I rewrote the last chapter, or rather added some things, which made the chapter pretty long, so I divided it in two.

There's been some really messed up things happening around me and I haven't been dealing with them all that well. Usually when I need to escape and think about anything but what's going on around me I write – but this time I just couldn't focus and because of that the last chapter was merely the result of me gluing together pieces I had already written in advance and skipping a lot of things that I had originally planned for to happen…

I'm sorry for that and hope you'll like the things I added…

I'm still struggling through a lot of crap, so if these chapters doesn't seem to be as well-written as you had hoped – please don't hate me, at least I'm trying!

Your reviews means the world - thanks for taking the time to write them!

And I will update my other stories too, soon, I just felt this one was most urgent as I had already posted a chapter that didn't look like I had planned for it to.


An hour or so later, after several cups of strong coffee to try and drown the guilt she felt over having sneaked in to Jess' room, Rory stepped through the door at Truncheon. She had to get out of the apartment to resist the urge of snooping around even more; to find out if he had kept more memorabilia of her or if the pieces she found were the only things he kept.

Her eyes immediately fell on Matt, standing behind the counter, talking to a customer. When noticing her on her way over, he smiled and nodded in her direction.

She nodded back and smiled as well. Matt was always happy, he always had a positive outlook on life that was contagious to everyone in his vicinity. It seemed as if there were no problems big enough to wipe the smile off his face.

Rory slumped down at the counter and patiently waited for Matt to finish attending the customers.

"Sleep well?" Matt rested his upper body on the other side of the counter.

"Yeah" She answered and nodded to further confirm her reply.

"I didn't want to wake you, I know how you feel about mornings" He smirked.

"Not my favorite part of the day" She confirmed.

He scoffed, turned around and within a matter of seconds a fresh cup of coffee was placed in front of her.

Rory bit her lip as she accepted the beverage. "I kind of already made a large dent in your supply of coffee back at the apartment"

Matt opened his mouth in surprise and gasped at her. "What is it I hear?" He looked around the store. "Is the apocalypse near? Is the hell freezing over? Are pigs learning how to fly?"

Rory rolled her eyes as he continued: "Because all of those things are things I always thought more plausible to occur than hearing Rory Gilmore turning down a cup of coffee"

She clutched the cup in a possessive manner. "I'm not saying I'm turning it down" Trying to look stern, she took a sip out of the cup. "I'm merely informing you"

Matt laughed and with a "Whatever" he turned to attend a new customer.


Standing up from her seat at the counter, Rory took a deep breath and walked over to the couch where she'd spotted him moments earlier.

Matt was engaged in helping a woman decide whether she wanted a piece of pie or a cinnamon bun to accompany her coffee and she was grateful for that. He would probably read something into this.

Which was ridiculous, she told herself. Completely ridiculous. There was nothing to read into anything and she had every right to ask the question she was about to ask. There was nothing weird about it.

She gathered all of her courage as she approached the couch and almost without hesitating, she sat down next to him. Jess looked up from his book for a second, noticed her and then went back to reading.

Nervously, Rory looked down at her lap and bit her lower lip while she debated with herself whether she should really ask what she came over there to ask or whether she should just let it be. She swallowed the lump in her throat and took a deep breath.

"Where are all of my things?" The question wasn't accusing, or at least she hoped it wasn't and she watched him raise his eyebrows as he closed the book in his hands.

"I mean…" She hurriedly continued. "…I understand if you threw them away or something. I–I was just…curious" Her eyes darted back into her lap as she waited for his response.

"I put them in storage" He answered simply, without any showing of emotions; neither in his voice nor on his face.

"Oh" She breathed out and watched as he opened his book again, shutting her out.


Rory fumbled with the lock to the storage room, before it finally gave in and she was able to push the door open and step inside.

It wasn't much – just a few boxes and a couple of bags.

A quick glance told her that the bags were primarily stuffed with clothes, while the boxes seemed to hold books and other stuff.

