Title: Pulse
Rating: R
Date Started: 5-16-07
Date Finished: 5-20-07
Summary: He was the force that shook her, kept her human. Through her chest, veins, cheeks, lips. She did always live to please. Future Fic. Literati.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls. The rights belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino and the WB. Not mine.
A/N: This is my first GG fic but it's not the first time I've written fanfiction before. I've been a fan of the show for a long time but I stopped watching after ASP stopped writing the series. This will be a multi-chapter story, with the first chapter's focus mainly on Rory.
Chapter One: Where Have You Been
1422 Broadbank Avenue was a tiny apartment in one of the limitless city blocks that made up the sprawling urban landscape of New York city. The walls in said apartment weren't exactly paper thin, but the flimsy compound of dry wall and insulation did little to console the unprotected feeling that Rory Gilmore knew all too well.
Autumn was approaching the city in the glow of orange leaves around central park and the cool breeze that would soon blow into a gust-filled winter as September rolled into the year's cooler seasons. The change itself was welcome to the young journalist; new job, new apartment, new people, new season.
Rory locked the door to her apartment behind her as she flicked on the low-watt bulb that hummed from an outdated light fixture, illuminating a somewhat organized spread of boxes filled with personal items. Ripping the clear packing tape from one of the many boxes, Rory ignored whatever long-ago marking she had left on it's side. It was one of those unvisited capsules from some love or another; just another box, another apartment, another city, another chance.
Upon first inspection she saw that it contained books, and perhaps a few other things. A leather wristband, some alternative cd's, a nearly disintegrated piece of chalk, a retro styled red dress with white polka-dots, and a ticket to a concert with the date sometime in the winter of her senior year of high school. Every book in the box had the same style cover and clean white binding, all of them authored by Ernest Hemingway. All but one, one of the books had a midnight black cover with the authors name printed in faint violet letters: Jess Mariano.
Rory sighed deeply. Checking the label, she saw that it was her "Jess Box" from years and years ago; only a few additions had been made until Rory had put the box, and Jess, out of her life.
Book in hand, Rory slid her laptop over to her across the hardwood floor. She pulled up a google search and punched in Truncheon Publishing, not really knowing what to expect.
Surprisingly, a header page came up with a selection of three main houses or publishing locations. Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. New York? New . . . York. Rory felt a little scared and–guiltily–excited. She knew who had probably pushed New York. She knew who had the intuition, the life experience . . . she knew who was the head of the New York branch before the page had even begun to load on her high-speed internet connection.
And there it was, a picture of the New York house, which was really just an artsy storefront somewhere in the city that could have been someone's home previously, before the price of real-estate had risen to ridiculous levels. It struck her as cultured, older, cool. Rory scribbled down the address without thinking about it consciously, moving her mouse to click on the tab that stemmed from the menu bar that read: Authors.
They were alphabetized, about thirteen names in all. Each name was a link to the authors personal page within the Truncheon website. Pausing halfway down the list, Rory clicked on Mariano, Jess and waited as it led her to a description of his book–the same book she still held in her hand–and an About The Author segment.
Anxiously scrolling, the first thing Rory saw was a photograph. It had been taken by an armature color camera, but the intensity that exploded from the image couldn't be muffled by shaky hands or shitty resolution. Jess looked at her half over his shoulder, his hair rumpled and shaggy as it pointed in eight million different directions, a few pieces curling and falling into his eyes. She could see the outline of his infamous leather jacket, popped collar, crude zipper, snug on his young and proportionate body. Barely visible due to his meticulously styled hair was the faint presence of a cigarette tucked behind his ear, unlit. The scenery behind him was blurred, by accident perhaps? Well, if it was an accident then whoever had taken the picture had ended up with an attractive surprise. Jess stood as a long figure of dark intelligence. Behind him swirled a myriad of unfocused colors; none of them stood out in any noticeable form in comparison with the pictures central focus.
Blunt, smoldering, captivating, moody, extreme . . . Rory wondered if her favorite Jess-related additives accurately described how she was feeling at the moment. Inevitably, she exhaled and turned her focus to the three paragraphs or so that actually told her something about Jess that she might not already know.
