Not Dreaming


A/N: Thanks for reading and appreciating this story. I'm not sure I like how this chapter turned out, but my head hurts from editing, so it will have to do.


Chapter 6. NY Stories Pt. II


She woke up the next morning enveloped in his arms. Sometime during the night he had obviously turned towards her for she now lay with her head resting on his arm and buried in his chest. Both his arms were around her, securely holding her in place and she had one of her legs slung over his. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt so comfortable, or safe, waking up.

Her arm that had started on his stomach was now resting on his lower back, just above his boxers. And that was when she realized that was the only thing he was wearing. Why hadn't she thought of that the night before? Or had she? She felt her cheeks turn red as her thought drifted and she pictured him in her mind.

She felt him stir slightly and lying still in his hold she waited for him to wake up. She didn't want to disturb him, wanting to lie there, close to him, for as long as possible. He tightened his hold of her and bent his head to kiss her forehead. She smiled and sighed contentedly.

"Good morning," she whispered into his chest, if possible snuggling even closer.

"Morning beautiful," he whispered back, his voice slightly hoarse and lazed with sleep. One of his hands moved to her neck and gently caressed her soft skin. She shivered from the touch.

"I could get used to waking up like this," she said, still whispering.

"You should be glad I've got good reflexes then," he said, his fingers slowly continuing their path over her skin. "Or you might have woken up on the floor." His fingers reached the strap of her tank top and paused for a second before continuing to her shoulder.

"Thank you," she said distractedly, all her senses focusing on his fingers slow journey.

"I don't think this couch was meant for two people," he said, smiling as she shivered under his touch.

"Probably not," she agreed, tilted her head upwards and kissed his neck gently. She was rewarded by a soft moan and smiled before continuing.

His hand returned to her back and soon found its way to the strip of bare skin between her tank top and sweatpants. He played a little with the hem of the top before sliding his hand under it, carefully easing her over to her back. He slowly started trailing kisses along her jaw line and further down her neck, while his hand gradually made its way over to her stomach and slid higher up under her top.

She reached her hand up to its favorite place, tangled in the hair at the back of his neck. Freeing the other arm from under him she started exploring his back, following the tight muscles under his skin. She turned her head and captured his lips with hers again, kissing him softly at first.

With one last kiss he raised himself up on his arm and smirked as her content smile turned into a pout. He removed his hand from under her top and gently tracer his fingers along her hairline.

"Do you really want to continue where this is heading?" he asked her once his breathing had slowed down a little, watching her carefully.

"I don't know," she whispered uncertainly, opening her eyes to meet his gaze. "I mean, I want to," she added quickly, blushing slightly. "I just…" she trailed off, not sure how to explain.

"Don't want it to be on a couch somewhere, the first time we see each other in three weeks after we kissed for the first time in almost three years?" he offered when she didn't continue.

"You should be a mind reader," she said, smiling at him, amazed and grateful that he seemed to know how she was feeling without her having to explain anything.

"I told you I know you better than anyone," he said, smiling back at her.

"You did," she said slowly as her eyes started drifting from his and down to his mouth and her hand started exploring his well defined arm and chest.

"So, maybe we should…" he began before gasping a little as her searching fingers found his nipple. "That was definitely not what I was going to suggest," he said after a moment, barely keeping himself from crashing his lips to hers again.

"When did you become the sensible one?" she asked, sounding a bit curious. "I wouldn't have thought you'd be the one to stop," she said, smiling at up at him, her smile turning playful before she tilted her head to kiss his neck.

"If you keep that up I won't be sensible much longer," he told her through clenched teeth.

"Sorry," she said guiltily, hearing the strain in his voice. She kissed his cheek gently and crawled out from under the cover. "I'm taking a shower," she said as she got up from the couch. She looked down at him and smiled as she saw the mix of emotions in his eyes.

He followed her movements as she gathered her things in the guest room and walked over to the bathroom. Once she had closed the door behind her he let himself fall down on his back, heaved a sigh and rubbed a hand over his face. He felt exhausted. And in great need of a shower himself. A cold one.


When she emerged from the bathroom after a long shower he was still lying on his back on the couch, a hand covering his face. She pouted a little when she saw he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. After a moments thought she smiled and started inching her way over to him. Once there she slowly bent down, watching him carefully for any sign that he was conscious of her approach.

Just before she was about to kiss him she was startled by a soft 'Hey,' from him. She jumped a little and looked down at him again. He was still lying as before, with a hand over his eyes. But now there was an amused smirk playing at his lips.

"You knew I was here," she accused, pouting, and watched as the smirk grew wider.

"Yes," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why did you let me believe you didn't?" she asked, pouting more.

"'Cause it was funny," he said, the smirk morphing into a smile. "You know, I wasn't asleep last night either," he added, finally removing the hand from his face.

