The Question of Inevitability

Author: Knowhere

Chapter 10: Chimera

Rating: Pg-13

Disclaimer: Nothing's mine, except for the original characters of Ben and Oliver.

AN: Words cannot do justice to the length of time I've subjected this conclusion to.  I'm so very sorry for the delay, but the rush for college applications have begun and on top of the stress of the looming doom of essays and recommendation letters…I've been seriously hit with the worst case of writer's block.  I know it's like I've been in a coma, but this ending was constantly on my mind and I wanted to give you the best ending I could possibly give—not just some crap conclusion to wrap things up.  I'm sorry for the wait and I hope that this is fairly satisfying.  Enjoy.

Summary:  Rory left in search of an answer to the question that she didn't know how to ask.  Now five years later she comes back to the city where she abruptly ended her life with Jess.  Does he have the ability to forgive her?  Literati/AU/Future Fic

            The silence was deafening; it pounded in his head and it was unrelenting to loose as it battled the headache that tingled every nerve in his body.  He sat up in the dark and drew his legs up to his body until his knees hit his chest.  He felt so young all of a sudden…he felt like that little kid who would dream about when his daddy would come back for him.  At that moment, Jess Mariano, a grown man of twenty-eight felt like he was still waiting by the window secretly late at night, wishing upon the night stars that he would have his picturesque family once again.  And then he remembered how those late nights of wishing turned into sleepless nights that plagued his mind with thoughts of rejection and especially of his inability of commitment.  Yet again, Jess sat up in bed thinking about those many restless nights and this one was just another drop in the bucket.

            How had this all come to be?  All he had wanted was to move on; to forget about everything that happened and just escape that pain.  He was making progress too—he had a new kind of job, and a relatively new connotation tacked onto his name.  People at work and those around him no longer looked at him like that loser kid people used to think he was; he finally held respect in a stranger's eyes as a man who knew what he wanted and was out to get it.  But to be truthful, he didn't know what he wanted.  On one hand, he desperately wanted to find her and to just kiss her and forget about everything that had passed between them; but on the other hand, his pride and his weariness prevented him from seeking her out.

            God, he was tired.  He turned his head and observed the offensive blinking red numbers that silently screamed 4:35 AM at him.  Jess rubbed his face with the heel of his hands and threw the covers off of him.  Jumping into the shower stall, he twisted the knobs and listened as the pipes gently rattled.  The hot water rushed out and poured over his aching muscles.  He stood still in the shower and braced his arms on each side of the walls, supporting his weight fully on those tiles.  He felt utterly defeated.  Everything that once held true in his life had now abandoned him and left him to the wolves.  There was nothing he felt that he could do to change anything and he was just so exhausted from the fight.  The wall that shielded him from every emotion, good and bad, was begging to be crumbled.  But that wall had taken him years to rebuild and inside, he just didn't know if he could survive without that odd sense of protection.

            As the water began to run cold, he quickly dressed and dried his hair and hurried out the front door.  The elevator seemed impossibly cramped, even though he was its only passenger, and he didn't even know where he was going as he pushed the door open and stepped into the world that felt like a complete limbo to him.  The hour was strange and his environment seemed to be different.  The streets around him were relatively deserted for New York City and he felt out of place, as if he was just waiting for someone to notice that he didn't belong.  And at that particular moment in time, he felt like nothing made sense.  So he did the one thing that he knew…he just started to walk.

            He didn't even remember how long he had been walking…thirty minutes, maybe an hour?  But he was vaguely aware that his feet were aching and he was beginning to feel the effects of the winter chill.  Mother Nature wrapped its piercing breath around him and he desperately needed to stop.  He walked up to a diner that seemed to be vacant but its warm lights called out to him and he pushed open the door with his gloved hands.  He noted that despite its early hours, the diner had quite a few patrons sitting in various booths and tables.  However, as his intense gaze swept around the small establishment, he couldn't ignore that familiar figure that sat hunched over a cup of coffee and a piece of pie.

