Disclaimer: I'm disclaiming. Cute word, that one. Should be used more often, don'tcha think?

Being the glutton for punishment I usually am, I keep rewatching episodes and clips. My literaty heart is just about ready to kill me... Hence, the decision to engage in this odeal: I will be doing episode rewrites and deleted scenes. The land of Literati Illusion awaits you. I hope you have a pleasant stay.

Rewrite #1: Haunted Leg.

"Why the cold shoulder?"

She doesn't really know what happens in the next thirty seconds.

She'll think about this moment repeatedly in the future, remembering it as few, sparsely, wildly misplaced snapshots... puzzle pieces jigsawing their way in and out of place.

His eyes fixing on hers.

The drowning sensation, forgetting to breathe, forgetting the need to breathe, the need to remind herself that she does need to breathe...

The clang of the basket she's holding as it falls on the floor between them...

His body, closing in on hers, leaving her no space, no escape... her unwillingness to push him away.

The conflict between should be, could be, and supposed to be making no sense, losing its meaning.

He doesn't know what comes over him when he decides that this situation is very much at a stalemate. He does not want to wait for her. He cannot wait for her. He feels that his time is going to be running out.

He wants her. He purely and simply wants her. He hasn't been able to sleep, he hasn't been able to quell the vise pressing on his stomach, the alternate pangs of hurt, guilt, shame, want, need that hit at him randomly, at any given moment throughout the day.

He cannot stand this. He cannot go through it again. He might be tough, but she has broken him. And he can't, for the life of him, forgive her for this. For this past summer, for finding excuses, for not being there to sort it all out. For playing a game she doesn't even know is hurting everybody lucky enough to be involved in it.

So he backs her up against the shelf, not caring if the entire world sees them, and kisses her. And it's that feeling all over again.and it's that feeling all over again. The one that overtook and overpowered him last summer.

Suddendly. It happens suddendly, this kiss. Initiated by him, now, no mistaking of his intentions. His lips are on hers, and they allow the world to fall into oblivion... Not Dean, not Shane, not her mother, not her grandmother, not the entire freaking town can stop it.

This.

Them.

This is them coming together.

As his lips first brush, and then press over hers she is taken aback by his actions. Some part of her, the rational part of her would like to protest as his weigh rests on hers, there against the shelves, and some other part of her, the bizzarre one, is thinking that he's returning the favor. A kiss for a kiss. Fair trade all around.

She will not list to either frustrated rant. She concentrates on those lips which caress, bruise, careen on hers and his arms, fairly locking their position as it is and his tongue, dueling with hers... This kiss... this kiss she isn't able to slice in half, this kiss she cannot ruin, this moment that is so wrong she can't help to wish it was right... this kiss... is drawing her in like nothing in her young, sheltered life has before.

Their moment is interrupted by a booming voice behind them.

"What on earth are you doing? Don't you know that such public displays of affection are..."

Voice that is cut short as he sees who Jess is actually kissing. If Taylor Doose had been mad, now he is definately enraged

"Rory? Aren't you dating Dean? Surely you didn't want to... What is this hoodlum doing to you? I knew he was trouble! He's forcing himself on you, isn't he? I'm going to call Luke and set him straight on this..."

Jess has enough common sense to step slightly away from Rory, while sending her a glance that all but begs her not to slip away from his grasp once more. To his surprise, she shows no signs of an impending panick attack. Her words prove to be about as surprising as she speaks up.

"No Taylor. He wasn't." Now she has no excuse. She must tell Dean. She must do something about it... there can be no running away now, no hiding her head under the sand, no trip to Egypt while looking at the Nile.

The she looks outside, and sees her mother's face. It is unreadable, undecypherable... she thinks she could trace an "I told you so" mixed with an "I'm resigned to this" but she isn't sure. So she pushes Jess a little farther away, picks up her basket, and pays for her junk food. But she isn't running from him, now. He can follow her, if he wants, there is something in the way she has put her hands at his shoulders, let her gaze linger on his as she turned away, that told him so. He could follow her. He chooses not to.

