AN: Sorry this took so long. I was having a lot of trouble with this chapter. As always thanks got to Kasandra27 she helped me a lot here.

Thanks for your reviews: bridgeteebeethequeen, Curley-Q, e13, HippieWinterSweet, Ghostwriter, Jeremy Shane, Juzzy88, nuttzZ1, Texas' Sweetheart and Vera Cobb

Disclaimer: See chapter 1

Two weeks after meeting Jess, 'The Letter' arrived. Rory and Lorelai danced around the house, taking turns waving the Chilton acceptance letter above their heads. They were both overly excited, with no caffeine involved… well not yet anyway.

"You did it! You did it!"

"I got in!"

"I knew you would, you're such an amazing kid! I'm so proud of you. We should go celebrate."

"Luke's?"

"Honey, you just got into this awesome school that is going to get you right into Harvard and you want to celebrate at Luke's?"

"Well where do you want to go?"

"Eh, Luke's it is."

When Rory took Jess to the bridge his first night in town, she tried discussing books with him, but it was then that she realized that he wasn't big on words. He did however manage to assure her that he didn't have any desire to kill her at that particular moment. Aside from books Rory tried to tell him about her interview with Chilton Prep, deep down she wanted him to be proud of her, but she got too nervous and simply made up an excuse, and headed for the safety of her home.

So now she was planning on telling him that she got in, even though she knew that he wasn't responsive as others, there was no one else that she wanted to share this news with first other than him. She wanted him to know and once again she wanted him to be proud of her, which she knew was pretty stupid because Jess didn't know anything about her, and she didn't even know anything about him either.

They arrived at the diner all too suddenly, Rory thought as she followed her mother inside, she was suddenly nervous to see Jess' reaction. As soon as Lorelai got through the door she announced to everyone inside that her genius kid had done what they all knew that she would, she had gotten into Chilton, the genius school.

"She got into Chilton!" Lorelai announced proudly and everyone began to cheer and clap. Even a few people who had never even met the Gilmore's before got caught up in the excitement radiating off the crazed woman jumping up and down.

Rory tentatively looked around her mother trying to find Jess, trying to gauge his reaction to the news. Jess had only been at school a couple of days, and Rory had tried to make the transition from his school in New York to Stars Hollow High as easy as possible. She tried introducing him to new people, showed him the people that he could steer clear of, but this was Stars Hollow after all, Jess was the most dangerous one living here… well except for Kirk that is.

Jess had had other ideas though. Whenever Rory approached him with people, he ignored them. He didn't have room in his life for insignificant people, he only ever paid attention to the important ones. There was no reason getting close to anyone, as soon as he turned eighteen he was out of there, he'd never see them again, except for maybe Rory… she was different from the others.

"So, no more Stars Hollow High then?" Jess commented as Rory came over to the counter and took a seat.

"No. No more Stars Hollow High."

"Lucky you." Jess answered simply as he walked away to wipe down some tables, Rory frowned. When was he going to stop being so cold towards everyone?

"After I got the acceptance letter mom started to freak out about money." Rory explained as she watched Emma's eyelids grow heavy. "We couldn't afford to pay for Chilton on our own, so she had to go to her parents and ask them for a loan. That was how the Friday night dinners began."

Emma went limp in her mother's arms and Rory raised her eyes to her husband.

"I think it's time for me and Emma to go to bed." He said knowingly as he stood up, scooped the small child out of Rory's arms, and carried her out of the room.

Rory watched them leave and then began to detail her first day at Chilton for her older daughter.

"Mom woke up late and made a very interesting impression on the headmaster."

"I love the Daisy Duke photo." Lo laughed as Rory looked towards the mantelpiece where there was a photo of her mother dressed in a pink tie-dyed shirt, denim shorts and cowboy boots.

After the humiliation of the day had passed, a friend of Rory's begged Lorelai to put on the outfit one more time, only to whip out a camera and immortalize it for all to see. Rory had them make several copies and Lorelai continued to cringe every time she saw it.

"So we were late, and the rest of the day just got worse by every minute that passed. Although I have a feeling that even if we'd been on time – and dressed appropriately - it still would have sucked."

