A/N:

I don't own the characters, I just play with them . No copyright infringement intended.

Hello all,
I'm going out of town for a week, so I'm updating with two chapters tonight because there will be no more updates untill I come home. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the story and thank you again for reading and for the reviews.

Mood music: Where The Streets Have No Name, U2

10. Building And Burning Down Love

He's picked up two more postcards since Chicago, and he's now slowly turning the display and choosing the third as he waits for his train to pull in. He's given up on buses since the break-down in Wyoming, and he's grown to like the privacy the trains provide, especially the older ones that have compartments that are nearly always empty. He hears the train coming and he turns the display one more time. He picks one, puts the change away and walks out on the platform.

The train is old and there's plenty of compartments to choose from; he finds one he likes and settles by the window. There's a short wait but soon, the lights outside start moving and after a few minutes, they disappear; there's just darkness outside the window and his own reflection staring back at him from the glass.

Now that he's on his way, he lets himself think about where he's going, because unlike every other one so far, this journey has a destination, a very precise destination with a clear purpose behind it. There's just a few more pages left in the black notebook, and just one more ghost to lay to rest, but there's only one place where he can do that, and when he finally decided to return there, he realized he actually always knew that he would. From the moment he left California, that's where he's been heading and when he looks back on the trail he made across the country over the last months, it's a line that curves back to where it all started. He opens the front pocket on his back-pack, and takes out the postcards – there are seventeen. There would be no more, and he goes through them slowly, remembering all these places and thinking how they've changed him, how all those nameless streets, dead-end jobs and sleepless nights helped shape and form him, and through torment and anguish, they somehow made him heal.

Lights appear on the horizon again, distant and hazy; they get closer and grow sharper, and he can soon recognize the familiar lines that pierce the sky. A chill runs through him and his fists clench as he watches the city loom closer; he looks at the skyline and he knows that, once he does what he came here to do, he will never come back again.

The breaks screech and the train jerks to a stop. He takes a deep breath and zips up his jacket, gathers his backpack and slowly makes his way off the train and out of the station. As he walks down the street, the pulse of the city is familiar and comforting at first, but soon the thoughts of why he's here come back and send a chill down his spine that makes him flinch. He walks a few more blocks until he finds the right subway line, and waits for the train, with his fists clenched tight in his pockets. It arrives quickly and he boards it; the chills spread all over as he counts the stations, and as he reaches the one he needs, his legs feel like they're made of lead as he climbs the stairs to the street.

It's quiet and deserted; there are no cars and no people outside, which is not surprising because this is not a part of the city where it is a good idea to be out after dark, but he makes his way down the block anyway, and listens as his footsteps echo of the walls. He lifts his eyes and looks ahead; the alley he's looking for is just across the street, but somehow, his legs just won't move, like they refuse to take him there. He drops his back-pack and sits on the curb; fear washes over him with its icy fingers and he knows he won't be able to just walk over there.

He looks around and the surroundings are familiar, there's a whole childhood worth of memories here, and his heart clenches as hazy apparitions of two little boys run past him laughing. He shakes his head and wonders how he'll do this, but the answer doesn't come. He looks down the street, and a small glimmer of hope appears as he spots a liquor store, a neon sign that says OPEN flashing in the window. He gets up quickly and walks over; he's a minor, but at 3am in this part of town it won't matter as long as he has money. He walks in and says nothing, just runs his eyes down a row of bottles, and points. He places the money on the counter and waits.

The tattooed stranger behind the counter looks him over and takes the money. He puts the bottle in a paper bag and hands it to him – just as both of them are holding on to it, he says quietly: "I've got some other stuff you might like under the counter, all wrapped up and sterilized."

Jess looks up at him and his hand on the bottle shakes as the voice inside his head starts its familiar, seductive song. Every nerve in his body wakes and joins in, and he can feel himself break out in cold sweat. He grips the paper-bag tighter and stares into the stranger's eyes. "No thanks", he says quietly and pulls the bag from his fingers. "I'm good."

He sits at the curb until the bottle is half empty and his hands don't shake anymore. His mind is slightly hazy – not enough to cloud his judgment or make him forget why he's here, but the alcohol provides just enough of a push to get him back on his feet and steer him towards the alley. He moves slowly and purposefully as he enters it, one step at the time, bracing himself for the moment when the memories will kick in; this time, he's determined to face them once they arrive.

