A/N: I asked and you delivered! Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! It really motivated me to keep going. Warning you now, though, this chapter is wordy—prepare for a buttload of exposition!

Eight and a Half

by Imagine Backstory

Chapter Four – Turning Tables & A Silver Lining

Jess

As soon as Rory left the diner, Luke was on me like flies on a turd. "So, is it weird?"

I pretended to be reading my book, feigning ignorance. "'S what weird?"

"You and Rory seeing each-other again like this?" Luke absently wiped the counter in front of me, though it was clearly spotless. His eyes kept darting from me to Rory, who stood just on the other side of the glass window, her phone pressed to her ear. "You know, especially under the circumstances..."

"Don't know what you're talking about." I made a note in the margin of my book: I wanted to tell you but each time I'd find / The words would get stuck in the tar of my mind—

Luke stopped the wiping, jabbing his hand in my direction in his usual aggravating fashion. "Don't play dumb. I just don't want to see you getting hurt. Or Rory, for that matter. Did she really invite you?"

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the carefully folded invitation, tossing it onto the counter in front of him, all without taking my eyes off my book. As I struggle here in the black of this pitch / Your laugh tugs at my ear like a never-ending itch—

Luke folded the paper open and scanned it, then turned it over to read Rory's handwritten segment. "Wow."

"That's what she said."

Luke's eyes bugged. "Excuse me?"

"My girlfriend," I said, raising an eyebrow at Luke. "She said the same thing when she read it. What did you think I meant?" I smirked as Luke fumbled for words, leaning across the counter towards me.

"Girlfriend?" Clearly, he missed the point.

I mocked offense, sitting back in my seat, a hand on my chest. "Jeez, Uncle Luke, don't act so shocked."

He ignored my sarcasm. "Well sorry, it's just a little unexpected. You with a girlfriend, huh? How long has that been going on?"

I took a sip of my coffee, peering over the rim so as to catch his reaction as I mumbled, "Five years."

If Luke had been the one drinking coffee, I swear he'd have spat it all over the counter, and subsequently, me. "Five years?"

I flashed him my most charming grin and raised my eyebrows in mock delight. "And the punches keep a-comin'."

"One girl—for five years?" Luke shook his head disbelievingly. "I gotta meet this woman, find out what the hell she's done with my nephew. Hey—how come this is the first time I've heard of this? Five years you've been seeing this girl and you never once mentioned her, never brought her round for Thanksgiving, nothing!"

"I don't bring myself around for Thanksgiving, you think I'm gonna send Nora on her own?" I went back to my book, swiftly getting bored of this conversation.

"Nora, huh?" Luke narrowed his eyes at me, a sly grin playing on his unshaven lips. "Well, guess I don't need to worry about Rory then. Speaking of which...does she know?"

"Does who know what?"

"Rory! Does she know you've got a girlfriend?"

I looked up at the ceiling, pretending to think for a moment. Shaking my head, I looked at Luke and shrugged. " You know what, I don't know that she does."

"You don't think you should mention that particular piece of information?"

I fixed Luke with one of my rare, piercing stares. "I don't know. Maybe I should just wait and invite her to my wedding."

Luke looked like he desperately wanted to smack me. "You're a wise-ass, you know that?"

"Yeah, me and my wise ass are leaving now."

"Good, get out of here."

As I shoved my way out of the diner, I couldn't ignore the little voice at the back of my head that wondered if Luke maybe hadn't just been playing around. I wished I could bury the little stabbing of hurt that unexpectedly shot through me as I replayed his voice telling me to get out over and over in my head. You tell me to go, I'll go / But just so you know if I don't want to go / There's no force in this universe that can make it so.

After I left Rory outside the diner, I really just focused on getting her smell off of me; she smelled like lavender, which should be illegal because it's scientifically proven that the smell of lavender turns guys on (the stuff you read while waiting for the dentist). Figuring the fastest way to do that was by burning tobacco, I lit a cigarette, taking drags so long that I was finished it by the time I got to Gypsy's. It was just as well; the place reeked of gasoline and I was so wired after the coffee and my conversation with Luke that I didn't trust my shaking hands to hold the cigarette securely.