She doesn't need him right now, but she'll seek him out later. At least, he hopes so. He's done all he could, actually, more than he wanted, because kissing her like that hasn't been in his plans. Not tonight, not ever. He has been wanting her to come to him. The whole summer, he's been waiting for her to dump Dean and make the moves all by herself. Moving back, he figures, fulfills the requirements on his part. He's been figuring it wrong, and he just realized it tonight. Girls like Rory need to be unsettled. Pushed. The stone sinks to the bottom of the lake. The ripples may not be upsetting the water any longer, but that stone... it will still be there.

So he's unsettled her again, his kiss the proverbial stone sinking through the water. But Jess Mariano isn't done with it. He is far from done with the whole freaking situation. He refuses to be left hanging one more minute than it proves to be necessary. That's why he has been loitering by the Gilmore house, waiting for all the lights to be turned off. And that's why he is now tapping at Rory's window pane, somehow knowing her not to be asleep.

"Hey"

he opens the window, confused and ashamed and happy and excited

"What are you doing here?"

This question is entirely too familiar to him

"Hello to you too"

She grins. She wants to kiss him, he can tell. And he wants her. Again. But he just brings a hand to her face and lets a lingering caress travel its way to her.

"So..."

"What now..."

They speak at the same moment, and refrain from laughing too hard, in fear of waking up unwarrented witness

She leans her face in his touch, trough the windowframe. Her eyes search for his

"What now?" he asks of her.

"Now... I just talked to my mother." She sees his expression set into something cold, something she doesn't like. "And I told her I've been wrong."

"Wrong?"

"I told her about you, and kissing you at Sookie's wedding... I told her everything."

"Everything?"

She blushes

"The echo tonight is nuts." She attempts at humor. He smirks.

"Come on, Rory, tell me." He urges her gently, with that drawl of his she feel playing directly with her heart "Come on Rory. Tell me."

And then it all comes pouring out from her "You... and me... and what is much, and Ernest has only lovely things to say about me..."

He tries following her, but there is no logic in what she's saying.

"Hey. You do realize you're making no sense?"

"Yeah. 'Cause you standing in front of my window at..." she glances at the clock back in her room. "... Ten to midnight is making so much sense, your picture is being added near the definition in the Webster's as we speak." She takes a deep breath, her hands fiddling with the bracelet on her wrist. It hits her again, full force, the sheer extent of what she's about to engage in.

"I feel horrible. About all of this..."

He's taken aback. The anger is washing over him, wave after crashing wave.

"You're feeling horrible?"

He can't freaking believe her.

" I'm sorry, did I hear from you at all this summer? Did I just happen to miss the thousands of phone calls you made to me, or did the postman happen to lose all those letters you wrote to me? You kiss me, you tell me not to say anything. . .very flattering, by the way. You go off to Washington. . . then nothing. Then you come back here all put out because I didn't just sit around and wait for you like Dean would've done? And yeah, what about Dean? Are you still with him? 'Cause last time I checked, you were, and I haven't heard anything to the contrary. Plus, the two of you walking around the other day like some damn Andy Hardy movie. Seemed to me like you're still pretty together. I half expected you to break into a barn and put on a show.

"When did you see me with Dean?" She grabs at this straw, something to hang on as she feels a storm approaching.

"At that stupid summer insanity plea the town put on." He still doesn't know why he went.

"Jess..."

"Did you call me at all? "

"No."

"Did you send me a letter?"

"No."

"Postcard?"

"No."

"Smoke signal?"

"Stop."

"A nice fruit basket? "

"Enough!"

"Are you still with Dean? Come on, Rory, yes or no – are you still with Dean?"

She can't stand him anymore. So she cuts him off with the words that have been there ever since she opened up her window.

"I don't want to be with Dean anymore!"

He's effectively shut up now, and she is even more shocked than he is.

"Ok." he manages to blurt out, regaining his voice.

He looks at the window frame. "Climb out?"

She nods.

They sit on the porch beneath it, joined at the shoulder, hip, leg, and upraised knee.

"And you and..."

She is hesitant.

"Her name's Shane"

"As in Come Back?"

"Are you..." She forces herself to swallow her pride. At least, what remains of it. Jess is no help. He's going to be sitting there, waiting for her to speak. "...breaking... up with her?"

Her lip is going to kill her in the morning, for being chewed up so forcefully she thinks she'll draw blood.

Hegives a single nod.

Neither says a word.

Jess looks for a cigarette.

Rory smiles.