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Chapter Three: Of Want And Misery

Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls. (obviously)

Rory shook her head in disbelief, breaking eye contact with him and grabbing her jacket. She muttered something to Lorelei about having to take a walk and as quickly as he had entered through that door, she was out of it and onto the street. Tristan made eye contact with her mother and sighed at her sympathetic look as he turned to follow Rory out into the street.

She was walking in the opposite direction faster that he'd ever seen her walk. "Rory!" He jogged after her, catching her by the arm and stopping her. "Would you just wait a second?"

She spun around and looked him straight in the eye. "What are you doing here, Tristan!" She demanded. He let out a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair, looking at her as if it pained him to be so close to her. She let her eyes squeeze shut for a second before opening them again and looking up at him, awaiting her answer.

"I didn't think that you'd be here, Rory. I swear. I came to just take a walk." He kept his eyes locked on hers, almost challenging her to run away. She didn't, she never did with him.

"I don't know what to do here, Tristan! I don't know how to be around you! I hate this, I hate all of this. I wish I never came back for this stupid party. I was doing fine until I had to see you again!" She shook her head slowly. "I don't want to love you anymore," she whispered. Tristan's head shot up quickly and he looked intently at her until she looked up at him.

"But you do," he stated. "You do love me."

Rory's eyes brimmed with unshed tears and she nodded slowly, letting a few drops fall down her cheeks. "You know that I do," she whispered. "But I can't be with you, Tristan. I can't trust you anymore."

Tristan hit the brick building beside him so hard that his hand ached. "Dammit, Rory. I'm trying to protect you! Don't you get that? I don't want you to know about this because you shouldn't ever have to. You shouldn't ever have to deal with the shit that I dealt with when I left two years ago."

Rory shook her head. "Don't you use that with me. Don't you do that! If you can't bring yourself to tell me what happened two years ago, why you left me without a goodbye, then you do not deserve this conversation. I'm finished; with you, with us, with everything."

Tristan took a step quickly towards her, as if to keep her next to him as long as possible. "I couldn't say goodbye, Rory. It would've been too hard. I couldn't face you and look you in the eyes and tell you goodbye knowing that it might really be goodbye. I couldn't do that, Rory. And I couldn't explain because you would've worried yourself sick and it would've been all my fault. I loved you too much to lose you, so I couldn't say goodbye."

Rory let her tears fall then and shook her head in confusion. "Tristan," she looked up at him and he sighed again. "Tell me. Please. I think I deserve to know, don't you?"

He nodded slowly. "Come with me," he whispered, taking her by the hand. She let him take her hand and interlace their fingers, realizing then just how much she missed his touch. He led her to the bridge over the pond. The place they'd had their first kiss.

He sighed, taking a seat and letting his legs dangle over the edge, taking out a cigarette and lighting it up.

"I thought you knocked your nicotine addiction," she muttered.

Tristan chuckled slightly. "I picked it back up," he said, clearing his throat and letting out a breath of smoke. "Do you remember Finn?"

Rory nodded her head slowly. "The one that you got into all that gang trouble with?"

Tristan nodded his head, taking another drag from his cigarette. "Finn's a good guy," he clarified. "He's just tough. He's had to be, you know. But anyway, he's a gang leader up in Boston now, or he was two years ago. He got into some serious trouble with a rival gang.

"When I was part of Finn's gang back in Hartford, back in the days when I hated my parents so much I would've done anything to get out, we were friends, close friends actually, which isn't all that common among his type. But two years ago, he called in a favor."

Rory looked up at him with a frown, not speaking, watching him take another drag and toss that cigarette into the pond.

He glanced over at her and sighed before continuing. "Back when Finn and I were close, we got into this huge gang fight. A bunch of guys got killed. I was almost one of those guys." He cleared his throat. "Do you remember those two or three weeks I spent in the hospital in high school?" Rory nodded silently. "And everyone said I'd been in a car crash?" She nodded again. "It was far from a car crash. I went into that fight with Finn and his boys, and I got in the middle of it all somehow. I was trying to get to Finn and they were holding me back. I thought they were going to kill us both. But then a couple of guys got to Finn and took the guys that were holding him. They wanted to just leave me for dead, and trust me I was close to there, but Finn came back for me. He saved my life, and I owed him a favor. He never would've called unless it was important, unless he couldn't do it without me. And he couldn't. When he called, I knew that whatever he needed, I would go. He saved my life, Rory. I couldn't just not answer his phone calls and let him die."

He let out a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. Rory sighed and placed a hand over his, a silent message that he should continue. "He never would've called me if it wasn't life and death, Finn knew that I was done with that life, I was out and I never, ever wanted back in. But he needed me. I was the only person who could help. They got in another big gang fight in Boston, but in Boston they don't do the chains and busted bottle thing anymore. They do bike races. I've always been the best on a bike. If Finn's boys didn't win, they died. That's the way they do it. You win or you die. So Finn called, and I went. I raced. I won." He sighed. "So there, you know my story."

