This Crazy World

Summary: Jess gets a visit from someone unexpected. This is another companion to my story This Crazy World, and it takes place just before chapter 18 of that story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls. That's pretty obvious, since if I did, Jess would still be in it and no one would have been abducted by aliens and changed personality.

Interlude 3. Still Falling

Jess stopped what he was doing and looked up, listening through the crashing guitars of Total Trash. He thought he'd heard a knock on the door. After a few seconds, when the music quieted down a bit, he heard it again and frowned, wondering who it could possibly be. The only people he could imagine wanting him something at the moment all had keys.

With a sigh he put down the roller and dried his hands on a towel before going over to the stereo to turn down the music.

"Just a sec," he called out to whoever it was, making his way over to the door. "But I swear, if you're here to sell something, I…"

Then his eyes fell on the person on the other side and he froze. "Rory."

"Hi," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear in a nervous habit he recognized from years ago.

He swallowed thickly, blinking to make sure he wasn't imagining things. "Hey."

She smiled uncertainly, wringing her hands together. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I mean, I saw the sign in the window that you're closed for renovations and all, but I saw the light was on, and then I heard the music and it sounded like something you would listen to and I thought that maybe you were here anyway, and so I knocked and I guess I was right because you are here, and I'm obviously interrupting, and now I'm completely freaking you out and I'm sorry."

"Rory?" he said, despite the tightening in his chest amused by her familiar rambling.

"Yeah?" she said quietly.

"Breathe."

She looked down sheepishly. "Right, sorry."

He took the opportunity to try to gather his thoughts, "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I'm not sure, actually," she confessed. "It was sort of a spur of the moment thing."

He stared at her, not sure he heard right. "Huh."

"Yeah," she mumbled, clearly uncomfortable, looking out at the dark street and the houses around them.

"You want to come in?" he asked, even as he said the words hoping that he wouldn't regret it.

Her eyes snapped back to him, and then she nodded. "Yeah, sure," she agreed, feeling relieved.

"Sorry about the mess," Jess said, holding the door open for her. "And the smell."

"No, no, it's fine," she quickly assured him, walking past him into the brightly lit room, a stark contrast to the cozy light above the front door.

"I'm almost done with the walls," he said, unnecessarily, closing the door behind her.

"It looks good," she found herself saying, looking around the room, taking it all in.

"It looks like a disaster," he corrected her with a chuckle, feeling some of the tension dissipating.

"But you can see that it will look amazing once it's finished," she insisted, turning back to him with a tentative smile.

"Hopefully it won't be too bad," he relented, that old habit hard to break.

"You did all of this yourself?" she asked, having had some time to assess it all, and seeing the full scale of the project.

"Most of it, yeah," he nodded. "The company fixing up next door redid the wall and roof over there," he said, pointing. "And Luke helped paint the ceiling yesterday, and we did part of the walls together before he left today."

"That explains the paint on his hands," Rory quietly remarked, suddenly nervous again, sensing the time for small talk was quickly coming to an end.

"Yeah," he mumbled, once more getting that tightening feeling in his chest.

Rory glanced over at him where he stood a few feet away, watching her warily, and she hated that guarded look she saw in his eyes. And even more she hated the fact that she put it there.

"Luke came home shortly after mom and I, and I overheard them talking in the kitchen," she started to explain. "About you. And a fire. And Luke said something about being relieved you were ok, and I don't know what happened, but next thing I knew I was in my car, on my way here."

He stared at her, having some trouble piecing it all together.

"Ok," he finally mumbled, not sure what to say to her explanation.

"Yeah," she said, nodding her head awkwardly and shifting her feet over the paint stained paper covering the floor.

"Are you staying a while?" he asked, then immediately backtracking. "Or well, not staying, but... I can't leave the roller lying," he finished lamely, cursing himself and his inability to act normal around her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Of course, stupid, I'm really sorry for interrupting your work," she rambled, feeling ridiculous at the way she couldn't just say what was on her mind.

He quickly shook his head, afraid she would leave just as abruptly as she appeared, not entirely comfortable analyzing just what that meant. "Don't worry about it. I'll just put it in a bag and finish later."

"I could help?" she suddenly found herself saying, not able to find the words to just say she wanted to stay.

He stared at her, not sure he heard her right. "You want to help me paint?" he checked.

"Well, yeah," she nodded, trying to sound convincing.

"Sure," he agreed a moment later, hoping, again, that it wasn't a decision he would come to regret.

His answer made her let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, and she smiled brightly. "Yay!" she exclaimed, suddenly feeling expectant and, almost, elated.

"I'll get another roller," Jess said, turning away from her, wondering what he was thinking.

"Um..." Rory started uncertainly a moment later. "You don't happen to have anything I could change into?"