It happens when he turns the corner around the building, and although he's been waiting for them, they still catch him off guard; he remembers the sounds and the frantic rhythm of running footsteps and his heart pounding in his ears, because he knows they're running for their lives. He remembers looking behind and seeing no-one, and he remembers the relief that swept over him so prematurely. He remembers laughing and yelling forward that it's ok as he turned this corner that he's turning now, and then slow motion kicks in as he remembers the knife hitting his chest, then sliding down his skin and going into his flesh. He also remembers he didn't feel it at all because his eyes immediately went to the boy on the ground, silent and motionless, and he remembers watching the big red stain spread over the boy's chest, the same boy that had been running in front of him just moments ago, his eyes now empty and lifeless, staring at the sky overhead. He remembers falling to the ground slowly, and staring at that red stain spread and slowly form a puddle on the ground, and he remembers that he stared at it for what seemed like ages before everything mercifully faded to black and he didn't have to look at it anymore.

He's leaning against the wall and he slowly slides down, his eyes locked on that spot on the ground. There's nothing there, but his mind projects the past scene so clearly and vividly that he can see every detail as he saw it then – the pool of blood and his best friend in it, forever still and silent, with his eyes open and staring into space, with a look of surprise on his face that will never change again. He stares at this scene that he's been running from for years, he stares at it now for the first time in its entirety, with eyes wide open and without shutting it out, and he feels his insides shatter to pieces, like glass breaking from an explosion so loud and powerful that it leaves nothing whole in its wake. He doesn't know how long he sits there, but gradually, the image blurs and begins to fade to grey and he realizes that it's tears; relief washes over him when he recognizes them, when he realizes that they've finally come and that he can cry now. He cries like a child, like he should have cried years ago but couldn't, he cries for his friend and for himself, for their mistakes and for his guilt, for the memories and for joy that he can sit here now and cry this way. At some point, he remembers the bottle and finds it with shaking hands, and he waits for morning in that alley, curled up on the cold concrete, drunk and shivering, but blissfully free.

...............

He doesn't really remember leaving or getting to where he sits now, but he is very aware that his head hurts so badly that he wouldn't be surprised if it split open. The sun is high overhead and the day is bright; the brightness bothers his eyes but there is a powerful urge inside to write and so he does, glancing up and looking over the river in front of him from time to time. He wants a coffee so badly like he's never wanted anything else in his life, but this is more important, so he sticks with it even though his hand is so unsteady that he doubts he will ever be able to decipher what he's written if he ever chooses to look at it again. But still he writes, because the need is there and he feels it's time to finish this journey and put it behind him. Curiously, the last sentence falls on the last page, and as he stares at it, he fights the urge to print the end underneath; he gives it one last look and then closes the notebook and puts it in his backpack.

He leans his head back and closes his eyes; he takes a few deep breaths and the air is so sweet, it smells of summer and it smells of future. Instantly, his mind flies to her and she fills his heart so completely that it feels like it will explode out of his chest; in the back of his mind, the music starts again and he wonders why it's always this song that is the soundtrack to his thoughts of her. He suddenly remembers there's one more book left in his backpack, the book that he always carries with him because it's the one that made him love books in general, the first book that touched his heart and the one book she asked for and he never gave it to her. He opens the backpack again and it takes a while to find it because it's buried deep down under everything else. It old and messy, held together with scotch tape and he looks at it lovingly, wondering if he can actually part with it after so many years. He remembers the last time he opened it, on his way to California, when he was searching for something in there to help him along the road he had chosen. He remembers the passage he found and underlined then, and somehow, it makes even more sense now, as he rereads it and feels a new sense of closure settle over him.

He roams over the pages, and as always, he thinks about why he loves it so much – inside it, there is calmness and curiosity, there's wisdom and mistakes, there's a beauty and a sense of belonging that he has yet to experience and there's so much love hidden between the lines that it doesn't need to be expressed in words. It's like her, his heart says and for the first time, the feeling doesn't scare him and he doesn't shy away or run from it, he just accepts it and admits to himself it's true, like it has been true always, maybe from the first time he laid his eyes on her, heard her voice and saw her smile. Now that he's made peace with all his ghosts, he feels free and honest for the first time in years and it is suddenly a simple thing to recognize, this flame in his heart, and it's easy to call it what it is. He knows now he loves her, and it is a truth that fills him with such joy that for a while he just sits there and lets it wash over him like warm waves.

