A/N: Glad you all got a kick out of Paris & Luke last chapter! lol It was fun to write. Of course, there was much joy at Rory/Jess getting back on track too, which was no surprise to me at all ;) So, 'what next?' I hear you ask. Read on to find out! :)
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 17
When Thanksgiving was over, Rory, Jess, and Paris all returned to Yale, and time seemed to start flying by, but the important thing was that Rory and Jess made time for each other. Of course, they tried not to abandon Paris into the bargain, but she seemed to have her own stuff going on most of the time anyway, so she didn't mind much that Rory and Jess were, in her words, 'as sickeningly in love as ever.'
They made sure to see each other every day, if not at lunch then between classes, or sometimes in the evening for a real date of some kind. One particularly busy day, they had even settled for studying alongside each other in the library. Well, Rory studied, Jess worked on his novel.
Weekends they made sure to meet up too, either at Yale or at home in the Hollow. It was nice to realise that after all that intense being together they were not sick of the sight of each other. Honestly, it was a revelation to both Rory and Jess to realise quite how much they had missed each other before. The other nice thing, Jess thought, was that the name'Huntzberger' wasn't even mentioned. They saw him a couple of times at the Daily News office, but he made no move to talk to Rory or start anything with Jess. Hopefully, that particular chapter of their lives was over and done with.
Today was the first day that Rory and Jess would not physically be able to see each other, and in an attempt not to drift apart at all, they were substituting a face-to-face meeting with a phone call. Rory was in her room, buried under her books so she could get through all the work that seemed to have ganged up on her, and Jess was headed back from class to his dorm too.
"I cannot believe that you literally live with Paris and you didn't get around to asking her about Christmas yet," he said, navigating around first a couple making out in the hall, and then a student carrying way too many books at one time. "How is it possible that you haven't seen her?"
"I've seen her," Rory admitted, "but very briefly. I don't know, she seems to be out a lot lately. I did make sure she knew that she didn't have to do that on our account, but she said that's not it. She just has a social life, apparently."
"Paris? My sister? A social life? I'm not buying," said Jess definitely.
"Well, she has something or somebody that she's going to all of the time," Rory assured him. "She's not here now, and I can't see that anything's moved since she left early this morning."
"Huh."
"So, you'll try to track her down and talk to her about Christmas? I know she's Jewish and everything, but she has to spend the holiday somewhere, and Mom and Luke said she's always welcome at ours."
"I will try to get a hold of her when I can," Jess promised, "but right now I'm back in my building and I really need to see Doyle about the paper."
"Right, sure," Rory agreed, sounding just a little sad.
Jess tried not to notice as he said his goodbyes for now and hung up the phone. The truth was he just couldn't stick with the Yale Daily News anymore. He didn't really have the time for it, and he couldn't be bothered to make that time, especially not now he was working on his novel most of the time. He gave it a few more weeks, partly to more easily spend extra time with Rory, and partly for Paris' sake, but now he had to make a sacrifice somewhere and the paper was it.
Walking right past his own dorm, he went up to his RA's door and knocked. After a couple of minutes, he figured nobody was going to answer, and with a sigh, moved to leave. Jess stopped when he then heard movement behind the door, hushed voices and clattering around. Then suddenly the door opened and there was Doyle, shirtless and barefoot, looking kind of panicked, a look that only seemed to increase when he saw Jess.
"Hey, man," he said, leaning into the door jamb a little and presumably trying to be cool (which he failed at spectacularly). "You need something?"
"Kind of, yeah," said Jess, nodding his head, "but if this is a bad time, I can-"
"No, it's not a bad time. It's a fine time. As your RA, I am always here for you. What's up?"
He rattled it all out so fast, Jess was one hundred percent sure that it definitely wasn't fine, but he figured he may as well say what he came to say and get it over with. The part of him that was slightly concerned that Doyle would argue the point of his leaving the paper was relieved to realise he was very unlikely to now, because he clearly had something, or possibly even someone, he would rather be doing.
"Er, it's the paper," he said, running a hand back through his hair. "Honestly, I only signed up because Rory and Paris really wanted me to. It's not my thing, and I have a lot of other stuff going on now, so I'm out."
"Well, that's fine," said Doyle, nodding his head. "Freshman are free to drop out whenever, so long as they don't have any assignments outstanding or anything."
"Which I don't," Jess confirmed.
"Which you don't, so hey, you're free to go!" said Doyle, grinning just a little overly much.
