Two:

RORY'S P.O.V

By the time the front door opens and Luke appears, it's nearing ten o'clock and there's two tubs of ice cream and an assortment of sweets laid out on the table in front of us.

I give him a grateful smile for lingering at the diner and giving me some much-needed time to catch up with mum before I grab another Red Vine and bite the end off, my stomach giving a groan of protest at all of the sugar I've consumed in the last hours.

"You come down from a caffeine-high and get on a sugar one, what am I going to do with you?" he murmurs, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it up on the rack in the corner of the room. I assume that he built it, because it looks too fancy to have bought in a store for less than a few hundred dollars and, since he's become a major part of her life, mum doesn't waste money anymore. At least, not as much, and not on things that he'd notice right away.

She smiles a cheesy grin at him so he can count every one of her teeth and flutters her eyelashes. "Oh please, don't pretend that you don't love it - you wouldn't want me any other way."

He lets out a grunt that could be taken either way, but when she turns back to me, he smiles so brightly at the back of her head that I have to look away, my stomach sinking. I've seen that look before, on a face that looks so similar it makes my chest hurt.

"We had to have some sugar," she carries on, picking up the Nerds and pouring a handful into her mouth. "Apparently Australia doesn't have candy."

Luke gives me a look before I explain. "They call it chocolate or lollies. It does exist, she's just having a hard time comprehending the fact that they have other words from us."

Mum pours more Nerds into her and I take the packet away, pouring the remaining in my mouth.

"Lor," Luke walks over and kisses her forehead before he carries on. "Please stop eating the sugar, you won't get any sleep tonight and I have to be at the diner to open in the morning, I can't put up with you talking all night because you're on a sugar hit."

She pouts her lips at him. "Old man, sleep is for the weak."

Despite her joking tone, her words come with the realisation of just how tired I really am and, as if on que, I let out a loud yawn. "Now that you say that, I realise how tired I am," I say, getting to my feet. "I think it's time to turn in for the night."

She turns her glare onto me. "You're weak as well, I've hardly slept for three days and I feel great."

I pick up my jumper off the floor and shrug it on, "Yes, that's called hysteria," I smile. "Soon the nice men in the white coats will be around to take you to the happy farm."

She rolls her eyes at me and picks up a Red Vine. "Let them come, I'm sure they'd be great company."

"Lor, Rory's been travelling for a long time to come home to you, she's exhausted. How about we have breakfast tomorrow at the diner? All of us." Luke shakes his head at her as he begins to pack up the last of the sugar that's packed on the bench.

His message to mum is clear and she shuts her mouth, glaring at him before she turns to me with a smile. "Yeah, breakfast at the diner tomorrow – I bet you've missed the coffee."

I agree with a nod and a yawn, zipping my coat up to keep out the cold. "If the two of you didn't exist, it would be the thing I missed most while I was gone."

Mum's eyes follow my movement and she laughs. "Hun, I don't know if you've forgotten your way around here, but I promise, you're not going to need your jumper to get to your room."

"I told her that she could stay at the apartment for as long as she needs." Luke murmurs softly, and a frown appears on her face.

"But-"

"She needs her own space, Loralie. She doesn't want to be stuck here with us. Leave it be."

I watch as something passes between them, an unspoken conversation, before mum's face finally clears and she looks at me. "Of course you do. We'll meet you at the diner at eight?"

Nodding, I kiss them both on the cheek and make my way to the front door, wondering what their looks were about. Before I can ponder it, I turn around, the door half-open in front of me. "Oh, Luke, did you want me to work tomorrow?"

He comes to stand beside mum and puts his hand on the small of her back, pulling her close. "No, take tomorrow to catch up with Lane, to get your coffee fix, scope out the new section at the bookstore. Start fresh on Monday."

"New section at the bookstore?!" I perk up, feeling more awake.

They both smile at me and mum walks forward, kissing my forehead. "I'm glad you're back, kid. Also, please note that if you try to leave mummy again, I'm going to tie you to a chair and never let you leave."

Luke and I laugh despite knowing that she's fully serious and then I'm out the door, pulling it shut behind me.


LUKE'S P.O.V:

He watches as Loralie stands at the closed door, her hand resting on the old wood, her shoulders hunched over.

He knows that she'd feel better if Rory was locked in the house, close to her, but it's not part of his plan and she seemed to realise what he was doing right away.

She hasn't said a word yet, and he can't tell if it's a good sign or not - it usually isn't.

