After she hung up, Rory let herself cry.

"There's always somewhere to go. There's always more to do. You, Rory Gilmore … you have the whole world at your feet. You used to know that." His words had cut her, just the same as his call for reason years previous - "Why did you drop out of Yale?!" How was it that he could say just the right thing to snap her out of whatever stupidity she had gotten herself into? How did he do that?

It was his last statement that had cut her. It was as if he was saying "You used to know that (and we both know who it was that screwed that up for you. I'm disappointed you're not the girl I fell in love with anymore)." It was reading deep in between the lines, but Rory knew it was there, well versed in Jess subtext. She knew he'd hated Logan – he'd made no secret of that – but she also knew more so than hate for Logan as a person, he hated how Rory had changed while she was with him. What he'd never known, however, was that Rory had started changing way before she'd even met the Huntzberger. Maybe he didn't want to know that.

She bit her lip hard as another wave of tears came, pushing her fringe up out of her face and leaning the points of her elbows on her knees, trying not to let her body start sobbing.

Truth be told, Rory knew she had lost her way again. She was distant with her Mom, and hadn't made any friends at work. She'd secluded herself, like she had when she had lived with her Grandparents. And this time, she knew, Jess wasn't going to come and save her. She had burned that bridge. She had abused his love for her for too long. It was strained, now, between them. Even if Jess still loved her, it was so battered by her constant assaults, that it was bitter love. She hated that thought, but it was one she had often.

After her interview, she had written the article lovingly, uncaring if it seemed like nepotism. His authorship was a beautiful thing to her. She'd been there when he'd had some of these beautiful thoughts he had put down on paper. She had been a small part of the stories. And she was so exceptionally proud of what he had become – who he had become. Even if she had no right to be proud in that way. His store, and his Publishing, and the e-zine she subscribed to under a pseudonym in case he checked. Leigh Hayden. She'd called herself that, maybe semi-consciously, because she hoped he worked it out. He hadn't, though. And it had made Rory feel pathetic that she had expected him to still be looking for things like that; seeking her out like that. After all, they hadn't been involved since they were teenagers.

The way that Rory loved Jess wasn't something she had ever been able to replicate with anyone else. On the edge of safety, on the edge of exhilaration. Innocence and heat. That's what it had been. Jess made her want to do things she had never even thought about before. That had been scary, but exciting. It made her feel brave, being with him – without the actual mortal danger that Logan had put her in. Jess made her feel alive. The way he looked at her, it was always so carefully intense. Like he knew what his gaze did to her. She missed that gaze so terribly, sometimes. To have someone look at her, and tell her through his eyes that he wanted her – that he loved her. Jess didn't look at her like that, anymore, and when she missed him enough to seek him out, she was always so embarrassingly crushed. It was the guardedness that got in the way, now. Her assaults had taken their toll. He looked at her in the same way as he had the rest of the town when he had first come to Stars Hollow – battered and defensive.

The only time that let up was when they spoke about books, or music. Then, Jess' eyes became animated – alight with the passion she missed so much.

But not passion for her.

The night he came to Baltimore, he'd been so careful with his expression.

Rory bit her lip again, closing her eyes tight, making the remaining tears drop from her lashes. She took a deep breath and sat back on her couch, releasing her tight stomach muscles from sitting in a hunched position for so long. Her eyes found her untouched bookshelves, knowing that if she picked up any book on the shelves, it would remind her of at least one of her failed relationships, and she really just couldn't. She hadn't read for pleasure in a long time.

-break-

"Rory, will you please answer your phone, just occasionally? Mommy misses you. I have about twenty-seven things I need to tell you. Lane and Zach are going on vacation tomorrow, and I have tonnes to do for them because they have the kids. Who knew having three kids would be hard, huh? Nico's teething, too, and … huh, well, you should know all this already, which is my point. Answer your phone! Call me back pronto."

Rory didn't. Instead she sighed, and started proof-reading another article. It wasn't that she didn't miss her Mom. She really did. It was no secret that she and her mother were freakishly close. But Rory didn't want to hear what she knew was going to be layered into her Mom's voice when they spoke - the pity, the disappointment, the frustration. Frankly, she was sick of hearing it. She had no idea how to get herself out of this pattern of thinking. Her Mom's frustration was, as far as she was concerned, misplaced. It wasn't her Mom's life she was pretty sure she was frittering away. Because that's how she felt – even though she had achieved so much in her young life – her prestigious job, her college degree, her moving to New York City from a little tiny town in Connecticut – she felt that her achievements weren't enough. She felt that maybe nothing was ever enough. Were other people happy? Was everyone like this, but just never talked about it because it seemed too pessimistic? Or was it her alone in the world, wondering why everybody else was happy but she?

