Title: Nine Months.

Author: Professional Scatterbrain

Rating: R

Couple: R/T

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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 18: Ruined control


Amidst the polished marble and carefully planned lightening, they lay side by side.

Hidden, in a renovated library, she closed her eyes, and breathed him in.

But he was the one that pulled her closer. Closer and closer. Her breath warm on his collar bone as she lay next to him, and her hands warm and gentle as she traced her name on his skin. Her face was open, and lovely, and Tristan tried to remember the first time he saw her. He expected the memory to be clear as crystal. But it wasn't. No more than a fuzzy recollection of innuendos and pitiful retorts from her, intermingled with her in the Chilton uniform filtered back into his mind as he thought about that day she had barged into his ordered life. But things like this; her in his arms, her body warm and comforting, he remembered with clarity.

But then she moved, and the moment was lost.

All was lost.

Wasn't it ironic?

Wasn't it?

"I'm late," she mumbled as his Grandfather clock sounded out the hour, lazily she stated, "Dinner with Grandparents,"

Her voice brought him back to the living, turning to face her he took in her bruised lips, the marks like roses commencing at her neck making a path downwards, only adhered from sight as she buttoned up her white shirt. Such a white shirt, crisp and clean with lace around her thin wrists. Wasn't it a pity? She didn't look like such a good girl anymore. He smirked. Then he kissed her neck again, lightly touching her pulse, only to smile as he felt it racing. Pulling away from him, she shrugged a jumper over her head, and ran a hand through her wayward tresses.

"You should invite me along sometime," he teased, the irony of the situation bring a smile to her face.

He would never be liked or accepted into her life by either Lorelei or the Grandparents he had only meet as 'Janlan DuGrey's grandchild', not as 'Rory's boyfriend'. The different between the two titles was obvious. After all, girls like her, girls with more hope resting on her shoulders than health didn't need a boyfriend like him. Girl like her didn't need anything other than an acceptance letter to an Ivy League school, a graduation certificate, and a ticket to Europe. He detected sadness in her cobalt eyes as she smoothed the black silk skirt over her hips, the material reflecting in the light.

Blue silk.

His mind flashed back to that night with Summer, and how warm Rory felt as he slid his hand under her flimsy top. He wondered if she still though he was good, if she would think he was worth saving if she knew what happened that night. He looked away from her, averting his eyes from her willowy form.

Should he regret what he did?

He didn't like the lump in his throat. He didn't like the pause, the hesitation in each moment. Summer deserved what she got. That's what girls like her deserved. Thinking she could play his game better, thinking she could take on the house? He didn't regret hurting Summer, it was an awful truth that lived in his mind, but . . . he didn't like he it felt with Rory, as if he was carrying a weight around that no one else could see.

As if Rory was better than the desire to give Summer her comeuppance she so sorely deserved.

Clinical analysis was failing him.

But he pretended not to notice that fact.

Bring her back closer to his body, he smiled a little as he skimmed his fingers along her back, under the fabric to her smooth skin. He wondered if she would still think he was good now . . . now what? Janlan's words came back to him, they tasted sick as they tried to seep on his tongue. Rory did have parts of her that were cruel, that were sadistic, but . . . she tried to focus on the good, still only beginning to acknowledging the bad that lurked within her.

Maybe that's what she brought out in him, something or someone that wanted to try to focus of the good.

Maybe . . .

"Emily's invited some people that are only there to decide my future," she mumbled, her mind flying around above her head as she unconsciously began to button Tristan's shirt, her fingers grazing the skin in a way that made him want to reverse the process she was undertaking.

Nimble fingers and footsteps writing love letters.

"Your futures already set," he told her in a way that made her look away from his searchingly painful eyes.

He laughed hollowly, eyes dizzy and blank, making it hard for her to look at him.

"I know what I want, I've always known," she snapped running a hand through her knotted hair.

She had repeated this over and over until . . .

