warning: M rated scenes ahead ;)

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P.S. thank you PicklebyPie for your review!

disclaimer: I own nothing

"You sure you don't want me to go with you babe? We can go shopping, get a hotel room, order some delicious New York pizza, reenact the 13 Going on 30 sleepover scene, minus all the minors of course. So basically dance on a bed and sing Pat Benatar together. It would be so fun!" Lorelai enthuses as she follows Rory out to her car with her last box.

"As fun as that sounds, Jess is expecting me. And you have work tomorrow so you can't really go."

"I would play hookie for you, my favorite child!"

"I always knew I was your favorite. Thanks mom, but it's okay. I'm looking forward to ransacking Jess's library."

Lorelai wiggles her eyebrows, "Oh I bet you are!"

"Mom! That wasn't an euphemism! I want to read his books."

"Oh yeah? Did you read his books on Thursday night? I feel like you're holding out on me."

"Ugh, I'm leaving now. I love you, bye." She gives her a quick hug.

"Wait! That was a terrible hug. I'm sorry I won't make any more suggestive comments about you and the hoodlum. Come here." She squeezes Rory in a tight, loving embrace. "I'm so proud of you. And I'm going to miss you."

Rory smiles softly, "Thanks mom. I'm going to miss you too. But you're going to come visit me soon right?"

"Yes! We can go Christmas shopping! We should go ice skating at rockefeller center!"

"It's going to be full of tourists."

"So? I am a tourist. Oh and can we get croissants and eat outside of Tiffany's for breakfast please?"

"I don't live close to Tiffany's. We would have to get up so early to do that."

"Okay, maybe we can do pizza in front of Tiffany's at lunchtime instead."

"You've got a deal. I'm going to get on the road. Bye mom."

"Bye honey! Call me when you get to Brooklyn. And call me when you're safely at Jess's. And call me when you're tucked into bed so I can listen for Jess's breathing in the background!"

Rory rolls her eyes and waves at her mom as she drives away.

She stops at Luke's before she gets out of town. She walks in and greets him at the counter.

"Hi Luke! I just wanted to stop and say goodbye…and also get coffee." He grins and pulls out a large cup from behind the counter.

"Here you go. It's half regular, half decaf. I know you Gilmore girls like something to sip on during long drives, this way you won't have to make multiple stops." She smiles, warmed by his kindness.

"Aw Luke, you old softy. Give me a hug!" He rolls his eyes but comes around the counter to hug her.

"Please take care of yourself Rory. And if my nephew does anything stupid, let me know. I've given him explicit instructions to keep you safe," she laughs and pulls away. He looks like he wants to say something else but is struggling with it, in his own Luke way.

"What is it?"

"Will you…take care of Jess too? I know you would never intentionally do it Rory but…try not to hurt him."

She frowns but nods, "Of course. You know, we're both different now Luke. We're really good friends."

He nods, "I know. But with the…you know," he gestures to her stomach and she self consciously crosses her arms, "I worry. You're going to tell him, right?"

She looks at the floor, then back up at Luke "I've been nothing but honest with him Luke. I promise." He exhales and nods.

"Good. That's good. Hang here for a sec, I have something else for you."

He runs up to the old apartment and comes back down with a bag. He hands it to her along with a bakery bag from behind the counter. She looks at him quizzically and opens the plastic bag. Her eyes grow wide as she sees her dress, underwear and tights from Thanksgiving. She was supposed to sneak back in Friday night to get her clothes form the dryer. She quickly closes it.

"Um it's not what it looks like."

Luke shakes his head and waves his hands in front of his face, "I don't want to know. I don't want to know anything at all. The less I know, the better, because I cannot lie to your mother. Anyway, there's a cherry danish, a donut and two apples in the bakery bag for the ride. Try to start with the fruit, please."

She nods, still blushing from the fact that Luke just handed over her freaking underwear. The very same underwear that she wore while Jess pleasured her a week ago. She could die on the spot.

"I promise to try. Thank you, for everything. Bye!"

He nods and waves and she's rushing out the door and on the road again.

After the two hour drive, Rory makes it to Brooklyn and knocks at Jess's door.

