A/N: Thanks to those who keep on reviewing - you're all very kind :)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 10

Jess scrolled the page back up and tried again to make sense of the chapter he was reviewing. At this point, he honestly wasn't sure if it was the fault of the author or himself, but he had read the thing five times, and still, it made no sense. Maybe it really was just garbage, though Jess would be surprised if it were. The last two books by the same author had done pretty well, all things considered. Most likely it was his own fault that he wasn't getting it. He hadn't had much in the way of decent sleep in the past week, ever since he got back from Stars Hollow, and that was really screwing up his concentration.

Giving it up as a lost cause, Jess pushed the laptop away and closed the lid with a thud. There was really no point in keeping on trying for the time being. He would be better off taking a walk to clear his head or something. Getting up from the desk, he went over to the window and realised the whole walking thing wasn't going to happen. The rain was running down the window so much, he could barely even see outside.

Heaving a sigh, he started walking around the living room instead, half-considering taking a shower as he reached the bathroom door, but ultimately deciding against. That might wake him up some, but the monotony of the task would just give him too much time to think. He was better off with a distraction. Sometimes, TV would work, almost always, he could rely on a book, but with his concentration compromised, he had already established that reading wasn't working for him.

With a growl of frustration, he sunk down into the couch and put his face in his hands. He was an idiot. He really and truly was so damn stupid. For more than ten years, he managed his life perfectly well, staying away from Stars Hollow, keeping his distance from Rory and Noah, knowing that he was better off that way.

Of course, he had to go ahead and screw up his own plan. That was what Jess did. It was factored into his DNA to be a screw-up, just like his parents before him. Sure, Jimmy and Liz had both gotten to a better place eventually, but apparently, even at the age of forty-seven, Jess couldn't manage the same.

The door buzzer sound startled him from his self-pity and got him back on his feet. Walking over, he picked the phone up from the wall and put it to his ear.

"Jess? Seriously, let me in already. I'm drowning out here!"

The yelling was all too familiar and he didn't even hesitate in hitting the door release. He also moved quickly to the bedroom, the minute he hung up the receiver, fetching a blanket that he could throw around his cousin the second she made it to the apartment.

As he suspected, April had not been exaggerating about the drowning. She was absolutely soaked to the skin when she came stumbling into his place, grateful for the blanket, her teeth chattering and her body shivering.

"Nice to see you, cous," he said, leading her over to the armchair and sitting her down.

"Tea, please?" she urged him.

Jess wasted no time in heading for the kitchen to make her a hot drink. During the process, he thought about asking why she had come visiting, but somehow, he just didn't feel the need. April was there to check up on him, either because she wanted to for herself, or more likely because Luke had convinced her to do it.

Not that Jess had done anything to make them worry. When his uncle texted, he replied, both times, and it had only been a week since he was in Stars Hollow with everyone.

"Thanks," April said, taking the steaming mug of tea into both hands and hugging it tightly. "Why do good deeds never go unpunished anyway?"

Jess smirked at that, taking a seat on the nearby couch. "I'm too tired to untangle Eudo's inverted morality right now," he told her, immediately regretting his choice of words when she stared at him almost accusingly. "What?"

"Not been sleeping so well, huh? Something on your mind?" she asked, one eyebrow arched as she continued to give him the hairy eyeball while sipping her hot tea.

"What are you doing here, April?" he asked, answering her question with his own, which he knew for a fact always drove her nuts. "Shouldn't you be at home with the husband, giving him weird looks over your own tableware?"

"Usually, yes," she agreed, "but he has the twins this weekend."

"Huh. So, Wicked Stepmom wasn't invited?"

"Wicked Stepmom sometimes likes the chance for a little alone time," April told him, smirking hard. "You do know that doesn't bother me anymore, right? For one thing, 'wicked' has a positive meaning as well as a negative one these days."

"So does 'sick' but I don't go around using it the other way," Jess pointed out. "Anyway, back to my question. What are you doing here, April?"

"How about back to my first question," she countered. "Something on your mind? I mean, speaking as we were of stepfamilies..."

She did a good significant look. Always had. Jess couldn't imagine she learned that from Luke. Maybe it came in sideways from Liz. That he could absolutely believe, actually. Of course, he knew, even without the look, that she was talking about Rory. He had been 99% sure her step-sister, or his ex, depending on the point of view, was bound to be April's real reason for dropping by. Everything was always about Rory.

"You think your stepfamily is on my mind?" he said, shaking his head. "Honestly, I don't give Lorelai all that much thought."

"Did anybody ever tell you you're hilarious?"

"Not lately."

"There's a reason for that." April's quips weren't always smart, but they were always fast, Jess would give her that much at least. "Come on, cous, let's dispense with the preamble. You and I both know that I'm here partly because my dad is worried about you, and partly because I'm worried about you. We both also know that the source of the worry is your ever-present feelings for Rory, which you have apparently been harbouring since I was in the fourth grade. That's a very long time for unrequited love to go on, Jess."

He would like to argue with her, he really would, but they both knew there would be no point. His feelings for Rory were not something he talked about much, but Luke had managed to get the truth out of him on his last visit, there was no avoiding that. As for April, she had known longer. Child genius that she was, she had figured out that something happened between Rory and Jess way before anybody mentioned it to her. Then she had some details from her step-sister on the subject, quite a while ago. Anything Jess had told her had been more by accident than design. There had been a drink in his hand at the time, and quite a few more already rolling around inside of him, when he started getting easy with the truth.