"Okay then," said Jess, deciding now really was the time to go. "So, I'll just-"
"Doyle, what the hell are you doing?" said a voice that Jess knew far too well.
His head was already spinning at the prospect of what was happening before Paris ever wrenched the door open wider and peered out at him.
"Aaw, geez!" he declared, realising how under-dressed she was, and immediately turning away. "I do not need to know about this!" he added for good measure, striding away to his dorm room.
"Jess!" Paris yelled behind him.
He pretended not to hear, it was easier that way.
"Hey, Jess," Marty greeted him from the couch. "You okay?"
"Never been better," he dead-panned, slamming into his bedroom.
"Conversation with him is getting tougher," said Marty to himself, going back to his textbook.
He read all of a paragraph or two when a knocking started up on the door. He looked to Jess' room but realised he wasn't coming out, so Marty got up to answer it himself. An agitated Paris burst in the moment he opened the door, yelling Jess' name rather too close to Marty's ear for comfort.
"You ever get that feeling like you're just a secondary character in someone else's story?" he asked himself, rolling his eyes and taking himself off to his own room.
"Your room-mate has started talking to himself," said Paris as she slammed into Jess' bedroom.
"Oh, yeah? Well, my sister has lost her mind and started sleeping with my RA, so what are you gonna do?" he told her crossly.
"So, having an active sex life means I've lost my mind now?" asked Paris.
The look on Jess' face was a picture.
"Okay, first of all, please, for the love of God, never mention that you have a sex life in front of me ever again," he told her. "Second of all, it's not as if I thought you were gonna become a nun after you broke up with Jamie, or that I have any right to tell you who you can or can't date, but I thought you had better taste and judgement than to jump into bed with Doyle McMaster!"
"What is wrong with Doyle? He happens to be a nice guy."
"I never said he wasn't."
"So, what's the problem?"
Jess didn't have an answer for that one, no snappy comeback, nothing. The truth was, Doyle was a nice guy. A bit of a weirdo sometimes, but some of the best people were a little unhinged. Paris' first impression of the guy was solely based on his height, but he figured that wasn't a factor when they were doing what they'd been doing, and wow, Jess so wished he hadn't gone down that road in his head.
"Paris, I just... Just be careful, okay?" he said eventually, not even looking at her when he did so.
"Define careful," she demanded rather than asked, in a way only Paris could, "because the last thing I need from you is a safe sex talk."
"I don't mean... Just be careful, okay?" he tried again, making himself meet her eyes this time.
It wasn't about the pregnancy scare from before, or even specifically about Doyle. This was Jess pulling the protective brother routine, and as much as Paris wanted to be mad at him for it, there was just no way she could. It was actually really cool that he cared about her like that, even if she never did quite feel she'd gotten used to it.
"I know what I'm doing," she promised, in a more reasonable tone.
"Yeah? So, how come you kept it all a secret?" asked Jess, tilting his head as he stared at her. "If you're so sure what you and McMaster are doing is what you want, how come I don't know about it? How come Rory doesn't know?"
"Because I... I wasn't sure," she admitted then, sinking down to sit beside him on the edge of the bed. "You know the only guy I ever dated was Jamie, and how worried I was that I'd never meet another guy that I could... that would want me for me. Doyle and I, it wasn't a plan. I didn't look at him and see hearts and hear The Carpenters singing 'Close to You,' she explained, watching her own fingers lace and unlace in her lap. "We just talked a lot, first about the paper, and then about other stuff. I'd stay late at the newspaper office and not even notice how long we'd been talking. He lets me rant about things and he usually agrees with me, but honestly? When he doesn't, it's almost more fun," she admitted, with a smile she couldn't help.
"Yeah, I get that," said Jess, nodding his head. "Why'd you think I talk up Hemingway so much in front of Rory?"
"I think that was part of the problem too," Paris admitted then. "You and Rory. You're so perfect together. I know you've had problems, but in the end, you always figure them out. You're like this perfect couple, and when things happened with me and Doyle, I don't know, I just felt like what I had could never measure up to what you guys have, so why tell you? Why embarrass myself in front of two of the only people in the world with opinions of me that actually matter?"
She hugged herself and turned her face away, not on the verge of tears or anything as girly as that, but hurting, feeling bad, because of Jess. He hated to think that he had caused that, no matter how much he hadn't meant to.
