A/N: Good to know some folks are enjoying this - I hoped maybe more people would be into it, but I'm starting to think perhaps some have just gone over to reading at AO3 and/or aren't getting the notifications here anymore (because mine seem to be broken again) but anywho, if you left a review, then I think you muchly :)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 2

It was a stupid idea, at least, that was what Jess kept telling himself. Of course, the fact it was actually Rory's idea ought to prove that it wasn't stupid at all. That the only person in this whole situation proving to be an idiot was him, if he didn't take her sound advice.

Heaving a sigh, he picked up the receiver and finally dialled. He had cleared it with Jimmy and Sasha, promised to pay all the long-distance charges. After all, it was way too late even for Jess to be roaming the streets looking for a pay phone, and he hardly dare risk this conversation to a system that could fail at any second. He already went through that once this week.

A little over a day on from his talk with Rory, he wondered if she was actually in Europe by now. He could imagine her there, maybe climbing the steps of the Eiffel Tower, taking in the Uffizi in Florence, or trying out terrible accents with her mom on the streets of London. Maybe she hadn't even left yet, but when she finally got into her vacation, she would have a great time, Jess was sure on that, and he was glad to know it. He only wanted Rory to be happy, and it was a good half of the reason why he was making this call, because she wanted that for him too. The other fifty percent was something Jess wasn't quite ready to admit yet.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Luke. It's me. Jess, it's Jess," he clarified, resisting the urge to face-palm but certainly feeling dumb enough that he could.

"Jess?" Luke's voice echoed in his ear. "Geez, I never... How are you doing?"

"I'm fine. Good, I'm... I'm doing okay," he settled on eventually, clearing his throat twice before he could go on. "I'm sorry it's so late..."

"That's no problem," Luke assured him. "It's really good to hear from you, at all, actually."

Something like a sigh of relief passed through Jess when he heard those words. For all that Rory told him he should call his uncle, for all that he wanted to believe his reaching out would be welcome, he had trouble really believing it. Jess had never been the most wanted person in the world, he was used to that, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt sometimes. Being accepted, having his call genuinely wanted and appreciated, it was nice.

"Where are you?" Luke asked then.

Jess went from relaxed to braced accordingly in under five seconds. "LA. I'm... I'm with Jimmy right now."

"Uh-huh." There was a long pause before Luke said anymore, and even then, it had nothing whatever to do with Jess' answer. "So, I'm glad you called. It's good to hear your voice, you know, to know you're doing okay."

"Yeah, you too," Jess told him, taking a deep breath before he ploughed on into the more important part of the conversation. "Look, Luke, I just wanted to say that... well, I'm sorry for skipping out the way I did. I know you told me to go, but leaving without saying goodbye-"

"Hey, you're fine," Luke assured him fast. "Honestly, I'm sorry too, and I don't blame you for the way you left. Geez, I think I made it pretty plain that you should get out, I couldn't exactly be mad when you did what I said. I mean, it was one of those first-time-for-everything moments, but still."

Jess smirked at the semi-joke, more than glad to hear his uncle make it. Humour made it easier, and something certainly needed, though he appreciated Luke's apology more than he would ever know.

"You know, I didn't want to leave," he said, clearing his throat so he could go on at a level where Luke might actually hear him. "I know the stuff I did and said made it seem that way, and I guess there was a part of me that wanted out of that whack-a-doo town-"

"Trust me, there are plenty of times when I feel that way myself."

"-but I appreciate what you did for me, Luke. I never said it, I never acted like it, but I did appreciate it."

Jess knew he should have said it long ago. Maybe it was only now, when Luke wasn't actually looking directly at him, when he had time to reflect on just how damn lucky he had been to be given the chance at the life Luke offered him, that the words could come. There was a huge possibility that it was all too late, something Jess was near-certain of, until he heard his uncle sigh.

"You were more than welcome, nephew," he said then, "and if things don't work out with your father - and I'm not taking a pop at him when I say that, or maybe I am, but he deserves it - anyway, if you need a place and you wanted to come back, that'd be okay."

Though he opened his mouth to say thank you, to express his thoughts on whether that might ever happen or not, Jess just couldn't seem to say anything at all. In the end, he managed a muttered 'thanks' which was such a tiny fraction of what he should have said, what he wanted to say. It was all he had for now.

"Uh, so how are things back there?" he asked instead, because those words were easier.

He figured they should end on something a little less serious, a little more normal. At least he wouldn't start bawling like a kid if he could get Luke to rant and rave about the idiocy of Taylor or town meetings or something!

"Yeah, things are... Let's just say a lot has happened here in the last couple of days."

"Really?"

Jess knew that Rory had graduated and the Gilmore girls had headed off to Europe, but aside from that, he couldn't imagine what Luke was talking about.

"Anything I should know about?" he asked curiously.

"No. Well, yeah, I guess," Luke considered. "So, I was supposed to be going on vacation... with Nicole."

"Vacation with Nicole, really?"

"Yup, a cruise, actually, but it didn't happen."

"Change your mind?" Jess prompted when Luke got quiet.

There was another beat of silence before his uncle actually explained.

"Well, Lorelai came over, you know, to the diner, we were closed, and she said she didn't want me to go, or more that she didn't want me to get any closer to Nicole, you know, engaged or anything," he rambled, not quite as well as a Gilmore, but pretty good for a Danes. "Anyway, long story short, I asked why, she told me, we kissed, and I broke up with Nicole, so no vacation."

It was Jess' turn then to be stunned into a few seconds of total silence.

"You kissed?" he checked, eventually.

