Disclaimer: Unfortunately, still nothing's mine.

Rory Gilmore had surrounded herself with a force field. He could feel it every time they stumbled upon each other in the hospital. It didn't happen a lot. She probably avoided him. And when their paths did cross, if their looks did meet, hers was guarded. Yeah, Rory Gilmore had surrounded herself with a force field. It was powered by doubt and hurt and it pained Jess to see her like that because he knew he was the one who had put those feelings there. However, moping around, grovelling and asking for forgiveness while showering in self-blame wasn't what Jess Mariano was gonna go for. No. His plans were much different.

He fought the initial urge to approach her. Because he believed Paris when she told him he had no more place for fuck-ups. If he was gonna do this, he had to do it right. And he was so doing this. But while before all of this, when things between them were much more simple, Jess had success taking the lead, probing his luck, he couldn't go on acting on impulse this time. He had lost her trust and pushing his luck was only gonna drive her further away. No grand gestures. No grovelling. No pushing her to do something she wasn't ready for. He had to come up with a plan. And, for this, he had to give it some serious thought.

So Jess Mariano, King of Moodiness and Impulse, spent many hours thinking his situation with his ex-girlfriend (the concept still made him cringe) over, doing his best to see it, for once, from her point of view. Finally, he formed a game plan and although he didn't like the possibility of never getting things back to where they used to be, he felt satisfied with the implication behind it. The more time passed, the better he felt about his resolution. It had taken him a little more than a week but he preferred to give Rory time. Time to adjust to having him around again. Time to put some order into his own head.

'Hey,' he stepped from foot to foot in front of her apartment building. 'Can I talk to you?'

Rory's steps slowed to a halt as she approached the front steps from the street. Cerberus ran forward, letting out a joyful woof.

'You need to stop doing this,' she said with a weary sigh.

Jess patted Cerberus' silky head as the dog jumped all over him, climbing his front paws up to his chest.

'I will only be a minute, I promise. I wanna establish something from the beginning.'

He saw the sarcasm as she huffed. She had some thin white blouse and some flowery silk scarf on, matched with jeans and ballerinas. Her hair was tousled from the autumn wind and she swept a hand through it tryig to tame it. God, she was so beautiful. Jess had to mentally slap himself in order to get back to business instead of drool all over her and give in to overwhelming pangs of nostalgia.

'I mean the beginning of this new routine,' he said gesturing between them with amazing calmness despite the rising tide of emotions. 'We're gonna see each other, and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable.'

Another gust of wind swept past them and she shivered, rising a hand to smooth her hair down.

'Well great,' she rolled her eyes, 'that coming from the graciousness of your heart means really a lot, Jess.'

He smiled a small smile, as if he'd expected her to react just like that.

'I'll try and get this out without sounding smug,' he said calmly, seeking her look. She seemed to hesitate between avoiding his eyes and rolling her eyes sarcastically. 'Okay, so...' he took a breath and his eyes sought hers even more insistently, 'I am here and I'm all in. And I don't mean this just for the sake of getting old times back, I mean I am ready to answer all your questions if you have any, and I will do my best to open up and really talk to you whenever you feel ready to do this. I don't want you to feel bad whenever I'm around.'

'Because it pains you,' Rory snided.

'Well, this too, but more because it pains you. I mean this, Rory. I still know you, and if you wanna reach a peace of mind, you need to let the hurt I inflicted go.'

She looked around wetting her lips.

'You gonna say you're sorry now or do you have any more profound stuff to say?'

'I haven't prepared a speech, Rory,' he sighed with a wary smile. 'I don't know what the right words to approach you are. But I'm gonna stick around long enough and find them. An apology is due but you don't deserve some half-assed I'm sorry. You're gonna get it when it will feel true. For now, if you wanna talk, I'll be around.'

Great. Now he was a specialist in what she did and did not deserve.

'You're right. You do sound smug.'

With that she turned to go and after a moment's hesitation Cerberus followed her with a last lick over Jess' palm.

Being Chief sucked, Jess thought. Being temporary Chief sucked even more because everyone came telling you about their problems while at the same time trying to inflict their own solutions on you. So far, he had spent the afternoon explaining the air conditioning problem to the maintenance guy, arguing about the need of working UPS with the medical supply guy, as well as doing his best to ignore the fervent speech of syndicate representative guy about sexual relationships between colleagues being a violation of work ethics. One of the hospital accountants had just come screaming into his office, threw a bunch of balance sheets on to his desk and after less than a minute during which he tried to handle her in a civilized, levelled way, left his office in a rush, slamming the door on her way out. So yeah. Being temporary Chief sucked.

The door slammed open. Jess let a breath out through his nose slowly, then spoke through his teeth.

'Janice, I swear - if you slam the door one more time the only paper I'm gonna sign will be your resignation form.'

'I don't know who Janice is,' Paris said.

Jess looked up from the papers he'd been beating his brain at.

'Martinez has the flu and can't cover the night shift. I have one more jejunostomy before the nanny starts calling but have no assisting surgeon. Here's what I come up with - I asked Dugray to go handle the nanny talk and take Aiden to play date with Josh until I'm finished here, you're scrubbing in with me as first assistant because after six months and two brain surgeries there's no way I'm letting you operate unattended. I called the day shift and he's coming early to cover for Martinez.'

Jess blinked twice before he grabbed the keys to his locker with a wide grin.

'Let me change into my scrubs.'

Finally. Some real work.

'You would've made some Chief,' he said on his way out.

Paris rolled her eyes and put the surgical cap back onto her head, tying it at the back.

'Tell me about it.'

They walked in the corridor leading to the locker room.

'How long before the Chief is back?' Paris asked.

Jess sighed.

'A week.'

'Longest week of your life?' she smirked giving him a sideways glance.

They approached the locker room.

'You miss the OR, don't you?'

'You have no idea.'

'Hurry up,' she nodded towards the locker room. 'We have gut that needs cutting and a kid who needs his bedtime story waiting. Fourth, meet me in five.'

Jess' grin grew wider.

'Hallelujah.'

TBC