Rating: T for some cursing.
Disclaimer: Gilmore Girls belongs to Amy Sherman-Palladino and the WB/CW.
At least the damn place was deserted.
10.37 and it was literally deserted. Anywhere else and it'd have to be 4am before it got this quiet. Not that his neighborhood ever really got this quiet.
Collapsed drunks, maybe. Or the stumblers: habitually, stubbornly upright. Coughed up by the rumbling subway that swallowed the nightshift. Shrill hookers less shrill as they dwindled and strung out.
Dawn guaranteed a walk of shame or two.
Crossing another street he kicked a rock-chip and it skidded into the curb. Ricocheted. Didn't break.
No one in the street. No one in the square. Lit up like a Christmas tree for no one. The diner, dark. Apartment too, like a light gone out, but -
Right.
Luke and the lawyer at Lorelai's inn. Cosy. Like that wasn't awkward as hell.
His stomach lurched as he felt in a pocket for his key. But then he hadn't really eaten all day. Not since breakfast. Not since he walked out of Merton's office.
The stale onion-ring smell didn't help, and he took the stairs out of there two at a time.
Despite Lane's protestations that Rory, like Dave, was an only child, Rory had accompanied the couple to the Kims' and stood at the corner of the fence, ready to plead Lane's case if she got turned away at the front door.
If thine eye offends thee ...
Not that she had any faith in her debating skills up against Mrs Kim's formidable theology.
Something about reformed sinners' souls being dearer ...
But when Lane let herself in and Mrs Kim was nowhere to be seen, she offered Rory a silent shrug and closed the door without another look back. So dark inside. All Rory could do was telegraph the shrug halfway down the block to Dave leaning against the trunk of his car.
He reflected it back. Rubbed the back of his neck wearily. Shaking his head as he got in and drove away.
The glass of water gave edges to the raw feeling. Ridges ranged up against his tongue, tweaking something that had to be a dent in his cheekbone. Ferric as he swallowed and rolled his right shoulder, like it was loose in the socket under his hand and needed winding. A muscle slung across his back cut too tightly over the shoulder blade, and, as the heat was going out of it, a line started to beat its way around his side, probably tattooing itself indigo for tomorrow.
Jess lit the lamp at his bedside. Not tired for the first time in months. And after all, the empty apartment gave him what he wanted for once. Finally, some peace and frigging quiet with no one on his back. Alone so he could think for just one minute because for Christ's sake what the hell and would this shitty day not just end already?
Because he wanted to think. Needed to think. To think what he -
But the silence and the static and her face - -And his damn jaw was crunching like cement and wouldn't snap.
Away from the light he threw himself on the couch. The book his elbow caught slumped closed on the floor.
Rory wrapped arms around herself and felt inertia seize her as she cast her eye over the square. It never had before, but its cheery toytown brightness struck her now as cold and incongruous. Not just empty but hollow.
Above it, chill stars burning indifferently down.
It was a joke that she'd be grounded if she came home before midnight, but Lorelai had made a point of encouraging her daughter to enjoy a last night of freedom before the finals-pressure kicked in. And here she was.
At the opposite of a party.
A white fairylight wake for a dead town. On her own because he ... because she -
A light went on in the apartment above the diner and it felt like her heart sucked itself shut.
It opened out hot again and flooded her cheeks.
And then she was moving. Fast. Crossing the street without thinking what she'd do when she arrived there.
Luke at the inn.
Jess. Maybe. The light. Maybe.
A bay tree in a planter. A handful of tiny, roundish pebbles. Three sailing through the air when it suddenly hit her that she was a terrible shot. And what if the window broke? What if Mrs Slutsky's window broke?
They hit brick.
Six left in her hand. They almost felt soft. Was it pumice or something? Fake pumice? Was there even -? Maybe something specifically ... horticultural? One crumbled as she pressed it hard in the fingers of her other hand.
Two more were let fly.
Because she wasn't about to use the key above the door and get yelled at for arriving in another room unasked. (Did they miss?) But it was way past the time to talk, and she was tired of not talking, so god knows she was going to give it one last shot, and this was all she could do. One. Two. Three.
All connected.
Rats? Roaches, maybe. But then three more taps and definitely on the glass, so he thrust up the blind thinking the Scarlet Letter crap in this town was frigging out of hand because if those were eggs someone was going to pay in about thirty seconds.
He didn't open the window. She didn't call out.
Because Mrs Slutsky would throw a fit, she knew. And because no matter how much she wanted to reach him, there wasn't going to be another one-act play about their issues rehearsed in front of everyone. Even if Mrs Slutsky constituted the entirety of everyone.
Instead, he stared down at her, looking like a shocked and miserable ghost.
Then he disappeared.
Disappeared without a word and she was furious. Stock-still on the sidewalk fly-strip because she couldn't believe him. Not even a mute shrug. Goddammit. So she turned on her heel.
The bell above the diner's door chimed. His shadow in the doorway.
Her feet taking her past him as he moved aside.
Something halted her behind the first chair she came to, gripping its braced back as the bell rang again with the door's close. He set himself with a thud of one hip against the counter-front, and despite the dimness she could've sworn he winced.
"Does it hurt?"
"Nope."
Her right foot rocked outwards onto its edge and back.
"It looked like it would hurt."
"Yeah, well, you know what they say about appearances."
Her teeth met with a force that sent the ankle rolling again.
"He shouldn't've gone after you like that," she said.
"Whatever."
She scrunched her toe at the base of a chair-leg, her hair falling forward as she looked down. A dull buzz began to pulse in her wrists as she leaned.
The key clunked mutely against wood.
"Tell me," she said.
"Tell you what?"
"What's wrong. What's the matter. Tell me."
He shrugged.
"Don't do that. Don't shrug like everything's fine. Everything's not fine, Jess - -And I don't even mean what happened back there, or yelling at me, or any of that. Just talk to me. It's not too much to ask, is it?"
He hadn't looked up from the shadow of the diner's Closed sign.
"Or is it?"
Glancing up, he caught his lip cruelly and bit down. His eyes slid sideways and she lost her patience.
"God!" she burst out, pushing up off the chair, the heel of one hand dragging across her forehead. "Jess, I came here to talk because we need to talk. I did the stupid, humiliating pebble-thing because we need to talk. And not just about the fight and if you're hurt or not, but because you're miserable and you're hiding and there's something going on with you - -Something you're not telling me, and I don't know why. And that's not good enough anymore, okay? It's not. So if you don't want to talk, and you're not going to tell me what the hell is the matter, then I'm just going to go because there's really no point me trying to fix this or help you or - -Or anything, if you don't want any of -"
"'Cos it's that easy, right?"
"It should be. I'm your girlfriend, Jess; it should be. At least it would be if ... if you ..."
"If I what?"
"If you loved me, okay?" she blurted. "Because I love you.- -But, boy, does that ever sound stupid when you say it to someone who won't even talk to you. Who walks away when you're trying to -"
"Rory -"
"I have to go," she said, swiping her eyes with a sleeve and turning away. "I'm sorry I - -That we -"
"Don't," he said. And the hand reaching for the handle fell slightly with its weight. "Just ... stay, okay?"
She lingered.
"Rory."
He'd come forward behind her, but as she faced him he backed up a foot or so to pull the nearest chair out a few inches. Stopped and closed his hand on the top-rail. Tighter with the silence.