Work Text:
Stars Hollow never changed. Every time Jess visited it was like stepping into a time capsule. 2002: perfectly preserved.
The streets were vacant, which was typical after midnight in a small town. Creepy, maybe kind of cool. He couldn’t decide.
His Jeep Cherokee was the only car parked at the diner. Slightly eerie.
He was hauling his rucksack and laptop bag out of the back seat when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He groaned and rolled his eyes.
“Of course,” he muttered.
He’d been driving for about three hours bored out of his mind, plenty of time for a phone call, but someone picked this moment to call. Probably Jason or Shawn trying to get him to come out to some bar, forgetting he was out of town.
By the time Jess unlocked the door to the diner his cell phone had stopped vibrating, and he promptly forgot about it.
He re-locked the door and headed up to the apartment, flipping on the overhead light. It was basically one room with a few strategically placed pieces of furniture. How Luke ever got Lorelai to go out with him after taking her back to this place was still a mystery.
Jess stopped at the bathroom to take care of some long-drive-related business. His next move was to dig his comfiest pair of sweatpants out of his bag. He emptied his jeans pockets onto the desk: keys, wallet, phone. He heard the damn phone vibrating as he changed into his sweatpants.
“Ugh. Really?”
He folded his jeans and set them on the edge of the bed. He noted the fresh comforter with a decidedly feminine but subtle floral pattern. He made a mental note to thank Lorelai. There was no way Luke would have picked that comforter out, or made the bed in a style he could only describe as aggressively hospitable. That bed had definitely been made by someone who’d spent the bulk of her adult life in the hospitality business.
Jess picked up his laptop bag and pulled out a rumpled manuscript he’d come across at work. They didn’t get a lot of hard copy submissions these days. Mostly digital. The typeface had caught his attention. There was a slight unevenness to the lettering that made him think of a typewriter. This thing was old school. Someone had bought paper just the right tooth and heaviness, typed and re-typed pages at a typewriter, roughly bound it themselves, and mailed it. Enough time had been put into this draft, it deserved to be read by somebody.
He was supposed to be writing. That was the whole point of this particular excursion.
Well, he didn’t need to write the second he got there. He could take a few minutes to flip through a piece he hadn’t gotten to before he left work. Sure. That was fair.
He sat in the rickety wooden chair that clearly wasn’t meant for comfortably sitting. He’d have to grab a chair with a cushion from downstairs or something.
He’d just flipped past the cover page when the phone vibrated again. A short burst this time. Probably a text. He ignored it and started reading “Firehouse” by Edward Ray.
I was eight years old the first time I saw a fire. A real fire that swallowed a house. It was my neighbor’s house. I’d seen it every day for as long as I could remember. Mrs. Ellis always smiled and said hi to me. She was the nicest lady in the neighborhood. I watched her house disappear in front of my eyes. The air smelled like burning wood for days and Mrs. Ellis never scrubbed the smoke smell out of her favorite robe.
The phone again. Jess’s eyes ticked over to its illuminated screen.
That was one too many phone buzzes too late at night.
He picked up the phone and swiped the screen to read the alerts.
2 missed calls.
1 new voicemail.
1 new text message.
He checked his missed call log and found a number he didn’t recognize.
He read the text message from the same unknown number.
Hey Jess. This is Logan. Sorry to bother you so late. I’m sure you’re asleep. If you get this please call me back. Not quite an emergency, but definitely important.
Jess frowned. He didn’t really talk to Logan Huntzberger much on a social level. They both came to the same family gatherings on occasion and they were mostly cordial, but he wasn’t somebody Jess exchanged texts and phone calls with. Jess called up his voicemail and listened. Logan’s familiar lighthearted tone came through, but there was a slight strain to it that was a little alarming.
“Hey, Jess. It’s Logan. I thought maybe I had the wrong number until I heard your voicemail message.”
A piercing scream in the background made Jess wince. Little Lori Gilmore was only really fussy when she didn’t feel good. But, she was hands-down the worst patient he’d ever encountered.
Logan’s voice had gone softer and sounded far away.
“Okay, sweetie. Shh, it’s alright. We’re gonna get through this, little lady. Promise.”