Rory took a shaky breath. "What if you would've lost?" she whispered.

Tristan looked down at her and smiled lightly. "Let's not talk about that, okay?"

Rory nodded slowly. "Is that why you didn't say goodbye? Because you thought that it might be a goodbye forever?"

Tristan nodded back to her. "I couldn't do that. I needed a good memory of you to be my last one, not a goodbye memory."

She took a deep breath. "I can't even believe this. It's all so surreal, Tristan."

He nodded. "It is," he confirmed, glancing over to her, his eyes laced in sorrow.

"Why didn't you come back?" She asked quietly. He looked over at her. "That race didn't take you two years, Tristan. Why didn't you come back?"

He sighed again. "The preparation for the race took six months. I was with Finn for six months before the race. Fixing the bike, riding. I became one of them again. I told myself that I would never, ever let that happen, but I did. I lost myself in the sea of gangs and hatred. Hatred is a way of life there, Mary. They hate, everything, all the time." He shook his head in regret. "The only thing that let me hang out to a shred of normality in that six months before the race, was you. I thought about you every single day. It was my way to stay sane, to not lose myself into the violence that's Finn's world. After the race, I took off. I left Finn and the gang and Boston and everything. I thought so many times about coming home, about coming back to you. But I had been gone almost a year before I'd picked myself back up again. I couldn't do that to you. I figured in a years time you would've moved on, found someone else. I couldn't come back. I couldn't do that to you."

Rory shook her head, tears spilling over. "Tristan, I've been waiting for you all this time. I've been here alone and missing you for two years!"

"I didn't know, Rory. If I had known that I would've been back here a year ago. But I didn't. I was sure you were with someone else. Every time I talked to Taylor or my mom, they said that you were seeing someone, you were dating, you had a good life. I didn't want to ruin that for you by showing up again."

Rory shook her head harder. "I'm not happy without you, Tristan. I can't be. I tried to move on and to date other people and to forget about you, but every guy I dated I compared to you. His kisses weren't as amazing as yours, his hair didn't fall across his eyes like yours does, his eyes don't warm when he looks at me that way yours do. Everyone I dated didn't compare. I couldn't move on because none of them was you."

Tristan nodded, pulling her in as close as he could and wrapping his arms tightly around her. "God, I missed you, Mary." He held her against him in silence.

After a few minutes of not speaking she looked up at him. "Tristan?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't ever leave me again," she whispered.

He let out a deep, laughing, almost relieved sigh. "Never," he mumbled. "I love you, Rory."

"I love you too. I always have."

Tristan pressed a firm kiss to the top of her head. "Will you come back to Hartford with me? I want to show you something."

Rory nodded. "Just let me call my mom and tell her. I'm sure she's worried about me." Tristan nodded his agreement and she pulled out her cell phone. "Hey, mom. Tristan wants to take me back to Hartford. He said has something to show me." She listened for a moment before involuntarily nodding. "Yeah. I'll explain later okay? I love you." She laughed. "I'll make sure he knows. Bye."

Tristan raised an eyebrow and she chuckled. "My mother says to tell you, 'Welcome back'." He smiled widely. "She missed you too."

He grinned again and pulled her close as they walked to his car. She sunk into the plush seats of his car like so many times before. It still felt the same to sit beside him in the car. He still gave her butterflies in her stomach. He still kept her guessing, made her want him so bad she could barely stand it. And even after all the pain he'd caused her, she still loved him, she still trusted him, and right now in this moment, she wanted nothing more than to be next to him.

When they arrived in Hartford he took her to his house, pulling into the garage and entering through the back doors. He led her up the stairs and into his bedroom, closing the door behind them.

"Do you remember when you told me that you'd never seen anyone better with a pencil and a sketchpad than me?" he asked and she frowned her confusion but nodded, smiling. He was the best sketch artist you could ever imagine to meet. Quite the surprise.

Tristan dug through his bag and pulled out a large white envelope. He pulled a pencil drawing out and set it down on his desk, pulling her over to stand next to him.

Rory let out a gasp. "It's the house!" she exclaimed, looking up at him in disbelief. "It looks exactly the way I pictured it, down to the shape of the windows. You drew this?"

Tristan nodded. "I work for an advertising agency. I'm high up on the chain of command so when I don't have a busy day, I work on this. It's been a piece by piece project. But I think I have it the way we talked about."

Rory smiled up at him. "I don't hear from you for two years and now in twenty four hours you have my heart back in your hands," she muttered. "Unbelievable."

Tristan lifted her chin from the drawing back to his face. "I won't break it this time. I swear." She nodded slowly, keeping her eyes locked on his. Then gently, slowly, allowing her the time to stop him, he leaded towards her and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her gently at first, and then quick and wanting. He kissed her the way he'd been yearning of kissing her for two long years.