Chapter 19 Notes: Here's the final chapter. It's a bit of a long one. If you feel like leaving a review, I would love to hear what you think. Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to read this story and leave me reviews. I really appreciate every word you've given me. :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my own obsession with Gilmore Girls.

Trigger Warning: Past homelessness. Mentions of 'off camera' domestic violence, death and past child abuse.

All of a sudden, things seem to move very quickly. Too quickly for Jess' liking. Dean gets his court date. Jess watches Dean stand in front of a judge, nervous and fidgeting, as he promises to take care of his sister, and grinning broadly when he is awarded custody. His aunt is at the hearing, without her husband, and she takes them all out for a late lunch afterward. She's a nice woman who obviously loves Clara very much, and Jess feels bad for her, married to a shitty guy and now losing her niece. She puts on a brave face about wanting whatever Dean and Clara want and promises to come out to visit them in Stars Hollow often. They say goodbye to Gretchen and Clara outside the restaurant. Clara stays with her aunt and uncle until school ends in three weeks. Everyone agrees it wouldn't make sense to do anything else.

Jess watches Dean pack. Even though he's confident that they'll stay in touch, mostly because he trusts Dean to not let them drift apart, he is still sad knowing they'll never live together and be this involved in each other's lives again. He trusts he'll get over it, but he still dreads the empty feeling that he knows will come once Dean boards the bus to Stars Hollow for the last time and the city becomes that much lonelier. Dean insists that Jess walk him to the bus stop, so he does. As the bus is pulling up, Dean pulls Jess into a tight hug. Jess doesn't resist. Dean thanks him for everything and says he knows they'll see each other soon. Jess watches Dean board the bus, and he walks home alone. He makes it back to the quiet of his apartment before it hits him how alone he feels, how alone he has always felt in New York, and that he doesn't really have a good reason to stay.

Dean stays at Luke's in Stars Hollow while he gets his life in order. Luke has already moved in with Lorelai, but has left his furniture, his television and enough dishes and cookware that the place still feels like a home. Luke asks Dean to come down to the diner for dinner the first night he's there, on the house he says, and when Dean balks, Luke explains that no one who stays in his apartment pays to eat at the diner. Jess didn't. Lorelai didn't when she stayed over. He says he wants to talk about the apartment and tells Dean that he and Clara are welcome to stay there if they want, that there's no sense in paying to rent an apartment when they could use Luke's for free and save some money. That if Dean's interested, he'll get doors put up before Clara moves in. Tells Dean he inherited half of the building and paid cash for the rest, so there is no mortgage to cover. The utilities are connected to the diner, so Dean won't have to worry about those either. Only internet if he wants it, but if he does, he better not give the password to anyone other than Clara. He doesn't want his customers using the wi-fi in his diner. Dean tells Luke that sounds amazing and asks if he's sure. Luke is, but they are two stipulations Dean should know about before he says yes. The first is that Jess be allowed to stay on the couch if he wants to whenever he's in town. Dean stops Luke there, that of course, it's Jess' home. And, besides, Dean would let Jess stay with him anytime, anywhere. But, he balks at living there for free. He needs to pay rent. He had been planning on getting a one bedroom and sleeping on the couch. This would be so much better, having his own bed and his own space, but he won't feel right if he isn't paying Luke something to stay there. Luke smiles and tells Dean the second stipulation, that Dean go to college. Dean is thrown off, unsure what to say. Luke points out that Dean was planning on college before everything happened and if he's not paying rent there's no reason to not go now. Dean doesn't need to kill himself working multiple jobs to pay his bills. He can work one full time job and go to college part-time in the evening, take just one class at a time if that's what he wants. And on those nights when he has class, he won't need to worry about Clara. Luke will give her dinner in the diner and drive her to any tennis practice or friends' house or other activity that she needs to get to. That's the rent, that Dean study something and be working toward something more than Doose's while he lives there. Luke smirks and tells him that if he flunks out, Clara can stay, but he'll be out on his ass, just ask Jess. Dean laughs, accepts with a big grin and hugs Luke. Luke is reminded of how easy things are with Dean, how much he's going to enjoy having the kid around. And his heart hurts a little for Jess.

