Archive of Our Own

“Merry almost Christmas, big brother!”

Luke turns around from refilling coffee grounds in the formerly empty diner to see Liz and TJ piling their cargo, including their daughter, onto the counter. He reaches out to stroke Doula’s tiny arm with his index finger.

“Merry Christmas! You’re here early.” Luke attempts to not let his sliver of irritation show in his voice. He was hoping he’d get to catch up with his nephew before their more gregarious relatives arrived for lunch, but oh well. Jess is going to stay with him at the diner while he’s in town anyway.

“We wanted to settle in before Jess gets here, he’s going to meet Doula for the first time!” Liz unbuckles Doula from her car seat and gets her out of her winter layers as TJ unfolds a blanket to swaddle her in.

Then the door chimes, and Jess wanders into familiar surroundings once again and sets a few bags on an empty chair. “Hey.”

Luke walks over to embrace him. “Hey, Jess.”

Liz says to Doula, “Look, your big brother is here, right after I said his name! This is great energy.” She calls out, “Come hold your sister, Jess!”

“Uh… okay. I should probably just wash up first.”

“It sounds like Reads here did his homework on babies,” TJ chimes in cheerfully.

“Just a little,” Jess meekly replies, as he hangs up his coat and heads for the bathroom.

When he returns, he hesitantly accepts Doula from Liz and settles her head on his forearm, ever mindful of the hard tile below. In all the months he’s had to think about this moment, he never could’ve imagined the disarmingly innocent way her solemn, curious eyes would silently meet his, and he commits this introduction to memory as he automatically starts to rock back and forth to keep his gently wiggling sister secure. The soft green overalls and striped shirt he picked will suit her, he thinks. They’ll bring out her eyes. He’s bracing for her to start screaming in the presence of a complete stranger, but she doesn’t.

“The universe finally brought my kids together,” Liz exclaims as she clasps her hands and then takes a bag off of the counter. “We’ll let you get to know each other. See you later!”

Jess doesn’t flinch at the announcement, but Luke turns toward his sister. “Wait, where are you going?”

“Taylor asked TJ to refinish that wooden house in the town square display that got knocked over in a windstorm or something, can you believe it? I’m going to watch. He’s so handsome when he’s working.”

TJ rests his hand on Liz’s shoulder. “Oh, thanks, babe. You’re making me blush here. Well, we better go. Taylor is going to do a full inspection with a magnifying glass and everything! I only have one shot to get this right, or he could end my whole contracting career!”

Liz giggles. “Then let’s not be late!”

Luke finally manages to mumble, “Wow, that’s… that’s great” as Liz and TJ scurry out of the diner.

Luke moves a chair out for Jess and Doula and sits across from them, and suddenly he isn’t far from the age Jess is now and it’s 2am at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens as he’s hesitantly settling into a chair so a too-early, too-small Jess doesn’t fall out of his arms while Jimmy steps out to pace in the hallway again and Liz finds a Mary Tyler Moore rerun on Channel 4.

“Lou Grant is a lot like Dad, don’t you think?” Liz hums. Luke musters a “Sure” as his eyes shift toward the door, waiting for the nurse who’s supposed to do some tests or Jimmy who’s supposed to have some maturity or anyone, really. His five-pound nephew is all he’s got to keep him anchored to the ground as the unceasing racket of beeping machines and screaming babies makes him dizzy.

Jess looked so frail and drained as he whimpered under the harsh lighting while the nurse set a stethoscope on his chest. It was as if the world he just joined had already worn him down, and Luke could certainly relate as he helplessly watched yet another member of his family suffer from across a hospital room. Everything in the Danes family was happening prematurely, with any sense of safety slipping right out of Luke’s hands no matter how tightly he held on. Thankfully, Liz and Jess were both cleared to go home, and they all know about the early departure that happened next.

Luke pulls himself back to the present and watches as Jess carefully studies Doula’s features. He reminds himself that things are better this time around, mostly. “I can hold her if you want.”

Jess shakes his head. “Thanks, but I think we’re good here.”

“She’s great, isn’t she?”

“Definitely worth the trip. And she has really long fingers. Maybe someday I’ll teach her how to pickpocket.”

Luke grunts amusedly, but his face tenses when the still-new memory of someone else saying the same thing echoes in the back of his mind even as he tries to keep focusing on the people in front of him.

Jess snaps him out of his trance when he asks, “Luke, are you okay? You look like you just sat through Mary Poppins or something.”

“I regret telling you about that, and I’m fine,” Luke insists, but Jess stares at him until he continues. “Well, I don’t know, I guess this year has been kind of rough, with the whole engagement thing and the crash and everything with April.”

