Books, books, books, Jess, Rory, Luke, Lorelai...more books...movies...possible glimpses of my writing, and some ecclectic *ooh...just have to tumbl THAT!* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yeah, there's a very definite "Jess Mariano, this is your life" vibe here today. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ;-)
I can't even articulate how emotional this makes me. Both Jess and Milo never stop getting better. It is so hard for me to even fathom the fact that there was a time I didn't like him (Jess). That I didn't *start* to see him for who he was until my boyfriend at the time, said the words about Jess: "I just figured out why I can't stand him....... he's me." I totally didn't see it.
I didn't begin to genuinely see it until this wonderful man and I had been married for about a year, and I reached Season 6. I had to work my way backwards.... and really get to know my husband's younger self... and get to know Jess. And, yeah..... very thankfully, my husband never stops getting better either.
I don't ship Literati (Jess and Rory) because (as many people have accused) I'm "part of a misguided demographic crushing on a toxic character." I've been very happily in love with and married to the man I love for 17 years. And I've known him for 27 years. 27 years ago, we met, and he still tells me that night he started to see his own potential... the man he could choose to become, and the kind of life that perhaps we could have together someday if he did.
I hadn't even "met" Jess Mariano yet when *my* Jess showed up to what he didn't know was our first date before I got there, and was sitting on a bench, reading one of the books I'd recommended to him..... oh so long ago, before we'd curated the library we live in; so many years before lockdown turned us into even more of 'a really sweet old agoraphobic couple' who like to mock the same movies and travel together to the locations of fictional worlds we love. Before he showed me that 'not knowing what the other person is going to do at all times' isn't just 'exciting,' but usually playfully hilarious.
And, yeah, I even love him when he gets broody, cynical, and sarcastic; though it's all the better when we're supporting and inspiring one another.
So, yeah...... this gifset makes me happy-weepy. And in my worlds, both reality and headcanon, Jess and Rory got together and have stayed that way for ages, even if it took them quite a few years to get there.
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summary: jess mariano has spent his whole life being misread â by a town that made up its mind about him before he ever opened his mouth, by a mother whose love was real but never quite enough, by everyone except one person he managed to push away anyway. he's been carrying something heavy for a long time without a name for it, and he's gotten very good at making sure no one notices. then the festival comes, and so does she, and jess learns that some things you can't just stand at the edge of.
warnings: grief, parental neglect, emotional immaturity/parentification, absent parent, childhood emotional suppression, toxic masculinity (brief), abandonment, resentment toward a parent, and implied cycle of generational trauma.
note(s): i didn't specify where in canon this takes place, but i'd say after rory's summer in dc. i wanted to write something that delves into jess's background, something the writers half-assed.
The Firelight Festival is exactly the kind of event Jess would have found a way to sleep through if Luke hadn't shook him awake at eight-thirty in the morning with the energy of a man who actually wanted to be awake.
"You're going," Luke said.
"I'm not."
"You are."
That was the whole conversation. Luke had a gift for economy.
So now Jess is standing at the edge of the square with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, watching Stars Hollow do what Stars Hollow does best: perform joy at top volume. There are paper lanterns strung between the lampposts. Someone â Taylor, obviously â has erected a banner that reads CELEBRATE OUR COMMUNITY in letters so large they're visible from three zip codes. A group of kids are chasing each other around Miss Patty's studio. Babette is crying. She's always crying. At festivals, at sunsets, at the time Morey tried a new chord progression in the driveway.
Jess watches all of it with the particular expression he's perfected over the years: utterly unmoved, faintly contemptuous, professionally absent.
It's a good look. It keeps people at a distance, which is the point.
He knows what they say about him.
Not the specifics â he's never cared enough to piece together the full gossip infrastructure of this town, though he suspects Babette and Miss Patty operate some kind of relay system â but the broad strokes are easy enough to read in the way people look at him when he walks into Doose's. Like they're waiting for him to pocket something. Like his presence itself is a small transgression.