Dean accepts his old job back at Doose's. He's grateful to have it, grateful to Taylor for giving it to him, but everything feels worse this time around. It's not the pay, because he really doesn't need that much with no rent or utilities to cover. He hires Kirk to install internet access in the apartment and buys low-end cell phones for himself and Clara, and a refurbished laptop for school with some of his savings. But, other than that and day to day stuff like food and toiletries, his bills aren't that bad, and the job at Doose's covers them. It's more the boredom. He's been promoted from bag boy to register, but once he got the hang of running the register the new position became tedious very quickly. He isn't learning anything new or making himself more marketable. He was too late to apply for summer classes, but he works on his application for a couple of colleges in Hartford for the fall semester. He doesn't want to stagnate any longer than he needs to. Nicole was right to encourage him to pursue college and Luke was right to make him do it. This isn't enough.

After school lets out for the summer, Clara joins him in Stars Hollow. Their aunt drops her off with boxes of her stuff and though Dean tries to get her to stay the night and check out the town, offers her his bed, she declines, saying she needs to get back home. Dean knows she's sad about losing Clara, and he hopes she makes good on her promise to stay in their lives. She's the only family they have now aside from each other. That makes Dean think about his cousin. He asks his aunt for Kevin's address and writes him a long letter, apologizing for what he did with Millicent, explaining how messed up he was at that time but assuring his cousin that he knows that doesn't make what he did ok, stating that even though Kevin has a reason to hate him for life, he hopes he doesn't. He includes his new phone number. It feels like a lifetime ago that everything happened between them, but it still feels good to get the apology off his chest. He mails it out and hopes for the best. Two weeks later he gets a text from a number he doesn't recognize telling him that what's done is done and that he doesn't hate Dean. He wishes him and Clara well and says maybe they'll run into each other again sometime. They don't until Mel's funeral almost twenty years later, where they reconnect and meet each other's wives and children.

Jess has his call with the publishing house in Philadelphia. It's not as scary as he had anticipated. He speaks to a guy named Chris who would like to come out to New York to work with him in person for a few days if he can take some time off work, to get more of a feel for him and what his book is trying to say, and to go over ideas for some of the sections that he thinks could benefit from rewrites. He tells Jess that he always likes to do this face to face at the beginning, they can work over the phone and through email after that. Jess says he can take time off. He asks if he can come to them instead. He really needs to get out of the city for a while.

Jess puts everything he has into his book that summer, only taking a break from writing to spend fourth of July weekend in Stars Hollow at Luke's insistent prodding. Dean meets Jess' bus and greets him with a big hug as soon as he steps off. Jess is caught off guard, and jokes about not realizing they were people who hug now. Dean smiles at Jess' obvious discomfort, but doesn't apologize, explaining that hugging is what people do when they care about someone they don't get to see very often. So, it's the price Jess has to pay for living all the way over in New York. Jess, Dean and Clara have dinner at Luke and Lorelai's and then Jess goes home with Dean and Clara and crashes on the couch in the apartment. Rory's room still looks like Rory's room and it seems too weird to sleep in there. Luke understands.

The next time Jess goes back to Stars Hollow, he has something to report. He spends pretty much every minute of the summer that he isn't at Kinko's working on rewrites and having calls with his editor. He ends up with a published book and an offer to join their publishing company, as an editorial associate. Jess has regular calls with Luke and Dean but doesn't mention anything about his book until he goes back to Stars Hollow in the fall, with copies of his published novel for Luke and Dean, and an announcement that he's moving to Philadelphia. He debates asking Luke for Rory's address to hand deliver a copy to her as well. In the end he leaves the extra book with Luke and Lorelai to pass along to Rory. Luke and Dean both read the book over the next few weeks and call Jess to tell him how much they love it and how proud they are of him. They each tell him it's their favorite book. Jess smiles to himself during each of these conversations, realizing his instinct was right to not have bothered getting their opinions before he sent it to the publisher. He knows they love the book because they love him, and that's ok. Luke visits Jess in Philadelphia soon after he's settled in. He asks Jess to take him to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and when Jess is surprised at the request, Luke explains that he hasn't been to Philly since he was a kid on a school field trip and he's wanted to run up the Rocky steps ever since he watched the first movie, and he wants to do it now, while he still can. They do, and Luke makes it to the top first, a fact he enjoys bringing up for many years to come. Jess would be annoyed to get beat by someone twice his age, except that it makes Luke so happy. Jess vows to revamp his diet and start exercising so he can challenge Luke to a rematch.