Did the words still hold meaning?

Or were they just messes of unorganised sound?

But she didn't want to think about that.

Never did.

So he nodded, his eyes annoyingly distant as he stepped away from her giving her rarely offered escape route. She never used them with him, not anymore; he was too good at stopping her diversion techniques, too good at seeing her play people to get what she wanted.

Negative virtues they both shared.

"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?"

He laughed cruelly, maybe sadly too. He could push her away now, he could stop that from happening as well. He knew which choice the family name would require, and he knew which one would lead to something better than a nameplate on a chairman of the bord office door. She gave him an unreadable look. He should have known better than directly challenging her.

She was better at pretending than he was.

After all, reading all those books gave her one hell of an imagination.

Wasn't that what they all wanted?

To think beyond the possible?

Wasn't it?

"I'm eighteen, they don't have any power over me anymore," her words desperately reminded him of what he spat to Janlan.

Oh what bright young things they were.


While Rory left for her family dinner, Tristan had one of his own.

The rarity of the occasion did not amount to any novelty, and he was unamused.

Idly hands should have been a warning sign.

The atmosphere in the dinning room was cold, and silent. Tristan sat still, holding back the urge to fiddle with his watch or at least look like there was an understandable reason why nothing was being said. His mother smiled, her teeth flashing a Morse code he could never understand when matched with her hazy unreadable eyes, eyes that he had inherited abet in a colder and uncaring form. Aiden chatted idly with Daniel about business, and Annabelle nodded at the right times and agreed with everything the two men said, always asking the sort of questions that made her sparkle and them grin at their own intelligence.

She was good at that.

Very good.

No wonder Daniel liked having her around all the time.

"Janlan said he was impressed with your progress," Aiden stated idly as Daniel turned to answer another one of Annabelle's query.

Turning to face his father, his oblivious father, Tristan paused, considering the purpose of his fathers comment. Every comment held a double meaning, and it paid for one always had to be on their toes. Clinically, Tristan examined the statement. Cold eyes and sterling silver watched him, and waited. Comments and conversation. It wouldn't be a reminder about Rory's status, or lack of, in the DuGrey world, nor would it be the disturbing hints of him taking over the reins of Janlan's formidable family empire that, although on paper now belonged to Aiden, in reality was the old mans fortune that he, and he alone controlled.

But then Frances spoke.

"Your grades are the highest in your year," Frances confirmed, her face smoothing out into a beautiful smile, showing a remnant of the girl she had once been all those years ago before Aiden, and before the DuGrey's.

Nodding, he let the words and the praise slip off his radar. Grades didn't matter, nor did the recognition that came alone with them. He wondered if he'd be getting given the same pride filled words from Aiden if he knew what subjects his son had been taking, the ones he had described as "inadequate". Oxford looked for something more than Mickey subjects no matter the grades he was collecting from them. After all, he had a name to live up to, and boys like him should know that by now.

One had to be fully aware of titles.

Especially ones own.

He wondered why Rory liked her statues on the honour role, and the letter and percentages she received on each piece of school assessed coursework. Certificates and awards her mother had framed and hung on the wall, like trophy animals lining Janlan's den. Maybe Rory believed in all the hard work dedications shit take teachers dolled out at the start of each and every school year.

Or maybe it was the pleasure of knowing, even in a small way she better than the people that told her she was nothing but mistake.

Maybe she needed her routine as much as he did.

"It looks like there'll be another DuGrey attending Oxford University next year," Daniel smiled magnanimously, his face youthful with a bright smile that sickened Tristan.

"Yeah, can't wait," Tristan replied, his tone blank of emotions, yet with predatorily eyes that matched the ones Janlan wore each day, the teenage version of the Grandfather was a dangerous sight.

What a matching pair.

It seemed those eyes skipped a generation.

Janlan didn't mind the wait.

He always was a patient man.

