Title: Nine Months.

Author: Professional Scatterbrain

Rating: Pg - 13

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.


Chp 17: Severely lacking


Polished slate eyes.

Carefully linked fingers.

With a matching smile attached to their faces.

In the cold study in his Grandfathers mansion, it felt as dead as the other hundreds of unused rooms Tristan had spent his childhood trying to grow up in. What a lark. From the dark mahogany desk Janlan DuGrey in all his splendour looked down on his grandson. Looked down with matching eyes they both shared. Transfixing eyes. What messes of men they were. Thinly veiled arrogance shone through his stance, yet Tristan stayed perfectly at ease, conditioned by many years of the same treatment he was now immune to it.

Conditioned.

Domesticated.

Domesticated to smile and smirk and to bite on command.

What a good boy he was.

Wasn't he.

Wasn't he?

"We need to talk about what you've got planned for your future." Janlan stated, his hands resting lightly on his desk, aware of his power over the tall blonde.

There, it was one of those talks, or rather lectures.

Janlan was the kind of person that spoke to people, never 'talked' to them. His opinion was always the final word on any and all topics. A higher authority in his hangman robes. He was the sort of person that would get more than pissed when at the end of his little speech someone questioned him. When anyone questioned him. But Tristan was used to the man's self-righteous crap by now, and didn't even flinch when the older man fixed his eyes on Tristan's.

It wouldn't do to flinch.

Good boys didn't flinch.

"The Gilmore girl," he started, his voice was toneless and haunting. "I don't like where your relationship with her is going."

Tristan smirked knowing it was a bad move, but he couldn't stop himself. Never could. Or was that another lie to go with the rest? Besides, what could the old bastard find wrong with Rory? She was exactly what they wanted. An ideal, or at least a half decent attempt on one. On the outside at least. The outside was what mattered. To older slate eyed boy at least. Added to that, was the nice deal her Grandfather had going on with the DuGrey industries. She was their image of perfect for the present five minutes, and in knowing that Tristan knew the most Janlan would give his Grandson was a slap on the wrists.

Even the most domesticated ones needed reinforcement every once and a while.

Once and a while.

"You can fuck her all you want, but just remember, she's not the marrying kind." He stated crudely, his eyes hard and cold.

"What the hell is that meant to mean?" Tristan retorted, his stance defensive. "A few months ago the family was begging me to get her."

Janlan smiled that oh so familiar wolf like smile, "Get her, not fall for her. She was never meant to be permanent Tristan."

"She's not," he snapped hating how the old man was yet again interfering with his life, as if it didn't belong to him just the family name instead.

Perhaps, in a way it did.

But he's rather not think about that. Ever. No, that wouldn't do. Not at all. So Tristan ignored that fact Janlan had the power to send him away, to bring him back, all at the snap of his fingers. Snap of the fingers. Snapping for him to get back in line. Snapping at those eternal strings. Little more than a puppet in that clichéd classic with the Van Trap brats singing another chorus to his motions.

Puppet.

One whom Janlan loved to pull the strings.

"Then stop acting like she's going to be with you for as long as-"

"As what?"

"She's not the marrying kind," he repeated, "You can do what you want with her, but when your done, and you will be done with her sooner or later, you will break this . . . this thing off with her,"

"Stop talking about her like that." Tristan spat, hating how within a few calculated words Rory sounded so much like . . . like she wasn't different to everyone else in his fucked up world.

Knowingly, and expertly executed, Janlan took away everything Tristan knew about her; his knowledge that she wasn't perfect, and certainty that he felt knowing she wasn't what everybody wanted, but she was what he wanted. But Janlan twisted those words until Rory was merely a façade so much like the others in his world.

"Like what?" Janlan challenged, his face lighting up in something akin to glee, as if this lecture was another game deciding dominance between himself, and an obviously overrated opposition. "She is what she is Tristan, the sin of her family name. Don't try and make her into something better then she can ever be."

Leaning back in the uncomfortable chair, Tristan paused, his face blank of emotions as he stared across the void to Janlan's time ravaged face. Taping his fingers on the armrest, the youngest of the pair cocked his head to the side, a move that seemed mocking in its undermining effect on the older man.

Suddenly, it started to click.

What a wondrous thing.

It wasn't about her. Rory. She was nothing more than an introduction, a starting point from which Janlan would lead from. Once again, Tristan berated himself. Rising to the bait. Seems he still was more than a little green. More than a little. Leaning back, a slight smile crossing his face, Tristan paused. Lingered, smoothing his face with a well placed smile of indifference.

