Title: Slipping Under The Surface

Chapter: 12—Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I don't own anything buy my laptop, and trust me, you don't want this laptop…

Description: Sequel to Untouched… Another Trory… It starts out M because Untouched was M…

He was not to be denied.

She knew it would be incessant and difficult to do, each time she pressed ignore on her cell when his number popped up on her caller ID. She knew it was a matter of time before he came to her very door, surrounding her with his presence, making it harder and harder to keep him at bay.

She didn't even know why she was mad at him.

She only knew that she couldn't see him right now. She needed to be alone. It'd been a stroke of luck that she was sitting in her room uninterrupted for the last hour, victim only to her own thoughts. Her mother had left with only word of the fact she'd be at the Inn if needed, and after four unanswered phone calls Tristan hadn't called in the last hour and a half. With every passing moment that her phone stayed silent, anxiety grew in her stomach as to what his next action would be.

The fact that he might just stop trying was the most gripping fear.

It seemed so improbable that this was her life—that these were her concerns. Before all this happened getting into Harvard and catching up with her former status as the top student in her class while balancing her duties as Stars Hollow volunteering princess occupied her time, while allowing her to sleep very well at night.

She was tossing and turning a lot more these days. Last night, in particular. Visions of seeing herself at Yale, seeing herself with him, intermixed with real life concerns that didn't lend themselves to her former existence. All the things her mother warned her about—getting pregnant and finding herself suddenly very alone, specifically. No matter how much she loved him now, she couldn't hold onto that if forced to drop out of school and work to support a baby on her own.

It was then she realized she needed to know if it was worth it. She was punishing him for loving her.

A knock came to her door, and she looked up to see she had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't heard her mother come back home. Lorelai came into her room, looking with great empathy at her distressed daughter, and skipped the polite questions. She sat on the mattress next to Rory and wrapped her arms around her.

"Tristan came by the Inn."

"I don't really want to talk about it right now," she shrugged her shoulders in, caving her body in on itself.

"I'd like to ignore this too, but I have blonde boys dropping by my place of business to discuss it. I take it he hasn't come by here?"

Rory shook her head and bit her lip. She was adamant not to talk about it, not to even think any more about it.

"He hasn't called or anything?"

"No, he called," she felt her voice betraying her.

"Are you upset with him?" she tried, earning only another shrug of the shoulders. "Did you two fight?"

"Not really," she scratched her collarbone lightly. "It's … complicated."

"He made it sound like you two had fought."

Rory looked up at her mother in surprise. "You talked to him?"

"He didn't give me much choice. He interrupted coffee hour," she sat back a bit, looking as taken aback by Rory's reaction as she had been by the impromptu visit by the angsty blonde teen.

"Another one was rolling around, wasn't it?"

"Hey, it was the first one of the day. You don't pull the mask off the Ol' Lone Ranger, and you don't mess with the first cup of the day."

"Okay, Jim," she rolled her eyes.

"Hey, how 'bout this? You tell me why Casanova came knocking at my door today, blaming me for making you not trust him."

Rory could feel her eyes well up. Tears pulled at the corners of her eyes and heat stung her, forcing her to blink. "He said that?"

"This isn't about what he said," she put a hand on Rory's shoulder. "This is about us. I didn't mean to freak out on you like that."

"I know."

"No, I don't think you do. I see you doing things, things that in and of themselves aren't bad. They're normal and good and things you deserve. I want you to be happy and experience good things in life."

Rory nodded.

"But I have this filter, and it's like I see all the disastrous possibilities that can play out from even the best of things. Like going to check out a campus, apparently."

"I was just going with him, he thought I'd enjoy seeing the campus since I've never been."

"That's why you fought?"

"We didn't fight!" she balled up her fists and let them collide with the mattress. "At least, not like you think we did."

"How do I think you fought?"

"You think he yelled and I ran away."

Lorelai made a noise of absurdity with air bursting out of her lips. "Honey, I've seen you in a fight. We had one recently, remember? I know if there was yelling, you were taking part."

Rory crossed her arms. "I was horrible to him."

"He lived. He even sought out what he thought was the source of it."

"How can I make it better when I don't even know why I made it bad in the first place?"

She knew she was breaking the pact with herself, asking for answers from the one person that, if she did have them, wouldn't want to impart her with them. Lorelai had always set out to protect her, keep her from things that might make her miserable. But Lorelai couldn't save her from all of this.

"I mean, does it get easier?"

"Does what get easier?" Lorelai hadn't even ventured an answer before Rory bombarded her with the second question.

"I get that just loving someone isn't always enough," she looked down, hating the ache she felt in her chest at admitting such a thing. "But how do you know when it is enough?"

"Are you sure you love him?" Lorelai was pleading with her daughter; using her eyes, her voice, the way she gripped her hand.

Rory nodded. "With Max, how were you sure it was right?"

