A/N: Thanks to NotThereNeverAround and to everyone who reads this.

Philadelphia, June 2008

She startles awake. It's the noise outside, or maybe his breath next to her. His arm heavily resting on her stomach. Him. All of him.

She can't even blame it on being drunk, much as she'd want to. Does she? Not sure. Of that, of anything. She wants to get out, but her gaze falls on his sleeping face and something feels like it's cracking inside her chest, like ribs are splintering into flesh at the thought of being even an inch farther than she is. Stay there forever, be as far away as possible, all at the same time.

So she tries. She closes her eyes, nestles nearer him. Forces calm breaths, maybe she'll fall asleep again and he'll be awake first and then she won't have time to think. Focuses slowly on each limb at a time, and their pleasant aching. Memories of legs bent upwards, hands caught in his. Mouths practically charging, relentlessly, as if trying to make up for lost time. She'd tripped over something, he'd caught her to stop the fall, like in some fifties movie and then it had gone from a kiss to another, to clothes tugged off without thought. To his fingers purposely touching every inch of her body like he was trying to memorize her topography. Maybe he'd known she was going to spook.

It takes another hour before she slides out away from him. Dresses quietly, then goes into the kitchen. She paces in the unfamiliar surroundings for what feels like an eternity before sitting at the table and digging out a reporter's notebook from her pocket. There's a small pen in there too, stolen from a hotel months ago because it fits perfectly in all her jeans.

I'm sorry. It's as far as she gets.

"Tell me that says you've been called into work. Or my coffee's shit and you were about to go looking for more." It's been twenty minutes of staring at the paper trying to get her thoughts together, the bright red oven clock tells her. Twenty damn minutes and a stupid apology is it.

"I…" She stands up, crumpling the paper in her hand. She tries to hide it in her pocket, because it feels like the words are going to burn out of the paper and onto her skin. Tattoo her shame there for all to see.

"You…?" He pushes.

"I need a day."

He covers his mouth with his open hand, fingers digging into his cheek. There's a memory of that same hand stuck in her hair the night before, holding her in place until she was deliciously out of breath. She swallows and the memory goes down too.

"A day, huh?"

"To think. About what happened. Last night."

"Maybe talk it over with Lorelai? Make a pro-con list?"

"It's not like that."

"Then what the hell is it like, Rory?" He throws his hand towards the table she had just been sitting at. "Tell me it's anything but a goddamn note left on my nightstand!"

"It's…"

"Yeah." He picks up where she drops off. "You and me."

She looks at him. "It is what it is, right?" A pause and a breath, because she's not sure it's all as seared in his memory as it is in hers. "Last time. Here, downstairs. You said that."

"And hey, look at that, you're once again leaving. What, that jerk still waiting for you?"

"It's not about him. Or anyone else."

"Then?"

"I just need to think about it. A day, two at the most, Jess, that's it. Figure out what I'm feeling. Thinking. All of it."

"No. You need to get the hell out." He moves out, clearing the doorway. "If you really needed to think about it, you should have asked. Not…" Another look towards the table and the chair she had been sitting in. "Not a fucking note. Tell you what, show it to me. Show me where it says that you need time."

"I…"

"You're a coward. Get. Out." He punctuates each word, grabbing the open door in one hand and throwing the other one, again, away from the kitchen. She stops in front of him on the way out. Three inches away, forcing herself to be as straight as he is. She wants to reach out and take his hand still resting on the open door, drag him back to the bedroom and pretend it was all a stupid dream. But he's implacable and she can't find much to give.

Dragonfly, March 2009

One last drink. One more drink. One whatever drink, because he's been saying that for five glasses already. He hadn't thought she was going to get to him that much, standing at the end of that silk and rose petal lined aisle. Looking at each other over Luke and Lorelai's shoulders as the minister rambled on and on about overcoming obstacles and windy paths until they got to be there that day, ready to love each other 'til goddamn death do them apart. Enough for him to need to get drunker than he'd ever been, drunker than the time now deeply carved into his head as 'the note time', if that was possible, although he was sure records had been set that day. The dining room just felt less sad a backdrop than his room. Stupid fucking flowers everywhere. He couldn't face drinking alone next to a handmade quilt and a silhouette drawing of a little girl. This way, he could just pretend he was the last straggler.

