A/N: Thanks for all the reviews on the previous 'episode' - writing Doula is almost too much sometimes! lol Now, it seems to me that the readers' second favourite pairing in this fic series (after Rory/Jess, obviously) is the same as my second favourite pairing. If I'm wrong, y'all can tell me after you read this ;)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see 1.)

9. Fools for Love - 17th March 2025

The moment the door opened, he smiled, hoping against hope he might get the same reaction back, even though he had no right to expect she would be pleased to see him.

"Hi."

"Oh, hi. What are you doing here?"

"I, uh... I wanted to talk to you. Can I come in?"

Tori looked uncertain about that, looking over her shoulder as if to check for anybody else who might object. Then she turned back to him and slowly nodded.

"Yeah, I guess so."

Dax sighed with relief as he crossed the threshold into the Mariano home. It had taken a few months for him to get here, to a place where he felt like he knew what he needed to say and that it might actually make sense to the person he was saying it to.

Strange really, because he had been pretty sure after barely a few hours of telling Tori they should take a break that it was probably the wrong decision, and just a couple of days after that, to begin to be sure about it.

The problems then were two-fold. One, he really didn't want to have to admit he was wrong, and two, he didn't think she would be prepared to listen even if he tried. Now, things were different.

"You know, you're lucky my dad and Jack aren't here," Tori said as they sat down at either end of the couch. "Actually, you're pretty lucky that none of my family are here. You're not exactly their favourite person right now."

"I believe that." Dax nodded, sure it was true. "But, uh, I actually made sure nobody else was here before I came over."

Tori actually almost laughed when he said that, though he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. She certainly didn't look at all comfortable yet, arms hugging herself and face mostly turned away from him. Not that he could blame her. Most of this was definitely his own fault.

Dax could hardly believe what he had traded for Tori in the breakup - a little extra spare time to study, which he barely needed, and the chance to go out partying with his college buddies, hitting on girls that he didn't even care about.

It seemed right to try and embrace the social stuff in college, his dad even told him he probably should. After all, most people didn't marry their high school sweetheart and live happily ever after, it just didn't happen. Sometimes it was good to get some different experiences in life, so he said. All Dax knew was that he missed Tori and he had been a prize idiot to ever think that he wanted to be without her.

"So," she said after a while. "I'm guessing you came here for a reason?"

"I did," Dax agreed. "I came to tell you that... well, I was an idiot, Tori. I don't even know what happened... or maybe I do, but all the reasons I thought mattered so much, all the stuff I said about us maybe being better off apart, it was crazy," he admitted, realising now that for all the practising he had done for this speech he had to give, now he was here, it was better just to speak from the heart. "Tori, you have to know that the last two months, they have been the absolute worst for me."

"Yeah, because they've been just peachy for me," she countered, looking angry yet. "I didn't ask you to break up with me, Dax. You did that on your own."

"I know that, and that's why I'm telling you, I'm an idiot. Come on, Tori, you know I'm not the best with words, although... well, I have this for you," he said then, pulling the flashdrive from his pocket and holding it out to her. "It's a song," he explained as she stared at the drive and then finally took it out of his hand. "Like I said, I'm bad at words, you know that better than anyone, so the lyrics probably suck, but I mean all of them. Every badly worded apology and promise."

He almost laughed when he said it because he felt so dumb and was sure everything he was saying sounded foolish. It didn't matter anymore. All Dax wanted was for Tori to be understanding and forgiving, to tell him she still loved him even though he had been such a complete jerk to her. He probably didn't deserve that, but it was all he wanted.

Tori sighed and shook her head, finally meeting his eyes with tears evident in her own.

"I don't need a song, Dax," she told him. "I wasn't looking for that much effort, I just... I wanted to know you were still with me, you know? It was hard enough when you went away to college, but I was so proud of my boyfriend who got into Northeastern and was doing what he wanted to do with his life. It's not like I didn't know it would be hard, doing long distance and making it work, but I tried. I did my part."

"You did," he agreed easily. "You did try so hard and I know it would've been so easy for you to just give up on me and find some other guy. I mean, look at you, you're beautiful, and you're so smart and funny and great. Plus you're a senior now, I just know all the guys must be thinking about asking you to prom and everything."

"Are you kidding?" Tori asked, wide-eyed with surprise at that last remark. "If you think I am going to go to prom with any of those stupid boys at Stars Hollow High, then you really are an idiot," she told him definitely.

Dax sighed with relief at hearing that. Though it wasn't proof positive that she still planned to have him take her - something they had been planning ever since she accompanied him to his prom two years before - it was something to know she hadn't started looking elsewhere. He never would have accused her of that, of course, but the thought had crossed his mind. After all, she had every right after the way he treated her.

"So, basically," said Dax then, "I'm here to apologise, profusely, to explain myself, if you even wanna hear that, and to ask you if maybe we could put the past two months behind us and just be us again?"

Tori looked at him and then away again, seemingly thinking pretty hard about what he was asking of her. He supposed she deserved to have a little time to consider. After all, Dax knew he was coming here, he was prepared, while she was completely surprised, and it showed.

"Okay," she said after a while, sparing him a glance. "Explain," she said like a command, sitting back against the cushions facing him, her gaze steely at best.