“Liz mentioned you’re suing for partial custody. How’s that going?”

“I talked to a lawyer. We’re getting the paperwork together.”

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

They’ve both gotten better at talking with each other, but monosyllabic habits die hard, especially when it’s about a topic that can’t be sandpapered down with sarcasm, so Jess segues.

“Last month I read a book about Gregor Mendel, who’s more or less considered the founder of modern genetics, so the next time I see April I’ll at least be partially caught up to the nineteenth century.”

”Oh, could I borrow that?”

“Sure, I’ll send it to you.” Jess squints as he looks over the new windows. “The wall looks good, by the way.”

“Yeah, it worked out alright. So, how are things at Truncheon?”

“Not bad, business as usual. We finally got a new office printer because we’re pretty sure the last one was haunted.”

“That’s good.”

Jess nods upward. “Speaking of new, what’s with the hat? I thought you've been wearing all the same clothes since the Hoover administration.”

Luke scowls. “Watch it.”

“No promises.”

“It was just time for a change.”

“Huh.”

Luke should’ve known better than to try getting that answer past someone he lived with for two years. He finally succumbs to Jess’s scrutinizing glare and adds, “The other one was from… you know.”

Jess’s eyes immediately soften. “Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Some things just aren’t meant to be, you know?”

“What does that mean?”

“Hey, we’re supposed to be talking about your problems right now.”

“I spend plenty of time on those. Seriously, what is it?”

Jess exhales and presses his lips together and stares at him as if the answer were so unmistakably obvious it doesn't need to be said out loud, and Luke immediately recalls the last time he saw this charade. It was in this corner of the diner, in fact. Does that mean… oh.

“Jess… are you still hung up on Rory?”

Jess doesn’t have an answer for that, so he adverts his gaze and looks back at Doula.

“Just so you know, I heard she’s out of town for Christmas.”

Jess snaps his eyes toward Luke again. “Oh. Is she… doing well?”

“Okay. That’s good.”

“I thought maybe you talked once in a while since she was at your open house.”

“Haven’t talked since then.” Jess’s voice sharpens in a hopeless plea for Luke to stop asking questions.

“Did something happen?”

Now Jess is staring daggers at his uncle. “Luke.”

“Okay, fine. Sorry I asked,” Luke replies while holding up his hands.

Jess takes a long, slow breath and makes a decision. “No, it’s alright. It’s all in the past anyway.” Then, “When I went to see her at her grandparents’ house last year, it was going well until her classist jerk of a boyfriend from Yale showed up and started a drunken interrogation.”

Luke grimaces. “Geez.”

“Yeah. In the Spring I sent Rory an invitation to Truncheon, just in case she’d want to be there, and she stayed until everyone else left, and we were talking, and…”

“What?”

They’ve been here before, too. Jess faces the same question once again: What did happen that night? Nothing? Everything?

It didn’t take Jess long to become a frequent visitor of Philadelphia’s Washington Square when he moved there. Something new but still familiar was exactly the sort of thing he’d hoped to find, so he’s spent plenty of his lunch breaks scribbling through manuscripts and resisting the urge to do the same thing with library books while school groups trek from yellow buses to Independence Hall and back again. For a few precious seconds in the dim light of an empty room he was showing Rory all of his new haunts that he knew she'd appreciate as much as he did: the park, his favorite record store outside of New York, the Rare Book Department at Parkway Central Library, the coffee shop Chris’s friend owns that also has the best ice cream, the bar where Matthew had to sing “Don’t Stop Believin’” on karaoke night after losing the now-infamous World Series Bet of ‘05. The vision of talking and reading and laughing arm-in-arm, of finally getting this right, became clearer and clearer until his fingertips landed on her elbow, and the spell was broken. It was all snatched away before it began.

So, really, what happened was no more and no less than this: “I kissed her.”

A ghost of a smile forms on Luke's face until he abruptly starts, “But what about-”

“I didn't know they were still together.”

“Oh.”

“She started apologizing, and I couldn't figure out why, and then…” Jess can’t help bitterly muttering the next turn of events. “It turned out he cheated on her.”

Luke’s eyes light up in fury. “What?!”

As much as Jess resents whatever-his-name-is, he wouldn’t wish Luke’s defensive rage on even him, and more importantly, he wouldn’t wish the fallout on Rory, so he sternly points at his uncle. “No pitchforks and torches, got it?”

“Fine, understood. What happened then?”

“Rory was really sorry about all of it, but she said that she can’t help that she’s in love with him. She just is, so she went back.”

