AN: Overwhelming response on the cliffhanger I left you with! Thank you! And thank all of you who went to my other fic, even the ones that flamed me for no reason. A review is a review and maybe it's a good thing you took your head out of your ass long enough to type something. Fresh air is good for you.

Disclaimer: Do you think if I owned Milo, I'd be sitting here writing? HA!


"Nurr," Jess muttered as he rolled over, arm draped over Rory's sleeping body. Somewhere to his left a phone was ringing and it wasn't very appreciated. "Ror," a groan escaped, deep and earthy.

A small whimper preceded her high-school reply of, "Five more minutes."

Jess kept his eyes tightly closed against the daylight that was streaming through the windows and reached towards the ringing. There was a loud crash as he knocked over the lamp before grabbing the cell phone. "Do you know what time it is?" he asked, annoyed.

"Three in the bloody afternoon," Paris replied, sounding very annoyed as well. "Where the hell are you?"

"Ugh," he said and held the phone to Rory's ear. He could still hear Paris's distinct voice but at least it was no longer a jackhammer into his brain. Rory jumped up at the first few words that came through the phone. Jess couldn't be sure if it was something she said or because she woke up to Paris. He wiggled into the pillows and turned on his side to fall back asleep when Rory started shaking him. "What?"

The look in her eyes forced him to sit up (way too quickly) and grab her hand. "What's wrong?"

"I..we have to go back to Yale. Now," she commanded, squeezing the last bit of sleep out of him. She stood and started to get dressed when she realized they were still wearing the clothing from the marathon. "Oh well! Get up, get up!"

Jess jumped out of the bed and ran his finger through his hair. "Tell me what's going on," he asked, thoroughly worried. "Please just calm down and tell me what happened."

"Our apartment," she said, grabbing her purse and shoes. "Somebody broke in!"

"But none of our stuff is there yet," he thought out loud and caught his shoes as she threw them at him. "It's not even ours yet."

"It will be," Rory said, pouting at the thought or because he refused to move… "We've paid the first month's rent already!"

"What's the big deal about someone breaking in? There's nothing to steal," he said and regretted it immediately. Rory's look transformed from a pout to an angry glare. If Jess didn't know better, he could've mistaken it for her withering stare. He seriously didn't understand what was going on – he did his best to ignore Paris on the phone and now Rory was withholding information. "You have to tell me what happened or I'm not leaving this apartment."

After a long series of huffs, Rory placed a hand on her hip and explained.


"The landlord says there's writing all over the walls, a hole somewhere in the kitchen…some windows are broken and I don't even know what else," Rory said, exasperated. "Paris was all in a rush and I'm glad we put her down on our contact list because apparently we slept though the other four calls I had on my phone,"

"By the way, where is your phone? She said he called you too. How could we sleep through this? We're supposed to move in there in like three weeks – how are we going to now? It was the perfect apartment. Our perfect apartment." Rory started crying at the end of her rant and was very thankful that Jess's arms instinctively wrapped around her. "How could this happen? Why?"

Jess's soft voice whispered in her ear, "I don't know." He held her close and played with her hair – he knew just what to do to calm her down.

"We have to go,"

She felt him nod and Rory shifted out of his warm embrace and let him put on his shoes. Rory didn't know why this was happening to them…out of all the apartments on campus, out of all the apartments in that building…it just had to be theirs? She couldn't help but wondering what they did to deserve this.

They quickly left the apartment, closed and locked the diner before getting into their car. Jess took the drivers seast and Rory couldn't think to put up a fight. Her mind was going a mile a minute and she knew the road wouldn't be her primary focus.

"Why?" she whispered, a lone tear teetering in her eye. She reached over to Jess and gingerly placed her hand on his knee. Rory could feel his muscles tense before he dropped one of his hands to cover her own.

"I don't know," was his quiet reply.

The rest of the ride was silent although Rory swore she could hear the wheels churning in their brains. How much damage was there? Was there anything that couldn't be fixed? If it can be fixed, how much will it cost? And the worst of all: will we have to find a new apartment? It had seemed too good to be true, and they both knew it. The antique, homey feeling and unique craziness of the soon-to-be decorations would replicate her mother's in a way she never felt could be possible. Yet over all the questions she had, she wondered most of all: why us?

The ride seemed to be both very long and very short by the time they reached the apartment building. It had only been a little under 45 minutes – Jess had obviously been driving fast. Then again, she'd done enough thinking for the rest of the year. Their landlord was outside of the building waiting for them. Unfortunately the apartment was on the other side from the entrance, there wasn't any visible damage yet.

"I'm glad we got a hold of you," he said while shaking Jess's hand. "You might want to prepare yourself before going in."


You know what? You can deal with another chapter of basic uselessness. No, I have not really given any clues to who the dark, strange pervert is. I, along with one other person, know who it is already… You'll find out in chapter 34 because I'm not sure how to reveal it yet.

I have a plan for basically the rest of this storyline, and I have ideas for the sequel/continuation/whatever. I think I'm going to shut this down and start another one as a sequel – although I really really don't want to lose all of you! You'll read it, right:insecure:

I wanted to give you something short and eh cos I don't know when you'll see 34. I'm trying to write more in this adorable Dr. Seuss notebook I got. Lately if I'm not at one job, I'm at the other, or I'm sleeping. That's basically my life. Anyone else working 70 hour weeks? Yeah, it blows.

...I'm sorry, this chapter really sucks. I really am truely sorry. I wouldn't post it but I have to get through this icky stuff to get to the good stuff (like the last chapter!)