AN: Hey again guys, I know a sai a couple of chapters ago that I wouldn't be updating for a while but I couldn't help myself. I thought it would start getting harder now but I keep getting ideas. Okay, so alot of readers now seem to be suspecting Matt...Tristan's occasional roommate. Perhaps he was sick of having to go sleep in the common room when Liz was playing sleepover with Tristan? Big question though, I'll put it to poll, originally I was going to leave it open in the end and nev have it found out who the killer was. But would you guys prefer to know who did it? Let me know!

hoazin: Thank you so much for you're fantastic review!

Karah06: Thank you so much! Don't worry, you'll soon be finding out why Summer hates Tristan. And I'm glad you liked the bit where he mistook her for Liz!

LoVe23: You're awesome! I'm glad the computer lab scene worked, or at least, the scene where she was gng back to DuGrey building. I was tryin to make it a little creepy.

nk-number1actress: To you and to anyone else who was wondering, I'm from Australia, and we call tank-tops and wife-beaters "singlets" I keep forgetting about that one. Sorry ;)

i die without you: I'm glad this is striking a chord with you. Nobody's trusting my instincts at the moment either, although it's over relatively trivial crap. Namely, I've decided, after three years at university, that I don't want to be a journalist and mum is entertaining all sorts of crazy fantasies about me becoming a stripper something instead. Keep reading sweets!

To everyone who's reviewing thank you so much! And thank you to everyone who's checked out "It's Only the Idea"

Disclaimer: I don't own GG - duh!

When Tristan woke up he was alone in the bed. He looked over at the desk where Rory sat, gazing out the window, her head cupped in her hand. He checked his watch, it was nearly mid-day, and he'd slept in.

Rory turned when she heard the rustle of the sheets. She had been awake for a couple of hours but hadn't woken him up. She needed to be alone; it was surprising how you could feel that you were even with another person, especially him so close by. Why was she so upset that he'd called her "Liz"? She wondered, did she even have the right to be that upset?

"Good morning" She said quietly and he froze on his way to the bathroom.

Turning he gave her a weak smile.

"Hey, I slept in…sorry"

She smiled back. She had been watching him sleep, his face peaceful for the first time sin they'd gotten the news, his eyelids flickering softly as h dreamed. God, she'd thought, she liked him, she really did. What was she going to do?

"That's okay, go, shower, then we'll get breakfast and talk about what's next"

He nodded and made his way into the bathroom.


Lorelai had been tapping her foot nervously for the past few minutes. She checked her watch again. It was 11:30 a.m. She was sitting in the Hartford Police Station with Janlen DuGrey and they family's lawyer, Mr. Jenkins who's introduced himself as Carl. They had a meeting with the Detective in charge of Liz's case at 11. She sighed heavily but as she did the door opened and an officer beckoned them into an interview room. The Detective was tall, well built with a shock of red hair and strange face. Lorelai couldn't quite put her finger on it…maybe it was that his nose was too wide. Mr. Jenkins was incredibly jittery from the coffee he'd been downing like free scotch at open bar all morning.

"You terrified the boy" He told the detective after the introductions.

"Are you implying that I threatened him? He was never charged" The detective replied. Carl Jenkins rolled his eyes.

"Oh please, you implied to Tristan that you would and you upset Miss Gilmore"

"Wait," Lorelai interjected, "you met my baby?" Carl stepped in.

"Rory was…present, during the last interview with Tristan, on Saturday night"
"Oh God" Lorelai whispered.

"I can assure you Mr. DuGrey, Mrs. Gilmore-Hayden, Mr. Jenkins, that the Hartford Police Department is doing everything they can to locate the minor's but as we have no idea where they're headed and they've been missing so short a time there's very little we can do"

"So what am I supposed t do?" Lorelai asked bitterly, "Sit at home and twiddle my damn thumbs?"

"Mrs. Gilmore-Hayden, I promise you that when we have the first inkling of a development, you and Mr. DuGrey will be the first to know"

Lorelai shrugged and reached for her bag. It was clear that this meeting was over. She and Janlen made their way out of the interview room. Carl Jenkins paused at the door and turned to Detective Corry,

"Detective Corry, let me assure you, that if anything happens to hose kids, I and the entire Hartford society will be holding you personally responsible" He said quietly, his voice menacing.


Rory and Tristan sat opposite each other across the pale pink laminex table in a near-by diner. Each was trying to survey the other without making it obvious. Rory stared hard at the table.

"Where to next?" She asked quietly.

"Albany" He replied curtly.

"Albany?"