Bad kid. That's the shorthand. He's figured out the file they've built on him: truant, troublemaker, drinks behind the diner, bad influence on Rory Gilmore.
The drinking thing is almost funny.
He'd tried to explain it once, to no one in particular, just turning it over in his head the way you turn over a joke that doesn't land â I've never had a drink in my life â and the punchline is that nobody would believe him. It doesn't fit the narrative. The narrative requires him to be a certain kind of disaster, and Stars Hollow has committed to that narrative with the fervor of people who have very little else going on.
He knows how to tap a beer keg. He knows how to get wine stains out of a white tablecloth, out of a couch cushion, out of carpet that has seen better decades. He knows the specific smell of cheap vodka and cheaper gin and the particular sound a bottle makes when it hits linoleum at two in the morning.
His mother had called it practical education.
These are life skills, Jess, you'll thank me.
She'd been earnest about it, that was the part he couldn't explain to anyone without sounding like he was making excuses for her. Liz Danes had her own internal logic, complete and self-consistent, and within that logic she was not a bad mother â she was a fun mother, a cool mother, a mother who treated her kid like a small adult because she never quite finished growing up herself. She'd looked at him across the kitchen table at eight, nine, ten years old and seen a peer. Someone to split the rent with, emotionally speaking.
He'd let her.
He hadn't had much choice.
He was eight the first time he got caught.
That's how he thinks of it â caught â because that's what it felt like. An exposure. A failure.
Derek had been around for about three months at that point, which made him practically a fixture by Liz's standards. He had a motorcycle and a laugh that filled up rooms and he called Jess little man in a way that was meant to be affectionate and landed somewhere adjacent to it. Jess had been trying to figure out if he liked him. He was still in the phase of thinking that mattered â that his opinion of the men who came through their apartment was something that would be consulted.
He'd been crying in the bathroom. He didn't remember now what about â something small, probably, the kind of thing that feels enormous when you're eight and you're tired and you've been holding yourself together for longer than a kid should have to. The door hadn't been fully latched.
Derek had pushed it open without knocking.
There'd been a beat of silence. The particular silence of a grown man looking at a crying child and deciding what to do about it.
"Hey," Derek said. Then: "Ah, come on. Boys don't do that."
Jess had looked at him.
"Toughen up, yeah? Don't let your mom see you like that, it'll upset her."
And then he'd left. Closed the door behind him. The lesson was clean, surgical: your feelings are a burden, and moreover, they are your mother's burden, and it is your job to manage them so she doesn't have to.
He'd learned it thoroughly. He'd been a good student.
Derek was gone by spring.
The thing about Rory Gilmore is that she looked at him and didn't immediately start editing.
He didn't know how to explain that to anyone, mostly because he'd never had the language for it, but that's what it was. Everyone else in his life â Luke included, and Luke was the best of them, Luke had fed him and housed him and asked for almost nothing in return â everyone else came with an agenda. A theory of Jess that they'd arrived at before he'd opened his mouth. Luke's theory was troubled kid who needs structure. Taylor's theory was delinquent. Lorelai's theory wasâ
Well.
Lorelai thought she understood him. He'd seen it on her face, that flicker of recognition, the way she looked at him sometimes like she was looking into a mirror she didn't particularly want to see. And she wasn't entirely wrong â there were surface similarities, he wasn't stupid â but she'd gotten the story backwards and she didn't know it.
She'd had resources. She'd had the Gilmore name and the Gilmore money and a town that had watched her grow up and loved her anyway, had built a mythology around her, had made her charming dysfunction into a feature. When Lorelai Gilmore blew up her life, Stars Hollow shook its head and smiled. She got to be quirky.
His mother got to be quirky too, for that matter. They loved Liz here. He'd seen it already â the warmth in their voices when they said her name, the way they talked about her like she was a character in a story rather than a person who had made consistent choices with consistent consequences. Oh, Liz, she's something else.
