AN: For those of you who read the previously done 'Be My Someone' first
chapter I decided it needed to be redone, confused some people on the names
I used so here is the real Chapter 1. Full of Trory (although older
Tristan & Rory), relationships between their kids, conflicts, angst and all
that good stuff.
DISC: Do not own Gilmore Girls. Only the characters I create are mine. :)
Be My Someone
Chapter 1: DuGreys
Written by: V Lynne
echoinghearts@yahoo.com
~ * ~ * ~ *
A frustrated scream came out the young girl's throat as she stared at her mother, whose face was determined not to back down from her decision.
"You can't think that making me do this is a good choice, Mom. It's like sending a lamb as a pet to wolves. Why would you even think I would want to?"
Lorelai 'Rory' Gilmore stared at her eldest child, sitting around the pine round kitchen table in the medium sized kitchen of their New York City apartment. Sunlight was pouring in from the single large window that wasn't blocked by the sky rise building across the busy street, which did block the sunlight more often than not from the three bedrooms that faced the street. Rory took in that her daughter was indeed angered by the fact that she was going to have to be separated for 3-5 months before Rory could join her in Connecticut.
Not so much that, Rory thought, as where her daughter and son were going to be living those months.
"You don't want to see your godfather?" Rory questioned, already knowing the answer.
"Of course I want to see him, he's one of the greatest people I know," Jessica Leigh Gilmore paused, "but the fact of spending time in the same house as.....HIM....I don't think it's the best idea you've ever come up with."
Rory lifted a delicately arched dark brown eyebrow at her daughter's insightful comment on just why she was so dead set against going to Hartford.
"I know that you two had a falling out..."
"More like a drag out hate-you-forever fight." Jess interrupted.
"Okay," Rory allowed, "but it is his home and his return is just as unexpected as my job requirements."
"Right, like the whole Connecticut area didn't know two weeks ago," Jess eyed her mother, "when somebody should have told me that he was going home instead of staying in France for his senior year like he was going to."
"It was a mistake not to tell you but he is going to be going to Chilton with you. I can't stop that, Jess."
"How about you write some column that only education minds can go to Chilton not stuck-up, self-serving egotistical jerks."
Rory had to cough in order to hide her laugh, as she remembered not too long ago describing a male of that same family just like that.
"Sorry, honey, but the New York Times doesn't exactly work that way."
Jess snapped her fingers in disappointment with a small smile, "Damn."
Rory glanced to the shadow that appeared on the tiled kitchen flooring before her youngest child entered, his towhead buried in a thick hard-back book that it was surprising to both the Gilmore females that he could see where he was walking.
"Ten years old and already smarter than males my age." Jess proclaimed as she touched her kid brother's arm to keep him from walking into the kitchen table, his dark-ocean eyes blinked up from the book in surprise.
"You done telling her about Terry, Mom?" Christopher asked, as Jess glared at her mother.
"Just about, C.J. why don't you go finish packing?" Rory leaned across the table and kissed the top of his head as he rolled his eyes at the motherly gesture.
"Mom." C.J. protested.
Turning on the heel of his sneakers, he passed the toaster, grabbing a Pop Tart that Jess had put in there before her mother dropped the bomb, and headed to his room. Knowing his sister like he did the conversation would last a good another half an hour before she gave in.
"How is it that Boy Genius knows what you were talking to me about?"
Rory stood up, going to the sink to rinse out her coffee mug before turning on the new coffee maker to brew another pot.
"Mom?"
"He heard me talking to your Grandma."
"Gee, and someone thought I'd like to be the last to know?"
Rory turned, leaning against the porcelain sink and white countertop, to meet her daughter's eyes.
"I realize that it's asking alot but you have to think of C.J. if I could I would let you stay with Grandma in Stars Hollow like you do during the school year since last year but it's not just you going to Connecticut this time. C.J. and you will both have to be under one roof and unfortunately your Grandma's house only has room for one of you."
"So have C.J. move into the tool shed at the Inn."
Rory's look told Jess that wasn't funny.
"And moving there is the only other alternative?"
"Afraid so. I would put you at Grandma Emily's but she's spending the next two months in England with one of her charities."
"Great, so I'm forced to live in the same household as Playgirl Model?"
"Playgirl Model?"
"That's what Grandma calls him after seeing him on the cover of Teen magazine."
Rory touched her forehead at the name that her mother had given the boy that her daughter's feelings went from luke-warm to streaming-anger hot.
"Forget I asked," Rory waved her hand in front of her, "you are going and that's the end of it."
"Fine. Can I whine, scream and complain the entire way there?"
"If I said no, would that stop you?"
Jess grinned, standing and pushed an escaping brown strand of hair from her French braid behind her ear.
"Not a chance."
Rory offered a smile to her sixteen-year-old daughter.
"It'll work out, Jess."
Jess started to walk out, stopping to toss a comment over her shoulder.
"Think I'll get Murder One when they find him missing two days after I get there? Isn't it not a crime if they can't find the body?" Jess pondered, snatching an apple off the fruit bowl next to the kitchen door before exiting.
Rory went back to her coffee making, bracing a hand on the edge of the sink.
"Always wondered what would happen if Tristan and I got together, maybe now I'll find out." Rory thought aloud.
~
C.J. sat in the back of his mom's Ford Expedition while he half-listen, half-tuned out his sister's occasional bout of resentment. Noticing his sister's face in the rear view mirror he noticed most of the comments were from habit rather than real anger at Terry. C.J. always wondered why his two siblings couldn't get along but that was like asking why a cat can't get along with a mouse. Tension, emotion-entanglements, distrust. Big words but like his mother always said, if you knew the meanings to big words why not use big words rather than small ones. Although talking like a kid did have its advantages when it came to his sister's relationships. He found out tons that he knew Jess would have a field day with if she knew, reading a sister's journal had a certain appeal that not even he could deny.
As they came to the city limits of Stars Hollow, his mom's hometown and where their Grandma Lorelai lived along with all the people that were basically extended family. Pulling up to a building the words 'Hardware' clearly lettered on the outside didn't put off his mom as she opened her door, called that they were stopping for a while and left the two of them to get out.
Jess glanced around Stars Hollow, her school year hometown, and noticed that the trees in the center of the two street town were already turning to autumn colors. The wind blew lightly and she smiled. How she missed this place when she was gone. Closing the car door behind her, as C.J. followed, the two of them got on the sidewalk and opened the glass door of the 'Hardware' store that was really a diner owned by their Grandma's closest friend and love-interest Luke Danes.
Small tables with checkerboard table clothes; a long counter with bar stools where behind the counter was Luke. Blue backward baseball cap; white T-shirt with flannel over it and jeans. The uniform of the diner. Sitting on a lonely bar stool was the graciously aged, barely gray haired Lorelai Gilmore, in a tan skirt with a bright silk blue blouse sipping coffee out of a mug.
Rory was sitting next to her mother, dressed in a green T-shirt with black jeans and a matching black jean jacket, not a person in the diner could not say the two very pretty to almost beautiful women weren't related.
"Well, if it isn't two very trouble-making kids," Luke announced, his lips lifted at the edges into a smile, "Rory, I thought I told you to leave those two outside?"
"I know, Luke, but no matter what I do they follow me." Rory kept in character with Luke's annoyed look at the two kids.
"What do you two have to say for yourselves?"
C.J. grinned from ear to ear as Jess used her right hand to toss her long dark hair over her shoulder before hauty speaking to him.
"If you deny us service I will just have to convey our mutual displeasure to our relatives and that may cost you a great deal of lost revenue due to how much our relatives occupy those bar stools."
Luke winked at Jess since neither Lorelai or Rory could see his face.
"Talk a little more, half pint and I could use you as my lawyer." Luke informed the girl.
"Couldn't you though?" Jess smiled as C.J. burst out laughing at the way those two always greeted each other, "so Uncle Luke keeping Grandma out of trouble?"
Luke hugged Jess to him as she hugged him back.
"Not even the Secret Service could keep your Grandma out of trouble, kiddo."
C.J. only grinned at Luke, knowing that they didn't need hugs to show their affection.
"I take offense to that." Lorelai stated before hugging C.J., tousling his already tousled blond curls and then giving a one-arm hug to Jess, keeping a hand on her coffee mug.
"How are you doing, Jessie James?" Lorelai asked, nodding to the unoccupied bar stools so that C.J. and Jess sat down.
"Fine but would you please talk some sense into Mom so she doesn't send me off to OZ without a fair trial?"
"Don't listen to Jess, Grandma, she's just upset cause Terry's going be there."
"Terry?" Lorelai thought for a moment, "oh, Playgirl Model. Don't tell me that you and Hot Boy Jr. are on the outs?"
"Mother," Rory begged, "could you please not call him that?"
"Haven't you seen him? If I was Jess's age I would be all over that boy....kinda like you with his dad," Lorelai suggestively inquired, "how is it between you and Bible Boy?"
"Tristan and I are fine, Mom."
Lorelai glanced to C.J., who looked entirely too much like his father that she knew he would be breaking as many hearts as his dad and older brother in no time.
