Author's Note: Mwahahahahahahahaha this chapter's gonna show Jess's VERY VERY VERY protective streak when it comes to his Rory. CUUUUTEness. And some arguing. Keep the reviews comin', and I love the quotes and people's fav. moments. Keep 'em coming. If you haven't noticed, the more reviews, the faster I update. Read on!

Thought I'd give a special thanks to all my amazing reviewers:

imcck, Lynn, udon'tknowmebutiknowme, lillitgirlX2, dodger16, Aqua, mandababe10, topastra, krymsunkiss52, Jeremy Shane, Jason, hplbug, gracielou9291, Curley-Q, IAmNobodySpecial, bornagainvamp, gilmoreintraining, Literati44, gilmoresalwaysforever, Cila, Watergurl123, agiran, alicepractice, ArigatoKarateBaby, Nobody, Ashmonkey16, XxXDrama QueenXxX, Katie, and WilsonHope2.

Wow, that took awhile. Please read and review!

Three weeks had gone by since the reconciliation of Rory and Jess, and all seemed to be right with the world.

"Jess! Jeez, you are such a pig!" Rory laughed, leaning against him.

"What?" Jess said through a huge mouthful of licorice. The two were watching movies at 2 o'clock in the morning. Since their fight had ended, the two had spent even more time than usual with each other.

"You just stuffed- like - eight pieces of licorice in your mouth," she said.

"Says the queen of eating all things unhealthy," he replied, bumping his shoulder into hers playfully.

"Whatever," she said, resting her head on his shoulder and sighing in contentment.

Jess smiled and buried his face in her hair, wrapping his arms around her tightly. This is where he was supposed to be.

Rory was leaning up against her locker talking to Madeline, Louise, and Paris when Tristan made a sudden appearence.

"Mare, one date. One date, and I'll get out of your hair," he said to her. The other three girls moved stealthily away, leaving the two alone. Rory reminded herself to kill them later. She opened her mouth to tell him to go away, but found she couldn't say the words. She surprised herself even more, when, decided that speaking wasn't an option, her mouth closed and she involuntarily nodded her head in silent acceptance.

"Really?" Tristan said, clearly shocked.

"Yeah, sure," Rory said, trying to act nochalant, but secretly freaking out.

"Wow, well, ok, then," Tristan said, smiling. "I'll pick you up at 7?"

Rory nodded again and watched him walk away. What had she just done?

"Rory!" Jess yelled from across the street. Rory closed her eyes in defeat. She had been trying to make it home to talk to her mom and ask for advice before she saw Jess. She didn't have any clue how to tell him that she had a date tonight. "Hey, slow down," he said, running up to her and grabbing her arm.

"Oh, hey Jess," she smiled weakly and Jess's eyes narrowed.

"What?" he said.

"What, what?" was her oh-so-clever come-back.

"Are you ok, Rory?" he said, looking worried but somewhat amused at the same time.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I just have something I have to tell you," she said nervously.

"Yeah?" he said, confused.

"I- have- a date, tonight," she said, the words taking their time to get out of her mouth.

Jess felt as if a million knives were stabbing into his heart. If what Rory had felt walking in on him and Shane had felt even half as bad as this, he suddenly realized why she wouldn't speak to him all those weeks. But he didn't have any reason to be mad. She was telling him, wasn't she? That was a lot better than what he had done.

"Oh. Huh," Jess said.

"I'm sorry," Rory said meekly.

Jess forced a smile, but he was pretty sure that Rory could tell he was faking. "You don't have to be sorry."

"Yeah, I know, I just..." Rory trailed off. Jess grabbed her shoulers firmly and said,

"Just promise me one thing."

"Sure," Rory said, trying to guess where this was going.

"Promise me that we won't let this- guy- who, by the way, I must meet and approve of- come between us," Jess said. He was only partially joking about meeting Rory's date. He wanted to make sure whoever he was, he was good enough for her. Of course, that was probably impossible.