Which made Jess the something else. The evidence. The proof that the story had costs.
He loved his mother. He needed that to be legible somewhere, even if only to himself, standing in the middle of a festival he didn't want to attend â he loved her. He had always loved her. He had loved her through every man she'd chosen over him, every morning she'd slept through, every school meeting she'd forgotten, every time he'd stood outside her bedroom door listening to her cry over someone who hadn't deserved the tears, trying to decide whether to go in, trying to remember whether consolation was something she could receive right now or whether she'd turn it into something about herself.
He had learned to be very good at deciding that.
He just â couldn't help the other thing. The shadow underneath the love, which was something he didn't have a word for. Not hate. Not hate at all. Something more like grief, maybe, or like standing in a house where all the furniture is slightly wrong, everything two inches from where it should be, and you keep running into corners you should have learned to avoid by now.
He couldn't help that he resented her. He'd tried.
He's thinking about this â he's always thinking about this, it's the background music, the channel he can never quite turn off â when he sees her.
She's standing by the lantern booth, wearing a purple wrap that Jess recognizes from approximately 2002, her blonde hair down and loose. She's laughing at something the man next to her has said. Her whole face does that thing it does when she laughs, that thing that makes her look younger than she is, that thing that used to make him think this time it'll be different, when he was young enough to think that.
He stops.
She hasn't seen him yet.
This is the moment, he knows, where he could turn around. Walk back to the diner. Finish the book he's been rereading, the Kerouac he keeps returning to not because he loves it but because it makes him feel less insane for wanting to move, for needing to move, for the low-grade terror that's been following him since he got to Stars Hollow â the fear that if he stays somewhere long enough he'll calcify, he'll root, he'll end up marooned in his own life the way his mother keeps ending up marooned in hers.
He knows that's what he's doing. He's not stupid about himself. He had done it to Luke, he'd done it to Rory â looked at the thing being offered to him and understood on some molecular level that if he let himself have it, really have it, he would eventually do what his mother did. He would hurt the people who'd made the mistake of caring. He would ruin it.
He is very good at ruining things. He came by it honestly.
He watches his mother laugh at the lantern booth, and he doesn't move, and she turns â
â and sees him.
Her face does something complicated. Something he's spent a lifetime learning to read. There's a beat where she's deciding what version of herself to be, and then she lands on the one he knew she would, the one she always reaches for:
bright, warm, slightly too loud.
"Jess."
He stands there.
She opens her arms.
He stands there for another half a second, which is the most resistance he ever manages, and then he crosses the distance between them, and he lets her hug him, and she smells like the same drugstore perfume she's worn since he was four years old, and he doesn't say anything, because there's nothing to say, because there's never anything to say, because he learned a long time ago in a bathroom with a poorly latched door that feelings are a burden and it is his job to manage them.
His mother pulls back and holds him by the shoulders and looks at him like he is the most wonderful surprise of her life.
"You're so tall," she says.
"I was tall last time," he says.
"Taller." She squeezes. "Isn't he tall, Gary?"
He looks at Gary.
Gary has the motorcycle. Gary has the laugh.
Gary says, "Hey, little man."
Later â much later, when Liz has drifted toward the dancing and Gary has drifted with her â Jess finds himself at the edge of the square again. Same spot. Same jacket. Same expression.
Rory finds him there, because Rory has a talent for finding him, which is one of the things he's done his best not to think about.
She doesn't say anything immediately. She just comes to stand beside him, and she looks at the square with that particular quality of attention she has â like she's already writing it down somewhere â and for a minute they just stand there, watching Stars Hollow celebrate itself.
"Is that your mom?" she asks finally.
"Yeah."
"She seemsâ"
"She's having a great time," he says. His voice is flat. Not mean. Just flat.
Rory doesn't push it.
She'd never assumed anything about him. She'd waited. She'd asked. She'd read the same books and argued about the ones they disagreed on and never once looked at him like she already knew the ending of his story.
He'd ruined that too.
