Disclaimer: Nothing's mine.

Rory

It's a notion that isn't there when the tidal wave hits. It's like the ripple effect of an event of greater importance. The aftershocks of a current, but it's not the current itself but the aftershocks that shape the final outcome. In intensive care, there are those small parameters called critical predictors. They aren't always the big events that led the patient into the ER in the first place, but some small initially insignificant details that turn out to be of greater importance afterwards, as the condition develops.

Rory Gilmore looks out through her childhood bedroom window and sees her fiance sit on the porch steps, turning a cigarette pack into his hands.

She remembers some small insignificant details about him. Like how when they met, he tended to avoid long eye contact. Or how physical touch made him stiffen at first, contrary to his aloof and outwardly easy manner of physical comfort. There was this innate sadness in him that was explained by a life revolving around so many losses, an upbringing based on compromise. He looked... resigned when she first met him. Resigned that he wasn't shooting for happiness - after all, happiness never was in the cards for him, he'd lost too much too young for that. What was in the cards though, was some kind of comfort. Jess Mariano had been preparing to lead a life based on careful damage control when Rory first met him. Yeah, he could do that. Glide on the surface of things, maneuvering through life unscathed. Until her.

Rory turns and walks to her wardrobe where she keeps her childhood scrapbooks. Opens the door, takes out one. Sits.

...

Before she goes to bed later on, she thinks about the ways in which she's changed his life. Some of the changes are subtle. Some of them, not so much.

There used to be this loneliness in him. It used to be this encompassing force, ruling his life so thoroughly when she first met him. It's still there of course - still resurfacing every now and then. But she thinks, no - she knows - it's somehow soothed by her presence in his life. She taught Jess happiness. And she might well be the one who takes that away from him. When he enters the room a while later, climbing into the bed quietly in order not to wake her, she tells him they need to rent a car and go back to New York tomorrow. He stills next to her. He breathes. He doesn't question her because he probably suspects. They lie in the dark, not saying a word. It's hours before any of them gets any sleep.

She's waiting for her appointment. Jess is outside (she specifically asked him to wait outside, she couldn't do this with him by her side and he seemed to understand... at least he didn't object). So, Jess is outside, probably pacing around staring at the cigarette pack he's been keeping in his jeans' pocket lately. He's been carrying it around for days, not realizing it's still unopened since he bought it. It probably gives him some sense of comfort, gives him something to do and think about. He's been so observant about her and so oblivious about himself lately. She, however, notices. Everything he's been silently holding back, she's noticed. Like, how with every passing day he's looking progressively unhappy. She thinks it's his self-imposed helplessness. With each passing day he's getting more attached to this child that is still only a mess of cells but that's growing with each second within her. She suspects he was reading a gestation article the other day, probably thinking about the life she had the power to take away. The power he has given her. He had clearly showed that he would accept whatever decision she decided to make.

When she told him she had a doctor's appointment this morning he'd given her a small nod, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down a couple of times before he said,

'I'll drive you.'

He didn't ask her if she had made a decision. If he was driving her today so she could end this pregnancy. But it was in the air.

If she is gonna end it, she wants to do it without any extra fuss, not needing to prolong the slow torture she's been putting both of them through for any longer than necessary. He doesn't need to get more emotionally involved with this child only to have it taken away from him. She owes Jess at least that much.

Rory crosses and uncrosses her legs twice before she decides to distract herself with something. Her hand is trembling as she reaches for one of the magazines over the side table. She picks one that doesn't feature women with rounded bellies hugging laughing children on the cover. She ends up reading an article about cervical cancer. At least it's something familiar. Dealing with ill people. She's familiar with that. She can do this. Read about something she knows. Ill people. Yep.

She's immersed in the PAP smear classification when the conversation a couple of seats away starts to sound louder to the point she can't help but hear every single word.

'He's almost impossible to stand ninety percent of the time. But there's so much love you knnow,' the woman explains to her companion who is an elderly lady, probably her mother or her mother in law. 'Those other ten percent compensate for the times of torture. It's so irrational. But when you think about it, loving your child is the epitome of your love for anyone in your life - your family, yourself, your partner, your job. This love is like the focus of all those other loves, bound together.'

Rory thinks about one of the conversations she and Paris had a couple of days before, when she came to visit again.

'It makes you reconsider all of the important relationships you have in your life, including the one with yourself. Even in the best of times, it's overwhelming. It complicates your life. But love generally does that. And when it's good, it's good.'

'Love wasn't enough, though. For you and Doyle.'

