Title- Untitled Playlist
Author- Kàra
Rating- K+ (for now. I'll give warning if rating changes)
Summary- AU Lit, post-Balalaikas. Rory accepts Logan's ride home and he has the kahones to break up in person. Two weeks later, she finds a mix CD of mysterious origins that forces her to reflect on the man who helped her turn her life around...

A/N- I've actually created Jess' playlist, and there will be a link posted to my profile once I upload Ch.2. It doesn't really match Jess' musical taste as well as I would like, because to express the necessary sentiments I had to branch out a little. But I did keep it as close as possible while still saying everything he wanted to.

1. Volume Control

"Confusion in her eyes that says it all,
She's lost control,
And she's clinging to the nearest passerby,
She's lost control..."

-Joy Division

She stared at Jess' retreating back, and it cut her way down deep. This was a sight she was too familiar with, and now it was a double hurt. There was an echo of remembered pain, and layered on top of it was this fresh hurt of having to watch him walk away. Again. And then suddenly, too suddenly for her to realize he had stopped, he had turned around to face him again. "Happy birthday, by the way," he said. "Wasn't that a couple weeks ago? Your birthday?" His tone was different from his emotional outburst before, softer and gentler, and there was something in his eyes that terrified her with its sweetness.

Rory nodded, struck wordless by this unexpected break in pattern. This time, he wasn't walking away without a word. He had intended the comment to be a softening of his departure, and a reassurance that he meant his statement- they would catch up at a better time. She understood it, and she suspected that he knew she understood.

He gave her a sad little smile before turning to leave, and even with the friendliness of this parting, it still hurt more than it was supposed to. He had remembered her birthday. He had remembered her birthday, even though the man waiting for her in the bar hadn't even known about it until the day of. Rory reminded herself that Jess brought nothing but heartbreak, she reminded herself that she couldn't let herself think about him or risk being pulled back in by the impossible, overwhelming attraction that she suspected would never completely fade. But all the same, it was... Jess.

You have a boyfriend, she reminded herself. Then she remembered just how said boyfriend had been behaving over the last few minutes, and her eyes narrowed. She marched purposefully back into the bar.

"You're not going to believe this. Over the music, the crowd, I hear one girl's voice cutting through it all. The folk singer. She's in the corner with her boyfriend. I sent them over a round of drinks. What the hell? He gone?"

It made her dizzy how quickly he could switch from his warm, amused tone to an offended, almost accusatory one. The whiplash it gave her got on Rory's last frayed nerve, and she bit out, "Yes, he's gone." And she held Logan fully responsible for that. She had really wanted the chance to get to know this new and improved version of Jess she had been introduced to, and he had deprived her of that. She was understandably frustrated.

"Writers," Logan scoffed. "So sensitive."

"You were a jerk, Logan," she said forcefully.

"I was just challenging him, geez. Hey, if Hemingway could take it, so could he. Hey, if he wanted to, he could've taken a pop at me. Pugnacity. It's a vital component in literary life. Again, consult your Hemingway," Logan said. Rory wondered if her boyfriend had any clue just how much she despised the supposedly great writer he continually referenced. On the other hand, he had brought up an excellent point. Two years ago, Jess wouldn't have hesitated to knock Logan senseless over some of the things he had said. It appeared that Jess really had grown up.

"Come on. Do not let this guy get to you," he insisted.

Rory scowled at him. "You're getting to me!"

"Me?" he asked, trying to assume the role as the victim in the nights events.

"Yes, you were an ass!"

"Look, I'm sorry I came back early, I really messed things up here," he sneered.

"Jess wrote a book! He wrote a book, and you mocked him!" Rory exclaimed. The last time she had seen Jess Mariano, he'd still had no clue where his life was going. And now here he had cleaned himself up, gotten a steady job, become a published author...

Logan looked at her mulishly. "I did not mock him!"

"He's doing something!"

"Good, fine, he's doing something. Everybody in the world's doing something. More power to him," Logan said condescendingly.

Jess' terrifyingly insightful words from before flashed into her head again. "I'm not. I mean, what am I doing? I'm living with my grandparents!"

"That's temporary. Have a drink," he told her nonchalantly.

"Temporary can turn into forever!"

"You're not living with the Gilmores forever," Logan said, and she could see that he was getting fed up with her.

