Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls, or any of the characters created by the show.

Chapter One: Old Fashioned

Somewhere along the way, things had gone terribly, terribly wrong. Rory couldn't put her finger on the exact turning point. Maybe it was accepting the job on the campaign trail. Stupid. Obviously reporting on a campaign trail wasn't a steady gig. It also wasn't exactly riveting stuff...an article about kissing babies here, an article about mudslinging there. Not exactly Pulitzer Prize winning stuff.

But babies and mudslinging was better than this. Rory stared down at her phone. How could she convey the gravity of the breaking report on the market crash in 140 characters or less? An absurd concept for an increasingly absurd world of journalism. Why was she born in the century that was going out of print when her whole sense of person was formed from ink on paper?

She sighed. So maybe it wasn't just the new job reporting through the ridiculous new media known as Twitter. Maybe it was Logan. Maybe it was how easily she had severed her relationship with him. At the end there, it had seemed like life after college was one adventure waiting to happen. Like there would be so many more handsome, loving men just dying to marry her. And those men would wait, for an indeterminable amount of time, until she was a renowned international correspondent. Then she would have time to settle.

Here she was, though. Twenty-five, always looking for employment that would last through the year, or even just long enough to pay her rent. Every reputable paper in the world was laying off talented writers as their print circulation plummeted. No hard feelings, she had heard a dozen times. We just can't maintain the payroll we had a decade ago, not with the internet taking over.

"Not sure how to say this, so I'm going to rip it off like a bandaid."

Rory looked up from her iPhone and saw her mother sliding into the barstool next to her. She settled herself awkwardly, her pregnant belly somewhat concealed under the layers of her floor-length gown.

"Logan is here with his wife."

"I saw him."

"Did you talk to him?"

"No. I ducked behind a topiary and then when the coast was clear I took shelter here." Rory gestured to the small bar in the empty dining room. They were the only two patrons. Murmuring voices from the ballroom wafted into the silent restaurant.

"You know your grandparents didn't invite him."

"It's grandpa's retirement party."

"And it was an open invitation to members of their club and their guests."

"So it was an invite."

"But not a pointed one," Lorelai said, placing her hand on her daughter's arm. "You know I don't side with them, like, ever. But your grandmother already approached me to apologize."

Rory sighed. "It's fine."

"What is that, coffee?" Lorelai asked, pointing to the mug in front of Rory. "Please tell me it is spiked."

"I haven't finished working yet," Rory said.

"Are you really my kid?" Lorelai asked. "Sometimes I wonder if I took the wrong baby home from the hospital. Because God knows if I were you right now, hiding in this empty restaurant from your ex-fiance and his wife, I would be on my fourth bourbon. Scratch that. Sixth. And if I thought that bringing a two-headed baby into the world sounded at all responsible, I would be ordering myself one too."

"He was never my fiance."

"He wanted to be."

"Why are you digging?"

"I just want to know that you are ok, kid. A lot has been happening the past couple of years."

"Well I'm fine."

"You have been working on that twit for two hours."

"Tweet, Mom."

"Well at least I didn't slip up again and call it a tw-"

"MOM!"

"Just saying."

"I'm over Logan."

"I know, sweetie. It's just that no one likes seeing their ex flaunting their new life in their face."

"He's not flaunting. He simply came to a function at the club with his wife."

"But don't you wonder why he showed up?"

"You're digging at it again."

"Hormones."

Rory sighed. "Go back to Luke, Mom. I'm going to just finish this tweet and my coffee. I'll be back in before the toasts begin."

Lorelai started to speak, thought better of it, and stood up. "Just get there before the cake. I'm going to need you to give me your piece."

"What about Luke's?"

"It's your sister in my womb. She is a Gilmore. Do you think she stops at two pieces?"

"If she has any Dane blood in her at all, then yes."

"She is a Gilmore," Lorelai insisted. She scooted clumsily off her seat and kissed Rory's forehead. "Gilmore's get what they want out of life."

"You've been drinking the Kool-Aid."

"Hormones."

Rory watched as Lorelai walked away. She had changed since marrying Luke. In good ways and bad. She was a mother again, to a brother Rory loved but struggled to relate to. Granted he was only two, but her home was now a war-zone of GI Joes and little green army men. Somehow, Rory seemed to see him more as Luke's son than her mother's. And now the new baby...Rory wondered how she would ever have a genuine relationship with either of her siblings.

That was a problem for another day, she thought. She looked down at her screen.

