Wires and Waves

Summary: 4x21. Rory has enough money for a cab and so doesn't call Dean for a ride home. Jess shows up too early and, while waiting outside her dorm, has a chance to re-think his proposal. Season 5 re-write: What if Rory stayed in touch with Jess throughout his transformation into the guy we see in Season 6?

A/N: Hello! Thanks for all the great feedback on the prologue! I know I said that it'd be a long while until I updated this, but I just kept coming up with ideas about where I wanted to take it, so I decided to continue it a bit sooner than planned. Hope you like!

Also, a quick apology to continuity-pedants: the timing here is not always going to be completely true to the show, for the sake of the plot. Sorry!

Episode: Raincoats and Recipes

Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, this would be a lot better written.

Chapter One: Awkward

It had been almost a week since the brief encounter at her dorm, and that scrawled phone number had since made the rounds from pocket to pocket of different garments from Rory's wardrobe. There was no concrete reason as to why she always carried it around with her – just the fact that mixed into her uncertainty as to whether she'd use it she felt an inexplicable paranoia that she'd misplace it. In fact several times a day she found herself reaching into her pocket to check for the familiar wisp of paper; yet, when she found it – and she always did – instead of feeling reassured at its presence, she felt an uncomfortable squirm in her stomach. She tried to analyse exactly what it was that had come over her that evening and had come up with a number of contributing factors: the built up loneliness of that year, the disastrous date, the continued mixture of nostalgia and loss that thoughts of her first love's marriage triggered and, of course, the Jess Factor, that imperceptible change of atmosphere he brought with him wherever he went which always succeeded in making her act rashly. But whatever the determining motivator was, the result was the live grenade now sitting in her pocket.

And so she remained in limbo, keeping the number with her at all times without daring to use it. The main thing that bothered her was there shouldn't really be any indecision on her part – after all, the con column was overflowing with convincing arguments: their train wreck of a relationship, the fact that she'd succeeded in moving on and she wasn't about to allow herself to be dragged back, and also the secret she'd be obliged to keep from her mother if she were to get back into contact with him... And what was in the pro column? Sure, they'd been friends at one point, but it was always a pre-cursor to something more. But there was something in her that made her fist clench around that piece of paper whenever she tried to convince herself to throw the damn thing away.

One evening, a few days before the Dragonfly test run, something changed. She'd been rummaging around in the hall closet, searching for a long buried CD she'd suddenly gotten a hankering for; she'd tugged a blanket whose top edge, unbeknownst to her, had managed to get tucked under a box on the upper shelf of the closet. As the blanket was pulled off, the box came down with it, dumping the entirety of its contents onto the head of the poor, unsuspecting Gilmore. And so, before she'd even managed to process this chain of events, Rory found herself surrounded by the collection of items she'd hastily shoved into her Jess box the year before.

She didn't know why, but something snapped in her head upon seeing this physical manifestation of all the compartmentalising she'd done over that year collapse around here. She hastily gathered up the assorted books, CDs, ticket stubs, and other Jess-related paraphernalia, trying not to let her gaze linger on any one thing but being unable to escape the slight pang that came when her hands ran over her dress from Sookie's wedding as she piled it on top. Shoving the box firmly back into place, she grabbed the phone, walked into her room, shut the door behind her and sat down on her bed.

She pulled out the number (which was pretty pointless considering her eyes had scoured the paper scrap so often that she could recite the digits in Latin if need be), took a deep breath and then dialled.

A state away, Jess (who'd been treating his phone like an unexploded bomb ever since he'd driven away from her that night) froze mid-sentence in what he was reading, wondering if this was what a heart attack felt like. A second later, all such considerations were dropped as he lunged across his mattress (in a move that made him thank God that his roommates weren't home) and grabbed the ringing object, not bothering to check the number before flipping it open. "Hello?"

Rory's breath caught in her throat slightly at the sound of his voice, and she cursed herself for being perennially thrown off guard by him. Recovering, she said a quiet, "Hi."

"Hi," he parroted back, and Rory was relieved to hear that he sounded as nervous as she felt.

