A/N: Sooooo just realized I've been spelling Lorelai wrong this whole time (I previously was spelling it Lorelei)...shame on me. Surprised none of you caught that! hehehe...

Eight and a Half

By Imagine Backstory

Chapter Three – Hello & Goodbye

Jess

Just like Rory, Stars Hollow hadn't changed at all. It still possessed the level of mundaneness that made me want to blow my brains out and the sense of peacefulness which ultimately stopped me from doing just that. I would never admit it to anyone, but despite the fact that Stars Hollow had served as my own personal prison while I was stuck here as an angry seventeen-year-old, it was still nice to come back once and a while and feel nostalgic. Of course, my good memories here mostly existed because of Rory, but then again, the bad memories involved her, too.

And there we were again, walking side by side through the town square, like old times. Except everything between us was now relatively new. After all, what do you say to a woman you used to be madly in love with but who is now engaged to a man who just lost his mother? It was a recipe for awkward, and for Rory and me, it was our speciality dish.

At the back of my mind was an annoying nagging sensation; a little voice kept telling me to get out of there. Take off, go home. There was no point in me being there anymore, after all. There was no wedding this weekend, and subsequently no events during the week. For all I knew, Rory would be leaving soon, too, and then there really wouldn't be any reason for me to stay. Not that she was a reason to begin with, but she was the reason I was there. She'd wanted me to come, so I did. I mean, she had invited me, right? That must have meant she wanted me there on some level. I doubted it was to rub my face in her marriage to another man—Rory wasn't that kind of person. Was it a pity invite? Was it just her way of letting me know? Had it been her idea? Did her fiancé know I had been invited? Did he know about mine and Rory's history at all?

Well that's what it was, Rory and I. History. An epic which for all intents and purposes ended eight and a half years ago at the first Truncheon branch in Philly. I had honestly been coming to terms with the fact that I likely would never see her again. But, as fate would have it...there we were.

And yeah, people noticed.

"My eyes must be deceiving me!" Miss Patty shrieked as we passed her studio, our attempt to sneak by unnoticed futile. She careened down the steps and took my face between her hands, pinching my cheeks. "Jess Mariano! Don't you look so handsome and grown-up!"

"Hey, Miss Patty," I grunted, rubbing my cheek as she finally stepped away from me.

She clapped her hands together and looked at Rory and me adoringly. "Aren't you two precious. I feel as if I've stepped through a time machine! Oh, but of course, times have changed," she added, suddenly remembering what year we were in fact in. "What are you doing in town Jess? You're not here for the wedding are you?" Her eyes widened, seeing the look on Rory's face. "Sorry, dear."

"It's alright Miss Patty," Rory said, smiling slightly. "Jess is here for the wedding. He unfortunately didn't get the memo before arriving."

"Isn't it terrible?" Miss Patty asked sympathetically. "Rory, you are so strong. But it's nice you have friends around to...lean on," she added, looking at me pointedly.

"Thanks, Patty, we have to go; bye," Rory said quickly, grabbing my arm and hauling me away.

"That was kinda rude," I said, nearly tripping as Rory dragged me along. I wrenched my arm out of her grip but she kept moving.

"I just want people to stop looking at me like that," she snapped.

"Whoa, slow down," I said, grabbing her gently by the shoulders and turned her to face me. "How are people looking at you?"

"Like I'm delicate or pitiful!" Rory folded her arms across her chest, pouting. "Yes, what happened sucks. I was supposed to be getting married on Saturday. Now it's called off indefinitely and James is gone and I don't know what to do now and you're here—"

I held up a hand to silence her. "Whoa. Hang on. Called off? You said it was postponed."

"Called-off, postponed—does it matter? It's not happening. Not this Saturday, probably not this summer! And if not this summer, then probably not this year!"

"There's a difference between called-off and postponed, Rory," I mumbled, trying to meet her gaze. She was purposefully avoiding looking me in the eye. "And as far as me being here goes, I don't have to remind you that you invited me here. I'm here because you wanted me to be. Why else would you send me that invitation?"

"I don't want to talk about this," she sniffed, turning towards Luke's again.

"Rory—"

"Please, Jess!" she cried. "Why can't you be monosyllabic when I need you to be?"

My blood boiled. "Hey!" I yelled after her with such force that she stopped and turned towards me. I slowly closed the gap between us as I spoke. "You asked me to be here—here I am. I drove all the way to Stars freaking Hollow to be here for your wedding, which in and of itself is not easy for me! It was selfish of you to even invite me, but I came. And now you're yelling at me because I'm trying to help you? How is that fair?"

