Disclaimer: Nothing's mine. Neither are the quotes used below, surrownded by ~ ~.

A/N: As promised, here comes another ride. Writing this chapter has been so very emotional. I hope you enjoy all the feels it's meant to make you experience :) Remember your feedback is highly appreciated.

PS: As you will see, this chapter is written from the other characters' perspective. An insight on Rory's feelings is coming in next chapter. Again, hope you enjoy.

~ I never was, am always to be. No one ever saw me, nor ever will, and yet, I am the confidence of all who live and breathe. What am I? ~

Lorelai

Lorelai Gilmore stood at her doorstep - a guardian soldier with her arms folded before her chest. Looking tall while sporting that half-doubtful half-defensive expression, her crystal blue eyes pinning the unwelcome intruder down.

Jess chewed on his lower lip and let a slow breath out looking to the side. He let her dissect him with her ice-sharp stare for as long as she had to.

Lorelai Gilmore was a gatekeeper guarding her daughter's heart. The sphinx keeping the princess' secret, warding strangers off... Figures.

Jess held Lorelai's look, caught off guard by how this particular shade of blue hit a little too close to home. Before he could stop himself, there was a picture in his mind - a pair of striking blue eyes, bright and vibrant, on the face of an infant. His inner chest lurched. Like jumping off a cliff and finding there was nothing beneath, he felt like his insides were trying to get out and break out of his chest. Jess shook his head mentally, chastising himself for getting all sentimental. As if he was the one pregnant, driven by raging hormones.

He ran a palm down his mouth and sighed, putting a hand on his hip under Lorelai's unyielding gaze.

After god knows how long, Lorelai made the slightest move to the side, indicating he could go in, the look in her eyes telling him she was gonna scrutinize his every step and act at the slightest sign of danger.

~ I'll be waiting 'til you're ready for my love ~

Jess

He walked into the room with calm, controlled movements. Stopped before her bed taking in Rory's tear-streaked face, the red rims around her eyes, the silent pleading he read in them. He knew that pleading all too well. He knew it from experience. The pleading to not ask questions she didn't have the answers to.

Jess kept her look as he took off his shoes, slipped off his jacket and climbed into the bed next to her, settling with his legs stretched, crossed at the ankles. He turned his head to the side to have a look at her and placed a hand around her shoulders, bringing her close. She felt stiff. He could feel her ache. Her precaution. He kept his arm around her, stroking her head in a slow caress, his fingers threading through her hair. His breathing was rhythmic, steady. His chest warm against her wet cheek. He was grounded against her numbness.

She inhaled deeply. Held her breath. And as her arms moved to lock around his torso, she shook with the first quiet sob.

Jess stood there, calm and grounded, and held her as she cried herself to sleep.

...

'She's hurting,' Lorelai stood by the fridge, eyeing him closely with her arms folded before her chest.

Jess continued his silent study of the table cloth pattern, playing absently with the pack of cigarettes he'd bought on his drive here.

'She's feeling inadequate to the situation,' Lorelai continued. 'Feeling saddened by something that usually causes bouts of nervous excitement.'

Jess stood silently and, if possible, his expression sulked even more.

'She told me about the abortion after their breakup with Logan,' Lorelai said and met his look as his eyes flashed with silent surprise. 'I haven't fully processed it yet. I'm doing my best not to impose my confusion on her yet I...'

Lorelai paused, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

'I really wish she had told me about it at the time. Would've been there for her. If she'd let me.'

They stood in the kitchen, sharing a less than comfortable silence.

'You always this chatty or is it just me stealing all the cool banter lines?' Lorelai asked.

'I guess.'

'You're not giving me particular reasons to like you, are you?'

'Not trying to,' Jess said with a one-shoulder shrug.

Lorelai's eyes narrowed, as if she was debating on firing back a witty comment.

'She asked about Paris,' Jess said then, standing up. 'She's coming over tomorrow.'

He headed for the staircase towards Rory's room. Lorelai's voice came behind him.

'Love isn't always easy,' she said, her tone somewhere between resigned and comforting. 'Give her time.'

Jess stopped, his fingers splayed over the banister.

'Loving her has never been a problem,' he said, giving Lorelai a nod before he went upstairs.

~ You always hurt the one you love, The one you shouldn't hurt at all ~

Paris

'You're not saying anything,' Rory mumbled from her spot in the armchair.

Paris sighed, looking out through the window. She picked at the bed cover of Rory's bed where she was sitting.

'I don't know... It's just... You get told how a child brings so much love into your life, it's almost too much but still the best feeling you'll ever get in the whole wide world and...'

Paris looked down at her lap.

'Well it's true,' she shrugged, her eyes glued to the bed cover threads between her fingers. 'But sometimes I ask myself - all this love you get to feel, and what for?'

