Pairing: Established relationships for L/L and P/J; R/T…eventually

Rating: R

Spoilers: May reference anything from seasons 1 & 2

Summary: Seven years after graduating Chilton, Rory and Paris are business partners. What happens when they strike up a joint venture with Tristan DuGrey?

Disclaimer: The characters depicted her were created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, and are the property of Hofflund-Pollone and Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions. They are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is being made from their use.

A/N: This chapter's title quote is from Say Anything. Yes, I've used that movie before. But it's John Cusack…he can have as many title quotes as he wants.

Unholy Alliance

By Grace

Part Twenty-eight: I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.

There was a commotion in the front hall as Luke came in with the three kids. "I could use a hand in here!" he hollered.

"Coming, honey!" Lorelai yelled back, starting to get up off the couch.

"I'll go, Lorelai," Tristan insisted. "You stay here and visit."

"What a nice young man you are!" Emily exclaimed. "See, Lorelai? Those are what civilized people call 'manners.'"

"Thanks for the etiquette lesson, mom."

Tristan held back his laughter as he exited the room. Once in the hallway, he was greeted by the sight of an overloaded Luke, a twin on each arm, bulging shopping bags clutched in his hands, and Billy clinging to his leg.

"Hey Tristan. Good to see you."

"You too. What can I take?"

"Pick a twin, any twin."

"Which one is Emma?"

"Purple coat."

Moving quickly, Tristan removed the little girl from her father's arms. "Hi there, Emma," he said quietly. "Do you remember me?"

Shyly, she nodded, and then buried her head against his shoulder.

"Hey, no hiding," he scolded her gently, shifting her on his hip and running a hand through her brown curls. "Are you excited about Santa Claus coming tonight?"

Again, she nodded, a smile beginning to tug at her lips.

"And you were a good girl this year?"

Her nod was more vigorous this time, and Tristan laughed. "Then I bet you'll have all sorts of presents under the tree tomorrow."

"I think you're getting better at this," Rory spoke up from behind him.

He turned to her and smiled. "You're the one that said I needed to practice."

"I'm glad you took my advice." Crouching down, she extracted her little brother from Luke's leg. "Hi, Billy. Guess what?"

"What?"

"Grandma and grandpa are in the living room with mom. I'll bet grandpa has a peppermint in his pocket for you."

"Yay!" he cried, scampering off.

"Hey, Luke. Merry Christmas." She gave him a hug, and took Charlotte with her when she pulled away.

"Merry Christmas to you. How was your drive?"

"Not bad. The usual holiday traffic, but at least we're not in the middle of a blizzard."

"I don't know," Luke cautioned, "if the weatherman is right, we might end up snowed in here."

Rory just laughed it off. "When is the weatherman ever right?"

"True," Luke conceded.

Rory glanced down at her little sister. Charlotte's eyes were drooping, and her head was pillowed on her big sister's shoulder. "Uh-oh, somebody looks sleepy. Do you want us to put them to bed?"

"Yeah, that would be great, thanks."

"Come on, Tristan. It'll be good practice."

Dutifully, he followed her out of the room, while Luke headed towards the living room with the gifts.

* * *

Half an hour later, the girls were tucked snugly into bed. As she closed the door to their bedroom, Rory commented, "You know, this used to be my room."

"Really?"

She nodded. "It looked a little different back then. The shelves were full of books, there was a Harvard pennant on the wall—typical teenager stuff."

"I doubt most teenagers have as many books as you did."

"That's true. It seemed perfectly normal to me, though."

"Trust me, you were anything but a normal teenager."

"Gee, thanks," she said sarcastically.

"I don't mean that as a negative. You were just very much your own person, even then."

"How would you know? We were barely even friends back then?"

"Believe me, I could tell. If you had been just another normal teenage girl, I wouldn't have paid nearly as much attention to you."

"Is that what you call your persistent torment of me—'paying attention'?"

