Disclaimer: I own nothing, I'm poor, etc., etc.

The quote you'll encounter further in the chapter is not mine, it's from '18% Grey' by Zachary Karabashliev; song lyrics used: 'Time Go' by Caught a Ghost and 'At the Bottom' by Brand New.

A/N: M contents, you've been warned...

SPECIAL THANKS to each and every reader and reviewer - you made this story what it is /whatever that is:D/:)

And thank you, Anonymous, jane doe, lindseyb12321 and Izzy, I couldn't pm to tell you how happy your reviews make me!:):)

Long Last Chapter which I hope you'll enjoy...

~I'm in need of the answer, searching for questions, love would mean broken-hearted...~

'Hey...'

Rory entered the hospital room cautiously, pausing at the door to take a quick look around. Still. The air in the room was still, perfectly void of any kind of movement. Air in solid state.

It was early, maybe four, maybe five a.m. The lights were still on from the previous night. He hadn't slept. In his place she wouldn't have, either, had she tried.

Her eyes skimmed around, registering the blood-stained sweater crumpled on the chair beside the door.

Her gaze paused on Jess' back. He was sitting on the bed, facing the window, his upper body resting forward on his hands, his feet hanging from the bed, hardly touching the floor. He looked like he was gonna stand up any second now. But he didn't. Like a photo, he seemed static, frozen in time.

Rory took a breath and went round the bed, leaving her purse at the foot. As she approached him, she stopped, her hands hanging stiffly by her sides. She had to tilt her head to be able to assess his face. It was frozen, like the rest of his body. There was a dry blood trace across his cheekbone; some more - over his white tee, where blood had soaked in through the sweater...

He didn't blink, didn't move, didn't tell her to bugger off and leave him the hell alone. She could hardly catch on the subtle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. He seemed... blank.

Rory bit a lip and kept it between her teeth, lifting her left hand slowly, reaching out to him. Her fingertips barely touched his clavicle.

'Jess...' she whispered, her eyes seeking his but failing to establish contact. If she was to stand right before his eyes and windmill her hands before his face, he wouldn't even twitch.

She bit her lip again, harder, as if seeking for courage, and lay her palm flat over his shoulder, letting some of her arm's weight rest over him. He didn't react and she bent further to level her eyes with his. Then she felt it. A slight shift in his posture, the slightest lean to the right, like a wheat stem bent by breeze, he leaned into her half-embrace.

Rory felt something clutch at her throat and swallowed before carefully lifting another hand to reach him.

'I'm gonna hug you now,' she whispered and put the other arm around him across his chest, moving to sit at the end of the bed next to him.

'It's okay,' she continued quietly as she felt him rest against her. 'You're gonna be okay.'

- Two Days Later -

~Days race by faster, it's a made up lesson and I've lost before I started...~

Jess stopped as he heard the voices carrying from inside the room. There was some cheesy girlish music playing on the background, not really loud enough to depict.

As he came closer to the ajar door, he saw Rory holding Doula up in her arms, the kid's head was resting on Rory's shoulder and they were... waltzing?. Jeez...

He pondered between going back to his room and walking on into Doula's. He wouldn't walk in, he knew. He wasn't any good at waltzing, to begin with. He needed to be around, though, get some proof she was really still here.

He ran a hand through his hair and sat down on the floor beside the door, leaning against the wall, holding Mr Bear in his hands.

He hung his head back and closed his eyes.

'Rory?' he heard.

Eavesdropping, Mariano? Really?

Doula's voice.

Childish. Needing protection.

'Yeah, babe?'

Ready to deliver it. Caring. They don't need you here, man, now come on, move it already.

Jess shifted to stand up, but stopped as he heard Doula's voice again.

'You have beautiful hair. You are so pretty. I wish I was pretty like you.'

Doula. She can be so girlish... for a good reason, that is.

'Are you kidding? Bald is the new pink, kiddo, remember this.'

Rory. Freaky and positive. The Gilmore charm.

'No, it's not.'

