Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls or any of the characters affiliated with the show.

Chapter Thirteen: The Shoe Box

She turned around, almost as if she sensed him walking into the bar. But of course, that is ridiculous, he told himself.

He slipped his keys into his trouser pocket and crossed the semi-crowded room to her seat at the bar. He had no idea what she was doing there. He just knew that he was relieved to see her.

As he got closer, he noticed that her eyes were rimmed with red. She had been crying. In that moment he loved her startling, sad eyes. He caught the word as it flitted through his mind so easily. Loved. He didn't flinch away from the idea. Instead, he acknowledged the emotion as a truth that he had kept buried within himself for a while now.

Xxx

She watched from the corner of her eye as he slipped onto the barstool next to hers.

"Hey," he said simply.

"Hay is for horses," she responded. She kept her eyes on her drink, embarrassed. She didn't want him to see that she had been crying. Not because she was ashamed to cry in front of him-she had crossed that bridge last night. No, she knew that she was exploiting her female prerogative to be completely irrational, and she didn't know if she wanted him to take that on right now.

But she must not have been that good at hiding it because before she knew it he had his finger crooked under her chin and he was turning her face to his. She met his eyes begrudgingly.

"Tell me what's wrong," he commanded gently.

She closed her eyes and smiled an ironic little smile as she shook her head no. "I found out today that I am a millionairess."

She turned her eyes back to him in time to catch the little jolt of surprise that flashed across his face.

"And you're crying about that?" he asked. His tone was teasing but it was a completely logical question.

She laughed a little. "I think it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back." She sniffled. It wasn't incredibly ladylike, but she didn't care anymore.

"Yeah, I guess you have been thrown a few curveballs in the last twenty four hours," he conceded.

"Yours I can handle," she answered, tossing her hair a little.

He smirked. "So that last night was you handling it?"

"Hey, I had it all under control."

"Hindsight is always 20/20."

She smiled what she hoped to be a coy smile and sipped her martini.

"Gin?" he asked her, pointing to the drink. She nodded. "Hair of the dog?"

"It's what my grandparents always make me when I go to Friday night dinners. I didn't think it was a good idea to mix alcohols tonight."

Tristan nodded and caught the attention of the bartender. "A gin martini for the lady and a scotch on the rocks for me please."

He turned back to her. "So I'm assuming you had dinner with your grandparents?"

She nodded, then sighed. "They informed me that the trust fund I never knew I had is going to be at my disposal on my twenty sixth birthday."

"Which is…?"

"In three weeks."

"And it has seven figures?" he asked.

"$3,485,672 to be exact."

"Shit." He reached for his drink that the bartender had just put down. "That's not too shabby."

"Nope," she responded simply.

He sipped. She finished her drink and reached for the one Tristan had just bought her.

"So do you want to explain why you are crying about it?"

"What the hell do I do with all of that money?"

"Well, I mean...not to impugn your rather sizable fortune, but...It's not like you're Bill Gates or anything. You could blow 3 million in a weekend if you tried hard enough."

She was shaking her head again. "I just have always put so much value in working hard for myself. My mother has really instilled that in me."

"And what, you can't work hard if you have money in your savings account?" he challenged.

"One of the worst fights I ever had with Logan was about rich people," Rory responded.

"And?"

"He made me acknowledge that even though I didn't grow up wealthy, I have had the same upper-class education, opportunities, and networks that he did."

"You are a Gilmore," Tristan confirmed.

"And that seems to be the central drama of my entire life."

"Explain."

"My mom raised me to reject the Gilmore lifestyle. She re-branded us. But then I had big dreams for myself which were easier realized by depending on the monied Gilmores. I almost lost her when I fell in love with Logan. There were a lot of complex issues between us, but ultimately she just couldn't trust me in that world."

"So you are scared the money is going to ruin things with your mom again?"

She stirred her martini. He had hit the root of the issue before she had even admitted it to herself yet. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Have you told her yet?"

