TITLE: The Harsh Light Of Day

PAIRING: R/J

SUMMARY: Rory's 27th birthday is approaching, and Jess, who seven years before left her life, suddenly enters it again. But things are very different from the way they were before… (yea, I know this summary sucks, but I'm no good at these things)

SPOILERS: None that I know of

DISCLAIMERS: I don't own anything you recognise from the show. Basically just the characters I've made up, e.g. Pete, Mel, Cate etc.

RATING: R (PG again)

A/N: I had some extra time this morning, so I finished this chapter and headed for the library again to update. I really want to finish this story in the next three weeks, so I need to update more frequently. This most certainly will be my shortest author's note, I just wanna thank you for the reviews, each and every one makes me smile! And keep them coming..:)

Chapter Nine

*NBC, Monday, noon*

Mel was just about to leave her office and go for lunch with Rory when she saw Cate standing in her doorway. Cate looked tired, and suddenly Mel felt a twinge of guilt, realising that if she hadn't pushed

Cate to find out the truth, she wouldn't be so hurt now.

"You have a minute?" Cate asked and after Mel had nodded she closed the door to the room to give them some privacy.

Mel sat down on the side of her table and looked at Cate attentively. She knew Cate wanted to talk about Rory and Jess, but Cate's next words were a surprise to her.

"The novel Jess wrote, it's about him and Rory"

Mel's eyes widened, she stared at Cate not being able to say a word. Jess had written a book about Rory.

"After I talked with you, I read the book again and I realised it. Anyway, he's moving out today"

"This is all happening really fast" Mel said and went to Cate who was still standing in the middle of the room. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm… I feel…" Cate turned her gaze away from Mel. "You're Rory's friend, I really shouldn't talk to you about this"

"I know this is a weird situation, but you can talk to me, Cate" Mel said and put her arms around Cate.

Mel hugged Cate tightly and heard her sigh. Mel knew that she didn't have friends in the US, she couldn't even begin to understand how lonely Cate was right now.

"I feel so stupid. Everyone knew about them, except me. And I thought he loved me" Cate practically whispered when she went to sit on the couch in the corner of Mel's room.

Cate looked at Mel again and saw her sympathetic face looking back at her.

"Do you think Rory loves him?"

"I think… I believe that we all have soul mates. I know it sounds stupid and idealistic, but I really believe that, because I found mine ages ago. And I never saw Rory and Jess while they were together, but whenever Rory talked about Jess, it made me more and more sure of the fact that those two are soul mates. That's why they still love each other, even after all these years"

"It doesn't sound stupid, having soul mates. When I talked to Jess last night, it was the first time he'd ever opened up to me properly. It was special to hear him telling me about himself, and at the same time it hurt to hear him talk about her"

Cate managed to hide her sad face when they heard a knock on the door and Rory peaked in.

"Ready for lunch Mel? Oh, Cate, hey. I didn't see you there in the corner"

Mel and Cate looked at Rory somewhat hesitantly and Mel said she'd need a few more minutes to go over some stuff with Cate. Rory nodded and told Mel to get her when she was ready. After Rory had left the room, Mel turned to look at Cate again.

"I can't tell you that I don't want Jess and Rory to get back together. I know you're hurting, and I know Pete is going to get hurt, too, but… I haven't read Jess's book, but you have and I guess it made you understand how much he loved or loves Rory"

Cate nodded and said that she felt she was living in hell right now.

"I look at Rory and… She's great, a wonderful person, and my fiancé, well ex-fiancé, loves her. It sucks"

Mel grinned slightly and Cate laughed a bit, too. Cate got up to go back to work while Mel told her to call her anytime she needed someone to talk to.

"But you know, there's a soul mate for you, too. It's not Jess, and that's why it's good that you two have gone your different ways. Now you have a chance to find the man who can't live without you"

"Right now I'm not so sure I can live without Jess" Cate said and smiled at Mel vaguely. "So, you really think Rory still loves him, even though she's married?"

Mel nodded. Rory did still love Jess. A whole another issue was whether was she going to do anything about it.

*Lunch, 1pm*

"I wanna feel like myself again. I've been a wacko lately, I hate myself right now. All I do is think about me and what I'm feeling and what I want. I feel I'm the most self-centred person in the world, and it's not who I usually am, at least I hope not"

Mel listened to Rory speaking, and she was trying to make up her mind. She didn't know whether she should tell Rory that Jess and Cate had broken up or not. She didn't know if she should tell Rory that Jess had written a book about her, she just didn't know.

She had been so sure about this, so sure that Rory should be with Jess. Now that things were going to that direction she didn't know what to do. It still seemed that their reunion was a very distant dream.

"There's an easy solution to all of this. Did you think about the thing I asked you to think about last night?"