"It'll be so nice to have all the family together again," Frances told him, her voice sweet, as if laced with sugary icing, "We were so worried about you last year, all the trouble you were in, but now, now your our darling son again,"

Suffocated.

That's all Tristan felt, as if he air supply was being cut off, and he was slowly being backed into a corner, being groomed into a person suitable to carry the name that had branded him as above the ordinary from birth. Time to smile now. Time to stop with all those childish games and start playing with the grown ups. After all, he was a DuGrey, and they always were one step ahead. So smile brightly, and don't winch.

"Janlan was right about boarding school, it really was the making of you,"

Euphemism.

Another fancy term to refer to the part of his life that had been concealed with PR agents' lies and half truths. Was this his penance, his purgatory for the sins he had committed, or was he, like Elspeth still paying for the family name?

"With power comes responsibility,"

Rory's honeyed words drifted into his mind as he watched Daniel and Aiden start discussing their memories of Oxford. Rory had quoted those words from some book or play he had read but could no longer place with a title. Her eyes were tinted with sadness as she told him, a truth that applied to her as much as it did to him. They were born into a life they didn't choose, yet it was their catch twenty two in living up to what was asked of them. People would always be living vicariously through them, Janlan would see himself in Tristan; see his image once again control the masses, while Rory would be the person Lorelei failed to be.

Both of the teenagers had potential that would be realised, but at what costs?

What would be left after all the dust had cleared?

Janlan's eyes and Lorelei's smile?


Lorelei was working late yet again.

In her room, Rory idly listened to a new CD that Lane had lent her, while flipping through a study guide that Paris would reprimand her friend for even glancing at. One had to be original after all . . . but not too original. After all, that wouldn't do. Appropriations and glossy words got grades, not . . . not what? Rory was tired. The days was shifting into night, and she couldn't get her mind off Jess. She hated herself for acting like this, like a little girl whose crush broke her heart . . .

Or was it a little girl that should have known better.

Jess was back, and he had asked for her forgiveness that night they spoke.

She hadn't given it to him.

Suddenly unable to stay still, she threw the book aside, and pulled a jumper on and ventured outside. It wasn't late yet, but it was getting dark. The centre of town was speckled with people. Teenagers from Stars Hollow High laughed as Rory passed, and once again she remembered being the bases of all their jokes, and it seemed that she still was. Voices in the back of her mind told her to say something cruel and heartless, and it was the knowledge that she could, which pressed Rory forwards to Lane's house.

Possibility and potential could be a dangerous thing after all.

Climbing up the tree outside Lane's bedroom, Rory knocked on the window, and smiled as her friend pulled her inside. Lane was the kind of friend you don't question about friendship; she was the kind of person that was just your friend without the need for drama or angst. But she was changing on Rory, and each time she saw the raven haired girl Rory struggled to keep up with the person Lane was so quickly becoming.

It had been a long time since they had gone to the same school, and walked home together everyday.

How long had it been?

Rory couldn't remember.

Acceptance letters and neatly pressed school uniforms clouded Rory's memory.

But Lane was still her best friend, so Rory told her.

"Jess's back,"

Pulling up the floorboards to find some CD in her massive library of sound, Lane paused, her face a mix of emotions that Rory didn't expect to see.

Two words.

Two words summed up the meaning of the brown haired boys re-entrance into the Stars Hollow collective lives.

"I spoke to him,"

Lane nodded, "Yeah, I guessed you did."

"It was weird," Rory told her, slumping down in Lane's closet as she slipped the CD into the player, and closed the doors to muffle the forbidden sound of songs written by seventeen year old boys, years before anyone took notice of their band name Jet.

"He has a way of messing up stuff," Lane replied, her fingers tapping along to the beat as the music rose to a crescendo, lulling her questions for a second as she floated in the masse of tone and balance in the music.

"I have a way of messing stuff up," Rory retorted with a half smile.

