She sat staring at the papers in front of her, seemingly immobile since the last time he'd come in to check on her. He'd come in the kitchen, once an hour for the last four, announcing whatever he was 'needing', to no response from her.

This time it was a water refill. Job hunting online was making him thirsty. She nodded, the most of a retort she'd made since they arrived back in Stars Hollow. He set his glass down on the kitchen table and leaned over her shoulder.

"Staring at it won't make the words change."

"This is impossible. I'm supposed to decide everything."

"It doesn't have to be done right now."

"The Inn stuff does. And the house—Luke won't be gone forever. He'll come back, and I'm guessing he'd like to know where he's supposed to live."

"Why didn't she just give him the house?"

"She didn't want me to have to give up anything, if I didn't want to."

He nodded. "Are you going to stay here?"

She turned away from the papers to look at him. "I didn't intend to, but now, I don't really know."

"Yeah. Me too."

"Tristan, you don't have to stay around here just for me. You shouldn't feel obligated, I mean, unless you really want to," she rambled, and he put his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm not leaving."

She smiled. "Good."

"Come on, it's time for a break," he pulled her chair out away from the table.

"This has to be done."

"You've been staring at those papers for four hours. You'll go blind. Come on, get your jacket. We'll take my car."

She knew he was right, staring at the decisions she had to make wasn't making them. She needed to let it sit with her for a while. She stood up, following him into the entryway and pulled her belongings off the rack.

xxxx

"Why are we now being welcomed by Massachusetts?"

"Because we just left Connecticut."

"Tristan, I thought by taking a break, you meant getting an ice cream cone or something."

"We can get ice cream where we're going. Well, on the way."

She looked at him, noting the amused look on his face. He used to do this to her all the time, knowing surprises and suspense drove her crazy. He liked to think of it as payback for her fueling his unending want. They should both suffer, after all.

"So, are you actually kidnapping me, or is this some sort of leave of your mental capacities?"

"So, spur of the moment doesn't really work for you? I'll make a note of that."

"For future reference?"

"More for future attempts at obliterating your anal-retentive ways."

Her mouth hung open in a small 'O'. "I am not anally-retentive."

"You are when you don't have a plan. Relax, I'm driving, so you don't really need to know where we're headed, do you?"

She narrowed her eyes, and sat back in her seat. "You're so going to pay for this later."

He chuckled, continuing to flip through the radio stations without a care. Her version of 'payback' usually included something that made his blood run hot and body ache. He wasn't so worried.

"Rory?"

"Hmm?"

"You spaced out. You okay?"

She nodded, a faint smile on her face. "I was just thinking."

He nodded, figuring it was about Lorelai. "About your mom?"

"About us. We used to do this all the time."

"You mean I used to con you into getting in the car with me and taking you wherever I pleased," he corrected.

"Right," she smiled broader.

"Good to see you're still easily brainwashed by my good looks."

"And you've gotten more modest with time," she said, putting her hand on his arm. They were smiling stupidly at each other, and for the first time in days, she was completely in the moment. Her heart pounded a little harder than normal, just at touching him.

She withdrew her hand after a moment, and he cleared his throat. "Do you really want to know where we're going?"

"Are we stopping before we hit either water or Canada?"

He laughed. "Yes."

"Then I'm good with a surprise."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise, clearly happy. "Good."

xxxx

He'd parked in a downtown garage, and they walked through the busy streets until they got a little bit out of the main downtown area. Ahead was a beautiful park, over looking the water. There were tons of people there, lying in the grass reading, tossing Frisbee's for their dogs, or just strolling arm in arm. Joggers moved past happy couples, and birds flew over them all out towards the water.

"I found it yesterday."

She turned to him, a bit confused. "You drove to Boston to bring me to a park?"

He shrugged. "I'm tired of wanting to share stuff with you and not being able to. I thought of you while I was here yesterday."

She smiled, looking at him as he looked out over the water. "Oh."

"Is that okay?" he looked at her now, the look in his eyes making her dizzy.

"Yeah."