Most of it was general; it wrote about where her personal Dark Horse had grown up, the places he'd lived, what he liked to read and write about, nothing Rory didn't already know at least on a impersonal, subconscious level. Just when she was about to close out the page, a few lines toward the bottom jumped out at her. In summation, it stated that Jess currently lived in New York where he ran that particular branch of Truncheon Publishing. It also listed that he was working on a new writing project that was expected to come out in the coming spring.
--
Rory went to work for her new job that week at a magazine stationed mainly in the city. The work required little travel compared to her first gig as a journalist; one that she had only been able to endure for a little over a year. The steady nine-to-five ebb and flow of her new work environment left Rory with a lot of unclaimed free time that she was unsure of adjusting to. It seemed like she hadn't had free time since before she had begun attending Chilton. It felt like nearly every moment of her life after that point–until now–had been planned but still hurried with the daunting task of getting into, and completing, college; her future always on the horizon. Even in her first year as a real reporter, Rory had practically dedicated her life to proving that she was a legitimate journalist; a positive contribution to society, an adult. But now, after she had conquered college and secured her place in the news circuit, what did she have left to strive for?
Rory brushed it off. It was ok to slow down for a year or two. There was always time to think about changing the world some other night. Just not right now, not tonight. Tonight Rory was going to do something she'd been meaning to for much too long. Setting down comfortably for one of her sadly abandoned "alone nights", Rory squished around on her couch with a stack of Ernest Hemingway perched somewhat awkwardly on her leather-topped coffee table, randomly extracting A Farewell to Arms and flicking off the less-than-useable overhead light in favor of the glow of her glassy TV screen as Almost Famous opened the same way it had all those years ago when she had watched in nearly four times in a row. Except, those first four times, she hadn't been alone.
--
"I love you."
Nineteen-year-old Rory Gilmore stood rooted tot he spot, staring directly into the eyes of Jess Mariano as silent, wet tears streamed down her face like vats of unwilling blood from a gaping wound.
I and you and tears . . . please, not afraid to cry, I don't–can't–won't. I . . .
I love you?
She tried to hold on to his face, but the edges of her memory–her dream–were tight and fading. What was that look, that expression? Sorrow? Regret? Love, real love?
In her haze of sleep and subconscious thinking, she saw their exchange as something of much greater significance than just a confession of hidden feelings between two former sweethearts. No. Blindly, she had begun to feel the erosion of her perfect exterior. Love. A crack in her passive surface. The diamond with the hidden flaw. Crawl beneath me, pick the scabs away, scrape the paint off . . . there's a world of horrors underneath. I am shining, metallic, disposable, a downloadable compound of expectation and spinelessness.
The dream changed, but Rory was unable to uproot the seeds of discontent from the distant garden of her mind. She remembered only his face in the morning.
--
Smoke. Billowing stacks of cancerous fumes being absorbed by the fabric of his clothes, jarring cravings through his nervous system. Jess took a deep breath as he entered the bar in an attempt to acclimate his lungs, and the burning desire to light up one of the camels he kept in his back pocket for whenever stress was getting to him. He knew things were good when the whole pack ended up in the trash from going stale.
He brushed past the bar itself and the pool tables as he made his way to a booth in the back, grateful that his uncle had chosen somewhere more outfitted for talking than picking up girls. Jess wasn't in much of a drinking mood. Sometimes alcohol had a bad effect on him so he never intentionally made an effort to get drunk. Waking up next to someone he only half remembered was never an experience he wished to relive.
"Hey," Jess greeted, sliding into a seat across from Luke. "Sorry I kept you waiting."
"It's alright, I was early anyway. Lorelai's in Hartford tonight for one of her Friday Night Dinners, so it was either that, or do inventory–"
Jess made a slight gagging sound at the mention of inventory. Luke released a half smile and continued.
"And so I decided to come see you instead." The older man finished.
"Glad to know I was so highly thought of," Jess smirked in an attempt to hide his discomfort. Fuck it, he slid the unopened pack out of the back pocket of his jeans while he produced a lighter from the depths of his leather jacket. He only had to flick the lighter once before a rush of nicotine subsided his senses.
Jess looked down, "Smoke was getting to me," he mumbled.
Luke shrugged, "I don't care. You're an adult now and if you want to fill your lungs with toxic fumes, then, by all means, continue to smoke your cancer sticks."
Jess smirked, his trademark crooked smile spreading across his face in amusement. As a toast he took another drag.
