Rory walked in to a silent room – a scarce sight in the Gilmore residence. She let her bag slip from her fingers, signalling her arrival, and winced at the tension that seemed to seep from everyone present. "Not a good time?" She asked.

Lorelai pitched forward, giving her daughter a slight hug and quickly uttering an explanation in her ear. "Jess and his mother had a fight – I'll explain later. But Luke is about to explode so you might want to make yourself vanish for a little bit."

Rory nodded at the explanation, handing Lorelai her bag for the weekend and turning back around and out of the house with a small wave to Luke as he looked on apologetically. As soon as the door shut behind her, Luke turned on Liz.

"What did Jess mean? Why did you send him here Liz?"

Liz crumbled then. She collapsed onto the sofa, her head buried in her hands as she attempted to avoid everyone's eyes.

"T.J. - why don't you come and help me in the kitchen for a bit?" Lorelai started walking slowly backwards and away from the scene.

"Why would you need help in the kit-"

"T.J. That was a subtle way of suggesting we give them some privacy. Come to the kitchen."

The man followed, and Liz rubbed her hands over her face multiple times before she finally pulled them away and looked her brother in the eye.

"He wasn't in trouble." She said finally.

Luke's eyes narrowed at his sister, "Why did you tell me he was? Jesus Liz! I thought he was some miscreant – his attitude didn't help – but I thought he was causing some criminal damage."

"No!" She defended, "Jess wouldn't do something like that. He pulls pranks – sure, but what boy doesn't. They're never as bad as some of the things you used to pull on Dad."

"Liz-"

"He was working a lot – I needed some help paying rent each month. And Danny – that was my boyfriend at the time, we broke up long before me and T.J. started seeing each other but -" She cut off her ramblings as she noticed her brother's glare, "That's not the point. Danny was kind of living with us, he didn't really like Jess' attitude and he wasn't putting anything towards the bills and rent so Jess had to pick up a few extra shifts to help out."

"One of Jess' friends was in some trouble – they were struggling to make enough to eat I think because his parents have gotten hooked on the hard stuff and -" She cut herself off again following another glare from Luke, "Anyway. Jess started giving him some of his earnings to help out, and because of that I went arrears on the rent."

"You kicked him out because he couldn't help pay the rent which is supposed to be your responsibility?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Then what does this have to do with anything?"

"When Danny found out that Jess didn't pay his share, they both kind of blew up with each other."

"You kicked him out because of one of your five minute boyfriends?" Luke was obviously outraged. His words spat out between barred teeth.

"I -" She stuttered, "I didn't want him to have to deal with any of it any more Luke. I didn't want him having to bail friends out because they'd gotten into trouble. I didn't want him coming home and fighting with me, or Danny, or whoever. I didn't want him to have to help me out any more – I'm suppose to be the one looking after him."

"Why didn't you just tell me this Liz? Why did you tell me he was in trouble?"

"Because telling you that I couldn't afford to feed him is way worse."

Luke shook his head. "Liz, if you're ever in trouble like that, please just tell me."

"You've bailed us out enough."

Luke turned away from his sister, he spotted Lorelai in the kitchen, peering around the corner. At one point in time he would have thought she was eavesdropping, but he knew now she was just making sure that he was handing it all. He made eye contact with her and slightly shook his head to show her that: no, no he was not okay.

"Do you have somewhere to go tonight?"

"We can book into the inn."

"Good." Luke growled, "I don't think Jess will want to be around you for a while."

"Luke, I didn't mean to-"

"He's got his first session tomorrow with the therapist." He interrupted. "I'm going to take him –" he spoke louder of Liz' protests, "I'm going to take him and you will stay away from the diner, and from Jess, until he says so – do you understand?"

He turned back to his sister as she nodded slowly, her head cast down and looking very much like a scolded child. "Why did you bring us back here if you're not even going to let me see him?"

"Because he's going to need you eventually," he started, "and you needed to see him like this."

Liz wanted to leave as soon as she gained some composure. She thanked Lorelai for housing Jess while necessary, apologised for the argument that she was forced to witness and then her and T.J left to her inn after Lorelai called ahead to give some warning.

Luke drove them to the inn, and Lorelai was left with a chillingly empty house – still tense from the Danes domestic and their shouts echoing through her mind.

Jess didn't come to Stars Hollow as a rebellious miscreant.

He'd come to Stars Hollow as a troubled teenager.

Lorelai had some serious thinking to do.

Jess found himself walking towards the river – pulling a book out of his back pocket and tapping his breast pocket hidden in his jacket for the packet of cigarettes that he'd been neglecting. His lighter was jumping around in his front pocket, a constant, reassuring weight. He knew that Luke would be disappointed that he hadn't quit completely, but he was feeling jittery – shaky – and he needed the excuse to breathe slowly and deeply for a little while.

