A/N: Greetings... I've been going through a touch of hell lately. My apologies for the lack of updates. It also didn't help that I had no idea how to move on from that scene, but I guess that everyone could guess where I'd go after... besides, what the hell good is this time of story with an ending like this? Enjoy, my dahlinks.

My Latest Mistake

Chapter Thirteen

Run

Rated T

What quite possibly was one of the more organized, functional and perhaps strange moments of his life came to a shattering end when he watched his soon-to-be-daughter jump halfway across the room and flee out the door. The entire party paused, staring at him as though he could answer their questions and then looking at his nephew questioningly.

The look on Jess's face was enough to make him want to chase after Rory and give her a piece of his mind again, but instead he merely rushed into the room, roaring for everyone to get their asses out. Those who weren't drunk helped those who were drunk stagger out of the room.

"What happened?" Luke deadpanned, but they both knew what happened.

"Shit," Jess breathed, biting back what Luke knew were tears.

"Yeah," he settled down beside his bereft nephew as the boy struggled to hold onto his emotions, to keep them under that dark wrap that had settled around his heart before he knew Rory Gilmore, the one that Luke had worked so hard to break through in these last months. "You're not planning on shutting me out now too, are you?"

"Will it make me feel better?" Jess rasped as one of his fists balled in his rage and his voice almost broke. Luke admired the boy for his ability to keep his head. God knows that if Lorelai had done that, he would have either gone into a rage or broken down. Seeing as how Jess couldn't walk without aid, let alone punch a wall, there was very little chance of the rage setting in.

"Probably not," Luke shrugged, hoping against everything in his mind that Jess would pull himself out of this enough for them to talk about what had just happened.

"Shit," Jess said again, and then decided to continue with some new words. "Shit, fuck, God-fucking-damnit!" Each word was getting louder until they were screams of rage.

Instead of calming him down or attempting to get him to lower his voice, Luke nodded his approval of the blue streak and handed Jess a few random objects to be thrown around the room.

"Feel better?" Luke asked when Jess had managed to throw every piece of food onto the ground as well as absolutely destroy his streamer, but the hat remained untouched.

"No," Jess replied bitterly.

"Do you want me to get you anything?" Luke asked hesitantly, no longer knowing what to do now that Jess had returned to his monosyllabic nature.

"Some cocaine would be nice," Jess snorted, and then sighed in frustration, running his hands through is long hair and then stopping, fingering a piece of it. "How about a haircut?"

"New style?" Luke suggested.

"Nah, I just hate these fucking bangs," Jess snarled, tugging on one of the strands like he would pull it out of his head. "Maybe dye it."

"Blonde?" Luke asked incredulously.

"Hell no, how about bright blue… think it would give Taylor an aneurism?" Jess pondered quietly, the banter calming him a little bit, or at least Luke hoped that's what it was.

"With any luck," Luke agreed, and the room fell into silence again.

"When can I go home?" Jess finally asked.

"When you can walk," Luke shrugged.

"Walking… would be good," Jess groaned, putting a hand over his face miserably.

"You should get some sleep," Luke said as he rose to his feet.

"If you see Rory… tell her to…" Jess trailed off, unable to even put a word together when it had Rory's name in it.

"I got it," Luke cut him off.

Jess nodded his thanks and Luke walked out of the room with a large burden on his shoulder. The door closed behind him with a thud and he almost felt like joining in with Jess's blue streak. It was terrible what Rory kept doing to him. The Gilmore women, fickle creatures as they were, seemed to be more addictive to his nephew than the drugs that he'd used to destroy his life for two years.

As he was about to start pondering what was Rory's influence and what were the drugs, his phone rang. He looked around stealthily, not wanting to be yelled at, but the doctor was passed out a few meters away and the nurses appeared to be avoiding this wing like the plague.

"Hello?" he asked gruffly, planning to rebuff whoever it was.

"What the hell happened over there?" Lorelai's startled voice replied, and he sighed.

"Ask your daughter," he bit out after a few seconds of blind anger that he managed to clear enough to get that out.

