She's So Halogen

Chapter Seven

Author-- Tinuviel Henneth

Summary-- Future-fic: One beautiful, reluctant, Pulitzer Prize-winning muse + a depressed and creatively stuck songwriter + a bevy of selfish exes, substantial egos, and senseless evasion = A good, old-fashioned romance. Unconventional 'ship alert!

Disclaimer-- I don't own any of the people you recognize. José and Katie belong to themselves, although they have been borrowed for this fic against their will. They're real people! Everybody else is fictional and was either invented by Amy Sherman-Palladino (who owns all of GG) or myself (who owns nothing). So there.

Author's Note-- Thank you for your wonderful reviews. I appreciate each and every one of the fucking things. ::grins:: This chapter is dedicated not to Paul, but his anger. It's so amusing.

*

A few weeks later

Brian looked over at Dave, who was sitting with a stormy, 'don't-fucking-touch-me' look in his eyes as he hunched over his guitar and plucked out a few chords. He had headphones on his head, and from what Brian could discern, he was working on yet another song. This one was angry and fast-paced and emotional. Hell, all of them had been like that. This one was the most extreme. Brian seriously wondered what catalyst could have possibly sent Dave into this mood.

As long as he had known him, Brian had never known Dave to be angry. Dave was a nervous, even-tempered man of a rather annoying sweet disposition. He was always concerned with the comfort of others, and would spare no expense to make a loved one okay, even if it meant he would be cold and damp and hungry. Brian had known him since they were seven. Brian had known him when Tyler hung himself in his closet. Brian had known him when he met Lane, and when he and Lane slept together for the first time, and when Lane had a pregnancy scare in their junior year of college. He was Dave's friend when they broke up, and when she married José Lopez and when Dave had stopped writing. He had watched Dave when he was ecstatically happy and when he was so depressed it emanated off his body in clouds. He felt Dave better than he felt himself. This was the one time Brian did not understand him. This was the first time. It hurt Brian deeply.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon, Greenwich Mean Time. They were all jetlagged, weary, and in no spirits to play for thousands of overeager Brits. Lane, and José as a consequence, had disappeared as soon as they checked into the hotel. Usually the band stayed together for a few hours when they arrived in a new city, to work out final details. This trip was unusual. They were in London, where they'd never been before, but none of them stayed together. Zach had gone off to find a music shop his aunt had told him about on Charring Cross Road. Liam, ever paranoid, had gone off to talk to the promoters at Royal Albert Hall. Dave had taken his oldest, most trusted guitar and gone to Brian's room, put a pair of crackly old headphones on, and begun playing around. This all left Brian standing in his own doorway, watching Dave and trying not to be bewildered by such a break in tradition.

Brian had come in and sat down near Dave long ago. He watched every expert movement Dave made with rapt attention. Dave did not have a guitarist's fingers, his were actually rather small and thick. He had to train them to move over the strings, it wasn't natural the way it was for Brian. However, Dave had more desire than Brian, more drive to be perfect. And unlike Brian, Dave usually was perfect. It didn't matter that physically he wasn't made for the damn guitar.

Whatever was inspiring Dave was inspiring him to write some amazing stuff. That first song, the suicide song, aptly titled "Someplace Cold," had been accepted with a fair amount of awe from Liam. Liam was, perhaps, their harshest critic after themselves, and he was almost impossible to impress. The song left him speechless.

Brian got up from his chair and left Dave to his own devices, playing around on that old guitar. He closed the door behind him and went downstairs to get a drink at the bar because he couldn't think of anything else to do. He felt listless.

The bar was empty save for a bartender with a toothbrush moustache and a little blonde wisp of a cocktail waitress. They were talking, and didn't notice Brian, which was fine with him. He didn't fancy-- he felt special to think in the way of the people he was surrounded by-- a drink so early in the afternoon, especially since he had a show that night.

Up in his hotel room, however, Dave did notice Brian's presence and eventual departure. As soon as the door closed behind him, Dave put down the guitar and laid back on the bed. He laced his fingers together and placed his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He wondered if it was just him, or if the ceilings were nicer here in London than back home. Perhaps it just seemed that way.

He was actually looking forward to the show that night. He wanted to play "Someplace Cold," and he wanted to see what the British (or, as he liked to think, more sophisticated, non-American) crowd thought of it before they played it back home. They had played in Liverpool once, and they actually had covered the Beatles' "Blackbird," on an earlier album. Their version was most referred to in all the major Beatles covers, and often heralded as the best cover version of any Beatles song. Dave personally hated the song and the way people reacted to it, but he had the perfect voice for it-- a wide range and the ability to toss up high and not crack. Liam liked it because it made lots of money.