"Tristan won't care about Jess," Lane stated with certainty, her eyes closed and her mind distant. Flickering them open after receiving silence from her words, Lane watched her friend try to understand what she had been told.

Jess and Tristan.

Two boys that had the ability to completely wreck her ordered life within an instant of entering it. With Jess and his cynical attitude, he seemed to force his way into her life, making everything in it seem unbalanced and left of centre. It had taken her too long to get over him, and even longer to realise she wasn't a fool in seeing something in him. It should have been easy to hate Jess, and sometimes she could, but there was something endearing about him, something more than the self destructive nature he seemed to embody. Maybe Jess was just another version of Tristan, like Rory was another adaptation of Paris. It could be the case, but for now it was easier to see Tristan without Jess's faults.

"Tristan isn't Dean," Lane confirmed with a shrug as if it was general knowledge, "He knows he has you, and Jess isn't a threat to that or him,"

"I wasn't talking about Tristan," Rory quipped as if offended that she could be acting in a way utterly too reminiscing of the previous years troubles.

Lane rolled her eyes, "Sure."

"I wasn't," Rory reinforced archly, but Lane was immune to such looks, and merely smiled laughingly.

"I have links in Chilton and Hartford Ror. Henry isn't just a pretty face," Lane joked with a secret smile Rory knew Henry had given her.

Rory wondered if Dave had given her a matching smile as well.

"How are your boys?"

Lane's smiled dulled for a second, "What if you met two people, two people that understood two different parts of you. Who would you chose? The boy that knew every band and song that ever existed, or the boy that gets where I come from?"

Culture verse passion.

Pausing, Rory considered what had been asked of her, but finally realised it wasn't her question to answer, "I think both of them could understand you, just depends which one of them you want to understand,"

Lane nodded, and smiled another secret smile, "Yes, that seems to be my choice now,"

"Both of them could love you more than anything," Rory told her, hoping it was the right thing to say.

"What if I couldn't love them?" Lane asked, "What if . . ."

"You can love either of them Lane," Rory reassured her knowingly.

Lane, like Rory, wasn't good with love. Love meant too much in their worlds. Love was too hard with mothers like their's, each demanding different things from each girl, and fathers that never seemed to be there when needed. Love, though terrifying, was possible for each of them. A blueprint of possibility? Perhaps. However it was still terrifying, and they kept their distance not promising anything until they were certain of what they'd get in return.

"And you can love him," Lane responded in a similar tone to the one her best friend had used.

Pausing, Rory considered what she had been given in those stupidly simple sounding words Lane had uttered. She could love Tristan, but she didn't know if she would. She, as much as she wanted to believe otherwise, didn't know him. She knew his habits, his voice, and the little things that made up what people saw, and what she was meant to see. But it was the other things, the fleeting looks and glances, those were the thing that made her want to understand him, to translate the untranslatable. But something was wrong, and she hadn't seen one of those fleeting looks showing anything she could understand, nor more importantly, anything she wanted to understand at this moment in time.

Translatable looks were rendered untranslatable at the moment, and she didn't understand why.

Something was wrong.

Something . . .


The calendar of social events was always full.

Just like Louise's dance card for that evening.

In the chilly black coloured blanket that covered the sky, Tristan walked with Rory around the illuminated DuGrey estate. Another social event was taking place, with people that ran the corporate world acting like drunken teenagers, waiting for a chance to gossip and ruin people they claimed to like. The tangerine satin dress she was wearing flapped lightly in the breeze, playing a complicated pattern he was more than contented to watch as he caught flickeringly fleeting views of Rory's long porcelain legs.

Placing a hand at the small of her back, he smiled a little as she moved closer to him. She hadn't planned on coming tonight, and he couldn't for the life of him remember why he had arrived at her home a few hours previously and asked her to. For some stupid, completely illogical reason he had just wanted to see her.

Need.