Jess never did track down Matthew’s poet for answers. He didn’t need to because even as he itched for an explanation in the sort of meandering style that usually frustrated him but would at least let him feign ignorance a little while longer, he knew in his bones that what Rory said was already perfectly adequate. He knew it when concrete and steel vanished into blossoming countryside and soft daylight streamed through the bus window while against all logic he chased her back to Stars Hollow with just a tattered book and a fluttering stomach, when resentment simmered in his veins all summer as he vowed to avoid letting anyone see him as a gullible second choice but still caught his ears perking up every time the diner’s door chimed, when all those months later his confession finally escaped from shaky lungs and crystalized in the frozen darkness. Even in her absence, she’d been explaining love to him all along until his consciousness caught up to the rest of him. It is what it is.

Luke hesitantly starts, “So, that’s been almost a year. You really still...”

Jess nods almost imperceptibly before Luke finds the words to finish the sentence. It’s another eerie flashback that tells Luke more than a spoken answer ever could. Only the last time this happened, Luke was finally working up the courage to let Lorelai know how he felt. Now he’s back in his studio apartment that’s actually supposed to be an office and she’s still in the house they remodeled together except now she’s with Christopher and Luke thinks he’s still talking about Rory and Jess, but once he starts, he can’t stop.

“And you’re okay with that? You’re okay with the fact that you love someone, you screwed up and didn’t tell her things you should’ve told her, sure, but you still love her, and in the end she goes back to the aristocrat she always belonged with because you were never going to be good enough for her and you’ll be alone forever?” The intensity of Luke’s voice keeps getting higher along with Jess’s eyebrows. “And then you find out she married him when your kid you didn’t know you had until a year ago is getting her appendix taken out and you get into a fight with the guy in the middle of the freaking town square and your brother-in-law ends up fixing the stupid wooden house you knocked over and-”

Jess finally cuts him off with, “Luke! You need to take a breath. What’s going on here?”

Luke follows his nephew’s advice and lets the possibility that the family’s recurring theme has become too late loom over him before he says, “Sorry, I ventured back into my problems.”

“It’s fine, that’s why I’m here.” Then Jess tilts his head. “Wait, Lorelai was at the hospital with you and April?”

Luke frowns. “Yeah...”

“Why?”

“When April started getting sick, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I called her. It was just automatic, I guess… I don’t know.”

“When something important happens in your life, who’s the first person you think about talking to? That sort of thing?”

Luke freezes. “You remember all that?”

Jess shrugs. “Maybe some of it. But to answer your first question, I’m okay with it.”

“You are?”

“I guess I’m not over it, exactly, but at the same time, things are… great. Work is going well, I have friends, and I feel like I’m in the right place. I don't think I would've even imagined any of it if I never met Rory. So, even though everything worked out the way it did, I’ll always be grateful that I got to know her at all.”

Luke leans back against his chair. “Wow. She really means that much to you?”

Well, what is much? “Luke… she’s Rory.”

Luke offers a sympathetic half-smile. Rory, who you didn’t meet, but you’ll like…

Jess absentmindedly adjusts the blanket that’s wrapped around Doula and asks, “Remember when I told you I was perfectly fine with being in a relationship where all you do is treat each other like dirt?”

“You mean when you were going out with… what was her name again? Shannon?”

“Shane.”

Luke nods in recognition. “That’s right.”

“I thought I had self-esteem, but I was miserable, and so was Rory, and I don’t even know what Shane thought, but it wasn’t fair to her, either.”

“I know you told me you were happy, but I could kind of tell you weren’t.”

“Yes, but also because of you.”

“Oh, geez. But healthy is your thing, right?”

“Not that healthy.”

“Hey, it’s not all bad. There’s this place I like in Philadelphia that makes vegan burgers. I probably would’ve never tried one if my friend George from work didn’t suggest it, but they’re pretty good, and they come with actual fried-in-oil fries to balance it out.”

“Alright, maybe I’d try one of those.”

“Yeah, I think you’d like it.”

“That’s him. He had the night off when you were there because the wedding was later that week and he had to get some stuff set up for the reception. Did I ever tell you about what happened there?”

It started when Jess was at a wedding and hung up on the last time he saw Rory. Again.

“Everyone else from Truncheon went to the dance floor for a while, but I stayed at our table to make sure no one’s plates got cleared.” That, and he had A Moveable Feast tucked in his jacket. 

“Did anyone buy that?”

