A/N: I'm trying as hard as I can to continue this story, trust me. But it's simply hard for me to write this story sometimes. Well, read, you've waited long enough. Which I am incredibly sorry about, by the way.
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"Lane," Rory caught up to her friend, as she had been calling her since she spotted her down the street. Lane simply looked forward and didn't speak. She furrowed her brow, not understanding what was wrong. "Lane? Hi…" She flashed a hand in front of her face, but Lane just kept on walking with a pained expression on her face.
"What's wrong?" She mumbled, looking around. Without warning, Lane turned the curb and sped up on her walk. Rory recognized where she was going, so she followed her all the way to Kim's Antiques. Mrs. Kim was standing there, a firm expression playing on her face, suddenly grabbing Lane by the arm and guiding her into the house. "Lane!" She yelled out, but they simply closed the door before she could even open the fence.
Rory sighed and looked at her feet. Suddenly, she saw everyone rush by her, whispering into each other's ears. This made her mad. Was there something she didn't know about? Frustrated, she wrapped her arms around herself and walked down the street a bit faster. But, before she knew it, a hand was clasped over her mouth and she was being pulled into a shadow. She was so surprised, she even forgot to fight it.
She opened her mouth to say something, but when she saw the familiar face over her, she simply stood there, speechless. "Don't talk, okay?" Dean's voice was back to the way she remembered it. Soft and caring.
Rory felt so confused she simply stood there as he let go of her and let him look at her, up and down. Dean ran a hand through his hair. It was different somehow, longer and slightly more imperfect. "Rory, god," His lips were now a thin line. "I haven't been able to talk to you…until now. You haven't come out a lot."
"Dean, I--," She started to form some kind of excuse to leave, but he stopped her with his hand once again.
"I'm sorry. Jesus, am I sorry. Do you know what I did to you? I shoved you, I practically manhandled you."
Practically? Her mind repeated the word over and over in her head.
Dean looked around cautiously. "I don't even know what to say. I just got so mad. Because I loved you, Rory, and I bet anyone who sees you can relate to the feeling. And it felt like you were just throwing everything away, throwing everything we carefully built. It was a relationship, right?"
She doesn't answer.
"And I knew Jess wasn't right for you, it made me frustrated. And I'm sorry, I just wish we can—I'm just sorry, okay? No strings attached."
No strings attached.
Rory just stood there like an idiot. She felt like an idiot. This guy, he had been her love for so long, he had held her hand and made it all better. He had hurt her.
Dean sighed, "I know I'm being stupid thinking you'll forgive me. I'm sorry."
She folded her arms over her chest, looking around to see if anyone was watching like they had been before. They were all looking, suspiciously watching her out of the corner of their eyes.
The girl who was abused. The girl who got dumped by the bad seed. She has no friends. She ended up alone. Alone, alone, alone.
She felt her heart burn up with every whisper they muttered. Rory pursed her lips together, not being able to take it anymore. She closed her eyes tightly and put both her hands on Dean's broad shoulders. She opened her eyes slowly, making sure she noted every movement. He was a lot taller than her, but she closed the gap between his lips and hers with one small move. A dry kiss that he eventually deepened blindly, making her sick to her stomach. But it was something, at least it was something.
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"Pillows," Lorelai searched Luke's closet frantically. "Okay, I think you have officially blown my mind. How can you not have pillows? Okay, so I can understand a remote control for your radio, but a frickin' pillow?" She shook her head. "You do know that pillows have been recently invented by some very sophisticated man, right?"
Luke rolled his eyes, wriggling under all the covers. "The pillows are in the next closet. You have ants in your pants."
"Says the man that can't sit still. What's wrong with you?"
"You have me under house arrest."
Lorelai grabbed a pillow from the closet that Luke pointed out and threw it at him. "The doctor said that you have to be around a calm and warm environment. I'm sorry if I want to follow the doctor's orders. This is a warm and extremely calm environment."
Luke only repeated his sentence. "You have me under house arrest. I can't even move under these covers. You won't even let me go to the bathroom."
She made a defensive face, "All of Jess's hair gel on the floor might have made you fall and hit your head on his CD's and then you would be stuck to the floor because of the gel, and you'd never be able to get up. It'd be just horrible."
"Well, you just thought of everything," He chuckled.