"Happy to be spending some time with your dad?"
C.J. nodded, as Jess sighed heavily.
"I haven't seen him since school ended last year."
"Have to admit," Lorelai turned her face to Rory's worried expression to just what Lorelai had on her devious mind, "that boy of yours does make good looking kids."
Rory groaned, before Luke interfered with coffee causing Lorelai to glare at him that Rory hadn't even asked for it yet.
"Hey, she's been gone." Luke replied back to the look.
"Alright, I'll let it slid this time only because I know your coming home with me."
Jess chuckled at her Grandma's obsessions with coffee and not to mention Luke.
"Speaking of the Fathers' of my grandchildren," Lorelai spoke up with, "how's Jess Sr.?"
Rory shrugged, noting Luke's also interested look.
"He's in Chicago working on his latest project."
"Who would have thought he'd become a stuffy archaeologist?"
"Actually Dad's more Indiana Jones than a Professor, Grandma," Jess informed, "he spent this summer in Peru gathering information on a sacred stone."
"Well, that is more interesting than being a stuffy Professor at Chicago University. Besides I always liked Indiana Jones," Lorelai sighed dreamily, "Harrison Ford was such a babe."
"As much as I'd like to continue this discussion into who Lorelai thinks is a babe," Luke said, "just how long are you staying in Stars Hollow, Rory?"
"Tonight. I have to drop off Jess and C.J. at Tristan's and then head to the Inn..."
"Oh no you don't, young lady, you are staying with us." Lorelai protested.
"Okay, fine. But I already paid and Michel already has the payment for my room."
"First off the man is so fired for charging you to stay in MY Inn. Second, you talked to Michel? Are you glutton for punishment or what? Plus Sookie has promised to bring over dinner."
"Not only to I have to stay in the Dragon's Lair I don't get to eat Sookie's food." Jess complained under her breath.
"Poor baby." C.J. teased.
"Watch it, brother of mine, or you just might take the place of your dear older brother in the grave I will be digging tonight."
Lorelai laughed at the exchange.
"I knew I should have had a second child."
"That child would still be in college or possibly in high school, Mom." Rory remarked.
Lorelai grimaced.
"On second thought...."
~
After leaving the diner, Lorelai promising to rescue Jess soon, Rory drove the forty-five minute drive to Hartford. Dark trees loomed, empty streets lined with huge over-done houses until Rory pulled off the Hartford 'Fifth Ave' to the private street that Tristan had selected, valuing his privacy now more than he had before. The sandstone drive led to the gray-stoned two-story house that looked like something out of the Colonial period. Spacious, realistic, rich without being snobby. The DuGrey Estate, as Jess called it, was a house that screamed mountains of money with a homey feel. She bet Tristan spent alot of money to get it to say that.
Next to the house their Expedition looked out of place, like a horse drawn carriage should be in front of the U-shaped drive not a vehicle of steel and plastic. Off to the side of the house was the matching type styled garage with an apartment above it where the family that worked on the Estate lived.
"Forgot how big Dad's place is." C.J. commented, getting out and gathering two of his four suitcases.
"Like anyone could forget this house." Jess replied, as Rory gave her a 'Come-On' look as they each took suitcases out and Rory rang the doorbell that sounded like wind chimes.
Opening the stained glass paneled door, came the unexpected presence of a sandy-haired young man with a pleased expression on his face and in his hazel eyes.
"Rory, Jess, C.J! We didn't expect you this early," Adam St. Clare greeted, "come in, here let me get some of the bags."
Adam took one from Rory and one from Jess, leading them into the foyer.
Marble tiled flooring, a grand staircase fifty feet from the front door that separated the sides of the house, gold framed paintings, fresh flowers on the two small entrance tables. A modest chandelier hung above the staircase lighting the entire area.
"Uncle Tristan is in the den talking to Claudia on the vid-phone," Adam told Rory, as she nodded.
"Master Adam, why did you not tell me they had arrived," a middle-aged woman with a light accent that sounded English arrived dressed in a skirt with a white blouse covered by an apron; "you must be Miss Jessica and Master Christopher."
"That'd be us." Jess informed the gentle-looking woman.
"I'm Mrs. Fitzgerald, but call me Mrs. Fitz, I do the cooking for Master Tristan," Mrs. Fitz turned to Rory, who she automatically saw as Tristan's love, "and you must be Miss Gilmore."
"Call me Rory, it's nice to meet you Mrs. Fitz."
"Master Tristan could talk of nothing else these past two days but your arrival. Let me get Alfred and James to help you with the bags."
The white-gray haired woman disappeared as Adam took in Jess and C.J.
"Ready to live in the Southern Plantation?" Adam joked.
"It's like a cross between one and a Colonial, isn't it?" Jess asked.
"Come on, Jess, you've been here a while ago."
"No, that was when Tristan still lived in his parents mausoleum. He didn't finish this until after Terry and I..."
"Stopped talking, communicating or otherwise acknowledging each other's existence?"
"That about covers it."
Adam shook his head ruefully at his cousin's and his best friend's behavior.
The footsteps of Tristan's shoes echoing off the marble flooring got Rory's attention from her daughter talking to Tristan's younger sister's son, who he had full legal guardianship over.
Rory took in Tristan's appearance almost like she had been denied air for so long that now it was hard to breathe. You'd think that him being forty years old, the same age as she would do something to his outward appearance but no, life wasn't just. His hair, a wavy golden blond was still without a hint of gray to it, his tan only added to his clean cut handsome features and he was just beginning to get crow's feet at the edge of his eyes. Still tall, built like a god, and had the ability to make her feel weak in the knees just by looking at him. Life was so not fair.
"Hey, Rory."
Out came in a soft undertone that never failed to cause her the shiver when he said her name like that.
"Tristan."
His trademark smirk appeared as he knew just what affect his presence had on her, then turned his smirk into a smile as his eyes rested on his youngest son, Christopher Janlen Gilmore DuGrey. No mistake that the boy was his, C.J. looked exactly like him when he was C.J.'s age. Unlike him though, C.J. was full of emotions that he never failed to express and he was sincerely loved and knew it.
"Dad!"
Tristan hugged his son to him, having not seen him in almost three months and that was wearing on Tristan's emotions. Thank god that Rory was moving back to Connecticut, that way he got to see his son more and Rory much, much more. With that promising thought, he saw that his son had grown at least two inches in height and already had the good looks so common with the DuGrey bloodline.
"Haven't been causing problems for your Mom, have you?"
C.J. shook his head, as Tristan's matching ocean eyes sought Rory's always clear sky-blue ones.
"He's been burying his head in books and VR games all summer."
"I wonder where he gets his book love from?" Tristan suggestively asked.
Rory just looked all innocent that Tristan felt an ache go straight to his chest.
"I have no idea, must take after his sister."
With that said, Tristan put a hand on his son's shoulder and sought out his goddaughter, the girl he was as possessive of as he was of her mother and brother. It never failed to amaze him that she looked exactly like Rory, the image taking him back to when he first met the girl that had changed him. Same stubbornness, beauty, and intelligence that was seemingly to be a Gilmore trait. How his son didn't miss that Tristan wondered if he needed to use a brick against his son's thick head.
"The Vision," Tristan declared, as his nickname for Jess had become an old joke, "how gracious of her to grace us with her presence."
"Don't," Rory scolded, "she's got a big enough ego as it is."
"Gee, thanks, Mom." Jess said and stuck her tongue out at her mother.
"And mature, too, I see." Tristan laughed, before Jess set down her bags and hugged him around the waist.
"I missed you." Jess told him.
Backing up in the young girl's arms he genuinely smiled at her.
"I missed you, too, Jess."
"Back off my dad, Jess." C.J. demanded smiling.
"Sorry, brat, I'm afraid I have decided that he's too good for you. Are you sure aliens didn't drop you off? How about Big Foot?"
Tristan saw C.J. roll his eyes at his sister, before Adam cut in.
"You know now that I look at him I do see a resemblance to the Abdominal Snowman." Adam added.
"Mom." C.J. urged her, to get the two teens off his case.
"Alright, guys, let's leave C.J. alone."
"Baby." Jess teased.
"I know where you sleep, Jess." C.J. countered.
Tristan and Rory smiled at that.
"How could you? You don't even know where you sleep?"
"And if all else fails you could always sleep with me, Jess." came the husky tone of a male she tried to forget.
The silent descent of the returning prodigal son caused all five people below to stare up at the slacks and black T-shirt clad blond, blue eyed babe, as Lorelai would say. His eyes were narrowed as he stepped onto the second to last stair and leveled his eyes at Jess.
"Terry." Tristan's tone warned his son, who only smiled a wide fake smile at his father.
"Don't worry, Dad, I wouldn't want to cause bloodshed this early in Jess's stay," Terry informed his Dad but his eyes never left Jess's wide angered turquoise ones.
"The only blood that would be shed would be yours, DuGrey."
"Don't count on it, Gilmore."
Tristan saw the tension, it was so thick you could cut it with a knife. The front door opened marking James and Alfred coming in with the rest of the luggage and broke the trance they all seemed to be under.
