Title: Love to Hate You

Author: Lannah

Summary: Students at Chilton head to Eagle Mountain for a ski trip, during the course of the winter holidays. Rory and Tristan meet under slightly different circumstances.

Pairing: R/T.

Disclaimer: I am in no way, shape or form, affiliated with Gilmore Girls. I have about $2 to my name so if anyone wants to sue me, they won't be getting a whole lot.

"So you actually talked to him without killing him?" Aleesha asked Rory the next day after their ski lesson. "That's a miracle."

Rory shrugged. "It wasn't really talking. It was more like me shooting down everything he said."

Aleesha took a sip of her drink, a small smile on her face.

Rory looked at her suspiciously. "What are you smiling about?"

Aleesha shrugged. "Nothing," but the smile remained on her face. "So, what'd you do at the party anyway?"

Rory narrowed her eyes at her.

Aleesha threw up her hands in surrender. "I said I was sorry!"

"I don't care. You're the one who made me go in the first place."

"I'm sorry. They just dragged me off and I did look for you but I didn't know where you were..."

Rory stuck her tongue out at her. "I should yell at Paris too," she grumbled.

At that moment, a commotion at the door caused them to look up.

"Right on cue," Aleesha said, grinning as Paris walked in (or rather, stomped in), obviously annoyed with Tristan and Brendan who were behind her (and from the looks of it, completely bothering her). They were followed by Austin, Madeline and Louise.

Rory buried her head behind an advertisement on the table about a new type of latte when she saw Tristan.

"Hide me," she moaned.

"Too late," Aleesha said, leaning back in her chair obviously enjoying Rory's discomfort. "They've spotted us - including Tristan - and they're coming over."

Rory groaned. "I don't want to talk to him," she whined.

"Talk to whom?"

Rory let out an 'hmph' and turned around. "You," she answered.

Tristan shrugged and sat down beside her. "Why not, Mary? I'm an entertaining person."

Rory rolled her eyes. "Yeah, if by entertaining you mean annoying," she mumbled under her breath.

Aleesha shot her a "be nice" look.

"Oh shut up, DuGrey," Paris snapped, flopping down on an empty chair. The rest of them followed suit.

"Paris is in a bad mood," Brendan said in a sing-song voice, taking the seat beside Aleesha. He flashed her a grin.

"It's such a surprise too," Tristan added, his eyes twinkling mischievously as he eyed the glowering Paris. "She's rarely ever like this."

"I know," Brendan agreed. "She's usually so perky."

"Singing..." Tristan started.

"Dancing..." Brendan continued.

"Picking flowers-"

Tristan's comment was punctuated by one of Rory's fries hitting his head. He rubbed his forehead, smirking at a fuming Paris, while the rest of them broke out into fits of laughter.

"Why am I the only one getting fries thrown at him?" Tristan complained.

"'Because you're closer," Paris answered.

"And everyone knows she likes me more than you," Brendan added and then stopped when he noticed Paris's narrowed eyes directed at him.

"Guys leave her alone. Unless you plan on having a funeral in the next five minutes," Austin cut in, grinning.

"I'd like one funeral soon," Rory muttered, causing Madeline, Louise, and Austin to start snickering all over again.

"So what are you ladies doing today?" Austin asked quickly, before Tristan could retort.

Aleesha shrugged. "We were trying to figure out what to do for the rest of the afternoon."

"Well, we were planning on going tubing," Brendan said. "Want to come?"

"Um..." Aleesha started to say.

Rory managed to catch her eyes and threw a look at Tristan and then back at her.

Aleesha grinned. "Sure," she agreed, as Rory's mouth dropped open.

Immediately, she began thinking up every possible excuse available in order to get herself out of going anywhere where a certain Tristan DuGrey would be present. Unfortunately for her, her excuses did not work as well as she had hoped for she found herself at the top of a hill, tube in hand a short while later.

"I'm so tired," Madeline groaned, later that evening after their tubing session.

Rory nodded in agreement. She had spent the majority of the afternoon trying to avoid Tristan who seemed to know exactly what she was doing and went out of his way to annoy the living daylights out of her. Needless to say, that was tiring in itself.

They had decided to crash in Paris, Louise and Madeline's shared hotel room and have a movie night that evening after they got back.

