Author's note: Does she ever wear pants?! HA! That's a smart comment, apparently, she does not. But with a husband like that, can you blame her?

Thank you so much for all your responses, especially those of you who have stepped forward to let me know you have been reading for a while now. That is amazing, thank you!

And with that, let's dive head first into Angsty River, running through Angst City.


It was the best couple of weeks she had since their wedding. Apparently, a nerve agent scare earned the crew quite a few weeks off and she was thankful and did not question whether her little performance at the base might have had anything to do with it. It was summer break at Georgetown and they had nothing else to do than attend a couple of barbecues.

It was easy to forget their lives for a little while, forget that he was devoted to an ideal and a way of life that threatened her very sanity, easy to forget that what she perceived to be sanity, would not necessarily be called just that by any conventional standard.

For those few careless weeks, all that didn't seem to matter. She felt weightless and it made her inexplicably happy just to see him do household chores, fixing a shelf that had come loose, mowing the lawn, tinkering in the shed. She loved to wake up to the sound of the shower running, often finding him there, still slightly flushed from his early morning jog. It was enough to make her want to join him, joyous and relieved, making him forget any other plans he might have had for the morning.

It wasn't the only time she jumped his bones, her libido somehow even more pronounced than usual with their time abundant and her worries far. He laughed wholeheartedly as she sneaked up behind him as he was trimming the hedges back in the garden, her body wired and hot as it slid up against his sweaty one.

"Jesus, you are insatiable, woman" he murmured, turning around to kiss her, but he felt no restrain when laying her down in the grass and fucking her with his hand covering her mouth to keep her from being too loud.

She wanted him all the time, teasing him into laying her down on the work table inside the shed and making her come with his mouth, then making him fuck her as she linked her legs over his shoulders, his cock driving so deep inside her she though she might split.

She was far from being satiated with just one rushed romp in the day and she often laid in his lap reading in the evening, too distracted to finish a page and thinking of ways to break his own concentration.

It was always easy to get him to indulge, the sound of his laughter dying on his lips instantly as her hand undid his fly and grasped his growing need for her.

"Fuck, Mary" he sighed, dropping the book to the side as she once again slid up next to him on the couch late one evening.

He let his head fall back and she chuckled, amused by the moniker that hardly seemed appropriate given the circumstances.

"Why do you still like calling me that?" she whispered as she dragged her lips on the side of his neck.

"It reminds me that it's always been you" he replied, his eyes closed and she stared at his face momentarily, overwhelmed by the emotion flooding her.

She slid to the floor quickly, wetting her lips as she took him into her mouth, smiling as she felt him tense, his hands digging into her hair.

Her hand grasped his base, pulling back as her tongue worked to make him slick all over and he cursed as she sucked him in, deep into her mouth, his tip hitting the back of her throat as she relaxed.

"Fuck, I love your mouth" he sighed, his hips jerking lightly to encourage her movements, his body shivering slightly as she moved in a steady rhythm.

She felt him grow impossibly hard and she relaxed her throat, letting him slide in to the hilt, a guttural moan breaking from his mouth.

She moaned around him, feeling him still as she felt him pulse, his whole body shuddering with his release as she continued to suck, swallowing his release.


It had been weeks since she'd woken up in the middle of a dream, so when she gasped for air in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, she was disoriented for a full minute, the silence too stark for the ears that were still echoing with the voices of the nightmare.

He wasn't home, away on what she figured was training because he'd sent her a pic from somewhere in Nevada, where Spinner appeared to be frying an egg on the surface of an armored training vehicle.

They were still enjoying the goodwill from his last mission, and he'd planned a trip to go see Charlotte in a couple of weeks which made her think that he knew they weren't leaving for anything in the immediate future, so she was truly baffled by the dream.

She sank back into the bed, trying to recall the specifics, already fading from her consciousness. The trees were more dense this time and she had to squeeze herself through them, her skin breaking as the branches tore at her. When she pulled herself out into the meadow, gasping in pain, Tristan was kneeling in the grass, watching strange white flowers bloom. When they opened their petals, they were blood red inside, but when she leaned closer, she realized the blood was falling from the sky, covering them both.

She blinked into the darkness, shivering as she counted to herself, a habit she still resorted to whenever feelings were to overwhelming.

She got to 112, but felt no real relief. She turned on the lamp on her nightstand, knowing sleep would be abandoned for the rest of the night.


