So I'm floored by the response to this story! Thank you guys so much for the kind words!

I realize that "updating regularly" means a lot of different things to different people. So, let me say this - I'm aiming for every other day, possibly minus weekends, given that work or school don't distract me. I've still got some editing to do on the later chapters (this is my longest story yet), so that's the only reason for the wait.

And, for those curious, Schmidt and Winston do play small rolls later on in the story, and Cece actually makes quite a few appearances.

Hope you all enjoy!

Chapter 1

Nick dug his hands into his pocket a little harder as he passed a booth of Tree Scouts, or something of that nature, selling cookies as he made his way into the supermarket. Even though he avoided eye contact at all costs, a girl no more than seven piped up when he passed. Dammit.

"Wanna buy some cookies?" She chirped, holding up a box with lemons on it.

Nick edged away.

Don't panic moonwalk. Do. Not. Panic. Moonwalk.

Not that he'd done that in years, but he'd already had a meltdown today; he wasn't going to push his luck.

"Uh, no thanks, I've got tons of cookies at home." With this, he patted his stomach.

Way to say it like a creep.

The girl's eyes fell – but only just a little bit – until the couple behind him stepped into her sight. She immediately looked away and asked them the same, perky, overly-rehearsed question to the next poor souls. They, however, seemed to fall for it.

Nick took this opportunity to steal away.

Kids were weird, foreign beings to him. There was just no way around it. Even in his family, they were just overly sensitive humans that you apparently couldn't say things like "dammit" in front of, because they'd repeat it. This, apparently, was not nearly as amusing to society as it was to him. And the person that seemed to always catch it was their mother, who would just stare at Nick with a disapproving shake of her head.

(Sadly, this had happened to him on his last trip to Chicago.)

The automatic doors slid shut behind him, the buzz of after-work shoppers reminding him why he had come in the first place. Grabbing a handbasket, he began to make his way to the back, where he knew the bread was, and stopped at a small display of flowers.

Julia would like flowers tonight, right?

She did make him dinner, so he picked up a bundle of tulips and walked on. Casually glancing down the aisles, he noticed the store was busier than usual. Moms and kids, teenagers, even some college girls with Greek letters on their shirts milled about (most in the aisle he picked up the margarita mix, no less).

His handbasket heavy with enough mixers to tide the bar over until tomorrow, he started towards the bakery. Just as he could smell the bread, an image in the next-to-last aisle stopped him dead in his tracks.

His heart beat like a drum in his ears.

A dark-haired woman, around his age, was reaching up to grab a box of cereal from the top shelf, hopping up to grab onto the edge. Her glasses bounced on the edge of her nose, and the small black flats she wore tapped lightly on the linoleum as her feet hit the floor. She was quirky. Nick watched her, time fading into slow motion.

She wasn't just any woman.

It can't be.

Turning around, surely because she felt someone watching her, her eyes met Nick, and he knew he was right.

Those wide blue eyes that had haunted him for so long were staring back at him. From twenty feet away, there was still no mistaking who that was.

"Je- " he reached out, almost dropping the flowers, before she spun on her heel and walked off. Nick blinked, and she had already vanished into the crowd of people in the aisle.

It was like she'd never been there in the first place.

Had that really just happened?

He gripped the edge of the flowers, trying to pull himself together. He'd never had any sort of delusion outside sleep or painkillers (well, okay, plus alcohol and occasional plants), and certainly nothing like that even in his dreams, but she'd been gone so fast, he started to doubt that it was real.

Besides, Jess was gone. Last he had heard, she had moved away from LA. Why would she have any reason to come back?

Shaking his head, Nick continued on his journey to find French bread, swiftly reminded that he had a perfectly fine girlfriend (well, fiancée now) at home, waiting for him, who had helped clean up the mess that Jessica Day had left behind. That had been years ago, and he had been so sure that he had moved on. Seeing her should have made him angrier than it did.

After what felt like an eternity, he found the bread that Julia had asked for. He picked up a bag, checking the label. Offhandedly, he wondered why a bakery could charge so much more for something with the word "French" in front of it. It really didn't taste that much different than the good old white bread his Ma had used when he was growing up.

Just as his heart had begun to settle down, he turned around, only to be struck by something moving quite fast.

Or, rather, someone.