            Jess couldn't understand why he was walking towards that booth.  Was it an illusion; was this all a dream?  Or was it simply the fact that this had to be done and there was nothing he could do to change his fate?  Nevertheless he approached.  He quietly crossed the few steps that separated them and by the time he reached the end of the booth, he stopped and waited to be noticed.

            The chestnut brown hair lifted as she saw a pair of shoes appear in her sight.  She didn't recognize them and quickly dismissed them as the waiter looking to refill her coffee; so instead, she just pushed her cup towards the body and didn't fully lift her head to look at the person.  To her surprise, she didn't hear the sound of coffee being poured from the container and into her cup, instead she heard the person take a sip and replace it back onto the table.  She finally looked up and began to scowl for such odd behavior when she realized who it was that stood in front of her.

            "Hey."  His voice was still that same husky sound that resonated in her ears late at night.  She heard it years ago whispered into her ear as he told her secrets only for her to hear, and also as he also told her fanciful stories that used to lull her to sleep.

            She could barely respond.  "Hi."

            He plopped down rather ungracefully and yet it was silent.  Even in the slightest actions, he held an aura of mystery.  "Do you mind if I join?"  The question was unnecessary and out of place since he had already sat down before he asked her.

            She shook her head and averted her eyes, not knowing what to do or to think about his sudden appearance in the diner.  She continued to watch with curious eyes as he lifted his hand and ordered a cup of coffee.  She was about to ask what he was doing here but she reconsidered when he seemed to be locked in some sort of trance.  He shifted his weight from side to side and he lifted his arm so that his entire forearm rested on the edge of the booth.  The just sat for the next half hour without a word spoken between them, they used the time to get used to each other's presence once again.  The air swirled around them as a noiseless companion and each took turns sipping their coffee at intervals of time.

Abruptly, his eyes turned glassy and he didn't fully look at her even as he began.  "Do you remember the time when I broke my arm?"  A silent nod from her egged him to continue.  "Yeah, it hurt like hell and I couldn't do anything because it was my right arm.  For those couple of weeks I had to learn how to rely mostly on my left arm to do everything that I couldn't.  I remember how it would hurt so much in the morning that I couldn't even put on my clothes.  And when I had to shower, well…"  He didn't continue.

            She on the other hand finally spoke up.  "I wrapped your cast in plastic bags and tied it up with rubber bands.  I bugged you constantly about not getting it wet."

            A soft, nostalgic smile crept up on his face and he nodded.  "Everything had to be switched for those couple of weeks.  We even had to switch which side of the bed we slept in because my arm kept on getting in the way.  You would roll over and hit my arm; after a couple of times I remember you getting up in the middle of the night to switch everything.  I think you might have even made a list of things to switch the next morning, just in case you'd forget anything."  A slight chuckle escaped and he suddenly swallowed it.

            He could internally feel a little piece of brick being chipped away at his wall.

            "You couldn't even type."

            "And I had that big presentation to make in front of the editor.  You stayed up until five before that morning typing my notes for me.  You saved me; I would have never gotten that promotion if it wasn't for you."  He gently smiled once again but his eyes were cold and unemotional.  They still didn't reveal anything and she didn't know what to conclude.

            "It was nothing."  She felt uneasy taking his compliment.  She owed him too much for him to be awarding her a praise such as that.

            Silence dawned upon them for the next couple of minutes as both just sat and sipped their respective cups.

            "I sprained my ankle last year.  I slipped on a patch of ice outside of my apartment building."  He curled his toes at the thought; it still presented a dull, aching pain every time the weather suddenly turned cold.

            Her eyes were wide and anticipating.  What was he doing?

            "I suddenly remembered how alone I actually was when I had to take care of myself with that sprained ankle."

            She bit the inside of her lip just to stop the onslaught of emotions that coursed through her body.  She felt so regretful even if that wasn't his intention.  She barely remembered the last time that he spoke so candidly in front of her; and she knew for a fact that the times he had done it were very rare.  For an outsider observing the conversation, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary but she knew that he didn't like showing visible signs of weakness—past and present.