Jess sees Rory from time to time in Stars Hollow, mostly at holidays and other family functions. He is always friendly, but keeps his distance, figuring he already put himself out there and got shot down. If they end up as anything more than pleasant acquaintances it will be because she wants them to be, not because he's forcing it on her. It's sometimes hard to not let old feelings resurface when he's around her, but he can usually manage to get through a family dinner in her presence without completely embarrassing himself. He quietly seethes when she dates a blond trust fund kid from Yale. From what Jess understands, the guy's family is so rich that they make the senior Gilmores look middle class. He hears some stories from Luke, who isn't crazy about the guy, then meets the guy for himself at Thanksgiving during Rory's senior year. Jess' first impression is that the guy's a dick. He doesn't get why Rory's with him when she could do so much better. The guy is obviously threatened by knowing that Rory used to date both Jess and Dean and he's slightly antagonistic toward them all through the meal, finding ways to subtly put them down while bragging about himself. Dean just smiles and laughs and lets everything go. Jess gets in a slightly heated exchange with the guy when Rory brings up his book and only stops when he finds himself on the receiving end of a very disapproving look from Luke. What bothers Jess most is how condescending this jerk is to Luke, explaining what he's studying at Yale and about his father's business as though speaking to a little kid. He's glad to see them break up some time later, until Rory visits him in Philadelphia for an event at the publishing house and attempts to make out with him as a kind of payback for the blond dick's cheating on her. She can't go through with it and runs out, sorry and embarrassed. Jess doesn't need to work as hard at controlling his feelings for her after that. It comes more naturally.

Dean is grateful to Lindsay for remaining friends with Clara. Lindsay is studying to be a teacher, and Dean can picture her being good at that. Lindsay takes Clara shopping for a dress for her first dance in junior high…and for her first bra…and her first feminine hygiene products. Dean is grateful for all of it. Lindsay's living at home while going to college and her mom invites Dean and Clara over for dinner every once in a while. At one dinner, when Lindsay's mom asks how work is going, he admits that he's burned out at Doose's, and wants to learn something new. Lindsay's dad says that Tom is looking for a new guy for his construction company, someone enthusiastic and trainable, he asks Dean if he'd like him to put in a good word for him. Dean says yes and thanks him, telling him how much he would appreciate that and promising to work really hard if Tom hires him. He starts working for Tom about a month later. Dean is continually humbled by how many people have been willing to help him in the past couple of years. He wants to pay it all back somehow. Or forward. Or something. He is still following Luke's rule and going to college part-time, and when he has to choose his major, he decides on criminal justice. The starting pay working for Tom isn't that much better than Doose's but Dean learns something new pretty much every day. He also enjoys the camaraderie of working with a group of guys. It reminds him of when he used to play basketball and hockey in high school. Between his new job, the night classes he's taking and Clara, he's starting to feel like his life is on the right track.

Living above the diner goes well. When Clara doesn't have tennis practice, debate club, or plans with a friend after school, she gets home before Dean gets out of work. He knows that at almost thirteen that she's old enough to stay home alone, but he still worries. He likes knowing that Luke is right downstairs if anything happens. He comes home many evenings to find Clara sitting at the counter in the diner, having a snack and doing her homework, or drinking a milkshake and telling Luke stories about her day. It's on one of those evenings as he's walking up behind Clara listening to Luke's earnest questioning in response to a story Clara was telling him, 'Are you serious, right in the middle of class, like that? That Trevor is just unbelievable! What did Sabrina do?' that Dean realizes that Luke has become family. He gets a little emotional and Clara asks why he's acting weird. Luke smiles and pats him on the shoulder and tells him to take a seat while he makes him something to eat.

