Aside

by passions-spent

There he was, Tristan Dugrey, looking almost identical to the boy she had once known, if it wasn’t for the metal bar protruding through his right eyebrow. Trory Oneshot.

"You went to Chilton, right?"

Rory turned to her left, still leaning against the bar with a champagne glass in hand, towards the brunette girl who had spoken. A small smile was still on her face from the brief interlude she had had taking to her mother before she had been swept away by Emily Gilmore. Smiling politely, she brought her drink closer to her lips. "Yes, I did."

The girl sighed in relief. "Thank God, I've been looking for you for almost twenty minutes now. It's impossible to find anyone in this place." She rolled her eyes, before smiling and offering her hand to Rory. "I don't know if you remember me, we didn't really hang out in the same circles at Chilton. I'm Summer."

Rory smiled back and shook Summer's hand. She knew that the name sounded familiar but she couldn't quite place it. "I'm Rory." She raised an eyebrow. "You were looking for me?"

Summer nodded as she took a champagne flute off of a passing waiter's tray, the diamond ring on her finger sparkling obnoxiously. "I've been collecting all of the former Chilton students here. You're the last one on my list."

Putting down her now empty glass, Rory furrowed her eyebrows. "On your list for what?" she asked, leaning back against the bar.

Summer laughed, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth demurely while also showing off her gigantic diamond engagement ring. "You've never been to the Livingston's annual Christmas party, have you?"

There was a pause as Rory thought about it, trying to recall if she had ever made an appearance at this certain house. She didn't think so but most society parties run together. "No, I haven't. Why?"

"Every year since we graduated, the former Chilton students form a sub-party at the Livingston's Christmas party. It's tradition." She shrugged. "It gives us a chance to catch up as not very many of us stayed in touch after graduation."

Trying to squelch the hurt that she hadn't been included in this yearly gathering, memories of her time at Chilton jumped unbidden into her head and she remembered how much she had stayed isolated from her fellow students in high school. "And do you arrange it?"

"Do I-?" Summer started to repeat before laughing and shaking her head. "No, I don't arrange it. No one really does. I had the job of finding people who are at the party, are former graduates of Chilton and don't know about it this year. Do you remember Adrian?"

Rory shook her head.

"Well, he's the Livingston's son and so he has access to the guest list. He finds out who's coming and whether they know about it and then makes a list of who we have to seek out before we can start the sub-party." Summer lowered her voice and rolled her eyes. "I had the joyful task of trying to coerce Paris Gellar into joining us. I swear, I felt like I was going to cry when she said that she'd come."

Rory had to laugh. "Yeah, she has that affect on people." She paused for a minute, thinking things over. "And so nobody else knows about the sub-party? What about the people who don't live in Hartford anymore? How many people usually attend?"

Summer laughed again and started backing up. "Wow, I can definitely tell that you're a journalism major." She gestured impatiently with her hand. "We're going to be late however, and it's tradition to wait until every one gets there to bring out the alcohol. We definitely won't be popular if we make people wait too long for that."

Rory nodded, trying to ignore the rush that filled her when Summer had called her a journalism major. She was going back to school; she was going to be a university student again. It was hard to believe that she was actually going back, that everything was going back to normal. She and her mom were talking again, she had a job and was moving one step closer to fulfilling her dreams. The only downside to all of this was her break-up with Logan but she was determined not to think about him, especially since she had caught a glimpse of him earlier that evening with another girl. Not dwelling on it was harder than Rory had anticipated.

Summer turned back to Rory as they exited the room and smiled kindly. "It was getting stuffy in there, wasn't it? Anyway, to answer your questions…" Summer thought for a moment. "Not many people know about the sub-party, although usually some others around our age join us later in the evening. People who don't live in Hartford anymore either show up or don't. It's not mandatory and there are a lot of people who don't even know about it." She shrugged. "If we don't see them at this party, we'll see them at the five year reunion anyway. As for how many people attend, it varies. When we first started getting together, there was about fifty of us but that number has dwindled over the last two years. I think there are about 20 people here tonight."