He's aware of the irony. He is always aware of the irony. He is made of irony, sitting on top of a layer of dread, on top of something he refuses to examine, on top of an eight-year-old kid in a bathroom who learned the wrong lesson about the cost of being seen.
His mother laughs, somewhere across the square. The sound carries.
"You okay?" Rory asks.
He almost doesn't answer. He almost lets the question sit there, the way he lets everything sit there, untouched, the way he's always let everything sit there.
"Yeah," he says.
She looks at him. She doesn't say are you sure, because she's not like that. But she stays, which is its own kind of answer.
He watches Gary put his arm around his mother.
Jess puts his hands back in his pockets.
The lanterns are pretty, he thinks. He won't say that out loud. But they are.
If Jess and Rory had kid(s) their first born childâs name would probably be? đ¤
đ literary related (after name of an author or character they both like)
đźđżđ movie related (after name of a character from one of their favorite movies)
đś song related (after a name in song title or lyrics)
đ¨âđŠâđ§âđŚ family related (after a family relativeâs name)
a name that doesnât fit with the first 4 choices (reblog/comment with name idea)
Voting ended onJun 24
felt like doing another Jess and Rory poll for fun since itâs been a while since I did my last one and this poll idea has been in my head recently
Iâve been reading a Jess and Rory fanfic where in the most recent update they found out that Rory is expecting twins which had me wondering what they will name their babies đ¤
itâs always interesting to me reading Jess and Rory fanfics and seeing what authors choose to name their kid(s) so Iâm curious what other people think
Well, my fics and rps have gone with literary and family names (Oliver, Laura, Lucas) as well as a none-of-the above (Isabel â don't remember the reasoning on that one đ).
i get so emotional every time i think about fanfic culture. it's just so beautiful that people are writing and anonymously posting these thousand-word stories about characters we all love and not even getting any money or public fame from it. it's literally just for the love of the game.
shout out to everyone who participates in fanfic culture, be it reading or writing fanfics. you are contributing to such a lovely thing <3
Fanfic is as old as writing, if not older. A HUGE body of work in Ancient Greek was literally just Homeric fanfiction. And Homer himself may have been working off older stories, making it fic of fics.
The most primal human urge upon hearing any story is to write fic about it.
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if you ever doubt that your ao3 comments matter or mean something: i have been struggling with my writing for 6 months straight, crying myself to sleep afraid that i will never be able to write again, that the thing i love most in the world has left me, that my writing is just gone
this morning i got this comment:
and after i stopped blubbering over it, i picked up my writing notebook, and re-read all my fic research, and opened up my document again for the first time in weeks without being afraid of it
you have no idea how much writers treasure every single comment we get. you have no idea how big an impact you can have. sometimes, just sometimes, your one "insignificant" comment changes everything
Okay so i see writers mess this up constantly and i need to talk about it. Introverts and extroverts are not "shy vs loud." That's not what it means and if you write them like that your characters will feel like cardboard. Introvert means you lose energy in crowds and find it alone. Extrovert means the opposite. That's it. An introvert can be the loudest person in the room. An extrovert can be soft-spoken and gentle. The behaviour is not the point. The energy is.
Somewhere in the notes of this, there must be a true Fandom Old reminiscing about exchanging kirk/spock fics through the mail with other trek fans. Over her shoulder, there is the ghost of a man who died before the first motion pictures and is bitter that he never got to see a Sherlock Holmes movie, but still smug that his work made it into several official collections of influential Holmes stories. In an unbroken line behind him, there are fans of Shakespeare and Journey to the West and beowulf and the Arabian nights and so on.
All of them are in awe of a spirit so old she has long forgotten her own name. Her fame is assured, though, for nearly as long as humanity will last, because she once set stylus to clay to write about her otp, and that survived against all odds: we call it the Epic of Gilgamesh. She was a temple priestess, a powerful woman, a towering intellect in her time. Now, the other spirits whisper of her ancient majesty: the first fujoshi.
