Disclaimer: Aarif is mine. Nothing else is.

'Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.'

Hāfez

Chapter 13: There Comes the Fear

Rory felt the muscles under her palms clench. Tense up with a mixture of power and surrender. Then relax.

When their eyes made contact again, she felt the new feeling enter her system, overpowering her whole being. It did this with such sudden and great force, that it quickly gave way to subtle fear, and it treacherously whispered 'watch out'.

The simple realization flashed through Rory's mind. It alerted her rational self-defense against her intuitive, sensitive half. She remembered reading somewhere that best lovemaking was in close relation to the strength of the partners' desire to destroy each other. Perhaps there was more truth in that than she'd realized so far. Every time she was with him, she felt a part of her get destroyed. The part that had thought she would be fine on her own if things didn't work out, hoping she could ever be happy without him. The part that had stubbornly tried to convince her she would be able to gather the pieces if they set each other to crumbles again.

Jess' eyes were still blurry, stirred with desire, but he felt the distinct change of her composure and his hand held her face in place. His thumb gently but purposefully framed her chin while his eyes searched for what had caused the change.

'Hey...' he mumbled, his voice still hoarse.

He hovered above her. Poised. Vulnerable. He had always been both when it came to her.

His index traced her cheekbone while his eyes dwelt in hers. Blue. So blue he could drown in their ocean. And now there was this unknown, restless current that had replaced the peaceful cobalt serenity. Jess was determined to understand what had caused the change.

'You okay?'

Rory nodded. Twice, fast. Trying to convince herself rather than him. She was okay... right? She pushed his torso. Slightly, so that they disentangled. He rested on his side, confused. Nervous. Exposed. Everything else a man felt when after he made love to his girlfriend, she suddenly grew apprehensive.

Rory sat up, fidgeting self-consciously with the sheet before her chest.

'I...' she tried to look at him but her eyes began to tingle and she looked down again. Her heart thumped in her throat.

Jess took a breath, then let it out sharply. He sat up in the bed next to her, fighting the urge to drag up the other half of the sheet and cover himself with it. He hated feeling uncomfortable in her presence. Jess Mariano, king of physical comfort, was okay with nudity. Nothing could make him feel exposed. Except this was a lie and both of them knew it.

Jess swallowed dryly and forced himself to look at her.

'Rory...' he began as gently as he could make his voice sound given how increasingly freaked out he was starting to feel. He could swear his pulse was booming in the room. How could it not, when it hammered nails in his head. 'What's wrong?'

Are you hurt? No, you're not. Is it work? Of course not, wouldn't come up now. You're gonna confess something, aren't you? You're nervous, or... or is it guilt? You met someone, is that what it is? Another guy? Rory? Talk to me.

She took a breath. He held his.

'I've never been happier,' she confessed timidly, then bit her lip.

Her words left Jess open-mouthed.

'You... Sorry, what?'

She simply looked back at him, affirming he had heard right.

He closed his eyes. Sighed.

'Jeez, Rory.'

He reached forward to draw her closer until she fit by his side.

'You scared the hell out of me,' he kissed the top of her head, letting relief wash over him.

'I scared you? You have no idea how it scared me,' Rory mumbled against his chest.

'And there she sang my praises,' he chuckled in her hair, his index gently tracing her shoulder.

'Jess,' Rory shifted uneasily and sat up again so that she was facing him.

So, there was something more.

Okay, Gilmore. There you go. Load the gun. Shoot.

Her fingers were holding onto the sheet before her chest. Porcelain-like, slender and delicate, she had always had what it took to go past his guard. She could disintegrate and rebuild him in record time. Sometimes he wondered if she realized. Come on, Rory, like a bullet, smooth and fast. Shoot.

'What if this is 'it'?' she asked then. 'I never thought 'this must be it', but now... with you, tonight, I thought it. This is it, I thought, it's Jess. Oh my God,' she shook her head and put her knuckles before her lips in obvious frustration.

Rory Gilmore had turned down enough marriage proposals to know what it felt like when someone wasn't 'it'. She had been happy with other men, of course, some of them rather her friends, others rather her lovers. She had experienced deliriously happy moments in her other relationships, but none of them ever was 'it'. And now... now was a whole new story.

Jess studied her face and put a hand over her bare knee, left uncovered by the sheet. He rewound her previous ramble in his head and leaned forward.

'If it is, if it's Jess... is it so bad?' he asked quietly, seriously, almost conspiratorially, his eyes not leaving hers.

Rory opened her mouth and then closed it. If it is, if it's Jess...

