DISCLAIMER: I do not own Gilmore Girls.

AUTHOR: Hehe, had so much fun making my Halloween costume I almost for got to post this chapter. Thanks for all the reviews on chapter 8. You are the best! Enjoy!


Chapter 9 – "I did not sleep with Jess!"

Lorelai's eyes fluttered open at the sound of Jess calling her name. Something in his voice alerted her to trouble downstairs and she scrambled out of bed in a hurry. Bedclothes flying everywhere as she rose. Her maternal instinct got her thinking of Clara and the drama from the night before. She feared the little girl had fallen ill again. Coming down the stairs, Lorelai was surprised to find Clara peacefully asleep on the couch. No signs of being ill at all. Instead the drama was in the hallway.

Jess stood at the front door. Shirtless, barefoot and hair pointing in all directions. The sweatpants hung low on his hips, revealing the colorful elastic band of his underwear. Lorelai let her eyes linger on the soft pale skin for a brief moment before she forced her eyes to climb up to Jess face. His eyes read desperation. A quiet plead for help. When Lorelai shifted her attention to the person standing in the door behind him, Lorelai understood his reaction.

Crap!

"Mom, what are you doing here?" The stutter came out shrill and shrieky, an unflattering noise that make even a saint sound guilty. Lorelai would have made a face at herself if her mother had been scrutinizing her at that very moment, not that it would have made a difference. The look on Emily's face told Lorelai her mother wasn't pleased with what she saw. Her mother threw Jess a quick glance as if to confirm something she had already been suspecting.

"I came to invite you to a spa day at the country club. The DAR celebrates international women's day by inviting all the members and their daughters to a luxurious spa treatment. Your father was been bugging me all day yesterday, insisting that I should apologize and make amends for the things I told you at the diner party. So, here I am. Though I wouldn't have come if I knew you had..." Emily glanced at Jess again with a very disapproving look. "… company!"

Lorelai wanted to sink through the floor. She knew perfectly well how this must look to her mother. Her and Jess alone in the house on a Sunday morning. Neither of them properly dressed and with tousled hair. Jess with swollen nipples... Wait, what? Lorelai blinked and had to look again to make sure she hadn't imagine it. Why was Jess' nipples swollen and sore?

Oh, god! Lorelai's eyes widened in horror as the realization struck her. Her mother must think She had done that to Jess. An indubitable evidence of a very busy night.

"It's not what you think!" Lorelai blurted out in desperation. Jess must have sensed what had caused her reaction for he quickly covered himself by crossing his arms in front of him.

"Oh? And what do I think?" Emily asked coldly, silently demanding an explanation for this scandalous behavior.

Lorelai had to think fast. This was so not how she had pictured this morning to turn out. She had imagined a quiet, peaceful morning snoozing in bed while Jess and Clara got ready to head back to the diner. By the time Lorelai came downstairs they would be on their way out or better, already gone. The morning she had imagined, had not thrown awkwardness and humiliation her way. To cut it short, she had pictured a morning completely opposite to what this one had become.

Why of all mornings had her mother chosen this one to throw her a spontaneous visit? Had Lorelai done something yesterday to offend someone up above? If she had she surely hoped they were having a good laugh right now. Otherwise, this was so not worth it.

Knowing very well how her fight with her mother usually went, Lorelai knew she didn't want Jess to become a witness to one. Whatever she felt towards him, there was no doubt the boy had suffered enough from dysfunctional families to not deserve having to sit through this one.

"Jess, could you...?" Lorelai began, but the words failed her. Jess, however, understood what she wanted to say.

"Evaporate?" he suggested and smiled relieved. "Gladly."

He wasted no time getting away from them. Lorelai waited until he was gone to the kitchen before she turned to her mother.

"Porch. Now!"

Before Emily could open her mouth to make a protest, Lorelai shoved her mother out through the door, grabbing a coat to cover her half dressed body with on the way out.

"Don't push me, Lorelai. I can walk myself. There is no need to use force," complained her mother.

Lorelai bit back a snotty reply and used the energy to wrap her coat tightly around her body instead. It was a chilly morning. Goosebumps turned the skin on her arms and legs rough. Suddenly she was glad she had brought the coat with her. It was bad enough her mother had already jumped to the wrong conclusions about Jess' stay. Lorelai didn't need to add extra fuel to fire by trying to explain the real reason with nipples hard as rocks from the cold underneath the silky nightclothes. It would hardly improve the credibility of what she was trying to say.

"Jess and I," Lorelai began stuttering, "it's not what you think..."

She was cut off by her mother.

"What do you think you are doing with that boy, Lorelai? Have you no shame? He is only a boy!" Before Lorelai could had a chance to defend herself, Emily continued: "Here I came hoping to put the Friday's tedious dispute behind us, and what do I find? My own daughter in bed with a boy half her age. It's scandalous!"

"It's not like that, mom!" Lorelai folded her arms underneath her chest. . .

"Then tell me what it is because I honestly don't understand this. Have men your age become too hard to come by these days? Is it too much trouble for you to find yourself your own man, is that why you have gone back to high school and picked up one of your daughter's ex-boyfriends? Frankly, I think you picked up the wrong one. That other boy was much nicer than this one. I don't know what Rory saw in him, but I guess like mother, like daughter. Thank god, at least Rory grew out of it. You certainly haven't." Emily sighed shook her head. "How old is this boy? Does his mother even know he's out?"

"Jess is 21, mom," defended Lorelai herself. "And I didn't pick him up!"

