A/N: Wow, lots of love for Sasha in the reviews. That's very cool, and thank you all for taking the time to leave your comments, as always. Now, all I'm going to say about this chapter is please brace accordingly...

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 19

First they hit Cannery Row, then moved on to San Francisco, the new last stop on their literary tour. Rory was glad to see the place that inspired Steinbeck so much, and now they were headed for what might just be the ultimate location to end their trip. She had thought nothing could top The Menger Hotel, but given the chance to come to California like this, it provided the opportunity to see the one place that might actually be even more special for both Jess and herself.

"So, this is it," he said, breath seeming to catch as they stood there on Columbus Avenue, staring up at the sign reading 'City Lights Bookstore.'

"Yup, this is it." Rory nodded, just as awed by the sight, truth be told.

She was frankly amazed that Jess hadn't gone there on his first trip to California, but as he told her when she asked, he really hadn't ventured outside of Venice then. If he had, they both knew this would have been the spot he most wanted to see.

"Not gonna lie, this would've been incredible either way," he said then, eyes drifting from the iconic bookstore to meet Rory's own gaze, "but being here with you, kind of blowing my mind," he admitted with a hint of a smirk.

She knew the significance for him, since it was exactly the same for her. Sure, this bookstore was pretty much a mecca for the Beatnik generation, unrivalled in its selection and its uncompromised politics, and that all meant something important to Jess, but there was more to it than that. City Lights wasn't just a bookstore but a publisher too, and one of the most famous books they produced just happened to be printed in 1956, a thin volume by a certain Allen Ginsburg, entitled Howl and Other Poems.

"'I'm with you in Rockland, where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof, they've come to drop angelic bombs, the hospital illuminates itself. Imaginary walls collapse. O skinny legions run outside. O starry-spangled shock of mercy, the eternal war is here. O victory, forget your underwear, we're free.'"

"'I'm with you in Rockland. In my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night,'" Rory continued easily, completing the final lines of the poem, feeling Jess' hand grip hers all the tighter and smiling with the joy of it all.

This truly was an exceptional moment, the two of them here, in this place, in this time, the beginning and the ending of something all rolled into one, a never-ending circle. Of course, Rory was all too aware that even circles could be broken, that this one almost definitely would be, as soon as tomorrow, in fact.

"I read it so many times, especially after you left," she said of her copy of Howl, knowing Jess would realise that, without her ever being explicit. "Not even the poem most of the time, just your notes in the margins. Sometimes it made me laugh, and sometimes it made me cry, but I was never sorry when I was done reading, not once," she said, turning to him.

"I always knew you were cracked," he said fondly, pushing her hair back from her face when the breeze caught it. "Rory..."

"Don't, please," she urged him, sure he was going to say something about this being the end of the journey and knowing she wouldn't be able to take it. "Just for a few minutes longer, can we pretend it's all okay? That's it's simple and easy and we can just go on and on, exactly like we have been for the last few weeks?"

It was such a stupid thing to say, such a childish wish when they both knew it was time to face reality, to be the adults they had become and move forward. It was what they had vowed to do when they started this journey together, both the physical one and the metaphysical one. Their relationship had developed so much, what was between them was stronger than it had ever been, but one problem remained. Rory had to go home. She couldn't see a way not to return to Yale when she had already worked so hard, not to go back to her mom, her family and friends. She also couldn't see a way for Jess to go with her. Stars Hollow wasn't home for him, he had run from it too many times for her to ever believe it could be, but then, hadn't he always come back too?

"C'mere," Jess urged her, pulling her closer, letting his lips find hers.

It wasn't just that this part always worked, Rory knew, it was so much more. As their arms went around each other then and they kissed like their lives depended on it, she swore she saw every previous moment, so like this one, play out behind her eyes. Late one night outside the garage, walking across town square with snow beneath their feet, hiding by a flower stall where no-one would see, dropping bags of Chinese food because this was more important.

Rory hadn't realised she was crying until they finally parted and she felt a tear run down her nose, saw the pain in Jess' eyes just from noticing it himself.

"We knew it had to end somewhere," he told her, looking to the foot of ground between them now.

"Does it really have to?" she asked, sniffing hard and trying to keep it together, just a little bit longer. "Jess, you know I have to go back, I just... as much as I sometimes think maybe not, I just have to."

"I know," he agreed, even though it seemed to physically hurt him.

"But you could come with me," she told him, hands gripping both his sleeves as they stood there in the blazing sun, not caring who walked by and saw them, wondering what was going on. "You know Luke would let you stay, or you could crash at my dorm for a while, or maybe somehow, we could get an apartment. Not in Stars Hollow, necessarily, maybe in New Haven or Hartford or somewhere-"

She wasn't sure why Jess suddenly kissed her then. Rory wanted to believe it was confirmation, agreement, sealing a promise that he would try like she was asking him to, that he would commit to them being together, in a place he wasn't so sure he wanted to call home, but would try to, just for her. She wanted to believe it, but she couldn't. When he kissed her like that, she knew it was because he couldn't stand to hear anymore. It was because he needed to tell her something he didn't want to have to say. Something like goodbye.

"I'm sorry," he said eventually, forehead still pressed against Rory's own as he held her tight. "I know what you're saying makes sense, and it's not that I don't wanna say yes, because believe me, Rory, I do. I really do. I just keep thinking about before, how it all fell apart the last time-"

"But it's different now," Rory insisted, desperate more than certain in what she was saying. "Well, isn't it? We've come so far, Jess, and I don't mean miles across the country. We rebuilt everything, it's supposed to be stronger than before. We're supposed to be stronger."