It's one of the only times since he's met her, and he realises that he cannot begin to tell what she's thinking. He doesn't know if they're about to have a fight, but he hopes not. He hates fighting with her, no matter how rarely it happens.

When she turns so that she's facing him, her eyes are empty of emotion and her mouth is set in a line. His stomach falls beneath his feet. "Want to tell me what all this is about?"

He watches the woman who he loves most in the world and then turns his eyes away from her and stares down at her shoes. "I know that you don't like it. I know I should have talked to you first. But I…"

He's having trouble finding the right words and Loralie seems to realise because she's suddenly in front of him, her fingers underneath his chin so that he's looking into her eyes instead of the floor. "You…?"

It's in her eyes that he finds the words he's been trying to locate. Just like everything else in his life, when she's around, they just fall into place. "You said that she's miserable, that she still loves him. And I love her too much to not give her the chance to find her happiness. He's picked up the phone to call her one hundred times, she asks about him every time we speak - it's like the only people who don't know how much they want to communicate is each other."

Loralie searches his eyes before she presses her lips lightly to his and rests a hand on his chest. "I love that you love her so much, but I feel like we should have warned her what she was walking into."

He shakes his head and puts his hand so it's laying over-top of hers, resting over his heartbeat. "If we did, she would have talked herself out of it. He doesn't know, either, they're in the same boat. Hopefully they'll realise they're meant to be together without much trouble."

Loralie purses her lips for a moment, thinking about her words before they come out of her mouth. "They're both too stubborn for their own goods, they won't be together unless they both choose to be. All we can do is hope."

And Luke does hope. He hopes he's done the right thing.


RORY'S P.O.V:

By the time I finally unlock and open the front door to the diner, it's getting closer to ten-thirty and my eyes are drifting shut on their own.

I took the long way back, trying to avoid the places that held the most memories, my emotions threatening to take over like every time I get too exhausted, my feet carrying themselves as far away from the bridge as I could get.

I shut and lock the door behind me, contemplating coffee before I groan and make my way to the stairs, shuffling up them as quickly as I can, stopping short as I walk into the apartment and the wall of nostalgia hits me like a tidal wave.

Everything's the same - there's still two beds, the same old fridge and microwave, the little dining table, the same bedspreads and pillows.

Despite my limited time spent in the apartment, I feel the crushing weight on my chest as the memories flood back into my brain - some of the best times of my life have been spent inside these walls, of them including him.

With the sudden urge to cry, I push the thought to the deepest edges of my mind and shake my head to clear the thoughts.

"No," I tell myself. "You're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to think of him."

Despite my words, I shed a tear and angrily wipe it away, cursing myself under my breath. I should have known that taking the apartment from Luke would bring up too many painful memories, but I didn't even give it a second thought, just threw myself under the bus.

Before another tear can spill, I grab the towel Luke's laid out for me off the end of the bed and make my way into the small bathroom, shutting the door behind me.

I won't think about him.

I can't.

My shower is quick and boiling, and I can't tell if I'm trying to scrub the memory of him off my skin, or if I'm trying to wash away the pain that comes with it, but when I step out, I decide that I'm not going to let the apartment make me think of him anymore, and that's it.

It's not his apartment, it's Luke's. The fact that he was here means nothing, he was in mum's house as well, and that has nothing to do with him.

Even as my mind whispers the words, I know they're not true.

That house is where you saw him the first time, my brain counters. It's the first place you let yourself believe in love at first sight, but denied it.

I walk through the apartment that I can now call my own, and into the bedroom that was once Luke's, that I can now call my home and look down at the bags that, true to his word, Luke brought up and placed at the end of the bed for me.

They look like they're close to bursting at the seams and I sigh to myself, knowing that there's no way I can be bothered to sort through it and find my pyjamas. Despite the thought, I know that I can't go to bed completely naked, all likelihood that my mother will sneak up sometime through the night and crawl into bed with me.

I pull the doors open and look in Luke's closet which is completely bare and close them.

Despite knowing my chances are low, I make my way to the closet in the other room, hoping that there's a spare shirt of Luke's, or a pair of mum's pyjamas, but what I find when I open the door is neither.

My breath catches in my throat and I bite my lip as I touch the fabric between my fingers, my eyes closing.

Jess.

I pull the Metallica shirt from what feels like a million years ago off the hangover and drop the towel, slipping it over my head.

Because, despite the fact that I've spent the last year pushing him out of my mind, tonight I don't want to.

Tonight, the apartment, the shirt … it's all too much.

And so I let his smell consume me, and lay down in the bed that he slept in, holding myself, wishing that he's asleep next to me.