Premise: Rory's reflections on the Jess Box … Future Fic. Building the road back to one another, one item at a time. One shot.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls or Guns of Brixton or Blue. I just brought them out to play. Putting them back on their shelves now.
BORROWED AND BLUE
You have a small collection of items that were his. They're in a box in your mother's hall closet, and you consider none of these items your own. Of course, no one knows this. They think it's just high school mementos, things upon things that are solely yours, nothing but memories you carry with you. But he was always his own man, and you never claimed ownership over anything of his. You're just holding on to his things, it's what you tell yourself. Just for a little while longer.
The lyrics to Guns of Brixton, copied out in his tiny but neat handwriting on a white sheet lined in blue.
A vinyl record of Joni Mitchell singing Blue. He copied out your favorite line on the paper sleeve. Blue… Songs are like tattoos.
The bracelet Dean gave you all those years ago has found its way to your Jess box. Your mother suggested it, and it seemed to fit just perfectly, with it's blue on black stone pendant.
All the books he lent you, beat up paperbacks with fold markings and notes in blue ink.
Your cast, with his signature. Blue pen on blue cast.
You guess you keep all these things in the event he comes back. But when he does come back, you forget all about them. And when he goes, he doesn't leave a forwarding address.
He starts coming back more often, doesn't give reasons, doesn't make promises. Asks nothing of you. His work lets him travel, and he travels to you. You collect more and more items he leaves behind, scattered like colored pencils on a desk. His stays are longer and longer. You joke, once, that soon he will stop leaving. He answers that, one day, he will. But only when you ask.
You cry great blue tears that night, because you aren't ready to ask yet. He leaves another book behind, which you read from cover to cover, searching for answers, before laying it to rest inside the box.
You heard once, or maybe you read it, that some people insist on being buried with their belongings, much like the pharaohs did in times immemorial.
You think that maybe you should be buried with all these items you hold, with the entire contents of the box, not because they are yours, but because they are his.
You used to believe that maybe, after death, you would meet him again in some place less complicated. And you would give him these gifts, these things you carry with you, that are much more than things, these heavy words he gave you and that, in returning them to their rightful owner, you would finally be free of the burden of loving him. That you would give him back these things you took from him and that, in turn, he would give you back your heart. But you don't believe this any longer. Someone very wise and now forgotten told you a long time ago that nothing happens unless you make it happen.
Upon closer inspection you notice that not even the box you keep his things in is yours. It was a box that came with takeout, that he brought for you. The grease markings tell you this, so does the logo in faded blue that reads "Luke's".
You know, in the back of your mind, that he owns a box just like yours. There he keeps every book you ever lent him, a pair of barrettes that you lost in his car on a cold winter night, a ribbon from your basket, a receipt for two ice cream cones, a locker key he stole from Port Authority in a blue keychain. And he doesn't intend on giving anything back to you now, either.
So one night, one of the many nights he appears at your window, you ask him to stop playing hide and seek, and to play show and tell. He agrees. Almost eagerly, he agrees.
You open each other's boxes. You open each other's hearts. His box is smaller, portable, he traveled so many more miles with you on his back. Some of the things it holds mean close to nothing to you: a pebble, a twig, a coin. Some you recognize vaguely, a small piece of plastic that looks remarkably like a piece of rain gutter. But these things, even if they are unrecognizable, are all yours, and the stories they hold take your breath away and then refuse to give it back.
Every item he takes out is a poem, a scream. Every item you show is a song, a tattoo. You cry. You laugh. You fight. He kills mosquitoes on your porch, so they won't bite you. You make him tea, because he hates your coffee.
When the morning comes, he doesn't leave.
You stand before each other, naked, because the shroud of memories and things saved, of things borrowed and blue, has finally fallen from your eyes.
You feel lighter, he looks weightless.
You ask him to stay.
For a writer, he is a man of few words. He places his box inside yours and helps you carry it up the stairs to your mother's attic.
You buy new copies of all the books that stayed in the boxes, he builds shelves for them. He finds you another vinyl of Blue, you write the lyrics to Guns of Brixton on the wall above the bed you share, dark blue paint on what was once covered with flowered wallpaper.
And when your daughter asks how you met, you'll bring the box down from the attic of the house you now share, and let her dig, ask, touch, play, listen, laugh. She will add something of her own, a crayon, a ribbon, and he will smile.
You have a small collection of items that belong to your daughter. They're in a box in the attic of your mother's old house, which is now yours. Though you and Jess collected them, neither you nor he considers these items to be your own. They are your daughter's things, they are things that speak of her life before she existed, of your lives before she existed, of your lives together and the years apart. The people who know this box exists think it is full of mementoes, small tokens of years of love, requited and unrequited. But they are not. You and your husband are just keeping these things safe for your daughter. This is what you tell yourselves. Just for a little while longer.
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Author's note: Evidently, not much here. Just random thoughts that plagued me while my stitches itched. It's a bit vague, but, oh, hell. Just tell me what you think, and thank you for reading…