Her lower lip trembled. "Jess..."

"Forget it," I snapped, turning away.

"Jess, wait!"

Rolling my eyes, I stopped. "What?"

Rory came round to stand in front of me, the shame playing clearly across her face. "I'm sorry."

"I'm getting tired of you using me for any sort of validation, Rory," I said.

She was silent for a moment, and I knew she was thinking about Philly. Finally, she met my eyes, and they were clear. "Can we still get coffee? Please?"

I looked at her for a long moment. I was so mad at her, but I was more mad at the fact that she still had this effect on me; that she could be as selfish and unfair as she wanted, and I would still be there for her in the end. If there was any part of me that I wished had remained the same since I was seventeen, it was my ability to walk away from her when things got rough. Since I had grown up a bit, I found myself feeling like I owed it to her to be there for her now, to make up for the times I had walked away, when in reality that was the best thing I could have done as far as she was concerned. I had tried not to keep score of who had hurt who more, but it was hard to ignore the odds when they were staring you in the face.

Finally, I spoke. "Why did you invite me, Rory? Why would you do that to me?"

Hurt flashed across her face and I saw her madly try and blink tears away. She shook her head and looked at her feet, hugging herself tightly across her chest.

I nodded, stepping away from her. "It was a mistake to come here," I said. I took my keys out of my pocket and crossed the street to my car, hurriedly unlocking the door and sliding into the driver's seat. My duffel bag was still in the backseat where I had left it; I silently thanked my past self for leaving it there and not going to Luke's right away. This would be so much harder if Luke had known I was in town.

I threw my hand over the passenger seat and looked over my shoulder as I backed the car up. Rory had vanished from where we were standing. Repressing the urge to look for her, I yanked my car into drive and, without looking, peeled out of the parking spot.

Tires squealed somewhere by my left ear and I didn't even have time to shout before the other car hit mine.

Rory

I heard the crash first. It didn't sound too serious—a fender bender at most, but as I turned and saw that it was Jess' car panic flared up and seized my heart so fast it left me breathless. I tore across the square towards them.

They were getting out of their cars. Jackson was already laying into Jess as I ran up, straight to Jess' side, though he made a point of pretending I wasn't there.

"Did you even look at all?" Jackson cried, waving his arms madly in the direction of the two cars. Jess' car clearly suffered the most damage; the front left corner of the hood and bumper was shoved in and the tire had blown. "Everyone knows you have to do a three-sixty check before you move your car!"

Jess was surprisingly calm as he took the pencil from behind his ear and the book from his back pocket. "Just have your people call my people," he said, writing his number on one of the blank pages at the back of the book and ripping it out to give to Jackson.

Jackson took the paper, looking a little flabergasted. "I don't need to talk to your people," he said.

"Figure of speech, Jackson," Jess replied, the familiar sarcastic edge creeping into his tone. "Call Gypsy, would you? I don't have her number."

As Jackson went off to phone Gypsy, Jess crouched down by his car to check the damage. "Are you okay?" I asked stupidly.

"Fine," he replied flatly.

I crouched down next to him, pretending like I knew what I was looking for in terms of car damages. "Looks bad."

"'S not. Gypsy should be able to take care of it in no time." He stood, wiping his hands on his jeans, and sat on the driver's seat. He reached into the back and emerged with his shoes, a pair of low-top Chuck Taylor's. The hair around his temples was curling in the heat.

I stood in front of him awkwardly as he laced his shoes. "So..." I started, fiddling with a thread on the hem of my tank top. "Does no time really mean no time, or do you have a little bit of time now?"

He didn't look at me. "What?"

"You said Gypsy should be able to fix it in no time but it has to be towed to her shop and then she has to fix it. So, will it really be no time or do you in fact have a bit of time now to, say, grab some coffee at Luke's?" As I finally took a breath, I noticed with no small amount of satisfaction that Jess was hiding a smirk from me. He ducked his head into the backseat and pretended to rummage around for something, and I definitely didn't not notice the curve of his back, shoulder and neck as he did so.

When he emerged, his face bore the very passive expression that was the epitome of Jess. "Fine," he said. He grabbed his wallet from the glove compartment and stood, waving to a flustered-looking Jackson as we headed towards Luke's.

I thought Luke was going to have a heart attack when we walked into the diner together. He eyes went round as plates and he dropped the cloth he was holding. "What the hell are you doing here?" he bellowed.

"Hello to you, too, Uncle Luke," Jess replied facetiously.

