My Brother

Disclaimer: See first chapter.

Setting: See first chapter.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed and I really do mean it! Reviews are very important to me, and I would be extremely grateful if everyone who reads this could review the story! It tells me whether people like it or not, and reviews are very helpful. So please, please, please review!

"Robert," William said in a frosty voice as he wrapped one arm around his glamorous, weeping wife. "I thought we told you never to show your face here again," he cautioned, his voice and face both stony. Robert's response was a grin. "Leave. And don't come back. By the way, didn't we tell you to change your last name to something else?"

"I did, Dad," Robert told Mr. DuGrey cheerfully. "I'm now Robert DuGrey Quillan. I wouldn't want people to think I was your son, after all. Don't think you're alone in the hating," he informed William, his voice suddenly chilly. "Now let me pass."

"No," William told his oldest son in a steady and yet commanding voice. "Go away, Robert. We don't want you here. Leave. Now." He hugged his wife closer to him and didn't seem to mind the black splotches left on his suit from her running mascara. But Robert stayed firm.

"This is no longer my house. This is no longer my family. And I have a little two year old son of my own, as well as a wife named Helga. Together we'll raise him, better than you two raised me for sure," Robert told his father in a very steady voice. Tristan watched on in amazement as William relaxed; evidently he'd been thinking Robert wanted to join their family again. Not that they were much of a family anyway. "But there is one thing I want, and that's to get to know my little brother," Robert continued in an unwavering voice. Tristan was impressed.

"Absolutely not. We told you to stay out of his life," William snarled, clutching at his wife like a lifeline. But Rose suddenly lifted her splotchy face to look into her oldest son's, her eyes intense.

"No, let him. I think he's changed, William, and he could teach Tristan how not to behave. Besides," she said in a voice that was eerily quiet, "he is our son." And then Rose burst into tears again. But she'd achieved the needed affect and William silently moved aside.

Robert stepped into the first room of the house with a look of triumph in his eyes, though he kept his mouth a steady, unwavering line. William beckoned to him and together Rose, Tristan, Robert and William walked wordlessly over to one of their three living rooms, each of them seating themselves on different couches. Robert on the black one, Tristan on the blue one, William on the gray one and Rose on the red one. They regarded each other in silence, none of them knowing what to say.

"Tristan, as you have already realized, I'm your older brother," Robert began at last, his eyes resting on Tristan's face and his gaze as unwavering as his voice. Rose and William both flinched. "Our parents never told you about me because I was a misbehaving little boy when I was your age and they sent me away, only to have another baby, start over again. They thought that if you never met me you wouldn't turn out like me. Perhaps that's true." Rose was sniffling but Robert went on. "However, as soon as I learned about your existence, when I was twenty-six, I've wanted to meet you, to talk to you. You are my younger brother after all. And, as I now know, quite like me." Robert smiled but William and Rose looked unsteady. "Then I met Helga, we married, had a child…Though I never forgot my desire to see you, I knew our parents would never let me. But then I decided I had to try, no matter what. And so here I am."

Rose let out a half-sob-half-gasp and threw herself onto Robert, who caught his mother easily. They embraced, Rose crying openly once more. Evidently she'd missed her son. And it was as though the tension in the air had evaporated. William slowly walked over to the black couch and said, in a stiff manner, "I'm sorry, son." Robert looked at him and Rose in surprise.

Then his face softened considerably. "It's alright. I know it was for the good, now. I'm a changed man, and I'm glad you did what you did. Really…Dad." This time when he said it, there was no scorn in his voice.

(…)

"Miss Gilmore!" an adult woman's voice cried out. Rory could hear the pitter-patter of high-heels clunking on the cement as an older woman ran toward her waving some papers in the air. "Miss Gilmore! Lorelai!" she yelled. Rory turned and acknowledged Mrs. Dodge running toward her with someone's homework in her hands.

