A/N: Thanks for your reviews! This chapter is pretty heavy, guys. I guess I was in a sad mindset today, but this just kinda poured out of me. I was going to scrap it, but I'm going for realism with this story, and sadness is just a part of life. Anyhow...read on, and please let me know what you think.

Eight and a Half

By Imagine Backstory

Chapter Eleven – The Depression

Rory

By the beginning of September, three and a half weeks after my return from New York, everything seemed to be back to normal. I was swamped at work, and though my article for the Times had been a complete hit and drawn thousands of people to the theatre, I hadn't heard back from Tucker since it had been published. Part of me had been hoping that that article would open up new opportunities, but it didn't seem to be the case. Regardless, the New Haven Register kept me busy, with a new season starting at the Shubert and the local ballet company having their summer's end showcase. I barely saw James at all—he was working as a trainee stage manager for the Shubert's production of Annie. I worked nine-to-five during the day, and he worked five till late. Polar opposites. I really only saw him when he crawled into bed and promptly fell asleep every night.

Still, I was feeling a lot better about life in general. I was back at work, it was keeping me busy—and distracted—and James seemed to be doing okay considering the circumstances. He seemed more himself, anyway, the sense of humour returning day by day as the healing process began. He Skyped with his father and brothers every weekend, and I usually left him alone for those conversations, figuring it was still necessary family bonding time they needed to catch up on. Between work and James I barely had time to think about my little trip to New York at all, or the people therein involved.

The Friday after labour day, James and I decided to take a weekend trip to Stars Hollow. I hadn't talked to Lorelai in far too long, and both of us fancied some time away from our shoebox condo and work stresses. We were both able to get the time off, so we took advantage. Besides—where else would we go?

I was barely through the door when my legs were attacked by a toddling, diaper-clad Emerson, his squeals filling me with joy as I lifted him for a cuddle. My baby brother was the cutest thing I ever did see—and he totally had the Gilmore eyes. "Hi, buddy," I cooed, rubbing his nose with my own and smiling. "I missed you."

He got shy, then, and buried his face in my shoulder. I laughed, holding him tightly as I kicked my shoes off. Lorelai came around the corner and her face broke into a huge smile when she saw her children locked in an embrace. "He sure does love you, kid," she said, stepping forward to kiss my cheek. "How are you?"

"I'm good," I replied, passing Lorelai the huge takeout bags James and I had picked up on the way over. "Hungry, tired, but good."

Lorelai gave James a long, warm hug, and kept him at arms' length when she pulled back. "And how are you doing?" she asked knowingly with a sympathetic smile.

He returned the affectionate smile and began removing his coat. "Hangin' in there," he replied. He helped me out of my coat after hanging up his own, manoevering around Emerson as he did so.

Luke came downstairs as we made our way into the living room, enveloping me in a bear hug before shaking James' hand firmly, reaching out to pat him on the back for good measure. "Welcome back," Luke grunted, a small smile on his face. James simply nodded knowingly in response.

The four of us lounged around in the living room chatting lightly for awhile, with Emerson taking turns in each person's lap. Finally, he curled up in my arms and was soon sound aseep, his petal-perfect eyelids shifting as dreams played out behind his closed eyes. "I'll take him up," I whispered when Lorelai moved to take him from me. She smiled appreciatively.

Luke and Lorelai had been prepping my old room to be Emerson's nursery eventually, but his birth complications and unsettled sleeping patterns kept him up in their room longer than expected. Emerson had been a bit of a surprise; Lorelai had been forty-three when she had him, and though my mother was forever young at heart, her body hadn't handled the late pregnancy too well. As I carried him upstairs, breathing in the wonderful scent of baby on his soft scalp, I reminded myself what a miracle he truly was, and was overwhelmed with gratitude that he and Lorelai had made it through a rough start and were healthy and happy. The dark and endless days at the hospital when he was first born had been heartbreaking and scary—but now all was well, if not for Luke and Lorelai's occasionally disturbed sleep.

