A Gilmore Christmas
Summary: Rory and Tristan met up at Yale and have been dating for almost 3 years. Rory has invited Tristan over to her house for Christmas and has took it upon herself to make this his best Christmas, especially after she learned that Tristan is a Scrooge this time of year.
I don't own Gilmore girls, just the computer I'm typing it on.
A Gilmore Christmas
"Is Rory ready yet?" Tristan asks Paris when she opens the door for him.
"Does it look like she's ready?" Paris gestures to the otherwise empty common room.
Tristan glances at his watch. It's ten after 7. It's not like Rory to be late. "Has Lorelai been a bad influence on you Mary?" He calls into her room. He hears a laugh coming from inside and smiles as he sits down on the couch.
"No but I had to finish up an article for Doyle and I decided that I didn't like how I portrayed the ending then I didn't like how the middle was, so I ended up rewriting the whole thing." Rory explained, "And it took me longer then I anticipated."
Tristan watched Rory as she walked into the common room and was completely speechless. She was in loose jeans and a sparkly long sleeve dark blue shirt with a low yet modest neck line.
Rory caught his stare and then looked down at herself, "What? Should I go change?"
"No." Tristan rectified himself quickly and stood up. "You look incredible." He told her and gently kissed her, making Rory blush and him smirk.
"Keep it in your pants Dugrey." Paris told him dryly.
"We have to go anyway." Tristan took Rory's hand in his. He looked down at Rory and saw that his smirk was covering her lips. "What are you looking so 'haha' about?"
"I'm not looking 'haha'" Rory pauses to stifle a laugh, "it's just that I'm turning you into a planner."
Tristan looked appalled. "Excuse me?"
Rory looks at him with a grin. "Look at you. You're checking your watch like you want to be on time for something." She starts to laugh as she slips her hand out of Tristan's and walks ahead of him. "Where is the Tristan that I fell in love with?"
They both freeze. Rory frowns at what she just said and Tristan is staring at her in shock. "What?"
"Nothing." Rory says quickly as she puts on her coat, gloves, and hat that is necessary for going out in the December weather.
Tristan catches up with her as she starts out of the dorm, "I'll be back later Paris."
Paris she nods and rolls her eyes as she turns on CSPAN.
"Where are we going?" Rory asks. She can feel Tristan's intense gaze burning through her back but she keeps her pace steady and her head high even though it makes her feel small.
"We're not going anywhere until you admit that you love me." Tristan says, his smirk in place.
Rory spins around to face him. "Vain party of one!" She tells him.
"Denial is the first step." Tristan's smirk grows.
Rory rolls her eyes, "Whatever."
"Anger is the second step!" Tristan points at her mockingly.
"I'm going back to my room." Rory starts to walk past him. Tristan quickly takes hold of her upper arm and turns her to face him. Their faces are just centimeters apart.
"I love you too." His eyes are locked onto hers and his face his completely serious.
Rory blushes and gently whacks his arm, "Come on, we're going to be late."
"How would you know? You don't even know where we're going." Tristan says with his smirk back in place. He laces his hand back into Rory's and they continue down the hallway.
"Well, then do we have enough time to get coffee?" Rory asks him.
Tristan frowns thoughtfully, "They'll have coffee there."
Rory nods, excepting his answer.
They walk in the soft new fallen snow and get to Tristan's Dodge Viper. Tristan opens Rory's door for her and then gets into his seat.
The car starts and Def Leppard blares from the speakers. "Sorry." Tristan tells her quickly and mentally kicks himself for forgetting to turn off or down the volume when he was in his car earlier.
Rory is staring at him with wide eyes.
"What?" he asks her.
"There are 11 days left till Christmas and you're listening to Hysteria when your Near?" She practically yells at him.
Tristan hesitates for a second then replies, "I thought you loved Def Leppard?"
"I do!" Rory groans loudly, "But that isn't he point. Why don't you have any Christmas music on?" She is now flipping through his CD's. "DO you even have any Christmas music?" She asks when she can't find any.
Tristan shrugs, "No."
She looks at him his shock. "You're kidding?"
"No."
"Oh my god." She tells herself, "I can't believe I'm dating someone who doesn't own a copy of the Joy to the World." She takes a deep breath and tries to calm down. "Well I'll get you some. Just go to the next exit."
Tristan rolls his eyes, "If we do that then we'll be late."
Rory groans, "This is more important."
"How do you know?" Tristan asks her as he pulls out of Yale Campus.