She bit her lip, shaking her head at herself. Was she supposed to be more than this? After all, she had always wanted to be the next Christiane Amanpour. When had that dream died? She hadn't been aware of it when it did. It made her sad to think that she barely even thought about being an Overseas Correspondent when she was applying for jobs. She wanted a columnist job, or a features job. Human interest based, not even slightly the breaking news journalism she had always aspired to write.

She thought about Jess – in her car Dean had built, before they crashed – and let herself give the empty room a watery smile. He had told her "I'm sure you'll do it. You will, I promise." That had stayed with Rory for the longest time. The smile disappeared into tears again when she realised she'd broken his promise for him. And she didn't know how to fix that broken promise – or whatever was broken inside of her. Jess had always believed she could do anything. Her Mom, and Stars Hollow as a whole did, too. But somehow, coming from Jess – this real, calloused being who didn't fit the cookie-cutter town he'd been dumped in – somehow it felt more genuine coming from him. Somehow everything did. Jess never said anything without wholeheartedly believing it. And he had believed in her. Then she had believed in her.

She bit her lip as she tried to focus on the article in front of her. She really did love her job. In all honesty, it was the best job she could imagine. She read, and reviewed books – for a living. It was the perfect job for her. So why wasn't she happy? Maybe she understood her Mom's frustrations after all.

She thought maybe she was depressed. Nothing was working – that's what it felt like. But Rory knew that if she were 17 again and was looking at her life, she'd be glad to have it. Her perspective was off. Of course, if she were 17 again, she'd still be dating Jess.

It always circled back to Jess.

She knew that ship had sailed. But she missed him. She missed the way he looked at her. She missed just talking to him – not in the careful, tiptoeing way they did now – but how they did as kids. She missed his crazy hair. She missed his notes in the margins that she couldn't read anymore. She missed his humour. She missed the person she had been when she was his Rory. She even missed his stubborn, broody attitude.

But Jess wasn't her Jess. Rory wasn't his Rory. Not anymore.

-break-

Jess signed the lease, right next to Chris' signature, and shook the woman's hand as she took the papers and left the store. The second store that they had bought.

Chris clapped him on the shoulder, just about bouncing in glee. "We did it! We did it!"

"Yeah," Jess smirked as Chris just about pirouetted on the spot.

"Could you act even a little happier so I don't feel like a total idiot on my own, Mariano?" Chris teased, jigging on the spot.

"Feel like an idiot?" Jess teased. Chris playfully pushed his shoulder, and Jess grinned along with him.

"How does it feel to be back in New York?" Chris asked, stepping carefully on a broken floorboard to test whether it would cave right in.

"Pretty much the same as it felt in Philly?" Jess rolled his eyes.

"Sure," Chris scoffed. "You live in the same city as her again. Like you're not going there."

"You're right. I do live in the same city as her again. Just one thing – which 'her' are you talking about exactly? Because every single one of my exes lives here. Oh, sorry. Bar one – but are we really counting the girl I used to get Rory?"

"You're serious? You're really not even going to try?"

"What is there to try? We haven't dated in years; we're totally different people now. There's nothing between us." Even as Jess said the words, he didn't believe it. But he really didn't want to be discussing his personal life with Chris – even if he was one of his best friends. Rory was a sore subject, and both he and Matt knew it.

After Lorelai's visit, the insistence that there was unfinished business between them had intensified from the two. Jess was sick of it.

"Even her Mom – who hated you – got involved. It's obvious that the girl still loves you. It's obvious that you still love her ..."

"Drop it, Chris."

"Is it because you 'need the pain to write' or some other bullshit?"

"Chris."

"Fine," Chris threw his hands up in defeat. "I just know that if I knew I had a 'love of my life', and that she was in the same city as me, I'd want her to know about it."

Jess seethed for a moment, staring angrily out the store window, while Chris stormed up the stairs to the tiny apartment that they'd be sharing. They wouldn't be moving for a few months, anyway. The place needed gutted – it had been an old art supply store (which had been the reason Chris had fallen in love with it, of course). There was graffiti art all over the walls, paint splashes all over the floor. There were even smatterings on the ceiling, and the distinct paintbrush shape of someone having thrown it up at the ceiling. It was a real place. Jess wasn't sure if he had the heart to paint over it all, and make it a bookstore. It was probably going to be the most unconventional bookstore ever. He cracked a smile at that, forgetting his anger at his room mate. For a minute.

It wasn't even that he wasn't right – Chris was right. He did still love Rory. She still remained to be the only girl he'd ever loved, maybe with the exception now of his little sisters, Lily and Doula. But she was the first girl he'd ever fallen in love with. It didn't make their situation crystal clear, though, as far as Jess was concerned.