"Well, that's it," Mrs. Fitz declared, "why don't we get Miss Jessica and Master Christopher's things upstairs and then we can eat."
Tristan nodded, taking Rory's hand as if to unite the parental fronts. Jess had broken off eye contact with Terry and talked with Adam as they headed up that stairs. C.J. was asking Terry about France, as Rory and Tristan followed the two up the stairs to situate the kid's bedrooms.
~
Soon, with Mrs. Fitz's help Jess was completely unpacked in the guestroom that Tristan informed her was not a guestroom but her own room at the house. It had been designed with her in mind. The window seat got first light that was important to Jess, as she was heavily involved in painting, as well as a private bathroom with skylights that brought all natural light into play. Her room was done in creams and pale blues, a canopy bed with all pine furniture that followed her love of soft colors. It was a stunning room that Rory had stood in shock of.
"Tristan, that is too much."
Tristan only shrugged it off.
"I don't think it's enough, honestly."
"Are you kidding me? All that kid needs now is her own car and...." Rory stopped at Tristan's guilty look.
"Tristan DuGrey, do not tell me you bought Jess a car. Say those words cause that is the only way you are getting out of this conversation with skin intact."
Putting a hand behind his neck in a remorseful but confident manner, he stared at Rory.
"Sorry, can't."
"When we agreed that Jess and C.J. stay here I don't remember saying anything to the fact of you gifting her with cars or a dream bedroom. I also don't remember asking you to make C.J.'s room into a half library that rivals the library in Stars Hollow."
"Rory, calm down."
"I will not calm down, Tristan," as she spoke he stood steps backwards, "my kids are not to become spoiled brats that take things for granted because everything is handed to them on a silver platter."
At that, he stopped and took a step forward the invaded Rory's space that the only place to go was against the white hall wall, with his arms coming out to fan out on each side of her head.
"C.J. is OUR child, Rory. He's entitled to all I can give just as much as Terry and I agree that giving them everything they want isn't a great idea, lord knows I learned that first hand but I hardly ever get to spend time with him or with Jess and I think that gives me some right to want to provide for them when I do get to spend time with them. Did you think about how Jess was going to get around while you are in New York finishing your work? She needs a car, Rory. We agreed that C.J. would be driven to school by Rory, Terry, or Adam which makes her need for a car real. As well as getting to and from school, to and from Stars Hollow and to and from any activity she may be involved in without having to depend on someone else to provide her with one. In a sense I am giving her freedom that you independent Gilmore girls love. So tell me again how giving them something like this is bad? Both C.J. and Jess are going to be living with you once you move back to Stars Hollow but they will also know that they'll always have a place with me as well."
The proximity of their bodies was a heady feeling for both of them. Rory had to admit he had a point although it damned her to admit it.
"What is this car you gave her?"
Tristan backed off, knowing he had won.
"A Mercedes."
Rory groaned before he added.
"A very nice car, with a built in phone should she need it but no added luxuries."
"Besides it being a very near six figure vehicle."
"Not actually. You should see the car that Adam has."
Rory held up her hand in protest.
"I don't want to know. Mercedes is very safe and dependable," Rory noted, "a good choice."
"It's all paid for so you don't have to worry about that and is fully insured in both her and your names."
Rory knew he hadn't meant to upset her with this but it was her job, as Jess's mother, to provide things for Jess. Car included, in case Jess's savings from her odd jobs didn't allow for her to get one anytime soon.
"A little spoiling isn't going to hurt either one of them. Jess is too down to earth for that and C.J. isn't half as cocky as I was at his age, so already he's showing traits of being practical."
"Although his hair maintenance needs work," Rory offered, "I swear that boy spends more time in the bathroom on his hair than both me and Jess."
Tristan smirked.
"A DuGrey trait."
"What could he possibly need to do with it? It's a wavy tousled mess. No matter what he does to it the hair does what it wants, which is to half fall into his eyes and give him that sleepy look that you perfected at infancy."
"Oh, really?"
Tristan leaned forward from having backed away earlier, his lips brushed hers in the smallest of caresses.
"I thought you liked that look."
Rory moved her lips against his, their contact brief but enough to cause both to feel their blood on fire.
"I do," Rory breathed, "on you. Not on our ten year old son. I have enough problems with Jess's love life without him becoming Casanova thanks to your unruly hair gene."
Tristan smiled against her lips before deepening the kiss by closing their distance from each other and imprisoning her to the wall as he thoroughly kissed the only woman he ever loved in the middle of the upstairs hallway where at any minute one of their mutual three children or his nephew could walk out and see their affectionate display.
"I'll just have to work on him then."
Rory sighed, her breath ragged.
"I gotta go. Dinner with Mom, Luke and Sookie. Spending the night at Mom's."
"Thought you'd want to try sleeping here."
Rory widened her eyes at his blatant invitation before softly smiling.
"I wish I could, but I doubt sleep is what I'd get, Tristan, and unfortunately sleep is what I need if I have to drive back to New York and be at work on Monday."
Tristan growled under his breath before she pressed a kiss to his lips and they separated.
"I have to say goodbye to the kids."
Tristan let her out of his arm hold and watched her go down the hall before muttering.
"One day, Rory, you are going to get in my bed and I'm going to keep you there."
~
After Rory left, Mrs. Fitz set out a dinner that was a rival to anything Sookie could cook but being loyal to her Grandma's best friend's cooking Jess would always say that Sookie's was the best. Sitting at the intimate dinning room table, something Jess had not thought Tristan would have that he'd be more for an Empire long table rather than a simple mahogany eight- person table.
Jess had come down to find Terry the first one at the table, so chose a chair two removed from his as Mrs. Fitz had set out the last of the food before announcing that dinner was ready. A phone rang in the back of the house and Tristan had made an exit after apologizing at least five times for not being able to eat with them.
"Don't worry about it, Tristan," Jess reassured, "we won't be horribly scarred, since Mom does it to us at least once a week, besides," Jess winked at him mischievously, "if we are I'm sure you can pay the bills for our therapy."
Tristan laughed coming into the dinning room and kissing her forehead.
"You act just like your mother."
"Before or after you met her the second time?" Jess wondered.
Tristan thought for a minute.
"Both. I just didn't appreciate her the first time like I should have." Tristan honestly stated.
"Good enough for me."
Tristan glanced the slightly irritated look in his eldest son's face.
"Try to play nice, children."
Tristan left the dinning room and Jess could hear him apologizing the C.J. and Adam in the foyer. Jess turned her glaze onto the food in front of her, ignoring Terry's presence. Helping herself to the food, she set it out on her place before C.J. and Adam joined them. Adam sat a chair away from Terry on Terry's other side while C.J. sat next to Adam.
"It smells good." C.J. commented.
"Always does. Mrs. Fitz used to work for a Count in Ireland."
"That's the accent. I couldn't place it earlier."
Adam nodded.
"She's a great help. Not uptight like our Grandparents cook at the old house, which doesn't surprise me why they didn't take him with them when they moved to Richmond."
"How's your Mom?" Jess asked between bites of mashed potatoes.
"Who knows? Prancing around with her latest boyfriend probably." Adam's tone was good-natured, having accepted his mother's frivolous ways years ago when Tristan took him in when he was seven.
"Sounds like somebody else's mother I know." Terry commented, taking a sip of his wineglass that Jess knew did not have soda in it.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Don't take it out of context, kitten, it's just a observation."
"Observation?"
"That your mother doesn't have the best track record either when it comes to men, now does it?"
C.J. went to say something only to have Adam shake his head. These two needed to battle out things themselves, even if it meant hitting below the belt.
"I rather my mother everyday over some woman who acts like she's twenty rather than forty going around half dressed with men half her age around her teenage son and having him become some Playgirl model."
"At least she married my dad, unlike your mother who just sleeps with men and gets pregnant but doesn't get married to them. What's that old saying, 'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free'?"
Adam let out a breath of air at the harsh words. Terry's resentment of his parent's break up was a big kept secret that only Adam knew. Terry blamed Rory for it.
"Shut up! You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't I? Let's see here. Out of college, at least she had the grace to wait until she got her degree to get pregnant with you by Jess Danes, whose relative owns a Hardware store turned diner and is a history Professor that travels but doesn't really have any more time for your mom than he does for you. Then she waits until she sees my dad again years later and when my parents were having a rough time goes in for the kill, makes my dad break up with my mom and then gets your mom pregnant with C.J, which is the only good thing that happened out of that. Which gets me stuck with being related to you by C.J. for the rest of my life because your slut of a mother couldn't keep her hands off a married man."
Adam heard rather than saw the events after that. It happened so fast that even Terry was unprepared for it. Jess had raised out of her seat, unshed angry tears in her crystal blue eyes, as she reached across the small space and whole handedly slapped Terry across the face backed by the force of her entire body she got him to turn his face by the power. Then taking her red juice that she was drinking, threw it at him with such vigor she splashed his entire upper body and face cause splats to land on the wall behind him. The utter hatred in Jess's face and eyes caused Adam to swallow hard.
