47"Luke," He heard Jess whisper. Luke looked down in time to see Jess completely pass out. He took Jess' phone out of his pockets and called 911.
Luke explained what had happened to the people on the phone as clearly as he could in the panic he was in.
He'd just watched someone fall into a wood chipper, his nephew was unconscious and had a gash on his head that was still bleeding and he was still wearing the ridiculous rainbow clothes! He silently cursed Flower Child.
The woman told him to remain calm; someone was on his or her way.
He looked down at Jess and noted he was still in the stupid clothes too. He chuckled, despite the situation, at the thought of how Jess would react when he woke up and noticed what he was wearing.
In front of people.
He remembered something his father taught him once when he was a kid about if someone was unconscious. He crouched down in front of Jess again and moved him into the recovery position so he didn't choke or whatever it was supposed to prevent.
He glanced back over the field and saw the guy who was stood on the other side of the wood chipper covered in blood. He also noted Flower Child and the others who were in the line were kneeling down and talking to the ground except one guy, Luke thought he looked vaguely familiar but he couldn't tell from this distance. The guy looked over at him and started running up to Luke and Jess. As he got closer Luke realized it was Matt, Jess' friend who works at Truncheon with him. Matt was wearing a green top with yellow and orange swirls with green tracksuit bottoms; he had little specks of red on the side of the top and pants. Luke tried not to think what it was.
"Hey Mr. Danes- Jess?"
"Call me Luke," Luke said quietly.
"Sorry, Luke, what happened to him? Did he eat too many of Flower's 'relaxing' brownies?" He rolled his eyes at the last bit.
"'Relaxing brownies'?"
"They have cannabis in. I haven't had any," He said the last bit in his defense, holding his hands up as he said it.
"Oh, no he didn't have any brownies,"
"Then what-" He leant down to look at him closer and saw the blood.
"Oh my god! What happened?" He yelled as he crouched down next to his head, examining the cut.
"We were screwing around and he said something and I pushed him and he hit his head on a piece of wood sticking out of the grass. I didn't see the wood, honestly! I didn't mean to hurt him!" Luke rambled.
"Is he okay?" Matt asked, his voice laced with concern.
"I-I don't know. He woke up and I helped him up and he tried walking and just almost collapsed again, then he saw the thing that happened to Susan and he passed out! - You don't think I did it on purpose, do you?" He asked, suddenly realizing how intentional this looked.
"No! God, no! Of course not! I've seen you with Jess. You looked like you were going to have a panic attack when he climbed onto that really rocky table to put curtains up, you kept hovering right behind him in case he fell,"
"Oh yeah," Luke smiled at the memory; every time the table had rocked slightly he almost had a heart attack and jumped forward with his hand out to steady Jess.
"I know you'd never hurt him intentionally!" Matt said honestly.
"Oh, good," Luke sighed in relief, "You think the hospital will believe that?" He asked as a second thought.
"Well, if not, when Jess wakes up he can explain and if, for some reason, he doesn't wake up- straight away!"-He added the last bit at Luke's sudden worried look, -"Then I'll tell 'em you didn't mean to hurt him," He reassured him.
Matt liked Luke, he was always willing to help out or fix shelves and stuff at Truncheon and the roof when it leaks (pretty much every time it rains) without asking for anything in return, although Jess always buys him dinner or something as thanks.
Luke sighed, "Thanks Matt," He smiled.
Luke liked Matt too, him and Jess were close and Jess liked him so when he'd first met him he was pretty sure he'd like him too, Jess had a pretty good judge of character… nowadays. Luke always shuddered whenever he thought about some of the kids he saw Jess hang out with when he visited him in New York. Well, sometimes not kids, more like 25or 30 year olds who had a thing for corrupting younger people like Jess.
Three ambulances showed up twenty minutes later, one took Jess while the other two took one person who was trying to save Susan and got their hand caught in the machine and another who'd got trampled on by a startled cow.
Luke was allowed to go in the ambulance with Jess so he gave Matt his car keys so he could meet them at the hospital. He trusted Matt not to run off with it or drive it into a post.
When they got there, Jess was taken into a room for tests while Luke waited in the waiting room for Matt.
When he got there Luke filled him in on what he knew which was basically 'they're doing some tests' and that's pretty much it. They waited in silence until a doctor approached them, looking somber.
