19: Daydream Believer
Rory
Rory glances down at their hands, fingers intertwined, resting just beside the gearshift in Jess' car, then turns back to the window, staring at the light dusting of snow covering the tree branches as they pass.
"Deep thoughts?" His voice startles her out of her reverie, and she turns back to him.
"No," she smiles. "Just still regretting the fact that I ever tried Brian's 'day-after-Thanksgiving special.' There are certain ingredients that should never be mixed in a casserole, and cranberry sauce and gravy are two of them."
"Brave woman," Jess chuckles, tapping one hand on the steering wheel to emphasize his point. "I stuck to Luke's leftovers. At least I knew what was in them."
"Well, Brian's dish was still full! I was trying to be nice to the poor guy."
"Rory, 'nice' doesn't mean giving yourself food poisoning," he lectures. "It means taking him aside and reminding him that even though something fits into a casserole dish, it shouldn't necessarily go in. Even Lane didn't eat it, and aren't pregnant women supposed to crave weird things?"
Rory sputters defensively for a few seconds before replying, "Well, Gil's kids ate it, so I wasn't the only one!"
Jess laughs. "You're using that as your defense? 'Gil's kids ate it'?"
"I had to make my mother proud?" Rory tries again.
"If the casserole had been made of candy, sure. There were vegetables in it, though, so that doesn't work either," Jess shoots back.
"I was still hungry after Mrs. Kim's dinner, and dinner with my grandparents is always so dramatic that there isn't even time to eat?" she offers.
He pretends to consider it for a moment, nodding his head slowly. "That excuse, I might take."
Rory sighs suddenly, her shoulders lifting. "I missed dinner at Luke's this year. And last year, for that matter."
"Why last year?" Jess asks, taking the abrupt turn in conversation in stride. "Weren't you back at your mom's by then?"
"Yeah, but we had dinner at the Inn instead. And Sookie's Thanksgiving dinners are always amazing, but it… I don't know. It was fine last year, but this year was just… weird, and not just because we didn't get his homemade rolls." She shrugs, letting the thought hang in the air between them.
"You could have come to Luke's for dinner with me," Jess comments.
Rory shakes her head with a slight shrug. "It was at the same time as my grandparents' dinner this year, remember?"
Jess squeezes her hand lightly, glancing over and meeting her eyes quickly before shifting them back to the road. "I think they'll figure it out."
"How do you know?"
He smiles slightly, one corner of his mouth raised higher than the other. "I don't. But I think they will."
"I hope so," she sighs. "At least Mom's going back to the diner for coffee now—that's a start, right?"
Jess nods, his eyes shifting back and forth between Rory and the road.
"She always gets it to go, and she never hangs around longer than a minute or two, but it's a start, right? And," she hastens to add, "it's not that I want them to fix things if it's not right for both of them, but Mom is so miserable. But not in an 'I'm wallowing and not doing anything with my life' kind of way. She's going on with things as usual, but she's just… sad. It's like she's just resigned to her life being the way it is now, and nothing's going to change that for her. And maybe Luke will make her happy again, and if he can do that, then I really want them back together."
She catches a glimpse the corners of Jess' mouth turning up out of the corner of her eye and laughs ruefully.
"I know, it's crazy," she rambles. "But… I just want her to be happy. And Luke. And my dad… I want them all to be okay, but… my parents are idiots, you know, but I still love them both. And Mom did everything she could when I was growing up to make sure I had everything I needed and that I was happy, and I always knew that I was loved and wanted and needed in her life, and I guess it's my turn to pay it back." Rory stops and sighs. "I'm not even making sense anymore. I want to be an adult and live my life, but I want my mom to be happy, you know? I wish I could fix things for her, but I just can't, and it kills me sometimes to see her like that."
Jess simply squeezes her fingers again, letting that speak for him, and they ride in comfortable silence for a few miles, Rory's thoughts drifting as she stares out the side window.
This has been easier than she'd thought it would be. Granted, it's only been a few days, but she wasn't expecting their first weekend as a couple again to include a visit home, the stress of a holiday weekend, visiting family, and telling everyone in one shot. She's still not sure what she'd expected, but she had surprised even herself by telling him that she was ready. Something clicked, and the pieces all seemed to fall into place, and suddenly, there was no other option.
