Title: Remembering Floyd Nightingale
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: Jess is a nurse, with a doctor for a girlfriend. He's older, more mature, and has made friends with the people he works with. So, the one thing to sour his life? Rory Gilmore. However, she doesn't seem to remember much, as she might have amnesia.
A/N: Ah! It's the last chapter! Sorry about the evil-ness of the previous chapter, but this should make it up. And you guys are getting spoiled, seeing as this is less than a month since the last update. There is an epilogue comin', so just review and hold your horses and it'll be here before you know. Everyone thank Stephie M for reviewing and pushing us past my 10 reviews incentive.

Extra special thanks go to my betas and my repeat reviewers, and this chapter is dedicated to everyone who's loved this story since it was merely a fic trailer with a buncha quotes.

Enjoy.

----

"Oh my God," he breathed, throwing his mail as far away from him as he could. He raced to Rory's side and immediately checked her pulse and her breathing. Her pulse was weak, but steady, and she was breathing--but just barely. He slowly, gently, lowered her legs from the chair, feeling for broken bones as he did. He continued feeling for broken bones all the way up her body, pausing only at her neck as her eyes fluttered open.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice gravelly from un-use.

"Don't move," he said. "As best I can tell, you fell and hit your head. I don't know how long you've been out of it, though."

She had been trying to stretch, to work out the kinks in her muscles. She stopped moving at his words, but didn't look at him. Instead she stared at the ceiling in confusion.

"Paul?" she asked.

"No, it's Jess," he said. Now he was confused. He had no clue who Paul was, and he certainly didn't think that amnesia-laden Rory did.

She closed her eyes again. "I was afraid of that." She swallowed, and took her time before opening her eyes. Jess watched her with her eyes closed, and realized that her voice had sounded different--older, more mature. More tired. He looked at her in disbelief; this wasn't the Rory he'd had in his house for three days. This was the real 31-year-old Rory, the one no one knew.

Abruptly, he stood. "I'm going to call an ambulance. I'll be right back."

"No, that's okay," Rory protested weakly. She was starting to feel the bruises all over her body, even without moving.

Jess left her alone, heading for his phone. He was suspicious of this new Rory, and not a little uncomfortable around her. While he'd known the old Rory, and had connections with her, this one was strange. This one hadn't spoken to her mother for years, and was radically different. He was going to have to treat her with kid gloves.

--

Rory didn't move the entire ride to the hospital, and almost never opened her eyes. She was frantically thinking, trying to figure out where the hell she was, how she got there; why she was with Jess instead of Paul. When she'd heard him speak, she knew without a doubt it was Jess; he sounded the exact same he had when she'd last seen him, when he'd given her his book. And that, of course, had been exactly how he'd sounded when they'd met at 17.

The last thing she remembered was leaving her apartment on her way to Denise's office. Paul had just left; he'd proposed to her the night before. She still had the ring, she could feel it on her hand. The weight was still unfamiliar to her; it had been nine years since she'd been engaged the first time, and her hands had been spectacularly unadorned that entire time.

She wondered if Denise had been contacted. She wondered if Paul had been. She wondered how long it had been since she'd talked to them, and she wondered if they were worried about her. She missed Paul, with his constant 'baby's. He made her feel safe; she was his baby, and he would never let her go. She missed Denise, with her crazy, almost Lorelai-like personality. She'd been going to Denise's office to flash the diamond ring and start planning the wedding, and maybe pick up another book to ghostwrite. Then she was going to fly out to Chicago, meet Paul in Evanston, and finally plan the engagement party that had just been made official. She wondered if she'd missed the party, or even, God forbid, the wedding.

And then suddenly she wondered: if she was lying in an ambulance with Jess at her side, had she spoken to her mother? Jess was definitely on her mother's side; he was the one who visited the Danes household on Thanksgiving and Christmas, he was the one the twins knew. Rory knew about them by proxy, by the cursory once-a-year card she received from her mother and her grandmother. She'd basically severed all ties with her mother when she'd gotten engaged to Logan, and then she'd severed all ties with her grandmother when she'd left Logan at the altar.