Nowadays, she mostly hangs around living fanficcers to see the Sasuke/Naruto fics. She likes the sasuke/Naruto fics. They remind her of the old days.
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Perhaps Akin to Shylock - fanfic AU scene from 'Teach Me Tonight'
A/N: Scene I've always wanted to see, though I'm not sure why. During every rewatch, during a particular conversation in 'Teach Me Tonight,' I start visualizing something like this... and wish we could have seen how it actually would have gone down. Clearly, slightly AU. Don't know if I'll ever do anything more with this. But here's what spilled out of my brain:
Jess should have known it was the wrong day to set foot outside the diner⌠or even inside it, for that matter. Granted, that was the reason he was heading out the dinerâs back door to begin withâto find someplace devoid of people and stay there with a couple of books until closing time. But the fact that he never should have left the apartment was abruptly reinforced by menacing, growled words.
âHey, kid!â As the words were spoken, a fist grabbed the lapel of his jean jacket, effectively spinning him around.
Jessâ fists flashed upwards along with his gazeâreflexive and unaware that he gave the appearance of a cornered wild animal. His breath quickened and pulse pounded, a momentary flash of a dozen or more similar scenes flooding his mind's eye before the man's voice brought him back to the present.
âWoahâŚâ the stranger said, raising his other hand, but not releasing the jacket, âkinda quick with the fists there, dontcha think?â
The teenager remained frozen in his defensive stance, not changing expression as he sized the man up. He didn't have many inches on Jess, nor a great many pounds⌠30, maybe. And there was some muscle there, but the angry face was a soft one, with a weak set to his mouth. Jess knew he'd still come out considerably worse for wear, but also that he could hold his own if he had to.
"Youâre the one who grabbed hold of me! Who are you, and what do you want?â he demanded in a tone that was as caustic as it was cautious.
âIâm Christopher Hayden, the father of the girl you put in the hospital last night! And, honestly? I want a pound of fleshâyour flesh. So I guess you should keep those fists up, kid, âcause you're gonna need âem.â
Despite the violence inherent in the threat, the voice that spoke it didn't sound capable of carrying it out. (Nor did it sound like the voice of someone who would know the etymology of their own reference, and thus understand if he asked whether there was a stipulation regarding âone drop of Christian bloodâ that could serve him as loophole deliverance. ) Still⌠Jessâ fists sank without a word.
âWhatâall of a sudden you're not gonna defend yourself? What gives?â
No beating around the bush. Jess shrugged. âI hurt your daughter,â he conceded, and his eyebrows rose and fell in defeat. âAccident or not, it's your inalienable right to clobber me⌠even if your dad card is long expired.â
The man standing in front of him looked a little impressed by the teenagerâs willingness to accept both blame and retribution, even if his last words struck a nerve. âMy dad card is expired---excuse me? What right do you have to sit in judgment--â
âIâm Rory's friend. She's never mentioned youâso, I didn't know if you were dead or alive, or if you even knew you had a kid. That indicates card-expiration,â Jess elaborated, tipping his head, as if toward his point. âThen again, I don't know whether my dadâs dead or alive either. But I do know that if he suddenly showed up and tried to make some kind of amends by beating up a friend of mine... I wouldn't take it too well. Your choice, though.â
"You have got a smart mouth, you know that?â Christopher snapped, eyes narrowed.
âBetter than a stupid oneâŚâ Jess muttered, as if to himself.
"What exactly is going on out here?â Luke asked as he strode out of the diner, looking every inch ready to make good on his promise from the night before, to make anyone who came after Jess regarding the accident âgo through him.â
âI was about to have a discussion with your nephew here about vehicle safety. With additional points on the liability a responsible person faces after crashing another person's vehicle, and about his proximity to my daughter⌠or, more importantly, the lack thereof,â Christopher stated evenly, managing to sound equal parts reasonable, congenial, and threatening--and it so happened that he still hadn't released his hold on Jess.