"No," Rory responded. "And I won't until I know what I want to do."

"There's no shame in accepting family money, Ror. That doesn't mean that you aren't going to go on and be successful on your own."

He was being earnest. She could see it in his eyes. "It would make things easier," she admitted.

He put his hand over hers on the bar. She didn't pull away. It felt nice, really. Warm and reassuring. He pulled his hand back just enough to lace his fingers through her own. She stroked his palm with her thumb, just once.

"Do you remember what I said to you last night?" he asked her.

Her mind flitted back to them yelling at each other, up against the bedroom door. You want to fuck me as bad as I want to fuck you, and that terrifies you. Why?

"I remember a lot of things you said last night." It was supposed to be playful, but it came out huskier than she had anticipated.

She watched as a smirk pulled at his lips. He turned his head for a second, shaking it off. When he turned back to her there was still a mischievous glimmer in his eyes. "I stand by everything I said last night," he said at last, now stroking her palm with his thumb. "But I was referring to the part where I told you that you can't control what other people do. If your mom gets angry that you are accepting the money, then that is her own damn problem. She will come around. If she yells at your grandparents-"

"She will," Rory interrupted.

"Then I'm sure your grandparents have already accepted that and have taken that into consideration. Don't carry the guilt of that around. It's not worth it."

Rory chewed that advice over for a moment while she sipped her martini. Then all of a sudden she remembered:

"What are you doing in Hartford? You went home this morning."

Tristan broke his hand away from hers and rubbed his face. Rory pulled her hand back into her lap. "I don't exactly have a home in New York anymore."

Did that mean what she wanted it to mean? "Since when?" she asked simply.

"Since I made a phone call around one o'clock this afternoon."

"So where are you staying then?"

"At my parents' in Hartford."

Why didn't he just get a hotel? In the city, close to work? But she didn't ask.

"Are you going home tonight?" Tristan asked, surprising her.

"I, well, I was trying to figure out how I could avoid that right about the time you walked in," she responded honestly.

"Good."

"Good?"

"I want to take you back to my parents' house."

After paying both of their tabs, Tristan steered Rory to his Porsche. He insisted on driving her. He could drop her off at her car in the morning.

"Despite the way it looks, I'm not taking you back to my parents' house to seduce you," he said as he pulled out of the parking lot.

"Well, I figured. Unless you only know how to pick up girls by offering a quick hook up on the couch in the rec room."

He laughed. "I figured you were much more of a finished basement kind of girl."

"Better than a parent's bedroom kind of girl," she added.

"Oh yeah, no, that creeps me out." He flipped the radio stations a bit. "Besides," he said at length. "I know you are a hotel suite kind of girl."

"Mmm hmm. Champagne, rose petals, all prerequisites for sex," she teased. "So it's a good thing you're not trying to seduce me." Her face lit up under the street lights that flickered by, and he could see she was blushing faintly. He loved that she was keeping up with the conversation, even if it made her a little uncomfortable.

He wasn't exactly sure what was making him drive her to his house. He knew that he didn't want her to leave his side, not yet. But there were a thousand places they could have gone. And all of a sudden here he was, bringing her to this place that was full of such mixed emotions. God, he must really be in deep.

It only took another minute to pull into his driveway. He pulled through the gates and up around the circular drive, parking his car directly in front of the main door. The house and the grounds were dark. He met Rory on the passenger side of the car and took her hand so he could guide her through the darkness.

"My parents are in China until Christmas," he explained as he slipped his key into the lock. It unlatched with a heavy click and he led Rory inside. He quickly punched in the alarm code and turned on the lights.

Rory look around, presumably taking in the house. Tristan looked around too, trying to imagine the house he had grown up in from a newcomer's eyes. It was large and ornately furnished, but it certainly wasn't the largest house in town. His parents had chosen years ago to spend much of their year abroad. Their Hartford house, therefore, was hardly worn in.