"Madeline, you sat on a tire-thing and slid down a hill a bunch of times," Paris snapped. "What's so tiring about that?"

Rory watched the two of them in amusement. Paris was a handful and she wondered how girly-girls like Madeline and Louise had become such good friends with her.

"Okay," Aleesha said, walking into the room with Louise in tow. They were both carrying armloads of junk food. "We have chips, cookies, brownies-"

"I call the brownies," Rory interrupted.

"-the sodas are in the fridge so if you want any, get it yourself because I'm not walking back in there and the pizza is on its way upstairs," Aleesha finished.

"Which movie are we watching first?" Louise asked.

"Miss Congeniality," Madeline answered happily.

"Oohh...chick flick," Aleesha said. "I like."

Just then the doorbell rang.

"I've got it," Rory said getting up and heading to the door. She paid for the pizza that had arrived and then carried it into the living room as Paris started the movie.

"I love this movie," Madeline gushed, grabbing a slice of pizza.

"Ror, why are you staring at your pizza?" Aleesha asked.

Rory looked up. She was in fact staring at it, trying to remember whether or not she had brought her scarf back from the hill.

"I think I left my scarf back on the hill..." she said.

Paris raised her eyebrows. "And staring at the pizza is going to bring it back, how?"

Rory ignored her and got up. "I'm going to go look for it."

"It's a scarf...who cares," Aleesha said, focusing her attention back on the television which was now showing the opening credits to the movie.

"It's my favourite scarf. I'm going to see if it's still there."

As Rory stepped outside, she overheard Paris asking, "She has a favourite scarf?" only to have Aleesha, Madeline and Louise all 'shush' her at once.

A few minutes later, Rory headed up towards the hill they were previously occupying, looking all around her. Finally, she spotted a blue bundle among the sea of endless white.

"Yes!" she exclaimed, quickly grabbing the scarf currently lying on the snow.

As she proceeded to head back to the hotel, she chose a different route from the one she had previously taken. She headed along the path, which led to the bigger hills used by the more advanced skiers and snowboarders.

Her attention was then caught by a lone figure swerving in and out, obviously snowboarding down the hill. Usually there was no one about these hills at this time of the night, so she was surprised to see someone there.

From the looks of it, whoever it was, was quite good.

Really good, she mused as she watched the person's (who was now speeding down the hill) form.

As the person came to a stop at the bottom of the hill and took off his snow goggles, Rory immediately realized who it was.

Her lips curled up into a wry smile as she walked over to him.

"Wow, you learn quickly," she commented.

Tristan whipped around and grinned almost sheepishly when he saw her.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, innocently.

As if he didn't know what she was talking about.

"Well," Rory elaborated, "one day you can't ski even if your life depended on it and now you're a pro snowboarder. You learn quickly."

Tristan grinned. "Well, I had a good teacher."

If Rory hadn't already decided she would be immune to his charm, she would have probably blushed at his comment. She grudgingly let herself admit though that he was good with the one-liners.

"I didn't teach you to snowboard," she pointed out.

Tristan shrugged. "Skiing, boarding. Same difference."

"Why are you here at this time of the night, anyway?" Rory asked, changing the subject.

He shrugged again. "Felt like it. What about you?"

Rory held up her scarf. "I came to get this. I left it here earlier."

Silence filled the air. A light breeze had begun to blow, sending a shiver down her back and Rory realized she had forgotten her jacket. Smart. She was lucky it wasn't freezing outside or else she would probably spend the rest of her vacation nursing frostbite.

"I thought you hated my guts," Tristan said, suddenly.

"What?" Rory's head snapped up.

"Well, you've actually had a decent conversation with me - twice - out of your own free will. I thought you couldn't stand me."

Rory sighed and chose her words carefully before she answered him. "I don't hate you. I don't like you...but I don't hate you. And you're right...I can't stand you, but for some reason, you're very hard to ignore."

Another grin overtook his features.

"And keep in mind we didn't exactly have a conversation. We've exchanged a couple of sentences," Rory added, noticing this.

He smirked. "Whatever you say."

Rory fought the urge to roll her eyes. No matter how decent he could be at times (and she stressed 'at times'), that smirk would always manage to find itself back on his face and ruin everything.

Although, the smirk was kind of cute at times.