"Are you Jess' family?" He asked.
"Yeah, is everything okay?" Luke answered wringing his hands.
"I'm afraid Jess is in a coma, the chances of her ever waking up are very slim,"
Luke sat back down and stared at the floor in front of him.
"Wait," Matt spoke up, "You said the chances of her ever waking up are very slim," He pointed out.
The doctor looked confused, "You are Jessica Acre's brothers, right?"
"No, I'm Jess Mariano's uncle. Jess is a boy," Luke clarified.
The doctor looked very embarrassed, "Oh, I'm so sorry, wrong family," He got up and quickly moved away.
"Wait," Luke called him back. He stopped and turned back.
"So, is Jess okay?" The doctor just shrugged and walked off again.
"What a moron!" Matt complained, appalled, "Who does that!"
Luke just stared off after the doctor, "I wonder if that's a legitimate reason to sued him?"
"You should!" Matt advised, shaking his head and sitting back down.
About fifteen minutes later another doctor, a female this time, came up to them. She was skinny and had long wavy blond hair. She was very young looking, around Jess' age. She pulled a chair up so she was sat in front of them.
"Hello, are you Jess Mariano's Uncle?" She asked.
"Yeah Jess Mariano," Luke replied, putting emphasis on his last name. The doctor looked slightly confused as to why so Matt explained.
"Another doctor came up to us a while ago and told us Jess was in a coma but he meant someone called 'Jess Acres',"
"Oh, wow, what doctor was it?" She asked, horrified.
"Not sure what his name was," Matt stated before seeing the doctor on the other side of the waiting room talking to a guy who started crying, he assumed it was Jess Acres' brother.
"Oh. Him," He pointed him out to the female doctor.
"Oh, that's Donnie, he's an intern, that's not an excuse! He's not all that bright, I'm so sorry," She said, genuinely.
"I'm Doctor Johanna Harvelle by the way," She held her hand out to Luke, who shook it, and then Matt.
"So, your nephew-" She stopped and looked at Matt, "Um, as his uncle, you have the right to decide if he should be here to hear this or not," She asked, shooting Matt an apologetic look, clearly trying to be as nice as possible. Luke liked her, she seemed to actually care.
"Oh yeah, sure," Luke agreed.
"Okay, so, your nephew has a lot of stitches but we'll have to wait until he's awake to see if there has been any brain damage, it may help if you, maybe both of you if you're both close to him, were present when he wakes up,"
"Um, sure," Luke said, he was slightly taken aback by the thought of accidentally giving his nephew brain damage.
"Yeah, me too," Matt answered.
Doctor Harvelle smiled and said, "I'll let you know when he wakes up," She rested her hand on Luke's before getting up and leaving.
Ten minutes later, Dr. Harvelle came back and led them to a patient room. When they walked in Luke notices Jess was still wearing the colorful clothes and was staring down at them, confused. He looked up when he heard the door close.
"Hey Uncle Luke," He greeted.
"Okay, good start," Dr. Harvelle muttered, making a note on a clipboard.
"Mr. Mariano, I just need you to answer a few questions for me, okay?" She said, sitting on the edge on the bed, motioning for Luke and Matt to sit on the chairs on either side of the bed. Matt went round to the left side of the bed while Luke sat on the right.
"Sure," Jess shrugged, "Oh, but can I ask one question first?"
"Of course," She encouraged.
"Why am I wearing clothes that look like they're made of rainbow guts?"
Luke sniggered, "I'll explain later,"
After Jess shrugged to Luke and turned his attention back to her, smiling at her, Dr. Harvelle asked, "Okay, what's your full name?"
"Jess Lucas Mariano," He looked at Luke when he said his middle name, watching for a reaction, as Luke didn't know Liz middle named him after him.
"Okay, age?"
"23,"
Date of birth?"
"August 15th, 1988,"
"Address?"
"601 Market Street, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,"
"Where did you grow up?"
"Manhattan, New York,"
"Are you married?"
"No,"
Luke could have sworn her eyes lit up slightly at that, "In a relationship?"
"Yeah,"
Her eyes dimmed again, "For how long?"
"Um, six years,"
"What's his or her name?"