Aunt Gretchen comes out every couple of months. Usually just a day trip, saying she doesn't want to impose. After one of her visits, Clara tells Dean how much happier she is back in Stars Hollow with him than she was with her aunt and uncle in New York. She loves him, and she knows he's given up stuff to take care of her, like getting to go to college full-time, and go out with girls and have friends his own age. She wants him to know how grateful she is, that she appreciates all of it. Dean is touched and gets a little choked up, he hugs her and says there is no place he'd rather be and nothing he'd rather do than be here with her. They spend the evening on the couch watching a movie, Dean content to be sitting there with his arm wrapped around the most important person in his life. Dean goes to sleep happy that night. Then wakes with a start at two o'clock in the morning at the realization that if anything happens to him, Clara would end up right back with Gretchen and Mel. He can't fall back to sleep and he ends up downstairs waiting for Luke when the man lets himself in to open the diner and jumps a mile at Dean's silhouette in the dark dining room. Dean tells him what he's worried about and says he needs to make a will, and that he wants Luke and Lorelai to be Clara's guardians if anything happens to him before she's eighteen. Luke brushes it off as anxiety. Tells Dean he is practically still a kid himself, young and healthy, nothing's going to happen to him. Dean says that's what his parents probably thought, too. Luke can tell he's serious. He agrees that he would take care of Clara if something were to happen to Dean. He'll talk to Lorelai, but he's sure she'll feel the same way. Luke talks to Lorelai that night and is surprised to hear her balk at the idea. She's happy to spend time with Clara and help them out when she can, but she's already raised her kid. She doesn't really want to sign on to raise someone else's. She tells Luke he doesn't understand what a huge commitment that is. Luke signs the paperwork himself anyway, knowing that if anything did happen to Dean, he would take Clara before letting her move back to New York to live with an abusive man. He has faith that if the situation were to arise, Lorelai would get on board with the idea. But, if she didn't, he supposes he would move back into the apartment with Clara until she turned eighteen. He doesn't mention this to Lorelai and she never brings up the topic again.

Jess gets over Rory and has a semblance of a romantic life in Philadelphia, where he occasionally has hook-ups, sometimes lasting one night and sometimes a few months. He doesn't bring anyone back to Stars Hollow and he doesn't meet any of their families either. It's never like that. When one of his co-workers asks for Jess' story one night when they're having beers, Jess is confused. Matthew tells him that he dates like a man who's had his heart torn out and ripped to shreds and is afraid to risk it happening again. He says there must be a good story there. This hits home for Jess. It's an accurate appraisal of his social life, but he doesn't have the story to go with it. He was the one who ran off on Rory. His heart got broken, but because of his own stupidity, not because a girl dumped him. He contemplates Matthew's comment, and realizes that his fear isn't of getting dumped, but of messing up with another girl he's in love with. He thinks about how it might have been easier to deal with if Rory had dumped him outright, and he didn't have himself to blame. He tells himself that what he did was years ago, and he vows to stop punishing himself for it. He's a different person now.

The next time Jess is at a family gathering, everyone brings a partner except him and Clara. Dean is with his new girlfriend. Jenny is Lindsay's cousin and after waiting long enough to make sure Dean was really over Rory, Lindsay had set them up. Dean introduces Jess as his best friend, and while this isn't news to Jess, he can admit he still likes hearing it. Rory brings home her boyfriend, Paul. Luke, Lorelai and Clara bombard the new additions to their holiday routine with questions. Clara's are mostly for Paul, because she already spends a lot of time with Jenny. Jess lets himself slide into observer mode. He likes both Jenny and Paul right away. They both seem genuinely nice. Jess feels like he already knows Jenny from all the stories he's heard from Dean. And, Paul is a relief to Jess after having met the blond dick from Yale. He's respectful to Luke and Lorelai, even when explaining the complicated technology he works with. He answers the questions they ask him and then gracefully turns the conversation to topics they know about, Stars Hollow activities, their businesses, and Rory's budding career in journalism. He even brings them thoughtful gifts. Before he leaves he makes a point of thanking Jess and Dean for being so welcoming to him. He hadn't known what to expect knowing that two of Rory's exes would be at her family's thanksgiving, and he appreciates how nice they've been to him. The earnestness of his comment would have won Jess over even if he didn't already like the guy. Over the next few years, Jess watches Rory neglect that relationship, sometimes to the point where he swears she forgets she even has a boyfriend, and it makes him think about the conversation with Dean on the bus back to New York where they were nineteen and Dean had told him how badly Rory had treated him when they dated. He recognizes that Rory isn't really interested in Paul and is just keeping him around as a space filler until she meets someone she has real feelings for. He thinks about how he would have found this realization hopeful a few years ago and would have told himself he still had a chance with her, but now he just finds is sad, and a little mean. When Paul finally ends things with Rory, Jess is sad to see him go, but relieved for Paul.

