Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. The holidays are stressful and depressing around here with the shopping and the crowds and the family. Anyway, this chapter ended up shorter than I thought I would be, but it sort of wound itself to a natural conclusion and I decided against fighting it.
Disclaimer: Anything recognizable belongs to ASP and all associated companies and parties involved with GG. The title again comes from the song stylings of Tom Petty.
Chapter Three: Hold Me While I Sleep
Jess woke late the next morning to a fairly shrill voice demanding to see Rory and Lorelai doing some frantic protesting. Rory was still asleep, her back settled to his chest. His left arm was pinned underneath the pillow and Rory's head, and she was clutching his right forearm where it draped over her hip. He sighed softly, realizing that he couldn't get up to see what the commotion was in the other room without waking Rory as well. The rapidly approaching clack of heels outside the closed bedroom door told him that it probably didn't matter; the commotion seemed to be coming to him.
Lorelai's voice echoed through the thick door. "I told you, Mom, Rory's still sleeping. She needs her rest."
"Shit," Jess muttered quietly. Rory's grandmother was out there. He hadn't seen her in about four years, and his first and only impression was not a good one. It didn't seem like his second impression was going to be much better as the doorknob rattled.
"Lorelai, honestly!" the shrill voice snapped. "Your father and I return home from a weekend on the Vineyard to a message that Rory's in the hospital, you fail to answer you cell phone until this morning . . . we were worried simply sick! We tried calling Christopher, but that woman he lives with said he was on his way here."
Lorelai groaned audibly. "Perfect. Look, Mom, why don't you just go into the living room and wait with Dad. I'll see if Rory's up, and she can join us all there when she's ready?"
Jess prayed silently for the earth to open up and swallow Rory's bedroom into an abyss. Both her grandparents were in the house, and her father was on his way. He'd be lucky to make it through the day without losing blood. Apparently the power of prayer was not on his side that day as Emily Gilmore continued to try and force her way into the room.
"I can look in on Rory just as easily as you can, Lorelai," Emily insisted, and the door was pushed open. She wasn't looking into the room at first as she was still addressing Lorelai, but when Emily turned to face the bed, she drew in a sharp breath.
Jess was propped up on his elbow as much as Rory's sleeping body would allow. His eyes flicked helplessly from Emily's rapidly reddening face to Lorelai standing behind her looking just as helpless as Jess. "Um . . . good morning, Mrs. Gilmore," he offered weakly.
Rory, who had somehow managed to sleep through her grandmother's ranting, now started to slowly come awake. "What's going on?" she asked as she let go of Jess's wrist to scrub sleepily at her hazy eyes. When she could focus, her gaze landed on the doorway. "Grandma? When did you get here?"
"We'll be waiting in the other room," was all Emily said stiffly before turning on her heel and marching away. Lorelai gave another helpless look and disappeared in her mother's wake after tugging the door closed.
"Okay," Rory drawled, her half asleep state making her confused. She shifted to her back to look up at Jess leaning above her. "What was that about?"
"Your grandparents are here, and I'm guessing your mom didn't tell them that I was, too. Or even what happened at the hospital," Jess told her quietly.
Rory's chest rattled with a heavy sigh. "Oh. Well, I guess if we have to start the day like this, at least we know it can only get better," she rationalized.
Jess gave her a thin smile. "Your dad's on his way, too."
"Crap, there goes that theory." Rory reached up and traced the tense line of Jess's jaw. "Can we just hide in here all day?"
"I wish, but I think if we're not out there soon your grandmother is going to come back in here. Or worse, your grandfather."
Rory shook her head, "I don't think that'd be worse. Grandma's much scarier than he is."
"Whatever," Jess shrugged, "I still think it's a good idea to be wearing pants when I meet him for the first time."
She agreed with an emphatic nod. "Yeah." Reluctantly slipping away from him and out of the warm bed, Rory changed quickly, tugging on a pair of faded and fraying jeans and a sweatshirt.
Watching her change her clothes, Jess stayed cocooned in the blankets for a few minutes longer. It was obvious in watching her move, that Rory was still not one hundred percent, but she wasn't hunched over on herself, and there was a lot more color back in her face and sparkle back in her eyes. He was almost positive the same could not be said about him. Emotionally, he felt like he'd been run over by a bus, and that had to show in his face. Without a mirror he couldn't be completely sure, but it was highly unlikely that the dark circles had faded from under his eyes. The overtired part of his mind likened Rory to Dorian Gray, and he was her portrait. The better she got, the worse he looked.
"What are you thinking about?" Rory asked when she turned around and noticed that he was still in bed.