'What if we don't work out?' she shrugged helplessly, her rational self taking the better of her.

'So far, we have.'

He was right. It sounded simple when he put it like this. They had worked out. So far. Six months. Happiest six months in her life.

'Isn't it supposed to feel easy, realizing you've found it with someone, isn't it supposed to make you feel...' she looked for a word, 'relieved?'

'I don't know,' Jess said pensively. Seeing how her features tensed, he shook his head and smiled.

'I mean, I don't know what it's supposed to feel like. From what I know since I was seventeen, it never felt easy. Not once.'

He had always doubted everything. Everyone. Then someone told him he could be more and he realized message had gotten through when he finished his first book. This questioned everything he had experienced. Yet, it poured so much meaning into his life. You could be more than you thought just because someone believed you could write a book. I don't know what other people feel like. To me, it never felt easy.

Rory blinked a couple of times and her hand found his over her knee.

'It's not that bad,' she admitted with a shy but determined smile. 'In fact, I think I may get used to it.'

'When are you gonna tell me about your new job?' Rory asked, taking the mush melon she had just washed out of the sink.

'It's not a job,' Jess countered, 'just a temporary... thing,' he shrugged, giving up looking for a better word.

He wiped the mush melon with a kitchen towel, ignoring her arched eyebrow as she gave him a 'don't bulshit me' look.

'Everything you're being paid for classifies as a job,' Rory scoffed before cutting the melon in half. 'So, what is your new job you're not telling be about?'

Jess shrugged and tried to sneak a slice of the cantaloupe. Rory swatted him.

'Tell me.' Rory insisted and put the knife on the plot with a loud thud.

'No.'

'It must be a column or something, cause you're typing all the time,' Rory started cunningly, changing tactics. 'Just tell me and I'll let you eat the whole cantaloupe,' she tried to bargain.

'Mmm, let me think...' Jess rubbed his temple with his knuckles, faking hard thinking. 'No, I don't think so.'

'Wha... Oh, come on, Jess.'

'No.'

'I'll read Twilight out loud,' Rory threatened with an evil grin before putting a piece of mush melon into her mouth.

Jess blinked stoically.

'Okay then.'

Rory brightened.

'Really?'

'No.'

'Huh,' she sighed, disappointed. Then came up with another one,

'Listen, this one is better,' she rose a finger for emphasis. 'Do tell, or I won't ever play striptease poker with you.'

'You can't play poker.' Jess pointed out evenly.

'Exactly,' Rory gave him a meaningful wink.

Jess' face remained expressionless.

'Okay, I'll tell you,' he agreed then and Rory's eyes lit up, 'some day.'

'When?' Rory asked, leaning forward.

'Right before I die,' he stated seriously and Rory's nose wrinkled while she was trying to hold back a smile.

'Is it something illegal?' she asked doubtfully, remembering her mother's opinion on the subject when she had the same conversation with her two days ago.

'Dying with a stripping woman around? No, I don't think so,' he shook his head after a beat of thoughtful silence.

Rory rolled her eyes.

'Here, smartass,' she sighed as she gave him a slice of the mush melon, 'How's publisher hunt going? You were meeting that Boston guy Perkins yesterday, right?' she changed topic, catching Jess off guard.

His expression darkened visibly.

'Still pursuing,' he replied sulkily. 'They're only appointing these meetings to tick some work off, justifying their wage. However the conversation twists, the final answer's always 'In terms of the GFC our firm policy has become rather cautious, but we do wish you good luck.'

Rory listened thoughtfully and shook her head.

'Global recessions are never much fun,' she pouted.

'Tell me about it,' Jess rolled his eyes.

'I still think you should call Shirley Whitman from Foreign Affairs Books. She has always shown special interest in Pakistan,' she said hopefully.

Jess made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

'Shirley is a seventy-year-old spinster.'

'Sixty-eight,' Rory corrected.

'As much as that changes everything, still no,' he shrugged and took a bite of the cantaloupe.

'And she's not a spinster. I've been on her lectures, Jess, she's phenomenal, she's like... timeless.'

'She's sixty-eight, she's bound to be,' Jess cut in, still chewing.

'Jess!'

'Sorry,' he put his hands up in mock defense, then left the cantaloupe peel on the table and headed for the sofa.

'It's just a call. I promise you'll change your mind the moment you get to know her.'

She gave him a sizing look. He was lying on the sofa, seemingly lost in a book. She knew this was his way out of the discussion and rolled her eyes.

'God, you can be so conservative, you're just like Luke.'