Charlotte was looking out the window as she washed the dishes.

"I can't believe he can get him to talk to him for an hour straight," she wondered out loud, "seems like I can't even get him to say hi to me."

Rory watched as her friend's eyes focused on Tristan and Matthew's forms out in the back yard. Daniel was sitting in her lap, while Susie was showing her drawings she'd made in art class.

"Is he still getting into trouble at school?" she asked, worry evident in her voice.

She recalled the conversations she'd had with Charlotte after that time Matthew ran away and showed up at Rory and Tristan's. She had told her that Matthew had been acting out even more and getting in trouble for it and she felt a special worry nagging at her whenever she thought of the troubled teenager.

"Yeah, what else is new?" Charlotte chuckled. "How is teaching, when do you start back?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Next week actually. It's great" Rory smiled, "I love it. It's more busy than I thought it would be. There is a lot of kinks to work out from last semester, but the university was very pleased with the feedback and they want to expand the course. Seems like I'm already swamped with scheduling assignments and putting together midterms. There's a lot of online teaching materials to prepare. You'd think talking with IT guys about how to post assignments would be the easy part of all this, but I feel more exhausted than when I was actually teaching. I take naps in the afternoon!" she laughed.

"Is it strange to be going to work every morning?" Charlotte asked her.

"Yeah, but it's nice to be in one place" she replied with a reverent smile.

She watched as Charlotte looked at her, wiping her hand in a dishcloth as she finished with the dishes. They hadn't really talked about it, her commitment to Tristan, her compromises about her way of life or even the fact that she had made friends with the other wives, but Charlotte seemed to know and understand everything. There was a moment of silence and she felt the warm gaze of Charlotte, knowing the beautiful woman understood more than she could ever tell her with words.

"You sure you don't want anything to eat?" she asked her, moving to sit across from her.

"Ugh, no" Rory frowned, "I still feel squeamish. It must be the Chinese from last night. I gotta stop ordering take out, it's just been difficult to motivate myself to cook with work."

"You may have another of my apple sauces" Daniel turned in her lap and she chuckled.

"Why thank you, Danny, you're very thoughtful. And have perfect manners" she added.

"Hopefully your brother's attitude won't rub off on you" Charlotte added with a sad smile as she caressed her little boy's face.

"He's getting so big" Rory said.

"I know," Charlotte said with her face in a fake frown, "I'd rather keep him like this."

"Why is that?" she asked.

"I don't know. I guess… I just realized I'll never have one again" she said and Rory looked up at her, surprised.

Charlotte carried her burden, her grief with such poise, she often forgot, that seeing the faces of her children every day must have been a stark reminder of what she had lost.

She saw that grief now, as Charlotte gazed at Danny, her eyes shining with a hint of sadness. "And that feeling… of bringing one into the world… there's nothing like it" she murmured.

Rory watched her with a strange kind of sadness stirring within her and she felt an overwhelming feeling suddenly as she watched Charlotte pull Susie into a hug.

She was distracted by the door slamming open.

"Mom, Knight is gonna take a look at dad's Firebird" Matthew ran into the house, heading for the garage.

Charlotte looked at Tristan with a scolding look.

"He said he can't get it to start" Tristan said with a shrug.

"Yeah, that's probably a good thing" Charlotte said with an eyebrow arching.

"If you don't want me to…" Tristan said, but Charlotte shook her head with a smile.

"No, that's fine. If fixing a car is going to keep him from trying to steal one, you go ahead" she said getting up and taking Daniel from Rory.

"Come on, time for your bath" she chuckled as Danny protested meekly.

Rory watched as Susie ran after them, remaining alone in the quiet den.

She felt the feeling from before return, her heart beating in an anxious race as she felt uneasiness settle in her.


The uneasy feeling stayed.

And so did the queasiness.

She looked at the piece of plastic in her hand and her whole body felt numb, dissolving into the humid evening air.

She heard the front door open and it jolted her into action, quickly wrapping and discarding the stick.

He'd been gone two days and she wasn't sure if it was because he left on a mission or if they were still doing training. There have been a lot of those lately and it always foretold a new, longer string of assignments.

She hurried downstairs and stopped at the bottom of the stairs, taking a calming breath, feeling her fingers shake lightly.

She gathered her composure and moved, greeting him nonchalantly as he unlaced boots that seemed to be covered in a thick layer of mud.

"Hey" she called out.

"Hey" he turned around smiling a tired smile as he pulled her into a hug.

