Disclaimer: Nothing's mine.

A/N: As requested, Rory and Jess - centered chapter. A very emotional and heart-twisting chapter to write. Special thanks to Nancy, jordana60, LitLove, PGwonder and sonckad for letting me know what they felt while reading those recent chapters. For you, dears!

'Hey,' Jess greeted as he walked into the bedroom, finding Rory in front of the full size wardrobe door mirror.

He was ready to drop into bed instantly, utterly exhausted after his night shift. Unfortunately, he needed to take a shower first. He started taking his tee and socks off when he registered the frown on Rory's face as she stood to his left, studying her reflection.

'What are you doing?' he asked with a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, bending to leave his right sock over his discarded tee and left sock on the floor.

'I'm huge,' Rory said somberly.

Jess opened his mouth and then closed it, knowing better than to comment on a pregnant woman's weight self-esteem issues. She looked off. It wasn't a surprise, her mood did change in a matter of hours these days. But now she looked especially off. Like being super-touchy-right-before-she-gets-her-period-don't-come-near-her-without-bringing-chocolate kind of off. Whatever he said, wouldn't be right. And he did need a quick shower and a few hours of sleep before he managed to look like a semblance of a functioning man again. God, did he need sleep. It had been one hell of a night shift, he'd practically been on his feet the whole time, and now that the shift was over and he didn't have to forcefully concentrate on work anymore, his eyelids were heavy, his head swimming with drowsiness. So, he decided to do what every sane man did when his woman was in a bad mood - pretend he didn't exist until her hormones were back in check. He moved to dig his towel out of the right wing of the wardrobe.

'I'm sharing my body with another human,' Rory pondered beside him, her voice giving away that the thought had once passed as being badass, but thirty pounds into the journey the whole 'I'm beautiful in every size and shape' mantra had started to lose its original conviction.

'I'm getting jealous,' she said then.

This earned her a surprised arch of his eyebrows and he paused, holding his towel in one hand, holding onto the wardrobe sliding door with the other.

Rory wet her lips and her mouth set to the side into a gauging grimace. She had seen his expression, the hesitation in his stance.

He hadn't managed to filter his reaction before his confusion showed.

'She's already taking a part of you from me.'

He must have frowned because next thing she did was let out a sigh.

'It's already palpable,' Rory explained grimly, 'The change,' she elaborated.

Jess blinked, feeling drowsy and confused as hell. Were they getting into a conversation right now? Did it have to be right now right now? Could he grab a couple hours of sleep first? Because he wasn't sure he could rely on his ears to hear the right words, let alone his brain to register the right meaning of what she was talking about and produce a proper response. However, Rory seemed to be on a roll. She must have woken up early, thinking about whatever had been bothering her, waiting for him to come home so she could discuss it with him.

'I can feel her presence in our lives already,' Rory said. 'It's both new and exciting, but it also demands some adjustments. I mean, not only practical adjustments, like getting a crib and baby clothes, but emotional adjustments too. Your attention is always diverting between me and her. And there is so much worry in you since she came into our lives - you're always on your toes, expecting something to go wrong.'

Jess felt his mouth move but clamped it shut, feeling Rory wasn't finished. And he was nowhere near understanding what the hell she was talking about. Why did she sound like she was accusing him of something? Was she accusing him of something? And if she was, what was she accusing him of? For worrying? For caring too much? He felt the drowsiness giving way to alarm. It started in his fingertips and spread over his whole body, urging his mind to wake up from its semi-stupor and make the wheels in his brain turn. He knew he worried. Of course he did. He worried about her and he worried about the baby. It happened when you loved someone insanely much. What was wrong with her? Or was Jess the one who was wrong? He found nothing wrong with caring about his woman and his child. Jess felt a wave of frustration rise within his chest but suppressed it forcefully, willing himself to listen to what she had to say. Maybe it would make some vague sense by the end of this absurd conversation. Maybe. At least he was no longer afraid he might fall asleep midsentence. She had done a fine job ruffling his feathers.

'It's like there's a third party in our relationship and she's not about to go anywhere,' Rory mused, her voice even, as if she had gone over the thought a million times already.

Like a punch to the jaw, this had him stilling. His muscles stilled. His heart stilled. His damn blood stilled.

Jess didn't trust his voice to not sound defiant if he asked the question. Do you want her to?

There's a third party in our relationship and she's not about to go anywhere. Did Rory want his daughter, their daughter to 'go anywhere'? Shaking off the initial stupor, Jess licked his lips and stood straighter, keeping his arms beside his body, the towel hanging by his leg from his clenched fist.

This conversation was making him more and more nauseous by the minute. He wasn't sure if it was because he felt the stir of anger in his chest as he listened to Rory talk like this, or maybe it was anger with himself that he hadn't made her feel more secure - secure enough to not need to question her worth in his world, emotional or otherwise, when she was his entire fucking world.

He reminded himself to not lose his shit over nothing. But this wasn't nothing, was it?

She's not about to go anywhere.

The words reverberated in his skull, uglier and more fierce with each next round, making a bunch of his most deeply buried fears rear their heads, leaving him raw and agitated.

Like an angrier version of the feeling when he drove her to the ob-gyn clinic and waited for her in the car, wondering if she was about to end this pregnancy, if she was about to dispose of their child, his insides churned with hardly suppressed indignation. It was still alive in his memory, the hell he had gone through while sitting in the car, waiting for her to decide if she could get through with carrying his baby without giving into the overwhelming desire to make an abortion. It was a sickening, annihilating feeling, leaving his body clammy and sluggish. Jess remembered the slow torture of his self-imposed silence, the desperation that came from his forced helplessness. In order to let her make this decision free of guilt or regret, he had taken those upon himself. The shame and contempt he felt for himself were so overwhelming, so powerful. He had gambled with a decision that could cost him his lifelong peace of mind. He had gambled - hoping, praying he had chosen the right gamble.

