A/N: Seems all my reader peops were right there on the edge of their seat with Rory & Jess for the results of that pregnancy test! Negative is what it said, yes indeed. Now, what next?

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 7

Life felt different here. At first that was a good thing. Rory actually liked being away from Stars Hollow, especially since she was with Jess. It was almost as if she wasn't supposed to be anywhere else, like this was where she belonged. Of course, there were times when she missed home terribly, mostly on occasions when something happened that she really wanted to tell her mom about. It was true enough that she could call her, but Rory just couldn't face it. She felt like such a fool for what happened with Dean, so guilty for running out the way she had, and now so conflicted about her relationship with Jess.

Lorelai wouldn't understand, Rory was sure on that, and so she kept her distance, acting like it was all normal and okay, but it wasn't. These last two weeks had been different, ever since the morning when she suspected she might be pregnant. The test said no, and that made Rory feel so relieved and at the same time weirdly disappointed. She got the impression Jess felt the same in a way, but they didn't really talk about it.

They didn't talk about anything much that mattered anymore, just books and movies, music and work. She had a job now that gave her tales to tell, but things just weren't quite as comfortable as before. The coffee shop was situated about halfway between the apartment and Wal-Mart so Jess would often walk Rory to or from her place of work, sometimes both, depending on his own shift pattern. It was fun being amongst new people and making coffee all day, especially since the boss didn't seem to mind how much caffeine his staff consumed during their work time. Something about it being good advertising if the help were enjoying the beverages too. Rory was in her element. She started out clearing tables and making the simple drinks. She was still slow, after just two weeks she was going to be, but the names of the coffees came easy and she picked up the machines pretty easy too. She loved it most days.

"You sure you're okay?" asked Jess when she came home early from her shift a couple of days ago.

"Yes, I am fine. I said I'm fine!" she snapped at him, immediately regretting it.

She just felt snappy lately. A part of Rory blamed herself for being in a situation where she couldn't seem to find enough happiness. The other part blamed Jess for being extra quiet and distant lately.

"Rory, c'mon," he urged her, right behind her when she turned around. "Your job doesn't send you home if you're fine."

"I felt kind of sick and woozy is all," she huffed, folding her arms over her chest. "I swear, I'm fine, I just... I'm tired, that's all it is," she assured him.

Jess wanted to believe her, he did actually. Rory wasn't sleeping right. He knew because he wasn't either. The nights when he wasn't working, he laid awake anyway, the same few thoughts going around and around in his mind. He didn't like Rory working, but he knew she had to if they were going to keep the apartment and the amenities, plus eat and do laundry. Her job was the least of his worries though.

Jess couldn't help wondering where all this was going, him and Rory. They were in love, that was for sure, he knew he loved her and he believed she felt the same. Rory didn't lie, not to him, not when it mattered. What they had was real enough, but that didn't mean that they could last in the long run.

They avoided talking about what happened when the Summer was over. She had Yale to go back to, and he understood that. Rory was the academic with big dreams for the future that Jess never had for himself. He wanted her to have everything, but at the same time, he wanted her to be with him. There didn't seem to be a way where they would both be happy that didn't lead to one resenting the other in some way.

It was one of these nights when Jess couldn't sleep that he got up and called Luke. It was barely four thirty in the morning, but he knew his uncle would be up, he always was at that time. They hadn't talked since before Rory arrived, mostly because Jess didn't want to have to lie to his uncle about where she was. No doubt Luke would bring her up in conversation, he always did, and her going missing would be a hell of a big deal. The chances were pretty good that Luke would never assume Rory was with Jess, but if he did ask, he didn't want to have to lie and say he hadn't seen her when she was lying there asleep in his bed.

"Sorry about not calling sooner," he apologised to his uncle. "I, er... I had a landline when I moved in, but there were problems. I finally broke down and bought a cell, so this should be a pretty permanent number, at least for a while," he explained, reeling off the digits as Luke wrote them down.

"Well, it's good to hear your voice, Jess. I mean it," he told him, making his nephew smile in spite of himself. "Things have been pretty crazy here lately and... Well, I'm just glad you called."

