---&---

Chapter Six: Can't Resist the Hollow

"Hello? Finn? It's Rory… Rory Gilmore –"

"'Ello, kitten. What can I do for you?"

"I was wondering about… you know, getting that drink you offered. Unless you're busy, because then we could.. just you know, reschedule."

"Love?"

"Yes?"

"I'm not busy."

"Oh," Rory said, letting out a breath she had hardly realized she was holding inside her chest, "Good…"

"Do you know the Campus Pub?"

"The Yale one?"

"No, the Harvard one – yes, of course the Yale one, kitten."

"Yes, I know where the Yale pub is."

"Good, I'll meet you there in twenty.

"Oh, alright. I'll see you then." Snapping her phone closed, she closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, letting a sigh escape her.

She had never been this way – she was never one to take up a stranger's offer for a drink… not that she could honestly say a stranger had ever offered before.

Rory honestly couldn't fathom why she was feeling the after effects of the ending of Tristan and hers' relationship so harshly. She hadn't wanted to be anything but another conquest to him in the first place – could it be that she had actually fallen for him over the past few months?

Rory certainly didn't think so. So, perhaps, she was feeling the effects so badly because Tristan hadn't even wanted the relationship. Rory bit her lip and made her way towards her bedroom, letting herself have ten minutes to freshen up before she met her newfound friend.

Maybe Finn could loosen her up. She had a feeling he could.

---&---

"No, Sookie," Lorelai sighed, exasperated from her friends futile attempts to get her to go on a date, "I just don't want too."

"Aw, come on, Lorelai!" Sookie squeaked, sautéing the mushrooms in vegetable oil, "I hear this Jason guy is really nice," she pouted slightly, patting her pregnant stomach, "—do you think salt would taste good on mushrooms? Ooh, I think so! Oh! And even with some vinegar, and pickles!"

Lorelai scrunched her face up, and looked at the plain mushrooms, "I'm just not ready to date, Sook."

"Hand me that jar of pickles, will you?" Sookie asked, after dashing a bit of salt in her sautéing pan with the mushrooms, "On second thought, I don't want pickles. I want carrots!"

"Sookie, how about just plain mushrooms?"

"It's so… not feisty! I want a feisty dinner!"

"Then don't cook the pot roast, and try eating it while its still mooing rare?"

"No, silly," Sookie laughed, shaking her head, "I want something spicy and different."

"And a mooing piece of meat for dinner is spicy and different."

"Lorelai," Sookie said, shaking her head, "sauté my mushrooms while I find jalapeno peppers." Lorelai obliged and tried her best at sautéing salted mushrooms. "I know I had a jar of them in here," Sookie called from the pantry, shoving bottles and jars aside. "So, back to the topic of you dat---"

"I'm not dating."

"Come on, Lorelai," Sookie sighed, "Chris was a jerk. He wasn't good enough. Get out there, play the field – get to home—"

"Sookie," Lorelai mumbled, eyeing the sizzling mushrooms, "I'm just not ready. I thought the guy was Chris. He wasn't the guy for me. I'm a little distraught over it."

"Maybe the guy for you is right under your nose and you don't even know it."

"I doubt it, Sook," Lorelai bit her lip, and looked around her friends kitchen, tilting her head. "Where's Jackson?"

"Hmn?"

"I asked where Jackson was."

"Oh," Sookie said, coming out of her pantry, her jar jalapeno peppers in her left hand. She smiled victoriously and got out a cutting board, before placing a few of the peppers on it. "He's with his father. Apparently they need to spend some time together doing manly stuff as manly men."

"So they're at Jackson's parents' house, watching TV and drinking beer?"

"You know it," she replied, slicing up the peppers into thin pieces. "I think tomorrow they're going fishing, and then camping out."

"Where are they going fishing?"

"Some place in Massachusetts. They'll be gone for a few days, so it's just me, Davey, and little no name."

"Hey, Sook?" Lorelai asked, setting the kitchen table for three.

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm going to sell my house."

"Which one?"

"The Hartford one."

"Why?" Sookie asked, placing her pot roast on a platter in the middle of the table, before walking back into the kitchen to scoop the mushrooms and jalapeno peppers into a bowl, "I thought you loved that house in Hartford."

"I do, it's just so big. And with Chris and me being divorced, and Rory being in college, I just.. I get lonely."