He looks at the book again, runs his hand over the cover and smiles. He takes a pencil and opens the first page. He wants to write something meaningful, something that is worthy of this book and of her, something that will show, even slightly, what he is feeling right now, but then his smile fades and he remembers all the postcards and the months that stand between them, and reality bites hard. She's probably moved so far past him that suddenly it all seems naïve and ridiculous, and he wonders what he was thinking when he sent all those books. He doesn't really know, it was an impulse with the first one and the impulse would return every time he finished another; vaguely, he knows that he was reaching out to her but now he thinks it was too little and much too late. He left, and said nothing; he just disappeared, and for a moment he remembers the last time he saw her and his blood runs cold and the pencil in his hand shakes. He wonders what he's doing and he wonders what comes next. He's done running and once he leaves this city, the next place where he lands is a place he is determined to stay.

He suddenly remembers Frank, telling him to go home; then he remembers Luke, asking him if he's coming back, and his heart clenches. The thought still scares him, but there's also an incredible yearning in his heart not to be alone anymore. He feels he's had enough solitude to last him a lifetime, and longingly, he thinks of Luke and the diner, and of the small everyday rituals, so comforting and unchanging, and for a moment it seems pointless to go anywhere else but home. Then he thinks of her, of seeing her again, but it seems so unreal that he can't really imagine it. It scares him to face her, to face the look in her eyes, and it's a curious thing that the very reason that he wants to go back so badly is also the only reason why he doesn't dare to do it.

The song is back and he looks at the book again, and suddenly he knows just what to write. He scribbles the lines down carefully and closes the cover. He takes one last look at the river and the skyline behind it, then gets up and finds the post office; after he's done there, he makes his way to the bus depot, unsure where he's going but certain he's leaving nonetheless, leaving this city and everything it stands for, leaving it all behind for good.

...............

She picks up the last book from the mailbox when she gets home from work, just like she picked up the first, but she doesn't know it's the last one, the same way she didn't know others would follow after the first one arrived. Dark clouds are forming overhead so she decided to come home and skip the usual wandering around town. When she holds the package in her hands, it somehow feels different, but she tells herself she's being ridiculous as she takes it inside and sets it on the coffee table. She goes into her room and changes her clothes, then looks for some food in the fridge but finds none. She opens up a cabinet, pulls out a bag of nachos and walks over to the sofa.

She rips the envelope and turns the book over, and her heart skips a beat; this book is different. It's old and ripped but taped together with care and affection, like it is a treasure that can only be found once in a lifetime. She can tell he's had it for a long time, a thought that is confirmed when she opens the cover and finds the words Property of Jess Mariano scribbled neatly in the top right corner, in a child-like version of the handwriting she knows so well. The date under it is five years ago. Yes, this book is different; she's asked him for it before but he's never given it to her. She's surprised that he sent it now, but the very moment she registers the thought, her blood runs cold and she knows there will be no more books, because this is the book, this is the one that means the most to him. Her hands shake as she flips the pages, looking for that passage she once heard him quote; she knows she will find it because she's sure it's underlined – it has to be, he knows it by heart – and although he often puts notes in the margins, he only underlines things that really touch him. She doesn't have to look for long, because there's just one passage that's underlined, but curiously, it's not the one she expects to find.

"…when in the end, the day came on which I was going away, I learned the strange learning that things can happen which we ourselves cannot possibly imagine, either beforehand, or at the time when they are taking place, or afterwards when we look back on them. Circumstances can have a motive force by which they bring about events without aid of human imagination or apprehension. On such occasions you yourself keep in touch with what is going on by attentively following it from moment to moment, like a blind person who is being led, and who places one foot in front of the other cautiously but unwittingly. Things are happening to you, and you feel them happening, but except for this one fact, you have no connection with them, and no key to the cause and meaning of them. The performing wild animals in a circus go through their programme, I believe, in that same way. Those who have been through such events, can, in a way, say that they have been through death, a passage outside the range of imagination, but within the range of experience."

As she reads it, he can hear him say the lines in her head and suddenly she feels like there's more to this passage than she can understand, like there's a message hidden in there that lingers just out of her reach. She closes the book again and runs her palm over the cover, tracing the words Out of Africa with her fingers, before she leans back into the sofa and starts reading.

She soon realizes that this book is not a page-turner; its flow is slow and subtle, its wisdom reserved and subdued, but there's more love in it than in any other book she's read before. She takes her time with it and carries it everywhere with her, returning to it in every spare moment – it somehow seems it is meant to be read this way, in little snippets, because it's made up of stories that are scattered pieces of one experience. She reads it slowly and carefully, moment after moment, day after day, until comes one afternoon in the park that finds her lying in the grass as she turns the last page. She lays the book down on her stomach and closes her eyes, understanding perfectly why he loves this book, and with a soft pang of regret, she feels the movie she loved so dearly slowly diminish in her heart.

