A/N: Thank you for the reviews you gave on the last chapter, you guys are really great!

There isn't much Jess/Rory interaction in this chapter either, just a bit at the beginning – but I promise we'll get there soon, there was just another storyline that needed to be told first as it is rather crucial for the main plot!

To answer Guest's question: "Glad to be of service" wasn't a deliberate reference, to be honest I'm not 100% sure what it is a reference to at all, but I would love to know…

About the divorce stuff (I'm guessing this is from the same Guest…) I will look into that, I read some stuff on Wikipedia and there it just said that the time between signing the papers and officially being divorced differed due to…argh…can't remember right now, but I'm guessing it had something to do with the workload that the divorce-finalizing people (I really should write my research stuff down so I don't have to look it up again and again every time I need to say anything about it…) had.

I don't think the six months waiting period will screw anything up for this story though if that would be the case in New York. A Huntzberger-wedding probably will take more than six months of planning, right?

Rory had settled back into the couch in the corner of the store. The paperback lay on the coffee table, she had given up her fruitless attempts at getting lost in the novel to make time fly faster. Instead, she sat and watched the people that walked around the store.

There were all kinds of people here.

Two young girls chattering at a table in the front, casting longing glances in Chris' way. She smiled. Wherever they went, longing glances had always been sent his way.

A family stood at the counter, trying to decide what to order. The father of the family looked stressed as the children bantered in front of the counter where the pastries stood on display. She watched Chris say something with a gentle smile on his lips and the father seemed to relax as he answered.

In one of the armchairs only a few feet away from the couch Rory was sitting on, a young girl had made herself comfortable with a book and a cup of tea. She seemed to be completely lost in the world of fiction as she sipped her tea and flipped the page without taking her eyes of the book.

A man was sitting at a table with a laptop in front of him, altering between furiously hitting the keys on the computer and leaning back to look at the screen with his lips pursed together in concentration. Maybe he was an aspiring writer. Or a journalist. Or a businessman that had wanted to get away from the rush of the office.

Rory almost jumped in her seat when the door behind which she knew Jess was sitting flung open and he stepped out into the store. He looked around the store and when his eyes fell on her he rolled them and then slowly made his way towards the front door.

Rory got up from her seat and caught up with him as he reached the door. She scoffed. "Are you leaving? Really?"

He didn't stop until he was standing outside on the street. "Gee, Rory, relax" He picked up a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and pulled one out. "I'm just taking a short break. I won't run"

Ashamed at her sudden assumption, she looked down at her feet. "Oh"

They stand in silence for a while and Rory searched her brain for something to say, something to ease the situation. She had never had a problem finding the words to talk to him before, the problem used to be getting him to talk.

"You've picked up smoking again?" She asked and cringed when she heard how judging her words had sounded. She had no right to tell him what to do or not to do anymore. She had given that right up. It was just the first thing that had sprung to her mind and she desperately wanted to break the silence.

"At times" He answered shortly with a shrug.

"Huh" She said, in lack of other things and the silence fell upon them again.

Blowing out a cloud of smoke Jess tilted his head and looked at her with a familiar smirk. "So you didn't tell your fiancé you were already married?"

Rory startled at the question. How did he know? "Why would you think that?" She answered, not admitting he was right in his assumption.

Jess scoffed. "Well if he knew, there wouldn't be such a rush to get me to sign the papers, right? You could have posted them, you know."

She bit her lip and shuffled her feet, looking anywhere but at him. "I haven't quite told him yet" She confessed. "But I will, as soon as you sign the papers" She quickly added.

She was surprised at the serious look on his face; she could have sworn that her answer would draw on another smirk on his face. "Do you love him?" He asked simply, curiosity the only thing present in his voice.

"He's my fiancé." She replied, as if that would be a sufficient answer.

"That wasn't the question." Jess countered and put his cigarette out against the ground.

She sighed. "Yes. I love him" She did, she really did, but it felt wrong somehow to say it in front of Jess.

