Think

"Do you ever think about what would have happened if things had been different?"

"How so?"

"Like, if you had stayed or if I had run away with you when you asked me to. Do you think about how it would have been different?"

"I guess, sometimes. Back when we weren't together," he replied.

"If it was different, do you think we'd still be together?" she asked, laying back down onto her bed, phone held to her ear.

"Do you?" came Jess reply, knowing she had more to say on the subject than he did.

"Yes," she answered.

"Why?"

"Think about it. We broke up when we were seventeen and here we are twenty-one and back together. There's got to be something behind that."

"Do you mean fate?"

"Not necessarily, maybe just serendipity."

"That's a lame movie."

"No it's not and…you've seen it?"

"…No…"

"Don't lie."

"What's your point?" asked Jess, diverting the conversation back to its original course.

"That," said Rory, "Maybe 'us' isn't an accident. After everything we've been through we ended back with each other. There's just got to something else…Don't you think so?"

A silence over the phone, before Jess answered, "No."

"Oh, come on," complained Rory, assuming he was just disagreeing on the technicality that he didn't like to believe in destiny.

"Seriously, I don't."

"Than what do you believe?" asked Rory, still a bit annoyed.

"That…jeez, this already sounds cheesy in my head…"

"Just tell me," Rory whined.

"Okay," said Jess, resigned, "I think it's not despite everything we've gone through and we ended up together that makes it fate or whatever. I think it is because of everything we went through that we have ended up together."

"Explain."

"Well- I told you its cheesy- but everything we've been through, the break ups, all the life experience, has made us who we are today. And the people who are now together."

"That is a little cheesy."

"Told you."

"But I like it."

"Yeah?"

"It's like everything we have is because we deserve, we earn it."

"That's exactly what I'm saying. Do you think we'd be together right now if I hadn't gone out on a limb and asked you stay that night, or if you hadn't given me a chance when I was seventeen? I like knowing everything I have now is because I worked for it. Not because something somewhere decided it for me."

There was a reflective pause on the line. "How," began Rory softly, "How did you come up with that?"

Jess shrugged even though Rory couldn't see him. "Because I was tired of blaming everyone and everything else for the shit I was doing."

"And you wanted to control your own life."

"Exactly."

"But I still think there is something more."

"Huh?" said Jess, half in interest, half in exasperation because they had already been through this.

"Think about it-"

"I've had to do a lot of thinking this phone call."

"Shut up and listen," said Rory in irritation that really wasn't anger. "Life is like a whole tangle of events and cause and effect domino thing."

"Cause and effect domino thing?" Jess repeated, mockery in his tone. "I think you should really stop trying to be philosophical."

"Again, shut up."

Jess only smirk at his girlfriend's frustration with him. He was good at frustrating her.

"Just listen and try to follow. If you hadn't done god knows what to make your mother send you to Stars Hollow, I may have never met you. If we had never met, we wouldn't have become friends or boyfriend and girlfriend. If that hadn't have happened, we wouldn't have broken up and hurt each other, making us want to be better, find something more in our lives. Follow?"

"A bit."

"Now you said you couldn't have written The Subsect without me."

"True."

"So if you had never written it, you wouldn't have come back to see me. And if you had never came back to see me, I would still be in my rut."

"And if I had never gotten you out of your rut," filled in Jess, trying to follow Rory's reasoning, "Than you would have never come and seen me at our open house. And if you hadn't come I wouldn't have asked you to stay and we wouldn't be together today."

"Correct," Rory agreed, a smile on her voice.

"Your point?"

Rory sighed exasperatedly over the phone. "My point is that even though everything we did, everything that we do gets us to where we are, to who we are, sometimes events are so interconnected that something, fate, destiny, serendipity, or just chance, had to be involved to make it all go the way it did."

"Is that like a compromise between our two views?" Jess asked.

"Yeah, well I hear that's what couples are supposed to do," Rory deadpanned.

"I don't know. I still believe its all freewill."

"Maybe it is, but we never have complete control over our lives. There is always someone else telling us what to do."

"Huh." This it was one of agreement. Rory had gotten good at judging Jess' tone of voice over the years. It was a rather important skill when trying to understand him because he usually had little to say, so she had to judge what he did say on his tone. Whether sad, sarcastic, anger, joking, honest, or sweet. It was one of his many quirks that she loved about him.

"I miss you," she said softly over the phone. He had only returned to Philadelphia two days ago, but it seemed so long ago from then.

"Me too."

"You miss yourself?" asked Rory in mock confusion.

"You know what I mean?" Jess growled under his breath, agitated. Rory grinned to herself in victory; she was good at agitating Jess.

"Can you come back next weekend," she asked, not caring if she sounded needy or clingy.

"We'll see."

"See now…" she whined, wanting him to promise that he would. Rory generally spoke enough for both of them, but Jess didn't see it as a bad thing. He loved her voice, it was so expressive. She got excited about little things, joked about almost everything, exaggerated most the time, was happy and laughed so openly that it was close to being unreal.

"We'll see," Jess repeated.

"You're no fun," Rory retorted. Jess could practically imagine her ticking her tongue out at him.

A silence on the phone. It wasn't awkward or out of place, it just was. They sat, listening to the other breathing, contemplating how much they did wish the other was with them right at the moment.

"Jess…?" asked Rory quietly.

"Huh?"

"Are you- happy?"

"What?" he asked, slightly confused.

"Are you happy?" she repeated a bit more firmly. "Just think about it."

He inhaled slowly. "Yes, I am."

"Good," she whispered back. "Me too."

Aki- In case you have not noticed, each other these chapters has a theme around it, and although the story progresses, I like to think that they could almost be alone. But not really. ANyway, for those of you wanted more chapters about Rory and Jess revealing thier realstionships to other people, don't worry, they are coming up...