What a good boy.

Waiting for the right time to attack.

"When you arranged to have me sent to Military School were you happy? I bet you were, finally without the trouble maker of a grandson to fuck up the family name, you were free once again from bad press. I bet the whole time you were thinking 'why couldn't Tristan be more like Daniel', or hey even the brown noser son Aiden-"

Janlan cut him off, a snarl marring his face, "At least they know their place; you always had to push the boundaries. Even that bitch of your sister knows what is expected of her."

Cold wolf like eyes flashed at Janlan as Tristan reacted to the older mans words. Quicksilver words that slipped easily from his mouth. Slipped and swam through the air. Hatred diffused through Tristan's veins as he looked at the head of his family. What a pity Elspeth wasn't detested anymore. What a pity. The slate-eyed men stared at each other, one with fury racing around his mind, the other waiting to pounce.

"I know what's expected of me as a DuGrey. I charm people that you need charmed, I get everybody to trust me even when they shouldn't. I'm exactly like you, or I'm going to be, in a few years." Tristan stated sarcastically, with something about his sharp posture betraying the undercurrent of potential violence in the teen.

He stated the words with defensive flippancy, as if they were a joke.

Ironic really.

"You know nothing." Janlan spat.

"Nothing? I know enough. After all DuGrey's are known for their perceptiveness, or is it there-" Tristan smirked as Janlan cut his almost lazy voice off again.

"This is why you need to break it off with the Gilmore bastard child. You're forgetting your position in this family, and in this society."

He wasn't forgetting. That was the thing. Rory was Rory. But she didn't change things. She couldn't just snap her fingers and make everything better. She wasn't some miracle bandaid, and nor did he want her to be. She was just as missed up as he was, if not more.

Perception was a funny thing.

Sitting in the arm chair, facing those achingly familiar slate eyes, Tristan stopped fighting for her. Because in the end she wasn't worth it. No, it wasn't that. It was more like, in the end this fight wasn't about her. It was about the supposedly bigger picture. A picture both pair of slate eyes refused to articulate directly. It was better to go back onto autopilot. To sprout some of the same lines, and some of the same smirks.

It was better this way.

It always had been.

So Tristan forgo any useless heroic, returning to the relative safety of knowing euphemisms and smirking smiles, stating with definite cheek, "As what? Your lapdog? I always thought that was fathers' position, or was that handed on to Daniel along with the control of the company?"

Janlan responded with the appropriate level of expertise, "You should look up to Daniel as an example. Annabelle might not be ideal, or what I would have chosen, but she is one of us, she plays her part, and he plays his. Even Elspeth got over her inept choice of a suitor and is back on the right track."

"Elspeth loved him."

"Maybe so, but he didn't love her,"

"Thanks to you he never got the chance."

"Don't make this about Elspeth, she made the correct decision, but you, unlike her, haven't. However that will be rectified."

"This isn't about Rory is it? It's about me, and how I'm not the nice little puppet boy that can be controlled anymore,"

Tristan almost laughed. Going round in circles. They were dogs chasing there tails. Spinning wildly in circles. Going over the same ground. Almost like a bystander, he watched Janlan shudder with carefully controlled power. Or was it fury. Cold, cold eyes. Wore skin, and neatly controlled hair. What a controlled image. What good boy he'd become over the years. Not a flicker or flutter of bad behaviour left in that one.

That would not do.

Not for a person like Janlan.

No, it would not do.

"You can be controlled." Janlan threatened, his hands linked together, fingers woven evenly.

He leaned back in his chair, a slight shadow of a smile crossing his face. Boys like him always had a few cards up their sleeves. It wouldn't do to be caught unprepared. But it seemed like he was in a way. Tristan was slipping insidiously through the barriers that had been constructed with upmost care. He was getting better, and Janlan was losing some of his control.

"Are you going to send me away again?" Tristan mocked, "Sign me up for the US Army? I'm sure you'd love that."

Janlan with his eyes as black and painful to look at smirked a dangerous smile, "Don't tell me you love the bastard."

He got some of his control back as he saw through Tristan's mocking.

Such a green boy.

Tristan paused, his body stiffening, his eyes now mirroring his grandfathers', "Don't presume to guess what I feel towards Rory."

Dangerous eyes.

Dangerous boys.

"You do! God, at least Elspeth wasn't as simple as you to think it could actually work out. This is my last warning Tristan, you leave her, or I will-"

Tristan cut the old man off, "You can't do anything. You have no power over me. I'm eighteen; I don't need you or the DuGrey name."