Jess also observes Dean and Jenny. He gets the inside scoop on that relationship from regular conversations with Dean. And he has to agree every time Dean says it, that yes, Jenny is really great. They seem balanced in the way he knows Dean was looking for. They are both very considerate of each other, and very much in love, sometimes to a sickening degree. Jenny does a lot with Clara and between Jenny, Lindsay and sometimes Lorelai, he knows Dean feels like he has the female role model stuff covered for Clara. When they start getting serious, Luke tells Dean that Jenny is welcome to move in with him if that's what he wants. He would be ok with that and it wouldn't change their rent situation or anything. Jenny moves in the following month and they stay in the apartment for a few years, until Dean has finished college and Clara is just starting. When Jess comes home that spring, he can see Dean, Jenny and Clara as their own little family in the making. When Dean takes him to watch Clara's tennis match, they sit together in the bleachers, while Lindsay and Jenny stand together courtside moving back and forth between all the girls' matches carrying supplies, it being Jenny's turn to play 'team mom' and bring the girls snacks and drinks in between sets and deal with any first aid situations that come up. When Dean explains to Jess that he offered to sign up for the role himself, but Clara had shot him down by saying it was 'team mom' not 'team Dean' meaning it's supposed to be a girl, Jess' heart goes out to Clara remembering all the times in his own childhood when he had tried to claim one of Liz's better boyfriends or husbands for himself. He watches the huge grin on Clara's face as she high-fives Jenny and Lindsay after finishing her first set and he hopes things work out better for her than they did for him. And Jess is pretty sure they have when he's at Dean's wedding a couple of years later. Jess is the best man and Clara and Lindsay share the maid of honor duties. But, it's when Jess is a guest at Clara's wedding about fifteen years after that, and he sees Jenny at the altar as Clara's maid of honor, that he knows for sure.

Jess and Lorelai's relationship vacillates between awkward and mildly pleasant with the occasional bit of tension thrown in for the rest of their lives. Luke and Lorelai get married after dating for almost ten years. Jess makes a point of asking Lorelai to dance at the reception, and Lorelai jokes about being his 'wicked step mother.' Jess smiles and appreciates what the comment says about his relationship with Luke. They never become as close as Luke and Rory, but they try, and they at least succeed at significantly lowering their mutual annoyance and animosity. They come to what Jess can only describe as a grudging respect for each other. They both love Luke and they are both willing to endure each other with a smile in order to make him happy. The hug each other whenever Jess arrives at their house, and Lorelai sometimes accompanies Luke into Philadelphia to visit Jess. And Jess can admit that when Lorelai isn't targeting him with passive aggressiveness, she can be funny, and maybe even enjoyable to be around. But, there remains no real emotional connection between them. They don't exchange 'I love you's until almost twenty-five years after the wedding, bereft and heartbroken in the hallway of the hospital after saying goodbye to Luke for the last time. Rory and her daughter are on a plane back from London that doesn't arrive in time, Dean and Jenny are visiting their son at college in New Hampshire, and Clara is at a conference in Chicago. Jess feels it's fitting that he and Lorelai are the only two there in Luke's final moments. Lorelai grabs him unexpectedly as they're leaving, tells him how much he meant to Luke, that Luke loved him like a son, and was so proud of him, that he was a such a good son to Luke, the best he could have asked for. She tells him that she loves him, too, and not to be a stranger. All he can really get out is a quiet 'you, too.' He debates driving back to his empty apartment in Philly, but it's late and he knows Luke would want him to stay and help Lorelai with the arrangements for the funeral so he spends the night alone in the apartment over the diner, under the guise of leaving the extra bed at Lorelai's for Rory, but really just needing to be alone.