"Yeah I got onto an old friend of his. Stupid girl didn't know not to answer questions about Justin fucking Bellevue. I just mentioned Liz's name and she was only to happy to tell me his new address" His voice was hard, his eyes dark. It was time like this that she was…frightened of him? She shrank away from him and he saw the fear in her eyes.

"Jesus Christ Rory!" He snapped. "When are you gonna stop being scared of me"

She blinked slowly and nonchalantly and put down her coffee mug.

"We should probably get going" She suggested.

"Fine, I'll meet you at the car"

She stood next to her car waiting for him. What was she doing here? She thought. They had crossed the state border early that morning but they were taking the backroads and staying off the highways. Se closed her eyes; the tension of the past few weeks was building up behind them in the beginning of a mind-splitting headache. Rory's midnight blue BMW wasn't exactly inconspicuous. Taking out her cell she slowly dialled Jay's number. He answered on the first ring.

"Rory are you okay?"

She sighed heavily, leaning against the car. Was she okay? She didn't think so, not anymore. Why had she followed him? Finally she answered.

"Hi Jay"

"Rory where are you?"

"Interstate" She replied.

"Interstate? Interstate? Where he hell are you going?"

"We're trying to find someone…answers"

"Answers? What if he did it Rory?"

"Jay" Her voice was a warning in itself.

"Well what if he did?"

"I don't know" she sighed. "Can you tell mom and Louise I'm okay, and that we'll be back in a few days?" Without waiting for an answer she hung up as Tristan walked towards the car. He smiled warily at her and she smiled tentatively back.

"Ready to go?" She asked.

He nodded and they climbed into the car.


Jay stared at the phone in his hands. He and Louise were sitting in Debalar's ground-floor common room.

"She said she's fine, that they're interstate…looking for someone…for answers" He said hollowly.

"I'm sure she'll be fine" Louise said, trying to comfort him, she patted his shoulder gently. She and Jay had become much closer over the past few weeks. They had a lot in common and most importantly; he treated her so nicely. He was just nice, and that was good for her. He smiled half-heartedly at her and she smiled back. Matt walked into the common room then.

"Hey guys…what's up?" He asked when he saw their faces.

"Nothing Matt…" Jay replied slowly.

Louise avoided looking at him. Her relationship with Matt was…strained, since Mike. Instead of blaming Tristan, he had blamed her.

"Hey Louie" He greeted her and she gasped softly.

Louie was Mike's pet name for her. She glared at Matt who just met her gaze levelly. Jay noticed the tension but ignored it; he had heavier things on his mind right now. He patted Louise gently on the knee,

"I'm gonna go call mom" He told her, and walked out of the common room.

"So Louie, how's things? We don't get to talk much anymore" Matt said, he was leaning against the counter drinking a soda he'd helped himself to from the fridge. She glared at him again.

"Well there's a very good reason for that Matt," She said sweetly as she uncurled herself from the couch and made her way to the door, "you're an asshole".

In a second he was by her side. He grasped her forearm in a death-grip.

"And you're a fucking bitch" He hissed menacingly. She looked up into his eyes, his grey eyes, once she'd thought they were nice but they were cold, like gunmetal.

"You might have them fooled, Jay and Mike – although it wouldn't be hard to fool him anymore would it Louie? – But I know the truth. I know you're nothing but a dirty little slut like every other girl here" Her eyes filled with tears as Jay reentered the room. Matt dropped her arm like it was red hot and sauntered back to the bench.

"You okay Lollie?" Jay asked her and she nodded miserably, tugging her jump sleeve down.

"Come, on" He suggested, "I'll take you into town for a coffee"

"Okay" She agreed, letting him lead her from the room.


They had driven through the outer suburbs of New York City. In another life Rory would have driven straight into city, maxed out her father's credit cards on antique books and gone back to the five-star motel they would have been staying at. But instead she and Tristan were driving north through the back roads chasing the Hudson River to Albany.

"Do you want to keep driving tonight or stop somewhere?" She asked him.

"I guess we should stop somewhere" He suggested.

As much as he wanted to get to Albany and get this all over with, he wanted another night with Rory. Once they found Justin things would move too fast, he wanted one more night to be able to talk to her.

They stopped for the night in a large town called Echuca and found a motel on the edge of a scenic lake. It wasn't as cheap as the one the night before but it was more comfortable and they had a spa in their room, which cheered Rory up a little. She went shopping at the local market and bought bubble bath. Tristan didn't have the heart to remind just then that neither of them had brought swim-suits, it hadn't been that sort of road-trip.

Rory led the way into the room and sighed in relief when she saw there were two beds, thank God, she thought as she dragged her duffel bed next to one of them and sat down.

"Are you hungry?" Tristan asked her.

She laughed:

"When am I not?"

He smiled.