He nodded. "Swing by the apartment later tonight and I'll have the papers signed for you. I was serious about looking them through though. Not that I'm thinking you're actually trying to rip me off, but my economic situation has changed since we got married, I own a business and I have loans and stuff. You didn't know that when you had the papers drawn up." He sounded almost excusing as if he really didn't mean to cause all this trouble.

She couldn't quite explain it, but she felt a slight rush of disappointment at how easy he agreed to sign the papers; that his reason for saying he needed to read through them wasn't a ruse to stall the signing of the papers.

She hesitated; she wanted to return his friendliness somehow. "Is it okay if I hang around the store while I wait?" Seconds later she regretted having asked the question, if he said no she would have nowhere to go while waiting. She didn't quite feel like shopping or wandering around.

He shrugged his shoulders again. "Do as you like"

She nodded and followed him back in.

"Hey" Matt sat down on the couch next to Rory and she put the newspaper she'd been reading away.

"Hey" She smiled tentatively.

His eyes flickered as he drew a breath and started talking. "I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions earlier…about you being back"

"It's ok" She nodded to emphasize her words. "I should have stopped you"

He looked down at his hands that were resting in his lap. "Probably didn't make things easier with getting Jess to sign those papers, huh?" He took his eyes off of his hands and looked at her.

She smiled and shook her head in a dismissive way. "Well…no, but don't worry about it"

"It just…" He sighed. "It felt so good to see you. I think I, subconsciously somehow, kept talking about how great it was that you were back only to prevent you from saying that you weren't…'Cause I knew"

"Matt…"

"No…" He shook his head. "It's okay. You've moved on"

She had. She had moved on. This: the coffee shop, Jess, Matt, Chris. It wasn't part of her life anymore but she would be lying if she said she hadn't missed it.

She loved Logan and she had moved on with her life. Leaving Jess when she did had been the right decision to make, she never doubted that.

But still… She hadn't just walked out on her husband. She had also left three of her best friends behind and she missed them. All three of them. She missed their friendly bickering. She missed movie nights with Matt. She missed reading and discussing books or authors with Jess and Chris.

Matt wasn't that interested in discussing the books he read. He read them and then that was that. Either he liked them or he didn't. Nothing to discuss, just move on to the next. Efficient and clinical – just like that.

Movies on the other hand – they could discuss that for hours after the credits rolled. Just like with books Matt's taste was wide and there was no red thread whatsoever between the movies he bashed and the movies he loved.

"How can you not love The Notebook?"Rory turned against him on the couch, her eyes wide and her hands flung out at her side.

He raised his eyebrows as he met her eyes. "A movie which's main goal is to make me cry? Yeah, wonder why"

Rory threw her hands up in frustration. "But you loved Love Story and that movie practically has the same goal"

"But Love Story's a classic!" He smirked. "Besides, that movie actually succeeds in making me cry like a baby each time"

Rory shook her head in amazement. "I can't believe you didn't cry"

"What's there to cry about? Noah and Allie got to spend the larger part of their lives together – they grew old together!"

"But she doesn't remember that!" Rory interjected. She didn't have anything against Love Story per se – it was Matt's aversion against The Notebook that she didn't understand.

"Well, Jenny and Oliver didn't get to create that much to remember – how do you think he feels about that?" Matt was starting to get agitated. "Don't you think Oliver would trade their story for Noah and Allie's in a heartbeat if he could?"

Rory let out a frustrated grunt. "You're impossible, you know that?"

He winked at her before he stretched his arms and got up from the couch. "Yep. That's why the ladies love me"

She smiled. "How's it going with…" She tried, but couldn't for the world remember the name of Matt's latest 'the one'.

"Cathy" Matt filled in and then shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think she's my Jenny…" He smiled. "…or Allie if you'd prefer"

Rory stood up from the couch as well. "You'll find her" She assured and gave him a friendly kiss on the cheek before heading towards the bedroom.

"Rory?" She could hear the hesitation in his voice and turned around.

"What?" She watched him look down at his feet and wring his hands in front of him.

He looked up at her with a worried look in his eyes. "You and Jess…you're gonna be okay, right?"