“Nope.” The advantage of being in the company of people who also work in publishing is that after six hours of dutiful attendance at an event of a few hundred people, retreating with a book for a while isn't met with too much resistance. If anything, it's met with jealousy. “Anyway, this guy in his seventies introduced himself as the groom’s uncle and started talking about how he grew up in a fishing village in Greece and the places he’d lived since then. It was an interesting story, but when I mentioned it to George a few weeks later, he had no idea who he was. I couldn't find him in any of the pictures, even though I definitely remember seeing him around all day. Strange, right?”

“I’ll say.”

At that point, Jess was pretty much expecting to hear a stranger’s unsolicited life story at the next wedding he was invited to, whenever it ended up actually happening. If nothing else, trying to make sense of this pattern would be solid writing fuel. Just as he was wrapping his mind around the prospect of spending an entire day under the same roof as Rory in light of recent events and the fact that she'd probably be accompanied by that jerk from Yale, he got a call from Liz. It was over. Something about the space-time continuum and a lack of wormholes. Also, she and TJ had gotten into drinking White Russians recently and Jess had to try one the next time he was in town but she’d been skipping the booze with hers because, by the way, she was pregnant. Luke’s explanation of the cancelled wedding was somehow even less helpful. He’d just said that Lorelai should’ve been with someone like Christopher all along and after some needling insisted that he was done talking about it. Jess did sleep easier knowing that he was keeping an eye on Liz and TJ, and maybe, in some perplexing way, they were keeping an eye on Luke.

Jess finally asks, “So, are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be okay. Doula and I ran into Lorelai recently, and it wasn’t so bad. Besides, I’m not really alone. Your mom and TJ are around, Lane works here, Kirk always needs something, and there’s at least a chance I’ll get partial custody of April.”

“And if you need one more person to pester you, you know you can call me, right?”

“Right. Same to you, kid.”

“You won’t… you won’t say anything about all that to Rory, will you?”

“You got it.”

Before Luke has a chance to answer, Liz and TJ burst through the door. Right on time, Luke realizes, and he's surprised to find that he isn’t annoyed as he asks TJ, “What’s going on?”

Jess can’t resist speculating out loud. “Yeah, did you finally have enough of Taylor’s draconian measures?”

TJ’s face scrunches up. “Huh?”

“Never mind,” Jess relents.

“We took the bag with Liz’s jewelry stuff instead of the bag with the paint,” TJ explains. “Life is a real whirlwind, I tell you.”

Luke glances at his nephew, whose face has more sarcastic commentary written all over it, and muses, “It sure is.”

Rory jolts awake well before sunrise with her mind incessantly buzzing from two words Lorelai said after their unsuccessful search for candy cane coffee at Weston's the previous day. Liz’s baby. Once Lorelai and Rory met Liz, they mostly talked about her in association with Luke and with Stars Hollow. It just seemed simpler that way. Still, when Rory found herself in the same room as friendly, jovial, careless Liz, she’d silently remember. That’s Jess’s mom, who sent her son away and didn’t even invite him home for the holidays. Just outside Rory’s door is a house full of evidence of a mother who refused to even acknowledge Christmas without her, and now Rory really does wish she held off on celebrating in London.

So, Liz has a daughter. Jess’s sister. Rory looks over at her own sister, who’s curled up in her trundle bed, wearing Rory’s old snowflake-patterned pajamas and clutching her plush Nemo the clownfish. Here they are staying in the same house, as tense and fragile as the relationship between the other two people in this unit seems to be.

Then it’s 9pm at Boston Memorial all over again, and Rory is hopelessly pacing the halls with Sherry’s status reports as her shoes squeak on the vinyl floor. She doesn’t even realize that she’s picked up her cell phone and punched in the numbers until she hears Jess grunt, “Luke’s Diner,” through the speaker.

The words feel like they rush out at the speed of light. “I need a Xerox machine!”

“I hate to break it to you, but that’s not on the menu here.” Jess’s voice gives away his smile, and then Rory can’t help smiling, too.

“Remember how I was going to Boston next week to see my… well, my sister at the hospital?”

“The invitation was definitely memorable.”

“No kidding. Well, her mom went into labor early, so I’m there now. She’s pretty worked up about making sure her friends are updated.”

“Huh. And you’re in charge of the telegram operation?”

“Yep. The people at the front desk for Labor and Delivery said I couldn’t use theirs, so I’m going to see if I can convince someone at the ICU, and if that doesn’t work, maybe there’s a Kinko’s around here, or a library, or I could start rewriting everything by hand, or-”

“Rory…”

“What?”

He’s barely suppressing laughter, but his voice is gentle. “Slow down.”

She takes a breath. “Right.”

“And… are you okay?”

“I think I will be. My mom’s on her way.”

