Authors Note: Jesus Christ! Here comes the next chapter, dearest ones! Please keep reviewing, first of all it makes me write, and secondly it lets me know if you guys are liking this story at all or if I should just quit trying with it! Thanks and I love you all!

Rory woke up in a bed that was once hers surrounded by walls that she had long before decided simply locked her in, although she was free to go. She had gone, but now she was back. But the home wasn't the same as it always had been, now it seemed to lurk with a certain sadness, that of a woman with cancer, and that of a girl who no longer knew what to do. She realized she didn't have any clothes, but didn't want to ask Lorelei to take her, although she could have, she was certainly not an invalid, but she dialed Jess.

"Jess? This is Rory"

"Hey, glad to be home."

"Well, I think so. I'm going to stay at least the weekend, but I was wondering if you could be a darling and drop me off in Hartford so I could get some clothes?"

"Well, I think Luke wants me to work,"

"Jess," she said, getting all pouty, "please?"

She still knew how to get a guy to do anything, a talent that didn't die with the simple sight of Stars Hollow. Jess agreed, and arrived at her house, and she was in the day before's outfit, the one Jess pretended he didn't like.

The ride wasn't as quiet as it was the night before, seeing Lorelei had reassured her that she wasn't dead, or even really dying, but simply sick. She was not in the mood to be bad Rory quite yet however though, and she calmly said, "So how have you been?"

"Well, as good as can be expected in the town of hell."

"I escaped," she said, not regretfully or proudly, but just as though she was stating a simple fact.

"I noticed," he said, and then paused as though he was going to say something but decided not to.

"What?" she asked, prompting him to tell her what he had to say.

"Rory, why did you change? Everybody loved you the way you were."

"It wasn't enough for you obviously. Trashy girls have more fun, good girls get their hearts broken."

"We both know that wasn't all of it, that you didn't change just because of me. Nobody does, you've never let guys change your life that much."

"It was just the combination of everything. I got sick of being the Barbie doll of the town, the portrayal of all their expectations. I want to do what I want."

"Don't you think your playing to people's expectations now? They expect you to be the way you've been acting, and that's why you can't change. You can't run away from everything Rory."

"I like my school."

"It's not your school, but your whole life. You can't change on the flip of a coin every second. You have to figure out who you are and then be that person, wherever you go. Don't come home and be old Rory to Lorelei and then go off to school and act the way you have been."

"I'm guessing that you really are the smart ass jerk you've been acting like, everywhere you go?"

He gave her a look, but after what she'd been through, with broken-hearted guys and jealous girls, looks didn't effect her anymore. She felt as though she was above them, but for some reason, this look seemed to cut into her heart. Like it was aimed perfectly. She stared him down, but eventually relented, and just tried to ignore him.

A while later, they made it to her house, and she made him wait in the car, but then instructed him to go on home, that she would get a ride to Stars Hollow with her boyfriend. He realized she was teasing him, even in a sad moment, even after the long talk, just a way to remind him that she was taken. He rolled his eyes, and drove home.

Before she didn't anything, she took a hot shower, and called Summer to come over. They might be sluts, but no matter how much a person seems bad, stupid, or even a whore, they're still a person with feelings. They cried together, and Summer comforted her. Summer helped her find decent clothes, the few covering, but still cute tops, mostly peasant shirts, and some jeans. They spent only an hour together, before Rory decided she should call Tristan and explain, possibly invite him over since they were going to be separated for a few days.

Less than a half hour later, Tristan was over. She had thoroughly explained why she had to leave with Jess, and then when she explained about her mother, he did a excellent comforting scene. He hugged her and let her cry in his arms. He kissed her, and for a while it took away the pain. She pulled off her clothes, and then removed his. He was a gentleman when he was with Rory, and he asked her, "are you sure you want to do this?"

She smiled up at him and nodded. Their time in the bed, the first together, was like a romantic scene out of a movie. No matter how many other people they had been with, the emotions were like that of a first time, and Rory replaced the memory with her first time. After, they laid together in bed, and he ran his fingers through her hair. Later though, he looked into her eyes and realized they were full of tears.

"I think you better go now," she said in almost a whisper, then added, "love you."

He returned the feeling and watched her bury her head in her pillow as he got dressed and went home. He wanted to smile and dance, but the picture of Rory crying into her pillow after then "made love" hit him hard. He wondered why he always seemed to bring on her tears. He wanted to shake it off so bad, but he found himself collapsed on his bed also.

