A/N: For the past week or so, I've been trying to scribble down an update for my Twilight-fic, Prima Bellarina. Unfortunately, it hasn't gone too well. Everytime I sit down and try to write, it all comes out Gilmore. This is how Catalyst came to be. I sat down, started jotting, and my mind started thinking what if Rory had gone with Jess that night at Yale. I have read a couple of stories where she says yes, but my mind still needed to set down that particular what if-scenario in words. This is a two-parter, and I've got part two ready. I'll do some last minute editing tomorrow and then post it. Until then, enjoy chapter one. Title based on the song "Catalyst" by the excruciatingly talented Anna Nalick.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls, and I am not making any money off of this.

Chapter one: Yes

And you'd be inclined to be mine for the taking
and part of this terrible mess that I'm making
But you, you're the catalyst

- Anna Nalick

The world can change in three letters, one syllable, shakily breathed out in a dark room. Life spins around in neat, concentric circles until it happens, an unscheduled pirouette of impulsivity. Her no's were running out, and Jess's desperate voice had just made it so easy to say yes. The atmosphere in the room shifted, as if someone had slammed on some imaginary breaks somewhere. Jess's frantic expression turned blank, and Rory's aggravation evaporated. Once again, her mind had made its decision before her body had had time to react. Jess waited quietly, anticipating her instant regret and the inevitable "Leave me alone".

It never came.

"You'd really come with me?" he asked, watching her reaction closely.

She sighed, looking around the almost empty room before settling on him.

"I should have followed you when you went to California," she uttered, then inclined her head, closing her eyes for a few seconds. "Okay, that's maybe a little bit insane, even for me. The point is, I shouldn't have let go of you as easily as I did." She opened her eyes and glanced at him. "I don't want to make the same mistake again.

"What about Dean?" Jess couldn't help but sneer Dean's name.

"Dean..." Rory bit her lip.

Dean was a virtual mine field, even on the best of days, and if she didn't tread lightly, this could all blow up in her face. How little could she tell Jess without still saying too much? Dean was, in some aspects a reason as to why she'd said yes, she realized. "I mean, just look at what has happened to me lately..." Rory thought to herself. She was well on the way of becoming the "other woman", she had gone on a date with a guy her grandma set her up with, gotten stranded at a bar from which she was picked up by her high school ex-boyfriend. Her life been a chaos of concentric mess-ups lately.

"It's not Dean I'm saying yes to, is it?" Rory replied, opting for avoiding the subject of her involvement with Dean altogether.

To her relief, Jess accepted her answer. At least she interpreted his silence as acceptance. When he tentatively reached out his hand for her to take, she knew this was happening. She took it, surprised by the instant feeling of belonging that spread through her body. She looked over her shoulder. Three boxes. Three lonely boxes was all that was left now, everything else was packed away in her car, Dean waiting by it. Suddenly, Rory couldn't remember what was left in the boxes, but something told her to bring them along for the ride. She chucked one at Jess, and took the remaining two herself, her purse balancing dangerously on top.

They snuck out, locking the door behind them. Sneaking past Dean turned out to be much easier than expected. He wasn't waiting by the car anymore. Rory took it as another sight that this was meant to be. Together, they put the boxes in the trunk, and Jess revved up the engine. They both laughed at the anguished sounds the Rambler Ambassador made as they took off.

They raced down roads, fully content with not knowing where they were headed. The freedom was liberating, nothing keeping them to or from something. It was bliss, sleeping huddled together in the backseat of the crappy car with her belongings still packed in boxes. The first week held the same amount of excitement to Rory as a good book she read for the first time. It was new, fresh, unconventional at times, and she readily overlooked any negative sides because the good parts just had to come soon.

To Jess, running was running. He had long ago learned to separate facts from fiction. He let Rory keep her little delusions; this was something she had to destroy on her own, because only then would she see the truth behind her fantasies.

At times their reckless run seemed certifiably nuts. Who would voluntarily chose this... lifestyle, and their venture was fast becoming one. Home lost its meaning, family became an equally vague expression. After the first fifty frantic calls from Lorelai when Dean couldn't find her and she didn't return on her own, Rory sent Lorelai a text, begging her mother not to call unless it was a matter of life and death. Since then, she had talked to Lorelai all of five times on the phone, four of them only because Lorelai had called from someone else's phone. After the last call, she switched off her phone, and didn't switch it on until a week later to show she meant business. She ignored calls from her grandmother. Emily would never understand, could never understand. Emily had never had a Jess in her life, she was satisfied with the life she lived.

Instead, she left a trail of postcards in their wake. Not that she ever signed them "Rory and Jess". After the first five ones, she didn't even bother signing her name at the bottom, just a simple "I'm fine. Don't call". Nevertheless, she dutifully wrote from every new town, trying to explain, and apologize. When that didn't work, she just relayed stories from places they'd been. She never left a return address. Over time, however, her postcards grew more and more succinct, her words became plain and impersonal. No more stories, apologies or explanations. Just bland words on bland cards.

Other times, it all made sense. They were where they were for a reason; The Reason. So broken, both of them, dysfunctional and detached, living for whatever they could find beyond the horizon. They were there, they were now, they were every epic couple and individual ever depicted in the great art of literature. Upon entering a new town, they left behind Rory and Jess, and became their favorite characters for the entire stay, picking up Rory and Jess as they left. She played a convincing Dominique in Raleigh, while he (not too surprisingly) was the perfect Holden Caulfield in Kansas City.

