-1A/N: I've officially decided on the fact that there are at least two more chapters (including an epilogue) but at most, eh, four. I would so not get my hopes up for four. I hope I didn't get your hopes up for a date scene between Rory and Tristan, because it would basically be pointless witty dialogue the whole time with no substance and no plot moving. What you need to know for this is it's a few months later, and Rory and Tristan have been dating awhile and have a similar relationship to Rory and Logan's during her time away from Yale, avoiding reality and taking comfort in one another, etc. Rory hasn't let Tristan read "Sarah" yet, much less told him about it, and that will come into play in the next few chapters. I am confident now about how I will end this story. I MIGHT write a sequel, which would actually be focusing more on Sarah and Terrance, but I'll talk more about that idea later. All you need to know is what I've said, and uh yeah so like read.

Chapter Ten: Our Lady of Sorrows

"Rory?" Lorelai called out blearily.

"In here!" Rory called from the bathroom. She was blow-drying her hair.

"What are you doing at this ungodly hour?" Lorelai complained.

"I'm sorry, did the hair-dryer wake you up?"

"Actually, your singing in the shower woke me up. But since then I have not been able to return to the happy dreamland as consequence of that contraption."

"I was not singing in the shower." Rory objected.

"I'm sorry. I heard a high-pitched rendition of David Bowie's "Magic Dance" blended with water and I only assumed it was you. Must've been Luke." Lorelai said sarcastically.

"You are a cranky girl. Go back to bed." Rory said.

"No. I can't! Have I not explained this in no uncertain terms?" Lorelai whined to her daughter's unsympathetic face.

"I can't turn the hair-dryer off. I have my first meeting with my editor today. First impressions are everything."

"Oh, right! I'm still stoked that you're getting published. It's so cool, I know an author!" Lorelai said, suddenly giddy.

"And, by the way, if you see Tristan today, don't tell him. I haven't really told him about the book yet, because so many people seem to think I based it on us in an alternate reality or something, and I thought if he saw the connection (that I'm not saying exists even though there are some parallels) then it would be embarrassing."

"Okay." Lorelai said, a little confused.

"Alright, I'm done. You can go back to bed, now." Rory said. Lorelai groaned.

"No, I can't. It's daylight now."

"Sorry. I'll talk to you later."

"Knock 'em dead."

"Planned." Rory replied. She drove to Hartford, listened to music on the way, dealt with stupid drivers, and an assortment of other boring details. She finally got there, half an hour early. She waited.

"Rory Gilmore?" A lady around thirty with dirty-blonde hair and glasses asked.

"Yes, that's me." Rory replied, standing to shake hands.

The meeting went by quickly. Other than a few places throughout the book where the name "Tristan" had been substituted for "Terrance", the book was pretty much done. It would be published in two months and hit bookshelves everywhere in three.

"Thanks a bunch." Rory said to the lady at the end of her meeting. She marched back to her car, slammed the door, and pulled out recklessly, ignoring the tears in her eyes. She pulled out her cell phone.

"Tristan, I need to get out of here for a while. When is the soonest I can pick you up?"

---

"Rory," Tristan began, slamming the door behind him, "where are we going?"

"Uhm," Rory considered, not really knowing.

"Actually, I'd like to rephrase that," He corrected himself. "Why are we going?"

"Because... Because it seems like a nice day. What if we went to Yale and saw Paris for a while?"

"Rory," Tristan said, shaking his head, at a loss. He turned the car off from his seat and took the keys. Rory watched motionless, a sadness in her eyes that had decided that it was pointless to put up a wall any longer.

"Rory..." Tristan began.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Rory interrupted quietly. "I was supposed to graduate from and Ivy League school and be an international correspondent. And now? I'm running away, Tristan. I was running away with Logan and now I'm running away with you. And this book. This stupid young adult romance fiction book. I completely skipped the young adult genre, Tristan. That's how advanced I was. Now I can't even write adequately enough to publish a serious book. Sure, this is going to be a hit amongst all the thirteen-year-old-girls. For a few weeks. But what then, Tristan? A sequel or two, maybe. I might even get a Disney movie that completely tears apart all my characters and my plot and turns it into a faery tale. I'm not a fucking kid anymore, Tristan!"

The brunette's monologue had begun in a quiet voice and slowly escalated to a fortissimo dynamic. Tristan stared, not being able to respond.

"I'm sorry." Rory said finally. "It's not your fault."

"...You wrote a book?" He stated astutely in reply. Rory began to answer, and then stopped and just smiled. He stared at her bugged eyed until, quite out of the blue, she burst into racking sobs.

"What...?" He couldn't of been more confused. He did his best to comfort poor Rory, never-the-less. Needless to say, Rory's car never left the street in front of Tristan's house that night.

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Chapter Ten: An Ominous Secret

"Morning." Sarah said to her father and mother as she entered the family's kitchen.

"Are you gonna..." her father asked her mother, nodding to Sarah.

"Gonna what?" Sarah asked, grabbing a slice of left-over pizza from the refridgerator and placing it on a paper plate.

"Don't eat that for breakfast. I can make some eggs would you like that?" Her father pleaded.

"I'm fine, Dad."

"So Sarah," her mother began. Sarah realized that that important voice denoted whatever important conversation her father had asked her mother about. "How late did Terrance stay last night?"

"I dunno," Sarah replied truthfully, trying to be calm.

"I think what your mother was trying to ask is... Well, we thought he had left when we went to bed," Her father said awkwardly.

"But we were woken up at four in the morning to his car leaving the driveway," her mom continued.

"We had a lot to study," I reasoned.

"Study, huh?" her mother replied suspiciously. Sarah sighed.

"I didn't get into anything over my head, if that's what you're wondering," she replied curtly. Her parents glanced at each other, not sure what to make of this answer.

"What exactly..."

"Well, maybe not exactly,"

"Right, well, what did you two..."

"Do I," Sarah interrupted with annoyance, "have to spell out in Latin whether or not I'm still a virgin to you people?"

"No, I took Spanish in high school, but I don't know that, either." The older woman replied. Sarah took only a moment to wonder whether she was being serious before deciding ultimately that it didn't matter.

"I didn't sleep with him." She said. Then she frowned, and her father's relieved lok twisted once again. "Well, that's a lie. I did sleep with him. But in the literal ense, not as in, well, you know. I mean, I can't even say it, so I'm definitely not old enough to do it, right?" Sarah said sensibly. Her parents nodded assent.

"Okay, so, now that that's over with, I'm going to go get ready for school," she said, throwing the paper plate in a trash can and rushing back to her bedroom. She got ready in a slightly quicker and less-patient way than she'd become accustomed to as-of late.

As she was rushing out the door, Sarah heard her father tell her mother in the kitchen

"Lucinda, if you don't tell her tonight, I will."

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A/N: Cliffhanger, sort of. Really, if I wanted to, I could have ended it in this chapter, but I think that that would be abrupt and unfair. IF YOU LOVE ME YOU'LL REVIEW. And if you don't? Well, that' means you are a bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Yeah, you heard me. A bleep.