A/N: This is based on the song of the same title by Death Cab For Cutie. I know there's another Rory/Jess out there with the same title, but I promise, mine goes in a completely different direction. It's way different than my other stuff, and I hope you like.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls or the Death Cab lyrics.

Her bright blue eyes were smiling. She laughed at him and said, "There you are!"
She reached for his hand and pulled him close, and he kissed her.
--

He had always hated hospitals.

The room was dark and eerily quiet. A cheap fluorescent fixture overheard cast a pale, halfhearted light, and the various machines around him bleeped every so often.

He sat with his head cradled in his right hand. His left hand, the wedding ring hand, was grasping hers.

She lay on the bed, peacefully unaware of the turmoil going on inside her. Eyes closed, as they had been for months. Light brown hair fanned out onto the pillows. She had always been slender, but now her face and arms were thin and pinched. Her skin, formerly smooth and milky, was ashen.

He gazed at her. She was still breathtaking.

He gripped her hand tighter, and closed his eyes, traveling back through the years. Though the room was silent, in his mind he was speaking to her, recounting their story.

He remembered the life he lived before he met her. The going-nowhere resignation, lack of school attendance, the hostility to the world in general. The parties, alcohol, drugs, and all the many girls. Waking up and not even knowing where he was.

He smiled, thinking of the first time he woke up next to her.

He recalled his mother's last attempt to discipline him before she sent him away. Catholic school. What a mess he'd made there. He had lasted a week, and then it was off to that small Connecticut town. A blessing in disguise, though he didn't admit it until several years later.

He met her there. His second day in town, at her house. They were both seventeen. This girl was different, he had thought. And she was.

They were friends first, but not really. There had always been something beneath the surface. They'd had to go through not-so-alone nights, totaled cars, broken arms, stolen kisses, a 24-Hour Dance Marathon, and her boyfriend to be together. But they made it.

It was golden, those few months they were together. The calm in the chaos his life had been before her. Sure, they'd had their problems, but they were made for each other, no question. They changed each other. She was learning to break some rules and he was starting to respect them. Most of the time. Of course, with his abrupt departure he'd ruined it. It didn't change what they had been or what he had found, but it hurt her, he knew.

He rubbed his temples with his other hand, the merest ghost of pain or regret etched onto his face.

Then he'd spent a year away from her. He'd tried to move on, but instead he had realized that there was a name for the persistent feeling he couldn't get rid of, try as he might. He was in love with her. When he had finally worked up the courage to tell her this, to ask her to run away, it was too late.

They didn't see each other for two years after that. Two years of working hard to make something of himself. She was his inspiration, and he was proud of what he could offer her. His labored accomplishment: a novel, his own published book. But she'd seemed so different, and she'd had that jerk boyfriend, just like before. Then she showed up in Philadelphia to see him, and of course it ended badly. Kind of. But she'd still had that guy waiting for her, and they fell out contact.

It wasn't until after she graduated college that they'd met again. They were twenty-three, and she had called him "just to talk." Before he knew what was happening he was sitting in a coffee shop two states away. They talked until morning that night. And this time, the timing was finally right. She moved to Philly, and got a job at The Inquirer. They lived together for two years before she got her break – an offer for a monthly column, to travel around the world's major cites for a year.

He went with her.

He remembered the sex in Barcelona, the rain in Rio de Janeiro, the food in New Delhi. More sex when he'd finished his third novel in Berlin. The fight they'd had in Beijing, and making up in Calgary. Sydney, Tokyo, Bangkok, Moscow, Cape Town. He proposed on last leg of the journey. London.

He'd wanted to elope right then, but she won and they got married back in Stars Hollow. They had stayed in Philly for a while, but he'd missed his native town and they spent their first three years of marriage in New York City. She got a job at The Times, and he continued to write.

He shook his head from the daze, letting the last vestiges of lighthearted memories fade away. The good ones ended there. They'd found out she was sick somewhere around their fourth anniversary. It was right after they found out they couldn't have kids. Chronic myelogenous leukemia. Big words that really meant everything had changed.

They had remained in New York for only another year. She'd kept up with her job and doctor appointments, but once it was clear that drugs or transplants weren't going to help her, she took disabled retirement when she was thirty-one. Then they moved back to Stars Hollow to be closer to Lorelai and Luke.

He paused in his thoughts. There were happy memories here, but they were overshadowed with the pain of watching her grow weaker and thinner.

The years passed and they knew she didn't have long, but she never complained. They watched movies and went to town events even when she was in a wheelchair. She stubbornly refused chemotherapy, saying it wouldn't help much and she would rather have her hair. When it got really bad, they wrote their will together. A few days after that she had to be hospitalized.

They put her in a drug-induced coma when she could no longer breathe on her own. That was four months ago. Now she was on a respirator, and he had decided that no miracle was going to happen. She wasn't going to wake up.

He was crying now, as he laced and twined his fingers with hers.

They'd had a good a run. Love couldn't even . . . It was time to let her go. He had told the doctors that they could unplug the machines. He listened now, and it seemed the beeping and whirring around him was quieter. He couldn't live without her, and he wouldn't say goodbye. Almost there, he told her silently. I'll be right behind you.

The door opened quietly behind him and he heard Lorelai's voice. She was crying. "Jess, I know I said you could be with her, but I changed my mind because mothers definitely should be here when – when – "

He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. Luke.

No one spoke. A low whine from the life support machine broke the silence. Tears were falling thick and fast, and he let go of her hand and turned to embrace his uncle.

--

It was dark when he left the hospital. He felt hollow, empty, but not afraid. He had already made up his mind a long time ago.

Their house in Stars Hollow was small, but it was filled with her presence. He knew he should be feeling alone, but he could sense her all around him. He hung up his coat, took off his shoes, and got a glass of water. From the bathroom cupboard he took a fat bottle of sleeping pills. He'd swiped it from a nurse months ago.

He could hear her laughter around him, calling his name.

He was thirty-four, and she had been in his life for exactly half of it. That was enough for him, and he wouldn't live another day without her. He'd seen the world. Published six books. There was nothing else to do. He settled into the bed they'd shared, and swallowed every last pill in the bottle. He closed his eyes as blackness overtook his vision. Beyond the dark, he could see Rory waiting for him.