He collapsed down onto the damp wood, looking out along the river, the lights of the street barely reaching the surface of the water, making it seem dark and bottomless in the evening hues. He brought the packet from his pocket and tapped on the surface a few times before he committed to pulled out the cigarette and lighter. He puffed out a few times as he lit it, allowing the smoke to puff around him and obscure his sight for a few seconds before it evaporated into the night.

Jess caught himself staring at the water more often than his book – his mind blank and his eyes vacant. He brought the cigarette from his hand to his lips, inhaling the smoke and embracing the feel of the nicotine that seemed to rush through his veins. He was so frustrated with himself as of late. He felt like he was barely existing and he desperately wanted to stop feeling like that.

He couldn't even place when he had started feeling so helpless. He felt like if he could figure out that – he could figure out how to fix it. Yet, once again, his thoughts turned dark as he began to believe that it might never happen. He might always feel that way. The light at the end of the tunnel was a small as the blistering filter paper of his cigarette, burning away amongst the ash.

He surprised himself as his eyes began to burn and the familiar dull ache in his head. He was crying.

"Huh," he said to himself, pulling the cigarette for one last drag, "At least that's feeling something."

"Jess?"

He should have guessed she would appear. Jess flicked the stub into the water and turned slowly to the girl, not bothering to hide the signs of his distress – knowing that it was far too late to try.

"Rory." He nodded, greeting her as she walked cautiously towards him and fell into the spot next to him.

"Are you okay?"

"Ah," He sighed out, "Just peachy."

She noticed his tears. And he noticed that she noticed – but he didn't react, he just continued to sit and stare.

"How's Yale?" he asked eventually.

"It's still there."

"Rory –" Jess said gruffly, "Please. Please just tell me about your life or something"

She didn't say anything, looking at his reflection in the water. She was grimacing as she readjusted in her spot and tried to relieve some of the awkwardness that had settled. "I went to Europe over the Summer with my Grandmother."

"My condolences."

She snorted and quickly covered her face and glanced wide-eyes towards Jess who had seemed to startle at the unexpected noise. She saw the corner of his mouth quirk up and something in her seemed to settle and relax at the sight.

"What happened to your debutante training, Miss Gilmore?"

"I gave it up along with the fan dance."

Jess grinned slightly at her comment, before returning his eyes back to the lake, and continuing to tap on his book as if she hadn't interrupted him.

"It was a bit different from the backpacking with my mum,"

"Less dumpster diving, more fine dining?" he pulled out another cigarette.

"Something like that."

"I bet Lorelai was devastated. The umbilical cord finally cut."

She hummed, and he glanced up at her uncertainty, "I don't know," She uttered. She shook her short hair so it covered her face and Jess watched her, unable to stop the disbelief appearing on his face, one eyebrow raised and an unlit cigarette dangling limp in his mouth.

She noticed his look and grumbled to herself, "Things have changed since you left, Jess."

"Well, I could've told you that."

She tried to avoid his eye, waiting for the explanation, but he was relentless, "I'd rather not talk about it." She said eventually, looking out at the water, watching at his feet kicked back and forth as they dangled.

They were quiet for some time then. The sound of Jess' inhalation and exhalation of the cigarette until it was burning too close to his fingers, and forcing him to stub it out on the bridge. The slowly passing water, the creak of the wood underneath them, and the rustle of the branches hitting each other in the slight wind.

They were quiet until Rory couldn't take her thoughts any longer. "Why did you do it Jess?"

"Why did I do what?"

"You know what. Why?"

He breathed out jaggedly, and repeated her own words back to her, "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Please. Please Jess. Because I'm sat here feeling so guilty that I didn't try and get through to you sooner and that I didn't notice that you were feeling like that and-"

"Wait. What?"

"What?"

"You think this is because of you?"

"I-"

"You really think that I tried to off myself because you rejected me or something?"

She didn't say anything, but her silence was clear enough.

"Jesus, Rory." He shook his head, angry, his voice shaking and his hands fisting. He pushed himself up from the bridge and walked around the girl towards the escape, but not before he turned back to her once more and looked into her watering eyes and quivering lip, "Just because this town revolves around you, Princess, doesn't mean the world does."

Jess walked away from her, unable to prevent his hands from fisting, nor his head from shaking back and forth in utter disbelief of Rory's one-track, semi-egotistical view of herself and the world.

Had she always been been that entitled? Or had the change that everyone kept hinting at made her into that person?

As he delved deeper into his own questioning, he felt himself casting a shadow over their dramatic and intense relationship – was he the sole cause for its failure like he originally thought?

