Okay, so as soon as I posted just chapter one, I realized I was a complete idiot. I mean, I say that the story is Rory/Tristan and all I put up there is Tristan's interaction with his daughter. So here's something for you guys to hold onto until the actual romance blooms and everything, around the handful that is Robin DuGrey.

Chapter Two: Don't Know Your Face

Tristan stared at the ceiling of his calm, shadowed bedroom and thought of all the girls he may or may not have impregnated during his time in high school. He thought of the tears they shed as soon as the saw that stupid pink line appear yet again on their umpteenth pregnancy test or their subconscious gesture of rubbing a hand over their stomachs while wondering how they were ever going to give and support life to another human being without losing their own.

And somehow, that all seemed less severe than having his own Robin be with-child in the next room, subconsciously rubbing her stomach and wracking her brains for ideas of how she was going to support that child and what she was going to do when her dad finally came to his senses and stopped the whole calm charade he seemed to have going.

Sitting up, the covers lodged the bulk of themselves around his waist as he groped around for the bottle of ibuprofen that turned out to be empty.

Sighing, exhausted but by no means prepared for sleep, Tristan rubbed his aching eyes and reached for the phone.

-- -- -- --

"Oh, my God, mom, will you leave it alone? You'd think with Luke thre to control you somewhat you'd drop this habit of pestering me at four in the morning but sure enough--"

"I'm... not Lorelai," a hesitant voice replied.

Rory's eyebrows drew together in stark realization.

"Tristan?" her tongue pronounced with a fuzzy, sleepy undertone. Readjusting her eyes to the dark of her room, she glanced at the clock, though she knew she was a mere few hours away from having to get up for work.

"I'm sorry I woke you. I--I don't even know I did at four in the morning, I'm such a jerk," he reprimanded as he recognized the exhaustion in his conversationalist's voice. "I'll call you back later. In the day time. Promise."

"Wait," Rory sat up, shouldering the phone and pressing it to her left ear. "Is everything okay? You sound... Well, not good is definitely a start."

There was a brief pause on the other end.

"Not good really doesn't begin to describe it, but if I began to describe it, you would be getting about as much rest as I am these days and that's no good for either of us," he replied. "I'm sorry, Ror. Go back to sleep."

"No, Tristan," Rory switched ears with the phone, "you didn't call me to tell me to go back to sleep. What's up?"

"I'll explain later, Ror," he evaded.

"Over lunch, then," Rory suggested, glancing at the dim calendar, slightly lit by the moon filtering through her bedroom curtains. "Tomorrow. Meet me at Shakyamuni's at two."

Tristan sighed. "You don't give up. Should've remembered."

"Yes, well, my stubborn side is most prominent from three to five am," she deadpanned.

"I must be losing my touch because your prime time stubbornness doesn't seem to differ too much from this one," Tristan replied with a small, hollow chuckle. She creased her forehead, wondering what could be wrong that she could sense his despair over the telephone.

"We'll have to work on that touch of yours," she replied cautiously. She could almost hear him smile.

"Good night, Rory."

She bit her lip. "Good night, Tristan."

-- -- -- -- --

She could see the Shakyamuni's glaring, fluorescent sign above the cookery seeking her out from across the parking lot, tempting her to come inside the warm, fragrant restaurant from the November chill. Clutching her purse to her side, she locked her car and started toward the entrance, suddenly very aware of the last time she'd seen Tristan.

"It's going to be so easy for me to jump to conclusions right about now, granted our provocative position, so I'm just going to wait for you to cut in at any moment and tell me that I'm wrong and that nothing happened." Rory shut her eyes and wrapped the cool sheet more tightly around her nude body.

She heard a shuffling next to her, on the other side of the bed.

"Any time now," Rory prompted with substantially less conviction to her voice, sliding further down under the covers in shame. "Tristan..."

She heard the door shut in response and took it as her opportunity to think through her next step, out of this mess and out of this apartment. She combed a hand through her hair and rolled onto her stomach, muffling her face in the pillow as she let out a long-awaited scream.