Jess could picture him cradling the red-faced toddler, trying not to drop his sleek cell phone. There was a fumbling noise on the other end.
“Hey, sorry. You probably heard that. Miss Lori is not a happy camper and, uh…”
Logan gave a nervous laugh into the phone.
“I gotta tell you, I’m struggling here. I know Rory’s got that D.C. thing so I’m trying not to bother her, and I don’t want to freak out Lorelai if I can avoid it.”
There was another tiny but definitely unhappy scream from Lori in the background.
“I, uh, I gotta hang up. Please call me back if you get this. I’m just… I don’t know, man. Help me out, here.”
By then Logan’s normal too-thick charm had worn off and he simply sounded tired and desperate.
Jess cut off the voicemail and sighed heavily. He couldn’t say he was terribly fond of Logan, but the guy was trying. He saw Lori every other weekend like clockwork. He came to every birthday and almost every holiday. The only time he’d ever canceled was that time he’d taken a client to a sushi bar in Denver, which had led to what Rory had referred to as “bathroom-destroying food poisoning.”
It wasn’t enough, in Jess’s opinion, but it was consistent. It was an effort, and that counted for something.
Regardless of how Jess felt about Logan, Lori was one of his favorite humans on the planet. She was definitely a Lorelai. She was bubbly and excitable, at times hyper as the Tasmanian Devil. She was stubborn, strong-willed, and smart. She was such a pleasant kid to be around, and it sucked that she was sick.
-
Logan could feel the heat coming off Lori as he held her. Fever. That was definitely a fever. Right?
Or was she just worked up from crying all night? That was a thing, wasn’t it?
Thermometer. He needed a thermometer.
Did he have a thermometer? He couldn’t remember.
He cringed as Lori screamed right into his ear and her little sobs shook her whole body.
“I know,” he cooed. “You poor kid.”
He bounced her gently as he paced his apartment. Well, it wasn’t really his apartment. It didn’t feel like his yet, anyway. He’d had it carpeted and furnished, but he hadn’t gotten to spend a lot of time there yet. It didn’t have a lived-in feel.
Logan was singing quietly under his breath. When had he started singing?
“What would you do if I sang outta tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me? Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song. I will try not to sing outta key.”
Her sobs softened a little, so he kept singing, kept rocking. He kissed her head and remembered something about kissing a kid’s head to see if they had a fever. Who had told him that? Surely it never would’ve occurred to his mother. Had he seen it on TV?
It didn’t matter. He’d try it.
Her head still felt hot. Fever. Definitely a fever, he decided. He didn’t know how bad a fever. Could you take a kid to the ER for a fever? Should you take a kid to the ER for a fever? Was that a panicked parent faux-pas?
Who the hell else could he call?
His cell phone rang and he looked around frantically.
“Where is it?” he gasped.
He checked his pockets, the counter, the coffee table. All the while it rang and rang.
“Alright, where’d your dumb dad leave his lifeline, Lor?” he muttered.
He found it on the kitchen table. He must’ve paced his way out there at some point. He felt a flood of relief when he saw Jess’s name come across the screen.
“Oh, thank God.”
He answered the call, cradling Lori carefully in one arm.
“Jess, hey.”
“Hey. What’s goin’ on?”
Jess sounded like he always did: kind of bored and slightly annoyed to be speaking. But Logan was happy to hear that voice.
“Oh, man. I’m unraveling over here,” he admitted. “I have Lori at my place. Well, my new place, and she seemed fine until about two hours ago. She just woke up screaming. I gave her some juice and some Cheerios to see if maybe she was hungry. Big mistake. She threw up everywhere, so I dealt with that. Then I changed her and that was another natural disaster that has yet to be named. But we dealt with that and she seems to be doing okay with the water I gave her. But she’s just miserable, and I think she has a fever. But I don’t have a thermometer – I don’t have anything here, man. I don’t know if I should maybe take her to the hospital or…”
Panic had been rising significantly in Logan’s voice as he talked, and Jess had listened carefully to pull out the facts.
“Okay, slow down,” he broke in. “How long ago did she throw up?”
“Uh… About an hour.”
“And the diaper situation?”
“Same.”
“Alright. What’d she eat today?”
