A/N: This has been burning a hole in my floppy disk for almost two months. It's been through a lot of changes, much like a young person going through puberty. Mood swings, hair in strange places, etc. But, I liked this story and I wanted it to be done and out there. So, I finally just made myself sit down and edit it into submission. Even so the ending is not as good as I want it to be. But, whatever. Here are the fruits of my labor. Also, to Allie K.: I am sorry to say that I am very much a female. Though, I'm wondering, what made you think I was a man?

There are bruises on her wrists. He has taken to pinning her arms above her head when they're making love, squeezing hard and harder still when he comes. She doesn't feel it then, of course. Her senses are focusing almost entirely on the feeling of warmth that rises into the pit of her stomach as she bites down hard on her lip. In the morning, she feels it. She feels the slight ache as she reaches out to touch his cheek. When the sun pours through the window, he kisses the bruises gently.

She is brushing her hair when he comes out of the shower. He stands behind her. He takes her hand away from her head. "What are these?" He means the bruises. He's forgotten. He doesn't know that he put them there. He doesn't realize.

"Bruises." She doesn't know how else to respond besides stating the obvious.

"Have you been arrested lately?" She doesn't know why but the joke makes her want to cry.

"They're from you." Her tone is emotionless.

"Oh." He pauses, thinking. Then, "From…" He trails off because these things aren't meant to be spoken or thought of in the daylight.

She nods. "Yeah." She starts brushing her hair again. They don't hurt, is what she wants to tell him. It doesn't matter. They mean nothing. They don't make me feel anything. She chooses silence. Part of her likes to make him feel guilty. It is some odd form of reassurance, letting her know that he still cares, it hasn't gone from him yet, the novelty hasn't worn off.

"I'm sorry. I'll try to be more gentle. I just…"

"I know. You lose your head sometimes." She smiles softly at him.

"We're seeing your mother tomorrow."

He's bringing this up because of the bruises. She should hide them somehow. Her mother shouldn't see them. She'll think horrible things. She'll assume the worst. But, it's summer.

"It'll be alright. They'll probably fade a little by then."

He swallows. "What about tonight?"

"We just won't tonight. We're not that sex crazed, are we?"

He lets out a laugh. "You might not be."

He finds it strange that all he wants right now is to kiss her. Not to kiss her, but to let his lips linger on her cheek, the soft hollow just below her cheekbone. She looks clean and pure this morning, her skin smoother, paler. But, he doesn't think she wants to be touched right now so he sits down on the bed, leaning back against the headboard.

She is carefully dotting concealer onto her wrists, rubbing it in, trying to make them less apparent. She frowns at the mirror when it does nothing to hide them. She throws the makeup sponge down on the table, defeated.

The bruises are upsetting her now. They never upset her before. Not until he brought them up and acted like he didn't realize. She thought those early morning butterfly kisses were his form of apology, not just sleep filled longing. She looks at him in the mirror. "People are going to think you beat me. They're going to think I'm some passive, weak woman who just lets you walk all over me."

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what she wants to hear right now, a joke or some form of comfort.

She lets the corners of her mouth drop. "This is the worst they've ever been." She looks at her wrists carefully. "This one's turning blue. They've never been blue before. They were always brown, light brown like bruises on fruit."

"Rory…Come here."

She walks over to the bed and stands next to it. He is careful when he takes her arm, grabbing her by the elbow instead and gently. She follows his lead and allows herself to fall next to him. He isn't touching her, but his body is close. It's enough for her, just his warmth slowly being absorbed by her skin.

He wants to say that he's sorry again, but that won't do any good. He wants to say that he'll be more gentle from now on, but he knows he can't control what he does. So, he kisses her lightly on her temple, trailing his way down to her jaw line. She looks up at him just as he is about to hit her neck. "Can I bruise you somehow? Give you massive hickies?" He is so thankful that she is smiling. "Oh! Maybe I could bite you somewhere where people could see my teeth marks!"

He shakes his head. "Then, they'll just think that my girlfriend is extremely kinky."

"You're probably right."

He picks up her arm again to look at the bruises. She was right, there is one turning blue. It is on the underside of her arm to the right of her vein. He touches it. Then, he is pushing it. He is testing it, checking the damage he has done. She winces, a sharp intake of breath and pulls her arm from him.

"Sorry," he mumbles.

