Not Dreaming


A/N: And another chapter is up. Hope you like and thanks to everyone who reviewed.


Chapter 3. January Visit


He stood leaning against the wall, trying to act indifferent and not let on any of his inner turmoil. It was harder than he expected it to be. Once again he told himself that it was only a friend coming to visit. It didn't matter that it was the first time anyone except the guys at work had ever come to visit. Right? It didn't matter that it was definitely not one of the guys that was coming. Right? It definitely didn't matter that it was her. Right? Right! It still didn't work.

He had started that day as any other day by walking the four blocks to work, as usual thankful for managing to get an apartment so close to work. The first hour had gone by quickly and then he had started becoming more and more nervous. He couldn't concentrate and had finally asked for the rest of the day off. When the other guys had found out he was expecting a girl they quickly agreed, telling him to have fun, with various suggestions about what they thought would be fun.

He had ignored them, hurried out and all but run home. Then he had spent the next three hours cleaning the already spotless apartment. When he was finally convinced there wasn't anything more to do he had tried everything he could think of to get the time to pass.

He had tried reading, three different books, but he couldn't seem to concentrate. He had tried getting some work done, but he still couldn't concentrate. He had once again, for the fourth time, gone over the apartment to make sure it looked good enough. He had turned the TV on in hopes of finding something worth watching, but that hadn't worked either.

Suddenly he had seen something peeking out between two books in a bookshelf. A piece of paper of some sort. As he had pulled it out he had realized what it was; he hadn't even had to take it out to know. He had held that piece of paper too many times not to recognize it. A picture of her. He had pulled it out and looked at it for a moment before he went to find a better hiding spot for it. Tucked between two books wasn't really that good considering who would be there soon.

After looking at his watch again, for the fifth time in as many minutes, he had sighed and pulled a hand through his hair. Finally he had decided to leave the apartment and try walking for a while. If he went up to Fairmont Park he could make the walk take a lot longer than the needed 25 minutes. Decision made he had hurriedly pulled his shoes and a coat on and almost run down the stairs. That is until he had remembered there was no need to hurry. And that was the first time he had regretted getting an apartment in the center of town.

The walk had turned out to be a bit longer than he had intended and he had almost arrived late. He had found himself close to running the last 100 yards. And, for what time that day he didn't know, he had once again cursed himself for acting like an idiot. He had slowed down when he saw that the bus had yet to arrive. And then he had positioned himself against a wall a bit away from all the other people.

That was where he was at the moment. He had been standing there for an excruciating 15 minutes now, waiting for the bus that was obviously late. He felt himself tense as he suddenly saw it approaching. It pulled over and stopped and he found himself almost holding his breath.

And then, as if by magic, she appeared on the steps of the bus. He hadn't even noticed the other passengers. She looked beautiful. He stared at her for a moment and was close to raising his hand to wave before he caught himself. He had already acted like an idiot the whole afternoon, no need to make it worse. Instead he fought to turn the smile he had felt creeping onto his face as he saw her into his usual smirk. He was just in time before she saw him.

She stepped of the bus and looked around in the crowd. It felt good to stretch after the long bus ride. Even with the bus change in New York the five hour trip had made her stiff and a bit sore. At first she didn't see him, but then she remembered that big crowds had never been his favorite thing and looked a bit further away. And there he was, leaning against a wall with that ever present smirk on his face, looking at her. Although she thought she saw a glint of something in his eyes for just a moment.

She smiled at him and waved. He nodded in reply before pushing himself off the wall and walking towards her. The smirk was starting to turn into a smile and she felt her cheeks coloring slightly under his gaze. She looked down quickly to hide the blush and missed the amused look that appeared in his eyes. Then he suddenly stood beside her.

"Hi," she heard him say with something in his voice that she couldn't quite identify. Was it nervousness?

"Hi," she said back, looking up at him and couldn't stop the smile that crept onto her face.

"Um…do you have anything…" he half asked gesturing to the luggage compartments.

She nodded after a moment's confusion and they walked over to the compartment and started looking for her bag. She finally found it, lodged in the back. She sighed and was about to crawl in and retrieve it before she remembered that she wasn't alone this time. Straightening up again she turned to him with a sweet smile and pleading eyes. It worked.

"Which one?" he asked with a sigh, silently cursing himself for not being able to resist those eyes. He sighed again when he saw where she pointed, but climbed in. After rummaging around for a while he got the bag out and barely managed not to gasp as he put it down on the ground. "Geez, what's in this thing?" he asked, looking at her as he straightened out.

"Oh, just some clothes, shoes, books…" she said as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Books?" he asked her incredulously, for the moment choosing to ignore the shoes. "You brought books? You do know there is a very good chance I have anything that's in there, right?"

"I always bring books, it's a habit," she said, avoiding his eyes. She knew he probably didn't entirely believe her, but she didn't want to tell the truth just yet.

