Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Gilmore Girls as they belong to Amy Sherman Palladino and the WB. I have borrowed the story title from an episode of almost the same name. Oh and I don't own My Best Friend's Wedding which was quoted in the summary. Really people.

Rating: PG – 13

Part: Two of two.

Dedication: To everyone who encouraged this fic when they shouldn't have. You know who you are.

Author's Note: This is the last part. There is nothing after this. I may never do a sequel so please, no tomatoes.

…Sometimes the best love is the one that was always there.

-- Reality Bites

Ever have one of those moments where you hear what you have just said a couple of seconds after you've said it and the words sound so much better in your head? Yeah, I was having one of those moments. Big time.

It's kind of like when you build these scenarios in your head a thousand times over, trying out different ways to say things, expecting different reactions from the person you want to say them to and then, when you finally do – they never quite turn out the way you want them to.

The reality never lives up the fantasy.

How could it? Hoping that it will is stupid and perfect. We don't live in a perfect world so that leaves you looking like the biggest fool to walk the face of the planet. And that's exactly what I was the minute those three little words slipped out of my mouth. A big fat fool. No one in the entire world had ever been that degree of foolish until that very moment. In fact, the foolishness of it all could not have been measured.

I love you. Really, it's hard to imagine those innocent words could 'cause so much trouble. I mean if you think about it, all the greatest loves stories ended so tragically. Catherine and Heathcliff. Romeo and Juliet. My mom and dad.

In the grand scheme of things, did I even stand a chance?

What made it worse was that he just stood there with an expression that would have been comical if I was in the laughing mood. His hand fell away from my face and he took a step back, in a knee-jerk reaction more than anything else, I figured. Why else would he look like someone had just punched him the gut, right?

Damage control. I was so bad at damage control.

"Tristan. Did you hear what I said?" There was a part of me that wished that he hadn't and the reason he look so scared was because there was a giant, mutated lizard behind me. That would have been infinitely better.

He nodded slowly, avoiding my gaze and I just knew that the slim possibility of him saying those words back was completely nonexistent. It was funny, that for the first time in my life I was willing to say those words, and this time, it was the boy who didn't feel the same. It must've been the bad karma from all the relationships where I was a crappy girlfriend or didn't know how to handle situations and made them worse.

But I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself or wallow so I took in a steadying breath and tried to be strong about it. I don't know how I managed to keep my voice so calm. "Well, okay. So you heard it, then. Huh, I'm not even sure why I said it but it's out there. And you're obviously still in some sort of shock or something so I'm just going to…you know, leave and head back to my room and..." Wait for the world to open up and swallow me. "Okay then. Bye."

I pushed past him in my haste to get out of there and ran down the stairs, the tears in my eyes blurring my vision. I heard Paris calling me as I ran out the door but I didn't stop to acknowledge her. I just needed to get away, from the music, from the suffocation, from the hurt. Running was, after all, what I did best.

"Rory!"

I was halfway across the lawn when I heard him call out my name and only then did I stop. Hope, as painful as it was, soared in my heart as I turned around to face him, trying my hardest to hold back more tears.

"You can't just say something like that to me and run away!" he protested as he stood in front of me. "You have got to break that habit."   

I didn't hear that he was admonishing me but could only think one thing: he came after me. That had to mean something! There was a chance; I could feel it. His words registered and gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry."

So we stood there, panting slightly and staring at each other. The moment stretched, while I kept waiting for him to say something and he kept staring at me as if he's seen me for the first time.

"Did you mean it?"

Okay, so I wasn't expecting that. But I sort of understood why he was asking me; he didn't quite believe what I had just told him. Hell, I didn't believe it myself. This was my cop out. It would have been so easy just to pretend that I hadn't said it and that is was a joke. Without knowing it, he was giving me a choice to run again. Just like that.

But, I was tired of running. "Yeah, I did."

He nodded again, ran a hand through his hair and again, I waited for him to say something. Why couldn't he say anything? For as long as I'd known him, Tristan DuGrey, always had something to say. The silence was killing me, the uncertainty was putting me in limbo; did he feel the same way or did I just ruin our friendship?

"Tristan?" a soft voice called from behind him and he turned to reveal his date, Claire, standing on the lawn, looking a little apprehensive. I took a good look at the competition – blonde hair (of course), blue eyes, pretty face, modest dresser…who was I kidding? She was a knock out! And to top it off, she was smart, sophisticated and classy.