She couldn't stop herself, however. The things Jess had said seemed to be finally sinking in, and as she made a lightning-fast review of the last six months, she felt sickened with her behavior. "I'm palling with my grandmother, I'm being waited on by a maid. I come home and my shoes are magically shined, my clothes are magically clean, ironed and laid out. My bed is magically turned down. I'm in the DAR? I'm going to meetings and teas and cocktail parties?" The pitch of her voice rose as she grew more and more disgusted with the state of her life.

"Again, temporary. Have a drink," he repeated, gesturing to his own.

It irritated her to no end that all he had to say to her sudden realization was to tell her to forget it and just slip back into complacency. "I'm wasting my time partying and drinking, just hanging out, doing nothing!"

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say because suddenly Logan jumped to his feet, pointing an accusing finger at her. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't pull me into this!"

"I didn't say anything about you!" And she honestly didn't. Maybe she implied it a little, but she wasn't thinking it. Much.

"Yes you did. Don't make me feel guilty for your drinking and partying. That's your choice, I'm not forcing you. when I ask you out, you can say no!"

Except that she can't, because she put all that effort into convincing him that they could be a good pair. And a good girlfriend pays attention to her boyfriend. A good girlfriend is willing to put a little extra effort into the relationship. And Rory Gilmore is, as she put it to him, a girlfriend kind of girl. One of the responsibilities of a girlfriend is to call her boyfriend on his bullshit.

"It's all we do," she pointed out.

"It's not all we do!" he protested.

"It's all you do."

When he retorted, his voice took on a self-righteous tone that Rory found infinitely irritating. "Well, that's my prerogative. You know? You're damn straight, I'm going to party. I'm going to do it while I have the chance because come June, my life is over!"

That made her snap. Logan might not have dreamed of the life he's gotten, but it's a good life full of good opportunities. Too damn bad if doesn't match up exactly with his fantasies- sometimes people had to learn to make compromises. "Oh, yes, your horrible life, let's hear about it!" she said caustically.

"Got a week?" he said in a whiny tone.

"You have every door open to you! You have opportunities that anyone would kill for, including me!"

"No one's stopping you from making whatever you want happen! Go into journalism! Go into politics! Be a doctor, be a clown! Do whatever you want!"

He makes it sound so damn easy, she thought bitterly. The truth was, Logan had no clue how hard she had worked to get as far as she had, how hard she and her mother had both worked. Her mother... oh god. Suddenly Jess' words came doubling back again, coupled up with the realization that not only had she thrown away her own dreams, she had thrown away nineteen years of her mother's hard work.

"It's not as easy when it's not handed to you," she said, thinking of the times when she was younger when they only had barely enough to get by on. She felt sick.

Logan apparently took offense to the idea. "Really. It's all so easy for me? I don't want that life! It's forced on me! You talk about all these doors being open? All I see is one door, and I'm being pushed through it! I have no choice! You try living without options!" he exclaimed, tone resentful and petty.

"How hard are you fighting it?" she asked.

"I didn't tell you to quit Yale! You did that! I gave you one month, you went beyond the month and it had nothing to do with me! It was all you! Now, you want to change, change it. But don't blame me, don't you dare blame me! You know what, why don't you go off with John, Jack, whatever his name is!"

The idea was actually extremely appealing. The idea was always appealing, even that horrible night when a twisted version of that prospect was offered to her by a desperate Jess. That memory was painful though, and the surge of unwanted emotions it brought up made her voice more cutting than she intended when she snapped, "Oh, I'm not going off with Jess!"

Logan seemed to deflate suddenly. "Come on," he commanded.

"Where?" she asks, thrown by his sudden change in demeanor.

"Let's go. I want to go, I don't want to be here."

The fight might have gone out of him, but his imperious, demanding attitude certainly hadn't. Rory was on the verge of telling him just where he could go, when she remembered that she hadn't driven here. She didn't have any real interest in remaining here, though part of her wanted to insist on staying just to spite him. That wouldn't really serve any purpose, though, so she gave in.

"Fine," she hissed out. "Let's go."

They walked to the car in silence.

They got in the car in silence.

They rode back to the Gilmore house in silence.

They got out of the car in silence.

Then Logan spoke.

"Look, Ace, I... I don't think this is working out."

Rory stared. "What?"

