Rory sat on the bus and watched the buildings go by the window, putting her in a trance as she thought about the last few days. She still could not believe that Logan had given her an ultimatum, how reversed the roles felt. Her mother's words ran through her head until it became a mantra. One day, you'll meet someone and you'll just know that it's right. You won't want to hesitate. Rory couldn't have said yes to Logan,not when everything was so up in the air. You won't want to hesitate. If she repeated it enough times, maybe she would start to believe it. Logan wasn't right for her because she hesitated. She thought back to the rocket that he had given her when he went to London and wondered how things could have gone so far downhill since then. He all but told her that he would wait for her and that what they had was true love. Rory could feel the thickness in her throat before she felt the moisture in her eyes and blinked furiously to stop the impending tears. The buzzing of her phone broke her out of her reverie as she looked down at the obtrusive object in her hand. She smiled when she saw that it was her mother and answered quickly.

"Mom, hi," she croaked out and then cleared her throat hoping her mother didn't hear it but knowing she did.

"What's wrong?"

Rory sighed and thought about what to tell her mom. She knew Lorelai was probably tired of hearing her lament about Logan, but she decided on honesty in the end.

"I was just thinking about Logan again, about the rocket. I can't understand how he could just end it after giving me a gift like that, with that kind of sentiment. He told me that he would wait for me..."

This time she heard Lorelai sigh and waited for the response she knew was coming.

"Honey, you got to stop doing this to yourself. You have this great opportunity to travel around the country, doing what you love. Take this time to discover yourself."

"Can you be anymore cliché, mom?"

"I could if I tried, but I'm being serious here. It may sound cheesy but you are suddenly single after three years and this is a great time to reflect on your life. You are going through a lot of changes right now and you should take this opportunity to heal."

Rory knew her mother was right, but couldn't pass up the chance to make fun of her.

"How is the career change to motivational speaker going?"

She heard her mother laugh and she laughed with her. It felt good to be genuinely happy in that moment and Rory vowed to have more of these moments.

"Mock all you want, but you know I'm right, kid."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll get back to you in a few weeks and let you know how it's going."

Over the next several months, Rory took her mother's advice to a fault. She researched every city she was to visit and explored anything that interested her during her free time. She threw herself into her work the majority of the time and earned praise from her boss as well the attention from other papers around the country. The longer Rory was on the road the better she started to feel. She even accepted a few dates along the way and while most of them were extremely awkward, it felt good to get back out there.

When the campaign took her to Philadelphia, Rory couldn't help but think of Jess and she wondered if he still lived there. It had been two years since she last saw him and traveling had allowed her to continue her avoidance of all things Jess. She hadn't spoken to him since they kissed at Truncheon and Rory winced at the memory. She hadn't initiated contact out of guilt but often wondered how he was doing. If she were honest with herself, she could admit that thoughts of Jess entered her mind regularly. If she wanted to face the whole truth, she could admit that thoughts of Jess were one of the reasons for her hesitation when it came to Logan's proposal.

Rory found herself making her way towards Truncheon the first opportunity she got. She just wanted to see if he was still there, she told herself. Just wanted to see how Jess was doing, that's all. As the building drew near, she could feel her heartbeat in her ears, could hear it. She shook her head and turned around, her mind changed. As she did this, she ran into someone and mumbled an apology without lifting her head.

"Rory?"

Shit. She looked up and made eye contact with him, searching his eyes for any anger but they were bright, eager, happy.

"Rory, what are you doing here?"

The question could have been asked in anger, especially knowing who was asking it but she realized that it wasn't. She continued to stare, dumbfounded, at this man before her. Rory could barely recognize him and she realized that it was because he was genuinely happy. Jess displayed his crooked smile in earnest while she continued to stare at this open display of positive emotion.

"Have you gone mute?"

This shook her out of her daze and she finally smiled back at him, shaking her head with a laugh.

"No, I just didn't recognize you. You're happy."

She was rewarded with a rare laugh from the once angry, tortured Jess Mariano and searched his face for sarcasm, but found none.

"Yeah, I guess I am. It's weird, right? Don't tell anyone."

With that, he actually winked at her and then smirked. Ah, there he is. She smiled back at him.

"I won't ruin your reputation, Mariano."

Another laugh! Rory was starting to feel like she had entered an alternate universe, when she heard another voice calling his name.

"Jess, what are you doing out there, did you get my coffee?"

