He crept into the shadows, scarcely believing it was her. She looked so different. The last time they had talked was... well, that was a memory best left alone.

She took a sip of her coffee and stepped onto the curb, across the street, and sat down on a bench to start reading. Gathering up his remaining courage, he stepped out of the ally and was just about to cross the street when a tall blond man, not much older that him walked up to her. They kissed, it was apparent they were in love, very much in love, and started down the street, heading towards the Upper East Side.

Hiding again, he mentally smacked himself for his idiocy.

You fucked it up big time, man. You lost control and let her go. Now it's her turn to run from you. It's her turn to be happy... with someone else. You lost her. That's how it's going to be forever.

xoxox

'I'm all lost in the supermarket,
I can no longer shop happily,
I came in here for that special offer,
A guaranteed personality,
I wasn't born so much as I fell out,
Nobody seemed to notice me,
We had a hedge back home in the suburbs,
Over which I never could see,
I heard the people who lived on the ceiling,
Scream and fight most scarily,
Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling,
That's how it's been all around me.'

The Clash, 'Lost in the Supermarket'

xoxox

Part One- Hearts and Unicorns

Chapter One- Shadows and Letters

If Rory Gilmore had to piece her life together since her 'biggest mistake' she would have cringed and hid, for while she put on a brave face, when everything fell apart, like it always did, she had her mother's instinct to run.

And she did run that day.

He thought that she hadn't seen him. She did. She had seen him all over the city ever since her and Logan, her fiancé, had moved there in May. But this was the first time he had seen her. It was horrid of her not to walk up to him and convince him that she was fine now, she was really okay, but she was scared. After she had left him alone in that apartment, he never ceased to worry about her.

Oh, the letters.

For weeks afterwards he had sent her hundreds, thousands of letters, apologizing over and over. The envelopes were tear stained, both hers and his, but she couldn't bring herself to reply. Lorelai had agonized for months; constantly babying Rory, wanting to protect her from the harm she had known would've come to her.

I was seventeen. I was stupid and naïve to think that he would protect me from the world.

He actually did protect her from the world, just not from himself.

How could've he? After all, he was destructivity in its natural form. That was always how he was. From day one, when she had first met Jess Mariano.

xoxox

'Well Baby I've been here before,
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor,
I used to live alone before I knew you,
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch,
But love is not a victory march,
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.'

Jeff Buckley, 'Hallelujah'

xoxox

Jess was not the type of person to pine. He was more 'F-off if you want to walk away with all your internal organs still intact'. Napoleon himself wouldn't wage a war against Jess for fear of death.

Death was something Jess had many a thought about those first few months after she had left. He didn't speak openly about it, of course. Slowly, as the vines slowly covered his apartment's only window, as he realized that she was never going to come back to him, the thoughts died away. Now, tucked away in an abandoned corner of his mind, they would only emerge on the occasion when something reminded him of his happiness with Rory.

It didn't come as often as it used to.

The letters he had written to her were infinite; he still wrote to her, he just didn't send them anymore. While he still missed her, he felt a need to prove to himself that he was over her. He wasn't fooling anyone, though; one could just look at him to tell that he lost the person he loved the most.

Jess suddenly found himself unlocking the door to his apartment. The lock was weathered and thick with rust from age. Shoving open the old wooden door he took of his jacket and dropped it on the floor, leaving his keys on an ancient table from Salvation Army. In the corner of the bleak room next to an ivy-covered window was a mattress, a thin blanket bunched on top of it. The floor lamp off to one side was missing a lampshade and the light bulb was broken. Besides that the room was sparse, save a few cardboard boxes stuffed to bursting with clothing and books and a microwave. White paint was peeling off the walls and there was thick, gray dust covering the majority of the floor.

He walked over to the mattress and lay down on his back, staring at the low ceiling. After a few moments he got up and walked to the window sill. Underneath it, as fresh and untouched as it had been when it was carved seven years ago was his last piece of Rory left.

Rory and Jess were lying next to each other on Jess's mattress. Rory was lying across Jess's stomach while Jess played with her hair. She sat up suddenly and walked over to her backpack, a sheet wrapped around her like a cloak. Jess smiled and leaned across the mattress.

"What are you doing?"

Rory turned around, a grin on her face and a safety pin in her right hand.

"We need to do something to commemorate this moment."

She walked over to the windowsill only to have Jess pull her back on top of him as she laughed.

"I thought we already did something."

Rory smiled and kissed him overpoweringly. Breaking away she crawled over to the windowsill again and unhooked the safety pin.

"I know, but I mean something permanent."

