a/n: Hey guys ! You don't know how unbelievably sorry I am it took this long to get one chapter out. For some reason this chapter was hard to write for me and it took like 4 versions to find one I was okay with. Thanks to an ill fated attempt to use an excercise ball for a step stool & three sprained toes I get to have today off and w/ Monday off for Columbus Day I have an extra long weekend to hopefully work on this story. But anyway, this is the chapter all you trories have been waiting for. There's no trory action but at least Tristan's finally in it. I know the story has been kind of dull & I hope the next few chapters will make up for that. Thanks for reading :)
Disclaimer: still don't own it..
This chapter is also going to use some lines from The Lorelais' First Day At Chilton.
Once again, thanks to everyone who reviewed !
Congrats ! Ali-Chan1, sooty7sweep, and Sea4Shoes, YOU ALL GET A COOKIE ! lol yes I admit, I love 10 Things I Hate About You and it seemed like something they would watch so I just had to use it. :D
starshollow108- I know ! I'm so sorry for the lack of excitement but I promise Lorelai is coming up soon. I really don't want to drag it out too long so it'll definitley happen within the next 2 chapters. But trust me, when it happens there will be a lot of drama.
kd-walker684- Wow, I actually forgot about Brad. So no, he's not the same one. Lol, could you imagine if it was though? Sorry for the confusion, but thanks for the review !
Chapter 4: Lorelai's First Day At Chilton
Rory trudged down the hallway, so far it had been a long day. It wasn't even lunch yet, meaning there was still more then half a day left. I should have seen it coming, she thought.
Glaring at the traitor clock that didn't quack on time, Rory threw on her Chilton blazer and ran out of her room. There was ten minutes before school started which meant she barely had time to grab her travel mug of coffee and say a quick goodbye to Jeeves. Picking up speed, she continued out of the house.
'How pathetic,' she thought. She lived three minutes from school and she had to take the bus. If walking was an option she would've done that. Unfortunately excercising of any sort was not her forte, her breathing was already slightly laboured from her sprint through the mansion.
Rory would've missed the blue Mustang sitting in the street before her if it didn't honk.
"Running late Parker?" Brad asked from the driver's seat.
"Brad? Nikki? What are you two doing here?"
"Saving your ass apparently. Headmaster C will blow up if you're late on your first day."
"Why are you late anyway? You seem like the kind of person who's annoyingly on time."
"Usually I am, but my alarm clock didn't quack on time." She answered Nikki.
At the two confused, yet amused, glances she was getting she defended herself. "It has yellow feathers, it quacks."
Even with the ride from her cousins, Rory was still two minutes late to her meeting with the Headmaster. He didn't seem to like that too much.
"Ah Ms. Parker. You've finally arrived."
"Yes, I'm so sorry Headmaster Charleston. It was just, my alarm clock-"
"The dog ate my homework, my computer crashed and I lost my midterm, my grandmother and/or first cousin died, my sister took my report to school instead of hers, my religion prohibits studying after sundown, I went blind last night but I'm fine now."
"Excuse me?"
"They are all excuses Ms. Parker. Here at Chilton we do not accept excuses."
"I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to make excuses."
"If you felt you were going to be late you should have called the office. You're obviously a bright girl, Miss Parker and I hope we won't have to have this discussion again."
"No sir, we won't."
"Good. Now let's take a look at your files, shall we?"
As if that wasn't bad enough, she was completely lost in all of her classes. Sure she was the smartest in her classes back in New York, but here things were a lot different. In English she was assigned a short story and in Math she had a whole packet of equations. That of course was on top of all the make up work she had to do.
"Hey Mary," a blonde boy said as he walked up to her in the hallway.
Rory looked around confused. "Me?"
He laughed, "Yeah you."
"My name's Rory."
"I'm Tristan."
"So, you're new?"
"Yeah, first day."
"Well, Remmy's class is rough."
"Yeah, it seemed very intense."
"You know, I could loan you my notes if that would help."
"Really? That'd be great."
"Yeah? How great?"
"I don't know. Mr. Remmy said that getting someone's notes would be-"
Tristan kept stepping closer and was now dangerously close to invading her personal space. "I could even help you study if you want."
"Um, I kind of view studying as a solitary activity, but thanks."
He laughed again, "Bye, Mary."
"It's Rory."
So on top of a mountain of homework, she had to deal with guys like him and girls who seemed as real as a Barbie.
"Hey Parker," her cousins said walking up to her.
"Hey guys."
"So that looked like quite the exchange between you and Tristan. Tell me about it on the way to lunch?" Nikki asked.
"Sure.Well,hebasically just came up to me and offered me his notes. I thought it was nice at first and then he just started getting really close to me."
"Well, that's what he does."
"So can anyone explain to me why he was calling me Mary?"
Brad laughed, "Nikki, I think you've got this one."
