By: Stew Pid

Rating: Should be okay.

Disclaimer: I only own the Stew Pid stuff.

A/N: This was the only finished product from a period of major struggling with my writing capacity. It is a three part piece. I should say that I had high hopes for this fic. I had finished the first three volumes of Proust and was hoping to do some ruminations of my own on time and life in the Gilmore setting, along with some "Proustian" (not really) temporal gymnastics. It's really not a good piece at all but finishing it was something for me. Hope it does something for you.

Remembrance of Things Not Come to Past

Part 1.

I love you.

The words hung heavy in the air as though the wintry winds had frozen them, a suspended hunk of ice in which time was trapped. She watched him go, her eyes shooting the moment like a camera in slow-mo; watched as he opened the car door, watched as he glided inside, watched as he turned the key. His car now passed her, the thick, warm and polluting exhaust laying siege on the pure crystallized moment, melting and hammering through the ice until the moment was gone. And he was gone. Again. Yet, it was not what had just transpired that Rory thought about as she stood transfixed in voluntary paralysis. Nor was it about those past moments they had shared, a medley of joys and heartaches, words spoken that built up to those last three and those never said that built up to so many unspoken good-byes. Instead, she thought about a moment some time in the future when they would meet again—it seemed their fate to cross paths for all too finite moments.

It would be a frosty night like this one, somewhere between 2 and 200 miles away from Stars Hollow. She would duck into a bustling café for a hot cup of coffee. After paying for her coffee and guiding it through the crowd of cold, thirsty customers, she would slide thankfully into the last empty table. From her purse, she would pull out a book, and set it neatly on the table, then remove her gloves, unbutton her coat and undo her scarf. She would pick up her gloves from the table and looking out in front of her, feel for her pocket where she would slip them in. It would be just then that she would see him. He would be getting his coffee, moving down to the end of the counter where he could lean against it and warm up indoors as he drank the hot beverage. She would take some seconds to try to remember exactly who he was. No. She had a good memory. She would remember. And he would not be likely to have changed much. Maybe some gruffness here and there on his cheeks and chin. She would remember. But she would remember him like one in a catalogue of ex-boyfriends. His eyes would meet her from behind the rim of his coffee mug. Catching the flash of recognition in his eyes, she would smile and tilt her head to the empty chair at her table. He would wipe the invisible coffee mustache with his lower lip in tacit acceptance of her tacit invitation. Arriving at her table, he would curl his lips in a casual smirk and breathe, "Hey."

"Hi," she would say, still smiling. "Long time, huh?"

"Yeah," he would agree and sit down. "So what have you been up to?"

"Working, mostly. How about you?"

"Same."

Neither would remember what plans the other had planned way back when, or even ever having known those plans, so "working" was sufficient knowledge for both of them.

"Do you live around here?" she would ask.

"No. Just passing through on a job. How about you?"

"Same. Well, sort of. I'm actually going to visit my mom now on my way to a job."

"How is she?" he would ask innocuously.

"She's good."

"Good."

"Luke's good, too," she would add politely.

He would nod unembarrassed. "Are you?"

"Am I what?" she would ask genuinely perplexed.

"Good."

"Oh yeah, I'm good."
"Good," he would smirk.

By now they would have both drawn up from their memory files a brief summary of their relationship with more specific account of the details of the break up, and yes, the "I love you."
But they would have both said more "I love yous" to other loves that did not last. Again, theirs was just one in a catalogue of fated "I love yous." Not even the faintest echo of the words would hang between them.

"I'm really not used to this cold," Rory would resume.

"Been awhile?"

"Yeah. I was in Peru for three months."

"That would do it."

"Yeah," she would nod with a small laugh and take another sip of coffee.

"But you get used to it," he would say, half matter-of-factly, half reassuringly.

"That's right. You were in California, weren't you?"

"A while ago, yeah."

"So you've had time to get used to it."

"I never really got used to California."

"I like California. Anywhere that's warm is good right now."

Jess would smirk again, casually pick up her book and skim through it, while taking swigs of coffee. She, too, would retire meanwhile to her mug.

"Visiting Mrs. Nabokov. You like Amis?"

"Yeah," she would nod, setting down her mug.

"Well," he would say, putting down the book, "I better get going. Good seeing you again."

"Yeah, same here."

"Bye, Rory."

"Good-bye, Jess."

And with that, he would be gone. Again. She knew it would always be him who would leave first, and by then, she would be perfectly content to concede the rights to him. Alone at the table, she would recollect in more detail that night of his I love you. She would remember her that night. She would remember how the words first struck her, how the moment froze everything except him as he went to his car and left. She would think about how brokenhearted she should have been that night. And she would remember how, thinking of this day that night, she wasn't.