Disclaimer: I do not own the Gilmore Girls. Duh.
A/N: Thanks to EVERYONE who reviewed. You guys are amazing motivation to keep writing. Since the creative juices were flowing, I decided to write the third, and potentially final chapter. Don't expect this kind of turn around on a normal basis (that is, if I ever decide I have another GG fiction in me.) I was unusually inspired!
I should have mentioned before Chapter 2 that I hate Dean. My apologies to any Dean lovers (are there any left? Kidding!) who may have stumbled upon my story and gotten upset about how I portrayed him. Mea culpa for the lack of warning. However this is my happy little universe and at least I didn't have Dean get hit by a meteor, which I think shows a great deal of restraint on my part.
That said, on with the story. Oh, the poem quoted is 'somewhere i have never traveled' by e.e. cummings.
Rory
Although she wasn't running towards any particular destination, Rory's legs carry her to the bridge. She has gone there to hide. She feels exposed, exhausted, naked. Her nerves are frayed, her emotions are raw, too close to the surface, not fit for public display. The I'm-totally-fine-and- nothing-is-wrong mask she developed over the past year won't contain these strong new feelings and she has no other mask to wear. She needs to escape the seeking eyes of the town, to be absent when they whisper about her.
Of course, that's only part of it. She has also run to the bridge to feel him. She wanted to run straight into his protective arms, to have him hold her, rock her, stroke her hair, take away the sting of Dean's cruel words. She thinks about his girlfriend and how his arms hold Shane, not her. She wonders abstractly if he ever could have been hers. Her heart tightens when she finally admits that her separation from him is without question her fault. This bridge is as close as she can get to being in his presence. It is all she can expect. It will have to be enough.
'Rory,' her heart whispers.
'Yeah?' Rory answers.
'He has come,' her heart tells her. 'In the shadows, under the trees, near the bridge. . . Jess is here.'
Rory doesn't turn to verify this information with her eyes. She is learning to trust the truth that her heart gives her. Fresh tears spring to her eyes, but this time she doesn't fully understand their source or why she is crying. It is more than she hoped for. It feels like a gift. 'He is here!' Rory thinks, incredulously. 'He is here.'
She considers calling out to him to let him know that his presence has been detected, but she doesn't. 'He'll approach if he wants,' she thinks. 'It is enough that he came.' As the tears slip down her face and escape to freedom, splashing onto her lap, Rory waits for him.
Jess
He knew where to find her, where she would go. He went there, to her. Years of surviving the streets of New York have taught him how to stand beyond the reach of even her peripheral vision, unseen. In this private place, he studies her. He thinks about the scene at the dance marathon. . . the fight, her pain, rage, humiliation. He looks at her and knows that part of her innocence has been lost and his stomach lurches. His heart condemns him for playing a roll in that loss and he feels grief. It's not an emotion he's used to and it courses through him powerfully. He has hurt her. He knows it.
Yet, oddly, he's proud of her. The Rory he met a year ago would not have engaged in so public a display of emotion. Perfect Rory in the perfect town at the perfect school with her perfect grades and her perfect boyfriend doing exactly what was expected of her. All the time. She's been trapped. He knew the first time she watched him work at the diner, the way her eyes followed him, studied him. He wondered why no one else had seen it before. 'They probably didn't want to,' he muses, gazing at her back turned in slight profile. But he knew. Her crystal blue eyes cried out to him. 'She's been drowning,' he thinks, 'for a long time.' He was the thing she needed and he knew it. He had seen it in her eyes.
His memory returning to the dance marathon, he thinks about how she stood up to her domineering boyfriend and reclaimed her life as her own. 'Bravest damn thing I ever saw,' he remembers. He had wanted to stand up and cheer. It was ridiculous, he hadn't cheered about anything since he was three years old. He shook his head, clearing the vision from his mind. 'Besides, she'll pay a huge price for her freedom,' he thinks, his heart contracting for her again. 'She is already paying it.' He knows she has just changed her life for the better but loss of innocence is never an easy thing to see. Never.
'Huh,' he thinks, looking at Rory. He notices the slight change in her posture, and the modulation in her breathing and knows that his presence has been felt. Although he has not made a sound or moved, she has sensed him. He continues observing her from this safe distance while he decides what to do.