He hadn't let go of her hand. They walked quietly through the rooms, neither one saying anything as Rory took it all in. He figured his tour must have been strange-and certainly unexpected-but he found that he didn't have much to say about the rooms of the house. After completing a circle of the main floor they found themselves in the living room. Tristan turned on a few lamps as Rory moved to the mantel to examine the only photographs they had come across.

She picked one up and smiled. "How old are you in this picture?"

Tristan crossed the room to her side and took the frame in his hands. It was a picture of him standing at the bottom of the staircase. He was dressed in a tuxedo and grinning ear to ear. He was a little boy still, definitely in elementary school.

"Oh, I don't know, eight or nine? I was off to some kind of dancing school formal or something."

Rory opened her mouth to tease but Tristan cut her off. "Hey, you had a coming out ball. You don't get to judge."

"Touche." She moved down along the mantel, running her finger along the frames. She stopped on a faded photograph of a young woman.

"Is this your mother?" she asked. Tristan nodded. He was standing directly behind her. "She's beautiful," Rory responded genuinely.

"That she is," he said with a sigh. He slipped his arms around Rory's waist. "If she spent half as much time with her family as she did with her personal trainer, maybe we would be a very different family." Rory placed the frame back on the mantel and turned so that she was facing him. She reached up and ran her hand along the stubble of his jawbone. He closed his eyes, savoring her soft touch. He leaned his forehead against her own. "You said last night that you have daddy issues," he said gently. "They've got nothing on mine."

She was desperate to kiss him. She wanted nothing more than to comfort the little boy who seemed so broken in this home. The air between them was heavy and she almost closed the distance between them.

Until she slipped out of his arms. She took a deep breath of fresh air, calming herself. When she turned to him she was surprised to see that he looked rejected.

"You just broke up with Carly today," she said instead of apologizing. "You ended a relationship with someone who you have been together with for five years. I know you are hurt. I know you are lonely right now."

"I wasn't thinking about Carly."

"Maybe not right that second but-"

"I don't want to fight with you about her, Rory. We're done. I have been emotionally detached from that relationship for a long time."

"Tristan-I can't be your rebound."

"I'm not asking you to be."

Rory stared at him with a look on her face that she hoped conveyed her disbelief. Every fiber of his being told her he was trying to get a little rebound sex.

He must have interpreted her look correctly because he said: "I don't want to just have sex with you and cast you aside, Rory, don't you get it? It's not a coincidence that you came back into my life and then I started wanting more out of it. I have been sleepwalking through my relationship for months now. You made me want more. You made me want to try again with someone who challenges me every step of the way."

She felt his earnesty. She did. But just then she had a flash of Jess and Dean standing in her hallway at Yale, each one of them carrying baggage from their relationship, each one of them essentially asking her to choose.

Rory shook her head, but Tristan took a step closer. She reached out and put a hand on his chest. He stopped, but she didn't remove her hand. He covered it with his own.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "It's just that I have gone straight from one relationship into another, and there was no closure with Dean and I. And in the end we all ended up broken hearted-"

"You were a kid, Rory," Tristan insisted. He moved the hand on his chest and folded it into his own. He pulled her a step closer and locked his eyes on hers. Rory wanted to blink, or look away. But she couldn't. "I can't help but believe that us meeting again and having this strong of a connection isn't some accident.

Rory opened her mouth to say something. Exactly, what she had no idea.

Tristan gave their entwined hands a little pull. "Can I show you something?"

This time he led her upstairs to his childhood bedroom. He felt oddly nervous when he flicked on the light and he saw her take in her surroundings. She didn't let go of his hand and explore the room the way she had downstairs.

He broke away and opened his closet door. He reached above he suits and shirts he had hung earlier this evening, up to the top shelf. He grabbed a shoe box and pulled it down. He turned back to where she was standing in the center of his room. Without saying a word he guided her over to the bed where they both sat on the edge. With his heart in her throat, he handed her the box. "I want you to open it," he said.