Sad. She's so naive and the next moment she's all grown-up. She sounds bitter. Must be running in the family, huh?

'Rory, why doesn't Jess come to see me?'

A breath hitched on its way.

Cause he's a bastard, kid, that's why.

'Is he angry with me?'

For having leukemia? Sure.

'He's not angry with you, hon. He... he's just scared.'

Rory The Mind Reader.

'What happened the other night was... It was really new to him, sweets. Remember how scared we all felt when that happened for the first time, three months ago?'

'Yeah. I was scared then, too.'

And now you aren't?

'Well, he feels the same way now and if you... if you can give him a little time, I think he'll pull it together, but he just needs some time, sweets, okay?'

'I miss him.'

I miss you, too, kiddo.

'And he misses you, too, dear.'

~A little white lie, a big black sky, your emptiness open on the dashboard...~

She had prepared a whole mini-speech. She was gonna take him by the shirt and kick his ass until he picked himself up and went to see Doula. He had to face things, he who claimed not to care about anyone cared just too much but that was okay, caring wasn't that bad, he just had to let himself go, cause you can't run forever...

She entered his room and her mini-speech hung from her throat. She thought she was gonna sink under it's weight. The empty room screamed at her with a dozen different voices, all of them saying 'You saw this happening, you so knew it was happening'.

She made a few numb steps and sat at the edge of a made-up empty bed.

~You feel a lack of self and it's someone else telling you to try where you failed before...~

To get some important answers, you have to ask yourself the right questions. Not can you do this, but do you really believe that you can't?

"Maybe with every new decision we try to correct past events, which is impossible and therefore we are condemned to failure..."

Jess' eyes skimmed over the words once again, before he closed the book and hung his head back, letting his muscles stretch and then relax against the back of the leather sofa.

Twenty minutes later, as he looked at his own reflection in the smeary bathroom mirror of the cafe, he knew what he needed to do.

'Whoa, whoa, whoa... wait a minute,' Luke pulled Jess by the shirt just before he could enter Doula's room.

'What the...' Jess shook Luke's hand off his collar, a brow quirked up belligerently as he turned back to face his uncle.

Pause. Luke stared at Jess' hair. Or the lack of such. Jess stared at Luke staring at him.

'You must be kidding me,' Luke said at last, shaking his head in disbelief.

'I'm not laughing, am I?' Jess scoffed sarcastically.

'You shaved your hair,' Luke pointed out bluntly.

'So what? There's a rule against it or what?' he straightened up and crossed his arms before his chest.

'Seriously?' Luke put one hand akimbo, while the other was up in the air, pointing a finger at Jess' chest. 'You disappear for a day, no note, no call, no nothing, you don't answer your cell and then you come here and you shaved your hair... Are you mocking her? Cause if you are, I tell you that...'

'What? I'm not mocking her! Jesus...' Jess put his hands up in the air. Really, Luke? You think I'm that screwed up?

Luke blinked.

'If you're not mocking her, that's actually...' he gestured towards Jess' head.'... it's nice,' Luke finished, surprised at his own words.

'Forget it,' Jess shook his head, casting a sideways glance towards Doula's door.

'You're nice,' Luke declared pensively, as if he was in the middle of solving a puzzle.

'Whatever,' Jess rolled his eyes and gestured towards the door. 'Can I go now, coach?'

'Yeah,' Luke said absentmindedly, 'Sure. Go. She's been asking all about you, anyway.'

'Tell me that's not Barbie what you're watching,' Jess groaned emphatically as he entered the room.

'Jess!' Doula squealed and jumped off the bed tearing herself from Liz's embrace to throw herself at him, but stopped midway. 'What happened to your hair?' she asked curiously, surprised.

Jess bent over his knee and shrugged a shoulder.

'I heard someone say bald was the new pink.'

Doula clapped her hands with delight and made a sharp high-pitched noise of joy before her arms were wrapped tightly around Jess' neck. His eyes met Liz's and he saw a glint in them before he averted his look.

You've been through hell. Now I know. I'm still not talking to you.

