An Author's Very Late Night Ramblings- So, here we are again. I've written something new. Not something old, something new. I'm sure that everyone is annoyed to see something new from me, instead of something old. Well, suck it up. I worked hard on this piece, and I'm pretty proud of the result. Hopefully, you all will be too. This story is a little on the experimental side, as far as formatting goes, I think. It may not be that experimental to you, the reader, but it is to me. I sort of but not really modeled it after a challenge over in the Veronica Mars fandom, called the Seven Days challenge. There are different days in this fic, but there are technically nine in this story, not seven, and they are all about Tristan and Rory and their life together.

I have to say thank you to Amy, who helped me out with the editing part of the story, as well as helping me by giving me her truly fabulous feedback. I am grateful to her for all her assistance. And thank you to M and to J, who always manage to make me smile, especially when I'm in the midst of writing a fic like this.

Enjoy the story!

The Sands in Our Hourglass

I first saw you on a Monday morning.

You were late to English because your grandfather had another stroke. Your hair was rumpled, as though you'd just rolled out of bed, but I could tell that you had spent at least a half hour making the spikes stick up in the exact right spots.

You walked past me, and I think I knew it then, that we were meant to be an 'Us', but I can't be sure.

You backed me up against the lockers, and I could feel the shivers that you sent up my spine. No one had ever done that to me before, and no one has ever really done it since. A few have tried, but they couldn't, because they weren't you.

You made a rude comment, and I snapped at you. You smiled and called me Mary. I didn't know what it meant then, not like I do now. I didn't want to be your Mary back then, but I would give anything to be called Mary now.

You watched me as you backed away with that smirk on your face. At that time, I'd wanted nothing more than to wipeit from your lips. To make your eyes stop laughing at me.

Now all I want to see is your laughing eyes and your curling lips. I wish for them every day.

I first kissed you on a Saturday night.

Your lips weren't smiling that night. Your eyes weren't laughing either.

You had just been dumped in public by your girl of the week. She left you for another guy, your friend. You were more embarrassed than hurt, you told me years later. You didn't like to show weakness or pain, even way back then.

You were sitting at that piano when I found you that night, alone, tickling the old ivory keys. I didn't know you could play. I guess I never bothered to ask, but it's not like you let too many people in on your secret hobby.

You were my kindred spirit that night. I had just been dumped too,only twenty-four hoursbefore, and I was more than capable of commiserating with you over the loss of a significant other, even if it was just a stupid high school romance.

You called me odd, and you kissed me. Your lips were soft and firm when they pressed against mine in a kiss that was so quick, so fleeting.

You pulled away when you felt my tears on your cheeks. You asked me if you'd bit my lip, and I could barely choke out an answer.

I spent the rest of the night on my couch, crying over my first boyfriend with my mother and a gallon of chocolate chip brownie ice cream.

But no matter how much ice cream and pizza Iate that night, Iwent to bed with the taste of your lips still on mine.

I watched you leave me for the first time on a Sunday evening.

We were supposed to be playing the star-crossed lovers any second, but you were nowhere to be found, and Paris and I searched high and low for you that night. Paris had even scared a few of the guys out of the boy's bathroom while she hunted you down.

You appeared from around the corner and told me that you had to leave. You looked so sad, so lonely, and all I wanted to do was throw my arms around you and beg you to stay with me.

You said you would have kissed me goodbye if my boyfriend wasn't watching. You had no idea how much I wanted you to throw caution to the wind and sweep me up in your arms in that moment. I know you didn't want to make things bad or awkward for me, since Dean was right there, watching our every move like the jealous boyfriend he always was.

You called me Mary once more, and you turned and walked away to follow your father to the airport, to the plane that was going to take you to North Carolina and far away from me. You didn't know how much it hurt me inside to watch you leave me behind, even though I knew that you didn't have any choice.

I found you again on a Wednesday at Noon.

You were taking some extra classes during the summer at Yale, and I was trying to catch up from my semester off. You were sitting one row over, three seats down, and you didn't know it was me until I tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear and you saw the very same earlobe that you had gotten in trouble for staring at in our sophomore year at Chilton.

You walked up to me and made my stomach flutter. You asked me if I'd like to go for coffee and to catch up, and your eyes lit up when I said yes.

