A/N: Yeah, it's been a long time. I just started feeling like this story wasn't really going anywhere. I still feel that way. There's no direction, really. I mean, there's no core plot. Just them in California. And, frankly, I don't know what to do with them anymore. Regardless, I wrote this chapter and I may or may not write more. I've still got this other story I'm working on which I think will be good and I'm not going to post until it's completely done. Anyways. Here's the much delayed chapter five.

I know intimacy now. It is here in his bed when I wake in the morning. It's early, I can tell by the way the sun is shining through the curtains. We are tangled in each other and he is snoring. Anyone else and it would be obnoxious, but watching him with his mouth half open as he sleeps makes me feel content. I let my fingers trail along his bare skin, watching his face to make sure I don't wake him up. His hand is resting gently on my hip, our legs are twisted together in an odd way, and so I am stuck there with him. I smile at the thought and kiss him lightly on the shoulder. He goes on snoring.

But, I am restless now. I know that I won't be able to get back to sleep now that I've woken up. And so I fill the time with the task of memorizing his body, his face. And I try not to think about what will happen when the week is over. I try not to think about the fact that he is not coming back. Not to Stars Hollow, at least. But, trying not to worry only makes it worse.

I stare at the ceiling and think up different solutions to the problem we are now encountering. He could move to New Haven when I go to school. We could live together there. He could move back to New York. It's only a couple hours from Hartford. I could drop Yale, go to NYU. Or Columbia. The only real solution I come up with is that he can't stay here.

I'm staring at him when he wakes up. He groans and his eyes flutter open. "Morning." He mumbles as he stretches his body out, freeing my legs from his in the process. He relaxes his body again and kisses me. When he pulls back, he examines my face. "What were you thinking about before I woke up?"

I turn to lay on my back. "What happens after this week?" I turn my head so I'm looking at him again. "I mean, what do we do? What happens to us? Where are you going to go?"

He looks away from me. "I don't know."

"Maybe you should be thinking about it."

He sits up. "I didn't say I wasn't thinking about it. I just…haven't figured anything out yet."

I sit up, too, and gather the bed sheet around my body. "Well, what have you been thinking then?"

"Look. All I know is that I'm not going to stay here and I'm not going back to Stars Hollow."

"Why are you so adamant about not coming back to Stars Hollow? I mean, I'm there. Luke's there. You have a job there. It seems like the perfect option to me."

He's silent for a moment. He is turning this over in his mind, weighing the pros and cons. Meanwhile, I'm crossing my fingers.

"I can't go back there," He says finally. And that's all. No explanation. But, I understand. He doesn't want to stir things up again. He doesn't want to hurt Luke the way he did. He doesn't want people to talk. And so on and so forth. All of the bad things from the past year don't need to be repeated.

"Move to New Haven." I feel like begging, pleading. I feel like holding onto him too tight and saying, "I just want to be near you, don't stay away." That's exactly what I want to say to him, "Don't stay away."

"New Haven?"

"Yeah. We could get a cute little apartment and you could go to community college and it'll be perfect." I'm smiling, beaming at him, seeing all of this unfold in my mind. Us, as an actual couple. Us, living together. Us.

"With what money?"

"It doesn't matter. I can ask my grandparents."

He scoffs at this. "Yeah, they'll be totally willing to give you the money for an apartment. Until you mention my name and then they'll tear the check up."

"I can get it from them." He says nothing. "Or, I can ask my mom. Or, get a job. We'll both get jobs soon. Tomorrow. Today. We'll get jobs and we'll save all our money until we have enough. I'll work part time in the fall. We can do this."

"You're determined, aren't you?" He's laughing.

"I wish you would take this seriously."

"Rory." He looks away from me and sighs.

"What? Is the life you have now so great that you can't let go of it? Do you like having no permanent place to live?" I pause, taking a deep breath, catching my second wind. "Am I not enough? Not worth doing some minor rearranging for? Isn't that what love is?"

I don't want to cry, but everything is coming up inside of me. I get out of bed, not caring that I'm naked, that I'm exposed to him. I pull on my underwear. I look at him as I put my bra back on. "What were you going to do then? Since you obviously weren't going to be anywhere close to me."

"I was actually thinking about going back to New York."

I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying. "You have nothing there and you know it."

He seems to accept this, not saying anything in response. His face doesn't change. He is staring past me, at nothing.

"You said earlier that you weren't staying here. Why not?"

"It doesn't feel right." His tone is emotionless, vacant, like he's not talking to me or thinking about what he's saying. His eyes are still focused on something that isn't there.

"No." I crawl back into bed, folding my legs underneath me and facing him. "Don't shut down. You can't do that. Not anymore."

"Alright, let's say we did that whole apartment thing. Who says I'm not going to let you down again? What if we can't make it work? Then it was all for nothing."

"Yeah, well. Maybe that's true. Maybe it won't work out. But, you don't know that for sure. If we never try, then we'll never know."