He didn't pass anyone on his way through the town. He saw lights on in the houses – Andrew's silhouette in the window of the bookshop looking through the day-end cash-book. He briefly debated over going to the shop to help out but ultimately wanted to be alone – and instead head towards the diner, bypassing the front to avoid Caesar and any stragglers, and instead taking the back entrance and bolting up the stairs two at a time.

He cast through the door of the apartment with a bang of the door and let the shiver of the cold that cling to him from outside seep it's way down his back. He took a step forward, looking around the room, and stopped as abruptly as if he'd walked into a wall.

Jess forgot about the blood. Luke had managed to clean up most of the stains, there wasn't really any visible sign that Jess had come moments from nothing in that apartment. Not visible evidence of the blood. But he could smell the bleach used to clean it. He could smell the faintly metallic evidence of the puddles that were left behind.

He took a moment to close his eyes, his hand pushing into his back pocket where he could feel the pages of the small book there – effectively succeeding in grounding him in the reality as he thumbed the pages of fiction. He breathed. Just focused on that feeling. The slow inhalation, breathing deeply, listening to his own breath, cringing away from the metallic smell that seemed to hit the back of his throat – but he didn't shy away from it. He held his ground and slowly opened his eyes – staring down the bathroom and eventually stepping towards it.

He stayed in the entrance of the room for some time. He expected the chaos to still be in place – he pictured everything still knocked over, mirror smashed, curtain rail down, blood soaked floor. But obviously Luke had cleaned up. He'd fixed everything. Got rid of all evidence of it ever happening.

And Jess felt strangely uncomfortable that there wasn't any sign of it there.

Like he felt like just because it had made a scar on him, it should have made a scar on the room.

Jess stumbled away from the room haunting him and pulled out the book from his pocket, flicking it open and throwing himself on his bed, facing away from the bathroom – ready to lose himself into a different world for the rest of the evening.

He had his first appointment the next day with a person he was supposed to lay down his deepest and darkest thoughts to.

He needed the last few moments of escapism before the shrink inevitably told him it was 'unhealthy'.

Jess was woken up the next morning by a light shake of his shoulder and the whispered disturbance of his uncle.

"Wake up, Jess."

He blinked slowly. His lid gluing together in their fatigue. His hand was dangling over the side of the bed, his book abandoned under it, and his fingers tingling as the blood pooled in their tips.

He groaned, noting the lack of light in the room suggesting it's early hour and the distinct silence from downstairs confirming this.

Luke answered Jess' groan like the boy had been impudent.

"Yeah, yeah. You're not getting up before the sun. You're a growing boy. Did I know that teenagers need statistically more sleep?" Luke put on a voice and chuffed out a laugh at his own impression, "You've tried it all before – now get up."

Jess answered the mans' rant with another groan and rolled onto his back so that he could slowly pull himself up into consciousness.

"Who decided this was a good idea?" He groaned, his voice thick and rough against his throat, and his hair flopping into his face and into his squinting eyes.

"Therapy?" Luke asked from the kitchen, "I'd say the medical professionals."

"No," Jess elongated the word, making it sound ridiculous, "Therapy this early in the morning."

"Well," Luke cleared his throat, "So long as you're not complaining about the therapy then I'd say that's a step in the right direction."

"I've been awake less than five minutes Luke – There's still time."

Luke didn't grace that with a response. Instead, he placed a bowl of cereal and an apple on the dining table and herded Jess towards the food, fussing around him until the boy sat down and took a bite. He watched him eat – making sure he swallowed the food and being very evident in his concern.

"Luke," Jess said, his mouth full of food and negating any manners that he might have attempted to at a time less ridiculous. "I actually do know how to eat – taught myself and everything."

"Alright smart ass. Just hurry up or we'll be late."

They were in the truck less than 10minutes later. The sun had started to rise over the horizon, the window was caked with frost that had Luke grumbling as he scraped it off, and the heat of their breaths billowed around them in the freezing temperature of the icy interior.

The heaters were blasting, the only noise in the tense silence between the men as Luke drove them away from Stars Hollow and towards Hartford. Neither of them wanted to mention Liz, nor their conversations with the woman. Neither of them wanted to ask whether or not it was a good idea to tell her what was going on. And neither of them wanted to admit that it was kind of nice to have her back – even if the first day did end in disaster.

So instead, Luke opted for the next thing that had been playing on his mind.

"You're going to try aren't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you're actually going to listen to this person and try what they suggest – no matter how fruity."

Jess sighed, moving his eyes from the passing scenery to his nervous uncle who kept having to readjust his grip on the steering wheel and leaving sweaty marks on the leather.

"Yes Luke." Jess said, "I am. Even if what I think they're saying is bullshit – I'm going to try."