A/N: Thanks to those who left a review on the previous chapter - it's nice to know this storyline still has readers this far into the third part of the trilogy (especially when I've dropped the ball on this fic so many times! lol). Now, I have a feeling that you guys are going to like me a little less than before when you read this latest installment. Just have faith in me, please!

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 22

Jess had actually thought things were going his way this weekend. Sure, it sucked that Rory wanted to stay back at Yale but she had her reasons and he respected that. He had Lane for company on the ride home, which was cool. They talked about all kinds of music, in between her needing Jess' reassurance that Luke still wanted to employ her and that Mrs Kim was unlikely to hate her forever, regardless of what happened.

At least Jess was guaranteed plenty of time in which to talk to Luke about the things on his mind. One thing in particular, actually. Well, he thought the time alone with his uncle would be a guaranteed, until he reached the diner door.

"There's my boy!"

The words were as familiar as the voice, then suddenly Liz was barrelling towards Jess, hugging him so tight, he could barely breathe. The last thing he needed to deal with right now was the return of his mother, especially when neither Rory nor Paris were available to act as a buffer between him and Liz.

The look on Luke's face in those first few moments proved he was no more thrilled about the situation than Jess was, not least because Liz had brought the new boyfriend along to meet her brother and son. Unsurprisingly, this was not the first guy she had picked up since her marriage to Ira Geller broke down less than two years ago. By Jess' count he was maybe the third, though during those semi-regular phone calls he had with Liz, he didn't always pay rapt attention when she was giving the details of her love life. Still, he was pretty sure he would've noticed if she told him she was coming to visit.

"How come you're here?" he asked her out right. "Did you know she was coming?" he checked with Luke across the counter.

"I wanted to surprise my two best guys!" she said over-emphatically as ever. "Well, two of my three best guys," she corrected, letting go of Jess to go all over the guy sat on the nearby stool. "Jess, this is TJ."

"Guess what it stands for," said TJ, grinning too wide.

"You really don't want me to," countered Jess.

Luke smirked but didn't admonish his nephew at all, just swooped in to offer refreshments in the hopes of defusing the situation before it got too bad. Once he knew what Liz and TJ wanted to drink and eat, he encouraged them to go hang out in the apartment upstairs, promising he and Jess would follow in a minute.

The moment they were out of sight, Jess picked up his bag again.

"Bye," he said flatly, raising his hand in a very brief wave and turning to go.

"Hey, stop!" said Luke, stretching over the counter to grab Jess's shoulder. "You're not seriously going to leave."

"Yale is way more appealing than this, and that's really saying something," he said, muttering the last part, though Luke didn't seem to catch on anyway. "You really didn't know she was coming?"

"She said she might come back for her school reunion," Luke admitted, "but it was months ago that she mentioned it and I figured she forgot by now. I sure didn't mention it again, so I'm guessing one of her nutty friends did. Probable Crazy Carrie Duncan." Luke shuddered.

Jess almost asked what that was all about, but then thought better of it. He so didn't want to be here, not for as long as Liz was going to be around. It sure blew to hell any plans he had about talking things through with Luke too. Still, if he went back to Yale, he'd really be no better off. His room-mates were throwing a party for their friends whilst Jess was away and Marty was busy too. Paris would be with Doyle and Rory had all that studying to do, which was why she hadn't come home herself.

"Come on, man," said Luke then, a pleading look on his face as Jess glanced up. "Don't leave me with your mom and the guy who already offered to do my portrait on his Etch-A-Sketch."

"Seriously?" said Jess, not sure whether to be disturbed or amused by that particular revelation. "Maybe if we shake him real hard he'll disappear," he said thoughtfully, the smirk he wore so well breaking through in a moment.

"Hey, I may be driven to that before the day is out," said Luke, looking as if he was not at all kidding.

"Fine, I'll stay." Jess sighed, dropping his bag back down on the floor.

Luke breathed a sigh of relief and his nephew couldn't blame him. It probably would be easier to handle Liz and the amazing TJ if they tag-teamed it. Besides, with all the favours Luke had done for him in the last couple of years, Jess knew he owed him, he just wished paying him back didn't involve spending so much time with his mom and the latest boyfriend. Life could be so cruel.


Rory had actually thought things were going to be pretty boring for her this weekend. She had a paper she really needed to finish then, if she had time, she planned to get a head start on the next round of reading for another class. It ought to have been easy enough with Paris over at Doyle's place and Lane back in the Hollow for a while. No distractions, not even Jess since he had gone home for the weekend too. She could just sit down and work. At least, that had been the plan.

The note slipped under her door might have been a little alarming if she didn't recognise the handwriting. It matched perfectly with a page of notes Doyle gave her a while back to type up into a story for The Yale Daily News, and those notes had come with the name Huntzberger attached.

