A/N: I know mot of you are probably wondering why I'm not working on Between The Lines right now. But I did warn you that I would update that no sooner or later than the ideas came to mind. And the idea for this came a lot quicker than the next chapter of Between The Lines. So kill me.
Takes place Season 7: Unto the Breach. Remember the scene where Rory goes back to the almost-empty apartment—after Logan proposes, btw—and sits down and opens the ring box to try on the ring? And before you Literati lovers close the screen, thinking this is a Rogan story; it's not. Maybe I'm the first one to write this, maybe I'm not. Please review, mkay?
Disclaimer: Rory, Jess, Logan, Lorelai, Luke, or any of the other characters that may/may not appear in this story belong solely to The CW and Warner Bros. Television, no copyright infringement intended, blah blah blah.
She was tired, and out-of-sorts. She had that kind of "I really wished I smoked right about now" feeling. Her stomach was empty, even though she had just eaten, and all she wanted to do was turn her mind off to keep the thoughts that were spinning around in there from fucking killing her.
She sat down in the almost-empty apartment and looked to her right. The first thing that she noticed was the tiny black velvet box that had so much meaning, she wondered if it even knew all the trouble it had caused. But as her eyes traveled lower, daring her to forget, at least for a second, she found herself forgetting in a totally different way, and without even having to try.
It was funny the way something that had been there, something that she could always count on reminded her of something so much more unpredictable. How an innocent cardboard box, so plain and simple, could make her rethink everything.
She shoved the velvet box aside, taking the plainer one—what irony—instead. She looked through the piles of classics until she reached one much less well-known, but as loved and used as the rest; maybe more.
She flipped through it, slowly at first, catching the paragraphs that the author himself had actually written on, in pen—and she was sure that it was only her copy that he had done so—and looked. Every time she finished, she would start at the beginning again, harder and harder, faster and faster, and soon she was crying and it was dizzy and big and black and red and words and songs and books and him, him, him.
She dropped the book on the floor, hugging herself, her cheeks wet and her hair mussed. She could hear his voice in her head, repeating her name.
"Rory," he said, his voice that ever-present, smoke-damaged, fucking beautiful, accidental insanity. "What's going on, Rory? This isn't you, Rory. It isn't complicated Rory. I don't deserve this, Rory. What's wrong with you, Rory? I know you, Rory. Believe me, Rory. I love you, Rory. You're beautiful, Rory. Rory, Rory, Rory."
She woke up. And someone was calling her name, but it wasn't who she thought it was.
"Rory," Paris said, shaking her. "You fell asleep. You must've been reading or something 'cause there are books everywhere."
She blinked, dazed. Then Paris noticed the mascara trails running down her cheeks. "Are you okay?" she said. "Have you been crying?"
"It's…uh…" she was having a hard time talking. "It's nothing, Paris. I need to go out."
"Oh," she said, skeptical. "Okay. Where?"
"I need to tell Logan that I can't marry him," she said, almost surprised at herself for saying it. But not really.
"Woah," said Paris. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," she said, not even turning around as she head out the door, The Subsect clutched tightly in her palm.
She didn't change her mind.
(Because she realized that it had been someone else's face that she'd been seeing.)