A/N: Thanks to those still reading and reviewing on this story, even though I drop the ball and don't update it quite as quickly as I should because of my other two ongoing GG fics (mostly Hard Reset!). I really apreciate the support, folks :)
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 16
They had all come back to Stars Hollow for Thanksgiving and a family dinner was planned at the Crap Shack. Luke was cooking, Lorelai was 'helping' (read: getting in Luke's way), whilst Rory stretched out on the couch watching the Macy's parade with Paris' sarcastic commentary. Jess had been there, briefly, and then Luke made a big deal about a utensil he had forgotten to bring over and Jess offered to go fetch it. Somehow, after an hour, he still wasn't back.
"You think he's okay?" asked Rory, frowning hard.
"Relax, Gilmore," Paris told her. "Jess is a big boy, he doesn't need help crossing the street. He probably just got talking to someone, or distracted by a book in the apartment. You know how he is."
Rory knew Paris was probably right, but she wasn't happy. She had hoped when they finally came home for Thanksgiving, she and Jess would get to spend some real quality time together, something they seemed to struggle to do at Yale. It wasn't that she objected to also seeing more of her mom and Luke, or that she minded seeing ever more of Paris either, but Jess was Rory's priority right now, and it was really starting to seem as if she wasn't his.
No sooner had Rory started to get antsy about the whole situation, then Jess returned, potato ricer in hand. He gave no excuse for where he had been, just offered to take Lorelai's place in the kitchen and help with the rest of the dinner prep. Lorelai joined the girls on the couch and they all made fun of whatever people they could find on TV until dinner was finally ready.
It was a nice family dinner, good food, good conversation, and everybody with plenty to be thankful for. Rory found a lot to smile about, but her heart wasn't truly in the happy feeling of the day, truth be told. She really wished she could talk to Jess alone, but that didn't seem likely to happen yet.
"That was amazing, Luke," said Jess when he'd eaten all he could. "Thanks."
"Hey, you helped," his uncle reminded him.
Lorelai cleared her throat loudly in protest.
"You... were also there," said Luke diplomatically.
"Meh, true enough," Lorelai acquiesced, leaning back further in her chair. "Wow, am I ever full?"
"It was a delicious meal, Luke," Paris told him. "I mean, it was pretty obvious the cranberry sauce came out of a can, but you can't be expected to do everything," she said, patting his arm.
"Thank you, Paris," he replied, unable to even care that it was kind of a backhanded compliment - he was well used to Paris' ways by now.
"I think I'm gonna take a walk," said Jess, getting up suddenly.
"A walk? Seriously?" asked Rory, sure she looked as confused as she felt.
"Sure." Jess nodded. "You wanna come with?"
Rory's mouth opened and closed twice without any sound coming out. She looked at Luke, her mom, Paris, and none of them seemed to think it was a strange request. It was to Rory, but she wasn't about to argue. After all, she had been looking to get some alone time with Jess for too long now, and here he was offering her the chance. As much as her full stomach would probably prefer she stay put, Rory wasn't listening. She wanted to go, and she was going.
"I'll get my coat," she said, heading for her room.
She missed the significant look that passed between Jess and the rest of the assembled family when her back was turned. If Rory had seen it, she might not have been quite so confused about this unexpected walk she and Jess were suddenly going on.
"So," she said as they stepped out onto the porch, both bundled up against the cold.
"So," he echoed, reaching an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. "Let's walk."
They set off down the driveway and then turned onto the street. They walked in companionable silence, Rory happily leaning into Jess' embrace, her arm sliding around his waist as they went. It was cold out, but neither of them was really feeling it. They were keeping each other warm.
"This is nice," said Rory after a while, just as they reached the town square. "I feel like it's been a lifetime since we were just alone together."
"I know," Jess agreed. "Which is most of the reason for the walk," he admitted. "Yale has been kind of crazy. I feel like I hardly see you, and when I do, Paris is there, or Marty, or a hundred other people. We're hardly ever home at the same time, and when we are, there's Luke or your mom, or Paris again. It's not that I don't want to be around them-"
"It's just sometimes it's nice to be alone," said Rory, looking up at him with a smile she couldn't help.
"Exactly," Jess agreed. "Come on."
He urged Rory to keep walking, crossing the street to where the diner stood, closed up for the rest of the day thanks to the holiday. Jess' arm slipped from around Rory's shoulders and he fished in his pocket for his keys.
"What are you doing?" she asked, frowning some.
"Well, there's a key in my hand and I'm headed for a lock," he told her, smirking hard. "I'll let you fill in the blanks from there."
"I thought we were walking."
"We walked, now we're going inside for a while."
"But... Jess!"
