Monitors beeped with the rhythm of her heart. The IV stood out, dark against her pale white skin. Her blue eyes were hid behind her closed eyes. Slumped in a chair beside her, Tristin's eyes were also closed. His hand lay loosely over hers. Nurses walked by and peeked in on the two. Though it was way past visiting hours they just couldn't seem to bring themselves to tell the young man to leave. The two had arrived at the hospital over four hours ago in an ambulance. The young man was bleeding from the head but he didn't seem to notice as he clung to the unconscious girl's hand. He hadn't let go of her hand until the doctor's had taken her into surgery. This was when the doctor finally had a chance to look at the man's head wound. They'd stitched him up neatly but all he had been worried about was the girl. He had resumed the hand holding as soon as she came out of surgery. The nurses all took pity on the young couple. The man had given them a credit card to pay for all of the woman's expenses. The man had not said his relationship to the woman so the staff assumed that they were newlyweds. What a way to spend their early marriage. Suddenly, she stirred. Sensing movement, Tristin's eyes opened and Rory's did too at the same time.

"Hey," Tristin whispered to her. "You had me worried."

"Wh..where?" Rory looked around, confused. She tried to sit up, but Tristin gently pushed her back down.

"It's ok. You're just a bit groggy from the meds."

"Meds? Tristin what's going on?"

"Well we were driving and then you looked out your window and yelled at me to look out and I glanced in your direction and I saw the…"

"Car," Rory finished as she remembered.

"I tried to swerve but he was going to fast, some idiot drunk I'm sure. He hit the side of the car and you hit your head on the dashboard. My car kind of spun out of control. It was totaled." Tears fell from Tristin's eyes.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry."

"About the car? No the important thing is that you're all right." Tristin squeezed her hand and Rory's heart monitor began to beep faster. Tristin looked up at it with a smile and Rory's face flushed with embarrassment. "So I've put it off until now, but I really think you should call your mother."

"I don't think so."

"She needs to know." Rory tried to move but the IV prevented her from moving very much.

"I don't think she can deal with this. She'll force me to come home before the word 'hospital' is even out of my mouth."

"Well then maybe it's best. Maybe this whole search was a bad idea." Rory looked at him as if he had just suggested that she grow another arm. "No I don't believe that," Tristin answered her unasked question. "But I don't think you can truly recuperate while all this stress is building on you from being rejected by potential moms."

"I'll tell my mother when I get home, deal?"

"I don't think…"

"Can we change the subject?" Tristin looked as if he was going to protest, but then he held up his hands in surrender.

"But what do we have to talk about?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that we've been in the car with each other for over three weeks, you're pretty but that can only last me so long."

"Ha ha." Rory tried to pretend like his words didn't mean anything, but deep inside she knew that that was false. It meant something to her that he thought she was pretty.

"I think we've used up our conversation cards."

"Have not," Rory protested.

"Oh please, you've been talking about Ayn Rand."

Forgetting about how elated she had been when he complimented her, Rory was appalled that Tristin didn't like Ayn Rand. "I happen to like Ayn Rand." Tristin chuckled a bit.

"Spoken like a true crazy woman in support of other crazy women."

Choosing to ignore his comment, Rory asked him to change the subject. "Well ok, what

exactly do you want to talk about?" Rory gave him a pointed look.

Tristin shrugged. "I'm not the one with unused conversation cards."

Rory thought for a bit. "Fine, you want exciting? Ask me something."

"Ask you what?"

"Anything."

"Anything?" Tristin raised an eyebrow and Rory gave him a confident smile.

"Anything."

"Ok. Let's see. Hmmm. Ok what do you want out of life?"

"Any question and you choose that?" To tell the truth, Rory was a bit impressed that he hadn't just asked something like how far she had gotten or something superficial like that. It seemed to her like he really truly wanted to get to know her.

"You said anything."

"Ok fine. I guess I want what every girl wants. Love," Rory clarified at Tristin's confused expression. "I would have thought that 'god's gift to women' would have known that."

"God's gift to women, I like it." Tristin smiled as Rory knew he would. Who wouldn't when someone stroked their ego like that? Rory suddenly regretted her decision to put a comment like that out there.