'Whoa…back up Gilmore,' she thought to herself. 'That thought did not just come from your head.'

"So, if I were to ask you out, would you say yes?" Tristan asked.

"Ha...no," Rory answered.

"Why not?"

"Because I happen to know for a fact that you don't really like me and you look like one of those guys who probably has a different girlfriend every week," Rory replied, matter-of-factly. "I'm not into that."

"That's awfully judgmental, wouldn't you say?" he asked. "What makes you think that?"

There was an extremely annoying twinkle in his eyes, which made her feel as if he knew something she didn't. And she felt like smacking that smug smile off of his face. She knew there was a reason why she couldn't stand him.

Ignoring his question, she said, "If you're looking for a reason as to why I can't stand you, there was one right there."

She turned to leave. "I'm cold. I'm going inside."

She walked away leaving him standing there. Just before she was out of earshot, he shouted, "Bye Mary!"

Tristan sat idly flipping through the channels on the television set. Absolutely nothing worth watching was on.

He sighed. Normally, he would have been out with his 'groupies' (as Paris so kindly chose to call the many girls he surrounded himself with), but he wasn't in the mood.

The people he did feel like hanging out with though were no where around. Austin was annoying Paris somewhere and Brenden had managed to corner Aleesha (who was surprisingly alone for once, without the company of Rory or anyone else) and had succeeded in dragging her off somewhere around the resort as well.

Rory.

Tristan sighed again. For some reason, unbeknownst to him (well, he really did know the reason, but didn't want to admit it), he couldn't seem to get her out of his head. Their conversation on the hill the other night, kept floating back to him.

Since then, he had hardly seen her because of the many silly class activities they had to do (being a class trip and all as Mr. Medina so kindly pointed out to them). When he did see her, he always managed to mess everything up by saying something stupid and having her call him an "arrogant jackass" (or something along those lines) and she would stalk off.

Tristan groaned.

Whoever thought, Tristan DuGrey - player extraordinaire - would be majorly crushing on some girl who wouldn't give him the time of day.

But she wasn't just some girl, he reminded himself.

He'd come to realize that soon after his efforts of trying to 'pick her up' had proved futile. She was the first girl that turned him down and the first girl he had started to really like. He had only known her a short while but he liked what he saw and heard. She was smart, funny and gorgeous. And her smile could light up the room even though it was rarely ever directed at him. Or more like never directed towards him.

Tristan felt like banging his head against the wall. He knew something was wrong with him when he was resorting to stupid clichés to describe her smile.

It's not like she wanted anything to do with him anyway. She hated his guts.

Correction, she did not hate him.

Tristan felt his spirits soar at that thought but they soon dropped once more as he remembered something else. Sure she didn't hate him, but she didn't like him very much, either.

He groaned and slumped back against the pillows on the couch.

"What's wrong with you?"

Tristan turned to see Brenden walking in the door looking extremely pleased about something.

"Nothing," Tristan mumbled.

Brenden grinned. "DuGrey, I'm surprised. You, of all people are sitting here moping over a girl."

Tristan glared at him. He was not moping. Brenden simply grinned again and sank onto the couch beside Tristan and started whistling.

Tristan looked at him closely. "What are you so happy about?" he asked.

Brenden grinned. "I, my friend, have a date tonight."

Tristan raised his eyebrows. "Aleesha agreed to go out with you?"

"Yep."

"Of her own free will?"

"Uh huh."

"You didn't drug her or get her drunk or something?"

Brenden glared at him.

Tristan laughed. "Just checking."

"I was surprised myself," Brenden said.

Tristan smiled at his friend. "Well, I'm glad for you."

Silence ensued for a while.

"I'm sure Gilmore will come around," Brenden said, breaking the silence. "All you have to do is work that infamous DuGrey charm on her."

Tristan let out a chuckle. "In case you haven't noticed, she's completely immune to the charm."

Brenden didn't say anything but he had a thoughtful - and Tristan used that term loosely - expression on his face. Then a slow smile spread across his face.

"It just might work..." he said, almost to himself.

Tristan knew that look. It was the look the two of them developed when they had one of their "brilliant" ideas. Usually, the ideas never turned out to be all that brilliant. Well, Brenden's ideas anyway. Or so he liked to think.

"What might work?" Tristan asked, warily.

