A/N: Thanks so much for the continued feedback, peops. Sorry that waiting for updates is rough sometimes, but I am managing once a week, every week, right now, which isn't bad, right? :)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 6

"Jess? Jess Mariano? Seriously, is that you?"

He really couldn't imagine who would be calling his name in the street, much less sounding like they might actually be pleased to see him. Still, Jess turned around to see and felt his eyes go a little wide when suddenly Lane reached out to hug him.

"Oh my God, it's been... forever," she told him, grinning wide as they parted. "How are you?"

"I'm... good," he said awkwardly, unsure what to think of the young man beside her that was staring at him as if he had two heads. "Uh, it's nice to see you," he told Lane then, unsure what else to say.

"You too. Wow, you really haven't changed all that much."

"You haven't either."

"Well, that's a lie, but I'll take it," she said, rolling her eyes.

It was only then she seemed to realise that Jess was struggling with who he was looking at stood there on the pavement beside her.

"Jess, Steve, Steve, Jess," she introduced, waving a hand between them. "You remember that Zach and I have twins, right?"

"Twins, sure." Jess nodded, finally catching on. "Nice to meet you... again?" he checked, side-eyeing Lane even as Steve finally got the idea and shook his hand.

"Um, yeah, probably. I mean, you must have been around at some point when they were little, right? You came by to see Luke, visited with Rory and Noah."

Jess cleared his throat and tried not to look as awkward as he felt. "Uh, yeah, a couple of times, but it's been a while..."

"Until you suddenly stumbled upon our guy in New York," she said, nodding knowingly. "Seriously, how crazy was that? God was watching out for him, I know that much. How else can you explain it?"

"Never really saw myself as the guardian angel type," Jess admitted.

"God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform," said Steve, looking so serious.

"Huh."

It was disturbing for Jess to realise he could actually see Mrs Kim in the kid's expression. It took everything he had not to shudder at the realisation.

"You want me to go ahead to the store, Mama?" Steve asked Lane then.

"Oh, sure, that'd be great. Thanks, hon," she told him with a smile, patting him on the arm as he went by her and Jess both. "Sometimes, I have trouble figuring out how I'm old enough for my kids to be adults," she said, as she watched him go. "You ever feel like that?"

"Since I don't have kids, no," said Jess, shaking his head. "But trust me, there are plenty of other things that remind me how old I am sometimes."

"Right, no kids," said Lane, making a face. "Don't you ever wish you did? I mean, I know, I know, you didn't exactly have the best childhood, that can definitely put some people off, or was it just maybe that you never found the right woman...?"

"Look, I don't mean to be rude, but I should really go." Jess cleared his throat and started to shift away. "I'm supposed to be meeting Liz, so..."

"Oh, right, of course. Sorry, didn't mean to hold you up, but it was great seeing you," she told him, so genuinely, he actually believed she meant it.

Jess made sure to smile back, at least for as long as he could bear to. A few seconds later, he was happy to be out of Lane's view and able to let the expression fall. No, he never had kids, and most of the time, he didn't regret it. Was it in large part because he never found the right woman? Nope, it wasn't. He knew exactly who the right woman was and where to find her. It was just that their timing had been lousy, always, and at this point, more than ever, their time had well and truly passed, and how.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do, Lane. I mean, what would you do?"

She seemed like a good person to ask, Rory considered. After all, her best and oldest friend had raised two boys of her own, who had more than ten years on Noah. Surely, Lane had to have some good advice on handling teenage rebellion and such.

"I wish I knew what to say, but I'm sorry, Rory, I just don't," she admitted, settling back into the armchair with her coffee cradled in both hands. "I didn't have these kinds of problems with Steve or Kwan. I mean, sure, they had their moments, especially in their teens. I guess all kids do, but our situations are just so different. Zach has always been there for the boys, plus they have their Uncle Brian too. No lack of male role models, no wondering about an absent father."

Rory hadn't realised how her face must have fallen at the sound of those words, until Lane stated apologising.

"I really didn't mean that the way it probably came out," she insisting, leaning forward and reaching to put her hand on top of Rory's own. "You know that, right?"

"It's fine, I'm fine, I swear," Rory insisted, squeezing Lane's hand. "I know what you meant and it's really okay. You're right. Your boys are so lucky. I have to admit, way back in the beginning, I was a little confused by the whole you and Zach thing, and when you got married and the twins came along so fast... it was a lot, but everybody knows that you guys are so in love and you've been just the best parents. You still are. The boys have grown up to be the best guys too."

"Rory, it's not as if Noah won't." Lane shook her head. "So, he did a crazy thing. We all did those when we were that age. I know I did. A lot," she said with a look.

Rory couldn't help but smile, but hid at least some of her expression in her coffee, until it began to fade as fast as it came on.

"My crazy teen behaviour happened mostly when I met Logan," she said with a sigh, "and it didn't really stop, for way too long."