She pulled the lid of off one of the boxes and sat down on another and a smile spread across her face as she looked into it and recognized her books. She ran her hands over them. There was Anna Karenina. She had missed her. She'd bought herself a new copy, but it wasn't the same. She had missed this book. And there was Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn – she'd missed them too.

Moving the books around to see what was underneath; her hands froze as she suddenly held her copy of The Howl in her hand. The copy Jess had 'borrowed' from her when they first met.

She didn't know if that was his purpose when stealing her book, but he had certainly raised her interest with that move. Not to talk about the notes he had left in it… Her smile was melancholy as she put the book aside and continued to search through the box.

The box seemed to contain nothing but books and even though she loved her books, she was more interested in knowing what else was in here. She put the lid back on the box and turned to her other side.

This one looked more promising. It was a smaller box and when the first thing her eyes fell on when she opened it was the silly little ceramic frog. She giggled as she held it up and wondered why she never named it. She placed it on a shelf right next to her and dived back into the box.

Her heart clenched when she moved a few papers around and spotted and envelope with the name Lorelai Gilmore written on it. She picked it up and held it to her chest.

Rory looked down at the paper in front of her and struggled hard not to cry. She didn't want the paper to be dented with tears.

'12.'

She wrote the number on the first empty line, continuing the ever growing list.

'Because, as much as I miss you, Stars Hollow, Yale and even grandma and grandpa, I can't even begin to imagine how empty my life would feel without him.'

Rory put the pen away on her bedside table, folded the paper in half and reached for a worn envelope with the name 'Lorelai Gilmore', followed by a Stars Hollow-address written on it

Her hands shook as she placed the letter inside.

She knew she wouldn't send it. No matter how good her reasons were, her mother's stubbornness was greater and she had already decided that Jess was Satan personified and didn't deserve any second chances.

"Maybe one day" Rory thought as she put the envelope in the drawer of her nightstand, closed it and turned off the lights. She crept down under the covers and snuggled closer to the warm body on the other side of the bed.

Half asleep, Jess stretched his arm out, placed it around her waist and pulled her closer. A gesture that, despite everything she'd left behind, made her feel that there was no place in the world that she'd rather be.

With a sigh Rory placed the envelope back in the box. For some reason she couldn't quite articulate she knew it would be a bad idea to read through it.

"Pretty silly, huh?" She said, directed towards the frog, whom only stared blankly back at her.

She literally jumped of the box when the sound of her phone ringing filled the small space of the storage. Giggling nervously at herself for her jumpiness she pulled her phone out and answered without looking at it.

"Hey!" Logan's voice sounded through the phone.

"Hey" She answered as she placed the frog back in the box, feeling a little sad as she did so. The poor frog was doomed to spend the rest of his life stored away in a box only because she and Jess were incapable of making things work.

"Everything okay?" He sounded worried and Rory forced herself to smile.

"Yeah, everything's fine" She put the lid back on the box and headed towards the door. "Except the fact that I'm missing you of course" She added as she stopped to close the door behind her.

"Good"

Rory barely heard him, as a thought flittered through her mind and she turned on her feet, went back into the storage, pulled the lid of the last box she'd been looking through and stuffed the envelope containing the letter into her purse.

"I miss you too Ace" Logan continued and Rory smiled at the warm feeling spreading through her body at his words.

"Yeah?" She locked the storage behind her and started walking away, smiling as Logan started reassuring her just how much it sucked being away from her this soon after the engagement.


With Matt's keys in hand, Rory walked the stairs to the apartment. There should be enough time for her to take a quick shower before Matt's shift ended. She scolded herself for not having brought with her a change of clothes out of the storage. She'd been wearing the same outfit since she got here.

To her surprise the door to the apartment wasn't locked and the keys still hung unused in her hand as she stepped inside.

"Hello?" She asked tentatively into the apartment. There was no answer.

"Hello?" She asked again as she carefully stepped into the living room, trying to survey as much of the apartment as she could at the same time.

She screamed a very girlish smile and jumped about feet high as the bathroom door suddenly flung open.

