Story: Wildflowers

Author: LitJJAiken

Summary: AU Literati with Trory undertones. Rory Hayden is sent to boarding school; Jess, Tristan, and others await her.

Rating: PG-13 for now. May change to R later on, so be forewarned.

Chapter Title: Time To Move On

Disclaimer: I have nothing. "Nothing" includes Gilmore Girls and my rock god Tom Petty's "Time To Move On."

A/N: I am not done with/abandoning "The Intern and Her Baby-sitter." I just had this idea the other day, and I wanted to start it. I hope you like it.

Thanks to Summer, Loz, Katherine, and Lauren for putting up with me. Big thanks to Joan for the aforementioned reason and for betaing the story at 1:00 in the morning. Also thanks to Chris, because When She Cries really inspires me.

"Time to move on, time to get going

What lies ahead I have no way of knowing

But under my feet, baby, grass is growing

It's time to move on, time to get going."

The gates of Burke Academy loomed before Rory Hayden, the unknown and quite possibly dreadful nature of her future lying beyond them. Those gates would separate her from the world she knew. They would integrate her into a small society of rich, well-educated teenagers not unlike herself, but at the same time different from her in every way.

Rory's father released his hand from the steering wheel for a moment. "So here we are," Christopher said. "Burke Academy."

"Here we are," Rory echoed. She and her father had never been much for conversation, at least with each other. There had always been a wall between them, and she believed that wall was the absence of her mother. Lorelai had left when Rory was three -- Christopher had been left with a trust fund, a daughter, and a sense of cluelessness as to how to raise her.

Rory thought about how she had grown up. Christopher had conceded at the age of nineteen, after Lorelai left, and joined his father's business, so money was never an issue. She had been provided with endless clothes, toys, books, and a nanny named Kate who moved out when Rory turned twelve.

And now she was sixteen, being sent to live in boarding school because her father had gotten married. He married a makeup marketer named Sherry who, while she didn't express it, did not want Rory around. Christopher obliged Sherry's unspoken but omnipresent wish; he enrolled Rory in a Massachusetts boarding school.

Now, sitting in front of the aforementioned school, Rory felt resentment well up inside her. She didn't deserve to be sent away -- she had been a good kid, she made excellent grades and never got into trouble. Then Sherry came along and decimated her life.

Rory spoke finally. "Why don't you drive me in?"

Christopher looked at her. "Sweetie, I know you're not thrilled about this."

She answered, "Just drive me in. Please."

Christopher sighed. He drove up to the guard at the gate.

"Christopher Hayden, sir," he said.

The guard opened the gate for them -- he had been told ahead of time that they were coming.

Rory glanced around the campus. There were many kids aged thirteen to eighteen lounging around. They didn't go past eighteen, because once kids reached that age, they realized that they didn't have to stay at boarding school. They could leave and finish out the rest of their lives, usually unhappily and with so much pent-up resentment directed at their parents that they could barely carry on a relationship. However, they hadn't become jaded yet, and right now the kids were talking and laughing, and Rory wondered how they could appear so happy here -- how they were so content removed from the rest of the world.

"This is nice," Christopher remarked.

"Heaven on earth," Rory muttered absently. She was even surprised at the words and the tone in which she had said them; she was usually not exceedingly sarcastic. Had she the influence of her mother, maybe she would have been different; but in Lorelai's absence, Christopher had lost any sense of humor he might have previously possessed, thus draining Rory of any sarcastic humor she might have been destined to acquire.

Christopher stopped the car outside of the second building they came upon. He got out and removed her suitcases from the trunk.

Rory stepped out into the fresh air. The building was very imposing; she craned her neck looking up at it.

"Only the best for you," Christopher said.

Wrong choice of words. "Right," Rory answered. "Thanks for putting so much thought into my banishment. I appreciate it."

Christopher looked at her and decided to give up. He carried her suitcase into the building.

Rory stood back for a moment, feeling the curious glances on her. In a boarding school, she thought every arrival of a new student boarder must be a big event. She was correct in this line of thinking -- they were, by their standards, so cut off from the outside world that anyone fresh from it was interesting to them.

She looked at the building and, out of the corner of her eye, the students for a moment more before she entered the front hall.

Rory was looking at her new home for the rest of her secondary school career. A place with uncomfortable-looking chairs, conceited-looking girls, and humorless-looking adults sparsely scattered in the hall.

She hoped the word "looking" was the operative one in these thoughts -- otherwise, she didn't know how she would survive it.