TITLE: Lost in the Shadows 9/?
AUTHOR: Jennie
EMAIL: jennieln@pacbell.net
WEBSITE: http://jessifanfic.com/links
PREVIOUS PARTS: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=492824
DISCLAIMER: College student... need I say more?
PAIRING: Tristan/Rory but will have elements of Dean/Rory, Jess/Rory, and ?/Rory
SUMMARY: This story follows the trials and tribulations of love, sex and friendships of Rory and her close nit group of friends in a time when adulthood is swiftly approaching. Can a friendship overcome a potentially disastrous start?
RATING: R for sexual situations and will be constant throughout the story.
SPOILERS: All of the first season. Yes, Tristan and Rory were in that Shakespeare play together but no, he did not get sent to military school. My Tristan is too smart for that. :o)
NOTES: Big thanks goes out to my beta'ers Jewls13 and Julie and of course to everyone who feedbacked. Believe me, it's what keeps me writing!
AUTHOR NOTE #2: Jenne from Trory Addiction and I were toying with the idea of making a message board for Gilmore Girls fanfic. If you are interested in helping in any shape or form (graphics, ideas, contributing fic, etc) please email me at jennieln@pacbell.net Thanks, Jennie
ALMOST
Studying has a way of taking your mind off of everything that is going on in your life. Any worries you may have seem to melt away for those few hours… which was what Rory had been hoping would happen when she sat down at the kitchen table an hour before. But much to her disappointment, she had thought more about Jess and Tristan than the second continental congress.
She was about to call it quits when her mom breezed through the door and plopped herself down directly across from Rory. Rory looked at her expectantly, waiting for whatever it was her mom was dying to talk about.
"So spill," Lorelai finally said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Remember, no matter how close we are in genetic makeup, I can't hear your thoughts, only the words that come out of your mouth."
"You come home all pissy, albeit in a better mood than yesterday, then you refuse to go to Luke's for dinner. You passed up Luke's, life-sustaining LUKE'S."
"We've had hamburgers this week more times than I can count." Yes, she was aware her argument was weak but maybe her mom wouldn't call her on it.
"Then the whole time I'm eating, by myself I might add, Jess is being completely rude with this extremely curious split lip and bruise on his cheek."
"What's new," Rory said sarcastically.
"This was a weird kind of rude. I think… I think he was almost moping around."
Curious, Rory perked up. So he was sorry for what he did? Maybe there was hope for the boy yet. "What makes you think he was moping?" she asked as casually as she could.
"Rory, he spent fifteen minutes cleaning a table."
Jess cleaned? "Point taken."
"That thing was so shiny clean, I could've eaten off of it."
"I got the point."
"So spill."
As if her mom wouldn't find out anyway. "Jess and Tristan became acquainted today," Rory said dryly and stood up to stretch.
"You mean Shakespeare Tristan?"
Rory flinched as she thought back to that Romeo and Juliet school project a few years back where Tristan, Romeo to her Juliet, came close to ruining her relationship with Dean. She and Tristan had shared an ill-fated kiss one night—God, it felt like a lifetime ago—a kiss that she had managed to keep secret all these years, and with it, an enormous amount of guilt for not telling Dean when they got back together.
"The one and the same," Rory answered. She sighed and knew that she needed to talk to Jess. She couldn't put it off any longer. Ignoring her mom's confused expression, she went in search of the ever-elusive telephone. Why her mom got a cordless, she'll never know. They spent more time in search of it than talking on it.
"Where are you going?" Lorelai demanded anxiously.
"I need the phone." She knew she was driving her mom crazy and to tell the truth, she was rather enjoying it.
"But we're not done talking about this!" Rory considered dragging it out to annoy her mother further but didn't want to deal with a whining Lorelai at the moment.
"What do you want to know?" Rory spotted the phone on the living room couch but her mother darted past her and snatched it before she could get to it.
"What were they fighting over? Your virtue?" The phone was now being held out of reach above Lorelai's head. Rory rolled her eyes. Sometimes her mom could be so immature. But even as she thought that she couldn't help but smile.
"Yes, mother. They fought over who gets to bed me next."
Lorelai cocked her right eyebrow and leaned against the wall, watching Rory eye the phone. "Next?"
Rory mentally flinched. "First," she amended, catching her mom off guard and snatching the phone from her.
"And you're upset about this why?" Rory ignored her, instead moving to her room as she dialed. "You're no fun!" her mom yelled before giving up and stomping upstairs.
"I know," Rory called back as Luke picked up the other end. "Hey Luke. Can I talk to the stubborn, pig-headed bastard, please?" Luke grunted in acknowledgement and then called Jess to the phone.
"'Lo?"
"Judas," Rory said accusingly.
"I did NOT betray you. I was—am protecting you."