Rory and Jess
He walks onto the bridge and sits next to her, not daring to touch her, not yet. He doesn't look at her but instead looks out across the water, following her gaze. She is crying softly, her tears flowing unchecked. He wants badly to comfort her but understands that sometimes, when you try to take away someone's pain, you accidentally drive it like a nail straight into their heart. Unable to bear the thought of hurting her twice in one night, he says nothing.
She is not ready to look at him, so instead she looks at her lap. Curiously, it's wet. She wonders absently if it has started to rain and then she remembers her tears. Her heart is racing yet she is strangely calmed by his closeness. He is the only one in the entire world that she wants to be near at this moment.
Since he has come to her, she decides to speak first. It is a small thing, but it is a gift she can offer him in return for being sought and found.
"I guess you heard all that," Rory says.
"Most of it," Jess admits, his voice soft and gentle.
They both fall silent again.
Long moments pass before Jess says, "The guy's a total asshole, Rory. Yelling at you like that in front of everyone." Shaking his head and wincing at the visual he has just conjured up in his own mind, he continues "He's a complete jerk."
Rory laughs softly, ruefully. "Not really," she concedes, wiping her tear stained cheeks for the first time. "I did that to him, you know. I strung him along, played with his head. I had him tied in knots, pulled taunt like a rubber band. When he snapped, it's no wonder he snapped big." Sniffing and dragging her eyes from her lap she finds the courage to finally look at Jess before she continues. He is still staring across the water, sparing her eye contact, making the words she has to say next easier for her to get out. "The things he said about my feelings for you," she pauses, fresh tears springing new. "It's all true. He was right. . . about everything. . . all that stuff he said. . . is true," she finishes, voice breaking.
Shock rushes through Jess's veins. His pulse pounds in his ears and his vision temporarily blurs as though he has suddenly stood up too fast. Involuntarily, he turns to look at her face, unbelieving, needing to verify that he's heard her correctly. His fierce penetrating gaze is too much for her. She feels utterly vulnerable, scared. She catches a brief glimpse of chocolate brown before she tears her eyes away and stares again at things unseen, lying just below the surface of the water.
Silence falls on them as Jess tries to sort through the tumult of fresh emotions that have just attacked him. He searches her profile as though it holds answers. The moon and ambient light from faraway street lamps reflect silver off of her tear stained cheeks. He feels a thin shiver of need slice through him cleanly. Rory Gilmore has just admitted that she wants him and he cannot find his voice to tell her that he feels the same way.
Misinterpreting his silence, Rory feels her heart begin to break apart. Such intense pain is foreign to her and she has no defense against it as it begins to gnaw and devour. 'He's afraid to hurt me,' she thinks. She realizes that she was wrong when she thought speaking first was the only gift she could give him tonight. Releasing him from the burden of worrying about her feelings - that's another gift she has to offer. As is telling him the whole truth. She knows she owes him at least that.
"I'm sorry," she says, her voice small, barely a whisper.
"For what?" he says, the air returning to his lungs permitting speech.
Choking back a sob she says, "for everything."
Hungry for her eyes, he moves his hand to her chin and gently, tenderly, turns her head towards him. He waits patiently for her to lift her eyes to his. An electric jolt flows through her where his fingers touch her face. Fearfully, she looks up and feels herself start to fall. Azure blue meets hazy brown. Jess catches his breath, a lump forming in his throat. He can't remember ever feeling so lost and so found at the same time.
She speaks first. "I'm sorry for hurting you." Finding courage in his eyes and touch, she knows she can finally say what needs to be said. "I'm sorry I ran from you after I kissed you. I'm sorry I went to Washington without saying goodbye. I'm sorry I made you feel like you didn't matter to me, like you were nothing," her voice breaks again.
Unwilling to see what she is sure will be his rejection of her, she pulls her eyes from his and looks down before continuing, "there are so many things I'd do differently if I could. . . .but it's OK. I know it's too late now. I don't expect you to feel the same about me." A vision of Jess kissing Shane in the gym swims before her as Rory says, "Your life is different and you've moved on. Even though it doesn't really matter at this point, it's important to me that you how I really feel about you and how truly sorry I am."
Before he can stop himself, he asks her, "How do you really feel about me?"