Rory was quiet for a minute, then she nodded.

"Being at Stars Hollow made it real again. Up until now it was somehow distant and obscure, but there it was.. Jess was real again, he wasn't a memory anymore, he was no longer just living in my mind. When he touched me I felt more alive than…"

 "Rory, hang on a minute! I need to hear you say this. Are you telling me that you would choose Jess? Are you admitting to me that you would choose Jess?"

Rory looked at Mel and her excited and somewhat shocked face. Rory wondered if she was doing the right thing talking to Mel about this, but she had to talk to someone.

"On a very abstract level of thinking, yea, I would. But this isn't happening on an abstract level, it's happening right here and now. I'm married to a man who loves me and whom I love and Jess is engaged and I don't know… I mean, he had wanted to come back but then Luke had told him that I was getting married. Why did he want to come back two years ago and not before? And if he had really wanted me, he would have come and tried to see if he still had a chance with me, right?"

"Maybe, maybe not. You can't know, and there's only one person who can answer your questions"

"So, you suggest I go to Jess and ask him why he didn't come back when I waited for him? Or maybe I should ask if he still loves me, cause that would be a very good thing coming from his ex-girlfriend who's now married" Rory's voice was slightly annoyed, but then she looked at Mel apologetically.

Mel opened her mouth, she had decided that she would tell Rory. She would tell Rory that Jess still loved her, she had to tell her. But then, the words just didn't come out and Mel sighed. It wasn't her place to say it, Rory needed to hear it from Jess, not her.

"I know this is hard, but in this situation you don't have the luxury of taking time and thinking. You're only going to hurt the people around you if you keep this up for much longer. You have to decide what you want, and you have to do it soon. Pete doesn't deserve a marriage where both parties don't love each other, and neither do you. This is hard, no one's denying that, but you'll just have to live with it"

Rory stared at Mel, she wished she could think like Mel. When Mel talked to her, things always seemed simple. And maybe they were simple, but Rory just didn't have the courage to see them that way. Rory nodded and Mel smiled a bit. This was hard, but a decision had to be made. A decision that would be best for all parties concerned. But how the hell was Rory supposed to know what that was? And maybe Jess didn't even want her anymore, she really couldn't know.

*Jess and Cate's apartment, 2pm*

Jess stood in his study and looked around. He had already packed his clothes and the things he needed on a daily basis. The other stuff he'd get later when he found a place of his own. Now he was just going to stay at a hotel until he found an apartment.

He looked at the phone on the desk and picked it up. He continued staring at the phone, after thinking about it long and hard, he had decided to admit that he couldn't cope alone. And he had realised that there was probably someone he could call.

Jess dialled a familiar number, but before anyone had the time to answer he put the phone down and left the room. He couldn't do it, he had never turned to anyone for help or support. At least not to anyone but Rory.

Jess walked to the apartment door and looked at his bags. He was about to leave his fiancée, he was about to do something that would affect the rest of his life. And he hadn't talked to anyone about it. He turned again and was about to walk back to the study. But he couldn't get himself moving, his pride and uncertainty was keeping him still. Eventually he turned again and grabbed his bags. He went to the elevator and then headed for a hotel.   

*Rory and Pete's apartment, 6pm*

Rory was standing by her desk, going through some documents and them filing them properly. She was lost in her thoughts, there was so much going on in her mind. Was she a complete idiot thinking that Jess might still love her? But the way he looked at her was the way he used to look at her. And when they'd talked at Stars Hollow it had felt good. And he had come into her room in the middle of the night.

Rory smiled thinking about it, thinking about him. She would have said that she was falling in love with him again, but… She had never stopped being in love with him. Rory looked up from the papers and stared out of the window. God, she did still love him. After all the hard work she'd done to deny it from herself as well as everyone else, she still loved him.   

Rory was in her study and so she didn't hear Pete come home. While she was organising her stuff by the desk, Pete stood in the doorway looking at her.

Ever since Jess had been back Pete had been afraid. And when he had felt Rory pulling away from him, he had panicked, trying to keep his distance to her as well, maybe to shield himself from the pain. He hadn't talked to her about it, he hadn't had the guts. But he knew, he just had to see how Rory and Jess looked at each other, how could he not know? But he didn't want to know, he didn't want to believe it. And last night he'd felt closer to Rory that he had in a while. But he still was unsure, and it eating him alive. He knew he should talk to her about it, but he couldn't. At least not yet. 

"God, you scared me!" Rory cried out when she turned and saw Pete looking at her with a smile. "Did you just come home?"

Pete nodded, but didn't get the chance to say anything else when Rory's mobile rang. She picked it up and Pete listened to her curiously when she shook her head and looked irritated. After a short conversation Rory put the phone down and looked at Pete apologetically.

"Looks like I'm heading for London tomorrow"

"London?"