"Uh, you just know," she faltered for a moment and didn't meet her eyes. "You find someone that wants the same things you do, and you just know."

"That sounds vague."

"Is this about Yale?"

Rory shook her head. "I don't know. We were there, and it was amazing. It was how I'd always pictured college, except it wasn't Harvard, but still, in my mind, it was the same," she bit her lip.

"I've meant to take you before now," Lorelai smiled sadly.

"I just started wondering, did I like it because I liked it, or did I like it because I knew he would be there," she admitted. "I got so mad at myself, then I took it out on him. I barely spoke to him all day, and when I did, I put words in his mouth and twisted the ones I let him get out."

"He must love you, coming out here for more," Lorelai rubbed a hand over her back.

"I don't want to see him until I'm sure what I want."

"Oh, Honey," Lorelai hugged her. "You may never be sure what it is that you want—or why you want it."

Rory looked up in panic. "What?"

"I just mean, if you really do love him," she drew out her words, "then it's going to worm its way into your decisions about things. It's going to make you decide that spending time with him is worth giving up study time, it's going to make you decide that sleeping with him is worth straining our relationship or chancing getting pregnant, and it's going to make you want to go to school where he does. And you'd hate yourself later, if you didn't take those chances."

"You think I should talk to him?"

"I think," she took a deep breath. "That if you really feel strongly about something, then it's going to work out for you. No matter the reason."

Rory sat back against her pillows and considered her mother's words.

"I don't want to go back to work and leave you here, upset."

"I'm okay," she began. "I will be."

"You still have years to decide where to go to school. By the time you graduate, there could be another boy that's pulling your heart strings back to Harvard," she offered, in an attempt to be encouraging, but it only made her chest hurt more.

Rory nodded feebly. "I'll keep you posted."

Once she was alone again, Rory looked at her cell phone. He hadn't made another call or left a text, and she wondered if he'd given up trying to contact her altogether. She'd missed her chance for him to come to her, and if she wanted to make sure it wasn't another guy prompting her future decisions, she'd have to be the one to go to him.

XXXX

He'd decided on pancakes.

He knew the local diner was probably off-limits, as the owner didn't seem to like him much as it was. He was hungry, frustrated, and in no mood to beg for food. There were a surprising number of choices for restaurants, all of them somewhat quirky in nature. He roamed around for a while, noting it was too early for burgers or pie, and he finally saw the sign for the pancake house. Al's Pancake World.

It wasn't until he studied the menu, which was nothing more than a thin paper flier, that he realized he would have been much safer arguing with Luke in the diner.

"What can I get for you?"

He looked up at the waitress. "Is this your full menu?"

She nodded. "The manicotti's very popular right now."

"It's eight in the morning."

She shrugged. "We serve it all day."

He licked his bottom lip and decided to try again. "This is a pancake house, isn't it?"

She nodded. "It is."

"Great. I'll take a stack, with bacon on the side."

"Try Luke's Diner," she tapped her pencil against the thin tablet.

He frowned.

"Manicotti comes with garlic bread and salad."

"Whatever," he handed the flier to her, and she scribbled on her notepad, ironic as she was the one to order for him. His hand was on his cell phone with lightening speed when it rang, not because it might be socially unacceptable to have a phone ringing in a restaurant, but because it might be her.

"Hello?"

"Tristan, where are you?"

"It's Sunday."

"I realize this. I thought you might like to take in a round of golf."

"I don't enjoy golf."

"The point isn't to enjoy it, son," Janlan brushed the notion aside. "Rory can come, if she would like. I can call Richard, perhaps."

"I wouldn't reserve a tee time."

"I realize it's your one day this week that you don't have to deal with family," Janlan sighed. "But I would like to speak to you."

"Concerning?"

"Your summer vacation."

"We had this talk in May. As I recall, you did most of the talking that resulted in my sitting in an office nine hours a day while people suck up to me to get a promotion out of you."

"Got any names for me?" Janlan joked.

"My summer's set. Thanks."

"A man can't work without play, Tristan."

"You don't say," he began, but was promptly cut off.

"I've yet to put in a call to Richard, as means of not ambushing you again," he cleared his throat, "but I had an idea you might like some leisure time away with Rory."

"Unnecessary, but thanks."

"Unnecessary?"

"I don't like to travel with people who aren't speaking to me."

"She isn't speaking to you?"

"Not at the moment, no."

"What did you do?"

"Excuse me?"

"What," he paused with a huff, "did you do?"

"Nothing."

"Bull shit," he called. "You're a Dugrey man, and we are prone to saying exactly the wrong thing at the right time to piss off a woman. If you tell me what you did, I can tell you how to undo it."

"Alright, fine," Tristan leaned his forehead against the palm of his free hand. "I took her to Yale."

"As in, the university?"

"That would be the one."

"This upset her?"

"It did indeed."

"Richard went to Yale. Gilmores are as much a part of Yale history as Dugreys are."