It wasn't as if she and Logan hadn't talked at all lately. After the whole awkward thing with him and Jess getting into a fight, Rory had made her feelings clear about the guys duelling over her honour or whatever and everybody moved on. Rory and Jess were solid again and Rory and Logan were, well, they were sort of passing acquaintances. Maybe a little more than that. Not quite friends. Friendish, Rory found herself thinking, though of course sat alone in her room she wasn't really required to define what she and Logan were to anybody else.

The note was pretty short and to the point. It seemed The Life and Death Brigade had plans this weekend and for whatever reason, Logan was still willing to give Rory the inside scoop for a killer article. She would be a fool not to take the opportunity, and yet Rory hesitated.

The last time she spent any amount of time with Logan and his friends, well, that was just exactly what had caused him and Jess to turn into Forman and Ali. Of course, this was different. This wasn't a party as such, not something Rory would be doing for fun. It was an event she was going to report on, practically a job, and a chance to show off her journalistic skills. Something that would be a key step in the career she planned to have post-Yale.

Her eyes went to her desk. The paper she needed to get done was almost finished. In an hour she would be done. The reading wasn't so important and she could easily squeeze it in on Monday. The class it was for wasn't until later in the week, so it couldn't make so very much difference.

Rory gave it all of another minute's consideration before finally her decision was made. She was going to spend the rest of her weekend with The Life and Death Brigade, she was going to blow the lid off this whole organisation, and the article she would write for The Yale Daily News was going to be legendary.


Jess really wasn't sure how this had happened. Actually, that wasn't a hundred percent true. If he had to guess, he would have said that he and Liz would've got into it a whole lot sooner than ten o'clock at night. It was actually a miracle that they managed to spend around eight hours in close proximity without something terrible happening, but eventually it had to happen.

He couldn't really say what started it. Liz and TJ playing at being loves young dream was kind of sickening, plus the baby voice she kept using when talking to Jess grated on his nerves every time. Luke tried his best to keep the peace, but then Liz had started telling TJ about Rory, and comments were made. Somehow Paris' name came up, Liz made a less than pleasant remark about her, and Jess just felt himself getting more and more mad. Eventually, it was inevitable that he was going to explode, so he left, quickly, before he said anything even worse than had already escaped his mouth.

Luke chased him down to the diner proper, practically begging him not to leave mad, not to go back to Yale before they got a chance to talk some more. Jess wasn't sure where else he was supposed to go, until Luke suggested the Gilmore house.

"You serious?"

"Of course," Luke told him, nodding his head. "Lane was going to stay there but then Sookie came into the diner to check how she was doing, they got talking about the whole Zach and Lane situation, and Sookie insisted Lane go stay with her and Jackson for as long as she wanted. So, I'll call ahead to Lorelai, let her know you're coming. I'll get Liz and TJ set up upstairs then I'll come over too. I can't imagine Rory's going to mind too much if you sleep in her room for the night."

"I'd say call and ask her but she hasn't answered any of the text messages I've sent in the last six hours begging her to come rescue me from hell," said Jess, more of a growl than words, in truth.

Still, he had taken Luke up on his offer and driven over to the Crap Shack for the night. Now here he was, sat on the couch whilst Lorelai put clean sheets on her daughter's bed for him. That was a sentence Jess never thought would be true, but life was funny sometimes.

"All done," she said as she returned to the living room. "So, your mom is still..."

"Yeah, she is," said Jess, not willing to pick an adjective any more than Lorelai was for fear of what it would lead to. "I just wasn't ready for her this weekend. Her timing really, really sucks," he said sadly, face in his hand for a few moments.

When he looked up again he realised Lorelai was looking at him strangely. He stared back at her, waiting for whatever question was on her mind, because there clearly was one. After a moment, she sat herself down in the armchair and leaned towards him with her elbows on her knees.

"What's on your mind, Jess?"

"The fact that my mother's a whack job?"

"No, that's not it." Lorelai shook her head. "See, I know she drives you crazy, and of all people, I'm the first person to understand about crazy-driving mothers, but this is more than that. You didn't just complain about Liz being here in general, you complained about her timing. Why specifically this weekend did you not want her here?"

"I just didn't, okay?" Jess squirmed.

He so didn't want to have this conversation with Lorelai. Jess hadn't even been sure how he was going to bring it up with Luke actually. It certainly wasn't something he wanted to raise with Paris or even Rory.

"Jess, seriously," said Lorelai, getting his attention back. "If you need to talk to someone, I get that I'm not first choice, but-"

"I know." Jess cut in. "I remember that day on the porch. When Luke had been hounding me about going to college. I stormed out and you followed me. You were really cool about everything."

"I have my moments." Lorelai smiled. "Seem to remember telling you then that if you ever needed a friendly ear, I got two available."

"Yeah." Jess nodded. "Problem is, if I tell you then you're gonna feel the need to tell Luke and/or Rory."

"Not if you need me not to," Lorelai promised. "Unless we're headed into a confession of something totally illegal or crazy dangerous."

