Disclaimer: Not mine, no money, no bad intentions ... yadda, yadda, yadda ...

A/N: Thanks to another attach of writer's block, together with his best friend crazy-bitchy-life, this one-shot camt to excist. For old times' sake about Gilmore Girls. Nothing much to say, it's quite self-explanatory, only a short note: Insufferable fluff ahead. You've been warned. ;)

Hope you like. Reviews are love and might motivate me enough to start writing more GG again. I know, I'm a tease ... can't help it, but I'm addicted. ;)

Lots of love,
Tina

OF COURSE

She's seventeen and the idea of being in love is still foreign to her. There was a time in her life once when she thought she loved someone, but she was mistaken, it was only affectionate care. So you see, love is still something new, something unknown, something scary.

And still also something thrilling. Because there walks this boy beside her, a half smile on his face, mischievousness glistening in his eyes, one of his arms wrapped around her, and he tells her that in a few months, when she moves, there'll be only 22.8 miles between them. And she teases him, and he tries to play it down. She hugs him close. He kisses the top of her head in an affectionate way, and she thinks that maybe – yes – this is love.

Of course it's love.

The final 'No' is still in the air, his face showing the defeat. He's backing off and she wants to scream to make him halt in his movement, to make him turn back around, to let her explain why now isn't the right time. Why she needed to say 'no' at this moment. Why, although she truly wants to believe that she can rely on him now, she still needs to stay here. She wants to tell him, if he's able to wait – just a little longer – they will figure something out. They'll find a way to be together, to get to know each other again. Maybe even to fall in love again.

Maybe it's not even necessary to explain this last part. Maybe she's still in love with him. Maybe that never changed. Maybe.

Of course it's love.

"So, you fixed everything?"

"Yeah, everything's fixed."

She's happy that she really fixed everything, that there's nobody else in their way anymore, that she told Logan to have a safe trip and to not expect her in his apartment when he gets back. She's happy she finally discovered that she isn't that kind of girl a boyfriend can cheat on. Misunderstanding or not, she simply can't overlook something as meaningful as constancy.

Some more words are exchanged, but she doesn't really register them, because her attention is on his face. On the way his lips move and curl into this adorable half of a smile. On his eyes which sparkle like never before. On this lock of hair falling onto his face. On his lean posture and the fact, that he really made something out of himself.

And Logan is forgotten, and Yale, Paris, the Daily News, the Huntzberger's, the DAR, Lorelai. Everybody and everything.

He leans in and her heart runs a mile a minute, and she's not sure, but she thinks she's falling in love with him all over again.

Of course it's love.

They scream at each other and both can't for the life of them remember how the fight started. She tells him that the distance is killing her. He tells her that – although he understand that she has a lot on her mind – her constantly favoring her studies over him is killing him.

She tells him, in a more furious tone, that finals are coming up and finals don't write themselves, so studying needs her full attention and she thought he understood?

He tells her, in a more furious tone, that the distance isn't easy for him, too, but he has work in Philadelphia, with which he earns money, which makes the trips to see her possible in the first place. And it's not like she finds the time to visit him very often.

They scream some more at each other, throw in some recent events, some older quarrels, and all in all just behave like two kids in kindergarten fighting over a piece of a game.

When they realize how childish they're acting, they both calm down, look at each other and start to discuss the situation like the two adults they're supposed to be. Because that's how things are handled in a grown-up, loving relationships, isn't it? And both somehow feel like being in love with the other.

Of course it's love.

Paris and Doyle sit at one side of the table, both having a bowl with cereals in front of them. He sits opposite them. Doyle reads the morning paper while Paris and him are debating over some recent event, when the door to her room opens and she walks in. Her hair is messed up, her feet still slurping over the floor, fighting against the sleepiness.

"That's not even an argument, Mariano!" Paris glares at him and stuffs some cereal into her mouth. Doyle doesn't even look up from the article he's reading.

She comes to a stop beside him and he wraps an arm around her waist, leaning half way up to accept her morning kiss. Her hand gently brushes through his hair once, before he pulls her down and she makes herself comfortable on one of his knees, fishing for a slice of toast and starts to nibble on it. His hand comes to a rest on her lower back.

"I agree with Jess." Paris glares at her, Doyle's still deeply engrossed in his newspaper, she starts to giggle and he chuckles lightly.

"Thank you, Baby."

"You're welcome, Hon."

"And I might throw up! Jeez, Gilmore, you don't even know what we're arguing about!"

"Didn't you just tell me that my last input wasn't even an argument?" Jess replies before taking a sip from his coffee. Rory giggles some more while accepting the mug of coffee he just drank from.

Paris starts to rant again, stating how insufferable at times Jess could be and how unbelievable lovesick Rory acted sometimes. The young Gilmore doesn't even register what her friend is saying. She just stares at the mug in her hand, the smile on her face genuine and happy, and realizes that she wants this for the rest of her life. Not Paris chewing her ears off about something or another, but this: Jess and her sharing a cup of coffee over breakfast, his hand resting on the small of her lower back.

Rory can't say it for him, but for her this feels more like love than any I-love-you's she's ever heard before.

Of course it's love.

Rory lies in bed, exhausted but happy. Jess' hand is trapped over her stomach, his lips pressed to her shoulder, a pleased smile on his face. The light of the bedside-lamp shines on discarded clothes on the floor, and on the bed, and some even on the furniture. She can't see it, but she knows that the white dress she wore the whole day hangs neatly in the bathroom.

"Best. Day. Ever." He grins after the words leave his mouth, and Rory can't help it but somehow finds it endearing and most charming and even arousing that he was more excited about their wedding than her – if that even was possible. She turns her head and presses her lips into his hair. Her hands hold on to his arm and she closes her eyes.

"I love you." The words are not getting old to him, quite the contrary: he loves that she says it all the time. It reminds him, that she is here and that she is happy and that she feels that she belongs to him. Because he belongs to her ever since, and nothing in the world will ever change that.

"I love you most."

"Not fair!" she exclaims in playful anger, swatting his arm teasingly, "You're stealing my line."

"Nah," he replies nonchalant, "Just the truth, Gilmore."

"Hey, don't say that!" Jess opens his eyes and looks a little confused, but Rory starts to smile, beaming at him, "I'm a Mariano now."

She looks so proud and content when she states that she's wearing his name now, just like she was never prouder of anything else before in her life, and Jess thinks how amazing it is that she's able to make him love her in every moment just a little more.

Even if he doesn't know if this is love as people would define it, because who's really capable of defining love?

Of course it's love.

It has always been love.

FIN