Evidently, Gypsy needed another hour or two to work on my car. I knew this. When I had bumped into Rory, still spooked by Luke's words, I'd thought of the first excuse to get away from her quickly, and lied. It was easy to lie to Rory, I realized with an annoying sense of guilt.

I decided to kill time back on the bridge, deciding it was unlikely that Rory would find me again since she was back with Lorelai. I took off my shoes again and let my feet sink into the water, watching the minnows nip gently at my toes. A warm breeze caressed my hair, a wayward curl tickling my temple. I shivered involuntarily as the breeze cooled my previously sweat-sticky back. I had been planning to read, but I let my mind wander instead, too distracted in the heat. I leaned back on my hands to check out the spotless blue sky looming over Stars Hollow.

Give me a freaking hug.

The press of her body against mine, the curve of her back under my hands, her hair tickling the stubble on my chin, her breath hot on my neck, the sun beating on my back as I sweat in her arms. You've never been a summer girl / But in the summer the heat makes my mind unfurl. I'd forgotten about the sense of comfort Rory brought me. It was more than attraction or built-up sexual energy; that I had known before, but it had always been more than that with her. I had truly cared about her, which was more than I could say for anything else in my then seventeen years of life, and that had scared me shitless.

Had I really given her my number? Did I really want Rory randomly calling me up from now on, after eight and a half years of silence? I couldn't deny that I sometimes missed talking to her—that I would hear a song by The Clash on the radio or catch a glimpse of someone reading Hemingway on the subway and get the incredible urge to even text her and let her know I was thinking of her. But I also realized that completely cutting contact was the only way I would ever get over Rory Gilmore. It was what led me to New York, what led me to Nora, what led me to life outside a pining, directionless shell. I couldn't go back to that—cage of a person that I was twelve or thirteen years ago, the one from which I had just been emerging before Rory showed up at the Philadelphia Truncheon and pushed restart. I had come too far to go back now, and Rory was just as unavailable as she had been before, and, this time, so was I. I was twenty-nine, one of the youngest publishers in the country, and I was dating the most exotic and exciting girl I'd ever met.

I was about to call Nora to let her know I was coming home early, but decided against it in favour of surprising her. As I put my phone away, I noticed the time and jumped up. It was time to leave Stars Hollow.

As I fumbled for my keys in my pocket, I noticed with a smirk that Nora was blasting music inside out apartment (IT'S YOUR HEART, IT'S ALIVE, IT'S PUMPING BLOOD). Knowing there was no way she would hear me come in, I took advantage of the additional element of surprise.

Our apartment was, for all intents and purposes, perfect for us; small but trendy and oh so Brooklyn. Once inside the space is open, with the living area basically at your feet, the staircase leading to the loft (and the bedroom) just to the right of the front door. Underneath the loft was the kitchen, kind of tucked into the corner under the overhang, and in the far corner of the space was the bathroom. The only wall that wasn't exposed brick was the wall of only windows opposite the front door, which now showed the lights of Manhattan, twinkling against the inky backdrop of the sky, on the other side of the Booklyn Bridge. Nora, who was a fashion blogger by night and an interior designer by day, had loaded the space with simple but chic furnishings, with the perfect balance of femininity and masculinity.

The designer in question was currently in the kitchen, dancing like a fool and singing at the top of her lungs. Her blood-red hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she wore sweatpants low on her hips and a sinfully revealing tank top. Her dark, horn-rimmed glasses were perched on the bride of her little nose. I had never seen her look sexier.

Setting down my things, I snuck around the furniture, careful not to let her see me (AND THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD IS WHISTLIN'). Coming up behind her, she screamed bloody murder in surprise as I grabbed her around the waist and lifted, twirling her around in a reverse bear hug. Her scream quickly pealed into laughter when she turned her head and saw me. "Jess!" she squealed. "Oh my god Jess put me down!"

I obeyed, setting her down in front of me and turning her around to face me. She crushed her lips to mine, though we were both smiling too much to kiss properly. "What are you doing here?" Nora demanded delightedly. "I thought you were away till Sunday?"

