AN: Well here it is, yet another bloody Trory from me, I really should think about finishing the ones I have on the go at the moment but this idea hit me a few hours ago and I wanted to get it down. At the moment I think it'll only be a shorty. I'm having serious writer's block with Truth is nother yet, if anybody who's read For You I open my eyes, please, please, please email me with suggestions of where you would like to see it go.
This story's seriously AU, and set during Senior year at Chilton, I imagine you'll pick most up from the story but just to fill you guys in, Tristan was sent away, but has been brought back to graduate from Chilton with some new friends in tow. And Rory...ah, Rory. Well she's not the girl he remembers and Tristan is most definitely not the boy she remembers.
Disclaimer: I d't own the Gilmore Girls, never have and by the looks of it, never will. I do, however, own The Icon and St. Jimmy. But I have poached the title and the chapter titles from the SR-71 song of the same title.
...Love is all around you, your Universe is full..
A horn sounded in the driveway as Rory tapped her foot in time to the toaster whirring away.
"Rory! Your escort's here on his white steed!" Lorelai called from her vantage point at the window.
Rory rolled her eyes and caught the pop-tart as the toaster spat it out.
"Thanks Frankie," She whispered, patting the appliance and hurried through the living room where her mother stood in a barely there satin negligee. "Number one, mom, it's a Ducati, not a steed...and number 2, it's black".
"Pssh, details," Lorelai grumbled, waving through the window at Finn.
Rory kissed her mother's cheek and, cramming the pop-tart in her mouth, ran outside.
"Good morning love!" Finn called in a sing-song voice.
"Hello darling!" She called back in a sing-song voice.
Finn had been a new-comer late the year before and he and Rory had soon become firm friends. In time she'd even trained him to get up early enough to ride his bike to Stars Hollow to pick her up which pissed Dean off to no end.
"Love the hair," He whispered huskily as she took the proferred helmet.
"Thought you might," She replied, patting the newly red, shoulder-length curls. "I dyed it last night,"
He made a boyish growling noise in the back of his throat and she swatted him playfully as she climbed on behind him.
School had gone back a week and a half before. She hated Wednesday's, it reminded her of a cartoon Lorelai had pinned to the refrigerator years before. It had ben in two sections, one titled "teenagers" and the other titled "middle-age" and covered one week starting on a Monday. In the teenager section a cow started sprawledon the ground looking very much worse for wear and perking up as the week went along. The middle-age section was the exact opposite. But the cows were both half-way in the middle with the caption reading "At least we can all understand each other on Wednesday's". It was such a superfluous day, nothing interesting happened, all of her classes were mundane and at 9a.m. She still had not gotten hal-way throough the week. At least on Thursday she could say "two more days and it's over for another week".
"Nearly there love,"
Finn told her this every day he drove them to school through the radios in their helmets. It was pointless but one os those predictable things about him. She held on tighter as he made the turn through the school's gates.
Finn felt Rory wave to Paris, Madeline and Louise as Finn lifted her off the bike. She always shrieked a little when he did that, he still couldn't figure out if it was because it tickled her or not. It was just one of those pointless, predictable things about her he adored.
They made their way over to the threesome.
"Hello ladies," Rory said, approaching them with a swagger that made Louise laugh.
"Oh wow, I love your hair!" Madeline cried and Rory laughed.
"That would be a more convincing statement if you weren't the one who helped her dye it genius," Paris said acidically.
Rory rolled her eyes.
"Let us have our girly fun Paris,"
"Speaking of girly fun..." Louise began but Paris silenced her with a look.
Madeline noticed and diverted Rory's attention, grabbing her arm and jumpig up and down.
"What?" Rory asked laughingly.
"Major party on Friday night!" She gabbled, "I totally forgot...It's Blake Poirot's birthday at Saffron on Friday," She exclaimed, "You'd remember Blake?"
Finn doubled over in laughter and Rory hit him in the arm.
"Yes Mads, I remember Blake," Rory assured her. Blake was a Chilton graduate, a friend of Mads' older brother she'd met at a party and gone on a few dates with at the beginning of Summer before he'd become a velcro boy so to speak.
"Well it's v exclusive, but I have our invitations right here!" Madeline dug around in her back pack an produced two photo frames madeout of red, embroidered satin with the invitation itself behind glass.
"He said he hadn't been able to contact you, so I should give it to you," Madeine said with a conspiratorial wink, the girls knew she'd changed her number twice to get away from his constant text messages.
"Plus one?" Louise ased, "Who should I take?"
"Paris," Rory answered quickly, knowing Blake would have been too frightened to invite the blonde. Louisde smiled brightly.
"What about it Paris? Will you be my date for Friday night?"
Paris rolled her eyes.