She felt a lump in her throat. "Yeah" She nodded several times. "I hope so"

He smiled. "I do too"

Freeing herself of the memory she turned to Matt. "You wanna go grab lunch somewhere and maybe catch up?"

He hesitated for a moment, but then shrugged his shoulders with a smile. "Sure" Matt had never been one to hold a grudge. He believed in second chances – and third, and fourth – something that had left him broken-hearted far more times than anyone deserved.

"So we decided to go along with it and give it a shot. Chris took some business classes and got a degree and then there was no turning back" Matt smiled as he finished his explanation on how they had turned "Mrs. Johnson's coffee" into "Truncheon books and coffee".

Rory smiled along with him, still not quite grasping the fact that they had actually done it.

"For the first few months we worked our asses off before we decided to hire first Sophie and then Sarah a few months later."

"It's amazing" Rory commented, feeling that in the last couple of hours she had severely overused the word 'amazing', but still not being able to come up with a better one.

"Yeah, it is" He nodded. "And Chris has been really amazing, who knew he had such a flair for crunching numbers, huh?"

"Yeah" Rory answered absent-mindedly, thinking about her encounter with Chris and how he had treated her like a stranger. "He seemed changed" She said, not really apprehending that she'd said the words out loud until Matt answered.

"Changed how?" He didn't seem to agree with her and she regretted having said anything.

"It's just…he seemed so…angry…with me" She looked down at the table as she spoke, but feeling the need to extend her statement she looked up at Matt and continued. "I mean, I can get why Jess is mad at me – he has every right to be. But Chris? We used to be so close and earlier today he pretended as if he didn't recognized me, but I know he did.

Matt sighed. "You really don't get it?"

"Well…" She answered, biting her lip. "I can see why he – and you as well – would be mad at me for how I ended things with Jess, but…" She sighed. "Not even Jess seemed to be that mad, you know? And if Jess has gotten over it, why can't he?"

Matt shook his head and looked at her. "Rory…" He said and fixated her eyes with his. "You know Jess wasn't the only one you left behind. We were your friends – Chris and I – and you left us too."

"I…" Rory started but was interrupted when Matt spoke up again, apparently determined to finish his explanation.

"You were my friend. I told you things Rory, things about my mother, things I never told anyone else." She felt her eyes tearing up at the realization of what her leaving had caused, not only for Jess but for her friends as well

Matt continued. "I mean, it was obvious you and Jess were going through a rough patch, fighting and shouting all the time, but I never thought…" His voice broke and she reached her hand out across the table to comfort him, but he pulled back and looked her straight in the eyes as he continued. "We weren't going through a rough patch, we weren't fighting and shouting all the time, but you left me too. I was your friend, we were your friends, Chris and I, but you left us too and you never even looked back."

"I'm sorry" She said and she really meant it. She had never thought about how it would affect Matt and Chris, she had assumed that they would side with Jess and see her as the bad guy.

"Yeah, whatever." He shrugged his shoulders. "We got over it and as soon as Jess signs those papers we can all go on like this day never happened"

"I don't want that" She took a breath before she continued. "I have missed you – a lot. But I thought, seeing as how I left things, you wouldn't want any contact with me. I mean, you're Jess' friends as well, and I…I didn't quite handle things smoothly. I never meant to cut you out of my life."

"But you did, right?"

"I'm sorry" She repeated and he shrugged in response, although not looking quite as bitter as before.

"So…" He said, trying to change the subject. "You graduated?"

She smiled. "Yeah. Never thought I'd see the day"

"Aw, come on…" There was a grin on his lips. "There was never a doubt in my mind that you'd go back and graduate eventually"

"Thanks"

There had been doubts in her mind, sometimes Yale and that world had seemed so far away and the road back had seemed so long and full of obstacles.

"One big coffee to go. Black" The young girl told her order and with a smile on her lips Rory went to get it.

"Here you go" She put the beverage on the counter and watched as the girl dug through her pockets for money.

"I'm sorry, I have it somewhere" She excused herself as she started digging in the other pocket.

"It's okay"

"It's just, final's coming up and I'm such a mess I should be glad I still know where I live, you know?" The girl found the money and placed a bill on the counter.