"Wedding got postponed," I murmured against her throat as I nipped the tanned skin there.

She pulled back to look at me. "What?"

"Her fiancé's mom died and he had to fly to Ireland, so they postponed the wedding," I explained, leaning down again to kiss along Nora's jawline.

"Jesus," she whispered, but thankfully dropped the subject after that. Plunging her fingers into my hair, she pulled my mouth back to hers, allowing our tongues to tangle heatedly. I walked her back towards the couch, knowing full well we definitely were not making it to the bedroom this time.

Some time later, as I held a naked and sleepy Nora against my chest on the couch, I felt a soothing sense of peace envelop me. I remembered the day I met Nora, five years ago at Truncheon in Philadelphia. I had been setting up the stage for the night's poetry reading and she had shown up early, the first to arrive. My jaw had hit the floor when she walked in. Her hair had been jet black then, falling in choppy pieces around her heart-shaped face. Her dark olive skin had glowed in the dim stage lights, and when she had smiled, her teeth were a brilliant white in comparison. She had huge, exotic eyes which were a molten green colour, rimmed with kohl, and both her arms were a complete sleeve of beautiful, intricate tattoos. Long feather earrings had dangled from her earlobes, and her wrists had clanged with dozens of gold bangles. She was the hippest, most outrageously beautiful woman I had ever seen. And for some fucking reason, she had chosen me.

It had been almost instantaneous. She had sat with me during the poetry reading, flirted with me all night, a gesture which I had shamelessly returned. We had exchanged numbers and, just like that, we had embarked on the craziest, most passionate affair of my life. Two months later I got the call to go ahead and open Truncheon in Manhattan and a month after that we were unpacking our shit in our current apartment in Brooklyn.

It was only then, after three months of being simply intoxicated with Nora, that she had finally dropped the bomb that she was only seventeen. I had been twenty-four at the time; naturally I was horrified and I had very nearly sent her home to her parents, from whom she confessed she had run away. But one long night looking out our windows at Manhattan's lights while Nora sobbed and told me her real life's story made me change my mind.

I had been in a terrible funk until I met Nora; she had been a tornado of life and had breathed energy back into me, despite all the awful shit she had gone through. By seventeen she had practically been a live-in babysitter for her own parents, who drank and partied and cashed wellfare and EI checks (repeat). I had figured that hey, if she can handle that shit and still come out with drive and a smile on her face, I can damn well get over Rory Gilmore breaking my heart, and I told her so—which then led to me crying and spilling my guts to her about Rory and everything I'd gone through with her.

The truth was, I was in love with Nora Rose.

Yes, she was challenging—the age difference between us often was cause for rifts and fights and mishandlings of situations, especially at the start when she was still so young. For awhile, I'd felt like her parent, and we had resented each-other for it. She had been wild, out-of-control—I couldn't count on three hands the number of times I had had to go find her in some club, and I still had the scars to prove the number of times I'd had to literally beat guys off of her. Those nights were the worst—long, sleepless nights that I spent with her in our bathroom, her curled in front of the toilet or huddled in the shower, screaming as I blasted cold water on her.

But as she got older and quickly caught up to me in terms of maturity, we ended up balancing each-other out. She settled down, started her fashion blog, which took off shortly after that and she experienced a brief stint of internet fame; I opened up, started writing again, and created a network of authors, poets and publishers all over the city. She took design classes at the Brooklyn College while I managed the Philly Truncheon branch from home (the New York branch had ended up taking way more time than anticipated).

Now, we co-managed the Manhattan Truncheon, with me handling the business side of things upstairs and Nora organizing poetry slams and other such events downstairs. We had ended up completely remodling the downstairs under Nora's design and it now had a bar and a kitchen. Most people in New York called it Café Livre and it was actually a trendy night-life scene which attracted artists and hipsters; but to me, it would always be Truncheon Books.

Nora now worked for an independent interior design company tree days a week, managed the Café the rest of the time, and continued writing her blog posts late into the night. She was one of the most hard-working people I knew; I was so proud of how far she had come from the seventeen-year-old trainwreck I had first met her as, how she had turned her life around all on her own.