He opens it with a grin, "You see I didn't wait outside for you this time."

She blows past him and storms into the apartment, "Luke handed me my underwear this morning!"

He closes the door behind her and follows her with a confused look, "Lorelai tossed a shoe at me last night?"

She looks at him completely befuddled.

"Sorry I thought we were ad-libbing? Or something?" Rory shoots him a deadly look.

"Okay so. Luke handed you…your underwear?"

"Yes! I forgot to go back to the apartment Friday night to get my clothes from the dryer. He found them and gave them to me in a bag this morning. I am humiliated! This is worse than giving you a front row seat to The Shining last week."

"It was hardly The Shining. Maybe like Winona Ryder's hand in Edward Scissorhands. Which is apt because I was afraid that I somehow did Edward Scissorhands you with my fingers. Thought maybe the roughness of my manly calluses - "

"You're being annoying on purpose!" she interrupts him and he smirks "Jess. Luke - quiet, awkward, shy Luke - gave me my underwear. Which means he found the underwear, somehow figured out it was mine, and touched it to put it in this bag! You know what, I'm going to throw it out."

"Oh I'm sure he didn't touch your underwear. He probably put cleaning gloves on."

"Doesn't matter, they are going in the trash."

"I did some of my best work getting that stain out for you. You're just going to throw that away?"

She nods, "Watch me," and throws them in his trash can.

"See if I ever do your laundry again."

Something about the sentence makes Rory smile to herself.

"I made coffee," Jess states, pointing in the direction of a steaming mug sitting on his kitchen counter.

She grins, "You're a god," she walks up to him and plants a kiss on his lips. He smiles back at her. "Is it okay to do that?"

"S'okay with me."

She sips the coffee he made her and turns her eyes to the floor.

"We do have a lot to talk about still, don't we?"

He half shrugs, "We do."

She nods and continues to sip her coffee, but doesn't respond. He leans against the kitchen counter and studies her next to him. He is an expert at playing the waiting game; he could easily stay quiet until she finally addresses something, anything. But he also has a soft spot when it comes to her and so he puts himself out there first.

"I'm happy you're here. Not just my apartment, but New York."

She gazes softly up at him, "You are?"

He nods, "It will be nice to…exist around each other without prying eyes and ears."

"I think so too."

"And no boyfriends to compete for your attention with," he teases, but is dually looking for spoken confirmation. She never did plainly say she is single, and he certainly doesn't want a repeat of Philadelphia.

"Right." She replies with a big nod, but it occurs to her at that moment that he hasn't asked her a question she expected, especially after their talk on Thursday.

"You haven't asked me who the father was," she looks at him with her curious cerulean eyes. He shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest.

"I figure since you didn't tell me it's either someone I don't know at all, or that I know well enough that you think I'll judge you." She stiffens and he knows he's hit the nail on the head. He leans half his body away from the counter in her direction to address her with humility, "Also, it's not exactly my business. Don't feel like you have to tell me."

She places her coffee cup down on the counter, "I want to tell you. You should know."

He moves his arms from his chest and leans back again. His stance is open but relaxed, no judgment here, Rory.

She sits down on one of the chairs at his small dining table, made for two. She sucks on her lip and pulls at the sleeves of her sweater. She closes her eyes, as if preparing for blowback, and states, "It was Logan."

It's eerily quiet and she slowly opens her eyes to see Jess looking at her, standing in the same spot.

"Okay."

"He was engaged. We had an affair."

Jess crosses his arms over his chest again and sighs. She can't read him, his face looks pensive but not angry or annoyed, or even jealous. He isn't walking away from her but he isn't moving from his spot either.

Suddenly he says with conviction, "He had an affair."

She is puzzled, "That's what I said, we had an affair."

"Were you engaged to someone else?"

"No, but I was sort of in a relationship with that guy Paul."

"Logan had an affair, and you cheated on someone. It doesn't sound like your finest hour, but you do realize that he was more in the wrong?"

Her face is etched with confusion, trying to understand the point of his words, "Does it matter? Can something like that be measured?"

"It does matter in this case," he eyes her intently.

