Connection

By the end of the next week, there was a thick blanket of snow on the ground, and despite the intensifying postcard-like quality of the town, Jess was longing for the end of the last day of school before break so he could be…out. They had been studying topics for the last couple of weeks that he had seen and mastered the year before at his high school in Manhattan, and while this did make him feel disdainful of the town he'd wound up in, it mostly made him feel bored. He did not understand why he should redo work he had already done just to get grades he'd already earned at what he considered to be a better school, so he began to mentally check out, and his academic standing at Stars Hollow High was suffering for it. However, no one seemed very concerned, and as far as he could tell, no one was communicating with his uncle about it, so he wasn't concerned either. He'd never be able to afford to go to college anyway, so what was the point? This train of thought stalled as more negative emotions began to make their presence known. As much as he tried to convince himself of his own aloofness, he couldn't completely ignore the tight, twisting anxiety he felt in his gut when he considered his future.

He jumped out of his seat as soon as he heard the first shrill note of the bell and was the first one out of class. Chuck Presby, who had been vying for class jerk all year and was unfortunately in Jess' last class, shoved roughly past him on his way out of the school doors. Jess paused, readjusted his backpack, and stared after him for a moment before he kept walking. Chuck had been trying to provoke a reaction out of Jess ever since he'd arrived, but so far Jess had ignored him. However, as he walked out the front doors of the school, he saw Chuck knock into a freshman so hard that she fell into the snow.

"Hey!" Jess shouted before he could stop himself.

Chuck turned. "Oh hey, it's the librarian."

"Ooh, clever," Jess drawled.

"What do you want?"

"Well, I saw you trying to prove how tough you are, so I thought I'd offer you the proverbial 'someone your own size'."

"What?"

"Aw, too many words for ya, Chuck? Those two brain cells up there must not bump into each other much, huh?"

"What did you just say to me?"

"I called you stupid. That clear enough for you?"

Chuck sneered. "Says the guy flunking most of his classes," he said as he shoved Jess roughly backwards.

"Keep it up, pal, you'll get hurt," Jess warned.

Chuck took the challenge and shoved Jess even harder. Jess lunged forward, grabbed Chuck's jacket and swung him around. He ducked as Chuck took a swing at him. Jess popped back up quickly and punched Chuck hard across the face. He heard someone's voice behind him and felt a hand try to pull him backwards. He pivoted quickly and swung at Dean, who managed to step out of range. He switched tactics and rushed at Dean to try to knock him down.

"Hey, get off me, man, I'm not fighting you!" Dean shouted as he grabbed Jess' arms and shoved him away. "Jess, knock it off, man. What the hell is your problem?"

"Nothin'," said Jess.

"You saw it was me, Jess. Why'd you keep punching?"

"I had momentum."

"I was trying to help you."

"Yeah, well, I don't need your help, but thanks for offering." Jess gave Dean a would-be friendly punch on the shoulder and walked away.

Later, after he had changed and started his shift at the diner, Luke told him they were going to close early that night.

"Why?" Jess asked.

"Well, Sookie, Lorelai and Rory invited us to a thing at the inn later, y'know, dinner..."

The way he trailed off at the end made Jess suspicious.

"Dinner…? Don't they usually work at the inn, y'know, with guests who pay for dinner?"

Luke took a deep breath and said, "Some group out of Chicago reserved the whole place to put on some kind of themed dinner, but then they cancelled, and since they already paid for it, Sookie and Lorelai invited the whole town to eat and stay the night."

"And you agreed to this?" Jess said, surprised and frustrated at the same time.

"Yes."

"For both of us?"

"Yes."

Jess paused for a moment, staring at Luke. The anger he felt at having his plans made for him again battled against the curiosity he felt about seeing Rory again. His curiosity won.

"...Okay."

Luke's eyebrows shot up.

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Oh, well…okay."