"God, I hate you. How such an evil person can be related to anyone I care about I don't know but I hate you. I hate you."
"So you've said," Terry was using his cloth napkin to clean off his face, "please reframe from being a broken record, Gilmore. It's unbecoming."
Jess glared at him before pushing her chair back and running out of the room. C.J. glared at his elder brother before excusing himself and going after his sister. Adam sat there, disgust at his cousin clear on his face.
"I always wondered why she didn't want anything to do with you, Terry, now I know and I don't blame her one bit because if she didn't hate you before she sure as hell does now."
Adam pushed himself from the table, his appetite gone and headed up the stairs to see about Jess. Behind him he heard the screech of Mrs. Fitz having wondered what happened.
Terry stood with all the lazy grace of a cat.
"Just a reminder not to get involved with kittens, Mrs. Fitz."
~
Terrance Julien DuGrey walked out of the dinning room feeling lousy. He should have felt better for getting that off his chest but he didn't. He really shouldn't have said that, especially not in front of C.J. His little brother didn't need to resentment that he had towards Rory and Jessica Gilmore. Adam wasn't a great witness to have either since his cousin was half in love with Jess himself although the moron didn't know it.
The stickiness of the drink Jess had tossed at him was starting to set in and so he reluctantly headed up the stairs, to his room shutting and locking the door before pulling his shirt over his head, followed by yanking his slacks off and then his underwear padding across the carpeted floor naked but unselfconscious. Living the past year and a half in France under the rule of his flightily mother and a thousand different photographers got a person from being self conscious real quick or you went nuts. Constantly under surveillance to see if some part of your body was inadequate, if you gained half a pound and a broad variety of things that left him feeling drained physically and emotionally. Now to be home, to relax only to have his space invaded by the very girl he wanted to have to furthest distance from living under the same roof had to be some cosmic joke on him.
Opening the frosted glass door of his bathroom, he turned on the water to almost scalding hot before stepping inside and shutting the door after him. Gather shampoo in his hands he massaged it in his hair. What a fit his hair stylist would have if he could see the mess Jess had made of it.
Jess. The girl he had not allowed himself to think of for fear of creating some hopeless situation again where he would never have her. He had done it once and he would damn himself before he did it again. It almost had an irony to it that the two of them used to be the best of friends. Jess, Adam and him. The three of them against the world. Would never thought it would happen after his parents divorced and C.J. was born, when his dad spent more time with Rory, Jess and C.J. than he did with Terry. That Jess was Tristan's goddaughter he understood. He accepted that she was going to be in his life as Tristan thought of her as a daughter, probably wished she were his daughter rather than the girl born to Rory by another man. Had accepted that he was more tied to her when they were given a little brother to share when they were seven and Adam had come to live with Tristan and Terry. More shared affection, more love removed from Terry, Tristan's first born and placed into other people.
Up until he was just turning fourteen and Jess was thirteen they had been great friends. Knew every secret about each other, had a bond that to them would never be broken. Until he gave her that damned necklace. A present for her thirteenth birthday. He had stolen his dad's credit card and bought it from a magazine he had found in his mom's old things and then had it redesigned and customed for Jess. It was a gold tigress, his nickname for her when they were going through one of Jess's dad's old books on China and found the animal for the year of their births, hers happened to be a tiger just like Adam since they were born in the same year. A gold tigress about an inch long a half an inch wide made out of pure gold with black opals used for the stripes and a small turquoise jewel for the eye. Behind the creation was flat and he had engraved on it 'Jess the Tigress'. A private joke set on a thin delicate gold chain. It was expensive, beautiful and over-done for a thirteenth birthday present but he remembered how her face lit up when he gave it to her. She had actually kissed him, on the lips, in gratitude for the gift, only to have her throw it back at him four months later when she found him being mauled by Vanessa Ensley and took it all wrong. Sure, he had to admit having an older girl, a sophomore in high school to his 8th grade self, throwing herself at you added a huge boast to your ego that he, being the naive kid he was, couldn't very well turn down. He should have if he really thought about the heart broken look Jess had gotten when she caught them together. How she called him everything she had ever heard claiming he was no better than any other boy, all he wanted was to get in some girls' pants no matter who the girl was. That he was buying his time with her, that was when she literally snatched the necklace off her neck yanking so hard she broke the chain link and threw the chain with the tigress at his chest before leaving. That was when he realized he loved her and she loved him or else neither one of them would have drug things out into a private feud between the two of them over the next three and a half years. Now everytime he got around her he acted like a complete and utter jerk that needed to be beheaded in order to keep his smart-ass comments to himself. The damage was done, had been years ago, when they first talked after she threw the necklace at him and they declared their mutual hatred for one another. Right in the middle of school play they were both in they yelled and shouted at each other until their parents had to drag them off the stage. Red faced, angry words dripping out their mouths until neither one could talk. Sometimes he wondered what he ever saw in that tomboy.
Finishing his shower, washing off the soap off his abs and arms, he let water cascade over his face and following his throat down to his stomach and lower. He didn't need this aggravation. He had enough problems in his life without that infuriating brunette and from now on he was going to prove just how much he didn't want or need that girl in his life. If Adam wanted her he was welcome to her, she meant nothing to him. She hadn't in years and he wasn't about to let her mean something to him now. He was rich, adored, a model and had girls throwing themselves at him wanting him he didn't need one girl who was more trouble than she was worth. Now if only he could shut off his brain and believe that...
~
Jess cried into the cream and blue comforter on her bed, her hair a waterfall on the covers, as her tears dampened the comforter where the water soaked into the thick material. She heard the door to her bedroom open and the muffled footsteps on the carpet, then a hand touched her shoulder and she glanced up from her hair covered face, pushing stray hair back and using the back of her hand to wipe at her tears.
Concern filled the face of Adam, as he had told C.J. that he'd look in on Jess. His young cousin didn't need to witness his sister's distraught at the heartless words that had spouted out of Terry's lips. Sitting at the edge of her bed, Adam saw her glance away embarrassed that she had gotten caught crying like some silly airhead girl who had nothing better to do than cry over a boy who didn't like her.
"He hates me that much.....to say those horrible things about my mother...." Jess's tone was soft, quiet like all the voice was out of it leaving a soft, empty shell.
"Terry doesn't hate you, Jess."
Her eyes were disbelieving.
"Oh, yeah? Have you tried telling him that? And he said it right in front of C.J. did he even care what those words could do to our brother? Does he care about anyone but himself? Has he ever?"
"Jess..." Adam moved her long, silky hair over her shoulder, "Jess, he's not himself. Terry's been through alot."
"Modeling is such a hardship. Being adored, pawed, sought after," Jess scoffed, "I can see how that was just so hard on his huge ego."
"I'm not making excuses for him but Terry's had to deal with alot of things that he shouldn't have had to. Divorce when he was just a kid, having a half-brother, being suspended and sent to France."
"Life's not perfect, I accept that. Terry's a tough guy, he's been through this and he was still a nice person."
"What he said was wrong, very wrong to say those things about your mom and I can't say that I'm all that happen with him either but he's not a bad guy."
"Could have fooled me......Adam, do you mind? I want to go to sleep."
Adam nodded his understanding.
"Have you talked to Nathan yet?"
"No and I don't want to have to talk to him just yet. He'll hear it in my voice and he'll get all protective."
Adam smiled, walking to the door.
"We care about you, Jess, we almost lost you once."
"I know, Adam, but I'm a big girl I can take care of myself pretty well."
"That red went well with his outfit, don't you think?"
Jess giggled at the image as Adam closed the door behind him. Sensing eyes on him he turned to see Terry's expressionless face staring at him from Terry's bedroom door.
"Haven't you done enough?"
"Telling her what a horrible person I am, cousin? Always the knight in shining armor to her damsel in distress, don't you ever get tired of playing the hero?"
"To your villain?"
"Does she even realize that you're in love with her? Probably not seeing as how clueless the both of you are, maybe you deserve each other. Though last time I checked she was into the tall and dark type of guy."
Adam knew that Terry had seen Jess with Nathan two years ago, when Jess had met Nathan.
"The girl is fickle, I'd watch my step if I were you."
"But I'm not you. I actually care how others see me because the way you portray yourself isn't all that flattering, too bad the camera doesn't show how cruel you can be," Adam headed to his own room, "oh and I might try acting like a brother and check on C.J. see if the kid is scarred from his brother's verbal abuse of his mother."
Adam slammed his bedroom door after him.
Terry stood in the hall a slight grimace on his face, then he heard the sniffles and quiet sobs coming from Jess's room that he leaned his forehead against the white door.
"I'm sorry, Jess." Terry whispered.
~
As Jess woke up on Sunday, she felt like she had just gone to bed and winced that she hadn't even gotten under the blankets last night. Still on top of the covers and still in last night's clothes. Taking a bath in the Jacuzzi tub she eased her muscles into working and wished yesterday away then once she got out she called Nathan and talked about tomorrow when school would start. C.J. spent the day following her and Adam around. No one wanted to talk about last night and no one brought it up. Terry stayed out of their way and that's how they wanted it.....Until school started the next day.