"There was a Mexican restaurant down the road…sound okay?" He asked and she nodded, her headache was starting to dissipate.


They walked back to the motel after having dinner.

"What are you going to do when we find him?" Rory finally asked, breaking the silence.

Tristan shrugged.

"I don't know. I want to see if he know why I'm there, find out if he did it and kill him"

"Tristan be serious…I mean, how do you expect to get him back to Connecticut against his will. I doubt he'll come with us of his own accord and you can't exactly club him on the head and put him in the trunk of my car"

"Why not?" He asked.

Rory snuck a glance in his direction. She hated it when he was like this. When she first knew him it had been easy to tell when he joking around. He had worn his emotions for all to see, he didn't have any masks. But now he hid everything behind inches of steel. She shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her.

"Are you cold?" he asked, without waiting for a response he put his arm around her shoulders and she let him pull her closer to his warmth.


When they got back to the motel she sat on the bed she'd claimed as her own while he stood in front of the TV, flicking through the channels.

"I'm sorry again about this morning," He finally said,

"It's okay," She said half-heartedly.

"It's not though…is it?"

She shrugged and he crouched down to be at her level. She bit her lip,

"I'm sorry too…that you lost Liz. I don't think I've properly said that before now. I'm sorry you lost her…especially like that. And I'm sorry for what's happened since"

"Hey," He whispered, tracing his finger down her cheek. "You don't have to be sorry for that"

She looked away for a moment, looking into those eyes now was almost physically painful.

"Well then, we're both sorry for things out of our control…aren't we?"

He laughed ruefully and sat down at the foot of the bed, with his back to her.

"We're pretty fucked up aren't we?"

"I don't think it's us" She said quietly, "I think it's everything that's happened that's fucked up. You and I actually seem pretty sane and rational in comparison"

He snorted,

"Yeah, going on a road-trip to find my murdered girlfriend's abusive ex"

Rory shrugged and subconsciously ran her fingers through his hair.

"But see, you're describing circumstances…not us"

He realised he'd been holding his breath since he'd felt her fingers tangled in his hair.

"Okay…I'll try again," He said quietly, moving to sit next to her on the bed. He turned to face her,

"My girlfriend was murdered a few weeks ago…the love of my life. And I can already feel myself becoming more and more attracted to another girl" As he spoke his voice became huskier and he moved his hand to cup her cheek. She leant into his palm.

"That's pretty fucked up isn't it?"

She shook her head.

"What about me?" She asked quietly,

"What about you?"

"Well…I'm the good girl, the Mary…I've only had one boyfriend one very…safe boyfriend. And a few weeks I transferred to a new school and this horrible thing happened. And I was one of the few who stuck by the King as he toppled from his pedestal. And now I'm driving him to confront his murdered girlfriend's abusive ex. Yet all I can think about clearly is the way his eyelids flicker when he's asleep…or that drunken kiss on the football field. I think that's more fucked up" She looked up at him, biting her lip.

"I don't know" He whispered, moving closer to her. "I think we're matching each other at the moment"

She laughed nervously but within a second he had silence her, pressing his lips against hers. Her heart started to beat faster as his arm snaked around her back to pull her closer and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She opened her mouth for him and his tongue found hers. This was no innocent kiss between friends, she thought to herself as he pulled off her light cardigan and laid her back on the bed.

He leaned over her, supporting himself on his elbow, his lips found her throat and were tracing kisses across it while his right hand had found its way under her tank top and was tracing circles across her stomach. Somehow, without her breath and with her mind somewhere outside spinning around in the sky he managed to find her voice,

"Did you kill her?" Rory asked. He ignored her question, his lips still trailing across her throat.

"Did you kill her?" She asked again, louder this time. She raised her hand to touch his hair. He stared down at her; his hand had stopped its trail across her flat stomach. They stared at each other, unsmiling. In the back of her mind again was the intensity of those eyes. His hand began to move again - making her draw in her breath quickly - touching her skin softly as it made its way to her throat where he wrapped his delicate fingers around it.

"Yes" His answer was confident, sober. He smirked as he leant down to kiss her, his eyes cold,his full lips crushing hers and his grip on her throat tightening. When the kiss ended he leant back again. "Now I'll have to kill you" He was still gripping her throat. She felt an insane panic rip through her. He could see it in her eyes, she knew he could, just like she could see the laughter in his. Then he smiled at her, a real smile, with no trace of that arrogant smirk. And as quickly as it had begun he let her go.

"I didn't kill her Rory, I loved her" He whispered against her lips.

And she let him kiss her.

AN: What did you think of that? R&R! Oh, and th town, Echuca, I doubt it actually exists in New York, it's the town I grew up in Australia!