Hola!!! Okay, so I almost want to not even show my face on fanfiction again... it's been... how long since my last update? Like... November? October? No excuses this time. Well, yeah, actually, one... I COULDN'T GET IN TOUCH WITH MY BETA!!! lol It's not her fault, we've just been totally busy when we are both awake at the same time considering she lives... oh, idk... six hours away! lol Love you soooo much Olivia!!! (Yeah, I had to go to the tea:P)

Here is the tenth chapter to Jesse's Past and I think it's the second to last chapter at the hospital and we can move on to the fun stuff where Jesse gets his life together and basically makes a life for him and Suze!! Can't wait! lol

Okay, Disclaimer: If I owned him, I wouldn't be sitting here dreaming I did. I'd be out with him at a concert of the county fair (which is a totally fun place to go with your boyfriend! lol Actually, I have no personal experience on this matter, but my BFOTB--if you watch gilmore girls, you soo know what I'm talking about! lol i'm not actually a bride and neither is she, but it's just fun to say!--had fun with her boyfriend and his younger siblings at the fair.)

Any Gilmore Girls watchers out there, my deepest regrets go out to the viewers because my BFOTB and I are sad... VERY sad. I think we might cry. WHAT WAS RORY THINKING?! I KNEW she was gonna say no but I wished she hadn't. I loved the line Logan said to her, "Remember when we were in the LBD and we you took my hand and we jumped from that building? Take this jump with me. Jump with me, Rory! Marry me?" I wanted her to say yes so badly. BUT LUKE AND LORELAI ARE GONNA BE TOGETHER!! I JUST KNOW IT!! LOVE THEM!!!

Okay, NOW is the story... sorry you had to listen to my incesent ramblings! I know this isnt' my own personal PM here!

Oh, and the none-italicized words are Spanish (a class I'm taking next year!).

I wasn't sure if this was a dream or I was honestly in Purgatory, meeting my family after one hundred and fifty years. I took a few steps forward, feeling my boots and rough pants clinging to my legs and the loose fitted billowing shirt flap against my chest.

"Mamá?" I murmured quietly in Spanish, her native language. My parents only knew their birth land's tongue, yet they'd made sure my sisters and I had knowledge of both jargons.

"Jesse! Mi bebé!" She broke out of the cluster of my kin and ran for me, throwing her arms around my neck, causing her to be lifted a couple feet off the cloudy floor. She smelled just as I remembered her… of autumn winds, cinnamon spices, and of the apple pies that she was famous for in our town.

"Mamá!" I cried as I wrapped my arms around her plump frame—the softest shoulder to cry on when I was a boy. "I'm so sorry, mama…."

"Jesse," she scolded, cutting me off. "You love her! You must be with her! You waited for a reason and that reason was her." Her voice wasn't how I remembered it. Possibly because we were in Shadowland. Possibly because my memories have faded. But ghostly memories weren't supposed to die away. And I stayed with my family until they were all… gone. Her voice was wispy and soft.

"Hijo (son)." My mother had stepped back and in her place stood my father. I went to shake his hand. I don't remember ever hugging my father. He'd been a good man. One of the best men I had known. But he wasn't ever the type of father that would hold me. He held my sisters, but he kept his distance with me. Because I was the boy? Did he dislike me? He and I spoke. We spoke plenty. But he wasn't expressive with me.

Instead of shaking my hand, as I expected, he hugged me. For the first time ever that I can recall. My throat ached as my eyes willed the tears not to come. I closed my eyes and breathed in his smokey scent.

And one by one, I spoke with my sisters. They weren't mad. They were joyful. I'm afraid to wonder if they had done what I had, would I not be bitter, as they obviously were not? They'd welcomed be back with open arms after I abandoned them.

"You are happy, no?" Isabelle, my third youngest sister asked, as if reading my mind. And who knows? Maybe they could up here. "Why be resentful when we see our brother the happiest he's ever been in both his first life and his afterlife?"

