Maybe this Time…

Chapter 1: Monday

Author: Knowhere

Rating: Light R

Disclaimer: Nothing.

AN: Quasi-follow up to Timing, or more correctly, it uses Timing as a backdrop. This could be the continuation…or just read it as its own entity. This is one of the ways it could have happened.

As always...Read? Please review. Thank you.

Summary: Maybe this time…Change is inescapable. One week. Seven days. A relationship comes together. Timing sequel.

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"They might have talked about the past but there's still so much they don't know about the present…"
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Monday: 9:46 P.M.
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The phone rings.

"Jess here."

"Hey, it's Rory."

He smiles. He doesn't understand why she still premises their conversation with an introduction of herself. As if he doesn't know her voice by heart. Even if they haven't been chatting these last months, her voice would have been forever etched in his memory. But now, the sound of her is fresh, right up front in his daily thoughts. "Hey."

It all happened gradually. A phone call here. Another one there. Next thing he knew, six months had gone by with eight phone calls passed between the two of them. It was nothing fancy. She kept her promise and had called about two weeks after that night. She had just wanted to shoot the breeze. It was eight in the morning and obvious that she was calling on her commute. She chattered away about her work and asked about his. He was exhausted but polite enough not to mention that he had just fallen asleep two hours ago.

He's a night owl these days. Side effect of writing, he supposed. His muse seemed to visit when the apartment was quiet with Nick at Nite buzzing in the background and a cup of hot tea besides his laptop. With the moon and the streetlight streaming in through his high ceiling windows as his companion, he types endlessly at his computer. His new manuscript is taking form now. It's no longer random paragraphs typed messily on endless Word documents. He thinks he has an idea, but isn't quite sure of what will become of it. He waits. And works. Hoping for the journey to show him the way.

"So, I was thinking about you the other day." Her voice pulls him out of his thoughts.

"Oh yeah?"

She thinks she can practically see his eyebrow cocked and a suggestive remark on the tip of his tongue. After all this time, she can still imagine what he would look like. But is she correct? Is he still slender with a strength that's muted? She closes her eyes and remembers his body. But the picture is old and faded. What must he look like now? Now that he's seasoned with years of maturity? When they talk, she can see a different Jess. A Jess that has let time heal his wounds. A man, no longer a boy, who has now regained his hope in life.

"Rory?" He pulls the phone back to look at it. Were they disconnected?

"Sorry. I'm here."

"You were saying?"

Distracted, she doesn't know where to pick up. "What?"

He smirks, but doesn't push. "Never mind."

She pushes a droplet of water around the table. The ice in her blended coffee is melting. She really doesn't know where this conversation is heading. When she called that first time out of the blue, she had just wanted to talk to him. Just to hear his voice after all those years. But at that moment…she had a direction in their conversation. She called and asked a question. He answered and it was minimally painful. She had appreciated his honesty and thanked him with truthful answers in return. He had a right to know as much as she did. And they both hung up the phone that night and felt a sense of closure on their past.

"What have you been up to lately? Haven't heard from you in a while." He hides any sound of disappointment in his voice.

"I was on assignment for the paper. Just over to Boston for the weekend. Kinda exciting."

He nods. "Yeah."

"And I had this date the other night." Suddenly, her eyes squint and she slaps a hand over her face. In the midst of all their phone calls the idea of other people never came up. It was just an unspoken agreement that their conversations wouldn't veer towards that direction. And she had made a conscious effort not to ask him about his love life.

He stops and lets the moment pass. "Huh." He really doesn't know what to say. There's a tightening feeling in his stomach and he tries to ignore it. But in the back of his mind, he knows that he's started dreaming of her again. It began very gradually, like the phone calls. One night she appeared in the background and he remembers nothing specific. The week after that, it was an offbeat dream about nothing in particular but when he woke up, he remembered every detail. And then the next time…it got more heated and he woke up hard and unsatisfied. He still remembers what it felt like in his mind to touch her and to be touched by her. In his dreams, her body molds to his and the sound of her voice is all he needs to get off. Those are the dreams that plague him now when he hears her over the phone.

She knows she screwed up. "Sorry about that." She whispers.

"S'okay." He swallows.

Backpedaling, she feels like she's going too far but for some reason, she can't stop herself. "It was just a one-time deal. We met through a mutual friend and the other day we just went out for drinks. I mean, it's not a big thing—"

"Rory, stop."

"Right, sorry."

A little irritated, "Stop apologizing."

