Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls or anyone related to the show.

a/n: Thank you for the reviews! I should have several chapters up this week :)

Chapter Eight: Moving On

"Say it."

"Say what?"

"Say it."

"I don't know what you could possibly be referring to," Lorelai said, dropping a pop tart into the toaster.

Rory didn't pick her head up off of the kitchen table. It was pounding too hard for that. This was the first position she had felt minor relief in since she woke up at dawn this morning. She had scribbled a thank you note to Carly and caught the first train back to Connecticut. Now she found herself back home and it wasn't even nine o'clock.

"Say it," she groaned.

"Ah HAH!"

She moaned. "Keep going."

"What was that?" Lorelai asked.

Rory picked her head up. "Keep going."

"I TOLD YOU!" Lorelai said, gleefully. She dropped heavily into the seat next to Rory.

Rory moaned again. Her head was back down on her arms. "I think I'm going to throw up."

"The truth hurts, kid. Or at least, is nauseating."

Luke walked into the kitchen. "What truth?" He looked at Rory, crumpled up on the kitchen table. "Maybe I don't want to know," he said, and opened the fridge.

"Thoughts on getting involved with a man in a serious relationship. Go," Lorelai ordered.

"I tend to stay away from all relationships with men, and I'd like to leave it that way."

"You're useless," Lorelai said. She reached over and tugged on his flannel. He backed away from the fridge. "Go to the diner. It's girl talk time."

Rory watched as Luke leaned down to kiss Lorelai. "I'll make steak tonight?"

"Lasagna."

"We bought stuff for steak."

"Baby doesn't want steak. Baby wants lasagna."

"Baby is a fetus and has no such opinion."

"Maybe I wasn't talking about our child."

"Ew, Mom, gross," Rory mumbled. "Now I'm really going to hurl."

"It's too easy," Lorelai said, smiling up at Luke.

Luke couldn't help but crack a smile back. "Lasagna it is."

"But you better call me before you come home with the groceries, I'm starting to dream about burritos…"

Rory bounced out of her chair and ran towards the bathroom. She took one look at Matthew's potty-training seat attached to the toilet, swiveled, and threw up into the sink.

When she had recovered her dignity a little, she shuffled back into the kitchen. Lorelai was coaxing Matthew to eat his Cheerios. Rory sat back down at the table.

"Better?" Lorelai asked.

"My stomach is."

"But your feelings…"

"Still pretty seasick."

"So what are you going to do?"

Rory sighed. Do? What was there to do. "I don't know, avoid him I guess. I just can't shake the feeling that he still likes me."

"And you don't want him to or you don't want to cheat?"

Rory didn't have an answer for that one. Not one that Lorelai would want to hear, anyway. So she settled for: "I don't want him to."

And so for the next several weeks, Rory did The Right Thing. She commuted into the city for staff meetings and went straight home with her assignments. On days she had to cover Images events, she made up excuses to Carly about why she couldn't hang out casually before or after. Usually she blamed it on her mom needing help, being so pregnant and all. But really she was starting to understand Lorelai's viewpoint that a friendship with Carly was in no one's best interest.

Tristan came home from work, exhausted. It was well past dinner time, but he went to the kitchen and poured himself a stiff drink to sip before he started scavenging the refrigerator for food. Work has been complicated lately. After three years, Tristan was finally beginning to feel like Janlen's team was sufficiently trained. In truth, Tristan had been spending less time managing his grandfather's company and more time growing the internet startup company he had begun with his business partner last spring. Even though he was pulling back, juggling both careers was taking a toll on him.

He grabbed his whiskey and looked around the modest apartment for Carly. She was nowhere to be seen. He actually hadn't really seen her at home this week, other than when one of them would crawl into bed late at night, the other hardly stirring. Tristan wracked his brain, trying to recall the last time they had spent any time together. Lunch on Wednesday. And even then the two of them we're pretty attached to their Blackberrys.

Tristan flicked on the light in their bedroom and kicked off his shoes. He stretched his toes a bit and moved to loosen his tie. His hand paused when he caught sight of the open suitcases on the bed. They were both full.

She's leaving, he thought. His mind raced. He thought of the sunkissed girl he had fallen in love with in LA. He looked at the clothes in the suitcase and could only think of the fact that they hadn't had sex in six weeks. Not that he was counting.

Six weeks. And even before that...things had been drying up between them for a long time.

The front door slammed, followed by the quick clicks of Carly's heels approaching the bedroom.

"You're not dressed," she scolded.

"Were you planning on telling me that you were leaving?"

"Leaving?" She asked, slightly puzzled. "You mean my trip to Germany? I have that interview, remember? I told you at lunch this week."

Tristan searched his memory, but all he could think about was the slight sinking feeling he was experiencing. He should be relieved, but instead he was-he didn't even want to put a name to his feeling.

"Michael and Sav will be over in 5," she said, moving around him towards her suitcases. "I'm all ready, I just need to throw these cosmetics in my bag. Wear your grey suit? It goes better with my dress."

"What?"

"The gallery party, remember?"

She was looking at him with an icy, disappointed look.

Tristan didn't make any apologies. He moved towards the closet and started looking for the grey suit in question. He really could have gone for a shower, but there was no time for that. Well, he really could have gone for staying home, but that didn't seem to be an option. He slipped out of his clothes and stood in his briefs, staring at his closet. Carly grabbed a pair of heels from the closet.

"You okay?" She asked.

He turned to her. "What happens if you get the job?"

"Now's not the time to talk about it."

"Well when is the time? You leave first thing in the morning."

The doorbell rang. Michael and Sav. She threw the heels in the suitcase and zipped it up. "Hurry up and get dressed? I want to leave in five."