"I did, she isn't answering me," Lorelai grumped. "Does it have anything to do with a former boyfriend of hers whose party she just attended?"

"No, it has everything to do with the former boyfriend whose life she crushed and, to give reason to her current actions, plans to do again," he snapped, knowing that he wasn't angry at Lorelai but unable to help his tone.

"Woah, where did that come from?" she seemed to recoil, and he knew he wanted to stop, but he couldn't.

"Tell her to stay away from the hospital. Jess doesn't want to see her and I don't want her around," Luke said evenly, even though he was shaking to know how she would react to this latest ban.

"Back-up, what?" she demanded.

"They kissed Lorelai, and she ran out on him – again," he explained tiredly.

"Oh… oh boy," Lorelai sighed.

"Not the words I or my nephew chose, but close enough," Luke growled.

"So she ran out on him again? He did it to her three times," Lorelai pointed out grumpily.

"If you even dare attempt to defend her in this, I will hang up on you and I swear I will cut you off until Jess is better and is able to leave," he threatened, meaning every word.

"My coffee?" she whined.

"And other things," he continued.

"Dirty," she scolded.

"Only when it calls for it," he shrugged, even though she couldn't see it.

"So… no Rory?" Lorelai grumbled.

"No Rory," he confirmed.

"She's spent the last three months glued to his side," Lorelai mused.

"Now she'll spend the rest of her life as far away from him as she can manage," Luke snapped.

"Shouldn't that be Jess's decision?" Lorelai bristled.

"I'm making his decision for him. I'm not going to let him fall back into a coma, Lorelai… it's not happening," Luke stated firmly.

"What about the wedding?" Lorelai complained.

"They'll be on opposite sides of us and we'll line them up so that they're not beside each other… it'll work," Luke said softly.

"When?" she asked quietly, as though this was a secret topic that should be considered very carefully.

"When Jess can walk," Luke told her just as quietly.

"Good," she murmured.

"I have to go," Luke told her as he saw the doctor stumbled to life, falling off the chairs and landing in a very precarious position.

"G'night, lover!" Lorelai ended their call cheerfully and he closed his phone to go over and aid the very drunk man.

-gGg-

Luke left the room and Jess was left alone to his thoughts, what little he could coax out of his mind. What he needed at the moment was something to dash his mind of her, of her blue eyes looking up at him with the same adoration, want – no – need that he himself felt. But still, even after all these years, after the drugs, the alcohol, the wheelchair and even the coma, she ran out on him.

Tears that had been gathering behind his eyes for the past hour threatened to unveil themselves, but he hid them, not wanting to be presumed weak – in love… with her. He wished he could hate her, he wished he could just wring her neck for all she's put him through, but he couldn't. She was apart of his life, and he feared that she always would be.

Whilst wallowing in his misery, he started to lose track of time. His legs, while no longer numb, were weak and unable to move him and his body had started to protest to his position on the bed. Sighing in frustration, he pondered how weak he'd be if he flung himself off and attempted to walk without the aid of his wheelchair.

"Fuck," he swore as he attempted the maneuver. His legs managed to swing, but they got caught on the blankets and were now sending him off-balance, about ready to topple head over heels onto the floor. "Shit."

Arms flailing, body reeling, he barely managed to gain a grip on the bed before he slipped and fell. "Fuck!" he swore again as he found himself unable to put any weight on his now-numb legs. Frustration poured through his soul and he felt as though he was going to start burning from his hatred.

Another bunch of curse words escaped his lips as he finally managed to get some sort of support from his lower half, which was then accompanied by pain and lots of it. Panting and sweating, he managed to pull himself onto his bed, laughing a little bit at his own stupidity.

But the pain… it made him forget her. But was there any point to prolonging it just to keep her from his mind? Grinding his teeth, he forced his legs beneath him again, fighting back that frustration when he felt them slipping, but grateful that the name slipped from his mind. Even she couldn't anchor him in his misery and nothing suited him better.