Maybe it's the fact that he was willing to watch High School Musical with her; maybe it's was the fact Jess had been planning to go back to Stars Hollow for the holiday even before she convinced him that they should drive together; maybe it's the fact that she wanted to drive six hours out of her way just to spend more of the weekend with him. Maybe—most likely—it's the months on end of emails and phone calls and visits, catching up on all the details they'd missed. Maybe it's the fact that she feels like she has her friend Jess back, the way she'd had him in the beginning—except more. More mature, more driven, more responsible, more ready, more of everything that mattered.
Whatever it was, she had acted on it, and to his credit he had yet to comment on the timing.
"Jess?" She turns to him abruptly, a sudden question brewing in her mind.
"Yeah?"
"Why didn't Lane freak out when we walked in holding hands? Or my mom, for that matter. Why weren't they totally opposed to the idea of us dating again?"
Jess shrugs, watching her out of the corner of his eye. "Beats me."
Rory narrows her eyes at him, shifting in her seat so she's facing him more directly. "You really have no idea why they're suddenly more receptive to the idea? Neither one of them has ever been your biggest fan."
"I wouldn't exactly call it 'sudden,'" Jess says, smirking slightly. "It's been—what, three years? Four? —since we broke up. That's a long time for an opinion to change."
"Have you met my mother? Her opinions change about as quickly as a glacier melts."
"Global warming," Jess replies cheekily, smirking as Rory makes a face at him. "That, and the fact that we've been in this weird limbo for six months, so I don't think it came as a surprise to anyone. Even Luke saw it coming, and that's saying something." He purses his lips into a mock-thoughtful expression. "It's not like we were trying to deny our feelings for each other by dating other people. I think it was all pretty obvious."
"Ha," she deadpans, and then returns to the question at hand. "What changed their minds?"
"I…" Jess starts, then exhales sharply. "They'll have to tell you that."
Rory stops mid-protest and looks at him curiously. "There's something specific that they'd be able to tell me about?" she asks, not having actually thought that it was more than what he'd already said—that they'd taken their time and people had time to get used to the idea and to the "new" Jess.
He hesitates, and then nods slowly. "I think so."
"You think so? But you're not sure? How many times have you i talked /i to my mom and Lane recently? There's more than one occasion they could be thinking of?"
"I didn't say that," Jess chuckles. "I just said that they might have something specific to base it on."
Rory falls silent, physically biting her lips together to keep from asking more questions, but the growing grin on Jess' face as he sneaks sidelong glances at her finally makes her break. "What was it?" she blurts, laughing along with him and swinging their hands, bumping his into the gearshift.
"I promised them half the royalties of my next book," he says with a straight face.
Rory laughs. "Do they know how little that is?"
"You think I'm stupid?" Jess retorts. "I wouldn't tell them that!"
Rory laughs again, a smile staying on her lips even as the sound dies away, and she glances down at their hands again, still slightly disbelieving that the entire weekend actually happened, that this is everything they've been building up to for the past few months, that it's finally happening. And, surprisingly, neither one of them is freaking out. Jess glances over at her again, as if he's still trying to process the same thing she is, and his eyes meet hers, both looking at their hands, and a small, wry smile crosses his face, too.
"You're not going to tell me what it really is, are you?" Rory breaks the silence, trying one last time.
Jess shakes his head with an air of finality, and Rory nods resignedly. "Okay," she says, then reaches into the console between the seats and picks up the plastic bag that had held their snacks. "We need more food."
Jess groans, raising an eyebrow at her as he pulls to a stop at a red light. "We'll be there in forty-five minutes. You really need to stop this close to home?"
"I guess not," Rory concedes, "but before we get to your house I want to stop and pick up some strawberry ice cream and chocolate chip cookies."
"Isn't that what Lane was—you know what?" Jess cuts himself off. "I don't even want to know."
Rory giggles. "Yeah, that's what Lane was craving all weekend, and between her and your mom, I got to try all kinds of pregnancy food. Surprisingly, some of it was actually pretty good. Like hot chocolate with a spoonful of strawberry ice cream melted in it, and then chocolate chip cookies dipped in that."
