Disclaimer: I don't own the show. I own Libby and any other original characters that come along.

-----

"What the hell are you doing here?" Luke repeated.

"Nice to see you too."

"You can't do this Jess. You can't just waltz back into our lives and pretend that nothing's wrong. You can't fuck everything up again! I won't let you ruin anything else! You've already done enough damage to her mother; I won't let you hurt that baby."

"Damn, that was the first thing on my to-do list today."

"Why do you always have to be such a sarcastic prick?"

"I don't know," Jess said. "Why do you always jump to conclusions and assume everything is my fault? You know what happens when you assume things, don't you?"

Luke stared at him with an un-amused look on his face. "No? You don't know the whole "you make an ass out of you and me thing"?"

"This is not a joke, Jess! You cannot pretend that you didn't do anything wrong!"

"But that's the thing, I didn't do anything wrong. This whole situation," he said, gesturing towards Libby. "I didn't know about it."

"Oh please. Your bullshit act isn't going to work this time, Jess. Rory told us everything. Rory told us how you turned her away, turned your own child away, how you broke her heart. I can't believe Lorelai let you in here after all the problems you've caused!"

Jess rolled his eyes at what Luke was saying. It was so Luke to believe everything Rory said and to make him out to be the bad guy. He did it when Jess was seventeen and here he was doing the same thing five years later.

"Rory's the cause of all of these problems, Luke. I turned her away? She NEVER called me. She never told me that she was pregnant. She lied to you; she lied to all of you. She's not some little angel like you seem to think."

"I don't believe you. Rory never lies; she is one of the most honest people I've ever met."

"She's not Jesus, Luke. Everybody lies! She has you so whipped! You believe every fucking thing that comes out of her mouth. Did you ever stop for a second and think about whether or not she was telling the truth? You honestly believe she called me up and said "Hey, I'm having your baby" and I told her to screw off?"

"Yeah, I do. You're immature Jess. You bail at the first sign of responsibility, you're lazy, and you run away from all your problems!"

Jess strapped Libby into her car seat, pulled her hat onto her head and wrapped a blanket around her. Apparently they would be going to the inn earlier than he had originally planned.

"I don't run away from my problems. I left once, because you kicked me out, and I do not bail at the first sign of responsibility. I had two jobs in high school, I had a full-time job when I moved back to New York and I got my GED. I now co-own a business and I'm a published author. How does any of that make me irresponsible or lazy? "

"I didn't kick you out. I told you you could stay and go back to school! You left on your own. And are you forgetting that you didn't graduate high school because you worked too much and skipped too much school? That's real responsible!" Luke yelled while he followed Jess to the front door.

Jess sat the car seat down on the floor so he could gather his things that he had left the night before.

"I was eighteen! You told me to leave so I left but that doesn't even matter! It has nothing to do with anything anymore. You should've told me about Libby. You even could've called to yell at me. I don't care, all you had to do was pick up the god damn phone and punch a few buttons. Is that that hard to do!?"

"Stop acting like you didn't know! What happened? Did you come back thinking Rory wouldn't be here or did you come back to fix things with her and be a happy little family? She's not in love with you Jess. Get over her. She doesn't want you, she's moved on."

"Moved on or moved? I know she's in London and I know she's not in love with me, I never thought she was. She's moved on, I've moved on, we've all moved on! I don't care what she does; I'm not in love with her either. And for the last time, I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE BABY! Can you not get that through your head? Do you even talk to Lorelai? Cause I talked to her last night and she seems to think the complete opposite of what you are saying. She doesn't believe Rory, why do you? "

Luke shook his head. He knew Jess was lying. Rory would never do something like what he was accusing her of. Lorelai had mentioned once or twice that she thought Rory wasn't being completely honest but he had brushed it off. Lorelai and Rory hadn't gotten along very well since Rory announced she was pregnant so he assumed Lorelai was just pissed at her and was trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

"You're worse than your own father Jess! At least Jimmy was there for your mom when she was pregnant and he was there when you were born. Unlike you, he actually tried to be a dad!"

"You're such an ass," Jess said as he picked up his stuff and the car seat. "But I guess some things never change."

Luke watched Jess walk to his car and get Libby settled in. He shut the back door, got into the driver's seat and buckled his seat belt before driving away. Luke shut the front door and for the second time that morning, he was left standing alone regretting things that he had said but would be too stubborn to apologize for.

-----

Lorelai looked up from her position at the front desk when the door to the Dragonfly opened. She was surprised to see Jess as it was only eleven o'clock. He walked over to where she was standing and set the car seat on the desk.

"You're here early."

Lorelai unbuckled Libby and took her out of the car seat. She had started crying when Luke began yelling at Jess and her face was still red and tear stained.

"Luke got back earlier than you said and he seemed to be in a bad mood before he even saw me."

