Never in a Million Years

AN Thank you so much for all the reviews!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Pizza, Chinese, and Communists

It had really been just a matter of time until the press found out.

The flash of the camera going off in her face really didn't daze her anymore. The purple spots it left in her vision didn't impair her balance the way it did when she was in high school. They never really bothered her and Logan when they were together. Sure, they had been in Switzerland, but they were still two high-profile individuals.

The cameras, the being escorted through crowds by security guards, the sunglasses becoming necessary; it had all started when her parents had died. She had stepped off the Hayden jet and the cameras just started going off.

Rory didn't really remember much from those weeks, but Rory did remember one thing. She had felt numb. The combination of loosing her parents and all of her friends . . . it was like all the nerves in her body were on the fritz.

She didn't cry after that night about anything. Not about her parents, not about Logan, nothing. When she went back to school after the funeral she expected to be bombarded with criticism. She expected the entire school to think she had slept with Marty, who, she had noticed, wasn't anywhere to be found.

However, no one said anything to her at all. Stephanie never came back to the dorm and Rory later found out that while she had been gone Stephanie had moved the entire content of her closet to Colin's room and that was where she was staying. It wasn't anything she didn't expect.

She left Harper right after graduation for Yale. She took summer classes and was a semester ahead of her fellow freshman. The classes gave her something else to think about.

Still, she didn't expect to open her door one morning to see a camera go off in her face. She thought those days were behind her. However, it seemed that when one billionaire gets engaged to another billionaire, people want to know about it.

Rory just took a deep breath before making her way through the crowd and to her first class that morning. She had been expecting something like this to happen, something bad. Her bad week had started when she got a call from the realtor saying that someone had bought her house. Or her old house.

It didn't take that long to get to her dorm. Campus security had stopped the press when they got to the main campus. All she did was ignore the stares from her peers and slipped into her first class, which she happened to share with Stephanie. Before, Steph had just ignored her, but now, not so much.

"Hey, I saw the stalkarazzi in front of your dorm. How'd you get through it?" the blond asked.

"Just walked right through." Rory replied.

Stephanie started to laugh, but then she realized Rory was seriously, "Wow, when the press first came out to me I was freaked out."

"This wasn't the first time," Rory told her.

Stephanie looked confused for a moment and then her face fell, "Right."

She didn't mean to make Stephanie feel bad, but Rory blamed it on not having a sufficient amount of caffeine in her system.

Rory went through her entire day ignoring her surroundings. All she did was go to class, take notes, and buy coffee. Stephanie had tried to get her attention a few times during their first shared class, but Rory pretended she didn't see her. She really wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone.

By the end of her last class, Rory had succeeded in avoiding everyone she knew. She already knew where the four usually were during the day; it had helped her avoid them when they were mad at her. Rory wasn't a frequent customer at the pub or usually seen at the coffee stands near the guys' dorms. Plus, it wasn't like Logan spent much time at the YDN.

However, she noticed that Logan was spending more time at the YDN ever since her engagement had been announced. Rory just hoped it was coincidental. She really hoped that today was a day that he wasn't there. She had to get an article approved.

Even if Logan had been there, it wouldn't have made a difference.

Doyle jumped on her as soon as she entered to room. Wanting to make sure that she knew that 'just because she was engaged to a multi-billionaire' that she wasn't expecting 'special treatment.' Rory basically just threw her article at him and left, ignoring his calls for her to come back.

Rory made her way back to her dorm building and let campus security help her get to her door. She had heard whispers that the press had left after she had and just recently came back an hour ago. The screen on her answering machine let her know that, along with all the missed calls from her cell phone, she had eight messages waiting for her. Only two were from people she actually knew, Finn and Emily. She didn't want to talk to either of them.

Suddenly, the front door opened and Paris rushed inside. Rory could see flashbulbs going off behind her roommate. Paris saw the disheveled look of her roommate and couldn't bring herself to yell at Rory.

"There's a documentary on Stalin on in an hour," Paris said without warning, "What do you say? Pizza, Chinese, and Communists?"

It was the closest Rory came to smiling all day, "I'll order the Chinese," she replied.

Paris nodded her head and started looking for the number to the pizza place.

Meanwhile, Colin, Finn, Logan were at the pub. Stephanie was avoiding Colin and had therefore opted for a party thrown by Juliet and Rosemary.

"Do you think we should have known, I mean, somehow? That Marty kid kept denying it and . . ." Logan trailed off.

"We should have known," Colin stated, cutting off any other theories. Terminating any ideas that they were creating just to make themselves feel better, ideas that maybe the horrible thing they did wasn't as horrible as it seemed.

Finn nodded in agreement. Until this morning, he hadn't thought about everything Rory had had to deal with after her parent's died. When Finn saw Rory walk through the sea of reporters to get onto the main campus, he was surprised to see how she looked like such a pro doing it.

"Have you talked to her at all today? I mean . . ." Colin trailed off.

"No," Finn replied. "I called a few times but she didn't answer. I think she's avoiding me."

"More like all of us. Stephanie said she pretty much ran out of class this morning to get away from her," Logan said.

"She ran?" Finn asked in disbelief, knowing Rory's abhorrence of exercise.

"You talked to Steph? Today? Did she say anything about me?" Colin asked at the same time.

"No," Logan answered Colin, obviously disgusted at how pathetic his friend was becoming.

Colin glared. Logan smirked and took another sip of his scotch.

"What ever happened to Marty?" questioned Finn, going back to their previous conversation.

"Robert was screwing an office aid who told him that he took all of his exams early and left. I think he got a full scholarship to Harvard," Colin informed them.

