Her hair is plastered to her face but she doesn't care. Chasing after him is the only sense of normal she has felt all day; it feels familiar searching for him, like she's a teenager again.

She doesn't really know what she's expecting, or even why she's following him. She just knows that she has always felt this intangible force that draws her in when he resurfaces, and she can't help but explore it every time.

It's too tempting to pass, she thinks as she rounds the bush that will lead her to the clearing they knew so well as teenagers.

Even if they have nothing to say in words, they have a million ways to speak with their eyes, and maybe she just needs some silence to set her head straight about today. But that kind of silence has to come from him, because he's been the only one to make her figure herself out when she couldn't.

She pushes through the leaves, frowning as a stray branch attacks her hair. It's nearly impossible with how the rain is coming down now, but she manages to untangle herself and push her bangs out of her face.

She's searching now at the clearing. He's not on the bridge; no, of course not, it's raining. She scolds herself for thinking that he's stupid enough to sit without shelter and welcome the impromptu shower. She takes the time to catch her breath while she's scanning for him. Running was never her strong suit, and if she'd be honest, neither was power walking.

She finally settles on a large oak tree that's just past the bridge, one she remembers lying under with him, just reading. She smiles and decides that she can walk to the tree; it's not as if running got her any less wet.

His mind is racing, but he's determined to hold it together. He sees her coming into the clearing and allows himself to smile. He knows he's a bit impulsive, but he also knows that she is too, deep down.

He hadn't planned to come to her wedding. He didn't want to see her kiss and exchange vows with the rich dick he knew wasn't good enough for her. He didn't want to admit that even though he wasn't hanging on her existence anymore, he definitely didn't want to see her commit her life to somebody else. Some things between the two of them were too complicated; he nearly choked on Cheerios when he had received the invitation, not having paid attention to who it was from.

He reaches into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and grimaces, his eyebrows furrowing. Soaked, too.

He still didn't know why he had come. Maybe he really was a masochist like Luke had always joked. Maybe he just wanted closure, to know that things were done between them. Not that being in a relationship had stopped her from kissing him, with the bag-boy or the rich douche. Or maybe, which he decides is probably most true for who they are to each other, he just wanted to see her and see if his presence changed anything about the decision she was making.

She walks over to the tree, remembering that a storm cut a deep rift in the trunk, pulling a few branches down far enough to climb and sit without visibility. She figures he's above her, that's he's been watching her walk up, and it thrills her a little. She decides this isn't a romantic thrill, but one that is unique to his eyes being on her, making her feel both vulnerable and sheltered at once.

She looks up and her heart catches in her throat again. His eyes are intense, and he's gazing at her in such a thoughtful way that she almost blushes. She swallows hard and frowns, biting her lip.

"What?" His voice is soft from above her. She is startled by the noise, having fully expected an awkward exchange of "hi" for the first two minutes of their reunion.

"I'm in a dress," she says pointedly.

"That's observant of you," he offers. She glares at him but her eyes soften when she sees the laughter in his eyes.

"I'm in a dress," she emphasizes, motioning towards the tree. "And heels, now that I feel the blister forming," she adds as an afterthought, grumbling towards her toes.

"You chased me all the way in heels. I'm flattered," he smirks.

"Are you going to help me up?" She says flatly, crossing her arms.

He considers this. It sounds a little terrifying to touch her, but he feels stupid for feeling this way. He'd touched more than her hand when they were younger.

"You're so needy," he deadpans before offering his hand.

She hesitates and looks at him, unsure. She's comforted when she sees the same look on his face and shakes her head. She pulls her dress up with her right hand and takes his hand with her left. He swallows, seeing more of her legs than he has in a long time, but easily hoists her up to sit next to him.

They both take a deep breath, ignoring each other for a few seconds. He thinks about how he doesn't know why the hell he came, now that she's so close and sucking up the atmosphere he needs to think rationally and play it cool. She thinks about how she doesn't know why she followed, and she can feel a change in the air and it's harder for her to breathe, which makes her focus on the feelings of guilt she has for following him.

She leans against the trunk, delicately laying her dress back over her legs. She doesn't like the feeling of the tree on her bare, wet toes and instinctively moves them closer to his shoes, resting them off of the wood.

He shifts in his position, leaning away from her so that he can see all of her. They're incredibly close for comfort. Her perfume of vanilla and cinnamon is practically giving him an asthma attack, it's all he can smell. He wants to put some distance because he figures they'll eventually talk, and they do better when they can communicate with their eyes when words fail.

When she decides it's time for her to talk to him, she finds him already looking at her. There's something casual and lazy about the way he's sitting and watching her, and it's so warming and familiar that she can't help but relax.

"Hey," she offers quietly.

He smiles a small smile, looking down as he shakes his head. This was too familiar.

"Hi," he says back, locking eyes with her.

You could cut a knife with the tension in this little tree, she thinks to herself. Suddenly she wonders where the phrase comes from, and looks at him quizzically. He raises an eyebrow, curious. She thinks he must know where it comes from, but she doesn't want to open the door for any inappropriate jokes by mentioning the tension.

"So," he says finally, nodding behind them towards the town.