Rory nodded, trying to absorb all of the information that was coming to her. There was a pause in the conversation until she decided to turn the conversation to simpler topics. "Congratulations," Rory said, nodding towards the diamond engagement ring placed on Summer's left hand. "Who's the lucky guy?"

Summer's smile widened as she held out her hand in front of her, admiring the ring as the light reflected off of it. "Do you remember Tristan Dugrey?"

Rory's eyes widened as she recalled the blond teenager who had enjoyed making her miserable throughout their shared time at Chilton. "Yeah I remember him. You guys got engaged?"

Summer laughed although not unkindly. "Are you kidding? We'd kill each other within two days of being together. No, I'm engaged to his best friend from military school. We met the summer after high school graduation and just clicked. Of course, it was kind of awkward at first because of how Tristan and I ended when we had dated…"

Summer continued to talk, clearly enjoying the subject, but Rory had tuned her out as memories that had long ago been stored away resurfaced. The kiss at Madeline's party was recalled and Rory mentally cringed at what had happened after. The knowledge of who Summer was in high school became clearer, as Rory remembered her role in her and Tristan's kiss that night. She couldn't believe that all of this had slipped her mind over the years.

Her brunette companion's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Anyway, you'll meet my fiancé tonight. He and Tristan come up for this party every year, even though neither of them graduated from Chilton. We made Dugrey an honorary Chilton graduate though."

Rory nodded and opened her mouth to reply to that but they had arrived at their destination. The sounds of a group of people enjoying themselves came from behind a closed door, causing Summer to smirk at Rory.

"Ready?" she asked, not waiting for a reply before opening the door and making her presence known. Rory straightened her shoulders and followed her inside, closing the door behind her. She would show her high school peers that she wasn't the same timid girl that had graduated almost three years ago.

"Rory!" She looked up to see Madeline and Louise rushing towards her with champagne glasses in hand, causing her to smile.

"Hey!" she replied, taking a slight step backwards as they approached. As she hugged both of them, she noticed that the eyes of almost everyone in the room were on her and she had to resist the urge to blush.

"God, I love your dress," Louise said, looking at it from top to bottom with a jealous look on her face. "You have such awesome fashion sense now."

Someone snorted and Rory turned to see Paris sitting at a couch, an eyebrow raised. "I think that that was a requirement to become Logan Huntzberger's girlfriend."

Rory accepted a glass of champagne from Summer with a smile and nod before turning back to Paris, noticing that all eyes were still on her. "Ex-girlfriend," she corrected, absently straightening the hemline of her dress.

Paris raised an eyebrow. "I thought that you guys were just on a break?"

Sighing, Rory took a seat on a nearby couch, keeping the smile on her face. "Me too but then his sister called over Thanksgiving to offer her condolences for the break up."

Sympathetic groans and smiles came almost immediately, making Rory feel worse than she already did. Tonight was about forgetting Logan, he was the last thing that she wanted to discuss with people that she hadn't seen in almost three years.

Conversation picked up a minute or so later as people's scrutiny of Rory died down. She leaned back, relieved that the attention was off of her. All her life, she was used to having someone by her to take the attention away; her mother, Logan, Paris, even Dean and Jess. She wasn't used to having all eyes on her yet.

"Rory," Summer said, making Rory jump. She hadn't noticed the brunette approach. Summer smiled slightly, before grasping Rory's wrist. "There's someone I'd like you to meet." She let Summer pull her across the room until they came to two men leaning against the wall talking. Conversation between the two of them stopped once the girls had arrived. "Rory, this is my fiancé Sebastian. Seb, this is Rory. Rory, Tristan, I'm sure that you two remember each other."

"It's nice to meet you, Sebastian," Rory said, her ingrained manners coming into play. "And to see you again, Tristan." She smiled, turning towards the blond. Her eyes narrowed. "You got your eyebrow pierced." She was sure that she was gaping but she could help it. There he was, Tristan Dugrey, looking almost identical to the boy she had once known, if it wasn't for the metal bar protruding through his right eyebrow.

He chuckled. "I haven't seen you in years, Mary and the first thing you say to me is that I got my eyebrow pierced?" He raised said eyebrow.

