I Need You

A/N: These next few chapters are going to suck, I'm telling you right now. The only reason I'm continuing on with this fic is because I have the end worked out and I like it. So I apologize greatly if the next three or so chapters seem rushed or are just plain crap. I promise that it'll get better as it starts to wind down. Anyway, thanks for reading, those of you who have. Another thing: In the first chapter, I put that Lorelai is pregnant with Chris's baby. I don't plan on writing that in anymore, unless you all want me to. Then I'll try to, but, unless you want to suffer through having to read all of that, I'm going to leave it out.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Chapter 8: It doesn't Work that Way

She knew that she had been acting childish lately - talking about stupid things, like flying, rather than what she and Tristan obviously needed to talk about. She was happy at the thought of her and Tristan being on good terms again, even though it was technically her fault in the first place.

She walked through the hallway, making her way to where his locker was. That's when she froze. She saw him. She saw him kissing that. Madison. 'Just talking, my ass,' she thought. Her legs went numb, all feeling left her body. Immediately, her hand found its way to her mouth, muffling a small gasp. She stared at them in disbelief. She turned and she ran - ran away from him.

{}{}{}{}{}

"Rory?" Silence. "Rory?" he tried again.

A sniffle. "Just leave me alone, Tristan."

He paused. Her voice was soft, so soft and full of pain. "Rory…" His hand came up to her face, gently pushing her hair back behind her ear. She was crying. Her face was pale, her eyes red and tear-filled. "What's wrong?" he asked tenderly.

She pushed his hand away, slamming her locker shut. "Just leave me alone," she said once more, before walking off.

{}{}{}{}{}

He had been leaning up against his locker now for about a half an hour; he just couldn't figure out what was wrong with Rory. He stared intently down at the floor, not really noticing the slight glare from the lights overhead or the soft poundings of footsteps.

"That was some show you put on."

He glanced up, seeing Paris. "What are you talking about?" He didn't really show interest and wasn't all that intent on absorbing anything that would be said by her.

"You and Madison. In the hallway." Her voice was indifferent, a surprising tone which Tristan had never heard from her.

"What?" he asked confused.

"The little, well, not really little 'cause it seemed like your lips were melded together, but still, all the same, make-out session you had in the hallway." Her unaffected pitch stayed the same.

"Oh." He looked down at the ground then back up at her. "No one was supposed to see that."

She rose her eyebrows at that. "Tristan, you two were in a hallway, so unless you somehow know of one that makes people invisible once they are inside, I'm guessing that a lot of people saw you.

"Oh," he mumbled again. Where was she with that logic an hour ago?

"Why are you so down?"

He looked down. "No reason."

"Ah…" She nodded her head as if she had everything figured out. "I get it now."

He looked up at her. "What do you mean?"

"Rory. She saw you two going at it. That's why you're in your 'I'm depressed, leaning here against my locker, so leave me alone' mood," she stated matter-of-factly.

"She saw that?"

"Yep." A pause. "Okay…well, I got to go. See you later." She began to walk off.

He scrunched his eyebrows together, trying to decide if that was the reason Rory had seemed so upset over. Was that why she was crying? Then he cocked his head to the side and saw Paris' disappearing figure. "I do NOT have moods!" he called out as an afterthought. She merely waved at him without turning around to face him He groaned and sunk back against the lockers once more.

{}{}{}{}{}

He tried the next couple of days to get her to talk to him, but wasn't at all successful. She avoided him, ignored him, and glared at him when she had no escape route from him, but never during any of the occurrences did she speak to him. He finally had it. He missed talking to her and would get her to listen to him, even if it was just a one-sided conversation.

"Rory, please, please, just listen to me." She finally stopped speed-walking away from him, after many long minutes of begging on his part, and turned to face him, her face hard and devoid of any real emotion. "I'm sorry," he offered lamely, aware that those words might be the death of him after seeing the glare Rory was giving intensify. "I-I-just-"

"Just what, Tristan?" she asked.

He stared at her for a moment, finally hearing her voice for the first time in three days. "I didn't mean to make you mad."

She scoffed and a look of disbelief came across her face. "You told me that you two were just talking, that you two weren't…like that."

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't think you would see," he explained stupidly.

"You-you didn't think I would see! You were in the freakin' hallway, Tristan!"

He groaned and shut his eyes, remembering his earlier conversation with Paris. "I didn't want you to see," he said quietly.

"Yeah, well, you did a great job of preventing that from happening." She began to walk away, but he grabbed her wrist before she could take another step.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes, just wishing that this whole problem could go away some how. "I just did that to make you jealous."

She rose an eyebrow and her breath became more labored, wanting to contain as much of her anger as she could. "'Make me jealous'?! You thought that you could just go make out with some girl and that I would feel jealous and then run into your arms professing my undying love for you?! It doesn't work like that, Tristan. Why don't you learn to grow up and stop playing with people's emotions like that." She began to walk off, but turned around again. "And just a few words of advice - doing stuff like that will not only make a woman jealous, but it will make her pissed off, probably the latter more. I wouldn't go around kissing random girls, unless you really don't value your life." And with that, she disappeared behind the doors.

He shut his eyes and leaned back against the lockers. It wasn't for another few minutes that what she had said finally sunk into his thoughts. "You thought that you could just go make out with some girl and that I would feel jealous and then run into your arms professing my undying love for you?! It doesn't work like that, Tristan." Jealous…undying love… Tristan ran through the doors that Rory previously used, knowing that she would no longer be there, but needing to see for himself. The cold wind blew across his body as his eyes flitted across the campus, seeing nothing but the trees and few cars in the parking lot. He shut his eyes once more and silently cursed himself for how stupid he had been the last few days.