Disclaimer: Don't own Gilmore Girls, never have, never will…
AN: This is based loosely on the song, "Pictures Of You" (hence the title) by The Cure. Hope you enjoy…
---
Two years, four months, three weeks, six days, twelve hours, forty-three minutes, and that is where he lost count.
Sometimes he thought it was pathetic that he could almost the pinpoint the last time he saw her, the last time he talked to her, the last time he kissed her, the last time he told her that he loved her.
He was twenty-three, and it was about time to let it go, but he couldn't. He couldn't help but think about how she got away. How his life went from good to bad over night.
Now he sat here, alone, in a white room, with hardwood floors. Boxes scattered around irregularly, all taped and marked ready to go. He sat in the center of the floor, small portions of colorful paper surrounding him, paper that held recollections, and told stories. The only sound was the shredding of the paper echoing off the walls of the now bare room, slowly as he brought each one to his eyes and tore, finally letting go of what was once the utmost and happiest times of his life.
The pictures were the only thing he had in the last three years to restore his memory of what she looked like, although he knew he would never forget. Everyday for three years before he went to bed he would take out the same photo and gaze at it, before gently setting it back in the drawer and closing his eyes to rest, and dream of her. Three years and not one thing changed.
He stared at the picture in his hand… it was of her, standing in the doorway of their apartment, the apartment that he was now moving out of, their apartment that he was leaving behind.
He looked up towards the door.
"You ready?" she beamed.
He turned to look at her from where he was sitting in the middle of the floor and nodded, just as he raised his hands to snap a picture of her.
"Okay, come on then," she waved her hand for him to come as she stepped out of his sight.
He stood up and momentarily looked around the apartment that was now theirs, and then followed her outside.
"Okay, okay, you two get together," Lorelai smiled as Jess made his way down the steps and wrapped his arms around Rory for another picture, "Perfect."
"Jess?"
He looked up from the picture in his hands, "Yeah?"
"Nothing, never mind" Corwin, his fiancé, shook her head and sauntered passed him to pick up another box to lug outside to the truck.
"Jess its too heavy," Rory giggled as she dropped the box marked stuffed animals, and sat on it.
He pulled out his camera just as she made a sad pathetic face, "You are so weak…" he smiled and walked towards her.
"I'm not weak," she took his hands in hers, "I'm delicate, like a flower."
He smiled and intertwined his fingers with hers, and bowed down to place a small fragile kiss on her lips, "I love you so much," he pulled his head back to get a good glimpse of her.
"Not as much as I love you," she kept a somber face.
He raised an eyebrow and she cracked, letting a fit of laughter take over her.
"We are so corny," she declared between laughs.
He nodded in agreement, "But corny in a good way," he defended.
The picture seemed as if it was real. He remembered all of the passion flowing through his veins that night, and knowing that nothing would ever feel that immense again.
The sensation washed over him every time he even just glanced at the pictures. He would never feel that again… he knew. Even now that he was engaged, it saddened him to know that he couldn't offer her everything he had to give, because Rory held the most important part of his heart.
He heard footsteps running towards the door, when he saw Corwin drenched from top to bottom, "Man that rain just came out of nowhere," she shook herself off running her hand through her now soggy hair.
Jess quickly looked up at her, and then out the window, the rain was now tapping firmly against it. He glanced back over to her, as she picked up another box to carry out to the truck, and then his eyes fell onto another picture.
The rain made her seem father away then she really was. He stood on the sidewalk before he approached her and snapped a shot of her standing there alone.
She had just called him, crying, pouring her heart out to him and he told he would be there in a second. When he saw her, he knew he shouldn't stop, but there was something about her that caught his eye, and he had to take a picture.
The flash went off, and she knew it wasn't lightening. She turned behind her, and saw him standing there.
He saw her begin to shake and he stepped off the curb. He picked up momentum and before he knew it he was darting towards her.
She was getting closer and closer and her arms opened up. He stopped right before her and drew her towards him. His arms wrapped securely around her, and she cried into his shoulder. Together they stood in the downpour, drenched from head to toe.
She pulled back from him, before seizing him with everything she had, the warmth of her mouth crashing against his sent chills along his spine. He raised his arms to shield her face and cradled it in his hands. He let himself get lost in her kiss, he let her tenderness sooth him, and he reassured her with the warmth from his love.
A crash of thunder was heard throughout the city, but they were oblivious to their surroundings, he was the only thing in her world at the moment, and she in his.
The apartment shook. A rumbling was heard in the distance. Jess counted, one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand… a bolt of lightening lit up the sky.
Corwin entered back into the apartment, "You're awfully quiet today."
"Sorry," he mumbled looking up at her.
She took a seat next to him, and picked up a picture that rested on the floor in front of him, "I understand that this was your guy's apartment."
He curved his head to try and interpret her eyes, and perhaps get a hint of what she was thinking, but she looked away too swiftly.
She brought up her hand and rested it on his back, rubbing tenderly, "but she's not here… and I am." She stood up, and dropped the picture in her hand, "Just do what you have to do."
It floated back down and came to rest on the floor directly in front of him. He picked it up.
It was late and the entire town was dead to the world, just the street lights giving off a radiant glow, guiding them home.
They walked hand in hand, bundled up from the bitter chill.
"She just went off on me, like it was my fault." Rory shook her head.
"Maybe there is something going on that you don't know about." He comforted her.
"Maybe," she shrugged.
Silence overcame them as they continued to walk in the direction of the diner.
"It will all be over tomorrow, and everything will return back to normal."
"But its not just today, its everyday, everyone- I don't want to be their princess anymore. I'm trapped, and I just want to be free, without a care in the world- like you." She broke away from him, quickly bending down, collecting just the right amount of snow in her hands. She giggled, before smacking Jess right in the face with the perfect snowball.