But he did miss her. Her laugh. The way she smelled in winter. The way her eyes lit up when she talked about her Mom, or Luke, or Lane, or books, or music, or Stars Hollow, or literally anything. Her smile. Her unique, mediating, trusting nature. Her emotions flickering behind her amazingly blue eyes. Her apologetic intelligence. The way she just cared. Her soft skin. The feeling of her hips against his.

It didn't change anything. Of course he missed her. He'd been missing her since he was 18. It didn't change anything.

He exhaled heavily, scuffing the toe of his Converse on the paint beneath his feet. He wondered whether leaving the paint there would be too tacky. He liked it, though. He knew Chris did, too. Matt would be the only one who would need convincing. He looked around the rest of the room – where much smaller than the store in Philly, the feeling of the place was that of trendiness. Jess, normally, wouldn't be caught dead working somewhere where hipsters would probably hang out, but he'd long since resigned himself to the fact that book stores of any kind were like crack to those people. He knew what sold – especially in NYC. And the kitch-y feel of this place was bound to attract plenty of people.

He watched the ceiling when he heard footsteps across it – the bare floorboards of the old apartment would need carpeted to soften the noise. He sighed at himself for snapping at Chris to send him up there. If Jess were being honest with himself, he knew that eventually he would contact Rory. But he just wanted to be in control of that, and not be pushed toward it. He didn't even care if Rory hurt him again – that wasn't the reason he was staying away at all. It was still the reason he ran from her in the first place.

He was so obviously not good enough for her. Rory deserved someone together and healthy-minded and not a massive fuck up. He was almost there. He had been almost there for a long time, and he didn't really know how to get there.

There was the creaking of the floorboards and then the stairs, again. Chris appeared at the door with a guilty look on his face, holding Jess' phone. As soon as Jess made sharp eye contact, demanding to know what he had done, Chris turned haughty.

"Well, you weren't going to text her."

Jess closed his eyes as his blood pressure sky-rocketed. His mouth couldn't form words for a second.

"She's meeting you at a bar in twenty minutes. Might be a nice time to let her know you'll be living here in a few months." Chris tossed Jess his phone and went back upstairs before he could retaliate.

-break-

Jess drummed his fingers on the bar next to the double whisky he'd been gulping in nerves. The bartender glanced at him, slightly irritated by the action, Jess could tell. She lent on the bar as bartenders do and asked him if he was okay, as bartenders also do. He wondered briefly and disinterestedly whether they had some sort of training for the counsel they automatically had to provide being that side of the bar. He lost his train of thought quickly, though.

"Just waiting on someone."

"He going to break your leg, or something?" she asked, Brooklyn accent thick. She was pretty – maybe just a little older than himself, but with very little light behind her eyes.

Jess half smiled. "She. And possibly. I don't know yet."

"Ex-wife?" she asked, leaning a little more on the bar, now interested. Her question possibly telling of the reason her light was faded.

"No, no." Jess looked at her again. "Nothing like that. Technically she's my … well, we're related somehow. Her Mom is my Uncles wife."

"Complicated. But you went out, huh? No-one looks that nervous meeting someone platonic."

He smirked. "We did," he nodded. "Before Lorelai and Luke got together. It is a little complicated."

She paused for a moment, watching him in interest, while he stared down at his glass. "You're native, huh?"

Jess nodded. "Born and bred Lower East Side. Moved around a bit, though. I'm moving back here, after a long time away. Brooklyn girl, yourself?"

"Bay Ridge. Live here in East Village now, though. What about your girlfriend?"

Jess struggled over the word she used to describe Rory for a second, but chose not to correct her. "Connecticut. Where I met her. She lives somewhere near Murray Hill, I think, now."

"Another?" she asked, gesturing to the empty glass he'd drained. He nodded, running a hand nervously through his hair. "Is she really that scary?" she asked, jokingly.

Jess laughed a little. "She looks like fucking Bambi, but I'm still terrified. Isn't that hilarious?"

"Go sit in the booth over there," she said, pointing somewhere behind and to his left. "Bambi just walked in."

Jess half turned in the barstool, but didn't need to to know she was there. His heart escalated in irregular rhythm and his whole body, down to his toes and fingertips, ached for a half-second. He swung off the stool, casually, and with as calm an air as possible, smiled at her. She beamed back, and Jess' heart gave another embarrassing lurch.

"Hi," she breathed.

"Hi," he told her back. "Um …" he glanced back at the girl behind the bar, and watched as she sized Rory up. Looking back at Rory, he asked, "Drink?"

"Whatever you're having," she told him, shifting a little as she noticed the bartender's gaze.

He turned to the bar again, and smiled uncomfortably, only just realising how much he'd divulged to this stranger. It wasn't like him to talk about things like that – usually they stacked up inside until he had to write them out. "I think we'll need the bottle, um..?" he asked silently for her name.