~ * ~ * ~ *
Is this any better? Figured out some problems yet? More to come in the next chapter: Chilton
Date: December 16, 2001
DISC: Do not own Gilmore Girls. Only the characters I create are mine. :)
Be My Someone
Chapter 1: DuGreys
Written by: V Lynne
echoinghearts@yahoo.com
~ * ~ * ~ *
A frustrated scream came out the young girl's throat as she stared at her mother, whose face was determined not to back down from her decision.
"You can't think that making me do this is a good choice, Mom. It's like sending a lamb as a pet to wolves. Why would you even think I would want to?"
Lorelai 'Rory' Gilmore stared at her eldest child, sitting around the pine round kitchen table in the medium sized kitchen of their New York City apartment. Sunlight was pouring in from the single large window that wasn't blocked by the sky rise building across the busy street, which did block the sunlight more often than not from the three bedrooms that faced the street. Rory took in that her daughter was indeed angered by the fact that she was going to have to be separated for 3-5 months before Rory could join her in Connecticut.
Not so much that, Rory thought, as where her daughter and son were going to be living those months.
"You don't want to see your godfather?" Rory questioned, already knowing the answer.
"Of course I want to see him, he's one of the greatest people I know," Jessica Leigh Gilmore paused, "but the fact of spending time in the same house as.....HIM....I don't think it's the best idea you've ever come up with."
Rory lifted a delicately arched dark brown eyebrow at her daughter's insightful comment on just why she was so dead set against going to Hartford.
"I know that you two had a falling out..."
"More like a drag out hate-you-forever fight." Jess interrupted.
"Okay," Rory allowed, "but it is his home and his return is just as unexpected as my job requirements."
"Right, like the whole Connecticut area didn't know two weeks ago," Jess eyed her mother, "when somebody should have told me that he was going home instead of staying in France for his senior year like he was going to."
"It was a mistake not to tell you but he is going to be going to Chilton with you. I can't stop that, Jess."
"How about you write some column that only education minds can go to Chilton not stuck-up, self-serving egotistical jerks."
Rory had to cough in order to hide her laugh, as she remembered not too long ago describing a male of that same family just like that.
"Sorry, honey, but the New York Times doesn't exactly work that way."
Jess snapped her fingers in disappointment with a small smile, "Damn."
Rory glanced to the shadow that appeared on the tiled kitchen flooring before her youngest child entered, his towhead buried in a thick hard-back book that it was surprising to both the Gilmore females that he could see where he was walking.
"Ten years old and already smarter than males my age." Jess proclaimed as she touched her kid brother's arm to keep him from walking into the kitchen table, his dark-ocean eyes blinked up from the book in surprise.
"You done telling her about Terry, Mom?" Christopher asked, as Jess glared at her mother.
"Just about, C.J. why don't you go finish packing?" Rory leaned across the table and kissed the top of his head as he rolled his eyes at the motherly gesture.
"Mom." C.J. protested.
Turning on the heel of his sneakers, he passed the toaster, grabbing a Pop Tart that Jess had put in there before her mother dropped the bomb, and headed to his room. Knowing his sister like he did the conversation would last a good another half an hour before she gave in.
"How is it that Boy Genius knows what you were talking to me about?"
Rory stood up, going to the sink to rinse out her coffee mug before turning on the new coffee maker to brew another pot.
"Mom?"
"He heard me talking to your Grandma."
"Gee, and someone thought I'd like to be the last to know?"
Rory turned, leaning against the porcelain sink and white countertop, to meet her daughter's eyes.
"I realize that it's asking alot but you have to think of C.J. if I could I would let you stay with Grandma in Stars Hollow like you do during the school year since last year but it's not just you going to Connecticut this time. C.J. and you will both have to be under one roof and unfortunately your Grandma's house only has room for one of you."
"So have C.J. move into the tool shed at the Inn."
Rory's look told Jess that wasn't funny.
"And moving there is the only other alternative?"
"Afraid so. I would put you at Grandma Emily's but she's spending the next two months in England with one of her charities."
"Great, so I'm forced to live in the same household as Playgirl Model?"
"Playgirl Model?"
"That's what Grandma calls him after seeing him on the cover of Teen magazine."
Rory touched her forehead at the name that her mother had given the boy that her daughter's feelings went from luke-warm to streaming-anger hot.
"Forget I asked," Rory waved her hand in front of her, "you are going and that's the end of it."
"Fine. Can I whine, scream and complain the entire way there?"
"If I said no, would that stop you?"
Jess grinned, standing and pushed an escaping brown strand of hair from her French braid behind her ear.
"Not a chance."
Rory offered a smile to her sixteen-year-old daughter.
"It'll work out, Jess."
Jess started to walk out, stopping to toss a comment over her shoulder.
"Think I'll get Murder One when they find him missing two days after I get there? Isn't it not a crime if they can't find the body?" Jess pondered, snatching an apple off the fruit bowl next to the kitchen door before exiting.
Rory went back to her coffee making, bracing a hand on the edge of the sink.
"Always wondered what would happen if Tristan and I got together, maybe now I'll find out." Rory thought aloud.
~
C.J. sat in the back of his mom's Ford Expedition while he half-listen, half-tuned out his sister's occasional bout of resentment. Noticing his sister's face in the rear view mirror he noticed most of the comments were from habit rather than real anger at Terry. C.J. always wondered why his two siblings couldn't get along but that was like asking why a cat can't get along with a mouse. Tension, emotion-entanglements, distrust. Big words but like his mother always said, if you knew the meanings to big words why not use big words rather than small ones. Although talking like a kid did have its advantages when it came to his sister's relationships. He found out tons that he knew Jess would have a field day with if she knew, reading a sister's journal had a certain appeal that not even he could deny.
As they came to the city limits of Stars Hollow, his mom's hometown and where their Grandma Lorelai lived along with all the people that were basically extended family. Pulling up to a building the words 'Hardware' clearly lettered on the outside didn't put off his mom as she opened her door, called that they were stopping for a while and left the two of them to get out.
Jess glanced around Stars Hollow, her school year hometown, and noticed that the trees in the center of the two street town were already turning to autumn colors. The wind blew lightly and she smiled. How she missed this place when she was gone. Closing the car door behind her, as C.J. followed, the two of them got on the sidewalk and opened the glass door of the 'Hardware' store that was really a diner owned by their Grandma's closest friend and love-interest Luke Danes.
Small tables with checkerboard table clothes; a long counter with bar stools where behind the counter was Luke. Blue backward baseball cap; white T-shirt with flannel over it and jeans. The uniform of the diner. Sitting on a lonely bar stool was the graciously aged, barely gray haired Lorelai Gilmore, in a tan skirt with a bright silk blue blouse sipping coffee out of a mug.
Rory was sitting next to her mother, dressed in a green T-shirt with black jeans and a matching black jean jacket, not a person in the diner could not say the two very pretty to almost beautiful women weren't related.
"Well, if it isn't two very trouble-making kids," Luke announced, his lips lifted at the edges into a smile, "Rory, I thought I told you to leave those two outside?"
"I know, Luke, but no matter what I do they follow me." Rory kept in character with Luke's annoyed look at the two kids.
"What do you two have to say for yourselves?"
C.J. grinned from ear to ear as Jess used her right hand to toss her long dark hair over her shoulder before hauty speaking to him.
"If you deny us service I will just have to convey our mutual displeasure to our relatives and that may cost you a great deal of lost revenue due to how much our relatives occupy those bar stools."
Luke winked at Jess since neither Lorelai or Rory could see his face.
"Talk a little more, half pint and I could use you as my lawyer." Luke informed the girl.
"Couldn't you though?" Jess smiled as C.J. burst out laughing at the way those two always greeted each other, "so Uncle Luke keeping Grandma out of trouble?"
Luke hugged Jess to him as she hugged him back.
"Not even the Secret Service could keep your Grandma out of trouble, kiddo."
C.J. only grinned at Luke, knowing that they didn't need hugs to show their affection.
"I take offense to that." Lorelai stated before hugging C.J., tousling his already tousled blond curls and then giving a one-arm hug to Jess, keeping a hand on her coffee mug.
"How are you doing, Jessie James?" Lorelai asked, nodding to the unoccupied bar stools so that C.J. and Jess sat down.
"Fine but would you please talk some sense into Mom so she doesn't send me off to OZ without a fair trial?"
"Don't listen to Jess, Grandma, she's just upset cause Terry's going be there."
"Terry?" Lorelai thought for a moment, "oh, Playgirl Model. Don't tell me that you and Hot Boy Jr. are on the outs?"
"Mother," Rory begged, "could you please not call him that?"
"Haven't you seen him? If I was Jess's age I would be all over that boy....kinda like you with his dad," Lorelai suggestively inquired, "how is it between you and Bible Boy?"
"Tristan and I are fine, Mom."
Lorelai glanced to C.J., who looked entirely too much like his father that she knew he would be breaking as many hearts as his dad and older brother in no time.
"Happy to be spending some time with your dad?"
C.J. nodded, as Jess sighed heavily.
"I haven't seen him since school ended last year."