"Rory,"
"So you're homosexual?"
"No, Rory's short for Lorelai,"
"Oh sorry. Do you recognize him?" She indicated to Luke.
"Yeah,"
"What's his full name?"
"Lucas Danes,"
She paused, "Were you named after him? Your middle name?"
"Yeah,"
"Him?" She pointed to Matt.
"Yeah,"
"Full Name?"
"Matthew Cohen,"
"Okay, what's your Mother's name?"
"Liz Danes,"
"Your father?"
"Jimmy Mariano,"
"Any siblings?"
"One sister,"
"How old is she?"
"Two,"
"Her name?"
"Doula Desmunda Anders,"
"Okay, do you remember what happened to get you here?"
Jess paused, "Um, no,"
"Do you remember where you were at the time?"
"No,"
"Do you remember who you were with?"
"No,"
She wrote something down before asking, "What's the last thing you remember?"
He thought for a minute before saying, "Um, meeting up with Luke to go… talk to someone,"
"Do you remember who?"
"No,"
"Do you remember what time?"
"Around two-ish?" He looked at Luke to confirm it. He nodded back.
"Okay, thank you," She got up after writing one more thing on her clipboard, "I'm just going to go give someone this, I'll be back when I know something," She smiled and winked at Jess, who simply smiled back.
"I'm going to go get some coffee, glad you're okay Jess," Matt said, getting up to follow her. Jess smiled and waved at him as he left.
After they left the room Luke said, "Why did you smile at her?"
Jess looked confused, "Why shouldn't I?"
"You're with Rory," Luke stated.
"So you say every time I'm moderately nice to any another girl on the planet. I can't exactly be mean to her, she might give me a lethal injection or something!"
Luke laughed, "Yeah, because you're that irresistible,"
"I know," He said, smugly.
"So… you really don't remember anything after coming to meet me?"
"No, what happened? My head hurts," He lifted his hand up to the gauze on his head.
"I'm so sorry!"
"Why? Did I piss you off so much you hit me round the head with a brick?" He joked. Luke looked slightly awkward.
"Oh my god, am I really that annoying?" Jess said, shocked.
"No! No, we were talking and-" He was cut off by his cell phone ringing.
Lorelai.
"One sec," He said to Jess before answering it.
"Hel-"
"Luke! Oh my god! Luke!"
"Lorelai, what's wrong?"
"It, we, I- oh god!"
"Lorelai, calm down!"
Jess looked up, worried.
"Where are you?"
"I'm with Jess at-"
"Put me on speaker!"
"Okay," Luke told Jess what Lorelai said as he did.
"Jess?"
"Yeah?" Jess answered.
"Oh god! I- I don't know what happened! One minute we were just talking and the next-" She suddenly stopped talking and started sobbing uncontrollably.
"Who?"
"M-me, Rory, Mrs. Kim, Lane,"
"What happened?" Jess asked, he was panicking slightly after hearing Rory's name.
"God, that dick!" Was all they could make out from her insane babbling.
"Where are you?" Luke demanded.
"At the house,"
"Okay, I'll be there in-" Luke started before looking at Jess.
"I'll be there as soon as I can,"
"Luke, just go, I'll be fine-"
"No! I'm the reason you're in here,"
"What's going on? You guys get arrested or something?" Lorelai's voice yelled from the speaker of Luke's phone.
"I'll explain later,"
"Okay, get here as soon as you can," Lorelai said before hanging up.
"Okay, what happened?" Jess asked.
Luke quickly explained what happened on the field and how sorry he was.
"It's cool, it was just an accident," Jess insisted.
"Really? You're not mad I knocked you out and giving you short term memory loss?"
"Nope,"
"Huh, this coming from the kid who sulked at the age of 17 when I clipped him round the head for smoking,"
Jess laughed.
Luke lingered for a second, "Um, do you still smoke?"
Jess paused, probably weighing out his options of lying against the consequence of him finding out before saying, "Yeah,"
Luke glared at him.
"Shouldn't we be more worried about Lorelai and Rory right now?"
"Oh, crap, yeah!"
They went to the desk to see when Jess could be discharged and signed the papers before leaving.
They got to the house and went in to the living room to find Lorelai and Rory sat on the couch, crying and hugging each other.