            His whisper was strained and it remained thick in his throat even as it left his lips.  "Rory…"

            "Yeah?"  She held a hopeful tune.

            The spell was broken.  Something had changed—he changed.  He transformed into a sullen man right before her eyes.  "God what the hell am I thinking?  What am I doing here?"

            "Jess, what is it that you want me to say?"  She didn't intend to be scathing with her statement, and she wished that he didn't misunderstand her.  She only wanted to truly know what was going wrong.

            He bowed his head, full of sorrow and regret.  What had he wanted to hear from her?  Or had he even wanted to hear anything from her?  From their last visit, he knew that she was riddled with guilt and remorse and her apology was reiterated again and again—it was him that needed to say something to her.

            He licked his dry lips and shifted his eyes.  Then slowly, he brought his stone cold eyes and met her equally cool ones.  Icy russet mixed with arctic cerulean.  As he began his silent confession, she narrowed her eyes to match his own weary ones.  "Rory…I've missed you so much."

            A lump formed and caught in her throat.  "What?"  She was so close to crying that they brimmed in her eyes and she could see the build up of tears that clouded up her vision.

            "I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have said that."

            She instantly regained her composure and insisted with a persistent nod that there was nothing to be sorry about.  In fact, she knew that she had been keeping a fairly fresh secret from him.  But was this the chance to tell him?  Is it what she really wants anyways?  "Jess, you don't have anything to be sorry about.  The way things happened a couple of weeks ago, I just assumed that you hated me."

            He hung his head.  "I never hated you."  He paused, still unwilling to look at her.  And then he mumbled and she was uncertain whether or not he meant for anyone to hear.  "Believe me I tried, I just couldn't."

            "Jess, what you just said about how you've missed me…do you mean anything by that?"

            A bitter chuckle escaped.  "You've got to be kidding, Rory."  He was back to old sarcasm.  "I've just told you one of the hardest things I've ever had to say and you think that I didn't mean anything?  Yeah, it meant something.  It means that I'm still angry that all this time you kept the real reason hidden from me so that your ego wouldn't take a bruising while I take five years to wrap my head around the idea that it was all my fault.  Jesus Rory!  I just came back one night and you were crying and when I tried to help, you just got up and ran.  So yes, I can't deny the fact that I've missed you.  We were together for so many years, how could I not miss you?"

            "I know you're still angry and you have every right to be, it's just…"

            "Just what Rory?"  He wanted to hear what she had to say.

            But she just couldn't seem to formulate the correct words.  "The other day in your apartment, you asked what I had wanted…"

            "And you didn't answer me.  That's one thing that never changed…you still don't know what you want because you never make up your own mind."  His tone was scathing and it hurt him to say it just as much as it hurt her to hear it.

            For once, she instantly defended herself and forgot her original purpose.  "That's not fair and you know it Jess.  Yes, I'll admit it; in the past when I was younger I let people help me make important decisions but that was because those people were important in my life.  They were my family."

            "I guess I wasn't all that important to you then, huh?"  It struck a nerve that she had the guts to say such a thing.

            "Don't play those games with me.  I didn't say that and I've never felt that way.  You were very important to me Jess.  You were the one person that was so important that I was so scared of disappointing."

            "Really?  You sure had a funny way of showing affection then."  He covered hurt with sarcasm and it has annoying her and he knew it.

            "God Jess!  Can't you ever be serious and have an adult conversation without your irritating comments?  I've already told you why I left.  I'll say it again if that makes you happy, but yes, I admit that I made a mistake.  I've spent the last couple of years regretting that mistake.  I don't know why I did it but by the time I realized what had actually happened, it was too late to change things."

            He looked her dead in the eyes.  "You always told me that it was never too late to make changes.  There's something else you haven't told me."

            "There isn't.  You're just imagining things."  She was stubborn; they both were.