"So, maybe we should get going?" he suggested, after a moment's thought deciding to drop the subject for the time being. "We should probably get rid of this," he said gesturing at the bag by his feet. "And I bet you're hungry," he continued with a knowing smile.

"Um…okay," she said a bit hesitantly. "I want to see where you live," she continued getting excited. "You haven't said a word about the place, I'm curious." Her smile had returned at this point and she was almost jumping in place.

"Okay then," he said, amused by her excitement. "It's about a mile and a half that way," he told her, pointing over his shoulder, and smiled as he watched her try to figure out what way that was. "We have three options as I see it. We could walk, although with your brick collection here it doesn't sound that appealing," he said, easily evading her try to swat him on the arm. "Or we could take the bus," he continued, but noticed the look on her face at the word bus. "Okay, maybe not the bus. That leaves a cab," he finished. "Although, at this time on a Friday that could take a while."

"Fine, we'll take the bus," she said. "But it better not take forever," she added as she waited for him to show her the way.

He smiled at her as he bent down and pulled the bag up to his shoulder. He slumped a bit under the weight at first, but soon straightened out and started walking in the direction of the city buses. They got on nr 9 and after a little under 15 minutes Jess stood up and once again shouldered the heavy bag. They stepped off the bus and Rory stopped to take in their surroundings. Before she could say anything she felt his hand on her arm, pulling her forward.

"This isn't getting any lighter, you know," he said and started walking up to the house they were standing in front of.

Amazed she followed him into the building and over to the elevator. They rode up to the 11th floor in silence, Rory still trying to get her mind over the fact that they were currently on their way up in a building in central Philadelphia. Did he actually live here? Just as she opened her mouth to say something the elevator stopped and Jess hurried out. She followed after a second and watched as he fished for the keys in his pocket.

He finally got the keys out, unlocked the door and opened it. He hurriedly let the bag drop to the floor and then turned to hold the door open for her. He watched her almost skip inside and had to smile at her excitement. Then, as she went through the small hallway and entered the living room, he held his breath, waiting for her reaction. He wasn't disappointed.

She hurried inside, almost missing the small hallway, and took two steps inside what she assumed was the living room. And there she stopped. It almost felt like walking into a library. Three of the walls were completely covered in books, floor to ceiling, all books. She was amazed to say the least.

"Breathe," she heard him say behind her, an amused tone in his voice and jumped, startled. She didn't know what to say, she just stood there for what felt like minutes, taking in everything.

"I love it," she finally squealed and managed to move from her spot. She walked up to one of the bookcases and dragged a hand over the spines of the books, reading the titles as she went over them. "How did you get all these books?" she asked, turning around and was met by his eyes. He was looking at her, clearly amused, and she smiled at him before turning back to the books.

"Wouldn't you like to know," he said, evading the question. "How long do you think you'll be occupied here?" he asked her then, moving towards a doorway she hadn't even noticed before. "I assume you want coffee," he added as he walked through.

"Of course," she said absently, still too occupied with the books to really pay attention. It was the smell that, five minutes later, brought her out of her reverie. Once she managed to tear her eyes away from the books she noticed there were a couch with a small table and a TV in the room too. And more shelves under the windows, full of CD's and movies.


Two hours later she had had enough coffee to make up for the lack of it on the bus ride. And she had gotten a tour of the rest of the apartment. She had seen the kitchen, fully equipped with a coffee machine and microwave oven and the bedroom that doubled as workplace and was full of even more books. They were now sitting on the couch in the living room finishing off the pizza they had ordered when she didn't want to move to get something to eat.

"How did you get this place?" she asked him suddenly, not able to hold the question in any more.

"Well, it sort of came with the job," he said. "One of the guys I work with used to live here and I crashed with him for a while when I first got here. But then he moved in with his girlfriend and I managed to talk him into letting me have the apartment. It's still officially his, but as long as he doesn't do something stupid that gets him thrown out it's mine."

"Let's hope he stays good then," she said, smiling at him and looking around the room again.

"I'll tell him you said that," he said. "Maybe that will make him try harder."

"You weren't kidding when you said you'd probably have anything I could think of bringing," she said then, her eyes once more drifting over to the books. "You did not have all of these when you were living in Stars Hollow," she continued, looking at him curiously. "Did you?"

"Well, not all of them, and not in Stars Hollow, but I had most of them still stashed in New York. I couldn't really fit everything in Luke's apartment. It's not that big," he said and smiled at her amazed look.

"I don't even have half of this," she told him then. "And my collection is supposedly not that small."

"So, you never told me why you brought the books," he said then and she turned slightly red.

"Um…I really like them…?" she tried, but didn't really think it would work. He just raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for her real reason. "Fine, I wanted you to write in the margins of them," she admitted, turning even redder.

