Title: Nine Months. Good copy
Author: Professional Scatterbrain
Rating: R
Couple: R/T
Summary: Tristan returns to Chilton, and to the game, but Rory's not playing.
Note: Tristan left later on in Rory's first year at Chilton, so therefore the whole nine-month thing works (a little hint, it's a metaphor for the fic). After Tristan left Rory formed a fledgling friendship with Paris, Louise and Madeline, and by the time senior years rolls up there good friends, well, most of the time at least. Everything that happened with Dean and Jess happened except it happened all before senior year. At the end of the year before Rory told Jess she loved him, and he left suddenly straight afterwards.
I made Chilton darker, because I found the whole picture perfect school depicted on the show nice, yet unrealistic. I tried to model it around my High School, showing the competitiveness, the cruelty, and self delusion within my environment. I go to a girls school though, so the guy thing still might take me a while to work out. Suggestions would be nice as this is my first GG fic.
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Chp 5
***
Day had passed between Tristan coming to Star's Hollow and in the intermission the two had tried to stay out of each other's way. But in reality they wanted the opposite of what they provided for each other. Rory wanted to be around him, just to feel some part of the freedom she had felt that day he visited her home. Tristan just wanted to see her not being perfect, just to see her as she saw him.
In the afternoon in the stuffy hall of the old antiquated school Rory felt like she was at breaking point. It was the last class of the day, and the whole school had a general assembly. Some well know pompous speaker from the school board was coming to talk to the school about some boring topic.
"Are we going to talk Rory?" Came Paris's voice as the blonde girl linked arms with the brunette as they walked up the corridors to the expansive hall where a proportion of the school was already seated.
"About what?"
"About the fact your sporting more bruises than my mother after my father takes a Viagra."
"Disgusting metaphor there girly." Rory commented.
"You okay?" Paris asked at the two girls filled behind a group of people in there year level.
"Bad day."
"No, it's like you've been down for a while. I didn't say anything, I just though it was a glitch and you'd get over it. But-"
Rory cut her off before anyone could hear anything they could use against her. "Chilton's just getting to me, you've forgotten what it's like being new and everything."
"No I haven't." Paris commented, almost sadly.
As the two girls sat down, Louise and Madeline joined them a few moments later. The conversation was quiet, and only held together by Louise and Madeline. Both of the two girls knew something was up with Paris, and Rory, but knew better than to pry.
As the assembly started Rory watched with growing annoyance as the members of the School board got up and talked on and on about how wonderful Chilton was, and how it valued every student. But as they started talking about there scholarship program, and the 'under privileged' students they help, Rory felt herself getting angry.
"Hey Mary, they're talking about you." Came Tristan's voice from behind her. His breath was warm on her neck, and heat radiated from his skin. He effected her, and he knew it, and he knew she knew that he knew. Rory hated it.
"Shut up." Spat Madeline, she stumbled slightly over the word, like Rory she detested swearing.
Swearing didn't fit her persona. She was sweet and ditzy. It didn't matter she had the highest marks in the school for art. Or that she won an arts award every year. No one remembered her painting winning the Hartford portrait prize for her year level. People only remembered how she had dated half the swim team, and the entire basketball team. She was what people wanted, and she never bothered to try and correct their image of her. Why try to change something that would never be corrected? She was what her parents and peers wanted; she couldn't change what they made her into.
Louise then said something much harsher and ruder, both comments silenced Tristan and his friends, but he still had a smirk on his face, unaware he'd just pushed Rory just that little bit to far. Her eyes narrowed, and her body tensed. Turning her attention back to the speaker, she listened to the rest of his speech, each word getting further and further under her skin.
As Mr. Keys, the school coordinator took the podium, Rory felt a rush of hatred to the narrow minded teacher that had made her feel like nothing. 'No one should ever have that much power over a person', Rory thought angrily.
"Well, that was interesting. Now I'd like to invite any students with questions to come up and participate in a Q&A session." Mr. Key's tone was light, and almost pleading with the students to waste some time so they wouldn't have to go back to class.
Rory stilled. 'Don't do it' an internal voice pleaded with her.
"Anyone?" came the almost begging voice of the try hard bastard of a teacher as Rory had taken to calling him.
'Don't you dare, please!" pleaded the little voice again, but Rory didn't listen. Putting her hand up, she called, "I've got a question!"
"Ah," came Mr. Keys thankful voice, "Miss Gilmore, come up on stage so everyone can hear you."
Rory smirked, a grin that looked all too much like Tristan's, and felt something take over her body. Confidence flowed through her veins, and she couldn't wait to see what would happen once she'd asked her 'question'. She was running without thought of the consequences of her actions, and acting totally out of her given character. Paris noticed first, and it was her that pleaded with her to be sensible.