I felt the familiar pang as I set the eighteen-month-old down in his crib, gently brushing a stray, dark curl across his forehead. I often got this odd feeling when I was around Emerson, or any baby or child for that matter. I supposed it was purely primal maternal instinct kicking in—my body was telling me that my biological clock was ticking, that my prime baby-making time was now. I was nearing thirty, after all, but even still, I didn't feel quite ready to take that step. I couldn't even get married, let alone bring a child into the world.

I swallowed a lump in my throat and curled up on the rocking chair in the corner, listening to Emerson's soft breathing and the white-noise maker playing gentle waves in the background. Finally, sitting there in the stillness and peace of my family's bedroom, I let the exhaustion from the past few weeks wash over me and dozed off, during which time I allowed myself to think of Jess.

I thought about his eyes, his crooked smile, the way he bit his bottom lip when he was thinking. His expressive eyebrows betraying any emotion he let slip onto his face. His long, thick eyelashes framing deep secrets. The tautness of his arms, the smooth skin of his chest and the ripple of muscle on his abdomen. The way he smelled like cigarettes and peppermint, as if he was constantly smoking and then chewing gum in an attempt to cover it up; he'd always smelled that way, as long as I'd known him. His lovely hands, touching me gently, or roughly. The glimpse of passion on his face whenever he talked about literature or art of any kind. His thought process—strange as it was to me—how he could so eloquently turn thoughts into words, when he wanted to.

You were the one that got away, he'd said. I was beginning to realize that maybe he was that for me, too, and what a terrible tragedy that was. I had never received closure with Jess, there was always that question of what if. He had popped in and out of my life so quickly over the years, and I wished now, as I so often did, that we had kept in touch all this time, at least a little bit, so that I could have had a glimpse at how he had grown into the man I barely recognized today. Of course, he was still Jess—that would never change—but his maturity and his overall nature had changed completely. He was dedicated and knew what he wanted. He was happy. Who was I to come along and destroy everything he had worked for?

I was crying when Lorelai gently shook me out of my half-dream; my eyes were sticky with unshed tears. She pulled me to her and just held me, stroking my hair, as I finally faced the emotions I'd so hoped I'd buried.

Despite my little nap, I lay in bed awake for quite some time that night, listening to James' steady breathing as he slept soundly on the trundle bed next to me. I reached out to gently run my fingers through his curls, watching them bounce back as I released them. Since he'd come home we hadn't once discussed our not-wedding or made any sort of plan to reschedule. The elephant in the room had gone unaddressed for weeks. For the first time since dating James, I felt as though our relationship had a time limit. The loss of his mother, the cancellation of the wedding, my disastrous trip to New York—all seemed to have put a strain on us that neither of us was in the right mind to discuss. I wondered if we ever would be, or if we would just fake it for awhile until we eventually drifted so far apart we could not longer see each-other.

I was finally drifting off when my phone lit up and buzzed an incoming call. Startled, I reached for it, stunned to find that it was nearly five in the morning. The caller ID made my heart sink. "Jess?"

"Rory, um." His voice broke and he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry—to call so late. Or, early, I should say."

"What's going on?" I whispered, carefully sliding out of bed and tiptoeing into the kitchen so as not to disturb James. I let myself out onto the back porch, into the utter stillness of Stars Hollow early in the morning.

He breathed for a few moments, and I suddenly wondered if he was choking back tears. He was making small gasping noises on the other end of the line. Finally, he said, quietly, "Do you ever get the feeling like you're attracted to people who are broken, because deep down you think you can fix them?"

I exhaled slowly, trying to figure out where he was going with this. "Yeah, Jess," I replied, looking down at my toes. "I know the feeling."

"But the thing is," he continued, his voice inherently sad, "people who are broken—that broken—just can't be fixed sometimes. So...where does that leave...us? We who take care of these destroyed individuals, we who destroy ourselves in the process...do we leave, save ourselves, because it's hopeless, and forever be that asshole who left someone who clearly needed help? Or do we stay with them and just hope that one day, they'll get better?" He was definitely crying now. Every few words his voice broke into a sob.

I didn't know what to say. "Jess..." I trailed off, biting my lip. "You gonna tell me what happened?" When he didn't answer, I prompted further. "Is it Nora?" He sniffled. Worry pricked the hair on my arms into a standing position. "Jess? Talk to me. I'm here."