âSpeaking of responsibility,â Luke began, his head tilting to one side, while pushing up his sleeves alternately, and utilizing the same vocal qualities as the man who had laid hands on Jess, âany discussion of those points will be taking place between him and me, though most of it weâve already covered. If you want to put in your own two cents, you and I can have that discussion, and Iâll gladly relay the pertinent details to Jess; since I am his guardian. Meanwhile, I would strongly suggest that you let go of him.â
âThanks for the friendly advice; but since Iâm the one whose kid he hurt, I will deal with the situation as I see fit.â
Luke took a single step forward. âOver my dead body.â The words were spoken mildly, considering what they were; but, still, they were spoken.
Jess raised a hand. âCan I vote for no killing to take place, on my behalf, or otherwise?â
Christopher ignored the teenâs interjection and kept addressing Luke. âYou are so begging for a lawsuit right now.â
âFor what? Iâm payinâ for the car and whatever medical bills come out of this; so what is it youâre gonna sue me for? Not lettinâ you take it out of his hide?â
âPain and suffering, for starters,â Chris drawled.
âWhose?â
âWhat do you mean, âWhose?ââRoryâs!â he spat out, leaning toward Luke and tugging Jess along with him.
âHey, Iâm the last guy whoâs gonna stand by and watch Rory suffer, and do nothinâ about it. But, last I checked, youâre not Rory's guardian. Now if Lorelai wants money to compensate for Rory's suffering, Iâll discuss that with her.â
âYeah, well you better lawyer up, because I will have my attorneys on her side.â
âYou don't seem to understand that Lorelai and I are on the SAME side, Rory's side, taking care of whatever she needs. You wanna help with that, thatâs great. Iâm sure Rory would enjoy having you around for a change. But Iâm not fighting Lorelai for anything; and she KNOWS that.â He turned to Jess. âCould you please go in and pour some coffee?â
Jess raised his eyebrows quizzically. âGladly, ifâŚâ he gestured toward Christopher's hand.
âWould you please take your hands off my nephew and employee so he can get back to work?â
Christopher glared for a moment, then dramatically released his grip, stepping backward. âFine...but I don't want him anywhere near my daughter, ever again. You got that?â He addressed the last part to Jess, leveling a hard look at him.
Jessâ head fell forward. âIâll leave that entirely up to Rory,â Jess said acidly, stepping quickly inside the diner before Christopher could respond.
"You make sure he stays away, unless you want to deal with a restraining order.â
Luke rolled his eyes and followed Jess into the diner.
Perhaps Akin to Shylock, Part II - follow-up fanfic AU scene from 'Teach Me Tonight.' - Link to Part I
A/N: Still have no idea what this is, other than a continuation of the same premise. The scene is feeling very deja vu somehow. Again...what spilled out of my brain.
âOkay, so I just threatened a guy with a restraining order,â Chris announced in an overwhelmed tone as he entered Lorelaiâs kitchen door.
She looked up from the uncooperative coffee machine abruptly. âWhat? Waitâwhat guy?â Lorelai leaned in as Christopher approached, laying a hand tentatively against the buttons of his shirt in a half-subconscious motion of solace, since he seemed upset.
Christopher let out a puff of a sigh at her touch. âThe infamous Luke of 'Luke's Diner,' himself,â he answered ruefully.
Lorelai blinked, withdrawing her hand and taking a step backwards, âGod, why would you put a restraining order on Luke? We just yelled at each other, it's not like it came to blows,â she explained, her voice sounding dazed.
âI don't even know what you're talking aboutâwait, he yelled at you? When?â
Lorelai shook her head, trying to clear the fog of miscommunication, but feeling the ragged emotions of yesterday threatening to deluge her all over again. âLast night. After the accident. And I yelled first, a lot, so⌠no restraining order required.â
âYou had every right to yellâour daughter was hurt, you were upset.â
âRight, and I didâbut what are you doing threatening Luke? It was just a disagreement. I am so confused right now.â
Chris held out a hand to slow the current trajectory of the conversation. âIt wasn't about that. I threatened to take out a restraining order on that menace nephew of his if he lets him get anywhere near Rory!â
âGood!â She wasn't sure if it was good, considering she didn't really want even more bad blood between them and Luke; but âgoodâ felt good to say.