When Jess looked away, she knew she was losing him, and she knew why, even though she wished she didn't. It might have been easier if he just didn't want to be with her, but Rory knew that couldn't be true. If she hadn't been sure, he was about to prove it anyway.

"Rory, you know that I love you. Okay, I do, I love you," he told her, that intense gaze of his locked onto her own watery blue eyes. "And if I thought it was as easy as me coming back with you, I'd do it. I'd do it today, you know I would... but it's not, and you know that it's not."

Rory swallowed hard. "I don't want to know that it's not."

"Me either," he admitted, looking as close to emotional as she had ever seen him. "I just don't want it to end that way, you know? With us resenting each other and... and hating each other. I can't deal with that. Can you?"

Knowing he was right, Rory shook her head. No, she couldn't handle that either, but that didn't mean she wanted it to end this way. She didn't want it to end at all, ever. Maybe it was grown-up and adult to admit defeat, for Jess to be honest in telling her he wasn't sure they could make it work back in the Hollow, that he just didn't want to live to let her down again. She did respect him for that, she loved him so much that it hurt, but none of that made her feel better about this whole journey being over.

"It's so stupid," she said, swiping one more stray tear from her cheek. "Even after everything, even after we said, so many times, that we were going to talk things out more and make it work, I still didn't want to face this. I've been worried about it for days, for miles and miles of road, and... and I knew. I think a part of me always knew this was how it had to end."

She forced a smile even as her heart was breaking. It didn't come easy but she managed somehow. Putting a hand to Jess' cheek, Rory met his eyes, swallowed hard, and found her voice again.

"I love you, Jess Mariano, and as much as I'd love to be mad at you for not coming back with me, I do understand. I want to thank you for being honest with me, and for loving me the way I know you do, and... and for giving me the best summer of my entire life."

The tears overtook her then, stealing her voice, blurring her vision, as Jess pulled her as close as he could get her and kissed her hard.

They stood there a long while after, arms tight around each other, holding on for all they were worth, clinging to each other as if it would save them from drowning. It wouldn't, but they had to try.

Jimmy and Sasha had insisted they didn't need a honeymoon, and yet, when Jess offered to watch over both their babies - Lily in Sasha's case, Dante's for Jimmy - they didn't argue much. They seemed to know that he was making a request, practically begging for the assignment, even as he passed it off as a nice gesture for two people who helped him when he needed help the most.

If they heard the tears in his voice during that phone call, he didn't know and didn't want to ask. If they saw in his face how much agony he was in over the break-up, they never said a word about it, though the way Jimmy patted him on the shoulder, the way Sasha hugged him before they left, and the way Lily curled up by him on the couch to read that night proved that they all knew very well what happened, and moreover, how gut-wrenchingly destroyed it had left Jess.

It was his own fault, he was well-aware. There really was nothing to stop him from going back to Connecticut. Sure, he didn't have a plane ticket to fly with Rory, only the return to San Antonio, where he had abandoned the car. He could drive from there, much like the original plan. Three or four days cross-country to get back to his lady love.

"Like something out of a lame romance novel," he muttered to himself, hardly knowing the words had come out of his mouth until Lily looked up at him and asked what he said. "Uh, nothing much," he insisted. "What's the book?" he asked, nodding to the sizeable tome in her hand.

"Little Women," she told him, without really looking up.

"You got that from Jimmy's library?" Jess checked, frowning some, pretty sure that as well-read as his father was, he was unlikely to have something like that in his collection. "Lil?"

"Somebody bought it for me," she said, shifting awkwardly.

He opened his mouth to ask her who before realising why she seemed so reluctant to tell him. Rory, it had to be. She had talked a lot about how amazing Lily was, reading so far ahead of what was average for her age. Jess suspected she saw a little of herself in the shy, awkward, but intelligent kid that he supposed was his little sister now, in some weird way or another.

Of course, Rory wanted to encourage Lil in her bid to be the most well-read ten year old on the planet. Of course, she would be so kind as to buy her a gift like that. Of course, Lily wouldn't want to tell him, for fear of how much it would hurt Jess to even be thinking about Rory right now.

"You like the book?" he asked Lily, shaking himself out of his current train of thought before he managed to derail himself.

"So far, yeah." Lily nodded. "You've read it, right?"

"Sure. You have a favourite March sister yet?"

"I like them all, but probably Jo."

"Makes sense." Jess smiled, smoothing the kid's hair and letting his arm go around her as she curled up closer again, her nose deep in her book once more.

Jo was Rory's favourite too, for the writer angle, Jess supposed, as well as the sickle wit and all. Truthfully, Jess felt much the same about the March sisters. Meg was a little boring and too easily led by others. Beth was okay but died before she really got a chance to grow up. Amy was the kind of person Jess would hate in real life and he didn't like her at all in print either. No, Jo was the one, not just which one he would want to date or something if the little women were real and existed in the modern world, but the one he would be, if that was the question. Not that he was a writer himself or ever planned to be. For that, you had to have a story to tell. You had to live, you had to love, you had to see things and know things...

"Jess?"

He startled when Lily suddenly spoke up again and looked down at her worried expression.

"Are you gonna hurl?" she asked, frowning some.

"No, I'm okay," he promised, though he assumed he didn't look it at all. "I was just thinking, but I'm fine," he assured her once more, giving her a hug and encouraged her to carry on reading while he did the same.

Jess picked up the book from the table and opened it up, but he wasn't seeing the words on the page. His mind was a long way away, somewhere closer to where Rory was right now, which was normal these days, but there was more than that too. Everything they had done and said, seen and heard, been through this summer. It would make quite the novel itself, if he ever had it in him to write it down.

To Be Continued...