Fighting the urge to reply with You said that already (she wasn't very willing to reveal quite how well she remembered their every encounter), she reminded herself of the speech she'd been rehearsing in her head. "Look, I just wanna preface this by saying I haven't forgotten anything. I'm still mad about how things went down last year, and I don't think that's going to change any time soon. That said, I really didn't call you to lecture you about that, in fact I'd rather not talk about the past at all, I just..." she paused, struggling to sum up the reasons why she had made the call and latching onto as honest a justification as she could find, "I just want to be able to talk to you again."

"Okay," Jess replied, simply, knowing that he'd have to tread carefully given the extremely tenuous state of their relationship.

Equally relieved at him being understanding as she was frustrated with his old monosyllabic ways, Rory hesitated as she struggled for what to say next to counter the awkwardness of the situation; God, she missed the days when their every shared silence was a comfortable one. In desperation, she grasped at one of the loose ends she remembered from their last conversation, "So, um, you mentioned you had a job the other night – have you been welcomed back into the loving arms of Walmart?"

His will for this...whatever it was...to work overpowering his aversion to small talk, Jess replied, "Nah, it's just a messenger job, I think my forklift days are behind me."

Rory mock-gasped, "You mean you've turned your back on the extension of yourself?"

Jess groaned, "So Luke shared that gem of an Employee of the Month speech with you?"

"Oh, I demanded the full play-by-play. I was just disappointed I couldn't be there myself, I was stuck in stupid meetings for, um...prom," she stuttered to a stop as she realised she'd managed to step on one of the many landmines of the past strewn throughout the conversation.

Trying to escape the ever-growing awkward pause, Jess asked, "Did you, uh, end up getting a part-time job at Yale?"

Relieved, Rory replied, "Oh yes, you're talking to a certified cafeteria card-swiper."

"Wow, you finally found a job to match your academic prowess."

"I think it would've have been a match made in heaven had it lasted longer than a day."

"Well, all the best affairs are cut short by tragedy," Jess replied, before silently cursing the awkward phrasing.

Quickly recovering, Rory responded, "Except, in this case, the tragedy was me constantly taking phone calls during peak times."

"Tsk, what would Christiane Amanpour say?"

"Did you seriously just 'tsk' me, forklift-abandoner?"

"In hindsight, I retract the 'tsk' in exchange for something that makes me sound less like a seventy-year-old British nanny."

"Too late, Mrs Doubtfire."

Jess sighed, "Wasn't it bad enough that you forced me to watch that film without then using it to mock me?"

"Hey, anything that has Robin Williams in is worth watching." Beat. "Am I to take your silence as a sceptical one?"

"You're to take it as one that recognises the futility of getting into an argument with you about the merits of Robin Williams."

Rory considered this, before shrugging, "I'll allow it."

"Thank you, your Honor."

Another brief silence descended. Not wanting to allow it to derail the comfortable pattern they'd just started to settle into, Rory blurted it, "By the way, guess who my roommate is."

"Simon Pegg."

Rory paused, "Why on earth would you guess Simon Pegg?"

"To discourage people from asking me to guess things that I have no hope of getting right."

"You can be such a grumpy old man," Rory complained, before elaborating. "No, unfortunately Mr Pegg has not decided to pursue further education at Yale. Instead, the one person in all of Yale that the Gods have decided I need to spend the next four years cohabitating with is Paris Gellar."

"Wow, those Gods have a pretty interesting sense of humor."

"Well, I have reason to believe that they were nudged by a few intimidating phone calls from the Gellar household."

"Understandable – I'd say she ranks a two on the scariest citizens of Connecticut scale."

"So long as she's never informed of this – Paris does not respond well to being a runner up."

"I'm sorry, but no one can be ranked above Mrs Kim."

"True, that lady is pretty terrifying."

"Try having her advance towards you yielding a cricket bat, I'm pretty sure that's the closest I've ever come to death."

"Ooh, mine would be when an embittered ballerina wrote 'Die Jerk' on my door. And she didn't even use a comma – if you're going to threaten someone's life you should at least grammaticise."

"Okay: that you're going to have to elaborate on."