He smirked, looking for all the world like his sixteen-year-old self. "No, the torment, as you phrase it, was what I liked to refer to as flirting. Getting caught staring at your ear in the middle of class was 'paying attention.'"

She blushed slightly. "I'm so glad we've clarified that."

He leaned against the wall next to the twins' bedroom door. "Do you ever wonder what might have happened if I had asked you to the PJ Harvey concert, instead of telling you that you were going with me?"

She leaned against the opposite wall, mimicking his pose. "Sometimes, especially after you left for military school. But at the time…well, I was in the middle of getting back together with Dean."

"Ah yes…the guy that called me an accountant. Whatever happened to him?"

She giggled softly. "I had forgotten all about that. Kind of ironic that Dean's a CPA now."

"Wow, that's like a script from a cheesy WB drama."

"Isn't it, though?"

"So have you guys kept in touch?"

"A little. The Stars-Hollow-small-town-effect makes it pretty much unavoidable. Fortunately, our relationship ended on good terms."

"What happened?"

"We just grew apart. I think that if we had tried to stay together, we would have ended up hating each other.

"How disgustingly mature of you," he teased.

"It's a gift. Now come on—they're going to start wondering where we are."

They headed into the living room, and, in a moment eerily reminiscent of their sophomore year at Chilton, both tried to go through the doorway at the same time. They shared a moment of awkward laughter, which attracted the attention of the people in the room.

"Walk much, you two?" Lorelai teased.

"Oh, look!" cried Emily. "You're standing under the mistletoe!"

Rory and Tristan immediately looked up. Sure enough, a sprig of mistletoe dangled from the doorjamb, the green leaves and white berries deceptively innocent-looking.

"Well go on, young man, kiss her," Richard urged. "It is tradition, after all."

Tristan looked Rory in the eyes, noting the trepidation in her sapphire orbs. "Who are we to buck tradition?" he asked quietly.

"I wouldn't dream of it," she answered with a nervous laugh.

As he bent down to give her a chaste peck on the cheek, a rather significant cascade of events occurred. Out of the corner of her eye, Rory caught sight of her mother getting to her feet, camera in hand. She turned her head slightly, and opened her mouth to protest. At that exact moment, Tristan's kiss landed—not on his original target of her cheek, but square on her mouth. In the midst of forming a word, the tip of Rory's tongue lightly grazed Tristan's lips. Tristan, being Tristan, acted purely on instinct and took it as an invitation. Before she could even begin to comprehend what was happening, Rory's mouth was being plundered with sweet ferocity.

And then she was kissing him back.

Tristan, for his part, was quite convinced he was experiencing a Christmas miracle, or perhaps he had died and gone to heaven. Although…if this was heaven, he really didn't think there should be a niggling little voice poking at the back of his mind, telling him this wasn't right.

It sure as hell felt right.

Then, with a startling rush of clarity, he broke the kiss and breathed, "RJ."

His regret was instantaneous. Rory's big blue eyes immediately filled with tears, and without a word, she bolted towards the back of the house.

Tristan swiped a hand through his hair. "Good to know I still have the same effect on her," he muttered. "Rory, wait!" he shouted, and took off after her.

A rather shell-shocked Lorelai sat down hard on the couch, her mouth gaping. Emily Gilmore, her features serene, her bearing regal, took a delicate sip of wine and commented, "Well that was interesting."

* * *

Tristan tracked Rory to the bathroom. The door was closed and locked, but a sliver of light shone out under the doorway, and he could hear her muffled sobs emanating from within.

He rapped on the door gently, and said softly. "Rory, open up."

"Go away, Tristan."

"Rory, come on. We need to talk about this."

She didn't answer him, but he heard the lock click open. He pushed the door open slowly, slipped inside, and closed it behind him.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she said.

"You okay?"

She shook her head vigorously. "That never should have happened."

"You're doing a real number on my ego here, Gilmore."

She graced him with a watery smile. "You know that's not what I meant. I…I cheated on Ryan."

