A/N: Don't own G.G. Thank you all for the reviews. Enjoy!
Chapter Five: In Love with a Ghost
He looked at her, puzzled. Why she could still love him was a mystery to him. He had hurt her. Her had sent her into a deep depression. He had been the cause of all her troubles at one time or another. But the very fact that she could still love him after all they went through only reminded him of why she was too good for him, that she deserved better.
"You deserve better, Rory." She looked at him and laughed.
"I can't do better than you." She answered, still shaking with laughter. He remembered why he fell in love with her in the first place.
"I still love you too. But." She cut him off by pounding her fists against the wall. He looked up sharply, watching as anger danced across her eyes like a movie.
"You took everything away from me. You took my family, you took my home, you took everything I ever had and I didn't have much to begin with." He could only watch as she fought her inner demons that he knew he had caused. He looked on as she buried her face in her hands. He stared at her tear streaked, broken face, fixating on the scar under her eye.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He cried too. She wanted to laugh at him. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to take his hands into hers and tell him everything was going to be alright. She didn't know what she wanted to do.
"I don't think." She paused trying to regain her thoughts, trying to find the best way to say it without hurting him. "I'll ever be able to forgive you for what you've done." He only nodded.
They stared at each other for another fifteen minutes or so before either of them dared to say anymore. They had loved each other not too long ago. It was hard to let go of those emotions. It was hard to just forget all the good times, all the smiles and all the laughs they had in the relationship. So when he finally spoke he expected her to be honest and open with him. She had no intentions of deceiving him.
"Can I ask…" She beat him to the ball.
"What happened to the baby?" She waited for him to confirm his curiosity. He nodded. She took a long deep breath, trying to stall for time, trying to find the best way to answer his question.
"Did I? I mean, when I? Did you?" He stuttered out. She looked at him and burst out into a cynical laugh.
"Did you kill the baby? No, you don't deserve that credit Todd." She turned on her heels and left the visiting area. Todd pounded his fists against the transparent screen that separated him from her. He looked down at his fists, the cuffs, and cried.
Rory walked into the nursery, it was 3:05 in the morning. Five minutes past her son's normal feeding time. As much as she appreciated the extra few minutes to sleep, her maternal instincts kicked in and told her something wasn't right. She had turned over on her side and grabbed the baby monitor. She couldn't hear anything. She had naturally assumed that the batteries weren't working. Still she got out of bed and walked through her little apartment in Florida to the nursery.
"Benny, Mommy's here." She cooed to her silent baby.
"Yeah, I'm tired too." She joked as she looked down at her sleeping son.
"I know I shouldn't…" She whispered referring to picking him up, knowing what would come if she woke a sleeping baby. But she didn't care. He was her family, he was all of her family.
When she picked him up he didn't wake up crying. He didn't wake up at all. She bounced him a little trying to jolt him awake even though in the back of her mind she knew he wouldn't wake up at all. Her shaking started to become more frantic and urgent as the thought was brought forward. She laid her precious boy down in his crib. She held back all her tears as she felt for a pulse.
She collapsed into a heap on the floor. She screamed out in agony as the one man, who she had sworn would be the last, left her. She let the tears flow down her face. She held nothing back. She cried and screamed and yelled and pounded her fists into the hardwood floor until they bled.
Her neighbor had called the cops, thinking something was wrong. They broke open the door, she couldn't hear the pounding through all her screaming. One cop picked her up and dragged her out of the room, stopping her from continually hurting herself. The other surveyed the scene and called over the coroner.
Hours later Rory was sitting down in an uncomfortable chair listening to the man in the white coat tell her the cause of her son's death. But she was an intelligent woman, she already knew what had claimed his life, SIDS or sudden infant death syndrome. She barely heard a word the man was saying. She just wanted to go to sleep and wake up having it all be some disturbing dream.
Casey Jones waited up all night for her roommate to come home. She waited with Logan for quite some time before sending him home. She hadn't the heart to yell at him after he declared that he was still in love with Ace. She hadn't the heart to tell him Ace didn't exist anymore. She hadn't the heart to tell him that Rory had vowed to never love another man after Todd.
She woke up on the couch at four in the morning. She had an important meeting to go to in the morning. Working on a Saturday was killer. She walked over to her room, peeking into Rory's and after seeing it was empty she figured that Rory had finally gotten laid. She plopped onto her bed and turned her alarm on. She'd talk to Rory in the morning.
When she woke up Rory was nowhere to be seen. There was no note or message or anything. But to Casey's relief everything was just as it was left, meaning that Rory had not packed up and left, something that Casey worried about all the time.
After getting dressed and heating up some cold pizza, she left for work. She had an office meeting then a business lunch with a hotel owner who wanted to get word out about her establishment during the slow winter months. The office meeting was horrible. Somebody got fired for losing a multimillion dollar account, Casey thanked god that she still handled small businesses under her own firm, which was under the bigger firm. The things you got for being the daughter of the CEO.
