AN: Okay, so this was a lot longer coming than I first expected. Trith is I've been very lazy. I'd like to say I've been busy with Uni work but the sad truth is that that's fallen by the wayside too. I've been too busy getting my first TATTOO! Woo hoo! And I've been preoccupied with a new boy toy. He he he. Anyway, I hope nobody's been put off by the lack of updates and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, even this comuter belongs to my mummy.

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...Now I wrap myself around you like a blanket full of doubt...

Tristan was staring blankly out of his bedroom window and barely registered the motorbike tearing up his long drive until it arrived at the mansion, spraying gravel as it pulled to an abrupt stop. He leaned his head against the lass and watched as Rory Gilmore climbed off the back and kissed the helmetless rider on the cheek, slinging her satchel over her shoulder and startin up the stairs. Tristan watched the bike roar away before startg downstairs to collect her.

They met on the stairs as a maid was leading Rory upwards.

"Hey," Tristan said quietly, his eyes flickering over her face, still uncertain about where they stood. She smiled valiantly.

"Hey."

The maid, a new one whose name Tristan couldn't remember, curtsied and made her way sedately back downstairs.

"My room's this way," tristan began as he started upstairs, "unless you're want to work somewh else..." He trailed off, remembering the old Rory who would've been so uncomfortable in his room.

"That's fine, your room is fine," She said quickly, skipping to catch up with him.

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They were stonewalled. They had been half-heartedly suggesting ideas to each other for the last hour, that both knew would never work. It was pointless. Rory sighed in frustration and slammed her pen and paper down on Tristan's bed where they were both sitting. Suddenly her frown cleared and she looked hopeful.

"What?" Tristan asked.

"Why don't we write about us?" She suggested quietly as she studied his bedspread. He raised his eyebrows but she din't see.

"Us?"

"Yeah," She continued, head still down, "...about how we could never seem to get it right." She looked up at him, biting her lip softly. He sucked in his breath when their eyes met. It all came flowing back to him, washing over him in a wave, everything he'd felt all that time ago. It was strange how you could forget things with absence and time, yet never really forget them, not when a glance, a word...a memory could bring everything flowing back to drown you.

He watched his hand as though it belonged to someone else, snaking out to lay gently against her silky cheek. She turned into his palm, her soft lips pressing against his skin, searing him. Slowly, so achingly slowly they inched towards each other before he closed the halting gap, crushing his lips to hers in a kiss too long coming. She melted against him and had to remind herself to breathe.

She pulled away first, her eyes searching his for some sign before she moved closer to him, bringing her han up to tangle her slender fingers in his hair. He sighed and pressed his lips to hers again, more urgently this time, his hand finding it's way to the small of her back to bring her closer. She was so warm, so soft. He hadn't dreamed she'd feel like this as he pulled her closer and closer, as close as she posibly could be.

And then she was laid back on his bed, her gentle curls fanning around her like a flaming halo as he hovered above her, trailing kisses along her collar-bone. Her fingers still played with his hair while his traced patterns on her jutting hip. They both looked up in shock when the door was thrown open unexpectedly. Tristan, half expecting to see the maid, was horrified when he looked up into Luna's shocked face.

Luna's cheeks flamed in embarrassment.

"I...uh...er..." What do people say in these situations? "S...sorry." She finally stuttered, turning quickly to hurry out of the room, slamming th door behind her. In spite of herself Rory burst into giggles as Tristan pushed himself up to a sitting position. He groaned and hung his head in his hands while Rory fixed her top.

"Oh come on Tristan, it was funny,"

He groaned again.

"Oh yeah, fucking hilarious," He muttered.

Rory playfully grabbed his hands and prised them away from his face. His sober eyes met her mirthful ones and he finally cracked a smile.

"I think she was much more embarrassed than we were," Rory whispered.

"Not surprising," Tristan added.

Rory aisedher eyebrow.

"We uh...there's...there's nothing going on with you two is there?"

"No!" Tristan cried, "Well...no...not really,"

Rory pulled back and crossed her arms.

"Okay DuGrey, spill. Who's the girl and what's she doing here? Because personally, I'm not buyin the pregnancy scandal"

Tritan sighed,

"It's nothing like that,"

"So explain."

