There were a few moments in his life that he could reflect back on that would help to explain his inner turmoil that his mind had conjured for him over the past few months of his life.

When he stood up to Liz' beau – one of many, who had demanded he pay the money he'd been working tirelessly for to pay for their next bender. He had felt deep in his stomach, rising so that it entrapped his breath and felt like an arm snaking its way up his throat. That thread of anxious energy that shoved him over the precipice to a decision. "No." He had said simply. Having already used the money to help a friend in need.

He had to face the anger, and his fear, that his decision had caused – but the adrenaline was all-encompassing.

The moment he stepped off the bus to Stars Hollow, a singular duffle over his shoulder, breathing deeply as the colourful town shocked his city senses. It was that unknown that captured him then. Moving in with his uncle who he'd only ever encountered a handful of times in his life. A new town. A new school.

He found himself trying to frustrate the town with the pranks he had pulled just to try and chase that feeling all over again. The fear of something to come.

He had been spoiled with Rory. Every moment felt like that. The feeling that pin pricked his skin as he thought about all the ways it could go wrong. All the ways it could go right.

It was downright addictive.

When he arrived in Florida. Chasing a father who had never wanted him.

Saying "I love you" for the first time on a cold, busy street of the festivities.

They were all moments he would use to describe it.

His depression felt like that. Like he was on the edge of a decision that would alter his direction. "Fight or Flight" – That's what Jane had called it. He'd describe it more as standing on the edge of a cliff – the feeling that you're about to fall into the darkness, but not quite there. It was a falsehood. His mind was playing sick tricks on him – making him feel the feeling he had been chasing for so long at all times of the day until he felt like he was drowning in it. It was too much.

But god, did it prepare him for the real thing.

Rory turned the corner towards the library being followed by a blonde boy who seemed to take a particular pleasure in getting a rise from her. The boy was smirking as he spoke, it only seemed to grow as she turned around to berate him about whatever he was waxing about.

The boy laughed haughtily at her scolding.

She turned back to the library.

And her eyes met his.

"Jess?" She breathed out the name, but he could still somehow hear it over the busy night of the campus.

"Rory," Jess greeted with a nod, righting himself on the bench, "I knew you'd turn up here eventually." He gestured towards the library with a small tilt of his head, a smirk of his own settling on to his face that very much rivalled the one of the pompous blonde opposite him.

"What are you doing here?" She asked carefully, her eyes flicking to his bag as a memory of a man arriving desperately at the door at the end of her first year of college flashed before both of them in an embarrassing wave.

He caught her gaze and laughed, "Don't worry," he quipped, "I'm not here to ask you to run away with me… again."

"Old friend of yours, Rory?"

Both of them forgot about the lingering presence of the blonde man - his speaking up shocking them out of their memories and to the present - where they stood surrounded by student and professors who wandered too and from the buildings, unintentionally eavesdropping on Rory, the student, and Jess, the bedraggled man on the bench.

"Logan -" she began, "Sorry, uh, yes. Old friend."

"Something like that." Jess muttered, suddenly struck quiet by the boy - Logan's lingering presence.

"Sounds complicated."

Jess didn't like the smirk that seemed to grow on his face as he looked between the two of them in increasing amusement.

"Logan." She said firmly, "Thanks, as always, for your persistent presence but please leave."

Logan held up his hands and slowly backed away from the conversation, "I'll catch you later, Rory."

She didn't respond to him as he left, instead turning quickly back to Jess as he surveyed Rory and the retreating Logan with a bored sort of curiosity. LIke one would watch a sleeping snake at the zoo - new, but not very interesting.

"Why are you here, Jess?" Rory prompted.

Jess held up a finger, silencing her, and stopping her in her tracks as she slowly approached him. He leant down and quickly dug through his bag, until a familiar red notebook emerged.

She inhaled sharply, but otherwise gave away no other form of recognition.

Jess knew better.

"Do you recognise this?"