"Why?"

"Because now I can see why you've been acting the way you have. I know you're using that as some sort of explanation for what happened to you. I know you Rory, you think you're being punished for how you got pregnant and who it was with. It doesn't work that way. If it did, there wouldn't be any 'illegitimate' children in the world."

She looks stricken, like he just shoved a spotlight on her face in a dark room,

"But maybe other people are punished in other ways."

"Stop torturing yourself, you're not being punished. You didn't deserve what happened to you. End of story."

"You have no way to prove that."

"Neither do you!"

"Don't you think I'm horrible for the way I treated Paul? For sleeping with someone's fiancé and staying in their home and letting him buy me plane tickets and hotel rooms? Getting pregnant? None of that bothers you?"

He looks at her critically and scoffs, "You want me to be mad. You want me to yell at you and criticize you and run away from this. You want this to affect me."

Rory's stomach drops as she realizes that is what she wanted. Jess has been kind and understanding and wonderful, and she doesn't feel she deserves it. She wants him to do something wrong, to treat her poorly because she thinks it's what should happen.

"Rory, I care about you. I don't care about the details of your past relationships, I don't care about any mistakes you've made. All I care about is you and how you feel about yourself. Can't you see that?"

He pulls out the chair across from her, it scrapes across the tile floor, but Rory doesn't look up. He sits down and looks her over with caring eyes.

"Remember when you dropped out of Yale? I didn't yell at you because I was jealous of that guy. I didn't yell at you because you dropped out of Yale," she looks up at him about to object, but he stops her, "yes, they were part of my diatribe, but that wasn't the central idea. The problem I had is that you weren't being true to yourself and it was making you unhappy. You were so unhappy, Rory. I could see it all over your face, in your body language. You knew that you made mistakes, but you didn't want to fix them. You were just going to go on torturing yourself with the results of your decision, instead of making the decision to make changes and move forward."

Rory meets his eyes and tries to see in herself what he sees in her. How could she have done and been all of those things and it doesn't matter to him? How can she get to the point where it doesn't matter to her? Or least the point where it doesn't wreck her self-esteem and send her on a path to destruct other good things in her life. Like how she is already trying to damage what she has with Jess by wanting him to be mad at her.

She stands up and moves forward to stand in front of him. He looks up at her, the gold specks in his eyes alight and drawing her closer. She leans down and presses her lips to his, then moves her mouth to his ear, "Show me your bedroom." He looks unsure for a moment but then grins and grabs her face in his hands, giving her a bruising kiss.

He leads her to his bedroom, hand in hand and lays her down on his bed. She notices more book shelves, and one of the smallest closets she's ever seen, but is too distracted by the sudden wetness between her legs to say anything. Jess is hovering above her, kissing from her ear to her neck and she breaks out in goosebumps all over her body at the sensation. She reaches down and unbuttons her jeans, and then his. He crawls down her body and pulls at her zipper, then slides her pants all the way off and tosses them on the floor. She bites her lip as she watches him strip in front of her. The flex of his carved chest and ab muscles sends a surge through her body and she has to cross her legs to give herself some pressure. And while the size of him isn't a surprise, seeing it in the flesh, rock hard and ready for her, causes her breathing to tremble slightly. She wants to feel the weight of his chiseled body on hers, she's dying to run her hands up and down his strong body and god is she dying to feel him inside of her. He leans forward and kisses her foot, moving slowly up her leg. His rough fingers meet her hip bones as he pulls at her thong, and the skin contact forces a moan out of her. She sits up and removes her sweater, leaving her in just a black lacy bra.

"Take it off for me. So I can see all of you." He urges as he kneels on the bed between her legs. She reaches behind her and undoes the clasp, hastily pulling the straps down her arms and dropping it off the side of the bed. She sees his manhood twitch at the sight, and it brings a seductive smile to her face.

"What do you think?" she asks, with more confidence than she expected to hear out of her own mouth.

He fixes her with a sincere look, laced with lust, "Beautiful, Rory. You're so goddamn beautiful."

Her eyes darken and she tosses any bit of shyness she still had out the door, "So are you Jess. I want you inside me, please."

