Title: In Dreams
Summary: Rory gets her Happily Ever After.
Rating: M. I don't know how it happened since I don't normally entertain adult themes, but it did. Fear.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls. I'm using them for cute fuzzy fluff.
Author's Note: This is part six of the long thought finished Rory and Tristan: A Series. It was revived, because I felt a moment of contrition for some fault I can't even remember at this point. It was probably for some angsty piece of drivel that upset one of the wenches. At any rate, it is here. Let it never be said that I don't do corny with gusto.
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In her dreams they had reunited in LA, just like he'd said. She'd been surprised by his appearance on her set, and appalled by the poor security that let a scoundrel like him through the door. She let him take her to dinner, and they talked for hours. All the concerns she had at Paris's wedding were unfounded. He was the same. He still loved her. She still loved everything about him. Other relationships had just taught them that they missed, wanted, craved, and needed one another.
In her dreams they'd had a second courtship. It didn't last long, but it was just the right amount of time for them to get reacquainted, for them to learn everything new, and to consider where they'd settle since he was on one coast and she on the other. It was never a question of if they could be together or not. They'd been apart for seven years; they didn't want to wait anymore. They'd make it work. He offered to make the first sacrifice, confessing that he'd made inquiries with firms on the West Coast, and would do anything to be near her. Ultimately she wouldn't let him. She could write for the show from anywhere, and her heart belonged back in New England, or really, Stars Hollow. They compromised and made their lives in Hartford, the last place they thought they'd end up, but the place they instinctually knew was right. It was perfect.
In her dreams they lived in a house. Not a small house, because let's be a bit realistic, they both had the means and the inclination to build a house that fit them both, and it wouldn't be a cottage, no matter how idyllic. But it wouldn't overwhelm. The rooms would be unconfined and colorful, full of life and love. It would be open in the front, with no trees to block the sunlight. The garden in the back would be a messy one, dripping with vines and big leaves, wildflowers and perennials. There would be an arbor in the corner, grown over with wisteria and shading a stone bench, perfect for a quiet afternoon of reading. Next to it was a big hammock they'd bought in Corolla, big enough for them to lay together and then some.
In her dreams they had children. Not right away, and not many, but maybe two or three. They needed someone to fill the rooms. The kids would be combinations of them, cute little things, but they had better posture: not self-conscious and curved like hers, or impudent and slouched like his. Posture good enough to satisfy Ms. Post. They were well behaved, but mischievous when their parents' backs were turned. She'd thought this through. They'd grow up with their parents' love, with their grandparents to spoil them, and even great-grandparents to teach them about history and family traditions.
It wasn't much, but it was her happily ever after, and a dream she could live on.
In her reality, life was very different.
They did have their reunion, but not in LA, a couple months after Paris's wedding, but three years later, in Thailand of all places.
She had decided that she needed to unwind after a particularly unsatisfying season that was less than critically acclaimed—she never did take constructive criticism very well—so she ran away to a tropical paradise, with nothing more than a passport and whatever fit in her powder blue carryon suitcase.
Rory had barely dropped her suitcase in her absolutely perfect cottage—see, cottages did exist somewhere in her reality—when she grabbed her purse and made for the nearest restaurant. And who should be in that restaurant but Tristan. Tristan who had extended his visit after flying half way around the world to be in his cousin's wedding. Tristan who looked so attractive in a white shirt and tan linen pants. Tristan, who when he saw her put down his Singha and grinned. With a grin, she was summoned to his table.
They hugged, he gave her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, and they sat down. She ordered a beer and picked off his plates. They played a vague game of catch-up. They bantered and verbally sparred in that special way they did best. They each had a couple more beers. They sent each other heated looks, sent signals zinging in every which direction, touched when they didn't need to touch. They each had a couple more beers. Then they wended there way down to the beach.
It was a convenient plot: old lovers having a chance meeting in an exotic locale. Intoxicated. Uninhibited. They were asking to become a cliché.