"Whatever. Look, I love you but you are not allowed to pick me up from school anymore."
"You'd rather take the bus?" His voice was teasing but she knew he was just worried about her.
"Than risk you throwing punches everyday? Yes." Rory stretched out on her bed and toyed with the fringe on one of her pillows.
Jess sighed. "Fine. Just—look, be careful. I don't like him and I definitely do not trust him."
"Come on, I see him at school. What could he possibly do there?" Jess was unbelievable. He just didn't know when to back down.
"You'd be surprised. Hey, I gotta go, Luke's giving me the evil eye," Jess said rather pointedly.
"Okay, but you're not getting off the hook that easily. I'll be over in a few minutes."
She heard him sigh. "Imagine my surprise."
"Hey, watch it buddy. Castration is still high up on my punishment list."
He chuckled and she detected a slight nervousness in it. "The scary thing is is that I bet you actually did write down a list." Rory thought about the piece of paper sitting on the kitchen table with her notes, but decided not to mention it.
"Goodbye, Jess."
*****
The wind blew a little more insistently and Dean pulled his jacket a little tighter around himself as he stepped out of the market. His shift had ended almost as quickly as it had begun as most things tended to do lately and he was hesitant to head home.
He looked up and was surprised to see Rory cutting through the park in the town center. Watching her walk, he noticed the way she hung her head low against the wind. She was probably on her way to Luke's to visit Jess. Bitterly he wondered if they had gotten together yet. Despite Rory's previous protests, he had seen the way Jess looked at her. Jess did not view Rory as just a friend.
Gathering his courage, he cleared his throat and called to her across the square, hoping he was heard over the whistling wind.
She turned and stared at him a moment before smiling. Quickly, he jogged over to her, not knowing what he would say when he got there. What could you say when your girlfriend broke up with you for proposing?
Luckily for him, she started. "Hi," she said softly. "How have you been?"
He considered lying to her and telling her how great he's been but knew she would just see through him anyway so he told the truth. "I miss you. It's been hard."
Her eyes softened but her smile faltered. He loved everything about her and it scared him.
"Dean," she whispered stepping close to him. "I've missed you too…." She hesitated and he felt his stomach drop. He looked at her and she looked at him and they had one of those silences. You know, the kind where no one knows what to say for fear of hurting the other person. Usually she would say something—anything—to break the silence, but this time they let it go. He was afraid, terrified really, of what he knew she was about to say. Yet, he needed to hear it, he had to hear her say it.
"But…" he prompted, letting the sentence hang, unfinished in the air between them.
She took a deep breath and grabbed his hand, his heart betraying him by fluttering. Her hair blew softly in the wind and he ached to reach out and touch it. "It's complicated," she whispered.
It was always like that with her. Nothing was simple, everything was heightened, everything was complicated.
He knew from looking into her eyes exactly what she couldn't say to him. "It's never going to work between us, is it?"
Startled, she looked up at him, her blue eyes filled with sorrow. "You were my first in a lot of senses: my first kiss, my first slow dance, my first boyfriend, my first love… and because of this you will always hold a special place in my heart. I will always love you Dean, but no, I don't think there ever will be an 'us' again. I'm sorry." A tear fell down her face and he wanted to kiss it away.
He was tempted to ask if Jess was the reason she didn't want to be with him but something stopped him. "Well, I'll let you go then." He dropped her hand and felt as though he had cut the last tenuous cord he had into her heart as he did so.
"Wait," she said hesitantly. "There's something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you long ago." He waited as she wrung her hands in front of her nervously, his stomach doing flip-flops. "After our first break up…" she trailed off and his mind raced over the possibilities. His first instinct was to think that something had happened between her and Jess because it would explain so much but then he remembered that Jess hadn't moved there yet. "I kissed Tristan." His stomach dropped and it took all of his willpower not to punch the wooden gazebo next to them. Why did it have to be that blonde, smug bastard, so intent on taking Rory away from him… anybody but Tristan. "It was nothing but a mistake and I regretted it almost immediately afterwards but I should have been honest from the beginning and it's been killing me inside."
Her eyes were wide and ready to receive whatever kind of reaction he dealt her. He opened his mouth to speak but stopped when he saw her flinch. It was in the past now. He did not want to increase her guilt any more than she already had felt over something that did not matter any more. His mind turned over what she had said, still digesting this new information hoping to maybe find it harder to love her now that he knew.
Instead of speaking, he just nodded numbly and took a step back. "Good bye, Rory," he mumbled, turned and began to walk to his house. There was something about what she said that was bothering him—well, something besides the whole 'I kissed Tristan' thing but something he couldn't pinpoint.
He was almost to his house when he realized what it was.
She had said that she almost immediately regretted kissing him.
Almost.
That word echoed in his head.
Almost.
*****
TBC…
Feedback is GREATLY appreciated!
