A/N- Sorry for posting this one so late today. I had a lot of trouble writing this and actually rewrote it. But I really do like the way it came out. I hope you guys like reading this as much as I liked writing it. And I hope you find it equally exciting and infuriating, as I do. Thanks again for reading. Please continue reviewing, reading your thoughts and responses are the best part of my day! Recommend to your friends if you're inclined, because new perspectives are always helpful, though I do love the little family of support that's forming here and I love looking for those same names in the reviews. I don't own Gilmore Girls or any of the concepts or characters, and I endlessly thank the goddess of character creation, ASP, for giving me so much to work with in terms of Jess and Rory and the other people in their world.


Chapter 27

Jess looked up at the apartment building in front of him. So this is where Rory lived. Huh.

He should've expected it. The location wasn't far from the New York Times office and the building looked decent but plain. He could already guess that for the most part she just saw her place as a crash pad for whenever she wasn't traveling.

Sighing, he walked up to the door and rang the buzzer. She opened it immediately, not even bothering to check who it was. He stepped through, holding only one of the books that he'd brought with him. He could get everything else later, but for now he needed to just get to Rory.

As he stepped in the elevator, he realized he had absolutely no idea what he was going to find, or say, or do. Pushing the button for the fourth floor, he rolled his eyes to himself. Figures that when push came to shove there was no list or plan to help her. As the elevator creakily ascended, he turned over the volume in his hand. The doors opened and he stepped out, cautiously looking into the hallway.

Everything was grey, which shouldn't have surprised him in an apartment building in New York City. He walked forward, slowly following the numbers in his head. 409, 407…

"405", he said quietly to himself. Inhaling deeply, he knocked on the door.

"It's open," he heard her voice call quietly. Jess pushed against the door and into the room.

"Rory?" he inquired, opening the door.

"Hey," she said quietly. She was curled up on the couch, with a box of Pop Tarts on the coffee table and a stack of books next to them. One fairly heavy volume was on her lap. It seemed to weigh on her.

"Kinda depressing material," he nodded toward the book as he walked over to the couch and sat beside her. She smiled faintly.

"A little. Was that the last time you read it?"

He, catching the reference, nodded. "Marquez has a special place in my heart but I kind of ruined that one for myself. What caused the choice?"

"Me being completely awful," Rory lowered her eyes. He inhaled deeply. She continued, "I can't believe I talked to Mom like that. Or Luke! He didn't even do anything. I mean, I was awful to Mom, but I still think I had a reason to be upset with her. He did nothing wrong and I was just…cruel to him. God, I bet he wouldn't even be able to look at me right now. He's never been anything but wonderful to me."

"Luke gets it," Jess reassured, looking her in the eye calmly, "He knows you didn't mean anything by it. And your mom…well…"

"I was awful. I know you think really well of me but even you can't deny that I was just cruel to her," Rory implored, self-berating. He nodded carefully.

"You were…harsh," he admitted, "But in spite of the means, you had a decent point. There's a certain adult level of privacy that she doesn't understand in relation to you."

"She does it out of love," Rory bit her lip, "And I know that, and usually I just accept it, but lately it's really been getting to me."

"That didn't sound like an impulsive outburst as much as something that's been building, though," Jess replied carefully, "Just my own unsolicited uniformed opinion."

"Something just snapped," Rory said, no longer meeting his gaze, "It's not a big deal. I'll call her and apologize this weekend, I just wanted to let things cool down. I just need to have better self-control."

"Rory, you don't have to apologize for wanting privacy. Especially when you're talking to me. I get it," Jess explained gently, "And you're right to think she's a little invasive. I'm just a little confused as to what she's invading."

"If you think she's being invasive by asking, why are you doing the same thing?" Rory slowly warned. She drew her body back and set the book down on the table. Jess could see what was starting, but his curiosity outweighed his caution.

"I'm not your mom. I'm not going to judge you," he started, trying to catch her eye, "It's okay if things aren't okay. You can talk to me about it. We can talk, figure it out. You don't have to pretend with me."

"Jess, there's nothing to talk about," Rory said shortly, turning her eyes to him briefly. Her eyes were dangerously fiery, he could see the reprehension in her expression. "I'm not pretending anything, and it's not that I'm keeping something from you because we aren't close anymore. Even though we aren't. There's just nothing there."

"I don't believe you," Jess definitively responded, leaning forward and forcing her to return his gaze, "We don't have to be going to bookstores all the time or watching Almost Famous every week for me to be able to tell when something's wrong with you. And something is. It has been for a while."

