Tristan walked into Durfree's suite five behind Rory. He was loaded down with care packages that Sookie and Luke had left at the Gilmore house to be taken with Rory. He was hoping maybe she'd take pity on him and split some of her goodies for him to take with him tomorrow. He looked around the suite, impressed at the furniture in the front room. The dorms at UNC were nowhere near this nice, which is one of the main reasons he'd opted for an apartment.

Rory turned to Tristan, who had stopped and was looking around the room.

"My grandma redecorated. Look in the hutch over there."

Tristan put down the food he was carrying and opened the hutch in the corner. Inside was a flat panel HDTV.

"Good lord, my television isn't even this nice!"

"Yeah, she sort of went overboard. I'm in here," she pointed towards her and Paris' room.

Shaking his head slightly, he followed Rory into her room that she shared with Paris. It was a typical dorm room, small with barely enough room for two beds and two desks. Paris was sitting on her bed, reading, when they walked in.

"Dugrey, what are you doing here?"

"Gee, nice to see you too, Paris."

"You guys could at least warn me if you had to bring lovefest 2004 here tonight. I could have made other arrangements."

Rory blushed a little and shook her head at Paris. "You know, we are capable of keeping our hands off of one another. He's just staying one night."

"Speak for yourself," Tristan turned to Rory.

"Paris, how was your second date with Marty?" she inquired, ignoring Tristan.

"It went really well. Actually we went to his hometown. Some friend of his was having a party."

"You went home with him? So did you meet the parents?"

"It's no big deal."

"It's sort of a big deal."

"Whatever you say. So did you two have fun this weekend?"

"Tristan flew up and surprised me last night."

"So he met Lorelai."

"Yep."

"How did that go over?"

"Well," Rory hedged.

"I didn't make the best first impression." Tristan admitted.

"She didn't walk in on anything, gross, did she?"

"No, it's just I'm used to waking up early, and she wasn't a big fan of that."

"I'm really going to have to break you of that habit."

"It's going to take long nights of keeping me very busy, that's all," he suggested.

"Seriously, maybe I'll go upstairs and crash with Marty. His roommate is at his girlfriend's apartment all the time."

"Paris, you don't have to," Rory assured.

"No, no, it's fine. Really. It's still early, maybe we'll grab dinner. Would you like to join us?"

"Nah, Sookie and Luke sent enough food for an army. We'll probably just stay in."

"Right. See you two later."

"Later, Paris."

Tristan nodded at her, and Rory smiled as Paris grabbed a few things and disappeared.

"Now I feel bad."

"Why?"

"I made my roommate vacate so I could do unspeakable things in our room."

"They are hardly unspeakable. I can prove that to you," he offered.

"I came back early to study. That was my original game plan."

"So I wasn't in the cards?"

"Definitely not. But I'm glad you're here."

"Good. Oh, I spoke to my grandfather today. He wants us to have dinner with him, Richard and Emily sometime."

"That might be fun."

"Yeah. He is excited to get to know you."

"That's nice. You guys are really close, aren't you?"

"Yeah, he's a great man."

Rory smiled at him and settled down on her bed to start studying for her next test in Calculus. Tristan had settled down with a book on Paris' bed. He was doing more staring in her direction than reading, and would look away when she noticed him. After about a half hour, she couldn't take it anymore.

"Stop looking at me," she pleaded, without looking up from her book.

"I'm not looking at you."

"Yes, you are. You have been this whole time. It's unnerving."

"Well, maybe if you weren't all the way over there, I wouldn't have to stare from afar."

"You want to come over here?" she asked incredulously.

"Thanks for the invite. I do believe I will join you."

Without another word, and before she could protest, Tristan moved over to her and sat so he was resting against her pillows, and she was seated up against his chest, still working on her studying. His legs were on either side of her, and he was acting like a giant pillow.

"This isn't so bad, is it?" he whispered into her ear.

"Um, uh, no, no, its fine. I just need to concentrate here."

She didn't sound so convincing, but she was determined to study. She tried to ignore the way they were molded together, her back pressed into his front. She was doing an adequate job until she felt him take her hair back from her neck and grazed down the length of her neck with his teeth.

"Tristan," she breathed.

"Yes?"

"Stop, seriously. I have a calculus test in two days."

"And you have me for one night."

"Well, maybe you should transfer to Yale, and I could see you anytime I wanted. Then these interludes wouldn't be so infrequent."

"You think you'd get any studying done ever if I were here full time?" he countered, now starting to suck on the hollow of her collarbone. Shivers shock waved down her spine and it was all she could do not to flip over and attack him.

"We could study together," she suggested when she found her voice again.

"Rory, I'm not going to transfer," he sighed and leaned back against the pillows. She silently cursed herself a little for breaking his actions, but this conversation had been rehearsed over and over in her mind, she desperately wanted some answers. She closed her book and turned around to face him.

"Can I ask you what would be so bad about transferring? People do it all the time."

"I won't transfer because I like where I am. I'm on my own, my own terms, my own decisions."

"Is this about your family?"

"Rory," he pleaded with her, he really didn't want to get into his family yet.

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"You coming here would mean that they had rule over you again? How is that possible?"

"If I came back, I'd have to be around them a lot more. As it is, I come back when my mom insists, and sometimes I sneak in and see Gramps."

"So this has to do with your dad."

He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. "Yes."