"Ror?" she begged, the tone striking a discord. Paris never begged.
"Rory! What are you doing?" then came the worried questions from her friends as they caught onto Paris realisation, but Rory was way passed the point where they could influence her.
Stalking up the isles and onto the stage, Rory felt everyone watching her. With a smirk on her face she moved towards the microphone. This would be fun. It would be stupid, and dangerous, but she didn't care. All she wanted was to not feel like she was here on borrowed time, as if it was some great favor for her to walk the halls. As if James and Giles had the right to make her feel powerless. As if she had no right to be in Chilton, a world she managed to flourish in against people's wishes.
***
Tristan knew something was wrong with Rory the moment he saw her on stage. There was something predatorily about her, the way she looked at each person who spoke, and the way her glaze lingered on the last speaker. He didn't know whether to sit back and watch the show that was inevitable coming, or to try and stop the train wreck that would follow. The looks from his friends made the decision for him, and Tristan reluctantly sat back in his chair to see it all play out.
"I was just wondering, since I'm one of those 'scholarship' students you talked about," Rory started so earnestly, and then she continued. Each of her carefully unplanned words leaving her mouth. But from her they were too unexpected and sharp, as they impacting on the surrounding audience like knives on bare skin.
Tristan watch in amazement as the teachers and various speakers froze in shock. The words that had left this pretty, naïve, innocent looking young girl made the entire hall silent. She cocked her head to the side, letting her slippery dark hair fall over the side of her face. She looked so utterly angelic, so utterly lovely it seemed wrong that she didn't fit the image, her words, stated so innocently, had shattered that appearance of her, that she no longer could be considered as the good girl.
She seemed so out of place, unable to be categorised, that Tristan wanted to turn back time to when she was just a Mary, when she was just a small town girl that all his friends wanted to fuck until she wasn't perfect, until she wasn't pure, until she was one of them, cruel and desecrated beyond salvation.
Now Rory more than untouchable, only she didn't know it.
"Ms Gilmore!" squawked one of the speakers as a couple of harassed looking teachers rushed onto the stage attempting to lead Rory towards the principals office, where she was sure to get threatened, and suspended.
Gripping the microphone lazily, she started to state in that mockingly earnest tone, "Sure I'm happy to be attending this prestigious school, but hey, I'm not gonna kiss your feet. I deserve to be here. Not cause my parents are rich and buy the school a new building each time report cards are due, or because I spend my leisure time fu-" her speech only ended as the red faced principal cut her off.
"Ms Gilmore, desist!" he commanded, but she refused to listen.
"I figure if I'm going to be your poster 'under privileged' student-"
Mrs. Jackson interrupted, moving forward to turn off the power so Rory's words would not continue to echo out into the great space of the hall, like poison slipping into the water stream slowly and steadily. Rory didn't seem effected by the teacher's actions, she looked so relaxed, so calm, that she intimidated people. But the only thing Tristan noticed was the enormous amount of power she wielded, her body seemed to be made up of it, and she controlled everything around her in a manor that paralleled Tristan.
"There will be consequences for your actions," Mrs. Jackson snapped, and in the shocked silence of the hall her words echoed without the need for the microphone.
The Rory turned to her. Her face so calm and devoid of emotions that Tristan had to remind himself it was her. Her blue eyes were cold, and dangerous, yet they sparkled, and Tristan knew in that second Rory was about to say something so out of character, so harsh that the certainly would be lasting consequences.
"You're lucky you're a bitch, as if you weren't I would have cut your balls off."
The shocked hush ended as Rory broke out into a mocking smirk and was lead off the stage. All the while it was as if she was the one with the power, not the teachers that accompanied her side. It was like she was leading them not the other way around. In these actions Chilton started to change, the power was shifting, and as Tristan's friends started bitching and laughing they all knew it. Rory had changed things more than she would ever know, and Tristan suddenly saw a side of her he had never been allowed access to before.
***
She had been suspended.
Five days.
Not even a real suspension, just a half-assed one her mother would tease her about for the rest of her life.
That's all Rory could grasp. At this present moment she was sitting on the jeep, outside the broken down house. The wreck of a building marred the beauty of the landscape, just as she was rendered broken by her never ending thoughts of what she was meant to be verses what she was. Her hands had stopped shaking, and she had once again started to breathe somewhat normally again.
"I hate that hell hole" she spat suddenly, jumping off the hood of the car she paced around, as if her body had been filled with energy.
Rory was tired of Chilton, and all it represented. Maybe she should have just given up ages ago. Thinking back to the past months she had spent in there, Rory shuddered. Teasing, second-guessing, back stabbing, and at the end of it all, was it really worth it?