She burrowed her head into his chest and tried to calm her racing heart.

"Where were you?" she asked, her voice sounding skittish to her own ears.

"Night drill in North Carolina" he murmured.

"Was it fun?" she asked, her face still burrowed into his chest, feeling his warmth.

He chuckled.

"Yeah," he said, "it actually was."

She pulled back to look at him, seeing his easy smile. He was usually in a good mood when they were training and she figured it was because the camaraderie only grew stronger as they readied themselves for new tasks.

"Is it training for a new mission?" she asked searching his face.

He was quiet, his smile fading slowly as he obviously contemplated his answer.

She sighed, knowing he would much rather say nothing, than placate her with a lie.

"Right" she acknowledged his expression that clearly proved he was in fact readying for another assignment.

"It's still a couple of weeks away" he said, his face apologetic.

"Hot or cold?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Hot" he replied, without missing a beat.

"Awesome" she thought rubbing her eyes. Not like war zones were more appealing according to climate.

He leaned in, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

"I'm gonna take a shower" he said, his fingers tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

"I'll start dinner" she motioned towards the kitchen.

She moved to the kitchen, taking a deep breath as she tried to concentrate on something, anything. She took out vegetables, setting them next to the cutting board. She picked out the knife, the one he sharpened last week and was sharp enough to slide through anything and started chopping the pieces, throwing them into the pan that she put on the stove.

She heard the door from the upstairs bathroom slam open and she froze, the knife suspended mid air.

Her heart raced, even before the thought lodged into her brain: the fact that she had been so preoccupied by hiding the test in the waste bin that she forgot about the box, left on the sink.

She felt her skin warm on her face as panic flooded her. She listened, breath held, to his measured steps down the stairs and she braced herself. There was only silence.

She turned around slowly and was taken aback by his blue eyes boring into hers, the pregnancy test in his hand.

She saw him taking even, controlled breaths and his expression was unreadable.

"Did you want to tell me?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

She took an unsteady breath, turning back to the cutting board, her hand grasping the knife so hard her knuckles turned white.

"I was hoping not to" she said, trying to keep her voice steady as she continued with her task at hand.

She felt his hand on her arm, slow, but persistent and she faltered, closing her eyes to withstand the onslaught of panic inside her. She didn't resist as he turned her around slowly to face him.

Her eyes met his, his face unreadable but his eyes swirling with so much intensity she had to remind herself to breathe. His expression calm and unyielding, his hand moved to the knife and took it from her, her fingers unclasping instantly at his insistence.

His movements fast then, he threw the knife into the sink and the sound made her gasp, the panic inside her surging. She felt a chill run up her spine and she instinctively backed up, her hands resting on the counter.

"What were you planing to do?" he asked slowly, his voice measured as his eyes looked up to meet hers again.

"Do we have to talk about this?" she asked, her voice small as she swallowed, her legs feeling unsteady.

"Yes, we have to, Rory" he said incredulous.

She tore her eyes away from him, the intensity there overwhelming and she blinked, trying to keep her head clear.

"We don't want kids. We are not going to have a kid" she said with finality, glancing back at him as the ensuing silence made her panic return.

He stared at her, his brows furrowed slightly, his eyes studying her with an intensity that made her skin crawl.

"You're pregnant" he said, the words making her inhale sharply.

"Yes" she replied, looking up at the ceiling as she took another steadying breath.

"Were you not going to tell me?" he asked, his face turning into a frown.

She looked back at him, surprised by his response.

"What is there to say?" she asked with a deep breath, shifting her weight to the other foot.

He shook his head slowly, his hand going up to his mouth as he seemed to be weighing her reaction.

She watched his eyes dart around aimlessly, his body turning as his hand slid from his mouth up into his hair, running through the messy tresses.

He started pacing in the kitchen and she watched him with a worried expression.

"Tristan. It's... not what we planned. It's… This doesn't have to be complicated... It was a mistake and I don't even know how it... It must have been when I had that stomach flu last month and we..." she rambled, but was stopped when he held up his hand.

"Just give me a minute" he murmured, continuing to pace.

"You have your job and I… can't even fathom…" she started, but trailed off, not knowing which ones to list of the myriad reasons. "I thought I wouldn't tell you, because you don't need to worry about this and I don't need to make it into a bigger deal than it is..." she went on.

"Just give me a god damn minute" he yelled and she froze, the volume of his voice surprising her.