A box of cereal fell to the ground, a few omphs directed at the floor, and he soon registered it was a woman, steadying herself away from him. Flustered, Nick took a step back, and for the second time that day, felt his stomach drop.

"Oh, I'm so – "

"Jess?" His voice shook.

She froze at her name. Slowly, she let her eyes travel up to meet his gaze. He bent down to pick up the box, and as he rose, she took a hold of the other side, tucking the box back under her arm. She briefly considered spinning on her heel and leaving like the last time, but there was no way she could avoid him forever.

She just hadn't been ready for this so soon.

"Don't leave," he stated, like he was reading her mind. "Sorry, I just didn't expect to see you here."

She laughed, almost sarcastically. "Imagine my surprise."

"I was just thinking about you earlier," Nick admitted, then after realizing what he said, he winced.

"Oh," Jess replied, awkwardly. "That's… Nice, I suppose."

"No, no! It wasn't bad!" He covered. "Just wondering what happened to you, after… you know…"

"Oh." She avoided his gaze. Yeah, he figured she didn't like to relive that day, either.

"I…" Nick began, not quite willing to let her leave. His tongue was heavy, miserably failing at getting the words out that he had rehearsed so long ago. Jess took a deep breath. Little did he know, she couldn't let him leave, either.

"Would you like to catch up sometime?" She asked abruptly. Her hands were shaking, but Nick didn't notice. He was more interested in her face, absorbing every little detail. Her eyes darted around the area, keenly aware that there were a lot of people around them, clearly annoyed that they were blocking an aisle. "I mean, like, go someplace where it's normal for two people to hold a conversation?"

"Jess I've got…a… thing," he stammered, holding up the flowers. It occurred to him that his shopping basket may have been a better option to hold up.

Jess understood. She wasn't going to lie to herself and say that she was disappointed, but the Jess and Nick ship had sailed, and she knew that was a possibility when she came back to LA. It was time to be an adult about all of this.

"Not like that," she replied firmly. "We just need…." She searched for how to explain it, without actually telling him his life was about to get a whole lot different.

"Closure?" Nick offered, wistfully hopeful.

"You can call it that," Jess nodded, but didn't entirely agree. Closure really wasn't what it would be, but how do you prepare someone for what she was about to do?

Nick drove home in a daze, still not quite able to determine if Jess's sudden reappearance had been a figment of his imagination.

He had a little piece of paper in his pocket, with her phone number scrawled on it, which suggested otherwise. If nothing else, he'd find out for sure tomorrow when they met for dinner. Should Julia come along? Jess didn't make it seem like it was an exclusive thing.

Actually, Jess didn't make it seem like anything at all.

For months after their breakup, Nick had imagined finding her again. He'd figured she would be restored to her full self, sunshine and rainbows and just radiating personality. He had imagined feeling heartbroken, and maybe even attempting to tell her he was at least sorry, like a repeat of Caroline.

He half expected a wedding invite to eventually come, like twisting the knife.

He had never guessed that this long-awaited reunion would have him on the brighter side of that assumption.

There was something off about her, something that had vanished the second that she saw him across the aisle. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but he knew that she'd have to give in and explain it tomorrow.

He arrived home, grabbing the bag of bread and the flowers (the other stuff could wait until morning), and walked up to the door to the duplex he and Julia shared. Opening it and stepping inside, the smell of spaghetti was thick in the air, and he noticed that Julia had even dimmed the lights above their table for added effect.

Julia strode out of the kitchen, still in her fitted skirt and jacket from work.

"Hey! I hope you're hungry!"

His stomach answered that for him. Julia laughed, kissing him lightly on the cheek. Nick handed her the bread and then the flowers, the latter causing her smile to broaden further.

"Nick, you really didn't have to," She answered, clearly not serious about her comment. She pulled one out of the plastic, setting the delicate form in the center of the table. "Let me go put these up and we can eat."

"Sure," Nick sat down. What a change of pace. "Hey, Julia, you'll never guess who – "

She cut him off. "Oh! Did I tell you I found some good wedding magazines at the office? Nothing girly, very practical."

"Um, that's great… I think…" He stammered. She hated it when he did this, so he thought another attempt to change the subject was in order. "No, but really I wanted to tell you – "

She reappeared at the table, holding two plates of spaghetti. "Don't tell me you're second guessing this again."

