Authors note: It's set at the end of season 3 I guess, they're in their last week of school and got the summer holidays to spend their last weeks together. Fairly steady relationship, sleeping with each other, love each other. Both might seem out of character but this is how I'm writing it. Songs which you might not have picked up on are You're so Vain by Carly Simon.
Summary: Road trip baby.
Disclaimer: Don't own nothing. Includin the songs.
Only another couple chapters to come out of this. Question, do you want to read them say goodbye or would u want to skip it, incase its too corny or something? Read and review!
Let's go somewhere far together
Chapter 7
Their trip was ending now and they were driving into town.
She swallowed hard when she saw Luke's Diner. It was the same and nothing had changed. But she had changed and so had Jess so they looked at Luke's and saw something different.
"Johnny drop me off here"
"No, I'll take you home."
"No, it's okay. You've driven me around for long enough. I'll just walk home."
"Okay."
He parked and they both got out and got their suitcases from the boot. He looked at Luke's and he turned pale, although pale wasn't as pale with his new tan.
She reached over and took his hand. He turned to her and he looked scared and she knew he really really didn't want to go back. But he had to.
"Oh Johnny," she whispered.
She leant forward and hugged him and he held on tight and shuddered. He leaned into her ear and whispered a poem she knew well and she joined in.
"Oh the dreaming's stopped."
"And the world's woken up."
"And all everyone has asked themselves,"
"Is were we ever happy?"
"Or were we stuck in dreamland?"
They stood there on the corner, kissing for a long, long time and she felt the people walk pass and stare. She heard a few people mutter her and his name and she knew that it would soon spread that the poor man and his princess were back. But she didn't register it really, and ignored the universe that she didn't want to be a part of and lived in the last moments of her and Jess's universe, one full of motels and roads and cities and photos and sunrises and people called Trucker and Dunny and waitresses who chewed tobacco, and Johnny Knoxville and his funny hair and their car which now no longer smelled like cigarettes but like them. Then they stopped and the universe closed shut and Jess, with a gulp walked into Luke's and she walked back home.
She walked back into her house and flopped down on her bed. The stars twinkled brightly. She could hear the shower running so she knew where her mum was. She slowly opened her suitcase and slowly started to unpack. She pulled out the bag, where millions of Polaroids were in it and she dumped all the photos on her bed. She was lying there, on her side, looking at all her photos, when her mum came in, a few minutes later.
"Rory! Thank god it's you! I had no idea who it was, the front door was wide open."
"Hi Mum."
Her mum squealed and jumped on the bed and hugged her fiercely.
"Oh Rorrest Rump, I missed you so much!"
Rory patted her mum slowly on the back. She still couldn't get used to that she was here, lying on her bed and not parked in some motel car park, lying down on the backseat in the car with Jess, her Johnny.
"Tell me everything!"
"Like what?"
"Everything!"
She shrugged.
Her mother didn't notice, her eyes were on all the photos that covered her bed.
"Ooh, can I look? Gosh how many are there!"
"No, you can't look."
"What?"
Her mother stood up and looked hurt. And she, Rory, felt mean.
"Oh I'm sorry Mum. Let me put them in order first, okay? I just want to look over them first by myself, okay?"
Her mother nodded, silently.
"You've changed a bit, haven't Rory?"
"Have I?"
Her mother nodded again.
"You're a different person."
"Maybe I'm just my own person."
"You even look different."
"I'm just tanned."
"No, you look old. And tanned and mature and wise and tired and happy but sad and oh, so many things."
"Is it a bad change?"
"No. But you changed without me."
"Did I?"
"Yes. Oh Rory, you moved on in life and it looks like you've moved so far."
"I guess I have then."
"And you didn't do it with me. You did with Jess."
"Oh Johnny's the same. Or maybe he's not, I don't know. What sort of change are you talking about?"
"Who's Johnny?"
"Jess. Here, look at this photo. He got a Johnny Knoxville haircut."
"So he did."
"Do you like it?"
"No, it doesn't suit him."
"Oh I think it does. He got it cut at this swanky place in California."
"Is that where you went on your trip, to California."