She was going to win.

She glanced at me and then back at her date. "I was looking all over for you."

Back off! He's mine, I wanted to yell at her so I bit my bottom lip, clobbered my inner bitch and dragged her back to her cage and waited for Tristan to tell her to go back inside so we could finish our discussion.

"Sorry Claire. Do you want to leave?" Tristan apologized, turning away from me completely. The symbolism of it was not lost on me.

Claire nodded, scrunching her face. "Yes! I don't know how I convinced you to bring me to a frat party."

He let out a laugh. "It's because I'm charming."

Claire rolled her eyes. "Or at least you'd like to think that you are."

I stood there, feeling like the biggest fool on the planet as they bantered. I bantered with Tristan. It was our thing; something we did effortlessly, easily. No one could keep me on my toes as well as he could and now…

He turned back to me then and the smile on his face vanished, he cleared his throat and gave me a serious look. "Do you mind if we continue this later, Ror?"

Oh no, I thought to myself bitterly. I don't mind. Go canoodle with your doctor while I go and cry my eyes out. Somehow, I kept my voice from wavering when I spoke. "No, it's okay. I was going to go, anyway."

~*~

He didn't love me and it sucked.

But what sucked more was that he avoided me. I could understand and accept that he didn't feel the same way – hell, I had even prepared myself for the possibility that he didn't love me. It was like a knife through my heart and I felt like there was a big gaping hole in me but I was aware of it, I could deal with it.

What I couldn't deal with was that I had lost one of my best friends.

"I can see it now," I complained miserably to Paris and Raina the next day as we packed, getting ready to say goodbye to our college years. "We'll see each other at some reunion party years from now and he'll have his doctor draped on his arm and she'll still be beautiful and successful. The kids will be with the nanny, of course. And he'll look at me briefly trying to put a name with a face. 'Sweetheart,' he'll say to her. 'This is Lori Gilmore. We went to college together.' And I'll say, 'Rory Gilmore.' 'Oh right, sorry.' he'll say and wave his hand in the air like it doesn't matter."

Paris grinned wryly. "After all, he never could get your name right."

"Shut up."

"Now don't you go listenin' to her, dahlin," Raina chided. "To think that Tristan DuGrey could ever forget you is just plain silly."

Okay, so maybe my histrionics had gotten the best of me but it still didn't change the fact that Tristan was avoiding me and when I called, he always seemed to be out. Come graduation, my pain had turned into anger and I had resolved never to speak to him again. If he was going to let my feelings get in the way of our friendship, I figured he wasn't worth it.

Or that's what I kept telling myself.

Graduation day. My last day as a Yalie. My mom was bringing a whole entourage of people with her from Stars Hollow, Dad, Sherry and Gigi were in attendance and both sets of grandparents. So many people to share my happiness with.

And I still had to stop myself from stealing glances, looking for a glimpse of tousled blond hair and patented smirk.

Fortunately for me, after the commencement ceremony, he came looking for me. My mother nudged me and pointed him out, and then pushed me in his general direction.

"Meet him halfway, sweets," she advised and I reluctantly took a few steps closer.

"Hey," he greeted as he approached.

My eyes widened and I controlled the urge to hug him. And to slap him for avoiding me because he had not returned my phone calls and because he had seemingly forgotten our friendship. "Hey."

"So, the whole extended family's here, I see," he stated with a grin, looking over my shoulder at the assortment of the people dearest to me. "How is that going?"

"Oh I don't know how I manage," I reply with a wry grin. "There haven't been any catfights or punches thrown so far. But then again, you never know with them. I see the DuGreys are here, in harmony too."

He nodded, grinning a little. "On the surface, of course. As soon as this is over, they're heading off to parts unknown – separately."

I laughed a little and then we stood, staring at each other again while graduates and their happy parents passed us by. I cleared my throat and decided to break the silence because I needed to the most. "I called three times."

He looked away guiltily, twisting the knife a little deeper in my heart. "I know. I'm not gonna lie and say that I planned on calling you back, Ror."

I took in a shaky breath, willing back tears. "I understand if you don't feel the same- "

"I did once," he cut me off and this time held my wide-eyed gaze steadily. "When we met again. I mean, it started in high school but those feelings didn't have time to develop. And when I ran into you here and we started becoming friends, I couldn't stop thinking of you. It was real, it was hard and it was so fast."

