The hurt on Sebastian's face almost broke her resolve immediately. Rory had prepared for anger. For shouting. For accusations. She'd even prepared for silence. She hadn't prepared for confusion. That was somehow worse. Her eyes closed briefly and she pressed the heels of her hands against them before letting them fall again. "God, that's exactly the problem," she whispered.
Because he didn't know. Of course he didn't know.How could he? Rory let out a shaky breath and looked at him again. Really looked at him. The man who had loved her. The man who had loved Livvy. The man who had stepped into spaces that had never belonged to him and filled them anyway because he cared enough to try. And she hated that she was about to hurt him.
"Corey is Livvy's father." The words landed softly. No less devastating for it. Rory swallowed hard. "The one I've told stories about. The one who left before she was born. The one I thought was gone." Her voice cracked slightly. "The one I spent years learning how to live without." She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly feeling cold.
"When he came back, I thought it was going to be fine." A humorless laugh escaped her. "Actually, no. That's a lie. I knew it wasn't going to be fine. I just thought I could handle it." Her gaze dropped to the floor. "I thought I could keep those feelings where I'd buried them." Another silence. Another breath. "I was wrong."
The admission felt ugly. Necessary. Rory shook her head. "I didn't go looking for this, Sebastian. I need you to know that." Her eyes lifted to his again, shining now. "I wasn't unhappy. I wasn't sitting here wishing for a different life. I loved you."
Loved. Past tense. The word nearly stopped her heart. Rory heard it too. Judged herself for it immediately. "I love you," she corrected softly, tears threatening again. "I do. I love you."
The truth was complicated. Messy. Impossible to fit neatly into a single sentence. "But every time I saw him..." Her voice broke. "Every time I talked to him, every time I tried to convince myself it was just history or nostalgia or unfinished business..." She laughed shakily. "It just kept getting worse."
Her fingers curled into the sleeves of her sweater. "I kept waiting for it to go away." Because that was the part nobody understood. She had wanted it to. Desperately. "I wanted to wake up one morning and realize I'd imagined it. That I was just overwhelmed. That I was confused."
But she wasn't. And eventually the truth had become too heavy to keep carrying alone. Rory looked at him and her heart shattered all over again at the pain in his expression. "I'm saying that I don't think I ever stopped loving him." The room felt impossibly quiet. "I didn't know that until he came back."Her voice dropped lower.
"And if I stay here pretending otherwise because it's easier, because it's kinder, because I'm scared of hurting you..." A tear finally escaped and slid down her cheek. "Then eventually I'd be lying to both of us." Rory shook her head, devastated. "You deserve somebody who wakes up every day and chooses you without hesitation." Her throat tightened. "You deserve certainty."
The irony almost made her laugh. Because Sebastian had spent so much time offering her exactly that. Steadiness. Patience. Love. And now she was standing here admitting she couldn't give the same thing back.
"I'm so sorry."The words came out broken. Not because she thought they would fix anything. Not because they were enough. Just because they were true. "I never wanted to hurt you." And somehow that made hurting him now feel even worse.
Father. Corey was Livvy's father. Sweet, beautiful, innocent Livvy - whom Sebastian could hear slumbering away upstairs; her little heart making soft pitter-patters as she breathed. "You-You're doing.... this? Because of him? Because of a man that couldn't be bothered to stick around for you and his own child?!" Sebastian snarled out - fighting to keep his voice from raising loud enough to disturb the sleeping child. It didn't stop the anger from seeping into each word, however.
"Lorelai, he left you!" Sebastian stated once more. The vampire - the prince - tried desperately to think about this situation from the woman's viewpoint. He tried to look at things rationally, but each word she spoke felt only like daggers stabbing in the same place in his chest.
Again.
Again.
The relationship was complex from the beginning. He tried to tell himself. You still have Aliyah. You still love Aliyah.
It was true. He had never given it voice, but in that moment he assumed it really was the truth. He did love Aliyah. But, he also loved Lorelai. That part of him is what the vamprism within him latched onto; what emotions it used as fuel.
"And what of, her?!" He questioned through clenched jaws and pointed at the ceiling above, towards Livvy's room. "What will you say when Little Livvy comes asking where I am? Huh? Will you tell her that I just abandoned her, but that's okay because a father she's never known is now back!" He exclaimed with a fake joy.
"Sorry?" Sebastian scoffed, as his restraint slipped a little farther and a little more. "I may still be new to this modern world of yours, but where I come from - in my days, loving someone did not mean ruining them, Lorelai Lockwood." He hissed. There was a pause and he laughed, once. Humorless. "You know, I butchered a woman the other day. Night Court. My own people. And the only thing I could think about was how you and Aliyah would look at me. Turns out, I was foolish - you were too busy casting your gaze upon another."
Blackened veins flickered into view beneath his eyes and fade as the vampire moved to step around the woman and aimed for the door. The words were unfair. Intentionally hurtful and deep down, he knew it. Yet, he said them anyway, unable to stop himself.













