Disclaimer: All Gilmore-Girl related things (namely Tristan and Rory) belong to Amy-Sherman Palladino and the WB.

Author's Note: This story is mildly inspired by my favorite movie of all time (The train scene may give you a hint). I won't say which one because that would probably spoil things. Y'all are smart though. You'll figure it out.

Chapter One: Dreams in White and Grey

I feel better in the winter, though I'm not sure why. There's something I like about November and December especially, the way the entire world goes grey when snow falls. It's too bright in January, there's too much sunlight making the snow gleam, till everything is blinding white and everyone starts thinking life's alright. It isn't better and it won't be. At least in December and November you don't think about anything, just grey skies, grey city. Sleep is grey, I think, and somehow, when snow has fallen, it muffles everything; it blocks life out.

* * *

He'd been standing in the rain for quite some time. He was watching puddles form. He wondered, briefly, if the rain would melt all the snow. It was hard to tell.

"Tristan!" A voice calls to him. He raises his head slowly. The voice comes into view. It belongs to a girl in a cream coloured coat. One of her hands is holding a red umbrella, the other is busy waving at him from across the street. The lights turn green and she crosses over to him.

"What are you doing? I've been watching you stare at the gutter for several minutes!"

He grins and, taking her hand, pulls her over to stand next to him. Side by side they stare down at the gutter. Brown head next to blonde, shielded from the rain by a red umbrella.

"Oh..." says the girl "...now I see...I see that you're completely crazy! Seriously Tristan, what are we doing?"

"We, my young apprentice, are watching puddles form. I needed something to do to occupy me while I waited for you! You're such a slowpoke."

She looks him up and down "My gosh, you're almost completely soaked! I didn't notice right away."

As if on cue Tristan sweeps her into a huge bear hug. She squeals. "Tristan! Not fair, I wasn't expecting that! Your hands are clammy! Stop it, Tristan, you're too evil!"

He laughs and releases her. She looks at him frowningly, but she cannot keep the twinkle out of her eye. They make a pleasant picture, standing there together. Two young lovers, laughing in the rain.

* * *

They had known each other in high school, experienced a rocky friendship. That had come to an end when Tristan had been sent away to military school. They had gone their separate ways, not really thinking of each other, except when recalling high school days. Tristan had studied business at Yale. Sometimes news had drifted back to him, through his parents or through the odd associate who knew of Hartford. He heard for a time whispers of a rift in the Gilmore clan, but he did not pay much attention to them. He was young and busy living life.

It was a surprise therefore, to find himself one day, sitting on the subway next to a woman who looked entirely too familiar. They were both happy to recognize each other, it had been six years since their last meeting. Tristan was different, still confident but without the swaggering arrogance. He often said it had been beaten out of him at military school. Rory too was changed. She was as friendly as ever, but somehow less carefree. Not that she was uptight, but there was something about her which she kept hidden from the world. A sort of personal sorrow.

In any case, they were different people now. The past was behind them. They actually became friends, and met fairly often, till their friendship turned into something more. They talked about everything, past, present, and future. Theirs was a budding relationship.

* * *

She stands with her back to him, the wind whipping the hair round her head into a sort of writhing halo. The air is cold, and the smell of salt overpowering. They have been walking along the boardwalk, looking at the turbulent sea. The sky is grey, threatening snow. Already a fine dusting of white covers the earth. He comes to stand behind her, slipping his hands round her waist. He puts his warm cheek to her cold one and they stand there together. Minutes pass in silence.

"You know" he says quietly "I don't think I've ever been in love before."

She shifts a little in his arms, finally turning her face to him. Her eyes are as grey as the overcast sky. She smiles, briefly, and kisses his cheek. "I know" she says "You love me very much."

He nods and grasps her tighter as the wind picks up.

"Do you want to go now Rory? It's freezing out here!"

"Mmm" she murmurs "But let's come back tomorrow."

They walk together, in the growing twilight, back towards the city and the bright lights. Hand in hand, inseparable for eternity.

* * *

If there was anything Tristan and Rory did not really discuss, it was their parents. They never really had any cause to, in any case. They were adults now, they could take care of themselves. If sometimes Tristan thought it strange that Rory did not mention her mother, he never questioned her. She would tell him about her if she wanted, he would not pry. They had been very close, once upon a time, Tristan knew that. That they no longer were he also knew. He could therefore only wonder as to what had driven them apart.

As to his own parents, they left him alone and he left them alone. He had grown out of the passionate hate he'd once nursed for them. He'd found that at military school he no longer had the energy.

That was something else Tristan did not discuss. It often seemed to him that his years at the Academy came back as surreal flashes, memories of time spent in another world. It had helped him, certainly, it had given him self-honesty.

On another level though, it had also hardened him. Beneath the flesh and muscle, at the very core of Tristan's being, there lay something sharp. It was there he kept the pain he could not accept. It was buried so deep within him that he was no longer even conscious of it. Memories were stored there, to remind him of each time he had been rejected, forgotten. At the Academy there had been ample time to experience new hurts. The initial hazing reserved for new kids had served to humiliate him. The betrayals he had experienced at the hands of those he thought he could call friends.

Too many night spent at the infirmary, because of a broken nose, or finger, the growing number of multicoloured bruises which adorned his body in the early days: These made him become meaner, almost vicious. The other boys stopped jumping him when he gave two a concussion and one a broken jaw. It was more luck than skill on his part, but it made the others afraid. Of course he'd been punished for the constant fighting, his free time taken away to be spent doing chores, or running laps or doing push-ups. He'd even been placed in solitary confinement for three days. In general, he didn't like to remember that episode of his life.