"Yeah, you can meet him, as long as you're on your best behavior. And- I promise he won't come between us. He's- been bugging me about going out with him for a while and I finally just said yes to shut him up. It'll probably just be a one time thing." she said quickly. She might have continued if Jess hadn't covered her mouth with his hand.

"Hey, relax. It's ok, you don't have to justify this to me," he said softly.

"Right, sorry... I'm just a little freaked out, here."

"Don't apologize."

"Right. I'm s-" she stopped when Jess gave her a pointed glare.

"I'm ss-starving? Let's go eat something," she said, grabbing Jess's hand and pulling him into the diner.

"What am I supposed to wear on a date with Tristan Dugrey?!" Rory screeched to her mother.

"Rory's got a date with a rich blonde Chilton boyyyy!" Lorelai sang.

"Mom! Really, really not helping, here."

"Right, sorry. Try this." And with the skilled eyes of a mother, Lorelai swooped into Rory's closet and pulled out the perfect first-date semi-casual/formal just in case outfit.

"How'd you do that?" Rory asked, shocked.

"I've been training for this day all my life," Lorelai asnswered swiftly. She appeared to be very aloof and care-free about the fact that her daughter was going on her first date tonight, but she couldn't help but be slightly disappointed. She had always thought that Jess would be her first date, her first boyfriend. But she supposed that maybe it was just because she knew and liked Jess that she had this wishful thinking. Tristan seemed like a nice boy from the few brief descriptions Rory had given her.

The doorbell rang.

"That's him!" Rory screeched. And so it began.

Turns out, this wasn't a one-time thing. In a three-week period, 21 days, Rory had gone out with Tristan a total of nine times, and she found herself enjoying it. Her relationship with Tristan didn't seem to have any effect of her and Jess's friendship, or atleast no effect that she could notice.

Jess noticed. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night she was with Tristan. During the day, they talked much as they always had, but something was different. Jess suddenly felt weird about hugging her and putting his arms around her. Was this forbidden now that she had a boyfriend? It was on the new couple's three week anniversary (not that they celebrated it, or anything,) that disaster struck.

Rory was walking around town at about 8:30, holding hands with her boyfriend. She still felt all giddy when she thought about actually having a boyfriend. Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, Tristan had spun her around and pressed her against a streetlamp, and started kissing her.

Rory giggled and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him in closer. The two remained like that, quite oblivious to the fact that they had an audience.

Jess, who had just run across the street to get something from Doose's, spotted the two making out on his way back to the diner. He felt sick when he recognized that that was his Rory and some other guy doing some major mouth-to-mouth. And in the middle of the town square, too. Rory didn't seem like the kind of person who would approve of PDA, but there they were.

When Rory and Tristan pulled apart, she noticed Jess walking slowly across the street and back into the diner.

"Jess!" she called out to him. She had post-poned the introduction between Tristan and Jess for long enough, and she figured that she might as well get it over with.

Tristan looked confused as Jess made is way slowly and uneasily towards them.

"Tris, there's someone I want you to meet," she said, smiling sweetly up at him. Tris? Jess quite possibly threw up in his mouth a little when he heard the sickly-sweet pet name.

"This is Jess, my best friend," Rory said.

Tristan fixed Jess with a subtle glare and shook the hand that he had offered. "Nice to meet you," Jess said after a few seconds of awkward silence. He was trying to be polite, but what he really wanted to do was punch this guy's lights out. He observed that the moment Jess had come over, Tristan's arm wrapped around her waist in a possessive manner, and Rory was obviously uncomfortable.

"Rory!" a call came from behind them, by Luke's Diner. All three heads whipped around to see Lane waving over frantically to her friend.

"Oh, will you guys excuse me for just one sec?" she smiled sweetly and untangled herself from Tristan's firm grip. As soon as she was out of earshot, Tristan started talking.

"So. You guys are best friends, huh?" Tristan said.

"That's right," Jess said, matching his somewhat menacing and threatening tone.

"Stay away, she's mine," Tristan said. Jess scoffed.