Luke came around the counter to shake Jess' hand and ended up just pulling him in for a hug. "It's good to see you!" Luke said as he pulled away, gesturing to Jess with his hands. "It's been ages. But I repeat, what the hell are you doing here?"

Jess chuckled, shoving his hands in his pockets. "A certain someone was getting married," he replied.

Luke seemed to suddenly notice that I was standing there. "Oh! I, uh, didn't realize you had been invited." Luke was giving me a strange look that made me look away, uncomfortable.

Jess' eyes slid towards me briefly and I felt rather than saw the wounded look there. In the end, he just shrugged. "This one's full of surprises," he replied, elbowing my arm lightly. "We just came for some coffee."

We sat at the counter and Luke went to pour us some coffee. "Still not looking properly before you pull out, huh, Jess?" he asked nonchalantly.

Jess nearly choked on his coffee. "Excuse me?"

Luke gestured out the window with the coffee pot. "Witnessed your little accident out there."

Jess' eyebrows knit together as pure confusion crossed his face. "You just acted like you didn't know I was here," he said.

"I didn't," Luke replied. "I thought I saw you get out of the car but I thought nah, that can't really be Jess, but now here you are, and I was right. Still a surprise." Jess rolled his eyes, Luke ignored it. "So, what's new with you, Jess? Still in New York?"

"Yeah," Jess replied, casually stretching his arm over the back of my seat. "We opened a Truncheon branch there a few months ago so I'm trying to get it all set up."

"How's that going?"

"Ah, you know. It's slow. It's only our second location so it's been a bit thorny, but it should smooth out once we finish transferring clients and getting the presses running more frequently."

At that moment, my phone buzzed in my pocket, announcing that my mother was trying to get a hold of me. I heeded to Luke's scornful glare and slid out of my seat, the bell over the door tinkling as I went outside. Pressing accept, I held the phone to my ear. Before I could say anything, Lorelai's voice came screeching out of the receiver.

"Daughter of mine! Where the heck are you? Did you fall into Luke's coffee pot? I hear people do that sometimes, but I would have thought the fruit of my loins would be clever enough to avoid such a mishap."

"Sorry, Mom," I said, cringing at the reference to my mother's loins.

"Rory, you left the house over an hour ago. Is everything okay?"

I could feel Jess' eyes burning holes into my back and wondered if maybe he could see right through me. "Sorry Mom," I said again, "I got distracted."

"Did Luke make you pancakes again? Because I have a whole coffee table full of junk food here waiting to be eaten and all my effort will be for naught if your stomach is full!"

"No, Mom, it's not Luke."

It must have been in my tone of voice because Lorelai suddenly became serious. "What is it?"

I sighed, biting my lip. She was bound to find out eventually, especially since Luke had seen him now. "I just went for a walk and ended up...bumping into...Jess."

I could hear Lorelai sputtered on whatever she had been drinking at the time. "Oh," was all she managed to get out.

"And he got in a fender-bender with Jackson and so I'm just waiting with him while Gypsy looks over Jess' car," I rushed before she could say anything else.

"Sheesh, the kid is here for ten minutes and he's already causing a rukus," Lorelai muttered. "Guess he didn't get the memo about the wedding, huh?"

I heard the subtle accusation in her voice but chose to ignore it, not wanting to get into a debate with her at the moment. "Yeah well I didn't know he was coming so I didn't bother."

"Is he staying?"

I turned and looked through the window. Jess had his back to me and appeared to be chatting with Luke. "I don't know."

Lorelai sighed. "When do you think you'll be home?"

"Soon," I replied, "I promise."

After getting off the phone with my mother I went to head back into the diner, but Jess was already on his way out. "Gypsy's done," he offered, holding up his cell phone as explanation.

We stood there awkwardly, facing each-other. He nodded towards my own phone, which I still held in my hand. "Mom wondering where you are?" he guessed, his chin tilted downwards, peering up at me from underneath his long, dark eyelashes.

I nodded. "I have to bring back coffee and doughnuts to make up for my longer-than-anticipated outing," I explained. "We're having a junk-food Casablanca night."

"Ah," he breathed, a smirk playing over one side of his mouth. He pulled his bottom lip underneath his teeth as if to stifle it.

Jerking my gaze away from his mouth, I shuffled my feet. "Yeah."

His gaze was steady on me, even though I wasn't looking at him. "So did you tell anybody that you invited me, or was Luke the only one kept in the dark?"

"Jess, I..." I floundered with my hands, as if reaching for the words which escaped me. "I didn't think you would come."

His eyes bore into mine as he sucked in a breath. "Yeah, you said that," he murmured. He srubbed a hand over his chin before looking off in the general direction of Gypsy's shop. "Should get going."