When they stumbled over their feet and fell onto the sand into each other's arms, they had a feeling it would happen. When Rory feigned lightheadedness and leaned forward to devour Tristan in a kiss, they knew it would happen. When they woke up after a raucous night in his cottage, it went a little something like this:
"Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked, crumbling the edge of the thin cotton sheet in her fist as she clutched it close to her chest. As if she had to worry about her modesty at this point. Her chronic paranoia kicked in at the oddest moments.
She heard him breathe evenly, and then a faint crinkling of fabric. She supposed he was shaking his head, and she wondered absently how effective he thought that would be with her back turned to him.
And then in answer to her thoughts, he said, "No."
She held back a sigh. "Are you married?"
Again, a question she should have asked before she kissed him on the beach, before she handed him one of the condoms she always kept in her purse. Before she…was that a spider on the ceiling? Had it been there the entire time watching them have sex? Something to think about.
Idle thoughts post-coitus.
When he didn't answer right away, she released her death grip on the sheet and rolled to face him, and saw the half-smile, the fascination in his blue eyes, the gathered brows. He was amused. And instead of answering her, he put his right hand on her hip and stroked down and back, cupping her buttock, stroking her thigh, pulling her thigh forward, sliding his thigh between hers…
Was that what she thought it was brushing her side? She only kept two condoms handy. He'd have to look through his own supply and soon, because there was no way she was going to let him…but then again, she was on the patch…
He wasn't answering her question. Bothersome men.
She raised herself up on one elbow and clamped her thighs together. She ignored his surprise, his lifted right brow, and the sheet that had slid down to reveal one breast.
"Are you married?"
She hated having to repeat herself, but it seemed a worthy cause.
"No," he chuckled, pulling her back down most abruptly, abrupt enough to disorient her enough for her legs to fall open. He took advantage of the moment and covered her body. But he didn't press forward, only leaned down to kiss the valley between her now completely exposed breasts. He thought to arouse her senseless? Distract her? Not at all creative.
She reached for his left hand, and slowly brought it up for observation. No ring. No tan line to match the one at his waist.
She hardly noticed that he had stopped his tasting, and was now staring at her most curiously. All she could see were his eyes and his straight nose, now pressed against the underside of her breast.
"You're cute when you're paranoid," he said against her skin. And then he was looming over her, and then kissing her, his tongue doing the oddest things to her brain. Turning it to mush, perhaps?
"It's a valid concern," she replied, rather lamely, breaking away.
Tristan sighed, chuckled because he couldn't help it. "Not with me. Never with me."
She pushed at his chest, rolled on top of him when he was prone. "My rational mind knows that you'd never, but my irrational mind is unable to digest the perfection of last night and the potential fallout. Not to say that there is going to be fallout, but I often think of all the contingencies…"
"Shh. Stop talking," he said, pressing his index finger to her lips.
"Mmkay."
"Indulge me. Let me enjoy this reunion for a little bit longer," he murmured, holding her against his chest.
Rory willed her brain to stop running miles a minute and placed her cheek against his chest. She smiled; she could hear his heart beat. Slow and steady, comforting.
Time stretched in silence. It was a nice silence, but still silence. Which meant her mind had plenty of room to run amok.
His fingers stroked her back, traced her spine rhythmically. "Stop."
"Can't."
"Please."
She pursed her lips, flexed her fingers against his chest. "Hmm."
"I'll let you be as paranoid as you want in a couple hours."
Rory sighed. "Music to my ears, balm for my soul."
"How did I live for ten years without you?"
"I'm sure I don't know."
And so, by the grace of bad reviews, a family wedding, and rash decisions, Rory had her reunion. Despite not being in LA and being a couple years behind schedule, she was satisfied. After all, she hadn't factored in reunion sex (foolish miscalculation), and it made up for any inconsistencies with her imagination.
True to his word, he let her be paranoid to her heart's content later that day, after they'd lazed in bed, safe in their mosquito-netting cocoon. She had dragged him out to dinner, waited for him to fill his mouth with papaya salad and khao pad gai before bombarding him with questions.
Before they'd been questions about how he'd been, how he was doing in his practice, how his parents were, if he'd kept in touch with anyone. Now they were questions about the women he dated. How could he not be taken? Even as she sustained her dream, she didn't think he'd actually be unattached when she met him again. Rory was prepared for the emotional calamity, the disappointment, and the acceptance of delusion. But a positive turnout?