He ends up helping out in the diner for a few days to keep busy. Caesar pretty much runs the place now and he fills Jess in on how he had walked out of the kitchen one night after closing to find Luke clutching his chest and having trouble breathing. To everyone's knowledge, Luke had been in good health even in his seventies and the heart attack had been a shock. Lorelai shows Jess a copy of the will and he learns that Luke left all his investments and liquid assets to Lorelai, but the diner and apartment to Jess, with the explanation that he wanted Jess to always feel that he had a home there. Jess chokes up at that, knowing that any connotation to home Stars Hollow held for him was tied to the man he just lost, not the apartment he had once lived in. But, he stays on anyway, not quite ready to face his life yet, going over the books and paperwork and learning about the business from Caesar, and spending his evenings with Dean and Jenny, or with Lorelai, or by himself reading or thinking. His first decision as owner is to give Caesar a big raise, partly because the guy has a lot more responsibility now with Luke gone and partly to thank him for having been loyal to Luke all these years. When he feels like he's used up all the acceptable bereavement time he can, he calls Chris at work to say he's taking a leave of absence from the company. He needs to focus on his own writing for a while. He feels empty. He has nothing to offer other writers right now.

He ends up spending the next year and a half in Stars Hollow, writing whenever he's not helping out at the diner or spending time with Dean or Lorelai. He also has a minor mid-life crisis. He thinks about how little he has in his life for how far along it is, more than half over. He never found anyone he wanted to share his life with. His longest relationship had lasted for four years in his late twenties to early thirties. He and Sarah had even shared an apartment for two of those years, but she had ended things when she had started wanting to have a baby and he hadn't. He knew he had loved her, and it had hurt to lose her, but a small, scared part of him had felt relieved to return to his comfort zone of being alone, where he didn't need to worry about how his behavior would impact someone else. He had spent the next twenty years avoiding serious romantic entanglements. Now that he's older, he sometimes regrets not having had a child with her when he had the chance, not having tried harder with Sarah in general. He hadn't trusted himself with the idea of being a parent, but now that the chance is past, his apprehension doesn't feel like a very worthwhile reason to have missed out on something so significant in life. Jess has a few good friends, but the older he gets the less that feels like enough. And now, with Luke gone, his life feels that much smaller and lonelier. He honestly enjoys his work most days, which he knows is more than a lot of people can say, enjoys helping other writers work through their stories, but there's only so much personal fulfillment he can get from helping other writers with their books, their words. When he looks back at three decades of that, he isn't sure it's enough to make his life feel well lived. The only book he ever had published was his first. He has started several other projects over the years, but none felt right, so he never finished them.

He sees Stars Hollow differently this time around, not as the hell he had felt stuck in at seventeen, but as the place that had been the only home Luke have ever known. He tries to think about his uncle's life from his point of view. Vignettes start crafting themselves in his mind. He starts to see a novel, an homage to the person who loved him more than anyone else ever has or likely ever will, the man who saved his life, for whatever his life may be worth. The scene where Luke greets his belligerent nephew at the bus stop. Or breaks through the wall with a sledge hammer. Or takes him out in a boat after a vicious swan attacks him. The terrible, horrible fight the night Luke tells him he has to go. The teary middle of the night reconciliation weeks later. But, then he realizes that that's where his story with Luke started. But, maybe this story needs to start earlier. He considers Luke's childhood, but decides to include the relevant information about his family by weaving it into the current day story line, instead of starting there and going through an entire life story. He thinks about the big moments in Luke's life. About how Luke would start his own story if he were the one writing it. And Jess can see it. The diner. A physical longing. And a pretty brunette begging for a coffee fix.

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Jess gave the manuscript to Dean, wanting a second opinion before bringing it to his partners at the publishing house, feeling that he was too close to the subject matter himself to be at all objective about the quality of the writing. The following week found Jess sitting on Dean's porch swing nursing a beer. He had come over for dinner but hadn't wanted to bring up the book until they were alone. Jenny had gone to bed and the two foster children currently placed with them were playing video games in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Jess could hear the occasional groan or excited shriek float down from the open window. Dean and Jenny had seen Clara through her teenaged years and raised a son and daughter of their own. When their youngest had gone off to college a few years ago, Jess had expected them to savor being alone for the first time in their relationship. Instead, they had started taking in foster children. Jess blamed Clara, who worked as a social worker in Hartford, for constantly talking about the shortage of foster homes in Connecticut and finally convincing Jenny they should foster by telling her that anyone who was as capable of making a motherless child feel as loved as she had made Clara feel when she was a teenager should be a foster parent. According to Dean, his knew his fate was sealed when Jenny had teared up and hugged Clara.

