Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Gilmore Girls.

A/N: I would like to apologize for the wait and the probable suckiness of this chapter. The wait was unavoidable as I have been not been in the best of health. The suckiness is that I rushed a little with this chapter to get it out. The rest will follow soon, the plan is one more chapter then an epilogue. Please don't hate it too much.

Liz POV

I watched him run and my heart sank. What the hell is he doing? I started after him, thinking the worst, but I was wrong. Instead, of going out the sliding glass doors of the emergency room, he turned the corner. I sped up a little not wanting to lose him, as I rounded the corner, but I couldn't see him. That was until I tripped over him. He was sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest, his eyes shining brightly with unshed tears. He was looking at me strangely, almost like he couldn't see me.

"Jess."

His eyes focused me and the pain in them shocked me, but it was the words that came spilling out of his mouth that broke my heart.

"What did I do?" His question came in a whisper so soft I almost didn't hear it. "What did I do to her? She doesn't deserve this." He looked me straight in the eye, waiting for me to answer him.

"Oh, baby," I said, pulling him into my arms. He flinched at the contact and my heart hurt even more. "This isn't you're fault, you didn't cause this to happen." I felt his arms creep up around me, until he was hugging me tightly to him. His face buried in my shoulder and his hot tears soaking my shirt. "Sometimes bad things happen even to the best people."

"That's where you're wrong," he told me, pulling away. "This is all my fault."

"How do you figure?"

"If I had just left her alone." He stood up and started pacing the corridor. "If I hadn't pursued her, none of this would have happened. She would be off at college right now, instead of lying in a hospital bed dying."

"Jess," I called his name and he stopped pacing to look over at me. "Come sit back down and tell me what happened."

He looked reluctant at first, but he eventually took a seat on the floor next to me. "What do you want to know?"

"Start at the beginning." I said, giving him a wide smile. "I want to know about the girl that captured my son's heart and made him work for hers in return."

"I wanted her the second I laid eyes on her and the more I got to know her the more I wanted her. I didn't love her at the beginning, but I also knew that she wasn't going to be just another conquest. I wanted her by my side for as long as I was alive. I was so angry when I found out she had a boyfriend. I wasn't mad with her, I was mad with myself. Of course she had a boyfriend, she's beautiful and in my eyes she was perfect." He stopped his story and the smile he had on his face the whole time he talked about Rory faded. The scowl that replaces it was something I was much more used to seeing on his face. "The more I watched her and Dean together, the more I came to realize how wrong they were for each other. I did everything I could to piss Dean off, he knew it and so did Rory. She yelled at me once for all the shit I was putting Luke through because of my pranks. I fixed his toaster that night after he went to sleep, when he asked me about it I told him it must have gotten better. The more contact Rory and I had with each other, the more I started to feel for her. The whole town could see the sparks between us, but not her, either that or she chose to ignore it. After the car accident, I had been so worried about her, I took off I couldn't face her. I didn't want to see the hate in her eyes, the same hate I got from Dean and the rest of Stars Hollow. The whole time that I stayed with you, I thought about her and then I did the stupidest thing I had ever done since deciding I wanted to date the town princess. I called her."

I waited for him to continue his tale, but he sat there silent lost in his memories. I remembered when he came back to New York. I was still drinking and I vaguely remember there being a new boyfriend in the picture, at the time. Jess showed up at the apartment door, with his duffle bag in hand, saying only that he could not go back to Luke's. I assumed he had screwed up and Luke had thrown him out. I was drunk and I said some things, hurtful things that should never be utter to a child, especially your own.

He never said a word back to me, just headed to his old room and closed the door, not coming out until morning. I was awake, sober and ready to apologize with pancakes and a trip to the bookstore around the corner. After all, that is the way I always apologized to Jess. I started speaking as he entered the kitchen. He just kept on walking right out the door. He did not even look in my direction, not even when he came back late that night.

The whole time he was there he never looked at me, never said anything to me. He left in the morning and came back after midnight, I never knew where he was, and when I did ask, he just kept on walking by me. He showed no emotion at all when he was inside the apartment and it started to freak me out. Jess was quick tempered, something he got from his father and probably from Luke too. He had never been able to ignore me for long and he would blow up, then things would be okay for a while. This time there was nothing, he never smiled, not even that irritating little smirk of his. We had not been close in a long time, but that had been the first time that I ever felt that he was totally lost to me.