He is instantly sorry. 'Oh God,' he thinks panicking, 'It doesn't matter. I'll take her under any terms. If she'll even let me sit in the same room with her without hating me, that will be enough. She could tell me to go to hell and if that's what it takes to make her happy, I swear I'd go.' Too late, these thoughts come to him. His question is already spoken, floating in the air, waiting to be answered. There is no turning back.
Rory catches her breath. Is she strong enough to tell him? She isn't sure. She turns to him, searching his face. She is momentarily confused at what she sees. He looks almost scared, anxious, worried. Something else flits across his face as his eyes scan her. 'Is that hope?' she wonders. 'It can't be. What would he be hopeful about?' A tiny spark ignites within her. Her jaw slackens in disbelief as a new thought fans the tiny flame as it burns brighter. 'He's looking at me like he actually cares about me,' she thinks, amazed. She wonders if she can trust her eyes. 'Help me heart,' she urges.
She locks her eyes onto his and before her head can begin to list all the reasons why she's crazy to think he reciprocates her feelings, her heart propels her forward. Without further hesitation, she says, "Jess, I love you."
The words sail from her lips like a prayer. She feels their weight release from the center of her heart, like a burden, a secret kept that should not have been. Feeling powerful in the truth she has spoken, her stormy soul grows quiet.
The effect of those words on Jess is fierce and immediate. They hit him like an unexpected force and rip through him, no crevice is left untouched, no part of him is unaltered. He feels himself drowning, falling, flying. His eyes shut and he leans forward, putting his hands on her waist and burying his head in her shoulder, in her chest. His breath is ragged. He is a runner who has just crossed the finish line, exhausted and triumphant.
Surprised, Rory reaches out to hold him, the fingers of one hand thread through his hair, the other hand rubs his back. She kisses the top of his head as it's the only part of him her lips have access to.
Still holding tight to her, he pushes onto the bridge until she's laying on her back with him partially on top of her, partially next to her. She feels him crashing and breaking. She senses rather than knows that something solid has turned liquid and is flowing, flowing out of him into her. She wraps her arms around him and holds him tight. She wants him to know she is there, she wants him to feel her as she tries to comfort him. Her arms encircle him and her mind registers the solidity of his muscles, yet, she feels him shake.
He lifts his head from her chest and kisses his way up her neck, urgently. Unprepared and suddenly aware that he is on top of her, she inhales sharply. He knows he is probably frightening her with the intensity of his reaction but he can't control it. His lips land on hers, causing goose bumps to erupt down her arms and back. She gasps and Jess uses the opening in her lips to slide his tongue into her mouth. Rory feels dizzy. Instinctively, she opens her mouth further, granting him more access and he deepens the kiss. Somewhere in the back of her mind she hears Dean's voice saying, 'That's passion. I thought you'd be able to tell the difference.' A small involuntary sound escapes from the back of her throat.
Jess reels when hears Rory's moan, guessing that it's the first noise she's ever made in the heat of passion. 'Because of me,' his mind registers. 'That sound, because I'm touching her.' His arousal lifts. He sinks further into her and moves his lips along her jaw line, capturing her ear lobe in his teeth. Shivers run through Rory. She is unprepared for her reaction to him. She feels herself melt into him, into the bridge. He forces himself to pull back, realizing he's on the verge of losing control. His hands rest just above her shoulders as he raises up to gaze down at her.
His breath catches when he sees her. She is unbelievable, impossibly beautiful. Her eyes are drunk-dizzy, her lips swollen. 'God, I want her,' he thinks. She smiles softly at him as one of her hands reaches up to caress his cheek. He looks at her warily and teasingly says "Should I be worried about that hand?"
Rory looks at him with a confused expression on her face but notices his smirk, remembers the events of the evening, and starts to laugh uncontrollably. She gasps, "Oh my God, I can't believe I slapped him like that."
"That was my all-time favorite Stars Hollow moment," he tells her grinning. "Well, next to this one."
"Nice save," Rory laughs as she pulls him down for another kiss.
Jess kisses her quickly and pulls her into a hug. "You know, that's the part I didn't hear," he says. "What did he say to cause that kind of reaction from you?"
Rory's eyes cloud as she feels the shadow of Dean's lips and breath on her ear, hears his cruel words in her memory. "Maybe one day, I'll tell you, but not tonight," she states flatly. "Trust me, the slap was deserved."
"I don't doubt it a bit. I'm sure I'd have slapped him for far less."