Colin was saying something funny. Everyone who had circled around him at the gallery was laughing, clutching their cocktails. But Tristan wasn't really listening to his childhood neighbor and friend. Instead, he was fixated on the way Carly had slipped her arm around Tristan's waist, effectively nuzzling against him. So warm and affectionate. So different from the Carly who had stared him down in their bedroom.

And in that moment he knew. The interview abroad, the months they hadn't been connecting... Carly was moving on, maybe to Germany, maybe just further downtown. But she was done.

And he was going to let her go.

He stepped out of her embrace, tired of helping her put up the perfect front that they were happy. Because he had played along. He had enjoyed the stability and support of having a partner. Coming home to Carly every night seemed a hell of a lot more appealing than coming home to an empty house, a topic on which he had spent years of his life reflecting. Daddy issues, mommy issues...they were obvious and cliche but nonetheless driving forces in his life.

He found himself staring out the enormous windows, hypnotized by the city lights beyond. His abandonment issues (his shrink's words, not his) had governed him thus far, but they did not have to make him stay. Not when she didn't desire him any more. Their lack of physical intimacy he could have worked with, solved. That coupled with her desire to seek job opportunities in a foreign country was too much for him to fight for.

Tristan felt a careless arm drape around his shoulder. He looked over and saw that it was Colin.

"You look like you need another round."

Tristan glanced into his almost empty glass. "Nah. I just need sleep. I'll probably round up Carly and head home soon."

"What you need is a night out. My friend Finn, you know Finn, right? He's having a bit of a poker party tomorrow night. In Hartford. You should come out."

"I could use a night away from this whoreish city."

"New York is no slut, good sir."

"Really? Some days I feel like she's all dressed up in her diamonds, teasing me with her seductive secrets. And then she just takes me for all I'm worth."

"Bad day at the stocks?" Colin asked, puzzled.

"I was speaking figuratively"

"Ah well. Then you do need a night out because you are babbling, Old Sport. Come to West Egg, tomorrow. 10 o'clock."

"I guess I can do that."

Rory found herself home alone with Matthew. It was late afternoon on a Thursday, one of her days off from commuting into the city for a staff meeting. She had been playing with her brother in his sandbox in the yard. It was a beautiful Indian Summer day, maybe the last before the fall chill set in. Because of this, Rory had read Matthew his pre-nap storybook on the rocker on the porch. He had fallen asleep in her lap, and although she intended to move him to his bed, she found herself enjoying the weight of his warm little body curled up against her.

She was rocking lazily, almost dozing off herself. Her eyes closed, she focused on the slow creaking groans the rocker made as she moved slowly. Then she heard the crunching noise of a car pulling in to the driveway. It couldn't be Luke or Lorelai, they were supposed to call on their way back from Babies R Us in Hartford.

She opened her eyes and spotted the Porsche. Her heart thudded against her rib cage. What the hell was he doing here?

Tristan hesitated a moment after closing his car door and squinted towards the house, taking it in. Rory slowed her rocking. He approached the house, not seeing her until he was walking up the porch steps.

"Hey," he said, leaning against the railing opposite her chair.

"Hey yourself."

A silent moment passed, Rory wondering what he was doing on her front porch, Tristan not offering up the reason. He was staring at Matthew quizzically. Rory racked her memory, trying to decide if she had ever mentioned her brother to him. By the look on his face, she assumed she hadn't.

"Is he..."

"Mine?" Rory asked, surprised. It looked like that had cost Tristan to ask that question. "No no no. This is my brother, Matthew."

Tristan's face relaxed visibly. "For a second I just thought..."

Rory studied Tristan's face. He looked conflicted, like he didn't know if he wanted to finish his own sentence.

"Thought that what, Matthew was my secret love child?"

"That he was Logan's."

For the second time in two minutes Rory's heart skipped a beat. Tristan was knocking her off guard.

"God no," she managed to say. "My mom remarried. She had me young, remember? And how do you know about me and Logan?"

"Hartford is a small town, Mare. I grew up with him. Your yacht heist is legendary. We all heard about that one, though I have to say, I didn't really believe it at first. Bonnie and Clyde. And then you broke his heart. That has also been much discussed around the poker table."

Broke his heart, she thought. Well it takes two to tango. To Tristan she said: "What are you doing here, anyway," but not unkindly.

"Mental health day," he replied nonchalantly.

"And that took you to Stars Hollow? How did you even find my house?"

"I looked up your address in Carly's Blackberry."

"Why?"

He crossed his legs casually, shifting his weight against the porch railing. "Well I ran into a mutual friend of ours last night."

"Oh yeah?" she asked coolly, not venturing to guess who in the world he could be referring to.

"Yeah. Colin McCrae. He invited me to a poker game at his old buddy Finn's house tonight."

"That does not clarify your presence in the slightest."

"You are going to be my good luck charm."

"I am going to be no such thing," Rory insisted. "Tell Carly to come."

"She left this morning for a trip to Europe."

"Business?"

Tristan hesitated a fraction of a second too long. "Pleasure."

Rory caught the awkward moment, but chose not to comment. Luke's truck pulled into the driveway. His window was down and Rory caught snippets of his bewildered rant about the Porsche in his driveway.

"My parents are home," she said, almost apologetically. She didn't catch her own slip in that sentence.

"Good. Then you are off babysitting duty and can go get ready. I drove all the way out here so I am at least taking you to dinner."

She watched as Luke helped her mother out of the truck. Another night on the couch with them? Or play with fire and accept Tristan's rather presumptuous invitation?

"Just dinner," she said. "Give me ten minutes."