"So, let me have it. What do you think?" Jess took a sip of his beer. "But, two rules. Be completely honest, and no hugging."

Dean grinned, laid back casually in his chair, pressing his foot against the bottom of the one Jess had crossed over his leg, jostling the swing slightly. "C'mon, man. You know I can't make any promises on the second one. These things can't be planned. I'm a spontaneous hugger. It's part of my charm." It was still weird to Jess that someone as warm and affectionate as Dean worked as a detective in Hartford. Dean joining the police force had made Jess rethink his whole perspective on cops.

"Hmm…..self-reporting your charm. That's always credible."

"What do I think? I think you're still an ass, that's what I think." Jess barked out a laugh at that. "Oh, sorry, did you mean about the book?"

Jess nodded. "Yeah, give it to me."

"I loved it, Jess. So much. It's my new favorite book."

"That would mean a lot more to me if you'd read more than ten books in your whole life, or if you had a past history of decent taste in books, which you do not." Jess' sarcasm still came up around Dean, as it always had with Luke too, but they both knew nothing was meant by it. Dean understood, as had Luke, that most of Jess' sarcasm was just a way that felt safe for him to connect with the people he cared about and was rarely ever about the meaning of the words themselves.

"I'm serious. I thought it was great. It was truthful enough that I could see who the characters were based on, but different enough that I didn't always know where things were leading in the short term. Although, of course, I always knew how it would end."

"If it wasn't based on people you knew or cared about, would you still have been interested in the story?"

"Absolutely! it's everything I like. Hokey little small-town setting. Quirky characters. I love 'Mick' by the way. He's even more Kirk-like than Kirk, if that's possible. Like, I picture Kirk reading this book and getting pissed that he never thought of some of the things that Mick does. It made me smile whenever that guy showed up. And the gossipy older ladies were a riot! All I can say is you're lucky Babette isn't still alive to sue your ass. Cause she totally would! Remember how much she hated you after you swiped her gnome?"

Jess nodded, a small smile on his face. "I remember."

"And thanks for not using anything about me being homeless. Not that I'm ashamed of it or anything, I just….I don't know. Didn't want people reading about it, I guess." Dean trailed off.

"I would never have included any of that stuff without talking to you." Jess was serious now. "I hope you know that. All the stuff in New York. That's personal. I feel like that's our story. It's not anyone else's business." Jess stopped to think about that. It was their story. And there was good stuff there.

"I appreciate that. Really."

"Of course, Dean. So, what else did you think?"

"I loved the main relationship Jess. You captured Luke so well. You made him different enough to be a fictional character, but it was still so him. Your character, too. You did an amazing job of depicting what a little shit you used to be and how crazy you must have driven Luke. That couldn't have been easy."

Jess paused for a minute at Dean's perspective on the main relationship of the story. Even though both story lines had gotten pretty much equal coverage, he had assumed readers would see the relationship between the Luke and Lorelai inspired characters as the main event. "Yeah? Thanks. And it wasn't easy, but it wasn't as hard as I expected either to get myself back in that headspace. I may act more together and mature on the outside, but sometimes I feel like that 'little shit' as you put it still lives it my head. I just stopped voicing his thoughts for the most part."

Dean laughed and took a drink from his bottle. "And, the parts about your parents were so good. I had expected to see them portrayed as the bad guys, you know, after hearing the way you always talked about them, especially your dad. But, you did a really good job of humanizing them. I felt bad that your character had to deal with them, but I didn't out and out hate them, or anything. Even though I expected to. I almost felt sorry for them."

"Was there anything you didn't like about it?" Jess knew Dean would support anything he did, he was that kind of friend, but he knew he had to have noticed flaws, too.

Dean started shaking his head before Jess had finished the question. "Nope. I know you're not going to believe me, but there wasn't. I liked the whole thing. I want a real copy when it's published, so I can read it again."

Jess was giving Dean a reproachful look, not believing there wasn't a part that Dean thought needed improvement. Maybe Dean was too close to the subject matter, too. Or maybe, like Luke always had, Dean still made a better support system than a book critic.