Rory grows quiet as her eyes wander over Jess's face. He leans down to kiss her again, quickly and softly. He lifts himself off of her as she makes a small sound of protest, not wanting to lose the feeling of his warmth and weight. He offers her his hand and she takes it. Gently, he pulls her to her feet.
Closing the distance between them, he envelops her in a hug. They stay like that for long minutes, both lost in the sensation of being close. Rory's heart is beating strongly, loudly. She wonders if he can hear it. Leaning back in his embrace, she smiles at him. She is surprised to see that his face is serious.
"Rory," he begins, "about what you said. . . "
She looks at him questioningly.
"I feel. . ." he struggles, "I've never. . . It's harder for me. . ." he stammers obviously trying to formulate his thoughts. "My mom never even once told me. . . but then you said it so easily. . . I want. . ."
Rory looks at him, his eyes trusting, his face open, his barriers down. She knows what he is trying to tell her and how hard it is for him.
"Shhh. . ." she whispers tenderly. "It's OK. I know. We have plenty of time. The words will come."
Relief flooding him that she understands, he buries his face in her shoulder as she strokes his hair. Lifting his head, he kisses her cheek as he steps away from her. "There is one last thing I need to take care of."
She knows he means Shane. She smiles at him and nods once. He turns to leave but stops and pulls the book he was reading at the dance marathon out of his jacket pocket. He hands it to her saying, "There's a passage in here that reminds me of you. I marked the page."
"I'll read it when I get home," she promises.
Smiling, Jess kisses her one last time, turns and walks off the bridge. Rory watches him leave, her heart humming happily.
"Don't be so smug," she tells her heart.
'Whatever,' her heart says.
Later that night, after finding Lorelei, filling her in on the salient details of the evening, and shedding a few more tears, Rory lies in bed. The book Jess gave her is on her nightstand. She picks it up and turns to the page he marked for her and reads.
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
Rory feel asleep that night clutching Jess's book in her hand.
A/N: I sorta feel like this is done. I've rewritten "The Shoot Gilmore, Don't They" to my liking. If ya'll feel differently and think it should continue, just post it in feedback and I'll consider where to go from here. Otherwise, we'll color this done. Thanks for reading!! (
A/N: Thanks to EVERYONE who reviewed. You guys are amazing motivation to keep writing. Since the creative juices were flowing, I decided to write the third, and potentially final chapter. Don't expect this kind of turn around on a normal basis (that is, if I ever decide I have another GG fiction in me.) I was unusually inspired!
I should have mentioned before Chapter 2 that I hate Dean. My apologies to any Dean lovers (are there any left? Kidding!) who may have stumbled upon my story and gotten upset about how I portrayed him. Mea culpa for the lack of warning. However this is my happy little universe and at least I didn't have Dean get hit by a meteor, which I think shows a great deal of restraint on my part.
That said, on with the story. Oh, the poem quoted is 'somewhere i have never traveled' by e.e. cummings.
Rory
Although she wasn't running towards any particular destination, Rory's legs carry her to the bridge. She has gone there to hide. She feels exposed, exhausted, naked. Her nerves are frayed, her emotions are raw, too close to the surface, not fit for public display. The I'm-totally-fine-and- nothing-is-wrong mask she developed over the past year won't contain these strong new feelings and she has no other mask to wear. She needs to escape the seeking eyes of the town, to be absent when they whisper about her.
Of course, that's only part of it. She has also run to the bridge to feel him. She wanted to run straight into his protective arms, to have him hold her, rock her, stroke her hair, take away the sting of Dean's cruel words. She thinks about his girlfriend and how his arms hold Shane, not her. She wonders abstractly if he ever could have been hers. Her heart tightens when she finally admits that her separation from him is without question her fault. This bridge is as close as she can get to being in his presence. It is all she can expect. It will have to be enough.
'Rory,' her heart whispers.
'Yeah?' Rory answers.
'He has come,' her heart tells her. 'In the shadows, under the trees, near the bridge. . . Jess is here.'
Rory doesn't turn to verify this information with her eyes. She is learning to trust the truth that her heart gives her. Fresh tears spring to her eyes, but this time she doesn't fully understand their source or why she is crying. It is more than she hoped for. It feels like a gift. 'He is here!' Rory thinks, incredulously. 'He is here.'