He had resigned himself to the fact he was an incomprehensible idiot. What had he been thinking when it came to Rory? What did he really expect? He shook his head. Liam, in all his frizzy blonde-headed glory came rushing past. He called out to his old friend and manager. "Lee, I wanted to run an idea by you about tonight," he said.

Liam stopped and looked at Dave concernedly. "What's wrong?" he asked. He was British, and he had worked himself into a proper tizzy since they'd been on his home soil. It was rather amusing.

"It's nothing bad. I was just wondering if you think we're ready to play 'Someplace Cold' on stage yet. I think this might be the crowd to try it out on."

Liam cocked his head to one side as he always did when he was considering something. "Yes," he said in his Peter Grant-ish manner. "Yes, I do think you're ready. It's a brill song, no doubt. You tell the rest, though, chap. I'm off to see about. . " he wandered off, still talking to himself about this or that. Dave rolled his eyes, but even his annoyance with Liam couldn't overshadow his glee about doing the song. He really loved the song that much.

He spent the rest of the afternoon rounding up the other members. When he told them Liam had given them a thumbs-up on playing the song, they all met him with enthusiasm. Brian, having just recovered from a very serious intestinal parasite problem, was excited because it had a solo in it for him. Lane was very proud of the song herself. It marked a change in Dave, a change she was grateful for.

It meant he was done pining for her.

*

Jared Henderson almost always washed his clothes on Sundays at the Sud and Dud on Sunset, two blocks from the Texaco on a patch of land that had once been a sand dune. Instead of watching his shirts and pants and socks turn over and over, he would walk down the street to the Wendy's that had been built not long after he moved into Rory's house. It bothered him a little that she had never bothered to buy a washer and dryer, but the weekly laundry trip afforded him an extra chance to get out and see the town. He loved the town and its little nooks and crannies. He loved the locals, the people who lived there even when the Atlantic turned steel gray and the air bit back. He didn't like sharing the road with them; they were notoriously awful drivers (then again, so was Rory).

He was sorting dirty laundry into two baskets, one for light and one for dark, when he heard a familiar and quite unexpected sound. It was Rory's key turning in the lock on the front door. He tossed an errant sock into the white basket and rose to meet her when she entered.

She had a small suitcase in one hand and her laptop under the other arm. Her hair was in a ponytail and her eyes were red. "Jared?" she called into the house, not immediately seeing him standing by the couch. Behind her, he could see her rental car gleaming in the sun. It was parked next to the pink hydrangea he had planted the past spring.

"Hey, Ror," he said, rounding the couch to take her suitcase and kiss her on the cheek. He pulled back, rather stung, when she stiffened at his touch. "What's the matter?" he asked sincerely. He set the suitcase down beside his feet and touched one of her upper arms. She flinched, but didn't pull away. "Ror?"

She closed her eyes and moved forward into the house, letting him close the front door behind her. Her heart broke when she saw the neatly sorted laundry on the coffee table. Jared was so anal about those kinds of things. He was so amazing, Jared was. Always concerned, always loving, always somewhat motherly, but not so much that she found herself tempted to call him Will. She sat down on the couch and stared past the plastic weave of the blue basket holding the colored clothes. The logo from one of his shirts was showing. She had to look away. It was a Purist shirt.

He sat down next to her and put an arm around her tense shoulders. She didn't lean in toward him or pull away. She remained completely still, unaffected at all. It hurt him more than if she had jerked away because he didn't understand at all. "Rory, what's wrong?"

She started to cry, still saying nothing. Finally, she did gravitate toward him, resting her head against his collarbone. He drew her close and mumbled things he supposed were comforting. They didn't comfort her at all. "Jared, I'm sorry," she said.

"It's okay," he said absently, inhaling the apple shampoo she'd used. Apple shampoo? Apologies? What was going on? "Why are you sorry?" he asked, overly concerned.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"Rory, what's wrong?"

She sniffled. "I did a bad thing," she told him.

He pulled away from her. She slumped back against the arm of the couch and looked at the floor. "W-what did you do?" Jared asked, his voice wavering because he had a pretty good idea of what she could have done to break herself into a million little pieces like this.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. His aftershave was the same one Dave had used, he smelled exactly like Dave. Strange how she hadn't recognized the smell when she'd been with Dave. She didn't want to think about Dave. "Can you forgive me?" she asked.