They both hurried up to their girlfriends and hugged them, not bothering to ask why they were crying.
Rory calmed down first.
"Jess?" She whimpered into his t-shirt.
"Yeah?"
"Why are you wearing hippie clothes?"
Jess and Luke looked down and realized they hadn't changed.
"Not important," Jess dismissed, looking up at Luke on the other side of the girls.
Luke sighed, "I'll explain later, what's wrong?"
"Me, Mom, Lane and Mrs. Kim were at the shop and someone came in and-" She started crying again.
"He had a gun and he grabbed Lane," Lorelai carried on for her, "He threatened to shoot her if we didn't give him money and everything valuable," She shuddered, "Lane struggled and he hit her over the head with the gun and Mrs. Kim flipped and the guy panicked and-"
The rest was incoherent again and Jess and Luke exchanged a very worried look but didn't push them.
"She's dead, she's dead, she's dead," Rory muttered again and again to Jess' chest, still clinging to the bright shirt.
"Who? Lane or Mrs. Kim?" Jess asked as soothing as he could under the circumstances.
"Mrs. Kim," She shuddered, "And Zack is hurt and so is Brian!" She cried even more and Jess hugged her closer, stroking her hair.
Luke whispered soothing things to Lorelai, trying to get her to calm down. After a while both their crying at turned to quiet sobs. Rory looked up to try and smile at Jess and noticed the gauze for the first time.
"Oh, my god! What happened?" She turned so one leg was tucked underneath her so she could face him, put one hand on his shoulder and lifted the other to the gauze but didn't touch it incase it hurt.
"It's nothing," Jess shrugged, taking her hand away.
"It doesn't look like nothing!" Lorelai intervened when she saw it.
Luke cleared his throat, "It's my fault,"
They all looked at him.
"It was an accident," Both the boys said in unison.
The girls gave them a curious look and, without looking at each other, slipped off the couch at the same time and sat in front of the other two.
"Spill!" They demanded simultaneously.
Jess sighed, "We were screwing around and I said something and he pushed me over as a joke and there was a bit of wood sticking out of the ground. I hit my head on it. That's it,"
Rory was about to say something when her cell phone rang.
Hospital
"Twice in one day," Jess muttered as Rory gripped his hand tighter. All four of them headed over to the nurse's station.
"Hi, we're looking for Mrs. Kim?" Rory said to the very grumpy looking nurse. She looked like Grumpy, one of the seven dwarfs; she had the droopy face too.
"First name?"
Rory stopped. She had no idea.
"Lyn," Lorelai said, stepping closer.
"Okay, are you relatives?"
"Yes, I'm her niece, this is my brother," She pointer to Luke, "My daughter," Rory, "And my nephew, his son," She gestured to Jess for the first bit then Luke, insinuating Jess was Luke's son. Jess waved at the nurse just to be weird.
She looked down and lifted a sheet on a clipboard to read the one underneath it. "It says here Mrs. Kim in Korean," The nurse gave them a suspicious look.
"Yes, we're adopted. Her brother, Yinn, adopter us. Well, him, and me, we made the others. Not together because that would be incest but we made them with other people and, well-"
"Lore," Luke muttered, stopping her rambling.
"O-Kay, if you don't mind I'd like to wait for her daughter to come and confirm this,"
"Okay, fine, great, Lane'll back us up," Rory said, pulling Jess over to the plastic chairs as Lorelai did the same with Luke. Lorelai sat next to Rory and Luke sat on Lorelai's other side.
"Lyn Kim?" Rory asked.
"Trust me, I was as shocked as you twenty something years ago when I found out,"
Rory chuckled slightly.
"Yinn?"
"Hey, that's a name!"
Rory was about to argue that is wasn't but Jess spoke up first, "It's a dark negative feminine principle in Chinese dualistic cosmology,"
They all stared at him like he had spoken a different language; he tried to defend himself but was interrupted.
"Hello," Jess and Luke heard a familiar voice say.
They turned round and saw Dr. Harvelle walking up to them; she sat in the chair next to Jess.
"Are you feeling okay? What are you doing back here?"
"I'm fine, a friend's here, I came to see them,"
"Your girlfriend?" She looked hopeful and everyone but Jess picked up on it.
