Summary: Trory. Set Season One Post-TBP2 and Pre-LDAT. The Kiss at Madeline's Party never happened for the purposes of this fic.

Disclaimer: I own no rights to anything that is mentioned in my stories, including the main characters that I've borrowed for my plot manipulations.

Rating: M

Story Title: Untouched

Chapter Title: Part Twelve

She was used to keeping secrets.

From the time she was old enough to talk, she knew better than to discuss her personal home life with her grandparents, or else face the wrath of her disparaged and battle-worn mother. By age five, she was sneaking candy bars and stashing cool clothes in her backpack for her best friend so Lane could be able to enjoy a normal childhood existence, and more importantly, not get beat up on the playground because of her strict religious upbringing and the lack of childhood comforts it brought along with it.

Secrets weren't lies; they were truths too good to be ruined by being shared with those set out to squelch dreams. She was simply being the consummate good daughter, best friend, trusted confidant.

Up until now, all the secrets she held within her were in protection of other people. This secret she now held within her, it was all about her. She was keeping what this boy had become to her to herself, and for what? For her protection? This was one topic she did not even want to think about. One he seemed to understand, but rarely, if ever, pressed with her. He seemed to know if he did, it might all unravel; that she was always just on the verge of unraveling.

They'd silently agreed it would be simple, more advantageous, for the both of them to keep their increased acceptance of each other under wraps. School, she knew without a doubt, would become a battleground again should they be found out. The people who were cool to her would be again downright frigid, knowing she had finally done what they feared—taken their loftiest goal out of their loose grasp.

Was that all she was afraid of? Is that why he was so keen on keeping their encounters under the veil of closed doors and unused structures? These were the questions that filled her as she sat holding her phone in her hand, watching her mother gather her belongings to enjoy her first evening out with her fiancée. She'd promised to call Tristan the moment her mom left the house, so he could pick her up and take her to another party. She didn't know where, she didn't want to let herself ask, she just wanted to go and be with him. So they could revel in the sanctity of what was so newly theirs, not tainted by anyone else's opinions or objections.

Maybe that was just it.

Smiling firmly at her mother, Rory promised she'd be home when Lorelai got back from her date.

"You should go, get out of the house. See if Lane wants to hit the Black, White, and Read."

Rory shrugged. "Well, maybe. We'll see. I might just stay in or go to the library."

Lorelai put her arm around her daughter's shoulders. "You've been hermity lately. And I know that's part of your charm, you've never been a soc, but maybe you should reach out a little bit. I know the break-up was hard on you," she soothed.

"Mom, I don't wanna talk about it," she shrugged her off.

"And I've been, well, busy," she continued.

"I'm fine, Mom, really. Just, go, say hi to Max, be happy. I'll find a way to amuse myself."

Lorelai smiled sadly at her daughter, obviously not believing a word she said. She couldn't contain her own happiness, the giddiness of her new engagement consuming her thoughts. Rory believed her mother deserved it, as odd as it was for the two women not to share every feeling, every thought, every second.

"Okay. But if you need me to come home early, or you decide you want some girl time, you know, turn up Fiona on the stereo, break out the Ben and Jerry's, you'll call me?"

Rory had to smile. Her mom was intent on her wallowing, to get over the pain of her supposed heartache. If only she knew, each second she spent droning on about losing Dean was another second Tristan spent circling the block, waiting to pick her up.

"I promise. Now, scoot," she instructed, pushing her mother toward the front door.

Her mother disappeared behind the door, and she picked the phone back up, dialing quickly.

"It's me. She's gone."

--&--

She was knelt down to her knees in the dirt, waiting to see what she hoped would be the familiar line of his jaw in place of her dusty reflection in the glass. She reminded herself that this would be easier than climbing a tree, with just as equal a chance of being discovered as that first time—less, in fact, as Tristan would be the one looking for her, retrieving her, pulling her down into the basement, rather than her climbing unwittingly through a strange window that she might have miscounted and entered mistakenly. But nothing really made the waiting any less nerve-wracking, nothing took the sheer anticipation out of his knowing smile meeting hers.

The waiting didn't do the moment of truth justice—it was a blur from seeing him enter her line of view and his hand reaching out to help her slide her legs out to lift her down to the floor to rest beside him. Suddenly she was slightly out of breath and completely alone with him in the cool confines of a wine cellar.

"Whose house are we at?" her attempt at small talk had nothing to do with anything really; she couldn't even say that it mattered at all. It was a detail to be included in no story she would tell anyone. It wouldn't even be woven into a carefully constructed one, her telling where she had gone, what she had done, careful to leave Tristan out of any mention of the setting. It would, instead, be like this never happened. Like they were each a figment of the other's imaginations; existing only for one another.

And that, as wrong as it might be, made her smile.