Jess shook his head and got up to yank on his clothes from the day before. "Nothing," he lied, "just that you look better today." Rounding the bed, he took her by the hand and opened the door carefully. "Here goes nothing," he sighed.
Just as he was about to cross the threshold, Rory yanked him back and kissed him sweetly. "It's going to be fine."
"Yeah, we'll see," he said glumly as she started out in front of him. However, once they were in the kitchen, Jess reversed their positions, placing himself before her to face the brunt of the hostility that was radiating from the living room.
Emily nearly hip-checked him like a hockey player in her haste to get to her granddaughter. "Rory! My goodness, we've been just frantic, and your mother is being absolutely no help at all! What is going on here?"
Gnawing on her lip, Rory looked back and forth between her grandmother and Jess, trying to decide how to best proceed. "Well, Grandma, I . . . it's just that . . ." she scrambled for the right words and found that they just wouldn't come. "Mommy?" she pleaded, turning teary eyes to Lorelai.
Lorelai released a huge breath and tried to think of a way to toss her daughter a verbal lifeline, but the front door banged open before she could say a word.
"Lore!" Christopher called out as he burst into the room like a dervish. "Where is she? What's going on?" He spotted Rory where she was standing next to Jess and had her swept up in a hug after crossing to her in three half-running steps. "Are you okay?" he asked, holding her at arms length to look her over and then pulling her close again.
"Mmmhmm," Rory mumbled while trying not to wince in pain at the abrupt moving and shaking being done by Christopher. She extracted herself carefully and retreated to Jess's side, wrapping herself around his arm.
Jess raised his free hand and cupped the back of Rory's head, thumb brushing soothingly against her temple. "At least you don't have to say it twice," he tried to tease.
"Doesn't make it easier," she sighed, resting her forehead against his shoulder. "And there are more people in the room who'll want to slaughter you."
Having had enough of waiting, interruptions, and indecisiveness, Emily demanded, "Someone needs to explain what is going on here right now!"
"Mom," Lorelai said as soothingly as possible, "let's all just calm down for a second, okay?" She grabbed Christopher by the arm and hauled him to the couch, forcing him to sit while motioning Emily to sit as well. Richard was standing imposingly behind the couch, and Lorelai declined to force him to sit. Lorelai remained standing as well, hand clamped firmly on Chris's shoulder, and nodded at Rory and Jess.
Rory's mouth worked silently making her look slightly like a fish, and her eyes became bright. Her fingers gripped tightly at Jess's upper arm and wrist, biting into the muscle to stop her hands from shaking. "I didn't think it would be this hard," she whispered to him.
Jess nodded and wondered to himself how she wouldn't have handled facing her family if she were still pregnant. "Want me to do it?"
"No," Rory decided, "I have to do it." Taking a deep breath, she faced the room. "Grandma, Grandpa . . . Dad . . . um, I know you were all worried because I was at the emergency room, but I'm fine now. Well, mostly fine I guess. Not completely fine, that'll take some more time, but anyway . . . I found out that I was . . . oh, holy crap this is hard . . . I was pregnant, but I lost the baby. That's why I was in the hospital."
The roar of outraged voices was nearly deafening. The elder Gilmores were shouting about responsibility and expectations while Chris was scolding Rory at the top of his voice with Lorelai making equally loud attempts to calm everyone down. Jess watched the scene mutely, Rory shaking at his side, and then placed to fingers into his mouth and whistled sharply.
All of the yelling ceased and everyone stared at Jess. "Your concern for Rory is touching," he said icily. "All the screaming is really helping her feel better about this."
Surprised stares tuned to venomous glares. If looks could kill, Emily's alone would have dropped Jess like a bullet to the head. "What concern of yours is all of this?" the well dressed woman demanded.
Christopher echoed the sentiment. "Yeah, why is he even here?"
"He's her boyfriend," Lorelai sighed. "This involves him too."
"Since when?" Richard spat. "He ran off on her years ago. How did he even get close enough to her for this to happen?"
"Grandpa . . ." Rory tried to defend herself and Jess but quickly found that no one was going to listen to her.
Jess tried to intercede on her behalf. "We're standing right here, you know."
The rest of the room continued ignoring the young couple, though Lorelai was surprisingly doing her best to defend them. "It doesn't matter how it happened. They love each other, Dad, and this is difficult for them. "
"Oh, please, like he even cares!" Christopher scoffed. "He didn't care enough about her to ensure that this didn't happen in the first place!"
Jess heard that and couldn't help responding. "Don't even think you know how I feel! I've been nothing but careful with her!"
"Boy in the plastic bubble careful," Rory chimed in causing Lorelai to smile.
