Author: Hadlee May
Disclaimer: Don't own Gilmore Girls, nor have anything to do with it, other then being a fan.
Summary: With the death of Sascha and Jimmy, the custody of Lily is put in his hands, forcing him to return to Stars Hollow. Literati.
AN: I got this idea while I was at work, and have a notebook full of potential beginnings for it to prove it. LOL. Tonight I was bored and just began to write. I'm proud of what I've written. I totally plan for this to be a literati, since, really, I haven't written a Literati...not a REAL one, anyways.
Oh, and if anyone knows what KIND of dogs Sascha has in Venice, it'd be great if you could give me a clue. All I know is their names. :)
Enjoy the story and please review, please!
.1.
"Are you ready?" Jess asked Lily quietly, watching the eleven year old as she mechanically moved through her room, picking up the last of her life and putting them into a small box that lay in the center of her room. The space looked bare without the shelves full of books; the posters that filled up the wall space all folded up neatly in a folder, lost somewhere in the back of Jess's borrowed station wagon. She looked up at him wearily, her eyes rimmed in red, cheeks bright with fresh tears that were, even now, falling down her face. Jess sighed. "We better get going now if we want to make it before next week." He informed her sympathetically.
For a moment, he wondered if things would ever go back to being the way they were. Between the two of them, anyways. Things would never be the same. Not with the deaths of his father and her mother hanging over their heads.
IN ITALICS
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Liz, calm down." Jess spoke into his cell phone, trying to calm down his hysterical mother. She continued to ramble in his hear, her words barely legible. "Liz, is TJ there? Put someone on the phone." Jess pleaded with her, an odd feeling of worry coming over him. It was unusual for his mother to freak out over anything, much less Jimmy, who's name she'd spoken over and over.
With his words, the phone dropped, the sound of it's thud against the floor ringing clearly in his ear. "Liz!" He shouted into the phone, grabbing the attention of his boss and fellow employees that were sitting in the break room talking amongst themselves and eating their lunches. "Liz!" He was answered with the familiar tone of Luke's gruff voice.
"Jess?" Luke checked to see if his nephew was still on the line.
"Still here." He'd said. "What's got Liz so upset?"
"Jess…I don't know how to tell you this." Luke sighed. Suddenly Jess put things together. Jimmy. Bad news. There was no questioning what had happened, but Jess let Luke continue. "Jess…Jimmy and Sascha were killed in a car accident early yesterday morning."
With those words, Jess's world came crumbling around him. Despair filled him, and the forgotten child in him grieved for the father he'd never really gotten to know: even after he'd spent an entire year shacked up in the extra room of Jimmy's house. Without a word, he ended the conversation and sat stunned on a stool, leaning his back against the counter.
END ITALICS
"Are the dogs all loaded in the car?" She asked after a beat. Jess nodded. It wasn't his dream to drag eleven dogs across the country, but after all Lily had been through in the past two weeks, he felt he should at least let her keep the dogs, something she could hold onto from the life she was leaving in Venice, even if he wasn't sure exactly where he was going to be aloud to keep them.
"Dog foods in the front seat, plus three jugs of water are in the back seat." then, "you want me to carry that out, let you say your final goodbyes?" He asked. She shrugged, moving away from the box. Jess took this as his cue to leave. He lifted the box in his arms and slowly made his way out of the house, walking down the paved sidewalk and out the already open gate to the vehicle that sat waiting, the engine purring, air conditioner on full blast to keep the dogs cool while they waited. He shoved the box in the backseat, pushing it down towards the floor.
He turned around at the sound of the front door slamming, seeing Lily walk slowly down the sidewalk, her book bag held tightly in her arms. The tears had stopped falling, for now, but she looked lost. "You ready, now?" He asked. She nodded and he opened the passenger side door for her. Jess took one last look at the house before wondering around the front of the car and climbed into the driver's seat. "Okay, then, let's get goin'." He muttered, putting the car in drive and pulling off the sidewalk and onto the empty street, driving away from the California sun.
.2.
They didn't stop until five hours into the trip. Lily had complained quietly that she had to use the bathroom, and by the wining coming from the back, he was sure that the dogs had to as well. They stopped two hours later for a quick meal at McDonald's. An hour after passing through a small Nevada town, Lily decides she doesn't want to talk.
Lily hasn't wanted to talk much since the funeral. He'd arrived late and she wouldn't come within a foot of him for an hour, mad that he couldn't show up on time. When she had come to him, she'd held him tight around his waist, burying her face in his black shirt, tears staining the cotton cloth. Jess hadn't minded. He refused to let tears fall, but somewhere deep inside of him, he was mourning the death of a man he'd never known, and a woman who'd accepted him as her own the moment he'd stepped up to the gate of her house and told her that he was Jimmy's son.