"Okay."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not in the mood to hear about your boyfriends." He really doesn't care how badly that sounds, he just wants to get that picture of her and another man out of him mind. He isn't so stupid to think that she doesn't see other men, but it ruins his dreams when he thinks about it too much.

"None taken." A beat passes. "I suppose I wouldn't want to hear about the women in your life either."

He chuckles dryly. "Yeah, guess not."

And that does not put her mind to ease. Thoughts of him invade her mind as well. When she lies in bed at night, she imagines his hands covering every inch of her body. And when she hears him over the phone, sometimes she closes her eyes and swears that if she tried hard enough, it sounded just like he was lying next to her and whispering words of love, of heat, of passion instead of just exchanging casual comments with her. "Are you…" She tangles her fingers into the cord of her phone. "Are you…"

"Am I what?"

"Are you seeing someone?" That was not why she called. She doesn't even know why that popped up so suddenly. Perhaps she just couldn't stop herself. "And just answer without reading too much into it, please."

He hangs his head and rubs the back of his neck. "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious." But she's not just curious and she knows it. She wonders if he knows it as well.

"No you're not."

She smiles despite everything. Even years haven't dampened his ability to read her like an open book. "I thought you were going to answer without reading too much into it."

He shrugs. "Never said that. You just asked me to not think too much about it. I never agreed."

She looses her nerve. "Never mind. Sorry." Her hand flutters across her face. "Didn't mean to pry."

"You're not."

She's confused. "Okay."

A beat passes and he closes his eyes. "I'll answer, if you tell me why you're asking." He wonders if she's seeing anyone as well. Wonders if she goes home to an empty apartment or if there's a man waiting for her. He wonders if she snuggles into another body or just her sheets. Does she ever think of him when another man is kissing her? Having sex with her? Does she ever picture his face? He's stopped picturing hers years ago when he finally realized that they were over.

"Can't a girl just wonder whether or not her ex-boyfriend is seeing someone?" She says it nonchalantly but it's heavy with tension.

"Don't know."

Now she's just frustrated. "I answered. It's your turn."

"You didn't answer me."

Suddenly quiet, she gives up. What's the point in hiding behind years of untold lies? Surprising him, she musters up the courage she didn't have years ago. "Do you ever think about me, Jess?"

"Of course. Thinking about you now, as we talk." He's not quite as serious as she is, and he's joking with his sarcasm.

"Be serious." Her voice drops an octave.

He stops and leans back in his chair.

"Do you think about me? At night? When you're alone?"

"Do you think about me when you're alone at night?"

She rolls her eyes at his evasion. But she knows that she won't get a straight answer from him until she gives him one of her own. Quietly, softly, she whispers, "Yes."

He sighs in response.

"Yes." She repeats. "Yes." Closing her eyes, she remembers that she just thought about him the other night. "I think about you when I'm lying in bed by myself."

"Just the once?" He probes. This conversation's turning deadly but he really couldn't care less.

"More."

"What do you think about?"

"I think about you. Your voice."

That's not what he expected. "My voice?"

The words come out in a flurry. "I've always imagined that your voice would be deeper in bed, when you're sleepy. In my dreams you'd whisper in my ear. Words that mean nothing but that would mean everything to us. You'd whisper the things you want to do with me. Things that would make me blush in the daytime but when it's night, it's a different story. You'd whisper how you'd keep me safe. And I would whisper back that I believe you."

The conversation's gotten too serious too fast. And he feels like he's drowning hearing words like that come out of her mouth. Even if they're talking on the phone he feels like she's right next to him. "Yes, I think about you."

"Tell me." Her voice is simple, but there's a pleading edge laced in there. She wants to hear it. She wants a confirmation that she's not being an idiot telling him things like that.

"I…" Suddenly shy, he can't find the words.

Sharp and commanding, she demands. "Tell me."

"I think about what you would look like first thing in the morning. Or what you look like after sex. What you would smell like. I think about how differently things would have been if I just had one chance to show you how much I have changed. To be the one who makes you scream into a silent apartment. To be the one who tells you that everything will be okay. Just to feel your body wrapped around mine."

She's on the verge of tears. "Jess…"

"Yes, Rory?" His voice is eerily calm.

"I…"

He nods sadly. "But those are just thoughts. Thoughts that have passed with time."

"They haven't passed for me."

And that alone is entirely too much for him. This isn't something he can handle right now. "Please don't do this to me Rory."

"Do what?"

"Don't tell me things like that and take it back. You've done it before, and now…I just can't handle it."

"But, I'm not…"

"Give me some time to digest all of this." He pulls the phone away and hits the little button.

Click.

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Monday: 10:33 P.M.
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