"Jess, everything's fine," Rory refuted, her eyes blazing up in anger, "Can you just let this go? I didn't call you to psychoanalyze me. I'm not Franny and carrying around a little green book with me all the time."

"As impressed as I am with the Salinger reference," Jess rolled his eyes, "You're trying to distract. Worthy attempt, but not going to work. You called me, Rory. Why did you call me, then, if you didn't want my opinion?"

"I felt bad about how I acted towards my mom and Luke, and I didn't know how to handle it," Rory answered unconvincingly, "And I wasn't exactly kind to you either, so there was that as well."

"So you called me to come here, all the way from Philadelphia, so that you could analyze one afternoon outburst? Rory, come on," Jess replied, "I know you better than that. You can bullshit a lot of people and I know you're capable of lying, but it's me you're talking to. You can't fool me like you fool them."

"Why do you think you know me so well, Jess?" Rory inquired, standing up and walking to the kitchen, and slamming a coffee mug down on the counter. She started filling it as she continued. "We didn't talk for years. We haven't known each other for a long time."

"That's crap, and you know it," Jess walked over to her, "It doesn't matter if we're talking or not. We know each other. Period. I don't need to know what books you've recently added to your shelf to understand the message of the library."

"You're exaggerating," Rory rolled her eyes, gulping her coffee down, refusing to look at him, "And you're making things up in your head. I don't care what you think you know. You don't know me anymore."

"Why, because you lost it to that jackass?" Jess demanded. Rory went pale.

"How did you…"

"Did you forget you mentioned it in your little outburst?" Jess snarled. He was done playing nice. "Honestly, I don't care who you're sleeping with for my own sake. You're right, that was done a long time ago. But I know you, Rory, and that's not the part of you that you choose to act on, to define yourself with. And the part that stole a boat? And dropped out of Yale? And screamed at her mother today for caring too much? That's not the side of you that you want to be, Rory, and we both know that."

"There is nothing wrong!" Rory exclaimed, slamming down the cup, "Yes, I screwed up, all those times. But most of those things are in the distant past. And I can't believe of all people you'd hold the past against me."

"It's not about that," Jess sighed, "I don't hold any of it against you! Not today, not Yale, not the guys, none of those things. I don't care about any of those things at all, if you really want the truth. What I care about is you. I'm worried about you."

"There's nothing to worry about," Rory denied, meeting his eyes, "There is nothing wrong with me and there hasn't been. I'm doing fine in my life and my job and just because I decided to come to Philadelphia a few times doesn't mean I'm begging you to come into my life, or that I need you. I don't! I just followed a few impulses, made a few mistakes over the last few years. I'm human. And I'm not the girl you knew. I'm a different person now."

"Stop lying to me," Jess begged, trying to control his distress, "I can see it! In your eyes, in your face, in everything! In the fact that you were reading Marquez and the fact that you're making the choices you are, I know you Rory. And it matters to me that something's wrong, so why won't you let me help you?"

"You aren't a part of my life anymore, Jess!" Rory yelled, her voice finally reaching a full expression of anger, "You're not my boyfriend or my friend or anything at all, and you don't have the right or responsibility to take care of me or fix any problems that for some reason you incorrectly believe exist in my life or my mind or whatever the hell it is you think you're diagnosing. There isn't a problem, there aren't any problems! And even if there were, we stopped mattering to each other a long time ago."

Jess took a step back. He met Rory's eyes again. They were the same gorgeous blue he always wrote about and could never stopped seeing everywhere he looked. But something had changed. They were no longer an ocean, calm and brimming with vitality. They were a cool, piercing flame. He could feel the tension brimming in them, the helplessness and fury and confusion and distress and loneliness and fear. The mix was unmistakable to him, though no one else would be able to see anything other than complacent, stunning blue.

"You're broken," he finally said, holding her gaze, "You're broken and you know it, as well as I do, and you know that I see it too. You know that I'm right and you know that there is something deeply wrong. You know you need to fix it and you know you need help, but you're so entrenched in the stubbornness and the uncertainty and the fear that you can't even say it and admit it. You're broken and you won't let anyone near enough to you to fix it, to help, to be there at all. You're broken and you're still breaking and you refuse to change it."

"Get out," Rory demanded, her voice the lowest he'd ever heard from her. "I mean it, now. This is done. We're done."

Jess inhaled deeply, looking into her eyes one last time. The denial and anger stung him. He picked up the book he'd brought with him and, thinking quickly, set it down again.

"Keep it," he said, walking towards the door. He opened it and breathed deeply. He turned around to face her one more time.

"When you're ready." He nodded, shutting the door behind him. It was a good idea to leave the book. She clearly needed it more than he did.

"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see."

-The Fountainhead