âYou know that little punk almost took a swing at me?â
Lorelai's jaw dropped. âYou're kidding!â
âNope.â
Both of them turned at the sound of Roryâs voice, which reached them at the same time as her bedroom door opened.
âWhat did you do to him first?â she demanded insistently, eyes leveled accusingly at her father.
âWhat?â Christopher asked, overlapping with Lorelai's, âRory, sweetie, you shouldn't be out of bed.â
âJess wouldn't take a swing at you unless you did something to him first. What did you do? And why on Earth would you serve him with a restraining orderâthatâs stupidâheâs my friend.â
Again, her parents' words collided, Lorelai's, âCalm down, honeyâŚâ competing with Christopher's firm, âSomeone who breaks your arm is not a friend.â
âHe didn't break my arm. My arm isn't even broken, it's my wrist, and he didn't break it, the dashboard did!â
âWhen he crashed your car.â
âHe didn't crash it, we got in an accident because he swerved so he wouldn't kill a kitten! Yeah, big, mean guy who needs to get a restraining order taken out against him, I totally see your point!â
Lorelai murmured under her breath, âIâm loving that it was a kitten, now.â
âIt was tiny and fluffy and furry! It was a baby something or a small somethingâit doesn't really matter what it was he didn't want to kill!â Rory thumped her socked foot in agitation.
Christopher broke in again. âYour wrist broke because the car crashed, he was drivingâergo, he crashed your car and broke your wrist.â
âClearly, with malicious intent! Could have killed us both! Somebody string him up from the nearest tree!â Rory ranted sarcastically.
âHeyâŚâ Lorelai tried to soothe.
Chris on the other hand planted his feet and stiffened. âYou try a little more respect in your voice, young lady. You don't talk to me like that.â
âNoââ Rory held up a forefinger in protest, âyou don't get to pretend to be a dad whenever you feel like it! You only get to be a dad if you're going to be one all the timeâand it doesn't start with lectures on respect. You have to earn that, not demand it. And you don't start with threatening people you know nothing about without even bothering to find out the facts ahead of time! Leave Jess and Luke alone, go back to Boston, and stop trying to be something youâre not!â She stormed back into her room with the last words, using her unbroken wrist to slam the door.
Christopher stood there dumbfounded for several seconds, then turned to Lorelai, wide-eyed, pointing in the direction of the door. âWas that our daughter?â he asked weakly.
Lorelai nodded for a beat. âYeah, that was her,â her voice answered listlessly. She swallowed, drumming her fingers momentarily on the side of the coffee can beside her on the counter. âShe sounded an awful lot like someone I used to be.â
Chris nodded, staring at the near-distance. âDefinitely your spunk.â After another moment, he looked up warily. âDo you think she really wants me to leave?â
Lorelai avoided his gaze, shoulders shrugging lightly. After a longish pause, she responded, âI think she really wants you to be her dad.â She pressed her lips together. âWhich, incidentally, means sticking around even when she doesn't want you to. But with the other stuff, you should probably abide by her wishes. Let me handle it.â
He nodded resignedly. âI just thought that maybe, for onceâŚâ
âDon't get me wrong. I still love that Super Dad cape you flew in here with. Just because I handle some stuff doesn't mean there's none left for you. You can totally deal with the insurance and help with the medical things, and at some point when it hurts, she's going to want ice cream.â
An exhaled chuckle bowed Christopher's head and coaxed his lips into a smile. âOkay, Iâm on duty.â
Lorelai smiled in return, warming to this new side of her high school boyfriend⌠hoping heâd grow into showing it on a permanent basis.
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