Seriously, there are no words I can use to apologize for my tardiness. I really wish I could guarantee the quality of this part by the time I've spent purely on it, but I can't. Dean was being grumpy and Rory refused to cooperate for excruciatingly so long that I felt it was now or never.
Before you proceed, it'd be a good idea to reread the first seven chapters, and while you're at it, take a guess why PJ Harvey was bothering Tristan so much. Just a study question. ;)
8: Coda, or Getting Over Your Breakup: The Twelve Steps
Now is the time to follow through, to read the signs
Now the message is sent, let's bring it to its final end.
-PJ Harvey, "A Place Called Home."
#1: The "box" should be immediately thrown away.
The first time she had come into his room, she touched everything and read everything, like she had to discover everything about him, like she couldn't stand not knowing.
He had watched her exploration from the doorway, feeling oddly naked to have her in his room and knowing his obligation to supply all the necessary expositions ("That's from Chicago Museum, the very last summer spent in the city. That? My grandmother gave it to us before we left. Uh, that's from 5th birthday, hasn't been thrown away for a sentimental reason. Okay, now that belongs to the garbage..."). Her longest stops were at the bookshelves and the CD rack, where she examined the items with incredible concentration. The whole procedure was automatic, like a computer absorbing information, and he had to restrain himself from wanting to kiss her right there, right then.
"Do you like PJ Harvey?" she had asked, her nose cutely buried behind the CD case as she took in all the lyrics, her eyes mesmerized by the world of the words. When she saw him stare, her cheeks began to dye in pink. "Right, of course you like her, because why else would you have her CDs if you didn't, and here I am asking a question that has absolutely no real merit to be asked--"
"She's one of my favorites," he said, effectively stopping her tirade that she'd be soon embarrassed by. He was by then used to her incompressible leaps and bounds, and in a tingly mood, he hoped that maybe, one day, he would understand her completely and he would be very, very happy. "Her songs are rather bittersweet."
"Right," she said, nodding vigorously and still trying to find her footings in their new relationship. And probably hoping her foot wouldn't find its place in her mouth again.
He smiled at her impishly because he knew exactly what she was thinking, and because she could not make a mistake even if she tried. He adored everything she did, everything she said, and he'd accepted that it was just the way things were going to be. "You can borrow it if you want," he offered casually, making another excuse to see her again.
She looked down at the CD, contemplating it. Instead of putting it in her backpack, she played the CD right there. He knew the lyrics, he knew the sound, every little beat and meter, yet it was different because she was here. She was listening with him. In the mid-chorus, she took tentative steps toward him and, with one brave look, kissed him on the lips. The song of kamikaze sang by PJ Harvey was behind them, and it was like a ride on a plane diving into the dark blue pool of the sky. For the first time in his teenager life, he was happy to be who he was, kissing this girl.
The day he came home from the hospital, she came to see him.
"Hi," she said.
Her voice was resolute. It did not tremble. It carried through the garage yard with authority and strange confidence, and this wasn't the Rory he had seen at the hospital, or even the Rory he had fallen in love with. Determination was everything she stood for now, and Dean found it incredible that he wasn't turning to her in surprise.
Instead, he kept to his seat inside the only broken car left in this place that hadn't been taken away, his eyes still closed. If he kept at this, she had to go away. She wouldn't stay here waiting for him to acknowledge her when he was ignoring her in all intentions and purposes.
When he opened his eyes again, he could still feel her presence. When he turned around with a million seconds of hesitation, she was shivering under the pale streetlight in between the junks he had been cleaning up to empty the space.
The silence was long and stretched, and he focused on the fence beyond her frail shoulders.
"I was hoping," she said. The summer night breeze was warm enough, yet she covered herself with a jacket that seemed to protect her from everything else. "I was hoping that you'd speak to me again."
Her voice was quiet and loud at the same time, hitting all the right places and leaving him breathless. Rory still had this power over him, the power to make him believe, and this...this was ridiculous. Rory had liked the idea of him, but never just him. He'd bore her to death if he already hadn't, and they both knew this. Did they really need this encore?
"I'm not a charity case," he said. "An extracurricular project for when you feel like it. I'm done with that."
Silence. When he finally forced himself to turn to her, she looked stricken, bearing his words like salt on raw wound. "Right," she murmured softly. "Right."
Rory Gilmore had always been a creature of words, beautifully flowing words, but he was hearing none now. She watched him in a complete void for words.
The silence was a new thing between them, new and awkward and wrong in every single way that he could imagine, but he didn't hurry to fill up the silence. He had nothing to offer.