"That actually sounds good," Jess admits, leaning across to give her a quick kiss before the light turns green.
An hour later, they're dragging their bags from the weekend, Rory's Black Friday shopping bags, and the two bags of snacks up the stairs to Jess' apartment. "Shouldn't we leave the stuff you bought downstairs so we don't have to drag it back down for you to put it in your car?"
"We?" Rory teases. "You're around for the muscle," she says, falling into step behind him on the stairs, slipping her arms around his waist, and planting a light kiss on his shoulder. "I'm not planning to carry anything back down."
Jess turns around to face her, inadvertently swinging his duffel bag into Rory's thigh and almost knocking her over.
"Jess!" she yelps, one hand shooting out to balance herself against the wall.
He drops the shopping bags, reaching out one arm to break her fall, and when she grabs onto him, they both fall down the few stairs, collapsing on the landing, her bag bumping down the stairs and her shopping bags upending themselves and everything in them falling out. Jess watches helplessly as it spills all down the bottom half of the stairs and Rory giggles uncontrollably as they both sit, frozen, watching it fall.
Jess sighs, irritated, and pushes himself up against the wall to go pick it up, but Rory tugs his hand. "Hey."
"What?" He stops, the angle that she's looking at him from making his scowl more pronounced.
She pulls harder, pulling him off-balance, and he stumbles, taking a few steps to regain his footing. Rory wrinkles her nose at him, and he smirks despite himself, pulling up on her arm, and she laughs as she pulls even harder, bracing her feet against the wall for more leverage. Finally, Jess gives in, and falls down, even though Rory knows that he's stronger than she is and could easily have pulled her up.
"Now what?" he asks from where he lands, arms and legs tangled with hers, their hands still clasped.
"Now this," she replies, pulling him into a sitting position on the landing, so he's leaning against the wall, and turning around so she's leaning against his chest.
"And we had to do this sitting on the stairs… why?" he asks, his chin coming to rest on her shoulder and his hands tracing idle patterns up and down her arms.
Rory shivers as his hands trail up to her shoulders and spiral back down towards her fingers, and he leans into her as he feels the chill run down her spine. "Because it's so much more convenient than carrying all those bags all the way upstairs."
"You do know that sitting on a couch is more comfortable than sitting on the stairs, don't you?" Jess asks, winding a strand of Rory's hair around one finger.
"But that would mean getting up," Rory pouted playfully, one hand fiddling with the hem of his jeans, the other one tracing the outline of his hand, like a child tracing a hand for a Thanksgiving turkey—in between his fingers, up and around the tips, down the sides to his wrist and back up again.
"Good point," Jess mumbles into her hair, wrapping himself around her, his arms clasped at her waist; his legs bent at the knees on either side of her hips.
Her eyes drift shut and she leans fully into him, savoring the feel of him around her, a familiar, warm blanket that at once envelops her and makes her feel safe and at home. This—visiting family together, spending hours in the car talking, being able to sit without talking at all, sharing all the concerns and joys—could so easily become the status quo. And she feels, in a way, that thinking like that is jumping the gun, that it's too soon, that it might make him bolt, but beneath all the voices telling her otherwise, there's a quiet, still reassurance that they're finally fitting into the roles they've been waiting for.
"Good weekend?" Rory asks after a moment, twisting her neck to plant a kiss on the corner of his mouth.
"Not bad," Jess concedes with a wry grin, touching his forehead lightly against hers. "It was good to see Luke—I'd felt bad for not spending much time with him since everything happened this summer."
"Yes," Rory agrees gravely, nodding her head. "Family is very important, especially during times of crisis."
"And tomorrow I have to get back to the pile of emails and voice mails that I'm sure to have waiting for me," Jess sighs, dropping his head backwards until it bumps against the wall, his nose pointing straight at the ceiling.
"Shhh!" Rory admonishes him. "Don't talk about that, because if you do, you'll have to talk about how I have to leave way too soon in order to get back to New Haven."
"Can you leave in the morning?" Jess asks, surreptitiously glancing at the clock on the wall. "What time's your class?"
"Eight o'clock." Rory wrinkles her nose as she says it. "Can you come up to see me next weekend?" she asks hopefully, shifting slightly so she's facing him more directly.