She gets up from the bed and gets dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. "Let's go out."

"Where?"

"We live in New York, there are plenty of places to go. It doesn't matter." What she means is, she is suddenly claustrophobic. She suddenly can't breathe in this two room apartment with him pushing on her bruises. She wants to be elsewhere.

"The park?"

"No. Natural History Museum?"

"It'll just be filled with tourists and little kids."

"I want to see dinosaur bones."

"Okay." He hates the museum, especially on Saturdays, but he agrees because he wants to make her happy. He needs to shake the feeling that his entire existence in her world can be summed up in her bruises.

On the subway, she is wringing her hands and avoiding eye contact with everyone. A woman and a small child get on and she can feel the mother's eyes on her, looking at her wrists and looking at Jess sitting next to her. It doesn't help that he is scowling with his hands shoved in his pockets. Rory reaches over for his arm, pulling his hand out of his pocket and lacing their fingers together. Jess gives her a questioning look but understands when she motions towards the woman. He kisses her on the cheek and waits for her smile. She waits for a few seconds before giving it to him, when she does, he whispers, "Love you."

It isn't enough. The mother still looks at her as though she is ashamed. Jess takes her hands in his and rubs her wrists gently, saying loud enough to be overheard, "I told you not to wrap the dog's leash around your wrist so tight. You know he pulls hard sometimes."

She smiles weakly at him, "I know, you're right. I just don't want him to get away from me." She kisses him on the mouth and when she pulls away the woman isn't watching her anymore. She looks him at him mouthing, "Thank you." He nods, pulling her closer to him.

They skip the museum and go to Central Park instead. She finds herself distracted by the way the sun is shining through the canopy of trees. It is a welcome distraction and she has almost forgotten about the bruises entirely until he reaches for her hand. His reach is tentative, so she grabs his hand fiercely.

"Don't…do that." She says through her clenched teeth as she grips his hand tightly.

"Sorry. I didn't want to.."

"I hate it when you treat me like I'm fragile."

He stops walking in the middle of the path, letting go of her hand. Joggers pass between the two like speeding trains, blurring their faces.

"You are fragile! I've already hurt you!"

She wants to be closer to him so they don't have to yell, but there are too many joggers and tourists blocking her way. She stands there, catching tiny glimpses of his face in between the passing heads. He has that look about him. She hates it. When his eyebrows come together and his eyes are full of concern and his mouth is parted. He looks too confused, she doesn't think it fits his mood at all. He just looks scared and helpless. Maybe he is, but she thinks he's mostly angry, frustrated.

He moves first. When he steps toward her, she moves away. She isn't sure why she does this, but she steps back from him. She immediately corrects herself and steps back to her original position. She is not afraid of him and she doesn't want him to think that she is.

"It's my fault," He says, softly, leaning down towards her face so she can hear him better and because he wants to be close to her.

He wants to talk about the stifling feeling that has marked the day. She doesn't know what to tell him. She isn't sure how to explain the feeling she was suddenly filled with that morning. She knows the bruises are nothing, she had told herself that before. But, when she thinks about how he is when they're making love, she feels almost frightened. It's silly and she feels ridiculous for thinking it.

In the beginning, he had been perfect, gentle and loving. He would whisper that she was beautiful and all those things that are supposed to be whispered in the dark. Lately, though, something had changed. He didn't whisper anymore and if he did he would whisper obscenities or just her name over and over. And he would pin her down, not allowing her to move, keeping her under him the entire time. Sometimes, the look in his eyes would scare her and she mostly kept her eyes shut tight. She wants to ask him about this change, but she isn't sure if he even realizes what he does. She worries that perhaps this malicious sort of lovemaking is the channeling of some suppressed anger.

It has everything and nothing to do with a certain phone call he received two weeks ago.

He isn't supposed to answer the phone. Neither of them is supposed to answer, they screen. That's always been the rule since she came to live with him. She doesn't want her grandparents or her mother to call and have him answer the phone. Every time the phone rings, he is reminded of the fact that she is still ashamed of him. After all this time, she is still afraid of what they'll think.

It was Tuesday and he was home from work before her. He was standing in front of the refrigerator, staring at last week's Chinese and wondering if he was hungry enough to actually eat it. That's when the phone rang. He wasn't thinking. He picked it up on the second ring.

