Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls.

Note: Tristan did leave. Dean and Rory never got back together.

Summary: Two miserable souls are separated. But sometimes, love is enough to unite them back.

Sometimes Love Is Enough

The rain outside is scabrous. The sound of it hitting the roof, the street, the pavement is deafening. Thunders strike, highlighting the dark sky every five minutes. The rain is like a tantrum in explosion. I could feel the incredible anger of God. Mesmerizing. Powerful. Amazing. Wind billows in its clamor. Trees are shaking. Tonight, the rain is harsh. Really harsh.

I pick myself up from the window, watching the phenomenal incident of nature. It is beautiful actually. How God warn human that He can destroy the universe in one second. And this severe rain is only a tiny example.

I stood there quietly, smelling the rain. As I inhale, I could trace the scent of it. It smells like wood, like forest, like dew. It is refreshing. It is calming. Well, as calming as Paris in times like this.

I often stand by the window, just looking out while it is raining. I see people with umbrellas, struggling their way through the storm. Then, after the rain, the trees, the flowers, they would look really green and fresh that I would most of the time give in to the temptation to go out walking. My mother sometimes watches me as I close my eyes and smell the rain. She has known this habit of mine since I was a little. She used to let me sit by the porch if it was not pouring too hard. Then, by impulse, I would play in the rain. Soaking myself up until my mother found out and brought out a towel to dry me up.

Sometimes, she would together with me.

Extracting myself from the window, I dwell between staying on the couch and going to the bed early. I settle with the couch because I really am not too drowsy. So I sit down and resting my head for a moment. Picking up my half-read book, I begin to read.

After a while though, as I could not get into it, I put the book down and shut my eyelids, listening to the rain. Something tugs me in the chest.

As much as I love rain, it always somehow makes me feel blue and gloomy.

I have to admit to the sad revelation.

I am still broken. I have always been for the last year.

I release a long breath.

God, when will I get over him?

As I realized what just popped into my mind, I shake my head furiously, as if to clear unwelcome thoughts in there. I bury my head in the crook of my arm.

No, I could not take it. It was too much. It was not what I imagined. Not like that.

I was unhappy. I did not want to be unhappy for the rest of my life. I had to get out. I try desperately to fish out my reasons to leave him in the first place.

I wonder sometimes this present time. Maybe our happiest moments are when we were back in high school as cliché as that sounds. High School. Chilton Preparatory. Not very convincing, is it? Chilton is where I thought hell had a child. It is where I thought I was miserable but I think I was just as happy. And hell, I am yearning to go back then. Back when all we did was just having fun.

Pathetic.

I remember him taunting me with the hated nickname as I appear in his sight every time. I would roll my eyes and tell him to sod off. Although, the lazy drawl of his calling me Mary went around inside my head much more often than I was willing to admit. Even when I was with my first boyfriend. Even after he left. True, it kept haunting me.

Nevertheless, right now it is one thing I crave the most. I want Tristan to call me Mary again in that lazy, flirty, and seductive growl. All the while, he is doing the dirty things to me. All the while, he is whispering dirty things to me. Bastard. 'Try to ruin my concentration.' I mumble inaudibly, remembering one event similar to the scenario playing in my mind.

I remember him annoying me in every waking moment he had. Telling me that I had a kinky obsession over him. Telling me to stop daydreaming about him when we were in class. I did not, for god's sake.

I kept asking to God what I had done to deserve such torture if I heard his voice silkily saying something obscene in my ear to get my attention.

Right now, I miss that. He rarely teased me in the last year. In fact, he rarely acknowledged me anymore.

I remember him asking me to a concert right after we decided to become friends. I obviously suspected he was only playing with me as his reputation screamed. I never thought that he could like me for real.

I sigh regretfully.

I remember him cornering me in a deserted classroom once, trying to kiss me. He just grabbed me and assaulted my lips right there and then. I have slapped him in the cheek after I realized what he was doing.

Belatedly.

Uh, due to the lost of train of thoughts. And well, because I saw his eyes. There was this big fat lust blazing like fire through him. Which frankly, it frightened me at one point. It scared the crap out of me I thought he tried to rape me.

I could not describe how disappointed and upset I had been because of his behavior. We were in a quite good terms, and he pulled a stunt like that.

Although, I still cannot forget how my mother had looked when I told her about it a while after that. No, she did not look murderous as every mother should look. She did not have a desire to chop him into pieces. Instead, she looked positively giddy and she could not stop teasing with that. She even expressed her approval, saying that she had longed for that kind of 'romantic' story from me. At that moment, I thought my mother was truly insane.

Afterwards, he tried to corner me again. I had a horrible thought he was trying to rape me again. So I punched him right in the face...

Right before he apologized and explained everything. God, I still regret that until now. Moreover, not long after the incident, he left for that ugly Military School.