But now it looked as if she was closer to her mother. At the very least, she was speaking to Jess. She opened her eyes to look at him. He wasn't looking at her, instead watching out the back window. He looked strangely comfortable in the ambulance, and had been good under pressure when he'd found her. She tried to remember what it was he did. Was it something in the medical profession? That sounded right, but it had been years since her mother had mentioned him, so she wasn't sure.

She continued watching Jess the rest of the short ride to the hospital.

--

Upon arriving, Jess opened the ambulance doors before the paramedic did, and jumped down and grabbed the gurney. The paramedic was one he'd worked with before, a simple guy named George, and George let Jess take control. Jess wheeled the gurney into the hospital, but as soon as he got indoors he dropped back and let George explain the situation to Dr. Barnes. He watched as Rory disappeared, but didn't follow. Nor did he particularly care. He'd convinced himself during the trip that he didn't like Rory. He was forgetting the past few days and thinking only of the past ten years. This Rory was one her brothers didn't know; one her mother didn't know. This Rory was one who hadn't visited Stars Hollow in ten years, while Jess had visited at least three or four times every year. This Rory was one who was making him remember what he might have turned out to be, and he didn't like it.

--

"Hey, it's my favorite step-cousin of Mariano's! How ya doin', hon?" Ben sidled over to Rory's bed. After discerning that she had no broken bones, or internal bleeding, Rory had been moved from the trauma room and was now more or less in the exact same place she'd been days before, though she didn't remember that. She was currently being questioned by Dr. Barnes, who shook his head at Ben.

"She doesn't remember the last few days, but she does remember everything else," Dr. Barnes said to Ben. "We're going to give her a CT scan and then will most likely keep her overnight for observation."

"Where's Jess?" Ben asked, looking at Rory.

"I don't know," she said. "He disappeared after we got here."

Ben nodded. "Get better, okay? I'm gonna go find him."

"Okay," Rory said.

Ben smiled and lifted one hand in a wave as he walked back towards the entrance looking for Jess. He quickly checked the lounge, but Jess wasn't there. He eventually found him in the waiting area.

"What's wrong?" he asked, dropping into a seat next to Jess.

Jess sighed. "I was a shitty teenager and a shittier boyfriend, if that's even possible."

"Yeah, I heard about the Camille thing. Pretty rough."

"No, I'm not even talking about Cam. I'm talking about Rory."

"Wh-Rory? Your cousin? The one with yet another head injury?" Ben asked, pointing in her direction.

Jess sighed again. "Yeah. I dated her for about two minutes in high school." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at the ground. "We had a pretty convoluted relationship, but it basically boils down to the fact that we were never in the same place at the same time. And I spent most of the time it took to figure that out hurting her. And then she hurt me. And we really haven't talked since then."

"Are you kidding me with this?" Ben asked. "What about when you made out with her?"

Jess sat up quickly. "That wasn't her! That was her before. She's different now."

"What?"

"She could remember everything until we were nineteen. We weren't exactly on speaking terms back then, but it was better than this. I think the last few days were...I don't know." Jess groaned. "I don't know anything anymore."

"What's so different about her?" Ben asked.

Jess shook his head. "No one knows her. She hasn't really talked to anyone in the family for ten years. She still talks to one of her friends, Lane, who used to work for my uncle, but Lane moved out of town and doesn't offer a whole lot of insight. The most we've known is where she lives."

"Huh." Ben paused. "Don't really know what to say to that. But why is that making you feel like shit?"

"Because it's reminding me that there was a time in my life that I probably could have turned out like that. That could have been me."

"There but for the grace of God."

"No shit."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, until Ben said, "So she doesn't remember the past few days."

"Right."

"But she remembers everything up to the crash, so her amnesia's gone."

"Yep."