Slipping a little bit on the floor, he finally managed to grip his sweaty feet to the floor and started pulling on the tables that had been set up around the room. From table to gnome and then back to the table, it was the first time in his entire time of being in the hospital that he was grateful for all the decorations around his room. They made it easier to pull himself along, half-screaming in pain. Finally, about halfway back to the bed, it was too much. He collapsed to the floor, his hair slick against his forehead and his breathing unable to cope with his body's exertions.

There were a few blessed quiet moments in his mind, where nothing but swirling blackness surrounded him, but finally she appeared again, on the edge of his consciousness. Frustration leapt into his bones and he did something that he'd once promised himself that, no matter how far he went, he would never do. He lifted up his head and smashed it against the ground, knocking himself unconscious and blocking out any thoughts of her from his mind.

-gGg-

To say that she was shocked when the nurses ran past her, instead of for her, was an understatement. Rory had snuck out of the house when she'd heard her mother talking to Luke. It wasn't as though she didn't realize that she'd be causing Jess pain, but the pain that she, herself, was feeling didn't make it any easier to go back and face him, to be the man about this situation when Jess was too incapable of doing it himself.

"Jess?" Rory asked as she got nearer to his room, seeing that it was apparently the centre of the nurse's attentions.

"Jess!" she screamed, running at it as she saw his bare feet on the ground, with the nurses around him checking to make sure that it was alright to move him. "Jess!"

"Who's this?" one of the nurses asked, obviously not a regular.

"Rory Gilmore, ma'am… the patient's… friend," another one answered, giving Rory an odd look as though wondering why she hadn't been in the room when they'd first arrived. After all, it wasn't as though she'd ever left him in his unconscious state, why the hell would she leave him now that he was actually awake enough to enjoy her chatter.

"Friend, not family? Get her the hell out of here, we don't need him relapsing because some friend," the nurse snarled, and the younger one rushed to Rory's side, grabbing her arm and forcing her away.

"Relapsing?" Rory gasped, refusing to be moved. "Jess!"

"Get her out of here!" the nurse-in-command shouted at the top of her lungs and the younger continued to yank on her arm.

"Rory!" someone called from down the hallway, and she turned to see her mother launching herself towards her, probably meaning to take her away before the nurses could manhandle her. "What's going on?" She skidded to a stop outside of Jess's room, seeing the problem within.

"Get them both out of here!" the other nurse stated, and the one holding Rory grabbed both Gilmore women's arms and dragged them away.

"What's going on!?" Lorelai demanded, and Rory knew that this curiosity was more for Luke's benefit than her own. After all, what the hell did Lorelai care about Jess?

"He's relapsing," Rory whispered, barely able to get the words out.

"Oh my God," Lorelai whimpered, seeming to crumple in on herself. "Luke…"

"You have to call him," Rory told her firmly and looked back at the room.

"Don't even think about it," the nurse barked, grabbing Rory's arm firmly and forcing her harder towards their destination.

"He needs me!" Rory screamed in frustration.

"Rory… no," Lorelai said through tears, grabbing her daughter and pulling her towards her body firmly. "There's nothing you can do."

"I can be there!" Rory objected.

"What the hell is going on?" Luke roared upon seeing them, obviously having gone down to the cafeteria to sober up the drunken doctor on his arm.

"It's Jess-," Rory started.

"What the hell did you do to him!?" Luke panicked, looking at her like she was a demon and then taking off towards Jess's room before anyone could stop him.

"Me?" Rory gasped, her eyes wide.

"Sweetie…" Lorelai began, pulling her close again.

"Me… it was me…" Rory realized, repeating the mantra over and over to herself.

"Rory," Lorelai attempted, but her comforting words were cut off with Rory's repeated statement.

The world seemed to fade until the thoughts sunk in. Two years ago, they hadn't said it, no one had mentioned it… but two years ago was when she'd said no, when she'd told him that she'd wanted nothing to do with him… when she'd slept with Dean. Two years ago, when he'd started this… was it because of her? The drugs, the wheelchair, the coma… was it all because of her? Something in her mind couldn't handle the guilt and she collapsed against her mother, sobbing and begging for forgiveness from someone who wasn't in any position to grant it.