She knew that look.

It never meant anything good.

That look meant, that Emily Gilmore knew something. Something that made her giddy, some knowledge that made her confident, superior and ready to plan an elaborate next step.

She didn't like that look.

She wondered all through dinner what it could mean, but only now, over dessert did she find out what it was.

She should have known.

"So Elisabeth DuGray tells me you are seeing Tristan again" she said with a cat ate the canary smile.

Rory sighed closing her eyes as she heard her mother choke on her sponge cake from across the table.

"What?" she shrieked and Rory looked up at her shaking her head in annoyance, trying to signal to her that they would talk about it later.

"She said she ran into you at Tristan's apartment" Emily went on, her face plastered with a knowing smile.

"What?" Lorelai shrieked even louder.

"Lorelai" Richard commanded, seemingly only now distracted from the paper he was reading. "You were at his apartment?" Lorelai ignored her father and stared at her daughter.

Rory mumbled something about picking up some stuff, trying to escape the hungry stares coming at her from both her grandmother and her mother.

"What could you possibly pick up that was important? After 6 months?" her mother asked and she looked up suddenly annoyed by the whole situation.

"It was nothing, okay? Can we not talk about this?" she snapped and the whole dining room went silent.

They returned to chewing their desserts in silence and Richard went back to his paper.

"Seriously, like did you leave a really expensive pair of shoes, cause that's the only reason I can think of that is worth going back for" Lorelai suddenly rambled, not being able to keep quiet.

Rory sighed annoyed and dropped her fork that hit the porcelain plate with a loud clink as she got up from her chair, walking out of the dining room, her mother following her.

"Don't walk out of there like there is nothing to talk about, Rory" she heard her say as they reached the front door. Rory tore it open and walked outside thankful for the cool air hitting her face.

"God, mother, did it occur to you that maybe I just didn't want to talk about it in there?" she sighed rubbing her eyes.

"Okay, fine, tell me when this happened" her mother said, crossing her arms in expectation.

"What does it matter?" Rory sighed, feeling uncomfortable.

"When?" her mother stood her ground.

"Two weeks ago" she mumbled, her gaze dropping to the pavement.

"What?" Lorelai exclaimed.

"Seriously mom, what's with the shrieking tonight?" she sighed cynically.

"This happened two weeks ago and you told me nothing?!" there was no point in stopping Lorelai when she was going ballistic.

"I'm sorry, but there was not much to talk about" she tried to calm her.

"You went to see your ex boyfriend of three years after breaking up with him six months ago for the first time, and there is nothing worth mentioning?" she asked incredulous.

Rory shrugged.

"This was the first time, right?" Lorelai asked, raising an eyebrow.

Rory sighed annoyed, avoiding her mothers gaze.

"Rory! You've been seeing him?!" came her bewildered question.

"Again the shrieking, you are destroying my ears, mother" she sighed.

"Rory" her mother pushed.

"Yes mom, I've been seeing him, okay? So what? It doesn't mean anything. I don't know what it means, and I don't know what's the point and I don't want to talk about it" she sighed, her expression weary.

"Are you with him again?" Lorelai asked, her voice strangely worried.

"No" she shook her head.

"Not really" she added, her voice faltering, already fearing the reaction.

"Excuse me?" Lorelai shrieked again "Not really? What the hell does that mean?"

"God, mom, can we talk about this some other time?" she groaned once again burying her face in her hands.

"Oh yeah, sure, of course, we can talk about it the next time Emily Gilmore gives me the scoop" Lorelai huffed.

"Mom. I don't know what to tell you, okay?" she yelled, her voice echoing in the dark driveway. "I don't want to talk about it, there is nothing to talk about, I don't even know what to tell myself. I go there and I make a fool of myself and I hurt him, no doubt, and hurt myself, and it's all just a mess and I don't know why I just can't let go. I mean, it's what I wanted, right? So why can't I just move the heck on?" she yelled, tears welling in her eyes.

"Oh baby" Lorelai said, her face suddenly worried, sad.

"I wanted out, so why can't I just shut that damn door?" she sobbed as Lorelai took a step towards her to take her in her arms. She pulled her into a strong hug and let her cry.

"I don't know hun, maybe that's not what you want after all" she whispered.

"Why does it have to be so freaking complicated?" she whined, her sobs breaking deep from her chest.

"I don't know baby" Lorelai hushed her "I don't know"

xxxxxxxxxxxx

"Hey" she heard him greet her casually, and her blood seemed to freeze in her vessels as she recognized the voice.