Jess grunted and eyed her over the book.

'I'm not conservative. I am reading your "Three cups", am I not?'

'I told you to read Three Cups of Tea,' she pointed out.

Jess smirked.

'And I will. Right after Three Cups of Deceit.'

'You never believed in unicorns, did you?'

'Nope.'

'My brooding hero,' she shook her had with mock seriousness. 'Do you ever believe someone's good intentions?'

'I did, once. Now I'm cross-questioned by her on a regular basis because of her desperate attempts to save my sinful soul.'

Rory opened her mouth but kept the comment to herself. It was no use. When he was in a mood like this, she could dig and dig and get nowhere. He was like quicksilver in her hand. I won't clutch, she told herself for the hundredth time this week, like a mantra. I'll just let his attitude roll down my back and leave my fingers wide open. It was just that, at such moments, she wasn't quite sure if her hand was empty or full.

'Yeah, the manuscript is now finished, I sent you a copy. No, Celia, really, you should give it a look. "Ruhi" is the best you'll read in ages, I promise...' Matt held a breath while waiting for a reply from the other end of the line.

Chris walked into the room, balancing a considerable pile of books in his hands and a muffin between his teeth.

'Yeah, of course I...' Matt's face twisted into a painful grimace and it caught Chris' attention. He left the books on his desk and put the muffin down. Then devoted himself to inspecting the intriguing ways Matt's features were shifting with each second as the conversation went on.

'Ahmm, yeah,' Matt mumbled, his voice getting thinner, his hand curling into a fist in the air, 'sure I'd love to,' he said almost between his teeth, his fingers twisting in peculiar ways. 'Sure... see you... Celia.'

Matt hung his mobile with a theatrical gesture of relief and met Chris' questioning look.

'What ya looking at?' Matt growled. 'I just male-prostituted myself into dating Dragon Woman, so wipe the witty smirk off your smug face and call Mariano. Tell the smartass we may have just got him a publisher.'

Matt tapped his fingers over the first page of the manuscript lying on his desk. Ruhi is Soul in Urdu. Mariano was a lucky bastard.

Rory fumbled around the empty side of the bed and opened her eyes into darkness. When her eyes adjusted she stood up, picking Jess' shirt to wrap around herself.

She entered the living room, catching a hint of tobacco coming in through the half-shut balcony door, along with the cool October air, crisp and promising rain.

'Hey,' she mumbled, leaning on the door frame. She paused, as if asking permission to enter his privacy.

He was smoking in an armchair, legs stretched forward, an ashtray and an unfinished glass of whiskey on the small glass table beside him. Reluctantly, he left the place he had zoned out to and came back to reality, registering her presence with a flick of his lashes.

'Hey,' he echoed dryly. His voice was quiet but she couldn't ease the feeling that it was heavy with things he had been keeping from her.

The sky was clear, with an almost full moon throwing light over a sleepless city where one person trying to get to another was a task almost as hard as the one of a planet trying to enter another planet's orbit without knocking it off its axis.

Rory stepped from one foot to the other, wrapping both hands around herself in a self-conscious gesture.

Jess pulled at his smoke one last time before he butted it in the ashtray and looked up at her.

'You're up,' he noted, slightly surprised.

Rory shrugged.

'So are you.'

She tried to gauge his mood. He had been bitter. Earlier, when she tried to talk to him, he had clammed in. Now, he seemed weary. As if he had already spent most of his energy on building up his defenses and now he was simply too tired to do anything but rest and think.

Jess' eyebrow quirked. He inspected her for a while, then shifted to take off his jacket and pass it on to her. She had come to look for her answers. How could he blame her?

Rory wrapped herself into the leather and felt some of his body warmth linger. She stepped closer to touch his shoulder before moving a foot over so that she sat straddling him.

Jess straightened up and his hands automatically found their place at her waist. She had felt the reluctance with which he let her join him out here and thought that he might send her away, tell her he'd be back in a minute. However, the way his hands held onto her - firmly, almost desperately, she couldn't help but think he had been needing her to do this, for a while now.

She moved a hand up to stroke his cheek and he leaned into her touch with a suppressed sigh.

'Jess, talk to me,' she whispered.

Their foreheads were touching and she held his gaze. Years later, he was still this guarded seventeen-year old misunderstood rebel. Yet, he was so different now from what he was as a teenager. There were layers and layers above his initial guard. And he was fully aware of it now. He set lines, hoping he could keep her within reasonable range. It was in stark contrast with everything he used to represent as a teenager - the abruptness, the impulsiveness. Yet, it was still him - and there were also those particular occasions when he would let an emotion sneak past his defense, a word slip out and then, surprising himself, he would acknowledge he cared too much to not care. Those times were rare but also incredibly affecting.

