A/N: This is my first Gilmore fanfic and I hope many of you will enjoy it. I looove photoshop so expect pictures from each chapter to be posted up. I'll be posting the link at the end of each chapter for those of you who are interested in seeing the pictures.

At this point, I don't know whether it'll be a narc/literati/sophies or maybe, even none of them. So expect nothing. lol.

RR! Enjoy!

STAND STILL, LOOK PRETTY.

CHAPTER 1

The Trifecta

She did it. She made it.

Everything she had ever dreamt of, everything she had ever aspired to be, she became it.

She tore her eyes away from the laptop sitting on the wooden table in front of her, and gazed at the scenery outside her one-windowed room. Everything was dry; the people walked around with their heads down, shoulders heavy with the weight of the world. Children who were not supposed to know the evil that the world was capable of walked around with too knowing eyes, haggard and guarded. The world was too cruel, too cruel for this small town. The nation was torn by civil war and these people were sitting ducks for those who did not know better. They refused to leave this place that they called home, and many had paid the fatal consequences.

She had stood many times in front of the camera, in the middle of chaos, with people behind her screaming and running, when all hell broke lose. She had stood still, her fear kept in check, reporting what the world needed to know, reporting the truth. Always in her mind she repeated what her mother, Lorelai Gilmore, had told her a lifetime ago, "Stand still and look pretty." And she had been doing just that these past few years, ever since her mother had told her to. Even though her first instinct was to run and find safety whenever the war raged behind her, she did not. She had stood still, she had told the world what she knew, and she had looked damn great while doing it.

She was Rory Gilmore, a journalist, an international correspondent. She was, in other words, the next Christiane Amanpour.

Rory returned her eyes to the laptop screen, her astonishing blue eyes scanning the words before her; it was an email from her mother back in Stars Hollow, an immediate reply to the email Rory wrote just last night. One sentence stuck out and she smiled while reading it; the stick turned blue. In her personal opinion, it was long overdue. Her mother had been married to Luke Danes for a couple of years now and she knew that they had been trying, and now, after so long, they finally got their wish granted. Rory was hoping for a brother, and her mother said just as much in the email. After all, she did have two sisters already.

Jackson and Sookie were doing well with their three kids; Davey, Martha and Jamie. Rory supposed that they all must be adorably chubby now, it had been years since she saw them last. Lane and Zach were fine too; it was still the four of them. Steve and Kwan had just celebrated their fourth birthday and from what she heard from her mother, the party was at the same time, a blast and a disaster. And of course, there were all the other Stars Hollow residents that she missed; she never thought she would miss them this much, what with all their annoying tendencies and quirkiness. But she had come to realize that their qualities were all endearing. Kirk finally married Lulu and Rory regretted that she wasn't home to attend the wedding.

It was a price that she had to pay; she knew it before she started her job. She would miss all of this. Her job hardly left her any time to visit or attend life changing events that were taking place back home. Her job took her around the world, and she knew it would. She lived with her decision and though she didn't regret it, it didn't stop her from feeling sad every once in a while.

She replied her mother's email starting with a big, capitalized and heartfelt CONGRATULATIONS, followed by how she was doing, what was going on around her… the usual. Rory ended her long virtual letter by saying that she missed everyone terribly and that she couldn't wait to be back; whenever that would be.

Once her email was sent and underway, she leaned back against her hard chair and sighed. Rory looked to the unusually large pile of letters next to her laptop which had just arrived that morning. It had been a while since she had received her mail, mostly from fans who were tired with the virtual robotic reply that they get if they sent her an email. Handwritten letters were more personal, though they took much longer to reach her; especially this bunch, which she supposed had gotten lost for many months.

Pulling her chair closer to the table, Rory started sifting through them, looking mainly at the addresses at the back. She always liked to know where her fans were from; it amazed her how many countries watched her through the news, how many people listened to what she had to say. After many years on the job, it never ceased to amaze her.

As she sifted through the letters, a particular handwriting caught her eyes. It was a handwriting that she had seen years ago on the margins of her copy of Howl. She froze. Her heart seemed to freeze too. She could not even recall the last time she had heard from him. It had been that long ago. She closed her eyes and tried to picture him in her head; the dark-haired mysterious boy who had selfishly stolen her heart. She could see him, standing aloof by the petrol station, hands in his pockets, with a cigarette propped on his mouth. Jess Mariano; the first boy who had sweetly broken her heart.

Feeling blood return to her heart, Rory put that letter aside, drove it out of her mind and continued to sift through the endless fan mails. She smiled when she saw a letter from Indonesia and made a mental note to read that one first. But her smile disappeared when, yet again, Rory recognized a handwriting that she had almost forgotten.

It was a messy scrawl, as if the writer was in a hurry as he was writing it. If Jess was years ago, this was forever ago. A picture formed in her mind without command, of a boy of sixteen, standing, waiting for her by a green truck, at her old high school's courtyard. Dean. One of the tallest boys that she had ever met… the first boy she had fallen in love with, who she had hurt more than once. A fuzzy feeling arose in her stomach, butterflies they call it. He was her first love and her first. He was her first for everything.

Putting that letter aside like she did with Jess's, she tried to get those two men out of her mind, and continued with the task at hand. It proved to be impossible but she continued to sift through, thinking that those two letters were the only surprises that she'd get, when another letter caught her eyes.

It was the only typed letter of the bunch and when she saw CA at the back, she knew instantly who it was from. Logan Huntzberger. Oh it was all too fresh in her mind. The image of him walking away from her, with his head hung low, holding the engagement ring in his pocket, his blonde hair disappearing into the crowd… broke her heart. It broke her then, it still broke her now. He was the first guy she had wanted, the first guy she had chased. And like those years ago, she still knew why he was worth the chase. He had proposed to her! He had known that she was the girl who he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with! Oh to be that sure. She loved the fact that he proposed, but hated that she knew that she had to say no. He took her breath away, and even after all this time, just a mental picture of him in her mind, still had the same effect.

Placing that letter along with the other two, she stared at them, wonderment written on her face.

All three. Her trifecta.

She lifted one of her pale hands to take one of the three, but hesitated when she didn't know which one to choose. She grimaced bitterly; the story of her life. As her hand came down on one, the door to her room opened abruptly.

Wallace stood by her door, panting for breath staring hard at her. He was a good-looking man that she had noticed, also a journalist, who had been with her these past three years. He was not her boyfriend, not even close, but they have a relationship. A physical relationship.

She raised her eyebrows at him, frowning at his sweat-matted reddish brown hair, and waited for him to speak, her hand still hovering above one of the letters.

"A riot. Now."

He ran the way he came from and Rory wasted no time. Leaving the letters as they were, she grabbed her bag, and ran after Wallace. As she closed the door, her eyes went to the three letters on her table, questioning their presence, wondering what each men had to say to her after all these years. Shrugging off the thought and focusing at the task at hand, she caught a reflection of herself in the window.

"Stand still, look pretty," she muttered under her breath and quickly shut the door behind her to run after the current man in her life.

A/N: There's no link for this chapter. But if you take a look at my profile you'll see a cover that I made for this story.

So what did you guys think?? Oh do tell me! Your reviews are what keep me going.