It surprises her how affected he is by her words and her body; he has always played everything very cool and suave. He's James Dean; he's confident, cocky and assured. But right now, his breathing is shallow and his hands are shaky running up and down her thighs.

"Are you okay?" she whispers, sitting up and grabbing one of his hands. He nods and takes a deep breath, and suddenly she understands. "In a way we have been waiting years for this, right? I mean I thought I was going to lose my virginity to you."

"I thought that was going to happen too. But it didn't. And now every moment we have been together or seen each other since then has built up all this…energy."

"And it feels like so much pressure." He nods slowly and crawls back up her body to meet her lips with his.

"I want to make you feel good. In every way."

She smiles and runs her fingers through his hair.

"I feel the same way," she whispers, kissing the corner of his mouth. He grins and moves his mouth to her chest, spending some time on her breasts, and then kissing down past her bellybutton. He inserts two fingers within her and kisses along her hips and pelvic area. She moans and watches as he gets closer and closer to where she needs him to be. He licks along her inner thigh; the feeling of his tongue against her soft skin makes blood rush through her and she shivers. Finally, he places his lips over her clit and starts to lick his hot tongue in circles around it.

"Oh god," she mutters, her face and neck burning up at the feeling. He switches to hard, purposeful strokes up and down and she groans, tangling a hand in the mess of his hair. In what feels like another second, though she is too dazed to have any actual idea of time, he has suctioned his soft lips over it and is moving his tongue in all directions, varying pressure. The tug in her lower abdomen is so strong, she thinks when she comes she might actually float off the bed. It's been so long since someone has made her feel this way, and it's Jess. The weight of everything that is their history and relationship suddenly feels so heavy. Her senses start to become overwhelmed and she needs something else.

"Jess, come up here," she moans, tugging on his hair. He pulls away from her center, surprised that she's stopping him; he could feel that she was on the brink. He crawls up her body and is met with a passionate kiss. Rory reaches between them and moves her hand up and down his hardness. He moans into her mouth and pushes his hips against her hand. She keeps up her movements as Jess strenuously reaches to open his nightstand drawer. He feels inside and gets a condom. He brings the package to his mouth and rips the top off. He leans down and places his open mouth over Rory's, moves her hand away and skillfully sheaths himself. He moves himself between her legs and carefully enters her warm, welcoming middle for the first time ever. She gasps and he groans at the long-anticipated contact; they look into each other's eyes lustfully as he pumps in and out of her.

While the emotional feeling is intense, he is gentle with her. It's not what she expected at all. He has always been rough and dangerous, like walking them into traffic while devouring her mouth. Or having her straddled across his lap above Luke's in the middle of the afternoon, daring someone to catch them. Pulling down the button up blouse of her Chilton uniform to takes bites and nips in places that was meant only for the two of them to see. Or having her laid out on his tiny bed up in the apartment above Luke's, knee between her legs and mouth all over her throat.

It feels like he is savoring her, and it feels special. He takes his time, moving his body in perfect rhythm with hers. His hands are holding him up above her and he places kisses randomly between her mouth and her breasts. Her hands are outlining the muscles on his chest and his shoulders, and she gets the urge to have him pressed against her. She places her hands under his arms and at the back of his shoulders, pulling him towards her. He falls forward and the weight is so delicious she moans his name in his ear. She can feel the goosebumps she caused under her hands, and he starts to move faster inside her. He is rubbing against her but it's not quite the right spot, he can tell by the angle she is pushing her hips into him with every thrust. He kisses her mouth and pushes himself back up, arms framing her face. She pouts and it makes him smirk, "You're adorable, baby," he leans down and whispers in her ear, "I'm sorry but I have to take care of something." She looks up at him, confusion on her face, clearly thinking he is about to walk away to run an errand. Instead, he pulls out of her and crawls back down her body. He starts licking and sucking her clit with a ferociousness that catches her so off guard she sits almost all the way up.