Rory followed him into the diner, though she was confused as to why. Before she had a chance to ask any further questions, Jess was disappearing behind the curtain and she had to hurry to catch up. They headed up the stairs one behind the other, and then Jess stopped abruptly, causing Rory to almost crash right into him by the door to the apartment.
"What is going on?" she asked him, looking puzzled still.
Jess didn't say a word, just wore a smirk she knew too well and opened the apartment door, gesturing for Rory to go on in. She turned and entered the room, gasping in shock at the set-up that met her eyes.
"Jess, what is this?"
"This is a long overdue date," he told her simply, moving around her and further into the apartment. "There was no point in me cooking you dinner, since we already ate the world's supply of turkey and pumpkin pie, but I got movies, snacks for later, all the best music on the stereo," he explained, turning it on to prove his point. "It's nothing special, but it's someplace to be alone together for a while. Luke's pretty much living with your mom now, so he has no problem with us hanging here as much as we want this weekend."
Rory felt stupid as she realised why her vision was blurring. Tears were filling her eyes and she couldn't help it at all. Running at Jess, she flung her arms around him, kissing him long and hard on the lips.
"This is wonderful," she told him moments later, the two of them still holding each other close. "Jess, I love it, and I love you."
"I love you too," he promised her, the truth of it showing in his eyes as he gazed at her. "I just thought we could use some time, just you and me."
"Definitely," she agreed. "It feels like forever since we went out together, and probably longer since we... stayed in together," she said pointedly.
"Not gonna lie, the thought had occurred to me," he admitted.
Rory pushed her body ever closer to his, fingers running through his hair.
"Y'know, I just thought of a really great way to burn off all that food we ate."
"Oh, yeah?" asked Jess, unable to keep the smirk off his lips, at least until Rory started kissing him and backing him towards the bed.
"I think it'll do them good, a little alone time," said Paris to Luke as they sat in the living room together, not really watching whatever junk was on TV. "Of course, there should be a lot more to a romantic relationship than just sex, but the physicalities of these things have to be taken into consideration. I mean, you're a man of the world, Luke, you know this."
"Sure, sure," he said absently, clearly not hearing a word.
Paris frowned and sat up from her formerly relaxed position. Her eyes flitted to the stairs, up which Lorelai had headed a few minutes before. She needed to sleep off some of the turkey and all, or so she said. Paris wished she could be more certain Rory's mom was truly asleep before she broached the next topic with Luke.
"So, you and Lorelai," she said in a low voice, just in case. "Everything okay there?"
"What?" asked Luke, clearly started by the question. "Of course, everything is okay, Paris. Lorelai and I are engaged."
"Hey, my parents were married and we all know what happened there. Your sister and my father, same thing. A ring does not guarantee a happily ever after, especially not in this day and age," said Paris easily. "Come on, Luke, tell me your problems. God knows, you don't have anyone else to talk to, and the last thing I want is for you and Lorelai to become another divorce statistic. That's if you ever make it down the aisle..."
"Paris!" Luke half-yelled, not at all happy about what she was implying, probably because he was so worried she might be right. The moment he remembered that Lorelai was upstairs and probably barely half-asleep, he moderated his tone. "Nothing is wrong, not really," he said then. "I mean, I don't think so anyway. It's just... Lorelai is a little distant lately. We had this fight, when Rory and Jess had their not-a-break-up thing," he explained, "but we figured it out, I thought we were fine, but..."
"She's distant," Paris supplied. "Well, I'm probably stating the obvious here, but did you try asking her if anything was wrong?"
"Of course, I did." Luke rolled his eyes. "Lorelai says she's fine, she's just stressed out with all the arrangements for the new inn. It's the same thing that she says when I ask if she wants to move forward with the wedding arrangements. Honestly, that part bothers me more."
"Come on, Danes, you can't seriously think she wants to back out of marrying you," said Paris, taking her turn at an eye-roll then. "She asked you to marry her, remember? Not the other way around."
"I know that, but she's just different lately."
"Yeah, distant, you said that already," said Paris with a sigh. "Well, are you keeping her satisfied in the bedroom?"
"We have no problems there, thank you," said Luke quickly. "It's not that."
"Okay, okay." Paris held her hands up in mock surrender. "Well, maybe she is just run off her feet with the new inn. You try taking some of the work off her hands? I mean, there must be something you can help out with."
"I wouldn't know where to start, honestly, but I guess I could ask," Luke considered. "Thanks, Paris."
"No problem, man," she told him with a smile before turning her attention back to the television.
It took Luke a moment to realise that he had just taken relationship advice from Paris Geller, willingly and without argument. Quite honestly, he had missed talking to her the last few weeks, after becoming so used to her company over the summer. He was smiling as he sat back in the chair and settled in to watch TV in decent company for a while.
