Do You See Her Face? (A Jess Mariano Fanfiction)

In the Company of Anne Sexton

Disclaimer: All Gilmore Girls content belongs to Amy Sherman-Palladino.

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Thumbing through one of her most beloved copies of Virginia Woolf, Ella sat on the steps of Stars Hollow High waiting anxiously for Lane to emerge. They walked out most every day, with Lane on her way home and Ella on her way to the diner, but Lane had informed her during lunch she would have to stop by the cheerleading coach's room for some secret business. Ella didn't bother asking any questions, having seen the rabid excitement in Lane's eyes. She had a feeling she would get let in on whatever was going on soon enough. Maybe even that evening, as she, Rory, Lane, and Lorelai had their annual viewing of It's A Wonderful Life planned. Then, possibly, Die Hard. Usually, though, they just ended up talking through Bruce Willis' quest. Snow blanketed the ground, but had grayed in the two days since it had fallen. There had been no melt, and street sweepers had cast it off in large, rocky clumps. Ella wondered at how magical snow looked falling, and what a nuisance it became in its aftermath. Like the happiness of a new marriage and the pain of a divorce. She was just getting to one of her favorite passages in To the Lighthouse when she heard the roar of a crowd growing on the lawn before her.

Looking up with curious hazel eyes, she found a group circling two boys in the midst of a fist fight. She only needed a moment longer to identify Jess as the aggressor in the center of the swarm of teens, though the other boy was holding his own perfectly well. Without thinking, she shoved her book in her bag, slinging it over her shoulder and running over, careful not to slip on the icy patches in her black Doc Martens.

"Jess!" she called, pushing her way through the hoard of pubescent teens. Obviously, she got no response, but that wasn't exactly the intent of the exclamation in the first place. Her feet carried her farther into the brawl before her mind could stop them, and soon enough she had Jess by the shoulders, pulling him away. "What the fuck are you doing?!"

He squirmed in her grasp, wondering who'd had the nerve to touch him. Eventually she took him around the waist and pried him away from his opponent, who was panting and bleeding from one lip. The crowd began to dissipate almost instantly, victims of a short attention span, though a few stragglers remained. Ella's heart pounded in her chest and she felt a little sick to her stomach at the sight of the violence. Her veins buzzed with adrenaline, though she had only been involved in a small fraction of the action.

"Get off me!" Jess yelled, still not entirely sure who had grabbed him, but able to deduce it was a girl from the height and the feminine quality of the voice. When he fought though, the rest of the world usually became nothing more than a blur but the person in front of him.

When they were far enough away from the other guy and she felt mostly confident the incident was over, she finally released him, though he was larger than her and she had been hanging on by a thread anyway.

"Jesus, Jess!" she shouted when he finally turned around to look at her.

"Eleanor?" he asked, shocked to find her there.

A startling anger raged in his eyes. What concerned her more, though, was the bruise already blooming on the apple of his cheek and his bloodied knuckles. The dichotomy before her had her stomach doing flips. She'd heard plenty about this side of Jess, but had never had the misfortune of seeing it before. His hair was mussed up, and his lips were pressed in a thin line. The smirk she always found was gone, as was the joking air in his voice.

She went against her better judgement and took a step forward, eyes on his injuries.

"Back off!" Jess snapped immediately, beginning to leave. She recoiled at his volume.