Just as her breaths were becoming steady and her body was warming with sleep, I decided to tell her so. She looked up at me from her spot on my chest, Manhattan's lights twinkling in her pond-green eyes, and smiled. "I didn't do it on my own. I couldn't have done it without you."

Smiling back, I just held her tight to me as we both dropped off to sleep.

Rory

"Hey, you." James' voice was gravely as it came through my computer's speakers. He looked like he'd been through hell and back, his eyes tired his forehead creased.

I smiled into my webcam at him. "Hey, baby. How are you doing? How are things over there?"

I was sitting in my childhood bedroom with the door closed so I wouldn't wake Lorelai, Luke and Emerson, who were all sound asleep upstairs. It was midday in Dublin, and seven in the morning in Stars Hollow. I had set my alarm to wake up for our scheduled Skype conversation; James had been too busy with funeral arrangements and family time to talk until then. My hair was a mess and I was still in my pyjamas, but I didn't care. I was just glad to finally see his face, hear his voice.

He sighed. "I'm exhausted, Rory. I constantly have a headache from crying and my entire family is at my house, there's no room to think or breathe. All I want to do is sit with me Dad and me brothers and drink and grieve in peace, but I've got cousins coming out of my arse and aunts pinching me cheeks and—god, I miss you." His breath caught and he pressed his fingers to his eyes. "You've no idea how badly I wish you were here. It would make all this shit bearable."

My eyes prickled with tears, but I knew I had to be strong for James in this moment. "I know, babe. I so wish I could be there for you." I felt the familiar roll of guilt in my stomach. With the wedding all paid for, we had barely been able to afford James' plane ticket home. Me going with him just wasn't in the cards. I thought, briefly, about asking my father for help, but he was, for all intents and purposes, estranged, and I was hardly going to end up in another Friday-night-dinner scenario with him. Plus, someone had to stay behind to tie up all the loose ends. And I had told my editor I would be back at work on Wednesday.

James and I chatted a bit more, but I could tell he was too drained to have a real full conversation. I let him go, tearfully telling him I loved him, and shut my laptop.

I wandered out into the kitchen and helped myself to a bowl of cereal. As I sat there, feeling way too heavy and emotional for eight in the morning, my phone began buzzing on the table. "Hello?"

"Hey, Rory." It was my editor, Rufus. "Sorry to call so early—something's come up."

I rubbed my forehead, repressing a sigh. "No worries, Rufus. What's up?"

"I think you're going to like this. There's a new play opening Off-Broadway this weekend in New York, but it's rumoured that it's going to move On-Broadway very, very soon." Rufus' voice was practically crackling with giddiness. "Anyway, apparently the lady who normally writes Off-Broadway reviews for the Times just went into labour so she's no able to review it, and I guess they looked at a list or something and they turned to us to take her place for this show!"

I sat up a little straighter. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying..." I could hear Rufus making a drum-roll sound, probably on his desk, "they loved your review for Vania and Sonia and Masha and Spike at the Shubert and asked if you could review this play for them."

I very nearly dropped my phone into my cereal. "What?"

"The Times, Rory! The New York Fucking Times! You made it, kid!"

Before I could stop myself, I let out a shriek of pure joy, leaping from my seat and jumping around my kitchen. In my elation I barely noticed the thundering of Lorelai's footsteps on the stairs, until she scolded me from the kitchen doorway, "Rory! It's eight in the morning; what are you screaming about?"

I could hear Emerson crying upstairs but hardly cared in the moment. I spoke into my phone, holding a hand up to my mother to wait. "When is it?"

"Thursday night!" Rufus shrieked in response.

"I'll be there! Oh my god!"

As soon as I hun gup the phone, Lorelai was on me. "What the hell was that all about?"

"I made it, Mom," I cried, my eyes shining with tears of joy, this time. "I'm going to write for the New York Times. I'm going to Broadway!"

A/N: Sorry for all dat exposition and not a lot of Rory/Jess action; but hey, you asked, and I delivered! I have a feeling y'all can guess what's gonna happen next...

Pleeeeaaase keep reviewing! Your ideas and insights and opinions have seriously been a huge help and inspiration. Keep em coming!