"I'm glad you're all right, Dean," she said.
He couldn't have reacted if he tried. No scars could be made on the already barren field. One more scar on the skin that was already covered with scars changed nothing.
He didn't look when she left.
/And he built a whole army of kamikaze.../
It was a stupid refrain that his brain had picked it up from his late night music sessions in the hospital. It refused to die.
/And he built a whole army of kamikaze.../
The song had ended a long time ago, but he heard it again now, as clear as her dimpled smile, as loud as the sound of her footsteps fading away.
That night, he put all PJ Harveys in the Rory box, sealed it. Too melodramatic, but he accepted it as a prerequisite for being a teenager. The proverbial last step to the end. The need for an epilogue. Drawing the last line.
The Rory box and his toolbox were thrown out that night, and he drew the line there. By the pure force of will, he didn't hear the song any more.
#4: The parental unit control.
"What's this?" Dad asked over breakfast, indicating a set of keys looking harmless on the table.
The summer vacation had begun while he was battling the cast, and now that he was back, Dean had no plan. He wondered if Taylor, taking account of the fact that he had almost been flattened by a metal pole that was now a component of his store building, would take him back as a storage boy.
"Dean?" Dad asked again, insistent.
Dean suddenly felt lightheaded, the focus suddenly lost. This whole thing, the plain act of sitting on this table and having breakfast, was surreal, and it was a definitely contributing factor to this swim into the empty abyss that seemed to have taken over his kitchen. He felt an odd urge to stand up and get the hell out, leaving behind the confused faces at all corners of the table. It was a pure restraint on his part that he didn't--and his drilled-in notions of family and responsibilities.
With effort, he orchestrated a nonchalant voice, "They're the keys to the garage yard."
"The garage yard?" Now there was a true puzzlement on Dad's face. Actually, it was on everyone's face. "Why?"
This had been what Dean had wanted, coming back, becoming a part of this again. And one thing about staying in the life he wanted? He had to work to get it. "You can use it for storage. I'm not using it anymore."
"But what about your truck?" It was Clara's turn, who had gotten out from the chair and made her way to him. Her self-proclaimed attempt at being less annoying after his return was a failing grade. "Aren't you going to fix it?"
"No." At their expressions, Dean strained to smile. "Dad, Mom, I know what I'm doing."
"Do you?" The frown on Mom's face, one that had been permanently marked ever since his accident, became more prominent. "Dean--"
He stood up. He'd thought by now he should be ready to face the looks of confusion and disappointment. He had been wrong. Like many times before. "I gotta go look for a job today. May I be excused?"
He didn't wait for the answer. He walked straight to the hall and reached for the door that felt like miles away. But Mom was faster. Her hand was on his as he turned the knob, just a second away from opening the door and slipping into the outside that was not home.
"Remember the engineering school you wanted to go?" she asked, stopping him dead.
Here we go, Dean thought. He didn't want to do this so much so that it physically hurt him. He let his hand fall from the knob without turning to face her. "It was a long time ago, Mom."
"You still want to, though. I can see it, Dean. You never mentioned it after we'd moved to here, but you used to be dying to go, remember?" Her light question, tugging at his memory, was weighed down by concerns hinted at her feather-like touch.
"Not any more, you know that." Because he wasn't smart enough and it'd be a waste of perfectly good money. "I thought we...agreed on this."
"How could we have when we never talked about it? I know we were bad parents. If you wanted this, even just a little, we should've pushed you toward it. We should've been there to listen if or when you wanted to talk, and we weren't."
He could ignore the exasperation in her voice, but not the hurt. He faced her, but his eyes ended up tracing the tiles on the floor. "Mom, I'm your son. I know. I know you and Dad are trying really hard...and I know. I can make my way up from a college nearby. Worst comes to worst, Joe's Garage will always hire me. "
"Don't even kid about that, Dean."
The frown on her face deepened, and he wanted to look away. "What, Dad can work at the garage and I can't?"
"You can be so much more," she said with the conviction only parents could have over their children.
But he refused to be so much more. He didn't need to be. Such words echoed too much of what Rory used to tell him, Rory trying to make him something he wasn't all because she hadn't known him from the first place.
He hadn't wanted to listen back then, he wasn't going to listen now. He reached for the doorknob.
Her hand was on his shoulder again.
His mom had strong hands. She always had. But they would no longer hold him back. He lifted her hand from his shoulder and walked out. That was the end of the line.
#6: Exercise the art of not caring.
