Title- Oh
Author- Kàra
Summary- Just a little alternate take on That Scene in Haunted Leg. You know the one. Doose's. What if Rory had broken up with Dean in Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days?

A/N- This isn't part of the Rewritten Scene series. It's similar, however, in that it is [most likely] a oneshot and [most likely] will not be continued. However, if the response is enthusiastic, I just might write another chapter or two.

"I'm sorry, did I hear from you at all this summer?" Jess asked. Rory felt a stab of guilt. How many nights had she sat there, staring at a blank piece of paper, too scared to reach out and break the silence? "Did I just happen to miss the thousands of phone calls you made to me, or did the postman happen to lose all those letters you wrote to me? You kiss me, you tell me not to say anything- very flattering, by the way- you go off to Washington, then nothing. Then you come back here all put out because I didn't just sit around and wait for you like Dean would've done?"

He spat the name out contemptuously, and Rory bristled slightly. She and Dean weren't on good terms right now. At all. But she still cared about him, and she didn't like the way Jess said his name, like Dean wasn't even worthy of consideration.

"And yeah, what about Dean? Are you still with him? 'Cause last time I checked, you were, and I haven't heard anything to the contrary. Plus, the two of you walking around the other day like some damn Andy Hardy movie? Seemed to me like you were still pretty together! I half-expected you to break into a barn and put on a show!"

It was the longest she'd ever heard him talk (and she'd heard more words from him than most), and it wounded Rory to hear the hurt in his voice and realize that her extended silence hadn't been tormenting only herself. Especially if it could make Jess break into a rant worthy of his uncle. But despite the compassion filling her, she couldn't help but ask, confounded, "When did you see me with Dean?"

"At that stupid summer insanity plea the town put on," he brushed off.

Right. Where he was slammed up against a tree, his hands in Shane's back pockets. Rory felt her face flushing. "Oh, I'm surprised you could see anything with Shane's head plastered to your face!" she cracked off, feeling the bitter taste of jealousy.

"You didn't answer me."

"About what?"

"Did you call me at all?"

"No."

"Did you send me a letter?"

"No."

"Postcard?"

"No."

"Smoke signal?"

"Stop."

"A nice fruit basket?"

"Enough!"

"Are you still with Dean?"

His eyes were hard and cold and empty and bitter and it was the darker side of him, the only side everyone else ever saw, and it threw her for a moment, because it was so rare for her to see this caustic, unfriendly attitude in him. He seemed to take her hesitation as a reluctance to answer, however, because he snapped out, "C'mon, Rory. Yes or no. Are you still with Dean?"

"No."

In an instant, his whole expression changed. Those bitter eyes fell away, replaced by surprised, discombobulated ones, and the hard set of his jaw relaxed. It was a whole new Jess yet again. This might have been the first time she'd ever seen him completely caught off-guard. "What?" he asked softly.

"I'm not with Dean anymore," she said defiantly. "I broke up with him after the Summer Madness Festival."

"Oh."

He seemed not to know what to do with this information, standing there looking suddenly confused and just a little vulnerable.

Rory shook her head, still irritated with him for his cold attitude earlier. It didn't really matter that he hadn't known all the facts, and it didn't really matter that he'd had a valid argument. She was mad. "I've got to go, my mom is waiting," she said in a frigid tone. Seizing her basket, she brushed past him, hurrying out of Doose's before the tears that were threatening spilled over.

Jess stared at her retreating back, trying to convince his legs to move so he could go after her, but his brain seemed numb and frozen and he couldn't find the impetus to take the first step...

Remember, there might just be a way to persuade me to continue this into a second chapter. I think you know what that way is.