The numbness followed her out of the apartment and onto the elevator. She had one goal and one goal only; to get out of there without causing a scene.

Some generic smooth jazz was playing softly as she descended from the penthouse floor. She took a minute to arrange her things. She secured her purse over her shoulder, then, dully draping the jacket she'd retrieved over one arm, she dug into the pocket for her hat. She found it, taking it out and pulling it down over her head. Then, she reached into the sleeve to locate her balled up scarf. She tugged it free and proceeded to wind it around her neck and face until nothing but her eyes were visible.

It hurt to stand up straight, but she forced her shoulders back as she reached the ground floor and the doors opened.

"Hi Bill," she greeted the doorman with a congenial wave and a smile. She felt completely disconnected from herself—as though she was merely watching the scene play out rather than acting in it.

"Miss Gilmore," he smiled back. "Leaving so soon?" Was it soon, she wondered idly? Just how long had it taken Mitchum to beat her almost to unconsciousness?

"Oh, I was just stopping by to pick up some things I left here last night." She brandished the extra coat as proof. "I'd love to catch up sometime but I'm in a bit of a hurry. Tell Tina 'congrats' on her early admissions to Binghamton."

"Oh, I will. She's still really holding out hope for Cornell though. Here, let me hail you a cab." Bill reached out to place a hand on her back and guide her out to the street. Rory flinched brusquely at the unexpected contact. Apparently her body was still reacting, even if her mind seemed to be disengaged from reality.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I…"

"It's nothing," she cut him off, with a perfunctory wave. "Really, a cab would be great."

"Of course, Miss." He flashed her a wary look, but then seemed to brush it off, heading out into the street to wave down a taxi. As soon as she saw the yellow vehicle approach, she made her way out to meet it, rather than waiting for Bill to return to escort her. She couldn't afford another slip if he made contact again.

She made her way to the awaiting vehicle and got in slowly, trying not to wince in pain. Bill shut the door behind her and waved. Rory turned to the cabbie. She just wanted to go home, curl up into a ball, and sleep. But she knew the shock would be wearing off soon, and once the adrenaline dissipated, she'd probably crash. She didn't know how long she had.

"E 22rd and Park," she directed her driver as he pulled away from the curb.

She opened up her purse and started going through it. Not that she expected anything to be missing. Not that she would go back for it if it was. But she needed something to do. Something to focus on until she got to her destination.

She took each item out, one by one, looking without really seeing. She was rifling through her discount cards when the driver announced their arrival. She put them back, and took out her credit card, swiping it through the reader on the partition in front of her then climbing out.

She walked into the building and over to the doorman. "I'm, Rory Gilmore, I'm here to see Stephanie Vanderbilt."

"Yes, Miss, one moment." He picked up a phone and pressed a few buttons. For the first time since leaving Mitchum's, she wondered whether or not Steph would even be home. She wondered what she would do if she wasn't. And yet, still, she felt nothing but a vague curiosity.

She didn't have to wonder long. "You can head on up," the doorman told her.

Mechanically, she continued on, getting on another elevator and pressing the button for Stephanie's floor; the same generic music from the other elevator was playing and Rory finally felt her heart rate start to accelerate and the first threads of panic starting to bubble up. When the elevator stopped, the doors opened and she could see Stephanie standing in the open doorway of her apartment waiting for her. Relief she didn't know she'd been waiting for washed over her and she could feel tears starting to well in the corner of her eyes.

"Rory, what are you doing here? Is everything alright?" Steph asked, ushering her into her apartment.

"I didn't know where else to go," she said, trying to hold it together. She'd come this far. She had to keep it together.

"Of course." Steph guided her into the apartment.

Rory unwound her scarf and pulled off her hat.

"Oh my, god, Rory!"

"What?" she asked. Did her words sound slurred? The room seemed to be getting dimmer around her.

"You're bleeding!"

Rory reached up to touch the back of her head where it had hit the end table. Her hair was sticky. She looked down at her hat to see dried blood caking the inside.

"Oh," she remarked as she crumpled to the floor.

The BUN was elevated, but the creat was normal, Paris noted as she scanned the lab results she'd been sent to retrieve. That likely indicated pre-renal causes. Possibly a GI bleed? What was the hematocrit?