"Probably not. I think it'll be a busy week, getting caught up from the long weekend—besides, won't you be just as busy, since you didn't take any homework with you this weekend? And aren't finals coming up really soon?"
"That's beside the point," Rory grins, draping her arms around his neck. "I was hoping for some distraction."
Jess laughs, brushing her bangs off her forehead. "No distractions," he says, punctuating his words with feather-light kisses. "Not until the weekend after, anyway. How about I come then?"
Rory pretends to consider his words for a long moment. "Well, that's a week and a half closer to finals…"
"Which means that you'll have a week and a half more studying done, and you'll feel more justified in taking a break," Jess quickly fills in, his eyes twinkling.
"How could I argue with logic like that?" Rory asks, running a hand through his hair and letting her fingers trail down his cheek and across his lips.
"And," Jess continues as Rory snuggles back into his chest, "the manuscript should be to the printer's by then, so I'll just be editing, not trying to get my own out there."
"You're that close to finishing it?" Rory asks, half into his chest.
"It's finished," he smirks, and she sits up so fast that the top of her head nearly collides with his chin.
"What?" she squeaks, turning to face him.
"Finished," he repeats, the smirk becoming more pronounced. "It's about time, too, since the publishers have been after me for almost two months to get it to them. I don't like missing deadlines like this, but those last few sentences just weren't—"
"But," she cuts him off mid-sentence, "it wasn't finished when we left. When did you have time to finish it this weekend?"
"Like I said, it was just a few sentences." He raises an eyebrow, leaning in to kiss her, but she ducks away, still staring in confusion. "I just needed the right words to come together."
"Let me see it," Rory demands, pushing herself up and tugging on his hand.
"Bossy, aren't we?" he asks, allowing her to pull him up off the floor and wrapping his arms around her waist as he leads her down the stairs and to his desk.
"You didn't take it with you?" she asks, even more confused than before. "How could you…"
Jess places a finger over her lips as he opens the drawer and pulls out the binder-clipped manuscript he had placed there before leaving on Wednesday. "Just… look at it, okay?" he says, a note of uncertainty tingeing his voice, sitting in his desk chair while Rory perches on the edge of his desk and begins flipping through the familiar pages, most of which she's already read several times.
She flips through the chapters, her eyes skimming quickly over the courier font, recognizing certain phrases and scenes that he'd read her over the phone or emailed to her when he was stuck, or that she'd marked up with his red pen while sitting out on Truncheon's front steps over the summer. She knows the story, although she hasn't read the last chapter, but as she slows down, seeing the heading for the final section, she sees Jess' head shaking back and forth over the top of the papers.
"Keep going," he says, reaching up to flip a few pages for her. She looks at him quizzically, and he just motions as though he's turning the pages of a book, still smirking. "You'll know."
Finally, she reaches the last page, with an updated author's bio on it, and, at the bottom of the page, the dedication.
Her own name jumps out at her, and it takes a moment for it all to process—she reads it three times before it makes sense.
"For Rory. Because dreams can come true, even for this rebel who never thought he had the right to believe. Finally."
It echoes in her head, the word being absorbed by her entire body as it sinks in and her eyes get damp. His eyes search her face, and his mouth softens into a smile as he leans forward, placing a hand on either side of her knees and she bends down, tracing the contours of his face with her fingertips until they spiral their way in to trace his lips, and her lips follow her fingers as she whispers into his mouth, the words absorbed into his being, too. Finally.
Author's Note: And this, my friends, is the end. It's been a great journey writing this story, examining Rory and Jess' relationships, not only with each other, but also with the other important people in their lives, and taking a look at one of the many what-ifs in the storyline.
I couldn't have done it without adina, and not only has she been an amazing beta, but this "new story" began a friendship that has thus far survived the "new story," a "NEW story" (which was also a slightly addled story), two MMs, many bus rides, a lot of phone calls, plenty of fun mail, and a pizza. Thanks for all of it, sweetie.
As for everyone else who has been reading and reviewing the story faithfully, thank you. I hope it's been as exciting a journey for you as it has been for me, and I've appreciated every one of your comments, suggestions, and reviews. Thank you!