A/N: The last thing I needed to do right now is start another GG fic, and yet! lol This idea has been in my head for a little while and I finally decided to go for it. Not sure how it's going to work yet, but hey, let's give it a go!

(Disclaimer: All recognisable characters from Gilmore Girls belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino, and other folks who aren't me.)

Chapter 1

"It's insane! I mean, I know there are a lot of people in New York, but I kind of figured that by definition there were also a lot of spaces for those people to live in. You know, spaces that aren't doorways?"

Rory was frustrated and it was hardly surprising. For the last week she had been schlepping around New York trying to find a place to live. Any place she tried that was even half decent seemed to be gone before she could get her foot in the door. Only if the situation was truly dire. There were one or two places that were gorgeous and wonderful but way outside the price range for less-than-rich Rory. She was starting to give up hope of ever finding anywhere suitable.

"Oh, hon, I'm sorry it's so tough out there," Lorelai sympathised from her end of the phone conversation. "But you still have this weekend. Maybe a New York miracle will happen and you'll find the best place ever with really cheap rent and a totally awesome room-mate."

Rory sighed. "Right now I'd settle for half-decent with medium rent and a room-mate that doesn't think Marilyn Manson is to be revered."

"Yeah, never, ever go back to that last place," Lorelai advised, shuddering at the thought. "Sending you all of the luck vibes, babe!"

"Appreciated," her daughter told her. "I'll call you again when I get back to the motel."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

The call was ended and Rory put her cell back into her pocket. Her feet hurt from trudging too many miles around the city (she still wasn't totally comfortable on the subway yet) and her head ached with worrying about her living arrangements.

When her stint of following Barack Obama around the country finally came to an end, Rory hadn't been sure what she was going to do with her life. She certainly hadn't expected a real live New York newspaper to see her work online and decide she was good enough to work for them without her so much as applying for a position. It had all happened so quickly. Inside of a month she had finished one job and gotten another, getting to spend just a little time in Stars Hollow before having to concentrate on getting digs in New York. That part had not come easy, and so far no luck. Rory was fast running out of time and gas money after coming into the city five times in the last week to hunt for apartments. This weekend, she was booked into a motel for both tonight and tomorrow night, potentially longer if she couldn't find a place to live. Going back and forth to the Hollow wasn't going to work, especially not once she started work, and now that was only two days away.

Calling into the nearest coffee shop, Rory ordered an extra-large Americano and pulled out her phone again to check her email. She had signed up to a few sites that would send a notification if a place that met her needs came up on their radar. If Rory had any potential apartments to go see she would rather know now, before she got back to the motel. Sadly there was nothing from the house-hunting sites, but there was one other message.

"Paris?" said Rory to herself as she paid for her coffee and headed for the door.

Simultaneously sipping her drink and checking the message, Rory was amazed by what she read. It seemed as if Paris' fiancé Doyle had been in New York this morning himself visiting one of his journalistic sources. Whilst in the apartment building, he spotted a flyer saying that a room-mate was required. Paris said that Doyle assured her the building looked clean and the elevator worked, plus it was in a decent neighbourhood. There was a picture of the flyer attached to the email and Rory opened it, zooming in on the details. It looked very professional, all printed out on the computer rather than hand-written. She skimmed down the information and her eyes went wide at the rent. It seemed too good to be true. Affordable rent in a decent building, Rory was convinced that there had to be something wrong. One of the girls living there had to be a psycho or something, but she supposed it was worth a look.

"Beggars can't be choosers," she said to herself, finding a well-placed mail box to set her coffee on whilst she copied the number from the picture of the flyer into her notebook and then called it on her cell right then and there.

The ringing seemed to go on forever, and then finally voicemail kicked in. The owner of the phone hadn't recorded her own message, just leaving the automatic robot voice to say 'please leave a message after the beep'.

"Oh, hi. Er, I saw your ad, or actually my friend did, for the apartment share? I hope this is the right number. Um, I was wondering if I could come over and see the place? Maybe today, if that's cool? Well, if you could call me back or something please."

Rory went on to leave her number and then hung up, cursing herself for sounding so stupid. She was twenty three not twelve and yet trying to leave a simple message on a woman's voicemail about an apartment suddenly became impossible the moment she tried.

"What is wrong with me?" she muttered, picking up her coffee again and taking a long drink.

Rory was barely ten feet from the mail box when her cell buzzed in her hand. A text message from the number she had just dialled was duly opened and she smiled when she read the contents.

'Hey, if you want to see the apartment come by any time between four and eight today, Jess.'

Rory was happy to see a lack of text-speak in the response. She was never one of those girls that went in for all the shorthand and slang that most people liked to use in text messages. It was an affront to the English language in her eyes and she would not stoop so low! This Jess girl seemed to be of the same mind.

"Hopefully we'll have more than just that in common," she said to herself, noting with some horror that a man walking by was staring at her like she was crazy. "Gotta stop talking to myself," Rory said definitely, checking her watch.

She had a couple of hours before the apartment was available for viewing. Just enough time to go back to the motel, change her shoes, and grab a snack.

"That's your idea of cleaning up?" said Logan with a grin.

