Disclaimer: Own nothing to do with Gilmore Girls.
Rating: PG-13.
Title: That Thing Called Comfort
A/N: Seriously... I have no clue where this came from. I just started writing with no clear idea and this is what came out of it. ::shrugs:: hope you like it though, review if you want to. I'm not sure if this will be continued, or if this is just a one parter explaining how Rory and Jess's friendship is... who knows? Ha, not me :- ).
A/N2: Rory and Jess started talking on the phone after the season finale last season. This is where their friendship is currently, after the episode where Dean and Rory break up for the third (? I think) time.
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She calls him later that night, the tiara still clinging loosely to her hair. Twirling the necklace around her fingertips, she waits impatiently for him to pick up. The phone rings once... twice... she slowly lowers herself to her bed as it rings for the fourth time. Staring up at the ceiling, she tries to recall how many nights have ended like this one undoubtedly will. She calls. They talk. She wakes up in the morning with the phone still pressed to her ear and the dial tone singing clearly. He talks to her until she falls asleep, and she never bothers to ask him what nonsense she says as she's about to go off into slumber.
"'Lo?" It's not his voice who answers the phone, and it's definitely not his voice that she hears yawning. She frowns, sitting up quickly. She can feel bobby pins falling out of her hair and she briefly touches the tiara again. Her fingertips quiver.
"Jess?"
"No, just a sec, I'll get him." She bites her bottom lip, and hears muffled voices in the background before somebody finally picks up the phone. She breathes an inward sigh of relief.
"Rory? That you?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry- really sorry, I know it's late and everything, and you sound like you have company... I was just calling to talk and stuff, because you know, what else would you do with a telephone? But, um, I'll just try the calling thing again tomorrow. Tomorrow when it's not midnight and tomorrow when you don't have company. Or female company. Or any company that answers your phone for that matter," she adds on quickly, as thought after thought comes to her mind. There's a silence for a moment, before he starts to talk again.
"That's a lot of words to handle at midnight."
"Sorry. Again," she says, wincing slightly. "Look, I'm just gonna go, ok? I didn't mean to interrupt... anything, or if there was nothing, I didn't mean to intrude on your, um, sleeping."
"I wasn't asleep. Just a second." She hears him swear quietly, and hears something slamming shut. "Just had to get out in the hall. Some friends are crashing here tonight, and they're kind of... loud." She nods, even though he can't see her.
"Oh. So I was..."
"Assuming things," he finishes for her. "Yeah."
"And that means..." she trails off, waiting for him to fill in the blank for her. She's met with quietness. He doesn't want to play guessing games tonight, and she doesn't really want to have to play the mind games either. She just wanted to call him to talk and that's what she's going to do.
"I broke up with Dean," she announces simply. She's not sure why she said it so bluntly like that, but then again, how else would've she told him? Dancing around the topic wouldn't have gotten her anywhere, and he would've been able to tell if she was hedging around a topic. He had never really been good at reading her emotions in person, but somehow over the last few months he had managed to be able to tell her mood by the sound of her voice. It was a talent that she had never been able to come to terms with and one that still unnerved her slightly.
"Oh," he says. "Now is this a good thing, bad thing, or still undecided thing?" She thinks about this for a moment and sits up on her bed. Looking at herself in the mirror, she slowly lifts her hand to the tiara once more. She takes it off from her head, and places it on her nightstand. Staring at it for a minute or two, she tries to collect her thoughts. Her and Dean. Dean and her. DeanandRory, RoryandDean. Broken up once again. At least there were no boys involved this time. Well, at least there were no boys directly involved this time.
"He says that we're in two different worlds." Her voice doesn't sound like her own, and she imagines that it's coming from some make believe place where there's more than one Rory. Bad Rory, Good Rory, Happy Rory, Sad Rory. This strange-voice Rory is the Contemplative Rory/Smart Rory. Contemplative Rory is currently thinking about whether her and Dean really ever had a chance to make things right. Smart Rory is telling Contemplative Rory that her and Dean were right for high school, but that things were never meant to go this far. A marriage gone. Her virginity gone. She's not sure which one she regrets more. Breaking up a marriage or losing something so sacred. It seems like the answer should be obvious but it never is anymore.
"Maybe you are," he tells her.
"I think that's it. I think... I think him and I were in two different worlds," she decides. "Like how you and Sam were?" She can practically see him grimace even though he's so far away.
"Please do not compare me and Sam's two week relationship to you and Dean's," he says. "We broke up because she just... just wasn't right." She shakes her head, and tries to think of what that would be like. Telling someone that you'll be theirs, and then breaking it up because things just "weren't right". No explanation needed but that one simple sentence. She would never be able to do that- ever. She'd be afraid that she would hurt their feelings, that they would hate her. Smart Rory still doesn't know that sometimes the right thing for her is the wrong thing for others.
"Do you think we were in two different worlds?" she asks curiously. She's never asked this question before, and as she sits back down on her bed, she wonders what his answer will be. Her dress rustles noisily against the comforter and she can hear him breathing through the phone. She peels the nail polish on her thumb away with a fingertip, balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder. She doesn't bother trying to hurry him up with an answer. She has nothing else to do tonight and he'll say something when he feels the need to.
"Yeah. I think we were. Are. I don't know- why?" he asks, confused.
"I think my grandma wants me to date this guy from Yale. Logan."
"Preppy name," he says, but she ignores him.
"We come from the same world," she tells him. "And we're going to the same place." He's thinks for a moment before speaking up again.
"Won't that get just a little boring for the future CNN reporter?" She blinks and then relaxes her face into a slight smile. She presses her head back against the pillows, and drags her blanket up around her.
"Yeah. I think that would get kind of boring."
She falls asleep soon after and he calls her the next night. For once, he's the one rambling on the phone. She manages to make out a few words (rent, fucked, gone) before finally speaking up. Why doesn't he come back to Stars Hollow for a little while? Or stay with her at Yale for a week or two?
He agrees.