"Ah, but it started before that, with Boyfriend Number Two," said Lane, smirking some. "I ran into Jess in town square this morning. You know, I was never really sure what had you so smitten when we were kids, but wow, I can absolutely see why anybody would be attracted now. That man belongs on the cover of GQ!"

"Lane!" Rory wasn't sure whether to be shocked or amused by the expression on her friend's face when she said those things. "What would Zach say?"

"Zach would probably agree, at least about GQ," Lane considered. "He's pretty open-minded about that kind of thing. He knows what makes a guy good-looking, in the same way I understand why he still drools over certain actresses or singers, oh, or that ridiculously attractive girl who works at the gas station on the way to Hartford?"

"Ugh, I can't even go there anymore" Rory shook her head. "She makes me feel like Carol Kane in the Princess Bride prosthetics."

It wasn't that Rory was especially touchy about her age or her looks, not usually anyway. Personally, she thought she was aging pretty gracefully. Sure, she put a little colour on her hair since the grey started to show more, and maybe she did suck in her stomach and push out her chest if she passed by some young, attractive people in the street, occasionally, but that was all. She wasn't ashamed of her age or how she looked. Much of the time, she didn't have the capacity to think about it, she was far too busy, raising her son, working as much as she could, balancing everything that real adult life entailed, the same way her mother had done before her.

"So, about Jess..." said Lane with a significant look. "I noticed he's still not married or anything."

Rory rolled her eyes. "Please, that's not... We are so not going down that road again," she insisted. "Jess and I are friends. We have been friends for a really, really long time now. All that teen romance stuff, it's way in the past. We're friends."

"You know you just said 'friends' three times in about ten seconds, right?" Lane smiled too much into her coffee cup. "Come on, tell me you don't see how attractive he is? Tell me you never even wonder what might have happened if things had been different."

Opening her mouth to make an immediate denial, Rory thought better of it in a second. She felt like a giddy teenager when the blood suddenly rushed to her cheeks, turning them red and hot. Sure, she could try to blame some kind of middle-aged symptoms for such a thing, but that would be a lie. There were certain things, certain people, or maybe just one person, who had this kind of effect on her. Jess had always been different to everybody else.

"I'm not blind, of course, I see that Jess is good-looking," she said after a while. "And he's a great guy and I couldn't be more grateful that he brought Noah home like he did. I like him a lot, I always have. I guess, at this point, I love him, like I love you and all my closest friends, but that doesn't mean we're going to fall into each other's arms like some kind of Hallmark movie. This is real life, Lane. It just doesn't work that way."

"Maybe not." Her friend shrugged, placing her empty coffee cup down on the table. "But you know what I'm not hearing you say? That you don't want it to happen. Be honest, Rory," she challenged her then. "Do you really have no feelings whatsoever for Jess anymore? Now, bear in mind that I've known you since we were five years old. Next to Lorelai, I probably know you better than anybody else in your life."

"Which makes it impossible to really lie to you." Rory sighed heavily. "Not that I ever want to, obviously," she added with a smile. "Honestly? I don't know, Lane. I'm almost forty-seven years old. I guess at this age I just figured I'd be done worrying about if a guy likes me, or if I like him, or any of that stuff. When we were kids, we always thought we would grow up, have fantastic careers, then meet great guys, get married, have kids... Nothing really worked out that way for me. It did for you, well, not exactly with the career part."

"I got to do what I wanted, mostly." Lane shrugged easily. "I promise I wouldn't trade a minute of my life for anybody else's. Well, okay, so maybe one minute, just to be on stage at Coachella, rocking my heart out to a crowd of millions, just once, but aside from that," she said, grinning wide. "I'm happy. I just wish you were too."

"I am," Rory insisted. "Most of the time, I am," she corrected, knowing that what she said was true - she couldn't lie to Lane, even if she wanted to, which she never did. "I don't really have any major regrets. How can I? The jobs I've had, the places I've been, the guys I've dated, without all of that, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be writing the way I am, or have this house, and worst of all, I wouldn't have Noah. As much as I was shocked and overwhelmed when I found out I was pregnant, with no idea how I was going to deal, I wouldn't trade that kid for anything. I love him so, so much."

The tears that came to her eyes as she went on were completely out of her control.

"I just... I don't know how to help him. I can't make Logan care and I can't make Noah not care and, and I just don't know how to handle it," she admitted, laughing at herself in a minute, as she swiped at the tears on her cheeks.

"Oh, Rory." Lane moved over to join her on the couch and give her a tight squeeze. "It'll be fine. I promise, it will. I don't know how, exactly, but everything figures itself out in the end. You know this. Like you said, you didn't know how to deal when you got pregnant, and probably a hundred other times, both before and after that, but in the end, you figured it out."

Rory hugged her best friend back, grateful for her kind words and genuine affection. She knew Lane was right. In the end, she would work out the best way forward, and no doubt Noah would be just fine. It was only a question of how and when, and those were answers Rory didn't have right now. She just hoped they showed up soon, that was all.

To Be Continued...