She considers calling out to him to let him know that his presence has been detected, but she doesn't. 'He'll approach if he wants,' she thinks. 'It is enough that he came.' As the tears slip down her face and escape to freedom, splashing onto her lap, Rory waits for him.
Jess
He knew where to find her, where she would go. He went there, to her. Years of surviving the streets of New York have taught him how to stand beyond the reach of even her peripheral vision, unseen. In this private place, he studies her. He thinks about the scene at the dance marathon. . . the fight, her pain, rage, humiliation. He looks at her and knows that part of her innocence has been lost and his stomach lurches. His heart condemns him for playing a roll in that loss and he feels grief. It's not an emotion he's used to and it courses through him powerfully. He has hurt her. He knows it.
Yet, oddly, he's proud of her. The Rory he met a year ago would not have engaged in so public a display of emotion. Perfect Rory in the perfect town at the perfect school with her perfect grades and her perfect boyfriend doing exactly what was expected of her. All the time. She's been trapped. He knew the first time she watched him work at the diner, the way her eyes followed him, studied him. He wondered why no one else had seen it before. 'They probably didn't want to,' he muses, gazing at her back turned in slight profile. But he knew. Her crystal blue eyes cried out to him. 'She's been drowning,' he thinks, 'for a long time.' He was the thing she needed and he knew it. He had seen it in her eyes.
His memory returning to the dance marathon, he thinks about how she stood up to her domineering boyfriend and reclaimed her life as her own. 'Bravest damn thing I ever saw,' he remembers. He had wanted to stand up and cheer. It was ridiculous, he hadn't cheered about anything since he was three years old. He shook his head, clearing the vision from his mind. 'Besides, she'll pay a huge price for her freedom,' he thinks, his heart contracting for her again. 'She is already paying it.' He knows she has just changed her life for the better but loss of innocence is never an easy thing to see. Never.
'Huh,' he thinks, looking at Rory. He notices the slight change in her posture, and the modulation in her breathing and knows that his presence has been felt. Although he has not made a sound or moved, she has sensed him. He continues observing her from this safe distance while he decides what to do.
Rory and Jess
He walks onto the bridge and sits next to her, not daring to touch her, not yet. He doesn't look at her but instead looks out across the water, following her gaze. She is crying softly, her tears flowing unchecked. He wants badly to comfort her but understands that sometimes, when you try to take away someone's pain, you accidentally drive it like a nail straight into their heart. Unable to bear the thought of hurting her twice in one night, he says nothing.
She is not ready to look at him, so instead she looks at her lap. Curiously, it's wet. She wonders absently if it has started to rain and then she remembers her tears. Her heart is racing yet she is strangely calmed by his closeness. He is the only one in the entire world that she wants to be near at this moment.
Since he has come to her, she decides to speak first. It is a small thing, but it is a gift she can offer him in return for being sought and found.
"I guess you heard all that," Rory says.
"Most of it," Jess admits, his voice soft and gentle.
They both fall silent again.
Long moments pass before Jess says, "The guy's a total asshole, Rory. Yelling at you like that in front of everyone." Shaking his head and wincing at the visual he has just conjured up in his own mind, he continues "He's a complete jerk."
Rory laughs softly, ruefully. "Not really," she concedes, wiping her tear stained cheeks for the first time. "I did that to him, you know. I strung him along, played with his head. I had him tied in knots, pulled taunt like a rubber band. When he snapped, it's no wonder he snapped big." Sniffing and dragging her eyes from her lap she finds the courage to finally look at Jess before she continues. He is still staring across the water, sparing her eye contact, making the words she has to say next easier for her to get out. "The things he said about my feelings for you," she pauses, fresh tears springing new. "It's all true. He was right. . . about everything. . . all that stuff he said. . . is true," she finishes, voice breaking.
Shock rushes through Jess's veins. His pulse pounds in his ears and his vision temporarily blurs as though he has suddenly stood up too fast. Involuntarily, he turns to look at her face, unbelieving, needing to verify that he's heard her correctly. His fierce penetrating gaze is too much for her. She feels utterly vulnerable, scared. She catches a brief glimpse of chocolate brown before she tears her eyes away and stares again at things unseen, lying just below the surface of the water.