He still won't look at me and I hate having conversations when he won't look at me. I feel like nothing I say is getting through to him. I can't be sure if he's hearing me or not.

Then, his head turns towards me and he's smiling, actually smiling. I wonder if he knows what happens to me when he smiles. I can't breathe for a second. And suddenly, none of it matters. Not the future, not any of it. Just his smile. This unprovoked, mysterious smile.

He speaks quietly, like he's unsure of his words. "No one ever tries this hard with me…Most people just give up when I'm being difficult."

"Well, I'm a trooper," I say with a triumphant smile. We've gotten nowhere, but I feel successful. I feel like some sort of ground has been made. Anytime he is flat out smiling, there is ground being made.

We go to the beach. I'm shocked to find that he owns a swimsuit. Granted, it is a pair of plain black swimming trunks, but for some reason I imagined him sitting on the beach in jeans and his leather jacket.

I am self conscious in my bathing suit, despite the events of the previous night. Despite the fact that he has seen me completely naked and assured me, verbally and nonverbally, that he loved it. I throw on shorts and a tank top over it before I meet him in the living room.

He frowns when he sees me. "I'm disappointed."

I give him a coy smile. "You'll see it later." He keeps the frown and I add, "You might see more even later."

He smiles and tosses the sunscreen to me. "You're a candidate for skin cancer."

I start to apply the sunscreen to my arms and then I look at him. He is shirtless and his skin is tan. Much tanner than it had been before, in Stars Hollow. "A little help?" I gesture towards my back, taking off my tank top.

He grins deviously. "Of course." I love the feel of his hands against my skin. It is rough and his hands feel strong as they press against my back. Unknowingly, a moan builds in the back of my throat and comes out as a strange breathy noise. His hands stop working and I turn around to face him, my mouth pressing against his.

He pulls away and I say, "It was never like this with Dean." As soon as I say it, I want to take it back. I shouldn't have brought Dean up. I'm not supposed to be comparing the two anymore. But, it's true. I never wanted Dean the way I want Jess.

He isn't mad. He's smirking. He's kissing me again. "You know, we could always skip the beach."

"We have to leave the house sometime. I want to see California. Be a beach bum. Come on." I take his hand and we are out the door.

He laughs when I tell him I don't know how to swim. He doesn't think I'm serious. "Really, I never learned. There's no pool in Stars Hollow. My mom and I hardly ever went to the beach. Don't laugh."

But, he's still laughing. "Okay. We won't go too far out."

"Okay."

He runs off into the water, leaving me standing on the sand. He's going farther and farther. And now he's beckoning for me to follow him. I shake my head vigorously. But, he keeps gesturing. I take a step forward. The water is warm, not too warm, but not freezing cold. He calls my name, encouraging me to keep going. Like a father teaching a toddler. I smile and take a few more steps. The water is up to my thighs now and I feel confident. He is still too far away, but he's smiling so I keep walking towards him.

Suddenly the sand drops off drastically. The water is over my head and I start flailing my arms. I can hear him calling my name from somewhere off in the distance. The saltwater is burning my throat as I gulp more and more in. I panic. "Jess! Jess! JESS!"

"Rory? Where are you?"

Of course I can't answer him. I'm busy trying to just keep my head above the water, to stop from swallowing so much of it. But, it's getting harder as the tide is pulling me out. I can feel the water filling my lungs and then everything is black.

When my eyes open again, I swear I'm dead. This is heaven. Because my eyes are hazy and the sun is directly behind his head, making him glow. My eyes meet his and he lets out a breath that really comes out as, "Oh, shit." I want to laugh but I cough instead, water coming out of my mouth.

His face is worried and he's holding my hand. There is a lifeguard on my other side. She is blonde and gorgeous. I quickly look to Jess, "Did she give me…"

And then his face changes and he's grinning. "Oh, yes she did."

"Dirty."

The lifeguard looks down at me, "You're going to be fine. Next time, don't go out so far." She smiles warmly and then gets up to return to her post.

This is when Jess takes me in his arms and clings to me, almost desperately. My face is pressed against his shoulder, I taste the saltwater on his skin or maybe it's just the leftover water in my mouth. I mumble against him, "I told you I couldn't swim." And he's holding me so tight that I can't move. I like this feeling. It was almost worth drowning, coming near death, just to have him hold me like this.

I manage to move my head enough to look up at him. He's scared. He looks scared. I've never seen him with this look in his eyes. He kisses me on the forehead. "I almost killed you."

"But, you didn't."

He loosens his grip on me and I sit on the sand next to him. "But, still, almost. I'm a jackass. I didn't realize…Oh God, it's that accident all over again."

"Except this time it was really all your fault." I smile at him, trying to lighten the mood.

"Hey."

I kiss him. His hair is hanging down into his eyes, water dripping down his face. "You taste like the ocean."

"Maybe we should skip the beach for today."

"Yeah. That's probably best."