Tristin slowly approached the Gilmore house. Before leaving Luke's, Rory had arranged for him to meet her and Lane at Rory's house for his promised tour. Why was he so nervous? It wasn't like a date or anything...right? Not a date. No date in sight. Just three friends, hanging out. That's exactly what is was. Really.

"Hello Tristin!" screeched the short round woman from the porch next door. "We've been waiting for you to come pick up Rory ever since we heard she was giving you the tour!"

Tristin vaguely remembered her name...Babette. That was it. "Hi Babette!" he said winsomely. "Rory and her friend Lane offered to show me around."

"Isn't that nice? I heard all about it from Miss Patty."

"Miss Patty?"

"Yeah, she called me right up as soon as she heard it from Jackson."

"Hey man," interrupted the laid back, extremely tall, thin Maury. "Tell Rory to show you Al's Pancake World. But don't eat the clams. They're not hip."

"I'll show him," called Rory from the porch swing. She had witnessed the entire encounter and decided not to interfere. It was time that Tristin got a dose of small town life.

Tristin breathed a sigh of relief. Rory to the rescue. "Ready to go? Where's Lane?"

"She's grounded. Her mother found her CD collection and now she's grounded."

"Are you kidding?"

"Sadly, no. Here's a tip: never mess with a Korean mother. Especially if you aren't a future doctor."

"Point taken."

"Alright, I guess I'm left with the full tour guide responsibility. If you aren't one hundred percent satisfied with this tour, you are entitled to a refund of equal or lesser value to be paid in any of the following: peanut butter, coffee, or dirt."

"Peanut butter, coffee, or dirt. Am I missing something here?"

"Hey, it's the only things we have in the house."

The two set off, Rory telling him in full technicolor detail every story and anecdote she had to share about the town. They finally stopped to rest on a bench, partly out of laziness and partly out of necessity, since Tristin was laughing so hard his stomach was cramping up.

"So the day after Dean and I broke up, mom and I are sitting at Luke's. Everyone's being really nice to me, giving me anything they think I want. Luke is in the middle of trying to force feed me strawberries, when all of a sudden, he stalks out of the diner. The next thing I know, Luke has Dean in a headlock and they're struggling and shoving each other..." She broke into a fit of giggles.

Tristin was already rolling on the ground laughing. He could practically see Luke with Dean in a headlock. He would give anything to have been there to witness it. He attempted to catch his breath and collect his thoughts. During the course of the conversation, it had come up that Dean and Rory weren't together and wouldn't be again. Interesting. And now she could even talk about the day after the break up and laugh over it. Even better.

Both sprawled on the bench, trying to catch their breaths. What had started out as a tour had eventually turned into telling stories and relating incidents of the town. Tristin found this to be a better "guide" of the town than any tour. Now he had the information to figure out who these people really were and what made them tick. He was beginning to love this town and was already more attached to it in the few days that he had lived there than he was to Hartford after sixteen years.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" asked Rory after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

"Okay, shoot."

"Do you miss the money?"

Tristin considered for a few seconds before responding. "Truthfully, maybe a little bit. I'd never had to work for anything and always got whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it. But none of it ever made me happy. I never knew there was more out there, I just always assumed that everyone else felt empty too. Then when we lost so much money and things changed, they changed for the better. I mean, at first I was miserable. The only thing I had was money and then it was taken away. But gradually other things replaced it. My parents started to work things out with each other and with me. I'm happier now than I have ever been in my life."

"Why is that?"

"I suppose because I'm finally figuring out who I am. I feel very...free."

Rory smiled. "I'm happy for you."

Tristin smiled back, holding her hand in his. "Thanks."

Both sat back, looking up at the stars. They were too comfortable to move, so they didn't. Neither noticed Miss Patty, watching them from her dance studio, pull out her cell phone. "Hello, Taylor, dear. Guess what..."

"Do you ever feel insignificant?" wondered Tristin.

Rory was startled out of her drowsy musings by the question. "How so?"

"Looking up at the stars like this, seeing them so far away and so...distant. Do you ever feel insignificant?"

"All the time," Rory admitted. "Sometimes it just feels like there are so many big great things out there, and meanwhile I'm just sort of...here. It makes me question my role in the bigger picture."

"So you believe there is a bigger picture."

"Definitely," said Rory, warming up to the conversation. "I think we're all here for a reason, we just can't see it yet."

"Do you think that every person has a predetermined role in the big picture, or is it open for interpretation?"

"You mean like free will and self determination?"

"Exactly."

"Maybe we're only free to be the people we are."

Both pondered the possible implications of that statement.

"You know what I've concluded?" asked Tristin.

"What?"

"That it's time for some coffee."

"What a coincidence. That is my thought exactly. It must be predetermined in the stars for us to drink coffee right now."

"It's predetermined in the stars that you drink coffee period."

"Oh, shush!"

"Rory?"

"Hmmm?"

"Thanks for the tour."