            They broke eye contact and she suddenly felt cold without the weight of his gaze.  "I can't do this anymore Rory.  I can't keep running into you or have you show up at my doorstep to ease your conscience.  I can't just keep learning bits of information when I damn well deserve to know everything.  I just can't…"  His voice cracked and she peered up through thick eyelashes at his face.  The angular contrasts of his jaw with his cheek bones made him look younger than he really was.  But one look at his eyes and she saw that they radiated years that he didn't need to weather.  "I can't keep rehashing the past with you.  I've finally been able to move on, even though it's the smallest step I've ever taken, it's still a step and it hurts to see me moving backward.  I don't want that."

            Tears spilled over her cheeks and droplets mixed with her black coffee.  She mouthed, "Moving on…"

            He caught her actions.  "Did you think that I would just be able to sit here and talk to you without feeling anything?  I'm not yours anymore Rory, and no matter how hard it's taken me to learn that…I've got to accept the fact that we're two very different people who don't belong to each other anymore."  For the first time since he told her about the broken bone story he used a soft and comforting tone with her.

            However, she felt anything but comforted.  She felt empty.  "So this is it?"

            Once again, he didn't have the will to confront her icy eyes.  "Yeah, I guess it is.  You finished what you wanted to do and I finally got what I wanted—the truth."

            "Yeah, truth."  A dull pain begun to spread through her bones and muscles as she finally came to grasp the idea that this might be the last time she'd ever see him again.

            He fiddled with the spoon he had used to stir in his cream.  "Rory?"

            "Yeah?" 

            "Just for my sake, can I ask you one more thing?"  His voice was neutral and yet it held that inkling of hope.

            She gazed back at him with sad eyes and she nodded.

            "If you regretted leaving as much as you said, why didn't you just come back?"

            She didn't want to answer. 

            "Do you even know?"  He knew how she operated and sometimes she used silence as to answer problems that she didn't know the answer to.

            She nodded.

            "You don't want to tell me, huh?  What damage can it cause?  Just let me know; whether or not it will ease my mind, I just want to know."

            She understood his plea and sympathized with it.  He was right; what damage could it cause?  They had already ruined everything else.  So she let go of it and oddly enough she was confident in her voice but she broke down inside.  "I didn't deserve you.  I realized when I came home that night and you had left me that note saying that you had to run back to the office to pick up some papers but you had cooked me dinner and left it in the microwave; I saw how you had to completely alter everything you had ever wanted just to fit around my wants.  You choose to go to college in Boston instead of out west where I knew you had always wanted to go.  I watched as you abandoned the only chance you had to know your father to be with me—to stay with our relationship.  And no matter how grateful to see that you loved me that much, to sacrifice everything for me, I just couldn't watch you do it anymore.  I was no good for you, Jess.  You deserved to be in a relationship where you're equals, not one where you had to bend to fit my desires.  I didn't want to hold you back; I didn't want to be that girl where you would look back at your past relationships and see my face when you thought of regret.  I wanted so much from us—from our relationship, but I was being selfish."

            He nodded sadly, absorbing everything she had just told him.  He couldn't believe it and he was wrong to say that there wasn't anymore damage she could have done.

            "Jess, there's one more thing I want to say.  And before you get up from this table and walk out of my life, I want you to know just one more thing."

            "Yes?"  He was eager.

            "In your apartment at the end, you asked me what I wanted, but I didn't answer.  I had wanted to say that I still love you.  And I know that love isn't enough for you anymore because there's so much more you need and deserve, but I never stopped caring for you and that part just hurts the most.  If I had walked out because I had stopped loving you then these five years would have been a whole lot easier.  But I never let myself think that I still cared because that meant that I had made the wrong decision in letting you go and be yourself.  Seeing you again, right now, I just want you to know that there will always be a part of me that cares for you even if you don't feel that way towards me anymore.  And I'm fine with it because I caused it and it's my fault, but I just wanted to say it."

            He didn't react.  He just sat there with his eyes plastered forward.  There was no emotion left in him.