"Fuck!" she exclaims as his tongue abrasively laps at her center. He adds his fingers, pushing them inside of her and thrusting at the pace of his tongue. Her whole body is shaking; he wants to make her lose control. He slows his attack and pushes his two fingers deeper inside her to stroke her. He nibbles on her clit and follows it with quick circles repeatedly; the whole time looking up to watch her luscious reactions to his ministrations. Suddenly her body starts spasming, hips rocking against his face and hand, she's panting his name over and over again. Without letting her come down completely, he positions himself back between her legs and thrusts in and out rapidly, taking advantage of her convulsions as an extra pleasure component. She grabs onto his arms to keep steady as he drives into her, still slightly quivering. He repeats a mantra of, "Yes baby," as he gets closer to his end. She uses her nails to scratch up and down his arms and the added sensation pushes him overboard, he leans down to capture her mouth as he finishes, hips jerking against her.

They lay next to each other in his bed, catching their breaths and calming their nerves.

"I assume I didn't bleed this time or else you wouldn't have put your mouth back down there."

"Wow, this is great pillow talk. You take a class on it at Yale or something?"

"I'm traumatized!"

He turns his head and kisses her cheek, "No blood. Just lots and lots of delicious wetness."

Rory blushes, "I was really turned on."

"I could tell," he smirks and then whispers, "and me too."

"We definitely went above and beyond expectations."

"Another thing that we know will always work." They share a smile before Rory's look turns earnest, "Jess…this is a big deal, right?"

He matches her look and replies with a steady and humorless, "I hope so."

She studies his face, but she knows what he is trying to communicate: you tell me.

And although she still can't put a name to what they are, or a description to what they will become, she can substantiate the meaning of this moment for both of them, "It is."

His lips perk up slightly and he leans over to kiss her forehead, "You hungry? I thought I would take you out to dinner somewhere. Since I'm sure we will be ordering take out tomorrow to vet out restaurants in Queens."

She grins, "That sounds great. Can I shower?"

He nods, "It's right across the hall. I'll bring you a clean towel before you're done." She nods and gets out of bed, shielding herself from his view before finding his t-shirt on the floor and putting it on. Jess is shaking his head and chuckling on the bed.

"There's that innocent teenage Rory I used to fool around with."

She gives him her best withering stare.

"Oh no, is that the infamous stare? I've got goosebumps. You were right, it is scary." He teases her, eyes wide with fake fear. She pouts and crosses her arms, stomping towards the door to leave. He laughs and jumps out of bed.

"Wait, I'm sorry for making fun of the withering stare!" He catches up to her and wraps his arms around her from behind.

"You should be! I've perfected it, it's kept many a weirdo away."

"Funny you should say that, I've been meaning to ask you what sort of creeps you meet traveling across the country on Obama's campaign trail."

She laughs, "Why? You want to outweird them?"

"Only if you're into that," he winks, " No. I'm just wondering how prepared you are for your new life as a New Yorker."

"Oh, I'm prepared. One time in Florida on the campaign trail, I went to a bar with some coworkers. It was so hot outside so, against my mother's advice, I wore shorts. There was this older man there, visibly drunk. When he saw my shorts, he starting hollering and calling them daisy dukes. I tried to ignore him and brush him off, but he wouldn't stop talking about my legs and my ass like I'm a piece of meat. Then he started singing the 'Dukes of Hazzard' theme song and I went to leave, but I had to walk past him to get out and he grabbed my ass. A guy in my group screamed at him, but we couldn't get the bartender to kick him out so we left."

"Jesus."

"I know, I haven't worn denim shorts in public since."

"Somehow I knew it would be Florida," Jess mumbles, "that's gross. Sorry that happened to you."

She shrugs, "Could have been worse, like waking up in the middle of the night on a bus to see a reporter in a seat across from you staring at you with his hands down his pants."

"Yikes," Jess winces, "pretty sure that's a fucking sex offense."

"The weird part is it didn't look like he was even moving his hand. But I quickly changed seats and avoided him for the rest of the campaign."

"God, are you okay?"

She looks at him and runs a hand down his face, "you worried about me?"

"I think that's pretty obvious, Rory," he states sincerely, concern etched on his face. He was hoping that, even though he told Luke otherwise, somehow she had been spared from the weirdness of the world.