Jess eyed her with a mixture of curiosity and secret awe. She felt small, delicate under his jacket. Underneath, he recognized his own shirt and under the shirt her skin was soft, warm against his palms.

'For once, please just talk to me,' she pleaded as her thumb gently rubbed his lower lip.

Talk? About what? The bank had called. Mister Mariano, we're sorry to inform you that you're overstepping your limit. Bills kept mounting, publishers kept beating around the bush. Working two places could somehow provide for rent and groceries. A pack of cigarettes a week. Working two places couldn't fucking pay his debts off. He needed to get his book published. Two years in Pakistan were a financial harakiri. And he had never regretted it, it had led him where he was now, but he felt at a loss about where he should go from here.

'Ever tried lemon with honey?' Aarif had asked once. 'The taste of life - never simply bitter or sweet, always both.'

Please just talk to me. Jess opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out and he shook his head.

'Bad week,' he sighed. 'Don't read too much into it.'

'There's always something more to it.' Rory countered quietly and took the cigarette he had reached for out of his hand. She pulled at the fag and lit, then let the smoke out slowly before giving it back to him. He watched, bewildered.

'Keeping it to yourself won't make it go away,' Rory said and tried to stand up, but Jess' hand rested firmly on the small of her back, stopping her from moving.

'Kids stories,' came out of his mouth before he could think of anything better to say. 'It's a goodnight kids stories column in 'The New York Daily',' he uttered and their eyes locked for a long moment.

Keeping it to myself won't make it go away, it will make you go away... But I need some time, Ror. I can't tell you everything, not now. I will, I fucking will, but I have to sort things out myself first. Then I'll tell you what you want to know, not tonight. Tonight I just need you to be here.

'Any particular reason why you kept that information classified?' Rory asked incredulously.

'Any particular reason why I shouldn't reckon it deeply embarrassing?' Jess shrugged and concentrated on their laced fingers.

Rory bit her lip as she studied his face. A children's stories column. God, Mariano, how is that embarrassing? And what's with the bad week? What are you not telling me, Jess?

Before she had time to formulate her next question, Jess cupped her chin as his mouth closed on hers. Rory let out an unconscious whimper as his teeth slightly grazed her lower lip, one of his palms already traveling down her side, then up, sliding under the cotton of the shirt. He claimed full control of the kiss, his mouth firm and demanding against hers. He pressed her back and she leaned into him. Needing to hold onto him for support, she cupped his jaw, feeling the tingles as three day stubble stung her palms.

Jess opened his eyes. Her features were so composed, her eyes still closed in blissful delight. Everything looked so... right when she looked like this. If only he could keep kissing reality away.

You're not telling me, are you? In another place, in another time, they had already had this conversation. And it always came back to this - will you trust me enough or should I trust you to not trust me?

That's a pretty good answer... Years ago they were still rope dancing between her patience and her doubts.

Rory felt she was losing herself to his touch, letting his palms mold her against him, unconsciously arching in tandem with his moves. She was slightly surprised by the intensity of his body language. It wasn't the passion, but the loss of control that struck her. Even in their most intimate moments, she had always felt he was restraining some part of himself, something that gave him power over his own instincts. She felt some of his guard was breaking, letting a deeply intuitive and sincere part of him come to the surface. And it felt like a confession - an insight of him he was letting her see and Rory responded the only way she felt right to - spontaneously and sincerely.

Rory gasped quietly as his hands closed around the small of her back and he rose, picking her up with himself. He carried her into the room as his clothes fell off her shoulders. He wasn't telling her. Not in eloquent words, at least. But he was letting her see a part of him he'd been keeping, and somehow it was enough.

Jess put out the cigarette butt against the stone wall he had been sitting on and ran a hand through his hair. Perhaps for the thousandth time this evening, he threw a look at the manuscript that lay beside him and exhaled loudly.

Another gust of wind threatened to scatter the typed sheets in all directions and Jess moved his leg to press them against the cold stone surface. He turned his jacket collar up and took a cigarette pack out, ducking his head between his shoulders as he lit a cigarette with a sharp flip of his Zippo. The light flickered once before another gust of wind swept it away. Somewhere far above the building roofs an airplane light blinked and disappeared between the clouds, leaving a sombre gray-blue sky behind. Jess shook his head and took a deep breath loaded with nicotine.