"I don't know what you mean…" she denied.

"Really?" he asked, letting his voice pitch as his emotions began to bubble, "Because there seems to be a few instances - a few indentations perhaps, where your handwriting appears in this book -"

Her face gave it away this time. The panic as she realised her mistake and being caught out in the lie.

"I thought I had lost this -" he stated, shaking the book haphazardly, so much so that Rory seemed to jump forward - compelled to take it from him and cradle the work away from his vicious grip, "-but no. You've had it this whole time. Not just had it - you've read this." His breathing was ragged as he met her halfway in her approach, brandishing the book like a weapon. "This was personal Rory. How could you? How could you read this without asking?"

"I-"

"You didn't think, though, did you? You didn't stop for a moment and think that maybe -" he laughed bitterly, "maybe I didn't want you, or anyone, to read this."

Rory tore her gaze from him, and in doing so became suddenly aware of the audience they had received. Her peers, and her professors. She was suddenly very aware that this was happening in a very public place.

"Can we please talk about this somewhere else?"

"Why? Embarrassed by me, Rory? That's nothing new, is it?" He growled, vicious and spiteful.

She shook her head angrily, grabbing him by the wrist as she dragged him somewhere more private, "No. I'd just rather we didn't air my dirty laundry for everyone to see. My professors are on this campus, Jess. My future -"

"Fine." He cut her off, grabbing his bag and flinging over his shoulder as he signalled for her to lead them elsewhere.

She nodded, stole one last look at the people around them, and grabbed on to his wrist as she stalked off to somewhere only a student on the campus would know. It didn't take them long, but it was obvious from the moss that grew over the sole bench in the clearing, and the tree roots that pushed up against the stone path that it was a secluded area.

She let go of his wrist, and Jess could hear his blood pounding, pulsing in his head. She turned on him the moment she was sure they were alone.

"So you came here to shout at me?" She demanded.

He scoffed, "Don't try to turn this on me, Rory."

"Why not, Jess? It feels a bit like deja vu here. You with your duffel. Last time I saw that thing I was getting silent phone calls for weeks. Don't tell me you're leaving again."

"I don't have to justify myself to you." He growled.

"No. You came here to shout at me for reading your book. I know. I know what I did was wrong, but I don't regret taking it from you for one moment." She threw her hair back and away from her face in a defiant move.

He felt his body begin to shake at her words, and soon found himself exploding, "You shouldn't have read this Rory! The moment you figured out it was mine – you shouldn't have read it without asking me."

She visibly cringed away from his rising words, the betrayal clear in his voice. Quickly, she lost her footing, "I'm sorry –"

"Do you not respect me at all?"

"Of course I do," She argued back, stepping towards him, her arms flailing as she tried to interrupt his long and tyrant speech,

"No-" He shouted back, pushing himself into her personal space as his eyes shone with an intensity she had scarcely seen from him as of late, or ever for that fact, "This is not just an invasion of privacy to me, do you understand? This is like an invasion of my mind. No one was meant to see this."

She sucked in a harsh breath and found herself letting out a little scream - throwing her hands in the air and turning on the spot so she'd no longer have to look at him.

"What?" He asked after a moment of watching her breath deeply, her back rising and falling with the exertion.

She spun around, her finger stabbing forward in accusation "When are you going to start realising that you aren't alone in this world Jess. You have people who love you, and look out for you, and want to see you succeed - make something out of yourself."

"It doesn't matter what anyone else wants - it's my life."

"And what do you want, Jess?"

Her question was met with a telling silence. Jess' mouth shut with a small, but quick inhale that signalled everything she needed to know. She leapt forward, grabbing onto his notebook and stealing it from his grasp, cradling it against her chest like it was something previous.

"You are a writer." She said finally. "This -" She carefully presented the notebook, "Is incredible."

His breath shuddered. It was the same feeling that he had in Jane's office in front of the mirror, repeating those stupid words to himself. He leant back carefully onto the mossy bench.

