AN: I just want to thank everyone for all the great reviews!!! I really appreciate them! I hope you like this update, so here it is..



i'll sleep sound

"Jess!"

He looked up from his desk in his study. He raised his eyebrows, "Rory, what are you doing here?"

She hurried into the room, "Where are the papers? I need them."

"I haven't signed them yet." He said.

"Well, do it now." She began searching for them around his desk.

"Rory, I'm kind of busy at the moment."

"I need those papers." Rory looked through the desk drawers. They weren't there.

Jess grabbed her hands, "Rory, come on. I'll sign them later."

She wrenched her hands back, "No! I need them now." Papers went flying across his desk as she searched. She was making a mess but didn't seem to care.

"You won't find them!" Jess shouted.

Rory tore apart the room looking for them, "Yes, I will." She threw papers everywhere, they whirled around her. Surrounding her.

All of a sudden everything was white.

She spun around looking for Jess and the study but it was white.

Her eyes scanned the room in a panicked manner.

All white.

"No, no." She whimpered. She clamped her hands over her ears.

"Rory!"

A voice called to her.

She whirled around, "Jess?"

"Rory!"

"Jess!" She said desperately.

"Rory, let me in!"

There was a pounding on the outside of the walls.

Rory shook her head through tears, "You can't! You can't come in!" She went to the place where the pounding was coming from.

"Rory! Please just let me in. I'll give you the papers, I promise! Please, I love you!" More pounding.

Rory pressed her palms and forehead against the wall, "No, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She slid down to her knees.

"Let me in! Rory!"

Sobs erupted from her.

"Rory! Rory!"

Someone was shaking her shoulders.

"Rory, wake up! Come on honey."

Her eyes fluttered, "No, you can't, no." She whispered.

"Rory, please wake up."

Her head felt very heavy, she couldn't lift it. Her eyelids opened slowly, she recognized her own room around her. It wasn't white. A lush blue.

"Oh man, Rory, you scared me."

Someone began wiping away the tears that stained her cheeks.

Rory then recognized the person in front of her, "Ryan." She gave a small smile.

"Yeah, it's me." He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "You had a nightmare."

Rory lifted herself up into a sitting position, "I did." She shook her head trying to clear her thoughts. Major scary nightmare. She hated white rooms.

"Are you okay?" Ryan asked concerned. He brought her into his embrace.

"Yeah, I will be." She laid her head on his broad shoulder and sighed.

He pulled away, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Rory looked deep into her fiancé's hazel eyes, "No, I'm fine."

He ran a hand through his wavy chestnut hair, "You were crying."

"I'm okay, really." Rory wiped away the remaining tears.

"You weren't okay two seconds ago." He cupped her face in his hands. "What happened?"

Rory shook her head, "Nothing." She pulled away from his embrace and stood up. Stretching, she asked, "What time is it?"

"Five o'clock." Ryan watched her with a worried expression. It had been more then a nightmare, he thought.

"It's that late already?" Rory sounded surprised. "I slept a long time."

Ryan stood up with her, "How'd it go last night?"

Rory looked away, what should she say? "Not exactly how I wanted it to."

"What happened?"

She shrugged, "He just wasn't too happy about the whole thing."

"If you want me to come with you next time . . ."

Rory cut him off, "No, I think that would make the situation worse."

Ryan nodded, "Should we drop them off today?"

"What?" Rory looked up confused.

"The divorce papers at the legal office." He said as if stating the obvious.

Rory flinched at the sound of divorce and said, "Oh, that." She bit her lip. "Well, the thing is . . ." She trailed off.

"You don't have them." He finished for her.

"Yeah, I left them with him. He said he would send them." Rory made her way downstairs with Ryan following her.

"You think that was a good idea?" He asked walking onto the kitchen with her.

Rory shrugged turning the coffee maker on, "He wanted to look over them."

He sat down at the kitchen table. "What's there to look over? It's a divorce."

Rory flinched again when he said divorce, she wished he would stop saying that. "It's really not a big deal." Rory turned around to face him.

"What if he doesn't send them?"

"He will." Rory said losing her patience.

"I'm not so sure." Ryan raised his eyebrows, "I wouldn't give you up so easily."