"Not careful enough," Emily spat icily from her corner of the couch.
"Condoms aren't one hundred percent effective," Jess nearly wailed. "Rory getting pregnant wasn't carelessness . . . it was statistics!"
Snarling, Chris took half a step toward Jess before Lorelai restrained him. "So my daughter's just a number to you?"
"I love her more than you do!" With that shot, Jess took off for the kitchen and the back door, unable to take the venom in the room anymore.
Rory watched Jess disappear from the room and then turned tearful eyes on Christopher. "What makes you think you can talk to him like that?"
"I'm your father."
"Only when you want to be!" She took steps to leave the room also, but Lorelai was quicker and grabbed Rory's arm to stop her.
"Rory, sweetie . . ."
"I'm going after Jess," Rory said, shrugging Lorelai's hand away. "I can't do this right now." She gave one last withering glance at her father and grandparents and took off out the back door in the direction that Jess had likely gone.
Emily sighed airily. "Well, that's just wonderful, Lorelai. How can you let this go on?"
Lorelai looked and her mother incredulously and threw up her hands. "What am I supposed to do, Mom? She loves him. You don't like him, I don't like him, I hate that he got her pregnant, but Rory loves Jess. And I love her. That's how I can let this go on."
"You've always been too permissive with her, Lorelai," Emily continued to protest. "If you'd put your foot down once and awhile things like this wouldn't happen."
"Right, Mom. Because being strict worked out beautifully for you and Dad."
"Lorelai," Richard warned.
"No! No 'Lorelai,' Dad. This is my house. If you don't like the way I do things you can leave. In fact, that's a great idea. All of you get out of my house!"
"Lore," Chris tried to placate her and pull her into a hug.
She shoved him away violently. "Especially you! Get out!"
He refused to budge. "You're the one who called me to get down here."
"So you could be of some comfort to your daughter, not so you could criticize her life."
"She's making a bad decision," he protested.
"It's her life, she can do with it what she pleases. She's an adult."
Emily gave a dainty sniff. "She's hardly an adult."
Lorelai rolled her eyes so hard they should have fallen out of her head. "If she were dating an Ivy League drone who's father owned a bank or publishing company, you'd be calling caterers right now and booking a string quartet for Rory's wedding reception! You're only saying she's not an adult because she's not following the plan you had laid out for her in your mind."
"That is enough," Richard said firmly to Lorelai. "Obviously, neither you or Rory are ready to listen to reason on this matter." He held out his hand to Emily. "We'll be leaving until the two of you are ready to understand what's the best decision in this matter." He led his wife to the door.
"You're the ones who don't understand," Lorelai snarled as the door was pulled shut. Wheeling on Christopher, she continued to unleash her ire. "Better hurry after them. I know they have a guest room for you. Then you can keep plotting Rory's life to fit the one you and I were supposed to have."
Chris sighed and again tried to soothe Lorelai. "Come on, Lore. You know you don't really want me to leave. When Rory's gets back, the three of us can sit down without that thug around to influence her, and make her understand that she's throwing her life away. She'll see that this is a mistake, and she's actually lucky not to be having a baby with this Jess kid."
"Do you even hear yourself?" Lorelai asked. "Rory is heartbroken about losing this baby, and Jess may be the only one who's going to get her through this without her going crazy. She's in love with him, Chris. Completely ass over teacup in love with him. And Jess has turned himself around because he didn't want to hurt her anymore." Closing her eyes, Lorelai shook her head and sighed. "Just forget it and go home, Chris."
Without another word, Lorelai stepped around him and climbed the stairs to her room, leaving Christopher standing in the middle of the living room alone. The bedroom door slammed upstairs, and he realized that despite her willingness to forgive him in the past, he had truly crossed a line with Lorelai from which there was no going back.
Her heavy footsteps echoed heavily on the weather worn wood of the bridge. Jess was sitting on the edge, feet dangling over the water, just like she thought he'd be. What she didn't expect to find was the cigarette dangling from his fingers, but she chose not to mention it or the fact that he'd told her he finally quit some months before.
"Hey," she said quietly as she came up next to him.
Jess didn't look up at her but grunted in acknowledgment. He drew deeply on the cigarette and continued to stare out over the water.
"I'm sorry about Grandma and my dad . . . about all of this."
"Come here," Jess said after a quiet moment. He held up his hand and pulled Rory into his side when she sat gingerly next to him. Flicking the half burned butt into the water, he cleared his throat, "This is not your fault, Rory. This is my fault. Everything that's happened is my fault."
"No!" Rory tried to take his face in her hands, to turn him to her, to make him see that she wasn't blaming him at all, but Jess wouldn't let her.