He just cried into the receiver, and I listened to him. Maybe he just needed someone to listen to him cry. Lorelai had done that for me earlier this very evening. Sometimes you just need an audience for your sorrow.

I realized then that I had never seen Jess Mariano cry. Not in the ten years I'd known him. Even when I had shut him down at Yale, when he had come with the intention of whisking me away, though his voice had crackled with emotion, he hadn't shed a tear. Not in front of me, anyway. So hearing him now, like this, so distraught, I knew something serious had to have happened.

As his sobs receded, I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. When I could no longer hear anything but his shaky breathing, I said gently, "You alright?"

I could practically hear him nodding. "Thanks, Rory," he whispered.

"Anytime."

He hung up.

Jess

It had been our worst fight yet. Never before had we let loose on each-other like this; Nora standing her ground in the kitchen, screaming at me as I stood on the opposite end of the apartment, knuckles white on the back of the couch, screaming right back at her. It got to the point where I couldn't even remember what we had initially been fighting about—it just turned into a huge rehash of every little argument we had ever had, all suddenly exploding at once. I brought up all the nights I'd had to rescue her drunk and or high ass from some club on the island, all the times I had found her in some guy's lap with her tongue down his throat; she brought up my recent depressive state, my lack of inspiration for writing material, my pretty much non-existant libido, and Rory. Always Rory, Rory, Rory. When I heard the accusation in her tone I lost it, and she lost it right back, in turn.

It only ended when she stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her with such force that pictures fell off the walls, shattering glass all over the floor. I had neighbours come over and ask if everything was okay. Imagine my humiliation.

At that point I was so wiped I had definitely dozed off on the couch. I woke with a start to the sound of my phone ringing. It was half past three in the morning and it was as quiet as New York could ever be. Even Brooklyn, which was far enough away from Manhattan, never really went to sleep.

Groaning, I sat up and stretched out the awful kink in my neck, then reached for my phone. Seeing Nora's number flash on the screen, I glanced around, my heart sinking when I realized that it was three-thirty in the morning and she still wasn't home.

"Nora?" I asked as I pressed my phone to my ear.

"Uh, hey," said a male voice rather hesitantly. Loud music warped his words, and I could hear what sounded like a room full of people yelling in the background. "Is this Jess?"

I stiffened. "What's going on? Who is this?" I asked, this situation suddenly seeming all too familiar.

"It's Matt, I'm a friend of Nora's. You gotta come get her, man. She passed out and no one has any idea where she lives."

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe in, breathe out. Not this. Please, not this again. It had been months. A year, even, since I'd received a call like this. "Is she safe?" I demanded, though I managed to keep my voice relatively calm. My fist was flexing on instinct, ready to destroy, as if it had retained muscle memory from all those nights I'd had to go pick Nora up from some shithole in Manhattan.

Matt must have taken the phone away from his ear momentarily; I could hear him talking to someone as the background noise faded a bit. The voices were echoing and figured he was in a bathroom. I distinctly heard someone retching and pressed my fist to my lips, a gross shudder passing through my body. "Hold her hair," Matt told someone urgently. I couldn't make out the reply back. Matt's voice came back into the receiver. "I think she's greened out, dude."

Fuck. "Where are you?"

As Matt garbled the address to me I was already pulling my shoes on and snatching my wallet off the coffee table. I found one of Nora's hair elastics and slid it around my wrist, just in case. When he had finished, I snapped a quick "Thanks" before hanging up and tearing out of the apartment.

It was a goddamn industrial loft party. Hipsters everywhere. Figures.

As I pushed roughly through the throngs of people, my blood began to boil. I tried to keep calm; I just wanted to see her. I just wanted to know she was safe. The rest—the fury, the worry, the disappointment—could come later, when she wasn't in danger, when she wasn't wrapped around a toilet in some stranger's bathroom. I thanked my lucky stars that over the years I had become good at keeping my temper in check in the moment. I would blow up later, but for now, I was in control, albeit worried fucking sick.