"And to think, I had to go through ten years of being bitched out for these things," He held up the cigarette, "and I only smoke about two or three times a month." As he spoke remnants of burnt tobacco collected in the cheap, plastic ash tray.
"So," Jess turned towards his uncle. "How's things? You know, with you and Lorelai."
He could see the faint reddening of his uncle's ears at the mention of his relationship with the long-time fixture in Luke's life that was Lorelai Gilmore. The hidden blush was his tell tale sign of embarrassment.
"Why are you so interested? I thought you didn't like her." Luke downed a swig of his Miller Light, a cheeky segue way into turning the questions around.
"I like Lorelai fine. Well, now that I don't have to serve her on a regular basis, or listen to her give me a hard time, or all of the other things that get in the way of mutual feelings of fuzziness. Besides, I like to know about what's going on in your life."
"Things are good, really good. I think this could be, uh, I think that this is 'it'." Jess watched his uncle exhale in that open it-is-what-it-is manner that he himself had adopted many times.
"'It?' You mean expensive-ring-white-dress-write-you-own-vows kind of 'it?' Wow."
Luke cracked a smile across the slightly sticky table. Jess leaned back in his seat while he crossed his arms over his chest, smirking.
"I knew it" He exclaimed in a knowing sort of way. "But, you know, this is good. I'm happy for you, really, I am. I can see you and Lorelai with each other, together." Jess tried to make sure his words sounded sincere. He'd seen his mother talk about finding 'it' many times in his life, but Jess knew that things weren't like that with Luke. Especially when Lorelai was concerned.
"Thanks Jess, I really appreciate you saying that."
"You gonna propose, or have I missed that already?"
"I did, the last time we were together. But then the whole thing with Christopher happened, and at Rory's graduation we made up and I've just been taking it slow this pat year. But I think that this time, it'll finally happen." Luke drained the rest of his beer while Jess rested his cheek on the palm of his hand.
"You have the most complicated love life, Jesus. Soon you'll be worse than Liz."
Luke shrugged off the exaggeration. "Liz is actually doing pretty well. She and T. J. have Doula now and . . . I don't know Jess, this time it seems like she's finally got it together."
"We can only hope," Jess answered a little sarcastically. The words "Liz" and "together" didn't usually part from his mouth in the same sentence, and for good reason.
Before Luke had time to reply, a dark eyed waitress with creamy skin and shapely legs, came over to their booth, ready to take orders. She looked surprisingly fresh despite the bar's somewhat rough edge.
"Can I get you another beer?" She asked, shifting her dark hair behind her shoulder. Glancing at her, Jess saw that her name was Meg off the name tag she wore pinned to her white blouse.
"Yeah, another would be fine." Luke answered.
Meg turned to Jess. He looked back up to her and saw the faintest blush creep up into her porcelain cheeks. Jess hid his smirk and gave his order. Luke rolled his eyes as Meg strode back to the bar, a curtain of dark hair separating her from the world.
"You're cruel," Luke said, shaking his head.
Jess shrugged, casting an indifferent expression over his features. "None of that was intentional."
"You know," Luke pondered, "I haven't heard you mention any of your relationships to me . . . ever."
"Huh," Jess mumbled, knowing that this would come up eventually.
"So?' He questioned.
"So what." Jess replied dryly, trying to sound uninterested.
"So have you dated much since uh, I mean, in your adult life?"
Evasive maneuvers and close saves did nothing to mask what Luke was really asking. Jess exhaled numbly, he might as well say something.
Meg came back over with their beer at this time. At which her hand brushed against Jess's fingertips while she handed him his drink. Titillated. That was the world.
The brief physical contact had thrown her, but Jess kept his cool, pretending that he didn't have an effect on her whatsoever, turning his eyes away in an attempt to preserver her dignity.
After she had gone, Jess took a swig of beer in silence as Luke glared at him across the booth, but only a little.
Laughing at his uncle's serious expression, Jess set his beer aside. "I think our friend Meg over there answered your question."
"Jess," Luke said in a warning tone.
He held up his hand in surrender. "Ok, jeez. Yeah, I have dated since Rory. It's ok for you to talk about her, I'm not gonna have a stroke or whatever. But I'm not saying any more at the present time."
"Could you be any more vague?" Luke asked. "Dating could mean any number of things . . . c'mon, you've got to give me something to work with here."