"Yea. That was Bill, apparently he'd forgotten to tell me about this although he'd known about it for ages. Anyway, there's a conference of some sort and I need to… And I'm not even prepared" Rory sighed and sat down in her chair.

"How long will you be there?" Pete asked with a worried expression on his face when Rory replied that she had no idea whatsoever.

Rory saw that Pete was disappointed, but that he was trying to keep his emotions off his face. Rory looked at him, and she felt she needed to talk to him. Tell him that she was… Rory felt he deserved to know. But about what? About the fact that Rory still loved Jess? Pete already knew that, he had always known and it was obvious in his appearance right now that he was scared he'd lose her. But Rory couldn't talk about it with him, she just couldn't.

"I promised to call Lane today, but after that I was thinking that we could go out tonight"

"Actually, I was thinking of the same thing. There's a nice Chinese restaurant that just opened a few blocks away"

Rory picked up the phone and then nodded at Pete. When Pete had left the room, Rory put the phone back down and sat there thinking. She was going away, away from Pete, away from Jess and all the memories. She had to choose, either put Jess permanently in the past or… Thinking about the possibility of going to Jess and telling him that she still loved him was scary, but thinking that he might say he still loved her, too, that was overwhelming.

Rory picked up the phone and dialled her mother's number. She needed to tell Lorelai that she'd be out of the country for a while, maybe even talk about Jess.

*Jess and Cate's apartment, 8pm*

Cate opened the door and silence that she encountered when she stepped in was something she hadn't been prepared for. She didn't turn on any lights, she just walked through the apartment in the darkness. She noticed that Jess still had all his stuff there, but then she went to the bedroom and noticed how Jess's closet door was cracked. Cate went to the door and opened it. The shelves were empty, and cold.  Cate closed the door and then sat on the bed, on the side, which Jess used to sleep on. She took his pillow from under the covers and held it tightly. It still smelled like him.

*Jess's hotel, 10pm*

Jess was lying on the bed, the hotel room was comfortable, but it was a hotel room. Not that Jess wasn't used to hotel rooms, maybe it was that he'd spent too much time in them. He didn't want to watch TV, he didn't want to do anything. Eventually he took out his laptop and thought he might as well get some work done. But that didn't work out anyway, he just couldn't concentrate. He was sitting in a hotel room alone, and the fact was that he had no reason to believe that the next day or the day after that would be any different.

Jess got off the bed and reached out for the phone. This time, he didn't hesitate when he dialled a familiar number. It took a while before someone answered and Jess cleared his throat before he started talking to his uncle. Luke was just finishing up in the diner, so Jess called him in a good time. Luke hadn't expected his nephew to call, but he was glad, really glad.

"Cate and I split up"

Luke heard his words and it took him a while to understand them. Jess was known to be spontaneous and quick in his turns, but they had been at Stars Hollow together yesterday.

"But you were just here"

"Yea, it was… It was pretty quick, but it's really for the best, I guess. Cate found out about me and Rory and…"

"Wait! Are you saying that Cate didn't know that you and Rory had been together?"

"This is a complicated thing, I know. We talked yesterday when we came back to New York and we decided that we shouldn't be together. And I just…" Jess didn't know how to say it, it had been a long time since he had admitted that he needed someone. "Just wanted someone to talk to, that's all"

"You know I'm always here, Jess. So, where are you now?"

"Um, just a hotel until I find a place of my own. I have time since I don't really have working hours so I just…" Jess stopped talking when he got an idea.

Jess thought about it for a minute, then dismissed it as a bad one. He wasn't going to ask his uncle favours after he'd been away for seven years. The thing just wouldn't work out, it was a stupid thought anyway.

"Well, you could always…" Luke started talking, but he didn't really know how to say it. Jess wasn't exactly the kind of guy who accepted help voluntarily. "I have… If you wanna get away for a while, you could always come here"

"There?" Jess asked quietly, wondering how his uncle had known exactly what he had been thinking about.

"Well, the space above the diner is free, I haven't lived there for a few years now so… I mean you could write there and get some distance to things and… You know, until you get things sorted and find a new apartment"

"You really mean it?"

The tone of Jess's voice told Luke that his nephew was grateful for the offer. It seemed that he had grown up and matured. Luke knew it took a lot of guts to admit that he needed and appreciated his uncle's help.

"The place needs a good clean-up, but otherwise it's yours if you want it. You don't even have to pay rent if you help me at the diner sometimes"

"I will" Jess said and realised that his enthusiasm shone through his voice. "You think Lorelai will be okay with it?"

"Yea, she'll be glad to have you here, believe it or not" Luke chuckled and after a few more arrangements made between the two men Luke went back to work and Jess fell on the bed, feeling that there was still some hope for him in the world.