Disclaimer: Ahh, still not mine. Lyrics below belong to Oh Wonder and are not mine either.

A/N: This chapter is especially for fayevalcntine because she is honestly amazing and deserves a breather ;) Thank you everyone who cares to read and review :)

'... Lose these hazy love lines
I've been chasing my mind...

Cos I'm kicking up stones without you...
And I'm digging down holes without you

I'm a little bit lost without you
Without you...'

The July New York Sun was set high over the horizon, amidst a cloudless blue sky. Doctor Rory Gilmore was walking through the hospital parking lot balancing a to-go coffee cup and a couple of files. The sun reflected into her shades and freshly applied lipstick.

She entered the elevator greeting a couple of colleagues as she pulled her shades up. A couple of the male staff openly checked her out before greeting her back. She only beamed at them, not blaming their ogling because honestly? She would leer at herself too. Her legs looked mile-long in the white skinny jeans and brown cross strap heels. The tie-neck yellow silk top showcased her bare back and she had dressed to kill today. It was high time she ended that moping around pattern she'd been stuck into for the last two months and gave herself a boost of self-esteem.

When the doors opened at floor six she went out heading towards the lockers room and almost bumped into something black and silky. The young black Labrador lifted his muzzle, his curious dark eyes meeting hers for a moment before he got back to sniffing her toes. Rory secured her grip around the file folders in her hands and her look swung between the guide dog and the blind man holding its leash.

'What now?' Jess sighed exasperatedly, his features showing his irritation with the dog's constant indulgence into distractions. 'Come on, Cerberus,' he urged, pulling on the leash.

The name of the dog caused Rory's eyes to widen in shock. And amusement. Of course Jess would call an adorable almost-puppy Labrador Cerberus.

However, instead of listening to Jess' orders, the dog pulled forward and looked up at her. She took a step back and made him a hand gesture to move on mouthing 'Go.' Then, as the dog stood in place looking at her expectantly she repeated the gesture and mouthed 'Please' looking into his curious dark eyes pleadingly.

The dog gave her another good-natured studying look before padding away, leading a muttering Jess (Finally. Yeah, don't let me detain you.) behind.

Rory watched them as they made their way to the elevator and stopped. The Labrador sat down as they waited and just as the elevator doors slid open, turned back and gave her a look. She blinked twice, a little taken aback by the dog's calm eyes directed straight at her, then mouthed 'Thank you' before Cerberus stood up and led Jess into the elevator, both disappearing from her sight.

'Tristan.'

Tristan stopped at the sound of the familiar voice behind him and looked up at the ceiling, taking a calming breath before he turned back.

'Beatrice.'

He registered at the back of his mind that his voice sounded strained. It used to be patient at previous occasions. After their last encounter it was forced polite. At best. Well, if she pressed it any harder, it wouldn't be polite anymore.

Tristan watched as she approached him, her cat-like moves leading her forward, her eyes drinking him up. She stopped at an arm's length, reaching a hand to touch his arm.

'You look good,' she said, her eyes skimming his frame once again before returning to his eyes.

He stood straighter, slowly flexing and unflexing his knuckles. It was a simple concentration technique he'd learned at MMA trainings.

'I've been called for a consult,' she said, her palm still against his forearm, her thumb rubbing lazy circles against his skin.

Tristan drew his arm back an inch so that she was no longer touching him.

'When is your shift over,' she asked him, the look in her eyes intent, seemingly dismissing his distaste of her touch. 'We can catch up.'

'I'm not interested,' Tristan said darkly.

'Your friend Jess is asking me for some big favor.'

'Then maybe you can ask him to pay you back,' Tristan said between clenched teeth and turned to leave.

'Tristan,' her clear voice sounded. He didn't need to turn back to know she had a triumphant smile when she said, 'I'll see you around.'

Doctor Jess Mariano was feeling restless today. He'd sent one of her minions to find Beatrice Shefield. He couldn't imagine what was taking him so long. He was already behind with his schedule and it wasn't even noon yet. This devilish dog wasn't a good idea. He was wondering what possessed him to agree with the Chief's offer to get him a guide dog. The thing couldn't find the way towards its own tail for god's sake. Jess paced around his office, an uneasy feeling set deep into his gut, like the one you got when you forgot your keys some place - there was something he was missing but he couldn't quite process it it yet.

'Tell me Ronan's labs at admission again,' Jess turned towards the general direction of the redhead nerdy intern. The girl snapped out of a daydream and stood straighter, the end of her red braid slipping from between her teeth.

'He has a dog.'

Paris dug into her lunch and nodded while chewing onto her green salad.

'So I saw.'

'He has a dog,' Rory repeated, shaking her head in disbelief. 'The Chief let him get a dog on hospital ground.'