She scowled, closing her mouth and trying not to let the smile she was hiding show. "Actually, the first thing that I said to you was that it was nice to see you again."

Taking a minute to review their conversation thus far, he nodded slowly. "Okay, I'll give you that. But still, most people would wait to become reacquainted before they start scolding about a facial piercing."

"I wasn't scolding you!" she protested, leaning up against the wall beside him, vaguely noticing that Sebastian and Summer had left with knowing smiles on their faces. She decided to ignore that. "It looks… it works… I think…" She stumbled over her words, ignoring his smirk and her blush. "You don't look hideous with it in," she finally decided on.

"Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment." He leaned in closer to her and she unconsciously parted her lips slightly. "And, while we're giving them away, you don't look completely hideous in that dress either."

She rolled her eyes. "Nice, Dugrey, real nice. I can see why all the girls used to flock to you."

"So you can dish but you can't take it." He raised his pierced eyebrow again. "Interesting," he mused, idly swirling the champagne in his glass.

"I can so take it!" she replied indignantly, briefly contemplating what it was about his man that made her sound like a whiny four-year-old.

There was a pause. "I'm glad to see you've matured since I last saw you." Gesturing towards a nearby couch, he took a seat and waited for her to do the same. When a minute passed and she was still standing, he patted the seat next to him and smirked up at her. "I don't bite, you know," he told her before thinking for a minute. "Unless I'm asked to." His smirk widened as he leered at her.

She rolled her eyes and took the seat next to him on the couch, immediately sinking down into the oversized cushions that adorned it. Trying to ignore the hyper-sensitivity of her leg that was brushing up against his, she leaned back against the couch. "So you come here every year?"

He nodded and leaned back in his seat. "Yeah, it started because Seb was dying to see Summer for Christmas and so she invited him to this party and I somehow got dragged along. It was kind of cool to see everyone from the old days and so I kept coming." He shrugged. "What about you? I've never seen you here before, why are you here this year?"

"My grandparents put up with me living in their pool house for almost six months and so when they asked me to come here tonight, I didn't want to turn them down." She shrugged, playing with her bracelet.

He nodded. "That's cool. I hear you go to Yale too."

"Yeah I do." She thought for a second. "Wait a minute, what do you mean 'too'? You don't go to Yale."

"As of September of this year, I do." He smirked, enjoying the dumbstruck expression on the usually articulate Rory Gilmore. "I haven't seen you around campus though."

"That would be because I took a semester off." She loved the way that sounded, the way that it implied that she would be going back. Over the last couple of months, there had been a drifting uncertainty that she would never go back there, that she would just become another college drop-out. But no, she was made of stronger stuff than that. She was going back.

"Really?" He raised that eyebrow again and Rory looked away, not wanting to admit that she liked the piercing. "What for?"

She shrugged. "I just needed some time to think, I guess."

He nodded, not pushing it and there was a lull in conversation. Tristan found himself watching Rory out of the corner of his eye. He had thought about her periodically over the years but had never expected to see her again. Despite the not-so-decent thoughts that had drifted through his mind at the sight of her in that dress, he knew that tonight wasn't the night to make a move on her. He had already had experience insinuating something with her when she wasn't completely over her ex and it hadn't ended well. He didn't know if he could take Rory Gilmore running away from him in tears again.

"When did you get that?" she asked, breaking the silence and gesturing towards his eyebrow.

He smirked. "It was the first thing I did after graduating high school. It was my own graduation present to myself."

"Did it hurt?"

"Nope, they stuck a needle through my eyebrow but somehow it didn't hurt at all," he replied sarcastically. He laughed. "It hurt some, Mary. Why so interested? You going to get one yourself?"

She shook her head and stuck her tongue out at him. "I was just curious. And," she continued, "I couldn't get one myself because I can't do that spiffy raise one eyebrow thing like you can."

Dutifully, he raised his pierced eyebrow at her before noticing the other man approaching. "Hey Adrian," he said as the man slowed down and leaned against the armrest of the couch.

