Author: VeeTee [vt88600@yahoo.com]
Date: 9 July 2002 (fully re-edited: 12 January 2003)
Rated: PG13 (language)
Spoilers: May contain spoilers for the second season.
Disclaimer: Don't own the characters…
Summary: Rory has to deal with her past, while Tristan has to deal with the present.
Better Days
Chapter 3: Recollections of Days Gone By
"…And at the start of today's trading day the NASDAQ is by up three per—" The reporter's voice was cut off. Tristan had changed the channel.
He glanced at his desk clock and sighed. It was lunchtime and once again, he had nowhere to be. No meetings, no appointments with teachers or hospitals and no lunch dates. "Man, you gotta get out more," was the phrase most commonly uttered by his best friend John Brewer, who, at the moment, was tied up in Rome with his own business.
So, there was no chance of him going out, for the only time Tristan ever really went out for non-business-related things was when John almost physically hauled him off his ass and dragged him off. Oh well, Tristan thought, more time to get more work done. Swallowing the last bite of his turkey sandwich—bought the downstairs restaurant—he shifted his attention to the paperwork lying on his desk, thinking to get something done to show for his absence at the daily lunches with his co-executives.
The problem was, Tristan found after shifting through his papers, there was really no work for him to be done. All the work that needed to be done today by him had actually been completed, as usual, ahead of schedule. That meant that all he had to do was give them to his underlings, and then wait for them to do the rest of the dirty work and just approve of them after they were finished.
Sometimes, he hated being an exec.
Sitting back, he looked out the window of his 23rd storey office. He could see the city below, busy, without a doubt and with no one down there caring that an underworked overpayed anal retentive business executive had nothing, and no one to be with, on this lazy Friday lunchtime. All anyone normal really was thinking about was that there were only four more hours till the working week was done.
With nothing really interesting to see—Tristan had this office for the past three years—he turned back and his eye caught the fancy Rolodex perched atop his computer. Usually it was immaculately organised—it used to be colour coded until his secretary had called him obsessive compulsive—but now, his eye for disorder pointed out a tiny card poking out from the back. It had been hastily placed there, he remembered.
Tristan reached out and touched the card, with the goal of pushing it into its place, but all the action did was dislodge it from the crevice it was stuck in and flutter to the desktop.
Etched on the card in simply black block letters was Lorelai Gilmore.
A name synonymous with Chilton. A time that, until he saw her that day at the grocery store, he had all but completely forgotten about. And the memories reeled through his head once again.
Though to others Tristan was the king of all that was cool and hot, back then as a sixteen year old, he had a hard time being himself. It wasn't really a horrific scarring time for him at Chilton, but he had been strangely relieved when his father removed him from his kingdom and put him in a military school that accepted him as the epitome of cool far less easily. Tristan had been a nobody in his military school but he was happier, being able to concentrate on things that really mattered to him, instead of putting up a face for others. Being away from his parents also seemed to smooth the bumpy surfaces of their relationship. When he returned that summer, they seemed to get along far better…distance suited the Dugreys.
But the bad part was to forget Mary. Rory. Lorelai.
Rory was the first girl in Chilton that he had ever liked because of her personality. Well, he had liked Paris Gellar at some point but never as a crush (what else could you call it those days?) and besides, Paris, he recalled, scared the hell out of him—hmmm… where was she now? He wondered fleetingly.
But Rory… She was different. Tristan realised that soon after she showed up at his school, the new student late by a few weeks into school. It took him around less than an hour to get the 411 on her, less than that for him to get on her nerves. And it took him the rest of his time in Chilton to get her to look at him as though her were an actual human and not a mere slug who wasted her time just by being in her path.
It wasn't as though she was obnoxious or spoilted or snobbish. Far from it… She was quiet and determined and didn't care that she was not the most popular kid in school. Which was why it was so hard for Tristan, king of Chilton, to admit that he had a crush on her. If anyone found out that the playboy king who flitted from girl to girl without a moment's thought had a crush on Rory. Well, it was weird.