"Because it is."
Tristan scoffs.
"Well if you have Christmas music, or any holiday music, then this wouldn't have happened." She tells him, still a little shocked over her discovery. She turns to face him. "Why don't you have any Christmas music?"
Tristan hesitates again, "I've just never liked this time of year."
Rory stares at him again.
Tristan chooses to ignore her. "My parents were always out of town so I was either alone with the maid or with my grandma."
"I thought you got along with your grandparents." Rory says, feeling sad. She has always had great Christmas'. She was always with her mom, Luke, and all her friends around town.
Tristan stiffened. "I got along with my dad's parents, not my mom's."
Rory nods her head, not knowing what to say. She couldn't believe that all this time she didn't know this. Normally Tristan would go out of town over Christmas, to see his dad's parents, and Rory would stay with her mom.
"Well, this year I'll change this Scrooge attitude." She took his free hand in hers and started to graze her finger tips gently over his palm. "You'll come to my house this Christmas." She was starting to feel better already.
She felt Tristan tense.
"What? It's not like you don't know my mom. In fact she loves you. What's the problem?" Rory asks in one breath.
Tristan sighs. "I just want Christmas to be over."
Rory gasps. "Never say such things." She shakes her head, "No, you'll come to my house. We'll decorate the tree, make cookies,"
"You make cookies?" Tristan interjected.
Rory pouted for a second, "Ok, so we have Luke make the cookies, but it's still fun. Especially because we get to decorate them with frosting." Rory's mouth was watering at the thought of Luke's cookies.
Tristan nodded his head.
"It will be great." Rory smiled at him.
"We're here." After 45 minutes Tristan pulled into a small parking lot.
Rory looked confused. "What is this?" She read the name, Galactic Ice.
"It's an ice rink." Tristan got out of the car. Rory gave a squeal of excitement and practically jumped out of the car. She ran into Tristan's arms and kissed him.
"Come on. I reserved us an hour."
Rory couldn't help but laugh. "You, skate?"
Tristan frowned. "How hard could it be?"
Rory continued to laugh but stopped when Tristan walked away from her and towards the car. "Oh come on, I was just teasing." She told him, "Sort of." She added to herself.
Tristan chuckled. He opened the truck of his car and revealed Rory's dark blue suitcase.
"Where did you get that?" Rory asked.
"Lorelai gave it to me when I told her about my plans." Tristan smiled.
Rory kissed him again and took her bag.
Tristan and her signed in at the front desk and as Tristan was getting his rental skates Rory sat down on one of the chairs and started to put on her own white skates. She always had them at her house because she only skated on weekends when she went home. Not a lot of people knew that she could skate, but she could and loved to.
After Tristan had on his plastic blue skates him and Rory went out into the cold rink. Christmas music was playing per Rory's request.
Rory stepped out onto the ice and instantly pushed herself further out into the rink. She practically flew across the ice as she went from forward to backwards crossovers. She hockey stopped in front of Tristan who was holding onto the wall with white knuckles.
"It's not fun if you don't come out here too." Rory told him.
"No, I'm fine here, you go skate." Tristan tried to smirk but instead lost his balance and fell onto his butt.
Rory could help but laugh loudly, but instantly silenced herself when Tristan shot her a glare. "I'm sorry baby, here let me help." But Tristan brushed her away and got up himself.
He let go of the wall and numbly glided over the ice.
Rory smirked at the sight of ice covering Tristan's backside.
"Wipe that smirk off your face Mary." Tristan told her sharply, which made Rory even more cheerful.
For an hour Rory jumped, spun, and glided around with Tristan until they got off.
They then went back to Rory's dorm where they kissed goodnight and Rory went to sleep, thinking about them.
She couldn't believe she said that she loved him. She knew she did, she had for a while, but she had been scared to say it.
The date was perfect. She couldn't believe how much she missed skating.
The Next Week, Friday December 22
"Good morning!" Rory burst into Tristan's dorm with a red Santa's hat on her head. Her cheeks were covered with glitter and she was holding three coffees.
"Good morning Rory." Tristan's room mate Austen told her with a small smile; signaling that he had a hangover and that he had just woken up.
"I brought coffee." She handed him one.
"I worship you right now." Austen told her as he drowned down the coffee.
Rory smiled.
Tristan walked into the room wearing plaid pajama pants, a white shirt, and his hair was coming out every which way.
"Good morning sunshine." Rory told him and handed him his coffee. "Winter break has begun and we're heading to the land of happiness."