She looked up at Rory who was listening to her with her lips on her knuckles, a used tissue rumpled in her fist.

'I never chose to feel all that overwhelming love and care but it's suddenly there, and it's like some bad habit you can't get rid of,' Paris continued. 'Once you get to feel this, nothing else compares. It's like the strongest dope - suddenly nothing less can suffice.'

Paris leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped together.

'Parents are addicts who strive to be better people because of their children, but no matter how hard they try, it's never enough. Being a mom has made a Holden Caulfield out of me. I look at all those children and I wanna get them somewhere safe but I can't and I feel frustrated by all the exasperating love I feel.'

Paris let out something between a sigh and a groan.

'What I mean is, being a parent makes your life more meaningful. I ask myself, like literally ask myself - what was my life's point before Josh came into this world? Because I can't imagine I had any, and this coming from me should say a lot. So yeah,' Paris shrugged, 'being a parent brings all those feelings of purpose, and immeasurable love and devotion. But it doesn't necessarily make you happier. And maybe it's very anti-feminine of me but here's what I say - if you're not feeling sure you want your life to change forever, maybe you shouldn't put yourself in a situation where it will, irrevocably.'

...

'Do you realize what you've just done?' Jess hissed.

'Rory deserves to be told the truth,' Paris folded her arms before her chest defiantly.

'Oh really?' Jess fumed. 'And what is the truth, Paris? Because last time I checked, your best friend was feeling lost and scared and turned to you to give her a piece of advice from the position of someone who has been there, and you practically told her to have an abortion if she was feeling confused.'

'Well guess what big alfa daddy, this isn't about you. This is about her and a choice that's gonna change her life upside down.'

Jess froze and gave Paris an astounded look.

'You think I didn't think about her?' he asked, his voice rising and cracking. 'You think she's not everything I've been thinking about ever since this whole ordeal?' He was practically yelling now. 'God, I have no fucking idea how I feel about this, because all I've been thinking about is what her choice is going to do to her. Here you go suggesting that she can do this, make an abortion and get her life back to normal. But have you stopped to think that this will change her? Because she won't be just Rory after this, she will be Rory who has made a second abortion, a fully conscious choice made under much more different circumstances than the one she had when she was twenty-four, hardly graduating and in the middle of a cheating boyfriend breakup. So don't you tell me this is not about me, because I'm not the one letting my personal misjudgement factor in.'

Jess stopped to take a breath, his whole body shaking. His eyes were wild, his breathing ragged. He looked like a man brought to the limit.

'Shit,' he rubbed both palms against his face, making a desperate effort to collect himself.

'What did I do,' Paris whispered, stunned by her own stupidity. 'Jess, let me get back to her, I need to tell her-'

Jess rose a palm up in warning.

'You need nothing, you've done enough.'

'I'm sorry okay? Please let me go back in so I can talk to her.'

'I think we're finished here, Paris,' Jess said with a tone of cold finality.

Paris' eyes were quickly welling up.

'I'm sorry okay?'

Jess' look was heavy with devastation.

'Me too.'

Paris lifted her chin, tears rolling down her cheeks.

'Give me one minute. Literally. That's all I need. Please give me one minute and I'll be gone, promise.'

Jess' weary look paused on her, his eyes back to their deep stoic brown.

He didn't say a thing. He stood there looking at her, his eyes weary and haunted. Then he moved to the side, letting her pass while he stood by the window facing out, both hands on his hips. Paris glanced towards him, taking in his strained profile, the slightly hunched shoulders, the now obvious struggle to keep it together. Like a man forbidden to scream but needing it badly. Paris bit on her lip and looked down, climbing the stairs.

...

One Week Ago

'We have to let him go, Paris,' Tristan said looking towards Edward's hospital room.

'No.'

'He's suffering.'

'I promised to help him.'

'Then let him go.'

'I wanted to be there for him.'

'You are. He knows it.'

'Why is life so unfair?'

'It just is. You did your best.'

'Still not enough.'

'In some ways, it is.'

'How?'

'It's enough to make him feel... noticed. Sometimes that's as good as it gets. You gave him compassion. He won't be alone when it happens. That's more than most people can ask for. He's tired, Paris. Let him rest.'

'If I let him go it's as if I'm giving up on him.'

She had promised the boy she would get him through. She almost did. Until he'd gone septic and all of his systems started crashing.

'Maybe you have to. For his own sake.'

Paris talked to Edward's parents. It was one of many talks. But this one felt different. Because it felt final. It was. It was the last talk. The one where she told them that she had to stop the machines keeping their kid alive, that they could have their time to have their last goodbyes and then everything would be over.