She swallows. Change of subject?

"So, how have you been?" she tries lightly, offering him a genuine smile.

He isn't buying it. He sees her hands fidgeting and has an impulse to grab them so she stops. She's going to destroy her cuticles, but he doesn't really have the right to touch her other than helping her up the tree. Yet.

"Well," he starts slowly, not taking his eyes off of hers. "I haven't been in any weddings lately. How about you?"

Her eyebrows furrow and she looks at her hands in her lap. He was so forward.

"I thought you weren't coming," she says quietly, glancing at him.

He purses his lips and lets his head fall a little, looking down at the ground. She knows he's mulling it over in his head before constructing a response.

"Me either," he finally admits, raising only his eyes to meet her face.

She takes a deep breath, processing. She almost smiles, because it's such a him thing to say.

"You haven't by chance taken up smoking, have you?" He asks with a chuckle. She looks surprised and he reaches in his pocket, holding up the soggy pack of Marlboros.

She wrinkles her nose.

"No, sorry, I like my lungs nice and clean," she quips, a playful smile lingering in the corner of her mouth.

"You have to have some kind of lung damage from all those days," he points out with a smirk.

She looks at him quizzically until what he means registers and she blushes a little.

"I was young and still thought guys who smoked were very poetic. Every sixteen year old does, don't hold that against me," she says simply, crossing her arms over her chest again.

He raises his eyebrows at her and shrugs. They spend another minute or two in an uncomfortable silence, trying to decipher who speaks next. He decides it's his turn.

"Are you going to tell me what the hell you were doing out there?" He asks, flicking his wrist toward the town again. She hears genuine curiosity in his tone, not judgment, and that allows her to unravel a little. She realizes that it wasn't really his silence that she needed, just…him.

"I have no idea," she says exasperated, all but slamming her head into the trunk of the tree. Tears swell in her eyes and he has the urge to reach out and comfort her again. He fidgets, watching the tears and mascara roll down her cheeks, and he can't help himself. He reaches out quickly and then hesitates, but before his brain can really process what his hand is doing, he's pushing her wet bangs to the side and away from her eyes.

She looks at him sideways and for a second he thinks she's going to brush him off, but she doesn't, she just swallows and wipes a tear away.

"I didn't mean anything bad by inviting you," she begins, taking a deep breath. He knows a Gilmore ramble is coming and gets comfortable, keeping his eyes on her. "It just felt so wrong to exclude you. Even though I was really crappy when we last saw each other, I just couldn't imagine something else important happening and you missing it again."

He winces, hearing all of the unspoken things in her words. He had missed a lot, and it stemmed from a stupid decision at eighteen. But he knows she doesn't mean it to sting, so he stays silent, nodding at her to continue.

"And then when you didn't return the invitation, I didn't know what to make of it, you know? I figured you weren't coming but I guess I hoped you would. Because I've gotten used to adult-you just showing up and surprising me and making sense of everything around me."

He is quiet about her small confession at needing him, and he allows himself a few seconds to feel this. She chokes back some tears, suddenly feeling embarrassed that she's sobbing in front of him.

"I don't know why I'm crying," she mutters. "I mean it's supposed to be the happiest day of my life, right?"

He knows it's a rhetorical question, but he sees such a pleading look in her eyes that he feels moved to affirm her.

"You're crying because it's important, Rory. It is supposed to be a big day," he offers, his eyes softening. He notices a stray leaf in her hair and pulls it out, holding it up for her to see before discarding it. She chuckles before responding bitterly.

"It is a big day. It's a huge day. And there I am, sitting there freaking out about having to go out in front of everyone. Especially Logan's family! I can just see them scoffing in their stupid suits and fancy dresses, talking about how ridiculous it is that he's chosen somebody like me to enter the family," she sneers, lifting her hands in disgust.

"They'd be so lucky," he mutters quietly, mostly to himself. But Rory heard him and thinks about how he used past tense when he spoke.

"Why did you say that?"

"What?"

"Why did you say they would be so lucky? Why not they are so lucky?"

He looks at her before running his hands over his face. He suddenly feels really cold and registers that she probably is too. He takes off his jacket and offers it to her. She's hesitant but takes it and wraps it around her shoulders. It smells like smoke and cologne, some scent that smells like a warm spice that she can't place. She eyes him, watching him shift in a shirt that is beautifully plastered against his body. She wonders when he started wearing this new smell.

"Because it doesn't seem as though you're gonna marry the prick," he finally exhales, looking back to her face. He says it so simply and casually that Rory really isn't sure what to make of it.

"Logan's not a prick, Jess," she says protectively, instinctively.

This also feels familiar - defending the guys in her life that others judged. It felt like a reflex.

Rory shrinks in discomfort from the fierce look he gives her. She suddenly remembers the few exposures Jess had had with Logan and realizes that he had been nothing but a prick to him. She suddenly sees her mom in him and she almost has to hold back a laugh at how ironic that is.

He watches emotions run over her face, but he doesn't loosen up until it goes back to a pained look of understanding. Jess sees in her eyes that she gets it so he doesn't push it, which she is grateful for.