"But not just any love, I want that unrealistic fairy tale kind of love." Rory sighed and began to slip into her fantasy. She clasped her hands over her stomach. "The kind of love where everyone knows that two people are just meant to be together. But the two never see it until they have all of these amazingly romantic moments, just one after another. And every third party around them sees that they're falling in love but the two people are just oblivious. They get the occasional butterflies or whatever, but they just chalk it all up to infatuation. And then one day they just look into each other's eyes and they know. They know that they're meant to be together." She looked back at Tristin who was staring at her a bit dreamily. "What's with the look?"

"What look?" he asked as he averted his eyes to stare at the tape of her IV.

"The look on your face. The look that every girl wants a guy to have when he's thinking about her." Rory was a bit disheartened knowing that there was a girl in the world that could make him have that goofy face.

Tristin inhaled and then looked up at her, locking his eyes on hers. He took her hand. "Do you know?"

"Wh..what?" His sudden change of attitude made Rory curious. Could he really be talking about what Rory thought, nay hoped that he was talking about?

"Oh come on Rory do I have to spell it out for you?" Tristin pulled his hand back and seemed to get angry. "I drop everything to come on this trip with you. Two days, do you seriously think that's enough time to do anything? I leave my office in total chaos. Then when you chicken out at the first house, I carry you to the front door of that house. Any opportunity to be close to you. The slow dancing in the parking lot. Did you seriously think we were just dancing because you liked the song? And here I am, sitting in a hospital far after visiting hours. I held your hand until you woke up I was so worried about you. This look," he pointed to his face that didn't have the look on it anymore. "is for you." That's when Rory realized that he wasn't angry but frustrated. Though Rory never thought of herself as a spontaneous person she felt herself pulling away from her pillows and leaning into him. Her lips met his and Rory realized that she had been longing for this ever since the trip started. "You need to lay down," Tristin whispered to her as he pulled back. Rory was worried that she had done the wrong thing but then she realized that he was smiling. Following orders, she rested her head on the pillow. He rose from his chair a bit.

"Don't leave me," she begged him. Then she realized that he was only scooting his chair closer to his bed.

"I haven't yet." He took her hand in both of his and kissed her knuckles. Then he held onto her hand with one of his as the other stroked her hair.

"So you really don't like Ayn Rand?" Tristin shook his head with a laugh. "Maybe you could try again. The Fountainhead just once."

"It would have to be just once because by the time I finished that book I'd be dead. It's far too long. No one can have important things to say for that long."

"Please." Rory stuck out her lower lip and began to draw inspiration from her mother. "For me?" She widened her eyes in her best Lorelai imitation.

"For you anything." Tristin kissed her on the forehead and Rory smiled. "Now get to sleep." Tristin pulled the blankets up over Rory as if she was a small child. Rory settled back and closed her eyes. She felt him move back in his chair, but she also happily noted that he didn't release her hand. She cracked one eye open a bit and saw him sitting there, staring at her.

"You're seriously going to sit there and watch me sleep all night?" He nodded. Suddenly, she had bad flash backs of the last time she had been in a car wreck and her mother's refusal to leave her side. Lorelai really was Rory's mother, genetics or not. Rory opened both her eyes fully. "But what about when you drive tomorrow, won't you be tired?"

"The car got totaled, remember?" For a moment Rory thought she saw a flicker of sadness pass through Tristin's eyes. Was the car really that important to him? Before she could analyze the look any further, it had disappeared. "I don't know how much driving I'll be doing tomorrow."

"Right, no car. So how are we going to get to the address then?" Rory sat up, prepared to start planning.

"Go to sleep."

"Not when you're sitting there watching over me like some creepy murderer."

"Fine." Tristin leaned back in the chair, slumped down, and closed his eyes. He opened his mouth and let out a big fake snore. Even though she knew he was just humoring her for the moment, Rory laid her head back down on the pillow. Sure enough, moments later she heard Tristin shift as he resumed a seated posture. Though he wasn't doing what Rory had asked him to, she was oddly comforted by it. He truly did care about her. Just like Lorelai cared about her and look at all the hurt that had brought Lorelai. Would the same happen to Tristin?