"Huh?" He turned back around, finding her holding out the skirt of her yellow sun dress, an apologetic smile on her face.

"This is brand new," she said, raising her hand slightly, "and I don't want to ruin it with paint splatter, which I will absolutely manage to do, so I was just wondering if you had any extra work clothes, or something, that I could borrow." She finished quietly, feeling a blush creeping up her cheeks, and looked down to the floor.

Jess couldn't help the smirk that formed on its own as he watched her fidget. Some things really did not change.

"Sure," he said slowly, trying not to imagine her, under decidedly different circumstances, dressed in his clothes. Sometimes there just was no stopping that part of his mind from surfacing. And it didn't exactly help that he still had no idea what she was doing here, or the fact that he was starting to suspect she didn't either. "Up here," he added, indicating that she should follow him up the stairs.

Rory swallowed, suddenly realizing exactly where he would be leading her, and not quite sure she was ready for that. But, there was no backing out now, so she took a deep breath and followed. At the top of the stairs they both paused, taking off their shoes, and then she followed him inside an apartment that was almost exactly what she had expected. Cozy, filled with books and slightly messy.

"Sorry about the mess," Jess found himself saying again, somewhat uncomfortable. "I wasn't exactly expecting company, and Luke is…well, he's Luke." He stopped lamely, feeling like a fool for rambling away like that.

Rory smiled, feeling suddenly more comfortable. "No," she protested, "I like it. It's perfect actually."

He smiled at her, and followed her gaze towards the bookshelves against the far wall. "Those are our common shelves," he offered. "Anything we find that we think the others would like to read end up there first. Then we move whatever we find interesting to our own shelves."

"Wow, that's awesome," Rory exclaimed, her eyes shining with excitement.

"It's a pretty good system. We've got pretty much the same taste, so it's not that often we get something that none of us like. And the books we are done with and don't necessarily want to read again, end up back out here too."

"Man, I'd like to live here," she said, her eyes immediately widening when she realized she said it out loud.

Jess had to bite his own tongue to stop his automatic reply from escaping, and instead cleared his throat. "Um…I'll go find some clothes," he muttered, making a quick exit into his own room. Once safely on the other side of the door he breathed out a deep sigh. He was so not prepared for this.

He took a couple fast breaths and then walked over to his dresser, pulling out the bottom drawer and rummaged around for a while before picking out a long sleeved shirt and a pair of faded jeans. Straightening out he mentally prepared himself for the prospect of once more being face to face with Rory, and walked back out to her.

Back in the living room Rory was equally stunned by her own words, and the fact that the actual thought of living here had her feeling excited, and not just because of all the books.

She had slowly been coming to terms with the reasoning behind her hasty trip here, and she was beginning to realize it was something that had been a long time coming. And she wasn't quite sure how to handle that.

And then there was Jess. She had no idea what he really thought of her at this point in time. So far this evening he'd been friendly, but distant, and definitely uncomfortable. And she knew she was completely to blame for that. The way she acted the last time they saw each other must have seemed more than a little bit strange, not to mention the last time she was here. She still cringed every time she thought about that night.

And then she heard footsteps behind her and turned around to find him standing in front of her, a pile of clothes in his arms, and an entirely too neutral expression on his face.

"They're quite worn. I just saved them for things like this," he said, reaching out the clothes to her, and then motioned around the apartment. "You can change wherever, there's no one else here."

"Thanks," she said, not quite able to meet his eyes, and then watched as he left the apartment, closing the door softly behind him.

She hugged the clothes to her chest, subconsciously inhaling, and feeling a bit disappointed when the only scent she could pick up was the faint traces of laundry detergent. It made sense, but still.

Then she shook her head at her own behavior, and looked around her for a place to change. The living room was out of the question, no matter Jess' assurances that no one was here, so she scanned the apartment, seeing the kitchen through an opening to the right, and a couple doors down a short corridor to the left. One of them had to be the bathroom, but the question was which one. She didn't really want to walk into some guy's room and she was pretty sure Jess still lived with a couple of his coworkers. That left what she assumed was Jess' room next to the kitchen, and she took a deep breath before walking through the still half open door.

The room was small. A desk covered in messy piles of what she assumed were manuscripts stood below the window, a double bed was pushed into the corner, the walls above it covered with old band posters and what looked like post cards from all over the country. The wall next to the door was covered in bookcases, haphazardly stuffed to the brim and more with just the kind of books she knew he loved; old and battered, bent from being stuffed in his pocket and, of course, every last one of them full of his notes and scribbles. A dresser was crammed into the corner and it looked to be doubling as book holder.

She felt almost guilty being there, like she was spying, despite the fact that he had, sort of, given her permission to be there. The truth was that she wanted to stay in that room all night, she wanted to rifle through the bookcases in search of some hidden treasure, and curl up in his bed to read. And she wanted to wake up in that bed, two strong arms around her, and...