"Yes."

"You and Lorelai?"

"Yes."

"Huh."

"That's it, that's your entire reaction to this?" asked Luke, sounding almost annoyed.

Jess shrugged his shoulders, even though nobody could see him. "Not sure what else you want me to say."

"That never stopped you expressing an opinion before," his uncle pointed out. "Seriously, what do you think? Not about the kissing, obviously, just me and Lorelai being... well, me-and-Lorelai."

It took no time at all for Jess to come up with an answer to that one. "Honestly? I think it's great."

"You do?"

"Come on, Luke, it's been a long time coming," he said, with an eye-roll he hoped his uncle didn't hear, yet was sure he did. "Really long. Long enough that Raquel Welch was running around in a fur bikini at the start of it all."

"Okay, okay, I get it," Luke insisted then, going on to pontificate about just how many things could potentially go wrong if he and Lorelai really did try to start a romantic relationship.

Jess thought about interrupting, letting his uncle know that the cost of the call was going to bankrupt him and then some, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Talking to him about anything again was weirdly nice, comfortable, comforting even.

He meant what he said about it being great that Luke and Lorelai might be getting together, even if he and Rory's mother never had gotten along. Those two had to be destined or something. Jess knew little about love, but he knew damn well it was right there between Luke and Lorelai. He also knew that there was something similar between himself and Rory, but that wasn't anything Jess was keen to bring up to his uncle tonight. Maybe some other time.

Rory had waited a while to tell Lorelai about Jess' call during graduation. The way she told it, she had thought about keeping it to herself entirely, almost certain that any reaction she got would never be good. As Lorelai pointed out, it was a parent's place to be angry at a person who broke their kid's heart. She had every right to be mad at Jess and to not want to cut him even an iota of slack. Of course, she also had to accept the fact that Rory loved him, no matter what form that love took, and also the fact that he had apologised and her daughter had accepted.

The Europe trip was mere hours away when the confession was blurted out, and Lorelai, who had been holding onto her own secret for almost as long, realised she couldn't bear to keep it any longer. Not wanting to potentially ruin the long-awaited back-packing vacation, she was fully prepared to try, but once one cat was out of the bag, she figured she may as well make it a pair. She told Rory about asking Luke not to go on his cruise, not to get engaged or married to Nicole, and how it had led to some serious love-like confessions and excessive kissing.

"Wow. You and Luke." Rory shook her head, eyes wide with wonder. "But what about Alex?"

"Oh, that was never serious," Lorelai insisted, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. "I mean, he was great, don't get me wrong, but we ran out of things to talk about after a half-dozen dates and, without wanting to squick you out, the not-talking just wasn't good enough to... Yeah, you're squicked." She stopped abruptly on noting the really freaked out look on Rory's face. "The point is, I ended it, and now, me and Luke are... well, I don't really know what we are, but he seemed pretty set on telling Nicole it was over, and pretty bummed when he remembered we were going to be gone in Europe all summer."

"Yeah, that's familiar." Rory sighed, looking towards the door where the two enormous backpacks waited.

Lorelai's gaze followed in the same direction and it made her sigh too. They were going away, for weeks, a couple of months actually, far away from Stars Hollow. Far away from Luke. It gave Lorelai a squirmy feeling inside that she didn't much care for, but she kept that to herself. They had been looking forward to this trip for too long to go changing plans now.

"When I reminded Jess we were going to be gone, he sounded kind of sad too," said Rory, looking decidedly forlorn.

Lorelai thought about it for all of two seconds before asking; "Do you think we should not go?"

"What?!"

That reaction proved, beyond of a shadow of a doubt, that she never should have asked.

"I'm not saying that we shouldn't," she back-pedalled lightning fast. "I'm just asking if you think we shouldn't, but I'm not thinking it, not really," she insisted, before adding, "unless you are."

Lorelai wasn't sure she had ever seen Rory look more conflicted, and maybe she should hate that it was Jess that had got in her head, but at this point, it didn't seem so bad. Not when there was a chance to stay where Luke was.

"We can't not go," said Rory eventually, flapping her arms like a baby bird that hadn't quite worked out how to take flight yet. "We can't. We've been planning this for years."

"Right." Lorelai nodded once, knowing she absolutely right. "And wouldn't we set feminism back, like, a million years if we didn't follow through on our big, important plans because of boys?"

"I think so, yeah," Rory agreed, though her face showed that she was still seriously considering her options.

"So, we're going," said Lorelai, trying to make it sound more like a statement and less like a question, though she was pretty sure she could have easily passed it off as the latter, if she wanted to.

"We're going," said Rory, with a smile on her lips that wasn't quite reaching her eyes.

It was the right choice, Lorelai was sure on that. Like she said, what kind of independent women would they be if they gave up the chance of this epic trip they had been planning forever and looking forward to for just as long, just because she maybe had a boyfriend now? Just because maybe Rory's sort of ex-boyfriend might be looking to come back into the picture? That wasn't cool.

It wasn't being a good mother to let her daughter think that unprecedented conversations with Jess or even Luke were more important than their relationship with each other or their very special Europe backpacking extravaganza! Unless it was. Lorelai was never one hundred percent sure she was getting these things right. Again, she wondered why motherhood couldn't just come with a handbook.

Still, the decision seemed to have been made. Europe was a go and everything else, everyone else would have to wait until they got back. In the meantime, they would just have to try not to think about the guys in their lives. Lorelai said as much, as she and Rory ran through final checks of their luggage and such.

Yeah, that part was probably going to be easier said than done.

To Be Continued...