Meet Again

Christmas

For Christmas that year, Lorelai decided to close the dragonfly and have all of hers and Luke's family come stay there. So it would be Lorelai and Luke, Rory, Logan, Nicky, Grace, Sammy, Richard and Emily, Liz, Tj, Doula, April, April's fiancé Marcus, Jess, Jess's wife Sophia, their 5 year old son Wyatt, and their 18 month old son Jake

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Rory, Logan, and the kids arrived at the dragonfly. They were the first there apart from Lorelai and Luke.

"Hey" Rory said as she walked into the living room, where she found Lorelai. Logan had taken the kids to put their stuff upstairs.

"Hey!" Lorelai said and got up to hug her. "You guys got here fast"

"Yeah, no traffic" Rory said.

"No doggy jacket today?" Lorelai gestured towards Shadow whose leash Rory was holding.

"Nah, he doesn't really need it. The whole point of it is so that people know that he's a medical alert dog. He doesn't need it on right now" Rory said. "By the way, it looks like Santa's workshop threw up in here". Rory loved Christmas and she loved Christmas decorations, but Lorelai tended to do way more than was necessary.

"Ok, I know I went a little overboard with the decorations, but look how magical it is in here" Lorelai said giddily

"It certainly is festive" a voice said from behind Rory.

"Hi Jess" Lorelai said. "Merry Christmas"

"Merry Christmas" Jess said

"So I don't actually remember what rooms I put you guys in, but there are sticky notes on the doors, and a list on the reception desk"

"Yeah, Luke told us"

"Perfect"

As the morning went on, everybody else slowly arrived. After they had lunch, all of the kids were playing in the lobby and Rory was standing in a doorway, watching them.

"You know, I never really thought of you as a dog person" Jess said as he walked up next to Rory

"What?" Rory asked. She didn't hear what she said.

"I never thought of you as a dog person" Jess repeated.

"Oh, I'm not really" Rory said. She liked dogs fine. She never thought she'd have one, but life had other plans.

"Then why do you have one?"

"He's actually a seizure alert dog, and he belongs to my son"

"Man, you guys really got dealt a rough hand, huh?" Jess exhaled. While he didn't know what exactly Rory and her family had been through in the past few years, he could see that her daughter was deaf, and to him that already seemed like a lot to deal with without bringing epilepsy into the equation.

"You don't even know the half of it" Rory sighed

Jess fought the urge to ask what she meant. Before he could thing of something to say, Grace walked over to Rory and handed her her processors.

"You don't want them?" Rory signed.

Grace shook her head.

"Ok" Rory signed. Grace went back to where the rest of the kids were.

"Can I ask you something?" Jess asked

"Sure"

"How do those things stick to her head" Jess asked. "I'm sorry if that sounds rude or something but I've been thinking about it since I got here"

Rory chuckled softly. "It's not rude. There are 2 parts to it. This is one part, and it connects to the other part which is implanted in her brain. It sticks to a magnet that's under her scalp"