She walked into the restaurant talking on her cell phone to Rory.
"Where were you last night?" She asked for about the billionth time, but Rory was avoiding the question.
"Did you know that the Yankee's won last night?" Rory answered.
"That's impossible, they didn't play. You do realize you are talking to their number one fan."
"I didn't know that. Why didn't you tell me?" The journalist in Rory took over and Casey felt a deep sense of satisfaction that she now knew why her roommate was so inquisitive.
"You are such a journalist." When Rory didn't say anything, she assumed she was right.
"You are, aren't you?" Casey was boasting and making no efforts to conceal it.
"Don't assume Casey, it just makes an ass out of you and me." Casey heard dial tone shortly after the statement. She groaned and threw her phone into her purse angrily.
"Boyfriend?" A female voice asked from across the table. Casey looked up and smiled sheepishly for not being more aware of the arrival of her client.
"No, just my roommate. She's so stubborn." She answered as it was only polite to do so.
"Casey Jones." She introduced herself and held out her hand.
"Lorelai Gilmore." Lorelai took the hand and shook it. Casey looked up at her eyes and for some reason they looked familiar but she couldn't place it.
"Your roommate must be a Gilmore, we're so stubborn. I still can't get my mother to stop setting me up with Christopher, even though I'm married. And my daughter, she won't talk to me at all, and I don't know what I did wrong. My father won't retire even though he's pushing seventy." Lorelai joked.
"You know what, her last name is Gilmore." She laughed and Lorelai soon joined in.
"Well it is a common name, enough about my evil secretive roommate, what do you plan to accomplish with the Dragonfly Inn?" Casey easily turned the conversation around into business talk.
Rory walked aimlessly down the New York streets. Well, not aimlessly, she was shopping. For what, she didn't know. It was a habit she forced herself into, shopping for the purpose of forgetting. It didn't work better than drinking but it was healthier. She turned the corner and walked into the record store, the one Jess had taken her to when she visited him. When she had decided to make New York City her permanent residence she had vowed to track down the little music store. When she had seen the closing sign on it the first day after she found it, she nearly died. She talked to the owner and tried to convince her to keep it open but the old woman simply told her it was a money hole. Rory had bought the place from the old woman that day, as is. She spent months revamping the place up and getting word out. She even talked the café owner next door to knocking down the wall that separated the two stores. She added a small library in the corner and since then the store had been buzzing with customers.
"Hey Rory." Her co-owner Amy greeted her as she entered through the café doors. Amy owned the café portion of the business. She had actually just graduated from NYU with a business degree and took over the little shop from her mother when they were in the midst of construction. She and Rory were instant friends.
Amy didn't have the same connection that Casey had with Rory but she understood the importance of secrets, she even had some of her own. She knew right from the first moment she met Rory that she was a secretive person so she never questioned it, she never asked personal questions. In other words she respected Rory's secrecy, something that Casey never did.
"Hey Amy." Rory greeted back. She walked behind the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee before walking the twenty or so feet to the record store portion of the store.
"Whatcha up to?" Amy asked even though she had her suspicions. Considering Rory was holding several shopping bags and looked kind of distracted it was easy to deduce that Rory was shopping through the pain.
"Oh not much, just thought I'd do a round of shopping before coming to work." Rory answered. She put the bags behind the counter.
"Oh, what made you change you're mind?" Rory had called earlier to cancel.
"I was feeling up to it. Plus, I just killed my gold card. All that shopping without any caffeine just tired the poor sucker out. So I figured I would partake in our Saturday ritual and get this baby" She pointed to her purse obviously referring to the credit card.
"some fuel." She finished and Amy burst out laughing.
For the most part Rory and Amy were silent partners. They didn't really do anything except for the initial investment, but on Saturdays they both worked. It was more of a hang out session though. They would put out a bowl of chips for the customers and with every book purchase the customer would get a free cup of coffee or half off on selected records. They would play the jute box extra loud so they had to scream to one another and play music videos that didn't relate to the song being played. It was a hip hangout for kids and adults alike.
"Hey, can we talk? Sometime in the near future?" Rory asked. Amy was the only person Rory ever confided in, and not much at that.
"Yeah, after work we can get some drinks." Amy turned around and served one of the customers.
"Is everything okay?" Amy shouted over the music which Rory just turned up higher in volume.
"Yeah." Nothing was ever okay in Rory land though. She was tired. She was tired of all the secrets, all the lies and denying who she really is. She's sick of silently hurting, silently missing her old life. It was time to come clean.