"It doesn't matter if you haven't published anything," she continued, "you are a writer. The next question you need to ask yourself is if you're ever going to let the world see that just as much as I do."

"This isn't why i'm here." He tried to argue. Tried to bite back the lump that rose in his throat.

"Then why are you here? Because if you were planning on running away - you've not made it very far."

He didn't have an answer for her.

She didn't say anything for a while after that. Neither of them did. Jess tried to control his breathing like he'd been taught to. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth.

"Luke's going to hate that you've left again." She said eventually, slowly and cautious. She came to sit next to him, brushing away some of the plants that rested against the old wood.

"I know." He said carefully.

"And there's now other people to think about this time. My mom, for one. Andrew. And I know you and Lane have been getting on recently."

Jess nodded, glaring down at his duffle like it was the cause of his troubles.

"Then why?"

"I have to." He said simply. Catching her gaze - completely and wholly without judgement - he continued. "I could feel myself losing the battle if I stayed."

She nodded, placing her hand on top of his - the one that gripped tightly onto the sodden wood of the bench, and said "Just make sure you win the war, Jess. Please."

He turned his hand over and squeezed her fingers in his. Once. Twice.

Then he let go, holding out his palm for his notebook back. She gave it back to him, smiling as he seemed to brush his hands over the cover with care.

"And what about you?" Jess said, laying him palm flat against the cover of his book like one would a bible.

"What about me?"

"You told me that things have changed with you. But-" he hesitated, "I read what you wrote in the margins, Rory. What's going on?"

She was ready to get defensive, answer the same way that she'd responded to her mom, Lane, Luke, even Paris. She was about to jump into the nonchalance she had perfected, but she took one look at Jess, now carefully slipping the notebook back into his bag, his sleeves pulling up to reveal the new marks on his wrists that were slowly becoming scars, and she changed her mind.

"I have no idea." She said, deeply within a sigh. " I think you're the only reason I'm still here."

"What do you mean?"

"Here. Yale."

Jess daren't not speak. He was shocked to silence, watching her face morph into a desperation that he'd only ever seen in the mirror.

"I was so close to giving up. Everything is so difficult here, and people just seem to be so much further than I am. Someone's been published already - and I'm still writing stupid articles that no one cares about. Someone said something – said I didn't have it."

"Have what?"

"It, Jess. Talent."

"Bullshit."

She laughed, it sounded pitiful from her lips. "That's what I mean. I almost gave up. But then I had your stupid voice telling me I'd be an idiot to drop out. Just saying 'No' over and over like you did on the bridge." She laughed, wiping at her eyes, though neither one of them daren't to comment on the tears, "But I think I'm figuring it out."

"Yeah?" Jess said eventually, his voice cracking slightly.

"Yeah."

"You don't have to have it figured out 100% of the time, you know?"

"I'm starting to realise that, yes."

Jess smiled for the first time since seeing her that evening, pulling the duffel together - ready to take his leave. "Just -" he started, but cut himself off quickly.

"Just what?

He shrugged, finally pulling the bag onto his shoulder, "Just remember the girl who wanted to be the next Christiane Amanpour, okay? She chose to take that 'right' on the journey for ice-cream." He savoured that smile, "She chose that adventure. I think she's still in there."

Rory shrugged, not getting up from the bench as Jess began to back out of the clearing. "No pom poms?" she asked.

Jess actually laughed.

"Not this time."

XXXXX

Later, when Lorelai rang up Rory in a panic, explaining that Jess had gone again, Rory smiled.

"I know."

"You know?" Lorelai demanded, "what do you mean, 'you know'?"

"He was here."

"He came to you? What did he say? What kind of state was he in?"

Rory shushed her mother, which quickly led to silence on the other end of the phone. "He's going to be fine, mom." She said with a lightness to her voice that was completely juxtaposed by the situation, "And I think, so will I."