Title: Nine Months.
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.
Chp 19: Debt Collectors
The slate eyed boy was greeted by navy blue clothes and block stockings as the cobalt eyed girl in question waited for him by his locker.
Head angled to the side, her eyes focused on a notice board across the hall, she looked all too nonchalant for a girl that now knew all too much about his life. A hand brushed against the locker, occasionally stopping to tap another mores code before she creased for a moment, then continued with her previous activity. Long fingers fluttering over the grey metal surface. Tap, tap, tap. Like the ticking of a clock counting down. Turning, he left before she noticed him. Slipping down, out of her eye line, he made his way over to his friends, outside in the bracing wind that whipped over his skin.
It was better this way.
It was simpler this way.
Simpler for both of them.
They were at the point he detested. It was a point he had rarely made it too, or so he though. In retrospect he perhaps would realise the one off nature of his relationship with the cobalt eyed girl. But on that day, he was just a boy, just a figure moulded for the society pages, and he followed the path he had been set. Followed a path too many other bright young things had trod.
It was easier like this.
Easier when he could turn and leave her and not be expected to be part of something too monumental for his tastes. That night at his house, with her, it made his mind fill with too many unwanted thoughts and images. Some stuff had to . . . same parts of his life were just that, his.
His, and never hers.
Matt joked and laughed, and as his meaningless chatter filled Tristan's head, replacing the images of Rory on his bed whispering him a promise she could never keep. Tristan managed to get a grip on what was going on, he managed to snap out of it. Cobalt eyes were forcibly forgotten for crude jokes about rich girls getting down on their knees for rich boys. But, nevertheless, all it would take was . . .
One slip.
That was all it would take for it all to come tumbling down.
If he told her one thing, everything else would end up being vomited out uncontrollably. Then she would look at him with those cobalt eyes and say something to cliché and meaningless like 'I'm sorry' and then he would know she couldn't take it, that she couldn't take what came along with his name and his past.
So he stayed away, if only for one day.
But she would notice.
He knew she would.
Yet he still stayed away, even with that certainty.
Because it was simpler this way.
It was better for both of them. Some things had to be like that. Some things were not meant to be understood, and were not meant to be brought out into the light for a through examination. Sometimes there are things that can't be discussed. Sometimes it's just better to leave things be. Rose gardens and Jaden's eyes weighted him down.
He stayed out of her way.
He didn't need her to notice it, but he knew she did.
He knew it.
But that didn't mean anything was going to change.
It would be easier for both of them this way.
Tristan was certain of it.
One of the brown eyed boys'.
Jess.
He was back waiting outside her door when Rory arrived home from school. With his weary eyes and a wrinkled school uniform she wondered if he was here to once more try and illicit words of forgiveness from her. She wondered what would happen if she said what she really felt to him. She wondered if he'd grin as if she was making a joke like nameless people from Stars Hollow High would, or shrug as if it was just part of who she was like Tristan did.
But he didn't do either because she didn't say a word.
"Rory, came I come in?" he asked, his tone was carefully pitched, as if he had practiced in front of a mirror beforehand.
'No' . . . 'not today' she wanted to answer. Her internal words resinating with a finality that was abrupt and unexpected even to her. Yet they were captured before they could escape from her mouth, and firmly locked away from inflicting any damage. Instead she shook her head, watching him turn away with a contentment that was too sadistic for her to comprehend. As if this was the punishment he'd returned for. As if this made it all alright.
Was this her payback?
Hurting him so easily like he had hurt her?
She bit her lip until it bleed.
It was so utterly easy to hurt people when you knew what buttons to push.
Easier still when Rory had been the ones to install them.
"Another time then," he stated uncomfortable in a tone that was utterly out of the character description he had handed over to her in the times they'd shared before he left.
She was silent for a moment as she struggled with the keys to open the door she knew was already unlocked. Finally she managed to open it, and slid inside, leaving him standing out on the porch, with his ravaged face and crossed arms falling uselessly to the sides of his body. His brown eyes, the ones she had once wanted more than anything were pained, and if she look back she might have regretted her action.
Yet, it was so utterly easy.
Apparently she wasn't the only one that knew these truths.
Tristan had alternated between ignoring her, and avoiding her all day. Sitting with his friends, spewing crude jokes, and cruel jabs, reaffirming his hold over the masses he commanded he had been the centre of attention. It was then she wondered what he had been like in Military School, if he was a leader, or a follower waiting for his chance to pounce and take the lead that was rightfully his. He had great potential. Even Lorelei saw it. He could be anything and everything, yet nothing at the same time, all with a smile and a few choice words.
Choice words.
He hadn't looked her in the eye since he lied to her. Something was going on. Smoke drifted, curling around Rory's mind as she tried to reason the alternatives her mind presented her with. Dismissing most before she could follow them through. Normally she could read him, picking up the change in mood from looks and movements. It felt like she had spent her life watching him, trying to memories what he was, but she still couldn't understand him.
Yet she wanted too.
But it didn't feel like she was going to get the chance.
It was that thought that drove her back to Chilton to wait for him
The school was practically empty when she arrived.
Rory was unsure, and filled with nerves. After the sudden decision to see him, she found herself confused to why she had bothered to wait the extra half an hour for Tristan to finish his swimming team practice. Returning to school after her meeting with Jess hadn't been planned, nor was she now confident in her choice to meet him. In her dualistic mind she was being told two different plans of action, but neither held any attraction as she flipped through a worn second hand Literature book making half hearted notes in the margins.
Another bad habit she had inherited from Jess.
