Good news! I'm back! waits for cheer squad Huh. I may have forgotten to organise that. First thing's first: I own very little in my life. Among the much, much longer list of things I do NOT own is anything and everything related to the WB, the CW, or to Gilmore Girls. I'm just playing, borrowing to supplement the little I do own.
Next, some thank you's! I was so pleased to get any response to this story, given that I put it up on a whim, and for those who said my writing wasn't too bad, I don't entirely believe you but having said that I love flattery, so I'm taking it!
trory-love08, eternalgorithm, Nicole Katherine, Sephora07, Stars Hallow townie, jalna, nancy, jb4sports, preppygilmoreluver, allovertheplace, Gilmorecrazed2010, Curley-Q, and MaryBBlove23, thank you all for the reviews. They're just so appreciated. Also, I used a suggestion from preppygilmoreluver to do this chapter in Tristan's POV, so an extra thanks for you – and if you like his POV, feel free to praise their suggestion too! I did think about the ideas of how Rory could have responded to Tristan, and in my head I think I have her reaction, but for now I'm going with what Tristan saw.
Another side not, I really didn't deal with Rory's relationship status in the first chapter. In my world, she and Dean honestly just fizzled out a few weeks into summer break. In terms of the show, I think their relationship was completely stale by the second season anyway, but regardless of canon, in my fanfic and head, she's fine, he's fine, and they're just not together any more.
I was completely unsure whether inspiration for this little trory would ever strike again, but I couldn't sleep last night and all of a sudden, years after I ever wrote that first chapter, inexplicably, it did – so here it is. Decide whether you should be thanking me or cursing me for it after you've read the chapter!
Being a teenage bad boy isn't all it's cracked up to be, sometimes. I know, I know, poor little rich kid, right? And yeah, coming from a wealthy family has its perks – money can buy a lot of great stuff, whether the saying about happiness is true or not – but really, sometimes it's hard to remind myself what the point of it all is, if it's all really just about money.
So, fine, I screwed up last year. It may have had something to do with a certain unrequited thing I had going at the time, but then again it may not have, and I'm sure as hell not going to tell you either way. Daddy dearest finally laid down the law and I got the military boot. That was fun. No, really, what's not to like about military school? The reputation of those places is deserved, I'm pleased to be able to confirm for you. But then Dad got sick, and family duty called. It's normal to call my father 'Dad' in my head, and 'Sir' to his face, right? Just checking.
Dad's health began to head downhill about a month ago. High blood pressure, who didn't see that one coming, but then was that mild but still not fun stroke, and while he's physically okay at the moment, doctors have "strongly recommended" he "takes it easy" from now on. Which is of course something that comes very naturally to my father – so mother recalled me from exile to help her enforce the rules. Sure, Dad, why not just go to several high stakes meetings that your deputies could handle perfectly well on their own. It'll only cost you your heart, your kidneys or your sight, to pick out just a few possible complications of your continued high blood pressure. Small price to pay to make sure the people you hired do what they've been doing for years, very well. While my role is really just being around in case mother feels like interacting with someone other than Dad or her very understanding merlot, it still meant I had to come back.
Home sweet home.
I realise everyone's got me all figured out. I'm the cool kid. The richest of the rich. The head of the high school pack. It's actually kind of comforting that all the people around me think I'm that shallow, that that's all there is to me. No need to try to be anyone when they're telling you who you should be.
I wonder what those people would do if I started to challenge their perception of me. How would they react if I put up my hand in class and told them about the insight I'd had into how crucial propaganda was for crowd control during WWII, for the Allies as well as the Nazis. Shocking, right? My god, he had an original thought – or at the very least, he's been thinking! No, it's better to let people believe what they will believe of me, to not mess with the status quo. I guess it's ironic that when life's handed me a spot at the top of the high school food chain I'm stressing. Be happy, right? Stick to the job description: cool, pretty, dumb. Right, got it. I can do that, can be that. So I do.
As if being back at home now isn't enough fun for me, there's also going back to Chilton for senior year to contend with. I'm getting so frustrated at myself, because I'm looking forward to getting back there for the wrong reason, and I can't stop myself from wanting to see her. I'm not stupid, despite recently popular opinion, I realise that if she'd worn a sign reading "Not Interested" it still wouldn't have been as clear as her complete indifference to me, so I get it, nothing going there, and fine – I just want to see her. And if there's a tiny part of me that's been infected by being made to watch one too many chick flicks with random girlfriends over the years that thinks she may just have been pining away for me, well, nothing's going to help me eradicate that absurd idea than by seeing her not-react to me again. That's the only reason I want to see her. Just to remind myself why it doesn't even matter if I do see her or not. No problem at all.
Monday comes, inevitably, and I begin my victory lap through the halls of my reclaimed stomping ground, wading through the adulation of my high school court, before settling effortlessly back into the exact spot I used to haunt before I left. It's that easy. Nothing like getting sent off to military school to help keep the bad boy cred alive, I guess – I'm more popular than ever. Joy. For the moment, I let it all wash over me. I'm not entirely sure where I want to settle back in to my school, with the same buddies or not, and given that I apparently have plenty of choice there's no need to decide just yet.
What I am clearly not doing, all morning before class, while greeting long-lost pals and taking note of my evidently undiminished attraction among the women of Chilton, is looking for her. Because, as I've already figured out, that's stupid, and fruitless, and I really don't care. So if I seem to be searching fairly thoroughly through the faces of the crowd as they file past me with greetings on their way through Chilton's hallowed halls, it's obviously just because I'm looking forward to catching up with more of my old friends. Can I help it if I was popular and there are lots of people to look forward to running in to again? And, if I appear to take a special interest in re-acquainting myself with brunettes I see from behind or from afar, I'm a friendly guy and that's absolutely all it is.
And there she is. Just like that, she flits past me, not even looking in my direction. I'm not surprised, and that is certainly not a pang of something like hurt or regret because she's once again brushed past me, as disaffected as ever.
I know I'm an idiot, but after all this time away, all this time not thinking about her, I can't just let her pass me by. But, of course, I can't just go and talk to her, either – 'cause you're not rocking the boat, right Tristan? You're just being what's expected of you. Sure. So, instead, I put on my out-of-practice sparring voice, and drawl after her, "Mary! My lovely Mary quite contrary. Miss me?"
It's worth it. I don't even care that that not-pang has sharpened, that I'm fueling my own hopeless fixation with her. She looks over at me. If I hadn't spent much more time than was healthy noticing her before I was sent away, if I hadn't spent even more time than that remembering the things I liked best to notice about her when I let myself have a few minutes to think about her at that other 'school', I might have missed a lot of what happens as she takes in my re-appearance, and that would have been a real pity.
Surprise, sure, there's a healthy dose of shock. There's also annoyance, instinctively resurrected at just the sound of my voice. I think to myself that that's actually pretty great – I've obviously left some kind of impression for her to react so readily to me, even if it's in exasperation. But in amongst the shock, before she scowls so prettily in my direction, before she turns away and resolutely walks away once more, before she closes herself off from me, I see a ghost of a smile.
And I don't care about any of her other reactions, because I said hi to Rory, to my Mary, and she smiled at me, just a little.
It's enough.