'After all, the Chief had the dog trained for him,' Helen pointed out and bit on her sandwich.

Paris made a semicircle with her fork.

'He has some deep guilt issues about the shooting.'

It was true the Chief kept making exceptions when it came to Jess' status in the hospital. For some reason he went out of his way to make adjustments so that Jess could be part of the hospital's routine now that so much had changed for him. The Chief was a little stuck up but had deep running sense of justice and on the whole was a very honorable man. He felt responsible that someone from his staff was hurt while performing their duties.

'What happened to his new 'assistant'?' Rory asked with fake gossip-enthusiasm.

'Not heard of after last week's fiasco,' Helen smirked.

'And now a dog. Is he gonna pretend he's sleeping with his dog too?' Rory muttered, narrowing her eyes as if she were actually considering the idea.

'Gross,' Helen shook her head.

'I don't think he's into that stuff anymore,' Paris noted, stabbing another mouthful of salad. 'The pretending I mean.'

Helen gave her a look. Paris rolled her eyes.

'What?'

Helen only shrugged, deciding not to comment.

Paris moved her look towards Rory's untouched plate.

'Are you gonna eat this? Because I'm scrubbing in for a kidney transplant with Robertson and you're offending this burger with your ignorance.'

Rory pushed her plate towards Paris distractedly, still lost in her own thoughts.

'How is his patient's testing going?' Rory asked matter-of-factly.

'Are you asking about Jess' patient or about Jess?' Paris asked with her mouth half full of burger.

Rory made a face.

'Jess' patient.'

'He's taking another round of tests,' Helen offered. 'They plan on performing a series of EEGs tomorrow in order to find if his occipital cortex is still able to get and proceed visual stimuli. It's quite cutting-edge.'

'You think there is a chance he might start seeing again?'

'Jess or Jess' patient?' Paris asked bluntly, winning another death glare by Rory.

Paris shrugged, finishing the burger and wiping her mouth with a paper napkin.

'I guess we're about to find out. Jess has asked for a consult with the one and only Beatrice Shefield.'

'What do you mean they don't know the circumstances under which the boy was hurt?'

The redheaded intern took her braid between her fingers, twirling the end nervously. She opened her mouth and then closed it, doctor Mariano's annoyed expression prompting her to think twice before answering.

'Ronan is suffering some severe PTSD. He won't talk about what happened. His last foster parents are nowhere to be found.'

Jess rubbed a fist against his jaw.

'Tell me the CT scan results again.'

The intern started reading with Jess making her stop and repeat certain details.

As they went through all lab results for what felt like the umpteenth time, Jess rubbed both hands through his hair, feeling the frustration settle back in. He had thought he would be able to solve this case. Most hard cases felt like cracking a code, you just needed the right set of mind, an adjustment in perspective, and they unraveled. Rory's case, however, didn't. Jess had been trying to find something she'd been missing for a couple of days now but hit a dead end every time. The nine-year old boy was lying in the ICU with extensive internal organ trauma and they had no idea what had happened to get him so severely hurt. They had to find a way to get the boy to talk. Otherwise they were shooting blindly. Well he was, anyway.

A knock on the door tore Jess from his thoughts.

'Doctor Mariano?' a luscious female voice said.

Jess turned towards the door.

'Doctor Shefield. I've been expecting you.'

'You saw the way she eyed Tristan like a piece of meat? And boy did she try to paw him,' Rory shook her head, 'That woman is a maneater.'

'I don't know,' Paris rested back against her chair and cracked her neck. It had been a long surgery. Scrubbing in with Robertson for a kidney transplant was like watching an artist work. You couldn't rush him to do what he did, or it would lose its magic. But boy did it kill her legs and neck.

'Tristan is a grown-up man,' Paris yawned before taking another gulp of her coffee. 'I doubt some cougary-prone hot neurosurgeon is gonna give him a hard time.'

'You seen her?'

'Once, right before she operated on Nanny. Come on, Rory, she looks like a Claudia Schiffer impersonification. Plus she has golden hands. She's a magician in the OR, I doubt any male specimen with functioning balls would need much persuasion to jump into the sack with her.'

Rory didn't seem convinced.

'You seen her with Tristan?' she asked.

'There's something specific you're trying to tell me or are you just playing twenty questions? Because I'm starting a night shift in four hours, I'm gonna try and take a nap,' Paris said finishing her coffee.

'She makes him uncomfortable,' Rory insisted. 'He's tense around her, guarded. There's something there, I tell you.'

Rory looked at Paris expecting her to disagree but her friend had dozed off over the break room's couch. Rory watched her for a moment, then shook her head and took her white coat off, throwing it over Paris' shoulders.