“Uh… This stuff Rory packed. She didn’t seem to want to do a meal, so she was kind of snacking here and there. She had some yogurt, some cereal with milk, cereal without milk, applesauce. I tried to cut up a banana for her, but she didn’t go for that.”
“Oh, yeah. She doesn’t seem to like the texture,” Jess said. “Loves to mush it into the couch, though.”
Logan laughed.
“Yeah, I lost track of the banana pieces. That’ll be a fun surprise later.”
Jess sighed on the other end.
“She could just be sick. It happens. Do you have any liquid Tylenol or Motrin, anything like that?”
Logan tried to think.
“Uh, hang on.”
He set the phone down on the coffee table so he could hold Lori while he dug through the bag Rory had left him. He pulled out a storage bag with what looked like a medicine bottle in it.
“Flintstones vitamins,” he muttered.
He also found cream for diaper rash, band-aids, and a tiny tube of sunscreen. He rocked Lori as she let out another wail. He’d almost gotten used to it at this point. Logan walked quickly to his bathroom, knowing it was useless, but he had to check. After ransacking his medicine cabinet and bathroom cupboards, he finally got back to Jess on the coffee table.
“Jess?”
“Yeah.”
“Man, I got nothin’.”
There was a stretch of silence just long enough to make Logan’s heart pound just a little.
“Where’d you say you were again?” Jess asked.
-
Lorelai sat curled up on the couch in about four-thousand blankets.
Okay, it was more like four, but she’d literally grabbed every blanket she set her eyes on and wrapped them around herself like some crazy blanket hoarder. Crumpled tissues littered the coffee table. She’d given up on trying not to contaminate her surroundings as soon as Luke started sneezing.
The kettle whistled in the kitchen where he was making tea. They’d both given up on sleep hours ago, and they’d moved downstairs when trying to sit up in the bed failed to prevent the post-nasal drip or stave off the nausea.
“Alright,” Luke announced. “I double-brewed you a chamomile and put some ginger in there. It’s gonna taste disgusting, but there should be enough honey in there to make it tolerable.”
His gruff voice was hoarse and nasally. He set the red mug down in front of Lorelai and she rested her head back against the couch cushion.
“Ugh. What happened to the foamy chai?”
“That has caffeine.”
“So? I like caffeine. Caffeine and I are the oldest of friends. I could genuinely argue that caffeine was my first love.”
“And milk.”
“What did milk ever do to you?”
Luke grimaced as he sat down. His muscles were aching.
“Milk creates phlegm,” he explained, “which isn’t good when you’re already making your own.”
He gestured toward the tissue massacre on the table.
“It’s also bad for nausea,” he concluded.
He sipped his own plain mint tea. Lorelai sighed and picked up the mug.
“Fine. But this better make me feel better,” she muttered.
She sipped it. It was indeed disgusting and it did not make her feel better.
The doorbell made them both jump and look at each other.
“Are we expecting anybody?” Luke asked.
He genuinely wasn’t sure. Suki tended to drop by at odd hours. Sometimes Lane, but she normally called. Lorelai stared at the door.
“No. I don’t think so.”
Luke stood up, putting down his mug.
“What are you doing?” Lorelai hissed.
Luke paused mid-step around the coffee table.
“I’m answerin’ the door,” he said.
Lorelai looked horrified.
“Uh, no you’re not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Luke! Have you paid any attention at all to any horror movie ever made?”
Luke rolled his eyes as he headed for the door.
“No.”
Lorelai stood, shuffling past the coffee table trying not to drop any of the blankets and failing miserably. She trailed a train of blankets behind her as she tried to beat Luke to the door.
“Luke! Stop! We can’t answer the door if we don’t know who it is!”
“How the hell are we gonna know who it is if we don’t answer the door?” Luke demanded.
“Liv Tyler!” she cried.
Luke stopped and turned to her, a confused look on his face.
“Excuse me?”
Lorelai coughed and held up a finger to tell him to wait until she stopped. He did, but he glanced over his shoulder when the doorbell rang again.
“Lorelai.”
“Liv Tyler,” she repeated. “Liv Tyler got murdered horribly by those creepy mask people in The Strangers.”
“Oh my God,” he groaned. “What are you talking about?”
Lorelai smacked his arm.