What he felt for her was leaving the safe regions of just wanting her. Wanting her was easy . . . well; it was easier in comparison to this. Needing wasn't safe. Safe was being able to leave her, and hurt her without caring either way. But needing her was different, needing her meant she was more than what people dictated her role be in his life. Needing Rory meant a dependency on her that he felt abased to admit. Needing wasn't healthy or necessary, it was a bad habit he had to curb. Needing her meant everything he wasn't ready to consider knowing.

Need was dangerous.

It was an unseen threat that had hid under the radar.

The sickly sweet scent of the rose garden his mother insisted on planting entered his mind, clouding his thoughts. Entering the rose garden, he pushed aside thoughts of similar nights with different girls on his arm as he led them to this very place. Different girls screaming his name in the dark night, the sound lost before it came close to being heard in the glittering ballroom in the spacious mansion. Rory gave him a look as he paused, compelling him into action in order to avoid her eyes. It was the sort of look, the sort that said something he shouldn't translate, but one too important not too.

"What's going on Tris?"

Warm cobalt eyes gazed into the cold slate of his, before he broke away, kissing her harshly, pushing her back on the lush green grass until her willing body was under his. Tracing the curves he had burned into his mind, he bit down on the base of her neck, trying for some reason to mark her physically, to mark her, abet in a different way, than she had marked him.

She whimpered a little.

Then she drew him nearer to her.

Her tangerine dress was around her hips; as he threw one of her legs over his shoulder, and allowed her to put the other around his waist, pulling him ever closer to her. Foreplay was forgotten, as Tristan dominated their actions, with a desperation that Rory would have picked up if her mind wasn't lost in the sensations of his hands and lips on her body, creating a need in her she didn't want to admit.

Slipping the straps off her shoulders, Tristan paused for a second as her hands slipped under his shirt, touching him slowly with fleeting touches that left his bones feeling like water, and her smiling that smile he loved.

She whispered his name.

As she did, he reeled back, as though she burnt him.

The scent of the sickly roses filled his head as he looked at the lovely brunette lying under him. A slightly confused looked was present in her dark eyes, her hands slipped off his body, residing on his chest, gently touching the soft fabric of his shirt, waiting for him to make the first move. Her grip loosened on his body, as he moved away slightly, leaving her unsure of what had happening, with the beginning of an understanding of everything that went on in his life that he didn't tell her about.

"I ruined your dress," he muttered.

'And I almost ruined you,'

The unspoken words raced around his head, as he backed away from her. It was how she whispered his name that stopped him. She was always so softly spoken, and he always allowed her to pull him closer just to hear her whisper his name in that fragile voice of hers. She was always pulling him out of inattentiveness, and into a world of warmth that only existed with her presence near him.

She wasn't Louise, and obviously, she wasn't Summer.

He had almost ruined her here in the sickly death bed surrounded by the roses his mother planted.

Rory was the kind of girl parents liked, but she wasn't the kind of girl you fucked in their bed after they left for a night with the social set. She was . . . she was someone Tristan always felt the need to treat with something akin to respect, and . . .

And he had almost ruined her.

"Tris," she whispered once more in the chilly garden as she waited for him to look at her. "Tell me what's wrong?"

With a shock, he realised she wasn't just talking about what had almost happened with them. Her words were directed at him, and he . . . he didn't know what to do. Wide eyes filled with warmth waited for his to say something, to say anything, but he couldn't say a word.

All that greeted her question was silence, and words that were left unsaid.

Taking his hand, she pulled him to his feet, and led him to his room. Going through the back corridors, she avoided the people she knew he wanted nothing to do with. She wanted to hide him from everything that was making him pull away from her. She knew he was pulling away. She could feel it even as she tightly held his hand. Something had happened, and she didn't know what to do to help him. She couldn't fix it, she knew that; this was something that couldn't be fixed, but she wanted to help.

Reaching his room, Rory tried to busy herself within the now uncomfortable silence. Something was happening to them, and while she flicked through the pages of a book neither he nor she had any interest in reading, she attempted to contain her uneasy.