He felt his hands clench into fists, the strain in his knuckles doing little to relieve the tension his body exuded. He had let Rory make her choice - blindly, unconditionally, and he was still struggling with the self-imposed spinelessness of this act of stoic stupidity. He had done everything in his power to make Rory comfortable with this pregnancy, anything in his power to give her a chance to make this decision by her own standards, if even he had to feel at the end of his wit by the end of the process. It had cost him everything to not do anything. He had forced himself to not force her choice. But it seemed to never be enough. It had just started to feel right. This pregnancy, Rory had seemed to come to terms with the changes, to see the unexpected good sides of those changes. She had seemed so hopeful, so determined last time they discussed the paint colors for the nursery. And now they were back to 'she's not about to go anywhere' being a concern. Jess felt a heave in his stomach, swallowing hard to suppress the wave of nausea.

Had his own mother wanted to give up on him like this, had she wished he'd 'go anywhere'? Of course she had. Liz had been an alcoholic and a druggie. She hadn't cared a damn about him. But Rory wasn't an alcoholic or a druggie. She was kind, smart and generous. She was loving and caring. And being all this, she seemed to feel about the same amount of joyful anticipation for their unborn daughter his own mother had ever showed for him. None.

Jess rubbed a palm against his jaw, trying to squeeze off some of the tension.

'Are you angry with me?' Rory asked, her voice suddenly weak and trembling. She must've seen the change in his demeanor, the scowl over his face. She had prodded the deepest wounds open, and she'd done it with such careless ease. He was raw and he was angry. And she saw it. She looked scared. Scared and hurt and vulnerable. Her eyes filled with tears, the previous fervor giving way to hurt and disappointment.

'I'm trying to share my fears with you,' she said with stubborn determination, her voice wobbly. She looked like she was trying to defend a cause. But then again, what was her cause? He no longer felt so sure.

'What are your fears exactly, Rory?' Jess asked, his voice foreign, a cold gravelly sound.

Rory's eyes snapped up. As if he'd just slapped her, she stepped back with a gasp.

'Are you really worried about gaining weight,' he dragged out, the words pronounced with emphatic contempt, 'or are you having second thoughts about having this baby?'

She let out a choked sound, putting a hand before her mouth as her eyes welled up quickly, gazing forward but really seeing nothing.

'I wish I knew what to do in order to make the idea of carrying my baby in your womb more bearable,' he confessed, his voice cracking as he felt his heart slant open with each heartbeat, a pulsing bleeding wound he didn't know how to stitch.

Then, as if admitting defeat, he looked down to the towel he was still gripping into his fist.

'Now before I've said something I may regret, I'm gonna take that shower,' he said, his voice sounding bland and hollow even to himself.

Later on, as he went out of the bathroom after a long scalding hot shower, he found the apartment empty. He threw on a pair of briefs and tee and lied down onto the bed, falling into a dreamless sleep.

He had woken up by the front door closing and he'd scrambled out of bed, his head still clouded by sleep as consciousness slowly seeped into him. As he padded barefoot into the kitchen, he found Rory leaning a hand over the kitchen counter, heaving with sobs.

'Hey. Rory.'

'I'm sorry,' she sobbed. 'I love you,' she sniffed. 'I'm so sorry.'

His breath hitched on an inhale as he wrapped his arms her, a shiver passing through him at the force of her sobs.

He lowered his head above her shoulder, stroking her hair with his palm, his breath fanning her ear.

'Okay,' he said carefully, his voice a scramble of braced fear and unconditional acceptance.

'It's not...' her face contorted as she drew back to see his expression, 'I haven't done anything stupid.'

He opened his mouth to protest but decided against it because she would read behind the lie right away. He knew she saw the fears written all over his face. It was pointless to convince her they weren't there.

'I went to the clinic to take my labs and saw a woman who had miscarried in the sixth month. She... She was looking at herself in the mirror, stretching her gown over her almost flat belly, and she hated it. Jess, she hated how empty she felt and I felt it along with her. It was almost as if I was in her place, and it was the most terrifying experience in my life. I've never felt so panicked before. It was... I know how stupid I've been okay? And I'm so so very sorry, I never thought of the way a flat belly in the seventh month would feel like, I only thought about how my body's changing and how my life is changing and-' she sobbed against his shoulder, out of breath, clutching at the sleeves of his shirt with both hands. 'And I made you doubt me,' she rambled on, completely out of breath, 'I made you think I was capable of giving up on our baby because I felt bad about my changing body and I was jealous that you would love someone else too, and I want to be better at this, I really do and if you wait for me I'll learn - I know I will, I'll learn how to be a better person, and a decent mom. I hope I'll make a decent mom. And I won't always make you doubt me, I'll take care of our daughter and find a way to share you with her and I,-' she paused, hyperventilating, shaking with a succession of sobs.

'Sh-shh,' Jess shushed her, holding her close, smoothing his palms against her hair and down her back.

He wished he could voice how he needed her to believe he could do this. He could be her husband and father of their child and he could be their rock, but in order to do this, he needed her to believe in him. It scared him how much he needed her to believe in him. For now, all he managed to say was,

'I love you too. Even if our timing is off sometimes, don't ever doubt that I love you,' he murmured in her hair.

'We'll figure this parenting thing out, won't we?' she asked timidly, her cheek damp against his tee.

He didn't know. He hoped so. But he had no way of knowing for sure.

'We will,' he said, hoping to god he was making a promise he could keep.

TBC