Janlan laughed as if Tristan had said something hilarious, "Grow up Tristan, you are what you are, and you can never alter that in any way. You will always be a DuGrey, and you will always be under someone's control, if not mine then your fathers."

"No wonder so many people detest you," Tristan commented almost idly, a false calm in his voice as he leant back into the chair as if the older man's comments meant nothing.

A smile graced the handsome face of the older version of the young boy, "Given time Tristan, your potential may be realised. I never had this much trouble with Aiden, so maybe your life will amount to something."

The air in the spacious office crackled, and Tristan tried to regain his footing. They had been dancing around the point he suddenly realised, and Rory was nothing more than a means to an end. Means to the end. Stupid boys and their toys. He knew what this meant, he knew the plan now; he knew what was coming and how he would lose himself. Another game to play? Or was it already being played? Set, game, match? All the pieces started to fall into an order he detested for not seeing earlier. The arrival back to Hartford society, the family appearances, the simpering faces welcoming him back to the fold. He was being preened into Janlan, the challenger for the original DuGrey heir. Those matching slate eyed DuGreys. What a pair. Daniel's faceless face swum before Tristan's slate eyes, then Elspeth's lost smile followed by his parents' stale conversations, and then finally Rory's electric aura drawing him constantly closer to her.

He pushed those images out of his mind.

They were nothing, and so was he.

Just a slate eyed boy in front of a slate eyed man.

Standing up, Tristan nodded to the old man, his eyes now hard and painful to look at, "I'm not you,"

Laughing once more, Janlan stood looking the boy in his eyes, and stated confidently, "Not yet."

Yes, this game was already underway.

Yes, it was.

Slate eyed boy and men.

Sooner or later it would be won and lost.

The means to an end, the battle won and lost, oh that matching slate eyed pair.

Midnight eyes.

Another midnight mistake.

Another cliché.

Another mess.


In the warm town of Stars Hollow Rory felt cold. She shivered. Bones that once turned to water were now ice. She didn't care. Detached and disinterested, and she wondered why she didn't feel anger running through her veins as she saw Jess's face waiting for her outside her bedroom door. The leather jacket he stubbornly wore each day looked a little worse for wear, and the corners of his eyes wrinkled in rarely seen nervousness. Or perhaps it might have been just a reaction to seeing the girl he had run away from after she proclaimed a most precious gift to him.

Perhaps.

It was another cliché after all.

"Your mother let me in," he told her stiffly.

Jess's mocking referral of Rory's mother as 'Lorelei' was gone Rory noticed, her mind flashed back to the way her mother would grimace each time the rogue called her by her birth name in that insolent tone. Insolent tone, from a dirty mouth he didn't kiss his mother with. But that was gone; it had vanished from his tone. Rory wondered if he was trying to make it up to her by being this unnaturally polite. Which 'her' Rory was referring to, either Lorelei or herself was still unknown in her eighteen year old mind.

In the sweeping silence, he shifted and twitched, like a racehorse at the starting gaits.

She felt like one too, but she hid it better.

Always did.

"You want to go for a walk?" she asked finally after a period of heart breaking silence.

He nodded; then offered a hand as she got off her textbook covered bed. Close to him after all those months apart, she was surprised that he still was the same. Still had the same eyes, the same crocked smile, and the same scent of leather and cigarettes. But it, and him had lost a lustre, all she could think of as he linked arms with her, was Tristan's perfect smile compared to Jess's faulted one, and the untranslatable slate eyes she had just began to read compared to the other boys eyes with emotions fleeing like rabbits through the deep brown irises.

Decrepit irony that was born too slow.

She didn't know what to say. She didn't know why. He used to be comfort and freedom combined. He used to be her tranquiliser and her no frills adrenalin rush. He used to be time consuming wishes and desires. He used to be everything. But now he was lacking, and she found herself longing for something she couldn't name nor articulate. The sameness of everything scared her, scared her with the distance she felt, and the detachment that now haunted her as she walked by his side.

She was useless and she wondered if he noticed.

She wondered if anyone noticed.

"Where were you all this time?" Rory asked already knowing the answer to this question and all the others she would ask following.

What a good girl, asking all the right questions.

"I stayed with my father in California." He told her, his voice lost to her, sounding foreign to her ears, "But I came back,"

She nodded. She knew what had happened, could guess the circumstances that lead him back to Stars Hollow and a room above Luke's dinner. He probably had a fight with his father, a disagreement with both parties too stupidly stubborn to apologise. Jess would call it pride of course, but she now saw the stubbornness they both shared.