A tall guy with a man-bun was leaning awkwardly beside a closed door, his eyes darting around nervously. When he saw me barrelling towards him he pushed off the wall and shoved his hands into his shorts' pockets. "You Jess?" he asked as I approached him.

He could barely be over the legal drinking age. "Where is she?" I snapped, my jaw twitching.

Wordlessly, he pushed the door open just enough for us both to squeeze through.

No matter how many times I had seen something similar to what I saw then, it still managed to rip my heart out every single time.

Nora was on all fours in the bath tub, whimpering between bouts of vomit. A girl I didn't recognize was sitting on the edge of the tub, holding Nora' hair in his fist, her narrow face pinched with what I guessed must have been concern, though I noticed her pupils were dilated as fuck. The whole place reeked of pot, and man-bun guy, who I assumed was Matt, lit a joint as he stepped into the bathroom behind me. I didn't miss the lines of white powder on the back of the toilet, either.

I knelt next to the tub and took Nora's hair from the girl, telling her to fuck off with my eyes. She did so, following Matt out of the room. "Jess?" Nora groaned, her voice like sandpaper. She kept her head down, but tears were dripping from her eyes into the mess in the tub below her.

"I'm here, honey," I replied, keeping my voice low and soothing.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, and heaved again.

God, it had been years since Nora greened out. She had given up pot completely after the last time, after vomiting uncontrollably for a good three hours. If this time was anything like that, we were going to be in this bathroom for a very long while.

I gathered Nora's thick hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and secured it with the elastic I had put around my wrist. When she apologized again, I just shushed her gently and stroked her head rhythmically to soothe her. This went on and on—forever it seemed—until finally, her body stopped convulsing.

"Hang on, baby," I whispered, and I reached to unzip her dress, carefully tugging it up and over her head. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, silent tears rolling down her face. I folded the dress into a plastic bag Matt must have brought around at some point, and then reached to turn the shower on. Nora whimpered as the cold water hit her, and I stood to adjust the temperature and aim the stream at the mess she had made, rinsing it all away down the drain before turning the spray back on her. Locking the bathroom door, I took off my clothes and stepped into the tub behind her, sitting down and pulling her back into my body, holding her against my chest as the warm water soaked us both through. Her sobs reverberated off the walls, and with each one I just held her tighter.

Her fingers gripped my arm as she seemed to come into some form of consciousness, twisting her body around so she could look up at me. I cupped her face with my hand and kissed her forehead as her lips moved against my sternum. "Where did you go?" she asked, the first part coming out as a mere whine. She watched intently as a bead of water tumbled in a rivulet down my breast plate.

Somehow, I knew she was talking about that night at the theatre. The night we had been fighting about, I remembered. "I'm so sorry, Nora," I murmured. As I held onto her quivering body, my lips pressed firmly to her hair, I let the guilt wrack through me, every fibre of my being viciously telling me that this was all my fault.

It was almost five in the morning by the time I helped Nora out of the cab and up to our loft. Light was barely touching the sky, and really the only cars around were taxis. We were both silent as we got in, and I practically carried Nora up the stairs to our bedroom. She was still pretty out of it, so I helped her undress and get into her pyjamas, and tucked her into bed. She was out before her head hit the pillow.

Cocaine. She had done it before, but never in combination with pot and alcohol. I was surprised I hadn't received a call from the hospital tonight, and wondered briefly if I should take her in tomorrow, just to make sure she was okay.

I got her a glass of water and took it up to her, along with the garbage bin from the kitchen in case her body needed to expel again. I sat on the edge of the bed and gently stroked her hair for a bit, just watching her sleep. I was getting a pounding headache from frowning so long, something I had been experiencing almost daily since Rory left.

I wandered back downstairs and paced the apartment, running my hands over my hair. I was far too restless to try and go back to sleep. My head was pounding, and I knew it was probably related to my sinuses now as I fought back tears.

Finally, as I stood at my windows and watched the very first rays of sun peek out from amongst the cluster of buildings before me, the first wave of tears hit me. As sobs overtook my body, I pulled out my cellphone, and called Rory.

A/N: Told you it was heavy. Next chapter will be more fluffy, I promise. PLEASE review! They are more addicting than coffee!