Title: The Reply

Summary: He had to remind himself that they were not the same. They'd broken each other too many times for that.

Author's Note: It was a oneshot, I swear. But it needed a little Rory POV and so I figured, 'why not another chapter or two?' Your reviews meant the world to me. Thank you.

She called him every third day. Anyone who knew this would probably have assumed it was out of habit, but there was nothing habitual about it. For Rory Gilmore, dialing his number was a mountain climb and a bungee jump all at once. Three months of this and it still made her feel the same way every time.

"Hello."

If she concentrated hard enough she could see his eyes while they talked. She could picture the slight nicotine stain on his right hand, watch his lips move. He was an old, worn, brown leather sofa. She lived in a world of uncomfortable hotel rooms and folding chairs.

"Jess," she responded, relieved she wouldn't have to awkwardly ask one of his roommates to speak with him.

"Funny, that's my name too." He had the same sarcastic undertone she'd always known, but she could hear the smile in his voice and it put her at ease. As much at ease as her pounding heart and racing mind would allow anyway. She sighed, and it was enough of a response for him to let her off the hook. "How are you?"

"I'm well. I managed to trade seats so I don't have to sit next to crazy health food guy anymore."

"No more Yule Gibbons?"

"- hey, quasi-Yule Gibbons. It's not like he was eating trees. I don't think." She fiddled with the tightly coiled phone cord in her hotel room while she spoke.

"Fine, quasi-Yule Gibbons… I think I'm going to miss him."

She snorted, "That makes one of us then." They lapsed into silence. Not comfortable. Nothing had been comfortable in years, but companionable at least. She supposed companionable was a start.

They always talked about the present. The past was enough to shatter them all over again, and the future… The future was too fragile, too precious to allow their clumsy words to touch. She often wondered if they would ever speak about anything that happened prior to the party. She wondered but never asked. That would be against their unwritten rules, and she refused to be the one to screw up this time.

"I've been writing again." He offered during one of their calls a few weeks later. She had assumed he had been, but didn't want to press. The confirmation of words on paper, on hard drive somewhere was enough to remind her of just how much she wanted to read his thoughts. It was an impulse she had never really gotten under control, not since The Howl, not even close since The Subsect.

"I'm glad." She replied genuinely while her mind desperately begged her mouth to ask him more. "You're a beautiful writer." He scoffed lightly, but she knew her words still had weight with him. "I mean it Jess, even your margin notes were amazing."

"Thank you." She'd never heard him accept a compliment so well. Perhaps, she thought, he was no longer her Holden Caulfield. She was wrong.

That was as much honesty as she could handle for the night and she excused herself from the call a few minutes later.

Two days later and she was still in the same dull hotel room in the same dull city. She'd finished her article a full day before deadline and was wishing tomorrow would come so she'd have an excuse to call. There was nothing stopping her from breaking their pattern, but the thought of explaining the change to him was daunting enough to leave the phone in its cradle. It would be all stilted words and awkward pauses and he wouldn't make a move to help her save face. She knew he secretly relished making her squirm.

The faint blush created by her hypothetical discomfort still coloured her cheeks when the knock came at her door. Her head spun towards the noise and she couldn't help wishing that she was in some cheesy romantic comedy and that he was behind the door, prepared to sweep her off her feet. Another knock and she was up shaking her head. A quick glance through the peephole confirmed a deliveryman, not Jess, was waiting for her to respond.

"Rory Gilmore?"

"Yes."

"Sign here please."

Her signature hung half off the line, fading out to almost nothing as she stared at the package in his hands and not the receiving slip. That handwriting was impossible to mistake. She'd read angry rebuttals and probing questions and random musings in that handwriting. Cramped and angled like it was supposed to be stuffed in a margin, not scrawled across the top of a plain brown package.

The deliveryman cleared his throat and Rory's eyes snapped up. "Uh... sorry. Thank you. Goodnight." She was still talking as she closed the door and stumbled over to her bed. Perhaps she was more Meg Ryan than she thought.

The folds of the brown paper wrapping were heavy in her hands, and it was with precision that she untied the twine, pulled back the tape and unwrapped the object. The pages. One single sheet lay on top, Jess' signature scrawl hovering near the bottom.

Rory,

I know you're busy, but I figured you could do with some new reading material. Plus, your thoughts could make this fit for human consumption.

Jess

P.S. – Be nice to Yule.

There were only three chapters. They were the most precious things she had ever been given.

The story was in the first person. A surprise to Rory, it almost felt too personal for Jess to share with the world, let alone her. She didn't complain.

It was a good beginning. There were unique characters, quick dialogue and prose so soft she was shocked he could have written it. It was when she reached the third chapter that she recognized the real reason for his gift. The passage haunted her.

'In that moment she was Aphrodite, Anne Elliot, Cordelia, Lolita, but she was never mine. I wanted to fracture her the way she had me, to push her until she pushed back or left.

I did nothing.

Her eyes were pools of azure glass and I knew that if I wanted to I could make them crumble. I was done with demolition, so took the blows and tried desperately to withstand the onslaught. She would be gone soon enough anyway.

She always had been out of reach.'

This was not their story, but this was her assault.

She cried herself to sleep that night. The next day she didn't call.