"Paris, me and Rory... you can't compare us to you and Jamie or you and Doyle or whoever else you choose to date. It's never gonna be the same. It's not supposed to be."
"I know," she admitted, glancing back at him. "I guess even the smartest people can be dumb sometimes."
"I guess so," said Jess, nodding his head, "but can you say it again when I have some kind of voice recorder running, because I really wanna be able to prove you said that."
Paris laughed when he did, shoving Jess so hard in the shoulder that he almost tipped over, mostly because he hadn't expected it. It was cool though, to see her smiling and laughing. For a minute there, he really thought she was going to cry, and that would've sucked.
"So, you and Doyle."
"Me and Doyle," she confirmed, "and it is more than sex, for the record. I actually really like him, and he seems to like me too," she said, with the kind of girlish smile hardly ever seen on the face of Paris Geller.
"That's cool, sis," Jess told her. "You're happy, I'm happy."
"Thanks."
"At least now I know why me and Rory have hardly seen you lately," he realised.
"Huh, I'm surprised you noticed I was gone!" Paris scoffed. "Every time I do see you two together, you're hanging onto each other being cute or actually sucking face so hard you sound like a pair of sink plungers," she said, rolling her eyes. "Not that I hate it so much. I like that you're happy too, both of you."
"Geez, Geller, could you be more sappy?" said Jess, shoving her shoulder with his own.
"You started it, Mariano" she countered, returning the gesture.
"Well, on the subject of happy families and being sappy, what are you doing for Christmas break?"
"If you're inviting me to Stars Hollow then I'll come along," she said easily.
"That's cool," Jess confirmed.
"Yeah." Paris got up to leave then, but stopped and turned back at the door. "How're Luke and Lorelai these days?"
"Fine, as far as I know," said Jess, clearly confused by the question. "Why'd you ask?"
"It's probably nothing," said Paris, waving away his concern. "It's just, when I got talking to Luke at Thanksgiving, he said something about Lorelai not being herself lately. Being kind of distant, not really wanting to talk about the wedding. I basically told him to suck it up, be a man, and straight-out ask her what was going on."
"Maybe he did," Jess considered. "Far as I know they're doing okay."
"That's good," said Paris, nodding her head. "Well, I'll see you later."
Jess raised a hand in a gesture of goodbye, but his mind was already heading off in the opposite direction. He really hoped he was right and there was nothing wrong between Luke and Lorelai. He figured he would've heard about it by now if there were, but just to be on the safe side, he'd ask Rory about it as soon as he could.
"So, your mom hasn't said anything to you about things not being okay Luke?" Jess checked over breakfast the next morning.
"Nope, not a word," Rory confirmed, pushing her cereal down into the milk some more. "Paris probably has it wrong, you know how she can overreact, and even if there was something minor going on at Thanksgiving, that was weeks ago now. They must've figured it out, right?"
"Right," Jess agreed, taking a drink from his cup. "So, Paris told you about her and Doyle?"
"Yes, and I really did not see that coming!" she admitted around a mouthful of cereal that she tried to chew swallow just as fast as possible. "I mean, Doyle? Really? I know he's a nice guy and everything, but I can't imagine him dating Paris. Honestly, I can't imagine him dating anybody."
"I guess if they're happy, that's what matters." Jess shrugged.
"Agreed, but I have to admit, I did kind of have this hope that somehow Paris and Marty might get it together," Rory mused. "I know what we said in the beginning about him not being able to handle her, but he always seems so lonely, and then Paris was lonely too. They could've made a cute couple."
"Maybe," Jess considered. "I think Marty has problems with talking to girls."
"You could help him with that," suggested Rory. "One thing you never hear said about Jess Mariano, 'Wow, isn't he shy?'" she teased.
He smirked at that comment, he couldn't help it.
"You're the one with the female room-mates You don't think one of them would be Marty dating material?"
"Well, Janet's spoken for, and Tanna, she's sweet but a little strange... but then I guess, so is Marty?"
"There you go, a match made in Heaven," Jess declared, finishing off his last bite of several. "So, you think Luke and Lorelai are okay?"
"Pretty sure." Rory nodded. "I mean, Mom has been acting a little weird lately, to be honest, but I figure it's just stress about the inn and everything."
"Maybe," Jess agreed. "Kind of a big deal."
"Yeah, it would be a reason why the wedding plans aren't moving along so quickly also, but I'll check in with her later, make sure everything's okay."
"Sounds like a plan."
To Be Continued...