"Oh," she managed, turning slightly crimson. "Why did…" she started, but stopped when she saw his raised eyebrow. "Sorry, stupid question," she said instead, sitting down on the couch. "I have a confession too," she admitted. "You know the morning at my dorm. I wasn't asleep then," she finished.

"Huh," he said, looking away feeling embarrassed.

"I'm glad you did," she confided, causing him to look at her again. "If I hadn't been awake I probably wouldn't have had the courage to kiss you that night."

"Then I'm thankful you were," he said as he sat up beside her and kissed her softly.


After he took his long awaited shower and they had eaten breakfast it was almost noon. They spent the rest of that day in the bookstore, browsing and discussing the books they wanted to read. When he wasn't looking she sat down in the old armchair with a book, snuggled up against the soft back. She smiled at how small it made her feel and imagined how small it had made him look all those years ago.

When she was getting hungry she dragged him with her, demanding him to show her where their hot dog stand was. He smiled as she started in the wrong direction before catching up to her and steering her to the right street. It was still there and the hot dogs tasted just as good as she remembered.


That night, coming out from the bathroom after brushing her teeth, she found him sitting on the couch, deep in thought. She recognized the far away expression on his face and walked over, tentatively sitting down next to him. Her appearance startled him at first.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked facing him.

He didn't answer for a while, his gaze still focused on something distant. "Are you sure you want to know the rest of the story?" he asked her suddenly, looking into her eyes, searching for confirmation.

"Yes," she said simply, without hesitation.

"Okay, then," he said and took her hand in his. Looking down at their intertwined fingers he took a deep breath and settled back on the couch.

"The summer I turned thirteen I started spending more and more time away from home. Not that I was there much before, but I had usually been back before midnight. I guess I was trying to find out how far I could go before Liz reacted. But she never did. I tried not going home at all, but sleeping on a park bench wasn't really that great. And New York probably isn't the best place to try it."

"I still went to school and I suppose I did okay, but it no longer felt like it really mattered. I started smoking somewhere the year before high school, mostly because it was easy. There were packs lying around everywhere in the apartment, so it wasn't like it cost any money. I learned quite quickly to stay away from the handmade ones though."

"The only one who noticed something was going on was Sam. But he had started spending more and more time with his family somewhere out west, so he wasn't here enough to do anything about it. And as long as I still did the basic in school no one there cared and it wasn't like it took hard work to pass."

"Then Liz's latest marriage, as always, ended in another messy divorce. And after that came Tony. He appeared somewhere in the spring before I finished 8th grade. He was the controlling type and he pretty much dictated her life from the moment she met him. He hated me, probably thought I was in the way or something. And the feeling was definitely mutual. When I had refused to follow his orders one time too many he decided to teach me a lesson. I ended up in the hospital with a broken nose, a couple broken ribs, some cuts and too many bruises to count. Liz didn't even show up at the hospital and I pretty much stopped caring."

He stopped for a while and looked over at her for the first time since he started. She hadn't said a word so far, just listened intently, holding on to his hand and squeezing it tightly at the end. He smiled a bit sadly at her and pulled her close to him, kissing her forehead. She settled herself in the now familiar position, her head resting on his shoulder, and pulled her legs up under her.

With a firm grasp of his hand she listened as he told her about beginning high school and how he started hanging out with the wrong people. How the occasional shoplifting and pick pocketing became more frequent and soon progressed into lock picking and breaking into cars. How the late night reading under street lamps turned into roaming around the streets in search of some new thrill. How parties with too much alcohol and too much fighting became an everyday occurrence.

"The first time I woke up with a splitting headache next to a girl I couldn't even remember seeing before I promised myself I'd never do that again. I have no idea how many times I made that exact promise. You would've thought that growing up with Liz would somehow have a deterrent effect, but obviously it didn't. It took another hospital visit, this time for alcoholic poisoning, before I actually cut down. Waking up feeling like you've been run over by a steamroller, scraped up from the street and then put together again backwards can have that effect."

Sometime during the last part she had closed her eyes and tightened her hold on his hand, stiffening a bit. It was getting harder to stay silent, to not ask him to stop. She wanted to know everything, she needed to, but she wasn't so sure she could handle it anymore. She heard him sigh dejectedly and felt him shift beside her. He put two fingers under her chin and turned her face towards his. Complying she was met by the pained look in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he whispered and she could swear she saw his eyes water before he closed them. "I shouldn't have told you," he whispered even quieter, releasing her hand and dropping his head back down on the couch.