You listened, enraptured, as I filled you in what you had missed while stuck in North Carolina and then again at the University of Pennsylvania, where you went to college. You asked me if I'd like to go to dinner with you, and I smiled, unable to contain my giddiness. I said yes to you for the second time in a matter of hours, and I knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again.

I first made love to you on a Tuesday at midnight.

Your flight from Philadelphia had come in late, and then your car broke down on the way to New Haven, and I had to come and get you, effectively ruining your surprise visit.

You didn't expect sex when you first arrived, and that's one of the things that I loved about you. You respected that I wanted to wait, because I'd jumped into sex in my last relationship, and it had blown up in my face. You told me it was because in your heart of hearts, you knew that I was the one for you, and that our time would come.

Your eyes went wide when I whispered 'I love you' in the moonlight of my dorm room. It was so unexpected, I suppose, since we'd only been dating for a few months, and we'd not seen each other in almost six weeks, since you went back to Philadelphia to go finish up your senior year at the Wharton School of Business.

Your eyes danced happily when I kissed you that day. It was a different kind of kiss, you told me later, as we lay on my twin-sized bed, sweaty and satisfied. Your hands were still stroking my back as we sprawled, tangled up in each other, a mess of legs and arms. You said it was a forever kind of kiss.

Iagreed, even though I wasn't sure what exactly made this kiss so different. I'd always been able totaste eternity whenever your lips were on mine.

I slipped a ring on your finger on Friday afternoon.

You didn't want anything big or fancy. I didn't either, but you were actually willing to fight your parents for our small, intimate gathering of friends and family. You let your parents throw a lavish, extravagant reception the following night, but you insisted that the actual ceremony be kept as private as possible.

You looked so handsome in your tux, your eyes glittering in the candlelight of the church as you watched me glide up the aisle toward you.

You took my hand and recited those sacred vows. You slipped my wedding band on my finger as you promised to love, honor, and cherish.

And you did. It was just the forever and ever part of the vows you had trouble with.

I was carried over our threshold first thing on a Thursday morning.

You scooped me up in your arms so quickly I didn't even realize what you were doing until it was over. You laughed at me, but nonetheless complied with my unorthodox request for a redo.

You carried in all the boxes with Luke while Mom and I 'organized' them. You never said a word, even though you knew that we were only pointing out where to put them to get out of all the heavy lifting.

You got all annoyed when you got that call from the movers saying that they were stuck on the highway in the middle of a fifteen-car pile-up and they were not going to be able to get to the house until the next day. Your face got all red, and you went into your businessman mode, not stopping until you'd negotiated them into knocking the unloading fee off of our bill.

You grinned when I laid that old blanket on the dining room floor, and you helped me set up all the cartons of Chinese food we'd ordered from that place a few minutes away from the house for our very first meal in our very first home.

You said we were going to christen the entire first floor that night, but we never made it out of the dining room, and I doubt either of us noticed until the movers knocked on the window the next morning, and you instituted that rule about not falling asleep in any room on the first floor without the drapes drawn.

I didn't see you leave the second time on another Sunday at dawn.

You had insisted that I go home and get some rest, take a shower, and get something to eat. You probably would have forced me out the door, had you been able to. I tried to make you promise to be there when I got back, and I should have known when you only smiled and waved me out with your hand.

You were gone when I got back only a few hours later. A doctor told me that it was common for people who were so far gone to wait until their loved ones left them before they passed on. It was easier that way.

Easier. I would have laughed if it weren't for the painful sobs that were coursing through my body at that moment. Nothing about you leaving me was made easier by not being there. That was impossible.

I keep thinking back to our wedding day, when you swore to love me, honor me, and cherish me, for ever, and ever, and ever. I never really gave much attention to the part where you said the words 'as long as we both shall live' before, but I guess I should have.

You always leave me on Sundays. I should have remembered how the first time around worked, and I should have stayed with you, no matter how uncomfortable sleeping in that wretched chair was, or how hungry I was for something that the hospital didn't butcher, or how badly in need of a shower I was. I should have made sure that history didn't have a chance to repeat itself.

Maybe then I wouldn't feel so alone.

I became a mother today.

You became a father too, and you would have been enthralled with the bundle that lies sleeping in my arms at this very moment. Seven pounds, nine ounces of pure, baby boy bliss. You must know this, at least I hope you do. I hope that you can see us from up in heaven, or hell, or whatever place lies in between the two that you have been dwelling in these past few months since you left me all alone to raise our child.