"No, just a friend,"
"Oh," she looked disappointed and, again, they all saw it except Jess.
"What's their name, maybe I can help you out,"
Jess was about to accept her offer when he remembered they'd told the nurse Luke was his dad but she knew he was his Uncle.
"No thanks, we've got it covered," He answered.
She was quiet for a second before saying, "Oh, right, I get it. A friend. Hospital policy wont let you see 'em if it's just a friend so you lied and said you were family, didn't you,"
Rory, Lorelai and Luke shared a panicked look but Jess just shrugged. Non-committal. He was good at being non-committal; it came in handy when you're lying. He'd learnt that trick when he was about 12.
"It's cool, I won't rat you out, promise, come on, tell me their name and I'll take you to see them," She nudged his arm playfully. Lorelai and Luke heard Rory growl quietly.
"Thanks. Lyn Kim,"
"Lyn. Kim?" She repeated.
"Yep, I know, weird,"
"Yeah, just a little," She said, giggling, "Come on,"
"Hey! I need to confirm they're family!" The nurse called to Dr. Harvelle who was leading Jess, Rory, Lorelai and Luke to the elevator.
"It's cool, Gretchen, I know them," She assured her and continued into the elevator.
"She needs to get laid," She muttered to them as the doors closed. Jess sniggered.
"I'm afraid she's not looking too good," Dr. Harvelle said to the group. They were in the waiting room and were waiting for her to get back after she said she'd go find some more information out.
Rory looked down sadly and gripped Jess' hand. Dr. Harvelle noticed and looked slightly disappointed, realizing who Rory was.
"What do you mean?" Lorelai pushed.
"Well, she has tubes to help her breath and eat, the bullet went through her lung and they had to rush her into surgery to fix it, her chances of surviving are very slim," She looked genuinely sorry. She told them she had to tend to another patient before placing a hand on Jess' arm and walking away.
"Rory! Jess! Lorelai! Luke!"
They all turned to see Lane running towards them, narrowly avoiding an old man in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank attached to the side. She apologized to him profusely before running off again. When she got close they noticed she'd taken her glasses off and her eyes were reddened, most likely from crying.
"Thank you guys so much for coming," She hugged Rory and Lorelai. She stared at Jess, as if debating whether to hug him or not before shrugging and throwing her arms round his shoulders. When she let go she also hugged Luke before looking at the boys.
"Uhm, what are you wearing?" She asked, pointing to the shirts.
"Damn it, we forgot to change again!" Jess said.
"Not that I'm arguing with the trousers…" Lane pointed out, they all look down and remembered they were wearing really skinny jeans.
"So, what happened to Zack and Brian?" Luke asked, changing the subject.
"Oh, when the guy that tried to shoot me hit me, Zack and momma tried to help and he shot them and Brian tried to get me away from him while he was concentrating on momma and Zack and the guy panicked and shot Brian," Lane looked close to tears.
"Are they okay?" Lorelai asked.
"Brian only got shot in the leg so he'll be discharged as soon as he wakes up and they give him a check over. Zack was shot in the shoulder so he'll be discharged too. They haven't told me anything about momma yet,"
"Uhm, well…" Luke started then all four of them looked at the floor as if it had just screamed at them.
"Guys?" Lane prompted.
"Uhm, I'm gonna go get coffee," Lorelai claimed before running off.
"I'll help!" Luke went after her.
That left Jess and Rory stood awkwardly under Lane's intense scrutiny.
"Well," Lane tried to provoke again.
"Jess, you're the man, you do it," Rory nudged him forwards.
"But you're her best friend!" He retorted.
"So it'll be harder for me!"
Jess glared at Rory until Lane hit his arm.
"Jess! What's going on?"
Jess sighed before speaking, "She has tubes to help her breath and eat, the bullet went through her lung and they had to rush her into surgery to fix it, her chances of surviving are very slim,"
Lane stared at him for, what felt to all three of them, like an eternity before breaking down, screaming incoherently. Rory automatically dropped to the floor next to her and held her while Jess stood awkwardly looking down at the girls and around him, not sure what to do.
Then they heard a long high-pitched whine.
They all froze as nurses and doctors all flooded into Mrs. Kim's room.
A/N: Wow that took a while. Hope you liked it. R&R xx