It was getting late.

Her watch slipped, and the hands indicting the time were replaced by the edges of her tattoo. The one the world had never seen bar Tristan and his trusting hands. He left the room, giving her a small kiss on the cheek indicating something she didn't want to obey. Rory knew she was expected to leave, but she didn't. She refused to do what was expected of her. Although Rory understood that he needed time, she knew with stark certainty if she left tonight, the next time she saw him he'd have slipped to far away for her to ever touch him again.

She ached for him.

Slipping the watch off her wrist, she examined her wrist fully; the smooth lines of the most beautiful word, trying to remember the girl how had spent her taxi money on the ten letters that made up the message she felt a need to remember. Tristan never asked to see the word again, contented with the knowledge it was there, and for the most part, Rory didn't feel the need to saw at it like she was now.

Cellar door

Memory was a funny thing. Rory's past was filled with memories she lost the control to define which were real, which she imagined, and what she had been told. But she was who she was, a girl, the replacement, and she was . . . trapped. But not around Tristan, and she hated herself for needing him. Need was dependence, and she had not survived this long being dependant on anyone who could . . . could make her fly, but also let her crash to the ground. With snappy, jerking actions she put back her ridicules watch Emily had given her, ending her chain of thoughts before they could do any more damage.

She would wait for him though, even with the knowledge that she should have left.

She would wait, but she would later wish she hadn't.

About half an hour later he entered the room again. Dressed in loose boxers and t-shirt, he looked like a teenager not the powerful bright young thing she saw every day within the social restraints of society. She understood he wasn't a child, and had stopped being one long before she grew out of her stuffed toys and colourful hair ties. But he was . . . he was still young in a few ways that he hid from the world.

"You're still here,"

She nodded, but he didn't see. Already over by the sound system he was turning up the volume of some loud rock music, the kind that drowns out thought, and leaves the mind filled with the ringing of sound that keeps delays reaction.

He didn't want to think, and she let him.

As he lay down on his bed, she watched the powerful lines of his body tighten with unleased emotion. He didn't want her here; but still she stayed. Moving next to him, she was careful not to touch him, but she felt her resolve weaken as he glanced at her, his face a mix of beauty and pain.

Painfully beautiful.

Wasn't he a bright young thing?

"Tris?" she whispered, but it was lost within the cold marble floors and the shelves of books all while the music pounded on and on, dragging her mind out of her head at the same time as she was trying to keep her wits about her.

"Not now Mary," he told her, silently bridging the gap between their bodies as he place his hand on hers, gently tracing her knuckles.

"Tell me," she stated quietly; her words only hear by him as she grazed her lips against his ear as she spoke.

"Just not now, please,"

She nodded, and rested her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes as he turned the volume down, and turned the lights off with the simple press of a button on some expensive toy his mother had installed after another meeting with the DAR darlings. His steady breathing returned, and she waited for him to speak. She didn't think he would, she knew he couldn't but something in his answers told her that he would tell her one day, just not now.

Time passed.

The CD switched, and another one roared to life.

In the safety net of blackness, he spoke suddenly, interrupting the darkness, "I can't organise what I want to say,"

Opening her eyes, she made sure to stay still, as if any movement from her could shatter the moment he was building on his own. Something about what was happening was so fragile to Rory, and she felt his breathing go shallow and irregular as he tried to control himself and failed.

"You don't have to organise it for me," she told him, moving a little to kiss his collar bone softly.

Her small touch grounded him, holding him under her spell for a little longer than he'd ever admit.

"Next year, it'll be better," he told her, weaving a tale that both of them knew he didn't believe. "I'll be out of this place, and I won't have to . . ."

He trailed off, and Rory filled in the blanks in the silence of her mind.

"It'll be better and I won't have to . . . It'll be better," he repeated as if it was he mantra, and in a way, Rory realised it was.

