Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. They belong to Amy Sherman Palladino and the WB.
Rating: R (for language)
Characters: Rory, Tristan
Dedication: To all you beautiful people.
Author's Note: This is the end. There will be no sequel. Hope you guys enjoy it, even though this is largely unbetaed.
Part Four: Fall
The air was crisp and fresh, cold enough to require a jacket or sweater but still nice enough to enjoy the outdoors. Rory didn't exactly call raking leaves entertainment but she was with her mother and that always made things interesting.
Rory smiled as she watched her mother struggle to bag a pile of fallen leaves. Huffing, Lorelai got the last leaf inside the black trash bag and let out a triumphant cry. "A-ha! I did it. Finally! I am done with my pile of leaves, oh daughter of mine. I believe I have broken your record, set in what was it? Oh right, fall of '99."
Rory rolled her eyes good naturedly. "Okay Mom, you win. All hail Lorelai Gilmore, Leaf Gatherer Extraordinaire."
"And?" her mother asked expectantly.
"And Goddess Divine," Rory bit out.
"Why thank you darling," she answered with a grin. "You're sweet."
Rory laughed and continued to finish picking her leaves. Lorelai had tried really hard to make things better for her, filling their days with stuff they used to do when Rory was younger, things she always cherished. She didn't think it was possible for her mother to be any greater but Lorelai was constantly changing the bar for excellent motherhood. Well, in her opinion at least.
In the few days Rory had been back to Stars Hollow, because of her mother's constant support, she hadn't once thought about Tristan DuGrey.
Okay, no, she corrected herself with a frown. She had only thought about him once every two hours, which was a vast improvement from the summer, after her kissed her and wished he could hate her, when she had thought about him all the time.
Rory sighed and reached down to pick up her last pile of leaves when she heard her mother's slight gasp and soft oath. She straightened and furrowed her brow in concern. "What's up, Mom?"
"Uh, honey," Lorelai said as she stepped forward and grabbed Rory's elbow. "When you turn around, I'd just like you to think about what a great time we're having and not let what you see ruin that, okay? And if need be, just say the word and some major ass-kicking will commence."
"Mother," Rory said with a disbelieving laugh, "why would I want someone's ass kicked and why would I choose you to do it?"
"Rory," Lorelai said with a soft smile. "Just turn around."
Slowly, Rory did so and felt the cold autumn air send a shiver up her spine. Or it was the figure leaning against his sleek silver BMW parked at the end of their driveway that did that. She couldn't be sure. "Oh."
"Yeah. Do you want me to get out my baseball bat?"
"Mom," she answered, trying not to look at Tristan. "Do you own a baseball bat?"
"Right," Lorelai said as she wrapped one arm around her daughter's waist. "We'll have to rely on my dropkick."
"Which means I'm better off trying to hear what he has to say," Rory said with a sigh. God, she really didn't want to do that.
"That's very mature of you," Lorelai said. "And - hey!"
Rory turned around and kissed her mother's cheek. "Thanks Mom."
"Any time, sweets."
After her mother left, Tristan pushed himself off his car and started to walk towards her. She watched him as he came, not registering fully, what was happening. She could only think that he looked gorgeously tanned and that the soft grey trench coat he wore over his tailored slacks and crisp cream sweater made him look like the romantic lead of some amazingly sappy movie. His expression was unreadable, but his cheeks were tinged pink from the cold and his lips look extremely kissable.
She hated that she still thought about kissing him.
The dried leaves crunched under his shoes as her eyes widened, finally comprehending that he was coming closer with each second she spent taking him in. He stopped mere feet away from her and kept his eyes, blue and vivid, trained carefully on her looking for any signs of displeasure or anger. Tentatively, he smiled. "Hello Rory."
Her lips pursed slightly, and the garbage bag dropped from her hand. "Hi."
"You cut your hair."
Regrettably, a hand flew to her head, pushed a stray strand behind her ear. "Yeah."
"I like it." It shouldn't have mattered, she told herself, if he did. Somewhere deep inside, though, it did matter. And that should have been enough for her to turn around and tell him to leave. But, she didn't. "I like it better longer, though."
She shuffled her feet, shivered (against the cold, she told herself), and tilted her head to one side. No need for niceties. "Why are you here, Tristan?"
"I came to see you."
"Weren't you off somewhere, trying to hate me?" She hated the bitterness that seeped through her voice. Damn it, why couldn't she just remain unaffected?
His smile was bitter, too. She took little consolation from it. "I couldn't."
She shook her head, looked away. "Yeah, so you've said."
"Ror-" he started but she vehemently cut him off.
"Don't call me that."
He shook his head and tried again. "Gilmore, come on."
She looked and him incredulously. "Are you seriously doing this? Standing here and saying 'Gilmore come on'?"
"What do you want me to say, Rory?" he asked, exasperated. "I drove all the way here to talk to you and you're being petty."
"Petty?" She almost shrieked. Her hands balled into fists at her side and her teeth clenched. "I'm being petty, Tristan?"
His jaw clenched, in an effort to keep from lashing out and Rory wanted to throw something at him, she was so mad. He had no right to come here and be angry with her when she was the one whose turn it was for righteous indignation. She told him as much and he shook his head and sighed, frustrated. "Fuck it."
"Excuse me?" she almost shrieked, inwardly wincing at how insanely this entire conversation was going. "Did you just curse?"
"Right," he stated witheringly, "I forgot who I was talking to: should I say 'gosh darn it'? Does that work better for you, princess?"
Her expression hardened and she lifted her chin, a fraction of an inch. "What works for me is if you leave, Tristan. I've had enough of you to last me a lifetime so please, just go."