A door opened and closed in the opposite building and it fully caught Jess' attention as a young woman made her way out of the Foreign Affairs Bookstore. He put the cigarette out a little frustratedly and took the manuscript in one hand before he jumped off the wall to his feet. He made his way across the street rather hastily, his fingers curling around the sheet bundle.

'We're closed,' an old lady's voice carried to Jess' ears just as he went into the bookstore and the bell over the door rang cheerfully. He rooted himself to the spot and both of his hands clutched at the manuscript, making him look a bit like a schoolboy in the principle's office.

'Sorry, we're closed,' the voice repeated and a short thin elderly woman came into Jess' sight from behind one of the bookshelves, adjusting her shawl with one hand while holding her old-fashioned handbag with the other.

Shirley Whitman was a woman in her late sixties about five feet tall, with a bony structure and pale blue piercing eyes fixed questioningly on Jess'.

'I know,' Jess' voice came out dryly and he cleared his throat as he reached one hand out and attempted a smile. 'Jess Mariano,' he presented himself stiffly and licked a lip. 'I sent you a couple of...'

'Emails, I know that,' the elderly lady cut him. 'Plus a couple of phone calls on my answering machine. I can't think of a way to be in any favor to you, young man, so would you please...' she tried to make her way past Jess, but he stepped sideways so that he blocked her way, meeting her surprised gaze.

'Miss Whitman, with all my respect, we both know you can.'

The expression on Miss Shirley Whitman's face could turn bonfires into icicles and Jess winced involuntarily, but didn't step aside.

'Mr. Mariano, step out of my way,' Miss Whitman said quietly but pointedly and the air in the room seemed to have gone ten degrees colder.

Jess took a breath and his eyes flickered.

'I'm afraid you'll have to hear me out first,' he said, his voice coming out low and confident this time.

Miss Whitman's lips turned white, pressed against each other.

'Nobody ever told me what I have to do, Mr. Mariano. Step back or we'll meet in court.'

Jess nodded, a strange smile playинг on his lips' ends. He felt like he was acting out of himself, watching from a distance.

'Fair enough,' he agreed. 'Just read the first page and I'll cuff myself alone...' Then, after a short pause, he added, 'Please.'

Whether it was the desperation of Jess' actions or the fear that some loony pseudo-writer was taking her hostage, Shirley Whitman took the manuscript from Jess' stretched hand and started to leave.

'You really expect me to read it here?' she asked disbelievingly as the young man stood in her way again. Jess gave her a short nod.

'You need help, boy,' the elder woman shook her head with a hint of sympathy as she watched a sweat drop roll down the young man's temple. He was pale, his breathing nonrhythmic, his hands slightly shaking.

'Then I've come to the right place,' Jess answered quietly and a flash ran through his eyes as he watched the old lady adjust her glasses and start to read his manuscript.

'You really took Shirley Whitman hostage in order to force her into reading your script?' Rory said disbelievingly as they walked out of Jess' car and headed for her block of flats through the snow. 'God, this must have been harsh,' she shook her head and thumped her boots at the stairs to her building, snow falling off their welts.

Jess followed her up the stairs to her apartment door without answering. Rory handled him the bags with groceries so that she she could dig the keys out of her handbag and open the door.

'Taken her hostage is a pretty exaggerated way to put it,' Jess pointed out and was about to add something just as his cell phone rang in the pocket of his jacket.

'Can you take it?' Jess asked while trying to balance the grocery bags and take his shoes off without using his hands at the same time.

'Sure,' Rory nodded as she threw the keys on the corridor shelf and took the mobile out of Jess' pocket. 'Hello, Jess Mariano's extremely good looking and intelligent secretary speaking,' Rory chirped and stuck her tongue out as Jess' rolled eyes. 'Hello, Miss Valentino from Abroad Books... yeah...' Rory listened to the woman at the other end of the line intently, missing the sudden change in Jess' expression as he heard the name of the publishing company. 'He got the assignment in case he's still interested in leaving for Liberia,' Rory repeated almost mechanically, her face suddenly drawn out of color. 'Thank you,' she managed to utter before hanging up.

'You're leaving again,' she said quietly more to herself than to Jess and the mere sound of the words sent chill jolts down her spine.

Jess stood rooted before her holding groceries, his expression a mixture of surprise, guilt and confusion.

Mood songs, 'Perfect Girl' by Sarah McLachlan and 'Anti Hero', T.M.O. & Fuxle acoustic cover version.

Thanks for reading, reviews are pie:):):)