"It'll be better," Rory confirmed as the song playing in the cold room reached its invertible conclusion, "You'll be free from everything,"

"Yeah, we'll both be free," he stated.

She shivered, and with a certainly she knew her mantras of Harvard and dreams of being a foreign corespondent were just like his dreams of the following year; nothing but words to keep the demons away, to keep believing that there lives would change, and they wouldn't have to spend nights reminding themselves of how everything would get better.

That frightened her.

She felt light headed.

She didn't want him to know her this well; inside and out. Some stuff was just hers, some stuff had to stay in her head, alone in the darkness with no one given the power to turn on a light and look around. She was how she was, but parts of her . . . there was stuff she didn't want him to see, that she didn't want anyone to see. But he didn't seem to notice the warning signs, and she was left wondering if she let him know too much, or if she had just given him permission long ago on the piano seat when she was just a Mary and he was just the blonde blue eyed boy that had the ability to make her stutter and blush.

His hand held hers now.

"It'll get better Tris," she mumbled into his ear, "I promise I'll try to make it better for you, if tell me something . . . anything,"

Her tone pleaded for the unambiguous answers Tristan was unable to give her. He was silent for a few minutes at her words, trying to grasp the depth of truth she had pledged to him so clearly, but even then, the words he wanted to say became tangled in his mouth before he could voice them. She was waiting for him to say something, anything, and in his silence, Tristan felt her body stiffen, as if in a defensive reaction.

"Please," Rory tried once more; somehow knowing she was pushing the line of grace they had created in their relationship.

She didn't have the perfect life; nor did she have the childhood he was deprived of. He knew the reason people from Chilton ridiculed her, the reason they never admitted to anyone; Rory, to them was perfect; she had a family that loved her, she had a mind that excelled in the structured school system, and she was sweet and nice to everyone no matter if they treated her like shit behind her back. She was the ideal, she was what people hated because she, in there eyes, got lucky, and managed to get something they denied even wanting. But that was just a facade, she wasn't even near that ideal of perfection, she had a family that struggled to see her more than her mother's replacement, a mind that she considered not halfway good enough, and a personality that wasn't even a fraction of nice and sweet that she knew people expected from her.

But what scared him the most and sent his veins on fire, was the secret knowledge that she needed him too.

"You've already made it better," he stated finally, smiling tentatively as he kissed her lightly.

She hated and adored that smile as he tried to pass off an excuse to cover hidden thoughts he never wanted her to see.

His mockingly stated words were little more than a lie, but to his credit, it was one he wanted to believe in. However it was a white lie that both of them easily recognised without any need for drama or hysterics that could have come hand in hand with there realisation. He berated himself for attempting to keep her in the dark through such an infantile method, but he knew he wouldn't tell her the truth, or anything that came close to the unattainable truth. It wasn't about being weak, it was about . . . managing to get the words out, articulating them past the stage of thoughts in the mind. He wasn't her, he couldn't give her the pass codes to some of the recesses he knew she could understand given time.

She let his hand go then.

She bit her lip.

She was suddenly glad to be surrounded in darkness.

Rory's eyes blinked and flickered, holding back unwanted and unwelcomed tears; stopping her face from showing any resident reaction to his words. She refused to become a canvas to her emotions, if she did, something inside her told her everything around her would come falling down. That, above all things could never happen; a lesson she leant the hard way. So instead, she lay next to him, in the darkness, listening to music that could only attempt to kill thoughts in her mind.

Finally, she got up, and left his room without a word.

She couldn't stay, nor did he ask her too.


Next Chapter: Debt collectors


"Don't," she uttered, suddenly so tired and wore out from the game they now seemed to be playing.

He didn't say a word.

"I can't do this," she found herself whispering.


Sorry about the wait - university is making me run around in circles. Once again, thanks for the review, to to Belle, my beta (I emailed you, but I'm not sure if it worked; hotmail is playing up on me)