"Sorry." She stops in the doorway. "I was looking for …food." The lie is blatantly transparent. He cocks his eyebrows. "Fine, I needed a drink." She shrugs, grabbing a glass from the stack on a side table. She sounds a few in already too. "You mind?"

"Plenty to go around." He's been eyeing a second half full bottle of whiskey on the corner table all evening anyway. Planning to stop just one glass short of not being able to make it up the stairs. Not even that, he doesn't think so, would improve his mood.

"Can I sit here? Or should I go to the library?" She pulls the chair away before looking at him again.

"Whatever." He shrugs.

"Thanks." She sits, pushing the chair as far away from the table as it can be while still reaching for the glass and bottle. She refills his drink too while she's at it. "Last time..."

"Don't go there." He's feeling perilously close to angry. "I've been doing a pretty good job at forgetting about it, I'd like to keep it that way." He'd thrown out the bed sheets when washing them hadn't taken her memory out. Briefly toyed with the idea of torching the whole place but he didn't think he was good enough to fool his insurance. If only he'd started on that life of crime they had all predicted for him at seventeen, he might have stood a chance.

"So what then? We sit here getting drunk in silence? Talk about the weather?"

"It's been working pretty well for me so far, the silence thing."

"Jess, let me…"

"What, explain? I get it. You didn't want to stay."

"I wanted to stay!" She's picks up on his anger and lobs it right back. "And go at the same time and it was all messed up inside my head! Why was that so much to ask, time to think about what the hell was happening, to straighten it out? It's not like I told you to join a monastery and wait for me until we're both seventy!"

"No, definitely not." Not even sure how he's managed to keep his tone flippant, but feeling satisfied with it anyway. "You'd never do that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Please." Glass in his hand, he takes a sip. "I'm supposed to be Luke in this, waiting, pining, being there when you want me to be while you get your shit together and then maybe you can decide I'm good enough to settle for. Sure, you'll drop by once in a while to throw a bone and make sure I'm still around, but at the end of the day, I'm the last resort if you can't find someone better. And let's face it, you went back to that guy who cheated on you, so better really is all relative here, isn't it?"

She looks like she's taken a sucker punch. "That's…" she manages to get out. Then stands up, shoving away from the table, making it rattle. "You're an asshole."

He's starting to feel like one, because he's not entirely sure it was called for, but it had been weighing on his mind too, one more in the multitude of thoughts around her. Standing up, holding on to the edge of the table, head suddenly heavier than it should be. Ready to follow. Apologize.

"Changed my mind," she announces, marching back to the room. Stopping two feet away. "Screw you, first off, for bringing mom and Luke into it, like you're somehow privy to everything when you bailed out of here as soon as you could. And for even letting that into your head, that I would ask that of you. It's never been like that and you know it."

"Ro-"

"Shut up," she tells him, slicing her hand through the air. "You want me to be the bad guy? Tough damn luck. At least I was leaving a note, ok? Or is that horse you're on not high enough to see California? It's awful, what we're doing, coming in and out of each other's lives like we are, and it hurts like hell but we're both to blame so, much as you want me to, I'm not going to carry all of it on my shoulders. And hey, you started it, remember? The coming back? That's on you too!" A sharp, audible breath that she's forcing in. "I'm not going to claim I've been the good guy all along, because I screwed up too. The note was crap, I'll give you that, and coming to Philly the first time wasn't right either. But what you said? The way you've been acting? Talk about uncalled for." It's like she's put all her energy in that speech and now, stood there, drained, she can only find a whisper. "Now I'm done."

He looks at her, words all stuck in his throat, in his head. All of him, stuck, caught unready.

And then she leaves.

Stars Hollow, December 2009

She's suddenly underwater. Her mother, a foot across the table, is still talking, but no sound is getting through to her. From nowhere in the diner, no cutlery clanging, no plates. No other voices. Just the bell, distinctly tocsin ringing over and over again in her head. Except it's not, she knows it's stopped and she also knows that the pressure behind the hollow of her throat is because she's not breathing.