Tristan crouched down, looking her straight in the eye. "Don't beat yourself up. It was just a kiss under the mistletoe. It didn't mean anything," he insisted, trying not to wince at the lie.

"I wish it was that simple. But I…I kissed you back."

That he had definitely been aware of—but now wasn't the time to rhapsodize about it. "Human nature, Ror. Instinct. I doubt you even realized what you were doing."

She clasped her hands in front of her, and stared intently at them. "I know you're trying to make me feel better, but I think I might have, um, sort of…felt something for you when we kissed."

His eyes widened and his heart began to pound. "You did? I mean…are you sure? I really, um…really?"

She blushed a bright red. "This is so Zack and Jessie in the school play," she groaned.

"You're comparing us to Saved By the Bell?"

"You caught the reference, didn't you?" she giggled.

"Reruns on TBS were my guilty pleasure during college."

"Mine too. I loved the Malibu Sands episodes."

"Oh yeah—Leah Remini was hot."

"We're getting off track here," she pointed out.

"Tangents are so much more fun than reality," Tristan sighed.

"What do we do now?"

"We could take another cue from Jessie and Zack."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, they both freaked out after they kissed, thinking they were betraying Slater and Kelly. So, after they talked to Mr. Belding, they kissed one more time and realized they didn't feel anything."

"If this is some pathetic attempt to trick me into making out with you…"

"No! I just thought you'd want to know, once and for all."

"Okay…but no tongue, Tristan!"

"On my honor."

Leaning towards her, Tristan watched Rory's eyes flutter closed. Tentatively, tenderly, he pressed his lips to hers, trying desperately not to let the fact that he was head-over-heels in love with her show in his kiss.

Rory responded with equal tenderness, her mind screaming that this couldn't possibly be right, while her heart whispered that she didn't exactly feel…nothing.

They broke the kiss, backing away and avoiding eye contact.

"So," Rory said overly brightly, "nothing, right?"

Eyes downcast, his tone slightly wistful, he replied, "Nothing at all."

"Well, now that that's cleared up, I'd better go explain things to my family."

"Okay. I'll be out in a couple of minutes."

"Take your time."

Once she was gone, Tristan turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water on his face. It was official—he was a lovesick, spineless moron.

Exiting the bathroom, he made his way down the hall. As he passed the twins' rooms, he heard whimpering. Sucking inside, he saw Emma standing up in her crib, one hand clutching the rail, the other scrubbing at her eyes.

"Hey, little one. What's wrong?"

"Monsters," she whispered, stretching her arms out to him.

Hoisting her out of the crib, Tristan sat down in the rocking chair, settling the little girl in his lap, her head resting on his chest. "Monsters, huh?"

Emma nodded solemnly. "Over there," she pointed towards the closet.

"Sweetie, I promise you that there aren't any monsters in the closet."

"I scared."

"There's nothing to be scared of, Emma. Why don't you try and go back to sleep? I'll stay here with you."

She nodded again, and snuggled closer to him. Every few minutes, she would glance up, as if reassuring herself that he was still there.

After about twenty minutes, Emma's breathing evened out, and she fell asleep. Tristan didn't want to disturb her, so he just sat there rocking her.

After a little while, Lorelai appeared in the doorway. "You have quite a knack with her."

"Good to know that my charm works on one of the Gilmore women," he said wryly.

"That was quite a little show you two put on out there."

Absently, Tristan ran his hand over Emma's hair. "I'm in love with her, and she feels nothing."

"Rory may have convinced you that she feels nothing. She may even have convinced herself that she feels nothing. What I saw, what we all saw, was most definitely something."

"I wish I could believe that."

"Tristan, Ryan is a nice guy. He's very polite, and well-mannered. He has a nice smile. He tells charming stories, and he brought Billy and the girls leather-bound editions of children's classics. But he…he doesn't light that spark inside Rory, the way that you do, even if you're just arguing or joking. Ryan is—he's Rory's Dawson. You're her Pacey, Tristan."

To be continued…