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Rory wakes to stale air. There's a musty, dry scent in the apartment and she goes over to the window, wrenches it open and wrinkles her nose. It seems the smell is seeping in from outside.
"Yuck!"
"What?" Jess asks blearily as Rory struggles to shut the window again. "What's wrong?"
"That gross smell...I opened the window and that just made it worse."
"Courtesy of New York City."
Rory goes back to bed, sitting down with a thump. Before she moved here, New York always seemed so exciting, and if there ever was a a bad taste to the air it didn't matter. It never mattered because Rory would be going home and the air was clean. It turns out the downsides of the city are less exciting when you can't leave them. Rory spools through the day in her mind; a shift at the cafe, showering and then doing whatever little it is they do until bed. And it'll be the same the next day. And the day after that, and the day after that...Summer has blurred into monotony. How can such an exciting adventure start feeling lethargic? Rory rolls onto her back. Her tanktop slips up as she does so but Rory lets it be, the sticky air tickling the skin exposed, still slow from sleep.
"Hey," Jess says, giving her a kiss. Rory kisses him back absently, still thinking, and Jess leans onto his elbow. "What?"
Rory shrugs and he looks at her more closely, repeating, "What's up?"
"I don't know where the time's gone," Rory says and winces slightly. "Man that sounds cheesy out loud."
"It's still summer."
"Yeah, but not for much longer."
Jess frowns and, leaning up herself, Rory takes hold of his hand.
"What'll we do after August?"
"We'll figure something out."
"Okay, but we need an actual plan here," Rory argues. "This can't be longterm - living here like this, I mean."
"So are you going to go back to school?" Jess asks seriously and Rory bites her lip. "That's lined up for you."
"I'm tired of things being lined up," Rory says restlessly. "I was, at least...I don't know."
"Got any suggestions?"
Rory is quiet. Jess has laced his fingers between hers and she squeezes them for a moment before saying, "Why don't we take a roadtrip?"
"Rory..."
"Why not?" Rory demands. "It's something fun and exciting and I want to see things with you, do things with you. It's like you said before; we'll work, we'll make money...it'll be an adventure."
"We can't just take a roadtrip. For one thing, I don't think my car can even make it across the state."
"So we can take mine."
"I don't think it's built for longterm travel."
"Why are you so against it?" Rory demands, dropping his hand. "I thought you were into spontaneity!"
"I am!"
"And what, I can't be?"
"That's not it."
"Then what?"
"I just don't think it would work," Jess says slowly. "It's one thing if you have money and time and are okay with what comes next, but...Rory, it's getting hard just living like this. And we don't have the money, we don't have a lot of time and I just..."
His voice fades as Rory's eyes fill with tears.
"And I couldn't handle it?"
"It's not that. I just...Rory, I've been there and it's not always an adventure. Sometimes you want to call quits on the whole damn thing and when you can't...it's not always easy."
"I know it's not easy!" Rory exclaims in a wobbly voice. "This isn't easy! But I went with you, I trusted you and now you're acting like I don't have a clue!"
"You are one of the only people in the world I'd want to go away with!"
"So why won't you go away with me?"
They stare at each other, Rory expectant and Jess wordless, until finally Rory gets up, wiping an angry hand across her eyes.
"Just forget it," she says tightly. "I'm too sheltered, right?"
"Rory -"
"No. I have to go to work anyway."
The shift is long and hot. Rory is absentminded, making the kind of mistakes from months ago when she was new and clueless and Maya is frustrated, saying as much to Rory.
"You're competent now. What's going on - you miss a period or something?"
"No," Rory says, shocked. "I'm sorry - I don't know what's going on."
"Well, you'd better figure it out because I don't have the patience for you to fuck up all day."
Rory manages to finish her shift, a little shaken, and walks back in a kind of stupor. Maya's words are echoing in her mind. Rory hasn't missed her period, it arrived steadily on time last week, but what would she do, she thinks? What would happen if she did? The thought is too unbearable to entertain. As she walks back her cellphone rings and Rory jumps. It's Paris.