He makes his way to Luke. She picks up the conversation with Lorelai again, years of half paying attention to her ranting while she tried to study coming in handy. He either doesn't see her or he's purposely ignoring her. Whatever it is, he's behind the curtain a minute later and she's smiling at Lorelai and telling her pizza sounds great, but she gets to pick the movie for a change. The pressure's moved to her chest, dull aching she's never managed to shake completely turned sharp again.

"Can we talk?"

She's halfway through the back cover of a book when he's there, leaning against the shelves. Like he's been standing for a while. And, from how wet he is, like he was standing out in the rain for a while too before coming into the bookshop.

"Talk or fight? Because it's been mostly the latter lately."

"Talk." He asks again. "Please?"

The hollow hurts again, this time like something's pressing against it, making it impossible to speak. She nods, not sure why. Maybe because he looks as battered as she feels. Most likely because, try as she might, say it as much as she wants, she's not sure she'll ever be really done with him.

The rain's letting up slightly so she puts the book back in its place and heads for the door. Doesn't stop until she's sitting in the gazebo. He's there ten seconds behind her, taking the opposite corner of the bench and running a hand through his hair to shake out some of the water.

She wants to say something about the rain, about how she wishes it would snow, about anything. But there's nothing. So she waits.

"I tried to call." He tells her.

"I know." A lot of voicemails she deleted without listening to.

"Then Luke called and asked if I wanted to come for Christmas and I thought I could see you and talk about last time. About five minutes after I said yes, I figured it was your turf and you hadn't been taking my calls for a reason and I'm an idiot but the ball was rolling and you try telling him or Liz you've changed your mind." Elbows on knees, he's staring at his hands clasped together.

"It's joint turf. Your family's here."

He shakes his head slowly. Then looks at her. "I'm sorry. About what I said. You were right, I was a jerk."

"I don't think that's what I called you. Not the only thing, at least."

"If it makes you feel any better, it's by far one of the nicest things I called myself."

"It does." A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. She can't stop it.

"I'll be here all night if you want to add to the list."

"On this bench?"

"Maybe walk over there," he waves his hand towards the square, "and hope I catch pneumonia or something."

"Don't die, it might take me a while to think of a good insult and I'd hate to see it go to waste."

"Hospital trip at the most."

"Good." She smiles again, pushing a strand of hair back behind her ear.

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning, so we won't have to argue about whose turf it is for too long."

"It's Christmas tomorrow, Jess. Stay. Have dinner. Even this place has to be more fun than driving back to Philly."

"Roads will be clear."

"The I-95? Please."

"Clearer?" He smirks, sitting up straight on the bench. "We ok?"

"We're us." She shrugs. Easy one moment then, all at once, every emotion she knows how to feel hitting her body like she's been caught in a hailstorm. "I called too. After..." a few times. And a lot more times she had stared at his name in her phone, ready to dial.

"I know."

"The note was a bad idea and I'm sorry about that. But it's not really about that is it? Or about last time, or the time before that, or the time before that." He's still looking at her. "We've piled bad decision after bad decision and now…" She tries to clear the pain, spread all deep into her chest, with a sigh. "It sucks, you know? That this is where we're at. Worst of all, that I can't even figure out where this is." She knots her hands together, pressing her thumbs into each other. "I was angry and guilty and those I knew, I could make sense of, but I've nearly chipped them away to nothing because that's always what happens with you. Thing is, what I'm left with is this… God, it's just this sadness, over how badly we screwed up, over this no-man's land we're in. Can we just pretend none of it happened? Find the reset button?"

"Reset to when?"

Stumped, because she can't remember a time when she wasn't hurting, even a fraction, because of him. "No idea." She stands up, burying her hands deep in her coat pockets. "I never know anything when it comes to you." She stops him before he can speak again. "I hope you'll stay for Christmas. And that one day we'll get easier."

"Me too."

She looks back over her shoulder when she's on the other side of the road. He's looking at her too.

Philadelphia, September 2010

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the all the world. Of all the bookshops, anyway, she's there, in the same one he's in. Sam asking Ilsa to leave Rick a note feels ironic. And like a punch to the gut. Most everything does when it comes to her.

He's still debating whether he should leave when she looks up. Feeling a little bit of satisfaction that she looks caught off guard too. Five long, infinite steps until he's closer to her. Next to the biographies.

