A/N: I don't own Gilmore Girls, the WB or any other works by Amy Sherman-Palidino. But I fully embrace the opportunity to use the Gilmore Girls world for my story.
This story is an Alternate Universe plot. The most important aspects of this AU backstory that you need to know are:
Lorelai and Christopher got married before Rory was born and the young Hayden family lived in Hartford. Unfortunately, life was not all rainbows and sunshine, and by the time Rory was three years old her parents had seperated and she and Lorelai had moved to Stars Hollow. When she was 5-years old, Lorelai and Christopher finally divorced. Of course that wasn't the end of the story - every once in a while, for whatever reasons, Lorelai and Christopher would end up together again. They never lasted much longer than a few weeks but each time they managed to make things just a little bit harder for Rory and for each other. It was only through the constant companionship of her best friends: Paris Gellar, Tristan Dugrey, Louise Grant and Madeline Lynn, that she was able to cope with her parents alternating turns of sufficating affection and attention and the desolation of neglect.
Logan, Finn, Colin and Stephanie are two years older than Rory and her friends, and just like on the show after their sophmore year at Yale the group (as well as a few other friends) decided to take a year off school to sail around the world. And just like on the show, they sunk their yaht just off Fiji. The three boys spent their high school years at various boarding schools in the US, Europe and Australia while Stephanie went to Andover Preparatory. It was due to these circumstances that the two groups had never really met one another - or more accurately why Rory had never met Logan and his friends.
Most of what happened on the show did happen in the 'past' for this story. With those changes that I mentioned above. This story begins between the end of season 4 and the beginning of season 5. Enjoy.
Chapter 1 - Getting Caught Up
"How does that sound to you Lorelai?" The words, the voice, snapped me back from my rambling thoughts and forced me to try and determine what everyone at the table surrounding me was talking about.
"I'm sorry, what?" I ask when it's obvious that I've missed something at least vaguely important from the groups conversation and that they really expect me to express my opinion.
"Good grief Lorelai," my grandmother sighs but I know she's not really upset because she's got an amused expression on her face.
"Daydreaming about me again Mare??" the young man sitting next to me says with a smirk.
I roll my eyes, of course he's got to get a dig in somehow, but I do manage to refrain from elbowing him in the ribs. "Maybe I need more help than I thought." I mutter loud enough for everyone at the table to hear and I start looking around the room, pretending to be searching for something.
"What are you looking for dear?" One of my grandparents friends, a Mrs. Amelia Vanderbilt, asks from the other side of the table.
"A diversion." I reply without stopping my search.
"A diversion?" The same woman asks as though my answer makes absolutely no sense at all.
Admittedly, to her anyways, my answer probably doesn't make any sense. I 'give up' my search with a sigh and turn back to the group at the table. Sliding a glance to Tristan beside me I answer with a smirk of my own. "Well obviously if I was daydreaming about Tristan I need something to distract my self with, if only to save myself a lifetime of self-disgust." The unexpected answer causes the only other young person at the table, besides Tristan and myself, to choke slightly on her drink, and judging by the pinched looks on both my grandmother's faces and on Trisha Dugrey's face they are all biting their tongues, or cheeks, to keep from laughing aloud.
"Ouch. That hurts Mare," Tristan says as he taps on his chest just over his heart. "Right here."
I laugh and smile sweetly at him. "I'm sure you'll get over it."
Everyone is laughing and hopefully I've managed to make them forget that I wasn't paying attention in the first place, or at least distracted them enough that no one will ask what I'd been thinking about. Hopefully.
"Now," my Grandmother Hayden says as the laughter begins to die down. "We were just wondering if you and Victoria would like to spend the day with Tristan while we older ladies go to tea at Lady Mallory's."
I frown slightly as I glance back and forth between my Grandmother and Grandma Gilmore. Usually they would insist that I went with them since Lady Mallory was my Great-Gran Gilmore's cousin. "I'm sure that will be fine." I tell them still glancing back and forth between them. "Are you sure cousin Terrington won't mind that I'm not there?"
"She won't mind at all. We'll tell her that you're entertaining friends that came into town unexpectedly. Besides, she wasn't really expecting you to be there. You hadn't planned on making this trip with us after all." Grandma Gilmore explains with a smile on her face but there is something in her expression that make me nervous. It's the glint in her eye that appears when ever she's meddling with something, or someone.
"Well then, I guess it just you, me and Victoria, Mare." Tristan announces as if that wasn't blatantly obvious, and now I wonder whether his being here is as unexpected as his mother made it seem. "Should we go?"
Several hours later it's obvious to me that Tristan didn't just 'decide on a whim' to spend a couple of weeks flouncing around Europe with his mother. Like me, he's got some ulterior motive for being there, I just haven't figured out what, yet. As I watch him telling Victoria Vanderbilt stories of us from Chilton, and listen to her giggle and flirt with him I can see there is something in his expression that says he's got something important on his mind. We've been sight-seeing for hours and finally stopped at a quiet cafe to have a late lunch and some coffee. After we eat we're going to go to a museum for a while and then back to the hotel to meet our families for dinner.