"And there's a great place for dinner just up the way."

"Even better."

They began along the path that wound them closer to the water's edge, and she slipped her arm through his. They were unknown here—not the object of discussion, the tragic pair that had been pulled apart by circumstance. They were just two people, out for a stroll on a warm spring day. The wind fluttered through her hair, pushing it behind her as they walked into the light wind.

"Do we have to go back tonight?"

Her voice startled him—but not quite as much as her question surprised him. Not just her question, there was a familiar lilt to her tone that caused his stomach to tighten in anticipation.

"We can do whatever we want. We're just two unemployed adults," he reminded her.

"Oh my God. We are, aren't we?"

He nodded. "And so many had such high hopes for us."

She giggled. "We're bums."

"I can think of worse things to be."

"Technically, I'm just on a leave of absence from my job."

"Which would be what, exactly?"

"Feature reporter at the Times. My apartment and all my belongings are gathering dust in New York."

"You in New York. That's a sight."

"Hey, I can handle the big city."

"Not your thing, though."

She shrugged. "It's where the good jobs are."

"Work at a smaller paper."

"The story interest goes down with the size of the town. I don't want to be writing up a thousand words on why the run on baked beans nearly ripped apart the whole town."

"So, you aren't staying in Stars Hollow?" he joked.

She looked pensive, however. "I never planned on it—but how can I give up the house and lose all my connection to that place?"

He heard her voice break. He stopped their momentum, and turned her in towards him. A jogger had to swerve around them suddenly, not anticipating their random shift in path.

"If you give the house to Luke, he will always have his door open to you. And even if that house is demolished, you'll always have a connection to that place."

"You're right, it just seems so. . ."

"Final?"

"Yeah."

He nodded, and rubbed her arms with his hands, as if trying to warm her up. "She didn't leave it all up to you hoping you'd finish living her life for her. She wasn't that way."

"I know."

"She always wanted you to go for what you wanted."

"I know that, too," she said, exasperated. "Let's not talk about that now. Anything but," she said, looking into his eyes. He nodded, and they turned back to begin walking again.

"Actually, there is something I was wondering," he hedged.

"Shoot."

"It's personal."

"That's okay."

"You said before, that Connor was pressuring you about having kids."

"He was. He wanted to have a few, and thought we needed to start as soon as possible."

"And you didn't want to, or couldn't?"

She caught his meaning immediately. "Didn't want to."

"So, you're okay, I mean, nothing's wrong?"

"No, I'm fine. I can have kids, if I want to."

"So, you just don't want to?"

She took a deep breath. He was the only one that she could really say this to. It would have broken Connor's heart more than she needed to. It would have conveyed her inability to get over Tristan to the rest of her friends and family.

"When I found out I had been pregnant, I was terrified. Mostly of what it might have done to our plans, the disappointment of our families. But it also felt right, for you to be the one I shared that with."

His heart jumped in his chest. "Did he know, that you'd had a miscarriage?"

"No."

He looked at her, the wealth of details that she'd kept inside of her for so long open to him at his asking.

"You really didn't tell him about me at all?"

She shook her head. "I never told him a lot of things. He knew me from Africa on. He knew what he saw only, and I think I decided to marry him because of that. He didn't look at me and see all that I'd been through. He just saw me where I was. You always did that."

"I've never been able to take my eyes off of you long enough to notice anything else," he managed, their having come to the dock at the end of the path. Her breath caught in her throat at his words, and she stared at his lips.

He never needed anyone to alert him to the best juncture at which to kiss her.

He pulled her closer first, letting her scent reel him in. He closed his eyes with relief as his lips moved against hers for the first time in years. A tear rolled down her cheek, that of reprieve as well. She moved her hands to his cheeks, kissing him as hard as she could, as if she needed to make a lasting impression.

People around them smiled sweetly at the couple's ignorance of their surroundings. They probably wondered what brought forth such a public outpouring of affection, as he picked her up, not being able to pull her close enough into his embrace.

These were the words they hadn't spoken over the years.