"I missed you," he stated, but as he did both of them wished he hadn't.

She broke away from his hold; her arms crossed over her chest, not reacting in the way he though she might, just holding herself back, her eyes telling him to be more careful with what he said.

He agreed, weakening to her like almost always.

Old times.

"How have you been?" he asked awkwardly.

He was not used to leading conversation with her, nor with anyone else. He felt himself fumbling, and he detested it and himself. Nothing that left his mouth was right, and with each meaningless nothingness of words, he felt useless, and the awareness of that fact unsettled him. Unsettled him more than he liked. Deficiencies were sharply noticeable in this light. Among other things. Blue eyed girl and the brown eyed boy. One of the brown eyed boys. He struggled to control himself. She was always better at that. Always. She ran a hand through her hair, not watching him anymore, but he knew she was aware of him. Always. But now it wasn't enough. He forced himself to be careful. In his past he had always relied on people being drawn to him, those who weren't, in the past hadn't been worth the effort of going after.

But here, with Rory he had to try, he had to at least try.

Had to at least try.

Had to . . .

"Same old." She noted, her cobalt eyes never meeting his.

"You've changed," he noted wondered what had happened to her and everyone else after he had departed from their lives all those months ago.

He took her in slowly, trying to adjust his memories of Rory to the girl that stood before him. She was taller, she walked differently, as if not accommodating for other people, leaving them to move to let her through. Something had shifted in her. She seemed less like the innocent girl he had left, silently he mourned that loss, but paused seeing new wisdom in her eyes.

His words seem to wake her; meeting his gaze she asked wordlessly why he was back in her life, the one he had left so easily long ago. He looked away after a moment, digging his hands into the pockets of his jacket. A causeless boy, he was just as useless as she was. No games or cars to crash now, only silence filling the air. For a time it had felt like he was the only one that had really known her, but now it felt like he hadn't even come close to scratching beneath the pretty varnish glazing her. She half wanted to whimper for him. Whisper for the touch she knew so well, for the boy who wasn't as street smart as he pretended, for the boy who was far more fragile than her.

Far more fragile.

Leaving her before she could leave him, he was a defensive boy, always on the alert. Always fighting a battle he consciously or unconsciously chose to lose. A heart breaking boy that she . . . that she. Well, they both knew what he'd been to her. Both knew how little things like that mattered.

The both knew how little a good girl and a bad boy meant to each other in the long run.

She wanted to do something, to say something, to give him something true and free from lies.

But she couldn't, all she could do was watch.

Watch, restricted to the role of a bystander.

She felt dire and dreadful, and all together to out of place.

What a waste of such a good girl and such a bad boy.

Jess's pace as he moved now seemed unbalanced, without any of the grace she had become accustomed in seeing from Tristan as he descended, always with a combination of fluidity and grace that left Rory's bones feeling like water. But Jess's actions brought her back to the image in front of her as she watched him in faulted 'rebel without a cause' actions, light up a cigarette, the smoke like poison as it infected the air she breathed in.

"What you said, back, on that day I left . . ." he started.

"Jess, don't," she whispered, not needing the recap.

"No, I have too." He told her, his arm raised a little as if to halt her words, "No one has ever told me they loved me . . . no one that mattered anyway,"

Seeing the gazebo she leant on the structure, her pose too much like someone else's for Jess's comfort. Her eyes were sad. Or something a long those lines. Sleep deprived loveliness perhaps. He wondered if she still loved him, or if he had fucked this up too much to ever fix it. Rory was the only girl that had come close to . . . to what?

He hadn't believed in love before her, he hadn't believed in much before her.

"You can't just do this to me Jess," she stated softly, her tone betraying the weariness her eyes hid to perfection.

"Back with the long haired fool are you?" he asked sharply, "Should have guessed,"

Pulling her coat tightly around her form Rory paused calming herself, she had learnt by now when to speak, and when to wait, "Dean's getting married to Lindsey."

Jess laughed, "I always knew he'd marry the first girl that fucked him,"

Flashing eyes greeted Jess's comment, "Dean is happy, he loves her."

"Sorry," Jess mumbled in a way that Rory somewhat believed, "I'm glad he found someone,"

Rory nodded, her action taking Jess by surprise, he didn't know what he expected, maybe a sweet and pure ramble about the virtues of love and marriage but the blue eyed girl was silent, her hair reflecting in the light making her look exactly like that night after the dance marathon. But she wasn't the same girl, but he still wanted her, needing her to hold his train wreck life together. He still wanted her to keep his world balanced with any sort of meaning. But as she stood, carefully leaning on the gazebo, he wondered if she could ever want him like she used too.