"When you asked me to be your boyfriend, I thought, hey, I can do this, right? Boyfriend. Exclusive. Not that hard, right? But it's just too much drama. I don't want to be standing in some bar screaming at you."

She felt her stomach lurch. As infuriated with Logan as she was at the moment, she didn't want to make a rash decision in a moment of anger that would end this relationship, because when it was good, it really was good. "Sometimes that happens in relationships!" she burst out. "It's not fun, but sometimes it does happen."

"Well, not to me."

His arrogant tone goaded her further into anger, but with a tightly restrained voice she managed to say, "Maybe we should... take a break. You can see other people if you want to. We'll figure out how we feel, and if we still want this... well, we'll see."

Logan watched her blankly, apparently turning the idea over in his mind. It seemed to suit his tastes, because he shrugged and said, "Okay, Ace. We'll do it your way. I'll give you a call in a few weeks, maybe." Clearly he was still angry, because his words and tone were harsh and intended to cut her.

Rory sighed. "Okay."

"Okay."

"New word now."

"How does 'goodbye' fit?"

"I don't know," she said sadly. "That's the idea."

Logan shook his head and turned away, walking back to his Porsche and leaving her standing in her grandmother's driveway, feeling tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

Six Days Later...

The past few days had been incredibly busy. The morning after her encounter with Jess and her blowup with Logan, she had called Colin and Finn, who had been more than delighted to help her get her things out of her grandmother's house and into her car. She had then retreated to Lane's apartment, and her friend/sister had been happy to repay the favor Rory had done her a few years before by letting her crash (though admittedly, Zach was less than happy with the arrangement). Once she was moved in with the band, she had committed three extremely long, muscle-aching days to finishing up the last of her community service. Her nights (often as late as 2 a.m.) had been spent organizing her materials and applications for Yale and trying to track down a proper job.

Finally, she had a lead on a potential job at the Stamford Eagle-Gazette- though she had a suspicion that it would take some fancy talking to get her foot in the door- and her readmittance to Yale beginning in January had been secured. Rory felt truly alive for the first time in months, and all the numbness she had placed around her heart was shattering apart and falling away, leaving her feeling fresh and rejuvenated.

However, there was one thing missing, and that was Logan. She couldn't lie- she missed him, as she had confessed to Lane during the second day of her move into Hep Alien's shared apartment.

"So, um, I haven't heard you mention Logan in awhile," Lane had said as casually as she could.

Rory had deflected the implied question as casually as she could, explaining the breakup as succinctly as she could before moving on to other topics. She didn't want to talk about Logan. It wasn't as painful as she had feared it might be when she shed bitter tears the night of their argument in Hartford, though. Her heart wasn't broken. Then again, her heart was much harder to break than it used to be, as she had been harshly reminded not so long ago.

Her work for the day finished, Rory disconnected the phone call she had just placed to Mr. Woole, editor-in-chief of the Eagle-Gazette, and walked into the kitchen. "References are now officially in order," she announced, "Which is a relief, because I've already sent out a hundred and twenty five thousand resumes."

It spoke to how long Lane had known her that this comment, made in utter seriousness, caused not even a raised eyebrow and an unsubtle segue. "Oh, listen, I forgot to tell you. I may have done something stupid."

"Lane, why do you have the 'apology face' on?"

"Well, I kind of told Lorelai that you moved in here."

Zach, who had been rooting through a cupboard, looked around to ask suspiciously, "I'm sorry, 'moved in here'?"

Lane shot her boyfriend/bandmate a Look. "Zach, there must be something else you can do," she said pointedly. He tried to match her gaze, but the generations-old, perfected-over-the-course-of-centuries Kim Women Glare would not be denied or defeated. He shuffled out of the room, mumbling something that sounded defiantly apologetic.

"When did you see my mom?" Rory asked, her heart aching at the thought of what her behavior over the last six months must have been doing to Lorelai.

"This morning, at Luke's. I'm sorry. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know if you wanted her to know, or didn't want her to know..." Lane explained.

"It's okay, it's fine that she knows."

Lane looked relieved. "Okay, good."

Rory nibbled on her lip for a moment, debating. She had two options for how to spend her day: she could either hit the streets and physically go looking for a job, or she could stay in Stars Hollow and try to patch things up with the various friends she had hurt by her defection to her grandparents' house. She had just decided on the former when Lane suddenly said, "Hey, Rory?"

"Yeah?"

"I've kind of been wondering something."