'Kid, I need to breathe at some point.'

'Jess?' she whispered in his ear, quietly, conspiratorially, her hands still encircled round his neck.

'Huh?'

'You rock,' she whispered, her cheek pressing into his.

~ Where does the time go? I don't know
It's moving off the deep end
Like I'm moving in slow-mo(tion)
Now reach, I'll go
It passes too quick to see me...~

And now you'll feel sleepy, the man behind the mask had said. A last look towards the next bed. Doula was lying, her head turned towards him, her lips slightly parted behind the oxygen supply mask. He gave her a wink. She smiled.

Night, Doula.

Night, Jess.

A blinding blaze of light.

Is there gonna be a guy with a harp?

And then someone switched him off.

Voices. Blurred and distant, coming through analgesic haze. He wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere, his atoms floating into sweet nothingness.

'Hey...'

He opened his eyes. Then opened them again. And again. He wasn't sure which time he managed to grasp her outlines.

Hey, Rory. You look nice. No, wait. You rock. And I rock. Huh! We all rock.

'Is he okay?'

Of course I'm okay! Don't I look like I'm okay? I'm smashing okay.

He tried to speak, tell her he felt fuckin' fabulous, but his jaw was like cement. Hey, that was cause he wasn't in his body, he was floating. Rright.

He grinned sheepishly, meeting Rory's concerned gaze.

'Hey. How are you feeling?'

The room spun around and he closed his eyes, rubbing his lids with a thumb and forefinger. He felt nauseous.

'Plastered,' he groaned. 'Am I being kidnapped? Again?' he asked as he managed to stabilize the room in his sight. This room didn't belong in a hospital.

Rory put the book she had been reading aside and left it on the coffee table beside the - what was that he was lying on, - couch?

'My place. Living room. Luke's idea.' she rambled.

'Huh.'

'There was a bus crash,' she added, as if remembering that single fact was enough to explain everything.

'I was in it?' he asked, not really bemused, pinching the bridge of his nose. He felt cold. And sick, he felt like he was gonna spill his guts any moment now.

'No! God, no. I mean, they needed the beds, you know, in the hospital, so Luke asked if it was okay if you stayed here, and since you were kind of... drugged, we thought it would be best if you got some sleep... Ehm, you need something? Water? Food? You hungry? Cause I have some take away in the fridge...'

Jess felt his stomach twitch at the mention of food and he was really nauseous.

'Water's fine.'

'Oh. Okay.'

By the time she was back, he had drifted off again.

...

'What time is it?' he muttered to himself and was a bit surprised as he got an answer.

'Half past six. Afternoon,' she added as she saw his confused look.

Right. He was at her place. It was afternoon. He needed to pee.

'I need to use the...'

'Here,' she gestured to the corridor. 'First one to the left.'

He splashed cold water over his face. Then again. Again. Better.

She had poured herself a drink. Interesting. He had never seen her drink.

'Truth or dare?' she asked, watching him with a weird look as he entered the room. She was sitting on a high stool next to the kitchen bar plot.

'What?' he asked, slightly amused.

She shrugged and turned the glass around slowly between her fingers.

'Truth or dare?' she repeated, her voice blunt.

'Huh,' he smirked, looking around for his backpack. He saw it propped to the couch. He would get his stuff and go. He could catch the next bus to New York. And then, on the plane to Philadelphia, he would wonder what the hell had gotten into her tonight.

He approached the coach and threw her a quick sideways glance. Instead of bending for his backpack, he sat on the couch, draping an arm over the back.

'Dare,' he tilted his head to the side, his lips curving into a crooked smile.

'Name every album of The Clash.'

'You're kidding me, right?'

'Nope.'

'Alphabetically or by date of release?' he smirked, propping his feet on the coffee table.

...

Truth.

Where did you go that night, after the gas station?

Dean. Say I was sorry. That it didn't work. That I denied it for so long.

...

Dare.

Pick a book. Read a favorite paragraph.

Bukowski. Post Office.

...

Truth.

Been embarrassed in public?