But his hormones took over his ego—somewhat—and he spent his time annoying her just to get her attention. And then crush turned into massive infatuation and then into what he thought at the time was love. But it wasn't, really, because he wasn't heartbroken when he had left without kissing her one more time, and she didn't make his head dizzy when he thought of her… Rory just gave him fonder memories of his Chilton years.
Tristan smiled as he thought of the time he first called her Mary, Rory thinking it was a mistake, but it wasn't. And one of the most memorable, kissing her that one night after they had both broken up from their respective 'significant' others. Maybe Mr…whats-his-name was significant to her, but his ex at the time had been far less than significant to Tristan. He played Romeo to her Juliet but never got to perform it—for that was the night he got pulled out of school.
The best moments were the ones after the kiss—after they cleared up the reason why she ran away crying anyway—the ones in which the two of them were, dare he say it, geniunely friends. But then Tristan screwed up, he remembered… And he had regretted never apologising before he disappeared from her life and Chilton.
Ahh, whatever, Tristan shrugged, getting out of his mental reverie. That was almost a decade ago, there's nothing wrong with trying to be friends with an old…classmate?…Obviously not friend especially after what he had done and Rory's reactions…but that was in the past, and they were grown adults now, easily capable of making a friendship work without the misunderstandings that teenagers often have. And it wasn't as if Tristan had much friends to speak of. Socially speaking, he had no life.
He reached over to his phone and punched in the numbers slowly.
Across town, Lorelai Gilmore, CNN junior correspondent, nearly passed out at the sight of so much paperwork and research to do. As a minor reporter, that meant she could afford the time and needed the experience of doing her own research and paperwork without an assistant. It had been fun the first few months that she had gotten the job but it got tedious after awhile. Especially since other higher-ups assumed they could use her as their personal assistant. Even harder considering it was only her second day of work.
"Who's got the mayor's coverage?" Leonard Bratislava, head of the New York office announced loudly. Inwardly, Rory groaned because that question reminded her of another piece of research she had as of then forgotten to put in her 'To-Do' list. Before she could do that, the phone rang at her desk.
"Hello, CNN New York, Lorelai Gilmore speaking," she said into the speaker, while highlighting an uninteresting report on the mayor's upcoming book.
"Uh…Hi, this is Tristan Dugrey—"
"Tristan, hi! I was just about to call you," she lied. She had, honestly, on Monday night, but then decided work, however boring and migraine-causing it was, demanded her time rather than get in touch with a guy she hadn't seen in years, no matter how interesting it would be. She had planned to on the weekend though.
"Oh, that sounds promising. I hope I'm not interrupting anything, though… I don't really know how reporters work," came the voice down the phone.
"Nah, actually you're call is probably going to be one of the highlights of my day," Rory replied, this time not lying. "Honestly, I could care less about the mayor's new book, but a job is a job."
"Yes it is. Rory, oh. I mean, um, Lorelai—I'm sorry, what name do you go by now?"
"Depends. If this is about work, than its Lorelai but special people get to call me Rory the Great."
"Still haven't lost your sense of humour, I see," Tristan replied, not keeping the laugh out of his voice. "Well, Rory, if you're not busy, would you like to meet up with me tonight and catch up on old times?"
"That sounds fun, Tristan, sure. Where?" Why not? Make new friends in the big city, stop thinking about Col—stop it! Rory thought.
"How about I pick you up from your office and we can get some coffee somewhere, I'm sure you're still new to the city?" Tristan suggested.
"Company sounds good, coffee sounds wonderful, do you know where the office is?" Rory asked. It was something to look forward to after all this work.
"Of course, I'm almost a native!" Tristan scoffed slightly. "Alright, I'll see you then."
"Thank you for calling," Rory replied, genuinely.
"No problem."
And with that they hung up and Rory returned her full attention to the work in front of her.