"Huh," he said, surprised. "I didn't think you liked vandalizing books." He smirked and watched her walk over to the bag and pull out a couple quite big books. He got another surprise as he recognized one of them. "Hemingway?" he asked, disbelieving. "You actually own any of his books?"

"Well, yeah. As of very recently anyway. I thought I'd finally read them and for that you need the books and then I thought of every time I'd tried before and almost gave up the idea again, but then I thought that maybe, if I got you to write in them I could somehow manage, 'cause if it got too boring I could always read your notes instead and so I brought the books here and…"

"Whoa, breathe," he exclaimed, getting up from the couch, interrupting her rant. "You obviously still know how to do that," he told her then, an amused smile playing at his lips as he walked up to her. "So, you want me to write in your newly bought Hemingway's so that you can finally hold up your end of the bargain?" he asked. "You know, you never did make it up to me," he added thoughtfully.

"I'll have to do that sometime," she said, looking down at her hands. Taking a breath she looked up at him again. "So you'll do it?" she asked him, smiling.

"If that's what it takes to make you read the books, then that's what I'll have to do," he answered, smiling back at her. "Did you have to get the hardback versions, though?" he complained and just barely dodged her hand as she, for the second time that day, tried to swat him.

They spent the rest of the night sitting on the floor talking, mostly about books. She told him about the latest article she wrote for the paper and the new professor she had at school. He told her about a book script he was editing at the moment and the latest prank they had pulled at the office. They stayed there for hours, talking and laughing, until she no longer could suppress her yawns.


That night he was lying wide awake on the couch in his living room, thinking the day's events over. There was no way he could go to sleep knowing she was currently lying in his bed. Maybe he hadn't though it all through when he earlier that evening had offered her his bed. But it wouldn't matter where he tried to sleep he concluded, her being there was enough. Although the thought of her lying in his bed was definitely not helping.

He sighed and turned for the tenth time in the past five minutes. This wasn't working. He got up and walked over to the pile of books on the other side of the table. He could as well start writing. He already knew the books by heart, so it wouldn't be that hard. The question was what he should write. Turning the floor lamp beside the couch on and settling down under the covers again he decided to see what came out.

No more than 15 feet away she was laying in bed, or more correctly his bed, having equally big trouble sleeping. She had tried reading, counting sheep and every other trick she could think of. It was no use. The only thing on her mind was that she was currently lying in his bed and he was left with the couch. Granted, he was the one insisting on that arrangement, saying something about him not sleeping that much anyway. It didn't help that she kept imagining him lying where she was now, sleeping soundly.

She thought about trying one of the Hemingway's, but remembered that she left them in the living room. And she couldn't go out there. Sighing she got out of the bed and went over to one of the bookcases in the room. Maybe there was something there she could try. She switched on the desk light and started looking. Browsing through the shelves she found something stashed behind the bottom row of books. Curious she pulled it out and found it being what looked like a well used notebook. She opened it, a bit hesitantly, and found herself staring into her own eyes.

The picture fell out of the notebook and she hastily picked it up. It looked as if it had been handled a lot, the edges were a bit torn and there was a crease through it. Examining it she tried to remember when it had been taken. It was obviously taken in the diner and she was sitting on a stool at the counter dressed in her Chilton uniform. She was smiling, looking at something outside the picture, eyes sparkling. She couldn't remember it being taken and had no idea where he could have gotten it.

She looked at the picture one more time before setting it down on the table and contemplated weather to look through the notebook or not. Finally her curiosity won over the voice in the back of her mind that kept telling her not to snoop. She recognized the handwriting immediately and soon she also recognized the story. This must be a draft or something for his book she concluded and felt both a bit disappointed and relieved that it wasn't something she hadn't read before.

Carefully she put the picture back in the notebook and placed it back behind the books. Deciding that she had done enough snooping for one night she looked over the books and picked out Franny and Zooey. She turned out the desk light, instead lighting the reading light above the bed and snuggled in to read. Only skimming the actual story she concentrated on the notes in the margins.


The next morning she was woken by a soft noise. Carefully opening her eyes she was initially startled by her unfamiliar surroundings. Then she saw the source of the noise. He was standing by the closet, dressed in a pair of black jeans that hung low on his hips and was currently dragging the other through his messy and slightly wet hair. She found herself staring at him, unable to look away, and felt her cheeks turning several shades of red.

He bent down slightly and pulled out a T-shirt and she watched the muscles on his back move as he did. She continued watching as he once again raised his hand and pulled it through his hair. She wished he would turn around so she could look more, but at the same time she didn't want to get caught. And just then he closed the closet door and turned around. She quickly closed her eyes, hoping he didn't notice her looking him over.

