TWO

"You can take Mom's bed upstairs; the bathroom is just the next door down."

Jess walked up the first few steps of the stairs onto the little landing, leaning on the railing to look down at Rory. "Thanks for doing this, Rory, you didn't have to."

"I did have to. It's almost two in the morning. Liz and T.J. left the wedding an hour into the reception. You would have woken them up with your loud, drunken footsteps." Jess shrugged, a smile on his face all the while. "Go to sleep, I'm sure Luke left some clothes that you'll fit into. You can grab your stuff from your mom's later after you've slept this off."

Rory turned to rifle through the mail on the table just across from the stairs. When she looked back, Jess had already slumped over the railing. With a sigh, she assessed the situation: stairs, half-asleep Jess, mostly-drunk Jess, couch. Couch was by far the best and most practical option, so Rory met Jess on the landing and essentially dragged him down the few steps and put him horizontally onto the couch. She grabbed the blanket on the back of the couch and draped it over him.

Thinking ahead, Rory immediately went into her own room and set her alarm for 5:00 with an accompanying three alarms on her phone. Jess would be in no place to open the diner in three hours. Neither would Rory, but she'd be in a better place than he would. She quietly made her way through the house underneath the noise of Jess's snores and gathered a few things to put on the coffee table for the morning: a flannel and some jeans of Luke's, a glass of water, the bottle of aspirin, and a note telling him she opened the diner for him and would appreciate his presence at the diner as soon as humanly possible because there's only so much coffee can do for a girl.

Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, ahhh. Rory had known actually putting the coffee grounds into the machine last night had been a good idea. There had been no chance of a decent cup otherwise. She scooted across the kitchen with her coffee and pop-tarts to sit at the table. After a few minutes of silently eating and drinking, there was a ringing from the other room. Mug of coffee in hand, Rory stood and walked towards the living room, where the ringing grew louder. There was an abrupt end to Jess's snoring followed by a soft curse.

"What could you possibly be doing up right now?" Jess spoke into the cell phone at his ear. Rory almost dropped her mug in shock as she took in the sight of him with a cell phone, but she held tight to it as she leaned against the archway leading into the living room. Something resembling a smile made its way onto his face as he sat up and glanced at the coffee table. "So, you're telling me that your 'body clock' woke you up at 5AM the first day of your honeymoon and your first thought was to make sure I was awake?" Jess took the pills and chugged the glass of water as he listened into the phone. "Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever you say, Luke. I'm on my way to the diner right now, yes."

The phone shifted from his hand to between his ear and shoulder as he glanced at the note and then, finally, to Rory. He held up the note with an accusational glance and a raised eyebrow. "Go back to sleep," he whispered, covering the speaker gently as he spoke. All she could really think to do was give a small smile before turning to go back to her room, or at least the kitchen.

"Rory," she turned at the mention of her name, "Yeah, I was staying at Mom's, but it was late when we left the wedding, she didn't want me to wake them. Look, if it makes you uncom—okay, okay, don't say I didn't tell you." Realizing that he wasn't actually talking to her, Rory turned back around, laying her nearly finished mug on the kitchen table before returning to bed, where she wrapped herself in the warm bedsheets.

Jess changed in the downstairs bathroom after finally ending the call with Luke. Double checking that he hadn't left the key to the in the pockets of his suit from the night before, he rinsed out the mug on the table and then headed for the diner. When the diner was practically empty an hour after opening, he told Caesar he'd be out for a minute, and he grabbed his things from his mom's, told her the short, mostly true version of the story and stashed his duffel on the stairs to the nearly empty office space that had been his home for a short time.

A few hours later, he saw Rory walking towards the diner. He went ahead and pulled out a clean cup from behind him. When he turned around, she was there, sitting at the counter with that stupid, gorgeous smile on her face.

"So when did you get a cell phone?"

"What?" Jess asked as he began pouring her coffee.

"A cell phone. This morning, Luke called you on a cell phone. You've always been anti-cell phone, never believed in them. What changed?"

"What changed is that Luke bought this one for me three years ago for my birthday. I kept moving from place to place. He got tired of unanswered letters, emails and eventually quit keeping up with all my new numbers. Apparently, this is a convenient way to contact someone."

"I have heard that."

"So, you weren't planning on waking me up to open the diner?"

"Well-" Rory started to talk, but quit to take a drink of her coffee, "I've never seen someone bounce back this quickly from as many scotches as you had last night. I didn't really think you would be up and moving this soon."

"It's almost noon."

"And you practically drank an entire bottle last night."

"Yet you're the one who is just now up. And you're ordering what? Pancakes? Eggs?'

"Both. What kind of question is that?" Jess shook his head, his mouth quirked up into a smile, before he turned to tell the order to Caesar. "So how are you able to just stay in Stars Hollow for two weeks? What happened to Truncheon?"

It wasn't until the words actually left her mouth that she realized how long it had been since she's actually talked to Jess. Not just an introduction or a short talk about current events, like at the wedding, but an actual conversation where they could talk about their lives and the details therein.

"Ah, those are two different questions," Jess leaned on his forearms across the counter from Rory. "As for Truncheon, it still exists, I just don't work there anymore. I left about five years ago and got a job at a bigger—but still small—publishing house in New York." He grabbed a towel from under the counter and began wiping down the place where a man had just left. "I was there up until a couple of weeks ago."

"What happened? What are you doing now?"

"Don't get excited," Jess pointed to Rory, his face purposefully emotionless. Before he continued talking, Rory's felt her face drop. She placed the half-empty mug of coffee down on the counter and made an effort to lift her expression back to an I am very interested in what you are telling me expression rather than the I just realized that I need to lower my caffeine intake; dear god, this baby will kill me with a lack of coffee look that had made its way onto her face.

"A guy that I worked with at Truncheon, Chris, we've been talking for years about starting our own place, kinda from the ground up. We just bought a property in Brooklyn; there's a few weeks of renovations ahead of us. They're having to fumigate the entire building, but after that, it's ours to run."

A smile had been spreading over her face while Jess had been speaking. His own publishing house. A thing that was his, that he had built. "That's amazing!"

"It's not much, just a small building. Chris is there now with a few people that we're thinking to hire, and a few writers who don't mind getting paid practically nothing to get their work published," he grabbed a couple of menus after the bell above the entrance rang, announcing the entrance of two people that Rory didn't recognize. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to work. You better keep writing or I'll never be able to publish that book of yours."

A/N: Oh my god, thank you! This is the best response I've ever gotten to a story, and I know it's because it's topical but 1.8K views, 150 followers, 42 favorites, and 21 reviews is the most response I've ever gotten to a story ever on this site so thank you. I will reply to each one that has a profile, just give me some time because, frankly, I'm overwhelmed with the love and support! Additionally, sorry if there are some grammatical errors in this. I really wanted to get something out to y'all as a thank you for giving me such love for this already.

Again, this is a bit of a short chapter, but now we're starting to explore what Jess is doing and has been doing for the past decade. He deserved at least a scene like Dean did in the revival, but apparently staring in a different TV show is a lot of work. (: Anyway, this is the scene that we deserved in the revival, not a "nothing permanent" statement over drinks in the Gazette. That was not enough for me.

Hope you all enjoyed this. Review, favorite, follow if you so wish. I love any and all feedback.

Talk to you soon!

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