"Have to admit," Lorelai turned her face to Rory's worried expression to just what Lorelai had on her devious mind, "that boy of yours does make good looking kids."
Rory groaned, before Luke interfered with coffee causing Lorelai to glare at him that Rory hadn't even asked for it yet.
"Hey, she's been gone." Luke replied back to the look.
"Alright, I'll let it slid this time only because I know your coming home with me."
Jess chuckled at her Grandma's obsessions with coffee and not to mention Luke.
"Speaking of the Fathers' of my grandchildren," Lorelai spoke up with, "how's Jess Sr.?"
Rory shrugged, noting Luke's also interested look.
"He's in Chicago working on his latest project."
"Who would have thought he'd become a stuffy archaeologist?"
"Actually Dad's more Indiana Jones than a Professor, Grandma," Jess informed, "he spent this summer in Peru gathering information on a sacred stone."
"Well, that is more interesting than being a stuffy Professor at Chicago University. Besides I always liked Indiana Jones," Lorelai sighed dreamily, "Harrison Ford was such a babe."
"As much as I'd like to continue this discussion into who Lorelai thinks is a babe," Luke said, "just how long are you staying in Stars Hollow, Rory?"
"Tonight. I have to drop off Jess and C.J. at Tristan's and then head to the Inn..."
"Oh no you don't, young lady, you are staying with us." Lorelai protested.
"Okay, fine. But I already paid and Michel already has the payment for my room."
"First off the man is so fired for charging you to stay in MY Inn. Second, you talked to Michel? Are you glutton for punishment or what? Plus Sookie has promised to bring over dinner."
"Not only to I have to stay in the Dragon's Lair I don't get to eat Sookie's food." Jess complained under her breath.
"Poor baby." C.J. teased.
"Watch it, brother of mine, or you just might take the place of your dear older brother in the grave I will be digging tonight."
Lorelai laughed at the exchange.
"I knew I should have had a second child."
"That child would still be in college or possibly in high school, Mom." Rory remarked.
Lorelai grimaced.
"On second thought...."
~
After leaving the diner, Lorelai promising to rescue Jess soon, Rory drove the forty-five minute drive to Hartford. Dark trees loomed, empty streets lined with huge over-done houses until Rory pulled off the Hartford 'Fifth Ave' to the private street that Tristan had selected, valuing his privacy now more than he had before. The sandstone drive led to the gray-stoned two-story house that looked like something out of the Colonial period. Spacious, realistic, rich without being snobby. The DuGrey Estate, as Jess called it, was a house that screamed mountains of money with a homey feel. She bet Tristan spent alot of money to get it to say that.
Next to the house their Expedition looked out of place, like a horse drawn carriage should be in front of the U-shaped drive not a vehicle of steel and plastic. Off to the side of the house was the matching type styled garage with an apartment above it where the family that worked on the Estate lived.
"Forgot how big Dad's place is." C.J. commented, getting out and gathering two of his four suitcases.
"Like anyone could forget this house." Jess replied, as Rory gave her a 'Come-On' look as they each took suitcases out and Rory rang the doorbell that sounded like wind chimes.
Opening the stained glass paneled door, came the unexpected presence of a sandy-haired young man with a pleased expression on his face and in his hazel eyes.
"Rory, Jess, C.J! We didn't expect you this early," Adam St. Clare greeted, "come in, here let me get some of the bags."
Adam took one from Rory and one from Jess, leading them into the foyer.
Marble tiled flooring, a grand staircase fifty feet from the front door that separated the sides of the house, gold framed paintings, fresh flowers on the two small entrance tables. A modest chandelier hung above the staircase lighting the entire area.
"Uncle Tristan is in the den talking to Claudia on the vid-phone," Adam told Rory, as she nodded.
"Master Adam, why did you not tell me they had arrived," a middle-aged woman with a light accent that sounded English arrived dressed in a skirt with a white blouse covered by an apron; "you must be Miss Jessica and Master Christopher."
"That'd be us." Jess informed the gentle-looking woman.
"I'm Mrs. Fitzgerald, but call me Mrs. Fitz, I do the cooking for Master Tristan," Mrs. Fitz turned to Rory, who she automatically saw as Tristan's love, "and you must be Miss Gilmore."
"Call me Rory, it's nice to meet you Mrs. Fitz."
"Master Tristan could talk of nothing else these past two days but your arrival. Let me get Alfred and James to help you with the bags."
The white-gray haired woman disappeared as Adam took in Jess and C.J.
"Ready to live in the Southern Plantation?" Adam joked.
"It's like a cross between one and a Colonial, isn't it?" Jess asked.
"Come on, Jess, you've been here a while ago."
"No, that was when Tristan still lived in his parents mausoleum. He didn't finish this until after Terry and I..."
"Stopped talking, communicating or otherwise acknowledging each other's existence?"
"That about covers it."
Adam shook his head ruefully at his cousin's and his best friend's behavior.
The footsteps of Tristan's shoes echoing off the marble flooring got Rory's attention from her daughter talking to Tristan's younger sister's son, who he had full legal guardianship over.
Rory took in Tristan's appearance almost like she had been denied air for so long that now it was hard to breathe. You'd think that him being forty years old, the same age as she would do something to his outward appearance but no, life wasn't just. His hair, a wavy golden blond was still without a hint of gray to it, his tan only added to his clean cut handsome features and he was just beginning to get crow's feet at the edge of his eyes. Still tall, built like a god, and had the ability to make her feel weak in the knees just by looking at him. Life was so not fair.
"Hey, Rory."
Out came in a soft undertone that never failed to cause her the shiver when he said her name like that.
"Tristan."
His trademark smirk appeared as he knew just what affect his presence had on her, then turned his smirk into a smile as his eyes rested on his youngest son, Christopher Janlen Gilmore DuGrey. No mistake that the boy was his, C.J. looked exactly like him when he was C.J.'s age. Unlike him though, C.J. was full of emotions that he never failed to express and he was sincerely loved and knew it.
"Dad!"
Tristan hugged his son to him, having not seen him in almost three months and that was wearing on Tristan's emotions. Thank god that Rory was moving back to Connecticut, that way he got to see his son more and Rory much, much more. With that promising thought, he saw that his son had grown at least two inches in height and already had the good looks so common with the DuGrey bloodline.
"Haven't been causing problems for your Mom, have you?"
C.J. shook his head, as Tristan's matching ocean eyes sought Rory's always clear sky-blue ones.
"He's been burying his head in books and VR games all summer."
"I wonder where he gets his book love from?" Tristan suggestively asked.
Rory just looked all innocent that Tristan felt an ache go straight to his chest.
"I have no idea, must take after his sister."
With that said, Tristan put a hand on his son's shoulder and sought out his goddaughter, the girl he was as possessive of as he was of her mother and brother. It never failed to amaze him that she looked exactly like Rory, the image taking him back to when he first met the girl that had changed him. Same stubbornness, beauty, and intelligence that was seemingly to be a Gilmore trait. How his son didn't miss that Tristan wondered if he needed to use a brick against his son's thick head.
"The Vision," Tristan declared, as his nickname for Jess had become an old joke, "how gracious of her to grace us with her presence."
"Don't," Rory scolded, "she's got a big enough ego as it is."
"Gee, thanks, Mom." Jess said and stuck her tongue out at her mother.
"And mature, too, I see." Tristan laughed, before Jess set down her bags and hugged him around the waist.
"I missed you." Jess told him.
Backing up in the young girl's arms he genuinely smiled at her.
"I missed you, too, Jess."
"Back off my dad, Jess." C.J. demanded smiling.
"Sorry, brat, I'm afraid I have decided that he's too good for you. Are you sure aliens didn't drop you off? How about Big Foot?"
Tristan saw C.J. roll his eyes at his sister, before Adam cut in.
"You know now that I look at him I do see a resemblance to the Abdominal Snowman." Adam added.
"Mom." C.J. urged her, to get the two teens off his case.
"Alright, guys, let's leave C.J. alone."
"Baby." Jess teased.
"I know where you sleep, Jess." C.J. countered.
Tristan and Rory smiled at that.
"How could you? You don't even know where you sleep?"
"And if all else fails you could always sleep with me, Jess." came the husky tone of a male she tried to forget.
The silent descent of the returning prodigal son caused all five people below to stare up at the slacks and black T-shirt clad blond, blue eyed babe, as Lorelai would say. His eyes were narrowed as he stepped onto the second to last stair and leveled his eyes at Jess.
"Terry." Tristan's tone warned his son, who only smiled a wide fake smile at his father.
"Don't worry, Dad, I wouldn't want to cause bloodshed this early in Jess's stay," Terry informed his Dad but his eyes never left Jess's wide angered turquoise ones.
"The only blood that would be shed would be yours, DuGrey."
"Don't count on it, Gilmore."
Tristan saw the tension, it was so thick you could cut it with a knife. The front door opened marking James and Alfred coming in with the rest of the luggage and broke the trance they all seemed to be under.
"Well, that's it," Mrs. Fitz declared, "why don't we get Miss Jessica and Master Christopher's things upstairs and then we can eat."