"Hey."

"I didn't know…" she hesitates. "I'm in town for a work thing, saw a bookshop. I'm not stalking you or anything." She chuckles, a hint of nervousness to it.

"It's ok. You know where I live, I figured you'd have tried there first if you were actually trying to stalk me."

"I was going for a personal challenge."

"Well, if you ever decide to apply for the CIA, I'll vouch for your finding skills. Zero stealth though."

"Can't win them all." She smiles and it looks easier. "I thought about calling. See if you were up for coffee or something."

"Usually."

"I'd suggest now, but I'm supposed to be heading back to my conference in ten minutes."

"How about a drink this evening?"

"…Yeah, sure." She agrees after a short hesitation. "On one condition."

He cocks an eyebrow, waiting.

"Tell me where I can get a good cheesesteak. The one I had for lunch was decidedly subpar."

"Dalessandro's if you don't mind the hike. Sonny's if you do."

"Thanks."

One drink turns to two and then another and another. Easy, all of it, the next drink, the conversation. About books and movies and music. Stars Hollow, briefly. Work, both of theirs. Everything that made him be pissed off at them when he thought about it, because two people who see each other once a year have no right to fall so seamlessly into anything. And then it's last call and he's cursing his earlier attempts at self-preservation and picking a bar that closed early.

"I had fun tonight," she tells him as they start walking down the street. Her hotel's not too far. He could let her walk alone.

"Me too."

"A couple more times being in the same room without screaming at each other and we might actually turn this détente into a more permanent thing."

"That'd be something."

"I'll draft a peace treaty, just in case." She's smiling, looking at him. "What are your demands?"

"No demands."

"You're not even going to make me give you written warning before I breach Philadelphia territory? You're wasting a chance here."

"I like to live dangerously."

"Careful, that's how I end up annexing the entire East Coast and then you have to move back to California."

"God, no. It's so… sunny." And so Jimmy, and that ended badly. He's been thinking about calling, to see if there's anything there to patch up. He'd like to tell her that because she'd get it, but it's not the sort of thing he can drop in the middle of nothing of consequence.

"They have written songs about that, should've been your first warning." She stops, looking over her shoulder. "Thanks for walking me back."

Not sure when they got outside her hotel again. He takes his hands out of his pockets.

"No problem. Your conference thing, you said that ends tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah. I'll be out of your turf in less than twenty four hours. Rejoice."

Not even slightly. Unexpectedly, because he assumed there would at least be some relief from her leaving again. "Call if you're ever back in town."

"You sure?" She asks, biting her lip.

"Yeah." Not really.

"I assume you've already been invited over for Christmas?"

He nods. "Don't know if I can make it."

"Sookie's already sent me fifty emails asking me about food, and mom's passed on a lot more of her messages, so I think it'd be worth it if only for that." She takes a breath. "We can work on that peace treaty. Get a map out and divvy up the lands. Or at least sections of the highway."

"I've told you, I have no demands. But I will think about it." He tells her when she looks ready to start again.

"I'll take that." She checks her watch, the looks at the hotel again. "I should get back there. I've got an early start."

"Sure." It's the goodbyes he's bad at. He takes a step back, running a hand through his hair. "See you around."

"Yeah." She nods.

And then, without thinking, he's closer to her and she's stepped towards him too. Her fist balls around his shirt and he cups her face in his left hand. The same fucking refrain, again and again.

He stops himself, an inch away from her mouth. Not because of the goddamn tornado siren going off in his head, he's been ignoring that one since she mentioned coffee. But his conscience's somehow found a way to bypass the feeling of heading for imminent destruction that's been on all evening too. He lowers his hand from her face. Like tearing skin off.

"I can't."

She doesn't look surprised. Her hand falls away too.

Angry, with her, with himself, with everything. Mostly himself. Staring at a wall because maybe there's some ancient arts of figuring out how it all went to hell in two seconds flat from the arrangement of red bricks. "There's someone else."

"Oh." Mouth stays slightly open. "Is she…?"

"She's…" Clever and gorgeous and funny. Into crime novels, into calling him a book snob who won't read anything that isn't Literature with a capital L and, he's had to hand it to her, a couple of the books she's pushed on him haven't been half bad. Too damn good for him, because he wouldn't be nearly kissing his ex if she wasn't. Best and worst of all: "She's not you."

