Disclaimer: I don't own anything

A/N: New Story! Matchmakers has hit a serious writer's block, and in the meantime, I've been working on this story, writing a couple paragraphs at a time, completely out of order, so if I've messed up some details, I apologize. Also, because of this sporadic writing when the muses struck, I basically have a lot of the chapters done. I just need to finish a few things here and there. I'll post them as I go. Tell me what you think.

"Hi, I'm Rory Gilmore, I'm here to interview the soldiers who arrived recently?" She showed her credentials and the nurse smiled.

"Yes. If you follow me, I'll take you to the boys."

"Alright."

"Let me tell you, those boys in there are a handful. Just between you and me, if you smile and bat your eyes, you'll get all the information you need." The nurse said with a grin. Rory nodded. So it was to be LDB behavior. Lord knows she had perfected that in the past four years.

"I'll keep that in mind." Rory entered the room with the three soldiers and the nurse left her alone.

"Hello Beautiful." The one nearest her said.

"Hi." She said, allowing herself to smile.

"What's your name?"

"Rory Gilmore, what's yours?"

"Josh Masters, at your service."

"Nice to meet you Josh." He patted the side of his bed and she sat down.

"And what can we do for you Miss Gilmore?"

"Well, honestly? I was sent here by my boss to look for a story. I'm a reporter for the Globe and my editor wanted me to do some sort of human interest piece on young vets."

"That'd be us."

"Don't let Masters steal all of your attention darlin'. I'm Drew Anderson. This unusually quiet fellow in the corner is Tristan DuGray." Rory's stared at Drew, thinking she had heard him incorrectly. Sure enough, as soon as she got her eyes to move towards the last bed, she was greeted with those familiar blue eyes she used to know so well. They were darker, grayer than they used to be, as if that playful light that used to illuminate them had died somewhat.

Tristan couldn't breathe, couldn't move, he simply smiled at the sight of her. She looked so different from what he remembered. Her hair was curly now, lighter. She definitely carried herself with a confidence that she had lacked back in school. She stood up and walked over to him. He took note of her crystal blue eyes as she reached out and grabbed his hand, careful not to touch the IV stemming from the top.

"Hey Mary." He said. His formerly cocky self had been replaced by a shy smile and his eyes reflected the sentimentality in hers. "It's been a long time."

"I didn't recognize you without the hair." She said as she ran her free hand over his scalp. He chuckled.

"I haven't had hair since the last day I saw you." The two soldiers watched the scene unfold and gave each other curious looks. He examined her face.

"Are you going to cry?" He asked, flashing back to the last time he saw her. "I'm starting to take it personally."

"I'm not." She said, wiping a small tear from her eye before it fell. "I swear." She said with a chuckle. "Hey! You promised to write." She said, getting angry with him.

"I was a little busy. You never wrote to me either."

"I tried. I didn't have your address." She said.

"I'm sorry. I hate to interrupt, but how do you two know each other?" Masters said, unable to control his curiosity any longer.

"We almost dated in high school." Rory said with a smile.

"We did not 'almost date' in high school." Tristan said in a huff. "I asked you out over and over but you always said no!"

"We would have if you didn't get shipped off to military school."

"We made out once and you started crying!"

"Because I had just broken up with my boyfriend and I felt guilty!" She turned to the audience listening raptly to her story. "The next day when I was going to explain, he showed up and said that he was leaving!" She defended herself.

"I broke into the safe because I was being self-destructive after you left in tears!"

"So you're saying it was my fault that you were stupid enough to finally get caught?"

"What if I am?" He said with a smile. It was like nothing had ever changed and he had missed feeling this alive. Both of their eyes were sparkling once again with playful mischief. Drew could definitely see some chemistry flickering between the two of them.

"You're a piece of work." She said as she rolled her eyes. He ran his free hand over hers. "But it's good to see you again." She said in that same Mary voice, the one that was honestly sincere to everyone she met.

"So I'm assuming from the way that you've latched on to each other that you're not taken then?" Drew asked. Rory glanced at Tristan and laughed. She shook her head.

"No, I dated Logan Huntzberger all through college, but when he proposed at graduation, I turned him down." The three boys all got wide-eyed at the same time. Josh whistled.

"Looks like someone's a little out of their league." He teased Tristan.

"I turned him down for a reason." Rory said. "Turns out he was a little out of my league."

"I find that very hard to believe." Tristan said, making Rory blush.

"What about you Mr. Playboy. What has being surrounded entirely by men done to your once flourishing love life?" Rory changed the subject.

"Tristan never says anything. He just sits there, and women flock to him. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen." Josh said.

"Sounds about right." Rory said with a smile.

"But he never takes any of them home."

