AN: I really enjoyed writing this story. I haven't seen much in the way of stories which tackled Paris' use of sonnet 116 early in the series or what that would mean if it came up later. Since it seemed like such a potentially slashy moment, I thought it would help do my part and write one of my own.
As is always the case for my writing in the Gilmore Girls fandom, this story deals with the much loved Rory/Paris pairing.
Paris considers it ironic that in all her years knowing Rory, she hadn't put together how much the sonnet they were listening to at the Shakespeare festival near their place suited them. It was the first thing of any real length she had said to the other woman, both of them just teenagers at the time.
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds, admit impediment," she mouthed along, quietly. "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, nor bends with the remover to remove."
Ok, so she hadn't tried to deny her feelings for Rory. But was it so different than what she had actually done, putting them both through many failed relationships with men, including her failed marriage to Doyle because she hadn't realized she was in love with her best-friend? Paris didn't think so. Rory had waited years for her, not expecting her feelings to be reciprocated. It was basically the same thing, or if not, something very similar.
"Do you remember the the time I recited this to you?"
Rory's smile sends a jolt through her, "That was years ago. We were fifteen, and you weren't as soft around the edges as you are now."
She didn't consider herself soft around the edges now. She still didn't suffer fools well, Oncology was a field where being wrong got people killed. Just last week she had mad a fellow member of her fellow resident cry, because the woman had missed something small. People were starting to refer to her as House. Not that it was so bad, he was a good doctor. It didn't matter that the medical facts of the show were by its nature unreliable, he got the job done, and he didn't let feelings get in the way. Paris admired that.
She'd even found her own version of Wilson in Rory, who'd talked the blond off many a ledge in regards to her colleagues. It was fitting really, because she cared for Rory like House obviously cared for Wilson. She's been watching way too much TV if she thinks the comparison is an obvious one.
"I'm not soft, Gilmore."
Rory smiled and pecked her on the cheek, squeezing her hand. "That's Geller to you."
She shivered, they'd gotten married last month in a fairly traditional Jewish wedding. If someone had told her this was what would happen as a teenager, she'd have panicked. Her therapist and later Terrance her life-coach would have been working serious over time. Sometimes she still considers it, but Dr. Shref, the hack, wouldn't schedule her for more than once a week. He found her draining, she could tell. Pretty soon she would need a new therapist. Her neurosis caused her to go through therapists like Madeliene and Louise went through guys at Chilton.
She pulled Rory in for a kiss, "I still can't believe you didn't keep your name."
"Paris, we both know that I'll always be a Gilmore. But we're family too, and I wanted it to be obvious." Her time on the road had made Rory more open, Paris liked that.
"A fixed mark," said Paris, referencing the sonnet again.
"Yeah, one that will bear out even when we're old and grey."
Paris considered that, she wouldn't find someone better than Rory. She didn't plan on ever even trying, so the idea was something she enjoyed. There wasn't really more she could ask for, even if she sometimes worried about how things would turn of in the future. She could see time changing them, but things remaining the same. Rory wasn't only the embodiment of what sappy people consider an extremely romantic sonnet, she was also a woman of valor.
And that, as far as Paris was concerned, meant more than some poem whether she felt it embodied their relationship or not.