She made small steps, each of them unbearable. The burden upon her shoulders squashed her down, made her suffocate. Paris hated her job right now. She hated it with the passion of someone who'd been trained to fight for any chance, fight to the last second, keep life up even when it was holding onto the tiniest thread. And now she had to cut that thread loose.

She went to Edward's bed and took a moment to have a look at him. She took in the tubes and wires, the bandages covering practically all of his skin. She checked the monitors where life could still be detected. Monitors could detect and measure life. They couldn't detect and measure moral values, they couldn't measure pain. Couldn't tell you when that precise moment when you gave up was.

Paris leaned down to touch the bandage covering Edward's left arm and whispered, willing her voice to sound even,

'You are a brave guy, Edward. It's been an honor. I... I'll be here okay?'

She took a sharp intake of air and stood up, bracing herself. Another last step towards the respiratory support. A last glance towards Edward's family behind the glass windows. Exchanging a curt nod with the ICU nurse. Paris put her hand on the respiratory support control. Her pulse was beating erratically, the adrenaline rush clouding her hearing, blurring her vision, letting rapid jolts of electricity run down her spine and numb her limbs. She took a slower breath, willing herself to calm. Then felt the warm heaviness of another hand covering hers over the respiratory support button. She looked up to find a pair of calm blue eyes focused on hers.

'When you're ready,' Tristan's quiet voice carried.

Paris took another moment to glance at Edward's family, then at Edward's bed. She felt the clutch of emotion grip at her throat and knew precisely what was about to happen. Alarms would go off, beeping like crazy. Monitors would start flashing. A stifled desperate sob would carry through the glass windows. Edward's mom. Paris pressed up into Tristan's hand and let out a sigh as his fingers closed tighter around hers over the button. She looked up at him in silent communication. Exchanging small nods. They pressed down.

...

Numb, Paris sat in her place, pressing the heels of her hands against the hospital bed. There was no silver lining. No. Everything was simply falling apart. Everything she had struggled so hard to keep together was falling apart around her and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Or worse. There was, but she hadn't figured out how to.

She felt someone sit beside her. She knew who it was without needing to look. Someone who hadn't let her press that button alone. She felt a warm hand cover hers, his fingers intertwining tightly over hers.

She felt the sobs choke her, making her chest heave.

She leaned into him and let him wrap her into a hug.

'It's...' she tried to talk but choked, 'It's... It's not...'

'I know,' Tristan said into her hair, tucking her head under his chin, rocking her gently.

'He was...'

'I know.'

The sobs came on and on, shaking her against him. He smoothed her hair against her nape and when that didn't help and she continued to shake, he gathered her in his arms, moving her legs across his so that he could hold her like a child.

'Shh.'

'Paris,' Helen's voice came above them, sounding apprehensive.

'I got her,' Tristan said. Then, against Paris' hair, 'Sh-shh,' he rocked her close, his thumbs rubbing semicircles against her arms. She was shaking so hard, gasping for air. He kept murmuring into her hair.

'You did right. One day, you'll know you ended up with the right regrets.'

She stilled into his arms and drew back so that she could face him. Her face was tear-streaked, her eyes sparkling with surprise as she studied him. Tristan's brow furrowed questioningly but he let her rake his face, obviously searching for something. They eyed each other for a while until the most amazing thing happened. Paris blinked a couple of welled tears away and relaxed into him, closing her arms tight behind his back. She curled into him, resting her cheek against his chest, calming. Possibly for the first time in her life, Paris Geller let someone console her.

Present Time

'I had to stop Edward's respiratory support last week,' Paris said as soon as she entered the room, leaning back against the door she had just closed. 'I overstepped a line with him. I got too personally involved. You noticed it, Tristan noticed it, but I was too stubborn to admit it. I gave this kid a promise I could not keep and had to watch him die. This is by far the most hurtful thing I've done that could be preventable. I didn't think better when I must have. I'm strongly biased by what has recently happened in my own life when I tell you how I feel about parenthood. I stand by what I told you because to me it is true but it isn't the whole truth, not by a far stretch.'

She blinked, willing herself to look at Rory who was sitting with her legs folded beneath her in an armchair, looking at Paris with her red puffy eyes.

'What I forgot to tell you is what an incredible mother you would be. I'm not sugarcoating it, it's a plain fact. I didn't tell you earlier because somehow I thought it figured. But... there's no way I can tell if you actually know it for sure, so it's better said out loud and clear, because you're totally gonna be a good parent. If you decide that's what you want.'

Paris turned to go but, as if remembering something, paused and turned back to Rory.

'Jess... he loves you so unfathomably much. I hope you work this out and... and I hope each of you ends with the right regrets. I'm sorry if I've unnecessarily hurt you by anything I've said earlier.'

Paris took a sharp breath in and walked out.

TBC