Aki- Okay, so you are probably looking at the chapter title and going, "Oh, no…" But you know what, things have been going a little to good for Rory and Jess at the moment, I had to add a little controversy.
Logan
"Are you going to come up this weekend?"
"And have another eventful weekend in Stars Hollow….?" teased Jess. "It's a tempting offer."
"Come on," Rory said, almost whined, over the phone. "We don't have to go to Stars Hollow at all. We can have…alone time…."
"Now that is a tempting offer."
"So?"
"I'll see if I can get away."
Rory pouted. "Don't raise my hopes like that."
"What?" asked Jess, confused.
"Everyone knows that 'I'll see' means no. So if you mean no, then say 'no'."
"I don't mean 'no'."
"Then you mean 'yes'" said Rory hopefully.
"No. I mean, I'll see."
Rory grumbled incoherently under her breath. Jess chose to ignore it.
"So what are your plans for tonight?" asked Jess a moment later.
Rory shrugged despite Jess being unable to see her. "You know I might go to a crazy college party. Get drunk. Pick up a guy…or two."
"Rory…"
"Hey," she said defensively, "This is what happens when you are not here."
"Okay, so what are you really doing tonight?"
"Catch up on some reading, maybe proof some articles for the Yale Daily News, Perhaps watch a movie. "
"Spending the night in, huh?"
"Well there is not much else to do when…wait I have a call on the other line, can I call you…?"
"I'll just hang up, you don't have to call me back tonight—"
"Alright, bye, love you."
"Love you too."
Rory switched to the other call hastily, hoping not to lose it, without looking at the number.
"Hello," she said.
"Rory," slurred a familiar voice on the other end.
"…Logan…?" she asked tentatively, worried.
"Rory," he repeated, "Can you pick me up?"
"Pick you up…?" she asked, confused. "Pick you up from where?"
There was a hesitation on the line before he was answered slowly. "From the police station…"
…
"Idiot, idiot, idiot," admonished Rory a good hour later, pulling out of the police station, Logan sitting in the passenger seat of her car.
"Sorry," he mumbled for maybe the hundredth time that night.
Rory rolled her eyes, but kept her attention on the road.
"What did you get arrested for in the first place?" she asked exasperatedly.
"I don't know, being drunk in public or disturbing the peace or some stupid charge like that," said Logan a little bitterly, the whole wearying experience having sobered him up quite a bit.
"Why? asked Rory, annoyance still in her tone. "Why do you have to drunk all the time?"
"It's not all the time," he said defensively. "Sure I drink a lot, but I don't always get drunk…"
"Well, then why did you have to get drunk tonight?"
"…"
"Well?" she demanded. She may be being rude, but she was the one who had just gone out her way to get him from prison, so she had the right to be snippy.
"…Because I miss you…"
Rory kept her eyes defiantly on the road in front of her, not trusting herself to look at him even though she felt his eyes on her. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and the dense, uneasy silence continued.
"Rory," Logan said softly, emotion filling his voice, breaking the long silence.
"Don't," she said suddenly cutting him off, however her voice was not as hard and mean so before. Although still defiant there was a little bit of unidentifiable weakness as well.
"Please," he pleaded, "Just hear me out—"
"No," she said, again cutting him off. "Because I already know what you are going to say….and I already know my answer, you know it to."
"But…" he said, "but I love you."
Rory let out a weary sigh. "Logan, please, don't."
"But Ace…" he protested weakly.
"Logan, I told you the day we broke up that I haven't stop caring about you. That's still true. That's why I came when you called me tonight. But, there is no 'us' anymore."
"Why not, Ace. I love you. You're the only girl I ever really loved."
"There are other girls."
"But you're the only one—"
"Listen for just a minute," protested Rory. "I have loved more than one boy in my life. I know my mom has loved more than one person. But it doesn't always work out just because you love them."
"It's only not working because you don't want it to work!" exclaimed Logan.
"Then it won't work! Two people make a relationship, Logan. There were times I felt you weren't all in it and times that you were. But now, I'm out. I'm sorry, but that's how it is."
"I— I guess I always hoped you would come back," he said quietly after a moment of silence.
"Logan, there are other girls out there. Learn from the things you did right in our relationship and did wrong in our relationship. You'll fall in love again. I'm telling you. You'll just have to move on."
"Maybe I don't want to move on."
"No one really wants to move on, but we have to when the time comes…and here's your apartment," Rory added as she pulled into his parking lot.
"Rory, Ace," he said in a last desperate attempt. "Just give it a chance."
"Logan," she said softly, turning to face him and having eye contact for the first time during there heavy conversation, "Don't make this harder on you then it has to be."
Logan bowed his head slightly in defeat before climbing out of her car.
"Good bye, Logan," she said in a way he found too definite.
"Bye, Ace."
She drove away, leaving him standing there in the parking lot wondering where everything went wrong.
Rory reached her apartment building much later that night, worn out from the emotionally heavy conversation as well as the very long rides both to the police station, then to Logan's apartment building, and then all the way across town back to her apartment.
She carried herself up the steps, rubbing her eyes tiredly. Her whole night was shot. Her reading and the newspaper and the movie would have to watch until tomorrow. She fumbled wearily with her keys as she unlocked the complicated door.
However, when she stepped into her apartment, she was greeted by someone she hadn't expected.
"Rory," said Jess standing up from where he was sitting on the couch.
Rory's eyes widened in surprise and all thoughts of sleep were wiped out of her mind.
"What- What are you doing here?" she asked nervously, "I thought you sad you would try to come, but even then I wouldn't have expected you until tomorrow.
"I wanted to surprise you," he said coolly with a small shrug, hands in his pockets. She could tell that he already suspected something was wrong because of her jumpy manner. "Anyway," he said, turning his piercing gaze away from her and idly looking at the objects on the table beside the couch, flipping a few pages in the tv guide. "I thought you said you were spending the night here."
"Well, that was the plan, but—"
"I've been waiting almost three quarters of an hour."
"I'm sorry, but something came up—"
"What happened? Where were you?"
Rory was struggling to find a word and ended up with the probably the worst explanation should could come up with. One word slipped off of her tongue that made the night stand still.
"…Logan…"
Aki- Ahh, it's a cliffie, my first real one this story. On a different note, have you written or read a one shot lately that you consider amazing, just drop the name and the author in a review or message to me so I can consider it for my C2 'Oneshot Heaven.'
