AN: Wow, so I'm totally horrible. 3 whole months! Yikes! Thank you for all the wonderful reviews. I hope to have the next chapter out by this weekend. This chapter has NO Rogan in it, but from chapter 10 on it will be all about getting Rogan together. This chapter just basically gives me an opening for the Jory sequel. Enjoy!

Chapter 9

Rory hugged her knees close as she sat in the tree house that her grandfather helped Josh build when they were seven. Back then, life was so simple. Back then, they didn't worry about relationships. They had everything they needed. Their dad wasn't around much, but their grandparent's were. And now they were gone. And everything was spiraling out of control.

"I knew I'd find you here." Jake said, climbing up beside her, a sleeping bag in his arms.

Rory smiled weakly, noticing the sleeping bag and a plastic grocery bag in his right hand. "My knight in shining armor."

"That's me." Jake joked, laying the sleeping bag down on the wooden floor of the tree house and setting the plastic bag down beside him. He sat on the sleeping bag and pulled Rory onto his lap.

"When did life get so complicated?" Rory asked as sighed and leaned back to rest against Jake's chest.

"I would have to say it was when you moved away." Jake's arms tightened around her as he remembered the pain of letting her go.

Rory nodded slightly. "That was when Josh got mad at me. He screamed at me. I remember him saying that she never cared about us, she never will care." Rory could clearly remembered the day she told her twin that she was moving in with the woman who abandoned them sixteen years before.

She took a deep breath, "Lorelai hated Logan when we were dating. Josh hate's Lorelai. Lorelai hates society. If I so much as went to a party thrown by my grandparent's she threw a fit. I feel like I'm pulled in all these different directions. I don't know which way to go."

Jake continued to hold her, knowing she needed to let it all out. She was just too nice sometimes. And it was tearing her apart.

"I feel torn, you know?" She looked at Jake, turning around in his arms so she sat Indian-style in front of him, his hands gripping her sides in a comforting gesture.

"Did I make a big mistake by ever moving to Connecticut in the first place?" She questioned, almost whispering.

Jake dropped his hands and shook his head. "I don't know. I've always wished you never moved away, but it was something you needed to do. I understand that. The important question is do you think you made a mistake?"

The two were silent as they looked over the property. The tree house had been built on the far Southern corner of the Hayden property, giving them plenty of privacy.

Rory wasn't sure she could answer that question. Did she think she made a mistake moving in with Lorelai? She was glad to have been given the chance to get to know her mom, but she had a great life in Boston before. It was always a big give and take game since she moved.

She moved in with Lorelai, straining her relationship with Josh.

She went to Stars Hollow and got to know the quirky townspeople, but whenever she wanted to take part in high society she felt like she was betraying Lorelai.

She met Logan and truly thought they had something, but couldn't stay with him because of his family. Had she stayed in Boston, she never would have met him, but she would never be looked down upon by anyone. After all, she was a Hayden.

Rory had given up a lot in the years since she left Boston. Yet she still gained, too.

"I don't know." She finally answered.

Jake didn't say anything to that. He figured silence was golden at that point. Instead, he simply wrapped her back in his arms, shielding her from the world, protecting her.

"But I made my decisions, now I need to live with them. And that means straitening this mess out."

"I agree." Jake nodded. He would always love Rory, that was a given. But he knew she would never be happy unless everything was settled.

"But fixing things, it doesn't mean that I made the right choice in the first place. It just means I need to stop my mistakes now, clean up the mess, and take a different path."

Jake couldn't hold in the slight chuckle.

"What?" Rory questioned, turning around to look at him.

"You sound like your grandfather. Whenever we would get in trouble he would always give us a lecture about how our choices today have consequences that we would face tomorrow, and need to clean up before we could continue on our way."

Rory smiled at the memory, and couldn't hold back a laugh. "I remember that speech! Remember in sixth grade how we put food coloring in the fountain at school on parent-teacher night? When the headmaster found out it was us grandfather gave us all that lecture."

"That he did." He agreed, looking into her blue eyes.

Rory continued to look in his eyes. She leaned closer, whispering, "What would you say to me moving back here?"

Jake felt his heart skip a beat. His breath caught for a second before he replied, "What about school?"

"Harvard." She answered, smiling slightly.

"Your mom?"

"I have family here." She leaned even closer, and he could feel her chocolaty breath on his face.