"Explain?" he echoed, knowing what she meant, not least because he just offered to give an explanation and everything, but he hadn't quite expected her to ask for it just like that. "Okay, so... it's not actually all that easy to explain. Like I said, 'I was an idiot' covers most of it," he admitted. "I guess I was just stressing out over school, you know, classes and studying and everything, it was getting on top of me last semester, and then the guys in the frat were... well, the truth is, they were making fun of me a lot for having a girlfriend in high school, especially when they found out how long we'd been together, and I know it was really, really uncool of me, but I started to listen and wonder if they had a point about it being... kinda weird and stupid, which I know it totally wasn't, or isn't," he said really fast before Tori could jump in and be angry with him for the mere suggestion their relationship wasn't all good back then. "See, I said I would explain and then when you ask me to, I screw it up," he said with a sigh.

"You're not screwing it up," Tori told him softly, swiping a stray tear from under her left eye. "Actually, as much as I wasn't going to admit this, I get it, because I had people whispering in my ear too," she explained, surprising Dax to no end. "Not my family, not really, but some of the girls in school. They tried to tell me I shouldn't trust you, you know, when you were away in college. Slutty girls and keg parties and dorm rooms and everything, makes it pretty easy for a guy to..." she trailed off, making some vague gesture with her hand.

"You thought I would cheat on you?"

Dax wasn't sure how he felt about that. He wanted to be mad at her for ever considering it, but was it so much worse than him starting to believe their relationship was pointless and stupid? Maybe they were both as bad as each other for allowing themselves to be influenced by others.

"I didn't seriously think that you would actually do anything like that," Tori told him, sniffing hard. "It's just... they put the idea in my head, and at first, I told them they were crazy and they didn't really know you, so how would they even know if you were the type to cheat? Of course, they said all guys cheat, which isn't even true, because I know for a fact that my dad and my grandpa and my uncles, well, none of them would ever do that, but anyway," she continued with a sigh. "I didn't believe it, I wouldn't let myself, until suddenly you seemed to... It was like you would make any excuse not to see me. We talked about me coming to visit and it never happened. You'd say you were coming home and we'd spend all this time together and then..."

"And then, it never happened," he said for her, echoing her earlier words. "Yeah, I guess I see why you might think what you thought."

"But I can also see why you might start believing it was dumb to date a high school girl." Tori shrugged. "I bet the girls in college don't get crazy jealous and possessive over nothing," she said, rolling her eyes.

Dax took a chance and shifted closer to her on the couch. "Hey, maybe I like crazy jealous and possessive," he told her with a smirk.

When Tori turned to look and saw the expression on his face, she actually laughed.

"You're right, you are an idiot," she told him straight, though she was smiling still and that seemed like an awfully good sign to Dax. "But since we talked it out, and neither one of us was exactly taking the best advice or being our best selves, maybe we should just put the whole mess behind us. I mean, we could, right?"

"I think so." Dax nodded, meeting her eyes. "You have no idea how much I've missed you, Tori."

"How much?" she asked, her words barely a whisper between them, they were just that close.

When Dax closed the gap and finally kissed her, Tori didn't protest, in fact she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back like her life depended on it.

"Okay," he gasped as they parted several minutes later. "That feels a lot like forgiveness."

"It is," she assured him, smiling as she used her thumb to wipe pink gloss off his bottom lip. "Just please, next time, can we both make a promise to talk about this stuff instead of just worrying about it to the point of fighting and breaking up? Because these past two months, they have really, really sucked."

"You're not kidding" said Dax, "and yes, it's a deal. From now on we talk, except... well, you didn't have anything you needed to talk about right now, right?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"No," Tori confessed, clearly knowing exactly what he meant, "but that doesn't mean what you think it means," she told him definitely. "I have something way more important to do than make out with you, mister," she said, pulling out of his grasp before he could hardly react.

"Seriously?" he checked, eyes widening even further as she got up, grabbed her laptop from the coffee table and threw herself into the nearby armchair.

He watched her pull the flashdrive he had given her from her pocket and push it into the USB port.

"You wrote a song for me and I want to hear it," Tori told him with a wide smile. "I'll bet it's awesome."

"You're saying that because you know the lyrics are gonna suck." Dax literally facepalmed. "You know I can only write decent songs with you."

"I know," Tori continued to grin. "That's half the fun."

Dax kept his face hidden as the song started and stayed that way until it was almost over. Then he dared to peek over the top of his fingers to see Tori's reaction. He wasn't expecting the tears on her cheeks and was immediately concerned then that she was truly upset again. When finally the song concluded, he opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but never got the chance.

In a second, the laptop was abandoned back on the table and Tori was practically on top of him, kissing him breathless. Not that Dax was in any way wanting to argue with her, but he could taste the salt on her lips and needed to know what that was about.

"Hey, so, the song...?" he checked, pushing her gently away for a moment and meeting her gaze.

"You write better lyrics when you write from the heart," she told him, swallowing hard. "If I didn't know before how sorry you were or how much you love me, I guess I do now."

"I do love you, Tori," he promised her, his hand at her cheek. "More than anyone or anything."

"Yeah, I get that," she agreed. "And I love you too," she swore, falling back into his embrace.

The two of them were soon lost in a feeling they had gone too long without, but never again. Neither of them were ever going to be so foolish a second time.