AUTHOR - Rianna

TITLE - Dear Tristan (Part 2)

E-MAIL - papayahead_98@hotmail.com

SPOILERS - Um...probably anything up to "Run Away, Little Boy"

SUMMARY - Tristan receives an unexpected letter

RATING - PG-13

CONTENT - it's got the "f" word a couple times

PAIRING OR CHARACTER - Trory

DISCLAIMER - I don't own the show or any of the characters, they belong to the WB and Amy Sherman-Palladino, and all those people. And "Un-touchable Face" belongs to Ani DiFranco.

AUTHOR'S NOTE - I've gotten a few responses saying that you can't wait to see what Rory's letter says. I'm sorry to tell you, but I think you're gonna have to wait a bit longer. The thing is, I'm not even quite sure what Rory's gonna say yet. This isn't the most original story, there's already about five million fics with Rory and Tristan writing letters back and forth, so I'm trying to make Rory's letter a bit different from the rest of 'em.I don't know whether I'm gonna be able to do it, but that's not the point.Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

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Lorelai came bouncing into Rory's bedroom at 8:00 the next morning.

"Rory, come on, we've got to go to - ooh, hey, who are you sending letters to?"

She picked up the envelope sitting on Rory's desk, and flipped it over to look at the address.

"'Tristan Dugrey'? Since when are you sending letters to the Evil One? And since when does Evil One live in North Carolina? That must be quite a commute to Chilton. And does Dean know that you're sending letters to Evil One? I don't think he'll be very happy about it, Evil One's not exactly his favorite person.But then, you're not supposed to like Evil One either, so why are you writing him letters? Rooorrryyy, what's going on?"

Rory groaned, and rolled over to look at her mother.

"Ugh, it's way to early for this. And would you please stop calling him 'Evil One'? His name is Tristan, and he got shipped off to boarding school, and Dean and I broke up last night, so it doesn't really matter what he thinks. It's kind of a long story, I'll tell you about it later. Was there something you wanted, or did you just wake me up for no reason?"

Lorelai looked confused for a moment at the sudden barrage of information, before remembering why she had come in to wake up her daughter.

"Oh, we have to go to Luke's. I need coffee. I made one pot, but then I drank it all. So I was making a second pot, but the coffee machine died, so we have to go to Luke's to get some coffee. So, get up, let's go!"

"You killed the coffee machine?"

"What? No, how dare you accuse me of such a thing? It died of natural causes. Well, maybe it committed suicide, I'm not sure. But it was making coffee, and then there was a little 'pop', and a 'fssss', and a little puff of smoke. And now it won't make coffee anymore. But I need more coffee, Rory! So come on, we'll go to Luke's and I'll get coffee, and you can tell me all about Evi - I mean, Tristan and Dean and this Twilight Zone world I seem to have stepped into."

Rory climbed out of bed and pulled on some jeans and a T-shirt, silently cursing her mother for waking her up so early. She grabbed the letter to Tristan before walking out the door, and dropped it in the mailbox on the way to Luke's. She sighed as she watched the mailbox door close and hoped that she wasn't making a mistake.

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Tristan had been in military school for less than a week, and he had already decided it was hell. He doubted he'd ever get used to waking up at five a.m. to run laps, or having to stand at attention and call everyone "Sir", or having lights out at nine. One thing he was glad about, though, was that he didn't have to live in a room with twenty other guys. There were two students to a room, and Tristan's roommate, Dave, seemed like a pretty good guy so far. He wasn't someone that Tristan would have hung out with back in Hartford, but maybe that was a good thing. Maybe it was better that Tristan was getting away from the shallow, superficial crowd. Dave was quite, studied a lot, followed all the rules. And he played Ani DiFranco non-stop. Right now, he was playing "Un-touchable Face";

"I could make you happy, you know

If you weren't already

I could do a lot of things

And i do

Tell you the truth i prefer the worst of you

Too bad you had to have a better half

She's not really my type

But i think you two are forever

And i hate to say it but you're perfect together

So fuck you

And your untouchable face

Fuck you

For existing in the first place

And who am i

That i should be vying for your touch

Who am i?

Bet you can't even tell me that much"

Tristan listened to the words, and immediately thought of Rory. Which was nothing new, but still frustrating as hell. He groaned and flopped back on his bed. Why was it that everything made him thinking of her? Part of the reason he had come to military school was to try and forget about Rory, to try and get over her. But it seemed as though he thought about her even more now than he had when he was in Connecticut. He loved her. And he missed her. And he wanted to be with her more than anything, even though he knew it was impossible. For one thing, she hated him. And she was still with that stupid bag boy. And, of course, Tristan couldn't forget the fact that they were over 600 miles apart, and he may never see her again. He groaned again, and hit his head against the wall.

"Hey, Dugrey, cut it out. You're gonna dent the wall with that hard head of yours."

Tristan looked up to see Dave standing in the doorway.

"Sorry, I was just.thinking about some stuff."

"Is that how you always think? You'd better not do too much more of that, you're gonna hurt yourself. So, how come you weren't at mail call?"

Tristan sighed.

"'Cuz I knew I wasn't going to get anything. My parents have probably forgotten all about me by now, and I don't know who else would be writing to me."

Dave let out a half-laugh, and walked over to Tristan's bed.

"Yeah, well, someone back there in Connecticut must like you, though I can't imagine why."

He tossed an envelope to Tristan, and it landed on the bed in front of him, landing address-side down. Tristan looked at it curiously, wondering who it could be from. He knew it wasn't from his parents, the small, pale blue envelope wasn't their style. Any letter from his Dad would have been in a sterile white, legal-size envelope, with a typed address and metered postage. But when he picked up the letter to turn it over, he saw a flowered stamp in the upper right corner, and his name handwritten in dark purple ink. Slowly, Tristan moved his eyes up to the return address to see who it was from. He thought he was imagining it at first when he saw her name. Rory Gilmore.