Rory was so nervous on her first day, being late had thrown her off more than she'd like to admit. She spent the day trying to ignore all the people staring at her, well that was until a cute blonde boy with piercing blue eyes entered the room and kept his eyes locked on her for the duration of the class. Rory could feel his gaze on her, she even turned around a couple of times during class and looked into his eyes willing to figure out his intentions, but she couldn't.

After class Rory was trying to figure out which of her classmates would be the most likely to lend her their notes. Sure they were all staring at her, but she doubted that any of them would actually willingly lend their notes to her. She was about to give up all hope when Mr. Confidence called out to her.

They began talking, a normal conversation, like they had just met in the school hallway and were getting to know each other, but there was a point during the conversation where his voice became deeper and she could've sworn that it had a seductive edge to it. The conversation shifted from getting to know each other, to subtle flirting. Rory was uncomfortable when she first noticed it, but there was just something about him.

The conversation progressed and Rory made no attempt to reprimand him for his blatant flirting, or even nervously stumble out some words that denied her attraction to him. Then his voice became even more seductive, Rory didn't think that it was even possible, but her knees felt weak at the sound of it. He slowly moved closer to her and Rory instinctively backed up, weak knees and all. He wasn't discouraged and kept stepping towards her, until she was trapped between him and the lockers.

She tried in vain to explain to him that she preferred to study alone, but he wasn't letting up. Rory blushed at his closeness and this spurred him on further, he pressed his body gently into hers, not wanting to scare her off now. Rory started to lean into him, she wanted more, no she needed more. Never had a guy paid her any attention like this before. It was new, it was so surreal… and it was gone as quickly as it came.

He gave her a dazzling smile. "Bye, Mary." He called out as he sauntered away, leaving Rory very confused and truthfully wanting more. 'Always keep them wanting more' that saying ran through Rory's mind at that exact moment, and she knew that there was truth to that fact. He was playing with her, she realized that, but it didn't change anything… she still wanted more.

She couldn't stop thinking about the beautiful blonde boy from Chilton, but she kept her mind occupied, tried to keep it from wandering where it shouldn't. She spent weeks trying to catch up on her workload, trying to convince herself that he was just another sex-crazed teenage boy and wasn't worth ruining everything that she had spent her whole life working towards. No, she wouldn't let one boy ruin everything.

And then there was Paris Gellar, the one girl who seemed to have a personal vendetta against Rory, but she didn't even know the girl to warrant that type of behavior. Sure the two girls hadn't gotten off to the best start. Rory did accidentally destroy Paris' history project just moments before it was due to be handed in, but that could hardly be considered her fault, blame the stupid damn stuck locker, not Rory. Either way Paris seemed to make it her sole mission in life to destroy Rory Gilmore at Chilton, she wanted nothing more than to prove that she was better than the new 'Dixie chick.'

And through all of it, Tristan, the boy Rory had met outside Mr. Remmy's class, continued to occupy her thoughts. As much as she willed those thoughts to stay at bay, they didn't seem to listen, they kept on resurfacing. Rory wasn't complaining in the slightest though, it wasn't like he was the worst person to imagine. But she didn't quite understand it, why was he pursuing her, he was good looking and she was… not, or so she believed. But what she had observed in her short time at her new school was that he was, to put it bluntly, totally up himself. She couldn't stand him, but she couldn't get his gorgeous smile off her mind either.

Of course in her spare time she was still trying to work on Jess. She liked him when she first met him, and felt that if he would just let down his guard a little then he would start to enjoy himself more in his new home. Or at the very least, start to tolerate it. And maybe if he could enjoy his new home then maybe he could enjoy other things too. However she wasn't getting her hopes up, but she also wasn't going to give up. He deserved someone in his life that would give him a chance, and she wanted nothing more than to be that someone.

Rory was wandering around the town aimlessly, trying to clear her mind. She looked at the notice board in the town square, she had been so wrapped up in schoolwork, Jess, and trying to not think of Tristan that she needed to catch up on what was going on in the town, but there was nothing new, just as she expected. She turned away and almost smacked right into someone's chest.