He was leaning in his bedroom doorway looking out into the living area at Jess who was picking up books and clothes at random and literally throwing them into his own room.

"That girl who might want to rent the third bedroom could be here any second," his friend told him, continuing to toss a jacket and a couple of CDs onto his bed and out of sight of prying eyes. "She's the first call we've had in two weeks and we need help with the rent. So long as everything she can see looks generally clean, we might stand a chance here."

"I'm curious about this woman," said Logan, folding his arms and looking thoughtful. "I mean, this is New York for God's sake, not always the safest place, and a young woman has an urge to share a confined living space and rent with two guys she never met before?"

"Maybe she's desperate." Jess shrugged. "Or maybe she carries," he considered. "Girl with a piece has nothing to fear, right?"

"Oh good, Annie Oakley's coming to stay," said Logan with a smirk. "I guess she could ride the other bus."

"How would that make a difference?" asked Jess, frowning at the very idea. "All that would mean is she wouldn't be into us, doesn't stop her from having to worry about us coming onto her."

"Not that either of us would do that," his room-mate threw in fast. "I mean, we had a deal."

Jess nodded. "Yes, we did," he agreed easily.

It wasn't something they assumed would come up, but just as a precaution, the day Jess and Logan posted the ad, they made a gentleman's agreement. Should they get a female room-mate, regardless of any other factor, neither Jess nor Logan would date her, have sex with her, or attempt any kind of physical or emotional relationship beyond a reasonably friendly room-mate type of deal.

"Okay, this is just about as good as it gets," said Jess then, running his hand back through his hair as he turned full circle in the centre of what passed for their living room.

It wasn't exactly huge. With the two seater couch, an armchair that didn't match, and the TV all shoved in there, the space Jess was occupying in the centre was pretty much all the room there was to move. At least it didn't look like a bomb exploded now, that was something.

"The bathroom is lemony fresh, the dishes are out of the kitchen sink, and the closet is cleaned out," Logan recapped about the three tiniest rooms in the apartment.

Jess looked daggers at him. "If you keep calling it the closet, nobody is going to believe it's a bedroom."

"Hey, I'm sorry, man," said Logan, hands raised in mock-surrender. "But seriously, even with that tiny bed in there, we're gonna be lucky to pitch it as a real living space. You better hope this Rory chick is the eighth dwarf, or she likes to put herself into a plastic box at the circus."

"It'll be fine," said Jess, more out of hope than belief.

Right now they were in some trouble. Logan's wonderful internet-based business that he had sworn would make him a gazillionaire just like Daddy Dearest was going nowhere fast one way or the other, and Jess himself had yet to sell more than a handful of copies of his first short novel. Waiting tables and such was keeping their heads above water, but only just. They needed the extra income that a new room-mate would bring, but Logan wasn't wrong about the non-space of the 'third bedroom'. He really hoped this Rory person was as desperate for accommodation as she sounded on the phone.

"Desperate as I am, if it is anything like decent, I'm going to have to take it, Mom," said Rory as she walked down the street towards the building where her potential new home would be. "I doubt Doyle and Paris would have suggested it if it were that bad."

"I'm guessing space is going to be tight, sharing with two other girls," said Lorelai. "But hey, might be nice. Get that dorm room vibe back from the early Yale days."

"Maybe," Rory considered. "Well, I'm outside the building," she said then, looking up. "It looks nice, pretty clean and this is one of the better low-rent neighbourhoods."

"That's something, I guess," her mother commented. "Well, good luck, kid."

"Thanks, Mom," said Rory with a smile before saying her goodbyes for now and hanging up from the call.

Taking a deep breath, she went into the entranceway and faced the set of buzzer buttons for the apartments in the building. There were thirty units and she pressed for number twenty three, as per the flyer. There were a few mumbled and crackly words that she couldn't make out, but as soon as she said who she was, the lock on the gate disengaged and she was granted access to the options of stairs or elevator. Risking the latter, she was surprised to find that it not only worked but actually seemed clean and in good repair. The building was good, that was one tick in the box. Now to see the actual apartment and meet the people she would be living with.

Rory stepped out on the second floor and found the door to number twenty three just a few steps to her left on the other side of the hall. Knocking sharply, she expected it to open fairly swiftly. She was not ready for the man that greeted her.

"Oh. Um, I'm sorry, is this not apartment twenty three?"

"You're in the right place. Rory, right?" said the blond guy with a winning smile.

"Er, yes. That would be me," she stammered a little, confused by the male presence. "And you are?"

"I'm Logan," he told her, holding out a hand to shake. "Come on in, take a look around," he urged her, standing aside from the door to allow her access.

Rory wandered in, feeling just a little nervous. Her hands gripped the strap of her purse a little tighter, especially when a door opened and a second man stepped out.

"Hi, you must be Rory."

If Rory wasn't so freaked out at being in a place she didn't know with two strange men she wasn't expecting, she might have noticed how good looking both the guys were, but right now her mind was otherwise occupied with a growing feeling of panic.

"I'm... confused," she admitted. "I thought I was coming here to view a room for rent... with two women," she explained. "I left a message for a person named Jess?"