Much of the diner's clientele had also been invited to the dinner, which meant that the diner stayed slow, so Jess helped his uncle close up at four o'clock to shower and change. After much grumbling on Luke's part about Jess's personal grooming routine, they were out the door and on their way by five thirty.

As they walked up the lane towards the inn, Jess noticed they were not far behind Dean. He hadn't doubted that Dean would be invited to this shindig and wondered briefly if Rory had already heard about what happened in front of the school that day or not.

He and Luke walked in and, while Luke was handing off their things, Jess looked around and noticed that he seemed to have become a topic of interest between Dean and Rory.

I guess now she's heard.

He waved sarcastically at Dean as they made eye contact. The annoyed look that crossed Dean's face made him smile. He started to walk around, feigning interest in the stuffy, floral oil paintings placed evenly around the reception area as Rory and her mother greeted friends and family. He turned away from the paintings and found Rory looking at him. As their eyes met, she looked suddenly unsure of herself and turned away from him. He smiled, but before he could approach, Rory was called away by her hosting duties, so Jess wandered back over to Luke, who was caught up in a bizarre conversation with an intense blonde girl. Luckily, before he could get dragged into it, Lorelai interrupted with a speech. Jess struggled not to roll his eyes when he heard her say that she had arranged for everyone to have a ride in a horse-drawn sleigh. Luke asked if he was going to go, and Jess scoffed.

Still, he stuck around. Dean and the little girl who Jess could only assume was Dean's sister walked up to where Rory was standing, conveniently within earshot of Jess, who leaned against a table and listened as the little girl demanded that Dean ride with her. Lorelai had been one of the first ones out the door and was probably already gone. Jess doubted that Rory would stay inside and forego the chance to ride in a horse-drawn carriage, so he headed out the front door and across the lane where the carriages were lined up. When he saw her climb in by herself, he thought quickly about how to pull off this harebrained idea without getting mangled. He let the horse start moving, then ran quickly up to the side of the carriage and jumped in beside Rory.

"What are you doing?!" she asked loudly, taken aback.

"Well, I heard it was two to a sleigh, no more no less. You were breaking the rules," he said, a note of amused disapproval in his voice.

"You could've hurt yourself."

"I live on the edge," Jess quipped as he pulled his gloves out of his pocket. "I could jump out if you want," he offered.

"Doesn't matter to me," she said, crossing her arms and looking away from him.

Jess looked at her. "You mad at me or something?"

"What do you think?"

"I can't read your mind," he said, wishing everyone would quit assuming they knew what he was thinking or that he knew what they were thinking. Although in this case, he was pretty sure he knew what she was going to say.

"You got into a fight with Dean."

"Dean?" he asked, convincing even himself that he didn't remember who that was.

"My boyfriend," Rory reminded him.

"Ahh. He's still your boyfriend?" Jess teased.

Rory turned away from him. "Okay, you can jump out now."

"I wasn't fighting him. I was fighting someone else. He jumped in on his own," he explained.

"He was trying to help you."

"Well, he should go into government service if he's so interested in helping people, but me? He can stop worrying about."

"Why were you fighting in the first place?"

"'Cause Chuck Presby's a jerk."

"You were fighting Chuck Presby?" Rory asked, wondering why Dean had left that part out.

"Yeah."

"Oh, he is a jerk," she affirmed.

"This whole town is weeeiird and full of jerks."

"Then why are you still here?" she asked, her voice colder than she'd intended.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, school's out, and…you don't like it here, so why don't you just go home?"

"My mom didn't want me to," said Jess.

"I don't believe that," Rory replied, realizing slowly that he wasn't just the angry jerk that her mother and Dean had described to her.

"That's your right, I guess."

"Did Luke say she didn't want you to?"

Jess smiled sadly and took a breath.

"Luke told me it was his idea that I should stay," he explained, shaking his head. "It wasn't his idea," he told her.

Rory looked down. He could tell she was sad for him and uncomfortable. They were approaching the snowmen in the town square, so he decided to change the subject.