Jared bit his lip. He wasn't so sure he knew what he would be forgiving, if he could. "Depends," he said noncommittally.

She sniffed and turned her head to meet his hazel gaze. His eyes had gone a stormy gray-brown, giving her all the answer she needed. "I haven't lost my feelings for you," she prefaced, "but I've fallen in love with someone else."

Whatever Jared had been expecting her to say, this evidently wasn't it. "Is that it?" he asked. He had known she had not been in love with him. Something had happened to her when she was in college to make her avoid all true intimacy. She was fine with casual sex; it was escapism and Rory was all for escapism. She was fine with an empty relationship with a wonderful man who adored her if he could make her feel safe for an hour a week. Jared loved her intensely, but he had never harbored any delusions where her heart was concerned.

"I slept with him," she admitted in a rough voice.

Jared relocated to the armchair on the other side of the room, his face and thoughts troubled. "Was it just sex?" he asked, afraid of her answer. He couldn't meet her eyes.

She took a long time to answer his question, because she hadn't actually thought about it for herself. The whole way down from New York, she had blared her music and thought about her resentment towards Lane's selfishness, never once daring to think about Dave or Jared or her feelings therein. Now that Jared was forcing her to think, her head was starting to hurt. "I don't know," she said finally.

"What does that mean?" he asked, his voice soft.

"It was good sex," she said, looking up at his face, though not his eyes, to gauge a reaction. She was dismayed that he didn't give an immediate one. She didn't offer any other details. She didn't want to cheapen her own memories for Jared's state of mind.

The two of them sat there for a long while, silently mulling over the things she'd said, the impenetrable rift she'd dug in one night with Dave. "Who was he?" Jared asked, his voice neutral and small. It was not a voice befitting a six-foot-four man.

"You wouldn't know him," she said. "Just some guy."

Jared almost laughed. In different circumstances, he certainly would have. But now he was too sad. "Rory, we both know that it's impossible for you to fall for 'just some guy.'"

And, like Jared, Rory almost laughed. "Dave Rygalski," she said, mispronouncing the his last name on purpose, trying to give him a shred of anonymity. It was futile; Jared was too insightful.

"The guitarist?" Jared asked in a surprisingly mild tone.

"The guitarist," Rory confirmed.

Jared got up from his chair and left the room. Rory stood up and went out to her car and drove away from the house, headed for the tourism district. She had grabbed Jared's beach tag pass from the table beside the door as she left, so she flashed it at the bored woman monitoring beach traffic (or rather, reading "The Firm" and absently checking beach tags). It wasn't terribly hot outside, for which Rory was grateful (she was wearing rather heavy jeans and a tee shirt). It wasn't windy or cloudy or particularly sunny. It was simply a day to go to the beach, eat a pretzel, and sleep.

She spread out a towel she'd had in the trunk (just in case) and laid down on her stomach so she wouldn't have to look at the sky. A Japanese woman with two (half-American) young sons was situated nearby, and every so often, the serene sounds of the ocean and the gulls were punctuated by the woman squawking at the boys. Eventually, she fell asleep.

Hours later, when she returned to the house, she found a lot of Jared's things gone, and the rest packed up with a note on them saying he'd be back for them the following morning. It made her want to cry, because part of her life was over. It made her feel relieved because she wasn't hurting him anymore, although she still felt awful about cheating on him in the first place.

She sat on the sofa for a moment more before standing and searching for the telephone. She found it, amazingly enough, in its cradle. Jared was so funny about those kinds of things. It was an alien concept to her.

She dialed a familiar number and tapped her foot and whistled 'Music Box Dancer' while she listened to the ringer.

Finally, "Dragonfly Inn, Lorelai speaking. How may I help you?"

Rory thanked every godly deity ("Thank you Anubis, thank you Artemis, thank you Brad Pitt. . .") she could think of for the sound of her mother's voice. "Mom?" she said

"Hey babe," Lorelai said in standard greeting form. "What can I do ya for?"

"I need advice," Rory told her, cutting right to the chase. "Serious advice."

---chapter finis

I love Jared. I've got my own little stuffed version of him, being that he's been imported from a previous original story that got scrapped a looonnng time ago. I just hugged him when I wrote this. It's so sad.

There is only one chapter left, then the epilogue-type thingy, which I personally think is the best chapter of the whole story.

--T. Henneth / story completed 12 June 2003 / chapter posted 3 September 2003