Doctor Rory Gilmore suppressed a yawn as she walked out of the hospital's library a couple of hours later. She had tried to research new information about Ronan's case but it kept going in circles.

Her feet were hardly keeping her balance over the heels and she had second thoughts about self-esteem boosters. Heels weren't a friend. Heels were evil.

Something moved before her. She saw the black Labrador and almost simultaneously heard a familiar voice muttering about being better off with blindman GPS than being led by a dog who suffered ADHD.

Her eyes shortly locked with a dark pair of calm dog's eyes and the next moment she was stumbling forward, Cerberus' name and Jess' voice registering at the back of her mind, as well as the feeling of the strained leash around her shins.

She fell forward, colliding with the man in front of her who had been pulled forward by the dog himself. As his arms closed around her by reflex, steadying them both, there was a short moment where neither of them consciously registered the other or the circumstances. There were just random facts about their surroundings. Like a pair of male hands around her or a whiff of woodsy cologne. Like soft bare skin and the sound of a surprised whimper. Then, like water through a crack, the realization of the impact and of each other sunk in. Both could feel the exact moment when the realization hit fully because both of them stilled, his palms against her bare back stiffening and her chin against his collar bone clenching. And then the most incredible thing happened. Rory felt Jess' arms unflex slightly, his tense palms losing their strain and feeling warm against the bare skin of her back. She let her own frustration out on a slow exhale.

Both of them relaxed into each other, their previous death grip resembling an embrace now without as much movement as a millimeter. They breathed shallow breaths, mindful not to break the frail moment but at the same time feeling like for the first time in months an enormous weight was lifted off their shoulders. They let each other's presence sink in and for once it brought comfort instead of anguish. And for a moment all was right in the world.

'Here,' Tristan handed Paris a steaming to-go cup. 'Triple espresso, your favorite.'

Paris narrowed her eyes at him and looked around. They were alone which wasn't such a surprise given it was the middle of their night shift. She put down the charts she had been doing over the nurses station counter.

'You know when you're on a precipice and feel tingles down your spine, feeling that strong urge to jump?'

'Uh-huh?'

'I'm not gonna jump.'

'All... right?

'I'm not gonna jump.'

'Heard ya.'

'But I could develop some feeling beyond disgust for a guy like you. Which I won't. But hypothetically. I could fall for a guy like you.'

Tristan's pupils dilated with a glint of surprise.

'I could because you're an okay guy, Dugray,' she sighed. 'I simply choose not to.'

Now he was looking at her with an amused sparkle in his eyes, still holding the cup of steaming coffee out for her.

'I'm not gonna throw my underwear across the room, Tristan.'

'Now that's putting some great visuals in my head.'

'See?' she threw her hands up shaking her head. 'You know what will be written on your thombstone - Died Horny - that's what.'

Tristan's eyes narrowed, a thought just now occurring to him. He left the coffee on the counter of the nurse's station.

'Is this about other women?' he asked, his voiced colored by confusion. 'You think I'm gonna string you along?'

Even though this was a pretty obvious answer, it wasn't the truth. Not that Paris considered his fascination with her anything more than defending his honor of Ovary-Whisperer. But this wasn't really her concern. And she wasn't going to lie to him.

'Look, Tristan. I am a single mom who is struggling with her surgical career. My life is complicated enough without throwing a torrid affair into the mix.'

'You've thought about it,' Tristan folded his arms before his chest. 'And you used the word torrid.'

Paris rose a hand, palm out to make him stop.

'Even if I was madly in love with you which I'm not, I wouldn't want any more complications in my life. Look, you're dumb but you're not that dumb, you have to get it. I don't have room for a guy in my life. Can you accept that? Discuss it with your overbearing masculinity and get back to me when you have an answer.'

Their eyes locked for a while. Then Tristan gave her a nod.

'Okay.'

'Okay?'

'Okay, Paris,' he said with a reassuring smile. 'I guess I can... step down and stop harassing you. If that's what you want. So, friends?' he offered her his hand.

Paris frowned. Like Tristan Dugray could be friends with anything with ovaries. Oh whatever.

She shook his hand briefly, suspiciously. Watching as his smile grew wider. The typical poster boy. Offering his friendship.

There was a feeble feeling of comfort that settled between them. She could reach for it and maybe hold on for a scarce moment before life swept her up in its whirl again. She shook her head, shaking his gaze off her. She was bad at love. Or anything close to it. She didn't want to lie to herself anymore. She had met the love of her life and they'd blown it. Aside from her love for Josh, she had no place in her life for any more caring. Falling for Tristan would be a mistake. But she found herself wondering if she was willing to make it.

She took the to-go coffee cup form the nurse's station counter where he had left it and walked away, taking a sip. And he had been right, it was just as she loved it.

TBC