He smirked as he turned around just in time to see her eyes close tightly and noticed the slight coloring of her cheeks. After debating with himself if he should call her on it he finally decided not to at the moment. Instead he started walking over to the door and turned around just in time to catch her looking at him again. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you," he said evenly, almost managing to keep the smirk off his face and the amusement out of his voice.

He watched her turn a couple shades redder before she disappeared under the covers. He smiled to himself as he walked out the door and couldn't hold in a chuckle once he had closed it. Shaking his head slightly, but still smiling, he pulled the T-shirt over his head and walked into the kitchen and started making breakfast. He put a CD on and silently sang along to the lyrics as he worked.

That's how she found him when she emerged from the bedroom ten minutes later, still in her pajamas. He was standing by the kitchen counter stirring something and mouthing along to a song she didn't think she had heard before. He looked up as she entered and smirked as he looked her over.

"My, my, aren't we looking fancy today," he said, trying to hold back a laugh. "I especially like the matching colors."

"Shut up," she said, trying to sound annoyed, but failed greatly. "Do you have a towel I could borrow?" she continued. "I seem to have forgotten mine."

"Sure, look in the bathroom cabinet," he said as he put the bowl down and took out a frying pan. "Breakfast will be ready soon," he called after her.


20 minutes later they were sitting at the kitchen table eating pancakes and drinking coffee. Both were surprised at how normal this seemed, sitting there eating breakfast together. It definitely didn't feel like it was the first time and both were hoping it was far from the last.

"I don't recognize any of these songs," she said after listening for a while. "Something new?" she asked, looking up at him to see if he had heard her. Instead of answering he reached over to the counter and retrieved a CD case that he handed to her. "Howl," she said after looking it over. "I like that title."

"It's got some good memories," he said, looking up at her. "I didn't borrow this one though," he added, pointing to the CD case and was rewarded by her laugh.


The next afternoon they were once again standing together in the bus station. He was leaning against the same wall, but this time she was standing beside him. They were waiting for the bus to pull up and neither of them wanted it to come.

The conversation had died out a while ago and now they were standing silently together, both looking in the direction the bus would come from. From time to time one of them glanced over at the other, only to look away almost immediately. Neither of them knew how to handle this situation.

Then the bus pulled up and neither of them moved. They looked over at each other at the same time and smiled hesitantly at each other.

"I guess I should get on that bus," she said, as if trying to convince herself.

"Yeah, I guess," he confirmed, not sounding too convinced.

"I really need to get back to school," she said.

"That you do," he agreed, this time with more certainty.

"I had fun," she told him with a smile, looking up at him. "We should do this again some time."

"Yeah?" he asked. "Maybe I'll come up sometime," he added, already thinking of a good time.

"I'd like that," she said, smiling brightly.

"So, we should probably get you and your bag on that bus, right?" he said, pushing himself off the wall.

"Yeah, that would help the whole going back to school thing," she confirmed, her smile fading a little.

"Okay, then," he said, picked the bag up and flung it over his shoulder. "Did you have to get new books?" he asked, grimacing under the weight.

"You said I should read them," se said, laughing at his expression and started walking toward the bus.

Mumbling under his breath he followed, secretly glad for her laugh. He heaved the bag into the luggage compartment and straightened out, back cracking. Turning around to her he was met by her smile and glittering eyes. He didn't even try to stop the smile that appeared on his face.

"So…I should go…?" she said, not really knowing if it was meant as a question or a statement.

"I think that was the conclusion we came to," he offered, trying not to smile at her unwillingness to leave.

"Don't wait too long to visit," she said, starting to walk up to the front door of the bus.

Suddenly she changed her mind. She turned around and flung her arms around him in a tight hug. A bit startled it took him a while to respond, but soon he smiled and hugged her back. They stood there for a long time, neither wanting to let go. Eventually he loosened his grip on her and she reluctantly let go.

She smiled a little at him and started to turn around again, but once again she changed her mind. She turned to him again and reached up and kissed him on the cheek. Before he could react she had already almost run up on the bus and taken a seat. He finally shook his head slightly and smiled a bit sadly to himself.

He watched her take her place and soon the bus started off to New York. He waved after her as it pulled out and stood glued to the ground until he couldn't see it anymore. Then he turned around and started walking home.

The apartment felt empty when he entered. He tossed his keys on the floor and went into the bedroom and took out his old notebook. Looking at the picture he went over to the bed and sat down. He put the picture down and opened to a blank page somewhere in the middle. Taking out a pencil from his pocket he settled down and started writing, a concentrated look on his face.

On the bus she sat and contemplated the last couple of days. She had fun. They had fun. And she didn't really want to leave. To have something to do she took a book out of her purse. It was The Old Man and the Sea and for the first time ever she opened it without dreading to read it. She settled in for the trip and smiled as she read the notes he had written in the margins. In five hours she would be home and could call him and tell him she had gotten home safely.