“The Strangers! Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman go to this cabin and he’s in a tux, she’s in this beautiful dress, and he has everything all set up with candles and rose petals…”
Luke gave up and turned back toward the door. Lorelai got the rest out in a rush.
“And it’s super romantic and awkward because he asked her to marry him and she said no, but then somebody rings the doorbell and Scott Speedman answers and it’s this creepy girl and she’s all ‘Is Tamra home?’ but they don’t even know Tamra.”
“I’ve aged fifty years standing here. What is your point?” Luke barked.
“They got murdered, Luke! Like, really hardcore murdered. I am Liv Tyler in this scenario, and it’s worse for her because she didn’t even answer the door and she got murdered anyway.”
Luke paused to think about that.
“Wait a minute, if they both got horribly murdered, how is it worse for her than for him?”
Lorelai sighed, annoyed.
“Because she wasn’t the one who answered the door, inviting the murder into the house!”
With a huff, Luke opened the door.
Jess blinked back at him.
“Hey. Sorry, I thought you guys were up.”
“We are,” Luke said. “What’d you just get in? You get into the apartment okay?”
Jess frowned.
“You didn’t get my texts?”
“No,” Luke said. “What texts? What’s goin’ on?”
Lorelai came up behind Luke. Her nose was red and raw.
“Hey Jess,” she said. “Everything okay?”
“Here, come in,” Luke said.
He stepped aside. Jess took in the scene as he walked into the house.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
Luke shut the door.
“What? Oh. I dunno, some kind of bug.”
“The flu,” Lorelai insisted.
“It’s not the flu,” Luke argued.
“It feels like the flu!” she called.
She coughed as she headed back to the couch, flopping down with her mountain of blankets.
“We got flu shots. It’s not the flu,” Luke said.
“Actually, just because you get the shot that doesn’t mean you won’t get the flu,” Jess said.
Luke gave Jess a wide-eyed look.
“What are you doing to me?” he whispered.
Luke had been trying to convince Lorelai she didn’t have the flu, even though admittedly it did feel an awful lot like the flu.
“See? I told you!” Lorelai said.
“It’s not the flu!” Luke called.
He coughed and Jess backed up a step.
“Well, this explains Lori,” he muttered.
Luke frowned.
“Lori?”
“Yeah. Logan’s got her and she’s sick.”
“Oh no,” Lorelai said. “Oh, poor Lori.”
“Poor Logan,” Luke added.
“Oof. Yeah, that’s not gonna be pretty,” Lorelai agreed.
Jess shoved his hands in his jacket pockets.
“Yeah, he needs something for her fever. I guess he hasn’t completely moved into his place in Hartford yet. I figured I’d run him over some stuff.”
Luke and Lorelai looked at one another and Luke studied Jess.
“You’re gonna run a few things over to Logan,” he repeated.
Jess looked from him to Lorelai and shrugged.
“Yeah.”
Lorelai laughed.
“Oh, boy. If my granddaughter wasn’t sick and I wasn’t actively trying not to puke this would be a little funny.”
“Wait, why’d he call you?” Luke asked.
Jess sighed.
“He didn’t want to bother Rory ‘cause she’s working that thing in D.C., he didn’t want to freak you guys out, so he called me. Anymore questions? Can I loot your house for sick toddler supplies now?”
“Okay, but leave the liquor and the cash,” Lorelai said. “I got big plans for those.”
-
Logan’s right shoulder was killing him. Any time he put Lori down she started screaming. At least if he held her she seemed to stop now and then. Singing seemed to help, too, but he was running out of songs he knew all the words to.
“Alright, how ‘bout this one?” he said. “Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play? Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day. The sun is up, the sky is blue. It’s beautiful and so are you. Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play?”
He searched his brain for the words.
“Dear Prudence… Dear Prudence… Fuck, how’s the rest go?”
He cringed and looked down at his daughter, her face all red and puffy.
“Ooh. I probably shouldn’t say ‘fuck,’ huh? That’s probably a bad dad move.”
She scrunched up her little face, her lower lip trembling. Logan held her close to his chest and rocked her.
“Okay, no more Prudence.”
-
Logan’s apartment was in Hartford. Expectedly, the building was nice. Modern. It didn’t have the charm of the New York City apartment building Jess lived in that dated back to the 1800s.