"Hey Tristan." The blond turned towards Rory. "And Rory, right?" At her nod, he smiled. "I thought so, I'm Adrian Livingston."

Rory smiled. "It's nice to meet you, Adrian." She moved over a little and it didn't escape anyone's notice that she moved towards Tristan when there was room on her other side as well. "Have a seat."

Adrian sat and smiled at both of them. "So, Rory, are you enjoying yourself?"

"I am thanks. Your house is beautiful."

He accepted the compliment with a nod and a smile. "My mother would be delighted to hear that." His expression turned worried. "You haven't come across my mother tonight, have you?"

Her eyebrows drew together. "No, I haven't." Beside her, Tristan tried to stifle a laugh.

Adrian nodded in satisfaction. "That's good." At Rory's questioning look, he explained. "My mom knows your grandmother and between them, I'm sure that they could have our marriage planned by the end of the party. My mom's been very marriage happy lately. Both my sisters have gotten engaged within the last month and she's determined to see me married off by the end of the year."

Rory laughed. "I'll avoid your mother then."

He smiled thankfully. "Please do." There was a pause as he surveyed the crowd. "Shit!" he swore as he stood up. "Kim! You haven't talked to my mother tonight, have you?" He looked back over his shoulder as he started across the room. "Bye Rory, good to see you again Dugrey."

Rory laughed as he approached a blonde woman that she vaguely recognized. She turned back to Tristan. "Does he do that often? Warn eligible girls away from his mother, I mean," she clarified, smiling.

He laughed. "He's been at it all night. I'm pretty sure at least one of them ventured out to find his mother after talking to him." He took a swig from his drink. "Some of the girls here tonight are as marriage happy as his mother." He gave Rory a sideways look out of the corner of his eye. "But, I'm sure that you're not one of them, right?"

She widened her eyes and tilted her head, trying to look as innocent as possible. "Who, me?" she asked before laughing. "You know I'm not that kind of girl."

A clanging sound interrupted Tristan's retort, causing both of them to look up to see a man hitting his champagne glass with a pen standing in the middle of the room. Once all eyes were on him, he smirked and put the pen back into his pocket, holding his glass out in front of him.

"All right, all right. Now that everyone's here and reacquainted, it's time for the toast!" There was a cheer of agreement and Rory felt the cushion beside her sink down. She looked over to see Adrian smirking at her, holding his own glass of champagne.

"That's Austin," Tristan whispered in her ear, his breath hot against her neck as he gestured towards the man in the middle of the room. "He got dibs on the toast this year."

"Okay, first things first," Austin said, raising his glass towards Adrian. "To Adrian Livingston, whose party we crash every year; thanks man."

"To Adrian," the former Chilton students repeated and took a sip of their drink.

"To…" There was a pause as Austin seemed to be contemplating something before he smiled crookedly at his former classmates. "To making mistakes," he said quietly, looking at a blonde girl in particular who looked away guiltily. "And to forgiveness." He smiled at the same girl who smiled back, somewhat wobbly. The crowd lifted their glasses to him but didn't take a drink.

"His ex-girlfriend," Tristan murmured in Rory's ear as he lifted his glass. "She cheated on him last year and has pretty much been shunned since then. He's showing that he has no hard feelings so things should be easier for her from now on."

Rory smiled, as she watched the girl be treated warmly from most people in the room. It was a nice sentiment, she thought, although she wasn't sure if it was sincere or just a calculated crowd-pleaser.

"And finally," Austin announced, raising his glass once again. "To us," he stated simply. "To friends, to family, to fuc-"

"Austin!" a brunette girl yelled out from her spot leaning against the wall at the back of the room. "C'mon, virgin ears, here!"

"I'm just kidding, Alana," Austin soothed, but the impish grin on his face gave it all away. "Here's to the future!" He held out his glass and took a long swallow.

"To the future," Rory repeated with the rest of the group, taking a small sip of her drink. She leaned closer to Tristan as he repeated the sentiments and finished off his champagne. She could hear Adrian doing the same on her other side and she smiled.