It made Jess frown a little that Luke seemed to be talking around the Rory issue. She had told him that Lorelai and Luke were finally dating, which meant his uncle was smack dab in the middle of the drama. It made no sense for Rory's name to never come up. That wasn't normal for any of their conversations on a normal day, nevermind now.

Luke asked about Jess' work, if he needed any extra cash, that kind of thing. Jess asked about the diner, if business was good. It was almost a pointless conversation, fairly impersonal and dull, but it mattered to the two guys actually talking. They were checking in which each other, letting one another know they were still there, and it all still mattered. There wasn't much love lost between Jess and Liz, and though he had made his peace with Jimmy, he would never really look at him and see a father. Luke was his family, the only guy that ever cared enough to even try and look out for him. That mattered.

"Look, Luke, I gotta go," said Jess when he saw Rory stirring in the bed. "You, er, take care or whatever, y'know?" he said awkwardly, the way it always was when one of these calls ended.

"Will do. You too, Jess," his uncle replied, and then they both hung up.

Rory sat up and ran a hand over her face.

"That was Luke?" she checked, a small degree of panic in her voice.

"Relax, he didn't ask about you, and I didn't mention you either," he said, snapping the cell shut with a too loud click somehow.

He barely looked at her and Rory hated that. Things just weren't good anymore, not like they had been. The pregnancy scare kind of put a dampener on the sex for a while. They still did it, but not as much and it didn't feel quite the same. Jess was so moody, and not just the way he had been in Stars Hollow years ago. That was a general front that he showed the world, he had always been different with Rory. Now she was getting the cold shoulder, and it hurt.

"Jess, would you just tell me what's going on?" she asked him, turning to follow his movement as he went into the kitchen area.

"I'm making coffee, you want?" he asked, letting her question slide by as if never asked. "I'm sorry, did I just ask a Gilmore girl if she wanted coffee? I must be having a seizure or something," he muttered, putting two mugs into the counter.

"Jess, do not do this to me!" said Rory crossly, hopping out of bed and striding over to him, all barefoot and indigent. "Do not keep ignoring the issue, and there is an issue here, I know there is."

"Yeah, well, not for much longer, right?" he said, still not looking her way at all, even as she hovered mere inches from him in her skimpy nightwear. "How many weeks is it now until school starts again? Until we segue from Love is A Many Splendored thing into a rousing chorus of Summer Lovin'?"

Rory frowned hard but didn't say a word. She got the reference, and she knew now what Jess' problem was. Unfortunately, it was something that had been worrying her too, if she were honest. It was an issue they were going to have a tough time overcoming to everyone's satisfaction.

"I don't know," she muttered, looking at her own cold toes on the cracked flooring. "I've been trying not to think about the end while we're still in the middle... Jess?" she urged him to look at her, her hand going to his arm and pulling.

"So, I'm not worrying for nothing here?" he checked, finally meeting her eyes. "It's gonna end, when Yale's back in session?"

The pain in his eyes matched what Rory felt inside. It made her want to cry but she tried her best to keep it in. Lately, a lot of things made her emotional. She blamed the pregnancy scare and the being away from home; she put it down to Jess' moods and her messed up sleep patterns. Right now, she knew it was just because her heart was breaking by degrees.

"I don't want this to end," she promised him, grabbing onto his arm with both hands, bouncing a little in her desperate attempt to prove her enthusiasm. "Jess, you... you're all I ever wanted in a guy. Deep down, I always knew it. Now we're finally together and it's perfect, and I don't want to think about reality or where my life is going. I just want to be with you and wish the world away for as long as we can."

Her arms were up around his neck now as she pulled him closer, trying to make him see that her way of dealing with this rotten situation was best. Jess couldn't be convinced. Though his hands went to her waist and he looked down at her with affection enough, he couldn't let go of his fears about the ending that came later.

"Y'know, I was doing okay," he told her. "I kept thinking like you, thinking don't worry about the future right now, enjoy what you have while you have it," he explained. "But, Rory, the world isn't going to stop turning. You still want Yale and a career, and you should want that," he assured her that he understood, "but you're gonna need to go home to do that, and that place, Stars Hollow, it's not for me."