And that's where she closed her eyes tightly, fighting to rid herself of those images. That was a fantasy, and an impossible one at that, because there was no way he could still want anything like that from her. Not after what she had done, how she had acted.

So she took a deep breath, then quickly pulled her dress over her head, hanging it on the back of the desk chair and changed into the clothes he had given her. They fit remarkably well, but then again, she had been close enough in their past life to know he was definitely on the thin side, and they were incredibly comfortable. She could see herself padding around in then on lazy days at home.

And that was where she once more had to stop her wandering mind, making a quick exit from the room, and moments later the entire apartment. Once on the landing, she closed the door slowly, and leaned against it for a few seconds, wondering what she had gotten herself into. But, it was entirely too late to back out now, and quite honestly, she didn't want to.

She breathed in deeply, and made her way down the stairs, leaving her shoes behind. They were not really suited for this kind of work either.

Once down, she found Jess hard at work, his back to her as he painted one of the last stretches of wall. She stopped, unable to help herself, and just watched him. He clearly knew what he was doing, making headway quickly and efficiently. And she couldn't help but notice his shirt was a bit on the short side, and every time he stretched to the top of the wall, it would ride up his back in a way that really shouldn't be making her blush, but still did.

Finally she just had to make it stop, so she took the last few steps down, preparing to somehow make her presence known. And that's when he pulled that same shirt up to wipe at his forehead, and she stumbled, almost falling down the last step. She got to her feet quickly, but not fast enough, because when she looked up, Jess was watching her with a concerned frown.

"You ok?" he asked, clearly on his way over.

She shook her head, holding up her hand in some sort of stop motion. She really didn't want to tell him what caused her less than stellar entrance. "I'm fine," she assured him, searching for anywhere to look but him. She spotted the extra roller below an unpainted part of the wall, and with a relieved sigh she pointed towards it. "That mine?"

Jess' frown deepened for a second, but then he nodded, letting it go. "Yeah, you can start on that next wall, if that's ok with you?"

"Yeah, sure. Sounds like a plan. I can do that," she rambled, quickly making her way over to the roller and tray waiting for her.

"Here, I'll pour you some paint," Jess said moments later, coming up beside her. He put the can on the floor and crouched down, opening the lid with a screwdriver and poured out a fair amount in her tray.

"Thanks," Rory mumbled, unconsciously stroking the very cozy head of the roller.

Jess put the lid on again and straightened out, motioning towards the roller in her hand, deeming it safer than to look directly at her. "You ever done this before?"

"What?" she asked, momentarily confused, and then mentally banged her head into the wall. "No, not exactly. Sorry."

"Don't worry," he said with a small chuckle, not expecting anything else. "Just try to do the whole stretch at once, from top to bottom. And don't worry if you go too far. I'll put up door seals and such later anyway."

Rory chanced to look up at him and smiled. "I'll do my best."

"I'm sure you will," he said, and then smirked at her. "And if it's too horrible, we'll just cover it up with a bookshelf."

"Hey!" she exclaimed, wanting to be offended, but feeling the effects of that smirk in her whole body. "You wouldn't dare."

He turned back to her, now smiling. "You're just gonna have to find out then," he said, before picking up his own roller, and going back to work.

As Rory stood there, trying to come up with a good enough comeback Jess tried to keep his concentration on the task at hand. It was a simple enough thing to do, but now, with Rory just a few feet away and looking gorgeous in his clothes, it suddenly seemed like rocket science.

For her part, Rory hardly knew where to begin, still a bit stunned by the almost flirting tone that Jess had used. But she was determined to go through with this, no matter what, so she dipped the roller in the tray, coating it with the dark blue color, and breathed in before raising the roller to the wall. It couldn't be that hard, right?

They both concentrated on their own painting for the next two songs, Jess close to finishing, and Rory slowly getting a hang of it. Then the shrill ringing of a phone pierced through the otherwise pleasant atmosphere. Rory almost dropped her roller, and Jess muttered out a curse before putting his roller down, and once more dried his hands on the now more or less ruined towel.

He fished up his phone from a back pocket, and frowned at the caller ID. "Sorry," he directed at Rory, motioning upstairs. "I gotta take this. I'll be back soon."

"Oh, sure," she nodded, trying to appear unaffected, her mind all the while thinking up all the different possibilities, one in particular making her throat tighten.

She watched him hurry up the stairs and heard a mumbled greeting, though she couldn't make out what he said. Feeling suddenly even more certain it was an, as of yet unknown, girlfriend, she bit her bottom lip hard to keep from crying and went back to painting, determined to not think about what that meant, and just exactly how it made her feel.