She'd never heard him yell before. Not like this.

She felt the ground opening up beneath her feet, reliving the moment of fear and dread when she first realized what might have happened and then the certainty when she saw the test turn positive in her hands, the feelings of the moments now rushing back to her.

"Do you want this baby, Rory?" she heard him ask and she looked up, meeting his expectant gaze, her mind reeling to understand his question.

"No" she scoffed and shook her head. "No, of course not."

She looked at him, clasping her arms around herself as she felt his panicked gaze on her.

"Then why didn't you tell me?" he asked his face contorting in pain.

She looked at him furrowing her brows, not understanding.

"If we don't want kids and this was a mistake, why not tell me?" he asked again, his face desperate as he fixed his gaze on her.

She opened her mouth to say something, but his words slowly sunk in, leaving a heavy ache in her soul.

There was no rationale to her actions and she felt her head ache when she tried to understand why he seemed to be focusing on this aspect of the problem. She furrowed her brows trying to explain to herself why she felt like she had to hide it from him. To spare him? To spare herself from even having to think about it? If she didn't have to think about it, she wouldn't have to wear the weight of it, wouldn't have to imagine what it would even entail.

She let her mind wander for a split second only, but the thought of a child unleashed such a pang of hurt in her chest, a gaping wound in the shape of her own mother, her own childhood, her mother climbing into her bed to recall giving birth to her, her home in Stars Hollow, a magical fortress despite the obvious hardships.

She closed her eyes to reel in the wandering thoughts racking havoc inside of her. When she opened them again, taking a steadying breath, she focused on his expectant face.

"I..." she shook her head "I don't want a baby" is all she could whisper, the emotions too intense for her to mold them into reasons, arguments.

"Because?" he urged her to go on and she sighed, squeezing her eyes shut again as the thoughts swirled again. She focused on him, thought abut him, him worrying about her so much she risked a mission, him risking his own life to save Jake, him being upset about not being able to be here for Matthew, him advancing the ranks, him fulfilling the expectations of smooth faced men.

"Rory" his gentle calling stopped her whirlpooling thoughts.

"Because I... because we..." she couldn't formulate the ending, despite the never ending list of reasons. Nothing made sense.

"We can't have a baby" she finally said, her voice stronger than before even as tears prickled her eyes.

She looked back up at Tristan, desperate for his face to be calm, desperate for him to understand, to know, to remember the same reasons that guided his life, the reasons he faced and lived every day, so obviously a part of him.

"That's different from 'we don't want a baby', Rory. So different" he said quietly, his face raw with emotion.

His words were sweeping tidal waves, washing away the reasons, like sand from beneath her feet and she felt the panic inch towards her heart from her numb limbs.

"Okay, so we can't" she gasped, her voice shaking. "I would resent it and you would resent it and then you would resent me and I really don't want that" she said, hearing her voice break as she let her emotions unleash.

Her eyes stung with tears and she had to reach out to steady herself on the counter.

He watched her, unmoving as a statue, his brows still furrowed as he studied her every reaction.

"So you do want the baby?" he said, more of a statement than a question, his face lost but somehow still calm.

His words, more undeniable than any intricate reasoning pierced into her soul, the panic finally flooding all of her, her hands shaking as the feeling spread.

She inhaled sharply and collapsed to the floor, her tears streaming instantly down her face.

"I'm pregnant" she cried, as if the fact, the realization, the knowledge just hit her with all of its burden, sharp ragged breaths breaking from her chest as that sentence finally registered, the sentiment unlocking the door to the fears and pain kept barely at bay deep within her. She gasped for air as her feelings wrecked havoc inside of her, the emotions leaving destruction within their path.

She felt him sit down next to her and slowly pull her into his arms, his body strong and radiating warmth, even as she sensed the quiet shock reverberate inside him.

She continued to sob into his chest, his arms rocking her gently as his lips kissed the top of her head.


They moved in a stunned silence. She didn't know how he managed to arrange it, but he had not left on another training or a mission until she scheduled an appointment at an obstetrician's office. They didn't talk about it anymore, but she felt his curious and worried eyes on her at all times, his form quietly following her from room to room.

She lay on the examining table and he sat by her side, his hand holding hers. The technician showed them the baby, its heart sounds fast and fluttering as though it were a magical wave of sound traveling from eternal distances. The technician asked if they had questions, but they both sat silently, stunned to a wordless state of shock. He left them alone in the room and they sat quietly for long minutes, his hand still squeezing hers tightly.