            She understood.  This was the time to leave.  She grabbed a couple of bills and placed them next to her cup and she departed without another glance or tear.  She pushed on the door and existed into the night.

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            The night chill ran down her spine and she noticed that it wasn't night anymore.  They must have sat in that diner for hours.  The new morning sun had just begun to peak through the shadow of the night and she breathed in heavily.  Whether the breath served to calm down her nerves or to just feel that sense of cleansing, she couldn't distinguish.  She had wanted so much from her life when she was young.  She had wanted to be a writer, a journalist, among other countless things but over it all she only wanted to be happy.  She believed when she was younger that every step she took in her life served to achieve that goal of happiness and as she very slowly walked down the asphalt sidewalk, she finally realized that it wasn't true.  The step she just took in her life was bitter but was it sweet?  Could she be fully honest with herself and say that there was nothing else she could have said to him, nothing else she expected even in the every depths of her heart?  Did she want more?

            She didn't know and she had an inkling that she would never really figure it out.

            She took the subway home; she could never figure it out why she traveled so long to go to that particular diner.  She pondered that maybe it was because no one knew her there and no one tried to.  Even after going every weekend for breakfast, no one made an effort to know her name or her order.  In a very peculiar way, she enjoyed that anonymity; it relaxed her to think that nobody knew her secrets in that diner and nobody wanted to know them.  Every time she stepped through that door, she was given a clean slate and every time she walked out that diner, she was given the chance to erase that very same slate.

            Finally, she reached the entrance of her apartment.  She was glad to be home.  Stepping into the elevator, she pushed the little button and tucked her hair behind her ears.  The elevator signaled her floor and she stepped out and stared down the hall.

            Her breath caught in her throat.  Her lips went dry.  Her limbs went heavy.  She couldn't move.

            He got up slowly and approached.  He looked so tired.  "I realized that history was repeating itself."

            She was so confused.

            "Five years ago when you walked out of our apartment I knew you went home.  Every fiber of my being wanted to find you but it was my pride that held me back.  That night, I was so hurt and I knew that my pride had taken a beating too.  I didn't go after you because I didn't know if you wanted me to and because I wasn't sure if I could.  But after that night, no matter how angry I was at you, I was also so damn angry at myself for letting my pride stop me from doing what I thought was right.  I watched you walk out of that diner and I felt twenty-three again.  And right now, I don't care if this is right or whatever—all I know is that I'll spend the rest of my life regretting it if I didn't go after you."

            "Are you saying…?"  She trailed off.  She couldn't even say it; she didn't want to infer.

            "I'm not exactly sure what I'm saying; but I know that I don't want to loose you again."  He tentatively reached for her hand.  Slowly but surely, his hand wandered over to hers and at first, he gently touched as if she'd break; but then he fully grasped her hand into his.

            A small smile broke out on her face and it mirrored what was appearing on his.  "I want to work things out, Jess."

            "I know but right now this is all I can offer."  He glanced at their entwined hands and used his other hand to trace patterns on her skin.

            She knew that this was hard.  "But later…down the road…?"

            "It's going to take a lot of time."  He didn't answer her.

            "Okay."  She heard all she needed to anyways.

            "Okay."  He brought their hands up to his chest and he just rested them on the warmth of his jacket.  Slowly with the other hand, he traced her cheek with his palm and she leaned into his touch.  She bit her lip and he smiled at that reaction.  Some things never change.  He licked his lips and leaned down, softly descending onto hers.  The kiss was chaste but it conveyed everything he wanted it to.  It was nervous but full of promise.

            "Do you wanna come in for a couple of minutes?"  She looked expectant.  There was no innuendo laced into her question; she was young again—innocent and hopeful.

            "Sure."  He followed her lead and still clutched her hand as she closed the door softly behind them.

The End.

AN: That's it.  Thank you so much for reading and for sticking with me even with the severe time lapse.  It's been a wonderful journey.  Please, review.