"That's good," he said, looking at the snowman with a scarf.

"What?"

"Your snowman. Snowwoman, actually."

"You know which one is ours?"

"Definitely has the most personality. Kind of looks like…Björk," he said, turning to look at her.

Rory's eyes lit up.

"That's what we were going for!"

"Yeah?"

"But everyone thinks that the one on the end is gonna be the winner," she said, frustrated.

"Really? It's so overdone."

"I agree."

"You should win," said Jess.

"No argument," Rory said with a smile.

There was a brief silence before Jess asked, "Hey, what do you and Dean talk about?"

"What?" Rory asked, suddenly tense.

"I mean, does he know Björk?"

"I've played him some stuff," she replied defensively.

"Hm. So you've got a teacher/student thing going," he teased.

"Stop," she said, unwilling to acknowledge that Jess had struck a nerve.

"No, really, I'm curious. What do you guys talk about?"

"Everything," she said defensively. She flashed back to the last few conversations she had had with Dean, which had eventually circled back to monster trucks, BattleBots, and yet another dispute about deep dish versus the obviously superior, foldable, New York-style thin slice. She felt her face grow hot.

"Like…?"

The thought crossed her mind suddenly before she could repress it. Lord of the Rings. We've watched Lord of the Rings so many times.

"Just everything. Tons of stuff. Whatever." And cars. I know more about cars now than I ever wanted to. She tried to tamp down these unbidden complaints to little success.

"It's just in the brief, non-pugilistic time I've spent with him in class, he just doesn't seem like your kind of guy."

"Well, he is my kind of guy. He's exactly my kind of guy," she said, racking her brain for a source that could back up her statement. Instead, she remembered the argument she and Dean had the previous year about Donna Reed. She'd made herself feel better about it then, but it had continued to be a source of anxiety for her.

"Okay. Guess I don't know him that well," Jess said, deciding to relent for now.

"You don't," she said, relieved.

Jess cocked an eyebrow and gave her a sidelong look.

"You don't!" she repeated vehemently.

Jess nodded, unconvinced, but didn't push it, and they were quiet for a minute. Rory shook her head to interrupt her negative thoughts and looked back up at Jess, thoughtful.

"So…your mom sounds...," Rory trailed off, unable to choose an appropriate adjective.

Jess gave a small smile, agreeing with what she hadn't said out loud. "Pretty much."

"Was she…I mean, when you lived there…"

"Chock full of maternal instinct? That's never been one of her strong suits."

"That's…I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

"Yeah, but…"

"I know."

He looked over at her and smiled to soften the bite he had heard in his own voice. Rory considered him seriously for a moment before deciding to change the subject.

"So…what's it like living in New York?"

"It's good. I like the noise, and there's always something to do. There's a bookstore near where I used to live that I think you'd like."

"Yeah?" She looked at him, curious what about it he thought she'd like.

Jess smiled. "Yeah," he said, but didn't offer any explanation.

They both felt the carriage start to slow down and realized they had arrived back in front of the inn.

"Well…" Rory started, lamely. She admitted to herself that she wanted the conversation to continue.

"Better get back to Dean, huh?"

Jess stepped out of the sleigh first and held out his hand to help Rory down. She didn't take it, having already braced herself on the sleigh, but when she stepped down, her feet landed on a small patch of ice and slid out from under her. She stumbled forward into him and clung onto his shoulders as he caught her by the elbows. They looked at each other quickly, both suddenly acutely aware of the lack of space between them.

"I-sorry," Rory breathed as she stepped away from him.

"No worries," Jess said quickly.

"Well…goodnight."

"Goodnight, Rory."

Jess watched her walk towards the inn. When she reached the door, he saw her pause. After a moment, she straightened her shoulders and went inside. Jess smiled and followed shortly afterwards, deciding he would take a walk to the town square after dinner to admire all the snowmen again.