"Don't say never." Drew corrected him. "Just a small proportion."

"That doesn't sound right." Rory said, turning to examine Tristan's reaction.

"Why are we discussing this?" Tristan asked, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation.

"Are we embarrassing you in front of your new girlfriend?" Drew asked.

"Now, now boys. Be nice to Miss Gilmore, or your pretty faces won't get printed in the newspaper as war heroes. Do you know how many girls you could get with her help?" The nurse stuck her head in the doorway before passing on her way.

"It's true. I hold all the power." She said as she waved her notebook open. "So start spilling."

"What do you want to know?" Josh asked.

OOOOO

"When I entered the hospital, I had no idea what to expect." Josh read the story out loud for everyone. "As an avid reader, I have read my fair share of war literature: Catch-22, All Quiet on the Western Front, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Would these men be broken, worn out both psychologically and physically? When I turned the corner I was surprised by what I found. They were just like me. One was even a former classmate and two were potential friends. I began to wonder what their life would have been like if they hadn't signed up for the military."

"Don't we all." Drew said. Tristan shushed him, wanting to her more of her voice, even if it was through hearing her article.

"Would they have been my college classmates? Would we have met at a frat party? Could one of these boys have been a boyfriend to me or one of my girlfriends?" Josh stopped and stared at Tristan. "Dear God man, she's all yours."

"Keep reading." He said, annoyed at the possibility of truth in that statement.

"As I sat wondering what could have been, I realized that was the point. That these men had sacrificed that security and those relationships, both realized and unrealized, to protect us from a threat on the other side of the world that they had never even witnessed first hand. For these young men, it was a call to duty. They had fulfilled their own dreams and made their choices just as I had fulfilled my dream to go to college. The fact that anyone would voluntarily go see the things that they have seen, and do the things that they have had to do only heightens the respect that I have for them. These men are certainly brave but most of all happy, despite the fact that they are lying in a hospital bed. Our generation is known for a lot of things, but I believe that this experience proves what we have known all along. That we are more than what we appear to be." He said as he set the paper down on the edge of his bed. They all sat in silence, taking their turns imagining what their life would be like if they hadn't joined the military. They couldn't imagine anything. Tristan, on the other hand, was going back in time, to a party he hadn't thought about until last week.

OOOOO

"What are you doing here?" He asked as he glanced towards the two empty beds, thankful they were busy doing something else.

"A girl can't visit her favorite vets?" She asked. He shook his head. "Okay fine, maybe I missed spending time with you." She admitted. Apparently she was always this blunt, even when she liked you.

"Me too." He said, happy that she stopped by. "Can I just say, that was some bombshell you dropped the other day. If I could have kept it together for 24 hours…." He stopped, not wanting to think about what a mistake that was.

"You wouldn't be here, with these people. You would be in an office, with a flirting secretary and a trophy wife at home." She said, pointing out the fact that he was probably better off. He smiled.

"Maybe."

"You and I would have lasted about two seconds before you proved every one of my concerns right and we broke up."

"You think?" She nodded. "High school me was pretty stupid." He acknowledged.

"Rory! You're back!" The boys came strolling in.

"You're up! How are you feeling?"

"We'll be out of here soon. Or so they say."

"Good."

"Hey, you would know this. We were just talking about good places to get pizza. We haven't had real pizza in a long time." Rory smiled.

"This is the part of the visit where my head begins to look like a pepperoni, isn't it?" She laughed. "I could bring you a pizza. I'm allowed on the outside." She said.

"Are you serious?" Drew said.

"Of course."

"Oh my God. I mean, I know that Tristan is bed-ridden so that's the only reason I can say this but I think I love you." Josh said. She smiled.

"The works?" They both nodded frantically. "I'll be back in thirty minutes." She said as she left the room.

"That's it. You have to marry this girl." Drew said. "If you ever break up with her, I'll kill you."

"Really? Considering we're not even dating, that's a pretty big statement."

"Why was she here?" Tristan's face grew serious.

"I don't know."

"What were you two talking about?"

"How horribly my life would have turned out if we had dated back in high school." Josh and Drew just stared.

"Dude." They said in unison, shaking their heads in disappointment.

"But she did say that she couldn't stop thinking about me." He said, slightly proud of that fact.

"Well, well, well. Look who's making a comeback." As soon as Rory had left that first day, Tristan had been forced to spill his guts about their history to his friends. They were rooting for him, or so they said, but everyone knew that this wasn't exactly a normal situation. The truth was, they knew that she had no idea what they had been through, that she could never understand what Tristan was going through, so the idea of a relationship growing between the two of them, no matter how much chemistry there was, or had been in the past, well, it seemed a little ridiculous.