She couldn't hold back any longer. Her desire to hold him took over and she hugged him fiercely, trying to give them both comfort. She had seen the fear deep in his eyes. Fear, she realized almost instinctively, that she would resent him. She wanted to reassure him that she wasn't going to, that she wasn't going anywhere. She finally felt him respond, hesitantly at first, but then almost desperate. They sat there for a long time before loosening their hold of each other.

She pulled away slightly to look at him and saw the question in his eyes as she met his gaze. Without thinking she leaned in again and captured his lips with hers, kissing him with equal frenzy as she just hugged him. He kissed her back just as forcefully, holding her close. After a while they slowed down the kisses, both feeling drained from the emotional outlet.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again, his head buried in her hair, still holding her close.

"I wanted to know," she said softly, taking his head in her hands to make him look at her. "And besides, that's not you anymore."

He pulled her in for another kiss, wanting to have her close. Then they just sat on the couch, silently, holding each other, both thinking about what he just told her. He was amazed and grateful that she reacted the way she did. Some part in the back of his mind told him to just wait till she had had time to let it sink in, but he refused to listen to it. She tried to picture this different Jess she had just heard described, but she couldn't. Not even when she thought back to when he just came to Stars Hollow could she really compare the two.

"You know, I hated my life, and I hated myself for getting there," he continued after a while, deciding to finish the story. "It's very easy to fall into it, but once you're there it's really hard getting out again. I couldn't go back to the apartment for more than a few hours at a time and I still had to live. So I continued more or less as before, only I started spending more time in the park again and occasionally went back to the bookstore."

"The others frowned at it when they first found out, but I still did my part in all of their so called work, so they let it slip. They even let it slide when I started sneaking away money for books. I think they sort of thought it funny and since I was more or less sober again I was better at getting it, so I guess it evened out in the end."

"Tony was eventually sent to prison for beating up some guy in a bar about two years after he appeared and Liz finally started to get her life together after a while. I think she actually got help somewhere. I'm not sure though, 'cause I couldn't care less. Except for the fact that she for the first time in my life started interfering with what I did. She started trying to act like the mother she never was, which only made me angry."

"She kept trying though, and I kept ignoring her. Until she got a call from the police station. It was far from the first time they had called her, but this time she was actually present enough to answer the phone. They couldn't prove anything that time either, but she completely flipped and I ended up in my very own version of hell."

"It's not that bad," she interjected, defending her town.

"It felt like I had stepped right into a circus," he said, smirking at her offended tone and she smiled back at him.

"Why are you so calm?" he asked suddenly, not able to ignore the little voice in the back of his head any longer. "I just told… Well, you know what I just told you. I thought…I mean, I don't know how I expected you to react, but this is definitely not it," he got out, suddenly afraid to hear her answer.

"I…I don't know," she mumbled uncertainly. "I don't think I've processed everything yet," she said after thinking over it briefly. "I mean, there is a certain way this usually goes. It starts with listening, then comes perceiving, followed by understanding, which, depending on the subject, might lead to me freaking out. I don't think I'm really at the understanding stage yet. I mean, I'm not sure, 'cause I've never had my boyfriend tell me he used to spend his time breaking into houses before. And definitely not that he almost died before we even met. And… Oh my god!"

She stopped abruptly, staring at him, before getting up from the couch. She paced over the living room floor a couple times before stopping, leaning against the wall opposite the couch. "You could have died!" she cried, her voice rising. "What if you had, then I'd never met you!" she continued before she slumped down to the floor with a first sob.

"And we have an official Gilmore freak out…" he mumbled, watching her from the couch, not sure what to do. He didn't know if she would let him come close, but after watching as her shoulders shook for a couple seconds he decided he had to try. He couldn't stand seeing her like this, and knowing it was his fault wasn't making it any better.

He got up from the couch and slowly walked over to her, gliding down the wall to the floor beside her. When she didn't pull away he sighed with relief. He carefully took her in his arms, drawing her close. She buried her face in his chest, her whole body shaking with sobs, and clung to him. He held her close, leaning his head on top of hers and gently stroking his fingers through her hair.

"I'm sorry," she whispered brokenly, almost inaudibly, when her sobs had subsided.

"Don't be," he mumbled into her hair and kissed her temple. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

He kept stroking her hair and holding her until he felt her breathing even out and he slowly became aware that she was falling asleep. That's when he realized for the first time how late it was, or early depending on your point of view. He smiled slightly and carefully untangled himself from her hold before scooping her up in his arms and carrying her over to the guest room.

He laid her down on the bed and pulled the covers over her. He kissed her forehead softly and stood to leave the room when her hand on his arm stopped him.

"Stay," she mumbled sleepily, scooting over a little to make room and opening the covers, motioning for him to join her.

It only took him half a second to comply, lying down beside her. She snuggled into him with a pleased sigh and was soon asleep. He listened to her even breathing, wondering what tomorrow would bring, and soon he was asleep too.