Tristan pays for lunch and as we leave the cafe Victoria tells us that she's sort of tired, "jet-leg" she says, but I think she's just picked up the vibes that both Tristan and I have other things on our mind and would probably appreciate the reprieve from running around the city. So we change directions and walk the dozen or so blocks to our hotel so that we see a bit more of the 'culture of the city' as Tristan's mother would call it and go our separate ways once we get inside.
An hour later there's a knock on my door and I get up from my laptop, where I'd been writing an e-mail to my mother, to answer. Tristan's leaning against the door frame holding a drink tray with 4 large coffee's from the cafe across the street.
"Sanctuary?" He asks as he holds the tray out to me. I laugh as I take one of the cups from the tray and let him into the room, closing the door softly behind him.
"I take it your mother is back from tea and visiting with Cousin Terrington?" I say to him as he sets the tray down on the coffee table, takes a cup and then flops down onto the couch.
"The least she could have done, after practically forcing me to come over here with her, was get me my own suite. For the love of God, Mare, we're 20 years old and while you get this lovely suite to yourself, I'm sharing with my mother." He groused and now he's really got my interest piqued, especially the 'practically forcing me to come over here' comment.
I hold my free hand over my heart and give my best Southern Belle imitation. "You mean you didn't really hear that I was in Europe for the summer and decide that you just had to come and keep me company?"
"Please. If I'd known that you were going to be here, I wouldn't have put up as much of a fight as I did." He told me and that particular light I knew so well came back into his eyes and I knew there was even more trouble on the horizon of our lives. "As it is, it basically came down to Dad telling me that I was coming with Mom or he was putting a block on all of my accounts."
"Oh, Tristan." What else could I say? It's not like it was the first time Samuel Dugrey had threatened to cut Tristan off.
"That's not even the worst part Mary. Dad and Grandfather have decided that it's time for the wedding. I've been told that it's going to be a Winter Wedding, in either December or January. That we get to decide for ourselves but we have to choose by the tenth of October." The tone of his voice was chilling, again though, it wasn't unfamiliar. I hadn't heard it a couple of years but I recognized it and just like in old times, I wasn't entirely sure whether I could make things any better for him.
"It's not really a shock though, is it? I mean we've known this was coming for a long time. Even if he'd never really said anything specific about it." At this point I figured reason couldn't hurt.
"Knowing that it was going to happen at some time in the distant future and knowing that it is going to happen at some point in the next 7 months, are two very, very different things. Fuck Mare, married!" Apparently he didn't want logic.
"I really wish that I could make things better for you." I told him sincerely.
Tristan turned and met my eyes with his - blue to blue. "You could tell me what you're doing in Europe. Last time we talked you were planning on spending the summer with your mom and helping out with the new Dragonfly opening."
I couldn't help blushing. Or biting my lip as I tried to think of how to tell him. Or avoid telling him all together. "Tris..."
"Don't do that Rory." He threatened and took hold of my chin so that I couldn't turn away. "You wouldn't be here if you didn't have a damn good reason."
"Or a really bad reason." I suggested, trying anything to get out of telling him. He just raised his eyebrows and continued to stare. Not finding anything else to say to stall the inevitable, I blurt out the truth. "I slept with Dean on the night of the opening."
"What?" He chocked out. "Married Dean??"
"Married Dean. And then Mom caught us."
"Jesus. When you decide to go for it, you go all the way." And he had the audacity to chuckle as if my situation was humorous.
So I slapped him. On the chest. "It is NOT funny Tristan. She was so mad and I was so stupid. I mean, God! As if committing adultery once wasn't bad enough, I met him the next day and it happened again. I didn't mean to, I had no intention of sleeping with him again but it happened. And I knew that if I didn't get out, fast, I'd keep doing it and...."
"I'm sorry Mare." He told me and by this point his entire expression had sobered so I knew that he was serious.
"I don't know what to do. This is definitely not how I intended for, uh, things to happen."
"I know." A flash of amusement warmed his eyes again. "You have to love the irony though. I mean, you held on to your virginity through high school while the rest of us were sleeping around, and in 24hrs you manage to catch up to us in disgraceful acts. Just imagine what would happen if word of your fall from grace became public."
I burst into tears.
"Shit. Rory, I'm sorry. I'm stupid. I didn't mean that the way I'm sure it sounded." He pulled me into his arms and instantly I burrowed close. "Rory I'm sure that Dean's not going to tell anyone."
"He'll lose his wife." I interjected through my tears.
"He's also, usually, a really good guy. I may not like the loser but he was always really good to you." That just made me cry harder. Dean had probably always been good to Lindsay too, until I came back to town. "You made a mistake Mare. It's not the end of the world and it's not going to kill you. He's the one who cheated. That was his choice, not yours. You're not blameless but it's sure not all your fault."
"I don't love him anymore."
"I know you don't Mare. But you did once. Sometimes it's hard to completely let those feelings go, isn't that what you told me once upon a time? No one who truly loves you is gonna hold this against you babe, cause we've all made mistakes. It's called being human." Tristan told her softly while he rubbed circles on her back.
"Mom was so disappointed in me. You should have seen her face Tristan. It was like she didn't even recognize me."
"It'll be okay."
"How?"
So there it is, this first chapter of my first published story.
What do you think?