"Heard you're out," Luke said as he threw over heavy garbage bags onto the dumpster, by all indication sounding as if Dean was out on a parole.
Dean, wondering why he was saddled into helping out Luke of all people, grunted as he lifted another bag and passed it over to Luke. "Good to know you actually missed me."
"Well, Stars Hollow softball team has been on a losing streak ever since."
"Probably because it's never won?"
"That's very possible," Luke conceded.
Dean was rediscovering the time-honored truth -- absolutely nothing changed in Stars Hollow. This town didn't change, no matter how the people in it might change. The streets, the stores, the houses, the faces that smiled back stayed the same. This was what he'd banked on, what he'd needed. The singular life. Things that wouldn't demand him to be better, different. More.
Well, Dean was game with that.
After the garbage crises were evaded, Luke turned and looked, really looked, at him. "You okay now?"
Dean found it interesting that Luke wasn't just going away or, better yet, yelling at him. Luke had to have heard everything from Lorelai and should be hating Dean's every gut by now. "I'm walking, so I would think I'm okay."
"And looking for work." At Dean's surprised look, Luke explained, "Patty told me."
Well, guess it didn't take an hour for Miss Patty to spill the beans all over the town. "So?"
"Mind if I ask why you quit that fancy job with cars and all that?"
"Only if I don't have to answer."
"Fair enough."
That was one thing Dean liked about Luke: Luke never pushed. Luke leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and gave Dean a look that was either of contempt or pure blankness. "You might have heard, but I'm one man short."
Dean had heard, but the world knew that Dean was the last person Luke would be discussing this. "So I've heard."
"Wanna have a go at it?"
This was the first thing Dean had heard since the accident that actually surprised him. Or that meant anything. He tried to keep shock from his expression and failed. "You want me to work for you."
"You know," Luke shrugged, "what the hell. And Taylor never complained about you, which, as you know, was never the case for every other of his employees."
If this was supposed to be Luke's way of saying he trusted him, well, it was just plain Luke. Dean felt almost touched. "It's okay. Thanks for the thought, though."
Luke scowled. "What, you discriminate jobs now?"
"Taylor took be back again."
Luke straightened up and matched Dean's look with his. "Would you have said yes if he didn't take you back?"
"No," Dean admitted. "But it wouldn't be because I don't want to work with you."
Luke gave Dean an once-over and shrugged.
Dean looked at Luke who wasn't really going away, wondered what Luke's life must be like, and then thought again. Dean had his own problems with the song that wouldn't fade and the expiration date that kept coming back until he felt like throwing up. Yes, he was fine drowning in his own misery, thankyouverymuch, and he didn't need Luke's.
But the lines on Luke's face that Dean had never really noticed before now stood out like stigmata, the dark circles under his eyes going against even his grumpiest expression. Dean, unfortunately, knew the reason. The only problem in bringing it up here and now was that Luke probably didn't want to talk about it anyway.
Crap. And since when did he care what Luke thought?
"You miss him," Dean said bluntly.
Luke didn't answer right away, and Dean took it as hesitation. Was Luke going to lie and say no? Hell, why not? Everyone else did.
But Luke shook his head, seemingly at himself. "Funnily enough, yes."
"I guess he grows on you." Which only meant Jess Mariano shared many characteristics with fungus.
"I pushed him into a lake at one point. Now I kinda wish I hadn't."
Dean didn't actually smile at the image. Tempted, but no. "No you don't."
"No I don't," Luke agreed readily. He sighed. "I wasn't a good guardian. Not even a good uncle. Hell, everyone knew that. I guess he'd be happier where he really belongs."
Dean didn't like seeing hints of self-deprecation on Luke. It didn't suit him. It shouldn't suit him. "I wouldn't mind an uncle like you."
"Free coffee, huh?"
"Yep."
"And that's exactly why I would mind a nephew like you."
Dean smiled a little. This was what marked his relationship with Luke, a dry conversation that went on sporadically with erratic pauses that signified a strange brew of irritation and comfort. But Dean was beginning to hear a lot more in these moments of silence. It was easy to diagnose other people's illness, like the people in the books who were all lonely and believing that they made no impressions on others when they actually had. Dean wondered why the hell Luke wouldn't take his chance with Lorelai. He wondered why the hell Luke would have to be...like this.
Dean looked away. This wasn't his business. Didn't matter that he saw some of himself in Luke.
"If you want the job, it's open," Luke said after a stilled moment, before disappearing into the diner just as abruptly as he had appeared. Dean almost called out to him, to stop him, to reach out, to tell him what really mattered, to care.