She turned away from him but she didn't need to see him to know that he was running a hand through his hair and debating whether to leave or to stay and arrogantly, angrily, demand to be heard.
Rory hated that arrogance, was drawn to it nonetheless, and hated that she knew he was going to stay because if nothing else, his anger wouldn't let him go until he said his piece.
So she stood there, back rigid, arms folded under her chest and waited, for the inevitable calm voice to come from Tristan's lips – a virtue he had learned over the years. Something to add to the list of the things she absolutely hated in connection with Tristan: he had only grown, dare she say it, mellow over the years dealing with her while she was the one that had finally come into her mother's inheritance – the legendary Gilmore temper.
"Rory," he said finally, voice so composed, one would think he hadn't been thinking about strangling her a second ago. "Please turn around and look at me. Please."
Tears stung her eyes, damn it, at the gentleness at the ended of his plea. She bit her bottom lip. "I can't."
She heard him step closer, come to stand directly behind her and sucked in a breath, waiting for him to touch her. He didn't; instead brought his arm in front of her, a small, red fez with a yellow tassel resting on his palm. "I got this for you."
Amazingly, a giggle threatened to escape her lips. "Yeah?"
"I couldn't resist," he replied with a chuckle. "I kept thinking how much you'd like it. And then how you always wanted to go to Fez and that inevitably led me to recall the night you bought me a fez and made me wear and take incriminating photos and how I really needed to find a way to get back at you for that."
Rory was laughing now as she took the fez and turned around, eyes bright with unshed tears as she met his gaze. "You never will."
His expression sobered as he said, quietly. "I kept thinking of you."
"Tristan -"
"All the time," he barreled on, his gaze dropping to the ground. "Granted, in the beginning of my trip it was with anger but Grandfather got fed up with that pretty quickly and pretty much threatened to disown me if I didn't stop yelling at the maids and everyone else. Then I got drunk. Ridiculously, ass-backwards, deliriously drunk."
Rory raised an eyebrow. "Bet that Janlan loved that."
He grinned wryly. "Not so much. The threat still loomed."
Despite the turmoil churning in her stomach, she managed to smile. "Then?"
"I sobered up – because I really like being rich – and you were still there." This time he did touch her, a gentle tug of her hair as he curled it behind her ear. "I kept thinking of that kiss. Of how much better that could have gone. Of how much better that past few months could have gone."
"Listen, I just can't do this right now."
"Too bad," he answered, a little coldly. "I'm here right now."
"Oh so that's how it works, is it?" she asked, feeling the temper only he managed to quell and spike in a split second, returning full force. "We talk and discuss when you feel like it? Not when I'm standing in the rain outside a Starbucks, begging you to forgive me?"
"Rory-"
"No," she stated passionately, pressing her hand to her heart. "I thought about you too, Tristan. Despite my best efforts, I thought about you all the fucking time. I kept making a list of why it was better that we weren't together."
"Must've been long considering you've been writing it since we were sixteen."
"Don't be glib," she replied, hurt. "It wasn't a relationship you wanted from me when we were sixteen. I was a conquest. Maybe I've always been one. Something you could finally say you did."
"I can't believe you went there!" he exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. "Are we really…fucking A, Rory, sometimes I just want to strangle you."
"Right back at ya."
They stood glaring at each other, breathing heavily into the cold air, neither willing to move or back down from their angry stance. Since he was the one that came, Tristan was the first to speak. "I came here to apologize, not to fight."
She snorted, unladylike. "Since when has that ever been our MO?"
He waited one breathless beat and reached for her again, this time pulling her chin up to his as he stepped forward, gently pressing his body into hers. "I love you, Rory. I have always loved you."
His closeness and the rollercoaster of emotions she was experiencing made her head hurt even as her heart felt like it was exploding in her chest. When her gaze met his, this time, her eyes were clear and bright blue. "I love you, too."
He smiled and pressed his lips against hers, softly, briefly. "Then what's holding us back?"
She sighed, stepped away. "This is holding us back. The constant up and down, the back and forth and the things we say to each other. God, Tristan, we can't spend a single moment without fighting, hurting. I've never been so mad at anyone in my entire life."
"Neither have I." He dug his hands into his coat pockets.
"That's not exactly healthy." She sighed and walked to the porch steps, sitting down because she was just too tired. "We need space. I need to think."
He came to sit beside her and took her hand into his, turning it around and kissing the palm. "Rory, I've never been healthy when it came to you. I was obsessed with you as a teenager, to be sure but it wasn't love. And then when we were in each other's life again, I spent an unhealthy amount of time obsessing about not being anything but your friend. I've kinda gotten used to being sick on you."
She sniffled. "That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me, DuGrey."
"You know what I mean," he said, this time kissing her forehead. "We don't need space and time, Rory. We need to date. To give this a chance."
"Slowly," she answered after a long moment of deliberation. "Baby steps."
"I might just explode, but okay," he replied with a small grin. "How 'bout I take you out for coffee tonight?"
She nodded, took a deep breath and squeezed his hand. "Okay."
"Okay," he said and stood up, pulling her with him. His lips descended on hers and she knew that 'slow' was something it would take him awhile to learn. "I'll see you at eight."
"Eight."
She watched him walk to his car and turn to wave at her. She waved back and waited for him to pull out of the driveway. The afternoon sun glinted off of his car and she saw him smile as he reached to turn on his CD player.
Lorelai stepped behind her and wrapped an arm around her daughter's waist. "You okay?"
She nodded and watched a solitary leaf fall from a tree onto the cold ground below.
The End