"Oh." Again.

"I was done, Rory. After last time? Done. With all of it, I had to stop our bullshit. Find something else!" He unclenches his fists down at his sides. "Nothing about this feels normal! Nothing! I want to be with you and as far away from you as possible at the same time and that's just… fuck, I don't know."

"That's us."

It knocks all the anger out of him, all of everything. "Yeah."

"I'll get out of here." A sad, hurting smile. The same goddamn look she's come to have in all his mental pictures of her. "Thanks for hanging out with me and for the cheesesteak recommendation."

There's something more he wants to say but he can't figure out what it is. 'Don't go', probably.

"I hope she's amazing, because you deserve that, someone really, really amazing," Rory continues. "I'll see you around, for Christmas or whenever." She waves, turning on her heels and walking towards the door to the hotel.

Words never worked great in his head. Paper, sure, he's fine with that, he can pull out an alright sentence once in a while, maybe a pretty good paragraph if it's a particularly fortunate week. But his head is where all of them are at the same time, like it's a fucking music festival, crowding together, every single one of them pushing and shoving to get to the main stage. Now though, it's all empty and it's only the drummer left playing, pounding to a rhythm he's all too familiar with.

Washington DC, September 2010. A week later.

She never checks the peephole. Bad habit picked up growing up in Stars Hollow that she never managed to shake even living above the definitely-not-a-Doo-Wop-group.

"Hey." He's leaning against the bannister.

"I see I have competition for that CIA job." Self-conscious because she's wearing some ridiculously old jeans and a paint stained shirt. Half an hour earlier it would have been a robe, so at least there's that, small consolation though it is. "Hi," she remembers. "What are you doing here?"

"Can we talk?"

She considers it for a moment, then opens the door wider, stepping back to let him in. "I'll make coffee." She's three cups in already, but she needs to regroup and it's the only idea she's got. Waving him towards the couch, she fumbles around the kitchen for a couple of minutes. Taking longer than she needs to find cups. Still, it doesn't help, because her place is too crap to even be the Crapshack 2.0 and the poor excuse for a kitchen is in a corner of the living room and he's watching her. The damned pain makes it too hard to breathe, let alone think.

She puts the full cups on the coffee table then sits down too. "So…?" It comes out with a breath.

"Turns out, I'm not done." He shrugs, running a hand through his hair.

It's not like the thought hasn't gone through her head in the five minutes since she saw him. She wasn't expecting relief to come with it though.

"I want to try again. Dinner, or coffee, coffee's even more innocuous. Work our way up to dinner if you want."

"Jess…"

"Look, I'll get it if you say no, because fuck, I'm in this same mess. But something's…" he looks out the window, charming view of another building and some graffiti that keeps popping up. Then back at her. "Something's not right, the way things are now."

Like life's running on a dimmer switch. Most of the time, it's all at 95% and she can't even tell the difference until he's there and then whatever's missing is so obvious she can't see how she thought it was ever normal. Down to about 5% after each heartache. A solid 25% for most of the past week, enough to make her think that she might be getting better at dealing with it.

"Last week…" she stops, looking at him.

"That's over."

"Right." She's still looking at him, feeling herself chewing on her bottom lip. Months spent trying to stop that habit only for it to crop back up every time he does. Trying to think, but the pro/con list's been written for a while and it's all lopsided. Then again, not having to live missing something should cancel out a lot of the cons. And, even more so, maybe not even she can weigh things like that.

"You can think about it. I'm springing this on you, take some time." He shrugs, putting his hands on the couch, ready to stand.

"You said coffee, right?" She asks, letting go of her lip and smiling. Him leaving is what it usually takes to realize she wants him to stay. "There's coffee here." She reminds him, waving a hand towards the table. "I'll give you a tour of the city after. There's no DC cheesesteak, but there's pretty decent pizza."

"Pizza works."

"Good." She stretches out her hand towards him and he meets it. They sit like that for a moment, hands tightly clasped together.

It's habit when her head comes to rest on his shoulder as they spend an hour reading on a loveseat in a coffee shop, a bag of new books from her favorite bookshop at their feet. Habit when his arm goes around her.