Silence falls on them as Jess tries to sort through the tumult of fresh emotions that have just attacked him. He searches her profile as though it holds answers. The moon and ambient light from faraway street lamps reflect silver off of her tear stained cheeks. He feels a thin shiver of need slice through him cleanly. Rory Gilmore has just admitted that she wants him and he cannot find his voice to tell her that he feels the same way.
Misinterpreting his silence, Rory feels her heart begin to break apart. Such intense pain is foreign to her and she has no defense against it as it begins to gnaw and devour. 'He's afraid to hurt me,' she thinks. She realizes that she was wrong when she thought speaking first was the only gift she could give him tonight. Releasing him from the burden of worrying about her feelings - that's another gift she has to offer. As is telling him the whole truth. She knows she owes him at least that.
"I'm sorry," she says, her voice small, barely a whisper.
"For what?" he says, the air returning to his lungs permitting speech.
Choking back a sob she says, "for everything."
Hungry for her eyes, he moves his hand to her chin and gently, tenderly, turns her head towards him. He waits patiently for her to lift her eyes to his. An electric jolt flows through her where his fingers touch her face. Fearfully, she looks up and feels herself start to fall. Azure blue meets hazy brown. Jess catches his breath, a lump forming in his throat. He can't remember ever feeling so lost and so found at the same time.
She speaks first. "I'm sorry for hurting you." Finding courage in his eyes and touch, she knows she can finally say what needs to be said. "I'm sorry I ran from you after I kissed you. I'm sorry I went to Washington without saying goodbye. I'm sorry I made you feel like you didn't matter to me, like you were nothing," her voice breaks again.
Unwilling to see what she is sure will be his rejection of her, she pulls her eyes from his and looks down before continuing, "there are so many things I'd do differently if I could. . . .but it's OK. I know it's too late now. I don't expect you to feel the same about me." A vision of Jess kissing Shane in the gym swims before her as Rory says, "Your life is different and you've moved on. Even though it doesn't really matter at this point, it's important to me that you how I really feel about you and how truly sorry I am."
Before he can stop himself, he asks her, "How do you really feel about me?"
He is instantly sorry. 'Oh God,' he thinks panicking, 'It doesn't matter. I'll take her under any terms. If she'll even let me sit in the same room with her without hating me, that will be enough. She could tell me to go to hell and if that's what it takes to make her happy, I swear I'd go.' Too late, these thoughts come to him. His question is already spoken, floating in the air, waiting to be answered. There is no turning back.
Rory catches her breath. Is she strong enough to tell him? She isn't sure. She turns to him, searching his face. She is momentarily confused at what she sees. He looks almost scared, anxious, worried. Something else flits across his face as his eyes scan her. 'Is that hope?' she wonders. 'It can't be. What would he be hopeful about?' A tiny spark ignites within her. Her jaw slackens in disbelief as a new thought fans the tiny flame as it burns brighter. 'He's looking at me like he actually cares about me,' she thinks, amazed. She wonders if she can trust her eyes. 'Help me heart,' she urges.
She locks her eyes onto his and before her head can begin to list all the reasons why she's crazy to think he reciprocates her feelings, her heart propels her forward. Without further hesitation, she says, "Jess, I love you."
The words sail from her lips like a prayer. She feels their weight release from the center of her heart, like a burden, a secret kept that should not have been. Feeling powerful in the truth she has spoken, her stormy soul grows quiet.
The effect of those words on Jess is fierce and immediate. They hit him like an unexpected force and rip through him, no crevice is left untouched, no part of him is unaltered. He feels himself drowning, falling, flying. His eyes shut and he leans forward, putting his hands on her waist and burying his head in her shoulder, in her chest. His breath is ragged. He is a runner who has just crossed the finish line, exhausted and triumphant.
Surprised, Rory reaches out to hold him, the fingers of one hand thread through his hair, the other hand rubs his back. She kisses the top of his head as it's the only part of him her lips have access to.
Still holding tight to her, he pushes onto the bridge until she's laying on her back with him partially on top of her, partially next to her. She feels him crashing and breaking. She senses rather than knows that something solid has turned liquid and is flowing, flowing out of him into her. She wraps her arms around him and holds him tight. She wants him to know she is there, she wants him to feel her as she tries to comfort him. Her arms encircle him and her mind registers the solidity of his muscles, yet, she feels him shake.