To say his words shocked me would have been a massive understatement. I opened my mouth and tried to say something and when the words came out, I sounded like an invalid. "I d-didn't…you never told…"

"How could I?" he asked, waving his hand in the air and then running it through his messy hair. "You were always with someone else, interested in someone else. And we were becoming friends; you were finally learning to tolerate me. One night, Paris told me that it was hopeless, that you'd never see me that way."

I registered that information and thought of buying a Paris voodoo doll. "She did, huh?"

"She was right, though," he replied, a muscle in his jaw twitching slightly. "You were everyone else's girl and I became the Will to your Grace – except I was straight which is even more pathetic if you think about it." When I didn't laugh at his attempt at humor, he stopped grinning and continued, "So I resolved to get over you, Rory."

I was compelled to ask the next question. "Did you?"

He loosened his tie and let out a small, almost self-deprecating laugh. "It was hell. Kind of like getting over an addiction to alcohol or some drugs which I don't know about personally and it's all hearsay…"

Being compared to a drug was unnerving so I shifted uncomfortably, wrapping my arms around my midriff. "Tristan…"

"Yeah, sorry." He looked at me then, with that piercing gaze that was meant to be sincere and was breaking my heart. "It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. But I got over you, Rory. It's something I don't ever want to do again."

And there it was: the words that I had expected him to say. I just hadn't prepared myself for actually hearing them. He had loved me once and I was too stupid and too clueless to realize it until it was too late.

I knew my eyes were brimming with tears but I summoned all my courage to look at him and speak to him. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize."

"I realize that my declaration came at the most inopportune of moments in your life and I'm sorry about that, I'm sorry I jeopardized our friendship," I stopped a second when my voice hitched slightly and looked down at my hands, "and I know it may sound trite and hollow but I really do hope that you and Claire are happ- "

"Claire and I aren't dating anymore."

My head whipped up so fast, I'm sure something must've cracked. "What?"

"I broke it off with her the day after…after the party," he informed me with a shrug, his eyes never wavering. "It knew it wasn't going to work with her the moment I heard you say what you did."

Confusion seemed to be the only thing I could feel at that moment. I pressed a hand to my lips and closed me eyes, trying to process everything but by bit. "What does that mean, Tristan?"

"I don't know," he replied shortly and crossed his arms over his chest. "What I know is that you're my best friend and I don't want to lose you. You know I'd be a mess without you."

"You wouldn't last a day." I laughed through my tears. I stopped playing with the hem of my sleeve and wiped away the tears. "Honestly, I don't know if I can be your friend, Tristan. I don't want to lose you either but I think it's my time, my turn, to do the hardest thing I'll ever have to do."

He took a step forward and touched my elbow, gently moving me closer to him. His fingers trailed up my arms and then under my jaw to tilt it upwards. "It would be so easy to fall in love with you again, Gilmore. Almost too easy. I just don't know if I can risk it again, lose you and get over you again."

Because I could understand the fear of giving in, I didn't refute the probability of us breaking up if we ever got together. In fact, it was the first time I had ever thought about Tristan and me not working out and ending disastrously. He was right: we could never go back if we crossed that line.

"So what do we do?"

"Are you still planning on spending the summer in New York with Paris and Raina?" he asked, dropping his hand from my face and returning it to my elbow. I nodded slowly, not knowing where he was going with it. "I'm going to be in Europe."

I stepped back and nodded again, understanding settling in. "Space. We need space."

"And time, Rory," he replied softly. "Heaven knows we never had the timing down right. Seems only fair that we ask whoever it is up there for more, huh?"

Nothing was fair to me at that moment, especially not the fact that the person I loved needed to put an entire ocean between us. I figured the running away thing was finally coming back to bite me in the behind. I tried not to sound bitter when I replied, "Of course."

"Tristan!" his father called from behind him

"I have to go. Take care of yourself, Rory," he said as he backed away, a hint of a smile on his lips. The past blended in with the present and for a minute, I could see the sixteen-year-old boy who had robbed a safe and was being carted off to military school.

Tristan was leaving, stepping out of my life again and I knew that this time, I had to say something. "Tristan?"

He turned around, hands in his pockets. "Yeah?"

"I'll miss you."

He smiled and nodded slowly. "I'll miss you more."

And maybe, that's just what I needed to hear.