“Good.”

“I’m almost at the ICU, so I guess I should go.”

“Okay, see you later.”

After she hangs up, Rory feels like she’s on steady ground for the first time all day, at least until she remembers she needs to find a fax machine. Hours later, she’s standing next to her parents and peering through the nursery window. When a nurse walks by and congratulates the three of them on their new addition, Rory can’t help imagining what it would’ve been like if their situation were what the nurse probably thought, but she knows it doesn’t matter now. Gigi will grow up in Boston with their dad full-time, and he and Rory will at best stick with semi-regular e-mails and phone calls. Maybe they’ll all see each other more often if she really does go to Harvard, but she’ll be busy, and so will they. She does her best to concentrate on the here and now because she wants to remember this: on the other side of the glass is Gigi squirming in her bassinet with her tiny nose and her pink blanket and pink hat. Rory lets an almost-silent chuckle escape at the irony of Gigi’s monochromatic first outfit. Apparently, the hospital staff haven’t read the magazines that announced the new reign of green, and none of Sherry’s friends were there to correct them.

When Rory returns from her daze to her room and double-checks that three-year-old Gigi is still there, a possibility leaps into her consciousness immediately: Jess might’ve been in town for the holidays and seen his new sister, right? Suddenly, she’s overwhelmed by the need to know if he’s okay. She’d like to think they’re friends now, but guilt from the last time they saw each other creeps back to remind her that maybe he secretly hates her, or maybe he’s forgotten all about her. Still, there’s someone she can ask, so she quickly devises a plan and drifts back to sleep.

At a more acceptable hour of the morning, Rory tells Lorelai that she’s going to see Lane, which is technically true and was already in her schedule, and finds herself at the door of a second home that in the span of a single day became a place she’s only occasionally, hesitantly stepped into for months.

A familiarly gruff voice calls out, “Rory, hey!”

Rory walks up to a seat at the counter and sets her bag down. “Hi, Luke! It was nice to see you and April yesterday.”

“Yeah, it was nice to see you, too. Can I get you some coffee?”

“Coffee sounds good.”

“So,” Luke starts as he pours her a mug, “what brings you by?” It’s a question he’s rarely asked a Gilmore, let alone during the diner’s hours of operation, but here they are.

Rory can’t quite meet his eyes as she says, “Well… I was actually wondering if… if Jess was here for Christmas.”

Luke almost drops the carafe. “He... he was. Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking about how he’s got a sister now, and I don’t know… I guess I just wanted to ask how he’s doing.”

“Oh, sure. Well, Jess is good, he’s doing good. He and Doula got along great when he was here, and he said things are going well at the book press.”

Rory nods. “That’s good to hear.”

Luke studies her face for a few seconds before adding, “He asked about you.”

Rory’s eyes widen. “Really? Uh… what did he say?”

“He wanted to know if you’re okay, too.”

“Oh,” she exhales in relief, “that’s nice of him.”

“Yeah, of course. So, how was London?”

They spend a few minutes catching up on London and Yale and April’s science projects. Rory doesn’t ask about the character reference letter. Luke keeps his word and doesn’t blurt out that, by the way, Jess is still in love with her.

Rory taps her palm on the counter. “Well, I better get going. I’m on my way to Lane’s.”

“Good, tell her I said hi.”

“Will do.”

Luke points to the donut stand. “Want to take any home? For, you know, you or your mom or…”

Rory doesn’t need any questions from her mom about why she was here, and her mom doesn’t need the whole other set of questions that her dad would inevitably ask. “No, thanks. We decorated enough Christmas cookies last night for everyone from here to the North Pole. I’m going to try to sneak some past Mrs. Kim for Lane and Zack, so we’ll see how that goes.”

Luke chuckles. “Good luck.”

“Any time.”

“Mail call!” Kirk hands Luke a manila envelope with a Philadelphia return address. “I’d stay to chat, but I’m on a strict schedule here, and I have to check on a mashed tomato casserole at my mother’s house in ten minutes. Don’t ask.”

Luke grumbles, “Wasn’t going to.”

Kirk nearly sprints away, and Luke opens the envelope to find the book he was promised along with a note written on a folded page of filler paper.

Luke,

Here you go, have fun. I just picked up a biography on a more recent scientist named Rosalind Franklin on my way back to Philly. Apparently she did a ton of work with discovering DNA, so I’ll save it for you after I read it. We won’t catch up to April, but we can try to invite a little less judgment, right? If you want, return the book in person sometime once the North Pole temperatures ease up. I’ll take you to get those vegan burgers we talked about.

-Jess