"What's going on here?"
Jess spun around to face his uncle, a can of Lysol in his hand. "Decontaminating," he said and finished spraying off the couch.
Luke stood in the middle of the room and surveyed what used to be his bachelor apartment. It was mostly the same, save for one glaring thing. "What's with the curtain?" he asked, walking up to scrutinize the curtain rails affixed to the ceiling. "Are you putting on an off-Broadway play up here? Please tell me I'm just in time for the matinee?"
"It's just an office, Sondheim," Jess said, shaking his head. He walked over and pulled the curtain aside, revealing Rory's pristine writing space. Jess had spent all morning disinfecting every surface and cleaning the floors. He wasn't sure if or when Rory would be back to write, but he wanted to be sure there were no lingering traces of the flu virus just in case.
"So that's what you did with this thing," Luke said, walking over to the desk. He stood there, arms folded over his chest, looking around. But even as he said nothing, Jess could feel Luke's curiosity poking around. "Has she used it?" Luke asked, unable to help himself.
"Yeah. Once," he said with a nod.
"You think she'll come back again?"
Jess shrugged. "Who knows."
Luke raised a dark eyebrow, unconvinced by Jess' nonchalant act. "Because you know, with the way things are, how you've been avoiding her..."
Jess turned away, unable to come up with a response that wouldn't betray his feelings on the matter. "So, did you need something?"
"Yeah, I was looking for this." Luke walked over to the kitchen table and grabbed the bucket full of cleaning sprays and sponges. On his way to the door, he stopped and turned around. "Don't expect her anytime soon. She's out looking at houses right now."
A strange prickle went down the back of Jess' neck. "Houses?"
"I told her she could stay with me and Lorelai but she's got it in her head to move out. Said she wants a place to raise the baby on her own. She's got her mother's independent streak for sure."
A vision of Rory raising a child alone flashed before Jess' eyes. He rubbed his chest to ease the tightness there, pushing the image out of his head. "In Stars Hollow?" he asked.
"Maybe. Or in one of the neighboring towns."
"Rory not living in Stars Hollow?" Jess asked. "That doesn't seem right."
"When you have no choice, you have no choice," Luke said and left Jess to stew in his own thoughts.
After looking at the third house that day, Rory went over to what mother lovingly calls "the Katy Perry house" where Lorelai was overseeing the renovations to turn it into the Dragonfly Inn spa annex.
"Mom?" Rory called out as she walked past a man with a yellow hard hat on his head and a two-by-four on his shoulder.
"Over here," Lorelai said.
Rory followed the sound of her mother's voice and found her with Michel and Tom, the contractor, looking over a set of blueprint plans on the table.
"I'm not so sure we should build a wall there," Tom said, pointing a stubby finger to the print.
"Yes, wonderful idea. Let's leave the walls out of the changing room," Michel said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "We can call it a flashing room instead. Then we can change the name of the inn to The Openfly and make it a nude resort." He scoffed when Tom nodded as if the idea had real merit.
Lorelai turned away with an amused shake of the head, leaving Michel to deal with the foreman. "Michel's head might actually explode today," she said with a conspiratorial grin.
"Now that I'd like to see," Rory said, looking over at the Frenchman.
"Hey, what are you doing here? I thought you were looking at houses?" Lorelai asked.
"I was," Rory said.
"And?"
"I might have found a place. But I want you to see it before I make an offer."
Lorelai frowned. "What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing major. A few things to update here and there," Rory said.
"So what's the issue?"
Rory blinked off into space. "I can't tell if it's the house I like or just the idea of decorating something. I just really want to buy furniture and move it around and around until I find a configuration I'm happy with."
Lorelai patted her hand. "I believe you have just entered the nesting phase of the pregnancy."
"Well, it needs to stop. I found myself signing up for Pinterest last night and pinning hundreds of pictures of baby rooms. What is happening to me? I don't pin! I'm not a pinner."
"Well hold onto your hand-stitched britches, honey, because it will get worse as the pregnancy progresses. Next thing you know, you'll find yourself crafting."
"Oh, God."
Lorelai shook her head, leading Rory out the front door. "Let's go. I want to see the house responsible for the Etsyficiation of my daughter."
A few minutes later, Rory parked her new car in front of a pale green, one story Victorian bungalow in the outskirts of Stars Hollow.
"Oh," Lorelai said as she stepped out of the car, her eyes fixed in horror at the house before her. The house wouldn't be winning any neighborhood awards, with its peeling paint and falling gutters, and the wisteria plant that had once adorned the roof was nothing more than a collection of desiccated branches, but Rory thought the house had some potential.
"I know it's a little rundown but it's kind of cute, don't you think?" she asked.
"I think..." Lorelai cocked her head and tried to look at it from a different angle. "I don't know what to think."
"The realtor said it was a fixer-upper," Rory said.
"Well your realtor didn't lie." Lorelai walked up the uneven path, her heels catching on the broken brick, and up onto the rickety porch. She tried the front door but found it locked. "How many bedrooms?" she asked, walking to a window and peering inside.
"Three."
"Bathrooms?"
"Two."
"Square feet?"
"Twelve hundred square feet." Rory followed her mother down the porch, around to the back of the house, ending the tour where they began. "It's within my budget and less than a ten minute walk to town."
Finally, Lorelai stopped. Rory could see her mother's thoughts explicitly on her face. "You don't like it," Rory said.
"I didn't say that..."
"You didn't not say it."
Lorelai's eyes flicked back up to the front facade of the house. "It's not exactly move-in ready."
"I can renovate bit by bit. I'm not scared of a little hard work," Rory said. If anything about the past year had taught her anything, it was that she couldn't wait around and hope that her dreams came true.