"Maeve. And sure – I'll bring it to you."

Jess awkwardly smiled again, and turned back to the Gilmore. "Want to sit?" he asked a little pointlessly, gesturing to the table she was already making her way to. Awkward awkward awkward awkward. Jess berated himself internally as he sat across from her in the booth, his back to the bar. Thankfully, Rory looked awkward, too, but happy to see him. He always found that peculiar. However much pain they both put upon the other, they were always happy to see each other. Even if it was a quiet happy, unvoiced.

Maeve placed a new bottle of whisky between them, and set two glasses down on napkins. Jess thanked her – Rory didn't, and didn't look up at the other girl at all. Maeve barely blinked as she watched them, before she walked away to serve other customers at the bar.

"The barmaid likes you." Rory stated it as fact, with little or no emotion behind her words.

Jess' eyebrows raised at her, before saying, "Isn't 'barmaid' a bit of a sexist term these days? Sounds derogatory."

"She likes you," she said again, taking the bottle from between them and pouring a more than generous measure into her own glass, before doing the same to his. Jess shrugged and watched her with interest. She took a swig, but winced at the strength of the blend. Rory shifted uncomfortably for a moment, not making eye contact with him. "Are you here on business?" she asked, moving on – in topic of conversation at least. If Jess knew Rory, she'd be mulling the last part of their conversation over for a while.

Jess nodded, taking a drink. "Yeah. Business."

"Here long?"

Jess shook his head. "We're going back to Philly tomorrow morning. Chris is here too."

"Yeah? Did he not want a drink?" Rory asked, covertly asking why he had come alone if he had company.

"He's driving us back, tomorrow." Jess didn't exactly know that was true, but it didn't really matter.

"Huh," she agreed.

"How've you been doing since I last saw you?" Jess asked, desperate to interrupt the internal monologue that he could sense was going on in Rory's head.

It took her a moment so answer, but she eventually did. "I've been fine."

Jess' neck prickled at that word, and her expression. They were at total juxtaposition to each other. He bit his lip, swilling his whisky around the glass. He chewed over her words for a moment, not allowing himself to say what he really thought, which was to tell her 'bullshit', but he went about it with more grace than that. "I'd appreciate candour, Ror'."

She laughed humourlessly. "Candour, really?" She didn't say any more, but she did reach for the bottle of whisky again.

He hated seeing her like this. So closed off and bitter. This wasn't Rory Gilmore anymore. Actually, Rory like this reminded him of himself. "What happened, Rory? Why are you like this?"

"Like what?" she snapped. Jess watched the blue fire in her eyes and flinched at the abrasion it caused. But he carried on watching her, waiting until she told him what he wanted to hear. "Why did you want to meet up, Jess?"

He chose not to tell her that he hadn't. He ignored her question, and, instead, shot one of his own back at her. "Is it Maeve? Is that why you're so icy?"

"Maeve?" she asked, avoiding his eye, but her tone was defensive.

"The bartender, Maeve. Are you pissed because I spoke to her?"

"What kind of name is Maeve?"

Jess' brow pulled down in annoyance. "What right do you think you have, Gilmore? God – am I supposed to be a eunuch? This is just like when I went out with Shane."

"I don't know what your talking about." Her statement would have been convincing had she not growled it.

"I had to watch you with Farmer John for a fucking age, all the while loving you. I had to sit there in that pretentious bar with all the food on fucking slate or driftwood and watched you make gooey eyes at your boyfriend, the whole time killing me, then have you defend him for being a total jackass to both of us, and I can't even talk to a woman in your presence? Fuck, how is that fair, Rory? We went out a lifetime ago. It shouldn't matter to you who I talk to. Who I date. Who I fuck. Okay?"

She flinched, particularly at the last statement he had made. The music had been turned up. Jess had a feeling Maeve was trying to drown out their argument to her other paying patrons. He didn't even care that she had probably heard their conversation, because the rich thing was, Jess hadn't even thought about the girl behind the bar like that. The insinuation that Rory had made made him want to just about explode.

"You're right. It shouldn't matter," she told him. There were hidden words in her sentence, post script. 'You're right. It shouldn't matter. But it does.' "I'm sorry," she said. "She seems nice."

He shook his head at her. "Why are we still like this, Ror'?"

She didn't need a definition. She answered after gulping more of the whisky. "It's just the way we are. What did you once say? 'It is what it is, you, me.'"

"I'm sick of it," he told her callously.

Rory looked like she was about to cry. "Are you?" she asked, voice soft, her eyes watery. She tightened her hold on her glass.

Jess' heart just about broke, looking at her like that. He reached across the table, to touch her hand. She flinched as he did so, blinking and making her tears fall. He felt his heart clench then ache. She stood, grabbing her coat and purse, and rushed out of the bar.

-break-