Rory glanced up and found that her friend was watching her intently. "What?"

"You've been perfectly happy with, um..."

"Wasting my life away with parties and functions and drinking?"

Lane laughed at Rory's descriptions of the last few months' activities. "Yes, that. You've been just fine with that, and you weren't really showing any signs of changing your mind anytime soon. I mean, I know you were irritated with your grandma, but you didn't seem too interested in doing much about it. What changed your mind?"

It was a question Rory had been dreading, and she had hoped that the relief she knew her friends and family would feel upon having her back on the path she should have been on all along would be enough that they wouldn't question it, they would just accept it. She took a moment to curse Lane's so-called 'BFF Intuition Radar' and collect her thoughts. It was a tricky question to respond to, because she knew how Lane would take the answer. Lane would assume that there was still "something there"... and Rory wasn't sure she'd be wrong to do so.

After several seconds of silence, during which Lane stared at her expectantly, Rory struggled to find the right wording. Like ripping off a Band-Aid...

"Jess."

Lane's eyes widened and Rory got the sense that, as far as Lane was concerned, that one word was enough to explain everything. "Wow," she said. "You've seen Jess?"

Rory nodded. "Yeah. The night before I moved in here. He came by my grandparents' house to see me the day before."

"And?"

"And we talked, and we decided to meet up again to get caught up."

Lane was hanging on her every word. "What happened?"

She sighed. "Logan happened."

Lane winced. "Ugh, he crashed your... what exactly was it?"

"It was supposed to be dinner," Rory told her. "But it turned into Jess and Logan having a testosterone-fueled face-off in a bar and then Jess yelling at me in the alley."

"He yelled at you?"

Rory shrugged. "He pretty much called me out on all the stupid stuff I've been doing over the last few months, asked me what the hell I thought I was doing with my life- which was pretty much nothing, by the way- and made me..." She trailed away. She knew what she wanted to say, but she also kew how it would sound. But at Lane's prompting, she had no choice but to say, "He made me remember a time when I liked who I was a lot more."

To her unending amazement, Lane didn't comment on the obvious underpinnings of the statement, but instead gave a sympathetic nod and said, "So Jess was your reason for coming home and going back to school?"

"Pretty much. It had been building up into this big powder keg of unhappy for awhile, but Jess was the one carrying the matches."

"Was it-?"

"Really, really weird?" Rory sighed. "Yes, it was weird. It was the first time I'd seen him since-"

"-Since you turned him away at your dorm and then immediately went out and had sympathy sex with your married ex?"

Rory winced. "That was harsh."

Lane looked apologetic. "I'm sorry. It just seems like that was the start of this huge downward spiral for you. I didn't mean for it to come out like that, though. So, it was weird?"

"Very. It was so surreal when he just showed up in Grandma's driveway in the middle of the night." She smiled slightly, recalling her own shock at the sight of him. "I couldn't even string a complete sentence together."

"You didn't exactly part on the best of terms. It's natural to be a little freaked out," Lane sympathized.

"He's changed so much. He really grew up, got himself together. But at the same time, he's still the same old Jess. Just... more. Does that make any sense?"

Lane nodded slowly. "I think it does. So... what did you guys talk about?"

"Philadelphia." At Lane's confused look, Rory explained, "That's where he's living now. Philadelphia. He works at this independent press there. He wrote a novel."

Lane's eyes widened. "Wait a minute, Jess wrote a book? How was that not the very first thing you told me when you walked through that door-" She pointed at it for emphasis. "-Almost a week ago now?"

Rory honestly couldn't come up with a good answer, so she bluffed. "I wanted to finish it first. It's not all that long, but-"

"-You've been busy."

"Exactly."

"And have you finished it?"

Rory smiled.

"Oh my god, was it good?" Lane exclaimed.

Her smile widened. "It's incredible. You have to read it. I went out and bought a second copy on Thursday, if you want to borrow it. I've never read anything quite like it. It's just so... Jess."

Lane's expression was gentle and contained just a trace of sympathy. "Rory, I need you to promise me that you will answer the next thing I ask you truthfully, okay?" Feeling wary, Rory nodded, and Lane continued, "The way you've been talking about Jess... do you still have feelings for him?"

And that was the million dollar question. "I'm not sure," Rory said. "I'm definitely still attracted to him."