Then one day he comes back early with a smirk on his face and the next day he was gone. I called Luke two days later, but Jess answered and hung up as soon as he heard my voice. He hadn't spoken to me again until he showed up with Jimmy in tow and now he was sitting with me on the floor of a hospital hallway, talking to me like he used to when he was a little boy. I raised my eyes up to look at him only to find him already looking at me. I felt the guilt build up inside me, but I pushed it back down. Now is not the time to try to mend things with Jess. I made a vow to myself that I would make the time to try to fix things when this was all over. I nodded my head at him to continue.

"I had missed her so much and I had to call her. I had to hear her voice just one last time." The smile was back on his face, as he stared at the wall across from us. "I had been spending my days in the park reading and the day after my phone call, she showed up. She had skipped school, something that Rory would never do, and took a bus to New York to see me. We spent the day together and it was the best day of my life, at least up until that point. When I asked her why, she told me that I hadn't said goodbye. I found out later, after we started dating, that she had missed her mother's graduation. I went back and she kissed me when she saw me, then she ran and took off to D.C. for the summer. I got mad, got a girl before she came back and we fought for a while. Dean broke up with her and we started dating, she made me happy all the time and I fell deeper. I was so in love with her and she was my girl. We had a few problems but nothing too big, mostly misunderstandings, but the whole time I had doubts. Was I good enough for her? Did I deserve someone so perfect? Then she told me she was ready and it scared the hell out of me, made me doubt myself even more. I tried to talk her into waiting for the prom but she laughed at me. For once, the doubts fell away and I gave her all the love I had in me. Things fell apart after that, I had stopped going to school so I could work, I never thought it would be a problem. I needed the money; I had plans to move to New Haven to be closer to Rory when she went to college. I flunked out and I couldn't take her to prom, we fought and never made up. Jimmy showed up and took off and I followed. I decided she was better off without me," he said. Before he could continue, I cut him off.

"Did it ever occur to you to ask her how she felt?"

He said nothing, just shook his head.

"Did you ever tell her about your plans to move?"

Another shake of his head was all she could get.

"Did you at least tell her you were leaving?"

"No." It came out as a whisper.

"Geez, Jess," I shook my head at him. "You really screwed up, but at least it's fixable if she loves you. Do you really love her?"

"I would give my life for her and the baby," he said, with complete honesty. "I love her and I never would have left if I had known."

"You have some serious ass kissing to do, that is if she thinks you're worth it." His face fell and the pain in his eyes made my chest constrict. He had no faith in himself and it was my fault. "All she has to look at you to see that you are worth it, but you will have to prove yourself to her. She's not going to like the fact that you left her and she will probably be afraid to trust that you won't do it again." I stared at him until he met my eyes before continuing. "You won't do it again, will you?"

"No," he said shaking his head. "Never again, I swear to god I will never leave her side again."

"Good, now let's go see what's going on with Rory."

We stood up and turned to head back to the waiting room. We came around the corner only to have there way blocked.

Lane POV

I had left the waiting room after a nurse came out to inform Lorelai that they would be performing a cesarean section on Rory. The nurse had said it was their only option at this point. It was the only way to save Rory and the baby. After she left, Lorelai fell into Luke's arms crying and Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore just sat there in silence. Jess' father had gone out the sliding doors looking for Jess, but I knew he wasn't out there. You couldn't see the doors from the waiting area but you could hear them if you listened. Jess hadn't gone out the doors and neither did his mother.

I followed the hallway until I heard voices, I stopped and listened to Jess tell his story. I knew most of it, but I had only heard Rory's side of it. I never knew Jess' feelings, I had begun to think he cared about Rory, but then he left her. I listened to his words and I could hear the pain in them. The more I listened the more I began to think he really did love her friend. I can't say that I'll forgive him for hurting her and I won't help him in any way, but I also won't stand in his way or say anything bad to her about him. Unless he did something to give her reason to.

I listened to his vow to never leave Rory and I heard them stand and head in my direction. When they came around the corner, I blocked their path. Jess looked surprised to find me standing there, but his surprised turned into worry.

"Is Rory okay?" He rushed his question out and before I could answer, he had another on top of it. "Did something happen?"

"They are going to operate to get the baby out," I told him. "They said it was the only way."

"But she's going to be okay, right?"

"They said that the best thing is to get the baby out of her as soon as possible." I stopped not knowing what else to say. I didn't want to start rambling and end up sending him into a panic. "She will be fine. She is the strongest person I know. She's fought too hard to give up now."

He looked at me strangely but instead of saying anything, he took a deep breath and headed for the waiting area. I looked over at his mother and smiled, she returned it and we followed Jess towards the others to wait for news. I began to pray, something that had been ingrained into my life since birth, something that I was glad to have now when we all needed it the most. After all Rory and the baby had to be okay, they couldn't not be okay.