"That would be me," the second guy told her.

"He gets that a lot," Logan explained. "From his name, obviously. Nobody ever met Jess and thought he was a girl. Well, there was one time..."

"Can it, Huntzberger," Jess snapped at his friend, though a small smirk broke through, taking the edge off the insult. "Ignore him," he advised Rory. "Sometimes his mouth runs away and his brain can't keep up."

Rory smiled slightly, but she didn't move far from the door, still a little wary of the situation she found herself in. Through the general concern for her own safety, a thought hit her and she frowned in concentration a moment.

"Huntzberger," she said at last, looking at Logan. "As in Mitchum Huntzberger?"

"Guilty as charged," he admitted, hands held aloft as if he were surrendering. "Mitchum is my father, though these days he's less than likely to admit it. Me and Jess here are both orphans in our own way. He left his home to save himself, I was kicked out of mine. I like to think we're both better off."

"I'm sure you are," said Rory, trying for a smile.

Maybe this wasn't a double-cross by two guys with some nefarious plan. Maybe they were on the level, and she really had just mistakenly believed Jess was short for Jessica. He never had pretended to be a woman. Nobody ever promised her female room-mates here, she just assumed.

"I get the name thing," she said to Jess at last. "I mean, Rory can be a guy's name, so... Well, you weren't expecting a guy, right?" she checked.

"No, you sounded female on the message you left," he assured her with a smile that did something unexpected to her insides. "Honestly? We thought it was a long shot that a woman wanted to live with two guys she didn't know, but we really need a room-mate."

"Amen to that," Logan agreed, sitting down hard on the couch. "Look, here's the deal, Rory. We're decent guys, no convictions of concern, no bodies under the floor. Yes, we drink sometimes, but I'm a non-smoker, and Jess here keeps his dirty habit outside of the apartment. We work hard, we sometimes party a little, but we're not weirdoes, monsters, or dangerous freaks."

"You do realise that's exactly what a weirdo or a freak would say, right?" said Rory smartly, the curve of her lips proving that for all she said was true, she was at least partially joking.

Neither Logan nor Jess seemed like the psycho type. The apartment seemed pretty small for three people, but it looked to be tidy and clean enough. The area was decent, the building in good repair. Rory reminded herself she was getting desperate, but the other voice in her head asked if she was sure.

"Look, take a look around. See the room we're offering for a very reasonable rate, and if you think you might be interested, ask us anything you want," offered Jess, looking as desperate as Rory felt in a lot of ways. "I get where you're coming from, you don't know us, and a person alone in the city needs to be careful, especially a woman contemplating moving into a place with two guys she never met before, but what Logan told you? It's true. We're not looking for a virgin sacrifice or some kind of slave or whatever. There are no skeletons in the closet and no Satanic rituals are done here," he told her with a smirk he couldn't seem to help.

"I wasn't... I don't think you're necessarily bad people," said Rory, trying not to look as nervous as she felt. "But you're right. A person does have to be careful, and it's not just because you're guys. Women can be axe murderers too."

"Are you suggesting we need to frisk you for weapons?" asked Logan, one eyebrow raised.

Rory rifled in her purse and produced a cylinder that she showed to both him and Jess.

"This is all I'm carrying," she told them of the can of pepper spray. "I don't actually like that I have it but my friend Paris insisted it was necessary for life in New York and bought it for me. Sometimes I think she has a point."

"Sleep with it under your pillow if it makes you feel better," said Jess, shrugging his shoulders.

A guy didn't look that nonchalant about poison sprayed in his face if he really was on the level. Rory was tempted. The rent was reasonable, the area was good. All the reasons to accept ran freely through her head as Logan offered to show her the room they were offering and the rest of the apartment. Sure the bedroom was small, but Rory didn't need much more than a bed and a little storage, and there was space for that. The kitchen area was even smaller but it wasn't as if Rory ever cooked, and the bathroom seemed pretty clean for one used primarily by guys.

"So, what's the verdict?" asked Jess as Logan and Rory returned to the centre of the living space at last.

"It seems like a nice place, and I could afford the rent. Work is a reasonable walk or a really convenient subway ride away, and... well, you guys seem friendly."

"We're known for our friendly behaviour," said Logan, nodding his head. "As well as our gentlemanly qualities," he smiled.

Jess rolled his eyes. "Don't push it, man."

Rory couldn't help but smile. She meant what she said about the place and about the guys. They did seem nice, and hey, if she really wanted to be absolutely certain, there was such a thing as a background check. The word 'desperate' ran through her head one more time, and her eyes fell on her purse that contained the can of mace. She did the quickest pro-con list of her life inside of her head, and then Rory looked from Logan to Jess with a wide smile.

"If you guys are happy about me moving in, I'd love to take the room," she told them.

"Well, welcome to the neighbourhood, Rory," said Logan with a grin, holding a hand out for her to shake on the deal.

Turning to Jess, she waited for him to make the same friendly gesture and gladly shook his hand when given the chance.

"Nice to have you here, Rory," he told her.

"Nice to be here, Jess," she replied with a smile.

To Be Continued...