Rory chose to confide in Amy and not Casey because Casey would make a big deal out of it. Casey wouldn't think of it as a story like Amy would automatically think it was. Amy and Rory would sit at the bar, flirting with the cute underage, nineteen year old, bartender and make up stories about their past. Last week John, the bartender, thought that Rory had been raised by elephants because she has a good memory no matter how drunk she gets. Amy grew up in North Ireland with Patrick O'Donnell and had lots of babies. According to Amy, John was apparently Rory's long lost son.
That was another thing, Rory was tired of not being able to react. She couldn't burst into tears every time she sees a baby. She couldn't mock all the movies she had watched with her mother. If she couldn't be herself she couldn't live.
When Rory had first come to New York she had no intentions of staying. Even after buying the record store and making all the renovations she still had the possibility to leave. She didn't want to leave now, she had a home, she had friends. And although she would never let herself fall in love and start a family the arrangement she had was good enough for her.
She had never wanted to stay in one place so much. Even when she was living in Florida, she didn't want to be there. She had all the intentions of always living in the state for as long as she lived. But her heart longed for her to return to Stars Hollow. She resisted the urge as much as she could. When she needed help as a new mother she had turned to the eighty year old African American woman to help her. Kay had taught her all she needed to know about breast feeding, burping, the breast pump, etc.
She learned to look at Kay as a mother. So naturally when she decided to pick up and leave again it was almost as hard as when she left the first time, leaving behind her actual family. That was why she never got close to people, anymore. Because she would leave them and it would hurt too much since they had become a big influence on her life. Basically she was selfishly shielding herself from getting hurt.
"Thanks you so much for everything you've done. You have no idea how much you've helped." Rory offered Kay her gratitude as a farewell. The old woman looked at the young woman she had come to think of as her granddaughter and smiled with sympathy.
"I wish you didn't have to leave." Kay slowly told Rory. She was hoping to convince Rory to stay a little longer.
"You know I do." Kay and Rory both knew that was a lie. Rory didn't have to do anything, she just wanted to leave.
"But what would this little old bitty do without you?" Kay tried to guilt her into staying. She hated goodbyes.
"I'll miss you so much." Rory chose to ignore that comment. She knew what Kay was up to and knew that the easiest goodbyes were the quick ones.
"Ben and I have to go now." She stood up and left the building towards her car holding a ball of blankets close to her chest. Kay hadn't the heart to tell her that Ben was dead, had been for a couple of weeks.
Casey threw her keys onto the kitchen counter with Logan right behind her. He had been sitting outside the building for hours waiting for Rory to come home so he can talk to her.
"Thanks, you know for letting me in." Logan broke the silence. He had the sinking suspicion that Casey was mad at him.
"Anytime." He looked at him, studying his features.
She remembered how she had been attracted to his handsome looks but she fell in love with the man who was guilty of letting the love of his life walk away. Just by seeing him now, looking so lost and confused, reminded her of why her relationship with Logan failed. He was still in love with Ace when they met. And now, she could tell he was still in love with a ghost.
"What are you doing here, Logan?" She wasn't mad at him per say. She was mad at the fact that she only fell in love with love sick puppies and they weren't in love with her.
"I want to talk to Rory." He was so smug about it that it made Casey cringe. He didn't deserve Rory. Sighing, she realized that he was her friend too and he deserved to be happy. If he could convince Rory to go out with him, then he deserved to be happy with Rory and it wasn't her place to warn the two of them about the eventual heartbreak.
"She doesn't want to talk to you." Friends were honest with one another no matter how painful the truth can be.
"So how did you two meet?" He asked ignoring her venomous tone and dagger shooting eyes. He thought it was cute how protective Casey was of Rory.
"Um, in group therapy." She answered thinking he was buying time from the upcoming you-hurt-her-you-die speech.
"For domestic abuse?" He sounded surprised.
"Yeah, why?" She asked curious about his reaction.
"Nothing." She gave him a look and he conceded.
"She just doesn't seem the type, that's all." He shrugged his shoulders and leaned onto the back of the couch.
"Don't!" Casey roared at him.
"Don't make it seem like she chose this!" She screamed at him, angry at how naïve he was, like she would actually volunteer to be at the receiving end of an abusive relationship.
"Like I chose this." She added quietly after she contained her anger. She was left with nothing but self pity and the familiar feeling of failure. Suddenly and inadvertently Logan had destroyed the Berlin wall of recovery. She was right where she started.
A/N: Anybody want Logan and Casey to get together? Huh? No takers, I see.
Mcmiller- having problems fitting Finn and Colin in as big brothers as they aren't a big part of the story. You may have to wait awhile, I figure I'll wait to do that after Rory and Logan get together, if they ever do. And then it might be in a sequel of sorts, if I can bring myself to do one. But don't worry I'm not even close to done. Well at the moment I'm not done, I have no reserve chapters, it all lives inside my head. But I think I still have at least three more chapters. Well see. Anyway, would you be totally disappointed if I didn't fit that in?