A/N: My beloved readers, I cannot apologize profusely enough. You have waited FAR TOO LONG. Hopefully, as a peace offering, you will accept this morsel of Jess and Rory conversation, along with the fact that I have another short non-Jess/Rory chapter to post tonight. This story is a conundrum. The first 18 chapters practically wrote themselves. The next 8 required my assistance, along with that of my beloved editor (husband-who comes up with most of my best chapter ideas, might I add). The 27th chapter all on its own required over 6 months and endless rewrites. The rest of the story is feeling Herculean. I'll never forgive myself if I don't finish it, and there is SO MUCH more story to tell, but I could really use the help of a good beta…not as much for editing as for helping me to plot out the rest of the story, brainstorm certain elements, etc. If anyone is willing to give it a shot, please PM me.

Enough of me jabbering. On to chapter 28.

Chapter 28 - The Other Side of the Conversation

She was still shaking…standing on concrete steps with jello legs and wobbly heels and electricity buzzing in her veins. She'd sent the limo driver on his way. No matter where she went from here, she wasn't going by limo.

In a dizzy adrenaline rush, she nearly called a cab to drive her to the Hartford mausoleum - she wanted to yell at Logan and claw at him, and have him hold her in his arms. NO! That was crazy - she was crazy - and that was a horrible idea!

Hartford. Jess had a house in Hartford. He could drive her home… home to Stars Hollow. Rory bit her lips together. She didn't want anybody driving her home - not even Jess.

Too many thoughts buzzing and swirling and bumping into each other in her head. She needed to sort things out. She needed to talk things out. And, as much as she could count on her mother as the perfect sounding board…this was different. This was a lifetime's worth of I ran away from that world for a reason. The words I told you so would never cross her mother's lips, but they already rang in Rory's head, and she needed this to be about so much more.

She scraped her teeth along her lower lip and bit down on the last bit of skin.

A different voice played in her mind: "You see these ears? They're for anything you need to talk about."

A long, deep, shuddering breath …a deliberate swallow.

She thought up excuses to call as she dialed his number, trying to push out of her mind the fact that in their last conversation she'd made an idiot of herself flinging a phone across the room, and he'd tricked her into thinking he had an iguana and a cocker spaniel…and they hadn't settled anything. He picked up quicker than she expected and it flustered her even more.

"Hello?"

"O-Oh," Rory stammered. "Well…well, I…I just called to say, um…thank you…for…for… You don't say thank you to an apology. I have a two-year-old and a four-year-old, I should know this. 'Thank you' follows 'please,' and 'you're welcome' follows 'thank you,' and why on earth can't I think what follows I'm sorry?"

"I forgive you?" Jess offered tentatively.

"That's right! Of course, that's right. What am I thinking? I…I can't say that," she ended, faltering.

"Okay." How had she forgotten how frustrating he could be?

"I mean…I can't… It sounds…" she floundered, getting more impatient with herself by the moment.

"Do you?" he interrupted her awkwardness to ask.

"Do I what?" she asked in turn, drawn up short.

"Um…forgive me." They were the first words he said that didn't sound sure of himself. They sounded penitent and shuffling. And, instantly, she realized that the sureness had been a front, his go-to for painful awkwardness: pretend it doesn't exist, and maybe it will go away.

"Of course I forgive you, Jess," she relented, irritation dissolving the moment she heard that tone in his voice. "There really wasn't anything to forgive. I just…took what you said the wrong way, that's all. You are not allowed to beat yourself up over this!" she insisted, and she could hear a small exhalation from his nostrils that was nearly a laugh. From that one sound, she could visualize the shifting of his expressions, the twisting half-smile, bitten back a couple of times as he marveled over the fact that she still could read him that well. It wasn't just the tone in the three words he spoke so reluctantly that told her how much he'd been torturing himself over this. She'd seen the state of the paper where his eraser had nearly worn a hole into the spot where he called himself one harsh name after the other, only to erase the whole thing, deciding that he didn't deserve a place there on that page at all. Really, the only reference to himself in any sense, was the "I'm" before the "sorry." She hated that he tormented himself so much over the smallest mistakes.

"Okay. Good." He paused. "I'm glad." There was silence on the line for a moment.

"Jess?" He waited for what was to follow. "Um…I'm in Hartford."

"Okay…"

"And I need…a friend." Her voice sounded tentative and awkward as it always did before the re-emergence of the Rory-ramble. "You offered your ears. And, I need your ears. Preferably your mouth too…I mean, for talking. But, really I need your legs because it's awfully hard to drive without legs, or rather, more your feet than your legs, to drive…and your hands for the wheel. 'Cause it would be hard to get there without driving…I mean, I suppose you could walk, but that would require feet and legs also…"

"Rory, what are you…? What are you babbling about?" he sounded confused, but also like he regretted his choice of words. "I mean, how can I help?"

She heaved two quick breaths, almost as if her rapid speech had winded her, though anyone who knew her, knew this was not the case. It was more pathetic puffs of frustration at her inability to communicate articulated thoughts, despite her many words. So, she settled upon the one word that had been the most vital in her lifetime vocabulary. "Coffee?"

"Make it? Drink it? Spray it all over you?" he ventured casually.

"Meet me," she specified, sticking with the economy of words philosophy that was usually his trademark, but which usually served her pretty well when she employed it.

"In Hartford," he stated in confirmation. She realized that she'd only assumed he was at home. He sounded relaxed…he sounded…um…homish?

"Oh, are you out of town?" she asked, an apprehensive, nervous, politeness entering her voice. She didn't want to presume upon him. Presume that he was at her beck and call - that he never did anything, or had anything else to do. He could be busy, very busy. He could have guests…he could…

"No, I just… You want me to meet you for coffee somewhere in Hartford. Where do you want to go?" She released a breath silently.

"Um…do you know La Paloma Sabanera?"

"You mean, have I checked out the competition? Yeah, once or twice. No more than two dozen times," he equivocated, jokingly.

"The comp-? Oh, right. I forgot they sell books!"

"You forgot they sell books? Rory! You've been abducted by aliens, haven't you?" Jess' voice mocked her in a ridiculously frightened tone.

"No, I mean - I forgot you s- I mean, I didn't forget-forget, I just forgot that…" she sighed in exasperation. Jess began to laugh at her with his soft, friendly, mocking chuckle.

"They're not really the competition. Not till Truncheon starts selling lattes and paninis. Funny. I would have figured you for a Jojo's kind of girl," he smirked audibly.

"But, the books!" Rory objected. Jess chuckled again. It was a melody she had missed.

"I take it back. No alien abductions after all. So - La Paloma on Capitol," he confirmed.

"La Paloma on Capitol."

A/N: Reviews are life and hope.