Lorelai tried to put extra emphasis on the last words to let her mother know how ridiculous the accusations were. Unfortunately, Emily chose to misinterpret.

"Ah, so you let yourself get swooned by a hormonal teenager? Well, that makes it alright then!" Emily rolled her in the dismissive way only Emily Gilmore could. "My daughter - Stars Hollow's very own cougar. I can already hear the ladies gossip about it at the club."

"I did not sleep with Jess, mom." Wow, wasn't that six words Lorelai never thought she would hear herself way. "Jess needed a place to crash for the night so I offered him one. That's all!"

Again she found herself speaking to deaf ears.

"I don't know where you father and I went wrong with you upbringing. Was it the good schools? The pretty clothes? The Barbie dolls we got you every single birthday until you were twelve? Please, tell me for I am clueless. Is this revenge for not giving you the Ken Barbie doll for your tenth birthday?"

"I did not sleep with Jess!" Lorelai could feel herself loosing the battle over the situation. How had it become like this?

"There now, Lorelai, there is no need to get wind up. I might be old, but I'm neither deaf nor senile. I remember what it was like to be young and full life."

Lorelai snorted. "Like what? When the dinosaurs walked the earth and you still had hormones?"

Emily gave her an angry glare.

"Don't be rude! It's not my fault you've been caught in a compromising situation; sauntering about in a. . . what do you even call this thing?" Emily motioned towards the silky top peaking out from underneath Lorelai's coat. "Cloth of lust? Seriously, you should go and put on something more decent. I don't care if women buy these. . . cloths. . . to spice things up between the sheets, but it's not appropriate wear it outside the bedroom. Especially not for women your age. What will the neighbours think?"

"Women my age," Lorelai repeated and felt the whole force of the insult hit her in the gut. "Gee, thanks mom. I'll remember that one. Now I feel so much better about myself."

Lorelai shot her mother a killing look.

"Have you ever considered that I would not be standing out here dressed like this if you hadn't shown up on my doorstep? Seriously, what are you even doing here this early? It's 7 am in the morning. Normal people sleeps at this hour."

"I am not going to spoil a perfectly good day by staying in bed like the normal people, as you call them." Emily was offended. "I had plans to make this a fun day at the club. I apologize that I was naive enough to think that you might enjoy it to. Clearly, we have very different views of fun!"

Lorelai bit back the urge to scream and settled for a low growl.

"For the last time, mom - I did not sleep with Jess!"

"You keep saying that, but the evidence states otherwise."

When Emily made a gesture towards Lorelai's clothes, Lorelai had it. The frustration burned to hot the blood in her veins boiled. She had signed up for this when she agreed to help Luke yesterday. This wasn't fair. At all!

"Jess is visiting Luke, but his daughter - oh yes, he has a daughter now - got sick last night so Luke asked me to take them in to not risk contaminating the diner. Jess and Clara slept on the couch while I stayed upstairs. Jess has no shirt on because Clara threw up on him and he forgot to bring a spare. I am wear this 'cloth of lust' because I haven't bothered to the laundry, so this happens to the only thing I've got left to out on. And because it freakin' 7 am in the morning and sensible people are asleep!"

Her mother stood quiet for a time after that. Her eyes had grown wide during Lorelai's outburst and now they threaten to pop.

"That boy is a father?" Emily said at last.

Lorelai drew a sigh of relief. She had managed to convince her mother.

"Yes, a baby girl."

As if to help her prove her point, Clara gave up a loud cry. The two Gilmore women watched through the window, Jess hurry to return to the living room to tend to his daughter. He had put on the T-shirt and jeans from last night, now fresh and clean but probably not entirely dry yet.

Lorelai felt a warm fuzzy feeling coming from the inside her stomach and spreading out through her limbs, as she watched Jess cuddle his daughter back to joy. They were so cute together.

"But he is so young," whispered Emily next to her. "Who's the mother?"

"Some girl called Stella. She's dead, I'm afraid. Cancer."

"Oh!"

For once in her life, Emily didn't know what to say so they kept watching the young father and his daughter in silence. There was something so serene and beautiful, yet tragic at the same time, about the scene. Lorelai wondered what kind of girl Stella had been. Surely she must have been something extraordinary to be able to turn a messed up kid like Jess around and turn him into such a devoted parent.

Jess suddenly looked up and caught them both staring at him. He adjusted his grip around Clara to be able to motion to them to come inside.

"I've made coffee," he told them through the glass.

Blushing, both Gilmore girls did as they were told. Jess came to greet them in the hallway.

"Mrs Gilmore, there is someone I'd like you to meet. This is my daughter Clara."

Lorelai watched the expression in her mother's face change when Jess placed Clara in Emily's arms. The strict tension around Emily's eyes and mouth, the tension that always seemed so condescending to Lorelai, disappeared and a smile started to grow in it's stead. It was a genuine smile, one that Lorelai had only seen on scarse occasions. One of those time had been when Lorelai had drawn her mother a picture when she was little. One of the few time she could remember her mother being proud of her.

Clara didn't mind being placed in the care of a stranger. She cooed and looked at Emily with beaming, wondrous eyes. In her five-months head, Emily was something ravishing.

Lorelai caught Jess' eyes over Clara's head and mouthed a silent 'thank you'. She didn't know how much he had heard of the argument (probably everything!), but she would be forever grateful to him for using his own daughter as an olive branch between Lorelai and her mother. Perhaps her mother would be proud of her for helping a young father and his daughter out in a time of need, despite 'cloths of lust' and all.