DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, well I did write the plot, so maybe I own at least this.

This one is very short, and I apologize, but the next one is longer, I promise!

-Glass House-

If Rory remembered one thing about her childhood, it was stories. It was the emotions, the feelings, the intrigue all of these accounts held. It was the pain, the suffering, the joy. She could remember all of those things, but they were not her own. They were not something she could comprehend or something she could level with, they weren't even something she could begin to understand. But in some sick way, she wished she had felt the pain, had endured all those experiences, at least then she could connect with her mother even further. But in her own turn, that desire, that want for experience outside of perfection, was something her mother herself couldn't embrace.

It was this fatal difference, this one lack of connection, that led to the most pain Rory had ever felt. It was this pain that slowly but confidently made it's way through her entire body, eventually trickling down to every connection she ever held, until soon her whole life was drowning in her sadness.

I feel so breakable, hold me together,

I know I can't, I've been through rough weather.

At least the pain is gone, or maybe I just can't feel.

Please tell me now, tell me it is not real.

The signs read the same, the stores had not been moved, even the benches were placed in their normal fashion, but Stars Hollow was not the same. There was something different about this small down, something heavy and depressing that clung to the minds, the bodies, and the spirits of everyone in it. Something that crushed people's hopes, something that left the sky dark and gray, something that Rory knew had been her fault.

I've asked for too much, I can see you break.

I knew I was selfish, all I do is take.

Don't wipe at my tears, I don't deserve you,

But just help me this once, tell me what do I do?

She knew she had caused it, she was one hundred percent certain, because she felt exactly the same way. She felt torn up inside, she felt dead, she felt cheated. And those feelings wouldn't stop pounding at her heart, at her brain, taunting her with just how much damage she had caused, they just wouldn't stop.

She had come home, to her real home, desperately wanting to escape those feelings, those thoughts just for a minute, so she could have one second of peace, but as her surroundings told her, she wasn't the only one hurting.