"Right. Well you see, Tristan, he thinks your a..."
"Innocent goody goody," Brad suplied before he walked away.
"Exactly, an innocent goody goody. So he'll call you Mary, as in the Virgin Mary."
"Biblical insults? This is an advanced school."
"Yeah well there's one more thing."
"What?"
"It also means you're his new conquest."
"Conquest?"
"Yeah. Tristan's kind of a big deal around here, remember thatmonarchy I was telling you? Tristan's our King. He doesn't have girlfriends, we like to refer to them as his flavors of the week."
"Wow."
"Just a warning, he's going to come onto to you and come onto you strong. Watch out."
"He seems like a jerk."
"The biggest."
"And egotistical."
"The most."
"And spolied, stuck up, and snobby."
"He is, I love him like a brother though."
Rory's mouth formed a small 'o' in shock. That was when she noticed him sitting right next to Brad at their lunch table.
This is going to be fun, she thought sarcastically.
Nikki brought her to the table and introduced her.
"Guys, this is Rory. Rory this is Mike, Louise, Madeline, Jake, Tristan, you know Brad, Paris, and Danny."
As the table chorused "Hey Rory", one voice made her cringe. "Hel-lo Mary."
"The name is RORY!"
The rest of lunch was just as...interesting. The group looked on with amused faces as Rory and Tristan bantered back and forth. No girl had ever dared to say the things she was saying to him well, except for Paris. The moment she called him a self centered, arrogant, egotistical, and insufferable jerk, they knew she would fit in just fine with all of them. They also knew that both her and Tristan were in for a hell of a ride, together.
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"Oh God, somebody please, just kill me now!" Rory exclaimed as she hopped into Brad's waiting car.
"What happened?" He and Nikki asked.
"That stupid stupid so-called History teacher paired me up for a project with Tristan! I mean of all the people in class. I would've rather been paired up with the 'I file my nails all period long and then listen to Britney Spears when I go home' girl. Or maybe even the 'Urgh, I'm Mr. Macho football player and I look like I can eat Rory in one bite' guy. Anybody but Tristan. I try telling Mr. Maulbury that but no, no switching partners. Apparently he spent a lot of time deciding on them."
"So what's the project exactly?"
"Well class, I'm sure you all know that one key ingredient to History is geography, or location." Mr. Maulbury droned on in his extremely monotonous voice. "Without geography we would have no idea how the people of ancient times lived. Tomorrow we will be starting to learn about the vastly interesting cultures of Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. That ladies and gentlemen, leads me to a project. To fully understand how geography and location affect a culture and their customs You will all to be paired up and you will pick a place to study. You will have about one week to research and write up a report about this place you have chosen. You can chose anywhere you want, even Hartford. Now the pairing is as follows..."
Rory crossed her fingers. Both Paris and Danny were in her class so she desperatley hoped she got paired with one of them. That hope died however the second the teacher called out "Tristan DuGrey and Rory Parker..." There had to be a mistake. There was no way she could work with Tristan. They'd probably kill each other before the three days were over.
She glanced at him to see what his reaction was. He seemed pretty carefree as he blew a kiss at her. Nope, absolutely no way they could work together without bloodshed.
Rory raised her hand.
"Yes Ms. Parker?"
"Well I was just wondering if I could switch partners?"
"Why Ms. Parker, is Tristan not good enough? Are the hours I spent here after school on a Friday trying to come up with pairs I thought would work well together not good enough?"
"With all due respect Mr. Maulbury, you didn't know me when you made those pairs."
"Your point Ms. Parker?"
"Well, how would you know if Tristan and I would work well together if you didn't know me at the time?"
"Are you patronizing me?"
"No, I just-"
"I read your transcripts. Your very many teacher recommendations said you were a very well rounded girl who would make a positive impression on anyone. Were your past teachers wrong?"
Rory slouched, defeated. "No."
"Okay then. Class dissmissed."
"Well look on the bright side, it's only a week."
"Thanks Nikki, that makes me feel so much better," she said sarcastically.
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"Ah, Miss Rory, welcome home," Jeeves said as he handed her a steaming mug of coffee.
"You're are so my new best friend," she said as she inhaled the sweet ambrosia in five big gulps.
"How was your first day?"
"Long. I have so much catching up to do. I have about a hundred math problems, a story to write, and a project to do with someone I really don't like. I think I'm just going to go up to my room and relax for a little while."
Jeeves stood watching her disappear up the staircase thinking he'd made a mistake a few minutes ago. Well, she'd be in for a surprise...
Rory headed towards her room ready to collapse. She walked in and was met with darkness. The blinds were all down and the curtains were drawn shut. As she made her way towards the window someone pulled her to the wall and covered her mouth with their hand. The hand didn't do much to cover her screams though. With their other hand, the person flicked on the lights.
"Tristan?"