Her analysis of "Baker comma Claudine"'s blood work was interrupted by the ringing of her cellphone. She wasn't supposed of have her phone on the floor with her during the externship, but she'd conveniently forgotten to stash it in her locker when she'd arrived today. Chancing a peak, she noted it was Rory. She glanced around to make sure none of the residents were nearby, before flipping the phone open.

"This better be important," she informed her friend. "You won't believe what they're about to pull out of some idiot's butt hole."

"Eww."

"Who is this?" Paris replied to the unfamiliar voice on the other end of the line. "And what are you doing with my roommate's cellphone?"

"Is this Paris Gellar?"

"No," Paris snapped, "It's just some weirdo with a colon fetish. What do you think, Einstein—you called me?"

"Well, umm, this is Stephanie, Rory's friend. She asked me to call you."

"Why didn't she just call me herself?"

"We're at my place. She just showed up," Stephanie informed her, "I think you should come. Now."

Paris dropped the hand holding Ms. Baker's lab work, a sick feeling stabbing her in the gut. "What'd he do?" she asked.

"Just, come, please," Steph pleaded. "My address is 280 Park Avenue South. Apartment 19B." The girl hung up, leaving Paris standing there, the dial tone ringing in her ear.

She dropped the labs at the nearby nurses' station. "Family emergency," She informed one of the nurses sitting there.

"You've still got three hours left on your shift," the nurse replied.

"What part of the word 'emergency' stumped you?" Paris snapped.

"This is an emergency room. I've got eight thousand emergencies that rank above yours," The nurse informed her.

"Just tell Hastings I left."

"I'm a nurse, not your personal assistant. Tell him yourself."

Paris scowled but willed herself not to engage. She didn't have time to argue with nurses too stupid to get into med school. She had a friend in trouble.

Rory was sitting on the sofa, wrapped in a chenille throw blanket, a cup of tea in her hands. She was rocking quietly back and forth. She hadn't said anything in almost—Stephanie checked her watch—twenty minutes.

After Rory had collapsed on the floor, Stephanie had rushed to dial 911, but Rory had stopped her. "Don't!" she'd insisted frantically, with far more force than she looked like she had in her "You can't, please."

"Rory, you're hurt."

"Just call Paris," she reached in her pocket and held out her phone, but she could barely keep her arm raised.

"You're bleeding from the head. You could have a concussion, or a" she waived her hands frenziedly, "sub-something hema—whatever that thing McDreamy is always drilling into people's skulls for on Grey's Anatomy."

"Paris is in med school, she'll know what to do." Stephanie took the phone from her friend but didn't open it just yet.

"I know what to do," Stephanie insisted. "Get you to a hospital."

"No!" Rory persisted.

Stephanie still wasn't sure she'd made the right decision, honoring Rory's wishes. But Rory had come to her; had trusted her, after her trust had so violently been broken.

Still, helping her up off the floor and making her a cup of chamomile tea that she hadn't taken a single sip of, hardly seemed adequate.

There was a knock on the door and Stephanie breathed a sigh of relief. She ran to it, opening it up to see a blonde woman in scrubs with a major case of resting bitch face. "Paris?" she asked.

"Where is she?" Stephanie stepped aside and motioned to the couch across the room.

"Damn it, Gilmore, what part of 'don't do anything stupid,' didn't you understand?" she barked, stomping across the room. Stephanie gritted her teeth and cringed at the harsh words. Couldn't she see their friend was traumatized.

Rory slowly lifted her head, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. "I just wanted it to be over."

"Idiot," Paris scoffed. "Don't you know men like that are at their most dangerous when you're leaving them."

Rory looked away again, pulling her legs up to her chest, and hugging them tightly.

"Well?" Paris prodded, "What did Mr. Slap-Happy do?"

"Nothing." Rory shook her. "It's nothing, I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You're drinking tea."

Rory seamed to notice for the first time that she was even holding a cup. She set it down on the end table.

"What's wrong with tea?" Stephanie asked. Paris sent her a contemptuous look before turning back to the shadow of a girl on the sofa.

"I swear, Paris. I'm just a little shook up is all."

"She has a cut on her head," Stephanie informed Paris. "She won't let me look. And she can barely stand up."

Rory rolled her eyes. "I can stand just fine, see." She stood up, her legs wobbling precariously.

Paris swooped in to place a steadying hand on her arm. "Okay, that's it. Get your stuff, we're going."

