A/N: I heard this song on an episode of October Road, and I was like: Hey, I'm inspired to write something! And this is what came out of that.
Standard disclaimers apply.
And even though the moment passed me by, I still can't turn away
I saw the dreams you never thought you'd lose, tossed along the way
- The Goo Goo Dolls
You Could Hide Beside Me
The entire journey from Philly to Hartford, he's been wondering what it would be like to finally see Rory. What it would be like to show her his work, what he's become. How she would react.
How he would react, whether or not he'll fall in love with her all over again.
But when he finally sees her, he doesn't like what he sees. He doesn't like this Rory. At all. She's disturbing him with her expensive haircut and her well-tailored clothes. She's still pretty, oh so pretty, but it's all so generic now. Where's that inner light that used to permeate from her soul and out of her eyes? That took his surly seventeen-year-old self, who thought he'd seen it all, by surprise?
She disappeared, similarly to the seventeen-year-old boy who smoked cigarettes on deserted bridges.
Holding onto his book, she's holding the culmination of his journey from that bus ride to California to sitting in this extravagant room, three years later. Her grip is so delicate, as if it's going to disintegrate into ashes; she never quite knew that she was she's holding his heart until this very moment.
Three years. Is this what three years does to people? Losing heart and gaining perspectives?
He doesn't understand how she could've lost herself. What about her dreams? News corresponding? Journalism? Traveling the world?
Having cars driving straight at you, drivers screaming in a foreign language?
So many plans, goals, dreams and she's throwing them away. He wants to know why, but she desperately wants to avoid the issue, trying to make herself seem like she hasn't changed, not really, but she can't fool him. She could never fool him while he always played her for a fool.
Is this what he looked like when he lived in Stars Hollow? Potential going to waste?
This reversal is revealing, unsettling. He can't allow her to do this, not anymore. If there's one thing he could ever do for her in thanks for what she did to him, this is it.
Helping each other stay on the tracks.
So he offers to talk again, preferably above a whisper, and he's determined to get her to stop wasting her life; she's better than this, better than his eighteen-year-old self who didn't know what the fuck he was doing.
And then he'll leave again, until next time, whenever that is.
A/N: Keep the reviews coming! And song suggestions are always welcome :)
I hope everyone has a lovely Thanksgiving weekend!
MissGoalie