"So you're moving back?"

Lorelai smiled slightly, and looked around Sookie's lower portion of her home, tapping her finger nails against the wood of the table, before she walked back into the kitchen to grab glasses for the three of them. "Yes," she said, opening the cabinet, and taking three glasses out, "I'm moving back to Stars Hollow."

---&---

"Hello?"

"Rory, fruit of my loins! My flesh and blood! The child with my name! Lover of Lucifer! How art thou?"

"Have you been watching Shakespeare in Love again?"

"No!" Lorelai said, aghast, and shaking her head even though her daughter couldn't see the action. "How could you ever accuse me of watching Gwenyth without you?"

"Sookie's crying isn't she?" Rory stated, more then asked, "And you got bored of trying to tell her it was just a movie, so you called me, didn't you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"So," Rory said, locking her dorm suite door behind her as she walked out of her building, and towards the courtyard, "what'd you call to talk about?"

"I'm moving back to Stars Hollow."

"What are you doing with the Hartford house?"

"Selling that bad boy as quickly as I can."

"Why?"

"It's so big – and me and your father are divorced, and you're at college and it just seems like a waste of a house on one person." Rory's mother sighed, and Rory's heart broke into more pieces then it already was in, "I just…I miss Stars Hollow."

"I know. I understand."

"Really?"

"Of course," Rory said holding her cell phone between her ear and shoulder as she crossed her arms over her chest to warm herself up a bit, "So I have news."

"Ooh! Is it good news?"

"Depends on what you think is good."

"Should I sit down?"

"Aren't you already sitting down?"

"… Yes."

"Then stay sitting, if you please," Rory said shaking her bangs out of her eyes as she walked, taking in a deep intake of chilly November air, "Tristan and I broke up." There was a long silence on her mother's end of the phone. Rory bit her lip, now that the Yale Pub had come into sight from where she stood, waiting for her mother to say something. "Mom?" she asked, scratching the back of her head, "Mom?"

"Why?" Lorelai finally asked, over-coming her initial shock. "You two seemed so… happy, and in love… and you two were just down right sickening."

"Yeah well, he decided not to tell the girls of Princeton he had a girlfriend."

"He didn't!"

"He did."

"Jackass," Lorelai mumbled, "We'll sic Luke on him!" she declared after a moments thought. The truth was that Luke and Lorelai had not reconciled verbally. It was more of a mutual agreement that hadn't been needed to say in words. Lorelai had been spending more and more time in The Hollow, and the dispute had needed to be settled if Lorelai wasn't going to starve to death.

Rory laughed in spite of the situation, and shook her head, "It was over before it even started, mom."

"So, are you wallowing?"

"No, I'm actually meeting up with a friend at the pub."

"Oooh!" Lorelai chimed, grinning, before glancing over her shoulder to still see Sookie sobbing over the ending of the movie, "Is it a male friend?"

"Maybe."

"Ooh, elusive! Tell mommy all about your new boy toy!"

Rory rolled her eyes, and sat down on the bench, wanting to finish her conversation with her mother before coming within hearing distance of the Pub. "He's just a friend."

"And mommy wants to know all about your friend. So dish."

"He's taller then I am."

"That doesn't take much!"

"Blame the genetics," Rory retorted, shaking her head, "And he's… Australian, I believe."

"Oooh, exotic!"

"So is the Bird Flu—"

"But that's a disease."

"Anyway—" Rory continued, inspecting her fingernails in the darker, "He's nice. And funny, and to be honest, I don't know him all that well."

"Call me later with details?"

"I always do."

"Good, well… I'm gonna go help Sookie remember it was just a movie."

"Good luck."

"Thanks. Love you."

"Love you, too. Bye."

"Bye!"

---&---

Author Note: And this was chapter six of my beloved PDLD! Aww man, I love my Lorelai, Rory and Sookie – I just love them so much I want to pinch their cheeks.

Any who – many of you have asked if the last chapter was the end of Tristan, and your answer is:

No; Tristan will be popping up in the story from time to time.

Another question – Is Tristan going to cause problems?

Yes; Tristan is going to cause problems, and most likely get in the way of a blossoming relationship between Rory and Finn… I won't tell you the scale of the problems, but there will be some underlying Trory underneath it all.