"How do you know I'm not going to marry him?" she asks intently. He can tell she's genuinely curious. "How do you know I haven't just had a major freak out and once I figure my head out from talking to you that it'll be game over, you know, like those shirts where the wife figurine is dragging the groom figurine away from a television?"

"Whoa, slow down," he says, throwing his hands up to make her slow down. She's speaking at him rapidly, in a way that only a Gilmore can.

"It's just, you're sitting here with me in a tree. On your wedding day," he says pointedly, raising his eyebrows slightly at her. "When really," he adds, crinkling his eyes and nodding towards town, "you probably should have followed your fiance inside."

At this, a stream of tears make a home on Rory's cheeks. Jess just lets her cry, picking at a leaf.

"So can I ask you again?" he asks after a moment of silence. She looks at him sullenly.

He throws the leaf, now crumpled and ripped, out of the tree.

"What the hell were you doing out there?"

Rory sighs again and shakes her head, looking at him sadly.

"You've never felt trapped by what you thought was right, even if it felt wrong?"

At this he freezes, shivering a little. He distracts himself by adjusting his jacket on her shoulders. This proves to be more of a distraction than he'd bargained for because she'd shifted closer when she lay her head against the trunk, and they are dangerously close. Their faces are close enough to breathe each other in, barely millimeters from melting lips into each other if they wanted. The pit of his stomach clenches, and her heart feels like it's bursting out of her chest, making them both feel something they thought was past them.

"Yeah, I have," he says quietly, looking into her eyes.

She swallows and looks down, breaking their eye contact. Somehow his words feel like an apology, but she doesn't want to think about what eighteen year old Jess did to her teenage self. It's behind them, she reasons.

"Then you know why I was out there," she says knowingly, smiling. "He's so great you know?" Jess rolls his eyes but she gives him a challenging look as she continues. "He provides for me. He got me through that storm when my mom and I weren't talking… well," she says mostly to herself, sneaking a glance at him while he isn't watching her, "he got me through some of it. He's romantic when it counts, and he's never afraid to apologize. I mean, that's so rare to find."

He won't look at her. He's regretting this conversation a little, but he's trying not to take anything personally. It's not her fault that his screw ups made her appreciate something in somebody else.

"He's kind and gentle, and in other ways he can make me so happy," she sighs gently. "And he's one of the only people who can go toe to toe with me about books."

"But not the only," Jess smirks.

She looks at him from the side, not moving her head, and gives him a small smirk of her own.

"No," she agrees, "not the only one."

Jess sighs and runs his hands through his hair.

"Okay, so he's really great. Then why are you here?" He asks, trying to sound casual as he props his elbow up on a spare branch, as if he has no stake in this. He rests his cheek on his fist to look at her.

"I guess I needed to talk to you," she shrugs, turning as much as she can to face him now.

"What great wisdom can I offer you?"

"I don't know if I should be getting married, Jess. And it's my wedding day. I nearly had a panic attack standing up there. Every time Logan smiled at me, it should have made me giddy with joy, and it did for a moment, but the feeling died so quickly. I swear I started to see Dean with the way the butterflies kept going to sleep. This is supposed to be the big day, a great day, a happy day, and I'm sitting in a tree with my ex-boyfriend because I'm more at peace here than I would be next to the man I agreed to marry. God!"

She throws her face in her hands as her own words, frustrated and vulnerable and nauseous. Jess is quiet, watching her break down. He doesn't feel like she's done, so he waits for her to continue speaking.

"He's never been perfect. Oh, he's made plenty of mistakes, sure. But he's been good to me and it kills me to think that if we don't get married, he won't be in my life. Because I love what we had going, before all of this. But the last year of planning and stressing and pretending to smile has been exhausting, and I feel like the heartbreak of walking away is a lot less painful than figuring out two years down the road in a new state with like, a fetus inside of me that this isn't the life I want."

Now she's rambling and crying, and he figures she's too caught up in her head. He can't think of anything constructive to say, and some of the thoughts he doesn't want to process right now. He just knows it's Rory and she needs somebody, and she chose to run after him for comfort. He sighs and reaches an arm out.

Rory looks up and stares at his arm. She debates in her head whether they can both fit on that side, and what it means to be close to her ex-boyfriend on her wedding day, and all of her thoughts spin in her head. She's dizzy and acts instinctively, slowly scooting towards him. After all, she followed him, didn't she?

Jess sees the trepidation in her movements and grips her as soon as she makes a move, helping her over to him. She sits next to him on his half of the bare trunk and he holds her close, willing his heartbeat to slow down. He's really just trying to comfort her, nothing more, and he doesn't want the alarms that go off whenever she's close to alert her to something it's not meant to be.

He pulls her in closer, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, and rests his head on hers. He doesn't really care that her hair is still wet. He just relaxes into her, rubbing small circles on her shoulder.

"Do you want to get married to Logan, Rory?" He asks quietly. "Do you yourself coming home to him in five, ten, twenty years down the line?"

Rory doesn't look at him, but he feels her shudder against his chest.

"I don't think... no," she whispers, choking out sobs.

"Okay," he says into her hair, wondering where to go from here.