The roof had become her sanctuary in the crazy months that followed her first kiss with Nick.

They had kissed. She had freaked and let it destroy her relationship with Sam. Both single, she and Nick continued to skirt around each other, tension building. Eventually the they exploded in a series of passionate kisses, but then mean-spirited words, spoken in fear. And then broken hearts as they both fled to other people, partially out of spite, but mostly out of the terror that what they had was real, real enough to shatter them completely.

Jess liked to tell herself that they were back to where they were before that first kiss, but she knew that was a lie. They had become distant, their relationship broken beyond repair.

The creak of the roof door shook Jess from her thoughts. She ignored the familiar footsteps approaching her side, and continued to stare out at the city lights. She sensed him sit down next to her, heaving a sigh. He must have just gotten home from a shift at the bar, she figured. There was no other reason for him to be up this late-or early depending on how you looked at it.

"You're still up," he stated. She simply nodded, determined to keep her gaze fixed on the skyline. "Why?" he continued.

"Couldn't sleep," she shrugged out a half-truth. She had never really tried in the first place. She was perfectly content spending these quiet hours on the roof, away from anything that would remind her just how screwed up her life was.

"I miss you," he sighed.

She scoffed in reply.

"I worry about you," he tried again.

She glared at him. "I'm a big girl, Nicholas. I can take care of myself." She smirked to herself when he visibly flinched at her words.

"I know that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I still care about you. A lot."

"People don't change, Nick. If someone's broken, they just stay broken," she replied, echoing the words he had said to her a year before.

"You're not broken, Jess," he countered. "We're not broken." He instinctively reached to take her hand, but quickly thought better of it.

"Then what are we?"

"We're-we just got a bit lost," he smiled sadly. "But I think we could start again."

"And what makes you think that?" she asked.

"Let me rephrase that: I would like to try to start again." He didn't stop himself from reaching for her hand this time, and was pleased when she didn't pull away. "I want to do it right this time around. I would take you out to dinner, and we would flirt awkwardly, and then go to a movie, and while you're wrapped up in what ever is going on onscreen, I'd yawn and stretch nonchalantly, and my arm may just end up around your shoulder. By chance, of course."

"Of course," she echoed.

"And at the end of the night I would walk you to your door, internally freaking out about whether or not the night went well enough to try to kiss you goodnight. And hopefully you would smile at me, and I'd completely forget about whatever I was thinking about in the first place. And then we'd say goodnight, and maybe try it again the next week."

"Like we were sixteen," she smiled.

He grinned. "Exactly like we were sixteen."

"But we're not sixteen."

"Jess, when I'm around you, I feel like I'm sixteen and thirty-six and sixty all at the same time," he confessed.

"I make you feel like you're sixty?" she questioned.

"I feel like I could still be with you when I'm sixty," he answered, correcting himself.

"Oh." She quickly looked down, a heat rising to her cheeks.

"Yeah," he replied, his own face a bright shade of red.

They sat there in silence, watching the first rays of sunlight peeking out from the horizon.

He returned his gaze to her, marveling at the way her skin glowed in the early morning light.

"So, what do you say?"

She looked at him in confusion, having been lost in the beauty of the dawn.

"To a date," he reminded her, grinning at her dazed appearance.

"I think-I think I would like that," she smiled softly. "Yeah. I think I would like that a lot."

"Great!" His grin widened. "I'll pick you up at 6:00." He squeezed her hand and winked before disappearing back down into the building.

She sighed as her heart bubbled over with something she hadn't felt in a while.

It was hope. Pure, unadulterated hope.

It was a feeling she could get used to.

A/N: I have an idea for a second chapter, but there are no guarantees that it is going to get written down, so this is complete for now.

Let's just say that this is nothing like my original story idea. I had been working on a songfic to "Notbroken" by The Goo Goo Dolls in my head, after "A Father's Love" (which is my favorite episode to date,) but after "Cooler" and reading interviews with Liz Meriwether, this kind of wrote itself. Anyways, I'd love to hear what you think!