"Obviously," Lane said in a 'duh' tone of voice. "The two of you have more chemistry than all the labs at Yale combined! Besides, Jess is really hot."

"I don't think there's a heterosexual woman in the western hemisphere who would disagree with you," Rory said as her friend's lighthearted tone eased the gravity of the subject matter. But her mood settled again as she went back to mentally debating her answer to Lane's question. "Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about him. There's definitely still something there. Big something. But... I don't know. It just wouldn't work."

"Why not?"

Struggling with deja vu from another conversation they had had on this same subject, centered around those same words, Rory managed to force out, "He abandoned me once. How could I trust him after that?"

Lane gave her a long, steady look before saying, "So basically what you're telling me is that you still have feelings for Jess, but you don't want to take a risk because once, a long time ago, he broke your heart?"

"He was the first person- the only person, actually- to break my heart," Rory said candidly. "Besides, I just broke up with Logan! And technically we're not really broken up, we're just taking a little break! It wouldn't be right."

"You said yourself that this thing with Logan was probably for the best! And you told him he could see other people if he wanted to. Besides, you also told me that Jess has really matured. Adults don't tend to split when the going gets tough."

"His father did."

"And since when do you visit the sins of the fathers upon the children?" Lane asked sharply. "If that were the case, you and I would never have been friends! You're grasping at straws, Rory."

There was no suitable response to that. Lane was right, plain and simple. "I know," she said quietly. "I don't know. I just... think it's a bad idea to try and sort it all out too fast. Serendipity has never been kind to me. Maybe, someday, under favorable circumstances, there could be the potential for something between me and Jess again. But right now I just don't know quite how I feel. I need time to figure out whether Logan is worth another shot, let alone trying to throw Jess in the mix. He tends to..."

"Complicate things?"

Rory nodded. "Yeah."

Suddenly Lane got a mischievous look in her eye and slyly asked, "So... how did he look?"

Somewhat relieved at her friend's lighthearted new twist on the subject, Rory responded, with subdued enthusiasm, "He looked good. Really good."

At that moment, before either could comment further, Zach entered the kitchen and, upon seeing Rory's computer still sitting on the counter, exclaimed, "Oh, that's nice, just leave your computer plugged in, sucking up all our energy!"

"Zach!" Lane exclaimed.

"What? I'm just writing a song..." he excused.

Rory smiled and hit the power button on her laptop. "I think that's my cue to leave," she said. "I have some things I need to do." Things such as repairing the hole in her damaged relationship with her mother.

But as she walked out of the apartment, Rory's mind couldn't help but wander back to the subject of their conversation. In all the drama with Logan and the flurry of activity she had thrown herself into upon returning to the Hollow, she hadn't really had time to process the Jess angle of it all until just now, during her talk with Lane. Seeing him again had been, in a word, shocking. She had forgotten how much he could affect her with just a smile.

This was bad. This was very bad. She didn't want to fall for Jess again! She had learned her lesson about trying to revive old flames. Then again, though, Jess had always been less of a flame and more of a walking nuclear bomb. Until a week ago, on seeing him again, she had forgotten just how magnetic he could be. It wasn't charisma, per se, and it certainly wasn't charm in the traditional sense, but there was just something so all-consuming about him. It was an addiction, one Rory thought she had broken by screaming "No!" but apparently she'd been wrong. Jess Mariano was still as appealing as ever.

Rory shook her head to clear it as she made her way down the sidewalk. She needed to clear her head in order to be able to face her mother. Actually, maybe it would be better to ease her way up to her mother. She had reconnected with Paris via phone, she and Lane were as close as ever, and the next logical step in the ladder leading to the most important relationship to repair... was Luke.

Decision made, she altered her course to start off in the direction of Luke's...

A/N2- Okay, so I really meant to wait until I'd gotten more of this written to start posting (and I *certainly* wanted to wrap up Paperthin Hymn first!), but that obviously got shot all to hell. What can I say? I'm a total review junkie! I never realized how satisfying feedback could be until I wrote The Crying Game and then everything just spiraled out of control. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, don't expect too much posting on this until Paperthin Hymn is done. M'kay?

Until next time, I'll just leave you with the thought that review make me write faster, and this little teaser...

"What was that about?" Rory asked with a stunned little laugh.

Luke rubbed the back of his neck, looking at her with a wary expression. "I might be a father," he said in a low, shocked voice.