He confessed to having dated, having been in a serious relationship with a woman who was Rory's diametric opposite, and it had ended well. But it had ended nonetheless. His heart wasn't completely in it, and she could tell. He was waiting for something, and she wasn't going to wait for him to find that something, or someone.
Funny how fate worked some times.
After nearly an hour of ranting and rambling, she had exhausted herself, and was satisfied. The timing, she thought, might actually be right.
It was with a light heart that Rory went into the ensuing weeks. She had only planned to be there for a week, and then bounce around Western Europe, but what incentive did she have to travel when everything she wanted was right at her fingertips?
Much to her dismay, their interlude did not last. While she had two months of free time, and would have gladly stayed in their cottage by the ocean for the duration, he had to return to real life in DC, and an ongoing antitrust case. She had been surprised at this revelation when he'd initially told her the first night she arrived. She didn't think he'd end up there. She was certain he'd stay in New England, stay close to his roots. Instead, he was a litigator with a high-profile firm that was in spitting distance of the Hill.
He had a good reason to go back, she had to admit. It was too much to hope that he was free and unfettered from complications and actual commitments. To have him for a couple weeks was amazing. For more than that was no more than wishful thinking. But this time when they parted, they exchanged numbers, addresses, everything pertinent, and made promises to keep in touch. Not just vague inferences. Promises. And yet she was still skeptical. He'd failed to follow through twice now. What was to keep him from a third?
So this time, after a couple more weeks of soaking up sun, sand, surf and plenty of spicy local food, Rory decided to take destiny into her own hands. She was after all, a Third Lorelai, and a Third Lorelai was nothing, if not a woman in charge of her own destiny.
Fate, Rory now decided, was for the birds. If she wanted something (Tristan) she would have to go after it (him.)
It was that determination that prompted her to jump on a plane a week later. And after 24 butt-numbing, feet-swelling, stale-air breathing hours on various 747s, she was limping through Reagan National, trying to get to the taxi stand. She felt irritable, clammy, and was in desperate need of a shower and a meal that wasn't hermetically sealed. She never did travel that well on flights that took more than ten hours. What had she been thinking wanting to follow in the steps of Christiane Amanpour all those years ago? It would have been disastrous.
As she was running a hand through her limp and stringy airplane hair, her eyes met some awfully familiar ones that she didn't plan on seeing for hours, or at least after she'd gotten her shower. Tristan. Rory Gilmore didn't know it, but she was about to get her movie-worthy romantic moment. Again.
She was paralyzed. It was a combination of the shock of seeing him, her fatigue and her mortification of being caught so unattractive in front of the man she loved. It would have been acceptable if they were still in a committed relationship, but not while they were still doing mating dance circles around one another. For a moment, and only a moment, the wistful thoughts of shampoo and body wash superceded any reaction she had to seeing him in the airport with her.
And then he was striding over, jacket billowing, slow motion moving, unbearably hot looking. "Rory? What are you doing here?" he asked, stopping mere inches away from her. His brow was furrowed, but he was grinning.
"I could ask the same of you. Didn't you come back here to work on your case? It's two o'clock in the afternoon. Shouldn't you be at work?" she asked, self-consciously tucking hair behind her ear.
His smile softened, and he placed a hand on her arm. "Not at all. I had a flight to catch," he explained.
"Had a flight? Where are you going? Again, with the travel plans that make no sense," she said.
"I was going to go see you."
"You were going to fly all the way back to Thailand? But…I'm here."
He chuckled, taking both her hands in his. "I can tell, but I didn't expect this. I called the resort; they said you'd left two days ago. I'd thought you'd gone back to LA. So…that's where I'm going."
Gradually, slowly, because her brain was numb from travel and this divulgence of new information, everything clicked in her head. And she grinned, goofily and widely. "You were coming to see me? In LA?"
Tristan nodded. "That was the idea. What we had the last couple weeks…Rory, it was amazing. It also got me thinking about how much time we've, I've, wasted all these years. To think of all the excuses I made up in my head about how I felt about you, and thinking I should just let you go," he said, squeezing her hands. "I've been so stupid all these years. It seems ridiculous to love someone and not be with them."