Her voice softened and she put her hand over his. "You can tell me anything. If you really don't want to transfer, I'm willing to live with that, but you have to tell me why."

"The reason I'm on my own is that my father agreed to sign over my trust fund to me early when I got out of military school. I wasn't supposed to get it until I turned 25. When I was born, my grandfather set up a trust fund, and everyone assumed by 25 I would have graduated from Yale and would be working towards partner in a prestigious law firm somewhere."

"So how'd you get it early?"

"I made a deal with the old man. I keep his secrets and he lets me live my own fucking life."

"Secrets?"

"You can't repeat this. To anyone. At all."

"You can trust me. I won't tell anyone."

"Before I got busted for breaking into the safe—actually the night before, I came home from school. My mom was off in Palm Springs with her old college roommate for some yearly retreat they do. Dad was home, which I thought was weird. He never gets home from work until at least 6pm, and that's on an early night. But there was his car, in the driveway."

He took a breath and looked at Rory who was intently listening. He looked away and continued.

"I walked into the house and heard voices. God, he wasn't even careful—he was with his secretary in the living room. On our couch. He started yelling at me about how I was supposed to be at group practice, but it got moved from Chilton after school to Stars Hollow that night, remember? I walked out and left for Stars Hollow right then. That night, I broke in the safe and got caught. Dad picked me up and in the car he told me I was going to military school and he threatened that if I ever told anyone about what I saw that afternoon, he'd make it a lot worse for me. So I kept my mouth shut and when I graduated, he said he'd stay out of my life if I stayed out of his. He signed my trust over to me and that was it."

Rory sat still, taking in what Tristan was saying. She felt horrible, that he'd had to hold all this in. She couldn't believe parents could treat their kids so with such an unfeeling selfishness.

"So your mom never found out?"

"Nope. Not that I believe for a second that the bastard stopped at one, or that there weren't others before or since. Mom deserves a lot better. Gramps wants us to make up. He also wants me to transfer. So does Mom. But Dad's never talked about it."

"But even if you transferred, you wouldn't have to see him any more than you wanted to."

"Rory, I just wanted get away from the whole mentality—that whole lifestyle. Where it's normal to cheat on you wife as long as you can buy off both her and your mistress. Where your children are nothing you can't just ship off and let someone else deal with. I wanted out."

"And you got out. You're not like that, at all!"

"Rory, I love being with you. I'm just, not ready to come back yet. Can we just enjoy being together and worry about all this later?"

She nodded and kissed him. It wasn't passionate, it was more soothing and reassuring. She wrapped her arms around him and he buried his face into her shoulder.

"Thanks for listening to me."

"I'm always here for you. I understand that you need time, and we'll figure all this out later."

"Can we get out of here? Let's go see a movie. When we get back, I'll quiz you on Calculus."

He seemed sincere, and she knew telling her all that hadn't been easy. They could use a break from reality. She nodded and they went into town to the theater. They ran into Paris and Marty outside in the ticket line, and joined them.

Rory noted how nice it was to see Paris happy without all the angst of her prior relationships. She genuinely seemed to like Marty and he seemed comfortable with her, too. She surprised herself at the match. She hadn't been sure that they would hit it off, but she was glad for both of them. The foursome decided to go to a local diner after the movie, and the girls headed to the bathroom once they had been seated.

"Fancy meeting you guys there—I thought you were 'staying in'."

"You make that sound dirty."

"Shouldn't it be? This is Tristan."

"Hey, you said yourself that he was different."

"Well, he's still Tristan. That part of him would have to be cut off for certain things to change."

"Well, I admit, it's not completely innocent, but it's not what we're all about."

"So why are you here?"

"We got into a discussion about him transferring, and it got heavy. So we decided to get out of our mini-drama and join the rest of the world."

"That must be hard, the long distance thing."

"You know what it's like, it's just frustrating."

"I know, but you guys can make it work. I mean, if anyone can, I'd put my money on you."

"Thanks, Paris. I appreciate that."

They joined the boys, who were laughing so hard Rory thought she saw tears forming in Tristan's eyes.

"Boy, you two got chummy," she commented.

"I was just telling Marty here about Paris' eighth grade graduation speech."

"TRISTAN!" Paris erupted, blushing furiously.

"What? It was funny!"

Rory was lost, looking to Marty, who was still laughing.

"Oh, come on, Paris, you know about my most embarrassing moment, why isn't it fair that I know yours?" Marty countered.

"I can't believe you two! Never trust men, especially two of them together," Paris huffed.

"Someone tell me what happened!" Rory pleaded, feeling left out of the loop.

Tristan reached out and pulled her in to him, and whispered into her ear. Rory's eyes got big and she started giggling.

"You didn't!" she cried to Paris.

"No one told me! How was I supposed to know?"

"You couldn't feel that?"

"No! Don't you think I would have pulled my skirt out of my pantyhose if I had felt it?" Paris replied, still miffed at Tristan's sharing.

"I just, I can't imagine you going up in front of the whole school like that!" Rory gasped out, in between laughs.

"We can stop talking about this anytime now," Paris sulked.

"Oh, come on. Learn to laugh at yourself. It's cathartic," Marty assured, putting his arm around her and pulling her towards him. He kissed her cheek, and Rory smiled, as she leaned on Tristan before a new wave of giggles hit her.

Finally the foursome calmed down a little as the waitress brought their order and they began eating and chatting. They sat there for hours, just enjoying being together without a care in the world.