"Yes, Mrs. Dodge?" she asked the secretary to the Principal politely, walking over to the older woman and smiling at her warmly. Mrs. Dodge was evidently relieved as she tried to hand Rory the papers in her hands. But Rory raised one eyebrow as if to ask, 'what do you want?'

"DuGrey forgot his homework," Mrs. Dodge explained bluntly. Rory nodded and accepted the papers with an of-course sort of nod. The secretary nodded to her in turn and thanked her. "I knew you would bring it to him. Besides, you're one of the last students left here. Thank you, Miss Gilmore." Mrs. Dodge turned on her high-heels and left the way she'd come, leaving Rory with Tristan's homework assignment in her hands.

She really didn't want to deliver this to him, especially not now, after they'd been talking, arguing, about him with Paris. She barely knew the way to his house, and it was a bit out-of-the-way. But she would do it.

Rory got into her mother's car, the homework resting on the seat beside her, on top of her bright-orange backpack, loaded to splitting at the seam. She revved the engine and followed the same path as Tristan and Robert had earlier to deliver the homework to Tristan. Although she really didn't want to, because she didn't like him. She kept telling herself that as though saying the words over and over would make them true.

(…)

Rose, after drying her leaking eyes, had poured them all some tea and coffee and now they sat around the glass table, all on the same couch, the biggest, sipping at their assorted drinks. Tristan had chosen coffee, just because his father didn't like it when he drank coffee. He himself didn't even particularly fancy the dark, swirling black drink. Rose had mint tea and William had coffee. Robert had tea, as though to prove he was a changed man now.

"So, what's this all about? Where were you 'banished' to?" Tristan asked after a big sip of the coffee. It needed more milk. He bent over to get the milk pitcher and so didn't see the warning look William shot Robert. Just then, before his older brother could answer, the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," both Robert and Tristan said at the same time. "We'll both get it," Tristan clarified, grinning, as both the boys rose from their seats and went to answer the door.

Robert opened the large doors while Tristan chirped, "Welcome to the DuGrey household, how may I help you?" expecting one of his father's old business partners. Instead, he found himself facing a grinning Rory holding his homework in her hands.

"'Welcome to the DuGrey household'," she imitated. "Wow, how formal. 'How may I help you?' That's not like you at all, Tristan." She seemed delighted at the chance to poke and pester him in return for all the poking and pestering he did to her. Tristan reddened slightly and stuck his hands in his pockets. He looked over at Robert briefly and saw with surprise that he was gazing at Rory in shock. "Oh, is that Robert DuGrey?" Rory asked Tristan curiously when she saw his brother. "Hi, I'm Rory. Lorelai, actually, but I prefer Rory." Robert looked haunted.

"Lorelai?" he whispered, his face pale and his voice shaky as he watched Rory hand Tristan his homework. Rory looked uncomfortable under his gaze.

"Uh, yeah. My mom named me after herself while she was lying in the hospital bed because she decided that since men named their kids after themselves all the time, it was only fair women should do it sometimes too." She was babbling now, but Robert burst into laughter.

"Oh, she would do that," he commented mysteriously, waving to Rory as she hopped into her car and started to drive away. "Lorelai," he repeated again in a whisper. Tristan was looking at him strangely as well. "So that's her daughter…"

"What do you mean?" Tristan asked, confused. Had Robert known Rory's mom?

"We went to Chilton together," he explained. "And…I liked her. A lot. But she liked a certain Christopher Hayden, and when he got her pregnant I gave up hope of ever…you know. And I also never thought I'd see her again. I haven't. But I've seen her daughter! Christopher's daughter as well, though…Anyway, Helga also went to Chilton, and after Lorelai left school I fell in love with her. Now, let's go back to the living room; Rose and William will be waiting for us," he finished, clapping his hands. Tristan gazed at him in wonder for a moment longer before following his brother inside.

Did everyone in the world who mattered in his life go to Chilton at some point?