I reached to hug her, and she hugged me back. Mapi, my youngest sister came to me, her ratty old blanket in her hand—the one that was not having it's thumb sucked on—and gave me a hug around my leg. Picking her up, and resting her on my hip, I turned to the rest of my family. And again, one by one, they kissed and hugged me good-bye. One last time, until I meet them again in the afterlife.

And then Susannah is next to me. Slipping her hand into mine and smiling up at me. I look over to my mother and she's glowing. Her smile is warm and I can tell she likes Susannah. A warm feeling bubbles up in my chest, almost making it hard to breathe, I'm so genuinely blissful.

Susannah waves to my family as they slowly glimmer away.

My eyes fly open and I'm back in the bland hospital room that has been somewhat decorated by Susannah's boredness when I sleep. She took it upon herself to doodle on napkins with some crayons she had the nurse bring her.

She woke with a start, just as I had. Her wide green eyes were shocked and apologetic. "Oh, my God, Jesse! I'm so sorry! I came in here and you were completely limp and I was petrified. I had to check and make sure you were okay. If I had known you were with your parents, I wouldn't have come! I wondered if Paul had something to do with it, or if something went wrong and—"

I cut her off, not wanting her to worry. If anything, it was perfect that she had arrived. "It's okay, I wanted you to meet them someday. My mom likes you."

She laughed. "How can you tell? I was only there for like, five seconds!"

"She smiled. She was really happy. They weren't mad at all. I was extremely thankful for that. I was wondering if they'd hate me for abandoning them…. It felt good to know that for sure. Closure."

Susannah's face turned ashen. She looked guilty. "I never thought of how much that would affect them. I mean—I obviously knew they'd miss you when they thought you'd died, but I never even thought of the repercussions of not having another man around the ranch to help with responsibilities! What if something happened? Or they could have lost someone else? Or if money were tight…"

"Susannah, they were fine. I know they were. Let's not focus on that…. Let's—" I pulled her close, securing her face in my cupped hands— "focus" —her nose brushed mine— "on" — her sweet, warm breath blew against my lips, and I knew my own was doing the same on her— "us." And I kissed her.

We melted. I know how—as Susannah would put it—'lame' that sounded, but it's the only way to explain the feeling I received from this action. My resolve for keeping things chaste between us was crumbling. Nevertheless, I'd never dishonor her. It was merely kissing her, so this couldn't be too terrible of a thing to do, correct? But it felt so good. To be holding her… I was always taught that something that is so wonderful—that makes you believe nothing is wrong and everything is perfect—could never be sinless.

It would be hard to keep the resolve. But I knew I could do it. I respected her too much. I knew Father Dominic would be disappointed in me. And her parents… I would never be able to speak to her parents without guilt again if I were to take away her purity. I had never had feelings like this before. Even when I was a ghost, these feelings weren't this intense. What if she were to hate me if I wanted something more?

Her tongue flicked against mine, sending off a thousand zaps on my spinal cord. I closed my mouth off from hers, forcing myself to remember my upbringing. I pressed my lips to hers once more and broke away.

"Jesse…?" her voice was rough and breathless and I loved it.

"I love you, querida," I informed her. "I don't mean to do this. The things I'm doing."

"What you're doing?" Her voice was puzzled, and—in a way, sadly—returning to normal. "Jesse, you're perfect. You've never done anything to upset me."

"Kissing you like that is far to forward… feeling like that is another concept completely."

She laughed. "We've kissed like that before, Jesse. It probably feels different now that you're alive…." She brushed her lips against my temple. "Feeling like what?" she whispered softly, her breath warm on my skin.

"Like I can't keep control. Like I'm doing something wrong even though I want to continue what I'm doing," I admitted. I felt, rather than saw, her eyes on me.

"Jesse, it's okay to feel like that. You think I don't feel the same way? Trust me, everything I do with you is new to me too."

