Shelter

Flossie

Summary- Two years after leaving Chilton, Tristan comes back to find Rory. She's gone. And the soul reason for Tristan's whole life crumbles away from him.

Spoilers-Nothing after Run Away Little Boy.

Rating- PG

Disclaimer- Hopefully once the papers come in, I will officially own Chad Michael Murray. But thanks to the slow postal service, I've been forced to wait.

Author's Note- I've re-posted the entire story again, because I thought it looked shabby and silly. This time everything will be set out nicer, and I want have the personal thank-you's to the reviewers. I'm sorry. But I have every bit the same amount of gratitude towards my reviewers as last time. The story had a little gap, but I'm hoping to finish it within the end of the year.











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Night of the play





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"I gotta go. So, I might kiss you goodbye but, uh, your boyfriend's watching. Take care of yourself, Mary."



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That sentence had left her wondering. The sort of wonder you have when you've never tried something before and it looks terrible from afar, but you can't help to wonder what it tastes like in the inside. The look of it is alluring, but you've been told it's not worth giving a go.


Tristan was always confusing her. The things she heard about him were mostly less than flattering, but Rory couldn't help but think he must be different sometimes. She got a tiny taste of who he was at Madeline's party, for one brief second Tristan was Tristan, not someone else everyone thought he should be. And for one second he was who he should be;


Himself.




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He was just a little confused kid with no-one to seek solitude in, no-one to talk to. And it was killing him. Eating through him like acid, poisoning him. Because at such a carefree bright age of seventeen, Tristan realised he wasn't loved by his parents.

And probably never would be.


But in some small part of him, he was still hopeful. Even though he was so far away, somehow he kept a tiny part of him free to love Rory. The kind of fresh no-strings attached love, that kept him going, kept his heart beating, kept him sane.




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On the way to the airport





"You know you brought yourself into this mess."


Tristan fixated his eyes out to the window, pretending to be interesting in the flashing white speed-lights.


"I wasn't like you when I was your age. I knew I had a name to live up to."


He was finding it hard to grit his teeth so tight and breathe at the same time.


"You were just asking for this Tristan, you remember that."






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Two years after graduating Military SchoolHartford





And I did remember it. Every word. Like it had been recorded into my brain. Stamped in there for all eternity. Why did he keep pushing? Keep nagging, knowing it was going to get to me some time? Did he want me to get angry? Did he want me to shout at him? Or did he just want another reason, another excuse to tell his 'friends' at the Country Club for not being the good father?
It went on the whole car trip there. I still don't understand how I didn't go crazy and verbally assault him for all it was worth. But now, I'm glad I didn't, because for once,

I was the mature one. He was the teenage son that needed help. He was the juvenile kid that hurt someone to make themselves feel superior. He didn't get his outcome. And it felt so good.





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The day I graduated from military school I was sent a letter from my father. I was to move away to Los Angeles and set up a corporation of the Du 'Grey family there. I was sent the money, and the contacts. Everything was set out on a silver platter to me. And I took it. This was the worst mistake of my life. In a few months I found myself being the person I never wanted to be.

Alone again. And empty.

Those two years of my life I felt myself asking too many questions. I found myself suffering severe migraines and I didn't know why. I felt myself feeling like my father.

And I knew I had to get out somewhere.

The death of my father was where I could finally end the business I had made for myself in the past two years. When I got the phone call from our family maid telling me my father had died was the moment I packed it in.
That was yesterday.



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Sometimes I can think of those times and not feel guilty for hating him. Sometimes I can think that he deserved my hatred. But no matter how much I'd like to deny it, he was my father.

Scientifically anyway.


And it hurts to think that now, driving to his funeral in a shiny black car sitting next to my mother, he never had the chance to be a father. And I can't cry for him knowing so.






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I remember why I felt good after leaving Harvard to North Carolina now. Living so far away from it for so long now has almost made me forget why I felt so free in North Carolina, why I felt I could breathe. People suffocate me. For seventeen years of my life, I was slowly being strangled by people. And they were all fake. Meaningless. Because they all acted as they should act. Talk as they should talk. Properly. Everything was done to perfection. Everything was done for a reason to be perfect. My parent's friends would talk to me, tell me how handsome I'd grown to be, coo over how they used to know me as a child, then, once they could have won a few  Grammies for their acting performance, smile outwardly, as if they'd accomplished the task of talking to the Du 'Grey boy, and walk faultlessly away, knowing they would  have gotten either a raise, or more recognition over being what most normal people would call polite chit chat. But nothing about anything in my life was any of the least  bit normal. Everything was done for getting something good for themselves.

End of story.


Maybe that was the actual reason I enjoyed life in North Carolina at Military Camp. It was safer knowing people weren't going to be false around you. That you weren't going to do or say anything that would be used against you in another conversation. The few years I spent away from Harvard were my best . Because I was able to be alone. People accepted that I was probably just another snobby rich kid who didn't deserve any talking to.

Although being safe wasn't what I wanted to feel.


I wanted to feel real people.



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After graduation I was stuck in hell for two years. Now that I'm back in Hartford there's only one person I want to see. I've been waiting five years to see her beautiful face again. And I don't think I can hold on any longer.




Rory.








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Chapter 3

Act