A/N: I sort of felt bad for leaving the last chapter on such a major cliffhanger so I decided to update asap, and frankly, the cliffhanger annoyed me a bit too, but I couldn't take things further in chapter 10, so the cliffhanger was unavoidable. Anyhoo, here's chapter 11, making this my longest fic to date. *cheers* Rory and Jess in this chapter, I promise. My ship sail Lit for a reason. And if anyone, by any chance, is still wondering over where Rory spent the night, it will be revealed. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characters from Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I am not making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it…).
11. Bathroom breakthroughs
"Rory? Rory, it's Jess. Please open the door."
He was begging, and he didn't care. He absolutely hated begging, but this was different. He wasn't begging for money, for a break or even for himself. He was asking for something so much more important. He had swallowed his pride, and gone with Luke and Richard when they had met, not entirely by accident, at the coffee shop. Luke had practically begged him, and though it looked kinda pathetic (and Jess'd be sure to use it against Luke someday), he didn't bicker about it. He didn't even say no, which would often be the case, no matter what someone was asking him. There had always been the default 'no', or some kind of negative comment. Not this time, though. He had hung around that coffeeshop all morning, waiting for Luke and the Gilmores to drop by, because he knew they would, eventually. Now he was standing outside the bathroom door, pleading with the girl he loved, who was sitting on the other side.
"Rory?" Jess asked again, firmly.
On the other side of the door, Rory had quietly risen from her sitting position, and was now leaning against the door. He was so close.
"What?" she whispered quietly, hoping he would hear it.
And he did.
"Would you open the door?"
"Did they call you over?" she asked.
"No. I bumped into Richard and Luke when they came for coffee. Luke practically begged me to come, it was very unmanly of him."
She could hear Luke grunt in protest, and she smiled on the other side. Her Jess was funny.
"Can you open the door now?" he asked again.
Rory hesitated. Opening the door meant showing the others how broken she was. She felt so lost, it made her literally rip at the seams, or so she felt. Her hesitation didn't go unnoticed on the other side of the door.
"Do you want them to leave?"
She couldn't answer that. She wanted them to, but saying it out loud felt like such a horrible thing to do, especially with her mom there. Still, she wanted them not to be there. For no apparant reason, she nodded, reassured Jess wouldn't pick up on the nod.
But he did. A minute later, the door to the apartment opened and closed, and for a second, Rory feared that Jess had left with them.
"Are you there?" she asked with a hint of panic in her voice.
"I'm here." he replied, and she felt her heart rate go down.
They said nothing for a while, she leaned against the door on her side, and she felt his body leaning against the door on his side. Two inches. That was all between them, but it felt like it was much more.
"How many more times do I have to ask you to open the door for me, Rory?" came Jess' voice, so close to her now.
She hesitated again. What good would opening the door really do? She had blown it, this time she had left him, virtually non-existent explanantion and all. They sucked att goodbyes, so what real reason was there to open the door?
Him. His eyes. His scent. His lips. Even if they sucked at goodbyes, she wanted a better last memory of him than the one of leaving him and the engagement ring in Stars Hollow. A final look at him, here in her own twisted kind of sanctuary… It could be worse. She reached for the door knob, shimmied it a bit, and unlocked the door with a timid click. Here goes nothing.
"And we have contact…" Jess thought to himself at the sound of the door unlocking, and took a step back. He was expecting her to swing the door open, or at least do something, but after the click, there was nothing. He didn't know if she was still leaning up against the door, or if she had moved. She moved so quietly. He reached for the doorknob, twisted it, and slowly opened the door. For a moment Jess thought Rory had pulled a full on Houdini on him, because the bathroom appeared to be empty. Then he saw her. She was lying under her cover in the bathtub, looking all small and sad. He couldn't help but smile as he stepped into the bathroom, closed the door and locked it.
"You slept in the bathtub?" he asked curiously after having looked at her for a while.
"The bed smelled like you, and the sofa was going to harass me with movie mockings." she replied without looking at him.
Jess snickered. "Of course…" he thought to himself, having adjusted to the idea of not questioning the reasoning of a Gilmore girl.
"And the bathtub was your only option?" he then asked.
"The floor is drafty, the closet uncomfortable and I wouldn't fit into the fridge even if I took out all the food, so yes, the bathtub looked pretty hospitable."
He walked over to the bathtub, and sat down on the edge of the tub, right next to her, sighing.
"Rory, what happened?"
"I think I saw it." was her short answer.
"Care to elaborate for those of us who don't have superpowers?"
"My hijacked wedding. Grandma's perfect wedding, in a theme I'd hate but couldn't say no to, because I don't have the guts to do so. Hundreds of people I don't know, and none of the ones I want to know and be there. People whispering about my mom behind her back, looking condecendingly at Luke, because he's not wearing proper attire. Me in a dress I would normally love to be in, just not there. And then you. Suffering silently in a tux you'd hate with a passion, on a wedding you'll go through only because the fiends behind it are my grandparents. It would be the start. And I don't want my first pancake to suck, so I can't have grandma hijack my pancake and make it suck for me."
"How did we get from weddings to pancakes?" Jess wondered, a small smile on his face.
"Jess." Rory told him disapprovingly. "Don't try to make this go away, because this is how it is, and don't tell me you don't know it."
He thought about it. She was probably right about a few things. Okey, so she had the wedding pegged to a tee, and yes, he wouldn't like it, but he'd go through the motions because of her.
"You could have said no." he then commented.
"To your proposal?"