But he didn't.
Next day, he went back to being the storage boy. The end of the line.
#7: Evaluating the next potentials.
"You look great," he said, not a flattery, not a lie. After all, Amanda always looked great.
"Of course I do. You, on the other hand, look downright dreadful," she remarked. She stood in front of the counter, where a pack of gum she was attempting to purchase looked terribly lonely.
He almost smiled. "An acute observation as always. Thanks."
She took a long look at him, from top to toe, searching and surveying him in one sweeping glance. "You can walk."
"Apparently."
"Then why are you not at work?"
"I am at work."
She stared at him until her stare became a glare. "What is it with you?"
Psychologically, pathologically or physically? Way too many answers. As much as he enjoyed the verbal spar with Amanda, silence seemed to be the most convenient answer. Or, a lie. "I don't know," he said. He wondered what he was doing exactly, talking to Amanda while Taylor's glaring at him from the aisle one. "But maybe you can find it out for me."
He didn't know why he'd said it, and it stopped him as much as it did Amanda. It took a long while for her expression to come alive again. "Really," she said.
He couldn't read Amanda, he'd never been able to, and he felt like tempting fate. "If I ask you out, will you say yes?"
"No," she said simply and effectively. "Were you going to ask me?"
He watched her. He wondered why he was suddenly like this. This cruel. "No."
"Good," she said, straightening her jacket. "Because, just now? I was an inch close to kicking your ass, and I'm in no mood to ruin my shoes."
She whirled on her heels so fast that he felt the air whipping across his face. She headed for the exit, and he stared at the lonely gum she'd been trying to buy left at the counter. He didn't have to explain himself to her. He owed Amanda a lot, but he didn't have to explain himself when he wasn't even sure what he was doing. He didn't.
But maybe he did. He wasn't so sure any more. "I'm no different, Amanda."
She stopped at the exit, turned, and smiled a little. "Sure you are," bitterness was only barely hinted in her voice, "And that's the damn problem. Get a grip, Dean. This isn't you."
So people had been telling him. "What was me before?"
She pretended to think it over. "Maybe a guy who decided not to lie to himself. It was pretty good to know you at that time. Now? Not so much."
Interesting, he thought. When he wanted to care, he got hurt. When he was trying so damn hard not to get hurt, he was hurting others. A truly no win-win situation. "Sorry to hear that."
She shrugged. "If you ask me again when you mean it, I might accept. Then again," she turned the knob and turned away, "I might not."
A flick of her hair and a faint smile later, she was gone. He told himself he'd call her at the end of the day if the empty space she'd left was missed.
It didn't, and he didn't call. He wanted it to be the end.
#10: Killing time.
Thunk.
Thunk.
The ax fell, and a log was chomped into two neat pieces. Dean stared at it for a second before rolling up the shirtsleeves that were beginning to hang loose and going at it again. Sweat formed on his forehead. The sun was too bright. He wanted sunglasses, but then again they would complete this ridiculous picture of him cutting firewood in the middle of summer and he wasn't sure if he wanted that. Anyway, he was almost done with this job. The next-up was his bike that was rusted and eroded from disuse. After that, lawn mowing. He didn't have any plan further down the road, but he was sure he could come up with more if he wanted.
It was like Zen something. He worked on the things that he'd missed, spent more time with his sister and friends. Smile as often as possible, take joy in little things, all the crap. Didn't really make him feel anything. He guessed that was the point.
"Too early for firewood, isn't it?" a voice joined in him in the backyard.
Dean suddenly wished he'd told his parents to bar all members of the Gilmore family from knowing his whereabouts, not just Rory Gilmore.
Thunk. Thunk.
"You probably shouldn't be doing that," Lorelai Gilmore commented casually when Dean didn't answer. "What with the recently broken rib and all."
Dean didn't turn around. "Thanks for the enlightenment."
"You're moping," she observed, stepping closer.
"I'm known to mope."
"Well, don't."
Typical Lorelai. Dean snorted. "You have no idea how that sounds, right? Behold, the great Lorelai wills it so, so there shall be no moping."
"Whoa, your snark-o-meter is bursting. With fruity flavour, the best."
Would there be any way to insult Lorelai? He had never been that good, would never be. Anyway, it wasn't his problem anymore. Dean only picked up a chunk of wood he had chomped without looking up. "What do you want, Lorelai?"
Silence. Busting of the dry leaves against the footsteps. "Car is your life, isn't it?" she said, her voice low and affectionate and a little too much bordering on pity that he felt instant hatred.