"Right," Rory nodded. "Thanks, Steph," she turned to her friend. "I really appreciate everything, but Paris can get me home."

"We're not going home, you dolt. We're going to the hospital."

"No," Rory shook her head, he eyes widening in fear.

"That wasn't a request. You need medical attention. You need a cat scan and an ultrasound to check for internal bleeding. And while I may be smarter than 95% of the practicing physicians out there, I sadly don't come equipped with my own pocket CT machine."

"I'm not going to the hospital." Rory sat back down on the couch, crossing her arms in what was meant to be a defiant gesture, but which lacked oomph due to the way it caused her to flinch in pain.

"I already tried to convince her," Stephanie added.

"Yeah, and you did great job of it," Paris snapped.

"Hey! I'm doing what I can here."

"And what a help that is."

"Excuse me? I'm not helping? What about you? You live with her. How many times could you have put a stop to this?"

"Stop!" Rory cried out. "It's not Paris' fault." She turned to look at Paris, "And it's not Stephanie's either. You two have been…" she sniffled back the tears that had finally emerged from her eyes.

"Hey, I'm sorry," Stephanie said gently, walking over the couch and crouching down in front of her. "We're just worried about you. But you're safe now."

"He wasn't always like this, you know," she whispered once she'd finally caught her breath. "I mean, looking back the signs were there but…he'd never been physical before. Not until…."

Stephanie nodded. "Until he started losing control over you," she finished for her friend. "Abuse comes in a lot of forms that aren't just physical. He tried other ways to control you until he couldn't anymore. But all of it was wrong and you didn't deserve it."

"I don't know," Rory sniffled, wiping at her snotty face with the sleeve of her sweater. "I did some pretty terrible things myself."

"You were just doing what you had to do to survive. The people who care about you will understand that."

"Logan won't."

Stephanie hesitated, not sure what to really say. She didn't want to lie.

"Ugh," Paris groaned, saving her from having to tell Rory that Logan might really never get over this. "Enough of the touchy-feely stuff already. So you hurt Prince William's delicate feelings—boo-freaking-hoo. I think we have bigger problems. Like making sure your asshole ex didn't rupture your spleen."

"I can't go to the hospital, Paris. They'll know how…" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "They'll have to report it."

"Well yeah. That's the first step in filing a police report...getting a restraining order...filing assault charges…" Paris ticked off on her fingers one by one as though she were speaking to a toddler.

"No," Rory repeated. "You know I can't do any of that."

"Bullshit!"

"He can bury me Paris. His lawyers, his money, his reputation…He'll make sure I never work again. What would you do if it was your career?"

"Can I talk to you?" Stephanie broke in, pulling Paris to the other side of the room.

"Hey, watch it there, Penthouse Barbie," Paris growled, shaking her arm free.

"I think we need to respect her wishes on this," Stephanie whispered. "Besides, her color's coming back, she's looking stronger…"

"Well thank you for your expert assessment. What medical school did you graduate from?"

"I may not know the medicine," Stephanie admitted, "but I know a little about situations like this. He's systematically stripped her of her own agency. Taken away all her power. Trying to force her to do something she doesn't want to do just victimizes her all over again."

"And if she dies? How much agency does she get over her dead body then?"

"Listen, if she gets worse we can reassess. I'll help you watch her."

Paris glowered, looking back and forth from Rory to Stephanie. "We're going to need a blood pressure cuff and a pulse ox. You should be able to buy them at the pharmacy."

"There's a Duane Reede on the corner. What about pain meds? I've got Advil."

"Right—let's give her something to inhibit platelet aggregation. Stellar move."

"Sooo—no to the Advil, then?" Stephanie grimaced.

"No. And I can't get her any opioids either so she'd just going to have to make do with Tylenol."

Steph nodded. "Okay, I'm on it." She went to gather up her stuff.

Paris turned back to Rory. "You're getting neuro checks and vitals every 30 minutes." She pointed authoritatively.

Rory's shoulder's sagged with relief. "Thank you, Paris."

"Thank me when you're watching the ball drop for the 18th time," Paris snarked, "because you're going to be awake to see the new year in every time zone."

Rory followed Paris into their apartment Thursday evening. It had been over twenty-hours since the incident at Mitchum's. And true to Paris's word, her friends had checked on her every half hour the entire time. She hadn't gotten a wink of sleep. But finally, Paris had decided that Rory's brain was officially not going to herniate nor would she exsanguinate.