She dressed, and fixed her hair. She had packed nicely and as lightly as a girl like Rory could, although she didn't quite understand the meaning of the phrase "A Girl like Rory" anymore. She packed up her Jaguar, hugged her dad good bye, as he promised to be with them at the first of the week. She kept her music on low as she drove the familiar road. She had once again found herself in an almost impossible spot, one that she didn't know how exactly to escape again. She wasn't going to make a miraculous change, if it was that easy who was to say that she wouldn't quickly change back again. This time, she decided, she had to think things through.

When she walked in the door, her mother was sipping coffee from Luke's and watching Willy Wonka again. Rory sat down beside her mother, who seemed intently involved in it, but then put it on pause and looked at Rory. "We should talk."

Rory agreed, and sat in quiet penetrated only by Lorelei's telling of the details of her illness, and Rory's soft tears. "If you're here only because I'm sick, I'm not dying, and you may as well go home, but Rory, I just want to fix things with you."

Rory nodded, and then explained exactly how confused she was about who she was and how she wanted to act. She wanted to figure out for good so she wouldn't mess up people's lives anymore. She wanted to be sure she knew what she was doing, before she made any life changing decisions. One development however, came that she was going to stay with her mother until an undesignated point in time. They had their share, or probably more than that, of tears, laughs, and hugs. They shared memories and stories of how life had been. At 3 PM, Lorelei went to take a nap, proclaiming that this cancer stuff gives her a good excuse to sleep more.

Rory went and sat quietly on the porch steps, rediscovering her love of reading. She tried to ignore the stares she got, and answered quickly to people's questions or comments. Then, Dean came over and sat down beside her.

"Hello," he said, "good book."

She nodded, "Definitely."

"It really is good to have you home, you know that?"

"Yeah, Dean, I'm like sorry if I made you mad the other day, I didn't know about mom, and you just had me so pissed…" she tried to continue but he interrupted her.

"Do you think you can just come back and be Rory again, that easy?"

"Well, no. I'm not making any decisions yet,"

"You act like everybody is revolving around you and your decision. I, for one, simply want you to make it and stay with it."

"Dean, if I hurt you…"

"Rory, I broke up with you. You don't have every guy wrapped around your feelings to tease and play with, and to feel bad for it once you get in the mood to,"

"Jesus, Dean, what should I say?"

"God, Rory, I'm sorry. Just, please don't act like you are hovering over us that were so thankful you're back. We are. We missed you, but were not all just little small town hicks that need to be talked down to and apologized to as though you are the Queen."

He walked away and she looked at him, thinking hard, knowing that it was all true. She put on a suede jacket, buried her pockets in them, and approached the bridge. She didn't walk anywhere in Hartford, but driving the Jaguar around Stars Hollow seemed to haughty. She dangled her feet just above the water, thinking and remembering. She stayed there till dark, reading by the starlight. That was when another person approached the bridge, the person to whom she had conceded part of it. Jess.

"Dean told me about today."

"Really? Do you all have gossip circles about what the Gilmore bitch is doing these days."

"Rory…"

"I know. I know. But, it's just not all that easy to come back."

"I know."

"Please don't say I told you so."

"That was my next line."

"Edit it out."

With that he sat down beside her, and she put her head on his shoulder. She wondered in the back of he mind if she was just seducing him, not necessarily for sex, just to make him love her like everybody else did, but decided that he was going to be her friend. They talked, harmlessly, but by the end of the night they cared a sweet, simple kiss. She walked away, ashamed of cheating even more than she had ever been. This wasn't just cheating, it was cheating on a guy she really liked, with a guy she was afraid she was starting to fall for. Could the boy from her past, the one who brought her back to it, become the boy of her future? She felt the tears coming again, and avoided them with the thought that she had cried to much, and would need them later. The decisions and conflicts were piling up high before her, and she didn't know what to do. It was the first week of school, and already she had buried herself into what seemed to be an inescapable pit.

She sighed and walked back to "her house" but didn't know if it really was such. For the second night in a row she fell asleep in her bed, and didn't long for the expensive and fancy bed in Hartford. All night she lay awake and wondered which bed, which home, and which world was the one that the true Rory Gilmore belonged in, or if she belonged in either.

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