"Rory doesn't belong to anyone, Tristan," he spat his name out and continued. "And besides, I've known her longer. And I swear, if you hurt her in any way, I will personally find you and rip you to shreads."

Jess had somehow ended up directly in front of Tristan as he spoke. He noticed that Tristan had a good two inches on him, but he was still confidant that he could take him.

"Whatever, man," Tristan said. Just then, Rory came back over. Upon observing the very stiff and rigged postures of both the men present, she quickly tried to make the peace.

"Hey, were you boys playing nice?" she said, trying to joke, but feeling that her words were useless against the thick tension surrounding them.

"Hey, Mary, I should get you home," Tristan finally said. Mary? Jess wondered at the nickname.

"Yeah, um, that's probably best, I'll see you tomorrow, Jess?" Rory said.

"Yeah, sure, see ya," Jess said, turning and heading back into the diner.

As soon as Rory and Tristan continued walking toward Rory's house, Tristan began:

"Rory, I don't want you hanging out with that guy," he said.

"Excuse me?" Rory's eyebrows raised in disbelief. He couldn't possibly be jealous of Jess? "Why is that?"

"Well... when you were gone... he sort of... threatened me," Tristan was playing up the unsuspecting victim in the situation, though he knew he had provoked Jess into saying what he had.

"He... he threatened you?" Rory asked, shocked.

"Yeah, he said all this stuff about staying away from you, that he was going to hurt me if I did anything to you," Tristan said. "And, I mean I guess it was great that he was worried about you getting hurt, but I don't know what I did to make him hate me."

Rory looked pissed, and Tristan knew he had won. "I'll make sure to set him straight about this, Tris. That was so- ugh, how could he do that to me?" Now the anger had faded somewhat and she looked more upset than anything else. By this time, they had gotten to Rory's house and Tristan kissed her softly before speaking again.

"Nevermind, Mare, it's ok, I guess I'm just asking you to be careful, ok?" Rory smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek before entering her house. She rolled her eyes at Tristan's insistance on calling her Mary, considering that she still hated the nick-name. But she was too sweet to ever tell him that. Then, her mind turned to the bigger problem at hand. Jess. Had he really threatened Tristan? Jeez, he was over-protective. And what gave him the right to- Rory wheeled around and marched back out the front door.

She wasn't going to take this from him. She had done nothing wrong. The bell above the diner rang as she stepped in. It was empty except for Luke, who, upon seeing Rory, informed her that Jess was upstairs if she wanted to talk to him. Rory thanked him and marched up the stairs. Without bothering to knock, she swung the door open and walked angrily up to Jess, who was laying on the couch reading.

"Some best friend you are," was her opening statement. Jess closed his book and looked up at her, shocked.

"What?" he said, unable to form any other coherant statement.

"Did you threaten Tristan?" she demanded.

"Well... Rory, listen, he told me to stay away from you and I..."

"Just answer. Did you tell him you would hurt him if he did anything to me?"

"Well, yeah, but..."

"God!" Rory reached for a pillow and threw it at him, hard. "I can't believe this! Tristan is an amazing boyfriend, and I care a lot about him. I thought that maybe, just maybe my best friend could be happy for me, but it sounds like that's too much to ask."

"Whoa, Rory, hold on a sec, let me explain-"

"I don't need you to explain Jess. Just- don't talk to me," Rory said, the tears building up in the back of her eyes as she stormed back out of the room. Why was she so upset? What Jess had done was bad, but not that bad... she guessed it was because she had been thinking this whole time that Jess supported her and her decision to date Tristan, and then it turned out that it wasn't true.

Jess flopped down on his bed, his eyes screwed tightly shut. Things had just gotten back to normal, how had he screwed it up already?

AN: Ok, please put your favorite quote/moment in your review, and don't give up hope! Rory and Jess WILL BE TOGETHER!

Just by the way, in the show I actually kind of liked Tristan and him calling Rory "Mary" and everything, but I'm getting tired of using Dean as the bad-guy (even though I hate him) so I needed someone else, and I'm too lazy to create my own character. Yeah. So, just, review please!