Clearly, changing the subject had been taken out of context.

"Julia," he argued, "I'm not backing out of anything, I'm trying to tell you –"

She rolled her eyes, but it didn't hide the hurt in her voice. "Come on, Nick, I made you dinner, which is huge for me. Why are you always so defensive about this stuff?"

He sighed, giving in. It was useless to try to argue this one now. I didn't used to be like this, did it? "I'm just tired. We'll talk wedding stuff, later, though, okay?"

Wordlessly, Julia set a plate in front of him. Brushing her side by his chair, the smell of her perfume flooding his senses, she went to take her place across from Nick. It was obvious by that look that he was expected to make the next move – preferably an apology.

"Look, Julia, I'm sorry," he began, reaching across the table to take her hand. "This is all happening really fast, and just let my head catch up, okay? I've never been the guy for change."

"Well," she sighed, her hand forming into his, "I do know. I'm not one either, but it's time, I think. We've both put this off for a long time."

Nick smiled, trying to be sincere. She really was the best thing he could have asked for, given the state that she had taken him in.

"Yeah, but I think we can work through that."

Julia nodded. "At least promise we can tell your family sometime soon? You're not very good at keeping secrets."

"Tell ya what," Nick squeezed her hand, "we can talk after dinner tomorrow. So we can eat in peace tonight. You should come with me, I was trying to tell you earlier that I ran into – "

"Tomorrow night?" Julia prodded. "I was assigned to another custody case at work. The initial meeting is at five, and I know it'll take awhile because the divorce paperwork made it sound pretty ugly."

"Oh, " Nick replied. "After that?"

She grinned. "Yeah, we can do that."

Hours later, after dinner was finished, the dishes long put away, and Julia had retired to bed, Nick picked up his phone and snuck outside. Chilly breezes greeted him, and he pulled his jacket a little tighter. He hit a button on his phone, dialing one of the few numbers he knew by heart.

It rang longer than usual, but Nick credited that to the late hour.

"Hello?" A groggy voice sounded on the other end.

"Schmidt?" Nick replied, pulling the phone closer to his ear. "It's Nick."

"Yes, Nicholas," the voice came back, sarcastically, "I think I got that much."

"Look, sorry to call so late," he began, cut off by Schmidt's loud, dramatic sigh, "but I have to tell you who I ran into today. You're not gonna believe it."

A pause.

"Was it Jess?"

Nick's heart nearly stopped. "Did you see her, too?"

"No," Schmidt answered, "Cece did."

"Cece!" Nick jumped, putting his palm on his forehead. Of course Jess would call her best friend. "Did she find out what happened? Have they been in contact? Do you know what's she's been up to, I mean, she looked really – "

"Nick," Schmidt interrupted. "None of us have heard from her in years. Today was the first time Cece has seen her since she left LA."

"Oh," Nick sighed. "We're doing dinner tomorrow."

There was silence on the end of the line.

"Schmidt?"

"Sorry," he replied, his voice sounding more alert. "I just thought she would want to wait longer than that, that's all."

"So you've talked to her?" Nick felt like his heart was in his stomach. The air became suddenly thick. Why did he care so much about who Jess was talking to, let alone what she was talking about?

"No, I'm hearing all of this from Cece," Schmidt replied hastily. Then, his tone hardened. "Just promise me that you'll take this slow, okay?"

"Schmidt, I'm in a relationship," he affirmed.

He could hear murmuring on the other end. Schmidt was being called back to bed. "Not exactly what I meant. Look, Nick, I - "

"Can I ask you something before you go?" Nick took in a breath, just wanting the honest truth for once. His head was a jumbled mess.

"What?"

"Did you know where she went? Before tonight, at least?"

Schmidt groaned, exactly like every other time Nick had asked this question. "No, I swear I didn't know anything. Neither did Cece. Neither did Winston. Believe me, we would've told you had we known. We didn't want you to be a miserable, crying pathetic excuse of a human." Then, another sigh. "We didn't like seeing you like that."

Nick's heart slowed down only slightly, but it was a start.

"Thanks, man. I'm just glad to finally be getting some kind of closure, you know?"

Silence. Then, almost distantly, "Yeah, I know."

Next chapter's a big one - keep on the lookout!