"Nothing like that," Jess assured her with a smile. "It's just... well, I've been thinking a lot lately about the future. My future," he began to tell her then, though he was looking down at his hands more than up at Lorelai and they both noticed. "It's not that I don't appreciate everything Luke's done for me or that I'm failing or anything, because I'm not. I... I just don't think Yale is where I wanna be."

At the end, he looked up and was surprised to see Lorelai smiling.

"Wow. Honestly? I was expecting something way, way worse than that," she admitted, letting out a breath she had clearly been holding this whole time. "So, you gave college, ironically, the good-old college try and it's not for you," she said then, shrugging her shoulders. "Nobody said you had to do all four years."

"Seriously? You think Luke or Rory or Paris is going to be okay with me being a drop-out?"

"Maybe you don't drop out," said Lorelai thoughtfully. "Maybe you put Yale on hold for a while. Then if after six months or a year or whatever you want to go back, that's cool, and if you don't then you don't."

Jess blinked at her in astonishment.

"You're being weirdly cool and calm about this."

"You're not my kid." Lorelai chuckled. "I'm not sure I'd be too jazzed if I was having this conversation with Rory, but then she's a very different person to you, Jess. She's been dreaming of college and a journalism career forever and now she's living that dream, or at least the first part of it. You got a little rail-roared into all of this. It's okay if you want to change your mind, just so long as you have a new plan, because trust me, the world is not kind to those with no direction."

"I have the start of a plan, I think," said Jess honestly. "It needs some work but I figured I could at least finish this year at Yale, so I have some time."

"Okay then." Lorelai nodded. "You know, you've got a good head on your shoulders, Jess. You're a good kid, book smart, street smart, uber talented with the writing from what I hear. Not every job requires a college education. Not every person has to walk the same path. I mean, hey, look at me. I didn't even finish high school but I'm doing okay."

"More than okay," Jess reminded her. "Come on, you raised a kid on your own from the age of sixteen, got your education, and now you're starting your own business. That's pretty amazing."

"What's pretty amazing?" asked Luke as he came in then.

"Me. We're talking about the amazingness of me," said Lorelai honestly.

Luke looked between her and Jess like he wasn't quite sure he believed it. Not that Jess could blame him because it was a little strange.

"That's actually true," he said anyway since it was. "Um, I'm gonna go get some sleep, but in the morning, can we talk?" he asked Luke as he got to his feet.

"Sure. Anytime," his uncle promised him. "Everything okay?"

Jess looked at Lorelai and saw her encouraging smile. He was wearing a similar expression when he looked back to Luke.

"Yeah, I think it will be," he told him, before heading off to bed.

Today probably could've gone worse.


Rory really wasn't sure how this had happened. She had to be a little crazy to willingly put on a blindfold and get in a car with Logan, his buddies Colin and Finn, and their friend Stephanie, to be taken to places unknown in the first place, but she figured Christianne Amanpour had gone a whole lot further for a story. What was a little consensual kidnapping between friendish people?

Quite honestly, the whole event had been fun. Listening to the guys talk without the letter E, watching them shoot each other with paintball guns, sleeping overnight in a fancy looking tent and being presented with this really beautiful dress this morning. Rory had made copious notes for her article and could hardly wait to write it up. Of course, it sucked that she hadn't been allowed to bring her cell along or even hold onto the camera that she had tried to sneak in, but that was okay. She would remember it all and tell everyone about it when she got home - if she lived that long.

"This was so not the plan," she said, looking cautiously over the edge of the twenty-storey structure on which she now stood. "I'm supposed to be observing, not taking part," she told Logan desperately.

"Come on, Ace, where's your sense of adventure?" he asked her, grinning too wide. "You want to be this great reporter someday, you gotta learn to take a risk once in a while, right?"

"I take risks," she countered, flinching even as some guy started to attach the safety line to the harness she had already been squeezed into. "I live with Paris, that's pretty ballsy all on its own. I stole from the corner store once and... and..."

"And I'm sure you have a very nice small-town life with your mom and your friends and your pugilistically-inclined boyfriend," said Logan, unable to keep for smiling, especially when she looked ready to scold him for his choice of words, "but forget all that for a second. Too many people go through life just existing, Rory. This is a chance to really live."

"Or die," she countered, swallowing hard as she took one more look at how far away the ground was. "That's the name of this group, right? The Life and Death Brigade. I'm too young to die, Logan. There's too much I didn't get to do yet. I don't think I can-"

Before she had a chance to ramble anymore, he took a firm hold of her upper arms, pulled her closer, and laid his lips on hers. Rory was too startled to argue, too stunned to react at all. The next thing she knew it was over, Logan had a hold of only her hand now as someone else shoved an umbrella into her free hand and asked if she was ready.

"I just took a risk and lived to tell the tale," said Logan, meeting her eyes. "Your turn, Ace."

Rory shifted her gaze from Logan to the guy asking her a second time if she was ready.

"Ready," she said, nodding once, not really knowing what else she could do, and then she jumped.

To Be Continued...