. Lorelai closed the door gently behind her and walked down beside him, looking at him as he continued to ruin his hair.
"I won't disagree with you… what you did was stupid and cruel. Rory loves you, and you refusing to talk to her is destroying her. You need to stop this," Lorelai told him. She could literally see his walls building up as she spoke.
Getting angry, she grabbed his shoulder, turned him towards her, and slapped him, hard. Since Rory had gone under and she'd learnt of their conversation, she'd never really had this much contact with him. It was ironic that the first thing she did was smack him.
"Jess, snap out of this. You need to go see her, you need to apologize, and you need to help her. You're the only one who can," Lorelai scolded. It hurt that she had to admit his importance in her daughter's life.
"I don't know what to do," he told her after a few seconds. He was gathering, pulling string by string into his normal self. Soon he'd be Jess again. The cold bastard who'd ruined her daughter's teenage life.
"You need to figure out something to do, Jess. I can't help you," Lorelai told him. She then proceeded to stand up to go back inside.
"Thank you… I'm sorry," he said, turning slightly so that his voice would carry. Lorelai froze. The four words were nonexistent in Jess's world.
"Go home. I'll see you tomorrow, after work?" she asked him as he rose to his feet.
"Tomorrow… yeah," he replied, nodding and walking down the rest of the steps and down the driveway, back to town. Each step he took, she could see that he was gaining himself, turning back into Jess. It was a fascinating thing to observe. Not many people saw the softer side of Jess. Now she could see what it was that her daughter saw.
Beneath the crust, the steel door, he was just a boy trying to find himself. As she turned back to the door, she saw Rory's window shift and she stopped. Sighing, she opened the door and moved back into the house. She entered her daughter's room just in time to see her shifting back into her bed, in a mock of sleep. Rory had seen it all.
Lorelai had never known her daughter to be so attached to anyone, especially not so much that she'd actually retreat into her mind for three days, but Jess seemed to have a special place in her heart. It killed her that her place was being taken over, but there wasn't much she could do to help, except to try to accept Jess for who he was.
Moving into the kitchen, she sat down at the table and stared at Rory's door. The two of them were very different from Christopher and her. They weren't reckless and stupid. They were smart, calculated and careful. In the past three days, Jess had opened up more to her and her parents than he'd probably ever intended to, mostly for the sake of not being burnt at the stake. Still, Jess wasn't that bad of a kid, he was just messed up and Rory was one of, if not the, first person who'd ever told him that they loved him.
No matter how she looked at it, she couldn't see how they would work without one another. Rory seemed to go into shock any time Jess was mentioned and Jess had a tendency to freak out and bolt every time Rory was mentioned. It was obvious that they had issues, but every couple had issues. Sighing, she dragged herself to her feet, up the stairs, and to bed. She'd talk to Rory tomorrow, before Jess came, about what she heard.