"And one of us can take Finn," Finn suggested. The girls laughed and linked arms with him to enter the school. The Icon was absent, but that didn't surprise them, he rarely made it these days, just enough to pass his classes. He, Finn and St. Jimmy had all arrived together at the end of her sophomore year and had taken a shine to the quiet Rory Gilmore of days gone by. In the beginning it had been the four of them and then, as days went by, Louise and Madeline as wel as – by duress and geographical convenience – Paris.
----------
Rory sat attentively as her second class of the day began, it was Creative Writing, the first time it had been offered at Chilton, and she had jumped at the chance. Ms. Orchard insistedon being called Sonia and unlike the rest of the prim teachers at Chilton, wore fisherman pants, motorcycle boots and over-sized men's shirts to class. Rory had liked her straight away.
"Okay class, last class we talked about Point's of View and how they affect your writing, has everyone brought their homework?"
Their homework had been to list their favourite books and movies and then the themes common to both. From those themes they were to discern a time in their own lives where such themese were present in their own lives and write the scene from the first, second and third person point of view. Rory looked down at her own homework. Under the headline "Common Themes", the first two she had listed was, predictably, guilt.
"Okay, we're going to try something new this week, instead of you handing forward your papers, we're going to get into groups and share them."
Rory looked up in horror, this week's assignment had been so personal. She closed her eyes and hoped against hope se'd get Louise as her partner, someone who would understand.
"Tristan and Rory," Ms. Orchard called out and Rory's head snapped up. Tristan? Surely not. She scanned the room and sure enough, there he was, in the second row from the front. She looked over at Louise who seemed just as surprised, how had they not known he was coming back? She stayed where she was sitting until he tuned, and, seeing she hadn't moved, sighed and gathered his things.
She smiled at him flirtatiously as he sat down in Louise's seat.
"Hey DuGrey, long time no see"
"Hi Rory, how have you been?"
How had she been? What was this?
"Um...good thanks...you?"
"Well, you know, military school"
She nodded, confused by his demeanour. Just a couple of years ago he'd been so confident, so cocky. She'd never seen him quiet before.
"But you're back...why?"
He looked up at her, wire-rimmed reading glasses were a new addition to him, they were cute. He shrugged,
"My father wants me to graduate from Chilton, carry on the family tradition,"
"Oh...I...I din't know you were coming back."
He shrugged again.
"Why would you?"
She was silent for a moment and he pressed on, "So this is my first day back and I didn't know about the assignment so you may as well just read me yours,"
Rory looked down at her page again and squirmed inwardly. It would be bad enough to read this to anyone, but to Tristan?
"Well?" He prompted, a ghost of a smirk betraying the boy she'd once known.
"Uh...yeah...so, for my favourite books I chose, oh never mind, I'll just read the piece,"
----------
He stared up at me from where he lay on the mattress, his eyes bleary but still the beautiful, clear green I remember from the better days. His parched lips parted and I leaned closer, as though anything that passed those lips might hold the secret of what I'd been looking for. One slender finger rose, trembling into the air and his eyes followed it unsteadily.
"Higher," He whispered brethlessly, as though it hurt to speak. "I want to go higher."
I rolled my eyes, I was sick of this fucking pantomime.
"You are high!" I snapped and his eyes locked with mine for the first time since I'd found him there.
"No," He said, a little louder, a little croakier this time. "I want to go higher..." He trailed off, his hand falling to land beside him and I stood abruptly to my feet.
"I'm leaving."
That seemed to get through to him and he struggled to sit up.
"No," It was a command, not a question as he reached for my hand but I drew it back quickly.
"When you want to stop all of this...I still won't be here," I said icily, slamming the door behind me on the way out.
----------
She finally looked up as she finished the passage. Tristan wasn't looking at her, he was looking at the desk. After a few moment he met her eyes.
"It's good," He said quietly.
"Good?"
"Well, aren't we supposed to critique each other's work?"
They were she supposed, but she'd expected something different, questions maybe? Yes, questions. Instead she got his silence.
"So you're back for good?" She asked with a raised eyebrow and he glanced up at her.
"Looks that way Rory," He said wryly and she smiled.
"You finally learnt my name,"
He began to stand up but turned at the last minute, leaning in to her and whispered:
"I always knew your name".
----------
AN: So there it is, the first chapter darling ones. I hope you enjoyed it although I realise it may not be making much sense just yet. All the more reason for me to get updating huh? And a note on The Icon and St. Jimmy, they're new characters, that'll become apparent in time and I stole their names from an old friendhsip group I used to be a part of, we were really big on nicknames then. I'll never forget how excited we were when Green Day released their American Idiot album with the song "St. Jimmy". Well, let me know what you think by reviewing, you know how much I love those things. They tend to stroke the ego that goes through a daily battering at the newspaper.