Tristan rolled his eyes as his grandfather went on in his own mind, the same level of bafflement as he endured, but in much different lines of thought.

"I thought you said you'd tell me how to fix this."

"I'm going to need more details."

"There aren't any. I asked her to be my date for that Alumni dinner Mother and Father dragged me to, and since she likes libraries and schools so much, I agreed to go on one of the tours Mom's always trying to get me to go on."

"I take it she wasn't impressed."

"She loved it," he said with remorse.

"I'm an old man, Tristan," Janlan warned.

"She wants to go to Harvard."

"Yale is a finer school than Harvard, and she's a legacy at Yale. Richard's connections alone, not to mention mine, they make it impossible for her not to get in."

"She doesn't care about any of that."

"Talk to her. I'll give Richard and Emily a call, surely she'd listen to them if they sat her down and explained point by point the reasoning," he spoke reasonably and with measure.

"She wants to go to Harvard, and she thinks I took her along to Yale to get her to change her mind. To be with me."

"Did you?"

"For short term? Yes. To be my date for the evening. My going to Yale has nothing to do with… I will be with her, no matter where we end up."

Silence met his statement, only the faint sounds of cooking and plate setting coming from the kitchen. He'd never known his grandfather to be speechless before.

"Talk to her."

"I've tried."

"Try again, damn it," he grunted.

"Granddad," he sighed.

"So, you're just giving up?"

"I didn't say that. But not giving up doesn't necessarily entail me talking to her right this very moment, either."

"I'll call Richard."

"Just, stop, okay? I don't need you to jump in and fix every mistake I make."

It was at that moment that the waitress came back with a full table setting of salad, bread, and a plate of what appeared to be manicotti made of blue Play-Doh. "What is this?"

"Manicotti, what you ordered," she reminded him.

"It's blue," he stared at it and gently poked it with a fork.

"Al's special recipe."

"What's the secret ingredient?" he asked, still too concerned to attempt a bite.

"It's a secret. Enjoy your meal."

"Where are you?" Janlan asked, having overheard the conversation.

"I'm in Stars Hollow."

"I thought you weren't going to talk to her."

"I came to talk to Lorelai."

"The mother?"

"Also known as the reason Rory won't speak to me."

"I really think you should let me call Richard."

"So you can sit the two of us down and make us discuss things like civilized adults?"

The sarcasm in his voice was enough to dissuade his grandfather from further probing. "So, perhaps we can discuss the vacation you'd like to take over dinner on Wednesday?"

"I'll be there as usual."

"And, should circumstances change, I don't need notice if you decide to bring a guest."

"I appreciate that."

Tristan hung up his phone and looked at the travesty that had become his breakfast. His stomach growled, despite the fact that the food that was before him looked like a toddler had prepared it, and he cut into the pasta.

"I wouldn't eat that, if I were you."

He looked up to see her standing at the edge of his table in the same clothes that she'd been wearing when he dropped her off the night before. She'd pulled on a light jean jacket over the thin dress she'd worn to impress the Yale alumni.

"Mom ate it last week, and it took her three days to recover."

He put his fork down and pushed the plate away. She took a deep breath and bit her lip. She knew it was her fault he was forced to put his stomach through the ringer at Al's. She'd heard from Babette the moment that she stepped off her front porch that he'd roamed around the center of town for a while, deciding on what she was sure he thought was a nice breakfast of pancakes at Al's while he waited her out.

"How'd you know I was here?"

"Word travels fast. And I saw your car," she admitted.

"I was just leaving."

"Wait," she moved to block his exit from the booth. She knew she had to act fast, do something or say something to change his mind. She'd come all this way, but so far all she'd done was meet him halfway; and after the way she'd acted the day before it just wasn't enough yet.

"Rory," he leaned up to extract his wallet. He pulled out a few bills and tossed them on the table next to the mostly untouched dishes. "I have a golf game to get to."

"You hate golf," she didn't budge.

He stood up, causing her to rock back on her heels to make a little room for him. "I have family obligations."

"Tristan," she closed her eyes and let her hands reach out for his shirt. She felt the fabric between her fingers and crumpled it as she made two fists. "Can we go somewhere and talk?"

He was looking down at her when she opened her eyes and dared to check his expression. His gaze was intense, but not closed off.

"I know a place we can go," she offered, feeling her heart beating in her throat so hard she was afraid it might bound right out of her mouth.

"Come on," he put his hands over hers, gently coaxing her to unfurl her grip on his shirt and ease her fingers between his. "I'll drive."

She shook her head. "We can walk."

She led him out of Al's Pancake World and through the streets of Stars Hollow, all eyes on the disheveled princess and the rich outsider, hearing her mother's words over and over in her head. You just know … if you feel strongly, no matter the reason … someone who wants the same things … worth the chance. She was going to give in to what she felt so strongly, no matter what was prompting her to do so.

All she knew for sure was that denying him meant denying herself.