"That's weird. He's usually annoyingly happy after spending time with April. How mad did he get when he saw you?"

"I think if there had been a phone in the vicinity of his hands," Jess said. "He would've pulled a Russell Crowe."

"Ouch. I'm sorry; I called him a bunch of times and left him a voicemail begging him to call me or stop by before her went home."

"Whatever, it's not a big deal. I wasn't expecting him to come home wanting to be my new best friend, although it was completely unnecessary of him to yell loud enough to freak the hell out of Libby. God she's loud. Anyway, why do you have cashmere socks for a baby?"

"And a hat!" Lorelai said pointing to the pink hat on Libby's head. "They match! You and Rory had excellent timing in your baby making. I was able to get tons and tons of baby stuff at Old Navy for more than half off since they mark down all of their winter clothes as soon as Christmas rolls around. I even got her some stuff for next year!"

"Let me guess, it's all obnoxiously bright pink like everything else you got."

"It is!" Lorelai said smiling. "And if you don't like her adorable pink car seat and stroller, you can buy a new one. They make lots of ugly brown and green ones; I will just keep the cute pink one for my baby."

"You do that," Jess said. "So can I get a room or is it too early to check in? I need to go make some calls; they're expecting me back at Truncheon today."

"Technically check in is not until three, but it's been dead this week so we have a bunch of empty rooms. I put you in room eight and I had one of the maids set up a crib in there for you. Or for Libby. You two can talk amongst yourselves and decided who gets the crib and who gets the bed. Here is the key," Lorelai said, getting a key off its designated hook. "Lunch is at twelve-thirty. You go make your calls and I will wait for Hurricane Luke to pass through."

Lorelai handed the baby to Jess and had a bell-hop help take his bags to his room. She headed into her office to work on the inventory for the inn and to wait for Luke to call.

-----

Jess sat down on his bed at the Dragonfly and moved Libby around so her head was on his shoulder. He held her upright with one hand and dialed the number for Truncheon Books on his cell phone with the other. He did not want to make this call. He knew Matt and Chris were going to find it hilarious and they'd probably still be ragging on him when Libby's tenth birthday rolled around. The phone rang in his ear and interrupted his thoughts. It stopped ringing after the sixth ring and he could hear someone shuffling things around on the other end. He winced when the phone was dropped and the muffled cursing told him it was going to be Chris on the other line.

"Truncheon Books, this is Chris."

"Hey, it's Jess."

"Dude, where are you? I thought you were gonna be back like two hours ago. That chick from the City Paper is supposed to be here in an hour. She said she was hoping we'd all be here so she could do a group interview or a picture or something."

"Oh fuck, I totally forgot. You and Matt are going to have to do by yourselves. I stopped to visit my uncle on the way back to Philly and uh, something's come up. I'm not going to be back for a while."

"Something or someone came up?"

"Technically it is a someone and a something."

"Is it a girl?"

"You could say that," Jess said. He wondered how long it would take to just let Chris guess.

"Is it that girl you hooked up with here? Didn't you say that's how you met her? She lives in the same town as your uncle?"

"Again, you are partially right."

"What, did you get her pregnant or something?"

"Actually, Is Matt there? I don't want to have this conversation twice."

"No, he went out to get breakfast. Someone had a few too many drinks last night and woke up severely hung over. Again. I told him he needs to cut back," Chris said, his voice trailing off as he realized what Jess had just nonchalantly said. "Oh my God! You knocked her up?! I was kidding man!"

----

At twelve-fifteen Lorelai's cell phone rang, startling her awake. She had fallen asleep on the love seat in her office while going over inventory papers and had lost track of time. She pushed a pile of papers aside on the coffee table in front of her and grabbed her phone, picking it up on the last ring.

"Hello?" She answered. Her voice was groggy from sleeping and she tried to quietly clear her throat.

"Do you want to tell me what Jess was doing in our house? And not only in our house, in our house with Libby who he took with him when he left to go god knows where!"

Lorelai shut her eyes and put her head back on the couch as everything came back to her.

"He's in room eight. They're in room eight."

"What the hell are they doing there?"

"Knowing Jess, he's probably reading and Libby is probably sleeping. She usually takes a nap around this time."

"Lorelai, this isn't a joke!" Luke had taken a hot shower to try and relax after Jess left but it hadn't worked. The more he thought about Jess and the situation with Anna, the more pissed off he got. "Why the hell would you let him take Libby?"

"Oh I don't know Luke," she said. Two minutes into a conversation with him and she was already annoyed, this was something that seemed to be happening a lot lately. "Maybe because he's her father."

"No! He is not her father. He made the choice to not be her father the day he said he didn't want anything to do with her. How can you let him do this to her? To us? He's gonna leave Lorelai, that's what he's good at. He's going to mess everything up some more and then he is going to leave. You can mark my words."