"Thank you," she kisses his cheek, "but I'm okay. Women in general are not, and men are definitely not held accountable enough but…I'm okay. And both those experiences make the subway feel much less scary."

"I guess that's something." he nods, squeezing her tight in his arms, "Now, if I recall, you were heading to the shower."

"I was, but I'm trapped in big, strong arms now. Like a damsel in distress. Except I don't want to be saved."

He smirks at her, "Big, strong arms huh?"

She blushes, "Don't think I haven't noticed that you're a gym rat now. I put my hands all over your body today and have yet to find an ounce of fat!"

"Stop, there's more than an ounce. I just started lifting some weights is all. And carrying around manuscripts is a good workout too."

"Well, it looks mighty good on you, Mariano," she grins and bites her lip.

"You know," he gives her a look of contemplation, "I was thinking about joining your shower to make up for not taking your withering stare seriously. What do you think?"

"I think that's an appropriate atonement."

He is hardly doing anything to her and she is losing her mind. They are sitting on the floor of his shower together, him sitting behind her wrapped around her body. Somehow he set the shower head to just the right position so that it's rhythmically pelting hot water right at her center. The index and middle finger of his right hand are spreading her lips open for more intense contact. His left arm is under her left leg and at her entrance, so he can stroke her with his fingers without impeding the water fall. He's kissing her neck, sometimes roughly and sometimes tenderly. Her knees are weak, her center is throbbing with excitement for the orgasm that's to come; she can honestly say she's never experienced anything like this before. In the past, she has used a shower head and sometimes a jet in a nice bath tub (like at the hotels Logan used to put her up at) to get herself off. But it was nothing like this. The added sensation of Jess's body, fingers, and mouth is unbelievably erotic. As is the knowledge that he is willing to spend all of this time on just her. He wants to see her reach a phenomenal climax, and he wants to help her get there without expecting anything in return. It makes all of the sensuality feel deeper, and she feels a flutter in her heart with every labored breath she takes.

He moves his mouth to her ear and bites it, then blows cool air on it and it sends shivers throughout her body.

"You like it baby?" he whispers, and she whimpers in response.

"Is this throbbing for me?" he asks as he gently moves his right index finger over her clit. It sends a shock through her and her legs squirm; her whole body feels electric.

"Oh my god," she groans as he moves his finger in steady but featherlike circles around her bud. The absence of consistent pressure is making her feel deranged, and she tries to adjust her hips to feel more if his finger on her.

"Hey," he whispers as he pushes back against her to calm her movements, "Let me take care of you. It's going to be so good baby, I promise."

She takes a deep breath and nods, allowing him to continue his journey with her body. He places his finger back on her clit and applies slightly more pressure, petting it like a kitten. The steady stream of water hits it whenever his finger moves out of place and he still has two fingers inside of her. It's an absolute assault on her senses. She moans and leans her head back on Jess's shoulder. He grips her tighter with his right arm and uses his tongue to lick around the sensitive spots on her neck and ear. Her limbs are shaking, her eyes are closed in tight concentration, trying to focus on one feeling at a time. Jess can feel she's begging for release so he moves his left arm from under her leg, and brings his hand to her chest to pluck at her nipples. The hand between her legs switches from a petting motion to a persistent tapping on her clit; this way she still gets to feel the drops of hot water penetrating her.

She's cursing and saying his name repeatedly, and for a moment he thinks back to when he was a teenager and could only dream of making her feel this way: unhinged and uninhibited. She liked to do most things with careful consideration, and rarely, but always satisfyingly, he could draw out the rebel in her. He liked to imagine he would be able to liberate that part of her sexually too. He nibbles at her ear and decides to tell her, aiming to propel her to a ravishing end, "I've been dreaming of this for years baby. Come for me."

He increases the speed of his taps at the same time, and she moans a beautiful and melodic, "Oh Jess."

