author's note: does anyone even read gilmore girls fanfiction anymore? this is a mess, and probably completely out of character, and i don't think i've got their banter right at all but i had to write it because the idea wouldn't leave me alone. i don't own any of it.

She chooses The Queen Is Dead for them to listen to in the car, and he becomes completely certain then that his feelings toward her are so far from platonic it's pathetic.

"Good album," he says, and she nods.

"One of the best," there is a pause, and she chews on her bottom lip nervously. He makes her nervous. He has always been suspicious of this, but the strange silence that has fallen between them confirms it, and makes him feel sick. Rory sings under her breath – take me back to dear old Blighty – and he struggles to think of anything he can say that will defuse the tension. He is convinced that the coolest, most intelligent person in the world would be flummoxed by Rory Gilmore.

"He's supposed to be kind of an ass, you know," she says, "Morrissey, I mean. Like, pretentious and stuff."

"Writes good songs though," he replies, trying to keep his eyes on the road, "and besides, what makes the music is the actual physical music. It's why his solo stuff's so bad. Without Johnny Marr he's nothing."

"His solo stuff isn't bad!" she protests, and he is reminded once more of why he likes her so much. She's on fire, and he's always been something of a pyromaniac.

"His solo stuff is terrible!" he smirks, and she shakes her head viciously. Othello lies abandoned on the floor of her car.

"You're the One for Me, Fatty? Beethoven Was Deaf? His solo stuff is great!"

"His solo stuff is nothing compared to this," he gestures to the tape player, which is blaring Frankly Mr Shankly. He wonders how much trouble they'd get into if he rolled down the window, woke up all the brain dead suburbanites.

"I'm not saying they're comparable, of course they're not, but you can't say it's all terrible because it's not!"

"Show me a solo Morrissey song as good as Vicar In A Tutu, then we'll talk."

"I will," she promises, and her gaze returns to the long and dark road ahead of them. He could just drive, he realises, keep driving til dawn. They could go anywhere. An idea, a vague idea, about driving to the train station and taking her to New York, forms in his mind. She shifts in her seat, and he wonders whether she knows, whether she can feel it. Whether she is thinking the same thing.

"We're just going to Benny's, right?" she asks, twisting her hands in her lap. He nods, and the thought of kissing her as the sun rises above Brooklyn Bridge drains from his mind, like water going down a plughole.

"Yeah," he pauses, "even if their pie sucks."

"You're a pizza snob," she says, smiling and settling back in her chair (she looks comfortable. He hopes she's comfortable. She's one of the only people in the world he feels completely comfortable with, and it only seems fair that the feeling should flow both ways), "I'm sorry we can't all live in New York City with the oldest and best pizzerias in America."

"You're a coffee snob, so I guess that makes us even," he retorts, and she laughs. He wonders if Dean makes her laugh. If Dean ever considered running away with her to New York, even if it was just for a second. Probably not. Dean is reliable, and cares about Rory's education (and his own education – but Jess shakes that thought from his head as quickly as it comes) and Dean is boring.

"Does Dean like The Smiths?" he asks, and Rory gives him a look that makes his stomach churn horribly.

"He likes what I've shown him, yes," she replies primly, but he knows she's lying. He can see them in his head, Dean perched on the end of her bed, Rory standing by the CD player, hands clasped like she's praying, telling him that this is a very important album. He could see her pressing play, Morrissey's dulcet tones filling her room, and Dean's confusion written all over his face.

"I'm sure he has," Jess replies in a low voice, "I turn off here for Benny's, right?"

He knows exactly where the turn off to the restaurant is, but the thought of Dean in Rory's room makes him need a cigarette in the worst possible way, and so he has to change the subject.

She nods. "My mom's going to kill me," she says quietly, and he shakes his head. He is terrible at comforting her. He knows this because the sad half smile on her face stays there, even when he says "what she doesn't know won't hurt her."

"I said we'd come out for ice cream, and here we are on the way to Hartford," she groans, "you haven't done any studying, if you fail that test Luke'll be so upset – God, I'm an idiot."