Logan buzzed him in as soon as he rang. Jess hopped into the elevator carrying a grocery bag of supplies in one hand and a big stuffed bunny in the other.
When Jess knocked he heard Logan’s quick footsteps and Lori’s inconsolable crying. Logan opened the door with Lori in his arms. They both looked worse for wear. Logan gave a strained smile.
“Please tell me you’re here to rescue me.”
“I’ll do my best,” Jess said.
He came into the apartment and shut the door.
“I just… I can’t get her to stop crying,” Logan said. “I mean, she has these, like, tiny moments where she stops for a second, but I think it’s just to get more air.”
“Yeah, when she’s sick she’s a totally different kid,” Jess said.
He set the bag and bunny down on the coffee table.
“Want me to take her for a minute?” Jess asked.
“Yeah, go for it,” Logan said.
Logan carefully handed Lori over and Jess held her against his chest.
“Hey, sweet baby girl,” he said. “What’s going on, pal?”
Lori buried her face in his neck and he touched her head and her back. She was sweating and warm. She sobbed and cried. Jess moved side to side to rock her a bit.
“Alright, you’re okay,” he said.
He turned to Logan.
“Go into that bag right there and get the thermometer please.”
Logan nodded and rifled through the bag. He came back with an ear thermometer. Jess took it.
“You turn this on, wait for it to start flashing, then you put this part in her ear, wait for it to beep.”
Logan nodded and watched as Jess took Lori’s temperature. When it beeped they both looked at the screen.
“Oof,” Logan said. “A hundred and two.”
Jess handed him the thermometer.
“Yup. Go back in the bag and get the Infant Tylenol and the little plastic syringe.”
Logan pulled out the box of Tylenol and read the back.
“So I just suck it into the syringe. Got it.”
Logan went into the kitchen to prepare the dose while Jess rocked Lori. She still fussed, but she’d stopped screaming. Logan came back with the syringe.
“You gotta show me how you got her to stop crying,” he said.
“I just rock her side to side like this. Almost like you’re swaying more than rocking. Puts her to sleep too.”
Logan handed Jess the syringe.
“I’m assuming there’s a technique to this.”
Jess smiled.
“Not really. Just hope she swallows it before she realizes it tastes like shit.”
Jess held up the syringe in demonstration and Logan watched as he repositioned Lori and put the plastic syringe between her lips. In a moment the liquid was gone.
“Look at that. What a trooper,” Jess said.
He shrugged, handing Logan back the syringe.
“That’s all there is to it.”
Logan nodded.
“That’s gonna take care of her fever?”
“It should,” Jess said. “Just wait and see. I also brought some other stuff and that bunny’s one of her favorite snuggle buddies.”
“Awesome. Thanks, man.”
Logan stretched his neck.
“Hey, do you mind if I hit the bathroom?” he asked.
“No. Do what you gotta do,” Jess said.
He sat down on the couch with Lori.
-
Rory took a break from typing to wipe her nose, which had been running pretty steadily for most of the day. She tried to focus on the piece she was writing. Her laptop screen seemed so bright. Her eyes stung.
Her phone dinged on the bed beside her and she picked it up to read the screen.
Mom:
What does the flu feel like?
Rory frowned and typed out her reply.
Rory:
Dare I ask?
Lorelai:
Does it feel dizzy and sweaty and maybe slightly pukey?
Rory called her mother, who answered immediately.
“Hi. I might be dying.”
Luke yelled out in the background.
“You’re not dying! She’s not dying, Rory.”
Rory tried not to laugh.
“Well, now I’m all confused.”
Lorelai sighed.
“We’re sick, kid. Like, really sick. Room spinning, head throbbing, stomach churning. Luke’s bones are aching.”
“Ick.”
That didn’t bode well for Rory’s runny nose.
“Indeed. Huge ick,” Lorelai agreed. “And I need to apologize in advance for infecting Lori.”
“Lori? Oh, no!”
“You promised you wouldn’t say anything,” Luke called.
“I can’t not tell her, Luke!” Lorelai replied.
“Tell me what? What happened?” Rory asked.
“All I know is she’s sick. I’m expecting a full report soon.”