When it became too much to carry, when there was Josh in the picture, Paris and Doyle didn't stand the chance. It had been some breaking point, a point of no return, and their relationship had expired. And they were Paris and Doyle. Everyone had thought they were endgame. Paris and Doyle had thought they were endgame.

'It's easier to blame it on the extra burden, but... I don't know, I think we were both weak and gave up at the same time. Sometimes, in relationships, one party gives up and the other has to compensate. And this happened a lot through the years together, you know?'

She knew. She had had the same dynamics with Jess. It was in the mechanics of a long term relationship, she supposed.

'It was just that, at some point I strained Doyle to his utmost, and he got weary. And I have to forgive both of us for that, at some point around the same time, I got weary and gave up too. I think I have to forgive myself for making him pull away, and him for not being strong enough not to. Maybe Josh catalyzed this, but it's unfair to blame it on him given the reasons why me and Doyle split. Josh had nothing to do with the reasons we gave up on each other.'

'Rory Gilmore?' a nurse comes out of the ob-gyn's office.

She walks out of the doctor's office feeling numb and dizzy. It's been more than an hour. How much more, she doesn't know, but it's getting dark when she walks outside into the winter air. It's another two days before the Christmas holidays begin. She has forgotten it's almost Christmas, didn't even cross her mind when she checked the doctor's working schedule earlier.

Jess is inside the car when Rory approaches. He looks flustered, unable to move from his place in the driver's seat as he watches her open the passenger door and climb into the vehicle.

As soon as she closes the door she starts sobbing. They reach for each other almost simultaneously, arms locking around each other, holding on.

'I couldn't do it,' she yelps. 'I stood there and thought it had to be now or never and I just couldn't do it. I thought about it and I don't feel any more sure about what I am about to do, but I just couldn't kill anything that has a part of you in it.'

The words tumble out of her mouth and she's crying and sobbing and she's an emotional mess. She tells him about the magazines on the waiting room table. About the PAP smear article. About the conversation between the women she involuntarily overheard. About the doctor's question if this was a wanted pregnancy or not and how she started babbling something about being confused and excusing herself because her emotions were all over the place and she was obviously incapable to answer because it wasn't a multiple choice, it was a simple yes or no question right, and she couldn't deliver a yes or no, she simply couldn't. She tells Jess how the doctor gave her a tissue pack and calmly asked if she was here to plan an abortion and how the sound of that coming from his mouth was somehow outrageous, how she suddenly felt an overwhelming protectiveness of Jess as she heard the facts laid out so plain and simple. How she then knew one thing, at last she knew one thing for sure, and it was she wasn't gonna hurt Jess' baby - how was she supposed to even consider hurting anything that came from him, eh?. The rest of the examination had turned into a blur. The doctor had given her some pregnancy informational brochures. She takes a bunch of papers out of her coat's pocket as if to prove it, waves them before Jess, wiping her tears frantically. Then leaves the papers over the dashboard and asks him to hug her again because she's still shaking, she's shaking so hard, it must be the hormones she says. He doesn't object. He stays there and does as he's asked. When she's feeling a little more stable he asks her she wants to go home. She says they need to go to Stars Hollow, she has to inform her mother. He starts the engine and takes the highway.

When they pull in front of Lorelai's house Rory gets out of the car and walks in, hurrying before she's lost momentum. Jess is about to get out of the car when he spots the bunch of brochures on the dashboard and takes them, heading for the house. He's at the porch, bending over the doorstep to untie his combat boots, when the papers fall and scatter over the floor and a small sonogram makes appearance between them. He pauses and narrows his eyes, taking the small piece of paper between his fingers to look at. He stares at it and feels for the wall, sitting down on the floor as he uses the wall for leverage. He's unable to tear his eyes away from the small glossy black and white print. He doesn't realize his face is wet until a paper tissue appears before his eyes. He looks up. He's still sitting on the porch's wooden floor, leaning back against the wall right next to the doorstep. Lorelai is standing tall before him, a milder look of understanding in her eyes. He takes the tissue and feels self-conscious as he dabs his eyes with a jerky, awkward movement. Lorelai seems to sense his self-consciousness and turns to go but pauses at the door and and gives him a square look. He wants to say he didn't make her. He didn't, okay? It was Rory's decision, he didn't force any part of it, although it almost killed him not to. However, there's still a giant lump in his throat and he doesn't speak. Lorelai smiles.

'Thank you,' she mouths and gives him a small nod before she walks back in.

TBC