Slamming the book shut in jerky uneven movements, Rory banished the thought from her mind. Jess had been taking up far too much head space ever since he'd come back to Stars Hollow. Half the time she was around him, she cursed him for causing her to momentarily lose all the maturity she had gained in the time he had spent out of her life, and the other half she cursed herself for feeling like a fumbling thirteen year old girl lost for the right words.
She hated how Jess made her feel.
Seeing Tristan's characteristically graceful form emerge from the indoor swimming pool, Rory dropped the book from her hands, which were now, for some reason trembling without her permission. She knew the instant he saw her, by the way he straightened his back and shoulders, as if he was facing an emissary, and Rory pained herself with that knowledge.
"What's going on Tristan?"
He gave her a look in confusion.
"Don't," she uttered, suddenly so tired and wore out from the game they now seemed to be playing.
She didn't know what she was saying. It had not been planned, it had not been practiced, and . . . she just was so tired. She wanted him to say something. She wanted him to make some comment, to push her off balance, to make her thing to make her confused, to make her rethink everything she knew. She wanted him to take her hand and lead her but . . .
He didn't say a word.
"I can't do this," she found herself whispering.
She couldn't.
He was avoiding her. Suddenly it all meant more than just him walking a different way to class so he wouldn't see her on the way. In an instant she felt sick, and she felt horrid because she knew what it meant. She knew what it meant because she'd seen it before. She had. She'd seen it with him, with Matt, with Giles, with all the other young things that circled around Tristan.
But it wasn't meant to be like this.
Slate eyes and rose gardens.
Oh, those glittering young things, what have they done?
"Tristan?" she questioned in a small voice as a his eyes darkened.
He looked down, her shoulders slumping, as if relenting. A measured distance separated them, and neither attempted to cross it. Neither had the ability to do anything that could have prevented what was inevitably going to occur. He wanted to touch her, to tell her everything she needed to hear, but he couldn't. She wanted to have stayed home, to not have needed to see him, but it was now out of her control as she faced off with him. It was all out of her control now. Spinning wildly towards the ground. Breathing out in a rush, Tristan looked up, a broken unreadable expression covering his slate eyes.
"I slept with Summer. It didn't mean anything, it was just-"
Unreadable.
She interrupted him, and his unreadable face.
Yes, it was unreadable, and even as the words past through his lips, she almost fooled herself into believing he never said a word. She wanted him to lie to her, and knew even in the back of her mind he had been lying all along. He had lied to her, just like the others. She took a step back, suddenly choking on the breath she found she was unable to take. Maybe . . . maybe she had put him on a pedestal, watching as he saw through her diversions and tricks of light. Maybe, maybe, what she had like was knowing he didn't see her on a pedestal, didn't see her as the town princess, or the proof of her mothers inability to remember to take the pill each day as a teenager.
But none of that mattered as she snapped at him.
"Just what? Getting her back for wounding your pride?" she asked rhetorically running a hand through her hair, "Grow up Tristan, stop being so . . ."
"I'm not Dean, or Jess,"
He didn't mean to say that. It just came out, he hadn't even felt the thought twisting and curling around his mind. But the impact made his stomach convulse, cobalt eyes flashed away from his slate counterparts. She didn't step away this time. She just stayed still. Quiet, and silent, watching and waiting. Folding an unfolding his words, trying to order them to holding cells, trying to delate them, but failing both tasks.
Flinching, "No, I didn't want you to be either of them, I wanted you to be you,"
True words.
But they were still hollow.
True words, one both sides.
But it couldn't be or mean anything other than the syllables the sentence contained. Couldn't exist past the one breath of air she had gifted on them. He wanted to say the same, give her the sentiment she had risked allowing him access too. But he couldn't, she was detaching herself from him, from them, and she flinched once more as he opened his mouth, as if predicting his mangled speech before he had the fortitude to articulate it.
"We can't go back, can we." He found himself stating with a finality he never expected to hear himself directed at her.
She backed away from him, hands ringing and fumbling as she tried to balance herself and regain the footing she was rapidly losing. So this was it, this was the scene her mother must have been looking forward too. In the back of her mind she wondered vaguely if any bets had been placed. How much did the lucky punter get for today's date? A small town game, a game that felt like scales scraping her skin as she thought of the entertainment her break up from the beautiful blonde boy would be for them. It was weird, it was like she was shutting down, retreating into her mind.
He noticed.
But pretended not too.
"So this is it,"
He looked startled, as if she wasn't meant to say that. He waited for her to yell, but later he would realise how out of character that would be for her. Silence was her weapon of choice, not words. She was backing away yet again, with her arms crossed over her chest.
Tristan copied her early move and ran a hand through his damp hair, trying to hide the fact his hand was shivering without his permission. This was too much, him, her, them . . . He didn't do this, this relationship stuff. It was better to get out early than to wait for dénouement instead of this ending.
"So this is it," Tristan repeated.
His words loomed in the air, heavy, weighing them both down.
So, this is it . . .
So, this is it?
Yes, so that was it.
Next Chapter: Promrose path.
"Dean got married seven months ago."
"To Lindsey right," Paris stated not questioned, her tone steady, almost tranquil, not forcing or foreseeing.
But she felt it, felt where it was leading.
"Have you talked to him lately?"
Sorry about the wait; uni and real life got in the way. I hope you enjoyed the chapter despite the breakup of Rory and Tristan. Also, I'd like to thank all the readers and reviewers for sticking to my fic even with the delays.
Thanks,
From Professional Scatterbrain.