Tristan nodded, taking Rory's hand as if to unite the parental fronts. Jess had broken off eye contact with Terry and talked with Adam as they headed up that stairs. C.J. was asking Terry about France, as Rory and Tristan followed the two up the stairs to situate the kid's bedrooms.
~
Soon, with Mrs. Fitz's help Jess was completely unpacked in the guestroom that Tristan informed her was not a guestroom but her own room at the house. It had been designed with her in mind. The window seat got first light that was important to Jess, as she was heavily involved in painting, as well as a private bathroom with skylights that brought all natural light into play. Her room was done in creams and pale blues, a canopy bed with all pine furniture that followed her love of soft colors. It was a stunning room that Rory had stood in shock of.
"Tristan, that is too much."
Tristan only shrugged it off.
"I don't think it's enough, honestly."
"Are you kidding me? All that kid needs now is her own car and...." Rory stopped at Tristan's guilty look.
"Tristan DuGrey, do not tell me you bought Jess a car. Say those words cause that is the only way you are getting out of this conversation with skin intact."
Putting a hand behind his neck in a remorseful but confident manner, he stared at Rory.
"Sorry, can't."
"When we agreed that Jess and C.J. stay here I don't remember saying anything to the fact of you gifting her with cars or a dream bedroom. I also don't remember asking you to make C.J.'s room into a half library that rivals the library in Stars Hollow."
"Rory, calm down."
"I will not calm down, Tristan," as she spoke he stood steps backwards, "my kids are not to become spoiled brats that take things for granted because everything is handed to them on a silver platter."
At that, he stopped and took a step forward the invaded Rory's space that the only place to go was against the white hall wall, with his arms coming out to fan out on each side of her head.
"C.J. is OUR child, Rory. He's entitled to all I can give just as much as Terry and I agree that giving them everything they want isn't a great idea, lord knows I learned that first hand but I hardly ever get to spend time with him or with Jess and I think that gives me some right to want to provide for them when I do get to spend time with them. Did you think about how Jess was going to get around while you are in New York finishing your work? She needs a car, Rory. We agreed that C.J. would be driven to school by Rory, Terry, or Adam which makes her need for a car real. As well as getting to and from school, to and from Stars Hollow and to and from any activity she may be involved in without having to depend on someone else to provide her with one. In a sense I am giving her freedom that you independent Gilmore girls love. So tell me again how giving them something like this is bad? Both C.J. and Jess are going to be living with you once you move back to Stars Hollow but they will also know that they'll always have a place with me as well."
The proximity of their bodies was a heady feeling for both of them. Rory had to admit he had a point although it damned her to admit it.
"What is this car you gave her?"
Tristan backed off, knowing he had won.
"A Mercedes."
Rory groaned before he added.
"A very nice car, with a built in phone should she need it but no added luxuries."
"Besides it being a very near six figure vehicle."
"Not actually. You should see the car that Adam has."
Rory held up her hand in protest.
"I don't want to know. Mercedes is very safe and dependable," Rory noted, "a good choice."
"It's all paid for so you don't have to worry about that and is fully insured in both her and your names."
Rory knew he hadn't meant to upset her with this but it was her job, as Jess's mother, to provide things for Jess. Car included, in case Jess's savings from her odd jobs didn't allow for her to get one anytime soon.
"A little spoiling isn't going to hurt either one of them. Jess is too down to earth for that and C.J. isn't half as cocky as I was at his age, so already he's showing traits of being practical."
"Although his hair maintenance needs work," Rory offered, "I swear that boy spends more time in the bathroom on his hair than both me and Jess."
Tristan smirked.
"A DuGrey trait."
"What could he possibly need to do with it? It's a wavy tousled mess. No matter what he does to it the hair does what it wants, which is to half fall into his eyes and give him that sleepy look that you perfected at infancy."
"Oh, really?"
Tristan leaned forward from having backed away earlier, his lips brushed hers in the smallest of caresses.
"I thought you liked that look."
Rory moved her lips against his, their contact brief but enough to cause both to feel their blood on fire.
"I do," Rory breathed, "on you. Not on our ten year old son. I have enough problems with Jess's love life without him becoming Casanova thanks to your unruly hair gene."
Tristan smiled against her lips before deepening the kiss by closing their distance from each other and imprisoning her to the wall as he thoroughly kissed the only woman he ever loved in the middle of the upstairs hallway where at any minute one of their mutual three children or his nephew could walk out and see their affectionate display.
"I'll just have to work on him then."
Rory sighed, her breath ragged.
"I gotta go. Dinner with Mom, Luke and Sookie. Spending the night at Mom's."
"Thought you'd want to try sleeping here."
Rory widened her eyes at his blatant invitation before softly smiling.
"I wish I could, but I doubt sleep is what I'd get, Tristan, and unfortunately sleep is what I need if I have to drive back to New York and be at work on Monday."
Tristan growled under his breath before she pressed a kiss to his lips and they separated.
"I have to say goodbye to the kids."
Tristan let her out of his arm hold and watched her go down the hall before muttering.
"One day, Rory, you are going to get in my bed and I'm going to keep you there."
~
After Rory left, Mrs. Fitz set out a dinner that was a rival to anything Sookie could cook but being loyal to her Grandma's best friend's cooking Jess would always say that Sookie's was the best. Sitting at the intimate dinning room table, something Jess had not thought Tristan would have that he'd be more for an Empire long table rather than a simple mahogany eight- person table.
Jess had come down to find Terry the first one at the table, so chose a chair two removed from his as Mrs. Fitz had set out the last of the food before announcing that dinner was ready. A phone rang in the back of the house and Tristan had made an exit after apologizing at least five times for not being able to eat with them.
"Don't worry about it, Tristan," Jess reassured, "we won't be horribly scarred, since Mom does it to us at least once a week, besides," Jess winked at him mischievously, "if we are I'm sure you can pay the bills for our therapy."
Tristan laughed coming into the dinning room and kissing her forehead.
"You act just like your mother."
"Before or after you met her the second time?" Jess wondered.
Tristan thought for a minute.
"Both. I just didn't appreciate her the first time like I should have." Tristan honestly stated.
"Good enough for me."
Tristan glanced the slightly irritated look in his eldest son's face.
"Try to play nice, children."
Tristan left the dinning room and Jess could hear him apologizing the C.J. and Adam in the foyer. Jess turned her glaze onto the food in front of her, ignoring Terry's presence. Helping herself to the food, she set it out on her place before C.J. and Adam joined them. Adam sat a chair away from Terry on Terry's other side while C.J. sat next to Adam.
"It smells good." C.J. commented.
"Always does. Mrs. Fitz used to work for a Count in Ireland."
"That's the accent. I couldn't place it earlier."
Adam nodded.
"She's a great help. Not uptight like our Grandparents cook at the old house, which doesn't surprise me why they didn't take him with them when they moved to Richmond."
"How's your Mom?" Jess asked between bites of mashed potatoes.
"Who knows? Prancing around with her latest boyfriend probably." Adam's tone was good-natured, having accepted his mother's frivolous ways years ago when Tristan took him in when he was seven.
"Sounds like somebody else's mother I know." Terry commented, taking a sip of his wineglass that Jess knew did not have soda in it.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Don't take it out of context, kitten, it's just a observation."
"Observation?"
"That your mother doesn't have the best track record either when it comes to men, now does it?"
C.J. went to say something only to have Adam shake his head. These two needed to battle out things themselves, even if it meant hitting below the belt.
"I rather my mother everyday over some woman who acts like she's twenty rather than forty going around half dressed with men half her age around her teenage son and having him become some Playgirl model."
"At least she married my dad, unlike your mother who just sleeps with men and gets pregnant but doesn't get married to them. What's that old saying, 'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free'?"
Adam let out a breath of air at the harsh words. Terry's resentment of his parent's break up was a big kept secret that only Adam knew. Terry blamed Rory for it.
"Shut up! You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't I? Let's see here. Out of college, at least she had the grace to wait until she got her degree to get pregnant with you by Jess Danes, whose relative owns a Hardware store turned diner and is a history Professor that travels but doesn't really have any more time for your mom than he does for you. Then she waits until she sees my dad again years later and when my parents were having a rough time goes in for the kill, makes my dad break up with my mom and then gets your mom pregnant with C.J, which is the only good thing that happened out of that. Which gets me stuck with being related to you by C.J. for the rest of my life because your slut of a mother couldn't keep her hands off a married man."
Adam heard rather than saw the events after that. It happened so fast that even Terry was unprepared for it. Jess had raised out of her seat, unshed angry tears in her crystal blue eyes, as she reached across the small space and whole handedly slapped Terry across the face backed by the force of her entire body she got him to turn his face by the power. Then taking her red juice that she was drinking, threw it at him with such vigor she splashed his entire upper body and face cause splats to land on the wall behind him. The utter hatred in Jess's face and eyes caused Adam to swallow hard.
"God, I hate you. How such an evil person can be related to anyone I care about I don't know but I hate you. I hate you."
