It Was All For Nothing

Disclaimer: If I owned it, Tristan would come back and end up with Rory and they'd live happily ever after. Draw your own conclusions.

A/N: I know, I know, I should be working on No Matter What They Tell Us. However, I got bitten by the plot bunny (or eagle, in my case) and so, ta da. Here you go. This probably won't be updated often, I write this in the back of my notebook when I'm bored in class. Read, review, and all flames will be used to expand gases in my chem class. Have fun!

"Aaron, remind me why I'm here?" Rory was whining at the host of the party she was at, her friend Aaron. It was the summer before her senior year of college, and she had been dragged to Aaron's house in Loudonville, New York. He was having the equivalent of a Hartford society party, and Rory couldn't believe that she'd been conned into it.

"Because I promised you coffee."

Oh, yeah. That's why she'd come. "Mmmk. Where is it?"

"No, no, no." Aaron laughed at the eager look on Rory's face. "First I want you to meet someone."

"You'd better not be trying to set me up again. The last time I went on a blind date for you, I was wiping my hands of the slime for a week." She shuddered.

Aaron grinned. "No. This is just a guy friend of mine who I think you'd get along with." At Rory's dubious look, he laughed. "He's got a good sense of humor, he's smart, and, as weird as this sounds coming from a straight guy, he's really good looking."

Rory sighed. "Alright. Sure. Whatever."

"Great. Hey, T!" Aaron yelled to someone across the room. Rory sighed and closed her eyes. "T! I'd like you to meet a friend of mine!"

"You'd better not be trying to set me up again."

Rory recognized the voice, and her head snapped up. "BIBLE-BOY?"

"MARY?"

Aaron looked from Tristan to Rory. "You know each other?"

Tristan smirked. "Yeah. Aaron, this is my Mary."

Aaron's jaw dropped. He'd heard of Tristan's Mary, who hadn't? She was the reason that Tristan didn't date much, and when he did, he dated brown haired, blue-eyed, intellectual types. And she was also the reason he was addicted to coffee.

"Five years and you still can't remember my name. And I'm not your anything." Rory turned to Aaron. "You remember all the stuff I said about 'ET'?"

"Sure. The guy who made your life hell in Chilton."

"Did I never tell you what it stood for?"

Aaron looked confused. "Yeah, Evil Trist…" His eyes got wide. "Ooooohhhh! Evil Tristan. This Tristan!"

"Aw, you had a nickname for me. I always knew you loved me, Mary."

"Yeah, that's why the word evil is included in it."

Aaron looked between the two of them, Tristan smirking at Rory, Rory glaring daggers at Tristan. He backed away slowly, a little scared. "I'm just gonna go greet my other guests, now…"

"COWARD!" Rory yelled after him. She turned back to Tristan. "You idiot. When you left, I had to kiss PARIS. PARIS of all people. I'd just gotten over my suicidal instincts about kissing you, then I had to kiss Paris. Do you know how horrible that was?" She shook her head. "Aaron doesn't know you all that well. He said you were smart, good-looking, and had a good sense of humor. I don't know why I believed him. And I still want my textbooks back!" She turned and stalked off to find someone else to talk to. Tristan ran after her and grabbed her arm.

"Rory, look, I'm sorry. Can we start over again? Please?" Rory looked skeptically at him, searching his bright blue eyes for sincerity.

"All right…" Rory said warily.

Tristan smirked. "So, how are things with the bag boy?"

Rory glared. "He's married. I don't think this is going to work, Tristan. Goodbye." She turned and walked off.

Tristan grabbed a drink from a table in the corner, watching Rory in her blue dress floating around the room. She laughed at jokes, she chatted with friends. It was hard, like the Chilton formal. She was there, but she wanted nothing to do with him. He didn't even notice when Aaron came up to stand next to him.

"She is gorgeous, isn't she?"

"Mmhmm."

"You know, if you'd ever mentioned her real name, I would have told you that I knew her and you would have had your Mary back a long time ago."

Tristan sighed. "It doesn't matter. She hates me, anyways."

Aaron laughed. "Well, yeah. You're a jerk. You're egotistical, you are self-centered, and you're a playboy. Remember, she doesn't know you. She knows Tristan-from-five-years-ago. You've got to convince her you're serious, or she'll never let you near her. Oh, and you might want to let people know she's your Mary. Otherwise, she's gonna get hit on. A lot." With a wink and an oddly Tristan-like smirk, Aaron strolled off into the living room.

A week and a half later, Rory went back to Yale. Same as last year, she was sharing a room with Paris. This year, however, it was in an apartment just off campus. Rory was in her bedroom, putting some things in the dresser when someone knocked on the door. "Hey, Paris, can you get it?"

Muttering something about lazy roommates, Paris made her way across the box-filled room to the door. When she opened it, her mouth dropped open.

"Hey, Gellar, long time no see."

"Tristan! What are you doing here?"

"I just transferred to Yale, heard you lived on the same floor of the same building as I did, so I stopped by to say hi."

Paris looked stunned. "Hi… come in. You can sit on any box not labeled fragile."

Tristan laughed and perched himself on a box that had originally held a microwave. Suddenly, there was a voice from the kitchen. "Hey, Paris! Have you seen the box with the coffee maker?"

Paris glanced around. "Yeah, it's in the box Tristan is sitting on."

"TRISTAN?" Rory stuck her head around the doorframe and groaned. "Why me?"

"Well, hello, Mar… Rory." Tristan stood up, hefted the box and carried it over to her. "Where do you want this?"

Rory looked at him suspiciously. "Why are you being so nice? And since when do you remember my real name? And it goes right there." She pointed.

He gently eased the box onto the counter and smiled. No smirk, just a smile. "I am being nice because I AM nice. I always remembered your name, I just chose not to use it. I'm not a teenager anymore. I can be civilized."

"What are you playing at?" Rory was incredibly skeptical. "Why now, why after all this time? Why couldn't you have been nice to me in high school when I had no friends?" A faint 'Hey!' drifted in from the living room, and Rory corrected herself. "No friends until after you left."

Paris came to the doorway. "She's right, you know. Tristan, you were a jerk. Believe me. It's weird seeing you all nice."

Only Tristan heard when Rory muttered, "And I don't think I'm ever going to get used to not having you call me Mary."

"So, Mary, Paris, you want to go out for coffee?" Both of them looked at him, startled. Paris wondered why he hadn't asked Rory out yet, and Rory wondered why he was calling her Mary again, but it didn't sound mocking. It sounded like an affectionate nickname, not a teasing one. Thinking of free coffee snapped Rory out of her confusion.

"Let's go. You're buying." She was out the door before the other two had time to register what she'd said.

A/N: You've read, now review. Gratias ago!