Dean straightened up, his grip on the ax tighter now. "If you didn't notice, I have a mother, Lorelai. I didn't ask you to be mine."
"Like I would even volunteer to take on another angsting teenager? This job sucks more than a blackhole."
"A blackhole?"
She tilted her head, one hand on her hip, and regarded him with an arched eyebrow. "So I'm low on witty snarks--everyone's loaning from me without permission, including you. Apparently."
Dean put down the tool, sighed, and turned around. Lorelai gave him a sunny greeting smile. He didn't return any. "Look, Lorelai, if there's a point to be made, make it. I have work to do."
She opened her mouth then closed it, apparently thinking against whatever jokes she would've made at his "work". Her eyes turned serious, her body straightened up. "Dean, I say this because I'm your friend. I see why it'd be hard to take that risk again--I know, believe me. But you were never a coward."
For a second, Dean was taken by the urge to laugh. "Wow, Lorelai, we're talking cowards now?" What was he to Lorelai, the lesser evil who would not get in her daughter's way, the one who would help paving her daughter's road to Harvard but never really get to have her? It'd be enormously convenient for Lorelai to have him around to safeguard her daughter from all the bad elements that would distract her from the path.
But he wasn't setting up for another fall.
Words, words, words. The words that had never been his friends now rushed out in the speed he had never thought possible. "How's your plan for your own inn with Sookie? How's getting something that might mean something to you for a change that's not Rory? Rory can't always be the one defining what you are and what you have to be, and you'll never be happy like this because your perfect daughter has to let you down once in a while. You must've figured that out by now, but I don't see you doing anything you really want. And Luke. What are you doing about him? You're that afraid of commitment that you have to push away your best chance at--"
"Are you done?"
Lorelai's face was perfectly expressionless, and Dean stopped. He didn't want to do this. If he had no obligation to listen to Lorelai's lecture on his life, then she probably had none to listen to his. But he wasn't going to apologize.
There was no trace of him in Rory. He made no difference to her, no matter what she told him.
Lorelai let out a long breath and shook her head ruefully. "Wow, twisted. And bitter. And feeling sorry for yourself. Not that you don't have a good reason for all that, and okay, it is the prerequisite for a teenager, but Dean, this doesn't become you. This you is unhappy."
Dean didn't react. The sunlight stung his eyes.
"You're right, Dean. I'm not your mother. And obviously I'm not even a friend to you at this moment. But what I am is the one who can safely call on your BS. Yours and Rory's. Sure, I'm not gonna deny that it'll make me happy to see you two back together, but it's not up to me. It was never up to me. But now, you're just making yourself miserable. If you don't want her any more, then fine, go your way. I'll sprinkle buckets of rose petals to send you on your way. Rory has learned her lessons and she'll just have to deal. But if you can't, then take your goddamn chance and stop moping. This is not you. This Dean is really not cute. He's irritating and no fun and believe me, this isn't you. So do every one of us a great favor by either taking your chance or moving on."
He watched her. Lorelai's every good intention glimmered in her eyes like the mirror in the sky. The sun still sizzled.
"I totaled my car and broke a rib over her," he drew out the words, enunciating them, engraving them, just to hear them. "Next time, I'm afraid I might break much more than that."
Lorelai flinched slightly, unwinding her arms that had been crossed against her chest. "I'm sorry, Dean. I--"
"I think," a new voice interrupted their scene, and Dean didn't turn to see his mother, "I think it'd be the best for you to leave now, Lorelai."
Lorelai's expression shattered. She bit her lip and nodded. Dean didn't see her go. He looked away.
The steps on the dead grass faded away, and he said, "Thanks, Mom."
His mother stopped just across him, taking the spot where Lorelai had been seconds ago. She looked wistful. She looked old. "But did I do the right thing?"
"Yes. No. I don't--" his words stumbled.
Bitter and twisted?
So what if he was? Everything was so easy to ignore if you didn't care enough.
A hand was on his arm. His mom had strong hands. She always had. Yet her touch now seemed so light that he suddenly wondered when she'd turned this small, this frail.
"Don't be a ghost, sweetheart," she whispered. "Never be a ghost."
His mom's hand was so frail, so, so frail.
Maybe some things didn't stay the same. Wake up next day, and you'll be all the things you never wanted to be.
And what were you now?
It didn't end.
#12: Sometimes you just need a kick in the head.
It was one drowsy summer afternoon, when the sun was blazing down and no escape of cool breeze was to be found.