"Logan?"

She paused. "I don't know yet." She answered honestly. "Nothing's for sure. It's all just a thought. But what would you think?"

"Nothing in this world could ever make me happier." Jake told her before leaning in the last remaining centimeters and kissing her.

Her eyes fluttered shut and she allowed herself to be swept away by the kiss. This, this feeling of absolute acceptance and adoration was something she had been missing for years. She threw her heart and soul into the kiss, just as he did.

All too soon, it was over. Jake slowly broke away from her lips and she was left to open her fuzzy blue eyes and clear the haze from her brain.

As she caught her breath Jake began to speak. "I know I probably shouldn't have done that, but I had to."

She laughed lightly. "Believe me, I don't mind."

He reached over to take her face in his hands, cradling her gently. "Please don't think I'm putting pressure on you to move back, or to permanently end things with Logan, or anything. I understand you have a lot going on, and I understand you need to figure things out. Whatever it is you decide I'll be here for you."

Rory wrapped her arms around him, hugging him close. She knew she had a lot to fix, and she knew she had a lot to change, but right in that moment, none of it mattered.

-GG-

Rory's eyes twitched open and she felt a sharp pain in her neck.

"OW!" She cried, feeling blood rush back to her elbow. She looked around, unsure of where she was. It was dark and cold.

As she attempted to stand up she felt a lump next to her. The lump moved.

"AGHHH!" She screamed, moving away as quickly as her sore muscles would allow her. Unfortunately, she never noticed the ledge as she moved back.

Rory felt her entire body begin to slip over the edge, and she started to panic. Just as she was about to fall, a hand gripped her wrist and pulled her back up.

"Oh my God, Oh my God…" She muttered, looking at Jake.

He tried not to laugh at her, sitting in her tree house panicking in the middle of the night with a few leaves stuck in her hair.

"We fell asleep in the tree house." She stated, looking around in astonishment.

Jake nodded, trying not to laugh.

"Oh God, I have to get in the house before anyone realizes I'm gone!" She exclaimed, hurrying down and disappearing across the lawn leaving Jake to grab the junk food he brought.

-GG-

"Well, well, well. What have we here?" Josh smirked as his sister walked in through the kitchen door.

"Shut up." She glared at him. Rory had hoped she would sneak back into the house undetected. She didn't want to answer any questions right now.

"Ah, come on sis, can't a brother be concerned about his sisters whereabouts at one in the morning?" Josh asked, trying not to laugh.

"What are you doing up so late, anyway?" She asked him as she moved over to the island where the stove was and peered into the pot of chocolate he was stirring.

Josh shrugged, "Couldn't sleep."

"Grandma Francine's hot chocolate recipe?" Rory questioned, grabbing two mugs.

Josh smiled lightly. "Yeah."

"I miss her, too. It's hard to believe she and grandfather are both gone."

"Yeah, it really is." Josh agreed, pouring the chocolaty mixture into the two mugs and handing her one.

Rory studied her brother's face before speaking. "But that's not all. There's something else. Something else is bothering you."

He leaned over to hug Rory before beginning to walk out of the kitchen. "You have enough on your mind right now. Don't worry about it. Everything is fine."

Rory watched as her brother walked out of the room without sharing whatever was on his mind. She groaned, banging her head on the counter top. As if she didn't have enough to worry about, now something was going on with Josh.

-GG-

Across town Logan looked out the balcony of his hotel room. It was late but he couldn't sleep. Finn was with his soul mate of the week, and Colin was out.

He knew that breaking up with Rory was for the best. It had nothing to do with her family, or her name, or her bank account. It was to protect her. No one knew it, but he heard his grandfather Elias and his father plotting together. Mitchum was going to give Rory and internship and then ruin her dreams of becoming a journalist.

It would have worked, but he couldn't let it. Rory wasn't confident enough in her own abilities. She looked up to and respected Mitchum as a journalistic genius. She would have given up journalism and turned into exactly what the Huntzbergers wanted her to be- a woman without any career aspirations.

He couldn't let that happen. So he broke up with her. And he broke his own heart in the process. And now, he wanted her back more than anything in the world, but he didn't know how to get her. He couldn't grovel. He couldn't beg. She wouldn't listen to him or believe him.

Now, he had to wait for her to make the next move.