Got arrested. For stealing a yacht.

Nah, really?

Don't laugh, it was The Dark Ages. Come on now, stop laughing. Jess...

What? You're gonna throw me in the Rory Dungeon? Besides, you're laughing, too.

Yeah, but it's between a laugh and a tear.

Huh.

...

Dare.

Wash my dishes.

Real nice, Rory, to invite me over while I'm half unconscious and then make me do the dishes, real nice...

...

He had washed her dishes, made a love confession to her room dieffenbachia in its pot by the window, imitated Taylor holding an Anti-Jess Stars Hollow Meeting, making her roll with laughter in the process.

She had told him about her funniest DAR screw-up, admitted her mom had dated Kirk (Huh!), confessed Ayn Rand wasn't her top favorite writer anymore (But I'm never giving up on her, she's an outstanding author, and I'm sticking to my word! Stop smirking! Jess!) and answered her grandfather's most beloved pajamas were silken dark red (Jeez, gross... I regret asking, I'm never gonna get over the image...).

'Truth or Dare?' she asked, her tone considerably more cheerful. She had shifted to sit from the bar stool to the armrest of the couch, one foot dangling freely and watched him as he stood up to pour himself another glass of water.

The mood had lightened to a playful flair, mostly due to his dare performances.

'Truth,' he said to her surprise after he downed the glass.

When he turned to face her, their eyes locked and there was a shift in hers. She licked a lip before asking,

'Do you think we'll ever have another chance, I mean you and I?'

Within seconds his look went blank. Just like that, as if someone had switched a light off. A beat of silence.

'Dare,' he sighed.

She stood up from the couch armrest and crossed the room, leaning forward. He watched with deliberate disinterest.

'Kiss me.'

'What?' he chuckled dryly.

She leaned closer and raised her eyebrows provocatively. If it didn't mean anything, why should you care?

She had leaned forward and stopped midway, her hands akimbo, a stubborn glint in her blue eyes. What was she trying to prove, goddammit? Why should she mess with him? Every time he tried to break this magnet that kept their distance short, mindless what they had been through, every time he tried to pull away, she decided to fetch him back.

Her eyes were wide and he thought he saw a silent plead in them, not sure if it was a plead to move closer or move away. Jasmine. Her perfume came in with the air he breathed and filled his lungs, sweet poison closing tight circles round his chest, sending a warm wave that spread over his body, making his skin tingle with the memory of her molding against him. That's the way a magnet worked, right? When close enough, it suddenly pulled.

In the snap of a moment he closed the distance between them and his lips crashed against hers, his hands taking hold of her face, keeping her in place as he deepened the kiss, tilting his head to change angle.

He had tried to erase her taste off his lips by kissing a forgotten number of nameless girls, trying to rub her off his skin by letting other women have their way with him. Yet, the moment he tasted her again, it was all over - that realization that this, this was different. With her, it was different.

She wasn't the sexiest, the most seductive, the sluttiest or most innocent, wasn't the best kisser or even the best lay he had ever had... Analytically, she wasn't special, not in a pure physical sense. He had had enough of experience to be aware how to estimate sex. And he had had enough late nights, early mornings and occasional lunch breaks to tell that, with her, sex was different not because of technique or special circumstances... it was different cause it was complete.

It wasn't about just the physical experience and the heat, or just about having feelings, if even it was their shadows still lingering from the past, a memory of being in love. It wasn't just because of their history. Or just because even though their history, she had been through all this with him, from beginning to end. She kidnapped him when he was confused, yelled at him when he was being an ass, put her hands around him and let him bury his face in her neck so that he could close his eyes and feel even the faintest hint of comfort, when he felt lost. It was that only with her he had all aspects of it, and somehow, nothing could compare to that.

Rory felt as if she was falling, the cable of her elevator suddenly snapped and she was losing herself. Her wrists crossed behind his neck, pulling his head even closer, while her lower body arched to press further against him.

'Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in a body that wants you, and sometimes my mind's its accomplice,' he breathed out as their foreheads pressed against one another.