"Talk about a soap opera. Next thing you know, her dead evil twin sister will walk through the door and claim she's pregnant with your baby. Or, even better, her dead evil twin sister will be Camille, who got plastic surgery and has been hiding out since her death."

"Tell me about it," Jess muttered.

Ben chuckled. "I've been watching way too much daytime TV."

"Tell me about it," Jess repeated.

"But, hey! Good news."

Jess merely looked at Ben, waiting.

"Alice is pregnant. So that's why she's been bitchy as hell lately."

"Hey, congratulations, man." Jess clapped Ben on the shoulder. "And my futon's always there for you."

"Thanks. I have a feeling we'll almost be like roommates over the next few months."

Jess chuckled.

----

The next morning, Rory stopped at the front desk on her way out of the hospital. "Do you know where Jess is?"

Stephen pointed toward the lounge, and Rory smiled and thanked him.

She entered the lounge a little apprehensively. When she'd woken up, she'd remembered everything, from first ambulance trip to second. She had to thank Jess for all he'd done before she left, and she also had to explain herself.

"Jess," she said, and he turned around from the coffeepot and handed her his cup.

"Here. I'll make another."

"Thanks," she said, looking down at the liquid. She took a sip, and then waited for him to turn back around. "Jess," she said again when he didn't.

"Rory," he said, finally facing her.

"I remember," she said softly. "I remember everything."

Jess nodded. "Good. So you'll be on your way?"

"I wanted to thank you. For everything. For how wonderful you've been the past few days. For being so close to Luke and my mother. And I also wanted to apologize."

Jess paused. "For what?" he asked after a second.

"For telling you no and sleeping with Dean. For not talking to you for years. For making you be the good child. For," she swallowed. "For breaking up you and your girlfriend. For yelling at you and kissing you. For changing."

"Don't apologize for changing," he said. "Change is inevitable."

"But I changed for the worse. I went crazy. I worked with my grandmother at the DAR, I avoided my mother like the plague, I dropped out of Yale for an entire semester. And you convinced me to go back to Yale, but I never went back to my mother. I always regretted that. I didn't think we could ever go back to the way we were, so I never gave us a chance." She took another sip of coffee, and then looked Jess directly in the eyes. "I did the same thing to you and me. Even after I broke it off with Logan. Even after I regained some of my sanity."

"Whatever," Jess said, but not harshly. "It's water under the bridge."

"Yeah." She smiled. "And that's another reason I want to thank you." She walked over to him, standing unnecessarily close to put her coffee cup on the counter. Then she reached up and kissed his cheek.

"I'm going back to Paul," she said, backing up a few steps. "He's wonderful. He makes me feel sixteen again. It's wonderful and horrible all at the same time. He's never someone I would have imagined myself with at 19, but I'm not sure I can imagine myself without him now." She laughed. "That actually sounds a bit sad. I'm not sure I meant it like that. But we're engaged. Hopefully this one will stick." She held up her left hand and wiggled her fingers, making the diamond sparkle in the light. "Well. I'll be going now." She headed for the door, but paused while opening it.

"Keep in touch," she said, glancing back quickly. "Let's not go another ten years, alright?" Her eyes sparkled as they had when she'd first seen him in the hospital. He couldn't help but smile.

"Alright," he said, and she was gone.

----

She couldn't do it. It was the most damnable thing, but she couldn't do it.

As she wandered around her apartment, looking through it the same way she had two days before, once again with different eyes, she discovered that she couldn't do it. She wasn't happy with her life the way it was; she'd discerned that much. She didn't know if it was where she lived, who she spoke to, or who she didn't speak to. She did know that something had to change.

The first thing she did was call Denise. She told Denise that they were going to take a trip to Connecticut first thing in the morning, and Denise was going to meet Lorelai. Rory assured her friend that they would, indeed, hit it off, and hung up.

