8. Christmas Secrets
'Verse: canon
Timeline: Season 2
Date: December 2002
When Luke got back from the town meeting, he wasn't shocked to find Jess laid out on his bed with his nose in a book. The surprise was actually for Jess, in the form of the package Luke had carried back from the meeting.
"Merry Christmas," he said, tossing it onto the foot of Jess' bed.
"Christmas isn't for five more days," said Jess, barely glancing up from his book.
"I know this." Luke nodded once. "Also, the gift isn't from me. They gave it to me at the meeting and asked me to pass it on. It's from your Secret Santa or something, I don't know," he explained, shrugging his shoulders. "I was amazed you signed up to that in the first place. I didn't bother, never do," he continued as he went into the kitchen area and started to make tea.
Jess was frowning as he sat up and leaned over to grab the package from the end of the bed. It was about the same size and shape as the book he still held in his other hand, which made sense because anyone around here who had met him even briefly would know he always had a book on him somewhere. It was the most obvious gift to buy for Jess Mariano, and yet, he couldn't imagine anybody in this crackpot town would want to buy him anything. Well, except maybe one.
"I didn't sign up for Secret Santa," he said then, barely realising the words were outside of his head until Luke turned around.
"Really? You shock me," he dead-panned. "Look, I don't know what happened, but they handed out the gifts, they said that one was for you. There is no other Jess in town so somebody clearly decided to get you something. I'm going downstairs for milk. You want anything?"
Jess shook his head in the negative and went back to staring at his supposed gift. It was wrapped in some seriously holly jolly wrapping with a bow and everything, but nothing to say who it was from, just Jess' name, written across the corner in block capital letters.
Curiosity got the better of him after barely a minute had passed and Jess was soon tearing the wrapping off his gift. It was no surprise to find it really was a book inside, but it was nothing to read since every page was blank, all except for the very first one.
'Dear Jess, since you seem to like writing in margins so much, I thought maybe you would like a whole book to fill with your thoughts and ideas. Merry Christmas.'
Though she had tried to disguise her writing and had signed her message with a question mark and no name, Jess knew it had to be Rory who had bought him the journal. Nobody else would be so thoughtful or so nice to him. More than that, nobody else knew how he liked to scribble in margins.
Jess barely noticed Luke walking back in until he spoke.
"Couldn't wait until Christmas, huh?" he said, staring at the journal in Jess' hands.
"It's close enough." Jess shrugged. "Hey, you want me to work tomorrow?"
Luke frowned a little.
"Sure," he said. "Could always use an extra pair of hands on a Saturday, but you're not usually this eager to work, especially on weekends," he noted.
"I could use the money," said Jess, flipping the empty pages of his journal and thinking of what would be the best gift to give Rory in return.
Whatever it was, it was going to cost him, but it would be worth it, Jess was sure of that.