Stock market plummets for fifth consecutive day as panic increases on Wall Street. Financiers and investors alike are demanding solutions to their growing monetary woes.

170 characters. She had to cut out 30. Maybe if she cut out "on Wall Street..."

So she was here. If he was being completely honest with himself, she was the only reason he had come to this thing. Not to help his aging grandfather pay respects to an old friend. Not for the open bar on a quiet winter night in the dullest city imaginable. For her.

It had been a gamble, he could admit that now. Over the years he had attended a dozen similar events with the same ulterior motive. But tonight, standing in the doorway of the empty restaurant, tonight was that moment he had always wondered about.

In a rare moment of insight, Tristan paused to take in the scene in front of him. She had changed. Eight or nine years does that to a person, he supposed. The soft curves of her face had gone away, her girlish looks replaced by an exotic beauty. Her hair was darker, her cheek bones more prominent. But he was willing to bet that if-when-he got closer, he would still see those electric eyes flash against her pale skin.

What hadn't changed was her demeanor. Here she was, in a club full of the people who had been his world, and she was all alone, reading something on her phone. Tolstoy, he guessed. New technology, same basic method of escapism. She was the same.

This notion moved him across the room until he was standing at the bar in that small space between Rory and the stool next to her. She didn't look up. Tristan wasn't surprised.

"What will it be, sir?" the bartender asked.

"An Old Fashioned."

"Brandy?"

"Bourbon."

Rory's head cocked slightly in Tristan's direction, but she did not look at him. Something about his alcohol choice had interested her. Tristan smirked.

"Is this seat taken?"

"No," she said glancing up and turning quickly back to her phone. She paused for a second, then turned slowly back towards him.

"Thank you," Tristan said. He was waiting. She had to be the one to recognize him.

"Yeah," she trailed, eyeing him. He simply smiled a polite smile back at her and took a sip of the drink the bartender pushed in front of him. After a moment she seemed to catch herself staring. "You know there's free ones in the ballroom."

"There's also hobnobbing happening in line for said free cocktails."

"Roger," she said shifting in her seat.

"Now I know you recognize me and are struggling to place me, but we both know that I don't look like a Roger."

The faintest blush made its way across Rory's cheekbones. Her lovely, new cheekbones. The sight made up for the fact that she hadn't exhibited a display of instant recognition.

"And how should a Roger look, may I ask?"

"Balding, mostly from a receding hairline. Also he would wear one of those short-sleeved

button down shirts. Maybe a clip-on tie."

"Well no wonder I was confused, because that is the perfect definition of a Stan."

"Stanford or Stanley?"

"Both, I would presume."

"Let me buy you a drink," he fired back without hesitating.

This quick offer once again seemed to catch Rory off-guard.

"I have one already. But thank you."

"That's coffee.'

"Yes."

"Coffee is not a drink."

"Well, I was raised to treat it as a food group. But milk made it on to the food pyramid and that is most certainly a beverage. So by that logic, coffee is a drink."

"Not an alcoholic one."

"You didn't specify the parameters of your offer."

"Lorelai Gilmore, may I buy you an alcoholic beverage?"

Rory squinted again. "How do you…?"

Tristan smiled at her, but it was an appraising smile. Something cracked open inside and he felt like a teenager again. A feeling he equated with feeling like an idiot. She really didn't know him.

"Get this lady a vodka soda. Top shelf, please, whatever you have."

"Yes, sir."

"No, no...no vodka. I'll take an Old Fashioned as well."

The self-doubt snapped closed and he smirked. "Bourbon?"

"Vodka sodas are for bimbos."

"Is that a personal creed or a slogan you read somewhere?"

"It's a conclusion drawn from several years of informal observations. Thank you, Pete."

"I'm not Pete, either."

"Pete is the bar tender."

"First name basis?"
"I've been here a while."

"Hiding?"

"Working." She took a sip of her Old Fashioned and didn't even wince as the burn of the liquor hit her throat.

Tristan was impressed. "Working on what?"

"A tweet."

"That must be some tweet."

She sighed. "I'm working for the Boston Herald tweeting out links to their news articles."

"Impressive."

"Thanks. It's riveting stuff." The dry tone was impossible to ignore.

"Then why do you do it?"

"It's a job in my field. A dying field. If I want to pay the bills with a job that is relevant to my resume, I can't really complain about it."

"Or you could just marry some guy who pay your bills for you." His phrasing had been

unintentional, the whole sentence harmless. But from the spark in her eye and the way she leaned back in her chair, Tristan knew that she remembered.