In the jeep, Rory could hear her mobile ringing. The annoyingly robotic tune of Inspector Gadget looped over and over, and without Rory answering it, the calls added up. It was Lorelei who was doing the calling, obviously knowing about her only daughter's display in the Chilton Hall. Apart for her eccentric totally out of touch mother, Paris and Madeline had called leaving short messages. Louise had taken a different approach knowing Rory wouldn't be answering any calls, and had managed to slip a note in Rory's bag telling the brunette to call her when she felt like it.
Looking over to the old house, Rory examined it as if for the first time. It was moldy and falling down now, but at some time many years ago it might have been beautiful. Maybe a little on the ornate side, but in some peoples opinions it would have been something special. Wooden, with long beams in the ceilings it was a copy of the old western houses seen in shot em up western films. But as Rory continued to stare at it, the wooden construction, usually a symbol of humility seemed ostentatious, and almost mocking the wild fields of untended land.
The irregular windows, framed with the shards of broken glass that still inhabited the framework stared ghostlike back at the young girl. The fallen down roof of pine shingling spilled over from the inside of the house, allowing rectangles of stained pine to cover the dying grass like a unsightly carpet.
The curved white pebble driveway was covered with weeds, and reminded Rory of a decaying lifestyle. But even Rory had to admit, in its day, this house would have been something. It defiantly embodied the 'us and them' divide. It was then Rory understood why, even when she first started coming here she had avoid the house with a passion. This house represented all the parts of the world she hated, the decadents, the sadism, the swallow gossiping, the competition, the stupid pointless life Rory felt like was being pushed into living.
Calmly, as if moving underwater, Rory walked to the back of the jeep, and opened the back door. In a small rusty tin, she found what she was looking for. Unlike the incident on the stage at Chilton, Rory wasn't feeling anger. In a way she was so detached from her body, it was like she was watching from a safe distance. As if waiting until safe to return to her body. Unscrewing the lid, she smelt the fumes of the petrel, and her eyes watered as the vapors drifted lazily threw the air. Walking up the driveway, she smiled, she wasn't afraid of the wreck anymore.
The petrel spilled onto her hands as she threw it on the moldy walls, and peeling paint. Pulling out a lighter, Rory cringed. It was the very one she had stolen from Jess only a few days before he left . . . only a few days before Rory had told him that she loved him. Whipping her hands on the ever neat and ill fitting Chilton blazer she was unaware of her broken Chilton badge dropping to the ground out of her pocket or the notes from philosophy following the elegant silver pin. Then carefully, as if she were putting the finishing touches on an essay, she flicked the lighter, causing a small weak flame to dance before her eyes. Memories came flashing back to her as she watched the flame sway from side to side in the gentle wind.
"You do remember you are here on a scholarship Miss Gilmore?" Mr. Keys reminded her sharply.
"Yes sir." Rory replied, biting back the urge to remind him she was on a scholarship which evolved her paying school fees, without the help of the 'generous' school.
"Your grades are high, but we both knew they could be higher. In Chilton grades are what sets you apart from others," he continued on.
"Sorry sir, I won't make trouble again."
"I know in Stars Hollow High you can get away with behavior like this, but not at Chilton."
"We'll be writing you your mother you understand."
"I understand."
Yes, she did understand. Although she wished otherwise. She wasn't like them, she didn't have the automatic acceptance, all she had was a mother who ran an inn, with one set of Grandparents who had disowned her and the other set hopelessly trying to form a relationship with her. She had never felt ashamed of where she came from, but under the inspection of the blue blood and their hounds she knew she didn't measure up. That day after class had just proved it beyond a doubt to her.
"Is it true your mother was cut of from the family inheritances after some one night stand got her pregnant?" the ever dangerously charismatic James asked, his voice was even, but cruel.
"No, it was after she followed the Bangles around for a year," she replied sarcastically.
"Was that before or after she gave birth to her child at sixteen?" he asked, his eyes were laughing cruel, at her. He was putting her back in her place, and he was enjoying this.
"Rory?" Madeline whispered, a worried look covering her face. Rory had paused, James had gotten past her protective shield.
"No cutting insult Gilmore?" he mocked leering at her
Standing up, Rory gathered her books. Looking at James, she felt her body shaking with fury.
"You fucking dickhead." She spat out.
"At least I'm not a bastard."
Dropping the lighter, she watched as the minuet flame grew and grew. Time speed past Rory without her knowledge, and as she walked away from the wreck, a small smile graced her face. She was on the most dangerous edge of her short life, but the problem was she didn't care. Taking her seat on the bonnet of the battered jeep once again, she turned to watch the house.