A postcard arrived.
#0: The End
The sound of the bouncing steps died at the door. The door creaked open. Her hands, on the doorframe, dropped. Her fingers were knuckle-white. Strains of her hair cascaded down to her shoulder. She looked warm. She looked sad. She looked beautiful.
He stared at the doormat, words swirling in his head but not exactly thinking anything. There were many reasons for and against standing here, but he would not return to the empty garage yard that mocked him. Never again. In the end, the decision to knock on the door was mostly based on the fact that he could simply no longer stand in the rain, in the dark, like this. So when she moved to the side to make a room for him, he followed her in.
The door was closed, and the sound of raindrops faded into stillness.
She looked up, only glancing at his face as if he'd disappear if she fully stared at him.
"You're wet," she only noted, as if she was afraid to say anything more.
His hair dripped of rain. Raindrops fell onto her floor.
Her hand reached up, stopped a second before touching a lock of his front hair. "You're gonna catch a cold."
She was worried. He didn't want her to be. "It's okay."
"No," she said, her voice breaking. "It was never okay. Only I was too slow to notice it."
This time her hands made up to his arms, imprinting her warmth on them. She led him to the couch, seated him and wrapped him with a blanket. He basked in her warmth. It was drowsing.
She moved away to reach for a towel, but he stopped her with his hand on her arm. She froze.
"Were you happy?"
The look of her pale face would shatter into million pieces with a single touch.
"Did I make a difference?" the words tasted like sand, but he let them out. This would be the last time he would say. "I didn't know how much of me you had in you. But Jess...he made you happy. He had you."
"I lost him, but I'm doing okay. I lost you, and I wasn't okay. I don't think I will be."
The logical side of his brain was telling him it was the guilt talking. Not the real Rory.
But in his jacket pocket was a jaded postcard that told him otherwise.
He was too tired.
He slowly leaned against the couch, rolled up his legs.
For a long moment, she stood still, as if she was counting the raindrops falling outside. The rain didn't stop, and eventually she made into his side, every step tentative and brave.
"You're too tall for this couch," she said.
He laughed.
She sat beside him, and they listened to the rain. At one point, his arm made around her shoulders. She pulled him closer, her cheek resting on his shoulder. He turned his head and rested his chin on her hair.
"It occurred to me I never told you I was sorry," she said, when the rain stopped and the night eventually ended. "Dean, I am sorry."
Her hand reached up and touched his face. Like that very gesture explained everything.
It felt so complex, so painful, so beautiful. The numbness dissipated, and something hot overwhelmed him. The hot lump came up to his neck and burned away everything that he could have said. No words.
The line ended there.
"I woke up and you were gone. I...I was afraid."
Rory stood in the garage yard like Cinderella who'd run out here after the clock had struck, the magic vanished, exposed and vulnerable. The sun was rising in many different colors just beyond her shoulders. A new day began.
"I knew you'd know where to find me," he said, looking up from a mountain of junk he had piled up to sort out. He wiped off the grease streaking on his face and grinned.
"I did. It's just that..." she trailed off, her calm from the night before apparently disappeared.
He waited.
"I just need to tell you something." Her steps lingered on the edge of the pile. She circled it around several times before she absently picked up a piece of metal and put it down. She turned around again, her fingers nervously entwined.
"Rory," he said gently. "It's all right."
She stared into his face. Maybe looking into his soul for the first time, maybe not. It didn't matter any more.
When she spoke again, the words had come back to her again. Her beautiful words. "I want to know you. I want the last thing you say to be something other than a goodbye. I want to be here with you, if you let me." She paused. "And you? What do you want?"
He thought he might have been waiting for that question all along.
He remembered the nights of futile running. He remembered the nights here, at this place, with a friend who hadn't known his worth. The friend who had now found it.
In his jacket pocket were the two tickets to an outdated PJ Harvey concert that had arrived with the postcard.
Two crumbling tickets of PJ Harvey. This much of him, she had in her. She had had a part of him in these two battered pieces of paper.
The answer had always been here, eady. It always had been.
"I want to fix my truck. And I have a convertible to build." He turned to her. "Build it with me?"
He reached out his hand, for her to take. She, with tears in her eyes, took it.
"Yes," she said.
The sun was bright, so bright that it brought tears to his eyes.
End Part 8
(Epilogue, a shining day after the flood of rain, coming up. Huge thanks to John, Jessica, Priya and many others whose continuous feedback actually got me sit up and write again. There is no way this part met the expectation, but I hope it didn't fail terribly.)