"Hey, Gilmore," Paris says, her voice clear across the miles. "I just wanted to know if you'd got anywhere with housing. We need to figure out this year's setup."
"Paris -"
"Because there's on a few more weeks before we got started and I don't want to get shoved in some shack, though I guess you're used to that now. Rory? Hello?"
Rory takes a deep breath before saying, "I'm not totally figured out on this year yet."
"What exactly do you mean?" Paris asks suspiciously and Rory says nervously, "I thought I might, um, take some time off."
"You thought you might, um, take some time off?" Paris exclaims, tone ringing with sarcasm. "No way! There's no way you could be that stupid."
"Not forever -"
"It will be, or as good as. This isn't over Rory, even if I have to drive you back here myself. I'm not letting you just be a screwbuddy for the rest of your life."
"What a delightful way to put it."
"Point stands."
Rory stops, unsure what to say, and finally Paris says, "Just let me know when I need to drag you back here because I'm not letting you leave with me a hovel for the entire semester."
"Look -"
"I've got to go," Paris says angrily. "And I'll be talking to Lorelai about this."
"Paris! Don't involve my mother!"
"Don't be an idiot then. Goodbye."
There's an audible click as Paris hangs up and Rory is left staring at her phone, until the roar of traffic brings her back into motion.
When Rory gets back, all she can think about is getting inside a cool shower. She doesn't even care about the water temperature. Jess is out, getting a few things from the store, according to the note on the table, and Rory is relieved to be briefly alone. Stripping, she lets out a loud sigh once under the water and sluices the day away. Once Rory has pulled on a skirt and shirt she hears the door open and looks up to see Jess stagger in with a large bag.
"Hey," he says, nodding over it. "There was a deal on bread."
"Cool."
Rory gets up to help and, once they'd started drinking the coffee she's made, Jess looks over at her.
"Work bad?"
"Huh?" Rory asks, blinking, and Jess says, "You look stressed. Was it before?"
"Jess," Rory says slowly, "What would we do if I got pregnant?"
Coffee sloshes over the mug as Jess practically drops it, coughing. "What? Rory, are you saying - you said you got your period! Are you -?"
"No," Rory says quickly. "I'm not."
"Don't scare me like that!"
"Sorry - I didn't mean to freak you out. I guess I'm just thinking, what if it happened?"
Jess scratches the back of his head, looking uncomfortable.
"Why would it happen?" he asks eventually. "We're careful."
"I know - but sometimes it happens. It's not unheard of."
There's an uncomfortable pause, and Rory reconsiders making a joke about the silence being pregnant as Jess sighs, looking at her.
"I'd be freaking terrified," he says eventually. "But I'd do whatever you'd want to do."
"What if I wanted to have it?"
"Would you?"
"No! I don't know! I'm just thinking...how could we even handle that?"
"I don't know," Jess says, looking her in the eye. "But I know that whatever we decided, it'd be okay."
"I don't know if it would be."
"Rory - what do you want me to say? I'm not going to lie, I think I actually did have a bad dream where you told me that, but you're not, right?"
"I'm not," Rory says and Jess lets out a long breath. "I didn't mean to scare you - I guess I'm just thinking about things. But I'm not, I swear."
Jess nods and Rory sits closer to him. She's unsure about why she even pushed the subject - it's not something she wants to imagine. Jess said all the right things, and Rory knows he means them, but she still feels a kind of disquiet.
"I know you'd be there," she says, looking up at him. "I never thought you wouldn't be."
Jess nods, gives her a kiss but the silence left is uneasy. That night Rory wakes up and, desperately thirsty, gets up to slake her thirst. She wonders how her mother felt, when she knew, how Christopher wanted to marry her but decided leaving was wiser. She took Rory away from a rich world to a home closer to this one. The thought of raising a baby in this apartment is unbearable, impossible. It doesn't matter, Rory says firmly to herself, she's not going to, but the ghost of the nightmare keeps her awake all night.