They tromp up the porch stairs together, Mom swinging her shoes from one hand. After the heel came unglued again on Peach Street she yelled, "Screw it!" into the dawn and wrenched them off in a huff.

"Next year, Kirk begs for mercy. And I'll be damned if I let historically accurate footwear be my albatross." She wiggles them in front of Rory's face for emphasis.

Rory nods, mostly to keep herself conscious until she can get inside and melt into bed. It's so much like her mom to take the blame and distract her with another anti-Kirk rant. She's fantasizing about pulling the rest of the bobby pins out of her hair, nestling into the coolness of her pillowcase, and looking at nothing but the insides of her eyelids for many hours to come. She's almost to the front door when:

"Rory." She turns. Standing over by the Jeep, she expected him to look different in this moment since it feels like it's the start of something, but he's just regular Jess. Same army-green jacket, same waves in his hair, same dark eyebrows pulled low. Her pulse quickens anyway.

Mom leans in close. "You okay, sweets? I can clock him with my good shoe if you want, give you time for a couple hours of shut-eye first."

She starts to answer but a yawn overpowers her, making her mouth widen so far that she feels it strain in the corners. "No, thanks. I'll make it quick and be there in a second."

Her mom closes the front door behind her, soft enough that Rory startles at the latch snapping into place. The sky is turning the faintest pale gray.

"Hey," says Jess, striding up to the edge of the porch.

"You take care of whatever it was you had to do?" She looks down at his upturned face. She can't decide if she's ready. Every time she's pictured this, Fantasy Rory has been fully coherent.

"Yeah." He gestures to the steps. "Uh, can I...?"

"Sure, come on up." His footsteps against the wood are light but heavy at the same time; quick but focused. "So Shane is...?" She's pretty sure they weren't off buying homecoming dance tickets just now, but she has to know. To avoid repeat mistakes.

"Done." He takes a couple seconds to pull a cobweb off one of the railing posts, and wipes it on his jeans. She should have left in more of the bobby pins. She looks like a melting Farrah Fawcett. "So, I promise to let you sleep some, if you promise me somethin' first."

"What?"

He takes two steps forward and reaches towards her, pausing for a second with his hands at the height of her elbows before bringing them all the way up to her face. This is the longest they've stood like this since the wedding. He is touching her and when he stops, there will be little fingerprints of heat left radiating from her skin.

"Don't run away from me this time." His voice has a softness that she's never heard before.

He is so close that she can whisper it: "Okay."

She is overtaken by it at first, how different it is from last time. Gentle, easy almost. He takes his time on her lower lip and her heartbeat picks up, but settles into a steady pace as she leans into him and the cool spice of his hair gel. She rests her hands on the front of his t-shirt, giving the fabric a light tug so she can anchor herself to him.

There's no longer a ticking time bomb quality to it, or people to hide it from. Babette and Morey sleep late on Sundays. Their only company are the wind making the curled leaves rattle in the trees, and the chilled weight of the morning dew in the air.

The release, the second apart, the return for a deeper kiss. She strengthens the pressure on his mouth and hears him hum in response. Keeping one hand on her face, he moves the other to her hip inside her open coat, where he traces a lazy path with his thumb back and forth over the dip of her waist. The wind has gotten louder, or maybe all of her senses are just heightened.

"That's how I woulda done it months ago," he says, resting his forehead against hers.

"If I didn't run away?" She has lost track of what month it is, and where she left off in Doctor Zhivago, and everything else that isn't Jess' warm breath against her chin right now.

"Before that," he says. "Long time before that."

He steps back and she moves her hands up to the back of his neck to trace her fingers through the edge of his hair. Jess leans in again and runs a slow, pointed trail of kisses across her cheek. That's when the tears come back, fast and even and without warning. Thank God her mom made waterproof mascara part of their strategy.

"Uh oh, the reviews are in," he says in her ear, his voice rolling and low.

"I'm sorry, I promise I'm happy," she says. "It's just…" She takes a quick breath in and lets it go, in the hope that her eyes will quit stinging and she will stop ruining the thing she's spent forever wishing for. "I was so mean to him for so long, and now it feels like I'm being rewarded. It's not fair. I don't deserve good things."

"Yeah, you do," he says. He takes hold of each of her shoulders and looks at her. "Rory. Come on. It was my fault, too." He brushes at her tear tracks with the middle knuckles on one hand. "Maybe you would've broken up sooner if I never got goin' with Shane."

