Disclaimer: As much as I might like to, I don't own them.
Spoilers:Takes place after the season one finale, years after, but season two never happened.
Rating: PG
Author's Musings: This is my first attempt at GG fic so any kind of constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. One last thing, I have to thank the Jamie, who has been wonderful and supportive and pushing me to write and post without her I would still be stumbling through writers block, you are the best, thanks for everything.
Never Really FriendsShe was reading. This was not an unusual fact nor should it have been unexpected and yet it surprised him all the same. Perhaps, it wasn't so much her reading as it was the fact that she was there, waiting for him. He hadn't expected her to show up, most girls wouldn't have shown up. This thought caused him to chuckle, she wasn't most girls.
He was standing just behind her; she knew this without looking up from her book. She knew he was there the second he walked in the café's doors, which should have perplexed her but instead she found some odd comfort in this fact. Her breath caught in her throat at the sound of his husky chuckle. It had been so long since she had heard the sound of his voice that she had nearly forgotten how much it could affect her.
Taking the seat opposite her, he sat down, watching as she continued to read. Without looking up she spoke, "I don't think it is wise of you to sit there. See, I am waiting for an old friend and you and I were never friends."
"Whose fault is that, Mary?" he replied a hint of laughter in his voice.
"Yours, of course. Perhaps if you could have remembered my name we could have been friends," she responded, still not taking her eyes off the book. She wanted to look at him, to see how he had matured over the last six years; but something was holding her back for the moment.
"I really don't think that was the issue, you knew I knew your name, just preferred not to use it. I think the real set back for us was the fact that you hated me," a slight edge finding its way into his voice as he recalled the words coming from her lips, words that still haunted him on occasion.
Finally, pulling her eyes from the book, she looked at the man before her, amusement lighting up her sapphire eyes as she chuckled before replying, "I never hated you, Tristan. You of all people should know that; I can't say I didn't want to hate you, because I did, but I never actually hated you."
As their gazes locked for a moment he felt silly hanging onto something so trivial, something she never meant. But still, he pushed, tearing his gaze from her's and running a hand through his already unruly hair, "then why did you say it?"
She paused for a moment, as if mulling over the question; of course she wasn't, she already knew the answer, had for years now, she just didn't want to say it. Not out loud anyway, and certainly not to him. Deciding it was best not to lie, she decided on a partial truth. "I thought I loved Dean. Or not loved him, so much as wanted to love him. And when I saw him standing there waiting for me and you were being all arrogant and pushy and so you. I didn't know what to do, but then he started to leave and I couldn't just let him leave because this was what I was supposed to want. So, I told him what he wanted to hear and what I wanted to believe, so I said them. I knew I didn't mean them, any of them the moment they came out but by then it was too late, we were kissing and you were gone," she rambled.
He allowed himself to process what she had just said before he spoke again, taking this time to study her features. She looked the same, her features had matured a bit and her hair was shorter but she was basically the same, beautiful and confident and all that came in between. "So you didn't love him?" he asked. He knew he was treading on a thin line but he couldn't help himself, these were questions he never thought of and if he had it had been years since he had allowed them to surface.
She wasn't surprised by his invasion, in fact she had been expecting it, but still she had hoped that he would leave things be. "Not then, no," she answered, purposefully withholding any other information. She didn't want to tell him too much, only what he wanted to know, so she would answer the questions as they came as simply as possible.
"But you did then, at some point later you did?" he queried trying to gauge her reaction. When she didn't respond after a moment or two of hesitation, he attempted to clarify, "love him, you did love him at some point?"
She nodded, "Yes, I did, do, still do love him, I think I always will." The sullenness of her voice surprised him as her words stung him. He wanted to know this, had anticipated her answer; but despite having believed she loved Dean for all these years the small hope he had foolishly kept in the back of his mind, allowed her words to pain him.