"Like what?" Jess sat next to her as she bent over and started to carve something into the wood.

Jess traced the outline of the letters with his fingers. He felt the wood splintering and breaking with each curve and line, the paint had flaked off a long time ago. It had taken her twenty minutes to engrave with that flimsy little safety pin, but she didn't care back then.

I love you, Jess.

xoxox

Impulsive. Disorganized. Impressionable. Seventeen.

Words that Rory would write in her journal under 'Things I am Not'. Now, if she was being entirely truthful with herself then you would also see "Happy" and "In Love", among other things. But Rory wasn't being truthful with herself, or anyone for that matter. No, she was dwelling. She was a dweller. She tried to move on, she really did, but if something was important to her, it would continue to pull her back until she answered its call.

Now, at her desk, sitting and writing, she couldn't help but wonder what was holding her back now. Sure she had a good life, she had a great fiancé, and a fabulous mother, but what was keeping her from getting what she really wanted? She paused for a moment, pen tip to her mouth.

"Hey, Ace."

Rory nearly jumped out of her chair in surprise. Logan, having just come home from work, had bent down and whispered in her ear a hello and kissed her cheek.

"Hi, Logan."

"So, I was wondering if you had anymore thoughts about our wedding." Rory suddenly grew sullen.

"What's wrong? I though you were okay with putting it off for now."

"I am, really, Ace, I am. I was..."

"Then what's with the rush? I need some time." Rory felt herself grow flustered, her cheeks flushing. Logan sighed and looked into her evasive eyes.

"I want to be with you forever. I just want the world to know that, too." She gave a small smile, he was good to her.

"Okay, I guess I just got a little overwhelmed there for a moment."

"Listen," He kissed her again as he started to look through his suitcase. "I have to make a quick call to Copenhagen and then I'm done for the day."

Rory turned back to her work as Logan hurried off.

Jess would've understood.

She spent the next hour trying to figure out what was holding her back.

xoxox

There were three types of people in this world. The first were the word people. They were the girl in the movie who went up to the guy and said that she loved him with all her heart. The second type was the action people, the guy who went up to the girl and kissed her to profess his love. The last type was the guy in the background that did nothing.

Jess personally considered himself the latter.

The shady trees overhead, with their burning, violent color gave Jess the overwhelming sensation of everlasting freedom. He wouldn't admit it for a moment that he gave a damn about the leaves changing, but there was something that fixated him on that one moment in nature where death was beautiful. Not at all the ugly, scornful mess that Liz had left him with two years ago when she wrapped her car around a tree.

He didn't frequent Central Park that often, but he had been coming here every Wednesday for the past five months. At two o'clock on the button he was sitting on the single bench that was hidden from the passersby. He could see those on the path, but they could not see him.

Jess hardly had a chance to sit down before he saw her standing three feet from him, their only barrier being a mass of orange leaves. She was setting up her violin, tuning it just so. Blonde hair was covering her eyes; he had actually never seen her eyes before. And like the steady rhythm of a heartbeat the pulsing sound of the string quivering woke Jess from his gaze and he was transfixed.

Every Wednesday for five months.

xoxox

'Thought I ran into you down on the street,

Then it turned out to only be a dream,
I made a point to burn all of the photographs,

She ran away and then I took a different path,

I remember the face but I can't recall the name,

Now I wonder how whatsername has been.'

Green Day, 'Whatsername'

xoxox

Rory woke up in a cold sweat, her mind racing in twenty different directions. In the dream she was back in Jess's apartment, sunlight streaming through the windows. The heat was rising from the sidewalk in clouding swirls of perfection. She could have bathed in the middle of that apartment there was so much moisture in the air. The three rusty fans were helpless to the never-ending battle of August in Manhattan.

A familiar jingle was heard outside the door as each lock turned in succession and Jess walked in. He barely acknowledged her drenched in sweat, sitting on his bed, trying to stop herself from melting into the floor. He sat down at a lonely chair in front of the sink and folded his hands, deeply concentrating on the floor.

Rory tried to say hello, but her voice was so dry and crackled that it was no more than a faint creak like a door. Jess walked over to the bed and sat down next to Rory, wrapping her in his arms, neither of them wanting to let go of each other. When they finally separated, Jess was looking at her with a dark pang of uncertainty in his eyes.

The dream wasn't a dream actually, it was pure memory. It wasn't her subconscious telling her anything, it was just her mind wallowing in the past.