"Harvard, huh? Wanker," muttered Finn.

"Now I feel really bad that we beat him up," Logan mused.

Colin and Finn nodded their heads in agreement.

Wednesday night a blizzard rolled though New Haven. All roads leading in, out, or around New Haven were closed. Classes were cancelled for the rest of the week, which wasn't a bid deal considering they had the next week off for Thanksgiving. However, it did confine everyone to the Yale Campus.

This sort of made avoiding everyone a little harder for Rory. While the campus itself was open, the library, YDN, and classrooms were all closed. Besides the dorms, the only other buildings open were the cafeterias and the Admin. Building. On the upside, she no longer had a reporter from every major news source waiting for her next move.

She and Paris spent most of Thursday finishing up term papers, catching up on reading and got a head start on studying for finals in December. Thankfully, one of them had gone shopping, so they had enough coffee and food to last them through the day. This meant that Rory didn't have to risk running into any of them. But it did mean that if they were looking for her, they wouldn't have a very hard time finding her.

The first visit came on Friday morning. To her surprise, it was Colin. Honestly, she thought it would have been Finn, who hadn't stopped calling her, or Stephanie, who had kept trying to corner her at the end of their mutual classes. It was because of her surprise that she even opened the door instead of pretending to still be asleep or letting Paris scare him off.

Rory let her hand rest on the doorknob for a moment before twisting her wrist and opening the door. He looked surprised that she answered his knock and left her to start the conversation.

"Did you need something?" she asked.

"No . . .yes . . .I just wondered if . . . Well, we wanted to know . . ." Colin trailed off. He took a deep breath and continued, "We were wondering if you had any plans for Thanksgiving."

"We?" Rory wanted to clarify.

"Me, Logan, Finn, and Stephanie," he finished the last name softly.

"Thanksgiving?"

Colin looked confused at her confusion, "Thanksgiving," he confirmed. "You know, that holiday to commemorate the dinner between -." Thinking he was being sarcastic, Rory went to close the door, but Colin stopped it with his foot. "Sorry" he said sheepishly.

It was weird, seeing Colin like this. He was usually so cocky and . . . assholish.

"As you might recall," Colin continued, " we usually plan a trip for the week we get off and we were just wondering if you would like to come with us."

Was he serious? Rory thought. Would she like to spend a week with people who, up until recently, hated her? Hmm, let me think . . .

"Thanks for the invite, but I have plans. I'm going to dinner with my-," she was interrupted.

"Grandparents, I know, but think about it. Do you really want to sit through a three hour dinner with the people who basically sold you off to the highest bidder?" Colin asked

Rory just gaped at him.

"She's not coming," Colin said as he entered the dorm, Logan and Finn looking up form the TV when they heard the door open.

"Why not?" Logan asked.

Colin glared at him, "She may still be a little miffed about the whole abandoning her thing," he replied.

Logan rolled his eyes, but conceded to the point.

"How did you ask her," Finn wanted to know.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Colin asked, avoiding the question and Finn's eyes, as he went to the kitchenette to poor himself a cup of coffee. Was Finn trying to imply he had no people skills? Okay, maybe he had been a little . . . harsh, but it was all true.

"Damn it, I knew we should have sent Stephanie to ask her," Finn exclaimed, knowing Colin was, albeit unintentionally, probably an asshole to his future wife.

"You've been talking to Stephanie?" Colin asked, his interest piqued.

Logan rolled his eyes again, "Oh my God, will you grow a pair and go talk to her yourself? What did you say to Rory?"

Colin looked back at his two best friends and tried to find a way to explain to them what he had said while still making himself look good. "Well, I might have insinuated that she should blow off her grandparents and come with us because all they did was sell her off to the highest bidder. Or, you know, something like that."

There was no way to make that sound good, was there?

"You what?" Finn replied incredulously. Logan just looked at him in disbelief. "Might have?"

"Or something like it," Colin reminded them.

Rory slammed the door in Colin's face and couldn't help but think one thing. He was right.

In high school, she had never really known how much her friends had been worth. From the way he acted, one would think Logan's family had more money than God. However, their money was relatively new, compared to the fortunes of his peers. Apart from Rory, Colin and Stephanie were tied for the oldest money, while, surprisingly, Finn was worth the most. Apparently, his family had always been wealthy, but his grandfather made them obscenely wealthy when he forayed into the hotel business.

How did she know all this?

Apparently, once the story of Rory and Finn's engagement broke, Forbes magazine decided to do a profile Rory, Finn, and their friends, Paris included. I had sickened her to think that her grandparents had shopped around for a suitable companion for Rory.

Who else had they considered? What were they getting out of it? Why Finn? Why now? Was this a new plan? Had her parents know about this?

Rory didn't like to think about it. She was tired of thinking bout it, tired of being the perfect granddaughter, tired of everything. The fate of her Thanksgiving break all came down to one decision. Contrary to Colin's belief, she hadn't planned to go to her grandparent's for dinner. She was going to just hang around campus, do some unneeded studying, not thing about the vast wasteland that her life was becoming. Paris wouldn't be there, so she would have the place to herself.

So she could do that, go to her grandparents for dinner (not), or go on a trip to an unknown location with her ex-boyfriend, her ex-best friend, her ex-best friend's ex-boyfriend, and her current fiancé.

Rory knew she was going to regret this.

Rory got her phone, dialed a number, and waited for him to pick up.

"Colin? I'll go."

Okay, I know I haven't updated in almost a year, and I'm sorry if this came off a little dark. I am also working on an update for Society, so I might have been channeling that.

I hope you all like this!.