AUTHOR: Jennie
EMAIL: jennieln@pacbell.net
WEBSITE: http://jessifanfic.com/links
PREVIOUS PARTS: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=492824
DISCLAIMER: College student... need I say more?
PAIRING: Tristan/Rory but will have elements of Dean/Rory, Jess/Rory, and ?/Rory
SUMMARY: This story follows the trials and tribulations of love, sex and friendships of Rory and her close nit group of friends in a time when adulthood is swiftly approaching. Can a friendship overcome a potentially disastrous start?
RATING: R for sexual situations and will be constant throughout the story.
SPOILERS: All of the first season. Yes, Tristan and Rory were in that Shakespeare play together but no, he did not get sent to military school. My Tristan is too smart for that. :o)
NOTES: Big thanks goes out to my beta'ers Jewls13 and Julie and of course to everyone who feedbacked. Believe me, it's what keeps me writing!
AUTHOR NOTE #2: Jenne from Trory Addiction and I were toying with the idea of making a message board for Gilmore Girls fanfic. If you are interested in helping in any shape or form (graphics, ideas, contributing fic, etc) please email me at jennieln@pacbell.net Thanks, Jennie
ALMOST
Studying has a way of taking your mind off of everything that is going on in your life. Any worries you may have seem to melt away for those few hours… which was what Rory had been hoping would happen when she sat down at the kitchen table an hour before. But much to her disappointment, she had thought more about Jess and Tristan than the second continental congress.
She was about to call it quits when her mom breezed through the door and plopped herself down directly across from Rory. Rory looked at her expectantly, waiting for whatever it was her mom was dying to talk about.
"So spill," Lorelai finally said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Remember, no matter how close we are in genetic makeup, I can't hear your thoughts, only the words that come out of your mouth."
"You come home all pissy, albeit in a better mood than yesterday, then you refuse to go to Luke's for dinner. You passed up Luke's, life-sustaining LUKE'S."
"We've had hamburgers this week more times than I can count." Yes, she was aware her argument was weak but maybe her mom wouldn't call her on it.
"Then the whole time I'm eating, by myself I might add, Jess is being completely rude with this extremely curious split lip and bruise on his cheek."
"What's new," Rory said sarcastically.
"This was a weird kind of rude. I think… I think he was almost moping around."
Curious, Rory perked up. So he was sorry for what he did? Maybe there was hope for the boy yet. "What makes you think he was moping?" she asked as casually as she could.
"Rory, he spent fifteen minutes cleaning a table."
Jess cleaned? "Point taken."
"That thing was so shiny clean, I could've eaten off of it."
"I got the point."
"So spill."
As if her mom wouldn't find out anyway. "Jess and Tristan became acquainted today," Rory said dryly and stood up to stretch.
"You mean Shakespeare Tristan?"
Rory flinched as she thought back to that Romeo and Juliet school project a few years back where Tristan, Romeo to her Juliet, came close to ruining her relationship with Dean. She and Tristan had shared an ill-fated kiss one night—God, it felt like a lifetime ago—a kiss that she had managed to keep secret all these years, and with it, an enormous amount of guilt for not telling Dean when they got back together.
"The one and the same," Rory answered. She sighed and knew that she needed to talk to Jess. She couldn't put it off any longer. Ignoring her mom's confused expression, she went in search of the ever-elusive telephone. Why her mom got a cordless, she'll never know. They spent more time in search of it than talking on it.
"Where are you going?" Lorelai demanded anxiously.
"I need the phone." She knew she was driving her mom crazy and to tell the truth, she was rather enjoying it.
"But we're not done talking about this!" Rory considered dragging it out to annoy her mother further but didn't want to deal with a whining Lorelai at the moment.
"What do you want to know?" Rory spotted the phone on the living room couch but her mother darted past her and snatched it before she could get to it.
"What were they fighting over? Your virtue?" The phone was now being held out of reach above Lorelai's head. Rory rolled her eyes. Sometimes her mom could be so immature. But even as she thought that she couldn't help but smile.
"Yes, mother. They fought over who gets to bed me next."
Lorelai cocked her right eyebrow and leaned against the wall, watching Rory eye the phone. "Next?"
Rory mentally flinched. "First," she amended, catching her mom off guard and snatching the phone from her.
"And you're upset about this why?" Rory ignored her, instead moving to her room as she dialed. "You're no fun!" her mom yelled before giving up and stomping upstairs.
"I know," Rory called back as Luke picked up the other end. "Hey Luke. Can I talk to the stubborn, pig-headed bastard, please?" Luke grunted in acknowledgement and then called Jess to the phone.
"'Lo?"
"Judas," Rory said accusingly.
"I did NOT betray you. I was—am protecting you."
"Whatever. Look, I love you but you are not allowed to pick me up from school anymore."