Creeping out of bed as soundlessly as possible, so as to not wake Logan, she slinked down the hallway and flicked on the bathroom light, squinting in the intensity. Turning on the shower, she quickly undressed and stood in front of the mirror wearing only her pajama top. She opened the medicine cabinet and stared back at an array of medication. Anti-depressants, sleep-aids, medicine help with panic attacks and more faced Rory, her name on every bottle. She quickly picked out a sleep-aid, pulled off her top, and stepped into the shower.

Long after the water had run cold and the darkness outside began to fade Rory was still standing in the shower, not noticing that the rest of the world was busy living their lives. She rested her head in her palm, tears sliding down her face.

On the other side of the doorway Logan was pacing, listening to the opposite phone line ring in his ear.

"Oh, hello Dr. Sanders, it's Logan Huntzburger." He nodded his head, "Yes, she's sunk into one of her moods again." He stopped walking for a moment, anger passing across his face in a shadow, but it was gone in a second. "Oh, of course I understand. Yes, I know that you increased her dosage several times already but... okay. Sure, that's fine... you'll put her on the new drug?" He jotted down a memo on a post-it and roughly ran his hand through his hair. "Sure, I'll pick up the prescription on my way to work. Thanks, bye." Logan hung up the phone, though when he went to put it on the receiver his hand trembled and the phone crashed to the floor. In between tears he crouched on the floor, entwining his hands together. He was losing her again... he didn't want her to hurt herself again.

xoxox

The last tremble of the note faded away and the crowd dispersed, dropping spare change into the open violin case. Jess quietly waited for everyone to leave and for her to pack up and leave. Once her footsteps died away, he quietly stepped out onto the path and started to walk home.

"Wait... please." Jess turned around, the acquiescent voice came from behind him. The blonde girl walked up to him, her violin case swinging in her left hand. "So you're my mystery man."

"I'm sorry?" Even under the glowing lamp that lined the pathway, he still couldn't make out her eyes. Everything around them was clad in thick shadow.

"I see you come here whenever I play. You always hide behind the trees thinking that I can't see you."

"What makes you think that I was hiding?" She ignored that question. Instead she walked closer towards him. She wasn't that tall, five four at the most and her hair hung thick about her.

"I'm Chan."

"Jess."

"That's a nice name."

"It hasn't done me wrong before." He paused for a moment. He'd have to stop coming to see her play now. "I better get going."

He walked away, leaving Chan to be swallowed up by the darkness. She called goodbye after him, but he pretended not to hear her. This was becoming all too familiar to him.

"Jess." Chan hurried up to where he stood vacantly. "Can I walk with you?"

"What?"

"You're going in my direction and I don't like walking alone."

"It looks as if you've gotten home safe before without my assistance."

"Please, Jess? Just until we're out of the park? Then I'll leave you alone. I promise."
Brown. A warm, burnt-honey colored brown with flecks of copper and pale orange. Her eyes had now been exposed to him. When he didn't reply, Chan had taken it upon herself to step towards him, falling into the glow of the lamp overhead. Her eyes were so vacant, free of worry.

A deep, heavy-set sigh, though more out of pique than annoyance accompanied Jess's agree. They walked in silence, the street still out of sight. Chan started humming to herself, a low, sad tune, the notes clinging to each other without certainty.

"What song is that?"

"It's not a song."

"Well what is it, then?"

"It's nothing; it's an improvisation, a tune of melancholy and insanity." She said this so absently. It wasn't wisdom, it was naïveté. She was yet to be aware of the words leaving her young mouth. How her mother's saying had entered her mind, never being recognized until then was to be awed by those of lesser acquaintance. And as the pavement connected to the edge of the park and they took their separate paths, Jess wondered how those brown eyes could bore right through him even more than Rory's words ever would.

xoxox

Rory walked into the kitchen and took a handful of pretzels from the cabinet and sat on a stool at the counter. Logan was across from her, reading the paper. Neither of them spoke a word to each other, neither of them acknowledging the fact that they both understood what the tears truthfully stood for.

"Dr. Sanders is putting you on a new prescription."

"Oh."

"I'll pick it up this afternoon."

"Okay, thanks." Rory entwined her fingers in and out of the rings of the pretzel. "Logan?"

"Huh?" He didn't bother to look up from the paper.

"Look at me."

"What?" The occupied expression scribbled over Logan's face screamed at Rory from every angle and she didn't bother to fight back. She wasn't a fighter. She wouldn't fight the resistance.

She would run

xoxox

A/N- So how did everyone like the first chapter? This story has been in the works for nine months now and I've just overcome the most horrible writer's block. The next chapter will be up in a week or so if I can still carry on this idea. Please review, I appreciate it.

-Michelle