You said that even when you were gone, I'd be able to feel you, and I think I can right now. I am wishing and praying like crazy that I can, that I'm not really as alone as I felt as my mom coached me through labor and delivery. It should have been you holding my hand, encouraging me, wiping my brow, not her.

You should have fallen completely in love with him like I did, when they placed him in your arms. He has your eyes, you know, he opened them earlier, and all the breath left my body when he stared up at me, with your eyes; it was like having a tiny piece of you back with me.

You got your wish; I named him Caleb James Dugrey, just like we planned before you got so sick. He is sleeping now, but you should have heard him before, he has a good set of lungs. He's perfectly pink, with ten fingers and ten toes and that wonderful baby smell that all perfect pink babies have.

I'm still angry at you for leaving me. I know you fought so hard to stay with me, with Caleb, but I'm still angry at you for going. I think I always will be a little angry at you for that.

You wouldn't want me to dwell on that though. You would want me to be strong, for myself and for our son, and know that no matter where you are, and no matter how bleak it may seem, that you are right there with me, every step of the way.

Are you really there, every step of the way? Have you been? Or am I just wishing for you to be here with me so hard that I'm fooling myself into believing that I can feel you beside me right now?

He's so much of you, and so much of me, and how God, or the angels, or whoever was responsible for the actual assembly of him, managed to make him the perfect blend of all of our best parts can only be described as a miracle. He's our miracle, Tristan, even though you aren't here now.

They say that I can go home tomorrow, that we're both the picture of health and perfection. God, I can't help but wish that those words were used to describe you a few months ago. Then I wouldn't have to go home to a house that used to be ours, but isn't now. Mom thinks I should sell it, move closer to her. It would be easier for her to help me with the baby that way, but I don't think I could. There's too much of you still in that house. It's like you left this phantom fingerprint on the walls, in the kitchen, on your side of the bed. I still sleep on my side, you know. It's like I'm waiting for the night when you'll slide in next to me, and I'll wake up from this terrible nightmare that I've been living since you went away.

I don't know why I'm thinking of these moments, these tiny blips in time. I guess it's my way of remembering you, of keeping you with me. I think about my time with you every day, but these moments seem to be the ones that stand out in my brain the most. I suppose these are the moments that changed everything, even though some changed nothing. Some are huge events, like the day you proposed to me, and others, like that day you whisked me off to the beach in the middle of finals, and it was just you and me and the sound of the waves and that gigantic mountain of books I insisted on bringing. I don't remember studying too much with the sun and the sand and your lips on my face, though.

I suppose I need to keep thinking about these moments, because it's up to me to tell our son all about his daddy, how wonderful he was, and how much he loves him, since you aren't here to do it yourself. I wish you were, because I don't want to do this by myself. I don't want to raise our little boy without you there.

It's not fair. I know it's not fair, I grew up without my dad too. I don't want our son to know what it feels like to not have you there. He deserves to have you here with us, and you deserved that too.

He'll never know your laughing eyes. He'll never see your lips curl into a smirk when you are particularly satisfied with yourself. He'll never know you, and I'm angry at you for that too, I think, even though I know that it's not really your fault. I know that, I promise you, but at the end of the day, you're still not here with me, and he'll always be cheated out of knowing you, of loving you.

How am I supposed to tell Caleb about all the things that made you you? How am I supposed to tell him about how blue your eyes were when you looked at me? How am I supposed to tell him about the smell of your skin? About that little tapping thing you'd do with your feet for good luck whenever Mariano Rivera was on the pitcher's mound, closing another Yankee game? I don't even like sports. I don't understand basketball or baseball any more than I understand why you aren't here with me now.

I wish I had a magic wand that I could wave, so that you'd walk through that door right this moment, and all would be right in my world again, but I don't. I wish I had a crystal ball, so I would have known which days to hold on to the tightest, so they'd never slip away from me like time did from us. I wish I had a time machine, because I would live in the reruns of the days we spent together, but I can't.

I wish I'd known that the sand in our hourglass was going to run out so quickly. I would have memorized every single moment, committed every single smile and every laugh and every expression you'd ever made to my memory. I would have told you I loved you more. I would have done a million things different, but I wouldn't change a thing, because every day I spent with you was a gift, because of your quick wit and your hands and your hair, which you never could tame completely. I wish I could turn that hourglass over, to give us more time, because that's the only gift you could never give me.

More time.

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