She looked up from her laptop to see him standing at her table with a to-go cup of coffee of his own.

He had on the dark blue Armani suit, the one that made him look like a fucking model, his shirt loosened and his tie already gone.

She cursed herself as she felt her mouth go dry. She didn't know why he still had this effect on her.

She dropped her gaze back to her laptop and she fidgeted with her own styrofoam cup.

"Hey" she returned the greeting and wondered what to say.

"I..." he stared and she looked up to see him lost for words, guilt showing on his face.

But he didn't finish that sentence, instead leaping into another one.

"How have you been?"

She narrowed her eyes, partly in accusation and partly trying to see into his head, a feat she never could achieve.

"I've been fine, Tristan" she said, her words slightly cynical.

He sighed.

"I'm sorry" he said slowly, swallowing hard and she felt herself take a deep, fast breath, her heart starting to race.

"It's been three weeks" she said quietly, unimpressed, as she dropped her gaze back to the laptop screen.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

"About what?" she retorted, without looking up.

"Us" he replied and she scoffed looking up.

His eyebrow shot up accusingly and she sighed realizing there was a lot on both their accounts by now for any of them to feel superior.

"I don't know Tristan" she sighed "what's the point?"

He looked at her, his eyes serious, contemplating, his gaze piercing through her.

He finally moved, slowly, but determined and his hand shut her laptop as she gasped in protest.

He lifted the laptop, taking it under his arm, grabbing her hand with the other, pulling her off her chair as she barely managed to grab her bag before he pulled her towards the exit.

"Tristan!" she exclaimed but he seemed to not hear it, dragging her after himself, his steps confident and long. She scurried after him, her hand still caught in his strong hold and she pictured how ridiculous the scene must look to the people on the busy sidewalk.

She recognized the direction they were heading in, his apartment only a few blocks away.

He walked without saying a word, his gaze intent and staring in front of himself, his confident walk seemingly parting the crowd in front of them.

She wondered about his walk and how she's always adored it. It seemed to be more of a glide, than a walk, his steps smooth and confident, his whole movement panther-like and efficient, noiseless.

She gasped as he turned sharply, dragging her towards the revolving door nodding to the doorman. He looked at them with a surprised look.

"Mr. DuGray. Miss Gilmore"

She forced out a polite smile as she was dragged past him and into a waiting elevator.

The doors closed with a quiet ding and they both stared at the screen informing them of their gradual ascend.

She realized he still held her hand and it suddenly felt awkward. She pulled her limb away from him and he let her, not looking in her direction.

He walked out as the doors slid open, not bothering to look back if she was following. She sighed for a second contemplating her options and slowly walked out of the elevator, towards the door he's already opened and moved through.

She walked after him, uncertain, the halls of that apartment always holding some unexpected twist and turn for her life. She watched as he walked inside the apartment, placing the hostaged laptop on the coffee table, not bothering to turn on any lights even though the dusk outside made the light fade from minute to minute inside the confined walls.

She came to a stop in the middle of the living room, not moving to take her coat off, instead watching as he paced up and down the quiet room, his hand rubbing his face.

He finally came to a stop staring out over the New York skyline, the city humming with an ever present intensity under the rolling clouds.

"We can't keep doing this, Rory" he said, still looking out through the window, as if it weren't really her he was talking to, but one of the solemn skyscrapers.

"Doing what?" she asked and her voice filled the room with a strange comfort, resonating off the walls that she used to call home.

"This. Competing. Dueling. Hurting each other" he said, his voice tired.

"You seem to have no problem" she accused thinking of the last time she fled this apartment.

"You've done your fair share" he said quietly, still not turning back to face her.

She remained quiet, knowing full well he was right.

"I can't do this. We have to decide what we want or we have to..." he stopped unsure.

"Or we have to?" she asked wryly, already knowing the answer.

"Or we have to let each other go" he said turning around, his blue eyes sad, tired.

Even though the statement was no surprise, it still felt like a slap in the face. She felt that feeling again, the feeling that she thought had started all of this. The feeling of the ground slipping from beneath her feet, the unsureness of it all enveloping her like a suffocating blanket.

She felt her feet move involuntarily, her body turning towards the door.

"Your laptop's still here" he said simply. It wasn't cynical, or cold. Just a simple statement and it suddenly neutralized her drive to flee.

She collapsed into the chair closest to her, suddenly not feeling anything, not having any purpose.