As if reading his mind, Dean said. "And if Luke were here to read this, Jess, I know he would agree with me. He would have loved this book. He was always so proud of you and he would have been so touched by this. You know that, right?"

Jess nodded silently, not sure what to say, wishing he had done something like this while Luke was still around to appreciate it. What came out surprised him. "I miss him so much."

"I miss him, too." Dean got up from his chair and moved to sit beside Jess on the porch swing.

Jess felt the swing sway slightly as Dean sat down and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "I see you're still taking any display of emotion as an invitation to grope me, huh?"

Dean squeezed Jess' shoulder. "It's only fair. You're still using sarcastic barbs to distract from your emotions. And, you know how I operate. If you don't want to get groped, don't look like you need a hug in my immediate vicinity." Dean's voice turned softer, more serious. "I get it, though. I still miss my parents pretty much every day.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I've spent my whole life missing them. Whenever anything happens, good or bad, that I wish they were here for. Can I give you some advice, Jess?"

"Could I really stop you?"

Dean ignored him. "I'm going to quote my favorite author and tell you that even though Luke's gone, he's still with you in all the ways that matter. He did right by you when no one else would, and all the stuff that was good about him rubbed off on you in how much he loved you and became a part of you. You still have him with you and you always will."

Jess stared straight ahead into the dark. "I don't know who your favorite author is, but that isn't from my book."

"No, it's not. It's what you told me one night in New York, when I was lying on your floor, getting choked up talking about my parents. I always remembered it because it was of the few things anyone said to me back then that actually made me feel even a little bit better."

"I told you that your parents 'did right by you when no one else would'? That was my great advice? That doesn't even make sense. Plus, it sounds way too folksy for me."

"I may have paraphrased to fit the situation. But, the meaning is still there. Luke will live on in you the same way my parents live on in me and Clara. And, this book is proof of that. It's this amazing love letter to the person that you feel saved you. And I get it, because if I was a writer, I'd write a book about how you saved me in New York."

"Oh, c'mon, it's totally different. I didn't save you. Not the way Luke did with me. You were just in a bad place at the time, but you would have gotten out of it one way or another, even if I hadn't found you."

Dean removed his arm from Jess' shoulder and turned in his seat to face him. "Look at me, Jess." Jess sighed softly and repositioned himself on the swing so that he was facing Dean. "I was at the end of my rope that night in the alley. I was done. It was over for me. I felt hopeless, worthless. I had no place to go, and no one to be with, and I couldn't take it anymore. I was ready to sit down on that cardboard box and go to sleep and never wake up. I had given up."

Dean took in Jess' look of disbelief. "Yeah, don't believe me? Ask anyone who was in the Hartford public school system in the past twenty years."

"What does that even mean?"

"I'm not a writer, Jess. I could never do anything for you like what you did for Luke with this book. But every year, they send a few cops to the schools to talk to the kids about different things, bullying, drugs, that kind of stuff. My topic is always suicide prevention. Because I do it so well. I go over suicide statistics for teenagers, I tell them what they should do and who they should call if they're experiencing suicidal ideation, and lastly, I leave them with my story, our story, from that night in the alley in New York to really drive home the point that even when it doesn't seem like it, things can get better, and that they should always be nice to each other because you never know when one act of kindness will be the thing that changes someone's life."

Jess stared at Dean, shocked into speechlessness, but maintaining eye contact. He was grateful when Dean spoke again, his tone lighter. "And, I'm a police officer, so you know I can't lie."

Dean smirked, and Jess huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, right."

"Ok, how about I've been your best friend for over thirty years, I'm practically the brother you never had, so you know I don't lie."

Jess nodded. "I believe you. And, all I can say is, if that's how it was for you that night in the alley, then I'm glad I was there, because bringing you home with me that night was easily the best thing I've done with my life."

Dean leaned forward on the swing, closing the space between them. Jess met him halfway and hugged back, reflecting on having been cast as the hero in Dean's story the same way he had cast Luke as the hero in his. He wasn't sure what he had done for Dean could measure up to what Luke had done for him, but he knew Dean was right about one thing: you never know when one act of kindness will change someone's life. He had come over tonight to get validation for his novel, but what he got instead was even better.

***The End***