Whenever she had been hanging out with Logan and his friends, she had always wished that her peers at Chilton had been similar. She thought that it would have made her time there more enjoyable. But now, sitting on a couch in a crowded room between a man that had made her life miserable and a man that she didn't recall, she knew that the students at Chilton had been as much fun as Logan and his friends. She had just never looked close enough to find that out for herself.

Almost half an hour later, Rory couldn't have been happier that she had decided to come to the informal reunion. It had been fun, catching up with people that she hardly remembered from her time at Chilton. Some of them had been as snobby as she had recalled but others had been extremely easy to talk to, people she could be friends with.

"Having a good time?"

Rory turned around to see Tristan leaning against the wall, doing the eyebrow thing again. She smiled. "I am, actually."

He nodded, putting his hands in his pockets and smirking at her. "It's always nice to catch up with old friends."

Choosing to ignore the innuendo he put on 'catch up', her smile widened. "It is, isn't it? Sophia was telling me about the Livingston's library. It sounds fascinating. I was just going to go find Adrian to see if he'll show me it. If you'll excuse me." She turned to leave but was stopped by a hand on her arm.

"I can show you the library if you want." Tristan's voice was low and his smirk was evident as he leaned in closer. "Besides, Adrian is occupied at the moment." They both looked over to see Adrian led a girl out of the room, his arm around her waist. "What do you say, Mare?"

There was a pause. "Let's go, Dugrey," she finally said, albeit grudgingly.

They exited the room and Rory wasn't naïve enough not to notice the looks that some people were shooting them, obviously thinking that they were leaving together for a far less innocent reason than to find the library. And, as Rory watched Tristan out of her eye, she wondered if that was all they were doing too.

It took less than twenty seconds for Tristan to find the library and Rory spent all of that time in thought. Logan had barely crossed her mind ever since she had been reunited with Tristan and she liked that. She liked that Tristan could make her laugh but could also challenge her, making her think.

"Here it is," Tristan announced, gesturing around the room as they entered. It was large, with bookshelves creeping up the walls and a seating area in the middle, arranged in front of a stone fireplace.

"Wow," Rory breathed, entering the room and closing the door behind her. She walked to the nearest bookshelf and read the titles of the eyelevel book spines. Looking up, she let out a small breath of exclamation.

"What is it?" Tristan asked from across the room where he had taken a seat on one of the couches, reclining lazily.

"I've been looking for this book forever!" she exclaimed, standing on her tiptoes to reach it but falling short. She pouted, looking around the room for a stool or something.

"Here." He had approached behind her without her noticing and was reaching up towards the book as she scurried out of his way, biting her lip. When he had easily plucked the book from the shelf, he turned to her and raised an eyebrow. "Am I making you nervous, Mary?"

Her chin when up defiantly. "No." She put her hand out for the book.

He smirked, keeping the book out of her reach. "I am, aren't I?" He took another step closer to her.

She shook her head, finding that the words that had never failed her before weren't coming to her. As he took another step forward, she forced herself to be strong, to not take another step back.

And when he was only scant inches in front of her, raising his pierced eyebrow for the hundredth damn time that night, she did the only thing that she could think of to do right then; she kissed him.

He pulled her tighter against him, his fingers digging into her hips, her hands curling around his neck, the book lying on the floor forgotten. As his lips gravitated towards her neck, and his hands gravitated south, all coherent thoughts flew from her mind and she exhaled on a moan. And as the dress that she had gotten so many compliments on throughout the night was peeled quickly from her body and she was being lowered onto the couch, nothing else mattered save for the feelings that Tristan was currently evoking from her. In that moment, she didn't care that she was half-naked with the former Chilton playboy in someone's private library; she didn't care that anyone could walk in on her.

As she wrapped her legs around his waist and he dragged off her last remaining layer, any reservations about what she was doing were blown away and she smothered a scream, biting down on his shoulder, wondering why she hadn't done this years ago.

-

It was awkward.

She should have expected that it would have been but somehow she hadn't anticipated it. Their breathing had returned to normal and their heart rates had slowed. And after their loud moans and groans, the silence was deafening. She could feel his eyes on her from his position beside her where he had remained after rolling off of her only minutes before.