Her heart beat what felt like a million beats per minute as she stared at Jess, trying to get her brain to understand that it was the proprietor of the apartment standing before her and not an intruder.

"You scared me half to death" She explained when she felt him looking at her.

"I noticed" He stated and then strode towards the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway and seemed to debate something with himself, before he turned around. "There's coffee in the kitchen if you want" He offered and started walking again.

"Thanks" She murmured, still embarrassed over her screaming earlier.

After taking a few moments to gather herself, Rory followed Jess into the kitchen. He looked up as she entered and nodded towards a cup, filled with coffee, standing on the kitchen table.

"Black, right?" He asked and she nodded as she sat down.

She took a sip and marveled over the fact that coffee, from the same bag and brewed in the same brewer, could taste so differently depending on who made it. Jess' coffee tasted like drops of heaven. It always did. The coffee she had made this morning had been good enough to start the day, but nothing like this.

"It's good" She said and took another sip. He simply nodded in response.

With the feeling of being watched, Rory darted her head up just in time to see Jess turn and look the other way. She looked down at the table again.

"Thank you…" She started spinning her cup on the table as she talked, to avoid having to look at him. "…for not throwing everything away."

He put his cup down on the counter and shrugged his shoulders. "I figured someday you'd want it all back."

The double meaning of his words didn't go by unnoticed and she wondered whether it was intentional. Completely unaware of how obvious her discomfort and nervousness were showing, she bit her lower lip and looked intently at the table, trying to figure out how to continue and stir the conversation to safer grounds.

Why these grounds felt so incredibly unsafe to tread she had no idea and she definitely had no desire to get one either.

Jess cleared his throat and to prevent him from talking Rory uttered the first words that came to mind. "I'll compensate you for the rental fee"

A flash of surprise flittered over his face and Rory felt relief washing over her when the moment they almost shared seemed shattered. She stood up from her seat and started searching through the pockets of her jeans, looking for her wallet.

He dismissed her with a wave of his hand and a headshake. "Nah, don't worry 'bout it."

Rory nodded. With the silence that ensued, a tension started building up in the room – or was that only her imagination playing tricks on her due to the double meaning of his words.

Without her permission her feet started moving and she took a small step closer to him. 'What are you doing?' She inwardly asked herself as she watched her hand, as in slow motion, fly across the air from her side to his shoulder.

'Stop it!' She screamed at herself inside her head, but her body rudely ignored her and she could feel her lips drawing a smile on her face before she opened her mouth.

"I'm sorry Jess…" She searched for his eyes and that's when the conscious parts of her brain caught up with the rest of her body and she allowed herself to get lost into those deliciously brown eyes one last time. "…for everything" She mumbled without taking her eyes off of his.

For a split second, Jess' eyes dropped to the hand on his shoulder, but then quickly made their way back to hers. "I'm sorry too…" She felt his body moving closer to her, he was only inches away now and she could feel his breath against her cheek when he added: "…for everything"

His gaze was intense and somehow warm at the same time. 'Danger, danger' something screamed in the back of her mind. In an attempt to avoid the intensity of his gaze, Rory casted her eyes down and the saying 'out of the frying-pan and into the fire' would probably have been a perfect description of what happened inside her when her gaze fell on his lips instead.

For a moment she forgot to breathe as she looked at Jess' lips, unable to draw her eyes away from them. They looked so soft and…kissable. And only inches away.

She closed her eyes and almost without knowing it she leaned in closer to him. Jess didn't move, but she could feel him breathing heavily as if he too had forgotten how to breathe regularly. When her lips softly and hesitantly touched his, he was holding his breath back.

She sighed deeply, knowing she shouldn't do this. She couldn't really remember why she shouldn't though. It felt so right, so good, so incredibly tempting.

Slowly, her hand traveled from his shoulder to the back of his neck. The touch of his short neck hair against her fingers felt so familiar, and she was amazed that she had forgotten how wonderful it felt against her fingers.

Rory opened her mouth slightly and their lips were so close she could feel him doing the same.

His arm circled her waist and he pulled her closer as she leaned in to close the tiny little gap between their mouths.