"To Emily." Jess clarified, feeling a sting in his heart that she thought he meant the proposal.
"No!" she retorted, sitting up in the tub. "That's the thing, I can't. That's why I ended it and left. It felt so much easier to just… leave."
Jess wasn't sure how he should feel about that. She thought it was easier to break up with him than to man up to her grandmother?
"You know I love you." he said. "You know I would've helped you through it. I promised you you would have your long engagement."
She was finally looking at him, and he had to fight the feeling of drowing in her sad, blue eyes. She pulled up her knees against her chest, broke the gaze and leaned her head against her knees.
He couldn't just sit there anymore. He got into the tub, and pulled her against him. She was as intoxicating as ever, if not more. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or whatever shit people say…" Jess thought as he rocked Rory back and forth. She didn't cry, didn't hyperventilate. She was just limp in his arms, much like she had been after the hysterics in the old apartment a year ago when their two hearts became one again.
"Rory? Are you okey?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she took a couple of deep breaths, her head resting against his chest.
"All I wanted…" she began in her quiet little voice. "…was something that was my own. I have depended on them, all of them, for so long, and I just wanted something that was mine. Ours. Then she just steps in and wants to take over that, too. I panicked, and I screwed up, and left you. I was so stupid, and now look at me. I'm sleeping in a bathtub, your ring is taunting me from the sink, and you're just…"
"Here. I'm here. And the ring is not taunting you."
"It was. It doesn't dare taunt me when you're here. You should've seen it before. It was mean."
"Should I return it?" he joked.
When she didn't answer, he got worried.
"Do you want me to return it? Like permanently return it, and not come home with something less taunting?" he clarified.
She sighed again.
"As long as what it means will not be ours, then… I don't want it."
"Rory, come on! I have waited years for this, to be together with you and not have either of us leaving, and now you want to leave because Emily has control issues?"
Jess bit his lip. He didn't mean for it to come out like that, angry and annoyed, but it was just how things were.
"You know, it's easy for you to say, mr. Never Had A Problem Hurting People!" Rory yelled back at him.
"Wow, thanks for the confidence vote." he sneered back at her.
"I'm serious Jess!"
"So am I! I swear, it's like you're out of their poolhouse-prison, but still on parole. She is not your parole officer, Rory, and it's your life, your relationship, your engagement."
"There's still an engagement to speak of?" she asked after a moment of awkward silence.
Jess sighed. He loved her more than anything else, but sometimes…
"You promised to marry me, and I promised I would have you. Taking your ring off doesn't change that, at least not the latter."
"Then… I guess the first part hasn't changed either."
"Really? So you'll still have me?"
"How could I not?" Rory smiled. "But I still need grandma off my case before I'll have you."
"Right, Emily needs to chill. I think she likes me even less now, by the way." Jess mused.
"What did you do?"
"I went to see them."
"You did what!" she exclaimed.
"Not so much saw them, as… Well…"
"You didn't do anything stupid did you? Like… I don't know… Whatever corresponds to getting beaked in the eye?"
"There were raised voices." Jess admitted.
"No…"
"I promise, nothing more. No physical injuries."
"Is this why grandma had the engagement ring?" Rory asked.
"I might have given it to Emily."
"You gave it to grandma? This is so not ending well…"
"I promise, I gave it to her, said that I hoped her and your granddad were happy and then I left."
Rory groaned into her hands.
"What?" Jess asked, surprised at her reaction. "I thought I was very civilised under the circumstances!"
"Yeah well, before your little visit I called grandma and yelled at her."
"You yelled at Emily?"
"I did. I told her, in so many words, not to hijack my life and butt out."
"I'm rubbing off on you retroactively."
"Yeah well, I'm pretty sure I've already retroactively flunked out of Chilton, so I'm not surprised."
"Excuse me, what?"
"Nothing. Yale-incident. I sort of lost a Chilton-girl I was entrusted to guide around Yale. They found her at a kegparty if I'm not mistaken."
"The things I learn about you, it almost makes me proud."
"Stop it!" Rory laughed, hitting him in the chest.
Jess responded by hugging her close. They were still a 'they', and it made him feel like a person again. All through this incident he'd felt numb and empty, but now there was that spark glowing in him that only Rory could light. All was well again. For now. "We might just have to stay in this bathroom to keep it that way…" he contemplated silently.
"So, we are still on, huh?" Rory said a couple of minutes later.
She was leaning against Jess, breathing in his signature scent of ginger root and something undefinable. It used to be ginger root, cigarettes and the undefinable, but the cigarette-smell wasn't there anymore. Rory didn't miss it.
"Oh yeah." Jess answered. "We are so on…"
They both broke down in giggles, because it sounded so cheesy. Amongst the giggles they heard a series of sharp raps at the front door.
"Babe and Rocky junior, you home?"
Jess said "Lorelai." at the same time Rory said "Mom.", and they giggled some more.
"You want to get that?" Jess then asked her.
"Only if you protect me from grandma."
"I'm your bodyguard."
"I think it's personal security nowadays."
"Whatever."
"Pulling out the babypics as we speak, and this time I mean it!" Lorelai shouted outside.
"You really need to housebreak her." Jess commented as they got out of the tub.
"And spoil the fun?" Rory countered. "You really need to spend more time with her."
"For my own sanity, I hope your kidding."
"I'll leave that to you." she said, and smiled mischievously as she walked toward the front door.
Jess groaned, and followed her.
A/N: The smell of Jess came from a dream I had. Nothing dirty, I promise. You know the drill: Read, review, rock my world.