"Want me to come with you?" It was a long shot, but I figured I would try anyway.

Amusement flashed briefly in his chocolate eyes before they reverted back to their usual granite boredom. "I think I can handle it," he said, his voice low.

I gnawed on my lip, searching my brain for something I could say, anything, that would make him stay. But I could see it written on his face and in his twitching hands that he was dying to bail as soon as humanly possible. I was just in his way, and though my presence might delay his departure somewhat, I had never been a reason for him to stay before, and that was back when we actually meant something to each-other. Not that we didn't mean anything to each-other anymore, but now he didn't have to stay even if he wanted to. "Okay," I said. Stupid.

He scratched behind his ear, dislodging the pencil that was still there and catching it before it could fall to the ground. "You can, uh..." he jutted his chin towards my phone again, "call me, or something. If you need to...or whatever."

A smile threatened at the corner of my mouth. "I don't have..."

He took my phone and wordlessly punched his number in. "Facebook?" he asked casually as he did so.

"Sometimes."

"Add me."

"Okay."

"Not that I'm on it much."

"I figured you wouldn't be."

He handed me back my phone. "See ya," he said, turning away.

I called after him, "Don't you want my number?"

He turned towards me but kept walking, backwards. "I'll save it when you call me," he called back, smirking with his whole lopsided mouth this time.

I strode towards him, and he slowed to let me catch up. "No," I said firmly, grabbing his upper arms with my hands.

He looked down at me, an amused gleam in his eyes. "What?" he chuckled.

"No, you don't just get to walk away without properly saying good-bye," I snapped. "Give me a freaking hug."

He laughed and wrapped me into his arms, resting his chin on top of my head. I could hear his heart beating beneath where my ear was pressed into his neck, and as I circled my arms around his waist, I briefly felt the taut muscle of his abdomen beneath his thin shirt. He shifted and I could have sworn I felt his lips press ever-so-chastely on the top of my head.

Pulling away, he held onto my hand for half a second, looking into my eyes before he let it drop.

"I'm sorry for being a jerk earlier," I said quietly.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged, rocking back on his heels. "You weren't being a jerk," he said.

I kind of smiled and nodded, and he just chuckled in response. "See ya, Rory," he said again, and then he walked away without looking back.

Lorelai practically pounced on me as I arrived back some some fifteen minutes later, bearing a traveller full of coffee and a take-out bag full of doughnuts and other goodies I had sweet-talked out of Luke. She took everything from me and set them down on the coffee table amongst the mountains of popcorn, chips, Redvines and other favourite junk food snacks, then pulled me down on the couch with her. I grabbed a handful of popcorn as fuel to get me through the inescapable impending grilling.

"So?" she prompted, her blue eyes gleaming with excitement. "What's the story with Mister Stalone?"

I rolled my eyes, thinking that the comparison of Jess to Rocky Balboa was nothing short of ridiculous. "We didn't really get to talk that much."

"You were gone for nearly two hours! If you weren't talking what were you doing that whole time? Or, on second thought—" Her face twisted into a grimace. "Do I want to know?"

My mouth dropped open, horrified. "Mom! No!" I smacked her on the arm. "I told him about the wedding and James' mom and then Miss Patty wanted to talk to him and then he got in the accident and then Luke wanted to talk to him and then you called me and then Jess had to go get his car from Gypsy's. I didn't even get a chance to really ask him anything, it all just happened so fast, and he kept asking all these questions about the wedding and why I invited him and—" I stopped to catch my breath. "He's probably gone now. And we barely had the chance to catch up. First time seeing him in eight and a half years and I don't even know what he's doing." I pulled my knees to my chest and buried my face in them, feeling the blush spread across my cheeks.

Lorelai rubbed my back soothingly. "Hey, Jess is like that song about the cat who keeps coming back. I'm sure you'll see him again. And besides, it may even be for the best. Things are pretty complicated for you right now with James. Maybe the less Jess in your life, the better." Her tone shifted, the amusement returning. "How did he look?"

"Look?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"Yeah, you know, is he taller? Did he finally get his hair cut? Did he fill out at all?"

I grimaced at my mother's choice of words. "Yeah, he looked...good," I said, nodding absently. "He looked really good."

"Saying he looked really good did not answer any of my questions," Lorelai teased.

"Can we just watched the movie?"

Lorelai patted my head reassuringly before clicking the remote towards the TV.

A/N: Regarding the Rocky reference, anybody catch what I did there? Ehh? ;P

Please review! Reviews are to my writing what Jess is to Rory. Essential!