When he'd graduated he had pushed aside his darker half, becoming again the charming and well-mannered man of before. It worked of course, on the outside at least, but the sharpness within him had remained, spikier than ever. He had grown up, matured, from age eighteen to twenty-three. He had thought in time he would manage to outgrow the old hurts, but he did not.

As a result, he was rather pleased but surprised to discover that after meeting Rory and subsequently dating her, the darkness inside himself had abated. He was less angry at everybody. He thought about himself much less. Rory was all that occupied his thoughts. Rory and her beautifully angelic smile. It was she he worried about, her needs he attended to. It was an odd thing, but the more time he spent on Rory the better he felt. Tristan had not had much experience with love before. Lust was a familiar companion, but love? Love was something foreign to him. Love was a denial of selfishness.

* * *

She is sitting at one end of the couch, a book in hand. He lies stretched out beside her, his head resting in her lap. He too is reading. Every now and then she runs a hand through his blonde hair, as though reveling in the feel. She kneads it, pats it, puffs it up and squashes it down. She puts down her book and looks at him. He looks up at her and smiles.

"Restless, Rory?"

She bends her head to kiss his nose, hair falling forward, tickling his face. They look at each other a long time, two faces suspended in time, shielded from the world outside by Rory's curtain of hair.

"Tristan" it is a whisper "My Tristan." She lifts her head and Tristan sits up. He swings his legs down onto the floor and reaches over to her. Then she is in his arms, and her lips are on his.

Sometime later, he finds himself telling her about his parents, about military school, about the things he has kept to himself for so long. She is holding him in her arms, head resting against the back of the sofa. She strokes his arms from time to time, murmuring soothingly. He tells her about his fears, his failures. She does not shrink away from him as he shares his darkest secrets. She does not judge, but holds him tighter in her arms. He feels himself lulled into sleep, as her murmurs grow fainter in his ears, as his eyelids slowly close. He feels a light caress upon his forehead and a warm voice say "Rest, sweetheart."

* * *

Being with Rory became a necessity for Tristan. She was like a sort of drug, thoroughly addictive. He began to smile more, to laugh more freely. It was hard to believe sometimes, that his happiness was real, that good times would last forever. It had been exactly one year, since their first encounter on the subway, and they were closer than he could ever have imagined they would be. It made Tristan wonder, sometimes, if he had formed the right impression of the world. Ever since he had met Rory, he had been inclined to have a little more faith in the human race. He had become more hopeful in his outlook on life, a bit more like Rory.

She never really told him how her life had gone after his departure. She had worked hard, and graduated well. That was all. She had gone to Harvard, as she had dreamed, and studied Journalism. She had ended up in the city, as he had, and then they had met. If Tristan ever minded her secrecy he did not let on. He would not force her into telling him anything, she had to be ready. It is hard to let go of that which lies closest to the heart, to let oneself go, freefalling, trusting absolutely. He understood, for of course, love means patience.

So Tristan waited patiently, until one clear December afternoon, when a phone call came to inform him that his grandfather lay on his deathbed. He phoned Rory immediately after hearing the news. He needed her support. They decided, over the phone, that they would catch the two o'clock train to Hartford. The roads were bad, due to the recent snowfall, and driving down would probably be too slow. They planned to meet at the station, as Rory had a few errands she needed to run beforehand.

* * *

It's one of those winter days where sky and earth merge in a single expanse of white. A man with a small suitcase at his feet is glancing up at the schedule displayed on the giant screen over his head. His eye picks out the information pertinent to himself: "Amtrak - Destination: Hartford - Departure: 14:00 - Current Time: 13: 56"

The glowing numbers seem to burn into eyeballs. He stands, mesmerized, as the time listed morphs slowly to read "13: 57." Rory should be appearing at any minute.

"Tristan" says a voice behind his shoulder. He spins round immediately, a smile on his face, and greets the voice.

"Rory!"

Only it is not Rory. It is a middle aged woman, looking slightly embarrassed "Are you Tristan Dugrey?"

He nods, puzzled, and she holds something out to him. An envelope; with the name Tristan Dugrey written clearly on the front of it. He looks dumbly at the woman. She shrugs. "It was left for us at the ticket counter, earlier this afternoon. We only just noticed your name when you came to buy a ticket."

"Oh." A monosyllable.

The woman studies him "Right. Well, I've got to get back to the ticket desk. Enjoy the train ride." She walks away.

He stares transfixed at the envelope in his hand. In one swift motion, he tears it open. It contains a few words, written on a white slip of paper:

Forget me. Try to forgive me.

Love Always, Rory

His hand goes limp, and the paper falls.

"All aboard!"

His head snaps up. The cry has broken through the wild jumble of his thoughts. He turns, with mechanical feet, and steps out onto the platform. The conductor waves him forward.

He lifts his eyes to the sky above and stares blindly at the swirling snowflakes. Then he boards the train.

* * *

The room is bathed in grey-blue light. I cannot tell if it is early morning or late afternoon. I sit at the window, staring down, at city streets, far below me, at people hurrying by. Who are they? What do they want? I wonder if I am awake. Sometimes it's hard to tell. I like the winter months because of that, because day and night are conquered by the endless greyish-white. It's almost suffocating, the clouds, the sky, confining us to this city of grey buildings, grey faces, fog and smog mixed up together. I can't remember anymore, what I have dreamt, what I have lived.

I place my forehead against cold glass, and watch the heavens open. Come snow, cover the city. Soothe me with your silent lullaby till I can sleep again. Sleep is the snow which clouds the brain. It allows us to forget again, for a time.