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

King's a Hack

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

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A throbbing pulse behind her eyes, Ella trudged through the balmy morning to the diner. The history textbook was weighing down her shoulders. April and the air was finally warming, though the morning still had a frosty quality about it. The sunlight was bright but she could still see her breath in white clouds before her. Stepping into the cozy air of the diner, the aroma of coffee hit her right away and made her stomach do a flip. She could work there a hundred years and never get used to it. Coupled with the smell, the place was the loudest she had ever heard it. Drywall was falling in random chunks from the ceiling, men in hardhats strolling back and forth out of a plastic sheet. She'd forgotten about the demolition project Luke had started two days ago after taking a sledgehammer to a wall in the apartment. For a moment, she regretted walking in, but ignored it and took a seat at the counter. Immediately, she dropped her bag to the ground and laid her head on her arms crossed before her.

"Hey, Ella, what can I get for ya?" she heard Luke ask through the commotion.

She lifted her head again, blowing hair away from her face. "Green tea, please."

Luke's face fell a little bit. "Oh."

"What's wrong, Uncle dearest?" Jess asked, coming up to Luke's side with a hardhat on his head and an umbrella in hand.

"Nothing," Ella grumbled, shrugging off her coat.

"Oooo, that's not a happy face," Jess teased, observing the pout on her lips and the stormy look in her eyes. Jess gave her the umbrella and she took it reluctantly, then understood as the ceiling fell above her in dusty pieces.

Luke sighed at Jess's tone, a wiseass as he always was, and put the tea on. "She ordered green tea."

Jess scoffed. "And?"

"Ella only orders green tea when she has a migraine," Luke explained.

Ella rolled her eyes. "I do not."

"Really? How ya feelin' right now?" Luke asked haughtily, a knowing smile on his face.

Groaning, Ella brought her head back down on her arm dramatically. "I stand corrected." Her voice was muffled by the sleeves of her sweater.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again. You're just so insanely unpredictable, honey," Jess quipped.

As she sipped her tea, the construction and life swirling around her, Ella felt dread for the day ahead building up. It wasn't often she got migraines, but when she did, she tried her best to power through them. School was bearable when she pretended to be looking down at her notes while actually sleeping. The muscles in the back of her neck were stiff and her head ached with the beat of her heart, but the tea was helping slightly. Lorelai and Rory blew in with their usual brand of chattiness. On a normal morning, it would have lifted her spirits. Instead, she was largely silent as Lorelai relayed the story of how she sliced her hand while trying to clean her gutters. Ella perked up as the tale ended.

"Why'd you try to clean them yourself?" she asked, brows furrowed. She had been cleaning the Gilmore gutters since she had started high school. Her father had taught her when she was a child, as she liked the thrill of the height.

Lorelai shot her a guilty glance. "Well, you were working last night and they were overflowing when it rained last week and I just thought...yeah. It was a lost cause to begin with."

"Well, I can come by tonight before my shift-"

"Ah!" Luke stopped her, his hand up. "Don't even think about it. Just stay home tonight, you don't have to come in."