"Yep, it has definitely been too long since we did that," said Rory, struggling to catch her breath for a moment. "How were we so dumb as to forget how good that was?"
"I didn't forget," said Jess definitely, kissing her shoulder and pulling the covers higher over their entwined bodies. "I missed you, Ror."
"I missed you too," she told him, snuggling closer. "I didn't know it was possible to miss somebody so much when you saw them practically every day, but it is."
They lay in silence a while, bodies humming from the experience of making love after too long without, passion sated, hearts full and happy. In some ways, maybe it was worth the absence from each other's lives and each other's beds. Maybe that was what made today so good. Still, neither Rory nor Jess ever wanted to be parted in any way ever again.
"These last few weeks... I don't want things to be like that anymore," said Rory thoughtfully. "I know we both have a lot going on, and Yale is going to keep us busy for a long time yet, but we have to be better at making time for us."
"Agreed," said Jess, holding her close. "From now on, we make space in the schedule, no matter what."
"That's a deal," said Rory, turning her head to kiss him soundly on the lips.
When she pulled back she found Jess looking at her in a strange way she couldn't quite figure out.
"Jess?"
"I have to tell you something," he confessed, worrying Rory more than he should perhaps. "I kind of have this secret. It wasn't supposed to be one, not really, I just... I don't know, I didn't get a chance to tell you at first and then when I did... I don't know, I just didn't."
"What kind of secret?" asked Rory warily.
Jess wasn't sure how to explain, and so he didn't, at least not in words. Hopping out of bed, he moved across the room and went rifling through his bag that was dumped in the far corner. Rory watched him, partly curious about what was going on, partly just enjoying the view, if she were honest. A minute later, Jess came hurrying back to her, hopping under the covers beside her, shivering from cold.
"So, you know Ms Fuller, the English professor?"
"If she's your secret, I'm not sure I want to know," said Rory, teasing him, and he knew it.
"She had us write a short story for class, and apparently, mine was impressive."
"You're a great writer," Rory told him easily. "I know this already."
"Yeah, well, I didn't," Jess admitted. "At least, it never occurred to me that I was 'write a novel' good, not until she said it."
Rory's eyes shifted to the legal pad she could now see grasped in Jess' hands. It was covered in his very familiar handwriting, pages and pages of it, she realised, as he flipped through to show her.
"This is... You're writing a novel?" she gasped.
"I'm writing kind of a long story," Jess corrected her. "I guess you could call it a novel, but I'm pretty sure it only becomes one of those if it's published, which it probably never will be," he explained, "but yeah, I'm kind of writing it anyway, and the thing is... I love it."
Rory's eyes were wide as saucers when she looked up from the pad to meet Jess' gaze. He looked so happy, almost excited about this. She hadn't seen that look in too long. Yale didn't seem to enthuse him at all. It wasn't his dream, not like it was for Rory and Paris, but this story, this potential novel, it had him practically giddy.
"Jess, this is amazing," she told him honestly. "So amazing."
"Read it first before you get too jazzed," he advised, moving down under the covers some more and encouraging her to do the same before they both froze to death.
"I can read it?" she checked.
"Sure," Jess told her, nodding his head. "Actually, I want you to. Just promise not to edit too harshly okay?"
"You want me to edit it?"
"Well, I'm not about to ask Paris. As much as I love her, I'd actually like some of my manuscript left when the process is over."
"Wow," said Rory then, eyes already skimming the first page. "I can't wait to get started. I knew you could do something like this, Jess, I just knew. Your writing is so good, I always told you that."
"I know that you did," he agreed, basking in the glow of her pride in him and love for him at the same time, "but articles for The Franklin weren't really my thing. Honestly? I'm probably going to talk to Doyle about dropping out of the Yale Daily News too."
"Oh, well, I understand that," said Rory sadly. "I do wish you were going to be there with me and Paris, but if it's not what you want to do, I can deal."
Jess leaned in closer and kissed her lips. He really appreciated her not making a big deal about his dropping out of the paper. Paris was bound to, but at least he didn't have to fight with Rory about it.
"Hey, don't start reading now," he said, pulling the pad from her hands when he realised Rory was already at the bottom of the first page. "I had other plans for today."
"Other plans?" she echoed, even as he took the story away from her. "What kind of other plans?" she asked, wide eyed in fake innocence.
"Well, it is Thanksgiving," said Jess, pulling her body closer, "and I promise you'll be feeling all kinds of thankful in the next few minutes."
Rory wasn't surprised to find he was absolutely right about that.
To Be Continued...