"Yeah?" And then there was silence, but he could hear breathing in the background. It was steady in and out breathing. But, it sounded angry.

"Hello? Look, I'm not some lonely housewife, so try another number."

He recognized the voice immediately. "You."

With that single word, he was suddenly back in high school and he laughed, loudly into the phone. "Are you seriously calling here, Dean? Don't you think that's just a tad pathetic? It's over. She chose me. I won." He liked it, telling him all of this, throwing it in his face. After everything, she had come to him.

"You." He said it again.

"That's right. Me. She's living with me, sleeping with me, not you. Aren't you married? Or did she get bored with you too?"

"Don't."

"And I used to be the monosyllabic one. Hey, how tall are you now? Eight feet?"

He hung up.

He didn't tell Rory about the call. He thought it would upset her. He thought she'd get mad at him for being so rude, or maybe she'd laugh and agree that Dean was pathetic. But, it was better that he kept it to himself. He would never admit that a part of him was afraid she would go back to him if she knew he had tried to contact her.

He was angry after the call. He hated feeling seventeen again, but something had been sparked inside him. He was suddenly faced with the fact that she could leave. She could go home, should go home. She didn't belong here. He didn't know what was keeping her here.

He tried to ignore it. He didn't let it show when she was around. But, when he was in bed with her, it came out and he needed to be in control. He wanted to watch her face from above, had to, needed to see it contort with pleasure. He wanted to trap her beneath him and not let her go.

She is waiting, patient and silent, for his response. She can see it working itself out in his eyes, the way his eyebrows are coming together in concentration. She reaches out to touch his knee and he looks at her.

"Jess, why are you angry?"

He leans back against the slats of the bench, letting them press into his spine.

"Dean called."

"When?" But, she isn't surprised, she doesn't sound shocked.

"A couple weeks ago."

"Oh."

"He didn't say much."

"Yeah." She is staring absently. He hates when she stares like that, it tells him nothing.

"He sounded upset."

"Well…"

"I told him that I won."

She gives him a look that is both angry and pleased. "You shouldn't have said that."

He smiles at her. "But, it's true. I won."

She bites her bottom lip. "I slept with him."

And this is something she had never told him. She thought it was best left unsaid. It would only make things worse. She hadn't told him that they had gotten back together after he asked her to run away with him. It was the only secret she kept from him.

He doesn't respond. He isn't sure what to say. He had always thought it would happen. As soon as he left her that night, he knew it would happen. It doesn't hurt the way it's supposed to. He doesn't feel a thing. He thinks he should be angry, but he isn't. He should be at least a little upset that she kept it from him, but he knows that it's his fault that she did. She feared his reaction. He is calm.

"Yeah, I figured."

"We were together for a while. Not long. He broke up with me. Again." She laughs bitterly. "Three times. He broke up with me three times."

"Three?"

"Yeah. Once before you were even in the picture. He told me he loved me and I couldn't say it back. We'd only been going out for three months. It was stupid. I mean, he was my first boyfriend and I was only sixteen. How did I know if I loved him or not?"

"Yeah, well, he's a jerk." He is dying for a change of subject. The current topic brings up a bad taste in the back of his throat.

"So, that's why you've been….Because of Dean calling?"

He nods.

"But, that's old news."

"It made me realize that you could leave." He speaks quietly because he isn't sure if he that's what he wants to say or not.

"And so now you're just grasping for some sense of control, is that it?"

She understands it now. She has always been the one afraid that he would leave. She knows what it's like to be searching for some feeling of stability. She recognizes this desperate need for reassurance.

"I guess." He shrugs. "But, it's just a subconscious thing. I hadn't even realized…"

She shakes her head. "No, I understand. Just…" She kisses him furiously. "I'm not going anywhere."

He nods, trying to convince himself that it's true.

Later that night, he is finding it hard not to touch her. On more than one occasion, he has simply pressed his hands against the vast expanse of skin between her protruding hip bones to wake her up. She wakes up full of desire and lets him make love to her. But, he has promised her that he wouldn't tonight. So, he watches her nostrils flare slightly as she breathes until he falls asleep.

The next morning when he wakes, she is watching him and smiling. The smile widens when his eyes finally open. He kisses the corner of her mouth and reaches for her arms. There is a sense of liberation in looking at her skin, pale white like it should be. He touches her wrist lightly where the bruises once were and says quietly, "They're gone."