"Hey, if I fail that test it won't be your fault, it'll be mine," he points out, but still she does not smile. "Don't worry about it."

"I can't help it, I'm a worrier," she keeps twisting her fingers together, and then untwisting them, and it's making him dizzy, "it's what I do."

"Well stop," he says, "don't worry about me or my test, it's not – I'm not – worth it. Don't worry," Rory blows her lips out as the florescent lights of the pizza place glare in front of them, "don't worry," he says again, "at least just for tonight. Don't worry."

"I'm not," she replies steadily, "I'll try not to," he raises his eyebrows, "I'm not!" she exclaims. He stops the car.

"You want coffee, right?" he asks, half-teasing.

"Actually no," Rory replies, getting out of the car, "I think I'll have a soda."

"There's too much caffeine in your bloodstream-"

"And a lack of real spice in your life – I know," she grins, and leans against the bonnet of the car whilst he gets out, "I've been told before."

"Better lyrics than anything on Your Arsenal," he says. His cigarettes feel like they're burning a hole in his pocket. He reaches for them, and Rory rolls her eyes.

"Fine, kill yourself," she sighs, "I'll go in and order." And then, as she's walking away, over her shoulder, "You owe me."

"You have no idea how much," he mumbles to himself, and lights a cigarette.

"I think it's sad," she says slowly, as the car pulls out of the restaurant (not that you can really call it that – he thinks that 'shit hole' is a far more appropriate phrase to use. She wouldn't appreciate his use of language though, and so he says nothing) "Desdemona and Othello. There was no trust there at all. And trust is the most important thing in a relationship."

"You're the expert," he puts his hand on the back of her head rest, because it means he can see behind him more easily, and avoid a crash. He realises, due to the look on her face, that they have never been this close before. If he reached over just a little further, his hand would be on her face, her hair entwined with his fingers.

"There's nothing coming," she tells him very quietly, and his hand falls to his side.

"Don't you think it's sad?" Rory asks, "About Desdemona and Othello?"

"The test's not going to be on whether it's sad or not, it'll be about form and structure and language and all that crap."

"I'm not asking you for the test, I'm asking you as a person."

He says nothing in response. Out of the corner his eye he sees her smile sadly at him, and a little bit of his heart breaks.

"Jess," Rory says, "don't you think it's sad?"

"Romeo and Juliet's sadder," he glances over at her, but her face is unreadable.

"That was the adults' fault though," she draws her knees up to her chin, and Vicar In A Tutu starts on the tape player, "I think Othello and Desdemona are sadder because it was inevitable, really. When you think about it, I mean. He was always going to be super jealous and Iago was always going to play on that."

"But don't you think that the fact that Romeo and Juliet could've had a chance makes it even more tragic?" He isn't sure whether he's still talking about Shakespeare. "If it hadn't been for external circumstances."

"I guess they're different types of tragedy," is her diplomatic response. The sky is littered with stars, and it makes her head spin.

"No, they're not – if it's tragic, it's tragic. Sad things are sad, there's no scale of sadness. Although," he is teasing her now, and it is a comfort to him that she smiles, "knowing you, you probably have some kind of chart for it."

"Favourite-shirt-is-dirty sad, going up to My-So-Called-Life-was-cancelled sad. My mom and I devised it when I was ten."

"Colour coded?"

"Of course."

He fights the urge to sing, because she is sat in a car, alone, with him, and she looks happy. He has made her happy. He's never really made anyone happy before.

"Ooh, I love this song!" Rory declares as a familiar drum beat starts, one that still gets Jess in his bones, no matter how many times he's heard it. She grins at him, and it's like the sun comes out, and he feels a little warmer inside.

"Feel free to sing if you want," he says dryly, and she turns up the tape player. Driving in your car, I never, never want to go home, because I haven't got one, any more.

"I'll take you up on that offer when it gets the chorus."

"Great chorus," he notes, and she nods.

