None of the people in Stars Hollow really knew what went on in that storage room, and for Rory and Jess's sake, it was safer that they didn't, because Stars Hollow had no idea how close Babbette was to guessing.
As soon as the door was shut behind them, Rory Gilmore was already out of breath and pacing across the small enclosed space. Tears were threatening to roll out of her eyes with reckless abandon, but she checked herself. She didn't need Jess Mariano thinking that he was hurting her so much for leaving. Again.
However, despite the whole speech she had prepared in her head, all she could muster was a choked, "Why?" which blew all of her chances of convincing him that she wasn't affected so much by his planned departure.
Jess Mariano's figure leaned against the cool door, his head in his hands. "I can't explain it, Rory."
Suddenly she was angry all over again. She hated not knowing. She hated being in the dark. She hated being thought of as some stupid girl who couldn't take care of herself. Everyone always thought that she was too stupid to know any of the ugly things in life and she was so Goddamn tired of being thought of as such "for her own good."
"Well, try!" she cried, punching him on the shoulder with a kind of misplaced rage.
"It's not that easy to explain, alright? I just… have to do this!"
"Where are you going to go, Jess?"
Jess pushed himself off the door and walked over to a shelf of canned peaches. Tracing the rim of the silver can with his fingers and avoiding Rory's glare, he could only offer a shrug.
Rory threw her arms up in the air and rolled her eyes sarcastically. "So you're just going to toss all of this away. Just like you did all those years ago, even if you had all the potential in the world--,"
"I have nothing to give, Rory!" Jess suddenly screamed at her. His shoulders rose and fell in one swift motion as he accompanied his bellow with angry helplessness.
The statement came out so quickly and so strongly that it made Rory fall in defeat onto a sack of potatoes. Her heart was pounding for never in her life had she ever witnessed such a scathing delivery of words from Jess Mariano. Her eyes were locked on him, although her hands were trembling.
As soon as that was said, nothing seemed to be able to stop Jess. "Do you understand that? If I stay here, I'll just become the same guy that ruined your life. They'll find out that I'm just the same useless bum that broke your heart when you were seventeen. We'll hit it off and something will undoubtedly go wrong—as it always does—and it's going to be all my fault. I don't want to become the enemy again, Rory. I'm so Goddamn tired of being the one to blame for every single thing that gets screwed up in this place."
It took them a few moments to recover from that powerful display of emotion. There was a pause laden with defeat and sadness; a heavy, sticky, sickly feeling as the both gasped for breath and the right words to say. Rory was the first to speak.
"Stay," she said quietly. Slowly she stood up and walked over to where he was standing, and kissed him. She kissed him as slowly as sweet sap rolling down a tree trunk, like the tears rolling down her cheeks. As she pulled away, her lips hovered over his as she said, "You will not break my heart, Jess. I promise."
"Rory, I--," he started, but she wouldn't let him finish. Before he could continue (or refuse), she kissed him again, harder this time. She tugged at his collar, straining to make him understand her, pressing his lips against hers despite the already painful strain. Rory smiled to herself when she felt his hands on her hips once again, just like at Babbette's. Taking this as a sign, she pressed herself against him and he let out a tortured moan.
Just as slowly as she had approached him, something came alight within Jess. His heart raced just as quickly as Rory's and he could feel them both pumping in the same frantic beat against their chests.
Nicholai Stratt was torn. It was a question of action and inaction. Should he go in there and see what was going on, or should he just put an apron on and go to work?
But before he could pull on the door handle or reach for an apron, they all heard a thump come from within the storage room. There was some shuffling, like Rory and Jess were moving furniture or something, and then everything stopped. There was a long, very heavy pause, and suddenly the door swung open and nearly hit Nicholai in the face.
Jess Mariano burst out of the little room, his face flushed and his shirt undone, and grabbed his box of belongings. He threw a backwards glance at Rory who stood at the doorframe just as red and breathless as he was, shifted his eyes towards a speechless Nicholai and then did a quick scan around the diner towards an even more speechless town. There were some words he mumbled that sounded an awful lot like, "sorry," coloured with a few bad words and then, with a jingle of the door, he was gone.
This time, Nicholai Stratt was, surprisingly, not torn at all. Looking at the sagging figure of his mother as Rory leaned on the doorframe for support, her cheeks wet with saline tears, Nicholai felt something. It felt terrible, like a black seed growing in the pit of his belly, taking over his red blood with its leaden roots. He had seen that expression on his mother before, and he had despised being too powerless to remove that feeling from her. Decision was swift to overcome him, and with a powerful stride out the door, he was outside just a few steps behind Jess.
Rory couldn't even utter a scream of protest before the diner door slammed shut.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Nicholai asked gravely as he closed in on the space behind Jess. His back was to the boy, and really, Jess Mariano had no intention of facing those wide unnerving eyes—the eyes that genetics tortured him with.
"Don't get into this, Nicholai. Get back in the diner. Luke's waiting upstairs."
But what Jess Mariano did not know was how similar Nicholai Stratt's personality was to his mother. Genetics had a larger thing to pass on than mere ocular organs. Stratt or not, Nicholai was a Gilmore by blood, and if there's anything a Gilmore was known for (besides crippling laziness and melodramatic mothers), it's their fiery tempers that sometimes bordered on madness.
The boy took a deep breath, said a small verse of apology in his head, and swung with clutched fists at Jess Mariano's arm.
"Holy crap what the hell--!" Jess cried as the blunt pain went surging through his right side like a forest fire on a very arid day. He tripped sideways from the force, but caught himself on the door handle of his car.
Did Nicholai Stratt, the boy who thought he was a god, just sock him in the arm?
He leaned against his Mustang and faced Nicholai with a look of utter disbelief. As soon as their eyes made contact, Jess actually blanched at the fire in Nicholai's eyes. He was used to seeing a cheerful young kid every day, with slightly messy dark blond hair and a toothy grin. There was always eagerness in Nicholai's expression, and Jess had always found it endearing, although he would never admit to thinking it. Ever.
But now the creature standing before him was nothing like Jess had ever seen before. The boy's shoulders were hunched, and he stood panting with rage and clammy fists. His thick brows were furrowed and his teeth were bared like an angry, rabid dog.
"Nicholai--," Jess breathed softly. The name came out of his lips like a soft white feather.
"Shut up!" he cried, his young voice breaking in his throat. Nicholai was so angry that he could not even begin to think of what to say. The image of his mother in a heap on the floor as her heart was, once again, broken, flashed into his sight. Words swirled in his mind as he glared at the man before him. Hate. Hurt. Mother. Love. Drive. Asshole. Screw-up. Why. Where. Leave. Hell. Go to hell.
And that was exactly what he settled on. The last thing Jess Mariano was going to hear from the last person he ever wished to hurt was this:
"Go to hell," Nicholai whispered.
It sent sharp, cold chills thourgh Jess's heart, pinching the organ, squeezing and suffocating like a dying warrior's last breath. It was then that he truly realised this boy's effect and impact on his life. What Nicholai said mattered to him. What Nicholai thought mattered to him. Because he was the only one in Stars Hollow who looked at him with bright eyes.
However, those bright eyes were gone now.
A hard, piercing gaze later, and a disappointed turn of the head after, Nicholai Stratt shoved his hands into his pockets and walked away with the determination of a fighter. His knuckles throbbed from a small cut that he had received from punching Jess, and the blood seeped into the lining of his pocket, but he never stopped to check.