A/N: To my Puzzle Pieces readers – don't worry! I'm still working on that one too! This idea just popped into my head, so I had to get at least some of it out before I forgot it. Keep reading! :)

P.S. If you've never read The Great Gatsby, 1. It is a great book. Go read it now. 2. There are spoilers to that book in this story, so proceed cautiously!

I can't believe I'm doing this, Jess mentally groaned as he stood in line to buy tickets to prom. From the very first time he'd even heard of such a thing as a "prom," when he was seven years old and his older next-door neighbor was taking his girlfriend, Jess had thought "Prom means you dress up in a silly outfit and take a girl in an even sillier outfit to dance with a bunch of other kids in silly outfits? What's the point?" Here he was, ten years later, doing something he had sworn long ago never to do. It's for Rory, he chided himself silently and softening a little. Rory. She was special. He would never, ever say that out loud, to anyone. But she was. He had once thought she didn't give a damn about him. The ridiculous town dance marathon changed all that.

"So…you're broken up with Dean?" Jess asked, standing on the dock and looking down at Rory, who looked like she'd stepped out of the pages of a 1950s LIFE magazine. She glanced up. Her bright blue eyes were huge and still damp with tears.

"I'm broken up with Dean," she confirmed.

"Okay," he said simply, and walked away. Time to say goodbye to Shane…whatever her last name was. He glanced over his shoulder just once, and Rory was gazing after him, looking confused. They'd figure it out.

And they had. They had a somewhat tumultuous relationship, sure, but unless you were a pod person, or didn't even care about each other (like him and Shane), that was pretty normal.

"Hey. Hey!" Someone was shouting at him, shaking him out of his own thoughts.

"What?" he snapped.

"Do you want a ticket, or what?" He suddenly found himself at the head of the line. People behind him were shuffling and complaining. Apparently he'd just been standing there, motionless, for at least a minute or two.

"Yes, obviously I want a ticket. I was standing in the ticket line, wasn't I?" Jess shot back to the girl who had yelled at him. She rolled her eyes.

"How many?"

"Two," he told her. She squinted at him suspiciously. Apparently she didn't buy that anyone would want to go to prom with him. "I'm taking my grandma," he said, just to have a little fun and make his already-terrible reputation here even worse. Hey, he was gonna be out of here any day now. He'd just barely scraped by with his grades. One more F, one more detention, and he wouldn't have graduated. They could still stop me from graduating, he suddenly realized. Oh shit.

"Sorry," said Jess quickly to the ticket-selling girl, and put on his best shit-eating grin. "I guess I spaced out there for a sec. I'm taking my girlfriend, so I need two." A long pause. He sighed. "Please." She quit squinting at him and handed him two tickets.

"That'll be forty dollars, please," she said, acting much nicer than a moment ago. People are so easy to manipulate, Jess thought. And forty dollars? What a rip-off. He forked over the cash and took the tickets, which resided in a small folder with a familiar-looking illustration on the cover. He frowned at it.

"What's the theme this year?" Jess asked.

"The Great Gatsby," the girl replied, rolling her eyes again. "I don't know whose bright idea that was. Probably some teacher." Jess smiled, a real one this time. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

"So, I got the tickets," Jess said a few hours later, sitting across from Rory at Luke's. She gave him a brilliant smile. He tried to pretend it didn't affect him like it did.

"The prom tickets?" she asked excitedly. He nodded. "Yay!" She stood up, nearly knocking over her chair, and wrapped him in a bear hug.

"Jeez!" he exclaimed, but it was in a good-natured way. Rory touching him could never be truly annoying. Unless she was repeatedly poking him, which she occasionally did when she was bored at the movies.

"Oh, I'm so excited," Rory said, taking her seat again and waving an apology at Luke, who was glaring at her from behind the counter. Lorelai was there too, picking reluctantly at a grapefruit Luke had set before her. She'd already eaten the maraschino cherry that came in the middle. "Thanks, Jess. I know this is the last thing you want to do with your Saturday night."

"Well, hey, maybe it won't be so bad," Jess shrugged. "The theme is The Great Gatsby." Rory really did knock over her chair this time in her haste to get to her mom.

"Mom! Mom!" Rory yelled. "The prom's theme is The Great Gatsby!" Lorelai looked a little taken aback by her daughter's excitement, but relaxed as soon as she knew why Rory was freaking out. Then a gleam glinted in her eye.

"Can I make your dress again?" Lorelai asked, looking like she was already mentally sifting through fabric options.

"Yes!" Rory shouted. Luke looked like he was about to have an aneurysm from all the shouting. Lorelai leapt up from her stool and the two Gilmore girls started jumping up and down and squealing. Jess hunched down in his leather jacket, trying to pretend to be somewhere, anywhere else. Luke pointedly slipped in the back room, holding his hands over his ears. After a minute or two, completely oblivious to all the nasty looks they were getting from other diners, Lorelai and Rory stopped jumping and squealing and Rory turned her chair the right way around.

"You can be Gatsby and I'll be Daisy!" she exclaimed to Jess, who was still hunched down, trying to make himself invisible.

"Great, so you'll leave town with some other guy and I'll end up face-down in a pool," Jess said. Rory waved away his sarcasm.

"It's gonna be great," she said happily, finally tucking into her burger and fries. Jess smiled. Maybe it would be.

A/N: Please review and let me know what you think so far! I never liked that Rory didn't get to go to prom. I hated my own prom, to be honest, and would love a chance to do it all over again. I'll just live vicariously through Jess and Rory. ;)