Wishing it wasn't over yet, she picks up the book again, and turns the last page over. She's not expecting to find anything, she does it out of habit, and she's amazed to find almost a page-full of text there. She's so surprised she sits up, frowns at the page and blinks, as if to make sure the lines will still be there when she opens her eyes. The first thing she notices is how out of place they look, and it is only then that she realizes there was not one note scribbled in the margins of this book. There was no handwriting anywhere, except his name in the front, and she thinks how strange that is, both the absence of notes and the fact she hadn't even noticed that they were missing. She returns to the writing, and reads it slowly, her lips moving as she forms the words.

Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning
The gingerlady by my bed
Covered in a cloak of silence,
I hear you talking in my head.
I'm not singing for the future,
I'm not dreaming of the past,
I'm not talking of the first time
I never think about the last.

Now the song is nearly over,
We may never find out what it means;
Still, there's a light I hold before me,
You're the measure of my dreams,
The measure of my dreams…

There's a date under the text; it's two weeks ago, and the words New York are scribbled next to it.

She takes in the words, takes in their meaning, but can't wrap her mind around them, can't understand what they're doing there and doesn't know how to deal with them. Her hearts beats wildly in her throat and suddenly, she feels something breaking inside her again, feels this fine balance she has managed to build in the past months shatter, and as she hears a distant roll of thunder over her head, she's grateful for the excuse to shove the book into her bag, jump up and run as the rain comes down abruptly. She runs all the way home, she runs from herself and she runs from him, but mostly, she just runs from those lines she just read.

As she runs, she hates him for the first time. She hates him with such passion that it frightens her. She hates him for leaving, she hates him for breaking her, she hates him for making her reinvent herself but she hates him most for those lines he wrote and for the fact it took so little effort, just those few lines, to break her all over again and to turn this inner peace that took her months to create into sheer chaos again. You can't do this to me, I won't let you do this to me again, she wants to scream, and she feels she'll choke on the words if she doesn't let them out, but when she opens her mouth, there's only sobs and she realizes she's crying.

She slams the door behind her and drips all over the floor as she walks to the closet in the hallway and pulls out a shoebox. She opens it and flips it over, and the shoes tumble down to the floor with soft thuds. She shuts the closet door and walks to her bedroom, leaving wet footsteps behind, but she couldn't care less. Her heart is pounding in her ears and she thinks her head will split open; her hands shake violently as she places the shoe box on her bed. She throws her pillow away, grabs the t-shirt and shoves it into the box. She walks over to the shelf and reaches for the books, and one by one, they seem to burn her fingers as she throws them into the box as well. She turns to her bag and takes out the last one, and suddenly she remembers how peaceful and happy it's made her this afternoon but the feeling is so far removed from what's inside of her now that it feels like it happened to someone else. She gives it one more bitter glance and throws it in the box with the others. She grabs the box and marches into the hallway and out of the house; she opens the trash can and shoves the box inside, slamming the lid over it before she returns to the house.

She feels an enormous sense of relief now that she can't see the box anymore, so she sits on the bed and dries her eyes. She waits for the pounding in her ears to subside and for her breathing to slow. She knows it's over, she's not letting herself go through it all again, she won't let him hurt her anymore, it's not worth it; this ghost that lives inside her head is just not worth all that pain. The change she feels is amazing and she can't believe how quickly love can turn to hate, and how easily the feelings shift completely. What was sweet is bitter now; what was gentle is now harsh, and curiously, she finds it is much easier to hate him than it was to love him.

............

As Lorelai pulls into the driveway that evening, she collects several empty paper cups and take-out boxes from the car and takes them over to the trash. She lifts the lid and as she shoves them in, the top of a box inside the can rips, and there are books inside. She frowns and can't make sense of it, so she drops the handful of garbage from the car on the ground, and pulls the box out. Books are sacred in the Gilmore household and finding them in the trash is unimaginable. For a moment she thinks her eyes are playing tricks on her so she reaches for one and opens it, and suddenly it makes sense as she makes out the letters in the moonlight - Property of Jess Mariano. She shakes her head sadly and casts an anxious glance towards the house before she takes the box to the car and puts it in the trunk, throwing a blanket over it. She picks up the paper cups and take-out boxes that she dropped earlier, pushes them into the can and puts the lid on. She enters the house slowly and isn't surprised to find Rory in her bed, pretending to sleep. She closes Rory's door gently, shuts off the lights downstairs and walks to her room, truly wishing for the first time that Jess would come back.