They met with the doctor who gave them stock answers to her questions of worry about pills having been taken and drinks having been consumed while already pregnant.

There was no certainty, just reassuring smiles that the miracle of life had a strange power of finding a way.

When they were left alone in the room, she looked at him, the desperation inside her threatening to break out of her as a wailing cry and she looked in wonder as his face changed, suddenly and irrevocably, his eyes calming and the lines of his face smoothing.

"It's okay, Rory" he said simply. "We'll figure it out."

She shook her head slowly but had no reasoning, no protest.

He smiled at her, although it didn't reach his eyes, and pulled her close, holding her as she sobbed quietly into his chest.

There was no further conversations about options or what would be right. It had been decided, even if it filled her with dread and uncertainty. She felt delirious, her mind suddenly convinced that this had always been her legacy, her predecided fate and she wanted to scream and throw up at the cruelty of life.

He seemed to handle it with a stoic calm, but she felt him watch her with quiet worry several times a day. He had been attentive before, but now he was even more so, never letting her lift things, offering to help with any task she was doing.

"I'm pregnant, not sick" she snapped at him when he gently made her move and took over washing the dishes. He just nodded, but took over from her anyways.

When he did finally have to go, he kissed her goodbye, his kiss deep and full of emotion. She gasped as his hand brushed over her stomach before he turned to meet Spinner out front.

She walked the quiet rooms of their house in a dreamlike state, waiting with baited breath for the semester to start so she could focus on something, anything else.

It was hard, being alone with her thoughts all the time and after twelve weeks, after the new ultrasound, she decided to tell the girls.

She told Stella and the blonde reacted with such joy that she forgot that she was afraid of bursting into tears when she finally had to talk about any of it with anyone. She sat, smiling calmly as her friend dug out old boxes from a closet, showing her baby clothes and gear that she thought she'd never know how to use.

Donna took a deep breath and squeezed her arm and Vicki squealed in delight. Gina took the news with a surprisingly earnest smile and the two shared an awkward silent exchange, one that only could happen between two women who were on the opposite side of the dilemma of a child being conceived.

When he came back, he asked her how she was, his expression surprisingly worried.

She told him everything was fine.

"The baby?" he asked her, his face conflicted.

"Baby's fine," she nodded, "apparently about the size of a lime."

"Lime" he exhaled. "That's... good, that's a good size."

Days later he came home with a box and she regarded it curiously.

"I went to see Charlotte" he offered as an explanation. "It's Daniel's old crib."

She had to rush to the bathroom and she made it just in time before she hurled into the toilet. He watched her with a quiet worry, holding her hair back as the retching continued for minutes even after her stomach was completely empty.

He made no attempt to talk to her about it, but he did put the box away somewhere in the garage, away from her sight.

When she first realized she was showing, she stood in front of the mirror in their bedroom, perplexed, her hand running over her stomach as she turned, trying to catch a glimpse of her profile.

He walked in on her and as soon as their eyes met she burst out crying. He kissed her senseless and made love to her, telling her he loved her and that everything would be alright. She didn't fully believe him but she managed to fall asleep in his arms and rest for a while.


It was hard to pinpoint each and every feeling she felt. The overwhelming storm inside her was indescribable. She felt it move every time she did, the emotions shifting, sometimes launching her into a despair so deep she found herself crouching on the floor just to get her bearings.

She took up a habit of sitting in the back porch watching the leaves turn their color. She counted the colors and counted the feelings she felt inside of herself. She felt for some reason that if she counted them, assigned names to them, it would give them order and it would give her power to control them.

She named the dread that bright yellow that the oak trees had on the top parts, the intense pain she felt when thinking of becoming a mother and not having her own with her - that was that astonishing red the cherry trees turned into. Her shame growing by the minute for not being able to feel pure joy, that was assigned to the shallow green of the magnolias, and the guilt, deep and relentless was the dried up brown of fallen leaves. Those were the ones that seemed to be growing in number, surrounding her and dancing around her as the autumn winds blew.

She was sitting there, motionless and trying to count the colors when she first felt the baby move.

She gasped, her heart stopping and then relaunching in a faltering race and her trembling hands traced the contours of her growing belly as she felt the feelings barely settled, turn up into a swirling see of colors.

"There you are" she whispered, closing her eyes as she gave up trying to bring order to her soul.