Rory grinned, preparing to tell the story before her eyes suddenly landed on the clock, "I think I'm gonna have to save that one until next time – I'm supposed to meet Mom at Luke's like ten minutes ago."

"You're seriously gonna leave me hanging on 'embittered ballerina'?" Jess asked, mock-annoyed, while secretly rejoicing that there would be a next time.

"What can I say? I'm a cruel woman."

There was a slight pause, before Jess asked, "Uh, Rory?"

"Yeah?"

"Is this a two-way thing? I mean, can I call you?"

Rory paused a moment, before responding genuinely, "Yeah, I'd like that."

"Okay."

"Okay," she echoed. "Bye Jess."

"Bye Rory."

Rory cursed the extent of her and her Mom's CD collection as she rummaged around to find a particular album. It was the night of her Mom's test run at the Inn and she'd been sent home to grab some music. Eventually she was victorious – she fished out the CD in question, added it to the pile and headed to the back door, ready to rejoin the festivities. Only to be confronted with Dean.

"Hey," he said, smiling somewhat apologetically for his abrupt appearance.

Rory smiled back, feeling the comforting warm familiarity that always swept over her around Dean. "How'd you know I was here?" She asked, curious.

"Your Mom said she sent you on an errand."

"Ah, you went right to the source."

Dean chuckled, before gesturing to the stack of CDs in her hand, "Can I...?"

"Sure," Rory replied, handing them to him with a grateful smile. She started to head back to her bedroom to grab the rest, along with the cell phone she'd left on her night desk. He followed. "I'm just trying to find some CDs for the Dragonfly," she explained.

"I hear Taylor's a big hip hop fan."

"Oh, he hops with the hippest of them," she quipped, as they entered her room.

"Your room looks the same," Dean remarked, looking around.

"Yeah, I tried the whole French Revival thing, but it didn't really work for me."

There was a brief pause, which he broke, "So, um, is it weird being back home after being away for a while?"

"No, it feels completely normal."

"So..." he said, suddenly looking slightly uncomfortable. "Look, I came here to talk to you about something."

"Yeah, I'd kinda assumed you didn't come to admire the back door," Rory joked. "Shoot."

"I don't know if I'm just going crazy, but lately, whenever I've seen you- there's been something between us, you know? And I'm pretty sure you feel it too, and I just can't ignore it any more, Rory, I-"

"Dean?" Rory interrupted.

"Yeah?"

"Lindsay."

Dean shook his head, frustrated, "It's not working with Lindsay. I can't make it work. I've tried."

"Are you sure?" Rory asked, trying not to get her hopes up. "Because I've heard that the first two years of marriage are the hardest."

"We're not happy. She's not happy and I can't make her happy."

"I can't imagine that," Rory said, with a smile.

"It was a mistake, and I know that now. From the very beginning, it wasn't-"

"Wasn't what?"

"It wasn't..."

"Maybe you could, um, go see a counsellor, or go away together," Rory suggested, feebly.

"No, it's just- it's over. We both feel it. I know we both feel it."

"You and Lindsay?"

"Yeah, me and Lindsay."

"You both feel it's over?" Rory said, noticing they'd inched slightly closer together over the course of the conversation.

"I tried. We tried."

"Well, if it's over, I'm sorry."

"You are?" he said, looking slightly disappointed.

"I'm sorry you're not happy," she clarified.

"I'll be happy again, things happen for a reason, right?" he replied, moving closer still.

"Right," She replied, feeling the happiness bubble up in her to quash the doubt as she mirrored his actions. This was it. This was what had been missing all year – everything was slipping back into how it was meant to be. She and Dean were right, they were good together, they were what she had needed this year; her whole life was all about to fall back into place, no more doubt, or loneliness, or that numbness that had been gnawing at her since the previous summer. Flooded with relief, she breathed, "I can't believe this is- that we're..."

He whispered back, "I can," and their lips met.

And that was when her phone began to ring.

A/N: Sorry for all the lines from the show, and the gratuitous Dean – there'll be far less in future, I promise! Apologies also if I was a bit under-descriptive in the second half, that's really not a scene I like to linger on... Please review, it really reminds me to keep writing!

Thanks for reading,

Julia