"That damned eyebrow," she finally said, breaking the silence and looking over at him with a grin on her face. "That's what got me."

He grinned back, pleased that she wasn't regretting what they had just done and leaned over to brush his lips against her neck where he had left a mark. "Oh yeah?" he murmured, raising his eyebrow jokingly. "If I had known that that was what turned you on, I would have gotten it pierced a long time ago."

Her laugh was low as she stretched, beginning to get up. As she reached for her dress, she noticed the crescent shaped marks from his finger nails on her hips and a slow, satisfied smile spread across her face. Ignoring his protests, she began putting her clothes back on. "Come on, let's go back. We've been gone for a while, they'll be wondering where we are."

He laughed, pulling her towards him. "They'll figure it out, they're not stupid. Besides, I've been having more fun here with you, than I've had at any of those reunions. Hell, I've had more fun in the last hour than in all my years at Chilton."

Touched by his sentiments, she kissed him long and hard. "We should still be getting back," she whispered, pulling away and slipping her dress back on.

He groaned but picked up his clothes and put them back on, letting her pull him to his feet. "So, I was thinking," he said once he was dressed and standing.

"Were you?" She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and was surprised when he put a hand on her forearm to stop her from moving forward.

"That," he continued, "since we're going to the same school and all, we'll probably see a lot more of each other."

"It seems inevitable," she murmured, sending him a coy smile.

"Does it?" He took the hand off of her forearm to trail a fingertip down to her palm where he interlaced their fingers. "Is it inevitable that I ask you out then?"

Her smile widened and she leaned in to brush her lips against his. "No but I'll accept anyway."

They exited the room, hand in hand, and stopped almost immediately at the sight of a group of people about to enter the library. Rory bit her lip as she noticed Logan, his date and his friends among them. There was an awkward silence as the two groups looked at each other. She could feel their eyes on her, knew that they were judging her but surprisingly it didn't bother her. Finn and Colin looked at her disapprovingly but Rosemary winked when Rory caught her eye and gave her a discreet thumbs up.

"Tristan, Rory; where'd you guys go?"

The whole group turned as one to face Madeline, Louise and Austin who walked up behind Logan's group.

"Ohh," Louise said, with a knowing look and a smirk at their dishevelled appearances and joined hands. "I should have known."

Rory half shrugged, her hand still clasped in Tristan's firm grip as she gave her best I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about look. "What are you guys doing out here?"

Madeline smiled. "Looking for you two," she answered. "Louise and I need to leave and so we wanted to say good-bye, just in case it's another year and a half before we see you again."

Austin smirked. "And I couldn't resist escorting these beautiful ladies." He smirked, throwing an arm around each girl and that was when Rory noticed that he was holding a champagne glass in each hand.

"Hey!" Everybody looked up to see Sebastian and Summer further down the hall, waving at them. "Are you guys going to stand in the hall all night or come back and join the party? C'mon, how many times do you get to catch up with your old Chilton pals?"

"Let's go," Tristan murmured in Rory's ear and she nodded, noticing that Madeline, Louise and Austin had turned and were walking towards Sebastian and Summer as well.

It was only once their group was passing Logan's that she even remembered that he was there. A surprised smile played across her lips as she realized that she didn't care that he had seen her and Tristan together, effectively ruining any chance of reconciliation. Looking up at the man next to her and the metal bar protruding from his eyebrow, her smile widened.

"Was that Logan?" Louise whispered in her ear, making her start, not having noticed that she was there.

Rory nodded.

"Awkward," Madeline breathed sympathetically.

Austin raised an eyebrow, looking back at the group that they had passed, searching out the blond head. "I think I could take him, if you want Gilmore."

Rory could only laugh as she shook her head. It was too bad that she had never taken the time to notice her peers at Chilton when she was still going to school with them. Maybe if she had, she would have had more fond memories; maybe she would have looked towards graduation with dread instead of with anticipation. Maybe she would have made life long friends and would be able to sit around a table years later, reminiscing wild high school days as their kids rolled their eyes in shame. But maybes never got anyone anywhere and so Rory looked towards the future instead.

And Tristan smiled back at her.