"So you've said," Terry was using his cloth napkin to clean off his face, "please reframe from being a broken record, Gilmore. It's unbecoming."
Jess glared at him before pushing her chair back and running out of the room. C.J. glared at his elder brother before excusing himself and going after his sister. Adam sat there, disgust at his cousin clear on his face.
"I always wondered why she didn't want anything to do with you, Terry, now I know and I don't blame her one bit because if she didn't hate you before she sure as hell does now."
Adam pushed himself from the table, his appetite gone and headed up the stairs to see about Jess. Behind him he heard the screech of Mrs. Fitz having wondered what happened.
Terry stood with all the lazy grace of a cat.
"Just a reminder not to get involved with kittens, Mrs. Fitz."
~
Terrance Julien DuGrey walked out of the dinning room feeling lousy. He should have felt better for getting that off his chest but he didn't. He really shouldn't have said that, especially not in front of C.J. His little brother didn't need to resentment that he had towards Rory and Jessica Gilmore. Adam wasn't a great witness to have either since his cousin was half in love with Jess himself although the moron didn't know it.
The stickiness of the drink Jess had tossed at him was starting to set in and so he reluctantly headed up the stairs, to his room shutting and locking the door before pulling his shirt over his head, followed by yanking his slacks off and then his underwear padding across the carpeted floor naked but unselfconscious. Living the past year and a half in France under the rule of his flightily mother and a thousand different photographers got a person from being self conscious real quick or you went nuts. Constantly under surveillance to see if some part of your body was inadequate, if you gained half a pound and a broad variety of things that left him feeling drained physically and emotionally. Now to be home, to relax only to have his space invaded by the very girl he wanted to have to furthest distance from living under the same roof had to be some cosmic joke on him.
Opening the frosted glass door of his bathroom, he turned on the water to almost scalding hot before stepping inside and shutting the door after him. Gather shampoo in his hands he massaged it in his hair. What a fit his hair stylist would have if he could see the mess Jess had made of it.
Jess. The girl he had not allowed himself to think of for fear of creating some hopeless situation again where he would never have her. He had done it once and he would damn himself before he did it again. It almost had an irony to it that the two of them used to be the best of friends. Jess, Adam and him. The three of them against the world. Would never thought it would happen after his parents divorced and C.J. was born, when his dad spent more time with Rory, Jess and C.J. than he did with Terry. That Jess was Tristan's goddaughter he understood. He accepted that she was going to be in his life as Tristan thought of her as a daughter, probably wished she were his daughter rather than the girl born to Rory by another man. Had accepted that he was more tied to her when they were given a little brother to share when they were seven and Adam had come to live with Tristan and Terry. More shared affection, more love removed from Terry, Tristan's first born and placed into other people.
Up until he was just turning fourteen and Jess was thirteen they had been great friends. Knew every secret about each other, had a bond that to them would never be broken. Until he gave her that damned necklace. A present for her thirteenth birthday. He had stolen his dad's credit card and bought it from a magazine he had found in his mom's old things and then had it redesigned and customed for Jess. It was a gold tigress, his nickname for her when they were going through one of Jess's dad's old books on China and found the animal for the year of their births, hers happened to be a tiger just like Adam since they were born in the same year. A gold tigress about an inch long a half an inch wide made out of pure gold with black opals used for the stripes and a small turquoise jewel for the eye. Behind the creation was flat and he had engraved on it 'Jess the Tigress'. A private joke set on a thin delicate gold chain. It was expensive, beautiful and over-done for a thirteenth birthday present but he remembered how her face lit up when he gave it to her. She had actually kissed him, on the lips, in gratitude for the gift, only to have her throw it back at him four months later when she found him being mauled by Vanessa Ensley and took it all wrong. Sure, he had to admit having an older girl, a sophomore in high school to his 8th grade self, throwing herself at you added a huge boast to your ego that he, being the naive kid he was, couldn't very well turn down. He should have if he really thought about the heart broken look Jess had gotten when she caught them together. How she called him everything she had ever heard claiming he was no better than any other boy, all he wanted was to get in some girls' pants no matter who the girl was. That he was buying his time with her, that was when she literally snatched the necklace off her neck yanking so hard she broke the chain link and threw the chain with the tigress at his chest before leaving. That was when he realized he loved her and she loved him or else neither one of them would have drug things out into a private feud between the two of them over the next three and a half years. Now everytime he got around her he acted like a complete and utter jerk that needed to be beheaded in order to keep his smart-ass comments to himself. The damage was done, had been years ago, when they first talked after she threw the necklace at him and they declared their mutual hatred for one another. Right in the middle of school play they were both in they yelled and shouted at each other until their parents had to drag them off the stage. Red faced, angry words dripping out their mouths until neither one could talk. Sometimes he wondered what he ever saw in that tomboy.
Finishing his shower, washing off the soap off his abs and arms, he let water cascade over his face and following his throat down to his stomach and lower. He didn't need this aggravation. He had enough problems in his life without that infuriating brunette and from now on he was going to prove just how much he didn't want or need that girl in his life. If Adam wanted her he was welcome to her, she meant nothing to him. She hadn't in years and he wasn't about to let her mean something to him now. He was rich, adored, a model and had girls throwing themselves at him wanting him he didn't need one girl who was more trouble than she was worth. Now if only he could shut off his brain and believe that...
~
Jess cried into the cream and blue comforter on her bed, her hair a waterfall on the covers, as her tears dampened the comforter where the water soaked into the thick material. She heard the door to her bedroom open and the muffled footsteps on the carpet, then a hand touched her shoulder and she glanced up from her hair covered face, pushing stray hair back and using the back of her hand to wipe at her tears.
Concern filled the face of Adam, as he had told C.J. that he'd look in on Jess. His young cousin didn't need to witness his sister's distraught at the heartless words that had spouted out of Terry's lips. Sitting at the edge of her bed, Adam saw her glance away embarrassed that she had gotten caught crying like some silly airhead girl who had nothing better to do than cry over a boy who didn't like her.
"He hates me that much.....to say those horrible things about my mother...." Jess's tone was soft, quiet like all the voice was out of it leaving a soft, empty shell.
"Terry doesn't hate you, Jess."
Her eyes were disbelieving.
"Oh, yeah? Have you tried telling him that? And he said it right in front of C.J. did he even care what those words could do to our brother? Does he care about anyone but himself? Has he ever?"
"Jess..." Adam moved her long, silky hair over her shoulder, "Jess, he's not himself. Terry's been through alot."
"Modeling is such a hardship. Being adored, pawed, sought after," Jess scoffed, "I can see how that was just so hard on his huge ego."
"I'm not making excuses for him but Terry's had to deal with alot of things that he shouldn't have had to. Divorce when he was just a kid, having a half-brother, being suspended and sent to France."
"Life's not perfect, I accept that. Terry's a tough guy, he's been through this and he was still a nice person."
"What he said was wrong, very wrong to say those things about your mom and I can't say that I'm all that happen with him either but he's not a bad guy."
"Could have fooled me......Adam, do you mind? I want to go to sleep."
Adam nodded his understanding.
"Have you talked to Nathan yet?"
"No and I don't want to have to talk to him just yet. He'll hear it in my voice and he'll get all protective."
Adam smiled, walking to the door.
"We care about you, Jess, we almost lost you once."
"I know, Adam, but I'm a big girl I can take care of myself pretty well."
"That red went well with his outfit, don't you think?"
Jess giggled at the image as Adam closed the door behind him. Sensing eyes on him he turned to see Terry's expressionless face staring at him from Terry's bedroom door.
"Haven't you done enough?"
"Telling her what a horrible person I am, cousin? Always the knight in shining armor to her damsel in distress, don't you ever get tired of playing the hero?"
"To your villain?"
"Does she even realize that you're in love with her? Probably not seeing as how clueless the both of you are, maybe you deserve each other. Though last time I checked she was into the tall and dark type of guy."
Adam knew that Terry had seen Jess with Nathan two years ago, when Jess had met Nathan.
"The girl is fickle, I'd watch my step if I were you."
"But I'm not you. I actually care how others see me because the way you portray yourself isn't all that flattering, too bad the camera doesn't show how cruel you can be," Adam headed to his own room, "oh and I might try acting like a brother and check on C.J. see if the kid is scarred from his brother's verbal abuse of his mother."
Adam slammed his bedroom door after him.
Terry stood in the hall a slight grimace on his face, then he heard the sniffles and quiet sobs coming from Jess's room that he leaned his forehead against the white door.
"I'm sorry, Jess." Terry whispered.
~
As Jess woke up on Sunday, she felt like she had just gone to bed and winced that she hadn't even gotten under the blankets last night. Still on top of the covers and still in last night's clothes. Taking a bath in the Jacuzzi tub she eased her muscles into working and wished yesterday away then once she got out she called Nathan and talked about tomorrow when school would start. C.J. spent the day following her and Adam around. No one wanted to talk about last night and no one brought it up. Terry stayed out of their way and that's how they wanted it.....Until school started the next day.
~ * ~ * ~ *
Is this any better? Figured out some problems yet? More to come in the next chapter: Chilton
Date: December 16, 2001