Flames licked the wooden walls, as it raced to the sky. Slowly, the house was falling apart, the walls became warped, and the remaining pain cracked, and flickered off the surface, one by one, each beam fell, and each room collapsed on itself. Heat and soot filled the air, tangling in her clothes and skin. Staining her hair with the smell of burning and fire, and leaving her hands blackened, and blistered, but she didn't move from her seat. Tapping her nails on the metal hood, Rory smirked as the black smoke filled the air, rising high into the sky.
She wasn't afraid.
***
In the brightly lit rooms of the country club, Tristan watched his parents speak. It was always a combination of praise and criticism coming out of there mouths, and mix of thorns and fake smiles. It was another charity thing. Not the fundraiser his brother and wife were being dragged too, but pretty much identical to it.
"Tristan, dance?" came a smooth, trained voice, awakening him from his thoughts.
Looking over, Tristan was greeted by the seductive pout of Lauryn Brenner. Dressed in some overly expensive label, her tanned skin, wide emerald eyes, and wavy chestnut hair made her look sensuous and in control of everything around her. She was one of the many who Tristan had, she was beautiful, and she knew it, but other than that there was nothing too exceptional about her. She was another version of Summer, but unlike her, he had chased Lauryn, and enjoyed it.
"Well?" she questioned, cocking her head to the side, flashing a perfect smile, probable worth thousands in dental bills.
"Would I ever refuse a beautiful girl?" Tristan replied, putting that touch he had learned to used well over the years into his smirk.
"Than that's a yes." She said somewhat dangerously, leading Tristan to believe Lauryn still had a few games to play with him.
***
The smoke and soot had been washed off her skin days again the moment Rory arrived back to the empty house. Lorelei hadn't even noticed the charred clothes that had been thrown out in the rubbish that night, nor had she noticed how quiet her only child had been since that day. In the late morning, Rory left her room, her bare feet padding along the polished floorboards like an urban rhythm she knew off by heart.
"Ror, hurry up, I have to be at the inn before eight," called Lorelei as she tried to eat a half cooked pop tart, and shave her legs so she could wear her favourite skirt.
A void was forming. Slowly, and surely, Rory could see it happening, and as she watched from a distance she had made herself stay at, she did nothing to stop it. Rory knew she could stop all this, it could all go back to the way it was before. It would only take a whispered secret, a gift of trust, but she stayed silent. Why? She didn't know. Maybe she was afraid a few things still.
"Just a second."
Lorelei was making her work at the inn. Apparently the suspension was worth more than a joke or two to her, and because of the Rory had spent the last few days being her mothers punching bag. But of course, Lorelei would forgive her, she always did, and Rory didn't like the way her mind was thinking so logically and inattentively towards the ruffle in the feathers of the Gilmore girls' family.
"You're working as a maid today. You can't cook to save your life, but Sookie said she wouldn't mind you cleaning dishes after you finished cleaning the rooms I set you."
Super.
So not only did Rory had to deal with people bossing her round and being paranoid about her being in their rooms, but now she had to clean dishes. That was the exact reason Rory planned on never cooking for herself.
Within minutes Rory was dressed in the uniform that Lorelei had provided for her, and was sitting in the car waiting for her mother. As Lorelei hurried out of the house, Rory saw her pause. Something flashed through her eyes for a moment, but it was too quick for Rory to fully translate. All Rory could understand were the emotions closest to the surface, disappointment, and fear. Rory knew instantly why. Lorelei saw herself in Rory, and only a few years before that had been Lorelei. Rory was doing the job her mother had working in when she was a child, she was filling a role that Lorelei had strove to prevent her from taking.
"When I was your age I was a maid." Lorelei stated as they drove towards the inn. "It was my first real job ever."
Rory didn't say a word. The aching disappointment of her mother was filling the enclosed space of the jeep as she reminisced about her past. Rory felt like she had fallen from a tight rope, and as she fell she could see ever face looking at her sadly as dropped out of control. All the faces looked at her, telling her this should never have happened, that she had been perfect, and she had spoiled everything. Spoiled all there hard work to get her on that tight rope. She wanted to cry but it seemed like she had forgotten how.
"I never thought I'd see you in that uniform." She muttered, "The reason I'm making you do this Rory, apart from having you being of some use to me during your suspension, is to show you that you always have to look before you leap."
***
Next Chp: Weaknesses.
***
"I gave you a better life, I gave you everything I could give, and this is how you treat me?" Lorelei retorted, her hands clenched in fists, her nails cutting into the skin of her palms.
"You gave me everything you wanted. You never really gave me anything I wanted." Rory yelled, the truth of her words leaving her hollow as they left her mouth.
***
This chp is dedicated to Belle, the girl that not only fixed all the mistakes but makes me see my writing in a new light. Thank you.
***