"Talk to me" he said, the desperation barely shining through the words.

"I am sick of talking about it, Tristan" she sighed, closing her eyes in frustration.

"Talk to me, so I can understand" he said again, his voice not pleading, just asking.

"I can't make you understand if I don't understand it myself" she replied.

"You don't love me anymore" he stated, his voice free of accusation, simply stating a fact.

She scoffed.

"I wish it were that simple" she murmured.

"I don't see any other reason why you would move out of here from one day to another without so much as saying a word" he said calmly.

"It was..." she burst out, her words failing her in her frustration "it felt like a friggin' lie!"

"Living with me?" he asked, his voice strained.
"Everything, suddenly everything felt like a big lie" she yelled, her eyes welling with tears "It was unreal. This isn't me, okay? Happy and beautiful and content with everything and not having any problems and living together happily and..."

"And getting married?" he finished her sentence.

She sighed in frustration.

He stared at her intently, waiting for an affirmation.

"Was this about me asking you to marry me?" he asked.

She scoffed.

"You asked me to marry me and you didn't even realize that I was unhappy" she murmured.

"You weren't, Rory" he retorted.

"How would you know?" she snapped.

"I've been with you for three years, I know!" he shot back, his voice raising for the first time.

The room fell into silence, a sudden bolt of lightning illuminating it.

They listened to each other's laboured breathing as the thunder followed shortly.

"You said no to Logan" he finally said, his voice calm once again.

She looked up in shock.

"What does that have to do with us?" she asked incredulous.

"I don't know. You tell me. Is this some weird pattern, Rory? Is this a test you are supposed to pass before you can win the hand of Rory Gilmore?" he asked.

"You are such a fucking asshole" she spat.

"I am trying to understand, Rory" he raised his voice again.

"Maybe there is nothing to understand, Tristan!" she shot back as she stood up violently "Maybe I just didn't want to be with you anymore, I was sick of being with you, sick of feeling like I should be exhilarated when I wasn't" she yelled.

"Is that really what it was?" he met her angry tone, stepping closer as another lightning tore through the rapidly darkening sky, the thunder following suit.

"Yes!" she spat.

"Was it?" he yelled taking another step "Or are you just so fucking lost you need to destroy everything that's perfect around you?"

She stared into his face, torn and miserable, only inches away from hers.

"Tell me you don't love me" he said, grabbing her arms and pulling her even closer as she struggled to resist "Tell me that's not the reason you find your way back to here every fucking time, Rory" he growled, his voice deeper, more quiet.

She felt the tears stream down her face.

"Tell me" he shook her as she whimpered helpless in his arms.

He stared at her eyes that were blurred with her tears for a long second, his breathing ragged, his face distorted.

He sighed suddenly, as if her silence were proof to him. His arms went around to her back, lifting her effortlessly, guiding her legs to wrap around his hips as he walked toward the dark bedroom, the sounds of the storm hitting the huge windows merciless.

He laid her on the bed, undoing her coat wordlessly as she sobbed, too tired to fight or resist or find reasons that would mean anything.

He kissed her gently, his tongue warm and smooth, gliding over her lips as her cries broke from deep within her with a fresh intensity, as if his tenderness tore down the gates that held her despair, her pain.

His breathing quickened as his hands blindly undressed her, pulling at her shirt and unzipping her skirt, as he kissed her, for the first time in such a long time, their time together finally resembling lovemaking and not just mindless lust.

He sighed between kisses, his hands shaking as he undid the last of her garments, then moved over to his own, hot skin finally meeting pure, pale skin.

She seemed to twist and bend according to his will, her body unconsciously mirroring his wants, his desires.

He melted into her as his erection slipped into her, her moans intertwining with her sobs, his desperate grunts releasing electrical shocks on the surface of her skin. She arched into him as he buried himself into her rhythmically, endlessly gentle and forceful at the same time and she suddenly felt like her body had found herself after a long and weary journey, every cell finding its rightful place around his body, her parts slowly realigning in the place where they always should have been, the final perfect conformation reached just as the shakes and convulsions travelled through her body. Her eyes closed unwillingly and her every part seemed to curl blissfully as through the intense vibration she heard his own muffled cries of pleasure.

Her body seemed to dissolve right after, that soft and senseless lightness lifting her and filling all of her.

It was such a revelation, having that peace come to her, only now making it clear to herself that it was this feeling that she's missed, that she's had to go without for who knows how long.

Sleep seemed to find her easily, and she let go without a fight.