"Oh we went to millions of places."
Her mother nodded once again and watched, as her daughter chatted on about this magical trip that she had and the millions of memories that she had stored up along and the way and her mother knew that she would never hear every story about that trip, because Rory wanted to keep some things to herself. And her mother didn't recognise this tan, happy girl whose boyfriend was now Johnny, not Jess.
Her mother plopped down on the bed and Rory went and laid beside her.
"So did Jess talk at all during this 'sugar dandy adventure'? Or did he just grunt the whole time?" her mother yipped.
Rory nodded.
"People don't see what he's really like Mum."
"There's another side to Jess, is that what you're trying to tell me?"
"Yes. He's different around me."
"Yes. You know what, you're right. He IS different. A different guy called Johnny.
Tell me, this Johnny, is he nicer?"
Rory sighed.
"Just leave me alone, okay Mum? I'm tired and I haven't slept in my own bed for ages."
Her mother silently left.
She sat up and looked through at all the photos on her bed. Luckily she was smarter enough to put a date on the back of every photo they ever took at time, but she remembered the exact order anyway, she remembered everything about the trip.
She picked up a photo of her and Jess, lying on some tennis courts. Dunny had taken this one. The four of them were close, for awhile, but they were close because they knew that it wasn't going to last long and that made everything seem better, if possible. She remembered this day. They had been walking along, looking at all the high-rise buildings along the beach and Trucker said that he loved playing tennis. So the next high-rise holiday home that had tennis courts that they passed, Jess jumped over the fence. They all followed and then paid the two ten-year olds who were playing singles on the court to let them use their rackets for awhile, paying each kid twenty bucks. But they all got sick of tennis after awhile and she and Jess sunbaked on the courts, while Trucker and Dunny went and got lunch. She remembered their conversation, as she was propped up on her elbows, facing Jess as he laid on his towel on his stomach. She remembered saying,
"You're so brown."
"I bet you think this song is about you."
"You're so brown."
"I bet you think this song is about you."
"Don't you, don't you."
They both laughed. Then Jess said,
"I hate that song."
"Oh?"
"My mum used to sing it all the time."
"Your mum?"
"Yes. My mum."
"You hardly ever mention her."
"Why should I?"
"I don't know."
"She's a horrible woman."
"Oh Johnny."
"What you call me?"
"Johnny. 'Cas of your Johnny Knoxville haircut."
He laughed.
"Can't get used to it," he said, running his fingers through his newly cut hair.
"Blimey it's hot."
"Blimey?"
"Yes, blimey."
He looked up at her with his sunnies on and she saw herself in them and he laughed again. He pushed her down the ground on her back and rolled on top of her.
"Jess, what are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"Oh? Don't feel like nothing."
"Baby, what I tell you before?"
"Sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing."
"Ain't it the truth."
She giggled and he felt her stomach vibrations.
"Look at you all happy and crap."
"It's a nice change, don't you think Jess?"
"Baby, anything you change into is nice."
"Oh don't be silly."
He grinned and leant forward and smothered her with kisses. They rolled around and laughing and squealing; well at least she was until they heard a yell.
"Oi!"
It was Trucker and Dunny, holding greasy KFC ags.
"Caught you two in the act."
"We weren't doing nothing," protested Jess.
She held her head back and laughed and Jess looked down at her and smiled. And while they were doing that, Dunny reached for the camara and took a photo. Click!
And now it was just a photo of a boy and girl lying on top of each other on a tennis court on a very sunny day. They were laughing and smiling and it was a very cute photo. Rory smiled and got up and stuck it in the side of her dresser mirror.
She looked through all her photos and grinned, because each one meant so much to her. It made her feel sad that someone else would look at these photos and wouldn't think that they seemed special. Especailly the very last one she looked at.
It was the history-breaking photo.
Anyone in the world except for her and Jess would look at and see nothing, really. But she saw the day where history was made.
She placed it in her beside a couple other ones that she had placed there and carefully picked up the stack of photos that were carefully in place and put them on the kitchen table, where she knew her mother would find them.
Then for the first time in three months she fell asleep without Jess beside her.