"You'd rather take the bus?" His voice was teasing but she knew he was just worried about her.
"Than risk you throwing punches everyday? Yes." Rory stretched out on her bed and toyed with the fringe on one of her pillows.
Jess sighed. "Fine. Just—look, be careful. I don't like him and I definitely do not trust him."
"Come on, I see him at school. What could he possibly do there?" Jess was unbelievable. He just didn't know when to back down.
"You'd be surprised. Hey, I gotta go, Luke's giving me the evil eye," Jess said rather pointedly.
"Okay, but you're not getting off the hook that easily. I'll be over in a few minutes."
She heard him sigh. "Imagine my surprise."
"Hey, watch it buddy. Castration is still high up on my punishment list."
He chuckled and she detected a slight nervousness in it. "The scary thing is is that I bet you actually did write down a list." Rory thought about the piece of paper sitting on the kitchen table with her notes, but decided not to mention it.
"Goodbye, Jess."
*****
The wind blew a little more insistently and Dean pulled his jacket a little tighter around himself as he stepped out of the market. His shift had ended almost as quickly as it had begun as most things tended to do lately and he was hesitant to head home.
He looked up and was surprised to see Rory cutting through the park in the town center. Watching her walk, he noticed the way she hung her head low against the wind. She was probably on her way to Luke's to visit Jess. Bitterly he wondered if they had gotten together yet. Despite Rory's previous protests, he had seen the way Jess looked at her. Jess did not view Rory as just a friend.
Gathering his courage, he cleared his throat and called to her across the square, hoping he was heard over the whistling wind.
She turned and stared at him a moment before smiling. Quickly, he jogged over to her, not knowing what he would say when he got there. What could you say when your girlfriend broke up with you for proposing?
Luckily for him, she started. "Hi," she said softly. "How have you been?"
He considered lying to her and telling her how great he's been but knew she would just see through him anyway so he told the truth. "I miss you. It's been hard."
Her eyes softened but her smile faltered. He loved everything about her and it scared him.
"Dean," she whispered stepping close to him. "I've missed you too…." She hesitated and he felt his stomach drop. He looked at her and she looked at him and they had one of those silences. You know, the kind where no one knows what to say for fear of hurting the other person. Usually she would say something—anything—to break the silence, but this time they let it go. He was afraid, terrified really, of what he knew she was about to say. Yet, he needed to hear it, he had to hear her say it.
"But…" he prompted, letting the sentence hang, unfinished in the air between them.
She took a deep breath and grabbed his hand, his heart betraying him by fluttering. Her hair blew softly in the wind and he ached to reach out and touch it. "It's complicated," she whispered.
It was always like that with her. Nothing was simple, everything was heightened, everything was complicated.
He knew from looking into her eyes exactly what she couldn't say to him. "It's never going to work between us, is it?"
Startled, she looked up at him, her blue eyes filled with sorrow. "You were my first in a lot of senses: my first kiss, my first slow dance, my first boyfriend, my first love… and because of this you will always hold a special place in my heart. I will always love you Dean, but no, I don't think there ever will be an 'us' again. I'm sorry." A tear fell down her face and he wanted to kiss it away.
He was tempted to ask if Jess was the reason she didn't want to be with him but something stopped him. "Well, I'll let you go then." He dropped her hand and felt as though he had cut the last tenuous cord he had into her heart as he did so.
"Wait," she said hesitantly. "There's something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you long ago." He waited as she wrung her hands in front of her nervously, his stomach doing flip-flops. "After our first break up…" she trailed off and his mind raced over the possibilities. His first instinct was to think that something had happened between her and Jess because it would explain so much but then he remembered that Jess hadn't moved there yet. "I kissed Tristan." His stomach dropped and it took all of his willpower not to punch the wooden gazebo next to them. Why did it have to be that blonde, smug bastard, so intent on taking Rory away from him… anybody but Tristan. "It was nothing but a mistake and I regretted it almost immediately afterwards but I should have been honest from the beginning and it's been killing me inside."
Her eyes were wide and ready to receive whatever kind of reaction he dealt her. He opened his mouth to speak but stopped when he saw her flinch. It was in the past now. He did not want to increase her guilt any more than she already had felt over something that did not matter any more. His mind turned over what she had said, still digesting this new information hoping to maybe find it harder to love her now that he knew.
Instead of speaking, he just nodded numbly and took a step back. "Good bye, Rory," he mumbled, turned and began to walk to his house. There was something about what she said that was bothering him—well, something besides the whole 'I kissed Tristan' thing but something he couldn't pinpoint.
He was almost to his house when he realized what it was.
She had said that she almost immediately regretted kissing him.
Almost.
That word echoed in his head.
Almost.
*****
TBC…
Feedback is GREATLY appreciated!