Rory swallowed hard, the emotion rising thick in her throat. She hated this, as much now as she had in her dorm room at Yale when Jess asked her to run away with him and she had been so very tempted. In the end, she couldn't do it, because he was right, she wanted Yale and her journalism career. She wanted Stars Hollow and Hartford, her Mom, her grandparents, Luke, Lane, all the people and places that were her home. As much as she loved Jess, and she truly did, to give up her whole life, her family, her plans just for him, it felt like too big a sacrifice somehow.

"You can't give up your life for me, Rory. I never should've asked you to," said Jess, as kind and sweet as he had ever been, and it broke her heart to hear. "I know you have to go back, but I can't help it that it kills me to even think about you being gone."

She couldn't speak, she physically couldn't. All she could think to do was kiss the man she loved until the world went away. She pushed further into Jess' arms and pressed her lips to his, tasting her own tears as they streaked down her face. It shouldn't have to be a choice, their lives as they liked them, or the love they shared, but Rory understood. Asking Jess to go back to Stars Hollow would lead to him hating her for it. If she stayed, she would come to hate him for keeping her from her own world. There were no good choices here, not one.

The couple parted when the kettle whistled to say the water was boiled. It was agony to part and yet a relief at the same time. It was going to be sweet torture from now to the day Rory left. It made her want to go now, just to make it easier, but facing home still scared her, and leaving Jess was just too hard to even think of right in this moment.

"Go back to bed," he said quietly, releasing her from his arms. "I'll bring the coffee over."

Rory nodded that she had heard and wandered away. Jess busied himself with the drinks for all of a few seconds before he heard the dull thud of something hitting the ground. It was too loud for a book, which was the usual thing that wound up hitting the floor when they got dropped off the bed or similar. Immediately, Jess knew what had happened and he panicked.

"Rory!" he rushed over to her lifeless form on the floor by the bed. "Rory, c'mon. Don't do this to me!" he urged her, gently tapping her face, checking her all over for any sign she had hurt herself.

She looked fine, just completely asleep. Right when Jess was considering calling an ambulance or something, Rory stirred.

"Ugh, what happened?" she asked sleepily as she tried to sit up.

Jess assisted, setting her back against the bed so she was at least a little comfortable.

"Pretty sure you passed out," he told her gently, pushing her hair back off her face. "You feel okay now?"

"I don't know," Rory frowned a little. "A little woozy still. I can't believe this happened again."

"Again?"

"Well, I passed out on Mrs R that day when... And since then, I just get tired and... and kinda wobbly sometimes."

The explanation of it all was only making Jess worry more. They had both assumed her symptoms might be pregnancy so Rory took a test. When it was negative, they never even thought about what else might've caused her to be sick or dizzy. Maybe they should've.

"Okay, we need to get you up, get some clothes on you," he said, reaching out to put his arms around Rory and lift her up onto the bed.

"Why? I just wanna sleep, Jess, I'll be fine," she insisted, trying to pull the comforter up over her, but he wouldn't let her have it.

"Rory, you have to see a doctor," he insisted. "This has been going on too long, we can't just ignore it. I can't."

She opened her eyes more fully and met his own panicked gaze. He was right, she knew it. It was likely she was just over-tired, stressed, whatever, but Jess was right, it probably would be better to have a professional opinion. She really hadn't felt right for a long time now. Better to be checked out and given the all clear than carry on and get more and more sick.

"Okay," she agreed eventually. "We'll go see a doctor... at five in the morning?" she checked a moment later as she spotted the time.

Jess actually smiled, in spite of the panic, when he saw her wide-eyed expression. Never mess with a Gilmore girl in the small hours, he knew that, but this was too important to ignore. He was getting Rory to a hospital to be checked out and that's all there was to it. So long as he didn't have to think too much about what might be wrong with her and how it would effect those big decisions they were making about the future before, he'd be just fine.

To Be Continued...