Jess fingered the outer edge of his Samuel Adams, thinking. "I had this sort of on-again-off-again thing with this girl Leaha for about a year-and-a-half. But, you know, we both had to work a lot because neither one of us had anything, but we sort of ended it mutually before I moved back to New York. I don't know, we both pretty much knew that it wasn't 'it', to paraphrase your earlier speech."
He could tell that Luke was a little surprised. But, hell, what had he expected? Spending years in self-inflicted pinning was not his thing. However, working himself to the point of exhaustion so he'd have no time to think about it, or her, sounded more like Jess.
"Why didn't you ever tell me?' He could hear the curiosity in Luke's voice.
Shrugging, Jess thought about his answer for a second. "It's not that easy to explain. It's just, whenever I saw you things were always tense. Besides, with Leaha, it was like I was never sure about things. I'd never been in a relationship where I didn't know how I felt about the other person." He shrugged again. "Whatever. Doesn't really matter."
There was a long silence after that and both men were at a loss; not for words in particular, but with the dynamics of them both being there and both secretly missing the other. But things were different now and there was a trust between them that hadn't been there before. A very small part of both of them feared what that meant, but the larger part instigated its existence, took pride in it.
"What's the real reason for this. Here, tonight." The silence was broken by Jess; who knew, instinctively, that Luke had asked all these questions for a unrevealed purpose. He was setting up a foundation, getting a feel for things as he prepared for the impact of something. Though, what that something was Jess couldn't say.
Luke took his nephew's honest question and decided to give him an honest answer.
"Rory's living here, in New York. And, I don't know, Jess . . . she's not with that guy anymore and she doesn't know a single person in this huge city full of millions of people, except you."
The older man sighed; not because he was tired or disappointed, but because he knew the effect that his words were going to have, for better or for worse.
"I'm not telling you to go see her, or to ignore her. I just thought I'd let you know that she's here."
Jess didn't say anything. What would there be to say in the first place? How was he supposed to feel? He knew how he did feel. What was he supposed to gain from knowing this, from coming here and listening to small talk and then having this–this–dropped on him, tearing away at everything . . . at his everything. What cold he want now, now that he knew things would start rotating beyond his control and his rage and his sadness and his bitter regret—his want, his need—what did he need? Jess knew what he needed, and it wasn't Rory Gilmore. He couldn't stand the thought of seeing her and feeling nothing. The day he lost his connection with Rory was the day he gave up on all of it. It was no exaggeration, and Jess knew it. Sensationalism and Self-Destruction were ranked very closely together for him; even the vague idea that the great love of his life could really be finished, really over—that alone would kill him.
For Jess, dying, figuratively, meant hating. The day that his compassion for Rory was obscured by his bitterness and anger and jealousy was the day she'd die to him. And because of this, and his fear that she would one day hate him the way he couldn't–refused–to hate her, Jess was unable to find the desire to seek her out, to invite his own ruin.
Staying away was easy. In the distance he lost all close feelings. In the past it was impossible, unthinkable, the concept of hating her for what they had done to each other. He couldn't, he damn refused, to hate her; because a very small, unwavering part of him still loved her, just a little bit. It was that love, that unfading, unrelenting, miserable love that made everything ok. It was blind, and with it came all the disadvantages of not knowing where to look next. But it was real, and it was all he had.
"Promise me that you won't . . . " Jess was shaken out of his musings by the sound of Luke's voice as he trailed off.
"That I won't?" He waited for his uncle to finish.
"You know what I mean," Luke replied seriously. Jess merely nodded.
"I'm not going to go find her, at least not tonight anyways. If I choose to see her I'll wait until I have a reason." Internally, Luke knew that Jess was telling the truth. But he had to give his warning anyway, for himself more so than Jess.
"Here," Luke slid a scrap of paper across the cherry wood table. It was an address, and home plus cell phone numbers. Jess didn't have to ask, he already knew who they belonged to.
He slid the paper into his pocket without a word. Only allowing himself a quick glance, three seconds tops. But three seconds was all Jess needed to memorize the numbers and the order they came in, what they signified.
The two men left shortly after that. Paying for their drinks and giving a surprisingly less-than-awkward goodbye, Jess and Luke parted. Jess, opting to walk the four or so blocks back to Truncheon and his apartment on the third floor; while Luke drove out of New York and back to Stars Hollow. Back to the life that Jess had worked so hard to escape.
--
A/N: Reviews, my life elixir? You decide.