"Great song! It's a great song! Sad, though."

"Jeez, Gilmore, what is with you tonight?" he can understand where she's coming from though – some nights are just full of sad things.

"I'm just – you ever feel melancholy? Like, there's no reason for it but you just do?"

He does not reply, and she thinks she gets it. Whatever it is, she gets it.

"Thanks," he says, after an age, "and if I fail the test I'll tell Luke it's all my fault. Don't worry."

She smiles gratefully at him, and it is fitting that it is at that point that Morrissey sings 'and if a double decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side, is such a heavenly way to die'. He cannot take his eyes off her.

"You're not going to fail that test," she promises him, and meets his gaze. Jess wonders if the fancy school she goes to ever told her about this kind of chemistry. Probably not.

"And if a ten tonne truck," she sings quietly, "kills the both of us, to die by your si- Jess, what-"

Something has run out in front of them, and he swerves to avoid it. She screams, and it rings in his ears as the wheel spins violently and there is a sickening thud.

He has crashed her car, into a tree, or a telephone pole, or something.

She coughs, a small and fragile noise that feels like someone kicking him in the stomach. "Jess…"

"Don't move." He can't see her, because it is dark and dusty. It takes him very little time to realise that he is not hurt. The car, however, is irreversibly damaged.

"Don't move," he says again, "I'll come round."

He is shaking, but somehow, through some kind of miracle, he opens the car door and staggers over to the other side, where she is showered in broken glass. Her wrist lies on the crushed dashboard, purple and bruised.

"I think it's sprained…" she begins to say, but he shakes his head. It is broken, he has broken her. Or at least, he was responsible for the chain of events that led to the breaking of her wrist, and he knows that this is another thing that he will never forgive himself for.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, and her eyes fill with tears.

"Fitting," she says, "with the song and all. Only, we're not dead. So maybe it's not fitting at all. At least I was wearing a seatbelt. Could've gone through the windscreen. Can you imagine?"

He doesn't want to. He is surprised that her throat has not been slit by the broken glass she is covered in. "Don't move," he repeats for the third time, and pulls the door open. She holds her breath as he picks the glass out of her hair, from where it clings to her sweater. She imagines – and then immediately berates herself, because she has a boyfriend, dammit – that kissing him would be a less intimate experience than this. When he is done, he rests his hand on her knee, and mutters again "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she soothes him, but they both know this is a lie. There's nothing okay about it.

"I should call an ambulance or something," she muses, attempting to retrieve her cell phone from the pocket of her jacket with her uninjured hand.

"Do you want me to-?" she shakes her head.

"No, it's okay. I can do it. Just…don't go anywhere. Please?"

He nods, and crouches beside her. He has not moved his hand from her knee, and even though he knows it's breaking a thousand of their unspoken rules, he does not want to.

"Hello, can I have an ambulance please?" She begins to cry, and the urge to kiss her becomes so great it is nearly unbearable.

"Rory," he says in a low voice, "I'll do it."

She hands him the phone wordlessly, and he tells the cool, calm voice on the other end of the line exactly where they are, and the extent of Rory's injuries. "It's broken," he says, "Her wrist is broken."

"We're on our way, sir."

"You know," Rory says conversationally as he puts the phone down, "if my mom wasn't going to kill you before, she definitely is now."

"I don't blame her," he sighs, and is surprised when she reaches out her uninjured hand to hold his, the one that is resting on her knee.

"Hey," she whispers, "Where d'you think this is on the scale?"

"My So Called Life got cancelled," he says, "Worse than that, even."

"A whole new scale," Rory laughs shakily. He nods, and she squeezes his hand.

"It's okay," she lies again, "It'll be okay."

There is a sudden whirring from behind her, one that makes both of them jump, and the tape player begins to play in a strangled, broken way. There is a light and it never goes out.

She closes her eyes, and the way she is illuminated by the moonlight makes him realise that he finally understands what Morrissey means.

There is a light, and it never goes out.