Next she called Paul. She told him that she wasn't sure this marriage thing would work out. She asked if he'd ever read her book, which she'd given to him a few months back. He said he hadn't, and she told him that he should. She said if he read it and decided he liked the main character and could understand her feelings, they could get back together. Until then, they were through. He called her "baby" a few times, but eventually gave in. He said he'd been trying to find a way out for months now, but had decided that getting married would solve their problems. She called him stupid, told him to visit a therapist, and hung up.

Then she packed. She included clothes for every season and every occasion. She included everything she might ever wear again, and yet her closet was still half full with clothes when she was done. She wasn't sure how long she was packing for; she'd told Denise it would only be a long weekend but she felt as if she were packing to go home.

Finally, she wrote a letter. She addressed it to her mother, and in it she wrote everything she felt. She thanked her mother for everything she'd done over the years, including random things from her teenage years, huge things like forgiving her when she'd slept with Dean, and the simple things that were so wonderful, like sending her a Christmas card every year. She apologized for everything she'd ever done, including cutting up a favorite dress of Lorelai's at eight, when she'd tried to make a blanket for her mother like her mother had done for her. She also apologized for the last ten years, for never coming home, for never explaining that she'd changed back, at least a little. For never allowing Lane to tell Lorelai all about her, no matter how much she'd wanted to. She finished with a promise that she'd never do it again, if only Lorelai would hug her and welcome her back. She folded the letter and slid it into an envelope, then slid the envelope into her purse. She planned on presenting it to her mother when she got there, and hopefully her mother would read it.

She thought about writing something to Jess, at least a quick note, if not a full letter, or maybe calling him, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Instead, she settled everything near the door in preparation for the next morning and sat on her couch, deciding to watch as much of Dave's TV show as she could, if only to keep her mind off of everything.

----

She was asleep on the couch when there was a knock on the door. She was startled awake, and she sat up and paused the TV. She was in the middle of the second season, and she wasn't too far from what she remembered; she must have been dozing.

She stood and walked to the door, checking through the peephole first.

"Jess?" she asked, pulling the door open. She thought she was dreaming.

He didn't say anything, just stepped toward her. He wrapped one arm around her waist and kissed her.

Now she was sure she was dreaming.

She kissed him back, tasting the cold from outside, a slight tinge of coffee, and the very, very faintest taste of cigarettes. She didn't know if he'd partaken in cigarettes recently or if that was just how he always tasted. She couldn't remember the kiss from a few nights ago, only that she'd initiated it and he'd kissed her back.

He tried to pull away, but she wouldn't let him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him towards her. She enjoyed this. This was always what they were best at.

Eventually, she had to catch her breath, so she let go. She stepped aside so he could walk more fully inside, and then she closed the door behind him. She leaned against the door, watching as he looked around her apartment, obviously at a loss for what to do now. She didn't say anything, just watched.

After a minute or two, he turned towards her. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she said. Sensing he was about to protest and apologize again, she lifted her bare hand. "We broke up." She'd taken the ring off after her conversation with Paul. She'd put it somewhere safe, though she couldn't quite remember where.

"Guess that one didn't stick either."

She smiled. "Nope. Maybe I'm just not the marrying type." She shrugged.

He smiled a quick, tight smile, and then looked at the floor.

"Jess."

He looked up.

"Why are you here?"

He shrugged and looked back at the floor. "I don't know. I guess..." He sighed, and looked back at her. "I guess I just didn't want to leave it at that."

She smiled. "Me neither."

"But you did leave it at that!"

"Jess, you just broke up with Camille. And I understand if you're not too sure about me; you really don't know me that well. At least, not 31-year-old me. But I didn't want to force myself on you. Sure, I did that a few nights ago, but I was really not in my right mind. We both know teenagers aren't mentally stable."

Jess cracked a real smile at that. "But what about Paul? I thought he made you feel sixteen, in a wonderful and terrible way."

"Forget about Paul," she said, walking over towards Jess. "I'd rather be seventeen or eighteen any day."

He smirked and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Oh, really?"

"Really." And she kissed him again.