"Jess knows that we can never be together again anyway. And that's that." Rory walked out of the room.

Ryan sighed and followed her, "Are you positive of that?"

"Yes, I'm sure." Rory's voice faltered.

"What's wrong?" Ryan came up behind her.

She tuned around looking at her feet, "He was just so cold. I didn't expect that, it was just kind of a hard blow."

Ryan hugged her, "What did you expect?"

"I don't know, but not that." Roy burrowed her head into his chest.

Ryan pulled away and held her face with his hands, trying to cheer her up, "Just think, we'll be married in two months time and all of this will be behind us!"

Rory smiled, "Yeah, it will be."

But inside Rory's smile faltered.

****************************************************

Lane Kim was worried.

And God knows that she already had enough to worry about.

For example: this week she had to worry about Thomas acing his history test, Kimmy getting to hockey and soccer practice on time, her mother coming over for dinner tomorrow night, cleaning the house today and tomorrow because her mother was coming over for dinner tomorrow night, and making sure the bills were paid.

Yeah, she had enough to worry about.

But yet, she was still worried about her best friend. She couldn't help it.

Rory needed to be worried about. She really should tell him . . .

Jess had the right to know. Lane knew how distressed he was over it, she kept in touch with Jess even after they had separated. He was Melanie's god-father after all, and the kids absolutely adored him.

Her thoughts were interrupted when her son James came crashing through the kitchen, "Mom! MOM!"

Lane looked up sharply, "What is it James?" She wiped her hands on a dish rag as her six year old son rushed out a hurried answer.

"We found a snake in the backyard!! Come look at it!" James pulled on his mother's hand. "Kimmy found it! Melanie started screaming and now she's hiding under the deck because Kimmy kept trying to give it to her! But oh man! It's so cool!"

"Mel's under the deck?!" Lane asked concerned. Her youngest, four year old daughter did not like anything that crawled. "Kimmy shouldn't have been teasing her with a snake."

They had reached the furthest part of the back yard that led into a small forest, three of her children were huddled in a group whispering excitedly.

"Okay, let's see it." Lane said. Eight year old Kimmy came out with a squirming grass snake in her hands.

Lane raised her eyebrows, "Looks harmless enough."

"We named him Squirmy!" Thomas piped up, a tall, lanky greened eyed nine year old.

"Seems to fit." Lane said, she eyed them warily. "Don't be teasing your sister, okay? Especially you Kimmy."

Kimmy just shrugged and turned back to the snake, "Let's make it a home!"

Thomas said, "I have the perfect box!"

"Great!" James cried, "Let's go and get it."

The three kids scurried off in search of the box. Lane smiled after them loving her children to no end.

Lane turned in search of her youngest daughter, the poor thing. She wasn't much of a tom boy as her sister Kimmy was. Melanie was always left out since Kimmy didn't care a thing about girls things, on the other hand Melanie would only wear dresses.

She reached the deck where their pool was, a simple above ground pool that was used constantly.

"Hey Mel." Lane crouched down peering under the deck. "Come on out."

Melanie crept forward, her pink flowered dress covered in dirt. "Mommy?" She asked.

"I'm here. Come here sweetie." Lane reached out and brought her daughter to her.

Tears stained her daughters cheeks, "They tried to make me touch it." She hiccuped, "B-but I didn't want to."

"I know." Lane kissed Melanie on the cheek, "It's okay, you don't have to." She smoothed down her daughter's jet black hair. Melanie was the only one of her children that looked like Lane. The rest looked exactly like Mathew, her husband. In fact, Melanie was a spitting image of Lane.

"Come on." Lane picked Melanie up, "We'll go inside, clean you up and make cookies for Daddy. How does that sound?"

"G-good." Melanie forced a smile and wrapped her small arms around her mother's neck.

An hour later they were placing a batch of cookies into the oven. For some reason Lane's thoughts drifted back to Rory once again.

She was so worried about her. She needed to tell him. Everything. She needed tell him, or Lane didn't think Rory would ever really be able to move on with her life.

Lane sighed, she was also worried because she was pregnant again.

She didn't know how to tell Rory. She felt horrible because here she was already with four children and she had another one on the way. How would she tell Rory?

Rory had wanted kids so badly and then . . .