Her three boxes of random stuff finally came in handy, when they stopped at a flea market somewhere in Louisiana. Rory had snickered as she picked out things they could get a good bargain for. Emily would so not approve. A nice woman with bright red hair paid 5 bucks for the bracelet Dean had made for her. Rory had no idea how the bracelet had made its way to Yale in the first place, but all things considered, it felt good to get rid of it. To her doubting mind, this was another sign. This was meant to be.

Utopia can only last for so long. The straight road that led them into the sundown became smaller, bumpier, and she started sleeping in the passenger seat, while Jess took the backseat. Rory missed home, but hated the thought of going back. July was slowly slipping away, and their trip still didn't seem to have no destination. Anything that was more than 100 miles away from the Connecticut stateline was fair game. At times the aimlessness felt natural, the destination was never the important thing, it was the two of them. Other times... she wanted nothing more than a goal for the day, something to take away the edge and confirm that they were actually travelling, not blindly running away from something.

They fought, vehemently, and she frequently slammed doors shut, cursing Jess for dragging her away from her life. He yelled at her to go home if that's what she wanted. So she did. She began walking, not knowing if she was even going in the right direction, because Jess had refused to buy a map in Ohio. It was endearing, but she kept the little anecdote about Lorelai's refusal to look at a map when they ran away from her wedding to Max, to herself.

She walked, each step growing heavier with regret. But turning around had never been her kind of thing. Quitting was not in the Rory Gilmore internal lexicon. At least not most of the time. Maybe she should go home, what good had this done her? Jess was clearly just as temperamental and geographically wayward as ever. As she walked, she thought about whether or not she had actually believed him when he told her that he had changed, or if she ran away just because of the desperation in his voice, the underlying need for the two of them to be together, for however short a while it might be.

Jess picked her up half a mile later, and everything was fine for another 100 miles. It seemed to be their limit for how much time they could spend with each other before they needed to blow off steam. Hurried kisses in the backseat only did so much. As far as patterns go, this was one they both felt comfortable with. It was safe, it was predictably unpredictable, and they could move on.

Other times, they just broke. Jess would fight against some unnamed evil in his dreams, he would wake up screaming and only lie down when she stopped begging him to tell her what was wrong. He would let her run her fingers through his hair, and say everything would be okay. They both knew she lied. Neither of them cared.

They turned homeward after a stint in Philadelphia, or rather, Rory turned homeward. It was her turn to fall apart. She got the Call. Sookie told her in hushed tones that Richard had passed away from another heart attack. Lorelai wouldn't leave the house, Emily would not speak to anyone. Rory had to grab hold of the table she was sitting at so her world wouldn't crumble. But it did.

She broke down that night, and it was Jess's turn to soothe her, and feed her lies about the world getting better. She packed up the few belongings she had next morning and left for home. She left behind Jess and the nice little impasse they had had. It had been nice while it lasted, but it had only been an impasse. There was no higher meaning or purpose to the Great American Roadtrip, just a bunch of fantasies to hide behind. Truth, reality, life... One or the other, or maybe all three, would catch up to you.

Her entire body was a jittery mess as she took the train home, spending her last money on a bus ticket to Stars Hollow from Hartford. The bus driver recognized her from her Chilton days. Time had stood still in that particular bus, or so it seemed. She wondered if that would be the case with Stars Hollow.

When she got off the bus and carefully looked around, she found that her little hometown looked ordinary enough, but its people looked at her differently. Rory couldn't decide if they had changed, or if it was her. The whispers of the gossip mill followed her all the way to the Dragonfly, where they were muted into a silence that was almost electrical. Michel was as unhelpful as always. Sookie said Lorelai had not been to work since she got the news.

With an ever-growing unease, Rory took the backroads home, avoiding the open streets and the wary eyes. When she emerged from the shrubbery at the Crap Shack she gasped. The yard had not been tended to for weeks, maybe months. Not that it had been a wonder before she left, but at least then, the lawn got mowed. Inside, the house smelled of multiple failed culinary experiments and old take out. No Lorelai in sight. The door to Rory's room was shut, plastered with her postcards, tacked to the door in chronological order. She set down her bag in the livingroom, and quietly ascended the stairs. She cringed with each squeak, and half-expected her mother to come running everytime, but no one came.

Upstairs, the door to Lorelai's room was slightly ajar. No sound came from inside the room, and at first, Rory thought that maybe her mother was sleeping, but if that was the case, there would be telltale sounds: the bed creaking, Lorelai's light snores. Fear gripped Rory. Was Lorelai dead? No longer caring about the noises she made, she hurried to the door and swung it open with force, holding her breath all the while.

Lorelai was not dead, not in the way Rory had feared. Her mother lay in bed, curled up under blankets, clutching something in her hand. The eyes were vacant, they hardly even registered Rory entering.

"Mom..?" Rory said, her voice quivering.

No answer, but the eyes quickly darted to her and fixed on her.

"Mom, I'm... I'm home."

A/N: Next chapter will be from Lorelai's POV (mostly...). Until then, leave a review pretty please..!