She held a breath against the corner of his mouth and her eyes closed, barely realizing she was still on her toes. The back of his shirt was balled in her hands and she was clinging on to him.

'I miss us,' she whispered and her lips brushed his with the words.

He lost grip of his cool. His pulse raced, blood rushing through his body, pounding in his ears. He had remembered bits and pieces. What the hell, he had fantasized this (and yes, he admitted to himself that he had portrayed it - different scenarios, but they all came up to one thing) too many times and now that it was happening, he couldn't stop himself.

As she opened her eyes, their looks met for a split second before they were tangled in another frenzy of searching lips and groping hands. He made a few steps forward, his hands roaming her as he guided her backwards until her back pressed flush against the bar plot, and the next moment he scooped her up, turned them around and placed her over the counter.

Her hands had sneaked under the cotton of his tee, enjoying the feeling of warm taunt skin and the way it responded to her touch. Palms sliding up, trailing their way up and down from his belly to his chest. One hand rested flat over his ribs, right where his heart was trying to break free from its cage.

Each her move evoked electricity jolts down his spine, spreading all over, waking a stir that had an autonomic reign over his body, rushing his hands further, discarding any piece of clothing that stood in their way.

First time was fast, needy, tasting like months of piled up longing.

As she guided them to her bedroom later on, he let her push him down on her bed and straddle him. Slowly, her fingertips traced his face, pausing on his cheekbones, outlining his jaw, hesitating over his lips. Down his chest, her palms slid smoothly but purposefully and as her hips ground harder against him, his breath hitched, the knot in his stomach tying up, his eyes squeezing shut.

When he opened his eyes and they locked with hers, it wasn't the expected lust he saw in them. She was looking at him, cause she saw him. She saw him for what he was. And she looked at him with tenderness. Huh. That was the exact reason he shouldn't have let her get to him again, cause there would be always that sickening gap between her an any other nameless girl. They somehow always stayed nameless, all those other girls, they never really got further than his skin, and she got under. And it made him sick.

What the hell were they doing? First time, in Truncheon, it could pass for unfinished business. High school sweetheart, what would it be like, etc., etc. Tonight, what was it?

She had leaned down and her lips softly brushed over his, her fingers cradling his face gently. She was turning this into goddamn love making.

He let a breath out sharply and shifted, taking hold of her wrists, using them as leverage to flip them around, switching places. As he hovered over her, he leaned and took his time, enjoying her shallow breathing at his ministrations and the feeling of her giving in, melting under him, a treacherous voice whispering at the back of his mind that, no matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to make it completely not love making between them.

You never are what you intend, or invent, the lyrics ricocheted in his head. Some men die under the mountain just looking for gold, some die looking for a hand to hold.

But it was a fucked up life if you had to spend it surrounded by nameless people. Some of them had to have a name. They just had to.

He lost himself in her again.

Second time was slow, calculated, consuming. Her fingernails were digging scars in his back, but he kept moving with an agonizing pace and a little more forcefully than he would normally do. Trying to leave a mark.

~You pack up your gun, make your best run, your thinking isn't breaking any new ground...~

'I hate this.'

'You should. I'm sorry.'

'I thought everything was fixed.'

'Everything but him.'

'You came here alone to Philadelphia, you drove all the way here just to get a revenge fuck?'

'Jess, it's not like this, please lis...'

'You need to go now.'

'Jess...'

'Don't. Don't start this act on me, okay? You got what you came for. Now go.'

He stood by the window and watched as she went out of the building, adjusting her purse on her shoulder, wiping her face, getting smaller and smaller until she was lost in a sea of nameless people. He stood numb, staring into nothingness. When he turned back towards the room, he grabbed the closest chair with both hands, picked it up and started thrashing it against the rest of the furniture, trying to cause as much damage as he felt in himself.

Jess opened his eyes.