Lane hated thinking about it. She decided to give Rory a call. She would invite her over for dinner Friday night and give her the news.

She dialed the memorized number and waited for Rory to answer the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey Ror."

"Lane! How's it going?"

"I should be asking you that question."

"I'm doing fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, no not really." Lane heard her sigh through the phone. "I had a nightmare again."

"Oh, no . . . But you haven't had one of those in years, not since . . ." Lane felt her worry growing for Rory.

"I know. But now they're back, no surprise really. I saw him again, I really should've expected it."

"No, you shouldn't have. Think more positively Rory, everything is going to turn out just fine." Lane said encouraging.

"I hope so. I want it to so badly."

There was a moments silence.

"Lane?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think he'll sign the papers?"

Another moment of silence.

"Lane?"

"Sorry." Lane but her lip, tell the truth, she thought. "I'm not so sure Rory."

"Ryan doesn't think he will. Maybe I should've stayed there until he did."

"Yeah, maybe."

Rory sighed again, "He was so bitter . . ."

"I think that he might want answers before he signs them."

There was an awkward pause.

"Do you think so?" Rory said almost weakly.

"He might. Listen Rory, we should talk about this in person. Why don't you come over for dinner Friday night. We'll figure all this out."

"Okay, sounds good."

Melanie was pulling on Lane's pants, "Mommy, can I talk to Aunt Rorwy too?" She looked up at her with huge dark, brown eyes. Melanie absolutely adored Rory, she was her god-mother.

"Hey, Rory Mel wants to talk to you."

"Put her on, I want to know how her first ballet lesson went."

Lane handed the phone to Melanie.

"Hi Aunt Rorwy!" Melanie scurried down the hall talking excitedly into the phone.

Lane watched her daughter race into the other room.

She really did need to tell him.



****************************************************

"Hey Sara!" Katie Hanover called to her best friend.

Sara turned around from her locker to see Katie, a tall athletic, blonde, striding towards her, "Hey Kate."

"Listen, I just had English, and Mr. Mariano is in a freakin shitty mood today!" She sighed and leaned against a locker beside hers. "I wouldn't go asking for another book list, he'll probably piss all over you."

Sara raised her eyebrows, "Nice way of putting it."

Katie merely shrugged, "Well, there's no other way to describe it."

"What happened?" Sara asked retrieving more books from her locker. She had been planing on telling Mr. Mariano how much she enjoyed 'Oliver Twist'. Didn't look as though that would be happening.

"He gave a pop quiz and said it would be counting as fifty percent of our test grades." Katie rolled her eyes and snapped her gum. "I didn't think it was that bad, but some other people had a really hard time."

"If they actually did the reading they wouldn't have any trouble." Sara said and slammed her locker closed.

"Yeah, too bad they don't. I have Earth Science now, don't wanna be late." Katie turned and ran down the hallway hoping she wouldn't be. Mrs. Kiles excepted no excuses for being tardy and continually gave out detention.

"See ya!" Sara called after her and then made her way to English class.

Mr. Mariano was definitely acting weird today. He had this look of venom on his face that hadn't left his face for the whole class.

But sometimes Sara would detect a look of complete sadness on his face.

Of course the pop quiz for her was easy enough, but some of her classmates were moaning and groaning.

"If you had done the reading this wouldn't be so bad would it?" Mr. Mariano asked scathingly as he collected the papers and tossed them on his desk.

Carl Mennings raised his hand, "This isn't really gunna cost that much on our grade is it?"

"Stop complaining, Carl." Mr. Mariano snapped.

The whole class winced. He really was in a bad mood today. He never acted like this, he was usually the cool teacher.

Until today that is.

The bell rang and everyone hurried out of the classroom. Sara didn't stop to ask for another book list, she would just have to ask Mrs. Harper for recommendations.

"What's up his ass?" Sara heard Carl ask one of his friends on their way out.

"Who knows?" Scott responded, "I'm not voting him teacher of the year this time."

"Got that right."

Sara watched them saunter down the hall, the school jocks. She rolled her eyes.

It was just one day, it didn't stop him from being the best teacher in the school.

But what WAS wrong with Mr. Mariano?



AN: You know what to do!!!