For a valedictorian, I sure did not show much of my intelligence.

Crap! Yanked back to the present, I silently berate myself for I have vowed that I would never think about Tristan anymore. I would forget him. Which has proven to be a very difficult task.

I shake my head again in aggravation and get up to fix myself a cup of coffee.

As I stir my coffee, I ponder about it again.

I got married to Tristan when I was 25. We had been best friend since college when just all of the sudden he popped the question. I had been shocked beyond belief, I even double-checked the calendar to see it was not April 1. I mean, we were never lovers, but suddenly he asked me to marry him while he was confessing his love had never deterred during the years. I was very puzzled for sure.

Grinning idiotically, I remember telling him that his speech was too cheesy before finally, timidly I said yes. Boy, I still have no idea why I did say yes until this very moment.

Anyway, the marriage went smoothly for 12 years.

However, as usual, happiness never lasts longer. Catastrophe struck.

His father passed away. The family company was left solely to him.

I had never mused that the end of our marriage was not far away. But, soon enough, I began to feel it, the disaster.

He came home almost never before midnight. And then, he would either go to the study or straight to the bedroom. Though I knew he did not fool around outside, I still got mad because he never talked much about his problem at the company. He became quiet about almost everything. But I tried to understand because he always looked so weary and I did not want to burden him with my selfish demand. So I bottle it up to myself. Besides, I reason, that it would be temporary since he had to adjust to this new position.

However, as time wore on, it got worse. I rarely saw him except for a few hours in the morning; sometimes I did not even see him in one day. And in weekends, he was in his study, sunken beneath mountainous papers of work.

I began to feel wary.

I had tried the old tactic. Seduce him. Yes, it worked every time. Afterwards, I would ask him to please spend some time with me instead of work. He would sleepily promise he would try to reduce the it.

That promise died quickly. Retrieve by its own master.

I grew very tired.

Sometimes, I would cry as I ate dinner alone for the hundredth time. I felt abandoned, and ignored and I just missed him very much.

And when I felt that way, I would sleep early so I could wake much earlier and watch him as he slept beside me. I would caress him. I would kiss him softly as not to wake him up. I would smell him. Or just run my finger along his face. I would do anything that I usually could not, not in his wake.

I missed him that badly.

There were times that I exploded and blabbering my fiery furiously at him. He would sit on the couch, listening intently to my raving about him never being home. And after I finished, he would snatch me softly, and kiss me until all the anger I had flew out of the window. See, that bastard.

However, I would never forget one event.

It was that night. I was angry because for the third time, he had stood me out in a restaurant where we were supposed to have a nice and romantic dinner because he had work to do.

The anger slid from my mouth as fast as a train. I told him my resentments all this time. When I was very hot at it, suddenly he got up and slapped me so hard that it almost knocked me out. That was the very first time in the history of our marriage that he ever laid a hand on my cheek. Although it certainly the last, it had shaken up my mind tumultuously.

Even after he apologized regretfully afterwards, I never questioned him on any sensitive matter anymore. Shortly I acted as if I was indifferent.

I acted as if he was not hurting me inside out.

I often asked myself. 'Would this be over just like this? Is this the marriage I want?' And I finally came to a conclusion that I could hardly want to admit.

I did not want to keep living a marriage like this.

Therefore, on that day, Wednesday, September 23, I talked to him that we should separate our ways.

I went home to Stars Hollow while I refreshed my mind. After a while, I bought this apartment in Hartford so I could get a job I wanted at the same time be close to my family.

I was as good as new. On the outside.

It has been ten months and God, it is killing me.

Damnit!

I open up my eyes as the musing dissipates. Realizing that the rain has stopped, I quickly get up and open my window to get the fresh post-rain air. I breathe it in deeply as I stretch out like a cat.

As I was turning around to make my fourth cup of coffee, I heard a distinct knock. I listen again as the hesitant knock fills the room. I stride over to the door. I stopped abruptly.

From the nauseating feeling in my abdomen, I could almost immediately identify who is on the door.

No, no. Please don't let it be true. Please, please God.

Sighing, I shut my eyes and swing open the door.

Slowly, very slowly I open them again.

There he is.

Wet to the skin.

And goddamnit I hate the fact that after all we have been through for years, my heart does beat faster just at the sight of him.

His eyes look tired as he quivers from the cold. His lips are blue as he hugs himself tightly. He is much thinner than the last time I saw him. The teasing spark in his eyes has gone. It is as if his eyes are void of any light. My heart breaks already.

'Trist,-'

Before I could complete his name, he drops down on his knees and buries his face in my stomach, his arms went around me. Grip tight, voice muffled, he mumbles.

'Mary, I'm sorry.' A beat 'God, I miss you'

Feeling tears prickle in my eyes, I finally understand.

Sometimes love is enough.

AN: Well, tell me what you think. Just drop a line or two.