She kissed me softly, sending the monitor on my heart yelping.

The door opened so softly that we didn't hear. Susannah was softly stroking my hand when Father Dominic's voice cut through, sounding quite tired and anxious at the same time. "Susannah, I need you to come with me to fill out some papers. It could take a while. Since you'll be out you can also bring back some, perhaps, more edible food for Jesse?"

"Uhm," she sounded confused. "Sure…?" She threw me a bewildered look before getting off the bed. "Jesse has to be here until five so we don't have to rush too much, or anything." Father Dominic was all but shoving Susannah out the doorway.

"Yes, well better to get this over with quickly. Let's us leave. We'll be back within the hour, Jesse," were his parting words.

The ludicrous doctor had requested that I stay during the day and I can leave after five and all my tests are done, like Susannah had said. I could very easily tell him what was wrong with me, or what had been wrong with me, but he'd never believe me.

The door reopened within seconds. David stood there, yet again. I didn't mind all the 'male bonding' as Susannah would call it, we were doing. I enjoyed talking to a young man that wasn't focused on his video games. I nearly laughed. Nombre de Dios, I was glad to be talking to any person.

I wasn't tired so it was nice to have someone to talk to.

"Hey," he started with. He seemed reluctant to talk to me since our last conversation. I had assumed we were beyond that, but if he was uncomfortable, I wasn't going to make this hard on him.

"Hello, David. Did Susannah send you in here?"

"Yeah, pretty much." He grimaced. "Not that I wouldn't want to speak with you, Jesse! I always—"

I chuckled. "I know. You can just sit here and watch the television if you would like to."

He nodded and picked up a 'remote'—is that what's it's referred to? Susannah is always complaining that she can't find it—and settled on a channel that had a large H in the bottom corner.

We sat there in silence for nearly an hour. He'd been quiet for all this time; it made me wonder if he was trying to ignore what has happened or if he was trying to wrap his mind around it more. Or was it something else?

"I think I know what you're thinking," I said, turning to him.

He looked surprised, but he said, in a skeptical way, "I highly doubt that, Jesse." His voice was soft.

"I'm a lot more perceptive than most people, David. I've been around a lot longer than you have. I've seen more human interaction. Before Susannah came to you, I would see you in your room. You were sad."

He looked away from me. "I wouldn't have asked."

This confused me. Most children would have asked. Most children would have begged if they knew their siblings had this ability.

"Why is this?"

He took a deep breath. His lip trembled slightly, as if refraining from letting his tears fall. "Because Suze would feel bad... If she saved my mom, Suze would never have met you and her telling me no would make her feel guilty. It'd be selfish of me."

I looked at him. For being so young, no more than fourteen, he certainly was very perceptive. Possibly more so than I was when I died—and I had six years on him then.

"You're a good child, David. I'm so sorry that Susannah and I cannot save your mother." I wasn't sure if it was a matter of "can't" or "won't" because I'm not sure if Susannah and I could physically be able to make ourselves be torn apart once more. And I don't want to be put in the position of having to find out.

"It's ok. If my mom had never… had never… p-passed away… I'd never have gotten to meet Suze. And her mom. And she wouldn't have you and I'd have never met you. There are many more pros than cons to this situation."

"It's okay to feel, Doc—I mean, David. You don't have to distance yourself from this. It isn't a science project. Life, I mean. Life isn't a science project. You have to live and experience things." He looked away.

It was then that Susannah barged into the room in a frenzy. She looked as if she'd slam the door as hard as she could if it wouldn't disrupt the hospital. Or if the door would slam at all—it closed slowly, like most business doors.

"Look at the ring that Father Dom is making me wear!" she shrieked.

What is Father D. making her wear?!

I can't wait to read the reviews (cause I SO know you are ALL gonna push that little perwinkle colored button and review me right?!)

I'd appreciate it!!
Love yas all!
MG