Twelve hours into the trip, somewhere towards the border of Utah, Lily had fallen asleep, head phones half on and half off, the sound of her favorite band reaching his ears in soft beats. He reached over, at first reaching towards Lily's portable Discman to turn it off, then thought better of it and instead reached his hand out towards the car radio and flipped it on, turning it to a local station, leaving the volume on low and continued to drive, his eyes glued to the road ahead of him.
He wasn't sure, exactly why Lily had been put in his care. Jess had never been the most responsible person in the world. He made ends meet, working two jobs while living in a run down apartment with two other guys, all three of them sleeping on dingy mattresses that were placed sporadically around the studio room. It wasn't a place he wanted to take Lily, nor could. The city would eat her alive within the week.
Lily suggests that they stop somewhere going in from Colorado and Nebraska so that he can get some sleep. By then he'd been driving nearly twelve hours and she feared that he might drive off the road with the lack of sleep he'd been getting in the past few days. Jess agreed, got a room, and as quick as he hit the bed, he was out, leaving Lily to sneak in all eleven dogs, and afterwards, she too nodding off.
The road beckoned them once they'd awoken around nine the next morning. They ate what they hotel provided and after shoving all eleven dogs back into the station wagon, they checked out and headed back onto the road. They didn't stop again until they were halfway through Illinois. The dogs were given a small walk then shared a bag of Doritos, drinking a bottle of Pepsi each, silently taking in the scenery.
They were three hours from Hartford when Lily started asking questions. "What's Stars Hollow like?"
"It's like Bag End in Lord of the Rings." He shrugged, "Just a small town where everyone knows everyone."
"Do they have a gaffer?" Lily grinned for the first time in a few days.
"Wouldn't doubt it." Jess smirked, "you'll like it. It's a lot like Venice." He replied, "Only, it doesn't have a beach." He teased. She rolled her eyes in response. He was glad she was talking today. He wasn't sure he could take the silence that had been present the entire two day journey anymore.
Their talk about Stars Hollow quickly turned into a discussion on the most recent books they'd read, the conversation filling the car for nearly the rest of the drive.
They stopped one last time, to each get a drink before heading the last hour to Stars Hollow.
.3.
"You've got to be kidding me." Luke stated blandly as he saw the two standing in front of his diner, all eleven dogs on a leashes pooling around their legs, barking at passer bys, and sniffing the time polls that were planted in front of each parking space.
Jess had given him plenty of time to get his head around the fact that the rebel of Stars Hollow was returning, his eleven year old almost step sister in tow, but Jess had either forgotten, or just decided not to mention the slew of dogs that he was letting tag along.
Luke made his way out of the diner, greeting his nephew with a look of irritation. "Friends of yours?" He looked down at the mutts. Jess smirked.
"Not mine. They were Sascha's." Jess replied. Luke nodded in understanding. "Hey Lily, I'm Luke." He introduced. She nodded in greeting, her hands too full of leash to shake his hand. "You hungry?"
Nodding her head, she replied, "Yes sir, if you don't mind."
"None of that sir stuff." He spoke, opening the diner door, "And ignore the stares you get. This town is too curious for it's own good.", letting her usher the dogs she held tightly into the diner. "It's Luke, and the dogs can go upstairs. For now." He eyed Jess who nodded, leading Lily up the steps, ignoring the stairs they were getting from the native Stars Hollow customers. Lily, on Luke's instructions, did the same.
In the upstairs apartment, Lily looked up at her guardian. "So, that was Stars Hollow." She spoke.
"Yeah. You'll get used to it in time." He supported.
"You never did." She whispered.
It was true. Stars Hollow had never really grown on him. No matter how much he cared for Luke, or Rory, the place just wasn't home. It never could be, but, with Lily now under his watch, he felt he didn't have a choice.
"I will." He shrugged, "eventually."
AN: My goal in this was to make sure that Jess and Lily made it to Stars Hollow in this chapter. If anything, I've been practicing on my ability to make a small paragraph and put more detail in it. This is the finished product…took me four hours to write.
Also, if anyone's interested, I'm planning on getting out the next chapter of Like Jess, Like Eliza as soon as I can. I'm having problems with a plot for the chapter, so if anyone has any suggestions…
Anyways, I'd really appreciate it if you guys took two seconds to review. Reviews make me giddy, giddy makes me happy, and if I'm happy, I most likely, will put out another chapter.
Oh, there will be more. I map quested Venice to Hartford, and this is what I got, I tried not to be all accurate on how many days it took the, going only by hours, it's easier that way, and it takes brain power. Anyways, this is how long a cross country journey would take. Total Est. Time: 44 hours, 24 minutes Total Est. Distance: 2913.21 miles