The voice was impatient, but kind and very feminine. Rory looked to the source and almost jumped, she could be looking in a mirror. The girl was a couple inches shorter than Rory, but had the same chocolate colored hair and delicate features. Her eyes were brown, Rory noted in victory, and then internally smacked herself for even having that thought. Rory wasn't paying attention to the conversation going on between the two of them until she heard her name. Jess was staring at her with an expectant look.

"I'm sorry?" Rory knew how she sounded, but she couldn't help it.

"I said, this is my girlfriend, Sarah."

Rory could actually feel her heart drop out of her chest. She felt stupid, believing that she was the cause of alternate universe Jess. She was angry at herself, allowing herself to think he would always be there for her when she was finally ready. It wasn't fair of her to blame him for moving on though, after all, hadn't she recently gotten out of a three year relationship herself? She took in their smiling faces and smiled back at them, putting the mask back on. Jess was too happy to even notice and Sarah didn't know her well enough to detect anything amiss.

"Hi, Sarah. It's so nice to meet you!" Rory winced at how fake she sounded but again, neither seemed to notice.

"I was just telling her how I know you, that we met in high school."

It was the first time in this bizarre interaction that Jess had even acknowledged their past and Rory's head snapped in his direction at the description. His eyes were pleading and she knew in that moment that the lovely Sarah knew nothing about her.

"Yes, we did meet in high school, when Jess-"

"When I was a little punk, right, Rory?"

There were those pleading eyes again, this was an interesting game they were playing and Rory just smiled and nodded. Sarah just laughed, grabbed her coffee from Jess and said, "Well, I'll let you two catch up." And she was gone before Rory could even say another word. She looked back to Jess with more questions in her eyes, but he was watching Sarah walk back into the store with a lopsided grin on his face.

After she was out of view, he turned back towards her and said, "You want to go grab a coffee?"

Rory nodded dumbly and followed him as he walked towards a coffee shop. Once they were inside and the smell of coffee hit her, she finally broke out of her daze and said, "What the hell Jess?"

He looked at her with a knowing look and motioned for her to go sit.

"Grab a table, we'll talk."

The conversation that followed wasn't what Rory expected, but she couldn't be angry at Jess for wanting to move forward with his life. He had met Sarah a few months ago and they dated casually for a couple of months before it became exclusive. They hadn't had the talk of girlfriends past yet so all Sarah knew of Rory was completely innocent.

"I really like her, Rory, and I can see this going somewhere. I want to see where it goes."

Rory plastered her fake smile back on her face and said, "I'm happy for you, Jess. I wish you nothing but the best."

The sentiment was genuine; she could never feel any ill will towards Jess and just wanted to see him happy. The end product of actually seeing him happy was still a bit bizarre. She had never seen him smile so frequently in such a short period of time. Jealous thoughts ran through Rory's head; she had never been able to make Jess smile like that. Rory decided it best not to mention that Sarah could pass as her twin, however weird she found it. Once the topic of Sarah was talked to death, it was inevitable that it would swing back around to her love life.

"How's Logan?"

Rory searched his eyes to determine what Jess knew, but he seemed genuinely curious. Rory internally cursed Luke for his inability to talk about other people.

"I wouldn't know, I haven't spoken to him in almost a year, eight months to be exact." He looked at her, eyebrow raised with the unspoken question. "He proposed, I said I wasn't ready, he said it was all or nothing, I've got nothing."

Rory tried to leave all of the emotion out of it, but knew he could see through her now that he was away from his hazy Sarah cloud. The look he gave her made Rory want to be swallowed up by the earth and disappear from this moment forever. It was a mixture of pity and sadness with just a hint of hope. Rory shook that thought out of her head and reminded herself that he was happy with Sarah, he had moved on. "Rory, I'm sor-"

"It's ok. Please, don't apologize," she interrupted. "It took me a long time, but I realized we were never going to work. You were right, it seems, in the end. He wasn't right for me." She smiled sadly at him, realizing they were once again in two different places, but she didn't want to lose him completely. "Jess, I don't want another two years to go by between us. Do you think we could possibly be friends? We were once, before everything…"

She looked at him hopefully and smiled when she noticed his crooked grin smiling back at her.

"Yeah, we were friends once, weren't we?"

She may not have Jess in her life the way she had imagined, but he was still back in her life and Rory couldn't help but feel truly happy for the first time in eight months. She left Philadelphia the next day, armed with Jess' phone number, email address and a promise to stay in touch.