The main reason that Tristan had been sent to military school, he told Rory, aside from his obnoxious behaviour, was that a family friend of his mother was the Commandant of Cadets and he had promised Jeannette DuGrey that he could straighten out her wayward son as well as keeping an eye on him. So Tristan, after one too many misdemeanours, had been shipped off to Lieutenant Colonel Warren Ricketson. Warren, Tristan soon discovered, was also the legal guardian of his much younger half-sister Luna Kinsela. Under big brother's often disapproving eye, Tristan and Luna had become closer and closer, recognising somet in each other.

"In a lot of ways she's my female counterpart," He explined.

Rory raised her eyebrow.

"Not in every way obviously," He added quickly, "but we do have a lot in common. We started dating, although there's only s much you can do for a date at military school but we managed it for a few months."

"What happened?" Rory asked quietly, now sitting next to him on the floor, their backs against his mattress. He shrugged.

"I don't know, it's like we both woke up one day and realised that it wasn't really there..." He glanced over at her, feeling her eyes on him. "You know...we were better off as friends."

Rory did know of course, she completely understood that feeling. She nodded for him to go on.

"So...that's what we did, just ebcame friends,"

"But why dd you both come back here?"

That was more complicated apparently, when the trouble in the Persian Gulf began to look as though it wasn't going away in a hurry, Lieutenant Colonel Warren Ricketson, of the Marines, was called back in to active duty.

"I suppose that mom ddn't want the two of us there running amok, she preferred for us to do it where we could be watched, even if was she who had to do the watching. So, within a week of him shipping out, she brought us back here."

He had found a tennis ball somewhere and was bouncing it against the wall, the clunk as it hit and rebounded strangely soothing. Rory nodded slowly. Hhe slowly rolled his head to face her.

"Well?" He asked expectantly.

"Well what?" She asked, meeting his eyes in confusion.

He smirked.

"I told you, now you tell me. What happened to little Miss Mary that turn her into such a Magdalene?"

Rory glared at him.

"Shut it Tristan,"

"Oh come on, tell me...who was the guy? Was it Bag Boy?"

She remained silent, her cheeks flooding with colour.

"No?" Tristan pressed on, "What happened? Did a boyfrend not call you back? Or was it the mysters man of your story?"

He barely had time to register what was happening before he felt he stinging slap across his face.

Her eyes were filled with tears when he finally met them and he felt something pull in his chest.

"Rory I..."

"Don't you dare pretend to know what's happened to me!" She roared as she reached for her satchel. She clattered out his door and down the stairs ebfore he'd even pulled himself up off the floor.

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Rory's shoulders heaved when she finally stopped running and leant against a friendly red-brick wall. She didn't understand what was happening to her, where these rages and tears were oming from when she'd managed to hold it together so well all this time. She had been holding it together hadn't she? Shakily she reached into her satchel for the apcket of cigarettes she always had there. She rarely smoked, they were usually just her tool in times like these, to calm her down. She lit the cigarette ad drew back heavily, exhaling the smoke through pouted lips as she dialed Finn's number with shaking fingers.

"Damn!" She cursed loudly when a computerised voice informed her his cell was switched off. As she finished her cigarette, she looked around. She wasn't far from The Icon's house. She hesitated for a moment, could she keep this up? This running backwards and forwards? Just for today, she assured herself as she headed towards his place, Just for today.

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His parent's weren't home, but then, that was no surprise to her. She let herself in the side door she knew to always be unlocked and made her way to the basement where The Icon lived. He was sitting on the couch, his eyes trained on, but not watching the television. In the dim light, his hair glowed like a halo. He contemplated her silently when she dropped her satchel noisily at the base of the stairs. She didn't say anything and neither did he as she walked slowly towards the couch. Finally she stood in front of him. He looked up, his eyes ner leaving hers, and somehow they understood each other. She threw off her blazer, her tie long aandoned in the bottom of her bag, along with her vest. Her fingers nimbly undid the buttons of her Chilton shirt until it lay on top of her blazer, his eyes followed every action. Wordlessly she straddled his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He still hadn't moved, hadn't spoken. She leaned into him, pressing her lips to his.

"Angus..." She whispered.

"I thought we said we were going to stop this," He whispered back as he buried his face in her neck and dealt quickly with the clasp on her bra. She tangled her fingers in his hair, feeling the tears start their lonely trek down her cheeks.

"We did...we will," She whispered as they didn't stop a thing.

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AN: For anyone uncertain, when she whispered "Angus" she was using The Icon's real name. Please don't hate me for this chapter, trust me this is definitely going to be a Trory. But what would a Trory be without a whole lot of angst and obstructions? Please review...please?