Seconds passed, blurring into minutes and the only sound Rory took mild comfort in the was the sound of Tristan's shower, for its constant, lulling drumming if not for its literal cleansing of the night that never should have happened. Licking her lips, she rolled back onto her back and sighed, glancing at the digital clock on the night table.

"It's only nine," she heard a voice announce as the bathroom lock clicked open, a towel-clad Tristan emerging from the steamy shower. "You don't have another class for a couple of hours."

Rory closed her eyes. "Great."

She heard him open a drawer of an armoire before sighing. "You know, I want to tell you it didn't happen, Gilmore..."

Rory's eyes snapped open as she snorted. "No, you don't. Tristan, that has to be the least convincing thing I've ever head you say. You--you'll probably add this to your little black book of conquests, that you nailed Mary Gilmore and whoop-tee-doo, you did it. Drunken stupor upon me or not."

Tristan shut the drawer with a loud clank. "Really? That's what you think?" His voice held an edge to it it'd been lacking before.

Sitting up, wrapping the sheet fully around her body, Rory expelled a breath. Sauntering over to the bathroom, Rory put a hand on the bathroom knob. "That's what I know."

"Of course you do, Rory. Because you weren't throwing yourself at me last night," he challenged, stopping her in her tracks to the bathtub. "I seduced you."

She turned around, eyes wide with insistence. "I don't know what I did last night, Tristan. That's the point! I don't remember--which is one of the primary reasons I'm not all that great friends with Jack Daniels. But you do, you remember what the hell happened last night so you must have been somewhat conscious of what you were doing." She opened her mouth to continue, but decided that there was enough blame in the sentence without need for addition, she closed it.

"So I should've stopped you and I should've stopped myself and put you to sleep on the couch, no matter how insistent you were, being the prince charming you want everyone to be," he listed off in a condescending voice before gaining back his own. "I was drunk too, you know. And you were pretty convincing, if you really want to know." She glared at his faint allusion to a leer.

"But you could've stopped it! If you didn't think it was funny and some kind of victory that I wanted to have sex with you, you could've stopped it!"

"Rory, I don't want to have sex with you!" Silence befell the room. "And I wish I'd stopped it, I do," he added, rubbing a temple. Seeing Rory's surprisingly hurt, but mostly stoic expression caused him to sigh and approach her, though she immediately recoiled. "I didn't mean... I meant..." He stopped. "I meant that I wouldn't want to have sex with you when you're like that, Rory. I wouldn't want to have sex with you when we're both drunk and you're prone to come onto a fire hydrant, given the opportunity. I'd want your consent, your sober consent." He walked to toward the bedroom door, intent on giving the kitchen a visit. "I'm not proud of what happened, Rory. I just want you to know that in my mind I'm not giddy, doing the fucking Macarena because I screwed the girl who was too shit-faced to differentiate a dog from an airplane."

As the door shut behind him, Rory's entire muscle strength gave out, leaving her to lean against the bathroom counter, letting out a deep, held breath. She was perturbed, and scared, and confused, and ashamed. But somehow Tristan's words soothed her.

Hello, I'm, uh... I'm meeting a friend here. By the name of DuGrey." The hostess eyed the reservations list, then the restaurant, a broad smile accenting her welcoming expression as she pointed to a table in the middle of the room. Rory smiled a thank-you and started toward the table with a dark-blond occupant, his back to her, obviously clad in a suit.

"Tristan." She tapped his shoulder awkwardly as she rose to his feet abruptly, flustered. He smiled, seeing who it was and, all problems forgotten, assaulted her with the most needy hug she'd been enveloped in, in a while. Pulling back with a sheepish smile, characteristically lacking shyness, he offered her a seat opposite his, pushing the decorative flowers to the side of the table.

"It's good to see you, Rory," he smiled. "When we said we'd keep in touch, we really were a couple of lying assholes, weren't we?"