"Do what you do best," Brenden said, proudly.

"Piss her off?"

"Exactly."

"And how will that help me, pray tell?"

"Well," Brenden elaborated, "…you get her all riled up and in the heat of the argument…" he grinned suggestively.

Tristan shook his head in amusement. "You're an idiot."

Aimless wandering. Tristan had taken to doing that for the past hour.

Brenden's words echoed in Tristan's head. Piss her off. That would make her hate him even more for sure. Sometimes, he wondered about that boy.

Nearing the skating rink, he was surprised to see that it was deserted despite the time of day. His eyes fell on a figure sitting on the bench staring up at the sky as snowflakes fell around her.

Coincidence?

He walked up beside her. "Doesn't your neck hurt?"

She jumped. Then she shrugged and looked down at her hands as he took a seat beside her.

"Soo...I heard that Brenden managed to get Aleesha to go out with him tonight." He spoke the first thing that came to mind.

Rory stiffened. "Yes," she answered.

Somehow, she didn't sound too happy about that.

"Well, I mean...it's good. He likes her..." Tristan's voice trailed off as Rory narrowed her eyes at him.

Somehow, that was obviously the wrong thing to say.

"How can he like her? He's only known her for a week and three days. You can't like someone in that amount of time," she snapped.

Yeah you can.

Tristan laughed a little. "Well, we're not talking about getting married or anything like that. It's just a date. And isn't that how you usually end up liking someone you don't really know? You meet them, go out, get to know each other..."

Rory rolled her eyes. "Typical guy thing to say," she grumbled.

Tristan was tempted to ask 'How is that a typical guy thing to say' but decided against it. She looked like she was ready to breathe fire. For what though, he didn't really know.

"Why do you have to overanalyze everything so much?"

A split second too late, he realized his mistake. Well, he'd started so there was no use shutting up when she answered.

"Excuse me? I do not overanalyze everything."

"Well, I meant the date thing...and the thing with them not knowing each other very well...you get very worked up about little things you know that?"

Whoops. Fire breathing Rory had arrived.

"I do not," she hissed. "You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know me."

"You're doing it now," he pointed out.

Rory glared at him. "You are so annoying."

"One of my many talents," Tristan smirked.

"And so infuriating...I really don't like you," she continued.

"So you've told me."

There was silence after that comment. She didn't say anything but took to glaring at the snow. He had a sneaking suspicion that the snow was supposed to be him.

Well, he'd started. He might as well finish.

"They're just taking a chance...Brenden and Aleesha," Tristan started, then added, "something you need to do once in a while."

"What?" Rory's head snapped up.

Tristan merely shrugged.

Now the glare was directed full force at him.

"What are you talking about?" she snapped. "I take chances. Just this morning, I decided to have only two cups of coffee as opposed to three. So ha."

Tristan felt a smile twitching at the corners of his lips.

She seemed to notice the look on his face because she narrowed her eyes at him again. "Shut up."

Tristan grinned mischievously. "Well, that's spontaneity if I ever heard of it."

If looks could kill, he would have been dead in zero point one milliseconds.

"You know," she started up, "you think you're so great. You walk around like you own the world with people falling all over you like you're some kind of God or something. Well, I'll have you know-"

What she would have him know, he never found out. For during her little rant, he had developed the overwhelming urge to kiss her.

And throwing caution to the winds, he did, cutting off her tirade.

There was also the little fact that she looked really hot when she was pissed off.

At first, he could tell that she was shocked when she didn't respond, but soon after, she kissed him back and Tristan was loving every second of it.

But, just as he was getting into the kiss, he felt two hands roughly push him away. Gasping for air, and partly from what he'd just done, he looked at her expectantly, hoping for her to say something. Preferably, something along the lines of "I love you Tristan, I wanna marry you." Or something like that.

Instead, her mouth dropped open as she gaped at him in shock.

"Rory...?" he questioned uncertainly.

She was looking everywhere but at him. "I...I have to go," she managed to mumble.

And he watched the falling snow cover her footsteps as she practically ran away from him.

Tristan slumped back against the bench, ignoring the cold that had suddenly washed over him.

"That definitely did not work."

AN: Sorry for the long time between updates, everyone. I kind of forgot that I was supposed to be revising the whole story, hehe :)