He was caught off guard, and by the time he could see again she was already half way to the gazebo. He stood there unsure what she was doing, when he realized she wasn't stopping he called after her, "RORY!" she didn't stop, "What are you doing? Where are you going?" he began to make his way towards her.
"I'm running," she replied as she came to a stop and collapsed into the snow.
He stood above her, looking down, "Way to state the evident Captain Obvious," He loved her snow white features. She nearly disappeared into the snow with her pale complexion. The only thing that made her stand out was her red cheeks. She closed her eyes and he let himself down into the snow next to her, "feel better?" his head fell to look at her.
She shifted her body so she was facing him, and nodded, "a little."
He wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her neck, "I do care about you, you know," he mumbled, "you and Luke."
She pulled away from him, and rolled over.
He placed his hand on her back, letting her know that he understood.
She shifted again, now on her back, staring up at the sky. "I'm just so mad…"
"I know" he too stared up at the sky.
"No one cares about what I think or feel. Don't my opinions matter?" She turned her head to look at him, sadness glossing her eyes.
He knew it was a rhetorical question, but he had to say something, "Of course they matter, this town is just insane, you know that."
She nodded her head before lifting herself back up onto her feet.
He sat up to watch her as she walked away from him.
She only walked a couple of feet before she began to shout at the top of lungs, her feelings were running wild, and it was as if someone had possessed her. Her emotion flowed in the form of words from her mouth, and she threw her hands into the air. She yelled up towards the sky, hoping that someone…anyone would hear her.
He gently removed his camera from his pocket, and took this moment to seal her place in time.
He wanted her to remember that exact moment. The moment that she found her courage, the moment that she didn't let others hold her down and she finally let go of everything that had been building up inside her for the past four years.
But he never gave her a copy of the picture.
She never even knew that he took it.
Corwin entered back into the room, "Here," she handed him another picture, "it was stuck to a box… I don't know, maybe you want to do something with it."
He quietly took it from her hand, "thanks."
There was a tap on the apartment door…he grabbed his camera off his dresser and answered the door that read "William's Hardware" on it.
He pulled the door open holding his camera out in front of him and snapped a shot.
She knew what was coming, and ended up looking beautiful in the picture, her head was tilted just over her shoulder, but her smile was missing.
"You suck." He moved out of the way to let her in.
Her eyes were cast downwards as she made her way into the room. She immediately settled on his bed and brought her knees up to her chest. She buried her head into her legs and gripped tightly onto her arms.
"What is it? What's wrong?" he tossed his camera to his side and took a place next to her on the bed.
She looked up and dropped her legs over the bed- she leaped into him, knowing that his arms wrapped around her would help in even the smallest way.
He kissed the top of her head, not asking any questions.
"She's gone…" her watery eyes looked up into his.
"Who's gone?"
"… My grandma, but it just doesn't make sense, she was still young." She buried her head into him once again, "It hurts Jess, make it go away please."
"I don't know how." He held her.
She was always the strong one in the relationship, and death was never something she had dealt with before. She seemed so fragile at this time. So delicate and there was nothing that he could do. She seemed so lost, and he was her key to finding her way.
There were now only a few remaining boxes left in the cold empty room.
"We're almost ready to go Jess, you almost done?"
"Almost." He picked up another picture.
He didn't know it, but tonight would be the last time he ever took her picture.
He walked into the room, late after returning home from work, she was already asleep. She looked so peaceful when she slept. An angel he swore, no a goddess. She was beautiful… she was the most beautiful thing in the entire world. And he wanted nothing more then to be with her for the rest of his life.
He opened his bedside drawer and shuffled around, he stopped when the velvet box caught his eye. He sat down with his back towards her, and he picked it up, opening it slowly. He bought it almost three months ago, he wanted to ask her for four, but the moment never seemed right, he never would have imagined that he would never get to ask her. He closed the box and set it back down, and rummaged some more until he found his camera.
He stood at the edge of the bed and took her sleeping portrait. She stirred a little, and he smiled, taking the opportunity to take another image.
When he awoke in the morning, she was gone.
She returned the next night, to talk to him, to explain to him that she was leaving.
He cried.
For the first time in his life, he cried, and over a girl, over a girl he loved, over a girl he wanted to spend his life with.
He reached into his pocket, his fingers gracing change among other things, and then he felt it… The ring… The ring that he never returned, the ring that he kept with him at all times in case he ever got the chance.
Two years, four months, three weeks, six days, thirteen hours, thirty-six minutes…
…and he was full of regrets.
The same emotions from so long ago still horded his memory. If only he had put up a better fight. If only he said what she wanted to hear, he wouldn't be here now, sitting on the floor demolishing the memories of her.
He held onto these photos for so long. For so many years he was in love with them, always wishing that he had new ones to add to his collection. Always dreaming that that last picture was not the last, but only the beginning of what he now had. Then perhaps he wouldn't be here right now, destroying his only evidence that it ever existed.
"There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more than to feel you deep in my heart, there was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more than to never feel the breaking apart… all my pictures of you"
Jess now stood in the doorway. He glanced once more at the now empty room, the last box in his hands.
Corwin stood at the end of the hallway, "Come on Jess, they are leaving without us."
He stared into the room, as his memories filled the empty space, Rory in the kitchen, Rory on the couch, Rory by the fireplace, Rory reading a book on the floor.
He reached out his hand and flipped the switch, the room went dark, and he closed the door, leaving it all behind.
In the middle of the hardwood floor a half of a torn up image remained. His shoulder barely visible on the left, she looked beautiful, wedding gown and all.