He didn't need to look at her to know she was there, he felt her all over himself, his arms around her torso, one palm flat over her belly, another one wrapped round her shoulders, his chest pressed against her back, his knee between hers. His body had betrayed him while he was sleeping. He took a breath and jasmine filled his lungs. He felt nauseous, a sickening feeling of skin burning, everywhere it was in touch with hers. He tried to pull away but her hands were over his. Securing his embrace.

You never are what you intend. Or invent. Shit.

'You're up early,' Rory yawned and padded barefoot over the floor a couple of minutes later. She was still sleepy and the end of the sheet she had wrapped around herself was dragging loosely after her. As she saw him, she stopped in her track, suddenly awake. 'You're leaving.'

He was fully clothed, his backpack lying open in his feet.

Without a word, she added mentally. You were gonna leave without a word. Cause that's what you do.

He rubbed the nape of his neck.

'Yeah. Gonna grab some coffee on the way to the station.'

'You could have coffee here. Still can.' Hope. Fear. Hurt.

Are you gonna turn back on me? Again, time after time?

He exhaled through his nose.

'I'm not your pro bono case, you don't have to feed me after...' he trailed off, making an indefinite gesture with his hand.

Her brows knit. What are you talking about? And then it struck her. The room closed in. Her fists balled the sheet, her knuckles pale. She took a sharp breath and it scratched her throat. Her mouth felt dry, the words grazing their way out.

'What we had wasn't meaningless sex,' she said firmly, stubbornly.

'Technically, no sex is,' he shrugged, an arrogant smirk pulling at his lips.

Cocky bastard.

'You know what I mean,' she crossed her arms before her chest belligerently, her move causing one end of the sheet to slip down loose and reveal a good portion of her shoulder and back.

I miss us, echoed in his head.

Jess licked a lip. His mouth felt sticky. He needed to get outta here. Now. His eyes searched for the backpack.

'It's physiology, Rory, you used to be good at school, figure it out.' Absentminded cruelty while his eyes glazed over her shoulder, towards the door. Zip that backpack and go. While you still can.

'What you told me...'

Her voice was so gentle, so vulnerable. Suddenly she seemed impossibly slender in the white sheet.

'Don't read too much into words,' he shrugged it off. Ask me if I care.

'You were trapped in a body that wants me?' she challenged, making a step forward. Why are you doing this?

'Huh, I must have been really high,' he noted coldly. Bite me.

She wavered at the icy vibe in his voice but then a spark of anger lit up, igniting a fire over her cheeks. She made a few more steps forward so that she stood mere inches from him, a dangerous flash in her eyes. Lightning crossing stormy blue.

'You were still on that bus, the one you got on when we met before you left, you've been traveling on it ever since, cause what you set off to search, you never really fo...'

While she spoke, blood drained off his face, he worked his jaw and when he cut in, his voice was dry, distant.

'Wanna know what I tell other girls in bed? Really? Guess not. I'm a writer, Rory, words are supposed to fucking do the trick for me. Do you know how many pairs of eyes I've tried to get lost into, searching for that exact hue of blue which pulls a chord in my heart and makes my mind snap into these memories again? Or no, try this one, they all call my name with your voice, but, when they speak, they never say the right things, when I push them up against the wall they never make me wanna kiss back and I can never lose myself in them, when they scream...'

Slap! There it was. He had almost begged for it. Now he got it. His cheek burnt with the accusation and anger he never really got from her when he deserved them, years ago... Jeez, this slap was so overdue. So damn overdue.

Their eyes locked into a silent battle. Blue versus brown.

Do you know I never found your hue of blue?

Do you know I never stopped waiting for that bus?

He remembered reading somewhere that once you were nine years old, you were also eight, and seven and six... you couldn't just stop being these - they were also you, after all. Every other moment would add a new layer, but you couldn't erase what you already were. Maybe it was true. Maybe he would always be in love with her, the way he was when he was eighteen, and nineteen, and twenty. But there was also this layer of hate - yeah, he hated her, not really much, but some... and maybe she would hate him, too, after today, from this moment on, she would hate him just a little bit, too. And you couldn't just peel these off cause they didn't fit - after all, these feelings were also you, right?

So, you don't love me anymore?