"Twelve hundred square feet is not very big when raising a child."
"You raised me in a shed," Rory pointed out.
Lorelai sighed. "So you love it?"
Rory turned her gaze back to the green house, imagining herself in a rocking chair on the porch, cradling a baby in her arms. The idea sent a little jolt of fear through her but, more than anything, she found herself incredibly moved. This life wasn't one she had counted on, but it was the one she wanted. "Yeah. I do."
Jess sat at the desk, fingers picking away at Big Bertha's keys, but no matter how hard he tried, the words would not come. For every word he'd written the past hour, he'd had to delete two. The most frustrating part was that he knew where his story was headed; he just couldn't figure out how to get there.
With a groan, he lowered his head to the laptop and smacked his forehead on the keys. Deciding to take the William Faulkner approach to writing, he got up to go to the kitchen, reaching into the cabinet by the sink for the whiskey bottle and a tumbler. He was busy pouring the amber liquid when someone knocked on the door.
"Come in." He turned and leaned against the counter just as Rory entered with a pizza box in her hands.
"Hey. I got you some Antonioli's," she said with a small smile.
"Luke let you bring that in here?"
"I may have sneaked it in," she said, walking over and setting the box on the kitchen table.
He remained by the counter, sipping his drink. "You do realize you're bringing food to a man who lives above a diner, right?" he asked. "Or have you decided to start a delivery service?"
She shrugged. "I just wanted to thank you for jumping on a flu-infected grenade for me."
"Does Lane know you talk about her like that?" he asked with a teasing lift to his eyebrow.
"Just... thank you," she said and turned to go.
"Not writing tonight?" he asked before she could leave.
She turned to face him, her lower lip trapped between her teeth. "I wouldn't be able to focus. I have so many things on my mind." She looked at him for a moment before saying, "I put an offer in on a house today."
"Yeah?"
She nodded, her eyes bright. "We haven't heard back from the homeowners yet, but I'm hoping they'll accept."
"In Stars Hollow?"
"Yes, a few blocks west of here."
"Good. This town wouldn't be the same without you," he said, their eyes meeting across the way. He cleared his throat and turned away, grabbing two plates out of the cabinet. "You hungry?" he asked, taking a slice of the pizza and holding it out to her.
"No, thanks. I got it for you," she said.
"There's no way I can eat a whole large pizza by myself, especially seeing as you asked for every topping known to man." He set the plate down in front of her and grabbed a slice for himself. He took a seat across the table, chewing and waiting until she finally relented and sat down. The awkward silence wrapped around them as she picked the olives off her pizza.
"So tell me about this house," he said to fill the lull.
A smile touched her mouth. "Well, it desperately needs updating but it's got good architectural bones. It just needs a little work."
"You need a handyman?" he asked, unable to help himself. He shook his head, realizing he was just like his uncle who couldn't leave well enough alone, not when someone he cared about was in need. Hell, Jess would tear down that house and rebuild it from the ground up with his bare hands if that was what Rory needed.
"I'm going to need a whole construction team," she said.
Without warning, he reached over the table and plucked the olives from her plate, popping them into his mouth with a grin. "Still don't like olives, I see."
"Still stealing them off my plate, I see," she said, shaking her head.
"You know, if the deal with the house falls through, you can always stay here," he said and realized too late the implications of his words. "I mean, after I leave."
She tried to school her features but he could see she was struggling with his news. "When is that?"
"When I get done writing my book. And when I'm done helping you with yours."
Her eyes flicked down to her plate. "Oh."
"I need to head back home soon," he said, feeling the need to explain. It seemed imperative that she understand he wasn't abandoning her again. "I still have a press to run, business to take care of."
She nodded. "Will you be back?"
"Sure. Holidays and special occasions." He swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Or if you need me. With your book."
"Okay." They stared at each other across the table, the divide seemingly so wide between them. Finally, Rory rose to her feet. "Well, it's late. I should probably get home."
He motioned to her plate. "You haven't even touched your pizza."
She pressed a hand to her stomach, an apologetic look on her face. "Sorry. I'm actually not very hungry."
He followed her to the door, wishing he hadn't mentioned the apartment. For a minute there it was almost like old times; trust his big mouth to ruin the moment.
Rory stopped at the door, her eyebrows drawn together in thought. "Jess?"
The tone of her voice gave him pause. "Yeah?"
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I don't think I can do this anymore. This, being friends with you."
Every muscle in his body froze. He hadn't known until that moment, until she said those words, how much he wanted to remain in Rory's life. And even if he'd lived in Philadelphia for a long time, the past few weeks had him reevaluating the place he called home. "Rory..." he said, taking a step forward.
"No, Jess," she said, holding her hand against his chest. "Just let me get this out. Please."
Left without a choice, he ground his teeth together and waited, keenly aware of her palm over his heart.
Rory fixed him with a determined gaze. "Today, I realized something about myself, a flaw that has held me back for a while now. I grew up with so many opportunities available to me, so many advantages that other people don't have, but I took them for granted. I unknowingly walked around with this sense of entitlement, expecting good things to fall in my lap. So when nothing happened, when my dream life didn't magically materialize in front of me, I fell apart," she said. "But I'm picking myself back up. I'm rebuilding and working towards a better life. Because if I've learned anything this year, it's that I have to work hard for what I want. And if things don't work out the way I envisioned, then I'd better be prepared to fight for it."
Jess stood rooted to the spot, unable to look away from her luminous face. "So what are you for fighting for, Rory?"
Her eyes glittered as she looked up at him. "You," she replied. "I'm fighting for you."