"I saw that blonde guy you were with," he said uncomfortably.

"Tristan," Rory supplied.

"Does he treat you right?" Jess asked in a gruff way that instantly drew a parallel with his uncle's voice.

Rory face smoothed into a smile, but whether it was genuine or not was something Jess would debate later. Her face was enigmatic though, and as she angled her head to the side she seemed to consider the question, finally giving an answer, "He tries."

Jess nodded as he remembered how the other guy touched her, every motion seemed unpractised as if he was still adapting to find the correct way to be with her. Jess wondered if that's what he had been like in the short period he had been dating her. He tried to think back to see if he had consciously tried every time he was close to her to get it as right as Tristan was obviously even unconsciously doing. He didn't remember anything other than how happy he felt when she was around him. He would hate Tristan, it would be easy, he didn't even know the guy but he could see that he affected Rory in a way that irritated Jess.

Irritated and angered.

So it would be easy to hate Tristan, much like it was easy to hate Dean, and anyone else to was allowed a place in her life that he had lost when he left her with proclamations of love fresh from her mouth. All he remembered from that day, from that very moment was the way time, his heart, his mind; everything stopped as she told him she loved him. Then in the aftermath of her promise of potential happiness the certainty of failure he felt as she waited for his reply. Finally the feeling of pavement under his feet as he turned, and left her standing with broken eyes and shaking hands. Messes of memories. Shattered and placed randomly back together.

The aftermath of Rory was never meant to be like this . . .

Three stupid little words could have changed everything.

Three stupid little words could have given him the namesake Tristan now held as her boyfriend.

Three stupid little words could have given him . . .

Her.

Three stupid little words.

Taking another drawling breath from the cigarette he watched in fascination as Rory grimaced. "I should quit,"

"Tristan still hasn't managed that," she told him knowing he needed to hear an imperfection of a guy he could easily categorise into another Dean, another guy he never felt he could he good enough to be.

She didn't know why she bothered.

Maybe it was a forgotten courtesy or a gift steaming from their limited time together.

Cocking his head Jess quipped painfully, "With you on his case I would have thought he'd do anything for you,"

Shrugging off the meaning of his comment she replied, "I don't annoy him enough anymore,"

Jess nodded a little, telling Rory that was all he could stand knowing about Tristan for the time being. Besides the half truth in what she said still roamed around her mind. She didn't ask Tristan to cease continuing another one of his bad habits. She didn't ask because one change could alter everything. She didn't ask because she knew he mightn't change and she'd be left knowing something she was happy only having as a voice at the back of her head. She disliked this worries, and tried to distracted herself. But the distraction, Jess, affected her more than he should have.

"I'm sorry, about everything-"

Rory cut him off, suddenly too tired for all this shit, "Don't Jess, please just don't."

He kicked out sending a stone flying along the ground. He didn't want this, he would rather have her angry or crying, instead of telling him not to apologise for what he did to her. She was meant to yell like her mother did when Luke did something stupid. Rory was meant to scream, and he was meant to go back to his bed above Luke's dinner knowing just how much he had hurt her, but instead he was left with silence and her pleas to let sleeping dogs' lye. He knew instead of going to bed knowing how badly he fucked everything up, he'd only go to bed feeling everything he knew never would have felt if he stayed and gave her the reply she wanted.

"I need to," he stated, his eyes boring into hers, emotions leapt between the two.

"I don't," she answered starkly, her tone telling him everything he couldn't see.

Pausing he threw the cigarette on the ground, the ashes straining him with there scent in a way that Luke would notice the moment he walked into the dinner. Rory stilled, her body stiff and fragile at the same moment, striking an unhealthy discord.

"Okay," he conceded, "But at least let me walk you home,"

He didn't wait for an answer, leading her back to the house they had left an hour ago. The air was colder. Both parties knew this, them, it all, wasn't finished yet. Events and incidents were still being written and Rory was chilled to the fact she was once again out of control. Jess watched her from then on, trying to memories the person she was becoming without anyone's help.

It wasn't finished yet.

So many loose ends for the blue eyed girl and that brown eyed boy.

So many loose ends


Next Chp: Ruined control


"I'm in control, I'm in complete control of myself," she told him, her words sounding hollow as they left her mouth.

"Just like I am?" Tristan retorted with mocking truths she didn't quite understand.


Thanks to Belle and all my reviewers (especially Smile1 who always gives the best reviews; they always brighten up my day). Sorry about the wait. University got in the way.