Chapter Text
Jess was dead tired; he had just gotten off of a 13-hour shift at Walmart. He's feet were dragging only moving him for the promise of being able to fall into bed. It had been a long day, the only saving grace for his job at Walmart was that he didn't have to deal with customers when he was driving the forklift. He finally got to his apartment, and in front of the door was a box full of dark blue and light pastel orange blankets. At first, he wasn't paying any attention to it while he fished out his keys from his pocket, thinking that it was from one of his roommates or something. But then from the corner of his eye he saw the mound of blankets move. His first reaction was to jump away from the box. The first rule of living in New York is if something that shouldn't be moving is moving, get away from it. Staying close to the wall and far enough away from the box that if whatever was in there jump out it could bite him, he started trying to unlock the door, keeping an eye on the box every time it moved. Before he could run inside though and slam the door behind him, a cry came from the box. Not an animal cry, a baby's cry. That sound stopped Jess in his tracks. He immediately sat down on his knees in front of the box, and moved the blankets around, a note fell out but he didn't look at it at first, his goal was to unbury the crying baby. How the baby hadn't suffocated was a miracle. He was able to get all the blankets so that they were around the baby's body to keep his warm but so that they weren't covering his face. Now he looked backed to the piece of paper that had fallen out. It made his heart stop for a second when he saw on the front of it his name was written on, but he opened it and read it anyways. Dear Jess, So, surprise!! This is your son, I haven't named him, I figured you could. At the bottom of the box has his birth certificate and medical papers. I'm not ready to be a mother. So, do whatever you want. I've already told social services that I don't want him. I mean in college. I want to be more than a teen mom. By the way no one, and I mean no one knows about this. So do not tell anyone!! - Rory Gilmore.
He couldn't believe it. Rory had been pregnant and didn't tell him, and now she just leaves the baby here and says that he's Jess's responsibility. Had she not seen how he lives? There is no way that he can take care of his son. His son. The one with the big brown eyes looking up at him, like he knows who he is. Jess felt a torturous painful pang in his heart for the split second he thought about giving up the baby. He got up off the disgusting floor and picked up his son all wrapped in soft blankets and grabbed the papers underneath and carried him into the apartment to his bed.
What was he going to do? How could Rory do this? Not to him but to his son. She even stated that she never wanted to even see her child again. For a second he even doubted that the baby was his, but one look at his face and it was impossible to say otherwise, he looked exactly like he did from the few baby pictures Liz had of him. Jess knew how it felt to abandoned, the loneliness, the constant wondering if it was something that you did. Most of his childhood was spent wondering that if he was just a little bit better maybe his own dad would come back and rescue him from Liz and her lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, and men. But then by fourteen he had given up on that, so he started acting worse and worse, until he was being brought home by the cops. And while his dad never came to rescue him, Luke did.
Jess held his son close to him like if he didn't the child would slip away and he wouldn't ever see him again. The baby fell asleep quickly in his arms while Jess fought an internal battle. Should he call Luke or not? On one hand, Luke would immediately jump into his truck and come and get them. On the other hand, Rory said not to tell anyone. But then on the first hand maybe he could pass the story that it wasn't Rory's baby but someone else's. But then on the secondhand Luke always knew when he was lying and would keep pressing until Jess told him the truth and if he told Luke, Luke would hate him, even as is Luke would probably still yell at him for getting a girl pregnant in the first place.
Jess shoved away the fight inside and took a deep breath and wiped away the few stray tears that had he doesn't remember spilling. This was too overwhelming. The first thing he knew he needed to do though was take his son to the free clinic so he could know if he was healthy or not. So, he grabbed his coat along with the papers and made sure that the blankets where still wrapped tightly around the baby as he stepped out of the semi warm apartment into the cold night air of February.
The moment that his face was hit with the cold air the baby started to whimper and cry. He wasn't loud so Jess wasn't attracting unnecessary attention, he turned the baby so that his face was closer to his chest hoping that it would give the baby at least a little bit of warmth. He walked as quickly as he could, shoulders sagging in relief when he stepped into the clinic.
"Can I help you?" A middle-aged woman dressed in scrubs and with a name tag that said Eliza, asked, "Uh, yeah, I need a checkup for my son." "Alright, come with me. You are lucky tonight has been really quiet usually you would be waiting for twenty minutes to get help." She said as she led him into a room and grabbed a clipboard. "Alright, name and date of birth?" "Umm. It should all be there I think." Jess said handing her the papers. What type of idiot must he look like to not know his own son's birthday at least. But she didn't look at him condescendingly, just took the papers and wrote down what she needed. "His name isn't listen on here. Has one not been chosen yet? Or do you have one." Jess went through about two hundred names in his mind before landing on the perfect one. "Danny. His name is Danny Lucas Mariano." "That's a good name."
Jess watched as Eliza checked over Danny thoroughly. It seemed like hours before she was done. "Everything looks good, just few questions then we're done here." "Okay." Jess agreed taking his son back into his arms. "Is their a family history of alcohol or drug abuse?" "His mother and I don't have either of those." "What about grandparents?" "Yeah, my uh mother has a problem with both of those." He answered vaguely. "Alright, are their any health issues that can be inherited?" "No." "Okay, I think that's it then. Just one last question. Did you know that the mother tried to get an abortion?" "What!?" "Here." She said pointing to a scar along Danny's line. "That's from the tool used in abortions. I've seen it about a dozen times. It usually only happens when the baby is to old for it to work properly. Well, I'll be back in a minute with some meds and then you're free to go." "Meds? But you said that he was healthy!?" "And he is, there just some standard, cold medications and such." "Oh, ok." Eliza walked out of the room leaving Jess to grapple about what he just learned. Rory tried to kill their child. How could she do that? Jess has only had Danny for maybe a few hours, and he already knew that he would die for him. How could Rory, even after having him not see how much of precious treasure that his son was. Jess left carrying Danny and a tote bag of baby supplies that he would need a little bit later. Back at his apartment, his roommates were already asleep, and Danny was too, having fallen asleep on the walk back. Jess didn't sleep though. He couldn't, what was he going to do? He definitely didn't have enough money, and the apartment was not the best place to raise a kid no matter how old, and that's assuming that his roommates wouldn't kick him out. Again he found himself fiddling with his phone his thumb circling the button that would start the call to Luke. It really was his only option. But what would Luke say. Before he could stop himself though he pressed the button and his phone started ringing.