"Yeah, I know the feeling" Rory replied with a hollow feeling in her stomach as she slipped her the change.

"Yeah?" The girl smiled. "You go to N.Y.U?"

"No, I…" She suddenly felt very uncomfortable in her own skin. "I'm taking some time" She answered, not really liking the sound of it.

"Oh" The girl looked surprised as she picked her to-go-cup up. "Good luck with that" She said with a smile and waved as she walked out of the store.

Rory felt as if the walls were closing in on her and luckily enough the coffee shop was empty at the moment so she slumped down on a chair behind the counter.

Taking some time? She had been taking almost a year. How much time was she gonna take? She wasn't any closer to going back to Yale than she had been when she first came here.

And with what happened last night? She had been terrifyingly close to shutting the door on Yale completely and possibly forever. It was nothing but mere chance that kept that door still open.

She had to go back. She had to go back before it was too late. She wondered how Jess would take it? If he would agree to go with her?

She sighed and stood up from her seat with a smile plastered on her face as the bell above the door signaled the entrance of a new customer.

"So who's the guy?" Matt asked and nodded towards the ring on Rory's finger.

"Oh" She swept her fingers over the ring and a slight blush appeared on her face. "Logan. I met him at Yale" It felt weird talking about Logan with Matt, they didn't exist in the same world

"What's he saying about…" He waved his hands as to try and explain. "…all of this?"

Rory frowned, but decided it was best to come clean. "He doesn't know about it"

Matt's eyebrows flew up. "He doesn't?"

"It's just…" She bent her head back and stared at the roof for a few seconds before continuing. "I was going to tell him, but then there was this business-meeting in California and he had to leave, and I didn't want to tell him over the phone" Matt looked at her, a smile tugging at his lips and she quickly added: "But I will tell him, first thing Sunday morning when he gets back"

Matt still didn't say anything, but his smile grew wider.

"What?" She asked, a bit of annoyance showing in her voice at his smug smile.

"Stay." He said simply without taking his eyes off her.

She shook her head, thinking she must have misheard him. "What?"

"Stay" He insisted again. "Stay for the weekend."

"Matt…" She started. This was a bad idea on so many levels she didn't even know where to start.

He interrupted. "You said your fiancé was out of town, right?"

"Yeah…" She admitted, dragging out the word. "…but I don't think it's such a great idea"

"Come on Rory, for old time's sake" He pleaded and tilted his head to the side.

"Not fair!" She exclaimed. "You're using the take-pity-on-me face"

"Is it working?" He smiled and she couldn't resist smiling back at him.

"No…I…" She tried yet again to explain, but was – yet again – interrupted by Matt.

"If Jess is what you're worrying about I could look him in his room and hide the key"

"I don't worry about Jess" She answered quickly, wanting to get that suspicion off his mind. A little too quick probably, judging by the look on Matt's face.

"Okay then…" He smiled and it was a victorious smile as if he had already won her over. "…there's nothing standing in the way of a nostalgia weekend, catching up on our friendship"

"I don't know…" She started but trailed off. She had missed Matt and if only she stayed out of both Jess' and Chris' ways there was no harm in her catching up with an old friend, was there?

"You said he's back Sunday, right?" He asked for confirmation and she nodded. "Then we could have a classic movie night tonight and I could introduce you to all the new take-out places in the neighborhood. There's actually this one place, Mix it up – yeah that's the actual name of the place – that specializes in mixing food from different parts of the world into one meal. Last week they had Indian/Mexican week"

"Bold" Rory laughed.

"You have no idea, I think this week is Asian/American week, not as bold as Indian/Mexican week, but nonetheless interesting. Then tomorrow you could come and watch me work the lunch shift and then we could go out somewhere for an early dinner and if you want to you could be back in New Haven tomorrow night – plenty of time for you to sleep your beauty sleep and greet the fiancé when he gets home"

Matt looked at her across the table, eagerly leaning forward as he waited for her answer.

Rory sighed and threw her head back. "What movies were you thinking?" She asked as she dropped her back down again and met his eyes.