"God! You're like Ruth Gordon just standing there with a tannis root. Make a noise." she told the tall boy standing a few mere inches away from her.

"Rosemary's Baby."

"Yeah." Rory replied, happily. She loved when people got her obscure references.

"Well, that's a great movie. You've got good taste."

"What are you doing standing so close to people like that?" she demanded, taking a step back to put some space between them.

"Sorry. I was just trying to see if there were any jobs going." He explained as Rory tipped her head back to look at him. He was tall, maybe even as tall as Luke, but Luke was a fully grown man, and this guy was still a boy. "I'm new in town. My family just moved here from Chicago. I'm Dean."

"Hi. Rory. Is me. My name's Rory." she stumbled over her words and mentally slapped herself. Why was she acting like this?

"Nice name." His hazel eyes sparkled a little and she suspected that he was trying not to laugh. She knew she was being beyond stupid right now, she couldn't even string a few simple words together… he should laugh at her.

"Thanks." She said nervously, she was getting really freaked out. Why were boys paying such close attention to her all of a sudden? "You should check with Miss Patty." She blurted out, causing Dean to blink.

"Who?"

"Miss Patty. She teaches dance. She knows everything that goes on in town. She'll know if someone's looking. Even if it's not up here yet."

"Oh, great. Uh, thanks. Hey, what are you doing now?"

"I was going to meet my friend Lane... Ten minutes ago, actually."

"Oh. Well, I was hoping you could show me where this Miss Patty's place is."

"I'd love to, but like I said, I'm running late. Um, it's just there, see?" she pointed behind him and Dean smiled sheepishly as he caught sight of Miss Patty's School of Dance

"Right. Not too hard to find."

"No. Just look for the woman whose energy fills all the available space, you can't miss Patty. Good luck with the job hunt, I'm sure I'll see you later."

"Bye Rory!" he called out as she walked away. All she thought as she dropped into a seat opposite Lane was that at least he knew her name.

"This is really hard mom. You've met too many guys!"

"What do you mean?" Rory asked, smiling innocently at her daughter.

"Well there's the guy at the bridge, Bible boy, and Frankenstein. How am I supposed to know which one it is?" Rory laughed as she watched her daughter, sitting on the edge of her seat, desperately trying to piece together the snippets of information she'd been given in order to pinpoint the exact moment in which her parents had met.

"You're not supposed to know. Not yet anyway."

"Can you at least tell me if it's one of these three?" Lo looked just like Rory had at sixteen, all except for one thing. She had her mother's hair and the same body shape, similar facial features, but the beautiful sparkling blue 'Lorelai' eyes had skipped both her and her sister. It seemed that in the Gilmore family, without the name, you didn't get the eyes. Instead they both had their father's eyes. That was Rory's favorite thing about her girls. She could look into their eyes and instantly see the man that she loved reflected back.

"No."

"No it's not one of them or-"

"No. I can't tell you. But tomorrow, when you're sister's up, I'll tell you about the next boy I met." Lo rolled her eyes as Rory laughed.

"Another one? God what is this? How many boyfriends' have you had?"

"Um, boyfriends? One. Aside from your dad that is."

"But that's like four guys. Why did you only date two?"

"You'll just have to wait until the morning. Actually the next one in the story is Uncle Finn."

"Uncle Finn? Tell me you didn't date him? Coz if he was one of your boyfriends I-"

"All will be revealed in time. But how about we keep that last bit to ourselves?"

"Your first day at Chilton?"

"Yeah. I thought you could handle it, but Em's a little young for it."

"Got it." Lo watched her mother for a moment "So does this mean that I can get some boy I don't even know to come onto me in the school hallway?" Lo joked.

Rory shook her head. "You're going to bed."

"But-"

"No. No 'but's'. I am exhausted. Rehashing my romantic history to entertain my kids is very draining. Plus, your baby brother has been bouncing on my bladder for the last twenty minutes and you have school tomorrow, so get ready for bed and we'll continue this after school. Got it?"

"Ok, fine." they both stood up and headed towards their respective bathrooms to prepare for bed.

AN2: Reveiw