His confession was unexpected. She hadn't anticipated this either. Rory knew she was happy, beyond happy, ecstatic to hear his words, but...where the hell was her tongue when she needed it?
"I don't expect you to say anything; these thoughts have just been running around in my head and I figure, you should know."
Rory shook her head, and pursed her lips mutinously. With a frustrated growl in her throat she took their joined hands and slid them around his torso. Then she reached up and kissed him full on the mouth. Nothing gross and uncomfortable for onlookers. Just sweet little tastes of his sinfully moist lips, a bite here, a lick there. All told, a safe, comfortable kiss for them.
"I love you," she breathed, eyes looking at him with entirely too much adoration, she was sure. "I'm here because I didn't want to wait three more years before we saw each other again."
He was amused. "But we exchanged information this time."
"I couldn't trust you to not brood over things excessively and thereby not call me. I had to take things into my own hands."
He kissed the tip of her nose. "I see."
Rory grinned. "This, Mr. DuGrey, is my grand romantic gesture. I was going to track you down to your office and give you a lecture on all this, but you messed it up by trying to one up me."
"I'm not trying to one up you. I had a romantic gesture of my own to make. I was going to beat you to your apartment—charm my way past the doorman—set up the scene perfectly, and confess all my sins."
"Confess all your sins? You have sins? Fascinating."
"It is a sin to have left you at all. In college, at Paris's wedding, in Thailand. I should have just called up my boss to say I wasn't ever coming back and be done with it," Tristan said, in an utterly dreamy voice. Much too dreamy. "I'd be telling you all this on my knees, of course. Groveling. Contrite."
"Mmm, I like the imagery. Your grand gesture would have been wonderful, huh?"
"Rose petals, candles and champagne."
"Ah, the classics."
"I have a deep appreciation for the classics."
Rory was still grinning uncontrollably; in her mind she was bouncing off the walls with joy. "Say it again."
"Say what?"
She pursed her lips and gaze up at him through her lashes. "You know."
Tristan, with a long-suffering sigh, freed his hands and cupped her face in his palms. "I love you."
"Again."
"I love you."
"Once more, with feeling," she said, almost giggling.
"I can't go on like this forever, confessing my love, you realize. Besides that, we should be somewhere there aren't dozens of people watching us."
Rory danced in place, preening. "I know I know I know. Public dramas, not anyone's cup of tea, least of all mine. But I get to hear it one more time. Years to make up for."
Tristan leaned down, nuzzled his jaw against hers and poised to whisper, "I love you, Rory Gilmore."
She sighed with pleasure. "That sounds so nice coming from you."
"Thank you."
"One more thing?" she asked in a tiny voice, afraid of refusal.
He sighed. "Yes?"
Rory pulled back and grinned up at him. Her grins were becoming impossible to stop. "Spin me!" she exclaimed, eyes wide and expectant.
"You're kidding, right?"
Rory shook her head furiously. She would have her movie-ending credit-starting moment even if it killed him. "You're Hugh Jackman, I'm Ashley Judd, and we're on a street in New York."
"Sometimes I question my own sanity," Tristan muttered, already lifting her off her feet and securely into his arms.
"Why's that?"
"For falling in love with a mad woman," he smirked, and then proceeded to spin her in a wide circle. Rory gloried in it, tipping her head back and smiling at the sky. Within seconds she was on her feet again, and he was trying to regain his balance.
"That was perfect!" she pronounced, kissing him on the cheek. "You're an excellent boyfriend."
"Well, everyone has their talents. Apparently, loving you is mine."
He truly was a good boyfriend. Rory patted herself on the back on many an occasion for making that decision to fly to DC. It gratified her to know that he would have tracked her down no matter what, but she was glad that she got credit for the grand gesture. It gave her leverage. And time would prove that leverage helped. Because he didn't stop at being a good boyfriend. No. He was then an exemplary fiancée. The ideal husband. A wonderful father. And always, the love of her life, her soul's true mate.
In a mansion in the suburbs, with rebellious children, an unruly and neglected garden, and the perfect man of her reality, Rory Gilmore had her happily ever after.