"See how good of a nurse I am?"
He smiled. "All you need is the outfit."
Lorelai walked over to his bed and sat down on the edge of the small bed. "I'm glad you're smiling. I want you to be relaxed." Pause. She looked down, guilty. "I kind of wanted to get away from the house."
"I thought you were trying to make Rory happy again," He said, confused. "You were trying to make it up to her."
"I was. Until me and her got into a fight about Jess. Again! It just annoys me that we spend all our time fighting now. About the same thing, too. It's like I can never leave her alone, I can never let her make her own decisions," She placed her hand on her forehead, exasperated. "It makes me angry."
Luke placed a hand on her's. "Rory is a kid. I can understand why you would want to be her brain. But, Jess, he's leaving…and you win. You win because she can't go after him, she's here—he's there. They are going to be in different places now, and you won't have to deal with it."
"Yeah, yeah," Lorelai said quickly. "So, are you comfortable?"
"Luke!"
Bam. Jess opened the door and ran in the door. "Luke!" He shouted, staring at Luke and Lorelai. "Something happened with Dean. Everyone's gathering in your diner to talk about Rory, apparently. Something about him and her."
Lorelai stood up, alarmed. "Did they say what happened?"
He shrugged, out of breath. "I don't know. Morey saw them on the corner of Kim's Antiques. He said something all jumbled up, and the people are eating it up."
"Um, then, I'll go after her," She bit her lip.
Luke stopped her with his hand, shaking his head. "Jess needs to go with you. If I can't get up, and you have no strength…if something happened—he can do something about it. Just go, both of you."
Jess opened his mouth to protest, but Lorelai was already out the door, and Luke gave him this look that told him to go. He ran after her, she was in such a quick pace you could hardly believe it was Lorelai doing exercise. "Lorelai! Hold on!" He yelled after her, but followed her onto the Kim's street.
They saw Dean walking along the sidewalk, and as soon as Jess saw him, there was nothing left to do. He ran up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and punched him square in the eye. "Dammit. Where is she?" He asked a pained Dean.
Lorelai had a hand over her mouth, staring at them both.
Dean took in a sharp breath and then looked over at Lorelai. "Lorelai, god, nothing happened. I swear! She came up to me—and we talked." As he took care of his eye and looked at Jess with a menacing look, Lorelai walked in the middle of them.
She exhaled softly. "Stop it! Jess, go home! Dean, do not speak!"
"But, Lorelai! I didn't do anything, believe me, I didn't do anything," Dean argued pointlessly.
Suddenly, they heard a small bell. Mrs. Kim was staring at the three of them. Lorelai sighed and faked a smile. "Hey there. I'm sorry if these boys are being disruptive…on your lawn, but, um…"
"Mom!" Rory ran towards them. It seemed like a crowd all of a sudden. "Jess!" He turned his head and saw her running towards him. But when she saw Dean, it was him she went to. "What the hell happened?"
Dean winced in pain, when she touched his face. "He hit me."
Jess rolled his eyes. "What, are we in first grade all of a sudden?"
Rory looked over at Jess, with a confused expression on her face. She looked pained and betrayed. Her eyes suddenly went to Dean, her thumb gracing the eye. "Are you okay?" Dean didn't have a chance to say anything, she simply turned to Jess. "What is wrong with you? You can't leave him alone! Us alone!"
He took a step towards her. "He hurt you once, Rory! How was I going to know that he wasn't going to do it again?"
Lorelai interfered once again. "You guys, stop it! We can't be screaming each other's heads off in public like this. Do you think it's pleasant for people to hear you yelling in the middle of the street? Can you all get over it and leave each other alone?" She yelled.
Mrs. Kim gave them all a dirty look. "Get these unwashed boys off my property or I will get the bat." She made a sharp turn on her heel and slammed the door shut.
Lorelai glanced at Rory and Dean, and then at Jess. "Jess, maybe you should head home to Luke. He wanted to know what was going on."
Rory nodded and let go of Dean, as she didn't look his way as Jess walked away. Lorelai gave Dean a look that said that he should go home also. He simply gave Rory one last look before heading the opposite way that Jess took.
Alone, alone, alone. Maybe it was true.
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A/N: What motivates me to write are your comments. Good or bad. So please keep on reading and reviewing! Thank you all who have so far.