"Not that I believe that it's truly unrequited..."

That part got his attention very suddenly, so much so Jess felt he almost gave himself whiplash with the way he looked at April then.

"Oh, come on!" she said, rolling her eyes. "You really think Rory is the type to date a person and then want to have them stay in her life for literal decades without loving them? Uh, no."

Putting her half-empty mug down on the table, April started shucking off the blanket, plus her wet coat and hat then, clearly having warmed up sufficiently in the heated apartment. Of course, indignation and smart aleckyness probably warmed a body up pretty well too. Certainly, if that weren't usually considered the case, April was trying to prove her own working theory.

"You're cracked," Jess told her anyway, because it was easier than actually taking her seriously.

"And you're delusional if you think you're this big mysterious guy with a secret unrequited life-long crush on the girl next-door." April sighed, picking up her mug and finishing off her tea in a series of large gulps. "Jess, you need to be honest," she told him then, sentence punctuated by the clonk of the empty mug being set back on the coffee table.

"Honest?" he checked, deciding to play for time, since it was all he had right now.

"You ever think maybe Rory is just waiting for you to tell her that you still love her? That you guys should give it another try? I mean, it's been thirty years since the first time, what the hell are you waiting for?"

He wanted to make fun of her for being so dramatic. Usually, that's exactly what he would do, just as he had since she was a teen. It wasn't that she was grown up and married with step-kids to help raise that stopped him. It was because, just this once, she actually had a point. God, Jess hated that.

"She call the blond dick yet?"

He had to ask. He didn't want to, but he had to. Perhaps the one thing Jess hated more than admitting April was right was having to bring Logan Huntzberger into the conversation, but there really was no choice in the matter. He started out disliking the jerk because of who and what he was, not least the part where he was seeing Rory. By now, he hated him on Noah's behalf, as well. Another absent father who didn't really have any excuse for staying away, Jess was pretty certain about that.

"I don't have all the details," April admitted, sighing as she leaned back into the couch cushions, looking somewhat defeated, all of a sudden. "The way Dad tells it, Rory called every number she had and never got any further than leaving messages all over the place. It's almost as if Huntzberger doesn't want to be found."

"He's an idiot," said Jess without pause.

"Generally, I agree," his cousin replied just as fast, "but you sound like you were being specific."

Even then, Jess could have given April a whole host of very specific reasons for why he considered Rory's more recent ex to be a prize fool, but there was one in particular that he had been referring to just then. There didn't seem to be any reason to hide it, given what it was.

"He can play hideaway from phone calls and messages, but Rory knows where she can find him. His family name is plastered on enough buildings around here, it's just a process of elimination. Besides, somebody will almost always be at the family manor in Hartford. If not him, then his parents. You think they wouldn't jump at the chance to hear something about their grandson? One thing I learned from the Gilmores, you can piss off grandparents just as much as you want, but they will always, always want to know their grandkids."

"You talk as if you want Rory to find Logan."

"Because for once in my life, maybe I actually do," Jess told April crossly, pissed at having to admit such a thing, and just a little bit more so because she couldn't figure it out for herself and was making him say it. "You know as well as I do what it does to a kid, not knowing their dad, but remember, in a lot of ways, you were lucky. Your dad wasn't around because he didn't know about you. I know how Noah feels, better than anyone."

April nodded in agreement and understanding, but said nothing. For all her doctoral qualifications, she knew better than to delve too far into her cousin's psyche, at least when they were both sober, anyway. She had heard enough tales of woe from his past, all the gritty details of Jimmy's abandonment and Liz's numerous issues too, that had landed Jess with almost all possible flavours of childhood neuroses that went on and spilled into young adulthood.

He was better these days, he had to be, but that feeling deep inside of being unwanted from the day he was born, it never entirely went away, no matter how good things were between him and Jimmy, at this point.

"Well, that's one thing nobody has to worry about," said April, after a long silence that fast became painful. "As much as you can't stand Logan, and let's be fair, none of us can after the way he treated first Rory and then Noah, at least you're not taking it out on his kid. I don't think you'd have any problems being a step-dad."

Jess smiled, almost laughed at how seriously she said that. "Not going to happen, April," he told her firmly. "Me and Rory..."

"You and Rory are perfect for each other," she said, louder than he was talking, perhaps more firmly than he ever heard her say anything before, and she had that patented look of Danes determination in her eyes, which was so very hard to argue with too. "You know, even if I didn't know you guys used to be together, you just fit, you click, you're two halves of a whole. Show me a romantic cliche or trope, and I'll pick out a moment in the history of Rory and Jess to fit it. You love her. She loves you. You get along with her kid now. Her family is your family, which yes, I know, should make this whole thing so incestuous and inappropriate, but it's not. It's actually perfect."

Jess snorted. "You're a science geek. You don't believe in perfect. There's always that pesky margin of error, remember?"

"That so does not apply here," she said, rolling her eyes one more time. "And even if it did, I firmly believe that you and Rory might just be the one dead cert in this world. No margin of error, just true fact."

He wished he had a smartass comeback to that. Jess would give almost anything to be able to come up with something, but in the end, he had to concede, he had nothing. Not one single way to fight April in what she said about him and Rory, because even if he wasn't the perfect guy for her, he knew damn well she was perfect woman for him and always would be. The question then became, was he going to do what so many other people seemed to want him to, and actually say something to Rory about it?

To Be Continued...