He lifts his head from her chest and kisses his way up her neck, urgently. Unprepared and suddenly aware that he is on top of her, she inhales sharply. He knows he is probably frightening her with the intensity of his reaction but he can't control it. His lips land on hers, causing goose bumps to erupt down her arms and back. She gasps and Jess uses the opening in her lips to slide his tongue into her mouth. Rory feels dizzy. Instinctively, she opens her mouth further, granting him more access and he deepens the kiss. Somewhere in the back of her mind she hears Dean's voice saying, 'That's passion. I thought you'd be able to tell the difference.' A small involuntary sound escapes from the back of her throat.
Jess reels when hears Rory's moan, guessing that it's the first noise she's ever made in the heat of passion. 'Because of me,' his mind registers. 'That sound, because I'm touching her.' His arousal lifts. He sinks further into her and moves his lips along her jaw line, capturing her ear lobe in his teeth. Shivers run through Rory. She is unprepared for her reaction to him. She feels herself melt into him, into the bridge. He forces himself to pull back, realizing he's on the verge of losing control. His hands rest just above her shoulders as he raises up to gaze down at her.
His breath catches when he sees her. She is unbelievable, impossibly beautiful. Her eyes are drunk-dizzy, her lips swollen. 'God, I want her,' he thinks. She smiles softly at him as one of her hands reaches up to caress his cheek. He looks at her warily and teasingly says "Should I be worried about that hand?"
Rory looks at him with a confused expression on her face but notices his smirk, remembers the events of the evening, and starts to laugh uncontrollably. She gasps, "Oh my God, I can't believe I slapped him like that."
"That was my all-time favorite Stars Hollow moment," he tells her grinning. "Well, next to this one."
"Nice save," Rory laughs as she pulls him down for another kiss.
Jess kisses her quickly and pulls her into a hug. "You know, that's the part I didn't hear," he says. "What did he say to cause that kind of reaction from you?"
Rory's eyes cloud as she feels the shadow of Dean's lips and breath on her ear, hears his cruel words in her memory. "Maybe one day, I'll tell you, but not tonight," she states flatly. "Trust me, the slap was deserved."
"I don't doubt it a bit. I'm sure I'd have slapped him for far less."
Rory grows quiet as her eyes wander over Jess's face. He leans down to kiss her again, quickly and softly. He lifts himself off of her as she makes a small sound of protest, not wanting to lose the feeling of his warmth and weight. He offers her his hand and she takes it. Gently, he pulls her to her feet.
Closing the distance between them, he envelops her in a hug. They stay like that for long minutes, both lost in the sensation of being close. Rory's heart is beating strongly, loudly. She wonders if he can hear it. Leaning back in his embrace, she smiles at him. She is surprised to see that his face is serious.
"Rory," he begins, "about what you said. . . "
She looks at him questioningly.
"I feel. . ." he struggles, "I've never. . . It's harder for me. . ." he stammers obviously trying to formulate his thoughts. "My mom never even once told me. . . but then you said it so easily. . . I want. . ."
Rory looks at him, his eyes trusting, his face open, his barriers down. She knows what he is trying to tell her and how hard it is for him.
"Shhh. . ." she whispers tenderly. "It's OK. I know. We have plenty of time. The words will come."
Relief flooding him that she understands, he buries his face in her shoulder as she strokes his hair. Lifting his head, he kisses her cheek as he steps away from her. "There is one last thing I need to take care of."
She knows he means Shane. She smiles at him and nods once. He turns to leave but stops and pulls the book he was reading at the dance marathon out of his jacket pocket. He hands it to her saying, "There's a passage in here that reminds me of you. I marked the page."
"I'll read it when I get home," she promises.
Smiling, Jess kisses her one last time, turns and walks off the bridge. Rory watches him leave, her heart humming happily.
"Don't be so smug," she tells her heart.
'Whatever,' her heart says.
Later that night, after finding Lorelei, filling her in on the salient details of the evening, and shedding a few more tears, Rory lies in bed. The book Jess gave her is on her nightstand. She picks it up and turns to the page he marked for her and reads.
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
Rory feel asleep that night clutching Jess's book in her hand.
A/N: I sorta feel like this is done. I've rewritten "The Shoot Gilmore, Don't They" to my liking. If ya'll feel differently and think it should continue, just post it in feedback and I'll consider where to go from here. Otherwise, we'll color this done. Thanks for reading!! (