"Rory? Did you even hear me?" he asked, reaching his hand out to place on her shoulder. Obviously she'd been caught up too much in her own thoughts. She wanted that to stop. She just wanted to stop, here and now, with him. Using his grasp on her as a beacon, she pulled her body against his and tipped up to press her lips into his.

He caught her as the sudden trajectory of her body began to spin them crashing back into nearly priceless collections of spirits. He pulled her flush against him, cradling her in his arms as she let her lips convey her relief at finally being alone with him yet again. The time between their interludes was growing too long; her inability to bring herself to suggest more frequent visits only one of the hindrances to ending their moratoriums.

She didn't understand the need to taste him over and over again, each time just barely remaining unable to decide what flavor it was her tongue would meet as her rendered her senseless. Yet she was increasingly aware the lack of him tasted bitter, acrid. Nothing else could replace it.

Her back met the door, the knob digging in just to the side of her spine, but his hands running down the sides of her shirt made up for the protrusion. His hands ran over her stomach, bare skin seeking bare skin, climbing higher and higher as his lips traveled south to meet them along the same path. Her head turned down into her opposite shoulder, her eyes screwed shut as he made her shiver at the kisses he showered down her neck and collarbone.

So lost in wanting to be taken over by what he was able to do to her, she thought she was imagining the far-off voices. It was only when his mouth paused, deeply pressed against the hollow of her flushed collarbone, that she opened her eyes to help her focus on her immediate surroundings and the likelihood that they were about to be intruded upon.

"Tristan?" she whispered.

"Shh, come on," he slid his hands out from under her shirt, and she noticed that not only was the hand she took hold of trembling, but his voice was ragged from his slightly labored breathing. She followed him down a small corridor, into a darker, colder enclosure that allowed for only standing room for two or three bodies.

She looked up into his eyes as he nodded, and they heard the faint voices grow louder until the door to the cellar opened. Two boys, whom she might have recognized in better light or in the tell-tale colors of their school, came in and approached the farthest wall of the main wine cellar. They seemed to know what they were after, made their selections, and disappeared as quickly as they'd come without ever having looked down the direction they were stowed away in.

"That was close," she breathed, shivering now from the cold environment, his body heat not even enough to keep her warmed.

"Guess hiding with the alcohol isn't the best place at one of these parties," he acknowledged, laughing softly. "You want me to try to find somewhere else? I should go make a sweep anyhow," he ran one hand through her hair, which she'd left down this evening.

"No, I'll just go wait in the car. I should be home early tonight anyhow—Mom's worried about me, she'll be home early."

"Worried?" his tone matched the one her mother had used earlier this evening.

She shook her head and smiled. "Yeah, she's afraid I'm not getting out enough."

A smile broke out over his face in understanding. "Ah, I see," he kissed her again. "If you'd like to go out, I can take care of that."

She didn't respond, not wanting to know what would be demanded of her should that ever happen. The way they were approaching this, ensuring their privacy each time, it allowed her to ask for things that she might be too timid to ask for with actual words. She wasn't the kind of girl to let her emotions overtake her in a public place—she couldn't imagine slamming him into a row of lockers at school or practically sitting in his lap at a restaurant. But she was growing in her confidence to let him know how much she wanted to know what it would be like to let him consume just a little bit more of her, in private; to let him in on the secret that she wasn't who everyone thought she was.

"I'll be in the car, if you can give me a lift up out of here," she evaded, walking slowly out to the main room of the basement. He reached up to unlatch the high window again and bent down slightly, with his hands clasped in front of him. She took a hold of his shoulders to steady herself and hesitantly placed one foot on his joined hands. Looking up at his face for certainty, he smirked.

"I can lift you, it's impossible that you're too heavy," he nodded.

Blushing at the fact that he could read her mind, she did as he instructed and turned to grab hold of the window ledge as he lifted her into the air. She wiggled up through the opening and turned at the last minute at his calling of her name.

"Keys?" he asked, holding them out in offering. She smiled at him and nodded. "Give me five minutes," he instructed, and she didn't hear him shut the window again until she was a good way from the house, near the safety of his car with privacy-tinted windows.

She eased herself inside, closing her eyes in relief, happy to be somewhere familiar. She ran her fingertips over the buttery-soft leather that covered the interior, not registering the lush of luxury as anything other than as comforting as her own quilt that covered her bed at home. Her fingers traced over the unlit control panel and the console between the two bucket seats, her tour turning her slightly in her seat until she was looking intently at the empty backseat of his car. Her pulse sped up, and she grabbed tight to the edge of her seat. She'd heard girls, mainly Madeline and Louise—for no other girls she knew were quite so experienced (or just plain open about said experience)—talk about having trysts in the backseats of their boyfriend's sports cars. It'd seemed odd to her, and highly unlikely, that anyone could contort themselves in order to have anything resembling fun in such a small, unforgiving space. She'd never encountered a backseat that looked so accommodating, and even now she couldn't peg where his legs would have to be in order for her to fully recline back into….