Rory stood from the bed, laptop forgotten.
“How sick?” she asked.
“I don’t know, honey.”
She broke away for a coughing fit and Rory had to hold the phone away from her ear.
“Mom?”
She heard Luke talking, but didn’t catch what he was saying.
“Hello? Mom? Luke? Axe murderer?”
“Hey, Rory,” Luke said. “Sorry. Your mom’s hacking up a lung because she dumped my tea in the sink.”
“What?”
“That tea was disgusting!” Lorelai called.
Another coughing fit commenced in the background.
“Is she okay?” Rory asked.
“Yeah. She’s getting a cough drop out of her purse.”
“Oh, God. That could take a while.”
“Oh, she dumped it all over the floor already.”
“Yikes.”
Rory looked out the window of her hotel room. There wasn’t much of a view. She was on one of the lower floors, so she could see a dumpster and a parking lot.
“So, what happened with Lori?” she asked.
“Well, Jess came by--”
“Jess?”
“Yeah, I guess Logan called him to ask for some help.”
Rory creased her brows, not sure she understood correctly.
“Logan called Jess?” she asked.
“I know, must’ve been desperate.”
“Why wouldn’t he call me?”
“I guess he didn’t want to worry anybody. Maybe he’s embarrassed. Kid’s used to being good at everything. But, being dad takes practice, you know?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“He’ll get it,” Luke said. “And Lori’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be a rough night, but she will get better and she will be fine.”
Rory smiled.
“Thanks, Luke. I’m gonna call Logan.”
“Oh, you can’t call Logan because your mom promised not to tell you.”
Rory rolled her eyes.
-
When Logan came out of the bathroom Jess was sitting on the couch holding Lori, patting her back with the TV on low. Logan looked at the screen.
“What’s this, Law and Order?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter what you put on. She likes the TV. I think if it’s too quiet it freaks her out.”
“Right,” Logan said.
He studied the other man, who looked so natural sitting there holding Lori, so calm. Logan was a mess. He felt a pang of envy, but he also felt humbled.
“How do you do it, man?” Logan asked.
Jess looked up at him.
“You’re good with her,” Logan said. “Look at her, she’s feeling like crap but she looks so relaxed, ready to sleep.”
Jess shrugged.
“I’ve just had more practice,” he said.
He looked at Logan for a moment.
“I just know her routine, what she likes, what she doesn’t like. You just need more time with her.”
“Yeah, well, if I could clone myself that’d be no problem.”
Logan flopped down on the couch beside him and looked down at his daughter.
“That’s the thing,” Jess said. “It will be a problem.”
Logan frowned at him.
“Right now she doesn’t get it,” Jess said. “She’s little. All she knows is who’s around a lot and who’s not around a lot. So you have time to figure out who you want to be. You wanna be the guy his daughter wants at all her soccer games and birthdays? Great. Then be that guy. Or you’re gonna be the guy who works a lot and sends her expensive gifts she doesn’t want because you don’t know what she likes.”
Then Jess looked up, and Logan was ready to be mad at him. But the look on Jess’s face was sincere and warm, if a little hard.
“Don’t be the guy she can’t count on,” Jess said. “You don’t have to know what medicine to give her, or what her favorite stuffed animal is. You just have to be there.”
Logan nodded. Jess shifted to hold Lori out to him.
“You wanna take her?”
Logan was nervous to disturb the tranquility that had descended since Jess came in the door.
“She might start screaming.”
“She might,” Jess agreed.
Logan considered it and sighed.
“Alright, Lori. Cut your dad some slack. He’s kind of a dipshit.”
Jess handed her over and Logan cradled her like Jess had. She stirred and fussed, so he put her back on his shoulder. Jess stood.
“Keep an eye on the fever,” Jess said. “If it doesn’t come down in a few hours, call Rory. You might have to take Lori to the hospital, and Rory will be pissed if you don’t tell her.”
Logan nodded.
“Let’s hope we don’t have to go that route.”
Jess watched him for a few seconds.
“I’m gonna get going,” Jess said. “You got this.”
Logan smiled.
“Thanks, Jess. Seriously.”
Jess gave a nod and headed out the door. As he shut it he heard Logan singing to his daughter.