"Maybe," she says, not believing him.

"You wanna avoid hurting people," he says. "That's all it was."

"I hurt you too, though," she says. "I should've written you over the summer, I don't know what I was thinking. It was all so much." She can feel her lashes starting to stick together in the corners of her eyes. "I didn't know what I wanted."

"Do you know what you want now?" he says, after a pause.

"Yes."

"Great, so do I. I'm holdin' her right now, actually." He squeezes her shoulders and tips his head to one side, assessing the damage. "Okay if I kiss you again?"

"Yeah." She nods to bring herself back to the moment, and takes another breath to center herself. The tears are already starting to evaporate, leaving her skin tight in their wake. Time to reset. She is done crying for today.

He moves his hands up into her hair, weaving his fingers behind the loosened curls. Hard to believe the guy who made a name for himself as Luke's sour, apathetic nephew can be so good at making her want to crumble into her vintage shoes, right where she's standing. But she keeps it together and closes the gap between them, savoring the way he leans a little bit farther forward, eyes still closed, after she breaks away a while later.

"Forgot what that's like," he says, having moved his hands to the small of her back.

"Yeah, you know, I think you were in retirement for less than an hour, and still the dementia had enough time to set in. Impressive."

"With somebody I care about," he says. At first he has the same tight-lipped smirk she's used to, but he can only hold it for a second before he's beaming at her. "That part, I forgot. This is way better."

"Yeah, it is." Now she watches him watching her. The places where the darker parts of his eyes fade into amber get her thinking about falling asleep in a sunny place. This may be a side effect of the exhaustion.

"So, you kissing me at the wedding. Was that a last-minute impulse?"

How to phrase this. "Yes and no."

"Meaning?"

"I'd thought about it before."

That earns her another slow, lopsided smile. "Oh really. Like when?" Her face floods with heat. "Hey, this is valuable stuff. Helps me to know what gets you goin'."

She's been awake for almost 27 hours and everything she's said this morning already feels unreal, and besides, her heartbeat in her ears is pounding out tell him tell him tell him.

"Okay, so I thought about it the night of the car crash. You were calling me Courtney Love, and I looked at your lips while you were talking, and I don't know, I just thought about it."

"Huh." He stares out at the yard and comes back with a raised eyebrow. "So is it the comparison to rocker chicks specifically, or will any female celebrity do?"

"It's not like it was that on its own, it's just you, Jess." It's been everything about him, all this time. Panels of unfiltered sunlight are starting to appear on the lawn.

"You were lookin' at my lips, huh?"

"They're crooked on one side." As if he doesn't know.

"Yeah, it's 'cause of dead nerves." His hands shift on her waist and she watches his gaze dart down to the floorboards, then back to her. "Pretty dumb, right?"

"No, I like it." With one arm resting behind his neck she brings her right hand around towards his mouth, but curls her fingers inward at the last second.

"Go ahead, if you want. All's good."

This is surreal. She is reaching out to touch his lips and no one, nothing, is stopping her. Her stomach twinges because it's strange not to feel guilty. She runs her thumb from left to right under the edge of his lower lip, tracing the slight upward curve into the corner like a cartographer.

"Makes you look like nobody should cross you."

"Mm. Well, you can cross me anytime you want." He kisses her thumb.

"And how would I do that?" She tips her face towards her collarbone as a yawn distorts the back end of her sentence.

He chuckles at her but then has to give in to one himself. "How 'bout you come find me when you wake up. I'll be around."

"Okay." She unwraps her arm from his neck. He gives her one more kiss, but she's glad when it lasts a little longer than the goodbyes she's used to. As he backs away and heads down the stairs it's like there's saltwater taffy in her chest connecting them, and every time he takes a step it stretches and thins and makes her heart ache. "Sleep well," she says.

"Impossible not to." He walks backward across the lawn, hands in his pockets, keeping his eyes on her without losing his footing somehow. "Be seein' ya." Only when she goes inside and shuts the front door does she see his back through the living room window.

No more chance run-ins, or peeking at him over Dean's shoulder, or avoiding Luke's if Shane's inside. For the first time, there's a guarantee. A date, even.

Maybe she won't sleep for too long.

A/N: So I wrote this before watching 3x08, fully expecting it to be AU. But maybe if you chalk this up to Rory and Jess running on adrenaline and sleep deprivation, it can still allow for what happens in 3x08. Feel free to me know how you interpreted it. As always, thanks so much for reading.