Still habit when she looks up from her book and kisses him.

Washington DC, November 2010

"Stay the night."

His hand's well under her shirt when she moves away from him. He uses the other one for leverage to push himself further up. "Huh?"

"About time, don't you think?"

"Not doing a lot of thinking at the moment."

"Come not do it in my bedroom then."

He waits as she weasels out from under him. Looks at her outstretched hand and up to her for a moment. Then stands up too and lets her guide him to the bedroom.

His arm's wrapped around her, hand resting on her ribcage. Heartbeat slowly reverberating through his hand, crawling up all the way to his wrist before he loses the sensation. It's not that he's not tired. But he can't seem to sleep, can't shut off his brain for even a second. He'd probably call it fear if he could be honest with himself, but that's something he doesn't much feel like doing.

"You ever going to sleep?" She mumbles groggily.

He kisses her shoulder in reply.

"I need pizza," she announces, turning to face him and pressing a quick kiss to his lips. "If we're going to do this, I need more food. Cannot believe you distracted me from pizza." She laughs, one more kiss before standing up. "I'll bring the box."

She doesn't leave him time to argue, as usual. Back a few seconds later, she sits in the middle of the bed, tugging a t-shirt, the one with the paint splatter, over her head. Opens the box between them when he sits up too. "We're probably a couple of months overdue on it anyway." She takes a slice out, holding it in her hand. "I had to think. That's it. It wasn't you."

He pulls himself up straighter, resting his back against the headboard. Shaking his head when she pushes the box towards him.

"I shouldn't have asked via note," she continues "but I … Jess, I couldn't do it, couldn't face you and tell you I wanted to leave. Not because of you, again, but because it's you and when you're here…" She stops again. "I don't even know. It's all stupid."

"Why'd you want to leave?" It's not that leaving doesn't make sense to him. Too much sense, too often. Still. But she's been the one thing that's ever made him want to stay until he grew roots.

She puts the half-finished slice back down. He watches her dig her thumbnail into the cardboard of the box, peeling the layers apart. "You hurt." She starts on another trench half an inch away from the first one. "You were right, I was being a coward. Really pissed me off that you had to be right." She stops, pulling off the paper and balling it between index finger and thumb. "I woke up that morning and being with you felt so much like..." she looks up at him "...like before. Like the good parts. Like going from zero to a hundred in an instant, no time to catch my breath, no time for anything but rushing to love like the idiot that I am, whose heart doesn't give a damn it's been broken. I saw this, the way I feel now, knew it was going to happen because you're you and guess what? I was right, now, and I would have been right if I'd stayed too, just two years ago. I don't know if I even know how not to love you at all, or be on the way to loving you, or something, but it's here and it's love and it's been hell before. I wanted to pause for a moment and think before slamming down on that gas pedal. Admittedly, before sleeping with you would have been a better time."

It takes him a beat. Then, pushing the box aside, he tugs at her legs until she's laughing and sliding down and his mouth's on hers again. It's not until his lungs hurt that he stops and she runs her fingers through his hair, slowly.

"I'm sorry." Whispered, before she kisses him again.

"Me too." Sorry, yes, but on the way to love too. And force of habit means he lowers his head for another kiss instead of saying it. Then, when his chest hurts for his own stupidity instead of lack of oxygen he stops again, leaning on one elbow. She tangles her fingers through his. "Rory..."

"Sh." She smiles. "Unless you want more apologies from me, 'cause I can do that, but I've spent so much time on this, regretting it, hating it, being angry with it, every damn thing, that I just… want to be done."

"I can live with that. You want another apology? I owe you a few more, I think. For a lot more than kicking you out. Or the stuff I said at the wedding. That was…"

"I want to forget it ever happened. Hundred miles an hour feels pretty good right now." She sits up, picking up her slice of pizza again. "Now let me finish this before I do actually starve to death."

He picks up a slice too, leaning against the headboard again. Smiling back when she smiles at him.

Under the covers a while later, arm around her, her foot pressed against his shin, empty pizza box on the floor because neither one wanted to leave. Heartbeat in his hand again.

"I don't know how not to love you either." He whispers.

She squeezes his hand.

And then they fall asleep.