Not much. But... Well, what is much?

'I don't wanna do this over, Jess. This hurt-you-hurt-me thing, I don't wanna play this anger ball ping pong with you.'

There is a certain type of cruelty you have only for the ones that you... love?

Love, huh?

Yeah.

For a moment the image of a thin red line staining the white sheet crossed his mind and he let out a sigh. You're a sadistic bastard, Mariano. A brief flash of guilt passed through his eyes and reflected in hers just before it was gone.

'I don't, either.'

'Then don't go. Stay for lunch. Coffee. Muffin. Whatever. Don't go like this.'

Her silent plead met a stubborn glint in his brown eyes and she lost it.

'For God's sake, Jess, do you have to punish me for the rest of my life? Am I that hideous that you can never forgive me or at least let me have a proper conversation with you about what happened that night at Truncheon? I try to make things better, God knows I try, I try to talk to you, I try to be patient, I try to show that I care, cause I do - about you, Jess, I care enough to put myself through all this, but I can't rewrite our history, won't you ever let me explain...'

'You broke my heart, Rory!'

She froze at the force of his words. Blink. Wait. Breathe.

As cliche as the phrase was, she felt its weight by the way his voice cracked. He was as honest as when... when he told her that he loved her. A beat. Then another one. Seconds stretched over one another, time dripping in slow motion. And then the moment was over.

When she spoke, her voice was calm, even. Comforting.

'It gets better... in time. Doesn't go away but... gets better... eventually.'

'I think I may have loved you, but I ... I just need to... let it go.'

She couldn't fight him anymore. She had been beating herself up for what she had done, repeated that he was fazed, he would fume and growl and then he would be able to forgive, the way she had forgiven him, years ago... She had tried to persuade herself that she could fix this - fix them. But she couldn't survive another round. Who could force time? She couldn't. So... what did they do now?

'I... Maybe... maybe we'll catch up in a better of time,' he said calmly, as if reading her thoughts. A mixture of disappointment and hope. They were still on that bus.

'Jess...'

'It's what it is - you, me...' he continued, resuming his composure completely. 'I know my way,' he added, gesturing towards the door.

He paused at the doorstep. He breathed her in. He breathed her out. And that was that. It was over.

~I think that this could be the last one, Jimmy
Why don't you come and take this last one with me?
I gotta say that it's good to be home
Sometimes I miss you when I'm out there alone...~

The glass doors of Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital slid open and then closed. With her back to the entrance, Rory Gilmore stood and watched as an ambulance pulled into the hospital's parking lot and made a semicircle towards the ER. Another race, ambulance lights flying over the streets. Another shift for the driver. Another life. Another story. A chain of stories, actually. Like a domino. Should've-s, could've-s, pulling domino blocks down in different directions.

'Hey.'

She felt like her mouth was full of cotton. She turned to look at him without saying anything back.

His eyes looked different... calm, settled. He had found his center. It seemed.

Was it revenge what had balanced his scales? Getting it back at her, to make them even? Oh, boy...

She quivered. A rabbit heart pounced against her ribs, her eyes dilated. Why are you here, she wanted to know. But she wouldn't ask. Couldn't. Her throat was tight and she was tired. God, she was so tired.

'I came to say goodbye,' he said as if he had read her unspoken question.

Doula.

She gave him a silent nod.

'I'll be in town, next month. Can I...' he exhaled noisily, focusing on his shoes. 'Can I call you?'

A/N: Congrats to everyone who made it to the last chapter!

My original idea was to take this to a point where I tell a story and leave the end sort of open... I wanted it to be five or six chapters, so this one I've got down and it is sort of open-ended... However, I still don't know if I managed to get the storyline and characters dynamics through right, it's too early for me to see cause I'm too deep into the story now and my vision is blurred...

Anyway, actually you're the ones to judge and let me know through your reviews /or pm-s, or smoke signals, maybe a nice fruit basket/. I'm gonna miss this story...;(

THANK YOU for joining me on this ride, hope it's been as much fun for you as it's been for me:)