"The north pole?" Tristan asked her as he took in her elf outfit.
"No silly, Stars Hollow."
"Of course." Tristan mumbled as he drank his coffee.
"So go get dressed." She shooed him back into his room. "And get packed we're staying for a while."
There was a loud thud from Tristan's room. "How long is a while?"
"A week." She call back to him, "Or two." She adds more softly to herself. She wasn't sure how long Tristan wanted to stay. She normally stayed till New Years when school started up again.
"Well at least that means it will be quiet here." Austen told her.
"Don't you have any holiday plans?" Rory sat down beside him.
"Only the Christmas party my mom's throwing. And I'd rather not even go to that." He said groggily making Rory laugh. "In seriousness, I'm spending a lot of time with my girl."
"How is Meg?" Rory asked.
"She's great, and sends you a hug." Austen shook his head at the silly things the girls always tell him to pass on to one another.
"Give her a hug back for me." Was Rory's reply.
"Oh and she got your Christmas card and loved the singing coffee cups." Austen was confused at that, because he hadn't seen the card only was told what to tell Rory.
"Yeah, she called me when she got it." Rory smiled brightly. Over the year Austen had been dating Meg her and Rory had really hit it off and tend to go out for lunch twice a week.
Tristan came back out in jeans and a sweater carrying a duffle. "Ready?"
"Yes!" Rory jumped up, "I'll see you later Austen."
"Bring him back safely." Was all that Austen said.
Rory laughed, "I make no promises." With that the two made their way to the silver Jeep Liberty that her dad had gotten her as a means to make up for all the time he wasn't around.
"So what's the plan for today?" Tristan asks.
"We're going to Miss Patty's Christmas party and then hang with mom." Rory told him as he threw his bag into the back of the jeep along with Rory's things.
Tristan snorted.
Rory didn't let it affect her and put on some music.
Christmas Morning
Rory woke up with Tristan's arm wrapped around her. She smiled and closed her eyes again but couldn't go back to sleep; something was bothering her.
"Tris?"
"Yeah?" Tristan whispers into her hair.
"I'm sorry." She whispers as the memory of last night runs through her mind.
"If you didn't want to come then why did you?" Rory yells at him as she pulls him behind Weston's Bakery.
"I came because you wanted me to!" Tristan yelled back.
Rory groaned, "All you've been doing is moping around and rolling your eyes. I know that some of the stuff that my mom and I do is illogical but if you really loved me you wouldn't care about that!"
"If I really loved you? What the hell is that supposed to mean? You know I love you! Dimmitt! That's why I'm in this situation in the first place!" You can practically see the flames in his eyes as he yells.
At this point a crowd has gathered around them. But the couple doesn't seem to notice them.
"I tried to make you feel better about your past! I tried to make this your best Christmas ever and you just brushed it off! Why did you do that?" You could tell that she was fighting off tears. Her body was shaking with intensity. "Do you know how bad that made me feel?"
"Well then maybe you should have stopped trying!" Tristan was loosing some steam.
"I didn't want to stop trying!" Rory yelled back. "I wanted you to be happy!"
"I was just fine with the whole 'not celebrating holidays' thing, thank you!" Tristan took a aggressive step forward.
Rory glared at him, "Fine! Maybe you should go home then!" With that she ran away from him. She broke through the crowd and ran all the way home. Once she was inside she fell to her knees and let the tears come.
Lorelai ran into the room when she heard the door slam. "Oh, honey, what happened?" She knelt beside her.
Rory tried to tell her but she couldn't talk while crying. So Lorelai gently took her into her room and let Rory curl up into a ball.
"It was my fault." Tristan told her sincerely. "I shouldn't have been acting how I have been."
Rory snuggled deeper into him. "Why did you come back?"
"Lorelai yelled at me." He told her, making Rory laugh.
"Sorry about that."
"I deserved it." He told her. "Merry Christmas."
"You don't have to like Christmas. I just wanted you to have a good time." Rory said, feeling awkward.
Tristan pulled her closer to him, "Believe it or not, I did."
Rory laid on her back and looked at him, "Really?"
Tristan nodded. "I just didn't want to admit it to myself."
Then Tristan turned away from her, took something out of his duffle bag, and turned back to her. "I hate that we fought, especially on Christmas Eve." He paused. Rory sat up and met his gaze, "Will you marry me?" He opened the velvet box revealing an exquisite diamond ring.
Note to readers- If I get 20 reviews I'm going to make a sequel.