They sat in silence for a while, neither in a rush to continue the conversation, both wanting to stay there together for as long as possible. She watched him intently while feigning interest in her book. He looked good, not that he had ever looked bad, but now he definitely looked good. His features were more chiseled and he had bulked up since she had last seen him, but his hair was still as messy as ever and his eyes still betrayed his every thought and emotion, in this she found comfort.
He drummed his fingers on the table in an attempt to clear his mind, wishing he had ordered himself a cup of coffee before he had come to sit down. "So," he drawled breaking the silence, "you are still together then."
She sighed, wondering how the reunion of two old acquaintances had led to a discussion of her love life. Upon remembering that it could be her fault for starting the conversation in the manner in which she had she exhaled a deep breath. At the time it had seemed like a good way to break the ice, now she was regretting that decision. "No, we haven't been together for at least five years now."
Tristan couldn't help the small smile that tugged at his lips as her words were spoken. He knew that this meant nothing, that she was probably with someone else, but for some reason this didn't bother him as much, probably because this someone else had no name, or face and thus in his mind someone else did not exist.
Realizing he wasn't about to say anything any time soon, she asked the one question that had been plaguing her since had called. "Why did you call me?"
The sudden shift in conversation startled him a moment before he was able to regain his cool. "I wanted to see you," was his simple reply.
She rolled her eyes at his response causing him to laugh, and just like that the tension that had formed over the last half hour had vanished. "Obviously you wanted to see me, I understood that much, but why?" she asked again.
He shrugged, "Picked up the Chilton yearbook and thought 'I wonder what Rory Gilmore is up to'?"
She let out a light chuckle before replying, "Highly unlikely." He gave her a smirk, leering slightly causing her to continue, "inquiring minds want to know what made Tristan Dugrey call my grandparents to get my number and call me."
A blush began to make its way up his neck, beginning to color his cheeks. "Have I embarrassed you?" she laughed, wondering when things had changed to the pint where she was able to make him blush and not the other way around.
"No, I believe I did that all on my own," he replied, still evading her initial question.
"It's nice to know you now take responsibility for your own actions, speaking of which, answer my question," she demanded.
"And which question would that be?" he smirked, enjoying how easy it was to rile her up.
"You really haven't changed, have you?" she remarked in an amused manner. "Why did you want to see me?"
"I don't believe that you have actually asked me that before," he replied the smirk never leaving his face.
"Well now I have, so answer, Bible boy," she responded, annoyance coloring her cheeks and causing her eyes to sparkle.
"Bible boy?" he quipped. "Is that what you just called me?"
"Yes," she replied defensively, her cheeks turning redder as he caught her slip. "But that doesn't matter, as I am leaving since you refuse to answer me."
"Rory," he pleaded as started to get up from her chair. "Do you really want to know why I called you?" She nodded eagerly and so he continued, "I'm not really sure I can explain it. I just woke up the other day and realized it had been six years since we graduated from Chilton, six years since I had seen the majority of my classmates and the only one I missed was you."
There was more to his story, more than he was sharing, she could tell by the tone of his voice, by the way he looked at her, by the way he left so many things unsaid; but she accepted it because she felt the same way. Somehow before they graduated Chilton despite never really being friends she had come to enjoy his presence in her life. They never hung out, only argued back and forth in the halls and worked on the occasional project and yet somehow she had come to thinking of him as a friend. In truth, they were never more than good acquaintances but in her mind they had always been friends, despite the torment and the torture they had come to a truce and she couldn't say she didn't miss him either.
He was looking at her expectantly, waiting for some kind of reaction to what he had just said, wondering what could be going on inside her head. Finally she looked at him a smile gracing her beautiful features as she spoke, "Buy me two cups of coffee and we'll catch up."
He returned her smile as he lifted his body from the chair. "Coming right up," was his only response as he walked over to the counter.
"Make sure you get them in the largest cups possible," she called to him as he waited on the short line.
He chuckled, his smile never wavering as he placed their order; anxious to start something he never quite had before, a friendship with Rory Gilmore.
Finis.