And now, at long last, Rory was going to get to go to bed. She felt like she could pull a Rip Van Winkle and go to sleep now, only to wake up and find 40 years had passed. She'd never been so physically and emotionally exhausted in her life—not even after that time she participated in her town's 24-hour dance marathon—and gotten publicly dumped at hour 23.

She reached up to hang her coat on the coat rack and winced as a sharp pain shot up her side. Every inch of her body ached, but she'd mostly gotten used to the constant throbbing—until she'd move the wrong way and it would feel like a rib was skewering her in the lungs. Paris was pretty certain that they weren't broken though.

"I think it's safe for you to take an NSAID now," Paris informed her.

"Huh?" Rory asked.

"Ibuprofen, naproxen, aspirin…" Paris suggested.

"Oh."

"If you'd go to a licensed doctor, they could prescribe you some Percocet."

"I'll be fine, I have some ibuprofen in the bathroom."

Rory hobbled across the small apartment and to the bathroom where she opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out a couple of pills, popping them in her mouth and washing them down with a palm full of water from the sink.

"You need to eat with those," Paris shouted from the other room. Rory groaned. The thought of food made her nauseous.

She made her way back into the main room. "You couldn't have told me that before I took them?"

"Oops," Paris shrugged. It was obvious she'd done it on purpose so that Rory would have to eat something. She hadn't eaten anything at all yesterday.

Rory sighed and sat down at the kitchen island. "My stomach hurts."

"Just a couple of slices of toast," Paris said, popping some Wonder Bread in the toaster.

Just then Rory's phone rang. She looked down at the device and immediately silenced it.

"You should talk to her."

"I will."

"When?"

"Soon."

Paris sighed. "She's called four times today. She's going to know something's up. Especially since you just had your whole, big, Hallmark Christmas movie reconciliation."

"I'm going to tell her."

"And I repeat—when?"

Rory shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. When I can take a deep breath without feeling like I'm Angel being run through with Acathala's sword. When I've figured out my next step?"

"And what is your next step?"

Rory dropped her head to the table. "Did you not just hear me say I haven't figured it out yet?"

"I'm just a little concerned that, when you don't have stuff figured out, you tend to default to doing the safe thing. Which in this case is very, very dangerous."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about work—and how you're not going tomorrow."

Rory lifted her head to gawk at Paris. "I have to go to work. I played hooky on Monday, I just didn't show up yesterday…If I don't go to work he'll a have a legitimate excuse to fire me."

"It's not safe."

"What do you think he's going to do? Start hitting me in the middle of the newsroom? There are a hundred other employees there."

"He could call you into his office, or corner you in a conference room. You don't think the man can find a way to get you alone?"

"I have an editor and an assistant editor that I answer to. What am I going to tell them?"

"You were in a car accident."

"What?"

"Yesterday morning. You were in an accident. That's why you didn't call out. And that's why you'll tell them you're calling out tomorrow. I can steal some hospital letterhead and write you a fake discharge report if you need."

"Is that even legal?"

"It's not like I'm actually putting you in the hospital system or anything. It'll be fine."

"And then what?" Rory asked. "I mean, I've got the weekend, but on Monday I'll be in the same place I am now. I can't not go to work forever. If he wants to ruin my career, he's going to have to do it the hard way; I'm not going to help him."

Paris sighed in exacerbation. "You're annoyingly stubborn."

I'm not going to let him intimidate me."

"You should be intimidated, Rory."

The toaster took that moment to beep and Rory relished the interruption, standing up and picking her toast out of the appliance, then dropping it on a paper towel. She turned around to face Paris. "I'll call out tomorrow. Give him some time to cool down. But I've got to go in on Monday."

"You're an idiot."

"Good night, Paris," she replied, taking her food and heading off to her bedroom. She would figure everything else out tomorrow. For now, she just needed to sleep.

AN: I know a lot of you wanted her to go to the police. I mean, I think we all wanted that. But sadly, that's not the reality for most victims of domestic assault. And especially in Rory's shoes where her abuser is also her boss with a lot of influence in her chosen field. It just wouldn't be believable for Rory to got that route. That doesn't mean Mitchum won't get his comeuppance eventually. He will, but it will take some time.

I've been loving your reviews, please keep them coming!