A knock came to the window, jolting her out of her mental drawing board, and she popped the locks so that he could join her in her state of confusion.

"You okay?" he asked, noting the still contorted shape of her mouth and the puzzlement that her eyes held.

"I'm fine," she assured him, handing him the keys.

"You're sure?"

She nodded, happy to let this line of thought drop. She didn't want to have to ask him these questions; to make him feel like he was teaching a sex education class. Class one, heightening arousal; class two, making out in backseats for dummies; class three, how to put a condom on something other than a prop banana. Her cheeks blushed furiously despite her mental admonishment to remain confident and collected in moments that they weren't frantically learning each other's bodies.

They rode in amiable, if not hesitant, silence for the better part of the drive. He cut down his speed as he took the exit toward her town, and finally she could feel his gaze warming the side of her face. She smiled and flashed her eyes at him quickly before turning her attention back to her hands that were clasped tightly in her lap.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, really."

"You wanted to leave, you said," he reminded her.

"I know. I did, I need to get home."

"Then, what is it?" he asked again, not going to let her get away with half-truths or omissions. He knew her style, and it wasn't his to let her get away with anything out of the realm of their personal dealings; she should have expected none less now.

"I don't," she closed her eyes, "We barely get time," she started again, "and I don't want this to be banished to backseats and storage closets," she threw in another example of her looser friends' prior stories.

"Was I supposed to be able to follow that? Because you took a wrong turn into crazy there somewhere," he began. "I don't even think you added a subject into any of those sentences."

"I don't need a grammar lesson, Tristan," she warned, her eyes now flashing the frustration that had been building up in her since entering his car.

"What do you need, Rory?" he shot back.

She glared at him, now not wanting to tell him, since he so clearly knew. He just wanted to hear her admit it, was that it? She crossed her arms, not wanting to play games just to increase his ego. He pulled up in front of her house and cut the ignition quickly.

"What is it you want?" he reiterated.

She looked up at him again, unable to stop her words from leaving her mouth. "Come back later."

His eyes widened. Clearly she'd thrown him off-guard. "Like tomorrow?"

"Later," she swallowed, knowing if she didn't say it now, she'd lose her nerve, "tonight."

"Rory," his tone softened, "I don't think," he cleared his throat, the words evidently not willing to come out of him.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," she stared at her hands that were still wringing themselves in her lap. She let go, moving them down to grasp each side of the bucket seat, careful not to dig her nails into the leather. She took another breath and looked up at him, still sputtering in his seat next to her. "But I want you to."

"What about your mom? I thought you didn't want her to know," he began again, still unable to finish a whole negating thought. She took that as a good sign that he'd return.

"She goes to bed around eleven-thirty. She sleeps like the undead," she assured him, though a cocked eyebrow told of his disbelief. "Seriously, I think a tornado actually hit our house once, and she didn't even turn over."

A smile played at his lips, and she realized he'd not been privy to her truly silly side much. She'd kept such a tough outer shell up around him for such a long time, dropping it only long enough to reveal a much softer underbelly lately. They'd had no in-between.

"So, midnight?" he asked. "Where do I go?"

"See that window, right there?" she pointed out her bedroom window, now darkened along with the rest of the house.

"Yeah," he looked back at her.

"I'll have my reading light on," she assured him. "You won't be able to miss it."

"I don't really understand," he started, but she unlatched her seatbelt, leaned over the small gap between their seats, and breathed him in before kissing him. Her hands cupped his face, a gesture he made to her all the time, but new enough to him to stun him into stillness for longer than she'd known him to be in the past. His lips began to move against hers, parting to her insistent tongue. When she felt he was following her line of thought, as muddled and unsure as it was, she pulled back, him catching her lips in one more quick meeting before she let go of his face altogether.

"So, you'll come?"

He nodded. His eyes were full of what she knew now to be lust and longing, as they shined that way only when she felt like she was ready to burst at the seams herself. She felt the door release out blindly, still looking at him as she moved to slip out of the vehicle.

She paused before shutting the door. "It's the secret part of it," she admitted.

"What?" he asked, clearly confused by her bursts of random information.

"When you asked me if I was okay, I was thinking about how we keep this a secret. Sometimes, I'm glad we do. It's easy, and it allows more freedom in a way," she let out a breath. "But other times, it makes it impossible for me to really know," her voice caught, and she feared that tears would begin to fall down her cheeks. She knew her eyes were shining alarmingly.

"I know," he assured her, cutting her off quickly enough to truly cause a shot of confidence to surge through her body. "Get inside, I'll be back at midnight."

She nodded silently, still fearful of tears—be them of relief or trepidation—and closed the car door to let him depart. She stood watching the taillights grow dim before turning off her street altogether. She looked down at her watch, noting that she still had two hours until his return, as per her hormone-driven request. She wandered inside, still wondering about the duality of keeping this relationship separate from the rest of her life.

She knew only that she was unable to keep secrets from him.