Time After Time - A Gilmore Girls Fanfic #1

Chapter 15

"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.