"Yes. I'm older . . ."
"Barely," she muttered under her breath.
Jess shushed her with a shake of his head, ". . . and more experienced. I'm supposed to be the responsible one when it comes to sex."
"I'm supposed to be the responsible one about everything," she countered, unwilling to let him take all the blame for this on his shoulders. There wasn't anyone to blame. Hadn't he told her the same thing just yesterday?
He refused to let her placate him. "Not this. You've only been with me. I'm supposed to teach you how it works, take care of you."
Rory drew in a sharp breath and stiffened next to him. "How do you know I've only been with you? I never told you that."
Looking down and away, Jess's fingers twitched, and he wished he hadn't pitched away his cigarette so he'd have something to do with his hands and mouth to avoid answering this question. Rory's increasingly watery stare broke him. "Luke . . . when I got here, I asked if it were possible the baby wasn't mine. He said Lorelai told him you'd never been with a guy other than me. That's how I know."
"Why would she tell him that?" Rory demanded to know, seeming to miss Jess's admission that he'd questioned his role in recent events.
"I don't know," he shrugged. "It doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does!" Rory shrieked. "You weren't supposed to know that!"
"Why not?"
"Because! You've been with all these girls, and I've only been with you. I didn't want you to think I was a prude or frigid or something." Her breathing was bordering on hyperventilation.
Jess rubbed her back in an effort to calm her down. "Rory . . . the stuff we've done . . . I know you're not either of those things."
She blushed and allowed a small smile to curve her lips before shaking her head and reclaiming some of her hysteria. "Well, fine . . . so maybe I don't like the idea of you with other girls, so I wanted you to be uncomfortable too. That's why I didn't tell you!"
"Nothing makes me more uncomfortable than knowing you've got nothing but me to compare to," he snarled back. "That's ridiculous pressure on me, Rory!"
Shoving him away, Rory glared at him. "So you want me to run out and sleep with someone else to make you feel better?"
"Shit, no!" Jess resisted the urge to scream wordlessly and instead questioned her, "Why are we fighting about this?"
"I don't know, you started it!"
"I did not!"
"Yes, you did!" she protested, climbing to her feet. "All I wanted to do was see if you were okay, and you snapped my head off!"
"No, I didn't!" Jess stood also, prepared to chase her if she stormed off as was her habit with him when emotions ran high. "You're the one who started yelling first!"
"Well, I don't know how to help you!" Rory cried, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. "I don't know what you need!"
"I'm not the one that needs help with this!" Jess shouted, his voice cracking. "You are. I'm just the one that destroys everything. I'm beyond helping."
She brushed a hand across her wet face. "What are you talking about, Jess? Where is all this coming from?" she asked quietly. "Haven't you been telling me this isn't anyone's fault?"
"That's not what everyone back in your living room thinks, your grandparents, your dad, even Lorelai. They all blame me for this, think I'm not good enough for you, and maybe they're right." Jess's head tipped back, and he blinked rapidly in an obvious move to keep himself from crying. "All I ever do is hurt you. You used to be this perfect . . . shit, I don't even have the right word for it . . . and now you're in pain and everyone's mad, and I caused it."
Rory watched as Jess's face crumpled more and more as he talked, but there was one thing he wouldn't allow, that he kept fighting. "Jess," she asked softly, "why won't you let yourself cry?"
"Because I don't deserve it," he rasped. "This is my fault, so I shouldn't get to be upset about it." He looked away from Rory after saying that, shutting his eyes tightly and coughing around the break in his voice.
She couldn't watch him battle a breakdown anymore. Rory moved quickly so he wouldn't have time to back away from her and wrapped her arms around Jess. He fought to break the hold of her arms, but she held him firmly and drew his head down to her shoulder. Jess went limp against her and slid down her body, his arms coming up to circle her waist as his knees hit the bridge with a hollow thud.
"I'm sorry," he whispered against her abdomen. "I'm so, so sorry."
Rory's eyes fluttered shut, and her throat closed at the guilt in Jess's voice. Her hands sifted soothingly through his hair in a effort to comfort him as he clutched her tighter. When the dampness of his tears seeped through the hem of her shirt, Rory started crying again and bent to kiss the crown of Jess's bowed head. His arms loosened a bit allowing her to sit again, and he didn't protest when she moved to cradle his head in her lap.
They sat there together on the bridge, clutching at each other and crying, finally letting go of their misplaced guilt and mourning all of their losses
Author's Notes the Second: No ETA on the next chapter, but please leave a review on this one. Noting motivates like knowing there's someone waiting to see what happens next.