"Let go, Rory. Let me feel you come undone," he coaxes her, and she leans further into him enough that he can capture her mouth. He moves his tongue along her teeth, and tugs gently at her lips. The mass of sensations mixed with Jess's sensual confessions finally take her, and she breaks away from his mouth as the strength of her orgasm causes her whole body to lean forward with a cry. Jess holds her tightly, kissing her head with a soft smile as he patiently waits out her tremors. Grateful that he could do that to her; hopeful that he can make her feel that way thousands of more times in their lives.

She relaxes in his arms, head falling back to his shoulder. He studies her face for signs that it was as pleasurable as he hoped it would be for her, and is gratified to see her flushed and still lightly panting. He kisses her on her open lips and pulls away to see her eyes wide, and a worried crease forming on her forehead.

"Jess that was…intense."

He understands her expression now; she is surprised by the feelings he's evoked from her.

He half shrugs in response, "It's supposed to be."

"My mom was right I guess."

Surprised to hear Lorelai mentioned in this context, he half laughs and asks, "What?"

"After she went all Emily Gilmore on us at Thanksgiving, she talked to me afterwards and said that everything between us has always been intense and always will be. She said she's afraid we will hurt each other."

Oh, he realizes, she's not afraid of the good feelings. She's afraid of the potential bad ones.

He reaches over to turn off the shower, and leans out of the curtain to grab a towel. He pushes Rory forward to wrap it around her, and then she leans back again into his chest. He swallows as he thinks about how to respond to her distress, because it's something that scares him too.

"There's no question that we have the ability to wound each other. We've both done it before, haven't we?"

He's both looking for confirmation of the damage he's done, and acknowledgement of the damage she's done to him. She nods slowly.

"It scares me Jess. I guess I've been kind of numb from everything lately. I forgot how…on top of the world you can make me feel. The other end of that is…"

He decides to finish her thought, "It's a risk. We both know it. But the good stuff can be…so profound Rory. If we both put in equal effort, if a real relationship is what you want, it could be everything."

She sinks lower on his chest and carefully states, "I'm not sure what I want."

He runs his hands down her arms and reflects, "Don't you think we've already gone too far to avoid any pain?"

"I don't know, I don't know what to think," she whispers in response.

Jess sighs, a little hurt and a little frustrated with her unwillingness to discuss and delve into these feelings. They agreed to talk and work through this. To him, there isn't anything to think about; they are proven to be compatible at all levels at this point. And he believes he just did a great job of exemplifying that for her in the shower, as well as in their conversations recently. He wants her to let him be there for her fully, to be able to say everything he wants to say to her freely and have it reciprocated. But the word 'patience' overshadows all of those thoughts, and he says diplomatically, "That won't get easier on an empty stomach. Let's go eat."

"I just realized I put out before dinner," Rory muses as they sit at a Thai restaurant eating together.

"I won't tell Emily. Post or Gilmore."

"Oh it would kill her."

"She's got at least eight more lives," he pauses, "did she know, by the way? About the baby?"

Rory shakes her head, "No, I didn't have the courage to tell her at the wedding. I was mostly afraid she would call Logan or his parents and demand all kinds of things from him that I didn't want."

Jess asks carefully, understanding that he is pushing a boundary, "and just to clarify, you were going to tell him, right?"

She sits up straight, mildly offended, "of course I was. I was waiting until the end of my first trimester to tell anyone else, including him. But I didn't want anything from him, I just wanted him to know so he could make the decision to be in the kid's life or not."

Jess smiles and nods.

"Why are you smiling?"

"Because. I'm proud of you. You broke things off with this guy and were determined to keep it that way even after you found out you were pregnant. Someone with that kind of money and your history with him…it would have been easy for you to get involved again for security and comfort. But that's not you. You don't like easy. You struggle with hard, but you don't accept easy."

She hadn't thought of it that way. In her mind, she was just trying to do right by her child and herself. It wasn't an option to try and make things work with him, if he wanted to leave his wife. They had already made enough of a mess of things. She knew he needed to be aware, in case he wanted to know his child, and that was the extent of it. She feels pride in herself at this realization: she is strong, and she is capable of making smart decisions.

"Sometimes it feels like you just ripped a blindfold off my face."

Jess smiles wide. Yes. He will be patient. Because these are exactly the moments of clarity he is waiting for.