A/N - This part goes way faster than expected but I'm skipping forward to get to some Tristan interaction. Paris talks a lot to explain what happened. And Jess watches a lot of tape to find the major difference from the actual movie. And sorry for the confusion but this fic won't end in the way the movie did. In other words no one's going to die or has been killed.
Jess stared at Rory apprehensively. "I'm sorry to tell you this but a few years after Tristan's disappearance the police station auctioned off the car. It's impossible for you to have seen it, especially since they changed the license plates."
"Detective Mariano, I know what I saw and that was Tristan's car down to the last modification. There is no way in hell someone could have replicated his car and license and there is no way in hell I'm wrong about what I saw," Rory yelled, the subject of Tristan irritating her. "He was watching me and he is alive."
"Rory, maybe we should close this case indefinitely. No one was thinking about the effects on you and your friends and to tell you the truth everyone else was a little sensitive about the subject. It's wrong to drudge up something like this and the Foundation can wait the full seven years," Jess responded sympathetically. Thinking that the girl was hallucinating because Tristan was suddenly reintroduced, he felt responsible for the disruptions.
"No!" she cried out at the thought of having this brought up again but left unfinished, "Listen, I know what some people might have said, but I have no idea where Tristan went or what happened to him. And I had nothing to do with his disappearance," she closed her eyes and sighed heavily before continuing, "I just need some closure. You can ask any of my friends. He might as well still be here with the amount of time I spend thinking about him. I need to know whether or not he's going to show up again, if he's dead or not coming back. I cannot live with him constantly haunting me. It's torture thinking of all the 'ifs'."
"I'll make you a deal. I still have to interview a couple of your friends, protocol. After that, maybe a week, with what I have I'll decide whether or not to close the case."
Rory almost collapsed in relief with this opportunity to finally put the past behind her. "Thank you, Detective." She stood and abruptly left the police station, leaving him with only one thing to do.
"Paris Gellar?" he called out rushing to the young blonde walking towards the dorms.
"Detective," she replied curtly before continuing.
Jess fell into step beside her and waited to be acknowledged. Eventually she stopped and questioned him, "Can I help you with anything? Wait, I'm sure I can't. I've already told you what little I know."
"You've told me what you know Tristan DuGrey and Rory Gilmore...as two separate entities. Now I need to know about them as couple, to be specific any quarrels they might have had."
Conveniently by a bench Paris took a seat. "I guess you want to know what they were thinking when Tristan decided to drop out of college." He stared at her in response. "Well I can tell you this for sure. Their biggest fights were always about his tendency to leave. Rory always forgave him when he came back and he always forgot that she was ever angry about it. But the most monumental thing I ever remember between the two of them was about a week before his disappearance. Tristan had told Rory about his plans of leaving again and she was, as expected, upset with him and refused to speak with him for the rest of the time he was here."
"This is where everything happens so fast not even Rory is sure of exactly what he did. The night before his big opening he sent a letter to the dorm we shared at the time. One was to the play and the other was a first class ticket to London. I guess, in her mind, she accepted one but not the other. The next night Rory was at the play as expected but when he ran off stage she told me that she didn't bother following him."
"The next morning there was still no sign of him and it was like that for the next week, too. By then it was the date printed on the ticket. I know for a fact that Rory debated for a long time whether or not to get on that plane. And in the end she didn't. Even now she regrets that decision. But then again those are the things that bother her the most about him disappearing like that. One that she could have followed him and he might not be missing. Two that she didn't get the last word. And three was what hurt her the most and keeps her so vulnerable towards him. She didn't get to say her goodbyes."
Jess was pleasantly surprised at her long declaration, having finally learned the full details after pointless interviews with the other friends. "Just to tell you, no one else knows about this. And I expect that confidentiality clause to be honored." She stood up and left him there contemplating her disclosure.
"Damn it, I've got nothing new besides a different kind of sympathy for the girl," he stood there for a moment longer before realizing an open spot that Gellar had left. "A girl who is perfectly capable of lying to her closest friends." Jess turned on his heel and headed for the classroom he had previously visited.
Rory was once again at the library working on her thesis after her short meeting with the Detective. Usually having an assignment like that forced all thoughts of Tristan out of her head but tonight he remained stubbornly in her head.
"Rory. Rory Gilmore," a soft voice called out, voiced by an indistinguishable person.
Immediately her head whipped around at the sound of her name. Thinking it was once again Becky, Rory was surprised to find no one behind her. Her curiosity got the best of her and Rory rose from her work station and headed for the front of the library. A flash of blonde running in front of her and she was chasing the character out the front door.
The guy, Tristan in her mind, was much faster and was already down the stairs just as she was exiting the library. Watching the mystery man run towards the parking lot she distinctly heard Tristan's sharp laugh and his playful taunt, "Come and catch me Rory." Heading back inside Rory immediately cleaned up her workstation and headed for the dorms, knowing that she wasn't going to accomplish much else anymore.
Jess pushed the tape inside his VCR and pressed 'play'. After three hours of sitting in front of the Professor's office he had finally got what he came for and had returned to his apartment. He watched the beginning of the film once more listening to Tristan's problematic speech and rolled his eyes at the guy's attempt to sound worldly.
He rewound the tape to the beginning, this time with the sound off as to read the guy's emotions and not be thrown off by his words. The camera played over the audience and Jess recognized Rory standing on the left side of the screen where he had already identified her in his first viewing of the film.
Tristan's expressions varied throughout his short speech. At first Jess recognized the pre-emptive disgust that was necessary to sincerely pull off the lecture. Surprisingly enough, the next give away was a short flickering in his eyes then a kind of stiffening of his entire body. By the time that passed Tristan was blatantly angry and the speech came across more than it did when he was just disgusted.
Jess rewound to Tristan's appearance, trying to find what exactly had set off the guy's spasm. In slow motion the camera displayed the path of Tristan's eyes. Starting from evidently the right side of the screen, his eyes panned over the crowd and his expression turned sour, to what Jess specifically knew as jealously. Freezing the shot, Tristan had been staring at the left side of the screen right before he turned bitter.
It was then that Jess knew exactly what had set the kid off. He went back to the very beginning, intent on capturing every moment of screen time that Rory had from her little place in the shadows. Almost immediately Jess' gaze was drawn away from its subject to the guy standing very close to her.
Earlier, before the interviews, he would have played off the other guy as a friend. But now, even without a clear shot of the face, Jess recognized the tall, lanky figure as Dean Forrester.
During the interview Jess was clueless as to why Dean's name was on the list. He didn't know much about Tristan's disappearance and even less about the actual guy. But who better to include on the list than the guy trying to steal Tristan's girlfriend?
Jess' mind was immediately drawn to the obvious procedure. Tristan sees girlfriend. Tristan sees girlfriend and Dean. Tristan jumps to conclusions. Tristan leaves the production. Tristan leaves the country.
When Jess first came up with the idea of re-watching the tape he had been looking for suspicious activity by Rory. It was impossible for Paris to say that Rory didn't go after him with how much she seemed to care for him.
The tape finally caught his attention again as he had left it playing. The camera was now switching between the stage and the fire exit that Tristan had left from, waiting for him to make another apearance. In one of the shots he saw Rory still watching the production and he knew that she really hadn't gone after Tristan. But there was still someone missing from the shot.
He rewound it back to Tristan's departure and waited for the camera to pan back over to the door. In the first shot Rory was still talking to Dean but in the second he could see the door still closing and Rory standing there alone.