"He's not leaving Luke. He's moving back, he's going to find a place to live and he's staying here. He's going to raise the daughter he didn't know he had."

"You don't actually believe him do you?" Luke was in disbelief. Lorelai hated Jess the entire time he had lived here and now here she was, sticking up for him and believing his ridiculous lies. "He's full of shit. All those things he said about Rory, they aren't true and you know it."

"I don't know what to believe anymore. I'm sure Rory told us some things that were true but I have a feeling that a lot of what she told us isn't true. However, I know for a fact that Rory did not tell Jess that she was pregnant. He has a child, Luke; I can't keep him away from her. She's not ours, we can't raise her. He deserves to be a parent and Libby deserves to have a parent around."

"You're right," Luke said. "She does deserve to have a parent around. She deserves to have a responsible, trustworthy, smart, and respectful parent around, which is why we should wait for Rory to come back."

"Luke," Lorelai began. She was already frustrated with him; talking to him was like talking to a brick wall. "Rory is not coming back. She left her friends, her family, and her own child to be with Logan. She's not coming home anytime soon and even if she did, I would not let her take Libby. She's no longer the responsible one. As far as I'm concerned, Jess is. He didn't know about the baby, Luke. Rory never called him; she made the whole thing up. He wants to do this and I am behind him one-hundred percent. He's doing a good thing; you need to get over your problems with him."

"I can't get over my problems with him if he acts like a jackass every time I see him! All I did was ask him what he was doing here and he started being a sarcastic jerk like he always is. You should've heard the things he said to me."

"And you didn't provoke him at all, right?" Lorelai asked sarcastically.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You can be a bit of a douche when you want to Luke. I highly doubt you walked in the house and he started yelling at you without being provoked or yelled at first. I've seen you get mad; you overreact most of the time. I'm sorry if he yelled at you and you got your feelings hurt but you of all people should know how he feels. You didn't know about April until she was almost thirteen, he's pissed off and Libby's only six-weeks old. I can't believe you're sticking up for Rory when she did something even worse than what Anna did to you. At least Anna kept your kid!"

"How can you just give up on Rory?" Luke asked. "How can you say she'll never come back? You don't know that she won't show up one day, wanting her baby back. I thought you were her best friend. Why are you giving up on her?"

"I'm not giving up on her! I won't give up on her Luke, I never will. I just can't do this anymore! I'm not going to pretend like every thing's going to be okay. I'm not going to pretend that she's just going to show up one day wanting to win the parent of the year award. She's my daughter and I love her but I can't deal with her or all of the problems she's caused right now."

"Oh, so Libby's a problem now? What a nice thing to say about your own grandchild."

"Do not twist my words around," Lorelai said angrily. "I do not think that Libby is a problem and you know that, but I can't do this Luke. I can't take care of her twenty-four seven. You don't know how hard it is to not only get up multiple times a night to be with her, but to do it all day long too. You're not the most help-"

"Don't act like I don't help you," Luke interrupted. "I help you out whenever I can. Just listen to what you are saying! You're exhausted from taking care of her and there are two of us, Jess is only one person. He's going to get in over his head and split."

"I'm pregnant Luke," Lorelai blurted out. She hadn't been planning on telling him like this but she didn't know what else to say to shut him up. "That's why it's so hard. I'm almost two months pregnant. I can't do this any longer. I don't want to be nine months along and have to lug an eight month old everywhere. And I don't even want to think about a year or two from now, am I supposed to have one kid call me mommy and another call me grandma?"

"You should've told me. Why didn't you tell me? I'm your husband; I deserve to know if we are having a baby!"

"Because I knew you'd freak out if I came home with a new baby and told you that come September, we're gonna have another one. I was planning on telling you this week. I was going to tell you and ask you for Jess's phone number but then he showed up and here we are."

"We can make this work Lorelai," Luke said. "We can figure out how to raise Libby and our own baby at the same time. Rory will be back soon, I know she will. She dropped out of Yale and she came to her senses and went back, this is the same thing, a snap decision. She'll realize what she did and she'll come back and do the right thing, we just need to be patient!"

"She went back to Yale because of Jess. Jess showed up and talked to her and she went back. Jess is the responsible one now Luke. I know I didn't like him when he and Rory were dating but he has a good head on his shoulders now. He owns a business, he's written two books, he has a great life in Philadelphia and he's willing to leave it all behind to move here and be a dad. I know you don't think he can do this but Rory's not here, Libby is my granddaughter and whether you like it or not, I get the final say in what happens to her."

"Fine," Luke said bitterly. "Do whatever the hell you want. I'm staying at the diner tonight."

Lorelai snapped her phone shut and set it back down on the coffee table. There was a knock on the door and she got up and opened it to find Jess and a sleeping Libby standing there.

"This day needs to end. Now," she said.

"So Luke was happy?"

"Thrilled."