"Surprise," he said backing away from her as if he'd done nothing wrong.
She walked over towards him and smacked him on his head. "Why the hell would you do something like that? Do you know how much you scared me?"
"Sorry," he shrugged.
"Why are you here anyway?"
"We have a project to work on."
"I'm shocked, you actually do work? And here I was thinking I'd be doing everything and signing your name to it."
"I'm apalled. You really think that little of me?"
"Yes," she replied without hesistation. "If we're doing this project I want as little contact as possible so let's pick a place and then we can each work on seperate parts."
"Well Mary," he said inching closer to her. "Little contact has never really worked for me."
"Apparently," was the only thing she could get out. He was still moving towards her and showed no sign of stopping until she was pinned against him and the wall.
"So we're just going to have to have to rework your plan here for maximum contact. That's the only thing that's gonna work for me." He'd succeeded in pinning her and was leaning his face closer and closer to hers, when there was a knock on the door.
"Miss Rory?" Jeeves asked from outside.
Rory scrambled to get out of Tristan's grip, a light pink blush on her cheeks. "Yes?"
"Would you like more coffee?"
"Sure, thanks."
Rory opened the door and took the two mugs from the butler.
"Thanks Mar, but I'm not really a coffee person."
"Who said this was for you? It's all mine."
"Well someone seems to like their caffeine."
"Like? No. Worship? Yes."
"So I seem to have found Rory Parker's flaw. Who would've guessed you're an addict."
"Hey Tristan."
"Yeah?"
"At school today we were kind of biting each others heads off but now..."
"We're actually getting along?"
"Yeah. And I was thinking. We're stuck together for this project so maybe, we could call a truce. It would probably make things easier."
"Well, I am best friends with your cousins..."
"Good. So, any ideas about the place for our project?"
"Well picking somewhere in Connecticut would be a lot easier 'cause we could go see it."
"Figures you'd take the easy way out."
"Well at least I'm contributing," he gave her a smirk.
"Fine, I have an idea."
"Uh oh."
"Did you drive here?"
"Yeah."
Rory walked out of her room pulling Tristan with her. When they got to his car outside he was confused.
"What are we doing?"
"Drive Bible Boy, drive."
So he did. Once they got on the highway, curiosity finally got the best of him.
"Can you tell me where we're going now?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"We're letting fate decide what place we're doing our project on."
"Fate? You actually believe in that?"
"Of course. You don't?"
"Not really."
"Why?"
"When you're life is like mine you don't believe in a lot of stuff."
"Like what?"
"Well when you're a kid, Santa, the Easter Bunny, and all those things. But when you get older it's stuff like fate, destiny, love-"
"Wait, how do you not believe in love?"
"Because I've never seen it."
"What about your parents?"
He laughed, "Not the greatest example of love."
"Why not?"
"They've never loved each other. They had an arranged marraige. Now all they do is fight and cheat on each other. My mom caught my dad with our newest maid yesterday, she was fired pretty fast."
"How do have such a non-chalant attitude about that? You're parents are cheating on each other, it's not exactly some little thing!"
"Woah, why are getting so defensive about it? It's not like you would know anything about it with your perfect little life."
Rory scoffed, "My life is far from perfect. "
"Yeah? What's the last bad thing that happened to you? Did your mommy forget to buyfood and she actually had to make a microwave dinner?"
"Fuck off Tristan. Don't pretend for one second you care about anything having to do with my life."
"You know what, you're right, I don't care. It's amazing, you justknow me so well," he said sarcastically as he slowed the car.
"Why are we stopping?"
"I need to get gas."
"But once we stop we have to choose that place."
"Well then I guess fate has brought us to... Starts Hollow. Population: small town freaks." With that he got out of the car and slammed the door. Instead of just sitting there like he would expect her to, Rory got out of the car and wandered off on her own. They both needed time to cool off. Deciding to get some coffee before even going near Tristan again, she searched the town. She looked into windows and finally saw a place that looked like a diner, even though it had a hardware sign. Man this town is weird, she thought.
Rory walked in to find what she assumed to be the owner in a heated debate with a customer.
"I'm not painting this place and that's it! I have a customer so call me later."
"I'm not leaving until you agree."
"Hey kid, just ignore her. What can I get you?"
"Three large coffees to go please."
"Hey, a fellow coffee lover!" The woman exclaimed as she turned around on her barstool.
"Rory? God, you could've at least told me you were getting out of the car," Tristan said walking into the diner.
She didn't hear him though. She was to busy staring at the woman. The woman who had her hair, her smile, and her eyes.
a/n: Thanks for reading and keep the reviews coming so that I can improve the story. And I know Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt isn't exactly something Chilton would be teaching but it was the only thing I could think of that went with the whole location thing.
The next chapter will definitley have a lot Lorelai and Emily will deal with karma ;).
x0x/Sophia