This fic is dedicated to my twin, Jessie

This fic is dedicated to my twin, Jessie. You're a great inspiration, and I'm not just talking about your buddy icon. Thank you.

Also, thanks to everyone who reviewed part one. Those reviews were what made me decide to keep writing Rain. I really appreciate it. I hope everyone enjoys part two.

And as another side note, I paid no attention whatsoever to what time of the year any of the events of season one occurred. I like to work things to my advantage, so please read this with an open mind.

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Rain

Chapter Two - Tears

Rory was oblivious, as usual. Staring at the teacher on an educational high. Tristan could have jumped her right then and there, and the poor girl would never have known.

Hearing a giggle from behind him, Tristan rolled his eyes and turned around slyly, putting on his patented 'I'm damn near perfect and I know it' look.

How he hated the charade. The whole pre-determined dance of Chilton. When it came to the kids he'd been going to school with since kindergarten, he woke up every morning knowing exactly what would happen.

Giving the two overly blonde girls in the back of the classroom a smirk, Tristan turned his gaze back towards the front of the classroom. Rory was still deep in thought, staring straight at the teacher, but yet not concentrating on him in the least. Sighing one of those sighs that reveal some hidden, cast away feelings, Tristan tore his gaze away to look at the clock.

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Steadily tapping her pencil on the desk, Rory patiently listened, trying to keep her mind focused on the Revolutionary War, every once and a while stopping to jot down some interesting fact she just knew would be asked as an extra credit question on the midterm. Absentmindedly, her gaze wandered to the window.

The leaves were just starting to turn that orangey-red color that Rory loved so much. They reminded her of the gentle fall breeze, the light jackets you wear right before winter sneaks up on you, and coffees shared on some random park bench in the middle of nowhere.

Fall brought winter, and therefore Rory liked fall. Spring stole the snow and the clarity it brought away from her, and therefore Rory didn't care too much for spring. Then there was summer.

Rory let her mind wander even further, out of the classroom, out of the time. Summer. Summer brought… pain.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement. A bright blue burning right into her.

Summer. A piano. Pain, and tears, and-

Rory stopped herself. Shaking her head to try and shake herself right out of her reverie, Rory's grip on her pencil tightened.

"Miss Gilmore? Is there a problem?" the balding teacher inquired, noticing Rory's sudden tense movements.

Sinking lower in her seat, she muttered a meek "no" before her thoughts began to slip back towards that moment that so wanted to stay hidden in the back of her mind, showing itself whenever she let her guard down. That moment when her and Tristan's lips had met only weeks before.

Chills ran through her body, and Rory silently chided herself. Tristan was a jerk. One that was devoted to making her life a living hell.

If that were true, then why did thinking about those swirling blue eyes and that intoxicating smile make her feel so dizzy?

Rory was pulled out of her thoughts as the bell rang.

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Tristan was sure his mental tugging had pulled the minute hand toward the big black 6 faster than it would have gotten there. He was tired of keeping up the façade. It was time to let the real Tristan out. The Tristan that only one person had ever seen before. The person he kept hidden under those layers of perfectly ironed uniforms, cologne, and self-assurance.

Three-thirty never came quite soon enough.

So when the bell rang, Tristan was up and out of his seat before any of his classmates had even thought about putting away their pencils. Sprinting towards the front doors, he looked longingly at Rory's locker as he passed. A sigh had escaped his lips before he even knew it.

He slowed his pace as he reached the edge of the parking lot, walking towards the top of the hill where Chilton sat, looking down upon the rest of the city as did its students. Tristan was welcoming the time to himself today, more so than usual. He needed to think. About certain things, certain people. More specifically, Rory Gilmore.

Goosebumps covered Tristan's arm. At the mere thought of her, he was on pins and needles.

DuGrey men had a history of going through women quickly, using them for all they were worth before casting them aside. They also had a history of falling once, and falling hard. With Tristan's grandfather, it had been his grandmother. With his father, some girl in college. Not his mother. To Tristan's dismay, he chose to bring this up on many occasions.

"I should have married Sarah when I had the chance. Maybe then I wouldn't be tied down by you. A wife. Spending all my money. Unappreciative bitch." he'd spit accusingly. "And him," he'd say, carelessly flailing his arms in a drunken stupor at his son, cowering away from the scene of the crime. Tristan wanted to break something whenever he thought about his father.

As for Tristan, he was beginning to worry that his one, his Rory, was ready to walk out of his life at any moment.

There was no way in hell he was going to become his father. And if that was true, then he had to do something. And fast.

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Rory watched quizzically as Tristan dashed out the classroom door. Shaking her head, she began to pack her books into her backpack. She never did understand that boy.

Fighting that moment tugging on the back of her brain once more, Rory walked toward her locker. She only had to get her Chemistry book that day, having only a few problems-

Rory stopped. Something was wrong. At the end of the hall, just beyond her locker, stood her father. Christopher.

She approached him slowly, knowing that for whatever reason he was actually here, whatever he had to say to her, she didn't want to hear.

He held out a hand to her. A gesture of consolation. "Rory, honey…"

Dropping her backpack on the cold tile, she took the last step towards the rest of her life.

Choking on the words, her father spoke. "Rory, honey, there's been an accident."

At that moment, Rory's world spun around the exact spot where she was standing, knees quaking, threatening to drop her at any second, and came crashing down on top of her.